They lived on the plunder
of despoiled peoples just as we live on the products of exploited
continents. They had slaves in multitudes just as we have
machines in masses. Because of the slaves, there were hundreds of
thousands of their women, in the times of the Empire, who had
only denatured housekeeping to do, just as to-day there are
millions of our women who, because of machines, have only that
kind of housekeeping to do. Along with leisure and semi-leisure,
they acquired its consequences, just as we have acquired them.
And the sermons of Augustus Caesar, first hero of their completed
modernity, against childlessness are perfect precedents for those
of Theodore Roosevelt, first hero of ours.
Augustus, however, addressed himself mainly to the men, who
entered into marriage late, or did not enter into it at all, for
reasons identical with ours--the increased competitiveness of the
modern life and the decreased usefulness of the modern wife. It
was the satirists who addressed themselves particularly to the
women. And their tirades against idleness, frivolity, luxury,
dissipation, divorce, and aversion to child-bearing leave nothing
to be desired, in comparison with modern efforts, for
effectiveness in rhetoric--or for ineffectiveness in result.
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