trod the ancient beaten paths, and we must not be so foolish as to suppose
that they can suddenly renounce those habits and tastes at the threshold
of marriage. Moreover, it is becoming clear to men and to women alike, and
for the first time, that the world can be remoulded, and that the claims
for better conditions of work, for a higher standard of life, and for the
attainment of leisure, which previously had only feebly been put forward,
may now be asserted drastically. We see therefore to-day a great
revolutionary movement, mainly on the part of men in the world of Labour,
and we see a corresponding movement, however less ostentatious, mainly on
the part of women, in the world of the Home.

It may seem to some that this new movement of upheaval in the sphere of
the Home is merely destructive. Timid souls have felt the like in every
period of transition, and with as little reason. Just as we realise that
the movement now in progress in the world of Labour for a higher standard
of life and for, as it has been termed, a larger "leisure-ration,"
represents a wholesome revolt against the crushing conditions of prolonged
monotonous work--the most deadening of all work--and a real advance
towards those ideals of democracy which are still so remote, so it is with
the movement in the Home. That also is the claim for a new and fairer
allotment of responsibility, of larger opportunities for freedom and
leisure. If in the home the husband is still to be regarded as the
capitalist and the wife as the labourer, then at all events it has to be
recognised that he owes her not only the satisfaction of her physical
needs of food and shelter and clothing, but the opportunity to satisfy the
personal spontaneous claims of her own individual nature. Just as the
readjustment of Labour is really only an approach to the long recognised
ideals of Democracy, so the readjustment of the Home, far from being
subversive or revolutionary, is merely an approximation to the long
recognised ideals of marriage.