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diff --git a/20433-h/20433-h.htm b/20433-h/20433-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cf53e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/20433-h/20433-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1148 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Women and Politics</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Women and Politics, by Charles Kingsley</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Women and Politics, by Charles Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Women and Politics + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + + + +Release Date: January 23, 2007 [eBook #20433] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN AND POLITICS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1869 London National Society edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>WOMEN AND POLITICS.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by +the</span><br /> +REV. CANON KINGSLEY.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>REPRINTED FROM</i> +‘<i>MACMILLAN’S MAGAZINE</i>.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Published by the London National +Society for Women’s Suffrage.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON:<br /> +<span class="smcap">printed by</span><br /> +SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, FARRINGDON STREET<br +/> +<span class="smcap">and 80 parliament street, +westminster</span><br /> +1869.</p> +<h2><!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>WOMEN AND POLITICS. <a name="citation3"></a><a +href="#footnote3" class="citation">[3]</a></h2> +<p>Somewhat more than 300 years ago, John Knox, who did more than +any man to mould the thoughts of his nation—and indeed of +our English Puritans likewise—was writing a little book on +the ‘Regiment of Women,’ in which he proved woman, on +account of her natural inferiority to man, unfit to rule.</p> +<p>And but the other day, Mr. John Stuart Mill, who has done more +than any man to mould the thought of the rising generation of +Englishmen, has written a little book, in the exactly opposite +sense, on the ‘Subjection of Women,’ in which he +proves woman, on account of her natural equality with man, to be +fit to rule.</p> +<p>Truly ‘the whirligig of Time brings round its +revenges.’ To this point the reason of civilised +nations has come, or at least is coming fast, after some fifteen +hundred years of unreason, and of a literature of unreason, which +discoursed gravely and learnedly of nuns and witches, hysteria +and madness, persecution and torture, and, like a madman in his +dreams, built up by irrefragable logic a whole inverted pyramid +of seeming truth upon a single false premiss. To this it +has come, after long centuries in which woman was regarded by +celibate theologians as the ‘noxious animal,’ <!-- +page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>the +temptress, the source of earthly misery, which derived—at +least in one case—‘femina’ from +‘fe’ faith, and ‘minus’ less, because +women had less faith than men; which represented them as of more +violent and unbridled animal passions; which explained learnedly +why they were more tempted than men to heresy and witchcraft, and +more subject (those especially who had beautiful hair) to the +attacks of demons; and, in a word, regarded them as a necessary +evil, to be tolerated, despised, repressed, and if possible shut +up in nunneries.</p> +<p>Of this literature of celibate unreason, those who have no +time to read for themselves the pages of Sprenger, Meier, or +Delrio the Jesuit, may find notices enough in Michelet, and in +both Mr. Lecky’s excellent works. They may find +enough of it, and to spare also, in Burton’s ‘Anatomy +of Melancholy.’ He, like Knox, and many another +scholar of the 16th and of the first half of the 17th century, +was unable to free his brain altogether from the <i>idola +specûs</i> which haunted the cell of the bookworm. +The poor student, knowing nothing of women, save from books or +from contact with the most debased, repeated, with the pruriency +of a boy, the falsehoods about women which, armed with the +authority of learned doctors, had grown reverend and +incontestable with age; and even after the Reformation more than +one witch-mania proved that the corrupt tree had vitality enough +left to bring forth evil fruit.</p> +<p>But the axe had been laid to the root thereof. The later +witch prosecutions were not to be compared for extent and +atrocity to the mediæval ones; and first, as it would seem, +in France, and gradually in other European <!-- page 5--><a +name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>countries, the +old contempt of women was being replaced by admiration and +trust. Such examples as that of Marguerite +d’Angoulême did much, especially in the South of +France, where science, as well as the Bible, was opening +men’s eyes more and more to nature and to fact. Good +little Rondelet, or any of his pupils, would have as soon thought +of burning a woman for a witch as they would have of immuring her +in a nunnery.