"I think there should be no subject forbidden," interrupted the lady by whom I had sat at table, a stout and tightly laced person of some forty summers. "Why shouldn't I talk of any subject I please?" She seemed to appeal to me, so I answered her.
"I do not at this instant think of any reason except that it might not be decent."
This raised an uncertain sort of laugh and appeared for a moment to stagger her; but she was game, and rallied.
"I know—that is the answer I always get."
"Because it is the natural answer."
"But I want to know why? Why is it indecent?"
"Simply because it is. Indecent means unseemly. Your sex were slaves, they were weaker physically, less robust; they were made beasts of burden, were beaten and made slaves. Then men, for their own pleasure, lifted them up a little and paid court to them, and finally the idea and age of chivalry came—based on the high Christian morality. You were placed on a pinnacle. Men loved and fought for your favor and made it the guerdon of their highest emprise, guarded you with a mist of adoration, gave you a halo, worshipped you as something cleaner and better and purer than themselves; built up a wall of division and protection for you. Why should you go and cast it down, fling it away, and come down in the mire and dust and dirt?"
"But I don't want to be adored—set up on a pedestal."
"Then you probably will not be," interrupted my deaf neighbor.
"I want to be treated as an equal—as an—an—intelligent being."