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diff --git a/old/13474-8.txt b/old/13474-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0009c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13474-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8459 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Women and the Alphabet, by Thomas Wentworth +Higginson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Women and the Alphabet + +Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson + +Release Date: September 15, 2004 [eBook #13474] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN AND THE ALPHABET*** + + +E-text prepared by Judith B. Glad and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +WOMEN AND THE ALPHABET + +A Series of Essays + +by + +THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON + +1881 + + + + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +The first essay in this volume, "Ought Women to learn the Alphabet?" +appeared originally in the "Atlantic Monthly" of February, 1859, and has +since been reprinted in various forms, bearing its share, I trust, in the +great development of more liberal views in respect to the training and +duties of women which has made itself manifest within forty years. There +was, for instance, a report that it was the perusal of this essay which led +the late Miss Sophia Smith to the founding of the women's college bearing +her name at Northampton, Massachusetts. + +The remaining papers in the volume formed originally a part of a book +entitled "Common Sense About Women" which was made up largely of papers +from the "Woman's Journal." This book was first published in 1881 and was +reprinted in somewhat abridged form some years later in London +(Sonnenschein). It must have attained a considerable circulation there, as +the fourth (stereotyped) edition appeared in 1897. From this London reprint +a German translation was made by Fräulein Eugenie Jacobi, under the title +"Die Frauenfrage und der gesunde Menschenverstand" (Schupp: Neuwied and +Leipzig, 1895). + +T.W.H. + +CAMBRIDGE, MASS. + + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET? + +II. PHYSIOLOGY. + Too Much Natural History + Darwin, Huxley, and Buckle + The Spirit of Small Tyranny + The Noble Sex + The Truth about our Grandmothers + The Physique of American Women + The Limitations of Sex + +III. TEMPERAMENT. + The Invisible Lady + Sacred Obscurity + Virtues in Common + Individual Differences + Angelic Superiority + Vicarious Honors + The Gospel of Humiliation + Celery and Cherubs + The Need of Cavalry + The Reason Firm, the Temperate Will + Allures to Brighter Worlds, and leads the Way + +IV. THE HOME. + Wanted--Homes + The Origin of Civilization + The Low-Water Mark + Obey + Woman in the Chrysalis + Two and Two + A Model Household + A Safeguard for the Family + Women as Economists + Greater includes Less + A Copartnership + One Responsible Head + Asking for Money + Womanhood and Motherhood + A German Point of View + Childless Women + The Prevention of Cruelty to Mothers + +V. SOCIETY. + Foam and Current + In Society + The Battle of the Cards + Some Working-Women + The Empire of Manners + Girlsterousness + Are Women Natural Aristocrats? + Mrs. Blank's Daughters + The European Plan + Featherses + +VI. STUDY AND WORK. + Experiments + Intellectual Cinderellas + Cupid-and-Psychology + Self-Supporting Wives + Thorough + Literary Aspirants + The Career of Letters + Talking and Taking + How to speak in Public + +VII. PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. + We the People + The Use of the Declaration of Independence + Some Old-Fashioned Principles + Founded on a Rock + The Good of the Governed + Ruling at Second-Hand + +VIII. SUFFRAGE. + Drawing the Line + For Self-Protection + Womanly Statesmanship + Too Much Prediction + First-Class Carriages + Education _via_ Suffrage + Follow Your Leaders + How to make Women understand Politics + Inferior to Man, and near to Angels + +IX. OBJECTIONS TO SUFFRAGE. + The Fact of Sex + How will it Result? + I have all the Rights I want + Sense Enough to Vote + An Infelicitous Epithet + The Rob Roy Theory + The Votes of Non-Combatants + Manners repeal Laws + Dangerous Voters + How Women will legislate + Individuals _vs._ Classes + Defeats before Victories + +INDEX + + + + + + + +I + +OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET? + + +Paris smiled, for an hour or two, in the year 1801, when, amidst Napoleon's +mighty projects for remodelling the religion and government of his empire, +the ironical satirist, Sylvain Maréchal, thrust in his "Plan for a Law +prohibiting the Alphabet to Women."[1] Daring, keen, sarcastic, learned, +the little tract retains to-day so much of its pungency, that we can hardly +wonder at the honest simplicity of the author's friend and biographer, +Madame Gacon Dufour, who declared that he must be insane, and soberly +replied to him. + +His proposed statute consists of eighty-two clauses, and is fortified by a +"whereas" of a hundred and thirteen weighty reasons. He exhausts the range +of history to show the frightful results which have followed this taste of +fruit of the tree of knowledge; quotes from the Encyclopédie, to prove that +the woman who knows the alphabet has already lost a portion of her +innocence; cites the opinion of Molière, that any female who has unhappily +learned anything in this line should affect ignorance, when possible; +asserts that knowledge rarely makes men attractive, and females never; +opines that women have no occasion to peruse Ovid's "Art of Love," since +they know it all in advance; remarks that three quarters of female authors +are no better than they should be; maintains that Madame Guion would have +been far more useful had she been merely pretty and an ignoramus, such as +Nature made her,--that Ruth and Naomi could not read, and Boaz probably +would never have married into the family had they possessed that +accomplishment,--that the Spartan women did not know the alphabet, nor the +Amazons, nor Penelope, nor Andromache, nor Lucretia, nor Joan of Arc, nor +Petrarch's Laura, nor the daughters of Charlemagne, nor the three hundred +and sixty-five wives of Mohammed; but that Sappho and Madame de Maintenon +could read altogether too well; while the case of Saint Brigitta, who +brought forth twelve children and twelve books, was clearly exceptional, +and afforded no safe precedent. + +It would seem that the brilliant Frenchman touched the root of the matter. +Ought women to learn the alphabet? There the whole question lies. Concede +this little fulcrum, and Archimedea will move the world before she has done +with it: it becomes merely a question of time. Resistance must be made here +or nowhere. _Obsta principiis_. Woman must be a subject or an equal: there +is no middle ground. What if the Chinese proverb should turn out to be, +after all, the summit of wisdom, "For men, to cultivate virtue is +knowledge; for women, to renounce knowledge is virtue"? + +No doubt, the progress of events is slow, like the working of the laws of +gravitation generally. Certainly there has been but little change in the +legal position of women since China was in its prime, until within the last +half century. Lawyers admit that the fundamental theory of English and +Oriental law is the same on this point: Man and wife are one, and that one +is the husband. It is the oldest of legal traditions. When Blackstone +declares that "the very being and existence of the woman is suspended +during the marriage," and American Kent echoes that "her legal existence +and authority are in a manner lost;" when Petersdorff asserts that "the +husband has the right of imposing such corporeal restraints as he may deem +necessary," and Bacon that "the husband hath, by law, power and dominion +over his wife, and may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may +beat her, but not in a violent or cruel manner;" when Mr. Justice Coleridge +rules that the husband, in certain cases, "has a right to confine his wife +in his own dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinite +time," and Baron Alderson sums it all up tersely, "The wife is only the +_servant_ of her husband,"--these high authorities simply reaffirm the +dogma of the Gentoo code, four thousand years old and more: "A man, both +day and night, must keep his wife so much in subjection that she by no +means be mistress of her own actions. If the wife have her own free will, +notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss." + +Yet behind these unchanging institutions, a pressure has been for centuries +becoming concentrated, which, now that it has begun to act, is threatening +to overthrow them all. It has not yet operated very visibly in the Old +World, where, even in England, the majority of women have not till lately +mastered the alphabet sufficiently to sign their own names in the marriage +register. But in this country the vast changes of the last few years are +already a matter of history. No trumpet has been sounded, no earthquake has +been felt, while State after State has ushered into legal existence one +half of the population within its borders. Surely, here and now, might poor +M. Maréchal exclaim, the bitter fruits of the original seed appear. The sad +question recurs, Whether women ought ever to have tasted of the alphabet. + +It is true that Eve ruined us all, according to theology, without knowing +her letters. Still there is something to be said in defence of that +venerable ancestress. The Veronese lady, Isotta Nogarola, five hundred and +thirty-six of whose learned epistles were preserved by De Thou, composed a +dialogue on the question, Whether Adam or Eve had committed the +greater sin. But Ludovico Domenichi, in his "Dialogue on the Nobleness of +Women," maintains that Eve did not sin at all, because she was not even +created when Adam was told not to eat the apple. It was "in Adam all +died," he shrewdly says; nobody died in Eve: which looks plausible. Be +that as it may, Eve's daughters are in danger of swallowing a whole +harvest of forbidden fruit, in these revolutionary days, unless +something be done to cut off the supply. + +It has been seriously asserted, that during the last half century more +books have been written by women and about women than during all the +previous uncounted ages. It may be true; although, when we think of the +innumerable volumes of _Mémoires_ by French women of the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries,--each justifying the existence of her own ten +volumes by the remark, that all her contemporaries were writing as +many,--we have our doubts. As to the increased multitude of general +treatises on the female sex, however,--its education, life, health, +diseases, charms, dress, deeds, sphere, rights, wrongs, work, wages, +encroachments, and idiosyncrasies generally,--there can be no doubt +whatever; and the poorest of these books recognizes a condition of +public sentiment of which no other age ever dreamed. + +Still, literary history preserves the names of some reformers before the +Reformation, in this matter. There was Signora Moderata Fonte, the +Venetian, who left a book to be published after her death, in 1592, "Dei +Meriti delle Donne." There was her townswoman, Lucrezia Marinella, who +followed, ten years after, with her essay, "La Nobilità e la Eccelenza +delle Donne, con Difetti e Mancamenti degli Uomini,"--a comprehensive +theme, truly! Then followed the all-accomplished Anna Maria Schurman, in +1645, with her "Dissertatio de Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et meliores +Literas Aptitudine," with a few miscellaneous letters appended in Greek +and Hebrew. At last came boldly Jacquette Guillaume, in 1665, and threw +down the gauntlet in her title-page, "Les Dames Illustres; où par bonnes +et fortes Raisons il se prouve que le Sexe Feminin surpasse en toute +Sorte de Genre le Sexe Masculin;" and with her came Margaret Boufflet +and a host of others; and finally, in England, Mary Wollstonecraft, +whose famous book, formidable in its day, would seem rather conservative +now; and in America, that pious and worthy dame, Mrs. H. Mather Crocker, +Cotton Mather's grandchild, who, in 1848, published the first book on the +"Rights of Woman" ever written on this side the Atlantic. + +Meanwhile there have never been wanting men, and strong men, to echo these +appeals. From Cornelius Agrippa and his essay (1509) on the excellence of +woman and her preëminence over man, down to the first youthful thesis of +Agassiz, "Mens Feminae Viri Animo superior," there has been a succession of +voices crying in the wilderness. In England, Anthony Gibson wrote a book, +in 1599, called "A Woman's Woorth, defended against all the Men in the +World, proving them to be more Perfect, Excellent, and Absolute in all +Vertuous Actions than any Man of what Qualitie soever, _Interlarded with +Poetry_." _Per contra_, the learned Acidalius published a book in Latin, +and afterwards in French, to prove that women are not reasonable creatures. +Modern theologians are at worst merely sub-acid, and do not always say so, +if they think so. Meanwhile most persons have been content to leave the +world to go on its old course, in this matter as in others, and have thus +acquiesced in that stern judicial decree with which Timon of Athens sums up +all his curses upon womankind,--"If there sit twelve women at the table, +let a dozen of them be--as they are." + +Ancient or modern, nothing in any of these discussions is so valuable as +the fact of the discussion itself. There is no discussion where there is no +wrong. Nothing so indicates wrong as this morbid self-inspection. The +complaints are a perpetual protest, the defences a perpetual confession. It +is too late to ignore the question; and, once opened, it can be settled +only on absolute and permanent principles. There is a wrong; but where? +Does woman already know too much, or too little? Was she created for man's +subject, or his equal? Shall she have the alphabet, or not? + +Ancient mythology, which undertook to explain everything, easily accounted +for the social and political disabilities of woman. Goguet quotes the story +from Saint Augustine, who got it from Varro. Cecrops, building Athens, saw +starting from the earth an olive-plant and a fountain, side by side. The +Delphic oracle said that this indicated a strife between Minerva and +Neptune for the honor of giving a name to the city, and that the people +must decide between them. Cecrops thereupon assembled the men, and the +women also, who then had a right to vote; and the result was that Minerva +carried the election by a glorious majority of one. Then Attica was +overflowed and laid waste: of course the citizens attributed the calamity +to Neptune, and resolved to punish the women. It was therefore determined +that in future they should not vote, nor should any child bear the name +of its mother. + +Thus easily did mythology explain all troublesome inconsistencies; but it +is much that it should even have recognized them as needing explanation. +The real solution is, however, more simple. The obstacle to the woman's +sharing the alphabet, or indeed any other privilege, has been thought by +some to be the fear of impairing her delicacy, or of destroying her +domesticity, or of confounding the distinction between the sexes. These may +have been plausible excuses. They have even been genuine, though minor, +anxieties. But the whole thing, I take it, had always one simple, +intelligible basis,--sheer contempt for the supposed intellectual +inferiority of woman. She was not to be taught, because she was not worth +teaching. The learned Acidalius aforesaid was in the majority. According to +Aristotle and the Peripatetics, woman was _animal occasionatum_, as if a +sort of monster and accidental production. Mediæval councils, charitably +asserting her claims to the rank of humanity, still pronounced her unfit +for instruction. In the Hindoo dramas she did not even speak the same +language with her master, but used the dialect of slaves. When, in the +sixteenth century, Françoise de Saintonges wished to establish girls' +schools in France, she was hooted in the streets; and her father called +together four doctors, learned in the law, to decide whether she was not +possessed by demons, to think of educating women,--_pour s'assurer +qu'instruire des femmes n'était pas un oeuvre du démon_. + +It was the same with political rights. The foundation of the Salic Law was +not any sentimental anxiety to guard female delicacy and domesticity; it +was, as stated by Froissart, a blunt, hearty contempt: "The kingdom of +France being too noble to be ruled by a woman." And the same principle was +reaffirmed for our own institutions, in rather softened language, by +Theophilus Parsons, in his famous defence of the rights of Massachusetts +men (the "Essex Result," in 1778): "Women, what age soever they are of, are +not considered as having a sufficient acquired discretion [to exercise the +franchise]." + +In harmony with this are the various maxims and _bon-mots_ of eminent men, +in respect to women. Niebuhr thought he should not have educated a girl +well,--he should have made her know too much. Lessing said, "The woman who +thinks is like the man who puts on rouge, ridiculous." Voltaire said, +"Ideas are like beards: women and young men have none." And witty Dr. +Maginn carries to its extreme the atrocity, "We like to hear a few words of +sense from a woman, as we do from a parrot, because they are so +unexpected." Yet how can we wonder at these opinions, when the saints have +been severer than the sages?--since the pious Fénelon taught that true +virgin delicacy was almost as incompatible with learning as with vice; and +Dr. Channing complained, in his "Essay on Exclusion and Denunciation," of +"women forgetting the tenderness of their sex," and arguing on theology. + +Now this impression of feminine inferiority may be right or wrong, but it +obviously does a good deal towards explaining the facts it assumes. If +contempt does not originally cause failure, it perpetuates it. +Systematically discourage any individual, or class, from birth to death, +and they learn, in nine cases out of ten, to acquiesce in their +degradation, if not to claim it as a crown of glory. If the Abbé Choisi +praised the Duchesse de Fontanges for being "beautiful as an angel and +silly as a goose," it was natural that all the young ladies of the court +should resolve to make up in folly what they wanted in charms. All +generations of women having been bred under the shadow of intellectual +contempt, they have, of course, done much to justify it. They have often +used only for frivolous purposes even the poor opportunities allowed them. +They have employed the alphabet, as Molière said, chiefly in spelling the +verb _Amo_. Their use of science has been like that of Mlle. de Launay, +who computed the decline in her lover's affection by his abbreviation of +their evening walk in the public square, preferring to cross it rather +than take the circuit; "from which I inferred," she says, "that his +passion had diminished in the ratio between the diagonal of a rectangular +parallelogram and the sum of two adjacent sides." And their conception, +even of art, has been too often on the scale of Properzia de Rossi, who +carved sixty-five heads on a walnut, the smallest of all recorded symbols +of woman's sphere. + +All this might, perhaps, be overcome, if the social prejudice which +discourages women would only reward proportionately those who surmount the +discouragement. The more obstacles, the more glory, if society would only +pay in proportion to the labor; but it does not. Women being denied, not +merely the training which prepares for great deeds, but the praise and +compensation which follow them, have been weakened in both directions. The +career of eminent men ordinarily begins with college and the memories of +Miltiades, and ends with fortune and fame: woman begins under +discouragement, and ends beneath the same. Single, she works with half +preparation and half pay; married, she puts name and wages into the keeping +of her husband, shrinks into John Smith's "lady" during life, and John +Smith's "relict" on her tombstone; and still the world wonders that her +deeds, like her opportunities, are inferior. + +Evidently, then, the advocates of woman's claims--those who hold that "the +virtues of the man and the woman are the same," with Antisthenes, or that +"the talent of the man and the woman is the same," with Socrates in +Xenophon's "Banquet"--must be cautious lest they attempt to prove too much. +Of course, if women know as much as the men, without schools and colleges, +there is no need of admitting them to those institutions. If they work as +well on half pay, it diminishes the inducement to give them the other +half. The safer position is, to claim that they have done just enough +to show what they might have done under circumstances less discouraging. +Take, for instance, the common remark, that women have invented nothing. +It is a valid answer, that the only implements habitually used by woman +have been the needle, the spindle, and the basket; and tradition reports +that she herself invented all three. In the same way it may be shown that +the departments in which women have equalled men have been the +departments in which they have had equal training, equal encouragement, +and equal compensation; as, for instance, the theatre. Madame Lagrange, +the _prima donna_, after years of costly musical instruction, wins the +zenith of professional success; she receives, the newspapers affirm, +sixty thousand dollars a year, travelling expenses for ten persons, +country-houses, stables, and liveries, besides an uncounted revenue of +bracelets, bouquets, and _billets-doux._ Of course, every young +_débutante_ fancies the same thing within her own reach, with only a +brief stage-vista between. On the stage there is no deduction for sex, +and, therefore, woman has shown in that sphere an equal genius. But +every female common-school teacher in the United States finds the +enjoyment of her four hundred dollars a year to be secretly embittered +by the knowledge that the young college stripling in the next schoolroom +is paid twice that sum for work no harder or more responsible than her +own, and that, too, after the whole pathway of education has been +obstructed for her, and smoothed for him. These may be gross and +carnal considerations; but Faith asks her daily bread, and fancy must +be fed. We deny woman her fair share of training, of encouragement, of +remuneration, and then talk fine nonsense about her instincts and +intuitions. We say sentimentally with the Oriental proverbialist, +"Every book of knowledge is implanted by nature in the heart of +woman,"--and make the compliment a substitute for the alphabet. + +Nothing can be more absurd than to impose entirely distinct standards, in +this respect, on the two sexes, or to expect that woman, any more than man, +will accomplish anything great without due preparation and adequate +stimulus. Mrs. Patten, who navigated her husband's ship from Cape Horn to +California, would have failed in the effort, for all her heroism, if she +had not, unlike most of her sex, been taught to use her Bowditch's +"Navigator." Florence Nightingale, when she heard of the distresses in the +Crimea, did not, as most people imagine, rise up and say, "I am a woman, +ignorant but intuitive, with very little sense and information, but +exceedingly sublime aspirations; my strength lies in my weakness; I can +do all things without knowing anything about them." Not at all: during +ten years she had been in hard training for precisely such services; had +visited all the hospitals in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Lyons, +Rome, Brussels, and Berlin; had studied under the Sisters of Charity, +and been twice a nurse in the Protestant Institution at Kaiserswerth. +Therefore she did not merely carry to the Crimea a woman's heart, as her +stock in trade, but she knew the alphabet of her profession better than +the men around her. Of course, genius and enthusiasm are, for both sexes, +elements unforeseen and incalculable; but, as a general rule, great +achievements imply great preparations and favorable conditions. To +disregard this truth is unreasonable in the abstract, and cruel in its +consequences. If an extraordinary male gymnast can clear a height of ten +feet with the aid of a springboard, it would be considered slightly absurd +to ask a woman to leap eleven feet without one; yet this is precisely what +society and the critics have always done. Training and wages and social +approbation are very elastic springboards; and the whole course of history +has seen these offered bounteously to one sex, and as sedulously withheld +from the other. Let woman consent to be a doll, and there was no finery so +gorgeous, no baby-house so costly, but she might aspire to share its +lavish delights; let her ask simply for an equal chance to learn, to labor, +and to live, and it was as if that same doll should open its lips, and +propound Euclid's forty-seventh proposition. While we have all deplored the +helpless position of indigent women, and lamented that they had no +alternative beyond the needle, the wash-tub, the schoolroom, and the +street, we have usually resisted their admission into every new occupation, +denied them training, and cut their compensation down. Like Charles Lamb, +who atoned for coming late to the office in the morning by going away early +in the afternoon, we have first, half educated women, and then, to restore +the balance, only half paid them. What innumerable obstacles have been +placed in their way as female physicians; what a complication of +difficulties has been encountered by them, even as printers, engravers, +and designers! In London, Mr. Bennett was once mobbed for lecturing to +women on watchmaking. In this country, we have known grave professors +refuse to address lyceums which thought fit to employ an occasional female +lecturer. Mr. Comer stated that it was "in the face of ridicule and +sneers" that he began to educate American women as bookkeepers many years +ago; and it was a little contemptible in Miss Muloch to revive the same +satire in "A Woman's Thoughts on Women," when she must have known that +in half the retail shops in Paris her own sex rules the ledger, and +Mammon knows no Salic law. + +We find, on investigation, what these considerations would lead us to +expect, that eminent women have commonly been exceptional in training and +position, as well as in their genius. They have excelled the average of +their own sex because they have shared the ordinary advantages of the other +sex. Take any department of learning or skill; take, for instance, the +knowledge of languages, the universal alphabet, philology. On the great +stairway at Padua stands the statue of Elena Cornaro, professor of six +languages in that once renowned university. But Elena Cornaro was educated +like a boy, by her father. On the great door of the University of Bologna +is inscribed the epitaph of Clotilda Tambroni, the honored correspondent of +Porson, and the first Greek scholar of southern Europe in her day. But +Clotilda Tambroni was educated like a boy, by Emanuele Aponte. How fine are +those prefatory words, "by a Right Reverend Prelate," to that pioneer book +in Anglo-Saxon lore, Elizabeth Elstob's grammar: "Our earthly possessions +are indeed our patrimony, as derived to us by the industry of our fathers; +but the language in which we speak is our mother tongue, and who so proper +to play the critic in this as the females?" Yet this particular female +obtained the rudiments of her rare education from her mother, before she +was eight years old, in spite of much opposition from her right reverend +guardians. Adelung declares that all modern philology is founded on the +translation of a Russian vocabulary into two hundred different dialects +by Catherine II. But Catherine shared, in childhood, the instructors of +her brother, Prince Frederick, and was subject to some reproach for +learning, though a girl, so much more rapidly than he did. Christina of +Sweden ironically reproved Madame Dacier for her translation of +Callimachus: "Such a pretty girl as you are, are you not ashamed to be so +learned?" But Madame Dacier acquired Greek by contriving to do her +embroidery in the room where her father was teaching her stupid brother; +and her queenly critic had herself learned to read Thucydides, harder +Greek than Callimachus, before she was fourteen. And so down to our own +day, who knows how many mute, inglorious Minervas may have perished +unenlightened, while Margaret Fuller Ossoli and Elizabeth Barrett Browning +were being educated "like boys." + +This expression simply means that they had the most solid training which +the times afforded. Most persons would instantly take alarm at the very +words; that is, they have so little faith in the distinctions which Nature +has established, that they think, if you teach the alphabet, or anything +else, indiscriminately to both sexes, you annul all difference between +them. The common reasoning is thus: "Boys and girls are acknowledged to +be very unlike. Now, boys study Greek and algebra, medicine and +bookkeeping. Therefore girls should not." As if one should say: "Boys +and girls are very unlike. Now, boys eat beef and potatoes. Therefore, +obviously, girls should not." + +The analogy between physical and spiritual food is precisely in point. +The simple truth is, that, amid the vast range of human powers and +properties, the fact of sex is but one item. Vital and momentous in +itself, it does not constitute the whole organism, but only a part. +The distinction of male and female is special, aimed at a certain end; +and, apart from that end, it is, throughout all the kingdoms of +Nature, of minor importance. With but trifling exceptions, from +infusoria up to man, the female animal moves, breathes, looks, +listens, runs, flies, swims, pursues its food, eats it, digests it, in +precisely the same manner as the male: all instincts, all +characteristics, are the same, except as to the one solitary fact of +parentage. Mr. Ten Broeck's race-horses, Pryor and Prioress, were +foaled alike, fed alike, trained alike, and finally ran side by side, +competing for the same prize. The eagle is not checked in soaring by +any consciousness of sex, nor asks the sex of the timid hare, its +quarry. Nature, for high purposes, creates and guards the sexual +distinction, but keeps it subordinate to those still more important. + +Now all this bears directly upon the alphabet. What sort of philosophy is +that which says, "John is a fool; Jane is a genius: nevertheless, John, +being a man, shall learn, lead, make laws, make money; Jane, being a +woman, shall be ignorant, dependent, disfranchised, underpaid"? Of course, +the time is past when one would state this so frankly, though Comte comes +quite near it, to say nothing of the Mormons; but this formula really lies +at the bottom of the reasoning one hears every day. The answer is, Soul +before sex. Give an equal chance, and let genius and industry do the rest. +_La carrière ouverte aux talens_! Every man for himself, every woman for +herself, and the alphabet for us all. + +Thus far, my whole course of argument has been defensive and explanatory. I +have shown that woman's inferiority in special achievements, so far as it +exists, is a fact of small importance, because it is merely a corollary +from her historic position of degradation. She has not excelled, because +she has had no fair chance to excel. Man, placing his foot upon her +shoulder, has taunted her with not rising. But the ulterior question +remains behind. How came she into this attitude originally? Explain the +explanation, the logician fairly demands. Granted that woman is weak +because she has been systematically degraded: but why was she degraded? +This is a far deeper question,--one to be met only by a profounder +philosophy and a positive solution. We are coming on ground almost wholly +untrod, and must do the best we can. + +I venture to assert, then, that woman's social inferiority has been, to a +great extent, in the past a legitimate thing. To all appearance, history +would have been impossible without it, just as it would have been +impossible without an epoch of war and slavery. It is simply a matter of +social progress,--a part of the succession of civilizations. The past has +been inevitably a period of ignorance, of engrossing physical necessities, +and of brute force,--not of freedom, of philanthropy, and of culture. +During that lower epoch, woman was necessarily an inferior, degraded by +abject labor, even in time of peace,--degraded uniformly by war, chivalry +to the contrary notwithstanding. Behind all the courtesies of Amadis and +the Cid lay the stern fact,--woman a child or a toy. The flattering +troubadours chanted her into a poet's paradise; but alas! that kingdom of +heaven suffered violence, and the violent took it by force. The truth +simply was, that her time had not come. Physical strength must rule for a +time, and she was the weaker. She was very properly refused a feudal grant, +by reason, say "Les Coustumes de Normandie," of her unfitness for war or +policy: _C'est l'homme ki se bast et ki conseille_. Other authorities put +it still more plainly: "A woman cannot serve the emperor or feudal lord in +war, on account of the decorum of her sex; nor assist him with advice, +because of her limited intellect; nor keep his counsel, owing to the +infirmity of her disposition." All which was, no doubt, in the majority of +cases, true; and the degradation of woman was simply a part of a system +which has, indeed, had its day, but has bequeathed its associations. + +From this reign of force, woman never freed herself by force. She could not +fight, or would not. Bohemian annals, to be sure, record the legend of a +literal war between the sexes, in which the women's army was led by Libussa +and Wlasla, and which finally ended with the capture, by the army of men, +of Castle Dziewin, Maiden's Tower, whose ruins are still visible near +Prague. The armor of Libussa is still shown at Vienna; and the guide calls +attention to the long-peaked toes of steel, with which, he avers, the +tender princess was wont to pierce the hearts of her opponents, while +careering through the battle. And there are abundant instances in which +women have fought side by side with men, and on equal terms. The ancient +British women mingled in the wars of their husbands, and their princesses +were trained to the use of arms in the Maiden's Castle at Edinburgh, in the +Isle of Skye. The Moorish wives and maidens fought in defence of their +European peninsula; and the Portuguese women fought on the same soil, +against the armies of Philip II. The king of Siam has, at present, a +body-guard of four hundred women: they are armed with lance and rifle, are +admirably disciplined, and their commander (appointed after saving the +king's life at a tiger-hunt) ranks as one of the royal family, and has ten +elephants at her service. When the all-conquering Dahomian army marched +upon Abbeokuta, in 1851, they numbered ten thousand men and six thousand +women. The women were, as usual, placed foremost in the assault, as being +most reliable; and of the eighteen hundred bodies left dead before the +walls, the vast majority were of women. The Hospital of the Invalides, in +Paris, has sheltered, for half a century, a fine specimen of a female +soldier, "Lieutenant Madame Bulan," who lived to be more than eighty years +old, had been decorated by Napoleon's own hand with the cross of the +Legion of Honor, and was credited on the hospital books with "seven years' +service, seven campaigns, three wounds, several times distinguished, +especially in Corsica, in defending a fort against the English." But these +cases, though interesting to the historian, are still exceptional; and the +instinctive repugnance they inspire is a condemnation, not of women, but +of war. + +The reason, then, for the long subjection of woman has been simply that +humanity was passing through its first epoch, and her full career was to be +reserved for the second. As the different races of man have appeared +successively upon the stage of history, so there has been an order of +succession of the sexes. Woman's appointed era, like that of the Teutonic +races, was delayed, but not omitted. It is not merely true that the empire +of the past has belonged to man, but that it has properly belonged to him; +for it was an empire of the muscles, enlisting, at best, but the lower +powers of the understanding. There can be no question that the present +epoch is initiating an empire of the higher reason, of arts, affections, +aspirations; and for that epoch the genius of woman has been reserved. The +spirit of the age has always kept pace with the facts, and outstripped the +statutes. Till the fulness of time came, woman was necessarily kept a slave +to the spinning-wheel and the needle; now higher work is ready; peace has +brought invention to her aid, and the mechanical means for her emancipation +are ready also. No use in releasing her till man, with his strong arm, had +worked out his preliminary share in civilization. "Earth waits for her +queen" was a favorite motto of Margaret Fuller Ossoli; but it would be more +correct to say that the queen has waited for her earth, till it could be +smoothed and prepared for her occupancy. Now Cinderella may begin to think +of putting on her royal robes. + +Everybody sees that the times are altering the whole material position of +woman; but most people do not appear to see the inevitable social and moral +changes which are also involved. As has been already said, the woman of +ancient history was a slave to physical necessities, both in war and peace. +In war she could do too little; in peace she did too much, under the +material compulsions which controlled the world. How could the Jews, for +instance, elevate woman? They could not spare her from the wool and the +flax, and the candle that goeth not out by night. In Rome, when the bride +first stepped across her threshold, they did not ask her, Do you know the +alphabet? they asked simply, Can you spin? There was no higher epitaph than +Queen Amalasontha's,--_Domum servavit, lanam fecit_. In Boeotia, brides +were conducted home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at the door, in +token that they were never to leave the house again. Pythagoras instituted +at Crotona an annual festival for the distaff; Confucius, in China, did the +same for the spindle; and these celebrated not the freedom, but the +serfdom, of woman. + +And even into modern days this same tyrannical necessity has lingered. "Go +spin, you jades! go spin!" was the only answer vouchsafed by the Earl of +Pembroke to the twice-banished nuns of Wilton. Even now, travellers agree +that throughout civilized Europe, with the partial exception of England and +France, the profound absorption of the mass of women in household labors +renders their general elevation impossible. But with us Americans, and in +this age, when all these vast labors are being more and more transferred to +arms of brass and iron; when Rochester grinds the flour and Lowell weaves +the cloth, and the fire on the hearth has gone into black retirement and +mourning; when the wiser a virgin is, the less she has to do with oil in +her lamp; when the needle has made its last dying speech and confession in +the "Song of the Shirt," and the sewing-machine has changed those doleful +marches to delightful measures,--how is it possible for the blindest to +help seeing that a new era is begun, and that the time has come for woman +to learn the alphabet? + +Nobody asks for any abolition of domestic labor for women, any more than of +outdoor labor for men. Of course, most women will still continue to be +mainly occupied with the indoor care of their families, and most men with +their external support. All that is desirable for either sex is such an +economy of labor, in this respect, as shall leave some spare time to be +appropriated in other directions. The argument against each new +emancipation of woman is precisely that always made against the liberation +of serfs and the enfranchisement of plebeians,--that the new position will +take them from their legitimate business. "How can he [or she] get wisdom +that holdeth the plough [or the broom],--whose talk is of bullocks [or of +babies]?" Yet the American farmer has already emancipated himself from +these fancied incompatibilities; and so will the farmer's wife. In a nation +where there is no leisure class and no peasantry, this whole theory of +exclusion is an absurdity. We all have a little leisure, and we must all +make the most of it. If we will confine large interests and duties to those +who have nothing else to do, we must go back to monarchy at once. If +otherwise, then the alphabet, and its consequences, must be open to woman +as to man. Jean Paul says nobly, in his "Levana," that, "before and after +being a mother, a woman is a human being, and neither maternal nor conjugal +relation can supersede the human responsibility, but must become its means +and instrument." And it is good to read the manly speech, on this subject, +of John Quincy Adams, quoted at length in Quincy's life of him, in which, +after fully defending the political petitions of the women of Plymouth, he +declares that "the correct principle is that women are not only justified, +but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic +circle, and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of +their God." + +There are duties devolving on every human being,--duties not small nor few, +but vast and varied,--which spring from home and private life, and all +their sweet relations. The support or care of the humblest household is a +function worthy of men, women, and angels, so far as it goes. From these +duties none must shrink, neither man nor woman; the loftiest genius cannot +ignore them; the sublimest charity must begin with them. They are their own +exceeding great reward; their self-sacrifice is infinite joy; and the +selfishness which discards them is repaid by loneliness and a desolate old +age. Yet these, though the most tender and intimate portion of human life, +do not form its whole. It is given to noble souls to crave other interests +also, added spheres, not necessarily alien from these; larger knowledge, +larger action also; duties, responsibilities, anxieties, dangers, all the +aliment that history has given to its heroes. Not home less, but humanity +more. When the high-born English lady in the Crimean hospital, ordered to +a post of almost certain death, only raised her hands to heaven, and said, +"Thank God!" she did not renounce her true position as woman: she claimed +it. When the queen of James I. of Scotland, already immortalized by him in +stately verse, won a higher immortality by welcoming to her fair bosom the +dagger aimed at his; when the Countess of Buchan hung confined in her iron +cage, outside Berwick Castle, in penalty for crowning Robert the Bruce; +when the stainless soul of Joan of Arc met God, like Moses, in a burning +flame,--these things were as they should be. Man must not monopolize these +privileges of peril, the birthright of great souls. Serenades and +compliments must not replace the nobler hospitality which shares with woman +the opportunity of martyrdom. Great administrative duties also, cares of +state, for which one should be born gray-headed, how nobly do these sit +upon a woman's brow! Each year adds to the storied renown of Elizabeth of +England, greatest sovereign of the greatest of historic nations. Christina +of Sweden, alone among the crowned heads of Europe (so says Voltaire), +sustained the dignity of the throne against Richelieu and Mazarin. And +these queens most assuredly did not sacrifice their womanhood in the +process; for her Britannic Majesty's wardrobe included four thousand gowns; +and Mile, de Montpensier declares that when Christina had put on a wig of +the latest fashion, "she really looked extremely pretty." + +_Les races se féminisent_, said Buffon,--"The world is growing more +feminine." It is a compliment, whether the naturalist intended it or not. +Time has brought peace; peace, invention; and the poorest woman of to-day +is born to an inheritance of which her ancestors never dreamed. Previous +attempts to confer on women social and political equality,--as when +Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, made them magistrates; or when the +Hungarian revolutionists made them voters; or when our own New Jersey +tried the same experiment in a guarded fashion in early times, and then +revoked the privilege, because (as in the ancient fable) the women +voted the wrong way;--these things were premature, and valuable only +as recognitions of a principle. But in view of the rapid changes now +going on, he is a rash man who asserts the "Woman Question" to be +anything but a mere question of time. The fulcrum has been already +given in the alphabet, and we must simply watch, and see whether the +earth does not move. + +There is the plain fact: woman must be either a subject or an equal; there +is no middle ground. Every concession to a supposed principle only involves +the necessity of the next concession for which that principle calls. Once +yield the alphabet, and we abandon the whole long theory of subjection and +coverture: tradition is set aside, and we have nothing but reason to fall +back upon. Reasoning abstractly, it must be admitted that the argument has +been, thus far, entirely on the women's side, inasmuch as no man has yet +seriously tried to meet them with argument. It is an alarming feature of +this discussion, that it has reversed, very generally, the traditional +positions of the sexes: the women have had all the logic; and the most +intelligent men, when they have attempted the other side, have limited +themselves to satire and gossip. What rational woman can be really +convinced by the nonsense which is talked in ordinary society around +her,--as, that it is right to admit girls to common schools, and equally +right to exclude them from colleges; that it is proper for a woman to sing +in public, but indelicate for her to speak in public; that a post-office +box is an unexceptionable place to drop a bit of paper into, but a +ballot-box terribly dangerous? No cause in the world can keep above +water, sustained by such contradictions as these, too feeble and slight +to be dignified by the name of fallacies. Some persons profess to think +it impossible to reason with a woman, and such critics certainly show +no disposition to try the experiment. + +But we must remember that all our American institutions are based on +consistency, or on nothing: all claim to be founded on the principles of +natural right; and when they quit those, they are lost. In all European +monarchies it is the theory that the mass of the people are children to be +governed, not mature beings to govern themselves; this is clearly stated +and consistently applied. In the United States we have formally abandoned +this theory for one half of the human race, while for the other half it +flourishes with little change. The moment the claims of woman are broached, +the democrat becomes a monarchist. What Americans commonly criticise in +English statesmen, namely, that they habitually evade all arguments based +on natural right, and defend every legal wrong on the ground that it works +well in practice, is the precise defect in our habitual view of woman. The +perplexity must be resolved somehow. Most men admit that a strict adherence +to our own principles would place both sexes in precisely equal positions +before law and constitution, as well as in school and society. But each has +his special quibble to apply, showing that in this case we must abandon all +the general maxims to which we have pledged ourselves, and hold only by +precedent. Nay, he construes even precedent with the most ingenious rigor; +since the exclusion of women from all direct contact with affairs can be +made far more perfect in a republic than is possible in a monarchy, where +even sex is merged in rank, and the female patrician may have far more +power than the male plebeian. But, as matters now stand among us, there is +no aristocracy but of sex: all men are born patrician, all women are +legally plebeian; all men are equal in having political power, and all +women in having none. This is a paradox so evident, and such an anomaly in +human progress, that it cannot last forever, without new discoveries in +logic, or else a deliberate return to M. Maréchal's theory concerning the +alphabet. + +Meanwhile, as the newspapers say, we anxiously await further developments. +According to present appearances, the final adjustment lies mainly in the +hands of women themselves. Men can hardly be expected to concede either +rights or privileges more rapidly than they are claimed, or to be truer to +women than women are to each other. In fact, the worst effect of a +condition of inferiority is the weakness it leaves behind; even when we +say, "Hands off!" the sufferer does not rise. In such a case, there is but +one counsel worth giving. More depends on determination than even on +ability. Will, not talent, governs the world. Who believed that a poetess +could ever be more than an Annot Lyle of the harp, to soothe with sweet +melodies the leisure of her lord, until in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's +hands the thing became a trumpet? Where are gone the sneers with which +army surgeons and parliamentary orators opposed Mr. Sidney Herbert's first +proposition to send Florence Nightingale to the Crimea? In how many towns +was the current of popular prejudice against female orators reversed by +one winning speech from Lucy Stone! Where no logic can prevail, success +silences. First give woman, if you dare, the alphabet, then summon her to +her career: and though men, ignorant and prejudiced, may oppose its +beginnings, they will at last fling around her conquering footsteps more +lavish praises than ever greeted the opera's idol,--more perfumed flowers +than ever wooed, with intoxicating fragrance, the fairest butterfly of the +ball-room. + +[Footnote 1: _Projet d'une loi portant defense d'apprendre à lire aux +femmes._] + + + + +II + +PHYSIOLOGY + + "Allein, bevor und nachdem man Mutter ist, ist Man ein Mensch; die + mütterliche Bestimmung aber, oder gar die heeliche, kann nicht die + menschliche überwiegen oder ersetzen, sondern sie muss das Mittel, + nicht der Zweck derselben sein."--J.P.F. Richter: Levana, § 89. + + "But, before and after being a mother, one is a human being; and + neither the motherly nor the wifely destination can overbalance or + replace the human, but must become its means, not its end." + + +TOO MUCH NATURAL HISTORY + + +Lord Melbourne, speaking of the fine ladies in London who were fond of +talking about their ailments, used to complain that they gave him too much +of their natural history. There are a good many writers--usually men--who, +with the best intentions, discuss woman as if she had merely a physical +organization, and as if she existed only for one object, the production and +rearing of children. Against this some protest may well be made. + +Doubtless there are few things more important to a community than the +health of its women. The Sandwich Island proverb says:-- + + "If strong is the frame of the mother, + The son will give laws to the people." + +And, in nations where all men give laws, all men need mothers of strong +frames. + +Moreover, there is no harm in admitting that all the rules of our structure +are imperative; that soul and body, whether of man or woman, are made in +harmony, so that each part of our nature must accept the limitations of the +other. A man's soul may yearn to the stars; but so long as the body cannot +jump so high, he must accept the body's veto. It is the same with any veto +interposed in advance by the physical structure of woman. Nobody objects to +this general principle. It is only when clerical gentlemen or physiological +gentlemen undertake to go a step farther, and put in that veto on their own +responsibility, that it is necessary to say, "Hands off, gentlemen! +Precisely because women are women, they, not you, are to settle +that question." + +One or two points are clear. Every specialist is liable to overrate his own +specialty; and the man who thinks of woman only as a wife and mother is apt +to forget, that, before she was either of these, she was a human being. +"Women, as such," says an able writer, "are constituted for purposes of +maternity and the continuation of mankind." Undoubtedly, and so were men, +as such, constituted for paternity. But very much depends on what relative +importance we assign to the phrase, "as such." Even an essay so careful, so +moderate, and so free from coarseness, as that here quoted, suggests, after +all, a slight one-sidedness,--perhaps a natural reaction from the +one-sidedness of those injudicious reformers who allow themselves to speak +slightingly of "the merely animal function of child-bearing." Higher than +either--wiser than both put together--is that noble statement with which +Jean Paul begins his fine essay on the education of girls in "Levana." +"Before being a wife or mother, one is a human being; and neither motherly +nor wifely destination can overbalance or replace the human, but must +become its means, not end. As above the poet, the painter, or the hero, so +above the mother, does the human being rise preëminent." + +Here is sure anchorage. We can hold to this. And, fortunately, all the +analogies of nature sustain this position. Throughout nature the laws of +sex rule everywhere; but they rule a kingdom of their own, always +subordinate to the greater kingdom of the vital functions. Every +creature, male or female, finds in its sexual relations only a +subordinate part of its existence. The need of food, the need of +exercise, the joy of living, these come first, and absorb the bulk of +its life, whether the individual be male or female. This _Antiope_ +butterfly, that flits at this moment past my window,--the first of the +season,--spends almost all its existence in a form where the distinction +of sex lies dormant: a few days, I might almost say a few hours, +comprise its whole sexual consciousness, and the majority of its race +die before reaching that epoch. The law of sex is written absolutely +through the whole insect world. Yet everywhere it is written as a +secondary and subordinate law. The life which is common to the sexes is +the principal life; the life which each sex leads, "as such," is a minor +and subordinate thing. + +The same rule pervades nature. Two riders pass down the street before my +window. One rides a horse, the other a mare. The animals were perhaps +foaled in the same stable, of the same progenitors. They have been reared +alike, fed alike, trained alike, ridden alike; they need the same exercise, +the same grooming; nine tenths of their existence are the same, and only +the other tenth is different. Their whole organization is marked by the +distinction of sex; but, though the marking is ineffaceable, the +distinction is not the first or most important fact. + +If this be true of the lower animals, it is far more true of the higher. +The mental and moral laws of the universe touch us first and chiefly as +human beings. We eat our breakfasts as human beings, not as men or women; +and it is the same with nine tenths of our interests and duties in life. +In legislating or philosophizing for woman, we must neither forget that +she has an organization distinct from that of man, nor must we +exaggerate the fact. Not "first the womanly and then the human," but +first the human and then the womanly, is to be the order of her training. + + + + +DARWIN, HUXLEY, and BUCKLE + + +When any woman, old or young, asks the question, Which among all modern +books ought I to read first? the answer is plain. She should read Buckle's +lecture before the Royal Institution upon "The Influence of Woman on the +Progress of Knowledge." It is one of two papers contained in a thin volume +called "Essays by Henry Thomas Buckle." As a means whereby a woman may +become convinced that her sex has a place in the intellectual universe, +this little essay is almost indispensable. Nothing else quite takes its +place. + +Darwin and Huxley seem to make woman simply a lesser man, weaker in body +and mind,--an affectionate and docile animal, of inferior grade. That +there is any aim in the distinction of the sexes, beyond the perpetuation +of the race, is nowhere recognized by them, so far as I know. That there is +anything in the intellectual sphere to correspond to the physical +difference; that here also the sexes are equal yet diverse, and each the +natural completion and complement of the other,--this neither Huxley nor +Darwin explicitly recognizes. And with the utmost admiration for their +great teachings in other ways, I must think that here they are open to the +suspicion of narrowness. + +Huxley wrote in "The Reader," in 1864, a short paper called "Emancipation-- +Black and White," in which, while taking generous ground in behalf of the +legal and political position of woman, he yet does it pityingly, _de haut +en bas_, as for a creature hopelessly inferior, and so heavily weighted +already by her sex that she should be spared all further trials. Speaking +through an imaginary critic, who seems to represent himself, he denies +"even the natural equality of the sexes," and declares "that in every +excellent character, whether mental or physical, the average woman is +inferior to the average man, in the sense of having that character less in +quantity and lower in quality." Finally he goes so far as "to defend the +startling paradox that even in physical beauty man is the superior." He +admits that for a brief period of early youth the case may be doubtful, but +claims that after thirty the superior beauty of man is unquestionable. Thus +reasons Huxley; the whole essay being included in his volume of "Lay +Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews." [1] + +Darwin's best statements on the subject may be found in his "Descent of +Man."