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diff --git a/1440-0.txt b/1440-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..941ae6c --- /dev/null +++ b/1440-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5217 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1440 *** + +WOMAN AND LABOUR + +by Olive Schreiner + + +Author of “Dreams,” “The Story of an African Farm,” “Trooper Peter +Halket,” “Dream Life and Real Life,” etc. etc. + + + Dedicated to Constance Lytton + + “Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, + Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea-- + Glory of virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong-- + Nay, but she aim’d not at glory, no lover of glory she: + Give her the glory of going on and still to be.” + + Tennyson. + + Olive Schreiner. + De Aar, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. 1911. + + + + +Contents + + Introduction + + Chapter I. Parasitism + + Chapter II. Parasitism (continued) + + Chapter III. Parasitism (continued) + + Chapter IV. Woman and War + + Chapter V. Sex Differences + + Chapter VI. Certain Objections + + + + + +Introduction. + +It is necessary to say a few words to explain this book. The original +title of the book was “Musings on Woman and Labour.” + +It is, what its name implies, a collection of musings on some of the +points connected with woman’s work. + +In my early youth I began a book on Woman. I continued the work till +ten years ago. It necessarily touched on most matters in which sex has a +part, however incompletely. + +It began by tracing the differences of sex function to their earliest +appearances in life on the globe; not only as when in the animal world, +two amoeboid globules coalesce, and the process of sexual generation +almost unconsciously begins; but to its yet more primitive +manifestations in plant life. In the first three chapters I traced, +as far as I was able, the evolution of sex in different branches of +non-human life. Many large facts surprised me in following this line of +thought by their bearing on the whole modern sex problem. Such facts +as this; that, in the great majority of species on the earth the female +form exceeds the male in size and strength and often in predatory +instinct; and that sex relationships may assume almost any form on earth +as the conditions of life vary; and that, even in their sexual relations +towards offspring, those differences which we, conventionally, are apt +to suppose are inherent in the paternal or the maternal sex form, are +not inherent--as when one studies the lives of certain toads, where the +female deposits her eggs in cavities on the back of the male, where the +eggs are preserved and hatched; or, of certain sea animals, in which the +male carries the young about with him and rears them in a pouch formed +of his own substance; and countless other such. And above all, this +important fact, which had first impressed me when as a child I wandered +alone in the African bush and watched cock-o-veets singing their +inter-knit love-songs, and small singing birds building their nests +together, and caring for and watching over, not only their young, but +each other, and which has powerfully influenced all I have thought and +felt on sex matters since;--the fact that, along the line of bird +life and among certain of its species sex has attained its highest and +aesthetic, and one might almost say intellectual, development on +earth: a point of development to which no human race as a whole has +yet reached, and which represents the realisation of the highest sexual +ideal which haunts humanity. + +When these three chapters we ended I went on to deal, as far as +possible, with woman’s condition in the most primitive, in the savage +and in the semi-savage states. I had always been strangely interested +from childhood in watching the condition of the native African women +in their primitive society about me. When I was eighteen I had a +conversation with a Kafir woman still in her untouched primitive +condition, a conversation which made a more profound impression on my +mind than any but one other incident connected with the position of +woman has ever done. She was a woman whom I cannot think of otherwise +than as a person of genius. In language more eloquent and intense than +I have ever heard from the lips of any other woman, she painted the +condition of the women of her race; the labour of women, the anguish of +woman as she grew older, and the limitations of her life closed in about +her, her sufferings under the condition of polygamy and subjection; all +this she painted with a passion and intensity I have not known equalled; +and yet, and this was the interesting point, when I went on to question +her, combined with a deep and almost fierce bitterness against life +and the unseen powers which had shaped woman and her conditions as they +were, there was not one word of bitterness against the individual man, +nor any will or intention to revolt; rather, there was a stern and +almost majestic attitude of acceptance of the inevitable; life and the +conditions of her race being what they were. It was this conversation +which first forced upon me a truth, which I have since come to regard as +almost axiomatic, that, the women of no race or class will ever rise in +revolt or attempt to bring about a revolutionary readjustment of their +relation to their society, however intense their suffering and however +clear their perception of it, while the welfare and persistence of their +society requires their submission: that, wherever there is a general +attempt on the part of the women of any society to readjust their +position in it, a close analysis will always show that the changed or +changing conditions of that society have made woman’s acquiescence no +longer necessary or desirable. + +Another point which it was attempted to deal with in this division of +the book was the probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that +woman’s physical suffering and weakness in childbirth and certain other +directions was the price which woman has been compelled to pay for the +passing of the race from the quadrupedal and four-handed state to the +erect; and which was essential if humanity as we know it was to exist +(this of course was dealt with by a physiological study of woman’s +structure); and also, to deal with the highly probable, though unproved +and perhaps unprovable, suggestion, that it was largely the necessity +which woman was under of bearing her helpless young in her arms while +procuring food for them and herself, and of carrying them when escaping +from enemies, that led to the entirely erect position being forced on +developing humanity. + +These and many other points throwing an interesting light on the later +development of women (such as the relation between agriculture and the +subjection of women) were gone into in this division of the book dealing +with primitive and semi-barbarous womanhood. + +When this division was ended, I had them type-written, and with the +first three chapters bound in one volume about the year 1888; and then +went on to work at the last division, which I had already begun. + +This dealt with what is more popularly known as the women’s question: +with the causes which in modern European societies are leading women to +attempt readjustment in their relation to their social organism; with +the direction in which such readjustments are taking place; and with the +results which in the future it appears likely such readjustments will +produce. + +After eleven years, 1899, these chapters were finished and bound in a +large volume with the first two divisions. There then only remained to +revise the book and write a preface. In addition to the prose argument +I had in each chapter one or more allegories; because while it is easy +clearly to express abstract thoughts in argumentative prose, whatever +emotion those thoughts awaken I have not felt myself able adequately +to express except in the other form. (The allegory “Three Dreams in a +Desert” which I published about nineteen years ago was taken from this +book; and I have felt that perhaps being taken from its context it was +not quite clear to every one.) I had also tried throughout to illustrate +the subject with exactly those particular facts in the animal and human +world, with which I had come into personal contact and which had helped +to form the conclusions which were given; as it has always seemed to +me that in dealing with sociological questions a knowledge of the exact +manner in which any writer has arrived at his view is necessary in +measuring its worth. The work had occupied a large part of my life, and +I had hoped, whatever its deficiencies, that it might at least stimulate +other minds, perhaps more happily situated, to an enlarged study of the +question. + +In 1899 I was living in Johannesburg, when, owing to ill-health, I was +ordered suddenly to spend some time at a lower level. At the end of +two months the Boer War broke out. Two days after war was proclaimed I +arrived at De Aar on my way back to the Transvaal; but Martial Law had +already been proclaimed there, and the military authorities refused to +allow my return to my home in Johannesburg and sent me to the Colony; +nor was I allowed to send any communication through, to any person, who +might have extended some care over my possessions. Some eight months +after, when the British troops had taken and entered Johannesburg; a +friend, who, being on the British side, had been allowed to go up, wrote +me that he had visited my house and found it looted, that all that was +of value had been taken or destroyed; that my desk had been forced open +and broken up, and its contents set on fire in the centre of the room, +so that the roof was blackened over the pile of burnt papers. He added +that there was little in the remnants of paper of which I could make any +use, but that he had gathered and stored the fragments till such time +as I might be allowed to come and see them. I thus knew my book had been +destroyed. + +Some months later in the war when confined in a little up-country +hamlet, many hundreds of miles from the coast and from Johannesburg; +with the brunt of the war at that time breaking around us, de Wet having +crossed the Orange River and being said to have been within a few miles +of us, and the British columns moving hither and thither, I was living +in a little house on the outskirts of the village, in a single room, +with a stretcher and two packing-cases as furniture, and with my little +dog for company. Thirty-six armed African natives were set to guard +night and day at the doors and windows of the house; and I was only +allowed to go out during certain hours in the middle of the day to fetch +water from the fountain, or to buy what I needed, and I was allowed to +receive no books, newspapers or magazines. A high barbed wire fence, +guarded by armed natives, surrounded the village, through which it would +have been death to try to escape. All day the pompoms from the armoured +trains, that paraded on the railway line nine miles distant, could be +heard at intervals; and at night the talk of the armed natives as they +pressed against the windows, and the tramp of the watch with the endless +“Who goes there?” as they walked round the wire fence through the long, +dark hours, when one was allowed neither to light a candle nor strike +a match. When a conflict was fought near by, the dying and wounded were +brought in; three men belonging to our little village were led out to +execution; death sentences were read in our little market-place; our +prison was filled with our fellow-countrymen; and we did not know +from hour to hour what the next would bring to any of us. Under these +conditions I felt it necessary I should resolutely force my thought at +times from the horror of the world around me, to dwell on some abstract +question, and it was under these circumstances that this little book was +written; being a remembrance mainly drawn from one chapter of the larger +book. The armed native guards standing against the uncurtained windows, +it was impossible to open the shutters, and the room was therefore +always so dark that even the physical act of writing was difficult. + +A year and a half after, when the war was over and peace had been +proclaimed for above four months, I with difficulty obtained a permit to +visit the Transvaal. I found among the burnt fragments the leathern back +of my book intact, the front half of the leaves burnt away; the back +half of the leaves next to the cover still all there, but so browned and +scorched with the flames that they broke as you touched them; and there +was nothing left but to destroy it. I even then felt a hope that at some +future time I might yet rewrite the entire book. But life is short; and +I have found that not only shall I never rewrite the book, but I +shall not have the health even to fill out and harmonise this little +remembrance from it. + +It is therefore with considerable pain that I give out this fragment. I +am only comforted by the thought that perhaps, all sincere and earnest +search after truth, even where it fails to reach it, yet, often comes +so near to it, that other minds more happily situated may be led, by +pointing out its very limitations and errors, to obtain a larger view. + +I have dared to give this long and very uninteresting explanation, not +at all because I have wished by giving the conditions under which this +little book was written, to make excuse for any repetitions or lack of +literary perfection, for these things matter very little; but, because +(and this matters very much) it might lead to misconception on the +subject-matter itself if its genesis were not exactly understood. + +Not only is this book not a general view of the whole vast body +of phenomena connected with woman’s position; but it is not even a +bird’s-eye view of the whole question of woman’s relation to labour. + +In the original book the matter of the parasitism of woman filled only +one chapter out of twelve, and it was mainly from this chapter that this +book was drawn. The question of the parasitism of woman is, I think, +very vital, very important; it explains many phenomena which nothing +else explains; and it will be of increasing importance. But for the +moment there are other aspects of woman’s relation to labour practically +quite as pressing. In the larger book I had devoted one chapter entirely +to an examination of the work woman has done and still does in the +modern world, and the gigantic evils which arise from the fact that +her labour, especially domestic labour, often the most wearisome and +unending known to any section of the human race, is not adequately +recognised or recompensed. Especially on this point I have feared this +book might lead to a misconception, if by its great insistence on the +problem of sex parasitism, and the lighter dealing with other aspects, +it should lead to the impression that woman’s domestic labour at the +present day (something quite distinct from, though indirectly connected +with, the sexual relation between man and woman) should not be highly +and most highly recognised and recompensed. I believe it will be in the +future, and then when woman gives up her independent field of labour for +domestic or marital duty of any kind, she will not receive her share +of the earnings of the man as a more or less eleemosynary benefaction, +placing her in a position of subjection, but an equal share, as the fair +division, in an equal partnership. (It may be objected that where a man +and woman have valued each other sufficiently to select one another from +all other humans for a lifelong physical union, it is an impertinence +to suppose there could be any necessity to adjust economic relations. In +love there is no first nor last! And that the desire of each must be to +excel the other in service. That this should be so is true; that it is +so now, in the case of union between two perfectly morally developed +humans, is also true, and that this condition may in a distant future be +almost universal is certainly true. But dealing with this matter as a +practical question today, we have to consider not what should be, or +what may be, but what, given traditions and institutions of our +societies, is, today.) Especially I have feared that the points dealt +with in this little book, when taken apart from other aspects of the +question, might lead to the conception that it was intended to express +the thought, that it was possible or desirable that woman in addition to +her child-bearing should take from man his share in the support and care +of his offspring or of the woman who fulfilled with regard to himself +domestic duties of any kind. In that chapter in the original book +devoted to the consideration of man’s labour in connection with woman +and with his offspring more than one hundred pages were devoted to +illustrating how essential to the humanising and civilising of man, and +therefore of the whole race, was an increased sense of sexual and +paternal responsibility, and an increased justice towards woman as a +domestic labourer. In the last half of the same chapter I dealt at great +length with what seems to me an even more pressing practical sex +question at this moment--man’s attitude towards those women who are not +engaged in domestic labour; toward that vast and always increasing body +of women, who as modern conditions develop are thrown out into the +stream of modern economic life to sustain themselves and often others by +their own labour; and who yet are there bound hand and foot, not by the +intellectual or physical limitations of their nature, but by artificial +constrictions and conventions, the remnants of a past condition of +society. It is largely this maladjustment, which, deeply studied in all +its ramifications, will be found to lie as the taproot and central +source of the most terrible of the social diseases that afflict us. + +The fact that for equal work equally well performed by a man and by +a woman, it is ordained that the woman on the ground of her sex alone +shall receive a less recompense, is the nearest approach to a wilful +and unqualified “wrong” in the whole relation of woman to society today. +That males of enlightenment and equity can for an hour tolerate the +existence of this inequality has seemed to me always incomprehensible; +and it is only explainable when one regards it as a result of the +blinding effects of custom and habit. Personally, I have felt so +profoundly on this subject, that this, with one other point connected +with woman’s sexual relation to man, are the only matters connected with +woman’s position, in thinking of which I have always felt it necessary +almost fiercely to crush down indignation and to restrain it, if I would +maintain an impartiality of outlook. I should therefore much regret if +the light and passing manner in which this question has been touched on +in this little book made it seem of less vital importance than I hold +it. + +In the last chapter of the original book, the longest, and I believe the +most important, I dealt with the problems connected with marriage and +the personal relations of men and women in the modern world. In it I +tried to give expression to that which I hold to be a great truth, and +one on which I should not fear to challenge the verdict of long future +generations--that, the direction in which the endeavour of woman to +readjust herself to the new conditions of life is leading today, is +not towards a greater sexual laxity, or promiscuity, or to an increased +self-indulgence, but toward a higher appreciation of the sacredness of +all sex relations, and a clearer perception of the sex relation between +man and woman as the basis of human society, on whose integrity, beauty +and healthfulness depend the health and beauty of human life, as a +whole. Above all, that it will lead to a closer, more permanent, more +emotionally and intellectually complete and intimate relation between +the individual man and woman. And if in the present disco-ordinate +transitional stage of our social growth it is found necessary to +allow of readjustment by means of divorce, it will not be because +such readjustments will be regarded lightly, but rather, as when, in a +complex and delicate mechanism moved by a central spring, we allow +in the structure for the readjustment and regulation of that spring, +because on its absolute perfection of action depends the movement of the +whole mechanism. In the last pages of the book, I tried to express what +seems to me a most profound truth often overlooked--that as humanity +and human societies pass on slowly from their present barbarous and +semi-savage condition in matters of sex into a higher, it will be found +increasingly, that over and above its function in producing and sending +onward the physical stream of life (a function which humanity shares +with the most lowly animal and vegetable forms of life, and which even +by some noted thinkers of the present day seems to be regarded as its +only possible function,) that sex and the sexual relation between man +and woman have distinct aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual functions +and ends, apart entirely from physical reproduction. That noble as is +the function of the physical reproduction of humanity by the union of +man and woman, rightly viewed, that union has in it latent, other, and +even higher forms, of creative energy and life-dispensing power, and +that its history on earth has only begun. As the first wild rose when it +hung from its stem with its centre of stamens and pistils and its single +whorl of pale petals, had only begun its course, and was destined, as +the ages passed, to develop stamen upon stamen and petal upon petal, +till it assumed a hundred forms of joy and beauty. + +And, it would indeed almost seem, that, on the path toward the higher +development of sexual life on earth, as man has so often had to lead +in other paths, that here it is perhaps woman, by reason of those very +sexual conditions which in the past have crushed and trammelled her, who +is bound to lead the way, and man to follow. So that it may be at last, +that sexual love--that tired angel who through the ages has presided +over the march of humanity, with distraught eyes, and feather-shafts +broken, and wings drabbled in the mires of lust and greed, and golden +locks caked over with the dust of injustice and oppression--till those +looking at him have sometimes cried in terror, “He is the Evil and +not the Good of life!” and have sought, if it were not possible, to +exterminate him--shall yet, at last, bathed from the mire and dust of +ages in the streams of friendship and freedom, leap upwards, with white +wings spread, resplendent in the sunshine of a distant future--the +essentially Good and Beautiful of human existence. + +I have given this long and very wearisome explanation of the scope and +origin of this little book, because I feel that it might lead to grave +misunderstanding were it not understood how it came to be written. + +I have inscribed it to my friend, Lady Constance Lytton; not because +I think it worthy of her, nor yet because of the splendid part she +has played in the struggle of the women fighting today in England for +certain forms of freedom for all women. It is, if I may be allowed +without violating the sanctity of a close personal friendship so to +say, because she, with one or two other men and women I have known, have +embodied for me the highest ideal of human nature, in which intellectual +power and strength of will are combined with an infinite tenderness and +a wide human sympathy; a combination which, whether in the person of the +man or the woman, is essential to the existence of the fully rounded and +harmonised human creature; and which an English woman of genius summed +in one line when she cried in her invocation of her great French +sister:-- + +“Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man!” + +One word more I should like to add, as I may not again speak or write +on this subject. I should like to say to the men and women of the +generations which will come after us--“You will look back at us with +astonishment! You will wonder at passionate struggles that accomplished +so little; at the, to you, obvious paths to attain our ends which we did +not take; at the intolerable evils before which it will seem to you we +sat down passive; at the great truths staring us in the face, which we +failed to see; at the truths we grasped at, but could never quite +get our fingers round. You will marvel at the labour that ended in so +little--but, what you will never know is how it was thinking of you and +for you, that we struggled as we did and accomplished the little which +we have done; that it was in the thought of your larger realisation and +fuller life, that we found consolation for the futilities of our own.” + +“What I aspired to be, and was not, comforts me.” + +O.S. + + + +Chapter I. Parasitism. + +In that clamour which has arisen in the modern world, where now this, +and then that, is demanded for and by large bodies of modern women, he +who listens carefully may detect as a keynote, beneath all the clamour, +a demand which may be embodied in such a cry as this: Give us labour and +the training which fits for labour! We demand this, not for ourselves +alone, but for the race. + +If this demand be logically expanded, it will take such form as this: +Give us labour! For countless ages, for thousands, millions it may be, +we have laboured. When first man wandered, the naked, newly-erected +savage, and hunted and fought, we wandered with him: each step of +his was ours. Within our bodies we bore the race, on our shoulders we +carried it; we sought the roots and plants for its food; and, when man’s +barbed arrow or hook brought the game, our hands dressed it. Side by +side, the savage man and the savage woman, we wandered free together and +laboured free together. And we were contented! + +Then a change came. + +We ceased from our wanderings, and, camping upon one spot of earth, +again the labours of life were divided between us. While man went forth +to hunt, or to battle with the foe who would have dispossessed us of +all, we laboured on the land. We hoed the earth, we reaped the grain, +we shaped the dwellings, we wove the clothing, we modelled the earthen +vessels and drew the lines upon them, which were humanity’s first +attempt at domestic art; we studied the properties and uses of plants, +and our old women were the first physicians of the race, as, often, its +first priests and prophets. + +We fed the race at our breast, we bore it on our shoulders; through us +it was shaped, fed, and clothed. Labour more toilsome and unending than +that of man was ours; yet did we never cry out that it was too heavy for +us. While savage man lay in the sunshine on his skins, resting, that he +might be fitted for war or the chase, or while he shaped his weapons of +death, he ate and drank that which our hands had provided for him; and +while we knelt over our grindstone, or hoed in the fields, with one +child in our womb, perhaps, and one on our back, toiling till the +young body was old before its time--did we ever cry out that the labour +allotted to us was too hard for us? Did we not know that the woman who +threw down her burden was as a man who cast away his shield in battle--a +coward and a traitor to his race? Man fought--that was his work; we fed +and nurtured the race--that was ours. We knew that upon our labours, +even as upon man’s, depended the life and well-being of the people whom +we bore. We endured our toil, as man bore his wounds, silently; and we +were content. + +Then again a change came. + +Ages passed, and time was when it was no longer necessary that all men +should go to the hunt or the field of war; and when only one in five, +or one in ten, or but one in twenty, was needed continually for these +labours. Then our fellow-man, having no longer full occupation in his +old fields of labour, began to take his share in ours. He too began to +cultivate the field, to build the house, to grind the corn (or make +his male slaves do it); and the hoe, and the potter’s tools, and the +thatching-needle, and at last even the grindstones which we first had +picked up and smoothed to grind the food for our children, began to pass +from our hands into his. The old, sweet life of the open fields was ours +no more; we moved within the gates, where the time passes more slowly +and the world is sadder than in the air outside; but we had our own work +still, and were content. + +If, indeed, we might no longer grow the food for our people, we were +still its dressers; if we did not always plant and prepare the flax and +hemp, we still wove the garments for our race; if we did no longer raise +the house walls, the tapestries that covered them were the work of our +hands; we brewed the ale, and the simples which were used as medicines +we distilled and prescribed; and, close about our feet, from birth +to manhood, grew up the children whom we had borne; their voices +were always in our ears. At the doors of our houses we sat with our +spinning-wheels, and we looked out across the fields that were once ours +to labour in--and were contented. Lord’s wife, peasant’s, or burgher’s, +we all still had our work to do! + +A thousand years ago, had one gone to some great dame, questioning her +why she did not go out a-hunting or a-fighting, or enter the great hall +to dispense justice and confer upon the making of laws, she would have +answered: “Am I a fool that you put to me such questions? Have I not a +hundred maidens to keep at work at spinning-wheels and needles? With my +own hands daily do I not dispense bread to over a hundred folk? In the +great hall go and see the tapestries I with my maidens have created by +the labour of years, and which we shall labour over for twenty more, +that my children’s children may see recorded the great deeds of their +forefathers. In my store-room are there not salves and simples, that my +own hands have prepared for the healing of my household and the sick in +the country round? Ill would it go indeed, if when the folk came home +from war and the chase of wild beasts, weary or wounded, they found all +the womenfolk gone out a-hunting and a-fighting, and none there to dress +their wounds, or prepare their meat, or guide and rule the household! +Better far might my lord and his followers come and help us with our +work, than that we should go to help them! You are surely bereft of all +wit. What becomes of the country if the women forsake their toil?” + +And the burgher’s wife, asked why she did not go to labour in her +husband’s workshop, or away into the market-place, or go a-trading to +foreign countries, would certainly have answered: “I am too busy to +speak with such as you! The bread is in the oven (already I smell it +a-burning), the winter is coming on, and my children lack good woollen +hose and my husband needs a warm coat. I have six vats of ale all +a-brewing, and I have daughters whom I must teach to spin and sew, and +the babies are clinging round my knees. And you ask me why I do not go +abroad to seek for new labours! Godsooth! Would you have me to leave my +household to starve in summer and die of cold in winter, and my children +to go untrained, while I gad about to seek for other work? A man must +have his belly full and his back covered before all things in life. Who, +think you, would spin and bake and brew, and rear and train my babes, +if I went abroad? New labour, indeed, when the days are not long enough, +and I have to toil far into the night! I have no time to talk with +fools! Who will rear and shape the nation if I do not?” + +And the young maiden at the cottage door, beside her wheel, asked why +she was content and did not seek new fields of labour, would surely have +answered: “Go away, I have no time to listen to you. Do you not see that +I am spinning here that I too may have a home of my own? I am weaving +the linen garments that shall clothe my household in the long years to +come! I cannot marry till the chest upstairs be full. You cannot hear +it, but as I sit here alone, spinning, far off across the hum of my +spinning-wheel I hear the voices of my little unborn children calling to +me--‘O mother, mother, make haste, that we may be!’--and sometimes, when +I seem to be looking out across my wheel into the sunshine, it is the +blaze of my own fireside that I see, and the light shines on the faces +round it; and I spin on the faster and the steadier when I think of what +shall come. Do you ask me why I do not go out and labour in the fields +with the lad whom I have chosen? Is his work, then, indeed more needed +than mine for the raising of that home that shall be ours? Oh, very hard +I will labour, for him and for my children, in the long years to come. +But I cannot stop to talk to you now. Far off, over the hum of my +spinning-wheel, I hear the voices of my children calling, and I must +hurry on. Do you ask me why I do not seek for labour whose hands are +full to bursting? Who will give folk to the nation if I do not?” + +Such would have been our answer in Europe in the ages of the past, if +asked the question why we were contented with our field of labour and +sought no other. Man had his work; we had ours. We knew that we upbore +our world on our shoulders; and that through the labour of our hands it +was sustained and strengthened--and we were contented. + +But now, again a change has come. + +Something that is entirely new has entered into the field of human +labour, and left nothing as it was. + +In man’s fields of toil, change has accomplished, and is yet more +quickly accomplishing, itself. + +On lands where once fifty men and youths toiled with their cattle, today +one steam-plough, guided by but two pair of hands, passes swiftly; and +an automatic reaper in one day reaps and binds and prepares for the +garner the produce of fields it would have taken a hundred strong male +arms to harvest in the past. The iron tools and weapons, only one +of which it took an ancient father of our race long months of stern +exertion to extract from ore and bring to shape and temper, are now +poured forth by steam-driven machinery as a millpond pours forth its +water; and even in war, the male’s ancient and especial field of labour, +a complete reversal of the ancient order has taken place. Time was when +the size and strength of the muscles in a man’s legs and arms, and the +strength and size of his body, largely determined his fighting powers, +and an Achilles or a Richard Coeur de Lion, armed only with his spear +or battle-axe, made a host fly before him; today the puniest mannikin +behind a modern Maxim gun may mow down in perfect safety a phalanx of +heroes whose legs and arms and physical powers a Greek god might have +envied, but who, having not the modern machinery of war, fall powerless. +The day of the primary import to humanity of the strength in man’s +extensor and flexor muscles, whether in labours of war or of peace, is +gone by for ever; and the day of the all-importance of the culture and +activity of man’s brain and nerve has already come. + +The brain of one consumptive German chemist, who in his laboratory +compounds a new explosive, has more effect upon the wars of the modern +peoples than ten thousand soldierly legs and arms; and the man who +invents one new labour-saving machine may, through the cerebration of +a few days, have performed the labour it would otherwise have taken +hundreds of thousands of his lusty fellows decades to accomplish. + +Year by year, month by month, and almost hour by hour, this change is +increasingly showing itself in the field of the modern labour; and crude +muscular force, whether in man or beast, sinks continually in its value +in the world of human toil; while intellectual power, virility, and +activity, and that culture which leads to the mastery of the inanimate +forces of nature, to the invention of machinery, and to that delicate +manipulative skill often required in guiding it, becomes ever of greater +and greater importance to the race. Already today we tremble on the +verge of a discovery, which may come tomorrow or the next day, when, +through the attainment of a simple and cheap method of controlling +some widely diffused, everywhere accessible, natural force (such, for +instance, as the force of the great tidal wave) there will at once and +for ever pass away even that comparatively small value which still, in +our present stage of material civilisation, clings to the expenditure +of mere crude, mechanical, human energy; and the creature, however +physically powerful, who can merely pull, push, and lift, much after the +manner of a machine, will have no further value in the field of human +labour. + +Therefore, even today, we find that wherever that condition which we +call modern civilisation prevails, and in proportion as it tends to +prevail--wherever steam-power, electricity, or the forces of wind +and water, are compelled by man’s intellectual activity to act as the +motor-powers in the accomplishment of human toil, wherever the delicate +adaptions of scientifically constructed machinery are taking the place +of the simple manipulation of the human hand--there has arisen, all the +world over, a large body of males who find that their ancient fields of +labour have slipped or are slipping from them, and who discover that +the modern world has no place or need for them. At the gates of +our dockyards, in our streets, and in our fields, are to be found +everywhere, in proportion as modern civilisation is really dominant, +men whose bulk and mere animal strength would have made them as warriors +invaluable members of any primitive community, and who would have been +valuable even in any simpler civilisation than our own, as machines +of toil; but who, owing to lack of intellectual or delicate manual +training, have now no form of labour to offer society which it stands +really in need of, and who therefore tend to form our Great Male +Unemployed--a body which finds the only powers it possesses so little +needed by its fellows that, in return for its intensest physical labour, +it hardly earns the poorest sustenance. The material conditions of life +have been rapidly modified, and the man has not been modified with them; +machinery has largely filled his place in his old field of labour, and +he has found no new one. + +It is from these men, men who, viewed from the broad humanitarian +standpoint, are often of the most lovable and interesting type, and +who might in a simpler state of society, where physical force was the +dominating factor, have been the heroes, leaders, and chiefs of their +people, that there arises in the modern world the bitter cry of the male +unemployed: “Give us labour or we die!” (The problem of the unemployed +male is, of course, not nearly so modern as that of the unemployed +female. It may be said in England to have taken its rise in almost its +present form as early as the fifteenth century, when economic changes +began to sever the agricultural labourer from the land, and rob him of +his ancient forms of social toil. Still, in its most acute form, it may +be called a modern problem.) + +Yet it is only upon one, and a comparatively small, section of the +males of the modern civilised world that these changes in the material +conditions of life have told in such fashion as to take all useful +occupation from them and render them wholly or partly worthless to +society. If the modern man’s field of labour has contracted at one end +(the physical), at the other (the intellectual) it has immeasurably +expanded! If machinery and the command of inanimate motor-forces +have rendered of comparatively little value the male’s mere physical +motor-power, the demand upon his intellectual faculties, the call +for the expenditure of nervous energy, and the exercise of delicate +manipulative skill in the labour of human life, have immeasurably +increased. + +In a million new directions forms of honoured and remunerative social +labour are opening up before the feet of the modern man, which his +ancestors never dreamed of; and day by day they yet increase in +numbers and importance. The steamship, the hydraulic lift, the patent +road-maker, the railway-train, the electric tram-car, the steam-driven +mill, the Maxim gun and the torpedo boat, once made, may perform their +labours with the guidance and assistance of comparatively few hands; but +a whole army of men of science, engineers, clerks, and highly-trained +workmen is necessary for their invention, construction, and maintenance. +In the domains of art, of science, of literature, and above all in the +field of politics and government, an almost infinite extension has taken +place in the fields of male labour. Where in primitive times woman was +often the only builder, and patterns she daubed on her hut walls or +traced on her earthen vessels the only attempts at domestic art; and +where later but an individual here and there was required to design +a king’s palace or a god’s temple or to ornament it with statues or +paintings, today a mighty army of men, a million strong, is employed in +producing plastic art alone, both high and low, from the traceries on +wall-paper and the illustrations in penny journals, to the production +of the