{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57575/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57575","id":"gutenberg_57575","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57575","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Mothers","Sex","Women -- Social and moral questions"],"text":"Produced by MWS, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMOTHERHOOD\n\n\n\n\n                               MOTHERHOOD\n                                 AND THE\n                       RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SEXES\n\n                                   BY\n                          C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY\n   _Author of \u201cThe Truth About Women,\u201d \u201cThe Age of Mother-Power,\u201d etc._\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n                                NEW YORK\n                         DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY\n                                  1917\n\n                           COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY\n                      DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.\n\n\n\n\nDedication\n\nTO LESLIE\n\n\nIn writing at last this book on Motherhood, which for so many years has\nhad a place in my thoughts, one truth has forced itself upon me; the\npredominant position of Woman in her natural relation to the race. The\nmother is the main stream of the racial life. All the hope of the future\nrests upon this faith in motherhood.\n\nTo whom, then, but to you, my son, can I dedicate my book? You came to me\nwhen I was still seeking out a way in the futility of Individual ends;\nyou reconciled my warring motives and desires; you brought me a new\nguiding principle. You taught me that the Individual Life is but as a\nbubble or cluster of foam on the great tide of humanity. I knew that the\nredemption of Woman rests in the growing knowledge and consciousness of\nher responsibility to the race.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    CHAP.                                                  PAGE\n\n                             PART I\n\n                          INTRODUCTORY\n\n      I A RETROSPECT: THE POSITION OF WOMEN BEFORE THE\n          GREAT EUROPEAN WAR                                    9\n\n     II THE POSITION OF WOMEN AS AFFECTED BY THE WAR           29\n\n                            PART II\n\n              THE MATERNAL INSTINCT IN THE MAKING\n\n    III INSECT PARENTHOOD                                      55\n\n     IV PARENTHOOD AMONG REPTILES AND FISHES: A CHAPTER\n          ON GOOD FATHERS                                      77\n\n      V PARENTHOOD AMONG BIRDS, WITH FURTHER EXAMPLES OF\n          GOOD FATHERS                                         97\n\n     VI PARENTHOOD AMONG THE HIGHER ANIMALS: THE FIXING\n          OF THE PARENTAL INSTINCT IN THE MOTHER              117\n\n                            PART III\n\n                      THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY\n\n     VII THE MOTHER IN THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY                   137\n\n                            PART IV\n\n                MOTHERHOOD AND THE RELATIONSHIPS\n                          OF THE SEXES\n\n    VIII THE FAMILY AND THE HOME                              161\n\n      IX MONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE AND WOMAN                        187\n\n       X MARRIAGE: A CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER,\n           WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF WOMAN        207\n\n      XI SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE             227\n\n     XII THE UNMARRIED MOTHER                                 255\n\n    XIII THE DANGER OF SECRET DISEASES                        283\n\n                             PART V\n\n                        SEXUAL EDUCATION\n\n     XIV THE MOTHER AND THE CHILD                             301\n\n      XV SEXUAL EDUCATION, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO\n           THE ADOLESCENT GIRL                                327\n\n     XVI A CONTINUATION OF THE LAST CHAPTER, WITH AN ATTEMPT\n           TO SUGGEST A REMEDY                                349\n\n    BIBLIOGRAPHY                                              379\n\n    INDEX                                                     395\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\nIt is now a well-established truism to say that the most injurious\ninfluences affecting the physical condition of young children arise from\nthe habits, customs and practices of the people themselves rather than\nfrom external surroundings or conditions. The environment of the infant\nis its mother. Its health and physical fitness are dependent primarily\nupon her health, her capacity in domesticity, and her knowledge of infant\ncare and management. Thus the fundamental requirement in regard to this\nparticular problem is healthy motherhood and the art and practice of\nmother-craft. Given a healthy and careful mother we are on the high road\nto securing a healthy infant; from healthy infancy we may expect healthy\nchildhood, and from healthy childhood may be laid the foundations of a\nnation\u2019s health.\n\n                                          \u201cEducation and Infant Welfare.\u201d\n\n_Annual Report for 1914 of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of\nEducation._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER I\n\nA RETROSPECT\u2014THE POSITION OF WOMEN BEFORE THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR\n\n\n    The overwhelming events of the Great War\u2014Change in my own\n    views\u2014Primitive conception of the relative position of the\n    two sexes\u2014The war divides the feminist struggle into two\n    periods\u2014The demand of woman to live her own life\u2014The merits\n    and demerits of the Suffrage Movement\u2014The vote gospel a\n    drug swallowed to still the craving for something vitally\n    needed\u2014Women swept out of their own interests into a swirling\n    sea of desire\u2014Emotion the strong guide to action\u2014Militancy\u2014A\n    tremendous adventure\u2014The mob spirit\u2014Sowing a crop of feminine\n    wild oats\u2014What has been gained\u2014Much experience and some\n    knowledge\u2014Experience indispensable as a foundation of a broader\n    feminism\u2014Solidarity of women\u2014War came like a thunderbolt from a\n    clear sky\u2014The clamour and deception of meetings and propaganda.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nA RETROSPECT\n\nTHE POSITION OF WOMEN BEFORE THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR\n\n    \u201cThere is one profound weakness in your movement towards\n    emancipation. Your whole argument is based on an acceptance of\n    male values.\u201d\u2014DR. ANANDA COOMARASWARY.\n\n\nAs I set out to write yet another book on Woman, I find it necessary\nfirst to decide whether the primary interest should rest in the eternal\ninstincts, passions and typical character of womanhood, or in women\u2019s\nactions and characters as affected by the unusual conditions of the time\nin which my work is undertaken. It is a decision by no means so simple as\nit would seem.\n\nAlways the realisation of what is immediately before us tends by its\nvivid nearness to give an over-estimation of its significance. But to\nread life in this way is to understand very little. Something must be\ndone to clear our vision so that we may take a wider view. The present,\nafter all, is but the day at which the past and the future meet.\n\nYet there are times when some overwhelming event so sharply changes the\npresent as to obscure all the shining wonder of life. And at no period in\nhistory has this been more true than it has been in Europe in the last\ntwo years. Nowhere and never in the world can there have been a period\nof deeper or more rapid change. War came upon us without warning, like\na thunderbolt from a clear sky; and in a day the outlook of life was\nchanged.\n\nNow, this thought of surprising and quick-coming change brings me to\nsomething it is necessary for me to say. My book should have been begun\nmany months back, at the very beginning of the war. But here I have to\nmake a confession. The war caused in my mind a confusion that for some\ntime left me extremely uncertain upon many things about which hitherto I\nhave been sure. It has been a war of miracles in so far as it has made\nreal much that seemed outside the world of possibility. Our sluggard\nimaginations have been stirred by an appeal that has aroused many\nprimitive emotions.\n\nI recall the opening sentence in the last book that I wrote on Woman.[1]\n\u201cThe twentieth century is the age of Woman. Some day, it may be, it will\nbe looked back upon as the golden age\u2014the dawn, some say, of feminine\ncivilisation.\u201d\n\nNow, as I read this statement, which, when I wrote it, I felt to be true,\nit appears so wrong as to be almost ridiculous. That sort of dream is\nover.\n\nWhat a fantastic picture it was that Suffrage militancy made for itself\nbefore the outbreak of the war. We pictured a golden age which was to\ncome with the self-assertion of women; an age in which most of those\nproblems that have vexed mankind from the dawn of history were to be\nsolved automatically by a series of quick penny-in-the-slot reforms,\nthat would follow on the splendour and superiority of woman\u2019s rule.\nMilitants, aflame for the reformation of man, discussed prostitution, the\nWhite Slave traffic, and all sex problems with a zeal that was partly\npathological and partly the result of a Utopian dream.\n\nThen, at the most crucial hour in the history of women\u2019s struggle for\npower and political recognition, all this dream was arrested. In the\nstress of war, the promise of an accumulating betterment was swept down,\neven as a too-bright dawn that passes into storm; the ugly aspects of\nlife sprang upon us with intensifying urgency. Yes, the sudden events of\nwar seemed, for women, to have blotted out the present and the past, and\nto have made all action uncertain.\n\nSo it is always when life is stirred at its depths. The change was almost\nstaggering. Women have had to learn many new and strange lessons; they\nare more changed than perhaps they themselves know.\n\nThere had come a time when, without any preparation, we women were\nbrought back to the primitive conception of the relative position of the\ntwo sexes. Military organisation and battle afford the grand opportunity\nfor the superior force capacity of the male. Again man was the fighter,\nthe protector of woman and the home. And at once his power became a\nreality. The striking and praise-demanding work was done by men. And at\nthe first violent change there seemed to be nothing for women beyond the\npatience of waiting and the service of sacrifice. Later, women have been\ncalled to step in to take the places of men, and there has been work\nfor them to do of all kinds and in ever-increasing amount. But of this\nwork, and the new conditions that have thereby arisen, I propose to speak\nin the next chapter. Here I am considering only the events that rushed\nupon women at the oncoming of war. And inevitably they were pushed aside\ninto obscurity; they had to be content with unnoticed work that not\ninfrequently was futile.\n\nIt is hard to step so suddenly out of the limelight. And women were\nacutely aware of this change in their prospects, and many of them\nexpressed the situation with engaging frankness. Let me give a small\nillustration. I had occasion in the late summer of 1914, a few weeks\nafter the war had started, to visit a friend. Some months had passed\nsince I had previously seen her. At that time she was actively engaged\nin the suffrage campaign. Now, I found her knitting woollen comforters\nfor the soldiers, and she was knitting them very badly. I expressed my\nsurprise. Her answer to me was, \u201cIt is all that there is to do.\u201d She then\nadded this significant statement, \u201cWe women have had to learn our place.\u201d\n\nThere was, of course, exaggeration in her remark. But it does, I believe,\npicture what happened in the thoughts of many women with the sudden\nceasing of their active struggle for political recognition. It was a\nstate of resigned surprise.\n\nAnd may it not be that women had need of some lesson?\n\nIn the curious phases witnessed before the war, in that struggle which\nwas but a more violent expression of the eternal effort at adjustment\nbetween the sexes, there were many strange signs to give pause and fear\nto all who think. Women did not, as I believe, realise the possible\nresults of their sex rebellion. They did not sufficiently distinguish\nbetween those limitations and hardships which could comparatively easily\nbe removed and those limitations and hardships which are due to the\nnature of their sex. Old traditions, without any discrimination, were\ncast aside in a violent seeking, and women broke out in unexpected ways,\nto fight nervously, carelessly, yet hungrily, as if they were trying to\nforce the pace of progress.\n\nWomen are possessed of great elasticity and cleverness; they are, and\npossibly will always remain, more imitative than creative. And from this\nfollows a very real danger, plainly arising from the quick feminine\nreceptiveness which is at once the strength of women as well as the cause\nof their pitiable weakness. In every direction the new independence and\nwork capacity of woman was proved in following and imitating men. Thus\nit was easy for women to externalise their life in every way, and to\ngain success in many different kinds of work. But the question has never\nbeen\u2014could women do this, or do that, kind of work? rather it is\u2014what\nwork is it most worth while for them to do?\n\nWounded by the narrowness of their lives, women spent immense energy\nout of which much that is good has been gained. Much that was false has\ncrumbled into ruins, but also much that was fine. What was wanting most\nwas this: the complete absence in the entire programme of reform of any\nkind of feminine idealism.\n\nDid women forget? I think that they did. The realm of woman was still\nsplendid, still vast. Why, then, this rage against all restrictions? Why\nthis continuous effort to obliterate the wise differences of sex?\n\nIn their violent seeking for life, women were ready to spend all to gain\nsomething which may well prove to be absolutely unnecessary to them. And\nto many it must have seemed that they wasted the whole of themselves only\nto lose something within themselves. There was much heroic fighting.\nWomen robbed life for the sake of what they believed was freedom;\nyet may it not prove that they have been in love with that which is\nunattainable for women?\n\nThe demand of woman to \u201clive her own life\u201d brought, as it seems to some\nof us, a slavery not less strong or less evil than that from which\nan escape was sought. Women, however unconsciously, were suppressing\nthemselves in new ways, and still doing things alien to themselves.\nThis restless seeking was but a further foolish forgetting of the truth\nthat the only freedom worth having is the freedom to be one\u2019s self. All\nthat women had promised themselves in a new order of existence must\ndepend on their acceptance of the responsibilities and limitations of\ntheir womanhood. And by this I mean a full and glad acceptance of those\nphysical facts of their organic constitution which make them unlike men,\nand should limit their capacity for many kinds of work. It can never be\nanything but foolishness to attempt to break down the real differences\nbetween the two sexes.\n\nThis may be a hard saying to some women: I believe that it is true.\n\nIt is necessary to emphasise this fact again, and yet again, because it\nis the almost complete disregard by women of their own sexual nature and\nits special needs that is the grave evil that is robbing us of life;\nthis was also the inherent weakness in the Women\u2019s Movement, which,\nso far from fulfilling the promise of its earlier period, had ceased,\neven before war brought us back to realities, to exert any widely\nrepresentative or serious influence.\n\nThe predilection for wild pranks, which in this country marked the later\nefforts of women to gain political recognition, may, I think, be traced\nback to causes bent on crushing and levelling the sex characteristics.\nWomen had not sufficiently valued themselves, and thus they ceased to\ncare to be essentially feminine. Instead there was an insatiable desire\nto enjoy experience, arising from lack of disciplined culture and from\nexcess of energy and idleness. It is manifest that militancy gave to\nwomen excitement and occupation.\n\nAnd this avidity to know and feel and shine, to establish new contacts\nwith life and affairs, was coupled also with that deeper seeking of\nthe spirit which has robbed peace from the modern woman. Possibly such\ndefects are essential to such a movement, a mere destructive phase in the\nprocess of renewing\u2014a clearing of the ground. But the way to gain freedom\nis long and toilsome; it is a way that permits of no such energetic\nshort cuts as the militant Suffragists would have achieved. Mixed up\nwith all that was fine in their movement was an infinity of glitter and\ntinsel, vanity and restlessness. There was present always an intense and\ntheatrical egotism, a yearning to make an impression and force applause\nat any cost.\n\nThere was, of course, another side\u2014a side which most gladly I\nacknowledge. No movement that was founded merely on excitement would\nhave overcome difficulties as the Suffrage movement did, nor could its\nmembers have worked and suffered as they did for a common end. There was\nalways much even in the most mistaken militancy that was generous, ardent\nand wholesome. But these useful qualities were deformed by a want of\nproportion and sanity; by feelings run riot that made women impatient of\nall restraints, overweeningly sure of themselves, and incapable of facing\ntroublesome facts or foreseeing the most certain consequences of their\nown actions. There is nothing here that should surprise us.\n\nIn many cases, perhaps in all, emotion is the sole and strong guide of\nour actions. At least, I am sure this is true of women. What we do is to\ninvent reasons to justify acts to which we are impelled by some emotion\narising from an instinctive need. I do not see how this can be avoided,\nnor do I at all regard it in itself as evil. Reason by itself too often\nis an excuse for doing nothing; it is the excuse of all those who take\ninfinite care not to see in case they may come to feel. Reason alone\nnever does anything; it is too reasonable. The necessary thing is first\nto feel. And the only possible method of guiding emotion is to realise\nits force and to use it successfully; not to take cover fearfully in\navoidance of feeling.\n\nThere is, indeed, a very deep reason for this human need for emotion.\nThe springs of our actions may be traced back in almost all cases to\ncertain excitements arising from some need or desire of whose existence\nin ourselves we are in nine cases out of ten quite unconscious, but\nwhich (unless dammed up when the fear of an escape is always great and\nimminent) will find an expression in characteristic instinctive acts. And\nthe most forcible human excitements are fear and anger: these exercise an\nenergising influence on body and mind often leading to the accomplishment\nof quite extraordinary acts. Periods of intense excitement will yield a\nconsciousness of overwhelming strength, so that the individual reaches a\nstate of self-forgetfulness in which almost anything may be done. Almost\nevery one must at some time have experienced this super-strength. And\nwhat is important to note is that at an opportunity for exercising these\nemotions, the most peaceable people have felt the stir of the primitive\ninstincts of hate and fear, of anger and the desire to destroy and to\nhurt. They have developed\u2014often to their own surprise\u2014the destructive\ncapacities of the fight-loving, danger-braving animal. And when such\nemotions seize on individuals in groups, their effect is greatly\nintensified and is felt by many who would be only slightly susceptible to\nsuch emotions when isolated.\n\nThis explains, I believe, the surprising revolt of women and how it was\nthey broke out in such unexpected ways. There is in the sex an immense\nand unrecognised capacity for adventure, due to the surplus of energy\nunused that was so painfully present in the lives of many women, and to\nthe expression of which the narrowness of their lives had afforded little\nopportunity. The danger here was strong for women, because in their\nlives, to a far greater extent than in the lives of men, there had been\nso many dammed-up channels of emotion. It is the things they might not\ndo that had mattered for women, and not the things they had been allowed\nto do. Then the fever of this anger caught hold of them, and they became\nconscious of an obscure travail in their souls. Here, indeed, were causes\nof unrest; here were the first shadows of some subtle decay.\n\nThe suffrage movement was a search\u2014yes, a wild search\u2014for something to\nbridge the gap, for something to do that mattered, something to open the\ngates to adventure. The militant revolt to many women proved an exciting\ngame. This may appear strange; but what I want you to mark is that such\nviolence was a necessary thing for women. They felt impelled to get into\ntheir lives something that meant movement, excitement, joy, and the\nstinging of adventure.\n\nAnd they have been happy.\n\nTo many people, and especially to men, it seemed that in adopting\nmilitancy women were departing entirely from their womanhood. But it\nis just here they were mistaken; they did not grasp the fact that women\nhad felt injured, and that this injury aroused in them an excitement\nof anger forcing wild action. Women, too, I think, have not themselves\nunderstood the real causes of their actions. It was impossible to follow\nthe procession of excuses by which the militant apologists attempted to\njustify their often senseless outrages on the law without realising how\nerroneously they comprehended their own movement. They honestly thought\nthat they were espousing the cause of Woman\u2019s freedom; it never struck\nthem that they were not working for this, at least that this was not\nthe motive which impelled their actions of violence. They did not know\nthat they were taking the quickest way to fill lives left empty, and to\nexpress in action the clamorous excitement that surged within them. It is\nnever easy for women to be quite honest even to themselves.\n\nManifestly this violent seeking was but an outgrowth of woman\u2019s fierce\nrace-protecting passion; an unconscious expression of that instinct to\ngive life which rules not only in the body but in the spirit of woman.\nMany women fought without truly wanting to fight, and merely because\ntheir deep hidden instincts demanded something on which to expend\nthemselves.\n\nThere was in the Suffrage movement a wise policy of action. And this\nusing of women\u2019s stored-up energy, however wastefully it may have\nbeen expended, inflamed in them a gladness that made easy all their\npayments of imprisonment, of forcible feeding, and even of death. In\nmilitancy women gained an object and a satisfaction: they were the\ncentre of something that depended on them. Their movement, with all its\nabsurdities, was a live thing in their hands. Thus the members gave\nto the cause their labour and their enthusiasm, and, because they had\ngiven it so much, they came to love it. Their energetic organisation\ncame to stand above them like a big, greedy child, grabbing at anything\nand everything. It robbed from them the flying hours of life, little by\nlittle devouring them. But in so doing new fuel was thrown on the dead\nflames of women\u2019s passions. For they gained that for which they were\nseeking. A new, strange opportunity for sacrifice was here, supplying the\nneed which, however unrecognised and denied, is the fundamental desire of\nwoman. This was the joy that was gained by the Suffrage martyrs\u2014something\nvivifying, flooding dead lives with colour, action and emotion. Yes,\nthese women yielded themselves to their movement with joy, just as a\nwoman yields herself to her lover that she may give life to his child.\n\nAnd then all this audacious, hardly understood movement was brought\nto an end by war. Militarism put a swift close to militancy. As far\nas women were concerned, their hope of forcing political recognition\nfell to confusion. The war came like a great shadow across the whole\nbright complex problem of the future. So much was this so that writing\nof militancy now feels almost like referring to a forgotten event that\nhappened in the very far past. It would be easy to pass over the whole\nSuffrage movement in silence. And, indeed, I should have done this if I\ndid not believe that its inner effect on women had been more lasting than\nthe outward gain.\n\nI wish to emphasise the change that came to women in the period\nimmediately before the war. The Suffrage movement was a collective\nmovement in which the individual had to win honour in self-forgetfulness\nand in group work. And this co-operation for the gaining of the Vote\ncarried with it also a co-operation of service and a great development\nof mutual helpfulness. And from this it has followed very directly that\nmany women have turned their backs for ever on petty interests and\ndisloyalties to one another, and have recovered a quite fresh sense of\nhonourable emulations and loyalty.\n\nThis concord and unity in duty had much the same quality of joy that\nsends the soldier to face death. It stirred something very deep in\nwomen\u2019s nature. Militancy brought a rare chance of happiness: it made\nwomen aware of their souls. Through it they first found escape from the\ndeadness of sterile lives and gave up separate little aims that made\nconflicts between woman and woman. The petty strifes of no issue and\nno importance were changed into one struggle that must be won; and by\nexpanding from an existence of aimlessness and stagnation into one of\ncommon purpose and advance, women gained the chance they were seeking of\nadventure and sacrifice for body and spirit. No wonder, then, that they\ngave themselves up to a great holiday of the emotions. This may have\nexpressed itself basely in the wrecking of property and much that was\nuseless, but it was not all base. In the lives of numberless women it has\nmeant something much more than hatred and vanity, or self-deceiving work.\n\nMilitancy has been a great as well as a very little thing. As a movement\nit was foolish and morally perverse, no doubt, but its members were\nmorally passionate. The disorder of purpose, the spectacle of wasted\neffort and folly, which filled many of us with anger\u2014all this did bring\ngladness and liberation of spirit to the women themselves. They felt\nthat their fighting was noble and glorious, which it was not, but they\nfelt this with a power that came from the perverse conviction of their\nwhole nature. And we shall need a conviction as passionate as this, but\nnot perverse, before women can in the same way be won again to an equal\npassion of sacrifice and service.\n\nAnd this very rapture of escape from an aimless existence was in itself\nthe sign of the failure in women\u2019s lives, a proof that there was, indeed,\nsomething to be escaped from. We may not claim more than this for the\nSuffrage movement.\n\nWar, such war as is now loose upon the world, came to accomplish its\nmiracles, acting swiftly and almost without women knowing what was being\ndone. The reality of life and of death has shaken up everything, and the\nquick pressure of events is changing all the conditions of life.\n\nLet us try to see a little more clearly.\n\nIt has been a common mistake that amongst civilised peoples intellectual\nviews and peace interests have superseded the primitive fighting\ninstincts. But the cultural period in which wars have been exceptional\nand peace the normal state has been short, and is, indeed, only a span\nwhen compared with the long history when men had to fight in order to\nlive. This violence was a necessary phase in human, as in all animal,\ndevelopment. War is only an organised and specialised replacement of\nthis indiscriminate and blind struggle for life. It is probable that the\ninstinct of battle was once for all developed and fixed; and the question\narises, as to whether we shall ever get far away from this deeply rooted\nstimulus to action. It may even be a condition of life that we should not\nget too far away from it.\n\nWe have had a striking example of the enthusiasm and interest evoked by\nsituations of conflict and danger, in the intense and primitive emotions\nrevived in all of us by the war. War is the thunder and voice of the\ntrumpet without which the wisest moral and political ideas never attract\nsufficient attention to lead to difficult action. For the world will not\nlisten to a truth until bloodshed and violence have awakened its sluggard\nimagination.\n\nAnd in these new circumstances we all, women as well as men, have been\ncaught by a powerful excitement. The war has us in its grip, there is no\nother thought, no other remedy, no other interest. In many ways war is\nthe most uniting of all forces. We are all joined in one work of service\nand co-operation. No man or woman can turn away, skulk in the individual\ngarden of their own petty interests, because they do not want to be\nbothered. Something fresh has come, something that had to come, and all\nthat went before is changed.\n\nWe see thus that war has brought to all of us a succession of disturbing\nrevelations of reality. And the lesson has come most severely on those\nwhose lives have been most unreal. Here is a force against which there\nis no argument. We are involved in a struggle of the most momentous\ndimensions. No one as yet can mark the limits of destruction, and in the\nharshness of the war\u2019s lesson the struggle of women for sex mastery at\nonce became uninteresting.\n\nFor hundreds of centuries and myriads of generations the life of fighting\nhas gone on for men. But women\u2019s opportunity waits upon leisure and\npeace. The savagery of war brings the two sexes back to primitive values.\nAnd the truth is forced upon us; we realise the gulf which lies between\nthe man and the woman.\n\nAll our days we women have been denying this separation, and, enslaved by\nmale ideals, have sought to break through the barriers of sex. We have\nbeen pursuing power, wrapping ourselves up in one garment after another,\ncalling these coverings romance, adventure, work, individual development,\nand what not; now we have come in our hearts to know the falsity of it\nall. Somewhere in the confusion of war stark facts awaited us. We had to\nface life as a reality, not as theories, or movements, or sex development.\n\nFor many of us women the lesson has been sharp and sudden. War leapt upon\nus as it were a beast out of some hidden darkness; leapt upon us, holding\nus powerless, tearing our illusions into shreds with its blood-stained\nclaws.\n\nAnd on a sudden women were held by a new, quick-striking, absolute\nrealisation of the truth. They had not seen it nor felt like this before.\nBut this beast of war crouching in front of them said to women, \u201cAlways\nI have been beside you waiting for this hour. I have waited for a long\ntime. You have struggled; you have fought; you have played; you have\ncome to think yourselves important in strange ways, meddling in all the\naffairs of the world. This you have done, and you have learnt much of the\nmeans of life, but you have everything yet to re-learn about life itself.\n\n\u201cIn all your struggles for political recognition and in all your work\nreality has not touched you. You have feared to be yourselves. You have\nbeen ashamed of your sexual differentiation. You have gathered power\naround you to pretend that you were the same as men, your strength as\ntheir strength, that your work was the same as their work. You have\nmocked at those qualities that were your own, that set you apart from\nmen, denying your womanhood. You have suffered. But you will not suffer\nless by any such efforts to escape. Who can wonder that you have been\ndissatisfied? For you have wasted in haste the power that is your own.\nAnd conscious of, though not understanding, the want in your own lives,\nyou have been deeply conscious of the discords in the rest of the world.\nThe instinct of motherhood has been strong within you, and wasted, it has\nnot ceased to torment you.\n\n\u201cYou have gained excitement and applause, much work you have done and\nhad many triumphs. It has seemed a big thing. Yet, after all, has the\ngain been worth the payment? Have women indeed escaped from their prison?\nThink, do you not know deep in your hearts that its bars have not been\nbroken?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER II\n\nTHE POSITION OF WOMEN AS AFFECTED BY THE WAR\n\n\n    The new conditions brought by the war\u2014Seriousness of the\n    position\u2014My object in writing a book on motherhood\u2014The\n    Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of\n    Education for 1914\u2014The condemnation of motherhood shown by\n    the facts of this Report\u2014The greatness of the evil that we\n    are permitting\u2014Women ill-trained as women and incapacitated\n    for their supreme duty\u2014The inquiry into the conditions of\n    working-class motherhood made by the Women\u2019s Co-operative\n    Guild\u2014The miserable health of the mothers of our working\n    classes\u2014This one of the greatest dangers and social crimes of\n    the day\u2014The health of women must be safeguarded\u2014The problem\n    greatly increased by the special war conditions\u2014Report issued\n    by the Health of Munition Workers Committee on \u201cEmployment\n    of Women\u201d and \u201cHours of Work\u201d\u2014The danger of overworking\n    women\u2014Woman sows in her flesh for the race\u2014She needs to store\n    energy, not to expend it\u2014The confusion and failure in efficient\n    motherhood\u2014We have got to find what this failure is.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE POSITION OF WOMEN AS AFFECTED BY THE WAR\n\n    \u201cTo be mothers were women created and to be fathers\n    men.\u201d\u2014Sayings of MANU.\n\n\nI have spoken in the last chapter of the changes that came in the\nthoughts and attention of women in the first few months of the war. We\nsaw how war spoke with a more powerful voice, and the women who had\nbeen snatching at power felt the quickening of a quite new spirit of\nhumbleness. That uplifting was the great opportunity. Women discovered\nsomething stronger and more important than themselves.\n\nOur inquiry now is this: What has happened since then? what fresh\nconditions is war developing or likely to develop? And first it is well\nto note the strange power of war to stir us into action. Two years ago\nit would have seemed impossible to feed the hungry and clothe the ragged\nand to turn all the wasters and slackers into vigorous heroes. Now these\nthings have been done; and much that in peace time seemed a far-off\npossibility has become a present fact.\n\nWar has a terribly effective way of dealing not only with men but with\ntheir problems. And one result is that a quite new interest is being\ntaken in motherhood and child welfare.\n\nEngland can no longer afford to be wasteful of the lives of her citizens.\nShe has been wasteful in the past, and her new mood of caring must be\nmade a conviction and a purpose.\n\nAs a result of this world war there has been and will continue to be an\nimmense sacrifice of men, much in excess of any wars in the past history\nof nations, and it is evident that every belligerent country must lose\nfrom her best male stock; and it is not only the physically fittest, but\nthe mentally and morally fittest, that are sacrificed.\n\nFor years to come the birth rates will be lowered throughout the greater\npart of Europe. In our own land the situation is one that must give fear.\nOur death rate has been very high in numbers and in quality, while at the\nsame time our birth rate has been the lowest on record. Even the civilian\ndeath rate has risen; and, worst and most menacing of all, the infantile\nmortality rate has risen two per thousand above the average of the last\ntwo years.\n\nPut these grave facts together, and, with even a fraction of realisation\nof their meaning, it becomes clear that we have to face a wastage of life\nunparalleled in the annals of our race. What are we going to do?\n\nNow, I am not one who believes in the advantage, or even in the\npossibility of any forced excess in procreative activity. Numbers are\nof less importance to a nation than the moral, mental, and physical\nsuperiority of its men. The wholesale waste of these qualities in war\nis just what must be of such enormous menace to the future. The nation\nthat does nothing to meet this and to ensure as far as possible the\nsuperiority of the next generation of her children will gain nothing even\nfrom victory, for it will mean only defeat in the future.\n\nThe issues of life and death have by the lurid war-light been forced\nupon our attention. And again I ask, What are we going to do?\n\nThe answer is plain. This terrible loss of life and of the forces of\nlife abroad in war must be made good by a more intelligent and efficient\ncare of the young lives at home. This we must do, and we must do it\nquickly. It is possible for a nation by such increased care of the rising\ngeneration of its children to compensate itself for the loss of lives\nduring the war within a comparatively short period after the close of\nwar. Indeed, if we have the will, as we possess the means, we can make it\ntrue that because of the war there will be more people\u2014yes, and healthier\nand happier\u2014in this land of ours in ten or fifteen years\u2019 time than if\nthe war had never happened.\n\nThis is what we can do. Shall we do it? The answer is with women. We can,\nwithin limits, do almost what we please. There has come to us a great\nopportunity, and out of the gates of death itself we may snatch life.\n\nMuch waits to be done, not only in the actual saving of infantile life,\nbut further, by providing effective and prompt remedies to all bad\nconditions of living, so that the health and the mental capacity and\nmoral character of the children dependent upon these conditions, or\nrelated to them, may be raised and maintained at a right standard of\nefficiency. Then we have to realise that more even than this is needed,\nand that all our efforts will fail of their full effect unless we go\nfurther back than the child, and the problem of the mother be frankly\nfaced. The question of infantile mortality and child welfare is really\nthe question of motherhood. And there is now no ultimate need of the\nState greater, more imperative, than this of securing a more enlightened\nmotherhood.\n\nThis need is the reason for my book. I know that the days of war are not\na time suitable either for the writing or reading of long books. Yet I\noffer no apology, so convinced I am of the urgency of this matter of\nsaving motherhood that I had to write.\n\nThe object of my book is twofold. First, to put forward a fresh plea for\nassigning that high value to motherhood in practice which at present it\nreceives only in words. This would ensure at once right conditions for\nall mothers and all children; it would also serve better than anything\nelse to do away with many age-old mistakes, misunderstandings and\ndisorder. In the second place (or rather in connection with all that\nis said), I wish to set forth what seem to me to be the chief causes\nthat hitherto have hindered motherhood and bound my sex from the full\nenjoyment of life; and to suggest that the reason of this bondage is not,\nas is so often stated, the aggressive selfishness of men, but is due\nmuch more to women\u2019s own actions, to their absurdly wrong education and\nentire misunderstanding of the sexual life; a misunderstanding which has\ndecided the direction in which they believed the freedom they have been\nso ardently, yet wastefully seeking, was to be found.\n\nSo that we may understand our present failures better, I have attempted\nto seek causes and to suggest reasons. My inquiry reaches back before\nhuman parenthood and examines the parental instinct in its making; it\nshows the way and for what reason this instinct of caring for the young\nbecame fixed and stronger in the mother than in the father. It sets out\nfrom this beginning, and, after a short chapter on primitive motherhood,\npasses to the consideration of women and the home, marriage as it affects\nparenthood, the unmarried mother and sexual relationships outside\nof marriage, as well as other allied questions. It tries to offer a\npractical solution to some of the problems involved, in particular the\nproblem of education and new ideals of conduct and sexual health for all\ngirls. It recommends a revolution in our schools and methods of training;\nchanges that must, as I believe, be made, unless we are prepared to\naccept as inevitable the decay of motherhood, as well as an increasing\nfailure of happiness in marriage, with its resulting antagonism between\nsex and sex.\n\nBut to return to this present introductory chapter. I have upon my\nstudy table two documents. The one is that from which I have taken the\nquotation placed before this opening section of my book. It is the\nAnnual Report for 1914,[2] of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of\nEducation. The second consists of two pamphlets on the Health of Munition\nWorkers, treating of the Hours of Work and Employment of Women, both\nprepared by the command of Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, and published\nin connection with the important illustrated Report, which shows and\nexplains all the numerous and different engineering operations on which\nwomen are now engaged in munition work. The object of the Report is\nto attract more women workers; but it is with the two pamphlets I am\nconcerned. For the present, however, I shall leave them, returning to\nthem later in order to show how closely they are connected with the other\nReport, which treats of infant mortality, child disease and neglect, and\nall the wastage of motherhood. It is on the shameful significance of the\nfacts given in this Report that we must now fix our attention.\n\nIt would be difficult to find a more complete condemnation of motherhood.\nThe Report is full of condemning facts. For, let us not disguise it\nfrom ourselves that, in spite of much that has been done, many efforts\nand real improvements, motherhood remains very evil; about the lives of\nlittle children lurk cruelties, disease, dirt, and neglect that ought not\nto be permitted.\n\nLet me take one group of facts from this Report; facts that cry out to us\nall how urgently wrong things are. In the year 1914, 92,166 children died\nin England and Wales under one year of age. Think of the wanton wastage:\nin every thousand children born one hundred and five have died. Their\nnumber of the year\u2019s toll of new lives reaches close up to the recorded\ndeaths for the first fifteen months of war![3] And the evil does not end\nhere, for the bad conditions which kill these babies act also in maiming\nand disabling, or at least in lowering the health standard, of many of\nthe children who live, and thus add to the number of those who die in\nthe early years of childhood, or survive only with enfeebled bodies and\ndefective minds. And, further, no account is taken here of the lives that\nare lost before birth takes place: I mean the still births and abortions,\nthe ante-natal deaths of which no record is kept. Our tendency is to\nassume that life begins at the birth, whereas the life of each child\nstarts at the moment of its conception. Thus the birth rate is really the\nsurvival from the conception rate. And the destruction of life before\nbirth from adverse ante-natal conditions is probably larger than the\ndeath rate in the first post-natal year.\n\nYou will see that the problem is sufficiently grave. And this\nunnecessary waste\u2014for it is unnecessary\u2014is going on every year, and will\ngo on until we begin to feel it strongly enough to take action to prevent\nit. It can be prevented. The chief causes of infant mortality are briefly\ntwo\u2014\n\n(1) Poor physique of the mother or inheritable disease in one or other\nparent, causing premature births with weakened constitutions and\ncongenital defects in the children.\n\n(2) Ignorance of mothers in appropriate infant care and low standard of\nhome life; bad feeding and insanitary conditions are accountable for the\ngreater number of child deaths.\n\nWe find the infantile death rate is much higher in urban communities than\nit is in rural England. It is well to give a table to show this\u2014\n\n                            ANNUAL RATES PER         ANNUAL RATES\n                              1000 LIVING           PER 1000 BIRTHS\n\n                                                  Diarrh\u0153a\n                                                    and       Infant\n                        Birth Rate.  Death Rate.  Enteritis  Mortality\n                                                 (under two    Rate.\n                                                   years).\n\n    England and Wales        23.8       13.7        20.4       105\n\n    97 great towns (including\n      London)                25.0       15.0        26.1       114\n\n    145 smaller towns        23.9       13.1        19.8       104\n\n    England and Wales less\n      the 242 towns          22.2       12.4        12.6        93\n\n    London                   24.3       14.4        27.6       104\n\nConsider the reason for this difference in the death rates\u2014114 deaths per\n1000 in the great towns, 104 in the smaller towns, and 93 in the country\ndistricts. Does not this prove that children are killed by the conditions\ninto which they are born. It is obvious that urbanisation, with all\nthat it means of unhealthy living, with factory work and the employment\nof women, exerts a profound effect on the lives and health of little\nchildren.\n\nA portion of infant and child mortality represents, I well know, the\nremoval from life of diseased children who ought never to have been\nborn, and would not have been born under different sexual conditions,\nfor this, above all, is a question of instructed motherhood. I am not\nforgetting this side of the problem. But these children, doomed to death\nfrom the time they are conceived, represent a fraction only of our infant\nmortality. The vast majority of babies are born healthy; it is we who\nkill them. Though the fact of the falling birth rate is being shouted\naloud with an ever-increasing fear and insistence, the plain, simple fact\nis neglected; it is absurd to go on having more babies if we can\u2019t first\ncare enough to keep alive the babies that we have. There are still too\nmany births for our civilisation to look after; we are still unfit to be\ntrusted with a rising birth rate.[4]\n\nLet us consider now how our neglect acts on the children who fight\nthrough the first years of infancy. I can take a few facts only chosen\nalmost at hazard from the mass of similar evidence in the Educational\nReport. In London, out of 294,000 children medically examined, 101,000 or\nnearly half, were found to be in need of treatment. In England and Wales\n391,352 children of school age were medically attended. A summary of the\nreturns shows a wide prevalence of verminous uncleanness, the percentage\nbeing 18.1 per cent. for the heads and 11.8 per cent. for the bodies\nof the children. Again the figures show unclean conditions to be most\nprevalent in the towns, in some instances the percentage rising as high\nas thirty unclean children out of each hundred children examined. I ask\nyou to think what this implies.\n\nThe nutrition of the children is equally bad, the different counties\nvarying in percentage between five and twenty. Stockton-on-Tees has the\nunenviable distinction of standing the highest\u2014thirty out of each hundred\nof its children showing signs of malnutrition. The same Report shows the\nfatal prevalence among the children of rickets, eye disease, discharging\nears, and diseases of the throat and nose.[5] The proportion of defective\nteeth is higher than any malady and often exceeds seventy and eighty per\ncent. of the school entrants.\n\nWe should note that insufficient or unsuitable food is the chief cause\nof malnutrition and illness in children, and investigations seem to show\nthat wrong feeding is the more prevalent. Thus Dr. Gould, writing of\nthe children he examined in Bolton, says, \u201cit is obvious that defective\nnutrition is due to dietetic ignorance on the parents\u2019 part or to\nparental neglect.\u201d Dr. Macdonald of Northampton, reporting on 448 cases\nexamined in 1914, corroborates this view, stating in the course of his\nreport of adenoidal children, \u201cMany are suffering, not from insufficiency\nof food (that, I think, far from common in Northampton), but from bad\nfood and badly prepared food.\u201d Again, Dr. Orr of Shrewsbury writes, \u201cThe\nsubject of unsuitable food is a very important one. The women of the\nworking classes often show a surprising ignorance of the proper methods\nof cooking for family requirements, a want of knowledge of the value\nand suitability of food stuffs, and too often a general incompetence\nrespecting household management.\u201d[6] I may add as corroboration an\ninstance from my own knowledge; one that would be comic, if it were not\nso piteous. A party of poor workings girls were invited to a meal; they\nwere asked what they would like to have to eat. They answered, \u201cBread and\npickles,\u201d and added, \u201cPickles are so sustaining!\u201d\n\nWho can doubt the greatness of the evil that is going on? I could add\nmany more facts at least equally impressive with the few that I have\ngiven, all witnessing to weakness in the constitution of our children,\nto disease and dirt, and every other painful result of ignorance and\nneglect. And does not all this speak of unfit motherhood; of women\nill-trained as women and incapacitated for their supreme duty? There is\nfailure somewhere. We have to find out where that failure is.\n\nFor I wish to make it very clear that I am not blaming the individual\nmother. What I do blame are the conditions of our civilisation that have\ncalled her into being. I have before me the admirable but infinitely\ndistressing book, _Maternity: Letters from Working Women_. They are the\noutcome of an inquiry into the condition of working-class motherhood made\nby the Women\u2019s Co-operative Guild. Nothing that I can say, or that any\nother writer could say, can have the reality and the bitter vividness\nof these letters written by the women themselves. I am able to quote\nonly scattered sentences taken from a few letters just as they come and\nwithout special selection.\n\n(1) MOTHER INJURED IN GIRLHOOD\n\n\u201c_Through being left without a mother when a baby\u2014father was a very\nlarge farmer and girls were expected to do men\u2019s work\u2014I, at the age of\nsixteen, lifted weights that deformed the pelvis bones, therefore making\nconfinement a very difficult case. I have five fine healthy girls, but\nthe boys have all had to have the skull-bones taken away to get them past\nthe pelvis.\u2026 I wish more could be done to train growing girls to be more\ncareful._\u201d\n\n(2) A WAGE-EARNING MOTHER\n\n\u201c_I myself had some very hard times, as I had to go out to work in the\nmill. I was a weaver and we had a lot of lifting to do. My first baby\nwas born before its time, from me lifting my piece off the loom onto my\nshoulder.\u2026 If I had been able to take care of myself I should not have\nhad to suffer as I did for seven weeks before the baby was born, and for\nthree months after, and then there was the baby suffering as well, as he\nwas a weak little thing for a long time, and cost pounds that could have\nbeen saved had I been able to stay at home and look after myself._\u201d\n\n(3) A MOTHER\u2019S INJURY TO HER DAUGHTERS\n\n\u201c_I am very pleased to say that, having one of the best of husbands,\nI suffered nothing during pregnancy, only ailments of my own caused\nthrough my mother having to work in the brickyard during her pregnancy\nwith me. That, I am sorry to say, is the cause of my own and my sister\u2019s\nillness \u2026 and that thing will go on until women give up hard work during\npregnancy._\u201d\n\n(4) WORKED TOO HARD AS A GIRL\n\n\u201c_My third child was born nine years after the second.\u2026 She lived six\nhours, and was convulsed from birth. The doctor\u2019s opinion was that I had\nworked too hard as a girl lifting heavy weights, therefore weakening the\nwhole system._\u201d\n\n(5) THE RESULTS OF POVERTY\n\n\u201c_I think a great deal of suffering is caused to the mother and child\nduring pregnancy by lack of nourishment and rest, combined with bad\nhousing arrangements. The majority of working women before marriage\nhave been used to standing a great deal at their work, bringing about\nmuch suffering which does not tell seriously until after marriage,\nparticularly during pregnancy.\u2026 I believe that bad housing arrangements\nhave a very bad effect on mothers during pregnancy. I know of streets of\nhouses where there are large factories built, taking the whole of the\ndaylight away from the kitchen, where the woman spends the best part of\nher life. On the top of this you get the continual grinding of machinery.\nThe mother wonders what she has to live for; if there is another baby\ncoming she hopes it will be dead when it is born. The result is she\nbegins to take drugs.\u2026 All this tells on the woman, physically and\nmentally; can you wonder at women turning to drink?_\u201d\n\n(6) ANOTHER CASE OF POVERTY AND OVERWORK\n\n\u201c_The first part of my life I spent in a screw factory from six in the\nmorning till five at night, and after tea used to do my washing and\ncleaning. I only left two weeks and three weeks before my first children\nwere born. After that I took in lodgers and washing, and always worked\nup till an hour or so before baby was born. The results were that three\nof my girls suffer with their insides. None are able to have a baby. One\ndear boy was born ruptured on account of my previous hard work._\u201d\n\n(7) THE EVIL OF SEXUAL IGNORANCE\n\n\u201c_Judging from my own experience, a fair amount of knowledge at the\ncommencement of pregnancy would do a lot of good. One may have a good\nmother who would be willing to give information, but to people like\nmyself your mother is the last person you would talk to about yourself or\nyour state.\u2026 I have learnt the most useful things since my children grew\nup. The idea that you impress the child all through with your habits and\nways, or that its health is to a great extent hindered or helped by your\nown well-being, was quite unknown to me._\u201d\n\n(8) ANOTHER CASE\n\n\u201c_When I was married, I had to leave my own town to go out into the\nworld, as it were, and when I had to have my first baby, I knew\nabsolutely nothing, not even how they were born. I had many a time\nthought how cruel (not wilfully, perhaps) my mother was not to tell me\nall about the subject when I left home.\u2026 When my baby was born I had been\nin my labour for thirty-six hours, and did not know what was the matter\nwith me.\u2026 It was only a seven-months baby, and I feel quite sure if I had\nbeen told anything about pregnancy it would not have happened. I carried\na heavy piece of oilcloth, which brought on labour.\u2026 I knew very little\nabout feeding children, when they cried I gave them the breast. If I had\nknown then what I know now my children would have been living. I was\nignorant, and had to suffer severely for it, for it nearly cost me my\nlife, and also those of my children. I very often ponder over this part\nof my life. I must not say anything about my mother now, because she is\ndead, but I cannot help thinking what might have been if she had told\nme._\u201d\n\n(9) HEALTHY MOTHERHOOD, GIVEN AS A CONTRAST\n\n\u201c_Although I have had eight children and one miscarriage, I am afraid my\nexperience would not help you in the least, as I am supposed to be one of\nthose women who can stand anything. During my pregnancy, I have always\nbeen able to do my own work._\n\n\u201c_With the boys labour has only lasted twenty minutes, girls a little\nlonger. I have never needed a doctor\u2019s help, and it has always been over\nbefore he came.\u2026 My idea is that everything depends on how a woman lives,\nand how healthy she was born. I had the advantage of never having to\nwork before I was married and never have wanted for money, so when the\nstruggle came I had a strong constitution to battle with it all._\u201d\n\n(10) ANOTHER FORTUNATE CASE\n\n\u201c_I must be one of the fortunate ones. I have always had fairly good\nhealth during pregnancy and good times at confinements and getting up.\u2026 I\nowe my good health to being well nourished and looked after by my mother\nwhen I was a growing girl. I think if all young girls of to-day are\nproperly cared for, it will make all the difference to the mothers of the\nfuture, and save much suffering during pregnancy and after._\u201d\n\nI should like to quote further from these letters, which have filled me\nwith a passion of protest and pity. But why should I go on bringing\nfresh arguments to prove what already is sufficiently clear?\n\nGive but a moment\u2019s attention to the facts that stand out in these eight\nsummarised cases, and at once you will grasp what is wrong. These mothers\nhave not been equal to their task of child-bearing; we have demanded from\nthem too much. We have permitted the weakening of their constitutions\nfrom girlhood with unsuitable and too heavy work, and we have allowed\nthem to grow up and marry sexually ignorant. What wonder that so many\nhave failed in their supreme work of motherhood. The women bitterly feel\nthis failure; many of them are convinced of the evils that have resulted\nto themselves and their children from their own overstrain through work\nand their ignorance of sexual hygiene and mother-craft.\n\nTake now a few briefly summarised results of all these three hundred and\nforty-eight examined cases of motherhood. We find the following figures:\nTotal number of live births, 1,396, 80 still-births and 218 miscarriages.\nThese figures speak for themselves. It is probable all miscarriages are\nnot given, but even those that are stated show a pre-natal death rate of\n21.3 per 100 deaths. And we have no record of abortions, which, without\ndoubt, are very numerous. According to some medical authorities the\nfrequency of abortion \u201cis believed to be about 20 to 25 per cent. of all\npregnancies.\u201d Consider the following facts: two of these women each had\nten miscarriages; one woman had eight miscarriages and no living child,\nwhile a second woman, after suffering seven miscarriages, consoled her\nmotherhood by adopting an orphan boy; another woman gave birth to five\ndead children; the record of still another woman is three still-births\nand four miscarriages. The last of these mothers writes: \u201cI had to\nwork very hard to do everything for my little family, and after that I\nnever had any more children to live. I either miscarried or they were\nstill-born.\u201d\n\nThe post-natal deaths are also numerous. Of the three hundred and\nforty-eight mothers, eighty-six (or 24.7 per cent.) lost children in the\nfirst year of life. The total number of deaths rises to 122, or 8.7 per\n100 live births, and it should be noted that 50 per cent., or one half of\nthese deaths, occurred during the first month of infantile life or were\ndue to wrong birth conditions when death was after the first month.\n\nIt seems useless to comment further upon these facts; the figures speak\nwith sufficient clearness for themselves. I would ask you, however, to\nremember them; I would ask you to try to understand all that they mean of\nour deplorable neglect of motherhood.\n\nFor long we have been persistently assuming that the characteristics\nof the child at birth are genetic or hereditary and therefore can be\nbut slightly affected by a favourable or an adverse nurture. This is\na monstrous error. Very few indeed are the defects and the diseases\nthat are inevitable and part of the birth-inheritance, rather they are\ntraceable directly to malnutrition or poison in the mother, and by this\nmeans the fresh life is weakened or infected before it is born. So much\nthe greater is the importance of ante-natal nurture. The child can be\nsaved only through the mother. Inferior mothers must result in inferior\nchildren. And what we need now for the future maintenance and welfare\nof our race in adequate numbers and quality, is a speedy and practical\nrecognition of the truth that nothing will avail us if we so educate,\ntrain, and work our women that as mothers they fail in their creative\nhour.\n\nLet us now consider briefly how these matters stand in our land at the\npresent time, and let us examine them in the light of these facts we have\nestablished of an over-burdened and, therefore, unfit motherhood. And the\nfirst thing we find is that the special conditions brought about by the\nGreat War have greatly increased the problem we have to solve. I have\nalready referred to the Report issued by the Health of Munition Workers\nCommittee on \u201cEmployment of Women\u201d and \u201cHours of Work.\u201d They give summary\naccounts of the conditions of women\u2019s labour and what is actually going\non. I confess that what is stated has filled me with the gravest fears. I\nwill give a few of the facts as they are set down.\n\n    \u201c_The engagement of women in the manufacture of munitions\n    presents many features of outstanding interest. Probably the\n    most striking is the universal character of their response to\n    the country\u2019s call for help; but of equal social and industrial\n    significance is the extension of the employment of married\n    women, the extension of the employment of young girls and the\n    revival of the employment of women at night._\u201d\n\nWith regard to the class of women employed we learn\u2014\n\n    \u201c_The munition workers of to-day include dressmakers, laundry\n    workers, shop assistants, university and art students, women\n    and girls of every social grade and of no previous wage-earning\n    experience, also, in large numbers, wives and widows of\n    soldiers, many married women who had retired altogether from\n    industrial life, and many again who had never entered it. In\n    the character of the response lies largely the secret of its\n    industrial success, which is remarkable. The fact that women\n    and girls of all types and ages have pressed and are pressing\n    into industry shows a spirit of patriotism which is as finely\n    maintained as it was quickly shown._\u201d\n\nThe prodigious efforts of war are employing energies that have never been\nemployed before. And there is something fine in the obdurate courage\nand determination of women to go through with their work. The spirit of\nwoman does not easily resist. Ah! there is the danger. It is so difficult\nto induce any woman to recognise the limits of her physical powers. I\nam certain, too, that this danger of reckless overstrain is greater in\nEngland than in many other lands where women are working, for here custom\nand our habits of curious prudery force a woman to treat her sexual life\nas if it did not exist. This is the deep root of the danger. Thus, just\nas I should expect, the report goes on\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Conditions of work are accepted without question and without\n    complaint which, immediately detrimental to output, would,\n    if continued, be ultimately disastrous to health. It is for\n    the nation to safeguard the devotion of its workers by its\n    foresight and watchfulness, lest irreparable harm be done to\n    body and mind both in this generation and in the next._\u201d\n\nThe necessity of war has revived, after almost a century of disuse,\nthe night employment of women in factories.[7] The report shows the\ndeterioration in the health and energy of the women, due partly to\noverstrain from want of sleep and proper rest, but also to the difficulty\nthe workers find in eating at night. We read\u2014\n\n    \u201c_In one factory visited at night the manager stated that\n    fatigue prevented many of the women making the effort to go\n    from there to the mess room, though in itself the room was\n    attractive. In another, visited also by night, several women\n    were lying, during the meal hour, beside their piles of\n    heaped-up work; while others, later, were asleep beside their\n    machines, facts which bear additional witness to the relative\n    failure of these hours. A few women of rare physique withstand\n    the strain sufficiently to maintain a reasonable output, but\n    the flagging effort of the majority is not only unproductive\n    at the moment, it has its influence also upon the subsequent\n    output, which suffers as in a vicious circle._\u201d\n\nThe report shows plainly the destruction that is taking place in the home\nlife of the workers. It states\u2014\n\n    \u201c_While the urgent necessity for women\u2019s work remains, and\n    while the mother\u2019s time and the time of the elder girls is\n    largely given to the making of munitions, the home and the\n    younger children must inevitably suffer. Where home conditions\n    are bad, as they frequently are, where a long working day is\n    aggravated by long hours of travelling, and where, in addition,\n    housing accommodation is inadequate, family life is defaced\n    beyond recognition._\u201d\n\nAgain, take this passage\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Often, far from offering a rest from the fatigue of the\n    day, the home conditions offer but fresh aggravation. A day\n    begun at 4 or even 3.30 a.m., for work at 6 a.m., followed by\n    fourteen[8] hours in the factory and another two or two and a\n    half hours on the journey back, may end at 10 or 10.30 p.m., in\n    a home or lodging where the prevailing degree of overcrowding\n    precludes all possibility of comfortable rest. Beds are never\n    empty and rooms are never aired, for in a badly crowded\n    district the beds, like the occupants, are organised in day and\n    night shifts. In such conditions of confusion, pressure and\n    overcrowding, home life can have no existence._\u201d\n\nThe overstrain of the women is increased by their difficulty in obtaining\nliving accommodation near to the factories.\n\n    \u201c_It is far from uncommon now to find some two or three hours\n    spent on the journey each way, generally under the fatiguing\n    conditions of an overcrowded tram or train, often with long\n    waits and a severe struggle before even standing room can\n    be obtained. The superintendent of a factory situated in a\n    congested district stated that the women constantly arrive with\n    their clothes torn in the struggle for a train, the satchel\n    in which they bring their tea being sometimes torn away. The\n    workers were of an exceptionally refined type, to whom such\n    rough handling should be altogether unfamiliar, but they bore\n    these conditions with cheerful resolution._\u201d\n\nWhat are the results going to be? Women have no right to bear such\nconditions with cheerful resolution. And it is just this acceptance\nof so many things that never ought to be accepted that fills me with\napprehension. You see, I believe there is a much deeper cause than the\nurgencies of the war which is causing women to spend their strength in\nindustrial work. Did I not think this, there would be little need for me\nto write.\n\nI know that women\u2019s labour at the present crisis is a matter of\nnecessity. How the work is to be done with the least possible injury to\nthe workers is the question of the present. For it is equally momentous\nto the future that the standard of health and well-being of the country\nshould be maintained. The problem is, how much work and of what kind can\nwomen do combined with perfect health. The health we must have, for it is\nrequisite for the life of the race.\n\nNo doubt Nature is prodigal in her gifts of energy to women and provides\nenough for high-pressure work. But what we forget is this: the total\namount of energy is strictly limited, and if women use up in work the\nenergy that ought to be stored for child-bearing, they are preparing the\nway for an enfeebled race. Thus the problem of women\u2019s labour will not\nbe solved until her work no more unfits her to be a mother than man\u2019s\nwork unfits him to be a father. Woman sows in her flesh for the race, and\nbecause the demands of sex are stronger upon her she has to store more\nfor the future than the man; she cannot expend so much in work in the\npresent.\n\nI have tried now to show in this and the preceding chapter the present\nand urgent need of an inquiry into the conditions of motherhood. The\nfacts we have considered give, I feel, sufficient proof of our immense\nfailure. Our attempt must be to bring order where we have had confusion.\nWe have got to end this disastrous squandering of women\u2019s energies; a\nbankrupt expenditure which must result in wholesale waste in health and\nthe lives of little children.\n\nAnd I do not allude here only to the obvious immediate remedies. These\nwill have to be made. The efforts for reducing infantile mortality must\nbe such as will have lasting and substantial effect. Feeble tinkerings\nwith such a question are the deepest foolishness. England can be\nindifferent to the health and well-being of women no longer, for she\ncannot afford to lose children by tens of thousands and to let the\nsurvivors be maimed and weakened by the million.\n\nThis, however, is not all; no legislation or social reconstruction\u2014not\nany outward change, can accomplish alone what needs to be done. I am\nvery certain of this. The wretched confusion and failure in efficient\nmotherhood, which repeats itself everywhere, again and again, and in\nall classes of women, must be due to something more than industrialism\nand the hideous, ugly pressure of work for women, now so startlingly\nincreased by the urgencies of war; it must be due to something stronger\nand more fundamental, to some inward cause. We must, I think, look\nto find some general and essential failure in women themselves\u2014some\nunsoundness in their desires and their ideals, and in the principles they\nhave set down for the conduct of their lives.\n\nWe have got to find what this failure is.\n\n    NOTE.\u2014The Annual Report for 1915 of the Chief Medical Officer\n    of the Board of Education has been issued since this chapter\n    was written. The conditions have not materially changed since\n    the previous year. Ten per cent. of all the children attending\n    the Elementary Schools suffer from malnutrition, due largely to\n    unsuitable and insufficient food. There is still a large amount\n    of uncleanliness\u2014the returns show about 16 per cent. of the\n    children have dirty heads, and 15 per cent. dirty bodies.\n\n    A further evil has arisen from the greatly increased employment\n    of children of school age; during one year 45,000 children have\n    left school before the usual age, and 15,000 are temporarily\n    employed in agriculture. In addition, more children are working\n    as \u201chalf-timers\u201d and as workers out of school hours. This\n    wasteful employment of the young life of the future must, as\n    the Report states, lead to physical and mental deterioration.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\nTHE MATERNAL INSTINCT IN THE MAKING\n\n\n\u201cBut what is the use of this history, what is the use of all this minute\nresearch? I well know that it will not produce a fall in the price of\npaper, a rise in that of crates of rotten cabbages, or other serious\nevents of that kind, which cause fleets to be manned and set people face\nto face intent on one another\u2019s extermination. The insect does not aim at\nso much glory. It confines itself to showing us life in the inexhaustible\nvariety of its manifestations; it helps us to decipher in some small\nmeasure the obscurest book of all\u2014the book of ourselves.\u201d\u2014HENRI FABRE.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER III\n\nINSECT PARENTHOOD\n\n\n    The necessity of beginning the investigation of motherhood\n    before human parenthood\u2014The instinct not fixed but dependent\n    on circumstances and the conditions of life\u2014Experiments in\n    family life\u2014Bewildering diversity in strength of parental\n    instinct\u2014Numerous cases of insect home makers\u2014Domestic economy\n    of bees and ants\u2014Does the word \u201cinstinct\u201d explain\u2014Parental\n    devotion of the scarabee beetles\u2014Fabre\u2019s account\u2014Important to\n    note (1) connection between form of union or marriage of the\n    sexes and parental devotion, (2) connection between degree of\n    intelligence in the parent and amount of care devoted to the\n    young.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nINSECT PARENTHOOD\n\n    \u201cThere can be few people alive who have not remarked on\n    occasion that men are the creatures of circumstances. But it\n    is one thing to state a belief of this sort in some incidental\n    application, and quite another to realise it completely.\u201d\u2014H. G.\n    WELLS.\n\n\nThis statement of Mr. Wells that I have placed at the head of the chapter\nwill explain the reason why I find it necessary to go back to the grey\nprimeval dawn of life to start my inquiry into motherhood. I want to\nestablish that the instinct of caring for the young is not fixed, that it\ndoes not always develop in the same way or in the same parent, but rather\nthat it is a quality, fluid and of indeterminate possibilities, that can\nbe set and shaped by the conditions of life as wax is shaped by a mould.\nAnd I know no other way to make this clear. The few scattered facts that\nI have been able to gather together tell the miracles of the parental\ninstinct. They must, I think, teach us humility. Let us throw aside the\ngarments of conceit and false learning, and recognise that in reality we\nknow almost nothing about anything, if things are probed to the bottom.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the widest treatment of the maternal instinct it will not suffice to\nnarrow our attention to the function of human motherhood, or to take up\nour study of the conditions relating to the mother and the child as we\nfind them amongst us to-day. Were I to do this and to attempt at once\nto bring forward my own views, with the reforms that I wish for in this\nmatter, my work would be as a building without a firm foundation, more or\nless uncertain, and for this reason valueless.\n\nTo get a proper grip of all that is here concerned we must understand\nthat the maternal instinct is the deepest and strongest instinct in\nwoman. It is in the emotions and actions either directly arising from\nor connected with motherhood that we find the real difference between\nthe sexes. In its essence the parental instinct belongs to woman alone.\nThe male may be infected with its energy\u2014we witness this among birds,\nas well as in humbler animals, where the duties of caring for offspring\nare shared and, in some cases, carried out by the male alone; but man\npossesses, as yet, its faint analogy only. It is the most primary of all\nwomen\u2019s qualities.[9]\n\nNow, why is this? Why is woman\u2019s being so much more strongly infected\nwith motherhood than the man\u2019s with fatherhood?\n\nIt is a question not so readily to be answered as it might appear. If we\nfind the explanation in the intimate connection between the mother and\nthe child we have not, I think, exhausted the matter. We must not forget\nthat other questions remain behind unanswered, all centring round the one\nquestion to which an adequate answer is so difficult to find: How has\nthis arisen? The fact has to be explained that the sharp separation in\nthe parental impulse and the parental duties, so strong amongst us, has\nnot always existed; that there are many examples in the history of life\nwhich show an exactly opposite condition.\n\nTo find the clue it will thus be necessary to turn our attention to the\nearlier stages of life where, in particular among insects, reptiles,\nfishes, and birds, we find the widest possible range of difference in\nthe expression of the parental instinct and the most varied relations\nexisting between parents and offspring. Here indeed, among these\npre-human parents, we can study the maternal instinct in the making.\nThere are many new and strange facts for us to learn.\n\nI know well the dangers of such an inquiry. To many, who will allow its\ninterest, it will yet appear as being profitless. There is perhaps some\njustification for this view. Certainly any attempt to establish the\nconditions of human motherhood from examples in natural history must\nbe far from conclusive. All comparisons of our own habits and impulses\nwith their earlier expression as we see them in the animals are somewhat\nunsatisfactory. The lines on which human motherhood has developed and\nthe conditions which have so largely helped to shape its expression,\ndiffer vastly from many of the other needs and circumstances which govern\nthe activities of parents in the lower forms of life. Chief among these\ndifferences is the more complex character of the human brain, which is\ncorrelated with the far greater length of time that the human infant is\ndependent on its mother.\n\nYet, allowing for all this difference, I believe that there is much\nfor us to learn from the life-histories of these pre-human parents. At\nleast we find wonderful agreement prevailing between the conduct which\nwe think reason dictates to us and that which we hold instinct dictates\nto the animals. And the question will be forced upon us: How far back in\nthe record of life did the fierce mother-instinct exist? We shall find\nmany unheeded examples, alike of its operation and of its failure to\noperate, which, if we consider them, in the light they may possibly cast\nforward on our own problems, will not fail to bring us to some unexpected\nconclusions. Life is full of surprises, and this matter of the care of\nthe young affords not the least of them. Nowhere are the links between\nthe present and the past more fascinatingly represented.\n\nI am far indeed from being able to explain many facts I have come to\nknow. I have been puzzled often, and the suggestions I offer I know may\nbe wrong. The early stages in the growth of parental care, even among the\nanimals whose habits are known to us, are often enshrouded in mystery,\nbaffling the penetration of the most patient and careful inquirers.\nNevertheless, during recent years a host of facts have been gathered\ntogether which throw much new light not only on the theme of pre-human\nparenthood, but also on the probable action of the parental instinct as\nit has slowly developed through the ages.\n\nBut apart from such more speculative considerations there are yet other\naspects to be considered, such as the effect of the environment, the\nconditions of the home, and the type of union between the male and the\nfemale, all of which have their influence on the duration and kind of\ncare shown by animal parents to their offspring. Some explanation must\nbe sought for the almost bewildering diversity which we find in this\nrelationship; for while the young of some animals (and often among\nlow types where least we should expect it) are jealously guarded and\ncared for by at least one of the parents, in others there is no trace\nof such sacrifice and solicitude, and the young are thrown on to the\nworld, orphaned before they are born, and left to live or die as chance\ndecrees. Why is this? Why is the parental instinct so actively strong in\nsome cases, so absent in others? Can we, indeed, hope to find the answer?