ealthy, sensible, fully developed young woman of
six-and-twenty. Not long ago another woman, in announcing her engagement
to me, added in the same breath that she didn't mean to have children on
any account. Mr George Moore, in that sinister and repulsive book, _The
Confessions of a Young Man_ says: 'That I may die childless, that when
my hour comes I may turn my face to the wall, saying, I have not
increased the great evil of human life--then, though I were murderer,
fornicator, thief, and liar, my sins shall melt even as a cloud. But he
who dies with children about him, though his life were in all else an
excellent deed, shall be held accursed by the truly wise, and the stain
upon him shall endure for ever.' (One wonders on reading this why Mr
Moore continues to perpetuate the great evil of human life in his own
person, when he could so easily end his existence without paining
anyone!)

But I have heard many people, both men and women, married and single,
say that without children marriage is meaningless, in which opinion I
heartily concur. More than one young woman dowered with generous blood,
vitality, and courage has confided in me that whether she should marry
or not she wished to be a mother at all costs. It is one of the
disastrous results of men's shrinking from matrimony that fine women
like these must deliberately stifle this glorious passion of motherhood,
or pay a terrible price for expressing it--a price exacted not only from
themselves but from the child to whom they have given life. Such women,
however, are not often met with.

And now we come to the reason why people do not want children. 'We can't
afford it' is the plea most frequently heard, and a despicably selfish
one it is. I have said previously that every man can afford to
marry--when he meets the right woman. To this I add that every man who
can afford a wife can also afford a child. People who are too selfish to
afford a couple of children (or at least one, sad though it be for the
youngster to have neither brother nor sister) ought not to marry at all.
Some people say they are happy enough without little ones. A good many
women deliberately forgo their prospect of motherhood because it would
interrupt their pleasures, spoil the hunting season, interfere with
their desire to travel or their craze for games. Perhaps some day they
may think too high a price was paid for indulgence in these hobbies.
Others honestly dislike children, and would be