The main justification for the subjection of women, which is commonly advanced, is the alleged advantage to motherhood resultant from her extreme specialization to the uses of maternity under this condition.

There are two weak points in this position. One is that the advantage to motherhood cannot be proved: the other, that it is not the uses of maternity to which she is specialized, but the uses of sex-indulgence. So far from the economic dependence of women working in the interests of motherhood, it is the steadily acting cause of a pathological maternity and a decreasing birth-rate.

In simple early times there was a period when women were economically profited by child-bearing; when, indeed, that was their sole use, and, failing it, they were entitled to no respect or profit whatever. Such a condition tended to increase the quantity of children, if not the quality. With industrial development and the increasing weight of economic cares upon the shoulders of the man, children come to be looked upon as a burden, and are dreaded instead of desired by the hard-worked father. They subtract from the family income; and the mother, absolutely dependent 170upon that income and also overworked in her position of unpaid house-servant, is not impelled to court maternity by any economic pressure. In the working classes—to which the great majority of people belong—the woman is by no means “segregated to the uses of maternity.” Among the most intelligent and conscientious workingmen to-day there is a strong feeling against large families, and a consistent effort is made to prevent them.

Lest this be considered as not bearing directly upon the economic position of women, but rather on the general status of the working classes, let us examine the same condition among the wealthy. It is here that the economic dependence of women is carried to its extreme. The daughters and wives of the rich fail to perform even the domestic service expected of the women of poorer families. They are from birth to death absolutely non-productive in goods or labor of economic value, and consumers of such goods and labor to an extent limited only by the purchasing power of their male relatives. In this condition the economic advantage of the woman, married or unmarried, not merely in food and clothes, but in such social advantage as she desires, lies in her power to attract and hold the devotion 171of men; and this power is not the power of maternity. On the contrary, maternity, by lowering the personal charms and occupying the time of the mother, fails to bring her the pleasure and profit obtainable by the woman who is not a mother. It is through the sex-relation minus its natural consequence that she profits most; and, therefore, the force of economic advantage acts against maternity instead of toward it.

In the last extreme this is clear to all in the full flower of the sexuo-economic relation,—prostitution, than which nothing runs more absolutely counter to the improvement of the race through maternity. Specialization to uses of maternity, as in the queen bee, is one thing. Specialization to uses of sex without maternity is quite another. Yet this popular opinion, that we as a race are greatly benefited by having all our women saved from direct economic activity, and so allowed to concentrate all their energies on the beautiful work of motherhood, remains strong among us.

In The Forum for November, 1888, Lester F. Ward published a paper called “Our Better Halves,” in which was clearly shown the biological supremacy of the female sex. This naturally aroused much discussion; and in an answering article, “Woman’s Place in Nature” 172(The Forum, May, 1889), Mr. Grant Allen very thoroughly states the general view on this subject. He says of woman: “I believe it to be true that she is very much less the race than man; that she is, indeed, not even half the race at present, but rather a part of it told specially off for the continuance of the species, just as truly as drones or male spiders are parts of their species told off for the performance of male-functions, or as ‘rotund’ honey ants are individual insects told off to act as living honey jars to the community. She is the sex sacrificed to reproductive necessities.”

Since biological facts point to the very gradual introduction and development of the male organism solely as a reproductive necessity, and since women are sacrificed not to reproductive necessities, but to a most unnecessary and injurious degree of sex-indulgence under economic necessity, such a statement as Mr. Grant Allen’s has elements of humor. The opinion is held, however, not only by the special students of biology and sociology, but by the general public, and demands most careful attention. Those holding such a view may admit the over-development of sex consequent upon the economic relation between men and women, and the train of evils, individual 173and social, following that over-development. They may even admit, further, something of the alleged injury to economic evolution. But they will claim in answer that these morbid conditions are essential to human progress, and that the good to humanity through the segregation of the female to the uses of maternity overbalances the evil, great as this is; also, conversely, that the gain to the individual and to society to be obtained by the economic freedom of the female would be more than offset by the loss to the race caused by the removal of our highly specialized motherhood.

To meet this, it is necessary to show that our highly specialized motherhood is not so advantageous as believed; that it is below rather than above the efficacy of motherhood in other species; that its deficiency is due to the sexuo-economic relation; that the restoration of economic freedom to the female will improve motherhood; and, finally, to indicate in some sort the lines of social and individual development along which this improvement may be “practically” manifested.

