Men and Women - contd

"Love in woman" says Lombroso "is in its fundamental nature no more than a secondary character of motherhood, and all the feelings of affection that bind woman to man arise not from secual impulses, but from the instricts - acquired by adaptation - of subordination and self-surrender.

The woman doesnot grow so far from what she is at birth as the harassed and the experimental male; she clings to heredity as he ventures into variation; she is the organ and seat of racial stability, as he is teh agent and herald of change. The other side of stability is a certain conservation of feeling and an inadequacy of thougt. Woman's interests are familial, and normally her environment is the home; she is as deep as nature and as narrow as four walls. She is less experimental in mind and morals. Woman seems to be less at home with abstract thougts; she has a sharp eye for facts, and a good memory for them, but she is not adept at generalization or original interpretation and she may lose herslef and her purpose in details. In general woman seeks, in her mate, not beuty but ability and strength, as a promise of protection; it is the male who selects for beuty, less because it is a promise of pleasure, than because normally it is the flag of vigor and health.

Men and Women

Only among birds and mammals is the male superior; and here he owes his power to the fact that the female, having taken over most of the burdens of reproduction, is physically handicapped in the eternal war or love.

The separation of the sexes made it possible to unite in the offspring the hereditary qualities and capacities of two distinct lines of ancestry.

Beaumarchais : "Man differs from the animals in that he drinks without being thirsty, and makes love at all seasons"

It becomes bitterly obvious that the female is primary and basic, the male secondary and tributary, in the species; the male is a late specialization and embodiment of functions which were once performed without him.

Woman is cleverer than man in love because, normally her desire is less intense and does not so obscure her judgement; this is the secret of her ancient wisdom. Its not physical delight that woman seeks, so much as an indiscriminate admiration and a lavish attention to her wants; and in many cases the sheer pleasure of being desired contents her.