For my own part, I think that no woman should be forced to work at
all, except at such things as please her. When a woman marries, for
instance, she voluntarily engages herself to do a vast quantity of
work. To look after the house and to bring up the children involves
daily, unremitting labour and thought. If she has a vocation for any
kind of work, as for Art, or Letters, or Teaching, let her obey the
call and find her happiness. Generally she has none. The average
woman--I make this statement with complete confidence--hates
compulsory work: she hates and loathes it. There are, it is true, some
kinds of work which must be done by women. Well, there will always be
enough for those occupations among women who prefer work to idleness.

There is another very serious consideration. There is only so much
work--a limited quantity--in the world: so many hands for whom
occupation can be found--and the number of hands wanted does not very
greatly exceed that of the male hands ready for it. Now, by giving
this work to women, we take it from the men. If we open the Civil
Service to women, we take so many posts from the men, which we give to
the women, _at a lower salary_; if they become cashiers, accountants,
clerks, they take these places from the men, _at a lower salary_.
Always they take lower pay, and turn the men out. Well, the men must
either go elsewhere, or they must take the lower pay. In either case
the happiest lot of all--that of marriage--is rendered more difficult,
because the men are made poorer; the position of the toiler becomes
harder, because he gets worse pay; then man's sense of responsibility
for the women of his family is destroyed. Nay, in some cases the men
actually live, and live contentedly, upon the labour of their wives.
But when all is said about women, and their rights and wrongs, and
their work and place, and their equality and their superiority, we
fall back at last upon nature. There is still, and will always remain