Rambles in Womanland

by Max O'Rell

A cynic once said that in this world men succeed through the qualities which they do not possess. By this he meant to say that to cope with the pushing crowd, you must not be too scrupulous, or you will let everybody pass before you.

A worse cynic, one of the blackest type and deepest dye, went as far as to say: 'The way to succeed is to have unbounded impudence, popular manners, absence of scruple, and complete ignorance of everything.'

But, then, take it for granted that this cynic was only a disappointed failure. You will constantly hear the man who has failed in life exclaim: 'Oh, if I had not always wished to remain perfectly honest, I could have succeeded like many others I know.'

Just as you hear women who fail to get engagements on the stage or the concert platform remark: 'If I had had no objection to obtaining engagements in the way some women do, I would have made my mark—but I am not one of that sort.'

At the risk of appearing paradoxical, and even cynical, I will venture to say that in love, and in matrimony especially, certain great qualities are more detrimental to the happiness of women than many of their defects. And if this is a correct statement, to what shortcoming of man are we going to attribute it?

I know that on reading this some women will exclaim: 'Shame on you to say such a thing!' Very well, will you listen to me? Look around you, among all your circles of friends and acquaintances, of relatives even, and tell me if, as a rule, the young girl who is vain, selfish, coquettish, a flirt even, has not better chances of marriage, and is not sought after rather than the simple, unaffected, devoted, intellectual girl? Tell me if the bumptious rose does not generally carry the day over the modest, retiring violet?'

Of course, I know that you will say to me, 'You may be right; men—I mean most men—are caught, like mackerel, by shining bait; but when a man is married, surely he is not slow to recognise which of the two is the right one to have as a wife, and to appreciate all the qualities and virtues of the second one.'

Well, you are wrong—wrong as can be. Look around you again, study now the married couples that you know, and you will have to confess that the wife who is coquettish, frivolous, clever, will know how to make herself respected, and even feared, by her husband much more than the other.

That husband will pay to her his best attentions, will be proud of her, and will work like a slave in order to meet all the expenses required for the adornment of her beauty without once venturing to make a remark.

I tell you that if I had a marriageable daughter, whom I wanted to get rid of, I would tell her to put all her retiring ways in the cloak-room and to assert herself, and, after the wedding ceremony, I would whisper in her ears: