Page:The Higher Education of Women.djvu/21

 being, man or woman, but in the union of individuals by marriage, or by some sort of vague marriage of the whole race. The conception of character which rests on the broad basis of a common humanity falls into the background, and there is substituted for it a dual theory, with distinctly different forms of male and female excellence. Persons who take this view are naturally governed by it in their conceptions of what women ought to be. Having framed a more or less definite idea of the masculine character, in constructing the feminine helpmeet they look out, if not for the directly opposite, for what they would call the complementary qualities, and the conclusion quickly follows, that whatever