Instant Ebook Access, One Click Away – Begin at ebookball.

com

Windows Programming Development Memory Management

Algorithms And Implementation In C 1st edition by
Bill Blunden 1556223471 978-1556223471

https://ebookball.com/product/windows-programming-
development-memory-management-algorithms-and-implementation-
in-c-1st-edition-by-bill-
blunden-1556223471-978-1556223471-15236/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Get Instant Ebook Downloads – Browse at https://ebookball.com

 Your digital treasures (PDF, ePub, MOBI) await
Download instantly and pick your perfect format...

Read anywhere, anytime, on any device!

Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C 1st Edition by

Frantisek Franek isbn 0521520436 9780521520430

https://ebookball.com/product/memory-as-a-programming-concept-in-c-
and-c-1st-edition-by-frantisek-franek-
isbn-0521520436-9780521520430-12552/

ebookball.com

Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C 1st Edition by

Frantisek Franek ISBN 051183862X 9780511838620

https://ebookball.com/product/memory-as-a-programming-concept-in-c-
and-c-1st-edition-by-frantisek-franek-
isbn-051183862x-9780511838620-14982/

ebookball.com

Data Structure Algorithms Using C A Practical

Implementation 1st edition by Sachi Nandan Mohanty,
Pabitra Kumar Tripathy 9781119752035 1119752035

https://ebookball.com/product/data-structure-algorithms-using-c-a-
practical-implementation-1st-edition-by-sachi-nandan-mohanty-pabitra-
kumar-tripathy-9781119752035-1119752035-18754/

ebookball.com

Excel Add in Development in C C Applications in

FinanceWiley Finance Series 1st Edition by Steve Dalton
0470024690 978-0470024690

https://ebookball.com/product/excel-add-in-development-in-c-c-
applications-in-financewiley-finance-series-1st-edition-by-steve-
dalton-0470024690-978-0470024690-11520/

ebookball.com
Algorithms in C 1st edition by Robert Sedgewick 0201514257
9780201514254

https://ebookball.com/product/algorithms-in-c-1st-edition-by-robert-
sedgewick-0201514257-9780201514254-15226/

ebookball.com

Data Structures and Algorithms in C 1st edition by Adam

Drozdek ASIN B002WLXMBY

https://ebookball.com/product/data-structures-and-algorithms-in-c-1st-
edition-by-adam-drozdek-asin-b002wlxmby-25076/

ebookball.com

(Ebook PDF) Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Game Development

1st edition by Adam Dawes 1430258373 9781430258377 full
chapters

https://ebookball.com/product/ebook-pdf-windows-8-and-windows-
phone-8-game-development-1st-edition-by-adam-
dawes-1430258373-9781430258377-full-chapters-22698/

ebookball.com

Data Structures Algorithms and Applications in C++ With

Microsoft Compiler 1st edition by Sartaj Sahni ISBN
007236226X 978-0072362268

https://ebookball.com/product/data-structures-algorithms-and-
applications-in-c-with-microsoft-compiler-1st-edition-by-sartaj-sahni-
isbn-007236226x-978-0072362268-16394/

ebookball.com

Windows Batch File Programming 1st edition by Premkumar

ISBN

https://ebookball.com/product/windows-batch-file-programming-1st-
edition-by-premkumar-isbn-16868/

ebookball.com
Memory Management
Algorithms and
Implementation in C/C++

by
Bill Blunden

Wordware Publishing, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blunden, Bill, 1969-

Memory management: algorithms and implementation in C/C++ / by
Bill Blunden.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55622-347-1
1. Memory management (Computer science) 2. Computer algorithms.
3. C (Computer program language) 4. C++ (Computer program
language) I. Title.
QA76.9.M45 .B558 2002
005.4'35--dc21 2002012447
CIP

© 2003, Wordware Publishing, Inc.

All Rights Reserved
2320 Los Rios Boulevard
Plano, Texas 75074

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by

any means without permission in writing from
Wordware Publishing, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 1-55622-347-1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0208

Product names mentioned are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of
their respective companies.

All inquiries for volume purchases of this book should be addressed to Wordware
Publishing, Inc., at the above address. Telephone inquiries may be made by calling:
(972) 423-0090
 This book is dedicated to Rob, Julie, and Theo.

And also to David M. Lee

“I came to learn physics, and I got Jimmy Stewart”

iii
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Chapter 1 Memory Management Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . 1

Mechanism Versus Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Memory Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Address Lines and Buses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Intel Pentium Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Real Mode Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Protected Mode Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Protected Mode Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Protected Mode Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Paging as Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Addresses: Logical, Linear, and Physical . . . . . . . 33
Page Frames and Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Case Study: Switching to Protected Mode . . . . . . . 35
Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Chapter 2 Memory Management Policies. . . . . . . . . . . 45

Case Study: MS-DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
DOS Segmentation and Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
DOS Memory Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Memory Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Example: A Simple Video Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Example: Usurping DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Jumping the 640KB Hurdle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Case Study: MMURTL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Background and Design Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
MMURTL and Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Paging Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
MMURTL and Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

v
Table of Contents

Memory Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Case Study: Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
History and MINIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Design Goals and Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Linux and Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Linux and Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Three-Level Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Page Fault Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Memory Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Memory Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Example: Siege Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Example: Siege Warfare, More Treachery . . . . . . . 87
Case Study: Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Historical Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Memory Map Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Windows and Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Special Weapons and Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Crashing Windows with a Keystroke . . . . . . . . 102
Reverse Engineering the GDT . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Windows and Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Linear Address Space Taxonomy . . . . . . . . . . 105
Musical Chairs for Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Memory Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Demand Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Memory Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Memory Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Turning Off Paging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Example: Things That Go Thunk in the Night . . . . 118
Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Books and Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Web Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Chapter 3 High-Level Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

View from 10,000 Feet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Compiler-Based Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Data Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Code Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Activation Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

vi
 Table of Contents

Static or Dynamic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Heap Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
System Call Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
The Heap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Manual Memory Management. . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Example: C Standard Library Calls . . . . . . . . . 158
Automatic Memory Management . . . . . . . . . . 160
Example: The BDW Conservative Garbage Collector
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Manual Versus Automatic?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
The Evolution of Languages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Case Study: COBOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Case Study: FORTRAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Case Study: Pascal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Case Study: C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Case Study: Java. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Language Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Virtual Machine Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Java Memory Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Memory Management: The Three-layer Cake . . . . . . 202
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Chapter 4 Manual Memory Management . . . . . . . . . . 207

Replacements for malloc() and free() . . . . . . . 207
System Call Interface and Porting Issues . . . . . . . . 208
Keep It Simple . . . Stupid! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Measuring Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
The Ultimate Measure: Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
ANSI and Native Time Routines . . . . . . . . . . 213
The Data Distribution: Creating Random Variates . 215
Testing Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Indexing: The General Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
malloc() Version 1: Bitmapped Allocation. . . . . . . 224
Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
tree.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
bitmap.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
memmgr.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
mallocV1.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
perform.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
driver.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

vii
Table of Contents

Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
malloc() Version 2: Sequential Fit . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
memmgr.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
mallocV2.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
driver.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
malloc() Version 3: Segregated Lists . . . . . . . . . 265
Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
memmgr.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
mallocV3.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Performance Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Chapter 5 Automatic Memory Management . . . . . . . . 281

Garbage Collection Taxonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
malloc() Version 4: Reference Counting . . . . . . . 283
Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
driver.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
mallocV4.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
perform.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
memmgr.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
malloc() Version 5: Mark-Sweep . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
driver.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
mallocV5.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
perform.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
memmgr.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Performance Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Potential Additions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

viii
 Table of Contents

Object Format Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Variable Heap Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Indirect Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Real-Time Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Life Span Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
Multithreaded Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Chapter 6 Miscellaneous Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Suballocators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Monolithic Versus Microkernel Architectures . . . . . . 348
Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

ix
Acknowledgments

Publishing a book is an extended process that involves a number of

people. Writing the final manuscript is just a small part of the big
picture. This section is dedicated to all the people who directly, and
indirectly, lent me their help.
First and foremost, I would like to thank Jim Hill of Wordware
Publishing for giving me the opportunity to write a book and believ-
ing in me. I would also like to extend thanks to Wes Beckwith and
Beth Kohler. Wes, in addition to offering constant encouragement,
does a great job of putting up with my e-mails and handling the vari-
ous packages that I send. Beth Kohler, who performed the
incredible task of reading my first book for Wordware in a matter of
days, has also been invaluable.
I first spoke with Barry Brey back in the mid-1990s when I
became interested in protected mode programming. He has always
taken the time to answer my questions and offer his insight. Barry
wrote the first book on the Intel chip set back in 1984. Since then,
he has written well over 20 books. His current textbook on Intel’s
IA32 processors is in its sixth edition. This is why I knew I had to
ask Barry to be the technical editor for this book. Thanks, Barry.
“Look, our middleware even runs on that little Windows
NT piece of crap.”
— George Matkovitz
“Hey, who was the %&^$ son of a &*$# who wrote this
optimized load of . . . oh, it was me.”
— Mike Adler
Mike Adler and George Matkovitz are two old fogeys who worked at
Control Data back when Seymour Cray kicked the tar out of IBM.
George helped to implement the world’s first message-passing
operating system at Control Data. Mike also worked on a number of
groundbreaking system software projects. I met these two codgers
while performing R&D for an ERP vendor in the Midwest. I hadn’t
noticed how much these engineers had influenced me until I left

xi
Acknowledgments

Minnesota for California. It was almost as though I had learned

through osmosis. A lot of my core understanding of software and
the computer industry in general is based on the bits of hard-won
advice and lore that these gentlemen passed on to me. I distinctly
remember walking into Mike’s office and asking him, “Hey Mike,
how do you build an operating system?”
I would also like to thank Frank Merat, a senior professor at Case
Western Reserve University. Frank has consistently shown interest
in my work and has offered his support whenever he could. There is
no better proving ground for a book than an established research
university.
Finally, I would like to thank SonicWALL, Inc. for laying me off
and giving me the opportunity to sit around and think. The days I
spent huddled with my computers were very productive.

xii
Introduction

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

— The Wizard of Oz

There are a multitude of academic computer science texts that dis-

cuss memory management. They typically devote a chapter or less
to the subject and then move on. Rarely are concrete, machine-level
details provided, and actual source code is even scarcer. When the
author is done with his whirlwind tour, the reader tends to have a
very limited idea about what is happening behind the curtain. This
is no surprise, given that the nature of the discussion is rampantly
ambiguous. Imagine trying to appreciate Beethoven by having
someone read the sheet music to you or experience the Mona Lisa
by reading a description in a guidebook.
This book is different. Very different.
In this book, I am going to pull the curtain back and let you see
the little man operating the switches and pulleys. You may be
excited by what you see, or you may feel sorry that you decided to
look. But as Enrico Fermi would agree, knowledge is always better
than ignorance.
This book provides an in-depth look at memory subsystems and
offers extensive source code examples. In cases where I do not
have access to source code (i.e., Windows), I offer advice on how to
gather forensic evidence, which will nurture insight. While some
books only give readers a peak under the hood, this book will give
readers a power drill and allow them to rip out the transmission.
The idea behind this is to allow readers to step into the garage and
get their hands dirty.
My own experience with memory managers began back in the
late 1980s when Borland’s nifty Turbo C 1.0 compiler was released.
This was my first taste of the C language. I can remember using a
disassembler to reverse engineer library code in an attempt to see
how the malloc() and free() standard library functions

xiii
Introduction

operated. I don’t know how many school nights I spent staring at an

80x25 monochrome screen, deciphering hex dumps. It was tough
going and not horribly rewarding (but I was curious, and I couldn’t
help myself). Fortunately, I have done most of the dirty work for
you. You will conveniently be able to sidestep all of the hurdles and
tedious manual labor that confronted me.
If you were like me and enjoyed taking your toys apart when you
were a child to see how they worked, then this is the book for you.
So lay your computer on a tarpaulin, break out your compilers, and
grab an oil rag. We’re going to take apart memory management sub-
systems and put them back together. Let the dust fly where it may!

Historical Setting
In the late 1930s, a group of scholars arrived at Bletchley Park in an
attempt to break the Nazis’ famous Enigma cipher. This group of
codebreakers included a number of notable thinkers, like Tommy
Flowers and Alan Turing. As a result of the effort to crack Enigma,
the first electronic computer was constructed in 1943. It was named
Colossus and used thermionic valves (known today as vacuum tubes)
for storing data. Other vacuum tube computers followed. For exam-
ple, ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) was
built by the U.S. Army in 1945 to compute ballistic firing tables.

NOTE Science fiction aficionados might enjoy a movie called Colos-

sus: The Forbin Project. It was made in 1969 and centers around
Colossus, a supercomputer designed by a scientist named Charles
Forbin. Forbin convinces the military that they should give control of
the U.S. nuclear arsenal to Colossus in order to eliminate the potential
of human error accidentally starting World War III. The movie is similar
in spirit to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but without the
happy ending: Robot is built, robot becomes sentient, robot runs
amok. I was told that everyone who has ever worked at Control Data
has seen this movie.

