2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Other examples might be given were it at all needful, but those 

 already stated are surely sufficient to establish the principle. Among 

 herbivorous and omnivorous species, where food is plentiful, there is 

 no occasion for the male to take upon him the duties of provider, but 

 among the Carnivora he frequently supports as well as defends his 

 family. The lion is in this respect a well-known instance. 



We find, therefore, that throughout the class Mammalia the respec- 

 tive tasks of the two sexes are precisely such as we find in our own 

 species : the male is the defender and provider, wherever such defense 

 and provision are necessary ; the female is the nurse. The man who 

 brings home to his wife his weekly earnings, his professional fees, or 

 his share of the profits of a business, merely repeats on a higher scale 

 the action of the lion who carries a deer or an antelope to his den. 

 Each sex fulfills the tasks for which it is especially adapted by Nature, 

 and anj^thing like " subjugation " is utterly out of the question. Were 

 the duties of the two sexes confounded together, or, still more, were 

 they inverted — the female, for instance, going forth to face danger or 

 to hunt for prey, while the male was left to nurse the young — the posi- 

 tion of the species in the great and constant struggle for»existence 

 would be very decidedly altered for the worse. We must conclude, 

 therefore, that the attempt to alter the present relations of the sexes is 

 not a rebellion against some arbitrary law instituted by a despot or a 

 majority — not an attempt to break the yoke of a mere convention ; it 

 is a struggle against Nature ; a war undertaken to reverse the very 

 conditions under which not man alone, but all mammalian species have 

 reached their present development. Sentimental speakers and writers 

 have commented on the well-known fact that even a very young boy 

 will, to his utmost ability, defend his sister or female playmate, and 

 have expressed a hope that this habit — the result of early training — 

 would wear out, the female no longer needing and the male no longer 

 offering protection. Alas ! is the very same habit in the ape, the lion, 

 or the bison, the result of a mistaken training, or of an old-world con- 

 vention, to be laid aside in these enlightened days ? What would be 

 the position of a family of young lions if both their parents went forth 

 to hunt ? Yet very similar will be that of children if their mother, as 

 well as their father, goes out to the daily toils of a profession, leaving 

 them perhaps to themselves — perhaps to the care of ignorant and un- 

 principled hirelings. The results of mothers withdrawn from domestic 

 duties, and spending their days in industrial pursuits, have been suf- 

 ficiently exemplified in our manufacturing towns. Here, in the very 

 highest interests of the race, it has been found necessary to check and 

 limit female labor, which ought never to have been introduced. Had 

 this precaution been taken, a man would have been able to earn 

 as much as he and his wife jointly have been able to realize under 

 the factory system. But what reason have we to expect that the 

 introduction of female labor into professional spheres will prove a 



