And now, where is that New Woman to be found? Put together a hundred women, intelligent and of good society; take out the beautiful ones; then take out the married ones who are loved by their husbands and their children, and kindly seek the New Woman among what is left—ugly women, old maids, and disappointed and neglected wives.
Woman has no grievance against man. Her only grievance should be, I admit, against Nature, which made her different from man, with duties different, physically and otherwise, almost always to her disadvantage. The world exists and marches on through love. I pity from the bottom of my heart the good woman who is not to know the whispers of love of a good husband or the caresses of little children, but I am not prepared to see life become a burden for her sake.
There is no possibility of denying or ignoring the fact. The purpose, the raison d'être, of woman is to be a mother, as the raison d'être of a fruit-tree is to bear fruit. And woe to the next generations, for everybody knows that only the children of quiet and reposed women are healthy and intelligent.
The woman question will only be solved by the partnership in life of man and wife, as it exists in France, where, thank God! the New Woman is unknown; by the equality of the sexes, but each with different, well-defined duties to perform.
The New Woman is not to be found outside of Great Britain, where woman is her husband's inferior, and of the United States, where she is his superior.
The woman who devotes a good deal of her time to the management of public affairs is a woman who is not required to devote much of it to private ones.
Show me a woman of forty.
Look on this picture: Eyes bright, beaming with joy and happiness, complexion clear, rosy, plump, not a wrinkle, mouth smiling. See her lips bearing the imprint of holy kisses, and her neck the mark of her little children's arms. She has no grievance. Ask her to join the New Woman army. 'No, thanks,' she will say, with a smile of pity; 'the old style is good enough for me.'
And on this: Thin, sallow complexion, eyes without lustre, wrinkled, mouth sulky, haughty, the disgust of life written on every feature. That woman will join the ranks of every organization which aims at taking the cup of love away from the lips of every happy being.
But all this might take the shape of a long digression. Let us see how some American women devote part of the time which they are not probably wanted to devote at home.