IV
MARRIAGE being to them not only a trade, but a necessity, it must follow as the night the day that the acquirement of certain characteristics—the characteristics required by an average man in an average wife—has been rendered inevitable for women in general. There have, of course, always been certain exceptional men who have admired and desired certain exceptional and eccentric qualities in their wives; but in estimating a girl's chances of pleasing—on which depended her chances of success or a comfortable livelihood—these exceptions naturally, were taken into but small account, and no specialization in their tastes and desires was allowed for in her training. The aim and object of that training was to make her approximate to the standard of womanhood set up by the largest number of men; since the more widely she was admired the better were her chances of striking a satisfactory bargain.
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