Since Ad-am first made Moth-er Eve take the blame
For that lit-tle af-fair in the gar-den,
The poor mar-ried wom-en have found it the same,
And their mis-sion in life is a hard 'un!
But hard as it is, I am great-ly a-fraid
It's hard-er to be a neg-lect-ed old maid,
There's no oth-er state I would will-ing-ly trade
For that of a wealth-y young wi-dow.
For a wi-dow has ways, don't you see!
Her ex-per-ri-ence pays, don't you see!
She knows bet-ter now than to mar-ry a-gain,
She knows bet-ter how to in-vei-gle the men.
But the girls can't ac-count for the craze.
And they won-der what sys-tem she plays;
It would sim-ply be vain to at-tempt to ex-plain;
But a wid-ow has ways.
Young girls must be watched by some old chap-er-one,
As ug-ly and cross as they make them,
The poor mar-ried wom-en can't go out a-lone,
And their stu-pid old hus-bands won't take them.
A wid-ow is diff-'rent! There's none to say "nay"!
The men all a-dore her and give her her way,
It's this man to-mor-row and that man to-day,
And each one be-lieves he's the real one!