any right to go away by herself for a
little change and recreation. Any work of her own, play of her own,
tastes of her own, must be strictly subordinated, if not suppressed
altogether.

In the old days, from which our domestic traditions proceed, little
hardship was thus inflicted on the wife. Her rights and privileges were,
indeed, far less than those of the modern woman, but for that very reason
the home offered her a larger field; beneath the shelter of her husband
the irresponsible wife might exert a maximum of influential activity with
a minimum of rights and privileges of her own. To many men, even to-day,
that state of things seems the realisation of an ideal.

Yet to women it seems increasingly less so, and of necessity since the
cleavage between the position of woman in society and law, and the
position of the wife in the sacramental bonds of wedlock, is daily
becoming greater. To-day a woman, who possibly for ten years has been
leading her own life of independent work, earning her own living, choosing
her own conditions in accordance with her own needs, and selecting her own
periods of recreation in accordance with her own tastes, whether or not
this may have included the society of a man-friend--such a woman suddenly
finds on marriage, and without any assertion of authority on her husband's
part, that all the outward circumstances of her life are reversed and all
her inner spontaneous movements arrested. There may be no signs of this
on the surface of her conduct. She loves her husband too much to wish to
hurt his feelings by explaining the situation, and she values domestic
peace too much to risk friction by making unexpected claims. But beneath
the surface there is often a profound discontent, and even in women who
thought they had gained an insight into life, a sense of disillusion.
Everyone knows this who is privileged to catch a glimpse into the hearts
of women--often women of most distinguished intelligence as well as women
of quite ordinary nature--who leave a life of spontaneous activity in the
world to enter the home.[13]

[13] While this condition of things is sometimes to be found in the more
distinguished minority and in well-to-do families, it is, of course,
among the great labouring majority that it is most conspicuous. Mrs.
Will Crooks, of Poplar, speaking to a newspaper reporter (_Daily
Chronicle_, 17 Feb., 1919), truly remarked: "At present the average
married woman's working day is a flag