Part 2

But since man's needs are multiple, the demands upon male and female are great.

NATURE'S METHOD

_The more intimately we attach ourselves to Nature, the more she glows with beauty and returns us our affection.--Froebel._

Nature does not seem to have expected man to get more than a primitive living. She has not changed Her methods at all.

Man has changed. He makes and directs machinery that earns for one man what fifty men can earn; so that one man is fifty times richer than a primitive man.

Nature uses no machinery.

It takes more than twenty years of the mother's time to develop one citizen. There are no short cuts nor quick methods in woman's special work.

The mother of a large family has given twenty-five of the best years of her life to the work which none but her can do.

She has given to the state citizens.

This has cost her all her strength, all her time and the ambitions of a quarter of a century.

As our present civilization is, she has given her economic independence, her individual ambitions.

She pays dearly for the privilege of being mother to citizens. She is dependent upon one man for the maintenance of both herself and her children.

* * * * *

The man, too, is blindfolded by Nature and is led where he knows not.

The desire to give all of his earnings to the development of citizens may never have been his. He may not know nor care about the welfare and perpetuation of the state.

But Nature has not bound him hand and foot to Her plans. When, or if, his affection ceases for this woman who is dependent upon him for food, shelter and clothing, he may use his own judgment about the woman's and the children's needs. So long as they escape the attention of the Humane Societies, the family is at his mercy. The woman and her work are dependent upon him just the same.

Unwilling money buys poor food, clothing and teaching. It has evolved bargain-days and cheap goods.

ECONOMIC FREEDOM

_She considereth a field and buyeth it. With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.--Solomon._

The wisdom of stateswomen and of statesmen should evolve a sure foundation-fund, whereby mothers shall have a solid financial basis for doing woman's work.

Civilization has placed a ban upon motherhood. There is ever the stigma upon it which Moses placed there. It is hard, cruelly hard, to be a mother in the United States, this "land of the free."

We anathematize and practically kill a mother who has not conformed to our laws, irrespective of what Nature has said about it. We take her child from her, hide it, falsify about it, and then disown the mother if she demands the inherent rights of a mother.

We talk about the glory of motherhood, but we do not act to the glory of motherhood.

The business of marriage is to develop citizens. The financial part of this partnership should receive the most careful attention of all people who are to marry. They should realize that they are assuming responsibilities great and unknown to them. They are leaving a simple life to enter into one vastly more complex.

Woman is fast evolving a brain. And women are thinking. Brain, not sentiment, will be the directing power under which women live. Wisdom and judgment will guide them. They will not give the best in their lives to the work of rearing children, without reasonable, business assurance of funds with which to do their work.

CITIZENS

_It is true that I am an alien. But my son--my son is Themistocles.--Euterpe._

A citizen is one who has evolved from a condition where he was content to live alone, care for himself alone, into a state where he desires to live with others, and is interested in the welfare of others.

Women were the first human beings to qualify as citizens.

Their care for their children early extended their interest beyond their own welfare. From protecting and providing for her immediate family, the mother's interests naturally extended first to all children and then to all human beings who were in need of care.

Women are potential mothers, and so are inherent citizens.

Women are citizens by natural tendency.

Men are citizens by education.

The desire to co-operate is the natural desire of an evolving, sane people. Supremely selfish people, who care not at all for others, are either barbaric or insane.

A city was the result of the citizen instinct.

The mother's brain was evolved through her desire to benefit her children. She then saw that what was good for her own was good for her neighbor's family, and for all families. All manufactories, all industries, reforms and civic improvements have originated in woman's brain, evolved because of the mother-instinct of love.

From the city, human interest extended into the state, from the state into the nation. From the limitation of belonging to a nation, we shall sometime become citizens of the world.

A stateswoman or statesman is one who is intelligently active in work that materially benefits the citizens of a state or nation.

The rights of citizenship naturally belong to all people who wish to and can contribute to the welfare of their fellow-man.

