The Most High has deigned to do honour to mankind; he has endowed man with boundless passions, together with a law to guide them, so that man may be alike free and self-controlled; though swayed by these passions man is endowed with reason by which to control them.  Woman is also endowed with boundless passions; God has given her modesty to restrain them.  Moreover, he has given to both a present reward for the right use of their powers, in the delight which springs from that right use of them, i.e., the taste for right conduct established as the law of our behaviour.  To my mind this is far higher than the instinct of the beasts.

Whether the woman shares the man’s passion or not, whether she is willing or unwilling to satisfy it, she always repulses him and defends herself, though not always with the same vigour, and therefore not always with the same success.  If the siege is to be successful, the besieged must permit or direct the attack.  How skilfully can she stimulate the efforts of the aggressor.  The freest and most delightful of activities does not permit of any real violence; reason and nature are alike against it; nature, in that she has given the weaker party strength enough to resist if she chooses; reason, in that actual violence is not only most brutal in itself, but it defeats its own ends, not only because the man thus declares war against his companion and thus gives her a right to defend her person and her liberty even at the cost of the enemy’s life, but also because the woman alone is the judge of her condition, and a child would have no father if any man might usurp a father’s rights.

Thus the different constitution of the two sexes leads us to a third conclusion, that the stronger party seems to be master, but is as a matter of fact dependent on the weaker, and that, not by any foolish custom of gallantry, nor yet by the magnanimity of the protector, but by an inexorable law of nature.  For nature has endowed woman with a power of stimulating man’s passions in excess of man’s power of satisfying those passions, and has thus made him dependent on her goodwill, and compelled him in his turn to endeavour to please her, so that she may be willing to yield to his superior strength.  Is it weakness which yields to force, or is it voluntary self-surrender?  This uncertainty constitutes the chief charm of the man’s victory, and the woman is usually cunning enough to leave him in doubt.  In this respect the woman’s mind exactly resembles her body; far from being ashamed of her weakness, she is proud of it; her soft muscles offer no resistance, she professes that she cannot lift the lightest weight; she would be ashamed to be strong.  And why?  Not only to gain an appearance of refinement; she is too clever for that; she is providing herself beforehand with excuses, with the right to be weak if she chooses.