Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/511

 continence of the men; thus the cause of the monstrosity of life is due to the incontinence of the men.

An attractive woman says to herself: "He is clever, he is learned, he is famous, he is rich, he is great, he is moral, holy; but he surrenders himself to me, a foolish, ignorant, poor, insignificant, immoral woman; consequently reason and learning and everything are nonsense." This undoes them and makes them bad.

After all, it is always those against whom violence is used that rule, that is, those who fulfil the law of non-resistance. Thus women try to obtain their rights, but they rule us for the very reason that they have been subjected by force. The institutions are in the hands of men, but public opinion is in the hands of women. And public opinion is a million times more powerful than all the laws and the army. As a proof that public opinion is in the hands of women, may serve this, that not only the arrangement of the house, the food, is determined by the women, but that the women spend the wealth, consequently guide the labours of men; the success of the productions of art and of books, and even the appointment of rulers, is determined by public opinion, but public opinion is determined by the women.

Somebody has well said that it is the men who need to seek their emancipation from the women, and not vice versa.

It is proper for women to sustain life by childbirth, the education of their children, the furnishing of new forces in place of those used up; it is proper for men to direct these forces, that is, life itself. Either can do both; but this is proper.

What can there be more stupid and more harmful for the women than the modern talk about the equality