principle
on which our life is to be based, without paying any more attention to
lactation than is to be found in the argument we have been considering,
has left out the beginning, has omitted the foundations. No measure of
earnestness or literary skill can save her case.

Of course the reply will be that the biological criticism is simply the
ancient and oriental idea of woman as a helpless dependent, reasserted
for male advantage in our own day. One cannot believe that it is
necessary to rebut that accusation. It is necessary, however, to examine
somewhat the words "economic dependence" and "economic independence"
which are employed with such naive antithesis in this controversy.

When we examine Mrs. Gilman's proposal for the salvation of woman, we
find it to mean that in future mothers are to do double work. The
glorious consummation is to be that woman is no longer "parasitic on the
male," which is Mrs. Gilman's way of expressing the great truth that the
mother for whom the father works, represents the future supported by the
present.

But the future is always supported by the present. Woman, we began by
saying, is Nature's supreme organ of the future, and the present must
live for her and die for her. When we say the future, we mean childhood.
If childhood is to appear and to survive, womanhood must be dedicated to
it, and manhood, which stands for the present, must supply its own link
in the chain. The following paragraph from an unsigned article which
appeared some years ago in the _Morning Post_ states the case in a form
which may convince the reader. It was headed "Repairs and Renewals of
the People," and ran as follows:--

"It is, indeed, seldom sufficiently realized how much a nation, so
to speak, lives always in and for the future. Broadly speaking, of
every ten persons living in the United Kingdom now, four are less
than twenty years of age, while three of the rest are women (two of
them married women)--that is to say, people also mainly concerned,
through the care of children, with the future rather than with the
present. Upon the remaining three men, one of whom be it noted is
over fifty-five, falls the bulk of the work of providing for
immediate needs and so releasing the others to provide for the
continuance of the race. A definite large share of all the present
activities of a people is required and, as it were, pledged to
provide for it