Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/110

 that offspring. It is quite possible that a free womanhood would in itself provide the natural and right limit. Those who talk as if women would deliberately have as many children as possible, so as to go on earning motherhood grants, overlook the fact that at present the women who have the largest families are those who are the least able to support them, and suffer most from having too many. It is a well-established fact that increased comfort and refinement decrease fertility, at the same time that they decrease infant mortality. Furthermore, it might be hoped that the endowment of motherhood might make it possible for many men who now remain single and are a great danger to the community, to marry.

It is not my task, and it would be an impossible one, to say whether the women of the future will develop the family along individualist or socialist lines. That they will not be content with things as they are is one certainty. Another is that they ought to be made free to reform conditions in full consultation and agreement with men. Lady Aberconway has suggested that men should be obliged by law to give their wives a fixed proportion of their incomes, and there appear to be in England more followers of this idea than of the endowment of motherhood. It should certainly be possible for a wife to sue for maintenance, without being compelled to go on the rates, but the fixed payment of wives has very many and very great practical difficulties, and it would not help the