Svova has discovered that Alf, to whom she is engaged, has previously had relations with another woman; she has consequently determined to break off the engagement, and the following is a portion of a conversation she holds with her Uncle Nordan.
NORDAN: Come here and sit down. Or dare you not enter on an investigation?
SVOVA: Yes, I dare! (She comes and sits down.)
NORDAN: You suppose this is a very doubtful question which is being treated by serious men and women all over the world?
SVOVA: This is matter personal to me, and to me it is not doubtful.
NORDAN: You misunderstand me, child. You are to solve your own problem, you and no other that is a matter of course. But suppose the problem you have to solve isn’t quite what you think it; suppose at this very moment it is employing thousands and thousands are not you bound to take account of the general conditions involved, and of all that is being said and thought on the matter ? Is it not unconscientious to judge in the particular case without doing that?
SVOVA: I understand. But I think I have done what you require of me. Ask mother!
NORDAN: O yes, you and your mother have talked and read a good deal about marriage and the position of women how, now that class-privileges have been abolished, it is time that sex-privileges should be abolished too. But this particular question-
SVOVA: What do you think I have overlooked?
NORDAN: Well, have you the right to be as severe against the man as against the woman? Eh?
SVOVA : Yes, of course.
NORDAN: Is it so much a matter of course? Go out and inquire! Out of a hundred you meet ninety will answer no; women, as well as men.
SVOVA: Hm! Now we’re coming to another question.
NORDAN: Perhaps, but it requires knowledge to answer the question.
SVOVA: Do you mean what you say?
NORDAN: That doesn’t matter to you! Besides, I always mean what I say. A woman can marry at sixteen. A man must wait till he is twenty-five or thirty. There’s the distinction !
SVOVA: There is a distinction! For there are many many times more unmarried women than men. And that shows self-restraint. Men find it more convenient to make a law of their want of self-restraint.
NORDAN: Such an answer betrays ignorance. Man is a polygamic beast, like many other beasts, and the theory is enormously supported by the fact that there are more women than men in the world. You never heard that before perhaps!
SVOVA: Indeed I have, Mr. doctor of science !
NORDAN: Don’t laugh at science! What are we to trust if not that?
SVOVA: I only wish men had as much trouble over their children as women! If only they had! I fancy it would change their principles! If only they had!
NORDAN: They have no time for that; they have to “subdue the earth”.
SVOVA: Yes! they assigned the parts themselves!
Anonymous, ‘The Later Plays of Björnson’, Macmillan’s Magazine, London: 1889
