{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69734/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69734","id":"gutenberg_69734","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69734","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Health & Medicine","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Women","Women -- Social and moral questions"],"text":"LYSISTRATA\n\n\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                      TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW SERIES\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n    _D\u00c6DALUS, or Science and the Future_\n        By J. B. S. Haldane\n\n    _ICARUS, or The Future of Science_\n        By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.\n\n    _THE MONGOL IN OUR MIDST_\n        By F. G. Crookshank, M.D. _Fully Illustrated_\n\n    _WIRELESS POSSIBILITIES_\n        By Prof. A. M. Low. _With four Diagrams_\n\n    _NARCISSUS, or The Anatomy of Clothes_\n        By Gerald Heard. _Illustrated_\n\n    _TANTALUS, or The Future of Man_\n        By Dr F. C. S. Schiller\n\n    _THE PASSING OF THE PHANTOMS_\n        By Prof. C. J. Patten, M.A., M.D., Sc.D., F.R.A.I.\n\n    _CALLINICUS, A Defense of Chemical Warfare_\n        By J. B. S. Haldane\n\n    _QUO VADIMUS? Some Glimpses of the Future_\n        By E. E. Fournier d\u2019Albe, D.Sc., F.Inst.P.\n\n    _THE CONQUEST OF CANCER_\n        By H. W. S. Wright, M.S., F.R.C.S.\n\n    _HYPATIA, or Woman and Knowledge_\n        By Dora Russell (Hon. Mrs. Bertrand Russell)\n\n    _LYSISTRATA, or Woman\u2019s Future and Future Woman_\n        By A. M. Ludovici\n\n    _WHAT I BELIEVE_\n        By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.\n\n                            _In Preparation_\n\n    _PERSEUS, of Dragons_\n        By H. F. Scott Stokes, MA.\n\n    _THE FUTURE OF SEX_\n        By Rebecca West\n\n    _THE EVOCATION OF GENIUS_\n        By Alan Porter\n\n    _AESCULAPIUS, or Disease and The Man_\n        By F. G. Crookshank, M.D.\n\n                    _Other Volumes in Preparation._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                        +E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY+\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n                               LYSISTRATA\n\n                                   OR\n\n                           Woman\u2019s Future and\n                              Future Woman\n\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n\n                          ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI\n\n                 _Author of \u201cWoman: a Vindication,\u201d \u201cA\n                     Defence of Aristocracy\u201d; etc._\n\n\n\n                            WITH FOREWORD BY\n\n                       NORMAN HAIRE, CH.M., M.B.\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n                                NEW YORK\n                         E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n                            681 FIFTH AVENUE\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1925\n\n                       By E. P. DUTT\u039f\u039d & COMPANY\n\n                                -------\n\n                         _All Rights Reserved_\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                FOREWORD\n\n                      LETTER FROM DR NORMAN HAIRE\n\n\nMY DEAR LUDOVICI,\n\nIt has been a great pleasure for me to read _Lysistrata_\u2014it is so\nstimulating. Whether one agrees with your views or not (and I disagree\nwith many of them), the book impels one to re-examine one\u2019s standards of\nvalue, and that is the highest function a book can perform.\n\nPerhaps I am prejudiced, but to me you seem very hard on the medical\nprofession. With the present idiotic system of paying the doctor better\nfor illness than for health the wonder is, not that we doctors have so\nmany faults, but that we have so few. In a saner age we shall get a\nretaining fee for keeping each person or group of persons well, and so,\nin order to avoid excessive work, if for no higher motive, we shall aim\nat preventing disease rather than at alleviating it. To a large extent\nwe do that now, in spite of the fact that it takes money out of our\npockets.\n\nYour exhortation to breast-feed babies is backed by all but a few\ncranks, and I find your suggestion to make confinement easier by proper\ndiet during pregnancy very interesting. I remember that at the obstetric\nhospital at which I was trained we used to notice that patients who had\nbeen on special treatment for albuminuria had, in general, easy\nconfinements. It is very significant, from the standpoint of your\nsuggestions, that in the diet of these patients the protein element had\nbeen very greatly reduced. I shall follow up your idea and let you know\nthe result.\n\nI am sure you are right when you say \u201cSound and desirable women cannot\nbe happy unmated.\u201d The fact that there are some women who can does not\ninvalidate the general truth\u2014they are atypical.\n\nAnother of your phrases I would that you should trumpet forth in a voice\nthat should reach to the uttermost ends of the earth: \u201cStrictly\nspeaking, moral depravity is no more voluntary than physiological\ndepravity.\u201d I am confident that as Science advances the former will be\nfound always to depend on the latter.\n\nIn speaking of the unfit, infanticide, and concubinage, your frankness\nis splendid, though on my pet subject, Birth-Control, I disagree with\nyou. There can be no doubt that much of our present-day\n\u201chumanitarianism\u201d only results in wasting on the hopelessly unfit money\nand care which might be spent very profitably on the fit, and in keeping\nalive those who should never have been born. With the decay of\nsentimentalism, infanticide must come to be practised on those who at\nbirth are obviously below a (variable) minimum standard, and\nsterilization (destruction of fertility without interference with sexual\npotency or pleasure) on those whose deficiency becomes unmistakable only\nat a more advanced age. Contraception will be used mainly to ensure an\noptimum interval between births in the interest of both mother and\nchild, and to limit the offspring to a (variable) number most suitable\nin the individual, financial, and social circumstances of each family.\n\nSome modification of our present marriage-arrangement is inevitable, and\nconcubinage seems quite a probable solution. At present we pretend to be\na monogamous people in spite of widespread fornication and adultery,\novertly with prostitutes and covertly with \u201camateurs.\u201d But sooner or\nlater we shall have to drop the pretence and admit that men are\npolygamous. (A few men are monogamous, and a few women polyandrous, but\nboth are exceptions.) Surely it would be better to allow every woman to\nhave half a husband, if she wants to, and remain respectable, than to\ngive half the women a whole husband and the others no share in a husband\nat all.\n\nFor this book you will probably be denounced as a daring and fantastic\nvisionary, and I shall be blamed as an aider and abettor, but that\ndoesn\u2019t matter. It will have stimulated many unthinking people to a\nre-examination of their table of values.\n\n                    Ever yours,\n\n                         NORMAN HAIRE\n\n_90, Harley Street, W._\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n                         VALUES DIRECT SCIENCE\n\n\nFROM a brief survey of his fellow-countrymen, there are many strange\nlessons to be learnt in England to-day, by anyone who keeps his eyes\nopen and is on his guard against taking too much for granted.\n\nThe observer has only to exchange a few words with the men, women, and\nchildren he passes by, and to look into their faces\u2014no more is required\nto tell him all he wishes to know. Nor will he need to have a very high\nstandard of human beauty to feel disappointed by the features of the\ngreat majority, while the most elementary knowledge of psychology and\nhygiene will enable him to see from their behaviour and expressions that\nthey are very largely harassed, unhealthy and badly fed (_i.e._, not\nstarving, but improperly nourished).\n\nBut among the first of the curious facts he will notice is this\u2014that\nlarge masses of his fellow-countrymen appear to have become so\nthoroughly accustomed to living their lives with the help of every\nvariety of artificial aids that the latter no longer provoke either\nshame or concern.\n\nFor instance, men and women\u2014young and old\u2014constantly pass by wearing\nglasses, and they look quite cheerfully and confidently up through these\noptical aids when they are addressed. To speak to others in the crowd,\nand to see them smile, is to recognize instantly that some or all of\ntheir teeth are bad or false. But they smile with just as much\nconviction, whether their dentition happens to be natural or\nmanufactured. Numbers of the younger adults and children about have upon\ntheir faces, in the region of their eyes and brows, certain tiny, almost\nimperceptible, scars, revealing the fact that they were brought into the\nworld by means of obstetric instruments. And countless others there are\nwhose birth was just as artificial, though they bear no marks to show\nit. But no one seems to trouble, or to inquire how such frequent\ninterference with a natural function might be avoided. Everywhere people\nare seen shaking hands, and sincerely proclaiming themselves \u201cQuite\nwell,\u201d when that very morning, and many previous mornings, their\nintestines have functioned only through the agency of some widely\nadvertized artificial aid. But none of them feels guilty of any grave\ninaccuracy in declaring himself well in the circumstances.\n\nMothers can be seen by the hundred thousand, serenely wheeling in\nperambulators, or leading by the hand, infants and children, not one of\nwhom has ever put its lips to a human breast. The advertisements\nrecommending the artificial foods on which these infants and children\nhave been reared can be read on every boarding. But it never occurs\neither to the mothers themselves, or to the children, or to the\nonlookers, to consider whether this state of affairs is of a kind that\njustifies so much self-complacency, good cheer, indifference, and\napparent contentment.\n\nThese indications of a highly standardized life, revealing almost\nuniversal imperfections of some kind in our bodies and their functions,\nare now so common, so much a commonplace in our midst, that nobody\nnotices them, nobody mentions them as odd, and certainly nobody seems to\nshow any concern or alarm about their monotonous frequency.\n\nMention might be made of other less obvious aids to normal functions\nwhich are in daily use among the population of these islands; but, since\nwe are speaking of the lessons that may be learned by an ordinary\nobserver who keeps his eyes and ears open in our streets and lanes, we\nmay well confine ourselves to the obvious.\n\nNow, since all marked uniformity can result only from holding similar\nfundamental views, similar general principles, in common, if our\nwanderer wishes to pursue his observations he may be led to inquire from\nwhat substratum of guiding rules, from what basic values, this\nuniformity arises. If he is right in concluding that the population he\nsees about him\u2014the people who are regarded as well and healthy, not the\npeople who crowd our hospitals, asylums, and homes for cripples and\nincurables!\u2014are largely sub-normal, or sub-human, in the sense that they\nare neither complete bodily nor capable of functioning without\nartificial aids; if, moreover, he is right in thinking that they do not\nseem to be much perturbed about their sub-humanity, he may wish to know\nthe nature of the atmosphere in which their thoughts and ideals are\nformed. Their readiness to declare themselves \u201cquite well,\u201d or \u201cquite\nfit,\u201d simply on the strength of their not being under a doctor, or on a\nsick-bed, is singular. The question they ask themselves is not \u201cAm I\nreally quite fit or well?\u201d but \u201cAm I just able to discharge my daily\nduties, walk about, shop, have a family, and take ordinary meals?\u201d If\nthey can answer this question in the affirmative, they reply with no\nconscious insincerity that they are quite fit.\n\nEvidently, then, among this population of to-day there is no severe\nstandard of good bodily condition, no cultivated taste about it. Or, if\nthere is, it is surprisingly low.\n\nDefective functioning and incomplete bodily equipment no longer debars\nanybody from regarding himself, or from being regarded by others, as\ndesirable and normal. Even in the vital matter of mating, this is so\u2014how\nmuch more customary it must be, therefore, in less vital matters! Stand\nup, smile, and agitate your four limbs to indicate that they are intact\nand still movable, and that is enough. The bias against a whole list of\ndefects and blemishes has completely disappeared.\n\nMoral depravity is still stigmatized. About physiological depravity,\nhowever, the world is frivolously indifferent. In the popular novels,\nwhich best reflect the spirit of the age, the heroine rejects a suitor,\nnot because he has false teeth or chronic dyspepsia or varicose\nveins\u2014such things are so common that they are never mentioned; but\nbecause he is \u201cselfish,\u201d or lacking in chivalry, or in \u201ca sense of\nhumour.\u201d The hero whom she accepts may be less healthy, less complete\nanatomically than the man she rejects. He may also function less\nnormally, have two or three false teeth and a furred tongue\u2014in fact, he\nmay be in every respect a much less desirable potential sire; but she\nconsiders his \u201csoul,\u201d as the expression goes; and every reader is\nsatisfied that she behaves in the best possible way.\n\nThe spiritual atmosphere of our population, therefore, is one in which\nall stress seems to be laid on the soul, in which the severe standards\nare soul standards, and in which the importance of the body and its\ncompleteness are almost entirely overlooked. As an instance of this, it\nis interesting to note that there is no such thing to-day as a guilty\nconscience about bodily depravity. The results of hundreds of years of\nsteady moralization has ended at last in the condition known as \u201cguilty\nconscience\u201d becoming restricted entirely to the soul and to the moral\nlife. To say that so-and-so \u201ccan\u2019t help it,\u201d immediately stifles\ncriticism and arrests nausea. This alone shows how purely moral our\noutlook is. Least of all are people able to despise themselves when\ntheir own teeth are false, or when they habitually assist normal\nfunctioning by means of artificial aids.\n\nAnd in all these matters the unanimity of the modern civilized world is\nso striking that the conclusion is forced upon us that here we are\nconfronted with the outcome of certain ruling and fundamental values\nwhich must be common to all the people we have been discussing. From the\nnature of the uniform attitude to which these values have led, we are\nalso obliged to infer that they must have taught at least two very\ndefinite doctrines with unswerving consistency\u2014(a) the over-emphasis of\nthe importance of the soul, and (b) the contempt and general slander of\nthe body. Or, to put it less offensively, they must have taught mankind\nnot only to place soul always before body, but also to leave the body\nout of the reckoning when valuing the quality of human beings.\n\nSo much we know must have occurred, and we come to this conclusion\nmerely from judging the results which we see about us to-day. When,\nhowever, we set out to inquire into the history of our population, and\nattempt to discover whether such values have indeed operated in forming\ntheir spiritual atmosphere, then, not only are our suspicions abundantly\nconfirmed, but we are actually able to lay our finger on the body of\ndoctrine containing the values whose existence we posited _a priori_.\n\nHaving attained this end, while we may still continue to deplore the\nresults we see about us, we can no longer wonder at them. Indeed, we\nshould marvel if, in such an atmosphere, we had failed to degenerate, or\nceased from degenerating. The wonder is, not that we have become a\nnation of decadents and crocks, but that it should have taken all this\ntime to make us such a nation.\n\nIf our values had not for scores of generations turned us away from\nstrict standards concerning the body, it is inconceivable that we should\nhave become what we are; it is inconceivable that this atmosphere of\ntoleration and indifference towards bodily defects should have become so\nuniversal. A nation ultimately becomes the image of its values. The\nvalues are the die, the nation is the coin. From the face of the coin we\njudge the die. From the faces of modern English people we can judge\ntheir values.\n\nMoreover, these values must have been so deeply rooted that they now\nmould opinion without those whose opinion is moulded by them being\nconscious of the source of their mental attitude. The best illustration\nof this is that, although these values ultimately derive from a great\nreligion, the most irreligious people of the modern world share with the\nreligious the spiritual atmosphere we have been describing. People no\nlonger believing in the soul from the religious standpoint, nevertheless\nshow by their tolerance towards bodily defects, in themselves and\nothers, that they are being unconsciously influenced by the same\natmosphere. They may even have ceased to identify their opinions with\nany fundamental values whatsoever, and regard their attitude as quite\noriginal, as many, particularly women, do. No matter! Let them reveal\njust that significant difference of standards in their judgment of human\n\u201cfitness\u201d and their judgment of the \u201cfitness\u201d of animals, and we know\nthe ancestry of their mental attitude.\n\nFor this reason it is surely somewhat muddle-headed on the part of a\nwriter like Dean Inge, situated as he is, to plead with such vehemence\non behalf of Eugenics. For how can we hope for a reaction in favour of\nthe body as long as the values which lay all stress on the soul and\ndespise the body abide as an influence among us? Are they not the values\nby which he stands, and which he is officially expected to inculcate\nupon his generation?