impassioned, with the slight
drawback of needing a world of looking after, of which the men are
undeniably capable.

In Mohammedan countries generally it is a comely smooth-skinned Dudu,
patient and submissive, always in good humor with her master, economical
in house-living to suit the meanness, and gorgeous in occasional attire
to suit the ostentation, of the genuine Oriental; but by no means Dudu
ever asleep and unoccupied; for, if not allowed to take part in active
outside life, the Eastern's wife or wives have their home duties and
their maternal cares like all other women, and find to their cost that,
if they neglect them unduly, they will have a bad time of it with Ali
Ben Hassan when the question comes of piastres and sequins, and the dogs
of Jews who demand payment, and the pigs of Christians who follow suit.

The American ideal is of two kinds, like the German--the one, the clever
manager, the woman with good executive faculty in the matters of
buckwheat cakes and oyster gumbo, as is needed in a country so poorly
provided with "helps;" the other, the aspiring soul who puts her
aspirations into deeds, and goes out into the world to do battle with
the sins of society as editress, preacher, stump orator, and the like.
It must be rather embarrassing to some men that this special
manifestation of the ideal woman at times advocates miscegenation and
free love; but perhaps we of the narrow old conventional type are not up
to the right mark yet, and have to wait until our own women are
thoroughly emancipated before we can rightly appreciate these questions.
At all events, if this kind of thing pleases the Americans, it is no
more our business to interfere with them than with the French compound;
and if miscegenation and free love seem to them the right manner of
life, let them follow it.

In all countries, then, the ideal woman changes, chameleon-like, to suit
the taste of man; and the great doctrine that her happiness does
somewhat depend on his liking is part of the very foundation of her
existence. According to his will she is bond or free, educated or
ignorant, lax or strict, house-keeping or roving; and though we advocate
neither the bondage nor the ignorance, yet we do hold to the principle
that, by the laws which regulate all human communities everywhere, she
is bound to study the wishes of man, and to mould her life in harmony
with his liking. No society can get on in which there is total
independence of s