But the gates of my happy childhood had clanged shut behind me; I had become adult enough to recognize the need to conceal unbearable emotions for the sake of others.

Sadly, man recognises that the ideal, submissive woman he has created for himself is somehow not quite what he wanted.

Providing for one's family as a good husband and father is a watertight excuse for making money hand over fist. Greed may be a sin, exploitation of other people might, on the face of it, look rather nasty, but who can blame a man for 'doing the best' for his children?

Monarchs not only fashion their age, but are fashioned by it, so that they can become a sort of personification of the age. If Elizabeth I, independent, strong, represents the age of Shakespeare's heroines, a woman's heyday, Victoria represents another image of womanhood, predominant in the nineteenth century: a woman who, although queen in her own right, leaned on her husband, looked up to him, and went into perpetual mourning after his death. The feminist movement filled her with shocked horror and outrage.

For centuries the word 'nature' has been used to bolster prejudices or to express, not reality, but a state of affairs that the user would wish to see.

There is a hidden fear that somehow, if they are only given a chance, women will suddenly do as they have been done by.

Providing for one's family as a good husband and father is a water-tight excuse for making money hand over fist.