during those years they may capture the fantasy of some man to such a
degree that he is hurried away into undertaking the honorable care of
them, in some form or other, as long as they live--a step for which
there would not appear to be any sufficient warranty if reason only
directed his thoughts. Accordingly, Nature has equipped woman, as she
does all her creatures, with the weapons and implements requisite
for the safeguarding of her existence, and for just as long as it is
necessary for her to have them. Here, as elsewhere, Nature proceeds
with her usual economy; for just as the female ant, after fecundation,
loses her wings, which are then superfluous, nay, actually a danger
to the business of breeding; so, after giving birth to one or two
children, a woman generally loses her beauty; probably, indeed, for
similar reasons.

And so we find that young girls, in their hearts, look upon domestic
affairs or work of any kind as of secondary importance, if not
actually as a mere jest. The only business that really claims their
earnest attention is love, making conquests, and everything connected
with this--dress, dancing, and so on.

The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is
in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning
powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a
woman at eighteen. And then, too, in the case of woman, it is only
reason of a sort--very niggard in its dimensions. That is why women
remain children their whole life long; never seeing anything but
what is quite close to them, cleaving to the present moment, taking
appearance for reality, and preferring trifles to matters of the first
importance. For it is by virtue of his reasoning faculty that man does
not live in the present only, like the brute, but looks about him and