Few of us
realize how extraordinary and how unprecedented is the margin of
security for existence which modern civilization affords. A savage
community may have scarcely any margin at all. The same may be true of
many primitive communities which cannot be called savage. They maintain
life under such conditions, whether in Greenland or in a thousand other
parts of the world, that they cannot afford to labour for anything which
is not bread. The primary necessities of existence take all their
getting. Some transient accident of weather or the balance of Nature in
the sea or in the fields imperils the existence of the whole community.
They, at any rate, are wise enough to take good care of their women and
children. But in civilization we have an enormous margin of security.
Not only are we dependent on no local crop or harvest, but the getting
of necessities has become so effective and secure that we are able to
spend a vast amount of our time and energy on the production of luxuries
and evils. How little, then, is our excuse if we fail to provide the
first conditions for continuance and progress!
Our first principles of the value of the child and therefore of
motherhood are unchallengeable, nor will anyone nowadays be found to
question that neither children nor mothers should work in the ordinary
sense of that word, since the proper work of children who are to work
well when they grow up is play, and since the mother's natural work is
the most important that she can perform.
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