Nonsense! The only must there is about it all is the cue we took from our PARENTS and teachers and the traditions of men. We are hypnotized to think we must.

And it’s all a lie, too. Suppose you try it once and see. Suppose you sit down and say you will not. Who is to compel you? Nobody. You have heard of women who took to their beds and staid there—out of pure lack of anything else to attract the attention they wanted. They could have walked if they would—as circumstances proved—but they wouldn’t. They went to bed. And somebody or other always met the compulsion and took care of them. They refused to even take care’ of themselves; they slid the “must” off themselves. And there was always somebody else ready to assume the "must."

That is it—we assume our own burdens. The less vigorous and determined and wise we are the more of these burdens we assume—burdens dropped by others.

And what good does it do to bear burdens? None—worse than none. The woman who dropped hers and went to bed simply stagnates and atrophies for lack of activity; and the woman who assumes the burden of walking and thinking for her wears herself out for nothing at all. If she had walked out and left the woman in bed that woman would have got up again and walked and thought for herself.

All our burden-bearings are as utterly foolish and unavailing as that. I have before me letters from two women who are still toting their sons around, although the sons are past the thirty mile-stone, and do not even take the trouble to let their mothers know their whereabouts. If those mothers had dropped those boys years ago and made the most of life for themselves they would be now such bright, handsome attractive women that they couldn’t keep their sons away from them.

The burden-bearing woman (or man) tires herself so with useless efforts of mind and body that she has not energy enough left to keep herself in even decent trim. She gets bedraggled and falls away back to the tail end of the world’s never-pausing procession.

Women as a class do not think and command themselves to best advantage. They are content to shoulder any old burden

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