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diff --git a/20433.txt b/20433.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b674b62 --- /dev/null +++ b/20433.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1019 @@ +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*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1869 London National Society edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +WOMEN AND POLITICS. + + +BY THE +REV. CANON KINGSLEY. + +_REPRINTED FROM_ '_MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE_.' + +Published by the London National Society for Women's Suffrage. + +LONDON: +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, FARRINGDON STREET +AND 80 PARLIAMENT STREET, WESTMINSTER +1869. + + + + +WOMEN AND POLITICS. {3} + + +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. + +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. + +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,' 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. + +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 _idola specus_ 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. + +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 +mediaeval ones; and first, as it would seem, in France, and gradually in +other European countries, the old contempt of women was being replaced by +admiration and trust. Such examples as that of Marguerite d'Angouleme +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 mediaeval +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, +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. + +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; 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.' + +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. + +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 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 they must be better +acquainted than men--woman's capacities, and woman's needs? + +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:-- + + '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.' + +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 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 _Vox +Dei in rebus revelata_; 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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? + +If it be said that Nature and Fact (arguments grounded on aught else are +to be left to monks and mediaeval 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 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 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.' + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. 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. + +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. + +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; 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. + +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 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. + +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:-- + + '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 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.' + +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. + +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 +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. + +Startling as this may sound to some, I assert that it is true. + +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 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. + +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 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.' + +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.' + +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 _elite_ 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. + +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. + +* * * * * + +_Spottiswoode & Co._, _Printers_, _New-street Square and_ 30 _Parliament +Street_. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{3} '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. (_Contemporary Review_, March +1869.) + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN AND POLITICS*** + + +******* This file should be named 20433.txt or 20433.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. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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