But motherhood was smirched with original sin. Later on it was still further belittled. Women were regarded as mere receptacles, passive receptive bodies which created nothing. Men must have felt that motherhood was important, or they would not have tried to explain it away altogether. But the sentimental ideal of woman as the mother still persisted, especially among men, and could not be explained away: so, finally, motherhood was allowed by popular opinion to be a creative function, but of a purely physical nature, and it was further defined as the sole justifiable function of women. Mr. Rudyard Kipling expressed this very neatly when he said that blind Nature made man for several ends and woman for only one. In Oriental countries the still more logical conclusion is drawn that women justify their existence only by producing men-children. In a society committed to this point of view childless women are failures in life, and the unmarried woman is a ridiculous nuisance. If social remedies such as polygamy, suttee, infanticide, or euthanasia are not put into practice, the phrase “superfluous women” comes into existence, and the State is shaken by the problem of what to do with its superfluous women. II Yet if motherhood can be defined, rightly or wrongly, as the sole function of women, it must be a function which in some degree expresses the quality of womanhood as distinct from manhood. Even in this artificially narrowed field of activity one should be able to find some clue to the essential nature of women. It is therefore advisable first of all to compare motherhood and fatherhood. Fatherhood seems the more casual relationship of the two. It cannot be proved with the same certainty as motherhood. In a masculine State, where the father is the only legal parent, the institution of marriage is necessary to prevent fathers from successfully disclaiming their children. Maternity is not so easily denied, and in a feminine State it could be proved without the aid of a marriage contract. Where the mother is the sole legal parent civil marriage is unnecessary. Hence, as the Vaertings point out, bastardy is unknown in a feminine State. A mother’s connection with her child is more obvious and immediate than a father’s. A man can be a parent without knowing it: a woman cannot. Motherhood is also a greater tax on vital energy than fatherhood, even if we take motherhood merely as a physical function. The process of bearing a child culminates in a crisis which exhausts a woman’s energy: to such an extent, indeed, that women often die of it. Moreover, it is a process which, once initiated, is not under conscious control, so that the reserve of energy drawn upon is not deliberately assigned to this purpose by its owner. It is not at her free disposal to grant or to withhold; it cannot be exhausted by an act depending on conscious volition. The race in this respect is stronger than the individual.