These ifs will not work. We
must recognize two classes of old maids: one, the really
superfluous women, and the other, the women who refuse to accept
maternity on the (to them) unbearable condition of taking a
husband. From both classes may, perhaps, be subtracted for the
present the large proportion of women who could not afford the
extra expense of one or more children. I say "perhaps," because it
is by no means sure that within reasonable limits mothers do not
make a better fight for subsistence, and have not, on the whole, a
better time than single women. In any case, we have two distinct
cases to deal with: the superfluous and the voluntary; and it is
the voluntary whose grit we are most concerned to fertilize. But
here, again, we cannot put our finger on any particular case and
pick out Miss Robinson's as superfluous, and Miss Wilkinson's as
voluntary. Whether we legitimize the child of the unmarried woman
as a duty to the superfluous or as a bribe to the voluntary, the
practical result must be the same: to wit, that the condition of
marriage now attached to legitimate parentage will be withdrawn
from all women, and fertile unions outside marriage recognized by
society. Now clearly the consequences would not stop there.
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