[1]\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  Mr. G. K. Chesterton is more consistent here, and shows a deeper\n  understanding of his true position. He, like Dean Inge, accepts the\n  fundamental values which by slow degrees have brought the modern world\n  into existence, and he therefore very rationally rejects Eugenics.\n\nIf ever these values are proved before the whole world to be false, and\ncease to exercise any influence, no eugenic effort will then be\nrequired. Because, the moment we begin to value people according to\ntheir physiological _as well as_ their spiritual worth\u2014the moment, that\nis to say, we value them according to the promise which they give in\ntheir own bodies and minds of guaranteeing the survival of human life in\na desirable form, eugenic mating will become quite as common and\ninstinctive as dysgenic mating is to-day.\n\nDean Inge, while recognizing the widespread degeneracy and physiological\nbotchedness to which allusion has been made, does not seem to perceive,\nas our observer has, the singular readiness with which all modern people\noverlook or condone it in themselves and others, and he argues,\nplausibly enough, that our regrettable physical condition is due to our\nindustrialism and hypertrophic urbanism.\n\nBut this is tantamount to regarding the latest accompanying symptom of\nour condition as its chief cause. For, in the first place, it is\nextremely doubtful whether the Industrial Revolution could ever have\ncome about without that contempt for the body and its needs which lies\nembedded in our ruling values. Secondly, does Dean Inge find no signs of\nthat contempt of the body before the Industrial Age? How about the\nMiddle Ages? How about the Great Rebellion in England? The present\nwriter once went to the pains of tracing all the Puritan contempt for\nthe body, and the fatal consequences it had for the English people, to\nthe values that Dean Inge upholds. He was even able to show that,\nwithout those values, the seeds of modern industrialism could hardly\nhave been sown, as they were in the middle of the seventeenth\ncentury.[2] Was not this before the so-called Industrial Revolution?\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  _Vide_ _A Defence of Aristocracy_ (Constable and Co., London: 1915).\n\nHow could the food-conditions in this country ever have become as\nappalling as they are without an old tradition involving the neglect of\nbodily concerns? These things antecede the Industrial Revolution, as the\npresent writer has shown elsewhere, by hundreds of years. Evidently,\nthen, strict standards about the body had already gone long before the\nIndustrial Age. And, when the latter came, it found no barriers in the\nEnglish people\u2019s prejudices regarding the body and health: otherwise it\ncould never have proceeded as successfully as it did to a further\ndebilitation of the national physique.\n\nWe may take it, then, that the spiritual environment of all modern\nsub-human people is the outcome of our fundamental values, as is also\ntheir sub-humanity; and that this spiritual environment is characterized\nby a tendency to neglect and despise the body and bodily considerations.\n\nAt all events, to put it in the mildest and most moderate terms, it is\nimpossible _altogether to absolve these fundamental values from\nresponsibility in the matter_; and to ignore their influence, and to\njoin the Eugenic movement, without first reckoning with their power, as\nDean Inge has done, is to be guilty of a confusion of thought unworthy\nof anyone who professes to guide public opinion.\n\nNow what is the material environment of our population?\u2014Quite clearly,\nit is one in which the mechanical elaboration of daily life has been\ncarried to a degree entirely bewildering. These sub-human people of the\ntwentieth century live among marvels of technical skill and ingenuity;\nand the appliances, apparatus, and general equipment of their every-day\nlife have reached a complexity and perfection quite unprecedented in\nhistory. Far from having learnt any lesson from the doctrines Darwin\ntaught last century, all our energy and skill have been concentrated in\nprecisely the opposite direction. Progressive evolution is no longer a\nfact with us; for, as a species we are steadily falling back to a level\nbelow that attained by our race in former ages. While we ourselves,\nhowever, steadily recede along the scale of quality, our environmental\nconditions, our tools, our means, acquire ever greater perfection.\n\nThe onus of evolution has, as it were, been transferred from our own\nshoulders to the shoulders of our environment. Blinded by the dazzling\nachievements of the mechanical and other sciences, we still speak about\nourselves as if it were we, as living organisms, who were continuing to\nevolve. But, truth to tell, it is nothing of the sort. Even in the\nsphere of intellectual powers, we are miserably below standards already\nachieved.\n\nTo the bulk of unobservant and unthinking mankind, this state of affairs\nis largely hidden; because, while science increases the efficiency of\nour extra-corporeal equipment, it has also, _pari passu_ with our\ndegeneration, provided us with the means of keeping our corporeal\nequipment going. Almost as fast as we have wanted them, the sciences of\nchemistry and of medicine have given us the means of replacing lost\nparts of our bodies, and of supplementing failing functions. A whole\nsphere of activity\u2014indeed a whole world of interests and ingenuity\u2014has\nbeen created by modern physical degeneracy. The patent-medicine,\npatent-appliance, and patent-food industries, alone represent some of\nthe largest going concerns in the land. In fact, it might be said that\nthese industries themselves are but the reverse of the medal\nrepresenting our fundamental values. Where you have values such as ours,\nyou will necessarily possess a huge and flourishing medical profession\nand a vast army of dentists, chemists, and osteopaths, daily directing\ntheir wits towards making good the increasing defects of the human body.\nYou will also be compelled to have your patent-drug, patent-appliance,\nand patent-food magnates, who, taking advantage of the universal\nphysiological depravity of their contemporaries, amass large fortunes in\nmerely offering \u201csalvation\u201d at popular prices to the physiologically\ndepraved.\n\nTo be strictly logical, even the nature of scientific research should be\nadded to the consequences of a people\u2019s ruling values; because the\nultimate goal of scientific investigation is necessarily determined by\nthe desiderata implicit in values. If the values of an age tend more and\nmore towards tolerating bodily defects, and towards securing\nsatisfaction merely by patching or artificially replacing them,\nscientific research will concentrate ever more and more on those\ndiscoveries which promise either to alleviate physical degeneration or\nelse to conceal it. And, as fast as we slough off further parts of our\nbodies, or lose further powers of functioning, we may rely upon science\nbeing ever ready with artificial aids, to make our lives just possible\nnotwithstanding.\n\nIn this way, _values direct science_. If we altered our ruling values,\nwe should find that the direction of science was also altered, because\nthe desiderata always implicit in ruling values would then have changed.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d cry the modernists _\u00e0 outrance_, \u201cif science is ever ready, and\nwill continue to be ever ready, with artificial aids to make good the\nlosses in our corporeal equipment and efficiency, why all this fuss and\npother? Why worry?\u201d\n\nNow this view, tacitly held or openly professed by the bulk of modern\nmankind to-day, would be all very well, and would justify a certain\nmodicum of optimistic contentment, if we could act and think, and\ncontinue to reproduce our kind in a desirable form, independently of our\nbodies. But, unfortunately for the modern man, this is impossible. Not\nonly that, but a good many of life\u2019s joys\u2014some of its greatest and most\nlasting\u2014are connected precisely with the reproduction of our kind, with\nthe maintenance of our bodily efficiency, and with happy functioning.\nThe moment physiological serenity goes, the moment a function ceases to\nbe a pleasure, the body becomes the most tyrannical and insistent\npleader against Life. It constantly sets the most formidable\nquestion-mark against the value of Life.\n\nThe pleasures of the healthily functioning body are very real pleasures.\nThey constitute a very large proportion of the sum of joy on earth. And\nnothing can be more obvious than that Nature means them to contribute\nlargely to this sum of joy. To eat with false teeth is not as pleasant\nas to eat with natural teeth. Artificially to promote either appetite or\ndigestion soon proves but a poor and delusive imitation of Nature\u2019s way.\nTo wear glasses is not as good as to be without them. Neither is the\nface or the expression of one who always wears glasses as attractive as\nthe face and the expression of one who does not. To a mother, the\nhand-feeding of her infant child is not the unforgettable experience\nthat breast-feeding is. And, in the deepest and most rapturous\ntransports of love, where a large proportion of the ecstasy depends upon\nthe bodily savouriness and sweetness of the couple involved, natural and\nnormal physiological equipment is of paramount importance. A clean\nmouth, full of natural teeth, firmly set in unimpaired gums; a clean\nfresh tongue, not even slightly furred by incipient chronic indigestion;\na sweet breath, and the natural fragrance of a healthily functioning\nbody!\u2014who knows love as Nature intended him to know it if he has not\nknown these things?\n\nAnd yet, how many modern men and women ever can know love in this form?\nHow is it possible?\n\nCan it be wondered at, therefore, that modern mankind as a whole are\nbeginning to suspect that the _joie de vivre_ is grossly over-rated? Can\nit be wondered at that the bulk of mankind are beginning to feel that\nlife can well be lived without love?\n\nThis, then, is the disillusionment that follows on the heels of the\nvalues directing our scientific progress. While, through them, we are\ncontent to exist despite our defective bodily equipment, we are\ngradually weaned from our love of life and from our deepest convictions\nconcerning the value of life. For not only does our debilitated or\nincomplete body itself give us but second-rate joys, but the science\nthat comes to our aid offers us only substitutes, and we are apt to\nmeasure the value of life according to those second-rate joys, and\naccording also to the level of happiness attained by means of these\nsubstitutes.\n\nThus the values that revile both life and the body in the end succeed in\nmaking both life and the body vile.\n\nSo much for the \u00e6sthetic side, which is important, because life is very\nlargely an \u00e6sthetic phenomenon. But there are even more serious\nconsequences than these. For instance, it is highly improbable that our\nvitality and intellectuality can fail to suffer depreciation when once\nnormal functioning has been interfered with. So intricate and\ninter-dependent are the various parts and functions of the superior\nmammal\u2019s body, that it is hardly possible to disturb the balance of one\npart or one function without impairing the whole. Thus it is not\nunlikely, in these latter days when ninety-nine per cent. of the\npopulation of highly civilized countries is suffering from some kind of\ndefective function or bodily part, that all of us are sub-human in\nspirit as well as in body. It is even conceivable that the hopeless pass\nat which we are arriving in Western civilization is but the inevitable\noutcome of our chronic sub-normality or sub-humanity, and that nothing\nbut a reform of our bodies can possibly help us out.\n\nNor is it any longer valid to argue that this view is materialistic. We\nthank Dean Inge _en passant_ for his able reply to those who, objecting\nto the standpoint that has just been advanced, are ready to accuse those\nwho hold it of materialism.\n\nAt all events we can honestly deny that we are materialists, and do not\nbelieve that we are any the less religious or spiritual for having\nfought hard for our heterodox religious views through years of\nmetaphysical study and thought. Secondly, we repudiate the suggestion\nthat to preach the care and maintenance of the beauty and health of the\nbody is necessarily material; for it is the invalid, the sick man, the\nman of this age, who calls himself \u201cwell,\u201d who is constantly reminded of\nhis body. A healthily functioning body can be forgotten. Thanks to its\nserenity, its muteness in efficiency, it allows its owner to indulge in\nevery variety of spiritual exercise.\n\nWhile, therefore, we accuse the values which for centuries have cast a\nslur on life and the human body of being the cause of modern decadence,\nwe do not thereby proclaim ourselves either irreligious or\nmaterialistic; for, let those who would too hastily presume both our\nirreligiosity and materialism remember that there are other religions\nbesides that which first created the body-despising values to which we\nallude.\n\nAnd, when we challenge the modern age to prove that it can be anything\nelse than materialistic, with its countless millions of sick or\ndeficient bodies; when we challenge it to show in what manner the two\nthousand years of body-contempt and body-neglect have led us to a\nloftier spirituality, the very grossness of modern life, the very\nbesottedness of the modern mind, and the very system of government in\nthe modern world, _Democracy_, which is materialism in politics\n(estimating the value of an idea or policy by measuring the\n_body-weight_ behind it, not by measuring the authority, ability, or\ncompetence behind it)\u2014all rise before us in their ugliness, leaving us\nbut few qualms concerning the danger that we, of our persuasion, run, of\nfalling into materialism by questioning the values that have brought us\nthus far.\n\nThe masses are materialistic to-day because, in the first place, lowered\nvitality and defective functioning depress the spirit and dull the wits,\nthus unfitting the mind for all lofty pursuits; and, secondly, because\nat every moment of their lives their attention is either riveted upon\ntheir own halting functions or else distracted by similar disturbances\nin those among whom their lot is cast.\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n\n                     THE PRESENT POSITION OF WOMEN\n\n\n                           (I) THE UNMARRIED\n\nWE have seen that the disillusionment that dogs the heels of the values\ndirecting our civilization and its alleged progress consists in our\nultimate discovery that Life, as seen through the optics of our impaired\nand science-aided bodies, appears to have lost a substantial portion of\nits reputed value. The _joie de vivre_ becomes an antiquated myth, no\nlonger a present experience.\n\nIf, however, this is true from the standpoint of modern men, how very\nmuch more true it must be from that of modern women! For, if it is right\nto claim that some of Life\u2019s greatest and most lasting joys are\nconnected with the maintenance of the species, woman, whose share in\nreproduction is much greater than man\u2019s, must necessarily be the greater\nsufferer when the corporeal equipment of the race becomes defective.\n\nIn these degenerate days of fourth-rate bodily joys, therefore, when the\ncorporeal equipment of man and woman has to be scientifically completed\nwith the help of elaborate extra-corporeal aids, it is among the women\nof the species that we should expect to find the greatest revolt against\nthe old notions concerning Life, Motherhood, and Domesticity.\n\nFor man\u2019s degeneracy in itself contributes an added woe to woman\u2019s\nimpaired physical life, by depriving her of the very extra-corporeal\nequipment (supplied by Nature herself in this case) for the urgent needs\nof her body. Or, if it does not altogether deprive her of this\nequipment, it gives it to her in a form so atonic, fireless, and\nun-ideal that the misery of modern women, even when they are married, is\nvery great. Hence, we believe, the huge development of the modern novel,\nthe demand for which has been created almost entirely by the female\npopulation. For only people whose lives are unsatisfying endeavour to\nenjoy life vicariously in the unreal world of fiction.\n\nPerhaps it was the recognition of this fact, that the value of life for\nwoman depends to a great extent on her physical efficiency and health,\nwhich led the ancients to feel so much concern about the physical\ncondition of their womenfolk, and this probably explains why such\ncareful instructions are to be found in sacred books\u2014like that of Manu,\nfor instance\u2014regarding a father\u2019s duty towards his daughters.\n\nManu goes so far as to say: \u201cReprehensible is the father who gives not\nhis daughter in marriage at the proper time.\u201d And he adds: \u201cTo a\ndistinguished handsome suitor should a father give his daughter.... But\nthe maiden, though marriageable, should rather stop in her father\u2019s\nhouse until death than that he should ever give her to a man destitute\nof good qualities.\u201d\n\nIn _Ecclesiasticus_ we read the following exhortation to fathers: \u201cHast\nthou daughters? Have a care of their body.\u201d[3]\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  It might be argued against the line taken in the Introduction that\n  here is an instance of the care of the body in the literature from\n  which the body-despising values are alleged to hail. But this is a\n  misunderstanding. Not only is _Ecclesiasticus_ apocryphal, but also,\n  as everybody must know, the Old Testament and the New are quite\n  different in their attitude towards the body. In the New Dispensation,\n  and certainly in traditional Christianity, it is never suggested, as\n  it is in Judaic law, that a man who is bodily defective defiles the\n  sanctuary of the Lord when he approaches it. This healthy attitude to\n  the body, which constantly recurs in the Old Testament, can be found\n  neither in the New Testament nor in historical Christianity.