Page:The Business of being a Woman by Ida Tarbell.djvu/116

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE BUSINESS OF BEING A WOMAN

thinks, is one of her most imperative duties.

A woman is very prone to look on marriage as a merger of personalities, but there can be no great union where an individuality permits itself to be ruined. The notion that a woman's happiness depends on the man—that he must "make her happy"—is a basic untruth. Life is an individual problem, and consequently happiness must be. Others may hamper it, but in the final summing up it is you, not another, who gives or takes it—no two people can work out a high relation if the precious inner self of either is sacrificed.

Emerson has said the great word:—

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet.
Keep thee to-day.
To-morrow, forever.
Free as an Arab!
Of thy beloved.

102