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 for-ever 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

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

• 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.