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Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860-1935

"Herland"


To go back to my little analysis of what happened:
They developed all this close inter-service in the interests of
their children. To do the best work they had to specialize, of
course; the children needed spinners and weavers, farmers and
gardeners, carpenters and masons, as well as mothers.
Then came the filling up of the place. When a population
multiplies by five every thirty years it soon reaches the limits
of a country, especially a small one like this. They very soon
eliminated all the grazing cattle--sheep were the last to go, I believe.
Also, they worked out a system of intensive agriculture surpassing
anything I ever heard of, with the very forests all reset with
fruit- or nut-bearing trees.
Do what they would, however, there soon came a time when they
were confronted with the problem of "the pressure of population"
in an acute form. There was really crowding, and with it,
unavoidably, a decline in standards.
And how did those women meet it?
Not by a "struggle for existence" which would result in an
everlasting writhing mass of underbred people trying to get
ahead of one another--some few on top, temporarily, many constantly
crushed out underneath, a hopeless substratum of paupers
and degenerates, and no serenity or peace for anyone, no
possibility for really noble qualities among the people at large.


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