And now we can turn to those proposals which have lately been revived by
one or two popular writers in England, for the endowment of motherhood
by the State, leaving the fathers in peace to spend their earnings as
they please, whilst others support their children. Detailed criticism is
not needed, for the details to criticize are not forthcoming, and the
opinions on principles and on details of these imaginative writers are
never twice the same. It suffices that proposals such as these, apart
from their vagueness and their obvious impracticability in any form, are
directly condemned by the fundamental principle that a man shall be
responsible for his acts. The endowment of motherhood, as Mr. Wells
means it, is simply a phrase for making men responsible for their
neighbours' acts and for striking hard and true at the root principle of
all marriage, human or sub-human, which is the common parental care of
offspring. Reference is made to this proposal here, not that it really
needs criticism, but in order that one may be clearly excluded from any
participation in such proposals.
The difference between such schemes for the endowment of motherhood and
the proposal here advocated is that those seek to endow the mother by
making the father less responsible--or, rather, wholly
irresponsible--while this seeks to endow her by making the father more
responsible. The whole verdict of the ages is, as we have seen, on the
side of this principle.
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