WOMAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 137 



shown that bodily and mental health are a complex interaction 

 of all the organs performing their functions in proper sequence. 

 The distinctive organs of the two sexes are no exception to this 

 rule, and no one with common sense and a belief in'either design 

 or evolution will maintain the contrary. 



The intrusion of women into the occupations formerly occu- 

 pied by men has made them independent but at the same time 

 has deprived men of employment. Every healthy man is a 

 potential husband. Now the woman's demand is " equal wages 

 for equal work." It is impossible for any woman, however able 

 she may be, to carry out the duties of a profession and at the 

 same time bear and rear numerous and healthy children. By 

 the very nature of things, and by no means due to man-made 

 laws, the woman is not in a position of equality. Even if she 

 removed these obstacles by practising celibacy, she would not 

 be entitled to equal wage for equal work ; a man's duty to him- 

 self, to woman, and to the race is to marry, and the State should 

 recognise, as it is beginning to do in greater measure, that the 

 fulfilment of this duty entitles the man to better pay or less 

 taxation. The celibate woman, who performs for the State no 

 duty which a man cannot equally well do, is not entitled to 

 greater pay than her sister who is forced by the claims of mother- 

 hood to retire for a time from the same kind of work. 



The higher education of women and their employment in 

 posts which might be filled by men has brought about a post- 

 ponement of marriage to such a late stage that often half the 

 period of the woman's sexual life is already past. Late marriages 

 are bad for the health and morals of both sexes and bad for 

 the State, for the offspring will be less numerous and, as the 

 evidence goes, less vigorous. The idea that a smaller number 

 of children born to parents no longer young will grow up into 

 better citizens owing to a better environment has no biological 

 support. The only child lacks the beneficial effect of the struggle 

 for existence in the family, the mutual education, the discipline 

 and the hardening of both body and mind produced by the clash 

 of its interests with those of numerous brothers and sisters. A 

 woman should experience the joys and trials of a family when 

 she is young and able to adapt herself to circumstances and play 

 with her children ; she should look forward to spending her old 

 age not with her children around her, but with her grandchildren 

 or great-grandchildren. 



