His endowment of motherhood is essentially a _discharge of
fatherhood_, and should be so called. There can be no compromise,
nothing but a fight to the finish, between the principle of endowing
motherhood by making fatherhood less responsible, and the principle here
fought for, of endowing motherhood by making fatherhood more
responsible. As Nature has been doing so, in the main line of progress
for many millions of years,--a statement not of interpretation or theory
but of observed fact--I have no fear of the ultimate issue. But it
might well be that any portion of mankind, perhaps a portion ill to be
spared, should destroy itself by an attempt to run counter to the great
principle of progress here stated. There is an abundance of men who will
be very happy to side with Mr. Wells. Men have never been wanting, in
any time or place, who were happy to gratify their instincts without
having to answer for the consequences; and it has always been the first
issue of any society that was to endure, to see that they did not have
their way: hence human marriage. The "endowment of motherhood" sounds as
if it were a scheme greatly for the benefit of women. Let them beware.
Let them begin to think of, not the remoter, but the immediate and
obvious consequences of any such schemes as are proffered by the overt
or covert enemies of marriage, and they will quickly perceive that _the
last way in which to secure the rights of women is to abrogate the
duties of men_.
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