The Truth About WomanHartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
History
The Truth About Woman
Hartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Women; Women -- History; Women -- Social and moral questions
"He hated woman, hated her unconsciously and instinctively
despised her. He often repeated to himself the words of Christ:
'Woman, what have I to do with thee?' And he would add, 'It
seems as if God Himself felt discontented with that particular
creation.' For him was that child of whom the poet speaks,
impure, through and through impure. She was the temptress who
had led away the first man, and still continued her work of
perdition; a frail creature but dangerous, mysteriously
disturbing. And even more than their sinful bodies he hated
their loving souls.... God, in his opinion, had created woman
solely to tempt man, to put him to the proof."
One lesson women and men have to learn: so easy to be put into words,
so difficult to carry out by deeds. To get good from each other the
sexes must give love the one to the other. The human heart in
loneliness eats out itself, causes its own emptiness, creates its own
terrors. Nature gives lavishly, wantonly, and woman is nearer to
Nature than man is, therefore she must give the more freely, the more
generously. There can be no such thing as the goodness of one-half of
life without the goodness of the other half. Love between woman and
man is mutual; is continual giving. Not by storing up for the good of
one sex or in waste for the pleasure of the other, but by free
bestowing is salvation. Wherefore, not in the enforced chastity of
woman, but in her love, will man gain his new redemption.
FOOTNOTES:
[318] Velazquez is known to us only by the name of his mother; his
father's name was de Silva.
[319] I have taken these passages from the chapter on "The Women of
Galicia," in my _Spain Revisited_.
[320] _Man and Woman_, p. 377; Moebius, _Stachylogie_, 1901.
[321] The passage occurs in a lecture by Prof. Thomson and Mrs.
Thomson on "The Position of Woman Biologically Considered," and was
one of a series delivered in Edinburgh to consider and estimate the
recent changes in the position of woman. The addresses have been
published in a book entitled _The Position of Woman, Actual and
Ideal_.
[322] _Sexual Life of Our Times_, p. 74.
[323] _Sex and Society_, pp. 306, 307.
[324] Quoted by Bloch, _Sexual Life of Our Times_, p. 80.
[325] _Sexual Life of Our Times_, pp. 80, 81.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER X
THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
I.--_Marriage_
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