pictures and statues which adorn the national collections, and +a mighty new field of toil has opened before the anciently hunting and +fighting male. Where once one ancient witch-doctress may have been the +only creature in a whole district who studied the nature of herbs and +earths, or a solitary wizard experimenting on poisons was the only +individual in a whole territory interrogating nature; and where later, +a few score of alchemists and astrologers only were engaged in examining +the structure of substances, or the movement of planets, today thousands +of men in every civilised community are labouring to unravel the +mysteries of nature, and the practical chemist, the physician, the +anatomist, the engineer, the astronomer, the mathematician, the +electrician, form a mighty and always increasingly important army of +male labourers. Where once an isolated bard supplied a nation with its +literatures, or where later a few thousand priests and men of letters +wrote and transcribed for the few to read, today literature gives labour +to a multitude almost as countless as a swarm of locusts. From the +penny-a-liner to the artist and thinker, the demand for their labour +continually increases. Where one town-crier with stout legs and lusty +lungs was once all-sufficient to spread the town and country news, a +score of men now sit daily pen in hand, preparing the columns of the +morning’s paper, and far into the night a hundred compositors are +engaged in a labour which requires a higher culture of brain and finger +than most ancient kings and rulers possessed. Even in the labours of +war, the most brutal and primitive of the occupations lingering on into +civilised life from the savage state, the new demand for labour of an +intellectual kind is enormous. The invention, construction, and working +of one Krupp gun, though its mere discharge hardly demands more crude +muscular exertion than a savage expends in throwing his boomerang, yet +represents an infinitude of intellectual care and thought, far greater +than that which went to the shaping of all the weapons of a primitive +army. Above all, in the domain of politics and government, where once a +king or queen, aided by a handful of councillors, was alone practically +concerned in the labours of national guidance or legislation; today, +owing to the rapid means of intercommunication, printing, and the +consequent diffusion of political and social information throughout a +territory, it has become possible, for the first time, for all adults +in a large community to keep themselves closely informed on all national +affairs; and in every highly-civilised state the ordinary male has been +almost compelled to take his share, however small, in the duties and +labours of legislation and government. Thus there has opened before the +mass of men a vast new sphere of labour undreamed of by their ancestors. +In every direction the change which material civilisation has wrought, +while it has militated against that comparatively small section of males +who have nothing to offer society but the expenditure of their untrained +muscular energy (inflicting much and often completely unmerited +suffering upon them), has immeasurably extended the field of male labour +as a whole. Never before in the history of the earth has the man’s field +of remunerative toil been so wide, so interesting, so complex, and in +its results so all-important to society; never before has the male sex, +taken as a whole, been so fully and strenuously employed. + +So much is this the case, that, exactly as in the earlier conditions of +society an excessive and almost crushing amount of the most important +physical labour generally devolved upon the female, so under modern +civilised conditions among the wealthier and fully civilised classes, +an unduly excessive share of labour tends to devolve upon the male. That +almost entirely modern, morbid condition, affecting brain and nervous +system, and shortening the lives of thousands in modern civilised +societies, which is vulgarly known as “overwork” or “nervous breakdown,” + is but one evidence of the even excessive share of mental toil devolving +upon the modern male of the cultured classes, who, in addition to +maintaining himself, has frequently dependent upon him a larger or +smaller number of entirely parasitic females. But, whatever the result +of the changes of modern civilisation may be with regard to the male, +he certainly cannot complain that they have as a whole robbed him of +his fields of labour, diminished his share in the conduct of life, or +reduced him to a condition of morbid inactivity. + +In our woman’s field of labour, matters have tended to shape themselves +wholly otherwise! The changes which have taken place during the last +centuries, and which we sum up under the compendious term “modern +civilisation,” have tended to rob woman, not merely in part but almost +wholly, of the more valuable of her ancient domain of productive and +social labour; and, where there has not been a determined and conscious +resistance on her part, have nowhere spontaneously tended to open out to +her new and compensatory fields. + +It is this fact which constitutes our modern “Woman’s Labour Problem.” + +Our spinning-wheels are all broken; in a thousand huge buildings +steam-driven looms, guided by a few hundred thousands of hands (often +those of men), produce the clothings of half the world; and we dare no +longer say, proudly, as of old, that we and we alone clothe our peoples. + +Our hoes and our grindstones passed from us long ago, when the ploughman +and the miller took our place; but for a time we kept fast possession of +the kneading-trough and the brewing-vat. Today, steam often shapes our +bread, and the loaves are set down at our very door--it may be by a +man-driven motor-car! The history of our household drinks we know no +longer; we merely see them set before us at our tables. Day by day +machine-prepared and factory-produced viands take a larger and larger +place in the dietary of rich and poor, till the working man’s wife +places before her household little that is of her own preparation; while +among the wealthier classes, so far has domestic change gone that men +are not unfrequently found labouring in our houses and kitchens, and +even standing behind our chairs ready to do all but actually place the +morsels of food between our feminine lips. The army of rosy milkmaids +has passed away for ever, to give place to the cream-separator and the, +largely, male-and-machinery manipulated butter pat. In every direction +the ancient saw, that it was exclusively the woman’s sphere to prepare +the viands for her household, has become, in proportion as civilisation +has perfected itself, an antiquated lie. + +Even the minor domestic operations are tending to pass out of the circle +of woman’s labour. In modern cities our carpets are beaten, our windows +cleaned, our floors polished, by machinery, or extra domestic, and often +male labour. Change has gone much farther than to the mere taking +from us of the preparation of the materials from which the clothing is +formed. Already the domestic sewing-machine, which has supplanted almost +entirely the ancient needle, begins to become antiquated, and a thousand +machines driven in factories by central engines are supplying not only +the husband and son, but the woman herself, with almost every article of +clothing from vest to jacket; while among the wealthy classes, the +male dress-designer with his hundred male-milliners and dressmakers +is helping finally to explode the ancient myth, that it is woman’s +exclusive sphere, and a part of her domestic toil, to cut and shape the +garments she or her household wear. + +Year by year, day by day, there is a silently working but determined +tendency for the sphere of woman’s domestic labours to contract itself; +and the contraction is marked exactly in proportion as that complex +condition which we term “modern civilisation” is advanced. + +It manifests itself more in England and America than in Italy and Spain, +more in great cities than in country places, more among the wealthier +classes than the poorer, and is an unfailing indication of advancing +modern civilisation. (There is, indeed, often something pathetic in the +attitude of many a good old mother of the race, who having survived, +here and there, into the heart of our modern civilisation, is sorely +puzzled by the change in woman’s duties and obligations. She may be +found looking into the eyes of some ancient crone, who, like herself, +has survived from a previous state of civilisation, seeking there a +confirmation of a view of life of which a troublous doubt has crept +even into her own soul. “I,” she cries, “always cured my own hams, and +knitted my own socks, and made up all the linen by hand. We always did +it when we were girls--but now my daughters object!” And her old +crone answers her? “Yes, we did it; it’s the right thing; but it’s so +expensive. It’s so much cheaper to buy things ready made!” And they +shake their heads and go their ways, feeling that the world is strangely +out of joint when duty seems no more duty. Such women are, in truth, +like a good old mother duck, who, having for years led her ducklings to +the same pond, when that pond has been drained and nothing is left but +baked mud, will still persist in bringing her younglings down to it, and +walks about with flapping wings and anxious quack, trying to induce them +to enter it. But the ducklings, with fresh young instincts, hear far off +the delicious drippings from the new dam which has been built higher up +to catch the water, and they smell the chickweed and the long grass that +is growing up beside it; and absolutely refuse to disport themselves on +the baked mud or to pretend to seek for worms where no worms are. And +they leave the ancient mother quacking beside her pond and set out to +seek for new pastures--perhaps to lose themselves upon the way?--perhaps +to find them? To the old mother one is inclined to say, “Ah, good old +mother duck, can you not see the world has changed? You cannot bring the +water back into the dried-up pond! Mayhap it was better and pleasanter +when it was there, but it has gone for ever; and, would you and yours +swim again, it must be in other waters.” New machinery, new duties.) + +But it is not only, nor even mainly, in the sphere of women’s material +domestic labours that change has touched her and shrunk her ancient +field of labour. + +Time was, when the woman kept her children about her knees till adult +years were reached. Hers was the training and influence which shaped +them. From the moment when the infant first lay on her breast, till her +daughters left her for marriage and her sons went to take share in man’s +labour, they were continually under the mother’s influence. Today, +so complex have become even the technical and simpler branches of +education, so mighty and inexorable are the demands which modern +civilisation makes for specialised instruction and training for all +individuals who are to survive and retain their usefulness under modern +conditions, that, from the earliest years of its life, the child is of +necessity largely removed from the hands of the mother, and placed +in those of the specialised instructor. Among the wealthier classes, +scarcely is the infant born when it passes into the hands of the trained +nurse, and from hers on into the hands of the qualified teacher; till, +at nine or ten, the son in certain countries often leaves his home for +ever for the public school, to pass on to the college and university; +while the daughter, in the hands of trained instructors and dependents, +owes in the majority of cases hardly more of her education or formation +to maternal toil. While even among our poorer classes, the infant +school, and the public school; and later on the necessity for manual +training, takes the son and often the daughter as completely, and always +increasingly as civilisation advances, from the mother’s control. So +marked has this change in woman’s ancient field of labour become, that a +woman of almost any class may have borne many children and yet in early +middle age be found sitting alone in an empty house, all her offspring +gone from her to receive training and instruction at the hands of +others. The ancient statement that the training and education of her +offspring is exclusively the duty of the mother, however true it +may have been with regard to a remote past, has become an absolute +misstatement; and the woman who should at the present day insist on +entirely educating her own offspring would, in nine cases out of ten, +inflict an irreparable injury on them, because she is incompetent. + +But, if possible, yet more deeply and radically have the changes of +modern civilisation touched our ancient field of labour in another +direction--in that very portion of the field of human labour which is +peculiarly and organically ours, and which can never be wholly taken +from us. Here the shrinkage has been larger than in any other direction, +and touches us as women more vitally. + +Time was, and still is, among almost all primitive and savage folk, when +the first and all-important duty of the female to her society was +to bear, to bear much, and to bear unceasingly! On her adequate and +persistent performance of this passive form of labour, and of her +successful feeding of her young from her own breast, and rearing it, +depended, not merely the welfare, but often the very existence, of +her tribe or nation. Where, as is the case among almost all barbarous +peoples, the rate of infant mortality is high; where the unceasing +casualties resulting from war, the chase, and acts of personal violence +tend continually to reduce the number of adult males; where, surgical +knowledge being still in its infancy, most wounds are fatal; where, +above all, recurrent pestilence and famine, unfailing if of irregular +recurrence, decimated the people, it has been all important that woman +should employ her creative power to its very uttermost limits if the +race were not at once to dwindle and die out. “May thy wife’s womb never +cease from bearing,” is still today the highest expression of goodwill +on the part of a native African chief to his departing guest. For, not +only does the prolific woman in the primitive state contribute to the +wealth and strength of her nation as a whole, but to that of her own +male companion and of her family. Where the social conditions of life +are so simple that, in addition to bearing and suckling the child, it +is reared and nourished through childhood almost entirely through the +labour and care of the mother, requiring no expenditure of tribal +or family wealth on its training or education, its value as an adult +enormously outweighs, both to the state and the male, the trouble and +expense of rearing it, which falls almost entirely on the individual +woman who bears it. The man who has twenty children to become warriors +and labourers is by so much the richer and the more powerful than he who +has but one; while the state whose women are prolific and labour for and +rear their children stands so far insured against destruction. Incessant +and persistent child-bearing is thus truly the highest duty and the most +socially esteemed occupation of the primitive woman, equalling fully in +social importance the labour of the man as hunter and warrior. + +Even under those conditions of civilisation which have existed in the +centuries which divide primitive savagery from high civilisation, the +demand for continuous, unbroken child-bearing on the part of the woman +as her loftiest social duty has generally been hardly less imperious. +Throughout the Middle Ages of Europe, and down almost to our own day, +the rate of infant mortality was almost as large as in a savage state; +medical ignorance destroyed innumerable lives; antiseptic surgery being +unknown, serious wounds were still almost always fatal; in the low +state of sanitary science, plagues such as those which in the reign +of Justinian swept across the civilised world from India to Northern +Europe, well nigh depopulating the globe, or the Black Death of 1349, +which in England alone swept away more than half the population of the +island, were but extreme forms of the destruction of population going on +continually as the result of zymotic disease; while wars were not +merely far more common but, owing to the famines which almost invariably +followed them, were far more destructive to human life than in our own +days, and deaths by violence, whether at the hands of the state or as +the result of personal enmity, were of daily occurrence in all lands. +Under these conditions abstinence on the part of woman from incessant +child-bearing might have led to almost the same serious diminution or +even extinction of her people, as in the savage state; while the very +existence of her civilisation depended on the production of an immense +number of individuals as beasts of burden, without the expenditure +of whose crude muscular force in physical labour of agriculture and +manufacture those intermediate civilisations would, in the absence of +machinery, have been impossible. Twenty men had to be born, fed at the +breast, and reared by women to perform the crude brute labour which is +performed today by one small, well-adjusted steam crane; and the demand +for large masses of human creatures as mere reservoirs of motor force +for accomplishing the simplest processes was imperative. So strong, +indeed, was the consciousness of the importance to society of continuous +child-bearing on the part of woman, that as late as the middle of the +sixteenth century Martin Luther wrote: “If a woman becomes weary or at +last dead from bearing, that matters not; let her only die from bearing, +she is there to do it;” and he doubtless gave expression, in a crude +and somewhat brutal form, to a conviction common to the bulk of his +contemporaries, both male and female. + +Today, this condition has almost completely reversed itself. + +The advance of science and the amelioration of the physical conditions +of life tend rapidly toward a diminution of human mortality. The infant +death-rate among the upper classes in modern civilisations has fallen +by more than one-half; while among poorer classes it is already, though +slowly, falling: the increased knowledge of the laws of sanitation has +made among all highly civilised peoples the depopulation by plague a +thing of the past, and the discoveries of the next twenty or thirty +years will probably do away for ever with the danger to man of zymotic +disease. Famines of the old desolating type have become an impossibility +where rapid means of transportation convey the superfluity of one land +to supply the lack of another; and war and deeds of violence, though +still lingering among us, have already become episodal in the lives of +nations as of individuals; while the vast advances in antiseptic surgery +have caused even the effects of wounds and dismemberments to become only +very partially fatal to human life. All these changes have tended to +diminish human mortality and protract human life; and they have today +already made it possible for a race not only to maintain its numbers, +but even to increase them, with a comparatively small expenditure of +woman’s vitality in the passive labour of child-bearing. + +But yet more seriously has the demand for woman’s labour as child-bearer +been diminished by change in another direction. + +Every mechanical invention which lessens the necessity for rough, +untrained, muscular, human labour, diminishes also the social demand +upon woman as the producer in large masses of such labourers. Already +throughout the modern civilised world we have reached a point at which +the social demand is not merely for human creatures in the bulk for use +as beasts of burden, but, rather, and only, for such human creatures as +shall be so trained and cultured as to be fitted for the performance of +the more complex duties of modern life. Not, now, merely for many men, +but, rather, for few men, and those few, well born and well instructed, +is the modern demand. And the woman who today merely produces twelve +children and suckles them, and then turns them loose on her society and +family, is regarded, and rightly so, as a curse and down draught, and +not the productive labourer, of her community. Indeed, so difficult and +expensive has become in the modern world the rearing and training of +even one individual, in a manner suited to fit it for coping with the +complexities and difficulties of civilised life, that, to the family as +well as to the state, unlimited fecundity on the part of the female has +already, in most cases, become irremediable evil; whether it be in the +case of the artisan, who at the cost of immense self-sacrifice must +support and train his children till their twelfth or fourteenth year, +if they are ever to become even skilled manual labourers, and who if his +family be large often sinks beneath the burden, allowing his offspring, +untaught and untrained, to become waste products of human life; or, in +that of the professional man, who by his mental toil is compelled to +support and educate, at immense expense, his sons till they are twenty +or older, and to sustain his daughters, often throughout their whole +lives should they not marry, and to whom a large family proves often no +less disastrous; while the state whose women produce recklessly large +masses of individuals in excess of those for whom they can provide +instruction and nourishment is a state, in so far, tending toward +deterioration. The commandment to the modern woman is now not simply +“Thou shalt bear,” but rather, “Thou shalt not bear in excess of thy +power to rear and train satisfactorily;” and the woman who should +today appear at the door of a workhouse or the tribunal of the +poor-law guardians followed by her twelve infants, demanding honourable +sustenance for them and herself in return for the labour she had +undergone in producing them, would meet with but short shrift. And the +modern man who on his wedding-day should be greeted with the ancient +good wish, that he might become the father of twenty sons and twenty +daughters, would regard it as a malediction rather than a blessing. It +is certain that the time is now rapidly approaching when child-bearing +will be regarded rather as a lofty privilege, permissible only to +those who have shown their power rightly to train and provide for their +offspring, than a labour which in itself, and under whatever conditions +performed, is beneficial to society. (The difference between the +primitive and modern view on this matter is aptly and quaintly +illustrated by two incidents. Seeing a certain Bantu woman who appeared +better cared for, less hard worked, and happier than the mass of +her companions, we made inquiry, and found that she had two impotent +brothers; because of this she herself had not married, but had borne by +different men fourteen children, all of whom when grown she had given +to her brothers. “They are fond of me because I have given them so many +children, therefore I have not to work like the other women; and my +brothers give me plenty of mealies and milk,” she replied, complacently, +when questioned, “and our family will not die out.” And this person, +whose conduct was so emphatically anti-social on all sides when viewed +from the modern standpoint, was evidently regarded as pre-eminently of +value to her family and to society because of her mere fecundity. On the +other hand, a few weeks back appeared an account in the London papers +of an individual who, taken up at the East End for some brutal offence, +blubbered out in court that she was the mother of twenty children. +“You should be ashamed of yourself!” responded the magistrate; “a woman +capable of such conduct would be capable of doing anything!” and the +fine was remorselessly inflicted. Undoubtedly, if somewhat brutally, +the magistrate yet gave true voice to the modern view on the subject of +excessive and reckless child-bearing.) + +Further, owing partly to the diminished demand for child-bearing, rising +from the extreme difficulty and expense of rearing and education, and +to many other complex social causes, to which we shall return later, +millions of women in our modern societies are so placed as to be +absolutely compelled to go through life not merely childless, but +without sex relationship in any form whatever; while another mighty army +of women is reduced by the dislocations of our civilisation to accepting +sexual relationships which practically negate child-bearing, and whose +only product is physical and moral disease. + +Thus, it has come to pass that vast numbers of us are, by modern social +conditions, prohibited from child-bearing at all; and that even those +among us who are child-bearers are required, in proportion as the class +of race to which we belong stands high in the scale of civilisation, to +produce in most cases a limited number of offspring; so that even for +these of us, child-bearing and suckling, instead of filling the entire +circle of female life from the first appearance of puberty to the end of +middle age, becomes an episodal occupation, employing from three or four +to ten or twenty of the threescore-and-ten-years which are allotted to +human life. In such societies the statement (so profoundly true when +made with regard to most savage societies, and even largely true with +regard to those in the intermediate stages of civilisation) that the +main and continuous occupation of all women from puberty to age is the +bearing and suckling of children, and that this occupation must fully +satisfy all her needs for social labour and activity, becomes an +antiquated and unmitigated misstatement. + +Not only are millions of our women precluded from ever bearing a child, +but for those of us who do bear the demand is ever increasingly in +civilised societies coupled with the condition that if we would act +socially we must restrict our powers. (As regards modern civilised +nations, we find that those whose birthrate is the highest per woman are +by no means the happiest, most enlightened, or powerful; nor do we even +find that the population always increases in proportion to the births. +France, which in many respects leads in the van of civilisation, has +one of the lowest birthrates per woman in Europe; and among the free and +enlightened population of Switzerland and Scandinavia the birthrate is +often exceedingly low; while Ireland, one of the most unhappy and weak +of European nations, had long one of the highest birthrates, without +any proportional increase in population or power. With regard to the +different classes in one community, the same effect is observable. The +birthrate per woman is higher among the lowest and most ignorant classes +in the back slums of our great cities, than among the women of the upper +and cultured classes, mainly because the age at which marriages are +contracted always tends to become higher as the culture and intelligence +of individuals rises, but also because of the regulation of the number +of births after marriage. Yet the number of children reared to adult +years among the more intelligent classes probably equals or exceeds +those of the lowest, owing to the high rate of infant mortality where +births are excessive.) + +Looking round, then, with the uttermost impartiality we can command, +on the entire field of woman’s ancient and traditional labours, we find +that fully three-fourths of it have shrunk away for ever, and that the +remaining fourth still tends to shrink. + +It is this great fact, so often and so completely overlooked, which lies +as the propelling force behind that vast and restless “Woman’s Movement” + which marks our day. It is this fact, whether clearly and intellectually +grasped, or, as is more often the case, vaguely and painfully felt, +which awakes in the hearts of the ablest modern European women their +passionate, and at times it would seem almost incoherent, cry for new +forms of labour and new fields for the exercise of their powers. + +Thrown into strict logical form, our demand is this: We do not ask that +the wheels of time should reverse themselves, or the stream of life +flow backward. We do not ask that our ancient spinning-wheels be again +resuscitated and placed in our hands; we do not demand that our old +grindstones and hoes be returned to us, or that man should again betake +himself entirely to his ancient province of war and the chase, leaving +to us all domestic and civil labour. We do not even demand that society +shall immediately so reconstruct itself that every woman may be again a +child-bearer (deep and over-mastering as lies the hunger for motherhood +in every virile woman’s heart!); neither do we demand that the children +whom we bear shall again be put exclusively into our hands to train. +This, we know, cannot be. The past material conditions of life have gone +for ever; no will of man can recall them; but this is our demand: We +demand that, in that strange new world that is arising alike upon +the man and the woman, where nothing is as it was, and all things are +assuming new shapes and relations, that in this new world we also shall +have our share of honoured and socially useful human toil, our full +half of the labour of the Children of Woman. We demand nothing more than +this, and we will take nothing less. This is our “WOMAN’S RIGHT!” + + + +Chapter II. Parasitism (continued). + +Is it to be, that, in the future, machinery and the captive motor-forces +of nature are largely to take the place of human hand and foot in +the labour of clothing and feeding the nations; are these branches +of industry to be no longer domestic labours?--then, we demand in the +factory, the warehouse, and the field, wherever machinery has usurped +our ancient labour-ground, that we also should have our place, as +guiders, controllers, and possessors. Is child-bearing to become the +labour of but a portion of our sex?--then we demand for those among +us who are allowed to take no share in it, compensatory and equally +honourable and important fields of social toil. Is the training of +human creatures to become a yet more and more onerous and laborious +occupation, their education and culture to become increasingly a high +art, complex and scientific?--if so, then, we demand that high and +complex culture and training which shall fit us for instructing the race +which we bring into the world. Is the demand for child-bearing to +become so diminished that, even in the lives of those among us who are +child-bearers, it shall fill no more than half a dozen years out of the +three-score-and-ten of human life?--then we demand that an additional +outlet be ours which shall fill up with dignity and value the tale +of the years not so employed. Is intellectual labour to take ever and +increasingly the place of crude muscular exertion in the labour of +life?--then we demand for ourselves that culture and the freedom +of action which alone can yield us the knowledge of life and the +intellectual vigour and strength which will enable us to undertake the +same share of mental which we have borne in the past in physical labours +of life. Are the rulers of the race to be no more its kings and queens, +but the mass of the peoples?--then we, one-half of the nations, demand +our full queens’ share in the duties and labours of government and +legislation. Slowly but determinately, as the old fields of labour close +up and are submerged behind us, we demand entrance into the new. + +We make this demand, not for our own sakes alone, but for the succour of +the race. + +A horseman, riding along on a dark night in an unknown land, may chance +to feel his horse start beneath him; rearing, it may almost hurl him to +the earth: in the darkness he may curse his beast, and believe its aim +is simply to cast him off, and free itself for ever of its burden. +But when the morning dawns and lights the hills and valleys he has +travelled, looking backward, he may perceive that the spot where his +beast reared, planting its feet into the earth, and where it refused to +move farther on the old road, was indeed the edge of a mighty precipice, +down which one step more would have precipitated both horse and rider. +And he may then see that it was an instinct wiser than his own which +lead his creature, though in the dark, to leap backward, seeking a +new path along which both might travel. (Is it not recorded that even +Balaam’s ass on which he rode saw the angel with flaming sword, but +Balaam saw it not?) + +In the confusion and darkness of the present, it may well seem to +some, that woman, in her desire to seek for new paths of labour and +employment, is guided only by an irresponsible impulse; or that she +seeks selfishly only her own good, at the cost of that of the race, +which she has so long and faithfully borne onward. But, when a clearer +future shall have arisen and the obscuring mists of the present have +been dissipated, may it not then be clearly manifest that not for +herself alone, but for her entire race, has woman sought her new paths? + +For let it be noted exactly what our position is, who today, as +women, are demanding new fields of labour and a reconstruction of our +relationship with life. + +It is often said that the labour problem before the modern woman and +that before the unemployed or partially or almost uselessly employed +male, are absolutely identical; and that therefore, when the male labour +problem of our age solves itself, that of the woman will of necessity +have met its solution also. + +This statement, with a certain specious semblance of truth, is yet, we +believe, radically and fundamentally false. It is true that both the +male and the female problems of our age have taken their rise largely +in the same rapid material changes which during the last centuries, +and more especially the last ninety years, have altered the face of the +human world. Both men and women have been robbed by those changes of +their ancient remunerative fields of social work: here the resemblance +stops. The male, from whom the changes of modern civilisation have taken +his ancient field of labour, has but one choice before him: he must find +new fields of labour, or he must perish. Society will not ultimately +support him in an absolutely quiescent and almost useless condition. +If he does not vigorously exert himself in some direction or other (the +direction may even be predatory) he must ultimately be annihilated. +Individual drones, both among the wealthiest and the poorest classes +(millionaires’ sons, dukes, or tramps), may in isolated cases be +preserved, and allowed to reproduce themselves without any exertion +or activity of mind or body, but a vast body of males who, having lost +their old forms of social employment, should refuse in any way to exert +themselves or seek for new, would at no great length of time become +extinct. There never has been, and as far as can be seen, there never +will be, a time when the majority of the males in any society will be +supported by the rest of the males in a condition of perfect mental and +physical inactivity. “Find labour or die,” is the choice ultimately put +before the human male today, as in the past; and this constitutes his +labour problem. (The nearest approach to complete parasitism on the part +of a vast body of males occurred, perhaps, in ancient Rome at the +time of the decay and downfall of the Empire, when the bulk of the +population, male as well as female, was fed on imported corn, wine, +and oil, and supplied even with entertainment, almost entirely without +exertion or labour of any kind; but this condition was of short +duration, and speedily contributed to the downfall of the diseased +Empire itself. Among the wealthy and so-called upper classes, the males +of various aristocracies have frequently tended to become completely +parasitic after a lapse of time, but such a condition has always been +met by a short and sharp remedy; and the class has fallen, or become +extinct. The condition of the males of the upper classes in France +before the Revolution affords an interesting illustration of this +point.) + +The labour of the man may not always be useful in the highest sense to +his society, or it may even be distinctly harmful and antisocial, as in +the case of the robber-barons of the Middle Ages, who lived by capturing +and despoiling all who passed by their castles; or as in the case of +the share speculators, stock-jobbers, ring-and-corner capitalists, and +monopolists of the present day, who feed upon the productive labours of +society without contributing anything to its welfare. But even males so +occupied are compelled to expend a vast amount of energy and even a +low intelligence in their callings; and, however injurious to their +societies, they run no personal risk of handing down effete and +enervated constitutions to their race. Whether beneficially or +unbeneficially, the human male must, generally speaking, employ his +intellect, or his muscle, or die. + +The position of the unemployed modern female is one wholly different. +The choice before her, as her ancient fields of domestic labour slip +from her, is not generally or often at the present day the choice +between finding new fields of labour, or death; but one far more serious +in its ultimate reaction on humanity as a whole--it is the choice +between finding new forms of labour or sinking slowly into a condition +of more or less complete and passive sex-parasitism! (It is not without +profound interest to note the varying phenomena of sex-parasitism as +they present themselves in the animal world, both in the male and in the +female form. Though among the greater number of species in the animal +world the female form is larger and more powerful rather than the male +(e.g., among birds of prey, such as eagles, falcons, vultures, &c., and +among fishes, insects, &c.), yet sex-parasitism appears among both sex +forms. In certain sea-creatures, for example, the female carries about +in the folds of her covering three or four minute and quite inactive +males, who are entirely passive and dependent upon her. Among termites, +on the other hand, the female has so far degenerated that she has +entirely lost the power of locomotion; she can no longer provide herself +or her offspring with nourishment, or defend or even clean herself; she +has become a mere passive, distended bag of eggs, without intelligence +or activity, she and her offspring existing through the exertions of +the workers of the community. Among other insects, such, for example, as +certain ticks, another form of female parasitism prevails, and while the +male remains a complex, highly active, and winded creature, the female, +fastening herself by the head into the flesh of some living animal +and sucking its blood, has lost wings and all activity, and power of +locomotion; having become a mere distended bladder, which when filled +with eggs bursts and ends a parasitic existence which has hardly been +life. It is not impossible, and it appears, indeed, highly probable, +that it has been this degeneration and parasitism on the part of the +female which has set its limitation to the evolution of ants, creatures +which, having reached a point of mental development in some respects +almost as high as that of man, have yet become curiously and immovably +arrested. The whole question of sex-parasitism among the lower animals +is one throwing suggestive and instructive side-lights on human social +problems, but is too extensive to be here entered on.) + +Again and again in the history of the past, when among human creatures +a certain stage of material civilisation has been reached, a curious +tendency has manifested itself for the human female to become more +or less parasitic; social conditions tend to rob her of all forms +of active, conscious, social labour, and to reduce her, like the +field-tick, to the passive exercise of her sex functions alone. And the +result of this parasitism has invariably been the decay in vitality and +intelligence of the female, followed after a longer or shorter period by +that of her male descendants and her entire society. + +Nevertheless, in the history of the past the dangers of the +sex-parasitism have never threatened more than a small section of the +females of the human race, those exclusively of some comparatively +small dominant race or class; the mass of women beneath them being +still compelled to assume many forms of strenuous activity. It is at +the present day, and under the peculiar conditions of our modern +civilisation, that for the first time sex-parasitism has become a +danger, more or less remote, to the mass of civilised women, perhaps +ultimately to all. + +In the very early stages of human growth, the sexual parasitism and +degeneration of the female formed no possible source of social danger. +Where the conditions of life rendered it inevitable that all the labour +of a community should be performed by the members of that community for +themselves, without the assistance of slaves or machinery, the tendency +has always been rather to throw an excessive amount of social labour on +the female. Under no conditions, at no time, in no place, in the history +of the world have the males of any period, of any nation, or of any +class, shown