The future of Woman—Indications of progress—The re-birth of woman—Woman learning to believe in herself—The sin of sterility—The waste of womanhood—The change in woman's outlook—The quickening of the social conscience—A criticism of militancy—It does not correspond with the ideal for women—The new free relationship of the sexes—The conditions which make this possible—The recognition of love as the spiritual force in life—The importance of woman's freedom to the vital advance of humanity—The end brings us back to the beginning—The supreme importance of Motherhood—Woman the guardian of the Race-life and the Race-soul—This the ground of her claim for freedom.
CHAPTER XI[ToC]
THE END OF THE INQUIRY
"Among the higher activities and movements of our time, the struggle of our sisters to attain an equality of position with the strong, the dominant, the oppressive sex, appears to me, from the purely human point of view, most beautiful and most interesting: indeed, I regard it as possible that the coming century will obtain its historical characterisations, not from any of the social and economical controversies of the world of men, but that this century will be known to subsequent history distinctively as that in which the solution of the 'woman's question' was obtained."—George Hirth.
Looking back over the long inquiry which lies behind us, we have come by many and various paths to seek that standpoint from which we started—the Truth about Woman. We must now try to give a brief answer to a difficult question. What is the future of woman? Are we able to recognise in the present upward development of the sex signs of real progress towards better conditions? Is it within the capacity of the female half of human-kind to acquire and keep that position of essential usefulness held by the females of all other species? Will women learn to develop their own nature and to express their own genius? Can their present characteristic weakness, vices, and failings be really overcome under different and freer conditions of domestic and social life? Are we of to-day justified in looking forward to the new woman of the future, with saner aspirations and wider aims, who lives the whole of her life; who will restore to humanity harmony between the sexes, and transform the miseries of love back to its rightful joys? Can these things, indeed, be?
The answer is a confident and joyful "Yes!"