If it be said, "But some of these children will be men, who are necessarily
of more use than women," I deny the necessity. If it be said, "The children
may be many, and the mother, who is but one, may well be sacrificed," it
might be replied that, as one great act may be worth many smaller ones, so
all the numerous children and grandchildren of a woman like Lucretia Mott
may not collectively equal the usefulness of herself alone. If she, like
many women, had held it her duty to renounce all other duties and interests
from the time her motherhood began, I think that the world, and even her
children, would have lost more than could ever have been gained by her more
complete absorption in the nursery.

The true theory seems a very simple one. The very fact that during one half
the years of a woman's average life she is made incapable of child-bearing
shows that there are, even for the most prolific and devoted mothers,
duties other than the maternal. Even during the most absorbing years of
motherhood, the wisest women still try to keep up their interest in
society, in literature, in the world's affairs--were it only for their
children's sake. Multitudes of women will never be mothers; and those more
fortunate may find even the usefulness of their motherhood surpassed by
what they do in other ways. If maternal duties interfere in some degree
with all other functions, the same is true, though in a far less degree,
of those of a father. But there are those who combine both spheres. The
German poet Wieland claimed to be the parent of fourteen children and
forty books; and who knows by which parentage he served the world the
best?