Conjugial Love (Chadwick) n. 218

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218. (ix) The intelligence of women is in essence modest, refined, peaceful, yielding, gentle and tender; but that of men is in essence serious, harsh, hard, spirited and disposed to licence.

It is plainly to be seen that women have the traits here ascribed to them, and men those ascribed here to them, from a consideration of each sex as regards their bodies, faces, voices, speech, gestures and behaviour. The body shows that men have hard skin and flesh, but women soft. The face of men is harder, more determined, rougher, deeper coloured, even bearded, and so less beautiful; women's faces are softer, more yielding, more tender and whiter, so these are its beauties. Men have voices that are deep, women light. Men's speech is fond of licence and spirited, women's modest and peaceful. Men's gestures are bolder and stronger, women's weaker and feebler. Men's behaviour is less restrained, women's more elegant.

[2] I was able clearly to see the innate difference of character between men and women by observing how boys and girls behaved when they got together, a sight I have several times seen from a window in a large city overlooking a street, where twenty or more children gathered every day. The boys, in keeping with their innate character, played together making a noise, shouting, fighting, beating and throwing stones at one another. But the girls sat quietly by the doors of their houses, some playing with babies, some dressing up dolls, some embroidering on small pieces of linen, some kissing one another. I was surprised to see that the girls still looked favourably on the boys, for all their behaviour. This experience allowed me to see plainly that a man is by birth an intellect, a woman a love, and what kind of intellect and what kind of love they are in their beginnings. So I could see what a man's intellect would be like, if it developed without being linked with feminine love, and later with conjugial love.


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