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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER S DIARY
grcator glory of motherhood. However, the fact happily is that they would not submit to any such inhuman and immoral treatment. They are rebels. potentially, if not actually. There are many among them who have become conscious of the fact that the new conditions of life are totally incompatible with the traditional social and domestic ivicals. They are the furies of iht women's inovement, who are admonished for their new-fanglad ivicas import from the West. But they are asking a question which arises from thic facts of life they are bound to live. They want to be wires ; they want to le mothers. But they find their way to the fulfilment of those natural desires beset with difficultics which grow more numerous every day. A great inany of the kind of men they would like to have for husbands are debarred from the venture of matrimony by cconomic disability. Prospective husbands, who would make excellent companions and desirable mates, may not be promising providers of material necessities. Therefore, under the given conditions of life, in order to be wives and mothers, women are compelled to be something more ; they must be fully enfranchised members of society, possessed of all the rights and responsibilities associated with that status. Otherwise, they cannot realise the natural ideals of womanhood.
In the absence of economic independence, supremacy in domestic affairs is a myth. Only as
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