What is there in the teachings of Christianity to justify--much less command--this devotion to animal comfort, to physical relations, to the A B C of life? In his own life Christ rose above all family ties; his disciples he called to leave all and follow him; the devotion he recognised was that of Mary to the truth, not of Martha to the housekeeping; and the love he taught, that love which is the beginning and the end of Christian life, is not the love of one's own merely, but of the whole world. "Whoso careth not for his own is worse than an infidel"--truly. And whoso careth only for his own is _no better_! Besides--and this should reconcile the reluctant heart--this antiquated method of serving the family _does not serve them to the best advantage_. In what way does a man best benefit his family? By staying at home and doing what he can with his own two hands--whereby no family on earth would ever have more than the labour of one affectionate amateur could provide; or by going out from the home and serving other people in a specialised trade--whereby his family and all families are gradually supplied with peace and plenty, supported and protected by the allied forces of civilisation? In what way does a woman best benefit her family? By staying at home and doing what she can with her own two hands--whereby no family ever has more than the labour of one affectionate amateur can provide--or by enlarging her motherhood as man has enlarged his fatherhood, and giving to her family the same immense advantages that he has given it? We have always assumed that the woman could do most by staying at home. Is this so? Can we prove it? Why is that which is so palpably false of a man held to be true of a woman? "Because men and woman are different!" will be stoutly replied. Of course they are different--in sex, _but not in humanity_. In every human quality and power they are alike; and the right service of the home, the right care and training of the child, call for human qualities and powers, not merely for sex-distinctions. The home, in its arbitrary position of arrested development, does not properly fulfil its own essential functions--much less promote the social ones. Among the splendid activities of our age it lingers on, inert and blind, like a clam in a horse-race. It hinders, by keeping woman a social idiot, by keeping the modern child under the tutelage of the primeval mother, by keeping the social conscience of the man crippled and stultified in the clinging grip of the domestic conscience of the woman. It hinders by its enormous expense; making the physical details of daily life a heavy burden to mankind; whereas, in our stage of civilisation, they should have been long since reduced to a minor incident.