possibility of competition on equal terms with men; they do not preclude the possibility of development on lines distinctively feminine and complemental to male activity.

The fundamental error, which the clever German feminist, Frau Mayreder, shares with others far less broadminded, is that she persistently underestimates the part played by her own sex in building up those social values which are the foundation of civilisation. It is, in fact, essential for the feminist position to represent man as dictating the terms of sex intercourse; but this he can only do under environmental conditions of a particular kind; and to understand the present discontent of woman it is essential to consider her, not apart from her sex functions, but in relation to them and to her environment.

It is from this point of view that Mr Heape makes an original and suggestive contribution to the history of feminism by a comparison of primitive and modern sexantagonism. The greater part of his book is devoted to an examination of Dr Fraser's theory of the origin of exogamy and totemism, from which Mr Heape differs in certain important particulars. He finds in exogamy the expression of male instincts, and in totemism the outcome of female desires and aspirations. As a limitation on the naturally roving male, totemism is the earliest evidence of woman's influence on social conventions; but man, in accepting these conventions, has nevertheless invariably found means to evade them. Unable to enforce her conventions on man by direct means, woman instead has notoriously penalised the partner in his errant courses; but it is a feature of the modern woman movement that this attitude is being relaxed. Modern woman is dissatisfied by the growing perception of the fact that she, as a respectable unit of society, is bound to the wheels of the Juggernaut of a conventional morality to which men are only compelled to do lip-service. Moreover, this convention has less and less meaning for women as they get further away from motherhood as the central fact of their existence. Monogamy-the moral and social ideal at which all our conventions aim-is assumed by many feminists to have its origin in male acquisitiveness and love of domination, but these traits are equally compatible with polygamyeven more so. The psychological origin of monogamy lies in the desire of the woman for a more permanent

connexion with the father of her child than is possible under any other system; and, if this instinct is a true one, a great deal of the modern feminist movement, including the growing desire for divorce facilities, may really be contrary to the true interests of woman.

'It is possible that future generations of women may derive benefit from a readjustment of sex relations. But despite the many reasons given by women for hope that such benefit will accrue... those of us who are familiar with the working of natural law must find reason to doubt the soundness of the ground on which such confident belief is founded.' *

An interesting analogy is drawn by Mr Heape between the position of primitive woman, in environments of hardship, comfort, and luxury, and that occupied by her sex under similar conditions not only in different periods of history, but in our own day in the three different classes of the very poor, the moderately well off, and the luxurious. From the biological point of view, it may be added, the large majority of our so-called middle-class women live in luxury. It is in the class or race which has comfort but not luxury that woman, whether in primitive or modern times, secures the most favourable environment, and becomes, in fact, the dominant partner-a theory which seems to find a striking illustration in the position of women among the French bourgeoisie. Feminists are inclined to look for all improvements in the status of woman to the increased stability and power of the state, and consequently to a decline in the prestige of the mere fighting element. This assumption, attractive and specious as it is, leaves out of account the psychology of such civilisations as that of China, in which the military element was traditionally despised and the intellectual exalted, without any elevating effect on woman. There is also very little warrant for the feminist theory that we are on the eve of a period in which the fighting capacity of the male sex will cease to be flung into the scale in determining the social value of the sexes.

These questions can only be touched on here. The outstanding fact in the present relations of the sexes in our own country is an accentuation by artificial conditions of the natural antagonism due to a radical

*Sex Antagonism,' p. 3.

difference in sexual requirements, and the clash between social interests and the monogamous ideal with the biological needs of both sexes in an over-womaned country. It is because he approaches the subject from the biological standpoint that Mr Heape perceives what escapes most male feminists, and is usually carefully concealed by women-the divergence of interests between two types of women, the mother type and the spinster type. It must be clearly understood that actual marriage and maternity are not essential to the first, nor celibacy to the second, because we are speaking of 'types,' a term which includes psychological as well as physiological development. Frau Mayreder recognises the essential antagonism between these types, and urges the normal or average woman not to refuse to recognise the community of interest represented by her advanced sister.