In approaching this subject, we need something of special mental preparation. We need to realize that our ideas upon this theme are peculiarly colored by prejudice, that in 174no other field of thought are we so blinded by our emotions. We have felt more on this subject than on any other, and thought less. We have also felt much on the relation of the sexes; but it has been made a subject of study, of comparison, of speculation. There are differences of feeling on the sex question, but as to motherhood none. Here and there, to be sure, some isolated philosopher, a Plato, a Rousseau, dares advance some thought on this ground; but, on the whole, no theme of commensurate importance has been so little studied. More sacred than religion, more binding than the law, more habitual than methods of eating, we are each and all born into the accepted idea of motherhood and trained in it; and in maturity we hand it down unquestioningly. A man may question the purposes and methods of his God with less danger of outcry against him than if he dare to question the purposes and methods of his mother. This matriolatry is a sentiment so deep-seated, wide-spread, and long-established as to be dominant in every class of minds. It is so associated with our religious instincts, on the one hand, and our sex-instincts, on the other, both of which we have long been forbidden to discuss,—the one being too holy and the other too unholy,—that 175it is well-nigh impossible to think clearly and dispassionately on the subject. It is easy to understand why we are so triple-plated with prejudice in the case.

The instinct that draws the child to its mother is exactly as old as the instinct that draws the mother to her child; and that dates back to the period when the young first needed care,—among the later reptiles, perhaps. This tie has lasted unbroken through the whole line of progression, and is stronger with us than with any other creature, because in our social evolution the parent is of advantage to the child not only through its entire life, but even after death, by our laws of inheritance. So early, so radically important, so long accumulated an animal instinct, added to by social law, is a great force. Besides this, we must reckon with our long period of ancestor worship. This finally changed the hideous concepts of early idolaters into the idea of parental divinity; for, having first made a god of their father, they then made a father of God, and this deep religious feeling has added much to the heavy weight of instinct. Parental government, too, absolute in the patriarchal period, has added further to our devout, blind faith in parenthood until it is lèse-majesté to question 176its right fulfilment. Two most interesting developments are to be noted along this line. One is that the height of filial devotion was reached in the patriarchal age; when the father was the sole governor and feeder of the family, and could slay or sell his child at will; and that this relic of ancestor worship has steadily declined with the extension of government, until, in our democracy, with the fullest development of individual liberty and responsibility, is found the lowest degree of filial reverence and submission. Its place is taken, to our great gain, by such familiar, loving intercourse between parent and child as was utterly incompatible with the grovelling attitude of children in earlier times.

The other is the gradual swing from supreme devotion to the father, “the author of my being,” as the child used to consider him, to our modern mother-worship. The dying soldier on the battlefield thinks of his mother, longs for her, not for his father. The traveller and exile dreams of his mother’s care, his mother’s doughnuts. The pathos of the popular tale to-day is in bringing the prodigal back to his mother, not to his father. If the original prodigal had a mother, she was probably busy in cooking the fatted calf. If to-day’s prodigal has a father, he is merely 177engaged in paying for the veal. Our tenderest love, our deepest reverence, our fiercest resentment of insult, all centre about the mother to-day rather than about the father; and this is a strong proof that the recognition of woman’s real power and place in life grow upon us just as our minds grow able to perceive it. Nothing can ever exceed the truth as to the value of the mother. Our instinct is a right one, as all deep-seated social instincts are; but about it has grown up a mass of falsehoods and absurdities such as always tend to confuse and impede the progress of great truths.

As the main agent in reproduction, the mother is most to be venerated on basic physiological grounds. As the main agent in developing love, the great human condition, she is the fountain of all our growth. As the beginner of industry, she is again a source of progress. As the first and final educator, she outwardly moulds what she has inwardly made; and, as she is the visible, tangible, lovable, living type of all this, the being in whose person is expressed the very sum of good to the individual, it is no wonder that our strongest, deepest, tenderest feelings cluster about the great word “mother.”

Fully recognizing all this, it yet remains 178open to us to turn the light of science and the honest labor of thought upon this phase of human life as upon any other; to lay aside our feelings, and use our reason; to discover if even here we are justified in leaving the most important work of individual life to the methods of primitive instinct. Motherhood is but a process of life, and open to study as all processes of life are open. Among unconscious, early forms it fulfils its mission by a simple instinct. In the consciousness and complexity of human life it demands far more numerous and varied forces for its right fulfilment. It is with us a conscious process,—a process rife with consequences for good or evil. With this voluntary power come new responsibility and a need for new methods,—a need not merely to consider whether or not we will enter upon the duties of maternity, but how best we can fulfil them.

