Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/49

 Act and leaves out altogether from its compulsory provisions the health of the mother in the home, except for maternity benefit. In this same Insurance Act he arranges that the maidens shall pay for the widows, and the women shall pay for the unmarried mothers. And when death has removed the one parent whom the law allows, public provision and private charity alike have seldom any consolation to offer the widow who has lost her dearest, but to remove from her motherly care all or some of the children left to her (now undisputed) ownership. All these cruelties and absurdities are possible because of the subjection of women.

Reactionaries on the women's question may be divided into sentimental and brutal reactionaries. The sentimentalists declare (very often in the same breath) that women are not in subjection, and that they like being in subjection, that progress lies along the lines of specialisation, and that women should not "interfere" with men's work. Women, they aver, are not inferior to men, but true economy is shown by increased division of labour: man's to command, woman's to obey. There is to be a specialisation in the virtues, too. "Can we ever have," asks Mr. Frederic Harrison pathetically, "too much sympathy, generosity, tenderness and purity? Can self-devotion, long-suffering and affection ever be a drug in the market? Can our homes ever be too cheerful, too refined, too sweet and affectionate? And is it degrading the sex of