Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/198

196 and they're all protected and cared for, and respectable. And if they're unfaithful, he can bow-string them. That's the right method. Monogamy is a foolish idea, and we waste an enormous amount of life in trying to live up to it. The Japanese are infinitely more sane than we are about the whole business. Sex ought to be divorced from emotion. They don't belong together. We've sentimentalised the thing till we don't know where we stand. It's all the fault of feminism. Women naturally sentimentalise it, and we've let them set the tone for our whole society, till we can't call our souls or bodies our own. It's weakness, and gets paid out as weakness always does. We belong to you now, you own us, and you make us feel it." "Poor slaves!" mocked Teresa. "Why don't you rise and assert your rights? Put us back in the harem, and then go on with your great work of civilising the world in peace. I daresay we should be just as well off."

"I think you would. You can't be men, anyway, you know, and in our society you're bound to try to be, more or less. It's all wrong. The line ought to stand where it was drawn for all time, sharp and clear. Trying to rub it away is folly."

"I don't try to be a man," murmured Teresa. "I wouldn't be one for any amount. Poor, foolish creatures."