Motherhood, like every other natural process, is to be measured by its results. It is good or evil as it serves its purpose. Human motherhood must be judged as it serves its purpose to the human race. Primarily, its purpose is to reproduce the race by reproducing the individual; secondarily, to improve the race by improving the individual. The mere office of reproduction is as well performed 179by the laying of eggs to be posthumously hatched as by many years of exquisite devotion; but in the improvement of the species we come to other requirements. The functions of motherhood have been evolved as naturally as the functions of nutrition, and each stage of development has brought new duties to the mother. The mother bird must brood her young, the mother cow must suckle them, the mother cat must hunt for them; and, in every varied service which the mother gives, its value is to be measured by its effect upon the young. To perform that which is most good for the young of the species is the measure of right motherhood, and that which is most good for the young is what will help them to a better maturity than that of their parents. To leave in the world a creature better than its parent, this is the purpose of right motherhood.

In the human race this purpose is served by two processes: first, by the simple individual function of reproduction, of which all care and nursing are but an extension; and, second, by the complex social function of education. This was primarily a maternal process, and therefore individual; but it has long since become a racial rather than an individual function, and bears no relation to sex or other 180personal limitation. The young of the human race require for their best development not only the love and care of the mother, but the care and instruction of many besides their mother. So largely is this true that it may be said in extreme terms that it would be better for a child to-day to be left absolutely without mother or family of any sort, in the city of Boston, for instance, than to be supplied with a large and affectionate family and be planted with them in Darkest Africa.

Human functions are race-functions, social functions; and education is one of them. The duty of the human mother, and the measure of its right or wrong fulfilment, are to be judged along these two main lines, reproduction and education. As we have no species above us with which to compare our motherhood, we must measure by those below us. We must show improvement upon them in this function which we all hold in common.

Does the human mother succeed better than others of her order, mammalia, in the reproduction of the species? Does she bring forth and rear her young more perfectly than lower mothers? They, being less conscious, act simply under instinct, mating in their season, bringing forth young in their season, nursing, guarding, defending as best they may; and 181they leave in the world behind them creatures as good, or better, than their mothers. Of wild animals we have few reliable statistics, and of tame ones it is difficult to detach their natural processes from our interference therewith. But in both the simple maintenance of species shows that motherhood at least reproduces fairly well; and in those we breed for our advantage the wonderful possibilities of race-development through this process are made apparent. How do we, with the human brain and the human conscience, rich in the power and wisdom of our dominant race,—how do we, as mothers, compare with our forerunners?

Human motherhood is more pathological than any other, more morbid, defective, irregular, diseased. Human childhood is similarly pathological. We, as animals, are very inferior animals in this particular. When we take credit to ourselves for the sublime devotion with which we face “the perils of maternity,” and boast of “going down to the gates of death” for our children, we should rather take shame to ourselves for bringing these perils upon both mother and child. The gates of death? They are the gates of life to the unborn; and there is no death there save what we, the mothers, by our unnatural lives, 182have brought upon our own children. Gates of death, indeed, to the thousands of babies late-born, prematurely born, misborn, and stillborn for lack of right motherhood. In the primal physical functions of maternity the human female cannot show that her supposed specialization to these uses has improved her fulfilment of them, rather the opposite. The more freely the human mother mingles in the natural industries of a human creature, as in the case of the savage woman, the peasant woman, the working-woman everywhere who is not overworked, the more rightly she fulfils these functions.

The more absolutely woman is segregated to sex-functions only, cut off from all economic use and made wholly dependent on the sex-relation as means of livelihood, the more pathological does her motherhood become. The over-development of sex caused by her economic dependence on the male reacts unfavorably upon her essential duties. She is too female for perfect motherhood! Her excessive specialization in the secondary sexual characteristics is a detrimental element in heredity. Small, weak, soft, ill-proportioned women do not tend to produce large, strong, sturdy, well-made men or women. When Frederic the Great wanted grenadiers of great 183size, he married big men to big women,—not to little ones. The female segregated to the uses of sex alone naturally deteriorates in racial development, and naturally transmits that deterioration to her offspring. The human mother, in the processes of reproduction, shows no gain in efficiency over the lower animals, but rather a loss, and so far presents no evidence to prove that her specialization to sex is of any advantage to her young. The mother of a dead baby or the baby of a dead mother; the sick baby, the crooked baby, the idiot baby; the exhausted, nervous, prematurely aged mother,—these are not uncommon among us; and they do not show much progress in our motherhood.

Since we cannot justify the human method of maternity in the physical processes of reproduction, can we prove its advantages in the other branch, education? Though the mother be sickly and the child the same, will not her loving care more than make up for it? Will not the tender devotion of the mother, and her unflagging attendance upon the child, render human motherhood sufficiently successful in comparison with that of other species to justify our peculiar method? We must now show that our motherhood, in its usually accepted sense, the “care” of the child (more 184accurately described as education), is of a superior nature.

Here, again, we lack the benefit of comparison. No other animal species is required to care for its young so long, to teach it so much. So far as they have it to do, they do it well. The hen with her brood is an accepted model of motherhood in this respect. She not only lays eggs and hatches them, but ed............