So it has sometimes seemed to me that the men whose own positions and
claims are really least commanding are those who hold most resolutely that
women should be kept in their proper place of subordination.
A friend of mine maintains the theory that men large and strong in person
are constitutionally inclined to do justice to women, as fearing no
competition from them in the way of bodily strength; but that small and
weak men are apt to be vehemently opposed to anything like equality in the
sexes. He quotes in defence of his theory the big soldier in London who
justified himself for allowing his little wife to chastise him, on the
ground that it pleased her and did not hurt him; and on the other hand
cites the extreme domestic tyranny of the dwarf Quilp. He declares that
in any difficult excursion among woods and mountains, the guides and the
able-bodied men are often willing to have women join the party, while it
is sure to be opposed by those who doubt their own strength or are
reluctant to display their weakness. It is not necessary to go so far as
my friend goes; but many will remember some fact of this kind, making
such theories appear not quite so absurd as at first.
Thus it seems from the "Life and Letters" of Sydney Dobell, the English
poet, that he was opposed both to woman suffrage and woman authorship,
believing the movement for the former to be a "blundering on to the
perdition of womanhood.
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