women, both rich and poor, in all Christian countries, there is indeed in our day something peculiar. Thus the relations between man and wife are, as it seems to me, spoilt by the woman's spirit, not only of unsubmissiveness, but of animosity towards men; of arrogance, desire to show that she is not worse than he, that she can do everything he can do, -and also by the absence of moral religious feeling[1], which is often superseded in woman, even when it had existed by the maternal feeling.
I think that women are quite equal to men, but as soon as they marry and become mothers, a division of labor naturally takes place. The maternal feeling absorb so much energy that there is not enough left for moral guidance, and this guidance is therefore naturally transferred to the husband. So it has been since we have known the world...
At the present time, however, this natural order of things having been abused by the guidance of man establishing itself grossly, by violence -and women having now been emancipated by Christianity... woman has ceased to obey man from fear and has not yet commanded, I do not say, to obey, but, to surrender the guidance to him from the sense that it is better thus, -and a confusion and disarrangement of life has begun, which is apparent in all spheres of society and under all circumstances.
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The greater number of the suffering ensuing from the communion of men and women arise from the complete want of understanding of one sex by the other.
- ↑ The Author here and in all other places where he speaks discreditably of women is referring to women of an "unchristian" spirit as he explains later in this book. -Trans
