Loneliness in a Woman's Life — How Can the Woman on Her Own Guard Against the Evil of Loneliness and Its Desolation?

I remember once hearing an educator speak on the subject "How I Bring Up My Daughter." In the course of his talk he said that he wants his daughter to master one of the fine arts, such as music or painting, or one of the scientific or literary hobbies; for he sees a woman's life as more exposed to loneliness than a man's, and in her hours of solitude she needs a hobby to protect her from the evil of tedium and keep her from squandering her empty hours in harmful amusement.

I said to myself, commenting on this talk: Can a woman feel lonely in this age, when all manner of work is open to her and the paths of activity multiply before her — at home and outside the home, in the association and in the club, in the institute and in the office, in journeys and travels?

But soon I remembered Sartre's saying: "Man is forever alone; however many his helpers and companions, he is left to himself, independent in steering the helm of his life; he can neither put on another's personality nor merge into it, however close the bond between them."

Loneliness in society is a condition man shares with woman. Each of us is alone with his thoughts, his inner life, his pains and his dreams, living them for himself, separate from all other people, however deep and strong his ties with them. When we say "so-and-so is lonely," we are judging only by the appearances, which do not reach the feelings. A person may feel lonely though he lives in the midst of company and in a family of many members; while the person who enjoys a rich inner life conjures out of his own self souls that keep him company in his solitude, so that he feels no desolation or tedium at all.

The loneliness I mean in this article, however, is that which is ascribed to everyone who enjoys no family or married life.

Statistics show that women in general live longer than men. In the United States, for example, statistics have indicated that a woman's life exceeds a man's by an average of six years. This difference may go back to physiological causes, for physicians affirm that a woman's body has greater immunity against disease than a man's; or it may go back to environmental causes, among them that a woman is less exposed to dangers than a man and further removed from exhausting labor and heavy tasks. Whatever the causes, the excess of woman's span over man's is a fact established by science and experience.

Add to this that the wife is usually younger than the husband, especially in the Eastern countries, where the difference in age between husband and wife is observed to range between five and twenty years.

For all these reasons it is fair to say that a woman is liable to spend part of her life alone and on her own.

In a census taken a few years ago in the United States, it was found that there are more than seven million widows, their average age fifty-one; most of them are without wealth — that is, no one of them has a fortune above five thousand dollars. Three quarters of them are childless, and only a third of them work in factories and firms.

The existence of this great number of women on their own constitutes a problem in the eyes of researchers and workers in social affairs — the more so since the number of lonely women is not limited to the widows, but

● Woman is more exposed to loneliness than man.
● In the United States there are more than seven million widows, about two and a half million unmarried women past their youth, and a million and a half divorced women.
● The best help that can be given these women on their own is to open to them opportunities for productive work that will fit them to earn their living when the need arises, and give them solace and activity in times of tedium and low spirits.

to them must be added two and a half million unmarried women past thirty-five, and about a million and a half divorced women of the same age.

At once the people of social welfare set about studying the condition of this group, and their inquiry led them to the firm conclusion that the best help that can be given women on their own is to open to them opportunities for productive work that will fit them to earn their living when the need arises, and give them solace and activity in times of tedium and low spirits.

Wide-ranging measures were taken to this end: employment bureaus were set up for them, and day and night schools to train them in certain kinds of work, to teach them certain crafts, or to retrain them in occupations they had practiced at the outset of their lives.

The experiment succeeded. Within a short space the number of working women past thirty-five rose until it exceeded by a million and a half their number ten years before.

At the same time the number of working women past forty-five doubled, increasing by more than three million in the course of four years.

Facts like these deserve to make us pause and set us thinking. Everything that happens in the West, or anywhere else, is bound to have its echo in our country, in this age which is witnessing men drawing ever closer together, their problems growing alike, and the policy of isolation in retreat.

Woman is more exposed to loneliness than man — not only in the years of her widowhood, or if she is divorced, or if the train of marriage has passed her by. Even in middle age, when her children have grown and can do without her care, when her husband is at the height of his working activity, she finds herself alone, with nothing to do; she feels perplexity and emptiness, and asks herself the meaning of her existence.

At this stage a woman passes through one of the great crises of her life. I do not mean that psychological crises are confined to this stage. But around the middle of life, cares multiply

for men and women alike, as the phantoms of lost hopes haunt them, anxiety over their fate besets them, and the fear of the diseases of age comes over them.

And while the husband is absorbed in his work and the children in their lessons and their dreams, the woman falls prey to care and despair — all except her who has provided for herself and taken up a profession or a hobby that gives her delight, diversion, and a chance to prove her existence.

For this very reason the number of married people, men and women, who continue their studies at the university and elsewhere keeps increasing, so as to secure for themselves the work they missed preparing for in years gone by, and to gain the competence that guarantees them continuance in their posts even as they advance in age.

In the universities of Paris the number of married men and women, young and middle-aged, keeps growing. Even in our Eastern lands we have begun to see the first signs of this return to study and to a profession among a number of married women who have handed their children over to the schools and found an emptiness in their lives; so they went back to the school bench, and found in work a means of doubling the income and a door to recreation.

Experience has shown that a woman can do her work well whatever her age; and those who have tried her work have shown her every appreciation and encouragement — and the social workers have rallied in support of the employment of women advanced in years, assuring employers that in engaging this class of women there is profit for their business, because these women are more devoted to their work and hold faster to their duties than young girls.

And whereas businessmen used to hesitate, or hold back, from employing women advanced in years, experience has taught them to change their attitude and to welcome them in the various professions and occupations.

From all that has gone before, it is clear to us that woman needs, more than man, to arm herself with a profession, an occupation, or a hobby. It is well for parents to grasp this truth, and to know that the romantic era has passed, and that woman has come to need, in all the stages of her life, to rely on herself and apply herself to some work — not only to drive off boredom, as said the educator to whom I pointed at the opening of this article, but because the man of today clings less to tradition than his forefathers did.

Whatever his relation to woman — father, or husband, or brother — he disdains to see her a dependent upon him, and calls on her to share with him, by her work, the burdens of living and the expenses of the family.

And she who to this day is still ignorant of this truth is still lagging behind the procession, living outside her own age.