Men and women can only be alike mentally when they are alike in physical configuration and physiological function. Even complete economic equality is not attainable. Among animals which live in herds under the guidance of a leader, this leader is nearly always
a male; there are few exceptions.
6 In woman, the long period of pregnancy and lactation, and the prolonged helplessness of her child, render her for a considerable period of her life economically dependent. On whom shall she be dependent? This is a question of considerable moment. According to the old conception of the family, all the members were slaves producing for the benefit of the owner, and it was natural that the wife should be supported by the husband when she is producing slaves for his service. But this conception is, as we have seen, no longer possible. It is clearly unfair also to compel the mother to depend on her own previous exertions. The reproduction of the race is a social function, and we are compelled to conclude that it is the duty of the community, as a community, to provide for the child-bearer when in the exercise of her social function she is unable to provide for herself. The woman engaged in producing a new member, who may be a source of incalculable profit or danger to the whole community, cannot fail to be a source of the liveliest solicitude to everyone in the community, and it was a sane and beautiful instinct that found expression of old in the permission accorded to a pregnant woman to enter gardens and orchards, and freely help herself.