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MISCELLANEOUS. 205
man race. If man would follow his own pure instincts,
woman would have nothing to complain of, and nothing
to desire. By the rights of her love, by the power of
her beauty, by the strength and tenderness of her pas
sional nature, she would be acknowledged as the queen
of the social universe; while man would reign in the
sphere of intellect and material achievement.
I do not exaggerate the perfections
of woman. I
think I know her character, and I demand her rights,
not so much for her own sake as for the sake of all.
We can have no true social condition until woman finds
her much-talked-of "
sphere."
LENGTH OF PREGNANCY.
The normal period of pregnancy is forty weeks, or
nine months, reckoning from the last menstrual period.
But as some persons have a quicker pulse than others,
so, in some, the vital processes may be more rapid.
There are also diseased irregularities which vary the
time. Even domestic animals vary weeks in their
periods. A gestation, even in a tolerably healthy wom
an, may be prolonged two or three weeks, and, in dis
ease, still further. On the other hand, it may come on
prematurely.
There have been cases where a foetus of six months
has been born, and lived ; but seven months is generally
considered the period of viability.
At this time, even
where miscarriages are artificially produced, it is said
that two children out of three live. A reasonable man
may be satisfied of the legitimacy of his child, if he has
not been absent from its mother more than ten months
at the period of its birth ; and if he can count eight
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