under the guidance of a leader, this leader is nearly always a
male; there are few exceptions.[51] In woman, the long period of
pregnancy and lactation, and the prolonged helplessness of her child,
render her for a considerable period of her life economically dependent.
On whom shall she be dependent? This is a question of considerable
moment. According to the old conception of the family, all the members
were slaves producing for the benefit of the owner, and it was natural
that the wife should be supported by the husband when she is producing
slaves for his service. But this conception is, as we have seen, no
longer possible. It is clearly unfair also to compel the mother to
depend on her own previous exertions. The reproduction of the race is a
social function, and we are compelled to conclude that it is the duty of
the community, as a community, to provide for the child-bearer when in
the exercise of her social function she is unable to provide for
herself. The woman engaged in producing a new member, who may be a
source of incalculable profit or danger to the whole community, cannot
fail to be a source of the liveliest solicitude to everyone in the
community, and it was a sane and beautiful instinct that found
expression of old in the permission accorded to a pregnant woman to
enter gardens and orchards, and freely help herself. Whether this
instinct will ever again be embodied in a new form, and the reproduction
of the race be recognized as truly a social function, is a question
which even yet lacks actuality. The care of the child-bearer and her
child will at present continue to be a matter for individual
arrangement. That it will be arranged much better than at present we
may reasonably hope. On the one hand, the reckless multiplication of
children will probably be checked; on the other hand, a large body of
women will no longer be shut out from maternity. That the state should
undertake the regulation of the birth-rate we can scarcely either desire
or anticipate. Undoubtedly the community has an abstract right to limit
the number of its members. It may be pointed out, however, that under
rational conditions of life the process would probably be
self-regulating; in the human races, and also among animals generally,
fertility diminishes as the organism becomes highly developed. And,
without falling back on any natural law, it may be said that the
extravagant procreation of children, leading to suffering both to
p