is higher than the positive, inasmuch as it concerns our
immortality and is thus the only positive value.
Woman's main significance lies in her negative contribution, whereas her
positive contributions are as nothing in comparison but, on the
contrary, pernicious. It is this truth which life keeps from her,
consoling her with an illusion which surpasses all that might arise in
any man's brain, and with parental care ordering life in such fashion
that both language and everything else confirm her in her illusion. For
even if she be conceived as the very opposite of inspiring, and rather
as the wellspring of all corruption; whether now we imagine that with
her, sin came into the world, or that it is her infidelity which ruined
all - our conception of her is always gallant. That is, when hearing
such opinions one might readily assume that woman were really able to
become infinitely more culpable than man, which would, indeed, amount to
an immense acknowledgment of her powers. Alas, alas! the case is
entirely different. There is a secret reading of this text which woman
cannot comprehend; for, the very next moment, all life owns to the same
conception as the state, which makes man responsible for his wife. One
condemns her as man never is condemned (for only a real sentence is
passed on him, and there the matter ends), not with her receiving a
milder sentence; for in that case not all of her life would be an
illusion, but with the case against her being dismissed and the public,
ie., life, having to defray the costs. One moment, woman is supposed to
be possessed of all possible wiles; the next moment, one laughs at him
.
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