with uplifted hands bending over the dripping form, and the callous and brutal gentleman turning aside to light a cigarette—this is a typical specimen of Feminist didactic art. By these means, which have been carried on with increasing ardour for a couple of generations past, what we may term the anti-man cultus has been made to flourish and to bear fruit till we find nowadays all recent legislation affecting the relations between the sexes carrying its impress, and the whole of the judiciary and magistracy acting as its priests and ministrants.
On the subject of Anti-man legislation, I have already written at length elsewhere,[1] but for the sake of completeness I state the case briefly here. (1) The marriage laws of England to-day are a monument of Feminist sex partiality. If I may be excused the paradox, the partiality of the marriage laws begins with the law relating to breach of promise, which, as is well known, enables a woman to punish a man vindictively for refusing to marry her after having once engaged himself to her. I ought to add, and this, oftentimes, however good his grounds may be for doing so. Should the woman commit perjury, in these cases, she is never prosecuted for the
- ↑ Cf. Fortnightly Review, November 1911, “A Creature of Privilege,” also a pamphlet (collaboration) entitled “The Legal Subjection of Men.” Twentieth Century Press, reprinted by New Age Press, 1908.
