THIS IS an illustration from Life Magazine of 1912. It offers one view of the dilemmas facing the modern woman.  The unhappiness involved in moving away from home and love is written on the woman’s face, and yet children and marriage are choices at the very bottom of the stairway.

This whole consuming question – what should a woman choose to achieve happiness? – has been a preoccupation in the press for many, many decades. Lost in the endless discussion is the notion that there is objectively a right way and a wrong way, that fulfillment of one’s duties, not personal happiness, is the ultimate goal.

Regardless of what women want or do not want, what they feel or do not feel, what makes them happy or does not make them happy, there is a job to do and only women can do it. That job is creating a new generation and preserving morals, manners and learning – in short, preserving civilization itself – by raising the next generation well.

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