sers; a right about as grotesque as
the right to wear a false nose. Whether female liberty is much advanced
by the act of wearing a skirt on each leg I do not know; perhaps Turkish
women might offer some information on the point. But if the western
woman walks about (as it were) trailing the curtains of the harem
with her, it is quite certain that the woven mansion is meant for
a perambulating palace, not for a perambulating prison. It is quite
certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it
can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately
dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would appear
covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as
judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes
of female dignity The whole world is under petticoat government; for
even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern.

*****

VI. THE PEDANT AND THE SAVAGE

We say then that the female holds up with two strong arms these two
pillars of civilization; we say also that she could do neither, but for
her position; her curious position of private omnipotence, universality
on a small scale. The first element is thrift; not the destructive
thrift of the miser, but the creative thrift of the peasant; the second
element is dignity, which is but the expression of sacred personality
and privacy. Now I know the question that will be abruptly and
automatically asked by all that know the dull tricks and turns of the
modern sexual quarrel. The advanced person will at once begin to argue
about whether these instincts are inherent and inevitable in woman
or whether they are merely prejudices produced by her history and
education. Now I do not propose to discuss whether woman could now be
educated out of her habits touching thrift and dignity; and that for two
excellent reasons. First it is a question which cannot conceivably ever
find any answer: that is why modern people are so fond of it. From the
nature of the case it is obviously impossible to decide whether any of
the peculiarities of civilized man have been strictly necessary to his
civilization. It is not self-evident (for instance), that even the habit
of standing upright was the only path of human progress. There might
have been a quadrupedal civilization, in which a city gentleman put on
four boots to go to the city every morning. Or there might have been
a reptilian civiliz