miss emily downing observed that `` the daughters of professional men ... can not but feel themselves a burden and a drag on the hard-won earnings of their fathers ; they must know -- - if they allow themselves to think at all -- - that they are a constant cause of anxiety , and that should they not get married , there is every probability of their being , sooner or later , obliged to enter the battle of life utterly unprepared and unfitted for the fight . ''