The Influence of Sex on Sex.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5270, 29 May 1895, Page 2

The Influence of Sex on Sex.

Tbe question as to whether men or women are most abl to influence th other sex for good, s ne that permits of muoh discussion and divergence of opinion. A number of women have been giving expression to their ideas on the Bubjeot in a recently -published Home Magazine, wilh the result that about 84 i per cent of the writers agree that their own sex has the greater influence for good. Oddly enough only one of the witnesses thinks th&t matters are evenly balanced. According to her the influence for good does not belong exclusively to one of the sexes. Men are not all black, nor women all white. A medium gray is the average human tint. She thinks that the unnoticed and indirect influence is the most i powerful, and that the reason we bo generally ascribe the greater infiuenco tp woman is because she has greater opportunities for exercising it, since to her hands is entrusted the moulding of her child's character. There can be no doubt abont the weight of the mother's influence, wielded as it is when her child's mind is most impressionable and plastic. But passing on to the adult stage, women have the greater influence, not necessarily because they are better than men, but because, when they feel their power, they love to use it; whereas men are often too indolent in this particular to exercise their influence. Then, again, the gentle, refining influence of womankind is probably more essential to the well-being of man than are the sterner and more masculine qualities necessary for the improvement of woman. So much for those who make the balance dip in favour of women, but there are a few ladiea ranged with some show of reason on the opposite side, whose opinions are well worth hearing. One of them considers that when a man and a woman are of average impressionability, of similar age and social position, the man's influence is the more beneficial because it conduces most to a perfectly wellbalanced development. It tends to widen a woman's horizon, to overthrow her prejudices, to destroy her illusions, and to give her that sense of proportion of which her sex is as yet bo deficient. The woman's influence, on the other hand, Ib usually oonfined to amelioration of some one point in character or conduct, regardless of the whole. After all, the conclusion of the whole matter, arrived at by those ladies, seems to be that women influence men by their refining powers arising from their purity, gentle sympathy and faitb, while men exert a power equally strong in broadening woman's views and destroying her prejudices—in short, by supplying the qualities she lacks. I