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THE IDEAL OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD
under the ill-fated Weimar Republic, the German women lived fast and lcarned much. The rich experience gaincd in thosc cventful years cannot be easily obliterated. They cannot be expected to rura for goou to the Kitche (Kitchen), nor transform cach home into a Kinder-Fabrik (factory fur brccling children).
Thanks to the poverty and cultural bach wardness of the masses, pre-revclutionary Russia was also a prodigious mother. The fecundity of the Russian peasantry still remains unimpaircii. Mass psychology cannot be changed in a generation, siccially of those who are not actively involved in the revolution. But in the citics, the birth-rate declined in the post-revolutionary period thanks to the cxtreme intensity of the socio-political life and a rapid cultural advance. In the coming years, the birth-rate is bound to fall throughout the U.S.S.R., in an inverse ratio to the gencral cultural progress guaranteed by the establishment of socialist economy. But given the new social conditions there, the law of population will be modified. Most probably, there will be an absolute fall of the hirth-rate ; but within the limits of that general law, the population will expand, because there will be no cconomic restriction. The situation, however, will be radically different from the pre-revolutionary days, when human beings bred as a matter of habit, like animals. Cultivated people are bound to exercise discretion. Even when the
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