\n\nAnd in Aristophanes we find the following sentiment expressed by a\nmarried woman: \u201c\u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u0398\u1f20\u03bc\u03ad\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f10\u1fb6\u03c4\u03b5; \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2\n\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b7\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u201d (But do not let us complain about\nourselves. What breaks my heart is the sight of all these young girls\nwho will grow old sleeping alone.) Aristophanes, _Lysistrata_, ll.\n592-3.\n\nEvidently these exhortations and sentiments hail from an age preceding\nthat in which the body-despising values were created, for they breathe a\ndifferent atmosphere, and ring strangely in our ears.\n\nAs late as the sixteenth century in England, when, it may be supposed, a\nvestige of the old pagan spirit still lingered among our people, there\nis indeed a tender allusion to the female body; and, strange to say, it\noccurs in our _Book of Common Prayer_. But the very oddness of the\nsentiment to our modern ears shows how completely foreign it is to the\natmosphere created by our values, and we may be sure that it is seldom\nread, or, if read, seldom understood, at a modern marriage service. It\nis as follows:\n\n    \u201cFor the husband is the head of the wife ... and he is the\n    Saviour of the body.\u201d\n\nWe have lost all sympathy with this attitude. We no longer consider the\nphysical side of our daughters\u2019 and sisters\u2019 lives. We may wish them to\nhave a \u201cgood time\u201d; or, if we are poor, we wish them to be\nself-supporting. But bodily considerations scarcely enter into the first\nwish, and into the second\u2014never!\n\nCoupled, however, with our attitude of callous indifference to the young\nfemale\u2019s body is also the increasing doubt which is spreading among all\nclasses regarding the actual value of the normal and natural life for\nwoman. Impaired physical efficiency has turned so many of the joys and\nbeauties of the natural life to pain and horror that there is no longer\nthat certainty which Manu felt about the desirability of motherhood for\nwomen. And, even when motherhood is not regarded as a greatly over-rated\npleasure, the mates by means of whom motherhood can be experienced are,\nas a rule, such poor shadows of men that the whole of Manu\u2019s attitude\nhas begun to be discredited. The Feminist Movement, in fact, is actively\nengaged in discrediting it, and that is why the Feminist Movement itself\nmay be regarded as a remote off-shoot of the body-despising values.\n\nIndeed, things have come to such a pass in this country that at present\nrich and poor alike are far more concerned about giving their daughters\na calling than a mate; and, when once this has been done, it is felt\nthat parents have discharged their responsibility.\n\nThe most convincing demonstration of the prevalence of this attitude was\nthe uproar that arose a year or two ago, when one or two imprudent\njournalists inadvertently referred to our 2,000,000 excess of women over\nmen as \u201csurplus women.\u201d The daily press was immediately flooded by\nindignant letters from women of all classes, protesting that, as a large\nproportion of these 2,000,000 were self-supporting and ample room\nexisted for the remainder in our industries and professions, it was\nabsurd to speak of them as \u201csurplus.\u201d Articles soon followed, in which\nthe same views were expressed, though possibly more magisterially. But\nthere was no reference to the bodily destiny of these 2,000,000\nfemales\u2014not a hint that the word \u201csurplus\u201d might have some relevancy if\nthey were looked at in relation to the available males, or that a\ncivilization which condemns one-sixth of its adult females to celibacy\nmust be very wrong!\n\nIt was for all the world as if being self-supporting and useful in\nindustry or the professions were the sole and unique object of human\nlife, and nobody seemed to see that, in this case, there was no\nconceivable reason why human beings should have been created or become\nmale and female. Of course the howl of indignation that arose at the\nword \u201csurplus\u201d was greatest among those women who are frankly hostile to\nmen, and who are keenest about making the bodily destiny of their sex a\nmatter of no consequence. Nevertheless, the cruelty of the attitude\nadopted by all was never actually felt as cruelty by anyone, because the\nvery people responsible for those articles and letters would have been\nthe last to suspect themselves, or to be suspected by others, of any\ntrace of inhumanity. All they wanted to imply, and wished everybody else\nto believe, was that a human life can be full and can be lived\nadequately _without that_!\n\nAnd yet to anyone who reveres the body, and who knows how the spirit is\ntortured by a body unsatisfied and neglected, how thoroughly unfounded\ndoes this claim appear! A thwarted instinct does not meekly subside. It\nseeks compensation and damages for its rebuff. True sublimation, except\nthrough whole-hearted and unremitting religious practices, is rare. What\nthen is the fate of these 2,000,000 women? Can we reckon with certainty\non their all being so much below even the common standard of their\nmarried sisters that they will have no instincts to thwart? There is an\ninclination abroad to adopt this comforting view. So accustomed have we\nbecome to the spectacle of our omnibuses, trams, and trains being filled\neach morning with unmarried female workers, that we are easily led to\nthe erroneous conclusion that, as time goes on, these female workers\nwill grow as used to filling their lives by means of self-support as we\nhave grown accustomed to seeing them.\n\nAnd, indeed, there would be something to be said for this view if, by a\nkind of unemotional parthenogenesis, these spinster workers could breed\ntheir own kind, each generation of whom would be ever more perfectly\nadapted. But unfortunately this cannot be so. People forget that each\ngeneration of them is born from mothers who, in an uninterrupted line\nreaching right back to our anthropoid ancestors, have filled their lives\nwith something more than self-support and business usefulness. Each\ngeneration of these unmated women-workers is born from mothers who must\nhave known the ardent embrace of a lover, the ecstasy of consummated\nlove, and the clinging devotion of adoring offspring. No break can have\noccurred in this long dynasty of love, otherwise they\u2014the women-workers\nthemselves\u2014would not be there. It is impossible at present to rear a\nspecies of human beings to lovelessness as you can rear a breed of dogs\nto retrieving or sheep-minding. Love must always have existed one step\nback. And it is this fact, that these unmated women-workers are all so\nfatally close to love, all such near blood-relations of love, that makes\nlovelessness such an ordeal and a trial to them\u2014an ordeal and a trial no\nhuman being who has not sinned against society should be made to suffer.\n\nThus the modern world is inclined to be very cruel to the young unmated\nwoman. For, while everything is done to facilitate her self-support and\nusefulness, no provision is made either to ensure the sublimation of her\nmating instincts (a problem of almost insuperable difficulty now, though\nsolved with success in the Middle Ages), or to give her the chance of\nexpressing them without dishonour and disgrace. On the contrary, the\nwhole tendency is to ignore, to shelve, and to conceal that aspect of\nher life; and thousands of bitter or sub-normal women, whose thwarted or\ndeficient passions have unsaddled their natural love of man, are now\nonly too eager to assure her and everybody else that human beings can\nwell get on and be happy without sexual expression\u2014in fact that a spirit\nand a body can quite easily play the life-long r\u00f4le of a disembodied\nspirit.\n\nAll this does not mean that the solution of the unmated woman problem is\nan easy and obvious one, which modern people are too blind to see. But\nit does mean that the very first step towards its proper solution can\nnever be taken as long as we persist in arguing and behaving as if a\nfull life can be lived by merely paying one\u2019s way.\n\nIn 1921 the population of England and Wales amounted to 37,885,242\npersons, of whom 19,803,022 were females. Of this female population\n4,302,568 consisted of children under twelve, and the remainder,\namounting to 15,501,454, were divided up as follows:\n\n9,070,538 were married or widowed or divorced, and 6,403,916 were\nsingle. Of the married 1,106,433, and of the single 4,000,000 (to be\nprecise, 3,914,127) were occupied in some form of work, thus making a\ntotal of 5,020,560 women-workers, 3,000,000 of whom were employed in\nindustry alone.\n\nThese figures give some idea of the formidable development of women\u2019s\nemployment within recent years, nor is there any sign whatsoever that\nthe movement is likely to abate. Those who are aware of the harm that\nmodern industry and commercial offices have done to the spirit and\nbodies of men for generations, by converting them into little more than\nmachine-minders or adding-machines, exercising few if any of their\nhighest faculties, may deplore the fact that the sex which hitherto had\nstill to a large extent escaped these dehumanizing labours should now be\nenrolled in such large numbers to accomplish them. The last check on the\ncomplete besotment of our people seems thus to have vanished. But, in\nview of the existing atmosphere and tendencies, there seems to be little\nhope of a reaction.\n\nThe 4,000,000 spinster workers alone represent a formidable army; and,\nwhen it is remembered that this vast legion of single women not only\ncompete with and directly replace male labour, thus reducing still more\ntheir chances of marriage, but are also drawn away from home and from\nthe many arts that could be learnt there, we cannot help feeling alarmed\nat the possible consequences of the development we are witnessing.\n\nThe duties and virtues of the home are almost all connected with the\nbody and its care\u2014sewing, cooking, and the nurture of the young. All\nthese arts are gradually being lost; and, when they have to be performed\nby inexperienced hands, they are performed badly.\n\nMeanwhile, abetting this movement and rendering it ever more\npracticable, there are hundreds and thousands of commercial and\nvoluntary corporations whose whole energies are directed towards taking\nthe home-arts out of the hands of women. Science, as usual, following\nthe hints implicit in values, has come to the assistance of our female\npopulation deficient in domestic skill and knowledge. The art of cooking\nis gradually becoming simplified into a mere fool\u2019s game, and in its\nplace we are being deluged by innumerable patent and proprietary\nproducts, the preparation of which requires no thought and no trouble.\nThese products are very largely injurious to the bodies of those who\nlive on them, but, as they leave the housewife ample leisure to gad\nabout or else to earn money outside the home, no one complains. Quick\ngravy-makers, pudding- and cake-powders, tinned foods of every\ndescription all ready for consumption, custards, porridges, and jellies\nthat require only a few minutes\u2019 cooking, jams and preserves, and a\nmultitude of other artificial aids to replace, though not to equal, the\ndishes of former days, now compose the normal contents of almost every\nworking-class and middle-class market-bag. Never have the country\u2019s food\nand its preparation been in a more deplorable condition than they are\nto-day. Nevertheless, so strong is the tradition to neglect bodily\nconcerns, that all this vast machinery for supplementing traditional\nknowledge, skill, labour, and good food, in the home, has grown up in\nour midst without a word of protest from anyone.\n\nAs regards the lot of infants and children, so completely broken is the\ntradition which, once upon a time, was handed down from mother to\ndaughter, that now child-welfare-workers in every town in England,\nequipped with but a smattering of sound knowledge on the subject, have\nto teach the women of the masses the arts they have had no opportunity\nof acquiring. In the departments of dress-making, millinery, and\nlingerie, it is just the same. Together with the loss of skill and\nknowledge in the home, the supply of ready-mades from outside increases\nwith leaps and bounds, and huge drapery-businesses, carried on in\npalatial premises, now line all our leading thoroughfares in a\npractically unbroken frontage.\n\nThus, even if the girls and young women of the nation who are or who are\nnot eligible for marriage were to remain at home, there would now be\nlittle for them to learn, and still less for them to do; and the recent\nGirl Guide Movement is the best possible proof that this fact has\nalready been recognized.\n\nMeanwhile, it may be asked what it is that these 4,000,000 learn away\nfrom their homes. What do they acquire in exchange for their lost arts?\n\nThose who have not actually adopted dress-making, millinery, or lingerie\nas an occupation, have, as a rule, acquired only the knowledge necessary\nfor running a certain machine\u2014a cutter, a folder, a binder, a stamper,\nor a typewriter, etc. Or else they have learnt to wait in restaurants,\nsell goods across a counter, or keep books. Only about one million of\nthem are either domestic servants or hospital nurses.\n\nThose engaged in industry or commerce who remain at their work and do\nnot marry are at least prevented from passing on their acquired\nbesotment to the next generation; but, meantime, no one inquires about\ntheir bodies, and the general feeling is that a girl withered and broken\nby long years of typing is not a tragic figure because in the first\nplace her career has been morally unimpeachable, and secondly it has\nbrought neither herself nor anyone else any pleasure.\n\nIn the better classes, teaching and the professions obtain the bulk of\nthe recruits each year,[4] and girls are now trained quite unselectively\nfrom earliest childhood with a view to entering these occupations, as if\nit were taken for granted that they would never marry.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  In 1923 in England and Wales there were 22 women barristers, and 66\n  law students; 5 women solicitors; 76,117 Government officials, and\n  2,000 doctors; and, in 1921, 93,987 elementary and secondary\n  school-teachers.\n\nNot all of the 6,403,916 spinsters\u2014whether workers or not\u2014are doomed to\nspinsterhood. As we have seen, the excess of females over males in\nEngland and Wales is only 1,720,902.[5] But unless they attempt to\nemigrate, these odd 2,000,000 must certainly remain unmated, and even if\nemigration could now be organized on a much bigger scale than hitherto,\nthey could hardly be satisfactorily disposed of.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  Although, however, the actual excess of women amount to 1,720,902, the\n  number of women actually doomed to spinsterhood is much greater, owing\n  first to the cases of celibacy among the available men and secondly to\n  the marriage of widows.\n\nThe self-governing Dominions cannot absorb more than 432,284[6] in all,\nand even if they could, it is doubtful whether such a large number of\ngirls could be induced to leave their native country. Why should they,\nwhen almost every one of them considers her chance of matrimony at home\nas at least equal to her sister\u2019s or neighbour\u2019s?\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  This figure represents the excess of men over women in Canada,\n  Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa in 1921.\n\nDame Muriel Talbot, O.B.E., writing on the effect of Dominion life, is\nnot so very encouraging either. \u201cFor the woman,\u201d she says, \u201cit means\nonly too often an unduly heavy burden of work since there are so few at\nhand to help.\u201d[7]\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  See _The Woman\u2019s Year Book_, 1923.\n\nOwing to the degeneracy and unattractiveness of modern man, a certain\nnoble and estimable proportion of these 6,000,000 will of course refrain\nfrom any attempt at marriage. Still faithful to the lost and antiquated\nvalues that once led people to respect and care for their bodies, they\nwill feel secretly that their bodies deserve something better than the\nmate the twentieth century can offer them; and, although they may be\nfully and admirably equipped for happy motherhood, this noble and very\nsmall minority will turn nauseated away from it in order to become\nabsorbed in interests that will help them to forget. These are the\ngreatest sufferers among modern women, and their unmated condition\nconstitutes our greatest national loss.\n\nBut the great majority will be too thoroughly unsophisticated, too\ncompletely immersed in the values of their day, to see anything wrong or\nodd in degeneration. These, like the 9,000,000 already mated, will\nstrive after marriage and the home. They will insist on having their\nthird-rate or fourth-rate bodily ecstasies with the inferior men of the\nage, and on rearing their fourth-rate children. And, if their hopes are\ndisappointed, either through their inability to find a mate or owing to\nthe rude awakening that too often comes with modern matrimony, they will\nbecome either wretched spinsters or disgruntled wives. We shall consider\ntheir fate as wives, however, in the next chapter.\n\nThere are also a large number whose bodies are so conspicuously inferior\nin passion and equipment that they will be indifferent to marriage\nthrough sheer physiological apathy. Looking at life through the optics\nof their atonic or badly functioning bodies, they will declare love\nunnecessary to human well-being, and the natural life a wholly\nantiquated desideratum. They will lack the desire even for fourth-rate\nbodily experiences, and scorn all such experiences in consequence. They\nwill boast that they are \u201cabove sex.\u201d To them the Feminist reformers\nwill point triumphantly in refutation of all the arguments of those who,\nlike ourselves, claim that sound and desirable women cannot be happy\nunmated. And the more simple and unsuspecting among mankind, looking\nupon these adapted unmated women, will begin to believe that the\nFeminists are right. As the number of these women increases every year,\nand, in their systematic depreciation of the value of life, they are\njoined and supported by thousands of disillusioned married women who\nalso have become slanderers of love and man, the ranks of those who\nscoff at marriage and motherhood as the only satisfactory calling for\nwomen, swell with imposing rapidity.