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Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Moore, 1875-1935

"Violets and Other Tales"

It was this, _Why should
well-salaried women marry?_ Take the average working-woman of to-day.
She works from five to ten hours a day, doing extra night work,
sometimes, of course. Her work over, she goes home or to her
boarding-house, as the case may be. Her meals are prepared for her, she
has no household cares upon her shoulders, no troublesome dinners to
prepare for a fault-finding husband, no fretful children to try her
patience, no petty bread and meat economies to adjust. She has her
cares, her money-troubles, her debts, and her scrimpings, it is true,
but they only make her independent, instead of reducing her to a dead
level of despair. Her day's work ends at the office, school, factory or
store; the rest of the time is hers, undisturbed by the restless going
to and fro of housewifely cares, and she can employ it in mental or
social diversions. She does not incessantly rely upon the whims of a
cross man to take her to such amusements as she desires. In this
nineteenth century she is free to go where she pleases--provided it be
in a moral atmosphere--without comment. Theatres, concerts, lectures,
and the lighter amusements of social affairs among her associates, are
open to her, and there she can go, see, and be seen, admire and be
admired, enjoy and be enjoyed, without a single harrowing thought of the
baby's milk or the husband's coffee.


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