Every budding actor assumes unconsciously that he can delineate a rôle better than the other histrionic lights of his time; every new novelist must assume that he can tell a story more attractively than his readers could picture it to themselves, etc., etc. The artist who is willing to yield, soon relapses into the ranks of the business men. Whoever panders to the popular taste of his time may derive therefrom financial advantages but very little egotistical gratification. The real artist must know that he is right and must not be, therefore, soft clay to be moulded by any one else's desires. How then could the artist obtain lasting happiness from any form of love relationship? =The Male Artist=, if married to a submissive, masochistic wife, may live happily with her for a time. Egotists, male or female, however, need flattery. Familiarity breeds contempt. Flattery must come from a constantly changing source or lose its power, as drugs do when we grow accustomed to them. Flattery coming from a pretty woman whose attraction has not been weakened by daily contact will soon lead the artist husband into forbidden paths. Unless endowed with the wisdom of the musician's wife in "The Concert," his wife will soon be granted a divorce on the ground of his too obvious infidelity. Woe to the male artist who takes unto himself a female artist for his wife. As I said in the preceding chapter, sadist plus sadist equals divorce suit for cruelty alleged by both parties. In this type of matrimonial castastrophy, the fault lies more frequently with the wife than with the husband. =Female Artists= are more unbearable than male artists. They are more touchy, more easily offended and angered, more apt to suspect the people in their environment of harboring veiled hostility. The reason for that state of things is not far to seek. Women require infinitely more flattery than men do. Not that a craving for attention is by any means a typically feminine trait. That craving has been forced upon them by the masculine domination. We have made woman inferior to man politically, socially, economically, we have, as Adler would word it, put her "below." Until we allow her to rise to man's level, she will never feel safe and will constantly require assurances of her superiority, at least, from the men who fancy her looks and enjoy her company. =The Woman Who Accomplishes Things= in this world, who, in spite of woman's handicap in her dealings with the world, wins recognition as a painter, sculptor, writer, singer, etc., feels, and justly so, that she deserves more credit for her accomplishment than a man would. Winning power in a man's world is for the woman who reaches that aim ethically, that is, without bartering her sexual favors for success, as difficult as it would be for a Jew to arrive in a bigoted Christian community, for a negro to establish his prestige in a white anglo-saxon environment.