Nordan. Oh, I daresay you and your mother have chattered and read a lot about marriage and the woman question, and about abolishing distinctions of class—now you want to abolish distinctions of sex too. But as regards this special question?
Svava. What do you consider I have overlooked?
Nordan. Just this. Are you right in being equally as strict with men as with women? Eh?
Svava. Yes, of course.
Nordan. Is it so much a matter of course? Go out and ask any one you meet. Out of every hundred you ask, ninety will say "no"—even out of a hundred women!
Svava. Do you think so? I think people are beginning to think otherwise.
Nordan. Possibly. But experience is necessary if one is to answer a question like that.
Svava. Do you mean what you say?
Nordan. That is none of your business. Besides, I always mean what I say.—A woman can marry when is sixteen; a man must wait till he is five-and-twenty, or thirty. There is a difference.
Svava. There is a difference! There are many, many times more unmarried women than men, and they exhibit self-control. Men find it more convenient to make a law of their want of self-control!