[3] THOMAS, _Sex and Society_, p. 21. University of Chicago Press, 1907.
The differences in structure between men and women are such as to correspond with the functional differences just stated. A woman's bones are smaller in proportion to her size, than are those of a man. The body is longer, the hips broader, and the abdomen more prominent. Relatively to the length of the body, the arms, legs, feet and hands are shorter than in men, the lower leg and arm are shorter in proportion to the upper leg and arm. Man has the long levers and the active frame. One has only to look at two good statues of a man and a woman to realize the greater strength and activity of the man.
Woman, as she actually appears in modern society, is also less subject to variation than man;[4] she is much less liable to be a genius or an idiot than her brother.[5] She offers greater resistance to disease, endures pain and want more stoically, and lives longer; so that while more boys than girls are born in all parts of the world, where statistics are kept, in mature years women always outnumber men.
[4] KARL PEARSON denies this. See _The Chances of Death_, Vol. I, p. 256. London, 1897.
[5] C.W. SALEEBY, in _Woman and Womanhood_, p. 54, New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1911, maintains that woman is biologically more variable than man, and that woman's less variable activity is due to her training.
All these statements are summed up by saying that not only in women, but in most female animals of the higher orders, life is more anabolic than in males. They tend to more static conditions; they collect, organize, conserve; they are patient and stable; they move about less; they more easily lay on adipose tissue. Compared with the female, the male animal is katabolic; he is active, impulsive, destructive, skilful, creative, intense, spasmodic, violent. Such a generalization as this must not be pushed too far in its applications to our daily life; but as a statement of basal differences it seems justified by ordinary observation as well as by scientific tests.[6]
[6] PATRICK GEDDES and ARTHUR THOMPSON, in _The Evolution of Sex_, D. Appleton & Co., 1889, first advanced this position.
Meantime, it is probably true that the female, as mother of the race, is more important biologically than the male, since she both furnishes germ plasm and nourishes the newly conceived life. The latest studies, along lines laid down by Mendel, seem to indicate that the female brings to the new creation both male and female attributes, while the male brings only male qualities. Thus when either sex sinks into insignificance, as sometimes happens in lower forms of life, it is generally the male which exists merely for purposes of reproduction.[7]