[2] He is, as usual, more moderate and guarded than Huxley. He says, +for instance: "It is generally admitted that with women the powers of +intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly +marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are +characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state +of civilization." Then he passes to the usual assertion that man has thus +far attained to a higher eminence than woman. "If two lists were made of +the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music,-- +comprising composition and performance,--history, science, and philosophy, +with half a dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear +comparison." But the obvious answer, that nearly every name on his list, +upon the masculine side, would probably be taken from periods when woman +was excluded from any fair competition,--this he does not seem to recognize +at all. Darwin, of all men, must admit that superior merit generally +arrives later, not earlier, on the scene; and the question for him to +answer is, not whether woman equalled man in the first stages of the +intellectual "struggle for life," but whether she is not gaining on him +now. + +If, in spite of man's enormous advantage in the start, woman is already +overtaking his very best performances in several of the highest +intellectual departments,--as, for instance, prose fiction and dramatic +representation,--then it is mere dogmatism in Mr. Darwin to deny that she +may yet do the same in other departments. We in this generation have +actually seen this success achieved by Rachel and Ristori in the one art, +by "George Sand" and "George Eliot" in the other. Woman is, then, visibly +gaining on man in the sphere of intellect; and, if so, Mr. Darwin, at +least, must accept the inevitable inference. + +But this is arguing the question on the superficial facts merely. Buckle +goes deeper, and looks to principles. That superior quickness of women, +which Darwin dismisses so lightly as something belonging to savage epochs, +is to Buckle the sign of a quality which he holds essential, not only to +literature and art, but to science itself. Go among ignorant women, he +says, and you will find them more quick and intelligent than equally +ignorant men. A woman will usually tell you the way in the street more +readily than a man can; a woman can always understand a foreigner more +easily; and Dr. Currie says in his letters, that when a laborer and his +wife came to consult him, the man always got all the information from the +wife. Buckle illustrates this at some length, and points out that a woman's +mind is by its nature deductive and quick; a man's mind, inductive and +slow; that each has its value, and that science profoundly needs both. + +"I will endeavor," he says, "to establish two propositions. First, that +women naturally prefer the deductive method to the inductive. Secondly, +that women, by encouraging in men deductive habits of thought, have +rendered an immense though unconscious service to the progress of science, +by preventing scientific investigators from being as exclusively inductive +as they would otherwise be." + +Then he shows that the most important scientific discoveries of modern +times--as of the law of gravitation by Newton, the law of the forms of +crystals by Haüy, and the metamorphosis of plants by Goethe--were all +essentially the results of that _a priori_ or deductive method "which, +during the last two centuries, Englishmen have unwisely despised." They +were all the work, in a manner, of the imagination,--of the intuitive or +womanly quality of mind. And nothing can be finer or truer than the words +in which Buckle predicts the benefits that are to come from the +intellectual union of the sexes for the work of the future. "In that field +which we and our posterity have yet to traverse, I firmly believe that the +imagination will effect quite as much as the understanding. Our poetry will +have to reinforce our logic, and we must feel quite as much as we must +argue. Let us, then, hope that the imaginative and emotional minds of one +sex will continue to accelerate the great progress by acting upon and +improving the colder and harder minds of the other sex. By this coalition, +by this union of different faculties, different tastes, and different +methods, we shall go on our way with the greater ease." + +[Footnote 1: Pp. 22, 23, Am. ed.] + +[Footnote 2: Vol. ii. p. 311, Am. ed] + + + + +THE SPIRIT OF SMALL TYRANNY + + +When Mr. John Smauker and the Bath footmen invited Sam Weller to their +"swarry," consisting of a boiled leg of mutton, each guest had some +expression of contempt and wrath for the humble little green-grocer who +served them,--"in the true spirit," Dickens says, "of the very smallest +tyranny." The very fact that they were subject to being ordered about in +their own persons gave them a peculiar delight in issuing tyrannical orders +to others: just as sophomores in college torment freshmen because other +sophomores once teased the present tormentors themselves; and Irishmen +denounce the Chinese for underbidding them in the labor market, precisely +as they were themselves denounced by native-born Americans thirty years +ago. So it has sometimes seemed to me that the men whose own positions and +claims are really least commanding are those who hold most resolutely that +women should be kept in their proper place of subordination. + +A friend of mine maintains the theory that men large and strong in person +are constitutionally inclined to do justice to women, as fearing no +competition from them in the way of bodily strength; but that small and +weak men are apt to be vehemently opposed to anything like equality in the +sexes. He quotes in defence of his theory the big soldier in London who +justified himself for allowing his little wife to chastise him, on the +ground that it pleased her and did not hurt him; and on the other hand +cites the extreme domestic tyranny of the dwarf Quilp. He declares that +in any difficult excursion among woods and mountains, the guides and the +able-bodied men are often willing to have women join the party, while it +is sure to be opposed by those who doubt their own strength or are +reluctant to display their weakness. It is not necessary to go so far as +my friend goes; but many will remember some fact of this kind, making +such theories appear not quite so absurd as at first. + +Thus it seems from the "Life and Letters" of Sydney Dobell, the English +poet, that he was opposed both to woman suffrage and woman authorship, +believing the movement for the former to be a "blundering on to the +perdition of womanhood." It appears that against all authorship by women +his convictions yearly grew stronger, he regarding it as "an error and an +anomaly." It seems quite in accordance with my friend's theory to hear, +after this, that Sydney Dobell was slight in person and a lifelong invalid; +nor is it surprising, on the same theory, that his poetry took no deep +root, and that it will not be likely to survive long, except perhaps in his +weird ballad of "Ravelston." But he represents a large class of masculine +intellects, of secondary and mediocre quality, whose opinions on this +subject are not so much opinions as instinctive prejudices against a +competitor who may turn out their superior. Whether they know it, or not, +their aversion to the authorship of women is very much like the conviction +of a weak pedestrian, that women are not naturally fitted to take long +walks; or the opinion of a man whose own accounts are in a muddle, that his +wife is constitutionally unfitted to understand business. + +It is a pity to praise either sex at the expense of the other. The social +inequality of the sexes was not produced so much by the voluntary tyranny +of man, as by his great practical advantage at the outset; human history +necessarily beginning with a period when physical strength +was sole ruler. It is unnecessary, too, to consider in how many cases women +may have justified this distrust; and may have made themselves as obnoxious +as Horace Walpole's maids of honor, whose coachman left his savings to his +son on condition that he should never marry a maid of honor. But it is safe +to say that on the whole the feeling of contempt for women, and the love to +exercise arbitrary power over them, is the survival of a crude impulse +which the world is outgrowing, and which is in general least obvious in the +manliest men. That clear and able English writer, Walter Bagehot, well +describes "the contempt for physical weakness and for women which marks +early society. The non-combatant population is sure to fare ill during the +ages of combat. But these defects, too, are cured or lessened; women have +now marvellous means of winning their way in the world; and mind without +muscle has far greater force than muscle without mind." [1] + +[Footnote 1: _Physics and Politics_, p. 79.] + + + + +THE NOBLE SEX + + + +A highly educated American woman of my acquaintance once employed a French +tutor in Paris to assist her in teaching Latin to her little grandson. The +Frenchman brought with him a Latin grammar, written in his own language, +with which my friend was quite pleased, until she came to a passage +relating to the masculine gender in nouns, and claiming grammatical +precedence for it on the ground that the male sex is the noble +sex,--"_le sexe noble_." "Upon that," she said, "I burst forth in +indignation, and the poor teacher soon retired. But I do not believe," +she added, "that the Frenchman has the slightest conception, up to this +moment, of what I could find in that phrase to displease me." + +I do not suppose he could. From the time when the Salic Law set French +women aside from the royal succession, on the ground that the kingdom of +France was "too noble to be ruled by a woman," the claim of nobility has +been all on one side. The State has strengthened the Church in this theory, +the Church has strengthened the State; and the result of all is, that +French grammarians follow both these high authorities. When even the good +Père Hyacinthe teaches, through the New York "Independent," that the +husband is to direct the conscience of his wife, precisely as the father +directs that of his child, what higher philosophy can you expect of any +Frenchman than to maintain the claims of "_le sexe noble_"? + +We see the consequence, even among the most heterodox Frenchmen. Rejecting +all other precedents and authorities, the poor Communists still held to +this. Consider, for instance, this translation of a marriage contract under +the Commune, which lately came to light in a trial reported in the "Gazette +des Tribunaux:"-- + + FRENCH REPUBLIC. + + The citizen Anet, son of Jean Louis Anet, and the _citoyenne_ Maria + Saint; she engaged to follow the said citizen everywhere and to + love him always.--ANET. MARIA SAINT. + + Witnessed by the under-mentioned citizen and _citoyenne._--FOURIER. + LAROCHE. + + PARIS, April 22, 1871. + +What a comfortable arrangement is this! Poor _citoyenne_ Maria Saint, even +when all human laws have suspended their action, still holds by her +grammar, still must annex herself to _le sexe noble_. She still must follow +citizen Anet as the feminine pronoun follows the masculine, or as a verb +agrees with its nominative case in number and in person. But with what a +lordly freedom from all obligation does citizen Anet, representative of +this nobility of sex, accept the allegiance! The citizeness may "follow +him," certainly,--so long as she is not in the way,--and she must "love him +always;" but he is not bound. Why should he be? It would be quite +ungrammatical. + +Yet, after all is said and done, there is a brutal honesty in this frank +subordination of the woman according to the grammar. It has the same merit +with the old Russian marriage consecration: "Here, wolf, take thy lamb," +which at least put the thing clearly, and made no nonsense about it. I do +not know that anywhere in France the wedding ritual is now so severely +simple as this, but I know that in some French villages the bride is still +married in a mourning-gown. I should think she would be. + + + + + +THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR GRANDMOTHERS + + +Every young woman of the present generation, so soon as she ventures to +have a headache or a set of nerves, is immediately confronted by indignant +critics with her grandmother. If the grandmother is living, the fact of her +existence is appealed to: if there is only a departed grandmother to +remember, the maiden is confronted with a ghost. That ghost is endowed with +as many excellences as those with which Miss Betsey Trotwood endowed the +niece that never had been born; and just as David Copperfield was +reproached with the virtues of his unborn sister who "would never have run +away," so that granddaughter with the headache is reproached with the +ghostly perfections of her grandmother, who never had a headache--or, if +she had, it is luckily forgotten. It is necessary to ask, sometimes, what +was really the truth about our grandmothers? Were they such models of +bodily perfection as is usually claimed? + +If we look at the early colonial days, we are at once met by the fact, that +although families were then often larger than is now common, yet this +phenomenon was by no means universal, and was balanced by a good many +childless homes. Of this any one can satisfy himself by looking over any +family history; and he can also satisfy himself of the fact,--first pointed +out, I believe, by Mrs. Ball,--that third and fourth marriages were then +obviously and unquestionably more common than now. The inference would seem +to be, that there is a little illusion about the health of those days, as +there is about the health of savage races. In both cases, it is not so much +that the average health is greater under rude social conditions, as that +these conditions kill off the weak, and leave only the strong. Modern +civilized society, on the other hand, preserves the health of many men and +women--and permits them to marry, and become parents--who under the +severities of savage life or of pioneer life would have died, and given way +to others. + +On this I will not dwell; because these primeval ladies were not strictly +our grandmothers, being farther removed. But of those who were our +grandmothers,--the women of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary +epochs,--we happen to have very definite physiological observations +recorded; not very flattering, it is true, but frank and searching. What +these good women are in the imagination of their descendants, we know. Mrs. +Stowe describes them as "the race of strong, hardy, cheerful girls that +used to grow up in country places, and made the bright, neat New England +kitchens of olden times;" and adds, "This race of women, pride of olden +time, is daily lessening; and in their stead come the fragile, easily +fatigued, languid girls of a modern age, drilled in book-learning, ignorant +of common things." + +What, now, was the testimony of those who saw our grandmothers in the +flesh? As it happens, there were a good many foreigners, generally +Frenchmen, who came to visit the new Republic during the presidency of +Washington. Let us take, for instance, the testimony of the two following. + +The Abbé Robin was a chaplain in Rochambeau's army during the Revolution, +and wrote thus in regard to the American ladies in his "Nouveau Voyage +dans l'Amerique Septentrionale," published in 1782:-- + + "They are tall and well-proportioned; their features are generally + regular; their complexions are generally fair and without color.... + At twenty years of age the women have no longer the freshness of + youth. At thirty-five or forty they are wrinkled and decrepit. The + men are almost as premature." + +Again: The Chevalier Louis Félix de Beaujour lived in the United States +from 1804 to 1814, as consul-general and _chargé d'affaires;_ and wrote a +book, immediately after, which was translated into English under the title, +"A Sketch of the United States at the Commencement of the Present Century." +In this he thus describes American women:-- + + "The women have more of that delicate beauty which belongs to their + sex, and in general have finer features and more expression in their + physiognomy. Their stature is usually tall, and nearly all are + possessed of a light and airy shape,--the breast high, a fine head, + and their color of a dazzling whiteness. Let us imagine, under this + brilliant form, the most modest demeanor, a chaste and virginal air, + accompanied by those single and unaffected graces which flow from + artless nature, and we may have an idea of their beauty; but this + beauty fades and passes in a moment. At the age of twenty-five their + form changes, and at thirty the whole of their charms have + disappeared." + +These statements bring out a class of facts, which, as it seems to me, are +singularly ignored by some of our physiologists. They indicate that the +modification of the American type began early, and was, as a rule, due to +causes antedating the fashions or studies of the present day. Here are our +grandmothers and great-grandmothers as they were actually seen by the eyes +of impartial or even flattering critics. These critics were not Englishmen, +accustomed to a robust and ruddy type of women, but Frenchmen, used to a +type more like the American. They were not mere hasty travellers; for the +one lived here ten years, and the other was stationed for some time at +Newport, R.I., in a healthy locality, noted in those days for the beauty +of its women. Yet we find it their verdict upon these grandmothers of +nearly a hundred years ago, that they showed the same delicate beauty, the +same slenderness, the same pallor, the same fragility, the same early +decline, with which their granddaughters are now reproached. + +In some respects, probably, the physical habits of the grandmothers were +better: but an examination of their portraits will satisfy any one that +they laced more tightly than their descendants, and wore their dresses +lower in the neck; and as for their diet, we have the testimony of another +French traveller, Volney, who was in America from 1795 to 1798, that "if +a premium were offered for a regimen most destructive to the teeth, the +stomach, and the health in general, none could be devised more efficacious +for these ends than that in use among this people." And he goes on to give +particulars, showing a far worse condition in respect to cookery and diet +than now prevails in any decent American society. + +We have therefore strong evidence that the essential change in the American +type was effected in the last century, not in this. Dr. E.H. Clarke says, +"A century does not afford a period long enough for the production of great +changes. That length of time could not transform the sturdy German +_fräulein_ and robust English damsel into the fragile American miss." And +yet it is pretty clear that the first century and a half of our colonial +life had done just this for our grandmothers. And, if so, our physiologists +ought to conform their theories to the facts. + + + + +THE PHYSIQUE OF AMERICAN WOMEN + + +I was talking the other day with a New York physician, long retired from +practice, who after an absence of a dozen years in Europe has returned +within a year to this country. He volunteered the remark, that nothing had +so impressed him since his return as the improved health of Americans. He +said that his wife had been equally struck with it; and that they had +noticed it especially among the inhabitants of cities, among the more +cultivated classes, and in particular among women. + +It so happened, that within twenty-four hours almost precisely the same +remark was made to me by another gentleman of unusually cosmopolitan +experience, and past middle age. He further fortified himself by a similar +assertion made him by Charles Dickens, in comparing his second visit to +this country with his first. In answer to an inquiry as to what points of +difference had most impressed him, Dickens said, "Your people, especially +the women, look better fed than formerly." + +It is possible that in all these cases the witnesses may have been led to +exaggerate the original evil, while absent from the country, and so may +have felt some undue reaction on their arrival. One of my informants went +so far as to express confidence that among his circle of friends in Boston +and in London a dinner party of half a dozen Americans would outweigh an +English party of the same number. Granting this to be too bold a statement, +and granting the unscientific nature of all these assertions, they still +indicate a probability of their own truth until refuted by facts on the +other side. They are further corroborated by the surprise expressed by +Huxley and some other recent Englishmen at finding us a race more +substantial than they had supposed. + +The truth seems to be, that Nature is endeavoring to take a new departure +in the American, and to produce a race more finely organized, more +sensitive, more pliable, and of more nervous energy, than the races of +Northern Europe; that this change of type involves some risk to health in +the process, but promises greater results whenever the new type shall be +established. I am confident that there has been within the last +half-century a great improvement in the physical habits of the more +cultivated classes, at least, in this country,--better food, better air, +better habits as to bathing and exercise. The great increase of athletic +games; the greatly increased proportion of seaside and mountain life in +summer; the thicker shoes and boots of women and little girls, permitting +them to go out more freely in all weathers,--these are among the permanent +gains. The increased habit of dining late, and of taking only a lunch at +noon, is of itself an enormous gain to the professional and mercantile +classes, because it secures time for eating and for digestion. Even the +furnaces in houses, which seemed at first so destructive to the very breath +of life, turn out to have given a new lease to it; and open fires are being +rapidly reintroduced as a provision for enjoyment and health, when the main +body of the house has been tempered by the furnace. There has been, +furthermore, a decided improvement in the bread of the community, and a +very general introduction of other farinaceous food. All this has happened +within my own memory, and gives _a priori_ probability to the alleged +improvement in physical condition within twenty years. + +And, if these reasonings are still insufficient on the one side, it must be +remembered that the facts of the census are almost equally inadequate when +quoted on the other. If, for instance, all the young people of a New +Hampshire village take a fancy to remove to Wisconsin, it does not show +that the race is dying out because their children swell the birth-rate of +Wisconsin instead of New Hampshire. If in a given city the births among the +foreign-born population are twice as many in proportion as among the +American, we have not the whole story until we learn whether the deaths are +not twice as many also. If so, the inference is that the same recklessness +brought the children into the world and sent them out of it; and no +physiological inference whatever can be drawn. It was clearly established +by the medical commission of the Boston Board of Health, a few years ago, +that "the general mortality of the foreign element is much greater than +that of the native element of our population." "This is found to be the +case," they add, "throughout the United States as well as in Boston." + +So far as I can judge, all our physiological tendencies are favorable +rather than otherwise: and the transplantation of the English race seems +now likely to end in no deterioration, but in a type more finely organized, +and more comprehensive and cosmopolitan; and this without loss of health, +of longevity, or of physical size and weight. And, if this is to hold true, +it must be true not only of men, but of women. + + + + + +THE LIMITATIONS OF SEX + + +Are there any inevitable limitations of sex? + +Some reformers, apparently, think that there are not, and that the best way +to help woman is to deny the fact of limitations. But I think the great +majority of reformers would take a different ground, and would say that the +two sexes are mutually limited by nature. They would doubtless add that +this very fact is an argument for the enfranchisement of woman: for, if +woman is a mere duplicate of man, man can represent her; but if she has +traits of her own, absolutely distinct from his, then he cannot represent +her, and she should have a voice and a vote of her own. + +To this last body of believers I belong. I think that all legal or +conventional obstacles should be removed, which debar woman from +determining for herself, as freely as man determines, what the real +limitations of sex are, and what restrictions are merely conventional. But, +when all is said and done, there is no doubt that plenty of limitations +will remain on both sides. + +That man has such limitations is clear. No matter how finely organized he +may be, how sympathetic, how tender, how loving, there is yet a barrier, +never to be passed, that separates him from the most precious part of the +woman's kingdom. All the wondrous world of motherhood, with its unspeakable +delights, its holy of holies, remains forever unknown by him; he +may gaze, but never enter. That halo of pure devotion, which makes a +Madonna out of so many a poor and ignorant woman, can never touch his brow. +Many a man loves children more than many a woman: but, after all, it is not +he who has borne them; to that peculiar sacredness of experience he can +never arrive. But never mind whether the loss be a great one or a small +one: it is distinctly a limitation; and to every loving mother it is a +limitation so important that she would be unable to weigh all the +privileges and powers of manhood against this peculiar possession of her +child. + +Now, if this be true, and if man be thus distinctly limited by the mere +fact of sex, can the woman complain that she also should have some natural +limitations? Grant that she should have no unnecessary restrictions; and +that the course of human progress is constantly setting aside, as +unnecessary, point after point that was once held essential. Still, if she +finds--as she undoubtedly will find--that some natural barriers and +hindrances remain at last, and that she can no more do man's whole work in +the world than he can do hers, why should she complain? If he can accept +his limitations, she must be prepared also to accept hers. + +Some of our physiological reformers, declare that a girl will be perfectly +healthy if she can only be sensibly dressed, and can "have just as much +outdoor exercise as the boys, and of the same sort, if she choose it." But +I have observed that matter a good deal, and have watched the effect of +boyish exercise on a good many girls; and I am satisfied that so far from +being safely turned loose, as boys can be, they need, for physical health, +the constant supervision of wise mothers. Otherwise the very exposure that +only hardens the boy may make the girl an invalid for life. The danger +comes from a greater sensitiveness of structure,--not weakness, properly so +called, since it gives, in certain ways, more power of endurance,--a +greater sensitiveness which runs through all a woman's career, and is the +expensive price she pays for the divine destiny of motherhood. It is +another natural limitation. + +No wise person believes in any "reform against Nature," or that we can get +beyond the laws of Nature. If I believed the limitations of sex to be +inconsistent with woman suffrage for instance, I should oppose it; but I do +not see why a woman cannot form political opinions by her baby's cradle, as +well as her husband in his workshop, while her very love for the child +commits her to an interest in good government. Our duty is to remove all +the artificial restrictions we can. That done, it will not be hard for man +or woman to acquiesce in the natural limitations. + + + + +III + +TEMPERAMENT + +[Greek: 'Andros kai gunaikos ae autae antae aretae.]--ANTISTHENES in +Diogenes Laertius, vi. i, 5. + +"Virtue in man and woman is the same." + + +THE INVISIBLE LADY + + +The Invisible Lady, as advertised in all our cities a good many years ago, +was a mysterious individual who remained unseen, and had apparently no +human organs except a brain and a tongue. You asked questions of her, and +she made intelligent answers; but where she was, you could no more discover +than you could find the man inside the Automaton Chess-Player. Was she +intended as a satire on womankind, or as a sincere representation of what +womankind should be? To many men, doubtless, she would have seemed the +ideal of her sex, could only her brain and tongue have disappeared like the +rest of her faculties. Such men would have liked her almost as well as that +other mysterious personage on the London signboard, labelled "The Good +Woman," and represented by a female figure without a head. + +It is not that any considerable portion of mankind actually wishes to +abolish woman from the universe. But the opinion dies hard that she is best +off when least visible. These appeals which still meet us for "the sacred +privacy of woman" are only the Invisible Lady on a larger scale. In ancient +Boeotia, brides were carried home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at +the door in token that they would never again be needed. In ancient Rome, +it was a queen's epitaph, "She stayed at home, and spun,"--_Domum servavit, +lanam fecit_. In Turkey, not even the officers of justice can enter the +apartments of a woman without her lord's consent. In Spain and Spanish +America, the veil replaces the four walls of the house, and is a portable +seclusion. To be visible is at best a sign of peasant blood and +occupations; to be high-bred is to be invisible. + +In the Azores I found that each peasant family endeavored to secure for one +or more of its daughters the pride and glory of living unseen. The other +sisters, secure in innocence, tended cattle on lonely mountain-sides, or +toiled bare-legged up the steep ascents, their heads crowned with +orange-baskets. The chosen sister was taught to read, to embroider, and to +dwell indoors; if she went out it was only under escort, and with her face +buried in a hood of almost incredible size, affording only a glimpse of +the poor pale cheeks, quite unlike the rosy vigor of the damsels on the +mountain-side. The girls, I was told, did not covet this privilege of +seclusion; but let us be genteel, or die. + +Now all that is left of the Invisible Lady among ourselves is only the +remnant of this absurd tradition. In the seaside town where I write, ladies +of fashion usually go veiled in the streets, and so general is the practice +that little girls often veil their dolls. They all suppose it to be done +for complexion or for ornament; just as people still hang straps on the +backs of their carriages, not knowing that it is a relic of the days when +footmen stood there and held on. But the veil represents a tradition of +seclusion, whether we know it or not; and the dread of hearing a woman +speak in public, or of seeing a woman vote, represents precisely the same +tradition. It is entitled to no less respect, and no more. + +Like all traditions, it finds something in human nature to which to attach +itself. Early girlhood, like early boyhood, needs to be guarded and +sheltered, that it may mature unharmed. It is monstrous to make this an +excuse for keeping a woman, any more than a man, in a condition of +perpetual subordination and seclusion. The young lover wishes to lock up +his angel in a little world of her own, where none may intrude. The harem +and the seraglio are simply the embodiment of this desire. But the maturer +man and the maturer race have found that the beloved being should be +something more. + +After this discovery is made, the theory of the Invisible Lady disappears. +It is less of a shock for an American to hear a woman speak in public than +it is for an Oriental to see her show her face in public at all. Once open +the door of the harem, and she has the freedom of the house: the house +includes the front door, and the street is but a prolonged doorstep. With +the freedom of the street comes inevitably a free access to the platform, +the tribunal, and the pulpit. You might as well try to stop the air in its +escape from a punctured balloon, as to try, when woman is once out of the +harem, to put her back there. Ceasing to be an Invisible Lady, she must +become a visible force: there is no middle ground. There is no danger that +she will not be anchored to the cradle, when cradle there is; but it will +be by an elastic cable, that will leave her as free to think and vote as to +pray. No woman is less a mother because she cares for all the concerns of +the world into which her child is born. It was John Quincy Adams who said, +defending the political petitions of the women of Plymouth, that "women are +not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do +depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their +country, of humanity, and of their God." + + + + +SACRED OBSCURITY + + +In the preface to that ill-named but delightful book, the "Remains of the +late Mrs. Richard Trench," there is a singular remark by the editor, her +son. He says that "the adage is certainly true in regard to the British +matron, _Bene vixit quae bene latuit,_" the meaning of this phrase being, +"She has lived well who has kept herself well out of sight." Applying this +to his beloved mother, he further expresses a regret at disturbing her +"sacred obscurity." Then he goes on to disturb it pretty effectually by +printing a thick octavo volume of her most private letters. + +It is a great source of strength and advantage to reformers, that there are +always men preserved to be living examples of this good old Oriental +doctrine of "sacred obscurity." Just as Mr. Darwin needs for the +demonstration of his theory that the lower orders of creation should still +be present in visible form for purposes of comparison, so every reformer +needs to fortify his position by showing examples of the original attitude +from which society has been gradually emerging. If there had been no +Oriental seclusion, many things in the present position of woman would be +inexplicable. But when we point to that; when we show that even in the more +enlightened Eastern countries it is still held indecorous to allude to the +feminine members of a man's family; when we see among the Christian nations +of Southern Europe many lingering traits of this same habit of seclusion; +and when we find an archdeacon of the English Church still clinging to the +theory, even while exhibiting his mother's family letters to the whole +world,--we more easily understand the course of development. + +These reassertions of the Oriental theory are simply reversions, as a +naturalist would say, to the original type. They are instances of +"atavism," like the occasional appearance of six fingers on one hand in a +family where the great-great-grandfather happened to possess that +ornament. Such instances can always be found, when one takes the pains to +look for them. Thus a critic, discussing in the "Atlantic Monthly" Mr. +Mahaffy's book on "Social Life in Greece," is surprised that this writer +should quote, in proof of the degradation of woman in Athens, the remark +attributed to Pericles, "That woman is best who is least spoken of among +men, whether for good or for evil." "In our opinion," adds the reviewer, +"that remark was wise then, and is wise now." The Oriental theory is not +then, it seems, extinct; and we are spared the pains of proving that it +ever existed. + +If this theory be true, how falsely has the admiration of mankind been +given! If the most obscure woman is best, the most conspicuous must +undoubtedly be worst. Tried by this standard, how unworthy must have +been Elizabeth Barrett Browning, how reprehensible must be Dorothea Dix, +what a model of all that is discreditable is Rosa Bonheur, what a +crowning instance of human depravity is Florence Nightingale! Yet how +consoling the thought, that, while these disreputable persons were thus +wasting their substance in the riotous performance of what the world +weakly styled good deeds, there were always women who saw the folly of +such efforts; women who by steady devotion to eating, drinking, and +sleeping continued to keep themselves in sacred obscurity, and to prove +themselves the ornaments of their sex, inasmuch as no human being ever +had occasion to mention their names! + +But alas for human inconsistency! As for this inverse-ratio theory,--this +theory of virtue so exalted that it has never been known or felt or +mentioned among men,--it is to be observed that those who hold it are the +first to desert it when stirred by an immediate occasion. Just as a +slaveholder, in the old times, after demonstrating to you that freedom was +a curse to the negro, would instantly turn round, and inflict this greatest +of all curses on some slave who had saved his life; so, I fear, would one +of these philosophers, if he were profoundly impressed with any great +action done by a woman, give the lie to all his theories, and celebrate her +fame. In spite of all his fine principles, if he happened to be rescued +from drowning by Grace Darling, he would put her name in the newspaper; if +he were tended in hospital by Clara Barton, he would sound her praise; and +if his mother wrote as good letters as did Mrs. Trench, he would probably +print them to the extent of five hundred pages, as the archdeacon did, and +all his gospel of silence would exhale itself in a single sigh of regret in +the preface. + + + + +VIRTUES IN COMMON + + +A young friend of mine, who was educated at one of the very best schools +for girls in New York city, told me that one day her teacher requested the +older girls to write out a list of virtues suitable to manly character, +which they did. A month or more later, when this occurrence was well +forgotten, the same teacher bade them write out a list of womanly virtues, +she making no reference to the other list. Then she made each girl compare +her lists; and they all found with surprise that there was no substantial +difference between them. The only variation, in most cases, was, that they +had put in a rather vague special virtue of "manliness" in the one case, +and "womanliness" in the other; a sort of miscellaneous department or "odd +drawer," apparently, in which to group all traits not easily analyzed. + +The moral is that, as tested by the common sense of these young people, +duty is duty, and the difference between ethics for men and ethics for +women lies simply in practical applications, not in principles. + +Who can deny that the philosopher Antisthenes was right when he said, "The +virtues of the man and the woman are the same"? Not the Christian, +certainly; for he accepts as his highest standard the being who in all +history best united the highest qualities of both sexes. Not the +metaphysician; for his analysis deals with the human mind as such, not with +the mind of either sex. Not the evolutionist; for he is accustomed to trace +back qualities to their source, and cannot deny that there is in each sex +at least a "survival" of every good and every bad trait. We may say that +these qualities are, or may be, or ought to be, distributed unequally +between the sexes; but we cannot reasonably deny that each sex possesses a +share of every quality, and that what is good in one sex is also good in +the other. Man may be the braver, and yet courage in a woman may be nobler +than cowardice. Woman may be the purer, and yet purity may be noble in a +man. + +So clear is this, that some of the very coarsest writers in all literature, +and those who have been severest upon women, have yet been obliged to +acknowledge it. Take, for instance, Dean Swift, who writes:-- + + "I am ignorant of any one quality that is amiable in a woman, which + is not equally so in a man. I do not except even modesty and + gentleness of nature; nor do I know one vice or folly which is not + equally detestable in both." + +Mrs. Jameson, in her delightful "Commonplace Book," illustrates this +admirably by one or two test cases. She takes, for instance, from one of +Humboldt's letters a much-admired passage on manly character:-- + + "Masculine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first + requisite for the formation of a character of real manly worth. The + man who allows himself to be deceived and carried away by his own + weakness may be a very amiable person in other respects, but cannot + be called a good man: such beings should not find favor in the eyes + of a woman, for a truly beautiful and purely feminine nature should + be attracted only by what is highest and noblest in the character of + man." + +"Take now this same bit of moral philosophy," she says, "and apply it to +the feminine character, and it reads quite as well:-- + + "'Feminine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first + requisite for the formation of a character of real feminine worth. + The woman who allows herself to be deceived and carried away by her + own weakness may be a very amiable person in other respects, but + cannot be called a good woman; such beings should not find favor in + the eyes of a man, for a truly beautiful and purely manly nature + should be attracted only by what is highest and noblest in the + character of woman.'" + +I have never been able to perceive that there was a quality or grace of +character which really belonged exclusively to either sex, or which failed +to win honor when wisely exercised by either. It is not thought necessary +to have separate editions of books on ethical science, the one for man, the +other for woman, like almanacs calculated for different latitudes. The +books that vary are not the scientific works, but little manuals of +practical application,--"Duties of Men," "Duties of Women." These vary with +times and places: where women do not know how to read, no advice on reading +will be found in the women's manuals; where it is held wrong for women to +uncover the face, it will be laid down in these manuals as a sin. But +ethics are ethics: the great principles of morals, as proclaimed either by +science or by religion, do not fluctuate for sex; their basis is in the +very foundations of right itself. + +This grows clearer when we remember that it is equally true in mental +science. There is not one logic for men, and another for women; a separate +syllogism, a separate induction: the moment we begin to state intellectual +principles, that moment we go beyond sex. We deal then with absolute truth. +If an observation is wrong, if a process of reasoning is bad, it makes +no difference who brings it forward. Any list of mental processes, any +inventory of the contents of the mind, would be identical, so far as sex +goes, whether compiled by a woman or a man. These things, like the +circulation of the blood or the digestion of food, belong clearly to the +ground held in common. The London "Spectator" well said some time since,-- + + "After all, knowledge is knowledge; and there is no more a + specifically feminine way of describing correctly the origin of the + Lollard movement, or the character of Spenser's poetry, than there + is a specifically feminine way of solving a quadratic equation, or + of proving the forty-seventh problem of Euclid's first book." + +All we can say in modification of this is, that there is, after all, a +foundation for the rather vague item of "manliness" and "womanliness" in +these schoolgirl lists of duties. There is a difference, after all is said +and done; but it is something that eludes analysis, like the differing +perfume of two flowers of the same genus and even of the same species. The +method of thought must be essentially the same in both sexes; and yet an +average woman will put more flavor of something we call instinct into her +mental action, and the average man something more of what we call logic +into his. Whipple tells us that not a man guessed the plot of Dickens's +"Great Expectations," while many women did; and this certainly indicates +some average difference of quality or method. So the average opinions of a +hundred women, on some question of ethics, might very probably differ from +the average of a hundred men, while it yet remains true that "the virtues +of the man and the woman are the same." + + + + +INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES + + +Blackburn, in his entertaining book, "Artists and Arabs," draws a contrast +between Frith's painting of the "Derby Day" and Rosa Bonheur's "Horse +Fair,"--"the former pleasing the eye by its cleverness and prettiness, the +latter impressing the spectator by its power and its truthful rendering of +animal life. The difference between the two painters is probably more one +of education than of natural gifts. But whilst the style of the former is +grafted on a fashion, the latter is founded on a rock,--the result of a +close study of nature, chastened by classic feeling and a remembrance, it +may be, of the friezes of the Parthenon." + +Now it is to be observed that this description runs precisely counter to +the popular impression as to the work of the two sexes. Novelists like +Charles Reade, for instance, who have apparently seen precisely one woman +in their lives, and hardly more than one man, and who keep on sketching +these two figures most felicitously and brilliantly thenceforward, would be +apt to assign these qualities of the artist very differently. Their typical +man would do the truthful and powerful work, and everybody would say, "How +manly!" Their woman would please by cleverness and prettiness, and +everybody would say, "How womanly!" Yet Blackburn shows us that these +qualities are individual, not sexual; that they result from temperament, +or, he thinks, still more from training. If Rosa Bonheur does better work +than Frith, it is not because she is a woman, nor is it in spite of that; +but because, setting sex aside, she is a better artist. + +This is not denying the distinctions of sex, but only asserting that they +are not so exclusive and all-absorbing as is supposed. It is easy to name +other grounds of difference which entirely ignore those of sex, striking +directly across them, and rendering a different classification necessary. +It is thus with distinctions of race or color, for instance. An Indian man +and woman are at many points more like to each other than is either to a +white person of the same sex. A black-haired man and woman, or a +fair-haired man and woman, are to be classified together in these +physiological aspects. So of differences of genius: a man and woman of +musical temperament and training have more in common than has either with +a person who is of the same sex, but who cannot tell one note from another. +So two persons of ardent or imaginative temperament are thus far alike, +though the gulf of sex divides them; and so are two persons of cold or +prosaic temperament. In a mixed school the teacher cannot class together +intellectually the boys as such, and the girls as such: bright boys take +hold of a lesson very much as bright girls do, and slow girls as slow boys. +Nature is too rich, too full, too varied, to be content with a single basis +of classification: she has a hundred systems of grouping, according to sex, +age, race, temperament, training, and so on; and we get but a narrow view +of life when we limit our theories to one set of distinctions. + +As a matter of social philosophy, this train of thought logically leads to +coeducation, impartial suffrage, and free cooperation in all the affairs of +life. As a matter of individual duty, it teaches the old moral to "act well +your part." No wise person will ever trouble himself or herself much about +the limitations of sex in intellectual labor. Rosa Bonheur was not trying +to work like a woman, or like a man, or unlike either, but to do her work +thoroughly and well. He or she who works in this spirit works nobly, +and gives an example which will pass beyond the bounds of sex, and help +all. The Abbé Liszt, the most gifted of modern pianists, told a friend of +mine, his pupil, that he had learned more of music from hearing Madame +Malibran sing, than from anything else whatever. + + + + +ANGELIC SUPERIORITY + + +It is better not to base any plea for woman on the ground of her angelic +superiority. The argument proves too much. If she is already so perfect, +there is every inducement to let well alone. It suggests the expediency of +conforming man's condition to hers, instead of conforming hers to man's. If +she is a winged creature, and man can only crawl, it is his condition that +needs mending. + +Besides, one may well be a little incredulous of these vast claims. +Granting some average advantage to woman, it is not of such completeness as +to base much argument upon it. The minister, looking on his congregation, +rarely sees an unmixed angel, either at the head or at the foot of any pew. +The domestic servant rarely has the felicity of waiting on an absolute +saint at either end of the dinner-table. The lady's-maid has to compare her +little observations of human infirmity with those of the valet de chambre. +The lover worships the beloved, whether man or woman; but marriage bears +rather hard on the ideal in either case; and those who pray out of the same +book, "Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners," are not supposed to be +offering up petitions for each other only. + +We all know many women whose lives are made wretched by the sins and +follies of their husbands. There are also many men whose lives are turned +to long wretchedness by the selfishness, the worldliness, or the bad temper +of their wives. Domestic tyranny belongs to neither sex by monopoly. If man +tortures or depresses woman, she also has a fearful power to corrupt and +deprave man. On the other hand, to quote old Antisthenes once more, "the +virtues of the man and woman are the same." A refined man is more refined +than a coarse woman. A child-loving man is infinitely tenderer and sweeter +toward children than a hard and unsympathetic woman. The very qualities +that are claimed as distinctively feminine are possessed more abundantly by +many men than by many of what is called the softer sex. + +Why is it necessary to say all this? Because there is always danger that we +who believe in the equality of the sexes should be led into +over-statements, which will react against ourselves. It is not safe to say +that the ballot-box would be reformed if intrusted to feminine votes +alone. Had the voters of the South been all women, it would have plunged +earlier into the gulf of secession, dived deeper, and come up even more +reluctantly. Were the women of Spain to rule its destinies unchecked, the +Pope would be its master, and the Inquisition might be reëstablished. For +all that we can see, the rule of women alone would be as bad as the rule of +men alone. It would be as unsafe to give women the absolute control of man +as to make man the master of woman. + +Let us be a shade more cautious in our reasonings. Woman needs equal +rights, not because she is man's better half, but because she is his other +half. She needs them, not as an angel, but as a fraction of humanity. Her +political education will not merely help man, but it will help herself. She +will sometimes be right in her opinions, and sometimes be altogether wrong; +but she will learn, as man learns, by her own blunders. The demand in her +behalf is that she shall have the opportunity to make mistakes, since it is +by that means she must become wise. + +In all our towns there is a tendency toward "mixed schools." We rarely hear +of the sexes being separated in a school after being once united; but we +constantly hear of their being brought together after separation. This +union is commonly, but mistakenly, recommended as an advantage to the boys +alone. I once heard an accomplished teacher remonstrate against this +change, when thus urged. "Why should my girls be sacrificed," she said, +"to improve your boys?" Six months after, she had learned by experience. +"Why," she asked, "did you rest the argument on so narrow a ground? Since +my school consisted half of boys, I find with surprise that the change +has improved both sexes. My girls are more ambitious, more obedient, and +more ladylike. I shall never distrust the policy of mixed schools again." + +What is true of the school is true of the family and of the state. It is +not good for man, or for woman, to be alone. Granting the woman to be, on +the whole, the more spiritually minded, it is still true that each sex +needs the other. When the rivet falls from a pair of scissors, we do not +have than mended because either half can claim angelic superiority over +the other half, but because it takes two halves to make a whole. + + + + +VICARIOUS HONORS + + +There is a story in circulation--possibly without authority--to the effect +that a certain young lady has ascended so many Alps that she would have +been chosen a member of the English Alpine Club but for her misfortune in +respect to sex. As a matter of personal recognition, however, and, as it +were, of approximate courtesy, her dog, who has accompanied her in all her +trips, and is not debased by sex, has been elected into the club. She has +therefore an opportunity for exercising in behalf of her dog that beautiful +self-abnegation which is said to be a part of woman's nature, impelling her +always to prefer that her laurels should be worn by somebody else. + +The dog probably made no objection to these vicarious honors; nor is any +objection made by the young gentlemen who reply eloquently to the toast, +"The Ladies," at public dinners, or who kindly consent to be educated at +masculine colleges on "scholarships" perhaps founded by women. Those who +receive the emoluments of these funds must reflect within themselves, +occasionally, how grand a thing is this power of substitution given to +women, and how pleasant are its occasional results to the substitute. It is +doubtless more blessed to give than to receive, but to receive without +giving has also its pleasures. Very likely the holder of the scholarship, +and the orator who rises with his hand on his heart to "reply in behalf of +the ladies," may do their appointed work well; and so did the Alpine dog. +Yet, after all, but for the work done by his mistress, the dog would have +won no more honor from the Alpine Club than if he had been a chamois. + +Nothing since Artemus Ward and his wife's relations has been finer than the +generous way in which fathers and brothers disclaim all desire for profits +or honors on the part of their feminine relatives. In a certain system of +schools once known to me, the boys had prizes of money on certain +occasions, but the successful girls at those times received simply a +testimonial of honor for each; "the committee being convinced," it was +said, "that this was more consonant with the true delicacy and generosity +of woman's nature." So in the new arrangements for opening the University +of Copenhagen to young women, Karl Blind writes to the New York "Evening +Post," that it is expressly provided that they shall not "share in the +academic benefices and stipends which have been set apart for male +students." Half of these charities may, for aught that appears, have been +established originally by women, like the American scholarships already +mentioned. Women, however, can avail themselves of them only by deputy, as +the Alp-climbing young lady is represented by her dog. + +It is all a beautiful tribute to the disinterestedness of woman. The only +pity is that this virtue, so much admired, should not be reciprocated by +showing the like disinterestedness toward her. It does not appear that the +butchers and bakers of Copenhagen propose to reduce in the case of women +students "the benefices and stipends" which are to be paid for daily food. +Young ladies at the university are only prohibited from receiving money, +not from needing it. Nor will any of the necessary fatigues of Alpine +climbing be relaxed for any young lady because she is a woman. The fatigues +will remain in full force, though the laurels be denied. The +mountain-passes will make small account of the "tenderness and delicacy of +her sex." When the toil is over she will be regarded as too delicate to be +thanked for it; but, by way of compensation, the Alpine Club will allow her +to be represented by her dog. + + + + +THE GOSPEL OF HUMILIATION + + +"The silliest man who ever lived," wrote Fanny Fern once, "has always known +enough, when he says his prayers, to thank God he was not born a woman." +President ---- of ---- College is not a silly man at all, and he is +devoting his life to the education of women; yet he seems to feel as +vividly conscious of his superior position as even Fanny Fern could wish. +If he had been born a Jew, he would have thanked God, in the appointed +ritual, for not having made him a woman. If he had been a Mohammedan, he +would have accepted the rule which forbids "a fool, a madman, or a woman" +to summon the faithful to prayer. Being a Christian clergyman, with several +hundred immortal souls, clothed in female bodies, under his charge, he +thinks it his duty, at proper intervals, to notify his young ladies, that, +though they may share with men the glory of being sophomores, they still +are in a position, as regards the other sex, of hopeless subordination. +This is the climax of his discourse, which in its earlier portions contains +many good and truthful things:-- + + "And, as the woman is different from the man, so is she relative to + him. This is true on the other side also. They are bound together by + mutual relationship so intimate and vital that the existence of + neither is absolutely complete except with reference to the other. + But there is this difference, that the relation of woman is, + characteristically, that of subordination and dependence. This does + not imply inferiority of character, of capacity, of value, in the + sight of God or man; and it has been the glory of woman to have + accepted the position of formal inferiority assigned her by the + Creator, with all its responsibilities, its trials, its possible + outward humiliations and sufferings, in the proud consciousness that + it is not incompatible with an essential superiority; that it does + not prevent her from occupying, if she will, an inward elevation of + character, from which she may look down with pitying and helpful + love on him she calls her lord. Jesus said, 'Ye know that the + princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that + are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among + you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your + minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your + servant, even as the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but + to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.' Surely woman + need not hesitate to estimate her status by a criterion of dignity + sustained by such authority. She need not shrink from a position + which was sought by the Son of God, and in whose trials and griefs + she will have his sympathy and companionship." + +There is a comforting aspect to this discourse, after all. It holds out the +hope, that a particularly noble woman may not be personally inferior to a +remarkably bad husband, but "may look down with pitying and helpful love on +him she calls her lord." The drawback is not only that it insults woman by +a reassertion of a merely historical inferiority, which is steadily +diminishing, but that it fortifies this by precisely the same talk about +the dignity of subordination which has been used to buttress every +oppression since the world began. Never yet was there a pious slaveholder +who did not quote to his slaves, on Sunday, precisely the same texts with +which President ---- favors his meek young pupils. Never yet was there a +slaveholder who would not shoot through the head anybody who should attempt +to place him in that beautiful position of subjection whose spiritual +merits he had just been proclaiming. When it came to that, he was like +Thoreau, who believed resignation to be a virtue, but preferred "not to +practice it unless it was quite necessary." + +Thus, when the Rev. Charles C. Jones of Savannah used to address the slaves +on their condition, he proclaimed the beauty of obedience in a way to bring +tears to their eyes. And this, he frankly assures the masters, is the way +to check insurrection and advance their own "pecuniary interests." He says +of the slave, that under proper religious instruction "his conscience is +enlightened and his soul is awed;... to God he commits the ordering of his +lot, and in his station renders to all their dues, obedience to whom +obedience, and honor to whom honor. _He dares not wrest from God his own +care and protection._ While he sees a preference in the various conditions +of men, he remembers the words of the apostle: 'Art thou called being a +servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be free, use it rather. For he +that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: +likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.'"