stone in the state--to feel themselves through this family
perpetuating and perfecting church, society, republic,--this is their
destiny,--this is worth while. They may not be able to state it, but
all their instincts and experiences convince them of the supreme and
eternal value of their place in the world. They dare not tamper with
it. Their opposition to the militant program badly and even cruelly
expressed at times has at bottom, as an opposition always has, the
principle of preservation. It is not bigotry or vanity or a petty
notion of their own spheres which has kept the majority of women from
lending themselves to the radical wing of the woman's movement. It is
fear to destroy a greater thing which they possess. The fear of change
is not an irrational thing--the fear of change is founded on the risk
of losing what you have, on the certainty of losing much temporarily
at least. It sees the cost, the ugly and long period of transition.

Moreover, respect for your calling brings patience with its burden and
its limitations. The change you desire you work for conservatively, if
at all. The women who opposed the first movement for women's rights in
this country might deplore the laws that gave a man the power to beat
his wife--but as a matter of fact few men did beat their wives, and
popular opinion was a powerful weapon. They might deplore the laws of
property--but few of them were deeply touched by them. The husband,
the child, the home, the social circle, the church, these things were
infinitely more interesting and important to them than diplomas,
rights to work, rights to property, rights to vote. All the sentiments
in the revolting women's program seemed trivial, cold, profitless
beside the realities of life as they dreamed them and struggled to
realize them.

It is this same intuitive loyalty to her Business of Being a Woman,