“Certainly they ought. But they can’t.
“They could, in a nation whose units were individuals; they can’t, in a nation whose units are homes.
“Every woman is a potential or actual queen-bee. Her duty is to found a hive, not to make honey. Like a man, she has only a limited quantity of energy.
“The little nation of the hive or home, which is, in very fact, the nation itself writ small, makes vast calls upon the man’s energy and the woman’s. Here alone is the national life as distinct from the national affairs.
“It is the germinal spot and centre of all national activity; it is the primary school of all morality; and it is the supreme province of the woman. Here she is a world Builder.
“This is her kingdom. Her duties here are not only family, but national. There are no humble duties in a home: they are all great and national duties, directly determining the advancement of the world. Like all great duties, they imply great outputs of energy, self-denial, and restraint, and it is impossible for her to use her energies effectively in two directions. She cannot be at the hub of the wheel and the tire both at the same time. In other words, she cannot be at home and in parliament or the law courts, or the council chambers of the nation, or the studios or dentists’ parlours at one and the same time.
“‘Woman must be free to create her own conduct and to seek her own experiences for self-development,’ runs another dictum of our Feminist sage.
“In the home she is only free to create her own conduct in a manner conducive to the well-being of the home. If she swerves from this law, she is a defaulter and an enemy to good. The same may be said of her freedom in self-development.
“Certainly she must be free to develop herself, and so must the man be free to develop himself.
“But the man who develops his muscles in golf at the expense of his business time and energy is a slacker and a defaulter and a home-injurer. And the woman who develops her political instincts or her mind power at the expense of her home time and energy is the same.”