They were forbidden, except in a few carefully etiquetted forms, the free play of courtship, without which they could not perform their part in the erotic life with full satisfaction either to themselves or their partners.

They were reduced to an artificial simulation of coldness or of warmth, according to the particular stage of the dominating masculine ideal of woman which their partner chanced to have reached.

But that is an attitude equally unsatisfactory to themselves and to their lovers, even when the latter have not sufficient insight to see through its unreality.

It is an attitude so unnatural and artificial that it inevitably tends to produce a real coldness which nothing can disguise.

It is true that women whose instincts are not perverted at the roots do not desire to be cold.