right. I felt, in the first place, that I, a man, who, according to my
ideas, ought to be the master, wore the petticoats, and that I could not
get rid of them. The principal cause of my subjection was the children.
I should have liked to free myself, but I could not. Bringing up the
children, and resting upon them, my wife ruled. I did not then realize
that she could not help ruling, especially because, in marrying, she was
morally superior to me, as every young girl is incomparably superior to
the man, since she is incomparably purer. Strange thing! The ordinary
wife in our society is a very commonplace person or worse, selfish,
gossiping, whimsical, whereas the ordinary young girl, until the age of
twenty, is a charming being, ready for everything that is beautiful
and lofty. Why is this so? Evidently because husbands pervert them, and
lower them to their own level.

"In truth, if boys and girls are born equal, the little girls find
themselves in a better situation. In the first place, the young girl is
not subjected to the perverting conditions to which we are subjected.
She has neither cigarettes, nor wine, nor cards, nor comrades, nor
public houses, nor public functions. And then the chief thing is that
she is physically pure, and that is why, in marrying, she is superior
to her husband. She is superior to man as a young girl, and when she
becomes a wife in our society, where there is no need to work in order
to live, she becomes superior, also, by the gravity of the acts of
generation, birth, and nursing.

"Woman, in bringing a child into the world, and giving it her bosom,
sees clearly that her affair is more serious than the affair of man, who
sits in the Zemstvo, in the court. She knows that in these functions the
main thing is money, and money can be made in different ways, and for
that very reason money is not inevitably necessary, like nursing a