One is therefore entitled to assume that it cannot be
demolished; on the contrary, it could easily be shown that the foregoing
figures very considerably underrate the actual number of widows and
orphans who must be made by alcohol in this country every year.
All students of modern life, however greatly they differ in their
methods and objects, are agreed that the question of the economic
position of women is one of the gravest of our time. While this is so,
it may be added that only the Eugenist can adequately realize the
importance of this question, since he knows that with it is involved the
all-important matter of the selection amongst present women for the
motherhood of the future. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the modern
trend is quite definitely in the direction of those of our guides, whom
most of us follow, knowingly or unknowingly, because they have the
brains and we have not, in favouring the economic position of women at
the expense of male responsibility. Meanwhile we have the economic basis
of society as it is, and there is no more serious indictment against
alcohol than this which I have attempted to formulate against it on the
ground of its destruction of fatherhood. Whatever the rest of the
community may incline to, it assuredly seems that the wives, from palace
to hovel, ought to be enemies of this great enemy of theirs. The time
will certainly come when the woman who is bringing up children will be
placed in a position of economic security, and when indeed all other
persons will be less secure than she because the sane State of the
future will guarantee, and regard as the first charge upon itself, the
maintenance of the conditions necessary for the production of the next
generation.
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