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diff --git a/32479.txt b/32479.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd0c510 --- /dev/null +++ b/32479.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5523 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Intelligence of Woman, by W. L. George + +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: The Intelligence of Woman + +Author: W. L. George + +Release Date: May 22, 2010 [EBook #32479] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.fadedpage.com + + + + + + + + + + THE INTELLIGENCE + OF WOMAN + + BY + + W. L. GEORGE + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + + LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + + 1916 + + _Copyright, 1916_, + + BY W. L. GEORGE. + + _All rights reserved_ + + Published, November, 1916 + + Norwood Press + + Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN 1 + + II FEMINIST INTENTIONS 61 + + III UNIFORMS FOR WOMEN 94 + + IV WOMAN AND THE PAINT POT 119 + + V THE DOWNFALL OF THE HOME 130 + + VI THE BREAK-UP OF THE FAMILY 165 + + VII SOME NOTES ON MARRIAGE 204 + + + + +I + +THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN + + +1 + +Men have been found to deny woman an intellect; they have credited her +with instinct, with intuition, with a capacity to correlate cause and +effect much as a dog connects its collar with a walk. But intellect in +its broadest sense, the capacity consecutively to plan and steadfastly +to execute, they have often denied her. + +The days are not now so dark. Woman has a place in the state, a place +under, but still a place. Man has recognized her value without coming to +understand her much better, and so we are faced with a paradox: while +man accords woman an improved social position, he continues to describe +her as illogical, petty, jealous, vain, untruthful, disloyal to her own +sex; quite as frequently he charges her with being over-loyal to her own +sex: there is no pleasing him. Also he discerns in this unsatisfactory +creature extreme unselfishness, purity, capacity for self-sacrifice. It +seems that the intelligence of man cannot solve the problem of woman, +which is a bad sign in a superior intelligence. The trouble lies in +this: man assumes too readily that woman essentially differs from man. +Hardly a man has lived who did not so exaggerate. Nietzsche, +Schopenhauer, agreed to despise women; Napoleon seemed to view them as +engines of pleasure; for Shakespeare they may well have embodied a +romantic ideal, qualified by sportive wantonness. In Walter Scott, women +appear as romance in a cheap edition; Byron in their regard is a beast +of prey, Doctor Johnson a pompous brute and a puritanical sensualist. +Cervantes mixed in his romantic outlook a sort of suspicious hatred, +while Alexandre Dumas thought them born only to lay laurel wreaths and +orange blossoms (together with coronets) on the heads of musketeers. +All, all--from Thackeray, who never laid his hand upon a woman save in +the way of patronage, to Goethe, to Dante, to Montaigne, to +Wellington--all harbored this curious idea: in one way or another woman +differs from man. And to-day, whether we read Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. +George Moore, M. Paul Bourget, or Mr. Hall Caine, we find that there +still persists a belief in Byron's lines:-- + + "What a strange thing is man! And what a stranger + Is woman!" + +Almost every man, except the professional Lovelace (and he knows +nothing), believes in the mystery of woman. I do not. For men are also +mysterious to women; women are quite as puzzled by our stupidity as by +our subtlety. I do not believe that there is either a male or a female +mystery; there is only the mystery of mankind. There are to-day +differences between the male and the female intellect; we have to ask +ourselves whether they are absolute or only apparent, or whether they +are absolute but removable by education and time, assuming this to be +desirable. I believe that these differences are superficial, temporary, +traceable to hereditary and local influences. I believe that they will +not endure forever, that they will tend to vanish as environment is +modified, as old suggestions cease to be made. + +This leads us to consider present idiosyncrasies in woman as a sex, her +apparently low and apparently high impulses, her exaltations, and, in +the light of her achievements, her future. I do not want to generalize +hastily. The subject is too complex and too obscure for me to venture so +to do, and I would ask my readers to remember throughout this chapter +that I am not laying down the law, but trying only to arrive at the +greatest possible frequency of truth. This is a short research of +tendencies. There are human tendencies, such as belief in a divine +spirit, painting pictures, making war, composing songs. Are there any +special female tendencies? Given that we glimpse what distinguishes man +from the beast, is there anything that distinguishes woman from man? In +the small space at my disposal I cannot pretend to deal extensively with +the topic. One reason is the difficulty of securing true evidence. +Questions addressed to women do not always yield the truth; nor do +questions addressed to men; for a desire to please, vanity, modesty, +interfere. But the same question addressed to a woman may, according to +circumstances, be _sincerely_ answered in four ways,-- + + 1. Truthfully, with a defensive touch, if she is alone with another + woman. + + 2. With intent to cause male rivalry if she is with two men. + + 3. With false modesty and seductive evasiveness if she is with one + man and one woman. + + 4. With a clear intention to repel or attract if she is with a man + alone. + +And there are variations of these four cases! A man investigating +woman's points of view often finds the response more emotional than +intellectual. Owing to the system under which we live, where man is a +valuable prey, woman has contracted the habit of trying to attract. Even +aggressive insolence on her part may conceal the desire to attract by +exasperating. These notes must, therefore, be taken only as hints, and +the reader may be interested to know that they are based on the +observation of sixty-five women, subdivided as follows: Intimate +acquaintance, five; adequate acquaintance, nineteen; slight +acquaintance, forty-one; married, thirty-nine; status uncertain, eight; +celibate, eighteen. Ages, seventeen to sixty-eight (average age, about +thirty-five). + + +2 + +It is most difficult to deduce the quality of woman's intellect from her +conduct, because her impulses are frequently obscured by her policy. The +physical circumstances of her life predispose her to an interest in sex +more dominant than is the case with man. As intellect flies out through +the window when emotion comes in at the door, this is a source of +complications. The intervention of love is a difficulty, for love, +though blind, is unfortunately not dumb, and habitually uses speech for +the concealment of truth. It does this with the best of intentions, and +the best of intentions generally yield the worst of results. It should +be said that sheer intellect is very seldom displayed by man. Intellect +is the ideal skeleton of a man's mental power. It may be defined as an +aspiration toward material advantage, absolute truth, or achievement, +combined with a capacity for taking steps toward successful achievement +or attaining truth. From this point of view such men as Napoleon, +Machiavelli, Epictetus, Leo XIII, Bismarck, Voltaire, Anatole France, +are typical intellectuals. They are not perfect: all, so far as we can +tell, are tainted with moral feeling or emotion,--a frailty which +probably explains why there has never been a British or American +intellectual of the first rank. Huxley, Spencer, Darwin, Cromwell, all +alike suffered grievously from good intentions. The British and American +mind has long been honeycombed with moral impulse, at any rate since +the Reformation; it is very much what the German mind was up to the +middle of the nineteenth century. Intellect, as I conceive it, is seeing +life sanely and seeing it whole, without much pity, without love; seeing +life as separate from man, whose pains and delights are only phenomena; +seeing love as a reaction to certain stimuli. + +In this sense it can probably be said that no woman has ever been an +intellectual. A few may have pretensions, as, for instance, "Vernon +Lee," Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mrs. Wharton, perhaps Mrs. Hetty Green. I do not +know, for these women can be judged only by their works. The greatest +women in history--Catherine of Russia, Joan of Arc, Sappho, Queen +Elizabeth--appear to have been swayed largely by their passions, +physical or religious. I do not suppose that this will always be the +case. For reasons which I shall indicate further on in this chapter, I +believe that woman's intellect will tend toward approximation with that +of man. But meanwhile it would be futile not to recognize that there +exist to-day between man and woman some sharp intellectual divergences. + +One of the sharpest lies in woman's logical faculty. This may be due to +her education (which is seldom mathematical or scientific); it may +proceed from a habit of mind; it may be the result of a secular +withdrawal from responsibilities other than domestic. Whatever the +cause, it must be acknowledged that, with certain trained exceptions, +woman has not of logic the same conception as man. I have devoted +particular care to this issue, and have collected a number of cases +where the feminine conception of logic clashes with that of man. Here +are a few transcribed from my notebook: + + +_Case 33_ + +My remark: "Most people practice a religion because they are too +cowardly to face the idea of annihilation." + +Case 33: "I don't see that they are any more cowardly than you. It +doesn't matter whether you have a faith or not, it will be all the same +in the end." + +The reader will observe that Case 33 evades the original proposition; in +her reply she ignores the set question, namely why people practice a +religion. + + +_Case 17_ + +_Votes for Women_, of January 22, 1915, prints a parallel, presumably +drawn by a woman, between two police-court cases. In the first a man, +charged with having struck his wife, is discharged because his wife +intercedes for him. In the second a woman, charged with theft, is sent +to prison in spite of her husband's plea. The writer appears to think +that these cases are parallel; the difference of treatment of the two +offenders offends her logic. From a masculine point of view two points +differentiate the cases: + +In the first case the person who may be sent to prison is the +bread-winner; in the second case it is the housekeeper, which is +inconvenient but less serious. + +In the first case the person who intercedes, the wife, is the one who +has suffered; in the second case the person who intercedes, the husband, +has not suffered injury. The person who has suffered injury is the one +who lost the goods. + + +_Case 51_ + +This case is peculiar as it consists in frequent confusion of words. The +woman here instanced referred to a very ugly man as looking Semitic. She +was corrected and asked whether she did not mean simian, that is, like a +monkey. She said, "Yes," but that Semitic meant looking like a monkey. +When confronted with the dictionary, she was compelled to acknowledge +that the two words were not the same, but persisted in calling the man +Semitic, and seriously explained this by asserting that Jews look like +monkeys. + +Case 51, in another conversation, referred to a man who had left the +Church of England for the Church of Rome as a "pervert." She was asked +whether she did not mean "convert." + +She said, "No, because to become a Roman Catholic is the act of a +pervert." + +As I thought that this might come from religious animus, I asked whether +a Roman Catholic who entered a Protestant church was also a pervert. + +Case 51 replied, "Yes." + +Case 51 therefore assumes that any change from an original state is +abnormal. The application to the charge of bad logic consists in this +further test: + +I asked Case 51 whether a man originally brought up in Conservative +views would be a pervert if he became a Liberal. + +Case 51 replied, "No." + +On another occasion Case 51 referred to exaggerated praise showered upon +a popular hero, and said that the newspapers were "belittling" him. + +I pointed out that they were doing the very contrary; that indeed they +were exaggerating his prowess. + +Confronted with the dictionary, and the meaning of "belittle", which is +"to cheapen with intent", she insisted that "belittling" was the correct +word because "the result of this exaggerated praise was to make the man +smaller in her own mind."[1] + +[1] The notes as to Case 51 have not an absolute bearing upon logic in +general, but the reasons put forth in her defense by Case 51 are +indicative of a certain kind of logic which is not masculine. I must add +that Case 51 is a woman of very good education, with many general +interests.--THE AUTHOR. + + +_Case 63_ + +In the course of a discussion on the war in which Case 63 has given vent +to moral and religious views, she remarks, "Thou shalt not kill." + +I: "Then do you accept war?" + +Case 63: "War ought to be done away with." + +I (attempting to get a straight answer): "Do you accept war?" + +Case 63: "One must defend one's self." + +Upon this follows a long argument in which I attempt to prove to Case 63 +that one defends, not one's self but the nation. When in difficulties +she repeats, "One must defend one's self." + +She refuses to face the fact that if nobody offered any resistance, +nobody would be killed; she completely confuses the defense of self +against a burglar with that of a nation against an invader. Finally she +assumes that the defense of one's country is legitimate, and yet insists +on maintaining with the Bible that one may not kill! + + +_Case 33_ + +Case 33: "Why didn't America interfere with regard to German atrocities +in Belgium?" + +I: "Why should she?" + +Case 33: "America did protest when her trade was menaced." + +I: "Yes. America wanted to protect her interests, but does it follow +that she should protest against atrocities which do not menace her +interests?" + +Case 33: "_But her interests are menaced._ Look at the trade +complications; they've all come out of that." + +Case 33 has confused trade interests with moral duty; she has confused +two issues: atrocities against neutrals and destruction of American +property. When I tell her this, she states that there is a connection: +that if America had protested against atrocities, the war would have +proceeded on better lines because the Germans would have been +frightened. + +I: "How would this have affected the trade question?" + +Case 33 does not explain but draws me into a morass of moral indignation +because America protested against trade interference and not against +atrocities. She finally says America had no right to do the one without +the other, which logically is chaos. She also demands to be told what +was the use of America's signing the Geneva Convention and the Hague +Convention. She ignores the fact that these conventions do not bind +anybody to fight in their defense but merely to observe their +provisions. I would add that Case 33 is a well-educated woman, +independent in views, and with a bias toward social questions. + +Naturally, where there is a question of love, feminine logic reaches the +zenith of topsy-turvy-dom. Here is a dialogue which took place in my +presence. + + +_Case 8_ + +Case 8, who was about to be married, attacked a man who had had a +pronounced flirtation with her because he suddenly announced that he +was engaged. + +Case 8: "How can you be so mean?" + +The man: "But I don't understand. You're going to be married. What +objection can you have to my getting engaged?" + +Case 8: "It's quite different." Nothing could move Case 8 from that +point of view.[2] + +[2] Probably owing to woman's having for centuries been taught to regard +the vain aspirations of the male as her perquisites.--THE AUTHOR. + +I do not contend that bad logic is the monopoly of woman, for man is +also disposed to believe what he chooses in matters such as politics, +wars, and so forth, and then to try to prove it. Englishmen as well as +Englishwomen find victory in the capture of a German trench, +insignificance in the loss of a British trench; man, as well as woman, +is quite capable of saying that it always rains when the Republicans are +in power, should he happen to be a Democrat; man also is capable of +tracing to a dinner with twelve guests the breaking of a leg, while +forgetting the scores of occasions on which he dined in a restaurant +with twelve other people and suffered no harm. Man is capable of every +unreasonable deduction, but he is more inclined to justify himself by +close reasoning. In matters of argument, man is like the Italian brigand +who robs the friar, then confesses and asks him for absolution; woman is +the burglar unrepentant. This may be due to woman as a rule having few +guiding principles or intellectual criteria. She often holds so many +moral principles that intellectual argument with her irritates the +crisper male mind. But she finds it difficult to retain a grasp upon a +central idea, to clear away the side issues which obscure it. She can +seldom carry an idea to its logical conclusion, passing from term to +term; somewhere there is a solution of continuity. For this reason +arguments with women, which have begun with the latest musical play, +easily pass on, from its alleged artistic merit, to its costumes, their +scantiness, their undesirable scantiness, the need for inspection, +inspectors of theaters, and, little by little, other inspectors, until +one gets to mining inspectors and possibly to mining in general. The +reader will observe that these ideas are fairly well linked. All that +happens is that the woman, tiring of the central argument, has pursued +each side issue as it offered itself. This comes from a lack of +concentration which indisposes a woman to penetrate deeply into a +subject; she is not used to concentration, she does not like it. It +might lead her to disagreeable discoveries. + +It is for this reason--because she needs to defend purely emotional +positions against man, who uses intellectual weapons--that woman is so +much more easily than man attracted by new religions and new +philosophies--by Christian Science, by Higher Thought, by Theosophy, by +Eucken, by Bergson. Those religions are no longer spiritual; they have +an intellectual basis; they are not ideal religions like Christianity +and Mohammedanism and the like, which frankly ask you to make an act of +faith; what they do is to attempt to seduce the alleged soul through the +intellect. That is exactly what the aspiring woman demands: emotional +satisfaction and intellectual concession. Particularly in America, one +discovers her intellectual fog in the continual use of such words as +mental, elemental, cosmic, universality, social harmony, essential +cosmos, and other similar ornaments of the modern logomachy. + + +_Case 16_ + +Case 16 told me that my mind did not "functionalize" properly. And gave +me as an authority for the statement Aristotle, before whom, of course, +I bow. + +A singular and suggestive fact is that woman generally displays pitiless +logic when she is dealing with things that she knows well. An expert +housekeeper is the type, and there are no lapses in her argument with a +tradesman. It is a platitude to mention the business capacity of the +Frenchwoman, and many women are expert in the investment of money, in +the administration of detail, in hospital management, in the rotation of +servants' holidays (which, in large households, is most complex). It +would appear that woman is unconcentrated and inconsequent only where +she has not been properly educated, and this has a profound bearing on +her future development. There is a growing class, of which Mrs. Fawcett, +Mrs. Havelock Ellis, the Countess of Warwick, Miss Jane Addams, are +typical, who have bent their minds upon intellectual problems; women +like Miss Emma Goldman; like Miss Mary McArthur, whose grasp of +industrial questions is as good as any man's. They differ profoundly +from the average feminine literary artist, who is almost invariably +unable to write of anything except love. I can think of only one modern +exception,--Miss Amber Reeves; among her seniors, Mrs. Humphry Ward is +the most notable exception, but not quite notable enough. + +This tendency is, I believe, entirely due to woman having always been +divorced from business and politics, to her having been until recently +encouraged to delight in small material possessions, while discouraged +from focusing on anything non-material except religion, and from +considering general ideas. Particularly as regards general ideas woman +has lived in a bad atmosphere. The French king who said to his queen, +"Madam, we have taken you to give us children and not to give us +advice," was blowing a chill breath upon the tender shoot of woman's +intelligence. Neither he nor other men wished women to conceive general +ideas: women became incapable of conceiving or understanding them. +Thence sprang generalization, the tendency in woman to make sweeping +statements, such as "All men are deceivers," or "Men can do what they +like in the world," or "Men cannot feel as women do." It is not that +they dislike general questions, but that they have been thrust back from +general questions, so that they cannot hold them. Here is a case: + + +_Case 2_ + +With the object of entertaining an elderly lady, who is an invalid, I +explain, _in response to her own request_, the case that Germany makes +for having declared war. She asks one or two questions, and then +suddenly interrupts me to ask what I have been doing with myself lately +in the evenings. + +This is a case of interest in the particular as opposed to the general. +It is an instance of what I want to show,--that woman drifts toward the +particular because she has been driven away from the general. To +concentrate too long upon the general is to her merely fatiguing. +Doubtless because of this, many middle-aged women become exceedingly +dull to men. So long as they are young all is well, for few men care +what folly issues from rosy lips. But once the lips are no longer rosy, +then man fails to find the companion he needs, because companionship, as +differentiated from love, can rest only on mental sympathy. Middle-aged +man is often dull too; while the middle-aged woman may concern herself +overmuch with the indigestion of her pet dog, the middle-aged man is +often unduly moved by his own indigestion. But, broadly speaking, a +greater percentage of middle-aged and elderly men than of such women +are interested in political and philosophical questions. + +These men are often dull for another reason: they are more conventional. +The reader may differ from me, but I believe that woman is much less +conventional than man. She does all the conventional things and attacks +other women savagely for breaches of convention. But you will generally +find that where a man may with impunity break a convention he will not +do so, while, if secrecy is guaranteed, a woman will please herself +first and repent only if necessary. It follows that a man is +conventional because he respects convention; woman conventional because +she is afraid of what may happen if she does not obey convention. I +submit that this shows a greater degree of conventionality in man. The +typical Englishman of the world, wrecked on a desert island, would get +into his evening clothes as long as his shirts lasted; I do not think +his wife, alone in such circumstances, would wear a low-cut dress to +take her meal of cocoanuts, even if her frock did up in front. + +It is this unconventionality that precipitates woman into the so-called +new movements in art or philosophy. She reacts against what is, seeking +a new freedom; even if she is only seeking a new excitement, a new +color, a new god, unconsciously she seeks a more liberal atmosphere, +while man is nearly always contented with the atmosphere that is. When +he rebels, his tendency is to destroy the old sanctuary, hers to build a +new sanctuary. That is a form of idealism,--not a very high idealism, +for woman seldom strains toward the impossible. In literature I cannot +call to mind that woman has ever conceived a Utopia such as those +imagined by Bellamy, Samuel Butler, William Morris, and H. G. Wells. The +only woman who voiced ideas of this kind was Mary Wollstonecraft, and +her views were hardly utopian. Nothings, such as Utopias, have been +always too airy for woman. The heroes in the novels she has written, +until recently and with one or two exceptions,--such as some of the +heroes of George Eliot,--are either stagey or sweet. Mr. Rochester is +stagey, Grandcourt is stagey, while the hero of "Under Two Flags" is +merely Turkish Delight. + + +3 + +A quality which singularly contrasts with woman's vague idealism is the +accuracy she displays in business. This is due to her being +fundamentally inaccurate. It is not the accurate people who are always +accurate; it is the inaccurate people on their guard.