, except rule, is given to woman in Western
countries, and that it is given almost religiously.

Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of judging for
yourselves if you go to America. There you will find men treating women
with just the same respect formerly accorded only to religious dignitaries
or to great nobles. Everywhere they are saluted and helped to the best
places; everywhere they are treated as superior beings. Now if we find
reverence, loyalty and all kinds of sacrifices devoted either to a human
being or to an image, we are inclined to think of worship. And worship it
is. If a Western man should hear me tell you this, he would want the
statement qualified, unless he happened to be a philosopher. But I am
trying to put the facts before you in the way in which you can best
understand them. Let me say, then, that the all-important thing for the
student of English literature to try to understand, is that in Western
countries woman is a cult, a religion, or if you like still plainer
language, I shall say that in Western countries woman is a god.

So much for the abstract idea of woman. Probably you will not find that
particularly strange; the idea is not altogether foreign to Eastern
thought, and there are very extensive systems of feminine pantheism in
India. Of course the Western idea is only in the romantic sense a feminine
pantheism; but the Oriental idea may serve to render it more
comprehensive. The ideas of divine Mother and divine Creator may be
studied in a thousand forms; I am now referring rather to the sentiment,
to the feeling, than to the philosophical conception.

You may ask, if the idea or sentiment of divinity attaches to woman in the
abstract, what about woman in the concrete--individual woman? Are women
individually considered as gods? Well, that depends on how you define the
word god. The following definition would cover the ground, I think:--"Gods
are beings superior to man, capable of assisting or injuring him, and to
be placated by sacrifice and prayer." Now according to this definition, I
think that the attitude of man towards woman in Western countries might be
very well characterized as a sort of worship. In the upper classes of
society, and in the middle classes also, great reverence towards women is
exacted. Men bow down before them, make all kinds of sacrifices to please
them, beg for their good will and their assistance. It does not matter
that this sacrifice i