WOMAN
A Vindication
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A DEFENCE OF ARISTOCRACY
MAN’S DESCENT FROM THE GODS
THE FALSE ASSUMPTIONS OF DEMOCRACY
ETC.
WOMAN
A Vindication
By
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI
CONSTABLE · LONDON
BOMBAY · SYDNEY · 1923
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London
CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| Introduction | [vii] | |
Part I | ||
| PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS | ||
| I | Positiveness—The Saying of “Yea” to Life | [3] |
| II | The Subject Treated Generally | [24] |
| III | Woman and her Unconscious Impulses | [37] |
| IV | The Positive Man and the Positive Woman | [54] |
| V | Virgin Love in the Positive Man and the Positive Girl | [80] |
| VI | The Positive English Girl | [104] |
Part II | ||
| INFERENCES FROM PART I | ||
| VII | The Marriage of the Positive Girl and the Positive Man | [125] |
| VIII | Breaches of the Marriage Contract and Divorce | [178] |
| IX | The Old Maid and her Relation to Society | [229] |
| X | The Virtues and Vices of Women | [280] |
| XI | Women in Art, Philosophy and Science. The Outlook. Conclusion | [346] |
| Index | [369] | |
INTRODUCTION
“The most disgusting cant permeates everything. Except for the representation of savage and violent sentiments, everything is stifled by it.”—Stendhal, De l’Amour.
The object of this volume is twofold: in the first place to raise certain weighty objections to that industrialization and commercialization of woman, which has stamped the “progress” of Western Europe during the last fifty years; and, secondly, to reveal woman, not only as a creature whose least engaging characteristics are but the outcome of the most vital qualities within her, but also as a social being in whom these least engaging characteristics themselves only become disturbing and undesirable when she is partially or totally out of hand.
While trying to escape the influence of all that “tinsel of false sentiment” which in the atmosphere of Democracy and sentimentality has gathered about the subject of Woman in modern England, it has been my endeavour to defend her against certain traditional and well-founded charges, by showing that the very traits in her character which have given rise to these charges form so essential a part of her vital equipment that it would be dangerous to the race to modify or to alter them. Thus, despite the fact that there is much in this book that may possibly strike the reader as unfriendly, if not actually harsh, I am aware of no other work in which so complete and so elaborate a plea (from the standpoint of Life and Life’s needs) has been made in defence of Woman’s whole character, including all that side of it which the wisest of mankind, and the oldest traditions of mankind, have consistently and unanimously deprecated.