Page:Marriage as a Trade.djvu/94

 insisted upon by Adam in the garden of Eden when he anxiously explained to the Deity that the woman was to blame, and insisted upon ever since by his descendants. Is it not Adam who sniggers over spicy stories at his club, retails them to the wife of his bosom and then gives vent to manly and generous indignation at the expense of the spinster who repeats them at third hand? while the extreme reluctance of a purely male electorate to raise what is termed the age of consent in girls is perhaps the most striking example of this tendency of the stronger to shift the responsibility of his misdeeds on to any shoulders but his own,—even on to the shoulders of a child.

Palpable and obvious hardship dealt out by men to women is usually defended, if not explained, by that more or less vague reference to natural law, which is again an attempt to shift responsibility; and I have heard the position of woman as scapegoat for the sins of the man justified by her greater importance to the race as the mother of the next generation. This position of trust and responsibility, it is urged, makes her fall more blameworthy in itself, since