The Pot of Basil by Bernard Capes — Read

It is a mistake to suppose that it is the manly qualities in a man which invariably appeal most to women's affections. Very often, indeed, it is their exact antitheses -- indecision, dependence, helplessness -- which excite in tender breasts the fondest response. Paradoxically, every woman is a mother before she is a virgin, else, save in foretasting the guerdon of love, could she never suffer the ordeal which is to qualify her for that reward. She becomes a mother by right of the test to which she has submitted, which is in truth the test of her capacity for cherishing the weakling, for nourishing, for protecting and for sympathising in all ways with its weakness. Wherefore, as she is the instinctive nurse of frailty, her affections turn more naturally to it than to the strength which is independent of her.

There are women, of course, who would always rather be coerced by a brutal husband than consulted by an irresolute one. There are women, also, of the manly, tailor-made type, to whom a sick dog or horse appeals with fifty times the force of an ailing child. But I make bold to think that they are in the minority, and that the mass of the sex is inclined to be attracted more by the weak than by the strong qualities in men. For weakness may be lovable, while strength is only admirable; and a woman defrauded in her helpful instinct is a woman deprived of her essential meaning.