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Thus Spake ZarathustraIdeasLibrary
First Part · XVIII. Old and Young Women

Woman as pregnancy, man's dangerous plaything

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Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution—it is called pregnancy.

Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man?

Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly.

Too sweet fruits—these the warrior liketh not. Therefore liketh he woman;—bitter is even the sweetest woman.

Better than man doth woman understand children, but man is more childish than woman.

In the true man there is a child hidden: it wanteth to play. Up then, ye women, and discover the child in man!

He says woman's riddle is solved by pregnancy. The true man wants danger and play, so he wants woman as the most dangerous plaything, and the child hidden in man is to be discovered.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Defence of Nietzsche's views on womenAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909judgement

Ludovici argues that hostility to Nietzsche's views on women is a misunderstanding: his doctrine is that the sexes are fundamentally antagonistic and should be kept so, against the democratic levelling that would masculinise women and feminise men, a view Ludovici judges right and just; he adds that the discourse's notorious last line was suggested by a woman.