Strength and dignity are her clothing;
And she laugheth at the time to come.
She openeth her mouth with wisdom,
And the law of kindness is on her tongue,
She looketh well to the ways of her household,
And eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed,
Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying,
Many daughters have done virtuously,
But thou excellest them all,
Give her the fruit of her hand,
And let her works praise her in the gate."

In the East today the same story has wearisomely written itself: in China,
where the present vitality and power of the most ancient of existing
civilisations may be measured accurately by the length of its woman's
shoes; in Turkish harems, where one of the noblest dominant Aryan races the
world has yet produced, is being slowly suffocated in the arms of a
parasite womanhood, and might, indeed, along ago have been obliterated, had
not a certain virility and strength been continually reinfused into it
through the persons of purchased wives, who in early childhood and youth
had been themselves active labouring peasants. Everywhere, in the past as
in the present, the parasitism of the female heralds the decay of a nation
or class, and as invariably indicates disease as the pustules of smallpox
upon the skin indicate the existence of a purulent virus in the system.

We are, indeed, far from asserting that the civilisations of the past which
have decayed, have decayed alone through the parasitism of their females.
Vast, far-reaching social phenomena have invariably causes and reactions
immeasurably too complex to be summed up under one so simple a term.