highest point of intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual growth and mental virility has been reached
by the human female, that her relation with her male offspring becomes a

permanent and active and dominantfactor in the lives of both. The
concentrated and all-absorbing affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection and fellowship which existed

between the greatest femaleintellect France has produced and the son she
bore, dominating both lives to the end, the fellowship of the English

historian with his mother, who remained his chosen companion and the sharer
of all his labours through life, the relation of St. Augustine to his

mother, and those of countless others, are relations almost inconceivable
where the woman is not of commanding and active intelligence, and where the

passion of mere physicalinstinct is completed by the passion of the
intellect and spirit.

There appears, then, from the study of human nature in the past, no ground
for supposing that if, as a result of woman's adopting new forms of labour,

she should become more free, more wealthy" target="_blank" title="a.富有的；丰富的">wealthy, or more activelyintelligent,
that this could in any way diminish her need of the physical and mental

comradeship of man, nor his need of her; nor that it would affect their
secondary sexual relations as progenitors, save by deepening,

concentrating, and extending throughout life the parental emotions. The
conception that man's and woman's need of each other could be touched, or

the emotions binding the sexes obliterated, by any mere change in the form
of labour performed by the woman of the race, is as grotesque in its

impossibility, as the suggestion that the placing of a shell on the
seashore this way or that might destroy the action of the earth's great

tidal wave.
But, it may be objected, "If there be absolutely no ground for the

formation of such an opinion, how comes it that, in one form or another, it
is so often expressed by persons who object to the entrance of woman into

new or intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual fields of labour? Where there is smoke must there not
also be fire?" To which it must be replied, "Without fire, no smoke; but

very often the appearance of smoke where neither smoke nor fire exist!"
The fact that a statement is frequently made or a view held forms no

presumptive ground of its truth; but it is undoubtedly a ground for
supposing that there is an appearance or semblance which makes it appear

truth, and which suggests it. The universally entertained conception that
the sun moved round the world was not merely false, but the reverse of the

truth; all that was required for its inception was a fallacious appearance
suggesting it.

When we examine narrowly the statement, that the entrance of woman into the
new fields of labour, with its probably resulting greater freedom of

action, economic independence and wider culture, may result in a severance
between the sexes, it becomes clear what that fallacious appearance is,

which suggests this.
The entrance of a woman into new fields of labour, though bringing her

increased freedom and economic independence, and necessitating increased
mental training and wider knowledge, could not extinguish the primordial

physicalinstinct which draws sex to sex throughout all the orders of
sentient life; and still less could it annihilate that subtler mental need,

which, as humanity develops, draws sex to sex for emotional" target="_blank" title="a.易动感情的；情感的">emotionalfellowship and
close intercourse; but, it might, and undoubtedly would, powerfully react

and readjust the relations of certain men with certain women!
While the attraction, physical and intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual, which binds sex to sex

would remain the same in volume and intensity, the forms in which it would
express itself, and, above all, the relative power of individuals to

command the gratification of their instincts and desires, would be
fundamentally altered, and in many cases inverted.

In the barbarian state of societies, where physical force dominates, it is
the most muscular and pugilistically and brutally and animally successful

male who captures and possesses the largest number of females; and no doubt
he would be justified in regarding any social change which gave to woman a

larger freedom of choice, and which would so perhaps give to the less
brutal but perhaps more intelligent male, whom the woman might select, an

equal opportunity for the gratification of his sexual wishes and for the
producing of offspring, as a serious loss. And, from the purely personal

standpoint, he would undoubtedly be right in dreading anything which tended
to free woman. But he would manifestly not have been justified in

asserting, that woman's increased freedom of choice, or the fact that the
other men would share his advantage in the matter of obtaining female

companionship, would in any way lessen the amount of sexualemotion or the
tenderness of relation between the two halves of humanity. He would not by

brute force possess himself of so many females, nor have so large a circle
of choice, under the new conditions; but what he lost, others would gain;

and the intensity of the sex emotions and the nearness and passion of the
relation between the sexes be in no way touched.

