The Sexes.
As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman:
Though she bends him, she obeys him;
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other.—Hiawatha.
Mrs. Jameson, speaking of the mistaken belief that there are essential masculine and feminine virtues and vices, says it is not the quality itself, but the modification of the quality, which is masculine or feminine; and on the manner or degree in which these are balanced or combined in the individual, depends the perfection of that individual character. As the influences of religion are extended and as civilization advances, those qualities which are now admired as essentially feminine will be considered as essentially human,—such as gentleness, purity, the more unselfish and spiritual sense of duty, and the dominance of the affections over the passions. This is, perhaps, what Buffon, speaking as a naturalist, meant when he said that with the progress of humanity Les races se féminisent. The axiom of the Greek philosopher Antisthenes, the disciple of Socrates, The virtue of the man and the woman is the same, shows a perception of this moral truth, a sort of anticipation of the Christian doctrine, even in the pagan times.
Every reader of Wordsworth will recollect the poem entitled The Happy Warrior. It has been quoted as an epitome of every manly, soldierly, and elevated quality. Those who make the experiment of merely substituting the word WOMAN for the word WARRIOR, and changing the feminine for the masculine pronoun, will find that it reads equally well, and from beginning to end is literally as applicable to the one sex as to the other. As thus:—