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"Married or Single?": Catharine Maria Sedgwick on Old Maids, Wives, and Marriage

[M]arried life is the destiny Heaven has allotted to us, and therefore best fitted to awaken all our powers, to exercise all our virtues, and call forth all our sympathies. (19)

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, "Old Maids" (1834)

As slaves must be trained for freedom, so women must be educated for usefulness, independence, and contentment in single life . . . as a mode of life in which one may serve God and humanity, and thus educate the soul, the great purpose of this short life. So considered, single life would not long be regarded as either "helpless, joyless, or ridiculous," and that dreaded stigma, "old maid," would soon cease to be a stigma, and in the lapse of ages possibly become obsolete. ...

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