superiority extends itself to her lover; she understands all that is simple and naive and childlike in him, whilst the prostitute understands best his caprices and refinements. The mother has the craving to teach her child, to give him everything, even when the child is represented by the lover; the prostitute strives to impose herself on the man, to receive everything from him. The mother as the upholder of the race is friendly to all its members; it is only when there is an exclusive choice to be made between her child and others that she becomes hard and relentless; and so she can be both more full of love and more bitter than the prostitute.
The mother is in complete relation with the continuity of the race; the prostitute is completely outside it. The mother is the sole advocate and priestess of the race. The will of the race to live is embodied in her, whilst the existence of the prostitute shows that Schopenhauer was pushing a generalisation too far when he declared that all sexuality had relation only to the future generation. That the mother cares only for the life of her own race is plain from the absence of consideration for animals shown by the best of mothers. A good mother, with the greatest peace of mind and content, will slaughter fowl after fowl for her family. The mother of children is a cruel step-mother to all other living things.
Another striking aspect of the mother's relation to the preservation of the race reveals itself in the matter of food. She cannot bear to see food wasted, however little may be left over; whilst the prostitute wilfully squanders the quantities of food and drink she demands. The mother is stingy and mean; the prostitute open-handed and lavish. The mother's object in life is to preserve the race, and her delight is to see her children eat and to encourage their appetites. And so she becomes the good housekeeper. Ceres was a good mother, a fact expressed in her Greek name, Demeter. The mother takes care of the body, but does not trouble about the mind.[1] The relation between mother and child
- ↑ Compare the conversation in Ibsen's "Peer Gynt," Act ii.,