[3] Woman's +interest in the particular predisposes her to the exact, for accuracy +may be defined as a continuous interest in the particular. I suspect +that it indicates a probability that by education, and especially +encouragement, woman may develop a far higher degree of concentration +than she has hitherto done. In her way stands a fatal facility, that of +grasping ideas before they are half-expressed. It is a quality of +imagination, natural rather than induced. Any schoolteacher will confirm +the statement that in a mixed class, aged eleven to twelve, the essays +of the girls are better than those of the boys. This is not so in a +mixed university. I suspect that this latter is quite as much due to the +academic judgment, which does not recognize imagination, as to the fact +that in the later years of their lives the energies of girls are +diverted from intellectual concentration (and also expression) toward +the artistic and the social. This untrained concentration produces a +certain superficiality and an impetuousness which harmonize with the +intrusion of side issues,--to which I have referred,--and with the +burgeoning of side issues on the general idea. + +[3] I have observed for two years the steady growth in the accuracy of +the work of Case 33, due to her having concentrated upon her instinctive +inaccuracy.--THE AUTHOR. + +Nowhere is this better shown than in the postscript habit. Men do not, +as a rule, use postscripts, and it is significant that artists and +persons inclined toward the arts are much more given to postscripts than +other kinds of men. One might almost say that women correspond by +postscript; some of them put the subject of the letter in the +postscript, as the scorpion keeps his poison in his tail. I have before +me letters from Case 58, with two postscripts, and one extraordinary +letter from Case 11, with four postscripts and a sentence written +outside the envelope. This is the apogee of superficiality. The writers +have run on, seduced by irrelevance, and have not been able to stop to +consider in all its bearings the subject of the letter. Each postscript +represents a development or qualification, which must indicate the waste +by bad education of what may be a very good mind. + +I would say in passing that we should not attach undue importance to +woman's physical disabilities. It is true that woman is more conscious +of her body than is man. So long as he is fed, sufficiently busy, in +good general health, he is normal. But woman is far more often in an +unbalanced physical condition. There is a great deal to be said for the +Hindu philosophical point of view, that the body needs to be just so +satisfied as to become imperceptible to the consciousness, as opposed to +the point of view of the Christian ascetics, who unfortunately carried +their ideas so far that they ended by thinking more of their hair shirt +than of Him for whose sake they wore it. In this sense woman is +intellectually handicapped because her body obtrudes itself upon her. It +is a subject of brooding and agitation. I suspect that this is largely +remediable, for I am not convinced that it is woman's peculiar physical +conditions that occasionally warp her intellect; it is equally possible +that a warped intellect produces unsatisfactory physical conditions. +Therefore, if, as I firmly believe that we can, we develop this +intellect, profound changes may with time appear in these physical +conditions. + + +4 + +The further qualification of woman's intellect is in her moral attitude. +I would ask the reader to divest himself of the idea that "moral" +refers only to matters of sex. Morality is the rule of conduct of each +human being in his relations with other human beings, and this covers +all relations. Because in some senses the morality of woman is not the +morality of man, we are not entitled to say with Pope that + + "Woman's at best a contradiction still." + +She is a contradiction. Man is a contradiction, apparently of a +different kind, and that is all. Thence spring misunderstandings and +sometimes dislike, as between people of different nations. I do not want +to labor the point, but I would suggest that in a very minor degree the +apparent difference between man and woman may be paralleled by the +apparent difference between the Italian and the Swede, who, within two +generations, produce very similar American children. But man, who +generalizes quite as wildly as woman when he does not understand, is +determined to emphasize the difference in every relation of life. For +instance, it is commonly said that woman cannot keep her promise. This +seems to me entirely untrue; given that as a rule woman's intellect is +not sufficiently educated to enable her to find a good reason for +breaking her promise, it is much more difficult for her to do so. For we +are all moral creatures, and if a man must steal the crown jewels, he is +happier if he can discover a high motive for so doing. Man has a +definite advantage where a loophole has to be found, and I have known +few women capable of standing up in argument against a trained lawyer +who has acquired the usual dexterity in misrepresentation. + +In love and marriage, particularly, woman will keep plighted troth more +closely than man; there is no male equivalent of jilt, but the male does +jilt on peculiar lines; while a woman who knows that her youth, her +beauty are going must bring things to a head by jilting, the male is +never in a hurry, for his attractions wane so very slowly. Why should he +jilt the woman,--make a stir? So he just goes on. In due course she +tires and releases him, when he goes to another woman. That is jilting +by inches, and as regards faithfulness a pledged woman is more difficult +to win away than a pledged man. (To be just, it should be said that +unfaithfulness is in the eyes of most men a small matter, in the eyes of +most women a serious matter.) A pledged woman will remain faithful long +after love has flown; the promise is a mystic bond; none but a tall +flame can hide the ashes of the dead love. And so, when Shakespeare +asserts,-- + + "Frailty, thy name is woman," + +he is delivering one of the hasty judgments that abound in his solemn +romanticism. + +This applies in realms divorced from love,--in questions of money, such +as debts or bets. Women do run up milliners' bills, but men boast of +never paying their tailors. And if sometimes women do not discharge the +lost bet, it is largely because a tradition of protection and patronage +has laid down that women need not pay their bets. Besides, women usually +pay their losses, while several men have not yet discharged their debts +of honor to me. It is a matter of honesty, and I think the criminal +returns for the United States would produce the same evidence as those +for England and Wales. In 1913 there were tried at Assizes for offences +against property 1616 men and 122 women. The records of Quarter Sessions +and of the courts of Summary Jurisdiction yield the same result, an +enormous majority of male offenders,--though there be more women than +men in England and Wales! And yet, in the face of such official figures, +of the evidence of every employer, man cherishes a belief in woman's +dishonesty! One reason, no doubt, is that woman's emotional nature leads +her, when she is criminal, to criminality of an aggravated kind. She +then justifies Pope's misogynist lines: + + "O woman, woman! When to ill thy mind + Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend." + +Most men, however, have abandoned the case against woman's dishonesty +and confine themselves to describing her as a liar, forgetting that they +generally dislike the truth when it comes from a woman's lips, and +always when it reflects upon their own conduct. For centuries man has +asked that woman should flatter, but also that she should tell the +truth: such a confusion of demands leads the impartial mind to the +conclusion that vanity cannot be a monopoly of the female. But it is +quite true that woman does not always cherish truth so well as man. The +desire for truth is intellectual, not emotional. Truth is a cold +bed-fellow, as might be expected of one who rose from a well. And among +women cases of disinterested lying are not uncommon. Here is Case 16: + +An elderly woman talked at length about not having received insurance +papers, and made a great disturbance. It later appeared that she had not +insured. On another occasion she informed the household that her +son-in-law had been cabled to from South Africa to come and visit his +dying mother. It was proved that no cable had been sent. + +I have a number of cases of this kind, but this is the most curious. I +suspect that this sort of lying is traceable to a need for romance and +drama in a colorless life. It springs from the wish to create a romantic +atmosphere round one's self and to increase one's personal importance. +Because men hold out hands less greedy toward drama and romance they are +less afflicted, but they do not entirely escape, and we have all +observed the new importance of the man whose brother has been +photographed in a newspaper or, better still, killed in a railway +accident. If he has been burned in a theater, the grief of his male +relatives is subtly tinged with excited delight. Romance, the wage of +lies, is woman's compensation for a dull life. + + +5 + +Vanity is as old as the mammoth. Romantic lying, obviously connected +with vanity, is justly alleged to be developed in woman. No doubt +woman's chief desire has been to appear beautiful, and it is quite open +to question whether the leaves that clothed our earliest ancestress were +gathered in a spirit of modesty rather than in response to a desire for +adornment. + +But it should not be too readily assumed that vanity is purely a +feminine characteristic. It is a human characteristic, and the favor of +any male savage can be bought at the price of a necklace of beads or of +an admiral's cocked hat. The modern man is modish too, as much as he +dares. At Newport as at Brighton the dandy is supreme. It would be +inaccurate, however, to limit vanity to clothes. Vanity is more subtle, +and I would ask the reader which of the three principal motives that +animate man--love, ambition, and gold lust--is the strongest. The desire +to shine in the eyes of one's fellows has produced much in art and +political service; it has produced much that is foolish and ignoble. It +has led to political competition, to a wild race for ill-remunerated +offices, governorships, memberships of Parliament. Representatives of +the people often wish to serve the people; they also like to be marked +out as the people's men. There are no limits to masculine desire for +honors; seldom in England does a man refuse a peerage; Frenchmen are +martyrs to their love of ribbons, and not a year passes without a +scandal because an official has been bribed to obtain the Legion +d'Honneur for somebody, or, funnier still, because an adventurer has +blacked his face, set up in a small flat, impersonated a negro +potentate, and distributed for value received grand crosses of fantastic +kingdoms. Even democratic Americans have been known to seek titled +husbands for their daughters, and a few have become Papal barons or +counts. + +Male vanity differs from female, but both are vanity. The two sexes even +share that curious form of vanity which in man consists in his calling +himself a "plain man", bragging of having come to New York without shoes +and with a dime in his pocket; which, in woman, consists in neglecting +her appearance. Both sexes convey more or less: "I am what I am, a +humble person ... but quite good enough." The arrogance of humility is +simply repulsive. + +Ideas such as the foregoing may proceed from a certain simplicity. Woman +is much less complex than the poets believe. For instance, many men hold +that woman's lack of self-consciousness, as exemplified by disturbances +in shops, has its roots in some intricate reasoning process. One must +not be carried away: the truth is that woman, having so long been +dependent upon man, has an exaggerated idea of the importance of small +sums. Man has earned money; woman has been taught only to save it. Thus +she has been poor, and poverty has caused her to shrink from +expenditure; often she has become mean and, paradoxically enough, she +has at the same time become extravagant. Poverty has taught her to +respect the penny, while it has taught her nothing about the pound. If +woman finds it quite easy to spend one tenth of the household income on +dress, and even more,[4] it is because her education makes it as +difficult for her to conceive a thousand dollars as it is for a man to +conceive a million. It is merely a question of familiarity with money. + +[4] See "Uniforms for Women," and observe extreme figures and details of +feminine expenditure on clothes. + +Besides, foolish economy and reckless expenditure are indications of an +elementary quality. In that sense woman is still something of a savage. +She is still less civilized than man, largely because she has not been +educated. This may be a very good thing, and it certainly is an +agreeable one from the masculine point of view. Whether we consider +woman's attitude to the law, to social service, or to war, it is the +same thing. In most cases she is lawless; she will obey the law because +she is afraid of it, but she will not respect it. For her it is always +_sic volo, sic jubeo_. I suspect that if she had had a share in making +the law she would not have been like this, for she would have become +aware of the relation between law and life. Roughly she tends to look +upon the law as tyrannous if she does not like it, as protective if she +does like it. Probably there is little relation between her own moral +impulse, which is generous, and the law, which is only just. (That is, +just in intention.) This is qualified by the moral spirit in woman, +which increasingly leads her to the view that certain things should be +done and others not be done. But even then it is likely that at heart +woman does not respect the law; she may respect what it +represents,--strength,--but not what it implies,--equity. She is +infinitely more rebellious than man, and where she has power she +inflames the world in protest. I do not refer to the militant +suffragists, but to woman's general attitude. For instance, when it is +proposed to compel women to insure their servants, to pay employer's +compensation for accident, to restrict married women's control of their +property, to establish laws regulating the social evil, we find female +opposition very violent. I do not mean material opposition, although +that does occur, but mental hostility. Woman surrenders because she +must, man because he ought to. + +That is an attitude of barbarism. It is a changing attitude; the ranks +of social service have, during the last half-century, been +disproportionately swollen by woman. Our most active worker in the +causes of factory inspection, child protection, anti-sweating, is to-day +woman. Woman is emerging swiftly from the barbarous state in which she +was long maintained. She will change yet more,--and further on in this +chapter I will attempt to show how,--but to-day it must be granted that +there runs in her veins much vigorous barbarian blood. Her attitude to +war is significant. During the past months I have met many women who +were inflamed by the idea of blood; so long as they were not losing +relatives or friends themselves, they tended to look upon the war as the +most exciting serial they had ever read. Heat and heroism, what could be +more romantic? Every woman to whom I told this said it was untrue, but +in no country have the women's unions struck against war; the +suffragettes have organized, not only hospitals, but kitchens, +recreation rooms, canteens for the use of soldiers; many have clamored +to be allowed to make shells; some, especially in Russia, have carried +rifles. In England, thirteen thousand women volunteered to make war +material; women filled the German factories. Of course, I recognize that +this is partly economic: women must live in wartime even at the price of +men's lives, and I am aware that a great many women have done all they +could to arrest the spread of war. In England many have prevented their +men from volunteering; in America, I am told, women have been solid +against war with Germany. But let the reader not be deceived. A subtle +point arises which is often ignored. If women went to war instead of +men, their attitude might be different. Consider, indeed, these two +paragraphs, fictitious descriptions of a battlefield:-- + +"Before the trenches lay heaped hundreds of young men, with torn bodies, +their faces pale in the moonlight. The rays lit up the face of one that +lay near, made a glitter upon his little golden moustache." + +"Before the trenches lay heaped hundreds of young girls. The moonlight +streamed upon their torn bodies and their fair skins. The rays fell upon +one that lay near, drawing a glow from the masses of her golden hair." + +Let the masculine reader honestly read these two paragraphs (which I do +not put forward as literature). The first will pain him; the second will +hurt him more. That men should be slaughtered--how hateful! That girls +should be slaughtered--it is unbearable. Here, I submit, is part of +woman's opposition to war, of the exaggerated idea people have of her +humanitarian attitude. I will not press the point that as a savage she +may like blood better than man; I will confine myself to suggesting that +a large portion of her opposition to war comes out of a sexual +consciousness; it seems horrible to her that young men should be killed, +just as horrible as my paragraph on the dead girls may seem to the male +reader. + +Some men have seen women as barbarous and dangerous only, have based +their attitude upon the words of Thomas Otway: "She betrayed the +Capitol, lost Mark Antony to the world, laid old Troy in ashes." This is +absurd; if man cannot resist the temptation of woman, he can surely +claim no greater nobility. Mark Antony "lost" Cleopatra by wretched +suicide as much as she "lost" him. If because of Helen old Troy was laid +in ashes, at least another woman, guiltless Andromache, paid the price. +To represent woman so, to suggest that there were only two people in +Eden, Adam and the Serpent, is as ridiculous as making a woman into a +goddess. It is the hope of the future that woman shall be realized as +neither diabolical nor divine, but as merely human. + + +6 + +We must recognize that the emotional quality in woman is not a +characteristic of sex; it is merely the exaggeration of a human +characteristic. For instance, it is currently said that women make +trouble on committees. They do; I have sat with women on committees and +will do it again as seldom as possible: their frequent inability to +understand an obvious syllogism, their passion for side issues, their +generalizations, and their particularism whenever emotion is aroused, +make committee work very difficult. But every committee has its male +member who cannot escape from his egotism or from his own conversation. +What woman does man does, only he does it less. The difference is one of +degree, not of quality. + +Where the emotionalism of women grows more pronounced is in matters of +religion and love. There is a vague correspondence between her attitude +to the one and to the other, in outwardly Christian countries, I mean. +She often finds in religion a curious philter, both a sedative and a +stimulant. Religion is often for women an allotrope of romance; blind +as an earthworm she seeks the stars, and it is curious that religion +should make so powerful an appeal to woman, considering how she has been +treated by the faiths. The Moslem faith has made of her a toy and a +reward; the Jewish, a submissive beast of burden; the Christian, a +danger, a vessel of impurity. I mean the actual faiths, not their +original theory; one must take a faith as one finds it, not as it is +supposed to be, and in the case of woman the Christian religion is but +little in accord with the view of Him who forgave the woman taken in +adultery. The Christian religion has done everything it could to heap +ignominy upon woman: head-coverings in church, practical tolerance of +male infidelity, kingly repudiation of queens, compulsory child-bearing, +and a multiplicity of other injustices. The Proverbs and the Bible in +general are filled with strictures on "a brawling woman", "a +contentious woman"; when man is referred to, mankind is really implied. +Yet woman has kissed the religious rods. One might think that indeed she +was seduced and held only by cruelty and contempt. She is now, in a +measure, turning against the faiths, but still she clings to them more +closely than man because she is more capable of making an act of faith, +of believing that which she knows to be impossible. + +The appeal of religion to woman is the appeal of self-surrender,--that +is, ostensibly. In the case of love it is the same appeal, ostensibly; +though I suspect that intuition has told many a woman who gave herself +to a lover or to a god that she was absorbing more than she gave: in +love using the man for nature whom she represents, in faith performing a +pantheistic prodigy, the enclosing of Nirvana within her own bosom. + +But speculation as to the impulse of sex in relation to religion, in +Greece, in Egypt, in Latin countries, would draw me too far. I can +record only that to all appearances a portion of the religious instinct +of woman is derived from the love instinct, which many believe to be +woman's first and only motive. It is significant that among the +sixty-five cases upon which this article is based there are several +deeply religious single women, while not one of the married women shows +signs of more than conventional devotion. I incline to believe that +woman is firstly animal, secondly, intellectual; while man appears to be +occasionally animal and primarily intellectual. + +Observe indeed the varying age at which paternal and maternal instincts +manifest themselves. A woman's passion for her child generally awakes at +birth, and there are many cases where an unfortunate girl, intending to +murder her child, as soon as it is born discovers that she loves it. On +the other hand, a great many men are indifferent to their children in +infancy and are drawn to them only as they develop intellectual quality. +This is just the time when woman drifts from them. Qualified by +civilized custom, the attitude of woman toward her child is very much +that of the cat toward her kitten; as soon as the kitten is a few weeks +old, the mother neglects it. A few months later she will not know it. +Her part is played. So it is not uncommon to find a woman who has been +enthralled by her baby giving it over entirely to hired help: the baby +is growing intellectualized; it needs her no more except as a kindly but +calm critic. And frequently at that time the father begins to +intervene, to control the education, to prepare for the future. Whether +in the mental field this means much more than the difference in +temperament between red hair and black hair (if that means anything), I +do not