The Man‐Made World
The best thing any of us can do for our ancestors is to be better than they were; and we ought to give our minds to it. When we use our
past merely as a guide‐book, and concentrate our noble emotions on
the present and future, we shall improve more rapidly.
The peculiar changes brought about in family life by the
predominance of the male are easily traced. In these studies we must keep clearly in mind the basic masculine characteristics: desire, combat, self‐expression—all legitimate and right in proper use; only mischievous when excessive or out of place. Through them the male
is led to strenuous competition for the favor of the female; in the overflowing ardours of song, as in nightingale and tomcat; in wasteful splendor of personal decoration, from the pheasant‘s breast to an embroidered waistcoat; and in direct struggle for the prize, from the stag‘s locked horns to the clashing spears of the tournament.
It is earnestly hoped that no reader will take offence at the necessarily frequent, reference to these essential features of maleness. In the many books about women it is, naturally, their femaleness that has been studied and enlarged upon. And though women, after thousands of years of such discussion, have become a
little restive under the constant use of the word female: men, as rational beings, should not object to an analogous study—at least not for some time—a few centuries or so.
How, then, do we find these masculine tendencies, desire, combat and self‐expression, affect the home and family when given too much power?
First comes the effect in the preliminary work of selection. One of the most uplifting forces of nature is that of sex selection. The males, numerous, varied, pouring a flood of energy into wide
modifications, compete for the female, and she selects the victor, this securing to the race the new improvements.
In forming the proprietary family there is no such competition, no such selection. The man, by violence or by purchase, does the choosing—he selects the kind of woman that pleases him. Nature did not intend him to select; he is not good at it. Neither was the female intended to compete—she is not good at it.