“My lecture. I’m giving one this afternoon, you know.”
“What on?”
“‘Marriage from the Man’s Point of View.’”
She pricked up her ears.
“What is a man’s point of view?” she asked.
“For a man,” he said, “marriage is moral death. It is slavery—bondage of the worst sort. It is a handicap which prevents any effective progress. It is, of course, an invention of woman’s, to safeguard herself and her offspring. She has found it necessary to provide herself with a refuge, and she has ruthlessly taken advantage of her sinister influence over the more sensitive and conscientious man to impress him with a mass of false and pernicious ideas about the ‘home.’ Man has not one single advantage to gain from marriage, yet he has actually been taught, by mothers, by women teachers, by all the females who surround young children, to think of it as a privilege. He secures a home. What is a home? A nest for the woman, a cage for the man. What is a wife? The most unprincipled, exacting slave-driver ever yet developed. For her and her children he is required to give all the fruit of has labor, and, in addition, a fantastic and debasing reverence and flattery—”
“You poor thing!” said Miss Franklin.
He stopped short, in surprise.
“Why?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
“You must have been so wretched with your wife,” said she.