CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM OF WOMEN 301 



offset by stress in the male. Food and protection must be furnished for 

 two instead of one, and at times for more than two. It is because 

 effectiveness during these critical periods is racially essential, that the 

 males are larger, stronger and in general more pugnacious. 



Our point of vantage includes also those flagrant expressions of 

 masculinity, known as the secondary sex characters : among birds, the 

 resplendent plumage of the cock, the comb and wattles; among mam- 

 mals, manes, horns and scent glands ; in man, the beard and deep voice. 

 All these are the outward signs of maleness, for they come and go with 

 the sexual life, and their development may be stunted or prevented by 

 operation. Gelded stags never renew their antlers; sheep, oxen and 

 antelopes grow inferior horns; whereas the preservation of valuable 

 soprano voices in men is assured by the same means. 



These effects are due to the absence of certain chemicals normally 

 emanating from the male sex glands. Analogous results may follow in 

 operated females, but usually most illuminating complications set in, 

 for the female not only has distinctive characters of her own, but is 

 largely dependent on the suppression of those belonging to the male. 

 The functional derangements often associated with old age involve 

 changes in the chemical output of the essential organs, and explain, not 

 only the crowing hen in the barn-yard, but the greater resemblance of 

 the sexes in senescence than in middle life. 



All this is reducible to a chemical basis, certain substances being 

 necessary for the development and persistence of the characters that 

 stamp the male; others being essential not only for the positive traits of 

 the female, but also to insure her freedom from male tincture. From 

 the standpoint of the male, the female is an instance of arrested develop- 

 ment, a conclusion bodily transferable to other attributes, for except in 

 matters peculiarly her own the female is surpassed in amplitude by the 

 male. Physiologically he cuts a wider swathe, and this inevitably in- 

 volves greater variability. Accordingly we find that not onhy as an 

 animal, but as a thinking being, man presents more departures from 

 mediocrity than woman. On this point history testifies with her right 

 hand up, for numerically and as individuals, men have always excelled, 

 not only in knowledge and art, but also as sinners and fools. 



"We may blame the social heritage of women for the supremacy of 

 men, but heritage and supremacy alike have their head-waters in the 

 greater variability of the male sex, for variability means special fitness 

 for advancement. Departure from traditions has ever been the first step 

 of progress, and it is to our variants, our gifted men and geniuses, that 

 we owe railroads, wireless telegraphy and airships; it is to them also 

 that we are indebted for our greater stories, plays and poems, and even 

 for our deepest thoughts. This type of man startles us by his original- 

 ity, and brings into the world things before unknown. 



