9th Thesis. Woman is immodest: she takes the initiative in affairs of love.
Antithesis. Woman alone knows how to be modest; in principle, there are no impure women; woman calms the sensual passions of man.
10th Thesis. Woman prefers an ugly, old, and wicked man.
No; woman prefers a pretty, mincing puppet, a beau.
Antithesis. No; woman wishes man strong, valiant, ingenious; she turns from him when he is but a pretty, mincing puppet, a beau.
I might go on thus to a hundred, and then make a cross to begin another hundred. Can it be possible that you trifle in this manner with your readers?
PROUDHON. The contradiction is not in my thought, but only in the terms. The woman of my thesis is she who has not been subjected to masculine magnetism, to which the woman of my antithesis, on the contrary, has been subjected.
AUTHOR. You would have reason to laugh at us, should we take such an answer in earnest. What! have you seen women outside of society, who would have taken men for monkeys?
Have you proved that in this menagerie, they think falsely, they write badly, they are worth nothing as to conscience until forty-five years of age?
That there, in the absence of men, the women take the initiative in affairs of love?