WOMAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 139 



Vancouver to Montreal. Forty of them got married on the way, 

 and only five arrived at their destination." 



A further remedy is to be sought in a return to a simpler 

 standard of living. Limited pecuniary resources are no obstacle 

 to a happy and healthy family, and it is notorious that many of 

 the greatest men have been the sons of poor parents in humble 

 positions. A true biological ideal is necessary : early marriage, 

 numerous offspring, and a healthy struggle for existence. 

 Women, even without votes, have more than their share of 

 influence in moulding public opinion. Let them recognise that 

 conventional morality, which allows and even preaches the 

 prevention of conception and the induction of early abortion, 

 is wicked, degrading, and injurious, especially for the woman. 

 Let them admit that the servant girl who gives birth to an 

 illegitimate child is more moral, even if she is less educated, 

 then the woman who, from the day of her marriage, openly 

 sanctified by a religious ceremony, takes measures to prevent 

 motherhood. From a biological standpoint an illegitimate child 

 is a testimony that a woman is more moral than her sisters who 

 have taken preventive measures. A decline in the number of 

 illegitimate children is no evidence that a country is more 

 moral. This truth appears to have received little recognition 

 from women, but judges and juries, knowing the bitterness of 

 the persecution of women by women, always show a sympathetic 

 attitude to women, even when they are guilty of infanticide. 



The prevention of conception, voluntary abortion, and pros- 

 titution have no analogy among the lower animals ; they are 

 not physiological, but pathological. These evils are not due 

 to man-made laws, but to the absence of a true sexual instinct 

 in many women. They are not due to low wages, and it is the 

 grossest insult to women to say that poverty is a bar to true 

 virtue. Twenty or thirty years ago domestic servants had low 

 wages, but there is no evidence that they were less virtuous 

 than the servants of the present day, who, without the aid of 

 any trade union or votes, have raised their wages by about 

 50 per cent. The demand for domestic servants exceeds the 

 supply, and there is no economical reason why a woman should 

 degrade herself for money. There is no evidence that woman 

 suffrage has abolished these evils ; indeed, it would appear that 

 the increased occupation of women in commercial pursuits 

 has led to a wider spread of the disease in a less virulent form. 



