Arthur Schopenhauer, acclaimed philosophical curmudgeon, was rumoured to be quite the ladies’ man. One wonders how, given the views espoused in the infamous essay On Women:
[N]ature has equipped women, as it has all its creatures, with the tools and weapons she needs for securing her existence, and at just the time she needs them; in doing which nature has acted with its usual economy. For just as the female ant loses it’s wings after mating, since they are then superfluous, indeed harmful to the business of raising the family, so the woman usually loses her beauty after one or two childbeds, and probably for the same reason …