Mary, Mary by James Stephens

In a few minutes Mrs. Cafferty came into the room. She was, as every woman is in the morning, primed with conversation about husbands; for in the morning husbands are unwieldy, morose creatures without joy, without lightness, lacking even the common, elemental interest in their own children, and capable of detestably misinterpreting the conversation of their wives. It is only by mixing amongst other men that this malignant humour may be dispelled. To them the company of men is like a great bath into which a husband will plunge wildly, renouncing as he dives wife and children, all anchors and securities of hearth and roof, and from which he again emerges singularly refreshed and capable of being interested by a wife, a family, and a home until the next morning. To many women this is a grievance amounting often to an affront, and although they endeavour, even by cooking, to heal the singular breach, they are utterly unable to do so, and perpetually seek the counsel of each other on the subject. Mrs. Cafferty had merely asked her husband would he hold the baby while she poured out his stirabout, and he had incredibly threatened to pour the stirabout down the back of her neck if she didn't leave him alone.

It was upon this morning madness she had desired to consult her friend, and when she saw that Mrs. Makebelieve had gone away her disappointment was quite evident. But this was only for a moment. Almost all women are possessed of a fine social sense in relation to other women. They are always on their best behaviour towards one another. Indeed, it often seems as if they feared and must by all possible means placate each other by flattery, humour, or a serious tactfulness. There is very little freedom between them, because there is no real freedom or acquaintance but between things polar. There is nothing but a superficial resemblance between like and like, but between like and unlike there is space wherein both curiosity and spirit may go adventuring. Extremes must meet, it is their urgent necessity, the reason for their distance, and the greater the distance between them the swifter will be their return and the warmer their impact: they may shatter each other to fragments, or they may fuse and become indissoluble and new and wonderful, but there is no other fertility. Between the sexes there is a really extraordinary freedom of intercourse. They meet each other something more than halfway. A man and a woman may become quite intimate in a quarter of an hour. Almost certainly they will endeavour to explain themselves to each other before many minutes have elapsed; but a man and a man will not do this, and even less so will a woman and a woman, for these are the parallel lines which never meet. The acquaintanceship of the latter, in particular, often begins and ends in an armed and calculating neutrality. They preserve their distances and each other's sufferance by the exercise of a grave social tact which never deserts them, and which more than anything else has contributed to build the ceremonials which are nearly one half of our civilisation.