know; but it is singular that so often the mother should drift +away from her child just at the moment when the father thinks of +teaching it to ride and shoot and tell the truth. Possibly by that time +her critical work is done. + +Indicative of the influence of the emotions is the peculiar +intensification of love in moments of crisis, such as war, revolution, +or accident. Men do not escape this any more than women: the German +atrocities, for instance, largely proceed from extreme excitement. But +men have but slender bonds to break, being nearly all ready to take +their pleasure where they can, while women are more fastidious. Woman +needs a more highly charged atmosphere, the whips of fear or grief, the +intoxication of glory. When these are given her, her emotions more +readily break down her reserves; and it is not remarkable that in times +of war there should be an increase in illegitimate births as well as an +increase in marriages. Woman's intellect under those pressures gives +way. A number of the marriages contracted by British soldiers about to +leave for the front are simple manifestations of hysteria. + +As for caprice, it has long been regarded as woman's privilege, part of +her charm. Man was the hunter, and his prey must run. Only he is annoyed +when it runs too fast. He is ever asking woman to charm him by +elusiveness and then complaining because she eludes him. There is hardly +a man who would not to-day echo Sir Walter Scott's familiar lines,-- + + "O Woman! in our hours of ease + Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, + And variable as the shade + By the light quivering aspen made." + +It is not woman's fault. The poetry of the world is filled with the +words "to win" and "to woo"; one cannot win or woo one who does not +baffle; one can only take her, and men are not satisfied to do only +that. Man loves sincerity until he finds it; he can live neither with it +nor without it; this is true most notably in the lists of love. He is +for falsehood, for affectation, lest the prize should too easily be won. +Both sexes are equally guilty, if guilt there be. + +More true is it that many women lie and curvet as a policy because they +believe thus best to manage men. They generally believe that they can +manage men. They look upon them as "poor dears." They honestly believe +that the "poor dears" cannot cook, or run houses, or trim hats, ignoring +the fact that the "poor dears" do these things better than anybody, in +kitchens, in hotels, and in hat shops. Especially they believe that they +can outwit them in the game of love. This curious idea is due to woman's +consciousness of having been sought after in the past and told that she +did not seek man but was sought by him. Centuries of thraldom and +centuries of flattery have caused her to believe this--the poor dear! + +In ordinary times, when no world-movements stimulate, the chief +exasperation of woman resides in jealousy. It differs from male +jealousy, for the male is generally possessive, the female competitive. +I suspect that Euripides was generalizing rashly when he said that woman +is woman's natural ally. She is too sex-conscious for that, and many of +us have observed the annoyance of a mother when her son weds. +Competition is always violent, so much so that woman is generally +mocking or angry if a man praises ever so slightly another woman. If +she is young and able to make a claim on all men, she tends to be still +more virulent because her claim is on _all_ men. This is partly due to +the marriage market and its restrictions, but it is also partly natural. +No doubt because it is natural, woman attempts to conceal that jealousy, +nature being generally considered ignoble by the civilized world. In +this respect we must accept that an assumption of coldness is considered +a means of enticing man. It may well be that, where woman does not +exhibit jealousy, she is with masterly skill suggesting to the man a +problem: why is she not jealous? On which follows the desire to make her +jealous, and entanglement. + +Because of these powerful preoccupations, when woman adopts a career she +has hitherto frequently allowed herself to be diverted therefrom by +love. Up to the end of the nineteenth century it was very common for a +woman to abandon the stage, the concert platform, and so forth, when she +married. A change has come about, and there is a growing tendency in +women, whether or not at the expense of love I do not know, to retain +their occupations when they marry. But the tendency of woman still is to +revert to the instinctive function. In days to come, when we have +developed the individual and broken up the socialized society in which +we live, when the home has been swept away and the family destroyed, I +do not believe that this factor will operate so powerfully. In the way +of change stand the remnants of woman's slavish habit. No longer a +slave, she tends to follow, to submit, to adjust her conduct to the wish +of man, and it is significant that a powerful man is seldom henpecked. +The henpecked deserve to be henpecked, and I would point out that there +is no intention in these notes to attempt to substitute henpecked +husbands for cockpecked wives. The tendency is all the other way, for +woman tends to mould herself to man. + +A number of cases lie before me: + +Case 61 married a barrister. Before her marriage she lived in a +commercial atmosphere; after marriage she grew violently legal in her +conversation. Her husband developed a passion for motoring; so did Case +61. Observe that during a previous attachment to a doctor, Case 61 had +manifested a growing interest in medicine. + +Case 18 comes from a hunting family, married a literary man, and within +a few years has ceased to take any exercise and mixes exclusively with +literary people. + +Case 38, on becoming engaged to a member of the Indian Civil Service, +became a sedulous student of Indian literature and religion. On her +husband's appointment to a European post, her interest did not diminish. +She has paid a lengthy visit to India. + +There are compensating cases among men: I have two. In one case a +soldier who married a literary woman has turned into a scholar. In the +other a commercial man, who married a popular actress, has been +completely absorbed by the theater, and is now writing successful plays. + +It would appear from these rather disjointed notes that the emotional +quality in woman is more or less at war with her intellectual aims. +Indeed it is sometimes suggested that where woman appears, narrowness +follows; that books by women are mostly confined to love, are not cosmic +in feeling. This is generally true, for reasons which I hope to indicate +a little farther on; but it is not true that books where women are the +chief characters are narrow. Such novels as _Anna Karenina_, _Madame +Bovary_, _Une Vie_, _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ make that point +obvious. As a rule, books about men, touching as they do, not only upon +love, but upon art, politics, business, are more powerful than books +about women. But one should not forget that books written round women +are mostly written by women. As women are far less powerful in +literature than men, we must not conclude that books about women are +naturally lesser than books about men. The greatest books about women +have been written by men. But few men are sufficiently unprejudiced to +grasp women; only a genius can do so, and that is why few books about +women exist that deserve the epithet great. It remains to be seen +whether an increased understanding of the affairs of the world will +develop among women a literary power which, together with the world, +will embrace herself. + + +7 + +In the attempt to indicate what the future may reserve for woman, it is +important to consider what she has done, because she has achieved much +in the face of conservatism, of male egotism, of male jealousy, of +poverty, of ignorance, and of prejudice. These chains are weaker to-day, +and the goodwill that shall not die will break them yet; but many +women, a few of whose names follow, gave while enslaved an idea of +woman's quality. Examine indeed this short list:[5] + +[5] I associate the arts with intellectual quality. (See "Woman and the +Paintpot.") Broadly, I believe that all achievements, artistic or +otherwise, proceed from intellect. + +_Painting:_ Angelica Kauffmann, Madame Vigee le Brun, Rosa Bonheur. + +_Music and drama:_ Rachel, Siddons, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Teresa +Carreno, Sadayacco. + +_Literature:_ George Eliot, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Madame de Stael, +Madame de Sevigne, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Browning. More recent, +Mrs. Alice Meynell, Miss May Sinclair, "Lucas Malet," Mrs. Edith +Wharton, "Vernon Lee." + +_Social service and politics:_ Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Miss Jane +Addams, Madame Montessori, Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. Ennis Richmond, Mrs. +Beecher Stowe, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Havelock Ellis, Mrs. Sidney +Webb, Miss Clementina Black, Josephine Butler, Mrs. Pankhurst, Elizabeth +Fry. Observe the curious case of Mrs. Hetty Green, financier. + +This list could be enormously increased, and, as it is, it is a random +list, omitting women of distinction and including women of lesser +distinction. But still it contains no unknown names, and, though I do +not pretend that it compares with a similar list of men, it is an +indication. I am anxious that the reader should not think that I want to +compare Angelica Kauffmann with Leonardo, or Jane Austen with +Shakespeare. In every walk of life since history began there have been a +score of men of talent for every woman of talent, and there has never +been a female genius. That should not impress us: genius is an accident; +it may be a disease. It may be that mankind has produced only two or +three geniuses, and that one or two women in days to come may redress +the balance, and it may be that several women have been mute inglorious +Miltons. We do not know. But in the matter of talent, notably in the +arts, I submit that woman can be hopeful, particularly because most of +the names I give are those of women of the nineteenth century. The +nineteenth century was better for woman than the eighteenth, the +eighteenth better than the seventeenth: what could be more significant? +In the arts I feel that woman has never had her opportunity. She has +been hailed as an executive artist, actress, singer, pianist; but as a +creator, novelist, poet, painter, she has been steadfastly +discounted,--told that what she did was very pretty, until she grew +unable to do anything but the pretty-pretty. She has grown up in an +atmosphere of patronage and roses, deferential, subservient. She has +persistently been told that certain subjects were "not fit for nice +young ladies"; she has been shut away from the expression of life. + +Here is a typical masculine attitude, that of Mr. George Moore, in _A +Modern Lover_. Mr. George Moore, who seems to know a great deal about +females but less about women, causes in this book Harding, the novelist, +who generally expresses him, to criticize George Sand, George Eliot, and +Rosa Bonheur: "If they have created anything new, how is it that their +art is exactly like our own? I defy any one to say that George Eliot's +novels are a woman's writing, or that The Horse Fair was not painted by +a man. I defy you to show me a trace of feminality in anything they ever +did; that is the point I raise. I say that women as yet have not been +able to transfuse into art a trace of their sex; in other words, unable +to assume a point of view of their own, they have adopted ours." + +This is cool! I have read a great deal of Mr. George Moore's art +criticism: when it deals with the work of a man he never seeks the +_masculine_ touch. He judges a man's work as art; he will not judge a +woman's work as art. He starts from the assumption that man's art is +art, while woman's art is--well, woman's art. That is the sort of thing +which has discouraged woman; that is the atmosphere of tolerance and +good-conduct prizes which she has breathed, and that is the stifling +stupidity through which she is breaking. She will break through, for I +believe that she loves the arts better than does man. She is better +ground for the development of a great artist, for she approaches art +with sympathy, while the great bulk of men approach it with fear and +dislike, shrinking from the idea that it may disturb their +self-complacency. The prejudice goes so far that, while women are +attracted to artists as lovers, men are generally afraid of women who +practice the arts, or they dislike them. It is not a question of sex; it +is a question of art. All that is part of sexual heredity, of which I +must say a few words. + +But, before doing so, let me waste a few lines on the male conception of +love, which has influenced woman because love is still her chief +business. To this day, though it dies slowly, the male attitude is still +the attitude to a toy. It is the attitude of Nietzsche when saying, "Man +is for war, woman for the recreation of the warrior." This idea is so +prevalent that Great Britain, in its alleged struggle against +Nietzschean ideas, is making abundant use of the Nietzschean point of +view. No wonder, for the idea runs not only through men but through +Englishmen: "woman is the reward of war,"--that is a prevalent idea, +notably among men who make war in the neighborhood of waste-paper +baskets. It has been exemplified by the British war propaganda in every +newspaper and in every music hall, begging women to refuse to be seen +with a man unless he is in khaki. It has had government recognition in +the shape of recruiting posters, asking women "whether their best boy is +in khaki." It has been popularly formulated on picture postcards +touchingly inscribed, "No gun, no girl." + +All that--woman as the prize (a theory repudiated in the case of Belgian +atrocities)--is an idea deeply rooted in man. In the eighteen-sixties +the customary proposal was, "Will you be mine?" Very faintly signs are +showing that men will yet say, "May I be yours?" It will take time, for +the possessive, the dominating instinct in man, is still strong; and +long may it live, for that is the vigor of the race. Only we do not want +that instinct to carry man away, any more than we want a well-bred horse +to clench its teeth upon the bit and bolt. + +We want to do everything we can to get rid of what may be called the +creed of the man of the world, which is suggested as repulsively as +anywhere in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's _Departmental Ditties_: + + "My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er, + Yet lip meets with lip at the lastward--get out! She has been there + before. + They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking + in lore. + + "Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage; + But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thornbit of + Marriage. + Blister we not for _bursati_? So when the heart is vext, + The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next." + +There is a great deal of this sort of thing in Moliere, in Thackeray, in +Casanova. The old idea of woman eluding and lying; of woman stigmatized +if she has "been there before", while man may brag of having "been there +before" as often as possible; of man lovelacing for his credit's sake +and woman adventuring at her peril. + + +8 + +I submit that each man and woman has two heredities: one the ordinary +heredity from two parents and their forbears, the other more complex and +purely mental--the tradition of sex. Heredity through sex may be defined +as the resultant of consecutive environments. I mean that a woman, for +instance, is considerably influenced by the ideas and attitudes of her +mother, grandmothers, and all female ascendants. They had a tradition, +and it is the basis of her outlook. Any boy born in a slum can, as he +grows educated, realize that the world lies before him; literature and +history soon show him that many as lowly as he have risen to fame, as +artists, scientists, statesmen; he may even dream of becoming a king, +like Bonaparte. To the boy nothing is impossible; if he is brave, there +is nothing he may not tear from the world. He knows it, and it +strengthens him; it gives him confidence. What his fathers did, he may +do; the male sexual heredity is a proud heritage, and only yesterday a +man said to me, "Thank God, I am a man." Contrast with this the +corresponding type of heredity in woman. Woman carries in her the slave +tradition of her maternal forbears, of people who never did anything +because they were never allowed to; who were told that they could do +nothing but please, until they at last believed it, until by believing +they lost the power of action; who were never taught, and because +uneducated were ashamed; who were never helped to understand the work of +the world, political, financial, scientific, and, therefore, grew to +believe that such realms were not for them. I need not labor the +comparison: obviously any woman, inspired by centuries of dependence, +instinctively feels that, while everything is open to man, very little +is open to her. She comes into the arena with a leaden sword; in most +cases she hardly has energy to struggle. + +A little while ago, when Britain was floating a large war loan, one +woman told me that she could not understand its terms. We went into them +together, and she found that she understood perfectly. _She was +surprised._ She had always assumed that she did not understand finance, +and the assumption had kept her down, prevented her from understanding +it. Likewise, and until they try, many women think they cannot read maps +and time-tables. + +With that heredity environment has coalesced, and I think no one will +deny that a continuous suggestion of helplessness and mental inferiority +must affect woman. It means most during youth, when one is easily +snubbed, when one looks up to one's elders. By the time one has found +out one's elders, it is generally too late; the imprint is made, and +woman, looking upon herself as inferior, hands on to her daughters the +old slavery that was in her forbears' blood. To me this seems foolish, +and during the past thirty or forty years a great many have come to +think so too; they have shown it by opening wide to woman the doors of +colleges, many occupations and professions. Many are to-day impatient +because woman has not done enough, has not justified this new freedom. I +think they are unjust; they do not understand that a generation of +training and of relative liberty is not enough to undo evils neolithic +in origin. All that we are doing to-day by opening gates to women is to +counter-influence the old tradition, to implant in the woman of +to-morrow the new faith that nothing is beyond her powers. It lies with +the woman of to-day to make that faith so strong as to move mountains. I +think she will succeed, for I doubt whether any mental power is inherent +in sex. There are differences of degree, differences of quality; but I +suspect that they are mainly due to sexual heredity, to environment, to +suggestion, and that indeed, if I may trench upon biology, human +creatures are never entirely male or entirely female; there are no men, +there are no women, but only sexual majorities. + +The evolution of woman toward mental assimilation with man, though +particularly swift in the past half-century, has been steady since the +Renaissance. Roughly, one might say that the woman of the year 1450 had +no education at all; in this she was more like man than she ever was +later, for the knights could not read, and learning existed only among +the priests. The time had not yet come for the learned nobleman; Sir +Philip Sidney, the Earl of Surrey, the Euphuists, had not yet dispelled +the mediaeval fogs, and few among the laymen, save Cheke and Ascham, had +any learning at all. In those days woman sang songs and brought up +babies. Two hundred and fifty years later the well-to-do woman had +become somebody; she could even read, though she mainly read tales such +as _The Miraculous Love of Prince Alzamore_. She was growing significant +in the backstairs of politics. Sometimes she took a bath. Round about +1850 she turned into the "perfect lady" who kept an album bound in +morocco leather. She wrote verses that embodied yearnings. Often she had +a Turkish parlor, and usually as many babies as she could. But already +the Brontes and George Eliot had come to knock at the door; Miss Braddon +was promising to be, if not a glory, at least a power, and before twenty +years were out, John Stuart Mill was to lead the first suffragettes to +the House of Commons. + +To-day it is another picture: woman in every trade except those in which +she intends to be; woman demanding and using political power; woman +governing her own property; woman senior to man in the civil service. +She has not yet her charter, and still suffers much from the tradition +of inferiority, from her lack of confidence in herself. But many women +are all ambition, and within the last year two young women novelists +have convinced me that the thing they most desire is to be great in +their art. Whether they will succeed does not matter much; what does +matter is that they should harbor such a wish. Whether woman's physical +disabilities, her present bias toward unduly moral and inadequately +intellectual judgments, will forever hamper her, I do not know; but I do +not think so. Whether the influence of woman, more inherently lawless, +more anarchic than man, will result in the breaking down of conventions +and the despising of the law, I do not know either. But if the world is +to be remoulded, I think it much more likely to be remoulded by woman +than by man, simply because that as a sex he is in power, and the people +who are in power never want to alter anything. + +Woman's rebellion is everywhere indicated: her brilliance, her failings, +her unreasonableness, all these are excellent signs of her revolt. She +is even revolting against her own beauty; often she neglects her +clothes, her hair, her complexion, her teeth. This is a pity, but it +must not be taken too seriously: men on active service grow beards, and +woman in her emancipation campaign is still too busy to think of the art +of charming. I suspect that as time passes and she suffers less +intolerably from a sense of injustice, she will revert to the old +graces. The art of charming was a response to convention; and of late +years unconventionality, a great deal of which is ridiculous, has grown +much more among women than among men. That is not wonderful, for there +were so many things woman might not do. Almost any movement would bring +her up against a barrier; that is why it seems that she does nothing in +the world except break barriers. How genuine woman's rebellion is, no man +can say. It may be that woman's impulse toward male occupations and +rights is only a reaction against the growing difficulty of gaining a +mate, children, and a home. But I very much more believe that woman is +straining toward a new order, that the swift evolution of her mind is +leading her to contest more and more violently the assumption that there +are ineradicable differences between the male and the female mind. As +she grows more capable of grasping at education, she will become more +worthy of it; her intellect will harden, tend to resemble that of man; +and so, having escaped from the emptiness of the past into the special +fields which have been conceded her, she will make for broader fields, +fields so vast that they will embrace the world. + + + + +II + +FEMINIST INTENTIONS + + +1 + +The Feminist propaganda--which should not be confounded with the +Suffrage agitation--rests upon a revolutionary biological principle. +Substantially, the Feminists argue that there are no men and that there +are no women; there are only sexual majorities. To put the matter less +obscurely, the Feminists base themselves on Weininger's theory, +according to which the male principle may be found in woman, and the +female principle in man. It follows that they