SEX AND SOCIETY 227 



individual; it is not less destructive of the 

 vigour of the race if it occur during the years 

 of child-bearing and child-rearing. 



Let us pass to a very different instance 

 the taking of the veil, once regarded as the 

 highest devotion of a woman's life. Everyone 

 recognises the beautiful significance of the 

 step in particular cases, and the social utility 

 of those who age after age have been truly 

 called sisters of mercy; but this does not 

 lessen the disadvantageous influence of an 

 ideal that renounced most of the natural 

 activities of woman and involved an indubit- 

 ably great loss to the quality of the race by 

 its segregation of many of the finest types. 



But we do not require to go beyond the 

 present for illustrations. Economic con- 

 ditions are compelling women, in competition 

 with men, into occupations and situations 

 which are too hard for them, where the strain 

 is too great, especially in adolescence, and 

 where regularity of attendance is so stringently 

 enforced that health suffers. Where sex 

 is ignored and where no allowance is made 

 for maternity, there is bound to be mis- 

 differentiation. Where mothers are con- 

 cerned it is certain that the wear and tear, 

 the strain and continuity of the modern 

 competitive system, whether in professional 

 life or among hand-workers, must be pre- 

 judicial. 



What to do is another matter. Much will 

 depend on the growing organisation of woman- 

 workers, much will depend on the developing 

 social sentiment and the legislation to which 