Changes in the social order can be brought about only through women who are freed from the teleological limitations of their sex' [by teleological she means having relation to the duties of propagation], 'who vary from the prevailing type, and, through their independence, attain to a new conception of life.'*

Yet even Frau Mayreder is compelled to confess that the future is doubtful, and that 'something like danger, a possibility of serious losses for the female sex, begins to lift itself above the horizon.' If this danger is recognised in Germany, how much more acute must it be in Great Britain, where the influence of the non-maternal, abnormal woman is accentuated by our social conditions?

Despite the influence wielded at certain periods of history by women of the non-maternal type, from the courtesan on the one hand to the ascetic on the other, the dominant social power has, hitherto, rested in the hands of matrons and mothers, and the rise of spinsters as a class apart, wielding great social power and shaping the minds of girls and young women, is a factor of the utmost importance in modern feminism. Sex antagon

I believe that the conditions of marriage, as they affect women, can only be improved by the women who do without marriage-and do without it gladly.' ('Marriage as a Trade,' Cecily Hamilton.)

It is through these hybrids that the feminine sex transgresses against the masculine.' ('The Woman Movement,' Ellen Key, p. 193.)

ism, hitherto, has had its origin in the encroaching demands made by the one sex upon the other, and, in the Western world, has been focussed in woman's effort to secure a dominant position in the regulation of marriage and sex laws. The introduction of a third class, celibate women, no longer cloistered, but demanding to share man's occupations and prerogatives and to influence sex laws and relations while neither desiring nor granting such relations themselves, is a twentieth century development of the oldest problem in the world. It is obvious, as Mr Heape says, that the demands of such a class may really be prejudicial to the interests of the maternal type of woman, and that not only may sex antagonism enter upon a new and bitter phase when the opponents-man and celibate woman-realise that they have nothing to gain by compromise, but that intra-sexual strife between the two classes of women will be the inevitable consequence. Already the suffrage question, which does not go to the root of things like feminism, has divided women into two camps in which the bitterness of controversy is astonishing to those accustomed only to male partisanship. Ellen Key, in her diagnosis of the individualism of the new school, points out how sharply it conflicts with the interests of the normal type of woman.

A brief survey of the feminist position can touch only on outstanding features; and, because the writer does not find much promise in feminist remedies for social problems, it does not follow that she sees no need for improvement in the condition of her sex. On the contrary, she believes that a great portion of it, having parted with fundamental truths and realities, is drifting rapidly towards an impasse. Undoubtedly a great deal of modern woman's dissatisfaction with life is due to the fact that she has at once fewer duties and responsibilities and more power and licence than are truly normal. Her energy runs to waste. Modern social conditions, moreover, imposing a heavy economic burden on man, re-act unfavourably on woman, who, curiously enough, is inclined under conditions of luxury to shirk even her sexual duties. Married life becomes increasingly expensive, despite the shrinkage in families, which is usually represented as woman's involuntary sacrifice on the altar of an imperious economic necessity. As

a matter of fact it is more often the family and the interests of the State which are sacrificed on the altar of woman's standard of ease and comfort- -a standard in which man readily acquiesces. The demand for increased vocational facilities for women has its origin in a real lack of vital and interesting occupations, as well as in economic pressure, but it is also interwoven with the neglect, denial or delegation of distinctively feminine duties and with the false scale of social values created by modern female education.

The true woman's movement must be one which, recognising the principle of a natural division of duties between the sexes, aims at strengthening woman in her normal, natural sphere, and developing her along the lines suggested by her sex needs and characteristics. We do not know, as yet, because the experiment has not yet been made, to what heights woman might not rise under such conditions. Many social and educational reforms would be needed to secure such an environment, but the first essential is a sound ideal. So far the advanced sisters' do not seem to have got beyond the pioneers of the Victorian age, who conceived of woman 'undeveloped man.'

as

When John and Irene, following the Woman movement from different standpoints, become aware of sexantagonism and agree to differ, it is Irene, we suspect, who suffers most in the long run. Nor, in suffering, is she 'rising on stepping-stones of her dead self to higher things,' for, when she parts with John, the normal man, she gets out of touch with reality, and her progress henceforth is only a fantastic dream. No scheme of salvation for women can be worked out which is not involved in the salvation of man, or rather of the trinity of man, woman and child, which is, for sociological purposes, one and indivisible. The book which views the feminist movement from this point of view has yet to be written. ETHEL COLQUHOUN.