Formerly statesmen were businessmen of experience and ability who had prescience. They could see what was beneficial to their own interests, and from this their interest expanded, and they saw what was good for the well-being of many men. They were men, like Benjamin Franklin, who were able to project themselves into the lives of others. They were the first monists.

Statesmen had had experience--they had lived. They knew values, what served and what was not desirable. They also knew that no one reaches any goal alone. No man can progress much faster than the rest of his kind.

So the statesman was a representative man, but a pioneer in progress. His avocation was to work for his kind. His vocation was his own business, which he minded very carefully.

Appreciative people saw the benefit to others, and gave the statesman the recognition of honors. This was all he desired or needed. He was not a pauper, he was not submerged in financial difficulties. The oppressed can not see beyond their own needs--are incapable of generous thoughts or wise judgment.

Statesmen were and are strong, successful men. People want for a savior one who can first save himself.

There came a time when statesmen, like lawyers, received pay for services rendered.

And lo, politicians and grafters, plums and taxes!

Today, statesmen are few and are classed as politicians.

All political offices have a little twig of laurel tied to the door, but the pay-envelope inside is generally what lures men to enter and abide. "The laborer is worthy of his hire," they affirm. And he is, provided he labors for the thing for which he was hired.

"The people" are willing to pay politicians for piecework, provided the quality is right.

When we say, "Children are the greatest asset of the nation," everybody nods assent to the sentiment, and many applaud.

"What we do with the children decides what they will do with the nation," we add, and there is never a dissenting look or voice.

We affirm that the greatest work the state can do is to develop citizens. Perpetuity of the state is synonymous with perpetuity of the race. This is supposed to be Nature's dearest desire--to perpetuate the race.

So it should be the dearest desire of statesmen, politicians, to perpetuate the state, and the state is the aggregation of its citizens.

We are in a dense fog with regard to the value of citizens.

We say that man is all. This is lip-service.

Politicians are interested in acquiring and holding power, in war appliances and armies. They give some assistance in the development and care of vegetables, fruits, trees, and the flora in general. They are also interested in the development of all domesticated animals, the preservation of the birds, forests and natural parks, the protection of the fish. They have game-laws which are wise and whose results are beneficial.

And the state hires and pays people to take care of all these interests. It also hires and pays people who see that the laws are respected which have been made for the protection and perpetuity of flora and fauna.

But as yet, lawmakers, politicians, reformers, and influential citizens have not made provision for the development of citizens, except as the institution of the school system assists in this work.

ENFORCED DEPENDENCE

_Thou givest man bread. Let my aim be to give man himself.--Froebel._

There was a time when women, like statesmen, were economically free. They spun and wove, manufactured, planted, harvested, cooked. Land was cheap and needs were few. The women gave a part of their time to the state in rearing citizens, but they did not give all. They were self-supporting, in great measure; therefore, self-respecting and capable.

But women lost their economic independence when industries were taken from the home.

Farming, dairying, spinning, weaving, tailoring, laundering, baking, dressmaking, millinery, building, carpentering, are all done on a big scale, outside of the home, where the women, because they were mothers, could not follow their industries.

Women are left with the dependent occupations of working for the state and working for their husbands, for neither of which can they collect money.

Husbands' policy is: Where the treasury is, there will the wives' hearts be also.

The welfare of the women who give their time--twenty-four hours of the day, and for twenty-five or thirty years of their lives, their prime--for the development of citizens has been left to chance.

The state has made no provision whereby potential citizens shall be assured of the proper care.

The mother's time has been considered of no value, that is, her service is not paid for in money.

If, in her youth, a woman married a man who was able to make money, she might be assured of food, clothing and shelter for her children unless or until Fortune frowned and the property was lost.

Any woman, whose husband dies, gives her time to the care of her children, no matter how poorly equipped she may be to earn a living for them in the world. She tries to do her own work, and besides that, what her husband did--maintain the family.

The state has made no provision for the care of potential citizens whose father has died, thereby cutting off the income which was once theirs.

