hority may be quoted in favour of this
principle. At the Annual Public Meeting of the Academy of Sciences, held
in Paris in December, 1909, Professor Bouchard discussed the question of
the population of France, and came to the conclusion that the birth-rate
"depended upon social conditions which it was difficult if not
altogether impossible to modify, and in these circumstances the
alternative remedy was to reduce the number of deaths."

It must surely be plain that those reforms in the conditions of marriage
which have been advocated in this chapter will meet this need, and are
not necessarily to be feared even by those who, in this matter, devote
their solicitude entirely to the question of numbers, quality apart. For
the eugenist who is primarily concerned with quality these reforms are
surely unchallengeable.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CONDITIONS OF DIVORCE

A brief chapter must be devoted to the question of the conditions of
divorce, which are really part of the conditions of marriage. Here, as
in every other case, we must apply the universal and unchallengeable
eugenic criterion: the conditions of divorce, like the conditions of
marriage itself, must be such as best serve the future of the race. This
will mean that, in the first place, in entering upon marriage--which of
necessity means so much more to a woman than it does to a man--the woman
must have the assurance that when the conditions of the contract are
broken she will be liberated. The law must bear equally upon the two
sexes. This condition of safety, once established, may determine toward
marriage a certain number of women at present deterred by what they know
of the manner in which our unjust laws now work.

Secondly, Divorce Law Reform in the right interests of women and the
future must involve the complete protection of both from, for instance,
the drunken husband. The male inebriate is on all grounds unfitted to be
a father, and the laws of divorce must ensure that if he be married, his
wife and therefore the future shall be protected from him. Those of us
who believe in the movement for Women Suffrage will be grievously
disappointed if, when that movement at last succeeds, such fundamental
and urgent reforms as these are not promptly effected.

A Royal Commission is now sitting in England upon this subject of
Divorce Law Reform, and I wish to repeat here with all the emphasis
possible what has been already said in indirect contribution to the