[1] + +I must say that the Rev. Mr. Jones's preaching seems to me precisely as +good as Dr.------'s, and that a sensible woman ought to be as much +influenced by the one as was Frederick Douglass by the other--that is, not +at all. Let the preacher try "subordination" himself, and see how he likes +it. The beauty of service, such as Jesus praised, lay in the willingness of +the service: a service that is serfdom loses all beauty, whether rendered +by man or by woman. My objection to separate schools and colleges for women +is that they are too apt to end in such instructions as this. + +[Footnote 1: _Religious Instruction of the Negroes._ Savannah, 1842, pp. +208-211.] + + + + +CELERY AND CHERUBS + + +There was once a real or imaginary old lady who had got the metaphor of +Scylla and Charybdis a little confused. Wishing to describe a perplexing +situation, this lady said,-- + +"You see, my dear, she was between Celery on one side and Cherubs on the +other! You know about Celery and Cherubs, don't you? They was two rocks +somewhere; and if you didn't hit one, you was pretty sure to run smack on +the other." + +This describes, as a clever writer in the New York "Tribune" declares, the +present condition of women who "agitate." Their Celery and Cherubs are +tears and temper. It is a good hit, and we may well make a note of it. It +is the danger of all reformers, that they will vibrate between +discouragement and anger. When things go wrong, what is it one's impulse to +do? To be cast down, or to be stirred up; to wring one's hands, or clench +one's fists,--in short, tears or temper. + +"Mother," said a resolute little girl of my acquaintance, "if the dinner +was all spoiled, I wouldn't sit down, and cry! I'd say, 'Hang it!'" This +cherub preferred the alternative of temper, on days when the celery turned +out badly. Probably her mother was addicted to the other practice, and +exhibited the tears. + +But as this alternative is found to exist for both sexes, and on all +occasions, why charge it especially on the woman-suffrage movement? Men +are certainly as much given to ill temper as women; and, if they are less +inclined to tears, they make it up in sulks, which are just as bad. +Nicholas Nickleby, when the pump was frozen, was advised by Mr. Squeers to +"content himself with a' dry polish;" and so there is a kind of dry despair +into which men fall, which is quite as forlorn as any tears of women. How +many a man has doubtless wished at such times that the pump of his +lachrymal glands could only thaw out, and he could give his emotions +something more than a "dry polish"! The unspeakable comfort some women feel +in sitting for ten minutes with a handkerchief over their eyes! The +freshness, the heartiness, the new life visible in them, when the crying is +done, and the handkerchief comes down again! + +And, indeed, this simple statement brings us to the real truth, which +should have been more clearly seen by the writer who tells this story. She +is wrong in saying, "It is urged that men and women stand on an equality, +are exactly alike." Many of us urge the "equality:" very few of us urge the +"exactly alike." An apple and an orange, a potato and a tomato, a rose and +a lily, the Episcopal and the Presbyterian churches, Oxford and Cambridge, +Yale and Harvard,--we may surely grant equality in each case, without being +so exceedingly foolish as to go on and say that they are exactly alike. + +And precisely here is the weak point of the whole case, as presented by +this writer. Women give way to tears more readily than men? Granted. Is +their sex any the weaker for it? Not a bit. It is simply a difference of +temperament: that is all. It involves no inferiority. If you think that +this habit necessarily means weakness, wait and see! Who has not seen women +break down in tears during some domestic calamity, while the "stronger sex" +were calm; and who has not seen those same women, that temporary excitement +being over, rise up and dry their eyes, and be thenceforth the support and +stay of their households, and perhaps bear up the "stronger sex" as a +stream bears up a ship? I said once to an experienced physician, watching +such a woman, "That woman is really great."--"Of course she is," he +answered; "did you ever see a woman who was not great, when the emergency +required?" + +Now, will women carry this same quality of temperament into their public +career? Doubtless: otherwise they would cease to be women. Will it be +betraying confidence if I own that I have seen two of the very bravest +women of my acquaintance--women who have swayed great audiences--burst into +tears, during a committee meeting, at a moment of unexpected adversity for +"the cause"? How pitiable! our critical observers would have thought. In +five minutes that April shower had passed, and those women were as resolute +and unconquerable as Queen Elizabeth: they were again the natural leaders +of those around them; and the cool and tearless men who sat beside them +were nothing--men were "a lost art," as some one says--compared with the +inexhaustible moral vitality of those two women. + +No: the dangers of "Celery and Cherubs" are exaggerated. For temper, women +are as good as men, and no better. As for tears, long may they flow! They +are symbols of that mighty distinction of sex which is as ineffaceable and +as essential as the difference between land and sea. + + + + +THE NEED OF CAVALRY + + +In the interesting Buddhist book, "The Wheel of the Law," translated by +Henry Alabaster, there is an account of a certain priest who used to bless +a great king, saying, "May your majesty have the firmness of a crow, the +audacity of a woman, the endurance of a vulture, and the strength of an +ant." The priest then told anecdotes illustrating all of these qualities. +Who has not known occasions wherein some daring woman has been the Joan of +Arc of a perfectly hopeless cause, taken it up where men shrank, carried it +through where they had failed, and conquered by weapons which men would +never have thought of using, and would have lacked faith to employ even if +put into their hands? The wit, the resources, the audacity of women, have +been the key to history and the staple of novels, ever since that larger +novel called history began to be written. + +How is it done? Who knows the secret of their success? All that any man can +say is that the heart takes a large share in the magic. Rogers asserts in +his "Table-Talk," that often, when doubting how to act in matters of +importance, he had received more useful advice from women than from men. +"Women have the understanding of the heart," he said, "which is better than +that of the head." Then this instinct, that begins from the heart, reaches +other hearts also, and through that controls the will. "Win hearts," said +Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you have hands and purses;" and the +greatest of English sovereigns, in spite of ugliness and rouge, in spite of +coarseness and cruelty and bad passions, was adored by the nation that she +first made great. + +It seems to me that women are a sort of cavalry force in the army of +mankind. They are not always to be relied upon for that steady "hammering +away," which was Grant's one method; but there is a certain Sheridan +quality about them, light-armed, audacious, quick, irresistible. They go +before the main army; their swift wits go scouting far in advance; they are +the first to scent danger, or to spy out chances of success. Their charge +is like that of a Tartar horde, or the wild sweep of the Apaches. They are +upon you from some wholly unexpected quarter; and this respectable, +systematic, well-drilled masculine force is caught and rolled over and over +in the dust, before the man knows what has hit him. Even if repelled and +beaten off, this formidable cavalry is unconquered: routed and in +confusion to-day, it comes back upon you to-morrow--fresh, alert, with +new devices, bringing new dangers. In dealing with it, as the French +complained of the Arabs in Algiers, "Peace is not to be purchased by +victory." And, even if all seems lost, with what a brilliant final charge +it will cover a retreat! + +Decidedly, we need cavalry. In older countries, where it has been a merely +undisciplined and irregular force, it has often done mischief; and public +men, from Demosthenes down, have been lamenting that measures which the +statesman has meditated a whole year may be overturned in a day by a woman. +Under our American government we have foolishly attempted to leave out this +arm of the service altogether; and much of the alleged dulness of our +American history has come from this attempt. Those who have been trained in +the various reforms where woman has taken an equal part--the anti-slavery +reform especially--know well how much of the energy, the dash, the daring, +of those movements have come from her. A revolution with a woman in it is +stronger than the established order that omits her. It is not that she is +superior to man, but she is different from man; and we can no more spare +her than we could spare the cavalry from an army. + + + + +THE REASON FIRM, THE TEMPERATE WILL + + +It is a part of the necessary theory of republican government, that every +class and race shall be judged by its highest types, not its lowest. The +proposition of the French revolutionary statesman, to begin the work of +purifying the world by arresting all the cowards and knaves, is liable to +the objection that it would find victims in every circle. Republican +government begins at the other end, and assumes that the community +generally has good intentions at least, and some common sense, however +it may be with individuals. Take the very quality which the newspapers so +often deny to women,--the quality of steadiness. "In fact, men's great +objection to the entrance of the female mind into politics is drawn from a +suspicion of its unsteadiness on matters in which the feelings could by +any possibility be enlisted." Thus says the New York "Nation." Let us +consider this implied charge against women, and consider it not by +generalizing from a single instance,--"just like a woman," as the editors +would doubtless say, if a woman had done it,--but by observing whole +classes of that sex, taken together. + +These classes need some care in selection, for the plain reason that there +are comparatively few circles in which women have yet been allowed enough +freedom of scope, or have acted sufficiently on the same plane with men, to +furnish a fair estimate of their probable action, were they enfranchised. +Still there occur to me three such classes,--the anti-slavery women, the +Quaker women, and the women who conduct philanthropic operations in our +large cities. If the alleged unsteadiness of women is to be felt in public +affairs, it would have been felt in these organizations. Has it been so +felt? + +Of the anti-slavery movement I can personally testify--and I have heard the +same point fully recognized among my elders, such as Garrison, Phillips, +and Quincy--that the women contributed their full share, if not more than +their share, to the steadiness of that movement, even in times when the +feelings were most excited, as, for instance, in fugitive-slave cases. Who +that has seen mobs practically put down, and mayors cowed into decency, by +the silent dignity of those rows of women who sat, with their knitting, +more imperturbable than the men, can read without a smile these doubts of +the "steadiness" of that sex? Again, among Quaker women, I have asked the +opinion of prominent Friends, as of John G. Whittier, whether it has been +the experience of that body that women were more flighty and unsteady +than men in their official action; and have been uniformly answered in the +negative. And finally, as to benevolent organizations, a good test is given +in the fact,--first pointed out, I believe, by that eminently practical +philanthropist, Rev. Augustus Woodbury of Providence,--that the whole +tendency has been, during the last twenty years, to put the management, +even the financial control, of our benevolent societies, more and more into +the hands of women, and that there has never been the slightest reason to +reverse this policy. Ask the secretaries of the various boards of State +Charities, or the officers of the Social Science Associations, if they have +found reason to complain of the want of steadfast qualities in the "weaker +sex." Why is it that the legislation of Massachusetts has assigned the +class requiring the steadiest of all supervision--the imprisoned +convicts--to "five commissioners of prisons, two of whom shall be women"? +These are the points which it would be worthy of our journals to consider, +instead of hastily generalizing from single instances. Let us appeal from +the typical woman of the editorial picture,--fickle, unsteady, +foolish,--to the nobler conception of womanhood which the poet Wordsworth +found fulfilled in his own household:-- + + "A being breathing thoughtful breath, + A traveller betwixt life and death; + _The reason firm, the temperate will; + Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;_ + A perfect woman, nobly planned + To warn, to comfort, to command, + And yet a spirit still, and bright + With something of an angel light." + + + + +ALLURES TO BRIGHTER WORLDS, AND LEADS THE WAY + + +When a certain legislature had "School Suffrage" under consideration, the +other day, the suggestion was made by one of the pithiest and quaintest of +the speakers, that men were always better for the society of women, and +therefore ought to vote in their company. "If all of us," he said, "would +stay away from all places where we cannot take our wives and daughters with +us, we should keep better company than we now do." This expresses a feeling +which grows more and more common among the better class of men, and which +is the key to much progress in the condition of women. There can be no +doubt that the increased association of the sexes in society, in school, in +literature, tends to purify these several spheres of action. Yet, when we +come to philosophize on this, there occur some perplexities on the way. + +For instance, the exclusion of woman from all these spheres was in ancient +Greece almost complete; yet the leading Greek poets, as Homer and the +tragedians, are exceedingly chaste in tone, and in this respect beyond most +of the great poets of modern nations. Again, no European nation has quite +so far sequestered and subordinated women as has Spain; and yet the whole +tone of Spanish literature is conspicuously grave and decorous. This +plainly indicates that race has much to do with the matter, and that the +mere admission or exclusion of women is but one among several factors. In +short, it is easy to make out a case by a rhetorical use of the facts on +one side; but, if we look at all the facts, the matter presents greater +difficulties. + +Again, it is to be noted that in several countries the first women who have +taken prominent part in literature have been as bad as the men; as, for +instance, Marguerite of Navarre and Mrs. Aphra Behn. This might indeed be +explained by supposing that they had to gain entrance into literature by +accepting the dissolute standards which they found prevailing. But it would +probably be more correct to say that these standards themselves were +variable, and that their variation affected, at certain periods, women as +well as men. Marguerite of Navarre wrote religious books as well as merry +stories; and we know from Lockhart's Life of Scott, that ladies of high +character in Edinburgh used to read Mrs. Behn's tales and plays aloud, at +one time, with delight,--although one of the same ladies found, in her old +age, that she could not read them to herself without blushing. Shakespeare +puts coarse repartees into the mouths of women of stainless virtue. George +Sand is not considered an unexceptionable writer; but she tells us in her +autobiography that she found among her grandmother's papers poems and +satires so indecent that she could not read them through, and yet they bore +the names of _abbés_ and gentlemen whom she remembered in her childhood as +models of dignity and honor. Voltaire inscribes to ladies of high rank, who +doubtless regarded it as a great compliment, verses such as not even a poet +of the English "fleshly school" would now print at all. In "Poems by +Eminent Ladies,"--published in 1755 and reprinted in 1774,--there are one +or two poems as gross and disgusting as anything in Swift; yet their +authors were thought reputable women. Allan Ramsay's "Tea-Table +Miscellany"--a collection of English and Scottish songs--was first +published in 1724; and in his preface to the sixteenth edition the editor +attributes its great success, especially among the ladies, to the fact that +he has carefully excluded all grossness, "that the modest voice and ear of +the fair singer might meet with no affront;" and adds, "the chief bent of +all my studies being to attain their good graces." There is no doubt of the +great popularity enjoyed by the book in all circles; yet it contains a few +songs which the most licentious newspaper would not now publish. The +inference is irresistible, from this and many other similar facts, that the +whole tone of manners and decency has very greatly improved among the +European races within a century and a half. + +I suspect the truth to be, that, besides the visible influence of race and +religion, there has been an insensible and almost unconscious improvement +in each sex, with respect to these matters, as time has passed on; and that +the mutual desire to please has enabled each sex to help the other,--the +sex which is naturally the more refined taking the lead. But I should lay +more stress on this mutual influence, and less on mere feminine +superiority, than would be laid by many. It is often claimed by teachers +that co-education helps not only boys, but also girls, to develop greater +propriety of manners. When the sexes are wholly separate, or associate on +terms of entire inequality, no such good influence occurs: the more equal +the association, the better for both parties. After all, the Divine model +is to be found in the family; and the best ingenuity cannot improve much +upon it. + + + + +IV + +THE HOME + + "In respect to the powers and rights of married women, the law is by + no means abreast of the spirit of the age. Here are seen the old + fossil footprints of feudalism. The law relating to woman tends to + make every family a barony or a monarchy or a despotism, of which + the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the + dependent, serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact, is not + due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow + limits of its rules. The progress of civilization has changed the + family from a barony to a republic; but the law has not kept pace + with the advance of ideas, manners, and customs."--W.W. STORY'S + Treatise on Contracts not under Seal, § 84, third edition, p. 89. + + +WANTED--HOMES + + +We see advertisements, occasionally, of "Homes for Aged Women," and more +rarely "Homes for Aged Men." The question sometimes suggests itself, +whether it would not be better to begin the provision earlier, and see that +homes are also provided, in some form, for the middle-aged and even the +young. The trouble is, I suppose, that as it takes two to make a bargain, +so it takes at least two to make a home; and unluckily it takes only one to +spoil it. + +Madame Roland once defined marriage as an institution where one person +undertakes to provide happiness for two; and many failures are accounted +for, no doubt, by this false basis. Sometimes it is the man, more often the +woman, of whom this extravagant demand is made. There are marriages which +have proved a wreck almost wholly through the fault of the wife. Nor is +this confined to wedded homes alone. I have known a son who lived alone, +patiently and uncomplainingly, with that saddest of all conceivable +companions, a drunken mother. I have known another young man who supported +in his own home a mother and sister, both habitual drunkards. All these +were American-born, and all of respectable social position. A house +shadowed by such misery is not a home, though it might have proved such but +for the sins of women. Such instances are, however, rare and occasional +compared with the cases where the same offence in the husband makes ruin of +the home. + +Then there are the cases where indolence, or selfishness, or vanity, or the +love of social excitement, in the woman, unfits her for home life. Here we +come upon ground where perhaps woman is the greater sinner. It must be +remembered, however, that against this must be balanced the neglect +produced by club-life, or by the life of society-membership, in a man. A +brilliant young married belle in London once told me that she was glad her +husband was so fond of his club, for it amused him every night while she +went to balls. "Married men do not go much into society here," she said, +"unless they are regular flirts,--which I do not think my husband would +ever be, for he is very fond of me,--so he goes every night to his club, +and gets home about the same time that I do. It is a very nice +arrangement." It is perhaps needless to add that they are long since +divorced. + +It is common to denounce club-life in our large cities as destructive of +the home. The modern club is simply a more refined substitute for the +old-fashioned tavern, and is on the whole an advance in morals as well as +manners. In our large cities a man in a certain social coterie belongs to a +club, if he can afford it, as a means of contact with his fellows, and to +have various conveniences which he cannot so economically obtain at home. A +few haunt clubs constantly; the many use them occasionally. More absorbing +than these, perhaps, are the secret societies which have so revived among +us since the war, and which consume time so fearfully. There was a case +mentioned in the newspapers lately of a man who belonged to some twenty of +these associations; and when he died, and each wished to conduct his +funeral, great was the strife! In the small city where I write there are +seventeen secret societies down in the directory, and I suppose as many +more not so conspicuous. I meet men who assure me that they habitually +attend a society meeting every evening of the week except Sunday, when +they go to church meeting. These are rarely men of leisure; they are +usually mechanics or business men of some kind, who are hard at work all +day, and never see their families except at meal-times. Their case is far +worse, so far as absence from home is concerned, than that of the +"club-men" of large cities; for these are often men of leisure, who, if +married, at least make home one of their lounging-places, which such +secret-society men do not. + +I honestly believe that this melancholy desertion of the home is largely +due to the traditional separation between the alleged spheres of the sexes. +The theory still prevails largely, that home is the peculiar province of +the woman, that she has almost no duties out of it; and hence, naturally +enough, that the husband has almost no duties in it. If he is amused there, +let him stay there; but, as it is not his recognized sphere of duty, he is +not actually violating any duty by absenting himself. This theory even +pervades our manuals of morals, of metaphysics, and of popular science; and +it is not every public teacher who has the manliness, having once stated +it, to modify his statement, as did the venerable President Hopkins of +Williams College, when lecturing the other day to the young ladies of +Vassar. + +"I would," he said, "at this point correct my teaching in 'The Law of Love' +to the effect that home is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and civil +government that of man. _I now regard the home as the joint sphere of man +and woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question as +between the two._ It is, however, to be lamented that the present agitation +concerning the rights of woman is so much a matter of 'rights' rather than +of 'duties,' as the reform of the latter would involve the former." + +If our instructors in moral philosophy will only base their theory of +ethics as broadly as this, we shall no longer need to advertise "Homes +Wanted;" for the joint efforts of men and women will soon provide them. + + + + +THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION + + +Nothing throws more light on the whole history of woman than the first +illustration in Sir John Lubbock's "Origin of Civilization." A young girl, +almost naked, is being dragged furiously along the ground by a party of +naked savages, armed literally to the teeth, while those of another band +grasp her by the arm, and almost tear her asunder in the effort to hold her +back. These last are her brothers and her friends; the others are--her +enemies? As you please to call them. They are her future husband and his +kinsmen, who have come to aid him in his wooing. + +This was the primitive rite of marriage. Vestiges of it still remain among +savage nations. And all the romance and grace of the most refined modern +marriage--the orange-blossoms, the bridal veil, the church service, the +wedding feast--these are only the "bright consummate flower" reared by +civilization from that rough seed. All the brutal encounter is softened +into this. Nothing remains of the barbarism except the one word "obey," and +even that is going. + +Now, to say that a thing is going, is to say that it will presently be +gone. To say that anything is changed, is to say that it is to change +further. If it never has been altered, perhaps it will not be; but a proved +alteration of an inch in a year opens the way to an indefinite +modification. The study of the glaciers, for instance, began with the +discovery that they had moved; and from that moment no one doubted that +they were moving all the time. + +It is the same with the position of woman. Once open your eyes to the fact +that it has changed, and who is to predict where the matter shall end? It +is sheer folly to say, "Her relative position will always be what it has +been," when one glance at Sir John Lubbock's picture shows that there is no +fixed "has been," but that her original position was long since altered and +revised. Those who still use this argument are like those who laughed at +the lines of stakes which Agassiz planted across the Aar glacier in 1840. +But the stakes settled the question, and proved the motion. _Però sim +muove_: "But it moves." + +The motion once proved, the whole range of possible progress is before us. +The amazement of that Chinese visitor in Boston, the other day, when he saw +a woman addressing a missionary meeting; the astonishment of all English +visitors when young ladies teach classes in geometry and Latin, in our high +schools; the surprise of foreigners at seeing the rough throng in the +Cooper Institute reading-room submit to the sway of one young woman with a +crochet-needle--all these simply testify to the fact that the stakes have +moved. That they have yet been carried halfway to the end, who knows? + +What a step from the horrible nuptials of those savage days to the poetic +marriage of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett--the "Sonnets from the +Portuguese" on one side, the "One Word More" on the other! But who can say +that the whole relation between man and woman reached its climax there, and +that where the past has brought changes so vast the future is to add +nothing? Who knows that, when "the world's great bridals come," people may +not look back with pity, even on this era of the Brownings? Perhaps even +Elizabeth Barrett promised to obey! + +At any rate, it is safe to say that each step concedes the probability of +another. Even from the naked barbarian to the veiled Oriental, from the +savage hut to the carefully enshrined harem, there is a step forward. One +more step in the spiral line of progress has brought us to the unveiled +face and comparatively free movements of the English or American woman. +From the kitchen to the public lecture-room, from that to the +lecture-platform, and from that again to the ballot-box,--these are far +slighter steps than those which gradually lifted the savage girl of Sir +John Lubbock's picture into the possession of the alphabet and the dignity +of a home. So easy are these future changes beside those of the past, that +to doubt their possibility is as if Agassiz, after tracing year by year the +motion of his Alpine glacier, should deny its power to move one inch +farther into the sunny valley, and there to melt harmlessly away. + + + + +THE LOW-WATER MARK + + +We constantly see it assumed, in arguments against any step in the +elevation of woman, that her position is a thing fixed permanently by +nature, so that there can be in it no great or essential change. Every +successive modification is resisted as "a reform against nature;" and this +argument from permanence is always that which appears most convincing to +conservative minds. Let us see how the facts confirm it. + +A story is going the rounds of the newspapers in regard to a Russian +peasant and his wife. For some act of disobedience the peasant took the law +into his own hands; and his mode of discipline was to tie the poor creature +naked to a post in the street, and to call on every passer-by to strike her +a blow. Not satisfied with this, he placed her on the ground, and tied +heavy weights on her limbs until one arm was broken. When finally released, +she made a complaint against him in court. The court discharged him on the +ground that he had not exceeded the legal authority of a husband. +Encouraged by this, he caused her to be arrested in return; and the same +court sentenced her to another public whipping for disobedience. + +No authority was given for this story in the newspaper where I saw it; but +it certainly did not first appear in a woman-suffrage newspaper, and +cannot therefore be a manufactured "outrage." I use it simply to illustrate +the low-water mark at which the position of woman may rest, in the largest +Christian nation of the world. All the refinements, all the education, all +the comparative justice, of modern society, have been gradually upheaved +from some such depth as this. When the gypsies described by Leland treat +even the ground trodden upon by a woman as impure, they simply illustrate +the low plane from which all the elevation of woman has begun. All these +things show that the position of that sex in society, so far from being a +thing in itself permanent, has been in reality the most changing of all +factors in the social problem. And this inevitably suggests the question, +Are we any more sure that her present position is finally and absolutely +fixed than were those who observed it at any previous time in the world's +history? Granting that her condition was once at low-water mark, who is +authorized to say that it has yet reached high tide? + +It is very possible that this Russian wife, once scourged back to +submission, ended her days in the conviction, and taught it to her +daughters, that such was a woman's rightful place. When an American woman +of to-day says, "I have all the rights I want," is she on any surer ground? +Grant that the difference is vast between the two. How do we know that even +the later condition is final, or that anything is final but entire equality +before the laws? It is not many years since William Story--in a legal work +inspired and revised by his father, the greatest of American jurists--wrote +this indignant protest against the injustice of the old common law:-- + + "In respect to the powers and rights of married women, the law is by + no means abreast of the spirit of the age. Here are seen the old + fossil footprints of feudalism. The law relating to woman tends to + make every family a barony or a monarchy, or a despotism, of which + the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the + dependent, serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact is not + due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow + limits of its rules. The progress of civilization has changed the + family from a barony to a republic; but the law has not kept pace + with the advance of ideas, manners, and customs. And, although + public opinion is a check to legal rules on the subject, the rules + are feudal and stern. Yet the position of woman throughout history + serves as the criterion of the freedom of the people or an age. When + man shall despise that right which is founded only on might, woman + will be free and stand on an equal level with him,--a friend and not + a dependent."[1] + +We know that the law is greatly changed and ameliorated in many places +since Story wrote this statement; but we also know how almost every one of +these changes was resisted: and who is authorized to say that the final and +equitable fulfilment is yet reached? + +[Footnote 1: Story's _Treatise on the Law of Contracts not under Seal_, § +84, p. 89.] + + + + +OBEY + + +After witnessing the marriage ceremony of the Episcopal Church, the other +day, I walked down the aisle with the young rector who had officiated. It +was natural to speak of the beauty of the Church service on an occasion +like that; but, after doing this, I felt compelled to protest against the +unrighteous pledge to obey. "I hope," I said, "to live to see that word +expunged from the Episcopal service, as it has been from that of the +Methodists. The Roman Catholics, you know, have never had it." + +"Why do you object?" he asked. "Is it because you know that they will not +obey?" + +"Because they ought not," I said. + +"Well," said he, after a few moments' reflection, and looking up frankly, +"I do not think they ought!" + +Here was a young clergyman of great earnestness and self-devotion, who +included it among the sacred duties of his life to impose upon ignorant +young girls a solemn obligation, which he yet thought they ought not to +incur, and did not believe that they would keep. There could hardly be a +better illustration of the confusion in the public mind, or the manner in +which "the subjection of woman" is being outgrown, or the subtile way in +which this subjection has been interwoven with sacred ties, and baptized +"duty." + +The advocates of woman suffrage are constantly reproved for using the terms +"subjection," "oppression," and "slavery," as applied to woman. They simply +commit the same sin as that committed by the original abolitionists. They +are "as harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice." Of course they talk +about oppression and emancipation. It is the word _obey_ that constitutes +the one, and shows the need of the other. Whoever is pledged to obey is +technically and literally a slave, no matter how many roses surround the +chains. All the more so if the slavery is self-imposed, and surrounded by +all the prescriptions of religion. Make the marriage tie as close as church +or state can make it; but let it be equal, impartial. That it may be so, +the word _obey_ must be abandoned or made reciprocal. Where invariable +obedience is promised, equality is gone. + +That there may be no doubt about the meaning of this word in the marriage +covenant, the usages of nations often add symbolic explanations. These are +generally simple, and brutal enough to be understood. The Hebrew ceremony, +when the bridegroom took off his slipper and struck the bride on the neck +as she crossed his threshold, was unmistakable. As my black sergeant said, +when a white prisoner questioned his authority, and he pointed to the +_chevrons_ on his sleeve, "Dat mean guv'ment." All these forms mean simply +government also. The ceremony of the slipper has now no recognition, except +when people fling an old shoe after the bride, which is held by +antiquarians to be the same observance. But it is all preserved and +concentrated into a single word, when the bride promises to obey. + +The deepest wretchedness that has ever been put into human language, or +that has exceeded it, has grown out of that pledge. There is no misery on +earth like that of a pure and refined woman who finds herself owned, body +and soul, by a drunken, licentious, brutal man. The very fact that she is +held to obedience by a spiritual tie makes it worse. Chattel slavery was +not so bad; for, though the master might pervert religion for his own +satisfaction, he could not impose upon the slave. Never yet did I see a +negro slave who thought it a duty to obey his master; and therefore there +was always some dream of release. But who has not heard of some delicate +and refined woman, one day of whose torture was equivalent to years of that +possible to an obtuse frame,--who had the door of escape ready at hand for +years, and yet died a lingering death rather than pass through it; and this +because she had promised to obey! + +It is said of one of the most gifted women who ever trod American soil,-- +she being of English birth,--that, before she obtained the divorce which +separated her from her profligate husband, she once went for counsel to the +wife of her pastor. She unrolled before her the long catalogue of merciless +outrages to which she had been subject, endangering finally her health, her +life, and that of her children born and to be born. When she turned at last +for advice to her confessor, with the agonized inquiry, "What is it my duty +to do?"--"Do?" said the stern adviser: "Lie down on the floor, and let your +husband trample on you if he will. That is a woman's duty." + +The woman who gave this advice was not naturally inhuman nor heartless: she +had simply been trained in the school of obedience. The Jesuit doctrine, +that a priest should be as a corpse, _perinde ac cadaver_, in the hands of +a superior priest, is not worse. Woman has no right to delegate, nor man to +assume, a responsibility so awful. Just in proportion as it is consistently +carried out, it trains men from boyhood into self-indulgent tyrants; and, +while some women are transformed by it to saints, others are crushed into +deceitful slaves. That this was the result of chattel slavery, this nation +has at length learned. We learn more slowly the profounder and more subtile +moral evil that follows from the unrighteous promise to obey. + + + + +WOMAN IN THE CHRYSALIS + + +When the bride receives the ring upon her finger, and utters--if she utters +it--the promise to obey, she sees a poetic beauty in the rite. Turning of +her own free will from her maiden liberty, she voluntarily takes the yoke +of service upon her. This is her view; but is this the historic fact in +regard to marriage? Not at all. The pledge of obedience--the whole theory +of inequality in marriage--is simply what is left to us of a former state +of society, in which every woman, old or young, must obey somebody. The +state of tutelage, implied in such a marriage, is merely what is left of +the old theory of the "Perpetual Tutelage of Women," under the Roman law. + +Roman law, from which our civil law is derived, has its foundation +evidently in patriarchal tradition. It recognized at first the family only, +and that family was held together by paternal power _(patria potestas)_. If +the father died, his powers passed to the son or grandson, as the possible +head of a new family; but these powers could never pass to a woman, and +every woman, of whatever age, must be under somebody's legal control. Her +father dying, she was still subject through life to her nearest male +relations, or to her father's nominees, as her guardians. She was under +perpetual guardianship, both as to person and property. No years, no +experience, could make her anything but a child before the law. + +In Oriental countries the system was still more complete. "A man," says the +Gentoo Code of Laws, "must keep his wife so much in subjection that she by +no means be mistress of her own action. If the wife have her own free will, +notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss." But +this authority, which still exists in India, is not merely conjugal. The +husband exerts it simply as being the wife's legal guardian. If the woman +be unmarried or a widow, she must be as rigorously held under some other +guardianship. It is no uncommon thing for a woman in India to be the ward +of her own son. Lucretia Mott or Florence Nightingale would there be in +personal subjection to somebody. Any man of legal age would be recognized +as a fit custodian for them, but there must be a man. + +With some variation of details at different periods, the same system +prevailed essentially at Rome, down to the time when Rome became Christian. +Those who wish for particulars will find them in an admirable chapter (the +fifth) of Maine's "Ancient Law." At one time the husband was held to +possess the _patria potestas_, or paternal power, in its full force. By law +"the woman passed _in manum viri_, that is, she became the daughter of her +husband." All she had became his, and after his death she was retained in +the same strict tutelage by any guardians his will might appoint. +Afterwards, to soften this rigid bond, the woman was regarded in law as +being temporarily deposited by her family with her husband; the family +appointed guardians over her; and thus, between the two tyrannies, she won +a sort of independence. Then came Christianity, and swept away the merely +parental authority for married women, concentrating all upon the husband. +Hence our legislation bears the mark of a double origin, and woman is half +recognized as an equal and half as a slave. + +It is necessary to remember, therefore, that all the relation of subjection +in marriage is merely the residue of an unnatural system, of which all else +is long since outgrown. It would have seemed to an ancient Roman a matter +of course that a woman should, all her life long, obey the guardians set +over her person. It still seems to many people a matter of course that she +should obey her husband. To others among us, on the contrary, both these +theories of obedience seem barbarous, and the one is merely a relic of the +other. + +We cannot disregard the history of the Theory of Tutelage. If we could +believe that a chrysalis is always a chrysalis, and a butterfly always a +butterfly, we could easily leave each to its appropriate sphere; but when +we see the chrysalis open, and the butterfly come half out of it, we know +that sooner or later it must spread wings, and fly. The theory of tutelage +implies the chrysalis. Woman is the butterfly. Sooner or later she will be +wholly out. + + + + +TWO AND TWO + + +A young man of very good brains was telling me, the other day, his dreams +of his future wife. Rattling on, more in joke than in earnest, he said, +"She must be perfectly ignorant, and a bigot: she must know nothing, and +believe everything. I should wish to have her from the adjoining room call +to me, 'My dear, what do two and two make?'" + +It did not seem to me that his demand would be so very hard to fill, since +bigotry and ignorance are to be had almost anywhere for the asking; and, as +for two and two, I should say that it had always been the habit of women to +ask that question of some man, and to rest easily satisfied with the +answer. They have generally called, as my friend wished, from some other +room, saying, "My dear, what do two and two make?" and the husband or +father or brother has answered and said, "My dear, they make four for a +man, and three for a woman." + +At any given period in the history of woman, she has adopted man's whim as +the measure of her rights; has claimed nothing; has sweetly accepted +anything; the law of two-and-two itself should be at his discretion. At any +given moment, so well was his interpretation received, that it stood for +absolute right. In Rome a woman, married or single, could not testify in +court; in the middle ages, and down to quite modern times, she could not +hold real estate; thirty years ago she could not, in New England, obtain a +collegiate education; even now she can only vote for school officers. + +The first principles of republican government are so rehearsed and +re-rehearsed, that one would think they must become "as plain as that two +and two make four." But we find throughout, that, as Emerson said of +another class of reasoners, "Their two is not the real two; their four +is not the real four." We find different numerals and diverse +arithmetical rules for the two sexes; as, in some Oriental countries, +men and women speak different dialects of the same language. + +In novels the hero often begins by dreaming, like my friend, of an ideal +wife, who shall be ignorant of everything, and have only brains enough to +be bigoted. Instead of sighing, like Falstaff, "Oh for a fine young thief, +of the age of two and twenty or thereabouts!" the hero sighs for a fine +young idiot of similar age. When the hero is successful in his search and +wooing, the novelist sometimes mercifully removes the young woman early, +like David Copperfield's Dora, she bequeathing the bereaved husband, on her +deathbed, to a woman of sense. In real life these convenient interruptions +do not commonly occur, and the foolish youth regrets through many years +that he did not select an Agnes instead. + +The acute observer Stendhal says,-- + + "In Paris, the highest praise for a marriageable girl is to say, + 'She has great sweetness of character and the disposition of a + lamb.' Nothing produces more impression on fools who are looking out + for wives. I think I see the interesting couple, two years after, + breakfasting together on a dull day, with three tall lackeys waiting + upon them!" + +And he adds, still speaking in the interest of men:-- + + "Most men have a period in their career when they might do something + great, a period when nothing seems impossible. The ignorance of + women spoils for the human race this magnificent opportunity: and + love, at the utmost, in these days, only inspires a young man to + learn to ride well, or to make a judicious selection of a + tailor."[1] + +Society, however, discovers by degrees that there are conveniences in every +woman's knowing the four rules of arithmetic for herself. Two and two come +to the same amount on a butcher's bill, whether the order be given by a man +or a woman; and it is the same in all affairs or investments, financial or +moral. We shall one day learn that with laws, customs, and public affairs +it is the same. Once get it rooted in a woman's mind, that for her, two and +two make three only, and sooner or later the accounts of the whole human +race fail to balance. + +[Footnote 1: _De L'Amour_, par de Stendhal (Henri Beyle). Paris, 1868 +[written in 1822], pp. 182, 198.] + + + + +A MODEL HOUSEHOLD + + +There is an African bird called the hornbill, whose habits are in some +respects a model. The female builds her nest in a hollow tree, lays her +eggs, and broods on them. So far, so good. Then the male feels that he must +also contribute some service; so he walls up the hole closely, giving only +room for the point of the female's bill to protrude. Until the eggs are +hatched, she is thenceforth confined to her nest, and is in the mean time +fed assiduously by her mate, who devotes himself entirely to this object. +Dr. Livingstone has seen these nests in Africa, Layard and others in Asia, +and Wallace in Sumatra. + +Personally I have never seen a hornbill's nest. The nearest approach I ever +made to it was when in Fayal I used to pass near a gloomy mansion, of which +the front windows were walled up, and only one high window was visible in +the rear, beyond the reach of eyes from any neighboring house. In this +cheerful abode, I was assured, a Portuguese lady had been for many years +confined by her jealous husband. It was long since any neighbor had caught +a glimpse of her, but it was supposed that she was alive. There is no +reason to doubt that her husband fed her well. It was simply a case of +human hornbill, with the imprisonment made perpetual. + +I have more than once asked lawyers whether, in communities where the old +common law prevailed, there was anything to prevent such an imprisonment of +a married woman; and they have always answered, "Nothing but public +opinion." Where the husband has the legal custody of the wife's person, no +_habeas corpus_ can avail against him. The hornbill household is based on a +strict application of the old common law. A Hindoo household was a hornbill +household: "a woman, of whatsoever age, should never be mistress of her own +actions," said the code of Menu. An Athenian household was a hornbill's +nest, and great was the outcry when some Aspasia broke out of it. When the +remonstrant petitions legislatures against the emancipation of woman, we +seem to hear the twittering of the hornbill mother, imploring to be left +inside. + +Under some forms, the hornbill theory becomes respectable. There are many +peaceful families, innocent though torpid, where the only dream of +existence is to have plenty of quiet, plenty of food, and plenty of +well-fed children. For them this African household is a sufficient model. +The wife is "a home body." The husband is "a good provider." These are +honest people, and have a right to speak. The hornbill theory is only +dishonest when it comes--as it often comes--from women who lead the +life, not of good stay-at-home fowls, but of paroquets and +hummingbirds,--who sorrowfully bemoan the active habits of enlightened +women, while they themselves + + "Bear about the mockery of woe + To midnight dances and the public show." + +It is from these women, in Washington, New York, and elsewhere, that the +loudest appeal for the hornbill standard of domesticity proceeds. Put them +to the test, and give them their chicken-salad and champagne through a hole +in the wall only, and see how they like it. + +But even the most honest and peaceful conservatives will one day admit that +the hornbill is not the highest model. Plato thought that "the soul of our +grandame might haply inhabit the body of a bird;" but Nature has kindly +provided various types of bird-households to suit all varieties of taste. +The bright orioles, filling the summer boughs with color and with song, are +as truly domestic in the freedom of their airy nest as the poor hornbills +who ignorantly make home into a dungeon. And certainly each new generation +of orioles, spreading free wings from that pendent cradle, affords a +happier illustration of judicious nurture than is to be found in the +uncouth little offspring of the hornbills, which Wallace describes as "so +flabby and semi-transparent as to resemble a bladder of jelly, furnished +with head, legs, and rudimentary wings, but with not a sign of a feather, +except a few lines of points indicating where they would come." + + + + +A SAFEGUARD FOR THE FAMILY + + +Many German-Americans are warm friends of woman suffrage; but the editors +of "Puck," it seems, are not. In a certain number of that comic journal, +there was an unfavorable cartoon on this reform; and in a following +number,--the number, by the way, which contains that amusing illustration +of the vast seaside hotels of the future, with the cheering announcement, +"Only one mile to the barber's shop," and "Take the cars to the +dining-room,"--a lady came to the rescue, and bravely defended woman +suffrage. It seems that the original cartoon depicted in the corner a +pretty family scene, representing father, mother, and children seated +happily together, with the melancholy motto, "Nevermore, nevermore!" +And when the correspondent, Mrs. Blake, very naturally asks what this +touching picture has to do with woman suffrage, Puck says, "If the +husband in our 'pretty family scene' should propose to vote for the +candidate who was obnoxious to his wife, would this 'pretty family +scene' continue to be a domestic paradise, or would it remind the +spectator of the region in which Dante spent his 'fortnight off'?" + +It is beautiful to see how much anxiety there is to preserve the family. +Every step in the modification of the old common law, whereby the wife was, +in Baron Alderson's phrase, "the servant of her husband," was resisted as +tending to endanger the family. The proposal that the wife should control +her own earnings, so that her husband should not have the right to collect +them in order to pay his gambling debts, was declared by English advocates, +in the celebrated case of the Hon. Mrs. Norton, the poetess, to imperil all +the future peace of British households. + +Even the liberal-minded "Punch," about the time Girton College was founded +in England, expressed grave doubts whether the harmony of wedded unions +would not receive a blow, from the time when wives should be liable to know +more Greek than their husbands. Yet the marriage relation has withstood +these innovations. It has not been impaired, either by separate rights, +private earnings, or independent Greek: can it be possible that a little +voting will overthrow it? + +The very ground on which woman suffrage is opposed by its enemies might +assuage these fears. If, as we are told, women will not take the pains to +vote except upon the strongest inducements, who has so good an opportunity +as the husband to bring those inducements to bear? and, if so, what is the +separation? Or if, as we are told, women will merely reflect their +husbands' political opinions, why should they dispute about them? The mere +suggestion of a difference deep enough to quarrel for, implies a real +difference of convictions or interests, and indicates that there ought to +be an independent representation of each; unless we fall back, once for +all, on the common-law tradition that man and wife are one, and that one is +the husband. Either the antagonisms which occur in politics are +comparatively superficial, in which case they would do no harm; or else +they touch matters of real interest and principle, in which case every +human being has a right to independent expression, even at a good deal of +risk. In either case, the objection falls to the ground. + +We have fortunately a means of testing, with some fairness of estimate, the +probable amount of this peril. It is generally admitted--and certainly no +German-American will deny--that the most fruitful sources of hostility and +war in all times have been religious, not political. All merely political +antagonism, certainly all which is possible in a republic, fades into +insignificance before this more powerful dividing influence. Yet we leave +all this great explosive force in unimpeded operation,--at any +moment it may be set in action, in any one of those "pretty family scenes" +which "Puck" depicts,--while we are solemnly warned against admitting the +comparatively mild peril of a political difference! It is like cautioning a +manufacturer of dynamite against the danger of meddling with mere +edge-tools. Even with all the intensity of feeling on religious matters, +few families are seriously divided by them; and the influence of political +differences would be still more insignificant. + +The simple fact is that there is no better basis for union than mutual +respect for each other's opinions; and this can never be obtained +without an intelligent independence, "I would rather have a thorn in my +side than an echo," said Emerson of friendship; and the same is true of +married life. It is the echoes, the nonentities, of whom men grow tired; it +is the women with some flavor of individuality who keep the hearts of their +husbands. This is only applying in a higher sense what Shakespeare's +Cleopatra saw. When her handmaidens are questioning how to hold a lover, +and one says,-- + + "Give way to him in all: cross him in nothing,"-- + +Cleopatra, from the depth of an unequalled experience, retorts,-- + + "Thou speakest like a fool: the way to lose him!" + +And what "the serpent of old Nile" said, the wives of the future, who are +to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, may well ponder. It takes two +things different to make a union; and part of that difference may as well +lie in matters political as anywhere else. + + + + +WOMEN AS ECONOMISTS + + +An able lawyer of Boston, arguing the other day before a legislative +committee in favor of giving to the city council a check upon the +expenditures of the school committee, gave as one reason that this body +would probably include more women henceforward, and that women were +ordinarily more lavish than men in their use of money. The truth of this +assumption was questioned at the time; and, the more I think of it, the +more contrary it is to my whole experience. I should say that women, from +the very habit of their lives, are led to be more particular about details, +and more careful as to small economies. The very fact that they handle less +money tends to this. When they are told to spend money, as they often are +by loving or ambitious husbands, they no doubt do it freely: they have +naturally more taste than men, and quite as much love of luxury. In some +instances in this country they spend money recklessly and wickedly, like +the heroines of French novels; but as, even in brilliant Paris, the women +of the middle classes are notoriously better managers than the men, so we +often see, in our scheming America, the same relative superiority. Often +have I heard young men say, "I never knew how to economize until after my +marriage;" and who has not seen multitudes of instances where women +accustomed to luxury have accepted poverty without a murmur for the sake of +those whom they loved? + +I remember a young girl, accustomed to the gayest society of New York, who +engaged herself to a young naval officer, against the advice of the friends +of both. One of her near relatives said to me, "Of all the young girls I +have ever known, she is the least fitted for a poor man's wife." Yet from +the very moment of her marriage she brought their joint expenses within his +scanty pay, and even saved a little money from it. Everybody knows such +instances. We hear men denounce the extravagance of women, while those very +men spend on wine and cigars, on clubs and horses, twice what their wives +spend on their toilet. If the wives are economical, the husbands perhaps +urge them on to greater lavishness. "Why do you not dress like Mrs. +So-and-so?"