In any event the present existence of these tendencies, if tendencies they be, affords no indication of what they may become in the future. The fact that the primitive savage could only count on the fingers of one hand does not invalidate the existence of the multiplication table, any more than the fact that most women want only one man each now proves that they will not want more in a hundred years. The use of the word ‘natural’ begs the question. We acquire those characteristics which our circumstances and environment demand, and then transmit them to our children in whom, being inherited, they are termed natural. But this does not mean that our children will not in due course develop new characteristics of their own, if a change of circumstances renders the old ones undesirable. There are signs indeed that the new characteristics are already beginning to appear. The attitude of representative up-to-date women on this subject is curious. They tend to deny the difference between males and females which my imaginary biologist alleged, and to declare that their inclinations are naturally as promiscuous as those of their husbands. The circumstance that they control them better argues, they assert, more sense; it does not imply a difference in nature. Remarks of this kind are often made by women who, nevertheless, live exemplary lives and would scorn to revenge themselves upon an unfaithful husband by imitating his conduct. Nevertheless there is no reason to suppose that they deliberately misrepresent their feelings, and we can only conclude that, as usually happens, a new tendency is manifesting itself in feeling some time before it is translated into action. For these reasons I do not think that any convincing arguments as to the future can be based on the alleged monogamousness of women in the present. Nor, so soon as the force of the monogamous habit wanes, do I think that women will consent to put up with the manifest disadvantages of a system which is based upon the assumption that it is as strong as it ever was. It is certain that they will not be deterred by the protests of outraged males. Conventional morality, as I have already pointed out, like many of our other institutions such as matinées, concerts and God, is kept going by women, and directly women withdraw their support, not all the opposition of men will avail to save it. What then is likely to happen? Certainly not a relapse into complete promiscuity. The belief that people are fundamentally licentious, and that a partial removal of the barriers with which society has hedged about the business of reproduction will precipitate the population into a welter of unbridled license, pleasantly shocking though it is to the minds of respectable people, has absolutely no foundation in fact.