The Christian Englishman, with
more lingering torture, sets spies on her life, drags what he thinks
her shame before a prying court, and divorces her with contumely.
All this is monopoly, and essentially slavery. Mankind must outlive
it on its way up to civilization."
And then the Woman, thus taught by her lords, has begun to retort
in these latter days by endeavoring to enslave the Man in return.
Unable to conceive the bare idea of freedom for both sexes alike,
she seeks equality in an equal slavery. That she will never
achieve. The future is to the free. We have transcended serfdom.
Women shall henceforth be the equals of men, not by levelling down,
but by levelling up; not by fettering the man, but by elevating,
emancipating, unshackling the woman.
All this Herminia knew well. All these things she turned over in
her mind by herself on the evening of the day when Harvey Kynaston
came to tell her of his approaching marriage. Why, then, did she
feel it to some extent a disappointment? Why so flat at his
happiness? Partly, she said to herself, because it is difficult to
live down in a single generation the jealousies and distrusts
engendered in our hearts by so many ages of harem life.
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