\n\nWith two million spinsters, and\u2014if we reckon the disgruntled married\nwomen\u2014with probably two or three million more women distributed all over\nEngland, who are prepared to malign both man and life and to cause the\neffect of their thwarted impulses to be felt in a thousand ways, a good\ndeal of misery and friction must necessarily arise from modern\nconditions which it is extremely difficult to relieve.\n\nBut the most serious aspect of the spinster and embittered wife\nquestion, from the standpoint of the nation\u2019s life, is the compensation\nwhich, consciously or unconsciously, these unmated women and revolted\nwives, particularly the wealthy and leisured ones, seek for their\nthwarted instincts. The mother\u2019s fostering care never having been\nexperienced, its joys and thrills are sought along other channels. The\nlust of exercising power becomes a consuming passion, and its owner is\nusually quite indifferent as to the means she uses to express it. Any\nmovement, any policy, any kind of interference may supply the\nopportunity, and the merits of the case will always be subordinate to\nthe urgent need of alleviating the hunger for compensatory power. Thus\ninfluences and forces are let loose which have about as much wisdom in\nthem as accident alone can be expected to introduce into any lustful\naction; and, all the while, the loftiest motives will be professed for\nthe activities pursued. The very natural discontent which arises from\nthwarted instincts will also tend to express itself in many instances,\nparticularly among the disillusioned married, as a bitter hatred of man;\nand, as I shall show later, in its extreme form as an unconscious\njealousy of healthy young women and happily married women. This will\nlead to an attempt to wean the latter from the lure of love and men.\nSigns are already visible which show that such a movement is on foot,\nand, although these Lysistratas of the modern world have not\nLysistrata\u2019s patriotic motives, this will not make them any the less\nanxious to achieve their end.\n\nAt all events, from the imperfectly concealed triumph with which such\npeople, particularly the female working-woman leaders, will tell you\nthat in 1923 700,000 of the 5,020,560 women-workers were _directly\nreplacing males_ in industry alone, it is impossible not to read the\nsigns of hostility to the male in their general outlook; and, to examine\ntheir literature, is to become convinced of it, careful as they are to\ncover it up.\n\nAmong the organizers of women-movements to-day, there can be no question\nthat there is this note of hostility to the male; and the reason of it\nis that women-movements are largely led either by spinsters or else by\nunhappy married women.\n\nNow the attitude of Feminism towards our vast army of spinsters and\ndisgruntled wives is that of Socialist organizations all over the world\ntowards discontented labour elements. It is one in which the latent\ndiscontent is turned to every possible advantage for the Cause. Feminism\noffers no bodily solution of the problem presented by our unmated women\nand our disillusioned wives, and it escapes from the responsibility of\nso doing by consistently regarding the whole crowd as nothing more than\ndisembodied spirits. It does not even recognize that the muddle in which\nwe now find ourselves is chiefly due to physical degeneration: for that\nit is too Puritanical. All it does is to promote and intensify the very\ntendencies which have brought us to our present pass, and to use the\npower obtained from its supporters to express in every possible way,\nlegislatively and otherwise, its general hostility to man and its\nradical hatred of the bodily side of life.\n\nMeanwhile, it misses no opportunity of appealing to the vanity and\nmistaken ambition of its potential victims, in order to lure even the\nnormal and desirable among modern young women in ever greater numbers\ninto neutral pursuits and interests only fit for neuters. And it sets to\nwork with a conscience so clean, with such a profound conviction of its\nrectitude, and above all with such a great display of moral indignation,\nthat the more guileless sections of the modern world, always taken in by\nmoral indignation, are almost led to believe that Feminism is a natural\nand desirable evolutionary development, on which all hope for the future\ndepends.\n\nWhy does Feminism act with a conscience so clean and a conviction so\nprofound of its rectitude?\u2014Because, behind it, it feels the support of\nthe body-despising values, which tell it that Puritanism is right, that\nsex-equality is at last a fact owing to the marked degeneration of man,\nand that man, as the traditional enemy of female \u201cvirtue,\u201d is _the_\nenemy _par excellence_.\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n\n                     THE PRESENT POSITION OF WOMEN\n\n\n                            (II) THE MARRIED\n\nWE shall now examine a little more closely the lot of the 9,000,000 odd\nwomen in England and Wales who are or who have been married, and\nendeavour to find out whether similar tendencies to those already\ndiscovered in the previous chapter are making their influence felt in\nthe matrimonial life of the country.\n\nAttention has already been called to the fact that, almost as fast as\nbodily parts or functions are lost, science comes forward with aids that\nenable us to carry on notwithstanding; and also that these substitutes,\ncombined with the third-rate bodily experiences secured by our impaired\nphysique, make us question the value of both life and love.\n\nNowhere, however, are the effects of imperfect functioning or incomplete\nbodies more acutely felt than in the married state; and that is why, if\nscience had recognized the importance of securing happiness for this\nstate, it would have left no stone unturned in order to restore to us\nthe natural conditions on which happiness depends, instead of giving us\never more and more efficient substitutes.\n\nIn our present world the effect of the body-despising values enters as a\ndisturber of our bliss into almost every aspect of matrimony.\n\nIt enters first in the form of our impaired physiques, and affects the\nfemale partner in two ways: it depreciates the quality of her most\nimportant _natural_ extra-corporeal equipment, _man_, and therefore the\nquality of her joy; and it further depreciates that joy through her own\nindifferent bodily condition.\n\nIt enters next in the form of Puritanism, which, thanks to its\nassociated fear of, and incompetence in, sexual matters, arrests the\nmale partner\u2019s impulses, causing him to hesitate, flounder, and\nfrequently to fail, whereby the ideal relationship of two ardent lovers\nis marred, if not destroyed; and it usually succeeds in preventing them\nfrom attaining the top wave of ecstasy by imposing inhibitions against\nperfectly instinctive desires.\n\nFinally, it enters by rendering ever more and more harassing for the\nwoman the natural consequences of conjugal intimacy\u2014gestation,\nparturition, and lactation; and by converting these once beautiful and\nenthralling functions into things of ugliness and pain.\n\nWe cannot here discuss the many ways in which our bodily disorders and\ndefects interfere with the happy congress of man and wife. Suffice it to\nsay, however, that science already gives a good deal of assistance even\nhere, and is likely to perform a good deal more.\n\nAt all events, this much we may say without impropriety\u2014that, as fast as\nPuritanism and bodily imperfections together have conspired to cast a\nslur on sex by converting the congress of the human couple from an\nexperience of magic beauty into an ordeal of both painful embarrassment\nand actual pain, not only have a certain number of women begun to think\nthat conception without congress would be a god-send, but a scientific\ntechnique, which realizes this desideratum, has also been brought to\never greater efficiency. Artificial impregnation\u2014the scientific aid\nagain!\u2014is now a thoroughly familiar operation, frequently performed;\nand, if the present tendencies continue, and the body-despising values\nculminate in their extreme logical consequence\u2014the elimination of the\nbody\u2014there can be no doubt that it will become ever more and more\ncustomary.\n\nIn the limited space at our disposal, however, we must concentrate upon\ngestation, parturition, and lactation in this chapter, more particularly\nas they form so important a part of woman\u2019s share in married life.\n\nNow it may be stated straight away that there are no human functions\nthat have got into a more alarming state of abnormality and muddle than\ngestation, parturition, and lactation. Indeed, so great are the\ndivergences from Nature in the two latter functions, that it is no\nexaggeration to say that, all hope of ever recovering normal conditions\nhaving long since been abandoned, all persons have now resigned\nthemselves to an almost complete reliance on artificial aids. In the\nmiddle and so-called \u201cupper\u201d classes instruments and an\u00e6sthetics are now\nvery nearly the rule in helping the function of parturition, while among\nthe poorer classes they are very common. And in regard to lactation, all\nkinds of unnatural food, including, of course, cow\u2019s milk, take the\nplace of breast-feeding.\n\nThe doctors, the nurses, the mothers, and the whole population have, we\ndeclare, resigned themselves to the modern conditions of difficult and\nscientifically aided childbirth; but it would be more strictly accurate\nto say that they have meekly prostrated themselves before a _fait\naccompli_; for, as far as we have been able to judge, no attempt on a\ngrand scale has ever yet been made to ascertain whether the present\ndifficulties are as hopelessly inevitable as they seem, or whether a\nmore normal method of functioning might not be recovered.\n\nThe ugly circumstances of modern childbirth, mitigated to some extent\nonly by a liberal use of an\u00e6sthetics, are now sufficient to intimidate\nany young woman who happens to reflect, before marriage, on her future\nprospects; while to those already married they constitute a heavy\nlowering cloud, which hardly ever disperses until the climacteric at\nlast puts an end to all anxiety. Stated in the most moderate terms,\nthese ugly circumstances at least add to the arguments which, in our\nPuritanical and Feminist atmosphere, accumulate year by year against\nboth the body and the sexual life; and for this reason alone, if for no\nother, it is important for us to examine them and to see how, or\nwhether, they can be mitigated.\n\nThe curious part of it is that, here, we are not confronted by\ndegeneration or malformation nearly to the extent that some people\nsuppose; but by ignorance, lack of initiative in the medical profession,\nand the foolish superstitions of all the chief actors in the muddle\u2014the\nexpectant mothers, the doctors, and the nurses.\n\nA certain percentage of births still takes place each year under normal\nconditions\u2014that is to say, without an\u00e6sthetics or instruments; but even\nof these it is safe to say that they are accompanied by much more pain\nthan can possibly be natural; while, owing to circumstances quite\nindependent of the mother\u2019s bodily condition, even these cases often\nreceive quite unnecessary scientific aid.\n\nThe circumstances that cause doctors to interfere more and more\nfrequently with confinements that promise to be normal are the\nfollowing: In the well-to-do classes, _the extreme busyness of the\ndoctor_, on the one hand, _which makes him disinclined to wait for\nNature to do her work_; and, on the other, his interested relationship\nto his patient, which makes it almost necessary for him to appear as her\nchampion. By encouraging the patient to be put to sleep and to allow the\nprocess to be hurried, the doctor thus kills two birds with one stone.\nAfter only a few hours\u2019 labour, therefore, he will employ an\u00e6sthetics,\nand the result is that what might have been a fairly normal confinement,\nfree from an\u00e6sthesia and instruments, becomes a serious operation, in\nwhich damage is frequently inflicted on the young mother.\n\nIn the poorer classes the same thing happens, except that poor women\noften go to some public institution to be confined. It should not be\nforgotten, however, that young and aspiring doctors have to acquire some\npractice with the obstetric forceps, and that it is precisely in homes\nand hospitals that this practice can be obtained. Instead of its being\nthe excessive busyness of the doctor that leads to the hasty and\nunnecessary use of instruments, therefore, it is now the circumstance\nthat the woman may find herself in a maternity-home or hospital. And the\ntragic part of it is that the demonstrating surgeon in such cases, far\nfrom electing an abnormal pregnancy for his exhibition, deliberately\nchooses the most normal of his patients, because of the greater ease\nwith which the demonstration can then be made. Thus, even when Nature is\nmost willing and modern women are most normal, natural functioning is\nspurned and rebuffed. Such cases, however, are possible only in an\natmosphere that has long been infected with body-despising prejudices.\nIn no other atmosphere would the doctors dare to behave in this way.\n\nAt all events, among both the rich and the poor, normal confinements are\nbecoming increasingly rare, and we shall now try to discover why, except\nin case of obvious abnormality, this is so; and why, moreover, even in\nnormal confinements there is always, or almost always, the alleged\n\u201csorrow\u201d or excessive pain of biblical tradition.\n\nProvisionally we suggest the following reasons for the difficulties of\nparturition among modern women, and for the fact that nothing is done to\nrestore more normal functioning:\n\n(=a=) _The absurd superstition that our heads are getting larger and\nthat the pelves of women are getting smaller._ Doctors are persuaded\nthat the difficulty of modern childbirth must be due to \u201cProgress.\u201d And,\nsince \u201cProgress\u201d is erroneously connected in their own and most people\u2019s\nminds with the belief that men are growing more intelligent (which quite\nobviously they are not), the facile conclusion is reached that, as our\nbrains must be growing larger, our heads must follow suit. It is hardly\nnecessary to say that this is sheer nonsense, and no more than an\nindolent excuse for the Conservative stagnation of the medical\nbrotherhood. The heads of modern people are certainly not larger than\nthe heads of their ancestors ten thousand years ago (_vide_ Keith\u2019s\n_Antiquity of_ _Man_); and as to the shrinking of women\u2019s hips, this\nalso is an invention. It is certainly found, but only where the pelvis\nis rachitic, or where undue strains on the thighs in early childhood (in\nviolent games, etc.) have led to a premature stiffening of the fleshy,\nand a premature ossification of the bony, parts. At all events, it is\nmuch less common than is usually supposed; and, in any case, it is very\nseldom that there is any disproportion between the sizes of the foetus\nand the pelvis. See, however, how convenient the explanation\nis\u2014Increasing brains, larger heads, and shrinking pelves!\u2014The doctors,\nshrugging their shoulders before this apparently vicious circle, can\nquietly resign themselves, _\u00e0 la_ Walrus and Carpenter, to a permanent\nengagement as artificial functionaries to supersede a perfectly natural\nhuman function; and, what is more, they need feel no dread about growing\nthinner or poorer themselves as time goes on, nor trouble to discover\nhow normal functioning can be recovered.\n\n(=b=) _The still more absurd superstition that a baby should be 8 or 9\nlbs at birth._ This is universal in England, and whether it is the daily\nnewspapers over the birth of a prince, or a poor woman\u2019s neighbours over\nthe birth of a new pauper, everybody is jubilant if an 8-lb baby is\nborn. It may have required a team from Harley Street to deliver it, and\nit may, and usually does, lose weight after birth; but all this does not\nmatter: nobody cares, nobody troubles to think, provided that it has\nregistered the full 8 lbs in the first hour of its existence.\nUnfortunate women, permanently injured by instruments, smile\ntriumphantly over the thought that they have had a baby-boy weighing 9\nlbs. But what can we expect when their doctors encourage them in these\nlunatic transports?\n\n(=c=) _The belief, deeply rooted in the modern and lay minds, that it is\nGod\u2019s decree that children should be brought forth in sorrow._ Having\nrejected the _Genesis_ version of the origin of man and all living\ncreatures, it is remarkable that the modern world, led by its men of\nscience, should take so seriously a curse mentioned in the first book of\nMoses, which, even if its effect be admitted as possible, had probably\nonly a tribal or national application when it was uttered. And it is\nstill more odd that they should regard us and our womenfolk as still\nlying under its spell. For, apart from the fact that there are savage\nand semi-civilized tribes still in existence with whom childbirth is not\nnearly such a sorrowful event as some might suppose, but a simple and\neasy function (_teste_ almost every ethnological work), why should we\nassume that the Jewish women, to whom the curse originally applied, were\nnormal or lived normally? From our knowledge of the Syrian Jewess, it\nseems highly probable that, if her remote ancestors resembled her, their\nconfinements must have been extremely sorrowful. But what has that to do\nwith us? This never seems to have occurred to the modern medical man;\nand, taking the _Genesis_ curse as his motto, he has now solemnly\nallowed the agony to be piled up, till it is no longer merely in sorrow,\nbut almost in tragedy, that children are brought forth\u2014not to mention\nthe extra-corporeal equipment of instruments, etc. And, why should there\nbe any limit? When once the principle is admitted, where is the line to\nbe drawn, particularly if it pays not to draw it? We protest, however,\nthat even if we admit\u2014which we do not\u2014that there must be \u201csorrow,\u201d this\ncan hardly have meant the miserable failure and elaborate scientific\ntechnique which modern medicine has made of parturition in general.