Some of those women whom I have known, and whose profession I shall
not mention to avoid references of an odious character, sought mates,
legitimate or illegitimate, out of their class, taking for husbands or
lovers unsuccessful professional men in need of help.
The results of those matches were anything but encouraging.
The male prostitutes who accepted such arrangements, either showed
plainly their scorn of their unintellectual mate or left her as soon as
success in their chosen field made them independent of their working
class wife or mistress.
=The Proud Husband.= Many men drawing even small salaries, are
absolutely unwilling to marry a woman engaged in a gainful occupation.
This is due either to hidden jealousy, some men imagining that daily
contact with other men is bound to jeopardise a woman's morals, or to
silly pride and panicky fear of "what THEY will say." I have heard many
donkeys telling me that they do not wish "people" to think that they
cannot support their wives.
The cloud hovering over the modern woman and which may, at times, cast
a shadow on her love life, will be blown away as soon as culture
spreads to all social classes of the population owing to the increase
and systematisation of leisure, and as soon as the old fashioned male
has been consigned to his last resting place or analised out of his
foolish neurotic notions.
CHAPTER XXIX
BIRTH CONTROL
Modern love, as I have endeavored to show in the preceding chapters is
infinitely more complex than love was in the past. When woman was meant
to obey and serve, when feudalism or any other rigid caste system set
clear-cut boundaries to each individual's range of development, there
was less unrest among women just as there was less unrest among slaves.
And both the mediaeval slave and the mediaeval women were probably
absolute bores.
Unrest is growth and complexity is the obvious evidence of growth.
Love stirrings among the amoebae are probably similar to those
experienced by human beings. Nature probably puts a premium of pleasure
on the cleavage of the unicellular animal which reproduces itself by
dividing itself in two, by issuing forth another cell, as it does on
the human male when his gonads liberate spermatozoa.
But the amoeba's love feelings are extremely simple and lead to
no complication for they imply no enduring companionship, no
responsibilities to a mate nor to the "offspring."
=What We Expect of the Modern Woman.= The modern woman who is expected
to be, not merely a sexual mate but a social and intellectual mate as
well, a companion in our athletic diversions, a comrade-at-arms in the
world's battles, and many other things, can no longer allow chance to
interrupt her developmental strivings, to handicap her in the friendly
race she is running with the mate of her choice for intellectual
accomplishment by unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient pregnancy and
child bearing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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