\nIf we can do this, we shall learn much to surprise and also to instruct\nus.\n\nIn the higher types of animals, with the longer period of infancy, some\namount of care for the young is always shown by the mother. All the\nmammals, without exception, nurse their offspring for a longer or shorter\nperiod. Among the birds the young in many species are tended by both\nparents, and we find many beautiful examples of parental fosterage and\nprotection. But we find also species, like the cuckoos, which thrust\nthe parental duties on to others; and there are others, such as the\nmegapodes, where the mother trusts the incubation of her eggs to natural\nagencies, and after placing them in a position to get the heat generated\nby decaying vegetation or that derived from hot springs, leaves them, and\nexhibits no apparent care for the future welfare of the family.\n\nHere is something to give us food for thought. And the same surprises\nmeet us as we descend the scale of life. The reptiles show little or\nno parental care, but strangely enough the toads and frogs, and many\nfishes, furnish us with examples of remarkable forethought, or apparent\nforethought, for their offspring; and, let it be noted, this solicitude\nis in most cases shown by the father and not by the mother. Even more\nremarkable are the insects, among whom, though still lower in the scale,\nwe find the most wonderful cases of parental sacrifice to be met with\nanywhere in life. Some of these little creatures, indeed, seem to be\nendowed with a devotion to their young so insistent, that their lives\ncan be described only as a passion of sacrifice. In truth they live but\nto give life and die. And accompanying this parental sacrifice, first\nin supplying food for embryonic development, and also, in some cases,\naffording fosterage and protection during the early stages of growth,\nwe meet the most varied and wonderful behaviour which seems to prove an\nintelligence that thinks and plans; and, whatever explanation we try to\nfind for these acts of devotion, we still are far from understanding\nthem. Life has its secrets, and we shall probably fail to penetrate these\nmysteries. All that is possible to us is to inquire humbly that we may\nlearn a few truths.\n\nBut for the sake of clearness, let me cease from generalising and direct\nour attention to certain definite examples. I will select first the model\nhousehold of the _Minotaurus Typh\u00e6us_ in the order _Coleoptera_\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe female digs a large burrow which is often more than a\n    yard and a half deep and which consists of spiral staircases,\n    landings, passages and numerous chambers. The male loads the\n    earth on the three-pronged fork that surmounts his head and\n    carries it to the entrance of the conjugal dwelling. Next he\n    goes into the fields in search of harmless droppings left by\n    the sheep, he takes these down to the first storey of the\n    crypt and, with the aid of his trident begins to reduce them\n    to flour, while the mother, right at the bottom, collects and\n    kneads it into huge cylindrical loaves, which will presently\n    become food for the little ones. For three months, until the\n    provisions are deemed sufficient, the unfortunate husband,\n    without taking any nourishment of any kind, exhausts himself in\n    this gigantic work. At last, his task is accomplished. Feeling\n    his end is at hand, so as not to encumber the house with his\n    wretched remains, he spends his last strength in leaving\n    the burrow, drags himself laboriously along and, lonely and\n    resigned, knowing that he is henceforth good for nothing, goes\n    and dies far away amid the stones.\u201d[10]\n\nHere we have exactly the kind of example we are in search of, and the\nmost important thing to observe is the co-operation of the father with\nthe mother in the work of providing for the family: such male devotion is\nundoubtedly exceptional.\n\nSome measure of parental solicitude is almost universally common, and\neven among the lowliest creatures we find convincing proof of this.\nAmong the species of limited resources, where the least care is bestowed\nand the young are left to look after themselves, the eggs are placed\nby the mother in a suitable environment so that the young can be sure\nof a sufficiency of food until they can feed themselves. The numerous\ncaterpillars offer a well-known illustration of this primitive care,\nwhere it is common for the eggs to be attached to the food-plant by means\nof some adhesive covering. More striking is the case of certain weevils,\nwhich, in order to endow their young with a suitable home, possess the\nart of rolling a leaf in which the eggs are laid, thus forming a nursery,\nwhich serves as board and lodging in one.\n\nFabre, in a wonderful account of the most skilful of these workers, the\nPoplar weevil, states that not far from the scroll, made and laboriously\nrolled by the mother, we almost always find the male. But do not make\na mistake. The weevil father is not moved by devotion to the family\ninterests as was the father in the last case we examined. No, rather\nhe is filled with the egoistic desire of the male. But I must give the\nhistory as Fabre relates it, fearing to spoil his beautiful account by my\nown halting description\u2014\n\n    \u201cWhat is he doing there, the idler? Is he watching the work as\n    a mere inquisitive onlooker? From time to time I see him take\n    his stand behind the manufacturer, in the groove of the fold,\n    hang on to a cylinder and join for a little in the work. This\n    is a means of declaring his flame and urging his merits. After\n    several refusals and notwithstanding advances made by a brief\n    collaboration at the scroll, the impatient one is accepted.\n    For ten minutes the rolling is suspended. The male still looks\n    on. Sooner or later a new visit is paid to the worker by the\n    dawdler, who, under pretence of assisting, plants his claws for\n    a moment into the rolling piece, plucks up courage and renews\n    his exploits with the same vigour as though nothing had yet\n    happened. And this is repeated four or five times during the\n    making of a single cigar.\u201d\n\nHere, it may be remarked in passing, we seem to see the first faint\nexpression of the father\u2019s interest in the family, which, if I may\nhazard a guess, may have started in this way as a means of gaining his\ndesire with the female. The correctness of this surmise will receive\nconsiderable confirmation as we proceed with our inquiry. And if\nanalogies with animal conduct were not so apt to be misleading, I would\nventure to suggest the persistence of the same egoistic factor among many\nhuman fathers. But for the present I must leave this question.\n\nFrom the very beginning of life parental sacrifice is more common in the\nmother; it is in exceptional cases that her devotion is shared by the\nfather. But such good fathers are of special importance to our inquiry.\nEven more interesting are those species among which the father takes\nall charge of the young, while the mother spends her time away from the\nfamily. Nor is this departure from what we may call the normal order of\nthe family so surprising as at first sight it may seem, if we can account\nfor the necessity under which probably it arose and seek to explain it.\n\nThe welfare of the young is a matter of vital urgency; instinct dictates\nto the animals what reason dictates to us. Nature, as if to show\nher resourcefulness, her love of successful experiments, is always\ndiscovering contrary ways of attaining the same end. And what I wish to\nmake clear is this: when, for some reason that we do not know, the family\ncares are neglected by the mothers, the work of tending and feeding the\nyoung is undertaken by the fathers. I shall have much more to say on\nthis question at a later stage, and I ask you to keep it persistently in\nthe focus of your attention. I desire to emphasise it at once. Whatever\ngroups of animals we survey, we shall find examples of this replacement\nof the mother by the father, new aspects of the family, which may afford\nus a better grip of some problems that at present elude us.\n\nThe reality of the mother\u2019s regard for the young is proved among many\ninsects by the building of a nest to safeguard the family. The Anthidium,\nor tailor-bee, and the Chalicodoma, a species of wild bee, afford\nillustrations of this maternal forethought. In the former case the eggs,\nwhen laid, are placed in the ground, protected in cotton-felt satchels\nmade by the mother from fibre which she scratches with her mandibles from\nthe cobwebby stalks of the yellow centaury; the Chalicodoma works with\ncement and gravel carefully selected from some ruined building, and with\nsuch difficult material she fashions her nursery. Even more remarkable is\nthe home of the Magachilles, or leaf-cutting bee. The mother bee, using\nher mandibles as scissors, cuts pieces from the leaves of the trees,\nwherewith she forms thimble-shaped wallets to contain the honey and eggs;\nthe larger oval pieces which she cuts make the sides and the floor, and\nthe round pieces the lid or door. These leaf-formed thimbles are placed\nin a row, one on top of the other, sometimes as many as a dozen being\nused. The cylinder thus formed is fitted into the deserted home of some\nother insect, such as the tunnels of fat earth-worms, the apartments\nbored in the trunks of trees by the larv\u00e6 of the Capricorn beetles, or,\nfailing these, a reed stump or crevice in the wall is selected. But the\nchoice of the home is always carefully made, it would seem, according\nto the tastes of the mothers. This structure, in part made and in part\nborrowed, forms the leaf-cutter\u2019s nest.[11]\n\nNumerous cases of home-making might be recorded, and the difficulty rests\nin the selection. Many spiders and the book scorpion carry their eggs in\na silken bag attached to the under surface of the body. There is a case\nrecorded that shows heroic devotion on the part of one spider mother.\nShe was placed (in order that her behaviour might be watched) in the pit\nof an ant-lion. At once the enemy seized the eggs and tore them from her\ncharge. Then the mother, though she was driven out of the pit, returned\nand chose to be dragged in and buried alive rather than desert her\ncharge.[12]\n\nA regular process of incubation is practised by the mother earwig, and\nthe young, when hatched, keep close to her for protection. Special food\nfor the young is prepared by many mothers, as, for instance, among the\n_apid\u00e6_, who prepare a disgorged food in the form of a sweet milk juice.\nThe _Hymenoptera_ mothers, upon whom the cares of motherhood devolve in\ntheir fulness, provide board and lodging for their family. Stores of\ninsects are caught and preserved in the nursery larder, being cunningly\nparalysed so that live food may be ready when needed by the children.\nThese clever mothers, as Fabre has shown us, become masters of a host of\narts for the benefit of a family which their faceted eyes will never see.\n\nOf the domestic economy of the bees and ants whole volumes might be,\nand have been, written. The habits of the termites, the so-called\nwhite ants, are less widely known, although they show one of the most\nremarkable developments of the family that I have met. Each colony is\nreally a patriarchal family, in which the members, all the descendants of\na single pair, live in a community, and work in different ways. All the\nindividuals are at first true males and females. Some of these develop\nslowly, but grow up perfect insects able to form new families. But the\nworkers and the soldiers have to pass a period of youthful servitude in\nthe community. These develop quickly, and grow up blind and wingless, and\ntheir reproductive organs remain in a condition of arrested development.\nSome of these are workers, and carry out the duties of the community;\nothers at the same time develop jaws and heads of enormous size. It is\ntheir duty to defend the colony. And from this has come about the strange\ncondition of their being so altered and trained for their special work\nthat they cannot pass on to the normal life and normal duties of perfect\nindividuals.\n\nAmong the bees and some social wasps there is a further step, and only\nfemales are selected to do household work, and modified so that they\nlose the ordinary personal instincts and devote themselves entirely to\nworking for the community, while the males develop only the instincts and\ncapacities of sex. In some species of wasps, however, the males do some\nwork, chiefly domestic, for which they are fed by their foraging sisters.\nIn the communities of ants, as in the termites, there are individuals\nmodified to serve as workers and as soldiers; but here again they are all\narrested females, and the males are used only for the purpose of sex. The\ncolonies of ants last much longer than those of the bees and wasps, which\nare annual, and this has given the possibility of the elaboration of a\nvery complex and extraordinary community.[13]\n\nWe are always being surprised by new experiments in family life which\nshow the ready adaptation of habits to special circumstances. A bald\nstatement of these facts seems to tell very little. I leave untouched a\nwhole series of devices and wonderful behaviour\u2014so much that I should\nlike to record. In all these cases we see the maternal instinct in\nthe making. But so varied and so fitting to the needed purpose are\nthe actions of these lowly parents that much which they do gives an\nimpression of the inexplicable\u2014even the magical.\n\nIt is common to explain everything by the word \u201cinstinct.\u201d But does\nthis explanation take us very far? An elaborate instinctive capacity\nis probably the result of adding on one contrivance after another to\na simpler common habit. And this is surely the same as saying that\nthese little creatures have the power of learning through experience.\nA beginning of the instinct of caring for the young is exhibited when\nthe mother insect chooses a favourable food position wherein to lay the\neggs. Nor is it difficult to imagine how this maternal forethought may\nhave grown out of an earlier habit, for it is but a step, though a great\none, from collecting food for self\u2014an instinct that may be traced back\nand back\u2014to the habit of providing and collecting food for others. Then,\nthis instinct of caring for the future being strongly fixed, it, in some\ncases and under certain favourable conditions, leads on and on to the\nspecialised maternity and climax of parental sacrifice and devotion, such\nas may be illustrated by the admirable scarabees, or dung-beetles, of the\nMediterranean region and elsewhere.\n\nI have given one case of perfect parents, the _Minotaurus Typh\u00e6us_; but\nI wish to review such conduct more fully. The family qualities of the\ndung-beetles are so devoted and so striking, they will repay our study.\n\nThe late M. Fabre describes in his inimitable way the nursery which makes\nthe centre and life of the scarabees\u2019 home. These dung-workers edify us\nwith their morals. Both sexes co-operate in making the burrows which\nserve as a larder for food and a nursery for the young. They are cavities\ndug in soft earth, usually in sand, shallow in form, about the size of\none\u2019s fist, and communicating with the outside by a short channel just\nlarge enough for the passage of the balls of dung-food. Both parents\nwork with equal zeal to found a household. \u201cThe father is the purveyor\nof victuals and the person entrusted with the carrying away of rubbish.\nAlone, at different hours of the day he flings out of doors the earth\nthrown up by the mother\u2019s excavations; alone he explores the vicinity of\nthe home at night in quest of the pellets whereof his sons\u2019 loaves shall\nbe kneaded.\n\n\u201cA most careful choice of material is undertaken, and often the devoted\nhusband and father is compelled to search long and far for pellets\nfreshly dropped, for whereas coarse bread crammed with bits of hay is\ngood enough for his own and his wife\u2019s food, he is always more careful\nwhere the children are concerned. Legful by legful, with slow and most\npatient labour, the material is heaped up and rolled into a ball. Then\nthe food-ball has to be carried to the burrow; no easy task. Even then\nthe father\u2019s labours are not ended; on reaching the burrow, it is his\nwork to shred the dung-food into flour, which he pours down to the mother\nfor her to knead into the children\u2019s bread. Finally, when the last task\nis accomplished, the dung-father goes out alone to die. He has gallantly\nperformed his duty as a paterfamilias; he has spent himself without stint\nto secure the prosperity of his kith and kin.\u201d\n\nThe devotion of the dung-father is equalled by that of the dung-mother.\nMore skilled than her spouse in domestic matters, she is occupied always\nin the home, where she works in the lower floor of the burrow, which she\nhas prepared for the nursery. Here she kneads and forms the cylindrical\nloaves in which the eggs are placed. In some cases she does more, and we\nfind several species of the dung-mothers anticipating the suckling of\nthe young, the supreme expression of maternal solicitude. These mothers\nchew the dung-food, and out of it prepare a frothy pap or cream, with\nwhich they cover the walls of the nest to form a special first meal for\nthe emerging grub. Throughout her working life the dung-mother never\nleaves the home. It should be noted that her family is always a very\nsmall one: does this, perhaps, explain the parental devotion? From the\nfirst fortnight in May, when the eggs are laid, the mother mounts guard\nover her children. Never does she eat herself, as she will not touch the\nfood prepared and needed for them. She watches through the long months\nuntil the coming of the autumn rains in September. Then, when the day\nof release comes at last, she returns to the surface, accompanied by her\nfamily. At once her children leave her; unmindful of her devotion, they\ngo off to find food and begin life for themselves. Thereupon, having\nnothing left to do, she dies, and ends her sacrifice.[14]\n\nBefore I leave this fascinating record of the dung-beetle parents, space\nmust be found wherein to note further certain of their characteristics\nand habits, which are of special interest to my inquiry as they would\nappear to be directly connected with the highly developed family\nqualities of these insects. Fabre tells us that there is no outward\ndifference between the two sexes among the dung-beetles. I call attention\nto this fact, which I am not able to explain. The scarabees are among the\nmost beautiful of all insects, and the female and male share the same\nglory. It is my belief that the secondary sexual characters are directly\ndependent on the occupational activities of the species, as also on the\nform of union or marriage which pertains and the strength of the parental\nemotions. Thus, when the male and the female are equally devoted to each\nother and to the family and its care, many cases among these pre-human\nparents seem to prove that such devotion and occupational union tends\nto lessen the ornamental sexual differences in the secondary physical\ncharacters. This is a question of profound interest, and demands more\nattention than it has yet received.\n\nThe second fact is of even greater importance to us. The form of union or\nmarriage common among the dung-beetles would appear to be an unusually\nstrict monogamy. These insects, as we have seen, associate in couples,\nand there is strong evidence that the male remains faithful to his\nspouse. Such admirable conduct is the more remarkable when we remember\nthat the mother is held in the nursery by her duties during the greater\nperiod of the marriage; and meantime the father has to wander far in\nsearch of food, making frequent excursions outside the home, but he\nresists the temptations to which these outings are likely to lead, and\nalways he returns to the home, where he wears himself out for his family.\n\nTo test the strength of this conjugal fidelity Fabre made an experiment\nwith the dung-beetles of whose habits I have before spoken, the\n_Minotaurus Typh\u00e6us_. He placed two couples of these beetles in an\nenclosed space, marking one of the couples. He allowed them to begin\nthe making of their burrows or homes, then he separated the couples\nand destroyed the half-made burrows. Once, twice, and a third time he\ndid this, causing confusion among these peaceful workers. But on each\noccasion the couples came together in the same order; the right male and\nfemale knew each other, and, taking little notice of the tumult, each\ntime again they began their work of home-making.\n\nFive more times Fabre separated them and broke up their homes. The result\nI will give in Fabre\u2019s own beautiful words\u2014\n\n    \u201cThings are now spoilt, sometimes each of the four that are\n    experimented on settles apart, sometimes the same burrow\n    contains the two males or the two females, sometimes the same\n    crypt the two sexes, but differently associated from what\n    they were at first. I have abused my powers of repetition.\n    Henceforth disorder reigns. My daily shufflings have\n    demoralised the burrowers, a crumbling home always requiring\n    to be begun afresh has put an end to lawful associations.\n    Respectable married life becomes impossible from the moment\n    when the house falls in from day to day.\u201d\n\nI have now said enough, I think, to show that at many different levels\nin the insect kingdom the parental instinct is already developed.\nPre-eminent in virtue is the behaviour of the dung-beetle parents. And\nthis is all the more interesting as it proves how closely related good\nparenthood is with the conditions of the home and the form of marriage.\n\nA few more words may here be added to what has been said already\nconcerning the influence of intelligence on instinct. It is a difficult\nquestion, but, speaking roughly, intelligence may be said to act in two\nopposite ways; that is, it may aid both in the making and the unmaking of\ninstincts.[15] Thus the dung-beetles frequently change their conduct, and\nthey do this by modifying their instincts through intelligent adaptation.\nIt is scarcely too much to say that with them intelligence reaches its\nhighest form of originality. Why is this? Fabre gives us the answer.\n\u201cThe more the maternal instinct asserts itself, the higher does instinct\nascend.\u201d\n\nIt would be better probably if the word instinct were used in a more\nrestricted sense: it should not be regarded as being able to explain\neverything. This mysterious impulse is held to direct all pre-human\nparents in their conduct to their young. Very well; but what of the\ndirecting force behind? The evidence is strong that even the lowliest\ncreatures have their own problems, and are able to solve them. Can we\nexplain otherwise the wide difference in conduct between parent and\nparent? Do we know what it is that gives a special direction to the\ninstinctive activities in the accomplishment of a design greater than any\nof these parents know? We cannot answer fully. But instinct has its twin\nbrother in intelligence, and, acting together, they are the guardians of\nlife.\n\nWhen real things are so wonderful, what can we do but note them and\ntry to understand? Not elsewhere in the insect world do we meet with a\ndevotion more complete than that of both the dung-parents; not elsewhere\ndo we find a finer development of intelligence. These two things are\nrelated and closely dependent, the one upon the other. It is this fact\nthat now I am seeking to establish. Sacrifice in the parent does not lead\nto limitation, but to expansion.\n\nAt this early stage of life the care of the young is as a rule very\nslight, and often is confined, as I have shown, to the laying of the\neggs in a favourable position, where the grub can find food. \u201cThe higher\ninspirations of the intellect are banished among these insects.\u201d I quote\nagain from Fabre, whose opinion on this question so strongly confirms\nall that I wish to make clear. He asserts further: \u201cThe mother neglects\nthe gentle cares of the cradle, and the prerogatives of the intellect,\nthe best of all, diminish and disappear, so true is it that for animals,\neven as for ourselves, the family is the source of perfection.\u201d And\nagain: \u201cPlaced in charge of the duration of the species, which is of more\nserious interest than the preservation of individuals, maternity awakens\na marvellous foresight in the drowsiest intelligence.\u2026 The more maternity\nasserts itself, the higher does instinct ascend.\u201d\n\nWe cannot get away from this; it is one of the unalterable laws of life.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER IV\n\nPARENTHOOD AMONG THE REPTILES AND FISHES\n\nA CHAPTER ON GOOD FATHERS\n\n\n    The parental impulse not always fixed in the mother\u2014Among\n    reptiles and fishes, such care as is afforded by parents is\n    given most frequently by the father\u2014Suggested reason for\n    this\u2014Primitive hatching nurseries\u2014Parental care among frogs\n    and toads\u2014Many examples of exemplary fathers\u2014The devotion\n    of the male stickleback\u2014The unnatural conduct of the female\n    stickleback\u2014The emotions of the fish\u2014Fish fathers who guard\n    the nest\u2014Perpetual variety in the actions of even the lowliest\n    parents\u2014Summary\u2014No continuous line of development of instinct\n    in scale of animals\u2014Much baffles our explanations\u2014Suggestions\n    important to my inquiry\u2014Reversal of sex labours\u2014Is it due to\n    failure on the part of the mother\u2014Devoted parents are of high\n    intelligence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPARENTHOOD AMONG REPTILES AND FISHES\n\nA CHAPTER ON GOOD FATHERS\n\n    \u201cNature is a riddle without a definite solution to satisfy\n    man\u2019s curiosity.\u201d\u2014MAURICE MAETERLINCK.\n\n\nIn this chapter I shall consider certain examples, which I think are\nimportant to establish what we have learnt in our examination of the\ninsects, that the parental impulse was not always fixed in the mother.\nAmong the reptiles and fishes the reverse is true, and what care is\nafforded to the young is given most frequently by the father.[16]\n\nThe bond between the mother and her young is directly dependent on their\nhelplessness and the duration of time during which they require her care\nand attention. Young reptiles are from birth independent, and, as a\nconsequence, there has been no stimulus to develop maternal solicitude.\nBetween mother and offspring there are no ties of affection save in one\nor two exceptional cases.\n\nYoung alligators, for example, are guarded by their mothers and owe\nmore to her than they can ever know. She prepares a hatching nursery by\nscraping together a large mound of leaves, twigs, and fine earth, and\nupon this mound the eggs are placed about eight inches from the surface.\nThen the mother digs a hole in the river bank, close by, and here she\nwaits and watches to protect her children.\n\nA more advanced form of nursery building is practised by the tortoise,\nwho prepares a sort of nest with considerable care, which she afterwards\ncunningly conceals. But when once the eggs are safe she shows no further\ninterest in the safety of the nest.[17]\n\nMost snakes bury their eggs and then leave them. But a more enduring\nmaternal interest is felt by the mother python; she coils her body\naround her future family and jealously guards them during the period of\nincubation, refusing all food and never leaving her duty.\n\nA similar guardianship is shown to young crocodiles by their mothers. The\nhome is prepared by digging a deep hole in the sand in which the eggs\nare placed, and during the period of incubation each mother sleeps in\nguard above her family. The naturalist Voeltzkow, to prove the reality\nof one mother crocodile\u2019s solicitude, built a fence around the nest just\nbefore the hatching time. Each night on her return, the mother broke down\nthe fence, though each time it was made stronger than the last. Finally\nthe nest was found to be deserted, and then it was discovered that this\nintelligent and persecuted mother had dug a hole beneath the fence and\nthence had led her brood away to safety.\n\nIt is impossible to admire sufficiently such a case as this one, where we\nsee so clearly the driving power of maternal solicitude in quickening the\nintelligence of even the lowliest mothers. Such cases are, however, few\nin number out of the 2,600 species of reptiles of whom the majority are\nunnatural parents.\n\nBut again surprises await us. Many frogs and toads, both the mothers\nand the fathers, show a really marked development of the familial\ninstincts.[18] An illustration of this care is furnished by a large\ntree-frog (_Hyla faber_) of Brazil, commonly known as the _Ferreiro_,\n\u201cthe smith,\u201d from its strange voice resembling the mallet of a smith,\nslowly and regularly striking on a metal plate. This frog prepares a\nnursery in the shallow waters of the ponds, where a basin-shaped hollow\nis dug in the mud. The building is done by the mother, the material\nremoved being used to form a wall, circular in shape, which is carried\nup to the surface of the water. In this cavity the eggs are placed,\nprotected against the attacks of aquatic insects and fishes. A Japanese\ntree frog (_Rhacophorus schlegelii_) builds a similar nest, but here\nthe mother lines the walls of her nursery with a secretion, a kind of\nmilk food, from her own body, which by rapid movements of her feet is\nworked into a froth, and in the midst of this foamy mass the eggs are\nlaid. More remarkable is the nursery building of the \u201cWollunnkukk\u201d frog\n(_Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis_) of Paraguay, whose habits were noted\nby Dr. Budgett during the exploration of the Paraguayan Chaco. \u201cWhilst\nsitting near the water\u2019s edge he saw a female carrying a male upon her\nback. At last she climbed up the stem of a plant, reached out and caught\nhold of an overhanging leaf and climbed on to it. Both then caught hold\nof its edges and held them together; and into the funnel thus formed\nthe female poured her eggs, the male fertilising them as they passed.\nThe jelly surrounding the eggs served as a cement to hold the edges of\nthe leaves together. Then, moving up a little further, the process was\nrepeated until the leaf was full, and about a hundred eggs had been\nenclosed.\u201d[19]\n\nA similar leaf nest is made by a Brazilian frog, known as Ihering\u2019s\nfrog (_P. Ihering\u00ed_), while a home of more elaborate construction, in\nwhich several leaves are used, is prepared by Savage\u2019s leaf-frog (_P.\nSauvagii_).\n\nIt should be noted that in these cases the care of the parents is\nconfined to the providing of a nursery; when once this is done the young\nare abandoned. But many frogs and toads do much more than this, and one\nor other parents, most often the father, guard their offspring with\njealous care. A Papuan frog-father, for instance, takes up the duties of\na nurse; and when the eggs are laid, he sits upon them, holding the mass\nwith both hands. And this vigil he keeps during the whole time while the\nyoung are undergoing growth, passing through the larval and tadpole stage.\n\nWe must own that such a father acts with singular devotion. It should be\nnoted that seventeen eggs only are laid by the mother, a much smaller\nnumber than is common among the species where neither parent affords any\nkind of guardianship. This is what we should expect. Nature has different\nways of gaining the same end. Life must be carried on, that is all that\nmatters\u2014an incessant renewal, an undying fresh beginning and unfolding\nof life. But a species is maintained sometimes by the prodigality of\nproduction and sometimes by the expenditure of care and sacrifice on the\npart of the parents. And here we find again a lesson waiting for us to\nlearn. For it is hardly necessary to point out that the same facts are\ntrue of human births; just as the family is unregulated or considered,\ndo we find waste and many births with parental neglect in the first case\nand restricted births with parental devotion in the second. There seem to\nbe no problems of the family that these pre-human parents have not had to\nface and solve.\n\nBut to return.\n\n\u201cThe celebrated Midwife toad (_Alytes obstetricans_) gives us a further\ndelightful example of the father nursing the young. The mother-toad lays\nher eggs attached to one another by threads so that they form a long\nchain. The father-toad then twines this chaplet of his wife\u2019s eggs round\nand round his thighs. He has the strange appearance, it has been said,\nof a gentleman of the court of the time of James I, arrayed in puffed\nbreeches. His devotion is very complete. After having encumbered himself\nwith the coming family, he retreats to a hole in the ground. Here he\nstays with admirable patience by day, stealing forth at night to feed,\nand to bathe his egg-burdened legs in dew or, when possible, in water.\nWhen his period of service is past and the young are ready for quitting\nthe eggs, he seeks the water. Here before long the young burst forth and\nswim away, whereupon the father, now free from his family duties, makes\nhimself tidy (cleans himself of the remains of the eggs) and resumes his\nnormal appearance.\u201d\n\nWith some frogs, as, for example, in certain S. American and African\nspecies, the parents take up the burden of caring for the young only\nafter they have reached the tadpole stage. The German naturalist Brauer\nrecently found in the Seychelles islands a small frog (_Arthroleptis\nSeychellensis_) undertaking the guardianship of the young family. An\nadult frog (it is not stated whether it was the father or the mother)\nwas carrying nine tadpoles on its back, to which they were attached by\na sucker on the belly. Unfortunately, little is known of the habits of\nthese frogs. It is believed that the eggs are laid in some shallow pool,\nand that later one or other parent returns to the nursery to take up the\ncare of the young tadpoles.\n\nA further remarkable case of care exercised by the father is that of\nDarwin\u2019s frog, the _Rhinoderma darwini_, where the eggs are guarded in a\ngreat pouch under the throat, and opening by two slits into the mouth.\nDuring the courtship this pouch is used as a voice organ to charm the\nfemale, with sharp ringing notes like a bell. But the love-calls end with\nthe birth of the family. There is now serious work to be accomplished.\nThe father takes his wife\u2019s eggs into his pouch, which now enlarges and\nextends backwards under the belly to the groin, and upwards on each side\nalmost to the backbone. In the warm chamber thus formed, the tadpoles\nlive until they become young frogs. They then make their way up through\nthe doorways into their father\u2019s mouth, and from that living nursery they\nswim out into the wide world.\n\nWell, what can we say of this case? We have heard of some animal fathers\neating their progeny, but here the father\u2019s mouth is turned into the\nhatching nursery. Did I not tell you we should find very much to astonish\nus?\n\nI could give many more examples of reptile parents whose family habits\nare more or less singular. There are the little-known \u201cC\u0153cilians,\u201d[20]\nthe strange, snakelike amphibians of S.E. Asia and Ceylon; where the\nmother, with her limbless body, yet contrives to dig a nursery for her\neggs, which she jealously guards. I should like to write of the families\nof the newts and salamanders, among whom the young are never completely\nabandoned, and whose parental habits present many features of interest.\nBut to tell their life stories with all the vivid facts would take more\nspace than I can allow to this one chapter of my book; and to give a bald\nrecord of their habits would afford little interest. I must, however,\nrecount two instances of marked solicitude for the family, shown in each\ncase by a different parent. Take the case of a mother\u2019s care first. A\ncaptive mother-salamander, of the species known as _Oregon plethodon_,\nwas placed with her eggs in a jar. She at once took possession of them,\nforming a loop around them with her tail. But, displeased with this\nunfamiliar house, she moved the eggs repeatedly from place to place till\nat length she was satisfied, and all the time using her tail for the\nwork of transportation as a kind of maternal arm. In the second case\nthe father most faithfully guards the eggs. A giant salamander in the\nZoological Gardens of Amsterdam kept watch over a clump of his wife\u2019s\neggs for a period of ten weeks. This careful father was seen every now\nand then to crawl among the eggs and lift them up, apparently for the\npurpose of aerating them.\n\nFrom the foregoing examples it may, I think, be taken as established that\namong the reptiles there are many exemplary fathers. If the question is\nasked as to why in some species the care of the young is undertaken by\nthe father and in others by the mother, I can only answer that I do not\nknow. It would seem almost that at this early stage of life Nature was\nmaking experiments as to which was the better parent. I would suggest\nthat possibly such a reversal of the family duties was started by chance,\npossibly by the loss of the mother, or even by a specially energetic\nfather, and on being found successful the arrangement was continued and\nbecame fixed as a habit. I have not sufficient knowledge to know if\nthis is possible. At any rate, it appears to be plain that, where for\nany reason the family duties are neglected by the mother, and where the\nmaintenance of the species demands protection being given to the young,\nthe father steps in to take the place of the mother; and by his care and\ndevotion he becomes a truly constituent part\u2014a working member\u2014of the\nfamily group. I would ask you to keep this fixed in your attention, as I\nshall have to refer again and again to this fact that is here suggested.\n\nWhat obtains among reptiles with regard to the father\u2019s care for the\nyoung is even more frequent among fish-fathers. The common stickleback of\nour ponds and streams affords an admirable illustration of intelligent\nand devoted fatherhood. In this species the r\u00f4le of the two sexes is\ncompletely reversed; when once the eggs are deposited by the mother, the\nwhole task of guarding them is undertaken by the father. His labours\nbegin with the construction of a nest. This is formed of bits of weed,\nof fibre and dirt, collected with much care, the whole being held\ntogether by a cement produced by the clever father out of a secretion\nfrom his kidneys. Having prepared the nursery, the stickleback sets out\nto find a wife heavy with eggs. His love choice apparently is decided\nby the capability of his spouse for her maternal function. By means of\nmuch persuasion and passionate courtship he woos her and induces her to\ndeposit her burden of eggs in his nest.\n\nI must wait to impress upon you the wonder of this fact. These\nlove-antics of the stickleback, which are unique among fishes, would\nseem not to be exercised for the gratification of male desire, but for\nthe purpose of inducing the female to lay her eggs,\u2014to do her part in\ngiving him offspring. Vainly do I ask myself the reason of this quite\nunusual sexual altruism. This is very extraordinary. The father woos\nthe reluctant mother with passionate dances and his glad excitement\nis apparently intense. At this season the stickleback is transformed\nand glows with brilliant colours, his scales make silver look dim, his\nthroat glows with flaming vermilion, he literally puts on a wedding\ngarment of love.[21] And did I not fear being tedious by again waiting\nto point a moral, I should ask attention to this further proof given by\nthe stickleback\u2019s love joys to the truth which stands out in these life\nhistories of pre-human parents. I mean this: the parent\u2014the mother or the\nfather\u2014lives in the offspring. You will see how deep is the truth here.\nThe parent is, after all, only the transitory custodian of the undying\ngift of life.\n\nThe conduct of the mother stickleback is in sharp contrast with the\ndevotion of the stickleback father. At once, having rid herself of her\neggs, her desire would seem to be to escape any further responsibilities.\nShe forces her way out of the nest by wriggling through the wall opposite\nthe entrance. True, by doing this she renders a service to the nursery,\nas she thereby furnishes a channel through which a continuous supply\nof fresh, cool water can be driven, thus keeping the eggs bathed. This\nis the only work the stickleback mother does for the family. The male,\nafter the first laying, may persuade her to add still further to the\ndeposit of eggs. Sometimes, wearied with her one effort, she refuses.\nThus forced, the stickleback seeks a second wife, driven into polygamous\nconduct through his desire for offspring. I know of no other case that\nis parallel with this. And the stickleback\u2019s action has often been\nmisrepresented. He is instanced as a polygamist; such is the fate that\never awaits self-sacrifice!\n\nWhen the nest is full the father stickleback mounts guard over the\nentrance of the nursery for nearly a month, and he watches by day and by\nnight, defending his precious charge against all comers.\n\nAnd here another curious fact must be noted: the most dangerous\nassailants to the safety of the nursery are his own wives; these\nunnatural mothers would, if they were permitted, devour every single\negg. Is it this conduct of the female sticklebacks that explains the\ndevotion of the male? Again I do not know. Certain it is, however, that\nthe safety and care of the young is the stickleback father\u2019s constant\noccupation\u2014the duty to which he sacrifices his life. From time to time he\nchanges the position of the eggs; he is a master in sanitation and keeps\nthem constantly bathed with fresh water. This he does by driving a stream\nthrough the nest by means of a fanning motion of his breast, fins and\ntail. Through all the hatching period he works with unceasing care.\n\nWhen at length the fry are born, the father\u2019s vigilance is even further\ntaxed. The children, vigorous and venturesome, have to be watched by day\nand by night and protected. Around and across and in every direction\nthe father, as guardsman, continually swims. He drives off all comers\nwith splendid courage. On one occasion a stickleback father was watched\nwhile his nest was attacked by two tench and a golden carp; he seized\ntheir fins and struck with all his might at their heads and eyes. Truly\nthe stickleback\u2019s care of his children is extraordinary. His vigilant\neye is everywhere. If any members of the young brood stray too far from\nthe nest for safety, he immediately swims after them, seizes them in his\nmouth, and brings them back to the safe playwater in the vicinity of the\nnursery. This continuous watchfulness lasts for about six days after the\nhatching.[22]\n\nWell, what do you think now of the common view of the parental instinct\nbeing stronger always in the mother than in the father? Have we not been\ntaking too much for granted and accepting theory for truth? In the light\nof our knowledge gained from these examples of the father\u2019s extreme\ndevotion, it seems impossible to refrain from thinking that the most\nintelligent and fit parent is the one who cares for the young. No doubt\nit is difficult, or even impossible, to decide the circumstances that\nhave contributed to this strange result of the father taking the mother\u2019s\nplace in the family. We do not know whether these acts of his sacrifice\nto the children\u2019s welfare imply the presence of the mind element\u2014that\nis, whether they can be regarded as conscious as distinguished from\nunconscious adaptation, but this is altogether a separate matter and has\nnothing to do with the question we are considering.\n\nFish display, according to Romanes,[23] emotions of fear, pugnacity,\nsocial, sexual and parental feelings, anger, jealousy, play and\ncuriosity. Such emotions, he states, correspond with those that are\ndistinctive of the psychology of a child of about four months.\n\nIn many diverse species there is clear evidence of some form of parental\nsolicitude. The spotted goby, or pole-wing, for instance, a fish which\nis found in the Thames, is a nest-builder. An old cockle-shell is\nskilfully utilised to form the nursery. The shell is placed with its\ncavity turned downwards, beneath it the soil is removed and then the\nearth-walls are cemented together with a secretion from the skin of the\nparents. Access to the nest is gained by a cylindrical tunnel, and the\nwhole nursery is covered and concealed by loose sand. Again it is the\nfather who mounts guard over the eggs; his vigil lasts for about nine\ndays.[24]\n\nThere are many instances of nursery building undertaken by fish parents.\nAgassiz[25] records a case in which an elaborate nest formed of knotted\nweeds is made by a certain fish, known as _Chironectes_. This rocking\nfish-cradle is carried by both parents and is a kind of arbour, affording\nprotection and afterwards food for its living freight.[26] A remarkable\nnest is built by the American bow-fin (_Amia calva_), found in the\neastern states of North America. Both the mother and the father work\ntogether to construct the nursery, which is formed by a large circular\narea cleared among the weedy shallows; these intelligent parents actually\nbite through the stems of all the plants that they cannot break or push\naside. In the pool that is thus made the eggs are placed by the mother\nand fertilised by the father; the young develop with remarkable rapidity\nand hatch out in about eight days from time of laying. The family is\nthen jealously guarded by the father, who herds the children\u2014often\nnumbering as many as a thousand individuals[27]\u2014by circling around and\nabove them in untiring watchfulness. Another remarkable nest is that of\nthe eel-like _gymnarchus_ of the Nile; a huge floating nursery is made\nof grasses, measuring some two feet long and a foot broad. Within this\nnest some thousand eggs are laid, and as soon as they are deposited by\nthe mother, the father mounts guard, defending them, and afterwards the\nyoung, with great ferocity.\n\nSome fishes\u2019 nests, like those made by the frogs, are constructed of\nfoam. M. Carbonnier gives the case of a Chinese butterfly fish in his\nprivate aquarium in Paris. The male fish constructed a large nest of\nfroth, fifteen to eighteen centimetres horizontal diameter and ten to\ntwelve centimetres high: this he did by a curious sucking and expelling\nair which formed the mucus in his mouth into a white foam. When the nest\nwas thus prepared the female was induced to enter. I do not know whether\nthe father\u2019s duty was continued after this point.[28]\n\nEven where no nest is made, the eggs and young are sometimes guarded by\none or other of the parents, but generally the father. Schneider saw\nseveral fishes at the Naples Aquarium protecting their eggs; in one\ncase the male mounted guard over a rock where the eggs were deposited,\nand swam with open mouth against all intruders. Again, the butter-fish\n(_Pholis_) of our coasts lays a mass of eggs, and around this future\nfamily the father coils his body, just as does the python among the\nreptiles. Some fishes, as for instance the cat-fishes (_siluridae_), have\nthe curious habit of carrying the eggs in their mouth.\n\nA further interesting case of paternal solicitude is furnished by\nthe male fish of the common lump-sucker. The eggs are deposited in\nlarge clumps, and the father\u2019s first care is to secure their proper\noxygenation. This he does by pressing his head into the centre of each\nclump, an action which not only prevents the eggs from being too closely\ncrowded, but serves also to press the spawn firmly into the crevices\nof the rock on which it is always laid. As soon as this is done this\nfish-father mounts guard over his family. All would-be enemies, such as\nstar-fish and crabs, who make ceaseless efforts to rob the nursery, are\ndriven off. The work of oxygenation is still carried on, and streams of\nfresh water, so necessary for the young lives, are driven by the careful\nfather into the masses of the eggs. When the young appear new family\nduties await him, for the fry at once attach themselves to his body and\nare carried about by him.[29]\n\nThere are other instances where the young are attached to the body of the\nparent. Sometimes it is the mother who gives this protection, and bears\nher eggs attached to the under surface of her body. The lophobranchiate\nfish incubate their eggs in pouches in the same way as some frogs, and\nthey show elaborate parental feelings. When the young are hatched out,\none or other parent, usually the father, carefully guards them, and the\npouch then serves as a place of shelter or retreat from danger.\n\nDr. Reinhold Hensel states of a little-known Brazilian fish (_Geophagus\nscymnophilus_) that one of the parents\u2014he does not say which\u2014keeps\ncareful guard over the family, which numbers from twenty to thirty. At\na distance he watches his children. When alarmed for their safety, he\ntakes a swift swim towards them, and they, as if at his word of command,\ncollect around his mouth. Suddenly, if the cause of alarm is not removed,\nthe mouth is opened, and the whole family is engulfed. In an adult which\nwas captured while thus laden, the young were seen to be crowded together\nin the mouth with their heads towards the gills. Here the family is safe,\nand when the cause for alarm is passed, the youngsters are probably\nsuddenly expelled from their living cavern. Another extraordinary case\nis recorded by M. Carbonnier, which certainly appears to show anxiety on\nthe part of fish-fathers to have offspring. The males of the grotesque\ntelescope-fish (a variety of _Carassius auratus_) have the curious habit\nof acting as accoucheurs to the females. On one occasion three males were\nwatched pursuing one mother heavy with spawn. They rolled her like a ball\nupon the ground for a distance of several metres, and this process they\ncontinued, without rest or relaxation, for two days. Then the exhausted\nmother, who had been unable to recover her equilibrium for a moment, at\nlast evacuated her eggs.\n\nThere is perpetual variety in the actions of even the lowliest parents.\nI might add many further examples more or less extraordinary, of the\nhabits of fish and reptile mothers or fathers; but, even did the limit\nof my space permit this, it is not, I think, necessary: I have proved\nthe existence low down in the scale of life of marked solicitude for the\nyoung, and shown that such care and sacrifice is shown frequently by the\nfather.\n\nLet me summarise now what we have learnt in this and the preceding\nchapter, so as to establish the lessons that seem to me may be taken from\nthese pre-human parents. The diversity in the expression of the parental\ninstincts must first be grasped. There is no fixed order, nor does there\nseem to be any continuity of development in this matter of care for the\nyoung. We have to give up quite the evolutionary idea of a certain and\nuninterrupted progress. Throughout our inquiry we have been met with\nsurprises. These things baffle our attempts to find an explanation.\nWhat is it that decides and develops the strong instinct of parenthood?\nA parent in a species that is lower in the scale will often have more\nparental feeling than a parent in a higher species. Why, for instance,\nis the stickleback such a devoted father; more self-sacrificing than any\nother fish-father? and why is the stickleback mother without regard for\nher children? Why among the dung-beetles is the same parental sacrifice\nshown by both parents? Again, why is a nursery made in some cases\nand not in others? why are the young guarded sometimes by the mother\nand sometimes by the father? We may say that all this wide diversity\nin habits has arisen through adaptation; the circumstances that have\nconditioned the life of the species have been different, and this has\nnecessarily caused variety in their behaviour. This is, of course, true,\nbut does it really teach us very much? No sooner do we begin to apply\nour reasons to any particular case of family behaviour than we find\nourselves at a loss. Our reasoning suddenly breaks down, either because\nour knowledge is incomplete, or because one set of facts we possess seem\nto be contradicted by other facts of which we are equally sure.\n\nLet us at once acknowledge our ignorance; there is much that cannot be\nexplained.\n\nIf, however, we speculate at all on the matter, certain general ideas may\nbe suggested. We are led to the view that when the father undertakes the\ncare of the young, this reversal in the family duties must be primarily\ndue to some failure on the part of the mother in performing the work in\nthe nursery and home which customarily is hers. It is as if the father\nsteps into her place in order that the species may escape the nemesis of\nelimination. The facts we have learnt are of no little importance. They\ntend to minimise, in the beginning of the family at least, the importance\nof the mother in relation to the young as compared with the importance of\nthe father. It is this that I wish to establish.\n\nAnd what we have learnt suggests the further interdependence, that\ndoes seem to exist among all species, between intelligence and good\nparenthood. Fabre, out of his wisdom and as a result of his great\nknowledge, says that the duties of caring for the young are the supreme\ninspirers of the intellect. Wherever we find devoted parents there also\ndo we find lofty instincts. This is the second idea I ask you to accept.\nI think that we have proved its truth.\n\nI may not stay here to point out the immense importance of these\nsuggestions to the inquiry we are making as to the action of the maternal\ninstinct, nor shall I pause to indicate the lessons that seem to me to\nawait us from the curious transformation found in so many species in\nthe duties of the two sexes. These considerations must wait until we\nknow more. We have, I trust, extended somewhat, as well as rendered\nmore exact, our knowledge on this complex and difficult question of\nmotherhood. In the next two chapters I shall endeavour to extend it\nstill further by a brief consideration of certain striking habits I have\nmet with of parenthood among the birds and higher animals.\n\nI am well aware that there are many people who cannot bring themselves\nto believe in, or even listen without impatience to, any comparison\nbetween the conduct of animals and that which prevails among ourselves.\nIt is absurd, they will say, to try to explain the conditions of human\nparenthood by references to animal parents. I have no hope of convincing,\nnor do I much desire to convince, those who thus object. I would merely\nadvise them to leave out this section of my book altogether.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER V\n\nPARENTHOOD AMONG BIRDS\n\nWITH FURTHER EXAMPLES OF GOOD FATHERS\n\n\n    Recapitulation of facts established\u2014Reversal of sex\n    attributes\u2014Courting females and nursing males among certain\n    birds\u2014Attempt at explanation\u2014Are sex-hunger and parental\n    affection in conflict\u2014A high standard of family life among\n    birds\u2014Few birds who are bad fathers\u2014Examples of varying\n    division of family work\u2014A few birds who are bad parents\u2014Where\n    the mother takes sole charge of the eggs the father as a\n    rule takes little interest in the family\u2014The polygamous\n    gallinaceous birds\u2014Conduct affected by habits of the home\u2014The\n    Ad\u00e9lie penguins\u2014Their co-operative child-rearing\u2014The great\n    emperor penguin\u2014Scrimmage of childless mothers and fathers for\n    possession of chickens.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nPARENTHOOD AMONG BIRDS\n\nWITH FURTHER EXAMPLES OF GOOD FATHERS\n\n    \u201cPrais\u2019d be the fathomless universe,\n    For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious.\u201d\n\n                                                            WALT WHITMAN.\n\n\nTwo things I have been anxious to bring out prominently in the foregoing\nchapters: that parental behaviour among the insects, reptiles and fishes\npresents us with a bewildering diversity of aspects\u2014in particular, that\nthe instinct of caring for the young is not fixed in the mother, but may\nbe transferred from her to the father; and further, that all parental\nsacrifice, though often unconsciously expended to maintain the well-being\nof the family, is of direct benefit to the parent who bestows it, and is\nthe surest means of developing and brightening such a parent\u2019s individual\nintelligence.\n\nNow, I wish to elaborate and establish these two propositions with\nfurther examples in order that they may be laid hold of and firmly\ngrasped as indubitable facts; and then we may come to see and understand\nthe significance to ourselves of these unusually devoted fathers, which\nare found, and that not infrequently, among all classes of pre-human\nparents.\n\nThe varied behaviour of bird-parents\u2014more especially of the\nmales\u2014furnishes just the kind of evidence we need. There are several\ncases known, and I believe there must be others as yet unrecorded,\nwherein the conduct and, indeed, the whole character of the two sexes is\nreversed. Here the females, driven it would seem by a fierce sex-hunger,\ndo the courting and fight one another as rivals for the males, while the\nmales undertake all the family duties of incubation and brooding and the\nfeeding of the young.\n\nThe phalaropes, both the grey and the red-necked species, which are found\nin Scotland and Ireland, afford a striking example of these unsexed\nfemales. Among these birds the r\u00f4le of the sexes is reversed. The duties\nof incubation and rearing the young are conducted entirely by the male,\nand in correlation with this habit, the female does all the courting. She\nis stronger and more pugnacious than the male, and is also brighter in\nplumage. This is really very remarkable. What has acted in bringing about\nthis reversal in the secondary sexual characters? Can the male nature be\ntransferred to the female? These are difficult questions. In colour the\nphalaropes are a pale olive very thickly spotted and streaked with black.\nThe male is the psychical mother, the female takes no notice of the nest\nafter laying the eggs. Frequently at the beginning of the breeding season\nshe is accompanied by more than one male, so that it is evident polyandry\nis practised.[30]\n\nThe same unusual family conditions prevail with the rhea and the emu,\nand also among the painted snipes, cassowaries, tinamous, and some of\nthe button-quails.[31] There are probably instances of other birds, but\nI do not know of details of their habits; Wallace[32] also mentions\nseveral species in different parts of the world, among whom all care\nof the young falls entirely upon the father. In all these bird families\nexactly opposite conditions prevail to what we are accustomed. It\nshould be specially noted that these unnatural (I use the word simply\nto mean unusual) mothers are larger and more vividly coloured than the\nhard-worked fathers; in all such cases polyandry is practised.\n\nWhy is this?\n\nThe only attempt at an explanation that I have been able to discover is\ngiven by Mr. Pycraft in his fascinating book, _The Courtship of Animals_.\nHe says\u2014[33]\n\n    \u201cThe solution of this problem probably lies with the\n    physiologist. We now know that the problem of sex does not\n    rest merely in the complete development of the primary sexual\n    organs; we know that fertile unions do not depend merely on the\n    act of pairing, but on the functional activity of the ancillary\n    glands. And it may well be that some change in the character\n    of the secretions has not only affected the numerical values\n    of the sexes, but reversed the normal r\u00f4le of coloration and\n    behaviour.\u201d\n\nMr. Pycraft does not consider that the polyandrous habits of these birds\nare due primarily to a preponderance of the females in the species over\nthe males, but holds that this condition must rather be regarded as\nhaving arisen from a transference to the females, or development in them,\nof increased sexual hunger, which intensity of passion would tend to\nlead to an exhaustion of the males. This is exceedingly interesting. Mr.\nPycraft continues\u2014\n\n    \u201cNeither polygamy nor polyandry among the lower animals, at any\n    rate, has been brought about or is maintained by the excessive\n    death rate due to combats for the possession of mates, but\n    must be explained as demonstrating inherent changes in the\n    germ-plasm, disturbing the relative proportions of the sexes\n    and correlated with a profound transformation, not only in\n    the behaviour of the sexes during the period of reproductive\n    activity, but also in their physical characteristics.\u201d\n\nIf I understand this aright, the conclusion seems forced upon us that\nparental conduct is directly dependent on the action of the sexual\nappetite: that it may be modified, and in some cases profoundly changed,\nby any variation in this appetite\u2019s strength and expression. This is of\nprofound interest, and such a view, if established, might explain a great\ndeal.[34] But can it be accepted? To say that such changes are due to\nthe action of the \u201chormones,\u201d or secretions of the sexual glands, does\nnot help us very much. What we want to know is what induces the changes.\nThere is much that cannot yet be explained. If I may venture to speculate\non so difficult a question, it would seem that when the intensity of\nsex-hunger becomes for any reason stronger in the females than in the\nmales, the result may be a diminishing of the instincts of motherhood.\nIt is as if the egotistic desires of sex were in opposition to the\nracial duties. This would explain the female phalaropes, whose maternal\ninstincts are completely atrophied. Does it not suggest also a possible\nexplanation of some failures in human motherhood? This opens up questions\nthat reach very far. I am tempted to wait to enlarge on the immense\nsignificance of these unnatural bird-mothers in the analogy their conduct\nbears to one of the most difficult cases of human motherhood\u2014the strongly\nsexual woman who bears children but is quite unfit and without any desire\nto rear them. I shall have more to say in the later part of my inquiry\nabout such women, who are driven by passion to be mothers without having\nany instinct for motherhood.\n\nBut now a return must be made to the birds\u2019 nurseries. It is a matter\nof common knowledge that birds display a marvellous solicitude for the\nwelfare of the young, and their family life presents a beautiful and\nhigh standard of conduct.[35] There are very few examples of birds who\nare bad fathers. Often the male rivals the female in love for the young;\nhe is in constant attendance in the vicinity of the nest; he guards,\nfeeds, and sings to the female, and often shares with her the duty of\nincubation. The cock ostrich, for example, watches by night over the hole\nin which the eggs have been buried, and the hen takes this duty by day.\nThe screamer birds, again, work in shifts of two or three hours each.\nWhen they bred in the London Zoological Gardens, it was noticed that the\ncock-bird acted as timekeeper, and at the end of a watch used to come and\npush the female off the nest.[36] These examples are delightful. It would\nseem almost that the males, when infected with paternal passion, were\nmore ardent and regular in the performance of nursery duties than the\nmother.\n\nAmong many birds it is usual for all family work to be performed quite\nirrespective of sex, and the parent who is free takes the task of feeding\nthe one who is occupied with the nest.[37] The male hornbill is a family\ndespot; during the breeding season he walls up his spouse within the\ntrunk of a tree. He feeds her with great care, but he allows her no\nliberty. As soon as one family is reared many birds at once burden\nthemselves with another. The Californian quail affords an example. In\nthis species the father takes sole charge of the family as soon as the\nyoung birds attain the age of three weeks, when the mother begins the\nlabours of rearing a second brood. More curious are the habits of the\nwater hen, among whom the young of the first family assist in the work of\nfeeding their brothers and sisters of the later broods.[38]\n\nThe labour of feeding the young family is a heavy task in which both\nparents commonly share. There are no cases of unsuitable feeding of\nnestlings by careless or ignorant parents. A regular course of nursery\ndietary is practised, in particular with nidicolous species, where the\nyoung are born in a helpless condition; often a special infant food is\nprepared by a process of regurgitation, or food partly digested and\nthrown up. Thus baby finches are fed on food made of digested insects;\nparent parrots also prepare a digested vegetable food; storks break\nup worms and frogs and pieces of little fishes and mix it with partly\ndigested matter and throw it out on the edge of the nest for the family\nmeals. Young pigeons thrust their beaks into the mouths of their mothers\nto absorb the so-called pigeon\u2019s-milk, which is really digested food\nmixed with a secretion from the crop; little cormorants thrust their\nbills right down the neck of their mother and help themselves to food\nout of her stomach. The petrels secrete oil from the fish they eat to\nfeed the young: this oil is used also as a weapon of defence both by\nthe parents and the nestlings, who squirt it out from their mouths and\nnostrils at any unwelcome intruder on the privacy of the nest.[39]\n\nWhen the young are fed entirely on insects the work entailed on the\nparents is enormous. A pair of blue tit-mice, for example, have been\nseen to make no less than four hundred and seventy-five journeys to the\nnest during a day\u2019s foraging extending over seventeen hours. Again, the\nmale of the common dabchick works untiringly, and has been seen to take\nas many as forty journeys, with food, in the space of an hour, back to\nthe nest, where his wife waits with the children, which commonly perch\non her back and are protected by her wings. Small wonder is there that\nthe labours of both parents are needed to keep the young families from\nstarvation. In some cases a practical division of work is arranged; and\nthe father will bring a different kind of food from the mother. With the\nstow-chat, for instance, the mother brings small prey, generally spiders,\nbut sometimes butterflies and moths, while the father selects and carries\nlarge caterpillars. Even where the young are precocious, fairly active\nat birth, and soon able to feed themselves, one or both parents for\na considerable time guard, teach and protect them. Great bravery and\nintelligence are displayed in the face of any danger, not only will\nmany parent-birds savagely attack an enemy, but in some cases, as, for\ninstance, the plover or the partridge, the mother will feign to have a\nbroken limb or to be lame, to draw off from the young the attention of\nthe intruder. No parental duty is neglected. Daily lessons are frequently\ngiven to the nurslings on the right kind of food and the best way of\nfeeding. Thus young birds of prey are instructed, first in the art of\nbreaking up their food, and later in the best methods of its capture.\nYoung swallows, again, receive a carefully graduated course of lessons on\nthe difficult work of catching the insects which form their food, while\nthey are flying. The parents of the woodcock carry their children to the\nfeeding ground, to and from the nest, supporting the precious little ones\nwith their beaks, and pressed close within their feet, which are used as\nmaternal arms.[40]\n\nA delightful incident was witnessed during the feeding-time of a\nred-backed shrike\u2014[41]\n\n    \u201cThe male had brought to the nest a young bird, and, pulling\n    off its head, proceeded to ram it down the throat of a very\n    unfortunate youngster. But the morsel was too big, and had to\n    be readjusted, not once, but many times; and finally it was\n    forced home with such success that the wretched bird was in\n    imminent danger from choking. At this the female, who had been\n    sitting on the opposite side of the nest, making, apparently,\n    very sarcastic comments on the awkwardness of her lord, and\n    males in general, suddenly seized the offending head and,\n    dragging it forth, proceeded to tear it into small pieces,\n    giving each of the brood a piece. And during this time the male\n    looked on in what appeared to be a very subdued fashion.\u201d\n\nAlmost all birds take great trouble to ensure the sanitation of the\nnursery, and are diligent in their care of the health of the young.\nAll the excrements are removed from the nest, a task that is rendered\neasy, as the droppings of the young are enclosed in a white, film-like\nenvelope or capsule. A most careful search is made at the bottom of the\nnest for these capsules by the parents whenever they come to feed the\nyoung. Do they fail to find the expected capsules, one or other of the\nparents after the feeding will tap, tap on the anus of the young birds\nas if to remind them of a duty neglected.[42] This is, perhaps, the most\nextraordinary example of parental care that I have been able to discover.\nOne wonders how far this apparent recognition of the necessity of regular\nhabits and cleanliness is instinctive, or how far we may grant to these\nparents some direct realisation of the dangers arising to their children\nfrom neglect and a dirty nursery.\n\nIt must not, however, be thought that all birds are good parents. In\nsome species there would seem to have been a revolt against family ties\nand the duty of caring for the young. The common cuckoo and some other\ncuckoos are well-known examples. Among them, the mother, as every one\nknows, always lays the eggs in the nest of some other birds, and the\nyoung cuckoo, when it is hatched, would seem to have some knowledge of\nits precarious position as a stranger. It creeps under the nestlings of\nits foster-parents, and, by a violent effort, raises them one by one on\nits hollow back and jerks them out of the nest, so securing undivided\nattention in its alien nursery. A similar parasitic habit, not yet so\nfirmly established, is found among the cow-birds of the Argentine. Mr. W.\nH. Hudson has seen the mothers trying to build nests and failing to do\nthis, as if they were struggling to regain a dying instinct. The females\nflutter about the mud-nests of the oven-birds, and whenever a chance\npresents itself will dart in and lay their eggs. Other cow-birds make no\neffort at all in nest-building, and always lay their eggs in the occupied\nnests of other birds, and, as their eggs develop very quickly, the\nintruders hatch out before the true children of the nursery and rob them\nof their parents\u2019 care.\n\nWhat do we learn from this? That neglect on the part of the mother\u2014any\nshuffling out of her duties, thereby placing the care of her children on\nthe shoulders of other parents, leads to crime and disorder in the social\norganisation.\n\nSome birds are content with very little care for home-building ready for\ntheir eggs. Birds belonging to many different species make nurseries\nin hollow trees, caves, burrows or natural cavities, sometimes lining\nthem with leaves and feathers to make them soft, but sometimes even\nneglecting this care. The New Zealand kakapo or ground parrot, to take\none instance, hides in any hole it finds and lays its eggs there without\nany preparation; the kingfisher, again, digs out a hole in the ground,\nor occupies one that it finds. Emus scrape a shallow hole in the ground\nand do not cover the eggs. The cassowary scrapes together a rude pile\nof leaves and mould on which she lays the eggs. Some of the megapodes\nor bush turkeys bury their eggs in the sand, and then take no further\ntrouble about them, leaving incubation to the chance warmth of the sun.\nOthers build enormous heaps of decaying leaves, forming a hot-bed from\nnatural fermentation, by which the chicks are hatched out with no trouble\nto the parents. The young of the megapodes are the only living birds that\nare hatched out able to fly at once and ready to take care of themselves.\nIt would appear that neglectful parents foster self-development in the\nchildren.[43]\n\nWhere the mother broods alone over the eggs it sometimes happens that the\nfather-bird takes no interest in the family. The polygamous gallinaceous\nbirds appear to be without, or to have lost, the paternal instinct.\nPeacocks, pheasants, turkey-cocks, and barn-door cocks do practically\nnothing for their families, and while the mother-birds\u2019 care in feeding\nand guarding the young is untiring, the fathers are running after amorous\nadventures. The conduct of the male turkey is even worse, for, prompted\nby jealousy, he will often attempt to devour the eggs, and the young\nare protected from his attacks only by the mothers uniting together in\ntroops. Here we see the exact opposite conduct in the two sexes from\nthat in such a family as the sticklebacks, where good fathers replace\nbad mothers. But the same result follows. In either case the neglect\nof parental duty by one or other parent is a source of weakness to the\nfamily and increases the risks to which the young are exposed.[44]\n\nI must insist on how strongly conduct is affected by the conditions\nof the home; and any change of habits will directly modify parental\nbehaviour. Thus an animal habitually domestic may easily change under\nthe pressure of external causes. Thus wild ducks, though good parents\nand strictly monogamous, and very highly developed in social qualities\nwhen in the wild state, become indifferent to their offspring and loosely\npolygamous under domestication.[45] Civilisation, in this case, depraves\nthe birds as often it does men. But the examples of bad parents among\nbirds are few in number.\n\nI will end this chapter by relating, with as much detail as is possible,\nthe curious family history of the Ad\u00e9lie penguins;[46] as these birds\nhave developed some interesting and startling experiments in nursery care\nand parenthood. The penguins live in large social colonies. It should\nbe noted first that the death rate among the young birds is enormously\nhigh, as happens invariably where the single family is replaced by great\nbreeding colonies.\n\nYet the penguins are self-sacrificing parents. Year by year in the month\nof October they return to the same breeding-ground, having travelled many\nhundreds of difficult miles, and urged by a mysterious nostalgia that\ntheir children may be born in the same home. The first duty is to take\npossession of one of the old stone nests, or to scoop out a new hollow in\nthe ground. Here the hens sit by the future home, and wait for proposals\nfrom the cocks. The advance is made by what appears to be a symbolic\naction and the cock places a stone at the hen\u2019s feet. But often the hen\nanswers never a word. Bloody duels are fought between rival suitors to\narouse her passion and prove the vigour of her mate.\n\nBoth birds work at the home-making, repairing an old nest or forming a\nnew one, which is made of rounded stones. The cock collects these, and it\nis interesting to note what would seem to be an \u00e6sthetic taste in these\nbird-builders; certain painted pebbles, provided by the explorers for the\nuse of the birds, were in great demand, the colour red being preferred to\ngreen.\n\nDuring the first days of wedded life the conflicts between the cocks\ncontinue, and the chosen cock maintains his rights by driving off all\ninterlopers; but later, when the pair settle down to the serious duties\nof the family, they live in peace and are perfectly faithful to each\nother. Not until the eggs have been laid does either parent go to feed;\nthe shortest period of total abstinence from food being about eighteen\ndays and the longest about twenty-eight days\u2014a fine example of parental\nsacrifice. Then one of the birds marches off to the water for a holiday,\nwhich may last from seven to ten days, after which it comes back to give\nthe other bird its turn. When the young penguins are hatched the parents\nshare in the work of feeding and guarding them, and relieve each other\nat frequent intervals. The bird who goes to feed always returns heavily\nburdened with provisions, and its always quaint shape becomes grotesque,\nwhen so laden with crustaceans that it has to lean backwards to keep its\nbalance. Sometimes a bird will try to carry too much, with the result\nthat it tumbles over and loses the entire load. The young chicks feed in\nthe same way as the young cormorants, by thrusting their heads into the\nparent\u2019s gullet.\n\nThough both birds work together and with the same zeal, it must be noted\nthat the mother\u2019s guard over the young is more strict than is that of\nthe father. When the mother is sitting, nothing, not even a wrangle with\nher next-door neighbour, will induce her to move from her post. Whatever\nhappens, there she stays until her turn for relaxation comes. But the\ncocks are more easily led astray. Their combativeness causes them to\nforget family affairs. Often much harm is done by these quarrels in the\ncrowded rookery, which occur frequently and in spite of the protests of\nanxious neighbouring parents, who are seen trying to make peace.\n\nThe most curious habit of these delightful birds has still to be\nrecorded. They have developed a taste for games, such as leaping, diving\nand boarding the ice-floes. These amusements are indulged in by the\nadults, who band themselves in large companies, and play occupies much\nof their time. To gain the necessary freedom for this fun from their\nhomes, and without leaving the chicks to perish, a most instructive\ndevice has been evolved by the penguin parents. The birds with young\nfamilies \u201cpool their offspring\u201d in groups, which are left in charge of\na few conscientious birds, both cocks and hens, who act as nurses; they\nward off the attacks of the sukas, and keep, or try to keep, the chicks\nfrom wandering. The holidaying parents bring food at intervals\u2014when their\nconsciences smite them\u2014and they remain faithful to their own cr\u00eaches.\n\nThis is, I think, the earliest example of what must be regarded as a\npremeditated experiment in co-operative child-rearing. For the parents it\ndoubtless has many advantages. These remarkable birds certainly appear\nto find a quite unusual joy in life: we read of the ecstatic attitudes\nthey will frequently assume and the weird \u201cchant de satisfaction\u201d which\nthey utter during play when all is well with their world. Yet the fact,\nalready noted, must not be overlooked that the death rate in the rookery\nis enormously high; indeed, a frightful mortality often overtakes the\nyoung chicks when left by their parents. The children pay for the escape\non the part of the parents from the sacrifice parenthood must entail.