the slightest inclination to allow their own females to +become inactive or parasitic, so long as the actual muscular labour +of feeding and clothing them would in that case have devolved upon +themselves! + +The parasitism of the human female becomes a possibility only when a +point in civilisation is reached (such as that which was attained in the +ancient civilisations of Greece, Rome, Persia, Assyria, India, and such +as today exists in many of the civilisations of the East, such as those +of China and Turkey), when, owing to the extensive employment of the +labour of slaves, or of subject races or classes, the dominant race or +class has become so liberally supplied with the material goods of life, +that mere physical toil on the part of its own female members has become +unnecessary. It is when this point has been reached, and never +before, that the symptoms of female parasitism have in the past almost +invariably tended to manifest themselves, and have become a social +danger. The males of the dominant class have almost always contrived to +absorb to themselves the new intellectual occupations, with the absence +of necessity for the old forms of physical toil made possible in their +societies; and the females of the dominant class or race, for whose +muscular labours there was now also no longer any need, not succeeding +in grasping or attaining to these new forms of labour, have sunk into a +state in which, performing no species of active social duty, they have +existed through the passive performance of sexual functions alone, with +how much or how little of discontent will now never be known, since no +literary record has been made by the woman of the past, of her desires +or sorrows. Then, in place of the active labouring woman, upholding +society by her toil, has come the effete wife, concubine, or prostitute, +clad in fine raiment, the work of others’ fingers; fed on luxurious +viands, the result of others’ toil, waited on and tended by the labour +of others. The need for her physical labour having gone, and mental +industry not having taken its place, she bedecked and scented her +person, or had it bedecked and scented for her, she lay upon her sofa, +or drove or was carried out in her vehicle, and, loaded with jewels, she +sought by dissipations and amusements to fill up the inordinate blank +left by the lack of productive activity. And as the hand whitened and +frame softened, till, at last, the very duties of motherhood, which were +all the constitution of her life left her, became distasteful, and, from +the instant when her infant came damp from her womb, it passed into the +hands of others, to be tended and reared by them; and from youth to age +her offspring often owed nothing to her personal toil. In many cases so +complete was her enervation, that at last the very joy of giving life, +the glory and beatitude of a virile womanhood, became distasteful; +and she sought to evade it, not because of its interference with more +imperious duties to those already born of her, or to her society, +but because her existence of inactivity had robbed her of all joy in +strenuous exertion and endurance in any form. Finely clad, tenderly +housed, life became for her merely the gratification of her own physical +and sexual appetites, and the appetites of the male, through the +stimulation of which she could maintain herself. And, whether as kept +wife, kept mistress, or prostitute, she contributed nothing to the +active and sustaining labours of her society. She had attained to the +full development of that type which, whether in modern Paris or New York +or London, or in ancient Greece, Assyria, or Rome, is essentially one in +its features, its nature, and its results. She was the “fine lady,” + the human female parasite--the most deadly microbe which can make its +appearance on the surface of any social organism. (The relation of +female parasitism generally, to the peculiar phenomenon of prostitution, +is fundamental. Prostitution can never be adequately dealt with, either +from the moral or the scientific standpoint, unless its relation to the +general phenomenon of female parasitism be fully recognised. It is the +failure to do this which leaves so painful a sense of abortion on the +mind, after listening to most modern utterances on the question, +whether made from the emotional platform of the moral reformer, or the +intellectual platform of the would-be scientist. We are left with a +feeling that the matter has been handled but not dealt with: that the +knife has not reached the core.) + +Wherever in the history of the past this type has reached its full +development and has comprised the bulk of the females belonging to any +dominant class or race, it has heralded its decay. In Assyria, Greece, +Rome, Persia, as in Turkey today, the same material conditions have +produced the same social disease among wealthy and dominant races; and +again and again when the nation so affected has come into contact +with nations more healthily constituted, this diseased condition has +contributed to its destruction. + +In ancient Greece, in its superb and virile youth, its womanhood was +richly and even heavily endowed with duties and occupations. Not the +mass of the woman alone, but the king’s wife and the prince’s daughter +do we find going to the well to bear water, cleansing the household +linen in the streams, feeding and doctoring their households, +manufacturing the clothing of their race, and performing even a share +of the highest social functions as priestesses and prophetesses. It was +from the bodies of such women as these that sprang that race of heroes, +thinkers, and artists who laid the foundations of Grecian greatness. +These females underlay their society as the solid and deeply buried +foundations underlay the more visible and ornate portions of a great +temple, making its structure and persistence possible. In Greece, after +a certain lapse of time, these virile labouring women in the upper +classes were to be found no more. The accumulated wealth of the dominant +race, gathered through the labour of slaves and subject people, had so +immensely increased that there was no longer a call for physical labour +on the part of the dominant womanhood; immured within the walls of their +houses as wives or mistresses, waited on by slaves and dependents, they +no longer sustained by their exertion either their own life or the life +of their people. The males absorbed the intellectual labours of life; +slaves and dependents the physical. For a moment, at the end of the +fifth and beginning of the fourth century, when the womanhood of +Greece had already internally decayed, there was indeed a brilliant +intellectual efflorescence among her males, like to the gorgeous colours +in the sunset sky when the sun is already sinking; but the heart +of Greece was already rotting and her vigour failing. Increasingly, +division and dissimilarity arose between male and female, as the male +advanced in culture and entered upon new fields of intellectual toil +while the female sank passively backward and lower in the scale of life, +and thus was made ultimately a chasm which even sexual love could not +bridge. The abnormal institution of avowed inter-male sexual relations +upon the highest plane was one, and the most serious result, of this +severance. The inevitable and invincible desire of all highly developed +human natures, to blend with their sexual relationships their highest +intellectual interests and sympathies, could find no satisfaction or +response in the relationship between the immured, comparatively ignorant +and helpless females of the upper classes, in Greece, and the brilliant, +cultured, and many-sided males who formed its dominant class in the +fifth and fourth centuries. Man turned towards man; and parenthood, the +divine gift of imparting human life, was severed from the loftiest and +profoundest phases of human emotion: Xanthippe fretted out her ignorant +and miserable little life between the walls of her house, and Socrates +lay in the Agora, discussing philosophy and morals with Alcibiades; +and the race decayed at its core. (See Jowett’s translation of Plato’s +“Banquet”; but for full light on this important question the entire +literature of Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. should be +studied.) Here and there an Aspasia, or earlier still a Sappho, burst +through the confining bonds of woman’s environment, and with the force +of irresistible genius broke triumphantly into new fields of action and +powerful mental activity, standing side by side with the male; but their +cases were exceptional. Had they, or such as they, been able to tread +down a pathway, along which the mass of Grecian women might have +followed them; had it been possible for the bulk of the women of the +dominant race in Greece at the end of the fifth century to rise from +their condition of supine inaction and ignorance and to have taken their +share in the intellectual labours and stern activities of their race, +Greece would never have fallen, as she fell at the end of the fourth +century, instantaneously and completely, as a rotten puff-ball falls in +at the touch of a healthy finger; first, before the briberies of Philip, +and then yet more completely before the arms of his yet more warlike +son, who was also the son of the fierce, virile, and indomitable +Olympia. (Like almost all men remarkable for either good or evil, +Alexander inherited from his mother his most notable qualities--his +courage, his intellectual activity, and an ambition indifferent to any +means that made for his own end. Fearless in her life, she fearlessly +met death “with a courage worthy of her rank and domineering character, +when her hour of retribution came”; and Alexander is incomprehensible +till we recognise him as rising from the womb of Olympia.) Nor could +she have been swept clean, a few hundred years later, from Thessaly to +Sparta, from Corinth to Ephesus, her temples destroyed, her effete women +captured by the hordes of the Goths--a people less skilfully armed +and less civilised than the descendants of the race of Pericles and +Leonidas, but who were a branch of that great Teutonic folk whose +monogamous domestic life was sound at the core, and whose fearless, +labouring, and resolute women yet bore for the men they followed to the +ends of the earth, what Spartan women once said they alone bore--men. + +In Rome, in the days of her virtue and vigour, the Roman matron laboured +mightily, and bore on her shoulders her full half of the social burden, +though her sphere of labour and influence was even somewhat smaller +than that of the Teutonic sisterhood whose descendants were finally to +supplant her own. From the vestal virgin to the matron, the Roman woman +in the days of the nation’s health and growth fulfilled lofty functions +and bore the whole weight of domestic toil. From the days of Lucretia, +the great Roman dame whom we find spinning with her handmaidens deep +into the night, and whose personal dignity was so dear to her that, +violated, she sought only death, to those of the mother of the Gracchi, +one of the last of the great line, we find everywhere, erect, labouring, +and resolute, the Roman woman who gave birth to the men who built up +Roman greatness. A few centuries later, and Rome also had reached that +dangerous spot in the order of social change which Greece had reached +centuries before her. Slave labour and the enjoyment of the unlimited +spoils of subject races had done away for ever with the demand for +physical labour on the part of the members of the dominant race. Then +came the period when the male still occupied himself with the duties +of war and government, of legislation and self-culture; but the Roman +matron had already ceased for ever from her toils. Decked in jewels and +fine clothing, brought at the cost of infinite human labour from the +ends of the earth, nourished on delicate victuals, prepared by others’ +hands, she sought now only with amusement to pass away a life that no +longer offered her the excitement and joy of active productive exertion. +She frequented theatres or baths, or reclined on her sofa, or drove in +her chariot; and like more modern counterparts, painted herself, wore +patches, affected an artistic walk, and a handshake with the elbow +raised and the fingers hanging down. Her children were reared by +dependents; and in the intellectual labour and government of her age +she took small part, and was fit to take none. There were not wanting +writers and thinkers who saw clearly the end to which the enervation of +the female was tending, and who were not sparing in their denunciations. +“Time was,” cries one Roman writer of that age, “when the matron turned +the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot in her eye +that the pottage might not be singed, but now,” he adds bitterly, +“when the wife, loaded with jewels, reposes among pillows, or seeks the +dissipation of baths and theatres, all things go downward and the state +decays.” Yet neither he nor that large body of writers and thinkers who +saw the condition towards which the parasitism of woman was tending +to reduce society, preached any adequate remedy. (Indeed, must not +the protest and the remedy in all such cases, if they are to be of any +avail, take their rise within the diseased class itself?) + +Thoughtful men sighed over the present and yearned for the past, nor +seem to have perceived that it was irrevocably gone; that the Roman +lady who, with a hundred servants standing idle about her, should, in +imitation of her ancestress, have gone out with her pitcher on her head +to draw water from the well, while in all her own courtyards pipe-led +streams gushed forth, would have acted the part of the pretender; that +had she insisted on resuscitating her loom and had sat up all night +to spin, she could never have produced those fabrics which alone her +household demanded, and would have been but a puerile actor; that it was +not by attempting to return to the ancient and for ever closed fields of +toil, but by entering upon new, that she could alone serve her race +and retain her own dignity and virility. That not by bearing water and +weaving linen, but by so training and disciplining herself that she +should be fitted to bear her share in the labour necessary to the just +and wise guidance of a great empire, and be capable of training a race +of men adequate to exercise an enlightened, merciful, and beneficent +rule over the vast masses of subject people--that so, and so only, +could she fulfil her duty toward the new society about her, and bear its +burden together with man, as her ancestresses of bygone generations had +borne the burden of theirs. + +That in this direction, and this alone, lay the only possible remedy for +the evils of woman’s condition, was a conception apparently grasped +by none; and the female sank lower and lower, till the image of the +parasitic woman of Rome (with a rag of the old Roman intensity left +even in her degradation!)--seeking madly by pursuit of pleasure and +sensuality to fill the void left by the lack of honourable activity; +accepting lust in the place of love, ease in the place of exertion, and +an unlimited consumption in the place of production; too enervated at +last to care even to produce offspring, and shrinking from every form +of endurance--remains, even to the present day, the most perfect, and +therefore the most appalling, picture of the parasite female that earth +has produced--a picture only less terrible than it is pathetic. + +We recognise that it was inevitable that this womanhood--born it would +seem from its elevation to guide and enlighten a world, and in place +thereof feeding on it--should at last have given birth to a manhood as +effete as itself, and that both should in the end have been swept away +before the march of those Teutonic folk, whose women were virile and +could give birth to men; a folk among whom the woman received on the +morning of her marriage, from the man who was to be her companion +through life, no contemptible trinket to hang about her throat or limbs, +but a shield, a spear, a sword, and a yoke of oxen, while she bestowed +on him in return a suit of armour, in token that they two were +henceforth to be one in toil and in the facing of danger; that she too +should dare with him in war and suffer with him in peace; and of whom +another writer tells us, that their women not only bore the race and +fed it at their breasts without the help of others’ hands, but that they +undertook the whole management of house and lands, leaving the males +free for war and chase; of whom Suetonius tells us, that when Augustus +Caesar demanded hostages from a tribe, he took women, not men, because +he found by experience that the women were more regarded than men, and +of whom Strabo says, that so highly did the Germanic races value the +intellect of their women that they regarded them as inspired, and +entered into no war or great undertaking without their advice and +counsel; while among the Cimbrian women who accompanied their husbands +in the invasion of Italy were certain who marched barefooted in the +midst of the lines, distinguished by their white hair and milk-white +robes, and who were regarded as inspired, and of whom Florus, describing +an early Roman victory, says, “The conflict was not less fierce and +obstinate with the wives of the vanquished; in their carts and wagons +they formed a line of battle, and from their elevated situation, as from +so many turrets, annoyed the Romans with their poles and lances. (The +South African Boer woman after two thousand years appears not wholly to +have forgotten the ancestral tactics.) Their death was as glorious as +their martial spirit. Finding that all was lost, they strangled their +children, and either destroyed themselves in one scene of mutual +slaughter, or with the sashes that bound up their hair suspended +themselves by the neck to the boughs of trees or the tops of their +wagons.” It is of these women that Valerius Maximus says, that, “If the +gods on the day of battle had inspired the men with equal fortitude, +Marius would never have boasted of his Teutonic victory;” and of whom +Tacitus, speaking of those women who accompanied their husbands to war, +remarks, “These are the darling witnesses of his conduct, the applauders +of his valour, at once beloved and valued. The wounded seek their +mothers and their wives; undismayed at the sight, the women count each +honourable scar and suck the gushing blood. They are even hardy enough +to mix with the combatants, administering refreshment and exhorting them +to deeds of valour,” and adds moreover, that “To be contented with one +wife was peculiar to the Germans; while the woman was contented with one +husband, as with one life, one mind, one body.” + +It was inevitable that before the sons of women such as these, the sons +of the parasitic Roman should be swept from existence, as the offspring +of the caged canary would fall in conflict with the offspring of the +free. + +Again and again with wearisome reiteration, the same story repeats +itself. Among the Jews in the days of their health and growth, we find +their women bearing the major weight of agricultural and domestic toil, +full always of labour and care--from Rachel, whom Jacob met and loved +as she watered her father’s flocks, to Ruth, the ancestress of a line of +kings and heroes, whom her Boas noted labouring in the harvest-fields; +from Sarah, kneading and baking cakes for Abraham’s prophetic visitors, +to Miriam, prophetess and singer, and Deborah, who judging Israel +from beneath her palm-tree, “and the land had rest for forty years.” + Everywhere the ancient Jewish woman appears, an active sustaining power +among her people; and perhaps the noblest picture of the labouring +woman to be found in any literature is contained in the Jewish writings, +indited possibly at the very time when the labouring woman was for the +first time tending among a section of the Jews to become a thing of the +past; when already Solomon, with his seven hundred parasitic wives and +three hundred parasitic concubines, loomed large on the horizon of the +national life, to take the place of flock-tending Rachel and gleaning +Ruth, and to produce amid their palaces of cedar and gold, among them +all, no Joseph or David, but in the way of descendant only a Rehoboam, +under whose hand the kingdom was to totter to its fall. (The picture +of the labouring as opposed to the parasitic ideal of womanhood appears +under the heading, “The words of King Lemuel; the oracle which his +mother taught him.”) At risk of presenting the reader with that with +which he is already painfully familiar, we here transcribe the +passage; which, allowing for differences in material and intellectual +surroundings, paints also the ideal of the labouring womanhood of the +present and of the future:-- + + “Her price is far above rubies, + The heart of her husband trusteth in her, + And he shall have no lack of gain, + She doeth him good and not evil + All the days of her life, + She seeketh wool and flax, + And worketh willingly with her hands, + She is like the merchant ships; + She bringeth her food, from afar, + She riseth up while it is yet night + And giveth meat to her household, + And their task to her maidens, + She considereth a field, and buyeth it; + With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. + She girdeth her loins with strength, + And maketh strong her arms. + She perceiveth that her merchandise is profitable; + Her lamp goeth not out by night, + She layeth her hands to the distaff, + And her hands hold the spindle. + She spreadeth out her hand to the poor: + Yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy, + She is not afraid of the snow for her household, + For all her household are clothed with scarlet. + She maketh herself carpets of tapestry; + Her clothing is fine and purple. + Her husband is known in the gates, + When he sitteth among the elders of the land, + She maketh linen garments and selleth them, + And delivereth girdles unto the merchant. + Strength and dignity are her clothing; + And she laugheth at the time to come. + She openeth her mouth with wisdom, + And the law of kindness is on her tongue, + She looketh well to the ways of her household, + And eateth not the bread of idleness. + Her children rise up and call her blessed, + Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying, + Many daughters have done virtuously, + But thou excellest them all, + Give her the fruit of her hand, + And let her works praise her in the gate.” + +In the East today the same story has wearisomely written itself: in +China, where the present vitality and power of the most ancient of +existing civilisations may be measured accurately by the length of its +woman’s shoes; in Turkish harems, where one of the noblest dominant +Aryan races the world has yet produced, is being slowly suffocated in +the arms of a parasite womanhood, and might, indeed, along ago have been +obliterated, had not a certain virility and strength been continually +reinfused into it through the persons of purchased wives, who in early +childhood and youth had been themselves active labouring peasants. +Everywhere, in the past as in the present, the parasitism of the female +heralds the decay of a nation or class, and as invariably indicates +disease as the pustules of smallpox upon the skin indicate the existence +of a purulent virus in the system. + +We are, indeed, far from asserting that the civilisations of the past +which have decayed, have decayed alone through the parasitism of their +females. Vast, far-reaching social phenomena have invariably causes and +reactions immeasurably too complex to be summed up under one so simple a +term. Behind the phenomenon of female parasitism has always lain another +and yet larger social phenomenon; it has invariably been preceded, as we +have seen, by the subjugation of large bodies of other human creatures, +either as slaves, subject races, or classes; and as the result of the +excessive labours of those classes there has always been an accumulation +of unearned wealth in the hands of the dominant class or race. It has +invariably been by feeding on this wealth, the result of forced or +ill-paid labour, that the female of the dominant race or class has in +the past lost her activity and has come to exist purely through the +passive performance of her sexual functions. Without slaves or subject +classes to perform the crude physical labours of life and produce +superfluous wealth, the parasitism of the female would, in the past, +have been an impossibility. + +There is, therefore, a profound truth in that universal saw which states +that the decay of the great nations and civilisations of the past has +resulted from the enervation caused by excessive wealth and luxury; and +there is a further, and if possible more profound, truth underlying the +statement that their destruction has ultimately been the result of the +enervation of the entire race, male and female. + +But when we come further to inquire how, exactly, this process of decay +took place, we shall find that the part which the parasitism of the +female has played has been fundamental. The mere use of any of the +material products of labour, which we term wealth, can never in itself +produce that decay, physical or mental, which precedes the downfall of +great civilised nations. The eating of salmon at ten shillings a pound +can in itself no more debilitate and corrupt the moral, intellectual, +and physical constitution of the man consuming it, than it could +enervate his naked forefathers who speared it in their rivers for food; +the fact that an individual wears a robe made from the filaments of a +worm, can no more deteriorate his spiritual or physical fibre, than +were it made of sheep’s wool; an entire race, housed in marble palaces, +faring delicately, and clad in silks, and surrounded by the noblest +products of literature and plastic art, so those palaces, viands, +garments, and products of art were the result of their own labours, +could never be enervated by them. The debilitating effect of wealth +sets in at that point exactly (and never before) at which the supply of +material necessaries and comforts, and of aesthetic enjoyments, clogs +the individuality, causing it to rest satisfied in the mere passive +possession of the results of the labour of others, without feeling any +necessity or desire for further productive activity of its own. (Of the +other deleterious effects of unearned wealth on the individual or class +possessing it, such as its power of lessening human sympathy, &c., &c., +we do not now speak, as while ultimately and indirectly, undoubtedly, +tending to disintegrate a society, they do not necessarily and +immediately enervate it, which enervation is the point we are here +considering.) + +The exact material condition at which this point will be reached will +vary, not only with the race and the age, but with the individual. A +Marcus Aurelius in a palace of gold and marble was able to retain +his simplicity and virility as completely as though he had lived in a +cow-herd’s hut; while on the other hand, it is quite possible for the +wife of a savage chief who has but four slaves to bring her her corn +and milk and spread her skins in the sun, to become almost as purely +parasitic as the most delicately pampered female of fashion in ancient +Rome, or modern Paris, London, or New York; while the exact amount of +unearned material wealth which will emasculate individuals in the same +society, will vary exactly as their intellectual and moral fibre and +natural activity are strong or weak. (It is not uncommon in modern +societies to find women of a class relatively very moderately wealthy, +the wives and daughters of shopkeepers or professional men, who if their +male relations will supply them with a very limited amount of money +without exertion on their part, will become as completely parasitic and +useless as women with untold wealth at their command.) + +The debilitating effect of unlaboured-for wealth lies, then, not in the +nature of any material adjunct to life in itself, but in the power it +may possess of robbing the individual of all incentive to exertion, thus +destroying the intellectual, the physical, and finally, the moral fibre. + +In all the civilisations of the past examination will show that almost +invariably it has been the female who has tended first to reach this +point, and we think examination will show that it has almost invariably +been from the woman to the man that enervation and decay have spread. + +Why this should be so is obvious. Firstly, it is in the sphere of +domestic labour that slave or hired labour most easily and insidiously +penetrates. The force of blows or hireling gold can far more easily +supply labourers as the preparers of food and clothing, and even as the +rearers of children, than it can supply labourers fitted to be entrusted +with the toils of war and government, which have in the past been the +especial sphere of male toil. The Roman woman had for generations been +supplanted in the sphere of her domestic labours and in the toil of +rearing and educating her offspring, and had long become abjectly +parasitic, before the Roman male had been able to substitute the labour +of the hireling and barbarian for his own, in the army, and in the +drudgeries of governmental toil. + +Secondly, the female having one all-important though passive function +which cannot be taken from her, and which is peculiarly connected +with her own person, in the act of child-bearing, and her mere sexual +attributes being an object of desire and cupidity to the male, she is +liable in a peculiarly insidious and gradual manner to become dependent +on this one sexual function alone for her support. So much is this the +case, that even when she does not in any way perform this function there +is still a curious tendency for the kudos of the function still to hang +about her, and for her mere potentiality in the direction of a duty +which she may never fulfil, to be confused in her own estimation and +that of society with the actual fulfilment of that function. Under the +mighty aegis of the woman who bears and rears offspring and in other +directions labours greatly and actively for her race, creeps in +gradually and unnoticed the woman who does none of these things. From +the mighty labouring woman who bears human creatures to the full extent +of her power, rears her offspring unaided, and performs at the same +time severe social labour in other directions (and who is, undoubtedly, +wherever found, the most productive toiler known to the race); it is but +one step, though a long one, from this woman to the woman who produces +offspring freely but does not herself rear them, and performs no +compensatory social labour. While from this woman, again, to the one who +bears few or no children, but who, whether as a wife or mistress, lives +by the exercise of her sex function alone, the step is short. There +is but one step farther to the prostitute, who affects no form of +productive labour, and who, in place of life, is recognised as producing +disease and death, but who exists parasitically through her sexual +attribute. Enormous as is the distance between the women at the two +extremes of this series, and sharply opposed as their relation to the +world is, there is yet, in actual life, no sharp, clear, sudden-drawn +line dividing the women of the one type from those of the other. They +shade off into each other by delicate and in sensible degrees. And it +is down this inclined plane that the women of civilised races are +peculiarly tempted, unconsciously, to slip; from the noble height of +a condition of the most strenuous social activity, into a condition of +complete, helpless, and inactive parasitism, without being clearly aware +of the fact themselves, and without society’s becoming so--the woman +who has ceased to rear her own offspring, or who has ceased to bear +offspring at all, and who performs no other productive social function, +yet shields the fact from her own eyes by dwelling on the fact that she +is a woman, in whom the capacity is at least latent. (There is, indeed, +an interesting analogous tendency on the part of the parasitic male, +wherever found, to shield his true condition from his own eyes and those +of the world by playing at the ancient ancestral forms of male labour. +He is almost always found talking loudly of the protection he affords to +helpless females and to society, though he is in truth himself protected +through the exertion of soldiers, policemen, magistrates, and society +generally; and he is almost invariably fond of dangling a sword or +other weapon, and wearing some kind of uniform, for the assumption of +militarism without severe toil delights him. But it is in a degenerate +travesty of the ancient labour of hunting where, at terrible risk to +himself, and with endless fatigue, his ancestors supplied the race with +its meat and defended it from destruction by wild beasts) that he finds +his greatest satisfaction; it serves to render the degradation and +uselessness of his existence less obvious to himself and to others than +if he passed his life reclining in an armchair. + +On Yorkshire moors today may be seen walls of sod, behind which hide +certain human males, while hard-labouring men are employed from early +dawn in driving birds towards them. As the birds are driven up to him, +the hunter behind his wall raises his deadly weapon, and the bird, which +it had taken so much human labour to rear and provide, falls dead at his +feet; thereby greatly to the increase of the hunter’s glory, when, the +toils of the chase over, he returns to his city haunts to record his +bag. One might almost fancy one saw arise from the heathery turf the +shade of some ancient Teutonic ancestor, whose dust has long reposed +there, pointing a finger of scorn at his degenerate descendant, as he +leers out from behind the sod wall. During the the later Roman Empire, +Commodus, in the degenerate days of Rome, at great expense had wild +beasts brought from distant lands that he might have the glory of +slaying them in the Roman circus; and medals representing himself as +Hercules slaying the Nemean lion were struck at his orders. We are not +aware that any representation has yet been made in the region of plastic +art of the hero of the sod wall; but history repeats itself--and that +also may come. It is to be noted that these hunters are not youths, +but often ripely adult men, before whom all the lofty enjoyments and +employments possible to the male in modern life, lie open.) + +These peculiarities in her condition have in all civilised societies +laid the female more early and seriously open to the attacks of +parasitism than the male. And while the accumulation of wealth has +always been the antecedent condition, and the degeneracy and effeteness +of the male the final and obvious cause, of the decay of the great +dominant races of the past; yet, between these two has always lain, as a +great middle term, the parasitism of the female, without which the first +would have been inoperative and the last impossible. + +Not slavery, nor the most vast accumulations of wealth, could destroy +a nation by enervation, whose women remained active, virile, and +laborious. + +The conception which again and again appears to have haunted successive +societies, that it was a possibility for the human male to advance +in physical power and intellectual vigour, while his companion female +became stationary and inactive, taking no share in the labours of +society beyond the passive fulfilment of sexual functions, has always +been negated. It has ended as would end the experiment of a man +seeking to raise a breed of winning race-horses out of unexercised, +short-winded, knock-kneed mares. No, more disastrously! For while the +female animal transmits herself to her descendant only or mainly by +means of germinal inheritance, and through the influence she may +exert over it during gestation, the human female, by producing the +intellectual and moral atmosphere in which the early infant years +of life are passed, impresses herself far more indelibly on her +descendants. Only an able and labouring womanhood can permanently +produce an able and labouring manhood; only an effete and inactive male +can ultimately be produced by an effete and inactive womanhood. The +curled darling, scented and languid, with his drawl, his delicate +apparel, his devotion to the rarity and variety of his viands, whose +severest labour is the search after pleasure, and for whom even the +chase, which was for his remote ancestor an invigorating and manly toil +essential for the meat and life of his people, becomes a luxurious and +farcical amusement;--this male, whether found in the later Roman +Empire, the Turkish harem of today, or in our Northern civilisations, is +possible only because generations of parasitic women have preceded him. +More repulsive than the parasite female herself, because a yet further +product of decay, it is yet only the scent of his mother’s boudoir that +we smell in his hair. He is like to the bald patches and rotten wool on +the back of a scabby sheep; which indeed indicate that, deep beneath the +surface, a parasite insect is eating its way into the flesh, but which +are not so much the cause of disease, as its final manifestation. + +As we have said it is the power of the human female to impress +herself on her descendants, male and female, not only through germinal +inheritance, through influence during the period of gestation, but +above all by producing the mental atmosphere in which the impressionable +infant years of life are passed, which makes the condition of the +child-bearing female one of paramount interest of the race. It is this +fact which causes even prostitution (in many other respects the most +repulsive of all the forms of female parasitism which afflicts humanity) +to be, probably, not more adverse to the advance and even to the +conservation of a healthy and powerful society, than the parasitism +of its child-bearing women. For the prostitute, heavily as she weights +society for her support, returning disease and mental and emotional +disintegration for what she consumes, does not yet so immediately affect +the next generation as the kept wife, or kept mistress, who impresses +her effete image indelibly on the generations succeeding. (It cannot be +too often repeated that the woman who merely bears and brings a child +into the world, and then leaves it to be fed and reared by the hands +of another, has performed very much less than half of the labour of +producing adult humans; in such cases it is the nurse and not the mother +who is the most important labourer.) + +No man ever yet entered life farther than the length of one navel-cord +from the body of the woman who bore him. It is the woman who is the +final standard of the race, from which there can be no departure for any +distance for any length of time, in any direction: as her brain weakens, +weakens the man’s she bears; as her muscle softens, softens his; as she +decays, decays the people. + +Other causes may, and do, lead to the enervation and degeneration of a +class or race; the parasitism of its child-bearing women must. + +We, the European women of this age, stand today where again and again, +in the history of the past, women of other races have stood; but our +condition is yet more grave, and of wider import to humanity as a whole +than theirs ever was. Let us again consider more closely why this is so. + + + +Chapter III. Parasitism (continued). + +We have seen that, in the past, no such thing as the parasitism of the +entire body or large majority of the females inhabiting any territory +was possible. Beneath that body of women of the dominant class or race, +who did not labour either mentally or physically, there has always been +of necessity a far more vast body of females who not only performed the +crude physical toil essential to the existence of society before the +introduction of mechanical methods of production, but who were compelled +to labour the more intensely because there was a parasite class above +them to be maintained by their physical toil. The more the female +parasite flourished of old, in one class or race, the more certainly +all women of other classes or races were compelled to labour only too +excessively; and ultimately these females and their descendants were +apt to supplant the more enervated class or race. In the absence of +machinery and of a vast employment of the motor-forces of nature, +parasitism could only threaten a comparatively small section of any +community, and a minute section of the human race as a whole. Female +parasitism in the past resembled gout--a disease dangerous only to the +over-fed, pampered, and few, never to the population of any society as a +whole. + +At the present day, so enormous has been the advance made in the +substitution of mechanical force for crude, physical, human exertion +(mechanical force being employed today even in the shaping of +feeding-bottles and the creation of artificial foods as substitutes +for mother’s milk!), that it is now possible not only for a small and +wealthy section of women in each civilised community to be maintained +without performing any of the