an object of desire and cupidity to the male, she is liable in a peculiarly
insidious and gradual manner to become dependent on this one sexual
function alone for her support. So much is this the case, that even when
she does not in any way perform this function there is still a curious
tendency for the kudos of the function still to hang about her, and for her
mere potentiality in the direction of a duty which she may never fulfil, to
be confused in her own estimation and that of society with the actual
fulfilment of that function. Under the mighty aegis of the woman who bears
and rears offspring and in other directions labours greatly and actively
for her race, creeps in gradually and unnoticed the woman who does none of
these things. From the mighty labouring woman who bears human creatures to
the full extent of her power, rears her offspring unaided, and performs at
the same time severe social labour in other directions (and who is,
undoubtedly, wherever found, the most productive toiler known to the race);
it is but one step, though a long one, from this woman to the woman who
produces offspring freely but does not herself rear them, and performs no
compensatory social labour. While from this woman, again, to the one who
bears few or no children, but who, whether as a wife or mistress, lives by
the exercise of her sex function alone, the step is short. There is but
one step farther to the prostitute, who affects no form of productive
labour, and who, in place of life, is recognised as producing disease and
death, but who exists parasitically through her sexual attribute. Enormous
as is the distance between the women at the two extremes of this series,
and sharply opposed as their relation to the world is, there is yet, in
actual life, no sharp, clear, sudden-drawn line dividing the women of the
one type from those of the other. They shade off into each other by
delicate and in sensible degrees. And it is down this inclined plane that
the women of civilised races are peculiarly tempted, unconsciously, to
slip; from the noble height of a condition of the most strenuous social
activity, into a condition of complete, helpless, and inactive parasitism,