The several phases of the "woman question" have brought out in
intelligible form the extent to which the life of women in modern
society, and in the polite circles especially, is regulated by a
body of common sense formulated under the economic circumstances
of an earlier phase of development. It is still felt that woman's
life, in its civil, economic, and social bearing, is essentially
and normally a vicarious life, the merit or demerit of which is,
in the nature of things, to be imputed to some other individual
who stands in some relation of ownership or tutelage to the
woman. So, for instance, any action on the part of a woman which
traverses an injunction of the accepted schedule of proprieties
is felt to reflect immediately upon the honor of the man whose
woman she is. There may of course be some sense of incongruity in
the mind of any one passing an opinion of this kind on the
woman's frailty or perversity; but the common-sense judgment of
the community in such matters is, after all, delivered without
much hesitation, and few men would question the legitimacy of
their sense of an outraged tutelage in any case that might arise.
On the other hand, relatively little discredit attaches to a
woman through the evil deeds of the man with whom her life is
associated.
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