To them the one high purpose of motherhood had been for so
long the governing law of life, and the contribution of the father,
though known to them, so distinctly another method to the same end,
that they could not, with all their effort, get the point of
view of the male creature whose desires quite ignore parentage
and seek only for what we euphoniously term "the joys of love."
When I tried to tell Ellador that women too felt so, with us,
she drew away from me, and tried hard to grasp intellectually
what she could in no way sympathize with.
"You mean--that with you--love between man and woman
expresses itself in that way--without regard to motherhood?
To parentage, I mean," she added carefully.
"Yes, surely. It is love we think of--the deep sweet love
between two. Of course we want children, and children come--
but that is not what we think about."
"But--but--it seems so against nature!" she said. "None of
the creatures we know do that. Do other animals--in your country?"
"We are not animals!" I replied with some sharpness.
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