of great joy, for, behold, the highest created being has arrived-a babe!

Every knee bows before maternity, but not one before enforced sterility or single blessedness-not one. You may desire no homage, many do.

WOMEN WILL PROPOSE.-Let us not forget that the social custom which still prevails, which gives the "lord of creation" the sole right to propose, has shipwrecked many a sweet soul of strong maternal desires, well fitted to fulfill their rightful mission, but helpless and powerless to do so. Condemn these? God forbid. We feel for them and are their best friends. As long as men are the sole proposers and women the sole disposers, divorce courts will continue to grow fat.

The time is at hand when women will have a social right to propose, to choose and ask the men of their choice to become their life-mates and the fathers of their children. This right belongs to her by the highest law. She is the mother of the most perfect created being-the likeness of God. She must obey the command of her Creator and bring forth children. She cannot, in the light of this divine law, rely upon the man of the present age, under existing social customs, to come to her and ask her to be his mate, just when she is in her best physical and

mental condition. If he come, he may be either too soon or too late in her life. There was a time when all women were married at an early age (in Eastern countries this custom still prevails), and when single women were the rare exceptions. But in such a crude state of society women were often mere chattels; but conditions have so changed in America and Europe that it should no longer be immodest, but entirely chaste and honorable for any nice, right-thinking up-to-date young woman, white or colored, to propose. Should he refuse, what then? She can, with propriety, soothe her wounded heart and try once more, and perchance she may find one who can love her better and be a better father to her children. We are pleased to know that some prominent men and women have already taken in hand this "proposal reform," and will undoubtedly succeed, in due time, to introduce this very desirable as well as righteous

custom.

Mrs. Harriet J. Wood, a New York lawyer, who is an advocate of this reform says: "Since the object to be attained is the perfection of the human race, mothers should choose the fathers of their children."

We would add that we look for no mentally and physically perfect children until this is done, and done with a full knowledge of scientific

adaptation and the natural, intuitive sense of

woman.

"There is no doubt that the selection of the husband should really rest with the woman," says Dr. Denslow Lewis. "In the animal world it is invariably the female that chooses her mate. Only in the human race is the right of selection arbitrarily given to the male. Left to herself, and with no hampering conventions to interfere, the woman would be the most discriminating chooser. With all sorts of men to select from she would be in no hurry to mate with the first little man that popped the question. Women love physical perfection. With her right to select unquestioned, a woman would pick out the man of her own physical ideal, woo him with all her varied arts and fascinations at her disposal, and nine times out of ten get him. Physically the race would be greatly benefitted. There are many thousands of women in this country who have married men just because they have been asked and who now live the lives of housekeeping drudges, bound to the so-called home only by the stern dictates of duty.”

"The right of man alone to put the all-important question of her life to the woman he selects," says James Grant, "has come into fashion only with the advent of civilization, which is, as we know, but a relative term."

"The exclusive right of proposing marriage did not always belong to the lords of creation, and since it has become his special privilege, men," says Dr. Westermarck, the eminent German ethnologist, "have deteriorated in physical worth. Even now, among those races which distinguish woman by giving her the right to select the man who is to preserve the species which she is to mother, the finest specimens of physical manhood are to be found. Among primitive races, modern as well as ancient, the right of selecting her mate was always given to the woman.'

"Primitive societies were intelligent enough," says M. Dromart, "to allow the law of compensation to work. They realized that the species could only be preserved in its original excellence by allowing the female the right to exercise her discretion as to who should be allowed to mate with her. The law of all primitive societies allowed her to choose, and, in the majority of cases, severely penalized the occasional aggressor who forced his attentions upon an unwilling woman. What was the result? A race of perfect men grew into being. All the males. in the tribe strove by their accomplishments in feats of strength and endurance to win the attraction of the women, whose choice was therefore fixed according to the highest criterion of