FOREWORD

friend told me that I ought to call it The Conservative

Sex, for only books with the word "sex" in their titles

seem to get bought and read nowadays. I did not alter

my title, but an interesting book might be written about

the Conservative Sex. Women have become intelligent

adherents of conservative parties throughout the Western

world. In Italy, it is the votes and the resolution of the

women that keep the Communists out of power; if only

men voted there, the scales would tip toward radical col-

lectivism. In America, similarly, most of our voluntary

organizations which support our established society of

justice and order and liberty are kept vigorous by Amer-

ican women. Such a state of affairs could be demonstrated

to exist in Britain, too. Women are conservative. Why?

Women's attachment to hard realities has something

to do with their social principles, and their realization

of the need for genuine security has something to do with

it; and so has their practical understanding of the worth

of the family and the community; and so has their in-

stinctive knowledge that society is not a "machine for

living," but rather a spiritual thing, founded upon love.

For all these reasons, and others, women are the con-

servative sex.

Yet in our times a conservatism which is merely intui-

tive encounters severe difficulties when it confronts a

subtle, unscrupulous, "rational" radicalism. I think it

worthwhile, therefore, to say here something about the

first principles of conservatism, so that women may de-

fend with their minds what they already sense through

their hearts.

This little book is not a systematic reply to Shaw's

much longer work. For one thing, its premises are quite

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