PLAIN WORDS ON TEE WOMAN QUESTION 179 



women it neglects in favor of what is masculine. It attempts to 

 override the natural distinction of the sexes, and to make women 

 men in all but virility. 



The exact opposite, I believe, is the true line of progress. "We 

 are of two sexes : and in healthy diversity of sex, pushed to its 

 utmost, lies the greatest strength of all of us. Make your men 

 virile : make your women womanly. Don't cramp their intelli- 

 gence : don't compress their waists : don't try to turn them into 

 dolls or dancing girls : but freely and equally develop their femi- 

 nine idiosyncrasy, physical, moral, intellectual. Let them be 

 healthy in body : let them be sound in mind : if possible (but 

 here I know even the most advanced among them will object), try 

 to preserve them from the tyranny of their own chosen goddess 

 and model, Mrs. Grundy. In one word, emancipate woman (if 

 woman will let you, which is more than doubtful), but leave her 

 woman still, not a dulled and spiritless epicene automaton. 



That last, it is to be feared, is the one existing practical result 

 of the higher education of women, up to date. Both in England 

 and America, the women of the cultivated classes are becoming 

 unfit to be wives or mothers. Their sexuality (which lies at the 

 basis of everything) is enfeebled or destroyed. In some cases they 

 eschew marriage altogether openly refuse and despise it, which 

 surely shows a lamentable weakening of wholesome feminine in- 

 stincts. In other cases, they marry, though obviously ill adapted 

 to bear the strain of maternity ; and in such instances they fre- 

 quently break down with the birth of their first or second infant. 

 This evil, of course, is destined by natural means to cure itself 

 with time : the families in question will not be represented at all 

 in the second generation, or will be represented only by feeble and 

 futile descendants. In a hundred years, things will have righted 

 themselves ; but meanwhile there is a danger that many of the 

 most cultivated and able families of the English-speaking race 

 will have become extinct, through the prime error of supposing 

 that an education which is good for men must necessarily also be 

 good for women. 



I said just now that many women at present eschew marriage, 

 and that this shows a weakening of wholesome feminine instinct. 

 Let me hasten to add, for fear of misconception I mean, of course, 

 if they eschew it for want of the physical impulse which ought to 

 be as present in every healthy woman as in every healthy man. 

 That independent-minded women should hesitate to accept the 

 terms of marriage as they now and here exist, I do not wonder. 

 But if they have it really at heart to alter those terms, to escape 

 from slavery, to widen the basis of the contract between the sexes, 

 to put the wife on a higher and safer footing, most sensible men, 

 I feel sure, will heartily co-operate with them. As a rule, how- 



