Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1885 — Unmarried Literary Women. [ARTICLE]

Unmarried Literary Women.

A survey of the lives of the later and literary women shows us two things: First, that most of them w’ere either single, or if married were childless; and, second, that they have been generally long-Nved. The list of literary spinsters includes Fredrika Bremer, Emily Bronte, Hannah More. Harriet Martineau, Eliza Cook, Miss Sedgwick, Gail Hamilton, the Carys. Miss Dickinson, Maria Edgeworth, Miss Mitford, Augusta Evans, Jane Austen; while that of childless women includes Mrs. Nichols (Charlotte Bronte), Mrs. Somerville, George Sand (?), Mrs. Cross (George Eliot), Mrs. McLean (Letitia E. Landon). Several have had one or two children only. For example. Mrs. Barrett Browning had one son, and Mme. Darblay one son, Mme. de Sevigne two children; Mme. de Stael also had children. It is no doubt true that both men and women of distinguished intellectual talents, and who are active brain-workers, are liable to be childless, or to have but few children. The world would soon be depopulated if it w’ere filled with persons of great intellectual stature. The longevity of female brain-workers is simply in accordance with the established fact of the longevity of masculine brain-workers. Thus, Hannah More died at the age of 88, Mrs. Somerville at the age of 92, Miss Mitford at the age of 69. At the time of her death Mme. de Sevigne was 70, Miss Bremer 64, Miss Edgeworth 82, Mme. Darblay 88.— Medieal liecord.