"Maybe," I added, "it is merely the result of reaction. Convention
insists that to her face we show her a somewhat exaggerated
deference. Her very follies we have to regard as added charms--the
poets have decreed it. Maybe it comes as a relief to let the
pendulum swing back."
"But is it not a fact," asked the Old Maid, "that the best men and
even the wisest are those who have held women in most esteem? Do we
not gauge civilization by the position a nation accords to its
women?"
"In the same way as we judge them by the mildness of their laws,
their tenderness for the weak. Uncivilised man killed off the
useless numbers of the tribe; we provide for them hospitals,
almshouses. Man's attitude towards woman proves the extent to which
he has conquered his own selfishness, the distance he has travelled
from the law of the ape: might is right.
"Please don't misunderstand me," pleaded the Philosopher, with a
nervous glance towards the lowering eyebrows of the Girton Girl. "I
am not saying for a moment woman is not the equal of man; indeed, it
is my belief that she is. I am merely maintaining she is not his
superior.
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