The Woman's movement is inextricably bound up with all the problems of our disorganised love-relationships; and although politicians with their customary blindness have chosen to treat it as a side issue, it is, for this reason, the most serious social question that has come to the front during the century. Woman's position and her efforts to regain her equality with man can never be a thing apart—a side issue—to a responsible State. Love and the relationship of the sexes is the foundation of the social structure itself; it forms the real centre of all the social and economic problems—of the population problem, of the marriage problem, of the problems of education and eugenics, of the future of labour, of the sweating question, and the problem of prostitution. As the Woman's Movement presses forward each and all of these questions will press forward too. All women and men have got to be concerned with sex and its problems until some at least of these wrongs are righted. That any woman can ever regard love as merely a personal matter, "an incident in life," that can be set aside in the rush of new activities, makes one wonder if the delusions of women about themselves can ever end. This misunderstanding of love ought never to be possible to any woman or any man: it is going to be increasingly difficult for it to be possible for the new woman and her mate that is to be. In love all things rest. In love has gathered the strength to be, growing into conscious need of fuller life, growing into completer vision of the larger day.
My faith in womanhood is strong and deep. The manifestations of the present, many of which seem to give cause for fear, are, after all, only the superficial evidence of a deep undercurrent of awakening. The ultimate driving force behind is shaping a social understanding in the woman's spirit. So surely from out of the wreckage and passion a new woman will arise.
For this Nature will see to. Woman, both by physiological and biological causes is the constructive force of life. Nothing that is fine in woman will be lost, nothing that is profitable will be sacrificed. No, the essential feminine in her will be gathered in a more complete, a more enduring synthesis. Woman is the predominant partner in the sexual relationship. We cannot get away from this. It is here, in this wide field, where so many wrongs wait to be righted, that the thrill of her new passion must bring well-being and joy. The female was the start of life, and woman is the main stream of its force. Man is her agent, her helper: hers is the supreme responsibility in creating and moulding life. It is thus certain that woman's present assertion of her age-long rights and claim for truer responsibilities has its cause rooted deep in the needs of the race. She is treading, blindly, perhaps, and stumblingly, in the steps laid down for her by Nature; following in a path not made by man, one that goes back to the beginning of life and is surer and beyond herself; thus she has time as well as right upon her side, and can therefore afford to be patient as well as fearless.
"I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over hither."
From the height of Pisgah there is revealed to women to-day a glimpse of the promised land. But shall we enter therein to take possession? I believe not. It will be given to those who follow us and carry on the work which our passion has begun. For our children's children the joys of reaping, the feast, and the songs of harvest home.
What matter? We shall be there in them.
Shall we, then, complain if for us is the hard toil, the doubts, and the mistakes, the long enduring patience, and the bitter fruits of disappointment? We have opened up the way.
And is not this one with the very purpose of life? We are obeying Nature's law in dedicating ourselves and our work to those who follow us. We have made our record, we can do nothing more. The race flows through us. All our effort lies in this—the giving of all that we have been able to gain. And it is sufficient. This is the end and the beginning.
Thus we are brought back to the truth from which we started. Women are the guardians of the Race-life and the Race-soul. There is no more to be said. It is because we are the mothers of men that we claim to be free. We claim this as our right. We claim it for the sake of men, for our lovers, our husbands, and our sons; we claim it even more for the sake of the life of the race that is to come.