MATERIAL INFLUENCE OF WOMEN 271 



interest have in the north been linked with 

 practical considerations, and men's adherence to 

 one politician or another has to some extent been 

 guided by their opinion of the social effect of the 

 views that he professes, and has not been solely 

 determined by sentiment or jealousy. 



The industry of these Baltic peoples has been 

 stimulated very greatly by the freedom of their 

 women. Swayed less masterfully than south- 

 erners by the reproductive instinct, they have, 

 from the beginnings of their history, prized woman 

 for her companionship as well as for her purely 

 sexual attributes, and have conceded to her a 

 substantial measure of liberty. The mediaeval 

 ideas of romance and chivalry manifest a self- 

 restraint in regard to her which seems strange, 

 if not ludicrous, to a Mediterranean. Her material 

 desires are treated with indulgence, and they 

 have been a most important factor in creating 

 the demand for dress and furniture which has 

 started the wheels of factories and has swelled 

 the current of trade. Man is generally content to 

 live in barbarous simplicity, or to share with other 

 men the comforts of a club. It is to woman that 

 we owe the multifarious demands of the home 

 the extravagances, if you will that attend the 

 establishment of a separate centre of life for each 

 family. Imagine the streets of London deserted 

 by women : nine-tenths of the shops would be 

 shut : the tramways and omnibuses would pay 

 no dividends. 







It must be confessed that these material ambi- 

 tions are in themselves less respectable than the 

 ideas that may be evoked by introspective medi- 

 tation : the pursuit of comfort, of riches, can 

 hardly be ranked with the moral aspirations that 

 have been enshrined in all ages by religious and 



