XI

THE WORKING WOMAN AND MARRIAGE


It is a lamentable fact that the wholesome and normal tendency towards
organization which is now increasingly noticeable among working-women
has so far remained unrelated to that equally normal and far more
deeply rooted and universal tendency towards marriage.

As long as the control of trade unionism among women remained with
men, no link between the two was likely to be forged; the problem
is so entirely apart from any that men unionists ever have to face
themselves. It is true that with a man the question of adhering to
a union alike in times of prosperity or times of stress may be
complicated by a wife having a "say-so," through her enthusiasm or her
indifference when it means keeping up dues or attending meetings; yet
more, when belonging to a union may mean being thrown out of work or
ordered on strike, just when there has been a long spell of sickness
or a death with all the attendant expenses, or when perhaps a new
baby is expected or when the hard winter months are at hand and the
children are lacking shoes and clothes. Still, roughly speaking, a man
worker is a unionist or a non-unionist just the same, be he single or
married.

But how different it is with a girl! The counter influence exerted by
marriage upon organization is not confined to those girls who leave
the trade, and of course the union, if they have belonged to one,
after they have married. The possibility of marriage and especially