The next earth-shaking development arrived in 1949 when ferrite

(iron) core memory was invented. Each bit of memory was made of
a small, circular iron magnet. The value of the bit switched from “1”
to “0” by using electrical wires to magnetize the circular loops in
one of two possible directions. The first computer to utilize ferrite
core memory was IBM’s 705, which was put into production in
1955. Back in those days, 8KB of memory was considered a huge
piece of real estate.

xiv
 Introduction

Everything changed once transistors became the standard way to

store bits. The transistor was presented to the world in 1948 when
Bell Labs decided to go public with its new device. In 1954, Bell
Labs constructed the first transistor-based computer. It was named
TRADIC (TRAnsistorized DIgital Computer). TRADIC was much
smaller and more efficient than vacuum tube computers. For exam-
ple, ENIAC required 1,000 square feet and caused power outages in
Philadelphia when it was turned on. TRADIC, on the other hand,
was roughly three cubic feet in size and ran on 100 watts of
electricity.

NOTE Before electronic computers became a feasible alternative,

heavy mathematical computation relied on human computers. Large
groups of people would be assembled to carry out massive numerical
algorithms. Each person would do a part of a computation and pass it
on to someone else. This accounts for the prevalance of logarithm
tables in mathematical references like the one published by the Chem-
ical Rubber Company (CRC). Slide rules and math tables were
standard fare before the rise of the digital calculator.

ASIDE
“After 45 minutes or so, we’ll see that the results are
obvious.”
— David M. Lee
I have heard Nobel laureates in physics, like Dave Lee,
complain that students who rely too heavily on calculators
lose their mathematical intuition. To an extent, Dave is cor-
rect. Before the dawn of calculators, errors were more com-
mon, and developing a feel for numeric techniques was a
useful way to help catch errors when they occurred.
During the Los Alamos project, a scientist named Dick
Feynman ran a massive human computer. He once mentioned
that the performance and accuracy of his group’s computa-
tions were often more a function of his ability to motivate
people. He would sometimes assemble people into teams
and have them compete against each other. Not only was
this a good idea from the standpoint of making things more
interesting, but it was also an effective technique for catching
discrepancies.

xv
Introduction

In 1958, the first integrated circuit was invented. The inventor was
a fellow named Jack Kilby, who was hanging out in the basement of
Texas Instruments one summer while everyone else was on vaca-
tion. A little over a decade later, in 1969, Intel came out with a 1
kilobit memory chip. After that, things really took off. By 1999, I
was working on a Windows NT 4.0 workstation (service pack 3) that
had 2GB of SDRAM memory.
The general trend you should be able to glean from the previous
discussion is that memory components have solved performance
requirements by getting smaller, faster, and cheaper. The hardware
people have been able to have their cake and eat it too. However,
the laws of physics place a limit on how small and how fast we can
actually make electronic components. Eventually, nature itself will
stand in the way of advancement. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Princi-
ple, shown below, is what prevents us from building infinitely small
components.
x p (h/4 )
For those who are math-phobic, I will use Heinsenberg’s own words
to describe what this equation means:
“The more precisely the position is determined, the less pre-
cisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.”
In other words, if you know exactly where a particle is, then you
will not be able to contain it because its momentum will be huge.
Think of this like trying to catch a tomato seed. Every time you try
to squeeze down and catch it, the seed shoots out of your hands and
flies across the dinner table into Uncle Don’s face.
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is what keeps us from
building infinitely fast components. With the exception of black
holes, the speed limit in this universe is 3x108 meters per second.
Eventually, these two physical limits are going to creep up on us.
When this happens, the hardware industry will have to either
make larger chips (in an effort to fit more transistors in a given area)
or use more efficient algorithms so that they can make better use of
existing space. My guess is that relying on better algorithms will be
the cheaper option. This is particularly true with regard to memory
management. Memory manipulation is so frequent and crucial to
performance that designing better memory management subsys-
tems will take center stage in the future. This will make the time
spent reading this book a good investment.

xvi
 Introduction

Impartial Analysis
In this book, I try very hard to offer memory management solutions
without taking sides. I have gone to great lengths to present an
unbiased discussion. This is important because it is extremely
tempting to champion a certain memory management algorithm
(especially if you invented it). There are some journal authors who
would have you believe that their new algorithm is a panacea to
cure the ills of the world. I do not have the ulterior motives of a col-
lege professor. I am here to offer you a set of tools and then let you
decide how best to use them. In this book, I will present you with
different techniques and try to point out the circumstances in which
they perform well.
The question “Which is the best memory management algo-
rithm?” is very similar in spirit to any of the following questions:
“Which operating system is the best?”
“Which programming language is the best?”
“Which data structure is the best?”
“Which type of screwdriver is the best?”
I can recall asking a program manager at Eaton Corp., John
Schindler, what the best operating system was. John was managing
at least a dozen different high-end platforms for Eaton, and I
thought he would know. I was expecting him to come right back
with a quick answer like: “Oh, OpenBSD is the best.” What actually
happened was something that surprised me. He looked at me for a
minute, as if the question was absurd. Then he smiled and said,
“Well, it really depends on what you’re going to use the machine for.
I use Solaris for networking, HP-UX for app servers, AIX to talk to
our mainframe, NT for mail, . . . ”
The truth is there is no “best” solution. Most solutions merely
offer certain trade-offs. In the end, the best tool to use will depend
upon the peculiarities of the problem you are trying to solve.
This is a central theme that appears throughout the domain of
computer science. Keep it in the back of your mind, like some sort
of Buddhist mantra:
“There is no best solution, Grasshopper, only trade-offs.”
For example, linked lists and arrays can both represent a linear set
of items. With a linked list, you get easy manipulation at the
expense of speed. Adding an element to a linked list is as easy as
modifying a couple of pointers. However, to find a given list

xvii
Introduction

element, you may have to traverse the entire list manually until you
find it. Conversely, with an array, you get access speed at the
expense of flexibility. Accessing an array element is as easy as add-
ing an integer to a base address, but adding and deleting array
elements requires a lot of costly shifting. If your code is not going to
do a lot of list modification, an array is the best choice. If your code
will routinely add and delete list members, a linked list is the better
choice. It all depends upon the context of the problem.

Audience
This book is directed toward professional developers and students
who are interested in discovering how memory is managed on pro-
duction systems. Specifically, engineers working on PC or
embedded operating systems may want to refresh their memory or
take a look at alternative approaches. If this is the case, then this
book will serve as a repository of algorithms and software compo-
nents that you can apply to your day-to-day issues.
Professionals who design and construct development tools will
also find this book useful. In general, development tools fall into the
class of online transaction processing (OLTP) programs. When it
comes to OLTP apps, pure speed is the name of the game. As such,
programming language tools, like compilers, often make use of
suballocators to speed up the performance of the code that manipu-
lates their symbol table.
With regard to compiling large software programs consisting of
millions of lines of code, this type of suballocator-based optimization
can mean the difference between waiting for a few minutes and
waiting for a few hours. Anyone who mucks around with
suballocators will find this book indispensable.
Software engineers who work with virtual machines will also be
interested in the topics that I cover. The Java virtual machine is
famous for its garbage collection facilities. In this book I explore
several automatic memory management techniques and also pro-
vide a couple of concrete garbage collection implementations in
C++.
Finally, this book also targets the curious. There is absolutely
nothing wrong with being curious. In fact, I would encourage it. You
may be an application developer who has used memory manage-
ment facilities countless times in the past without taking the time to

xviii
 Introduction

determine how they really work. You may also have nurtured an
interest that you have had to repress due to deadlines and other pri-
orities. This book will offer such engineers an opportunity to
indulge their desire to see what is going on under the hood.

Organization
This book is divided into six chapters. I will start from the ground
up and try to provide a comprehensive, but detailed, view of mem-
ory management fundamentals. Because of this, each chapter builds
on what has been presented in the previous one. Unless you are a
memory management expert, the best way to read this book is
straight through.

Chapter 1 – Memory Management Mechanisms

The first chapter presents a detailed look at the machinery that
allows memory management to take place. Almost every operating
system in production takes advantage of facilities that are provided
by the native processor. This is done primarily for speed, since
pushing repetitive bookkeeping down to the hardware benefits over-
all performance. There have been attempts by some engineers to
track and protect memory strictly outside of the hardware. But
speed is key to the hardware realm, and this fact always forces such
attempts off of the playing field. The end result is that understand-
ing how memory management is performed means taking a good
look at how memory hardware functions.

Chapter 2 – Memory Management Policies

Computer hardware provides the mechanism for managing memory,
but the policy decisions that control how this mechanism is applied
are dictated by the operating system and its system call interface to
user programs. In this chapter, the memory management compo-
nents provided by the operating system are analyzed and dissected.
This will necessarily involve taking a good, hard look at the inter-
nals of production operating systems like Linux and Windows.
In general, hardware always provides features that are ahead of
the software that uses it. For example, Intel’s Pentium provides four
distinct layers of memory protection. Yet, I could not find a single

xix
Introduction

operating system that took advantage of all four layers. All the sys-
tems that I examined use a vastly simplified two-layer scheme.

NOTE The relationship between hardware and software is analo-

gous to the relationship between mathematics and engineering.
Mathematics tends to be about 50 years ahead of engineering, which
means that it usually takes about 50 years for people to find ways to
apply the theorems and relationships that the mathematicians uncover.

Chapter 3 – High-Level Services

Above the hardware and the cocoon of code that is the operating
system are the user applications. Because they are insulated from
the inner workings of the operating system, applications have an
entirely different way to request, use, and free memory. The man-
ner in which a program utilizes memory is often dependent on the
language in which the program was written. This chapter looks at
memory management from the perspective of different program-
ming languages. This chapter also serves as a launch pad for the
next two chapters by presenting an overview of memory manage-
ment at the application level.

Chapter 4 – Manual Memory Management

In Chapter 4, a number of manual memory management algorithms
are presented in explicit detail. The algorithms are presented in the-
ory, implemented in C++, and then critiqued in terms of their
strengths and weaknesses. The chapter ends with suggestions for
improvements and a look at certain hybrid approaches.

Chapter 5 – Automatic Memory Management

In Chapter 5, a number of automatic memory management algo-
rithms are examined. The algorithms are presented in theory,
implemented in C++, and then critiqued in terms of their strengths
and weaknesses. A significant amount of effort is invested in mak-
ing this discussion easy to follow and keeping the reader focused on
key points. Two basic garbage collectors are provided and compared
to other, more advanced collection schemes.

xx
 Introduction

Chapter 6 – Miscellaneous Topics

This chapter covers a few special-purpose subjects that were diffi-
cult to fit into the previous five chapters. For example, I describe
how to effectively implement a suballocator in a compiler. I also take
a look at how memory management subsystems can be made to
provide dynamic algorithm support at run time via a microkernel
architecture.

Approach
When it comes to learning something complicated, like memory
management, I believe that the most effective way is to examine a
working subsystem. On the other hand, it is easy to become lost in
the details of a production memory manager. Contemporary mem-
ory managers, like the one in Linux, are responsible for keeping
track of literally hundreds of run-time quantities. Merely tracking
the subsystem’s execution path can make one dizzy. Hence, a bal-
ance has to be struck between offering example source code that is
high quality and also easy to understand. I think I have done a suffi-
cient job of keeping the learning threshold low without sacrificing
utility.

NOTE I am more than aware of several books where the author is

more interested in showing you how clever he is instead of actually try-
ing to teach a concept. When at all possible, I try to keep my examples
relatively simple and avoid confusing syntax. My goal is to instruct, not
to impress you so much that you stop reading.

In this book, I will follow a fairly standard three-step approach:

1. Theory
2. Practice
3. Analysis
I will start each topic by presenting a related background theory.
Afterwards, I will offer one or more source code illustrations and
then end each discussion with an analysis of trade-offs and alterna-
tives. I follow this methodology throughout the entire book.

xxi
Introduction

Typographical Conventions
Words and phrases will appear in italics in this book for two reasons:
n To place emphasis
n When defining a term
The courier font will be used to indicate that text is one of the
following:
n Source code
n An address in memory
n Console input/output
n A filename or extension
Numeric values appear throughout this book in a couple of different
formats. Hexadecimal values are indicated by either prefixing them
with “0x” or appending “H” to the end.
For example:
0xFF02
0FF02H
The C code that I include will use the former notation, and the
assembler code that I include will use the latter format.
Binary values are indicated by appending the letter “B” to the
end. For example:
0110111B

Prerequisites
“C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it
harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.”
— Bjarne Stroustrup

In this book, I have primarily used three different development

languages:
n 80x86 assembler
n C
n C++
For some examples, I had no other choice but to rely on assembly
language. There are some things, like handling processor

xxii
 Introduction

interrupts, that can only be fleshed out using assembler. This is one
reason why mid-level languages, like C, provide syntactic facilities
for inline assembly code. If you look at the Linux source code, you
will see a variety of inline assembly code snippets. If at all possible,
I wrapped my assembly code in C. However, you can’t always do
this.
Learning assembly language may seem like an odious task, but
there are several tangible and significant rewards. Assembly lan-
guage is just a mnemonic representation of machine instructions.
When you have a complete understanding of a processor’s assembly
language, including its special “privileged” instructions, you will
also have a fairly solid understanding of how the machine functions
and what its limitations are. In addition, given that compilers gener-
ate assembly code, or at least spit it out in a listing file, you will also
be privy to the inner workings of development tools.
In short, knowing assembly language is like learning Latin. It
may not seem immediately useful, but it is . . . just give it time.
I use C early in the book for small applications when I felt like I
could get away with it. Most of the larger source code examples in
this book, however, are written in C++. If you don’t know C or
C++, you should pick up one of the books mentioned in the “Refer-
ences” section at the end of the Introduction. After a few weeks of
cramming, you should be able to follow my source code examples.
I think C++ is an effective language for implementing memory
management algorithms because it offers a mixture of tools. With
C++, you can manipulate memory at a very low, bit-wise level and
invoke inline assembly code when needed. You can also create
high-level constructs using the object-oriented language features in
C++. Encapsulation, in particular, is a compiler-enforced language
feature that is crucial for maintaining large software projects.

NOTE At times, you may notice that I mix C libraries and conven-
tions into my C++ source code. I do this, most often, for reasons
related to performance. For example, I think that C’s printf() is
much more efficient than cout.

C++ is often viewed by engineers, including myself, as C with a

few object-oriented bells and whistles added on. Bjarne Stroustrup,
the inventor of C++, likes to think of it as a “better form of C.”
According to Stroustrup, the original C++ compiler (named Cfront,
as in “C front end”) started off as an elaborate preprocessor that
produced C code as output. This C code was then passed on to a

xxiii
Introduction

full-fledged C compiler. As time progressed, C++ went from being

a front end to a C compiler to having its own dedicated compiler.
Today, most software vendors sell C++ compilers with the implicit
understanding that you can also use them to write C code.
In general, C is about as close to assembly language as you can
get without losing the basic flow-control and stack-frame niceties
that accompany high-level languages. C was because Ken Thomp-
son got tired of writing assembly code. The first version of UNIX,
which ran on a DEC PDP-7 in the late 1960s, was written entirely in
assembler (and you thought that Mike Podanoffsky had it tough).
Ken solved his assembly language problems by creating a variation
of BCPL, which he called B. The name of the programming lan-
guage was then changed to “C” by Dennis Ritchie, after some
overhauling. Two Bell Labs researchers, Brian Kernighan and Den-
nis Ritchie, ended up playing vital roles in the evolution of the
language. In fact, the older form of C’s syntax is known as
Kernighan and Ritchie C (or just K&R C).
C and C++ are both used to implement operating systems.
Linux, for example, is written entirely in C. Although C is still the
dominant system language for historical reasons, C++ is slowly
beginning to creep into the source code bases of at least a couple
commercial operating systems. Microsoft’s Windows operating sys-
tem has chunks of its kernel written in C++. One might speculate
that this trend can be directly linked to the rapidly increasing com-
plexity of operating systems.

Companion Files
Software engineering is like baseball. The only way you will ever
acquire any degree of skill is to practice and scrimmage whenever
you get the chance. To this end, I have included the source code for
most of the examples in this book in a downloadable file available at
www.wordware.com/memory.
Dick Feynman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in
1965, believed that the key to discovery and insight was playful
experimentation. Dick was the kind of guy who followed his own
advice. In his biography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, Dick
recounts how spinning plates in a dining hall at Cornell led to his-
toric work in quantum mechanics. By testing a variety of new ideas
and comparing the results to your predictions, you force yourself to

xxiv
 Introduction

gain a better understanding of how things work. This approach also

gives you the hands-on experience necessary to nurture a sense of
intuition.
It is in this spirit that I provide this book’s source code in the
downloadable files. By all means, modify it, hack it, and play with it.
Try new things and see where they lead you. Make predictions and
see if empirical results support your predictions. If the results don’t,
then try to determine why and construct alternative explanations.
Test those explanations. Add new functionality and see how it
affects things. Take away components and see what happens. Bet a
large sum of money with a friend to see who can implement the best
improvement. But above all, have fun.

References
Brey, Barry. The Intel Microprocessors: 8086/8088, 80186, 80286,
80386, 80486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, and Pentium II. 2000,
Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0-13-995408-2.
This is a fairly recent book and should take care of any ques-
tions you may have. Barry has been writing about Intel chips
since the first one came out.
Kernighan, Brian and Dennis Ritchie. The C Programming Lan-
guage. 1988, Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0131103628.
This is a terse, but well-read introduction to C by the founding
fathers of the language.
Reid, T. R. The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip
and Launched a Revolution. 2001, Random House, ISBN:
0375758283.
Schildt, Herbert. C++ From the Ground Up. 1998, Osborne
McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0078824052.
If you have never programmed in C/C++, read this book. It is
a gentle introduction written by an author who knows how to
explain complicated material. Herb starts by teaching you C and
then slowly introducing the object-oriented features of C++.
Stroustrup, Bjarne and Margaret Ellis. The Annotated C++ Refer-
ence. 1990, Addison-Wesley, ISBN: 0201514591.
Once you have read Schildt’s book, you can use this text to fill
in the gaps. This book is exactly what it says it is — a reference
— and it is a good one.

xxv
Introduction

Stroustrup, Bjarne. The Design and Evolution of C++. 1994,

Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., ISBN: 0201543303.
This is an historical recount of C++’s creation by the man
who invented the language. The discussion is naturally very
technical and compiler writers will probably be able to appreciate
this book the most. This is not for the beginner.

Warning
In this book I provide some rather intricate, and potentially danger-
ous, source code examples. This is what happens when you go
where you are not particularly supposed to be. I recommend that
you use an expendable test machine to serve as a laboratory. Also,
you might want to consider closing all unnecessary applications
before experimenting. If an application dies in the middle of an
access to disk, you could be faced with a corrupt file system.
If you keep valuable data on the machine you are going to use, I
suggest you implement a disaster recovery plan. During the writing
of this book’s manuscript, I made a point to perform daily incremen-
tal backups and complete weekly backups of my hard drive. I also
had a secondary machine that mirrored by primary box. Large cor-
porations, like banks and insurance companies, have truly extensive
emergency plans. I toured a production site in Cleveland that had
two diesel fuel generators and a thousand gallons of gas to provide
backup power.
Neither the publisher nor author accept any responsibility for any
damage that may occur as a result of the information contained
within this book. As Stan Lee might say, “With great power comes
great responsibility.”

xxvi
Author Information
Bill Blunden has been obsessed with systems software since his
first exposure to the DOS debug utility in 1983. His single-minded
pursuit to discover what actually goes on under the hood led him to
program the 8259 interrupt controller and become an honorable
member of the triple-fault club. After obtaining a BA in mathemati-
cal physics and an MS in operations research, Bill was unleashed
upon the workplace. It was at an insurance company in the beautiful
city of Cleveland, plying his skills as an actuary, that Bill got into his
first fist fight with a cranky IBM mainframe. Bloody but not beaten,
Bill decided that groking software beat crunching numbers. This led
him to a major ERP player in the midwest, where he developed
CASE tools in Java, wrestled with COBOL middleware, and was
assailed by various Control Data veterans. Having a quad-processor
machine with 2GB of RAM at his disposal, Bill was hard pressed to
find any sort of reason to abandon his ivory tower. Nevertheless, the
birth of his nephew forced him to make a pilgrimage out west to Sil-
icon Valley. Currently on the peninsula, Bill survives rolling power
blackouts and earthquakes, and is slowly recovering from his initial
bout with COBOL.

xxvii
Chapter 1

Memory Management
Mechanisms
“Everyone has a photographic memory. Some people just don’t
have film.”
— Mel Brooks

NOTE In the text of this book, italics are used to define or

emphasize a term. The Courier font is used to denote code, memory
addresses, input/output, and filenames. For more information, see the
section titled “Typographical Conventions” in the Introduction.

Mechanism Versus Policy

Accessing and manipulating memory involves a lot of accounting
work. Measures have to be taken to ensure that memory being
accessed is valid and that it corresponds to actual physical storage.
If memory protection mechanisms are in place, checks will also need
to be performed by the processor to ensure that an executing task
does not access memory locations that it should not. Memory pro-
tection is the type of service that multiuser operating systems are
built upon. If virtual memory is being used, a significant amount of
bookkeeping will need to be maintained in order to track which disk
sectors belong to which task. It is more effort than you think, and all
the steps must be completed flawlessly.

NOTE On the Intel platform, if the memory subsystem’s data struc-

tures are set up incorrectly, the processor will perform what is known
as a triple fault. A double fault occurs on Intel hardware when an
exception occurs while the processor is already trying to handle an
exception. A triple fault occurs when the double-fault handler fails and
the machine is placed into the SHUTDOWN cycle. Typically, an Intel
machine will reset when it encounters this type of problem.

1
2 Chapter 1

For the sake of execution speed, processor manufacturers give their

chips the capacity to carry out advanced memory management
chores. This allows operating system vendors to effectively push
most of the tedious, repetitive work down to the processor where
the various error checks can be performed relatively quickly. This
also has the side effect of anchoring the operating system vendor to
the hardware platform, to an extent.
The performance gains, however, are well worth the lost porta-
bility. If an operating system were completely responsible for
implementing features like paging and segmentation, it would be
noticeably slower than one that took advantage of the processor’s
built-in functionality. Imagine trying to play a graphics-intensive,
real-time game like Quake 3 on an operating system that manually
protected memory; the game would just not be playable.

NOTE You might be asking if I can offer a quantitative measure of

how much slower an operating system would be. I will admit I have
been doing a little arm waving. According to a 1993 paper by Wahbe,
Lucco, et al. (see the “References” section), they were able to isolate
modules of code in an application using a technique they labeled as
sandboxing. This technique incurred a 4% increase in execution speed.
You can imagine what would happen if virtual memory and access
privilege schemes were added to such a mechanism.

ASIDE
An arm-waving explanation is a proposition that has not been
established using precise mathematical statements. Mathe-
matical statements have the benefit of being completely un-
ambiguous: They are either true or false. An arm-waving
explanation tends to eschew logical rigor entirely in favor of
arguments that appeal to intuition. Such reasoning is at best
dubious, not only because intuition can often be incorrect, but
also because intuitive arguments are ambiguous. For example,
people who argue that the world is flat tend to rely on arm-
waving explanations.

NOTE Back when Dave Cutler’s brainchild, Windows NT, came out,
there was a lot of attention given to the operating system’s Hardware
Abstraction Layer (HAL). The idea was that the majority of the operat-
ing system could be insulated from the hardware that it ran on by a
layer of code located in the basement. This was instituted to help
counter the hardware dependency issue that I mentioned a minute
ago. To Dave’s credit, NT actually did run on a couple of traditionally
UNIX-oriented hardware platforms. This included Digital’s Alpha pro-
cessor and the MIPS RISC processor. The problem was that Microsoft
couldn’t get a number of its higher-level technologies, like DCOM, to
 Memory Management Mechanisms 3

run on anything but Intel. So much for an object technology based on

Chapter 1
a binary standard!

The solution that favors speed always wins. I was told by a former
Control Data engineer that when Seymour Cray was designing the
6600, he happened upon a new chip that was quicker than the one
he was currently using. The problem was that it made occasional
computational errors. Seymour implemented a few slick work-
arounds and went with the new chip. The execs wanted to stay out
of Seymour’s way and not disturb the maestro, as Seymour was
probably the most valuable employee Control Data had. Unfortu-
nately, they also had warehouses full of the original chips. They
couldn’t just throw out the old chips; they had to find a use for them.
This problem gave birth to the CDC 3300, a slower and less expen-
sive version of the 6600.
My point: Seymour went for the faster chip, even though it was
less reliable.
Speed rules.
The result of this tendency is that every commercial operating
system in existence has its memory management services firmly
rooted in data structures and protocols dictated by the hardware.
Processors provide a collection of primitives for manipulating mem-
ory. They constitute the mechanism side of the equation. It is up to
the operating system to decide if it will even use a processor’s
memory management mechanisms and, if so, how it will use them.
Operating systems constitute the policy side of the equation.
In this chapter, I will examine computer hardware in terms of
how it offers a mechanism to access and manipulate memory.