recognize no masculine or +feminine "_spheres_", and that they propose to identify absolutely the +conditions of the sexes. + +Now there are two kinds of people who labor under illusions as regards +the Feminist movement, its opponents and its supporters: both sides tend +to limit the area of its influence; in few cases does either realize +the movement as revolutionary. The methods are to have revolutionary +results, are destined to be revolutionary; as a convinced but cautious +Feminist, I do not think it honest or advisable to conceal this fact. I +have myself been charged by a very well-known English author (whose name +I may not give, as the charge was contained in a private letter) with +having "let the cat out of the bag" in my little book, _Woman and +To-morrow_. Well, I do not think it right that the cat should be kept in +the bag. Feminists should not want to triumph by fraud. As promoters of +a sex war, they should not hesitate to declare it, and I have little +sympathy with the pretenses of those who contend that one may alter +everything while leaving everything unaltered. + +An essential difference between "Feminism" and "Suffragism" is that the +Suffrage is but part of the greater propaganda; while Suffragism desires +to remove an inequality, Feminism purports to alter radically the mental +attitudes of men and women. The sexes are to be induced to recognize +each other's status, and to bring this recognition to such a point that +equality will not even be challenged. Thus Feminists are interested +rather in ideas than in facts; if, for instance, they wish to make +accessible to women the profession of barrister, it is not because they +wish women to practice as barristers, but because they want men to view +without surprise the fact that women may be barristers. And they have no +use for knightliness and chivalry. + +Therein lies the mental revolution: while the Suffragists are content to +attain immediate ends, the Feminists are aiming at ultimate ends. They +contend that it is unhealthy for the race that man should not recognize +woman as his equal; that this makes him intolerant, brutal, selfish, and +sentimentally insincere. They believe likewise that the race suffers +because women do not look upon men as their peers; that this makes them +servile, untruthful, deceitful, narrow, and in every sense inferior. +More particularly concerned with women, it is naturally upon them and +their problems that they are bringing their first attention to bear. + +The word "inferior" at once arouses comment, for here the Feminist often +distinguishes himself from the Suffragist. He frequently accepts woman's +present inferiority, but he believes this inferiority to be transient, +not permanent. He considers that by removing the handicaps imposed upon +women, they will be able to win an adequate proportion of races. His +case against the treatment of women covers every form of human relation: +the arts, the home, the trades, and marriage. In every one of these +directions he proposes to make revolutionary changes. + +The question of the arts need not long detain us. It is perfectly clear +that woman has had in the past neither the necessary artistic training, +nor the necessary atmosphere of encouragement; that families have been +reluctant to spend money on their daughter's music, her painting, her +literary education, with the lavishness demanded of them by their son's +professional or business career. Feminists believe that when men and +women have been leveled, this state of things will cease to prevail. + +In the trades, English Feminists resent the fact that women are excluded +from the law, generally speaking, the ministry, the higher ranks of +business and of the Civil Service and so forth, and practically from +hospital appointments; also that women are paid low wages for work +similar to that of men. + +They complain too that the home demands of woman too great an +expenditure of energy, too much time, too much labor; that the +concentration of her mind upon the continual purchasing and cooking of +food, on cleaning, on the care of the child, is unnecessarily developed; +they doubt if the home can be maintained as it is if woman is to develop +as a free personality. + +With marriage, lastly, they are perhaps most concerned. Though they are +not in the main prepared to advocate free union, they are emphatically +arrayed against modern marriage, which they look upon as slave union. +The somewhat ridiculous modifications of the marriage service introduced +by a few couples in America and by one in England, in which the word +"obey" was deleted from the bride's pledge, can be taken as indicative +of the Feminist attitude. Their grievances against the home, against the +treatment of women in the trades, are closely connected with the +marriage question, for they believe that the desire of man to have a +housekeeper, of woman to have a protector, deeply influence the +complexion of unions which they would base exclusively upon love, and it +follows that they do not accept as effective marriage any union where +the attitudes of love do not exist. For them who favor absolute +equality, partnership, sharing of responsibilities and privileges, +modern marriage represents a condition of sex-slavery into which woman +is frequently compelled to enter because she needs to live, and in which +she must often remain, however abominable the conditions under which the +union is maintained, because man, master of the purse, is master of the +woman. + +Generally, then, the Feminists are in opposition to most of the world +institutions. For them the universe is based upon the subjection of +woman: subjection by law, and subjection by convention. Before +considering what modifications the Feminists wish to introduce into the +social system, a few words must be said as to this distinction between +convention and the law. + + +2 + +Convention, which is nothing but petrified habit, has lain upon woman +perhaps more heavily than any law, for the law can be eluded with +comparative ease, and she who eludes it may very well become a heroine, +merely because we are mostly anarchists and dislike the law. Every man +is in himself a minority, and is opposed to the law because the law is +the expression of the will of the majority, that is to say, the will of +the vulgar, of the norm. But convention is far more subtle: it is the +result of the _common_ agreement of wills. Therefore, as it is a product +of unanimity, the penalties which follow on the infractions of its +behests are terrible; she who infringes it becomes, not a heroine, but +an outcast. The law is, then, nothing by the side of etiquette. + +Hence Feminist propaganda. While the Suffragists wish to alter the law, +the Feminists wish to alter also the conventions. It may not be too much +to say that they would almost be content with existing laws if they +could change the point of view of man, make him take for granted that +women may smoke, or ride astride, or fight; cease to be surprised +because Madame Dieulafoy chooses to wear trousers; briefly, renounce the +subjective fetich of sex. Still, as they realize that states become more +socialistic every day, they realize also that through the law only can +they hope to change manners. The mental revolution which they intend to +effect must therefore be prefaced by a legal revolution. + +The first Feminist intention is economic,--proceeds on two lines: + + 1. They intend to open every occupation to women. + + 2. They intend to level the wages of women and men. + +As regards the first point, they are not as a rule unreasonable. If they +demand that women should practice the law as they do in France, preach +the Gospel as they do in the United States of America, bear arms, as in +Dahomey, it is not because they attach any great value to these +occupations, but because they consider that any limitation put upon +woman's activities is intrinsically degrading; so keenly do they feel +this, that some serious Feminists took part some years ago in the +controversy on, "Are there female angels?" + +The second point is more important. It is a well-established fact that +women are paid less than men for the same work: for instance, in +England, women begin at wages which are less than those of men as +teachers, post-office and other civil servants. The Feminists are not +prepared to agree that this condition is due to some inherent +inferiority of woman: in their view her _inferiority_ is transitory, is +due to her _inferior_ position. One Feminist, C. Gascoigne Hartley, in +_The Truth About Women_, outlines a bold hypothesis: "What, then, is the +real cause of the lowness of remuneration offered to women for work +when compared with men? Thousands of women and girls receive wages that +are insufficient to support life. They do not die, they live; but how? +The answer is plain. Woman possesses a marketable value attached to her +personality which man has not got. The woman's sex is a saleable thing." +Briefly, if a woman works less well than a man, less fast, less +continuously, it is because she is inadequately rewarded. They reverse +the common position that woman is not well paid because woman is not +competent, basing themselves on the parallel that liberty alone fits men +for liberty. They argue that woman is not competent because she is not +well paid; consequently, those Feminists who are inclined toward +Radicalism in politics demand a minimum wage in all trades, which shall +be the same for women and men. + +The economic change will be brought about by revolutionary methods, by +sex strikes and sex wars. The gaining of the vote is, in the Feminist's +view, nothing but an affair of outposts. Conscious propagandists do not +intend to allow the female vote to be split as it might recently have +been between Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Taft. They intend to use +the vote to make women vote as women, and not as citizens; that is to +say, they propose to sell the female vote _en bloc_ to the party that +bids highest for it in the economic field. To the party that will, as a +preliminary, pledge itself to level male and female wages in government +employ, will be given the Feminist vote; and if no party will bid, then +it is the Feminist intention to run special candidates for all offices, +to split the male parties, and to involve them in consecutive disasters +such as the one which befell the Republican party in the last +presidential election in the United States. + +Side by side with this purely political action, Feminists intend to use +industrial strikes in exactly the same manner as do the Syndicalist +railwaymen, miners, and postmen of Europe; well aware that they have +captured a number of trades, such as millinery, domestic service, +restaurant attendance, and so forth, and large portions of other trades, +such as cotton-spinning in Lancashire, they propose to use as a basis +the vote and the political education that follows thereon, to induce +women to group themselves in women's trade-unions, by means of which +they will hold up trades, and when they are strong enough, hold up +society itself. + +I enunciate these views with full sympathy, which can hardly be refused +when one realizes that the sweated trades are almost entirely in the +hands of women,--laundry, box-making, toys, artificial flowers, and the +like. The fact that the underpaid trades are women's trades, and that +the British Government has been compelled to institute wage-boards to +bring up women's pay from four cents an hour to the imposing figure of +six cents, and the recent white-slavery investigations in America, are +evidence enough that public opinion should hesitate before blaming any +industrial steps women may choose to take. For it should not be +forgotten that woman risks more than comfort and health, and that the +underpayment of her sex often forces her to degradation. + +Conscious of the temporary inferiority of woman, an inferiority +traceable to centuries of neglect and belittling patronage, the +Feminists propose to increase woman's power by making her fitter for +power. They are well aware that the enormous majority of women receive +but an inferior education, that in their own homes, especially in the +South of England, they are not encouraged to read the newspaper (which I +believe to be a more powerful instrument of intellectual development +than the average serious book), and that any attempt on their part to +acquire more information, to attend lectures, to join debating clubs, +tends to lower their "charm value" in the eyes of men. That point of +view they are determined to alter in the male. They propose to kill the +prejudice by the homoeopathic method: that is to say, to educate woman +more because man thinks she is already too educated. Briefly, to kill +poison by more poison. For this purpose they intend to throw open +education of all grades to women as well as to men, to remove such +differences as exist in England, where a woman cannot obtain an Oxford +or Cambridge degree. They propose to raise the school age of both sexes, +and to not less than sixteen. The object of this, so far as women are +concerned, is to prevent the exploitation of little girls of fourteen, +notably as domestic servants. + +Some Feminists favor co-education, on the plea that it enables the sexes +to understand each other, and these build principally on the success of +American schools. A more violent section, however, desires to place the +education of girls entirely in the hands of women, partly because they +wish to enhance the sex war, and partly because they consider that +continual intercourse between the sexes tends to deprive ultimate love +of its mystery and its charm. But both sections fully agree that the +broadest possible education must be given to every woman, so as to fit +her for contest with every man. + + +3 + +So much, then, for the mental revolution and its eventual effects on the +position of women in the arts, the trades, and the schools. In the +industrial section, especially, we have already had an indication of the +main line of the Feminist attitude, a claim to a right to choose. This +right is indeed the only one for which the Feminists are struggling, and +they struggle for those obscure reasons which lie at the root of our +wish to live and to perpetuate the race. It is no wonder, then, that the +Feminists should have designs upon the most fundamental of human +institutions, marriage and motherhood. + +In the main, Feminists are opposed to indissoluble Christian marriage. +Some satisfaction has been given to them in a great many states by the +extension of divorce facilities, but they are not content with piecemeal +reform such as has been carried out in the United States, for they +realize quite well that divorce cuts both ways, and that it is not +satisfactory for a wife to be married in one state, and divorced under a +slack law in another. Indeed I believe that one of the first Feminist +demands in America would be for a federal marriage law. + +But alterations in the law are minor points by the side of the emotional +revolution that is to be engineered. Roughly speaking, we have to-day +reasonable men and instinctive women. Such notably was Ibsen's view: +"Woman cannot escape her primitive emotions." But he thought she should +control these inevitables so far as possible: "As soon as woman no +longer dominates her passions, she fails to achieve her objects."[6] The +distinction between reason and instinct, however, is not so wide as it +seems; for reason is merely the conscious use of observation, while +instinct is the unconscious use of the same faculty; but as the trend of +Feminism is to make woman self-conscious and sex-conscious, the +Feminists can be said broadly to be warring against instinct, and on the +side of reason. They look upon instinct as indicative of a low +mentality. For instance, the horse is less instinctive than the zebra, +and a curious instance of this was yielded by certain horses in the +South African war, which were unable to crop the grass because they had +always eaten from mangers. Civilization, we may say, had caused the +horses to degenerate, but nobody will contend that the horse is not more +intelligent than the zebra, more capable of love, even of thought. +Briefly, the horse approximates more closely to a reasonable being than +does the instinctive wild beast. + +[6] _La Femme dans le Theatre d'Ibsen_, by FRIEDERICKE BOETTCHER.--THE +AUTHOR. + +The Feminists therefore propose, by training woman's reason, to place +her beyond the scope of mere emotion and mere prejudice, to enable her +to judge, to select a mate for herself and a father for her children,--a +double and necessary process. + +There is a flavor of eugenics about these ideas: the right to choose +means that women wish to be placed in such a position that, being +economically independent to the extent of having equal opportunities, +they will not be compelled to sell themselves in marriage as they now +very often do. I do not refer to entirely loveless marriages, for these +are not very common in Anglo-Saxon states, but to marriages dictated by +the desire of woman to escape the authority of her parents, and to gain +the dignity of a wife, the possession of a home and of money to spend. +In the Feminist view, these are bad unions because love does not play +the major part in them, and often plays hardly any part at all. The +Feminists believe that the educated woman, informed on the subject of +sex-relations, able to earn her own living, to maintain a political +argument, will not fall an easy prey to the offer held out to her by a +man who will be her master, because he will have bought her on a truck +system. + +Under Feminist rule, women will be able to select, because they will be +able to sweep out of their minds the monetary consideration; therefore +they will love better, and unless they love, they will not marry at all. +It is therefore probable that they will raise the standard of masculine +attractiveness by demanding physical and mental beauty in those whom +they choose; that they will apply personal eugenics. The men whom they +do not choose will find themselves in exactly the same position as the +old maids of modern times: that is to say, these men, if they are unwed, +will be unwed because they have chosen to remain so, or because they +were not sought in marriage. The eugenic characteristic appears, in that +women will no longer consent to accept as husbands the old, the +vicious, the unpleasant. They will tend to choose the finest of the +species, and those likely to improve the race. As the Feminist +revolution implies a social revolution, notably "proper work for proper +pay", it follows that marriage will be easy, and that those women who +wish to mate will not be compelled to wait indefinitely for the +consummation of their loves. Incidentally, also, the Feminists point out +that their proposals hold forth to men a far greater chance of happiness +than they have had hitherto, for they will be sure that the women who +select them do so because they love them, and not because they need to +be supported. + +This does not mean that Feminism is entirely a creed of reason; indeed a +number of militant Feminists who collected round the English paper, _The +Freewoman_, have as an article of their faith that one of the chief +natural needs of woman and society is not less passion, but more. If +they wish to raise women's wages, to give them security, education, +opportunity, it is because they want to place them beyond material +temptations, to make them independent of a protector, so that nothing +may stand in the way of the passionate development of their faculties. +To this effect, of course, they propose to introduce profound changes +in the conception of marriage itself. + +Without committing themselves to free union, the Feminists wish to +loosen the marriage tie, and they might not be averse to making marriage +less easy, to raising, for instance, the marriage age for both sexes; +but as they are well aware that, in the present state of human passions, +impediments to marriage would lead merely to an increase in irregular +alliances, they lay no stress upon that point. Moreover, as they are not +prepared to admit that any moral damage ensues when woman contracts more +than one alliance in the course of her life,--which view is accepted +very largely in the United States, and in all countries with regard to +widows,--they incline rather to repair the effects of bad marriages, +than to prevent their occurrence. + +Plainly speaking, the Feminists desire simpler divorce. They are to a +certain extent ready to surround divorce with safeguards, so as to +prevent the young from rushing into matrimony; indeed they might "steep +up" the law of the "Divorce States." On the other hand, they would +introduce new causes for divorce where they do not already exist, and +they would make them the same for women and men. For instance, in Great +Britain a divorce can be granted to a man on account of the infidelity +of his wife, while it can be granted to a woman only if to infidelity +the husband adds cruelty or desertion. Such a difference the Feminists +would sweep away, and they would probably add to the existing causes +certain others, such as infectious and incurable diseases, chronic +drunkenness, insanity, habitual cruelty, and lengthy desertion. It +should be observed that the campaign is thus as favorable to men as it +is to women, for many men who have now no relief would gain it under the +new laws. As Feminism is international, the programme of course includes +the introduction of divorce where it does not exist,--in Austria, Spain, +South American states, and so forth. + +What exact form the new divorce laws would take, I cannot at present +say, for Feminism is as evolutionary as it is revolutionary, and +Feminists are prepared to accept transitory measures of reform. Thus, in +the existing circumstances, they would accept a partial extension of +divorce facilities, subject to an adequate provision for all children. +In the ultimate condition, to which I refer later on, this might not be +necessary, but as a temporary expedient, Feminists desire to protect +woman while she is developing from the chattel condition to the +free-woman condition. Until she is fit for her new liberty, it is +necessary that she should be enabled to use this liberty without paying +too heavy a price therefor. Indeed this clash between the transitory and +the ultimate is one of the difficulties of Feminism. The rebels must +accept situations such as the financial responsibility of man, while +they struggle to make woman financially independent of man, and it is +for this reason that different proposals appear in the works of Ellen +Key, Rosa Mayreder, Charlotte Gilman, Olive Schreiner, and others, but +these divergences need not trouble us, for Feminism is an inspiration +rather than a gospel, and if it lays down a programme, it is a temporary +programme. + +Personally, I am inclined to believe that the ultimate aim of Feminism +with regard to marriage is the practical suppression of marriage and the +institution of free alliance. It may be that thus only can woman develop +her own personality, but society itself must so greatly alter, do so +very much more than equalize wages and provide work for all, that these +ultimate ends seem very distant. They lie beyond the decease of +Capitalism itself, for they imply a change in the nature of the human +being which is not impossible when we consider that man has changed a +great deal since the Stone Age, but is still inconceivably radical. + +Ultimate ends of Feminism will be attained only when socialization shall +have been so complete that the human being will no longer require the +law, but will be able to obey some obscure but noble categorical +imperative; when men and women can associate voluntarily, without thrall +of the State, for the production and enjoyment of the goods of life. How +this will be achieved, by what propaganda, by what struggles and by what +battles, is difficult to say; but in common with many Feminists I +incline to place a good deal of reliance on the ennobling of the nature +of the male. That there is a sex war, and will be a sex war, I do not +deny, but the entry of women into the