To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house
with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions
that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd
if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist.
Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment
(even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised
more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself
too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view.
I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast
this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world.
But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely
difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question.
For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what
they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery,
all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word.
If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman
drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens
or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard
work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small
import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know
what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area,
deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley
within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets cakes.
and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals,
manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might
exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.
How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about
the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children
about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing
to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s
function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it
is minute I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task;
I will never pity her for its smallness.

Oh, you didn’t write this. Whoops! I think the situation re:world population has changed somewhat in recent years, and as per St Paul childfree people have a lot to contribute to the world. No parental leave = longer hours at work, paying taxes to support others’ children. (Which is all fair enough, of course. Children are great. With bacon.)

The Galloping
Heart for Him