n of a sufficient
number of wives to work up for trade the products of the chase; and
today the West African youth does not seek a young woman in marriage
but an old one, preferably a widow, who knows all about the arts of
preparing and adulterating rubber. Among peasants, also, and plain
people the proverb recognizes that the "gray mare is the better
horse." The heavy, strong, enduring, patient, often dominant type,
frequently seen among the lower classes, where alone woman is still
economically functional, is probably a good representative of what the
women of our race were before they were reduced by man to a condition
of parasitism which, in our middle and so-called higher classes, has
profoundly affected their physical, mental, and moral life.

On the moral side, particularly, man's disposition to bend the
situation to his pleasure placed woman in a hard position and resulted
in the distortion of her nature, or rather in bringing to the front
elemental traits which under our moral code are not reckoned the
best. In the animal world the female is noted for her indirection. On
account of the necessity of protecting her young, she is cautious and
cunning, and, in contrast with the open and pugnacious methods of
the more untrammeled male, she relies on sober colors, concealment,
evasion, and deception of the senses. This quality of cunning is, of
course, not immoral in its origin, being merely a protective instinct
developed along with maternal feeling. In woman, also, this tendency
to prevail by passive means rather than by assault is natural; and
especially under a system of male control, where self-realization is
secured either through the manipulation of man or not at all, a resort
to trickery, indirection, and hypocrisy is not to be wondered at. Man
has, however, always insisted that woman shall be better than he is,
and her immoralities are usually not such as he greatly disapproves.
There has, in fact, been developed a peculiar code of morals to cover
the peculiar case of woman. This may be called a morality of the
person and of the bodily habits, as contrasted with the commercial and
public morality of man. Purity, constancy, reserve, and devotion are
the qualities In woman which please and flatter the jealous male;
and woman has responded to these demands both really and seemingly.
Without any consciousness of what she was doing (for all moral
traditions fall in the general psychological region of habit), she