Frailty, thy name is woman
The universal currency of the quotation reveals the general attitude of men towards women. Human society, with rare exceptions, has so far been man-dominated. Early in human history, man took advantage of his superior physical strength and domesticated women as he did animals. The noble ‘helpmate’ was soon dethroned and degraded to play the second fiddle to her male partner. In European society she became the ‘weakling, besides other derogatory epithets that were attached to her. The great Hindu law-giver Manu calls woman a veritable pot of poison. Since man possessed woman, he imposed a rigid code of conduct, especially of chastity on her. Although in most societies man retained the right of polygamy, he debarred women from it. The slightest deviation on her part was brutally punished. Since man was engaged in arduous occupations like fighting, sailing and farming, he became physically stronger than woman, confined to four walls of the house and gentler, though by no means less irksome, tasks of domestic life, lost her former vigour and vitality. Moreover, man arrogated to himself the monopoly of virtues like courage, strength and endurance. But as one woman writer has said: woman does not lack either courage of endurance nor is she inferior to man in these respects; only she does not show it off as man does. “Dog and man behave bravely because they think they ought, cat and women because they must”, says she. Moreover, in point of endurance, she is superior to man when we take into account the child-bearing, child-rearing and putting up with thousand and one domestic hardships which she is subjected to and which she very often undergoes uncomplainingly and cheerfully, cheerfully.
