:380 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION P. 



also that he recognises the duties he owes to himself and his fellow- 

 men. So also in the case of a woman. But when a new human 

 being comes into existence the State is concerned; and the State 

 means the citizens. 



The social unit is the family, and the family has become neces- 

 sary on account of the child's requirements — the family has its 

 raisoji d'etre in the existence of the child, and therefore marriage 

 ■or the union of parents instituted itself. This is seen among 

 several classes of animals. Probably it reaches its highest develop- 

 ment and ideal among certain birds. Monogamy and the feelings 

 which led to it are probably pre-human, human, and extra-human, 

 evolved from the essential nature of " masculinism " and 

 " femininism " in their deepest significance. 



The family, with all it implies in the care and education of 

 the child, is necessary on account of the helplessness of the progeny 

 — there is no family or family life among organisms that can take 

 <;are of themselves as soon as they are born. The duration of 

 family life, or the equivalent of such, will depend in any given 

 case on the amount of care and training which the progeny requires 

 in order that it may be launched into the world able to live and to 

 protect itself. As our social systems become more complicated ; as 

 our sciences, arts, and industries are specialized; as the nninher 

 and variety of the necessities or luxuries of life increase, so will 

 the period of education require to be prolonged. 



In primitive times, family affairs were simple. Labour was 

 sharply divided. The man did the killing of beasts or of his 

 fellowmen; the woman did everything else. To trace the develop- 

 )nents or the retrogressions in the various form of marriage, and 

 the mode in which women became beasts of burden, weavers, 

 linquists, artists, potters, agriculturists, tanners, tailors, founders 

 of society, chattels, husbands' property, walking advertisements of 

 their husbands' tastes or wealth, till they became, some of them, 

 rebels, is a task I cannot fulfil here and now. But woman's posi- 

 tion, as it was, as it is, as it ought to be, and as the best men 

 and women are determined it shall be, has been set forth by 

 various writers. One of the best is by David Staars, a French- 

 man. His book. The English Woman, should be in every home, 

 whether there are " rebels " there or not. Olive Schreiner, in 

 Woman and Labour, has viewed the whole field of human activities, 

 and has stated the case fairly. Mrs. Oilman's The Man Made 

 World is brief and pointed. It illustrates the characters of sex, sets 

 forth the things that are " he-man," " she-man," and " human," 

 if I may coin a couple of terms, better than any book I know. 

 Professor Thomas's Sex and Society is both academic and practical. 

 Ellen Key's The Century of the Child should be studied by every 



