3 ms·

I´m pretty sure that´s part of the point of the book; in addition to the obvious, it is also social commentary on views on women at the time of its writing.

• jawee 16y ago
  for a citation, the preface to the second edition includes this: [A. Square] has himself modified his own personal views, both as regards to Women and as regards the Isosceles or Lower Classes...But, writing as a Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the views generally adopted by Flatland, and (as he has been informed) even by Spaceland Historians; in whose pages (until very recent times) the destinies of Women and of the masses of mankind have seldom been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration. In the preface to Flatterland, a sequel of sorts, Ian Stewart explains that ¨Abbott was, in fact, a social reformer who believed in equal education opportunity for all social classes and genders; Flatland´s narrow-minded social system is his cry of frustration¨ as he wished to ¨satirize the rigid social structure of Victorian England...especially the lowly status accorded to women.¨