</p> +<p>In Scotland, John Knox’s book came, happily for the +nation, too late. The woes of Mary Stuart called out for +her a feeling of chivalry which has done much, even to the +present day, to elevate the Scotch character. Meanwhile, +the same influences which raised the position of women among the +Reformed in France raised it likewise in Scotland; and there is +no country on earth in which wives and mothers have been more +honoured, and more justly honoured, for two centuries and +more. In England, the passionate loyalty with which +Elizabeth was regarded, at least during the latter part of her +reign, scattered to the winds all John Knox’s arguments +against the ‘Regiment of Women;’ and a literature +sprang up in which woman was set forth no longer as the weakling +and the temptress, but as the guide and the inspirer of +man. Whatever traces of the old foul leaven may be found in +Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, or Ben Jonson, such books as +Sidney’s ‘Arcadia,’ Lyly’s +‘Euphues,’ Spenser’s ‘Fairy Queen,’ +and last, but not least, Shakespeare’s Plays, place the +conception of woman and of the rights of woman on a +vantage-ground from which I believe it can never permanently fall +again—at least until (which God forbid) true manhood has +died out of England. To a boy whose notions of his duty to +woman had been <!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>formed, not on Horace and Juvenal, but +on Spenser and Shakespeare,—as I trust they will be some +day in every public school,—Mr. John Stuart Mill’s +new book would seem little more than a text-book of truths which +had been familiar and natural to him ever since he first stood by +his mother’s knee.</p> +<p>I say this not in depreciation of Mr. Mill’s book. +I mean it for the very highest praise. M. Agassiz says +somewhere that every great scientific truth must go through three +stages of public opinion. Men will say of it, first, that +it is not true; next, that it is contrary to religion; and +lastly, that every one knew it already. The last assertion +of the three is often more than half true. In many cases +every one ought to have known the truth already, if they had but +used their common sense. The great antiquity of the earth +is a case in point. Forty years ago it was still untrue; +five-and-twenty years ago it was still contrary to +religion. Now every child who uses his common sense can +see, from looking at the rocks and stones about him, that the +earth is many thousand, it may be many hundreds of thousands of +years old; and there is no difficulty now in making him convince +himself, by his own eyes and his own reason, of the most +prodigious facts of the glacial epoch.</p> +<p>And so it ought to be with the truths which Mr. Mill has set +forth. If the minds of lads can but be kept clear of Pagan +brutalities and mediæval superstitions, and fed instead on +the soundest and noblest of our English literature, Mr. +Mill’s creed about women will, I verily believe, seem to +them as one which they have always held by instinct; as a natural +deduction from their own intercourse with their mothers, their +aunts, <!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +7</span>their sisters: and thus Mr. Mill’s book may achieve +the highest triumph of which such a book is capable; +namely—that years hence young men will not care to read it, +because they take it all for granted.</p> +<p>There are those who for years past have held opinions +concerning women identical with those of Mr. Mill. They +thought it best, however, to keep them to themselves; trusting to +the truth of the old saying, ‘Run not round after the +world. If you stand still long enough, the world will come +round to you.’ And the world seems now to be coming +round very fast towards their standing-point; and that not from +theory, but from experience. As to the intellectual +capacity of girls when competing with boys (and I may add as to +the prudence of educating boys and girls together), the +experience of those who for twenty years past have kept up mixed +schools, in which the farmer’s daughter has sat on the same +bench with the labourer’s son, has been corroborated by all +who have tried mixed classes, or have, like the Cambridge local +examiners, applied to the powers of girls the same tests as they +applied to boys; and still more strikingly by the results of +admitting women to the Royal College of Science in Ireland, where +young ladies have repeatedly carried off prizes for scientific +knowledge against young men who have proved themselves, by +subsequent success in life, to have been formidable rivals. +On every side the conviction seems growing (a conviction which +any man might have arrived at for himself long ago, if he would +have taken the trouble to compare the powers of his own daughters +with those of his sons), that there is no difference in kind, and +probably none in degree, between the intellect of a woman and +that of a man; <!-- page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>and those who will not as yet assent +to this are growing more willing to allow fresh experiments on +the question, and to confess that, after all (as Mr. Fitch well +says in his report to the Schools Inquiry Commission), ‘The +true measure of a woman’s right to knowledge is her +capacity for receiving it, and not any theories of ours as to +what she is fit for, or what use she is likely to make of +it.’