tea pickers and cocoa tenders in India and the islands,
to the washerwomen, cooks, and drudging labouring men's wives, who
in addition to the sternest and most unending toil, throw in their
child-bearing as a little addition; and when, in some civilised
countries women exceed the males in numbers by one million, so
that there would still be one million females for whom there was no
legitimate sexual outlet, though each male in the nation supported a
female, it is somewhat difficult to reply with gravity to the assertion,
"Let Woman be content to be the 'Divine Child-bearer,' and ask no more."

Were it worth replying gravely to so idle a theorist, we might
answer:--Through all the ages of the past, when, with heavy womb and
hard labour-worn hands, we physically toiled beside man, bearing up by
the labour of our bodies the world about us, it was never suggested to
us, "You, the child-bearers of the race, have in that one function a
labour that equals all others combined; therefore, toil no more in other
directions, we pray of you; neither plant, nor build, nor bend over
the grindstone; nor far into the night, while we sleep, sit weaving the
clothing we and our children are to wear! Leave it to us, to plant, to
reap, to weave, to work, to toil for you, O sacred child-bearer! Work no
more; every man of the race will work for you!" This cry in all the grim
ages of our past toil we never heard.

And today, when the lofty theorist, who tonight stands before the
drawing-room fire in spotless shirtfront and perfectly fitting clothes,
and declaims upon the amplitude of woman's work in life as child-bearer,
and the mighty value of that labour which exceeds all other, making
it unnecessary for her to share man's grosser and lower toils: is it
certain he always in practical life remembers his theory? When waking
tomorrow morning, he finds that the elderly house drudge, who rises
at dawn while he yet sleeps to make his tea and clean his boots, has
brought his tea late, and polished his boots ill; may he not even
sharply condemn her, and assure her she will have to leave unless
she works harder and rises earlier? Does he exclaim to her, "Divine
child-bearer! Potential mother of the race! Why should you clean my
boots or bring up my tea, while I lie warm in bed? Is it not enough you
should have the holy and mysterious power of bringing the race to life?
Let that content you. Henceforth I shall get up at dawn and make my own
tea and c