SLIPPING OVER THE EDGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20028, 18 August 1928, Page 20

SLIPPING OVER THE EDGE.

THE NEED FOR WISE MOTHERS BY • NONA SATES. On every hand, you will hear it slated that materialism has the upper hand in the world. Religious revivals, leagues and congresses, are suggested or used as emergency measures to stem tho tide. Many names are given to the modern spirit besides that of materialism; it is called Progress and it is called Jazz; it is called Freedom and it is called Refusal to Shoulder Responsibilities. There is need, it is constantly affirmed, for a great wave of spirituality over all nations. Put in a nutshell, tho whole world, tormented as never before, cries for good mothers. There is the secret for you! Every othor remedy is a mere palliative. Good mothers give good race! Primitive People. What was primitive man's greatest urge? Hunger! And primitive woman's? Care of her young children! But for her thero would have been none of these long generations. Man hunted and fed. Woman, with her protective racial intinct, sullenly watched the feeding and—saw to it that the young got their share. Man despised daughters; woman, remembering man's need of wives, valued them. Gradually woman acquired power; gradually she won the respect of the developing man. For her and her children, he raided and forayed, slaughtered and took captive. Never" has man overvalued the amenities of civilisation. A very thin scratch and tho original Adam of the skins era is thero! But woman wanted tempting food for her children, comfortable beds for their sleep, tho security of home. With their needs satisfied, she found pleasure in protty clothes for herself, bright gauds for her home. Tho family was no longer hunted from pillar to post; the mother tilled, laughed at her children's play; reaching at last, content and happiness. The Slave Era. Slaves were brought home by the fighting men; woman, unable yet to rule the man, ruled the slave. "You shall work for my children!" But in time the serfs turned. Trouble began. Woman had become self-indulgent. Easy to command a slave! "Change Johnny's pinafore! See that Janio has her milk! Don't let Jem play with that horrid neighbour brat!" But to wash those pinafores, to keep that milk sweet, to restrain the active Johnny, meant constant work, constant thought. Mothering under civilised conditions, where fashion now counted, made woman think, made her protest. In the past, man would have clubbed her for protesting. Now he had lost his grip of her. He was somewhat bemused. Revolt of Woman. Upon whom then was to devolve the care of the family ? The father ? He disclaimed all responsibility. The mother ? Why should she alone shoulder the burden ? Woman continued to assert her independence of conventional shackles. The civilised world of women showed signs of dividing itself into two classes; those who need not pray for daily bread, and those who were never sure of to-morrow's crust. The former, ripe with discontent, suggested limitation of the family as the obvious cure for faulty conditions. The latter, with the recklessness of despair, existed, suffered, and bred children ; bred them badlv very often, with little time or energy for love of them, but bred them. So did the populations of the world go somehow awry. Certain writers argue that there is in the world to-day a great preponderance of the lower type of mankind. They say that the whole of civilisation is threatened by a general decline in the virtues. If they are right, how is this to be combated ?

They argue that race falls back to the primitive unless effort is made always against this retrogression. Well-equipped women have, in the majority of cases, they submit, lulled to sleep their mother instinct. They are allowing the nearsavage to produce the populations, with enormous potentialities for evil to all. What is to prevent this race decadence, this annihilation of all that is fine and good? The general opinion is: Wise motherhood. •Theorists are not always correct, in spite of statistics, which may seem to prove them so. Mothers are deep thinkers. I commend the subject to them for their reasoning consideration. What do we mean by wise motherhood ?