Since the mother must now, with increasing frequency, be a breadwinner as well as the husband, it is just, even from this point of view, that she should share with him authority over the children. But since, furthermore, she has suffered more for them, thus loves them more and understands them better—and thus, as a rule, not only does more for them but also means more to them—it is likewise just that, whereas the mother now has to be satisfied with what power the father allows her, the conditions should be reversed, so that the mother should receive the greatest legal authority. When the husband is not alone in bearing the burden of breadwinner, there will be a possibility of his duty as educator being realised. He will then have time to develop his qualities in this direction and the growing value of his fatherly care and fatherly love will lighten for the mother the task of education which at present often overwhelms her, since with a growing consciousness of its responsibility this task is becoming more and more difficult to perform with her increasing need of personal freedom of movement. The mother and child would, therefore, not have to look exclusively to the father for the necessaries of life, and they could not become entirely destitute through his incapacity or downfall. But he would, nevertheless, continue to bear his half of the responsibility and the family would still be dependent on the father and his voluntary contributions for a great part of the pleasures of life, while he would, moreover, be freed from the often unbearable burdens under which his spiritual worth as a father and his family joys now suffer to so great a degree. Far from its being the case—as one has heard certain women declare—that the majority of men are nothing but egoists, countless numbers of them have borne and still bear burdens of slavery, not only for wife and children but also for the support of other female relations. On the other hand, the prevailing system of society has prompted fathers still more to enslave themselves in order to create an advantageous position for their children. The existing rights and duties of a father stand in immediate connection with the right of inheritance, one of the greatest dangers of our system of society. For inheritance often keeps inefficiency in a leading position, but efficiency in a dependent one; it favours the possibility of the degenerate propagating the race, above all if the parents have died early, although—as it has been asserted—it is precisely such children that are the least apt to have offspring. It is unfavourable to the chances of the efficient in this as in every other direction, where birth in poor circumstances involves hindrances to education and the use of personal powers which wealth permits. On the other hand, poverty favours natural talent, in so far as it braces the capabilities, while it is often one of the misfortunes of heirs not to experience this inciting and pleasurable tension.