Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Although the superior maternity of the human female is so difficult to / prove, so open to heavy charges of inadequacy, so erratic and / pathological, there remain intact our devout belief in it, our / reverence, our unshaken conviction that it is the one perfect thing. The / facts as to our carelessness and ignorance in the fulfilment of this / function are undeniable: the rate of infant mortality and children's / diseases,-those classed by physicians as "preventable diseases," / namely,-these mortal errors and failures confront us everywhere; but we / ignore them all, or attribute them to any and every reason save / deficient motherhood.

One of the most frequent excuses, among those who have gone far enough / to admit that excuse is needed, is that the father is to blame for these / conditions. His vices, it is alleged, weaken the constitution of the / race. His failure to provide prevents the mother from giving the proper / care. He is held responsible for what evil we see in our children; and / still we worship the mother for the physical process of bearing a / child,-now considered an act of heroism,-and for the "devotion" with / which she clings to it afterward, irrespective of the wisdom or / effectiveness of this devotion. A healthy and independent motherhood / would no more think of taking credit to itself for the right fulfilment / of its natural functions than would a cat for bringing forth her kittens / or a sheep her lambs. The common fact that the women of the lower social / grades bear more children and bear them more easily than the women of / higher classes ought to give pause to this ridiculous assumption, but it / does not. The more women weaken themselves and their offspring, and / imperil their very lives by anti-maternal habits, the more difficulty, / danger, and expense are associated with this natural process, the more / do women solemnly take credit to themselves and receive it from others / for the glorious self-sacrifice with which they risk their lives (and / their babies' lives! ) for the preservation of humanity. As to the father / and his share in the evil results, nothing that he has ever done or can / do removes from motherhood its primal responsibility.