We say that the purpose of the home is to develop children, that the home is established for children.

The purpose of the school is to supplement the teaching of the home, and this is to be re-enforced by the influence of the church. The office of the state is to wisely protect the home and safeguard the interests of its citizens. The government is the mentor of the citizens.

The theory is admitted that the business world is organized and operated for the one purpose of maintaining the home and its adjuncts--school, church and government. But the fact is, that, except for the taxes which great business institutions pay, there are very few children taken care of directly by big businesses.

The very rich have one, possibly two, rarely three children, and these, instead of being developed for working citizens, often evolve into ornaments, and sometimes become a nuisance and an expense to the state.

The mothers who give their time to the care of large families have no regular incomes. Their husbands are poor, and contribute to the development of citizens what they can, or will.

The people who are doing the most important work for the state, for whom all business is operated (as tradition sayeth), have no capital, and are carrying on their more or less great work by donations, given at the discretion of the donor. They can not receive more than their husband's income, and never have that amount.

No matter how efficient these women may be as mothers, there is no recognition of this excellence, except by a few friends of the family.

Nothing has been done to make a large family popular. The trend of the whole course of civilization has been and is to do anything but evolve citizens.

Of course, women are supposed to be too spiritually minded to want compensation in money for work done for love.

However, is any great work done that is not done for love of the work? No one writes, paints, plays, builds, prints, binds books, models in leather or clay, raises cattle, fruits, grains, but him who loves his work. There is little response in any part of life, other than to love.

All workers accept the world's custom of using money as a medium of exchange for their time and energy--all except mothers and wives. So much service is given for so much money, and so much money for so much service.

Women are human beings, no more and no less than are men. They are just as human as men. They love freedom, independence and justice.

There is no natural reason why they should not have public recognition for work and development.

The custom of the world is to use money as a medium of exchange or as a representation of wealth. Wealth is an accumulation of energy held in reserve. People should be very careful to use this reserve advantageously. They are very jealous of expending time and energy unless it counts in wealth.

All people but mothers do this. This is why motherhood has become unpopular and a burden. The mother is in economics a pauper, a dependent, at the mercy or bounty of one man.

The first use of a home was to care for children, to protect them. Women built the first houses and for this one purpose.

Modern houses are made for adults more than for children. They are places of luxury. The thought of a nursery is seldom in the minds of the makers of houses. The architect does not have for his recurring theme, "How will this add to the development of citizens?"

Women are human beings. They are very much like men. They need recognition.

Self-preservation is the first law. And women, like men, are selfish. They often stifle the instincts of Nature in one direction that they may live in the world as it is today.

Rapid travel, the opportunity to see and know what there is to be seen and known, lures women just the same as it does men. Independence is just as dear to women as it is to men.

HOMOGENEITY

_What we request of life is that the tools should be given to his hand or hers who can handle them.--Schreiner._

Woman is a human being before she is a mother and all the time she is a mother. And after her active work of motherhood is finished, she will still be a human being, subject to all the ambitions, hopes, desires and interests that humanity has.

Daughters have inherited tendencies from their fathers as well as from their mothers, and all daughters have done this from prehistoric times to the present. Sons have belonged to mothers as well as to fathers. The race is one.

Women can not be limited in the expression of this great miracle of life which stirs her soul, as it stirs man's.

Woman and man are awakening, brain and heart.

Woman must have freedom to work, to think, to find happiness, to express herself. She must be accepted as a part of every part of this becoming Democracy. She must be accepted in the world as it is today. She belongs, not to the past, but to this present.

There is work that she alone can do, and to do this she must be economically free.

The freedom of woman is the most important of all subjects that statesmen and citizens can consider.

Pay mothers for the work they do for the state. Give them the opportunity for economic freedom, that they may be self-respecting, and develop on equal terms with men.

The great need of the world is for better women and men--an evolving race.

There is just one way: we must have evolving mothers.

