itself a direct product of the way in which militarism has trained men to look on women—a woman widowed and driven to the untimely fulfilment of her most important social function in anguish of mind, and a child born into the world under conditions which probably handicapped it disastrously for the struggle of life.[1]
Now, obviously, if women could be taught to regard such invasions of their right to pardon offence in others as a direct attack upon their own honour and liberty—a far worse attack than the act of folly which gave occasion for this tragedy—and if they would teach these possessive lovers of theirs that any such intrusion on their womanly prerogative of mercy was in itself an unforgivable sin against womanhood—then such invasions of the woman's sphere would quickly come to an end. They might even put an end to duelling altogether.
See, on the other hand, how acceptance of such an institution trains women to give up their own right of judgment, to think even that honour, at first hand, hardly concerns them. Is it not natural that, as the outcome of such a system from which we are only gradually emerging, we should hear it said
- ↑ It may be noted that the war has caused a recrudescence of this brutal "code of honour" in our own country. But here it has not troubled to resume the obsolete form of the duel. The "defender of his wife's honour" simply commits murder, and the jury acquits.