\n\nNow, in view of these three articles of faith, not only are the doctors\nand the public in an attitude that paralyses all endeavour to effect a\nchange for the better, but both the doctors and the public have ceased\nto ask whether any such change is possible. Having ceased to ask the\nquestion, no effort is made to inquire into the means of achieving the\nend it suggests; and, as usual, everything is staked on artificial aids.\nAnyone who, like ourselves, asks whether there are not other ways of\novercoming the enormous difficulties of parturition among modern women,\nin order to remove this cloud from life and love and restore pleasure to\na natural function, is laughed at.\n\nNevertheless the present writer continues to ask the question, and for\nthe following reasons:\n\nFor a long time it has seemed to him suspicious that Nature, who is so\nuniform in her methods and who with such unfailing consistency has made\nall vital functions pleasant, should have made this one conspicuous\nexception, particularly in regard to a function linked to the most vital\nmoment in our lives. Being unsatisfied with the verdict of science on\nthe subject, therefore, he made inquiries on his own account, and was\nnot at all surprised to find, not only that a number of existing races\nstill enjoy infinitely greater ease in parturition than most European\nwomen, but also that, as he expected, there are still to be found among\nmankind faint vestiges of that ecstasy which he believes must once have\nattended the function in normal circumstances. Even the dreams of some\nEuropean women lead the inquirer to suspect the existence of this\necstasy not so very far back along the racial line. When, however, the\npresent writer expressed this view in a recent work dealing with the\nsubject,[8] he provoked the most violent indignation, particularly among\nwomen themselves.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  See _Woman: A Vindication_ (Constable and Co.: 1923).\n\nAfter having made a number of observations and experiments on the higher\nanimals, he discovered not only that parturition is in fact ecstatic\namong these animals when in their natural condition, but also that their\necstasy can quickly be altered to anguish by only the smallest\ndivergence from the normal in their food during gestation.\n\nObserving animals in a state of nature, moreover, he arrived at this\ninteresting conclusion, _that their young_, even when the mothers are in\nsplendid fettle, _are only skin and bone at birth_, that their birth is\nan ecstatic function to the mother only when they are in this state, and\nthat young born in this way not only never lose weight, but grow as\nplump and vigorous as could be wished in the first twenty-four hours.\n\nIf, however, the gestating mother\u2019s food be so modified _as to make it\nunlike the natural food of the species_\u2014for instance, if large\nquantities of potatoes, bread, cabbage, and rice-pudding be given to a\nfemale cat, with rations of cooked instead of raw meat\u2014the birth of the\nkittens, which are grossly fat, is immensely difficult, and some of them\nmay be still-born or appear only after long delay in mutilated\nfragments.\n\nThe present writer has confirmed these facts repeatedly, and they led\nhim to ask this question: _whether civilized women, even in antiquity,\nhave not habitually taken the wrong food during gestation, with the\nresult that their babies have been too fat or too hard in the bone at\nbirth_?\n\nIt is notorious that a small, healthy 6-lb baby frequently flourishes\nbetter than the heavier infant of 8 or 9 lbs; also that, since the\nlarger baby usually loses weight after birth, its bulk is demonstrably\nunnecessary at that stage. What then prevents us from adopting what is\nobviously Nature\u2019s plan\u2014the birth of relatively thin and small babies,\nthrough care of the gestating mother\u2019s food?\n\nIt is obviously only a question of feeding and hygiene, and of ridding\nthe public and the medical profession of a number of absurd prejudices:\nthe rest will necessarily follow if only it be earnestly desired.[9]\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  As the present chapter is being written, we notice with pleasure that\n  at a conclave of doctors held recently at Bradford, Dr \u039c. E.\n  Mackenzie, of Leeds, put a question to the meeting which showed that\n  she is evidently on the track of the reforms we recommend; but we were\n  not surprised to find that the President, Dr J. S. Fairbairn, declared\n  that he did not take her remarks seriously. (See _British Medical\n  Journal_, Aug. 16th, 1924).\n\nWe feel convinced, from our study of animals, that this is the direction\nin which inquiry should be directed, for at least it offers some hope of\nan improvement, whereas the elaboration and more persistent use of\nartificial aids offers none. Doctors should exert themselves to discover\nthat ideal gestatory diet which will lead to an infant\u2019s being born\nwhose weight is from 6 to 6\u00bd lbs, whose body is lean, whose head is\nsmall and not too hard, and who will gain and not lose weight after\nbirth. But we can hardly refrain from adding that, when once these\nfood-conditions are found, medical men are likely to discover that they\nhave much less to do than at present by the bedside of the expectant\nmother, and that they will then be invited to delegate their duties to\nsomeone less learned, less expensive, less pressed for time, and\ntherefore less interested in achieving the result by scientific aids.\n\nDr Eichholz of Kreuznach, writing in the _Frauenarzt_ as early as 1895,\noutlined a system of dieting which he declared produced the results\ndescribed above; while Dr Lahmann, who was the first to point out that\nour aim should be to obtain smaller and thinner babies, with heads less\nhard at birth, experimented with a diet poor in nitrogen, which he\ndeclared was completely successful.\n\nAccording to Lahmann, it is not only excessive feeding and drinking\nduring pregnancy which, owing to the natural greed of women and the\nsycophantic encouragement of that greed by ignorant doctors, is the\nuniversal error, but the excessive eating of foods rich in protein; and\nhe recommends a diet rich in food-salts and poor in meat and cereals,\nwhich seems to approximate very well to what one may imagine the food of\nprimitive mankind to have been.\n\nThe compass of this work, however, does not allow us to enter into the\nminuti\u00e6 of the Lahmann diet. All we wish to emphasize here is that, if\nonly we can rid our minds of a few ridiculous superstitions and aim at a\nnatural ideal, the attainment of which cannot be beyond the wit of man,\nthe probability is that the \u201csorrow\u201d in which children are brought forth\nwill be greatly mitigated, if not wholly removed, and much of its\npristine bliss restored to the life of woman and to motherhood.\n\nSince our aim should be the recovery of our belief in the value of life\nand love, by improving our bodily functions, we cannot halt at any\ndifficulty in the way of our success. But success means not only\ncontesting the sway of the body-despising values, but also fighting the\nConservatism and prejudices of a great profession, which, while it has\ngreat power to-day, can hardly fail to identify its best interests with\na perpetuation and aggravation of our present physical disabilities.\n\nPassing now to lactation, which constitutes one of the chief joys of\nmotherhood, and which, in its serenity and bliss has in all ages\nsymbolized the beauty of the feminine virtues, the home, and the family,\nit will perhaps not astonish the reader to hear that there is at present\nno human function, except parturition, which is more often replaced by\nartificial means than this one.\n\nThe vast multiplication in recent years of patent infant-foods and\npreparations of cow\u2019s milk sufficiently demonstrates the extent to which\nmodern women are failing in this respect; and, when it is remembered\nthat this failure is to be observed in all classes, even among those who\ncannot plead society obligations as an excuse, the situation appears to\nbe deplorable enough.\n\nNo doubt a certain percentage of this increase in artificial feeding is\ndue to actual physiological defects; but we must not make too much of\nthat. Truth to tell, degeneration and defective functioning account for\nbut a trifling number of those who, every year, have recourse to the\nbottle instead of the breast in the feeding of their infants. For, with\nfew exceptions, lactation can be established in every woman.\n\nThe general authoritative opinion seems to be that \u201cwhen care is\nexercised and adequate attention paid to the necessary details, the\nglands can in nearly all cases be brought into the required degree of\nactivity,\u201d and that \u201cif the value of natural feeding were realized, it\ncan hardly be doubted that the capacity for breast-feeding would be\nfound to be practically universal among the women of England.\u201d (Dr Janet\nE. Lane Claypon).\n\nThe enormous popularity of artificial feeding, therefore, must be due to\nthe increased activities of women of all classes outside the home, which\nis one of the most noticeable features of the Women\u2019s Movement, and the\nconsequent disinclination on their part to undertake the rearing of\ntheir children in the natural manner. Together with the decline in the\nfunction on the one hand, and women\u2019s refusal to suckle on the other,\nthere has, as usual, arisen both a scientific technique and a host of\nsubstitutes which take the place of mother\u2019s milk; and, in accordance\nwith our traditional tendencies, we have once more neglected the effort\nto restore natural conditions, in order to apply all our ingenuity to\nthe task of bringing artificial aids to perfection.\n\nNow this would be all very well, and no one could rightly complain, if\nthe substitutes in this case were more akin to natural conditions than\nare most artificial aids. If this were so we might regret, from the\nsentimental and the \u00e6sthetic standpoints, the evanescence of\nbreast-feeding, and sympathize _en passant_ with the mothers who were\ndeprived of it as an experience; but we should be able to advance no\npractical reasons why it was to be deplored from the standpoint of human\ndesirability.\n\nAnd, indeed, for many years this has been the position. Although doctors\nand commercial corporations repeatedly protest that breast-feeding is\nbest, they are quite ready in the same breath to admit that artificial\nfeeding can be made \u201cas good as mother\u2019s milk\u201d; and no one is in the\nleast perturbed when he hears that his own child or that millions of\nother babies are being hand-fed. We have even read the work of one\nEnglish doctor who smugly proclaims that we shall improve on Nature in\nthis matter!\n\nThus, once again, while flagrant abnormalities are becoming the rule\namongst us, science hastens to set our minds at rest by a shower of\nartificial aids; and, since we can \u201ccarry on,\u201d nothing more is said.\n\nThe problem appears to be a simple one, and, to give scientists their\ndue, they have done little to complicate it. Mother\u2019s milk contains so\nmuch water, so much protein, carbo-hydrates, fat, and mineral salts,\nand, when once you have these ingredients in the proper proportions, you\nhave a synthetic product \u201cas good as mother\u2019s milk.\u201d Indeed, so long\nhave these ingredients and their quantitative values held the field, to\nthe exclusion of everything else, that we have come to believe that\ncow\u2019s milk or even Allenbury\u2019s is as normal as breast-feeding.\n\nAnd yet, if we were to undergo a strange and uncommon test hardly ever\napplied in highly civilized countries, how quickly would our blind faith\nin even the best artificial methods receive a shock! True, sentiment\nalone would be responsible for the commotion; but in this case sentiment\nwould be strangely akin to true knowledge.\n\nPlace a human baby at the dug of a cow, a goat, or an ass, as you\nsometimes see them placed in semi-civilized countries, and what is it\nthat you immediately feel? The sight is an offence to the eyes, a\nhumiliation of our racial pride.\u2014Why?\n\nInstinctively we feel and intellectually we know that Nature makes the\nwisest provision for her needs. When, therefore, we see one of our\nbabies at the dugs of a goat, our sense of fitness is shocked: even our\npractical utilitarian prejudices receive a blow. We know instantly that\nthe baby cannot have been meant to take that milk, because it is a\nnobler creature than the goat and its body has tasks and feats to\nperform with its food which the kid has not. Above all, it has that huge\nbrain to develop, which the kid has not. Can it be possible that Nature\ncould have overlooked that? The human brain is not only larger at birth\nthan that of any other animal, but its rate of growth is also greater.\nIs it conceivable that Nature could have made no special provision for\nthat?\n\nHence our sense of degradation and revolt\u2014feelings which somehow are not\nprovoked when the milk reaches us in a bright glass-bottle, or in a nice\nclean tin covered with printed matter\u2014because all the degrading side of\nit is then hidden from our view.\n\nThe strange part of it, however, is that this sense of degradation and\nrevolt is based upon fact; for not only on _a priori_ grounds may we\ndeny that goat\u2019s milk or any other substitute can adequately replace\nbreast-feeding, but we may also deny it from positive knowledge.\n\nYears ago Dr Biedert showed that the most important differences between\nhuman and cow\u2019s milk were qualitative rather than quantitative. A little\nlater Dr G. von Bunge confirmed this view; and Dr Halliburton, the great\nphysiologist, has recently repeated and emphasized it. It is impossible\nto enter here into the qualitative differences to which these\nauthorities refer: suffice it to say that the gravity of the whole\nquestion from our standpoint lies not merely in the greater\ndigestibility of human milk, but in the conspicuous difference between\nhuman milk and all other substitutes as a brain-developing food. Dr von\nBunge, who calls attention to this point, claims not only that human\nmilk is more complex than its substitutes, but that in it we find\nlecithin bodies in peculiar proportions, which serve for the\nconstruction of the inordinately large human brain.\n\nIt is not surprising that this important point should have been\noverlooked all this time. As we have already said, materialism is\nnecessarily the creed of body-despisers. But, if Dr von Bunge\u2019s view is\ncorrect, how severe must have been our loss in intelligence and genius,\nprecisely owing to the decline in breast-feeding! Certainly the\nuncontrollable and increasing stupidity of our governing classes for\nover a hundred years, seems to point to the truth of von Bunge\u2019s views;\nfor it is among them that, for social reasons, artificial feeding has\nbeen, and still is, most common. Dean Inge comments somewhere on the\nincreasing besottedness of modern people, and we entirely agree with his\nview; but we wonder whether it has ever struck him that the decline in\nbreast-feeding, which is the outcome of his body-despising values, may\nbe one of the most powerful contributory causes of it.\n\nFor we should always bear in mind, in comparing our poor spiritual\nachievements with the genial performances of antiquity, the Middle Ages,\nthe Renaissance, and the pre-Victorian era, that the artificial feeding\nof infants is essentially a modern invention, and that it was unknown to\nantiquity.\n\nFrom Plato down to Pope Alexander VI no one had ever heard of a baby\u2019s\nbottle. The alleged ancient artificial feeder discovered in Cyprus by\nFranz von L\u00f6her was probably no more than an old traveller\u2019s gourd or\nwine-bottle. As late as the fifteenth century the only kind of\ninfant-feeding, other than breast-feeding by the mother, that was known,\nwas that which a foster-mother, or so-called wet-nurse, could provide.\nMetlinger in 1473 appears to be the first to mention cow\u2019s milk as a\nsubstitute, and Rosslin comes next, in 1522, with a theory about\negg-yolk and bread-mash. But these men speak of these substitutes as\napplicable only in case of extreme need, and there is nothing to suggest\nthat the practice of artificial feeding was common.\n\nAt all events, it is safe to say that the vast expansion of artificial\nfeeding, as we know it to-day, is something quite recent and new; and,\nsince there appears to be no doubt that, qualitatively, human milk is\nquite inimitable, it is impossible to calculate the damage which the\nlatest development of \u201cProgress\u201d may ultimately do to the spirits and\nbodies of civilized men.\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n\n                             WOMAN\u2019S FUTURE\n\n\nPEOPLE ultimately _become_ the image of _their_ values. Discover their\nruling values, and their future is foretold.\n\nNow, if we are right in inferring from the many signs and portents to\nwhich attention has been called, that our values are largely\nbody-despising values, and that modern conditions already reveal these\nvalues well on their way to a complete triumph; if we are right,\nmoreover, in recognizing in modern degeneration, science, Feminism,\nPuritanism, and the increasing cleavage between the sexes the logical\noutcome of these values, then there can be but two possible alternatives\nfor the future: either the complete realization of the desiderata\nimplicit in these body-despising values, or else a revolt against them,\nthe strength for which will be drawn from the \u00e6sthetic, older, and more\nhealthy side of our nature. As both of these alternatives are possible,\nand, moreover, each will mean a different future for women, it will be\nnecessary to examine them separately.\n\nDealing first with the future which will result from the complete\nrealization of the desiderata implicit in our body-despising values, we\nmust now recall the main tendencies of the present day, so that we may\ndiscover whither they must necessarily lead.