Memory Hierarchy
When someone uses the term “memory,” they are typically refer-
ring to the data storage provided by dedicated chips located on the
motherboard. The storage these chips provide is often referred to
as Random Access Memory (RAM), main memory, and primary stor-
age. Back in the iron age, when mainframes walked the earth, it was
called the core. The storage provided by these chips is volatile,
which is to say that data in the chips is lost when the power is
switched off.
There are various types of RAM:
n DRAM
n SDRAM
n SRAM
4 Chapter 1

n VRAM
Dynamic RAM (DRAM) has to be recharged thousands of times
each second. Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) is refreshed at the
clock speed at which the processor runs the most efficiently. Static
RAM (SRAM) does not need to be refreshed like DRAM, and this
makes it much faster. Unfortunately, SRAM is also much more
expensive than DRAM and is used sparingly. SRAM tends to be
used in processor caches and DRAM tends to be used for wholesale
memory. Finally, there’s Video RAM (VRAM), which is a region of
memory used by video hardware. In the next chapter, there is an
example that demonstrates how to produce screen messages by
manipulating VRAM.
Recent advances in technology and special optimizations imple-
mented by certain manufacturers have led to a number of additional
acronyms. Here are a couple of them:
n DDR SDRAM
n RDRAM
n ESDRAM
DDR SDRAM stands for Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic
Random Access Memory. With DDR SDRAM, data is read on both
the rising and the falling of the system clock tick, basically doubling
the bandwidth normally available. RDRAM is short for Rambus
DRAM, a high-performance version of DRAM sold by Rambus that
can transfer data at 800 MHz. Enhanced Synchronous DRAM
(ESDRAM), manufactured by Enhanced Memory Systems, provides
a way to replace SRAM with cheaper SDRAM.
A bit is a single binary digit (i.e., a 1 or a 0). A bit in a RAM chip
is basically a cell structure that is made up of, depending on the type
of RAM, a certain configuration of transistors and capacitors. Each
cell is a digital switch that can either be on or off (i.e., 1 or 0). These
cells are grouped into 8-bit units call bytes. The byte is the funda-
mental unit for measuring the amount of memory provided by a
storage device. In the early years, hardware vendors used to imple-
ment different byte sizes. One vendor would use a 6-bit byte and
another would use a 16-bit byte. The de facto standard that every-
one seems to abide by today, however, is the 8-bit byte.
There is a whole set of byte-based metrics to specify the size of a
memory region:
1 byte = 8 bits
1 word = 2 bytes
1 double word = 4 bytes
 Memory Management Mechanisms 5

1 quad word = 8 bytes

Chapter 1
1 octal word = 8 bytes
1 paragraph = 16 bytes
1 kilobyte (KB) = 1,024 bytes
1 megabyte (MB) = 1,024KB = 1,048,576 bytes
1 gigabyte (GB) = 1,024MB = 1,073,741,824 bytes
1 terabyte (TB) = 1,024GB = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes
1 petabyte (PB) = 1,024TB = 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes

NOTE In the 1980s, having a megabyte of DRAM was a big deal.

Kids used to bug their parents for 16KB memory upgrades so their
Atari 400s could play larger games. At the time, having only a mega-
byte wasn’t a significant problem because engineers tended to
program in assembly code and build very small programs. In fact, this
1981 quote is often attributed to Bill Gates: “640K ought to be enough
for anybody.”

Today, most development machines have at least 128MB of DRAM.

In 2002, having 256MB seems to be the norm. Ten years from now,
a gigabyte might be the standard amount of DRAM (if we are still
using DRAM). Hopefully, someone will not quote me.
RAM is not the only place to store data, and this is what leads us
to the memory hierarchy. The range of different places that can be
used to store information can be ordered according to their proxim-
ity to the processor. This ordering produces the following hierarchy:
1. Registers
2. Cache
3. RAM
4. Disk storage
The primary distinction between these storage areas is their mem-
ory latency, or lag time. Storage closer to the processor takes less
time to access than storage that is further away. The latency experi-
enced in accessing data on a hard drive is much greater than the
latency that occurs when the processor accesses memory in its
cache. For example, DRAM latency tends to be measured in nano-
seconds. Disk drive latency, however, tends to be measured in
milliseconds! (See Figure 1.1 on the following page.)
Registers are small storage spaces that are located within the
processor itself. Registers are a processor’s favorite workspace.
Most of the processor’s day-to-day work is performed on data in the
registers. Moving data from one register to another is the single
most expedient way to move data.
6 Chapter 1

Figure 1.1

Software engineers designing compilers will jump through all

sorts of hoops just to keep variables and constants in the registers.
Having a large number of registers allows more of a program’s state
to be stored within the processor itself and cut down on memory
latency. The MIPS64 processor has 32, 64-bit, general-purpose reg-
isters for this very reason. The Itanium, Intel’s next generation
64-bit chip, goes a step further and has literally hundreds of
registers.
The Intel Pentium processor has a varied set of registers (see
Figure 1.2). There are six, 16-bit, segment registers (CS, DS, ES,
FS, GS, SS). There are eight, 32-bit, general-purpose registers
(EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, ESI, EDI, EBP, ESP). There is also a 32-bit
error flag register (EFLAGS) to signal problems and a 32-bit
instruction pointer (EIP).
Advanced memory management functions are facilitated by four
system registers (GDTR, LDTR, IDTR, TR) and five mode control
registers (CR0, CR1, CR2, CR3, CR4). The usage of these registers
will be explained in the next few sections.

NOTE It is interesting to note how the Pentium’s collection of regis-

ters has been constrained by historical forces. The design requirement
demanding backward compatibility has resulted in the Pentium having
only a few more registers than the 8086.

A cache provides temporary storage that can be accessed quicker

than DRAM. By placing computationally intensive portions of a pro-
gram in the cache, the processor can avoid the overhead of having
 Memory Management Mechanisms 7

Chapter 1
Figure 1.2

to continually access DRAM. The savings can be dramatic. There

are different types of caches. An L1 cache is a storage space that is
located on the processor itself. An L2 cache is typically an SRAM
chip outside of the processor (for example, the Intel Pentium 4
ships with a 256 or 512KB L2 Advanced Transfer Cache).

NOTE If you are attempting to optimize code that executes in the

cache, you should avoid unnecessary function calls. A call to a distant
function requires the processor to execute code that lies outside the
cache. This causes the cache to reload. This is one reason why certain
C compilers offer you the option of generating inline functions. The
other side of the coin is that a program that uses inline functions will
be much larger than one that does not. The size-versus-speed
trade-off is a balancing act that rears its head all over computer
science.

Disk storage is the option of last resort. Traditionally, disk space

has been used to create virtual memory. Virtual memory is memory
that is simulated by using disk space. In other words, portions of
memory, normally stored in DRAM, are written to disk so that the
amount of memory the processor can access is greater than the
actual amount of physical memory. For example, if you have 10MB
of DRAM and you use 2MB of disk space to simulate memory, the
processor can then access 12MB of virtual memory.
8 Chapter 1

NOTE A recurring point that I will make throughout this book is the
high cost of disk input/output. As I mentioned previously, the latency
for accessing disk storage is on the order of milliseconds. This is a long
time from the perspective of a processor. The situation is analogous to
making a pizza run from a remote cabin in North Dakota. If you are
lucky, you have a frozen pizza in your freezer/cache and it will only
take 30 minutes to heat up. If you are not lucky, you will have to call
the pizza delivery guy (i.e., access the data from disk storage) and wait
for five hours as he makes the 150-mile trek to your cabin.

Using virtual memory is like making a deal with the devil. Sure, you
will get lots of extra memory, but you will pay an awful cost in terms
of performance. Disk I/O involves a whole series of mandatory
actions, some of which are mechanical. It is estimated that paging
on Windows accounts for roughly 10% of execution time. Managing
virtual memory requires a lot of bookkeeping on the part of the pro-
cessor. I will discuss the precise nature of this bookkeeping in a
later section.

ASIDE
I worked at an ERP company where one of the VPs used to
fine engineers for performing superfluous disk I/O. During
code reviews, he would grep through source code looking for
the fopen() and fread() standard library functions. We
were taught the basic lesson that you cached everything you
possibly could in memory and only moved to disk storage
when you absolutely had no other alternative (and even then
you needed permission). To the VP’s credit, the company’s
three-tier middleware suite was the fastest in the industry.

Disk storage has always been cheaper than RAM. Back in the 1960s
when 8KB of RAM was a big investment, using the disk to create
virtual memory probably made sense. Today, however, the cost dis-
crepancy between DRAM and disk drives is not as significant as it
was back then. Buying a machine with 512MB of SDRAM is not
unheard of. It could be that virtual memory will become a complete
relic or implemented as some sort of emergency safeguard.
 Memory Management Mechanisms 9

Address Lines and Buses

Chapter 1
Each byte in DRAM is assigned a unique numeric identifier called
an address, just like houses on a street. An address is an integer
value. The first byte in memory is assigned an address of zero. The
region of memory near address zero is known as the bottom of mem-
ory, or low memory. The region of memory near the final byte is
known as high memory. The number of physical (i.e., DRAM) bytes
that a processor is capable of addressing is known as the processor’s
physical address space. (See Figure 1.3.)

Figure 1.3

The physical address space of a processor specifies the potential

number of bytes that can be addressed, not the actual number of
physical bytes present. People normally don’t want to spend the
money necessary to populate the entire physical address space with
DRAM chips. Buying 4GB of DRAM is still usually reserved for
high-end enterprise servers.
The physical address space of a processor is determined by the
number of address lines that it has. Address lines are a set of wires
connecting the processor to its DRAM chips. Each address line
specifies a single bit in the address of a given byte. For example, the
Intel Pentium has 32 address lines. This means that each byte is
assigned a 32-bit address so that its address space consists of 232
addressable bytes (4GB). The 8088 had 20 address lines, so it was
capable of addressing 220, or 1,048,576, bytes.

NOTE If virtual memory is enabled on the Pentium 4, there is a way

to enable four additional address lines using what is known as Physical
Address Extension (PAE). This allows the Pentium processor’s physical
address space to be defined by 36 address lines, which translates into
an address space of 236 bytes (64GB).
10 Chapter 1

To access and update physical memory, the processor uses a control

bus and a data bus. A bus is a collection of related wires that connect
the processor to a hardware subsystem. The control bus is used to
indicate if the processor wants to read from memory or write to
memory. The data bus is used to ferry data back and forth between
the processor and memory. (See Figure 1.4.)

Figure 1.4

When the processor reads from memory, the following steps are
performed:
1. The processor places the address of the byte to be read on the
address lines.
2. The processor sends the read signal on the control bus.
3. The DRAM chip(s) return the byte specified on the data bus.
When the processor writes to memory, the following steps are
performed:
1. The processor places the address of the byte to be written on
the address lines.
2. The processor sends the write signal on the control bus.
3. The processor sends the byte to be written to memory on the
data bus.
This description is somewhat of an oversimplification. For example,
the Pentium processor reads and writes data 4 bytes at a time. This
is one reason why the Pentium is called a 32-bit chip. The processor
will refer to its 32-bit payload using the address of the first byte
(i.e., the byte with the lowest address). Nevertheless, I think the
general operation is clear.
 Memory Management Mechanisms 11

Intel Pentium Architecture

Chapter 1
You have seen how a processor reads and writes bytes to memory.
However, most processors also support two advanced memory man-
agement mechanisms: segmentation and paging.
Segmentation is instituted by breaking up a computer’s address
space into specific regions, known as segments. Using segmentation
is a way to isolate areas of memory so that programs cannot inter-
fere with one another. Segmentation affords what is known as
memory protection. It is possible to institute memory segmentation
without protection, but there are really no advantages to such a
scheme.
Under a segmentation scheme that enforces memory protection,
each application is assigned at least one segment. Large applications
often have several segments. In addition, the operating system will
also have its own custom set of segments. Segments are assigned a
specific set of access writes so that policies can be created with
regard to who can update what. Typically, the operating system code
segments will execute with the highest privilege and applications
will be loaded into segments with less authority.

Figure 1.5

Paging is a way to implement virtual memory. The physical memory

provided by DRAM and disk storage, which is allocated to simulate
DRAM, are merged together into one big amorphous collection of
bytes. The total number of bytes that a processor is capable of
addressing, if paging is enabled, is known as its virtual address
space.
12 Chapter 1

The catch to all this is that the address of a byte in this artifi-
cial/virtual address space is no longer the same as the address that
the processor places on the address bus. This means that transla-
tion data structures and code will have to be established in order to
map a byte in the virtual address space to a physical byte (regard-
less of whether that byte happens to be in DRAM or on disk).
When the necessary paging constructs have been activated, the
virtual memory space is divided into smaller regions called pages. If
the operating system decides that it is running low on physical
memory, it will take pages that are currently stored in physical
memory and write them to disk. If segmentation is being used,
bookkeeping will have to be performed in order to match a given
page of memory with the segment that owns it. All of the account-
ing work is done in close conjunction with the processor so that the
performance hit associated with disk I/O can be kept to a minimum.

Figure 1.6

NOTE When pages of data are stored in physical memory (i.e.,

DRAM), they are placed in page-sized slots that are known as page
frames. In addition to keeping track of individual pages, most operat-
ing systems also monitor page frame usage. The number of page
frames is usually much smaller than the number of pages, so it is in
the best interest of the operating system to carefully manage this pre-
cious commodity.

