Woman, the Source of All Powers!

How like the electorate woman is — and how like the candidate, who tries to win the electors' confidence, is man!

Before parliamentary government, governments took power in spite of the people's will; and man used to marry woman without her will or her consent!

Then the constitution was proclaimed... and woman understood that she now had the right of election — to elect the man!

And what happens among nations happens among women!

Sometimes the man counterfeits the woman's will and calls what happened a valid election... when in fact it is forgery and fraud!

Sometimes the man buys the woman's heart as the candidate buys the elector's vote!

Sometimes the woman abstains from marriage as the elector abstains from voting!

And sometimes the woman gives her heart to two men... just as it happens that an elector gives his vote twice!

And just as the candidate deceives the electors with pledges and covenants, and once he enters parliament carries out nothing, so the man deceives the woman with pledges and covenants, and once he has married her carries out none of those covenants and pledges!

And just as the candidate — before the election — makes the rounds of the electors, shaking their hands and paying them compliments, weeping at their funerals and dancing at their weddings; if one of them sneezes he says to him "Bless you," if he drinks he says "To your health," if he bathes: "May it refresh you," if he eats he says "Health twice over"... if he travels: "God willing, may you come back safely," and if he comes back: "Thank God for your safe return"... all this happens before the elections; but once the election is over there is no more weeping and no dancing, no "Bless you" and no "To your health," no "May it refresh you" and no "Health twice over"... instead the member of parliament complains of the electors' importunity and of what heavy bores the electors are!

So too the man, in the days of the engagement, turns into the most charming man in the world. He never enters his fiancée's house without a present. If she puts on a sharkskin dress he tells her it is lovelier than Hedy Lamarr's gown... if she puts on red slippers he assures her they are lovelier than Greta Garbo's hat... if she falls ill he sits at her side night and day; if she travels he sends her a letter with every mail; and if she tells a dry joke he says to her: "What a wit you are!"

But if he marries her, her luck turns black... He never enters his wife's house with a present unless she has pressed him for it twenty days running, morning and evening. She buys a dress, and nothing about it catches his eye but the bill; he sees new slippers on her feet, and assures her that he would rather see her barefoot than pay out the money that is ruining the house!

Do you not see that women greatly resemble the electorate... and men resemble the deputies!

And yet we forever make game of woman and delude her that she is everything — the source of life and the inspiration of genius — exactly as we delude the electors that they are the source of all powers!