I have given three reasons for the prosperity of the notion that man is
a natural polygamist, bent eternally upon fresh dives into Lake of
Brimstone No. 7. To these another should be added: the thirst for
martyrdom which shows itself in so many women, particularly under the
higher forms of civilization. This unhealthy appetite, in fact, may be
described as one of civilization’s diseases; it is almost unheard of in
more primitive societies. The savage woman, unprotected by her rude
culture and forced to heavy and incessant labour, has retained her
physical strength and with it her honesty and self-respect. The
civilized woman, gradually degenerated by a greater ease, and helped
down that hill by the pretensions of civilized man, has turned her
infirmity into a virtue, and so affects a feebleness that is actually
far beyond the reality. It is by this route that she can most
effectively disarm masculine distrust, and get what she wants. Man is
flattered by any acknowledgment, however insincere, of his superior
strength and capacity. He likes to be leaned upon, appealed to,
followed docilely. And this tribute to his might caresses him on the
psychic plane as well as on the plane of the obviously physical. He not
only enjoys helping a woman over a gutter; he also enjoys helping her
dry her tears. The result is the vast pretence that characterizes the
relations of the sexes under civilization—the double pretence of man’s
cunning and autonomy and of woman’s dependence and deference. Man is
always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a
shoulder to put her head on.
This feminine affectation, of course, has gradually taken on the force
of a fixed habit, and so it has got a certain support, by a familiar
process of self-delusion, in reality. The civilized woman inherits that
habit as she inherits her cunning. She is born half convinced that she
is really as weak and helpless as she later pretends to be, and the
prevailing folklore offers her endless corroboration. One of the
resultant phenomena is the delight in martyrdom that one so often finds
in women, and particularly in the least alert and introspective of
them. They take a heavy, unhealthy pleasure in suffering; it subtly
pleases them to be hard put upon; they like to picture themselves as
slaughtered saints. Thus they always find something to complain of; the
very conditions of domestic life give them a superabundance of clinical
material. And if, by any chance, such material shows a falling off,
they are uneasy and unhappy. Let a woman have a husband whose conduct
is not reasonably open to question, and she will invent mythical
offences to make him bearable. And if her invention fails she will be
plunged into the utmost misery and humiliation. This fact probably
explains many mysterious divorces: the husband was not too bad, but too
good. For public opinion among women, remember, does not favour the
woman who is full of a placid contentment and has no masculine torts to
report; if she says that her husband is wholly satisfactory she is
looked upon as a numskull even more dense that he is himself. A man,
speaking of his wife to other men, always praises her extravagantly.
Boasting about her soothes his vanity; he likes to stir up the envy of
his fellows. But when two women talk of their husbands it is mainly
atrocities that they describe. The most esteemed woman gossip is the
one with the longest and most various repertoire of complaints.
This yearning for martyrdom explains one of the commonly noted
characters of women: their eager flair for bearing physical pain. As we
have seen, they have actually a good deal less endurance than men;
massive injuries shock them more severely and kill them more quickly.
But when acute algesia is unaccompanied by any profounder phenomena
they are undoubtedly able to bear it with a far greater show of
resignation. The reason is not far to seek. In pain a man sees only an
invasion of his liberty, strength and self-esteem. It floors him,
masters him, and makes him ridiculous. But a woman, more subtle and
devious in her processes of mind, senses the dramatic effect that the
spectacle of her suffering makes upon the spectators, already filled
with compassion for her feebleness. She would thus much rather be
praised for facing pain with a martyr’s fortitude than for devising
some means of getting rid of it--the first thought of a man. No woman
could have invented chloroform, nor, for that matter, alcohol. Both
drugs offer an escape from situations and experiences that, even in
aggravated forms, women relish. The woman who drinks as men drink—that
is, to raise her threshold of sensation and ease the agony of
living—nearly always shows a deficiency in feminine characters and an
undue preponderance of masculine characters. Almost invariably you will
find her vain and boastful, and full of other marks of that bombastic
exhibitionism which is so sterlingly male.