--"I can't afford it."--"But _I_ can afford it;" and then, when +the bills come in, the talk of extravagance recommences. At one time in +Newport, that lady among the summer visitors who was reported to be Worth's +best customer was also well known to be quite indifferent to society, and +to go into it mainly to please her husband, whose social ambition was +notorious. + +It has often happened to me to serve in organizations where both sexes were +represented, and where expenditures were to be made for business or +pleasure. In these I have found, as a rule, that the women were more +careful, or perhaps I should say more timid, than the men, less willing to +risk anything: the bolder financial experiments came from the men, as one +might expect. In talking the other day with the secretary of an important +educational enterprise, conducted by women, I was surprised to find that it +was cramped for money, though large subscriptions were said to have been +made to it. On inquiry it appeared that these ladies, having pledged +themselves for four years, had divided the amount received into four parts, +and were resolutely limiting themselves, for the first year, to one quarter +part of what had been subscribed. No board of men would have done so. Any +board of men would have allowed far more than a quarter of the sum for the +first year's expenditures, justly reasoning that if the enterprise began +well it would command public confidence, and bring in additional +subscriptions as time went on. I would appeal to any one whose experience +has been in joint associations of men and women, whether this is not a fair +statement of the difference between their ways of working. It does not +prove that women are more honest than men, but that their education or +their nature makes them more cautious in expenditure. + +The habits of society make the dress of a fashionable woman far more +expensive than that of a man of fashion. Formerly it was not so; and, so +long as it was not so, the extravagance of men in this respect quite +equalled that of women. It now takes other forms, but the habit is the +same. The waiters at any fashionable restaurant will tell you that what is +a cheap dinner for a man would be a dear dinner for a woman. Yet after all, +the test is not in any particular class of expenditures, but in the +business-like habit. Men are of course more business-like in large +combinations, for they are more used to them; but for the small details of +daily economy women are more watchful. The cases where women ruin their +husbands by extravagance are exceptional. As a rule, the men are the +bread-winners; but the careful saving and managing and contriving come +from the women. + + + + +GREATER INCLUDES LESS + + +I was once at a little musical party in New York, where several +accomplished amateur singers were present, and with them the eminent +professional, Miss Adelaide Phillipps. The amateurs were first called on. +Each chose some difficult operatic passage, and sang her best. When it came +to the great opera-singer's turn, instead of exhibiting her ability to +eclipse those rivals on her own ground, she simply seated herself at the +piano, and sang "Kathleen Mavourneen" with such thrilling sweetness that +the young Irish girl who was setting the supper-table in the next room +forgot all her plates and teaspoons, threw herself into a chair, put her +apron over her face, and sobbed as if her heart would break. All the +training of Adelaide Phillipps--her magnificent voice, her stage +experience, her skill in effects, her power of expression--went into the +performance of that simple song. The greater included the less. And thus +all the intellectual and practical training that any woman can have, all +her public action and her active career, will make her, if she be a true +woman, more admirable as a wife, a mother, and a friend. The greater +includes the less for her also. + +Of course this is a statement of general facts and tendencies. There must +be among women, as among men, an endless variety of individual +temperaments. There will always be plenty whose career will illustrate the +infirmities of genius, and whom no training can convince that two and two +make four. But the general fact is sure. As no sensible man would seriously +prefer for a wife a Hindoo or Tahitian woman rather than one bred in +England or America, so every further advantage of education or opportunity +will only improve, not impair, the true womanly type. + +Lucy Stone once said, "Woman's nature was stamped and sealed by the +Almighty, and there is no danger of her unsexing herself while his eye +watches her." Margaret Fuller said, "One hour of love will teach a woman +more of her true relations than all your philosophizing." These were the +testimony of women who had studied Greek, and were only the more womanly +for the study. They are worth the opinions of a million half-developed +beings like the Duchess de Fontanges, who was described as being "as +beautiful as an angel and as silly as a goose." The greater includes the +less. Your view from the mountain-side may be very pretty, but she who has +taken one step higher commands your view and her own also. It was no dreamy +recluse, but the accomplished and experienced Stendhal, who wrote, "The +joys of the gay world do not count for much with happy women."[1] + +If a highly educated man is incapable and unpractical, we do not say that +he is educated too well, but not well enough. He ought to know what he +knows, and other things also. Never yet did I see a woman too well educated +to be a wife and a mother; but I know multitudes who deplore, or have +reason to deplore, every day of their lives, the untrained and unfurnished +minds that are so ill-prepared for these sacred duties. Every step towards +equalizing the opportunities of men and women meets with resistance, of +course; but every step, as it is accomplished, leaves men still men, and +women still women. And as we who heard Adelaide Phillipps felt that she had +never had a better tribute to her musical genius than this young Irish +girl's tears, so the true woman will feel that all her college training for +instance, if she has it, may have been well invested, even for the sake of +the baby on her knee. And it is to be remembered, after all, that each +human being lives to unfold his or her own powers, and do his or her own +duties first, and that neither woman nor man has the right to accept a +merely secondary and subordinate life. A noble woman must be a noble human +being; and the most sacred special duties, as of wife or mother, are all +included in this, as the greater includes the less. + +[Footnote 1: _De l'Amour_, par de Stendhal (Henri Beyle): "Les plaisirs du +grand monde n'en sont pas pour les femmes heureuses," p. 189.] + + + + +A COPARTNERSHIP + + +Marriage, considered merely in its financial and business relations, may be +regarded as a permanent copartnership. + +Now, in an ordinary copartnership there is very often a complete division +of labor among the partners. If they manufacture locomotive-engines, for +instance, one partner perhaps superintends the works, another attends to +mechanical inventions and improvements, another travels for orders, another +conducts the correspondence, another receives and pays out the money. The +latter is not necessarily the head of the firm. Perhaps his place could be +more easily filled than some of the other posts. Nevertheless, more money +passes through his hands than through those of all the others put together. +Now, should he, at the year's end, call together the inventor and the +superintendent and the traveller and the correspondent, and say to them, +"I have earned all this money this year, but I will generously give you +some of it,"--he would be considered simply impertinent, and would hardly +have a chance to repeat the offence the year after. + +Yet precisely what would be called folly in this business partnership is +constantly done by men in the copartnership of marriage, and is there +called "common sense" and "social science" and "political economy." + +For instance, a farmer works himself half to death in the hayfield, and his +wife meanwhile is working herself wholly to death in the dairy. The +neighbors come in to sympathize after her demise; and during the few +months' interval before his second marriage they say approvingly, "He was +always a generous man to his folks! He was a good provider!" But where was +the room for generosity, any more than the member of any other firm is to +be called generous, when he keeps the books, receipts the bills, and +divides the money? + +In case of the farming business, the share of the wife is so direct and +unmistakable that it can hardly be evaded. If anything is earned by the +farm, she does her distinct and important share of the earning. But it is +not necessary that she should do even that, to make her, by all the rules +of justice, an equal partner, entitled to her full share of the financial +proceeds. + +Let us suppose an ordinary case. Two young people are married, and begin +life together. Let us suppose them equally poor, equally capable, equally +conscientious, equally healthy. They have children. Those children must be +supported by the earning of money abroad, by attendance and care at home. +If it requires patience and labor to do the outside work, no less is +required inside. The duties of the household are as hard as the duties of +the shop or office. If the wife took her husband's work for a day, she +would probably be glad to return to her own. So would the husband if he +undertook hers. Their duties are ordinarily as distinct and as equal as +those of two partners in any other copartnership. It so happens that the +outdoor partner has the handling of the money; but does that give him a +right to claim it as his exclusive earnings? No more than in any other +business operation. + +He earned the money for the children and the household. She disbursed it +for the children and the household. The very laws of nature, by giving her +the children to bear and rear, absolve her from the duty of their support, +so long as he is alive who was left free by nature for that purpose. Her +task on the average is as hard as his: nay, a portion of it is so +especially hard that it is distinguished from all others by the name +"labor." If it does not earn money, it is because it is not to be measured +in money, while it exists,--nor to be replaced by money, if lost. If a +business man loses his partner, he can obtain another: and a man, no doubt, +may take a second wife; but he cannot procure for his children a second +mother. Indeed, it is a palpable insult to the whole relation of husband +and wife when one compares it, even in a financial light, to that of +business partners. It is only because a constant effort is made to degrade +the practical position of woman below even this standard of comparison, +that it becomes her duty to claim for herself at least as much as this. + +There was a tradition in a town where I once lived, that a certain Quaker, +who had married a fortune, was once heard to repel his wife, who had asked +him for money in a public place, with the response, "Rachel, where is that +ninepence I gave thee yesterday?" When I read in "Scribner's Monthly" an +article deriding the right to representation of the Massachusetts women who +pay two millions of tax on one hundred and thirty-two million dollars of +property,--asserting that they produced nothing of it; that it was only +"men who produced this wealth, and bestowed it upon these women;" that it +was "all drawn from land and sea by the hands of men whose largess +testifies alike of their love and their munificence,"--I must say that I am +reminded of Rachel's ninepence. + + + + +ONE RESPONSIBLE HEAD + + +When we look through any business directory, there seem to be almost as +many copartnerships as single dealers; and three quarters of these +copartnerships appear to consist of precisely two persons, no more, no +less. These partners are, in the eye of the law, equal. It is not found +necessary, under the law, to make a general provision that in each case one +partner should be supreme and the other subordinate. In many cases, by the +terms of the copartnership there are limitations on one side and special +privileges on the other,--marriage settlements, as it were; but the general +law of copartnership is based on the presumption of equality. It would be +considered infinitely absurd to require that, as the general rule, one +party or the other should be in a state of _coverture_, during which the +very being and existence of the one should be suspended, or entirely merged +and incorporated into that of the other. + +And yet this requirement, which would be an admitted absurdity in the case +of two business partners, is precisely that which the English common law +still lays down in case of husband and wife. The words which I employed to +describe it, in the preceding sentence, are the very phrases in which +Blackstone describes the legal position of women. And though the English +common law has been, in this respect, greatly modified and superseded by +statute law; yet, when it comes to an argument on woman suffrage, it is +constantly this same tradition to which men and even women habitually +appeal,--the necessity of a single head to the domestic partnership, and +the necessity that the husband should be that head. This is especially +true of English men and women; but it is true of Americans as well. +Nobody has stated it more tersely than Fitzjames Stephen, in his "Liberty, +Equality, and Fraternity" (p. 216), when arguing against Mr. Mill's view +of the equality of the sexes. + + "Marriage is a contract, one of the principal objects in which is + the government of a family. + + "This government must be vested, either by law or by contract, in + the hands of one of the two married persons." + +[Then follow some collateral points, not bearing on the present question.] + + "Therefore if marriage is to be permanent, the government of the + family must be put by law and by morals into the hands of the + husband, for no one proposes to give it to the wife." + +This argument he calls "as clear as that of a proposition in Euclid." He +thinks that the business of life can be carried on by no other method. How +is it, then, that when we come to what is called technically and especially +the "business" of every day, this whole fine-spun theory is disregarded, +and men come together in partnership on the basis of equality? + +Nobody is farther than I from regarding marriage as a mere business +partnership. But it is to be observed that the points wherein it differs +from a merely mercantile connection are points that should make equality +more easy, not more difficult. The tie between two ordinary business +partners is merely one of interest: it is based on no sentiments, sealed by +no solemn pledge, enriched by no home associations, cemented by no new +generation of young life. If a relation like this is found to work well on +terms of equality,--so well that a large part of the business of the world +is done by it,--is it not absurd to suppose that the same equal relation +cannot exist in the married partnership of husband and wife? And if law, +custom, society, all recognize this fact of equality in the one case, why, +in the name of common-sense, should they not equally recognize it in the +other? + +And, again, it may often be far easier to assign a sphere to each partner +in marriage than in business; and therefore the double headship of a family +will involve less need of collision. In nine cases out of ten, the external +support of the family will devolve upon the husband, unquestioned by the +wife; and its internal economy upon the wife, unquestioned by the husband. +No voluntary distribution of powers and duties between business partners +can work so naturally, on the whole, as this simple and easy demarcation, +with which the claim of suffrage makes no necessary interference. It may +require angry discussion to decide which of two business partners shall +buy, and which shall sell; which shall keep the books, and which do the +active work, and so on; but all this is usually settled in married life by +the natural order of things. Even in regard to the management of children, +where collision is likely to come, if anywhere, it can commonly be settled +by that happy formula of Jean Paul's, that the mother usually supplies the +commas and the semicolons in the child's book of life, and the father the +colons and periods. And as to matters in general, the simple and practical +rule, that each question that arises should be decided by that partner who +has personally most at stake in it, will, in ninety-nine times out of a +hundred, carry the domestic partnership through without shipwreck. Those +who cannot meet the hundredth case by mutual forbearance are in a condition +of shipwreck already. + + + + +ASKING FOR MONEY + + +One of the very best wives and mothers I have ever known once said to me, +that, whenever her daughters should be married, she should stipulate in +their behalf with their husbands for a regular sum of money to be paid +them, at certain intervals, for their personal expenditures. Whether this +sum was to be larger or smaller, was a matter of secondary importance,-- +that must depend on the income, and the style of living; but the essential +thing was, that it should come to the wife regularly, so that she should no +more have to make a special request for it than her husband would have to +ask her for a dinner. This lady's own husband was, as I happened to know, +of a most generous disposition, was devotedly attached to her, and denied +her nothing. She herself was a most accurate and careful manager. There was +everything in the household to make the financial arrangements flow +smoothly. Yet she said to me, "I suppose no man can possibly understand how +a sensitive woman shrinks from _asking_ for money. If I can prevent it, my +daughters shall never have to ask for it. If they do their duty as wives +and mothers they have a right to their share of the joint income, within +reasonable limits; for certainly no money could buy the services they +render. Moreover, they have a right to a share in determining what those +reasonable limits are." + +Now, it so happened that I had myself gone through an experience which +enabled me perfectly to comprehend this feeling. In early life I was for a +time in the employ of one of my relatives, who paid me a fair salary but at +no definite periods: I was at liberty to ask him for money up to a certain +amount whenever I needed it. This seemed to me, in advance, a most +agreeable arrangement; but I found it quite otherwise. It proved to be very +disagreeable to apply for money: it made every dollar seem a special favor; +it brought up all kinds of misgivings, as to whether he could spare it +without inconvenience, whether he really thought my services worth it, and +so on. My employer was a thoroughly upright and noble man, and I was much +attached to him. I do not know that he ever refused or demurred when I made +my request. The annoyance was simply in the process of asking; and this +became so great, that I often underwent serious inconvenience rather than +do it. Finally, at the year's end, I surprised my relative very much by +saying that I would accept, if necessary, a lower salary, on condition that +it should be paid on regular days, and as a matter of business. The wish +was at once granted, without the reduction; and he probably never knew what +a relief it was to me. + +Now, if a young man is liable to feel this pride and reluctance toward an +employer, even when a kinsman, it is easy to understand how many women may +feel the same, even in regard to a husband. And I fancy that those who feel +it most are often the most conscientious and high-minded women. It is +unreasonable to say of such persons, "Too sensitive! Too fastidious!" For +it is just this quality of finer sensitiveness which men affect to prize in +a woman, and wish to protect at all hazards. The very fact that a husband +is generous; the very fact that his income is limited,--these may bring in +conscience and gratitude to increase the restraining influence of pride, +and make the wife less willing to ask money of such a husband than if he +were a rich man or a mean one. The only dignified position in which a man +can place his wife is to treat her at least as well as he would treat a +housekeeper, and give her the comfort of a perfectly clear and definite +arrangement as to money matters. She will not then be under the necessity +of nerving herself to solicit from him as a favor what she really needs and +has a right to spend. Nor will she be torturing herself, on the other side, +with the secret fear lest she has asked too much and more than +they can really spare. She will, in short, be in the position of a woman +and a wife, not of a child or a toy. + +I have carefully avoided using the word "allowance" in what has been said, +because that word seems to imply the untrue and mean assumption that the +money is all the husband's to give or withhold as he will. Yet I have heard +this sort of phrase from men who were living on a wife's property or a +wife's earnings; from men who nominally kept boarding-houses, working a +little, while their wives worked hard,--or from farmers, who worked hard, +and made their wives work harder. Even in cases where the wife has no +direct part in the money-making, the indirect part she performs, if she +takes faithful charge of her household, is so essential, so beyond all +compensation in money, that it is an utter shame and impertinence in the +husband when he speaks of "giving" money to his wife as if it were an act +of favor. It is no more an act of favor than when the business manager of a +firm pays out money to the unseen partner who directs the indoor business +or runs the machinery. Be the joint income more or less, the wife has a +claim to her honorable share, and that as a matter of right, without the +daily ignominy of sending in a petition for it. + + + + + +WOMANHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD + + +I always groan in spirit when any advocate of woman suffrage, carried away +by zeal, says anything disrespectful about the nursery. It is contrary to +the general tone of feeling among reformers, I am sure, to speak of this +priceless institution as a trivial or degrading sphere, unworthy the +emancipated woman. It is rarely that anybody speaks in this way; but a +single such utterance hinders progress more than any arguments of the +enemy. For every thoughtful person sees that the cares of motherhood, +though not the whole duty of woman, are an essential part of that duty, +wherever they occur; and that no theory of womanly life is good for +anything which undertakes to leave out the cradle. Even her school +education is based on this fact, were it only on Stendhal's theory that the +sons of a woman who reads Gibbon and Schiller will be more likely to show +talent than those of one who only tells her beads and reads Mme. de Genlis. +And so clearly is this understood among us, that, when we ask for suffrage +for woman, it is almost always claimed that she needs it for the sake of +her children. To secure her in her right to them; to give her a voice in +their education; to give her a vote in the government beneath which they +are to live,--these points are seldom omitted in our statement of her +claims. Anything else would be an error. + +But there is an error at the other extreme, which is still greater. A woman +should no more merge herself in her child than in her husband. Yet we often +hear that she should do just this. What is all the public sphere of woman, +it is said,--what good can she do by all her speaking and writing and +action,--compared with that she does by properly training the soul of one +child? It is not easy to see the logic of this claim. + +For what service is that child to render in the universe, except that he, +too, may write and speak and act for that which is good and true? And if +the mother foregoes all this that the child, in growing up, may simply do +what the mother has left undone, the world gains nothing. In sacrificing +her own work to her child's, moreover, she exchanges a present good for a +prospective and merely possible one. If she does this through overwhelming +love, we can hardly blame her; but she cannot justify it before reason and +truth. Her child may die, and the service to mankind be done by neither. +Her child may grow up with talents unlike hers, or with none at all; as the +son of Howard was selfish, the son of Chesterfield a boor, and the son of +Wordsworth in the last degree prosaic. + +Or the special occasion when she might have done great good may have passed +before her boy or girl grows up to do it. If Mrs. Child had refused to +write "An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans," or Mrs. +Stowe had laid aside "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or Florence Nightingale had +declined to go to the Crimea, on the ground that a woman's true work was +through the nursery, and they must all wait for that, the consequence would +be that these things would have remained undone. The brave acts of the +world must be performed _when occasion offers, by the first brave soul_ who +feels moved to do them, man or woman. + +If all the children in all the nurseries are thereby helped to do other +brave deeds when their turn comes, so much the better. But when a great +opportunity offers for direct aid to the world, we have no right to +transfer that work to other hands--not even to the hands of our own +children. We must do the work, and train the children besides. + +I am willing to admit, therefore, that the work of education, in any form, +is as great as any other work; but I fail to see why it should be greater. +Usefulness is usefulness: there is no reason why it should be postponed +from generation to generation, or why it is better to rear a serviceable +human being than to be one in person. Carry the theory consistently out: if +each mother must simply rear her daughter that she in turn may rear +somebody else, then from each generation the work will devolve upon a +succeeding generation, so that it will be only the last woman who will +personally do any service, except that of motherhood; and when her time +comes it will be too late for any service at all. + +If it be said, "But some of these children will be men, who are necessarily +of more use than women," I deny the necessity. If it be said, "The children +may be many, and the mother, who is but one, may well be sacrificed," it +might be replied that, as one great act may be worth many smaller ones, so +all the numerous children and grandchildren of a woman like Lucretia Mott +may not collectively equal the usefulness of herself alone. If she, like +many women, had held it her duty to renounce all other duties and interests +from the time her motherhood began, I think that the world, and even her +children, would have lost more than could ever have been gained by her more +complete absorption in the nursery. + +The true theory seems a very simple one. The very fact that during one half +the years of a woman's average life she is made incapable of child-bearing +shows that there are, even for the most prolific and devoted mothers, +duties other than the maternal. Even during the most absorbing years of +motherhood, the wisest women still try to keep up their interest in +society, in literature, in the world's affairs--were it only for their +children's sake. Multitudes of women will never be mothers; and those more +fortunate may find even the usefulness of their motherhood surpassed by +what they do in other ways. If maternal duties interfere in some degree +with all other functions, the same is true, though in a far less degree, +of those of a father. But there are those who combine both spheres. The +German poet Wieland claimed to be the parent of fourteen children and +forty books; and who knows by which parentage he served the world the +best? + + + + +A GERMAN POINT OF VIEW + + +Many Americans will remember the favorable impression made by Professor +Christlieb of Germany, when he attended the meeting of the Evangelical +Alliance in New York some years ago. His writings, like his presence, show +a most liberal spirit; and perhaps no man has ever presented the more +advanced evangelical theology of Germany in so attractive a light. Yet I +heard a story of him the other day, which either showed him in an aspect +quite undesirable, or else gave an unpleasant view of the social position +of women in Germany. + +The story was to the effect that a young American student recently called +on Professor Christlieb with a letter of introduction. The professor +received him cordially, and soon entered into conversation about the United +States. He praised the natural features of the country, and the +enterprising spirit of our citizens, but expressed much solicitude about +the future of the nation. On being asked his reasons, he frankly expressed +his opinion that "the Spirit of Christ" was not here. Being still further +pressed to illustrate his meaning, he gave, as instances of this +deficiency, not the Crédit Mobilier or the Tweed scandal, but such alarming +facts as the following. He seriously declared that, on more than one +occasion, he had heard an American married woman say to her husband, "Dear, +will you bring me my shawl?" and the husband had brought it. He further had +seen a husband return home at evening, and enter the parlor where his wife +was sitting,--perhaps in the very best chair in the room,--and the wife +not only did not go and get his dressing-gown and slippers, but she even +remained seated, and left him to find a chair as he could. These things, +as Professor Christlieb pointed out, suggested a serious deficiency of the +spirit of Christ in the community. + +With our American habits and interpretations, it is hard to see this matter +just as the professor sees it. One would suppose that, if there is any +meaning in the command, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the +law of Christ," a little of such fulfilling might sometimes be good for the +husband, as for the wife. And though it would undoubtedly be more pleasing +to see every wife so eager to receive her husband that she would naturally +spring from her chair and run to kiss him in the doorway, yet, where such +devotion was wanting, it would be but fair to inquire which of the two had +done the more fatiguing day's work, and to whom the easy-chair justly +belonged. The truth is, I suppose, that the good professor's remark +indicated simply a "survival" in his mind, or in his social circle, of a +barbarous tradition, under which the wife of a Mexican herdsman cannot eat +at the table with her "lord and master," and the wife of a German professor +must vacate the best armchair at his approach. + +If so, it is not to be regretted that we in this country have outgrown a +relation so unequal. Nor am I at all afraid that the great Teacher, who, +pointing to the multitude for whom he was soon to die, said of them, +"Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sister +and my mother," would have objected to any mutual and equal service between +man and woman. If we assume that two human beings have immortal souls, +there can be no want of dignity to either in serving the other. The greater +equality of woman in America seems to be, on this reasoning, a proof of the +presence not the absence, of the spirit of Christ; nor does Dr. Christlieb +seem quite worthy of the beautiful name he bears, if he feels otherwise. + +But if it is really true that a German professor has to cross the Atlantic +to witness a phenomenon so very simple as that of a lover-like husband +bringing a shawl for his wife, I should say, Let the immigration from +Germany be encouraged as much as possible, in order that even the most +learned immigrants may discover something new. + + + + +CHILDLESS WOMEN + + +It has not always been regarded as a thing creditable to woman that she was +the mother of the human race. On the contrary, the fact was often +mentioned, in the Middle Ages, as a distinct proof of inferiority. The +question was discussed in the mediæval Council of Maçon, and the position +taken that woman was no more entitled to rank as human, because she brought +forth men, than the garden-earth could take rank with the fruit and flowers +it bore. The same view was revived by a Latin writer of 1595, on the thesis +"_Mulieres non homines esse_," a French translation of which essay was +printed under the title of "_Paradoxe sur les femmes_," in 1766. Napoleon +Bonaparte used the same image, carrying it almost as far:-- + +"Woman is given to man that she may bear children. Woman is our property; +we are not hers: because she produces children for us; we do not yield any +to her: she is therefore our possession, as the fruit-tree is that of the +gardener." + +Even the fact of parentage, therefore, has been adroitly converted into a +ground of inferiority for women; and this is ostensibly the reason why +lineage has been reckoned, almost everywhere, through the male line only, +ignoring the female; just as, in tracing the seed of some rare fruit, the +gardener takes no genealogical account of the garden where it grew. This +view is now seldom expressed in full force: but one remnant of it is to be +found in the lingering impression, that, at any rate, a woman who is not +a mother is of no account; as worthless as a fruitless garden or a barren +fruit-tree. Created only for a certain object, she is of course valueless +unless that object be fulfilled. + +But the race must have fathers as well as mothers; and if we look for +evidence of public service in great men, it certainly does not always lie +in leaving children to the republic. On the contrary, the rule has rather +seemed to be, that the most eminent men have left their bequest of service +in any form rather than in that of a great family. Recent inquiries into +the matter have brought out some remarkable facts in this regard. + +As a rule, there exist no living descendants in the male line from the +great authors, artists, statesmen, soldiers, of England. It is stated that +there is not one such descendant of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Butler, +Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, or Moore; not one of Drake, +Cromwell, Monk, Marlborough, Peterborough, or Nelson; not one of Strafford, +Ormond, or Clarendon; not one of Addison, Swift, or Johnson; not one of +Walpole, Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Grattan, or Canning; not +one of Bacon, Locke, Newton, or Davy; not one of Hume, Gibbon, or Macaulay; +not one of Hogarth or Reynolds; not one of Garrick, John Kemble, or Edmund +Kean. It would be easy to make a similar American list, beginning with +Washington, of whom it was said that "Providence made him childless that +his country might call him Father." + +Now, however we may regret that these great men have left little or no +posterity, it does not occur to any one as affording any serious drawback +upon their service to their nation. Certainly it does not occur to us that +they would have been more useful had they left children to the world, but +rendered it no other service. Lord Bacon says that "he that hath wife and +children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great +enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of +greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or +childless men; which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed +the public." And this is the view generally accepted,--that the public is +in such cases rather the gainer than the loser, and has no right to +complain. + +Since, therefore, every child must have a father and a mother both, and +neither will alone suffice, why should we thus heap gratitude on men who +from preference or from necessity have remained childless, and yet +habitually treat women as if they could render no service to their country +except by giving it children? If it be folly and shame, as I think, to +belittle and decry the dignity and worth of motherhood, as some are said to +do, it is no less folly, and shame quite as great, to deny the grand and +patriotic service of many women who have died and left no children among +their mourners. Plato puts into the mouth of a woman,--the eloquent +Diotima, in the "Banquet,"--that, after all, we are more grateful to Homer +and Hesiod for the children of their brain than if they had left human +offspring. + + + + +THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO MOTHERS + + +From the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals we have now +advanced to a similar society for the benefit of children. When shall we +have a movement for the prevention of cruelty to mothers? + +A Rhode Island lady, who had never taken any interest in the woman-suffrage +movement, came to me in great indignation the other day, asking if it was +true that under Rhode Island laws a husband might, by his last will, +bequeath his child away from its mother, so that she might, if the guardian +chose, never see it again. I said that it was undoubtedly true, and that +such were still the laws in many States of the Union. + +"But," she said, "it is an outrage. The husband may have been one of the +weakest or worst men in the world; he may have persecuted his wife and +children; he may have made the will in a moment of anger, and have +neglected to alter it. At any rate, he is dead, and the mother is living. +The guardian whom he appoints may turn out a very malicious man, and may +take pleasure in torturing the mother; or he may bring up the children in a +way their mother thinks ruinous for them. Why do not all the mothers cry +out against such a law?" + +"I wish they would," I said. "I have been trying a good many years to make +them understand what the law is; but they do not. People who do not vote +pay no attention to the laws until they suffer from them." + +She went away protesting that she, at least, would not hold her tongue on +the subject, and I hope she will not. The actual text of the law to which +she objected is as follows:-- + + "Every person authorized by law to make a will, except married + women, shall have a right to appoint by his will a guardian or + guardians for his children during their minority."[1] + +There is not associated with this, in the statute, the slightest clause in +favor of the mother; nor anything which could limit the power of the +guardian by requiring deference to her wishes, although he could, in case +of gross neglect or abuse, be removed by the court, and another guardian +appointed. There is not a line of positive law to protect the mother. Now, +in a case of absolute wrong, a single sentence of law is worth all the +chivalrous courtesy this side of the Middle Ages. + +It is idle to say that such laws are not executed. They are executed. I +have had letters, too agonizing to print, expressing the sufferings of +mothers under laws like these. There lies before me a letter,--not from +Rhode Island,--written by a widowed mother who suffers daily tortures, even +while in possession of her child, at the knowledge that it is not legally +hers, but held only by the temporary permission of the guardian appointed +under her husband's will. + +"I beg you," she says, "to take this will to the hilltop, and urge +law-makers in our next legislature to free the State record from the +shameful story that no mother can control her child unless it is born out +of wedlock." + +"From the moment," she says, "when the will was read to me, I have made no +effort to set it aside. I wait till God reveals his plans, so far as my own +condition is concerned. But out of my keen comprehension of this great +wrong, notwithstanding my submission for myself, my whole soul is +stirred,--for my child, who is a little woman; for all women, that the laws +may be changed which subject a true woman, a devoted wife, a faithful +mother, to such mental agonies as I have endured, and shall endure till I +die." + +In a later letter she says, "I now have his [the guardian's] solemn promise +that he will not remove her from my control. To some extent my sufferings +are allayed; and yet never, till she arrives at the age of twenty-one, +shall I fully trust." I wish that mothers who dwell in sheltered and happy +homes would try to bring to their minds the condition of a mother whose +possession of her only child rests upon the "promise" of a comparative +stranger. We should get beyond the meaningless cry, "I have all the rights +I want," if mothers could only remember that among these rights, in most +States of the Union, the right of a widowed mother to her child is not +included. + +By strenuous effort, the law on this point has in Massachusetts been +gradually amended, till it now stands thus: The father is authorized to +appoint a guardian by will; but the powers of this guardian do not entitle +him to take the child from the mother. + + "The guardian of a minor ... shall have the custody and tuition of + his ward; and the care and management of all his estate, except that + the father of the minor, if living, and in case of his death the + mother, they being respectively competent to transact their own + business, shall be entitled to the custody of the person of the + minor and the care of his education."[2] + +Down to 1870 the cruel words "while she remains unmarried" followed the +word "mother" in the above law. Until that time, the mother if remarried +had no claim to the custody of her child, in case the guardian wished +otherwise; and a very painful scene once took place in a Boston court-room, +where children were forced away from their mother by the officers, under +this statute, in spite of her tears and theirs; and this when no sort of +personal charge had been made against her. This could not now happen in +Massachusetts, but it might still happen in some other States. It is true +that men are almost always better than their laws; but while a bad law +remains on the statute-book it gives to any unscrupulous man the power to +be as bad as the law. + +[Footnote 1: Gen. Statutes R.I., chap. 154, sect. 1] + +[Footnote 2: Public Statutes, chap. 139, sect. 4.] + + + + +V + +SOCIETY + + "Place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a severe + morality gives that essential charm to woman which educates all that + is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing, breeds courtesy and + learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate; so that I have + thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of + good women."--EMERSON, Society and Solitude, p. 21. + + +FOAM AND CURRENT + + +Sometimes, on the beach at Newport, I look at the gayly dressed ladies in +their phaetons, and then at the foam which trembles on the breaking wave, +or lies palpitating in creamy masses on the beach. It is as pretty as they, +as light, as fresh, as delicate, as changing; and no doubt the graceful +foam, if it thinks at all, fancies that it is the chief consummate product +of the ocean, and that the main end of the vast currents of the mighty deep +is to yield a few glittering bubbles like those. At least, this seems to me +what many of the fair ladies think, as to themselves. + +Here is a nation in which the most momentous social and political +experiment ever tried by man is being worked out, day by day. There is +something ocean-like in the way in which the great currents of life, race, +religion, temperament are here chafing with each other, safe from the +storms through which all monarchical countries may yet have to pass. As +these great currents heave, there are tossed up in every watering-place and +every city in America, as on an ocean beach, certain pretty bubbles of +foam; and each spot, we may suppose, counts its own bubbles brighter than +those of its neighbors, and christens them "society." + +It is an unceasing wonder to a thoughtful person, at any such resort, to +see the unconscious way in which fashionable society accepts the foam, and +ignores the currents. You hear people talk of "a position in society," "the +influential circles in society," as if the position they mean were not +liable to be shifted in a day; as if the essential influences in America +were not mainly to be sought outside the world of fashion. In other +countries it is very different. The circle of social caste, whose centre +you touch in London, radiates to the farthest shores of the British empire; +the upper class controls, not merely fashion, but government; it rules in +country as well as city; genius and wealth are but its tributaries. +Wherever it is not so, it is because England is so far Americanized. But in +America the social prestige of the cities is nothing in the country; it is +a matter of the pavement, of a three-mile radius. + +Go to the farthest borders of England: there are still the "county +families," and you meet servants in livery. On the other hand, in a little +village in northern New Hampshire, my friend was visited in the evening by +the landlady, who said that several of their "most fashionable ladies" had +happened in, and she would like to show them her guest's bonnet. Then the +different cities ignore each other: the rulers of select circles in New +York may find themselves nobodies in Washington, while a Washington social +passport counts for as little in New York. Boston and Philadelphia affect +to ignore both; and St. Louis and San Francisco have their own standards. +The utmost social prestige in America is local, provincial, a matter of the +square inch: it is as if the foam of each particular beach along the +seacoast were to call itself "society." + +There is something pathetic, therefore, in the unwearied pains taken by +ambitious women to establish a place in some little, local, transitory +domain, to "bring out" their daughters for exhibition on a given evening, +to form a circle for them, to marry them well. A dozen years hence the +millionaires whose notice they seek may be paupers, or these ladies may be +dwelling in some other city, where the visiting cards will bear wholly +different names. How idle to attempt to transport into American life the +social traditions and delusions which require monarchy and primogeniture, +and a standing army, to keep them up--and which cannot always hold their +own in England, even with the aid of these! + +Every woman, like every man, has a natural desire for influence; and if +this instinct yearns, as it often should yearn, to take in more than her +own family, she must seek it somewhere outside. I know women who bring to +bear on the building-up of a frivolous social circle--frivolous, because it +is not really brilliant, but only showy; not really gay, but only bored-- +talent and energy enough to influence the mind and thought of the nation, +if only employed in some effective way. Who are the women of real influence +in America? They are the schoolteachers, through whose hands each +successive American generation has to pass; they are those wives of public +men who share their husbands' labor, and help mould their work; they are +those women who, through their personal eloquence or through the press, are +distinctly influencing the American people in its growth. The influence of +such women is felt for good or for evil in every page they print, every +newspaper column they fill: the individual women may be unworthy their +posts, but it is they who have got hold of the lever, and gone the right +way to work. As American society is constituted, the largest "social +success" that can be attained here is trivial and local; and you have to +"make believe very hard," like that other imaginary Marchioness, to find in +it any career worth mentioning. That is the foam, but these other women are +dealing with the main currents. + + + + +IN SOCIETY + + +One sometimes hears from some lady the remark that very few people "in +society" believe in any movement to enlarge the rights or duties of women. +In a community of more marked social gradations than our own, this +assertion, if true, might be very important; and even here it is worth +considering, because it leads the way to a little social philosophy. Let +us, for the sake of argument, begin by accepting the assumption that there +is an inner circle, at least in our large cities, which claims to be +"society," _par excellence_. What relation has this favored circle, if +favored it be, to any movement relating to women? + +It has, to begin with, the same relation that "society" has to every +movement of reform. The proportion of smiles and frowns bestowed from this +quarter upon the woman-suffrage movement, for instance, is about that +formerly bestowed upon the anti-slavery agitation: I see no great +difference. In Boston, for example, the names contributed by "society" to +the woman-suffrage festivals are about as numerous as those which used to +be contributed to the anti-slavery bazaars; no more, no less. Indeed, they +are very often the same names; and it has been curious to see, for nearly +fifty years, how radical tendencies have predominated in some of the +well-known Boston families, and conservative tendencies in others. + +The traits of blood seem to outlast successive series of special reforms. +Be this as it may, it is safe to assume, that, as the anti-slavery movement +prevailed with only a moderate amount of sanction from "our best society," +the woman-suffrage agitation, which has at least an equal amount, has no +reason to be discouraged. + +On looking farther, we find that not reforms alone, but often most +important and established institutions, exist and flourish with only +incidental aid from those "in society." Take, for instance, the whole +public school system of our larger cities. Grant that out of twenty ladies +"in society," taken at random, not more than one would personally approve +of women's voting: it is doubtful whether even that proportion of them +would personally favor the public school system so far as to submit their +children, or at least their girls, to it. Yet the public schools flourish, +and give a better training than most private schools, in spite of this +inert practical resistance from those "in society." The natural inference +would seem to be, that if an institution so well established as the public +schools, and so generally recognized, can afford to be ignored by +"society," then certainly a wholly new reform must expect no better fate. + +As a matter of fact, I apprehend that what is called "society," in the +sense of the more fastidious or exclusive social circle in any community, +exists for one sole object,--the preservation of good manners and social +refinements. For this purpose it is put very largely under the sway of +women, who have, all the world over, a better instinct for these important +things. It is true that "society" is apt to do even this duty very +imperfectly, and often tolerates, and sometimes even cultivates, just the +rudeness and discourtesy that it is set to cure. Nevertheless, this is its +mission; but so soon as it steps beyond this, and attempts to claim any +special weight outside the sphere of good manners, it shows its weakness, +and must yield to stronger forces. + +One of these stronger forces is religion, which should train men and women +to a far higher standard than "society" alone can teach. This standard +should be embodied, theoretically, in the Christian Church; but unhappily +"society" is too often stronger than this embodiment, and turns the church +itself into a mere temple of fashion. Other opposing forces are known as +science and common-sense, which is only science written in shorthand. On +some of these various forces all reforms are based, the woman-suffrage +reform among them. If it could really be shown that some limited social +circle was opposed to this, then the moral would seem to be, "So much the +worse for the social circle." It used to be thought in anti-slavery days +that one of the most blessed results of that agitation was the education it +gave to young men and women who would otherwise have merely grown up "in +society," but were happily taken in hand by a stronger influence. It is +Goethe who suggests, when