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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com - Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Act I - 08 Act II - 42 Act III - 118 Act IV - 167 Act V - 191


not actually bullied and beaten. “When you go to women” says Nietzsche, “take
your whip with you.” Sensible despots have never confined that precaution to
women: they have taken their whips with them when they have dealt with men,
and been slavishly idealized by the men over whom they have flourished the whip
much more than by women. No doubt there are slavish women as well as slavish
men; and women, like men, admire those that are stronger than themselves. But
to admire a strong person and to live under that strong person’s thumb are two dif-
ferent things. The weak may not be admired and hero-worshipped; but they are
by no means disliked or shunned; and they never seem to have the least difficulty
in marrying people who are too good for them. They may fail in emergencies; but
life is not one long emergency: it is mostly a string of situations for which no ex-
ceptional strength is needed, and with which even rather weak people can cope if
they have a stronger partner to help them out. Accordingly, it is a truth every-
where in evidence that strong people, masculine or feminine, not only do not
marry stronger people, but do not shew any preference for them in selecting their
friends. When a lion meets another with a louder roar “the first lion thinks the last
a bore.” The man or woman who feels strong enough for two, seeks for every
other quality in a partner than strength.

The converse is also true. Weak people want to marry strong people who do
not frighten them too much; and this often leads them to make the mistake we de-
scribe metaphorically as “biting off more than they can chew.” They want too
much for too little; and when the bargain is unreasonable beyond all bearing, the
union becomes impossible: it ends in the weaker party being either discarded or
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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com - Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Act I - 08 Act II - 42 Act III - 118 Act IV - 167 Act V - 191



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