It is plain that any change which disturbs the constitution of the home will tend profoundly to alter the child’s sense of what he may expect the constitution of the universe to be. There are many disturbing changes of which none is more important surely than the emancipation of women. The God of popular religion has usually been an elderly male. There have been some female divinities worshipped in different parts of the world as there have been matriarchal societies. But by and large the imagination of men has conceived God as a father. They have magnified to a cosmic scale what they [p092] had seen at home. It was the male who created the child. It was his seed that the mother cherished in her womb. It was the male who provided for the needs of the family, even if the woman did the hard work. It was the male who fended off enemies. It was the male who laid down the law. It was the name of the male parent which was preserved and passed on from generation to generation. Everything conspired to fix the belief that the true order of life was a hierarchy with a man at the apex. This general notion becomes less and less credible as women assert themselves. The child of the modern household is soon made to see that there are at least two persons who can give him orders, and that they do not always give him the same ones. This does not educate him to believe that there is one certain guide to conduct in the universe. There are likely to be two guides to conduct in his universe, as women insist that they are independent personalities with minds of their own. This insistence, moreover, tends rather to disarrange the notion that the father is the creator of the child. An observant youngster, especially in these days of frank talk about sex, soon becomes aware of the fact that the role of the male in procreation is a relatively minor one. But most disturbing of all is the very modern household in which the woman earns her own living. For here the child is deprived of the opportunity, which is so conducive to belief in authority, of seeing daily that even his mother is dependent upon a greater person for the good things in life. Although women, by and large, are by no means able to earn as much money as men, the fact which counts is that they can earn enough to support themselves. They [p093] may not actually support themselves. But the knowledge that they could, as it becomes an accepted idea in society, has revolutionary consequences. In former times the woman was dependent upon her husband for bed, board, shelter, and clothing. Her whole existence was determined by her mating; her sexual experience was an integral part of her livelihood and her social position. But once it had become established that a woman could live without a husband, the intimate connection between her sex and her career began to dissolve.