Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles

by C. W. Saleeby

And now we can turn to those proposals which have lately been revived by one or two popular writers in England, for the endowment of motherhood by the State, leaving the fathers in peace to spend their earnings as they please, whilst others support their children. Detailed criticism is not needed, for the details to criticize are not forthcoming, and the opinions on principles and on details of these imaginative writers are never twice the same. It suffices that proposals such as these, apart from their vagueness and their obvious impracticability in any form, are directly condemned by the fundamental principle that a man shall be responsible for his acts. The endowment of motherhood, as Mr. Wells means it, is simply a phrase for making men responsible for their neighbours' acts and for striking hard and true at the root principle of all marriage, human or sub-human, which is the common parental care of offspring. Reference is made to this proposal here, not that it really needs criticism, but in order that one may be clearly excluded from any participation in such proposals.

The difference between such schemes for the endowment of motherhood and the proposal here advocated is that those seek to endow the mother by making the father less responsible—or, rather, wholly irresponsible—while this seeks to endow her by making the father more responsible. The whole verdict of the ages is, as we have seen, on the side of this principle. It has been practised for æons, and it is the aim of sound legislation and practice everywhere to-day.

As has been admitted, the more we express this principle, the lower will fall, not necessarily the marriage-rate, but the parent-rate; fewer men will become fathers, but they will be fitter. There will be fewer children born, but they will be children planned, desired and loved in anticipation, as every child should be, and will be in the golden future. These children will not die, but survive; nor will their development be injured by early malnutrition and neglect. The believer in births as births will not be gratified, but there will be abundance of gratification for the believer in births as means to ends.

The practical working-out of our principle is no more difficult than might be expected if it be remembered that we are counselling nothing revolutionary nor even novel. The demand simply is that the practice which obtains among the more fortunate classes shall be made universal, and that the State shall see that all fathers who can, do their duty. The State will be quite busy and well employed in this task, which may legitimately be allotted to it even on the strictly individualist and Spencerian principles, that the maintenance of justice is alone the State's province. We allot a great function to the State, but deny that it can rightly or safely set the father aside and perform his duty for him.

The kind of means whereby the rights of mothers may be granted them is indicated in the Women's Charter which has lately been formulated and advocated by Lady Maclaren. The principle there recognized is that the husband's wages are not solely his own earnings, but are in part handed to him to be passed on to his wife. Directly children are concerned, the State should be.

Whatever the answer to the crudely-stated question, "Should Wives have Wages?" it is certain that mothers should and must have wages or their equivalent.

To many of the well-wishers of women it is disappointing that the Women's Charter is not more keenly supported by women themselves. Unfortunately the suffrage has become a fetish, the mere means has become an end, preferred even to the offer of the real ends, such as would be attained in very large measure by this Charter. We see here, it is to be feared, the same spirit which protests against the wisest and most humane legislation in the interests of women and children because "men have no business to lay down the law for women."

In general terms, one would argue that the principle of insurance must be applied to this case, as it is now voluntarily applied by thousands of provident fathers. Here the State may guarantee and help, even by the expenditure of money. It should help those who help themselves. This is a principle which may apply to many forms of insurance or provision, whether for old age or against invalidity; just as non-contributory old-age provisions are fundamentally wrong in principle, and have never been defended on any but party-political grounds of expedience, even by their advocates, so the "endowment of motherhood" which meant the complete liberation of fatherhood from its responsibilities would be wrong in principle. But in both of these cases the State might rightly undertake to help those who help themselves.

Fatherhood of the new order will not be so wholly irksome and unrewarded as might at first appear to the critic who does not reckon children as rewards themselves. It may involve some momentary sacrifices, but it needs very little critical study of the ordinary man's expenditure to discover that, on the whole, these sacrifices will be more apparent than real. It is, for instance, a very great sacrifice indeed for the smoker to give up tobacco; but once he has done so, he is as happy as he was, and suffers nothing at all for the gain of his pocket. Both as regards alcohol and tobacco, the common expenditure which would so amply provide milk and the rest for children, is necessitated by an acquired habit which, like all acquired habits, can be discarded. The non-smoker and non-drinker does not suffer the discomfort of the smoker and drinker who is deprived of his need. These things cease to be needs at all, soon after they are dispensed with, or if the habit of taking them is never begun. They are luxuries only to those who use them. To those who do not they are nothing, and the lack of them is nothing. The sheer waste they entail is gigantic, and the expenditure on them in such a country as England would endow all its motherhood and provide good conditions for all its children. The father who, in the future, is compelled to yield the rights of mothers and children, may sometimes be compelled to practise what at first looks like great self-restraint in these respects. The point I wish to make is that the sacrifice and the need for restraint are transient, and that thereafter there is simply more liberty and the promise of longer life for the wise.

The working-out will be that the legislation of the future will benefit the right kind of husband and father, but will restrain and irk the wrong kind. But that is precisely what good legislation should do. Thus the right kind of father, who in any case will do his best to care for his wife and children, will be helped in the future by the State. It will insist that he does the duty which in any case he means to do, but it will make the doing easier. We see admirably working parallels to this in the German insurance laws and their provision for death, disease and old age. They benefit those whom they appear to harass. Insurance against fatherhood will work in the same way. The State will not be antagonistic to the father, but will be his best friend, knowing that its best friends are good fathers and mothers. There will be far less worry and anxiety for well-meaning parents, especially for mothers, but also for fathers. Nor do I, for one, much mind how substantial may be the State's contribution to the father's efforts, provided only that those efforts are demanded and obtained.