\n\nI have a further case to record of a different experiment in co-operative\nparenthood, in this case necessitated through the severities of the\nstruggle of life. In the same antarctic regions where the Ad\u00e9lie penguins\nmake their home there dwells another penguin, the great emperor penguin.\nThis bird has a sad history; never, during the whole course of its life,\ndoes it touch dry land; the vast ice-fields form its only home, and it\nhas to brave the perils of the open water in its search for food. Under\nsuch circumstances the struggle for life is severe, and the parent-birds\nhave the greatest difficulty to rear the young. In these ice-nurseries,\nincubation in the usual manner in a nest is impossible; a new and curious\nmethod is adopted. Each mother lays but a single egg, which is placed for\nwarmth and safety in a \u201cbrood-spot\u201d situated at the back of the feet,\nwhere it is covered by the overlapping feathers of the abdomen. Even this\ncare is not rewarded always, and many of the eggs perish.\n\nOwing to the difficult incubation, a large percentage of brooding birds\nare left without eggs and young. And the curious thing is that this loss\nseems to increase the desire for offspring, until the parental instinct\nbecomes a tormenting passion. This is what happens. Each childless bird\nstrives to adopt a child from the more fortunate parents; and this leads\nto a competition in parenthood, which of its kind is without parallel.\n\nNot only the duty of incubation, but afterwards caring for the young\nchicks, is carried out not by one bird only, but by a dozen or more,\nwhich stand patiently round for a chance to seize either a chicken or an\negg. Nor is it, as might be expected, the mothers alone who are seized by\nthe passion of thwarted maternity; the fathers help their childless wives\nin their efforts to steal offspring. Every bird, male as well as female,\nhas developed the \u201cbrood-spot,\u201d and has the same bare patch of skin at\nthe lower part of the abdomen against which the egg, when possessed, is\npressed for warmth.\n\n    \u201cWhat we actually saw, again and again,\u201d states Dr. Wilson,\n    \u201cwas the wild dash made by a dozen adults, each weighing\n    anything up to ninety pounds, to take possession of any chicken\n    that happened to find itself deserted on the ice. It can be\n    compared to nothing better than a football scrimmage, in which\n    the first bird to seize the chicken is hustled and worried on\n    all sides by the others while it rapidly tries to push the\n    infant between its legs with the help of its pointed beak,\n    shrugging up the loose skin of the abdomen the while to cover\n    it.\u2026 The chicks are fully alive to the inconvenience of being\n    fought for by so many clumsy nurses, and I have seen them\n    not only make the best use of their legs in avoiding so much\n    attention, but remain to starve and freeze in preference to\n    being nursed. Undoubtedly, I think that of the 77 per cent.\n    that die before they shed their down, quite half are killed by\n    kindness.\u201d\n\nIt is from such an example as this that we may come to realise the\nextraordinary power of parent-hunger. Consider these penguin mothers and\nfathers clamouring and fighting for the possession of a child. With them\nthe parental instinct has gained fierce strength from being thwarted. Is\nthere not here yet another lesson for us to learn?\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER VI\n\nPARENTHOOD AMONG THE HIGHER ANIMALS\n\nTHE FIXING OF THE PARENTAL INSTINCT IN THE MOTHER\n\n\n    Retrogression in fatherhood\u2014Among mammals no examples of\n    devoted fathers\u2014Egoistic desires increase in the males and\n    interest in the family decreases\u2014Probable reason\u2014Method of\n    birth and circumstances of life of infant mammals force\n    mothers to monopolise nutrition and care of young\u2014Parenthood\n    more automatic\u2014The father pushed out of his earlier position\n    of service to the family\u2014Instead of a working partner with\n    the mother he becomes a member apart\u2014His character appears\n    to change\u2014He becomes masterful, pugnacious and jealous\u2014This\n    general among mammals\u2014Number of young among mammals usually\n    reduced\u2014Varied forms of sexual association practised by\n    different species\u2014Polygamy frequent\u2014The matriarchal family\u2014The\n    clue we are seeking\u2014The egoism of the males acts for the\n    advantage of the females\u2014The maternal instinct fixed in the\n    mothers\u2014Self-sacrifice becomes once and for ever the supreme\n    joy and privilege of the female\u2014Objections that may be\n    raised\u2014Resum\u00e9\u2014General conclusions to be drawn from pre-human\n    parenthood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nPARENTHOOD AMONG THE HIGHER ANIMALS\n\nTHE FIXING OF THE PARENTAL INSTINCT IN THE MOTHER\n\n    \u201cThe universe throbs with restless change. Everything that we\n    know is becoming rather than being.\u201d\u2014P. CHALMERS MITCHELL\n\n\nOne of the difficulties that has met me in my studies of the family among\nthe animals is that, as we ascend the scale of life, there is a moral\nretrogression in fatherhood\u2014at least, that is how it appears to me. There\nare, as far as I have found, no examples among mammals, the highest and\nlast group of the animal kingdom, of devoted fathers undertaking the sole\ncharge of the young, and few where the father even shares with the mother\nto any extent in the work connected with the upbringing of the family.\nThe egoistic desires seem to increase in the males, with a corresponding\nweakening of their interest in the family and willingness to participate\nin its duties. The young are carried by the mother alone, they are\nprotected chiefly by her; the father takes no part in the nursery cares,\nand rarely does he help in providing food for the children. The family is\nmaternal, the female\u2014the mother\u2014its centre; the male is bound sexually to\nthe female, but apart from this his connection with the family is slight;\nwe find him most frequently following personal interests.\n\nIn contrast with the conduct of the fathers in the families we have so\nfar examined among the birds, reptiles, fishes and insects, with whom\nthe father\u2019s solicitude and sacrifice for the young equals and, in some\ncases, rivals that of the mother, this complete paternal indifference is\nreally very startling. It demands our attention.\n\nWhat factors have brought about this reversal, which at first sight\nappears so strange? Why is it that the parental instinct diminishes\nin the father and is now fixed in the mother? It is, however, easy to\nunderstand this change if we consider what now happens, and the changed\nconditions under which the young are born. The mammals do not lay eggs\nlike bird and reptile mothers, but each mother retains the eggs within\nher body, and so secures for the young warmth and protection far more\ncertainly than would be possible in the best-contrived nest or home.[47]\nBut this has led to changed habits. No nest or brooding-home has to be\nmade, and the same preparations for the family, which hitherto have\nunited in work the father with the mother, are unnecessary. Again, food\nhas not now to the same extent to be collected and stored in readiness\nfor the future needs of the children. The embryo, living within the body\nof its mother, gains the food for its growth directly from her blood.\nThe connection between mother and child now is closer; her condition\nand health become of direct importance for the welfare of the young. At\nthe same time the importance of the father is sharply lessened. This is\nplain. The early stages of mother-care, instead of being conscious and\nexternal acts regulated by special circumstances and often modified to\nmeet different needs, now become part of the unconscious functions of the\nbody of the mother\u2014the child is an extension of herself. The advantage\nto the offspring of this change from external to internal protection\nis great, in the added safety thereby gained from fixed functions over\nthe habits that might be slurred over, bungled or forgotten. I think,\nhowever, that there is a corresponding loss\u2014that parenthood becomes more\npossibly irresponsible and, at the same time, individualism becomes\nstronger. Birth, with narrowed opportunity for intelligent adaptation, is\nmore of an unconsidered incident; I mean that before it occurs it demands\nmuch less from the parents in sacrifice and in work. This is certainly\nthe case with the father, whose part in gaining offspring is reduced to a\nsingle momentary act, and one, moreover, that is prompted by the fiercest\negoistic desire.\n\nBut I think, too, there is a deterioration, though much less in degree,\nin the quality of motherhood. The preparation made for the birth of her\nchildren by the mammal mother is very slight, indeed, in many cases the\nmother appears to be unaware of the approaching event until the actual\nbirth begins. Here is an account of a langur monkey, whose first baby\nwas born in the London Zoological Gardens, at which event the mother\nseemed to be utterly surprised. The birth took place at night, and the\nmother, from the marks in the cage, must have dragged up and down the\nnew, astonishing object. But by the morning she had grown accustomed to\nthe baby, and held it pressed closely to her breast, from time to time\nthrusting the head outwards and eagerly looking at it. For several weeks\nthe baby never left her, and she showed endless curiosity and pleasure in\nit, ceaselessly examining it, turning it over, stroking it and keeping\nit clean with her hands. She was jealous of visitors, and when they came\nnear to the cage she would turn round so as to hide the baby from them.\nThe father, in case of accidents, had been taken away and put in the\nadjoining cage, which was shut off by a piece of canvas. He made a hole\nin this, and from time to time, especially when the mother or baby made\nany noise, he would raise the torn flap and peep through.[48]\n\nIt must be remembered that among the mammals it is the rule for the young\nto be suckled by the mother, a mode of feeding already foreshadowed by\nmany bird parents and some insects. But with them the special nursery\nfood is prepared from their own food by incessant work, undertaken, as\na rule, by both parents. The act of suckling, on the other hand, occurs\nwithout conscious work, and is a function in which the father has no\nconcern whatever.\n\nI have no facts to trace the steps whereby this function of maternal\nfeeding was developed and established, but I would suggest that, apart\nfrom the advantage to the young of a special diet, the immense labour\nentailed on the parents in obtaining food\u2014the foraging over wide areas\nand the carrying of the provisions back to the nursery\u2014made it a question\nof economy; and that the mother, as more usually being with the young,\nwas the parent who came without conscious effort to prepare for them in\nher body this early nourishment.\n\nIt is plain that the bond between the mother and offspring would be\ngreatly strengthened; they would be dependent upon her alone, and drawing\nlife from her body, she would become increasingly conscious of them\nduring a much longer period. The emotional quality of affection really\ndevelops now. The suckling is a continuation of the organic relation\nby which the child is born of the mother\u2019s body; now the child exists\nthrough her, and becomes, so to speak, a habit which grows up out of her\nown individuality. I lay stress upon this fact: the maternal feeding is\nthe beginning of a new period in the growth of motherhood, and is the\nfoundation of the indestructible bond between mother and child.\n\nWe see, then, the reasons for the curious and sudden deterioration in\nfatherhood; the father has, as it were, been pushed out of his earlier\nposition of service. Now that there is no nursery to be built, and the\nmother is the sole feeder of the young during their period of greatest\nhelplessness, the father loses his interest in the family. Our interests\nand our habits are fixed by whatever occupies our attention. Freed from\nthe first and most important care of the young, the male is severed from\nthe family and its duties, and his attention, thus set free, turns in\nnew directions and centres upon himself. In this connection we have, I\nwould suggest, an explanation of the greater variability of the male as\nwell as of his more violent passions. Instead of a working partner with\nthe mother, sharing in her sacrifice for the welfare of the family, he\nis a member apart; he grows larger than the female, becomes masterful,\npugnacious, jealous of her and of the young: a fighting, egoistic\nspecialisation. He is still attached to the female, but he seeks her\nto satisfy his sexual needs, he less frequently remains with her as a\ndomestic partner, relieving her in connection with the rearing of the\nyoung.[49]\n\nThis is the general condition among the mammals. It is the rule that\nthe young are tended by the mother during the period of their youth. At\nbirth they are usually helpless, and often are born before the eyelids\nhave opened and while the body is yet naked, or but scantily clothed.\nBut there are degrees of helplessness, determined, it would seem, by the\nconditions of the environment and habits of the parents. The maternal\ncare is greater or less in accordance with the needs of the young. The\nperiod of youth is much longer, and increases as we ascend in the scale\nof life. The great apes, for instance\u2014the gorilla, the orang and the\nchimpanzee\u2014take from eight to twelve years to grow up, while baboons\nand common monkeys take from three to eight years, and the little South\nAmerican monkeys and lemurs two to three years.[50] In connection with\nthis longer childhood we find an increased mental growth; the years\nof youth are the time in which the brain cells increase in size and\nco-ordinate with the rest of the body. And the longer the period of youth\nthe more perfect is the brain. Thus the helplessness of the young stands\nin direct relation to the increased vitality shown by the adults. It is\nalso the strongest factor in developing and fixing the maternal instincts.\n\nThe young do not leave their mother until they are well ready to start\nlife on their own account; then they are thrown into the world. Till\nthen they are cared for. Freed of any duty of finding food, and very\nseldom having to defend themselves, they have time to experiment and\nlearn from experience. The instincts in this way become educated, their\nrigidity is destroyed, and more and more they are controlled by memory\nand experience\u2014the stored-up results of experiment. The purpose of youth\nis to give time for this.\n\nThe number of the young is now very greatly reduced, and the small\nfamilies are protected by the mothers, in some cases assisted by the\nfathers. The maintenance of the species by the production of enormous\nfamilies has ceased. Some of the small rodents, it is true, breed several\ntimes in the course of the year, and there are other fecund mammals, such\nas pigs, which give birth to many young in one litter. But these are rare\nexceptions. The usual number of young is two or three at a birth, and the\nhigher in the scale of mammalian life the smaller is the family.[51]\n\nThere is a fact that must be noted here. A curious perverted instinct is\nnot uncommon among mammal mothers, though rare with the monkeys. In the\nfirst day or two after birth a mother will kill and eat her young. I had\na bitch who once did this: the first time she had a family she ate all\nher puppies in the first night; afterwards (I mean when for a second time\nshe had puppies) she was a good and fond mother. I think this habit of\nmaternal infanticide must be connected with that change, of which I have\nspoken, whereby the early stages of brood-care are carried on without the\ndirect consciousness of the mother. The children do not enter into her\nexperience because she has not had to work for them. She eats them as she\nwould eat any other helpless thing. In a carnivorous mother especially\nthis habit is not surprising; it happens almost always with young and\ninexperienced mothers. And I think it shows that maternal care is not so\ninstinctive as we are led to believe, but is the result of, and directly\ndependent upon habit and the attention being fixed on the family.\n\nIn all the carnivores the young are born helpless, usually blind, though\nnew-born lions can see; they remain with their mother for a period\nvarying from a few weeks with the smaller creatures to even more than\na year. Sometimes the father stays loosely attached to the family. The\nlarge predaceous creatures cover great distances in search of prey.\nThere is, however, a stationary home lair in a well-concealed place,\nto which the mother always returns with food. She takes scrupulous\ncare to keep the nursery clean, and she carefully looks to the needs\nof her young family, licking them with her tongue, until they are old\nenough to perform their own toilet or lick and clean each other. Before\nthey are weaned they are allowed to scrape off fragments of flesh from\nthe mother\u2019s food, so that they may become accustomed to their future\nfood. At the same time they are taught the elements of stalking, in\nplay-lessons with the mother\u2019s tail and paws. Later they are taken out by\nthe mother, sometimes by both parents, on foraging expeditions. Family\nparties of lions, for instance, often have been seen by African hunters.\n\nThe fathers do little for the young families. Sometimes they afford\nprotection in fighting and driving off enemies; it is important, however,\nto note that this service to the family seems to be prompted by jealousy\nand aggression, and must be considered as an expression of the egoistic\ninstincts rather than connected with parental solicitude.\n\nAmong the mammals polygamy is frequent, and there are cases of the most\nbrutal promiscuity, where the males and females unite and separate at\nchance meetings, without any care for the family arising in the mind of\nthe male. Polygamous unions are especially common among species with\nsociable habits who live in hordes. Sociability probably arises through\nindividual weakness. Animals that are badly armed for fierce combats,\nand that have, besides, difficulty in obtaining food are glad to live\nin association. Thus the ruminants live in hordes or polygamous groups,\ncomposed of females and young subject to a male who protects them,\nexpelling his rivals, and being a veritable chief of a band.[52]\n\nThe conditions of the nursery and early life of the young are changed\nnecessarily by these different habits. In the first place, the ruminants\nare wanderers, and travel long distances in search of food and water.\nThus there is no permanent home and no nursery, and the mothers make no\npreparation beforehand for the young. They retire for a few minutes to a\nthicket, where they drop the calves or lambs. Families are small, and one\nis the usual number at a birth. The young are not born helpless, as is\nthe case among the young carnivores where there is a settled nursery, but\nare clothed, have their eyes open, and their senses are very alert. In a\nvery short time, almost as soon as their mother has licked them clean,\nthey are ready to follow her; and they join the herd, if the animals are\ngregarious. The mothers show marked affection to the young, but it would\nseem to be the business of the young one rather to follow and stick to\nthe mother than for the mother, as amongst the carnivores, to take the\nlead in the affections. There is no real training of the young by the\nmother. Sometimes, if there is a herd, the males will combine to defend\nthe group of the females and their young; but more frequently there is a\nfamily party, consisting of one or possibly two males, with their several\nwives and children.[53]\n\nMany different animals live in this manner in familial groups. The\nmoufflons of Europe and of the Atlas, for instance, form polygamous\nsocial groups in the breeding season.[54] Among the walrus, the male,\nwho is of a very jealous temperament, collects around him from thirty to\nforty females, making altogether a polygamous family sometimes amounting\nto a hundred and twenty individuals.[55] Again, the male of the Asiatic\nantelope is inordinately polygamous; he expels all his rivals, and forms\na harem numbering sometimes a hundred females. It should be noted that\npolygamic r\u00e9gime does not appear to lessen the affectionate sentiment in\nthe females towards their tyrant lord. There are many examples of the\nmost oppressed females being faithful wives. And so much is this so that\nthe conclusion is almost forced upon us that the female animal likes\nservitude.[56]\n\nThere is a wide range in the form of sexual association practised by\ndifferent species. The carnivorous animals, as a rule, live in couples;\nthis is done, for example, by bears, weasels and whales. But this is\nnot an absolute rule, for the South African lion is a polygamist, and\nis usually accompanied by four or five females.[57] Sometimes species\nthat are very nearly allied have different conjugal customs; thus the\nwhite-cheeked peccary lives in social groups, while the white-ringed\npeccary lives in couples.[58]\n\nPermanent unions are formed, especially among the anthropoid apes.\nThus strictly monogamous marriages are frequent among gorillas and\norang-utans, and any approach to loose behaviour on the part of the\nwife is severely punished by the husband.[59] The ouanderoo (_Macaque\nsilenus_) of India has only one female, and is faithful to her till\ndeath.[60]\n\nBut polygamy is frequent. Savage tells us that the _Gorilla guia_, for\ninstance, forms small hordes, consisting of a single adult male, who is\nthe despotic master of many females and a certain number of the young.\nWe find both the matrichate and the patrichate family; but whatever\nthe form of sexual relationship practised, the father has always much\nless affection for the young than the mother. Among the mammals this is\nuniversal.\n\nThe females among the mammals being smaller and less powerful than the\nmales, no sexual association comparable to polyandry is possible. Yet in\njustice it must be noted that the desire for sexual variety is not always\nconfined to the males. A female will sometimes take advantage of the\nmoment when the attention of her lord and master is entirely absorbed by\nthe anxiety of a fight to run off with a young male. Even among species\nnoted for their conjugal fidelity this will happen. The male animal has\nno monopoly in sexual sins.[61]\n\nThe polygamous families of monkeys are always subject to patriarchal\nrule. The father is the tyrant of the band\u2014an egoist, who spends his time\nin fighting and in love adventures. Any protection he gives to his wives\nis in his own interest and to keep them bound to himself. He neither\nmakes the home nor feeds the young. Often he is a disturber of the family\npeace. He will, on occasion, show jealousy of his own sons, whom he\nexpels from the band as soon as they are old enough to give him trouble;\nhis daughters, in some cases, he adds to his harem.\n\nEven in monogamous species, where the male keeps with the female, he does\nso more as chief than as father. He takes little interest in the nursery.\nAt times he is much inclined to commit infanticide and to destroy the\noffspring which, by absorbing the attention of his partner, thwart his\namours. Thus among the large felines the mother often is obliged to hide\nher young ones from the male when he stays with her, in order to prevent\nhis devouring them.[62]\n\nAgain, among the even-toed ungulates (pigs, peccaries and hippopotami)\nwe find marked maternal affection and care. Little pigs are feeble at\nbirth, and are sedulously guarded by their mother. A hippopotamus baby\n(the family usually consists of one only) stays with its mother for a\nlong time, probably several years, and when the mother goes to and fro\nto the water to feed, the little one rides on her back. The fathers take\nno notice at all of the young. The odd-toed ungulates (horses, asses and\nzebras, and the tapirs and rhinoceroses) live in herds. The young are\nactive soon after birth and able to follow their mothers, who have great\naffection for them. The males will protect the females and young when\nthe herd is attacked if a fight is unavoidable, but they prefer to seek\nsafety in flight. The fathers do not appear to have any affection for the\nyoung.[63]\n\nAmong the numerous classes of rodents, where the young are born naked,\nblind and helpless, the whole duty of their upbringing is undertaken\nby the mother. \u201cI do not know of any instance,\u201d states Mr. P. Chalmers\nMitchell, \u201cin which the male takes care of the young; generally they\neither neglect them altogether, or attack them and persecute them.\u201d\n\nFrom such pictures as these the position of the father in the family\nwill readily be seen. No longer bound by domestic ties to the young,\nhe knows no duty to the family except the rule of jealous ownership.\nHow complete is the change in the family organisation. How sharp is the\ncontrast between these indifferent males, jealous and fighting, and the\ndevoted fathers among the birds, fishes, reptiles and insects, uniting\nwith the mothers as working partners in the home-making, food-providing,\nand all the care of the young. The father is now alone\u2014separated from\nthe family, banded with other males. And do you not see how this change,\nand the indifference of the males to any interests but their own, have\nforced the mothers into closer union with the family? The male strength,\nthe gorgeous display of sex-charms, the fierce fighting for prey and\nfor love, are now markedly developed. But this polygamous jealousy and\negoism acts really for the advantage of the females. It is the egoistic\nmale conduct that forces altruism upon them. I attach great importance to\nthis. I maintain that the forcing out of the father from his service and\nearlier important position of a worker in the circle of the family served\nas a means to the end of deepening and fixing the maternal instinct in\nthe mothers. What was lost for fatherhood was gained for motherhood.\nSelf-sacrifice became once and for ever the supreme joy and privilege of\nthe female.\n\nWe have found the clue we were seeking.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFurther than this I must not go. The first part of my inquiry has come\nto an end. There is little more that I need to say. It may seem to the\nreader that the animal family, in a book written to establish the duties\nand rights of human motherhood, has received too much attention. To those\nwho hold this view I can say only that I do not agree with them. In\nforethought and sacrifice for the well-being of the young\u2014the devotion\nof the father as well as of the mother\u2014these pre-human parents do not\nyield precedence to many human families. They deserve our attentive\nstudy. But I have no hope, nor much desire, to convince those of an\nopposite opinion, who hold that we are so much higher and different from\nthe animals that we can learn nothing from them. To all such I would\nrecommend again that they leave this section of my book unread.\n\nThere is, however, another objection that may be raised. It may be\nthought that too much stress has been laid on the father and his\nconnection with the family, that my choice of illustrations has been\nbiased, and cases taken in which the father\u2019s devotion is unusually\nprominent. This I have done. And I have done it of fixed purpose. In the\nfirst place, I desired to prove the error in the common opinion that the\nparental instinct has at all times been the endowment of the female,\nstronger in her than in the male. I wanted it to be known that in the\nbeginning of the family the father was as true a parent as the mother,\nhis devotion sometimes being greater than hers. Then, secondly, I hoped,\nby means of the insight that the many and great changes in the past\nconditions of the family afford us, to establish the close connection\nwhich does at all times exist between parental devotion and the duties\nperformed in feeding and caring for the young. The parent who sacrifices\nmost is the parent who loves most. Some of the suggestions I have made\nmay be more or less open to question, but not a few, I think, are true in\nthe light of the facts that cannot be questioned. I am fully aware of the\nomissions and inadequacy of my summary; probably I have made mistakes. I\nthink this could not have been prevented. Much ground had to be covered.\nThe illustrations I have been able to give of each stage in the history\nof parenthood are few, compared with the rich number that might be\nstudied. I have made no attempt at completeness, nor have I tried to set\nup any exact order of behaviour. Life is too full of surprises for such\narbitrary theories. I have, however, tried to make clear certain ideas\nthat have forced themselves very strongly upon my attention during my own\nstudies.\n\nWe have seen the maternal instinct in the making, and we have come to\nunderstand the strong force of this impulse, which finds its expression\nin so many diverse ways. There is much that we cannot understand. But\nthis is largely because we know so little. We have, I hope, gained\na clearer view; we have learnt many things that may cast forward\nsuggestions for the solving of our own sexual, domestic and social\nrelationships. The facts which I have recorded are, I trust, sufficient\nfor this purpose: I hold that the following general conclusions may be\ndrawn from them\u2014\n\nRegarding the care of the young as the moving force in developing the\nintelligence of the parents, I have accepted the truth, which it is the\nchief purpose of my book to make plain, that the individual exists for\nthe race. Other personal things may be important, they may be profoundly\nimportant, but they are not primary\u2014not one with the forces that do not\nchange. The individual is primarily the host and servant of the seed of\nlife. Birth is the essential fact underlying all experience.\n\nFrom this service to the future arises the family and the home. And with\nthe appearance of the family, new habits are necessarily formed, and\nthese act in developing the higher sides of mental and emotional life.\nCo-operation, friendship and love which is not sexual attraction find\ntheir first beginnings in the limiting by the parents of their desire\nto look after themselves, to satisfy their own appetites and provide\nfor their own needs. The mere toleration of the young is the start in a\nnew life. There follows a mutual joining in work with the necessity and\nopportunity of modifying instinct by practice. In this way a direct push\nforward is given for the development of intelligent conduct. An immense\nadvance, then, is gained from the association of the young with the old\nin the family tie.\n\nIn the cases we have examined, we have seen that the same end is not\ngained always in the same way. Nature has no fixed rule for the family.\nThe contrasts and paradoxes of animal family life are numerous. We have\nwatched the development of the parental intelligence in many family\ngroups; we have seen that there is no fixed order in the relations which\nexist between parents and offspring. All arrangements are good on the one\ncondition that they succeed in serving the family and preserving its life.\n\nTo produce large families, making little provision for them, is a\nwasteful and improvident way of maintaining life. This spendthrift\nfashion of reproduction was the early method. To limit the number of\nthe family and to cherish and protect the young, not throwing them upon\nthe world until they are well fitted to make a brave fight against its\ndangers, is the later, wiser and safer way. We have noted devices of this\nkind in each group of the animal kingdom, but parental care becomes more\nand more complete as the scale of life is ascended. Not only are the\nnumbers in the family reduced, but the period of youth becomes longer.\nThe protected young are permitted a longer time in which they have the\nopportunity of learning to live.\n\nThe importance of the form of union or marriage between the parents and\nof the kind of home must be considered. We have found that polygamous\nfathers and polyandrous mothers care little for the young. The withdrawal\nof the interest and care of either parent is a source of weakness which\ncan be compensated only by an added devotion on the part of the remaining\nparent.\n\nWe have noted the withdrawal of the father from active work for the\nfamily. This came with the greater importance of the mother, which\nitself was not the result of any conscious act. It was a necessary step,\nfollowing the change from external to internal protection, whereby the\nyoung are retained within the body of the mother. Animal parents do not\nteach us that mothers are always more devoted and self-sacrificing than\nfathers. Sometimes, indeed, the contrary would appear to be true. Even\nthe mother\u2019s instinct to protect and serve the young, which seems to\nincrease as we ascend the scale towards human parentage, must, I think,\nbe regarded as an extended egoism. Formed in her body and fed from her\nsustenance, the young are a part of her individuality, and her solicitude\nfor them is but a wider caring for herself.\n\nThere are many surprises in animal parenthood. The conduct of the parents\nmay vary within very wide limits, and all kinds of devices are employed\nby different parents to ensure the well-being of the family. Solicitude\nand sacrifice for the young are common, but indifference also occurs; and\nthere are unnatural parents of both sexes who shirk family duties. We\nhave found, indeed, the suggestion of all the virtues of human parents\nas well as many of their sins, every form of devotion and intelligent\nparenthood as well as examples of folly and neglect.\n\nWe have observed the greatest difference in particular in the conduct\nof the father as regards his participation in the work of building the\nhome and in feeding and rearing the young. Thereby we have learnt that a\npsychic metamorphosis of the male may occur, causing him to fulfil the\nduties of the mother, and that accompanying this is an alteration in the\ncharacter of the female which completely transforms her sexual nature.\n\nAn attempt was made to solve this riddle of sex. It seems probable that\nchanges in function, by which is meant changes in the form of union and\nconditions of the family\u2014as when one sex, for some reason or other,\nperforms the duties usually undertaken by the other sex\u2014may profoundly\nalter the sexual nature of the individual and modify the differences\nwhich tend to thrust the sexes apart. We cannot know with any certainty.\nYet I can see no other interpretation of these curious instances of\nsexual transformation, and, if I mistake not, it may be possible in this\nway to cast a light on one of the most difficult problems with which we\nare faced to-day.\n\nI have asserted again and again that the strength of the parental\ninstinct is dependent directly on the opportunities for its expression;\nwhich is to say that the parent who tends and feeds the young is the\nparent who loves the young. We may go further than this. There is no\nsuch thing as instinctive motherhood. The emotional quality of affection\ncomes later than the birth of offspring, and is not dependent on any\ninstinctive feeling in the mother. It is the consequence and not the\ncause of parental care. So true it is that sacrifice and forgetfulness of\nself is the basis of affection.\n\nThe most important result that we have gained from our inquiry is a\nknowledge of the close connection which exists between the care of the\nyoung and the character and conduct of the parents. You will see what\nthis implies. The essential fact for the male and the female\u2014for the\nmother and also for the father\u2014is a development of responsibility in\nfulfilling duties to the family. Neither sex can keep a position apart\nfrom parenthood. Just in so far as the mother and the father attain\nto consciousness and intelligent sacrifice in their relation to their\noffspring do they attain individual intelligence, development and joy.\nTo me, at least, this is the truth that stands out as the lesson to be\nlearnt from these pre-human parents.\n\n\n\n\nPART III\n\nTHE PRIMITIVE FAMILY\n\n\n\u201cRound the fundamental facts of parenthood and the dependence of\nthe breeding mother woman has built up the tissue of customs and\nconventions called \u2018home,\u2019 which expanded in ever widening circles became\nsociety.\u201d\u2014E. COLQUHOUN.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII\n\nTHE MOTHER IN THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY\n\n\n    The importance of the customs of primitive peoples\u2014Such\n    knowledge necessary to an understanding of our present\n    family system and form of marriage\u2014My earlier book, _The Age\n    of Mother-Power_\u2014This work a necessary part of my present\n    inquiry\u2014Re-statement of my own views\u2014An attempt to group the\n    matter to be considered\u2014The early period in which man developed\n    from his ape-like ancestors\u2014Parenthood more fixed, fewer\n    experiments\u2014The probable conditions of the primordial human\n    family\u2014Customs of brute male-ownership\u2014This the pre-matriarchal\n    stage of the family\u2014Progress\u2014The second stage\u2014The growth\n    of the communal clan\u2014The increasing influence of the\n    women\u2014Reasons why this view may be accepted\u2014Mother-descent and\n    mother-rights\u2014The importance of this early matriarchate\u2014The\n    maternal form of marriage\u2014Visiting husbands\u2014Communal dwelling\n    houses\u2014Contrast between the customs of the patriarchal\n    individual family and the maternal communal clan\u2014The power of\n    the wife and the mother\u2014The alien position of the husband and\n    father\u2014The assertion of the male force in the person of the\n    woman\u2019s brother\u2014The communal clan a transitional stage\u2014The\n    re-establishment of the individual patriarchal family\u2014The\n    fixing of paternity and the rise of the father\u2019s power\u2014Lessons\n    to be learnt from this past history of the family.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE MOTHER IN THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY\n\n(_A chapter which may be omitted by the reader who has no interest in the\ncustoms of primitive peoples._)\n\n    \u201cThe clan exists on account of the struggle for existence,\n    the family seeks for the enjoyment of that which they have\n    obtained.\u201d\u2014STARCKE.\n\n\nAnd now having finished my preliminary study of the maternal instinct in\nthe making, having given examples of its varied manifestations in the\nanimal kingdom, and made clear certain general ideas on parenthood and\nthe family, I may hope to go on to consider human mothers and fathers\nwith a surer knowledge and less misunderstanding. The fitting method of\ninquiry, and the one I should like to employ would be to begin with the\nlowest forms of the human family. I myself am always greatly attracted\nby the customs of primitive peoples, for I was born amongst them. I hold\nthat some knowledge of the family and the domestic and social conditions\nstill to be found among uncivilised races, in all parts of the world,\nis essential to a complete understanding of our own social and sexual\nproblems.\n\nIn an earlier work, _The Age of Mother-Power_,[64] I have given my views\non the past history of the family. I have attempted to establish the\nexistence of a Mother-age civilisation, the so-called Matriarchate,\ndescribed in detail the privileged position of the mother, and noted,\nwith many examples, the family conditions, sex-customs and forms of\nmarriage among primitive peoples. That book should form the historical\nsection of this present work. It is, indeed, a necessary part of my\ninquiry. I am convinced that the only way to estimate the value of our\npresent family system is to examine the history of that system in the\npast. We find suggestions of primitive customs in many directions; they\nare shadowed in certain of our marriage rites and direct many of our\nsex habits; they have left unmistakable traces on our literature, in\nour language and in our laws; indeed we may find their influence almost\neverywhere, if we know what to look for and how to interpret the signs.\nThe close connection which links the present with the past cannot easily\nbe neglected. We often say: This or that custom belongs to the present\nera: yet nine times out of ten the thing we believe to be new is in\nreality as old as the history of mankind. Often what we think is a step\nforward is not so at all; we are going back to a custom and practices\nlong discarded. We are less inventive and more bound than we know. No\nperiod stands alone, and the present in every age is merely the shifting\nground at which the past and the future meet.\n\nI would therefore ask all those among my readers who care to follow in\ndetail the history of the family through the long, early, upward stages\nof its growth, at this point to leave this work in order to read _The Age\nof Mother-Power_, therein to learn what I hold to have been the family\nconditions in the period known as the Mother-age. But as such a course\nmay be impossible, or be disliked, by the reader, I will now for our\npresent guidance re-state very briefly the main conclusions arrived at by\nthat investigation.\n\nAnd first it should be noted that the history of human parenthood from\nits earliest known appearance shows an orderly progress from the start\nto the end. There is no difficulty even in fixing the beginning. Man,\nthe gorilla, the orang and the chimpanzee had a common ancestor, and for\nthis reason the parental stages of the great apes and of man have an\nalmost startling resemblance. Professor Metchnikoff was so impressed by\nthis likeness that he has suggested that the human race may have taken\nits origin from the precocious birth of an ape. We thus find no gap that\nhas to be filled: we take up our inquiry of the family at the exact place\nat which we left it. There are, of course, changes to fit the parents\nand the young for their new stage of life; more and more instincts are\nmodified by experiment and experience. Intelligence grows. New habits\nafford possibilities of advance, and suggest the directions in which the\nfamily may move. There are, however, far fewer experiments, less sharp\ndifferences in the conduct of the different parents; the family shows\nless flexibility, and the maternal instincts settle down, as it were, to\nan average character, with average limitations and an average expression.\n\nOur most primitive ancestors, half-men, half-brutes, lived in small,\nsolitary, and hostile family groups, composed of an adult male, his wife,\nor, if he were powerful, several wives and their children. In such a\ngroup the father is the chief or patriarch as long as he lives, and the\nfamily is held together by their common subjection to him. His interest\nin the family is confined to fighting to drive off rivals, and, for this\nreason, he drives his sons from the home as soon as they are old enough\nto be dangerous to his interests: his daughters he adds to his wives,\nunless they are caught and carried off by some other male.\n\nIt was doubtless thus, in a family organisation similar to that of the\ngreat monkeys, that man first lived. Here was the most primitive form of\njealous government of the family by the male. Such conduct, prompted by\nthe egoistic desires of sex, mark the continuation of the degradation\nin fatherhood, which we noted as occurring among the mammals as soon as\nthe father was freed from the duties of providing a home and the first\nfeeding and tending of the young.\n\nIn the primitive families the idea of descent is feeble so that the\ngroups are small and readily disrupted. But though originally without\nexplicit consciousness of relationships, the members would be held\ntogether by a _feeling_ of kin. Such feeling would become conscious first\nbetween the mothers and their children, and in this way mother-kin must\nhave been realised at a very early period. The father\u2019s relationship, on\nthe other hand, would not be forced into conscious recognition. He would\nbe a member apart from this natural kinship.\n\nSuch were the probable conditions in the primordial human family. The\nimportant thing to note is that in each family group there would be only\none adult polygamous male, with several women of different ages, and the\nchildren of both sexes, all in more or less complete subjection to his\nrule.[65]\n\nThese customs of brute-male-ownership are still in great measure\npreserved among the least-developed races. This may be called the\npre-matriarchal stage of the family, and its existence explains how there\nare many rude peoples that exhibit no trace at all of mother-descent. In\nthe lowest nomad bands of savages of the deserts and forests we still\nfind these rough paternal groups, who know no social bonds, but are ruled\nalone by brute strength and jealous ownership. With them development has\nbeen very slow; they have not yet advanced to the social organisation of\nthe maternal family clan.\n\nFrom these first solitary families, grouped submissively around\none tyrant-ruler, we reach a second stage, out of which order and\norganisation sprang. In this second stage the family expanded into\nthe larger group of the communal clan. The change had to come. With\nthe fierce struggle for existence, the solitary family-group became\nimpossible, association was the only way to prevent extermination.\n\nHow did the change come?\n\nNow, it is part of my conviction that the earliest movements towards\npeace and expansion of the family came through the influence of women. I\nmust state briefly my reasons for this view.\n\nIn the first place it certainly would be in the women\u2019s interests to\nconsolidate the home and the family, and, by means of union, to establish\ntheir own power. What we desire and fix our attention upon, as a rule, is\nwhat we do. In the early groups the mothers with their adult daughters\nand the young of both sexes would live on terms of association as\nfriendly hearthmates. Such is the marked difference in the position of\nthe two sexes\u2014the solitary jealous unsocial male and the united women.\n\nThe strongest factor in this association would arise from the dependence\nof the children upon their mothers, a dependence that was of much\nlonger duration than among the animals on account of the pre-eminent\nhelplessness of the human child, which entailed a more prolonged infancy.\nThe women and the children would form the family-group, to which the male\nwas attached by his sexual needs, but he remained always apart\u2014a kind\nof jealous fighting specialist. The temporary hearth-home would be the\nshelter of the women. It was under this shelter that children were born\nand the group accumulated its members. Whether cave, or hollow tree, or\nfrail branch shelter, the home must have belonged to the women.\n\nIt is clear that under these conditions the female members of the\ngroup-family must necessarily have been attached to the home much more\nclosely than the man, whose desire lay in the opposite direction, and\nwhose conduct by constant jealous fights tended to the disruption of the\nhome. Moreover this home attachment would be present always and acting on\nthe female members, as the daughters\u2014unless captured by other males\u2014would\nremain in the home as additional wives to their father; on the other\nhand, it could never arise in the case of the sons, whose fate was to be\ndriven out from the hearth-home as soon as they were old enough to become\nrivals to their father. Such conditions must, as time went on, have\nprofoundly modified the female outlook, bending the desire of the women\nto a steady settled life, conditions under which alone the family could\nexpand and social organisation develop.\n\nAgain, the daily search for the daily food must surely have been\nundertaken chiefly by the women. For it is impossible that one man,\nhowever skilful a hunter, could have fed all the female members and\nchildren of the group. Further than this, we may, I think, conceive that\nmuch of his attention and his time would be occupied in fighting his\nrivals; also his strength as sole progenitor must have been expended\nlargely in sex. It is, therefore, probable that the male was dependent on\nthe food activities of his women.\n\nThe mothers, their inventive faculties quickened by the stress of the\nneeds of their children, would try to convert to their own uses the most\navailable portion of their own environment. It would be under their\nattention that plants were first utilised for food, seeds planted and\nnuts and fruit stored, birds would also be snared, fish caught, and\nanimals tamed for service. Primitive domestic vessels and baskets would\nbe fashioned and clothes have to be made. All the faculties of the\nwomen, in exercises that would lead to the development of every part of\ntheir bodies and their minds, would be called into play by the work of\nsatisfying the physical needs of the group.\n\nIn all these numerous activities the women of each group would work\ntogether. And through this co-operation must have resulted the assertion\nof the women\u2019s power, as the directors and organisers of industrial\noccupations.\n\nAs the group slowly advanced in progress, such power, increasing, would\nraise the mother\u2019s position; the women would establish themselves\npermanently as of essential value in the family, not only as the givers\nof life, but as the chief providers of the food essential to the\npreservation of the life of its members.\n\nAnd a further result would follow in the treatment by the males of this\nnew order. The women by obtaining and preparing food would gain an\neconomic value. Wives would become to the husband a source of riches\nindispensable to him, not only on account of his sex needs, but on\naccount of the more persistent need of food. Thus the more women he\npossessed the greater would be his own comfort, and the physical\nprosperity of the group.\n\nAnd again, a further result would follow. The greater the number of\nwomen in the group the stronger would become their power of combination.\nI attach great importance to this. Working together for the welfare of\nall, the maternal instinct of sacrifice would be greatly strengthened in\nthe women so that necessarily they would come to consider the collective\ninterests of the family. Can it be credited that such conditions could\nhave acted upon the males, whose conduct would still be inspired by\nindividual appetite and selfish inclination? I maintain such a view to be\nimpossible.\n\nAnother advantage, I think, would arise for the women. From the\ncircumstances of the family their interest in sex must have been less\nacute in consciousness than that of the male. They must have gained\nfreedom from being less occupied with love, and from being less jealously\ninterested in the male than he was in them. Doubtless each woman would\nbe attracted by the male\u2019s courageous action in fighting his rivals\nfor possession of her, but when the rival was the woman\u2019s own son such\nattraction would come into strong conflict with the deeper maternal\ninstinct. Thus the unceasing sexual preoccupation of the male, with the\nemotional dependence it entailed on the females, must, I would suggest,\nhave given the women an immense advantage. They would come to use their\nsex charms as an accessory of success. And if I am right here, the\nhusband would be in the power of his women, much more surely than they\nwould be in his power.\n\nFrom the standpoint of physical strength the male was the master, the\ntyrant ruler of the family, who, doubtless, often was brutal enough.\nBut the women with their children, leading an independent life to some\nextent, and with their mental ingenuity developed by the conditions of\ntheir life, would learn, I believe, to outwit their masters by passive\nunited resistance. The mothers and daughters may even have asserted\ntheir will in rebellion. I picture, indeed, these savage women ever\nstriving for more privilege, and step by step advancing through peaceful\ncombination to power.\n\nSuch conditions as those I have briefly pictured could not fail to\ndomesticate the women. They must have acted also in strengthening the\nbonds between the mothers and their children and in making more conscious\nthe strong instinct of maternal sacrifice.\n\nBut mark this: I do not wish to set up any claim for, because I do not\nbelieve in, the superiority of one sex over the other sex. Character\nis determined by the conditions of living. If, as I conceive, progress\ncame through the mothers, rather than through the father, it was\nbecause the conditions were really more favourable to them, and drove\nthem on in the right path. Collective motives were more considered by\nwomen, not at all because of any higher standard of moral virtue, but\nbecause of the peculiar advantages arising to themselves and to their\nchildren\u2014advantages of peaceful family association which could not exist\nin a group ruled by individual inclination.\n\nDuring the development of the family, we may expect to find that the\nmales will seek to hold their rights, and that the women of the group\nwill exert their influence more and more in breaking these down; and this\nis precisely what we do find. And for this reason the clan system, which\ndeveloped from these solitary hostile families, must be considered as a\nfeminine creation, which had special relation to motherhood.\n\nThe sexual egoism by which one male, through his strength and seniority,\nheld marital rights over all the females of his group had to be struck at\nits roots. In other words, the solitary despot had to learn to tolerate\nthe association of other adult males.\n\nIt is impossible for me here to follow step by step the means whereby\nthis change was brought about. I would, however, assert my strong belief\nthat it was the mothers, acting in the interests of their children, who\ntamed the jealous desires and domesticated the males. The adult sons,\ninstead of being driven from the home by the father, were permitted\nto remain as members of the family group and to bring in young wives\ncaptured from other families. At a later stage, daughters received\nhusbands, young males from other groups, who came first as temporary\nlovers, visiting their brides by night, but afterwards remained with\nthem as permanent guests in the home of the mother. Under these new\nconditions, the marital rights of the male members were restricted and\nconfined. A system of taboos was established, which, as time advanced,\nwas greatly strengthened by the use of sacred totem marks, and became of\ninexorable strictness.\n\nIn this way peace was established, and association between the jealous\nfighting males was made possible.\n\nHere, then, are the reasons which led to the formation of the maternal\nfamily and the communal clan. It depended, in the first place, on the\ndevelopment of mutual aid between mother and offspring, based on the\nmuch closer relationship of the children to their mothers than to the\nfather. As soon as the women of the family-group by combination were able\nto outwit and curb the jealous rule of the father, the matriarchal clan\ndeveloped from the primitive patriarchal family.\n\nThe contrast between the family and clan seems to me of great importance.\nIndividual relationships became of less importance; the clan did not\nconsist of groups of families but of individuals. I have stated that the\nsexual relationships between the young people began with the reception\nby the daughters of temporary lovers in the clan-home. A connection thus\nformed would tend under favourable circumstances to be continued and\nwould be perpetuated as a marriage. Thus it came to be the custom for\nthe husband to live temporarily or permanently in the wife\u2019s home and\namong her kindred. Here he was compelled to work for the general good;\nhe was without property or any recognised rights in the clan; he was not\npermitted a separate home, and was left with no\u2014or very little\u2014control\nover his wife and none over the children of the marriage. He occupied,\nindeed, the position of a more or less permanent guest in the maternal\nhut or tent.\n\nUnder such an organisation the family\u2014the first group of the father,\nwives and children\u2014is swallowed up in the larger clan. The male has no\nposition of mastery over the female. As time goes on, the clan becomes\nmore and more a free association for mutual protection, ruled over by the\nablest and most capable members. Not only does the father not stand out\nas a principal person from the background of the familial clan; he has\nnot even any recognised domestic rights in connection with his own wife\nand children. This restriction of the husband and father was clearly\ndependent on the form of marriage.\n\nThe later modifications of the communal clan and the social customs that\ngrew up, in most cases\u2014and always, I believe, in the complete maternal\nform\u2014were favourable to the authority of the mothers. Kinship was\nreckoned through the mother, the totem name was taken from her, since in\nthis way alone could the undivided family be maintained. The continuity\nof the clan thus depending on the women they were placed in a position of\nimportance; the mother was at least the nominal head of the household,\nshaping the destiny of the clan through the aid of her kindred.\n\nAll the members of such a compound family were responsible for the\noffences of any individual member; and in the same way the clan exacted\nblood vengeance or compensation collectively for any offence committed\nagainst its members. But the men belonged to their own clans, that is,\nto the clans of their mothers; they did not belong to and had no rights\nin the clan of which their wife and children were members. As husbands\nand fathers they were without power. This is very important. The woman\u2019s\nclosest male relation was not her husband, but her brother, who acted as\nfather to her children.\n\nA pure type of matriarchal family fully preserved is rare. There are\nscattered tribes in different parts of the world where descent is still\nreckoned through the mother. Some features favourable to women are\nfound in one community, some in another. The sexual relationships, in\nparticular, are interesting. The girl is frequently the wooer of the man,\nand in certain cases she or her mother imposes the conditions of the\nmarriage. After marriage, the free provisions for divorce (often more\nfavourable to the wife than to the husband) are, perhaps, of even greater\nsignificance.\n\nThere are many traces of discipline exercised in the bringing up of\nchildren and more or less systematic training of boys in endurance,\nspeed, courage, etc. This task falls to the mother\u2019s brother. The\ndaughters are instructed by the mothers and the matrons of the tribe in\nall that concerns their duties as wives and mothers.\n\nThe woman is subject to the authority of her eldest brother, and\nsometimes as well to that of her other brothers, her uncles and male\nrelations. But descent being reckoned in the female line, and the\nfact that she is the conduit by which property passes to and from the\nmen, gives the woman a position of very considerable, though varying,\nimportance.\n\nIn all cases the power of the wife is clearly dependent on the maternal\nform of marriage. I must insist upon this. Where this custom of the\nhusband living in the home of the wife was practised for any long period,\nthe women often established their own claims and all property was held\nby them; conditions which, under favourable circumstances, developed\ninto what may literally be called a matriarchate. Elder women among some\ntribes are the heads of kinsfolk, they even have a seat or voice in the\ntribal council, and there have been exceptional cases of female tribal\nchiefs. Religion is in some periods in the hands of women, and goddesses\nare more reverenced than gods. Here is certain proof of the favourable\ninfluence mother-descent may exercise on the authority held by women. In\nall circumstances the children\u2019s position was dependent on the mother and\nher kindred.\n\nSuch a system of inheritance may be briefly summarised as mother-right.\n\nOther forms of marriage are found; indeed, every possible experiment in\nfamily and sexual association has been tried and is still practised among\nbarbarous races, often with very little reference to those moral ideas to\nwhich we are accustomed. It is, however, very necessary to remember that\nmonogamy is frequent and indeed usual under the maternal system. When the\nhusband lives with his wife in a dependent position to her family, he can\ndo so only in the case of one woman. For this reason polygamy is much\nless deeply rooted under the conditions in which the communal life of\nthe compound family is developed than in the single patriarchal family.\nPolygamy is an indication, if not always a proof, of the subordination of\nwomen to the headship of the husband. In the complete maternal family it\nis never common and is even prohibited.\n\nIt was quite otherwise with polyandry, and though less usual than\nmonogamy, this form of association is in some cases connected with the\nconditions of the maternal clan. I do not believe it can be regarded\nas due to a licentious view of the sexual relations, but arose as\nan expression of the communism which was characteristic of such an\norganisation.\n\nThe whole subject of primitive sexual relationships\u2014which, of course,\ninvolves the family, the position of woman and the welfare of the\nchildren\u2014is a very wide and complicated one. If I differ on several\nimportant points from learned authorities, whose knowledge and research\nfar exceed my own, I do so only after great hesitation, and because I\nmust. Almost invariably the writers on these questions are men, and\nperhaps for this reason the position of women has not received the\nattention that it claims. My own studies have convinced me that in the\nearly beginnings of the human family women exercised a more direct and\nstronger influence than is usually believed. This is no fanciful idea of\nmy own, as I claim to have proved in my earlier book,[66] where it was\npossible to bring forward in detail the evidence I have collected on the\nsubject.\n\nBut even in this brief summary enough has been said to give in rough\noutline some picture of the family under the conditions of the maternal\ncommunal clan. We have marked the steady strengthening of the tie between\nthe mother and the child, with the corresponding movement in the opposite\ndirection in regard to the father\u2019s position in the family. All the\nchances for success in parenthood rested with the mother, rather than\nwith the father. The male was driven out from the holy circle of the\nfamily. This degradation of fatherhood is a fact that must be kept before\nour attention.[67]\n\nThere is, however, another side to the matter. In the face of what\nwe have established, it must, I think, be accepted that women held\nconsiderable power in this period of mother-descent and under the\nmaternal form of marriage. The mother was dominant in the family in\nthis second stage of its development. This is still denied by some\nauthorities. There are many facts of the early power of women which the\ngreat world does not know.\n\nHow, then, are we to come to a decision? Shall we look back to the\nmaternal stage as the golden period of the family wherein were realised\nconditions of free motherhood, which even to-day have not been\nestablished? It is a question very difficult to answer, and we must not\nin any haste rush into mistakes. And unfortunately the limitation of my\nspace can allow only the briefest consideration of the matter.\n\nWe find that the mother-age was a transitional stage in the history\nof the growth of society, and we can trace the stages of its gradual\ndecline. There is nothing to show that the customs of maternal communism,\ndependent on descent traced in the female line and the maternal form\nof marriage, have ever been permanently maintained in any progressive\nsociety. The enlarged family of the maternal clan is thus proved to have\nbeen a less stable social system than the patriarchal single family which\nagain succeeded it, or it would not have perished in the struggle with\nit. I think this must be accepted.\n\nWithin the large and undivided group-family of the clan, the restricted\nfamily became gradually re-established by a reassertion of domestic\ninterests. In proportion as the family gained in importance (which would\narise as the struggle for existence lessened and the need of association\nwas less imperative) the interests of the individual members would become\nseparated from the group to which they belonged. As society advanced and\npersonal property began to be acquired, each man would aim at gaining a\nmore exclusive right over his wife and children; he would not willingly\nsubmit to the bondage of the maternal form of marriage.\n\nWe find the husband and father moving towards the position of a fully\nacknowledged legal parent by a system of buying off his wife and her\nchildren from their clan-group. Then the payment of a bride-price was\nclaimed from the bridegroom by the bride\u2019s relations, and an act of\npurchase was accounted essential before marriage; it was, however,\nregarded as a condition, not so much of the marriage itself, but of\nthe transference of the wife to the home of the husband and of the\nchildren to his kindred. The change was, of course, effected slowly;\noften we find the two forms of marriage\u2014the maternal form and the\npurchase-marriage\u2014occurring side by side. What, however, is certain is\nthat the purchase-marriage in the struggle was the one which prevailed.\n\nThis reversal in the form of the marriage brought about a corresponding\nreversal in the position of the woman in the sexual relationship. This\nis so plain. As the patriarchate developed, and men began to gain\nindividual possession of their children by the purchase of their mothers,\nthe father became the dominant power in the family. Women no longer are\nthe transmitters of property and of the family name, but are themselves\nproperty passing from the hands of their kindred to those of a husband.\nAs purchased wives, they reside in the husband\u2019s house and among his kin,\nwhere they occupy the same position of disadvantage in the family as the\nhusband and father had done under the maternal marriage. The protection\nof her own kindred was the source of the wife\u2019s privileged position. This\nnow was lost. The change was not brought about without a struggle, and\nfor long the old customs contended with the new. But step by step the\nman became the father-master in the home.\n\nIt is, however, very necessary to remember that this reversal in the\nmarriage custom may well have been brought about as much by the desire of\nthe women as by the action of the men. I believe that the change to the\nindividual family must have been regarded favourably by primitive women.\nAn arrangement which would give a closer relationship in marriage and\nthe protection of a husband for herself and her children may well have\nbeen preferred by the wife to the position of subjection in which she was\nfrequently placed to the authority of her brother and her own relatives.\nNor do I think it unlikely that she, quite as strongly as the man,\nmay have desired to live apart from her mother and her kindred in her\nhusband\u2019s home. We have to remember that the reassertion of the father\nwithin the family-group was a necessary step, and one that had to be\ntaken. The mother is bound to the family by her children in a much closer\nway than the man ever can be bound. And for this reason any conditions\nwhich separate the father from the home and liberate him from his\nresponsibilities to his children are certain not to act in the direction\nof progress. The male needs to be held to the family. This is a fact much\ntoo often forgotten.\n\nThe social clan organised around the mothers carried mankind a long way\u2014a\nway the length of which we are only beginning to realise. But it could\nnot carry mankind forward to the closer family ties and family life from\nwhich so much was afterwards to develop. The clan system was essential to\nthe conditions of primitive life, owing to the fierce struggle to exist,\nand it could then limit and interfere with the family on every side. But\nas soon as life was easier, men wanted to establish a home with wife and\nchildren and to enjoy the possession of property. And women wanted this\ntoo. It was not possible for the family to be permanently absorbed. I\nmust insist upon this again. The individual family\u2014that is, the trinity\ncomposed of father, mother and child\u2014is the older and the more lasting\ninstitution.\n\nI affirm, further, that of the two forms of the family, the individual\nlimited form is the one that is the more natural and happy. Special\ncircumstances may make necessary the enlarged social family, but such\nconditions are not really a step forward.\n\nWith all the evils and restrictions that father-right and the individual\nfamily-group may, throughout the ages, have brought to women, we have\ngot to remember that the woman owes the individual relationship in\nlove and the protection of the man for herself and her children to the\npatriarchal system. The father\u2019s right in his children (which, unlike\nthe right of the mother, was not founded upon kinship, but rested on the\nquite different and insecure basis of property) had to be re-established.\nWithout this being done, the family in its fairness and complete\ndevelopment was impossible. The survival value of the patriarchal family\nconsists in the additional gain to the children of the father\u2019s to the\nmother\u2019s care. I do not think this gain can ever safely be lost.\n\n\n\n\nPART IV\n\nMOTHERHOOD AND THE RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SEXES\n\n\n\u201cFor the great majority of mankind at least it can be held that life\nresolves itself quite simply and obviously into three cardinal phases.\nThere is a period of youth and preparation, a great insurgence of emotion\nand enterprise centring about the passion of Love; and a third period in\nwhich, arising amidst the warmth and stir of the second, interweaving\nindeed with the second, the care and love of offspring becomes the\ncentral interest in life.\u2026 Looking at this with a primary regard to its\nbroadest aspect, life is seen essentially as a matter of reproduction;\nfirst a growth and training to that end, then commonly mating and actual\nphysical reproduction, and finally the consummation of these things in\nparental nurture and education. Love, Home and Children, these are the\nheart-words of life.\u201d\u2014H. G. WELLS.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE FAMILY AND THE HOME\n\n\n    Attacks on the family not likely to destroy it\u2014Dominance of\n    the male may be changed without altering the fundamental\n    ideal of the family\u2014Bernard Shaw ignorant of human needs\u2014Two\n    statements by H. G. Wells\u2014The inhuman ideals of intellectual\n    reformers\u2014Trained hands to replace mother\u2019s love\u2014Foolish egoism\n    the basis of the whole argument\u2014The sweated victim of an\n    industrial age is the ideal emancipated woman\u2014The power of the\n    mother in non-industrial societies\u2014Modern uncertainty and want\n    of a fixed standard of conduct\u2014The extension of women\u2019s work\n    during the war\u2014Is it of benefit to the coming generation\u2014Can\n    the mother both work outside the home and give sufficient\n    care to her children\u2014Woman\u2019s subordinate qualities are man\u2019s\n    dominant qualities\u2014Hence the wastefulness of rivalry in the\n    same work\u2014Early experiments in communist families\u2014The child\u2019s\n    need for a home of its own\u2014We must insist on conditions that\n    will make home life possible\u2014Types of mothers\u2014The personal\n    rights of the child\u2014The position of the father\u2014The father can\n    be detached from the family\u2014This harmful\u2014The child\u2019s need for\n    the care of both its parents\u2014The home exposed to danger\u2014It\n    awaits a fresh inspiration to turn back and hold the desires of\n    women.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE FAMILY AND THE HOME\n\n    \u201cThe ideal which the mother and wife makes for herself, the\n    manner in which she understands duty and life, contain the fate\n    of the community.\u201d\u2014_Amiel\u2019s Journal._\n\n\nThere are some who hold that the family rests on a trembling quicksand,\nand state that its supporters are compelled to weave a network of lies to\nsustain its foundation. We hear much wild talk, and a great deal is said\nabout the restrictions imposed by the family, and very little about its\nduties and its joys. There is, and I think its existence must be faced,\na growing tide of discontent which would seem to render the stability\nof the home more and more precarious\u2014the faint-hearted cry to us that\neverything is coming to an end. It is not so, but rather, everything is\nabout to be renewed.\n\nInstitutions as vital to life as the family will continue. From the most\ndistant period of life, among the animals as among mankind, the history\nof the family has been a long series of regenerations. We have found\nwitness to this again and again in the past records of pre-human and\nprimitive human parenthood. And, indeed, the most important result we\nhave gained from our long inquiry is the abundant proof it has furnished\nof the indestructible character of the family.\n\nWherever the individual family (the lasting union of the male with the\nfemale for the protection of the young) has been departed from for\nsome other and perhaps freer form of sexual association a return has\nfollowed. Special conditions have called forth experiments, new family\narrangements, but in no case have they become universal and permanent.\nWe cannot argue against all that the past teaches us. And assuredly the\nhistory of the family turns into foolishness many reforms that, in our\nblindness, we are seeking to-day. We believe they will bring progress\nand freedom to women. But what sure ground have we for such a belief? In\ntruth we have much to learn.\n\nInstitutions have this in common with rivers, they do not readily flow\nbackwards. If they sometimes seem to retro-grade, it is generally only a\nmere appearance, and though tributary streams break away in experimental\ncourses the main river flows on. You will see what I mean by this. The\nchanges that will take place, and have for long been taking place, have\nbeen changes not affecting the fundamental qualities in the ideal of the\nfamily\u2014its permanence, the fidelity of its partners in thought and deed,\nits sentiments and its obligations of joyous sacrifice in united parental\ncare. Attacks have altered (and it is well that they have altered) the\ndominance of the male. The patriarchal customs of proprietary ownership\nare gradually disappearing both for the wife and for the children. The\nfamily has broadened. The feeling of hostility to the outer world, the\nself-centredness\u2014much that limited the family is being changed. But the\nidea of the family, and its value as one of the most essential forms of\nsocial life, remains unaffected.\n\nAnd mark this: _No ideals whatever have been produced by even the most\nprogressive and enlightened persons to replace the family group._\n\nThe wild reforms contemplated by some among us, who talk, but fortunately\ndo not act, are fog and nonsense.\n\nThe home, in particular, has been spoken of with contempt. Thus, Bernard\nShaw, who in the reforms he advocates fails so frequently to see the real\nhuman needs of life, cries: \u201cHome is the girls\u2019 prison and the woman\u2019s\nworkhouse.\u201d Again, W. L. George in _Women and To-morrow_ (a \u201cTo-morrow\u201d\nwhich, by the way, I trust I may never live to see) states: \u201cThe home is\nthe enemy of Woman. Purporting to be her protector, it is her oppressor.\nIt is her fortress, but she does not live in the state apartments, she\nlives in a dungeon.\u201d\n\nMr. H. G. Wells, in a much more recent utterance, wherein he professes to\nforecast \u201cWhat is Coming,\u201d speaks even more strongly, and all the present\nconditions are estimated. He states: \u201c_Now, to be married is an incident\nin a woman\u2019s career, as in a man\u2019s._\u201d (The italics are mine.) \u201cThere\nis not the same necessity of that household, not the same close tie;\nthe married woman remains partially a freewoman and assimilates herself\nto the freewoman. There is an increasing disposition to group solitary\nchildren and to delegate their care to specially qualified people; and\nthis is likely to increase, because the high earning power of young women\nwill incline them to entrust their children to others.\u201d\n\nAnd again, at the conclusion of his article on \u201cThe War and Women,\u201d Mr.\nWells sums up the situation as follows: \u201cTo sum all that has gone before,\nthis war is accelerating rather than deflecting the stream of tendency,\nand is bringing us rapidly to a state of affairs in which women will\nbe much more definitely independent of their sexual status, much less\nhampered in their self-development and much more nearly equal to men\nthan has ever been known before in the whole history of mankind.\u201d\n\nNow, if these two late pronouncements of Mr. Wells are compared with\nwhat he wrote a few years back, with the quotation from _Mankind in the\nMaking_ which I have placed before this section of my book because it\nso well expresses my own views, I think the harm that of late years has\nbeen working is strongly evident; harm that is incredibly active in our\nconsciousness.[68]\n\nSuch talk of my sex as \u201cfreewomen\u201d and of a liberation from the sexual\nlife, as if that could be possible, fills me with impatience. I would\nnot wait to notice it did I not believe that the hurt done to women had\nbeen deep and far-reaching. It has increased for them the difficulty\nof unifying life. And this uncertainty of desire is, as I believe, the\nmodern disease which has worked such havoc in the souls of women. I\nwould like to silence all useless, impious negators; those who, seeking\nto be clever, really are blinkered, and unable to see the results that\nwould follow from their destructions. The error in all these outcries\nis the error of blindness, of getting into a condition of confused\nintellectual excitement, and because some women are dissatisfied and\nhave been unhappy, saying, therefore, and usually with passion, that\nthey would be more satisfied if all the sex were freed from its own\nduties. As if freedom were ever gained by running away. The intellectual\nreformer is so very far from understanding the real human needs. There\nis, for instance, a significant omission in the quotations I have\ngiven\u2014no mention is made of the results of all this to the child, and\nno suggestion is offered except that it should be trained and cared for\nby experts and apart from its parents. The home is to go because it\nrestricts the liberty of women and will hinder their earning power, as\nif this were all that had to be considered. I can hardly find a more\nstriking example of how far the apparently simple and elemental things\nescape the attention of the intellectual reformer.