Dual control, in fact, works smoothly neither socially nor politically, and though there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, folly abides in divided authority everywhere, and nowhere more certainly than in domestic matters. The New Women--female gendarmes, censors of morals, and would-be domestic tyrants--are quite alive to these objections against the division of authority, but their agreement goes no further. ‘Woman ought to be and shall be’ the head of the family, they say, and no statement is too rash for woman on the war-path to make or subscribe. Woman has ever been a religious animal, and even the modern woman differs little from her forbears in this respect; but do just remind her of St. Paul’s views on the silence and subjection of her sex, and you learn that the militant saint was an ass--no less! And yet Paul remains the patron saint of the foremost diocese in Christendom. See to it, O New Woman! Disestablish him, and erect some more complaisant saint in his stead. Certainly his opinions and teaching flout the feminine Ego.[2] ‘No sensible woman,’ wrote one of the most sensible of her sex,[3] ‘objects to acknowledging what is the fact, that she is physically and mentally inferior to man.... The position of woman has always been, and will be, a subject one.... The man has always been, and will continue to be, the head of the family, and the position of the woman, to my mind, is perfectly summed up in the words, “Her desire shall be to her husband, and he shall rule over her.”’ For women to claim supremacy comes somewhat too late in the day to be effectual. There is a very pretty paradox concealed in the fact that their numbers constitute their weakness, for numerical preponderance is usually found to be an increase of strength; but the converse is the case where women are concerned. A wife may be had for the mere asking by any man, so great is the excess of women, and still so widespread the old-fashioned and right-minded notion that marriage rounds off and completes a woman’s life. Scarce a man so ill-formed in mind or body, or so ill-found in worldly estate but could become a Benedick on the morrow, an he chose. Man’s supremacy must infallibly last while he remains in a minority. He is already perfectly conscious that there are not enough of him to go round, and that this fact puts a premium upon his sex; and he can afford to smile at the women who have theories and air them so persistently. For himself there is no occasion to protest so loudly, while nature continues to endow him with a larger quantity and a superior quality of brains: gives him greater bodily strength, and--best boon of all--keeps him in a minority. And yet, although women are inferior to men in such important matters as intellect and strength, the ‘hen-pecked husband’ has ever been common, and the ‘wearing of the breeches’ by the wife has been a phrase, time out of mind, to denote