erage of citizenship.

The relationship of man and woman is the fundamental relationship that
stands at the base of the whole social structure. Much can be done by
law towards putting women on a footing of complete and entire equal
rights with man--including the right to vote, the right to hold and use
property, and the right to enter any profession she desires on the same
terms as a man. Yet when this has been done it will amount to little
unless on the one hand the man himself realizes his duty to the woman,
and unless on the other hand the woman realizes that she has no claim to
rights unless she performs the duties that go with those rights and that
alone justify her in appealing to them. A cruel, selfish, or licentious
man is an abhorrent member of the community; but, after all, his actions
are no worse in the long run than those of the woman who is content to
be a parasite on others, who is cold, selfish, caring for nothing but
frivolous pleasure and ignoble ease. The law of worthy effort, the
law of service for a worthy end, without regard to whether it brings
pleasure or pain, is the only right law of life, whether for man or for
woman. The man must not be selfish; nor, if the woman is wise, will she
let the man grow selfish, and this not only for her own sake but for
his. One of the prime needs is to remember that almost every duty is
composed of two seemingly conflicting elements, and that over-insistence
on one, to the exclusion of the other, may defeat its own end. Any man
who studies the statistics of the birth-rate among the native Americans
of New England, or among the native French of France, needs not to be
told that when prudence and forethought are carried to the point of cold
selfishness and self-indulgence, the race is bound to disappear. Taking
into account the women who for good reasons do not marry, or who when
married are childless or are able to have but one or two children, it is
evident that the married woman able to have children must on an average
have four or the race will not perpetuate itself. This is the mere
statement of a self-evident truth. Yet foolish and self-indulgent
people often resent this statement as if it were in some way possible
by denunciation to reverse the facts of nature; and, on the other hand,
improvident and shiftless people, inconsiderate and brutal people, treat
the statement as if it justified heads of families in having enormous
numbers of badly nourished, badly