\n\nIn the society in which we are living, the only use that can be made of\nmodern progressive teaching about the family\u2014the only ounces of practice\nto be derived from pounds of precept\u2014will lead, as I believe, to a very\nundesirable course of action. The programme for the abolition of the home\nhas been outlined for us by reformers of both sexes. Communal houses and\nkitchens, and the intervention of armies of experts, are to solve the\nproblems which now keep women tied in the individual home. The parents\nare to be supplanted by \u201cborn educators.\u201d Successive institutions are\nplanned for the bottle-period, kindergarten, school age, and so on.\nThe children are to stand on visiting relations to the individual home\nand their parents, while their bodies and souls are to be cared for by\nspecialists. And we are asked to believe that this will be a gain to\nthe child! \u201cIt is the trained hand that the baby needs, not mere blood\nrelationship \u2026 personal love is too hot an atmosphere for the young\nsoul.\u201d[69]\n\nNow, if I wanted a general term to express the state of mind of these\nreformers, I do seriously think the word _inhuman_ would be as near to it\nas any. Some people talk as if there were no emotional quality to decide\nthese questions; they are dry-minded and quite unable to grasp the true\nvalues in life.\n\nAnd the essence of all such folly is an insupportable egoism. The whole\nargument against the home is based on the claim of woman to lead an\nindependent life. Independent of what? It is not easy to answer. It is\nasserted that the ideal of the home as the special care of woman has tied\nher to material things; it is urged that her emancipation from the fetish\nof the home is essential for her soul\u2019s freedom. The feminists ask us to\nmake the wage-earning woman our ideal, instead of regarding her, as I do,\nas the unfortunate victim of industrial life and industrial ideals\u2014and\nthis is a very dangerous attitude and one which cannot fail to affect\nvery seriously the fate of the home in the future. It is this that causes\nme such grave fear. The ideals that we set before us do exercise an\ninfluence greater than we know.\n\nNow, I am not much moved by this modern cry for liberty. What is this\nfreedom for which women have been clamouring? In what tyranny are they\nheld other than that in which their womanhood holds them? Is the new\nliberty to be found as sweated workers? Will it come even now when\nwomen\u2019s industrial work is being sought for and well paid? Can it ever\ncome from the fevered effort to live the same lives as men live and do\nthe same work that men do?\n\nBut this kind of view is of a most superficial sort, and one that,\ncomparatively speaking, is new. Before the coming of industrialism the\nideals of women were far different and were centred in the home. The\nfamily was then firmly established on the patriarchal system.\n\nI have just read a Russian book[70] which gives a perfect picture of the\npatriarchal home. The scene is described by a child: the head of the\nhouse has died and the new male-head comes from the death-bed. He is thus\nreceived by the women of the house\u2014\n\n    \u201cSuddenly the door opened, and my father came in. He looked\n    thin and pale and sad. Instantly all rose and went to meet him;\n    even grandmother, who was very stout and could not walk without\n    some one supporting her, dragged herself towards him, and all\n    his four sisters fell down at his feet and began to \u2018keen.\u2019 It\n    was impossible to catch all they said and part I now forget,\n    but I remember the words, \u2018You are our father now: be kind to\n    us poor orphans.\u2019 My father with tears lifted them all up and\n    embraced them; when his mother advanced towards him, he bowed\n    to the ground before her, kissed her hands, and vowed that\n    he would always submit to her authority, and that no changes\n    would be made by him.\u2026 They then sat down to eat so heartily\u2014my\n    mother did not\u2014that I watched them with astonishment. My Aunt\n    Tatyana helped fish-soup out of a large tureen, and, as she\n    put bits of roe and liver on the plates, she begged all to do\n    justice to them: \u2018How poor father loved the roe and the liver!\u2019\u201d\n\nNow, to the self-assertive, feminist mind, imbued with industrial ideals,\nthis scene may make no appeal. Its peace is too quiet. Here is none of\nthe modern unrest, the boredom, the moving about in worlds unrealised.\nBut I do not think this will be noted. The one suggestion that will leap\nto the thoughts is the dependent position of the women. This is true, but\nit is equally true that the power of the women is far greater than it is\nin any industrial home. And we find that such power is not exercised by\nthe young women and on account of any sexual attraction, in the way to\nwhich we are accustomed and have come to expect, but the power is held by\nthe mother, whose desires through life are a law to her son. I can hardly\nemphasise too strongly this power and influence of the mother at all\ntimes when the family is firmly established. I think it must be granted\nthat the mother has lost her position of influence in the home wherever\nindustrial views of life have penetrated. She has little power over her\ngrown-up sons or even over her daughters. Self-assertion is also the\ndesire of the children; they want to break away from the mother. Perhaps\nthis is inevitable, and maybe it is right. It is very difficult to be\ncertain.\n\nI will not dwell on this question. I would, however, ask you to keep\nfixed in your attention this hesitation that has entered as a disease\ninto our modern consciousness. We are without purpose, and have no\nabsolute standard of conduct. And the result for most of us is a life\nof confused aims, restless and seeking, achieving by accident what is\nachieved at all.\n\nThere have been, of course, many separate causes and influences uniting\nto bring this unrest, but the disorganisation of the patriarchal home,\nwith the change in the ideal and desires of women, has acted very\nstrongly as a disturbing force. We have lost, especially, that harmony in\nlife which woman alone is able to create.\n\nWithin the patriarchal family-group women lived a life that was complete\nin itself, the home was self-contained because it included all the\nelements necessary for the carrying on of a useful and healthy life.\nTrue this home life, complete as it was in itself, was not life in the\nfullest sense of living, for it lacked some of the larger elements that\nonly freedom of action can give. It was for women a restricted, and, in\nlater times, even a stunted life: in the end it came to be a parasitic\nlife. But for long it was a natural and satisfying life and it was always\nentirely feminine, because motherhood embraced it all, inspiring every\nmotive and guiding every act.\n\nWhat we want is the family reconstructed, with all its historic bonds of\nunity and sanctity preserved and yet fitted to meet modern needs. It must\nbe a home where life can be lived in its fulness and its depth. It is\nclear that this reconstruction is not going to be easy. Such a task must\neven be held to be absurd, if we view life from the modern standpoint,\nwhich can only be that of the doctrine of self-assertion. Where the Self\nis so insistent, there can be no consciousness of duty as something fixed\nand of life as being purposive, consecrated to an end, which may not be\nleft or taken up. And the first thing necessary is to break through the\nseparate aims that cause such confusion in women\u2019s thoughts and desires.\nNo standard of action can be fixed until we know what we want. Separation\nmust arise from self-assertion. Nothing worth doing can be done until\nthe collective consciousness of women has found itself and regained a\nunifying ideal.\n\nLife at the moment is in a state of too violent instability for any\nattempts to reconstruct the home to be of any avail, and, in any case,\nit is difficult to believe that any new form of the family can in modern\ntimes exercise the sway that the patriarchal system wielded in times gone\nby. And yet some standard we must have, or the confusion in women\u2019s lives\nwill go on, and all feminine idealism must perish through the very number\nof its varieties.\n\nNow, it may be that the forces which acted against the family in its\npast history are acting again to-day. Communal living and group homes\nhave been tried already in the beginnings of civilisation. They were\ndeveloped on account of conditions of danger which threatened the\nprimitive family-groups, forcing them to unite with one another for\nmutual protection and help.[71] To-day again the home is threatened.\nIndustrialism has steadily undermined its foundations, and changed the\ndesire of women. Industrial workers have departed far indeed from the\nideal of absolute self-dedication and service to the home that once was\nthe supreme conception of woman. And now a further step has been taken.\nWar has made necessary conditions that industrialism first taught women\nto desire. For the first time in our industrial history a demand has\narisen for women\u2019s labour as pressing and large as the supply. Hundreds\nand thousands of women and girls have been called from their homes to\ncarry on the necessary work of the country. There are already 195,000\nwomen employed in munition work, while 275,000 more women are engaged in\nindustrial occupations.[72]\n\nWomen have shown that there is hardly any work of men that they cannot\ndo. They are driving motor-lorries, they are working on the railways,\nacting as conductors on trams and buses; they are doing the postman\u2019s\nround and carman\u2019s deliveries; they are ploughing and sowing the\nland; they are standing long hours at the mechanic\u2019s lathe. Women are\neverywhere.\n\nAnd day by day the country is calling for more, and yet more women\nworkers. They are wanted on the land, they are wanted in the factories,\nthey are wanted in the shops, in offices, in schools, they are wanted in\nevery kind of industry. Women will answer the call; they will take the\nplaces of those who have gone to fight, for their patriotism is as strong\nas the patriotism of men. That women should work to-day is unavoidable:\nit is war.\n\nYet necessary as this working of women is for the duration of war, it is\nequally necessary that the conditions of their labour should be regulated\nto meet the special needs of their feminine constitution. In all cases\nwhere women are doing men\u2019s work they should work shorter hours, have\nlonger rests and more holidays. Do we understand what the results of\noverwork may be? It is racial suicide to allow adolescent girls and young\nwomen, who are, or who will be, mothers, to do work which may break into\nor overstrain their reserve strength, using up now what ought to be given\nto the next generation. A nation\u2019s wealth and future depend directly on\nthe health and nerve reserve of its women. It is deplorable that these\nforces of life are being used so wastefully. I know well that in the\nconfusion of the times it is not easy to get public attention for the\nneeds of women workers. Yet the importance of this matter is such that\ndelay may be disastrous.\n\nA further consideration arises, and one, too, that is vital. After the\nwar, what will happen? Peace is the normal state of the world and we\nshall return to it\u2014some day. Are these conditions of continuous work for\nwomen to go on then? There is much to cause grave fear. Women\u2014and I have\nspoken to many of them on the subject\u2014seem to regard this taking on of\nmen\u2019s work, not as a temporary thing forced on them by the necessities\nof war, but as the gaining of a goal for which for long they have been\nfighting.\n\nHere is some of the talk that I have heard at women\u2019s meetings or read\nin recent articles by feminist writers: \u201cNew fields of action lie open\nto women on all sides, the opportunities are coloured with splendid\npossibilities\u201d; or \u201cThe need for workers is woman\u2019s opportunity, and as\nsuch she recognises and will use it.\u201d Again, \u201cThe path lies open and\nclear before women, their hour has come to establish a rooted and solid\nfoundation for the woman worker of the future.\u201d And yet again, \u201cWoman has\ndone more than any man could have imagined to win this war. At the same\ntime she has won a new station for herself.\u201d\n\nNow to me all such talk is the visible sign of the deplorable failure in\nwomen\u2019s lives. Feminists tell me that the breaking up of the individual\nhome with the institutional rearing of children will liberate women.\nBy this plan of reform they will be free, able to have children and\nalso to devote themselves to gainful work. They will gain the economic\nindependence for which they are so loudly crying. Motherhood will be but\na short interruption in the professional or industrial career\u2014mother-care\na superstition of the past.\n\nWhat can I say to show how misplaced and how mischievous is the outlook\nof those who thus turn away from the long experience of the past? It is\nnot so that the problems of the future can be solved. The past gives\nus proof enough that woman\u2019s creation, the home, has been her great\ncontribution to civilisation. No transitory needs or seeming personal\ngains can counterbalance the loss that must come to us as a people\nfrom woman\u2019s neglect of positive duties. There has been neglect under\nindustrial conditions. Escape was impossible. And in our homes there\nhas been urgent need for reform. Here I am in agreement with those who\ndiscredit the value of the home. I, too, am certain that our family and\nhome life, in many directions, have been as bad as they could be. A\nradical change is needed, but I hope it will be in the opposite direction\nfrom the plan of institutional upbringing of the children, and the\nsubstitution of the communal dwelling-house for the individual home.\n\nI know well, as every woman must know, that the creating of the right\nkind of home is no easy task, but one that demands the continuous\npresence of the mother, with an unceasing giving of herself in body and\nin soul.\n\nAnd the trouble is that under industrial ideals of restless discontent\nand of pulling down the barriers, the majority of women have become more\nand more unfitted for efficient home-making. Of one fact I am certain.\nThings cannot go on as before. Here is the reason. The supervision of\nthe home and the maintenance of any true form of family life is not\ncompatible with the regular outside occupation of married women. Such a\nduplication of a woman\u2019s energies can be undertaken only by her using\nfor herself and her work the reserve of physical, mental, and spiritual\nenergy that should be stored and given to her children. To deny this is\nfoolishness. Are women possessed of inexhaustible stores of energy? Do\nthe ordinary rules of arithmetic and subtraction not hold good in their\ncase? It would seem so. For women are maintaining that to divert so large\na proportion of their energies in fresh directions will not involve any\ndiminution of the strength available for their own affairs. Women are\noddly blind.\n\nYet modern experience makes it daily more evident that to do any\nwork well requires the employment of one\u2019s whole time with a complete\nconcentration of attention. Now the woman is rare who can put the best of\nherself both into professional work and into her home. One or other must\nsuffer, and since the standard required in the outside work is fixed and\ncannot, as a rule, be lowered, if the position is to be retained, it is\nthe home that is certain to suffer. A wife\u2019s and a mother\u2019s duties cannot\nbe accomplished in stray hours snatched from professional work. I speak\nfrom my own experience. I know that the attempt to do this results too\noften in failure, together with an intolerable overstrain.\n\nThe case is much worse with the industrial worker, the conditions of\nwhose existence make any kind of home life impossible. What, then, is\nthe remedy? The answer that will be given by many is the raising of\nwomen\u2019s wages to the same level as the wages of men and the improving\nof the conditions of labour. This will do something, but it will not\ndo what I want. Conditions that at bottom are continuously wrong need\nrevolutionising, not patching up. The change must be a different one, if\nthe ideal of the home for which I am pleading is to be saved. There is\none way out, and only one. The socially wasteful, racially suicidal, and\nbody and soul withering consequences of the working of mothers outside\nthe home must cease.\n\nI know well the difficulties. Self-centred professional women, worldly\nwomen who have never found their souls, cultured intellectuals chasing\nthe new, dreamers who think to reform society\u2014all these and many other\nwomen are preaching the doctrine that the economic independence of woman\nis essential for her own well-being and equality with men. This, as I\nbelieve, is a profound mistake that is dependent on industrial values.\nBut on this question I have spoken already, and I shall speak again in a\nlater chapter.\n\nLet us clear our thoughts absolutely, or at least as far as we humanly\ncan, from personal standards of value. The home is not a bygone\ncontrivance to be given up as useless in the march of humanity. Each home\nthat is established in love will burn in its children an ineradicable\nimpression that no folly from those who have missed its protection will\nbe strong enough to destroy.\n\nThe demand that women shall prepare for competition with men at all\ncosts will fall into foolishness under wiser conditions of life. This\nmust surely be. For women\u2019s qualities and capacities are different\nfrom those of men. What is paramount in woman is secondary in man; her\ndominant qualities are not the same as his, but different. And by using\nher subordinate qualities, as she must do, in competition with man,\nshe is up against the dominant qualities in him and will be beaten by\nhim: on the other hand, if woman develops her dominant qualities with a\nwise education in youth and afterwards by training herself in the right\nperformance of her own work, she cannot fail increasingly to occupy a\nposition of power. And this is only another way of saying that woman can\nachieve her highest position only as a woman. As a worker she has at all\ntimes and in all races occupied a secondary place, as woman she is the\nstrongest force in life. We cannot escape from nature, and no matter how\nseemingly urgent it is for women to train themselves to act like men on\naccount of prevailing economic conditions, it is always wrong at the\nbottom to yield to those conditions: the results will not fail to bring\nevil in the future.\n\nLet us know where we are going.\n\nWar conditions have rushed women forward at a racing speed on the paths\nwhich their desire previously had made them seek. If after the coming of\npeace the desire of women is not turned back to family duties and the\nhome, if it still seems better and happier to them to do men\u2019s work than\nto do their own\u2014then the individual home may be swallowed up and replaced\nby some form of communal living. This may be necessary; it can never be\nan ideal.\n\nAnd further, let us remember that it will not be a step forward in\nprogress; rather will it be a sign of failure, a step made necessary by\nthe confusion and conflicts of our industrial civilisation. We delude\nourselves for want of knowledge when we think that we are thus advancing\nto something that is new. The long houses of Iroquois Indians, the joint\ntenement houses of the Pueblo peoples of New Mexico and Arizona, and\nthe village communities common among the Panang Highlanders of Sumatra\nare a few instances of the many early experiments in communistic life.\nEven Garden Suburbs have been tried by the Creek Indians of Georgia,\nwhere the natives live together in groups of associated dwellings.[73]\nDid I not tell you that many of the reforms we are seeking in the belief\nthat they are new discoveries, giving proof of our progress, are really\nworn-out forms that are as old as mankind? They are even older. I would\nrecall the curious experiments in co-operative child-rearing made by the\nAd\u00e9lie penguins, noted in Chapter V. These pre-human parents would seem\nto be troubled with a strongly developed egoism. Craving liberty for\nplay, they pool their families in what I may perhaps call \u201cthe primordial\nco-operative nursery scheme\u201d\u2014a plan of child-rearing much advocated by\nadvanced feminists. Among the penguins the results are not satisfactory.\nTrue, the penguin mothers have liberty to play with the penguin fathers,\nbut the price thereby paid is an excessively high mortality among the\nyoung birds.[74]\n\nI recognise that co-operative nurseries and proposals for freeing mothers\nto work outside the home have interest for some women, and consequently\nhave their use: they will help, no doubt, those women who while desiring\nand physically fit to bear children, yet have no capacity or wish to care\nfor them. There are many such women to-day. I regard this as a great evil.\n\nIt has been left to modern intellectual women to fail utterly to\nunderstand the primary value of the home. Its first service is to immerse\nthe child in a _protective environment of its own_. I wish to emphasise\nthese five concluding words. They will make clearer why I believe so\nfirmly in the patriarchal individual family. Each child needs to feel in\npersonal connection with its surroundings\u2014that what is nearest to him\nbelongs to him and is his own. And this connection can be established\nonly by love, and maintained by a lasting tradition of duty on the part\nof both the parents bound to each other in service to the child.\n\nIt is often objected that children are happier and healthier away from\ntheir parents, and that no conditions could possibly be worse than those\nwhich exist in countless homes. I know this. But it is no indictment\nagainst the home as an institution, rather it is an indictment of the\nkind of home and of the mother and the father.\n\nI can hardly express too strongly my own want of faith in the expert\nchild-trainer. I have found always that they regard the child, mainly, if\nnot entirely, as something to be improved and instructed on a definite\nplan. The expert is never human, and the child has need of all the\nhuman element that it can get. It has absolute need of a mother and of\na father. And it is impossible to be parents in the complete and right\nsense apart from the individual home. All experience shows us that the\nhome, with its sympathetic relationships of mutual affection, cannot be\nreplaced. We must insist on conditions of society that will make home\nlife possible. The child has to accept the arrangements we make as a\nsacred thing, that is why this question is of such immense importance. If\nthe matter could be fixed by the will of children, I should have no fear.\nThe child has not lost the true values of life.\n\nWe have grown careless of the home under the blighting effects of\nindustrialism. And the problem of the child is much more difficult\nin the case of modern mothers, who have few children and no strong\ntraditions\u2014no fixed standard of child training and of home life. Each\nmother is continually making personal experiments, a course of conduct\nthat is not only harmful to the individual child, but one that must lead\nto collective confusion. Under such conditions excessive ardour may be as\ndangerous as neglect. One of the most unfortunate children I have known\nwas an idolised only child with most conscientious modern parents, who\nkept a record in many large volumes of its every act and every saying.\nThis child was trained out of childhood. There may be too much care and\nattention given by the parents as well as too little.\n\nMotherhood in theory much praised, poetised, and hailed as a wonderful\nthing, often in actual expression is the strongest deterrent influence\nin the life of the child. The mother cannot realise the young life that\nhas come from her life apart from herself. The child is too near to her.\nAnd it follows from this that her instinct and her love are not primarily\nconcerned with the child, rather she is interested in it chiefly as its\nmother, that is, the birth-giver and possessor of the child. Most mothers\nbind their children to them much too closely with an egoistic love which\nis the most poisonous form of selfishness. Therefore the mother often is\nthe real enemy in the home, the most self-centred and conservative member.\n\nThere are, of course, exceptional mothers who have the knowledge and the\nwill to avoid such danger; mothers who as need arises are strong enough\neven to push their children from them at any personal cost; who insist\non the freedom of each child, and see it has the opportunity to grow up\nharmoniously, unhampered and unspoilt, and according to its own nature.\nBut such wise mothers to-day are few. And the average mother is like the\nhen with her brood, for ever fretting about her chicks if they venture\naway from her. In such conduct there is a terrible infringement of the\npersonal rights of the child. Indeed, the mother too often enslaves with\nkindness, a bondage harder to bear and even more difficult to escape from\nthan the brutal fist of a father.\n\nNow, this mother-egoism will not be changed easily. It is a quality that\nreaches far back before human parenthood, and is instinctive and not\nconscious. You will recall that I referred to this in Chapter VI,[75]\nwhere I tried to find an explanation. We saw then the manner in which\nthe maternal instinct was fixed and strengthened. The mother became\nchief parent, as soon as the early stages of mother-care were changed\nfrom an external to an internal process. This strengthened immeasurably\nthe relation of the mother to the offspring, who now became an extension\nof her life. Before, the mother\u2019s relation to the family was not very\ndifferent from the relation of the father, and was dependent on parental\nsacrifice and the amount of care bestowed. And one result of the change\nwas a deepening of egoism\u2014of the self-feeling, if I may so call it\u2014in\nthe mother\u2019s love, a quality which has a much deeper significance that\nis commonly recognised. In my opinion it is stronger in the love of\nthe mother than it ever is in the love of the father. Mother-love is\nnot quite the unselfish thing we have been accustomed to believe. Even\nthe care which is bestowed so lavishly upon the child is often but the\noutward sign of a self-fussing anxiety, and serves no true purpose, but\nis a hindrance to the child\u2019s health and happiness.\n\nI would emphasise this difference between the two parents, a difference\nwhich may be marked in the father\u2019s attitude to and affection for the\nchild. It seems to me to be of great importance. It is the popular\nview among women who are too idle to think\u2014it saves them the trouble\nof detecting their own faults\u2014that all good women have an instinctive\nunderstanding of a child and of its needs. This is very far from being\ntrue. And, indeed, there are good grounds for believing\u2014though I own I do\nnot like to acknowledge it\u2014that the father\u2019s guidance and sympathy are of\neven greater importance to the spiritual well-being and happiness of the\nchild than the excessive care and too-absorbing love of the mother.\n\nHere, then, is yet another reason why we must regard with profound\nmistrust the modern movement to break away from the tried and fixed\ninstitution of the patriarchal home. We have seen again and again in our\nexamination of the past history of parenthood, that wherever the father\nhas been cut off from the family and the duties in caring for the young,\na deterioration has followed. The development of the individual family\nis most intimately connected with patriarchy. It was under this system\nthat the father\u2019s position in the family and his right to his children\nwere established. Nature sees to it that the tie between the mother and\nthe child cannot be set aside; the case is different with the father, and\nhis position in the family has to be made secure in another manner. We\nneed to remember the degradation of fatherhood which must be connected\nwith any matriarchal programme. And my own faith in the patriarchal\nfamily-group and the individual home, a faith that has only recently been\nfixed and made strong, is based upon this: I am convinced that it is the\nnatural and, indeed, the only way of securing the loving care of both\nparents for the upbringing of the children.\n\nIn these days of destruction and of the pulling down of barriers, the\nhome is exposed to peculiar danger. Much, incalculably much, depends\non women\u2019s attitude. The maternal instinct, or what I would call the\nmother-sense, has surely lost in quality. When I think about this, I feel\nas if I would like to found an order for motherhood. Everything to be\ntruly done must become a religion. And motherhood should have its ritual\nno less than faith. There is not a single act of duty in the home and in\ncare given to the child which the mother may not make into a spiritual\nexercise of her soul. The child should be the mother\u2019s creation. She is\nthe potter with the power to mould the clay, and she should know the\nrapture of the artist. I want to bring back to motherhood the quality it\nhas lost.\n\nThe home awaits a fresh inspiration to turn back and hold the desire of\nwomen. We have to find again the right way. If we get our ideal fixed, it\nwill be translated later into the acts of our life.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER IX\n\nMONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE AND WOMAN\n\n\n    The false view of woman\u2019s being instinctively monogamous\u2014The\n    Adam and Eve myth and what it symbolises\u2014Woman\u2019s inevitable\n    power over man\u2014The beginnings of marriage\u2014The maternal form\u2014The\n    personal relationship in marriage dependent on patriarchy\u2014Its\n    advantages in fixing the father to the family and the service\n    of the home\u2014Polygamy the most ancient form of marriage under\n    father-right\u2014Polygamy tends to disappear as social life\n    develops\u2014Monogamy the permanent form of marriage\u2014Its supreme\n    advantage over all other marriage forms\u2014Our preference for\n    monogamy goes beyond laws and religion\u2014It is the best way\n    we have yet found of men and women living together\u2014The\n    stupidity of profligacy\u2014False intellectual views of life and\n    of right and wrong\u2014The sexually masterful lover\u2014Misuse of the\n    word love\u2014The function of passion\u2014Women regard love from a\n    standpoint of unreality\u2014The Christian view of marriage too\n    materialistic and too ascetic\u2014How this has reacted disastrously\n    on marriage\u2014The immense disturbing power of the sex emotions\u2014We\n    need the limiting safeguards of legal marriage\u2014The ideal of\n    faithfulness\u2014The refixing of moral standards.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nMONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE AND WOMAN\n\n    \u201cIt should be remembered that the progress of a nation is\n    stimulated and the stability of society is increased by the\n    most humanising of all institutions, marriage.\u201d\u2014WALTER HEAPE.\n\n\nIt is commonly asserted\u2014I am not sure whether it is really believed\u2014that\nwoman is instinctively monogamous, whereas man by his sexual nature is\nbent towards polygamy.\n\nNow, my experience and desire for truth forces me to doubt the reality\nof this view. I believe that the woman\u2019s superiority in this matter of\nconstancy, even when it is present, is not fundamental to the female\ncharacter any more than it is fundamental to the character of the male,\nand, indeed, I am inclined to think that it is the man who in his\ndesire is more bent than woman towards complete faithfulness in the\nsexual partnership, and if it is the wife who more often is apparently\nand outwardly constant in marriage than the husband, it is because\nsuch conduct is expected of her and has been forced upon her by the\nconventions of her life. We must see things a little more as they are.\nCompared with woman, man is a comparatively constant creature, romantic,\nand not readily moved from his love when once it is fixed. I am very\ncertain that I am right in this. No man leaves a woman till she sends him\nfrom her: while she wants him, and _lets him feel that she wants him_, he\nis hers.\n\nWhat is symbolised by the myth representing Eve as first eating of the\nfruit and then offering it to Adam: the representation of the man in\nsubjection to the woman, the bending of his action to her will through\nhis need of her; the active r\u00f4le being here rightly attributed to the\nwoman which man in the blindness of his masculine conceit has pretended\nto hold himself: this piece of symbolism has left deep marks throughout\nthe entire history of marriage and is active in all the relationships of\nthe two sexes.\n\nMaybe woman is what man has made her; but this is an outside thing, a\nsocial tag, having reference only to her position in the world. Man has\nnot touched woman\u2019s soul. He cannot. There are many things which a man\nmust learn that woman knows from the beginning. To love is one of them.\nWoman teaches man that, and he does not learn easily. And it is in these\ntrials, these efforts of his to find himself, that woman contributes in\nso great a measure to the making or the marring, of the man. The soul\nof a man passes from the hollow of one woman\u2019s hand to the hollow of\nanother\u2019s. He loves first that extension of himself called \u201cmother,\u201d and\nfrom her he passes on to other less individualised relationships. And\neach woman, with cruel hands or with kind, presses deep the imprint of\nher hold upon his plastic clay.\n\nYes, it is women who mould the lives of men as it is women who give them\nbirth.\n\nIt is strangely difficult to induce in good women to-day a practical\nunderstanding of their almost limitless power over men. Each woman\nis able to create perpetually in the man she loves the qualities she\ndesires; a power infinitely greater, as I believe, than can be ever\ngained through individual self-assertion.\n\nAnd if woman feels this power of being the source of creating energy to\nman (and it belongs to all women, although many of them have lost the\nconsciousness of their gift), this knowledge is the very centre of her\nbeing, the flame which feeds life; and she is intensely and supremely\nhappy just in so far as she is steeped in sacrifice. I do not hope,\nhowever, to convince any woman who does not know within herself already\nthe gladness of this service to man, and I diverge a little from my main\nsubject in making these remarks.\n\nA glance back at the beginnings of marriage should teach women a little\nmodesty, for there we see that the wife\u2019s constancy was directly\ndependent on the conditions of her marriage. Under the maternal form,\nwhere the husband lived in the home of the wife, her sexual liberty was\nin many cases greater than his. And there is abundant proof that full\nadvantage was taken both by unmarried and married women of such freedom\nwherever it was allowed.[76] Woman is not instinctively inclined to\nvirtue. And an inherent desire towards faithfulness in marriage has not,\nI am certain, always acted more strongly in women than it has in men;\nindeed, I am not sure that the opposite is not true.\n\nThe development of the personal relationship in marriage is intimately\ndependent on patriarchy. Again I am compelled to assert this truth.\nThe establishment of paternity as a working and acknowledged fact was\ncomparatively a late achievement. Under the conditions of the maternal\nclan, the family was incomplete; it consisted only of the mother and\nchildren. This was not a natural condition, and therefore was not\npermanent. The new stage was ushered in by what may perhaps be called\n\u201cthe social annunciation of paternity.\u201d And this led eventually to the\nestablishment of marriage in the form in which we understand it to-day.\n\nNow for the first time the home was firmly founded. The father was the\nhead of the domestic hearth: he was the priest of sacrifice at the\ndomestic altar. His ancestors were present in the spirit and all the\nmembers of the family honoured them. And in their presence nothing\nunclean was tolerated. The wife at the moment when, as a bride, she\ncrossed the threshold of the home, or was carried across it, gave up her\nown kindred and her own gods. Her husband\u2019s home was now her home, his\ngods were her gods.[77]\n\nSo strong an insistence has been made on the evils of the wife\u2019s\nsubjection to the husband, which arose under this system of marriage,\nthat we have lost sight of the enduring benefits that from the beginning\nto the end must be connected with it. There is much nonsense talked\nand written about the patriarchal home. Its conditions and rules were\nslowly established for the workable happiness of all its members, not,\nas is too often assumed, arbitrarily imposed by the will of men. The\nduties of the husband and the wife were regulated by tradition, and all\nthe service in the home was a holy service. By fixing the father to the\nfamily and securing his protection and toil for the children a future\nstability as well as fuller happiness was made possible. I do not see\nthat this advantage could have been gained, or can now be maintained,\nunder any other form of marriage. Nature herself seems to condemn man in\nhis capacity as father. So delicate is the bond which binds him to the\nchild compared with the bond which binds the mother, so readily can he\nbe pushed outside the circle of the family, where, as a member apart, he\nwill inevitably seek his own interests and pleasure.\n\nThe most ancient form of marriage under father-right was polygamy.\nWives and children were a source of wealth in primitive communities.\nAs a rule there was a principal wife for the procreation of legitimate\nchildren, but in addition a wealthy man had several subordinate wives\nor concubines. Polygamy has always been dependent on the possession of\nproperty. The position of each wife and that of her children was fixed\nby custom, sometimes enforced by law; in no case was a man free from\nobligations in regard to any woman who had \u201cbeen to him as a wife\u201d;\neven an unfruitful and childless woman could not be cast aside without\nprovision being made for her. It is important to remember this. However\ndistasteful the idea of legalised polygamy must be, and I believe it is\ndistasteful to the majority of women and men (and this not from ethical\nreasons, but on account of deep and instinctive desires), it is certain\nthat an open recognition of unions outside of marriage does prevent an\nescape from sexual responsibility on the part of men. I shall consider\nthis question in fuller detail in a later chapter,[78] just now we are\nconcerned with the development of marriage.\n\nOut of this patriarchal polygamy monogamic marriage gradually arose.\nThe long upward process by which the change was accomplished cannot be\nstated here. One factor I would emphasise, as its force has never, I\nthink, been sufficiently recognised. Polygamy tends to disappear with the\ndevelopment of the conception of fatherhood. As I have asserted already,\nthe child is bound to its mother and belongs to her whatever the form\nof marriage, but the same force does not act in the case of the father.\nThe child belongs to him much more closely under monogamy than under\npolygamy or any other form of marriage. Now men do want the possession\nof their children. Thus a desire to have many children by several wives\ngives place to the desire to have a closer connection with fewer children\nborn of one loved wife. As the marriage relations become more firmly\nestablished the partners in each union are held more closely to each\nother and to their children, and are pledged to greater purity of life.\n\nThere were, of course, many causes that contributed to this result.\nChastity, first imposed upon the wife because she was the property of\nher husband and might transgress this rule only with his permission,\ncame in time to bind men, though for a different reason. For the limits\nset to the sexual freedom of women acted also on them, since they were\nthus deprived of the means of obtaining women for themselves, without\nviolating the rights of other men.\n\nIn this and other ways we find that polygamy was threatened on many\nsides. As an accepted and legalised form of marriage it tends to\ndisappear with the conditions under which social life is developed.\nLike the maternal marriage, and other primitive experiments in sexual\nassociations, polygamy is not a form of marriage that can be regarded as\na permanent expression of the marriage law: that is, it is experimental\nand suitable to special conditions; it is not a final form, growing up\nby custom from earlier practices, or one which strives for mastery and\nwill not tolerate other co-existent forms. On the other hand, monogamy\nhas always been characterised by the strongest self-assertion, and from\nthe earliest times we find it triumphing, and more and more seeking to\nexclude other forms of marriage.\n\nThese facts of the past history of marriage need to be considered by\nthose who seek to bring discredit on monogamous marriage. Various\nreformers, too frightenedly concerned with the present shortage of men,\nincreasing as it will enormously the disproportion between the number of\nthe two sexes, have jumped to the conclusion that polygamy is likely to\nbe legalised in the near future. I do not believe it. At least, it will\nnot be polygamy under the form we have known it in the past. Polygamy has\nalways been connected with the property value of woman and is dependent\nupon wealth. For this reason, even if for no other, polygamy will not\nreplace monogamous marriages. Such a marriage system could not be\nsupported by war-impoverished countries. The remedy must be a different\none, as presently I shall show.\n\nThere is a strange idea among some people that sexual happiness can be\ngained by breaking away from the traditional bonds; it is the visible\nsign of our confusion as a people and the want of happiness in our lives.\nWe should not set at naught the experience of the ages. Polygamy is an\ninstitution which in the growth of civilisation belongs only to primitive\nor non-progressive states. No race or nation has ever risen to front\nrank, or even secondary rank, under this marriage system. Our preference\nfor monogamy goes beyond laws and religions. It is that deeply rooted\nthing\u2014a matter of racial experience and desire. It is the best way that\nwe have yet found of men and women living together.\n\nThe individual household, where both parents share in the common interest\nof bringing up the children, is the foundation on which monogamy has\nbeen built up and on which it must stand. If the conditions of the home\nare seriously changed, and the duty of providing and caring for the\nchildren is taken out of the hands of either or of both parents, a change\nin marriage practice will follow. I do not think you can hold the one if\nyou let the other go. For Westermarck is right, and children should not\nbe regarded as the result of marriage, but rather marriage is the result\nof children. And love between parents implies duties and sorrows on each\nside; without this, love, even of the most passionate kind, loses its\nquality and tends to become an ephemeral or even a corrupt thing.\n\nThere is much stupidity in the view of many reformers of marriage who\nfail to see that, however hard it is to live faithfully as man and\nwife, the monogamic ideal of marriage does so appeal to our emotional\nnature, that men and women are seriously unhappy in trying to destroy it.\nFortunately it is easier to talk of \u201clove\u2019s freedom\u201d than it is to act\nas if it ever could be free. In spite of what advanced people say, some\nfeeling of duty will always exist as long as it at all hurts us to hurt\nothers. The immorality that says, \u201cDo what you desire irrespective of\nothers,\u201d is as yet beyond most of us.\n\nAttempts to solve these problems quickly are bound to fail. Intellectual\nrevolutionists are, I think, too hopeful with regard to what may be done\nto produce a harmony of sexual needs. The optimism that once prevailed\nin economics is being transformed to sexual matters. Once people\nsupposed that if every one followed his own interests, a harmony would\nautomatically establish itself in the economy of society. Now they tend\nto say the same about sex. They put forward many solutions, but they do\nnot as a rule make use of these solutions, even when they could, in\ntheir own lives. They say what they do not believe, either with conscious\ninsincerity, or because they are ignorant of life and are used to trying\nto get effects with words.\n\nIntellectual views of life and of what is right and wrong always tend to\nbreak people into groups, each struggling to explain everything according\nto one theory, built on a single principle. And as the result of caring\nso much for one thing people seem quite unable to grasp any facts that do\nnot refer to their own one particular reform, they are not even able to\nconsider it as part of a world in which there is anything else. All the\nevil in marriage is due to too large families and population pressing on\nthe food supply, we are told by one class of enthusiasts, while others\npoint to men\u2019s tyranny over women. Votes for women would have a magical\neffect: men are all bad, say some. The father is a parasite, unnecessary\nexcept for his share in begetting the child; the mother is the one\nparent. All would be well if legal marriage were abolished and motherhood\nmade free, is the view common among one class of reformers. Eugenical\nbreeding and the sterilisation of the unfit is the remedy brought forward\nby others. Many suggest economic changes and the endowment of motherhood.\n\nBut the matter is not so simple as these reformers seem to believe. And\nI doubt if any outward change is really capable of producing the prompt\nkind of penny-in-the-slot results that its supporters claim that it can.\nThe complexity of marriage, in particular, the occurrence of sexual\ndisharmonies so present and active for misery to-day, are ignored by all\nintellectual reformers. It is because they have no emotional hold of\nlife as a whole that they find it easy to squeeze all life into their\nmagic theories. For myself I can see no sure remedy: and were I asked to\nstate one, I could say only: \u201cA few thousand years more of development: a\ngrowth towards consciousness and a fuller understanding of the meaning of\nlife.\u201d\n\nMarriage is not a matter of abstract principles: it will always be\ndifficult. If it is anything that can be stated, it is a social practice,\npreserving unity and order amongst those who find these qualities of\nservice in the art of living. We should humble ourselves to accept the\nlessons of life, then we should be more careful of simple human needs.\n\nA very slight knowledge of existing marriages is sufficient to convince\neven the most optimistic believer that true mating is hard. I do not\nbelieve that most marriages are unhappy, but I do know that only the very\nfew are happy. With many partners, and even those who are passionate\nlovers, the attraction of sex always seems to fall short of its end; it\ndraws the two together in a momentary self-forgetfulness, but for the\nrest it seems rather to widen their separateness; they are secret to one\nanother in everything, united only in the sexual embrace.\n\nAnd the man who has not found his way already to the soul of a woman by\nsome other means, will not do so through the channels of sex. For a woman\nwants to be loved for what she is, not for what the man wants from her.\nAnd for this reason those men who have in them no faculty for friendship\nwill be likely always to meet with coldness on the part of their wives\nin response to their continued ardour. Such men do not understand that\ndespite all their sexual proneness they are psychologically impotent.\n\nThe word love is used in so general and indiscriminate a way to denote\nsometimes the most transitory impulse, and sometimes the most intimate\nand profound feeling, that a mass of misunderstanding arises. Love\ncomes from the senses as well as from the soul, and the one emotion\noften is mistaken for the other. And what this serves to bring home\nto us is the dualism inherent in the marriages of a civilised age, in\nwhich the element of sexual masterfulness, being a natural expression\nof masculinity, is unintentionally active, a survival of very primitive\ninstincts, which to-day struggle for mastery with newer emotions and\nsympathy, flaring up in a late expression to justify the need for sexual\ncontrast.\n\nIt is, however, very necessary for me to guard against my meaning being\nmistaken, in case I should be thought to be supporting the view that\nmen are less capable than women are of unselfish love, and feel only\npassion. I do not understand such a distinction. Possibly it is true that\naffection can exist without passion, though if by \u201cpassion\u201d sex-feeling\nis meant, it certainly is not true; and assuredly passion is the great\nand important part of love\u2014nay, rather, it is Love itself.\n\nThe truth is this: Women have been taught for generations to look on love\nfrom a standpoint of unreality, and when in marriage they are forced to\nface some great fact in life, they are shocked and disillusioned. It is\nuseless for women to go on acting as if sex desire was something of which\nnice people ought to be ashamed. Marriage is really a contract in which\nthe woman undertakes certain sexual duties as well as the man, and the\nwoman has the advantage, for she possesses all that the man most wants.\n\nWe may not safely ask too much or too little from marriage or take too\nhigh or too low a view of it. But the Christian view of the nature of\nmarriage is at once too materialistic and too ascetic. The ancient world\nlooked on marriage as a religious duty. \u201cTo be mothers were women\ncreated, and to be fathers men.\u201d Christianity permitted marriage, but\nonly as a necessary evil against the temptations of lust. \u201cIt is better\nto marry than to burn.\u201d\n\nThis is, of course, a long past story. But such hateful view of marriage\nhas left in every Christian land an inheritance of evil. The sexual\nlife was considered impure and a concession to the lower nature in man;\ntrue purity of life was to be attained only in celibacy. Small wonder\nthat marriage, thus regarded as an escape from worse evil and a cover\nto laxity of sexual conduct, is often so immoral. We see at once that\nthe main evil of this gross misunderstanding of love must have fallen\nupon women. The woman was there just to keep the man in condition and\nfrom sin. I can hardly over-estimate the disastrous consequences both to\nmarriage and to women of this unholy view of the sexual relationship.\n\nThe false glorification of asceticism, which denies the true nature of\nmarriage while at the same time professedly regarding marriage as a\nsacrament, has involved a corresponding and unhealthy classifying of love\ninto higher and lower, the spiritual and the physical; and the action of\nthis double standard in the sexual life has led, on the one side, to the\nsetting up of a theoretical ideal of conduct which, as few are able to\nfollow it, tends to become an empty form, and this, on the other side,\nhas led to a hidden laxity, within marriage and outside it.\n\nI have emphasised this question of the unholy ascetic view of marriage\nbecause of its unspeakable evil, not only for women, but for the waste\nit entails to the race. It is the basis of most of the failures and\ndiseases in our sexual life. As you know, our moral and religious systems\nregard the body as the prison of the soul, and pay consequently no\nattention whatever to the body from the moral point of view. I desire a\nregeneration of all the instincts of the body through consciousness. I\ndesire this much more for the health and happiness of women themselves\nthan I do for the enjoyment of men.\n\nBut it is not going to be easy. The education of the senses is quite a\nnew thing, and it is not even allowed to most women to possess them. The\nprinciple of \u201cre-discovery\u201d will have to be begun. We must teach woman\nthat she wants love for herself; the man must not claim it from her as a\nright he has bought by marriage.\n\nMost women and some men do not realise (at least, they do not openly\nacknowledge) the immense disturbing power of sex and the claims the\nsexual life makes at some time on us all. To hear many people talk you\nwould think it were possible to free ourselves at will of all those\ntroubles and prejudices of sex that are our heritage from an uncountable\npast. Love is something fiercer than hand-holding in the darkness of the\ncinema, or moon-gazing in the parks.\n\nIn fear we try to keep the blinds down so that love may be decently\nobscured. Yet how can we ever begin to understand and deal with these\nproblems of sex unless we will admit all the instincts and tendencies\nwhich ever lead us backwards to the more elemental phases of life? The\ndeepest of the emotions is sex, and its action, like all the emotions\nthat are fundamental, may be traced into a thousand bye-paths of the\nordinary experience of each of us; it exercises its influence on every\nperiod of our development, and works subconsciously to control our\nactions in endless ways that we refuse to acknowledge.\n\nHence the conflicts which manifest themselves so strangely and so\nfiercely in our lives. The emotional self refuses at times to be\ncontrolled by the reason self. Restraint cannot do much, and indeed,\noften brings deeper evil. For our unconscious selves are stronger than\nall the pretences we have set up by our conscious wills, either as\nindividuals to encourage our own deceit or collectively as a nation in\nthe hope of controlling conduct.\n\nThis is why so much that is said to-day about sexual conduct is so\nfoolish. The real question is not what people _ought to do_, but what\nthey _actually do_ and want to do, and, therefore, are likely _to go on\ndoing_. It is these facts that the reformers of marriage almost always\nfail to face.\n\nHaving said this much, you will readily understand why I regard as\nnecessary for the morality of marriage some public recognition of the\nrelationship, and some accepted standard of conduct in it. We cannot,\nremembering the inherent defectiveness of our wills, safely hesitate\nand experiment in the liberties we can allow and the limits we must\nset to a force so strong as sexual love. Still less can we allow to be\ndone in secret and in shameful darkness things that we will not face in\nthe light. The unregulated union in any form does not seem to me to be\npracticable. Our sexual relationships are, or ought to be, so hedged\nabout by duties, obligations, and consequences, that sexual conduct can\nnever be considered as a personal question, and any society that permits\nsuch a view, whether openly acknowledged or secretly accepted, opens the\nway to real immorality and great unhappiness.\n\nNot all who cry \u201cIt is useless,\u201d can do without the limiting safeguards\nof legal marriage. We still feel the serpent\u2019s sting of jealousy, and\nthe old questions, \u201cWhere do you come from?\u201d \u201cWhat have you been doing\nto-night?\u201d \u201cWho handled your body till daytime, while I watched and\nwept?\u201d \u201cIn what bed did you lie and whom did you gladden with your\nsmile?\u201d are still felt in the heart, even if not uttered by the lips, of\nthe most advanced and emancipated husbands and wives. For often we are\nforced into acts over which reason has no control. And our sex judgments\nare not merely moral, not just questions of understanding and forgiving,\nbut also physical questions of the nerves, of the blood, of the fiercest\ninstinct.\n\nAnd marriage, I say, the old patriarchal marriage that the advanced\npeople and the idealists alike scoff at, is necessary for most of us\u2014it\ndoes through its checking influence help us, and, by setting clear limits\nand prescribing a fixed code of conduct, it certainly hinders, if it\ncannot destroy, irregular manifestations of love. Moreover it does, by\nits ideal of faithfulness and duty to one mate, turn the imagination\nto desire fidelity. It is not so much that we could not love others,\nbut that we shall not want to do so. Our desire is the first necessity:\nall else will follow. It is the seed of everything that can grow up in\nmarriage: it is the true magic power. And this desire is always active,\nevery real marriage is a continual renewing of interest through love,\nand, if the partners are not interested in each other, they will seek for\nsomething else.\n\nIf we try to be faithful to one another in marriage, instead of outside\nof it, there will be for most of us a greater chance of enduring\nhappiness than is likely under conditions where each individual couple\nsets up a standard of sexual conduct for themselves.\n\nOur minds to-day are certainly in conflict, and, in my opinion, it will\nbe impossible to make much change in all that is wrong without the\nrefixing of moral standards. There is no kind of unity in our desires: we\ndo not know what we want. We have broken down without building up. And\nwhen traditional rules for conduct are absent there must be confusion.\nFor the existence of many standards, each with its own theory of what is\ngood, is an evil which opens a clear way for license and unhappiness.\n\nAs I have tried to show, the two great faults of the modern reform\nmovements connected with marriage and sexual conduct are their\ninstability and externality. These faults are the direct result of too\nmuch intellectualism and too much individualism. We have gone astray\nbecause we have thought chiefly of our own immediate wants and been over\neager for experience, without considering what the result of our action\nmust be to others in the future. We have had no clear vision of evil and\ngood. I feel almost that a mistaken vision\u2014so long as it was a vision\ncommon to us all\u2014would be better than no vision at all, which really is\nthe result when each one of us gazes at our own particular star. This\nhas been the blasting modern disease. And our inability to set up plain\nstandards of right and wrong, with no ideals to strive after, has left\nvacant room for false ideals.\n\nFor I hold that the broad direction of our conduct follows straight from\nour faith. To believe in marriage is to want to do right in marriage.\nThen do we fail, and our own union comes to disaster, it will be a\npersonal failure, not a collective failure; we shall blame ourselves,\nnot the institution of marriage. And to have this faith in marriage as\na people\u2014not as a law imposed upon us, but a necessary binding that\nwe accept of our own wills\u2014will bring us again to be unified by a\ncomprehending idea: an ideal of purpose and duty to one another and\namong us all in our sexual conduct, and in this way we shall be helped in\nright-doing. Carried onwards by a ruling motive, we shall find unity of\ndesire, with its value to life of an absolute standard. It is for this\nreason I care so deeply that the monogamic ideal of marriage\u2014the living\nfaithfully to one mate in thought and deed\u2014should be held sacred by us\nall: held sacred, however greatly we may fail as individuals to attain\nto this ideal. Our failures in faithful living may bring disaster to\nourselves. But the institution of marriage can be hurt much more by the\nfading and loss of our belief in the duty of faithfulness.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER X\n\nMONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE AND WOMAN: A CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER,\nWITH SOME REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF WOMAN\n\n\n    Some men and women unfitted for faithful mating\u2014The enforced\n    continuance of an unreal marriage\u2014This leads to immorality\u2014The\n    real controlling power in marriage is our desire\u2014The need\n    for honourable divorce\u2014The immorality present in many\n    marriages\u2014We accept monogamy but tolerate hidden extra-conjugal\n    relationships\u2014This worse than regulated polygamy\u2014The necessity\n    of distinguishing between sex passion and the desire for\n    a child\u2014All women do not want to be mothers\u2014The sins that\n    follow the binding of such women in the bonds of monogamous\n    marriage\u2014The child born against the will of its mother\u2014A\n    contrast between two types of women\u2014The siren woman and the\n    maternal woman\u2014An attempt to explain such difference\u2014The\n    pleasure factor in sex\u2014Our ignorance in all matters relating to\n    sex\u2014An instance of the siren type of woman as a mother.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nMONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE AND WOMAN: A CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER,\nWITH SOME REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF WOMAN\n\n    \u201cThat the first decade of the child life of all mankind age\n    after age passes continuously through the hands of woman seemed\n    to him one of the most significant facts in the whole range of\n    human affairs.\u201d\u2014_Life and Letters of Edward Thring._\n\n\nI trust from what I have said already on marriage in the previous\nchapter that two things have been made plain: on the one side, my own\nstrong faith in monogamous marriage as the most practical and happiest\nform of association for the great majority of women and men; and my\nfurther opinion that sexual relationships must be regulated by law. I\nam, however, deeply conscious of the ignominious conditions of many\nmarriages, and thus, on the other side, I am forced to the opinion that\nfor the whole of sexual conduct there cannot safely be one only rule.\nI know well there will always be exceptions: men and also women who\nare unfitted for faithful mating. It is this fact we do not face that\nmakes the problem so difficult to solve at all and to solve completely\nimpossible.\n\nRegarding companionship as essential in any true union, the reform most\nlikely to produce a balance of good in marriage is such an alteration in\nthe basis of marriage and increased spirituality in the way of conceiving\nit as will make incompatibility of temperament, resulting in inability\nto maintain companionship, justify honourable divorce. To consider sexual\ninfidelity as the only valid ground for divorce is to take a limited and\nwrong view of marriage. Spiritual unfaithfulness may be a far greater\nsin, and one bringing much deeper unhappiness in marriage, than sexual\nunfaithfulness.\n\nIt may seem that this view is a contradiction of what I have said of\nthe enduring character of marriage. I do not think so. No marriage that\nshould be maintained will ever be broken by making divorce easy. It will\nadd nothing to the sanctity of marriage to force those who are really\nunmated to remain mated by law. One marvels at the folly of such a view.\nI want people to enter into marriage and to remain in it, because they\nwant to be there, not because they are forced.[79]\n\nFor I do believe that the great majority of women and men do really\ndesire to live faithfully with one mate. Divided allegiance is possible\nonly where love is of a slight character. If it is absorbing it cannot be\ndiffuse, and the more diffuse it is the less the partners in such a union\nwill be able to give or take from one another. It is impossible to be\nlovers and partners in the fullest and most human sense in several unions.\n\nThe real controlling power in marriage is our desire, though our acts may\nbe, and usually are, directed as well by habit and tradition\u2014a sort of\nconscience and feeling for the judgment of others. And divorce can never\nbe easy while it at all hurts us to hurt one another.\n\nI must, however, reaffirm my opinion that sexual relationships, whether\nwithin marriage or outside of it, whether legal or free, can never safely\nbe unregulated, and will always be a difficult experiment. And experience\nhas forced on me the knowledge that the most passionate union is often\nthe one most likely to end in disaster. For Buckle is not far from right\nwhen he says we accumulate knowledge, but do not progress in morals,\nwhich depend on the unaltered heart of man.\n\nSome characters are manifestly and essentially unfaithful, self-seeking,\nand regardless of the happiness of others in love and in all the affairs\nof life. Others again act unfaithfully through weakness or haste, or\nthrough the misfortune of circumstances. The mistake with many of these\npeople is that they ever bind themselves in permanent unions. We should\nnot condemn or deal harshly with them, for by so doing we drive them to\nundertake obligations which they do not, because they cannot, fulfil. In\nmy opinion, it is foolishness to pretend that for the whole of sexual\nconduct there can ever be one fixed rule. We shall have more morality,\nnot less, if we accept this.\n\nIt is for this reason that I am altogether persuaded of the need of much\ngreater facilities of divorce than exist at present: divorce on the\nground of mutual consent, and based on inability through any cause to\nmaintain true partnership in marriage.\n\nThere are some men and also women unsuited for marriage and quite\nundesirable as life-partners; they are not, however, undesirable because\nof the legal bond, but because of certain qualities which as individuals\nthey possess. And this wider facility of divorce would do very much to\nlessen individual hardships, and moreover it would cleanse, in a way not\nsufficiently recognised, the immorality which is present in many unions.\nMarriage, with its fixed duties and the restrictions it does impose, in\nparticular, upon the woman, will always appear to some a bondage from\nwhich they will seek the quickest way of escape. If no honourable way\nis allowed to them, they will take a dishonourable course. This may be\ndeplored, it cannot (at any rate under existing conditions of character\nand public opinion) be helped, and nothing but evil can follow by\npretending it is not so.\n\nThus we find that the difficulty of divorce is the strongest factor that\nbrings disgrace and immorality into marriage.\n\nThis matter of honourable divorce is, however, one only of the almost\ncountless questions in the tangle of considerations involved in the\ndifficult matter of any attempt to change sexual conduct. More important,\nperhaps, is the great disproportion between the two sexes in a country\nthat calls itself and tries to be monogamous. In our society, where so\nmany conditions and causes have corresponded to make marriage more and\nmore difficult, there are a very large number of women and also some\nmen, and will be for a long time, who, from necessity rather than from\nchoice, have to seek to satisfy their sex needs and to find love in the\nbest way that they can. I do not see that we can or ought to condemn\nwithout fuller knowledge than as a rule we can have, these breaches of\nthe prohibitions and laws of marriage: I am very certain that no good\ncan be gained by branding those who commit them as sinners. Rather the\nconditions that give rise to such conduct must be openly faced and\nwherever possible dealt with. War, acting as it must inevitably do in\nincreasing these evils and making marriage more difficult for many women,\nperhaps will bring us to do this. Changes in our laws may be forced\nupon our acceptance. We shall have to be more careful to protect life\nand to prevent waste of the powers of life. We cannot, therefore, I\nthink, go on, in this question of the sex needs that are not satisfied\nin marriage, with the old game of pretence, that no irregular conduct\nneed be considered as long as it can be hidden, or at least not publicly\nacknowledged.\n\nBut of sexual relationships outside of marriage I shall speak in a\nseparate chapter.[80] The question is too urgent to be dealt with\nhastily. I shall state what seems to me can be done to regulate these\nunlegalised unions so as to free them, as far as this is possible, from\nthe secrecy and shamefulness which acts, I am certain, as the strongest\nfactor in the distress and evil which they do almost inevitably bring,\nboth to the individuals who enter into them and to the society which\ntolerates, but does nothing to protect, them.\n\nIn the past, we have failed sufficiently to recognise the immorality\nwhich is present in many marriages. Monogamy has in reality never been\nattained either by ancient civilisations or in the modern world. Thus,\nwhile accepting monogamy, we tolerate extra conjugal relationships,\nwhich can be regarded only as a hidden polygamy, and, indeed, from\none practical point of view, it is even worse in its results than a\nwell-understood and regulated polygamy, as these fugitive unions,\nbeing unrecognised, carry with them no obligations. And the action of\nthis double standard of sexual morality, with its concealed element of\nlying hypocrisy, has brought, and rightly brought, into discredit legal\nmonogamous marriage; it has led on the one side to the setting up of an\nideal of marriage conduct which, as many in fact actually do not follow\nit, tends to become an outward form, and this on the other side leads\nto a concealed laxity in practice, which results only too frequently in\nirresponsible unions, hidden diseases and blasted motherhood, the most\nterrible of the evils in our disordered sexual life of to-day. Facts\nof daily observation may not be shuffled out of observation by any\nhypocrisy. They must be faced and dealt with.\n\nThe question becomes clearer, if we consider that some people, men as\nwell as women, have a great desire for children; or possibly as the\ndesire is not always consciously recognised, it would be truer to say\nthat with them the sexual impulse is more deeply rooted. I mean, though\nit is very difficult in words to express this, that erotic desire is\nless personally overmastering, that they are in truer relation with\nthe race\u2014one link in the long chain of the generations. This being so,\nthe getting of a child is the ultimate, though rarely, I think, the\nconscious, satisfaction of sex; while for others\u2014and this is true of some\nwomen quite as much as it is true of many men\u2014sexual relations are in\nthemselves the final gratification of love. Children may come, but they\nare born because of the operation of this strictly personal impulse or\nneed of the parents.\n\nIt is, I think, very necessary to distinguish between sex-passion and\nthe desire for a child; they are not the same, though, of course, the\none impulse may be, and is as a rule, involved in the other. We need\nmore clear thinking and frank speaking on the two elements in the\nreproductive act. This is a human problem, one that belongs to mankind\nalone; moreover, it has greatly increased among civilised races, and\nis likely to become more, and not less, difficult with the advance\nof time. Animals have sex-passion, which is neither love as we feel\nit nor lust; with them, as also in some degree with most primitive\npeoples, this passion is seasonal, not always active, and is more or\nless closely connected with the obtaining of offspring. Far different\nand much more complicated are the conditions of love among us to-day.\nMen and women have a continuous desire for love, with sex-passion as\nits outward expression and children for its efflorescence. They also\nhave lust, which is a comparatively new expression,[81] at least,\nthat is my opinion as to what is true of the majority among us. I do\nnot use the word \u201clust\u201d here in any sense of contempt, but to express\nstrong and conscious sex-passion, seeking its own satisfaction without\nconnection with any possible result in a child. Then at a much lower\nlevel there is lust-desire without love, or clothed merely in a rootless\nephemeral mimicry of passion\u2014a libertinage having no law but curiosity\nin self-indulgence. And all passion is a very different thing from the\nserene considerations which, according to the Prayer Book, cause men and\nwomen to marry.\n\nNow, it is because of what sex-passion has come to be among us\u2014its\nvariety in desire and in result\u2014that we are far more remote than\npre-human and primitive parents from having marriage and parenthood\nsettled so as to meet the desires and sex-needs of every one, as would\nbe easily possible if the reproductive act could be regarded as being\nsolely, or even chiefly, connected with the birth of children.\n\nI do not know if I have made my meaning perfectly clear, but what I wish\nto insist upon is this: It is necessary in all questions and judgments\nconnected with marriage to consider the presence or absence in the\npartners of the wish to produce and possess a child. I propose to deal\nbriefly with this question in relation to the character of women.\n\nIt is commonly asserted that the normal woman desires to be a mother.\nNow, this may be true, but what is forgotten is that all women are not\nnormal, and thus there are many who not only have no desire to become\nmothers, but exceedingly dislike the idea of bearing children. You\nmay say this is an unnatural condition; but such a use of the word\n\u201cunnatural\u201d is surely wrong; nothing is \u201cnatural\u201d to the man or woman\nsave what they have evolved, and by that I mean what they have come to\ndesire to be; and my contention is that we have evolved a type of woman\nunsuited for motherhood because she does not desire it, and for such\na woman it is \u201cunnatural\u201d to be a mother. Of course this turning away\nfrom motherhood is in numerous cases the result of wrong education, and\nis dependent on the weakened constitutions and shaken nerves of women,\nwhich forces them to fear the pains of child-birth, as well as inducing\nan increasing dislike to the restrictions and duties that the care of\nchildren will entail. These causes are strong to-day; doubtless they hold\nback many women from becoming mothers, but I do not think that they take\nus very far to the deeper hidden causes which are also present among us,\nnor can they be regarded as essential factors in deciding the question\nas to which women should be mothers. There is something acting much more\nstrongly, a cause which must be sought in the character of woman herself,\nand one which, unlike those dependent on outside conditions, cannot, I\nthink, be altered. You see, I regard the true instinct for motherhood as\na quality directing all expression, something deep-seated in the nature,\nand therefore a quality that cannot be added to a character if the woman\ndoes not possess it.\n\nAnd because I believe this, I regard any effort to force maternity, even\nas an ideal, upon all women as a great wrong. We do not expect all men\nto desire to be fathers, we must cease to expect all women to desire to\nbecome mothers. For by so doing we cause more evil than we know. And\nthe hurt is not borne by the mother alone. The child born against the\nwill of its mother must tend also to be without will; too weak to bear\nwell the stress and struggle of life. This is no fanciful statement.\nI believe it can be proved by any one, with sufficient knowledge, who\ntakes the trouble to investigate the facts. The child who is born through\nthe physical mastery of the father and the physical subserviency of its\nmother, and against her desire, does pay the penalty in a heritage which\nlacks stability and harmony in character.\n\nOne of the many hypocrisies of our society to-day is the condemnation,\nstill maintained by many who do not understand, of the use of the many\nsafe artificial preventatives to conception. The mother must be given\nmore control over the birth of her children. Personally I have not\na strong feeling against the procuring of abortion, but perhaps the\nforbidding of it is necessary as a fence around the reverence for human\nlife; but the prevention of birth is a different matter. And certainly\neach woman must be free to make her own choice as to whether she bears\nchildren or does not bear them; no man, and still more no social or moral\ncompulsion, may safely decide this matter for her; she must give life\ngladly to be able to give it well.\n\nNor must we look with disfavour on those women who desire to avoid\nmotherhood and its duties, or regard them as \u201cunnatural\u201d\u2014this word, as I\nhave just said, is used far too carelessly. It were well to remember that\nthe parental instinct is not fixed and is dependent on causes that very\nfew of us understand, that it is not present in all women any more than\nthe fighting instinct is present in all men.\n\nA vast amount of stupid confusion arises from our failing to accept the\nwide diversity in women\u2019s temperaments and characters in relation to\nthis question of motherhood. Between the more usual type of woman, whose\ndeepest desire and strongest instincts are fixed in motherhood, and the\nwoman at the other extreme to whom even the thought of maternity is a\nterror, there are a wide range of intermediate types\u2014women able to love\nand even in some respects markedly feminine, but with weak maternal\nfeeling. Such diversity in the family qualities has always existed. We\nhave seen in our past study of the family that the maternal instincts\nmay be overlaid and even destroyed, being replaced by others more\nclearly masculine. Examples of this are found in the insect world, and\nstriking examples among fishes and reptiles, where the father is the\ntrue parent and undertakes all duties connected with the young. The case\nof the phalaropes furnished us with a further remarkable instance of\nthis reversal in the characters of the two sexes. Things are not quite\nas dramatic, perhaps, in the human world, but they are more fateful,\nmore significant. And such changes in the expression of the emotions,\ndependent as they would seem to be on changes in the sexual character,\ncan be effected, for every individual of one sex has in him or her the\nqualities of the other sex in a less degree; and any special circumstance\nor alteration in the conditions of life which acts on an individual or\ngroup of individuals in an opposite direction from the ordinary, may\nsucceed in modifying and, in some cases, transforming the deep impulses\nof sex.[82]\n\nI do not wish to follow this question here. It is, however, widely\nevident that in the society we have evolved to-day there are many women\nin whom, what I may perhaps call, an atrophy of the maternal instincts\nhas taken place. This may be regretted, it cannot wisely be blamed, for\nit forms no solution of the problem thus to mark down for blame. There is\none way, and one way only, as far as I can see, whereby this great evil\nthat has happened and still is taking place might be stayed. The maternal\nwomen, the mother type, should be the only women to be mothers; which is,\nof course, the same thing as saying that every child should be born of\npassionate desire.\n\nBut this is not so simple in practice as at first sight it seems; it\ncarries with it first the demand that women must be given the knowledge\nand means to prevent the conception of every undesired child; and second,\nand even more important, that all girls should be educated to understand\nsomething at least of their sexual nature so that they may know their\nown need and strongest instincts; then, does their desire turn towards\nmotherhood, they will be better able to choose as the father of their\nchildren men who desire to be fathers as they desire to be mothers, so\nthat together they may decide the number of children they will bring into\nthe world and under what conditions. That is the only kind of motherhood\nthat will endure.