QUEEN MARGHERITA ON THE SPHERE OF WOMAN.
She Abhors “Race Suicide,” and Condemns the So-Called “Emancipation” of Her Sex.
The Dowager Queen Margherita of Italy has been expressing her disapproval of “race suicide” with no less frankness than President Roosevelt. Not often is a queen interviewed; less often is a royal interview more than a collection of perfunctory phrases, polite, but insignificant. Yet Queen Margherita has been saying:
A childless family is incomplete. There is a poetry and a pathos about childhood which appeal to every right-hearted woman. Most women, though they may not be able to put this idea into words, feel it. They have the maternal instinct. Hence the remoteness of race suicide.
Women show their intellectuality by rearing healthy and great children, just as much as they do by writing books or painting pictures. The wife who deliberately refuses to bring children into the world must have something wrong with her moral make-up.
I am very pleased to know that there is a movement in the United States in favor of large families, and that President Roosevelt has put himself upon record as favoring them. European women have begun to look for light to their sisters of the United States.
On the subject of woman’s “emancipation” Queen Margherita is equally outspoken:
I am absolutely opposed to any extravagant theories of what is called the emancipation of women. In whatever condition of life a woman may be placed, her first duty is the negative one of not giving up the qualities that distinguish her sex. Above all, she should guard against developing the trait of men. A blending of ancient reserve with modern independence would give us the ideal woman.