Let us try as
swiftly and simply as possible to form a general idea at least of the
way through. Remember that we are working upward from Mr. Shaw's
question of "Why not separate at the choice of either party?" We have
got thus far, that no two people who do not love each other should be
compelled to live together, except where the welfare of their children
comes in to override their desire to separate, and now we have to
consider what may or may not be for the welfare of the children. Mr.
Shaw, following the late Samuel Butler, meets this difficulty by the
most extravagant abuse of parents. He would have us believe that the
worst enemies a child can have are its mother and father, and that the
only civilised path to citizenship is by the incubator, the creche, and
the mixed school and college. In these matters he is not only ignorant,
but unfeeling and unsympathetic, extraordinarily so in view of his great
capacity for pity and sweetness in other directions and of his indignant
hatred of cruelty and unfairness, and it is not necessary to waste time
in discussing what the common experience confutes Neither is it
necessary to fly to the other extreme, and indulge in preposterous
sentimentalities about the magic of fatherhood and a mother's love.
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