TABOO AND GENETICS loi 



sary and hence socially approved acts every- 

 where and always. 



In whatever races finally survive, the women 

 of good stock as well as poor — perhaps even- 

 tually the good even more than the poor — will 

 reproduce themselves. Because of our ideals 

 of individual hberty, this may not be achieved 

 by taboo, ignorance or conscription for mother- 

 hood. But when it is found to be the personal 

 interest to bear children, both as a means of 

 complete physical and mental development 

 and as a way of winning social approval and 

 esteem, it will become as imperative for woman 

 to fulfil the biological function to which she is 

 speciahzed as it was under the old system of 

 moral and taboo control. The increasing 

 emphasis on the necessity of motherhood for the 

 maintenance of a normal, health personality, 

 and the growing tendency to look upon this 

 function as the greatest service which woman 

 can render to society, are manifest signs that 

 this time is approaching. There is little doubt 

 that woman will be as amenable to these newer 

 and more rationalized mores as human nature 

 has always been to the irrationally formed 

 customs and traditions of the past. 



To ignore the female specialization involved 

 in furnishing the intramaternal environment 

 for three children, on an average, to the group, 

 is simply foolish. If undertaken at maturity 



