motherhood and the relationships of the sexes

“for the great majority of mankind at least it can be held that life resolves itself quite simply and obviously into three cardinal phases. there is a period of youth and preparation, a great insurgence of emotion and enterprise centring about the passion of love; and a third period in which, arising amidst the warmth and stir of the second, interweaving indeed with the second, the care and love of offspring becomes the central interest in life.… looking at this with a primary regard to its broadest aspect, life is seen essentially as a matter of reproduction; first a growth and training to that end, then commonly mating and actual physical reproduction, and finally the consummation of these things in parental nurture and education. love, home and children, these are the heart-words of life.”—h. g. wells.