(3) Changes in sex relationship rapidly follow on changes in economic status. The attainment of economic status as distinct from economic value is imperceptibly modifying marriage and the family. Woman and man are partners. While the child becomes more and more the centre on which public interest focusses, at the same time the ties both of wifehood and of parentage and of brotherhood and sisterhood are relaxed. Community interest and life replaces by degrees parental restraint and responsibility. Freedom has its blessings and also its penalties.
Let us trace a woman through her normal life and see what dangers of destitution beset her.
As at first born, the home is her support and natural habitat. But economic independence being possible at an early age, parental restraint is lighter. I have known cases of girls even of fourteen and sixteen leaving home, and with a companion or two, clubbing together and setting up house. They were then free to invite young men, with what consequences may be imagined. A girl in "lodgings" or "with friends" may easily become destitute through changes in employment.
In addition to these wandering children, parents often cast off girls on very slight grounds. To turn a child into the street, if the girl is out of work or supposed to be idle or disorderly, is by no means uncommon. It is so common that some provision for it should be made in every town.
Short of actually leaving home, our girls are now exposed to the temptations of the free life of the street, of largely unrestricted intercourse, often under wrong conditions, with the other sex. This intercourse, however, cannot under modern circumstances, be prevented except by exceptional parents. It should be under healthy conditions and wise control. But at present it is a large factor in destitution, for the lad and lass spend their earnings largely on sex attraction and are penniless in emergencies sure to occur. Hasty and ill-considered marriage may follow. A national education for motherhood is much to be desired; it is perilous and unwise to keep up the old conventional ideas as to "innocence" and "purity" being fostered by ignorance. Let us face the question boldly, and encourage the teaching of right and pure and true views of marriage. Forewarned is often forearmed. At any rate, at this period in life, orphanhood, or some change in family relations, stepfatherhood or motherhood being frequent, may throw the girl much on her lover. There is no reserve of maidenly provision as in many countries. The legislation of betrothal might even be a good thing, and the State might require at least a little forethought. More and more the State becomes the universal child-parent. It is time it studied its responsibilities.