While it is true that they have resources at their command which ease
the burden of child-bearing and child rearing immeasurably, it is also
true that the wealthy mother, as well as the poverty-stricken mother,
must give from her own system certain elements which it takes time to
replace. Excessive childbearing is harder on the woman who lacks care
than on the one who does not, but both alike must give their bodies
time to recover from the strain of childbearing. If the women in
fortunate circumstances gave ear to the demand of masculine
"race-suicide"[A] fanatics they could within a few years be down to the
condition of their sisters who lack time to cultivate their talents
and intellects. A vigorous, intelligent, fruitfully cultured
motherhood is all but impossible if no restriction is placed by that
motherhood upon the number of children.
[Footnote A: Interesting and perhaps surprising light is thrown upon
the origin of the term "race suicide" by the following quotation from
an article by Harold Bolce in the Cosmopolitan (New York) for May,
1909:
"'The sole effect of prolificacy is to fill the cemeteries with tiny
graves, sacrifices of the innocents to the Moloch of immoderate
maternity.
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