Chapter 14

"Yes, much worse than the animal is man when he does not live as a man.
Thus was I. The horrible part is that I believed, inasmuch as I did not
allow myself to be seduced by other women that I was leading an
honest family life, that I was a very mortal being, and that if we had
quarrels, the fault was in my wife, and in her character.

"But it is evident that the fault was not in her. She was like everybody
else, like the majority. She was brought up according to the principles
exacted by the situation of our society,--that is, as all the young
girls of our wealthy classes, without exception, are brought up, and
as they cannot fail to be brought up. How many times we hear or read
of reflections upon the abnormal condition of women, and upon what
they ought to be. But these are only vain words. The education of women
results from the real and not imaginary view which the world entertains
of women's vocation. According to this view, the condition of women
consists in procuring pleasure and it is to that end that her education
is directed. From her infancy she is taught only those things that are
calculated to increase her charm. Every young girl is accustomed to
think only of that.

"As the serfs were brought up solely to please their masters, so woman
is brought up to attract men. It cannot be otherwise. But you will say,
perhaps, that that applies only to young girls who are badly brought up,
but that there is another education, an education that is serious, in
the schools, an education in the dead languages, an education in the
institutions of midwifery, an education in medical courses, and in other
courses. It is false.

"Every sort of feminine education has for its sole object the attraction
of men.

"Some attract by music or curly hair, others by science or by civic
virtue. The object is the same, and cannot be otherwise (since no other
object exists),--to seduce man in order to possess him. Imagine courses
of instruction for women and feminine science without men,--that
is, learned women, and men not KNOWING them as learned. Oh, no! No
education, no instruction can change woman as long as her highest ideal
shall be marriage and not virginity, freedom from sensuality. Until
that time she will remain a serf. One need only imagine, forgetting the
universality of the case, the conditions in which our young girls are
brought up, to avoid astonishment at the debauchery of the women of our
upper classes. It is the opposite that would cause astonishment.

"Follow my reasoning. From infancy garments, ornaments, cleanliness,
grace, dances, music, reading of poetry, novels, singing, the theatre,
the concert, for use within and without, according as women listen, or