your husband's name?" he asked one. "I don't know;
I shall find out when I see him," she answered. But we have heard of
only one State which realizes Plato's theory as to the equal
participation of woman in man's responsibilities as well as in his
privileges, and that is the kingdom of Dahomey. If women were to learn
and govern like men, Plato argued, women must fight like men, and the
Amazons of Dahomey fight like very terrible men indeed.

But we have as yet heard of no military grievance on the part of injured
woman. She has not yet discovered the hardship of being deprived of a
commission, or denied the Victoria Cross. No Miss Faithful has
challenged woman's right to glory by the creation of a corps of
riflewomen. Even Dr. Mary Walker, though she could boast of having gone
through the American war, went through it with a scalpel, and not with a
sword. We are far from attributing this peaceful attitude of modern
woman, inferior though it be to the Platonic ideal, to any undue
physical sensitiveness to danger, or to inability for deeds of daring;
we attribute it simply to a sense that there is a warfare which she is
discharging already, and with the carrying on of which any more public
exertions would interfere.

Woman alone keeps up the private family warfare which in the earlier
stages of society required all the energies of man. It is a field from
which man has completely retired, and which would be left wholly vacant
were it not occupied by woman. The stir, the jostling, the squabbling of
social life, are all her own. We owe it to her that the family existence
of England does not rot in mere inaction and peace. The guerilla warfare
of house with house, the fierce rivalry of social circle with social
circle, the struggle for precedence, the jealousies and envyings and
rancors of every day--these are things which no man will take a proper
interest in, and which it is lucky that woman can undertake for him. The
Platonic woman of to-day may not march to the field or storm the breach,
but she is unequalled in outmanoeuvring a rival, in forcing an
entrance into society, in massacring an enemy's reputation, in carrying
off matrimonial spoil. In war, then, as in education and the affections,
modern woman has developed the spirit without copying the form of the
Platonic ideal. After all superficial contrasts have been exhausted, she
may still claim the patronage of the philosopher of Academe.

MAN AND HIS MASTER.