It is all very well to do your duty by your sex and keep up the birth-rate, and there are compensations, no doubt of that, when the husband is amiable, the income adequate, and the children are dears and turn out well; but the second life is one’s very own, the duty is to one’s self, and, such is the ineradicable selfishness of human nature after long years of self-denial and devotion to others, there is a distinct, if reprehensible, satisfaction in being quite natural and self-centered.  If, on the other hand, circumstances are such that the capable middle-aged woman, instead of living entirely for herself, in her clubs, in her increasing interest in public affairs, and her chosen work, finds herself with certain members of her family dependent upon her, she also derives from this fact an enormous satisfaction, for it enables her to prove that she can fill a man’s place in the world, be quite as equal to her job.

Instead of breaking down, this woman, who has outlived the severest handicap of sex without parting with any of its lore, grows stronger and more poised every year, retaining (or regaining) her looks if she has the wisdom to keep her vanity alive; while the girl forced to spend her days on her feet behind a counter (we hear of seats for these girls but we never see them occupied), or slave in a factory (where there is no change of shift as in the munition factories of the European countries in war time), or work from morning until night as a general servant—­“one in help”—­wilts and withers, grows pasee, fanee, is liable to ultimate breakdown unless rescued by some man.

The expenditure of energy in these girls is enormous, especially if they combine with this devitalizing work an indulgence in their natural desire to play.  Rapid child-bearing would not deplete them more; and it is an intensely ignorant or an intensely stupid or, in the United States, an exceptionally sensual woman who has a larger family than the husband can keep in comfort.  Moreover, unless in the depths of poverty, each child means a period of rest, which is more than the girl behind the counter gets in her entire working period.

These women, forced by a faulty social structure to support themselves and carry heavy burdens, lack the intense metabolism of the male, his power to husband his stores of carbon (an organic exception which renders him indifferent to standing), and the superior quality of his muscle.  Biologically men and women are different from crown to sole.  It might be said that Nature fashioned man’s body for warfare, and that if he grows soft during intervals of peace it is his own fault.  Even so, unless in some way he has impaired his health, he has heretofore demonstrated that he can do far more work than women, and stand several times the strain, although his pluck may be no finer.