She is still bound because she has in the past left the
solution of the problem to him. Having left it to him, she finds that
instead of rights, she has only such privileges as she has gained by
petitioning, coaxing and cozening. Having left it to him, she is
exploited, driven and enslaved to his desires.
While it is true that he suffers many evils as the consequence of this
situation, she suffers vastly more. While it is true that he should be
awakened to the cause of these evils, we know that they come home to
her with crushing force every day. It is she who has the long burden
of carrying, bearing and rearing the unwanted children. It is she who
must watch beside the beds of pain where lie the babies who suffer
because they have come into overcrowded homes. It is her heart that
the sight of the deformed, the subnormal, the undernourished, the
overworked child smites first and oftenest and hardest. It is _her_
love life that dies first in the fear of undesired pregnancy. It is
her opportunity for self expression that perishes first and most
hopelessly because of it.
Conditions, rather than theories, facts, rather than dreams, govern
the problem. They place it squarely upon the shoulders of woman.
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