</p> +<p>This is, doubtless, a most important concession. For if +it be allowed to be true of woman’s capacity for learning, +it ought to be—and I believe will be—allowed to be +true of all her other capacities whatsoever. From which +fresh concession results will follow, startling no doubt to those +who fancy that the world always was, and always will be, what it +was yesterday and to-day: but results which some who have +contemplated them steadily and silently for years past, have +learnt to look at not with fear and confusion, but with earnest +longing and high hope.</p> +<p>However startling these results may be, it is certain from the +books, the names whereof head this article, that some who desire +their fulfilment are no mere fanatics or dreamers. They +evince, without exception, that moderation which is a proof of +true earnestness. Mr. Mill’s book it is almost an +impertinence in me to praise. I shall not review it in +detail. It is known, I presume, to every reader of this +Magazine, either by itself or reviews: but let me remind those +who only know the book through reviews, that those reviews +(however able or fair) are most probably written by men of +inferior intellect to Mr. Mill, and by men who have not thought +over the subject as long and as deeply as he has done; and that, +therefore, if <!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 9</span>they wish to know what Mr. Mill +thinks, it would be wisest for them to read Mr. Mill +himself—a truism which (in these days of second-hand +knowledge) will apply to a good many books beside. But if +they still fancy that the advocates of ‘Woman’s +Rights’ in England are of the same temper as certain female +clubbists in America, with whose sayings and doings the public +has been amused or shocked, then I beg them to peruse the article +on the ‘Social Position of Women,’ by Mr. Boyd +Kinnear; to find any fault with it they can; and after that, to +show cause why it should not be reprinted (as it ought to be) in +the form of a pamphlet, and circulated among the working men of +Britain to remind them that their duty toward woman coincides (as +to all human duties) with their own palpable interest. I +beg also attention to Dr. Hodgson’s little book, +‘Lectures on the Education of Girls, and Employment of +Women;’ and not only to the text, but to the valuable notes +and references which accompany them. Or if any one wish to +ascertain the temper, as well as the intellectual calibre of the +ladies who are foremost in this movement, let them read, as +specimens of two different styles, the Introduction to +‘Woman’s Work, and Woman’s Culture,’ by +Mrs. Butler, and the article on ‘Female Suffrage,’ by +Miss Wedgewood, at p. 247. I only ask that these two +articles should be judged on their own merits—the fact that +they are written by women being ignored meanwhile. After +that has been done, it may be but just and right for the man who +has read them to ask himself (especially if he has had a mother), +whether women who can so think and write, have not a right to +speak, and a right to be heard when they speak, of a subject with +which <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>they must be better acquainted than +men—woman’s capacities, and woman’s needs?</p> +<p>If any one who has not as yet looked into this +‘Woman’s Question’ wishes to know how it has +risen to the surface just now, let them consider these words of +Mrs. Butler. They will prove, at least, that the movement +has not had its origin in the study, but in the market; not from +sentimental dreams or abstract theories, but from the necessities +of physical fact:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The census taken eight years ago gave three +and a half millions of women in England working for a +subsistence; and of these two and a half millions were +unmarried. In the interval between the census of 1851 and +that of 1861, the number of self-supporting women had increased +by more than half a million. This is significant; and still +more striking, I believe, on this point, will be the returns of +the nest census two years hence.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thus a demand for employment has led naturally to a demand for +improved education, fitting woman for employment; and that again +has led, naturally also, to a demand on the part of many +thoughtful women for a share in making those laws and those +social regulations which have, while made exclusively by men, +resulted in leaving women at a disadvantage at every turn. +They ask—and they have surely some cause to ask—What +greater right have men to dictate to women the rules by which +they shall live, than women have to dictate to men? All +they demand—all, at least, that is demanded in the volumes +noticed in this review—is fair play for women; ‘A +clear stage and no favour.’ Let ‘natural +selection,’ as Miss Wedgwood well says, decide which is the +superior, and in what. Let it, by <!