This chapter seeks to explain the various ways Helen can do to protect Arthur from the evils of the world. If the earlier chapter shows how afraid she was that Arthur might get in contact with "some dark dire contamination", here she is in a verbal battle with Markham over how to raise her child properly.

Helen's idea of bringing up her child is that she will protect him as much as she could, and help him to clear any obstacle in his way, but in contrast with the popular conventional idea, this will not make a "man" out of Arthur. Most of the other characters in the novel (Mrs Markham, Reverend Milward and Markham himself) disagree, because they feel that, inorder to strengthen Arthur, he should be exposed to as much of the world as possible, and thus in time he will gain experience and will know how to react in future.

But Helen obviously does not agree. One example is that she has tried as much as possible to make Arthur hate wine, because in her opinion, it is a vice that will seek to ruin her boy, just as it ruined Huntingdon. She fears that Arthur will grow up to be the typical "man", abusive and alcoholic. Markham, who does not know of her experience with Huntingdon, clearly repels her method. In his opinion, it is not so much the idea of partaking wine or not, but is the idea of whether or not Arthur will be able to resist alcohol in the future. This idea of alcohol as a vice is not only shown in Huntingdon, but also Hattersley, who physically abuses his wife Milicent, and also in Grimsby, who, although is not married, acts pretty much like a devil, egging the poor Lord Loughborough to consume more wine.

The other concern in the novel is that of a woman's independence. Helen herself is an independent woman, making a living by selling her paintings. The idea of a woman living all alone by herself without a man is not widely accepted, because the conventional idea is that she must be supported by her husband. A woman should not work, but instead look after household matters and over her husband meekly and willngly. This chapter also discusses the different methods in bringing up a girl and a boy. A girl then, as Helen says, should perhaps be taught to "cling" onto others as much as possible (in order to illustrate her point to Markham), while a boy should face the dangers of the world unarmed and defenceless.

Helen detests the conventional idea, and the novel seeks to show that the woman can be independent as much as possible without the help of a man. However, there are ironies that stand out, such as Helen getting help from a man in order to escape from her husband (the man in question who helped her is her brother), and Helen at the end of the novel ending up with Markham to live in bliss. As much as she wants to be independent of a man, she cannot escape men in general.

Furthermore, the idea of independence (of a woman) cannot be wholly achieved if women themselves encourage male supremacy. Mrs Markham, for instance, makes out that men in her life (her sons and her late husband) to be more important than herself and her daughter. She says in the earlier chapter that a woman should have no complaints of her husband if he is punctual for meals, if he "does justice to her good dinners", and if he does not say anything of her cooking. She is herself allowing male domination, and even in her daily life, she gets Rose to make meals that Fergus and Markham would want, and with their likes and dislikes in mind. Another example would be of Milicent, who condones her husband's behaviour towards her without even a single complaint. She even defends him in front of Helen and puts in good words about him, encouraging thus, the domination of males.

The chapter at hand depicts the novel as a whole, in the sense that here is the battle between the sexes. It is not possible for a woman to achieve total independence, but it is always possible to lessen the hold that a man has over a woman.

In its full glory, unedited and complete with grammatical and content errors. Got a 29 out of 50 for it. Sloppy work. =p