A Mischievous Rudiment

1912
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A Mischievous Rudiment
B-

The reason why I keep giving Gilman B-s is that she hits a level of better than average but generally not amazing, and stays there.  Some of the time I think the stories would be better if they weren't so short.  This is an example of one that could've been expanded at least into a novella.  The ironically named heiress Miss Bland has many suitors but narrows it down to three.  One of them, Wyndham, is the title character, since his belief that women like to be mastered is becoming outdated, despite recent fiction.  Miss Bland's answer to "Do you like Kipling?" would probably be "I don't like to be Kipled."  She's attracted to Wyndham's strength but not his machismo.  The other suitors are a yes-man and an intelligent nice guy.  If D. H. Lawrence were writing this story, she'd of course end up with Wyndham.

A century later, there are still real and fictional men who believe "A woman-- a real woman-- needs to be mastered!  She likes it.  She loves the man who can make her love him-- against her will!"  But I think that, thanks to Gilman and her successors, women like Miss Bland and men like Mr. Weston dismiss the idea more easily.