ancient, crude, physical labours of their +sex, and without depending on the slavery of, or any vast increase in +the labour of, other classes of females; but this condition has already +been reached, or is tending to be reached, by that large mass of women +in civilised societies, who form the intermediate class between poor +and rich. During the next fifty years, so rapid will undoubtedly be the +spread of the material conditions of civilisation, both in the societies +at present civilised and in the societies at present unpermeated by +our material civilisation, that the ancient forms of female, domestic, +physical labour of even the women of the poorest classes will be little +required, their place being taken, not by other females, but by always +increasingly perfected labour-saving machinery. + +Thus, female parasitism, which in the past threatened only a minute +section of earth’s women, under existing conditions threatens vast +masses, and may, under future conditions, threaten the entire body. + +If woman is content to leave to the male all labour in the new and +all-important fields which are rapidly opening before the human race; +if, as the old forms of domestic labour slip from her for ever +and evitably, she does not grasp the new, it is inevitable, that, +ultimately, not merely a class, but the whole bodies of females in +civilised societies, must sink into a state of more or less absolute +dependence on their sexual functions alone. (How real is this apparently +very remote danger is interestingly illustrated by a proposition gravely +made a few years ago by a man of note in England. He proposed that a +compulsory provision should be made for at least the women of the upper +and middle classes, by which they might be maintained through life +entirely without regard to any productive labour they might perform, +not even the passive labour of sexual reproduction being of necessity +required of them. That this proposal was received by the women striving +to reconstruct the relation of the modern woman to life without +acclamation and with scorn, may have surprised its maker; but with no +more reason than that man would have for feeling surprise who, seeing +a number of persons anxious to escape the infection of some contagious +disease, should propose as a cure to inoculate them all with it in its +most virulent form!) + +As new forms of natural force are mastered and mechanical appliances +perfected, it will be quite possible for the male half of all civilised +races (and therefore ultimately of all) to absorb the entire fields of +intellectual and highly trained manual labour; and it would be entirely +possible for the female half of the race, whether as prostitutes, as +kept mistresses, or as kept wives, to cease from all forms of active +toil, and, as the passive tools of sexual reproduction, or, more +decadently still, as the mere instruments of sexual indulgence, to sink +into a condition of complete and helpless sex-parasitism. + +Sex-parasitism, therefore, presents itself at the end of the nineteenth +century and beginning of the twentieth in a guise which it has never +before worn. We, the European women of the nineteenth and twentieth +centuries, stand therefore in a position the gravity and importance of +which was not equalled by that of any of our forerunners in the ancient +civilisation. As we master and rise above, or fall and are conquered by, +the difficulties of our position, so also will be the future, not merely +of our own class, or even of our own race alone, but also of those +vast masses who are following on in the wake of our civilisation. The +decision we are called on to make is a decision for the race; behind us +comes on the tread of incalculable millions of feet. + +There is thus no truth in the assertion so often made, even by +thoughtful persons, that the male labour question and the woman’s +question of our day are completely one, and that, would the women of +the European race of today but wait peacefully till the males alone had +solved their problem, they would find that their own had been solved at +the same time. + +Were the entire male labour problem of this age satisfactorily settled +tomorrow; were all the unemployed or uselessly employed males at both +ends of societies, whom the changes of modern civilisation have robbed +of their ancient forms of labour, so educated and trained that they were +perfectly fitted for the new conditions of life; and were the material +benefit and intellectual possibilities, which the substitution of +mechanical for human labour now makes possible to humanity, no longer +absorbed by the few but dispersed among the whole mass of males in +return for their trained labour, yet the woman’s problem might be +further from satisfactory solution than it is today; and, if it were +affected at all, might be affected for the worse. It is wholly untrue +that fifty pounds, or two thousand, earned by the male as the result of +his physical or mental toil, if part of it be spent by him in supporting +non-labouring females, whether as prostitutes, wives, or mistresses, is +the same thing to the female or to the race as though that sum had been +earned by her own exertion, either directly as wages or indirectly by +toiling for the man whose wages supported her. For the moment, truly, +the woman so tended lies softer and warmer than had she been compelled +to exert herself; ultimately, intellectually, morally, and even +physically, the difference in the effect upon her as an individual and +on the race is the difference between advance and degradation, between +life and death. The increased wealth of the male no more of necessity +benefits and raises the female upon whom he expends it, than the +increased wealth of his mistress necessarily benefits mentally or +physically a poodle because she can give him a down cushion in place of +one of feathers, and chicken in place of beef. The wealthier the males +of a society become, the greater the temptation, both to themselves and +to the females connected with them, to drift toward female parasitism. + +The readjustment of the position of the male worker, if it led to a +more equitable distribution of wealth among males, might indeed diminish +slightly the accompanying tendency to parasitism in the very wealthiest +female class; but it would, on the other hand, open up exactly those +conditions which make parasitism possible to millions of women today +leading healthy and active lives. (The fact cannot be too often dwelt +upon that parasitism is not connected with any definite amount of +wealth. Any sum supplied to an individual which will so far satisfy +him or her as to enable them to live without exertion may absolutely +parasitise them; while vast wealth unhealthy as its effects generally +tend to be) may, upon certain rare and noble natures, exert hardly any +enervating or deleterious influence. An amusing illustration of the +different points at which enervation is reached by different females +came under our own observation. The wife of an American millionaire +was visited by a woman, the daughter and also the widow of small +professional men. She stated that she was in need of both food and +clothing. The millionaire’s wife gave her a leg of mutton and two +valuable dresses. The woman proceeded to whine, though in vigorous +health, that she had no one to carry them home for her, and could +not think of carrying them herself. The American, the descendant of +generations of able, labouring, New England, Puritan women, tucked the +leg of mutton under one arm and the bundle of clothes under the other +and walked off down the city street towards the woman’s dwelling, +followed by the astonished pauper parasite. + +The most helpless case of female degeneration we ever came into contact +with was that of a daughter of a poor English officer on half-pay and +who had to exist on a few hundreds a year. This woman could neither +cook her own food nor make her own clothes, nor was she engaged in any +social, political, or intellectual or artistic labour. Though able to +dance for a night or play tennis for an afternoon, she was yet hardly +able to do her own hair or attire herself, and appeared absolutely to +have lost all power of compelling herself to do anything which was at +the moment fatiguing or displeasing, as all labour is apt to be, however +great its ultimate reward. In a life of twenty-eight years this +woman had probably not contributed one hour’s earnest toil, mental or +physical, to the increase of the sum total of productive human labour. +Surrounded with acres of cultivable land, she would possibly have +preferred to lie down and die of hunger rather than have cultivated half +an acre for food. This is an extreme case; but the ultimate effect of +parasitism is always a paralysis of the will and an inability to compel +oneself into any course of action for the moment unpleasurable and +exhaustive. + +That the two problems are not identical is shown, if indeed evidence +were needed, by the fact that those males most actively employed in +attempting to readjust the relations of the mass of labouring males to +the new conditions of life, are sometimes precisely those males who +are most bitterly opposed to woman in her attempt to readjust her +own position. Not even by the members of those professions, generally +regarded as the strongholds of obstructionism and prejudice, has a more +short-sighted opposition often been made to the attempts of woman to +enter new fields of labour, than have again and again been made by male +hand-workers, whether as isolated individuals or in their corporate +capacity as trade unions. They have, at least in some certain instances, +endeavoured to exclude women, not merely from new fields of intellectual +and social labour, but even from those ancient fields of textile +manufacture and handicraft, which have through all generations of the +past been woman’s. The patent and undeniable fact, that where the male +labour movement flourishes the woman movement also flourishes, rises +not from the fact that they are identical, but that the same healthy and +virile condition in a race or society gives rise to both. + +As two streams rising from one fountain-head and running a parallel +course through long reaches may yet remain wholly distinct, one finding +its way satisfactorily to the sea, while the other loses itself in sand +or becomes a stagnant marsh, so our modern male and female movements, +taking their rise from the same material conditions in modern +civilisation, and presenting endless and close analogies with one +another in their cause of development, yet remain fundamentally +distinct. By both movements the future of the race must be profoundly +modified for good or evil; both touch the race in a manner absolutely +vital; but both will have to be fought out on their own ground, +and independently: and it can be only by determined, conscious, and +persistent action on the part of woman that the solution of her own +labour problems will proceed co-extensively with that of the other. + +How distinct, though similar, is the underlying motive of the two +movements, is manifested most clearly by this fact, that, while the male +labour movement takes its rise mainly among the poor and hand-labouring +classes, where the material pressure of the modern conditions of life +fall heaviest, and where the danger of physical suffering and even +extinction under that pressure is most felt; the Woman Labour Movement +has taken its rise almost as exclusively among the wealthy, cultured, +and brain-labouring classes, where alone, at the present day, the +danger of enervation through non-employment, and of degeneration through +dependence on the sex function exists. The female labour movement of our +day is, in its ultimate essence, an endeavour on the part of a section +of the race to save itself from inactivity and degeneration, and this, +even at the immediate cost of most heavy loss in material comfort and +ease to the individuals composing it. The male labour movement +is, directly and in the first place, material; and, or at least +superficially, more or less self-seeking, though its ultimate reaction +on society by saving the poorer members from degradation and dependency +and want is undoubtedly wholly social and absolutely essential for +the health and continued development of the human race. In the Woman’s +Labour Movement of our day, which has essentially taken its rise among +women of the more cultured and wealthy classes, and which consists +mainly in a demand to have the doors leading to professional, political, +and highly skilled labour thrown open to them, the ultimate end can only +be attained at the cost of more or less intense, immediate, personal +suffering and renunciation, though eventually, if brought to a +satisfactory conclusion, it will undoubtedly tend to the material and +physical well-being of woman herself, as well as to that of her male +companions and descendants. + +The coming half-century will be a time of peculiar strain, as mankind +seeks rapidly to adjust moral ideals and social relationships and the +general ordering of life to the new and continually unfolding material +conditions. If these two great movements of our age, having this as +their object, can be brought into close harmony and co-operation, the +readjustment will be the sooner and more painlessly accomplished; but, +for the moment, the two movements alike in their origin and alike in +many of their methods of procedure, remain distinct. + +It is this fact, the consciousness on the part of the women taking their +share in the Woman’s Movement of our age, that their efforts are not, +and cannot be, of immediate advantage to themselves, but that they +almost of necessity and immediately lead to loss and renunciation, which +gives to this movement its very peculiar tone; setting it apart from the +large mass of economic movements, placing it rather in a line with those +vast religious developments which at the interval of ages have swept +across humanity, irresistibly modifying and reorganising it. + +It is the perception of this fact, that, not for herself, nor even for +fellow-women alone, but for the benefit of humanity at large, it is +necessary she should seek to readjust herself to life, which lends to +the modern woman’s most superficial and seemingly trivial attempts at +readjustment, a certain dignity and importance. + +It is this profound hidden conviction which removes from the sphere of +the ridiculous the attitude of even the feeblest woman who waves her +poor little “Woman’s rights” flag on the edge of a platform, and which +causes us to forgive even the passionate denunciations, not always +wisely thought out, in which she would represent the suffering and evils +of woman’s condition, as wrongs intentionally inflicted upon her, where +they are merely the inevitable results of ages of social movement. + +It is this over-shadowing consciousness of a large impersonal +obligation, which removes from the sphere of the contemptible and +insignificant even the action of the individual young girl, who leaves +a home of comfort or luxury for a city garret, where in solitude, and +under that stern pressure which is felt by all individuals in arms +against the trend of their environment, she seeks to acquire the +knowledge necessary for entering on a new form of labour. It is this +profound consciousness which makes not less than heroic the figure of +the little half-starved student, battling against gigantic odds to take +her place beside man in the fields of modern intellectual toil, and +which, whether she succeed or fail, makes her a landmark in the course +of our human evolution. It is this consciousness of large impersonal +ends to be attained, and to the attainment of which each individual is +bound to play her part, however small, which removes from the domain of +the unnecessary, and raises to importance, the action of each woman +who resists the tyranny of fashions in dress or bearing or custom which +impedes her in her strife towards the new adjustment. + +It is this consciousness which renders almost of solemn import the +efforts of the individual female after physical or mental self-culture +and expansion; this, which fills with a lofty enthusiasm the heart of +the young girl, who, it may be, in some solitary farm-house, in some +distant wild of Africa or America, deep into the night bends over her +books with the passion and fervour with which an early Christian may +have bent over the pages of his Scriptures; feeling that, it may be, she +fits herself by each increase of knowledge for she knows not what duties +towards the world, in the years to come. It is this consciousness of +great impersonal ends, to be brought, even if slowly and imperceptibly, +a little nearer by her action, which gives to many a woman strength +for renunciation, when she puts from her the lower type of sexual +relationship, even if bound up with all the external honour a legal bond +can confer, if it offers her only enervation and parasitism; and which +enables her often to accept poverty, toil, and sexual isolation (an +isolation even more terrible to the woman than to any male), and the +renunciation of motherhood, that crowning beatitude of the woman’s +existence, which, and which alone, fully compensates her for the organic +sufferings of womanhood--in the conviction that, by so doing, she makes +more possible a fuller and higher attainment of motherhood and wifehood +to the women who will follow her. It is this consciousness which makes +of solemn importance the knock of the humblest woman at the closed +door which shuts off a new field of labour, physical or mental: is she +convinced that, not for herself, but in the service of the whole race, +she knocks. + +It is this abiding consciousness of an end to be attained, reaching +beyond her personal life and individual interests, which constitutes the +religious element of the Woman’s Movement of our day, and binds with the +common bond of an impersonal enthusiasm into one solid body the women +of whatsoever race, class, and nation who are struggling after the +readjustment of woman to life. + +This it is also, which in spite of defects and failures on the part of +individuals, yet makes the body who these women compose, as a whole, one +of the most impressive and irresistible of modern forces. The private +soldier of the great victorious army is not always an imposing object as +he walks down the village street, cap on side of head and sword dangling +between his legs, nor is he always impressive even when he burnishes up +his accoutrements or cleans his pannikins; but it is of individuals +such as these that the great army is made, which tomorrow, when it is +gathered together, may shake the world with its tread. + +Possibly not one woman in ten, or even one woman in twenty thousand +among those taking part in this struggle, could draw up a clear and +succinct account of the causes which have led to the disco-ordination in +woman’s present position, or give a full account of the benefits to flow +from readjustment; as probably not one private soldier in an army of ten +or even of twenty thousand, though he is willing to give his life for +his land, would yet be able to draw up a clear and succinct account of +his land’s history in the past and of the conditions which have made +war inevitable; and almost as little can he often paint an exact and +detailed picture of the benefits to flow from his efts. He knows his +land has need of him; he knows his own small place and work. + +It is possible that not one woman in ten thousand has grasped with +scientific exactitude, and still less could express with verbal +sharpness, the great central conditions which yet compel and animate her +into action. + +Even the great, central fact, that with each generation the entire race +passes through the body of its womanhood as through a mould, reappearing +with the indelible marks of that mould upon it, that as the os cervix of +woman, through which the head of the human infant passes at birth, forms +a ring, determining for ever the size at birth of the human head, a +size which could only increase if in the course of ages the os cervix of +woman should itself slowly expand; and that so exactly the intellectual +capacity, the physical vigour, the emotional depth of woman, forms +also an untranscendable circle, circumscribing with each successive +generation the limits of the expansion of the human race;--even this +fact she may not so clearly have grasped intellectually as to be able to +throw it into the form of a logical statement. The profound truth, that +the continued development of the human race on earth (a development +which, as the old myths and dreams of a narrow personal heaven fade +from our view, becomes increasingly for many of us the spiritual hope by +light of which we continue to live), a development which we hope shall +make the humanity of a distant future as much higher in intellectual +power and wider in social sympathy than the highest human units of +our day, as that is higher than the first primeval ancestor who +with quivering limb strove to walk upright and shape his lips to the +expression of a word, is possible only if the male and female halves of +humanity progress together, expanding side by side in the future as they +have done in the past--even this truth it is possible few women have +exactly and logically grasped as the basis of their action. The truth +that, as the first primitive human males and females, unable to count +farther than their fingers, or grasp an abstract idea, or feel the +controlling power of social emotion, could only develop into the +Sapphos, Aristotles, and Shelleys of a more expanded civilisation, if +side by side, and line by line, male and female forms have expanded +together; if, as the convolutions of his brain increased in complexity, +so increased the convolutions in hers; if, as her forehead grew higher, +so developed his; and that, if the long upward march of the future is +ever to be accomplished by the race, male and female must march side by +side, acting and reacting on each other through inheritance; or progress +is impossible. The truth that, as the existence of even the male Bushman +would be impossible without the existence of the analogous Bushwoman +with the same gifts; and that as races which can produce among their +males a William Kingdon Clifford, a Tolstoy, or a Robert Browning, would +be inconceivable and impossible, unless among its females it could also +produce a Sophia Kovalevsky, a George Eliot, or a Louise Michel; so, +also, in the future, that higher and more socialised human race we dream +of can only come into existence, because in both the sex forms have +evolved together, now this sex and then that, so to speak, catching +up the ball of life and throwing it back to the other, slightly if +imperceptibly enlarging and beautifying it as it passes through their +hands. The fact that without the reaction of interevolution between the +sexes, there can be no real and permanent human advance; without the +enlarged deep-thinking Eve to bear him, no enlarged Adam; without the +enlarged widely sympathising Adam to beget her, no enlarged widely +comprehending Eve; without an enlarged Adam and an enlarged Eve, no +enlarged and beautified generation of mankind on earth; that an arrest +in one form is an arrest in both; and in the upward march of the entire +human family. The truth that, if at the present day, woman, after her +long upward march side by side with man, developing with him through +the countless ages, by means of the endless exercise of the faculties of +mind and body, has now, at last, reached her ultimate limit of growth, +and can progress no farther; that, then, here also, today, the growth +of the human spirit is to be stayed; that here, on the spot of woman’s +arrest, is the standard of the race to be finally planted, to move +forward no more, for ever:--that, if the parasite woman on her couch, +loaded with gewgaws, the plaything and amusement of man, be the +permanent and final manifestation of female human life on the globe, +then that couch is also the death-bed of human evolution. These profound +underlying truths, perhaps, not one woman in twenty thousand of those +actively engaged in the struggle for readjustment has so closely and +keenly grasped that she can readily throw them into the form of exact +language; and yet, probably, not the feeblest woman taking share in our +endeavour toward readjustment and expansion fails to be animated by a +vague but profound consciousness of their existence. Beyond the small +evils, which she seeks by her immediate, personal action to remedy, lie, +she feels; large ills of which they form but an off-shoot; beyond the +small good which she seeks to effect, lies, she believes, a great and +universal beatitude to be attained; beyond the little struggle of today, +lies the larger struggle of the centuries, in which neither she alone +nor her sex alone are concerned, but all mankind. + +That such should be the mental attitude of the average woman taking part +in the readjustive sexual movement of today; that so often on the public +platform and in literature adduces merely secondary arguments, and +is wholly unable logically to give an account of the great propelling +conditions behind it, is sometimes taken as an indication of the +inefficiency, and probably the ultimate failure, of the movement in +which she takes part. But in truth, that is not so. It is rather +an indication which shows how healthy, and deeply implanted in the +substance of human life, are the roots of this movement; and it places +it in a line with all those vast controlling movements which have in the +course of the ages reorganised human life. + +For those great movements which have permanently modified the condition +of humanity have never taken their rise amid the chopped logic of +schools; they have never drawn their vitality from a series of purely +intellectual and abstract inductions. They have arisen always through +the action of widely spread material and spiritual conditions, creating +widespread human needs; which, pressing upon the isolated individuals, +awakens at last continuous, if often vague and uncertain, social +movement in a given direction. Mere intellectual comprehension may +guide, retard, or accelerate the great human movements; it has never +created them. It may even be questioned whether those very leaders, who +have superficially appeared to create and organise great and successful +social movements, have themselves, in most cases, perhaps in any, fully +understood in all their complexity the movements they themselves have +appeared to rule. They have been, rather, themselves permeated by the +great common need; and being possessed of more will, passion, intensity, +or intellect, they have been able to give voice to that which in +others was dumb, and conscious direction to that which in others was +unconscious desire: they have been but the foremost crest of a great +wave of human necessity: they have not themselves created the wave which +bears themselves, and humanity, onwards. The artificial social movements +which have had their origin in the arbitrary will of individuals, guided +with however much determination and reason, have of necessity proved +ephemeral and abortive. An Alexander might will to weld a Greece and +an Asia into one; a Napoleon might resolve to create of a diversified +Europe one consolidated state; and by dint of skill and determination +they might for a moment appear to be accomplishing that which they +desired; but the constraining individual will being withdrawn, the +object of their toil has melted away, as the little heap of damp sand +gathered under the palm of a child’s hand on the sea-shore, melts away, +scattered by the wind and washed out by the waves, the moment the hand +that shaped it is withdrawn; while the small, soft, indefinite, watery +fragment of jelly-fish lying beside it, though tossed hither and +thither by water and wind, yet retains its shape and grows, because its +particles are bound by an internal and organic force. + +Our woman’s movement resembles strongly, in this matter, the gigantic +religious and intellectual movement which for centuries convulsed the +life of Europe; and had, as its ultimate outcome, the final emancipation +of the human intellect and the freedom of the human spirit. Looked +back upon from the vantage-point of the present, this past presents the +appearance of one vast, steady, persistent movement proceeding always +in one ultimate direction, as though guided by some controlling human +intellect. But, to the mass of human individuals taking part in it, it +presented an appearance far otherwise. It was fought out, now here, +now there, by isolated individuals and small groups, and often for +what appeared small and almost personal ends, having sometimes, +superficially, little in common. Now it was a Giordano Bruno, burnt +in Rome in defence of abstract theory with regard to the nature of the +First Cause; then an Albigense hurled from his rocks because he refused +to part with the leaves of his old Bible; now a Dutch peasant woman, +walking serenely to the stake because she refused to bow her head before +two crossed rods; then a Servetus burnt by Protestant Calvin at Geneva; +or a Spinoza cut off from his tribe and people because he could +see nothing but God anywhere; and then it was an exiled Rousseau or +Voltaire, or a persecuted Bradlaugh; till, in our own day the last +sounds of the long fight are dying about us, as fading echoes, in the +guise of a few puerile attempts to enforce trivial disabilities on the +ground of abstract convictions. The vanguard of humanity has won its +battle for freedom of thought. + +But, to the men and women taking part in that mighty movement during +the long centuries of the past, probably nothing was quite clear, in the +majority of cases, but their own immediate move. Not the leaders--most +certainly not good old Martin Luther, even when he gave utterance to +his immortal “I can no otherwise” (the eternal justification of all +reformers and social innovators!), understood the whole breadth of the +battlefield on which they were engaged, or grasped with precision the +issues which were involved. The valiant Englishman, who, as the flames +shot up about him, cried to his companion in death, “Play the man, +Master Ridley; we shall by God’s grace this day light such a candle +in England, as shall never be put out!” undoubtedly believed that +the candle lighted was the mere tallow rushlight of a small sectarian +freedom for England alone; nor perceived that what he lighted was but +one ray of the vast, universal aurora of intellectual and spiritual +liberty, whose light was ultimately to stream, not only across England, +but across the earth. Nevertheless, undoubtedly, behind all these +limited efforts, for what appeared, superficially, limited causes, +lay, in the hearts of the men and women concerned, through the ages, a +profound if vague consciousness of ends larger than they clearly knew, +to be subserved by their action; of a universal social duty and a great +necessity. + +That the Woman’s Movement of our day has not taken its origin from any +mere process of theoretic argument; that it breaks out, now here and +now there, in forms divergent and at times superficially almost +irreconcilable; that the majority of those taking part in it are driven +into action as the result of the immediate pressure of the conditions +of life, and are not always able logically to state the nature of all +causes which propel them, or to paint clearly all results of their +action; so far from removing it from the category of the vast +reorganising movements of humanity, places it in a line with them, +showing how vital, spontaneous, and wholly organic and unartificial is +its nature. + +The fact that, at one point, it manifests itself in a passionate, and +at times almost incoherent, cry for an accredited share in public and +social duties; while at another it makes itself felt as a determined +endeavour after self-culture; that in one land it embodies itself mainly +in a resolute endeavour to enlarge the sphere of remunerative labour +for women; while in another it manifests itself chiefly as an effort to +recoordinate the personal relation of the sexes; that in one individual +it manifests itself as a passionate and sometimes noisy struggle for +liberty of personal action; while in another it is being fought out +silently in the depth of the individual consciousness--that primal +battle-ground, in which all questions of reform and human advance must +ultimately be fought and decided;--all this diversity, and the fact +that the average woman is entirely concerned in labour in her own little +field, shows, not the weakness, but the strength of the movement; which, +taken as a whole, is a movement steady and persistent in one direction, +the direction of increased activity and culture, and towards the +negation of all possibility of parasitism in the human female. Slowly, +and unconsciously, as the child is shaped in the womb, this movement +shapes itself in the bosom of our time, taking its place beside those +vast human developments, of which men, noting their spontaneity and the +co-ordination of their parts, have said, in the phraseology of old days, +“This thing is not of man, but of God.” + +He who today looks at some great Gothic cathedral in its final form, +seems to be looking at that which might have been the incarnation of the +dream of some single soul of genius. But in truth, its origin was far +otherwise. Ages elapsed from the time the first rough stone was laid as +a foundation till the last spire and pinnacle were shaped, and the hand +which laid the foundation-stone was never the same as that which set +the last stone upon the coping. Generations often succeeded one another, +labouring at gargoyle, rose-window, and shaft, and died, leaving the +work to others; the master-builder who drew up the first rough outline +passed away, and was succeeded by others, and the details of the work as +completed bore sometimes but faint resemblance to the work as he devised +it; no man fully understood all that others had done or were doing, +but each laboured in his place; and the work as completed had unity; +it expressed not the desire and necessity of one mind, but of the human +spirit of that age; and not less essential to the existence of the +building was the labour of the workman who passed a life of devotion +in carving gargoyles or shaping rose-windows, than that of the greatest +master who drew general outlines: perhaps it was yet more heroic; for, +for the master-builder, who, even if it were but vaguely, had an image +of what the work would be when the last stone was laid and the last +spire raised, it was easy to labour with devotion and zeal, though well +he might know that the placing of that last stone and the raising of +that last spire would not be his, and that the building in its full +beauty and strength he should never see; but for the journeyman labourer +who carried on his duties and month by month toiled at carving his own +little gargoyle or shaping the traceries in his own little oriel window, +without any complete vision, it was not so easy; nevertheless, it was +through the conscientious labours of such alone, through their heaps of +chipped and spoiled stones, which may have lain thick about them, that +at the last the pile was reared in its strength and beauty. + +For a Moses who could climb Pisgah, and, though it were through a +mist of bitter tears, could see stretching before him the land of the +inheritance, a land which his feet should never tread and whose fruit +his hand should never touch, it was yet, perhaps, not so hard to turn +round and die; for, as in a dream, he had seen the land: but for the +thousands who could climb no Pisgah, who were to leave their bones +whitening in the desert, having even from afar never seen the true +outline of the land; those who, on that long march, had not even borne +the Ark nor struck the timbrel, but carried only their small household +vessels and possessions, for these it was perhaps not so easy to lie +down and perish in the desert, knowing only that far ahead somewhere, +lay a Land of Promise. Nevertheless, it was by the slow and sometimes +wavering march of such as these, that the land was reached by the people +at last. + +For her, whose insight enables her to see, through the distance, those +large beatitudes towards which the struggles and suffering of the women +of today may tend; who sees beyond the present, though in a future which +she knows she will never enter, an enlarged and strengthened womanhood +bearing forward with it a strengthened and expanded race, it is not so +hard to renounce and labour with unshaken purpose: but for those +who have not that view, and struggle on, animated at most by a vague +consciousness that somewhere ahead lies a large end, towards which their +efforts tend; who labour year after year at some poor little gargoyle of +a Franchise Bill, or the shaping of some rough little foundation-stone +of reform in education, or dress a stone (which perhaps never quite fits +the spot it was intended for, and has to be thrown aside!); or who +carve away all their lives to produce a corbel of some reform in sexual +relations, in the end to find it break under the chisel; who, out of +many failures attain, perhaps, to no success, or but to one, and that +so small and set so much in the shade that no eye will ever see it; +for such as these, it is perhaps not so easy to labour without growing +weary. Nevertheless, it is through the labours of these myriad toilers, +each working in her own minute sphere, with her own small outlook, and +out of endless failures and miscarriages, that at last the enwidened +and beautified relations of woman to life must rise, if they are ever to +come. + +When a starfish lies on the ground at the bottom of a sloping rock it +has to climb, it seems to the onlooker as though there were nothing +which could stir the inert mass and no means for taking it to the top. +Yet watch it. Beneath its lower side, hidden from sight, are a million +fine tentacles; impulses of will from the central nerve radiate +throughout the whole body, and each tiny fibre, fine as a hair, slowly +extends itself, and seizes on the minute particle of rough rock nearest +to it; now a small tentacle slips its hold, and then it holds firmly, +and then slowly and slowly the whole inert mass rises to the top. + +It is often said of those who lead in this attempt at the readaption +of woman’s relation to life, that they are “New Women”; and they are +at times spoken of as though they were a something portentous and +unheard-of in the order of human life. + +But, the truth is, we are not new. We who lead in this movement today +are of that old, old Teutonic womanhood, which twenty centuries ago +ploughed its march through European forests and morasses beside its male +companion; which marched with the Cimbri to Italy, and with the Franks +across the Rhine, with the Varagians into Russia, and the Alamani into +Switzerland; which peopled Scandinavia, and penetrated to Britain; whose +priestesses had their shrines in German forests, and gave out the oracle +for peace or war. We have in us the blood of a womanhood that was never +bought and never sold; that wore no veil, and had no foot bound; whose +realised ideal of marriage was sexual companionship and an equality in +duty and labour; who stood side by side with the males they loved in +peace or war, and whose children, when they had borne them, sucked +manhood from their breasts, and even through their foetal existence +heard a brave heart beat above them. We are women of a breed whose +racial ideal was no Helen of Troy, passed passively from male hand +to male hand, as men pass gold or lead; but that Brynhild whom Segurd +found, clad in helm and byrne, the warrior maid, who gave him counsel +“the deepest that ever yet was given to living man,” and “wrought on him +to the performing of great deeds;” who, when he died, raised high the +funeral pyre and lay down on it beside him, crying, “Nor shall the door +swing to at the heel of him as I go in beside him!” We are of a race +of women that of old knew no fear, and feared no death, and lived great +lives and hoped great hopes; and if today some of us have fallen on evil +and degenerate times, there moves in us yet the throb of the old blood. + +If it be today on no physical battlefield that we stand beside our men, +and on no march through no external forest or morass that we have to +lead; it is yet the old spirit which, undimmed by two thousand years, +stirs within us in deeper and subtler ways; it is yet the cry of +the old, free Northern woman which makes the world today. Though the +battlefield be now for us all, in the laboratory or the workshop, in the +forum or the study, in the assembly and in the mart and the political +arena, with the pen and not the sword, of the head and not the arm, we +still stand side by side with the men we love, “to dare with them in +war and to suffer with them in peace,” as the Roman wrote of our old +Northern womanhood. + +Those women, of whom the old writers tell us, who, barefooted and +white robed, led their Northern hosts on that long march to Italy, were +animated by the