Women -- Economic conditions; Women -- Employment; Women -- Social and moral questions
And if, further, we turn to those secondary manifestations of sexual
emotion, which express themselves in the relations of human progenitors
to their offspring, we shall find, if possible more markedly, that
increase of intelligence and virility does not diminish but increases
the strength of the affections. As the primitive, ignorant male, often
willingly selling his offspring or exposing his female infants to death,
often develops, with the increase of culture and intelligence, into
the extremely devoted and self-sacrificing male progenitor of civilised
societies; so, yet even more markedly, does the female relation with her
offspring, become intensified and permanent, as culture and intelligence
and virility increase. The Bushwoman, like the lowest female barbarians
in our own societies, will often readily dispose of her infant son for
a bottle of spirits or a little coin; and even among somewhat more
mentally developed females, strong as is the affection of the average
female for her new born offspring, the closeness of the relation between
mother and child tends rapidly to shrink as time passes, so that by
the time of adolescence is reached the relation between mother and son
becomes little more than a remembrance of a close inter-union which
once existed. It is, perhaps, seldom, till the very highest point of
intellectual growth and mental virility has been reached by the human
female, that her relation with her male offspring becomes a permanent
and active and dominant factor in the lives of both. The concentrated
and all-absorbing affection and fellowship which existed between the
greatest female intellect France has produced and the son she bore,
dominating both lives to the end, the fellowship of the English
historian with his mother, who remained his chosen companion and the
sharer of all his labours through life, the relation of St. Augustine
to his mother, and those of countless others, are relations almost
inconceivable where the woman is not of commanding and active
intelligence, and where the passion of mere physical instinct is
completed by the passion of the intellect and spirit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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