The twenty thousand men prematurely slain on a field of battle, mean, to
the women of their race, twenty thousand human creatures to be borne within
them for months, given birth to in anguish, fed from their breasts and
reared with toil, if the numbers of the tribe and the strength of the
nation are to be maintained. In nations continually at war, incessant and
unbroken child-bearing is by war imposed on all women if the state is to
survive; and whenever war occurs, if numbers are to be maintained, there
must be an increased child-bearing and rearing. This throws upon woman as
woman a war tax, compared with which all that the male expends in military
preparations is comparatively light.

The relations of the female towards the production of human life influences
undoubtedly even her relation towards animal and all life. "It is a fine
day, let us go out and kill something!" cries the typical male of certain
races, instinctively. "There is a living thing, it will die if it is not
cared for," says the average woman, almost equally instinctively. It is
true, that the woman will sacrifice as mercilessly, as cruelly, the life of
a hated rival or an enemy, as any male; but she always knows what she is
doing, and the value of the life she takes! There is no light-hearted,
careless enjoyment in the sacrifice of life to the normal woman; her
instinct, instructed by practical experience, steps in to prevent it. She
always knows what life costs; and that it is more easy to destroy than
create it.

It is also true, that, from the loftiest standpoint, the condemnation of
war which has arisen in the advancing human spirit, is in no sense related
to any particular form of sex function. The man and the woman alike, who
with Isaiah on the hills of Palestine, or the Indian Buddha under his bo-
tree, have seen the essential unity of all sentient life; and who therefore