thought that they led their people to a land of warmer +sunshine and richer fruitage; we, today, believe we have caught sight +of a land bathed in a nobler than any material sunlight, with a fruitage +richer than any which the senses only can grasp: and behind us, we +believe there follows a longer train than any composed of our own race +and people; the sound of the tread we hear behind us is that of all +earth’s women, bearing within them the entire race. The footpath, yet +hardly perceptible, which we tread down today, will, we believe, be +life’s broadest and straightest road, along which the children of men +will pass to a higher co-ordination and harmony. The banner which +we unfurl today is not new: it is the standard of the old, free, +monogamous, labouring woman, which, twenty hundred years ago, floated +over the forests of Europe. We shall bear it on, each generation as it +falls passing it into the hand of that which follows, till we plant it +so high that all nations of the world shall see it; till the women of +the humblest human races shall be gathered beneath its folds, and no +child enter life that was not born within its shade. + +We are not new! If you would understand us, go back two thousand +years, and study our descent; our breed is our explanation. We are the +daughters of our fathers as well as of our mothers. In our dreams we +still hear the clash of the shields of our forefathers as they struck +them together before battle and raised the shout of “Freedom!” In our +dreams it is with us still, and when we wake it breaks from our own +lips! We are the daughters of those men. + +But, it may be said, “Are there not women among you who would use the +shibboleth, of freedom and labour, merely as a means for opening a +door to a greater and more highly flavoured self-indulgence, to a more +lucrative and enjoyable parasitism? Are there not women who, under the +guise of ‘work,’ are seeking only increased means of sensuous pleasure +and self-indulgence; to whom intellectual training and the opening to +new fields of labour side by side with man, mean merely new means of +self-advertisement and parasitic success?” We answer: There may be +such, truly; among us--but not of us! This at least is true, that we, +ourselves, are seldom deceived by them; the sheep generally recognise +the wolf however carefully fitted the sheepskin under which he hides, +though the onlookers may not; and though not always be able to drive him +from the flock! The outer world may be misled; we, who stand shoulder to +shoulder with them, know them; they are not many; neither are they +new. They are one of the oldest survivals, and among the most primitive +relics in the race. They are as old as Loki among the gods, as Lucifer +among the Sons of the Morning, as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, as +pain and dislocation in the web of human life. + +Such women are as old as that first primitive woman who, when she went +with her fellows to gather wood for the common household, put grass in +the centre of the bundle that she might appear to carry as much as they, +yet carry nothing; she is as old as the first man who threw away his +shield in battle, and yet, when it was over, gathered with the victors +to share the spoils, as old as cowardice and lust in the human and +animal world; only to cease from being when, perhaps, an enlarged and +expanded humanity shall have cast the last slough of its primitive skin. + +Every army has its camp-followers, not among its accredited soldiers, +but who follow in its train, ready to attack and rifle the fallen on +either side. To lookers on, they may appear soldiers; but the soldier +knows who they are. At the Judean supper there was one Master, and to +the onlooker there may have seemed twelve apostles; in truth only twelve +were of the company, and one was not of it. There has always been this +thirteenth figure at every sacramental gathering, since the world began, +wherever the upholders of a great cause have broken spiritual bread; but +it may be questioned whether in any instance this thirteenth figure +has been able to destroy, or even vitally to retard, any great human +movement. Judas could hang his Master by a kiss; but he could not +silence the voice which for a thousand years rang out of that Judean +grave. Again and again, in social, political, and intellectual +movements, the betrayer betrays;--and the cause marches on over the body +of the man. + +There are women, as there are men, whose political, social, +intellectual, or philanthropic labours are put on, as the harlot puts +on paint, and for the same purpose: but they can no more retard the +progress of the great bulk of vital and sincere womanhood, than the +driftwood on the surface of a mighty river can ultimately prevent its +waters from reaching the sea. + + + +Chapter IV. Woman and War. + +But it may also be said, “Granting fully that you are right, that, as +woman’s old fields of labour slip from her, she must grasp the new, or +must become wholly dependent on her sexual function alone, all the other +elements of human nature in her becoming atrophied and arrested through +lack of exercise: and, granting that her evolution being arrested, +the evolution of the whole race will be also arrested in her person: +granting all this to the full, and allowing that the bulk of human +labour tends to become more and more intellectual and less and less +purely mechanical, as perfected machinery takes the place of crude human +exertion; and that therefore if woman is to be saved from degeneration +and parasitism, and the body of humanity from arrest, she must receive a +training which will cultivate all the intellectual and all the physical +faculties with which she is endowed, and be allowed freely to employ +them; nevertheless, would it not be possible, and perhaps be well, that +a dividing line of some kind should be drawn between the occupations +of men and of women? Would it not, for example, be possible that +woman should retain agriculture, textile manufacture, trade, domestic +management, the education of youth, and medicine, in addition to +child-bearing, as her exclusive fields of toil; while, to the male, +should be left the study of abstract science, law and war, and +statecraft; as of old, man took war and the chase, and woman absorbed +the further labours of life? Why should there not be again a fair and +even division in the field of social labour?” + +Superficially, this suggestion appears rational, having at least this +to recommend it, that it appears to harmonise with the course of human +evolution in the past; but closely examined, it will, we think, be found +to have no practical or scientific basis, and to be out of harmony with +the conditions of modern life. In ancient and primitive societies, the +mere larger size and muscular strength of man, and woman’s incessant +physical activity in child-bearing and suckling and rearing the young, +made almost inevitable a certain sexual division of labour in almost +all countries, save perhaps in ancient Egypt. (The division of labour +between the sexes in Ancient Egypt and other exceptional countries, is +a matter of much interest, which cannot here be entered on.) Woman +naturally took the heavy agricultural and domestic labours, which were +yet more consistent with the continual dependence of infant life on +her own, than those of man in war and the chase. There was nothing +artificial in such a division; it threw the heaviest burden of the most +wearying and unexciting forms of social labour on woman, but under it +both sexes laboured in a manner essential to the existence of society, +and each transmitted to the other, through inheritance, the fruit of its +slowly expanding and always exerted powers; and the race progressed. + +Individual women might sometimes, and even often, become the warrior +chief of a tribe; the King of Ashantee might train his terrible regiment +of females; and men might now and again plant and weave for their +children: but in the main, and in most societies, the division of +labour was just, natural, beneficial; and it was inevitable that such a +division should take place. Were today a band of civilised men, women, +and infants thrown down absolutely naked and defenceless in some desert, +and cut off hopelessly from all external civilised life, undoubtedly +very much the old division of labour would, at least for a time, +reassert itself; men would look about for stones and sticks with which +to make weapons to repel wild beasts and enemies, and would go a-hunting +meat and fighting savage enemies and tend the beasts when tamed: (The +young captured animals would probably be tamed and reared by the women.) +women would suckle their children, cook the meat men brought, build +shelters, look for roots and if possible cultivate them; there certainly +would be no parasite in the society; the woman who refused to labour for +her offspring, and the man who refused to hunt or defend society, would +not be supported by their fellows, would soon be extinguished by want. +As wild beasts were extinguished and others tamed and the materials for +war improved, fewer men would be needed for hunting and war; then they +would remain at home and aid in building and planting; many women would +retire into the house to perfect domestic toil and handicrafts, and on +a small scale the common ancient evolution of society would probably +practically repeat itself. But for the present, we see no such natural +and spontaneous division of labour based on natural sexual distinctions +in the new fields of intellectual or delicately skilled manual labour, +which are taking the place of the old. + +It is possible, though at present there is nothing to give indication of +such a fact, and it seems highly improbable, that, in some subtle +manner now incomprehensible, there might tend to be a subtle correlation +between that condition of the brain and nervous system which accompanies +ability in the direction of certain modern forms of mental, social +labour, and the particular form of reproductive function possessed by +an individual. It may be that, inexplicable as it seems, there may +ultimately be found to be some connection between that condition of the +brain and nervous system which fits the individual for the study of the +higher mathematics, let us say, and the nature of their sex attributes. +The mere fact that, of the handful of women who, up to the present, +have received training and been allowed to devote themselves to abstract +study, several have excelled in the higher mathematics, proves of +necessity no pre-eminent tendency on the part of the female sex in +the direction of mathematics, as compared to labour in the fields of +statesmanship, administration, or law; as into these fields there has +been practically no admittance for women. It is sometimes stated, +that as several women of genius in modern times have sought to find +expression for their creative powers in the art of fiction, there must +be some inherent connection in the human brain between the ovarian sex +function and the art of fiction. The fact is, that modern fiction being +merely a description of human life in any of its phases, and being +the only art that can be exercised without special training or special +appliances, and produced in the moments stolen from the multifarious, +brain-destroying occupations which fill the average woman’s life, they +have been driven to find this outlet for their powers as the only one +presenting itself. How far otherwise might have been the directions in +which their genius would naturally have expressed itself can be known +only partially even to the women themselves; what the world has lost by +that compulsory expression of genius, in a form which may not have been +its most natural form of expression, or only one of its forms, no one +can ever know. Even in the little third-rate novelist whose works cumber +the ground, we see often a pathetic figure, when we recognise that +beneath that failure in a complex and difficult art, may lie buried +a sound legislator, an able architect, an original scientific +investigator, or a good judge. Scientifically speaking, it is as +unproven that there is any organic relation between the brain of the +female and the production of art in the form of fiction, as that there +is an organic relation between the hand of woman and a typewriting +machine. Both the creative writer and the typist, in their respective +spheres, are merely finding outlets for their powers in the direction of +least resistance. The tendency of women at the present day to undertake +certain forms of labour, proves only that in the crabbed, walled-in, +and bound conditions surrounding woman at the present day, these are the +lines along which action is most possible to her. + +It may possibly be that in future ages, when the male and female forms +have been placed in like intellectual conditions, with like stimuli, +like training, and like rewards, that some aptitudes may be found +running parallel with the line of sex function when humanity is viewed +as a whole. It may possibly be that, when the historian of the future +looks back over the history of the intellectually freed and active +sexes for countless generations, that a decided preference of the female +intellect for mathematics, engineering, or statecraft may be made clear; +and that a like marked inclination in the male to excel in acting, +music, or astronomy may by careful and large comparison be shown. But, +for the present, we have no adequate scientific data from which to draw +any conclusion, and any attempt to divide the occupations in which male +and female intellects and wills should be employed, must be to attempt +a purely artificial and arbitrary division: a division not more rational +and scientific than an attempt to determine by the colour of his eyes +and the shape and strength of his legs, whether a lad should be an +astronomer or an engraver. Those physical differences among mankind +which divide races and nations--not merely those differences, enormously +greater as they are generally, than any physical differences between +male and female of the same race, which divide the Jew and the Swede, +the Japanese and the Englishman, but even those subtle physical +differences which divide closely allied races such as the English and +German--often appear to be allied with certain subtle differences in +intellectual aptitudes. Yet even with regard to these differences, it +is almost impossible to determine scientifically in how far they are the +result of national traditions, environment, and education, and in how +far the result of real differences in organic conformation. (In thinking +of physical sex differences, the civilised man of modern times has +always to guard himself against being unconsciously misled by the very +exaggerated external sex differences which our unnatural method of sex +clothing and dressing the hair produces. The unclothed and natural human +male and female bodies are not more divided from each other than those +of the lion and lioness. Our remote Saxon ancestors, with their great, +almost naked, white bodies and flowing hair worn long by both sexes, +were but little distinguished from each other; while among their modern +descendants the short hair, darkly clothed, manifestly two-legged male +differs absolutely from the usually long-haired, colour bedizened, +much beskirted female. Were the structural differences between male and +female really one half as marked as the artificial visual differences, +they would be greater than those dividing, not merely any species of man +from another, but as great as those which divide orders in the animal +world. Only a mind exceedingly alert and analytical can fail ultimately +to be misled by habitual visual misrepresentation. There is not, +probably, one man or woman in twenty thousand who is not powerfully +influenced in modern life in their conception of the differences, +physical and intellectual, dividing the human male and female, by the +grotesque exaggerations of modern attire and artificial manners.) + +No study of the mere physical differences between individuals of +different races would have enabled us to arrive at any knowledge of +their mental aptitude; nor does the fact that certain individuals of a +given human variety have certain aptitudes form a rational ground for +compelling all individuals of that variety to undertake a certain form +of labour. + +No analysis, however subtle, of the physical conformation of the Jew +could have suggested a priori, and still less could have proved, apart +from ages of practical experience, that, running parallel with any +physical characteristics which may distinguish him from his fellows, was +an innate and unique intellectual gift in the direction of religion. The +fact that, during three thousand years, from Moses to Isaiah, through +Jesus and Paul on to Spinoza, the Jewish race has produced men who +have given half the world its religious faith and impetus, proves that, +somewhere and somehow, whether connected organically with that physical +organisation that marks the Jew, or as the result of his traditions and +training, there does go this gift in the matter of religion. Yet, on +the other hand, we find millions of Jews who are totally and markedly +deficient in it, and to base any practical legislation for the +individual even on this proven intellectual aptitude of the race as a +whole would be manifestly as ridiculous as abortive. Yet more markedly, +with the German--no consideration of his physical peculiarities, though +it proceeded to the subtlest analysis of nerve, bone, and muscle, could +in the present stage of our knowledge have proved to us what generations +of experience appear to have proved, that, with that organisation which +constitutes the German, goes an unique aptitude for music. There is +always the possibility of mistaking the result of training and external +circumstance for inherent tendency, but when we consider the passion for +music which the German has shown, and when we consider that the greatest +musicians the world has seen, from Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart to +Wagner, have been of that race, it appears highly probable that such a +correlation between the German organisation and the intellectual gift of +music does exist. Similar intellectual peculiarities seem to be connoted +by the external differences which mark off other races from each other. +Nevertheless, were persons of all of these nationalities gathered in one +colony, any attempt to legislate for their restriction to certain forms +of intellectual labour on the ground of their apparently proved national +aptitudes or disabilities, would be regarded as insane. To insist that +all Jews, and none but Jews, should lead and instruct in religious +matters; that all Englishmen, and none but Englishmen, should engage in +trade; that each German should make his living by music, and none but +a German allowed to practise it, would drive to despair the unfortunate +individual Englishman, whose most marked deficiency might be in the +direction of finance and bartering trade power; the Jew, whose religious +instincts might be entirely rudimentary; or the German, who could not +distinguish one note from another; and the society as a whole would be +an irremediable loser, in one of the heaviest of all forms of social +loss--the loss of the full use of the highest capacities of all its +members. + +It may be that with sexes as with races, the subtlest physical +difference between them may have their fine mental correlatives; but no +abstract consideration of the human body in relation to its functions +of sex can, in the present state of our knowledge, show us what +intellectual capacities tend to vary with sexual structure, and nothing +in the present or past condition of male and female give us more +than the very faintest possible indication of the relation of their +intellectual aptitudes and their sexual functions. And even were it +proved by centuries of experiment that with the possession of the +uterine function of sex tends to go exceptional intellectual capacity +in the direction of mathematics rather than natural history, or an +inclination for statecraft rather than for mechanical invention; were it +proved that, generally speaking and as a whole, out of twenty thousand +women devoting themselves to law and twenty thousand to medicine, they +tended to achieve relatively more in the field of law than of +medicine, there would yet be no possible healthy or rational ground +for restricting the activities of the individual female to that line +in which the average female appeared rather more frequently to excel. +(Minds not keenly analytical are always apt to mistake mere correlation +of appearance with causative sequence. We have heard it gravely asserted +that between potatoes, pigs, mud cabins and Irishmen there was an +organic connection: but we who have lived in Colonies, know that within +two generations the pure-bred descendant of the mud cabiner becomes +often the successful politician, wealthy financier, or great judge; and +shows no more predilection for potatoes, pigs, and mud cabins than men +of any other race.) + +That even one individual in a society should be debarred from +undertaking that form of social toil for which it is most fitted, makes +an unnecessary deficit in the general social assets. That one male +Froebel should be prohibited or hampered in his labour as an educator of +infancy, on the ground that infantile instruction was the field of +the female; that one female with gifts in the direction of state +administration, should be compelled to instruct an infants’ school, +perhaps without the slightest gift for so doing, is a running to waste +of social life-blood. + +Free trade in labour and equality of training, intellectual or physical, +is essential if the organic aptitudes of a sex or class are to be +determined. And our demand today is that natural conditions, inexorably, +but beneficently, may determine the labours of each individual, and not +artificial restrictions. + +As there is no need to legislate that Hindus, being generally supposed +to have a natural incapacity for field sports, shall not betake +themselves to them--for, if they have no capacity, they will fail; and, +as in spite of the Hindus’ supposed general incapacity for sport, it is +possible for an individual Hindu to become the noted batsman of his age; +so, also, there is no need to legislate that women should be restricted +in her choice of fields of labour; for the organic incapacity of the +individual, if it exist, will legislate far more powerfully than any +artificial, legal, or social obstruction can do; and it may be that the +one individual in ten thousand who selects a field not generally sought +by his fellows will enrich humanity by the result of an especial genius. +Allowing all to start from the one point in the world of intellectual +culture and labour, with our ancient Mother Nature sitting as umpire, +distributing the prizes and scratching from the lists the incompetent, +is all we demand, but we demand it determinedly. Throw the puppy into +the water: if it swims, well; if it sinks, well; but do not tie a +rope round its throat and weight it with a brick, and then assert its +incapacity to keep afloat. + +For the present our cry is, “We take all labour for our province!” + +From the judge’s seat to the legislator’s chair; from the statesman’s +closet to the merchant’s office; from the chemist’s laboratory to the +astronomer’s tower, there is no post or form of toil for which it is not +our intention to attempt to fit ourselves; and there is no closed door +we do not intend to force open; and there is no fruit in the garden of +knowledge it is not our determination to eat. Acting in us, and through +us, nature we know will mercilessly expose to us our deficiencies in +the field of human toil, and reveal to us our powers. And, for today, we +take all labour for our province! + +But, it may then be said: “What of war, that struggle of the human +creature to attain its ends by physical force and at the price of the +life of others: will you take part in that also?” We reply: Yes; more +particularly in that field we intend to play our part. We have always +borne part of the weight of war, and the major part. It is not merely +that in primitive times we suffered from the destruction of the fields +we tilled and the houses we built; or that in later times as domestic +labourers and producers, though unwaged, we, in taxes and material loss +and additional labour, paid as much as our males towards the cost of +war; nor is it that in a comparatively insignificant manner, as +nurses of the wounded in modern times, or now and again as warrior +chieftainesses and leaders in primitive and other societies, we have +borne our part; nor is it even because the spirit of resolution in its +women, and their willingness to endure, has in all ages again and again +largely determined the fate of a race that goes to war, that we demand +our controlling right where war is concerned. Our relation to war is +far more intimate, personal, and indissoluble than this. Men have made +boomerangs, bows, swords, or guns with which to destroy one another; we +have made the men who destroyed and were destroyed! We have in all ages +produced, at an enormous cost, the primal munition of war, without which +no other would exist. There is no battlefield on earth, nor ever has +been, howsoever covered with slain, which is has not cost the women of +the race more in actual bloodshed and anguish to supply, then it has +cost the men who lie there. We pay the first cost on all human life. + +In supplying the men for the carnage of a battlefield, women have not +merely lost actually more blood, and gone through a more acute anguish +and weariness, in the long months of bearing and in the final agony of +childbirth, than has been experienced by the men who cover it; but, in +the long months and years of rearing that follow, the women of the race +go through a long, patiently endured strain which no knapsacked soldier +on his longest march has ever more than equalled; while, even in the +matter of death, in all civilised societies, the probability that the +average woman will die in childbirth is immeasurably greater than the +probability that the average male will die in battle. + +There is, perhaps, no woman, whether she have borne children, or +be merely potentially a child-bearer, who could look down upon a +battlefield covered with slain, but the thought would rise in her, “So +many mothers’ sons! So many bodies brought into the world to lie there! +So many months of weariness and pain while bones and muscles were shaped +within; so many hours of anguish and struggle that breath might be; so +many baby mouths drawing life at woman’s breasts;--all this, that men +might lie with glazed eyeballs, and swollen bodies, and fixed, blue, +unclosed mouths, and great limbs tossed--this, that an acre of ground +might be manured with human flesh, that next year’s grass or poppies or +karoo bushes may spring up greener and redder, where they have lain, or +that the sand of a plain may have a glint of white bones!” And we cry, +“Without an inexorable cause, this should not be!” No woman who is a +woman says of a human body, “It is nothing!” + +On that day, when the woman takes her place beside the man in the +governance and arrangement of external affairs of her race will also +be that day that heralds the death of war as a means of arranging human +differences. No tinsel of trumpets and flags will ultimately seduce +women into the insanity of recklessly destroying life, or gild the +wilful taking of life with any other name than that of murder, whether +it be the slaughter of the million or of one by one. And this will be, +not because with the sexual function of maternity necessarily goes in +the human creature a deeper moral insight, or a loftier type of social +instinct than that which accompanies the paternal. Men have in all ages +led as nobly as women in many paths of heroic virtue, and toward the +higher social sympathies; in certain ages, being freer and more widely +cultured, they have led further and better. The fact that woman has +no inherent all-round moral superiority over her male companion, or +naturally on all points any higher social instinct, is perhaps most +clearly exemplified by one curious very small fact: the two terms +signifying intimate human relationships which in almost all human +languages bear the most sinister and antisocial significance are both +terms which have as their root the term “mother,” and denote feminine +relationships--the words “mother-in-law” and “step-mother.” + +In general humanity, in the sense of social solidarity, and in +magnanimity, the male has continually proved himself at least the equal +of the female. + +Nor will women shrink from war because they lack courage. Earth’s women +of every generation have faced suffering and death with an equanimity +that no soldier on a battlefield has ever surpassed and few have +equalled; and where war has been to preserve life, or land, or freedom, +unparasitised and labouring women have in all ages known how to bear an +active part, and die. + +Nor will woman’s influence militate against war because in the future +woman will not be able physically to bear her part in it. The smaller +size of her muscle, which would severely have disadvantaged her when +war was conducted with a battle-axe or sword and hand to hand, would now +little or at all affect her. If intent on training for war, she might +acquire the skill for guiding a Maxim or shooting down a foe with a +Lee-Metford at four thousand yards as ably as any male; and undoubtedly, +it has not been only the peasant girl of France, who has carried latent +and hid within her person the gifts that make the supreme general. If +our European nations should continue in their present semi-civilised +condition, which makes war possible, for a few generations longer, it +is highly probable that as financiers, as managers of the commissariat +department, as inspectors of provisions and clothing for the army, women +will play a very leading part; and that the nation which is the first to +employ its women so may be placed at a vast advantage over its fellows +in time of war. It is not because of woman’s cowardice, incapacity, nor, +above all, because of her general superior virtue, that she will end war +when her voice is fully, finally, and clearly heard in the governance +of states--it is because, on this one point, and on this point almost +alone, the knowledge of woman, simply as woman, is superior to that of +man; she knows the history of human flesh; she knows its cost; he +does not. (It is noteworthy that even Catharine of Russia, a ruler and +statesman of a virile and uncompromising type, and not usually troubled +with moral scruples, yet refused with indignation the offer of Frederick +of Prussia to pay her heavily for a small number of Russian recruits in +an age when the hiring out of soldiers was common among the sovereigns +of Europe.) + +In a besieged city, it might well happen that men in the streets +might seize upon statues and marble carvings from public buildings and +galleries and hurl them in to stop the breaches made in their ramparts +by the enemy, unconsideringly and merely because they came first to +hand, not valuing them more than had they been paving-stones. But one +man could not do this--the sculptor! He, who, though there might be no +work of his own chisel among them, yet knew what each of these works of +art had cost, knew by experience the long years of struggle and study +and the infinitude of toil which had gone to the shaping of even one +limb, to the carving of even one perfected outline, he could never so +use them without thought or care. Instinctively he would seek to throw +in household goods, even gold and silver, all the city held, before he +sacrificed its works of art! + +Men’s bodies are our woman’s works of art. Given to us power of control, +we will never carelessly throw them in to fill up the gaps in human +relationships made by international ambitions and greeds. The thought +would never come to us as woman, “Cast in men’s bodies; settle the thing +so!” Arbitration and compensation would as naturally occur to her +as cheaper and simpler methods of bridging the gaps in national +relationships, as to the sculptor it would occur to throw in anything +rather than statuary, though he might be driven to that at last! + +This is one of those phases of human life, not very numerous, but very +important, towards which the man as man, and the woman as woman, on +the mere ground of their different sexual function with regard to +reproduction, stand, and must stand, at a somewhat differing angle. +The physical creation of human life, which, in as far as the male is +concerned, consists in a few moments of physical pleasure; to the female +must always signify months of pressure and physical endurance, crowned +with danger to life. To the male, the giving of life is a laugh; to the +female, blood, anguish, and sometimes death. Here we touch one of the +few yet important differences between man and woman as such. + +The twenty thousand men prematurely slain on a field of battle, mean, +to the women of their race, twenty thousand human creatures to be +borne within them for months, given birth to in anguish, fed from +their breasts and reared with toil, if the numbers of the tribe and the +strength of the nation are to be maintained. In nations continually at +war, incessant and unbroken child-bearing is by war imposed on all women +if the state is to survive; and whenever war occurs, if numbers are to +be maintained, there must be an increased child-bearing and rearing. +This throws upon woman as woman a war tax, compared with which all that +the male expends in military preparations is comparatively light. + +The relations of the female towards the production of human life +influences undoubtedly even her relation towards animal and all life. +“It is a fine day, let us go out and kill something!” cries the typical +male of certain races, instinctively. “There is a living thing, it will +die if it is not cared for,” says the average woman, almost equally +instinctively. It is true, that the woman will sacrifice as mercilessly, +as cruelly, the life of a hated rival or an enemy, as any male; but she +always knows what she is doing, and the value of the life she takes! +There is no light-hearted, careless enjoyment in the sacrifice of life +to the normal woman; her instinct, instructed by practical experience, +steps in to prevent it. She always knows what life costs; and that it is +more easy to destroy than create it. + +It is also true, that, from the loftiest standpoint, the condemnation +of war which has arisen in the advancing human spirit, is in no sense +related to any particular form of sex function. The man and the woman +alike, who with Isaiah on the hills of Palestine, or the Indian Buddha +under his bo-tree, have seen the essential unity of all sentient +life; and who therefore see in war but a symptom of that crude +disco-ordination of life on earth, not yet at one with itself, which +affects humanity in these early stages of its growth: and who are +compelled to regard as the ultimate goal of the race, though yet perhaps +far distant across the ridges of innumerable coming ages, that harmony +between all forms of conscious life, metaphorically prefigured by the +ancient Hebrew, when he cried, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb; and +the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion +and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them!”