It is even found
among animals also, and is said to be notably obvious in giraffes. It
will hardly be argued that the female giraffe leads a more confined and
domestic life than her brother.
Yet another aspect of the biological factor is to be found in the bearing
of heredity on this question. To judge by the statements that one
sometimes sees, men and women might be two distinct species, separately
propagated. The conviction of some men that women are not fitted to
exercise various social and political duties, and the conviction of some
women that men are a morally inferior sex, are both alike absurd, for
they both rest on the assumption that women do not inherit from their
fathers, nor men from their mothers. Nothing is more certain than
that--when, of course, we put aside the sexual characters and the special
qualities associated with those characters--men and women, on the
average, inherit equally from both of their parents, allowing for the
fact that that heredity is controlled and modified by the special
organisation of each sex. There are, indeed, various laws of heredity
which qualify this statement, and notably the tendency whereby extremes
of variation are more common in the male sex--so that genius and idiocy
are alike more prevalent in men. But, on the whole, there can be no doubt
that the qualities of a man or of a woman are a more or less varied
mixture of those of both parents; and, even when there is no blending,
both parents are almost equally likely to be influential in heredity.
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