And now we come to the reason why people do not want children. ‘We can’t afford it’ is the plea most frequently heard, and a despicably selfish one it is. I have said previously that every man can afford to marry--when he meets the right woman. To this I add that every man who can afford a wife can also afford a child. People who are too selfish to afford a couple of children (or at least one, sad though it be for the youngster to have neither brother nor sister) ought not to marry at all. Some people say they are happy enough without little ones. A good many women deliberately forgo their prospect of motherhood because it would interrupt their pleasures, spoil the hunting season, interfere with their desire to travel or their craze for games. Perhaps some day they may think too high a price was paid for indulgence in these hobbies. Others honestly dislike children, and would be entirely at a loss in possessing them. It is as well that such people should have none: the poor little unwanted ones can always be recognised. ‘Delicacy’ is another plea put forward by neurotic women who are not one whit too delicate to bear a child. Where the ill-health is genuine, or some constitutional weakness or disorder is present, of course this plea is sensible enough. An apparently sane woman once told me quite seriously that she would have liked a child, only she often had a bad cough in the winter, and would not risk the possibility of ‘handing it on.’ Her lungs were perfectly sound, it was merely a temporary cough that troubled her. On the same occasion another woman present remarked that she too would have liked a child, only ‘there wouldn’t be room in our flat, and it is so convenient, we shouldn’t like to leave it.’ My state of mind on hearing these remarks could only have been adequately expressed by knocking these two ladies down and trampling on them, and as this course would not have found favour with our hostess, I had to content myself with merely being rather rude to them.