We may not agree with the great misogynist, _Schopenhaur_, in his depreciation of the female sex, or in his assertion that woman exists simply and solely for the propagation of the species, and that “her life should therefore flow more quietly, more inconspicuously, and more gently than that of man toward its goal;” nor need we regard as justified the severe sentence of the philosopher, _E. von Hartmann_, that from the moral standpoint, “the greater number of women pass the whole of their lives in a state of minority, and, therefore, to the end stand in need of supervision and guidance;” but the statement made by _Friedr. Nietsche_ in his book _Also sprach Zarathustra_ deserves acceptation, “Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman has its answer: it is called pregnancy,” and again, “For woman, man is only the means; the end is always the child.”
Unsearchable in its judgments, nature has imposed on woman alone the consequences of the act of generation; man has the pleasure, but not the labor and the pain. We might indeed regard as highly unjust the distribution of the rôles in the process of reproduction, were it not that in a mother’s love and a mother’s joys, woman finds a compensatory solace. The man’s part is a much easier one and costs far less than that of woman; with the gratification of his sexual desire, man shakes off any further responsibility, whereas the woman’s body becomes the workshop in the wonderful act of creation of a new human life.
Maternity, says _Lombroso_, is the characteristic function of the female sex, upon which rests her whole organic and physical variability, and this function is indeed throughout of an altruistic nature. Although there is a certain antagonism between the sexual impulse and maternity—according to _Icard_, the sexual impulse is extinguished in women during pregnancy,—still, maternity appears to depend upon sexual perceptions. For instance, the act of suckling the infant often arouses voluptuous sensations, and _Icard_ mentions a case in which a woman permitted fertilization to occur solely on account of the pleasure obtained by suckling. The anatomical cause of this fact is to be found in the connections between the nipple and the uterus by way of the sympathetic nervous system. * * * It is likewise probable that in the happy feeling of maternity there intermingle very gentle voluptuous sensations derived from the genital organs. According to _Bain_ also, very delicate sensations of contact form an element in maternal love.