The ten who have voted for the silly woman would say that they did not desire an idiot, but, on the contrary, a woman slightly foolish, but not too much so. But together with this defect they would wish to have her handsome, young, and very good-tempered. They seek above all a companion who helps them to keep healthy and merry. There is nothing more charming, more sympathetic, more irresistible, than a little absurdity from a pretty mouth. It makes one laugh; and when our laugh provokes that of the one who has uttered it, and she shows her beautiful teeth in rows like pearls, oh! bless the folly and her who spoke it.
The ninety who have given no vote to the literary woman wish us to understand that they like an educated woman, but detest pedantry, and that nothing in the world could make them desire a bas-bleu; much less a choupette-bleue, a variety of the first, so named by Balzac.
Having heard these comments, let us now make ours. It is only too true that in our Italian society the general culture is much below that which one meets with in France, Germany, England, and the United States. We have the courage to confess this in our own home if for no other reason than with the hope that the shame which mounts to our faces may induce us to remove this national blot from our children.
Men of little culture desire even less in their wives, in order that at least in their family circle their credit may be unimpugned. From this arises a general repugnance to teach our girls too many things, from this comes the antipathy to the higher girls’ schools and to all that tends to elevate the intellectual level of our companions. Up to the present time the hasty and ill-digested attempts have not helped to modify public opinion for the better; the only people who dedicate themselves to higher learning in one way or another are the ugly, hysterical, or very poor.
We all open our eyes very widely before a lady doctor or a literary woman as before some wonderful phenomenon which perhaps may change our “Ah!” of astonishment to an “Oh!” of admiration; but the woman will always be a phenomenon to us.
And she is really a phenomenon, an idol to put on altars amidst the incense of our adoration; she is a woman who thinks as much as a man, has the learning of a professor, writes books that are read, or paints pictures and makes statues to which are awarded prizes; an idol to be admired if beauty be added to this virtue and if grace accompany it; a half goddess or a goddess if the talent does not go arm in arm with pride, and if genius is surrounded by a fragrant and flowering womanliness. But who finds these phenomena, and who, having found them, marries them? Then if the literary woman is ugly, and impolite, if her body and voice proclaim the certificate of her baptism, which makes her more man than woman, oh! then we are all agreed in not wishing to have her for a wife. It is a new species, a psycho-physico hermaphrodite, whose books, pictures, and statues we admire, but whom we have no desire to share a room with.
⁂
In sexual union the harmonies of relation ought to show themselves, in thought as well as act, in order that there may be happiness. Therefore it is that man was made by nature more intelligent than woman. Perfect harmony is only to be found with a man who thinks vigorously, does what he wishes with energy; who rules and guides the woman in the paths of life and the glories of conquest. The inversion of these relations means to be out of tune and in discord; it is an humiliation on the part of the man, and (let us admit it) on the part of the woman also, who in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred wishes to be loved, caressed, and also adored, but who likes to feel herself ruled.
Woe to those women of intellect superior to the husband, whom they must pity, correct when in error, and too often pardon for his folly and absurdities!