e at fault. Having a detached and
logical soul, he never let himself forget this truth. Take Lottie! He
had loved her. He had never loved any other woman. If he had had his
other affairs--it was out of spite or defiance or curiosity. They meant
nothing. He and Lottie had loved one another. And the love had developed
almost at once into a kind of combat. Lottie had been the only child of
headstrong, well-to-do parents. He also had been the only child of his
widowed mother. Well then, both he and Lottie had been brought up
to consider themselves the first in whatsoever company they found
themselves. During the early months of the marriage he had, of course,
continued the spoiling of the young wife. But this never altered the
fact that, by his very nature, he considered himself as first and almost
as single in any relationship. First and single he felt, and as such he
bore himself. It had taken him years to realise that Lottie also felt
herself first and single: under all her whimsicalness and fretfulness
was a conviction as firm as steel: that she, as woman, was the centre of
creation, the man was but an adjunct. She, as woman, and particularly
as mother, was the first great source of life and being, and also of
culture. The man was but the instrument and the finisher. She was the
source and the substance.

Sure enough, Lottie had never formulated this belief inside herself. But
it was formulated for her in the whole world. It is the substantial
and professed belief of the whole white world. She did but inevitably
represent what the whole world around her asserted: the life-centrality
of woman. Woman, the life-bearer, the life-source.

Nearly all men agree to the assertion. Practically all men, even while
demanding their selfish rights as superior males, tacitly agree to the
fact of the sacred life-bearing priority of woman. Tacitly, they yield
the worship to that which is female. Tacitly, they conspire to agree
that all that is productive, all that is fine and sensitive and most
essentially noble, is woman. This, in their productive and religious
souls, they believe. And however much they may react against the belief,
loathing their women, running to prostitutes, or beer or _anything_,
out of reaction against this great and ignominious dogma of the sacred
priority of women, still they do but profane the god they worship.
Profaning woman, they still inversely worship her.

But in Aaron was planted another seed. He did n