Photograph by Paul Thompson
Amelia E. Barr
Far from interfering with her career, Mrs. Barr's home interests were the inspiration for it. Thrown on her own resources by the death of her husband, who sacrificed himself in a yellow fever epidemic in Texas, Mrs. Barr took up writing to make a living for her children
Scarcely any phase of woman's part in marriage is arousing more attention at present than the question of childbearing. Women, and especially educated women, are accused of sterility or of intentionally avoiding motherhood. They are said to believe that children interfere with their careers, that they can render greater service to the world in public work than in childbearing. They "prefer idleness and luxury to the care of a family." The "maternal instinct is fading." They threaten us with "race suicide," the "extinction of mankind," a silent world given over to dumb beasts who have not yet learned the principles of "birth control" and "family limitation." Thus on the one hand.
On the other: "The world is better served by the small family well reared than by the large one necessarily less well cared for." "Women are not merely the instruments of nature for multiplying mankind. They have a right to some time for living their own lives." "The maternal instinct has not faded, but merely come under control of a wisdom which directs that it shall not bring forth what it cannot care for."
And so on, with added arguments for either side.
In all these discussions of birth control the fathers or the husbands who desire not to be fathers are usually left in the background. As a matter of fact, however, men as well as women desire luxury and freedom from the care of a family. It is a general sign of the times, not a characteristic of one sex alone. Men as well as women fear for their ability to care for and educate large families. With the demands of our present complex existence bearing heavily upon them, one can scarcely wonder at the hesitation of either man or woman to add again and again to their already pressing cares. There is but one remedy—not to cut off education for women, as some suggest, but to learn the joys of a simpler life which will afford people time and strength and means to bear and rear their young. To this end let us teach our girls and our boys something of the essentials of a useful and a happy life, and teach them how to eliminate the non-essentials which waste their time and spirit.
Who can best instruct the girl in what we may call the ethics of marriage? Her mother? Usually the mother's viewpoint is too personal. Her teacher? Most of her teachers are unmarried and know little more about the subject than she does herself. A specially selected married teacher? Perhaps, but only if she is a deep student of human nature and of marriage from a scientific standpoint.
An ideal course for every girl somewhere before her education can be considered complete would cover "woman's life" as (1) industrial worker, (2) wife, (3) mother, (4) citizen, (5) civic force.