\n\nI am prepared for an objection here. I shall be told that a woman, much\nless a girl, does not know whether she wants a child until she bears\none; that it is then her maternal instinct will develop. I do not believe\nit. I find this is the opinion of men and of women who have failed to\nthink straight; both judge in these matters too arbitrarily and with too\nlittle understanding. They forget how difficult it has been, and still\nis, for any one of my sex to be at all sexually truthful. Considering\nthe folly of the education we give to girls, there is little reliance to\nbe placed on what any woman says about sex. What we need most of all is\nthe liberation of women\u2019s instincts through education in consciousness.\nPerhaps, then, we shall cease to expect the impossible, by which I mean\nwe shall not hope to make good mothers of the girls who have no deep\ninstinct to love children. I know, of course, that the girl who before\nmarriage does not love children, may, and as a rule will, love her own\nchild: but I am certain that in nine cases out of every ten she will do\nso in the wrong way; the child will be cherished only as a possession of\nherself, an extension of her own egoism, which is very far indeed from\nwhat I hold as the self-giving character of the mother-woman. Here is one\nreason why good motherhood is so rare.\n\nOne source of great error arises because of the hypocrisy that society\nstill forces upon women in all questions of sex, and in particular on\nthis matter of their wanting, or not wanting, to be mothers. You see,\nthe desire for a child is allowed to them, but it is not yet allowed\nto them to desire love without the child. We are a strange people. And\nthis belief, instilled into us by puritanism and a religion which denies\nsimple human needs, that sex enjoyment is immoral without the purpose\nof procreation, has been a most degrading influence. It has done great\nharm. It has poisoned the lives of thousands of women and men; but the\ngreatest of the evils it has wrought is that, under its influence,\ncountless children have been born, both in marriage and outside of it,\nagainst the will of their mothers. Until it is openly recognised that\nwomen are not alike in their sexual natures any more than they are alike\nin their outward appearance, that they cannot all be classed together\nas the mother-sex, this evil cannot be changed; the old hypocrisy will\ncontinue and children will verily be born in sin, for they will be born\nwithout the mother\u2019s desire, and for this the race must pay the penalty.\n\nWe have, I am sure, to face the fact of the general occurrence among us\nof women of the siren type; they are the exact opposite to the mother\ntype. With them the \u201cpleasure factor\u201d[83] in the sexual act is the aim\nand end of love: this results, as it seems to me, in an intensified\negoism, which has far-reaching effects first in the woman\u2019s attitude\nto the man, as later in her attitude to her children. The siren woman\nis the property of all men, or rather it would be much nearer to the\ntruth to say that all men are her property. I do not think such a woman\ncan ever remain satisfied with one mate, though circumstances may hold\nher apparently faithful to her marriage vows. She is quite unsuited for\nmonogamous marriage, unless, indeed, she finds a man of a similar type\nwhom she has perpetually to reconquer. Even then there must be variety in\neach conquest to provide the excitement necessary with both to stimulate\nlove. Such a woman, as, of course, also the man, is always unsuited for\nthe selfless sacrifices of parenthood. She is the natural prostitute, who\nabsorbs everything in sex for her own desire.\n\nThe case is quite different with the mother type, and her relation to\nthe man is not the same; true, she also seeks and uses the man, the\ndifference is not here. Woman is better equipped for the sex-battle\nthan is man. There is nothing wrong in this. I hold that a woman should\nbe able to take the man she loves as her right; she does take him now,\nbut in ways that too often should make both herself and him ashamed.\nThe mother-woman exercises her right of choice as the representative of\nNature. She is the fount of the race, she seeks the man as her helper and\nbecause he will give life to the child she desires. Such a woman is not\nalways faithful in marriage, but she wishes to be so, and she will be\nfaithful in actual fact, if she is fortunate and finds in her lover the\nfitting father she seeks unconsciously for her children.\n\nOf course, this is a purely arbitrary classification; the two types of\ncharacter mingle in most women. There are traces of the siren in every\nwoman, and no woman\u2014though I am less certain here\u2014is entirely devoid of\nthe maternal instinct.\n\nIt is very difficult to know the truth. But it seems to me that,\nwhen from any cause the pleasure factor in sex becomes secretly\nover-accentuated, as it may so easily do under conditions where full\nsex expression is denied to many women, the normal sexual impulses\nare in some cases weakened or even atrophied through disuse, while in\nothers satisfaction is gained in secret erotic practice, and by so doing\nthe character and these deep impulses receive a twist in an unhealthy\ndirection, leading or at least tending to an inflaming of the egoistical\ndesires, which, if long continued, will increase to crowd out, like an\novergrowth of some poisonous weed, the more tender plant of the parental\ninstinct. While certainly not presuming to speak with authority on so\ndifficult a subject, I think that the suggestion I have made may possibly\nafford an explanation of the poverty of the mother instinct in some\nwomen compared with its richness in other women. I plead for a patient\nrecognition of the fact that in all these deep matters relating to sex we\nare still very ignorant.\n\nLet me now give an example that quite recently came under my notice,\nof a woman who, though a mother, was without any glimmering flicker of\nmaternal feeling. It seems to me to be worth recording as being the most\nstriking case I have met of the siren type of woman, who, if I am right,\nis occupying a wrong place in any monogamous marriage. Facts speak more\nforcibly than any mere statements.\n\nIn a boarding-house at which I was staying there was a young and\nbeautiful mother. She had borne seven children, of whom the two youngest\nwere with her, a boy of about five and a baby a year old. She had with\nher also a young niece of about seven years of age. They were healthy\nand, I should judge, charming children. The mother apparently had no\nlove for them whatever. It was a most extraordinary case. Physically\nthis woman was fitted to bear children, but she was clearly without any\ncapacity for caring for them. She reminded me of the phalarope mothers,\nwho seek love adventures and leave the charge of their children to the\nfathers. In this case the father was not present: the guardian of the\nbaby was the niece. I never saw a more patient worker than this tiny\nchild. I do not know whether it was fear held her to her task. She did\nnot play: all day she tended, and worked, and watched. Sometimes she was\nassisted by the tiny boy, her cousin.\n\nHere is one out of many conversations that I chanced to overhear.\n\nHarry, the boy, called to his cousin\u2014\n\n\u201cSusie, I have washed baby\u2019s napkins, what shall I do now?\u201d\n\nShe answered, \u201cBegin to get the food ready; I will come in a minute to\nboil the milk.\u201d\n\nThis is no exaggeration, I state exactly what I heard.\n\nNow, it is no use shrieking out that this woman\u2019s conduct is unnatural\nand a libel on motherhood. If the maternal instinct was a fixed instinct\nand bore good fruit only, this might be done. The objection to the wrong\nkind of women being mothers is precisely that it inevitably produces\nsome such results. This woman simply followed the promptings of her\nown desires: the difference was that she did it much more frankly than\nis usual. She employed the days in playing croquet and tennis and in\nflirting with any available male. I do not think she knew she was not a\ngood mother. At intervals, when she remembered, she scolded the children;\nbut when she forgot them, which was frequently, she left them alone.\n\nOften I talked with her, as she interested me very strongly. I wished\nthat I could have known her early history, and especially some details of\nher sexual life. I could but guess, still I do not think I was mistaken.\nShe told me quite frankly that she did not like children, though she\nadded (clearly, though quite unconsciously, speaking conventionally),\n\u201cOf course, I love my own children.\u201d Then (lapsing again into truth)\nshe went on bewailing the length of the school holidays (the little boy\nand the girl were both at boarding-school) and her present position of\nbeing without a nurse to look after the baby. On the occasion of another\nconversation she told me that she did not care for men. I answered,\n\u201cProbably not, but you like them to care for you.\u201d She laughed and seemed\npleased, and asked me how I knew this.\n\nNow, this woman was to me a most interesting study. A friend who was\nstaying with me at the time blamed her very severely. I think this was\nunfair. What was clear to me was that life was demanding from this\nwoman what she could not give. She was strongly sensual without being\npassionate; she was probably philoprogenitive or she would not have had\nso many children; but she was not at all maternal, and was quite unfitted\nto be entrusted with any child. She was not immoral\u2014at least, I think\nnot; probably she was faithful in the usual meaning to her husband. In\nher world the price was too high to make unfaithfulness worth while; but\nshe was wholly non-moral. Such a woman should not marry; she should never\nbe a mother. I would go even further and say her place was the place\nof the prostitute. This judgment may seem hard. Yet I know of no other\nremedy. You cannot alter these things by pretending they are not there.\nAnd the expression of sex is always a question of refinement and of\ncharacter.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER XI\n\nSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE\n\n\n    My purpose in writing on this subject\u2014No desire to lessen\n    responsibility\u2014The great difficulties of such an inquiry\u2014A\n    return to the question considered in the previous chapters on\n    marriage\u2014Some women and men unsuited for monogamous marriage\n    and the duties of parenthood\u2014The evils that must arise when\n    those unfitted for true monogamy are forced to live under its\n    cover\u2014Sex subjects usually viewed either with false sentiment\n    or with vulgarity\u2014Shameful concealments and sniggering do\n    not lead to true chastity\u2014These bad conditions exert more\n    influence on men than on women\u2014Celibacy as unnatural and\n    harmful in women as in men\u2014One form of union can never be\n    imposed for every one\u2014Is secrecy advantageous to society\u2014Effect\n    of economic conditions and pressure of opinion\u2014Without some\n    change prostitution and the degradation of the more honourable\n    partnerships outside marriage must be accepted\u2014The position of\n    the mother must always be secured\u2014The war has caused increased\n    independence of women\u2014The war as well will cause a shortage\n    of men and probably a period of poverty\u2014These must act as\n    further causes of avoidance of marriage\u2014At the same time the\n    nation will have an increased need for children\u2014More than one\n    form of sexual association required\u2014The highest types of men\n    and women should live in monogamous marriage\u2014For others the\n    sterile temporary union\u2014The law should establish contracts\n    providing for the woman in such relationships\u2014Advantages of\n    this procedure\u2014Increase not hinder morality.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE\n\n    \u201cAll love must have its responsibilities, or it will degrade\n    and dissipate itself in mere sentiment or sensuality.\u201d\n\n\nI find this sentence written in an old notebook, one that for a long time\nI have not been using. I took the book up by chance, when my eyes lighted\non this saying; at once I decided to place it at the beginning of this\nchapter on sexual relationships outside of marriage. I want to make it\nclear at the very start that it is far indeed from my purpose to make\neasy the way of irregular unions or at all to loosen the responsibilities\nthat ought to bind men and women.\n\nThe difficulties of writing upon all questions of sexual conduct are\nvery real. Almost always one is suspected of advocating license and of\ndisbelief in marriage, so commonplace is it to misunderstand, so easy to\nmisrepresent. For not only is there prejudice to encounter, which on no\nquestion is so obstinate as it is on this one that we are now considering\nof unregulated love, but we have to deal with so many different problems,\ntaking account of many opposed facts, where threads are crossed and\nentangled and at best can be patched only roughly together. I plead for a\npatient recognition of the real seriousness of this problem, which, I am\ncertain, will have to be faced in the near future if our sexual life and\nmarriage are to be freed from secret disgrace that is unbearable.\n\nWe have found in the two previous chapters what all of us must know\nfrom our own experience of life, that some women and men are by\ntheir temperament unsuited for monogamous marriage and the duties of\nparenthood. Often, I would even say as a rule, these individuals are\nstrongly sexual. They will not, because with the character they have,\nthey cannot, live for any long period celibate. They will marry to\ngain permanent sexual relief or they will buy temporary relief from\nprostitutes, unless they are able to seek satisfaction in an irregular\nunion.\n\nNow I affirm it as my conviction that the first and second of these\ncourses are likely to lead to greater misery and sin than the third\ncourse; and of the three, the first, in my opinion, is the worst. I have\nno doubt at all on this matter. No one, who is not blind to the facts\nof life, can close their eyes to the evil and suffering that a coercive\nmonogamy forces upon those people who are unfitted and do not desire to\nfulfil the obligations and duties of living faithfully with one partner.\nAnd I would ask all those who stand in fear of any change or reform in\nour marriage laws or of any open toleration of wider opportunities for\nsexual friendships to consider this fact: the discredit which has fallen\nupon monogamous marriage arises largely from the demoralising lives lived\nunder its cover by those unsuited for enduring mating.\n\nOur moral code is, however, much less ruled by law than by custom and\nthe united will of the community. It is for this reason that I want to\nforce men, and even more women, to think practically on these matters. My\nown opinion is firm. Apart from the fact that the disproportion in the\nnumber of the sexes in this country makes marriage impossible for all\nand condemns great numbers of women to sterile celibacy (a question I\nhave dealt with elsewhere[84]), I am persuaded of the need for much wider\nfacilities for honourable partnerships outside of permanent marriage;\nsuch unions are, I am sure, necessary in order to harmonise our sexual\nlife and meet the desires of a large, and I believe increasing, number\nof women and men, whose exceptional needs our existing institutions and\ncustoms ignore or crush.\n\nLet us view these questions in the light of their results. Most of us\nfail to meet the facts. We never realise the evil of this hypocrisy\u2014love\neverywhere carried on secretly, that is acting always as a disturbing\nforce in our sexual life\u2014it is a worm that gnaws unceasingly at the roots\nof marriage and destroys too often the most beautiful blossoms of love.\n\nOne great source of difficulty arises from the want of frankness in our\nthoughts. Especially is this the case with women, who throughout their\nlives have had the great fundamental facts of life clothed in euphemisms,\nuntil it seems as if they have succeeded, by the help of many fictitious\naids, in concealing the natural outward signs of the existence of sex.\nAnd largely from these concealments our every idea of sex has become\ntainted with sentiment and vulgarity. We can hardly speak of the subject\neven to our children without an apology.\n\nThe actions and emotions of life undraped with lies seem to most of us\nanathema; we, who have so veneered our lives that we know no longer of\nwhat wood they are made; we, who for generations have been so covered\nwith shameful concealments, deceiving even ourselves, and are impervious\nto the claims of that ill-bred creature\u2014Life.\n\nAnd how deep we have wandered into sin in seeking to escape from it!\n\nNeed we put up with this? Must we turn our eyes away for ever from things\nas they are\u2014stifle our desires in fear of what we shall do?\n\nThe sex-needs almost always are dealt with as though they stood apart and\nlay out of line with any other need or faculty of our bodies. This is,\nin part, due to the secrecy which has kept sex as something mysterious.\nWe have most of us been trained from our childhood into indecent\nsecretiveness. But there is as well a deeper reason, and it will be a\nlong time before we can change it. Sex is so powerful in most of us,\nand, when from any cause awakened into consciousness, occupies really so\nlarge a part of our attention, that we are afraid of ourselves, and this\nreacts in fear of any open acknowledgment even in our thoughts of our\nown sex-needs. Still less can we grant the sex-needs of others, perhaps\nstronger and different from our own need.\n\nIt is necessary to face very frankly this tremendous force of the\nsex-passion, for the most part veiled in discussion. Many women and some\nmen do not realise at all the immense complications of sex, or understand\nthe claims that passion makes on many natures. Almost necessarily in\nany inquiry into these questions of sexual conduct one\u2019s opinions are\nbiased by temperament and personal experience. We are dealing with forces\nin which the individual element cannot be set aside. It is foolishness\nalways to preach continence. Sexual abstinence is possible without great\neffort for some people, it is not possible for all. I am certain we have\nto recognize this fact, and to allow for its action. It is not what we\nwant people to do, but what they will do, that we are considering.\n\nIf we look at the matter practically, it is of course necessary to\nremember that this question of the possibility of, as well as the\nadvantage to be derived from, sexual abstinence is an entirely different\none, as it relates to the time before, or after, the first experience of\nlove. The sex desires are strong when roused, but when not definitely\naroused, the ideal of chastity asserts itself, and for long periods these\ndesires may not greatly occupy the conscious imagination. It is clear\nthat the physical problem cannot be, and ought not to be, considered\napart from the will. Great good in some cases may be done by establishing\ncontrol over thought.\n\nIt is, however, idle to count on a course of thought and action being\ntaken by the rough majority among us which so much of our civilisation\nand daily environment makes difficult and indeed impossible. A race of\nyoung men and women surrounded with shameful concealments and bred to a\nblind acceptance of wrong sexual conditions, accustomed to an atmosphere\nof sniggering and suggestiveness in connection with the central facts of\nlove and life\u2014such a race cannot have, much less practise, an ideal of\ntrue chastity.\n\nThese wrong and vulgar conditions without doubt have acted more strongly\nagainst men than against women. And I would note in passing, that here,\nas I believe, we find one explanation of the greater continence among\nunmarried women than among unmarried men. It is not because satisfaction\nfor the sex-needs is more necessary for the health and well-being of men\nthan it is for the health and well-being of women\u2014a statement I do not\nbelieve; nor is it proved that this absence of conscious sex-desires\nnecessarily implies the absence of unconscious sex-action; all that can\nbe claimed is that the sexual impulses have been diverted into different\nexpressions, and the explanation of such diversion is to be sought in the\nboy\u2019s and young man\u2019s education and life, which forces sex so much more\nstrongly into the conscious thought and attention.\n\nWe are dealing with a question very difficult to solve. On this\nassumption that the sex-needs of the man are more imperative than the\nsex-needs of the woman, much that is false has been accepted as true;\nthere are many who have advocated a \u201cduplex sexual morality,\u201d and while\ndemanding from the woman complete sexual abstinence until she marries,\nregard this as impossible in the case of men. Such a separation as\nthis between the sex-needs of man and the sex-needs of woman is, in my\nopinion, a very grave error. Celibacy is unnatural and harmful in man, it\nis at least equally unnatural and harmful in woman.\n\nNow, it is on this question of the sex-needs of women that I find\nmyself, as I have suggested already, in such direct opposition to the\ngreat majority of women, numbers of whom do not, will not, admit to\na consciousness of any kind of sexual need. I believe they are quite\nhonest, but I know they are mistaken.\n\nThe doctrine of chastity being the natural and special virtue of women is\nentirely false. Complete abstinence from love cannot be borne by women\nthrough a long period of years without producing serious results on the\nbody and the mind. And these results are by no means clearly dependent\non a conscious knowledge of unsatisfied sex. The evil may be pronounced\neven when the woman herself has not the slightest knowledge of her real\nneeds. In many women the penalty is paid in an unceasing and wearying\nrestlessness of mind and body. We have also to face the fact that\nprolonged and enforced abstinence may act to cultivate a morbid obsession\nwith sexual things. I believe that the celibate often is less chaste than\nthe normally sexual individual. This may seem to be a wanton charge to\nsome, but I am not speaking without due consideration.\n\nI know well that some among my readers, and in particular women, will\nsay that I am wrong, many will accuse me of exaggerating and complain\nthat I see sex in everything; the few only will know that I am right.\nI would, however, refer all those who doubt to the researches of Freud\nand his followers, which have proved in the most conclusive way that the\nmanifestations of sex may be concealed in numberless guises. Without some\nunderstanding of the \u201cUnconscious\u201d it is useless to attempt to deal with\nthese questions. We need to realise that the fact of an individual, or\ngroup of individuals, being unconscious of the presence of sex does not\nprove that sex is not acting strongly and often harmfully within them.\nNay, we may go further and say that could it be proved that desire was\nabsent and no sex difficulties of any kind be discovered, this is no\nreason why we should necessarily be too satisfied. If no kind of action\nis apparent, it is very probable that some deep evil is at work, which\nhinders sex from a more healthy and open expression.\n\nI am haunted by the fear that the careless reader will think I am\nwriting against chastity. This is not so. I would affirm again, with\nall the power that I have, that compulsory sexual abstinence may not be\nconfused with voluntary chastity. We must be very clear in our thought\nabout this. We can never establish an ideal of true chastity until we\nhave rooted out from our social life all the unnatural and empty forms\nof chastity. The long waiting for marriage which economic and other\ncauses have forced upon us, more and more increases the difficulties of\nmaintaining any true chastity. It is a great evil which almost always\nwastes the energies of life.\n\nThere are very many women (as also these are men) who are moral, because\nthey are too great cowards to be immoral. The reasons for chastity must\nin many cases be sought in the poverty of experience and the difficulty\nof obtaining love, in the hard binding of circumstances, and, even more\noften, in the terror of being found out. Respectability is the strong\nmoral safeguard of woman. The conception of faithfulness to one mate (the\ntrue chastity) is as strong in many men as it is in any woman, a fact to\nwhich I gladly bear witness, from my knowledge of the men I have known.\nIt is too commonly taken for granted that sex-passion is less refined in\nmen and different from sex-passion in women. I am sure in many cases it\nis not true. I am not going to discuss the question further, as it is one\nthat cannot easily be proved.\n\nIt is, however, very necessary to break down the idea that for the\nimpulses of sex, with their immense complications and differences,\nthere is one general rule either for men or for women. In every case\nthe element of personal idiosyncrasy must be taken into account, and,\nfor this reason, the difficulties of these questions are enormously\ncomplex. Nor is it possible, I am sure, to make any arbitrary judgments.\nTo me the man or woman who is able to live a celibate life is not\nnecessarily better than the man or woman who is not. I may prefer one\ntype, I may dislike the other, but this also is a matter of my personal\nidiosyncrasy. We cannot safely class those who differ from ourselves as\nwrong, and set them down as fit only for suppression and restraint. We\nhave to put aside those shrieks of blame that are possible only to the\nignorant.\n\nIt is all very well to preach the ideal of complete sexual abstinence\nuntil marriage, but there are the clear, hard conditions of contemporary\ncircumstances for all but the really rich, who can marry when they\nwant to do so without other consideration, and the very poor who marry\nyoung because they have nothing at all to consider. We have to face the\npresence amongst us to-day of an amount of suffering through enforced\ncelibacy which is acting in many directions in degrading our sexual\nlives. Any number of these sufferers, both the unmarried and the married\nwho are ill-mated, are everywhere amongst us. I need not say more to\nprove this: the facts face us all, unless, indeed, we are too ignorant\nand too prejudiced to know what is happening.\n\nMany new lessons will have to be learnt. I would suggest as a first step\ntowards honesty and health, that we ought to claim an open declaration of\nthe existence of any form of sexual relationship between a woman and a\nman. We shall, I believe, do this, if not now, then later, because we are\nfinding out the evils that must ensue, both to the individuals concerned\nand to the society of which they are members, by forcing men and women\ninto the dark, immoral way of concealments.\n\nIt is ridiculous to say, as many do, that sexual relationships between\ntwo people affect no one but themselves, unless a child is born. The\npartners in even the strongest and purest mutual passion have no right\nto say to society, \u201cThis is our business and none of yours.\u201d The\nconsequences may be so grave and wide for society that the deed can\nnever be confined to the interests of the pair concerned. And the sexual\npartnership that is kept secret will work anti-socially just in the same\nway as any other secret partnership. Opportunity will be given to those\nwho desire to sin and escape the responsibilities of the partnership,\nwhile other men and women, who wish to and would act honourably, find\nthe way so difficult that in nine cases out of ten they fail in their\nendeavors. Many unions that now are shameful would not be shameful if the\nparties had not been driven into concealments, which cannot fail to act\nin a way that is immoral.\n\nWe must see things a little more as they are. We must accept ourselves\nas we are. We must do more than this, we must accept others as they are,\nand cease from blaming them when we find them different from ourselves.\nWe must give up being hypocrites. To force every one to accept the one\nform of union is not the wisest way to deal with the matter. We must\nunderstand what is the result of our doing this. It does not prevent\npeople from acting wrongly. Anything may be done, any sexual partnership\nbe undertaken, however shameful, as long as it is hidden. We shall have\nmore morality, not less, by an open recognition of honourable sexual\nfriendships entered into outside the permanent binding of monogamous\nmarriage.\n\nI do not think we need fear to do this. My own faith in monogamous\nmarriage, as the most practical, the best, and the happiest form of union\nfor the great majority of people, is so strongly rooted that I do not\nwish, because I hold it as unnecessary, to force any one either to enter\ninto or to stay within its bonds. I want them to do this because they\nthemselves want to be bound. We get further and further away from real\nmonogamy by allowing no other form of honourable partnerships.\n\nUnder present economic conditions and the pressure of social opinion,\nthe penalties that the woman has had to pay for any sexual relationship\noutside of marriage are very heavy. This is manifest. Indeed, when we see\nthe difficulties faced in these unions, that so many women do take the\nrisks is another proof, if one were needed, of the elemental strength\nof the sex-passion in women. But mark this: it is only the woman whose\nsocial conscience is unawakened, or the few women strong enough and\nable to ignore the censure of their friends, who can enter into these\nirregular relationships\u2014except in a hateful secrecy. And this has acted,\nas I believe, harmfully in a way not usually recognised, in so far as it\nhas driven into marriage many who would have been better not to marry.\n\nAt present our monogamous marriage is buttressed with prostitution\nand maintained with the help of countless secret extra conjugal\nrelationships, which thus makes our moral attitude one of intolerable\ndeception. To this question I shall presently return.\n\nUnder existing social conditions the opportunities for sexual\nrelationships to meet the needs of those women and men unable, or not\ndesiring, to marry must, in almost all cases, entail the sacrifice of\nthe woman. It is an unsocial, because an ostracised union. Our efforts\nat reform have so far been not only ineffective, but absurd. It is no\nuse shirking it, if some change cannot be made, then we must accept\nprostitution and wild-love as well as the degradation of all the more\nhonourable partnerships entered into outside of marriage.\n\nI believe that many of these problems of our sexual life must remain\nunsolved; some of them, perhaps, are unsolvable, but certain of the evils\nare preventable. And first note this: there is one rule that is able and\nought to guide us. I have asserted elsewhere,[85] what again I would\naffirm here: it is an essential fact of sexual morality, as I conceive\nit, that in any relation between the two sexes\u2014I care not whether the\nassociation be legal or illegal\u2014the position of the woman as the mother\nmust be made secure. The immoral union is the union which results in bad\nand irresponsible parenthood.\n\nIt is because I believe this, that I wish to see saner, more practical,\nand more moral relations made possible between those women and men who\nlive together but do not marry.\n\nBut before I attempt the difficult task of suggesting what seems to me\nthe way in which better conditions could be established, it will be\nnecessary to note briefly a few facts concerning changes actually taking\nplace in the position of women, which it seems to me must be certain\nto affect profoundly the conditions of marriage and the problem we are\nconsidering.\n\nThe quite new importance as workers which women have now obtained will\nreact inevitably on the relations between the sexes. In every sort of\noccupation, in clerking, shop-assisting, railway work, motor driving and\nconducting, police work, in labour on the land and in many more unusual\ncapacities, they are being found efficient beyond precedent. And in the\nmunition factories, in the handling of heavy and intricate machinery,\ntheir adaptability and inventiveness, as well as their steadfastness and\nenthusiasm, have surprised all those who are without knowledge of the\nbewildering resourcefulness of the feminine character. All the disengaged\nenergy of women has been employed. They have gained a strong position in\nthe economic world. This is evident, but what is not realised are the\nforces working beneath.\n\nWhat is going to be the permanent result? Will all this energy evaporate\nafter the war, will it be reabsorbed in the home and work directly\nconnected therewith, or will this great force of women\u2019s work be still\nused in industrial and other employments? It is not easy to give a\ncertain answer.\n\nLeaving aside the question whether such work if permanently continued\nwill be good or bad for women, a matter on which already I have\nexpressed my opinion strongly,[86] I want to consider how these fresh\nand advantageous labour conditions have affected, and will, I think, go\non affecting, women\u2019s own desires. The question is whether this change\nthat war conditions have brought is one which the desires of women cause\nthem to welcome, or whether it is an arrangement that has arisen out of\nnecessity to which they are essentially antagonistic.\n\nWhat, in my opinion, makes the present situation dangerous is, that long\nbefore the war women were forcing an entrance into the world of labour,\nand struggling in competition with men to gain the positions which now\nare being thrust upon them. And I do not believe that in the mass to-day\nthey are doing their work temporarily and to replace men for the period\nof the war, but rather they are aiming to establish their own economic\nemancipation. Probably of the million women[87] who have plunged into\nnew work in connection with the war, the great majority are much better\noff economically than ever they were in times of peace. War has brought\nmore of gain than of sacrifice. The new thing is the opportunity that has\ncome. Individually women were adventurous before the war; they have now\nbecome adventurous as a class. War has but accentuated and made obvious\nthe change that for long had been taking place in the desires of women.\nThis turning away from themselves, from their own lives and duties, to\nthe world and employments and duties of men, is a thing that was going on\nbefore the war, slowly and against much prejudice, but what matters is\nthat it was going on.\n\nI shall make no attempt to deal with the serious economic results that\nare likely to occur should women, when the war is ended, struggle to\ncompete with men in the labour market. The disasters that would follow\nsuch action are sufficiently plain. One result would certainly be a\nclash of sex, unavoidable in a work-struggle for the upper hand between\nwomen and men. The great temptation to women then will be to keep their\npositions by accepting lower wages than the men can take. No one can know\nwhether they will do this.\n\nThere can be no question that the situation will be difficult. For\nthe return of women to the home and what hitherto has been considered\nexclusively feminine work is going to mean much more than a change of\noccupation; it will be going back to the insistent duties of the narrowed\nwoman\u2019s sphere with new ideas and a fresh command of life. It is useless\npretending that this can be easy. For one thing, the great uplift in\nwomen\u2019s wages has given girls as well as women an independence, with a\nquite strange joy as spenders which they have not known before.\n\nAnd this new power in industry has been associated also with many women\nwith a new power in the home. The withdrawal to the war of the men of\nthe family has left women with an opportunity to spend incomes over\nwhich hitherto they had no direct control. So that sometimes one wonders\nwhether men will be allowed to re-enter their homes, if they come back,\non the same terms as before they held. Will women again accept with\ncontentment a position of economic dependence? This cannot fail, I think,\nto act directly on the conditions of marriage. The question would seem to\nbe this: Will women come back to the home believing the home to be the\ncentral interest of their lives? Will they feel that motherhood, with\nthe care of the little child and all the duties it should entail, is the\nultimate joy, for the denial of which no personal freedom or success in\nwork can compensate?\n\nIt is one of the unhappy features of our present condition of necessity\nfor women to carry on the work of this country that the most deep and\nfar-reaching issues are being decided in haste, and in many cases by\nyoung girls who have never been taught by any wise training to realise\ntheir own nature as women, or to understand their sexual needs with their\nimmense restricting power. And my fear is that the things which matter\nmost to life will be lost. I feel that almost everything in the future\ndepends on the inner attitude of the thousands and thousands of girls and\nyoung women who to-day have gone out of the home. I wish I had the gift\nto make them feel the far-acting importance of their personal attitude.\nThe root of all action is the will or desire. Yes, that is the danger.\nOur desires are the greatest realities that we have, and we should look\nclosely to the direction towards which they are turned. Nothing but the\nstrongest desire on the part of women will save the home. Many forces\nwill be acting to make permanent conditions that cannot fail to act\nadversely to any right ideal of home life. My hope is that women in the\nmass will understand in time and resist these forces. Yet, I do not know,\nand sometimes my fear is more active than my hope.\n\nAt least, it is evident that in the immediate future the home is not\ngoing to be re-established without effort. Women will have to make great\nsacrifice to surrender in every direction the new power of controlling\nand spending money which now they are enjoying. And for this reason, even\nif for no other, many women almost certainly will seek to hold their\nplaces in the labour world and keep on working for themselves. Therefore,\nit is, I think, safe to expect that to some limited extent the present\nextension of women\u2019s employment outside the home will be permanent when\npeace is established.\n\nCertainly it is unnecessary for me to say, after what I have written in\nthe earlier chapters of my book, how exceedingly I regret the permanence\nof conditions that can seem good only in an industrial society. In my\nopinion the working of women will be the greatest of the many disasters\nthat are likely to follow and remain from the war. I wish I had the power\nto prevent it. I do not, however, see any way in which this can be done.\nFor one thing, if the desires of women are being set in a direction away\nfrom the home, this, as I have just said, must count as the strongest\nfactor of all. What women want to do is what they are likely in the end\nto do.\n\nSo many women have been for long, and still are, suffering from the\ndelusion that conditions which industrialism, with all its failures in\nthe art of life, first established, and which war now has made necessary,\nare an advantage to be maintained after the need of war has made them\nunnecessary. This is the great mistake. I would emphasise again what I\nhave shown in an earlier chapter,[88] that conditions which act against\nthe home and marriage (always dependent on the individual home) are sure\nproof of social instability. Such conditions are centuries old; all\nthis flood of change is bringing nothing that is new. In all periods of\nunsettled life the individual home and the family have been threatened.\nThe primitive form of marriage, the maternal form, where the husband\nvisited the wife in her own home, is very near to the most modern\nsuggestions for the readjustment of marriage. And the heavy working of\nwomen is a further sign of disturbance and of primitive conditions of\nlife. It is a step backward, not a step forward. Few women, however,\nrealise that this is so. Perhaps this explains why so many among them are\ntalking and behaving to-day as if no more babies were desired to be born.\n\nHow far this will be carried I do not profess to say. Women will have\na fresh power to refuse the position of wife and mother; thus it seems\nlikely that there may be an increased option against marriage in its true\nand binding form. And closely connected with the independent position of\nwomen will be the great shortage, for the next decade, of marriageable\nmen, due to the killing and disablements of war. It will be a world in\nwhich the proportion of women will be very high. And although it would\nbe folly to estimate precisely how this great numerical strength of\none sex will act, whether it will strengthen women\u2019s position, or, as\nit equally well may, will lessen their importance in a society crowded\nwith unwanted women, it is plain that it must directly affect the sexual\nrelationships. Women, accustomed when young to control their own lives\nand able to be self-supporting, will not only find it much more difficult\nto marry, but they will be in a position to get along economically\nwithout marriage. To every married woman there are likely to be three or\nfour unmarried ones.[89] It will also probably be a period of poverty.\nThe economic stress which war causes will almost necessarily continue\nin the years when we shall all be compelled to meet the huge task of\nnational recovery that peace must bring. It is possible that for some\nyears it will be more difficult to maintain a family than it has ever\nbeen before. This will be a third factor acting against marriage, and\ntending to maintain as permanent the class of energetic, not strongly\nmaternal and undomesticated women workers.[90]\n\nIn different directions also causes very much the same may possibly be\nacting to the same end. The desires of men as well as the desires of\nwomen may be affected, and be turned from marriage and the duties of the\nfamily and the home. Many men will not come back out of the hell of war\nthe same men that entered it. It may not be easy to plan life on the old\nrules, the safe customs of civilisation may well count for less. Some\nmen will not want to return to the posts kept open for them by women; to\nsell tablecloths to fussy women, or to spend dull days in offices adding\ncolumns of figures and addressing envelopes, may not appear \u201ca man\u2019s job\u201d\nto men who have met the stark facts of death and life. I doubt the zeal\nof the response of all these men to the binding ties of family life. And\nin this way, it may be, that many fathers will be cut off from the family\nand turned away from desiring the sacrifice and duties that children\nentail, which cannot fail to act as a further force in modifying marriage.\n\nIf we try to take an entirely practical view of the position, certain\ngrave facts must, I think, become evident. For side by side with these\nforces acting against marriage, and the parental sacrifice necessary to\nmaintain the ideal of the family, must be placed the nation\u2019s increased\nneed for children\u2014in particular for male children. The repair of the war\ndrain on the world\u2019s manhood must fall heaviest on women. It is woman who\nhas borne and bred and loved each life that has been lost by war. It is\nshe who will have to make good the waste. This is her bill of compulsory\nservice.\n\nNever will child life have been so precious as it will be after this\nWorld War. Already in this country we are beginning to recognise this\nneed. Excellent work for the restriction of infant mortality and the\nprotection of child life is beginning to be undertaken, and these\nquestions are receiving a practical recognition which they never gained\nin the days of peace. But much more drastic action than has as yet been\nconsidered will be needed. It is certainly not inconceivable that this\nneed for children may lead to changes both in our public and private\nattitudes to many sexual questions. I am hopeful that it may force us to\nface squarely many problems that hitherto we have turned from in fear.\n\nSpeculations on all matters connected with marriage and the relations\nbetween the sexes are so hazardous that they are likely to be wrong. I\ndo, however, think that, having regard to the direction in which so many\nforces are acting, the position in regard to the special problem we are\nconsidering has become clearer. Monogamous marriage and the home based\nupon maternity and offspring has got to be saved. And in my opinion this\nwill be done most surely by a frank acceptance, under the almost certain\nconditions of the future, of more than one form of sexual association.\n\nThis proposal is not made lightly. I am not advocating such a course\nas being in itself desirable or undesirable. I am attempting merely to\nestimate the drift and tendency of the times, considering those forces\nthat were beginning to act before the war and, as I think, must continue,\neven with greater power, after the war. I suggest, therefore, the one\ncourse that seems to me can in any practical way help us to be more\nmoral. All the facts that we have found work out to force us to the\nrealisation that an increasing number of women will not be able, and\nprobably will not desire, even if they marry, to bear children. Now, I\ndo not believe in changing the ideal of marriage so that its duties no\nlonger bind women to their children and to the home. I think it better to\nmake provision for other partnerships, to meet the sex-needs (for we can\ncause nothing but evil by failing to meet them) of the women and men who\nare not able or do not desire to enter the holy bonds of marriage and\nundertake together the duties and sacrifice inevitable to the founding\nand maintenance of a family.\n\nI know the whole question is a very difficult one. Let me try to make my\nposition somewhat clearer.\n\nI am in one way in agreement with Roman Catholic Christianity (I use the\nphrase to make my meaning plain, and ask indulgence if to any one it\nseems in itself indefensible). The Roman Catholic Church admits the need\nof two standards of sexual conduct\u2014some women and men are fitted for a\nreligious life and should bind themselves to celibacy; others need to\nmarry, and to them marriage is permitted. The difference between my view\nand the one just expressed is that, whereas it is usual to suppose the\nmorals of the celibate monk or nun superior to those of the married man\nor woman, I should hold the opposite opinion; it is the highest types of\nmen and women who would seek to marry and be best and happiest if living\ntogether as faithful man and wife, as devoted father and mother. I do,\nhowever, hold that there are others\u2014women as well as men\u2014without the\ngifts that make for successful parenthood or happy permanent marriage.\nI would recognise the divergence of these two roughly defined classes\nand let those who cannot marry be openly permitted to live together in\ntemporary childless unions, destined, I hope, to show to the world the\ninferiority of every type of ideal of the sex relationships other than\nthe monogamous union, which fulfils the completion of the woman and the\nman in the child created by their love. And further, these sterile unions\nwould, by their childlessness, act to remove for ever from the world\nthose unsuited to be parents. It is this last result that matters most.\nAs long as we force those unsuited for faithful mating into marriage and\nhold them bound against their desire, children will be born who must pay\nthe penalty in weakness of character of their parents\u2019 sins against love.\n\nI believe if there were some open recognition of honourable partnerships\noutside of marriage, not necessarily permanent, with proper provision\nfor the future, guarding the woman, who, in my opinion, should be in\nall cases protected, a provision not dependent on the generosity of the\nman and made after the love which sanctioned the union has waned, but\ndecided upon by the man and the woman in the form of a contract before\nthe relationship was entered upon, then there would be many women ready\nto undertake such unions gladly; there would be women as well as men\nwho, I believe, would prefer them to monogamous marriage that binds them\npermanently to one partner for life. In this way many marriages would be\nprevented that inevitably come to disaster. And this would leave greater\nchances of marriage and child-bearing for other and more suitable types.\n\nIt is also possible that such friendship-contracts might, under present\ndisastrous conditions, be made by those who are unsuitably mated and yet\nare unable, or do not wish, to sever the bond between them, with some\nother partner they could love. Such contracts would open up possibilities\nof honourable partnerships to many who must otherwise suffer from\nenforced sexual abstinence or be driven into shameful and secret unions.\n\nBy this means a solution might be found for conditions of dishonour in\nour midst that we all know to be there\u2014dishonour that, as far as I am\nable to see, is likely to be increased, and not lessened, in the near\nfuture by the conditions left by war. Moreover, prostitution, and also\nthe diseases so closely connected with prostitution, would be greatly\nlessened, though I do not think that sexual sins would cease. There will\nalways be for a very long time men and women who will be attracted to\nwild-love. This we have to recognise. Men would not, however, be driven\nto buy sexual relief.[91]\n\nWe have got, I am certain, to recognise that our form of permanent\nmarriage\u2014the monogamous union\u2014cannot meet the sex-needs of all people. To\nassert that it can do this is to close our eyes to the facts we all know\nto exist. The extending of the opportunities of honourable love must be\nfaced before we can hope for more moral conditions in marriage. I must\naffirm again how necessary, in my opinion, is some kind of fixed public\nrecognition for every form of sexual relationship between a man and a\nwoman, so that there may be some accepted standard of conduct for the\npartners entering into them.\n\nMay not something be done now, when we are being forced to consider these\nquestions, to make some such recognition possible? Partnerships other\nthan marriage have had a place as a recognised and guarded institution in\nmany older and more primitive societies, and it may be, as I have tried\nto show, that the conditions brought upon us after the World War may act\nin forcing upon us a similar acceptance.\n\nI believe that, in face of the many past disorders in our sexual\nconduct, such a change would work for good and not for evil; that it\nwould not destroy marriage, but might re-establish its sanctity.\n\nThe whole question of any sexual relationships outside of marriage\nin the past has been left in the gutter, so to speak, in darkness\nand concealment. This would be changed. It is the results that have\nalmost always followed these irregular unions that have branded them\nas anti-social acts. But the desertion of women, which has arisen from\nthe conditions of secrecy under which they now exist, would be put to\nan end. One reason why extra conjugal relationships are discredited is\nbecause the difficulties placed around them are so numerous that, as a\nrule, only the weak, the foolish, and the irresponsible undertake these\npartnerships. Make these partnerships honourable and honourable men and\nwomen will enter into them. I do not see how we can forbid or treat with\nbitterness any union that is openly entered into and in which the duties\nundertaken are faithfully fulfilled. It is our attitude of blame that has\nmade this impossible.\n\nI can anticipate an objection that will probably be raised. Why, I\nshall be asked, if sexual relationships are to be acknowledged outside\nof marriage, preserve marriage at all? I have answered this question\nsufficiently. Monogamous marriage will be maintained because the great\nmajority of women and men want it to be maintained. I have affirmed\nbefore my own belief in the monogamic union: the ideal marriage is that\nof the man and woman who have dedicated themselves to each other for\nthe life of both, faithfully together to fulfil the duties of family\nlife. This is the true monogamy; this is the marriage which I regard as\nsanctified. But I, regarding it as a holy state, would preserve it for\nthose suited for the binding duties of the individual home so intimately\nconnected with it.\n\nAnd I do disavow the sanctity of many professedly monogamous marriages\nthat are maintained only with the support of prostitution and clandestine\nloves. Squalid intrigues have been the shadow of the old, narrow moral\ncode. The contract-partnerships I have suggested will do nothing to\nchange the sanctity of any true marriages. And the answer I would give\nto those who fear an increase of immorality from any openly recognised\nprovision for sexual partnerships outside of permanent marriage is,\nthat no deliberate change made in the future in our sexual conduct can\nconceivably make moral conditions worse than they have been in the recent\npast. As a matter of fact, every form of irregular union has existed and\ndoes exist to-day, but shamefully and hidden. It is certain that they\nwill continue, and that their number will be increased.\n\nI have sought to put these matters as plainly as may be in the conviction\nthat nothing can be gained by concealment. Any one who writes on the\nsubject of marriage reform is very open to misconception. It is not\nrealised that the effort of the reformer is not to diminish at all the\nbonds in any sexual partnerships, rather the desire is to strengthen\nthem, but the forms of the partnership will have to be more varied,\nunless, indeed, we prefer to accept unregulated and secret vice. Matters\nare likely to get worse and not better. We shall, I do most sincerely\nbelieve, gain more morality by doing what I am pleading for than will be\ngained in any other way.\n\nThe only logical objection that I can think of being advanced against an\nhonourable recognition of these partnerships is that, by doing away with\nall necessity for concealments, their number is likely to be larger than\nif the old penalties were maintained. This is undoubtedly true; it is\nalso true that recognition is the only possible way by which such unions\ncan cease to be shameful. Prohibition and laws, however stringent, can do\nnothing. The past has proved their failure; they will fail still worse in\nthe future.\n\nNor is the change really so great or so startling as at first it\nmay appear to be. Our marriage in its present form is primarily an\narrangement for the protection of the woman and the family. What I want\nis that some measure, at least, of the protection now given to the legal\nwife, should also be afforded to all women who in an open and honourable\nway fulfil any of the same duties. I am not seeking to make immorality\neasier, that is very far indeed from my purpose. These changes for which\nI am pleading will make immorality much harder, for it will not be so\neasy as now it is to escape from the responsibilities of love.\n\nNo one can suppose, of course, that these changes can be other than\ngradual. There will be no stage at which a large section of society\nwill give up the accepted convention of concealments with regard to\nunregulated unions, and will stand perplexed as to how they may readjust\ntheir opinion and moral judgments on this question. What will happen is\nthis. The slow abandonment by society of the old attitude of blame and\nfear, as experiments in sexual partnership are made, at first by the few,\nto be followed by an ever increasing number. When the need for change\narises, then does a change come.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER XII\n\nTHE UNMARRIED MOTHER\n\n\n    The law should help unmarried parents to give adequate\n    protection to their child\u2014Repressive terrors drive men to\n    desert girls made pregnant through their lust\u2014The penalty for\n    illegitimate parentage should not be paid by the child\u2014At\n    present the child does pay\u2014Figures to show this\u2014Illegitimate\n    infant death-rate\u2014Unmarried mother not able to give\n    proper care to her child\u2014Some mothers unfit to care for\n    their children\u2014Different types of unmarried mothers\u2014Four\n    cases\u2014Where both parents working-class least harm usually\n    results from birth of a love-child\u2014Enlightened legislation in\n    Scandinavia\u2014The law in England and in France\u2014Good legislation\n    in Australia and New Zealand\u2014Other countries\u2014Five proposals for\n    reforming our law.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE UNMARRIED MOTHER\n\n    \u201cThe British Empire has invested thousands of its best lives to\n    purchase future immunity for civilisation. This investment is\n    too great to be thrown away.\u201d\u2014Right Hon. D. LLOYD GEORGE.\n\n\nOne of the most pressing questions that we shall have to face in the near\nfuture is the attitude and practical action which, as a people, we are\ngoing to adopt towards the unmarried mother and her child. I have so far\nsaid almost nothing upon this problem of illegitimacy, though the whole\ndifficult question is connected with, and is, in fact, closely dependent\nfor its solution on, the conclusions we arrived at in the preceding\nchapter on Sexual Relationships outside of Marriage; we then realised the\nmoral advantage that would result from an open avowal and the regulation\nof all sexual partnerships, with the fixing, as far as this is possible,\nof a standard of conduct to be expected and claimed from those who enter\ninto them. I have left over this question of the child on purpose that\nwe may give it special consideration. No other matter is of greater\nsignificance to my book on Motherhood than is this, and none is deeper in\nmy own interest or, in my opinion, of more urgent importance.\n\nIt is really impossible to evade it much longer. There is obviously\nsomething ridiculous, at a time when the fateful importance of child-life\nis being forced more and more upon our attention, to repeat our\nconventional, unimaginative and inconsistent judgments.\n\nWe are learning new and sharp lessons. Terrific war losses are teaching\ngovernments to consider the necessity of preserving the new generation\neven to its last and meanest members. At last the movements to improve\nthe condition of illegitimate children, for which many of us have for\nlong struggled in vain, have received new impetus. What humanity has been\npowerless to do, the most ancient of all inhumanities\u2014war\u2014has suddenly\naccomplished.\n\nAnd it is well. We cannot go on as we have done before. We call\nmotherhood holy, and yet we have sanctioned the sacrifice of mothers,\ndriving them to crimes, to abortion, to child-murders and to death; we\nhave sent them into sweated industries; we have turned them out onto the\nstreets, forcing them to choose between starvation and prostitution. We\nhave permitted the yearly destruction of tens of thousands of little\nchildren, born into a hard and barren world without the slightest\nprovision for their physical and mental needs. At the same time, the fact\nhas been hammered into us of the declining birth-rate. This has gone on\nand on, but we have done nothing that the evils may be stopped and life\ntake the place of unnecessary death.\n\nI cannot understand an attitude which simultaneously condemns the\nnon-maternal woman, who does not wish to be a mother, accusing her of sin\nin shirking the duty of bearing children, and then brands the unmarried\nmother to infamy. By the cruelty of our law and the short-sightedness\nof our \u201cmoral\u201d attitude we have worked to make life a martyrdom for the\nunmarried mother, and for the children born out of wedlock, who are\nsmirched by us with the shame of their illegitimate birth, and thus are\nforced downward in the hard struggle of life.\n\nAnd such foolish and cruel action has all been done in the name of\nmorality! Let us tear the mask from the lying face of our social\nconscience. We need a clean clearance of a moral attitude that really is\nprofoundly immoral.\n\nLet no one make a mistake. In pleading for these unhonoured mothers and\ntheir children, I am not advocating illegal parentage. There is a sin of\nillegitimacy, as presently I shall show. Irresponsible parentage must\nalways be immoral. It is, however, the parents who behave illegitimately,\nnot the child, since it can never be the fault of any child that its\nparents have brought it into the world. I would wish for every child\nthat it should be born within the happy safeguards of a true monogamous\nmarriage. But I cannot close my eyes to the facts of life. I know that we\nshall not be able to make it impossible for extra-conjugal procreation to\ntake place: love-children will be born. And what we, in our curious moral\nmuddle-headedness, forget is that by penalising the mother we cannot\nescape the penalty being paid by the child. Our attitude in the past has\nbeen a reproach to our social intelligence.\n\nI am very far indeed from any desire to lessen parental responsibility.\nAnd if I want the harshness of our law and our moral attitude changed,\nit is first of all because I wish to make it possible for unmarried\nparents\u2014the father as well as the mother\u2014to give adequate protection to\ntheir child. If they do not do this willingly, I would use the pressure\nof the law and a strong public opinion to bring them to their duty. Under\npresent conditions this can never be done. It is because our harshness\ndoes no good that I condemn it.\n\nThe iniquity of our bastardy laws and public opinion concerning\nillegitimacy both reflect the Anglo-Saxon habit of mind, which persists\nin ignoring all social problems arising from the sex relation. We have\nnever yet squarely faced the question, we have just pushed it into the\ndarkness, and pretended it was not there. It has even been a kind of\ndisgrace to bring it forward; and the evil and the waste is so hidden up\nthat most of us have been quite unaware of its immense existence among\nus. But we cannot thus escape from what we have done, or rather have left\nundone.\n\nThe fact is, that all our thought on these questions has been obscured by\nthe puritan view of punishment, based on the assumption that harshness\nin the treatment of sexual offences will make for a higher standard of\nmorality. Do we really believe this? Surely the underlying fallacy of our\nmorality has always rested here\u2014in our desire to crucify the offender.\nWe forget that, by doing this, we but open the way to make easy, even if\nnot inevitable, the committal of further sin. By our attitude we drive\nmen to desert the girls made pregnant through their lust, and open the\nway for them to escape from responsibility for their sexual sins and to\ndisown their fatherhood; we do everything that we can to encourage unfit\nparenthood.\n\nFew people want to do wrong; they drift into wrong; the circumstances are\ntoo hard or their wills too weak to resist. We are suffering a great deal\nof confusion from demanding from men and women a rule of conduct in sex\nwithout taking any care that the conditions of life render such conduct\npracticable. In the last chapter I tried to make plain how short-sighted\nhas been the attempt to force all types into a single mould. The plan I\nthere outlined for an open acceptance of honourable unions outside of\npermanent marriage, would cut at the roots of many of these problems,\nand, in particular, by lessening the sufferings from enforced sexual\nabstinence, would render much less frequent those disgraceful and hidden\nunions which result in illegitimate births; it would also materially\nreduce the dire results of venereal diseases, and would be, in my\nopinion, more beneficial and far-reaching than anything that yet has\nbeen proposed. I would affirm again that I am not advocating license of\nconduct. It is necessary to proclaim allegiance to the God of morals,\nwho has proclaimed for ever \u201cthou shalt\u201d and \u201cthou shalt not.\u201d But it is\nnecessary also to understand that repressive terrors may drive men and\nwomen into greater sins.\n\nOur bastardy laws act directly in this immoral way. The child born of\nunmarried parents has been branded under Christian teaching as \u201cthe child\nof sin,\u201d and condemned from its birth as a member of an unclean caste.\nBut, from the point of view of practical morality, this identification of\nthe child with the sin of its parents is wholly unjustifiable.\n\n_The urgent duty that rests upon us all is the duty of taking action to\nprevent the penalty for the sin of illegitimate parentage being paid by\nthe child._\n\nIt is common sense, after all.\n\nWe have to remember that the birth of every child\u2014and it matters not at\nall whether the birth is legal or illegal\u2014is always the introduction of a\nnew individual into the community. Birth is not a personal fact only, but\na social fact, in which the State cannot fail to be concerned.\n\nThe effect in increasing the infantile death-rate and the misery caused\nin physical and mental unfitness in the children who survive, are the\nresult of our blind action. This is what we have to change. For it\nis such social waste that makes our cruel bastardy laws so absurd.\nAfter all, you cannot go on indefinitely encouraging the production of\nwastrels. It is the practical question of health and social well-being\nthat we need to consider in reforming our laws.\n\nThe practical aspects of the question are serious. Illegitimacy has a\nfar closer relation than is generally understood to the racial wastage\nwhich it helps to feed. Certainly it looms large as a factor in social\ndisintegration\u2014in the degeneration which leads to the streets and to the\nprison, and the ever-increasing hosts of the submerged. The Minority\nReport of the Royal Commissioners on the Poor Law 1909, for instance,\nestimates (no definite statistics having been kept!) that in the United\nKingdom in each year are born over 15,000 children in the Poor Law\ninstitutions, and of these 30 per cent. are legitimate and 70 per cent.\nillegitimate. The yearly harvest of these shame-branded children appears\nalmost incredibly great. Roughly estimating, in Great Britain (excluding\nIreland) there are 50,000 illegitimate births in each year\u2014that is to\nsay, about one million of these children are born in this land in a\nsingle generation. Nor is this all. In England, unfortunately, still-born\nbirths are not required to be registered; were these recorded the\nillegitimate birth-rate would be much higher than the present statistics\nshow. In those countries where the records are kept, the number of\nstill-born illegitimate births is always higher than it is for children\nborn under the protection of marriage.\n\nAnd to this vast host of helpless children we, in this land, give\nalmost no protection. In the English law they have no father. They are\n_filii nullius_\u2014nobody\u2019s children; without kin; they have no rights of\ninheritance. All through life they are branded. The child in England\nis not legitimised even on the subsequent marriage of its parents. In\nScotland this injustice is not found. The illegitimate child becomes\nlegitimate by the simple and natural process of its father marrying its\nmother. Can the cruelty of our English law have any positive value? It\nis difficult to think so. Aside from sentimentality, aside even from the\nvalue or worthlessness of punitive measures, here is a law that stands as\na direct obstacle against right and responsible conduct.\n\nAnd what is the result? The infant mortality rate, high as it is for the\nchildren of married parents, is doubled and more than doubled in the\ncase of illegitimate children. Three times as many children born out of\nwedlock die before reaching adolescence, as compared with those children\nborn under the protection of the law. Think just a little of the real\nsignificance of this alarmingly high infant death-rate; these tell-tale\nfigures are the proof of our failure. Do they not speak of a waste of\ninfant life which, if for practical reasons only, we cannot suffer to\ngo on? This fact of England\u2019s need for children should drive us on to\naction. Here, as in many other cases of indifference, we have failed to\nrecognise that life\u2014the one thing without which all else must perish\u2014has\nbeen slipping from us by our carelessness, in a way that threatens the\nwhole future and well-being of our race.\n\nIn many towns in England the illegitimate death-rate of infants under\none year has increased, and still is increasing to an extent that ought\nto give alarm. In London the illegitimate infant death-rate is more than\ntwice as high as the legitimate. The exact figures vary in different\nboroughs: thus in Poplar the number of legitimate infant deaths per\nthousand is 121.5 as against 281.24 illegitimate, whereas Wandsworth has\n97 as the death-rate of legitimate children and 276 for illegitimate.\nIn the city of Manchester, where the death-rate of legitimates is 169,\nthat of illegitimates is 362. In one division (Clayton) it is 583, in\nanother (Blackley) it is as high as 667. Bristol, again, has a legitimate\ndeath-rate of 124 per thousand and an illegitimate of 349; Leicester, 130\nagainst 377; Cardiff, 124 against 349; while Cambridge, with a legitimate\ndeath-rate as low as 81 per thousand, has an illegitimate rate of 276.\n\nThe meaning of these figures is plain: the unmarried mother cannot give\nproper care to her child, as a rule she cannot feed it, and, deprived of\nits natural nourishment, it is more likely to die, and, if it lives, it\nwill be less strong to meet life. This is proved by the vital statistics,\nwhich show that the illegitimate babies, unlike legitimate babies, are\nnot stricken with death in the first week of infant life; they die more\nfrequently in the second month than in the first, and more frequently\nin the third than in the second month. Illegitimates at birth are equal\nto legitimate children; indeed, from these statistics they would seem\nto be born stronger. It is evident that the high death-rate among them\nis caused only by defective nutrition and want of sufficient care. In\nother words, these children are killed needlessly by our neglect. For the\nsin of their deaths rests upon each and all of us, until we rise up and\nrefuse to accept conditions that permit children to be born only to die.\n\nAnd while you grasp the offence of these facts, do not be consoled by\nthinking that this open infantile slaughter is the only or indeed the\ngreatest, evil that follows from our indifference. No statistics can\ndo more than shadow the extent of the wrong; motherhood brought to\ndespair\u2014the child-murders that fortunately remain hidden, the secret\nabortions, the concealed births, the still-born children who might have\nbeen born alive. We have suffered these things. But it is the race that\npays and rots; the penalty for our sins of neglect is paid by these\ninnocent little ones.\n\nLet me at this place insert a brief digression to point out one\nparticular that it is very necessary for us to remember. There are many\ntypes among these unmarried mothers, as many as there are among married\nwomen; and some would be good mothers did we allow them the opportunity,\nothers would not be good mothers under any circumstances, because they\nare weak in character and are incapable of maternal sacrifice. Now, the\nproblem of the saving of the child is quite a separate one in these\nopposite cases: in the one instance everything ought to be done to keep\nthe child with its mother, in the other the one safeguard is to keep the\nchild wholly out of the mother\u2019s power.\n\nI will give the reader four cases from my own knowledge to make this\nfact clearer; they will, I believe, speak more forcibly than any mere\nstatement of my own opinion.\n\nThe first case shows illegitimacy at its very lowest\u2014motherhood made\na crime. The facts were told to me by a doctor friend on whose word I\ncan rely absolutely. A company of five or six men were gathered in some\noutbuildings of a country farm, among them was one who was half-witted.\nIn an adjoining barn was a girl, also half-witted. The men joked one with\nanother; a bet was made, and the half-witted man was sent to seek the\ngirl. This he did, and as the result of this hideous act a child was born\nand lived. I do not know what became of it.\n\nIn the second case also the woman was quite unfitted to be a mother,\nthough her character and the circumstances were as different as possible.\nThis time the mother was highly born and educated. Though I knew\nher fairly well, I was unacquainted with her family history, which\nprobably would show many features of great interest. She was of neurotic\ntemperament, and belonged to the type I have classed as the siren woman.\nShe had several lovers, as she was strongly sexual. By one of these\nmen, and by mistake, a child was born. The father refused to accept the\nresponsibilities of his fatherhood, though he did not deny that the\nchild was his. The mother also had no love for it, and the little one\nwould have been neglected and probably would have died. But, when about\ntwo months old, the child was taken from its mother and cared for and\nmost tenderly loved by one of the woman\u2019s lovers. He left her, as her\nindifference to her child killed his affection, but he took her child to\nbring up as his own son.\n\nThe third case is more usual, and shows us illegitimacy as it most\ncommonly occurs. The events happened in the north of England, where\nonce I lived. The girl was well known to me. She was of respectable\nparentage, and very beautiful; she would have made a good mother. The\nfather did not live in the same village, and I did not know him; but I\nheard he was young and strong; he was the gardener at the place where\nthe girl was servant; probably the child would have been healthy. But\nthe girl was sent from her situation as soon as her condition was known\nto her Christian (!) mistress; later she was driven from her home by her\nfanatically religious (!) father. Thus hounded to death and to crime she\nsought refuge in a disused quarry; she was there for two days without\nfood. It was winter. When we found her, her child had been born and was\ndead. Afterwards the girl went mad.[92]\n\nI will add no comment, because I feel quite unable to write calmly. I can\nonly record my belief that under a more moral public opinion and saner\nsocial organisation such crimes of mothers against their children would\nbe impossible. Infanticide is committed always, I believe, under the\nbiting pressure of want and despair.\n\nThe last case is in sharp contrast with all the others, and shows\nresponsible motherhood outside of marriage. The woman here is strong and\npassionate and deeply maternal, but, unable to marry the man she loves,\nbecause he is married already, but to a woman who has no desire to be a\nmother, she chooses, therefore, to bear his child. I know several similar\nunions. Some of these have been temporary, some have lasted, but in\neach case the woman has had strength of character and a social position\nwhich have made it practicable for her thus to assert her right to\nmotherhood. Such cases we may leave alone. I do not think any one of us\nshould condemn such action. The immense pity is that women of this strong\nmaternal type should by any cause be kept from marriage. They are the\nfittest wives and mothers.\n\nThe relation between marriage and illegitimacy is a very close one; any\ncause that hinders early marriage must tend to encourage the increase\nof illegal unions.[93] The question is, however, a very difficult one.\nAnd I am not fully convinced of the wisdom of permanent marriage being\nundertaken at so young an age that chance births would be prevented; at\nany rate, the danger would be great until our young women and young men\nare more sanely educated in sex. The young have very little understanding\nof their own need, and no experience of life; and for this reason a way\nmight be opened up that, after marriage, would lead to even more harmful\nlooseness of conduct. Already numerous illegitimate births are the result\nof unhappy marriages. This happens, perhaps, most frequently among the\nworking classes, though I am not sure, and it may be only that among\nthem the facts of such births are more openly known. The fear of another\nchild to the too-hard-worked mother is often very great, and this (when\nthe means to prevent conception are not known) causes her to refuse to\nhave intercourse with her husband, which all too frequently sends him to\nanother woman.\n\nUnmarried mothers are overwhelmingly preponderant among the economically\nweak, in particular, among servant girls, factory workers, laundry hands,\nwaitresses, and all classes of day workers. This does not necessarily\nprove greater looseness of conduct among these classes, and the more\nnumerous illegitimate births are, of course, explained to a great extent\nby the fact that among the better-educated girls means to prevent\nconception are used; illegitimate births are also very frequently hidden.\nThis, in particular, happens where both parents belong to the upper\nclasses of society. It is also frequent with the gentleman father and the\nmother of a lower social class.\n\nAnd here, before I go further, I must again give warning against the\nover-hasty view, that men and their uncontrolled passions are alone\nresponsible. This opinion, once held by me in common with most women, I\nhave been compelled to give up. Seduction cannot, I believe, be accepted,\nwithout very great caution, as the chief cause of illegitimate births. It\nis so comfortable to place the sins of sex on men\u2019s passions. But I doubt\nvery much if any woman can be made a mother against her own will. I am\ninclined to believe that excitement and escape from dulness, as also the\njoy in receiving presents, are the principal motives that at first lead\ngirls into illegal relations.[94]\n\nWe find that paternity is acknowledged most frequently in those cases\nwhere the father belongs to a lower social level, where he loses less\nby open behaviour. In these classes the man, unless prevented by a\npre-existing tie, usually marries the mother at a later period, and\nhe does not despise her. The woman\u2019s sin is not as a rule taken too\ntragically. If the father of her child does not marry her, it is quite\npossible for her to find another husband, who, as a rule, acts as a\nfather to her love-child. For these reasons the least moral and economic\ndangers, alike to the child and its mother, occur when both the father\nand the mother belong to the working classes. This is not, however,\nalways true.\n\nThe whole question is a difficult one; the further we inquire, the\nmore strongly does this appear. We learn that there is no one type of\nthe unmarried mother, no one cause of the evil of illegitimacy, no one\nremedy that will cure it. We cannot wisely be too hopeful. But this is\nnot an excuse for our indifference. Our system of ignoring this question\nand of forcing the unmarried mother into shame, with its incredible\nshort-sightedness and culpable lack of help and discrimination, is\nproved out-of-date, because we now know that it is useless. It does not\nprevent illegitimate births, for no law can change the sexual nature of\nmen and women. As things stand with us at present, honourable or even\ndecent conduct in illegal sexual relationships has a poor chance of being\ncultivated; but those who realise that this is the case are still very\nfew.