[9]. This amaternal idea is advanced with great ability in some works of Charlotte Perkins Stetson and Rosa Mayreder. The word amaternal coined by me is used to characterise the theory subsequently advanced, because the word unmaternal (unmotherly) signifies a spiritual condition, the antithesis to “motherliness.” The maternal as opposed to the amaternal theory is this: that a woman’s life is lived most intensively and most extensively, most individually and most socially; she is for her own part most free, and for others most fruitful, most egoistic and most altruistic, most receptive and most generous, in and with the physical and psychic exercise of the function of maternity, because of the conscious desire, by means of this function, to uplift the life of the race as well as her own life.
[10]. It can even be shown that, if man invades the so-called woman’s spheres (for example the art of cooking or of dress-making), it is most frequently he who makes new discoveries and attains great success!
[11]. The best proof of this is that many women who, in a life free from care in an outward sense, were comparable only to geese or peacocks, nevertheless, when hard times came and gave them opportunity to develop their power of love, not only proved themselves heroines, but asserted that their “happy” years were those in which they had so “sacrificed” themselves.
[12]. How many children have had their idea of right debased by the manner in which the “Captain of Köpernick” was received at his liberation—to cite only one example.
A Selection from the
Catalogue of
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
❧
Complete Catalogue sent