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Woman and Labour-Part15_Oliver Schreiner(1855-1920)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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meretricious external adornment is almost invariably the concomitant and



outcome of parasitism. Were the parasitefemale class in our own societies

today to pass away, French fashions with their easeless and grotesque



variations (shaped not for use or beauty, but the attracting of attention)

would die out. And the extent to which any woman today, not herself



belonging to the parasite class and still labouring, attempts to follow

afar off the fashions of the parasite, may be taken generally as an almost



certain indication of the ease with which she would accept parasitism were

its conditions offered her. The tendency of the cultured and



intellectually labouring woman of today to adopt a more rational type of

attire, less shaped to attract attention to the individual than to confer



comfort and abstain from impeding activity, is often spoken of as an

attempt on the part of woman slavishly to imitate man. What is really



taking place is, that like causes are producing like effects on human

creatures with common characteristics.)



But there remain certain psychic differences in attitude, on the part of

male and female as such, which are inherent and not artificial: and, in



the psychic human world, it is exactly as we approach the sphere of sexual

and reproductive activity, with those emotions and instincts connected



directly with sex and the reproduction of the race, that a difference does

appear.



In the animal world all forms of psychic variations are found allying

themselves now with the male sex form, and then with the female. In the



insect and fish worlds, where the female forms are generally larger and

stronger than the male, the female is generally more pugnacious and



predatory than the male. Among birds-of-prey, where also the female form

is larger and stronger than the male, the psychic differences seem very



small. Among eagles and other allied forms, which are strictly monogamous,

the affection of the female for the male is so great that she is said never



to mate again if the male dies, and both watch over and care for the young

with extreme solicitude. The ostrich male form, though perhaps larger than



the female, shares with her the labour of hatching the eggs, relieving the

hen of her duty at a fixed hour daily: and his care for the young when



hatched is as tender as hers. Among song-birds, in which the male and

female forms are so alike as sometimes to be indistinguishable, and which



are also monogamous, the male and female forms not only exhibit the same

passionateaffection for each other (in the case of the South African cock-



o-veet, they have one answering love-song between them; the male sounding

two or three notes and the female completing it with two or three more),



but they build the nest together and rear the young with an equal devotion.

In the case of the little kapok bird of the Cape, a beautiful, white,



fluffy round nest is made by both out of the white down of a certain plant,

and immediately below the entrance to the cavity in which the little female



sits on the eggs is a small shelf or basket, in which the tiny male sits to

watch over and guard them. It is among certain orders of birds that sex



manifestations appear to assume their most harmonious and poetical forms on

earth. Among gallinaceous birds, on the other hand, where the cock is much



larger and more pugnacious than the female, and which are polygamous, the

cock does not court the female by song, but seizes her by force, and shows



little or no interest in his offspring, neither sharing in the brooding nor

feeding the young; and even at times seizing any temptingmorsel which the



young or the hen may have discovered.

Among mammals the male form tends to be slightly larger than the female,



though not always (the female whale, for instance, being larger than the

male); the male also tends to be more pugnacious and less careful of the



young; though to this rule also there are exceptions. In the case of the

South African mierkat, for instance, the female is generally more combative



and more difficult to tame than the male; and it is the males who from the

moment of birth watch over the young with the most passionate and tender



solicitude, keeping them warm under their persons, carrying them to places

of safety in their mouths, and feeding them till full grown; and this they






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