Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/248

 home to earn it as they themselves work at the mill or the workshop.

In the absence of children it would be the best thing possible for married women to earn their own living; and no clamour for equality of status with men is worthy of a moment's attention if the request be not based upon a self-respecting demand for the opportunity to maintain themselves. Why should power and privilege be conferred upon women who are content to be fed and clothed by their men without their making any contribution whatever to the productive enterprises of the country? Women must cease to be consumers only and must be producers: in other words, they must work, if their demands are not to be regarded as seriously unjust. Married women who have the misfortune to be childless are not for that reason entitled to be maintained without work. Married women with children justify their existence by working and caring for them. A scheme of maternity benefits on a scale sufficient to maintain them honourably during the child-bearing period, to which every man and every unmarried woman should contribute in proportion to their means and their responsibilities, offers an alternative to the proposal to divide the already scanty income of the poorer fathers.

This proposal is often criticised by tender