Nevertheless, in judging of her conduct, and in drawing moral conclusions from it, we must be careful to allow her the full benefit of the view that, in acting as she does, she is securing the survival of the species in ultimate fact. More than nine-tenths of the abuse to which women have been subjected throughout the ages has been due precisely to man’s omission to allow her the full benefit of this view. The gratification of woman’s passions serves her own end, inasmuch as it affords her pleasure—Yes!—but it also serves the purpose of the race. That is the fundamental fact to remember. In another chapter I have described how Life itself is woman’s hardest taskmaster, and that her first impulse in all circumstances is to be faithful to this taskmaster, even at the cost of infidelity to human pledges. (_a_) _Adultery of the positive spouse through absence of the mate._ Long absences of husbands, therefore, during wars, transoceanic voyages, explorations, etc., should always be viewed in the light of a rebuff to woman’s hardest taskmaster. The prolonged absence of the male imposes idleness on the female’s reproductive organs, and, since the best women are primarily faithful to Life itself, and only secondarily so to their mates, it must follow that in all cases in which husbands are absent for long periods, that the call of Life in positive women becomes too imperious to be ignored—hence the thousands of wives who were unfaithful to their husbands during the last war, both in England and on the Continent.[79] Ignorant, pious people, and even experienced Divorce-Court judges expressed their horror at the thought that while their men were nobly risking their lives in defence of “King and Country,” these women in their thousands calmly sought fertilization elsewhere. But a woman’s character as a woman would be almost forfeited if she did not act in this way![80] Where else would you have her transfer her allegiance? Would you invite her to break the whole valuable tradition of her sex which has been consistently devoted to the multiplication of life, in order to show allegiance—say to an oath, or to an ideal, or to a moral precept? But even Schopenhauer himself, with all his detestation of women, would defend them here, and say, “Surely the species is more important than your trumpery moral codes, your ephemeral oaths, and your pretentious ideals!” The English world is almost comic in the light of its most cherished illusions. It does not base its outlook upon the unalterable laws of life, consequently it is constantly receiving the rudest shocks and the most unpleasant surprises. The fact that so many thousands of women in England and Wales were unfaithful to their husbands during the war came as a shock to the dear Puritanical and ignorant old ladies, chiefly unmarried, that rule public opinion in England.