us of those who are able to
afford the indulgence. Infirmities induced by over-indulgence are among
some peoples freely recognised as manly attributes. It has even happened
that the name for certain diseased conditions of the body arising from
such an origin has passed into everyday speech as a synonym for "noble"
or "gentle". It is only at a relatively early stage of culture that the
symptoms of expensive vice are conventionally accepted as marks of a
superior status, and so tend to become virtues and command the deference
of the community; but the reputability that attaches to certain
expensive vices long retains so much of its force as to appreciably
lesson the disapprobation visited upon the men of the wealthy or noble
class for any excessive indulgence. The same invidious distinction adds
force to the current disapproval of any indulgence of this kind on
the part of women, minors, and inferiors. This invidious traditional
distinction has not lost its force even among the more advanced peoples
of today. Where the example set by the leisure class retains its
imperative force in the regulation of the conventionalities, it is
observable that the women still in great measure practise the same
traditional continence with regard to stimulants.

This characterisation of the greater continence in the use of stimulants
practised by the women of the reputable classes may seem an excessive
refinement of logic at the expense of common sense. But facts within
easy reach of any one who cares to know them go to say that the
greater abstinence of women is in some part due to an imperative
conventionality; and this conventionality is, in a general way,
strongest where the patriarchal tradition--the tradition that the woman
is a chattel--has retained its hold in greatest vigour. In a sense which
has been greatly qualified in scope and rigour, but which has by no
means lost its meaning even yet, this tradition says that the
woman, being a chattel, should consume only what is necessary to her
sustenance,--except so far as her further consumption contributes to the
comfort or the good repute of her master. The consumption of luxuries,
in the true sense, is a consumption directed to the comfort of the
consumer himself, and is, therefore, a mark of the master. Any such
consumption by others can take place only on a basis of sufferance. In
communities where the popular habits of thought have been profoundly
shaped by the patriarchal tradit