Modern psychology is lifting the veil to-day from the suffering which
repression causes. It is a pity that its most brilliant exponents should
ascribe to a single instinct--however potent--_all_ the ills that afflict
mankind, for such one-sidedness defeats its own object; but, at least, the
modern psychologist is trying to show us "exactly where each tooth-point
goes" in the repression of the sex-instinct among women as among men. Nor
does the fact that the _tabu_ of society has actually in many cases enabled
a woman to inhibit the development of her own nature, obviate the fact that
she does so at great cost, even when she least understands what she does.

I affirm this, and with insistence, that the normal--the average--woman
sacrifices a great deal if she accepts life-long celibacy. She sacrifices
quite as much as a man. In those cases--too frequent even now--where she
is not educated or expected to earn her own living or to have a career, I
maintain that she loses more than a man who is expected to work. I do not
say, and I do not believe, that passion in a woman is the same as in a man,
or that they suffer in precisely the same way. I believe indeed that if men
and women understood each other a little better they would hurt each other
a good deal less. But I am persuaded that we shall not even begin to reach
a wise morality so long as we persist in basing our demands on the imbecile
assumption that women suffer nothing or little by the unsatisfaction of the
sex side of their nature.

I emphasize this point here, because it is involved in the present state
of affairs. I have reminded you that there are nearly 2,000,000 women
whose lives are to be considered. If the number were quite small, it might
comfortably be assumed that the women who remained unmarried were those
who, in any case, had no vocation for marriage. For it is, of course, true
that there are such women, as there are such men. The normal man and woman
desire marriage and parenthood, and are fitted for it; but there are always
exceptions who either do not desire it, or, desiring it, feel bound to
put it aside at the call of some other vocation, which they feel to
be supremely theirs, and which is not compatible with marriage. They
sacrifice; but they do so joyfully, not for repression, but for a different
life, another vocation. And where the number of the unmarried is small,
it may without essential injustice be supposed that these are the natural
ce