\n\nIt is because I have come to realise this that I have urged, with all\nthe power I have, an open recognition of these hidden relationships as\nthe only way to save them from disgrace and shame. I hope to have made\nit clear that I am not thinking of lessening responsibility in asking\nfor a change in our law. I am not at all advocating any sentimental\nlegislation; we have had quite enough of that. It is an intelligent\ninsight that considers causes and their effects that we need to-day in\nthe administration of our laws.\n\nAll thinkers are coming to see the waste of the old system. The modern\ntendency is to place _remedy_ in lieu of _punishment_. Thus, we need\nscarcely doubt that we are approaching the acceptance of a more truly\nmoral code, based on the need of protection for the child.\n\nIt is this, and this alone, that should guide us in the reform of our\nlaws. The life of every child must be safeguarded, not on sentimental or\neven on ethical grounds, but for the sake of the health and efficiency\nof our race. This practical morality is what we need. The State must\nhave healthy children, and by any negligence in working to this end it\ninflicts serious charges upon itself, and at the same time dangerously\nimpairs its efficiency in the future. The nationalisation of healthy\nchildren is of much greater importance than the nationalisation of\neducation.\n\nIt has needed the catastrophe of War to force upon modern States a just\nrecognition of their obligations to motherhood and the child-life upon\nwhich their very existence depends. To a surprising and gratifying\ndegree the position of the illegitimate child is being discussed in all\ncountries, and practical remedies are being found for some of the worst\nevils, by associations for the protection of motherhood and by changes\nin the law. Much wise legislation already has been passed by progressive\nStates.\n\nAmong ourselves, however, little has as yet been done.[95] Why is this?\nI know that reforms that matter are not easy to make. Our legislators\nseem to me as blind fighters, dealing blows that sometimes hit the mark\nby chance, but more usually miss it. The difficulty of bringing about\nany change in our laws is certainly very great, for respect of the law\nis, perhaps, the guiding principle of English life. So far any movement\ntowards reform has been in the hands of private individuals, and only\nthe few have cared at all. And there the matter rests, and there it\nwill rest, until our politicians are by us driven into action. It is\nthis for which I am hoping. For I do not believe that great changes in\nthings that really matter are often brought about by Acts of Parliament.\nParliament may register the reforms, may try to modify or check them; it\ndoes not create them. It is public opinion that does this. When we really\ncare for the injustice with which we treat the illegitimate child, our\nbastardy laws will be changed. Till then we shall go on as we have done,\nenunciating moral platitudes in which few of us believe and raising\nsentimental limitations, but we shall be content to muddle on, careless\nof the evils we are sowing by our carelessness.[96]\n\nYet I do not despair; a change is coming. The widespread interest, and\nalso the more practical and moral view taken by the majority of people,\nduring the agitation on the supposed existence of the \u201cwar-babies,\u201d were\nto me a very hopeful sign. It is true the agitation was short-lived: soon\nwe were told it was unnecessary. Nothing was done. The lesson must be\ndriven deeper and then public opinion will awaken to the knowledge that\nthe conditions causing illegitimacy and its disasters are present in\ntimes of peace as well as in times of war.\n\nIn the meantime, it may be salutary for us to know the action that other\ncountries are taking in this question. Certainly we have much to learn.\nOur law, in this matter of protection for the unmarried mother and\nmaintenance for her child, lags far behind that of other countries, and\nis one example only, out of many, of our hide-bound attachment to ancient\nabuses.\n\nFor the most enlightened legislative advances we have to look to\nScandinavia, the birth-land of Ellen Key. Surely it is due to her\nbeneficent influence that the position of the bastard child and its\nmother has been faced with a quite new practical efficiency; and as a\nresult constructive legislation has been wisely undertaken, which will\nfix the rights of the illegitimate child and enforce responsible conduct\nupon both its parents.\n\nIn Norway a bill, prepared by the Department of Justice, was laid before\nthe Storthing in 1909, \u201cwhose simple but revolutionary intention was\nto give _every child two parents_. It aimed to equalise illegitimate\nchildren and legitimate children before the law: that is, to give the\nillegitimate child the right to a father.\u201d[97] This bill, as one might\nexpect, met with opposition; it was adopted as law only in 1915.\n\nI wish it were possible for me to give in detail all the bill\u2019s wise\nenactments. Even its title, _Law Concerning Children Whose Parents\nHave Not Married Each Other_, is significant. The unjust stigma\n\u201cillegitimate,\u201d as applied to the innocent child, has been discarded.\nThis gives the clue to the intention of the bill. It is concerned\n(1) with the welfare of the child, saving it from social disgrace\nand the position of legal disadvantage which hitherto has been the\nlot of half-parented children; (2) with the fixing of both parents\u2019\nresponsibilities, so that no man or woman may escape the results of their\nsexual acts.\n\nUndeniably here is a law that at once is moral as well as practical in\nits aims. And the double accomplishment is not so difficult as might\nat first thought appear. No cumbersome rules are laid down, difficult\nof application and likely to fail in their working; indeed, what most\nimpresses one is the obvious simple common sense of these measures. Were\nI younger, I should feel sure that now Norway has shown us so splendidly\nwhat to do in this matter, and how easily right can be done, England and\nall other countries would hasten to act in prompt and glad imitation; but\nlife has taught me that it is just the very simple things to right what\nis wrong that as a rule we never do.\n\nLet us glance at the Norwegian bill. I can give only the briefest summary\nof its principal clauses.\n\n(1) A child whose parents have not married each other has a right to the\nsurname of its father.\n\n(2) The child is entitled to demand from both his parents adequate\nsupport and education. The amount to be contributed by each parent for\nsupport to be dependent on the economic position of the father and to\nbe decided by the authority appointed for that purpose. The cost of the\nchild\u2019s education to be borne as far as possible by both parents.\n\n(3) On the death of the parents, the child to have full rights of\ninheritance.\n\nBy these means the child born without the protection of marriage is given\nspecial protection by the law, so that in general his position is the\nsame as that of the legitimate child. And in this way the child is saved,\nwhile the parents are punished for their careless sin in the one wise\nway, by forcing them to undertake the same responsibilities they would\nhave had to fulfil to their child if they had not acted illegitimately.\n\nBut more even than this is necessary; the child must be saved for healthy\nlife before birth, as well as being maintained and educated after it\nis born, and this can be done only by taking care of the mother. The\nNorwegian bill, therefore, provides for this to be done; the father is to\nbear his right share of the responsibilities of the birth.\n\nThus, the man has to pay the expenses of the woman\u2019s confinement; his\nobligations in this respect extending to providing maintenance during\nthree months of pregnancy and six weeks following confinement, which\nmaintenance may be extended to a period of nine months if the mother\nkeeps the child with her and nurses it for that length of time.\n\nBut the most revolutionary clause of the bill relates to those cases\nwhere, owing to the loose character of the mother, or for other reasons,\npaternity cannot be fixed. The promoters of the bill, knowing that it\nis just these children who most need protection, has provided for their\nfatherhood in the following simple, but wise, manner: Where it is not\npossible to fix with certainty the man who is the begetter of the child,\nthe responsibilities and obligations of the father shall rest upon any\nman who has had sex relations with the mother at such a time that in the\ncourse of nature he might be the father of her child. In those cases\nwhere several men have had intercourse about the same time with the\nmother, then each of them will be accounted, in part, as the father, and\nmust contribute to the child\u2019s support, the amount to be paid by each to\nbe determined by the authority prescribed. And the same rule will hold\nwith regard to the confinement expenses of the mother.\n\nIt would be difficult to over-emphasise the far-reaching effects of\nsuch an enactment. So far the plea, \u201cThere were others,\u201d what the law\ncalls the _exceptio plurium_, has served to free men from all the\nresponsibility for irregular connections. Under the Scandinavian law\nthere is now no such way of escape. Anonymous parenthood at last is\nrecognised as a crime against society. The only plea now allowed in\nNorway to any man is that he has had _no sexual intercourse_ with the\nmother, otherwise he becomes liable for the child\u2019s support, which he may\nhave to bear alone or in partnership with other men who are also adjudged\nto be possible fathers. Here is a law to re-establish the father\u2019s\nresponsibility. It also closes one of the widest doors whereby profligacy\nhas been made easy. Casual and transient unions will no longer be able to\nbe entered into without any thought of the consequences.\n\nIs an act of such clear morality as this one impossible for us in\nEngland? I fear that at present it is.\n\nWhat, then, have we done in this Christian land for the unmarried mother\nand her child? It is little enough that hitherto has been held to be\nnecessary. The father, if he can be caught and his paternity proved, may\nbe compelled to pay a few shillings weekly to the mother for aliment.\nUnder no circumstances can he be made to pay more than five shillings;\nthis sum is deemed to be sufficient whatever his financial or social\nstatus. Moreover, the payments for the child cease when it reaches the\nage of sixteen; and the law makes no provision that the child must be\ntrained for a livelihood. No help whatever is claimed to ensure for\nthe mother proper conditions during her confinement and the necessary\nrest before and afterwards to enable her to nurse her child. Further\ntrouble arises for the mother from the costs and difficulties of the\nlaw. Improvements have of late been made in this respect; but much more\nwaits to be done.[98] The difficulties that have hindered moral and\nresponsible conduct are really little short of comic. It would seem that\nthe object of our bastardy laws was rather to protect the father and to\nrender profligacy easy than to aid the child or its mother. I ask, Is\nthis justice? Is it even common sense?\n\nOne plain result is that a small percentage only\u2014it is stated by some to\nbe as low as five per cent.\u2014of unmarried mothers ever apply to establish\npaternity and claim alimony from the man. It is much easier for the woman\nto go on to the streets; the army of prostitutes every year is recruited\nby many thousands of these girls. The punishment for the sin of an\nillegitimate birth falls on one partner in the act; the man escapes his\npayment.\n\nThe barriers that have been placed in the path of the unmarried mother\nafford certain proof of how greatly we are in need of further changes\nin the law. These should be made at once. Other countries are realising\nthis and are not failing to act. Take, for instance, the lands of our\nAllies, where, in France, action at last has been taken regarding the\nfamous Napoleonic edict, _La recherche de la paternit\u00e9 est interdite_.\nIn 1913 this prohibition was quietly expunged; and, in certain cases,\nthe child born out of wedlock now has the right to its father\u2019s name and\nnationality, and to half the property which would have descended by law\nto a legitimate child. Again, a law has just recently been passed by\nthe Russian Duma by which the father of an illegitimate child is made\nresponsible for the birth: he must keep the mother until such time as she\nis fit to earn her own living.\n\nIn Australia, where women possess a larger share than elsewhere in\nmaking and administering the law, much practical attention has been\ngiven to these matters and a number of reforms have been made which act\ndirectly in helping the child. Thus, in South Australia, paternity may\nbe proved by the mother _before_ the birth of the child; when this is\ndone, the father must furnish security, by order of a magistrate, that\nhe will find lodging for the mother for one month before and one month\nafter her confinement, as well as pay the doctor and the nurse, and\nprovide clothing for the child. After the child is born, the father pays\na weekly sum, at the decision of the magistrate, to the mother for its\nmaintenance. Children are legitimised on the marriage of their parents.\nIn New Zealand (again a land where women\u2019s influence is strong) an\nillegitimate child is now registered in the name of the father, where\npaternity is proved.\n\nChanges in the law, all favourable to the legal position of the child,\nhave been made in Denmark, in Sweden, and in Switzerland. In this last\ncountry the bastard has all the rights of a child born in marriage, when\nonce paternity has been recognised. And if the mother fails to find the\nfather, the child himself, or his guardian, can take proceedings. A\nsimilar law, recently enacted, is now in force in Sweden: in Denmark the\nfather supports the child up to the age of eighteen; he provides for the\nmother for one month before and one month after the birth of the child.\nThe money for such help is paid to the mother by the authorities, and\nis afterwards claimed by them from the father. This may seem of small\nimportance, yet it is our carelessness in such details that, in great\nmeasure, causes the utter futility of our laws.\n\nI would ask you to consider very carefully these different wise and\npractical measures. Do they not show more common sense than our methods?\nAre they not more in line with the modern spirit\u2014the spirit, that is, of\nintelligent seeking for the advantage of the child? And here at length do\nwe not see the way that in the future may lead us to more moral action\nand greater justice in the framing of our laws? A wider knowledge has\ngrown with our inquiry and an understanding of what we have to do.\n\n_The welfare of the child is the one consideration that matters._\n\nI must drive this fact home again, even though I risk wearying my readers\nwith repetition: our present immoral laws are practically equivalent to\nfreeing the man from his obligations as a father; they drive unmarried\nmothers to death and prostitution; they are the direct cause of\ninfanticide. Again I would urge practical and prompt action, which alone\ncan bring us nearer to moral conduct by making responsibility a necessary\ncondition of all sexual relationships, however carelessly and transiently\nthey are entered into.\n\nFirst, and I think most important of all, the law should take notice of\nthe desire of the parents. In all cases where parenthood is acknowledged\nopenly by the father as well as by the mother, and guarantees are given\nthat the duties of the parents will be fulfilled, the child should be\nlegitimised, receive the name of the father and be qualified to inherit\nfrom him, even if the parents are unable, or do not wish, to marry. This\nopportunity of right conduct once given to the parents by the law, I\nbelieve that many men would voluntarily take this course and gladly\nacknowledge their fatherhood.\n\nIn all other cases in which paternity is not voluntarily acknowledged I\ntake the first and most important duty of the law to be the appointment\nof guardians. I believe that nothing else is quite so urgently needed\nto safeguard the fatherless little one. I do not think the illegitimate\nchild safely can be left without supervision in the care of its mother.\nThose who talk here of the mother\u2019s right to her child are being misled\nby sentiment. These mothers are, as a rule, incapable of giving adequate\ncare or any form of training to their children. I would go further than\nthis and say that, in entering into such a union with a man, and thus\ndepriving their child of a father willing to acknowledge his fatherhood,\nthey have proved already their unfitness for motherhood. But this is not\nto say that the mothers must be punished, rather it is the more necessary\nthat they must be helped, supported, and guarded, just because of and in\nproportion to their weakness, _for this is the only way of salvation for\nthe child_. And, for this reason, the law, as it affects the unmarried\nmother, must be made easier in its working. All artificial difficulties\npreventing the mother from obtaining alimony must be removed. No\nlonger should the law make it easy for any man to escape his sexual\nresponsibilities. It is immoral to countenance laws that make profligacy\neasy.\n\nWe must, therefore, claim\u2014\n\n(1) The removal of the present limit of the father\u2019s payment to \u201can\namount not exceeding 5_s._ per week.\u201d The alimony paid should vary\naccording to the means and social status of the father: in all cases\nit should include some kind of training to enable the child to earn its\nown living; until that time the payments of the father should continue.\nAnd if the child should be physically or mentally deficient, so as to be\nunable to support itself, the father must continue his aid for all its\nlife.\n\n(2) A further charge should be made upon the man for the support of the\nmother for a period, certainly not less than one month before and three\nmonths after the birth of the child. He should be compelled to pay for a\ndoctor and a nurse for the mother, and provide clothes for the child.\n\n(3) The father\u2019s responsibility should be truly recognised so that, if\nthe mother is driven to commit any deed of violence against the child, he\nmust be held accountable with her and punished, should he have known of\nher condition and refused to help her.\n\n(4) In the case of the death of the mother, it should be possible to\nbring an order against the father or the supposed father. The mortality\nin childbed in these cases is much higher than among married women, and\nit is clearly unfair that the mother\u2019s death should leave the child\nunprotected, without any power on the part of its guardians to compel the\nfather to fulfil his parental responsibilities.\n\n(5) The father against whom an order has been made must be prevented\nfrom leaving the country unless he has first paid a sum sufficient to\ndischarge his obligations or has made suitable arrangements for payments\nduring his absence.\n\nProbably all these conditions could better be secured if paternity was\nproved before, instead of after, the birth of the child. Registration on\nthe part of the woman at the time of conception would be the best way to\nprevent the crime of anonymous paternity.\n\nThere is much more that ought to be done. We shall still be far behind\nthe reforms of Norway. But the carrying out of even these simple demands\nwill lead us a great step forward in practical morality. Can we, I ask\nmyself, who in this twentieth century no longer are quite ignorant as\nto the factors that act in the making of fit citizens, who know that of\nall causes tending towards degeneracy, bad ante-natal and early life\nconditions are the greatest, can we pursue our policy of carelessness\nas if this knowledge were not ours? A recognition of the claims of the\nchild is being forced home by our need. No longer can we afford to be\ncareless of the life of the future. A new sense of our responsibility\u2014a\nresponsibility not to punish sin, but to prevent sin\u2014is surely dawning on\nour social conscience. And as soon as we understand, we must hasten to\nreform our inhuman bastardy laws.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE DANGER OF SECRET DISEASES\n\n\n    Extent of the evil\u2014Why these diseases are not treated\u2014Need\n    for secrecy prevents those afflicted from obtaining the best\n    treatment\u2014Recommendations of the Royal Commission\u2014Enlightened\n    interest in the subject needed\u2014Desire to punish men prevents\n    wise action\u2014If men fear to tell the truth they are more\n    likely to infect their wives\u2014Three attitudes towards the\n    evil\u2014Bad effects on both boys and girls of too romantic\n    views of love\u2014Woman often to blame for cleavage between\n    husband and wife\u2014The wife\u2019s responsibility for the husband\u2019s\n    unfaithfulness\u2014The art of love\u2014Certain reflections.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE DANGER OF SECRET DISEASES\n\n    \u201cThe abolition of prostitution and the suppression of venereal\n    diseases would be almost tantamount to the solution of the\n    entire sexual problem.\u201d\u2014IWAN BLOCH.\n\n\nSo far in writing of marriage and of the irregular partnerships entered\ninto outside of marriage I have ignored the question of venereal diseases\nand of prostitution, so intimately connected with them, but to continue\nto do this would be to make my inquiry useless, as, properly speaking,\nthey constitute the central problem of the sexual relationships. There\nare no other factors of the same importance to motherhood and to the life\nand health of the race.\n\nWithout doubt the subject is eminently complicated, while the problems\ninvolved are so immense, far-reaching and perilous, linking themselves\nwith the deepest interests of the race, that I hesitate almost in\nmaking an attempt to discuss so wide a subject briefly, and necessarily\ninadequately, in the short space at my disposal. Yet it is clearly\nimpossible to take the easy way and pass these matters over in silence.\n\nOn the question of prostitution I have written already in my earlier\nbook, _The Truth about Woman_, where I stated as truthfully as I could\nsome facts I had come to know about the prostitute class, as well as my\nown opinions on this very complex social phenomenon. I shall, therefore,\nnow as far as possible leave this side of the problem without further\ncomment. It must, however, be remembered that the problem of prostitution\nand the problem of venereal diseases are inseparably interconnected, the\nformer evil being the chief cause of the latter. Indeed, if prostitution\ncould be ended venereal diseases would of themselves disappear.\n\nAnd here we touch at once the grave difficulty of the position. These\ndiseases are set apart from all other sicknesses of our bodies. Moral\nconsiderations become confused with practical values. I do not see that\nthis in itself can be wrong. For there can be no greater ideal than that\nof removing the poisonous sting that with such abundant activity has\nworked evil in our midst.\n\nThere is, however, danger in too much and wrongly directed moral\nenthusiasm. It is of vital importance that a contagious disease should\nbe isolated and cured, and if moral condemnation acts to defeat these\nobjects, it cannot but be a danger. A contagious disease that must be\nkept secret cannot be properly dealt with and healed.\n\nI hope I made my own position clear when I wrote on prostitution,\nwhere I tried to avoid a purely moral and idealistic treatment of the\nsubject.[99] I shall follow the same plan here. I shall limit myself to\nthe aspects of the question that to me seem to be of special importance,\nchoosing by preference facts about which I have some little personal\nknowledge, or a fixed opinion of my own. In this way I may be able to\ncontribute a word or two of worth to this difficult question.\n\nThe Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease brought the\nsubject before a reluctant and apathetic public. It was time. According\nto the Commission one-tenth of the city population is infected by\nsyphilis. The number of those affected by gonorrh\u0153a is much larger. The\nlatter disease is the more terribly injurious to women and children,\nbecause it is often considered a triviality by men. Syphilis serves as\nthe origin of many functional and organic diseases, and its hereditary\ninfluence is truly disastrous. Blindness, deafness and insanity, as well\nas a weakened nervous resistance, are the inheritance handed to the\nchildren of the syphilitic. Gonorrh\u0153a is the chief source of sterility in\nwomen, probably accounting for one-half of all cases.\n\nAt a time when infant life is of such supreme value to the nation as it\nis to-day, it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these facts.\nWe have to realise that could we act strongly and wisely so that in one\ngeneration we grappled with this great evil and cured it, we could make\ngood the suffering and waste of life caused by the war.\n\nIs it not worth while to do this? It can be done. There was a time when\nsyphilis did not exist in our civilisation. It cannot be traced with any\ncertainty in Europe before the fifteenth century, although its origin is\ninvolved in some controversy. The attempt to suppress venereal diseases\nby proper treatment is of less than twelve years\u2019 duration. Three\nmen\u2014Wassermann, Ehrlich and Noguchi\u2014have supplied the knowledge and given\nthe means whereby the evil may be attacked. Up to the present little\nuse has been made of the effective means of diagnosis and cure that\nwe now possess. The cure has been left to private doctors. No general\nhospital would treat these diseases, and the special hospitals are few\nin number. Benefit societies and insurance commissioners have refused\nto grant the usual benefits to patients suffering from these diseases.\nThe inoculations are very expensive, and many patients, even among the\nwealthy, have not used them, as they have feared to discover the truth.\nThe desire for concealment has done everything to make cure difficult.\n\nI must emphasise constantly the danger of secrecy. We have to face the\nfacts as they are, not as we wish them to be. And for this reason,\nbecause the results are what we now know them to be, we must demand the\nclearing away of the moral stigma that has been placed as a ban upon the\ninfected. It is so plain. Until every one attacked by these diseases\nseeks the best remedies, there can be no cure; and they will not seek the\nremedies while the presence of the diseases is considered as evidence of\nsin. In the past we have relied on fear as a deterrent and ignorance as a\nsafeguard. They have failed. Let us now try practical cures. A pharisaic\nattitude is so highly mischievous that it becomes immoral.\n\nThe Government has taken prompt and fine action. It has removed one great\ndifficulty, and effected all that can be done without fresh legislation.\nA comprehensive scheme of free diagnosis and treatment in general\nhospitals is to be organised by local authorities, who are to receive a\ngrant from the Imperial Exchequer amounting to 75 per cent. of the cost.\nIt is to be hoped that this admirable action will counteract the evils\ndue to the increase of venereal disease certain to accompany the war.\n\nThe chief recommendations of the Commission other than those connected\nwith direct immediate cure, which the Government has been able to carry\nout by an administrative Act, are as follows\u2014\n\n(1) The presence of infective venereal disease should be a cause for the\nprevention or annulment of marriage; further, the process of annulment\nshould be made available for all persons, however poor.\n\n(2) A communication made by a medical practitioner to a parent, guardian,\nor other person directly interested in the welfare of a woman or man\nin order to prevent or delay marriage with a person in an infectious\ncondition should be a \u201cprivileged communication.\u201d It should not, in such\ncircumstances, be libel or slander to state that an intending husband\ncannot safely marry.\n\n(3) It is further strongly recommended that better instruction be given\non sexual subjects. \u201cThe evils which lead to the spread of venereal\ndiseases are in great part due to want of control, ignorance and\ninexperience, and the importance of wisely conceived educational measures\ncan hardly be exaggerated.\u201d\n\nThere should be no delay in dealing with the last recommendation. A\nstrong President of the Board of Education could, by an order of his pen,\ngive instruction in an afternoon, and start arrangements which could\nintroduce such teaching in all schools. It is, however, another matter\nwhether there would be teachers capable to give the instruction. It is\ndoubtful also whether sex teaching, introduced in this way as something\napart from the usual educational course, could ever safeguard from sin.\n\nI need, however, say little in this chapter on the important and\ndifficult question of sexual education, as the whole of the last section\nof my book deals with that subject. I shall there try to show that the\ngreater number of the evils connected with marriage and motherhood are\ndue to false ideals and wrong methods of training in early life. I am,\nin particular, convinced of the mistakes we have been making in the\neducation of girls\u2014mistakes which prevent them as young women from having\nany clear aim to guide their lives, and act, as I believe, disastrously\non their whole nature as well as spoiling their happiness. This public\nrecommendation for a recognition of the sexual life and the problems\nconnected with it as being of vital importance in the training of the\nyoung generation fills me with strong hope. But everything will depend\non how such instruction is going to be given. Unwisely undertaken, it\nmay easily lead to more harm than good. To be really efficacious it will\nneed a sweeping change in the home and a revolution in the school. Now is\nthe appointed time to act; if the opportunity be allowed to pass, it may\nnot come again. The force of tradition and the convention of silence has\nbeen broken as it has not been broken before. We are all convinced that\nthe time to change has come and to do something; when so many are agreed\nupon what ought to be done, the danger lies chiefly in the dispersion of\nenergy by the weariness brought on by endless discussions on the way to\ngive the education\u2014a subject which unfortunately lends itself to much\ntalking and disagreement.\n\nBut to return to the Royal Commission Report. Recommendations (1) and\n(2) cannot be carried out without special legislation. To obtain the\nsupport of the House of Commons for measures which would necessarily\nbe opposed by some persons in every constituency, which have no\nvote-catching value and have not been chewed to pulp by long-continued\nparty platform oratory, is a difficult task. The ordinary member of\nParliament feels afraid to have convictions which are unsupported by\npowerful organisations; convictions which may cost him much opposition\nat election times. Probably such a measure to safeguard marriage could\nbe more easily initiated by a vigorous and fearless member of the House\nof Lords. The House of Commons at the present time, even apart from\nthe Great War and its urgency, is often busy for months with intricate\nGovernment measures, which take up nearly all the time available.\nMarriage laws cannot be dealt with in half an hour on a Friday evening.\n\nThis need not discourage us too much. It will not serve to leave matters\nto official action alone. If the victory against venereal diseases is\nto be won, strong signs of general interest must be shown. More even\nthan this is necessary. The interest shown must be of an enlightened\ncharacter. I feel it is urgent to emphasise this need for wise, and\nnot hasty, action. Women have of late been taking a quite new concern\nin sexual questions, in particular in venereal diseases, so intimately\nconnected with their interests. This is as it should be. But I have been\nforced to the knowledge that this interest, unbacked by wide knowledge\nand still more by experience of the facts of life, often leads them into\nfolly. The possession of the vote by women has been expected to achieve\nimmediate magical effects; it has been forgotten that women voters would\nbe neither united in their aims nor possessed of the political capacity\nwhich would enable them infallibly to gain all for which they wished.\nWomen ought not to hope to solve the ancient, fierce enigmas which have\nvexed mankind in every modern civilised society.\n\nIn my opinion, the greatest cause of error in women\u2019s judgment arises\nfrom the tendency (doubtless due to what their sex has suffered) to throw\nthe whole blame for sexual sins on men. Some women carry sex antagonism\nlike a flag, which they flourish in every wind. These are, of course, a\nsmall minority; but the majority of women fail to take a wide, sane view\nof both the question of prostitution and that of venereal diseases.\n\nLet me give an illustration. I recently attended a meeting where a paper\nwas read on the Report of the Venereal Disease Commission. The reader\nof the paper, being a woman doctor, took the wise view that the most\nimportant matter was the cure of the disease. In the discussion that\nfollowed, it was plainly evident that few of the audience agreed with\nher. These were women who had read about, and to some limited extent\nthought and studied these questions. Yet the general view was that _the\nmen ought to be punished_. One speaker, who stated that she was married,\nsaid that _no true woman could or ought to forgive a husband who had\nbecome infected with venereal disease_.\n\nNow, it is this view, here so crudely expressed, that I am writing to\ncombat. Such an attitude of blame and unforgiveness has to be changed,\nor no legislation or public action will effect a real cure. _Women are\nreally responsible for the secrecy of these diseases._ And what is the\nresult? _Because these infectious diseases are secret they are largely\nuncured._\n\nI hasten to say that I am not taking an unfair view of the position. It\nis, of course, easy to understand the attitude taken up by women. Blame\nis not easily avoided. I would, however, ask them very earnestly to\nconsider whether there is not some confusion in their minds.\n\nThe sin that the man commits against his wife is being unfaithful. Having\ncaught the venereal disease is a misfortune. The effect must not be\nblamed by itself. Let me illustrate this point of view by considering\na different case. Your child gets scarlet fever by an act of direct\ndisobedience or sin. He goes to play at a house he has been forbidden\nto enter. Would you, because of his sin, refuse to pity and nurse him?\nRather would you not forget his disobedience and desire only to help and\nto heal him?\n\nDo you see what I mean now? It is not that I uphold immoral conduct in\nthe husband or in the lover that I plead thus for pity and understanding\non the part of women.\n\nFew men are intentionally evil. They do not even act foolishly in this\nquestion of infectious disease because they are wantonly careless. Often\nthey are fully alive to the danger that may result to their wives from\ntheir own infection. I repeat they are not necessarily bad men, and they\nmay love their wives and children; but they are cowards. All men are\ncowards when it comes to facing their wives with their own wrong doings.\nIf they cannot rely on the pity of their wives, few men will dare to tell\nthe truth. If they cannot tell the truth, they cannot avoid infecting\ntheir wives. This may lead to the birth of infected children, and who may\nsay that in this case the crime is the man\u2019s alone? It is to prevent this\ncrime against the child and against life, that I urge upon women a wiser\nand more tolerant attitude.\n\nFor greater clearness, I may state the matter thus: there are three\nattitudes that may be adopted towards sexual disease. First, that of\nthe pure moralist, who says only, \u201cThis is a sin to be punished.\u201d On\nthe opposite side is the purely utilitarian, who says, \u201cThis is only a\ndisease to be cured.\u201d But both attitudes may be alike wrong, or, more\ncorrectly, the truth lies midway between the two. The disease, as a\ndisease, needs to be cured. This is the first step with which nothing\nshould interfere. But far different and much more complex is the\ntreatment required to alter the actions that lead to the disease.\n\nAs a first step, public opinion ought to condemn too late marriage,\ninstead of recommending it on economic grounds. The mania for making\neconomics the centre of life should now surely cease: the falsity of this\nview has been exposed by many great writers, but much stronger is the\ncondemnation that must be given to it by all who can understand the evils\nthat it has wrought in our sexual lives. Late marriages must be one of\nthe causes contributing to men\u2019s use of prostitutes before marriage. This\nsubject has been dealt with already in Chapter XII.\n\nA natural division of the subject here presents itself. The problems of\nvenereal infection are different before and after marriage. A practical\nknowledge of the physical facts of sex should be the possession of\nevery girl some years before the age of marriage. Sex must cease to be\na subject on which it is not decent for a girl to speak. Until this has\nbeen achieved, it will be impossible to have that frankness between\nlovers which will make certain an acknowledgment being made of infection,\nif it is or ever has been present in the man, so as to do away with the\ndangers of concealment and further disease. In my opinion, this openness\nis of necessary importance to the wise choice on the part of girls of the\nmen they are to marry.\n\nOur whole attitude towards youth in relation to sex is mistaken. And\nsome of our worst mistakes take a direction not usually recognised. We\noften over-emphasise the possibilities of romantic love and chivalrous\ndevotion, or we leave our children to gain this false attitude from\nthe books they read. This is bad for both boys and girls. To personify\nall inspiration and nobility as Woman often but acts to make unknown\nvice attractive to youth. The unknown is almost always desirable. It\nis probable that times and places where excessive respect for women\nhas been expressed in poetry and romance have been distinguished by\nlooseness of sexual habits; just in the same way and for the same reason\nthat extremely vulgar behaviour between the sexes is compatible with the\nstrictest physical chastity.\n\nIn the case of girls, the evil that may be done by over-exalting romantic\nlove is a different one. To idealise the male virtues of courage,\nadventurousness and self-confidence comes near, in many cases, to\nteaching the girls admiration for the calm, reckless Don Juan. This is\nthe man who is likely to have been infected by venereal diseases.\n\nIn the story of the _Beauty and the Beast_ we have material out of which\npart of the great sex difficulty can be explained. In the fairy story,\nthe husband before marriage looks like a beast, after marriage he becomes\na prince. In real life, the story is inverted. There is a deluding force\nin the mere skin and limbs of those of the opposite sex at the time\nwhen maturity is reached which may give princely attributes to those\nwho would be seen as beasts at other times. The prince seen as a beast\nafter marriage is a tragedy into which the romantic, ignorant girl must\nbeware of drifting. The man who most boldly plays up to the romantic part\nexpected of him\u2014reciprocating to the perhaps unconscious encouragement\nof the girl\u2014is not the man who will be the most agreeable to live with.\nI believe there is real danger in the sentimental view of love that is\ncommon to most girls. They do not know the poverty of feeling that loudly\nexpressed sentiment may hide. The defect of many unfaithful lovers is not\nsensuality, but sentimentality. The lower types of lovers are strangely,\nalmost incredibly, sentimental. Such teaching as this about the danger of\nan over-romantic view of love will not safeguard from all evils, but it\nwill at least give knowledge that may protect in some time of peril.\n\nThe problem of the wife infected by a husband, who becomes diseased\nafter marriage, is one that is different and more complicated. I have\nspoken already of the urgent need on the part of the wife that she should\nfeel pity for the husband, even if she does this as the only means of\nprotecting herself and her children. Without this pity, men will not dare\nto tell the truth. And even against their judgment and their wish, they\nwill have sexual intercourse with their wives to prevent suspicion.\n\nThere is a further question that must be placed before women, and it is\nnecessary for me to speak plainly. There is a question which I would ask\nthe wife whose husband has become infected since marriage with one or\nother of the two forms of venereal disease: What is it that sends the man\nwho is married to seek sexual satisfaction with the prostitute? It will\nnot do to dismiss this question with the old, unreasoning condemnation\nof the male and his brute passions. In the case of the man of average\ndecency, it is not deliberate choice that first sends him to dissipation.\n\nLet us look at the matter a little closer and with greater truth. In\nmarriage the woman dominates more often than usually is known. She has\nthe children on her side. Undeniably the greatest function of any man in\nthe life of the average woman is to be the father of her child. All other\nthings that he means to her are secondary to this. For this reason, after\nthe birth of her children she frequently ceases physically to desire her\nhusband. Thus the position arises that many husbands, after some years\nof marriage, find themselves in a condition of loneliness in their own\nhomes. And the cleavage is wider than the physical needs, and extends\nto the mental and spiritual plains. The woman\u2019s life is filled with her\nchildren; she ceases to belong to her husband as completely as he belongs\nto her. She holds back more and more of herself\u2014the vital part that he\nwants. The man feels that he is losing, and, after some bluster and\nconflict, he begins not to care.\n\nThis, I believe, is the history of many marriages that started with love.\nThe result in the end is almost certain. The lower types of husband from\ntime to time will break away and seek distraction in wild love. Other men\nof more refinement will suffer much more, till they seek to find love\nwith some woman in a permanent union outside marriage.\n\nIt may, and I expect will, be said that I am looking at this question\nfrom the man\u2019s side only. This is not because I do not feel the woman\u2019s\nposition, but because the facts I am trying to state are so often\nneglected, in particular by women themselves. Women have been taught to\nbelieve, and do really feel, that by sexual unfaithfulness a husband does\nthem the cruellest possible wrong that a man can do to a woman. But is\nthe man ever wholly to be blamed? After all, he has given away only what\nhis wife has shown him she does not want for herself. Most English wives\nalways are acquiescent rather than passionate in the sexual embrace. Even\nwhen in love they are unresponsive, hiding what they feel, and rarely\nshowing their husbands that they want them with any real desire. After\na few years of marriage, his embraces are suffered as a duty. And here\nI would re-state an opinion given in an earlier chapter: I do hold that\nman is by his nature faithful. If he has once loved a woman, he does not\ncease to desire her until after she has ceased to desire him.\n\nThis brings me to the last question I want to consider. Why does the\ndesire of the wife so often cease towards her husband? It is a difficult\nquestion to answer. One reason has been given already in the false\nattitude of the woman, which in so many cases makes her ashamed of\nexpressing openly the passion that she feels. Yet there is, I think,\nanother and much deeper part of the truth that is fairly clear. Each man\nis able to enforce his sexual desire upon his wife at a time when she\nfeels no desire, whereas she cannot gain her desire unless he gain his.\nWe may perhaps trace back to this cause the feeling of disharmony and\nwaning of desire which injures the woman\u2019s power to love. Of course, this\ndisharmony is not always conscious even to herself, and the man is quite\nunaware of the evil. But his acceptance of the woman\u2019s subordination,\nhowever gladly given, does exhaust the passion in her.\n\nThis difference in the power for sexual sacrifice between the two sexes\nis, I have frequently thought, one of the gravest causes of our misery.\nIt will take very long to overcome it. Only as we advance in refinement\nand knowledge of love can this antagonism in the sex act lessen, as the\nwoman gains in frankness and the man comes to know how to arouse and keep\naflame her desire.\n\nAnd there is here a question I would put to those husbands who are\nsuffering to-day from the sexual coldness of their wives. I would ask\nthem: Have they taken sufficient trouble to understand, both on the\nphysical and psychical side, the sexual nature of woman, which is much\nmore complex and difficult than their own? The art of love is not\nunderstood by Western people. If we paid more attention to this subject\nmarriage would be freed from the greatest cause that brings it to\ndisaster. Greater openness and sexual confidence between the husband and\nthe wife is the first necessary step. But we shall never have this until\nwe have rooted out of our moral conscience the idea of \u201cthe body as the\nprison of the soul.\u201d I have often asked myself if this misconception of\nlove is not the real cause of all sex trouble.\n\nAnd the remedy? Yes, that is the difficult matter. We cannot alter these\nevils by any cut-and-dried plan. The expression of sex is a question\nof refinement, and its regeneration must begin with a movement towards\nconsciousness.\n\nIt may seem that we have reached no very definite conclusion. We have not\nsolved the problem of venereal diseases. There is nothing to be gained\nby denying the difficulties that visit us in our sexual lives, or in\ntalking, as many do, as though there were an easy way out. There is not.\n\nI hold preaching on all these complicated questions to be quite useless.\nNo platitudinous formul\u00e6, no recrimination of one sex against the other\nsex, will do any good. The wrong is deep down in our attitude towards\nlove, in our system of education, and in the very prevalent vulgarity of\nour surroundings. It is there that we must seek for it and destroy it.\n\nI dare to think of a regeneration of our sexual lives through education\nand a fuller understanding of the meaning of love. By education must be\nunderstood all that influences the desires and imaginations, so that our\nchildren shall be turned to seek health and clean living.\n\nYet it were unwise to be too hopeful. We cannot be architects of life.\nOur sons and our daughters will make new mistakes, even should they\nescape our follies. We can see a very short way along the path of life,\nand often we are confused. The wisest amongst us are only as bricklayers,\nand the best can but lay two or three bricks in a lifetime. Our work is\nto do that if we can. We can guess very feebly at the whole design. Many\nmistakes must be made by us, as they have been made by those before us.\nAnd it may be the duty of a new generation to pull down the work that in\nsorrow we have toiled to build up.\n\n\n\n\nPART V\n\nSEXUAL EDUCATION\n\n\n_Wendla._ I have a sister who has been married for two and a half years,\nI myself have been made an aunt for the third time, and I haven\u2019t the\nleast idea how it all comes about. Don\u2019t be cross, Mother dear, don\u2019t\nbe cross! Whom in the world should I ask but you! Please tell me, dear\nMother. I am ashamed for myself. Please, Mother, speak! Don\u2019t scold me\nfor asking you about it. Give me an answer\u2014How does it happen? How does\nit all come about? You cannot really deceive yourself that I, who am\nfourteen years old, still believe in the stork.\n\n_Frau Bergmann._ Good Lord, child, but you are peculiar! What ideas you\nhave! I really can\u2019t do that!\n\n_Wendla._ But why not, Mother? Why not? It can\u2019t be anything ugly if\neverybody is delighted over it!\n\n_Frau Bergmann._ O\u2014O God protect me! I deserve\u2014\u2014 Go get dressed, child,\ngo get dressed.\n\n_Wendla._ I\u2019ll go. And suppose your child went out and asked the chimney\nsweep?\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE MOTHER AND THE CHILD\n\n\n    A tragedy of childhood\u2014_The Awakening of Spring_, by Frank\n    Wedekind\u2014How we have ignored the need of the young for sexual\n    enlightenment\u2014The old method of silence a fatal mistake\u2014Our\n    fear of sex\u2014The question of the sexual education of the\n    child\u2014Conflicting opinion\u2014The twin causes of our civilisation\n    prudery and prurience\u2014The manner in which parents shirk and\n    evade the natural inquiries of their children about birth\n    and the facts of sex\u2014The inevitable harm of this action\u2014The\n    early activity of the child\u2019s intelligence\u2014Foolish stories\n    and lies\u2014Stimulate instead of quiet curiosity\u2014Sex knowledge\n    gained from servants and vicious companions\u2014This danger from\n    servants greater in the case of boys\u2014Many young boys seduced\n    by women\u2014The duty of the mother to instruct her children\u2014The\n    difficulties that hinder parents\u2014The child and the sexual\n    impulse\u2014The teaching of Freud\u2014The danger from mistakes in the\n    early training of the child\u2014No age too young for education\n    to begin\u2014Mistakes that may be made\u2014Our unconscious teaching\n    stronger than anything we say\u2014The mistake of set lessons\u2014Sex\n    not a subject to be taught like arithmetic\u2014What is necessary\n    is to tell the child the truth\u2014Its questions must be answered\n    as soon as they are put\u2014The importance of not arousing\n    curiosity\u2014The child, not the mother, to be the guide\u2014Cases in\n    which we must be prepared to fail\u2014The mother cannot always\n    help her child\u2014Recapitulation\u2014The real difficulty in sexual\n    education arises from our treatment of sex as something apart\n    from the rest of life\u2014We are afraid\u2014Nothing worth doing can be\n    done until this is changed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE MOTHER AND THE CHILD\n\n    \u201cThe child at its mother\u2019s knee is not too young to hear from\n    her lips the sacred facts concerning his own origin; in a few\n    years, indeed, he will be too old, for he will have learnt\n    those facts from a worse source, perhaps in the gutter; and\n    instead of being beautiful to him, as they might and could be,\n    they will be merely dirty.\u201d\u2014HAVELOCK ELLIS.\n\n\nThe quotation I have placed before these three chapters on Sexual\nEducation, which form the fifth and final section of my book, is taken\nfrom the play, _The Awakening of Spring_, by Frank Wedekind; he calls\nit a tragedy of childhood, and dedicates the work to parents and to\nteachers. The play deals with a group of school children, just entering\nthe age of puberty, and consists mainly of their conversations one with\nanother. These imaginative young souls speculate about the mysteries of\nbirth and sex in a manner that is typical of all children, not mentally\ninert. Herein rests the great value of the work: we come to realise the\nterrible darkness surrounding the sexual life of the great majority of\nboys and girls, with the resulting tragedies that may, and often do,\ndestroy health and even life. Unable to explain the forces germinating\nin their nature, these children are hindered and crushed by the sham\ndecencies and complacent morality that greet their blind gropings. Never\nwas a more powerful indictment made against the sham of our educational\nsystem as a preparation for life.\n\nThe manner in which, up to the present time, we have ignored the need of\nthe young for enlightenment and guidance in questions of such elemental\nimportance to health and well-being is at once remarkable and difficult\nto understand. Under the influence of the idea of the sinfulness and\nradically evil nature of the sexual life, we have stood helpless, as\nif we were faced with a mysterious and malignant power; we have left\nthe development even of our own children to the blind hazard of chance.\nThose among us who were wiser were not heeded. Celebrated pedagogues of\na hundred years ago, such as Rousseau, Salzmann, Jean Paul and others,\nexpressed themselves strongly in favour of the early sexual enlightenment\nof youth, and gave many valuable suggestions as to the methods of such\nteaching. Their wise recommendations remained for the most part without\npractical results. Only in recent years, in connection with the question\nof the protection of motherhood and the campaign against prostitution,\nhas interest in the matter been reawakened. A heightened sense of\nresponsibility has been quickened amongst us. An increased knowledge,\ngained by the patient work of investigation of the sexual impulse, is\nproving the immense importance of its right direction in the individual\nlife. This would seem to be forcing us to act.\n\nTo-day it is conceded, even by many who are conservative in their\nattitude to sex, that the old plan of silence and leaving this matter to\nchance, has been a fatal mistake: we are coming to understand that every\nchild has a sacred claim to wise training in sex knowledge.\n\nThere can be no doubt of our past guilt. The proof rests in unnumbered\nand needless disasters in the lives of almost all of us\u2014sufferings\nunendurable and maiming; hurts to our deepest selves, that we have come\nto understand only when our thoughts have been liberated by knowledge.\n\nFrom our fear of sex, we have become the victims of sex.\n\nWhat can save us? It is women\u2014the mothers who hold the future in their\nkeeping. The answer rests with them. Liberation from the manifold\nproblems of our disordered sexual life depends largely on a right\ntransmission of knowledge to our children, so that they without harm may\nbecome wise. Such teaching must be given first by the mother. In this\nway only, through a trained and wiser motherhood, making possible the\nunhampered unfoldment of the children of the future, can humanity come\ninto its heritage.\n\nThis is my firm conviction, my profound belief. And for this reason, in\nmy book on Motherhood, I have placed the question of sexual education\nlast, because I hold it to be the most important of all\u2014the foundation\nnecessary before other changes or reforms can be of any avail.\n\nThere is much that gives me hope. This question of the sexual education\nof her children has begun to stir in the conscious thought of countless\nmothers. The days of folded hands are happily over. Mothers of all\nclasses desire knowledge for their children because they want to save\nthem from suffering and from falling into the mistakes that they, through\nwant of knowing, have themselves made.[100]\n\nWhile, however, mothers, as well as the great mass of educationalists and\nreformers, recognise more and more the need for this knowledge for all\nchildren, they are yet uncertain as to how and when sex teaching should\nbe given.[101] There is too much hesitating so that often cowardice\nprevents any action being taken. And the question, \u201cWhat shall we teach\nour children and at what age ought we first to speak?\u201d is one to which\nfew have as yet found a certain answer.\n\nThe truth is, the vast majority of mothers and teachers are themselves\namazingly and perilously ignorant on the whole subject of sex. The ban\nof silence has worked untold evil in our thoughts, and what makes the\ndifficulty even worse is that we are so very much afraid of sex it is\nimpossible for us to learn. Hence we go about seeking mysteries and\nhunting lies, and completely lose sight of what should be as clear as\ndaylight\u2014the need of the little child.\n\nThe twin curses of our civilisation that fetter the spirit, prudery\nand prurience, acting together, have drawn sex into the darkest,\nunwholesomest corners of our minds, so that few of us mention the subject\neven to our own children without a feeling of shame. So pitifully afraid\nare we of the facts of life that we invent fables and lie to them as to\nhow they were born.\n\nParents shirk and evade the natural inquiries of their children; very\noften no kind of answer is given to their young searchings for the truth.\nIn other cases foolish fictions that outrage even a child\u2019s intelligence\nare repeated, and falsehood piled upon falsehood. For it is one condition\nof a lie that it can never stand alone; and when a mother has lied to her\nchild once, she is compelled to weave a network of falsehood to sustain\nher first false statement. She must go on from one foolish evasion to\nworse untruths to keep up appearances. Every story which, like that of\nthe stork or the gooseberry bush, rests upon a lie, is an outrage to the\nchild. And the mother\u2019s authority stands upon a veritable quicksand,\nfor the day will come when the child will not believe her. A careless\nword may be spoken by a servant, a companion, or some other, and, if the\nmother has not saved herself in time, she will be discovered by her child\nas a liar. The whole structure of her pretence and shameful evasions will\ntotter and fall to ruin. And with it must go her power to influence her\nchild. Barriers of doubts and silence are raised which, as time goes on,\nmore and more will separate the child from the parent. And such barriers\nonce set up can hardly ever be broken through. An embarrassing sense of\nshame, rising like a poisonous gas between mother and child, will work\ndeath to any confidence. How many mothers have been forced in bitterness\nto cry, \u201cI lied to my child. I concealed the truth year after year. Now\nmy child turns from me, and no longer has faith in me or in my words.\u201d\n\nAnd this failure of duty on the part of the mother works unknown harm\nto the child. That is the essential point. Do our children remain in\nignorance of the facts of sex which we, in our fear, fail to teach them?\nNo, they do not. Girls and boys in tens of thousands take the course of\naction threatened by the child Wendla\u2014they go and learn from others what\ntheir mothers have refused to tell them. Few children fail to discover,\neither through their own intelligence or by some information they gain at\nschool or from servants, some kind of sexual information. Thus too often\nthey glean their first knowledge of sex from the vulgar, ignorant lips of\nthe prurient.\n\nI marvel at the blindness of parents, who seem unable to approach this\nquestion with even common understanding. Nine children out of ten gain\ninformation upon the relations of the sexes in the worst possible\nway. Fortunate is the child who escapes the contamination of ignorant\nindecency.\n\nIt should be remembered that in children the activity of the intelligence\nbegins to work at an early age. Curiosity is very prominent: all children\nwant \u201cto find out.\u201d And their activity will certainly tend to manifest\nitself in an inquisitive desire to know many elementary facts of life,\nwhich are dependent upon sex. The primary and most universal of these\ndesires is the wish to know where babies come from. The degree of\ncuriosity differs, of course, in different children; I do not think it is\nabsent from any normal child. If they do not question their elders, they\ncertainly will talk with one another. And the shy child, or the child\nwho is kept from other companions, is not saved from these curiosities:\nI am inclined to think that the interest is strengthened and made more\ndangerous by repression.\n\nMany foolish stories are told by mothers, in their blindness and lack of\nfaith, to put off the child\u2019s natural desire to learn its origin. There\nis a curious illusion that children accept these fables, and really\nbelieve that the baby is found in the garden under the gooseberry tree,\nor brought by the stork, or by the doctor in his bag. But the child\u2019s\nperception is more acute than is believed, and very rarely is any one\ndeceived. And the mother forgets that by puzzling the child\u2019s mind with\nthese foolish stories she defeats very surely the object for which they\nare invented. The greater the mystery about sex matters the more will\nchildish curiosity be aroused. We cannot escape from this. _The child\nthinks much less of what it knows and is sure of than of what it does not\nknow, but wants to find out._\n\nAnd the same objection, of stimulating instead of quieting curiosity,\napplies to the plan adopted by many parents of telling the child when it\nasks these questions that it is too young to understand and must wait\nuntil it is older. This postponement is better than inventing foolish\nfables and telling lies, but I am sure it is unwise. The mother thinks\nthe child is satisfied and forgets. Very rarely is this the case; the\nchild puzzles alone, its curiosity only quickened by the hurt that has\nbeen given to its sensitive young intelligence. A wide experience has\ntaught me that the only children who do not talk or think much about the\norigin of babies are the children who know how babies are born.\n\nThe silly stories told by parents are supplemented by equally absurd\nand often seriously injurious conversations with other children. Many\nservants of both sexes are addicted to idle and irreverent, even if not\nvicious, talk upon this subject, and by this means the views of many\nchildren, and even their whole future outlook, upon sex are distorted and\nbesmirched. This is particularly the case with boys, where any intimacy\nwith servants is much more dangerous than a similar intimacy in the case\nof girls.\n\nI must follow this question a little, though it leads me aside from the\nmain subject of this chapter. Young boys at school and elsewhere are in\nconstant danger. It is rarely that girls are placed in a position of\nintimacy with an adult male, except their father or their brothers. The\nvery reverse is the case with boys: they are tended, and when young are\nwashed and bathed, by women servants, their clothes are looked after by\nwomen, in sickness they are nursed by women, and in innumerable cases\nthey are brought into much more intimate relations with women than girls\nare ever brought into with men.\n\nI would like to say a great deal more about this danger. The part played\nby servants in the sexual initiation of boys carelessly left in their\ncharge, and often when they are still children, is much larger than\nusually is credited. It is folly to close our eyes to the evils that\nmay, and often do, arise. Perhaps in no other matter has the ignorance\nof mothers worked greater evils or been more culpable than it has been\nhere. Nor is it servants alone that have to be feared in this connection:\nmany boys have been seduced by women, who would be least suspected of\nsuch an act. I could give cases from my own knowledge: men, at least,\nwill know that I speak the truth. The facts are ugly, but they may not be\noverlooked. No mother should be ignorant on these matters. For myself I\nwould trust my little adopted son\u2014he is twelve years old\u2014with no servant\nand with very few women. This may seem a hard saying, but it is based on\na wide knowledge of what happens to many boys. We expose our children to\nmanifold dangers which only now are we coming to understand. We have to\naccept these things unless we are ready to act.\n\nEven if no such great evil happens, much harm may be done by vulgar\nspeech. Beautiful and sacred emotions, marvellous processes of nature,\nlegitimate and essential longings, become associated in the tender\nexpanding mind of the healthy boy with the unseemly, the shameful, and\nthe unclean. Where the child should learn to wonder, he is taught to\nknow shame and to deride. The results are terrible in many cases.\n\nIt is the mother\u2019s duty and privilege unceasingly to watch her child, but\nthis she can do only if she has knowledge and is wise.\n\nIt must not be thought that I am unmindful of the many and great\ndifficulties that hinder the actions of parents. Under our present\nconditions of almost universal concealments, the sexual education of our\nchildren is, indeed, so difficult a problem that I am conscious of all\nmanner of obstacles as I attempt to suggest a solution. Of one thing only\nam I certain: we can no longer leave this matter safely to the hazard of\nchance.\n\nI know well that there are many parents who, fully recognising the\nimportance of safeguarding their children, yet hold back in fear of what\nthey think may be the danger of bringing the sex impulses too early into\nthe child\u2019s focus of consciousness. It is also thought, though less\noften said, that in previous generations boys and girls got on very well\nwithout this fad of sex-instruction. But the question is whether they\nreally did. The widespread prevalence of sexual troubles (which are only\nnow beginning to be understood and to gain the attention that for so long\nthey have claimed) is to a large extent the corollary of our hypocritical\nor cynical attitude as adults to the difficulties of youth. We ourselves\nhave \u201cmuddled through,\u201d and we placate our consciences with the whisper,\n\u201cWhat we have done, the youngsters can do also. Let them alone, it\u2019s a\nbeastly awkward subject to tackle.\u201d\n\nIt would be waste of time to answer such arguments. I would point out\nonly one result of such criminal and cold-blooded indifference: it is\ngenerally the most promising children who are destroyed through sex\nstruggles. The coarser-fibred children may escape and come through\nwithout great hurt: it is the sensitive children\u2014who fight and recoil and\nthus suffer\u2014who are sacrificed by the total lack of appreciation on the\npart of their elders of their difficulties and blind gropings for light,\nsacrificed sometimes to the slaying of the body and the soul.\n\nThe first objection needs more careful consideration. Here, as I have\npointed out already, the greatest difference of opinion arises in\nconnection with the questions as to when and how sexual instruction\nshould be given to children. Some, like myself, plead for the\nenlightenment to be as early as possible, in the first years of the\nchild\u2019s life, so that never may there be a conscious period in which the\nchild _does not know_. There are, however, many who disagree and hold\nit better, for the reasons I have shown, to defer sexual instruction\ntill the child is older, to the onset of puberty, or even later. Perhaps\nthe attitude common to most parents is one of hesitation, that may be\nexpressed in the question: For how long can we safely leave this matter\nalone?\n\nNo one will wisely give a dogmatic answer to this question. Yet I think\nwe can come to a better understanding if we at once put out of our minds\nany idea of formal instruction. Sex is not something outside of life\u2014a\nsubject that we can teach or not teach to our child, like arithmetic, for\ninstance. This has been our great mistake. And we shall see our folly\nmore clearly, if for a little time we focus our attention on the child,\nand stop our rather useless discussions.\n\nNow it is part of the popular belief about the sexual impulse that it\nis absent in childhood, and first appears in the period of life known\nas puberty. This is a serious error and one that has brought many evil\nconsequences, not the least of which has been our failure to understand\nthe nature of the child. We are now reaping our mistakes and finding out\nthat the exact opposite of this is the truth. The remarkable work of\nFreud, that has opened up a whole new field of inquiry, has shown us that\nthe sexual instinct is never absent in the normal child. \u201cIn reality,\u201d\nhe states, \u201cthe new-born infant brings sexuality with it into the\nworld, sexual sensations accompany it through the days of lactation and\nchildhood, and very few children can fail to experience sexual activities\nand feelings before the period of puberty.\u201d[102]\n\nPossibly there is some little exaggeration in this view, for the basis\nof our knowledge is still very narrow; but it seems certain we must\naccept Freud\u2019s view as in the main right, as, indeed, any one of us\nwho has had any experience of children may prove for ourselves by our\nown observation. Have you ever considered the games of your young\nchildren\u2014the way in which they imitate father and mother, play the game\nof the family, and delight in being the parents of their dolls? Your\nchild is being taught by Nature, and the first appearance of sex in its\nheart occurs as simply as the fall of the dew upon the flowers. It is we,\ntheir elders, who in our blundering too often break in and sully this\nbeautiful unfolding. Sex is not something to be escaped from. This never\ncan be done. We have, even if against our will, to accept its presence.\n\nFreud\u2014and his opinion may not be put aside\u2014holds that in all young\nchildren there is present a sexual life more or less subconscious, which\nmay be exaggerated and even perverted by any carelessness, neglect, or\nrepression. It is believed that certain manifestations of infantile\nactivity, notably the excretory functions and feeding, as also the common\nhabit of thumb-sucking and biting of the nails, are closely connected\nwith the sexual impulse.\n\nIn normal children the sexuality of this infantile period, which lasts\nuntil the third or fourth year, then passes into more or less complete\noblivion. There follows a happy play period during which sex is latent,\nand this lasts until puberty approaches. It is during this period of\nsexual latency that the psychic forces of the child develop\u2014forces\nwhich, in later years, act as inhibitions on the sexual life and narrow\nand direct its expression like dams. But in nervous children, where\nfrequently there is sexual precocity, this order is very likely to be\ndisturbed. And the danger may be increased by the over-fondling of an\nunwise and voluptuous mother, by an ignorant nurse, or the suggestion\nof an older and vicious child, with very detrimental results. A wrong\ndirection may most easily be given to the child\u2019s sexual development in\nits earliest years. Neurotic manifestations such as hysteria, obsessions,\nand many sexual perversions, are traced back by Freud to the influence\nof the wrongly directed or repressed erotic experiences of childhood.\nIt seems to be quite clear that any repression of the instinctive and\nsubconscious infantile sexuality makes for evil; that the only safe\ncourse to follow is the culture of a healthy and right expression.\nFreud goes the length of saying that obsessions are in every case\ntransformed reproaches which have escaped from the attempted repression\nand are always connected with some pleasurable sexual feeling aroused in\nchildhood.\n\nNow, before I go on further to point out the line of action, and the\nchange in our attitude to this question, that must follow inevitably\nfrom our knowledge of the early existence in the child of the sexual\nimpulse, I would wish to underline as strongly as I am able the facts\nthat we have learnt: (1) _Every child is born with a sexual nature_; (2)\n_this infantile sexuality furnishes the groundwork of the later sexual\nlife_; (3) _and the individual\u2019s sexual conduct and health will depend,\nin part at least, on the peculiarities of this early period of infancy\nand childhood_; (4) _therefore, the sexual desires and instincts with\nwhich the child is born cannot safely be left alone; they must be dealt\nwith in some way_; (5) _for a wrong direction to these instincts may most\neasily be given by any mistake or neglect on the part of the mother or\nthose connected with the child_; (6) _lastly, and most important of all,\nrepression of sex is always dangerous; any efforts made in this direction\nare very likely to lead to evil in the later life of the child_.\n\nWe have found now the answer to the question we were seeking: _the sexual\neducation of the child should begin in its earliest years, since there is\nno age too young for harm to be done by our neglect or mistakes_.\n\nThe first teacher must, therefore, be the mother, who is with the child\nand should watch over and direct its unfolding nature, by unceasing and\nselfless care, in these early years when care counts for most. And I\nwould state in passing, that here is another reason\u2014and I hold it the\nstrongest reason of all\u2014why no mother, who is not forced to do so, should\nleave her home to work and have thus to delegate her sacred duty of\ncaring for her child to another.\n\nBut again we are faced with difficulties many and various that will have\nto be overcome. For while every one must agree that a wise mother is\nincomparably the child\u2019s best teacher, it is equally true that the unwise\nmother may do incalculable harm. And when we face, as I am attempting to\ndo, the conditions of the ordinary home, as we all know it to be under\nthe present guidance of ignorance and prejudice in these questions, it\nseems certain that few mothers can wisely carry out this teaching. Not\nmuch hope for the child until this is changed. Thus, it is clear that the\nsexual education of the child will have to begin with changed conditions\nin the home and sexual education of the mother.\n\nThis is going to be a very difficult task, and I speak here of good\nmothers, not of bad ones. It is a painful fact that many mothers, who are\nkeenly conscious of their responsibility and most anxious to train their\nchildren aright, are too shy to be of much direct use to them in their\nsexual education. They cannot free themselves, even when they wish to do\nthis, from the vulgarisation of the idea of sex that has resulted from\ntheir own training.\n\nThere can be nothing gained by pretending that this question of sexual\neducation is going to be an easy matter. It may be so in theory, it\nwill not be easy in practice. Sometimes, indeed, I am so filled with\ndoubts and sadness, that, if doing and saying nothing were working well,\nI might be tempted to think that to establish sexual training under\npresent conditions was even a worse course than to go on leaving the\nmatter alone. But I know that all is not well. By continuing our policy\nof negligence and cowardice we are holding open the way to disasters in\nthe future, the far-reaching evils of which we are only now beginning to\nunderstand.\n\nIt is obvious that sex instruction may be given blunderingly even with\nthe greatest good-will; I am, indeed, exceedingly doubtful of the\nefficacy of any kind of formal teaching. Certainly set lessons, or even\n\u201carranged talks,\u201d should not be given to young children. All children\nharbour curiosities regarding their bodily structure and the basis of\nlife. In an atmosphere of trust, sooner or later they will express\nthese natural curiosities in a tentative, haphazard way. This is the\npsychological moment for the mother\u2019s teaching. The question asked must\nbe answered truthfully and in terms simplified to the comprehension\nof the child. The reply must have the air of being both candid and\nconfidential: that is to say, it must satisfy curiosity and at the same\ntime leave the impression that such subjects are to be avoided in general\nconversation, not because they are \u201cnasty,\u201d but because they are so\nsacred and intimate that they should be mentioned only to those the child\nloves and respects. The ideal must ever be to educate through love, to\navoid always repressive measures, and to aid the expression of the normal\nsex instincts: let the child establish its own psychic individuality.\n\nOur unconscious example must always be far stronger in its result on\nthe child\u2019s mind than anything we can say. Of what use can our teaching\nbe, if, through our own want of purity, the concealments that breed\ncuriosity and shame, are evident in all our attitude to our bodies and\nto the physical facts of our being? The child is not shown the duty of\nreverence for himself; he is not taught the beauty of all the processes\nof his young life; the sex organs are left without proper names, and the\nchild is told that it must not speak of these parts. We are continuously\ncareless in our conversations and in our acts before our children. We\ntake them to see picture plays and allow them to read books and tell them\nstories in which love is vulgarised, and all kinds of false statements\nare allowed. In these and in numerous other ways, weeds are caused by our\nfolly to spring up in the child\u2019s mind. We can never undo by any teaching\na sense of shame in sex and love that our actions and thoughtless words\nhave revealed to the quick intelligence of the child.\n\nIt is entirely false to think that the facts of sex plainly and simply\ntold will shock and seem strange to the young child. It is to the\nprurient only that there is anything ugly or disillusioning in birth and\nlove. The child will receive your information with wonder and guileless\ndelicacy. The mother need have no fear of her child, only of herself. The\nerror in all these cases is the error of our own impurity of thought;\nthe hateful idea that the facts of sex are ugly and disillusioning. Here\nwe have the key to the whole problem: it explains the utter helplessness\nand weakness of our attitude. It will be very long before this can be\nchanged; the evil is rooted so deeply in almost all of us.\n\nA child of four and even younger will begin to ask questions of its\nmother. As soon as the questions are put they should be answered in\nsuch a manner that the child\u2019s curiosity is satisfied. And this brings\nme to what I hold to be more important than all else. In this difficult\nquestion of sexual enlightenment, _it is the child who must be the guide\nof the parent_. I regard this as the most urgent rule for every mother.\n_Never arouse sexual curiosity in the child, either directly by offering\ninstruction on the subject or indirectly by careless speech or action,\nbut always be ready to satisfy such curiosity at once when it is present\nin the child\u2019s consciousness._\n\nThis is, of course, to say that every question of the child must be\nanswered by the truth. It goes without saying, that the mother must\ngive her answer just as if she were talking on any other subject, or\nexplaining the function of any other organ of the body. This course can\nbe adopted only where adults are able to talk of these subjects without\nshame. There must be no hushed voices, no special manner in speaking.\nAny hint of such feeling or hesitancy on the part of the mother will\ncommunicate itself at once to the quick consciousness of the child. Here\nagain I am driven back to the difficulty of our own fear of sex: this is\nthe stumbling-block that hinders the right teaching of our children.