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70 The Century of the Child
has the full right to allow herself to be turned
into a third sex, the sex of the working bees,
or the sexless ant, provided she finds in this
her highest happiness.
A good while ago I was ingenuous enough
to maintain that motherhood was the central
factor of existence for most women. In the
discussion of this question I considered several
facts: woman’s work imposed by necessity,
woman’s ambition stimulated by the freedom
of her power, woman’s intellectual life modi-
fied by many other influences of contemporary
thought,—all these have forced the maternal
instinct into the background for the time be-
ing. Here was a danger which, it seemed,
was not too late to expose. There are women
in whom the feeling of love is really and ab-
solutely stunted; there are others who do not
find in modern man the soulful and profound
harmony in love that they quite rightly de-
mand; there are others, more numerous, who
wish for love but do not wish for motherhood.
They absolutely fear it. The famous German
authoress Gabrielle Renter has spoken of this
fear, this alarm of motherhood continually
vigilant, active, placing woman in an attitude
of self-defence,—a fear which to-day has taken
possession of so many strenuous and creative
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