NOTE It is possible to use paging without using disk space. But in

this case, paging transforms into a hybrid form of segmentation that
deals with 4KB regions of memory.
 Memory Management Mechanisms 13

Because Intel’s Pentium class of processors is easily accessible, I

Chapter 1
decided to use the Pentium to help illustrate segmentation and pag-
ing. I would love to demonstrate theory with a MIPS64 processor,
but I can’t afford an SGI server (sigh). Being inexpensive is one of
the primary reasons for Intel’s continued success. Hackers, like me,
who couldn’t afford an Apple IIe back in the 1980s were left
scrounging for second-hand Intel boxes. There were thousands of
people who had to make this kind of financial decision. So, in a
sense, the proliferation of Intel into the workplace was somewhat of
a grass roots movement.
The Pentium class of processors is descended from a long line of
popular CPUs:
CPU Release Date Physical Address Space
8086 1978 1MB
8088 1979 1MB
80286 1982 16MB
80386 1985 4GB
80486 1989 4GB
Pentium 1993 4GB
Pentium Pro 1995 64GB
Pentium II 1997 64GB
Pentium III 1999 64GB
Pentium 4 2000 64GB

NOTE When the IBM PC came out in 1981, it shipped with a 4.77
MHz 8088. Without a doubt, mainframe developers were overjoyed.
This was because the PC gave them a place of their own. In those
days, the standard dummy terminals didn’t do anything more than
shuttle a data buffer back and forth to a mainframe. In addition, an
engineer had little or no control over when, or how, his code would be
run. The waiting could be agonizing. Tom Petty was right. Bribing a
sysop with pizza could occasionally speed things up, but the full court
grovel got tiring after a while. With an IBM PC, an engineer finally had
a build machine that was open all night with no waiting.

ASIDE
I know one CDC engineer, in particular, who ported a FOR-
TRAN ’77 compiler to a PC in 1982 for this very reason. His
supervisor would walk over and say: “Why do you want to run
on that little three-wheeler instead of the production ma-
chine?” His answer: “Because it is mine, damn it.” This one
statement probably summarizes the mindset that made PCs
wildly successful.
14 Chapter 1

In an attempt to keep their old customers, Intel has gone to great

lengths to make their 32-bit processors backward compatible with
the previous 16-bit models. As testimony to Intel’s success, I can
boot my laptop with a DOS 6.22 boot disk and run most of my old
DOS applications (including Doom and Duke Nukem).
A product of the requirement for backward compatibility is that
the Pentium chip operates in a number of different modes. Each
mode dictates how the processor will interpret machine instructions
and how it can access memory. Specifically, the Pentium is capable
of operating in four modes:
n Real mode
n Protected mode
n System management mode (SMM)
n Virtual 8086 mode
System management mode and virtual 8086 mode are both special-
purpose modes of operation that are only used under special cir-
cumstances. I will focus primarily on the first two modes of
operation: real mode and protected mode. In addition, I will investi-
gate how each of these modes support segmentation and paging.
Having the processor operate in different modes is not a feature
limited to the Intel platform. The MIPS64 processor, for example,
also operates in four modes:
n Kernel mode
n User mode
n Debug mode
n Supervisor mode

Real Mode Operation

The first IBM PC ran strictly in real mode. Furthermore, all 32-bit
Intel computers also start in real mode when they are booted. This
sort of provides a least common denominator behavior that back-
ward compatibility depends upon.
Real mode operating systems tend to be very small (i.e., less
than 128KB) because they rely on the BIOS to provide an interface
to the hardware. This allows them to easily fit on a 1.44MB floppy
diskette. Virus protection rescue disks rely on this fact, as do sys-
tem repair disks. I have also bought drive partitioning software that
can be run from a boot disk.
In real mode, the general-purpose registers we saw earlier in
Figure 1.2 are truncated into 16-bit registers, as are the error flag
 Memory Management Mechanisms 15

and instruction pointer registers. The real mode register setup is

Chapter 1
displayed in Figure 1.7.

Figure 1.7

As you can see, the “E” prefix has been removed from the regis-
ter names. In addition, each of the 16-bit general registers, AX, CX,
DX, and EX, can be manipulated in terms of two 8-bit registers. For
example, the AX register can be seen as the combination of the AH
and AL registers. The AH register refers to the high byte in AX,
and the AL register refers to the low byte in AX.

NOTE The memory and mode registers shown in Figure 1.2 are still
visible in real mode. They still exist if the processor is a 32-bit class
CPU but they have no significance or use in real mode. The only
exception to this rule is if you are trying to switch to protected mode.

A machine in real mode can address 1MB of DRAM. This implies

that only 20 address lines are used in real mode. The address of a
byte in memory, for a processor real mode, is formed by adding an
offset address to a segment address. The result of the sum is always
a 20-bit value (remember this fact; it is important), which confirms
our suspicion that there are 20 address lines.
The address formed by the sum of the segment and offset
addresses corresponds directly to the value that is placed on the
processor’s address lines. Now you can get a better idea of why
they call it “real” mode. The address of a byte in real mode maps
directly to a “real” byte in physical memory.
16 Chapter 1

An address is denoted, in Intel assembly language, by a seg-

ment:offset pair. For example, if a byte is located in segment
0x8200 and is situated at an offset of 0x0100, the address of this
byte is specified as:
0x8200:0x0100

Sometimes, for reasons that I will explain later, this is also written
as:
0x8200[0]:0x0100

The real mode address resolution process is displayed in Figure 1.8.

Figure 1.8

Segment addresses denote a particular memory segment and are

always stored in one of the 16-bit segment registers. Specifically, a
segment address specifies the base address, the lowest address, of a
memory segment. Each segment register has a particular use:
Register Use
CS Segment address of code currently being executed
SS Segment address of stack
DS Data segment address
ES Extra segment address (usually data)
FS Extra segment address (usually data)
GS Extra segment address (usually data)

NOTE The fact that there are six segment registers means that at
any time, only six segments of memory can be manipulated. A pro-
gram can have more than six segments, but only six can be accessible
at any one point in time.
 Memory Management Mechanisms 17

Offset addresses can be stored in the general registers and are 16

Chapter 1
bits in size. Given that an offset address is 16 bits, this limits each
segment to 64KB in size.
QUESTION
If the segment address and offset address are both stored in
16-bit registers, how can the sum of two 16-bit values form a
20-bit value?
ANSWER
The trick is that the segment address has an implicit zero
added to the end. For example, a segment address of 0x0C00 is
treated as 0x0C000 by the processor. This is denoted, in practice,
by placing the implied zero in brackets (i.e., 0x0C00[0]). This is
where the processor comes up with a 20-bit value.
As you can see, the real mode segment/offset approach does provide
a crude sort of segmentation. However, at no point did I mention
that the boundaries between segments are protected. The ugly
truth is that there is no memory protection in real mode. When you
run a program in real mode, it owns everything and can run amok if
it wants.
Running an application in real mode is like letting a den of Cub
Scouts into your home. They’re young, spirited, and all hopped-up
on sugar. If you’re not careful, they will start tearing the house
down. Crashing a real mode machine is simple, and there is little
you can do to prevent it (other than back up your work constantly).
In case you are wondering, and I’m sure some of you are, here is
an example of a C program that can crash a computer running in real
mode:
/* --crashdos.c-- */

void main()
{
unsigned char *ptr;
int i;

ptr = (unsigned char *)0x0;

for(i=0;i<1024;i++)
{
ptr[i]=0x0;
}
return;
}
See how little effort it takes? There is nothing special or secret
about this attack. I just overwrite the interrupt vector table that is
18 Chapter 1

located at the bottom of memory. If you wanted to hide this type of

code in a large executable, you could probably cut down the program
to less than five lines of assembly code.
If you really wanted to be malicious, you could disable the key-
board and then start reformatting the hard drive. The only defense a
person would have is to yank the power cord, and even then, by the
time they realize what is going on, it would probably be too late. My
point, however, is not to tell you how to immobilize a DOS machine.
Nobody uses them anymore, anyway. My motive is to demonstrate
that real mode is anything but a secure environment.
To make matters worse, real mode does not support paging. All
you have to play with is 1MB of DRAM. In reality, you actually have
less than 1MB because the BIOS and video hardware consume size-
able portions of memory. Remember the Bill Gates quote?

NOTE No memory protection? No paging? Now you understand

how the first version of PC-DOS was less than 5,000 lines of assem-
bler. Perhaps “real” mode is called such because it is really minimal.

Intel’s processors would never have made inroads into the enter-
prise with this kind of Mickey Mouse memory management. In an
attempt to support more robust operating systems and larger
address spaces, Intel came out with the 80386. The 80386 had a
physical address space of 4GB and supported a new mode of opera-
tion: protected mode.

Protected Mode Operation

Protected mode supplies all the bells and whistles that are missing
in real mode. The Pentium processor was specifically designed to
run in protected mode. Its internal plumbing executes 32-bit
instructions more efficiently than it executes 16-bit instructions.
Having the Pentium start in real mode during a machine’s power-up
was sort of a courtesy that the Intel engineers have extended to
help operating systems bootstrap.
An Intel processor running in protected mode supports protected
segmentation, and it also can support paging. This means that
address resolution will be much more complicated. In real mode, we
just added an offset address to a segment address to produce a value
that corresponded directly to physical memory address. In protected
mode, the processor expects a whole load of special data structures
to be in place. In addition, the segment and offset pair may no longer
correspond directly to a physical address. So hang on, here we go...
 Memory Management Mechanisms 19

Protected Mode Segmentation

Chapter 1
The best way to understand segmentation on Intel is to take a visual
look at how it is implemented. A picture is worth 1,024 words, and
that is particularly true in this case. So take a good, hard look at
Figure 1.9 and compare it to Figure 1.8. You might also want to
bookmark Figure 1.9 so that you can return to it when needed.

Figure 1.9

The first thing to note is that protected mode uses the full-blown
set of Pentium registers displayed in Figure 1.2. Back to 32-bit reg-
isters we go. Also, the segment registers no longer store 16-bit
segment address values. Instead, it holds what is known as a seg-
ment selector.
A segment selector is a 16-bit data structure containing three
fields. Its composition is displayed in Figure 1.10. The really impor-
tant field is the index field. The index field stores an index to a
descriptor table. Index values start at zero.

NOTE The index field in the segment selector is not an address. It is

an index like the kind of index you would use to access an array ele-
ment in C. The processor will take the index and internally do the
necessary math to match the index to the linear address corresponding
to that index. Note that I said linear address, not physical address. For
the time being, linear and physical addresses are the same, but when
paging is enabled, they are not. Keep this in mind.
20 Chapter 1

Figure 1.10

A descriptor table is an array of entries in which each entry (known

as a segment descriptor) describes the attributes of a specific mem-
ory segment. Included in a descriptor is the base address of the
memory segment that it describes. The 32-bit offset address is
added to the segment descriptor’s base address in order to specify
the address of a byte in memory.
There are two types of descriptor tables: the Global Descriptor
Table (GDT) and the Local Descriptor Table (LDT). Every operating
system must have a GDT, but having one or more LDT structures is
optional. Usually, if an LDT is to be used, it will be utilized to repre-
sent the memory segments belonging to a specific process. The
base address of the GDT is stored in the GDTR system register.
Likewise, the base address of the LDT is stored in the LDTR regis-
ter. Naturally, there are special system instructions to load these
registers (i.e., the LGDT and LLDT instructions).

NOTE Almost all of the operating systems this book examines focus
on the GDT and offer very minimal use of the LDT (if they use it at all).

The GDTR is 48 bits in size. One unusual characteristic of the

GDTR is that it stores two distinct values. The first 16 bits contain
the size limit, in bytes, of the GDT. The next 32 bits store the base
linear address of the GDT in physical memory. This is illustrated in
Figure 1.11.

Figure 1.11
 Memory Management Mechanisms 21

QUESTION

Chapter 1
How does the processor map a segment selector’s index to a
descriptor?
ANSWER
The processor takes the index, specified by the segment
selector, multiplies the index by eight (as in 8 bytes because
descriptors are 64 bits in length), and then adds this product to
the base address specified by GTDR or LDTR.

NOTE In case you are looking at Figure 1.2 and wondering about
the other two memory management registers, IDTR and TR, I did not
forget them. They are not as crucial to this discussion as GDTR and
LDTR. The IDTR and TR registers are used to manage hardware inter-
rupts and multitasking. This book is focused on pure memory
management, so I will not discuss these registers in any detail. If you
happen to be interested, I recommend that you pick up the Intel man-
ual referenced at the end of this chapter.

Earlier I mentioned that segment descriptors store the base linear

address of the memory segment they describe. However, they also
hold a whole lot of other metadata. Figure 1.12 should give you a
better idea of what lies within a segment descriptor. In this figure, I
have broken the 64-bit descriptor into two 32-bit sections. The
higher-order section is on top of the lower-order section.

Figure 1.12

There is a lot of information packed into those 64 bits. As you can

see, several fields are broken up and stored in different parts of the
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Women,
Children, Love, and Marriage
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Women, Children, Love, and Marriage

Author: C. Gasquoine Hartley

Release date: November 27, 2020 [eBook #63898]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN,

CHILDREN, LOVE, AND MARRIAGE ***
WOMEN, CHILDREN, LOVE AND MARRIAGE

WOMEN, CHILDREN,
LOVE and MARRIAGE
BY

C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY
AUTHOR OF “THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN,” “WOMEN’S WILD OATS,”
“MOTHER AND SON,” ETC.

London
HEATH CRANTON, LIMITED
6 Fleet Lane E.C.4
1924

Printed in Great Britain for Heath Cranton, Ltd., by Clements Bros., Chatham

And we won’t, we simply will not face

the world as we’ve made it, and our own
 souls as we find them, and take the
responsibility. We’ll never get anywhere
till we stand up man to man and face
everything out, and break the old forms,
but never let our pride and courage of
life be broken.
D. H. LAURENCE in “Aaron’s Rod.”

