the rivalry of business,--and with reason. So she craves
attention, sympathy, as well as the dull love of everyday life. She
ought to have it; it is her recompense for her lot, for her married
life, her smaller interests. Now and then some great man intent upon a
great work has some excuse for absorption in that work; for the great
majority of men there is no such excuse. Their own affairs are also
minor and are no more important than those of their wives. Fair play
demands that the women they have immured in a home have a prior claim to
their company, in at least the majority of the leisure hours. If in the
time to come the home alters and a woman who continues to work marries
a man who works, and they meet only at night, then it will be ethical
for each to go his or her way. Marriage at present must mean the giving
up of freedom for the man as well as for the woman, in the interests of
justice and the race.

In medicine we prescribe bitter tonics which have the property of
increasing appetite and vigor. For the husband of every woman there is
this bit of advice; sympathy and attention constitute a sweet tonic,
which if judiciously administered is of incomparable power and
efficiency.

CHAPTER XIII

THE FUTURE OF WOMAN, THE HOME, AND MARRIAGE

No true sportsman ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in
favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days
of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to
reproach or mock him.

Therefore I do not claim to be a prophet in discussing the future of
woman, the home, and marriage. At any time just one invention may come
along that will totally alter the face of things. Moreover we are now in
the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the
largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women
alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the
outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many
reactionary centuries and eras as well as successful reformations and
progressive ages.

Whether or not it fits woman to be a housewife of the traditional kind,
feminism is certain to develop further. Women will enter into more
diverse occupations than ever before, they will enter politics, they
will find their way to direct power and action. More and more those who
work will be specialized and individualized--- the woman executive, the
writer, the artist, the do