Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/152

 desire strong, the motherly qualities in a woman are of secondary attractive force to most men in determining their choice, though, undoubtedly, once mated, a man finds the motherly qualities invaluable. Men write books and poems about the beauty and sacredness of motherhood, but if one looks round the world one lives in, one finds that men are, for the most part, not charmed by the motherly qualities in women, and that the women upon whom men have in the past lavished titles and jewels and wealth are not the motherly type at all. Every woman who has lived long in the world has known many women most richly endowed for motherhood who have not attracted any men worthy to be their mates, and has known other women, with few of the qualities needed for motherhood, who have strung the hearts of a score of men round their necks as trophies. One might make a very good case to show that, in relation to men, there are really three types of women: (1) those who attract men, (2) those by whom men say they are attracted, (3) those by whom men ought (for the greatest happiness of the greatest number) to be attracted.

Ask the average man what he means by a "womanly" woman—take Mr. Austen Chamberlain: "Their qualities which we most admire are their lofty devotion to ideals, their dependence upon others, upon husband, or brother, or the hero of their imaginations, their willingness to yield their opinions, their almost passionate desire for self-