It is equally true, too, that if the erotic life is to be rationally developed in both partners the husband will have to keep carefully separated the egoistic-social in his life from the erotic. There is much talk about the ability of a woman to be a mother, which tacitly implies being a housewife, and at the same time to be a professional woman or to do anything whatever of an egoistic-social nature outside of her home. The idea never seems to have occurred to anybody that in an equitable marriage at least, not to mention an ideal one, the husband has any part to play in the construction of that spiritual situation which should constitute the home. The father really has as vital a part to play in the home as the mother. There is no perfect home that does not contain these two absolutely equally unifying factors. “What is home without a father?” is quite as pertinent a question as the other trite one. This does not for a moment imply that the duties of the father and the mother in the material home should be the same. This would give only a literal verbal significance to the statement that a man’s duty is quite as much toward his home as is a woman’s. If we were simply using words that sounded reasonable we might as well repeat the oft expressed and seemingly perfectly balanced retort of woman to her husband: “If I have to _bear_ the child, why on earth shouldn’t _you_ care for it?” § 203 To illustrate with a concrete example the utter helplessness of some of the finest women, the following excerpt is made, with his permission, from a letter received by Dr. Robie: “The man whom I finally married came into my life as an intellectual wonder. I marvelled at his knowledge and his worldly poise.... Whenever I pleaded for consideration, kindness, he would say: ‘Haven’t you a home, clothes, money, a baby? What more do you want?’ or ‘Haven’t I told you once that I love you? Can’t you take that for granted?’ “No gentleness, no petting, just hardness and the greatest conceit over his own personality and ability. “I found at dances that other men could thrill me, and one man in particular.... He never knew it. “I got the reputation of being a perfect mother, and a beauty, and my spirit never has been broken; but my faith is broken. My love is as dead as last year’s leaves; and I scorn men who stop being lovers on their wedding night. “Health, enthusiasm, good nature, big sense of humour, beauty, ideal birth inheritance, magnetism, yes, and passion—for I am not cold, but _very_ impulsive and affectionate—all this lost to the right man, and the wrong one quite content, apparently, in his worldly successes, and with a cultured wife who does not bother him, and keeps his noisy brood of children at a distance. “This comes from a bursting heart. It is true I am a success as a mother; and the world thinks I am in all ways. Yet that greatest of all things, LOVE, is denied me.” § 204