CHAPTER XXXIII
THE WORST FEATURE OF WOMEN AS A SEX
Only a few days ago, while calling on a lady of my acquaintance, the conversation fell on a lady singer whom the public admired and applauded for many years, and whose private character made her also a great favourite in society. She left the operatic stage a good many years ago, and went on the concert platform under the management of her husband, who was a well-known impresario. One day her voice failed her, and so did her husband, who, realizing there was no more money in his wife, thought that the best thing he could do now was to leave her. With this, however, he was not satisfied. A so-called London society paper, having published a paragraph to the effect that he had left his wife without any provision, this unspeakable cur wrote to all the papers denying that he had ever been married to that beautiful woman, who for years had loved him, who had not only been faithful to him and devoted to him, but had entirely supported him.
People in England were so indignant that I remember the man had immediately to leave all the clubs he was associated with, and that the beautiful and talented woman, who had been so shamefully deceived, inspired such keen sympathy that she was more than ever sought in society, where her reputation was so firmly established that the letters written to the papers could not put a stain on her character. In spite of my reminding my lady friend of all the incidents of the case, the only sympathy I could extract from her was the following remark, 'She should have expected all this,' almost to the tune of, 'She only got what she deserved.' Then, starting to philosophize, she added: 'A woman should know that the man who wickedly wrongs her does not mean to marry her; and if a woman will live with a man without being his wife, she must be prepared to bear the consequences of her folly, and to be one day left in the lurch.'
'But,' I rejoined, 'do you mean to tell me that a woman who, purely out of love, devotes her life to a man, has not a right to expect that man to devote his life to her, to protect her, to make her future safe, and all the more so because they are not married? I am afraid that what makes those acts of desertion so frequent is the leniency shown by society towards them, and the supreme contempt which women who are legally married have for those who are not, and who are just as respectable as they are, and very often a good deal more so.'
I am in business with many people who always had such confidence in me, and I such confidence in them, that there were never any contracts signed between us, and I do not think they are more afraid of my breaking my engagements with them, because they have not my signature, than I am of their breaking their promise to me, because I have in my hands no contract duly signed, stamped, and witnessed.
Men who deceive men, who break with them contracts made only by word, are ostracized from society. Why should men who deceive women be received by it with open arms?
There are men of honour in the world, thank Heaven! and if men are expected to act honourably towards their fellow-men, can you explain to me why women should be found who think it quite natural that these same men should not behave honourably, not even decently, towards women who have placed their trust in them to the extent of not exacting their signature on a contract?
The worst feature of women as a sex is the absence of free-masonry among them. They stick together only for the redress of more or less imaginary grievances; perhaps the only one really momentous to their sex—I mean the desertion of trusting women by treacherous men—scarcely appeals to them. The woman who has fallen through love and confidence will get no sympathy from women, not even from the one who should give it to her—I mean the one who has given herself to a man, not because she loved him, but because he offered her money and matrimony.
Women who have in hand a contract of marriage signed, stamped, and witnessed, are so inexorable towards their sex that they will—I am ashamed to say it for them—rather take the part of men betrayers than that of poor women betrayed.