-- page 11--><a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>the laws of +supply and demand, draught women as well as men into the +employments and positions for which they are most fitted by +nature. To those who believe that the laws of nature are +the laws of God, the <i>Vox Dei in rebus revelata</i>; that to +obey them is to prove our real faith in God, to interfere with +them (as we did in social relations throughout the Middle Ages, +and as we did till lately in commercial relations likewise) by +arbitrary restrictions is to show that we have no faith in God, +and consider ourselves wise enough to set right an ill-made +universe—to them at least this demand must seem both just +and modest.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, many women, and some men also, think the social +status of women is just now in special peril. The late +extension of the franchise has admitted to a share in framing our +laws many thousands of men of that class which—whatever be +their other virtues, and they are many—is most given to +spending their wives’ earnings in drink, and personally +maltreating them; and least likely—to judge from the +actions of certain trades—to admit women to free +competition for employment. Further extension of the +suffrage will, perhaps, in a very few years, admit many thousands +more. And it is no wonder if refined and educated women, in +an age which is disposed to see in the possession of a vote the +best means of self-defence, should ask for votes, for the +defence, not merely of themselves, but of their lowlier sisters, +from the tyranny of men who are as yet—to the shame of the +State—most of them altogether uneducated.</p> +<p>As for the reasonableness of such a demand, I can only +say—what has been said elsewhere—that the present +state of things, ‘in which the franchise is considered <!-- +page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>as something so important and so sacred that the most +virtuous, the most pious, the most learned, the most wealthy, the +most benevolent, the most justly powerful woman, is refused it, +as something too precious for her; and yet it is entrusted, +freely and hopefully, to any illiterate, drunken, wife-beating +ruffian who can contrive to keep a home over his head,’ is +equally unjust and absurd.</p> +<p>There may be some sufficient answer to the conclusion which +conscience and common sense, left to themselves, would draw from +this statement of the case as it now stands: but none has +occurred to me which is not contrary to the first principle of a +free government.</p> +<p>This I presume to be: that every citizen has a right to share +in choosing those who make the laws; in order to prevent, as far +as he can, laws being made which are unjust and injurious to him, +to his family, or to his class; and that all are to be considered +as ‘active’ citizens, save the criminal, the insane, +or those unable to support themselves. The best rough test +of a man’s being able to support himself is, I doubt not, +his being able to keep a house over his head, or, at least, a +permanent lodging; and that, I presume, will be in a few years +the one and universal test of active citizenship, unless we +should meanwhile obtain the boon of a compulsory Government +education, and an educational franchise founded thereon. +But, it must be asked—and answered also—What is there +in such a test, even as it stands now, only partially applied, +which is not as fair for women as it is for men? ‘Is +it just that an educated man, who is able independently to earn +his own livelihood, should have a vote: but that an equally <!-- +page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>educated woman, equally able independently to earn her +own livelihood, should not? Is it just that a man owning a +certain quantity of property should have a vote in respect of +that property: but that a woman owning the same quantity of +property, and perhaps a hundred or a thousand times more, should +have no vote?’ What difference, founded on Nature and +Fact, exists between the two cases?</p> +<p>If it be said that Nature and Fact (arguments grounded on +aught else are to be left to monks and mediæval jurists) +prove that women are less able than men to keep a house over +their head, or to manage their property, the answer is that Fact +is the other way. Women are just as capable as men of +managing a large estate, a vast wealth. Mr. Mill gives a +fact which surprised even him—that the best administered +Indian States were those governed by women who could neither read +nor write, and were confined all their lives to the privacy of +the harem. And any one who knows the English upper classes +must know more than one illustrious instance—besides that +of Miss Burdett Coutts, or the late Dowager Lady +Londonderry—in which a woman has proved herself able to use +wealth and power as well, or better, than most men. The +woman at least is not likely, by gambling, horseracing, and +profligacy, to bring herself and her class to shame. Women, +too, in every town keep shops. Is there the slightest +evidence that these shops are not as well managed, and as +remunerative, as those kept by men?—unless, indeed, as too +often happens, poor Madame has her Mantalini and his vices to +support, as well as herself and her children. As for the +woman’s power of supporting herself and keeping up at least +a lodging <!