modern world of art and business +shows that an immense enlightenment has come over the male, that he no +longer wishes to crush as much as he did, and therefore that he is +loving better and more sanely. Therein lies a profound lesson: if men do +not make war upon women, women will not make war upon men. I have spoken +of sex war, but it takes two sides to make a war, and I do not see that +in the event of conflict the Feminists can _alone_ be guilty. + +One feature manifests itself, and that is a change of attitude in woman +with regard to the child. Indications in modern novels and modern +conversation are not wanting to show that a type of woman is arising who +believes in a new kind of matriarchate, that is to say, in a state of +society where man will not figure in the life of woman except as the +father of her child. Two cases have come to my knowledge where English +women have been prepared to contract alliances with men with whom they +did not intend to pass their lives,--this because they desired a child. +They consider that the child is the expression of the feminine +personality, while after the child's birth, the husband becomes a mere +excrescence. They believe that the "Wife" should die in childbirth, and +the "Mother" rise from her ashes. There is nothing utopian about this +point of view, if we agree that Feminists can so rearrange society as to +provide every woman with an independent living; and I do not say that +this is the prevalent view. It is merely one view, and I do not believe +it will be carried to the extreme, for the association of human beings +in couples appears to respond to some deep need; still, it should be +taken into account as an indication of sex revolt. + +That part of the programme belongs to the ultimates. Among the +transitory ideas, that is, the ideas which are to fit Feminism into the +modern State, are the endowment of motherhood and the lien on wages. The +Feminists do not commit themselves to a view on the broad social +question whether it is desirable to encourage or discourage births. +Taking births as they happen, they lay down that a woman being +incapacitated from work for a period of weeks or months while she is +giving birth to a child, her liberty can be secured only if the fact of +the birth gives her a call upon the State. Failing this, she must have a +male protector in whose favor she must abdicate her rights because he is +her protector. As man is not handicapped in his work by becoming a +father, they propose to remove the disability that lies upon woman by +supplying her with the means of livelihood for a period surrounding the +birth, of not less than six weeks, which some place at three months. +There is nothing wild in this scheme, for the British Insurance Act +(1912) gives a maternity endowment of seven dollars and fifty cents +whether a mother be married or single. The justice of the proposal may +be doubted by some, but I do not think its expediency will be +questioned. On mere grounds of humanity, it is barbarous to compel a +woman to labor while she is with child; on social grounds it is not +advantageous for the race to allow her to do so: premature births, +child-murder, child-neglect by working mothers, all these facts point to +the social value of the endowment. + + +4 + +The last of the transitory measures is the lien on wages. In the present +state of things, women who work in the home depend for money on husbands +or fathers. The fact of having to ask is, in the Feminists' view, a +degradation. They suggest that the housekeeper should be entitled to a +proportion of the man's income or salary, and one of them, Mrs. M. H. +Wood, picturesquely illustrates her case by saying that she hopes to do +away with "pocket-searching" while the man is asleep. Mrs. Wood's ideas +certainly deserve sympathy; though many men pay their wives a great deal +more than they are worth and are shamefully exploited--a common modern +position--it is also quite true that many others expect their wives to +run their household on inadequate allowances, and to come to them for +clothes or pleasure in a manner which establishes the man as a pasha. +When women have grown economically independent, no lien on wages will be +required, but meanwhile it is interesting to observe that there has +recently been formed in England a society called "The Home-makers' Trade +Union", one of whose specific objects is, "To insist as a right on a +proper proportion of men's earnings being paid to wives for the support +of the home." + +Generally speaking, then, it is clear that women are greatly concerned +with the race, for all these demands--support of the mother, support of +the child, rights of the household--are definitely directed toward the +benevolent control by the woman of her home and her child. I have +alluded above to these Feminist intentions: they affect the immediate +conditions as well as the ultimate. + +Among the ultimates is a logical consequence of the right of woman to be +represented by women. So long as Parliamentary Government endures, or +any form of authority endures, the Feminists will demand a share in this +authority. It has been the custom during the Suffrage campaign to +pretend that women demand merely the vote. The object of this is to +avoid frightening the men, and it may well be that a number of +Suffragists honestly believe that they are asking for no more than the +vote, while a few, who confess that they want more, add that it is not +advisable to say so; they are afraid to "let the cat out of the bag", +but they will not rest until all Parliaments, all Cabinets, all Boards +are open to women, until the Presidential chair is as accessible to them +as is the English throne. Already in Norway women have entered the +National Assembly: they propose to do so everywhere. They will not +hesitate to claim women's votes for women candidates until they have +secured the representation which they think is their right, that is, one +half. + +These are the bases, roughly outlined, on which can be established a +lasting peace. + +I do not want to exaggerate the difficulties and perils which are bound +up in this revolutionary movement, but it is abundantly clear that it +presupposes profound changes in the nature of women and of men. While +man will be asked for more liberalism and be expected to develop his +sense of justice (which has too long lain at the mercy of his erratic +and sentimental generosity), woman will have to modify her outlook. She +is now too often vain, untruthful, disloyal, avaricious, vampiric; +briefly she has the characteristics of the slave. She will have to +slough off these characteristics while she is becoming free, she will +have to justify by her mental ascent the increase in her power. +Feminists are not blind to this, and that is why they lay such stress +upon education and propaganda. + +One of the most profound changes will, I think, appear in sex relations. +The "New Woman", as we know her to-day, a woman who is not so new as the +woman who will be born of her, is a very unpleasant product; armed with +a little knowledge, she tends to be dogmatic in her views and offensive +in argument. She tends to hate men, and to look upon Feminism as a +revenge; she adopts mannish ways, tends to shout, to contradict, to +flout principles because they are principles; also she affects a +contempt for marriage which is the natural result of her hatred of man. +The New Woman has not the support of the saner Feminists. Says Ellen +Key, in _The Woman Movement_, "These cerebral, amaternal women must +obviously be accorded the freedom of finding the domestic life, with its +limited but intensive exercise of power, meagre beside the feeling of +power which they enjoy as public personalities, as consummate women of +the world, as talented professionals. But they have not the right to +_falsify life values_ in their own favor so that they themselves shall +represent the highest form of life, the 'human personality', in +comparison with which the 'instinctive feminine' signifies a lower stage +of development, a poorer type of life." If this were the ultimate type, +very few men would be found in the Feminist camp, for the coming of the +New Woman would mean the death of love. If the death of love had to be +the price of woman's emancipation, I, for one, would support the +institution of the zenana and the repression of woman by brute force; +but I do not think we need be anxious. + +If the New Woman is so aggressive, it is because she must be aggressive +if she is to win her battle. We cannot expect people who are laboring +under a sense of intolerable injury to set politely about the righting +of that injury: when woman has entered her kingdom she will no longer +have to resort to political nagging; her true nature will affirm itself +for the first time, for it is difficult to believe that it has been able +to affirm itself under the entirely artificial conditions of androcracy. +Already some women to whom a profession or mental eminence has given +exceptional freedom show us in society that women can be free and yet +be sweet. Indeed they almost demonstrate the Feminist contention that +women must be free before they are sweet, for are not these women--of +whom all of us can name a few--the noblest and most desirable of their +kind? The New Woman is like a freshly painted railing: whoever touches +it will stain his hands, but the railing will dry in time. + +There is one type of woman, however, whom I venture to call "Old Woman", +who is probably a bitterer foe of Feminism than any man, and that is the +super-feminine type, the woman for whom nothing exists except her sex, +who has no interests except the decking of her body and the quest of +men. This woman, who once dominated her own species, still represents +the majority of her sex. It is still true that the majority of women are +concerned with little save the fashions, novels, plays, and vaudeville +turns. These women want to have "a good time" and want nothing more; +they are ready to prey upon men by flattering them; they encourage their +own weakness, which they call "charm", and generally aim at being +pampered slaves, because, from their point of view, it pays better than +being working partners. Evidence of this is to be found in women's +shops, in the continual change in fashions, each of which is a signal to +the male, and in the continual increase in the sums spent on adornment: +it is not uncommon for a rich woman to spend five hundred dollars on a +frock; two hundred and fifty dollars has been given for a hat; and +twenty-five thousand dollars for a set of furs. + +As Miss Beatrice Tina very well says, "Woman is woman's worst enemy", +though she is not referring to this type. So long as woman maintains +this attitude, compels men to forget her soul in the contemplation of +her body, so long will she remain a slave, for this preoccupation goes +further than clothes. + +In a book recently published,[7] an account is given of the late Empress +of Austria, who was evidently one of the lowest of the slave type. It is +noteworthy that she had no love for her children because their coming +had impaired her beauty. Now I do not suggest that Feminists are arrayed +against the care of the body; far from it, for the campaign has many +associates among those who support physical culture, the fresh-air +movement, ancient costume revival, and the like; but Feminists are well +aware that concentration on adornment diverts woman from the development +of her brain and her soul, and enhances in her the characteristics of +the harem favorite. One tentative suggestion is being made, and that is +a uniform for women. The interested parties point out that men +practically wear uniform, that there is hardly any change from year to +year in their costume, and that any undue adornment of the male is +looked upon as bad form. Thus, while few men can with impunity spend +more than five hundred dollars a year on their clothes, many women do +not consider themselves happy unless they can dispose of anything +between five and twenty times that amount. This, while involving the +household in difficulties, lowers the status of woman by lowering her +mentality. + +[7] _My Past_, by COUNTESS MARIE LARISCH. + +Feminists do not ask for sumptuary laws, having very little respect for +the law, but for a new vision, which is this: Man, intellectually +developed, decks himself in no finery, because it is not essential to +his success; woman must likewise abandon frippery if she is to have +energy enough to reach his plane. They propose to attain their object by +the force of their example, and I have received several letters on the +subject, which show that the idea of fixing the fashions is not +entirely wild, for fashion consists after all in wearing what everybody +wears, and if an influential movement is started to maintain the costume +of women on a very simple basis, it may very well prevail and kill much +of their purely imitative vanity by showing them that undue devotion to +self-adornment is very much worse than immoral: in other words, that it +is in bad taste. + +Incidentally the Feminists believe that the downfall of many women is +procured by the offer of fine clothes. They hope, therefore, to derive +some side-profits from the simplification of woman's dress. + +The question also arises as to whether woman can become intellectually +independent, whether she does not naturally depend upon the opinion of +man. It is suggested that not even rich women are actually independent, +that women place marriage above their art, their work; but I do not +think this is a very solid objection, for the vaunted independence of +men is not so very common; they currently take many of their opinions +from their reading in newspapers and books, and must often subordinate +their views and their conduct to the will of their employer. The main +answer to this suggestion is that we must not consider woman as she +was, but woman "as she is becoming", as a creature of infinite +potentialities, as virgin ground. + +It may be _petitio principii_ to say that, as woman has produced so much +that is fine, she would have produced very much more if she had not been +hampered by law and custom, derided by the male, but bad logic is often +good sense. This should commend itself to men who are no longer willing +to support the idea that women are inherently inferior to them, but who +are willing to give them an opportunity to develop in every field of +human activity. Thus and thus only, if man will readjust his views, +expel _vir_ and enthrone _homo_, can woman cease to appear before him as +a rival and a foe, realize herself in her natural and predestined role, +that of partner and mate.[8] + +[8] Note: This chapter should be taken as the summary of an intellectual +position. Its points are considered in detail in the four chapters that +follow. + + + + +III + +UNIFORMS FOR WOMEN + + +1 + +The change which has come over politics reflects closely enough the +change which has come about in the direction of man's desire. In times +of peace, diplomacy and the affairs of kings have given place to wages +and the housing of the poor; that which was serious has become pompous; +that which was of no account now stands in the foreground. And so it +is not absurd to suggest that one of those things which once made jests +for the comic paper and the Victorian paterfamilias has, little by +little, with the spread of wealth, become a problem of the day, a +problem profound and menacing, full of intimations of social decay, not +far remote in its reactions from the spread of a disease. + +That problem is the problem of women's dress, or rather it is the +problem of the fashions in women's dress. Women have never been content +merely to clothe themselves, nor, for the matter of that, until very +recently, have men; but men have grown a new sanity, while women, if we +read aright the signs of the times, have grown naught save a new +insanity. We have come to a point where, for a great number of women, +the fashions have become the motive power of life, and where, for almost +every woman, they have acquired great importance. Women classify each +other according to their clothes; they have corrupted the drama into a +showroom; they have completely ruined the more expensive parts of the +opera house; they have invaded the newspapers in myriad paragraphs, in +fashion-pages, and do not spare even the august columns of the most +dignified papers. This preoccupation does not exist among men. We have +had our dandies and we still have our "nuts" and dudes; but it never +served a man very well to be a dandy or a beau, and most of us to-day +suspect that if the "nut" were broken, he would be found to contain no +kernel. + +Men have escaped the fashions and therewith they have spared themselves +much loss of energy and money. For it is not only the fashions that +matter: it is the cost of women's clothes, the intrinsic cost; it is +their continual changes for no reason, changes which sometimes produce, +and sometimes destroy, beauty; sometimes promote comfort, and often +cause torture. But always by their drafts upon its wealth, women lead +humanity nearer to poverty, envy, discontent, frivolity, starvation, +prostitution,--to general social degradation. Nothing can mitigate these +evils until woman is induced to view clothing as does the modern man, +until, namely, she decides to wear a uniform. + + +2 + +The costliness of women's clothes would not be so serious if the +fashions did not change at so bewildering a speed. We have come to a +point where women have not time to wear out their clothes, flimsy though +they be; where we ought to welcome the adulteration of silk and wool; +where we ought to hope that every material may get shoddier and more +worthless, so that the new model may have a chance to justify its short +life by the badness of the stuff. To-day women will quite openly say, "I +won't buy that. I couldn't wear it out." They actually _want_ to wear +out their clothes! The causes of this are obvious enough. We are told +that there are "rings" in Paris, London, and Vienna which decree every +few months that the clothes of yesterday have become a social stigma; +this is true, but much truer is the view that women are in the grasp of +a new hysteria; that, lacking the old occupations of brewing, baking, +child-rearing, spinning, they are desperately looking for something to +do. They have found it: they are undoing the social system. + +It was not always so. It is true that all through history, even in +biblical times, moralists and preachers inveighed against the gewgaws +that woman loves. They cried out before they were hurt; if he were alive +to-day, Bossuet might, for the first time, fail to find words. + +To the old curse of cost we have added change, as any student of costume +will confirm; for in past ages the clothing of women did not change very +rapidly. There is hardly any difference between the costume of 1755 and +that which Queen Marie Leszczynska wore ten years later; in Greece, +between B.C. 500 and 400, the Ionic _chiton_ and _himation_ varied but +little; the Doric _chiton_ did not vary at all; the variations in the +over-mantle were not considerable. Any examination of early sculpture, +of Attic vases, or of terra cottas, will show that this is true. The +ladies of Queen Elizabeth's court, together with their royal mistress, +wore the same kind of clothes through their adult years. Their clothes +were sometimes costly, but when bought they were bought, and until worn +out were not discarded. And our grandmothers had that famous +black-silk dress, so sturdy that it stood up by itself, very like a +Victorian virtue; it lasted a lifetime, sometimes became an heirloom. + +There was no question then of fashion following on fashion at a whirling +pace. Women were clothed, sometimes beautifully, sometimes hideously, +but at any rate they scrapped their gowns only when they were worn out; +now they scrap them as soon as they have been worn. The results of this +I deal with further on, but here already I can suggest these results by +quoting a few facts. Before me lies one of Messrs. Barker's +advertisements; it seems that there are reception gowns, restaurant +gowns; that there are coats for the races, and coats for the car, wraps +for one thing, and wraps for another--and the advertisement adds that +these are the "latest novelties" for "the coming season", and that all +this is "for the spring." And then there is an advertisement of Messrs. +Tudor Brothers, who have gowns for Ascot, and--this is quite true--gowns +for Alexandra Day. + +I have looked in vain for gowns for July 23, for gowns to be worn +between a quarter past eleven and half-past twelve in the morning, and +for special mourning gowns for a cousin's stepfather. Some occasions are +shamefully disregarded. They are not disregarded by everybody; at least +I presume that the lady quoted by Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson in her lecture +in March, who possessed one hundred and ten nightdresses, could cope +with any eventuality; there is also the lady, mentioned to me by a +friend who made some American investigations for me, who possesses one +hundred and fifty pairs of slippers. There is, too, the _Bon Marche_ in +Paris, where, out of a staff of six thousand to seven thousand, are +employed fifteen hundred dressmakers, and where there is a special +workroom for the creation of models. + +As all these people must find something to do, they create, unless they +merely steal from the dead; but one thing they always do, and that is +destroy yesterday. Out of their activities comes a continual stream of +new colors and new combinations of colors, of high heels and low heels, +gilt heels and jeweled heels; they give us the spat that is to keep out +the wet and then the spat that does not keep out the eye. Before me lies +a picture of a spat made of lace; another of a skirt slit so high as to +reveal a jeweled garter. That is creation, and I suppose I shall be told +that that is art. It is art sometimes, and very beautiful, but beauty +does not make it live; in fact beauty causes the creation to die more +swiftly, because the more appealing it is, the more it is worn: as soon +as it is worn by the many, the furious craving for distinction sweeps +down upon it and slays it. There are several mad women in the St. Anne +asylum in Paris whose peculiar disease is that they cannot retain the +same idea for more than a few seconds; they ring the changes on a few +hundreds of ideas. Properly governed, their inspirations might be +valuable in Grafton Street. + +I do not think the end is near; indeed, fashions will be more extreme +to-morrow than they are to-day. The continual growth of wealth, and the +difficulty of spending it when it clots in a few hands, will make for a +greater desire to spend more, more quickly, more continually, and in +wilder and wilder forms. The women are to-day having individual orgies; +to-morrow will come the saturnalia. + + +3 + +There is a clear difference between the cost of women's clothes and of +men's. It is absolutely impossible to dress a woman of the comfortable +classes for the same amount per annum that will serve her husband well. +I must quote a few figures taken from Boston, New York, and London. + + _Boston._--Persons considered: those having $4500 to $7500 a year. + + Average price of a suit (coat and skirt), $40 ready to wear; made + by a dressmaker of slight pretensions, $125 to $225. + + Afternoon dresses, ready to wear, $125 to $225. + + Evening dresses, absolute minimum, $50; fashionable frocks, $200 to + $350. + + On an income of $7500 a woman's hat will cost $25; variation, $20 + to $45; hats easily attain $125. + + Veils attain $5. Opera cloaks in stores, $90 to $250. Dressmakers + charge $450 to $600. + + _New York._--Winter street dress, $225. + + Skunk muff and stole, $200. + + Hats for the year, at least $250 to $300. + + Footwear, $250 per annum. + +I am informed that a lady in active society can "manage with care" on +$2500, but really needs $4500 to $5000. + +A "moderate" wardrobe allows for "extremely simple" gowns costing $125 +each; the lady in question requires at least six new evening dresses and +six remodeled, per annum. She wore an average set of furs, price $1500. + +_London._--Debenham & Freebody blouse, $10. + +Ponting's Leghorn hat, $8. Gorringe straws, $12 to $14. + +I am informed that where the household income is $3500 to $7500 a year +the ordinary prices are as follows: + + Coats and skirts, $50 to $75. + + Evening dresses, $75 to $120. + + Hats, $7.50 to $20. + + Silk stockings are cheap at $1.50, and veils at $1.50. + +Now these are all moderate figures and will shock nobody, but if they +are compared with the prices paid by men, they are, without any question +of fashion, outrageous. I believe they are high because it is men and +not women who pay, because the dressmaker trades on man's +sex-enslavement. But I am concerned just now less with causes than +with facts, and would rather ask how the modest $100 evening gown +compares with the man's $63 dress suit (by a good tailor). How does the +$63 coat and skirt compare with a man's lounge suit, price $36 by +anybody save Poole, and by him only $52.50? No man has, I believe, paid +more than $9 for a silk hat, while his wife pays at least $20. The point +is not worth laboring, it is obvious; while every man knows that a "good +cut" does not account for the discrepancy, as he too pays, but pays +moderately, for the art of a good tailor. And, mark you, apart from +cost, men's clothes last indefinitely, while women's, if they have the +misfortune to last, must be given away. + +The prices I have quoted are moderate prices, and I cannot resist the +temptation to give some others which are not unusual. I am informed that +$400 can easily be charged for an afternoon dress, $1000 for an evening +dress, $200 for a coat and skirt; that it is quite easy to spend $5000 a +year on underclothes and $250 on an aigrette. I observe a Maison Lewis +Ascot hat, price $477. Yantorny will not make a shoe under $60; a pair +of his shoes made of feathers is priced by him at $2400. + +As for totals: I have private information of an expenditure of $30,000 a +year on dress; one of $70,000 is reported to me from America. I have +seen a bill for dress and lingerie alone, incurred at one shop, for +$35,000 in twelve months. + + +4 + +It might be thought that this ghastly picture speaks for itself, but +evidently it does not, as hardly anybody takes any notice of the +question. I will venture to draw attention to the results of what is +happening, ignoring the abnormal figures, because I wish to reason from +what happens all the time rather than from what happens now and then, to +figure the position in which the world finds itself because women do not +hesitate to spend upon their clothes a full ten per cent of the +household income. This figure is correct: such inquiries as I have been +able to make among women of my acquaintance prove it. Out of a joint +income of $12,500 a year one woman spends $1350 a year on clothes; +another, out of $5750 a year, last year $655; a third, out of $8000 a +year $700, but she is a "dowdy." + +In households of moderate means, where a certain social status is kept +up, where, for instance, a woman takes $500 a year out of $5000, while +her husband dresses well on $200, when all expenses have been paid, +there is money for little else; fixed charges, children, service, taxes, +swallow up the rest. There is hardly anything left for books, barely for +a circulating library; there is very little for the theater and for +games; holidays are taken in hideous lodgings at the seaside because a +comfortable bungalow costs too much. The money that should have provided +the most important thing in human life, namely pleasure, is on the +woman's back. + +In the lower classes the case is, in a way, still worse. I do not mean +workmen's wives, for any old rag will serve the slaves,--but their +daughters! Recently a coroner's inquest in Soho showed that a girl had +practically starved herself to death to buy fine clothes, and it is not +an isolated case. For the last eight years I have been investigating the +condition of workwomen, and, so far as typists, manicurists, and +tea-shop girls are concerned, I assert that their main object in leaving +the homes where they are kept is to have money for smart clothes; they +flood the labor market at blackleg prices, to buy finery and for no +other reason. They go further: while making the necessary inquiries for +my novel, _A Bed of Roses_, I scheduled the cases of about forty London +prostitutes. In about twenty-five per cent of the cases the original +cause, direct or contributory, was a desire for luxury which took the +form of fine clothes. Now these women tell one what they think one would +like to hear, and, where they scent sympathy, as much as possible +attribute their fall to man's deceit. But acumen develops in the +investigator; the figure of twenty-five per cent is correct or may even +be an underestimate. + +The conclusion is that from fifteen thousand to twenty-five thousand +women now on the streets of London have been brought there by a desire +for self-adornment. Meanwhile there is no labor available for the poor +consumer, because the energy of the dressmaker is diverted toward the +rich; while Miss So-and-So is paid $4000 a year to design hats, the +workwoman wears a man's cap rescued from the refuse heap. + +I shall be told that the rich are not responsible for the luxurious +desires of the poor; but that is evidently nonsense: the rich themselves +are not innocent of prostitution. I have had reported the case of a +well-paid Russian dancer whose dress bills are paid by two financiers; +that of a French actress who calmly states that she needs three lovers, +one for her hats, one for her lingerie, and one for her gowns; and a +close inquiry into the "bridge losses" which occasionally provoke the +fall of rich men's daughters will show that these are dressmakers' +bills. All this is not without its effect upon the poor. The girl of the +lower classes, hypnotized by fashion plates, compelled to witness at the +doors of fashionable churches, in the street, at the music halls, and +even at the picture palaces, the continuous streaming past of the +fashion pageant, develops an intolerable desire for finery. You may say +that she is wrong, that she should practice self-denial, but this is not +an age of self-denial; luxury is in the air, we despair of happiness and +take to pleasure, we feel the future life too far ahead, we want to +enjoy. It is natural enough, especially for girls who are young and who +feel unfairly outclassed by richer women who are neither as young nor as +beautiful; but still it is base. If baseness is to go, the lesson must +come from the top; if there is to be self-denial, then _que messieurs +les assassins commencent!_ Until the rich woman realizes that her +example is her responsibility it will be fair to say that the Albemarle +Street $500 gown has its consequence in a prostitute on the Tottenham +Court Road. + +The rich woman herself does not escape scot free. It is obvious that the +woman chiefly occupied with thoughts of dress develops a peculiar kind +of frivolity, that she becomes unfit to think of art, the public +interest, perhaps of love. She is the worst social product, a parasite, +and she is not even always beautiful. Sometimes she is insane: the +investigations of Doctor Bernard Holz and of Doctor Rudolf Foerster +connect the mania for fashion with paranoia, and have elicited +extraordinary facts, such as the collection of clothes by insane women, +and such as cases of pyromania which coincided with a craze for dress. + +It is, indeed, quite possible that some women might go mad if they +permanently felt themselves less well-dressed than their fellows; and +that is the crux of the fashion idea. Woman does not desire to be +beautifully dressed: she desires to be more beautifully dressed than her +fellows. She wishes to insult and humiliate her sisters, and, as modern +clothes are costly, she does not hesitate to give full play to human +cruelty, to use all the resources of the rich husband on whom she preys +to satisfy her pride and to apply her arrogant ingenuity to the torture +of her sisters. And I said, "She wants to be more beautiful." Is that +quite right? Partly, though what woman mainly seeks is not to be +beautiful but to be fashionable; the words have become synonymous. Yet +the fashions are not always beautiful; sometimes they are hideous, break +every line of the body, make it awkward, hamper its movements. If women +truly wanted to be beautiful they would not follow the fashions: our +little dark, sloe-eyed women would dress rather like the Japanese, and +our big, ox-eyed beauties would appear as Greeks; but no, Juno, Carmen, +and Dante's Beatrice, all together and all in turn, don first the +crinoline and then the hobble skirt. + +Nor do they want to attract men. They think they do but they do not, for +they know perfectly well that few men realize what they wear, that all +they observe is "something blue" or an effect they call "very doggy"; +they know also that men do not wed the dangerous smart, but the modest; +that men fear the implication that smart women are unvirtuous, and that +they certainly fear their dressmakers' bills. Nor is it even true that +women want many new clothes so as to be clean: if that were true, men in +their well-worn suits could not be touched with a pitchfork. The truth +is that changes in fashion are a habit and a hysteria, an advertisement, +an insult offered by wealth to poverty, a degradation of women's +qualities which carries its own penalty in the form of growing mental +baseness. + + +5 + +Well, what shall we do? Women must wear a uniform. Strictly, they +already do wear a uniform, for what is a fashion but a uniform? Some +years ago when musquash coats (and cheaper velveteen) were "in", and +hats were very small, there were in London scores of thousands of young +women so exactly alike that considerable confusion was caused at tube +stations and such other places where lovers meet; this simplifies the +problem of choosing the new uniform. Let it not be thought that I wish +women to dress in sackcloth, though they will certainly dress in +sackcloth if ever sackcloth comes in; I do not care what they wear, +provided they do not continually alter its form, and provided it is not +too dear. The way in which old and young, tall and short, fat and thin, +force themselves into the same color and the same shape is sheer +socialism; I merely want to carry the uniform idea a little further, to +make it a _permanent_ uniform. + +We already have uniforms for women, apart from the fashions, uniforms +which never change: those of the nurse, the nun, the parlor-maid, the +tea-girl. We have national costumes, Dutch, Swiss, Irish, Japanese, +Italian; we have drill suits and sports dresses. And they are not ugly. +All these uniformed women have as good a chance of marriage as any +others, and her ladyship gains as many proposals on the golf links as at +night on the terrace. I would suggest that women should have two or +three uniforms of a kind to be decided, which would never change, and, I +repeat, they need not be ugly uniforms. + +Men's uniforms are not ugly; I would any day exchange my lounge suit for +the uniform of a guardsman--if I might wear it. In this "if" is the +essence of the whole idea, the whole practicability of it. Men wear +uniform, that is to say lounge suits in certain circumstances, morning +coats in others, evening clothes in yet others. They never vary. We are +told that they vary. Tailors show new suitings, the papers print +articles about men's fashions, and perhaps a button is added or a lapel +is lengthened, and that is all. Nobody cares. Men follow no fashions so +far as the fable of men's fashions is true; they dare not do so, because +to do so serves them ill in society. A man who dares to break through +the uniform idea of his sex is generally dubbed a "bounder"; if he is +one of the very young, fancy-socked, extreme-collared kind, people smile +and say, "It'll wear off with time." And women, who tolerate the dandies +at tea-time, love the others. + +The uniform would have to be brought in by a group of leaders of fashion +determined to abolish fashion. I could sketch a dozen uniforms, but +women would make a great to-do, forgetting that most fashions are +created by men, so I will confine myself to timid suggestions. + +1. For general outdoor wear the coat and skirt is the best, together +with a blouse. Lace and insertion should be abandoned, and I feel that +the skirt is too long for walking; sometimes it is certainly too tight +to enable a woman to get into an omnibus or railway carriage gracefully. +Probable price, complete, $50. + +2. For summer wear, a plain blouse and skirt; not the atrocious blouse +ending at the belt, but the beautiful tunic-blouse that falls over the +hips. Both blouse and skirt would need to be made of a permanently +fixed, plain, and uni-colored material. Total cost, $25. + +3. If the skirt were shortened, leggings, gaiters, and stockings would +have to be standardized; the shoe buckle, being too costly, would +disappear. + +4. A fixed type of hat, without feathers or aigrettes, made in straw and +trimmed with flowers; produced in scores of thousands, it ought not to +cost more than $2.50. + +5. A fixed type of evening gown, price $24 or $32, without any lace or +trimmings, sequins, paillettes; without overlays of flimsies of any +kind; no voile, no chiffon, no tulle, no muslin, but a stuff of good +quality, hanging in straight folds. Jewelry to be banned. + +6. The afternoon dress should be completely suppressed; it responds to +no need. + +7. The total annual cost would be about $150. + +I shall be asked whether this can be done. I think it can. Recently the +Queen of Italy created a vogue for coral ornaments among the Roman +ladies so as to restore their livelihood to the fishermen of Torre del +Greco. That points the way; we do not need sumptuary laws, though, in +times to come, when capitalism is nothing but a historical incident, we +may have passed through such laws into a fuller freedom. It is enough +to decree that any variation from the new standard is _bad form_. Human +beings will break all laws, but they shrink if you tell them that they +are infringing the rules of etiquette. There are many men to-day who +would like to wear satin and velvet: they dare not because it is bad +form. If, therefore, a permanent clothing scheme were established by +strong patrons, if it were agreeable to the eye, which is easy to +arrange, I believe that fashions could be fixed because it would be +known that a woman who went beyond the uniform must either be +disreputable or suffer from bad taste. + + +6 + +I shall be told that I am warring against art. That is not true: some +fashions are beautiful, some are hideous. Who would to-day wear the +crinoline? Who would wear the gigot sleeve? They are ugly--but, stay! +Are they? Will they not be worn in an adapted form some time within the +next generation? They will, because fashions are not works of art; they +are only fashions. Women do not adapt the fashions to themselves, they +adapt themselves to the fashions, and it is a current joke that even +woman's anatomy is adjusted to suit the clothes of the day. + +Doubtless I shall be challenged on this, and told that woman's +individuality expresses itself in her clothes. That again is not true; +the girl with a face like a Madonna will wear a ballet skirt if it comes +in, and if she has to "adapt" the ballet skirt to the Madonna idea I +should like to know how it is going to be done. Indeed the one thing +woman avoids doing is expressing her individuality; she wants what Oscar +Wilde called "the holy calm of feeling perfectly dressed", that is, like +everybody else, and a little more expensively. + +It may be retorted, however, that uniform is not cheap. That again is +untrue. When a uniform is standardized, turned out in quantities and +never varied, it can be made very cheaply. Men's clothing, which is not +fully standardized, is such that no man need spend more than $250 a +year. That is the condition I want for women. Of course it will make +unemployed, and our sympathy will be invoked for dressmakers thrown out +of work: that is the old argument against railways on behalf of coaches, +against the mule-jenny, against every engine of human progress, and it +is sheer barbarism. Labor redistributes itself; money wasted on women's +clothes will be used in other trades which will reabsorb the labor and +make it useful instead of sterile. + +An apparently more powerful argument is that uniform would deprive women +of their individuality: it cannot be much of an individuality that +depends upon a frock, and I am reduced to wonder whether some women lose +their personality once their frock is taken off. Still, there is a +little force in the argument, for it seems to lead to the conclusion +that beautiful women will enjoy undue advantage when dressed as are the +ill-favored. But this is not a true conclusion; it is not even true to +say that one cannot be distinctive in uniform, as anybody will realize +who compares a smart soldier with an untidy one. I have myself worn a +soldier's coat and know what care may make of it. Nor do I believe that +the beautiful would win; by winning is meant winning men, but we know +perfectly well that it is not body which wins men: it wins them only to +lose them after a while. It is something else which wins men: +individuality, wit, gaiety, cleverness, or cleverness clever enough to +appear foolish. And we men who wear uniform, does not our individuality +manage to attract? It does; and indeed I go further: I assert that +fashions smother individuality because they are tyrannical and much more +obtrusive than uniforms. Woman's charms are to-day dwarfed because men +are dazzled and misled by the meretricious paraphernalia which clothe +woman; the true charms have to struggle for life. I want to give them +full play, to enable men to choose better and more sanely, no longer the +empty odalisque but the woman whose personality is such that it can +dominate her uniform. That will be a true race and a finer than the game +of sex-temptation which women think they are playing. + +It may be said that uniform will do away with class distinctions, that +one will no longer be able to tell a lady from one who is not. That is +not true. What one will no longer be able to tell is a rich woman from a +poor one; and who is to complain of that? Surely it will not be men, for +it is not true, I repeat, that men admire extravagant clothes; nor are +they tempted by them; nor do women dress to tempt them: at any rate, the +seduction of Adam was not compassed in that way. + +Besides, women give away their own case: if their clothes were intended +to attract men, then surely married women would cease to follow the +fashions unless, which I am reluctant to conclude, they still desire to +pursue after marriage their nefarious, heart-breaking career. + +The last suggestion is that women would not wear the uniform. Not follow +a fashion? This has never happened before. + +I adhere therefore to my general view that if woman is to be diverted +from the path that leads straight toward a greater degradation of her +faculties; if household budgets are to be relieved so as to leave money +for pleasure and for culture; if true beauty is to take the place of +tinsel, feathers, frills, ruffles, _poudre de riz_; if middle-class +women are to cease to live in bitterness because they cannot keep up +with the rich; if the daughters of the poor are no longer to be +stimulated and corrupted by example into poverty and prostitution, it +will be necessary for the few who lead the many to realize that +simplicity, modesty, moderation, and grace are the only things which +will enable women to gain for themselves, and for men, peace and +satisfaction out of a civilization every day more hectic. + + + + +IV + +WOMAN AND THE PAINT POT + + +It is in a shrinking spirit that I venture to suggest that woman has so +far entirely failed to affirm her capacity in the pictorial arts, for I +address myself to an audience which contains many sculptors and +pictorial artists, an audience of serious and enthusiastic people to +whom art matters as much and perhaps more than life. But it is of no use +maintaining illusions; woman has exhibited, and is exhibiting, very +great artistic capacities in the histrionic art, in dancing, in +executive music, and in literature. There is, therefore, no case for +those who argue that woman has no artistic capacity. She has. I select +but a few out of the many when I quote the actresses, Siddons, Rachel, +La Duse, Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry; the dancers, La Duncan, Pavlova, +Genee; the literary women, the Brontes, Madame de Stael, George Eliot, +Sappho, Christina Rossetti; among the more modern, May Sinclair and +Lucas Malet. + +At first sight, however, it is curious that I should be able to quote no +composers and no dramatists; it is impossible to take Guy d'Hardelot and +Theresa del Riego seriously. And the women dramatists, taken as a whole, +hardly exist. This would go to show that there is some strength in the +contention that woman is purely executive and uncreative; but this +cannot be true, for the list of writers I have given, which is very far +from being exhaustive, and which is being augmented every day by +promising girl writers, shows that woman has creative capacity, creative +in the sense that she can evolve character and scene, and treat +relations in that way which can be described as art. If, therefore, +there have been no women painters of note, it cannot be because woman +has no creative capacity. It may be suggested that those women who have +creative capacity turn to literature, but that is a very rash +assumption. For creative men turn to any one of the half-dozen forms of +art, and are not monopolized by literature; there is no reason, mental +or physical, why the female genius should be capable of traveling only +along one line. The problem is a problem of direction, a problem of +medium. + +My potential opponents will probably deny that there have been, and are, +no women painters. They will quote the names of Angelica Kaufmann, of +Vigee-Lebrun, of Rosa Bonheur, of Berthe Morisot, of Elizabeth Butler; +the more modern will mention Ella Bedford, Lucy Kemp-Welch; the most +modern will put forward Anne Estelle Rice; and one or two may shyly +whisper Maude Goodman. But, honestly, does this amount to anything? I do +not suppose that Lady Elizabeth Butler's "Inkermann" or "Floreat Etona" +will outlive the works of Detaille or of Meissonier, however doubtful be +the value of these men; the fame of Angelica Kaufmann, though enhanced +by the patronage of kings, has not been perpetuated by Bartolozzi, in +spite of that etcher's inflated reputation. Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair" +hangs in the National Gallery, and another of her works in the +Luxembourg, but merits which balance those of Landseer are not enough; +and Berthe Morisot walked, it is true, in the footprints of Manet, but +did her feet fill them? The truth of the matter is that there has not +been a woman Velasquez, a woman Rembrandt. + +Now, as some of my readers may know, I do not make a habit of belittling +woman and her work. My writings show that I am one of the most extreme +feminists of the day, and I am well aware that woman must not be judged +upon her past, that it is perhaps not enough to judge her on her present +position, and that imagination, the only spirit with which criticism +should be informed if it is to have any creative value, should take note +of the potentialities of woman. But still, though we may write off much +of the past and flout the record of insult and outrage which is the +history of woman under the government of man, we cannot entirely ignore +the present: the present may not be the father of the future, but it is +certainly one of its ancestors. We have to-day a number of women who +paint--the great majority, such as Mrs. Von Glehn, Ella Bedford, Lucy +Kemp-Welch, and others who are hung a little higher over the line, are +rendering Nature and persons with inspired and photographic zeal; +others, such as Anne Estelle Rice, Jessie Dismorr, Georges Banks, are +inclined to "fling their paint pot into the faces of the public." Some +do not abhor Herkomer, others are banded with Matisse; but though to be +Herkomer may not be supreme, and though to be Matisse may perhaps be +insane, it must regretfully be conceded that the heights of the Royal +Academy and of Parnassus (or whatever the painter's mountain may be) are +not haunted by the woman painter. Without being carried away by the +author of "Bubbles", I am not inclined to be carried away by Maude +Goodman and the splendours of "Taller Than Mother." Lucy Kemp-Welch's +New Forest ponies are ponies, but I do not suppose that they will be +trotting in the next century; they do not balance even the work of +Furse. + +Let me not be reproached because I use the low standard of the Royal +Academy, for if woman has a case at all she must prove herself on all +planes; it is as important that she should equal the second-rate people +as that she should shine among the first-rate. I do not look for a time +to come when woman will be superior to man, but to a time, quite remote +enough for my speculations, when she will be his equal, when she will be +able to keep up with all his activities. Curiously enough, the advanced +female painters are not so inferior to the advanced men painters as are +the stereotyped women to their masculine rivals. There is excellence in +the work of Anne Estelle Rice and Georges Banks, though they perhaps do +not equal Fergusson; but they are less remote from him in spirit and +realization than are the lesser women from the lesser men. That is a +fact of immense importance, for it is evident that nothing is so hopeful +as this _reduction_ in the inferiority of female painting. It may be +that masculine painting is decaying, which would facilitate woman's +victory, but I do not think so; modern masculine painting has never been +so vigorous, so inspired by an idea since the great religious uprush of +the Primitives. + +Women are striving to conform not to a lower but to a higher standard, a +standard where the sensuality of art is informed by intellect. If, +therefore, they conform more closely to the standard which men are +establishing, they are more than holding their own; they are gaining +ground. + +Yet they are still, in numbers and in quality, much inferior to the men. +Anne Estelle Rice alone cannot tilt in the ring against Fergusson, +Gaugin, Matisse, Picasso. And it is not true that they have been +entirely deprived of opportunity. Up to the 'seventies or 'eighties, +woman was certainly very much hampered by public opinion. For some +centuries it had been held that she should paint flowers, but not +bodies; nowadays, dizzily soaring, she has begun to paint cranes and +gasometers. The result of the old attitude was that the work of women +was mainly futile because it was expected to be futile; though painters +were not always gentlemen, female painters seemed to have to be ladies, +but times changed. There came the djibbah, Bernard Shaw, and the +cigarette; women began to flock into Colarossi's and the Slade, into the +minor schools where, I regret to say, the new spirit has yet to blow and +to do away with the interesting practice of the life class where the +male model wears bathing drawers. Woman has had her opportunity, and any +morning on the Boulevard Montparnasse you can see her carrying her +paraphernalia towards the Grande Chaumiere and the other studios. She is +suffering a good deal from the effects of past neglect, but much of that +neglect is so far away that we must ask ourselves why woman has not yet +responded to the more tender attitude of modern days. For she has not +entirely responded; she is still either a little afraid of novelty or +inclined to hug it, to affront the notorious perils of love at first +sight. + +I believe that the causes of women's failure in painting are +twofold--manual and mental. Though disinclined to generalize upon the +female temperament, because such generalizations generally lead to the +discovery of a paradox, I am conscious in woman of a quality of +impatience. + +While woman will exhibit infinite patience, infinite obstinacy, in the +pursuit of an end, she is often inclined to leap too quickly towards +that end. To use a metaphor, she may spend her whole life in trying to +cut down a tree without taking the preliminary trouble to have her ax +sharpened; she does unwillingly the immense labor on the antique, she +neglects her anatomy, she sacrifices line to color. + +This is natural enough, for she has a keen sense of color. As witness +her clothes. When clothes are the work of woman they are generally +beautiful in color; when they are beautiful in line they are generally +by Poiret. For line tends to be pure and cold, and I hope I will shock +nobody when I suggest that purity and coldness are masculine rather than +feminine. Color is the expression of passion, line is the expression of +intellect, or rather of that curious combination of intellect and +passion, of intellect directing passion, and of passion inflaming +intellect, which is art as understood by man. It is to this second group +of causes, those I have called mental, that the inferiority of the +woman painter is traceable. There is a lack of intellect in her work. It +is true that the male painter is often just a painter, and that I can +think of no case to-day which reproduces the engineering capacities of +Leonardo da Vinci, but I refer rather to a general intellectual sweep +than to a specialized capacity. Men do not hold themselves so far aloof +from politics, business and philosophy as do women; too many of the +latter read nothing whatever. For some painters a novel is too much, +while their selection among the contents of the newspaper might be +improved upon by a domestic servant. There is a lack of depth, a lack of +intellectual quality, of that "general" quality which, directed into +other channels, produces the engineer, the business man and the +politician. I do not believe in "artistic capacity", "scientific +capacity", "business capacity"; there is nothing but "capacity" which +takes varying forms, just as there is red hair and black hair, but +always hair. In male painting intellect sometimes stands behind passion; +in female painting the attitude is purely sensuous, and that is not to +be wondered at: from the days of the anthropoid ape to this one we have +developed nothing in woman but the passionate quality; we have taught +her to charm, to smile, and to lie until she thinks she can do nothing +but charm, and believes in her own lies. We have refused her education, +we have made her into a slave. Thus, while many of the male painters are +not intellectuals, they have been able to draw upon the higher average +quality of the male mind, while woman to-day, desirous of so doing, will +find very little to the credit of the account of her sex. + +What is the conclusion to be drawn? It is to my mind obvious enough. If +woman is producing inferior work it is because she is still an inferior +creature, but I do not think she will remain one. Her progress during +the last thirty years has been staggering; she has forced herself into +the trades, into professions, into politics; she has produced standard +works; in one or two cases she has been creative in science; and I +believe, therefore, that her intellect is on the up grade, and that her +sex is accumulating those resources which will serve as a background to +the artistic development of her passionate faculty. Woman is about to +gain political power. She will use it to improve the education of her +sex, to broaden its opportunities. She is coming out into the world in +cooeperation and in conflict with man; she will become more +self-conscious, and gain a solidarity of sex upon which will follow +mutual mental stimulation and specialized sex development. For that +reason I believe woman's progress will not be less in the pictorial arts +than in other fields if she develops in herself the fullness of life and +its implications. She will inevitably wage the sex war: she will gain +her artistic deserts after the sex peace. + + + + +V + +THE DOWNFALL OF THE HOME + + +There is something the matter with the home. It may be merely the subtle +decay which, in birth beginning and in death persisting, escorts all +things human and perchance divine. It may be decay assisted by the +violence of a time unborn and striving through novelty toward its own +end, or toward an endlessness of change. But, whatever the causes, which +interest little a hasty generation, signs written in brick and mortar +and social custom, in rebellion and in aspiration, are not wanting to +show that the home, so long the center of Anglo-Saxon and American +society, is doomed. And, as is usual in the twentieth century, as has +been usual since the middle of the nineteenth, woman is at the bottom of +the change. It is women who now make revolutions. A hundred years ago it +was men who made revolutions; nowadays they content themselves with +resolutions. So it has been left for woman, more animal, more radical, +more divinely endowed with the faculty of seeing only her own side, to +sap the foundations of what was supposed to be her shelter. + +I do not suppose that the household has ever been quite as much of a +shelter for women as the Victorian philosophers said, and possibly +believed; an elementary study of the feminist question will certainly +incline the unprejudiced to see that the home, which has for so long +masqueraded in the guise of woman's friend, has on the whole been her +enemy; that instead of being her protector it has been her oppressor; +that it has not been her fortress, but her jail. Woman has felt in the +home much as a workman might feel if he were given the White House as a +present, told to live in it and keep it clean without help on two +dollars a week. If the home be a precious possession, it may very well +be a possession bought at too high a price--at the price of youth, of +energy, and of enlightenment. The whole attitude of woman toward the +home is one of rebellion--not of all women, of course, for most of them +still accept that, though all that is may not be good, all that is must +be made to do. Resignation, humility, and self-sacrifice have for a +thousand generations been the worst vices of woman, but it is apparent +that at last aggressiveness and selfishness are developing her toward +nobility. She is growing aware that she is a human being, a discovery +which the centuries had not made, and naturally she hates her gilded +cage. + +Woman is tired of a home that is too large, where the third floor gets +dirty while she is cleaning the first; of a home that cannot be left +lest it should be burglared; of a home where there is always a slate +wrong, or a broken window, or a shortage of coal. She is tired of being +immolated on the domestic hearth. One of them, neither advanced nor +protesting, gave me a little while ago an account of what she called a +characteristic day. I reproduce it untouched: + +THE DAY OF A REALLY NICE ENGLISHWOMAN + + 8 A.M.--Early tea; rise; no bath. [The husband has the only bath, + and the boiler cannot make another until ten.] + + 9 A.M.--Breakfast. [The husband takes the only newspaper away to + the office.] + + 9.30 A.M.--Conversation with the cook: hardness of the butcher's + meat; difficulty because there are only three eatable animals; + degeneration of the butter; grocery and milk problems. + + Telephone.--A social engagement is made. + + Conversation with the cook resumed: report on a mysterious disease + of the kitchen boiler; report on the oil-man; report on the + plumber. + + Correspondence begun and interrupted by the parlor-maid, who + demands a new stock of glass. + + Correspondence resumed; interrupted by the parlor-maid's demand for + change with which to pay the cleaner. + + Rush up-stairs to show which covers are to go. + + Correspondence resumed, and interrupted by the telephone: the + green-grocer states that some of the vegetables she wants cannot be + procured. + + Correspondence resumed; interrupted by the nurse, who wishes to + change the baby's milk. + + Three telephone calls. + + Correspondence resumed, and interrupted by the housemaid, who wants + new brooms. + + 11 A.M.--The children have gone; the servants are at work. + Therefore: + + 11-11.15 A.M.--Breathing space. + + 11.15-11.45 A.M.--Paying bills--electricity, gas, clothes; checking + the weekly books, reading laundry circulars. + + 12 M.--Goes out. It is probably wet [this being England], so, not + being very well off, she flounders through mud. Interview with the + plumber as to the boiler; shoes for Gladys; glass for the + parlor-maid; brooms for the housemaid; forgets various things she + ought to have done; these worry her during lunch. + + 1.30 P.M.--Lunch. + + 2.30 P.M.--Fagged out, lies down, but-- + + 2.45 P.M.--The husband telephones to tell her to go to the library + and get him a book. + + 3.15 P.M.--Is fitted by the dressmaker. Feels better. + + 4.30 P.M.--Charming at tea. + + 5.45 P.M.--Compulsory games with the children. + + 6.15 P.M.--Ultimatum from the servants: the puppy must be killed + for reasons which cannot be specified in an American magazine. + + 6.30-6.35 P.M.--Literature, art, music, and science. Then dress for + dinner. + + 7.30 P.M.--Charming at dinner. Grand fantasia to entertain the male + after a strenuous day in the city. Conversation: golf, business, + cutting remarks about other people, and _no contradicting_. + + 8.45-9.15 P.M.--Literature, art, music, and science. + + Last post: Circulars, bills, invitations to be answered; request + from a brother in India to send jam which can be bought only in a + suburb fourteen miles distant. + + 10.30 P.M.--Attempted bath, but the plumber has not mended the + boiler, after all. + + 11 P.M.--Sleep ... up to the beginning of another nice + Englishwoman's day. + +She may exaggerate, but I do not think so, for as I write these lines +three stories of a house hang over my head, and I hear culinary noises +below. Being a man, I am supposed to rule all this, but, fortunately, +not to govern it. And I am moved to interest when I reflect that in this +street of sixty houses, that which is going on in my house is probably +multiplied by sixty. I have a vision of those sixty houses, each with +its dining room and drawing-room, its four to eight bedrooms, and its +basement. There are sixty drawing-rooms in this street, and at 11 A.M. +there is not a single human being in them; and at 3 P.M. there is nobody +in the sixty dining rooms, except on Sunday, when a few men are asleep +in them. And I have horrid visions of our sixty kitchens, our sixty +sculleries, our sixty pantries; of our one hundred and fifty servants, +and our sixty cooks (and cooks so hard to get and to bear with when +you've got them!). And I think of all our dinner sets, of the twelve +thousand pieces of crockery which we need in our little street. To think +of twelve thousand articles of crockery is to realize our remoteness +from the monkey. And the nurses, as they pass, fill me with wonder, for +some of them attend one child, some two, while sometimes three children +have two nurses--until I wonder what percentage of nurse is really +required to keep in order an obviously unruly generation. + +Complex, enormous, it is not even cheap. Privacy, the purest jewel +humanity can find, seems to be the dearest. This inflated individual +home, it is marvelous how it has survived! Like most human +institutions, it has probably survived because it was there. It has +taken woman's time; it has taken much of her energy, much of her health +and looks. Worst of all, it seems to have taken from her some of the +consideration to which as a human being she was entitled. Let there be +no mistake about that. In spite of proclamations as to the sacredness of +the home and the dignity of labor, the fact remains that the domestic +man, the kind that can hang a picture straight, is generally treated by +male acquaintances with sorrowful tolerance; should he attempt to wash +the baby, he becomes the kind of man about whom the comic songs are +written. (I may seem rather violent, but I once tried to wash a baby.) +So that apparently the dignified occupations of the household are not +deemed dignified by man. This is evident enough, for office-cleaners, +laundresses, step-girls, are never replaced by men. These are the +feminine occupations, the coarse occupations, requiring no special +intelligence. + +The truth is that the status of domestic labor is low. An exception is +made in favor of the cook, but only by people who know what cooking is, +which excludes the majority of the world. It is true that of late years +attempts have been made to raise the capacity of the domestic laborer by +inducing her to attend classes on cooking, on child nurture, etc., but, +in the main, in ninety-nine per cent of bourgeois marriages, it is +assumed that any fool can run a house. It matters very little whether a +fool can run a house or not; what does matter from the woman's point of +view is that she is given no credit for efficient household management, +and that is one reason why she has rebelled. It does not matter whether +you are a solicitor, an archbishop, or a burglar, the savor goes out of +your profession if it is not publicly esteemed at its true worth. We +have heard of celebrated impostors, of celebrated politicians, but who +has ever heard of a celebrated housekeeper? + +The modern complaint of woman is that the care of the house has divorced +her from growing interests, from literature and, what is more important, +from the newspaper, partly from music, entirely from politics. It is a +purely material question; there are only twenty-four hours in every day, +and there are some things one cannot hustle. One can no more hustle the +English joint than the decrees of the Supreme Court. Moreover, and this +is a collateral fact, an emptiness has formed around woman; while on +the one side she was being tempted by the professions that opened to +her, by the interests ready to her hand, the old demands of less +organized homes were falling away from her. Once upon a time she was a +slave; now she is a half-timer, and the taste of liberty that has come +to her has made her more intolerant of the old laws than she was in the +ancient days of her serfdom. Not much more than seventy years ago it was +still the custom in lower middle-class homes for the woman to sew and +bake and brew. These occupations were relinquished, for the distribution +of labor made it possible to have them better done at a lower cost. + +In the 'fifties and the 'sixties the great shops began to grow, stores +to rise of the type of Whiteley and Wanamaker. Woman ceased to be +industrial, and became commercial; her chief occupation was now +shopping, and if she were intelligent and painstaking she could make a +better bargain with Jones, in Queen's Road, than with Smith, in +Portchester Street. But of late years even that has begun to go; the +great stores dominate the retail trade, and now, qualities being equal, +there is hardly anything to pick between universal provider Number 1, at +one end of the town, and Number 2, equally universal, at the other. +Also the stores sell everything; they facilitate purchases; the +housekeeper need not go to ten shops, for at a single one she can buy +cheese, bicycles, and elephants. That is only an indication of the +movement; the time will come, probably within our lifetime, when the +great stores of the towns will have crushed the small traders and turned +them into branch managers; when all the prices will be alike, all the +goods alike; when food will be so graded that it will no longer be worth +the housekeeper's while to try and discover a particularly good +sirloin--instead she will telephone for seven pounds of quality AF, +Number 14,692. Then, having less to do, woman will want to do still +less, and the modern rebellion against house and home will find in her +restlessness a greater impetus. + +When did the rebellion begin? Almost, it might be said, it began in the +beginning, and no doubt before the matriarchate period women were +striving toward liberty, only to lose it after having for a while +dominated man. In later years women such as Mary Wollstonecraft, but +more obscure, strove to emancipate themselves from the thralldom of the +household. The aspiration of woman, whether Greek courtesan, French +worldling, or English factory inspector, has always been toward equality +with man, perhaps toward mastery. And man has always stood in her path +to restrict her, to arrest her development for his pleasure, as does +to-day the Japanese to the little tree which he plants in a pot. The +clamor of to-day against the emancipated woman is as old as the rebukes +of St. Paul; Moliere gave it tongue in _Les Femmes Savantes_, when he +made the bourgeois say to his would-be learned wife: + + "Former aux bonnes moeurs l'esprit de ses enfants, + Faire aller son menage, avoir l'oeil sur ses gens + Et regler la depense avec economie + Doit etre son etude et sa philosophie." + +Man has laid down only three occupations: _kirche_, _kueche_, _kinder_. + +Hence the revolt. If man had not so much desired that woman should be +housekeeper and courtesan, she would not so violently have rebelled +against him, for why should one rebel until somebody says, "Thou shalt"! +At the words "Thou shalt", rebellion becomes automatic, and, so long as +woman has virility in her, so will it be. Still, leaving origins alone, +and considering only the last fifty or sixty years of our history, it +might be said that they are divided into three periods: + + (_a_) The shiny nose and virtue period. + + (_b_) The powder-puff and possible virtue period. + + (_c_) The Russian ballet and leopard-skin period. + +There are exceptions, qualifications, occasional retrogressions, but, +taking it roughly, that is the history of English womanhood from wax +fruit to Bakst designs. There were crises, such as the early 'eighties, +when bloomers came in and women essayed cigarettes, and felt very +advanced and sick; when they joined Ibsen clubs and took up Bernard +Shaw, and wore eyeglasses and generally tried to be men without +succeeding in being gentlemen. There was another crisis about 1906, when +suffrage put forward in England its first violent claims. That, too, was +abortive in a sense, as is ironically recorded in a comic song popular +at the time: + + "Back, back to the office she went: + The secretary was a perfect gent." + +But still, in a rough and general way, there has been a continual and +growing discontent with the heavy weight of the household, the +complications of its administration. There has been a drive toward +freedom which has affected even that most conservative of all animals, +the male. There have been conscious rebellions as expressed, for +instance, by Nora who "slammed the door"; by the many girls who decide +to "live their own lives", as life was expounded in the yellow-backs of +the 'nineties; by the growing demand for entry into the professions; for +votes; for admission to the legislatures. There is nothing irrelevant in +this; given that by the nature of her position in society and of the +duties intrusted to her in the household, she was cut off from all other +fields of human activity, it may be said that every attempt that woman +has made to share in any activity that lay beyond her front door has +been revolutionary and directed at the foundations of the English +household system. Whether this has also been the case in America, where +a curious type of woman has been evolved--pampered, selfish, +intelligent, domineering, and wildly pleasure-loving--I cannot tell. +Nor is it my business; like other men, the Americans have the wives they +deserve. + +But behind the conscious rebellions are the subtle and, in a way, +infinitely more powerful unconscious rebellions, the dull discontents +of overworked and over-preoccupied women; the weariness, the desire for +pleasure and travel, for change, for time to play and to love, and--what +is more pathetic--for time just to sit and rest. The epitaph of the +charwoman-- + + "Weep for me not, weep for me never, + I'm going to do nothing, nothing forever--" + +embodies pains deep-buried in millions of women's hearts. Most people do +not know that, because women never smile so brightly as when