The neglected motherhood of England cried out for attention, and it is getting attention with a vengeance. A veritable Babel is being raised on the subject of mothers. Progressive women are all for more recognition and support of motherhood, but the difference between the reactionaries and them is that they hold the first thing necessary, to give intelligent support and recognition, is the liberation of the mother from all the antiquated rubbish of coverture law and from some of the worst results of economic servitude. Else indeed may women find that they have only exchanged King Log for King Stork. While King Log is reigning, little is done for the mothers directly by the State. Women, when they marry, are merged into their husbands, who hold them as property, and have towards them certain legal responsibilities, of a nature somewhat analogous to those they have towards other living and sentient pieces of property, The State has always dimly known that in the quality of its citizens lay its true and lasting wealth; but penal laws, which used actually to mutilate men and women, and which still tend to reduce their vitality and to drive them to imbecility and madness, are plain witnesses of how imperfectly this truth has been grasped. Improvements in these respects are, however, on the way. This is said to be the age of the child, and through the child it is becoming also the age of the mother. In England, at the present day, a working man has almost absolute power over his wife. That he uses this power in the main as humanely as he does, is a proof of how much better men are than the laws which they make or tolerate, and of how much real affection there is between men and women. The fact remains that, especially among working people, where the woman can have no money of her own unless she is in a position to earn it, the husband has the most awful powers of inflicting torture and wretchedness upon his whole family, and that it is distinctly safer for a working woman not to be married to the man she lives with. That working women so greatly prefer being married, again shows how strong in them is idealism and the love of social order. What may an Englishman do with his wife? His physical force is supported by law as regards his “marital rights.” He can insist on his wife’s faithfulness to him, while using complete licence himself. He is supposed to maintain her in accordance with his station in life, but if he fails, it is very difficult for her to find redress. She can pledge his credit if he has any, but it may be refused, and she can then only get maintenance from him by leaving him and taking the children with her and throwing herself on the rates. The Parish will then take action, not for the sake of the woman or her children, but to save the rates! That is to say, she must become a pauper before she can get what he is supposed by law to give her. Even when the law has given her a maintenance order, the recovery of the money is made