-- page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 14</span>respectably, can any one have lived +past middle age without meeting dozens of single women, or +widows, of all ranks, who do that, and do it better and more +easily than men, because they do not, like men, require wine, +beer, tobacco, and sundry other luxuries? So wise and +thrifty are such women, that very many of them are able, out of +their own pittance, to support beside themselves others who have +no legal claim upon them. Who does not know, if he knows +anything of society, the truth of Mr. Butler’s +words?—‘It is a very generally accepted axiom, and +one which it seems has been endorsed by thoughtful men, without a +sufficiently minute examination into the truth of it, that a +man—in the matter of maintenance—means generally a +man, a wife and children; while a woman means herself alone, free +of dependence. A closer inquiry into the facts of life +would prove that conclusions have been too hastily adopted on the +latter head. I believe it may be said with truth that there +is scarcely a female teacher in England, who is not working for +another or others besides herself,—that a very large +proportion are urged on of necessity in their work by the +dependence on them of whole families, in many cases of their own +aged parents,—that many hundreds are keeping broken-down +relatives, fathers, and brothers, out of the workhouse, and that +many are widows supporting their own children. A few +examples, taken at random from the lists of governesses applying +to the Institution in Sackville Street, London, would illustrate +this point. And let it be remembered that such cases are +the rule, and not the exception. Indeed, if the facts of +life were better known, the hollowness of this defence of the +inequality of payment would become manifest; for it <!-- page +15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>is in +theory alone that in families man is the only bread-winner, and +it is false to suppose that single women have no obligations to +make and to save money as sacred as those which are imposed on a +man by marriage; while there is this difference, that a man may +avoid such obligation if he pleases, by refraining from marriage, +while the poverty of parents, or the dependence of brothers and +sisters, are circumstances over which a woman obliged to work for +others has no control.’</p> +<p>True: and, alas! too true. But what Mr. Butler asserts +of governesses may be asserted, with equal truth, of hundreds of +maiden aunts and maiden sisters who are not engaged in teaching, +but who spend their money, their time, their love, their +intellect, upon profligate or broken-down relations, or upon +their children; and who exhibit through long years of toil, +anxiety, self-sacrifice, a courage, a promptitude, a knowledge of +business and of human nature, and a simple but lofty standard of +duty and righteousness, which if it does not fit them for the +franchise, what can?</p> +<p>It may be, that such women would not care to use the +franchise, if they had it. That is their concern, not +ours. Voters who do not care to vote may be counted by +thousands among men; some of them, perhaps, are wiser than their +fellows, and not more foolish; and take that method of showing +their wisdom. Be that as it may, we are no more justified +in refusing a human being a right, because he may not choose to +exercise it, than we are in refusing to pay him his due, because +he may probably hoard the money.</p> +<p><!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>The objection that such women are better without a vote, +because a vote would interest them in politics, and so interfere +with their domestic duties, seems slender enough. What +domestic duties have they, of which the State can take +cognisance, save their duty to those to whom they may owe money, +and their duty to keep the peace? Their other and nobler +duties are voluntary and self-imposed; and, most usually, are +fulfilled as secretly as possible. The State commits an +injustice in debarring a woman from the rights of a citizen +because she chooses, over and above them, to perform the good +works of a saint.</p> +<p>And, after all, will it be the worse for these women, or for +the society in which they live, if they do interest themselves in +politics? Might not (as Mr. Boyd Kinnear urges in an +article as sober and rational as it is earnest and chivalrous) +their purity and earnestness help to make what is now called +politics somewhat more pure, somewhat more earnest? Might +not the presence of the voting power of a few virtuous, +experienced, well-educated women, keep candidates, for very +shame, from saying and doing things from which they do not +shrink, before a crowd of men who are, on the average, neither +virtuous, experienced, or well-educated, by wholesome dread of +that most terrible of all earthly punishments—at least in +the eyes of a manly man—the fine scorn of a noble +woman? Might not the intervention of a few women who are +living according to the eternal laws of God, help to infuse some +slightly stronger tincture of those eternal laws into our +legislators and their legislation? What women have done for +the social reforms of the last forty years is known, or ought to +be known, to all. <!