--to that +individual, whether man or woman, who has reached this standpoint, there +is no need for enlightenment from the instincts of the child-bearers of +society as such; their condemnation of war, rising not so much from the +fact that it is a wasteful destruction of human flesh, as that it is an +indication of the non-existence of that co-ordination, the harmony which +is summed up in the cry, “My little children, love one another.” + +But for the vast bulk of humanity, probably for generations to come, the +instinctive antagonism of the human child-bearer to reckless destruction +of that which she has at so much cost produced, will be necessary to +educate the race to any clear conception of the bestiality and insanity +of war. + +War will pass when intellectual culture and activity have made possible +to the female an equal share in the control and governance of modern +national life; it will probably not pass away much sooner; its +extinction will not be delayed much longer. + +It is especially in the domain of war that we, the bearers of men’s +bodies, who supply its most valuable munition, who, not amid the clamour +and ardour of battle, but singly, and alone, with a three-in-the-morning +courage, shed our blood and face death that the battlefield may have +its food, a food more precious to us than our heart’s blood; it is we +especially, who in the domain of war, have our word to say, a word no +man can say for us. It is our intention to enter into the domain of +war and to labour there till in the course of generations we have +extinguished it. + +If today we claim all labour for our province, yet more especially do we +claim those fields in which the difference in the reproductive function +between man and woman may place male and female at a slightly different +angle with regard to certain phases of human life. + + + +Chapter V. Sex Differences. + +If we examine the physical phenomenon of sex as it manifests itself in +the human creature, we find, in the first stages of the individual’s +existence, no difference discernible, by any means we have at present at +our command, between those germs which are ultimately to become male or +female. Later, in the foetal life, at birth, and through infancy though +the organs of sex serve to distinguish the male from the female, there +is in the general structure and working of the organism little or +nothing to divide the sexes. + +Even when puberty is reached, with its enormous development of sexual +and reproductive activity modifying those parts of the organism +with which it is concerned, and producing certain secondary sexual +characteristics, there yet remains the major extent of the human +body and of physical function little, or not at all, affected by sex +modification. The eye, the ear, the sense of touch, the general organs +of nutrition and respiration and volition are in the main identical, +and often differ far more in persons of the same sex than in those of +opposite sexes; and even on the dissecting-table the tissues of the male +and female are often wholly indistinguishable. + +It is when we consider the reproductive organs themselves and their +forms of activity, and such parts of the organism modified directly +in relation to them, that a real and important difference is found +to exist, radical though absolutely complemental. It is exactly as we +approach the reproductive functions that the male and female bodies +differ; exactly as we recede from them that they become more and more +similar, and even absolutely identical. Taking the eye, perhaps the most +highly developed, complex organ in the body, and, if of an organ the +term may be allowed, the most intellectual organ of sense, we find it +remains the same in male and female in structure, in appearance, and +in function throughout life; while the breast, closely connected with +reproduction, though absolutely identical in both forms in infancy, +assumes a widely different organisation when reproductive activity is +actually concerned. + +When we turn to the psychic phase of human life an exactly analogous +phenomenon presents itself. The intelligence, emotions, and desires of +the human infant at birth differ not at all perceptibly, as its sex may +be male or female; and such psychic differences as appear to exist in +later childhood are undoubtedly very largely the result of artificial +training, forcing on the appearance of psychic sexual divergencies long +before they would tend spontaneously to appear; as where sports and +occupations are interdicted to young children on the ground of their +supposed sexual unfitness; as when an infant female is forcibly +prevented from climbing or shouting, and the infant male from amusing +himself with needle and thread or dolls. Even in the fully adult human, +and in spite of differences of training, the psychic activities over +a large extent of life appear to be absolutely identical. The male and +female brains acquire languages, solve mathematical problems, and master +scientific detail in a manner wholly indistinguishable: as illustrated +by the fact that in modern universities the papers sent in by male and +female candidates are as a rule absolutely identical in type. Placed in +like external conditions, their tastes and emotions, over a vast part of +the surface of life, are identical; and, in an immense number of those +cases where psychic sex differences appear to exist, subject to rigid +analysis they are found to be purely artificial creations, for, when +other races or classes are studied, they are found non-existent as +sexual characteristics; as when the female is supposed by ignorant +persons in modern European societies to have an inherent love for bright +colours and ornaments, not shared by the male; while experience of other +societies and past social conditions prove that it is as often the male +who has been even more desirous of attiring himself in bright raiment +and adorning himself with brilliant jewels; or as when, among certain +tribes of savages, the use of tobacco is supposed to be a peculiarly +female prerogative, while, in some modern societies, it is supposed +to have some relation to masculinity. (The savage male of today +when attired in his paint, feathers, cats’ tails and necklaces is an +immeasurably more ornamented and imposing figure than his female, even +when fully attired for a dance in beads and bangles: the Oriental +male has sometimes scarcely been able to walk under the weight of his +ornaments; and the males of Europe a couple of centuries ago, with their +powdered wigs, lace ruffles and cuffs, paste buckles, feathered cocked +hats, and patches were quite as ridiculous in their excess of adornment +as the complementary females of their own day, or the most parasitic +females of this. Both in the class and the individual, whether male or +female, an intense love of dress and meretricious external adornment is +almost invariably the concomitant and outcome of parasitism. Were the +parasite female class in our own societies today to pass away, French +fashions with their easeless and grotesque variations (shaped not for +use or beauty, but the attracting of attention) would die out. And the +extent to which any woman today, not herself belonging to the parasite +class and still labouring, attempts to follow afar off the fashions of +the parasite, may be taken generally as an almost certain indication +of the ease with which she would accept parasitism were its conditions +offered her. The tendency of the cultured and intellectually labouring +woman of today to adopt a more rational type of attire, less shaped to +attract attention to the individual than to confer comfort and abstain +from impeding activity, is often spoken of as an attempt on the part +of woman slavishly to imitate man. What is really taking place is, that +like causes are producing like effects on human creatures with common +characteristics.) + +But there remain certain psychic differences in attitude, on the part of +male and female as such, which are inherent and not artificial: and, +in the psychic human world, it is exactly as we approach the sphere +of sexual and reproductive activity, with those emotions and instincts +connected directly with sex and the reproduction of the race, that a +difference does appear. + +In the animal world all forms of psychic variations are found allying +themselves now with the male sex form, and then with the female. In the +insect and fish worlds, where the female forms are generally larger +and stronger than the male, the female is generally more pugnacious and +predatory than the male. Among birds-of-prey, where also the female form +is larger and stronger than the male, the psychic differences seem +very small. Among eagles and other allied forms, which are strictly +monogamous, the affection of the female for the male is so great that +she is said never to mate again if the male dies, and both watch over +and care for the young with extreme solicitude. The ostrich male form, +though perhaps larger than the female, shares with her the labour of +hatching the eggs, relieving the hen of her duty at a fixed hour daily: +and his care for the young when hatched is as tender as hers. Among +song-birds, in which the male and female forms are so alike as sometimes +to be indistinguishable, and which are also monogamous, the male and +female forms not only exhibit the same passionate affection for each +other (in the case of the South African cock-o-veet, they have one +answering love-song between them; the male sounding two or three notes +and the female completing it with two or three more), but they build the +nest together and rear the young with an equal devotion. In the case of +the little kapok bird of the Cape, a beautiful, white, fluffy round +nest is made by both out of the white down of a certain plant, and +immediately below the entrance to the cavity in which the little female +sits on the eggs is a small shelf or basket, in which the tiny male sits +to watch over and guard them. It is among certain orders of birds that +sex manifestations appear to assume their most harmonious and poetical +forms on earth. Among gallinaceous birds, on the other hand, where the +cock is much larger and more pugnacious than the female, and which are +polygamous, the cock does not court the female by song, but seizes her +by force, and shows little or no interest in his offspring, neither +sharing in the brooding nor feeding the young; and even at times seizing +any tempting morsel which the young or the hen may have discovered. + +Among mammals the male form tends to be slightly larger than the female, +though not always (the female whale, for instance, being larger than the +male); the male also tends to be more pugnacious and less careful of the +young; though to this rule also there are exceptions. In the case of +the South African mierkat, for instance, the female is generally more +combative and more difficult to tame than the male; and it is the +males who from the moment of birth watch over the young with the most +passionate and tender solicitude, keeping them warm under their persons, +carrying them to places of safety in their mouths, and feeding them till +full grown; and this they do not only for their own young, but to any +young who may be brought in contact with them. We have known a male +mierkat so assiduous in feeding young that were quite unrelated to +himself, taking to them every morsel of food given him, that we have +been compelled to shut him up in a room alone when feeding him, to +prevent his starving himself to death: the male mierkat thus exhibiting +exactly those psychic qualities which are generally regarded as +peculiarly feminine; the females, on the other hand, being far more +pugnacious towards each other than are the males. + +Among mammals generally, except the tendency to greater pugnacity shown +by the male towards other males, and the greater solicitude for the +young shown generally by the female form, but not always; the psychic +differences between the two sex forms are not great. Between the male +and female pointer as puppies, there is as little difference in mental +activity as in physical; and even when adult, on the hunting ground, +that great non-sexual field in which their highest mental and physical +activities are displayed, there is little or nothing which distinguishes +materially between the male and female; in method, manner, and quickness +they are alike; in devotion to man, they are psychically identical. (It +is often said the female dog is more intelligent than the male; but I +am almost inclined to doubt this, after long and close study of both +forms.) It is at the moment when the reproductive element comes fully +into play that similarity and identity cease. In the intensity of +initial sex instinct they are alike; the female will leap from windows, +climb walls, and almost endanger her life to reach the male who waits +for her, as readily as he will to gain her. It is when the bitch lies +with her six young drawing life from her breast, and gazing with wistful +and anguished solicitude at every hand stretched out to touch them, a +world of emotion concentrated on the sightless creatures, and a whole +body of new mental aptitudes brought into play in caring for them, it is +then that between her and the male who begot them, but cares nothing for +them, there does rise a psychic difference that is real and wide. Alike +in the sports of puppydom and the non-sexual activities of adult age; +alike in the possession of the initial sexual instinct which draws the +sex to the sex, the moment active sexual reproduction is concerned, +there is opened to the female a certain world of sensations and +experiences, from which her male companion is for ever excluded. + +So also is our human world: alike in the sports, and joys, and sorrows +of infancy; alike in the non-sexual labours of life; alike even in the +possession of that initial instinct which draws sex to sex, and which, +differing slightly in its forms of manifestation is of corresponding +intensity in both; the moment actual reproduction begins to take place, +the man and the woman enter spheres of sensation, perception, emotion, +desire, and knowledge which are not, and cannot be, absolutely +identical. Between the man who, in an instant of light-hearted +enjoyment, begets the infant (who may even beget it in a state of +half-drunken unconsciousness, and may easily know nothing of its +existence for months or years after it is born, or never at all; and who +under no circumstances can have any direct sensational knowledge of its +relation to himself) and the woman who bears it continuously for months +within her body, and who gives birth to it in pain, and who, if it is to +live, is compelled, or was in primitive times, to nourish it for +months from the blood of her own being--between these, there exists of +necessity, towards a limited but all-important body of human interests +and phenomena, a certain distinct psychic attitude. At this one point, +the two great halves of humanity stand confronting certain great +elements in human existence, from angles that are not identical. From +the moment the universal initial attraction of sex to sex becomes +incarnate in the first concrete sexual act till the developed offspring +attains maturity, no step in the reproductive journey, or in their +relation to their offspring, has been quite identical for the man and +the woman. And this divergence of experiences in human relations must +react on their attitude towards that particular body of human concerns +which directly is connected with the sexual reproduction of the race; +and, it is exactly in these fields of human activity, where sex as sex +is concerned, that woman as woman has a part to play which she cannot +resign into the hands of others. + +It may be truly said that in the laboratory, the designing-room, the +factory, the mart, the mathematician’s study, and in all fields of +purely abstract or impersonal labour, while the entrance of woman would +add to the net result of human labour in those fields, and though a +grave injustice is done to the individual woman excluded from perhaps +the only field she is fitted to excel in, that yet woman as woman +has probably little or nothing to contribute in those fields that is +radically distinct from that which man might supply; there would be a +difference in quantity but probably none in kind, in the work done for +the race. + +But in those spheres of social activity, dealing especially with +certain relations between human creatures because of their diverse if +complementary relation to the production of human life, the sexes as +sexes have often each a part to play which the other cannot play for +them; have each a knowledge gained from phases of human experience, +which the other cannot supply; here woman as woman has something +radically distinct to contribute to the sum-total of human knowledge, +and her activity is of importance, not merely individually, but +collectively, and as a class. + +That demand, which today in all democratic self-governing countries is +being made by women, to be accorded their share in the electoral, and +ultimately in the legislative and executive duties of government, is +based on two grounds: the wider, and more important, that they find +nothing in the nature of their sex-function which exonerates them, +as human beings, from their obligation to take part in the labours of +guidance and government in their state: the narrower, but yet important +ground, that, in as far as in one direction, i.e., in the special form +of their sex function takes, they do differ from the male, they, in so +far, form a class and are bound to represent the interests of, and to +give the state the benefit of, the insight of their class, in certain +directions. + +Those persons who imagine that the balance of great political parties +in almost any society would be seriously changed by the admission of its +women in public functions are undoubtedly wholly wrong. The fundamental +division of humans into those inclined to hold by the past and defend +whatever is, and those hopeful of the future and inclined to introduce +change, would probably be found to exist in much the same proportion +were the males or the females of any given society compared: and the +males and females of each class will in the main share the faults, the +virtues, and the prejudices of their class. The individuals may lose by +being excluded on the ground of sex from a share of public labour, and +by being robbed of a portion of their lawful individual weight in their +own society; and the society as a whole may lose by having a smaller +number to select its chosen labourers from; yet, undoubtedly, on the +mass of social, political, and international questions, the conclusions +arrived at by one sex would be exactly those arrived at by the other. + +Were a body of humans elected to adjudicate upon Greek accents, or to +pass a decision on the relative fineness of woollens and linens, the +form of sex of the persons composing it would probably have no bearing +on the result; there is no rational ground for supposing that, on a +question of Greek accents or the thickness of cloths, equally instructed +males and females would differ. Here sex plays no part. The experience +and instructedness of the individuals would tell: their sexual +attributes would be indifferent. + +But there are points, comparatively small, even very small, in number, +yet of vital importance to human life, in which sex does play a part. + +It is not a matter of indifference whether the body called to adjudicate +upon the questions, whether the temporary sale of the female body for +sexual purposes shall or shall not be a form of traffic encouraged +and recognised by the state; or whether one law shall exist for the +licentious human female and another for the licentious human male; +whether the claim of the female to the offspring she bears shall or +shall not equal that of the male who begets it; whether an act of +infidelity on the part of the male shall or shall not terminate the +contract which binds his female companion to him, as completely as an +act of infidelity on her part would terminate her claim on him; it is +not a matter of indifference whether a body elected to adjudicate on +such points as these consists of males solely, or females solely, or of +both combined. As it consists of one, or the other, or of both, so not +only will the answers vary, but, in some cases, will they be completely +diverse. Here we come into that very narrow, but important, region, +where sex as sex manifestly plays its part; where the male as male +and the female as female have each their body of perceptions and +experiences, which they do not hold in common; here one sex cannot +adequately represent the other. It is here that each sexual part has +something radically distinct to contribute to the wisdom of the race. + +We, today, take all labour for our province! We seek to enter the +non-sexual fields of intellectual or physical toil, because we are +unable to see today, with regard to them, any dividing wall raised by +sex which excludes us from them. We are yet equally determined to enter +those in which sex difference does play its part, because it is here +that woman, the bearer of the race, must stand side by side with man, +the begetter; if a completed human wisdom, an insight that misses no +aspect of human life, and an activity that is in harmony with the entire +knowledge and the entire instinct of the entire human race, is to exist. +It is here that the man cannot act for the woman nor the woman for the +man; but both must interact. It is here that each sexual half of the +race, so closely and indistinguishably blended elsewhere, has its own +distinct contribution to make to the sum total of human knowledge and +human wisdom. Neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without +the woman, the completed human intelligence. + +Therefore;--We claim, today, all labour for our province! Those large +fields in which it would appear sex plays no part, and equally those +smaller in which it plays a part. + + + +Chapter VI. Certain Objections. + +It has been stated sometimes, though more often implicitly than in any +direct or logical form, (this statement being one it is not easy to make +definitely without its reducing itself to nullity!) that woman should +seek no fields of labour in the new world of social conditions that +is arising about us, as she has still her function as child-bearer: a +labour which, by her own showing, is arduous and dangerous, though she +may love it as a soldier loves his battlefield; and that woman should +perform her sex functions only, allowing man or the state to support +her, even when she is only potentially a child-bearer and bears no +children. (Such a scheme, as has before been stated, was actually put +forward by a literary man in England some years ago: but he had the +sense to state that it should apply only to women of the upper classes, +the mass of labouring women, who form the vast bulk of the English women +of the present day, being left to their ill-paid drudgery and their +child-bearing as well!) + +There is some difficulty in replying to a theorist so wholly delusive. +Not only is he to be met by all the arguments against parasitism of +class or race; but, at the present day, when probably much more than +half the world’s most laborious and ill-paid labour is still performed +by women, from tea pickers and cocoa tenders in India and the islands, +to the washerwomen, cooks, and drudging labouring men’s wives, who +in addition to the sternest and most unending toil, throw in their +child-bearing as a little addition; and when, in some civilised +countries women exceed the males in numbers by one million, so +that there would still be one million females for whom there was no +legitimate sexual outlet, though each male in the nation supported a +female, it is somewhat difficult to reply with gravity to the assertion, +“Let Woman be content to be the ‘Divine Child-bearer,’ and ask no more.” + +Were it worth replying gravely to so idle a theorist, we might +answer:--Through all the ages of the past, when, with heavy womb and +hard labour-worn hands, we physically toiled beside man, bearing up by +the labour of our bodies the world about us, it was never suggested to +us, “You, the child-bearers of the race, have in that one function a +labour that equals all others combined; therefore, toil no more in other +directions, we pray of you; neither plant, nor build, nor bend over +the grindstone; nor far into the night, while we sleep, sit weaving the +clothing we and our children are to wear! Leave it to us, to plant, to +reap, to weave, to work, to toil for you, O sacred child-bearer! Work no +more; every man of the race will work for you!” This cry in all the grim +ages of our past toil we never heard. + +And today, when the lofty theorist, who tonight stands before the +drawing-room fire in spotless shirtfront and perfectly fitting clothes, +and declaims upon the amplitude of woman’s work in life as child-bearer, +and the mighty value of that labour which exceeds all other, making +it unnecessary for her to share man’s grosser and lower toils: is it +certain he always in practical life remembers his theory? When waking +tomorrow morning, he finds that the elderly house drudge, who rises +at dawn while he yet sleeps to make his tea and clean his boots, has +brought his tea late, and polished his boots ill; may he not even +sharply condemn her, and assure her she will have to leave unless +she works harder and rises earlier? Does he exclaim to her, “Divine +child-bearer! Potential mother of the race! Why should you clean my +boots or bring up my tea, while I lie warm in bed? Is it not enough you +should have the holy and mysterious power of bringing the race to life? +Let that content you. Henceforth I shall get up at dawn and make my own +tea and clean my own boots, and pay you just the same!” Or, should his +landlady, now about to give birth to her ninth child, send him up a +poorly-cooked dinner or forget to bring up his scuttle of coals, does he +send for her and thus apostrophise the astonished matron: “Child-bearer +of the race! Producer of men! Cannot you be contented with so noble and +lofty a function in life without toiling and moiling? Why carry up heavy +coal-scuttles from the cellar and bend over hot fires, wearing out nerve +and brain and muscle that should be reserved for higher duties? We, we, +the men of the race, will perform its mean, its sordid, its grinding +toil! For woman is beauty, peace, repose! Your function is to give life, +not to support it by labour. The Mother, the Mother! How wonderful it +sounds! Toil no more! Rest is for you; labour and drudgery for +us!” Would he not rather assure her that, unless she laboured more +assiduously and sternly, she would lose his custom and so be unable to +pay her month’s rent; and perhaps so, with children and an invalid or +drunken husband whom she supports, be turned out into the streets? For, +it is remarkable, that, with theorists of this class, it is not toil, or +the amount of toil, crushing alike to brain and body, which the female +undertakes that is objected to; it is the form and the amount of the +reward. It is not the hand-labouring woman, even in his own society, +worn out and prematurely aged at forty with grinding domestic toil, that +has no beginning and knows no end-- + + “Man’s work is from sun to sun, + But the woman’s work is never done”-- + +it is not the haggard, work-crushed woman and mother who irons his +shirts, or the potential mother who destroys health and youth in +the sweater’s den where she sews the garments in which he appears so +radiantly in the drawing-room which disturbs him. It is the thought +of the woman-doctor with an income of some hundreds a year, who drives +round in her carriage to see her patients, or receives them in her +consulting-rooms, and who spends the evening smoking and reading before +her study fire or receiving her guests; it is the thought of the woman +who, as legislator, may loll for perhaps six hours of the day on the +padded seat of legislative bench, relieving the tedium now and then by +a turn in the billiard- or refreshment-room, when she is not needed to +vote or speak; it is the thought of the woman as Greek professor, with +three or four hundred a year, who gives half a dozen lectures a week, +and has leisure to enjoy the society of her husband and children, and +to devote to her own study and life of thought; it is she who wrings his +heart. It is not the woman, who, on hands and knees, at tenpence a day, +scrubs the floors of the public buildings, or private dwellings, that +fills him with anguish for womanhood: that somewhat quadrupedal posture +is for him truly feminine, and does not interfere with his ideal of the +mother and child-bearer; and that, in some other man’s house, or perhaps +his own, while he and the wife he keeps for his pleasures are visiting +concert or entertainment, some weary woman paces till far into the night +bearing with aching back and tired head the fretful, teething child +he brought into the world, for a pittance of twenty or thirty pounds +a year, does not distress him. But that the same woman by work in an +office should earn one hundred and fifty pounds, be able to have a +comfortable home of her own, and her evening free for study or pleasure, +distresses him deeply. It is not the labour, or the amount of labour, +so much as the amount of reward that interferes with his ideal of the +eternal womanly; he is as a rule quite contented that the women of the +race should labour for him, whether as tea-pickers or washerwomen, or +toilers for the children he brings into the world, provided the reward +they receive is not large, nor in such fields as he might himself at any +time desire to enter. + +When master and ass, drawing a heavy burden between them, have climbed +a steep mountain range together; clambering over sharp rocks and across +sliding gravel where no water is, and herbage is scant; if, when they +were come out on the top of the mountain, and before them stretch broad, +green lands, and through wide half-open gates they catch the glimpse of +trees waving, and there comes the sound of running waters, if then, the +master should say to his ass, “Good beast of mine, lie down! I can push +the whole burden myself now: lie down here; lie down, my creature; you +have toiled enough; I will go on alone!” then it might be even the beast +would whisper (with that glimpse through the swinging gates of the green +fields beyond)--“Good master, we two have climbed this mighty mountain +together, and the stones have cut my hoofs as they cut your feet. +Perhaps, if when we were at the foot you had found out that the burden +was two heavy for me, and had then said to me, ‘Lie down, my beastie; +I will carry on the burden alone; lie down and rest!’ I might then have +listened. But now, just here, where I see the gates swinging open, a +smooth road, and green fields before us, I think I shall go on a little +farther. We two have climbed together; maybe we shall go on yet, side by +side.” + +For the heart of labouring womanhood cries out today to the man who +would suggest she need not seek new fields of labour, that child-bearing +is enough for her share in life’s labour, “Do you dare say to us +now, that we are fit to do nothing but child-bear, that when that is +performed our powers are exhausted? To us, who yet through all the ages +of the past, when child-bearing was persistent and incessant, regarded +it hardly as a toil, but rather as the reward of labour; has our right +hand lost its cunning and our heart its strength, that today, when human +labour is easier and humanity’s work grows fairer, you say to us, ‘You +can do nothing now but child-bear’? Do you dare to say this, to us, when +the upward path of the race has been watered by the sweat of our brow, +and the sides of the road by which humanity has climbed are whitened on +either hand by the bones of the womanhood that has fallen there, toiling +beside man? Do you dare say this, to us, when even today the food you +eat, the clothes you wear, the comfort you enjoy, is largely given you +by the unending muscular toil of woman?” + +As the women of old planted and reaped and ground the grain that the +children they bore might eat; as the maidens of old spun that they might +make linen for their households and obtain the right to bear men; so, +though we bend no more over grindstones, or labour in the fields, +or weave by hand, it is our intention to enter all the new fields of +labour, that we also may have the power and right to bring men into the +world. It is our faith that the day comes in which not only shall no man +dare to say, “It is enough portion for a woman in life that she bear +a child,” but when it will rather be said, “What noble labour has that +woman performed, that she should have the privilege of bringing a man or +woman child into the world?” + +But, it has also been objected, “What, and if the female half of +humanity, though able, in addition to the exercise of its reproductive +functions, to bear its share in the new fields of social labour as it +did in the old, be yet in certain directions a less productive labourer +than the male? What if, in the main, the result of the labour of the two +halves of humanity should not be found to be exactly equal?” + +To this it may be answered, that it is within the range of possibility +that, mysteriously co-ordinated with the male reproductive function in +the human, there may also be in some directions a tendency to possess +gifts for labour useful and beneficial to the race in the stage of +growth it has now reached, in excess of those possessed by the female. +We see no reason why this should be so, and, in the present state of our +knowledge, this is a point on which no sane person would dogmatise; but +it is possible! It may, on the other hand be, that, taken in the bulk, +when all the branches of productive labour be considered, as the ages +pass, the value of the labour of the two halves of humanity will be +found so identical and so closely to balance, that no superiority can +possibly be asserted of either, as the result of the closest analysis. +This also is possible. + +But, it may also be, that, when the bulk and sum-total of human +activities is surveyed in future ages, it will be found that the value +of the labour of the female in the world that is rising about us, has +exceeded in quality or in quantity that of the male. We see no reason +either, why this should be; there is nothing in the nature of the +reproductive function in the female human which of necessity implies +such superiority. + +Yet it may be, that, with the smaller general bulk and the muscular +fineness, and the preponderance of brain and nervous system in net bulk +over the fleshy and osseous parts of the organism, which generally, +though by no means always, characterises the female as distinguished +from the male of the human species, there do go mental qualities which +will peculiarly fit her for the labours of the future. It may be, that +her lesser possession of the mere muscular and osseous strength, which +were the elements of primary importance and which gave dominance in one +stage of human growth, and which placed woman at a social disadvantage +as compared with her companion, will, under new conditions of life, in +which the value of crude mechanical strength as distinguished from high +vitality and strong nervous activity is passing away, prove as largely +to her advantage, as his muscular bulk and strength in the past proved +to the male. It is quite possible, in the new world which is arising +about us, that the type of human most useful to society and best fitted +for its future conditions, and who will excel in the most numerous forms +of activity, will be, not merely the muscularly powerful and bulky, but +the highly versatile, active, vital, adaptive, sensitive, physically +fine-drawn type; and, as that type, though, like the muscularly heavy +and powerful, by no means peculiar to and confined to one sex, is yet +rather more commonly found in conjunction with a female organism, it is +quite possible that, taken in the bulk and on the whole, the female half +of humanity may, by virtue of its structural adaptions, be found most +fitted for the bulk of human labours in the future! + +As with individuals and races, so also with sexes, changed social +conditions may render exactly those subtile qualities, which in one +social state were a disadvantage, of the highest social advantage in +another. + +The skilled diplomatist or politician, so powerful in his own element, +on board ship during a storm becomes at once of less general value or +consideration than the meanest sailor who can reef a sail or guide a +wheel; and, were we to be reduced again suddenly to a state of nature, +a company of highly civilised men and women would at once, as we have +before remarked, find their social value completely inverted; landed on +a desert shore, unarmed and naked, to encounter wild beasts and savages, +and to combat nature for food, the primitive scale of human values would +at once reassert itself. It would not then be the mighty financier, the +learned judge, or great poet and scholar who would be sought after, but +the thickest-headed navvy who could throw a stone so exactly that he +brought down a bird, and who could in a day raise a wall which would +shelter the group; and the man so powerful that he could surely strike +an enemy or wild beast dead with his club, would at once be objects of +social regard and attain individual eminence, and perhaps dominance. It +would not be the skilled dancer, who in one night in a civilised state +earns her hundreds, nor yet the fragile clinging beauty, but the girl +of the broad back and the strong limb, who could collect wood and carry +water, who would be the much considered and much sought after female in +such a community. Even in the animal world, there is the same inversion +in values, according as the external conditions vary. The lion, while +ruling over every other creature in his primitive wilds, by right of his +untamable ferocity, size, and rapacity, is yet bound to become a prey +to destruction and extermination when he comes into contact with the +new condition brought by man; while the wild dog, so immeasurably +his inferior in size and ferocity, is tamed, survives and multiplies, +exactly because he has been driven by his smaller structure and lesser +physical force to develop those social instincts and those forms of +intelligence which make him amenable to the new condition of life and +valuable in them. The same inversion in the value of qualities may be +traced in the history of human species. The Jews, whose history has been +one long story of oppression at the hands of more muscular, physically +powerful and pugilistic peoples; whom we find first making bricks under +the lash of the Egyptian, and later hanging his harp as an exile among +the willow-trees of Babylon; who, for eighteen hundred years, has been +trampled, tortured, and despised beneath the feet of the more physically +powerful and pugilistic, but not more vital, keen, intelligent, or +persistent races of Europe; has, today, by the slow turning of the +wheel of life, come uppermost. The Egyptian task-master and warrior +have passed; what the Babylonian was we know no more, save for a few mud +tablets and rock inscriptions recording the martial victories; but the +once captive Jew we see today in every city and every street; until at +last, the descendants of those men who spat when they spoke his +name, and forcibly drew his teeth to extract his money from him, wait +patiently behind each other for admission to his offices and palaces; +while nobles solicit his daughters in marriage and kings are proud to be +summoned to his table in hope of golden crumbs, and great questions +of peace and war are often held balanced in the hand of one little +asthmatic Jew. After long ages of disgrace and pariahism, the time has +come, whether for good or for evil, when just those qualities which the +Jew possesses and which subtilely distinguish him from others, are in +demand; while those he has not are sinking into disuse; exactly that +domination of the reflective faculties over the combative, which once +made him slave, also saved him from becoming extinct in wars; and the +intellectual quickness, the far-sighted keenness, the persistent mental +activity and self-control, which could not in those ages save him from +degradation or compensate for his lack of bone and muscle and combative +instinct, are the very qualities the modern world demands and crowns. +The day of Goliath with his club and his oaths is fast passing, and the +day of David with his harp and skilfully constructed sling is coming +near and yet nearer. + +The qualities which give an animal, a race, or an individual, a higher +utility or social dominance must always be influenced by any change in +the environment. As the wheel of life slowly revolves, that which was +lowest comes continually uppermost, and that which was dominant becomes +subservient. + +It is possible, that women, after countless ages, during which that +smaller relative development in weight and muscularity which is incident +to almost all females which suckle their young, and that lesser desire +for pugilism inherent in almost all females who bear their young alive, +rendered her lacking in the two qualities which made for individual +dominance in her societies, may yet, in the future, discover that those +changes in human conditions, which have done away with the primary +necessity for muscular force and pugilistic arts, have also inverted her +place in the scale of social values. + +It is possible, that the human female, like the Jew, the male of that +type farthest removed from the dominant male type of the past, may in +the future find, that, so far from those qualities which, in an earlier +condition, lessened her social value and power of labour, continuing to +do so, they will increase it. That the delicacy of hand, lightness of +structure which were fatal when the dominant labour of life was to +wield a battle-axe or move a weight, may be no restraint but even an +assistance in the intellectual and more delicate mechanical fields of +labour; that the preponderance of nervous and cerebral over muscular +material, and the tendency towards preservative and creative activity +over pugilistic and destructive, so far from shutting her off from the +most important fields of human toil, may increase her fitness for them! +We have no certain proof that it is so at present; but, if woman’s +long years of servitude and physical subjection, and her experience as +child-bearer and protector of infancy, should, in any way, be found +in the future to have endowed her, as a kind of secondary sexual +characteristic, with any additional strength of social instinct, +with any exceptional width of human sympathy and any instinctive +comprehension; then, it is not merely possible, but certain, that, in +the ages that are coming, in which the labour of the human race will be +not mainly destructive but conservative, in which the building up and +developing of humanity, and not continually the inter-destruction of +part by part, will be the dominant activity of the race, that woman as +woman, and by right of that wherein she differs from the male, will have +an all-important part to play in the activity of the race. + +The matter is one of curious and subtle interest, but what practically +concerns the human race is, not which of the two sexual halves which +must always coexist is best fitted to excel in certain human labours in +this or that direction, at this or that time, nor even which has most +to contribute to the sum-total of human activities; but it is this, that +every individual unit humanity contains, irrespective of race, sex, or +type, should find exactly that field of labour which may most contribute +to its development, happiness, and health, and in which its peculiar +faculties and gifts shall be most effectively and beneficially exerted +for its fellows. + +It matters nothing, and less than nothing, to us as women, whether, of +those children we bring into the world, our sons should excel in virtue, +intelligence, and activity, our daughters, or our daughters our sons; +so that, in each child we bring to life, not one potentiality shall be +lost, nor squandered on a lesser when it might have been expended on a +higher and more beneficent task. So that not one desirable faculty +of the marvellous creatures we suffer to bring into existence be left +uncultivated, to us, as women, it matters nothing and less than nothing, +which sex type excels in action, in knowledge, or in virtue, so both +attain their best. There is one thing only on earth, as precious to +woman as the daughter who springs from her body--it is the son. There +is one thing only dearer to the woman than herself--it is the man. As no +sane human concerns himself as to whether the right or left ventricle +of his heart works most satisfactorily, or is most essential to his +well-being, so both be perfect in health and activity; as no sane woman +distresses herself lest her right breast should not excel the left in +beauty and use; so no sane man or woman questions anxiously over the +relative perfections of male and female. In love there is no first nor +last. What we request of life is that the tools should be given to his +hand or hers who can best handle them; that the least efficient +should not be forced into the place of the more efficient, and that +an artificially drawn line should never repress the activities of the +individual creature, which we as women bring into the world. + +But it may also be said to us, “What, and if, all your dreams and hopes +for woman and the future of the race be based on air? What, and if, +desirable as it is that woman should not become practically dependent on +her sexual function alone, and should play at least as great a part in +the productive labour of the race in the future as she played in that of +the past--what, if woman cannot take the same vast share in the complex +and largely mental labour fields of the future, as in the largely +physical fields of the past? What, and if, in spite of all her effort +and sacrifice to attain this end, exactly now and when the labour of +civilised societies becomes mental rather than mechanical, woman be +found wanting?” + +In Swiss valleys today the traveller comes sometimes on the figure of +a solitary woman climbing the mountain-side, on her broad shoulders a +mighty burden of fodder or manure she is bearing up for the cattle, or +to some patch of cultivated land. Steady, unshrinking eyes look out +at you from beneath the deeply seamed forehead, and a strand of hair, +perhaps almost as white as the mountain snows on the peaks above, +escapes from under the edge of the binding