n left his savings to his
son on condition that he should never marry a maid of honor. But it is safe
to say that on the whole the feeling of contempt for women, and the love to
exercise arbitrary power over them, is the survival of a crude impulse
which the world is outgrowing, and which is in general least obvious in the
manliest men. That clear and able English writer, Walter Bagehot, well
describes "the contempt for physical weakness and for women which marks
early society. The non-combatant population is sure to fare ill during the
ages of combat. But these defects, too, are cured or lessened; women have
now marvellous means of winning their way in the world; and mind without
muscle has far greater force than muscle without mind." [1]

[Footnote 1: _Physics and Politics_, p. 79.]

THE NOBLE SEX

A highly educated American woman of my acquaintance once employed a French
tutor in Paris to assist her in teaching Latin to her little grandson. The
Frenchman brought with him a Latin grammar, written in his own language,
with which my friend was quite pleased, until she came to a passage
relating to the masculine gender in nouns, and claiming grammatical
precedence for it on the ground that the male sex is the noble
sex,--"_le sexe noble_." "Upon that," she said, "I burst forth in
indignation, and the poor teacher soon retired. But I do not believe,"
she added, "that the Frenchman has the slightest conception, up to this
moment, of what I could find in that phrase to displease me."

I do not suppose he could. From the time when the Salic Law set French
women aside from the royal succession, on the ground that the kingdom of
France was "too noble to be ruled by a woman," the claim of nobility has
been all on one side. The State has strengthened the Church in this theory,
the Church has strengthened the State; and the result of all is, that
French grammarians follow both these high authorities. When even the good
Pere Hyacinthe teaches, through the New York "Independent," that the
husband is to direct the conscience of his wife, precisely as the father
directs that of his child, what higher philosophy can you expect of any
Frenchman than to maintain the claims of "_le sexe noble_"?

We see the consequence, even among the most heterodox Frenchmen. Rejecting
all other precedents and authorities, the poor Communists still held to
this. Consider, for instance, this translation of a marriage contract under
the Comm