and cunning, and, in contrast with the open and pugnacious methods of the more untrammeled male, she relies on sober colors, concealment, evasion, and deception of the senses.  This quality of cunning is, of course, not immoral in its origin, being merely a protective instinct developed along with maternal feeling.  In woman, also, this tendency to prevail by passive means rather than by assault is natural; and especially under a system of male control, where self-realization is secured either through the manipulation of man or not at all, a resort to trickery, indirection, and hypocrisy is not to be wondered at.  Man has, however, always insisted that woman shall be better than he is, and her immoralities are usually not such as he greatly disapproves.  There has, in fact, been developed a peculiar code of morals to cover the peculiar case of woman.  This may be called a morality of the person and of the bodily habits, as contrasted with the commercial and public morality of man.  Purity, constancy, reserve, and devotion are the qualities In woman which please and flatter the jealous male; and woman has responded to these demands both really and seemingly.  Without any consciousness of what she was doing (for all moral traditions fall in the general psychological region of habit), she acts in the manner which makes her most pleasing to men.  And—­always with the rather definite realization before her of what a dreadful thing it is to be an old maid—­she has naively insisted that her sisters shall play well within the game, and has become herself the most strict censor of that morality which has become traditionally associated with woman.  Fearing the obloquy which the world attaches to a bad woman, she throws the first stone at any woman who bids for the favor of men by overstepping the modesty of nature.  Morality, in the most general sense, represents the code under which activities are best carried on, and is worked out in the school of experience.  It is pre-eminently an adult and a male system, and men are intelligent enough to recognize that neither women nor children have passed through this school.  It is on this account that, while man is merciless to woman from the standpoint of personal behavior, he exempts her from anything in the way of contractual morality, or views her defections in this regard with allowance and even with amusement.

In the absence of any participation in commercial activity and with no capital but her personal charms and her wits, and with the possibility of realizing on these only through a successful appeal to man, woman naturally puts her best foot first.  It was, of course, always one of the functions of the female to charm the male; but so long as woman maintained her position of economic usefulness and her quasi-independence she had no great problem, for there was never a chance in primitive society, any more than in animal society, that a woman would go unmated.  But when through man’s economic and social organization, and