The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎632r] (154/239)

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II.
“The Threatened Re-subjection of Woman.”
A REPLY TO LUCAS MALET.
Has Lucas Malet exhausted her powers of imagination in her
powerful, but perhaps over-imaginative works of fiction that she
has none left for the destiny of the human race? For while sub
scribing with humble enthusiasm to her almost unrivalled
achievements in the region of fiction, it is wholly without trepida
tion that I venture to dispute her conclusions as to the origin,
progress, present results, and future fate of the Women’s
Movement.
Lucas Malet quotes President Roosevelt’s message wherein hi
says : “ The prime duty of man is to work, to be the bread-winner
the prime duty of the woman is to be the mother, the housewife.’
these utterances, she says, will appeal to those of us who art
neither ftministes nor wholly frivolous “as sane and sound, a
return to right reason and common-sense.” The view that the
object for which each man should work should be merely to
maintain his home, is on a par with the view that women should
exist for no other purpose than child-bearing and housewifery.
What a terribly lack-lustre ideal for both the man and the woman f
Ihe man is to work merely for the sake of keeping body and soul
together on this earth. The woman is to bear children and keep
the home the man has “worked ” for. How cut and dried and
uniform and unspeakably dull it sounds ! But I do not wish to
be misunderstood : I claim that for women there is no greater joy
on earth when it is a joy, than the joy of motherhood. But if
is and the cares of the housewife were the only means of self-
itselTwould con 1° " W ° man ’ 1 much doubt e ven her motherhood
itself would constitute so great a joy. I brave the sniff the phrase
self-expression may excite. It has, I am aware been used
heroi 6 that is morbid ^d neurotic among the
meTn that Tl ' . Nevertbeless 1 ^e it advisedly. I
capable of /T P °f ession of th e intensest joy a mother is
capable of feeling m her relation towards her children her
usband, and her home, and given the fulfilment of her duties
owards all three to the most eonseientious heights attainaWe
' 18 not en °ngh to occupy a fully-equipped, intellectual healthy
human female, any more than it would be enough for’ a fully 7