The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-05-24

men who admire them, fear the doll will con-
tinue 10 inherit the future and emancipation will
languish for lack OF a constituency 1 am amazed
at the complete oversight of this in many discus
sions. The desiTability of different func ions IL
discussed as though It were entirely an individual
AFFAIR In which society has no interest. Thus one
writer declares that science warrants woman in
renouncing the duties of maternity. Just what
science authorizes this remarkable conclusion is
not stated. A university professor In his syllabus
on this subject defines follows-the "rights
women want Right not 10 marry, to earn her
own living, to enter the professions, 10 get due
wages, 10 be esteemed professionally, TO fl herself
for study to have access to clinics, laboratories
lectures, libraries to get recognition by dip omaS
Right to marry, to control her person. TO hold prop
erty, to simplify houSek eeping, TO have to
have children"
Perhaps she wants all these things, but 1 err
tainiy hope that IL the right not to marry or not TO
have children, ETC., is granted women will not all
speak at once 1 have feeling that IL would
prove setback to the progress of the race. Now
be granted to a considerable number of individual
women But this is not the question. Looked at
from the standpoint of society the question of in
dividual rights is totally irrelevant. Nice ques-
tions of what is needful for the individual Ito
burgeon out of all within her. society is often
compelled to ignore in Difference to the sterner
necessity OF self preservation and collective de-
veiopment' In this great movement there Is no
memorable justice or Individual right, only com
pick social necessity which sacrifices the indi-
viduals needful for its purpose as relenlessly as
man sacrifices an oyster.
Would Be n Setback to Progress.
The social necessity that is laid upon woman is
that she shall perpetuate the race under con-
ditions compatible with the social order. Ind-
viduals may be excused and may solve the woman
problem for themselves but their solution VIII
have no permanent social significance. IT cannot
be too FIRE quensly strenuously insisted that the
woman question is not solved till it is solved for
married women. Any theory which tells woman
TO take her choice between marriage and some
thing else not only does not solve the main
problem, but 1t may even retard its solution. The
rights which society feasbly grant to women
rla ha cVvi mt Inf
fere with wifehood and motherhood. Even the
privileges granted to exceptional individuals can
not safely be such as will tempt any considerable
number of desirable women 10 choose them in
preference 10 marriage. The inevitable result
of such tendency would be the perpetuatlon OF
society from inferior stock and a setback TO
progress
may a wife and mother be and do? l hope no
man will be mean enough to grudge her the privi-
leges he enjoys or TO wantony restrict her oppor-
tunity. But how far does wife and mother hooo
self restrict her opportunity? For unmarried
women l have no concern at present, the more SO
because they are likely to be much like their
mothers and to do that which their faculties per
init.
First OF ALL it is plain that maternity is an OBJ
stacle to employments as paternity is not. The
higher occupations may be said to begin at %.
rms Is the average age for women in those classes
to marry.
And now follows period OF perhaps ten years.
IN which she must bear and rear three or four
chldren. With well-deveoped system OF nurses
and baby-farming. she may not lose more than
three years out of the ten but If she for the
children herself she will lose the whole ten years
These ten years the period when her male COM
pettor Is winning his spurs. When at thirty-five
she has accomplished the most Of her task, she
still is not free from cares which maternity inn
poses.
Handicapped by Motherhood.
1t may be that some men could succeed IN law
medicine or politics under such circumstances, but
most men could not If woman is to succeed
against such odds she must possess abilities such
as her most sanguine representatives have never
claimed that she possessed. OF course all this may