discussing Hamlet in "Wilhelm Meister," that, if +an oak be planted in a flower-pot, it will be worse in the end for the +flower-pot than for the tree. And to those who watch, year after year, the +young human seedlings planted "in society," the main point of interest lies +in the discovery which of these are likely to grow into oaks. + +But the truth is that the very use of the word "society" in this sense is +narrow and misleading. We Americans are fortunate enough to live in a +larger society, where no conventional position or family traditions exert +an influence that is to be in the least degree compared with the influence +secured by education, energy, and character. No matter how fastidious the +social circle, one is constantly struck with the limitations of its +influence, and with the little power exerted by its members as compared +with that which may easily be wielded by tongue and pen. No merely +fashionable woman in New York, for instance, has a position sufficiently +important to be called influential compared with that of a woman who can +speak in public so as to command hearers, or can write so as to secure +readers. To be at the head of a normal school, or to be a professor in a +college where co-education prevails, is to have a sway over the destinies +of America which reduces all mere "social position" to a matter of cards +and compliments and page's buttons. + + + + +THE BATTLE OF THE CARDS + + +The great winter's contest of the visiting-cards recommences at the end of +every autumn. Suspended during the summer, or only renewed at Newport and +such thoroughbred and thoroughly sophisticated haunts, it will set in with +fury in the habitable regions of our cities before the snow falls. Now will +the atmosphere of certain streets and squares be darkened--or whitened--at +the appointed hour by the shower of pasteboard transmitted from dainty +kid-gloved hands to the cotton-gloved hands of "John," and destined +through him to reach the possibly gloveless hands of some other John, +who stands obsequious in the doorway. Now will every lady, after John +has slammed the door, drive happily on to some other door, rearranging, +as she goes, her display of cards, laid as if for a game on the opposite +seat of her carriage, and dealt perhaps in four suits,--her own cards, +her daughters', her husband's, her "Mr. and Mrs." cards, and who knows +how many more? With all this ammunition, what a very _mitrailleuse_ of +good society she becomes; what an accumulation of polite attentions she +may discharge at any door! That one well-appointed woman, as she sits +in her carriage, represents the total visiting power of self, husband, +daughters, and possibly a son or two beside. She has all their +counterfeit presentments in her hands. How happy she is! and how happy +will the others be on her return, to think that dear mamma has disposed +of so many dear, beloved, tiresome, social foes that morning! It will +be three months at least, they think, before the A's and the B's and +the C's will have to be "done" again. + +Ah! but who knows how soon these fatiguing letters of the alphabet, +rallying to the defence, will come, pasteboard in hand, to return the +onset? In this contest, fair ladies, "there are blows to take as well as +blows to give," in the words of the immortal Webster. Some day, on +returning, you will find a half-dozen cards on your own table that will +undo all this morning's work, and send you forth on the warpath again. Is +it not like a campaign? It is from this subtle military analogy, doubtless, +that when gentlemen happen to quarrel, in the very best society, they +exchange cards as preliminary to a duel; and that, when French journalists +fight, all other French journalists show their sympathy for the survivor by +sending him their cards. When we see, therefore, these heroic ladies riding +forth in the social battle's magnificently stern array, our hearts render +them the homage due to the brave. When we consider how complex their +military equipment has grown, we fancy each of these self-devoted mothers +to be an Arnold Winkelried, receiving in her martyr-breast the points of a +dozen different cards, and shouting, "Make way for liberty!" For is it not +securing liberty to have cleared off a dozen calls from your list, and +found nobody at home? + +If this sort of thing goes on, who can tell where the paper warfare shall +end? If ladies may leave cards for their husbands, who are never seen out +of Wall Street, except when they are seen at their clubs; or for their +sons, who never forsake their billiards or their books,--why can they not +also leave them for their ancestors, or for their remotest posterity? Who +knows but people may yet drop cards in the names of the grandchildren whom +they only wish for, or may reconcile hereditary feuds by interchanging +pasteboard in behalf of two hostile grandparents who died half a century +ago? + +And there is another social observance in which the introduction of the +card system may yet be destined to save much labor,--the attendance on +fashionable churches. Already, it is said, a family may sometimes reconcile +devout observance with a late breakfast, by stationing the family carriage +near the church-door--empty. Really, it would not be a much emptier +observance to send the cards alone by the footman; and doubtless in the +progress of civilization we shall yet reach that point. It will have many +advantages. The _effete_ of society, as some cruel satirist has called +them, may then send their orisons on pasteboard to as many different +shrines as they approve; thus insuring their souls, as it were, at several +different offices. Church architecture may be simplified, for it will +require nothing but a card-basket. The clergyman will celebrate his solemn +ritual, and will then look in that convenient receptacle for the names of +his fellow-worshippers, as a fine lady, after her "reception," looks over +the cards her footman hands her, to know which of her dear friends she has +been welcoming. Religion, as well as social proprieties, will glide +smoothly over a surface of glazed pasteboard; and it will be only very +humble Christians, indeed, who will do their worshipping in person, and +will hold to the worn-out and obsolete practice of "No Cards." + + + + +SOME WORKING-WOMEN + + +It is almost a stereotyped remark, that the women of the more fashionable +and worldly class, in America, are indolent, idle, incapable, and live +feeble and lazy lives. It has always seemed to me that, on the contrary, +they are compelled, by the very circumstances of their situation, to lead +very laborious lives, requiring great strength and energy. Whether many of +their pursuits are frivolous, is a different question; but that they are +arduous, I do not see how any one can doubt. I think it can be easily shown +that the common charges against American fashionable women do not hold +against the class I describe. + +There is, for instance, the charge of evading the cares of housekeeping, +and of preferring a boarding-house or hotel. But no woman with high aims in +the world of fashion can afford to relieve herself from household cares in +this way, except as an exceptional or occasional thing. She must keep house +in order to have entertainments, to form a circle, to secure a position. +The law of give and take is as absolute in society as in business; and the +very first essential to social position in our larger cities is a household +and a hospitality of one's own. It is far more practicable for a family of +high rank in England to live temporarily in lodgings in London, than for +any family with social aspirations to do the same in New York. The married +woman who seeks a position in the world of society must, therefore, keep +house. + +And, with housekeeping, there comes at once to the American woman a world +of care far beyond that of her European sisters. + +Abroad, everything in domestic life is systematized; and services of any +grade, up to that of housekeeper or steward, can be secured for money, and +for a moderate amount of that. The mere amount of money might not trouble +the American woman; but where to get the service? Such a thing as a trained +housekeeper, who can undertake, at any salary, to take the work off the +shoulders of the lady of the house,--such a thing America hardly affords. +Without this, the multiplication of servants only increaseth sorrow; the +servants themselves are often but an undisciplined mob, and the lady of the +house is like a general attempting to drill his whole command personally, +without the aid of a staff-officer or so much as a sergeant. For an +occasional grand entertainment, she can, perhaps, import a special force; +some fashionable sexton can arrange her invitations, and some genteel +caterer her supper. But for the daily routine of the household--guests, +children, door-bell, equipage--there is one vast, constant toil every day; +and the woman who would have these things done well must give her own +orders, and discipline her own retinue. The husband may have no "business," +his wealth may supersede the necessity of all toil beyond daily billiards; +but for the wife wealth means business, and the more complete the social +triumph, the more overwhelming the daily toil. + +For instance, I know a fair woman in an Atlantic city who is at the head of +a household including six children and nine servants. The whole domestic +management is placed absolutely in her hands: she engages or dismisses +every person employed, incurs every expense, makes every purchase, and +keeps all the accounts; her husband only ordering the fuel, directing the +affairs of the stable, and drawing checks for the bills. Every hour of her +morning is systematically appropriated to these things. Among other things, +she has to provide for nine meals a day; in dining-room, kitchen, and +nursery, three each. Then she has to plan her social duties, and to drive +out, exquisitely dressed, to make her calls. Then there are constantly +dinner-parties and evening entertainments; she reads a little, and takes +lessons in one or two languages. Meanwhile her husband has for daily +occupation his books, his club, and the above-mentioned light and easy +share in the cares of the household. Many men in his position do not even +keep an account of personal expenditures. + +There is nothing exceptional in this lady's case, except that the work may +be better done than usual: the husband could not well contribute more than +his present share without hurting domestic discipline; nor does the wife do +all this from pleasure, but in a manner from necessity. It is the condition +of her social position: to change it, she must withdraw herself from her +social world. A few improvements, such as "family hotels," are doing +something to relieve this class to whom luxury means labor. The great +undercurrent which is sweeping us all toward some form of associated life +is as obvious in this new improvement in housekeeping, as in coöperative +stores or trades-unions; but it will nevertheless be long before the "women +of society" in America can be anything but a hard-working class. + +The question is not whether such a life as I have described is the ideal +life. My point is that it is, at any rate, a life demanding far more of +energy and toil, at least in America, than the men of the same class are +called upon to exhibit. There is growing up a class of men of leisure in +America; but there are no women of leisure in the same circle. They hold +their social position on condition of "an establishment," and an +establishment makes them working-women. One result is the constant exodus +of this class to Europe, where domestic life is just now easier. Another +consequence is that you hear woman suffrage denounced by women of this +class, not on the ground that it involves any harder work than they already +do, but on the ground that they have work enough already, and will not bear +the suggestion of any more. + + + + +THE EMPIRE OF MANNERS + + +I was present at a lively discourse, administered by a young lady just from +Europe to a veteran politician. "It is of very little consequence," she +said, "what kind of men you send out as foreign ministers. The thing of +real importance is that they should have the right kind of wives. Any man +can sign a treaty, I suppose, if you tell him what kind of treaty it must +be. But all his social relations with the nations to which you send him +will depend on his wife." There was some truth, certainly, in this +audacious conclusion. It reminded me of the saying of a modern thinker, +"The only empire freely conceded to women is that of manners,--but it is +worth all the rest put together." + +Every one instinctively feels that the graces and amenities of life must be +largely under the direction of women. The fact that this feeling has been +carried too far, and has led to the dwarfing of women's intellect, must not +lead to a rejection of this important social sphere. It is too strong a +power to be ignored. George Eliot says well that "the commonest man, who +has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between +a lovely, delicate woman, and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference +in their presence." At a summer resort, for instance, one sees women who +may be intellectually very ignorant and narrow, yet whose mere manners give +them a social power which the highest intellects might envy. To lend joy +and grace to all one's little world of friendship; to make one's house a +place which every guest enters with eagerness, and leaves with reluctance; +to lend encouragement to the timid, and ease to the awkward; to repress +violence, restrain egotism, and make even controversy courteous,--these +belong to the empire of woman. It is a sphere so important and so +beautiful, that even courage and self-devotion seem not quite enough, +without the addition of this supremest charm. + +This courtesy is so far from implying falsehood, that its very best basis +is perfect simplicity. Given a naturally sensitive organization, a loving +spirit, and the early influence of a refined home, and the foundation of +fine manners is secured. A person so favored may be reared in a log hut, +and may pass easily into a palace; the few needful conventionalities are so +readily acquired. But I think it is a mistake to tell children, as we +sometimes do, that simplicity and a kind heart are absolutely all that are +needful in the way of manners. There are persons in whom simplicity and +kindness are inborn, and who yet never attain to good manners for want of +refined perceptions. And it is astonishing how much refinement alone can +do, even if it be not very genuine or very full of heart, to smooth the +paths and make social life attractive. + +All the acute observers have recognized the difference between the highest +standard, which is nature's, and that next to the highest, which is art's. +George Eliot speaks of that fine polish which is "the expensive substitute +for simplicity," and Tennyson says of manners,-- + + "Kind nature's are the best: those next to best + That fit us like a nature second-hand; + Which are indeed the manners of the great." + +In our own national history we have learned to recognize that the personal +demeanor of women may be a social and political force. The slave-power owed +much of its prolonged control at Washington, and the larger part of its +favor in Europe, to the fact that the manners of Southern women had been +more sedulously trained than those of Northern women. Even +at this moment, one may see at any watering-place that the relative social +influence of different cities does not depend upon the intellectual +training of their women, so much as on the manners. And, even if this is +very unreasonable, the remedy would seem to be, not to go about lecturing +on the intrinsic superiority of the Muses to the Graces, but to pay due +homage at all the shrines. + +It is a great deal to ask of reformers, especially, that they should be +ornamental as well as useful; and I would by no means indorse the views of +a lady who once told me that she was ready to adopt the most radical views +of the women-reformers if she could see one well-dressed woman who +accepted them. The place where we should draw the line between independence +and deference, between essentials and non-essentials, between great ideas +and little courtesies, will probably never be determined--except by actual +examples. Yet it is safe to fall back on Miss Edgeworth's maxim in "Helen," +that "Every one who makes goodness disagreeable commits high treason +against virtue." And it is not a pleasant result of our good deeds, that +others should be immediately driven into bad deeds by the burning desire to +be unlike us. + + + + +GIRLSTEROUSNESS + + +They tell the story of a little boy, a young scion of the house of Beecher, +that, on being rebuked for some noisy proceeding, in which his little +sister had also shared, he claimed that she also should be included in the +indictment. "If a boy makes too much noise," he said, "you tell him he +mustn't be boisterous. Well, then, when a girl makes just as much noise, +you ought to tell her not to be so _girlsterous_." + +I think that we should accept, with a sense of gratitude, this addition to +the language. It supplies a name for a special phase of feminine demeanor, +inevitably brought out of modern womanhood. Any transitional state of +society develops some evil with the good. Good results are unquestionably +proceeding from the greater freedom now allowed to women. The drawback is +that we are developing, here and now, more of "girlsterousness" than is apt +to be seen in less enlightened countries. + +The more complete the subjection of woman, the more "subdued" in every +sense she is. The typical woman of savage life is, at least in youth, +gentle, shy, retiring, timid. A Bedouin woman is modest and humble; an +Indian girl has a voice "gentle and low." The utmost stretch of the +imagination cannot picture either of them as "girlsterous." That perilous +quality can only come as woman is educated, self-respecting, emancipated. +"Girlsterousness" is the excess attendant on that virtue, the shadow which +accompanies that light. It is more visible in England than in France, in +America than in England. + +It is to be observed, that, if a girl wishes to be noisy, she can be as +noisy as anybody. Her noise, if less clamorous, is more shrill and +penetrating. The shrieks of schoolgirls, playing in the yard at +recess-time, seem to drown the voices of the boys. As you enter an evening +party, it is the women's tones you hear most conspicuously. There is no +defect in the organ, but at least an adequate vigor. In travelling by rail, +when sitting near some rather underbred party of youths and damsels, I have +commonly noticed that the girls were the noisiest. The young men appeared +more regardful of public opinion, and looked round with solicitude, lest +they should attract too much attention. It is "girlsterousness" that dashes +straight on, regardless of all observers. Of course reformers exhibit their +full share of this undesirable quality. Where the emancipation of women is +much discussed in any circle, some young girls will put it in practice +gracefully and with dignity, others rudely. Yet even the rudeness may be +but a temporary phase, and at last end well. When women were being first +trained as physicians, years ago, I remember a young girl who came from a +Southern State to a Northern city, and attended the medical lectures. +Having secured her lecture-tickets, she also bought season-tickets to the +theatre and to the pistol-gallery, laid in a box of cigars, and began her +professional training. If she meant it as a satire on the pursuits of the +young gentlemen around her, it was not without point. But it was, I +suppose, a clear case of "girlsterousness;" and I dare say that she sowed +her wild oats much more innocently than many of her male contemporaries, +and that she has long since become a sedate matron. But I certainly cannot +commend her as a model. + +Yet I must resolutely deny that any sort of hoydenishness or indecorum is +an especial characteristic of radicals, or even "provincials," as a class. +Some of the fine ladies who would be most horrified at the +"girlsterousness" of this young maiden would themselves smoke their +cigarettes in much worse company, morally speaking, than she ever +tolerated. And, so far as manners are concerned, I am bound to say that the +worst cases of rudeness and ill-breeding that have ever come to my +knowledge have not occurred in the "rural districts," or among the lower +ten thousand, but in those circles of America where the whole aim in life +might seem to be the cultivation of its elegances. + +And what confirms me in the fear that the most profound and serious types +of this disease are not to be found in the wildcat regions is the fact that +so much of it is transplanted to Europe, among those who have the money to +travel. It is there described broadly as "Americanism;" and, so surely as +any peculiarly shrill group is heard coming through a European +picture-gallery, it is straightway classed by all observers as belonging to +the great Republic. If the observers are enamoured at sight with the beauty +of the young ladies of the party, they excuse the voices; + + "Strange or wild, or madly gay, + They call it only pretty Fanny's way." + +But other observers are more apt to call it only Columbia's way; and if +they had ever heard the word "girlsterousness," they would use that too. + +Emerson says, "A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene." If we +Americans often violate this perfect maxim of good manners, it is something +that America has, at least, furnished the maxim. And, between Emerson and +"girlsterousness," our courteous philosopher may yet carry the day. + + + + +ARE WOMEN NATURAL ARISTOCRATS? + + +A clergyman's wife in England has lately set on foot a reform movement in +respect to dress; and, like many English reformers, she aims chiefly to +elevate the morals and manners of the lower classes, without much reference +to her own social equals. She proposes that "no servant, under pain of +dismissal, shall wear flowers, feathers, brooches, buckles or clasps, +earrings, lockets, neck-ribbons, velvets, kid gloves, parasols, sashes, +jackets, or trimming of any kind on dresses, and, above all, no crinoline; +no pads to be worn, or frisettes, or _chignons_, or hair-ribbons. The dress +is to be gored and made just to touch the ground, and the hair to be drawn +closely to the head, under a round white cap, without trimming of any kind. +The same system of dress is recommended for Sunday-school girls, +schoolmistresses, church-singers, and the lower orders generally." + +The remark is obvious, that in this country such a course of discipline +would involve the mistress, not the maid, in the "pain of dismissal." The +American clergyman and clergyman's wife who should even "recommend" such a +costume to a schoolmistress, church-singer, or Sunday-school girl,--to say +nothing of the rest of the "lower orders,"--would soon find themselves +without teachers, without pupils, without a choir, and probably without a +parish. It is a comfort to think that even in older countries there is less +and less of this impertinent interference: the costume of different ranks +is being more and more assimilated; and the incidental episode of a few +liveries in our cities is not enough to interfere with the general current. +Never yet, to my knowledge, have I seen even a livery worn by a white +native American; and to restrain the Sunday bonnets of her handmaidens, +what lady has attempted? + +This is as it should be. The Sunday bonnet of the Irish damsel is only the +symbol of a very proper effort to obtain her share of all social +advantages. Long may those ribbons wave! Meanwhile I think the fact that it +is easier for the gentleman of the house to control the dress of his groom +than for the lady to dictate that of her waiting-maid,--this must count +against the theory that it is women who are the natural aristocrats. + +Women are no doubt more sensitive than men upon matters of taste and +breeding. This is partly from a greater average fineness of natural +perception, and partly because their more secluded lives give them less of +miscellaneous contact with the world. If Maud Muller and her husband had +gone to board at the same boarding-house with the Judge and his wife, that +lady might have held aloof from the rustic bride, simply from inexperience +in life, and not knowing just how to approach her. But the Judge, who might +have been talking politics or real estate with the young farmer on the +doorsteps that morning, would certainly find it easier to deal with him as +a man and a brother at the dinner-table. From these different causes women +get the credit or discredit of being more aristocratic than men are; so +that in England the Tory supporters of female suffrage base it on the +ground that these new voters at least will be conservative. + +But, on the other hand, it is women, even more than men, who are attracted +by those strong qualities of personal character which are always the +antidote to aristocracy. No bold revolutionist ever defied the established +conventionalisms of his times without drawing his strongest support from +women. Poet and novelist love to depict the princess as won by the outlaw, +the gypsy, the peasant. Women have a way of turning from the insipidities +and proprieties of life to the wooer who has the stronger hand; from the +silken Darnley to the rude Bothwell. This impulse is the natural corrective +to the aristocratic instincts of womanhood; and though men feel it less, it +is still, even among them, one of the supports of republican institutions. +We need to keep always balanced between the two influences of refined +culture and of native force. The patrician class, wherever there is one, is +pretty sure to be the more refined; the plebeian class, the more energetic. +That woman is able to appreciate both elements is proof that she is quite +capable of doing her share in social and political life. This English +clergyman's wife, who devotes her soul to the trimmings and gored skirts of +the lower orders, is no more entitled to represent her sex than are those +ladies who give their whole attention to the "novel and intricate bonnets" +advertised this season on Broadway. + + + + +MRS. BLANK'S DAUGHTERS + + +Mrs. Blank, of Far West--let us not draw her from the "sacred privacy of +woman" by giving the name or place too precisely--has an insurmountable +objection to woman's voting. So the newspapers say; and this objection is +that she does not wish her daughters to encounter disreputable characters +at the polls. + +It is a laudable desire, to keep one's daughters from the slightest contact +with such persons. But how does Mrs. Blank precisely mean to accomplish +this? Will she shut up the maidens in a harem? When they go out, will she +send messengers through the streets to bid people hide their faces, as when +an Oriental queen is passing? Will she send them travelling on camels, +veiled by _yashmaks?_ Will she prohibit them from being so much as seen by +a man, except when a physician must be called for their ailments, and Miss +Blank puts her arm through a curtain, in order that he may feel her pulse +and know no more? + +Who is Mrs. Blank, and how does she bring up her daughters? Does she send +them to the post-office? If so, they may wait a half-hour at a time for the +mail to open, and be elbowed by the most disreputable characters, waiting +at their side. If it does the young ladies no harm to encounter this for +the sake of getting their letters out, will it harm them to do it in order +to get their ballots in? If they go to hear a concert they may be kept half +an hour at the door, elbowed by saint and sinner indiscriminately. If they +go to Washington to the President's inauguration, they may stand two hours +with Mary Magdalen on one side of them and Judas Iscariot on the other. If +this contact is rendered harmless by the fact that they are receiving +political information, will it hurt them to stay five minutes longer in +order to act upon the knowledge they have received? + +This is on the supposition that the household of Blank are plain, practical +women, unversed in the vanities of the world. If they belong to fashionable +circles, how much harder to keep them wholly clear of disreputable contact! +Should they, for instance, visit Newport, they may possibly be seen at the +Casino, looking very happy as they revolve rapidly in the arms of some very +disreputable characters; they will be seen in the surf, attired in the most +scanty and clinging drapery, and kindly aided to preserve their balance by +the devoted attentions of the same companions. Mrs. Blank, meanwhile, will +look complacently on, with the other matrons: they are not supposed to know +the current reputation of those whom their daughters meet "in society;" +and, so long as there is no actual harm done, why should they care? Very +well; but why, then, should they care if they encounter those same +disreputable characters when they go to drop a ballot in the ballot-box? It +will be a more guarded and distant meeting. It is not usual to dance +round-dances at the ward-room, so far as I know, or to bathe in clinging +drapery at that rather dry and dusty resort. If such very close intimacies +are all right under the gas-light or at the beach, why should there be +poison in merely passing near a disreputable character at the City Hall? + +On the whole, the prospects of Mrs. Blank are not encouraging. Should she +consult a physician for her daughters, he may be secretly or openly +disreputable; should she call in a clergyman, he may, though a bishop, have +carnal rather than spiritual eyes. If Miss Blank be caught in a shower, she +may take refuge under the umbrella of an undesirable acquaintance; should +she fall on the ice, the woman who helps to raise her may have sinned. +There is not a spot in any known land where a woman can live in absolute +seclusion from all contact with evil. Should the Misses Blank even turn +Roman Catholics, and take to a convent, their very confessor may not be a +genuine saint; and they may be glad to flee for refuge to the busy, buying, +selling, dancing, voting world outside. + +No: Mrs. Blank's prayers for absolute protection will never be answered, in +respect to her daughters. Why not, then, find a better model for prayer in +that made by Jesus for his disciples: "I pray Thee, not that Thou shouldst +take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the +evil." A woman was made for something nobler in the world, Mrs. Blank, than +to be a fragile toy, to be put behind a glass case, and protected from +contact. It is not her mission to be hidden away from all life's evil, but +bravely to work that the world may be reformed. + + + + +THE EUROPEAN PLAN + + +Every mishap among American women brings out renewed suggestions of what +may be called the "European plan" in the training of young girls,--the +plan, that is, of extreme seclusion and helplessness. It is usually +forgotten, in these suggestions, that not much protection is really given +anywhere to this particular class as a whole. Everywhere in Europe the +restrictions are of caste, not of sex. Even in Turkey, travellers tell us, +women of the humbler vocations are not much secluded. It is not the object +of the "European plan," in any form, to protect the virtue of young women, +as such, but only of young ladies; and the protection is pretty effectually +limited to that order. Among the Portuguese in the island of Fayal I found +it to be the ambition of each humble family to bring up one daughter in a +sort of lady-like seclusion: she never went into the street alone, or +without a hood which was equivalent to a veil; she was taught indoor +industries only; she was constantly under the eye of her mother. But in +order that one daughter might be thus protected, all the other daughters +were allowed to go alone, day or evening, bareheaded or bare-footed, by the +loneliest mountain-paths, to bring oranges or firewood or whatever their +work may be--heedless of protection. The safeguard was for a class: the +average exposure of young womanhood was far greater than with us. So in +London, while you rarely see a young lady alone in the streets, the +housemaid is sent on errands at any hour of the evening with a freedom at +which our city domestics would quite rebel; and one has to stay but a short +time in Paris to see how entirely limited to a class is the alleged +restraint under which young French girls are said to be kept. + +Again, it is to be remembered that the whole "European plan," so far as it +is applied on the continent of Europe, is a plan based upon utter distrust +and suspicion, not only as to chastity, but as to all other virtues. It is +applied among the higher classes almost as consistently to boys as to +girls. In every school under church auspices, it is the French theory that +boys are never to be left unwatched for a moment; and it is as steadily +assumed that girls will be untruthful if left to themselves, as that they +will do every other wrong. This to the Anglo-Saxon race seems very +demoralizing. "Suspicion," said Sir Philip Sidney, "is the way to lose that +which we fear to lose." Readers of the Bronte novels will remember the +disgust of the English pupils and teachers in French schools at the +constant espionage around them; and I have more than once heard young girls +who had been trained at such institutions say that it was a wonder if they +had any truthfulness left, so invariable was the assumption that it was the +nature of young girls to lie. I cannot imagine anything less likely to +create upright and noble character, in man or woman, than the systematic +application of the "European plan." + +And that it produces just the results that might be feared, the whole tone +of European literature proves. Foreigners, no doubt, do habitual injustice +to the morality of French households; but it is impossible that fiction can +utterly misrepresent the community which produces and reads it. When one +thinks of the utter lightness of tone with which breaches, both of truth +and chastity, are treated even in the better class of French novels and +plays, it seems absurd to deny the correctness of the picture. Besides, it +is not merely a question of plays and novels. Consider, for instance, the +contempt with which Taine treats Thackeray for representing the mother of +Pendennis as suffering agonies when she thinks that her son has seduced a +young girl, a social inferior. Thackeray is not really considered a model +of elevated tone, as to such matters, among English writers; but the +Frenchman is simply amazed that the Englishman should describe even the +saintliest of mothers as attaching so much weight to such a small affair. + +An able newspaper writer, quoted with apparent approval by the "Boston +Daily Advertiser," praises the supposed foreign method for the "habit of +dependence and deference" that it produces; and because it gives to a young +man a wife whose "habit of deference is established." But it must be +remembered, that, where this theory is established, the habit of deference +is logically carried much farther than mere conjugal convenience would take +it. Its natural outcome is the authority of the priest, not of the husband. +That domination of the women of France by the priesthood which forms even +now the chief peril of the republic--which is the strength of legitimism +and imperialism and all other conspiracies against the liberty of the +French people--is only the visible and inevitable result of this dangerous +docility. + +One thing is certain, that the best preparation for freedom is freedom; and +that no young girls are so poorly prepared for American life as those whose +early years are passed in Europe. Some of the worst imprudences, the most +unmaidenly and offensive actions, that I have ever heard of in decent +society, have been on the part of young women educated abroad, who have +been launched into American life without its early training,--have been +treated as children until they suddenly awakened to the freedom of women. +On the other hand, I remember with pleasure, that a cultivated French +mother, whose daughter's fine qualities were the best seal of her +motherhood, once told me that the models she had chosen in her daughter's +training were certain families of American young ladies, of whom she had, +through peculiar circumstances, seen much in Paris. + + + + +FEATHERSES + + +One of the most amusing letters ever quoted in any book is that given in +Curzon's "Monasteries of the Levant," as the production of a Turkish +sultana who had just learned English. It is as follows:-- + + NOTE FROM ADILE SULTANA, THE BETROTHED OF ABBAS PASHA, TO HER + ARMENIAN COMMISSIONER. + + CONSTANTINOPLE, 1844. + + MY NOBLE FRIEND:--Here are the featherses sent my soul, my noble + friend, are there no other featherses leaved in the shop besides + these featherses? and these featherses remains, and these featherses + are ukly. They are very dear, who buyses dheses? And my noble + friend, we want a noat from yourself; those you brought last tim, + those you sees were very beautiful; we had searched; my soul, I want + featherses again, of those featherses. In Kalada there is plenty of + feather. Whatever bees, I only want beautiful featherses; I want + featherses of every desolation to-morrow. + + (Signed) YOU KNOW WHO. + +The first steps in culture do not, then, it seems, remove from the feminine +soul the love of pretty things. Nor do the later steps wholly extinguish +it; for did not Grace Greenwood hear the learned Mary Somerville conferring +with the wise Harriet Martineau as to whether a certain dress should be +dyed to match a certain shawl? Well! why not? Because women learn the use +of the quill, are they to ignore "featherses "? Because they learn science, +must they unlearn the arts, and, above all, the art of being beautiful? If +men have lost it, they have reason to regret the loss. Let women hold to +it, while yet within their reach. + +Mrs. Rachel Rowland of New Bedford, much prized and trusted as a public +speaker among Friends, and a model of taste and quiet beauty in costume, +delighted the young girls at a Newport Yearly Meeting, a few years since, +by boldly declaring that she thought God meant women to make the world +beautiful, as much as flowers and butterflies, and that there was no sin in +tasteful dress, but only in devoting to it too much money or too much time. +It is a blessed doctrine. The utmost extremes of dress, the love of colors, +of fabrics, of jewels, of "featherses," are, after all, but an effort after +the beautiful. The reason why the beautiful is not always the result is +because so many women are ignorant or merely imitative. They have no sense +of fitness: the short wear what belongs to the tall, and brunettes +sacrifice their natural beauty to look like blondes. Or they have no +adaptation; and even an emancipated woman may show a disregard for +appropriateness, as where a fine lady sweeps the streets, or a fair orator +the platform, with a silken or velvet train which accords only with a +carpet as luxurious as itself. What is inappropriate is never beautiful. +What is merely in the fashion is never beautiful. But who does not know +some woman whose taste and training are so perfect that fashion becomes to +her a means of grace instead of a despot, and the worst excrescence that +can be prescribed--a _chignon_, a hoop, a panier--is softened into +something so becoming that even the Parisian bondage seems but a chain of +roses? + +In such hands, even "featherses" become a fine art, not a matter of vanity. +Are women so much more vain than men? No doubt they talk more about their +dress, for there is much more to talk about; yet did you never hear the men +of fashion discuss boots and hats and the liveries of grooms? A good friend +of mine, a shoemaker, who supplies very high heels for a great many pretty +feet on Fifth Avenue in New York, declares that women are not so vain in +that direction as men. "A man who thinks he has a handsome foot," quoth our +fashionable Crispin, "is apt to give us more trouble than any lady among +our customers. I have noticed this for twenty years." The testimony is +consoling--to women. + +And this naturally suggests the question, What is to be the future of +masculine costume? Is the present formlessness and gracelessness and +monotony of hue to last forever, as suited to the rough needs of a workaday +world? It is to be remembered that the difference in this respect between +the dress of the sexes is a very recent thing. Till within a century or so, +men dressed as picturesquely as women, and paid as minute attention to +their costume. Even the fashions in armor varied as extensively as the +fashions in gowns. One of Henry III.'s courtiers, Sir J. Arundel, had +fifty-two complete suits of cloth of gold. No satin, no velvet, was too +elegant for those who sat to Copley for their pictures. In Puritan days the +laws could hardly be made severe enough to prevent men from wearing +silver-lace and "broad bone-lace," and shoulder-bands of undue width, and +double ruffs and "immoderate great breeches." What seemed to the Cavaliers +the extreme of stupid sobriety in dress would pass now for the most +fantastic array. Fancy Samuel Pepys going to a wedding of to-day in his +"new colored silk suit and coat trimmed with gold buttons, and gold broad +lace round his hands, very rich and fine." It would give to the ceremony +the aspect of a fancy ball; yet how much prettier a sight is a fancy ball +than the ordinary entertainment of the period! + +At intervals the rigor of masculine costume is a little relaxed; velvets +resume their picturesque sway: and, instead of the customary suit of solemn +black, gentlemen even appear in blue and gold editions at evening parties. +Let us hope that good sense and taste may yet meet each other, for both +sexes; that men may borrow for their dress some womanly taste, women some +masculine sense; and society may again witness a graceful and appropriate +costume, without being too much absorbed in "featherses." + + + + +VI + +STUDY AND WORK + + "Movet me ingens scientiarum admiratio, seu legis communis aequitas, + ut in nostro sexu, rarum non esse feram, id quod omnium votis + dignissimum est. Nam cum sapientia tantum generis humani ornamentum + sit, ut ad omnes et singulos (quoad quidem per sortem cujusque + liceat) extendi jure debeat, non vidi, cur virgini, in qua excolendi + sese ornandique sedulitatem admittimus, non conveniat mundus hic + omnium longè pulcherrimus."--ANNAE MARIAE À SCHURMAN EPISTOLAE. + (1638.) + + "A great reverence for knowledge and the natural sense of justice + urge me to encourage in my own sex that which is most worthy the + aspirations of all. For, since wisdom is so great an ornament of the + human race that it should of right be extended (so far as + practicable) to each and every one, I have not perceived why this + fairest of ornaments should not be appropriate for the maiden, to + whom we permit all diligence in the decoration and adornment of + herself." + + +EXPERIMENTS + + +Why is it, that, whenever anything is done for women in the way of +education, it is called "an experiment,"--something that is to be long +considered, stoutly opposed, grudgingly yielded, and dubiously watched,-- +while, if the same thing is done for men, its desirableness is assumed as a +matter of course, and the thing is done? Thus, when Harvard College was +founded, it was not regarded as an experiment, but as an institution. The +"General Court," in 1636, "agreed to give 400 _l_. towards a schoale or +colledge," and the affair was settled. Every subsequent step in the +expanding of educational opportunities for young men has gone in the same +way. But when there seems a chance of extending, however irregularly, some +of the same collegiate advantages to women, I observe that respectable +newspapers, in all good faith, are apt to speak of the measure as an +"experiment." + +It seems to me no more of an "experiment" than when a boy who has usually +eaten up his whole apple becomes a little touched with a sense of justice, +and finally decides to offer his sister the smaller half. If he has ever +regarded that offer as an experiment, the first actual trial will put the +result into the list of certainties; and it will become an axiom in his +mind that girls like apples. Whatever may be said about the position of +women in law and society, it is clear that their educational disadvantages +have been a prolonged disgrace to the other sex, and one for which women +themselves are in no way accountable. When Françoise de Saintonges, in the +sixteenth century, wished to establish girls' schools in France, she was +hooted in the streets, and her father called together four doctors of law +to decide whether she was possessed of a devil in planning to teach +women,--"_pour s'assurer qu'instruire des femmes n'était pas un oeuvre du +démon_." From that day to this we have seen women almost always more ready +to be taught than was any one else to teach them. Talk as you please about +their wishing or not wishing to vote: they have certainly wished for +instruction, and have had it doled out to them almost as grudgingly as if +it were the ballot itself. + +Consider the educational history of Massachusetts, for instance. The wife +of President John Adams was born in 1744; and she says of her youth that +"female education, in the best families, went no farther than writing and +arithmetic." Barry tells us in his "History of Massachusetts," that the +public education was first provided for boys only; "but light soon broke +in, and girls were allowed to attend the public schools two hours a +day."[1] It appears from President Quincy's "Municipal History of +Boston,"[2] that from 1790 girls were there admitted to such schools, but +during the summer months only, when there were not boys enough to fill +them,--from April 20 to October 20 of each year. This lasted until 1822, +when Boston became a city. Four years after, an attempt was made to +establish a high school for girls, which was not, however, to teach Latin +and Greek. It had, in the words of the school committee of 1854, "an +alarming success;" and the school was abolished after eighteen months' +trial, because the girls crowded into it; and as Mr. Quincy, with exquisite +simplicity, records, "not one voluntarily quitted it, and there was no +reason to suppose that any one admitted to the school would voluntarily +quit for the whole three years, except in case of marriage!" + +How amusing seems it now to read of such an "experiment" as this, abandoned +only because of its overwhelming success! How absurd now seem the +discussions of a few years ago!--the doubts whether young women really +desired higher education, whether they were capable of it, whether their +health would bear it, whether their parents would permit it. An address I +gave before the Social Science Association on this subject, at Boston, May +14, 1873, now seems to me such a collection of platitudes that I hardly see +how I dared come before an intelligent audience with such needless +reasonings. It is as if I had soberly labored to prove that two and two +make four, or that ginger is "hot i' the mouth." Yet the subsequent +discussion in that meeting showed that around even these harmless and +commonplace propositions the battle of debate could rage hot; and it really +seemed as if even to teach women the alphabet ought still to be mentioned +as "a promising experiment." Now, with the successes before us of so many +colleges; with the spectacle at Cambridge of young women actually reading +Plato "at sight" with Professor Goodwin,--it surely seems as if the higher +education of women might be considered quite beyond the stage of +experiment, and might henceforth be provided for in the same common-sense +and matter-of-course way which we provide for the education of young men. + +And, if this point is already reached in education, how long before it will +also be reached in political life, and women's voting be viewed as a matter +of course, and a thing no longer experimental? + +[Footnote 1: Vol. iii. 323.] + +[Footnote 2: Page 21.] + + + + +INTELLECTUAL CINDERELLAS + + +When, some thirty years ago, the extraordinary young mathematician, Truman +Henry Safford, first attracted the attention of New England by his rare +powers, I well remember the pains that were taken to place him under +instruction by the ablest Harvard professors: the greater his abilities, +the more needful that he should have careful and symmetrical training. The +men of science did not say, "Stand off! let him alone! let him strive +patiently until he has achieved something positively valuable, and he may +be sure of prompt and generous recognition--when he is fifty years old." If +such a course would have been mistaken and ungenerous if applied to +Professor Safford, why is it not something to be regretted that it was +applied to Mrs. Somerville? In her case, the mischief was done: she was, +happily, strong enough to bear it; but, as the English critics say, we +never shall know what science has lost by it. We can do nothing for her +now; but we could do something for future women like her, by pointing this +obvious moral for their benefit, instead of being content with a mere tardy +recognition of success, after a woman has expended half a century in +struggle. + +It is commonly considered to be a step forward in civilization, that +whereas ancient and barbarous nations exposed children to special +hardships, in order to kill off the weak and toughen the strong, modern +nations aim to rear all alike carefully, without either sacrificing or +enfeebling. If we apply this to muscle, why not to mind? and if to men's +minds, why not to women's? Why use for men's intellects, which are claimed +to be stronger, the forcing process,--offering, for instance, many thousand +dollars a year in gratuities at our colleges, that young men may be induced +to come and learn,--and only withhold assistance from the weaker minds of +women? A little schoolgirl once told me that she did not object to her +teacher's showing partiality, but thought she "ought to show partiality to +all alike." If all our university systems are wrong, and the proper diet +for mathematical genius consists of fifty years' snubbing, let us employ +it, by all means; but let it be applied to both sexes. + +That it is the duty of women, even under disadvantageous circumstances, to +prove their purpose by labor, to "verify their credentials," is true +enough; but this moral is only part of the moral of Mrs. Somerville's book, +and is cruelly incomplete without the other half. What a garden of roses +was Mrs. Somerville's life, according to some comfortable critics! "All +that for which too many women nowadays are content to sit and whine, or +fitfully and carelessly struggle, came naturally and quietly to Mrs. +Somerville. And the reason was that she never asked for anything until she +had earned it; or, rather, she never asked at all, but was content to +earn." Naturally and quietly! You might as well say that Garrison fought +slavery "quietly," or that Frederick Douglass's escape came to him +"naturally." Turn to the book itself, and see with what strong, though +never actually bitter, feeling, the author looks back upon her hard +struggle. + + "I was intensely ambitious to excel in something; for I felt in my + own breast that women were capable of taking a higher place in + creation than that assigned them in my early days, which was very + low" (p. 60). "Nor ... should I have had courage to ask any of them + a question, for I should have been laughed at. I was often very sad + and forlorn; not a hand held out to help me" (p. 47). "My father + came home for a short time, and, somehow or other finding out what I + was about, said to my mother, 'Peg, we must put a stop to this, or + we shall have Mary in a strait-jacket one of these days'" (p. 54). + "I continued my mathematical and other pursuits, but under great + disadvantages; for, although my husband did not prevent me from + studying, I met with no sympathy whatever from him, as he had a very + low opinion of the capacity of my sex, and had neither knowledge of + nor interest in science of any kind" (p. 75). "I was considered + eccentric and foolish; and my conduct was highly disapproved of by + many, especially by some members of my own family" (p. 80). "A man + can always command his time under the plea of business: a woman is + not allowed any such excuse" (p. 164). And so on. + +At last, in 1831,--Mrs. Somerville being then fifty-one,--her work on "The +Mechanism of the Heavens" appeared. Then came universal recognition, +generous if not prompt, a tardy acknowledgment. "Our relations," she says, +"and others who had so severely criticised and ridiculed me, astonished at +my success, were now loud in my praise."