Muliebrity

The Ladies of Rhodes hearing that you have loſt, / A capitoll part of your Lady ware, / Haue made their petition to Cupid, / To plague you aboue all other, / As one preiuditiall to their muliebritie.

[I]n the devising, hammering, forging and composing of the Woman, she hath had a much tenderer regard, and by a great deal more respectful heed to the delightful Consortship, and sociable Delectation of the Man, than to the Perfection and Accomplishment of the individual Womanishness, or Muliebrity.

The second of the ravishing voices I have heard was, as I have said, that of another German woman. […] it had so much woman in it,—muliebrity, as well as femineity; […]

[T]his tall, handsome, gentlemanly-looking woman, who, however, in spite of her broad shoulders and narrow hips possessed a refined muliebrity superior to mere womanliness of outline, […]

Civilisation has achieved a very elaborate woman, but the elaboration is unimportant from the point of view of science. It is decorative; the structure endures; the heart of modern woman is the heart of her savage ancestress dressed and adorned and furnished. This permanence of muliebrity serves to indicate the requirements of natural law. Woman may not depart from it to any considerable extent without impairing her position and nullifying her functions.

She had not married, I suppose because her standards were high, and men are cowards and with an instinctive appetite for muliebrity.

Yet a nation is said to become effeminate […] when the attributes which distinguish the female are acquired by the male population—when the customs and habits which are proper to the women are assumed by the men. As both principles are necessary, may not one infer that the qualities generated by both principles are necessary to a nation,—that in proportion as the muliebrity of the one sex declines, the virility of the other also lessens, in an endeavour to adjust the moral machine?

Again, there has grown up among our little people a feeling of delicacy in regard to dealing with certain relatives of the other sex and with all other such muliebrities as are within marriageable age. Thus if a Pygmy man is tripping along the trail and happens to descry one of such women coming his way, sexual politeness requires him either to turn tail and retrace his steps or to make a detour […]

[page 354] If a huſband be Inneen, [impotent,] it is requiſite that the Kâzee appoint the term of one year from the period of litigation, within which if the accuſed have carnal connexion with his wife it is well; but if not, the Kâzee muſt pronounce a ſeparation, provided ſuch be the deſire of the wife, […] [pages 355–356] Where ſhe was married as a virgin, ſhe is to be examined by ſome of her own ſex, and if they declare her to be ſtill a virgin, the term of a year is to be appointed, as above, becauſe the huſband's falſehood is then evident; but if they declare her muliebrity [footnote: Meaning womanhood, as opposed to virginity.], the Kâzee is in that caſe to require the huſband to make oath, which if he do, her right to ſeparation is defeated; […]

Janie's story of personal growth may be charted as one that travels from mules to muliebrity.