Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/224

 for if promiscuity is bad in a woman, it must be bad that a man should corrupt a woman, and there is the added stain on this particular badness that it is mean and cowardly as well, for when he has corrupted her in this way, he not only deserts her, but he hales her before his tribunals and punishes her.

When men advocate the subjection of women for the sake of the child, it is difficult to speak with patience of the monumental conceit and arrogance of the notion. Women do not sentimentalise so much about children, because they are a part of women's work, and you do not sentimentalise about your work. I have said (Chapter XIII.) that girls ought not to be expressly trained to be mothers, and to prevent misunderstanding, it may be well to touch upon positive education.

Nothing in all the circumstances of a girl's upbringing ought to be allowed to injure her health, and, in consequence, her physical capacity to bear healthy children. Much of the anxiety expressed as to whether a girl may be perfectly healthy, as an individual, and yet unable to bear children, is misplaced. It is quite true that the finest types of women are likely to be less prolific than the more degraded type. The feeble-minded are the most prolific of all. It seems you cannot have both quantity and quality. But the great need of the world is precisely quality. Healthy girls are not sterile, and the causes of sterility are not to be found in the women's movement; they are to be