"The worst of it was twenty or twenty-five years back. Most of those men are dead. That new religious movement stirred the socio-ethical sense to sudden power; it coincided with the women's political movement, urging measures for social improvement; its enormous spread, both by preaching and literature, lit up the whole community with new facts, ideas and feelings. Health--physical purity--was made a practical ideal. The young women learned the proportion of men with syphilis and gonorrhea and decided it was wrong to marry them. That was enough. They passed laws in every State requiring a clean bill of health with every marriage license. Diseased men had to die bachelors--that's all." "And did men submit to legislation like that?" I protested. "Why not? It was so patently for the protection of the race--of the family--of the women and children. Women were solid for it, of course--and all the best men with them. To oppose it was almost a confession of guilt and injured a man's chances of marriage." "It used to be said that any man could find a woman to marry him," I murmured, meditatively. "Maybe he could--once. He certainly cannot now. A man who has one of those diseases is so reported--just like small-pox, you see. Moreover, it is registered against him by the Department of Eugenics--physicians are required to send in lists; any girl can find out." "It must have left a large proportion of unmarried women." "It did, at first. And that very thing was of great value to the world. They were wise, conscientious, strong women, you see, and they poured all their tremendous force into social service. Lots of them went into child culture--used their mother-power that way. It wasn't easy for them; it wasn't easy for the left-over men, either!" "It must have increased prostitution to an awful extent," I said. Owen shook his head and regarded me quizzically. "That is the worst of it," he said. "There isn't any." I sat up. I stood up. I walked up and down. "No prostitution! I--I can't believe it. Why, prostitution is a social necessity, as old as Nineveh!" Owen laughed outright. "Too late, old man; too late! I know we used to think so. We did use to call it a 'social necessity,' didn't we? Come, now, tell me what necessity it was _to the women_." I stopped my march and looked at him. "To the women," he repeated. "What did they want of prostitution? What good did it do them?" "Why--why--they made a living at it," I replied, rather lamely. "Yes, a nice, honorable, pleasant, healthy living, didn't they? With all women perfectly well able to earn an excellent living decently; with all women fully educated about these matters and knowing what a horrible death was before them in this business; with all women brought up like human beings and not like over-sexed female animals, and with all women quite free to marry if they wished to--how many, do you think, would choose that kind of business?