And this brings me to the cardinal issue of the whole controversy: the economic position of the married woman or the mother. Let us face this graver position quite candidly. The industrial disorganisation will right itself in the course of time. The middle-class father of our time whose daughter does a certain amount of work, not in order to relieve his pocket, but in order to buy additional luxuries for herself, has assuredly a grievance. She takes part of a man's work and pay, yet leaves on him the old burden of maintenance. She makes matters worse by accepting a low wage, because she is not self-maintaining. I am assuming that women will become independent economic units, and that the rate of payment will be--equal wage for equal service. But the position of the married woman, or of the independent woman who undertakes maternal functions, forms a special and difficult problem, which is pressing upon us more heavily every decade. There is spreading rapidly through the civilised world a feeling of rebellion against the economic dependence of wife or husband. No Conservative argumentation, no censure of new ideas, no religious preaching of self-sacrifice for a doubtful reward in heaven, will relieve us of this difficulty. Educated women--statistics of college-taught women are available--are increasingly rebelling against the subjection or inferiority which this economic dependence seems to entail. It is the chief motive of the general demand for economic independence (or an independent place in the industrial world) and has much to do with the revolt against marriage itself. Whether or no we adopt new ideals of social life, this revolt will spread. One very quickly sees that it is not so much marriage as the traditional practice of husbands which is chiefly responsible for the revolt. The practice varies considerably, but, apart from a small class in which the wife brings with her or earns an independent income, it is still generally true to say that the wife receives what the husband chooses to give. Now it is plain that this difficulty may be met in a very large proportion of cases by an equitable voluntary agreement. Various domestic experiments of the kind are being tried, and a comparison of experiences would be useful. Many people are agreed in the just view that, since the wife works at home while the husband works abroad, all income is joint income. A common fund, accessible to both, is assigned for household and saving, and an equal and fixed personal share is taken by each from the income or wage. Such an arrangement is quite easily practised by middle-class people, and it seems to me to remove every legitimate suspicion of ignominy from the wife's position.