To this demand I heartily acceded. It seemed to me, however,
that her clear perceptions of abstract right were often
overborne, in practice, by the influence of education and
habit; that while she demanded absolute equality for Woman,
she exacted a deference and courtesy from men to women, _as_
women, which was entirely inconsistent with that requirement.
In my view, the equalizing theory can be enforced only by
ignoring the habitual discrimination of men and women, as
forming separate _classes_, and regarding all alike as simply
_persons_,--as human beings. So long as a lady shall deem
herself in need of some gentleman's arm to conduct her
properly out of a dining or ball-room,--so long as she shall
consider it dangerous or unbecoming to walk half a mile alone
by night,--I cannot see how the 'Woman's Rights' theory
is ever to be anything more than a logically defensible
abstraction. In this view Margaret did not at all concur,
and the diversity was the incitement to much perfectly
good-natured, but nevertheless sharpish sparring between us.
Whenever she said or did anything implying the usual demand
of Woman on the courtesy and protection of Manhood, I was apt,
before complying, to look her in the face and exclaim with
marked emphasis,--quoting from her 'Woman in the Nineteenth
Century,'--'LET THEM BE SEA-CAPTAINS IF THEY WILL!' Of course,
this was given and received as raillery, but it did not tend
to ripen our intimacy or quicken my esteem into admiration.
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