ut men are equally so, only
their extravagance takes a different turn. A woman's is aesthetic; a
man's is gross. She buys fine clothes and furniture. He panders to
his bodily appetites. Which is worse? Women love men, and wish to be
loved by them, and are miserable if they are not. So the wife lets her
husband do twenty things which he ought not to do, which it is rude and
selfish and wicked for him to do, rather than run the risk of loosening
the cords which bind him to her. One can see every day how women
manage,--the very word tells the whole story,--MANAGE men, by cunning
strategy, cajolery, and all manner of indirections, just as if they
were elephants. But if men were what they ought to be, there would be
no such humiliating necessity. They ought to be so upright, so candid,
so just, that it is only necessary to show this is right, this is
reasonable, this is wrong, for them to do it, or to refrain from the
doing. As it is, men smoke by the hour together, and their wives are
thankful it is nothing worse. They would not dare to make a serious
attempt to annihilate the pipe. They feel that they hold their own by
a tenure so uncertain, that they are forced to ignore minor
transgressions for the sake of retaining their throne. I do not say
that women are entirely just and upright, but I do think that the
womanly nature is GOOD-er than the manly nature; I think a very large
proportion of female faults are the result of the indirect, but
effective wrong training they receive from men; and I think, thirdly,
that, take women just as they are, wrong training and all, there is not
one in ten thousand million who, if she had a faithful and loving
husband, would not be a faithful and loving wife. Men know this, and
act upon it. They know that they can commit minor immoralities, and
major ones too, and be forgiven. They know it is not necessary for them
to keep themselves pure in body and soul lest they alienate their
wives. So they yield to their fleshly lusts. What an ado would be
made if a woman should form the habit of smoking, or any habit whose
deleterious effects extend through her husband's or her father's rooms,
cling to his wardrobe, books, and all his especial belongings! Suppose
she should even demand an innocent ice-cream as frequently as her
husband demands a cigar,--suppose she should spend as much time and
money on candy as he spends on tobacco,--would she not be considered an
extravagant, selfi