CONTENTS

PAGE
Foreword 11
Section I.—WOMEN 13
1. Women and Cats 15
2. The Women of Spain 19
3. The Dangerous Age 29
4. The Legal Position of the Mother 35
5. Problems of Birth Control 37
Section II.—CHILDREN 41
1. A Boy’s Misery 43
2. Criminals Made in Our Nurseries 49
3. The Tyranny of Parents 51
4. The Superfluous Father 55
5. The Perfect Mother 59
6. Nobody’s Children 61
7. Let Us Pension the Mothers 71
8. Boy and Girl Offenders and Adult Misunderstanding 73
9. New Ways of Teaching Children 79
 10. Difficulties and Mistakes in Sex Education 87
Sex Instruction. The Age at which Knowledge Should be
11. 107
given
12. The Myth of the Virtuous Sex 113
Sentimental Tampering with Difficult Problems with some
13. 117
Remarks on Sex Favouritism
14. The Seduction of Men 123
15. Playing with Love 127
Section III.—MARRIAGE AND OTHER RELATIONSHIPS 131
1. Is Passionate Love the Surest Foundation for Marriage? 133
2. Marriage Reform 139
To-day’s Ideas on Marriage. Are we seeking vainly after
3. 141
happiness?
4. Why Men are Unfaithful 145
5. Why Wives are Unfaithful 149
6. Should Doctors Tell? 157
7. The Modern Wife and the Old-fashioned Husband 161
8. The Temporary Gentleman and his Young Wife 165
9. Is Marriage Too Easy? 169
10. Passionate Friendships 173
11. Conclusion—Regeneration 187
INDEX 189

FOREWORD
The essays here collected were written on various occasions over a
considerable space of time. This will account for the diversity in the
subjects and for a certain amount of restatement of my own beliefs
and position.
I have not thought it advisable to attempt to alter this, since though
some of the things I have said before may be repeated, the point of
view and special application are in each case different.
Some of the essays have appeared already in various journals, but
all have been very carefully revised and altered and the great
majority entirely re-written.
In spite of the diversity of the subjects there is a common idea
beneath all the essays—a common back-ground of faith. I do not
know whether I am justified in my confidence that this idea—this
faith is abundantly manifest. If I should try to formulate it into one
short statement, I should say it was the responsibility that the old
have to the young—the debt that one generation owes to the next.
In my gospel there is one commandment which may not be broken:
Ye shall not hurt a little child.
C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY.
Merton Park,
March, 1924.
 Section I

WOMEN

WOMEN AND CATS

In an admirable speech that I heard a few weeks ago, women were
likened to cats. I do not remember exactly in what connection,
however this does not matter.
But this remark set me thinking—it was not the first time, by many,
that I had heard a man sum up the evil characteristics possessed, or
supposed to be possessed, by my sex by likening us to cats. I now
asked myself was this true? I want to be frank. Let me confess at
once that I have come to the conclusion that the speaker was right.
Women and cats have many qualities in common. I have another
confession to make. When I first thought of this question of women
and cats, I am bound to say that I felt that I did not like either cats
or women, in fact I was not sure that I didn’t dislike them.
But wait, please, my sisters, before you let your anger fall upon me.
This knowledge was so wounding to my self-pride that it forced me
into an inquiry. I had made a fatal mistake. I soon found the reason
of my dislike. I had been thinking of women and cats as a class and
not as individuals. I disliked them just as one dislikes the Chinese,
Portuguese, pigs or almost any other class of beings thought of
collectively. Of course this is absurd, but then nine times out of
every ten we are absurd—or unreasonable, which is the same thing,
and only by recognising this can we find the truth. Who is there who
has never admired some individual cat? Is there any misogynist who
has never loved some individual woman?
Before I come to the real subject of this woman—cat likeness, I
would like to say that we women are a little tired of being classed en
masse. We really are growing wearied of hearing about ourselves.
We claim to be appraised as individuals, some good, some bad, most
of us a compound of good qualities and bad, but not all alike, not
collective. We object to this communion of character. I remember
talking to a Frenchman about Englishwomen. He said, “By the ones
and the twos you are charmantes, très charmantes, but altogether—
no—horrible!” This male logic is ridiculous. Men revile us as a class
and sell their bodies and souls to us as individuals.
Now let us look further—What are the class-cat qualities that are
also the class-woman qualities?
Few subjects are at once so easy and so difficult to approach as this
one of woman and also of cat—our tiny, intimate tiger. We may purr
commonplaces, or scratch and spit rage, but the illusive individuality
of women and cats escapes description. Yes, the more I consider
this subject of women and cats the more convinced I am that this
likeness is a compliment to my sex. Like Balaam’s ass of old those
who set out to curse us are made to bless.
For a moment I want you to think of a beautiful kitten, of her
brilliant devilry, her perfect curves, the elusive wonder of her
unwinking eyes like orange flowers, the delicate nuances of
expression in her tail. Now, I want you to ask yourselves the nature
of your regard for this perfect animal. You prize her rather for her
beauty, than for her friendship. You call her pet, idiotic names, play
with her, then go away and forget her.
The kitten grows up, becomes a cat, and old. She ceases to interest
you. Her work is now to catch mice—to serve you. Do you think the
cat does not feel this change in her mode of life—this too sudden
loss of joy, which is forced upon her as soon as she attains her
maturity. If you doubt this, make a real friend—not a plaything—of a
kitten. We did this once. The kitten passionately loved my husband;
when he went walking she went part of the distance with him; often
she waited for him, or watched for his return loudly purring a
welcome. Then my husband proved faithless; the kitten grew old
and less beautiful, and we got a dog; he ceased to notice her. That
cat died; yes, slowly pined away from grief. I acknowledge all cats
are not so sensitive; they have not been made friends. The common
cat develops an immense power of ignoring your past passionate
and playful petting. She becomes distantly indifferent, or
coquettishly variable—purring at one hour, scratching at another. She
remembers her past; she understands what you valued in her. All
that is herself she keeps for herself.
Contrast the cat with the dog. The blind worship of the one, the
exquisitely calm indifference of the other. The dog accepts you,
whatever treatment you give him, because you have loved him for
himself—made him your companion, your friend. But can you expect
this from the cat? You have never made her your friend; you have
not found it worth while to understand her. She deceives you. She
scratches you with those exquisite velvet paws do you annoy her.
You cannot teach her not to thieve. But why? She has no other
weapon, and the great life force urges her to self-protection. And
how splendidly she defends herself; how persistent and how
successful she is in gaining her desires. And how well she
understands the advantages that beauty gives to her; advantages
she can gain from nothing else. There is something really splendid in
the trouble the cat takes over her personal attire; to keep the
seductive whiteness of her shirt front’s pretty fur, the glossy shine of
her splendid tiger skin. The dog would be quite happy and proud
when dirty—ugliness is allowed to him. But the cat!—only when her
self-respect is dead can she neglect to be beautiful.
Yes, now I have come to think about cats, I am filled with adoration.
With every force against her the cat has kept her power! Her
rudeness is sublime! Her aloofness is adorable! You may scratch her
chin, she will permit this if she feels inclined, but the allowing of this
familiarity does not forward your intimacy with her in the least—she
knows what your advances mean. Sometimes she will not respond to
your supplications—you cannot compel her. She wishes to sit upon
your lap, a dozen times you send her down and each time she
returns; you want her to sit upon your lap, and a dozen times she
refuses and jumps down. She imposes her will upon you with a
lordship that admits of no dispute. The personality of the cat is
persistent and overwhelming, she is inconceivably herself. Nothing
living—no, not even woman—is so self-supporting—I do not mean
this economically, but artistically,—and self-centred as the cat. She is
the great ego—the supreme type of the Super-Me.
I have said almost nothing at all about the character of woman. Is it
necessary? I think not.

