. While the ovary,
stimulated by the thyroid and the adrenal medulla, is the chief
determinant of the sex instinct, to the posterior pituitary must be
credited the chief hormone of the maternal instinct. The interactions
of the two glands, the ovary and the posterior pituitary, modified
by accessory influences, determine the relative intensity of the two
instincts. In a sense, the two glands may be said to be antagonistic
and yet one stimulates and complements the other.

THE TRANSFIGURATIONS OF CHILD-BEARING

Though what happens at puberty, what happens all through life through
the agencies of the endocrines is amazing enough, what occurs during
the period of child-bearing is perhaps the most amazing of all. As
emphasized, pregnancy is the time, among the internal secretions, of a
great uprooting and stirring, of fundamental and cataclysmic changes
in the most intimate chemistry of the cells. It is as if a dictator,
inspired by his country's danger, its enemies at the gates of its
capitol, were to draft and mobilize everyone, man woman and child from
everyday activities to the necessities of defense. Or rather it is
as if there appeared within the heart of our civilization a common
purpose and intelligence, now so palpably lacking, which magnetized
and drew to itself all the streams of individual self-aggrandizing
effort. Imagine that possibility and how it would change the face of
the earth and the entire basic constitution of human life and society.
So do the profound tides of the hormones, centering around the new
creature being made in the womb, transfigure the face and constitution
of the child-bearing woman.

During pregnancy, in consequence, the integrity of every structure
of the body is tested. A stern, relentless accountant goes over the
cells, counts up their reserves, establishes a balance, credits and
debits according to the demands of the growing parasite within them.
Follow changes in the skin, the bones, the nervous system and the
mind. That is, all the glands, subtle recorders, transmitters,
producers of the vibrations of change are influenced. But the most
influential are the most affected, as the most dominant personalities
in a community are most disturbed by a revolution.

In Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street," the best novel ever made about
America as a nation of villagers, the heroine, Carol Kennicott, has
this to say to someone sentimentalizing about maternity.

"I do not look lovely, Mrs. Boga