This was pleasant to hear, but he dashed my hopes.
"Men do almost all the violent plain work—digging and hewing and hammering; women, as a class, prefer the administrative and constructive kinds. But all that is open yet, and settling itself gradually; men and women are working everywhere. The big change which Nellie is always referring to means simply that women 'waked up' to a realization of the fact that they were human beings."
"What were they before, pray?"
"Only female beings."
"Female human beings, of course," said I.
"Yes; a little human, but mostly female. Now they are mostly human. It is a great change."
"I don't follow you. Aren't they still wives and mothers?"
"They are still mothers—far more so than they were before, as a matter of fact; but as to being wives—there's a difference."
I was displeased, and showed it.
"Well, is it Polygamy, or Polyandry, or Trial Marriages, or what?"