37. Women as Martyrs
I HAVE GIVEN three reasons for the prosperity of
the notion that man is a natural polygamist, bent eternally upon
fresh dives into Lake of Brimstone No. 7. To these another should
be added: the thirst for martyrdom which shows itself in so many
women, particularly under the higher forms of civilization. This
unhealthy appetite, in fact, may be described as one of
civilization's diseases; it is almost unheard of in more
primitive societies. The savage woman, unprotected by her rude
culture and forced to heavy and incessant labour, has retained
her physical strength and with it her honesty and self-respect.
The civilized woman, gradually degenerated by a greater ease, and
helped down that hill by the pretensions of civilized man, has
turned her infirmity into a virtue, and so affects a feebleness
that is actually far beyond the reality. It is by this route that
she can most effectively disarm masculine distrust, and get what
she wants. Man is flattered by any acknowledgement, however
insincere, of his superior strength and capacity. He likes to be
leaned upon, appealed to, followed docilely. And this tribute to
his might caresses him on the psychic plane as well as on the
plane of the obviously physical. He not only enjoys helping a
woman over a gutter; he also enjoys helping her dry her tears.
The result is the vast pretence that characterizes the relations
of the sexes under civilization--the double pretence of man's
cunning and autonomy and of woman's dependence and deference. Man
is always looking for some one to boast to; woman is always
looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
This feminine affectation, of course, has gradually
taken on the force of a fixed habit, and so it has got a certain
support, by a familiar process of self-delusion, in reality. The
civilized woman inherits that habit as she inherits her
cunning. She is born half convinced that she is really as weak
and helpless as she later pretends to he, and the prevailing
folklore offers her endless corroboration. One of the resultant
phenomena is the delight in martyrdom that one so often finds in
women, and particularly in the least alert and introspective of
them. They take a heavy, unhealthy pleasure in suffering; it
subtly pleases them to be hard put upon; they like to picture
themselves as slaughtered saints. Thus they always find something
to complain of; the very conditions of domestic life give them a
superabundance of clinical material. And if, by any chance, such
material shows a falling off, they are uneasy and unhappy. Let a
woman have a husband whose conduct is not reasonably open to
question, and she will invent mythical offences to make him
bearable. And if her invention fails she will be plunged into the
utmost misery and humiliation. This fact probably explains many
mysterious divorces: the husband was not too bad, but too good.
For public opinion among women, remember, does nor favour the
woman who is full of a placid contentment and has no masculine
torts to report; if she says that her husband is wholly
satisfactory she is looked upon as a numskull even more dense
than he is himself. A man, speaking of his wife to other men,
always praises her extravagantly. Boasting about her soothes his
vanity; he likes to stir up the envy of his fellows. But when two
women talk of their husbands it is mainly atrocities that they
describe. The most esteemed woman gossip is the one with the
longest and most various repertoire of complaints.
This yearning for martyrdom explains one of the
commonly noted characters of women: their eager flair for bearing
physical pain. As we have seen, they have actually a good deal
less endurance than men; massive injuries shock them more
severely and kill them more quickly. But when acute algesia is
unaccompanied by any profounder phenomena they are undoubtedly
able to bear it with a far greater show of resignation. The
reason is not far to seek. In pain a man sees only an invasion of
his liberty, strength and self-esteem. It floors him, masters
him, and makes him ridiculous. But a woman, more subtle and
devious in her processes of mind, senses the dramatic effect that
the spectacle of her suffering makes upon the spectators, already
filled with compassion for her feebleness. She would thus much
rather be praised for facing pain with a martyr's fortitude than
for devising some means of getting rid of it--the first thought
of a man. No woman could have invented chloroform, nor, for that
matter, alcohol. Both drugs offer an escape from situations and
experiences that, even in aggravated forms, women relish. The
woman who drinks as men drink --that is, to raise her threshold
of sensation and ease the agony of living--nearly always shows a
deficiency in feminine characters and an undue preponderance of
masculine characters. Almost invariably you will find her vain
and boastful, and full of other marks of that bombastic
exhibitionism which is so sterlingly male.
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"In Defense
Of Women" by H. L. Mencken, 1922