I am not blaming anybody.  I am merely telling why so few men in university work, or, for that matter, in most of the professions nowadays, can support wives until after the natural mating time is past.  By that time their true mates have usually wed other men—­men who can support them—­not the men they really love, but the men they tell themselves they love!  For, if marriage is woman’s only true career, it is hardly true to one’s family or oneself not to follow it before it is too late—­especially when denied training for any other—­even though she may be equally lacking in practical training for the only career open to her.

This sounds like a confession of personal failure due to the typical unpreparedness for marriage of the modern American girl.  I do not think anyone could call our marriage a personal failure, though socially it may be.  During the long period of our engagement I became almost as well prepared for my lifework as Carl was for his.  Instead of just waiting in sweet, sighing idleness I took courses in domestic science, studied dietetics, mastered double-entry and learned to sew.  I also began reading up on economics.  The latter amused the family, for they thought the higher education of women quite unwomanly and had refused to let me go to college.

It amused Carl too, until I convinced him that I was really interested in the subject, not just in him; then he began sending me boxes of books instead of boxes of candy, which made the family laugh and call me strong-minded.  I did not care what they called me.  I was too busy making up for the time and money wasted on my disadvantageous advantages, which may have made me more attractive to men, but had not fitted me to be the wife of any man, rich or poor.

All that my accomplishments and those of my sisters actually accomplished, as I see it now, was to kill my dear father; for, though he made a large income as a lawyer, he had an even larger family and died a poor man, like so many prominent members of the bar.

I shall not dwell on the ordeal of a long engagement.  It is often made to sound romantic in fiction, but in realistic life such an unnatural relationship is a refined atrocity—­often an injurious one—­except to pseudo-human beings so unreal and unromantic that they should never be married or engaged at all.  I nearly died; and as for Carl—­well, unrequited affection may be good for some men, but requited affection in such circumstances cannot be good for any man—­if you grant that marriage is!

A high-strung, ambitious fellow like Carl needed no incentive to make him work hard or to keep him out of mischief, any more than he needed a prize to make him do his best at tennis or keep him from cheating in the score.  What an ignoble view of these matters most good people accept!  In point of fact he had been able to do more work and to play better tennis before receiving this long handicap—­in short, would have been in a position to marry sooner if he had not been engaged to marry!  This may sound strange, but that is merely because the truth is so seldom told about anything that concerns the most important relationship in life.