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MARRIAGE AS A TRADE
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not confined to the man who is in search of a wife. ("Judging" is, perhaps, the wrong phrase to use—it is, rather, a habit of resigning judgment so as to fall completely under the influence of externals.) It is very general amongst all classes of male employers, and its result is, it seems to me, a serious bar to efficiency in women's work. It pays better in the marriage market to be attractive than to be efficient, and in a somewhat lesser degree the same rule holds good in certain other departments of women's labour.

To a certain degree, of course, a man's fitness for any particular work is judged by externals; but never to the same degree as a woman's. Further, the judgment passed upon a man who is chosen to fill a vacancy because his prospective employer "likes the look of him" has some relation to the qualities which will be required of him in the execution of the duties he will be called upon to perform—it is not biassed by irrelevant considerations of sex. A merchant will like the looks of a clerk who has the outward appearance of being smart, well mannered, well educated, and intelligent; an employer who