An inquiry instituted among English women as to whether they would prefer to be men or women gave as a result the fact that, out of about 7000 who answered, two-thirds wished to remain women and this above all in order to be mothers, while a third wished to be men. This indicated probably the highest figure of the disinclination for maternity which such a _European_ inquiry could elicit. But even these women who wish to marry and to become mothers feel the pressure of the idea created by the zealots of the woman movement which finds expression often in the following conversation between two former schoolmates about a third: “And A—— what is she doing now?”—“Nothing—she is married and has children.” The old folk legend about the girl who trampled on the bread she was carrying to her mother because she wished to go dry-shod, can serve as symbol of many modern women zealots: life’s great, sound values are offered for the meal; vanity sits down alone to partake of them. Footnote 6: Bret Harte, _The Luck of Roaring Camp_. Footnote 7: E. Carrière and Segantini. Footnote 8: Max Kruse, _Liebesgruppe_. Footnote 9: This amaternal idea is advanced with great ability in some works of Charlotte Perkins Stetson and Rosa Mayreder. The word amaternal coined by me is used to characterise the theory subsequently advanced, because the word unmaternal (unmotherly) signifies a _spiritual condition_, the antithesis to “motherliness.” The maternal as opposed to the amaternal theory is this: that a woman’s life is lived most intensively and most extensively, most individually and most socially; she is for her own part most free, and for others most fruitful, most egoistic and most altruistic, most receptive and most generous, in and with the _physical and psychic exercise of the function of maternity, because of the conscious desire, by means of this function, to uplift the life of the race as well as her own life_. Footnote 10: It can even be shown that, if man invades the so-called woman’s spheres (for example the art of cooking or of dress-making), it is most frequently he who makes new discoveries and attains great success! Footnote 11: The best proof of this is that many women who, in a life free from care in an outward sense, were comparable only to geese or peacocks, nevertheless, when hard times came and gave them opportunity to develop their power of love, not only proved themselves heroines, but asserted that their “happy” years were those in which they had so “sacrificed” themselves. Footnote 12: How many children have had their idea of right debased by the manner in which the “Captain of Köpernick” was received at his liberation—to cite only one example. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _A Selection from the Catalogue of_