ving back to woman of her power, let
me say that in this change there will be no danger of unsexing, least
of all of the unsexing of woman. Nature would not permit it, even if
she in any foolishness of revolt sought such a result, for it is her
body that is the sanctuary of the race. Love and courtship will not,
indeed, be robbed of any charm, that would be fatal, but they will be
freed from the mockeries of love that have always selfishness in them,
jealous resentments and fearing distrusts--the man of the woman, not
less than the woman of the man. To-day coquetry serves not only as a
prelude to marriage, but very often serves as a substitute for it; an
escape from the payment of the sacrifices which fulfilled love claims.
There is a confusion of motives which now force women and men alike
from their service to the race. Sex must be freed from all unworthy
necessities. Courtship must be regarded, not as a game of chance, but
as the opening act in the drama of life. And the woman who comes to
know this must play her part consciously, realising in full what she
is seeking for; then, indeed, no longer will her sex be to her a light
or a saleable thing. At present economic and social injustices are
strangling millions of beautiful unborn babes.

There is another error that I would wish to clear up now. It is a
tenet of common belief that in all matters of sex-feeling and
sex-morality the woman is different from, and superior to, the man. I
find in the writings of almost all women on sex-subjects, not to speak
of popular novels, an insistence on men's grossness, with a great deal
in contrast about the soulful character of woman's love. Even so
illuminated a writer as Ellen Key emphasises this supposed trait of
the woman again and again. Another woman writer, Miss May Sinclair,
in a brilliant "Defence of Men" (_English Review_, July 1912), speaks
of "the superior virtue of women" as being "primordially and
fundamentally Nature's care." And again, woman "has monopolised virtue
at man's expense," which the writer, with the most perfect humour and
irony, though apparently quite unconscious, regards as "men's
tragedy." The woman has received the laurel crown by "Nature's
consecration of her womanhood to suffering," the man "has paid with
his spiritual prospects as she has paid with her body."

Now, from this view of the sex relationship I most utterly dissent. I
believe that any difference in virtue, even where it exists in wom