To suppose, by a false analogy with man, that sexual union alone, without its natural results, is going to satisfy Woman’s body, however much she herself may be deluded into believing it will, is nothing more nor less than to condone an act of pure cruelty, of savage violence, against a basic instinct and its elaborate generating mechanism.[34] As a matter of fact, although Woman means everything to Man’s sexuality, and is the embodiment of all that his reproductive instinct can desire, even when it is at its keenest, Man means very little to Woman. He is, after all, no more than the sparking-plug that sets an elaborate process going, and the brief moment in which his share in her business is accomplished, and the incomplete pleasure it affords her, are ridiculously insignificant when compared with the importance he himself would fain attach to them. Woman’s supposed devotion to man, and even her love for him, is therefore much more of an illusion than Man’s love for Woman. Regarded dispassionately and coolly, Woman’s love for Man must be more or less of an exaggerated and romantic ideal. He is merely the first station on a long and delightful journey, in which the subsequent destination is the chief concern. Of course he may be desired again as the first station for a second, third, fourth or fifth journey; but it is always self-deception that induces any woman to regard a man as more than that, as more final, more satisfying than that; although utilitarian motives may induce her to exploit and use his social instinct to the utmost while she is serving nature’s and her own ends by having children by him. The only kind of woman to whom Man is everything, is the prostitute, and I shall show in Chapter IX what a cruel misconception even her position is. By the time that man has done his share in the sexual act, therefore, and that his social instinct _alone_ has taken command of him, bidding him protect and support his mate, and face the responsibilities that are coming, the Woman may be said to have only just begun, only just started on the road. Silently, secretly, but with vigorous determination, the reproductive instinct still reigns supreme, and has an enormous amount to do—pleasures and pain to bring and to forget, power to confer and to withhold. This is as important as it seems generally to be misunderstood; and yet its non-acceptance as a principle is the source of more than three-quarters of the crimes that are committed against and by women in the whole of the modern world.