No one would assert
that the woman's movement is responsible for the production of such
people; no reasonable person would assert that their adherence condemns
it; but we are rightly entitled to be concerned lest the rising
generation of womanhood be misled by such disgusting examples.
Nothing will be said which militates for a moment against the
possibility that a woman may be womanly and yet in her later years, when
so many women combine their best health and vigour with experience and
wisdom, might replace many hundredweight of male legislators upon the
benches of the House of Commons, to the immense advantage of the nation.
If our present purpose were medical in the ordinary sense, the reader
would come to a chapter on the climacteric, dealing with the nervous and
other risks and disabilities of that period, and notably including a
warning as to the importance of attending promptly to certain local
symptoms which may possibly herald grave disease. An abundance of books
on such subjects is to be had, and my purpose is not to add to their
number. Yet the climacteric has a special interest for us because the
special case of those women who have passed it is constantly ignored in
our discussions of the woman question--which is not exclusively
concerned with the destiny of girls and the claims of feminine
adolescence to the vote. The work of Lord Lister, and the advances of
obstetrics and gynecology, largely dependent thereon, are increasing the
naturally large number of women at these later ages--naturally large
because women live longer than men.
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