handkerchief. The face is +seamed and seared with the stern marks of toil and endurance, as the +mountain-side is with marks of storm and avalanche. It is the face of +one who has brought men into the world in labour and sorrow, and toiled +mightily to sustain them; and dead must be the mind to the phases of +human existence, who does not see in that toilworn figure one of the +mighty pillars, which have in the long ages of the past sustained the +life of humanity on earth, and made possible its later development; and +much must the tinsel of life have dazzled him, who fails to mark it with +reverence and, metaphorically, to bow his head before it--the type of +the mighty labouring woman who has built up life. + +But, it may be said, what if, in the ages to come, it should never again +be possible for any man to stand bowed with the same respect in the +presence of any other of earth’s mighty toilers, who should also be +mother and woman? What, if she, who could combine motherhood with the +most unending muscular toil, will fall flaccid and helpless where the +labour becomes mental? What if, struggle as she will, she can become +nothing in the future but the pet pug-dog of the race, lying on its +sofa, or the Italian greyhound, shivering in its silken coat? What +if woman, in spite of her most earnest aspirations and determined +struggles, be destined to failure in the new world that is rising +because of inherent mental incapacity? + +There are many replies which may be made to such a suggestion. It is +often said with truth, that the ordinary occupations of woman in the +past and present, and in all classes of society in which she is not +parasitic, do demand, and have always demanded, a very high versatility +and mental activity, as well as physical: that the mediaeval baron’s +wife who guided her large household probably had to expend far more pure +intellect in doing so than the baron in his hunting and fighting; that +the wife of the city accountant probably expends today more reason, +imagination, forethought, and memory on the management of her small +household, than he in his far simpler, monotonous arithmetical toil; +that, as there is no cause for supposing that the tailor or shoemaker +needs less intellect in his calling than the soldier or prize-fighter, +so there is nothing to suggest that, in the past, woman has not expended +as much pure intellect in the mass of her callings as the man in his; +while in those highly specialised intellectual occupations, in which +long and uninterrupted training tending to one point is necessary, +such as the liberal professions and arts, that, although woman has +practically been excluded from the requisite training, and the freedom +to place herself in the positions in which they can be pursued, that +yet, by force of innate genius and gifts in such directions, she has +continually broken through the seemingly insuperable obstacles, and +again and again taken her place beside man in those fields of labour; +showing thereby not merely aptitude but passionate and determined +inclination in those directions. With equal truth, it is often remarked +that, when as an independent hereditary sovereign, woman has been placed +in the only position in which she has ever been able freely and fully +to express her own individuality, and though selected at random by fate +from the mass of women, by the mere accident of birth or marriage, she +has shown in a large percentage of cases that the female has the power +to command, organise, and succeed in one of the most exacting and +complex of human employments, the government of nations; that from the +days of Amalasontha to Isabella of Spain, Elizabeth of England, and +Catharine of Russia, women have not failed to grasp the large impersonal +aspects of life, and successfully and powerfully to control them, when +placed in the supreme position in which it was demanded. It may also +be stated, and is sometimes, with so much iteration as to become almost +wearisome, that women’s adequacy in the modern fields of intellectual or +skilled manual labour is no more today an open matter for debate, than +the number of modern women who, as senior wranglers, doctors, &c., +have already successfully entered the new fields, and the high standard +attained by women in all university examinations to which they are +admitted, and their universal success in the administration of parochial +matters, wherever they have been allowed to share it, proves their +intellectual and moral fitness for the new forms of labour. + +All these statements are certainly interesting, and may be unanswerable. +And yet--if the truth be told, it is not ultimately on these grounds +that many of us base our hope and our certitude with regard to the +future of woman. Our conviction as to the plenitude of her powers for +the adequate performance of lofty labours in these new fields, springs +not at all from a categorical enumeration of the attainments or +performances of individual women or bodies of women in the past or +present; it has another source. + +There was a bird’s egg once, picked up by chance upon the ground, and +those who found it bore it home and placed it under a barn-door fowl. +And in time the chick bred out, and those who had found it chained it by +the leg to a log, lest it should stray and be lost. And by and by they +gathered round it, and speculated as to what the bird might be. One +said, “It is surely a waterfowl, a duck, or it may be a goose; if we +took it to the water it would swim and gabble.” But another said, “It +has no webs to its feet; it is a barn-door fowl; should you let it loose +it will scratch and cackle with the others on the dung-heap.” But a +third speculated, “Look now at its curved beak; no doubt it is a parrot, +and can crack nuts!” But a fourth said, “No, but look at its wings; +perhaps it is a bird of great flight.” But several cried, “Nonsense! +No one has ever seen it fly! Why should it fly? Can you suppose that +a thing can do a thing which no one has ever seen it do?” And the +bird--the bird--with its leg chained close to the log, preened its wing. +So they sat about it, speculating, and discussing it: and one said +this, and another that. And all the while as they talked the bird sat +motionless, with its gaze fixed on the clear, blue sky above it. And one +said, “Suppose we let the creature loose to see what it will do?”--and +the bird shivered. But the others cried, “It is too valuable; it might +get lost. If it were to try to fly it might fall down and break its +neck.” And the bird, with its foot chained to the log, sat looking +upward into the clear blue sky; the sky, in which it had never been--for +the bird--the bird, knew what it would do--because it was an eaglet! + +There is one woman known to many of us, as each human creature knows but +one on earth; and it is upon our knowledge of that woman that we base +our certitude. + +For those who do not know her, and have not this ground, it is probably +profitable and necessary that they painfully collect isolated facts and +then speculate upon them, and base whatever views they should form upon +these collections. It might even be profitable that they should form no +definite opinions at all, but wait till the ages of practical experience +have put doubt to rest. For those of us who have a ground of knowledge +which we cannot transmit to outsiders, it is perhaps more profitable to +act fearlessly than to argue. + +Finally, it may be objected to the entrance of woman to the new fields +of labour, and in effect it is often said--“What, and if, all you have +sought be granted you--if it be fully agreed that woman’s ancient fields +of toil are slipping from her, and that, if she do not find new, +she must fall into a state of sexual parasitism, dependent on her +reproductive functions alone; and granted, that, doing this, she must +degenerate, and that from her degeneration must arise the degeneration +and arrest of development of the males as well as of the females of her +race; and granting also, fully, that in the past woman has borne one +full half, and often more than one half, of the weight of the productive +labours of her societies, in addition to child-bearing; and allowing +more fully that she may be as well able to sustain her share in the +intellectual labours of the future as in the more mechanical labours of +the past; granting all this, may there not be one aspect of the question +left out of consideration which may reverse all conclusions as to the +desirability, and the human good to be attained by woman’s enlarged +freedom and her entering into the new fields of toil? What if, the +increased culture and mental activity of woman necessary for her +entrance into the new fields, however desirable in other ways for +herself and the race, should result in a diminution, or in an absolute +abolition of the sexual attraction and affection, which in all ages of +the past has bound the two halves of humanity together? What if, though +the stern and unlovely manual labours of the past have never affected +her attractiveness for the male of her own society, nor his for her; +yet the performance by woman of intellectual labours, or complex and +interesting manual labour, and her increased intelligence and width, +should render the male objectionable to her, and the woman undesirable +to the male; so that the very race itself might become extinct through +the dearth of sexual affection? What, and if, the woman ceases to value +the son she bears, and to feel desire for and tenderness to the man who +begets him; and the man to value and desire the woman and her offspring? +Would not such a result exceed, or at least equal, in its evil to +humanity, anything which could result from the degeneration and +parasitism of woman? Would it not be well, if there exist any +possibility of this danger, that woman, however conscious that she can +perform social labour as nobly and successfully under the new conditions +of life as the old, should yet consciously, and deliberately, with her +eyes open, sink into a state of pure intellectual torpor, with all its +attendant evils, rather than face the more irreparable loss which her +development and the exercise of her gifts might entail? Would it not be +well she should deliberately determine, as the lesser of two evils, +to dwarf herself and limit her activities and the expansion of her +faculties, rather than that any risk should be run of the bond of desire +and emotion between the two sexual halves of humanity being severed? If +the race is to decay and become extinct on earth, might it not as well +be through the parasitism and decay of woman, as through the decay of +the sexual instinct?” + +It is not easy to reply with rationality, or even gravity, to a +supposition, which appears to be based on the conception that a sudden +and entire subversion of the deepest of those elements on which human, +and even animal, life on the globe is based, is possible from so +inadequate a cause: and it might well be passed silently, were it not +that, under some form or other, this argument frequently recurs, now +in a more rational and then in a more irrational form; constituting +sometimes an objection in even moderately intelligent minds, to the +entrance of woman into the new fields of labour. + +It must be at once frankly admitted that, were there the smallest +possible danger in this direction, the sooner woman laid aside all +endeavour in the direction of increased knowledge and the attainment of +new fields of activity, the better for herself and for the race. + +When one considers the part which sexual attraction plays in the order +of sentient life on the globe, from the almost unconscious attractions +which draw amoeboid globule to amoeboid globule, on through the endless +progressive forms of life; till in monogamous birds it expresses itself +in song and complex courtship and sometimes in the life-long conjugal +affection of mates; and which in the human race itself, passing through +various forms, from the imperative but almost purely physical attraction +of savage male and female for each other, till in the highly developed +male and female it assumes its aesthetic and intellectual but not less +imperative form, couching itself in the songs of poet, and the sometimes +deathless fidelity of richly developed man and woman to each other, we +find it not only everywhere, but forming the very groundwork on which is +based sentient existence; never eradicable, though infinitely varied +in its external forms of expression. When we consider that in the human +world, from the battles and dances of savages to the intrigues and +entertainments of modern Courts and palaces, the attraction of man and +woman for each other has played an unending part; and, that the most +fierce ascetic religious enthusiasm through the ages, the flagellations +and starvations in endless nunneries and monasteries, have never been +able to extirpate nor seriously to weaken for one moment the master +dominance of this emotion; that the lowest and most brutal ignorance, +and the highest intellectual culture leave mankind, equally, though in +different forms, amenable to its mastery; that, whether in the brutal +guffaw of sex laughter which rings across the drinking bars of our +modern cities, and rises from the comfortable armchairs in fashionable +clubs; or in the poet’s dreams, and the noblest conjugal relations of +men and women linked together for life, it plays still today on earth +the vast part it played when hoary monsters ploughed after each other +through Silurian slime, and that still it forms as ever the warp on +which in the loom of human life the web is woven, and runs as a thread +never absent through every design and pattern which constitutes the +individual existence on earth, it appears not merely as ineradicable; +but it is inconceivable to suppose that that attraction of sex towards +sex, which, with hunger and thirst, lie, as the triune instincts, at +the base of animal life on earth, should ever be exterminable by the +comparatively superficial changes resulting from the performance of this +or that form of labour, or the little more or less of knowledge in one +direction or another. + +That the female who drives steam-driven looms, producing scores of yards +of linen in a day, should therefore desire less the fellowship of her +corresponding male than had she toiled at a spinning-wheel with hand +and foot to produce one yard; that the male should desire less of the +companionship of the woman who spends the morning in doctoring babies in +her consulting-room, according to the formularies of the pharmacopoeia, +than she who of old spent it on the hillside collecting simples for +remedies; that the woman who paints a modern picture or designs a modern +vase should be less lovable by man, than her ancestor who shaped the +first primitive pot and ornamented it with zigzag patterns was to the +man of her day and age; that the woman who contributes to the support +of her family by giving legal opinions will less desire motherhood and +wifehood than she who in the past contributed to the support of +her household by bending on hands and knees over her grindstone, or +scrubbing floors, and that the former should be less valued by man than +the latter--these are suppositions which it is difficult to regard as +consonant with any knowledge of human nature and the laws by which it is +dominated. + +On the other hand, if it be supposed that the possession of wealth or +the means of earning it makes the human female objectionable to the +male, all history and all daily experience negates it. The eager hunt +for heiresses in all ages and social conditions, make it obvious +that the human male has a strong tendency to value the female who can +contribute to the family expenditure; and the case is yet, we believe, +unrecorded of a male who, attracted to a female, becomes averse to her +on finding she has material good. The female doctor or lawyer earning a +thousand a year will always, and today certainly does, find more suitors +than had she remained a governess or cook, labouring as hard, earning +thirty pounds. + +While, if the statement that the female entering on new fields of labour +will cease to be lovable to the male be based on the fact that she will +then be free, all history and all human experience yet more negates its +truth. The study of all races in all ages, proves that the greater the +freedom of woman in any society, the higher the sexual value put upon +her by the males of that society. The three squaws who walk behind the +Indian, and whom he has captured in battle or bought for a few axes or +lengths of tobacco, and over whom he exercises the despotic right of +life and death, are probably all three of infinitesimal value in his +eyes, compared with the value of his single, free wife to one of our +ancient, monogamous German ancestors; while the hundred wives and +concubines purchased by a Turkish pasha have probably not even an +approximate value in his eyes, when compared with the value which +thousands of modern European males set upon the one comparatively free +woman, whom they may have won, often only after a long and tedious +courtship. + +So axiomatic is the statement that the value of the female to the male +varies as her freedom, that, given an account of any human society in +which the individual female is highly valued, it will be perfectly safe +to infer the comparative social freedom of woman; and, given a statement +as to the high degree of freedom of woman in a society, it will be safe +to infer the great sexual value of the individual woman to man. + +Finally, if the suggestion, that men and women will cease to be +attractive to one another if women enter modern fields of labour, be +based on the fact that her doing so may increase her intelligence and +enlarge her intellectual horizon, it must be replied that the whole +trend of human history absolutely negates the supposition. There is +absolutely no ground for the assumption that increased intelligence and +intellectual power diminishes sexual emotion in the human creature of +either sex. The ignorant savage, whether in ancient or modern societies, +who violates and then clubs a female into submission, may be dominated, +and is, by sex emotions of a certain class; but not less dominated +have been the most cultured, powerful, and highly differentiated male +intelligences that the race has produced. A Mill, a Shelley, a Goethe, +a Schiller, a Pericles, have not been more noted for vast intellectual +powers, than for the depth and intensity of their sexual emotions. And, +if possible, with the human female, the relation between intensity of +sexual emotion and high intellectual gifts has been yet closer. The life +of a Sophia Kovalevsky, a George Eliot, an Elizabeth Browning have not +been more marked by a rare development of the intellect than by deep +passionate sexual emotions. Nor throughout the history of the race has +high intelligence and intellectual power ever tended to make either male +or female unattractive to those of the opposite sex. + +The merely brilliantly attired and unintelligent woman, probably never +awakened the same intensity of profound sex emotion even among the men +of her own type, which followed a George Sand; who attracted to herself +with deathless force some of the most noted men of her generation, even +when, nearing middle age, stout, and attired in rusty and inartistic +black, she was to be found rolling her cigarettes in a dingy office, +scorning all the external adornments with which less attractive females +seek to supply a hidden deficiency. Probably no more hopeless mistake +could be made by an ascetic seeking to extirpate sex emotion and the +attraction of the sexes for one another, than were he to imagine that +in increasing virility, intelligence, and knowledge this end could be +attained. He might thereby differentiate and greatly concentrate the +emotions, but they would be intensified; as a widely spread, shallow, +sluggish stream would not be annihilated but increased in force and +activity by being turned into a sharply defined, clear-cut course. + +And if, further, we turn to those secondary manifestations of sexual +emotion, which express themselves in the relations of human progenitors +to their offspring, we shall find, if possible more markedly, that +increase of intelligence and virility does not diminish but increases +the strength of the affections. As the primitive, ignorant male, often +willingly selling his offspring or exposing his female infants to death, +often develops, with the increase of culture and intelligence, into +the extremely devoted and self-sacrificing male progenitor of civilised +societies; so, yet even more markedly, does the female relation with her +offspring, become intensified and permanent, as culture and intelligence +and virility increase. The Bushwoman, like the lowest female barbarians +in our own societies, will often readily dispose of her infant son for +a bottle of spirits or a little coin; and even among somewhat more +mentally developed females, strong as is the affection of the average +female for her new born offspring, the closeness of the relation between +mother and child tends rapidly to shrink as time passes, so that by +the time of adolescence is reached the relation between mother and son +becomes little more than a remembrance of a close inter-union which +once existed. It is, perhaps, seldom, till the very highest point of +intellectual growth and mental virility has been reached by the human +female, that her relation with her male offspring becomes a permanent +and active and dominant factor in the lives of both. The concentrated +and all-absorbing affection and fellowship which existed between the +greatest female intellect France has produced and the son she bore, +dominating both lives to the end, the fellowship of the English +historian with his mother, who remained his chosen companion and the +sharer of all his labours through life, the relation of St. Augustine +to his mother, and those of countless others, are relations almost +inconceivable where the woman is not of commanding and active +intelligence, and where the passion of mere physical instinct is +completed by the passion of the intellect and spirit. + +There appears, then, from the study of human nature in the past, no +ground for supposing that if, as a result of woman’s adopting new forms +of labour, she should become more free, more wealthy, or more actively +intelligent, that this could in any way diminish her need of the +physical and mental comradeship of man, nor his need of her; nor that +it would affect their secondary sexual relations as progenitors, save +by deepening, concentrating, and extending throughout life the parental +emotions. The conception that man’s and woman’s need of each other could +be touched, or the emotions binding the sexes obliterated, by any mere +change in the form of labour performed by the woman of the race, is as +grotesque in its impossibility, as the suggestion that the placing of a +shell on the seashore this way or that might destroy the action of the +earth’s great tidal wave. + +But, it may be objected, “If there be absolutely no ground for the +formation of such an opinion, how comes it that, in one form or another, +it is so often expressed by persons who object to the entrance of woman +into new or intellectual fields of labour? Where there is smoke must +there not also be fire?” To which it must be replied, “Without fire, no +smoke; but very often the appearance of smoke where neither smoke nor +fire exist!” + +The fact that a statement is frequently made or a view held forms no +presumptive ground of its truth; but it is undoubtedly a ground for +supposing that there is an appearance or semblance which makes it appear +truth, and which suggests it. The universally entertained conception +that the sun moved round the world was not merely false, but the reverse +of the truth; all that was required for its inception was a fallacious +appearance suggesting it. + +When we examine narrowly the statement, that the entrance of woman into +the new fields of labour, with its probably resulting greater freedom +of action, economic independence and wider culture, may result in a +severance between the sexes, it becomes clear what that fallacious +appearance is, which suggests this. + +The entrance of a woman into new fields of labour, though bringing her +increased freedom and economic independence, and necessitating increased +mental training and wider knowledge, could not extinguish the primordial +physical instinct which draws sex to sex throughout all the orders of +sentient life; and still less could it annihilate that subtler mental +need, which, as humanity develops, draws sex to sex for emotional +fellowship and close intercourse; but, it might, and undoubtedly would, +powerfully react and readjust the relations of certain men with certain +women! + +While the attraction, physical and intellectual, which binds sex to sex +would remain the same in volume and intensity, the forms in which it +would express itself, and, above all, the relative power of individuals +to command the gratification of their instincts and desires, would be +fundamentally altered, and in many cases inverted. + +In the barbarian state of societies, where physical force dominates, +it is the most muscular and pugilistically and brutally and animally +successful male who captures and possesses the largest number of +females; and no doubt he would be justified in regarding any social +change which gave to woman a larger freedom of choice, and which would +so perhaps give to the less brutal but perhaps more intelligent male, +whom the woman might select, an equal opportunity for the gratification +of his sexual wishes and for the producing of offspring, as a serious +loss. And, from the purely personal standpoint, he would undoubtedly +be right in dreading anything which tended to free woman. But he would +manifestly not have been justified in asserting, that woman’s increased +freedom of choice, or the fact that the other men would share his +advantage in the matter of obtaining female companionship, would in any +way lessen the amount of sexual emotion or the tenderness of relation +between the two halves of humanity. He would not by brute force possess +himself of so many females, nor have so large a circle of choice, +under the new conditions; but what he lost, others would gain; and +the intensity of the sex emotions and the nearness and passion of the +relation between the sexes be in no way touched. + +In our more civilised societies, as they exist today, woman possesses +(more often perhaps in appearance than reality!) a somewhat greater +freedom of sexual selection; she is no longer captured by muscular +force, but there are still conditions entirely unconnected with +sex attractions and affections, which yet largely dominate the sex +relations. + +It is not the man of the strong arm, but the man of the long purse, +who unduly and artificially dominates in the sexual world today. +Practically, wherever in the modern world woman is wholly or partially +dependent for her means of support on the exercise of her sexual +functions, she is dependent more or less on the male’s power to support +her in their exercise, and her freedom of choice is practically so far +absolutely limited. Probably three-fourths of the sexual unions in our +modern European societies, whether in the illegal or recognised legal +forms, are dominated by or largely influenced by the sex purchasing +power of the male. With regard to the large and savage institution of +prostitution, which still lies as the cancer embedded in the heart of +all our modern civilised societies, this is obviously and nakedly the +case; the wealth of the male as compared to the female being, with +hideous obtrusiveness, its foundation and source of life. But the +purchasing power of the male as compared with the poverty of the female +is not less painfully, if a little less obtrusively, displayed in those +layers of society lying nearer the surface. From the fair, effete young +girl of the wealthier classes in her city boudoir, who weeps copiously +as she tells you she cannot marry the man she loves, because he says he +has only two hundred a year and cannot afford to keep her; to the father +who demands frankly of his daughter’s suitor how much he can settle on +her before consenting to his acceptance, the fact remains, that, under +existing conditions, not the amount of sex affection, passion, and +attraction, but the extraneous question of the material possessions of +the male, determines to a large extent the relation of the sexes. The +parasitic, helpless youth who has failed in his studies, who possesses +neither virility, nor charm of person, nor strength of mind, but who +possesses wealth, has a far greater chance of securing unlimited sexual +indulgence and the life companionship of the fairest maid, than her +brother’s tutor, who may be possessed of every manly and physical grace +and mental gift; and the ancient libertine, possessed of nothing but +material good, has, especially among the so-called upper classes of our +societies, a far greater chance of securing the sex companionship of +any woman he desires as wife, mistress, or prostitute, than the most +physically attractive and mentally developed male, who may have nothing +to offer to the dependent female but affection and sexual companionship. + +To the male, whenever and wherever he exists in our societies, who +depends mainly for his power for procuring the sex relation he desires, +not on his power of winning and retaining personal affection, but, on +the purchasing power of his possessions as compared to the poverty of +the females of his society, the personal loss would be seriously and +at once felt, of any social change which gave to the woman a larger +economic independence and therefore greater freedom of sexual choice. It +is not an imaginary danger which the young dude, of a certain type which +sits often in the front row of the stalls in a theatre, with sloping +forehead and feeble jaw, watching the unhappy women who dance for +gold--sees looming before him, as he lisps out his deep disapproval +of increased knowledge and the freedom of obtaining the means of +subsistence in intellectual fields by woman, and expresses his vast +preference for the uncultured ballet-girl over all types of cultured and +productive labouring womenhood in the universe. A subtle and profound +instinct warns him, that with the increased intelligence and economic +freedom of woman, he, and such as he, might ultimately be left sexually +companionless; the undesirable, the residuary, male old-maids of the +human race. + +On the other hand, there is undoubtedly a certain body of females who +would lose, or imagine they would lose, heavily by the advance of woman +as a whole to a condition of free labour and economic independence. That +female, wilfully or organically belonging to the parasite class, having +neither the vigour of intellect nor the vitality of body to undertake +any form of productive labour, and desiring to be dependent only upon +the passive performance of sex function merely, would, whether as +prostitute or wife, undoubtedly lose heavily by any social change which +demanded of woman increased knowledge and activity. (She would lose +in two directions: by the social disapprobation which, as the new +conditions became general, would rest on her; and yet more by the +competition of the more developed forms. She would practically become +non-existent.) + +It is exactly by these two classes of persons that the objection is +raised that the entrance of woman into the new fields of labour and her +increased freedom and intelligence will dislocate the relations of +the sexes; and, while from the purely personal standpoint, they +are undoubtedly right, viewing human society as a whole they are +fundamentally wrong. The loss of a small and unhealthy section will be +the gain of human society as a whole. + +In the male voluptuary of feeble intellect and unattractive +individuality, who depends for the gratification of his sexual +instincts, not on his power of winning and retaining the personal +affection and admiration of woman, but on her purchaseable condition, +either in the blatantly barbarous field of sex traffic that lies beyond +the pale of legal marriage, or the not less barbarous though more veiled +traffic within that pale, the entrance of woman into the new fields of +labour, with an increased intellectual culture and economic freedom, +means little less than social extinction. But, to those males who, even +at the present day, constitute the majority in our societies, and who +desire the affection and fellowship of woman rather than a mere material +possession; for the male who has the attributes and gifts of mind or +body, which, apart from any weight of material advantage, would fit him +to hold the affection of woman, however great her freedom of choice, +the gain will be correspondingly great. Given a society in which the +majority of women should be so far self-supporting, that, having their +free share open to them in the modern fields of labour, and reaping the +full economic rewards of their labour, marriage or some form of sexual +sale was no more a matter of necessity to them; so far from this +condition causing a diminution in the number of permanent sex unions, +one of the heaviest bars to them would be removed. It is universally +allowed that one of the disease spots in our modern social condition is +the increasing difficulty which bars conscientious men from entering +on marriage and rearing families, if limited means would in the case of +their death or disablement throw the woman and their common offspring +comparatively helpless into the fierce stream of our modern economic +life. If the woman could justifiably be looked to, in case of the man’s +disablement or death, to take his place as an earner, thousands of +valuable marriages which cannot now be contracted could be entered on; +and the serious social evil, which arises from the fact that while the +self-indulgent and selfish freely marry and produce large families, +the restrained and conscientious are often unable to do so, would +be removed. For the first time in the history of the modern world, +prostitution, using that term in its broadest sense to cover all forced +sexual relationships based, not on the spontaneous affection of the +woman for the man, but on the necessitous acceptance by woman of +material good in exchange for the exercise of her sexual functions, +would be extinct; and the relation between men and women become a +co-partnership between freemen. + +So far from the economic freedom and social independence of the woman +exterminating sexual love between man and woman, it would for the first +time fully enfranchise it. The element of physical force and capture +which dominated the most primitive sex relations, the more degrading +element of seduction and purchase by means of wealth or material good +offered to woman in our modern societies, would then give place to the +untrammelled action of attraction and affection alone between the sexes, +and sexual love, after its long pilgrimage in the deserts, would be +enabled to return at last, a king crowned. + +But, apart from the two classes of persons whose objection to the +entrance of woman to new fields of labour is based more or less +instinctively on the fear of personal loss, there is undoubtedly a +small, if a very small, number of sincere persons whose fear as to +severance between the sexes to result from woman’s entrance into the new +field, is based upon a more abstract and impersonal ground. + +It is not easy to do full justice in an exact statement to views held +generally rather nebulously and vaguely, but we believe we should not +mistake this view, by saying that there are a certain class of perfectly +sincere and even moderately intelligent folk who hold a view which, +expressed exactly, would come to something like this--that the entrance +of woman into new fields would necessitate so large a mental culture and +such a development of activity, mental and physical, in the woman, that +she might ultimately develop into a being so superior to the male and +so widely different from the man, that the bond of sympathy between the +sexes might ultimately be broken and the man cease to be an object of +affection and attraction to the woman, and the woman to the man through +mere dissimilarity. The future these persons seem to see, more or less +vaguely, is of a social condition, in which, the males of the race +remaining precisely as they are today, the corresponding females shall +have advanced to undreamed of heights of culture and intelligence; a +condition in which the hand-worker, and the ordinary official, and +small farmer, shall be confronted with the female astronomer or Greek +professor of astonishing learning and gifts as his only possible +complementary sex companion; and the vision naturally awakens in these +good folk certain misgivings as to sympathy between and suitability for +each other, of these two widely dissimilar parts of humanity. + +It must of course at once be admitted, that, were the two sexual halves +of humanity distinct species, which, having once entered on a course +of evolution and differentiation, might continue to develop along those +distinct lines for countless ages or even for a number of generations, +without reacting through inheritance on each other, the consequences of +such development might ultimately almost completely sever them. + +The development of distinct branches of humanity has already brought +about such a severance between races and classes which are in totally +distinct stages of evolution. So wide is the hiatus between them often, +that the lowest form of sex attraction can hardly cross it; and the more +highly developed mental and emotional sex passion cannot possibly bridge +it. In the world of sex, kind seeks kind, and too wide a dissimilarity +completely bars the existence of the highest forms of sex emotion, and +often even the lower and more purely animal. + +Were it possible to place a company of the most highly evolved human +females--George Sands, Sophia Kovalevskys, or even the average cultured +females of a highly evolved race--on an island where the only males +were savages of the Fugean type, who should meet them on the shores +with matted hair and prognathous jaws, and with wild shouts, brandishing +their implements of death, to greet and welcome them, it is an undoubted +fact that, so great would be the horror felt by the females towards +them, that not only would the race become extinct, but if it depended +for its continuance on any approach to sex affection on the part of the +women, that death would certainly be accepted by all, as the lesser of +two evils. Hardly less marked would be the sexual division if, in place +of cultured and developed females, we imagine males of the same highly +evolved class thrown into contact with the lowest form of primitive +females. A Darwin, a Schiller, a Keats, though all men capable of the +strongest sex emotion and of the most durable sex affections, would +probably be untouched by any emotion but horror, cast into the company +of a circle of Bushmen females with greased bodies and twinkling eyes, +devouring the raw entrails of slaughtered beasts. + +But leaving out even such extreme instances of diversity, the mere +division in culture and mental habits, dividing individuals of the same +race but of different classes, tends largely to exclude the possibility +of at least the nobler and more enduring forms of sex emotion. The +highly cultured denizen of a modern society, though he may enter into +passing and temporary and animal relations with the uncultured peasant +or woman of the street, seldom finds awakened within him in such cases +the depth of emotion and sympathy which is necessary for the enjoyment +of the closer tie of conjugal life; and it may be doubted whether the +highest, most permanent, and intimate forms of sexual affection ever +exist except among humans very largely identical in tastes, habits +of thought, and moral and physical education. (In Greece at a certain +period (as we have before noted) there does appear to have been a +temporary advance of the male, so far in advance of the female as to +make the difference between them almost immeasurable; but he quickly +fell back to the level of the woman.) Were it possible that the entrance +of woman into the new fields of labour should produce any increased +divergence between man and woman in ideals, culture, or tastes, there +would undoubtedly be a dangerous responsibility incurred by any who +fostered such a movement. + +But the most superficial study of human life and the relation of the +sexes negates such a conception. + +The two sexes are not distinct species but the two halves of one whole, +always acting and interacting on each other through inheritance, and +reproducing and blending with each other in each generation. The human +female is bound organically in two ways to the males of her society: +collaterally they are her companions and the co-progenitors with her +of the race; but she is also the mother of the males of each succeeding +generation, bearing, shaping, and impressing her personality upon them. +The males and females of each human society resemble two oxen tethered +to one yoke: for a moment one may move slightly forward and the other +remain stationary; but they can never move farther from each other than +the length of the yoke that binds them; and they must ultimately +remain stationary or move forward together. That which the women of one +generation are mentally or physically, that by inheritance and education +the males of the next tend to be: there can be no movement or change in +one sex which will not instantly have its co-ordinating effect upon the +other; the males of tomorrow are being cast in the mould of the women of +today. If new ideals, new moral conceptions, new methods of action are +found permeating the minds of the women of one generation, they will +reappear in the ideals, moral conceptions, methods of action of the men +of thirty years hence; and the idea that the males of a society can ever +become permanently farther removed from its females than the individual +man is from the mother who bore and reared him, is at variance with +every law of human inheritance. + +If, further, we turn from an abstract consideration of this supposition, +and examine practically in the modern world men and women as they exist +today, the irrationality of the supposition is yet more evident. + +Not merely is the Woman’s Movement of our age not a sporadic and +abnormal growth, like a cancer bearing no organic relation to the +development of the rest of the social organism, but it is essentially +but one important phase of a general modification which the whole of +modern life is undergoing. Further, careful study of the movement will +show that, not only is it not a movement on the part of woman leading to +severance and separation between the woman and the man, but that it +is essentially a movement of the woman towards the man, of the sexes +towards closer union. + +Much is said at the present day on the subject of the “New Woman” (who, +as we have seen, is essentially but the old non-parasitic woman of the +remote past, preparing to draw on her new twentieth-century garb): +and it cannot truly be said that her attitude finds a lack of social +attention. On every hand she is examined, praised, blamed, mistaken for +her counterfeit, ridiculed, or deified--but nowhere can it be said, that +the phenomenon of her existence is overlooked. + +But there exists at the present day another body of social phenomena, +quite as important, as radical, and if possible more far-reaching in its +effects on the present and future, which yet attracts little conscious +attention or animadversion, though it makes itself everywhere felt; as +the shade of a growing tree may be sat under year after year by persons +who never remark its silent growth. + +Side by side with the “New Woman,” corresponding to her, as the two +sides of a coin cast in one mould, though differing from each other in +superficial detail, are yet of one metal, one size, and one value; old +in the sense in which she is old, being merely the reincarnation under +the pressure of new conditions of the ancient forms of his race; new in +the sense in which she is new, in that he is an adaptation to material +and social conditions which have no exact counterpart in the past; more +diverse from his immediate progenitors than even the woman is from hers, +side by side with her today in every society and in every class in which +she is found, stands--the New Man! + +If it be asked, How comes it to pass, if, under the pressure of social +conditions, man shows an analogous change of attitude toward life, +that the change in woman should attract universal attention, while +the corresponding change in the man of her society passes almost +unnoticed?