st place, every healthy and fairly-well-provided-for husband
and wife should desire to have children, and should act in accordance
with such wish. This is not only in harmony with the primary purpose
of sex in the human family, but it is a response to a natural demand
of the human soul, in both man and woman. As Bernard Shaw makes Jack
Tanner say: "There is a father-heart as well as a mother-heart" and
_parenthood is the supreme desire of all normal and wholesome-minded
men and women._ It is not an "instinct," but something far above that
quality.

Parenthood among mere animals is the result of instinct, and of that
alone, but not so in the human race. Human beings naturally desire to
make a home for themselves, and a home, in the fullest meaning of that
word, means _children_ and a "family circle." This is something that
animals know nothing about. Animal mothers forget and ignore their
progeny as soon as they are weaned; and animal fathers will, in many
cases, kill them as soon as they are born, if they get a chance to
do so. These facts prove that parenthood, in the human family, is
something much more than in the rest of the animal kingdom. Indeed,
the whole matter of comparing this quality, as it exists in humanity,
with that of animals merely, is only a continuance of the similar
abomination of comparing the sex functions of these two forms of life.
In the real essentials of existence, they are in no way comparable;
and to make such is not only folly, but approaches the positively
criminal. The results of doing so certainly lead to crime.

Fundamentally, then, nearly all men and women marry with the purpose
and hope of having a family of children. They may not put it that way,
may not even acknowledge it, even to each other or to themselves; but
if married people find that they _cannot_ produce, it is a source of
unspeakable regret to them both. In such cases, the inherent desire
for parenthood will "cry aloud and spare not." A "barren" woman
greatly mourns her inability, and will shed bitter tears over the
fact, if she be truly human; and an "impotent" man will be practically
despised by all who are aware of his incompetence.

And yet, though all normal men and women desire to have children,
it is only right that they should desire to have them _as they want
them_, and _when_ they want them, and not _whenever they may happen
to come!_ That is, sensible and thoughtful people, who plan definitely
for the future,