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 17</span>Might not they have done far more, +and might not they do far more hereafter, if they, who generally +know far more than men do of human suffering, and of the +consequences of human folly, were able to ask for further social +reforms, not merely as a boon to be begged from the physically +stronger sex, but as their will, which they, as citizens, have a +right to see fulfilled, if just and possible? Woman has +played for too many centuries the part which Lady Godiva plays in +the old legend. It is time that she should not be content +with mitigating by her entreaties or her charities the cruelty +and greed of men, but exercise her right, as a member of the +State, and (as I believe) a member of Christ and a child of God, +to forbid them.</p> +<p>As for any specific difference between the intellect of women +and that of men, which should preclude the former meddling in +politics, I must confess that the subtle distinctions drawn, even +by those who uphold the intellectual equality of women, have +almost, if not altogether, escaped me. The only important +difference, I think, is, that men are generally duller and more +conceited than women. The dulness is natural enough, on the +broad ground that the males of all animals (being more sensual +and selfish) are duller than the females. The conceit is +easily accounted for. The English boy is told from +childhood, as the negro boy is, that men are superior to +women. The negro boy shows his assent to the proposition by +beating his mother, the English one by talking down his +sisters. That is all.</p> +<p>But if there be no specific intellectual difference (as there +is actually none), is there any practical and moral +difference? I use the two epithets as synonymous; <!-- page +18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>for +practical power may exist without acuteness of intellect: but it +cannot exist without sobriety, patience, and courage, and sundry +other virtues, which are ‘moral’ in every sense of +that word.</p> +<p>I know of no such difference. There are, doubtless, +fields of political action more fitted for men than for women; +but are there not again fields more fitted for women than for +men?—fields in which certain women, at least, have already +shown such practical capacity, that they have established not +only their own right, but a general right for the able and +educated of their sex, to advise officially about that which they +themselves have unofficially mastered. Who will say that +Mrs. Fry, or Miss Nightingale, or Miss Burdett Coutts, is not as +fit to demand pledges of a candidate at the hustings on important +social questions as any male elector; or to give her deliberate +opinion thereon in either House of Parliament, as any average +M.P. or peer of the realm? And if it be said that these are +only brilliant exceptions, the rejoinder is, What proof have you +of that? You cannot pronounce on the powers of the average +till you have tried them. These exceptions rather prove the +existence of unsuspected and unemployed strength below. If +a few persons of genius, in any class, succeed in breaking +through the barriers of routine and prejudice, their success +shows that they have left behind them many more who would follow +in their steps if those barriers were but removed. This has +been the case in every forward movement, religious, scientific, +or social. A daring spirit here and there has shown his +fellow-men what could be known, what could be done; and behold, +when once awakened to a sense of their own powers, multitudes +<!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +19</span>have proved themselves as capable, though not as daring, +as the leaders of their forlorn hope. Dozens of geologists +can now work out problems which would have puzzled Hutton or +Werner; dozens of surgeons can perform operations from which John +Hunter would have shrunk appalled; and dozens of women, were they +allowed, would, I believe, fulfil in political and official posts +the hopes which Miss Wedgwood and Mr. Boyd Kinnear entertain.</p> +<p>But, after all, it is hard to say anything on this matter, +which has not been said in other words by Mr. Mill himself, in +pp. 98-104 of his ‘Subjection of Women;’ or give us +more sound and palpable proof of women’s political +capacity, than the paragraph with which he ends his +argument:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Is it reasonable to think that those who +are fit for the greater functions of politics are incapable of +qualifying themselves for the less? Is there any reason, in +the nature of things, that the wives and sisters of princes +should, whenever called on, be found as competent as the princes +themselves to their business, but that the wives and sisters of +statesmen, and administrators, and directors of companies, and +managers of public institutions, should be unable to do what is +done by their brothers and husbands? The real reason is +plain enough; it is that princesses, being more raised above the +generality of men by their rank than placed below them by their +sex, have never been taught that it was improper for them to +concern themselves with politics; but have been allowed to feel +the liberal interest natural to any cultivated human being, in +the great transactions which took place around them, and in which +they might be called on to take a part. The ladies of +reigning <!