who depends for the gratification of his sexual instincts, not on his power
of winning and retaining the personal affection and admiration of woman,
but on her purchaseable condition, either in the blatantly barbarous field
of sex traffic that lies beyond the pale of legal marriage, or the not less
barbarous though more veiled traffic within that pale, the entrance of
woman into the new fields of labour, with an increased intellectual culture
and economic freedom, means little less than social extinction. But, to
those males who, even at the present day, constitute the majority in our
societies, and who desire the affection and fellowship of woman rather than
a mere material possession; for the male who has the attributes and gifts
of mind or body, which, apart from any weight of material advantage, would
fit him to hold the affection of woman, however great her freedom of
choice, the gain will be correspondingly great. Given a society in which
the majority of women should be so far self-supporting, that, having their
free share open to them in the modern fields of labour, and reaping the
full economic rewards of their labour, marriage or some form of sexual sale
was no more a matter of necessity to them; so far from this condition
causing a diminution in the number of permanent sex unions, one of the
heaviest bars to them would be removed. It is universally allowed that one
of the disease spots in our modern social condition is the increasing
difficulty which bars conscientious men from entering on marriage and
rearing families, if limited means would in the case of their death or
disablement throw the woman and their common offspring comparatively
helpless into the fierce stream of our modern economic life. If the woman
could justifiably be looked to, in case of the man's disablement or death,
to take his place as an earner, thousands of valuable marriages which
cannot now be contracted could be entered on; and the serious social evil,
which arises from the fact that while the self-indulgent and selfish freely
marry and produce large families, the restrained and conscientious are
often unable to do so, would be removed. For the first time in the history