uggling for
favor in the public mind, and for realization in practice. The one
ideal, while recognizing the changes necessitated by modern conditions,
would still seek to retain those features which have been supposed to
make for family privacy, the kitchen, the nursery, and the garden. The
other would frankly accept our changed conditions, and pass on to the
larger groups of socialized buildings, with common kitchens, day
nurseries, and parks.[56]

[56] See _Woman and Economics_, by CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, Boston:
Small, Maynard & Co., 1898; and the writings of H.G. WELLS.

This question has been discussed in the chapter on industry, and it will
be considered again in the following chapter. Meantime there can be no
doubt that love is reticent so far as the outside world is concerned;
and domesticity must always demand a large measure of privacy. It still
remains to be proved that this can be secured, in the absence of a
private kitchen, nursery and garden. Children, too, seem to need the
personal care and constant love of mothers, and women seem to need a
long period of loving and caring for a family to round out a deeply
significant life.

To summarize this chapter we may say that the realization of romantic
love, under conditions of domesticity, is necessary for men and women,
and for the well-being of the race. Our present marriage system is
defective, and needs to be corrected through the creation of a eugenic
conscience. It should be taken out of the hands of the church and made
more difficult by the state. Women's property rights should be defined
and safeguarded, and men and women should never live together when they
are repugnant to each other.

X

Family Life as a Vocation

The greatest of all wisdom is that which leads men and women to see the
real significance of their lives while they are still living. Life's
values, like the manna in the wilderness, must be gathered daily. If not
nourished day by day the power to live atrophies and dies; and no one
can live well to-day on the shrunken memories of yesterday. A full and
significant life is its own justification; and in a last analysis
philosophies and theologies offer us only the life more abundantly which
the great Teacher said he came into the world to bring. Buddhism offers
us eternal peaceful existence in Nirvana; Epicureanism offers pleasure,
which is but an intensification of life; Stoicism offers us life freed
from disturbing forces;