ABSTRACT
Mrs. Livermore is too well known on the other side of the Atlantic as an eloquent lecturer to have rendered it needful to introduce this book to American readers; to an English public we must begin by saying that the separate chapters form the substance of lyceum lectures, which during the last ten years have been delivered hundreds of times in every section of the States from Maine to California. The several chapters are called "The Changed Conditions of Woman's Life," "Physical Education," "Need of Practical Training," &c. &c. The last and most interesting portion of the book is entitled "Superfluous Women," a name which some coarse sociologist has assigned to the women who remain unmarried, either by choice, or by reason of there being a surplus of women in the population. In America the proportion of women who become wives and mothers is far greater than in Europe; but even in the new world, the same tendencies are at work to make marriage difficult as exist on this side of the world—War, the dangers incident to professions, and above all intemperance affect men more than women, and the result is a surplus of women, while in every old country, even in the Eastern States of America, emigration drafts off men, in far greater proportion than women. Moreover, many women demand more in marriage than formerly; not more luxury or idleness, but more equality and sympathy in tastes, and prefer to remain unmarried. Nevertheless, Mrs. Livermore 214points out that there never could have been a time when "superfluous women" in the sense that they are unmarried, or in excess of the men who seek for wives, did not exist, for in all Christian countries, and in many outside Christendom celibate convents have existed. And why should it be supposed that as Maudsley expresses it that "the woman who misses marriage misses everything."
