Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The black swan of marriage

What with the recent resurgence of interest in the role of the black swan in financial markets & forecasting, I was amused to come across this quote on the black swan & marriage from a C 19th feminist.


The married woman who is content with marriage, maternity, & domestic life alone, is as rare a being as the black swan of the past.
Eliza Lynn Linton: The Revolt Against Matrimony: The Forum Jan 1890

Eliza Lynn Linton is all but forgotten now but she earned her own living as a writer - She joined the staff of the Morning Chronicle in 1848, & was the first woman journalist in England to draw a fixed salary of twenty guineas a month. She also wrote novels.

She lived by herself except for a brief marriage which ended on amicable terms.

One of her articles from 1874 On the Side of the Mistresses can be read here.


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