Marriage; Women -- History; Women -- Social conditions
I am told that Mr. Austen Chamberlain repeatedly made the very careless
statement that “men are men, and women are women,” in a speech
delivered in 1909. He evidently has not acquainted himself with the
elementary science of sex. Is it not time that the books alluded to
above should be made generally accessible? Then our younger statesmen,
at least, might come to the platform with some less absurd refrain than
that obsolete inaccuracy. Let me assure Mr. Chamberlain that German
science and research have proved that the contrary statement would be
rather more exact.
IX
EXPERIMENTS
We are all speculating about the changes to be brought about in this
century from which we women hope so much, and a great many people are
making practical experiments. Myself, I am of that tranquil nature
which willingly follows the advice of Punch when he says: “Never
practise what you preach, to do so is to hold up your opinions to
obvious ridicule.”
I must confess to an altogether selfish concern for my own comfort.
I dislike the home because it means that one has to live with people
who are privileged to behave without politeness in each other’s
company. Most of us share the feeling, I think, that we like to be the
worst-behaved person present. This can only be achieved satisfactorily
to all when one lives by oneself. My own experiments have mostly been
in the attempt to modify the solitary life with an exactly pleasant
proportion of social life. I was brought up in a large family until I
was twenty-three, and I lived the orthodox married life for four years,
so that I have given home and the family as much trial as seemed
necessary.
As a hermit with mitigating friends and enemies, and the various
societies I have helped to run, my life has been unusually full of
varied interests. I have no regrets, because my failures have been some
of my most valuable experiences, and my moments of bitterness have been
the cause of my greatest contentment.
At the same time, one is horribly afraid that one might induce courage
in some other person whose heart is too tender to get through trouble.
One is rather apt to dread the grey life of a patient woman without any
kind of artistic talent, who makes a muddle of her affairs because she
religiously practises instead of preaching.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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