It is high time for a girl who has reached twenty-five to find herself a companion — so why does an attractive modern girl remain unmarried?

A question like this bewilders the mind, wounds the soul, and scatters one's thoughts; and it rouses in us a force with which to confront those who blame us, as we answer: we believe that our waiting has a value, though many are ignorant of it. Our ears have grown weary of hearing the tales of the one who married while still a child, and of that other who bore five children before she reached thirty; but we have concluded that the aware woman marries after twenty-five and makes a successful wife. For the girl, whether at the university or in the field of work,

takes part in parties and goes on distant excursions, and so learns what sort of man she may choose for a husband; moreover this period of her life grants her her due of gaiety and happiness and earns her experience and knowl-edge, so that she becomes ready to settle down after marriage, and acknowledges that the most sacred thing in life is the bond of an ideal marriage.

Suppose that at twenty-five you meet your friend who married seven years ago. You will find her drowned in her domestic concerns, unable to keep step with the wheel of life: she looks withered, empty of spirit; she has not much conversation to take up with you during the visit, and she knows nothing of the latest fashions, music, and books — though she

knows well enough how to tell you about her children and their schools and their hobbies — and she cannot follow your talk of your recent trips, your studies, your friends, and the films you have seen. No doubt, if you contemplate your friend, you will come back to yourself and congratu-late yourself on being free and inde-pendent; and if you look at the man who asked for your hand when you were twenty, and at another whom you loved two years later, you will find that you have risen — and you will rest content with your happy lot.

Look at your friends: this one became engaged and then broke off the engagement; that one is still nursing the wounds of her heart; another has never chanced upon the knight of her dreams. If people will not look at these problems, how can they understand why this girl has not married in spite of her beauty?

There is no girl who has reached twenty-five to whom the days have not brought some man asking for her hand — but is she to carry a banner and proclaim it? That we remain unmarried does not mean we shall never marry at all; but if we do not meet the right person, we shall shape our lives according to reality, and ask mercy and pity of no one.

If you are one of us, you will feel the loneliness and the deprivation when you are asked: Why have you not married? — and you will grieve over your life, above all in the darkness of a cold night, when everyone is asleep while your eye keeps watch, sleepless, and your ear listens to the whistling of the storm outside.

Eyes turn toward us at parties and weddings; we hear phrases about our beauty and the daintiness of our gowns, and we smile at these people and at our mothers when they ask: When will you marry, my darling?