"What a sterile crew you must know."
"No. Just platonic."
Gaythorpe smiled at the sarcasm.
"What is the general length of the childless marriage?" he asked. "The average."
"I haven't noticed. I don't know. A couple of years? Five years? At any rate, I see no point in the ceremony. But the thing arises from excessive individualism among women; and I don't see any way out of it. The only justification of the man who insists on children is his wife's love; and if the wives are fuller of self-love I can't see why they should be forced to undergo the pains of childbirth."
"My dear Edgar," said Gaythorpe. "Don't be sentimental. The people who most acutely feel the pains of childbirth are sentimental men. That a woman should suffer great physical pain for twenty-four hours, and a good deal of nervous distress for some time before her delivery, perhaps two or three times in the course of her life, is no reason why (if she's reasonably robust) she shouldn't have children. If there's an exaggerated fear of physical pain, or a great deal of egotism, in the woman you want to marry, call the whole thing off at once."
Edgar was faintly irritated.
"You can't dictate nowadays," he said. "That's past. Women have got to be treated—the women that one could marry, I mean—as equals. They've got to have an opportunity of living to the full extent of their powers."
"Well," said Gaythorpe, very deliberately. "I'm going to say something you'll dislike. I'm going to say that no woman who has any inclination to love you will thank you for treating her as an equal. She'll think it a weakness in you. She won't understand it. Women are so constituted that they associate consideration with indifference."