\n\nI know there are many parents who will fear this openness of speech and\naction, holding that it is dangerous to break through the mystery and\nreserve with which we have surrounded the physical facts of love. This\ndanger is felt to be specially great in the case of girls. I am certain\nthis is a very deep mistake. Show the child that the mystery of sex\nrests in its sacredness: teach it that, for this reason, we do not speak\nof the subject lightly, holding it in too great reverence for common\nspeech; but never let it be thought of as a subject tabooed, one on\nwhich openness of thought is not nice, for thus it will become shameful,\nand uncleanness and not mystery will keep it in the dark places of the\nchild\u2019s consciousness.\n\nBut here I would give a further word of warning to the mother. She\nmust not expect or desire from her child a continued attention to her\nteaching, nor must she force by over-emphasis or any kind of moral\nwarnings a false sentiment in her teaching. I believe this to be very\nimportant. The child, at the age when such questions first will be\nasked and should be answered, will tire very quickly of any information\nthat the mother gives. It will break off to run away and play, or will\ninterrupt the most beautiful and carefully prepared lesson. But if the\nmother is wise, she will never go beyond the interest of the child.\n\nFacts communicated in this way and at such natural opportunities are\nsubconsciously noted and swiftly dismissed from the consciousness of\nthe child, who soon becomes interested in something else after the\ndisconnected discursive fashion of childish thinking. And, when so\ntreated, it will be found that children are not inordinately interested\nin these questions; they will break off from what they are asking you\nabout birth or the procedure of the sexual act to talk about toy soldiers\nor dolls. This very carelessness in attention is, indeed, the immense\nvalue of this form of teaching: the child has the information and yet\ndoes not trouble about it, and ignores it when it is not to the point.\nSuch can never be the case when the information is given in the form of a\nset lesson and interconnected with moral teaching. So important is this\nthat I think it better and safer for the mother to err on the side of\nsaying too little than saying too much. All that is essential is that the\ntruth should be told.\n\nNow this is not going to be easy. Above all else, it is necessary to\nestablish, as far as is possible, feelings of openness and sympathy\nbetween the mother and her child. And for this it is essential that the\nmother must herself have the most absolute faith in the purity of sex,\nand in her own physical relationship to her child and to its father.\nWithout this nothing that is worth gaining can be gained from any form\nof teaching. The slightest doubt or uncertainty on the mother\u2019s part is\nfatal; then, at once, shame will begin to creep in to hurt the young and\nsensitive life.\n\nThere is another matter that must be considered. It is often stated,\nby the most careful parents as well as by those who are careless, that\ncomplete and perfect sympathy exists between them and their children.\n\u201cMy child tells me everything\u201d has been the thought to bring comfort\nto many mothers. But is this true? For myself I have wondered if such\nan ideal can ever be attained fully. Nor am I certain, if we think of\nthe child only, whether it is an ideal really to be desired. We have to\nremember that we\u2014the parents\u2014belong to one generation and the child to\nanother. And this barrier of age is felt in nothing more strongly than\nit is in sex. The intense and complicated forces that have moulded us\nare but awakening in the young life. We can, at best, hope only to guide\nour children; we can give to them some little knowledge gained by the\nexperience of our mistakes, but we cannot give them the knowledge they\ncan gain only from life, nor can we save them from making their own\nmistakes.\n\nIdle curiosity is banished by simple honest teaching, and much evil is\nthereby prevented. But the boundless curiosity of the child is not and,\nindeed, should not be satisfied. The boy or the girl, as he or she grows\nolder, will have to experiment, to find out for himself or herself.\nTo ignore this need is, I am certain, to blind ourselves to the facts\nof life. We must be prepared that, with all our care, our most loving\nefforts to gain the confidence of our children will be met by refusals.\n\nAnd although this failure may, and, indeed, must sadden us as we watch\nthe child of our love passing out of the protective circle of our power\nto help, we need to know that this is a natural process\u2014a step forward\nthat should be taken by the boy or girl; we even fail in our duty do we\ntry to hold them back and refuse to loosen the cords of guidance. The\nchild is fulfilling his or her own needs in turning from us. Age cannot\nalways help youth. In the early years the child desires and should have\nthe very individualised and binding relation with its parents, but when\nhe is older he ought to free himself from the old bindings\u2014from the\ncovering protection of the mother and father\u2014if he is to establish his\nown character and suitably adapt himself to the world outside the home.\n\nOur children will turn away from us in their search for knowledge and\nexperience. All that any mother can do is to establish a relationship of\nopenness and confidence in her child\u2019s early years, for if it is not done\nthen hardly ever can it be done later. But even when this has done, there\nwill still be needed the utmost care that what has been gained may not be\nused for the mother\u2019s own satisfaction and against the good of the boy or\nthe girl.\n\nAll the wisdom and patience and tenderness and sacrifice of the parents\nwill be needed after the epoch of puberty and in the difficult years of\nadolescence, to know when it is wise to give advice and claim confidence,\nor when the harder duty must be done of pushing the boy or the girl away\nto experiment and live upon their own responsibility.\n\nHere, again, I would give warning: in these later adolescent years it is\nalways the child\u2014boy or girl\u2014and not the parents who must be the guide.\nThe mother and the father must be ready at all times, but their task is,\nI think, one of very patient and loving waiting: it is the child who must\ndesire to give the confidence. It is true that the wise parent may create\nopportunities of confidence; to these the boy or the girl will respond\nreadily; at least this will be so when the early training of the child\nhas been without any hateful sense of shame.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch are the facts as they present themselves to me.\n\nThe real failure in sexual education arises from our treatment of sex as\nsomething apart from the rest of life. We have got to change this, if we\nare to help our children. Sex must cease to be a forbidden subject. Label\nany natural function as improper, not to be spoken about and repellent,\nand at once you set up an abnormal curiosity, and open a way for almost\nevery evil. We must cease to be afraid.\n\nThere is, of course, a very deep reason for this fear of sex. The sex\nimpulses are not often realised and understood in the conscious life of\nmen and women, and although they can be caught up and fused into all\nthat is best in the individual character, they remain in most of us\nunrecognised and untamed. You will see what I mean. The sex instinct has\nretained its wildness, and we must, I think, face the fact that there is\nin all of us a volcanic element in sex, underlying and influencing all\nthe rest of our nature, and, for that very reason, shaking the individual\ncharacter from its foundations with tremor, if not with catastrophe. This\ndistrust of the dynamic force, which so often we have found difficult to\ncontrol in ourselves, causes us to fear for our children. We are afraid\nthat many growths we do not like may spring up in them. And the immediate\nresult in us is an inhibitory awkwardness\u2014largely an effort of hiding\u2014in\nthe face of everything that comes within hailing distance of the sex\npassion.\n\nUntil we have cleared our thoughts from this confusion of fear, very\nlittle good can be done. Let us purify ourselves and re-establish our\nown faith. When once we come to understand, we cannot go on leaving\nour children to be sullied, and in some cases\u2014and those not a few\u2014even\ncrushed and destroyed by our mock modesty, sham decencies and complacent\nblindness.\n\nIt is my firm conviction that most of the perversions of sex, a whole\nlist of diseases, the almost countless number of unhappy marriages, many\nof the existing social evils\u2014may be traced back to this cause. It is\nunsafe to prophesy, yet I think much of the misery would be remedied,\nif once we could dispel the unwholesome mystery with which we, in our\ntimidity and uncleanness of mind, have enveloped the facts of birth and\nthe relations between the sexes. Such mystery is really nothing but\nshame; much of it may be dispelled by the wholesome light of simple and\nwise teaching. So only can we hope to guide our children\u2019s natural and\nbeautiful unfolding. We must inculcate in them from their earliest years\nrespect for their own bodies and for the reproductive act.\n\nReverence for sex as something holy should be part of every child\u2019s\neducation. The eternal hymn of Love is the noblest strain in the\nuniverse, and the young should be taught to heed it reverently. There\nmust be no false valuation of the impulse which unites men and women, if\nwe wish our daughters and our sons to fulfil worthily the high duties\nof parenthood. We cannot teach unless our faith is great and we also\npractise. We must plant deep in our children\u2019s fresh natures a desire for\nbeauty, not alone in outside things, but in all thought and in every deed\nrelating to the Life force, which is Love.\n\nYou will see now the scope of the claim I am making for sexual education:\nit is to be the means whereby concealments are to be broken through and\nshame in sex is to be destroyed.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER XV\n\nSEXUAL EDUCATION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE ADOLESCENT GIRL\n\n\n    Our very limited powers\u2014Our children have to experiment and\n    to learn life for themselves\u2014The theoretical teacher who\n    reforms the world on paper\u2014The hindrances placed in the way\n    of the sex emotions\u2014We educate girls and boys as if they were\n    sexless neuters\u2014The folly of this denial of sex\u2014The origin\n    of our fear\u2014An attempt to express the psychological meaning\n    of the combination of the man and the woman\u2014The differences\n    between the boy and the girl\u2014An attempt to follow this\n    dissimilarity\u2014The evils arising from the modern tendency to\n    ignore sex differences\u2014This the real weakness in the position\n    of the modern girl\u2014She has a profound distrust of herself\n    as a woman\u2014Our schools and educational system founded on\n    the needs of boys\u2014This a great evil\u2014The development of the\n    girl at puberty more difficult than the development of the\n    boy\u2014Every girl lives a hidden life of her own\u2014The conflict in\n    the sensitive soul of the adolescent\u2014This the age of romance\n    and idealism\u2014The danger of sudden and wrong knowledge of the\n    physical facts of sex\u2014Full instruction of girls more necessary\n    even than the instruction of boys\u2014The immense danger of\n    repression\u2014The transformation of puberty\u2014Painful experiences\n    of youth act harmfully in the later years\u2014Our deadly silences\n    and sham presentation of life\u2014The injury we do to the girl\n    by ignoring her sexual life\u2014Induces sexual coldness\u2014This the\n    great cause of unhappiness in marriage\u2014Our fear and denial of\n    love\u2014This what is wrong with life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nSEXUAL EDUCATION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE ADOLESCENT GIRL\n\n    \u201cBut, alas! a hindrance ever lurketh in our way; it is the\n    leaven in the dough, the deadly flies that invert the sweetness\n    of the fragrant wine; \u2026 Thus \u2026 the wrongful thoughts ferment.\n    Evil plougheth in and urgeth as a task-master. He wasteth and\n    destroyeth, and, lo! we are taken captive in this thraldom;\n    he giveth over the innocent and pure to death; defilement\n    spreadeth, and of joy there is naught left.\u201d\u2014(Eng. trans.,\n    _Jewish Prayer for the Day of Atonement_.)\n\n\nNow, because I desire sexual enlightenment for all children, and, in\nparticular, for all girls, and seek as a reformer the re-shaping of\neducation in the home and in the school, it does not follow that I am so\nover-presumptuous as to believe it possible in this way quickly to remedy\nall sexual mistakes, or that I do not realise how our policy of muddle\nand leaving these matters alone has not always been as disastrous as,\nindeed, we might expect. I know that in many cases and among numerous\nyoung people the sexual life follows a healthy and beautiful unfolding,\nin spite of anything we may do or may leave undone. And it needs but a\ncursory view to see that all is not confused and an aimless conflict\nof waste, but that the wonderful beauty of youth often will triumph\nover the meanness of our fears, our subterfuges and blind blunderings.\nOne perceives something that goes on, something that is continually\nworking in the child to make order out of our muddle, beauty out of our\ndefacements: to force light, frankness and purity in place of our shams\nand our lies.\n\nDoubtless to the theoretical teacher eager to reform the world on paper,\nit seems a very easy matter to lay down rules for mothers and teachers\nregarding sexual instruction\u2014new finger-posts to conduct, whereby\nthe young generation may be guarded from making the mistakes that we\nourselves have made. But can we do this? For in sex we have as yet learnt\nvery little, and I doubt sometimes if we can ever learn very much, except\neach one of us for ourselves out of our own experience. We of an older\ngeneration cannot save our children very far, or hold them back from\nlife. And it may be well that at once we realise and acknowledge the very\nnarrow limits of our power.\n\nBut this is not to say that we are to shirk and continue to act as if\nall were well when we know that it is not so. The manner in which, up\nto the present day, we have completely ignored the very fact of sex in\nour educational system is almost incredible. There has been in many\ndirections a vast range of betrayal and baseness in our treatment of\nyouth.\n\nNo other emotion is so hindered, opposed, and loaded with material and\nmoral fetters. We know how education makes a beginning in this way,\nand how life continues the process. Perhaps some of these hindrances\nare inevitable; but many are the direct result of our adult stupidity,\nand the way we have failed in training the young. How can you expect\nthe primitive powerful sex impulse not to suffer? The sex emotions are\namong the deepest, if not the deepest, of our nature; they exercise an\ninfluence on every phase of development, and, in one form or another,\ndirect the entire being of the individual. We know this. And all the\ntime we continue to educate girls and boys as if they were sexless\nneuters. Could folly be greater?\n\nBy our teaching and our example we are destroying for the young the\nharmony of Nature. We ourselves are shame-faced because we are still\nsavages in sex. If not, why this awe and funk, these taboos and\nmysteries, all the secretive cunning with which we hide from the young\nfacts that we all know, but pretend that we don\u2019t know?\n\nAnd it cannot be overlooked that this fear of sex is of very ancient\norigin, which makes it the more difficult to eradicate. We have, I\nbelieve, to allow for an ages-old, and therefore strongly rooted, sense\nof separation, causing an often unconscious antagonism between the\ntwo sexes. We see its unchecked action in many examples in the animal\nkingdom, though not in all\u2014it is quite absent, for instance, in the\nfamily life of certain insects and in the perfect loves of many birds,\nwhose life-histories we examined in the first section of this book. We\nsee the same antagonism acting continually among primitive peoples in\nthe elaborate and sacred system of taboos which separate the two sexes.\nIndeed, the beginnings of the marriage system can be traced back to a\nprimitive conception of danger attaching to the sexual act. I am not very\nhopeful that this sex separation that is a kind of antagonism can ever be\nwholly eliminated; I am not even sure that it is well that it should be\neliminated. May it not be that love itself would be withered did we take\nit away? I am not certain at all; I know, however, that this fear of sex\nhas led us into great folly.\n\nWhat is the psychological meaning of the combination of man and woman?\nIt is the union between opposites, which, perhaps, I may try to explain\nfurther as the union between consciousness and unconsciousness. The man\nis essentially conscious, the woman essentially unconscious; the man is\nconcentrated in his intellect, the woman is concentrated in her senses.\nThese, at least, are the nearest words in which I am able to express it.\nAnd of one thing I am certain: the modern way of mixing the qualities\nof the two sexes acts directly for unhappiness and in harm to the race.\nI did not always think this: I did not want to think it. I have come\nslowly to be convinced and against my own will. And I am glad to take\nthe opportunity now, as I near the end of my book on Motherhood\u2014the\nsubject which ever has been deepest in my heart\u2014to state this as my later\nopinion, which has been made clear to me by the experiences of my life.\n\nThere is no use in saying there is no difference between the girl and the\nboy when human nature keeps asserting that there is. There is even, as\nI have been forced into accepting, a natural tendency between boys and\ngirls to draw away from each other. You may see this separation in every\nco-education school where the children, led by deeper instincts than we\nhave understood, bring our wisdom to foolishness. They unconsciously feel\nthat separation which we have been trying to pretend does not exist. Each\nsex, at the very dawn of the teens and before, is unfolding interests,\ntastes, plays and ambitions of its own.\n\nIt would be interesting to follow this dissimilarity as far as it could\nlead us. Sometimes it would seem that we had got to the bottom\u2014to what\nis common to the girl as to the boy; the qualities that both sexes\nshare as human beings, where the ties of similarity seem to link their\ncharacters. But wait! deeper than this we must seek for the truth. Even\nin this likeness there is an all-pervading unlikeness. And it is just\nthis: the differences, which cannot, I think, be expressed, but which\ndo exist\u2014differences in souls, in minds and in bodies\u2014as well as a\nseparation in the habits, the desires, and attitude to life, that makes\nfor such harmony in the elemental depths.\n\nThe influence of sex extends in mysterious ways that as yet we do not\nunderstand. And the variation between the girl and the boy is far\ngreater, I believe, than has ever in modern times been recognised. The\nlonger I live, and the more life teaches me, the more strongly I am\nconvinced of this fact: you do not make the girl into the boy by ignoring\nher special functions; you do not lessen sexuality by pretending it is\nnot there.\n\nFrom the start of puberty this difference between the girl and the boy\nshould be faced; great is the harm that follows from our pretending it\nis not there. And the hurt suffered in my opinion, is almost always more\nserious to the girl than to the boy.\n\nMany women are blindly prejudiced on this question as, indeed, I myself\nonce was. The reason of such mistake is plain. This breaking down or\nlessening of the differences between the two sexes may be, and is,\npossible. By means of education and the action of habit a child may be\nimpressed with characteristics normally foreign to its sex, qualities\nand tendencies are thus developed which ordinarily appear only in a\nchild of the opposite sex. I would refer the reader back to the early\nsection of this book for examples, most curious and suggestive, of such\ncomplete transposition of the female and male characters.[103] Things are\nnot quite so obviously plain in the human world, but they are not less\nfateful, less significant.\n\nWe touch here the real weakness in the position of the modern girl: the\nprofound distrust that she has of herself. I do not mean, of course,\nintellectually or as a worker, but a distrust of herself as Woman. I\nbelieve it results directly from educational influences. All our effort\nis directed to repress from the consciousness of the girl the realities\nof her own sexual nature; and what we do is to hinder her deepest\ninstincts so that often they fail in finding a healthy expression.\n\nIn our schools the educational system is founded on the needs of boys\nand not on the needs of girls. I regard this as a great crime. For one\nthing, the development of the girl is more obscure and difficult than\nthe development of the boy; in her sex-life there are finer balances,\nwhich opens up the way to greater evils. There is every possibility of\nmorbid disturbance from any mistakes in the training. The girl has more\nthat she needs to learn to establish her health and sexual happiness\nthan has the boy; the pubescent period lasts longer with her and is more\nunsettling; while the greatest difficulty of all, perhaps, arises from\nthe fact that her conduct is more ruled by deep unconscious instincts.\nEvery girl lives a hidden life of her own, and it is within this shrine\nof her individuality that the primitive and fierce instincts of her sex\nstruggle to find expression; and though always unacknowledged and often,\nindeed, unrecognised, alike by the girl herself as well as by her elders,\nit is these instincts that direct her growth and are the determining\ninfluence of her life, far more important than the actions directed by\nher conscious self, which is occupied in learning lessons, in play, and\nall the outward interests of the daily life.\n\nAnd it is this deeper ego that suffers from our educational system and\nthe elaborate ingenuity with which the facts of life are hidden and\nglossed over. Girls in our schools, and also in our homes, are trained\nto become secretive about themselves, treating their special sexual\nfunctions as a mystery and a shame. Truth-telling is inculcated in\nall matters except sex, and here there is an unceasing evasion, which\nprepares disharmonies at the very dawn of sexual consciousness.\n\nLet us understand what harm we are doing. Do we know? Do we care? We\nhave, I suppose, a certain vague ideal as to what Woman should be, but as\nfar as I can see we give no kind of training to help a girl in any way to\nlive healthily and fully her life as a woman. As it is, one is tempted\nto say that it is rather in spite of than by means of her education that\nany modern girl arrives at any conception of her womanly nature and her\ntasks. We really seem to be proclaiming a sense of injury because there\nis such a fact in the girl\u2019s nature as sex.\n\nAgain I assert that our crime is manifest. We have set up an educational\nsystem that is blind to the needs of girls and the facts of their\nsexual life. How many among us women of this generation have suffered\nhurt\u2014thousands of women defrauded of happiness and of health, bearing\nwith them year after year the mark of lost instincts, stifled desires,\nand natures in part murdered. Do I write strongly? Yes, I do; but I write\nof what I know to be true.\n\nMothers, wrapped in the long trance of complacent living, remain\nindifferent, or are themselves too ignorant and dead to life to give\nhelp. As their daughters come to consciousness, as they begin to suffer\ntheir own fulfilment, they can do nothing and they cast them off. Hard\nshut down and silent in themselves, how many girls suffer the anguish of\nyouth reaching out for the unknown ideal that they can\u2019t grasp, can\u2019t\neven distinguish or conceive. What we call education helps them not at\nall, for how can any educational system succeed when it runs contrary\nto nature? All the larger intimate problems that encompass life are\nneglected, while the intellect is crammed with a store of quite useless\nfacts. Real education would lead to emancipation, but instead we prepare\ngirls for examinations.\n\nAnd what we have to fear is a deadening of physical and spiritual\nresponse that must tend to follow from this suppression. For what is\na girl\u2019s life? She works and rests from work, eats, and sleeps, and\nplays, and all the while she remains wrapped in the closest egoism, her\nstrongest instincts smouldering beneath the dull weight of an education\nthat is not an education, but an unstimulating and conforming pretence,\nand not fitted to the needs, of living. Even when she is free and is\nturned out at last, apathetic and obliterated, she carries with her\nvague dreads of positive acts and new ideas. How seldom does she succeed\nin urging out of herself the inmost vital part she has stifled. She is\ncompacted of numbed faculties and inhibited desires.\n\nThe inmost Self yearns to get out and away, to spend itself, to find its\ndue share in the ever-creating life. But the confidence and possession of\nthe Self has been destroyed; the ego is left alone with its dread, with\nthe distrust of desires not understood and instincts thrust back within.\n\nAnd do you not see the result of this conflict to the sensitive soul of\nthe adolescent? The terrible evil of disharmonies first started during\nthese pregnant and inceptive years that should be the infancy of the\nhigher powers of womanhood? Robbed of a just confidence and pride in her\nsex, her own stifled instincts become to a girl hateful and as something\nof which she should be ashamed; she begins to chafe against her womanhood\nand spurn it, bemoaning the limitations of her sex. She lapses into boy\u2019s\nways, methods of work and ideals; she comes to live gaily enough and to\nlaugh carelessly, not knowing what she has lost; to care nothing to be\nherself\u2014content to choke the vision in her own life.\n\nSo it has been with you, with me, with all of us. Are we content that\nthis blighting shall be suffered by our daughters?\n\nThe evil is happening for want of a generous guidance from us who have\ngone before. I write of what I know. Great and unending is the misery\nthat we make possible by our folly, sickness of body and soul, so that\nthe repressed nature rots away and doubt eats into natural faith. Nature\nis violated at every step, and _after we have educated her_, in nine\ncases out of ten, the girl emerges a mere residuum of decent minor\ndispositions. There is need to change.\n\nMuch that is said or done, both consciously and unconsciously, by the\nadult will torture the adolescent\u2019s sensitiveness much more than is\nconceivable to any one who has no insight to the curious psychology of\ngirls in these difficult years. There is as a rule at this period of life\na painful dualisation of the soul; thus, while seeking to know about\nsex, many girls will turn violently from the truth, so that any guidance\nwe may give now will be very likely to arouse anger and disgust. And I\nknow of no safeguard except a full knowledge of the physical facts of\nsex\u2014of begetting and of birth, that has been gained earlier in the play\nperiod of childhood, in years when such knowledge can be assimilated\nunconsciously and its deep significance causes no response of personal\ndisturbance.\n\nWe have to remember that these are the years of romance and idealism,\nwhen the always strong tendency among girls to sublimate and spiritualise\nlove is at its highest. Sex knowledge could not possibly be given at a\nworse time than now, when the young soul is passing through its difficult\nbirth and the conscious self seethes and teems with emotional ferment.\nIf at this period the physical side of love is brought for the first\ntime into notice there will be a withdrawal of the girl\u2019s ever-sensitive\nconfidence, and worse, an ebb of the nerves, caused by distrust\nliberating the demon of fear; an almost certain reaction of incredulity\nand disillusionment will follow, with after results that may prove to be\ndeep and far-reaching in their danger to healthy life.\n\nWe find then, contrary to the usual opinion, that an early and full\ninstruction in the physical facts of sex is more necessary for girls\neven than it is for boys. The dangers of ignorance, or of sudden and\ntoo late knowledge, are greater. For any primary reaction of aversion,\nwhich is rarely absent, will in many cases strengthen into disgust and\na curious horror that is partly fear and partly strengthened desire.\nFor at the same time there will very likely be a strong attractive\nelement in the form of intensely excited curiosity, which may be active\nand experimenting, but more often and with even greater danger is kept\nhidden, but yet spies and clutches for new evidence. Such unhealthy\ncuriosity, remaining for long unsatisfied or insufficiently satisfied,\nalmost necessarily sets up morbid reactions, causing many sexual evils.\n\nYou may say, of course, that I am mistaken; that these things do not\nhappen\u2014at least, not in the case of your daughter or of any nice girls.\nI can answer only, that it is you\u2014the mother or the teacher\u2014who, I fear,\nare wrong, living in the paradise of the fool. I am not exaggerating at\nall. I have tried to show how serious is the shock and how severe the\ndisillusionment that may follow to the adolescent on a too sudden meeting\nwith the physical facts of sex. It is time for us to cease pretending. We\nmust realise that the mutilating or slaying of sex is followed always by\ndisaster.\n\nInstincts which have been prevented from their natural expression must\ntend to escape and find expression in abnormal forms that may, and often\ndo, give rise to greater devastation. We have to face these things: there\nis no use in turning from them because they are horrid and in fear of\ngiving offence.\n\nLet me take but one fact. Masturbation is of very frequent occurrence\namong girls and among women, and this form of erotic indulgence acts\ndirectly in lowering sexual sensibility, and not only limits the desire\nfor love, but prevents a right physical response so that satisfaction may\nbe gained from the normal sexual act.\n\nIs it not time that we women began to be frank? We have pretended to\nourselves, and argued away from these questions far too long. Love cries\nout against our denials. Extreme passion may work ill, but the opposite\nextreme of the sacrifice of healthy natural instincts is as great an evil.\n\nI am driven back always to this: the immense danger of repression. For\nour hindrances lead inevitably to repressions, always dangerous; and\nthese tend to set up deep indwelling disharmonies, and then the way is\nopened up to manifold evils that may be traced into many by-paths of\nthe after sexual life. And though I know there are many among my readers\nimpatiently exclaiming that I am constantly dragging sex into everything,\nI assert that I do not drag it in: it is there. And for this reason alone\nit is certain that to formulate a system of education which ignores sex\nmust lead to disaster.\n\nI would call attention again to the fact noted in the previous chapter\nthat the sex impulse is never absent in any child, however young. The\ntransformation of puberty is really a co-ordination of the individual\nsex-life that already exists. With the development of the bodily\nstructure and the marked changes in the sexual organs, there takes place\na psychic growth which causes a perfectly natural seeking out of the\nyoung soul for experience and love. There is every possibility of morbid\ndisturbance should this new order of development be hindered and not\ntake place. And if this beautiful natural transformation is to succeed\nthere must be no forcing back of the nature upon itself. The period of\nadolescence should crown and complete every organ and every faculty. No\nover-emphasis can be laid on the fateful issues that may follow to each\ngirl from any mistakes in training at this period of adult birth, when\nthe nature must find its new expression in the right direction of health\nor in the wrong direction of the abnormal.\n\nWe are deceived so often by the outside appearance of things. The painful\nexperiences of youth may disappear from the conscious memory, but they\ndo not thereby cease to act as an influence directing the after life.\nEvery mother and every teacher ought to understand this. Any hurt now\ndone by our folly can never be undone. No experience is entirely lost.\nWhat seems to have vanished from the consciousness has really passed\ninto a sub-consciousness, where it lives on in an organised form as real\nas if it were still part of the conscious personality; and although\nany experience may lie dormant, unknown to the conscious self, it may,\nand almost certainly will at some time, cause emotional reactions that\ncontinue without a known reason to excite and direct the outward ordinary\nlife.\n\nOur easy, complacent and devastating folly in ignoring the special\nphysical nature of girls, and the elaborate ingenuity with which\nthe facts of life are hidden from them or glossed over by unhealthy\nsentiment, is the true cause of the physical and spiritual etiolation\nof womanhood. There is, I allege, murder to the girl\u2019s power to be\nherself\u2014to fulfil her woman\u2019s destiny\u2014in our evasions, our deadly\nsilences, and sham presentation of life, conditioned in all cases by\ntheory and never by the act of living.\n\nIt is because I believe this that I am writing with all the power that I\nhave against our schools which show the most coarse lack of understanding\nof the nature of the girl. I want new schools fitted to the needs of\ngirls. The aim of education should be a general cohesion in all the\ndifferent elements of the personality. And if the method is right, it\nwill prove a way to greater happiness and fulness of growth. No longer\nwill sex be held as a hindrance to life. I believe that almost everything\nin the future depends upon this.\n\nLife would be liberated. An instinct that continually is hindered and\ndenied cannot easily develop for health; and often, owing to these\nhindrances, the sexual life is stunted; then later the right and simple\nimpulse to the performance of the sex act and its final consummation and\nenjoyment may be interfered with for ever and even prevented. Will you\nthink what this means. In plain words, we are, by our false ideals and\nthe wrong attitude towards the sexual life which conditions our system\nof education for girls, doing all that we can to prevent them from being\nwomen. I am not exaggerating; I am trying to make you see what it is that\nis wrong with life.\n\nEvery one who refuses to blink facts knows that the vast majority of\nmarriages are unhappy owing to the coldness of the wife. It is certain\nthat sexual an\u00e6sthesia to-day is present in many women, and there would\nseem, indeed, to be an increasing diminution of the strength of the\nsexual impulse. Any number of women are unable to give themselves up to\nthe sex act in such a way as to derive from it real satisfaction and the\ngladness and health that it should give. This is a very grave matter. The\nevil would be less if these frigid women did not marry, but as a rule\nthey do marry. It is a curious fact that women who sexually are cold are\nsought as wives with greater frequency than are more passionate women,\nprobably because their easily maintained reserve acts as a stimulus to\nthe man. Men are persistently blind in these matters. They want response\nto their own desire in their wives, but most of them are very much afraid\nof any woman who possesses the strong passion to enable them to give such\nresponse. The woman gains her fulfilment from the man when he gives her\nhis child, but when she turns from him she leaves him unsatisfied.[104]\nThe drama and the novel are burdened with this problem, which, indeed,\nintrudes itself on every hand. We are, by our wrong ideals, inducing an\nentirely perverted view, which regards physical desire as something of\nwhich women should be ashamed, and the sex act as a thing in itself\ndegrading and even disgusting\u2014the nasty side of love; something to be\nsubmitted to, indeed, in order to bear children, or for the sake of the\nloved man, whose passions must be allowed, but not for the health and\ndesire, the delight and perfectment of the woman herself. This false\nview, I affirm again, is the blight that has been, and still is, the\ndestroyer of woman, and through her, equally the destroyer of man.\n\nAnd this fear and denial of love, this separation between the sexes, is\nthe serious side of the problem of marriage. For the hideous disguises\nand constant lying often made necessary to the husband, owing to the\nwife\u2019s entire failure to realise the physical necessities of love,\nmakes domestic life an organised hypocrisy. We fight, and fight to be\nfree, yet ever anew the antagonism lays fresh hold, it crops up in many\nand curious ways, imposing its poison and destroying love\u2014the deep,\ndeep-hidden rage of unsatisfied men against women. The need for love will\nnot often allow itself to be inhibited without claiming payment. And if\ndesire so frequently manifests itself in abnormal forms of the coarsest\nand commonest dissipation, this is almost always to be explained by\nsome hindrance opposed to its normal expression. When women face facts\nand realise this truth, many things in men\u2019s conduct will be clear that\nhitherto have been hidden from them.\n\nAgain it may be thought that I am exaggerating; and there are, I know,\nother aspects of this question which just now I am neglecting. But the\nunreal and abysmal misconception into which one sex has fallen with\nregard to the other\u2014this horrible, grasping, backwash of shame\u2014is, in\nlarge measure, the result of our pretence and the way in which women\nhave been kept living with blinds drawn down upon most of the unruly\nturbulence and elemental forces of life. It may also be held mistakenly\nthat in what I have said I am writing against women; that I am raising a\nbelated cry for masculine prerogatives and standards of sexual conduct.\nBut that is not so. I am, it is undeniable, writing against the attitude\nof the modern woman towards marriage, her coldness of response to passion\nand her suppression of the realities of sex; an attitude I deplore and\nhold to be destructive alike to the happiness of women and men and to\nthe health of the race, as also to any practical moral life. But such\ncoldness and atrophy of instinct, I believe, has been imposed upon women\nby wrong education, the conditions of ignorance under which they marry\nand become mothers, and all the hindrances set around them, preventing\nthem living out their lives from a sexual point of view.\n\nIt is example and the ideal set before us which produces the formation\nof opinion and of character, and few mothers remember the inner discord\nwhich exists between what they teach their daughters about love and what\nthey act themselves in the daily life. And if the home is wrong, the\nschool is, I think, much worse. In olden times, and still among primitive\npeoples\u2014whose unconsidered actions are in many directions so much wiser\nthan is our knowledge\u2014girls were early given by matrons all the gathered\nwisdom of their sex pertaining to wifehood and motherhood; just the\nknowledge that we make it hard for them to gain. Could folly be greater\nthan this?\n\nWith the decay of the specific traditions of the ideal of womanhood\nthe idea of a general culture, neither male nor female, has tended to\nprevail. We touch here the deep roots of the evil. And what I wish to\nmake plain is the inevitable failure of an educational system which\nmakes no kind of arrangement for the special care and training of girls\nduring the most critical years of their growth. There is, I allege, in\nall our educational establishments a strange and most culpable lack\nof understanding of the nature of the girl and her functions as a\nwoman. They model brains without proper consideration of bodies, and\nwith frightful convention repress from the seeking young the realities\nof love, and treat as secret, almost as something to be ignored, the\nfunctions connected with a girl\u2019s sexual life.\n\nThe mistake here is so far-reaching that I find it difficult to write\ncalmly. For again I must assert that what we are doing is really to teach\nour girls a shameful denial of their womanhood. I wish that the power of\nmy pen was stronger, so that I might bring a stinging consciousness of\nall the terrible mischief that is being done to the knowledge of every\nmother and every teacher.\n\nHow many of us have ourselves suffered? But our memories are strangely\nshort. We forget, in our complacence and lazy, vicarious optimism, the\ndark places that imprisoned our young growing souls, haunts of gloom\nand despair that were never lit by a ray of sympathetic enlightenment\nfrom our sadder and wiser, but so forgetful, elders. We forget the\ngrievous wounds to our self-respect. We forget the duality of soul; those\noscillations between fear and disgust and curiosity and desire, with,\nperhaps, furtive trembling concessions to a power we did not understand,\nto be followed by morbid reactions of loathing, both of the mysterious\nimpulse and of ourselves, that survive in those deadly disharmonies that\nare beginning to engage the attention of modern psychologists, and act\nto-day in our adult consciousness to war with the sum of unity which is\nhappiness.\n\nYes, we all have forgotten. Yet none the less has this shameful early\nstruggle left us fettered and seeking, and we have no window to inform us\nwe are in prison. It has warped our natures, till, when in after years we\nlook at Love, we behold, not the shining impersonation of the Life-force,\nbut seeing double, view a monstrous Siamese twin of two figures, Lust\nand Sentimentality, a satyr bound to a wan angel by a navel-cord of\nprocreative necessity. And often there is no rest, no cessation from a\nconflict that has left us helpless, so that for us love is moulded round\na core of diseased desires.\n\nIt makes us examine our hearts. Is it to be so for ever?\n\nWe forget that perhaps four-fifths of the misery that follows in the\ntrain of sex-fulfilment is due to this mental and moral \u201cdiphobia\u201d\nacquired in the days of adolescence in the unassisted struggle with the\nawakening and entirely misunderstood sex-impulse. We may forget, but few\nand happy are they who escape the effects of that encounter. According\nto our temperaments it has made us sedulous puritans and unconscious\nhypocrites, passionless neuters, or careless cynics and voluptuaries. And\nwe are all of us to some extent marked and dirtied for ever. Deep and\nineffaceable in us are the records of our disastrous early grapple with a\ngreat organic impulse which no one taught us to understand.\n\nI am strongly of opinion that the tendency, so prevalent among women,\nto regard love as a twofold thing, one part of which is physical and\nevil and the other part spiritual and good, is almost diagnostic in an\nindividual of a disharmony arising from an ancient reaction against sex,\ncaused by some hindering influence or shock, encountered at the opening\nof the conscious sexual life.\n\nThe tremendous force that awakens in soul and body in these early years,\nand that with wise control and comprehension might be tended till in\ndue course it flowers into Love, is early shorn of its splendour. Its\nwhispered intimations of wondrous things to come fall on deaf ears.\nTaught to regard it as a malignant enemy that may destroy, instead of the\nmost sacred and wonderful agency in human life, we enter into a hopeless\nstruggle to eliminate the most basal part of our nature, or fawn before\nit in furtive and shameful surrender.\n\nSo most of us, embittered by the degradation of this struggle, _whether\nit be won or lost_, grow up to view with distrust what we absurdly\ncall the \u201cphysical side of love.\u201d We, and especially women, accept it\nresignedly as an unavoidable baseness in the grain of Love. We forget\nthat the baseness is in us and not in Love. _Love has no physical side,\nor mental side, or spiritual side._ It is a unity upon which we lay\nsacrilegious hands when we make an artificial separation into physical\nand spiritual.\n\nWe do this because of our own impurity, and because of the hurts we have\nsuffered. We can no longer look at Love without furtively scanning his\ngarments for the stains of Lust. We have created Lust. Lust is a morbid\nby-product in the evolution of Love.\n\nIt is this that we have suffered.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF CHAPTER XVI\n\nA CONTINUATION OF THE LAST CHAPTER, WITH AN ATTEMPT TO SUGGEST A REMEDY\n\n\n    An attempt to find the remedy\u2014What is the real root of the\n    evil\u2014The young woman of the new generation\u2014The years since\n    the war began\u2014An examination of present conditions\u2014What\n    is likely to happen when peace comes\u2014The independent\n    woman\u2014The Commissioner\u2019s Report of the National Birth-Rate\n    Investigation, 1916\u2014The failure in our lives\u2014Where is the\n    real root of the evil\u2014The whole educational system of girls\n    in our homes and in our schools is wrong\u2014The importance of\n    menstruation\u2014Influence of conventionality\u2014Wrong ideals set\n    before girls\u2014The destruction working in our midst\u2014Fear of sex\n    directs our educational system\u2014The remedy to begin in our\n    schools\u2014We must educate girls to be women\u2014Menstruation and the\n    girl\u2019s special sexual life must be emphasised and not as now\n    ignored\u2014Adolescent schools\u2014The sexual life of the adolescent\n    girl\u2014The difficulties that must be faced\u2014Opposition on the part\n    of women\u2014Motherhood to be saved\u2014Regeneration of the girl\u2019s\n    instincts through consciousness\u2014The hope with which we may look\n    to the future\u2014Motherhood will triumph.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nA CONTINUATION OF THE LAST CHAPTER, WITH AN ATTEMPT TO SUGGEST A REMEDY\n\n    \u201cWith fear and trembling take care of the heart of the people;\n    that is the root of the matter in education\u2014that is the highest\n    in education.\u201d\u2014K\u2019UNG FU \u2019TZU.\n\n\nIt is, of course, easy to write of these evils, the difficult thing is\nto find the remedy. And the question I now wish to put squarely is this:\nWhere is the real root of the evil, what is wrong in our educational\nideals that accounts for our failure to develop the best and happiest\ntype of women? You may, of course, deny this, and assert that we do not\nfail, but that will not alter facts. I say we are creating a race of\nwork-efficient and highly educated, but unsatisfied women, whose very\nindependence betrays their sorrow. This is a very serious matter. It\nwould seem that our young women have now for the first time realised\ntheir power in outside things. War has acted quickly in facilitating\ntheir economic emancipation. But I find it hard not to think that this\nmay involve a cost which their womanhood will not bear without injury\nmore or less profound. Women are being sold to work in the same way that\nformerly men were sold. And though no one can know the results, I am very\nfar from sharing the sense of satisfaction expressed by so many to-day:\nI fear for the girls I see in such numbers in every place of work a\ndeadening of response to life\u2014a further clog and degradation of womanly\nfeeling and instincts. And as I have said again and again, my fear is\nmuch deeper, because this externalisation of life is no new thing. I\ncould add more, much more; but words\u2014what are they in the face of facts!\nLast week I was in conversation with a young and comely tram conductress.\nShe was married: I asked her if she had children. She answered me: \u201cMy\ngoodness, No!\u201d and then added, \u201cOne doesn\u2019t want babies on this job.\u201d\nOne dares not generalise too largely, yet for so long women, in this\nindustrially blinded land, have been struggling to gain the world at the\npayment of losing themselves.\n\nThe young women of the new generation are full of distrust, the most\ndemoralising of influences. By this I do not mean that they distrust\nthemselves; they do not. What they do distrust is instinct and emotion,\nwith a corresponding over-valuation of intellectualism and of marketable\nwork-power; and from this distrust there has followed necessarily a\nbreaking away from fixed standards, with a loss of any steadying ideal.\nThis, I think, is the essential trouble, sending them very far astray\nfrom the facts of life.\n\nLook at the women you may see in all classes of society. You may see\nthem hastening to and from their work; you may see them in the streets\neach evening or in every place of amusement. How many bear upon their\nbrows this stamp of a nature unfixed of purpose, in the expression of\ntheir face as well as the body movements, in their restlessness and noisy\nhappiness is the sign of disharmonies aroused, a nature strained and\nfailing in the fulfilment of its functions. One feels that as women these\nyoung girls of the present generation have lost something, lost it so\ncompletely that they know no longer what they desire.\n\nI should, however, like to make it very clear that I am not disparaging\nwomen, nor do I fail to admire all they have achieved in difficult\npositions. There is no need to re-tell the oft-told and much praised\nfacts of what they have done in these years since the war began. There\ncan be no shadow of doubt as to the efficiency and value of the work of\nthe thousands of women at present engaged in many and varied branches of\nlabour. But what I fear is the waste of the struggle should it continue\nfor any period of years. Let us except this hard working of women as a\nnecessary evil of warfare, demanding at the same time special protection\nand special provision for child-bearers. But do not let us fall into the\nerror of regarding such conditions as in themselves good and desirable,\nleading, as I believe must follow, to a further obliteration of sex, with\nits differences and wise separation.\n\nDifficult as at present is the problem, we need to understand that we\ncannot afford to be wasteful of the strength of women. We are being\nwasteful. The physiological life even of the unmarried woman ought to\nhandicap her in almost every kind of work. Long hours of standing, the\nlifting of heavy weights, any kind of drain on the nervous power, cannot\nfail to do harm. There are days when every young girl and woman who may\nhave to bear children, however strong, ought to release tension, to step\naside from work to maintain full health. I am filled with impatience at\nour pretence on this question of women\u2019s health. There is a difference\nbetween the work capacity of the woman and the work capacity of the\nman. Sex must play a far larger part, making far stronger claims on\nthe strength of the girl and the woman than it ever does in the lives\nof boys and men. It is vain to assume that because women are willing,\nand apparently able, to do the same work now as men in the past have\ndone, that, therefore, it is wise to allow them to do it. The price of\nthe violent energy, so wastefully being poured out, will have to be\npaid. Countless women and girls are using up now the nervous energy and\nstrength of which they are merely the pilots and guardians; the health\nand calm of spirit which should be stored and transmitted to generations\nto come.\n\nThe increased activity and exertion daily demanded from child-bearers\nmust be anti-social in its racial effects. Either these girls, constantly\nstimulated, over-excited, and robbed of the tranquillity they need, will\nbear enfeebled children, or, what is more likely, through the direct\npremium placed on childlessness, fewer and fewer children will be born,\nand from this there may tend to follow a further deadening and even a\ncrushing out of the maternal instinct. Children will not be wanted.\n\nI pointed out in the earlier chapters of my book[105] that such a\ntransformation of impulse may take place. The parental instinct is not\nfixed, and disuse is the swiftest way to decay. Think what this must\nmean to the life values of the future. I believe it is not possible to\nestimate how far-reaching may be the results of what is now being done\nso quickly and so recklessly. By our absurd denials and our ignorance we\nshall have brought down upon us this evil\u2014our punishment for conceiving\nsex in women as something too terrible to be faced in its reality.\n\nLet us understand what it is that we shall be doing. We are built up of\nhabits just as a house is built up of bricks. And what motherhood is\ngoing to be in the future depends on our desires and our action to-day.\n\nA sound nation has for its essential condition healthy children\u2014yes,\nand many of them\u2014and healthy mothers to bear and to rear them. We know\nthis. But what are the facts? We find more and more young women turning\naway from motherhood. They are marrying in larger numbers just now, for\nwar has turned men into heroes and this has made marriage popular. But\nwe may not count too much on this, for no longer does marriage mean the\nbearing of children and the founding of a family. The wife no longer is\ncomparable to the fruitful vine, no longer are children like olive plants\nabout the table of the house. The blessings of the old sweet poem fail to\nstir our desires. Babies are not wanted.\n\nThe volume of evidence and the observations made by the Commissioners\u2019\nReport of the National Birth-Rate Investigation, 1916, which lies upon\nmy desk, cannot be read without a sense of almost hopeless depression.\nA dark picture is revealed of men and women harried and driven by the\nsex instinct within them; the relation of the husband and the wife made\nhateful from a perpetual fear of the natural consequences of birth. The\nstruggle is but too clearly apparent in every section of society. The\nevidence discloses that the prevention of conception is growing steadily\nand rapidly, for though it began with and, for a time, was practised only\nby the well-to-do, it is now spreading downwards to the poorest, amongst\nwhom the practice of abortion has for long been extensively used. Dr.\nMary Scharlieb, whose report is, perhaps, the most interesting of all\nthe Commissioners, states that in the working classes there are five\nabortions to every one live birth.\n\nWhat sordid facts this Report reveals! What a failure it proves our life!\nIs there any use in talking of raising the birth-rate until these things\nare changed? Is our land fit to receive the children? Has not the child\nthe right to demand from its parents that its birth shall be looked on as\nsomething more than an unfortunate mistake?\n\nI know, of course, the difficulties which face the parents, among which\neconomic difficulties are important, arising from the competitive\ncapitalistic system by which all our lives are entangled. Yet I feel\nthat these considerations, though they cannot be neglected and increase\nthe evil, alone are not responsible; that the cause lies deeper and\nis dependent on the desires of the mind; that apart from any economic\ncauses, and even assuming that every child could be better born and\nwith a happy life secured to it, there would yet be much of the problem\nthat would remain unsolved. And what I am trying all this time to make\nplain is this: If we wish to get rid of the atrophy that is increasingly\npresent in the instincts of our young women, and quicken their response\nto passion, with its desire for motherhood, we must first get rid of our\nwrong values of what is good in life and makes for enduring happiness;\nand to do this we must change our educational methods, the training in\nthe home and in the school, and conditions of work that are their parent.\nThere can be no help and no change, at least I cannot see any, except to\nalter our ideals. Nothing else of any wide value can be done until these\nare changed.\n\nIn the name of common sense and of sanity let us get to the real bottom\nof this matter. To do anything at all we must begin at the beginning,\nwhere the wrong is started. It is absurd to go on crying out against\nthe shirking of motherhood, while at the same time, in the education\nof our girls and afterwards in the arrangements we make for their\nworking life, we show a complete evasion of the function most intimately\nconnected with motherhood. That is where the clue to the trouble lies.\nThe whole educational system in our homes and in our schools, as well\nas the conditions in our workshops and houses of business, is wrong. It\ndiscourages motherhood very heavily. And the rational thing for us to\ndo in the matter is not to grow eloquent about a declining birth-rate,\nor to blame women for not desiring to be mothers, but rather to make\nintelligent changes so as to minimise to the young the discouragement\nthat by our teaching and our actions we have hitherto given to motherhood.\n\nAnd the first step towards this must be, I am certain, to banish from the\nconsciousness of every girl all feeling of shame, and all concealments\nconnected with her function of menstruation. In other words, we have to\nface the facts of a girl\u2019s sexual life. This is not going to be easy.\n\nIn the immediate past our attitude of hiding on these questions was due\nto reasons of prudishness in regard to all natural functions, and notably\nmenstruation\u2014the rubicon in the life of every girl, which first brings\nor, I ought to say, _should bring_, full realisation that life for her is\nseparate and needs to take a different course from the life of the boy\nand the man.\n\nThis truth has been disliked so much that in practice it has been\ndisregarded. The wrong is started early and is continued throughout the\nsexual life. The real controlling force in the education of the girl is\nthe mother; and motherhood has failed. Girls, with an almost criminal\nneglect, have been left without any wise preparation for the first\nmenstruation, upon the regular establishment of which function their\nhealth in the future must depend. Many girls, being seriously frightened\nor stirred to rebellion and anger, have done foolish actions, and through\nneglected hygiene evil is begun that never can be undone. This is no\nover-statement. The first few menstruations have a far greater influence\nnot only on the body, but also on the brain and the soul of a girl than\ndo those that follow later when the sexual health is better established.\nEvery mother and teacher ought to know and heed this.\n\nAt best, and even when instructed by their mothers, girls have been\ntaught to regard this function as a troublesome illness that must be\nsuffered with patience; such a view, of course, being a relic of the\nsupposed curse laid upon the woman\u2019s sex. Nor can it be said that even\nto-day there is any improvement when quite different ideals prevail\nregarding woman\u2019s place and her vocation. For the new emancipation has\nbrought with it a false view that girls should be educated in the same\nway as boys, and should be brought up in the pretence that it is right\nand possible for them to work and play at all times like boys and to be\nas independent of their sexual life as boys can afford to be.\n\nNow, it does not need much imagination to understand the harm of such\nteaching. The menstrual function\u2014which really marks the sex of the girl\nand fits her for motherhood\u2014is ignored as if its occurrence were of no\nimportance. And such an attitude of dislike and hiding necessarily causes\na feeling of shame, more or less deep according to the temperament of\nthe girl. From the very first sex is presented in the shape of something\nto be despised and desperately fought against, something secret and\ndisgusting. Even at this early stage disharmony enters into the young and\nsensitive soul.\n\nSome girls revolt in the very depths of their being, while the common\nfeelings aroused are expressed by such words as aversion and dislike,\nanger and shame. Do you not see now the harm that is done? How sadly we\nare sowing for the future. For what can be the result except to teach\nour girls a shameful disrespect for themselves. What wonder is there\nthat many girls are stirred to rebellion which takes the outward form of\nresolutely ignoring their monthly periods, and the fact that they are\ngirls. And the immediate result is a general lowering in the standard of\nsexual health.\n\nI shall be told that this is not true. But I am writing of what I know.\nMenstruation is a perfectly natural function and every girl should\nbe taught so to regard it. But at its start it does exercise a very\ndisturbing effect on the whole system and character. And the folly that\npretends that in these early years special care is not required at the\nmonthly periods cannot be too strongly condemned. For the harm is deeper\nand further reaching than the physical hurt, though certainly in our\nfolly we are making invalids of the future mothers of the race. Harm\nin many cases is done to the after sex expression; harm which probably\nis never recognised, and about which the ordinary parent and teacher\nare densely ignorant and optimistic. How little do we consider the\nconsequences of our acts? I say there is no limit and no end to the evil\nthat we are permitting. And the most fearful thing about it is that it\nall seems so wantonly needless.\n\nThe always difficult passage of the girl into the woman is alarming only\nto the girl who knows nothing about herself and her sexual life. Just\nas far as she understands does recoil and resentment and shame become\nneedless. Rightly taught, she will learn to regard her special function,\nnot as something to be hidden and ignored, but as the sign of the changes\nthat now are taking place in her body\u2014healthy natural changes that will\nfit her one day for love and wifehood and motherhood. Then, indeed, her\nshame and her aversion will be converted into pride. Understanding, she\nwill have a fitting reverence for herself. She will now know why she is\nunder certain restrictions, and has at the times of her monthly periods\nto refrain from overwork and all strain, and to give up some pleasures\nand excitements; she will do this gladly in order that her development\ninto womanhood may be without pain, healthy and complete.\n\nI believe firmly that this change in our attitude to menstruation\u2014a\nchange that will emphasise its importance to health and its connection\nwith fit motherhood\u2014a change that must start at the beginning of the\ngirl\u2019s conscious sexual life, is absolutely necessary to the development\nof a higher motherhood. At least, if it does not come, I can have no\nhope at all. You cannot gather fruit from a tree that is unhealthy at\nits root. And you cannot have glad motherhood while you start out by\ndespising the function most sacredly connected with motherhood. We must\nunderstand this. Until we do understand it, and then act in the practical\nway that will cause us to change our teaching to all young girls, we\nshall find women in ever-increasing numbers turning away from motherhood,\nand wasting in external things the realities of love and life.\n\nHow can healthy womanhood be possible within the limits and wrong\nideals of our present system, and how can they fail to give rise to\ncontinuous restlessness? I declare once more and plainly that we are\nraising a generation of girls\u2014those with whom the duties of wifehood\nand motherhood should reside\u2014who have instincts atrophied by dull\nstudies, to be followed by deadening work. I hold that this is a matter\nof the gravest concern, not only for women and men and their individual\nhappiness in union one with the other, but is also what will decide the\nfuture of this land and empire.\n\nBut few among us understand the destruction that is working in our\nmidst. We do not recognise the symptoms that mark the disharmony in\nthe lives of the great majority of the girls and young women of the\npresent generation. War has but increased the mischief. Independence in\nmaterial things has given triumph to that rebellion which our mistaken\ntraining and wrong ideal had started long ago smouldering in the souls\nof our daughters. To-day youth is in demand; the young girl can fill\nevery place. And youth has risen fearlessly and splendidly to every\nopportunity, but so quickly as not to have time to consider how much\nis being trampled underfoot. The danger of speed\u2014the filling of every\nmoment of time, always a mistake made by women\u2014has been intensified by\nthe war. The war race has provided the opportunity to live riotously and\nwastefully.\n\nOf course, it is we of the older generation\u2014the mothers\u2014who are to blame.\nWe have left our daughters in a dangerous position; we did not see where\nmodern education, with its effort to obliterate sex, must inevitably lead.\n\nEducation may be either a most helpful or a most dangerous process. And\nwhat is most to be feared is the shut-in instincts that tend to twist\nthe nature from its simple fulfilment. There is something essentially\nharmful in any failure or wrong expression of a special function. Now, we\nhave insisted upon repressions, and what we believed to be a high moral\nand efficient working character for girls, not knowing that what we so\nmistakenly were straining for was really something very like an entire\nabsence of any kind of womanly character. The real nature of girls is\nwild, and our fears have been very great. And for this reason have we\nheld that the nakedness of the adolescent\u2019s new-born womanhood must be\nclothed with conventionalities and draped with culture.\n\nIt is this fear of sex that directs our educational system: there is too\nmuch drill and too much strain. Girls\u2019 schools are governed too much, for\ngirls need, not less, but more liberty than boys. The teachers are dull\nand narrow in their own outlook and in their experience of life; they are\nnot trained to understand the needs of adolescent girls, only to teach\nthem facts that as a rule are of no real service; they do not trouble to\ntrain the inner and hidden instincts that really form character, they do\nnot even look for them; they reck nothing of early development or late,\nof the presence of strong passion or its absence; they have no kind of\nunderstanding of the unceasing action of sex, forcing its expression in\nunconscious acts, which alone give the clue to character; of all this\n(the only knowledge that matters) the teachers are profoundly ignorant;\nbut they measure out girl-humanity for the conventional standard of\nefficiency like a dressmaker measures out her material with a yard\nmeasure. There is no thought, at least none is betrayed, that the school\nis a preparation for living. No kind of training is given for the part\nthe girls will have to play in the life of sex for their own health\nand happiness and the regeneration of the race. The sexual life is\npersistently ignored.\n\nI recall reading somewhere\u2014I do not remember the exact connection\u2014how\nan official of a college for girls was questioned by a visitor as to the\nadvantage gained by the students in their after life from a university\ntraining. She answered: \u201cOne third of the students profit by it, another\nthird gain some little good, while the remaining third are failures.\u201d\n\u201cAnd what becomes of the failures?\u201d was the question asked, while the\nanswer given was this: \u201cOh, they marry!\u201d Now, I do not know if this\nexcellent story can be accepted as a fact, but it does point to a\ncontempt for marriage and its duties\u2014a contempt for woman\u2019s sex and for\nher own work\u2014which I believe is present in the thought and attitude, even\nif not acknowledged openly, among the majority of educationalists. This\nis a very serious matter.\n\nThe remedy, then, has to begin in our schools. We must control education\nwith a finer sense of its value to life. And to do this we must accept\nthe extreme importance of sex, and guard those differences which separate\nthe girl from the boy.\n\nAs a first movement of reform, I would recommend one to three years\u2019\nrest from the usual school work for every girl, during the period when\nher sexual life is becoming established. This is not, of course, to\nadvocate idleness. I am not upholding any form of invalidism for girls;\nthe adolescent always should have plenty of healthy occupation, but\nthat is a far different thing from the strain of the ordinary school\ncourse, foolishly arranged for girls on the same lines as that for\nboys, and without any regard to the important function of menstruation.\nThere should be attached to every school for girls a special class for\nadolescents, and this should be the most important class in the school.\nAt the onset of puberty the girls would enter this class, in which they\nwould stay for two years or longer. The sexual life would not be, as now\nit is, ignored; rather the chief work of the school would be the healthy\nestablishment of the menstrual function, upon which the future well-being\nof the girl depends, and to the interests of which everything else should\nfor a time be secondary.\n\nThere must be a new valuation of education, with an entire change of\nattitude, which will make possible more openness between the teacher and\nher pupils. The difficulties here will, I know, be great. If the mothers\ndo not know how to help their daughters, and usually they do not; if the\ngirls do not know how to help themselves, and dumb and untaught they are\nhelpless, the task of the teachers cannot fail to be hard. And especially\nwill this be the case wherever the mother has failed in her duty and a\ngirl has received no kind of sexual training in the home.\n\nI know of what I am writing here, and how real is the prejudice that will\nhave to be overcome. In my own school I was met with this trouble again\nand again. The girls resented any mention of their menstrual function,\nand expressed often real anger and disgust when I required them to tell\nme the dates of their monthly periods, so that I might see they had extra\nfood, more rest, and lighter studies. The answer that usually was given\nto me was this: \u201cMy mother never wanted me to tell her; I took no notice\nwhen I was at home.\u201d What an unconscious indictment of the mothers!\nOften it was after long and patient effort only that I gained my way,\nand brought my girls to speak to me naturally about this function. I had\nthe very hardest work to free their thoughts from the deeply implanted\nfeelings of shame and disgust: in many cases I failed altogether, and\nI cannot, indeed, be sure that I ever fully succeeded. Of course, my\nfailures were the result of harm that had been done much earlier in the\nhome.\n\nIt was at this time of my life, now long years ago, when these\nconsiderations were forced upon my attention by my failures with my\nelder pupils, that I was first led to desire special classes for girls\nto enter at the age of puberty, where the life, the work, and the aims\nwere separate and quite different from the ordinary school. It is so much\neasier to do the wise thing, if what you are doing is a matter of course,\nand not something you start for yourself.\n\nI am convinced of the value that would be gained for life from the plan\nI am advocating. I would begin with these special classes, but I want\nmore than that to be done. A much better course would be that separate\nadolescent schools should be provided, preferably in the country, where\nall work as well as play could be done out of doors. All girls would\nenter before the commencement of puberty, and would stay in one of these\nspecial adolescent schools for two or three years or longer. The work\nwould be organised entirely to meet the needs of the individual girl;\nthere must be no set courses of study, no hide-bound rules, and above\nall no examinations to be crammed for. In my opinion, which was formed\nfrom my own experience in my school, girls should do hardly any steady\nwork for one year before and two years after puberty; they cannot, I am\ncertain, work continuously without peril. Mental overwork or any kind\nof strain destroys the nervous resistance and tends to that irritable\nweakness which makes the rankest ground for all sexual ill health, and\nmay work to establish evil habits in ways not yet openly recognised. The\nkind of work done should be chosen by the girl herself; there should be\nfar more opportunity for rest and for play, and, while guarding against\nopportunities for harmful idleness, any kind of mental or bodily strain\nmust be avoided. Hard study, if this is necessary, will come later at the\nclose of this special school period. But I plead for all girls during the\ndifficult time of their metamorphosis from the girl to the woman to leave\nthem much more largely than we do at present to nature and to themselves.\n\nThe adolescent girl often is thought to be lazy, and when called upon\nto work she shows an exasperating dulness and inattention. This is\na natural condition when the girl is passing through the langour of\nphysical growth; she is overcome, not by listlessness, but by the strain\nof her awakening senses, and the inattention of the mind is, as a rule,\nbut a symptom of the mysterious and difficult maturing of the brain. The\napparent apathy is not real: all the girl\u2019s power, all energy of body and\nmind is being consumed by the overwhelming force of the half-conscious\nlife of instincts that are ripening within. The young girl for the first\ntime feels, though very rarely does she understand, the power of her\nnature stirring her soul. And any seeming backwardness in studies during\nthese years, as should be known by the wise teacher, leads afterwards to\nfiner progress, if only the right opportunity of unstrained development\nis given. But it is this harmony of growth that we have been disturbing\nas with persistent zeal we have educated from the outside. Little wonder\nthat we have failed. I have spoken before of the wide difference that is\npresent between the nature of the boy and that of the girl, and though\nI speak with hesitation on a question that is too complex to permit\ndogmatic assertions, the boy has, I think, a much more healthy and\nconscious knowledge of himself; a girl understands herself less, and\nhas a very dim notion of the motives of her conduct. This leads to very\ncertain danger. The thoughts of most girls are occupied with vague and\nromantic longings, much heightened by the nonsense written on love in\nthe books girls are allowed to read, stories from which every hint of\nwholesome reality has been omitted. Such false feelings, dominating the\ngirl\u2019s mind at the time of the adolescent crisis, work grave evil.\n\nWhile always thinking of love most girls know almost nothing of what love\nreally is; and certainly the strain of any sudden chance investigation of\nthe physical facts of sex is a very near danger.\n\nThat is one reason why, in a previous section, I have urged so strongly\nthat sexual enlightenment be given to the girl while she is still at the\nage when sex has no strong personal significance.\n\nThe importance of early knowledge is not sufficiently recognised. If\nfrom childhood there has been frankness between the girl and her mother,\nand they have spoken together openly of sex and the facts of birth, it\nwill certainly have happened that the chief emphasis in the mother\u2019s\ninstruction will have been placed upon the relation between the child\nand herself.[106] Such teaching may well prove a great safeguard. The\npersonal, or \u201cpleasure,\u201d element in sex will in this way not be too soon\nforced and stamped on the girl\u2019s consciousness; it will be, as it should,\ndeferred until the age of passion comes. Even then the result of the\nearlier teaching will be present to direct the desires. Love and marriage\nwill not be divorced entirely from the thought of motherhood, as so\ndisastrously happens with many girls to-day.\n\nIt is a question I must leave, though it is one on which much more\nmight be said. For I believe we have here a further explanation of the\ntriumph of the egoistical sexual desires over the parental instincts\nof sacrifice. I am altogether convinced of the deep and wide-reaching\nharm that is done, in ways that have never yet been recognised, from\nthe sexual ignorance of girls and our shameful concealments and untrue\neducation. And I have felt often that the brutal frankness of boys in\nsex matters, bad as certainly it sometimes is in its after coarsening\neffect, in many ways is better in its results than the confused silence\nand sentiment with which most girls are surrounded; it is, at least, in\nnearer touch with the facts of life.\n\nI have had considerable experience with adolescent girls. I am sure that\ntheir thoughts are more occupied with sex than they know themselves, or\nis recognised by the adults who are with them. I am speaking here of the\nnormal girl in whom the sexual impulse takes definite form during the\nearly years of puberty. It will need all our wisdom and patience to be\nable to help the girl now, if we have left her in the darkness of her\nsoul before. She is suffering the anguish of youth, reaching out for\nthe unknown ideal, which she cannot grasp, cannot even distinguish or\nconceive. There are, of course, other types of girls\u2014girls of delicate\nand sensitive temperament in whom sexual development for long may be\ndelayed. This may be due to various causes, but is most frequently a\nresult of excessive mental strain from over-pressure or unsuitable work\nat the onset of puberty, tending to de-normalise the sex-life.\n\nNow, to some parents and teachers, not understanding the results, it may\nseem that this is an end to be desired, and that such a postponement of\nthe sex-life to the years when the girl is older will be a safeguard\nagainst evils. This, I believe, is a mistake. The sex feelings are not\nabsent but hidden, and the result too often is a profound melancholy\nand a dull heaviness which may continue to spoil life. And when the\ntime comes, as come it must, and the long-repressed feelings force an\nexpression, the sex-strain is often very great, and troubles frequently\narise that could not have happened except for our interference with the\nright process of nature.\n\nOf course, whatever we do, we must expect often to fail. We are not\ndealing with anything that can be fixed; and our methods as well as our\nsuccess must vary with each individual girl. It is this personal element\nthat has not been considered. And this is why there is such need for a\nhigher and different standard in our schools, and of more knowledge and\nunderstanding on the part of all who are connected with the training of\ngirls. I know of nothing that can prepare the girl but the early teaching\nof the mother, but I think in the later adolescent years it is the wise\nteacher who can better carry on the work.\n\nThe task of the educator ought to be plain: to encourage all girls in\ntheir natural reaching out for experience and knowledge of themselves,\nnot to smother all that is individual in them under set lessons,\nnecessary perhaps and helpful at other periods of growth, but now I am\ncertain harmful, dulling the character with falsehood and the bodies with\nconstraints, and wearying the minds with overstrain through long hours\nof drudgery into a dull acceptance.\n\nThe worst influence of the school is its isolation from life.