Mathilde and Mathius Vaerting. The authors of The Dominant Sex contemplate a re founding (Neubegriindung) of the comparative
psychology of the sexes. The present volume is the initial contribution to that work; it is intended to
demolish the old edifice, and in part to clear the ground for the new construction. Literally translated,
the original title runs: “Feminine Peculiarities in the Men’s State, and Masculine Peculiarities in the
Women’s State.” The fundamental theory of the book is that what we call “masculine” qualities to-day
are merely the qualities of a dominant sex; and that what we call “feminine” qualities are merely the
qualities of a subordinate sex. Novel-readers may remember that the theory was foreshadowed forty
years ago in Walter Besant’s amusing anti-feminist squib, The Revolt of Man. In the present study we
have a work as readable as any novel in which knowledge of the psychological and sociological
effects of sex dominance is placed upon a scientific basis. Only when full allowance has been made
for these effects, will it be possible to ascertain the residue of masculine and feminine character traits
which are indisputably congenital. The authors have proved that much of what we lightly class as
“masculinity” and “femininity” is not congenital, but is reacquired from generation to generation (From the Translator’s Foreward) E-Book Here