[1] No doubt. So were, probably, +Cinderella's sisters loud in her praise, when the prince at last took her +from the chimney-corner, and married her. They had kept for themselves, to +be sure, as long as they could, the delights and opportunities of life; +while she had taken the place assigned her in her early days,--"which was +very low," as Mrs. Somerville says. But, for all that, they were very kind +to her in the days of her prosperity; and no doubt packed their little +trunks and came to visit their dear sister at the palace as often as she +could wish. And, doubtless, the Fairyland Monthly of that day, when it came +to review Cinderella's "Personal Recollections," pointed out that, as soon +as that distinguished lady had "achieved something positively valuable," +she received "prompt and generous recognition." + +[Footnote 1: Page 176.] + + + + +CUPID-AND-PSYCHOLOGY + + +The learned Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, is frequently +facetious; and his jokes are quoted with the deference due to the chief +officer of the chief college of that great university. Now it is known that +the Cambridge colleges, and Trinity College in particular, are doing a +great deal for the instruction of women. The young women of Girton College +and Newnham College--both of these being institutions for their benefit, in +or near Cambridge--not only enjoy the instruction of the university, but +they share it under a guaranty that it shall be of the best quality; +because they attend, in many cases, the very same lectures with the young +men. Where this is not done, they sometimes use the vacant lecture-rooms of +the college; and it was in connection with an application for this +privilege that the Master of Trinity College made a celebrated joke. When +told that the lecture-room was needed for a class of young women in +psychology, he said, "Psychology? What kind of psychology? +Cupid-and-Psychology, I suppose." + +Cupid-and-Psychology is, after all, not so bad a department of instruction. +It may be taken as a good enough symbol of that mingling of head and heart +which is the best result of all training. One of the worst evils of the +separate education of the sexes has been the easy assumption that men were +to become all head, and women all heart. It was to correct the evils of +this that Ben Jonson proposed for his ideal woman + + "a learned and a manly soul." + +It was an implied recognition of it from the other side when the great +masculine intellect, Goethe, held up as a guiding force in his Faust "the +eternal womanly" (_das ewige weibliche_). After all, each sex must teach +the other, and impart to the other. It will never do to have all the brains +poured into one human being, and christened "man;" and all the affections +decanted into another, and labelled "woman." Nature herself rejects this +theory. Darwin himself, the interpreter of nature, shows that there is a +perpetual effort going on, by unseen forces, to equalize the sexes, since +sons often inherit from the mother, and daughters from the father. And we +all take pleasure in discovering in the noblest of each sex something of +the qualities of the other,--the tender affections in great men, the +imperial intellect in great women. + +On the whole, there is no harm, but rather good, in the new science of +Cupid-and-Psychology. There are combinations for which no single word can +suffice. The phrase belongs to the same class with Lowell's witty +denunciation of a certain tiresome letter-writer, as being, not his +incubus, but his "pen-and-inkubus." It is as well to admit it first as +last: Cupid-and-Psychology will be taught wherever young men and women +study together. Not in the direct and simple form of mutual love-making, +perhaps; for they tell the visitor, at universities which admit both sexes, +that the young men and maidens do not fall in love with each other, but are +apt to seek their mates elsewhere. The new science has a wider bearing, and +suggests that the brain is incomplete, after all, without the affections; +and so are the affections without the brain. A certain professorship at +Harvard University which the Rev. Dr. Francis G. + +Peabody now fills, and which Phillips Brooks was once invited to fill, was +founded by a woman, Miss Plummer; and the name proposed by her for it was +"a professorship of the heart," though they after all called it only a +professorship of "Christian morals." We need the heart in our colleges, it +seems, even if we only get it under the ingenious title of +Cupid-and-Psychology. + + + + +SELF-SUPPORTING WIVES + + +For one, I have never been fascinated by the style of domestic paradise +that English novels depict,--half a dozen unmarried daughters round the +family hearth, all assiduously doing worsted-work and petting their papa. I +believe a sufficiency of employment to be the only normal and healthy +condition for a human being; and where there is not work enough to employ +the full energies of all at home, it seems as proper for young women as for +young birds to leave the parental nest. If this additional work is done for +money, very well. It is the conscious dignity of self-support that removes +the traditional curse from labor, and woman has a right to claim her share +in that dignified position. + +Yet I cannot agree, on the other hand, with those who maintain that the +true woman should be self-supporting, even in marriage. Woman's part of the +family task--the care of home and children--is just as essential to +building up the family fortunes as the very different toil of the out-door +partner. For young married women to undertake any more direct aid to the +family income is in most cases utterly undesirable, and is asking of +themselves a great deal too much. And this is not because they are to be +encouraged in indolence, but because they already, in a normal condition of +things, have their hands full. As, on this point, I may differ from some of +my readers, let me explain precisely what I mean. + +As I write, there are at work, in another part of the house, two +paper-hangers, a man and his wife, each forty-five or fifty years of age. +Their children are grown up, and some of them married: they have a daughter +at home, who is old enough to do the housework, and leave the mother free. +There is no way of organizing the labors of this household better than +this: the married pair toil together during the day, and go home together +to their evening rest. A happier couple I never saw; it is a delight to see +them cheerily at work together, cutting, pasting, hanging: their life seems +like a prolonged industrial picnic; and if I had the ill-luck to own as +many palaces as an English duke I should keep them permanently occupied in +putting fresh papers on the walls. + +But the merit of this employment for the woman is that it interferes with +no other duty. Were she a young mother with little children, and obliged by +her paper-hanging to neglect them, or to leave them at a "day-nursery," or +to overwork herself by combining too many cares, then the sight of her +would be very sad. So sacred a thing is motherhood, so paramount and +absorbing the duty of a mother to her child, that in a true state of +society I think she should be utterly free from all other duties,--even, if +possible, from the ordinary cares of housekeeping. If she has spare health +and strength to do these other things as pleasures, very well; but she +should be relieved from them as duties. And as to the need of +self-support, I can hardly conceive of an instance where it can be to the +mother of young children anything but a disaster. As we all know, this +calamity often occurs; I have seen it among the factory operatives at the +North, and among the negro women in the cotton-fields at the South: in both +cases it is a tragedy, and the bodies and brains of mother and children +alike suffer. That the mother should bear and tend and nurture, while the +father supports and protects,--this is the true division. + +Does this bear in any way upon suffrage? Not at all. The mother can inform +herself upon public questions in the intervals of her cares, as the father +among his; and the baby in the cradle is a perpetual appeal to her, as to +him, that the institutions under which that baby dwells may be kept pure. +One of the most devoted young mothers I ever knew--the younger sister of +Margaret Fuller Ossoli--made it a rule, no matter how much her children +absorbed her, to read books or newspapers for an hour every day; in order, +she said, that she should be more to them than a mere source of physical +nurture, and that her mind should be kept fresh and alive for them. But to +demand in addition that such a mother should earn money for them is to ask +too much; and there is many a tombstone in New England, which, if it told +the truth, would tell what comes of such an effort. + + + + +THOROUGH + + +"The hopeless defect of women in all practical matters," said a shrewd +merchant the other day, "is that it is impossible to make them thorough." +It was a shallow remark, and so I told him. Women are thorough in the +things which they have been expected to regard as their sphere,--in their +housekeeping and their dress and their social observances. There is nothing +more thorough on earth than the way housework is done in a genuine New +England household. There is an exquisite thoroughness in the way a +milliner's or a dressmaker's work is done,--a work such as clumsy man +cannot rival, and can hardly estimate. No general plans his campaigns or +marshals his armies better than some women of society--the late Mrs. Paran +Stevens, for instance--manage the circles of which they are the centre. Day +and night, winter and summer, at city or watering-place, year in and year +out, such a woman keeps open house for her gay world. She has a perpetual +series of guests who must be fed luxuriously, and amused profusely; she +talks to them in three or four languages; at her entertainments she notes +who is present and who absent, as carefully as Napoleon watched his +soldiers; her interchange of cards, alone, is a thing as complex as the +army muster-rolls: thus she plans, organizes, conquers, and governs. People +speak of her existence as that of a doll or a toy, when she is the most +untiring of campaigners. Grant that her aim is, after all, unworthy, and +that you pity the worn face which has to force so many smiles. No matter: +the smiles are there, and so is the success. I often wish that the +reformers would do their work as thoroughly as the women of society do +theirs. + +No, there is no constitutional want of thoroughness in women. The trouble +is that into the new work upon which they are just entering they have not +yet brought their thoroughness to bear. They suffer and are defrauded and +are reproached, simply because they have not yet nerved themselves to do +well the things which they have asserted their right to do. A distinguished +woman, who earns one of the largest incomes ever honestly earned by any one +of her sex, off the stage, told me the other day that she left all her +business affairs to the management of others, and did not even know how to +draw a check on a bank. What a melancholy self-exhibition was that of a +clever American woman, whom I knew, the author of half a dozen successful +books, refusing to look her own accounts in the face until they had got +into such a tangle that not even her own referees could disentangle them to +suit her! These things show, not that women are constitutionally wanting in +thoroughness, but that it is hard to make them carry this quality into new +fields. + +I wish I could possibly convey to the young women who write for advice on +literary projects something of the meaning of this word "thorough" as +applied to literary work. Scarcely any of them seem to have a conception of +it. Dash, cleverness, recklessness, impatience of revision or of patient +investigation, these are the common traits. To a person of experience, +no stupidity is so discouraging as a brilliancy that has no roots. It +brings nothing to pass; whereas a slow stupidity, if it takes time enough, +may conquer the world. Consider that for more than twenty years the path of +literature has been quite as fully open for women as for men, in America,-- +the payment the same, the honor the same, the obstacles no greater. +Collegiate education has until quite recently been denied them, but how +many men succeed as writers without that advantage! Yet how little, how +very little, of permanent literary work has yet been done by American +women! Young girls appear one after another: each writes a single clever +story or a single sweet poem, and then disappears forever. Look at +Griswold's "Female Poets of America," and you are disposed to turn back to +the title-page, and see if these utterly forgotten names do not really +represent the "female poets" of some other nation. They are forgotten, as +most of the more numerous "female prose writers" are forgotten, because +they had no root. Nobody doubts that women have cleverness enough, and +enough of power of expression. If you could open the mails, and take out +the women's letters, as somebody says, they would prove far more graphic +and entertaining than those of the men. They would be written, too, in what +Macaulay calls--speaking of Madame d'Arblay's early style--"true woman's +English, clear, natural, and lively." What they need, in order to convert +this epistolary brilliancy into literature, is to be thorough. + +You cannot separate woman's rights and her responsibilities. In all ages of +the world she has had a certain limited work to do, and has done that well. +All that is needed, when new spheres are open, is that she should carry the +same fidelity into those. If she will work as hard to shape the children of +her brain as to rear her bodily offspring, will do intellectual work as +well as she does housework, and will meet her moral responsibilities as she +meets her social engagements, then opposition will soon disappear. The +habit of thoroughness is the key to all high success. Whatever is worth +doing is worth doing well. Only those who are faithful in a few things will +rightfully be made rulers over many. + + + + +LITERARY ASPIRANTS + + +The brilliant Lady Ashburton used to say of herself that she had never +written a book, and knew nobody whose books she would like to have written. +This does not seem to be the ordinary state of mind among those who write +letters of inquiry to authors. If I may judge from these letters, the +yearning for a literary career is now almost greater among women than among +men. Perhaps this is because of some literary successes lately achieved by +women. Perhaps it is because they have fewer outlets for their energies. +Perhaps they find more obstacles in literature than young men find, and +have, therefore, more need to write letters of inquiry about it. It is +certain that they write such letters quite often; and ask questions that +test severely the supposed omniscience of the author's brain,--questions +bearing on logic, rhetoric, grammar, and orthography; where to find a +publisher, and how to obtain a well-disciplined mind. + +These letters may sometimes be too long or come too often for convenience, +nor is the consoling postage-stamp always remembered. But they are of great +value as giving real glimpses of American social life, and of the present +tendencies of American women. They sometimes reveal such intellectual ardor +and imagination, such modesty, and such patience under difficulties, as to +do good to the reader, whatever they may do to the writer. They certainly +suggest a few thoughts, which may as well be expressed, once for all, in +print. + +Behind almost all these letters there lies a laudable desire to achieve +success. "Would you have the goodness to tell us how success can be +obtained?" How can this be answered, my dear young lady, when you leave it +to the reader to guess what your definition of success may be? For +instance, here is Mr. Mansfield Tracy Walworth, who was murdered the other +day in New York. He was at once mentioned in the newspapers as a +"celebrated author." + +Never in my life having heard of him, I looked in a "Manual of American +Literature," and there found that Mr. Walworth's novel of "Warwick" had a +sale of seventy-five thousand copies, and his "Delaplaine" of forty-five +thousand. Is it a success to have secured a sale like that for your books, +and then to die, and have your brother penmen ask, "Who was he?" Yet, +certainly, a sale of seventy-five thousand copies is not to be despised; +and I fear I know many youths and maidens who would willingly write novels +much poorer than "Warwick" for the sake of a circulation like that. I do +not think that Hawthorne, however, would have accepted these conditions; +and he certainly did not have this style of success. + +Nor do I think he had any right to expect it. He had made his choice, and +had reason to be satisfied. The very first essential for literary success +is to decide what success means. If a young girl pines after the success of +Marion Harland and Mrs. Southworth, let her seek it. It is possible that +she may obtain it, or surpass it; and though she might do better, she might +do far worse. It is, at any rate, a laudable aim to be popular: popularity +may be a very creditable thing, unless you pay too high a price for it. It +is a pleasant thing, and has many contingent advantages,--balanced by this +great danger, that one is apt to mistake it for real success. + +"Learning hath made the most," said old Fuller, "by those books on which +the booksellers have lost." If this be true of learning, it is quite as +true of genius and originality. A book may be immediately popular and also +immortal, but the chances are the other way. It is more often the case that +a great writer gradually creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. +Wordsworth in England and Emerson in America were striking instances of +this; and authors of far less fame have yet the same choice which they had. +You can take the standard which the book market offers, and train yourself +for that. This will, in the present age, be sure to educate certain +qualities in you,--directness, vividness, animation, dash,--even if it +leaves other qualities untrained. Or you can make a standard of your own, +and aim at that, taking your chance of seeing the public agree with you. +Very likely you may fail; perhaps you may be wrong in your fancy, after +all, and the public may be right: if you fail, you may find it hard to +bear; but, on the other hand, you may have the inward "glory and joy" which +nothing but fidelity to an ideal standard can give. All this applies to all +forms of work, but it applies conspicuously to literature. + +Instead, therefore, of offering to young writers the usual comforting +assurance, that, if they produce anything of real merit, it will be sure to +succeed, I should caution them first to make their own definition of +success, and then act accordingly. Hawthorne succeeded in his way, and Mr. +M.T. Walworth in his way; and each of these would have been very +unreasonable if he had expected to succeed in both ways. There is always an +opening for careful and conscientious literary work; and by such work many +persons obtain a modest support. There are also some great prizes to be +won; but these are commonly, though not always, won by work of a more +temporary and sensational kind. Make your choice; and, when you have got +precisely what you asked for, do not complain because you have missed what +you would not take. + + + + +THE CAREER OF LETTERS + + +A young girl of some talent once told me that she had devoted herself to +"the career of letters." I found, on inquiry, that she had obtained a +situation as writer of society gossip for a New York newspaper. I can +hardly imagine any life that leads more directly away from any really +literary career, or any life about which it is harder to give counsel. The +work of a newspaper correspondent, especially in the "society" direction, +is so full of trials and temptations, for one of either sex, in our dear, +inquisitive, gossiping America, that one cannot help watching with especial +solicitude all women who enter it. Their special gifts as women are a +source of danger: they are keener of observation from the very fact of +their sex, more active in curiosity, more skilful in achieving their ends; +in a world of gossip they are the queens, and men but their subjects, hence +their greater danger. + +In Newport, New York, Washington, it is the same thing. The unbounded +appetite for private information about public or semi-public people creates +its own purveyors; and these, again, learn to believe with unflinching +heartiness in the work they do. I have rarely encountered a successful +correspondent of this description who had not become thoroughly convinced +that the highest desire of every human being is to see his name in print, +no matter how. Unhappily, there is a great deal to encourage this belief: I +have known men to express great indignation at an unexpected +newspaper-puff, and then to send ten dollars privately to the author. This +is just the calamity of the profession, that it brings one in contact with +this class of social hypocrites; and the "personal" correspondent gradually +loses faith that there is any other class to be found. Then there is the +perilous temptation to pay off grudges in this way, to revenge slights, by +the use of a power with which few people are safely to be trusted. In many +cases, such a correspondent is simply a child playing with poisoned arrows: +he poisons others; and it is no satisfaction to know that in time he may +also poison himself, and paralyze his own power for mischief. + +There lies before me a letter written some years ago to a young lady +anxious to enter on this particular "career of letters,"--a letter from an +experienced New York journalist. He has employed, he says, hundreds of lady +correspondents, for little or no compensation; and one of his few +successful writers he thus describes: "She succeeds by pushing her way into +society, and extracting information from fashionable people and officials +and their wives.... She flatters the vain, and overawes the weak, and gets +by sheer impudence what other writers cannot.... I would not wish you to be +like her, or reduced to the necessity of doing what she does, for any +success journalism can possibly give." And who can help echoing this +opinion? If this is one of the successful laborers, where shall we place +the unsuccessful; or, rather, is success, or failure, the greater honor? + +Personal journalism has a prominence in this country with which nothing in +any other country can be compared. What is called publicity in England or +France means the most peaceful seclusion, compared with the glare of +notoriety which an enterprising correspondent can flash out at any time--as +if by opening the bull's-eye of a dark lantern--upon the quietest of his +contemporaries. It is essentially an American institution, and not one of +those in which we have reason to feel most pride. It is to be observed, +however, that foreigners, if in office, take to it very readily; and it is +said that no people cultivate the reporters at Washington more assiduously +than the diplomatic corps, who like to send home the personal notices of +themselves, in order to prove to their governments that they are highly +esteemed in the land to which they are appointed. But however it may be +with them, it is certain that many people still like to keep their public +and private lives apart, and shrink from even the inevitable eminence of +fame. One of the very most popular of American authors has said that he +never, to this day, has overcome a slight feeling of repugnance on seeing +his own name in print. + + + + +TALKING AND TAKING + + +Every time a woman does anything original or remarkable,--inventing a +rat-trap, let us say, or carving thirty-six heads on a walnut-shell,--all +observers shout applause. "There's a woman for you, indeed! Instead of +talking about her rights, she takes them. That's the way to do it. What a +lesson to these declaimers upon the platform!" + +It does not seem to occur to these wise people that the right to talk is +itself one of the chief rights in America, and the way to reach all the +others. To talk is to make a beginning, at any rate. To catch people with +your ideas is more than to contrive a rat-trap; and Isotta Nogarola, +carving thirty-six empty heads, was not working in so practical a fashion +as Mary Livermore when she instructs thirty-six hundred full ones. + +It shows the good sense of the woman-suffrage agitators, that they have +decided to begin with talk. In the first place, talking is the most +lucrative of all professions in America; and therefore it is the duty of +American women to secure their share of it. Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble used +to say that she read Shakespeare in public "for her bread;" and when, after +melting all hearts by a course of farewell readings, she decided to begin +reading again, she said she was doing it "for her butter." So long as women +are often obliged to support themselves and their children, and perhaps +their husbands, by their own labor, they have no right to work cheaply, +unless driven to it. Anna Dickinson had no right to make fifteen dollars a +week by sewing, if, by stepping out of the ranks of needle-women into the +ranks of the talkers, she could make a hundred dollars a day. Theorize as +we may, the fact is that there is no kind of work in America which brings +such sure profits as public speaking. If women are unfitted for it, or if +they "know the value of peace and quietness," as the hand-organ man says, +and can afford to hold their tongues, let them do so. But if they have +tongues, and like to use them, they certainly ought to make some money by +the performance. + +This is the utilitarian view. And when we bring in higher objects, it is +plain that the way to get anything in America is to talk about it. Silence +is golden, no doubt, and like other gold remains in the bank-vaults, and +does not just now circulate very freely as currency. Even literature in +America is utterly second to oratory as a means of immediate influence. Of +all sway, that of the orator is the most potent and most perishable; and +the student and the artist are apt to hold themselves aloof from it, for +this reason. But it is the one means in America to accomplish immediate +results, and women who would take their rights must take them through +talking. It is the appointed way. + +Under a good old-fashioned monarchy, if a woman wished to secure anything +for her sex, she must cajole a court, or become the mistress of a monarch. + +That epoch ended with the French Revolution. When Bonaparte wished to +silence Madame de Staël, he said, "What does that woman want? Does she want +the money the government owes to her father?" When Madame de Staël heard of +it, she said, "The question is not what I want, but what I think." +Henceforth women, like men, are to say what they think. For all that +flattery and seduction and sin, we have substituted the simple weapon of +talk. If women wish education, they must talk; if better laws, they must +talk. The one chief argument against woman suffrage, with men, is that so +few women even talk about it. + +As long as the human voice can effect anything, it is the duty of women to +use it; and in America, where it effects everything, they should talk all +the time. When they have obtained, as a class, absolute equality of rights +with men, their appeals on this subject may cease, and they may accept, if +they please, that naughty masculine definition of a happy marriage,--the +union of a deaf man with a dumb woman. + + + + +HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC + + +There are other things that women wish to do, it seems, beside studying and +voting. There are a good many--if I may judge from letters that +occasionally come to me--who are taking, or wish to take, their first +lessons in public speaking. Not necessarily very much in public, or before +mixed audiences, but perhaps merely to say to a roomful of ladies, or +before the committee of a Christian Union, what they desire to say. "How +shall I make myself heard? How shall I learn to express myself? How shall I +keep my head clear? Is there any school for debate?" And so on. My dear +young lady, it does not take much wisdom, but only a little experience, to +answer some of these questions. So I am not afraid to try. + +The best school for debate is debating. So far as mere confidence and +comfort are concerned, the great thing is to gain the habit of speech, even +if one speaks badly. And the practice of an ordinary debating society has +also this advantage, that it teaches you to talk sense (lest you be laughed +at), to speak with some animation (lest your hearers go to sleep), to think +out some good arguments (because you are trying to convince somebody), and +to guard against weak reasoning or unfounded assertion (lest your opponent +trip you up). Speaking in a debating society thus gives you the same +advantage that a lawyer derives from the presence of an opposing counsel: +you learn to guard yourself at all points. It is the absence of this check +which is the great intellectual disadvantage of the pulpit When a lawyer +says a foolish thing in an argument, he is pretty sure to find it out; but +a clergyman may go on repeating his foolish thing for fifty years without +discovering it, for want of an opponent. + +For the art of making your voice heard, I must refer you to an +elocutionist. Yet one thing at least you might acquire for yourself,--a +thing that lies at the foundation of all good speaking,--the complete and +thorough enunciation of every syllable. So great is the delight, to my ear +at least, of a perfectly distinct and clear-cut utterance, that I fear I +should rather listen for an hour to the merest nonsense, so uttered, than +to the very wisdom of angels if given in a confused or nasal or slovenly +way. If you wish to know what I mean by a clear and satisfactory utterance, +go to a woman-suffrage convention, and hear Miss Mary F. Eastman. + +As to your employment of language, the great aim is to be simple, and, in a +measure, conversational; and then let eloquence come of itself. If most +people talked as well in public as in private, public meetings would be +more interesting. To acquire a conversational tone, there is good sense in +Edward Everett Hale's suggestion, that every person who is called on to +speak,--let us say, at a public dinner,--instead of standing up and talking +about his surprise at being called on, should simply make his last remark +to his neighbor at the table the starting-point for what he says to the +whole company. He will thus make sure of a perfectly natural key, to begin +with; and can go on from this quiet "As I was just saying to Mr. Smith," to +discuss the gravest question of Church or State. It breaks the ice for him, +like the remark upon the weather by which we open our interview with the +person whom we have longed for years to meet. Beginning in this way at the +level of the earth's surface, we can join hands and rise to the clouds. +Begin in the clouds,--as some of my most esteemed friends are wont to do,-- +and you have to sit down before reaching the earth. + +And, to come last to what is first in importance, I am taking it for +granted that you have something to say, and a strong desire to say it. +Perhaps you can say it better for writing it out in full beforehand. But +whether you do this or not, remember that the more simple and consecutive +your thought, the easier it will be both to keep it in mind and to utter +it. The more orderly your plan, the less likely you will be to "get +bewildered," or to "lose the thread." Think it out so clearly that the +successive parts lead to one another, and then there will be little strain +upon your memory. For each point you make, provide at least one good +argument and one good illustration, and you can, after a little practice, +safely leave the rest to the suggestion of the moment. But so much as this +you must have, to be secure. Methods of preparation of course vary +extremely; yet I suppose the secret of the composure of an experienced +speaker to lie usually in this, that he has made sure beforehand of a +sufficient number of good points to carry him through, even if nothing good +should occur to him on the spot. Thus wise people, in going on a fishing +excursion, take with them not merely their fishing tackle, but a few fish; +and then, if they are not sure of their luck, they will be sure of their +chowder. + +These are some of the simple hints that might be given, in answer to +inquiring friends. I can remember when they would have saved me some +anguish of spirit; and they may be of some use to others now. I write, +then, not to induce any one to talk for the sake of talking,--Heaven +forbid!--but that those who are longing to say something should not fancy +the obstacles insurmountable, when they are really slight. + + + + +VII + +PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT + + "That liberty, or freedom, consists in having an actual share in + the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the + guardians of every man's life, property, and peace; for the all of + one man is as dear to him as the all of another, and the poor man + has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the + legislature than the rich one. That they who have no voice nor vote + in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are + absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their + representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other + men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the + representatives of others, without having had representatives of our + own to give consent in our behalf."--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, in Sparks's + Franklin, ii. 372. + + +WE THE PEOPLE + + +I remember that when I went to school I used to look with wonder on the +title of a now forgotten newspaper of those days which was then often in +the hands of one of the older scholars. I remember nothing else about the +newspaper, or about the boy, except that the title of the sheet he used to +unfold was "We the People;" and that he derived from it his school +nickname, by a characteristic boyish parody, and was usually mentioned as +"Us the Folks." + +Probably all that was taught in that school, in regard to American history, +was not of so much value as the permanent fixing of this phrase in our +memories. It seemed very natural, in later years, to come upon my old +friend "Us the Folks," reproduced in almost every charter of our national +government, as thus:-- + + "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect + union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for + the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the + blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and + establish this Constitution for the United States of + America."--_United States Constitution, Preamble_. + + "WE THE PEOPLE of Maine do agree," etc.--_Constitution of Maine_. + + "All government of right originates from THE PEOPLE, is founded in + their consent, and instituted for the general good."--_Constitution + of New Hampshire_. + + "The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of + individuals; it is a social compact, 'by which THE WHOLE PEOPLE + covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, + that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common + good."--_Constitution of Massachusetts_. + + "WE THE PEOPLE of the State of Rhode Island and Providence + Plantations ... do ordain and establish this constitution of + government."--_Constitution of Rhode Island_. + + "The people of Connecticut do, in order more effectually to define, + secure, and perpetuate the liberties, rights, and privileges which + they have derived from their ancestors, hereby ordain and establish + the following constitution and form of civil + government."--_Constitution of Connecticut_. + +And so on through the constitutions of almost every State in the Union. Our +government is, as Lincoln said, "a government of the people, by the people, +and for the people." There is no escaping it. To question this is to deny +the foundations of the American government. Granted that those who framed +these provisions may not have understood the full extent of the principles +they announced. No matter: they gave us those principles; and, having them, +we must apply them. + +Now, women may be voters or not, citizens or not; but that they are a part +of the people, no one has denied in Christendom--however it may be in +Japan, where, as Mrs. Leonowens tells us, the census of population takes in +only men, and the women and children are left to be inferred. "WE THE +PEOPLE," then, includes women. Be the superstructure what it may, the +foundation of the government clearly provides a place for them: it is +impossible to state the national theory in such a way that it shall not +include them. It is impossible to deny the natural right of women to vote, +except on grounds which exclude all natural right. + +The fundamental charters are on our side. There are certain statute +limitations which may prove greater or less. But these are temporary and +trivial things, always to be interpreted, often to be modified, by +reference to the principles of the Constitution. For instance, when a +constitutional convention is to be held, or new conditions of suffrage to +be created, the whole people should vote upon the matter, including those +not hitherto enfranchised. This is the view insisted on, many years since, +by that eminent jurist, William Beach Lawrence. He maintained, in a letter +to Charles Sumner and in opposition to his own party, that if the question +of "negro suffrage" in the Southern States of the Union were put to vote, +the colored people themselves had a natural right to vote on the question. +The same is true of women. It should never be forgotten by advocates of +woman suffrage, that the deeper their reasonings go, the stronger +foundation they find; and that we have always a solid fulcrum for our lever +in that phrase of our charters, "We the people." + + + + +THE USE OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE + + +When young people begin to study geometry, they expect to begin with hard +reasoning on the very first page. To their surprise, they find that the +early pages are not occupied by reasoning, but by a few simple, easy, and +rather commonplace sentences, called "axioms," which are really a set of +pegs on which all the reasoning is hung. Pupils are not expected to go back +in every demonstration and prove the axioms. If Almira Jones happens to be +doing a problem at the blackboard on examination day, at the high school, +and remarks in the course of her demonstration that "things which are equal +to the same thing are equal to one another," and if a sharp questioner +jumps up, and says, "How do you know it?" she simply lays down her bit of +chalk, and says fearlessly, "That is an axiom," and the teacher sustains +her. Some things must be taken for granted. + +The same service rendered by axioms in the geometry is supplied in America, +as to government, by the simple principles of the Declaration of +Independence. Right or wrong, they are taken for granted. Inasmuch as all +the legislation of the country is supposed to be based in them,--they +stating the theory of our government, while the Constitution itself only +puts into organic shape the application,--we must all begin with them. It +is a great advantage, and saves great trouble in all reforms. To the +Abolitionists, for instance, what an inestimable labor-saving machine was +the Declaration of Independence! Let them have that, and they asked no +more. Even the brilliant lawyer Rufus Choate, when confronted with its +plain provisions, could only sneer at them as "glittering generalities," +which was equivalent to throwing down his brief, and throwing up his case. +It was an admission that, if you were so foolish as to insist on applying +the first principles of the government, it was all over with him. + +Now, the whole doctrine of woman suffrage follows so directly from these +same political axioms, that they are especially convenient for women to +have in the house. When the Declaration of Independence enumerates as among +"self-evident" truths the fact of governments "deriving their just powers +from the consent of the governed," then that point may be considered as +settled. In this school-examination of maturer life, in this grown-up +geometry class, the student is not to be called upon by the committee to +prove that. She may rightfully lay down her demonstrating chalk, and say, +"That is an axiom. You admit that yourselves." + +It is a great convenience. We cannot always be going back, like a Hindoo +history, to the foundations of the world. Some things may be taken for +granted. How this simple axiom sweeps away, for instance, the cobweb +speculations as to whether voting is a natural right, or a privilege +delegated by society! No matter which. Take it which way you please. That +is an abstract question; but the practical question is a very simple one. +"Governments owe their just powers to the consent of the governed." Either +that axiom is false, or, whenever women as a class refuse their consent to +the present exclusively masculine government, it can no longer claim just +powers. The remedy then may be rightly demanded, which the Declaration of +Independence goes on to state: "Whenever any form of government becomes +destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to +abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on +such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall +seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." + +This is the use of the Declaration of Independence. Women, as a class, may +not be quite ready to use it. It is the business of this book to help make +them ready. But so far as they are ready these plain provisions are the +axioms of their political faith. If the axioms mean anything for men, they +mean something for women. If men deride the axioms, it is a concession, +like that of Rufus Choate, that these fundamental principles are very much +in their way. But so long as the sentences stand in that document they can +be made useful. If men try to get away from the arguments of women by +saving, "But suppose we have nothing in our theory of government which +requires us to grant your demand?" then women can answer, as the +straightforward Traddles answered Uriah Heep, "But you have, you know: +therefore, if you please, we won't suppose any such thing." + + + + +SOME OLD-FASHIONED PRINCIPLES + + +There has been an effort, lately, to show that when our fathers said, +"Taxation without representation is tyranny," they referred not to personal +liberties, but to the freedom of a state from foreign power. It is +fortunate that this criticism has been made, for it has led to a more +careful examination of passages; and this has made it clear, beyond +dispute, that the Revolutionary patriots carried their statements more into +detail than is generally supposed, and affirmed their principles for +individuals, not merely for the state as a whole. + +In that celebrated pamphlet by James Otis, for instance, published as early +as 1764, "The Rights of the Colonies Vindicated," he thus clearly lays down +the rights of the individual as to taxation:-- + + "The very act of taxing, exercised over those who are not + represented, appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most + essential rights as freemen; and, if continued, seems to be, in + effect, an entire disfranchisement of every civil right. For what + one civil right is worth a rush, after a man's property is subject + to be taken from him at pleasure, without his consent? If a man is + not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone, + or he is entirely at the mercy of others." [1] + +This fine statement has already done duty for liberty, in another contest; +for it was quoted by Mr. Sumner in his speech of March 7, 1866, with this +commentary:-- + + "Stronger words for universal suffrage could not be employed. His + argument is that if men are taxed without being represented, they + are deprived of essential rights; and the continuance of this + deprivation despoils them of every civil right, thus making the + latter depend upon the right of suffrage, which by a neologism of + our day is known as a political right instead of a civil right. + Then, to give point to this argument, the patriot insists that in + determining taxation, 'every man must be his own assessor, in person + or by deputy,' without which his liberty is entirely at the mercy of + others. Here, again, in a different form, is the original + thunderbolt, 'Taxation without representation is tyranny;' and the + claim is made not merely for communities, but for 'every man.'" + +In a similar way wrote Benjamin Franklin, some six years after, in that +remarkable sheet found among his papers, and called "Declaration of those +Rights of the Commonalty of Great Britain, without which they cannot be +free." The leading propositions were these three:-- + + "That every man of the commonalty (excepting infants, insane + persons, and criminals) is of common right and by the laws of God a + freeman, and entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That + liberty, or freedom, consists in having an actual share in the + appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the + guardians of every man's life, property, and peace; for the all of + one man is as dear to him as the all of another; and the poor man + has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the + legislature than the rich one. That they who have no voice nor vote + in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are + absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their + representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other + men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the + representatives of others, without having had representatives of our + own to give consent in our behalf."[2] + +In quoting these words of Dr. Franklin, one of his biographers feels moved +to add, "These principles, so familiar to us now and so obviously just, +were startling and incredible novelties in 1770, abhorrent to nearly all +Englishmen, and to great numbers of Americans." Their fair application is +still abhorrent to a great many; or else, not willing quite to deny the +theory, they limit the application by some such device as "virtual +representation." Here, again, James Otis is ready for them; and Charles +Sumner is ready to quote Otis, as thus:-- + + "No such phrase as virtual representation was ever known in law or + constitution. It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly + unfounded and absurd. We must not be cheated by any such phantom, or + any other fiction of law or politics, or any monkish trick of deceit + or blasphemy." + +These are the sharp words used by the patriot Otis, speaking of those who +were trying to convince American citizens that they were virtually +represented in Parliament Sumner applied the same principle to the +freedmen: it is now applied to women. "Taxation without representation is +tyranny." "Virtual representation is altogether a subtlety and illusion, +wholly unfounded and absurd." No ingenuity, no evasion, can give any escape +from these plain principles. Either you must revoke the maxims of the +American Revolution, or you must enfranchise woman. Stuart Mill well says +in his autobiography, "The interest of woman is included in that of man +exactly as much (and no more) as that of subjects in that of kings." + +[Footnote 1: Otis, _Rights of the Colonies_, p. 58.] + +[Footnote 2: Sparks's _Franklin_, ii. 372.] + + + + +FOUNDED ON A ROCK + + +If there is any one who is recognized as a fair exponent of our national +principles, it is our martyr-president Abraham Lincoln; whom Lowell calls, +in his noble Commemoration Ode at Cambridge,-- + + "New birth of our new soil, the first American." + +What President Lincoln's political principle was, we know. On his journey +to Washington for his first inauguration he said, "I have never had a +feeling that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration +of Independence." To find out what was his view of those sentiments, we +must go back several years earlier, and consider that remarkable letter of +his to the Boston Republicans who had invited him to join them in +celebrating Jefferson's birthday, in April, 1859. It was well called by +Charles Sumner "a gem in political literature;" and it seems to me almost +as admirable, in its way, as the Gettysburg address. + + "The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free + society. And yet they are denied and evaded with no small show of + success. One dashingly calls them 'glittering generalities.' Another + bluntly styles them 'self-evident lies.' And others insidiously + argue that they apply only to 'superior races.'" + + "These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and + effect,--the subverting the principles of free government, and + restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would + delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. + They are the vanguard, the sappers and miners of returning + despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us." + + "All honor to Jefferson.'--the man who, in the concrete pressure of + a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the + coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely + revolutionary document _an abstract truth applicable to all men and + all times_, and so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming + days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the harbingers of + reappearing tyranny and oppression." + +The special "abstract truth" to which President Lincoln thus attaches a +value so great, and which he pronounces "applicable to all men and all +times," is evidently the assertion of the Declaration that governments +derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, following the +assertion that all men are born free and equal; that is, as some one has +well interpreted it, equally men. I do not see how any person but a dreamy +recluse can deny that the strength of our republic rests on these +principles; which are so thoroughly embedded in the average American mind +that they take in it, to some extent, the place occupied in the average +English mind by the emotion of personal loyalty to a certain reigning +family. But it is impossible to defend these principles logically, as +Senator Hoar has well pointed out, without recognizing that they are as +applicable to women as to men. If this is the case, the claim of women +rests on a right,--indeed, upon the same right which is the foundation of +all our institutions. + +The encouraging fact in the present condition of the whole matter is not +that we get more votes here or there for this or that form of woman +suffrage--for experience has shown that there are great ups and downs in +that respect; and States that at one time seemed nearest to woman suffrage, +as Maine and Kansas, now seem quite apathetic. But the real encouragement +is that the logical ground is more and more conceded; and the point now +usually made is not that the Jeffersonian maxim excludes women, but that +"the consent of the governed" is substantially given by the general consent +of women. That this argument has a certain plausibility may be conceded; +but it is equally clear that the minority of women, those who do wish to +vote, includes on the whole the natural leaders,--those who are foremost in +activity of mind, in literature, in art, in good works of charity. It is, +therefore, pretty sure that they only predict the opinions of the rest, who +will follow them in time. And even while waiting it is a fair question +whether the "governed" have not the right to give their votes when they +wish, even if the majority of them prefer to stay away from the polls. We +do not repeal our naturalization laws, although only the minority of our +foreign-born inhabitants as yet take the pains to become naturalized. + + + + +THE GOOD OF THE GOVERNED + + +In Paris, some years ago, I was for a time a resident in a cultivated +French family, where the father was non-committal in politics, the mother +and son were republicans, and the daughter was a Bonapartist. Asking the +mother why the young lady thus held to a different creed from the rest, I +was told that she had made up her mind that the streets of Paris were kept +cleaner under the empire than since its disappearance: hence her +imperialism. + +I have heard American men advocate the French empire at home and abroad, +without offering reasons so good as those of the lively French maiden. But +I always think of her remark when the question is seriously asked, as Mr. +Parkman, for instance, once gravely put it in "The North American +Review,"--"The real issue is this: Is the object of government the good of +the governed, or is it not?" Taken in a general sense, there is probably no +disposition to discuss this conundrum, for the simple reason that nobody +dissents from it. But the important point is: What does "the good of the +governed" mean? Does it merely mean better street cleaning, or something +more essential? + +There is nothing new in the distinction. Ever since De Tocqueville wrote +his "Democracy in America," forty years ago, this precise point has been +under active discussion. That acute writer himself recurs to it again and +again. Every government, he points out, nominally seeks the good of the +people, and rests on their will at last. But there is this difference: A +monarchy organizes better, does its work better, cleans the streets better. +Nevertheless De Tocqueville, a monarchist, sees this advantage in a +republic, that when all this is done by the people for themselves, although +the work done may be less perfect, yet the people themselves are more +enlightened, better satisfied, and, in the end, their good is better +served. Thus in one place he quotes "a writer of talent" who complains of +the want of administrative perfection in the United States, and says, "We +are indebted to centralization, that admirable invention of a great man, +for the uniform order and method which prevails alike in all the municipal +budgets (of France) from the largest town to the humblest commune." But, +says De Tocqueville,-- + + "Whatever may be my admiration of this result, when I see the + communes (municipalities) of France, with their excellent system of + accounts, plunged in the grossest ignorance of their true interests, + and abandoned to so incorrigible an apathy that they seem to + vegetate rather than to live; when, on the other hand, I observe the + activity, the information, and the spirit of enterprise which keeps + society in perpetual labor, in these American townships, whose + budgets are drawn up with small method and with still less + uniformity,--I am struck by the spectacle; _for, to my mind, the end + of a good government is to insure the welfare of a people_, and not + to establish order and regularity in the midst of its misery and its + distress."[1] + +The italics are my own; but it will be seen that he uses a phrase almost +identical with Mr. Parkman's, and that he uses it to show that there is +something to be looked at beyond good laws,--namely, the beneficial effect +of self-government. In another place he comes back to the subject again:-- + + "It is incontestable that the people frequently conducts public + business very ill; but it is impossible that the lower order should + take a part in public business without extending the circle of their + ideas, and without quitting the ordinary routine of their mental + acquirements; the humblest individual who is called upon to + cooperate in the government of society acquires a certain degree of + self-respect; and, as he possesses authority, he can command the + services of minds much more enlightened than his own. He is + canvassed by a multitude of applicants, who seek to deceive him in a + thousand different ways, but who instruct him by their deceit.... + Democracy does not confer the most skilful kind of government upon + the people; but it produces that which the most skilful governments + are frequently unable to awaken, namely, an all-pervading and + restless activity, a superabundant force, and an energy which is + inseparable from it, and which may, under favorable circumstances, + beget the most amazing benefits. These are the true advantages of + democracy."[2] + +These passages and others like them are worth careful study. They clearly +point out the two different standards by which we may criticise all +political systems. One class of thinkers, of whom Froude is the most +conspicuous, holds that the "good of the people" means good laws and good +administration, and that, if these are only provided, it makes no sort of +difference whether they themselves make the laws, or whether some Cæsar or +Louis Napoleon provides them. All the traditions of the early and later +Federalists point this way. But it has always seemed to me a theory of +government essentially incompatible with American institutions. If we could +once get our people saturated with it, they would soon be at the mercy of +some Louis Napoleon of their own. + +When President Lincoln claimed, following Theodore Parker, that ours was +not merely a government for the people, but of the people, and by the +people as well, he recognized the other side of the matter,--that it is not +only important what laws we have, but who makes the laws; and that "the end +of a good government is to insure the welfare of a people," in this far +wider sense. That advantage which the French writer admits in democracy, +that it develops force, energy, and self-respect, is as essentially a part +of "the good of the governed" as is any perfection in the details of +government. And it is precisely these advantages which we expect that +women, sooner or later, are to share. For them, as for men, "the good of +the governed" is not genuine unless it is that kind of good which belongs +to the self-governed. + +[Footnote 1: Sparks's _Franklin_, ii. 372.] + +[Footnote 2: De Tocqueville, vol. ii. pp. 74, 75.] + + + + +RULING AT SECONDHAND + + +In the last century the bitter satirist, Charles Churchill, wrote a verse +which will do something to keep alive his name. It is as follows:-- + + "Women ruled all; and ministers of state + Were at the doors of women forced to wait,-- + Women, who we oft as sovereigns graced the land, + But never governed well at second-hand." + +He touches the very kernel of the matter, and all history is on his side. +The Salic Law excluded women from the throne of France,--"the kingdom of +France being too noble to be governed by a woman," as it said. Accordingly +the history of France shows one long line of royal mistresses ruling in +secret for mischief; while more liberal England points to the reigns of +Elizabeth and Anne and Victoria, to show how usefully a woman may sit upon +a throne. + +It was one of the merits of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, that she always pointed +out this distinction. "Any woman can have influence," she said, "in some +way. She need only to be a good cook or a good scold, to secure that. Woman +should not merely have a share in the power of man,--for of that omnipotent +Nature will not suffer her to be defrauded,--but it should be a _chartered_ +power, too fully recognized to be abused." We have got to meet, at any +rate, this fact of feminine influence in the world. Demosthenes said that +the measures which a statesman had meditated for a year might be overturned +in a day by a woman. How infinitely more sensible then, to train the woman +herself in statesmanship, and give her open responsibility as well as +concealed power! + +The same demoralizing principle of subordination runs through the whole +position of women. Many a husband makes of his wife a doll, dresses her in +fine clothes, gives or withholds money according to his whims, and laughs +or frowns if she asks any questions about his business. If only a petted +slave, she naturally develops the vices of a slave; and when she wants more +money for more fine clothes, and finds her husband out of humor, she +coaxes, cheats, and lies. Many a woman half ruins her husband by her +extravagance, simply because he has never told her frankly what his income +is, or treated her, in money matters, like a rational being. Bankruptcy, +perhaps, brings both to their senses; and thenceforward the husband +discovers that his wife is a woman, not a child. But for want of this whole +families and generations of women are trained to deception. I knew an +instance where a fashionable dressmaker in New York urged an economical +young girl, about to be married, to buy of her a costly _trousseau_ or +wedding outfit. + +"But I have not the money," said the maiden. "No matter," said the +complaisant tempter: "I will wait four years, and send in the bill to your +husband by degrees. Many ladies do it." Fancy the position of a pure young +girl, wishing innocently to make herself beautiful in the eyes of her +husband, and persuaded to go into his house with a trick like this upon her +conscience! Yet it grows directly out of the whole theory of life which is +preached to many women,--that all they seek must be won by indirect +manoeuvres, and not by straightforward living. + +It is a mistaken system. Once recognize woman as born to be the equal, not +inferior, of man, and she accepts as a right her share of the family +income, of political power, and of all else that is capable of +distribution. As it is, we are in danger of forgetting that woman, in mind +as in body, was-born to be upright. The women of Charles Reade--never by +any possibility moving in a straight line where it is possible to find a +crooked one--are distorted women; and Nature is no more responsible for +them than for the figures produced by tight lacing and by high-heeled +boots. These physical deformities acquire a charm, when the taste adjusts +itself to them; and so do those pretty tricks and those interminable lies. +But after all, to make a noble woman you must give a noble training. + + + + +VIII + +SUFFRAGE + + "No such phrase as virtual representation was ever known in law or + constitution. It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly + unfounded and absurd. We must not be cheated by any such phantom or + any other trick of law and politics."