\nConsciousness, not instruction, should be the aim of education. Yet\nin all directions our girls have been led and forced into following\nmaterial consciousness, and, at the same time, they have increasingly\nlost consciousness of themselves. Realisation of one\u2019s own being\u2014how to\nproduce this by means of education\u2014that is the question. What answer are\nwe going to give?\n\nSuch a rest period in specially adapted schools as I am here advocating\nwould serve not only to establish the health of adolescent girls and fit\nthem for vigorous womanhood, it would, as I believe, change their ideal\nand remake life. In such surroundings fitted to their own needs, and with\na different valuation of the future set before them, they would have a\ntruer sense of self-consciousness; they would come to understand in quite\na new way the responsibilities and high glory of being women.\n\nThe difficulties, of course, are numerous. And, first of all, it will not\nbe easy to find the right teachers for these adolescent schools. They\nwill need to be specially trained; but training alone will not serve. The\nteachers must have had a much wider experience of life than is usual to\nwomen; they ought to have genius and a passionate love of children: they\nneed to be mothers in spirit.\n\nNecessarily, the expense of such teachers and of these special schools,\nwhich should be established in great numbers and with no thought of\nsparing the cost, will be heavy. It will be thought, I know, by many that\nthis fact alone makes the plan impracticable. I can answer only, that any\nexpenditure that will produce fit and glad mothers for the future is an\nexpense that will be met by a wise nation.\n\nI would urge that this question be approached from a practical attitude.\nOn all sides concern is being felt at the decline in the birth-rate,\nwhich has fallen one-third in the last thirty-five years. The Royal\nCommission that I have referred to already has made its investigation and\nissued its report. Much has been written on the problem, and many guesses\nmade as to the vaguely understood causes. The economists find all the\nevil in economic conditions; the religious say that it is our morality\nthat is at fault. Many are the remedies suggested, a few of which are\npractical and good. And so urgent is the matter felt to be, now that war\nwith its destruction of life is teaching us a little more the value of\nlife, that changes, long called for, but hitherto seemingly unattainable,\nshortly may be made in our divorce and marriage laws. The sharp and cruel\nline drawn between the married and the unmarried mother will at last\nwaver and break on its rotten supports. Already the saving of child life\nhas become a matter of such urgent need that much necessary reform is\nbeing accomplished. There is little doubt that these valuable movements\nwill go on.\n\nYet, I think, we are failing to attack the real cause, and unless we do\nattack it there, right at the beginning, we shall go on as we usually\ndo, experimenting in this way and in that, doing one thing and leaving\nanother undone, and we shall only tinker and fuss and then wonder why we\nfail. Blind and fools! we fail, and shall go on failing, because we do\nnot educate our girls and act in life in such a way as will encourage\nmotherhood.\n\nI have put out my idea: I have tried to be as explicit as possible in\nsuggesting the remedy. I am conscious now of opposition that will be\nraised. I shall be told that my plan, which seems so simple, of educating\ngirls to be women is not practicable. And then I shall be reminded of\nthe immense surplus of women in this country who are unable to marry and\nlive a full and healthy life\u2014a surplus large before the war, enormously\ngreater now.[107]\n\nLet me state at once that I am very far indeed from forgetting this great\nhost of enforced celibate women. I have spoken more than once in my book\nabout them, and I am not now concerned with their position. What I want\nis to save the future. Many girls and women to-day are finding their work\nand the fresh excitements of independence sufficient to gladden life.\nThey do not claim pity; yet this satisfaction that women are feeling is\nthe danger that threatens the future. It is just because these women,\nwhose desires will be fixed on work and away from motherhood, must be\nhere among us, in every place, especially in our schools and in our\nfactories\u2014everywhere in contact with youth\u2014that I am pleading with all\nthe power that I have for a quite changed training for the young girls\nof the coming generation of women. I fear greatly the influence that I\nbelieve must grow up if industrial values of what is good in life are\nunchecked, and the desire of women is turned more from motherhood and the\nlife that matters to the outside details of existence.\n\nLife must be re-shaped, and the first step is the perception of an idea.\nWe want belief, for life must have a structure\u2014the scaffolding on which\nwe may build. And each individual woman among us may not be trusted to\nmake her own structure\u2014to convey and carry whatever it may be that she\ndesires. Such selfishness makes any permanent building impossible. That\nis why in this generation we have lost our ideal.\n\nThe previous age fixed its attention on the reform of injustice in\nthe outward relations of men and women, on the regulation of capital\nand labour, on the equality of the sexes and the improvement of the\nconditions of life\u2014efforts which culminated naturally in socialism. My\nwork is one dealing essentially with an attitude towards life. I would\nprotest against the want of respect for the ultimate emotional aspects\nof life, the love of man for woman and of woman for her child\u2014a want\nof respect which makes it impossible to tell a young girl openly the\nreason why she must not over-exert herself at the time of her monthly\nperiods. I confess to little patience with this effort to escape sex.\nEverything connected with birth and maternity has to be hidden and\nmentioned only in whispers. We have forced the attention of girls away\nfrom motherhood, fixing their desires on work and independence. Obedient\nand inexperienced, they have followed our guiding. We have taught them to\nregard the physical attraction which they ought to feel towards men as\n_not nice_, thereby associating in their young minds all sexual feelings\nwithout distinction as _not nice_. We have left them ignorant that sex\nfeelings may be good or bad according to their associations. Harmful\nemotional repression has been inevitable, with a result in the after\nyears of distaste for motherhood and passionate marriage. We have made\nlove unclean and separated it from their lives. And, where love is not,\nall else is barren. I must speak strongly, for very great is the evil we\nare countenancing.\n\nThe attitude of woman herself is the deep secret of this question; and\nby attitude I mean something more than the desire of the individual girl\nor woman, I mean the collective spirit in which life is approached. That\nis where we have been wanting. We, the mothers and teachers of this last\ngeneration of women, have failed to grasp life and all that it means.\n\nWhat we have most dreaded in education is sex. We can control this\nattitude only in our schools. Emancipation can come through a regaining\nof consciousness. Get this right\u2014let our girls feel that their education\n_because they are women_ is the most important work of the nation, more,\nnot less important, than is the education of their brothers, and the rest\nwill follow.\n\nWe have by our whole attitude shown the most coarse lack of understanding\nof the needs of girls. Instruction has been the sole effort of our\nschools. This has hampered the perfection of life. Our daughters have but\naccepted and abandoned their bodies and their souls to the rollers of\nthat crushing machine we have called education.\n\nAll of us are responsible, for our thoughts and our desires affect the\nuniverse and our neighbours. Neither can any repentance that may come\nlate, nor any wailings of dismay, stop the consequences of our sinning\nfollies.\n\nI cannot lay too much stress on this sense of women\u2019s desire, for it\nis this that will direct action in the future. If we cannot have a\nfundamental change of desire, a fresh view of what is a sane, complete\nand profitable life; if we cannot cease from our fears of sex; if we\ncannot alter the ideals we place before girls and work a revolution in\nthe practice of our education, we shall do no good. There will be endless\ntalk of advancement\u2014of higher motherhood, of economic emancipation and\nfreedom in marriage; there will also be continued tinkering legislation,\nwith many timid experiments in mother-training and child-rearing, and\nunderneath the spirit of motherhood will be dying, dying all the time.\n\nBut the unbeliever will cry out: All this is utterly impossible; this\nis the old clog and degradation for women, limiting her to the single\nfunction of her sex. My answer is this. Even so it was from the beginning\nof time. Nature has so planned it, fixing the maternal instinct deep in\nthe mother, and claiming from her the payment that must be given. Woman\ncan only bow before the Throne of Life. She is entrusted with life\u2019s\nsupreme mission, that of transmitting the sacred torch of life to future\ngenerations. She belongs not to herself but to posterity. She must not\nsquander her gift. She must store her energy that she may give life to\nher child.\n\nWoman, all-containing, universal\u2014how should she be limited to herself?\nThis is my deepest belief.\n\nWoman is the giver, the interpreter. Freedom for her never can be\nidentified with self-assertion. Great elementary truths to-day have\nacquired an intensified significance. Oppression stretches like a rod\nover the earth, the world is ploughed with swords and reaped in blood.\nThe echoes of slaughter reach from land to land. The cataclysm, with its\nimmense appeal to terror and love and hate and pity, has acted to stir\nus profoundly and quicken our response to the emotional aspects of life.\nOld prejudices are rooted up; institutions are in the melting-pot. A\npeople habitually resistant to emotion, we have been awakened to reality.\nI cannot doubt that we shall profit. We were occupied in intellectual\npleasures and energies, but now our souls have been harrowed. This is\nthe great opportunity if we have the will to use it.\n\nFear has been in us the folly irredeemable, planted like seeds of the\nwild weeds among our wheat. Even in our childhood doubt has slept with\nus in our cradles, as verily we have been conceived in sin, being born\nwithout passionate joy. And this disharmony has followed us up and down\nin the home; doubt was our schoolfellow, ever following our steps in our\nwork and in our play, until fear has become our perpetual companion. I\nsee the past, the present and the future existing all at once before me,\nand I know that as soon as fear is conquered redemption is ready.\n\nThen no longer will the blessings of the Psalmist be changed by our\nfaithless folly into cursing, but again the wife shall be as a fruitful\nvine by the sides of the house and the children like olive plants around\nthe table. Behold, thus shall the woman and the man be blessed together,\nand they shall see good all the days of their life.\n\nBut this regeneration will come only through the creation of our wills.\nWithout unceasing desire nothing can be done. Desire is action. If you\nleave off desiring salvation you are lost.\n\nI tell you no virtue can be found apart from our desires. Life is the\nstruggle everlasting, unceasing sacrifice, constant aspiration.\n\nWhat is the secret, if it is not Love?\n\nThe spirit of Life is Love triumphant, the immortal force which incites\nthe struggle, makes glad the sacrifice, which stirs the desire to\nachieve. And the law of Love is as easy to state as it is difficult to\napply: it is the transforming of the will which says \u201cmine\u201d into the will\nwhich says \u201cthine.\u201d It is a law that can be comprehended only by living\nit.\n\nI shall be called old-fashioned. Yet, perhaps, after all, I see further,\ndeeper, and more surely than those who call me so.\n\nThe union of the man and the woman cleaving to each other can be the\nwonder of life. Marriage should be a blessing of the senses, a kindling\nof the spirit, a mutual surrender, and a new creation.\n\nCreation is not accomplished; it is continuous and unceasing, and in its\nwork every living thing has its share, destroying and creating.\n\nWhat is it that I desire? What is it that I expect? What is the change of\nwhose coming I feel as assured as of the rising of to-morrow\u2019s sun?\n\nI look for a regeneration of woman\u2019s instincts through consciousness.\nShe, who has conquered the world, will then renounce the world. The old\ncorruption will be swept away. Woman is the keeper of redemption; it is\nher work to lead man back to the gate of his being.\n\nWe are waiting in pain for the new liberation. Love alters everything, it\nmelts the whole world and makes it afresh. Love is the sun of our spirits\nand the wind.\n\nIs there, indeed, this glad hope of things changing? Changing? They have\ngot to change. The weeds of our mistakes have so grown up that they are\nchoking us. Yes, whether from inside or from out, I do not know yet, but\nthere is change and awakening coming. Motherhood will triumph. Life is\ngoing to be made new before long.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] _The Position of Women in Primitive Society._\n\n[2] See note at the end of the chapter.\n\n[3] The number recorded as killed up to November 9, 1914, was 109,723.\n\n[4] H. G. Wells, _Mankind in the Making_, p. 88.\n\n[5] The towns with the highest percentages are as follow: Morley 31,\nChadderton 32, Bacup 38, Stockton 34, Liverpool 38, Salford 32, Stockport\n39, Mansfield 49.\n\n[6] These quotations are taken from the _Report of the Board of\nEducation_, p. 70.\n\n[7] Night work in the textile trades was prohibited for women by\nthe factory legislation of 1844. The custom disappeared gradually\nin Great Britain and other countries. Then it was finally banished\nby international agreement from twelve European countries at the\nInternational Conference of Bonn, 1906.\n\n[8] The three systems of employment adopted are as follows\u2014\n\n    One shift of 13-14 hours (the overtime system);\n    Two shifts of 12 hours;\n    Three shifts of 8 hours.\n\nThe report strongly recommends the universal adoption of the 8-hour shift\nsystem.\n\n[9] See _The Truth about Woman_ (pp. 247-270), where this difference\nbetween the sexes is treated from a different point of view.\n\n[10] \u201cThe Insects\u2019 Homer,\u201d by Maurice Maeterlinck, _Fortnightly Review_,\nOctober 1912.\n\n[11] Fabre, \u201cThe Leaf Cutters,\u201d _English Review_, March 1915.\n\n[12] These cases are taken from Pycraft, _The Infancy of Animals_, and\nthe different works of Fabre, _Social Life in the Insect World_, _The\nLife and Love of the Insect_, _Insect Life_, etc.\n\n[13] See article by J. Arthur Thomson in _The New Statesman_, November\n1915.\n\n[14] Not all the scarabees live to see the adult growth of their\nchildren. This is done, as Fabre\u2019s observations have established by the\n_Spanish Copris_ and some related dung-beetles, which are unique among\nnon-social insects, inasmuch as the mother survives to see the emergence\nand complete metamorphosis of the family for whom she and her husband\nhave so unremittingly toiled.\n\n[15] In this connection the reader is recommended to consult C.\nLloyd-Morgan\u2019s works, in particular _Animal Life and Intelligence_. See\nalso the interesting remarks on \u201cDe L\u2019Amour Maternal,\u201d in _Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s\nAnimales_, by Alfred Espinas, pp. 172-180.\n\n[16] See Espinas, _Des Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s Animales_, especially Chapter V, \u201cSoci\u00e9t\u00e9\ndomestique paternelle,\u201d pp. 236 _et seq._\n\n[17] These cases, as well as many others in this and in the next chapter,\nare taken from Pycraft\u2019s _Infancy of Animals_. I would wish to record my\nindebtedness to this fascinating book. To prevent continuous reference\nnotes, wherever it is not otherwise stated, the reader will know the\ncases I quote have been taken from Mr. Pycraft\u2019s book.\n\n[18] The reader is referred to a small book by St. George Mivart, _The\nCommon Frog_.\n\n[19] I quote from Mr. Pycraft\u2019s account of this incident, _Infancy of\nAnimals_, p. 193.\n\n[20] Pycraft gives a short account of their habits, _ibid._, pp. 200-206.\n\n[21] _Problems of Sex_, by J. A. Thomson and Prof. Geddes, p. 20.\n\n[22] Pycraft, _The Infancy of Animals_, pp. 215-216; G. J. Romanes,\n_Animal Intelligence_, pp. 243-245, 246-247; J. A. Thomson and Prof.\nGeddes, _Problems of Sex_, p. 20.\n\n[23] _Animal Intelligence_, p. 242.\n\n[24] Pycraft. These cases, with those that follow, are again taken from\n_The Infancy of Animals_, pp. 217-219.\n\n[25] _Animal Intelligence_, p. 242.\n\n[26] Romanes refers to _Silliman\u2019s American Journal_, February 1872.\n\n[27] These cases would seem to contradict the statement made on p. 82\nthat small families occur when the young are protected by the parents.\nI cannot explain this exception. But what I have stated about the\ndependence of the birth rate on the amount of parental care is commonly\ntrue. In this connection I would quote Mr. Pycraft (_Infancy of Animals_,\np. 214): \u201cA careful survey of the facts shows us that the production of\nlarge numbers of eggs and young produces the same result as obtained\nwhere but few eggs are laid, and are either carefully guarded by the\nparents or are specially protected by some other means.\u201d\n\n[28] Quoted by St. George Mivart.\n\n[29] Pycraft, _ibid._, p. 218. The story of this excellent father and\nalso several of the other cases given are taken from Yarrell, _Brit.\nFishes_, 2nd edit., ii. p. 436.\n\n[30] J. Lewis Bonhote, _British Birds_, pp. 314-315. See also _The Truth\nabout Woman_, pp. 107, 249, 265.\n\n[31] P. Chalmers-Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, pp. 70, 109, 157.\n\n[32] Several examples are mentioned in _Darwinism_, p. 281. Wallace,\nhowever, brings them forward in quite a different connection to prove his\ntheory of the protective duller colours of the female birds.\n\n[33] P. 136 _et seq._\n\n[34] See p. 221, which is evidence that, perhaps, may be held to give\nsome corroboration.\n\n[35] An interesting account of the family qualities of birds is given by\nEspinas in _Des Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s Animales_, pp. 234-292.\n\n[36] P. C. Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, pp. 157, 158. See also about\nthe ostrich, _The Truth about Woman_, p. 94.\n\n[37] This is done to my knowledge by the male wood-pigeon, missel-thrush,\nblue-martin, buzzard, stone curlew, curlew, dottrel, sand-piper, common\ngull, black-coated gull, kittiwake, razorbill, puffin, stormy petrel,\ngreat blue heron and black vulture. There are probably good fathers among\nother species whose names I have missed.\n\n[38] Pycraft, _Infancy of Animals_, p. 62.\n\n[39] Pycraft, _Infancy of Animals_, pp. 77-78.\n\n[40] Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, pp. 160-162. Pycraft, _Infancy of\nAnimals_, pp. 63, 68, 70, 71, 75, 76.\n\n[41] The scene was witnessed by Miss Turner. I take my account from Mr.\nPycraft, who quotes from Miss Turner.\n\n[42] Mr. Eliot Howard calls attention to this remarkable conduct in his\nfascinating book on the _British Warblers_.\n\n[43] Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, pp. 149-150, 159.\n\n[44] For a much fuller account of these bad fathers among birds see _The\nTruth about Woman_, pp. 90, 104-111, where explanation is attempted. See\nalso _The Position of Woman in Primitive Society_ (American title, _The\nAge of Mother-Power_), p. 63.\n\n[45] J. G. Millais, _Natural History of British Ducks_, p. 8.\n\n[46] The habits of the penguins were first noted by the late Dr. Ed. A.\nWilson, the distinguished naturalist of the _Discovery_ Expedition, and\non his death his work was ably carried on by the Staff Surgeon, Murray\nLevick. He has come nearer to the life of the penguin than any other\ndiscoverer. See _Natural History of the Ad\u00e9lie Penguins_. Also article in\n_The New Statesman_, April 17, 1915.\n\n[47] The lowliest living mammals, the duck-billed mole and the anteater\nof Australia, still lay eggs, which they retain within their bodies until\nnearly ready to hatch.\n\n[48] This case is recorded by Mr. Chalmers Mitchell in _The Childhood\nof Animals_, the fascinating book from which I have gained so much\nassistance.\n\n[49] See _The Truth about Woman_, pp. 102-114, also _The Position of\nWoman in Primitive Society_, the theme of which book follows and develops\nthis theory.\n\n[50] Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, p. 225.\n\n[51] Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, pp. 164, 166, 225.\n\n[52] Letourneau, _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 32.\n\n[53] Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, pp. 170-171.\n\n[54] Espinas, _Soc. Animales_, pp. 120 _et seq._ The reader should\nconsult this work on the three stages of domestic societies: \u201cthe society\nconjugal, the society maternal, and the society paternal.\u201d\n\n[55] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 327.\n\n[56] In this connection see _The Truth about Woman_ pp. 110-111.\n\n[57] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 443.\n\n[58] Espinas, _Soc. Animales_. See the introductory and concluding\nchapters of this admirable book.\n\n[59] Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi. p. 422.\n\n[60] J. C. Houtzeau, _Facult\u00e9s mentales des animaux_, vol. ii. p. 394.\nThis work should be consulted, in particular, for the comparison it gives\nof the mental faculties of the animals with those of man.\n\n[61] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 399.\n\n[62] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 33. See also _The Truth\nabout Woman_, p. 109 and _The Position of Woman in Primitive Society_.\n\n[63] Mitchell, _Childhood of Animals_, p. 171 _et seq._; p. 176.\n\n[64] English title, _The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study\nof Matriarchy_.\n\n[65] I am not giving any references in support of the statements made in\nthis chapter. The reader is referred to _The Age of Mother-Power_.\n\n[66] _The Age of Mother-Power._\n\n[67] I would wish to say here that I did not consider this question\nsufficiently when I wrote _The Age of Mother-Power_. I was, perhaps,\ncarried away by the advantages to women of the maternal system of\nreckoning descent. Such a system could be preserved only under the\nconditions of the communal clan. This necessitated the absorption\nof the individual family, which must consist of father, mother and\nchildren. I hold this to be a greater evil than the wrongs\u2014great as\nthose wrongs undoubtedly were\u2014that came in family relationships with the\nre-establishment of the patriarchal home.\n\n[68] The reader is referred to a new book on feminism that has come\ninto my hands while reading the proofs of this chapter, _Towards a Sane\nFeminism_, by Wilma Meikle. The book is instructive as expressing the\nviews of the younger suffragists. Note especially the three chapters,\n\u201cSimplifying Sex Problems,\u201d \u201cHow to be Moral though Married,\u201d and\n\u201cBetween the Home and the Labour Market.\u201d One short sentence I quote\nwhich clearly shows the opinions held by the writer, \u201cThe truth is that\nMotherhood is one of the most casual of all relationships and one of the\nshortest-lived.\u201d Any comment from me on this smart folly is unnecessary.\n\n[69] The quotation is taken from the well-known book of Mrs. Perkins\nGilman, who gave the earliest expression to this false view of what is\ngood for the child.\n\n[70] _Years of Childhood_, by Serge Aksakoff, trans. by J. D. Duff.\n\n[71] See note on p. 155.\n\n[72] These were the numbers given in the debate in Parliament, April 4,\n1916, at the time of writing this chapter. They will be much, much larger\nbefore my book is finished and published.\n\n[73] For a full description of these early experiments in communal\ndwellings see _The Age of Mother-Power_, pp. 48, 103-131, 151.\n\n[74] See p. 112.\n\n[75] See p. 119.\n\n[76] See _The Age of Mother-Power_, pp. 127, 173, 178, 177-180.\n\n[77] See Iwan Bloch, _Sexual History of our Times_, p. 196, who quotes\nfrom Josef Kohler.\n\n[78] See pp. 229-254.\n\n[79] The reader is referred to the chapter on \u201cDivorce\u201d in _The Truth\nabout Woman_, pp. 352-359. I may, perhaps, also state my intention of\ndevoting my next book entirely to the urgent question of Divorce Reform.\nFor this reason I have said very little about the subject in this work.\n\n[80] See pp. 229-254.\n\n[81] See p. 347.\n\n[82] The reader is referred to the chapter on \u201cReproductive Differences\u201d\nin an instructive little book, _Preparation for Marriage_, by Walter\nHeape.\n\n[83] See p. 339.\n\n[84] See _The Truth about Woman_, pp. 326-328. Also article in the\n_English Review_, September 1913, republished as a small book in America\nunder the title _Women and Morality_.\n\n[85] _The Truth about Woman_, p. 191.\n\n[86] See p. 51.\n\n[87] This estimate of the number of Women War Workers is given by Sir Leo\nChiozza Money.\n\n[88] See p. 155.\n\n[89] Sir Leo Chiozza Money, in an article in _Tit Bits_ (October 21,\n1916), \u201cWomen\u2019s Share in Winning the War,\u201d says, \u201cAssuming peace to come\nby the end of 1917, the country will probably contain about two millions\nmore women than men of marriageable age.\u201d\n\n[90] I am here in agreement with Mr. H. G. Wells\u2019 forecast, \u201cWhat is\nComing?\u201d See his essay on _Women and the War_, already referred to, p.\n167.\n\n[91] On this question see _The Truth about Woman_, pp. 372, 373. An\narticle by Mr. W. L. George, \u201cWomen after the War,\u201d appeared in the\n_English Review_ of December 1. Mr. George gives some very interesting\nstatistics as to the disproportion between the numbers of the two sexes,\ntreating the question from a very new point of view. He shows that the\nnumber of unmarried men in England and Wales at the last census so\ngreatly outnumbered the extra women that there were \u201cnearly three men for\nevery superfluous woman!\u201d\n\n[92] I related this incident first in _The Truth about Woman_, p. 347.\n\n[93] Very interesting statistics in this connection are given in an\nadmirable monograph by Dr. Max Marcuse, _Uneheliche M\u00fctter_ (Berlin,\n1907, vol. xxvii. of the _Documents of Great Towns_, edited by Hans\nOstwald).\n\n          Marriages   Illegitimate births\n          per 1000.        per 1000.\n\n    1876     8.5             8.6\n    1877     8.0             8.7\n    1878     7.7             8.7\n    1879     7.5             8.8\n\nTaken from _Jahrbuch f\u00fcr das deutsche Reich_. This table clearly shows a\nsteady increase in the illegitimate birth-rate in direct proportion to\nthe decline in the number of marriages.\n\nIn Bavaria, again, up to the year 1868, the parishes (Gemeinden) held a\npower of veto over all wage-earners desiring to marry. In 1868 most of\nthese restrictions were abolished, and at once the illegitimate births\ndropped 12.6 per cent.\n\n[94] The reader is referred to the chapter on \u201cProstitution\u201d in _The\nTruth about Woman_.\n\n[95] By the _Affiliation Order Act_, 1914, two important changes in the\nlaw were gained (see p. 276), but little has been done in comparison with\nthe wise changes made in other States.\n\n[96] In this connection the reader is referred to a statement made in\nthe _Report of the Royal Commission of Venereal Diseases_ (p. 17), with\nregard to \u201cthe high prevalence of syphilis among unmarried mothers.\u201d\nAn examination made by Dr. Mott as to the presence of syphilis in poor\nunmarried and working-class married women found that among the former\n27.6 per cent. of the mothers were infected, while for the married the\npercentage was as low as 6.6. The Report states: \u201cThe tests in the above\ncases were carefully carried out, and the results, although based on\ntoo few cases to justify sweeping generalisations, must be regarded as\nextremely significant.\u201d See also the next chapter, \u201cThe Dangers of Sexual\nDiseases.\u201d\n\n[97] _Feminism in Germany and Scandinavia_, by Katharine Anthony. This\ninteresting little book gives a full account of the splendid Norwegian\nbill, as well as considerable information on other matters connected with\nthe unmarried mother.\n\n[98] By the _Affiliation Order Act of 1914_, two important changes in the\nlaw were gained\u2014\n\n(1) The compulsory interval of six days (a period which gave the man\nopportunity to escape) between the summons and the appearance in court of\nthe putative father was abolished.\n\n(2) The amount of the affiliation order was made payable through an\nofficial of the court (formerly it was left to the woman to collect the\nmoney), who has power, with the consent of the woman, to take action in\ncase of non-payment.\n\n[99] _The Truth about Woman_, pp. 359-374.\n\n[100] In proof of this, see the letters from the Mothers of the\nCo-operative Guild quoted on pp. 40-44.\n\n[101] The Education Committee of the London County Council, for instance,\nhave just agreed that in spite of the Report on Venereal Diseases and\nwith its recommendation to schools to give sexual instruction, they would\nin no case advise teachers to give class instruction on such matters,\nbut, at the same time, they advise teachers to give such instruction\nprivately to \u201cindividual\u201d pupils.\n\n[102] \u201cThree Contributions to the Sexual Theory,\u201d _The Infantile\nSexuality_, p. 38. Eng. trans., New York, 1910.\n\n[103] See p. 100. Also p. 222. For further information on this subject,\nthe reader is referred to the works of Mr. Walter Heape, especially _Sex\nAntagonism_ and _Preparation for Marriage_.\n\n[104] See pp. 185 and 298.\n\n[105] See pp. 100-102.\n\n[106] This is the opinion of Stanley Hall, whose wise work on\n_Adolescence_ should be read by all mothers. In this connection he\nbeautifully writes: \u201cIn this way the girl will be anchored in time to\nwhat is really the essential thing, viz. reproduction and the carrying\nbeneath her heart and then bearing children, which are the hope of the\nworld.\u201d\n\n[107] I find it estimated that by the end of 1917, of the persons aged\nfrom fifteen to forty-four in the United Kingdom, the females will exceed\nthe males by nearly two millions.\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\nN.B.\u2014This bibliography is intended as a guide to the student; it\nis merely representative, not in any part exhaustive. The books to\nwhich reference is made are marked with an asterisk, those of special\nimportance with two asterisks.\n\n\nPART I\n\nTHE WOMAN\u2019S MOVEMENT\n\nANKER, E. Women\u2019s Suffrage in Norway. N.U. of W.S.S. 1913.\n\nANTHONY, K. Feminism in Germany and Scandinavia. London, 1916.\n\nBAX, E. B. The Fraud of Feminism. London, 1913.\n\nBLEASE, W. L. The Emancipation of English Women. New ed. London, 1913.\n\nBREEVOORT, J. Haar idealen (on feminism in Holland). Rotterdam, 1914.\n\nCATT, C. C. The World Movement for Woman\u2019s Suffrage. London, 1911.\n\nCOLQUHOUN, E. The Vocation of Woman. London, 1914.\n\n*COOMARASWAMY, A. SATI: A Vindication of the Hindu Women. Reprinted from\nthe _Sociological Review_, April 1913.\n\nFAIRFIELD, Z. The Woman\u2019s Movement. London, 1911.\n\n    Some Aspects of the Woman\u2019s Movement. London, 1916.\n\nFAWCETT, M. G. Women\u2019s Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement. The\nPeople\u2019s Books. 1912.\n\nGEORGE, W. L. Woman and To-morrow. London, 1912. Article in _English\nReview_, December 1916.\n\nGORDON, H. The Prisoner: A Sketch. An experience of forcible feeding.\nLetchworth Press, 1911.\n\nGRIEG, T. B. The Militant Suffrage Movement: Emancipation in a Hurry.\nLondon, 1911.\n\n    Towards Woman\u2019s Liberty. London, 1910.\n\nHUTCHINS, B. L. Conflicting Ideals: Two Sides of the Woman\u2019s Question.\nLondon, 1913.\n\n    International Women\u2019s Suffrage. Alliance Publications.\n\nKEY, ELLEN. The Women\u2019s Movement. (Translated by M. B. Borthwick, with\nIntroduction by Havelock Ellis.) New York and London, 1912.\n\nLYTTON, LADY CONSTANCE. Prisons and Prisoners. London, 1914.\n\nMARTIN, E. S. The Unrest of Women. New York and London, 1913.\n\nMASON, B. Story of the Woman\u2019s Suffrage Movement. (Introduction by the\nRight Rev. the Lord Bishop of Lincoln.) New York and London, 1912.\n\nMAYREDER, ROSA. A Survey of the Woman Problem. (Translated from the\nGerman by H. Scheffauer.) London, 1913.\n\n*MEIKLE, M. Towards a Sane Feminism. London, 1916.\n\nNational Union of Women\u2019s Suffrage Societies Publications.\n\nOWEN, H. Woman Adrift: The Menace of Suffragism. London, 1912.\n\nPANKHURST, E. Why we are Militant. London, 1914.\n\n    My Own Story. London, 1914.\n\nPANKHURST, E. S. The Suffragette. The history of the women\u2019s militant\nsuffrage movement. New York, 1911.\n\nROBERTS, K. Pages from the Diary of a Militant Suffragette. Letchworth\nPress, 1911.\n\nROBINS, E. Way Stations. London, 1913.\n\nSHARP, E. Rebel Women. (Introduction by E. Robin.) London, 1915.\n\nSCHIRMACHER, K. The Modern Women\u2019s Rights Movement. An historical survey.\n(Translated from 3rd German ed. by C. Conrad.) New York, 1912.\n\nSTANTON, C. S. History of Women\u2019s Suffrage. New York, 1881.\n\nSWANWICK, H. M. The Future of the Women\u2019s Movement. (Introduction by Mrs.\nFawcett.) London, 1913.\n\nWoman\u2019s Press. Many Publications.\n\nWomen\u2019s Freedom League. _The Vote_, pamphlets, etc.\n\nWomen\u2019s Social and Political Union. _Votes for Women_ and other\npublications.\n\nWRIGHT, SIR A. The Unexpurgated Case against Woman Suffrage. London, 1913.\n\nZIMMERN, A. Women\u2019s Suffrage in Many Lands. 1909.\n\n\nPART II\n\nANIMAL PARENTHOOD\n\n*AUDUBON, J. J. Ornithological Biography: An Account of the Habits of the\nBirds of the United States of America. 5 vols. Edinburgh, 1831-9.\n\n*BONHOTE, J. LEWIS. Birds of Britain. London, 1907.\n\n    Vigour and Heredity. London, 1915.\n\n*BREHM, A. E. Thierleben. Leipzig, 1876, etc.\n\n    Ornithology of the Science of Birds. (From the text of Dr.\n    Brehm.) 2 parts. Columbus, Cincinnati, 1878 fol.\n\n*DARWIN, C. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Pop. ed.\nLondon, 1874.\n\n    The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. Pop.\n    ed. London, 1905.\n\n**ESPINAS, A. Des Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s Animales \u00c9tude de psychologie compar\u00e9e. Paris,\n1877.\n\n**FABRE, J. HENRI. The Life and Love of the Insect. (Translated by A.\nTeixeira de Mattos.) London, 1911.\n\n    Social Life in the Insect World. (Translated by Bernard Miall.)\n    London, 1912.\n\n    The Works of J. H. Fabre. (Translated by A. Teixeira de Mattos.\n    Preface by Maurice Maeterlinck.) London and New York, 1912, etc.\n\n*GEDDES, P., and THOMSON, J. A. The Evolution of Sex. 4th revised ed.\nLondon, 1901.\n\n    Sex. Home Univ. of Modern Knowledge. London, 1911.\n\n    Problems of Sex. Tracts for the Times. London, 1911.\n\n*HOUZEAU, J. C. \u00c9tudes sur les facult\u00e9s mentales des animaux compar\u00e9es \u00e0\ncelles de l\u2019homme. Mons, 1872.\n\n*HUDSON, W. H. Adventures Among Birds. London, 1913.\n\n    Birds and Man. London, 1915.\n\n    British Birds. London, 1895.\n\n    The Naturalist in La Plata. London, 1903.\n\n*KELLOGG, V. L. Animal Life. Twentieth Century Text Books.\n\n    Evolution and Animal Life, etc. New York, 1907.\n\n    Insect Stories. New York, 1908.\n\n*LETOURNEAU, C. J. M. The Evolution of Marriage and of the Family.\n(_Cont. Sci. Series._) London, 1891.\n\n**LEVICK, G. M. Natural History of the Ad\u00e9lie Penguins. (_Natural History\nReport, Zoology_, vol. i, No. 2, 1914.)\n\n    *Antarctic Penguins. A Study of their Social Habits. London,\n    1914.\n\n*MILNE-EDWARDS, H. Le\u00e7ons sur la physiologie et l\u2019anatomie compar\u00e9e de\nl\u2019homme et des animaux. Paris, 1857.\n\n    Histoire naturelle des insects, tom. 2. Paris, 1825.\n\n**MITCHELL, P. CHALMERS. The Childhood of Animals. London and New York,\n1912.\n\n*MIVART, ST. GEORGE. Types of Animal Life. London, 1893.\n\n    Man and the Apes. An Exposition on Structural Resemblances\n    bearing upon Questions of Affinity and Origin. London, 1873.\n\n    The Common Frog. London, 1873.\n\n*MORGAN, C. LLOYD. Animal Life and Intelligence. London, 1890.\n\n    Animal Behaviour. London, 1900.\n\n    Animal Sketches. London, 1893.\n\n    Habit and Instinct. London, 1896.\n\n    Instinct and Experience. London, 1912.\n\n**PYCRAFT, W. P. The Infancy of Animals. 1912.\n\n    The Courtship of Animals. 1913.\n\n**ROMANES, G. J. Animal Intelligence. (_Int. Sci. Series._) London, 1872.\n\n    Mental Evolution in Animals, with Posthumous Essay on Instinct\n    by C. Darwin. London, 1883.\n\nSUTHERLAND. The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. 2 vols. London,\n1898.\n\n*THOMSON, J. A. (_see_ Geddes). Heredity. (_Pro. Sci. Series._) London,\n1898.\n\n    Britain\u2019s Birds and their Nests. London, 1911.\n\n    The Haunts of Animals. London, 1908.\n\n    The Study of Animal Life. London, 1898.\n\n*WALLACE. Darwinism. London, 1889.\n\n*WARD, L. F. Pure Sociology. New York, 1903.\n\n\nPART III\n\nTHE MOTHER AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES\n\n**ATKINSON, J. J. Primal Law. _See_ Lang, A.\n\n**BACHOFEN, J. J. Das Mutterrecht. _See_ French translation of\nIntroduction by Giraud Teulon. Stuttgart, 1861.\n\n*BANCROFT, H. H. The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America.\n5 vols. New York, 1875-6.\n\n*CRAWLEY, A. E. The Mystic Rose: A Study of Primitive Marriage. London,\n1902.\n\nCUSHING, F. H. Outlines of Zu\u00f1i Creation Myths. Bureau of Ethnology, 13th\nReport, 1891-2.\n\n    Zu\u00f1i Folk Tales. Introduction by J. W. Powell. New York and\n    London, 1901.\n\n    My Visit to the Zu\u00f1i Indians. _Century Magazine_, 1883.\n\n*DALTON, E. T. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal. Calcutta, 1872.\n\n**DARGUN, L. Mutterrecht und Raubehe und ihre Reste im germanischen Recht\nund Leben. Breslau, 1883.\n\n    Studien zum \u00e4ltesten Familienrecht. Leipzig, 1892.\n\n**ELLIS, H. HAVELOCK. Man and Woman. (_Con. Sci. Series._) New ed. 1904.\n\n    Woman and Man. Reprinted from the _Westminster Review_, 1888.\n\n**FISON, L., and HOWTH, A. W. Kamclarvi and Kurnia. Melbourne and Sydney,\n1880.\n\n_Folk Lore._ Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution, and Custom. London.\n\n*FRAZER, J. G. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. 3rd ed.\n12 vols. London, 1907-15.\n\n    Totemism. Edinburgh, 1887.\n\n    Article in _The Academy_, March 27, 1886.\n\n**GIRAUD-TEULON, A. La m\u00e8re chez certains peuples de l\u2019antiquit\u00e9. Paris,\n1867.\n\n    Les origines du mariage et de la famille. Geneva and Paris,\n    1884.\n\n**GURDON, P. R. The Khasis. (Introduction by Sir Ch. Lyall.) London, 1907.\n\n**HARTLAND, E. S. Primitive Paternity: the Myth of Supernatural Birth in\nRelation to the History of the Family. 2 vols. London, 1907.\n\n    Mythology and Folk Tales. Popular Studies in Mythologies, Etc.\n    2nd vol. London, 1909.\n\n    The Science of Fairy Tales. (_Con. Sci. Series._) 1891.\n\n**HARTLEY, C. G. The Truth About Woman. London and New York, 1913.\n\n    The Age of Mother Power. (English title: The Position of Woman\n    in Primitive Society: A Study of the Matriarchy.) London and\n    New York, 1916.\n\n*HEARN, W. E. The Aryan Household. London and Melbourne, 1879.\n\n*HERIOT, G. Travels through the Canadas. London, 1807.\n\nHERRERA, A. de. The General History of \u2026 the West Indies. (Translation.)\n6 vols. London, 1827-82.\n\n*HOOKER, J. D. Himalayan Journals. 2 vols. London, 1855.\n\n*HOWITT, A. W. Australian Group Relations. Smithsonian Report, 1883.\n\n*IM THURN, E. F. Among the Indians of Guiana. London, 1883.\n\n*Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.\nLondon.\n\n*Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Calcutta.\n\n*Journal of the Ethnological Society. London.\n\nKIDD, D. Savage Childhood. London, 1906.\n\nLABOULAYE, E. R. Recherches sur la condition civile et politique des\nfemmes. Paris, 1843.\n\n**LANG, A. Social Origins: Primal Law. By J. J. Allanson. London, 1903.\n\n    Customs and Myths. New ed. London, 1904.\n\n*LETOURNEAU, C. J. M. Evolution of Marriage and the Family. (_Con. Sci.\nSeries._) London, 1891.\n\n    La condition de la femme dans les diverses races et\n    civilisations Paris.\n\nLIPPERT, J. Die Geschichte der Familie. Stuttgart, 1884.\n\n*MACDONALD, D. Africana. 2 vols. London, 1882.\n\n**MCGEE, W. J. The Beginning of Marriage. _American Anthropologist_,\nNovember 1896.\n\n    The Beginning of Agriculture. _American Anthropologist_,\n    October 1895.\n\n    The Relations of Institutions to Government. Smithsonian\n    Report, 1896.\n\n**MCLENNAN, J. T. The Patriarchal Theory. London, 1885.\n\n    Studies in Ancient History. London, 1886.\n\n*MARSDEN, W. The History of Sumatra. London, 1811.\n\n*MASON, O. Woman\u2019s Share in Primitive Culture. London and New York, 1895.\n\nMOORE, T. Marriage Customs, Modes of Courtship and Singular Propensities\nof the Various Nations of the Universe. London, 1814.\n\n**MORGAN, L. H. House and House Life of the American Aborigines.\nContributed to the _North American Ethnology_, vol. iv. Washington, 1881.\n\n    Ancient Society, or Researches on the Lines of Human Progress.\n    London, 1897.\n\n    Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family.\n    Smithsonian Contribution.\n\n**PEARSON, E. C. The Family: An Ethnographical and Historical Outline.\nNew York and London, 1906.\n\n    The Old-Fashioned Woman: Primitive Fancies about the Sex. New\n    York and London, 1913.\n\n**PEARSON, KARL. Chances of Death. Vol. ii, \u201cEssays on the Mother-Age,\u201d\n\u201cCivilisation,\u201d etc. London and New York, 1897.\n\n*PLOSS, H. Das Weib in der Natur und V\u00f6lkerkunde. 2 vols. Leipzig.\n\n    Das Kind in Branch und Sitte der V\u00f6lker. 2 vols. 2nd ed.\n    Leipzig, 1884.\n\n*RATZEL, F. History of Mankind. (Translated from 2nd German ed. by A. J.\nButler. Introduction by E. B. Tylor.) 3 vols. London, 1896-8.\n\n*RECLUS, E. Primitive Folk. (_Con. Sci. Series._)\n\n*SCHOOLCRAFT, A. History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes\nof the United States. 6 vols. Philadelphia, 1851-60.\n\n*SEMPER, K. Die Palou (Inseln) im Stillen Ocean. Leipzig, 1873.\n\n**SMITH, W. ROBERTSON. Marriage and Kinship in Early Arabia. Cambridge,\n1885.\n\n**SPENCER, B., and GILLEN, F. J. The Native Tribes of Australia. London,\n1899.\n\n**STARCKE, C. N. The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development. 2nd\ned. London, 1896.\n\n**THOMAS, W. J. Sex and Society. London and Chicago, 1907.\n\n*TURNER, S. Tibet. London, 1800.\n\n**TYLOR, E. B. Anthropology. London, 1881.\n\n    Researches into the Early History of Mankind. London, 1878.\n\n    Primitive Culture. 2 vols. London, 1871.\n\n    The Matriarchal Family System. _Nineteenth Century_, July 1896.\n\n*VOTH, H. R. Brief Miscellaneous Hopi Papers. Chicago (Field Columbian\nMuseum), 1895.\n\n*WAITZ, T. Introduction to Anthropology. (Translated by J. F.\nCollingwood.) London, 1863.\n\n*WAKE, C. S. The Development of Marriage and Kinship. London, 1889.\n\n*WESTERMARCK, E. A. The History of Human Marriage. 3rd ed. London, 1901.\n\n    On the Position of Women in Early Civilisation. London, 1905.\n\nWILKEN, G. A. Das Matriarchat bei den alten Araberro. Leipzig, 1884.\n\n**YMER. Tidskrift utgifven of Svenska S\u00e4llskapet f\u00f6r Antropologi och\nGeografi. Stockholm.\n\nZIMIGRODZKI, M. VON. Die M\u00fctter bei den V\u00f6lkern des arischen Stammes.\nMunich, 1886.\n\n\nPART IV\n\nWOMEN WORKERS; MARRIAGE; ILLEGITIMACY; VENEREAL DISEASES\n\nADDAMS, J. The Long Road of Women\u2019s Misery. New York, 1916.\n\n    A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil. New York, 1912.\n\n**BAINES, H. H. C. The Divorce Commission. The Majority and Minority\nReports Summarised. (Preface by Lord Guthrie and Sir T. Dibbin.) London,\n1912.\n\nBALDWIN. Mental Development in the Child and the Race. New York, 1913.\n\nBARRAULT, M. Le travail \u00e0 Domicile en Angleterre. Paris, 1915.\n\nBENSON, G. R. Legislation for the Protection of Women. London, 1912.\n\nBIRD, M. Women at Work. London, 1911.\n\nBLACK, C. Sweated Industry and the Minimum Wage. (Introduction by A. G.\nGardiner.) London, 1907.\n\nBLACK, C. (edited by). Married Women\u2019s Work. Report of inquiry by Women\u2019s\nIndustrial Council. London, 1915.\n\nBLAGG, H. M. Analysis of Infant Mortality. London, 1910.\n\n**BLOCH, I. Sexual History of our Times. (Translated from 6th German ed.\nby M. Eden Paul.) London, 1910.\n\n**BRAUN, LILY. Die Frauenfrage. Leipzig, 1901.\n\nBRAY, B. A. The Town Child. London, 1907.\n\n_British Medical Journal._ Many articles, especially: \u201cLegislation for\nthe Expectant Mother and her Unborn Infant,\u201d July 17, 1915; \u201cMaternity\nand Child Welfare,\u201d February 22 and April 22, 1916; \u201cReport on the Royal\nCommission on Venereal Diseases,\u201d March 4 and 11, 1915.\n\nCADBURY, E., and SHANN, G. Sweating. London, 1907.\n\nCADBURY, E., MATHESON, M. C., and SHANN, G. Women\u2019s Work and Wages.\nLondon, 1906.\n\n**CAMPBELL, HARRY. Differences in the Nervous Organisation of Man and\nWoman: Physiological and Pathological. London, 1891.\n\nCARPENTER, E. Love\u2019s Coming of Age. London, 1914.\n\n    The Intermediate Sex: a Study of some Transitional Types of Men\n    and Women. London, 1908.\n\n    Intermediate Types among Primitive Folks: a Study on Social\n    Evolution. London, 1914.\n\nCASTLE, C. S. A Statistical Study of Eminent Women. New York, 1906.\n\n    Archives of Psychology, No. 27.\n\nCHAPMAN, A. and M. Status of Women under the English Law. London, 1909.\n\nCHAPMAN, C. Marriage and Divorce. Some needed Reforms in Church and\nState. London, 1911.\n\nCHESSER, E. S. Woman, Marriage, and Motherhood. (Preface by Lady Betty\nBalfour.) London, 1913.\n\nCOLLET, C. E. Women in Industry. London, 1911.\n\n*DRYSDALE, Dr. C. V. The Small Family System: Is it Injurious or Immoral.\n(Prefatory note by Dr. Bonnie Dunlop.) London, 1913.\n\nELDERTON, E. M. Report on the English Birth-Rate. London, 1914.\n\n**ELLIS, H. HAVELOCK. Studies in the Psychology of Sex: vol. i, \u201cThe\nEvolution of Modesty\u201d; vol. ii, \u201cSexual Inversion\u201d; vol. iii, \u201cAnalysis\nof the Sexual Impulse\u201d; vol. iv, \u201cSexual Selection in Men\u201d; vol. v,\n\u201cErotic Symbolism\u201d; vol. vi, \u201cSex in Relation to Society.\u201d Philadelphia,\n1906-12.\n\n    The Nationalisation of Wealth. London, 1892.\n\n    The Problem of Race Regeneration. New Tracts for the Times.\n    London, 1911.\n\n    Essays in Wartime. London, 1915.\n\n_Eugenical Review, The._ London.\n\nF\u00c9R\u00c9, C. S. The Pathology of the Emotions. (Translated from the French by\nR. Park.) London, 1899.\n\n    La famille n\u00e9vropathique. Paris, 1898.\n\nFINOT, J. Problem of the Sexes. (Translated from French by M. J. Safford.)\nLondon, 1913.\n\n    Psychologie de la Femme. Paris.\n\nFOERSTER, Dr. F. W. Marriage and the Sex Problem. (Translated from the\n3rd German ed. by Meyrick Booth.) London, 1912.\n\n**FOREL, A. The Sexual Question: a Scientific, Psychological, Hygienic\nand Sociological Study for the Cultured Classes.\n\nGALLICHAN, W. M. Chapters on Human Lives. London, 1904.\n\n    Women under Polygamy. London and New York, 1914.\n\n    The Great Unmarried. London, 1916.\n\n*GALTON, Sir F. Eugenics: Its Definition, Size and Aims. London, 1908.\n\n    Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Law and Consequences.\n    London, 1914.\n\n    Natural Inheritance. London, 1889.\n\nGALWAY, W. R. A Review of our Present Position as regards the Prevention\nand Treatment of Venereal Diseases. Madras, 1914.\n\nGIBES, T. W. The Campaign against Syphilis. London, 1915.\n\nGREENWOOD, A. Health and Physique of School Children. _School of\nEconomics._ London, 1913.\n\nGUIBERT, G. Le Mariage et ses consequences.\n\n**HARTLEY, C. GASQUOINE. The Truth about Women. London and New York, 1913.\n\n    Women and Morality. (Reprinted from the _English Review_,\n    September 1913.) Chicago, 1914.\n\n    The Unmarried Mother. (Article in _English Review_, September\n    1914.)\n\n*HEAPE, WALTER. Sex Antagonism. London, 1913.\n\n    Preparation for Marriage. London, 1913.\n\nHERON, Dr. On the Relation of Fertility in Man to Social Status. London,\n1906.\n\nHOLLANDER, B. Nervous Disorders of Women: the Modern Psychological\nConception of their Cause, Effect and Rational Treatment. London, 1916.\n\nHOLT, E. B. The Freudian Wish and its Place in Ethics. London, 1915.\n\nHOLT, M. The Care and Feeding of Children. (Introduction by E. Pritchard,\n8th ed.) New York and London, 1915.\n\nHOOPER, W. The Law of Illegitimacy. London, 1912.\n\nHOWARD. A History of Matrimonial Institutions. Chicago and London, 1904.\n\n*HUTCHINS, L. B. Labour Laws for Women. London, 1907.\n\n    Note on Mortality of Young Children. Reprinted from _Journal of\n    Statistical Society_. London, 1908.\n\n    Statistics of Women\u2019s Life and Employment. Reprinted from\n    _Journal of Statistical Society_. London, 1909.\n\n    Woman in Modern Industry. Chapter on Women\u2019s Wages, by J. J.\n    Multon. London, 1915.\n\nJOHNSTON, J. Wastage of Child Life as exemplified by conditions in\nLancashire. Fabian Socialist Series, No. 7. London, 1908, etc.\n\nKEELING, F. The Labour Exchange in relation to Boy and Girl Labour.\nLondon, 1910.\n\nKEOGH, Sir A. (Introduction by). Manual of Venereal Diseases. 2nd ed.\nOxford.\n\n**KEY, ELLEN. Love and Marriage. (Translated by A. G. Chator,\nIntroduction by H. Havelock Ellis.) New York and London, 1914.\n\n    The Renaissance of Motherhood. (Translated by Anna E. B.\n    Fries.) New York and London, 1914.\n\n*KIRCH, E. H. The Sexual Life of Woman in its Physiological, Pathological\nand Hygienic Aspects. (Authorised translation by M. Eden Paul.) London,\nprinted in America, 1910.\n\nKRAFFT-EBING, BARON R. VON. Psychopathia Sexualis. (Translation of the\n7th German ed., by C. G. Chaddock.) Philadelphia and London, 1892.\n\nLEYS, G. A Text Book on Gonorrh\u0153a and its Complications. (Translated by\nA. Foerster.) London, 1913.\n\nLUSHINGTON. The Law of Affiliation and Bastardy. London, 1916.\n\nMCCABE, J. The Influence of the Church on Marriage and Divorce. London,\n1910.\n\n*MARCUSE, M. Uneheliche M\u00fctter. (Grosstadt Dokumente Band 27.) Berlin,\n1905, etc.\n\n*METCHNIKOFF, E. The Nature of Man. (Translation, ed. by P. Chalmers\nMitchell.) London and New York, 1904.\n\n    Essais Optimistes. Paris, 1908.\n\n*MOLL, A. Hypnotism. (Translated from 2nd German ed., _Con. Sci.\nSeries._) London, 1890.\n\n    Das nerv\u00f6se Weib. Berlin, 1898.\n\n    Die contr\u00e4re Sexualempfindung. Berlin, 1891.\n\n    Untersuchungen \u00fcber die Libido sexualis. Berlin, 1897.\n\nMORLEY, E. J. (edited by). Women Workers in Seven Professions. (Fabian\nWomen\u2019s Research.) London and New York, 1914.\n\nNAISH, E. M. Whose Children are These? Birmingham, 1913.\n\nNEWSHOLM, A. The Elements of Vital Statistics. London and New York, 1899.\n\n    School Hygiene. 14th ed., rewritten by J. Kerr. London, 1916.\n\nPARSONS, E. C. The Decline of the Family. (Chapter V in _National Life\nand Character_.) London and New York, 1894.\n\n    Marriage and Parenthood: a Distinction. (_The International\n    Journal of Ethics_, July 1915.) London, 1915.\n\nPAYNE, C. E. Women after the War and Now. London, 1915.\n\n**PEARSON, KARL. The Ethic of Freethought and other Addresses and Essays.\n2nd ed. London, 1901.\n\n**PEARSON, KARL, and ELDERTON, E. M. On the Correlation of Fertility with\nSocial Value. (University College Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs, No. 18.)\nLondon, 1913.\n\n**PEARSON, KARL. Nature and Nurture, the Problem of the Future.\n(University College Eugenics Laboratory Lectures, No. 6.) London, 1910.\n\nREMBAUGH, B. The Political Status of Women in the United States. A\nDigest of Laws concerning Women in the various States and Territories.\n(Introduction by H. S. Blatch.) New York and London, 1911.\n\nROWNTREE, S. Poverty: A Study of Town Life. London, 1901.\n\nSALEEBY, Dr. C. W. Woman and Womanhood. London, 1912.\n\n    The Methods of Race Regeneration. (New Tracts for the Times.)\n    London, 1911, etc.\n\n    Parenthood and Race Culture. London, 1909.\n\nSAUNDERS, T. W. Law and Practice of Orders of Affiliation. 11th ed.\nLondon, 1915.\n\nSCHARLIEB, Dr. M. The Hidden Scourge. (National Life Series.) London,\n1916, etc.\n\n    Womanhood and Race Regeneration. (New Tracts for the Times.)\n    London, 1911.\n\n    What it means to Marry. Questions of Sex. London, 1914.\n\n    The Prevention and Arrest of Venereal Disease in Women.\n    (Lecture at Royal Institute of Public Health.) Reported in\n    _Medical World_ of London, January 26, 1917.\n\nSCHREINER, O. Woman and Labour. London, 1911.\n\n    Thoughts about Women. (Preface by Anna Purcell.) Cape Town,\n    1909.\n\nSMITH, A. C. The Problem of Nations: A Study in the Causes, Symptoms, and\nEffects of Sexual Diseases, and the Education of the Individual Therein.\nLondon, 1916.\n\nSMITH, E. Wage-Earning Women and Their Dependents. (Fabian Society.)\nLondon, 1916.\n\nSMITH, W. G. Incompatibility and Some of its Lessons. 2nd ed. London and\nDublin, 1911.\n\n    Statistique des Familles. Paris, 1906.\n\n*STOCKER, H. Die Liebe and die Frauen. Minden, 1906.\n\nTAYLOR, G. S., and MACKENNA, R. W. The Salvarsan Treatment of Syphilis.\nLondon, 1914.\n\n**TWEEDIE, MRS. ALEC. The Women\u2019s Army. _Eng. Review_, January 1917.\n\nURBIN, E. L. A Short History of Marriage: Marriage Rites, Customs and\nFolklore in many Countries and all Ages. London, 1913.\n\nWATSON, D. Gonorrh\u0153a and its Complications in Male and Female. London,\n1914.\n\nWEBB, S. The Declining Birth-Rate. (Fabian Tract No. 131.) London, 1910.\n\nWHELHAM, W. C. D. The War and the Race. The _Quarterly Review_, January\n1917.\n\n_Woman and Child Wage-earners_, U.S.A., vols. i-xiii.\n\n**Woman\u2019s Co-operative Guild. Maternity Letters from Working Women.\n(Preface by Rt. Hon. Herbert Samuel.) London, 1915.\n\n    Women\u2019s Labour League Pamphlets. London.\n\n    Working Women and Divorce. An Account of Evidence given on\n    behalf of the Woman\u2019s Co-operative Guild before the Royal\n    Commission on Divorce. London, 1912.\n\nYULE, G. U. On the Changes in the Marriage and Birth-rate in England and\nWales during the past Half-century. _Journ. Roy. Stat. Soc._, lxix., 1906.\n\n\nPART V\n\nSEXUAL EDUCATION AND THE YOUNG GIRL\n\nADDAMS, J. Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. New York, 1909.\n\nBELL, S. A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love Between the Sexes.\n_American Journ. Psychology_, July 1902.\n\nBLACKWELL, E. Counsel to Parents. London, 1913.\n\nBREMNER, C. S. Education of Girls and Women. (Preface by E. P. Hughes.)\nLondon, 1897.\n\nBUTLER, G. F. Love and its Affinities. Chicago, 1899.\n\nCHESSER, E. S. From Girlhood to Womanhood. London, 1913.\n\nCHISHOLM, DR. Medical Inspection of Girls in Secondary Schools.\n\nCLAPAR\u00c8DE, ED. Psychologie de l\u2019Enfant. Paris, 1916.\n\nCLOUSTON, SIR T. S. The Psychological Dangers to Women in Modern Social\nDevelopments. London, 1911.\n\n    Before I Wed; or, Young Men and Women. London, 1913.\n\nELLIS, H. HAVELOCK. The Task of Social Hygiene. London, 1912.\n\n**FREUD, S. Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory. _Infantile\nSexuality_ (Eng. translation). New York, 1910.\n\nGOULD, F. J. Parent\u2019s Guide to the Sex Instruction of Sons and Daughters.\n\n    On the Threshold of Sex. (Introduction by Dr. Saleeby.) London,\n    1909.\n\nGRANT, C., and HODGSON, N. The Case for Co-Education.\n\n**HALL, G. STANLEY. Adolescence. 2 vols. New York, 1904.\n\n    Educational Problems. 2 vols. New York and London, 1911.\n\n    Youth: Its Education, Regimen and Hygiene. New York, 1906.\n\n    Aspects of Child Life and Education. (By G. S. Hall and some of\n    his pupils. Ed. by T. L. Smith.) Boston, 1912.\n\n    Contents of Children\u2019s Minds on Entering School. _Pedagogical\n    Seminary_, June 1891.\n\nHOUSMAN, L. The Immoral Effects of Ignorance in Sex Relations. London,\n1911.\n\n**KEY, ELLEN. The Century of the Child.\n\n    The Younger Generation. (translated by H. G. Chater.) New York\n    and London, 1914.\n\nLISCHNEWSKA, M. Geschlechtliche Belehrung der Kinder. Reprinted from\nMutterschutz, 1905, Heft 4 and 5.\n\n**MOLL, A. The Sexual Life of the Child. (Translated by Dr. Eden Paul.)\nLondon, 1912.\n\nMORGAN, A. The American Girl: Her Education, Her Responsibility, Her\nRecreation, Her Future. New York, 1913.\n\nSIDGWICK, MRS. H. Health Statistics of Women Students of Cambridge and\nOxford and of their Sisters. London, 1890.\n\n    Reports, Minority and Majority, of Special Commission on\n    Co-Education of the Sexes. School Document No. 19. Boston.\n\nTHOMAS, C. E. Athletic Training for Girls. London, 1912.\n\nTHOMSON, M. H. Environment and Efficiency.\n\nWOOD-ALLEN, MARY. What a Young Girl Ought to Know. Philadelphia, 1897.\n\nWOODS, A. Co-Education. London and New York, 1893.\n\n\nREPORTS\n\nAnnual Report for 1914 of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of\nEducation. (Cd. 8055.)\n\nAnnual Report for 1915 of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of\nEducation. (Cd. 8338.)\n\nBoard of Education: School Attendance and Employment in Agriculture.\n1916. (Cd. 8171.)\n\nFinal Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases. 1916. (Cd.\n8189.)\n\nAppendix, Minutes of Evidence, etc., to Final Report of the Royal\nCommission on Venereal Diseases. 1916. (Cd. 8190.)\n\nMinistry of Munitions: Health of Munitions Workers Committee. Memorandum\n4, Employment of Women. (Cd. 8185.) Memorandum 5, Hours of Work. (Cd.\n8186), and Memorandum 12, Statistical Information concerning Output in\nRelation to Hours of Labour. (Cd. 8344.) August 1916.\n\nMinistry of Munitions (Health of Munitions Workers Committee), Juvenile\nEmployment. 1916. (Cd. 8362.)\n\nReport of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration.\n1904. (Cd. 2175.)\n\nReport of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (Minority Report). 1909.\n(Cd. 4499.)\n\nReport on Sex in Industry, being Part IV of 33rd Report of the Mass.\nBureau of Statistics of Labour. Boston, 1904.\n\nThe Declining Birth-Rate, its causes and effects, being the Report of and\nchief evidence taken by the National Birth-Rate Commission. London, 1916.\n\nReport of the Proceedings of the Conference on Infant Mortality held in\nCaxton Hall, Westminster, March 1908. King & Son, London, 1908.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  A\n\n  Abolition of one home. (_See_ Home life threatened.)\n\n  Abolition of marriage. (_See_ Free love.)\n\n  Abortion, 36, 45, 217, 258, 264\n\n  Adam and Eve myth, 189-190\n\n  Adolescence, 324, 329 _et seq._, 334, 340-341, 359 _et seq._\n\n  Adolescence, Dangers of, 305-306, 333-335, 341 _et seq._, 345-346\n\n  Adolescent girls, 175, 329-347, 356-374\n\n  Aksakoff, S., 171\n\n  Alligators, 79\n\n  Ancestors, Our primitive, 143 _et seq._\n\n  Animal parenthood. (_See_ Parenthood, pre-human.)\n\n  Ante-natal deaths, 36, 45\n\n  Ants, 69, 70\n\n  Asceticism, 199, 220. (_See also_ Celibacy.)\n\n\n  B\n\n  Bastardy laws in England, 257, 258, 261, 262-263, 270, 271, 276-277\n\n  Bastardy laws in Norway, 272-276\n\n  Bastardy laws in other countries, 277-279\n\n  Bastardy laws in Scotland, 263\n\n  Bastardy laws, Reform of, 271-282\n\n  Beauty and one Beast story, 295\n\n  Bees, 69, 70\n\n  Bird parents, 60, 63, 99-114\n\n  Birds, Devotion of, to family, 103 _et seq._\n\n  Birth-rate, Decline of, 31, 32, 36, 247, 258, 263, 355-356, 357, 371\n\n  Bloch, Iwan, 192\n\n  Bonhote, J. Lewis, 100\n\n  Brauer, 83\n\n\n  C\n\n  Carbonnier, M., 91, 93\n\n  Care of young by pre-human parents, 59-135\n\n  Carnivores, 123, 124\n\n  Celibacy in men and women, 234\n\n  Celibacy, Suffering caused by, 237\n\n  Celibacy, Value of, 236\n\n  Celibate women, 372\n\n  Chastity, 194, 234, 235-237\n\n  Child, Duty to, 202, 203-204, 214\n\n  Child, Its rights, 181-183, 356\n\n  Child to be trained by experts, 169, 181-182\n\n  Child welfare, 31, 33, 35 _et seq._, 52, 247, 264, 279, 374\n\n  Children born in sin, 221\n\n  Children, Desire for, 113-114, 214, 217\n\n  Children, Dislike of, 216-217, 220, 223-225\n\n  Children killed by conditions of life, 36 _et seq._, 40 _et seq._\n\n  Children not wanted, 352, 354\n\n  Child\u2019s curiosity on sex matters, 310 _et seq._, 320-323, 324\n\n  Child\u2019s need of its parents, 181\n\n  Civilisation, Failure of, 40 _et seq._\n\n  Co-education, 332\n\n  Communal clan, 145, 149-150, 152, 155, 156, 159, 174, 191\n\n  Communal houses, 169, 181\n\n  Communal living, 173, 176, 177, 180\n\n  Companionship essential to true marriage, 209\n\n  Concealments in love sinful, 230 _et seq._, 249-254, 257, 261\n\n  Conduct, Advantages of fixed standards for, 203\n\n  Confusion in women\u2019s lives, 168, 173, 203\n\n  Connection between mother and child, 60, 61, 118-121, 147, 151, 154, 184\n\n  Contempt for woman\u2019s sphere, 363\n\n  Contrast between the family and the clan, 150-153\n\n  Contrasts between the sexes, 249-254\n\n  Co-operation between the father and the mother, 71, 105-106, 121, 132,\n    196\n\n  Co-operative child-rearing, 111-113, 167 _et seq._, 169, 176, 177, 181\n\n  Courtship, 152\n\n  Creating a home, 177\n\n  Creek Indians of Georgia, 180\n\n  Crime in the family, 108\n\n  Crime of irresponsible parenthood, 240\n\n  Crime of overworking mother, 40 _et seq._\n\n  Crocodiles, Young, 80\n\n  Cuckoo, 63, 107\n\n  Curiosity on sex matters, Child\u2019s, 310 _et seq._, 320-323, 324\n\n  Customs of male ownership of woman, 144 _et seq._, 149, 153\n\n\n  D\n\n  Darwin, 126\n\n  Death-rate, 32\n\n  Death-rate, Illegitimate, 262-264\n\n  Death-rate, Infantile, 36-38, 45-46, 287, 355\n\n\n  E\n\n  Economic conditions. (_See_ Industrialism.)\n\n  Educating girls as sexless neuters, 332 _et seq._ (_See also_ Sexual\n    education.)\n\n  Education, 34, 35, 305-377\n\n  Education, Failure of, 331-337, 341, 344-345, 371 _et seq._\n\n  Eggs, Care of, 63, 70, 80, 81, 103\n\n  Egoism in female, 19 _et seq._, 102, 119, 120, 133, 170, 183, 184, 221,\n    223, 361\n\n  Egoism in male, 64, 108, 117, 119, 121, 124, 127, 129, 143 _et seq._, 150\n\n  Egoistic factor in sex, 66, 103, 117, 150, 222, 367-368\n\n  Ehrlich, 287\n\n  Ellis, Havelock, 127\n\n  Emotion displayed by fishes, 89\n\n  Emotion, Human need of, 20-21, 135, 177, 201\n\n  Emotional view of life, Importance of, 372-373\n\n  Environment, Effect of, 62\n\n  Espinas, Alfred, 75, 79, 126\n\n  Eugenics, 197\n\n\n  F\n\n  Fabre, Henri, 55, 65-66, 68, 71, 72, 74, 76, 95\n\n  Familial groups, 125-126, 145. (_See also_ Communal clan and Familial\n    instinct.) (_See_ Parental instinct.)\n\n  Family, The, 165-186\n\n  Family, Experiments in the, 66, 70, 85, 99, 100, 109-114, 153, 165, 173,\n    195-196\n\n  Family, History of the, 141-159\n\n  Family, Ideal of, 165-186\n\n  Family, Limitation of the, 82, 122, 123, 132, 133, 194, 197, 217\n\n  Family, Reversal in duties connected with the, 60, 63, 79, 82-84, 86-89,\n    90, 92, 93, 94-95, 99-103, 266\n\n  Father, Legal parent, 155 _et seq._, 157, 192\n\n  Father-right, 159, 192-194. (_See also_ Patriarchal family.)\n\n  Fathers, Devotion of, 64-65, 70-72, 184-185. (_See also_ Family,\n    Reversal in duties connected with.)\n\n  Feeding offspring, 39, 64, 70-71, 103, 104-105, 118, 120, 147, 264\n\n  Fidelity, Conjugal, 189, 191, 196, 203, 204, 205, 210, 213, 220, 222, 297\n\n  Fish fathers, 86-94\n\n  Freud, S., 235, 315, 316\n\n\n  G\n\n  Gallinaceous birds. (_See_ Polygamous fathers.)\n\n  Games of children, 315\n\n  Geddes, Professor, 89\n\n  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd, 35, 257\n\n  George, W. L., 167, 251\n\n  Gilman, Mrs. Perkins, 169\n\n  Girls, Denial of their womanhood, 345 _et seq._ (_See also_ Adolescent\n    girls.)\n\n  Girls, Hidden life of, 334 _et seq._, 366, 368\n\n  Girls, Passage into womanhood, 360 _et seq._, 366. (_See also_\n    Adolescent girls.)\n\n  Girls, Real nature of, 362, 368\n\n  Girls, View of love, 367-368\n\n  Gonorrh\u0153a, 287. (_See also_ Venereal diseases.)\n\n\n  H\n\n  Habits, Importance of, 70, 120, 143\n\n  Hall, Stanley, 367\n\n  Hensel, Dr. Reinhold, 92\n\n  Home, Attachment of woman to the, 146\n\n  Home, Importance of, 62, 109, 165-186\n\n  Home and one family, 165-186\n\n  Home life threatened, 49, 174, 176 _et seq._, 185, 241 _et seq._, 244-247\n\n  Houtzeau, J. C., 127\n\n  Howard, Eliot, 107\n\n  Hudson, W. H., 107\n\n  Hygiene, Sexual. (_See_ Sexual education.)\n\n  Hypocrisy, 231 _et seq._, 236, 238, 257, 346\n\n\n  I\n\n  Ideal of the home, 170, 196, 243-244\n\n  Ideal of marriage, 248-249, 300\n\n  Ideals, The guide to conduct, 52, 166, 170, 203, 204-205, 210, 216, 300,\n    342, 344, 354, 372\n\n  Ignorance, Evils of, 40\n\n  Illegitimacy, Causes of, 268-270\n\n  Illegitimacy, Its connection with marriage, 267-268\n\n  Illegitimacy, Problem of, 257-282\n\n  Illegitimacy, Sin of, 259, 261, 274\n\n  Illegitimate birth the result of unhappy marriages, 268\n\n  Illegitimate child, Appointment of guardians for, 279, 280\n\n  Illegitimate child, Protection of, 259, 261, 265, 270-282\n\n  Illegitimate infantile death-rate, 261-264\n\n  Incubation of eggs, 63, 103\n\n  Independence of woman. (_See_ Freedom and woman.)\n\n  Indifference to offspring among pre-human parents, 63, 87, 100, 121\n\n  Individual family, 145, 155 _et seq._, 159, 170, 181, 185, 195, 245\n\n  Individualism, 204, 352, 372\n\n  Industrialism, 40 _et seq._, 50, 52, 170, 171, 174, 177, 182, 244, 352,\n    356\n\n  Industrial values, 352, 372\n\n  Infanticide, 128, 267, 279\n\n  Infantile death-rate. (_See_ Death-rate, Infantile.)\n\n  Infantile sexuality, 315-316, 340\n\n  Insect home-makers, 64-66, 67, 68, 70, 74\n\n  Insect parenthood, 59-76\n\n  Instinct, Action of, 21, 37, 61, 64, 70, 75-76, 199-216, 341, 356\n\n  Instincts, Atrophy of, 356 _et seq._\n\n  Instincts, Primitive, 199\n\n  Instincts, Regeneration of, 201, 298-300, 376, 377\n\n  Instruction of girls among primitive peoples, 152, 344\n\n  Instruction in sex more necessary for girls than boys, 329-339\n\n  Intellectual reformers, 166-168, 196, 197, 330\n\n  Intelligence, Connection between caring for young, 75-76, 95, 99, 131,\n    132, 135\n\n  Iroquois Indians, 180\n\n\n  J\n\n  Jealousy, 109, 121 _et seq._, 143-146, 150 _et seq._, 202-203\n\n\n  K\n\n  Key, Ellen, 272\n\n  Kinship, Feeling of, 144. (_See also_ Mother, The, in one primitive\n    family.)\n\n\n  L\n\n  Laws, Need of, to protect illegitimate child, 279-282. (_See also_\n    Mother, The unmarried.)\n\n  Lessons to be learnt from past history of one family, 142-143, 165 _et\n    seq._, 191 _et seq._\n\n  Lessons to be learnt from pre-human parents, 60 _et seq._, 76, 82-83,\n    93-96, 99-102, 112, 114, 130-135, 165, 181\n\n  Letourneau, 125, 126, 128\n\n  Letters from working women. (_See_ Women\u2019s Co-operative Guild.)\n\n  Levick, Murray, 110\n\n  Libertinage. (_See_ Profligacy.)\n\n  Life, Externalising of, 17 _et seq._, 351 _et seq._\n\n  Life, Meaning of, 135, 159, 197-198, 375-376\n\n  Love, 190, 198-200, 201, 211, 214-215, 326, 347, 376-377\n\n  Love, Art of, 298\n\n  Love-child. (_See_ Illegitimacy.)\n\n  Love, Free, 197, 202, 211. (_See also_ Sexual relationships, Irregular.)\n\n  Love triumphant, 376-377\n\n  Love, Wild, 239, 251\n\n  Love, Woman\u2019s view of, 199 _et seq._, 294-297, 339 _et seq._, 345-347,\n    373 _et seq._\n\n  Lover, The passionate, 198 _et seq._\n\n  Lovers, Responsibilities of, 224, 240, 253-254, 273, 275, 277, 376-377\n\n\n  M\n\n  Maeterlinck, M., 64\n\n  Male held to the family, 158, 183\n\n  Male the psychical mother, 85 _et seq._, 134. (_See also_ Fathers,\n    Devoted.)\n\n  Mammals, Parenthood among, 117-135, 165\n\n  Man the protector, 15\n\n  Man, Suffered selfishness of, 34, 269, 343\n\n  Marriage as it affects parenthood, 34, 248, 268\n\n  Marriage, A religious duty, 199\n\n  Marriage, Christian view of, 199-200\n\n  Marriage, Difficulties of, 198, 211, 212\n\n  Marriage, Immorality in connection with, 200, 202, 209, 213, 230\n\n  Marriage, Late, 236, 237, 267-268, 294\n\n  Marriage, Maternal, 150-152, 153, 156, 191, 245\n\n  Marriage, Some people unsuited for, 209, 211-212, 221, 222-223, 230, 239\n\n  Marriage, Various forms of, 133, 145, 154, 156, 191, 194\n\n  Marriages, Causes of unhappiness in, 342, 344\n\n  Maternal communism. (_See_ Communal clan.)\n\n  Maternal family. (_See_ Matriarchate.)\n\n  Maternal instinct, 34, 37 _et seq._, 61, 70, 79, 80, 84 _et seq._, 99,\n    123, 216-217, 221, 222\n\n  Maternal instinct in the making, 55, 70, 85, 101, 131. (_See also_\n    Parenthood, Pre-human.)\n\n  Masturbation, 339\n\n  Matriarchate, 141 _et seq._, 150, 152\n\n  Megapode, 63\n\n  Meikle, Wilma, 168\n\n  Menstruation, Importance of, 357, 359-360, 363-364\n\n  Menstruation, Our neglect of, 353, 356, 357-364\n\n  Metchnikoff, 143\n\n  Militancy, 14, 19 _et seq._\n\n  Millais, T. G., 109\n\n  Mivart, St. George, 81, 91\n\n  Money, L. Chiozza, 241, 246\n\n  Monkeys, 119, 123, 127, 144\n\n  Monogamy among the animals, 73, 74, 109, 126-127, 128\n\n  Monogamy, Desire for, 193 _et seq._, 195, 202, 203, 204-205, 209, 238\n\n  Monogamous marriage, 158, 189-205, 209 _et seq._, 230, 238, 248\n\n  Monogamy, Woman\u2019s inclination towards, 189-190\n\n  Moral standards, Necessity for, 203, 204\n\n  Mother-age. (_See_ Matriarchate.)\n\n  Mother, Descent reckoned through, 152\n\n  Mother egoism. (_See_ Egoism, Female.)\n\n  Mother, Our neglect of the, 35 _et seq._, 40 _et seq._, 46, 353 _et\n    seq._, 356, 357\n\n  Mother, The, in one primitive family, 141-159\n\n  Mother, The unmarried, 257-282\n\n  Motherhood, Decay of, 35 _et seq._, 40 _et seq._, 215 _et seq._, 256, 364\n\n  Motherhood degraded, 35 _et seq._, 40 _et seq._, 99-102, 107, 123, 182,\n    214, 217, 223-225, 347\n\n  Motherhood, Enlightened, 33, 181, 360, 374, 377\n\n  Motherhood, Healthy, 40-44, 50\n\n  Motherhood, Saving of, 34, 52-53, 185-186\n\n  Motherhood, Shirking of, 356\n\n  Motherhood, Some women unsuited for, 221-222, 223-225\n\n  Mother-instinct. (_See_ Maternal instinct.)\n\n  Mother-right, 154. (_See also_ Matriarchate.)\n\n  Mothers injured through work, 40-41, 354\n\n  Mothers, Neglectful, 66, 87-88, 99-102, 107-108\n\n  Mother-woman, 221 _et seq._\n\n  Munition workers, 46-53, 240\n\n\n  N\n\n  Nervous energy, Importance of, for women, 50-52, 353 _et seq._\n\n  Nestmaking, 65, 67, 79, 80, 82, 84, 90, 91, 102, 107-108\n\n  New generation of young women, 351-352\n\n  Newts, 85\n\n  Noguchi, 287\n\n  Nursing offspring. (_See_ Feeding offspring.)\n\n\n  O\n\n  Obsessions, 316\n\n  Offspring cared for by father. (_See_ Fathers, Devoted.)\n\n  Ostrich, 103\n\n\n  P\n\n  Parent hunger, 113-114, 214\n\n  Parental conduct. (_See_ Intelligence, Connection between caring for\n    young.)\n\n  Parental conduct dependent on the sexual appetite, 102, 221 _et seq._,\n    368\n\n  Parental duties, Neglect of, weakens family, 107\n\n  Parental instinct, 34, 60, 61, 62, 70, 81, 91, 94 _et seq._, 105, 106,\n    130, 196, 214, 221, 368\n\n  Parental instinct, Diversity of, 62, 94, 99, 132, 134\n\n  Parental instinct not fixed in the mother, 79, 89, 99-102, 130, 184, 223\n\n  Parental instinct, Strength of the, dependent on expression, 94, 135, 196\n\n  Parental sacrifice, 63, 64-65, 66, 70-73, 103 _et seq._, 106, 221\n\n  Parental sacrifice more common with mother than father, 66, 171-173, 185\n\n  Parenthood, Difference between human and pre-human, 61, 130\n\n  Parenthood, Pre-human, 34, 37, 130, 135\n\n  Parents, Bad, 107, 182-183, 221 _et seq._\n\n  Paternal instinct. (_See_ Fathers, Devoted.)\n\n  Patriarchal family, 68-69, 127, 143 _et seq._, 150, 156 _et seq._, 166,\n    171-173, 185\n\n  Patriarchal family. (_See_ Advantages of.) 157-159, 170, 173, 185,\n    191 _et seq._, 203\n\n  Paul, Jean, 306\n\n  Penang, Highlanders of Sumatra, 180\n\n  Penguins, 109-114, 181\n\n  Phalaropes, 100, 102, 224\n\n  Pleasure factor in love, 221, 222\n\n  Polygamy, 154, 193-195\n\n  Polygamy connected with desire for offspring, 87, 88, 148\n\n  Polygamous fathers, 101, 108-109, 124 _et seq._, 126, 127, 133\n\n  Polygamy, Legalised, 191, 195, 213\n\n  Polyandrous mothers, 101, 133, 223\n\n  Polyandry, 154-155\n\n  Position of the father under matriarchy, 151, 191\n\n  Position of the mother under patriarchy, 171-172, 192\n\n  Primitive human family, 141-159\n\n  Problem of education. (_See_ Education.)\n\n  Production, Prodigality of, 82, 123\n\n  Profligacy, 193, 202, 210, 215, 230, 281, 343\n\n  Prostitute, The natural, 221\n\n  Prostitution, 230, 239, 250, 252, 285-286, 306\n\n  Prudery, 48, 308, 357\n\n  Prurience, 308, 309, 320\n\n  Psalmist on blessings of home, 376-377\n\n  Psychological meaning of the combination of man and woman, 331-332\n\n  Pueblos of New Mexico, 180\n\n  Puritan views of sex, 218, 346\n\n  Purpose, Women\u2019s want of, 180, 290\n\n  Pycraft, 68, 80, 82, 84, 89, 90, 92, 101, 104, 106\n\n  Python mother, 80\n\n\n  R\n\n  Race-protecting instinct, 22\n\n  Racial duty, 102, 175, 202, 214, 262 _et seq._, 265, 285 _et seq._, 354,\n    374-377\n\n  Remedy, The, 351-377\n\n  Repression, Dangers of, 21, 202, 261, 317, 339, 340, 355, 373\n\n  Reptile parents, 63, 79-86\n\n  Response to life, Deadening of the, 351 _et seq._\n\n  Rodents, 129\n\n  Romance, Dangers of, for girls, 295, 338, 366\n\n  Rousseau, 306\n\n\n  S\n\n  Sacrifice, Woman\u2019s obligation of, 15, 129, 145, 376\n\n  Salamander parents, 85\n\n  Salzmann, 306\n\n  Saving of infant life. (_See_ Child welfare.)\n\n  Scharlieb, Dr. Mary, 355\n\n  Schneider, 91\n\n  Schools for girls, 35, 334, 341, 362, 370\n\n  Schools, Special adolescent, 363-371\n\n  Secondary sexual characters, 73, 84, 134\n\n  Secret sexual relationships, 229-254\n\n  Seduction, 269\n\n  Self-assertion the modern disease, 17 _et seq.___, 171, 241 _et seq._,\n    352\n\n  Servants, Danger of, with boys, 311, 312\n\n  Sex antagonism, 242, 331, 343\n\n  Sex, Fear of, 307, 308 _et seq._, 313, 315, 320, 324-326, 329, 331, 339,\n    343, 346, 357, 362, 373, 375\n\n  Sex hunger, 100, 101, 146, 201, 213, 215, 232\n\n  Sex, Importance of, 99, 172, 213, 215, 231, 232, 235, 236\n\n  Sex needs, 232 _et seq._, 234-235, 251\n\n  Sex, Reverence for, 326\n\n  Sex, Unceasing action of, 362\n\n  Sexes, Differences between, 17, 18, 19, 27, 60, 73, 145, 189, 234-235,\n    331-332, 342, 366, 368\n\n  Sexes, Disproportion in numbers of, 230, 245, 351\n\n  Sexual abstinence, 232, 236. (_See_ Celibacy.)\n\n  Sexual an\u00e6sthesia, 342\n\n  Sexual association. (_See_ Marriage, Various forms of.)\n\n  Sexual contrast, 199, 231\n\n  Sexual diseases. (_See_ Venereal diseases.)\n\n  Sexual disharmonies, 197, 235, 239, 317, 339, 345, 346\n\n  Sexual education, The child\u2019s, 289, 305-326, 367\n\n  Sexual education, The girl\u2019s, 268, 290, 294, 329-346, 366 _et seq._\n\n  Sexual friendships, 198, 230 _et seq._, 238, 249-255. (_See also_ Sexual\n    relationships, Irregular.)\n\n  Sexual happiness, 195, 229, 250, 335, 342, 354\n\n  Sexual health, 235, 285 _et seq._, 316, 329, 335, 362, 365\n\n  Sexual ignorance, 42-43, 199, 220, 222, 232, 243, 260, 268, 305-377\n\n  Sexual impulse, 214, 306, 330, 333 _et seq._, 345-347, 368\n\n  Sexual life, Liberation from, 168, 201\n\n  Sexual life, Neglect of, 34, 47-48, 201, 212, 213, 229, 231, 290, 298,\n    330 _et seq._, 342, 362-363, 368-369\n\n  Sexual nature, Woman\u2019s, 18, 199, 221, 224, 234-236, 239, 298, 341, 353,\n    357 _et seq._\n\n  Sexual relationships, Irregular, 34, 193, 195, 202, 210-211, 213,\n    229-254, 257, 260, 285, 357\n\n  Sexual relationship not a private matter, 237 _et seq._\n\n  Sexual relationships, Open declaration of, 237 _et seq._, 249-254, 257\n\n  Sexual sacrifice, 297\n\n  Sexual sin, Man\u2019s responsibility for, 292 _et seq._\n\n  Sexual superiority, 149, 199, 244, 311\n\n  Sexual transformation, 86-89, 99-102, 134, 333, 334, 354\n\n  Shaw, Bernard, 167\n\n  Siren type of woman, 221 _et seq._, 224-225\n\n  Social colonies, 68 _et seq._, 109. (_See also_ Communal clan.)\n\n  Sociability dependent on weakness, 127\n\n  Species where young are tended by the father. (_See_ Reversal in the\n    family duties.)\n\n  Stability of the home, 165, 179\n\n  Standard of conduct, 344\n\n  Sterile unions, 249\n\n  Sticklebacks, Devoted fathers among, 86-89, 94, 109\n\n  Sticklebacks, Unnatural mothers among, 87-88, 94\n\n  Still-births, 36, 45, 262\n\n  Suffrage martyrs, 25\n\n  Suffrage movement, 13-28\n\n  Syphilis, 272, 287. (_See also_ Venereal diseases.)\n\n\n  T\n\n  Taboos, Sexual, 150, 331\n\n  Tadpoles, 82, 84\n\n  Termites. (_See_ Ants.)\n\n  Thomson, J. Arthur, 70, 89\n\n  Toads, 83\n\n  Totem marks, 150\n\n\n  U\n\n  Unconscious, The, 235, 339-340, 346, 354\n\n  Union, Form of, between the sexes, 62, 73-74, 133. (_See also_ Sexual\n    relationships, Irregular.)\n\n  Unmarried mother. (_See_ Mother, The unmarried.)\n\n  Urban life, Effect on motherhood, 37 _et seq._\n\n\n  V\n\n  Variability of the male, 121\n\n  Venereal diseases, 200, 213, 250, 272, 285-300\n\n  Venereal diseases, Commission, 286-292, 308\n\n  Venereal diseases, Dangers of secrecy, 286, 288, 292 _et seq._\n\n  Venereal diseases, Woman\u2019s responsibility for, 292-300\n\n  Visiting-husbands, 150, 151, 245\n\n  Voeltzkow, 80\n\n  Votes for women, 197. (_See also_ Suffrage movement.)\n\n\n  W\n\n  Wage-earning woman, The ideal, 170, 241 _et seq._, 246, 373\n\n  Wallace, R., 100\n\n  War as impetus to action, 31, 247, 258, 263, 371, 375\n\n  War, Effect of, on woman\u2019s position, 14-17, 26-28, 31 _et seq._, 46 _et\n    seq._, 174, 179 _et seq._, 212, 241 _et seq._, 244-247, 251, 351, 355\n\n  War, The Great, 14, 26, 27-28, 31 _et seq._, 247, 291, 375\n\n  Wasps, Social, 69\n\n  Wasserman, 287\n\n  Wastage of life from war, 32, 36, 212, 245, 247, 258, 263, 371\n\n  Waste, The sin of, 31, 36 _et seq._, 51, 59, 175, 212, 258, 265, 270\n\n  Wedekind, Frank, 305\n\n  Wells, H. G., 38, 167, 168\n\n  Wife, Coldness of, 296, 342-343, 344\n\n  Wilson, Dr. Ed. A., 110, 114\n\n  Woman, Character of, 189 _et seq._, 191, 215 _et seq._, 234, 240, 345\n\n  Woman, Desertion of the, 251-260\n\n  Woman, Entrusted with life\u2019s supreme mission, 374 _et seq._\n\n  Woman, Maternal type of, 267 _et seq._\n\n  Woman, The domesticator of man, 150 _et seq._\n\n  Woman\u2019s attitude to life, 373 _et seq._\n\n  Woman\u2019s demand to live her own life, 18, 21, 172, 179, 216, 351-353\n\n  Woman\u2019s movement, The, 18 _et seq._, 27-28\n\n  Woman\u2019s power over man, 190-191, 344, 377\n\n  Woman\u2019s position in the primitive family, 145-149\n\n  Woman\u2019s primary qualities, 60, 179, 345 _et seq._\n\n  Woman\u2019s undervaluation of herself, 19, 28, 190, 201, 335, 345, 352\n\n  Women and Freedom, 168, 375 _et seq._\n\n  Women, The desire of, 203, 210, 241, 243 _et seq._, 244, 246, 354, 372,\n    373, 374, 376\n\n  Women, Types of, 221-225\n\n  Women, Unsatisfied, 351\n\n  Women\u2019s Co-operative Guild (maternity letters), 40-44\n\n  Women\u2019s desire for excitement, 19, 21 _et seq._, 28\n\n  Women\u2019s need for experience, 19, 21-23, 27-28\n\n  Work and women, 15, 17, 18, 28, 35, 40 _et seq._, 46 _et seq._, 51, 170,\n    174 _et seq._, 179, 240 _et seq._, 348, 372\n\n  Work, Bad conditions of, 40 _et seq._, 175, 258, 352-354\n\n  Workers, Munition, 46-52, 240\n\n\n  Y\n\n  Youth, Importance of, 122-123, 361. (_See also_ Sexual education.)\n\n  Youth, Our sins towards, 290, 305, 306, 345-347, 361, 374 _et seq._","title":"Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":107490}