His wife bore him some children, and then wished to resume her career as an actress. Strindberg objected to this, and they quarreled, and after seven years they parted. The poet considered this an irremediable tragedy; for he held a mystical idea, that marriage is an actual union of flesh and spirit, and to tear a couple apart is to maim them both. Strindberg put his agony into a book, “The Confessions of a Fool”; a ghastly record, yet one can hardly keep from smiling over it. The author preaches the doctrine that woman is inferior to man; he pounds upon this theme--and then proceeds to tell you marital incidents which make it clear that the woman was fully a match for him! Strindberg believes that woman is inferior, not merely physically, intellectually and morally, but biologically; she is a half-way creature between man and child, and it is her duty to submit herself in all things to the biologically superior male. But nature for some reason has failed to inform her that she is inferior, and the perverse creature insists upon trying to act as if she were equal; so everything goes to wreck. Somebody said that Herbert Spencer’s idea of a tragedy was a generalization killed by a fact. Strindberg’s tragedy was the same, but he never recognized it; he clung to his generalization, not merely through this marriage, but through two others, which failed in the same way, and for the same reason. It is true that some women are predatory; it is true that a great many women abuse the power they get. That may be expected of every enslaved race or class or sex. But the only way to become fit for power is to exercise it, and the only way to get it is to take it. The women who broke Strindberg’s three marriages were like the suffragettes with hammers; they were using the only arguments their opponents would heed. As a result of their efforts, some of us now live in a happier time, having comrade-wives who do not abuse their share of power, but co-operate with their husbands in carrying the burdens of life. But whatever you think about Strindberg’s biological superiority, you cannot deny the power of the tragedy he wrote upon his thesis. It is called “The Father,” and shows a man undermined and destroyed by a cunning, determined woman, who sets out to break him to her will. Also you have to admit the reality of “Miss Julia,” which portrays the degeneracy of the ruling classes in Sweden. This high-born young lady, who starts an intrigue with a man-servant in her household, might be a page out of a “yellow” Sunday supplement in America.