“It may.”
“When it drags us at once to a lower, baser, more prejudiced level? And do you think that these fanatics who burn houses are helping their cause?”
“Some of them have suffered very bitterly.”
“Yes, and that is the very plea that damns them. They are egotists who must advertise their sufferings. Supposing we all behaved like lunatics when we had a grievance? Isn’t there something finer and more convincing than that? The real women are winning the equality that they want, but these fools are only raising obstinate prejudices. Am I, a fairly reasonable man, to be bullied, threatened and nagged at? Instinctively the male fist comes up, the fist that balances the woman’s sharper tongue. For God’s sake, don’t let us get to back-alley arguments. Sex is marriage, marriage at its best, reasonable and human. Let’s talk things over by the fireside, try not to be little, try to understand each other, try to play the game together. What is the use of kicking the chessboard over? Perhaps other people, our children, have to pick up the pieces.”
Because she had more than a suspicion that he was right, she began to quote Mrs. Falconer, and to give him all the extreme theories. He listened closely enough, but she knew intuitively that he was utterly unimpressed.
“Do you yourself believe all that?”
“No; not all of it.”
“It comes to this, you are quoting abnormal people. You can’t generalise for the million on the idiosyncrasies of the few. These women are abnormal.”
“But the workers are normal.”
“Many of them lead abnormal lives. But do you think that we men do not want to see all that bettered?”