THE WOMEN OF SPAIN

Wherever I go in Spain, in the streets of the towns, in the churches,
in the work-rooms, I am impressed with the fine types of the
women; their strength and quietness—the same quality which
Valeria, the Spanish novelist, speaks of as “a notable robustness.”
There is a fascination about Spanish women not easy to define. Not
all of them are beautiful, and it is, of course, easy to find women of
all degrees of ugliness, but the proportion of those who are strong
and beautiful seems to me to be very large. There is greater variety
of types in northern than in southern Spain. While there are many
women who are dark, with golden complexions, and quite Arabian
eyes, a proportion of fair women will be found with bright brown,
auburn, and some, even golden hair. One sees rosy complexions and
blue eyes that remind one of England; though mixed grey eyes are
more frequent. Many of the faces have finely modelled features,
quite classic in outline. Certainly the most beautiful and
distinguished faces are not found among the women of the so-called
upper classes, but belong to the fish-girls and market-women of the
towns and the peasants of the rural districts. And this presence of a
really fine type among the workers of a race is a certain indication of
an old civilisation.
Many of the women workers in northern Spain are singularly
individual. They are usually tall, and have very distinct features,
especially the nose. It is a face in which every line has character,
much strength, and also humour, rising quickly to the beautiful eyes,
but slowly to the mouth, lengthening it into a smile. They all look
like women whom no man could venture to insult. I do not know
whether one must attribute it to their dress—the vivid coloured
handkerchiefs which set their faces, as it were, in an Oriental frame
—but these women have a serious, passionate look, which is
completely fascinating. They are different from the women of
southern Spain, who are smaller, more graceful, perhaps more
piquant, but certainly less beautiful.
Living in Spain, you come to understand that this land is really the
connecting link between Europe and Africa. Both in their physical
traits and in their character, the Spaniards show their relation to the
North African type; seldom, indeed, is a Spaniard entirely a
European. And it is amongst the women that the resemblance
stands out most clearly. There are women with dark long African
faces. You will see them among the flamencos of Seville or in the
gipsy quarter of the Camino del Sacre-Monte at Granada,—women
with slow sinuous movements, which you notice best when you see
them dance, and wonderful eyes that flash a slow fire, quite
unforgettable in their strange beauty. In dress you still find the
Oriental love of bright and violent colours. The elegant Manilla
shawls and the mantillas which give such special distinction to the
women of southern Spain, are modifications of the Eastern veil. The
elaborately dressed hair, built up with combs, with one rose or
carnation giving a note of colour, has also a very ancient origin.
Racial types may nearly always be best studied in the women of a
nation, and this is certainly so in a very old civilisation like Spain,
where many forces have combined to waste the men of the race.
Representing as they do both on the physical and psychic side a
conservative tendency, and with a lower variational aptitude than
men, women preserve more markedly primitive racial elements of
character. This may possibly explain why the women of Spain, on the
whole, are finer than the men.
How well I recall these women as I have seen them often, gathered
for the morning markets in the towns; chaffering, laughing, and
carrying on their work in the conversational Spanish manner. Here is
commercial activity united with a picturesque beauty, unspoilt by the
usual ugliness of business. Ugliness is not a necessary growth of
progress. There is terrible poverty in Spain. The peasants in the
country and the labourers in the towns suffer much injustice in too
heavy rents and an unfair burden of taxation. But as I have come to
know them, I have realised that the sum of their poverty is, after all,
so much less than the sum of their knowledge of the art of living.
Not their poverty, but their splendid capacity for eluding its misery, is
what is so remarkable. These workers have colour not only in their
dresses, but in their souls.
I see again a charming scene that I chanced upon one day in the
beautiful town of Vigo, which is situated in Galicia, in the extreme
north-west, and is one of the seaports by which the stranger enters
Spain. The day was saddened with heavy rain; a company of girls,
who had just finished their work of packing the fish for market, had
gathered in two empty railway vans, and were dancing together, in
the most delightful way, watched and applauded by a group of
youths.
It was a dance of quick movement and of great variety. It was not a
dance of the feet only, every part of the girls’ bodies played its part
in the performance, the swaying figures, the beckoning hands, the
glittering smiles, that came and went in their dark eyes—all
contributed to the dance, which like all Spanish dances was a love
drama of intense passion; but always decorous, always beautiful.
And the watching youths took their part by a rhythmic clapping of
hands and stamping of feet. There was something infectious in this
spontaneous gaiety. These girls, I felt, understand happiness, and,
as I watched them, the world seemed once more a place in which
workers could have their share of the joy of living.
Nor does this overflowing and joyous vigour belong to youth alone. I
have seen mothers, stout and matronly, at play in the national
games, throwing large heavy balls of wood along the grass with a
healthy pleasure in muscular movement. Women, no longer young,
may as often be seen dancing as the girls. Well, I remember one
woman; she was quite old, and her skin was a yellowed mass of
wrinkles. But the wrinkles on her face were but the work of time and
the hardness of living, and went no deeper than the skin; they had
not touched her soul. She was a little bowed, yet she held herself
finely, as indeed, do all Spanish women. I shall never forget her
perfect absence of self-consciousness; her abandonment as she
quivered all over with the excitement of the dance—and she used
her castanets with the innocent coquetry of a young girl. There is
something that may well give thought in this wholesome energy,
which is so abundant as to find its expression in play.
If I have emphasised the physical qualities of the women workers of
Spain, it is because I regard these qualities as being the outward
expression of intelligence and will. It is true that Spanish women are
not educated as we count education; many of them cannot read or
write. But in no other land can women be found with a finer
understanding of all that is essential in womanhood.
From the earliest notices we have of Spanish women we find them
possessed of a definite character of remarkable strength. Courage
and strength have throughout the centuries been common qualities
among Spanish women. The history of the mujeres varoniles of this
land would fill a volume: women who would take the field and fight
with a sagacity and ferocity equal to, and often surpassing, that of
men.
We may still associate the position of women with some of the old
traditions. Women are held in honour. Many primitive customs
survive, in particular among the Basques; and one of the most
interesting is that by which in some districts a daughter takes
precedence over the sons in inheritance of land and family property.
As far back as the fourth century, Spanish women insisted on
retaining their own names after marriage, for we find the Synod of
Elvira trying to limit this freedom. The practice is still common for
sons to use the name of the mother coupled with that of the father,
and even in some cases alone, showing the absence of preference
for paternal descent. Velazquez, for instance, is known to the world
only by the name of his mother: his father’s name was de Silva. It is
significant that in no country does less stigma fall on a child born out
of wedlock; and the unmarried mother meets a recognition that is
rarely accorded to her elsewhere. I questioned a cultured Spaniard
on the position of the prostitute; his answer is worth recording, “Our
women give themselves for love much more often than for money.”
This statement may have some extravagance, but I believe it
corresponds to a real fact in the position of women, which persists
from a time when their liberty was greater than it is to-day. The
introduction of modern institutions, and especially the empty form of
chivalry, has lowered the position of women. Emilia Pardo Bazan, the
great woman novelist of Spain, has said, “All the rights belong to
men, and the women have nothing but duties.” Yet there can be no
question that some features of mother-right have left their imprint
on the domestic life of Spain, and that women have in certain
directions preserved a freedom and privilege which in England have
never been established, and only of late claimed.
The industrial side of primitive culture has always belonged to
women, and in many provinces in Spain the old custom is in active
practice, owing to a shortage of men through military service and
widespread emigration. The farms are worked by women, the ox
carts driven by women, the seed is sown and reaped by women,—
indeed, all the work is done by women. And the point to notice here
is that the women have benefited by this enforced engaging in
activities, which in most countries have been absorbed by men. The
fine physical qualities of these workers is evident. I have taken pains
to gain all possible information on this question. Statistics are not
available because in Spain they have not been kept from this point
of view. It is, however, the opinion of many eminent doctors, who
were questioned by a Spanish friend for me on this subject, that this
labour does not damage the health or beauty of the women, but the
contrary, nor does it prejudice the life and health of their children.
I have seen many charming scenes of labour; and among my
memories a visit I paid to a sardine factory in the town of Vigo
stands out clearly. The work-rooms open directly on to the bay; here
the boats come, the fish are landed and the silver heaps are
washed. The airy rooms were scarcely redolent even of fish; and the
most scrupulous cleanliness was evident. They were filled with girls,
women, men, and boys. I learnt that both the women and men are
well paid, and that there is no separation between the tasks allotted
to the two sexes. Women and men labour together side by side,
capacity alone deciding the kind of work done. The day’s work is the
eight hours, established in Vigo by arrangement between the
masters and the workers; but when a large catch of sardines comes
in it must be dealt with at once, and the workers are then paid
overtime on a higher scale than their weekly wages. I saw many
ingenious and labour-saving machines, one, which was worked by a
boy, made the keys for opening the tins at the rate of 140 a minute.
I learnt that most of the machinery is supplied by Germany. I was
interested to hear that the waste pieces of tin, left from cutting the
boxes, were shipped to that country, to be used for making toys. It
was not, however, in these things that I found my chief interest.
What I chiefly remember was the fine appearance of the women. I
was impressed with their smiling and contented faces. Many of them
are mothers, and there is an admirable créche in connection with the
sardine factory, where the children are cared for. A more industrious
and charming scene of labour it would be impossible to find. I lost
no opportunity of inquiry into local industrial conditions. The workers
in this town are in a very favourable position, and in many respects
Vigo has attained to a degree of humane development under
industrial life, which other countries are toiling to achieve.
As workers the women are most conscientious and intelligent, apt to
learn, and ready to adopt improvements. From my personal
observations I can bear witness that their cottages, though very
poor, are usually clean, and their children are universally well cared
for. Nowhere are children happier or more loved than in Spain. The
women are full of energy and vigour even to an advanced age. They
are certainly healthy. I once witnessed an interesting episode during
a motor-ride in the country districts of the north. A robust and
comely Spanish woman was riding a ancas (pillion fashion) with a
young caballero, probably her son. The passing of our motor
frightened the steed, with the result that both riders were unhorsed.
Neither was hurt, but it was the woman who pursued the runaway
horse; she caught it without assistance and with surpassing skill.
What happened to the man I cannot say. When I saw him he was
standing in the road brushing the dust from his clothes. I presume
the woman returned with the horse to fetch him.
Women were the world’s primitive carriers. In Spain I have seen
women bearing immense burdens, unloading boats, acting as
porters and as firemen, and removing household furniture. I saw
one woman with a chest of drawers easily poised upon her head,
another woman bore a coffin, while another, who was old, carried a
small bedstead. A beautiful woman porter in one village carried our
heavy luggage, running with it on bare feet without sign of effort.
She was the mother of four children, and her husband was at the
late Cuban war. She was as upright as a young pine, with the
shapeliness that comes from perfect bodily equipoise. I do not wish
to judge from trivial incidents, but I have found in these Spanish
women a strength and beauty that has become rare among women
to-day. When a fire breaks out in a small town or village it is the
women water-carriers who act as firemen. They fetch the water from
fountains and pour it upon the flames. Just recently I have read of
three of these women who lost their lives in an attempt to rescue a
cripple girl from a burning house.
I was never tired of looking at the Spanish water-carriers; the
fountains that are in every town are the most delightful watching-
places. The grace with which the women walk on the uneven roads
and their perfect skill in balancing their beautiful jarras of stone or
copper called forth my unceasing admiration. One result of this
universal burden-carrying on the head is the perfect and dignified
character of the women’s manner of walking. These women walk like
priestesses who are bearing sacred vessels. They move erectly, but
without stiffness, with a secure and even stride, planting the foot
and heel together, light and firmly. There is something of the grace
of an animal in their movements—the alertness, the perfect balance,
the suggestion of hidden strength. I recall a conversation I had once
with an Englishman, of the not uncommon strongly patriotic and
censorious type. We were walking on the quay at La Coruna; he
pointed to a group of women-bearers, who were at work unloading
a vessel, and said in his indiscriminate British gallantry, “I can’t bear
to see women doing work that ought to be done by men.” “Look at
the women!” was the answer I made him.
It is interesting to contrast the robust heroines of Spanish writers
with the feminine feebleness and inanity which so often are the ideal
of English novelists. In Spanish literature vigour and virility, are
qualities apart from sex and are bestowed on women equally with
men.
Again and again the thoughtful reader will be struck with this in the
works of the Spanish writers. It is a point of such interest that one
would like to linger upon it. I may mention, as one instance,
Cervantes’ heroines: the “illustre Fregona,” “beautiful, with cheeks of
rose and jessamine, and as hard as marble,” and Sancho’s daughter,
who was “tall as a lance, as fresh as an April morning, and as strong
as a porter.” Of Tirso de Molina, the great Spanish dramatist, it has
been said that he gives “all vigour to his women and all weakness to
his men.” Nor has this robust ideal of womanhood changed. We
meet the same qualities among the women depicted by the Spanish
writers to-day. Blasco Ibanez, in his “Flor de Mayo,” describes a
young woman who could meet “a stolen embrace with a superb kick,
which more than once had felled to the ground a big youth as strong
and firm as the mast of his boat.” Among the heroines of Juan Valera
we find “Juanita” who, “as a girl could throw stones with such
precision that she could kill sparrows, and leap on the back of the
wildest colt or mule,” while Dona Luz “could dance with a sylph, ride
like an Amazon, and in her walk resembled the divine huntress of
Delos.”
It may of course be argued that these are chosen types that cannot
fairly be said to represent Spanish women. Yet the Spanish writers
are realists in a much truer sense than is understood amongst
English novelists, and it must be admitted that the persistence of the
same qualities in so many heroines proves a fundamental veracity in
the type presented; and from my own experience, I can testify that
the women I have known, in their vigour and independence, show
the qualities of these portrait women.
The fact can scarcely be passed over that these heroines almost all
belong to the country districts, sometimes even to the poorest
people, and if, as in the case of “Dona Luz,” they spring from a
different class, they are, as a rule, illegitimate, combining aristocratic
distinction with plebian vigour. This corresponds with my own
observations. I have found the women workers more robust and
more intelligent than the women of the middle and upper classes.
Nor is the explanation far to seek. The preparation that these
women receive for life is far inferior to that of the workers, who co-
operate with men, and whose lives are as actively productive, and
work as capably performed. The women of the richer classes lead
lives of marked inferiority; without opportunity for work, and
compelled to an existence of restricted activity, it is impossible to
develop their physical and intellectual qualities.
Most of these ladies, except when quite young, are stout, they are
less intelligent than the peasants, and few of them have ever
appealed to me as being beautiful. I hasten to add, however, that
they all have the fascination that belongs to Spanish women; a
charm not easy to define. I have spoken of this quality before, let
me try to make it clearer now. I believe it is that all these “senoras”
and “senoritas” understand that they are women, and instead of this
bringing them unhappiness and causing, as it so often does, the
indefinite unquietness that characterises so many English and
American women, you feel that they are glad that this is so. This is
why they are so attractive. Spanish women are in harmony with
themselves, which gives them something of that exquisite appeal
which belongs to all natural things. This is the reason too, why the
older women are so good-humoured, smiling and gay; they have
none of them missed their womanhood.
Here is the real reason of the admiration which these women so
universally arouse,—as women they are so perfect. This is a
question that reaches very deeply; it is a quality so easy to see, so
difficult to explain. What I wish to make clear is that the modern
English ideal for women leaves a wide margin open to desire; the
innermost forces of life too often are left unsatisfied, while the
women of Spain, with all their restrictions, know what it is that, after
all, really brings happiness for women. Which is the wiser
knowledge?
The restrictions for women will pass with the expansion of modern
life, and then the strong personality of Spanish women, their energy
and good sense, will inevitably find expression when opportunity is
given to them. But never can they fall, in pursuit of outside things,
into the error of forgetfulness of their womanhood. There does not
appear to be any vagueness in the souls of these women: our
women have so often too much. In the composed presence of the
Spanish ladies I have felt that it is little profit to a woman if, in
gaining the world, she should lose herself.
 THE DANGEROUS AGE

A TRACT FOR THE TIMES

Under this title the Danish writer, known as Karin Michaelis, in the
far-back years before the war—a time now marked as the terrible
period of the suffrage craze, gave to the world a remarkable and
intimate revelation of a woman. It is perhaps the most illuminating
work that has been written in recent years about women, from its
rare quality of femininity, expressed with an unconscious sincerity
and biting truth.
It is very late in the day to describe a book which, though now
forgotten, was, at the time of its publication, very widely read and
still more widely criticised and discussed in almost all European
countries. It appeared at a time of great feminist unrest, which
accounts, to some extent, for the reception it gained.
The story matters very little, for it is not as the confession of one
woman that “The Dangerous Age” gains its importance, it is because
it affords a diagnosis of an old and a very great evil, as well it is an
acute observation of a certain type of woman’s soul or character.
It is from this aspect that I wish to approach it, and for this reason I
have called it “A Tract for the Times.”
Thus it is of very little importance to my present purpose that the
book is not a new one. It does not matter if the story is
remembered, or indeed, if the book itself has, or has not, been read.
If the reader will recall to his or her mind any one of the restless,
unsatisfied women they must know—women, not young but not old,
they will have the history (the variety in the details will not matter at
all) of Elsie Lindtner, the heroine of this story.
This admirable piece of observation deals with a section of women
who have come into being through our industrial civilisation with its
wrong ideals and stupid customs. Marcel Prévost1 in his preface to
the book, speaks of Elsie Lindtner’s confession as a revelation of the
feminine soul of all time. With the latter part of this opinion I entirely
disagree. Rather would I say that it is a revelation of the soul of
woman as that soul has been evolved through the repression of
natural instincts and the want of satisfying fields for the expression
of energy, in an atmosphere which very surely gives birth to the
modern demons of confused desires and unconscious unhappiness.
The title of the book is not, I think, well chosen. The Dangerous Age
—Elsie Lindtner was forty-two when she wrote her confession—was
dangerous because of the life which had preceeded it. There is,
without doubt, a cleavage in life, which may be said to be marked by
the diminishing of attraction towards the opposite sex. But this is
common to men as well as to women. It belongs to no special age,
and its proportion of danger to the individual rests, first on the
fulness or poverty of experience before this period arrives, and
secondly on the power to extract from the past the joyous impulse
for continuous living. But to Elsie Lindtner, as to all women of such
false and restricted experience, it was far more than a cleavage, and
because she had never lived simply and completely, she experienced
that emptiness which strikes the soul with death when the
consciousness comes that the opportunities of life are passing.
The terror of approaching age robbed her of all her hope of future
happiness, just because she had emptiness in her past.
It is easy to condemn her, to speak of her selfishness, her falseness,
her colossal egoism—there are few adjectives of condemnation that
I have not heard applied to the Elsie
Lindtner’s of life. Yet if we look at the matter rightly, rather ought we
to admire her for the perfect self-sacrifice with which she pursued
the one occupation.
 II

