ough many a function, formerly naturally
belonging to the wife, has been removed from her, also furnishes many a
cause for friction. Some know nothing whatever of household matters:
They consider themselves too good to bother about them, and look upon
them as matters that concern the servant girl; numerous others, from the
ranks of the masses, are prevented, by the struggle for existence, from
cultivating themselves for their calling as householders: they must be
in the factory and at work early and late. It is becoming evident that,
due to the development of social conditions, the separate household
system is losing ground every day; and that it can be kept up only at
the sacrifice of money and time, neither of which the great majority is
able to expend.

Yet another cause that destroys the object of marriage to not a few men
is to be found in the physical debility of many women. Our food,
housing, methods of work and support, in short, our whole form of life,
affects us in more ways than one rather harmfully than otherwise. We can
speak with perfect right of a "nervous age." Now, then, this nervousness
goes hand in hand with physical degeneration. Anaemia and nervousness
are spread to an enormous degree among the female sex: They are assuming
the aspect of a social calamity, that, if it continue a few generations
longer, as at present, and we fail to place our social organization on a
normal footing, is urging the race towards its destruction.[89]

With an eye to its sexual mission, the female organism requires
particular care,--good food, and, at certain periods, the requisite
rest. Both of these are lacking to the great majority of the female sex,
at least in the cities and industrial neighborhoods, nor are they to be
had under modern industrial conditions. Moreover, woman has so
habituated herself to privation that, for instance, numberless women
hold it a conjugal duty to keep the tid-bits for the man, and satisfy
themselves with insufficient nourishment. Likewise are boys frequently
given the preference over girls in matters of food. The opinion is
general that woman can accommodate herself, not with less food only, but
also with food of poorer quality. Hence the sad picture that our female
youth, in particular, presents to the eyes of the expert. A large
portion of our young women are bodily weak, anaemic, hypernervous. The
consequences are difficulties in menstruation, and disease of the organs
connected with