In the change from the dominance of one sex to the equal power of two, to what may we look forward? What effect upon civilization is to be expected from the equality of womanhood in the human race?
To put the most natural question first--what will men lose by it? Many men are genuinely concerned about this; fearing some new position of subservience and disrespect. Others laugh at the very idea of change in their position, relying as always on the heavier fist. So long as fighting was the determining process, the best fighter must needs win; but in the rearrangement of processes which marks our age, superior physical strength does not make the poorer wealthy, nor even the soldier a general.
The major processes of life to-day are quite within the powers of women; women are fulfilling their new relations more and more successfully; gathering new strength, new knowledge, new ideals. The change is upon us; what will it do to men?
No harm.
As we are a monogamous race, there will be no such drastic and cruel selection among competing males as would eliminate the vast majority as unfit. Even though some be considered unfit for fatherhood, all human life remains open to them. Perhaps the most important feature of this change comes in right here; along this old line of sex-selection, replacing that power in the right hands, and using it for the good of the race.
The woman, free at last, intelligent, recognizing her real place and responsibility in life as a human being, will be not less, but more, efficient as a mother. She will understand that, in the line of physical evolution, motherhood is the highest process; and that her work, as a contribution to an improved race, must always involve this great function. She will see that right parentage is the purpose of the whole scheme of sex-relationship, and act accordingly.
In our time, his human faculties being sufficiently developed, civilized man can look over and around his sex limitations, and begin to see what are the true purposes and methods of human life.
He is now beginning to learn that his own governing necessity of Desire is not _the_ governing necessity of parentage, but only a contributory tendency; and that, in the interests of better parentage, motherhood is the dominant factor, and must be so considered.
In slow reluctant admission of this fact, man heretofore has recognized one class of women as mothers; and has granted them a varying amount of consideration as such; but he has none the less insisted on maintaining another class of women, forbidden motherhood, and merely subservient to his desires; a barren, mischievous unnatural relation, wholly aside from parental purposes, and absolutely injurious to society. This whole field of morbid action will be eliminated from human life by the normal development of women.
It is not a question of interfering with or punishing men; still less of interfering with or punishing women; but purely a matter of changed education and opportunity for every child.
Each and all shall be taught the real nature and purpose of motherhood; the real nature and purpose of manhood; what each is for, and which is the more important. A new sense of the power and pride of womanhood will waken; a womanhood no longer sunk in helpless dependence upon men; no longer limited to mere unpaid house-service; no longer blinded by the false morality which subjects even motherhood to man's dominance; but a womanhood which will recognize its pre-eminent responsibility to the human race, and live up to it. Then, with all normal and right competition among men for the favor of women, those best fitted for fatherhood will be chosen. Those who are not chosen will live single--perforce.
Many, under the old mistaken notion of what used to be called the "social necessity" of prostitution, will protest at the idea of its extinction.
"It is necessary to have it," they will say.
"Necessary _to whom?_"
Not to the women hideously sacrificed to it, surely.
Not to society, honey-combed with diseases due to this cause.
Not to the family, weakened and impoverished by it.
To whom then? To the men who want it?
But it is not good for them, it promotes all manner of disease, of vice, of crime. It is absolutely and unquestionably a "social evil."
An intelligent and powerful womanhood will put an end to this indulgence of one sex at the expense of the other; and to the injury of both.
In this inevitable change will lie what some men will consider a loss.
But only those of the present generation. For the sons of the women now entering upon this new era of world life will be differently reared.
They will recognize the true relation of men to the primal process; and be amazed that for so long the greater values have been lost sight of in favor of the less.
This one change will do more to promote the physical health and beauty of the race; to improve the quality of children born, and the general vigor and purity of social life, than any one measure which could be proposed. It rests upon a recognition of motherhood as the real base and cause of the family; and dismisses to the limbo of all outworn superstition that false Hebraic and grossly androcentric doctrine that the woman is to be subject to the man, and that he shall rule over her.
He has tried this arrangement long enough--to the grievous injury of the world. A higher standard of happiness will result; equality and mutual respect between parents; pure love, undefiled by self-interests on either side; and a new respect for Childhood.
With the Child, seen at last to be the governing purpose of this relation, with all the best energies of men and women bent on raising the standard of life for all children, we shall have a new status of family life which will be clean and noble, and satisfying to all its members.