The question at its root is one of right functioning. For mark the real
point of Elsie Lindtner’s history is this: all her actions were based on
search for pleasure. To gain the possessions of this world was the
fixed aim for which she bartered her soul. What does she tell us in
one of her letters? She is writing of her school-days. A class mate
had said to her, “Of course, a prince will marry you, for you are the
prettiest girl here.” She carried the words home to a maid who
added to the poison:
“That’s true enough,” she said, “a pretty face is worth a pocketful of
gold.”
“Can one sell a pretty face, then?” the child asked.
“Yes, to the highest bidder,” was the answer given.
The seed thus sown gave a rich harvest. Sex-trade became the
object, which Elsie Lindtner pursued with the same unflinching
purpose which directs all those who create for themselves the false
gods of possessions. Truly, while we support with our praise the
successful financier, we cannot in justice give less esteem to the
woman who pursues the same end in the way that is the easiest and
surest of success.
It is no part of my purpose to give a resumé of the history of Elsie
Lindtner. The details matter little; a structure of life built on a false
foundation must of necessity fall to ruin. And there is another point I
wish to make clear. The destroying penalty paid by this woman for
the gain of wealth and position was a failure of the power to love.
The real explanation of her unrest, hysteria, and manifold symptoms
of excitement was caused by the unceasing warfare within her of
two antagonistic forces—the desire for comfort and ease, partly
instinctive, but also fixed by habit, strengthened by a wish to keep
the moral dignity imposed upon women by the conditions of the
society in which she lived, fighting with the deeply instinctive desire
for satisfying sex experience to fulfil the functioning of life.
It is necessary for women to speak plainly. You cannot deny the
needs of the body, or prostitute their use, without the soul paying its
penalty. That is what women too often forget. A false purity held
Elsie Lindtner from giving herself to her lover, Jorgen Mallthe, and
kept her faithful in the letter of the law to the husband she had
married for his wealth. She had no children. I say without any doubt
that she would have been a purer and a better, because a happier
and more healthy woman, if she had followed the cry of her heart,
at the first, as she was driven in the end to want to do—when it was
too late. That she did not do this, but chose to sacrifice her lover in
the same way that she had sacrificed her husband must, in my
opinion, be counted as sin against her. Only the falseness which had
wrapped her own life in a net of pretence could have made her fail
to see the truth for herself.
It is a fact of very special importance that Elsie Lindtner and all the
women who enter into this book belong to the Scandinavian race,
among whom chastity was extolled as the chief virtue of a woman,
while any lapse was punished with terrible severity. If the husband
of an ancient Dane discovered his wife in adultery he was allowed to
kill and castrate her lover. “There is a city,” says the Scandinavian
Edda, “remote from the sun, the gates of which face the north,
poison rains there through a thousand openings, the place is all
composed of the carcasses of serpents. There run certain torrents,
in which are plunged the bodies of the perjurers, assassins, and
those who seduce married women. A black-winged dragon flies
incessantly round and devours the bodies of the wretched who are
there imprisoned.” Again, the Icelandic Hava Maél contains this
caustic apophthegm “Trust not the words of a girl, neither to those
which a woman utters, for their hearts have been made like the
wheel that turns round; levity was put into their bosoms. Trust not
to the ice on one day’s freezing, neither to the serpent which lies
asleep, nor to the caresses of her you are going to marry.”
 III

Now, it may be asked: What has all this to do with Elsie Lindtner?
My answer is: “Everything!” The customs of a past social life do
subsist beneath the surface of modern society; we cannot without
strong effort escape from the chains of our inheritance. In the sad
nations of the cold north, where the natural joy of the body has
been regarded as something to be fought with and denied, a
perpetual confusion has arisen at the very source of life. For the sex-
passion is a force, huge and fateful, which has to be reckoned with.
Woman is more primitive, more intuitive, more emotional than man.
And the outlets allowed to her in the past have been more
restricted; thus the price she pays for any repression of the natural
rights of love is heavier. Elsie Lindtner’s history is a sermon to all
those who set up the false god of chastity for women.
I am aware that this statement will arouse opposition—especially in
women. To-day we hear much talk, and often among women who
are working nobly for the better life for women, of control of sex and
the need of imposing on men the same code of repression which for
so long has been imposed upon them. This is, of course, very
natural, but that does not make it wise. It is a truth realised by few
women that repression is not, and never can be, control. There
seems to be a very widespread opinion that to use the divine gift of
sex even in marriage, for joy, is wrong. One would be inclined to
laugh, if the sadness of this falsehood did not make one want to
weep.
The whole subject, wide as life itself, escapes anything like adequate
treatment. The lady—the Elsie Lindtners of society—the household
drudge and the prostitute, are the three main types of women
resulting in our so-called civilisation of to-day, from the process of
the past, and it is hard to know which is the most wretched, which is
the most wronged, the most destructive, and the furthest removed
from that ideal woman which a happier future may evolve.
What, then, in conclusion, is the lesson to be learnt from this “Tract
for the Times?” Women must be free—free to work and free to love.
Then, and then only, can they claim to be the fitting mates of men,
then and then only, will they be able to fulfil aright their supreme
work as the mothers of the sons and daughters of the race. This is
the path along which freedom is to be found. What, then, is the
individual woman to do? This question is one which women at the
present have to answer for themselves. But one thing is certain—
they must have the courage to tear from their eyes the old and the
new bandages that have kept them, and still keep them, in the
darkness of ignorance; better even to sin and know the truth than to
live in falsehood and in a child’s world of pretence.

THE LEGAL POSITION OF THE MOTHER

In spite of the rapid advance that has been made, the legal
disabilities of women are still great. Especially is this so in their
relationship to their children.
Here where they should be supreme women have really no rights at
all under our laws.
They are not the legal parents of their own children. Only if their
child is illegitimately born, have they any rights of guardianship. The
law recognises the father as the one parent. He is entitled to the
custody of the children. He alone can say where they shall live or
how they shall be brought up: he alone has the legal right to decide
how they shall be educated or what religion they shall follow. No
promise that he makes, either before or after marriage is binding.
The man may change his mind at any time. The woman has no
remedy. It is evident how terrible a force for evil these rights may
easily become in the hands of an unscrupulous or vindictive man. If,
for instance, the woman does not choose to live where the husband
directs, he may take her children from her. Again, if there is any
difference of opinion between the two parents the opinion of the one
parent—the father, must prevail. And this is so even when the
mother, and not he, is the supporter of the family.
And the injustice continues even after death. The father has the
right to appoint a guardian to act with the mother, but a guardian
appointed by the mother can act only after both parents are dead.
The children have to be brought up according to any wishes
expressed by the father or even which it is inferred he has intended
to express. This is especially apt to cause trouble with regard to
religion. Any relation of the father (even when he himself has been
either indifferent or irreligious) may claim to have a woman’s
children trained, against her wishes, in the religion professed by the
father’s family on the ground that the father was nominally a
member of that church.
Of course, when there is agreement between the parents, as happily
is the case in the great majority of marriages, the law does not
matter. Indeed very few mothers have any conception of their
position under the law. That is the only reason why these horrible
and out-of-date laws have not been repealed.
Fortunately they are unlikely to remain a dark blot upon our statute
book. An admirable Bill has been formulated under the direction of
the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, which will
remedy this long-standing injustice. It has the long title of the
Guardianship, Maintenance, Custody and Marriage of Infants Bill. Its
two great objects are:—
(1) To make the mother as well as the father the legal parent of
her children.
(2) To impose upon both fathers and mothers the liability to
maintain their children according to their means.
There are many further admirable provisions, as for instance, the
one which gives both parents equal rights in appointing guardians.
Where the child is under 16 and has no property, present or
expectant, the case may be dealt with in Courts of Summary
Jurisdiction (or Police Courts). This is most important, as it makes
the benefits of the equal guardianship possible to the working
classes, which would not be so, if cases, as at present, had to be
heard in High Courts or County Courts.
I shall not trouble to answer the few determined obstructionists who
have opposed this Bill. They say that it will cause difficulty in the
home, and provide a reason for quarrel between husband and wife. I
have too high an opinion of men and women and of their love of
their children to believe this. The cases of dispute, sufficiently
serious to be brought into the courts, will always be comparatively
few. And a decision of justice will be much easier when the partners
have an equal status. Then the welfare of the children will be the
decisive factor and not as now, the desires of the parents.
Equal guardianship laws are in operation already in many countries:
and wherever they have been established they have worked
excellently and must be regarded as a complete success.

PROBLEMS OF BIRTH CONTROL

It is generally admitted that there is much to be gloomy about in
these days of bad trade and post-war morals. And yet, perhaps, the
poor old world does improve in some respects.
One of the most hopeful signs of this improvement to me is the very
widespread interest that has been taken of late in birth control.
Conferences are held, law-suits are fought and won; pamphlets are
written and in almost every town lectures are given, and everywhere
groups of earnest-minded people come together to discuss and to
learn. Our sense of responsibility has been quickened in connection
with birth and the bringing a new life into the world. In a deeper and
more practical way we have come to know that no child should be
born unwanted.
Now, possibly all this suggests no very great moral advance to you.
It may be that you regard it as wrong to regulate births in any way.
Yet surely it is well for this difficult problem to be carefully
considered in open discussion. To avoid error we must have
knowledge. For myself, as I have listened to speakers or read of
what is being done, though possibly I am in sharp opposition to
much that is believed and advised, yet always I am glad when I
reflect that only a little while ago the very mention of birth control
would have been impossible at any public meeting, nor would any
paper have noticed it.
Everywhere since the war the increased interest in the question has
been astonishing. Is it, I have asked myself, that the terrible loss of
life has forced us at last to have a deeper understanding of the value
of life? Certainly all over the world women and men are beginning to
understand the right of every child to be well-born.
The relations between the poverty of the family and its size must be
considered in connection with this question. Much stress is also
rightly laid on the injurious effect on the mother of continuous and
unwilling child-bearing, and on the resulting terrible wastage of life
in mis-carriages and still-births. Personally, I should always like to
hear more of the effect on the children unfortunate enough to live.
For the child is unfortunate who is born into a home unwanted by its
mother.
To give life well it must be given gladly. There can be no deeper
tragedy than an unwilling motherhood.
The moral and religious aspects of family limitation have to be
considered. It needs to be emphasised how more and more religion
to-day refuses to divorce the spiritual from the material necessities
of man, and how it begins to appreciate that the bread-and-butter
difficulties of life have the greatest effect on the moral character of
the people.
If a criticism on the work of those who advocate birth control may
be offered, it is that too much time is spent in saying what everyone
agrees with. Propositions, which all who think at all practically
accept, are gravely supported with elaborate arguments. More might
be accomplished if these elementary questions were left and freer
discussions given to the many grave problems which still await
investigation. There are so many questions on which far more
knowledge needs collecting before any definite conclusions of
permanent value can be accepted.
Roughly classified, birth control needs to be studied from three
different aspects:—
First, there is the effect upon the married couple.
Second, there is the effect upon the child.
And lastly, there is the effect of voluntary limitation of the birth-rate
upon society.
In estimating the consequences to the man and the woman, it is
impossible to neglect the psychological results.
The effect upon the mind is far stronger and more lasting than any
more direct result. I mean, it is what the individual woman or man
feels about limitation that is important for them. It is their own
attitude to what they do that will mainly decide the results it will
have. This is a question of the deepest complication. And much
more knowledge is needed, and the greatest care is called for not to
form hasty and unproved opinions. It is, I must insist, an individual
question that can never be arbitrarilly decided, even by those
competent to form a decision. That is why so much that is said, even
by doctors who ought to know better, is so absurd.
Much easier to estimate is the effect upon the child. Here we seem
to be on firmer ground. To save the unwanted child from being born
or conceived by drunken or syphilitic parents is a work of such plain
morality that there would appear to be no room for difference of
opinion.
Welcome to Our Bookstore - The Ultimate Destination for Book Lovers
Are you passionate about books and eager to explore new worlds of
knowledge? At our website, we offer a vast collection of books that
cater to every interest and age group. From classic literature to
specialized publications, self-help books, and children’s stories, we
have it all! Each book is a gateway to new adventures, helping you
expand your knowledge and nourish your soul
Experience Convenient and Enjoyable Book Shopping Our website is more
than just an online bookstore—it’s a bridge connecting readers to the
timeless values of culture and wisdom. With a sleek and user-friendly
interface and a smart search system, you can find your favorite books
quickly and easily. Enjoy special promotions, fast home delivery, and
a seamless shopping experience that saves you time and enhances your
love for reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and
personal growth!

ebookball.com