She Abhors “Race Suicide,” and Condemns the So-Called “Emancipation” of
Her Sex.
The Dowager Queen Margherita of Italy has been expressing her
disapproval of “race suicide” with no less frankness than President
Roosevelt. Not often is a queen interviewed; less often is a royal
interview more than a collection of perfunctory phrases, polite, but
insignificant. Yet Queen Margherita has been saying:
A childless family is incomplete. There is a poetry and a pathos about
childhood which appeal to every right-hearted woman. Most women,
though they may not be able to put this idea into words, feel it. They
have the maternal instinct. Hence the remoteness of race suicide.
Women show their intellectuality by rearing healthy and great
children, just as much as they do by writing books or painting
pictures. The wife who deliberately refuses to bring children into the
world must have something wrong with her moral make-up.
I am very pleased to know that there is a movement in the United
States in favor of large families, and that President Roosevelt has
put himself upon record as favoring them. European women have begun to
look for light to their sisters of the United States.
On the subject of woman’s “emancipation” Queen Margherita is equally
outspoken:
I am absolutely opposed to any extravagant theories of what is called
the emancipation of women. In whatever condition of life a woman may
be placed, her first duty is the negative one of not giving up the
qualities that distinguish her sex. Above all, she should guard
against developing the trait of men. A blending of ancient reserve
with modern independence would give us the ideal woman.