The world speaks of him as “unselfish,” “devoted,” “self-sacrificing,” “good-natured,” etc., and his children are reared, sometimes by their mother, but always by strangers, in the belief that he is entitled to all these epithets, because there are so many men who have not acted as he has. He himself, however, accepts these epithets with a mild pretence of modest deprecation, for in his heart of hearts he realizes that somehow they ring strangely by the side of his intimate knowledge of the deep satisfaction he has derived from the whole business. Now statistics and legal authorities tell us that this kind of marriage is the best, the most lasting, and the happiest kind of marriage. The judges say that it is because “children strengthen the union” or “keep the home together.” We have seen in what way a growing family effects this end. We have seen that it has very little to do with the attitude of the parents towards each other. Now we have to discover how it is that, according to statistics, divorces are more frequent where there are only one, two, or three children, and where child-birth may be said to have stopped. (2) UNHAPPINESS IN THE HOME OF THE POSITIVE COUPLE In another chapter the positive woman has been called “the custodian of Life”; we have already seen that Schopenhauer has graphically described her unconscious insistence on experiencing the whole physical cycle from the coitus to the weaning of the child as the Will of the Species (_Wille der Gattung_) demanding more Life and thus achieving human survival. We have also spoken of the voice of nature in her, clamouring not only for Life, but also for Life’s multiplication. These are only different more or less successful attempts at describing that instinct which in the positive woman is paramount—the instinct to employ her elaborate reproductive equipment effectively. The fact that when this equipment remains idle the existence of the species is imperilled, evidently led Schopenhauer to discern the unconscious will of the species in the positive woman’s restlessness in awaiting fertilization. But we should always be careful in using these descriptions of woman, to remember that in her the end, which is the multiplication of life, is quite unrealized by her conscious mind. She acts in a way that brings about the multiplication of life; her instincts impel her to achieve that end; but she is not intelligently concerned with anything so remote as the will of the species or its preservation.[78] She is much more concerned with her own personal wishes, her own personal notion of pleasure, and her own sensations. When once these are gratified, the fact that the demands of the species are also satisfied is, as far as woman is concerned, merely a happy coincidence, in which she can have but an academic interest.