--JAMES OTIS, quoted by Charles + Sumner in speech, March 7, 1866. + + +DRAWING THE LINE + + +When in Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" the coal-heaver calls at the +fashionable barber's to be shaved, the barber declines that service. The +coal-heaver pleads that he saw a baker being shaved there the day before. +But the barber points out to him that it is necessary to draw the line +somewhere, and he draws it at bakers. + +It is, doubtless, an inconvenience, in respect to woman suffrage, that so +many people have their own theories as to drawing the line, and deciding +who shall vote. Each has his hobby; and as the opportunity for applying it +to men has passed by, each wishes to catch at the last remaining chance, +and apply it to women. One believes in drawing an educational line; +another, in a property qualification; another, in new restrictions on +naturalization; another, in distinctions of race; and each wishes to keep +women, for a time, as the only remaining victims for his experiment. + +Fortunately the answer to all these objections, on behalf of woman +suffrage, is very brief and simple. It is no more the business of its +advocates to decide upon the best abstract basis for suffrage, than it is +to decide upon the best system of education, or of labor, or of marriage. +Its business is to equalize, in all these directions; nothing more. When +that is done, there will be plenty still left to do, without doubt; but it +will not involve the rights of women, as such. Simply to strike out the +word "male" from the statute,--that is our present work. "What is sauce for +the goose"--but the proverb is somewhat musty. These educational and +property restrictions may be of value; but wherever they are already +removed from the men they must be removed from women also. Enfranchise them +equally, and then begin afresh, if you please, to legislate for the whole +human race. What we protest against is that you should have let down the +bars for one sex, and should at once become conscientiously convinced that +they should be put up again for the other. + +When it was proposed to apply an educational qualification at the South +after the war, the Southern white loyalists all objected to it. If you make +it universal, they said, it cuts off many of the whites. If you apply it to +the blacks alone, it is manifestly unjust. The case is the same with women +in regard to men. As woman needs the ballot primarily to protect herself, +it is manifestly unjust to restrict the suffrage for her, when man has it +without restriction. If she needs protection, then she needs it all the +more from being poor, or ignorant, or Irish, or black. If we do not see +this, the freedwomen of the South did. There is nothing like personal wrong +to teach people logic. + +We hear a great deal said in dismay, and sometimes even by old +abolitionists, about "increasing the number of ignorant voters." In +Massachusetts, there is an educational restriction for men, such as it is; +in Rhode Island, a property qualification is required for voting on certain +questions. Personally, I believe with "Warrington," that, if ignorant +voting be bad, ignorant non-voting is worse; and that the enfranchised +"masses," which have a legitimate outlet for their political opinions, are +far less dangerous than disfranchised masses, which must rely on mobs and +strikes. I will go farther, and say that I believe our republic is, on the +whole, in less danger from its poor men, who have got to stay in it and +bring up their children, than from its rich men, who have always Paris and +London to fall back upon. I do not see that even a poll-tax or registry-tax +is of any use as a safeguard; for if men are to be bought the tax merely +offers a more indirect and palatable form in which to pay the price. Many a +man consents to have his poll-tax paid by his party or his candidate, when +he would reject the direct offer of a dollar bill. + +But this is all private speculation, and has nothing to do with the +woman-suffrage movement. All that we can ask, as advocates of this reform, +is that the inclusion or the exclusion should be the same for both sexes. +We cannot put off the equality of woman till that time, a few centuries +hence, when the Social Science Association shall have succeeded in agreeing +on the true basis of "scientific legislation." It is as if we urged that +wives should share their husbands' dinners, and were told that the +physicians had not decided whether beefsteak were wholesome. The answer +is, "Beefsteak or tripe, yeast or saleratus, which you please. But, +meanwhile, what is good enough for the wife is good enough for the +husband." + + + + +FOR SELF-PROTECTION + + +I remember to have read, many years ago, the life of Sir Samuel Romilly, +the English philanthropist. He was the author of more beneficent legal +reforms than any man of his day, and there was in that very book a long +list of the changes he still meant to bring about. It struck me very much, +that among these proposed reforms not one of any importance referred to the +laws about women. + +It shows--what all experience has shown--that no class or race or sex can +safely trust its protection in any hands but its own. The laws of England +in regard to woman were then so bad that Lord Brougham afterwards said they +needed total reconstruction, if they were to be touched at all. Yet it is +only since woman suffrage began to be talked about, that the work of +law-reform has really taken firm hold. In many cases in America the +beneficent measures are directly to be traced to some appeal from feminine +advocates. Even in Canada, as was once stated by Dr. Cameron of Toronto, +the bill protecting the property of married women was passed under the +immediate pressure of Lucy Stone's eloquence. And even where this direct +agency could not be traced, the general fact that the atmosphere was full +of the agitation had much to do with all the reforms that took place. +Legislatures, unwilling to give woman the ballot, were shamed into giving +her something. The chairman of the judiciary committee in Rhode Island told +me that until he heard women argue before the committee he had not +reflected upon their legal disabilities, or thought how unjust these were. +While the matter was left to the other sex only, even men like Sir Samuel +Romilly forgot the wrongs of woman. When she began to advocate her own +cause men also waked up. + +But now that they are awake they ask, Is not this sufficient? Not at all If +an agent who has cheated you surrenders reluctantly one half your stolen +goods, you do not stop there and say, "It is enough. Your intention is +honorable. Please continue my agent with increased pay." On the contrary, +you say, "Your admission of wrong is a plea of guilty. Give me the rest of +what is mine." There is no defence like self-defence, no protection like +self-protection. + +All theories of chivalry and generosity and vicarious representation fall +before the fact that woman has been grossly wronged by man. That being the +case, the only modest and honest thing for man to do is to say, +"Henceforward have a voice in making your own laws." Till this is done, she +has no sure safeguard, since otherwise the same men who made the old +barbarous laws may at any time restore them. + +It is common to say that woman suffrage will make no great difference; that +women will think very much as men do, and it will simply double the vote +without varying the result. About many matters this may be true. To be +sure, it is probable that on questions of conscience, like slavery and +temperance, the woman's vote would by no means coincide with man's. But +grant that it would. The fact remains,--and all history shows it,--that on +all that concerns her own protection a woman needs her own vote. Would a +woman vote to give her husband the power of bequeathing her children to the +control and guardianship of somebody else? Would a woman vote to sustain +the law by which a Massachusetts chief justice bade the police take those +crying children from their mother's side in the Boston court-room a few +years ago, and hand them over to a comparative stranger, because that +mother had married again? You might as well ask whether the colored vote +would sustain the Dred Scott decision. Tariffs or banks may come or go the +same, whether the voters be white or black, male or female; but when the +wrongs of an oppressed class or sex are to be righted the ballot is the +only guaranty. After they have gained a potential voice for themselves, the +Sir Samuel Romillys will remember them. + + + + +WOMANLY STATESMANSHIP + + +The newspapers periodically express a desire to know whether women have +given evidence, on the whole, of superior statesmanship to men. There are +constant requests that they will define their position as to the tariff and +the fisheries and the civil-service question. If they do not speak, it is +naturally assumed that they will forever after hold their peace. Let us see +how that matter stands. + +It is said that the greatest mechanical skill in America is to be found +among professional burglars who come here from England. Suppose one of +these men were in prison, and we were to stand outside and taunt him +through the window: "Here is a locomotive engine: why do you not mend or +manage it? Here is a steam printing-press: if you know anything, set it up +for me! You a mechanic, when you have not proved that you understand any of +these things? Nonsense!" + +But Jack Sheppard, if he condescended to answer us at all, would coolly +say, "Wait a while, till I have finished my present job. Being in prison, +my first business is to get out of prison. Wait till I have picked this +lock, and mined this wall; wait till I have made a saw out of a +watch-spring, and a ladder out of a pair of blankets. Let me do my first +task, and get out of limbo, and then see if your little printing-presses +and locomotives are too puzzling for my fingers." + +Politically speaking, woman is in jail, and her first act of skill must be +in getting through the wall. For her there is no tariff question, no +problem of the fisheries. She will come to that by and by, if you please; +but for the present her statesmanship must be employed nearer home. The +"civil-service reform" in which she is most concerned is a reform which +shall bring her in contact with the civil service. Her political creed, for +the present, is limited to that of Sterne's starling in the cage,--"I can't +get out." If she is supposed to have any common-sense at all, she will best +show it by beginning at the point where she is, instead of at the point +where somebody else is. She would indeed be as foolish as these editors +think her if she now spent her brains upon the tariff question, which she +cannot reach, instead of upon her own enfranchisement, which she is +gradually reaching. + +The woman-suffrage movement in America, in all its stages and subdivisions, +has been the work of woman. No doubt men have helped in it: much of the +talking has been done by them, and they have furnished many of the printed +documents. But the energy, the methods, the unwearied purpose, of the +movement, have come from women: they have led in all councils; they have +established the newspapers, got up the conventions, addressed the +legislatures, and raised the money. Thirty years have shown, with whatever +temporary variations, one vast wave of progress toward success, both in +this country and in Europe. Now success is statesmanship. + +I remember well the shouts of laughter that used to greet the anti-slavery +orators when they claimed that the real statesmen of the country were not +the Clays and Calhouns, who spent their strength in trying to sustain +slavery, and failed, but the Garrisons, who devoted their lives to its +overthrow, and were succeeding. Yet who now doubts this? Tried by the same +standard, the statesmanship of to-day does not lie in the men who can find +no larger questions before them than those which concern the fisheries, but +in the women whose far-reaching efforts will one day make every existing +voting-list so much waste paper. + +Of course, when the voting-lists with the women's names are ready to be +printed, it will be interesting to speculate as to how these new monarchs +of our destiny will use their power. For myself, a long course of +observation in the anti-slavery and woman-suffrage movements has satisfied +me that women are not idiots, and that, on the whole, when they give their +minds to a question, whether moral or practical, they understand it quite +as readily as men. In the anti-slavery movement it is certain that a woman, +Elizabeth Heyrick, gave the first impulse to its direct and simple solution +in England; and that another woman, Mrs. Stowe, did more than any man, +except perhaps Garrison and John Brown, to secure its right solution here. +There was never a moment, I am confident, when any great political question +growing out of the anti-slavery struggle might not have been put to vote +more safely among the women of New England than among the clergy, or the +lawyers, or the college professors. If they did so well in that great +issue, it is fair to assume that, after they have a sufficient inducement +to study out future issues, they at least will not be very much behind the +men. + +But we cannot keep it too clearly in view, that the whole question, whether +women would vote better or worse than men on general questions, is a minor +matter. It was equally a minor matter in case of the negroes. We gave the +negroes the ballot, simply because they needed it for their own protection; +and we shall by and by give it to women for the same reason. Tried by that +test, we shall find that their statesmanship will be genuine. When they +come into power, drunken husbands will no longer control their wives' +earnings, and a chief justice will no longer order a child to be removed +from its mother, amid its tears and outcries, merely because that mother +has married again. And if, as we are constantly assured, woman's first duty +is to her home and her children, she may count it a good beginning in +statesmanship to secure to herself the means of protecting both. That once +settled, it will be time enough to "interview" her in respect to the proper +rate of duty on pig-iron. + + + + +TOO MUCH PREDICTION + + +"Seek not to proticipate," says Mrs. Gamp, the venerable nurse in "Martin +Chuzzlewit"--"but take 'em as they come, and as they go." I am persuaded +that our woman-suffrage arguments would be improved by this sage counsel, +and that at present we indulge in too many bold anticipations. + +Is there not altogether too much tendency to predict what women will do +when they vote? Could that good time come to-morrow, we should be startled +to find to how many different opinions and "causes" the new voters were +already pledged. One speaker wishes that women should be emancipated, +because of the fidelity with which they are sure to support certain +desirable measures, as peace, order, freedom, temperance, righteousness, +and judgment to come. Then the next speaker has his or her schedule of +political virtues and is equally confident that women, if once +enfranchised, will guarantee clear majorities for them all. The trouble is +that we thus mortgage this new party of the future, past relief, beyond +possibility of payment, and incur the ridicule of the unsanctified by +committing our cause to a great many contradictory pledges. + +I know an able and high-minded woman of foreign birth, who courageously, +but as I think mistakenly, calls herself an atheist, and who has for years +advocated woman suffrage as the only antidote to the rule of the clergy. On +the other hand, an able speaker in a Boston convention soon after advocated +the same thing as the best way of defeating atheism, and securing the +positive assertion of religion by the community. Both cannot be correct: +neither is entitled to speak for woman. That being the case, would it not +be better to keep clear of this dangerous ground of prediction, and keep to +the argument based on rights and needs? If our theory of government be +worth anything, woman has the same right to the ballot that man has: she +certainly needs it as much for self-defence. How she will use it, when she +gets it, is her own affair. It may be that she will use it more wisely than +her brothers; but I am satisfied to believe that she will use it as well. +Let us not attribute infallible wisdom and virtue, even to women; for, as +dear Mrs. Poyser says in "Adam Bede," "God Almighty made some of 'em +foolish, to match the men." + +It is common to assume, for instance, that all women by nature favor peace; +and that, even if they do not always seem to promote it in their social +walk and conversation, they certainly will in their political. When we +consider how all the pleasing excitements, achievements, and glories of +war, such as they are, accrue to men only, and how large a part of the +miseries are brought home to women, it might seem that their vote on this +matter, at least, would be a sure thing. Thus far the theory: the fact +being that we have been through a civil war which convulsed the nation, and +cost half a million lives; and which was, from the very beginning, +fomented, stimulated, and applauded, at least on one side, by the united +voice of the women. It will be generally admitted by those who know, that, +but for the women of the seceding States, the war of the Rebellion would +have been waged more feebly, been sooner ended, and far more easily +forgotten. Nay, I was told a few days since by an able Southern lawyer, who +was long the mayor of one of the largest Southern cities, that in his +opinion the practice of duelling--which is an epitome of war--owes its +continued existence at the South to a sustaining public sentiment among the +fair sex. + +Again, where the sympathy of women is wholly on the side of right, it is by +no means safe to assume that their mode of enforcing that sentiment will be +equally judicious. Take, for instance, the temperance cause. It is quite +common to assume that women are a unit on that question. When we look at +the two extremes of society,--the fine lady pressing wine upon her +visitors, and the Irishwoman laying in a family supply of whiskey to last +over Sunday,--the assumption seems hasty. But grant it. Is it equally sure, +that when woman takes hold of that most difficult of all legislation, the +license and prohibitory laws, she will handle them more wisely than men +have done? Will her more ardent zeal solve the problem on which so much +zeal has already been lavished in vain? In large cities, for instance, +where there is already more law than is enforced, will her additional +ballots afford the means to enforce it? It may be so; but it seems wiser +not to predict nor to anticipate, but to wait and hope. + +It is no reproach on woman to say that she is not infallible on particular +questions. There is much reason to suppose that in politics, as in every +other sphere, the joint action of the sexes will be better and wiser than +that of either singly. It seems obvious that the experiment of republican +government will be more fairly tried when one half the race is no longer +disfranchised. It is quite certain, at any rate, that no class can trust +its rights to the mercy and chivalry of any other, but that, the weaker it +is, the more it needs all political aids and securities for +self-protection. Thus far we are on safe ground; and here, as it seems to +me, the claim for suffrage may securely rest. To go farther in our +assertions seems to me unsafe, although many of our wisest and most +eloquent may differ from me; and the nearer we approach success, the more +important it is to look to our weapons. It is a plausible and tempting +argument, to claim suffrage for woman on the ground that she is an angel; +but I think it will prove wiser, in the end, to claim it for her as +being human. + + + + +FIRST-CLASS CARRIAGES + + +In a hotly contested municipal election, the other day, an active political +manager was telling me his tactics. "We have to send carriages for some of +the voters," he said. "First-class carriages! If we undertake to wait on +'em, we must do it in good shape, and not leave the best carriages to be +hired by the other party." + +I am not much given to predicting just what will happen when women vote; +but I confidently assert that they will be taken to the polls, if they +wish, in first-class carriages. If the best horses are to be harnessed, and +the best cushions selected, and every panel of the coach rubbed till you +can see your face in it, merely to accommodate some elderly man who lives +two blocks away, and could walk to the polls very easily, then how much +more will these luxuries be placed at the service of every woman, young or +old, whose presence at the polls is made doubtful by mud, or snow, or the +prospect of a shower. + +But the carriage is only the beginning of the polite attentions that will +soon appear. When we see the transformation undergone by every ferryboat +and every railway station, so soon as it comes to be frequented by women, +who can doubt that voting-places will experience the same change? They will +soon have--at least in the "ladies' department"--elegance instead of +discomfort, beauty for ashes, plenty of rocking-chairs, and no need of +spittoons. Very possibly they may have all the modern conveniences and +inconveniences,--furnace registers, teakettles, Washington pies, and a +young lady to give checks for bundles. Who knows what elaborate comforts, +what queenly luxuries, may be offered to women at voting-places, when the +time has finally arrived to sue for their votes? + +The common impression has always been quite different from this. People +look at the coarseness and dirt now visible at so many voting-places, and +say, "Would you expose women to all that?" But these places are not dirtier +than a railway smoking-car; and there is no more coarseness than in any +ferryboat which is, for whatever reason, used by men only. You do not look +into those places, and say with indignation, "Never, if I can help it, +shall my wife or my beloved great-grandmother travel by steamboat or by +rail!" You know that with these exemplary relatives will enter order and +quiet, carpets and curtains, brooms and dusters. Why should it be otherwise +with ward rooms and town halls? + +There is not an atom more of intrinsic difficulty in providing a decorous +ladies' room for a voting-place, than for a post-office or a railway +station; and it is as simple a thing to vote a ticket as to buy one. This +being thus easily practicable, all men will desire to provide it. And the +example of the first-class carriages shows that the parties will vie with +each other in these pleasing arrangements. They will be driven to it, +whether they wish it or not. The party which has most consistently and +resolutely kept woman away from the ballot-box will be the very party +compelled, for the sake of self-preservation, to make her "rights" +agreeable to her when once she gets them. A few stupid or noisy men may +indeed try to make the polls unattractive to her, the very first time; but +the result of this little experiment will be so disastrous that the +offenders will be sternly suppressed by their own party leaders, before +another election day comes. It will soon become clear, that of all possible +ways of losing votes the surest lies in treating women rudely. + +Lucy Stone tells a story of a good man in Kansas who, having done all he +could to prevent women from being allowed to vote on school questions, was +finally comforted, when that measure passed, by the thought that he should +at least secure his wife's vote for a pet schoolhouse of his own. Election +day came, and the newly enfranchised matron showed the most culpable +indifference to her privileges. She made breakfast as usual, went about her +housework, and did on that perilous day precisely the things that her +anxious husband had always predicted that women never would do under such +circumstances. His hints and advice found no response; and nothing short of +the best pair of horses and the best wagon finally sufficed to take the +farmer's wife to the polls. I am not the least afraid that women will find +voting a rude or disagreeable arrangement. There is more danger of their +being treated too well, and being too much attacked and allured by these +cheap cajoleries. But women are pretty shrewd, and can probably be trusted +to go to the polls, even in first-class carriages. + + + + +EDUCATION _via_ SUFFRAGE + + +I know a rich bachelor of large property who fatigues his friends by +perpetual denunciations of everything American, and especially of universal +suffrage. He rarely votes; and I was much amazed, when the popular vote was +to be taken on building an expensive schoolhouse, to see him go to the +polls, and vote in the affirmative. On being asked his reason, he explained +that, while we labored under the calamity of universal (male) suffrage, he +thought it best to mitigate its evils by educating the voters. In short, he +wished, as Mr. Lowe said in England when the last Reform Bill passed, "to +prevail upon our future masters to learn their alphabets." + +These motives may not be generous; but the schoolhouses, when they are +built, are just as useful. Even girls get the benefit of them, though the +long delay in many places before girls got their share came in part from +the want of this obvious stimulus. It is universal male suffrage that +guarantees schoolhouse and school. The most selfish man understands that +argument: "We must educate the masses, if it is only to keep them from our +throats." + +But there is a wider way in which suffrage guarantees education. At every +election time political information is poured upon the whole voting +community till it is deluged. Presses run night and day to print newspaper +extras; clerks sit up all night to send out congressional speeches; the +most eloquent men in the community expound the most difficult matters to +the ignorant. Of course each party affords only its own point of view; but +every man has a neighbor who is put under treatment by some other party, +and who is constantly attacking all who will listen to his provoking and +pestilent counter-statements. All the common school education of the United +States does not equal the education of election day; and as in some States +elections are held very often, this popular university seems to be kept in +session almost the whole year round. The consequence is a remarkable +average popular knowledge of political affairs,--a training which American +women now miss, but which will come to them with the ballot. + +And in still another way there will be an education coming to woman from +the right of suffrage. It will come from her own sex, proceeding from +highest to lowest. We often hear it said that after enfranchisement the +more educated women will not vote, while the ignorant will. But Mrs. Howe +admirably pointed out, at a Philadelphia convention, that the moment women +have the ballot it will become the pressing duty of the more educated +women, even in self-protection, to train the rest The very fact of the +danger will be a stimulus to duty, with women, as it already is with men. + +It has always seemed to me rather childish, in a man of superior education, +or talent, or wealth, to complain that when election day comes he has no +more votes than the man who plants his potatoes or puts in his coal The +truth is that under the most thorough system of universal suffrage the man +of wealth or talent or natural leadership has still a disproportionate +influence, still casts a hundred votes where the poor or ignorant or feeble +man throws but one. Even the outrages of New York elections turned out to +be caused by the fact that the leading rogues had used their brains and +energy, while the men of character had not. When it came to the point, it +was found that a few caricatures by Nast and a few columns of figures in +the "Times" were more than a match for all the repeaters of the ring. It is +always so. Andrew Johnson, with all the patronage of the nation, had not +the influence of "Nasby" with his one newspaper. The whole Chinese question +was perceptibly and instantly modified when Harte wrote "The Heathen +Chinee." + +These things being so, it indicates feebleness or dyspepsia when an +educated man is heard whining, about election time, with his fears of +ignorant voting. It is his business to enlighten and control that +ignorance. With a voice and a pen at his command, with a town hall in every +town for the one, and a newspaper in every village for the other, he has +such advantages over his ignorant neighbors that the only doubt is whether +his privileges are not greater than he deserves. For one, in writing for +the press, I am impressed by the undue greatness, not by the littleness, of +the power I wield. And what is true of men will be true of women. If the +educated women of America have not brains or energy enough to control, in +the long run, the votes of the ignorant women around them, they will +deserve a severe lesson, and will be sure, like the men in New York, to +receive it. And thenceforward they will educate and guide that ignorance, +instead of evading or cringing before it. + +But I have no fear about the matter. It is a libel on American women to say +that they will not go anywhere or do anything which is for the good of +their children and their husbands. Travel West on any of our great lines of +railroad, and see what women undergo in transporting their households to +their new homes. See the watching and the feeding, and the endless answers +to the endless questions, and the toil to keep little Sarah warm, and +little Johnny cool, and the baby comfortable. What a hungry, tired, jaded, +forlorn mass of humanity it is, as the sun rises on it each morning, in the +soiled and breathless railway-car! Yet that household group is America in +the making; those are the future kings and queens, the little princes and +princesses, of this land. Now, is the mother who has undergone for the +transportation of these children all this enormous labor to shrink at her +journey's end from the slight additional labor of going to the polls to +vote whether those little ones shall have schools or rumshops? The thought +is an absurdity. A few fine ladies in cities will fear to spoil their silk +dresses, as a few foppish gentlemen now fear for their broadcloth. But the +mass of intelligent American women will vote, as do the mass of men. + + + + +FOLLOW YOUR LEADERS + + +"There go thirty thousand men," shouted the Portuguese, as Wellington, with +a few staff-officers, rode along the mountain-side. The action of the +leaders' minds, in any direction, has a value out of all proportion to +their numbers. In a campaign there is a council of officers,--Grant and +Sherman and Sheridan perhaps. They are but a trifling minority, yet what +they plan the whole army will do; and such is the faith in a real leader, +that, were all the restraints of discipline for the moment relaxed, the +rank and file would still follow his judgment. What a few general officers +see to be the best to-day, the sergeants and corporals and private soldiers +will usually see to be best to-morrow. + +In peace, also, there is a silent leadership; only that in peace, as there +is more time to spare, the leaders are expected to persuade the rank and +file, instead of commanding them. Yet it comes to the same thing in the +end. The movement begins with certain guides, and if you wish to know the +future, keep your eye on them. If you wish to know what is already decided, +ask the majority; but if you wish to find out what is likely to be done +next, ask the leaders. + +It is constantly said that the majority of women do not yet desire to vote, +and it is true. But to find out whether they are likely to wish for it, we +must keep our eyes on the women who lead their sex. The representative +women,--those who naturally stand for the rest, those most eminent for +knowledge and self-devotion,--how do they view the thing? The rank and file +do not yet demand the ballot, you say; but how is it with the general +officers? + +Now, it is a remarkable fact, about which those who have watched this +movement for twenty years can hardly be mistaken, that almost any woman who +reaches a certain point of intellectual or moral development will presently +be found desiring the ballot for her sex. If this be so, it predicts the +future. It is the judgment of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan as against +that of the average private soldier of the Two Hundredth Infantry. Set +aside, if you please, the specialists of this particular agitation,--those +who were first known to the public through its advocacy. There is no just +reason why they should be set aside, yet concede that for a moment. The +fact remains that the ablest women in the land--those who were recognized +as ablest in other spheres, before they took this particular duty upon +them--are extremely apt to assume this cross when they reach a certain +stage of development. + +When Margaret Fuller first came forward into literature, she supposed that +literature was all she wanted. It was not till she came to write upon +woman's position that she discovered what woman needed. Clara Barton, +driving her ambulance or her supply wagon at the battle's edge, did not +foresee, perhaps, that she should make that touching appeal, when the +battle was over, imploring her own enfranchisement from the soldiers she +had befriended. Lydia Maria Child, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, +Louisa Alcott, came to the claim for the ballot earlier than a million +others, because they were the intellectual leaders of American womanhood. +They saw farthest, because they were in the highest place. They were the +recognized representatives of their sex before they gave in their adhesion +to the new demand. Their judgment is as the judgment of the council of +officers, while Flora McFlimsey's opinion is as the opinion of John Smith, +unassigned recruit. But if the generals make arrangements for a battle, the +chance is that John Smith will have to take a hand in it, or else run away. + +It is a rare thing for the petition for suffrage from any town to comprise +the majority of women in that town. It makes no difference: if there are +few women in the town who want to vote, there is as much propriety in their +voting as if there were ten millions, so long as the majority are equally +protected in their right to stay at home. But when the names of petitioners +come to be weighed as well as counted, the character, the purity, the +intelligence, the social and domestic value of the petitioners is seldom +denied. The women who wish to vote are not the idle, the ignorant, the +narrow-minded, or the vicious; they are not "the dangerous classes:" they +represent the best class in the community, when tried by the highest +standard. They are the natural leaders. What they now see to be right will +also be perceived even by the foolish and the ignorant by and by. + +In a poultry-yard in spring, when the first brood of duckling's goes +toddling to the waterside, no doubt all the younger or feebler broods, just +hatched out of similar eggs, think these innovators dreadfully mistaken. +"You are out of place," they feebly pipe. "See how happy we are in our safe +nests. Perhaps, by and by, when properly introduced into society, we may +run about a little on land, but to swim!--never!" Meanwhile their elder +kindred are splashing and diving in ecstasy; and, so surely as they are +born ducklings, all the rest will swim in their turn. The instinct of the +first duck solves the problem for all the rest. It is a mere question of +time. Sooner or later, all the broods in the most conservative yard will +follow their leaders. + + + + +HOW TO MAKE WOMEN UNDERSTAND POLITICS + + +An English member of Parliament said in a speech, some years ago, that the +stupidest man had a clearer understanding of political questions than the +brightest woman. He did not find it convenient to say what must be the +condition of a nation which for many years has had a woman for its +sovereign; but he certainly said bluntly what many men feel. It is not +indeed very hard to find the source of this feeling. It is not merely that +women are inexperienced in questions of finance or administrative practice, +for many men are equally ignorant of these. But it is undoubtedly true of a +large class of more fundamental questions,--as, for instance, of some now +pending at Washington,--which even many clear-headed women find it hard to +understand, while men of far less general training comprehend them +entirely. + +Questions of the distribution of power, for instance, between the +executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government,--or between +the United States government and those of the separate States,--belong to +the class I mean. Many women of great intelligence show a hazy +indistinctness of views when the question arises whether it is the business +of the general government to preserve order at the voting-places at a +congressional election, for instance, as the Republicans hold; or whether +it should be left absolutely in the hands of the state officials, as the +Democrats maintain. Most women would probably say that so long as order was +preserved, it made very little difference who did it. Yet, if one goes into +a shoe-shop or a blacksmith's shop, one may hear just these questions +discussed in all their bearings by uneducated men, and it will be seen that +they involve a principle. Why is this difference? Does it show some +constitutional inferiority in women, as to this particular faculty? + +The question is best solved by considering a case somewhat parallel. The +South Carolina negroes were considered very stupid, even by many who knew +than; and they certainly were densely ignorant on many subjects. Put face +to face with a difficult point of finance legislation, I think they would +have been found to know even less about it than I do. Yet the abolition of +slavery was held in those days by many great statesmen to be a subject so +difficult that they shrank from discussing it; and nevertheless I used to +find that these ignorant men understood it quite clearly in all its +bearings. Offer a bit of sophistry to them, try to blind them with false +logic on this subject, and they would detect it as promptly, and answer it +as keenly, as Garrison or Phillips would have done; and, indeed, they would +give very much the same answers. What was the reason? Not that they were +half wise and half stupid; but that they were dull where their own +interests had not trained them, and they were sharp and keen where their +own interests were concerned. + +I have no doubt that it will be so with women when they vote. About some +things they will be slow to learn; but about all that immediately concerns +themselves they will know more at the very beginning than many wise men +have learned since the world began. How long it took for English-speaking +men to correct, even partially, the iniquities of the old common law!--but +a parliament of women would have set aside at a single sitting the alleged +right of the husband to correct his wife with a stick no bigger than his +thumb. It took the men of a certain State of this Union a good many years +to see that it was an outrage to confiscate to the State one half the +property of a man who died childless, leaving his widow only the other +half; but a legislature of women would have annihilated that enormity by a +single day's work. I have never seen reason to believe that women on +general questions would act more wisely or more conscientiously, as a rule, +than men: but self-preservation is a wonderful quickener of the brain; and +in all questions bearing on their own rights and opportunities as women, it +is they who will prove shrewd and keen, and men who will prove obtuse, as +indeed they have usually been. + +Another point that adds force to this is the fact that wherever women, by +their special position, have more at stake than usual in public affairs, +even as now organized, they are apt to be equal to the occasion. When the +men of South Carolina were ready to go to war for the "State-Rights" +doctrines of Calhoun, the women of that State had also those doctrines at +their fingers'-ends. At Washington, where politics make the breath of life, +you will often find the wives of members of Congress following the debates, +and noting every point gained or lost, because these are matters in which +they and their families are personally concerned; and as for that army of +women employed in the "departments" of the government, they are politicians +every one, because their bread depends upon it. + +The inference is, that if women as a class are now unfitted for politics it +is because they have not that pressure of personal interest and +responsibility by which men are unconsciously trained. Give this, and +self-interest will do the rest, aided by that power of conscience and +affection which is certainly not less in them than in men, even if we claim +no more. A young lady of my acquaintance opposed woman suffrage in +conversation on various grounds, one of which was that it would, if +enacted, compel her to read the newspapers, which she greatly disliked. +I pleaded that this was not a fatal objection; since many men voted +"early and often" without reading them, and in fact without knowing +how to read at all. She said, in reply, that this might do for men, +but that women were far more conscientious, and, if they were once +compelled to vote, they would wish to know what they were voting for. +This seemed to me to contain the whole philosophy of the matter; and +I respected the keenness of her suggestion, though it led me to an +opposite conclusion. + + + + +INFERIOR TO MAN, AND NEAR TO ANGELS + + +If it were anywhere the custom to disfranchise persons of superior virtue +because of their virtue, and to present others with the ballot, simply +because they had been in the state prison,--then the exclusion of women +from political rights would be a high compliment, no doubt. But I can find +no record in history of any such legislation, unless so far as it is +contained in the doubtful tradition of the Tuscan city of Pistoia, where +men are said to have been ennobled as a punishment for crime. Among us +crime may often be a covert means of political prominence, but it is not +the ostensible ground; nor are people habitually struck from the +voting-lists for performing some rare and eminent service, such as saving +human life, or reading every word of a presidential message. If a man has +been President of the United States, we do not disfranchise him +thenceforward; if he has been governor, we do not declare him thenceforth +ineligible to the office of United States senator. On the contrary, the +supposed reward of high merit is to give higher civic privileges. Sometimes +these are even forced on unwilling recipients, as when Plymouth Colony in +1633 imposed a fine of twenty pounds on any one who should refuse the +office of governor. + +It is utterly contrary to all tradition and precedent, therefore, to +suppose that women have been hitherto disfranchised because of any supposed +superiority. Indeed, the theory is self-annihilating, and has always +involved all supporters in hopeless inconsistency. Thus the Southern +slaveholders were wont to argue that a negro was only blest when a slave, +and there was no such inhumanity as to free him. Then, if a slave happened +to save his master's life, he was rewarded by emancipation immediately, +amid general applause. The act refuted the theory. And so, every time we +have disfranchised a rebel, or presented some eminent foreigner with the +freedom of a city, we have recognized that enfranchisement, after all, +means honor, and disfranchisement implies disgrace. + +I do not see how any woman can avoid a thrill of indignation when she first +opens her eyes to the fact that it is really contempt, not reverence, that +has so long kept her sex from an equal share of legal, political, and +educational rights. In spite of the duty paid to individual women as +mothers, in spite of the reverence paid by the Greeks and the Germanic +races to certain women as priestesses and sibyls, the fact remains that +this sex has been generally recognized, in past ages of the human race, as +stamped by hopeless inferiority, not by angelic superiority. This is +carried so far that a certain taint of actual inferiority is held to attach +to women, in barbarous nations. Among certain Indian tribes, the service of +the gods is defiled if a woman but touches the implements of sacrifice; and +a Turk apologizes to a Christian physician for the mention of the women of +his family, in the very phrases used to soften the mention of any degrading +creature. Mr. Leland tells us that among the English gypsies any object +that a woman treads upon, or sweeps with the skirts of her dress, is +destroyed or made away with in some way, as unfit for use. In reading the +history of manners, it is easy to trace the steps from this degradation up +to the point now attained, such as it is. Yet even the habit of +physiological contempt is not gone, and I do not see how any one can read +history without seeing, all around us, in society, education, and politics, +the tradition of inferiority. Many laws and usages which in themselves +might not strike all women as intrinsically worth striving for--as the +exclusion of women from colleges or from the ballot-box--assume great +importance to a woman's self-respect, when she sees in these the plain +survival of the same contempt that once took much grosser forms. + +And it must be remembered that in civilized communities the cynics, who +still frankly express this utter contempt, are better friends to women than +the flatterers, who conceal it in the drawing-room, and only utter it +freely in the lecture-room, the club, and the "North American Review." +Contempt at least arouses pride and energy. To be sure, in the face of +history, the contemptuous tone in regard to women seems to me untrue, +unfair, and dastardly; but, like any other extreme injustice, it leads to +reaction. It helps to awaken women from that shallow dream of +self-complacency into which flattery lulls them. There is something tonic +in the manly arrogance of Fitzjames Stephen, who derides the thought that +the marriage contract can be treated as in any sense a contract between +equals; but there is something that debilitates in the dulcet counsel given +by an anonymous gentleman, in an old volume of the "Ladies' Magazine" that +lies before me,--"She ought to present herself as a being made to please, +to love, and to seek support; _a being inferior to man, and near to +angels_." + + + + +IX + +OBJECTIONS TO SUFFRAGE + + "When you were weak and I was strong, I toiled for you. Now you are + strong and I am weak. Because of my work for you, I ask your aid. I + ask the ballot for myself and my sex. As I stood by you, I pray you + stand by me and mine."--CLARA BARTON. + + [Appeal to the returned soldiers of the United States, written from + Geneva, Switzerland, by Clara Barton, invalidated by long service in + the hospitals and on the field daring the civil war.] + + +THE FACT OF SEX + + +It is constantly said that the advocates of woman suffrage ignore the fact +of sex. On the contrary, they seem to me to be the only people who do not +ignore it. + +Were there no such thing as sexual difference, the wrong done to woman by +disfranchisement would be far less. It is precisely because her traits, +habits, needs, and probable demands are distinct from those of man, that +she is not, never was, never can, and never will be, justly represented by +him. It is not merely that a vast number of human individuals are +disfranchised; it is not even because in many of our States the +disfranchisement extends to a majority, that the evil is so great; it is +not merely that we disfranchise so many units and tens: but we exclude a +special element, a peculiar power, a distinct interest,--in a word, a sex. + +Whether this sex is more or less wise, more or less important, than the +other sex, does not affect the argument: it is a sex, and, being such, is +more absolutely distinct from the other than is any mere race from any +other race. The more you emphasize the fact of sex, the more you strengthen +our argument. If the white man cannot justly represent the negro,-- +although the two races are now so amalgamated that not even the microscope +can always decide to which race one belongs,--how impossible that one sex +should stand in legislation for the other sex! + +This is so clear that, so soon as it is stated, there is a shifting of the +ground. "But consider the danger of introducing the sexual influence into +legislation!" ... Then we are sure to be confronted with the case of Miss +Vinnie Ream, the sculptor. See how that beguiling damsel cajoled all +Congress into buying poor statues! they say. If one woman could do so much, +how would it be with one hundred? Precisely the Irishman's argument against +the use of pillows: he had put one feather on a rock, and found it a very +uncomfortable support. Grant, for the sake of argument, that Miss Ream gave +us poor art; but what gave her so much power? Plainly that she was but a +single feather. Congress being composed exclusively of men, the mere fact +of her sex gave her an exceptional and dangerous influence. Fill a dozen of +the seats in Congress with women, and that danger at least will be +cancelled. The taste in art may be no better; but an artist will no more be +selected for being a pretty girl than now for being a pretty boy. So in all +such cases. Here, as everywhere, it is the advocate of woman suffrage who +wishes to recognize the fact of sex, and guard against its perils. + +It is precisely so in education. Believing boys and girls to be unlike, and +yet seeing them to be placed by the Creator on the same planet and in the +same family, we hold it safer to follow his method. As they are born to +interest each other, to stimulate each other, to excite each other, it +seems better to let this impulse work itself off in a natural way,--to let +in upon it the fresh air and the daylight, instead of attempting to +suppress and destroy it. In a mixed school, as in a family, the fact of sex +presents itself as an unconscious, healthy, mutual stimulus. It is in the +separate schools that the healthy relation vanishes, and the thought of sex +becomes a morbid and diseased thing. This observation first occurred to me +when a pupil and a teacher in boys' boarding-schools years ago: there was +such marked superiority as to sexual refinement in the day-scholars, who +saw their sisters and the friends of their sisters every day. All later +experience of our public-school system has confirmed this opinion. It is +because I believe the distinction of sex to be momentous, that I dread to +see the sexes educated apart. + +The truth of the whole matter is that Nature will have her rights-- +innocently if she can, guiltily if she must; and it is a little amusing +that the writer of an ingenious paper on the other side, called "Sex in +Politics," in an able New York journal, puts our case better than I can put +it, before he gets through, only that he is then speaking of wealth, not +women: "Anybody who considers seriously what is meant by the conflict +between labor and capital, of which we are only just witnessing the +beginning, and what is to be done _to give money legitimately that +influence on legislation which it now exercises illegitimately,_ must +acknowledge at once that the next generation will have a thorny path to +travel." The italics are my own. Precisely what this writer wishes to +secure for money, we claim for the disfranchised half of the human race,-- +open instead of secret influence; the English tradition instead of the +French; women as rulers, not as kings' mistresses; women as legislators, +not merely as lobbyists; women employing in legitimate form that power +which they will otherwise illegitimately wield. This is all our demand. + + + + +HOW WILL IT RESULT? + + +"It would be a great convenience, my hearers," said old Parson Withington +of Newbury, "if the moral of a fable could only be written at the beginning +of it, instead of the end. But it never is." Commonly the only thing to be +done is to get hold of a few general principles, hold to those, and trust +that all will turn out well. No matter how thoroughly a reform may have +been discussed,--negro emancipation or free-trade, for instance,--it is a +step in the dark at last, and the detailed results never turn out to be +precisely according to the programme. + +An "esteemed correspondent," who has written some of the best things yet +said in America in behalf of the enfranchisement of woman, writes privately +to express some solicitude, since, as she thinks, we are not ready for it +yet. "I am convinced," she writes, "of the abstract right of women to vote; +but all I see of the conduct of the existing women, into whose hands this +change would throw the power, inclines me to hope that this power will not +be conceded till education shall have prepared a class of women fit to take +the responsibilities." + +Gradual emancipation, in short!