ook at one
another as enemies. With one look they make the mutual discovery of
ill-matched colors, or wrongly-pinned bows, or any other similar
cardinal sin. In the look that they greet each other with, the judgment
can be readily read that each has passed upon the other. It is as if
each wished to inform the other: "I know better than you how to dress,
and draw attention upon myself."

On the other hand, woman is by nature more impulsive than man; she
reflects less than he; she has more abnegation, is naiver, and hence is
governed by stronger passions, as revealed by the truly heroic
self-sacrifice with which she protects her child, or cares for
relatives, and nurses them in sickness. In the fury, however, this
passionateness finds its ugly expression. But the good as well as the
bad sides, with man as well as woman, are influenced, first of all, by
their social position; favored, or checked, or transfigured. The same
impulse, that, under unfavorable circumstances, appears as a blemish,
is, under favorable circumstances, a source of happiness for oneself and
others. Fourier has the credit of having brilliantly demonstrated how
the identical impulses of man produce, under different conditions,
wholly opposite results.

Running parallel with the effects of mistaken education, are the no less
serious effects of mistaken or imperfect physical culture upon the
purpose of Nature. All physicians are agreed that the preparation of
woman for her calling as mother and rearer of children leaves almost
everything to be wished. "Man exercises the soldier in the use of his
weapons, and the artisan in the handling of his tools; every office
requires special studies; even the monk has his novitiate. Woman alone
is not trained for her serious duties of mother."[87] Nine-tenths of the
maidens who marry enter matrimony with almost utter ignorance about
motherhood and the duties of wedlock. The inexcusable shyness, even on
the part of mothers, to speak with a grown-up daughter of such important
sexual duties, leaves the latter in the greatest darkness touching her
duties towards herself and her future husband. With her entrance upon
married life, woman enters a territory that is wholly strange to her.
She has drawn to herself a fancy-picture thereof--generally from novels
that are not particularly to be commended--that does not accord with
reality.[88] Her defective household knowledge, that, as things are
to-day, is inevitable, even th