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.