Servile mothers have slave sons and stupid daughters, and sometimes criminal children.

Women must be free to choose their occupations.

If they marry, they must recognize the business in marriage and enter into the business partnership with true intelligence.

With no less intelligence must men understand that the contract in marriage can not be unilateral and bring benefit or happiness to either person, nor can the purpose of marriage be best accomplished.

Democracy in marriage is the Great Imperative. We would have a democratic form of government? Democracy must begin at the foundation of all government--the home.

ROMANCE

_We are ministered unto by the moonbeams and the starlight as well as by the god of day._

Romance is the color and the perfume of life. It is that which gives charm to living. Romance lures us to live. It called us into being, has bound us to life, and does not desert us at its close.

Although Romance is the most intangible thing in the world, the moonshine of living, it is the most real.

It is the will-o'-the-wisp that has led to all invasions, all discoveries, all victories, all heroism, all inventions, all arts, all business, all human endeavor. Without it there would be no marriage. The human race would cease to be.

One of the myths in marriage is to assume that the Romance is all, or will continue under all conditions.

Business belongs to the realm of fact and deals with tangible substances. It has to do with the practical part of life. It gives us food, clothing, shelter. It furnishes us great problems, exercise for body and mind. It is a great factor in the evolution of man.

One of the myths in marriage is to assume that business and business struggles do not enter into the lives of lovers. The fact is that business occupies much of the time of every honest man and honest woman. It is necessary to life. Without work, romance would cease, the human race would die.

The ideal and the real are interdependent in all phases of human life.

In marriage there is a myth that the twain are one flesh. But the two are two, just as surely as one and one make two, unless neither is worth counting.

It might not be such folly for a woman to trust her happiness to a man, if any man could make any woman happy. But happiness is within the power of the individual alone. Nature intended it to be so.

If a woman were an incompetent, unable to earn or provide for herself, it might be well to leave her finances wholly in the hands of her husband.

But women who have the right to give children to society are capable of taking care of themselves and financing their personal interests.

Mothers should be thus capable.

In marriage we must recognize the individuality in the partnership, just as we must the romance and the facts.

A helpless, dependent, undeveloped, sentimental woman is not an inspirer of ideals. The man absorbed and involved in business is not an awakener or reminder of the Perfect.

A little time is necessary for the appreciation of the beautiful, the charming, the wonderful in life.

Leisure to think together and work together on things of mutual interest, is necessary to marriage, or there can be little love.

When lovers are independently dependent upon each other, it is a wonderful privilege to meet.

When lovers are economically free, as they were before marriage, there is no asking of favors nor demanding rights.

When lovers are grateful for the privilege of being together, and meet only when it is a joy to do so, love will abide.

And Romance, that lured them to life, and lighted their path to marriage, will ever illumine the way, even unto death.

If a woman's desire is to seek ease and luxury, and find oblivion, let her not marry, for that is not the easiest way thither. A woman has neither natural nor moral right to involve others in her selfishness.

If a man wants adoration, comfort, indulgence, cheap service and ease, let him not marry. He probably can get them all with more certainty and with less expense without marrying. A man has neither natural nor moral right to marry for these.

Men and women have not evolved far. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be."

Higher ideals will lure humanity on and on to a higher state of intelligence, and to better living, to a more refined and nobler justice than we have yet imagined.

Men and women will not long be looking for ease, nor want to have what they do not earn.

When love calls, they will respond with intelligence, knowing that this is Nature's voice, and therefore divine. They will rejoice in the most strenuous exercise of living.

Then with deep joy we can say at the close:

"To live is glorious. I have lived!"

THE MYTH IN MARRIAGE WRITTEN BY ALICE HUBBARD TITLE-PAGE, INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS ESPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR THIS BOOK BY RAYMOND NOTT TYPOGRAPHY BY A. V. INGHAM

PRINTED BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT THE ROYCROFT SHOPS EAST AURORA, NEW YORK MAY, MCMXII