Surrounded by parents, relatives, friends, suitors, and instructive schools
of every kind, colleges, institutions, is she really happy, is she really
living?"
"Eleanor," interrupted Carley, earnestly, "she is not. . . . And I've been
trying to tell you why."
"My dear, let me get a word in, will you," complained Eleanor. "You don't
know it all. There are as many different points of view as there are
people. . . . Well, if this girl happened to have a new frock, and a new
beau to show it to, she'd say, 'I'm the happiest girl in the world.' But
she is nothing of the kind. Only she doesn't know that. She approaches
marriage, or, for that matter, a more matured life, having had too much,
having been too well taken care of, knowing too much. Her masculine
satellites--father, brothers, uncles, friends, lovers--all utterly spoil
her. Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle class--which is to say
the largest and best class of Americans. We are spoiled. . . . This girl
marries. And life goes on smoothly, as if its aim was to exclude friction
and effort. Her husband makes it too easy for her. She is an ornament, or a
toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage. To soil her pretty hands would be
disgraceful! Even f she can't afford a maid, the modern devices of science
make the care of her four-room apartment a farce.
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