In H. L. Mencken’s favor is his absence of the usual gush about feminine beauty. He declares with refreshing honesty that in contrast to the female body a milk jug or even a cuspidor is a thing of intelligent and gratifying design. Of woman’s superior mental ability he says, “A cave man is all muscle and mush. Without a woman to think for him, he is truly a lamentable spectacle, a baby with whiskers, a rabbit with the frame of an aurochs, a feeble and preposterous caricature of God.” What a pity that women use all these advantages of superior mentality and ability only in the age-old game of man-hunting. But do they? D. H. Lawrence shares this philosophy of the chief business of women, and he is much more gloomy about it. In fact, he is decidedly neurotic in his fear of the ultimate absorption of man. Woman he describes perpetually as a great, magnetic womb, fecund, powerful, drawing, engulfing. Man he sees as a pitiful, struggling creature, ultimately devoured by fierce maternal force. “You absorb, absorb,” cries Paul to Miriam in “Sons and Lovers,” “as if you must fill yourself up with love because you’ve got a shortage somewhere.” The Lawrence model, madly, fiercely possessive, differs from older forms in the abundance of physiological and pathological trimming. His conclusion, as voiced again by Paul to Miriam is, “A woman only works with part of herself; the real and vital part is covered up.” And this hidden reality is her terrific, destructive, fervid determination to drown man in her embrace. So it goes. To Floyd Dell woman is a Mother, to H. L. Mencken a Wife, to W. L. George a Courtesan, and to D. H. Lawrence a Matrix--always specialized to sex. There may be men who are able to think of woman apart from the pattern of function, but they are inarticulate. Most of them spend their lives associating with a symbol. The set pieces they call Mary, Martha, Elaine, or Marguerite may follow the standardized design of grandmother, mother, or aunt. Or in more advanced circles, the pattern may call for bobbed hair, knickers, and cigarette case. Under any form of radicalism or conservatism the stereotype remains.