--for fear of trusting truth and justice to +take care of themselves. Who knew, when the negroes were set free, whether +they would at first use their freedom well, or ill? Would they work? would +they avoid crimes? would they justify their freedom? The theory of +education and preparation seemed very plausible. Against that, there was +only the plain theory which Elizabeth Heyrick first announced to +England,--"Immediate, unconditional emancipation." "The best preparation +for freedom is freedom." What was true of the negroes then is true of women +now. + +"The lovelier traits of womanhood," writes earnestly our correspondent, +"simplicity, faith, guilelessness, unfit them to conduct public affairs, +where one must deal with quacks and charlatans.... We are not all at once +'as gods, knowing good and evil;' and the very innocency of our lives, and +the habits of pure homes, unfit us to manage a certain class who will flock +to this standard." + +But the basis of all republican government is in the assumption that good +is ultimately stronger than evil. If we once abandon this, our theory has +gone to pieces, at any rate. If we hold to it, good women are no more +helpless and useless than good men. The argument that would here +disfranchise women has been used before now to disfranchise clergymen. I +believe that in some States they are still disfranchised; and, if they are +not, it is partly because good is found to be as strong as evil, after all, +and partly because clergymen are not found to be so angelically good as to +be useless. I am very confident that both these truths will be found to +apply to women also. + +Whatever else happens, we may be pretty sure that one thing will. The first +step towards the enfranchisement of women will blow to the winds the +tradition of the angelic superiority of women. Just so surely as women +vote, we shall occasionally have women politicians, women corruptionists, +and women demagogues. Conceding, for the sake of courtesy, that none such +now exist, they will be born as inevitably, after enfranchisement, as the +frogs begin to pipe in the spring. Those who doubt it ignore human nature; +and, if they are not prepared for this fact, they had better consider it in +season, and take sides accordingly. In these pages, at least, they have +been warned. + +What then? Suppose women are not "as gods, knowing good and evil:" they are +not to be emancipated as gods, but as fallible human beings. They are to +come out of an ignorant innocence, that may be only weakness, into a wise +innocence that will be strength. It is too late to remand American women +into a Turkish or Jewish tutelage: they have emerged too far not to come +farther. In a certain sense, no doubt, the butterfly is safest in the +chrysalis. When the soft thing begins to emerge, the world certainly seems +a dangerous place; and it is hard to say what will be the result of the +emancipation. But when she is once half out, there is no safety for the +pretty creature but to come the rest of the way, and use her wings. + + + + +I HAVE ALL THE RIGHTS I WANT + + +When Dr. Johnson had published his English Dictionary, and was asked by a +lady how he chanced to make a certain mistake that she pointed out, he +answered, "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance." I always feel disposed to +make the same comment on the assertion of any woman that she has all the +rights she wants. For every woman is, or may be, or might have been, a +mother. And when she comes to know that even now, in many parts of the +Union, a married mother has no legal right to her child, I should think her +tongue would cleave to her mouth before she would utter those foolish words +again. + +All the things I ever heard or read against slavery did not fix in my soul +such a hostility to it as a single scene in a Missouri slave-jail many +years ago. As I sat there, a purchaser came in to buy a little girl to wait +on his wife. Three little sisters were brought in, from eight to twelve +years old: they were mulattoes, with sweet, gentle manners; they had +evidently been taken good care of, and their pink calico frocks were clean +and whole. The gentleman chose one of them, and then asked her, +good-naturedly enough, if she did not wish to go with him. She burst into +tears, and said, "I want to stay with my mother." But her tears were as +powerless, of course, as so many salt drops from the ocean. + +That was all. But all the horrors of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the stories told +me by fugitive slaves, the scarred backs I afterwards saw by dozens among +colored recruits, did not impress me as did that hour in the jail. The +whole probable career of that poor, wronged, motherless, shrinking child +passed before me in fancy. It seemed to me that a man must be utterly lost +to all manly instincts who would not give his life to overthrow such a +system. It seemed to me that the woman who could tolerate, much less defend +it, could not herself be true, could not be pure, or must be fearfully and +grossly ignorant. + +You acquiesce, fair lady. You say it was horrible indeed, but, thank God! +it is past. Past? Is it so? Past, if you please, as to the law of slavery, +but as to the legal position of woman still a fearful reality. It is not +many years since a scene took place in a Boston court-room, before Chief +Justice Chapman, which was worse, in this respect, than that scene in St. +Louis, inasmuch as the mother was present when the child was taken away, +and the wrong was sanctioned by the highest judicial officer of the State. +Two little girls, who had been taken from their mother by their guardian, +their father being dead, had taken refuge with her against his wishes; and +he brought them into court under a writ of habeas corpus, and the court +awarded them to him as against their mother. "The little ones were very +much affected," says the "Boston Herald," "by the result of the decision +which separated them from their mother; and force was required to remove +them from the court-room. The distress of the mother was also very +evident." + +There must have been some special reason, you say, for such a seeming +outrage: she was a bad woman. No: she was "a lady of the highest +respectability." No charge was made against her; but, being left a widow, +she had married again; and for that, and that only, so far as appears, the +court took from her the guardianship of her own children,--bone of her +bone, and flesh of her flesh, the children for whom she had borne the +deepest physical agony of womanhood,--and awarded them to somebody else. + +You say, "But her second husband might have misused the children." Might? +So the guardian might, and that where they had no mother to protect them. +Had the father been left a widower, he might have made a half-dozen +successive marriages, have brought stepmother after stepmother to control +these children, and no court could have interfered. The father is +recognized before the law as the natural guardian of the children. The +mother, even though she be left a widow, is not. The consequence is a +series of outrages of which only a few scattered instances come before the +public; just as in slavery, out of a hundred little girls sold away from +their parents, only one case might ever be mentioned in any newspaper. + +This case led to an alteration of the law in Massachusetts, but the same +thing might yet happen in some States of the Union. The possibility of a +single such occurrence shows that there is still a fundamental wrong in the +legal position of woman. And the fact that most women do not know it only +deepens the wrong--as Dr. Channing said of the contentment of the Southern +slaves. The mass of men, even of lawyers, pass by such things, as they +formerly passed by the facts of slavery. + +There is no lasting remedy for these wrongs, except to give woman the +political power to protect herself. There never yet existed a race, nor a +class, nor a sex, which was noble enough to be trusted with political power +over another sex, or class, or race. It is for self-defence that woman +needs the ballot. And in view of a single such occurrence as I have given, +I charge that woman who professes to have "all the rights she wants," +either with a want of all feeling of motherhood, or with "ignorance, madam, +pure ignorance." + + + + +SENSE ENOUGH TO VOTE + + +There is one special point on which men seem to me rather insincere toward +women. When they speak to women, the objection made to their voting is +usually that they are too angelic. But when men talk to each other, the +general assumption is, that women should not vote because they have not +brains enough--or, as old Theophilus Parsons wrote a century ago, have not +"a sufficient acquired discretion." + +It is an important difference. Because, if women are too angelic to vote, +they can only be fitted for it by becoming more wicked, which is not +desirable. On the other hand, if there is no objection but the want of +brains, then our public schools are equalizing that matter fast enough. +Still, there are plenty of people who have never got beyond this objection. +Listen to the first discussion that you encounter among men on this +subject, wherever they may congregate. Does it turn upon the question of +saintliness, or of brains? Let us see. + +I travelled the other day upon the Boston and Providence Railroad with a +party of mechanics, mostly English and Scotch. They were discussing this +very question, and, with the true English habit, thought it was all a +matter of property. Without it a woman certainly should not vote, they +said; but they all favored, to my surprise, the enfranchisement of women of +property. "As a general rule," said the chief speaker, "a woman that's got +property has got sense enough to vote." + +There it was! These foreigners, who had found their own manhood by coming +to a land which not only the Pilgrim Fathers but the Pilgrim Mothers had +settled, and subdued, and freed for them, were still ready to disfranchise +most of the daughters of those mothers, on the ground that they had not +"sense enough to vote." I thanked them for their blunt truthfulness, so +much better than the flattery of most of the native-born. + +My other instance shall be a conversation overheard in a railway station +near Boston, between two intelligent citizens, who had lately listened to +Anna Dickinson. "The best of it was," said one, "to see our minister +introduce her." "Wonder what the Orthodox churches would have said to that +ten years ago?" said the other. "Never mind," was the answer. "Things have +changed. What I think is, it's all in the bringing up. If women were +brought up just as men are, they'd have just as much brains." (Brains +again!) "That's what Beecher says. Boys are brought up to do business, and +take care of themselves: that's where it is. Girls are brought up to dress +and get married. Start 'em alike! That's what Beecher says. Start 'em +alike, and see if girls haven't got just as much brains." + +"Still harping on my daughter," and on the condition of her brains! It is +on this that the whole question turns, in the opinion of many men. Ask ten +men their objections to woman suffrage. One will plead that women are +angels. Another fears discord in families. Another points out that women +cannot fight,--he himself being very likely a non-combatant. Another quotes +St. Paul for this purpose,--not being, perhaps, in the habit of consulting +that authority on any other point. But with the others, very likely, +everything will turn on the question of brains. They believe, or think they +believe, that women have not sense enough to vote. They may not say so to +women, but they habitually say it to men. If you wish to meet the common +point of view of masculine voters, you must find it here. + +It is fortunate that it is so. Of all points, this is the easiest to +settle; for every intelligent woman, even if she be opposed to woman +suffrage, helps to settle it. Every good lecture by a woman, every good +book written by one, every successful business enterprise carried on, helps +to decide the question. Every class of girls that graduates from every good +school helps to pile up the argument on this point. And the vast army of +women, constituting nine out of ten of the teachers in our American +schools, may appeal as logically to their pupils, and settle the argument +based on brains. "If we had sense enough to educate you," they may say to +each graduating class of boys, "we have sense enough to vote beside you." + + "The ladies actively working to secure the cooperation of their sex + in caucuses and citizens' conventions are not actuated by love of + notoriety, and are not, therefore, to be classed with the absolute + woman suffragists."--Boston Daily Transcript, Sept. 1, 1879. + + + + +AN INFELICITOUS EPITHET + + +When the eloquent colored abolitionist, Charles Remond, once said upon the +platform that George Washington, having been a slaveholder, was a villain, +Wendell Phillips remonstrated by saying, "Charles, the epithet is not +felicitous." Reformers are apt to be pelted with epithets quite as +ill-chosen. How often has the charge figured in history, that they were +"actuated by love of notoriety"! The early Christians, it was generally +believed, took a positive pleasure in being thrown to the lions, under the +influence of this motive; and at a later period there was a firm conviction +that the Huguenots consented readily to being broken on the wheel, or sawed +in pieces between two boards, and felt amply rewarded by the pleasure of +being talked about. During the whole anti-slavery movement, while the +abolitionists were mobbed, fined, and imprisoned,--while they were tabooed +by good society, depleted of their money, kept out of employment, by the +mere fact of their abolitionism,--there never was a moment when their +motive was not considered by many persons to be the love of notoriety. Why +should the advocates of woman suffrage expect any different treatment now? + +It is not necessary, in order to dispose of this charge, to claim that all +reformers are heroes or saints. Even in the infancy of any reform, it takes +along with it some poor material; and unpleasant traits are often developed +by the incidents of the contest. Doubtless many reformers attain to a +certain enjoyment of a fight, at last: it is one of the dangerous +tendencies which those committed to this vocation must resist. But, so far +as my observation goes, those who engage in reform for the sake of +notoriety generally hurt the reform so much that they render it their chief +service when they leave it; and this happy desertion usually comes pretty +early in their career. The besetting sin of reformers is not, so far as I +can judge, the love of notoriety, but the fate of power and of flattery +within their own small circle,--a temptation quite different from the +other, both in its origin and its results. + +Notoriety comes so soon to a reformer that its charms, whatever they may +be, soon pall upon the palate, just as they do in case of a popular poet or +orator, who is so used to seeing himself in print that he hardly notices +it. I suppose there is no young person so modest that he does not, on first +seeing his name in a newspaper, cut out the passage with a certain tender +solicitude, and perhaps purchase a few extra copies of the fortunate +journal. But when the same person has been battered by a score or two of +years in successive unpopular reforms, I suppose that he not only would +leave the paper uncut or unpurchased, but would hardly take the pains even +to correct a misstatement, were it asserted that he had inherited a fortune +or murdered his grandmother. The moral is that the love of notoriety is +soon amply filled, in a reformer's experience, and that he will not, as a +rule, sacrifice home and comfort, money and friends, without some stronger +inducement. This is certainly true of most of the men who have interested +themselves in this particular movement, the "weak-minded men," as the +reporters, with witty antithesis, still describe them; and it must be much +the same with the "strong-minded women" who share their base career. + +And it is to be remembered, above all, that, considered as an engine for +obtaining notoriety, the woman-suffrage agitation is a great waste of +energy. The same net result could have been won with far less expenditure +in other ways. There is not a woman connected with it who could not have +achieved far more real publicity as a manager of charity fairs or as a +sensation letter-writer. She could have done this, too, with far less +trouble, without the loss of a single genteel friend, without forfeiting a +single social attention, without having a single ill-natured thing said +about her--except perhaps that she bored people, a charge to which the +highest and lowest forms of prominence are equally open. Nay, she might +have done even more than this, if notoriety was her sole aim: for she might +have become a "variety" minstrel or a female pedestrian; she might have +written a scandalous novel; she might have got somebody to aim at her that +harmless pistol, which has helped the fame of so many a wandering actress, +while its bullet somehow never hits anything but the wall. All this she +might have done, and obtained a notoriety beyond doubt. Instead of this, +she has preferred to prowl about, picking up a precarious publicity by +giving lectures to willing lyceums, writing books for eager publishers, +organizing schools, setting up hospitals, and achieving for her sex +something like equal rights before the law. Either she has shown herself, +as a seeker after notoriety, to be a most foolish or ill-judging person,-- +or else, as was said of Washington's being a villain, "the epithet is not +felicitous." + + + + +THE ROB ROY THEORY + + +"The Saturday Review," in an article which denounces all equality in +marriage laws and all plans of woman suffrage, admits frankly the practical +obstacles in the way of the process of voting. "Possibly the presence of +women as voters would tend still further to promote order than has been +done by the ballot." It plants itself wholly on one objection, which goes +far deeper, thus:-- + + "If men choose to say that women are not their equals, women have + nothing to do but to give in. Physical force, the ultimate basis of + all society and all government, must be on the side of the men; and + those who have the key of the position will not consent permanently + to abandon it." + +It is a great pleasure when an opponent of justice is willing to fall back +thus frankly upon the Rob Roy theory:-- + + + "The good old rule + Sufficeth him, the simple plan + That they should take who have the power, + And they should keep who can." + +It is easy, I think, to show that the theory is utterly false, and that the +basis of civilized society is not physical force, but, on the contrary, +brains. + +In the city where the "Saturday Review" is published, there are three +regiments of "Guards" which are the boast of the English army, and are +believed by their officers to be the finest troops in the world. They have +deteriorated in size since the Crimean war; but I believe that the men of +one regiment still average six feet two inches in height; and I am sure +that nobody ever saw them in line without noticing the contrast between +these magnificent men and the comparatively puny officers who command them. +These officers are from the highest social rank in England, the governing +classes; and if it were the whole object of this military organization to +give a visible proof of the utter absurdity of the "Saturday Review's" +theory, it could not be better done. There is no country in Europe, I +suppose, where the hereditary aristocracy is physically equal to that of +England, or where the intellectual class has so good a physique. But set +either the House of Lords or the "Saturday Review" contributors upon a +hand-to-hand fight against an equal number of "navvies" or +"coster-mongers," and the patricians would have about as much chance as a +crew of Vassar girls in a boat-race with Yale or Harvard. Take the men of +England alone, and it is hardly too much to say that physical force, +instead of being the basis of political power in any class, is apt to be +found in inverse ratio to it. In case of revolution, the strength of the +governing class in any country is not in its physical, but in its mental +power. Rank and money, and the power to influence and organize and command, +are merely different modifications of mental training, brought to bear by +somebody. + +In our country, without class distinctions, the same truth can be easily +shown. Physical power lies mainly in the hands of the masses: wherever a +class or profession possesses more than its numerical share of power, it +has usually less than its proportion of physical vigor. This is easily +shown from the vast body of evidence collected during our civil war. In the +volume containing the medical statistics of the Provost Marshal General's +Bureau, we have the tabulated reports of about 600,000 persons subject to +draft, and of about 500,000 recruits, substitutes, and drafted men; showing +the precise physical condition of more than a million men. + +It appears that, out of the whole number examined, rather more than 257 in +each 1000 were found unfit for military service. It is curious to see how +generally the physical power among these men is in inverse ratio to the +social and political prominence of the class they represent. Out of 1000 +unskilled laborers, for instance, only 348 are physically disqualified; +among tanners, only 216; among iron-workers, 189. On the other hand, among +lawyers, 544 out of 1000 are disqualified; among journalists, 740; among +clergymen, 954. Grave divines are horrified at the thought of admitting +women to vote, since they cannot fight; though not one in twenty of their +own number is fit for military duty, if he volunteered. Of the editors who +denounce woman suffrage, only about one in four could himself carry a +musket; while of the lawyers who fill Congress, the majority could not be +defenders of their country, but could only be defended. If we were to +distribute political power with reference to the "physical basis" which the +"Saturday Review" talks about, it would be a wholly new distribution, and +would put things more hopelessly upside down than did the worst phase of +the French Commune. If, then, a political theory so utterly breaks down +when applied to men, why should we insist on resuscitating it in order to +apply it to women? The truth is that as civilization advances the world is +governed more and more unequivocally by brains; and whether those brains +are deposited in a strong body or a weak one becomes a matter of less and +less importance. But it is only in the very first stage of barbarism that +mere physical strength makes mastery; and the long head has controlled the +long arm since the beginning of recorded time. + +And it must be remembered that even these statistics very imperfectly +represent the case. They do not apply to the whole male sex, but actually +to the picked portion only, to the men presumed to be of military age, +excluding the very old and the very young. Were these included, the +proportion unfit for military duty would of course be far greater. +Moreover, it takes no account of courage or cowardice, patriotism or zeal. +How much all these considerations tell upon the actual proportion may be +seen from the fact that in the town where I am writing, for instance, out +of some twelve thousand inhabitants and about three thousand voters, there +are only some three hundred who actually served in the civil war,--a number +too small to exert a perceptible influence on any local election. When we +see the community yielding up its voting power into the hands of those who +have actually done military service, it will be time enough to exclude +women for not doing such service. If the alleged physical basis operates as +an exclusion of all non-combatants, it should surely give a monopoly to the +actual combatants. + + + + +THE VOTES OF NON-COMBATANTS + + +The tendency of modern society is not to concentrate power in the hands of +the few, but to give a greater and greater share to the many. Read +Froissart's Chronicles, and Scott's novels of chivalry, and you will see +how thoroughly the difference between patrician and plebeian was then a +difference of physical strength. The knight, being better nourished and +better trained, was apt to be the bodily superior of the peasant, to begin +with; and this strength was reinforced by armor, weapons, horse, castle, +and all the resources of feudal warfare. With this greater strength went +naturally the assumption of greater political power. To the heroes of +"Ivanhoe," or "The Fair Maid of Perth," it would have seemed as absurd that +yeomen and lackeys should have any share in the government, as it would +seem to the members in an American legislature that women should have any +such share. In a contest of mailed knights, any number of unarmed men were +but so many women. As Sir Philip Sidney said, "The wolf asketh not how many +the sheep may be." + +But time and advancing civilization have tended steadily in one direction. +"He giveth power to the weak, and to them who have no might He increaseth +strength." Every step in the extension of political rights has consisted in +opening them to a class hitherto humbler. From kings to nobles, from nobles +to burghers, from burghers to yeomen; in short, from strong to weak, from +high to low, from rich to poor. All this is but the unconscious following +out of one sure principle,--that legislation is mainly for the protection +of the weak against the strong, and that for this purpose the weak must be +directly represented. The strong are already protected by their strength: +it is the weak who need all the vantage-ground that votes and legislatures +can give them. The feudal chiefs were stronger without laws than with them. +"Take care of yourselves in Sutherland," was the anxious message of the old +Highlander: "the law has come as far as Tain." It was the peaceful citizen +who needed the guaranty of law against brute force. + +But can laws be executed without brute force? Not without a certain amount +of it, but that amount under civilization grows less and less. Just in +proportion as the masses are enfranchised, statutes execute themselves +without crossing bayonets. "In a republic," said De Tocqueville, "if laws +are not always respectable, they are always respected." If every step in +freedom has brought about a more peaceable state of society, why should +that process stop at this precise point? Besides, there is no possibility +in nature of a political division in which all the men shall be on one side +and all the women on the other. The mutual influence of the sexes forbids +it. The very persons who hint at such a fear refute themselves at other +times, by arguing that "women will always be sufficiently represented by +men," or that "every woman will vote as her husband thinks, and it will +merely double the numbers." As a matter of fact, the law will prevail in +all English-speaking nations: a few men fighting for it will be stronger +than many fighting against it; and if those few have both the law and the +women on their side, there will be no trouble. + +The truth is that in this age _cedant arma togae:_ it is the civilian who +rules on the throne or behind it, and who makes the fighting-men his mere +agents. Yonder policeman at the corner looks big and formidable: he +protects the women and overawes the boys. But away in some corner of the +City Hill there is some quiet man, out of uniform, perhaps a consumptive or +a dyspeptic or a cripple, who can overawe the burliest policeman by his +authority as city marshal or as mayor. So an army is but a larger police; +and its official head is that plain man at the White House, who makes or +unmakes, not merely brevet-brigadiers, but major-generals in command,--who +can by the stroke of the pen convert the most powerful man of the army into +the most powerless. Take away the occupant of the position, and put in a +woman, and will she become impotent because her name is Elizabeth or Maria +Theresa? It is brains that more and more govern the world; and whether +those brains be on the throne, or at the ballot-box, they will soon make +the owner's sex a subordinate affair. If woman is also strong in the +affections, so much the better. "Win the hearts of your subjects," said +Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you will have their hands and +purses." + +War is the last appeal, and happily in these days the rarest appeal, of +statesmanship. In the multifarious other duties that make up statesmanship +we cannot spare the brains, the self-devotion, and the enthusiasm of woman. +One of the most important treaties of modern history, the peace of Cambray, +in 1529, was negotiated, after previous attempts had failed, by two +women,--Margaret, aunt of Charles V., and Louisa, mother of Francis I. +Voltaire said that Christina of Sweden was the only sovereign of her time +who maintained the dignity of the throne against Mazarin and Richelieu. +Frederick the Great said that the Seven Years' War was waged against three +women,--Elizabeth of Russia, Maria Theresa, and Mme. Pompadour. There is +nothing impotent in the statesmanship of women when they are admitted to +exercise it: they are only powerless for good when they are obliged to +obtain by wheedling and flattery a sway that should be recognized, +responsible, and limited. + + + + +MANNERS REPEAL LAWS + + +There is in Boswell's "Life of Johnson" a correspondence which is well +worth reading by both advocates and opponents of woman suffrage. Boswell, +who was of an old Scotch family, had a difference of opinion with his +father about an entailed estate which had descended to them. Boswell wished +the title so adjusted as to cut off all possibility of female heirship. His +father, on the other hand, wished to recognize such a contingency. Boswell +wrote to Johnson in 1776 for advice, urging a series of objections, +physiological and moral, to the inheritance of a family estate by a woman; +though, as he magnanimously admits, "they should be treated with great +affection and tenderness, and always participate of the prosperity of the +family." + +Dr. Johnson, for a wonder, took the other side, defended female heirship, +and finally summed up thus: "It cannot but occur that women have natural +and equitable claims as well as men, and these claims are not to be +capriciously or lightly superseded or infringed. When fiefs inspired +military service, it is easily discerned why females could not inherit +them; but the reason is at an end. _As manners make laws, so manners +likewise repeal them_." + +This admirable statement should be carefully pondered by those who hold +that suffrage should be only coextensive with military duty. The position +that woman cannot properly vote because she cannot fight for her vote +efficiently is precisely like the position of feudalism and of Boswell, +that she could not properly hold real estate because she could not fight +for it. Each position may have had some plausibility in its day, but the +same current of events has made each obsolete. Those who in these days +believe in giving woman the ballot argue precisely as Dr. Johnson did in +1776. Times have changed, manners have softened, education has advanced, +public opinion now acts more forcibly; and the reference to physical force, +though still implied, is implied more and more remotely. The political +event of the age, the overthrow of American slavery, would not have been +accomplished without the "secular arm" of Grant and Sherman, let us agree: +but neither would it have been accomplished without the moral power of +Garrison the non-resistant, and Harriet Beecher Stowe the woman. When the +work is done, it is unfair to disfranchise any of the participants. Dr. +Johnson was right: "When fiefs [or votes] implied military service, it is +easily discerned why women should not inherit [or possess] them; but the +reason is at an end. As manners make laws, so manners likewise repeal +them." + +Under the feudal system it would have been absurd that women should hold +real estate, for the next armed warrior could dispossess her. By Gail +Hamilton's reasoning, it is equally absurd now: "One man is stronger than +one woman, and ten men are stronger than ten women; and the nineteen +millions of men in this country will subdue, capture, and execute or expel +the nineteen millions of women just as soon as they set about it." Very +well: why, then, do not all the landless men in a town unite, and take away +the landed property of all the women? Simply because we now live in +civilized society and under a reign of law; because those men's respect for +law is greater than their appetite for property; or, if you prefer, because +even those landless men know that their own interest lies, in the long-run, +on the side of law. It will be precisely the same with voting. When any +community is civilized up to the point of enfranchising women, it will be +civilized up to the point of sustaining their vote, as it now sustains +their property rights, by the whole material force of the community. When +the thing is once established, it will no more occur to anybody that a +woman's vote is powerless because she cannot fight, than it now occurs to +anybody that her title to real estate is invalidated by the same +circumstance. + +Woman is in the world; she cannot be got rid of: she must be a serf or an +equal; there is no middle ground. We have outgrown the theory of serfdom in +a thousand ways, and may as well abandon the whole. Women have now a place +in society: their influence will be exerted, at any rate, in war and in +peace, legally or illegally; and it had better be exerted in direct, +legitimate, and responsible methods, than in ways that are dark, and by +tricks that have not even the merit of being plain. + + + + +DANGEROUS VOTERS + + +One of the few plausible objections brought against women's voting is this: +that it would demoralize the suffrage by letting in very dangerous voters; +that virtuous women would not vote, and vicious women would. It is a very +unfounded alarm. + +For, in the first place, our institutions rest--if they have any basis at +all--on this principle, that good is stronger than evil, that the majority +of men really wish to vote rightly, and that only time and patience are +needed to get the worst abuses righted. How any one can doubt this, who +watches the course of our politics, I do not see. In spite of the great +disadvantage of having masses of ignorant foreign voters to deal with,--and +of native black voters, who have been purposely kept in ignorance,--we +certainly see wrongs gradually righted, and the truth by degrees prevail. +Even the one great, exceptional case of New York city has been reached at +last; and the very extent of the evil has brought its own cure. Now, why +should this triumph of good over evil be practicable among men, and not +apply to women also? + +It must be either because women, as a class, are worse than men,--which +will hardly be asserted,--or because, for some special reason, bad women +have an advantage over good women such as has no parallel in the other sex. +But I do not see how this can be. Let us consider. + +It is certain that good women are not less faithful and conscientious than +good men. It is generally admitted that those most opposed to suffrage will +very soon, on being fully enfranchised, feel it their duty to vote. They +may at first misuse the right through ignorance, but they certainly will +not shirk it. It is this conscientious habit on which I rely without fear. +Never yet, when public duty required, have American women failed to meet +the emergency; and I am not afraid of it now. Moreover, when they are once +enfranchised and their votes are needed, all the men who now oppose or +ridicule the demand for suffrage will begin to help them to exercise it. +When the wives are once enfranchised, you may be sure that the husbands +will not neglect those of their own household: they will provide them with +ballots, vehicles, and policemen, and will contrive to make the +voting-places pleasanter than many parlors, and quieter than some churches. + +On the other hand, it seems altogether probable that the very worst women, +so far from being ostentatious in their wickedness upon election day, will, +on the contrary, so disguise and conceal themselves as to deceive the very +elect, and, if it were possible, the very policemen. For whatever party +they may vote, they will contribute to make the voting-places as orderly as +railway stations. These covert ways are the very habit of their lives, at +least by daylight; and the women who have of late done the most conspicuous +and open mischief in our community have done it, not in their true +character as evil, but, on the contrary, under a mask of elevated purpose. + +That women, when they vote, will commit their full share of errors I have +always maintained. But that they will collectively misuse their power seems +to me out of the question; and that the good women are going to stay at +home, and let bad women do the voting, appears quite as incredible. In +fact, if they do thus, it is a fair question whether the epithets "good" +and "bad" ought not, politically speaking, to change places. For it +naturally occurs to every one, on election day, that the man who votes, +even if he votes wrong, is really a better man, so far as political duties +go, than the very loftiest saint who stays at home and prays that other +people may vote right And it is hard to see why it should be otherwise with +women. + + + + +HOW WOMEN WILL LEGISLATE + + +It is often said that when women vote their votes will make no difference +in the count, became they will merely duplicate the votes of their husbands +and brothers. Then these same objectors go on and predict all sorts of evil +things for which women will vote quite apart from their husbands and +brothers. Moreover, the evils thus predicted are apt to be diametrically +opposite. Thus Goldwin Smith predicts that women will be governed by +priests, and then goes on to predict that women will vote to abolish +marriage; not seeing that these two predictions destroy each other. + +On the other hand, I think that the advocates of woman suffrage often err +by claiming too much,--as that all women will vote for peace, for total +abstinence, against slavery, and the rest. It seems better to rest the +argument on general principles, and not to seek to prophesy too closely. +The only thing which I feel safe in predicting is that woman suffrage will +be used, as it should be, for the protection of woman. Self-respect and +self-protection,--these are, as has been already said, the two great things +for which woman needs the ballot. + +It is not in the nature of things, I take it, that a class politically +subject can obtain justice from the governing class. Not the least of the +benefits gained by political equality for the colored people of the South +is that the laws now generally make no difference of color in penalties for +crime. In slavery times there were dozens of crimes which were punished +more severely by the statute if committed by a slave or a free negro than +if done by a white. I feel very sure that under the reign of impartial +suffrage we should see fewer such announcements as this, which I cut from a +late New York "Evening Express:"-- + + "Last night Capt. Lowery, of the Twenty-seventh Precinct, made a + descent upon the dance-house in the basement of 96 Greenwich Street, + and arrested fifty-two men and eight women. The entire batch was + brought before Justice Flammer, at the Tombs Police Court, this + morning. Louise Maud, the proprietoress, was held in five hundred + dollars bail to answer at the Court of General Sessions. _The + fifty-two men were fined three dollars each, all but twelve paying + at once; and the eight women were fined ten dollars each, and sent + to the Island for one month._" + +The italics are my own. When we reflect that this dance-house, whatever it +was, was unquestionably sustained for the gratification of men, rather than +of women; when we consider that every one of these fifty-two men came +there, in all probability, by his own free will, and to spend money, not to +earn it; and that probably a majority of the women were driven there by +necessity or betrayal, or force or despair,--it would seem that even an +equal punishment would have been cruel injustice to the women. But when we +observe how trifling a penalty was three dollars each to these men, whose +money was likely to go for riotous living in some form, and forty of whom +had the amount of the fine in their pockets; and how hopelessly large an +amount was ten dollars each to women who did not, probably, own even the +clothes they wore, and who were to be sent to prison for a month in +addition,--we see a kind of injustice which would stand a fair chance of +being righted, I suspect, if women came into power. Not that they would +punish their own sex less severely; probably they would not: but they would +put men more on a level as to the penalty. + +It may be said that no such justice is to be expected from women; because +women in what is called "society" condemn women for mere imprudence, and +excuse men for guilt. But it must be remembered that in "society" guilt is +rarely a matter of open proof and conviction, in case of men: it is usually +a matter of surmise; and it is easy for either love or ambition to set the +surmise aside, and to assume that the worst reprobate is "only a little +wild." In fact, as Margaret Fuller pointed out years ago, how little +conception has a virtuous woman as to what a dissipated young man really +is! But let that same woman be a Portia, in the judgment-seat, or even a +legislator or a voter, and let her have the unmistakable and actual +offender before her, and I do not believe that she will excuse him for a +paltry fine, and give the less guilty woman a penalty more than quadruple. + +Women will also be sure to bring special sympathy and intelligent attention +to the wrongs of children. Who can read without shame and indignation this +report from "The New York Herald"? + + THE CHILD-SELLING CASE. + + Peter Hallock, committed on a charge of abducting Lena Dinser, a + young girl thirteen years old, whom, it was alleged, her father, + George Dinser, had sold to Hallock for purposes of prostitution, was + again brought yesterday before Judge Westbrook in the Supreme Court + Chambers, on the writ of habeas corpus previously obtained by Mr. + William F. Howe, the prisoner's counsel. Mr. Howe claimed that + Hallock could not be held on either section of the statute for + abduction. Under the first section the complaint, he insisted, + should set forth that the child was taken contrary to the wish and + against the consent of her parents. On the contrary, the evidence, + he urged, showed that the father was a willing party. Under the + second section, it was contended that the prisoner could not be + held, as there was no averment that the girl was of previous chaste + character. Judge Westbrook, a brief counter argument having been + made by Mr. Dana, held that the points of Mr. Howe were well taken, + and ordered the prisoner's discharge. + +Here was a father who, as the newspapers allege, had previously sold two +other daughters, body and soul, and against whom the evidence seemed to be +in this case clear. Yet through the defectiveness of the statute, or the +remissness of the prosecuting attorney, he goes free, without even a trial, +to carry on his infamous traffic for other children. Grant that the points +were technically well taken and irresistible,--though this is by no means +certain,--it is very sure that there should be laws that should reach such +atrocities with punishment, whether the father does or does not consent to +his child's ruin; and that public sentiment should compel prosecuting +officers to be as careful in framing their indictments where human souls +are at stake as where the question is of dollars only. It is upon such +matters that the influence of women will make itself felt in legislation. + + + + +INDIVIDUALS _vs._ CLASSES + + +As the older arguments against woman suffrage are abandoned, we hear more +and more of the final objection, that the majority of women have not yet +expressed themselves on the subject. It is common for such reasoners to +make the remark, that if they knew a given number of women--say fifty, or a +hundred, or five hundred--who honestly wished to vote, they would favor it. +Produce that number of unimpeachable names, and they say that they have +reconsidered the matter, and must demand more,--perhaps ten thousand. Bring +ten thousand, and the demand again rises. "Prove that the majority of women +wish to vote, and they shall vote." "Precisely," we say: "give us a chance +to prove it by taking a vote;" and they answer, "By no means." + +And, in a certain sense, they are right. It ought not to be settled that +way,--by dealing with woman as a class, and taking the vote. The agitators +do not merely claim the right of suffrage for her as a class: they claim it +for each individual woman, without reference to any other. If there is only +one woman in the nation who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it. +In Oriental countries all legislation is for classes, and in England it is +still mainly so. A man is expected to remain in the station in which he is +born; or, if he leaves it, it is by a distinct process, and he comes under +the influence, in various ways, of different laws. If the iniquities of the +"Contagious Diseases" act in England, for instance, had not been confined +in their legal application to the lower social grades, the act would never +have passed. It was easy for men of the higher classes to legislate away +the modesty of women of the lower classes; but if the daughter of an earl +could have been arrested, and submitted to a surgical examination at the +will of any policeman, as the daughter of a mechanic might be, the law +would not have stood a day. So, through all our slave States, there was +class legislation for every person of negro blood: the laws of crime, of +punishment, of testimony, were all adapted to classes, not individuals. +Emancipation swept this all away, in most cases: classes ceased to exist +before the law, so far as men at least were concerned; there were only +individuals. The more progress, the less class in legislation. We claim the +application of this principle as rapidly as possible to women. + +Our community does not refuse permission for women to go unveiled till it +is proved that the majority of women desire it; it does not even ask that +question: if one woman wishes to show her face, it is allowed. If a woman +wishes to travel alone, to walk the streets alone, the police protects her +in that liberty. She is not thrust back into her house with the reproof, +"My dear madam, at this particular moment the overwhelming majority of +women are indoors: prove that they all wish to come out, and you shall +come." On the contrary, she comes forth at her own sweet will: the +policeman helps her tenderly across the street, and waves back with +imperial gesture the obtrusive coal-cart. Some of us claim for each +individual woman, in the same way, not merely the right to go shopping, but +to go voting; not merely to show her face, but to show her hand. + +There will always be many women, as there are many men, who are indifferent +to voting. For a time, perhaps always, there will be a larger percentage of +this indifference among women. But the natural right to a share in the +government under which one lives, and to a voice in making the laws under +which one may be hanged,--this belongs to each woman as an individual; and +she is quite right to claim it as she needs it, even though the majority of +her sex still prefer to take their chance of the penalty, without +perplexing themselves about the law. The demand of every enlightened woman +who asks for the ballot--like the demand of every enlightened slave for +freedom--is an individual demand; and the question whether they represent +the majority of their class has nothing to do with it. For a republic like +ours does not profess to deal with classes, but with individuals; since +"the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the +whole people, for the common good," as the constitution of Massachusetts +says. + +And, fortunately, there is such power in an individual demand that it +appeals to thousands whom no abstract right touches. Five minutes with +Frederick Douglass settled the question, for any thoughtful person, of that +man's right to freedom. Let any woman of position desire to enter what is +called "the lecture-field," to support herself and her children, and at +once all abstract objections to women's speaking in public disappear: her +friends may be never so hostile to "the cause," but they espouse her +individual cause; the most conservative clergyman subscribes for tickets, +but begs that his name may not be mentioned. They do not admit that women, +as a class, should speak,--not they; but for this individual woman they +throng the hall. Mrs. Dahlgren abhors politics: a woman in Congress, a +woman in the committee-room,--what can be more objectionable? But I +observe that when Mrs. Dahlgren wishes to obtain more profit by her +husband's inventions all objections vanish: she can appeal to Congressmen, +she can address committees, she can, I hope, prevail. The individual ranks +first in our sympathy: we do not wait to take the census of the "class." +Make way for the individual, whether it be Mrs. Dahlgren pleading for the +rights of property, or Lucy Stone pleading for the rights of the mother to +her child. + + + + +DEFEATS BEFORE VICTORIES + + +After one of the early defeats in the War of the Rebellion, the commander +of a Massachusetts regiment wrote home to his father: "I wish people would +not write us so many letters of condolence. Our defeat seemed to trouble +them much more than it troubles us. Did people suppose there were to be no +ups and downs? We expect to lose plenty of battles, but we have enlisted +for the war." + +It is just so with every successful reform. While enemies and half-friends +are proclaiming its defeats, those who advocate it are rejoicing that they +have at last got an army into the field to be defeated. Unless this war is +to be an exception to all others, even the fact of having joined battle is +a great deal. It is the first step. Defeat first; a good many defeats, if +you please: victory by and by. + +William Wilberforce, writing to a friend in the year 1817, said, "I +continue faithful to the measure of Parliamentary reform brought forward by +Mr. Pitt. I am firmly persuaded that at present a prodigious majority of +the people of this country are adverse to the measure. In my view, so far +from being an objection to the discussion, this is rather a +recommendation." In 1832 the reform bill was passed. + +In the first Parliamentary debate on the slave trade, Colonel Tarleton, who +boasted to have killed more men than any one in England, pointing to +Wilberforce and others, said, "The inspiration began on that side of the +house;" then turning round, "The revolution has reached to this also, and +reached to the height of fanaticism and frenzy." The first vote in the +House of Commons, in 1790, after arguments in the affirmative by +Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox, and Burke, stood, ayes, 88; noes, 163: majority +against the measure, 75. In 1807 the slave trade was abolished, and in 1834 +slavery in the British colonies followed; and even on the very night when +the latter bill passed, the abolitionists were taunted by Gladstone, the +great Demerara slaveholder, with having toiled for forty years and done +nothing. The Roman Catholic relief bill, establishing freedom of thought in +England, had the same experience. It passed in 1829 by a majority of a +hundred and three in the House of Lords, which had nine months before +refused by a majority of forty-five to take up the question at all. + +The English corn laws went down a quarter of a century ago, after a similar +career of failures. In 1840 there were hundreds of thousands in England who +thought that to attack the corn laws was to attack the very foundations of +society. Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, said in Parliament, that "he +had heard of many mad things in his life, but, before God, the idea of +repealing the corn laws was the very maddest thing of which he had ever +heard." Lord John Russell counselled the House to refuse to hear evidence +on the operation of the corn laws. Six years after, in 1846, they were +abolished forever. + +How Wendell Phillips, in the anti-slavery meetings, used to lash +pro-slavery men with such formidable facts as these,--and to quote how Clay +and Calhoun and Webster and Everett had pledged themselves that slavery +should never be discussed, or had proposed that those who discussed it +should be imprisoned,--while, in spite of them all, the great reform was +moving on, and the abolitionists were forcing politicians and people to +talk, like Sterne's starling, nothing but slavery! + +We who were trained in the light of these great agitations have learned +their lesson. We expect to march through a series of defeats to victory. +The first thing is, as in the anti-slavery movement, so to arouse the +public mind as to make this the central question. Given this prominence, +and it is enough for this year or for many years to come. Wellington said +that there was no such tragedy as a victory, except a defeat. On the other +hand, the next best thing to a victory is a defeat, for it shows that the +armies are in the field. Without the unsuccessful attempt of to-day, no +success to-morrow. + +When Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble came to this country, she was amazed to find +Americans celebrating the battle of Bunker Hill, which she had always heard +claimed as a victory for King George. Such it was doubtless called; but +what we celebrated was the fact that the Americans there threw up +breastworks, stood their ground, fired away their ammunition,--and were +defeated. Thus the reformer, too, looking at his failures, often sees in +them such a step forward, that they are the Bunker Hill of a new +revolution. Give us plenty of such defeats, and we can afford to wait a +score of years for the victories. They will come. + + + + +INDEX + + +Acidalius, Valens +Adams, J.Q. +Adams, Mrs. John +Addison, Joseph +Adelung, J.C. +Agassiz, Alexander +Agrippa, Cornelius +Alabaster, Henry +Alcott, Louisa +Alderson, Baron +Amalasontha, Queen +Anne, Queen +Antisthenes +Aponte, Emanuele +Arblay, Madame d' +Aristotle +Ashburton, Lady + +Bacon, Francis +Bagehot, Walter +Barry, J.S. +Barton, Clara +Beaujour, L.F. de +Beecher, H.W. +Behn, Mrs. Aphra +Bennett, Mr. +Beyle, Henri (Stendhal) +Blackburn, Henry +Blackstone, William +Blind, Karl +Bolingbroke, H.S. +Bonaparte, Napoleon +Bonheur, Rosa +Boswell, James +Boufflet, Margaret +Brigitta, Saint +Brooks, Phillips +Brougham, Lord +Brown, John +Browne, C.F. (Artemus Ward) +Browning, Elizabeth B. +Browning, Robert +Buchan, Countess of +Buckle, H.T. +Buffon, Count de +Bulan, Madame +Burke, Edmund +Burleigh, Lord +Butler, Samuel +Byron, Lord + +Cæsar, Julius +Calhoun, J.C. +Cameron, Dr. +Canning, George, +Catherine II., Empress +Channing, W.E. +Chapman, Chief Justice +Charlemagne +Chatham, Earl of +Chaucer, Geoffrey +Chesterfield, Earl of +Child, Lydia M. +Choate, Rufus +Choisi, Abbé +Christina of Sweden +Christlieb, Professor +Churchill, Charles +Clarendon, Earl of +Clarke, E.H. +Clay, Henry +Coleridge, Justice +Comer, Mr. +Comte, Auguste +Confucius +Copley, J.S. +Cornaro, Elena +Cowper, William +Crocker, Mrs. H. (Mather) +Cromwell, Oliver +Currie, James +Curzon, George + +Dacier, Madame +Dahlgren, Mrs. M.V. +Dall, Mrs. Caroline A. +Dana, Mr. +Dante degli Alighieri +Darling, Grace +Darwin, Charles +Davy, Sir Humphry +Demosthenes +Dickens, Charles +Dickinson, Anna +Dinser, George +Dinser, Lena +Dix, Dorothea +Dobell, Sidney +Domenichi, Ludovico +Douglass, Frederick +Drake, Sir Francis +Dryden, John +Dudevant, Madame (George Sand) +Dufour, Madame Gacon + +Eastman, Mary F. +Edgeworth, Maria +Elizabeth, Queen +Elizabeth of Russia +Elstob, Elizabeth +Emerson, R.W. +Everett, Edward + +Fénelon, Francis de S. de la M. +Fern, Fanny. _See_ Parton. +Flammer, Justice +Fontanges, Duchesse de +Fonte, Moderata +Fox, C.J. +Franklin, Benjamin +Frederick II. +Frederick, Prince +Frith, W.P. +Froissart, John +Froude J.A. +Fuller, Thomas + +Garrick, David +Garrison, W.L. +Genlis, Mme. de +Gibbon, Edward +Gibson, Anthony +Gladstone, W.E. +Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft +Goethe, J.W. von +Goguet, A.Y. +Goldsmith, Oliver +Goodwin, W.W. +Grant, U.S. +Grattan, Henry +Greenwood, Grace. _See_ Lippincott +Griswold, R.W. +Guillaume, Jacquette +Guion, Madame + +Hale, E.E. +Hallock, Peter +Hamilton, Gail +Harland, Marion +Harte, F.B. +Haüy, R.J. +Hawthorne, Nathaniel +Herbert, Sidney +Hesiod +Heyrick, Elizabeth +Hoar, G.F. +Hogarth, William +Homer +Hopkins, Mark +Howard, John +Howe, Mrs. Julia W. +Howe, W.F. +Howland, Rachel +Humboldt, F.H.A. von +Hume, David +Huxley, T.H. +Hyacinthe, Père + +James I., King +Jameson, Mrs. Anna +Jefferson, Thomas +Joan of Arc +Johnson, Andrew +Johnson, Samuel +Jones, C.C. +Jonson, Ben + +Kean, Edmund +Kemble, Frances A. +Kemble, John +Kent, James + +Lagrange, Madame +Lamb, Charles +Launay, Mlle. de +Lawrence, W.B. +Layard, Sir A.H. +Leland, C.G. +Leonowens, Mrs. +Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany +Lessing, G.E. +Lewes, Mrs. (George Eliot) +Libussa +Lincoln, Abraham +Lippincott, Mrs. S.J. (Grace Greenwood) +Liszt, Abbé +Livermore, Mary +Livingstone, David +Locke, John +Lockhart, J.G. +Louise of Savoy +Lowe. _See_ Sherbrooke +Lowell, J.R. +Lowery, Captain +Lubbock, Sir John +Lucretia + +Macaulay, T.B. +Magann, William +Mahaffy, J.P. +Maintenon, Madame de +Malibran, Madame +Maréchal, Sylvain +Margaret of Austria +Marguerite of Navarre +Maria Theresa, Empress +Marmella, Lucrezia +Marlborough, Duke of +Martineau, Harriet +Mazarm, Julius +Melbourne, Lord +Mill, J S. +Mohammed +Molière, J.B.P. de +Monk, George +Montpensier, Mlle. de +Moore, Thomas +Mott, Lucretia +Muloch, D.M. + +Napoleon, Louis +Nelson, Horatio +Newton, Sir Isaac +Niebuhr, Carsten +Nightingale, Florence +Nogarola, Isotta +Norton, Hon. Mrs. Caroline + +Ormond, James Butler, Duke of +Ossoli, Margaret (Fuller) +Otis, James +Ovid + +Parker, Theodore +Parkman, Francis +Parsons, Theophilus +Parton, Mrs. (Fanny Fern) +Patten, Mrs. +Paul, Jean _See_ Richter +Peabody, F.G. +Pembroke, Earl of +Pepys, Samuel +Pericles +Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt, Earl of +Petersdorff +Petrarch +Philip II, King +Phillipps, Adelaide +Phillips, Wendell +Pitt, William +Plato, +Plummer, Miss +Pompadour, Mme. +Pope, Alexander +Porson, Richard +Pythagoras + +Quincy, Edmund +Quincy, Josiah + +Ramsay, Allan +Reade, Charles +Ream, Vinme +Remond, Charles +Reynolds, Sir Joshua +Richelieu, Armand J. Duplessis, Cardinal +Richter, J.P.F. +Robert the Bruce +Robin, Abbé +Robinson, W.S. (Warrington) +Rochambeau, General +Rogers, Samuel +Roland, Madame +Romilly, Sir Samuel +Rossi, Properzia de +Russell, Lord John + +Safford, T.H. +Saint Augustine +Saintouges, Françoise de +Sand George. _See_ Dudevant +Sappho +Schiller, J.C.F. von +Schurman, Anna Maria +Scott, Sir Walter +Shakespeare, William +Sheppard, Jack +Sherbrooke, Lord (Robert Lowe) +Sheridan, P.H. +Sherman W.T. +Sidney, Sir Philip +Smith, Goldwin +Socrates +Somerville, Mrs. Mary +Southworth, E.D E.N. +Sparks, Jared +Spenser Edmund +Stael, Madame de +Stendhal _See_ Beyle. +Stephen, Fitzjames +Sterne, Laurence +Stevens, Mrs. Paran +Stone, Lucy +Story, W.W. +Stove, Harriet (Beecher) +Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of +Sumner, Charles +Swift, Jonathan + +Taine, H.A. +Tambroni, Clotilda +Tarleton, Colonel +Ten Broeck +Tennyson, Alfred +Thackeray, W.P. +Thoreau, H.D. +Thou, J.A. De +Timon of Athens +Tocqueville, Alexis de +Trench, Mrs. Richard + +Varro, M.T. +Victoria, Queen +Volney, C.F. Chasseboeuf, Count de +Voltaire, F.M.A. de + +Wallace, A.R. +Walpole, Horace +Walworth, M.T. +Ward, Artemus. _See_ Browne, C.F. +Warrington. _See_ Robinson. +Washington, George +Webster, Daniel, +Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, +Westbrook, Judge +Whipple, E.P. +Whittier, J.G. +Wieland, C.M. +Wilberforce, William +Winkelried, Arnold +Withington, Leonard +Wlasla +Wollstonecraft, Mary. _See_ Godwin. +Woodbury, Augustus +Wordsworth, William + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN AND THE ALPHABET*** + + +******* This file should be named 13474-8.txt or 13474-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/7/13474 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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