envelope, no one any more may say, "I shall not give you money for shoes to-morrow unless—" Volitional motherhood is the final truth that shall make women free. No one can compel the new woman to be anything that she does not wish to be, not even to be a mother until she chooses the time.
After that curse pronounced upon Eve, there was a promise: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head!" "We can do it, dear." That's what the new woman will say triumphantly to the man who comes back to her from the Great War. Together they will take up the task of making, not only a new earth, but a new race!
And I think he will be glad for what she tells him. The wonder is, not so much that women in the past were willing to endure the "subjection of women," but that men consented to it. A bird in a cage can of course be made to eat out of the hand of the owner who feeds it. But see the bird that is free and will come at your call!
The women in industry and commerce and the professions and in government, whom we are seeing in these years of war passing all barriers, will at last make their final stand for what? It is for happiness. Look! Even now, who has the vision to discern, may discover the gates of Eden swinging wide. And when the man in khaki, with the age-old yearning in his heart, "Woman wanted, my woman," comes back to clasp her in his arms once more, these two everywhere shall enter in. For the ultimate
