n my
scheme of reformation. That, at least, I gather from what she has said
to me. Stronger, however, than this feeling, is, I am sure, an
unconscious, or at any rate an unacknowledged, irritation at what she
feels to be a failure on my part _to blame men_; I say too little about
their weakness and their lust.

I grant this. In the first place I am convinced of the folly of
preaching to anyone. Then, as I am always asserting, I believe in the
continuous responsibility of woman, and, therefore, if I am to be
honest, I must accept here as in all relations between the sexes, the
validity of the man's plea that rings--yes, and will continue to
ring--through the centuries: "The woman tempted me." We are dealing with
forces that I do not believe can be set aside, forces active long before
human relations were established, which press on women back and back
through the ages. Woman possesses the sacred right of protecting man, it
is a duty imposed upon her by nature, and one that she cannot safely
escape. Let me assert that this is no sentimental statement. The
essential fact in every relationship of the sexes is the woman's power
over the man, and it is the misuse of that power that leads to all
prostitution.

VII

I want now, in a final section of this chapter, to consider, as fully as
the limits of my space will allow, the outside facts of
prostitution--that is, the popular view on the subject.

Externally, prostitution exhibits two factors: lust in men and a
dependent condition among women, which makes them surrender themselves
as victims to this lust. This is the accepted, sentimental, and
picturesque description: a sort of compound of sinfulness and pathos,
making a draught, if the truth is faced, not always altogether
unpleasing to women, a fact which surely accounts for the excitement and
veiled pleasurable curiosity with which the subject usually is
approached. For the lust, men are held responsible, and the chaste
characters of women are held up in contrast. Now, it is this view of the
matter which affords prostitution one of its most certain opportunities
of permanency: also it gives women, when they attack it, all the
pleasing satisfaction of virtue that is realized without effort. At the
same time, it explains why they object to repressive measures that are
framed to end it.

During the agitation, for instance, for the repeal of the 40 D Act,
women and women-like men wallowed in righteousness. Never did I