Reflections of a Bachelor Girl

From The Washington Times, April 5, 1913.
 

 To wed or not to wed, that is the question.
 Whether ’tis better, after all, to marry
 And be cajoled and bullied by a husband,
 Or to take up stenography or clerking,
 And slave, alas! for SOME ONE ELSE’S husband?
 To love—to wed—and by a wedding end
 The struggles and the thousand petty cares
 That “slaves” are heir to—’tis a rare vocation
 Devoutly to be wished for! To love—to wed—
 To wed—perchance DIVORCE! Aye, there’s the rub!
 For in that dream of bliss what jolts may come
 When we have cast aside our little jobs,
 Must make us wary. There’s the sorry thought
 That makes so many spinsters hesitate;
 For who would bear the long, eternal grind,
 Th’ employer’s jokes, the chief clerk’s contumely,
 The insolence of office boys, the smoke
 Of last week’s stogies clinging to the hair,
 When she herself might quickly end it all
 By GETTING MARRIED? Who would not exchange
 A dingy office for a kitchenette—
 A keyboard for a cook stove or a cradle—
 But that the dread of something worse to come
 After the honeymoon—that life of CHANCE
 From whose dark bourne so many have returned
 By way of Reno—fills us with dismay,
 And makes us rather bear the jobs we have
 Than fly to evils that we know not of?
 Thus cowardice makes spinsters of—so many!