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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: specialized into soldiery and laborers may not be nearly so simple a
question as it appears. I am very sure of not being able to answer it. But
natural economy may have decided the matter. In many forms of life, the
female greatly exceeds the male in bulk and in energy;-- perhaps, in this
case, the larger reserve of life-force possessed originally by the complete
female could be more rapidly and effectively utilized for the development
of a special fighting-caste. All energies which, in the fertile female,
would be expended in the giving of life seem here to have been diverted to
the evolution of aggressive power, or working-capacity.]
Of the true females,-- the Mothers-Elect,-- there are very few indeed; and
these are treated like queens. So constantly and so reverentially are they
Kwaidan |
