kes great credit to
herself for it. I am not sure she should, for her system makes divorce
a luxury available only to the rich. Divorce is not a cause. It is a
result. I am not sure that people ill-mated do not do more harm to
their children staying together than separating; and marriage is not
for the man or the woman, but for the race. This opinion, however,
would be considered heresy in Canada, and a great many factors conspire
to help woman's status in the Dominion. To begin with, there are half
a million more men than women. A woman need never give herself so
cheaply as to spend her life paying for her precipitancy. She is not a
superfluous. Another point in which some other countries could emulate
Canada is in the protection of women and children. A woman ill-mated
has the same protection under the law as though she were single.
Infringement of her rights is punishable with penalties varying from
seven years and the lash to death. A man living on a woman's illicit
earnings is not coddled by ward heelers and let off with light bail, as
in certain notorious California cases. He is given the lash and seven
years. Such offenders seldom come up for sentence twice.

On the other hand, compared to punishments for property violations, the
protection of women and children is ridiculously inadequate. A man
abducting a girl is liable to sentence of five years; a man stealing a
cow, to sentence of fourteen years. Counterfeiting coin is punished by
life imprisonment. Misusing a ward or employee is punished by two
years' imprisonment. This remissness is no index to a subordinate
position by women in Canada. It is rather simple testimony to the fact
that before the influx of alien peoples certain types of crime were
unknown.

There is little of sex unrest in Canada. In fact, sex as sex is not in
evidence, which is a symptom of wholesome relationships. Perhaps I
should say there is little of that feminine discontent and revolt so
strident in older lands. This I attribute to two facts: an overplus of
men, and boundless opportunity and freedom for the expenditure of
unused energies. In certain sections of England, women over-balanced
men before the war as ten to one. What the over-balance will be after
the war, one can only guess. When women who want to marry are not
married, or married to types different from themselves--which must
happen when the sexes are in disproportion--unhappiness must result.
Woman