Women, then, are entitled to demand that the conditions of marriage be so modified as, above all things, to allow them the possession of themselves as the married man has possession of himself. The imposition of motherhood upon a married woman in absolute despite of her health and of the interests of the children is none the less an iniquity because it has at present the approval of Church and State. It is woman who bears the great burden of parenthood, and with her the decision must rest. It is idle to reply that this is impossible, for it is possible, as there are not a few happy wives throughout the civilized world to bear testimony. Every new life that comes into being is to be regarded as sacred from the first. The accident of birth at a particular stage in its development does not in the slightest degree affect this ethical principle, as even the law, for a wonder, recognizes. The full acceptance of the principle that woman must decide is, I am convinced, the only right and effective way in which to abolish altogether the dangers at present run by the life which is at once unborn and unwanted. The decision must be made once and for all _before_ the new life is called into initial being, and the last word must lie with her who is to bear it. I am strengthened in the enunciation of this principle by the reflection that it would be ridiculed and condemned by the vote of every public-house and music-hall throughout the civilized world. Let it be observed that in thus allowing the wife the possession of her own person, we are giving her only what her husband possesses, and that her possession of herself is of vastly more moment to her than his own liberty to him. Nothing more than sheer equality is being claimed for her, and the claim in her case has a double strength, since it is made valid not only by her own interests but by those of the future. The future must be protected, and therefore she who is its vessel must be protected. This is no more than the sub-human mother everywhere has as her birthright, and however much this teaching may offend the common male assumption that a wife is a form of property, the future certainly holds within itself the establishment of this principle. The question of divorce is so important that we must defer it to the next chapter. We have briefly alluded to the question of the wife's possession of herself. We must now refer to the question, scarcely less important, of her possession of her own property and her claims upon her husband's. It is difficult for the present generation to realize that very few decades have passed since the time when everything which a woman possessed became, when she married, the property of her husband. That is now a question which there is no need to discuss, but there remains a very great issue, lately become prominent, and suggested by the popular phrase, the endowment of motherhood.