young girl of the wealthier classes in her city boudoir, who weeps
copiously as she tells you she cannot marry the man she loves, because he
says he has only two hundred a year and cannot afford to keep her; to the
father who demands frankly of his daughter's suitor how much he can settle
on her before consenting to his acceptance, the fact remains, that, under
existing conditions, not the amount of sex affection, passion, and
attraction, but the extraneous question of the material possessions of the
male, determines to a large extent the relation of the sexes. The
parasitic, helpless youth who has failed in his studies, who possesses
neither virility, nor charm of person, nor strength of mind, but who
possesses wealth, has a far greater chance of securing unlimited sexual
indulgence and the life companionship of the fairest maid, than her
brother's tutor, who may be possessed of every manly and physical grace and
mental gift; and the ancient libertine, possessed of nothing but material
good, has, especially among the so-called upper classes of our societies, a
far greater chance of securing the sex companionship of any woman he
desires as wife, mistress, or prostitute, than the most physically
attractive and mentally developed male, who may have nothing to offer to
the dependent female but affection and sexual companionship.

To the male, whenever and wherever he exists in our societies, who depends
mainly for his power for procuring the sex relation he desires, not on his
power of winning and retaining personal affection, but, on the purchasing
power of his possessions as compared to the poverty of the females of his
society, the personal loss would be seriously and at once felt, of any
social change which gave to the woman a larger economic independence and
therefore greater freedom of sexual choice. It is not an imaginary danger
which the young dude, of a certain type which sits often in the front row
of the stalls in a theatre, with sloping forehead and feeble jaw, watching
the unhappy women who dance for gold--sees looming before him, as he lisps