You will probably say that I am focusing all attention on the illegitimate mother, and am not considering the responsibility of the illegitimate father. I grant this, and I am doing it with fixed intention. I want to consider the problem of illegitimacy from this definite,[158:1] and as I am aware, restricted point of view, carefully and very thoroughly to look at it from this one side only, in order to show others, if I can, what I have found to be true: the urgent need there is to take the illegitimately born child from its mother's authority. I would refer my readers to my other books and writings, where again and again I set forth, as urgently as I know how, the drastic changes I would advocate in our bastardy and affiliation laws, in order to bind the illegitimate father to his duty and thus prevent profligacy being as easy as to-day it is. I do not want to go over this ground again. But mark this: the stigma attaching to the fatherhood of all illegitimate children is, at present, the strongest direct cause of neglect of his duties by the man; his failure to stand by the mother and pay for the support of the child. He may be willing to do his duty in both these ways, but not if it involves the abandonment of his entire career. With public opinion so determined, immoral, irresponsible conduct is almost inevitable. But this opens up, of course, a whole series of different questions, which, for the reasons I have just set forth, I do not try to answer, rather purposely neglecting the second illegitimate parent, the father, so as better to focus attention on the evils arising from the existing unprotected relations between the mother and the child. And I would urge further, with all the power that I have, the need for considering this aspect of the problem, for it is one that is very much neglected. I know it is very unpopular with the majority of those who care most earnestly about the unmarried mother.