How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The fun of it is that they think me a noodle, and say so--at least Mr. Wilcox does--and when that happens, and one doesn't mind, it's a pretty sure test, isn't it? He says the most horrid things about women's suffrage so nicely, and when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms and gave me such a setting down as I've never had. Meg, shall we ever learn to talk less? I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I couldn't point to a time when men had been equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal had made them happier in other ways. I couldn't say a word. I had just picked up the notion that equality is good from some book--probably from poetry, or you. (1.7)
Helen, an independent woman, finds herself set back by the Wilcox certainty of masculine superiority – and, oddly, she finds herself enjoying it.
Quote #2
"I suppose that ours is a female house," said Margaret, "and one must just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don't mean that this house is full of women. I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it was irrevocably feminine, even in father's time. Now I'm sure you understand! Well, I'll give you another example. It'll shock you, but I don't care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that the guests had been Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic? Heavens no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to that. So with our house--it must be feminine, and all we can do is to see that it isn't effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but I won't, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates can do is to see that it isn't brutal." (5.44)
Margaret can't exactly explain why, but there's something about the Schlegel household that's eternally feminine. They're in direct opposition to the Wilcox household, in which the only female member, Evie, is as masculine as Tibby is feminine.
Quote #3
Year after year, summer and winter, as bride and mother, she had been the same, he had always trusted her. Her tenderness! Her innocence! The wonderful innocence that was hers by the gift of God. Ruth knew no more of worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her garden, or the grass in her field. (11.5)
Mr. Wilcox's musings on the passing of his first wife indicate what he expects from women – at this stage in the novel, he seems to see them as children, whose innocence is their main virtue. How different is this naivety from the sheltered idealism of the Schlegel girls?
Quote #4
A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but Margaret had too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in her own way, as masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak, whom all might tread, but whom the snows made nightly virginal. Disdaining the heroic outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill, she misled her lover much as she had misled her aunt. He mistook her fertility for weakness. (20.17)
Margaret is a woman grown into her own powers, even if Henry doesn't recognize it. She doesn't need to announce her "mastery" over herself and her future husband, the way a younger girl might; instead, she is confident in her own ways.
Quote #5
She knew of life's seamy side as a theory; she could not grasp it as a fact. (26.64)
Despite the fact that Margaret's a mature, self-sufficient lady, Forster still implies that she can't "grasp" the darker parts of life (like Henry's seedy past) – perhaps simply because she's a woman. In general, women in this novel (Margaret, Helen, Jacky) have difficulty really understanding the world of men and its grim facts of life.
Quote #6
But she crossed out "I do understand"; it struck a false note. Henry could not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, "It is everything or nothing." Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She must not comment; comment is unfeminine. (28.3)
Margaret is increasingly occupied by what is feminine or masculine – the problem of the relation between genders is a recurrent one here. Why should comment or analysis be seen as unfeminine? Henry seems to have a very clear idea of what women should or shouldn't do, and Margaret is well aware of this.
Quote #7
He was annoyed with Miss Schlegel here. He would have preferred her to be prostrated by the blow, or even to rage. Against the tide of his sin flowed the feeling that she was not altogether womanly. Her eyes gazed too straight; they had read books that are suitable for men only. And though he had dreaded a scene, and though she had determined against one, there was a scene, all the same. It was somehow imperative. (29.5)
Henry expects Margaret to be upset, like any normal woman, by the news of his infidelity. However, Margaret is not a normal woman, which irritates him. For him, she's too much like a man to be properly feminine – too educated, too perceptive – and we can tell that she doesn't fit in with the image of womanhood that conservative men like Henry believe in.
Quote #8
Man is for war, woman for the recreation of the warrior, but he does not dislike it if she makes a show of fight. She cannot win in a real battle, having no muscles, only nerves. Nerves make her jump out of a moving motor-car, or refuse to be married fashionably. The warrior may well allow her to triumph on such occasions; they move not the imperishable plinth of things that touch his peace. (31.6)
Men and women, women and men…there's nothing but trouble between the sexes here. Henry, and men of his ilk, have a kind of warped idea of women. As the narrator comments here, men ("warriors") just humor women, who are nervous but entertaining creatures. We have to wonder how serious this commentary is.