In our more civilised societies, as they exist today, woman possesses (more
often perhaps in appearance than reality!) a somewhat greater freedom of

sexualselection; she is no longer captured by muscular force, but there
are still conditions entirely unconnected with sex attractions and

affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affections, which yet largely dominate the sex relations.
It is not the man of the strong arm, but the man of the long purse, who

unduly and artificiallydominates in the sexual world today. Practically,
wherever in the modern world woman is wholly or partiallydependent for her

means of support on the exercise of her sexualfunctions, she is dependent
more or less on the male's power to support her in their exercise, and her

freedom of choice is practically so far absolutelylimited. Probably
three-fourths of the sexual unions in our modern European societies,

whether in the illegal or recognised legal forms, are dominated by or
largely influenced by the sex purchasing power of the male. With regard to

the large and savageinstitution of prostitution, which still lies as the
cancer embedded in the heart of all our modern civilised societies, this is

obviously and nakedly the case; the wealth of the male as compared to the
female being, with hideous obtrusiveness, its foundation and source of

life. But the purchasing power of the male as compared with the poverty of
the female is not less painfully, if a little less obtrusively, displayed

in those layers of society lying nearer the surface. From the fair, effete
young girl of the wealthier classes in her city boudoir, who weeps

copiously as she tells you she cannot marry the man she loves, because he
says he has only two hundred a year and cannot afford to keep her; to the

father who demands frankly of his daughter's suitor how much he can settle
on her before consenting to his acceptance, the fact remains, that, under

existing conditions, not the amount of sex affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection, passion, and
attraction, but the extraneous question of the material possessions of the

male, determines to a large extent the relation of the sexes. The
parasitic, helpless youth who has failed in his studies, who possesses

neither virility, nor charm of person, nor strength of mind, but who
possesses wealth, has a far greater chance of securing unlimitedsexual

indulgence and the life companionship of the fairest maid, than her
brother's tutor, who may be possessed of every manly and physical grace and

mental gift; and the ancient libertine, possessed of nothing but material
good, has, especially among the so-called upper classes of our societies, a

far greater chance of securing the sex companionship of any woman he
desires as wife, mistress, or prostitute, than the most physically

attractive and mentally developed male, who may have nothing to offer to
the dependentfemale but affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection and sexualcompanionship.

To the male, whenever and wherever he exists in our societies, who depends
mainly for his power for procuring the sex relation he desires, not on his

power of winning and retaining personal affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection, but, on the purchasing
power of his possessions as compared to the poverty of the females of his

society, the personal loss would be seriously and at once felt, of any
social change which gave to the woman a larger economic independence and

therefore greater freedom of sexual choice. It is not an imaginary danger
which the young dude, of a certain type which sits often in the front row

of the stalls in a theatre, with sloping forehead and feeble jaw, watching
the unhappy women who dance for gold--sees looming before him, as he lisps

out his deep disapproval of increased knowledge and the freedom of
obtaining the means of subsistence in intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual fields by woman, and

expresses his vast preference for the uncultured ballet-girl over all types
of cultured and productive labouring womenhood in the universe. A subtle

and profoundinstinct warns him, that with the increased intelligence and
economic freedom of woman, he, and such as he, might ultimately be left

sexually companionless; the undesirable, the residuary, male old-maids of
the human race.

On the other hand, there is undoubtedly a certain body of females who would
lose, or imagine they would lose, heavily by the advance of woman as a

whole to a condition of free labour and economic independence. That
female, wilfully or organically belonging to the parasite class, having

neither the vigour of intellect nor the vitality of body to undertake any
form of productive labour, and desiring to be dependent only upon the

passive performance of sex function merely, would, whether as prostitute or
wife, undoubtedly lose heavily by any social change which demanded of woman

increased knowledge and activity. (She would lose in two directions: by
the social disapprobation which, as the new conditions became general,