And this, by the way--it has just this moment occurred to me--is the kernel of the woman question, which seems so vastly complicated. Why, it is as simple as it can possibly be. The whole thing is in a nutshell. Those advocates and defenders of this and that, arguing so passionately and inconclusively at such interminable length--how silly they are! You have one set of people raving for female suffrage and equal rights and liberties with tyrant man; you have another set of people storming at them for thus ignoring the intentions of Nature, the interests of the house and family. The intentions of Nature, indeed! The house and family! When millions of poor women are old maids who haven't chosen to be so!--who, of course, _could_ not choose to be so, unless physiologically defective in some way or another. Poor, poor things! They don't want equal rights with man, but equal rights with the lower animals. As they don't know what they miss, they may be forgiven for the way they speak of it in their books and speeches; but if they had it--if all had it who by nature are entitled to it--there would be no more woman question. I am quite convinced of that. Nature's intentions would then really be fulfilled, and the other troubles of the case, all secondary and contingent, would vanish. Of course they would. Man is not a tyrant, bless him! The child is the only tyrant--the legitimate power that keeps woman in her place. But, oh, how much that child does cost us! We give all freely, and would give a thousand times more if we had it to give, for it is the most precious of human privileges--the thing we really live for, though it is inconvenient to admit it; but we pay with heart's blood, from the beginning to the end. We pay so much and so constantly that it often seems to me that the poor childless ones, undeveloped and inexperienced, who cannot know the great joys of life, are also exempt from all sorrow that is worthy of the name.