“No nation can have grown-up ideas till it has a ruling cast of grown-up men and women; and it is possible to have a ruling caste of grown-up men and women only in a civilisation where the power of each sex is balanced by that of the other.”
Edith Wharton
Quoted in “The Lesbian and the Novelist Who Escaped the Gilded Age” (click to read)
A Bit of History 