\n\nWe have seen that in our present world we have:\n\n(=a=) A population the bulk of which are physiologically sub-human, and\nfrivolously oblivious of this fact. It is a population, therefore, to\nwhich the value of Life and Love is beginning to be a matter of doubt,\nand among which Puritanical prejudices are likely to become a\nspontaneous growth where they are not already present. Puritanism,\nhowever, must also bring about this indirect and unexpected result:\nthat, where it prevails, man is likely to become an object of general\ndisapproval; because, since the desires of the body are regarded as\nsinful, man as the initiator, instigator, and active agent in the sexual\nencounter, will gradually appear as the traditional villain of creation,\nthe natural butt of all gratuitous moral indignation.\n\n(=b=) A body of sciences and commercial enterprises which, guided by\nbody-despising values, tends rather to provide us with an\nextra-corporeal equipment for our declining bodies than to aim at\nrestoring to us our pristine functions and original corporeal equipment.\nThis enhances our doubt concerning the value of Love and Life, though it\nhelps us to \u201ccarry on.\u201d\n\n(=c=) A marked decline in the ability, versatility, and masculinity of\nmen, which is the outcome partly of physical and partly of intellectual\ninferiority, brought about on the one hand by besotting and cramping\nlabour for generations, and, on the other, by the deliberate attempt,\nthroughout Anglo-Saxon civilization and its imitations, to limit the\nnotion of manliness to martial bravery and proficiency at sports. This\nhas led to a loss of mastery over all things which is far from edifying,\nand has enabled women during the last century and recently to draw\nunduly favourable comparisons between themselves and men\u2014which, while\ncomprehensible in the circumstances, give quite a distorted view of the\nsituation. It is the case of two climbers, M. and W. who, while\nascending a hill, find that, through the sudden weakness of M., W.\u2019s\npace appears to be wonderfully enhanced. W., however, interprets M.\u2019s\nretrograde movement not as abnormal weakness but as accelerated speed on\nher part, and therefore feels contempt for M. as M., not merely as\nenfeebled M.\n\n(=d=) A large body of disgruntled women, mostly unmarried, who, having\nturned away from Life and Love either through lack of mates or the\nnausea acquired in modern matrimony, are prepared to slander not only\nLife, but also motherhood, domesticity, and Man, and who, in their\nconscious or unconscious jealousy of younger women and girls, try to\nconvince the latter that life can be lived happily without bodily\nadaptation.\n\n(=e=) Social circumstances which force millions of women into open\ncompetition with men, and therefore increase the initial hostility\nfostered by (=a=), (=c=), and (=d=).\n\n(=f=) A state of abnormality so acute in some of the chief functions\nconnected with the sexual life that more and more cogent arguments are\nfound ready to hand for those who, through Puritanism, jealousy of the\nrising generation, or hostility to the male, wish to slander life and\nemancipate themselves _and others_ from \u201c_that_ side of it.\u201d\n\n(=g=) A movement known as Feminism, generated chiefly by (=a=), (=c=),\nand (=d=), and greatly reinforced by (=e=) and (=f=), but having also a\nstrong trace of (=b=) in its attitude, which claims that it can recruit\namong its own supporters the mastery, ability, and strength to put the\nworld right, and which proposes to do so by superseding man everywhere,\nif possible, even in his reproductive r\u00f4le.\n\nThis is the picture at a glance. To what can it lead?\n\nThe history of all reforms and radical innovations in this world has\nshown that far-reaching changes are always the work of a leading,\nactive, gifted, and small minority, striving with zeal and determination\nto realize an ideal. This ideal may be based on misconception or on\nerror; but that does not matter. In the end, the wilful minority\nestablishes the environment, or mould, and the inert, ductile masses\npour into it and receive their shape.\n\nNow there is not a particle of doubt in anybody\u2019s mind that the leading,\nactive, and gifted minority now constituting the van of the Women\u2019s\nMovement, are by far the most vital and energetic body of women in the\ncivilized world, admirable in their zeal, and noble in their readiness\nto shoulder the responsibility of setting things right. This does not\nprevent us, however, from believing them mistaken in their reading of\nthe situation, and pathetic in their illusions about their own and their\nsex\u2019s capacities. So indefatigable are they, indeed, that large numbers\nof apparently monorchid and shallow-minded men have already gone over to\ntheir side; while the conversion of girls and young women to a sexless\nlife is one of the least obvious but most pernicious results of their\nactivities. And, since there appears to be no general recognition that\nour present state of muddle and lack of mastery over all things is the\noutcome of masculine degeneracy; since, moreover, there seems to be no\nattempt made to discover how man himself can recover his quota of manly\nqualities, it is not only possible, but highly probable, that the mass\nof mankind, through not having its attention called to the only remedy,\nwhich is the regeneration of man, will, out of sheer lack of principles\nand policies, see in the quack-cure of Feminism their only hope.\n\nGiven, therefore, the persistence of the body-despising values, and the\nconditions to which they give rise, we may expect to see the energetic\nminority of women, who now lead the Feminist movement, determine the\nfuture of their sex; and, if we watch them and try to understand them,\nwe shall be in a position to describe the world they will call into\nexistence.\n\nWe have seen that Feminism is not only the outcome of the modern world\u2019s\nmain characteristics, but also that it embodies these characteristics as\nelements in its general attitude. Truth to tell, if we take our values\nas given, together with all the results they were sure to bring about,\nthen Feminism was a foregone conclusion from the start.\n\nNeglect and degeneration of the body were bound to lead to a loathing of\nthe body and the wish to be emancipated from its thraldom. This,\nhowever, necessarily destroyed one of the chief bonds between man and\nwoman, and left the natural and radical hostility of the sexes naked and\nunconstrained. This is one side of Feminism.\n\nNext we have the fact that physical neglect and degeneration were also\nbound to lead to the decline of man as the male, both in the material\nand in the spiritual senses. This, in its turn, led on the one hand to\nour lack of mastery in everything, which caused women to wonder whether\nthey could not help to clear up the muddle; and, on the other, to a\ngrowing contempt of man\u2019s powers, and, as we have seen, to an\nexaggerated notion of woman\u2019s. This is the other side of Feminism.\n\nTo complete the movement, all that we required was, (=a=) a large body\nof disgruntled females, either spinsters or wives, all ready to slander\nlife and man; and (=b=) economic pressure driving women into open\ncompetition with men in all paid employment. Both these conditions\nhaving been fulfilled, the rest naturally followed.\n\nThe first indication we had that Feminism consisted of these elements\nwas the fact that the old passionate calls to which women once responded\ngradually began to yield before calls of mere vanity and to the desire\nfor notoriety. Numbers of women no longer showed the old eagerness to\nexpress physical passion, or the old sad resignation when it was\nrebuffed: they were content with gratifying their vanity in every kind\nof sterile pursuit that gave them the appearance of being important.\n\nWithout any promise whatsoever of doing better than degenerate men, and\ncertainly without any past record of achievement that would justify us\nin expecting wonders from them\u2014for in those departments of life over\nwhich they have held supreme sway for thousands of years the most\ndeplorable muddle and ignorance prevail[10]\u2014they claimed municipal and\neven parliamentary power, they sought prominence even in empty\nprivileges, such as the right of sitting among the Peers; and were\ntriumphant when, at last, they figured in a position which has naturally\nexcited the abhorrence of all decent men for centuries\u2014the jury box.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  _Vide_ Chapter X of _Woman: A Vindication_.\n\nThe whole change revealed in the leaders of the movement and numbers of\ntheir followers a transmutation of the once powerful bodily passion into\nsomething more feeble, more volatile, and more exclusively dependent on\nvanity; while accompanying it throughout were the two elements growing\ndaily more acute\u2014the longing to be rid of the thraldom of sex, and\nhostility to man, which these women like to see more general.\n\nNothing startling has come of women\u2019s political power, and we can\nprophesy with perfect confidence that nothing ever will; even when, as\nmay quite possibly happen, Parliament consists only of females. So far,\nthe measures they have introduced or clamoured for have indicated merely\na continuation and intensification of the Puritanical tradition, but not\na sign of anything hopeful or new, in the sense that it was beyond\ndegenerate men.\n\nBut the very demand for the vote was, in itself, merely a confirmation\nof the view, held by ourselves and a few others, that no possible good\ncould come from Feminism, that it offered no hope of a better world, and\nthat it was a quack remedy for our sickness. For, if there had been any\nintrinsic quality in it, any political or other genius peculiarly\nfeminine and foreign in kind and degree to anything found in man, how\ncan we explain that one of its first claims was to obtain a political\nprivilege, the futility and undesirability of which had been\ndemonstrated _ad nauseam_ long before this century dawned? Modern\ndemocracy with its political machinery is so thoroughly discredited, and\nis moreover such a menace to our national greatness, that, if there had\nbeen any social acumen or shrewdness in woman, she would have proved it\nby utterly scouting this political _faux pas_ of degenerate manhood. A\ncreative woman\u2019s movement, if such an idea can possibly be conceived,\nwould have introduced something new and hopeful into our political life.\nIt might, at least, have tried to resuscitate the best in our\npre-democratic past; and, even if it did not show this amount of flair,\nit might, when it got the vote, straight-way have shown its power by\ninitiating reforms that are peculiarly within woman\u2019s province. It might\nhave demanded a reform of our food-conditions, and of the\nproprietary-food, patent-medicine and culinary-aid industries, which are\nin a scandalous state; or a reform of the conditions under which\nmidwifery is practised in this country. But it neither attempted, nor\nshowed any inclination to attempt, any one of these feats. It demanded\nthe preposterous vote; and, having got it, proceeded, both in Parliament\nand out, to try to effect only Puritanical reforms, some of which were\nfrankly hostile to men.\n\nWe are likely to suffer a rude awakening, therefore, if we look to\nFeminism for any marked improvement in our affairs. Nobody with any\nprofound understanding of woman\u2019s nature, and of her past achievements,\ncan possibly expect it. What we can expect, however, when once the\nforces of Feminism are completely organized, is a systematic\nintensification of all the tendencies that have culminated in the modern\nWomen\u2019s Movement.\n\nThe hostility to man and the jealousy of happy and passionate youth,\nfelt by all disaffected women, whether spinsters or wives, is sure to\nlead to every effort being made to lure girls more and more from bodily\nhappiness. We can, therefore, expect an increasing emancipation of girls\nand women from domestic arts and duties, together with an aggravation of\nour present vices regarding foods. This will be accompanied by the\nintensive manufacture of every kind of condensed, preserved, compressed,\nand synthetic food, with a corresponding multiplication of aids to\nminimize trouble in food-preparation. The ideal will be a standardized\nand complete food, containing its own correctives for failing digestion,\nto be obtained probably in tabloid form, and requiring no further\npreparation whatsoever. Ultimately, there can be little doubt that this\nform of food will be discovered, and may possibly become the product of\na special Government Department. Meanwhile, the human system will have\nundergone years of painful attempted adaptation to increasingly bad\nfood-conditions, and acute indigestion, with repeated intestinal\noperations, will probably have become as common as dental caries and\ntooth-extraction are to-day.\n\nThe tendency as regards men will be to rear ever larger numbers of them\nalong the lines already indicated by modern taste\u2014that is to say, their\nmanliness will be limited more and more to military courage and\nproficiency at games. Thus, while they will prove increasingly harmless\nand amenable to female rule\u2014as Aristotle said such men always would\u2014they\nwill be even more besotted, more lacking in mastery, will-power and\nunderstanding, more feeble as lovers, and more contemptible than the men\nof to-day.\n\nWe can expect an increasing assertion of the rights of females in every\nbranch of industry, commerce, and the professions, accompanied by such a\nmultiplication of ready workers that competition between the sexes will\nbecome acute. The first moment of violent strain will occur when women\nemployers and women labour-leaders, both working under Feminist\nguidance, appropriate certain industries wholly to female labour. This\nwill be accompanied by a vast extension of an idea already\nmaterialized\u2014the female bank, that is to say, financial houses and\ninterests devoted entirely to the women\u2019s cause. Epicene organizations\nand staffs will then tend to disappear, and soon the national industry\nwill be divided into two sections, each of which will be conducted by\nand for one sex only, and in which the most poorly paid workers will\nbelong to the other sex. These two sections will confront each other\njealously like two competing nations, and, while each will try to\nencroach on the domain and wealth of the other, it will also try to\ncompass the other\u2019s failure.\n\nOccasionally this bitter rivalry will lead to riots and savage\nstreet-fighting, in which, owing to the fact that moral indignation will\nalways be on the side of the women, the men are certain to be routed,\nand to lose credit, prestige, and lives. In any case, owing to the\ncontinued besotment of men, the female domain will steadily corrode and\neat into the male, and soon men will cease to be employers altogether,\nand become the poorest-paid workers in an industry run entirely by\nwomen.\n\nAbetting and assisting this movement, we shall see engineering and\nmachinery so much perfected that skill in operative work will entirely\nvanish. A team of intelligent monkeys will then be adequate for the\nproductive work of the nation, and, with this final blow at the\nspiritual and physical qualifications of both sexes, women will overrun\nevery department of production. This development was adumbrated during\nthe Great War, when it was found that, although 5,000,000 men had left\ntheir work, girls and women easily took it over. Hundreds of thousands\nof these men imagined that they had been doing both skilled and manly\nwork. The ease with which they were replaced by inexperienced girls and\nwomen proved that they were wrong. It also proved, incidentally, that\nsuch was the extent of our urban degeneration and emasculation that only\nthe fewest among the peace-occupations of the country were essentially\nmasculine or demanded masculine qualifications.\n\nMeanwhile, owing to health having suffered a further decline, owing to\nmotherhood having become more and more distressing, and owing to sexual\nand bodily joys having become more completely suspect, celibacy among\nwomen will be more common than it is at present, and legislation may\nhave to be passed to compel a greater percentage of wage-earners to\nmarry. To help increase the population, greater benefits will be\nconferred on parents than ever before. But, as by this time it will be\nbecoming more and more plain that man is growing superfluous except as a\nfertilizer and a soldier, and as, through his contemptible condition,\nthe feeling will be gaining ground that it is an indignity for a free\nfemale citizen to live in intimacy with him simply in order to provide\nthe state with children, there may be an attempt to legalize marriage by\nproxy, accompanied by scientific fertilization without actual congress\nwith any man personally known to the woman. Artificial impregnation will\ntend to become common, and women\u2014the wealthiest and most embittered\nforemost\u2014will soon give up ordinary marriage altogether and choose to\nhave children without concourse with the other sex. The whole act of\nfertilization will be consummated in the surgery, just as vaccination is\nnow. There are signs even to-day that this revolt against cohabitation\nis spreading, and there are not a few women who, either in their\nPuritanism or jealousy of their happier sisters, would be glad to see it\nbecome more common.\n\nKeeping pace with these changes, lactation will wholly disappear, and,\neven among the lowest women, it will be regarded very much as\ncannibalism is to-day. Pictures and statues of women in the act of\nsuckling will be mutilated, destroyed, or hidden from the public view,\njust as a certain class of Greek statues are now mutilated and\nconcealed; while the ideal of beauty in the female will be a creature\ncompletely flat-chested and with the hips of a youth. Girls and women\nwho happen to throw back to the ancestral type will be pitied, and may\neven be operated upon, just as people with facial blemishes are now.\n\nMeanwhile modifications will have occurred in the relations of the\nsexes. The congress of male and female will have begun to seem much more\nguilty and disgusting even than it is to-day, and as the male will still\nbe looked upon (as he is now) as the principal culprit in the matter,\nthe age of consent will probably be extended to thirty-five or forty, if\nnot to the menopause. Seduction and rape will be punished brutally,\nprobably by means of emasculation; and men of vigorous sexuality will be\neliminated in order to make way for a generation of low-sexed, meek, and\nsequacious lackeys.