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 20</span>families are the only women who are +allowed the same range of interests and freedom of development as +men; and it is precisely in their case that there is not found to +be any inferiority. Exactly where and in proportion as +women’s capacities for government have been tried, in that +proportion have they been found adequate.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Though the demands of women just now are generally urged in +the order of—first, employment, then education, and lastly, +the franchise, I have dealt principally with the latter, because +I sincerely believe that it, and it only, will lead to their +obtaining a just measure of the two former. Had I been +treating of an ideal, or even a truly civilised polity, I should +have spoken of education first; for education ought to be the +necessary and sole qualification for the franchise. But we +have not so ordered it in England in the case of men; and in all +fairness we ought not to do so in the case of women. We +have not so ordered it, and we had no right to order it otherwise +than we have done. If we have neglected to give the masses +due education, we have no right to withhold the franchise on the +strength of that neglect. Like Frankenstein, we may have +made our man ill: but we cannot help his being alive; and if he +destroys us, it is our own fault.</p> +<p>If any reply, that to add a number of uneducated women-voters +to the number of uneducated men-voters will be only to make the +danger worse, the answer is:—That women will be always less +brutal than men, and will exercise on them (unless they are +maddened, as in the first French Revolution, by the hunger and +misery of their children) the same softening influence in public +life which they now exercise in private; and, moreover, that as +things stand now, the average woman is more <!-- page 21--><a +name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>educated, in +every sense of the word, than the average man; and that to admit +women would be to admit a class of voters superior, not inferior, +to the average.</p> +<p>Startling as this may sound to some, I assert that it is +true.</p> +<p>We must recollect that the just complaints of the insufficient +education of girls proceed almost entirely from that +‘lower-upper’ class which stocks the professions, +including the Press; that this class furnishes only a small +portion of the whole number of voters; that the vast majority +belong (and will belong still more hereafter) to other classes, +of whom we may say, that in all of them the girls are better +educated than the boys. They stay longer at +school—sometimes twice as long. They are more open to +the purifying and elevating influences of religion. Their +brains are neither muddled away with drink and profligacy, or +narrowed by the one absorbing aim of turning a penny into five +farthings. They have a far larger share than their brothers +of that best of all practical and moral educations, that of +family life. Any one who has had experience of the families +of farmers and small tradesmen, knows how boorish the lads are, +beside the intelligence, and often the refinement, of their +sisters. The same rule holds (I am told) in the +manufacturing districts. Even in the families of employers, +the young ladies are, and have been for a generation or two, far +more highly cultivated than their brothers, whose intellects are +always early absorbed in business, and too often injured by +pleasure. The same, I believe, in spite of all that has +been written about the frivolity of the girl of the period, holds +true of that class which is, by a strange irony, called +‘the ruling class.’ I suspect that the average +young lady <!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 22</span>already learns more worth knowing at +home than her brother does at the public school. Those, +moreover, who complain that girls are trained now too often +merely as articles for the so-called ‘marriage +market,’ must remember this—that the great majority +of those who will have votes will be either widows, who have long +passed all that, have had experience, bitter and wholesome, of +the realities of life, and have most of them given many pledges +to the State in the form of children; or women who, by various +circumstances, have been early withdrawn from the competition of +this same marriage-market, and have settled down into pure and +honourable celibacy, with full time, and generally full +inclination, to cultivate and employ their own powers. I +know not what society those men may have lived in who are in the +habit of sneering at ‘old maids.’ My experience +has led me to regard them with deep respect, from the servant +retired on her little savings to the unmarried sisters of the +rich and the powerful, as a class pure, unselfish, thoughtful, +useful, often experienced and able; more fit for the franchise, +when they are once awakened to their duties as citizens, than the +average men of the corresponding class. I am aware that +such a statement will be met with ‘laughter, the unripe +fruit of wisdom.’ But that will not affect its +truth.</p> +<p>Let me say a few words more on this point. There are +those who, while they pity the two millions and a half, or more, +of unmarried women earning their own bread, are tempted to do no +more than pity them, from the mistaken notion that after all it +is their own fault, or at least the fault of nature. They +ought (it is fancied) to have been married: or at least they +ought to have been good-looking enough and clever enough to <!-- +page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>be married. They are the exceptions, and for +exceptions we cannot legislate. We must take care of the +average article, and let the refuse take care of itself. I +have put plainly, it may be somewhat coarsely, a belief which I +believe many men hold, though they are too manly to express +it. But the belief itself is false. It is false even +of the lower classes. Among them, the cleverest, the most +prudent, the most thoughtful, are those who, either in domestic +service or a few—very few, alas!—other callings, +attain comfortable and responsible posts which they do not care +to leave for any marriage, especially when that marriage puts the +savings of their life at the mercy of the husband—and they +see but too many miserable instances of what that implies. +The very refinement which they have acquired in domestic service +often keeps them from wedlock. ‘I shall never +marry,’ said an admirable nurse, the daughter of a common +agricultural labourer. ‘After being so many years +among gentlefolk, I could not live with a man who was not a +scholar, and did not bathe every day.’</p> +<p>And if this be true of the lower class, it is still more true +of some, at least, of the classes above them. Many a +‘lady’ who remains unmarried does so, not for want of +suitors, but simply from nobleness of mind; because others are +dependent on her for support; or because she will not degrade +herself by marrying for marrying’s sake. How often +does one see all that can make a woman attractive—talent, +wit, education, health, beauty,—possessed by one who never +will enter holy wedlock. ‘What a loss,’ one +says, ‘that such a woman should not have married, if it +were but for the sake of the children she might have borne to the +State.’ ‘Perhaps,’ answer wise women of +the world, ‘she did not see any one whom she could +condescend to many.’</p> +<p><!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>And thus it is that a very large proportion of the +spinsters of England, so far from being, as silly boys and wicked +old men fancy, the refuse of their sex, are the very +<i>élite</i> thereof; those who have either sacrificed +themselves for their kindred, or have refused to sacrifice +themselves to that longing to marry at all risks of which women +are so often and so unmanly accused.</p> +<p>Be all this as it may, every man is bound to bear in mind, +that over this increasing multitude of ‘spinsters,’ +of women who are either self-supporting or desirous of so being, +men have, by mere virtue of their sex, absolutely no rights at +all. No human being has such a right over them as the +husband has (justly or unjustly) over the wife, or the father +over the daughter living in his house. They are independent +and self-supporting units of the State, owing to it exactly the +same allegiance as, and neither more nor less than, men who have +attained their majority. They are favoured by no privilege, +indulgence, or exceptional legislation from the State, and they +ask none. They expect no protection from the State save +that protection for life and property which every man, even the +most valiant, expects, since the carrying of side-arms has gone +out of fashion. They prove themselves daily, whenever they +have simple fair play, just as capable as men of not being a +burden to the State. They are in fact in exactly the same +relation to the State as men. Why are similar relations, +similar powers, and similar duties not to carry with them similar +rights? To this question the common sense and justice of +England will have soon to find an answer. I have sufficient +faith in that common sense and justice, when once awakened, to +face any question fairly, to anticipate what that answer will +be.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Spottiswoode & Co.</i>, +<i>Printers</i>, <i>New-street Square and</i> 30 <i>Parliament +Street</i>.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> ‘The Subjection of +Women.’ By John Stuart +Mill.—‘Woman’s Work and Woman’s +Culture.’ Edited by Josephine +Butler.—‘Education of Girls, and Employment of +Women.’ By W. B. Hodgson, LD.D.—‘On the +Study of Science by Women.’ By Lydia Ernestine +Becker. (<i>Contemporary Review</i>, March 1869.)</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN AND POLITICS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 20433-h.htm or 20433-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/4/3/20433 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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