[65] I am not giving any references in support of the statements made in this chapter. The reader is referred to The Age of Mother-Power.
[66] The Age of Mother-Power.
[67] I would wish to say here that I did not consider this question sufficiently when I wrote The Age of Mother-Power. I was, perhaps, carried away by the advantages to women of the maternal system of reckoning descent. Such a system could be preserved only under the conditions of the communal clan. This necessitated the absorption of the individual family, which must consist of father, mother and children. I hold this to be a greater evil than the wrongs—great as those wrongs undoubtedly were—that came in family relationships with the re-establishment of the patriarchal home.
[68] The reader is referred to a new book on feminism that has come into my hands while reading the proofs of this chapter, Towards a Sane Feminism, by Wilma Meikle. The book is instructive as expressing the views of the younger suffragists. Note especially the three chapters, “Simplifying Sex Problems,” “How to be Moral though Married,” and “Between the Home and the Labour Market.” One short sentence I quote which clearly shows the opinions held by the writer, “The truth is that Motherhood is one of the most casual of all relationships and one of the shortest-lived.” Any comment from me on this smart folly is unnecessary.
[69] The quotation is taken from the well-known book of Mrs. Perkins Gilman, who gave the earliest expression to this false view of what is good for the child.
[70] Years of Childhood, by Serge Aksakoff, trans. by J. D. Duff.
[71] See note on p. 155.
[72] These were the numbers given in the debate in Parliament, April 4, 1916, at the time of writing this chapter. They will be much, much larger before my book is finished and published.
[73] For a full description of these early experiments in communal dwellings see The Age of Mother-Power, pp. 48, 103-131, 151.
[74] See p. 112.