do not believe
it will be carried to the extreme, for the association of human beings
in couples appears to respond to some deep need; still, it should be
taken into account as an indication of sex revolt.

That part of the programme belongs to the ultimates. Among the
transitory ideas, that is, the ideas which are to fit Feminism into the
modern State, are the endowment of motherhood and the lien on wages. The
Feminists do not commit themselves to a view on the broad social
question whether it is desirable to encourage or discourage births.
Taking births as they happen, they lay down that a woman being
incapacitated from work for a period of weeks or months while she is
giving birth to a child, her liberty can be secured only if the fact of
the birth gives her a call upon the State. Failing this, she must have a
male protector in whose favor she must abdicate her rights because he is
her protector. As man is not handicapped in his work by becoming a
father, they propose to remove the disability that lies upon woman by
supplying her with the means of livelihood for a period surrounding the
birth, of not less than six weeks, which some place at three months.
There is nothing wild in this scheme, for the British Insurance Act
(1912) gives a maternity endowment of seven dollars and fifty cents
whether a mother be married or single. The justice of the proposal may
be doubted by some, but I do not think its expediency will be
questioned. On mere grounds of humanity, it is barbarous to compel a
woman to labor while she is with child; on social grounds it is not
advantageous for the race to allow her to do so: premature births,
child-murder, child-neglect by working mothers, all these facts point to
the social value of the endowment.

4

The last of the transitory measures is the lien on wages. In the present
state of things, women who work in the home depend for money on husbands
or fathers. The fact of having to ask is, in the Feminists' view, a
degradation. They suggest that the housekeeper should be entitled to a
proportion of the man's income or salary, and one of them, Mrs. M. H.
Wood, picturesquely illustrates her case by saying that she hopes to do
away with "pocket-searching" while the man is asleep. Mrs. Wood's ideas
certainly deserve sympathy; though many men pay their wives a great deal
more than they are worth and are shamefully exploited--a common modern
position--it is also quite true that many others expe