bursts into tears, begs for forgiveness and admits her fault; she may even believe indeed that she really feels this fault. Such is only the case, however, when she has felt inclined to do so, for this very dissolving in tears affects her always with a certain voluptuous pleasure. The male criminal is obstinate, he does not allow himself to be turned round in a moment as the apparent defiance of a woman may be converted into an apparent sense of guilt, where, that is, the accuser understands how to handle her” (“Geschlecht und Charakter,” pp. 253-254). Weininger's conclusion is: “Not that woman is naturally evil or anti-moral, but rather that she is merely a-moral, in other words that she is destitute of what is commonly called 'moral sense.'” The cases of female penitents and others which seem to contradict this announcement Weininger explains by the hypothesis that “it is only in company and under external influence that woman can feel remorse.”
Be all this as it may, the fact remains that women when most patently and obviously guilty of vile and criminal actions will, with the most complete nonchalance, insist that they are in the right. This may be, and very possibly often is, mere impudent effrontery, relying on the privilege of the female sex, or it may, in part at least, as Weininger insists, be traceable to “special deep-lying sex-characteristics.” But in any case the
