Section 77. (e) Weakness.
"Frailty, thy name is woman," says Shakespeare, and Corvin
explains this in teasing fashion: "Women pray every day, `Lead
us not into temptation, for see, dear God, if you do so I can't resist
it.' " Even Kant[1] takes feminine
weakness as a distinguishing
criterion: "In order to understand the whole of mankind we need
only to turn our attention to the feminine sex, for where the force
is weaker the tool is so much the more artistic." Experienced
criminalists explain the well-known fact that women are the chief
sources of anonymous letters by their weakness. From the physical
inferiority of woman her mental inferiority may be deduced, and
though we learn a hundred times that small, weak men can be
mentally stronger than great and strong ones, it is, of course, natural,
that as a rule the outcome of a powerful body is also a powerful
mind. The difficulty is to discover in what feminine weakness
expresses itself. The frequently joked-about hen-pecking of men
has been explained by Voltaire as the fulfilment of the divine purpose
of taming men through the medium of the specially created
instrument—woman. Victor Hugo calls men only woman's toys.
"Oh, this lofty providence which gives each one its toy, the doll
to the child, the child to the man, the man to the woman, the woman
to the devil." The popular proverb also seems to assign them
considerable strength, at least to aged women. For we hear in
all kinds of variations the expression, "An old woman will venture
where the devil does not dare to tread." Nor must we underestimate
the daily experience of feminine capacity to bear pain. Midwives
of experience unanimously assure us that no man would bear what
a woman regularly has to, every time she gives birth to a child;
and surgeons and dentists assure us similarly. Indeed the great
surgeon, Billroth, is said to have asserted that he attempted new
methods of operation on women first because they are less subject
to pain, for like savages they are beings of a lower status and hence
better able to resist than men. In the light of such expressions we
have to doubt the assertion that women are distinguished by weakness,
and yet that assertion is correct. The weakness must, however,
not be sought where we expect to find it, but in the quite different
feminine intelligence. Wherever intelligence is not taken into
consideration, woman is likely to show herself stronger than man.
She is better able to stand misfortune, to nurse patients, to bear
pain, to bring up children, to carry out a plan, to persevere in a plan.
It would be wrong to say that feminine weakness is a weakness
of will, for most examples show that women's wills are strong. It
is in matters of intelligence that they fail. When somebody has
to be persuaded, we find that a normally-organized man may agree
when he is shown a logically-combined series of reasons. But the
feminine intelligence is incapable of logic; indeed, we should make
a mistake in paying honor to the actual feminine in woman if she
were capable of logic. She is rather to be persuaded with apparent
reasons, with transitory and sparkling matters that have only the
semblance of truth. We find her too ready to agree, and blame her
will when it is only her different form of intelligence. She persuades
herself in the same way. An epithet, a sparkling epigram, a pacifying
reflection is enough for her; she does not need a whole construction
of reason, and thus she proceeds to do things that we again call
"weak." Take so thoroughly a feminine reflection as this. "The
heart seems to beat—why shouldn't it beat for somebody?"
and the woman throws herself on the breast of some adventurer
The world that hears of this fact weeps over feminine "weakness,"
while it ought really to weep over defective intelligence and bad
logic. That the physiological throb of the heart need not become
significant of love, that the owner of a beating heart need not be
interested in some man, and certainly not in that particular adventurer,
she does not even consider possible. She is satisfied with
this clean-cut, sparkling syllogism, and her understanding is calm.
The judge in the criminal court must always first consider the
weakness of the feminine intelligence, not of the feminine will.
It is supposed to be weakness of will which makes woman gossipy,
unable to keep a secret. But here again it is her understanding that
is at fault. This is shown by the fact, already thoroughly discussed
by Kant, that women are good keepers of their own secrets, but
never of the secrets of others. If this were not a defect of intelligence
they would have been able to estimate the damage they do. Now,
every one of us criminalists knows that the crime committed, and
even the plan for it, has in most cases been betrayed by women.
We can learn most about this matter from detectives. who always
go to women for the discovery of facts, and rarely without success.
Of course, the judge must not act like a detective, but he must know
when something is already a matter of discussion and its source is
sought, where to look. He is to look for the woman in the case.
Another consideration of importance is the fact that women who
have told secrets have also altered them. This is due to the fact
that because they are secrets the whole is not told them and they
have had to infer much, or they have not properly understood what
was told. Now, if we perceive that only a part of the revealed
secret can be correct, the situation may be inferred with complete
safety, but only by remembering this curious trait of feminine
intelligence. We have only to ask what illogical elements does the
matter contain? When these are discovered we have to ask, what
is their logical form? If the process is followed properly we get at
the truth that what happens happens logically, but what is thought,
is thought illogically even by women.
When we summarise all we know about woman we may say
briefly: Woman is neither better nor worse, neither more nor less
valuable than man, but she is different from him and inasmuch
as nature has created every object correctly for its purpose, woman
has also been so created. The reason of her existence is different
from that of man's and hence, her nature is different.
[[ id="n77.1"]]
Menschenkunde. Leipzig 1831.
