They are supposed to perform them not for God or the world, but to
please and satisfy a particular man. Our laws, our social conventions,
our economic methods, so hem a woman about that, however fitted for and
desirous of maternity she may be, she can only effectually do that duty
in a dependent relation to her husband. Nearly always he is the
paymaster, and if his payments are grudging or irregular, she has little
remedy short of a breach and the rupture of the home. Her duty is
conceived of as first to him and only secondarily to her children and
the State. Many wives become under these circumstances mere prostitutes
to their husbands, often evading the bearing of children with their
consent and even at their request, and "loving for a living." That is a
natural outcome of the proprietary theory of the family out of which our
civilization emerges. But our modern ideas trend more and more to regard
a woman's primary duty to be her duty to the children and to the world
to which she gives them. She is to be a citizen side by side with her
husband; no longer is he to intervene between her and the community.
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