Substitute "destroyed" or "reversed" for "chastened," and you
have a more typical result in quite well-meaning men of sex-antagonism
as many "advanced" women now display it.
Further, this book may be regarded as an appeal to those women who are
responsible for forming the ideals of girls. The idea of womanhood here
set forth on natural grounds is not always represented in the ideals
which are now set before the youthful aspirant for work in the woman's
cause. It is not argued that the principles of eugenics are to be
expounded to the beginner, nor that she is to be re-directed to the
nursery. It is not necessarily argued, by any means, that marriage and
motherhood are to be set forth as the goal at which _every_ girl is to
aim; such a woman as Miss Florence Nightingale was a Foster-Mother of
countless thousands, and was only the greatest exemplar in our time of a
function which is essentially womanly, but does not involve marriage. I
desire nothing less than that girls should be taught that they must
marry--any man better than none. I want no more men chosen for
fatherhood than are fit for it, and if the standard is to be raised,
selection must be more rigorous and exclusive, as it could not be if
every girl were taught that, unmarried, she fails of her destiny. The
higher the standard which, on eugenic principles, natural or acquired,
women exact of the men they marry, the more certainly will many women
remain unmarried.
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