--it would seem that the explanation lies in the fact that, +owing to woman’s less independence of action in the past, any attempt +at change or readaptation on her part has had to overcome greater +resistance, and it is the noise and friction of resistance, more than +the amount of actual change which has taken place, which attracts +attention; as when an Alpine stream, after a long winter frost, breaks +the ice, and with a crash and roar sweeps away the obstructions which +have gathered in its bed, all men’s attention is attracted to it, though +when later a much larger body of water silently forces its way down, no +man observes it. (An interesting practical illustration of this fact +is found in the vast attention and uproar created when the first three +women in England, some thirty odd years ago, sought to enter the medical +profession. At the present day scores of women prepare to enter it +yearly without attracting any general attention; not that the change +which is going on is not far more in volume and social importance, but +that, having overcome the first obstruction, it is now noiseless.) + +Between the Emilias and Sophy Westerns of a bygone generation and the +most typical of modern women, there exists no greater gap (probably not +so great a one) as that which exists between the Tom Joneses and Squire +Westerns of that day and the most typical of entirely modern men. + +The sexual and social ideals which dominated the fox-hunting, +hard-drinking, high-playing, recklessly loose-living country squire, +clergyman, lawyer, and politician who headed the social organism of the +past, are at least as distinct from the ideals which dominate thousands +of their male descendants holding corresponding positions in the +societies of today, as are the ideals of her great-great-grand mother’s +remote from those dominating the most modern of New Women. + +That which most forces itself upon us as the result of a close personal +study of those sections of modern European societies in which change +and adaptation to the new conditions of life are now most rapidly +progressing, is, not merely that equally large bodies of men and women +are being rapidly modified as to their sexual and social ideals and as +to their mode of life, but that this change is strictly complementary. + +If the ideal of the modern woman becomes increasingly one inconsistent +with the passive existence of woman on the remuneration which her sexual +attributes may win from man, and marriage becomes for her increasingly +a fellowship of comrades, rather than the relationship of the owner and +the bought, the keeper and the kept; the ideal of the typically modern +man departs quite as strongly from that of his forefathers in the +direction of finding in woman active companionship and co-operation +rather than passive submission. If the New Woman’s conception of +parenthood differs from the old in the greater sense of the gravity and +obligation resting on those who are responsible for the production of +the individual life, making her attitude toward the production of her +race widely unlike the reckless, unreasoning, maternal reproduction of +the woman of the past, the most typical male tends to feel in at least +the same degree the moral and social obligation entailed by awakening +lifehood: if the ideal which the New Woman shapes for herself of a male +companion excludes the crudely animal hard-drinking, hard-swearing, +licentious, even if materially wealthy gallant of the past; the most +typically modern male’s ideal for himself excludes at least equally +this type. The brothel, the race-course, the gaming-table, and habits +of physical excess among men are still with us; but the most superficial +study of our societies will show that these have fallen into a new place +in the scale of social institutions and manners. The politician, the +clergyman, or the lawyer does not improve his social or public standing +by violent addictions in these directions; to drink his companions +under the table, to be known to have the largest number of illicit sex +relations, to be recognised as an habitual visitant of the gambling +saloon, does not, even in the case of a crowned head, much enhance his +reputation, and with the ordinary man may ultimately prove a bar to all +success. If the New Woman’s conception of love between the sexes is one +more largely psychic and intellectual than crudely and purely physical, +and wholly of an affection between companions; the New Man’s conception +as expressed in the most typical literature and art, produced by +typically modern males, gives voice with a force no woman has surpassed +to the same new ideal. If to the typical modern woman the lifelong +companionship of a Tom Jones or Squire Western would be more intolerable +than death or the most complete celibacy, not less would the most +typical of modern men shrink from the prospect of a lifelong fetterment +to the companionship of an always fainting, weeping, and terrified +Emilia or a Sophia of a bygone epoch. + +If anywhere on earth exists the perfect ideal of that which the modern +woman desires to be--of a labouring and virile womanhood, free, strong, +fearless and tender--it will probably be found imaged in the heart of +the New Man; engendered there by his own highest needs and aspirations; +and nowhere would the most highly developed modern male find an image of +that which forms his ideal of the most fully developed manhood, than in +the ideal of man which haunts the heart of the New Woman. + +Those have strangely overlooked some of the most important phenomena +of our modern world, who see in the Woman’s Movement of our day any +emotional movement of the female against the male, of the woman away +from the man. + +We have called the Woman’s Movement of our age an endeavour on the part +of women among modern civilised races to find new fields of labour as +the old slip from them, as an attempt to escape from parasitism and an +inactive dependence upon sex function alone; but, viewed from another +side, the Woman’s Movement might not less justly be called a part of +a great movement of the sexes towards each other, a movement towards +common occupations, common interests, common ideals, and towards an +emotional sympathy between the sexes more deeply founded and more +indestructible than any the world has yet seen. + +But it may be suggested, and the perception of a certain profound truth +underlies this suggestion; How is it, if there be this close reciprocity +between the lines along which the advanced and typical modern males and +females are developing, that there does exist in our modern societies, +and often among the very classes forming our typically advanced +sections, so much of pain, unrest, and sexual disco-ordination at the +present day? + +The reply to this pertinent suggestion is, that the disco-ordination, +struggle, and consequent suffering which undoubtedly do exist when +we regard the world of sexual relationships and ideals in our modern +societies, do not arise in any way from a disco-ordination between the +sexes as such, but are a part of the general upheaval, of the conflict +between old ideals and new; a struggle which is going on in every branch +the human life in our modern societies, and in which the determining +element is not sex, but the point of evolution which the race or the +individual has reached. + +It cannot be too often repeated, even at the risk of the most wearisome +reiteration, that our societies are societies in a state of rapid +evolution and change. The continually changing material conditions of +life, with their reaction on the intellectual, emotional, and moral +aspects of human affairs, render our societies the most complex and +probably the most mobile and unsettled which the world has ever seen. +As the result of this rapidity of change and complexity, there must +continually exist a large amount of disco-ordination, and consequently, +of suffering. + +In a stationary society where generation has succeeded generation for +hundreds, or it may be for thousands, of years, with little or no change +in the material conditions of life, the desires, institutions, and moral +principles of men, their religious, political, domestic, and sexual +institutions, have gradually shaped themselves in accordance with these +conditions; and a certain harmony, and homogeneity, and tranquillity, +pervades the society. + +In societies in that rapid state of change in which our modern societies +find themselves, where not merely each decade, but each year, and almost +day brings new forces and conditions to bear on life, not only is the +amount of suffering and social rupture, which all rapid, excessive, +and sudden change entails on an organism, inevitable; but, the new +conditions, acting at different angles of intensity on the different +individual members composing the society, according to their positions +and varying intelligence, are producing a society of such marvellous +complexity and dissimilarity in the different individual parts, that +the intensest rupture and disco-ordination between individuals is +inevitable; and sexual ideals and relationships must share in the +universal condition. + +In a primitive society (if a somewhat prolix illustration may be +allowed) where for countless generations the conditions of life had +remained absolutely unchanged; where for ages it had been necessary that +all males should employ themselves in subduing wild beasts and meeting +dangerous foes, polygamy might universally have been a necessity, if the +race were to exist and its numbers be kept up; and society, recognising +this, polygamy would be an institution universally approved and +submitted to, however much suffering it entailed. If food were scarce, +the destruction of superfluous infants and of the aged might also always +have been necessary for the good of the individuals themselves as well +as of society, and the whole society would acquiesce in it without any +moral doubt. If an eclipse of the sun had once occurred in connection +with the appearance of a certain new insect, they mighty universally +regard that insect as a god causing it; and ages might pass without +anything arising to disprove their belief. There would be no social or +religious problem; and the view of one man would be the view of all +men; and all would be more or less in harmony with the established +institution and customs. + +But, supposing the sudden arrival of strangers armed with superior +weapons and knowledge, who should exterminate all wild beasts and render +war and the consequent loss of male life a thing of the past; not only +would the male be driven to encroach on the female’s domain of domestic +agriculture and labour generally, but the males, not being so largely +destroyed, they would soon equal and surpass in numbers the females; and +not only would it then become a moot matter, “a problem,” which labours +were or were not to be performed by man and which by woman, but very +soon, not the woman alone nor the man alone, but both, would be driven +to speculate as to the desirability or necessity of polygamy, which, +were men as numerous as women, would leave many males without sex +companions. The more intelligent and progressive individuals in the +community would almost at once arrive at the conclusion that polygamy +was objectionable; the most fearless would seek to carry their theory +into action; the most ignorant and unprogressive would determinately +stick to the old institutions as inherited from the past, without reason +or question; differences of ideal would cause conflict and dissension +in all parts of the body social, and suffering would ensue, where all +before was fixed and determinate. So also if the strangers introduced +new and improved methods of agriculture, and food became abundant, it +would then at once strike the most far-seeing and readily adaptable +members of the community, both male and female, that there was no +necessity for the destruction of their offspring; old men and women +would begin seriously to object to being hastened to death when they +realised that starvation did not necessarily stare them in the face +if they survived to an extreme old age; the most stupid and hide-bound +members of the community would still continue to sacrifice parents and +offspring long after the necessity had ceased, under the influence of +traditional bias; many persons would be in a state of much moral doubt +as to which course of action to pursue, the old or the new; and bitter +conflict might rage in the community on all these points. Were the +strangers to bring with them telescopes, looking through which it might +at once clearly be seen that an eclipse of the sun was caused merely by +the moon’s passing over its face, the more intelligent members of the +community would at once come to the conclusion that the insect was not +the cause of eclipses, would cease to regard it as a god, and might even +kill it; the more stupid and immobile section of the community might +refuse to look through the telescope, or looking might refuse to see +that it was the moon which caused the eclipse, and their deep-seated +reverence for the insect, which was the growth of ages, would lead them +to regard as impious those individuals who denied its godhead, and might +even lead to the physical destruction of the first unbelievers. The +society, once so homogeneous and co-ordinated in all its parts, would +become at once a society rent by moral and social problems; and endless +suffering must arise to individuals in the attempt to co-ordinate the +ideals, manners, and institutions of the society to the new conditions! +There might be immense gain in many directions; lives otherwise +sacrificed would be spared, a higher and more satisfactory stage of +existence might be entered on; but the disco-ordination and struggle +would be inevitable until the society had established an equilibrium +between its knowledge, its material conditions, and its social, sexual, +and religious ideals and institutions. + +An analogous condition, but of a far more complex kind, exists at the +present day in our own societies. Our material environment differs in +every respect from that of our grandparents, and bears little or no +resemblance to that of a few centuries ago. Here and there, even in our +civilised societies in remote agricultural districts, the old social +conditions may remain partly undisturbed; but throughout the bulk of +our societies the substitution of mechanical for hand-labour, the +wide diffusion of knowledge through the always increasing cheap +printing-press; the rapidly increasing gathering of human creatures into +vast cities, where not merely thousands but millions of individuals are +collected together under physical and mental conditions of life which +invert every social condition of the past; the increasingly rapid means +of locomotion; the increasing intercourse between distant races and +lands, brought about by rapid means of intercommunication, widening +and changing in every direction the human horizon--all these produce a +society, so complex and so rapidly altering, that social co-ordination +between all its parts is impossible; and social unrest, and the strife +of ideals of faiths, of institutions, and consequent human suffering is +inevitable. + +If the ancient guns and agricultural implements which our fathers +taught us to use are valueless in the hands of their descendants, if the +samplers our mothers worked and the stockings they knitted are become +superfluous through the action of the modern loom, yet more are their +social institutions, faiths, and manners of life become daily and +increasingly unfitted to our use; and friction and suffering inevitable, +especially for the most advanced and modified individuals in our +societies. This suffering, if we analyse it closely, rises from three +causes. + +Firstly, it is caused by the fact that mere excessive rapidity of change +tends always easily to become painful, by rupturing violently already +hardened habits and modes of thought, as a very rapidly growing tree +ruptures its bark and exudes its internal juices. + +Secondly, it arises from the fact that individuals of the same human +society, not adapting themselves at the same rate to the new conditions, +or being exposed to them in different degrees, a wide and almost +unparalleled dissimilarity has today arisen between the different +individuals composing our societies; where, side by side with men and +women who have rapidly adapted or are so successfully seeking to adapt +themselves to the new conditions of knowledge and new conditions of +life, that, were they to reappear in future ages in more co-ordinated +societies, they might perhaps hardly appear wholly antiquated, are to be +found men and women whose social, religious, and moral ideals would not +constitute them out of harmony if returned to the primitive camps of the +remote forbears of the human race; while, between these extreme classes +lies that large mass of persons in an intermediate state of development. +This diversity is bound to cause friction and suffering in the +interactions of the members of our societies; more especially, as the +individuals composing each type are not sorted out into classes and +families, but are found scattered through all classes and grades in our +societies. (One of the women holding the most advanced and modern view +of the relation of woman to life whom we have met was the wife of a +Northamptonshire shoemaker; herself engaged in making her living by the +sewing of the uppers of men’s boots.) Persons bound by the closest ties +of blood or social contiguity and compelled to a continual intercourse, +are often those most widely dissevered in their amount of adaptation +to the new conditions of life; and the amount of social friction and +consequent human suffering arising from this fact is so subtle and +almost incalculable, that perhaps it is impossible adequately to portray +it in dry didactic language: it is only truly describable in the medium +of art, where actual concrete individuals are shown acting and reacting +on each other--as in the novel or the drama. We are like a company of +chess-men, not sorted out in kinds, pawns together, kings and queens +together, and knights and rooks together, but simply thrown at haphazard +into a box, and jumbled side by side. In the stationary societies, where +all individuals were permeated by the same political, religious, moral, +and social ideas; and where each class had its own hereditary and fixed +traditions of action and manners, this cause of friction and suffering +had of necessity no existence; individual differences and discord might +be occasioned by personal greeds, ambitions, and selfishnesses, but +not by conflicting conceptions of right and wrong, of the desirable and +undesirable, in all branches of human life. (Only those who have been +thrown into contact with a stationary and homogeneous society such +as that of primitive African tribes before coming in contact with +Europeans; or such as the up-country Boers of South Africa were twenty +years ago, can realise adequately how wholly free from moral and social +problems and social friction such a society can be. It is in studying +such societies that the truth is vividly forced on one, that the key to +half, and more than half, of the phenomena in our own social condition, +can be found only in our rapidly changing conditions necessitating +equally rapid change in our conceptions, ideals, and institutions.) + +Thirdly, the unrest and suffering peculiar to our age is caused by +conflict going on within the individual himself. So intensely rapid is +the change which is taking place in our environment and knowledge that +in the course of a single life a man may pass through half a dozen +phases of growth. Born and reared in possession of certain ideas and +manners of action, he or she may, before middle life is reached, have +had occasion repeatedly to modify, enlarge, and alter, or completely +throw aside those traditions. Within the individuality itself of such +persons, goes on, in an intensified form, that very struggle, conflict, +and disco-ordination which is going on in society at large between its +different members and sections; and agonising moments must arise, when +the individual, seeing the necessity for adopting new courses of action, +or for accepting new truths, or conforming to new conditions, will yet +be tortured by the hold of traditional convictions; and the man or woman +who attempts to adapt their life to the new material conditions and to +harmony with the new knowledge, is almost bound at some time to rupture +the continuity of their own psychological existence. + +It is these conditions which give rise to the fact so often noticed, +that the art of our age tends persistently to deal with subtle social +problems, religious, political, and sexual, to which the art of the past +holds no parallel; and it is so inevitably, because the artist who would +obey the artistic instinct to portray faithfully the world about him, +must portray that which lies at the core of its life. The “problem” + play, novel, and poem are as inevitable in this age, as it was +inevitable that the artist of the eleventh century should portray +tournaments, physical battles, and chivalry, because they were the +dominant element in the life about him. + +It is also inevitable that this suffering and conflict must make itself +felt in its acutest form in the person of the most advanced individual +of our societies. It is the swimmer who first leaps into the frozen +stream who is cut sharpest by the ice; those who follow him find it +broken, and the last find it gone. It is the man or woman who first +treads down the path which the bulk of humanity will ultimately follow, +who must find themselves at last in solitudes where the silence is +deadly. The fact that any course of human action leading to adjustment, +leads also to immediate suffering, by dividing the individual from +the bulk of his fellows; is no argument against it; that solitude and +suffering is the crown of thorns which marks the kingship of earth’s +Messiahs: it is the mark of the leader. + +Thus, social disco-ordination, and subjective conflict and suffering, +pervade the life of our age, making themselves felt in every division +of human life, religious, political, and domestic; and, if they are more +noticeable, and make themselves more keenly felt in the region of sex +than in any other, even the religious, it is because when we enter the +region of sex we touch, as it were, the spinal cord of human existence, +its great nerve centre, where sensation is most acute, and pain and +pleasure most keenly felt. It is not sex disco-ordination that is at the +root of our social unrest; it is the universal disco-ordination which +affects even the world of sex phenomena. + +Also it is necessary to note that the line which divides the progressive +sections of our communities, seeking to co-ordinate themselves to the +new conditions of life, from the retrogressive, is not a line running +coincidentally with the line of sex. A George Sand and a Henrik Ibsen +belong more essentially to the same class in the order of modern +development, than either belongs to any class composed entirely of their +own sex. If we divide humanity into classes according to type, in each +division will be found the male with his complementary female. Side by +side with the old harlot at the street corner anxious to sell herself, +stands the old aboriginal male, whether covered or not with a veneer of +civilisation, eager and desiring to buy. Side by side with the parasitic +woman, seeking only increased pleasure and luxury from her relations +with man, stands the male seeking only pleasure and self-indulgence from +his relations with her. Side by side with the New Woman, anxious for +labour and seeking from man only such love and fellowship as she gives, +stands the New Man, anxious to possess her only on the terms she offers. +If the social movement, through which the most advanced women of our +day are attempting to bring themselves into co-ordination with the new +conditions of life, removes them immeasurably from certain types of the +primitive male; the same movement equally removes the new male from the +old female. The sexual tragedy of modern life lies, not in the fact that +woman as such is tending to differ fundamentally from man as such; but +that, in the unassorted confusion of our modern life, it is continually +the modified type of man or woman who is thrown into the closest +personal relations with the antiquated type of the opposite sex; that +between father and daughter, mother and son, brother and sister, husband +and wife, may sometimes be found to intervene not merely years, but even +centuries of social evolution. + +It is not man as man who opposes the attempt of woman to readjust +herself to the new conditions of life: that opposition arises, perhaps +more often, from the retrogressive members of her own sex. And it is a +fact which will surprise no one who has studied the conditions of modern +life; that among the works of literature in all European languages, +which most powerfully advocate the entrance of woman into the new fields +of labour, and which most uncompromisingly demand for her the widest +training and freedom of action, and which most passionately seek for +the breaking down of all artificial lines which sever the woman from the +man, many of the ablest and most uncompromising are the works of males. + +The New Man and Woman do not resemble two people, who, standing on a +level plain, set out on two roads, which diverging at different angles +and continued in straight lines, must continue to take them farther and +farther from each other the longer they proceed in them; rather, they +resemble two persons who start to climb a spur of the same mountain from +opposite sides; where, the higher they climb the nearer they come to +each other, being bound ultimately to meet at the top. + +Even that opposition often made by males to the entrance of woman into +the new fields of labour, of which they at present hold the monopoly, +is not fundamentally sexual in its nature. The male who opposes the +entrance of woman into the trade or profession in which he holds more +or less a monopoly, would oppose with equal, and perhaps even greater +bitterness, the opening of its doors to numbers of his own sex who +had before been excluded, and who would limit his gains and share his +privileges. It is the primitive brute instinct to retain as much +as possible for the ego, irrespective of justice or humanity, which +dominates all the lower moral types of humanity, both male and female, +which acts here. The lawyer or physician who objects to the entrance of +women to his highly fenced professional enclosure, would probably object +yet more strenuously if it were proposed to throw down the barriers of +restraint and monetary charges, which would result in the flooding +of his profession by other males: while the mechanic, who resists the +entrance of woman into his especial field, is invariably found even +more persistently to oppose any attempt at entrance on the part of other +males, when he finds it possible to do so. + +This opposition of the smaller type of male, to the entrance of woman +into the callings hitherto apportioned to himself, is sometimes taken as +implying the impossibility of fellowship and affection existing between +the men and women employed in common labour, that the professional +jealousy of the man must necessitate his feeling a hatred and antagonism +towards any one who shares his fields of toil. But the most superficial +study of human life negates such a supposition. Among men, in spite +of the occasional existence of the petty professional jealousies and +antagonism, we find, viewing society as a whole, that common interests, +and above all common labours, are the most potent means of bringing them +into close and friendly relations; and, in fact, they seem generally +essential for the formation of the closest and most permanent human +friendships. In every walk of human life, whether trade, or profession, +we find men associating by choice mainly with, and entertaining often +the profoundest and most permanent friendships for, men engaged in +their own callings. The inner circle of a barrister’s friendships almost +always consists of his fellow-barristers; the city man, who is free to +select his society where he will, will be oftenest found in company with +his fellow-man of business; the medical man’s closest friendship is, in +a large number of cases, for some man who was once his fellow-student +and has passed through the different stages of his professional life +with him; the friends and chosen companions of the actor are commonly +actors; of the savant, savants; of the farmer, farmers; of the sailor, +sailors. So generally is this the case that it would almost attract +attention and cause amusement were the boon companion of the sea captain +a leading politician, and the intimate friend of the clergyman an actor, +or the dearest friend of the farmer an astronomer. Kind seeks kind. +The majority of men by choice frequent clubs where those of their own +calling are found, and especially as life advances and men sink deeper +into their professional grooves, they are found to seek fellowship +mainly among their fellow-workers. That this should be so is inevitable; +common amusements may create a certain bond between the young, but +the performance of common labours, necessitating identical knowledge, +identical habits, and modes of thought, forms a far stronger bond, +drawing men far more powerfully towards social intercourse and personal +friendship and affection than the centrifugal force of professional +jealousies can divide them. + +That the same condition would prevail where women became fellow-workers +with men might be inferred on abstract grounds: but practical experience +confirms this. The actor oftenest marries the actress, the male musician +the female; the reception-room of the literary woman or female +painter is found continually frequented by men of her own calling; the +woman-doctor associates continually with and often marries one of her +own confreres; and as women in increasing numbers share the fields of +labour with men, which have hitherto been apportioned to them alone, the +nature and strength of the sympathy arising from common labours will be +increasingly clear. + +The sharing by men and women of the same labours, necessitating a common +culture and therefore common habits of thought and interests, would +tend to fill that painful hiatus which arises so continually in modern +conjugal life, dividing the man and woman as soon as the first sheen of +physical sexual attraction which glints only over the unknown begins to +fade, and from which springs so large a part of the tragedy of modern +conjugal relations. The primitive male might discuss with her his +success in hunting and her success in finding roots; as the primitive +peasant may discuss today with his wife the crops and cows in which both +are equally interested and which both understand; there is nothing in +their order of life to produce always increasingly divergent habits of +thought and interest. + +In modern civilised life, in many sections, the lack of any common +labour and interests and the wide dissimilarity of the life led by the +man and the woman, tend continually to produce increasing divergence; so +that, long before middle life is reached, they are left without any +bond of co-cohesion but that of habit. The comradeship and continual +stimulation, rising from intercourse with those sharing our closest +interests and regarding life from the same standpoint, the man tends to +seek in his club and among his male companions, and the woman accepts +solitude, or seeks dissipations which tend yet farther to disrupt the +common conjugal life. A certain mental camaraderie and community of +impersonal interests is imperative in conjugal life in addition to a +purely sexual relation, if the union is to remain a living and always +growing reality. It is more especially because the sharing by woman of +the labours of man will tend to promote camaraderie and the existence of +common, impersonal interests and like habits of thought and life, that +the entrance of women into the very fields shared by men, and not into +others peculiarly reserved for her, is so desirable. (The reply once +given by the wife of a leading barrister, when reference was made to the +fact that she and her husband were seldom found in each other’s society, +throws a painful but true light on certain aspects of modern life, +against which the entire woman’s movement of our age is a rebellion. +“My husband,” she said, “is always increasingly absorbed in his legal +duties, of which I understand nothing, and which so do not interest me. +My children are all growing up and at school. I have servants enough to +attend to my house. When he comes home in the evening, if I try to amuse +him by telling him of the things I have been doing during the day, of +the bazaars I am working for, the shopping I have done, the visits I +have paid, he is bored. He is anxious to get away to his study, his +books, and his men friends, and I am left utterly alone. If it were not +for the society of women and other men with whom I have more in common, +I could not bear my life. When we first met as boy and girl, and fell +in love, we danced and rode together and seemed to have everything in +common; now we have nothing. I respect him and I believe he respects me, +but that is all!” It is, perhaps, only in close confidences between +man and man and woman and woman that this open sore, rising from the +divergence in training, habits of life, and occupation between men +and women is spoken of; but it lies as a tragic element at the core of +millions of modern conjugal relations, beneath the smooth superficial +surface of our modern life; breaking out to the surface only +occasionally in the revelations of our divorce courts.) + +It is a gracious fact, to which every woman who has achieved success or +accomplished good work in any of the fields generally apportioned to men +will bear witness, whether that work be in the field of literature, of +science, or the organised professions, that the hands which have been +most eagerly stretched our to welcome her have been those of men; that +the voices which have most generously acclaimed her success have been +those of male fellow-workers in the fields into which she has entered. + +There is no door at which the hand of woman has knocked for admission +into a new field of toil but there have been found on the other side the +hands of strong and generous men eager to turn it for her, almost before +she knocks. + +To those of us who, at the beginning of a new century, stand with shaded +eyes, gazing into the future, striving to descry the outlines of the +shadowy figures which loom before us in the distance, nothing seems of +so gracious a promise, as the outline we seem to discern of a condition +of human life in which a closer union than the world has yet seen shall +exist between the man and the woman: where the Walhalla of our old +Northern ancestors shall find its realisation in a concrete reality, +and the Walkurie and her hero feast together at one board, in a brave +fellowship. + +Always in our dreams we hear the turn of the key that shall close the +door of the last brothel; the clink of the last coin that pays for the +body and soul of a woman; the falling of the last wall that encloses +artificially the activity of woman and divides her from man; always we +picture the love of the sexes, as, once a dull, slow, creeping worm; +then a torpid, earthy chrysalis; at last the full-winged insect, +glorious in the sunshine of the future. + +Today, as we row hard against the stream of life, is it only a blindness +in our eyes, which have been too long strained, which makes us see, far +up the river where it fades into the distance, through all the mists +that rise from the river-banks, a clear, a golden light? Is it only a +delusion of the eyes which makes us grasp our oars more lightly and bend +our backs lower; though we know well that long before the boat reaches +those stretches, other hands than ours will man the oars and guide its +helm? Is it all a dream? + +The ancient Chaldean seer had a vision of a Garden of Eden which lay in +a remote past. It was dreamed that man and woman once lived in joy and +fellowship, till woman ate of the tree of knowledge and gave to man to +eat; and that both were driven forth to wander, to toil in bitterness; +because they had eaten of the fruit. + +We also have our dream of a Garden: but it lies in a distant future. We +dream that woman shall eat of the tree of knowledge together with man, +and that side by side and hand close to hand, through ages of much toil +and labour, they shall together raise about them an Eden nobler than any +the Chaldean dreamed of; an Eden created by their own labour and made +beautiful by their own fellowship. + +In his apocalypse there was one who saw a new heaven and a new earth; +we see a new earth; but therein dwells love--the love of comrades and +co-workers. + +It is because so wide and gracious to us are the possibilities of the +future; so impossible is a return to the past, so deadly is a passive +acquiescence in the present, that today we are found everywhere raising +our strange new cry--“Labour and the training that fits us for labour!” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman and Labour, by Olive Schreiner + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1440 *** |