Hints for Lovers Part 23

IX. On Men and Women

"Dio fa gli uomini, e e' s' appaino."

--Salviati

There are two elements of character which a man should possess, develop, and maintain unstained if he would find favor in feminine eyes: the first is bravery; the second, indomitableness of resolution. So likewise,

There are two elements of character which a woman should possess, develop, and maintain unstained if she would find favor in masculine eyes: the first is sympathy; the second, sweetness of temper.

A curious and latent hostility divides the s.e.xes. It seems as they could not approach each other without alarums and excursions. Always the presence of the one rouses anxiety in the breast of the other; they stand to arms; they resort to tactics; they maneuver. And,

Men and women approach each other vizored and in armor. But it is often only to conceal the craven heart that beats beneath the brazen cuira.s.s.

Men judge of women, not so much by their intrinsic worth, as by the impression women make upon them. And women know this, since All women are alive to the fact that the impressing (1) of men is the important function of life. Accordingly,

Great stress is, and is naturally, laid by women upon dress and the subtleties of the toilette. For,

In matters of the heart man is led by the heart and not by the head. (2) And why not? Since

It is generally a sweet-heart, not a hard head, that a man wants. In short,

Men are oftener vanquished by a look than by logic; by a gracious smile than by good sense; by manner and even by dress than by mental development or depth. This is to say,

A man judges a woman by her appearance;

A woman judges a woman by her motives. (And

A woman judges of a woman's motives by what she knows of her own.)--So it comes about that,

To a man, a woman's heart is something mysterious. But

Women, who know their own hearts, have little difficulty in reading others'.

(1) It is (perhaps) highly unfortunate that to this word is attached a two-fold signification.

(2) Though, as Mr. Grant Allen has endeavored to show, this is a scientific a method as any.

No units of measurement yet devised are adequate for the computation of the power wielded by a beautiful woman.

That is a significant fact, and probably, could we fathom all the profundities and unravel all the entanglements of the relations between the s.e.xes, as deep and as intricate as significant, that no woman thinks a man can pay her a higher compliment than to wish to make her his own.

For though

Woman thinks man her ultimate aim and desire, Nature knows that man is but the stepping-stone to the child. In the end woman agrees with Nature. We may go farther, and say

Women are nearer the eternal laws than are men. Men govern themselves by the laws they themselves make. Women are lawless. Laws are for the temporal, the fleeting; for a given individual in a given society; for a particular race in a particular clime. Such laws are obeyed by women only under compulsion. They, more far-seeing than men, instinctively peer far beyond the ephemeral rules manufactured by men, into the realm of laws eternal and immutable; these she obeys implicitly, unquestioningly--much to man's amazement--and, it may be, his mortification; for he sees that she is freer than he. This is why,

For the man she truly loves a woman will sacrifice everything --everything. The same generous sentiment cannot by any means be attributed to man.

Both the wise man and the wise woman--but here I am reminded of the recipe for hare soup.

Between the s.e.xes there is in reality but one link--the link amatory.

And

So long as Nature maintains two s.e.xes, so long will men and women hug, yet chafe under, that slender but invisible bond.

Not even Cupid and Psyche avoided a misunderstanding--in spite of the devotion of the other. And,

If men and women differ in matters amatory, it is because men and women have trodden different evolutionary paths:

The man, given up to the chase (for pelts or pelf) and careful of his status in the tribe, thinks only of himself and the present;

The woman, her sole care the nurture of her offspring, thinks only of her progeny, and the future. But since

The family is the unit of the state, therefore

The state makes laws, not for love, but for the family.

Happy that family the parents of which are bound by cosmic not by munic.i.p.al affection. Nevertheless,

Say what one will, Love scoffs at laws; howsoever marriage and divorce may be regulated by parliamentary statute.

Man, as a member of a political community, may make marriage laws to suit that community--laws to suit that community--laws "de vinculo matrimonii" and laws "de mensa et thoro", decrees "nisi prius" and decrees absolute; but

Law can no more bind the affections than it can bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades. And yet, at bottom,

Beneath all munic.i.p.al and parochial regulations, a great and cosmic law does govern the relations of the s.e.xes; and

The lightest whim of the lightest lady has a definite, perhaps a cosmic, fount and origin.

A man can never know too much. Perhaps a woman can. And