\n\nIt will not be long before even the necessity for male soldiers will\nvanish. When the manipulation of the engines of war becomes as simple as\ntyping or making tea, girls and women will make just as efficient\nsoldiers as men; and, since war will then be carried on without\nvisualizing the enemy, all that will be required will be an army of\nobedient operatives, who will not need the traditional courage and\nendurance of the male in the face of the foe.\n\nWhen once artificial impregnation is an every-day occurrence, a\nParliament of women will doubtless pass legislation to make it illegal\nfor any man to procreate a child naturally, if it is the wife\u2019s desire\nto have one by the intermediation of science; and, no matter how many\nchildren she may wish to have in this way, he will be compelled to\nsupport them. This, however, will be the final blow to marriage.\nHundreds of thousands of women will still be naturally fertilized, but\nthey will be despised, and form a class apart. Social prejudice will be\nagainst them, and movements will be started to emancipate and rescue\nthem, just as there are movements to-day to rescue harem-women. Jealousy\nwill still play a part in this movement; but, owing to the deplorable\ndegeneration of men as lovers and mates, it will be fainter than ever\nbefore.\n\nThere will, of course, be fluctuations in this development, and some\ndecades will reveal shameful lapses into matrimony and natural\nfertilization. Then the Lysistratas of the Feminist world, burning with\nindignation once more, will be heard crying aloud, just as Lysistrata\ncried over two thousand years ago in Greece:\n\n\u201c\u1f10\u03b3\u1f7c \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03bf\u1f56\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba\u03ad\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bf\u1f35\u03b1 \u03c4\u1fbd \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd\u00b7 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b4\u03b9\u03b4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\n\u03b3\u03ac\u03c1.\u201d\n\n(I can no longer hold the minxes. They are running to the men; they are\ndeserting).\u2014Aristophanes, _Lysistrata_, ll. 718-9.\n\nBut the aggravated horrors of childbirth, and the alarming increase in\nthe performance of the C\u00e6sarian section, together with the general\nsurfeit of the body and the intensified loathing of men, will cause\nthese retrograde movements to diminish, and very soon such a clamour\nwill arise for extra-corporeal gestation that science will be allowed no\nrest until a technique is discovered that will meet the public demand.\nThe results achieved by men like Alexis Carrel, Ebleing, and Fische, all\nof whom are now working with success on tissue-culture and the\ntransplantation of anatomical structures from one living organism to\nanother, will be improved upon, and a means will be discovered by which\nthe fertilized ovum will be matured outside the female body.\n\nAt first, we venture to predict, this will occur by again enlisting the\ncow or the ass into our service. Science already suspects that vital\nfluids are not specific, and it is probable, therefore, that in the\nearly days of extra-corporeal gestation, the fertilized human ovum will\nbe transferred to the uterus of a cow or an ass, and left to mature as a\nparasite on the animal\u2019s tissues, very much as the newborn baby is now\nmade the parasite of the cow\u2019s udder. And, with this innovation, we\nshall probably suffer increased besotment, and intensified bovinity or\nasininity, according to the nature of the quadruped chosen. Thus\nextra-corporeal gestation, or \u201cectogenesis\u201d (to use a word coined by Mr\nJ. B. S. Haldane for the purpose) will become a possibility, and the\nFeminist ideal of complete emancipation from the thraldom of sex will be\nrealized.\n\nFresh legislation will now be passed, which will make it a felony for a\nman to give a woman a child in the old corporeal sense, and any male\nfound guilty of such an offence will be sentenced to death or else to a\nlong term of hard labour. In view of the initial heavy cost of\nextra-corporeal gestation, however, public centres will be provided\nwhere the Borough Council will undertake to \u201cgrow\u201d children for the\ndestitute and the poor.\n\nA little later on, of course, this artificial aid will be perfected, and\neven the cow will become unnecessary. The fertilized ovum, cultivated in\nembryonic tissue-juice, will then be independent of the foster uterus of\nanimals, and will mature very much as chickens now do in incubators.\n\nThese discoveries are all potential in the scientific achievements of\nour day, and implicit in our values. All they need to bring them into\nexistence is the further direction of these values, together with the\ncontinued anti-sexual and anti-masculine bias of Feminism.\n\nWith this final blow levelled at the corporeal equipment of sex,\ntriumphant Feminism will probably reach its zenith, and in a few\ngenerations a kind of woman will appear the only vestige of whose sex\nwill be her smooth face and primary genital glands. Men will then be\nfrankly regarded as quite superfluous. Having lost their powers, first\nas spiritual and bodily leaders, secondly as masters and lovers, thirdly\nas skilled craftsmen and soldiers, and fourthly as specialized workers,\ntheir social use will have lapsed, and their numbers will begin to be\nfelt as a source of irritation and even indignation.\n\nAt this stage the social muddle will have become so intricate, and have\ngrown so alarmingly out of hand, that nothing but the most drastic and\nsweeping changes will be able to prolong the life of the community. A\nshortage of food, occasioned by difficulties arising in the Government\nDepartment responsible for food-preparation and food-distribution, will\ngive the signal for the last and most bitter sex-struggle. Either\nthrough incompetent administration or the revolt of the workers, there\nwill be a threat of starvation. No food will be made for weeks, stores\nwill be on the point of being depleted, and panic will reign everywhere;\nwhen suddenly a few of the leading women will perceive with apocalyptic\nclarity not only that the superfluity of men has become a burden on the\ncommunity and a menace to the food of the children, but also that the\nreduction of their numbers to the barest minimum indispensable for the\npurposes of fertilization would be a twofold boon\u2014it would relieve the\nfood-crisis both for the moment and possibly also for the future, and\nobviate for ever the danger of a masculine or slave rising.\n\nA sex-fight at the distributing station of a large store will suffice to\nlight the first spark of this new conflagration. A dead set will be made\nagainst the men, not only round the original focus of the trouble, but\neverywhere. The legislature, recognizing their opportunity, will support\nthe popular fury, and proceed to a systematic slaughter of males, until,\nwith the help of the regular troops, it will be found necessary to\nprotect and preserve a small nucleus for next year\u2019s fertilization.\n\nBy that time, however, a significant precedent will have been\nestablished, and a lesson learnt that will not easily be forgotten. The\nsuperfluousness of men above a certain essential minimum (about 5 to\nevery 1,000 women) will have become recognized officially and\nunofficially as a social fact. The legislature will establish laws to\nguarantee that this minimum should not be surpassed, and in a very short\nwhile it will become a mere matter of routine to proceed to an annual\nslaughter of males who have either outlived their prime or else have\nfailed to fulfil the promise of their youth in meekness, general\nemasculateness, and stupidity.\n\nThe only circumstance that can avert this ultimate development is the\ndiscovery by science of a means of determining the sex of the ovum. If\nthis can be done, then, of course, only a certain small number of males\n(\u00bd%) will be reared every year, and the periodical slaughter will be\navoided. But in this connection it should be remembered that man will\nlong since have grown too dull to be capable of scientific wonders of\nany kind; and, as it is not in woman\u2019s nature to be inventive or to make\ngreat discoveries, the probability is that society will petrify at the\nlevel of mechanical and scientific progress reached at the moment of\nman\u2019s most serious decline, and, therefore, that the periodical\nslaughter of males will remain just as much a necessity with the human\nfemale workers as with the worker-bees.\n\nMeanwhile, to these millions of workers life will have become little\nmore than a dreary, colourless, and hopeless round of toil and\nself-sacrifice. The only sources of excitement and pleasure will be the\npastimes offering chances for public parade and appeals to vanity, the\ncriticism of the latest Government foods and their corresponding\ndigestive aids, and the reading in the papers about the prosecution of\nrefractory female characters, either for sedition, immorality, or\nindolence. Under immorality will be included all attempts at writing,\nreading, or circulating any poem, novel, or treatise faintly reminiscent\nof love as we now know it, all attempts at unearthing or recalling the\n\u201cobscene\u201d literature of former ages\u2014particularly the romantic fiction of\nthe nineteenth and twentieth centuries and all efforts to draw, paint,\ncarve, or otherwise represent any graphic image of barbaric woman, when\nshe still bore on her body the traces of the corporeal equipment for\nmotherhood.\n\nLooking round upon this cold, hard, and business-like world, however, in\nwhich the unremitting industry, so much exalted by Maeterlinck, will be\nthe only activity and almost the only interest, it is not unlikely that\nmillions of these female workers will ask themselves, with ever\nincreasing perplexity and distress, what purpose it all serves, what\ngood it all does, and what advantage or pleasure they derive from it. In\ntheir lives of stoic \u201cpurity\u201d and monotonous bread-winning alone, they\nare likely to discover that even waiting for the end is intolerable, and\nmany who will regard the normal term of human life as an unmerciful\nprolongation of their inexplicable misery will have recourse to all\npossible means of terminating their hardships. Gradually it will dawn\nupon a few independent and rebellious spirits that to have attempted to\nlive like spirits before the spirit-world was reached, to have attempted\nto extinguish the joys and thrills of the body and to taste of the\ninterests of angels, before having shuffled off this mortal coil\u2014in fact\nto have planned and organized an \u00e6sthetic phenomenon such as life\nwithout retaining its \u00e6sthetic side, was a tragic and utterly brutal\nblunder. By the time, however, that this inevitable discovery is\nmade\u2014the only great discovery that an exclusively female community is\never likely to make\u2014those who will be responsible for it will look\naghast upon their own and their sisters\u2019 bodies; and, perceiving with\nhorror the impossibility at that late hour of recovering the functions,\npowers, and bodily parts, which centuries of disuse and degeneration\nwill have withered to nothing, they will, if they still have enough\nspirit left, execrate and curse the memory of those who first envisaged\ntheir state as a future possibility, and who, having once conceived it\nas desirable, deliberately planned and schemed to bring it about.\n\n\u201cAlmighty God,\u201d they will cry in desperation, \u201cmercifully spared the\nbees our consciousness!\u201d\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n\n                              FUTURE WOMAN\n\n\nTHE picture, given in the last chapter, of the world that is likely to\nresult from the extreme consequences of our present tendencies may seem\noverdrawn and fantastic; but it should not be too readily dismissed as\nabsurd on that account. The fact that, as a whole, it may seem\nincredible is no argument against the inevitability of certain of its\nchief characteristics; for it should always be remembered that, since\nthe main stream of human life as we now know it, is based upon the\nbodily relation of the sexes and upon the love which makes this relation\na thing desired, all influences tending to deteriorate the human body or\nto upset that bodily relation, and all scientific technique and\nsubstitutes which tend to supersede it, must, if they are allowed to\ndevelop, lead to a dislocation so complete of the original scheme that\nthere is no telling in what monstrous changes they may culminate.\n\nHad we not already reached bodily degeneration, brought about and\ncondoned by body-despising values; had we not a Puritanical tradition\nreinforced by Feminism; and, finally, had we not a group of sciences\nwhose discoveries, either actual or potential, allow us to expect every\nkind of extra-corporeal substitute and aid for our defective corporeal\nfunctions and parts, we could afford to laugh at the dangers indicated\nin the previous chapter. In view, however, of the undeniable truth of\nthe description of our state previously given, it is impossible lightly\nto reject the ultimate evanescence of sexual love, for instance, as a\nremote future development. And, if we admit that, we must reckon with\nthe disappearance of our most effective protection against the\ninstinctive hostility of the sexes.\n\nIt is for this reason that there is still a fight to be fought with\nFeminism, and why we ourselves, though heart and soul pro-feminine,\nstill remain active anti-Feminists. People point to the victories of\nFeminism in recent years, and say: What is there left for active\nanti-Feminists to do? Now that women have the vote and that they sit in\nParliament, now that they have practically the whole of the Press behind\nthem, their battle is surely won, and anti-Feminism is a lost cause!\nObviously, however, if anti-Feminism means resisting the further\ndevelopment of Feminism, to prevent it from culminating in some or all\nof the changes outlined in the previous chapter; if it means a struggle\nto maintain the natural relations of the sexes, together with the normal\nfunctioning of male and female in reproduction; and if it also means the\nretention of the family, the home, and some beauty in our social scheme,\nthen it certainly cannot yet be a lost cause, and those who, like\nourselves, remain anti-Feminists despite the Feminine Franchise, the\nFeminist Press, and the Woman \u039c. P., feel that we have still much to\nprotect and much to achieve before we can regard our position as\nhopeless.\n\nFortunately, however, there is an alternative to the developments\ndescribed in the last chapter\u2014an alternative which, if we so choose, we\nmay well be able to bring about quite as certainly as the future already\noutlined. But, if we are in earnest about this alternative future, and\nif we seriously wish to realize it, we must not forget that, since the\nother is more or less implicit in our present trend, and will evolve\nautomatically out of it if only we continue to acquiesce in everything\nthat constitutes modernity, this other, or alternative, future will\nrequire to be actively fought for.\n\nThe future is in our hands, and we can mould it as we will\u2014certainly!\nBut, as we have seen, it is also as potential in the present as a flower\nis potential in the bud. While, therefore, the future sketched in the\nlast chapter\u2014or, at all events, very essential parts of it\u2014will come\nwithout any special effort on our part, merely as a further growth of\nexisting tendencies, the alternative future, which we now propose to\ndescribe, will, if it is to be realized, demand from us not only the\nhardness and determination of iconoclasts, but also the creative gifts,\npatience, and constructive energy of builders.\n\nThere is much in our present that must be destroyed, and even more that\nwill subsequently require building and re-building.\n\nAmong the first things that we shall destroy is our table of value. We\nshall do this, however, not in the spirit of anarchists eager only for\ngreater licence and more \u201cfreedom\u201d\u2014for that is always the temptation of\nthe mob, and requires no particular courage or constructive programme;\nbut in the spirit of builders who want more discipline for greater\nachievement.\n\nThe first values to be destroyed will be the body-despising values, and\neverything connected with them. We shall no longer condone ugliness or\nphysiological depravity either in ourselves or in others. The fact that\nsome bodily defect cannot be helped by the man who reveals it does not\nmake him any the more desirable. We shall remember that, strictly\nspeaking, moral depravity is no more voluntary than physiological\ndepravity; and, since we refuse to accept the excuse _mea non culpa_ for\nmoral depravity, it is only logical and right to reject that same excuse\nfor bodily depravity. Why is it important not to accept this excuse for\nbodily depravity? Because to condone is to overlook, to condone is to\naccept, and, above all, to condone is to become accustomed to. Where\nphysiological depravity is a matter of custom, however, it very soon\nceases, as we know, to be regarded as depravity; and mating,\nlove-making, and procreation quickly become possible in spite of it.\nThat is why it is more important to alter our values than to promote\nEugenic legislation. For, if our values are altered and physiological\ndepravity is no longer condoned, Eugenic legislation will become\nunnecessary, and will be anticipated by the taste of the people;\nwhereas, if our body-despising values remain intact, Eugenic legislation\nwill always be fighting an up-hill fight.\n\nThe most difficult feature connected with the task of suppressing our\nbody-despising values is the duty it enjoins on each individual not only\nof condemning his neighbour but also of condemning himself, if he is\nphysiologically depraved; but this each of us will learn to do. We shall\nfeel the shame of bodily defects once more, and strive unremittingly to\nrecover bodies complete anatomically beautiful, and no longer defective\nfunctionally. Even at the risk of great immediate suffering, we shall\nlearn to eschew artificial aids of all kinds, and regard it as beneath\nour dignity to use them. Then, since very little is beyond the wit of\nman, other means will be found, and we shall recover our former bodily\nsplendour.