POPULATE OR PERISH

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22461, 23 September 1944, Page 9

POPULATE OR PERISH

STATUS OF THE MOTHERS ENDOWMENT ADVOCATED (No. 4.—By Heler Wilson) Among the greatest advantages of motherhood endowment is that it would permit of early marriages, /outh is the time for reproduction as every farmer knows. At present if a boy and girl wish to marry (that )s to say i.i normal times, not in war conditions) their elders are profoundly shocked. They admonish them to wait—wait till they have a house, furniture, a permanent position. This waiting is the curse of our civilisation. It is the cause of much disillusionment, frustration end unhappiness and especially •cf the immorality which disgraces our age. Besides this the free-and-easy attitude of youth changes. The long years of saving—or trying to save—leave their mark. The inconsequent courage of youth gives place to the seven deadly virtues of middle age, acquisitiveness, prudence, ambition, etc. When at last, after infinite planning, they marry and a child is born, it is not taken l s ghtly and naturally as in youth. It is a delight, but too often also a burden, and unduly disorganises their lives. It may be delicate, or they imagine so. ; t may even put sticky fingers on the furniture that has cost so much sacrifice. So they decide that one adventure into family life is enough :or them. The child is well cared for—too well cared for—but it isonly one. Will Never Regret Whereas if every mothei possessed an assured income and there were no bar to quite early marriages a young couple might have six children and still have the greater and more useful part of life left for ah ihe achievements about which we dream. After the family is ovt of hand a woman has many good years in which to develop tastes and hobbies, to serve -he community, to travel, to write, to paint, or to simply enjoy life with her husband or with her children, or with both. She will never on looking back regret her time of “nursery days and baby ways.” Indeed, provided she has a sunn> nursery and reasonable leisure, those will be the happiest times of her life. Prominent women have striven well and have achieved much towards the “emancipation cf women.” To some of these workers it may seem a step backward to offer inducements for women to become mothers rather than for them to excel in callings hitherto considered man’s preserve. It was excessive child-bear-ing that brought about the dark ages of women’s complete dependence on man. The aim of the feminists of today is “equal pay for equal work.” This has not yet been achieved. The underlying reason for this seeming mjustice is that noimaily a man requires more. He Is expected either in the present or in the future to provide for a wife and family. Throw Down Last Barrier With the number of women working and the inadequacy of most men’s salaries to provide lor a family a breach is being made in this tradition, but it still persists and bars the way to “equal pay for equal work.” A motherhood endowment would thus throw down the last barrier against the equality of women. Thus to the woman who wished a career it would be an assistance rather than o drawback, and the woman who wished to be a mothor would not find the dice loaded financially against her. Many a girl takes a job though she would rather have married, but that the man of her choice could not afford to marry, and tten finds herself wedded to her work for the best part of her life. An independence granted to mothers would have given more happiness and an increase to ;he population. In this connection, a man who had given some thought to the question asked: “Is it desirable that women should be independent? Are they not created the weaker sex tfiat man may >:rotect and cherish them? It enobles man to take responsibility.” He could remember, he said, the times w r hen almost all women were dependent as a matter of course, and he v/as sure that families were more united, children better brought up and'women more content and far happier. He maintained that as it is the inherent instinc". of man to protect and provide and of woman to depend, both sexes then came to their highest development. To pursue this argument we should need to invoke the evidence of history, psychology and biology, but one thing is clear to us all—that all women are to day entirr-ly independent except the mother. There is well paid work for every woman in New Zealand if she is able to do it end if she is an invalid there is social security, so that no woman need be dependent on any male 1 elation—unless she is a mother.

We cannot, if we would, put the rlock back and make women again parasites. So let us—seeing how badly the community needs children —bring up the status oL motherhood to that of the woman who choses a career. *