Her Royal Highness Woman

by Max O'Rell

And as women are ever airing their grievances on the subject, let us try to plead a little the cause of that poor, often too much abused creature that Madame Sarah Grand delights in calling 'Mere Man,' and let us do so in a friendly spirit, in an unconventional, intimate sort of way.

If women have their grievances against Nature, men have theirs, too. Nature has, indeed, treated men in a far less generous manner than the other male members of the animal kingdom. The female bird, for instance, is plain. She has no voice and no glorious feathers. All the fascinating power of beautiful song, gorgeous plumage and graceful demeanour was given to the male. It is he who has to win, and Nature, knowing this, has endowed him with the means of conquest. Not so with us. Man is about the ugliest creature of all that breathes on the face of the earth, and woman was intended to attract and charm him, and, in order to enable her to do so, Nature has given her a beautiful face, a divine figure and a taste for attractive plumage. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries men paid attention to their dress, which, in many respects, was as attractive and fascinating as that of women. But now! Man is a guy, a cure, a remedy for love-sickness, and I sometimes wonder how it is that women think his conquest worth making. To make himself lovable, man has to turn himself inside out; for only his moral and intellectual qualities can help him to get at a woman's heart. Soldiers are supposed to be more successful with women than any other men because their profession appeals to the minds of women; but I can't help thinking that their uniform has a great deal to do with it.

Now, if Nature has endowed woman with the powers of charming man by her amiability and winning grace, who is to blame if she does not avail herself of all these advantages, and does not use them carefully, discreetly, skilfully, to prevent love from flagging and cooling in matrimony?

Of course, intelligent women feel, after the wedding ceremony is over, that a man's love is not secured by a few sacramental words pronounced by a priest in solemn tones and in the presence of many witnesses. She soon discovers that man is not like woman; she understands, as the male bird does, that plumage has a great deal to do in order to excite happiness and keep it alive in matrimony, and that her cheerfulness and tactful ways will obtain what remonstrances and sulks will invariably fail to secure.

There is no doubt that many women, women spoiled by loving husbands, by lover-husbands especially, become dull and irritable when the husbands do not exactly detach themselves from their wives, but, through circumstances too numerous to enumerate, pass from the stage of lovers to that of friends.

Women are, as a rule, the embodiment of prejudice, and they will not understand. There is seldom any philosophy in them, and, when they do understand, they will not resign themselves cheerfully to the inevitable, and either make a careful study of the position and see the only possible way to revive what appears to be dying, or make the best of what, after all, is still worth having, the friendship and the protection of a devoted husband who has worked for them and made their life secure. No, they will sulk and make things wretched and hopeless.

Man is not invariably wrong, and he is not to be blamed for his coldness any more than he is to be blamed or scolded for his want of appetite. Perhaps if the dinner had been prepared with more care, he would have eaten it with avidity.

A great French poet says that happy nights make happy days in matrimony. I do not think that he is right. I rather believe in the reverse: Cheerful days, spent in delightful companionship, will make later meetings perfectly delicious. But it is on the woman, much more than on the man, that this happy result depends. There is no conceit on the part of a man in saying so. This line of conduct is dictated by the difference which exists between a man and a woman.

I am ready to admit that women have grievances in this respect; but they are not of man's making, they are of Nature's, and no blame can be attached to man for it. How many couples, wretched and miserable, could be happy if women could, or would, realize the truth of this statement! But, as a rule, they will not. Their motto is, 'What is good for the goose is good for the gander.'

But it isn't.