\n\nWe must bear in mind, however, that we are almost at the eleventh hour;\nthat to-morrow may be too late; and that, if we wish to spare ourselves\nthe great discovery of the desolate women-workers of the previous\nchapter, there is no time to lose.\n\nSecondly, we shall destroy the value which makes it noble, virtuous, and\ndesirable to sacrifice the greater for the less. This value also belongs\nto the group of values which Dean Inge supports, despite his apparent\nenthusiasm about Eugenics,[11] and is among the greatest causes of\nmodern degeneracy. When once you admit the principle that it is noble\nand virtuous to sacrifice the greater for the less, the desirable for\nthe undesirable, the corn for the weeds, the god for the mob, you\nnecessarily invite the condition which we find around us to-day.\nEverything that is best in the nation, all those elements on which the\nsuccessful survival of our race depends, are being penalized and\nsacrificed for the sake of the defective, the lunatic, the crippled, the\nincurable, the half-witted, and the blind. Honours are acquired not for\npromoting the multiplication of the sound and hale, but for promoting\nthe comfort, ease, and daily welfare of the physiologically and\nspiritually hopeless. This value must go. Its disappearance will clear\nthe air. So long, however, as one sound family in England continues to\nbe penalized even to the extent of only sixpence a year in order to\nsupport humanity\u2019s wreckage and rubbish, we shall continue to be\nsacrificing the greater to the less. This absurd and degenerate value\nmust be transvalued into the following: _It is noble and virtuous to\nsacrifice the less for the greater, the rubbish for the precious._ When\nonce this transvaluation has been effected, we shall begin to ascend.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  Another instance of his astonishing confusion of thought.\n\nThirdly, we shall recognize the error of our modern conception of\nmasculinity. We shall try to forget the Great War, which at present\ntempts us to think highly of ourselves; and we shall endeavour to\nunderstand that to limit the notion of masculinity to proficiency in\nsports and bravery in war is to overlook a whole catalogue of masculine\nvirtues without which degeneration can hardly fail to overtake us in\nspite of all our games and our feats of arms. This limitation of the\nidea of manliness to proficiency in sport and bravery in war is\nacceptable to women, because it makes for a breed of men who are easily\nled and still more easily misled; but it is fatal to civilization. We\nshall learn to expect of the manly man not only courage and proficiency\nin sport, but also will-power, leadership, mastery over the mysteries of\nlife, and not Puritanical funk in their presence, intelligence\nsufficient to overshadow any female brain that is placed alongside of\nhim (a feature notoriously absent both in the average soldier and in the\naverage sportsman, or at least, if not absent in, not essential to), and\nclarity and decision regarding every problem that it concerns him to\nunderstand\u2014in fact, a man whose presence alone makes the claim of sexual\nequality a manifest and transparent absurdity.\n\nNothing less should satisfy us; for we shall always remember that it was\nthe man who possesses merely courage and proficiency at sport that is\nresponsible not only for all our present muddle, but also for Feminism.\n\nHere again, therefore, we shall recast our values, and, hard as it may\nseem, discipline ourselves to a new outlook. Nothing else can save the\nworld and nothing else can put woman back in her place\u2014which is only\nanother way of saving the world. Every other remedy is quackery. The\nhighest type of this kind of manly man is the ruler who gives us a new\norder and a new goal; while even the lowest type is the husband who\nfills a woman\u2019s life and whom she finds it a joy to obey and no\nindignity, no hardship to serve. Without this kind of man in large\nnumbers in our midst, the world cannot fail to go hopelessly astray, and\nit will be our principal object henceforth to discover not only how he\ncan be restored to us, but how it is that, during the last hundred\nyears, we have failed to produce him in England. This is the only kind\nof scientific research that can possibly be fruitful of good results at\nthe present juncture, and it is the first direction in which we shall\nturn our remaining energy. Nor need we be deterred by the journalistic\nscoffers who will tell us that we are in search of that mythical monster\nthe Superman, for we have no such highfalutin\u2019 schemes. The men we wish\nto rear again have already been reared once before in these islands, and\nhistory records their lives. They are not a magic fantasy, but a\npossible reality. They are not demi-gods, but mortals. And we ourselves,\nwho claim that they are indispensable for the salvation of modern\nhumanity, do not hope for them as a race of Supermen, but merely as the\nleaders of a Masculine Renaissance.\n\nWith regard to the world these leaders will create, and to the position\nof women in that world, while we cannot safely foretell what they will\ndo, we venture to suggest the following:\n\nWe may expect a total and complete exposure of the shallowness,\nimpracticability, and danger to national survival of Democracy as we now\nunderstand it, and therefore the evanescence of democratic forms of\ngovernment. The great suffering and chaos to which such forms of\ngovernment lead will probably leave a deep impression upon the soul of\nhumanity, and this impression will help the leaders of the Masculine\nRenaissance to remodel the national life without having recourse to the\ndiscredited and preposterous vote.\n\nWe may expect a revival of agriculture and craftsmanship, because one of\nthe first things to be done is to arrest the dry-rot in spirit and body,\nwhich industrial and urban conditions have brought about under the sway\nof the body-despising values. Men will learn to respect themselves once\nmore, and this they can do only by expressing their highest impulses in\ntheir work. They will become agriculturists and craftsmen again, because\nthis is the only way by which they can recover their dignity, their lost\nfaculties, and their vanished health.\n\nWe can also expect that science instead of concentrating, as now, upon\nproviding us with ever more efficient extra-corporeal equipment such as\nwireless telegraphy, aeroplanes, etc., and more and more substitutes and\naids for our defective bodies, will turn its research in the direction\nof restoring to man bodily perfection and to _extending the range of his\nfaculties_. It will probe the mystery of powers like clairvoyance, and\ndirect healing (such as that effected by the laying on of hands from\ntime immemorial); it will discover the mechanism (if any) behind\ntelepathy and behind the peculiar magnetism of cultivated will-power,\nand discover an educational technique by which these properties and\npowers may become more general, more efficient, and more far-reaching.\nIt will seek the method behind the laws of heredity, and establish\nprinciples whereby family and stock qualities may be brought to\nperfection. It will also sift the mass of evidence and facts collected\nby modern science, in order to co-ordinate the data, and establish lines\nof proper conduct and legitimate aspiration. Finally, it will aim at\nco-ordinating religious and naturalistic truths up to date, with the\nview of offering to mankind a new faith, and a new metaphysic, purged of\nthe sick and degenerate elements of former religions.\n\nRecognizing that \u00e6stheticism is an essential part of terrestrial life,\nthe possession and expression of beauty will no longer be relegated to\ncertain sections of the community, but will be made a part of the\nnational life. The Puritanical prejudice against beauty and its lure\nwill be exploded, and beauty will be cultivated in the human body as an\nindispensable factor in a happy life. The old Puritanical belief that it\nis possible to have a beautiful soul, a beautiful character, and a\nbeautiful mind in an ugly body with evil-smelling breath, will have to\nbe recognized for what it is\u2014that is, merely a _credo_ for the comfort\nof repulsive people.\n\nMeanwhile large hypertrophied cities and towns will tend to disappear,\nand the population will be thinned by rigorous selection at birth.\nAbnormal, crippled, defective, incurable, and undesirable people will no\nlonger be allowed to grow up. Their uselessness and their danger as a\nburden and an eye-sore will be recognized. The old belief in the extreme\nsacredness of every human creature, irrespective of bodily and mental\nperfection, will vanish, in order to make way for a valuation based on\nquality of mind and body. This gradual elimination of the undesirable\ndregs of humanity with all the physiological botchedness they stand for,\nwill clear the air, and relieve coming generations of many heavy\nburdens. The energy, spare wealth, and spare time of the community, will\nthen be devoted to the desirable, and the magnificent mansions which are\nnow distributed all over the country, for the housing of human monsters,\nwill be converted into palaces for people of promise.\n\nThe regeneration of man will immediately transform woman and her\nposition; because, while her contempt for the male will vanish, she will\nrecover both physically and spiritually that lost joy of _looking up_ to\nher mate. Through the mastery he will introduce, her present very\njustifiable anxiety about the world will tend to disappear, and the\nserenity of a dependent existence will be restored to her. Her life\nthrough being filled by a mate sufficiently versatile to supply her not\nonly with offspring, but also with every possible interest, will\ngradually lose the feverish restlessness of the modern woman, who is\nseeking constantly to forget the void both in her heart and in her\nexistence; and in time she will learn to measure at their proper worth\nthe vanities which now supply her with but a poor substitute for her\nformer bliss.\n\nWith these changes, women\u2019s claim to equality with men will gradually\ncease to be heard of. Here and there it may still continue to be raised\nin some quarters; but, the moment its absurdity is made everywhere\nvisible to the very eye of onlookers, it will necessarily die down. It\nis merely the fact that the claim is not _manifestly_ absurd to-day that\nlends it for the time being a certain fatal plausibility.\n\nBut, before woman is sound enough in body and mind to give birth to this\nnew breed of masculine sons, and to rear them herself, she will undergo\nmany transformations, and learn to look at life from a very different\nstandpoint. In the first place she will regenerate her own body before\nit is too late, and recover the ease, if not the ecstasy of old, in all\nher functions. She will learn to despise herself if she wears glasses,\nif she has false or bad teeth, if she cannot function without scientific\naids, and if she cannot suckle her child. She will perceive the boastful\nlevity of the present generation of women who concern themselves more\nand more with highfalutin\u2019 interests and matters of the soul, when all\nthe while they are not masters of their bodies. She will see that a\nworkman who wished to leave his bench and his tools in order to try to\nmaster high finance when he had not yet mastered his trade, would very\njustly become an object of derision, and that modern women, with their\nfeverish interest in every new-fangled creed and power, are also objects\nof derision, because all the while their bodies grow more and more out\nof hand.\n\nHelped by her men of science, she will apply herself to the task of\ndiscovering that mode of life and that diet which will restore to her\nnormal and easy functioning in her digestive system; that mode of life\nand diet during gestation which will restore to her the joy of\nchildbirth\u2014a joy that has probably not been known to mankind for\nthousands of years\u2014and, without losing heart over her initial failures,\nshe will persevere until the necessary discoveries are made.\n\nWhen once bodily normality is recovered\u2014and this will come about much\nmore speedily by a change of values, and therefore by a change of taste,\nthan by legally enforced Eugenics\u2014she and her mate will attach a new\nvalue to life, and a new value to motherhood, domesticity, and marriage.\nAll three will appear nobler and more desirable, not only because they\nhave become more beautiful, and more productive of beauty, but also\nbecause their responsibilities and annoyances _are endured for a man and\nfor children who make them appear thoroughly worth while_.\n\nIn Chapter II we pointed out the direction in which inquiry might\nprofitably be directed in order to achieve certain eminently desirable\nimprovements in the present conditions of childbirth. These indications\nmay prove to be misleading. It is possible that their application may be\ndisappointing. This, however, should not deter us. The ideas suggested\nin Chapter II may or may not be of value; but what is important is that\ninquiry should be directed towards the goal to which they point, and, if\nthis end be assiduously sought, it cannot fail to be reached sooner or\nlater. It must be obvious to all that, by persisting in our present\ndirection of improved artificial aids, we can never attain to anything\neither good or desirable\u2014therefore that our present direction is\nmanifestly wrong and hopeless.\n\nThe elimination of the bungled and the botched, and a rigorous selection\nof the newly-born on qualitative lines both of mind and body, will so\nmuch relieve the situation in all over-populated districts that early\nmarriages will become a possibility again. Where it is difficult,\nassistance will easily be found. For where people acquire honour in\nhelping and promoting the best, instead of promoting and helping the\nworst, the rich will seek distinction in endowing desirable people\ninstead of endowing wrecks, cripples, and incurables.\n\nWhen once these reforms have been instituted, it will be possible to\norder life on a much happier scale, particularly for women. Since males\nand females are normally about equal in number, the increased prosperity\nwill enable most men to marry and most girls to find husbands, and the\nmisery of modern sexual abstinence will cease for millions of women.\nBut, as happiness can be permanently secured only if a nation cuts its\ncoat according to its cloth, careful measures will have to be taken to\nkeep the population within certain limits. Seeing, however, that\nbirth-control and contraceptive methods sacrifice the adults in order to\nachieve this end, the tendency will be, in a society whose principle it\nis to sacrifice the less to the greater, to proceed to some kind of\ncontrolled and legalized infanticide. This will allow standards\ngoverning infant-selection to be periodically revised, and will thus\nlead to an improvement of the race.\n\nSince, however, wars and the greater danger attending male pursuits are\nalways likely to create a preponderance of females in the community,\nconcubinage will be tolerated for the sake of the surplus women; but,\ninstead of its being a concubinage like that of to-day, which is hidden,\nsecret, sterile, condemned, and therefore productive of much distress\nand tragedy, it will be open, tolerated, recognized, and fruitful, just\nas it has been in the best civilizations of the past. There are other\nand very deep reasons why some form of concubinage is essential. I have\nalready dealt with them elsewhere.[12] Suffice it to say here, however,\nthat no shame or discomfort will necessarily attach to the life of the\nconcubines. They will be legally recognized; they will have their social\nstatus; and they will be protected by public opinion and by law. Nor\nwill they be encountered in every household. As in former societies\nwhich have recognized them, they will be found only where their need is\nfelt, and where their own taste guides them to seek protection.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  See _Woman: A Vindication_, pp. 172-3.\n\nWomen old enough for matrimony and older, therefore, will tend to be\nwithdrawn more and more from industrial, commercial, and public life,\nand the old industries of the home\u2014bread, cheese, butter, jam, and\nconfectionery making\u2014will be revived, and will flourish once more. Under\nthe guidance of science, domestic medicine will gradually be transferred\nfrom the doctor\u2019s consulting-room to the kitchen and the still-room, and\nthere it will remain, as it always ought to have remained, and doctors\nand their powers will tend to disappear. Children will be much more the\napprentices of their parents than they are at present; the duties of\neducation will tend to be delegated less and less to elders who are not\nblood-relations; and parents will have a higher sense of their\nresponsibilities. Education outside the home will be regarded\u2014at least\nfor boys and girls under fifteen\u2014as a _pis aller_, more or less as we\nto-day regard the various arrangements that have to be made for orphans.\n\nMeanwhile, with improved bodies and brighter wits, women will share with\nmen the joy of the developed faculties which, as we have pointed out, it\nwill be the object of science to realize; and a richer and more eventful\nintellectual and spiritual life will be led, because humanity will be\nable to apply itself to the pursuit of ever loftier interests. We shall\nhave greater arts and greater religions, deeper thoughts and a mightier\ngrasp of reality; because, having mastered our bodies and solved once\nmore the secret of their harmonious working, we shall no longer be in\nthe difficult dilemma of mortals who, with neglected and badly\nfunctioning physiques, try to anticipate here on earth the pastimes and\npursuits of the immortal world.\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.\n    \u25cb Typographical errors were silently corrected.\n    \u25cb Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only\n      when a predominant form was found in this book.\n    \u25cb Text that:\n      was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_);\n      was in bold by is enclosed by \u201cequal\u201d signs (=bold=)\n      had extra character spacing by \u201cplus\u201d signs (+stretched+).","title":"Lysistrata : $b or, Woman's future and future woman","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":23684}