they are +unhappy. Sometimes I suspect that public pronouncements and suffrage +manifestoes have had very much less to do with modern upheavals than +these slumberous protests against the multiplicity of errands and the +intricacies of the kitchen range. + +Even man has been affected by the change, has begun to realize that it +is quite impossible to alter custom while leaving custom unaltered, +which, as anybody knows who reads parliamentary debates, is mankind's +dearest desire. Changes in his habits and in his surroundings, such as +the weekend, the servant problem, the restaurant, the hotel; all these +have been separate disruptive factors, have begun to bring about the +downfall of the English household. I do not know that one can assign a +predominant place to any one of these factors; they are each one as the +drop of water that, joined with its fellows, wears away stone. Moreover, +in socio-psychologic investigation it is often found that what appears +to be a cause is an effect, and _vice versa_. For instance, with regard +to restaurant dining, it may be that people frequent restaurants because +the home cooking is bad, and, on the other hand, it may be that home +cooking has become bad because people have neglected it as they found it +easier to go to the restaurant. This attitude of mind must qualify the +conclusion at which I arrive, and it is an attitude which must be +sedulously cultivated by any one who wants to know the truth instead of +wishing merely to have his prejudices confirmed. + +But, all allowances made, it is perfectly clear that the first group of +disruptive factors, such as the restaurant dinner, the week-end, the +long and frequent holidays, the motor car, the spread of golf, is +inimical to the home idea and, therefore, to the house idea. (Home means +house, and does not mean flat, for which see further on.) The home idea +is complex; it embraces privacy, possession; it implies a place where +one can retreat, be master, be powerful in a small sphere, take off +one's boots, be sulky or pleasant, as one likes. It involves, above all, +a place where one does not hear the neighbor's piano, or the neighbor's +baby, or, with luck, the neighbor's cat; but where, on the other hand, +one's own piano, one's own baby, and one's own cat are raised to a high +and personal pitch of importance. It involves everything that is +individual--one's own stationery block, one's crest, or, if one is not +so fortunate, one's monogram upon the plate. If the S.P.C.A. did not +intervene, I think one might often see in the front garden a cat branded +with a hot iron: "Thomas Jones. His Cat." It is the rallying-point of +domestic virtue, the origin of domestic tyranny. It is the place where +public opinion cannot see you and where, therefore, you may behave +badly. Most wife beaters live in houses; in flats they would be afraid +of the opinion of the hall porter. And yet the home is not without its +charm and its nobility, for its bricks and mortar enshrine a spirit that +is worshiped and for which much may be sacrificed. Cigars have been +given up so that the home might have a new coat of paint; amusements, +holidays, food sometimes--all these have been sacrificed so that, well +railed off from the outside world by a front garden, if possible by a +back garden, too--or, still more delightful, far from the next house--a +little social cosmos might be maintained. So far has this gone in the +north of England that many people who could well afford servants will +not have them because, as they say, they cannot bear strangers in the +house. And very desirable houses in the suburbs of London, with old, +walled gardens, have been given up because it was unbearable to take tea +under the eyes of passengers on the top of the motor busses. + +The home spirit, however, is not content merely with coats of paint and +doilies; it demands mental as well as material worship. It demands +importance; it insists that it is home, sweet home, and that there is no +place like it (which is one comfort); that it is the last thought of the +drowning sailor; that the trapper, lost in the deepest forests of +Canada, sees rising in the smoke of his lonely camp fire a delicious +vision of Aunt Maria's magenta curtains. It lays down that it is wrong +to leave it, quite apart from the question of burglars; it has invented +scores of phrases to justify otherwise unpleasant husbands who had +"given a good home" to their wives; phrases to censure revolting +daughters "who had good homes, and what more could they want?" It has +frowned upon everything that was outside itself, for it could not see +anything that was not itself. It has hated theaters, concerts, dances, +lectures, every form of amusement; and, as it has to bear them, likes to +refer to them archly as debauches, or going on the razzle-dazzle, or the +ran-dan, according to period. It has powerfully allied itself with the +pulpit and, in impious circles, with fancy work and crochet; it has +enlisted a considerable portion of the Royal Academy to depict it in +various scenes for which the recipe is: One tired man with a sunny smile +returning to his home; one delighted wife; suitable number of ebullient +children and, inevitably, a dog. The dog varies. In England they +generally put in a terrier, in war time a bulldog; in Germany it may be +a dachshund; and in other countries it is another kind of dog, but it is +always the same idea. + +And so it is not wonderful that the home has looked censoriously upon +everything that took people away from its orbit. Likewise it is not +wonderful that people have fled to anything available so as to escape +the charmed circle. The week-end is in general a very over-rated +amusement, for it consists mainly in packing and preparing to catch a +train, then thinking of packing and catching a train, then packing and +catching a train; but still the week-end amounts to a desertion, and +hardly a month passes without a divine laying of savage hands upon the +excursion. There was a time when holidays themselves were looked upon as +audacious breaches of the conventions. In the early nineteenth century +nobody went to Brighton except the Regent and the smart set; even in the +Thackerayan period people did not think it necessary to leave London in +August, and when they took the Grand Tour they were bent on improving +their minds. The Kickleburys could not go up the Rhine without a +powerful feeling of self-consciousness; I think they felt that they were +outraging the Victorian virtues, so they had to make up for it by taking +a guide, who for four or five weeks lectured them day and night upon the +ruins of Godesberg. All this was opposed to the spirit of the home, just +as anything which is outside the home is opposed to the spirit of the +home, as was, for instance, every dance that has ever been known. In the +_Observer_, in 1820, appeared a poem expressing horror and disgust of +the waltz, and, curiously enough, very much in the same terms as the +diatribes in the American papers of 1914 against the turkey trot and +the bunny hug. When the polka came in, in the middle of the nineteenth +century, good people clustered to see it danced, just like the more +recent tango, and it was considered very fast. All this may appear +somewhat irrelevant, but my case is mainly that the old attitude, now +decaying, is that anything that happened outside the home, whether sport +or amusement, was anything between faintly and violently evil. The old +ideal of home was concentrated in Sunday: a long night; heavy breakfast; +church; walk in the park; heavy dinner, including roast beef; profound +sleep in the dining room; heavy tea; then nothing whatever; church; +heavy supper; nothing whatever; then sleep. There is not much of this +left, and from the moment when Sunday concerts began and the picture +galleries were opened, when chess was played and the newspaper read, the +old solidities of the home trembled, for the home was an edifice from +which one could not take one stone. + +In chorus with the cry for new pleasures, the reaction against the old +discomfort, came a more powerful influence still, because it was +direct--the servant problem. The Americans know this question, I think, +better even than the British, for in their country a violent democracy +rejects domestic service and compels, I believe, the use of recent +emigrants from old enslaved Europe who have not yet breathed the +aggressive and ambitious air that has touched the Stars and Stripes. In +Great Britain the crisis is not yet, and it may never come, for this is +not the English way. In England we are aware of a crisis only fifty +years later, because for that half-century we have successfully +pretended that there was no crisis. So we come in just in time for the +reaction, and say: "There you are. I told you nothing was changed." Yet, +so persistent is the servant problem that even England has had to take +some notice of it. As Mr. Wells said, the supply of rough, hardworking +girls began to shrink. It shrank because so many opportunities for the +employment of women were offered by the factories which arose in England +in the 'forties and the 'fifties, by the demand for waitresses, for +shorthand writers, typists, shopgirls, elementary schoolmistresses, etc. +The Education Act of 1870 gave the young English girls of that day a +violent shock, for it informed them of the existence of Paris, assisted +them toward the piano. And then came the development of the factory +system, the spread of cheapness; with the rise in wages came a rising +desire for pretty, cheap things almost as pretty as the dear ones; +substitutes for costly stuffs were found; compositions replaced ivory, +mercerized cotton rivaled silk, and little by little the young girl of +the people discovered that with a little cleverness she could look quite +as well as the one whom her mother called "Madam"; so she ceased to call +her "Madam." Labor daily grows more truculent, so there is no knowing +what she will call the ex-Madam next; but one thing is certain, and that +is that she will not serve her. She will not, because she looks upon +service as ignominious; she has her own pride; she will not tell you +that she is in a shop, but that she is "in business"; if she is "in +service", often she will say nothing about it at all, for the other +girls, who work their eleven hours a day for a few shillings a week, +despise her. They at least have fixed hours and they do not "live in"; +when they have done their work they are free. They may have had less to +eat that day than the comfortable parlor-maid, and maybe they have less +in their pockets, but they are free, and they do not hesitate to show +their contempt to the helot. I think that new pride has done as much as +anything to crush the old, large, unwieldy home, for its four stories +and its vast basement needed many steady, hardworking slaves, who only +spoke when they were spoken to and always obeyed. It is not that +mistresses were bad; some were and some were not, but from the modern +girl's point of view they were all bad because they had power at any +time of day or night to demand service, to impose tasks that were not +contracted for, to forbid the house to the servant's friends, to make +her loves difficult, to forbid her even to speak to a man. Whether the +mistress so behaved did not matter; she had the power, and in a society +growingly individual, growingly democratic, that was bound to become a +heavy yoke. + +And so, very slowly, the modern evolution began. The first to go were +the immense houses of Kensington, Paddington, Bayswater, +Bloomsbury,--those old houses within hail of Hyde Park,--which once held +large families, all of them anxious to live not too far from the Court. +They fell because it was almost impossible to afford enough servants to +keep in order their three or four reception rooms, and their eight, ten, +twelve bedrooms; they fell because the birth rate shrank, and the large +families of the early nineteenth century became exceptional; they fell +also because the old rigidity, or rather the stateliness, of the home +was vanishing; because the lady of the house ventured to have tea in her +drawing-room when there were no callers, and little by little came to +leave newspapers about in it and to smoke in it. With the difficulties +of the old houses came a demand for something smaller, requiring less +labor. This accounts for the villas, of which some four hundred thousand +have been built in the suburbs of London, in the villages London has +absorbed. They are atrocious imitations of the most debased Elizabethan +style; they show concrete where they should use stone, but, as their +predecessors showed stucco, they are not much worse. They exhibit +painted black stripes where there should be beams; they have sloping +roofs, gables, dormer windows, everything cunningly arranged to make as +many corners as possible where no chair can stand. They have horrid +little gardens where the builder has buried many broken bricks, sardine +tins, and old hats; they represent the taste of the twentieth century; +they are quite abominable. But still the fact remains that they are +infinitely smaller, more manageable, more intelligently planned than +the spacious old houses of the past, where every black cupboard bred +the cockroach and the mouse. They are easy to warm and easy to clean; +their windows are not limited by the old window tax; they have bathrooms +even when their rent is only one hundred and fifty dollars a year; and +especially they have no basement. The disappearance of the basement is +one of the most significant aspects of the downfall of the old +household, for it was essentially the servants' floor, where they could +be kept apart from their masters, maintaining their own sports and the +mysterious customs of a strange people; when the door of the kitchen +stairs was shut, one would keep out everything connected with the +servants, except perhaps the smell of the roast leg of mutton. That did +not matter, for that was homelike. The basement was a vestige of feudal +English society; it was brother to the servants' quarters and the +servants' hall. Now it is gone. In many places the tradesmen's entrance +has vanished, and the cabbage comes to the front door. The sacred +suppressions are no more, and in a developing democracy the master and +mistress of the house stately dine, while on the other side of a wall +about an inch thick Jane can be heard conversing with the policeman. + +The growth of the small house has never stopped during the last forty or +fifty years. A builder in the southwest of London, of whom I made +inquiries, told me that he had erected four hundred and twenty houses, +and that not one of them had a basement; this form of architecture had +not even occurred to him. I have also visited very many homes in the +suburbs of London, and I have looked in vain for the old precincts of +the serving maid. The small house has powerfully affected the old +individual attitude of home, for the hostile dignity of the past cannot +survive when one man mows the lawn and the other clips the roses, each +in his own garden, separated only by three sticks and some barbed wire. +In detached houses it is worse, for they are now so close together that +in certain architectural conditions preliminaries are required before +one can take a private bath. The whole direction of domestic +architecture is against the individual and for the group. The modern +home takes away even the old stores; there are no more pickle cupboards +and jam cupboards, and hardly linen cupboards. Why should there be when +jam and pickles come from the grocer, and few men have more than twelve +shirts? There is not even a store for coal. Some years ago I lived in a +house that was built in 1820, and its coal cellar held eight tons; I now +inhabit one, built in 1860, in which I can accommodate four tons; the +house now being built in the suburbs cannot receive more than one ton. +The evolution of the coal cellar is a little the evolution of English +society from the time when every man had to live a good deal for +himself, until slightly better distribution made it possible for him to +combine with his fellows. He need not now store coal, for there is a +service of coal to his doorstep. Besides, the offspring of coal are +expelling their ancestor; gas and electricity, both centrally supplied +from a single source, are sapping the old hearthstone that was fed by +one small family, and for that family alone glowed. A continual +socialization has come about, and it is not going to stop. What is done +in common is on the whole better done, more cheaply done. But what is +done in common is hostile to the old home spirit, because the principle +of the home spirit is that anything done in common is--well, common! + +As for the old houses of fifteen to sixteen rooms, they have had to +accommodate themselves to the new conditions. First they tried to +maintain themselves by reducing their rents. I know of a case, in +Courtfield Gardens, where a house leased twenty-six years ago at one +thousand dollars a year, was leased again about ten years ago at seven +hundred and fifty dollars a year, and is now being offered at five +hundred dollars a year. The owner does not want his premises turned into +a boarding house, but he cannot find a private tenant, because hardly +anybody nowadays can manage five floors and a basement. In my own +district, where the houses tower up to heaven, I see the process at +work,--rents falling, pitiful attempts of the landlords to prevent their +houses from turning into maisonnettes and boarding houses, to prevent +the general decay. But they are beaten. The vast Victorian houses within +three miles of Charing Cross are, one by one, being cut up into flats; +in the unfashionable districts they are being used for tenements; and +there are splendid old houses in the neighborhood of Bloomsbury, where +in the day of Dickens lived the fashionables, which now house half a +dozen workingclass families and their lodgers. There is one of these old +glories near Lamb's Conduit Street, where a Polish furrier and his six +unwashed assistants work under a ceiling sown with sprawling nymphs, +while melancholic and chipped golden lions' heads look down from either +side of a once splendid Georgian mantelpiece. It is very reactionary of +me, I am afraid, but I cannot help feeling it a pity that this old +house, where would suitably walk the ghost of Brinsley Sheridan, must be +one of the eggs broken to make the omelette of the future. + +But these old houses must go. Why should one preserve an old house? One +does not preserve one's old boots. The old houses have been seized by +the current of revolt against the home; they have mostly become boarding +and apartment houses. This is not only because their owners do not know +what to do with them; one does not run a boarding house unless it pays, +and so evidently there has been a growing demand for the boarding house. +Boarding houses fail, but for every one that fails two rise up, and +there is hardly a street in London that has not its boarding house, or +at least its apartment house. There are several in Park Lane itself; +there is even one whose lodgers may look into the gardens of Buckingham +Palace. I do not know how many boarding houses there are in London, for +no statistics distinguish properly between the boarding house, the +apartment house, the private hotel, the hotel, and the tavern. But, +evidently, the increase is continuous, and part of the explanation is to +be found elsewhere than in the traveler. Of course, the traveler has +enormously increased, but he alone cannot account for the scores of +thousands of people who pass their years in apartment and boarding +houses. They live there for various reasons--because they cling to the +old family idea and think to find "a home from home"; because they +cannot afford to run separate establishments; and very many because they +are tired of running them, tired of the plumber, tired of the housemaid. +There are thousands of families in London, quite well-to-do, who prefer +to live in boarding houses; they hate the boarding house, but they hate +it less than home. They feel less tied; they have less furniture; they +like to feel that their furniture is in store where they can forget all +about it. They have lost part of their old love for Aunt Maria's magenta +curtains--the home idea has become less significant to them. And this +applies also to hotels. The increase of hotels in London, in every +provincial city, all over the world, is not entirely explained by the +traveler, though, by the way, the increase in traveling is a sign of the +decay of the home. The old idea, "You've got a good home and you've got +to stay there," suffers whenever a member of the home leaves it for any +reason other than the virtuous pursuit of his business. All over the +center of London, in Piccadilly, along Hyde Park, in Bloomsbury, hotels +have risen--the Piccadilly, the new Ritz, the Park View, the Coburg, the +Cadogan, the Waldorf, the Jermyn Court, the Marble Arch, so many that in +some places they are beginning to form a row. And still they rise. An +enormous hotel is being built opposite Green Park; another is projected +at Hyde Park Corner; the Strand Palace is open, and at the Regent Palace +there are, I understand, fourteen hundred bedrooms. The position is that +a proportion of London's population is beginning to live in these hotels +without servants of their own, without furniture of their own, without +houses of their own. A more detached, a freer spirit is invading them, +and a desire to get all they can out of life while they can, instead of +solemnly worshiping the Englishman's castle. + +It does not come easily, and it does not come quickly. During the last +twenty-five years most of the blocks of flats to be found in London have +risen, with their villainously convenient lifts for passengers and +their new-fangled lifts for dust bins and coal, with their electricity +and their white paint, and other signs of emancipation. They were not +popular when they came, and they are disliked by the older generation; +it is still a little vicious to live in a West End flat. And when the +younger generation points out that flats are so convenient because you +can leave them, the older generation shakes its head and wonders why one +should want to. In a future, which I glimpse clearly enough, I see many +more causes of disquiet for the older generation, and I wonder with a +certain fear whether I, too, shall not be dismayed when I become the +older generation. For the destruction of the old home is extending now +much farther than bricks and mortar. It is touching the center of human +life, the kitchen. There are now in London quite a number of flats, such +as, I think, Queen Anne's Mansions, St. James's Court, Artillery +Mansions, where the tenants live in agreeable suites and either take +their meals in the public restaurant or have them brought up to their +flat. The difficulty of service is being reduced. The sixty households +are beginning to do without the sixty cooks, and never use more than a +few dozen at a time of their two hundred pieces of crockery. There are +no more tradesmen, nor is there any ordering; there is a menu and a +telephone. There are no more heated interviews with the cook, and no +more notices given ten minutes before the party, but a chat with a +manager who has the manners and the tact of an ambassador. There is no +more home work in these places. + +I think these blocks of flats point the way to the future much more +clearly than the hotels and the boarding houses, for those are only +makeshifts. Generally speaking, boarding houses are bad and +uncomfortable, for the landlady is sometimes drunk and generally +ill-tempered, the servants are usually dirty and always overworked; the +furniture clamors for destruction by the city council. The new +system--blocks of flats with a central restaurant--will probably, in a +more or less modified form, be the home of new British generations. I +conceive the future homes of the people as separate communities, say +blocks of a hundred flats or perhaps more, standing in a common garden +which will be kept up by the estate. Each flat will probably have one +room for each inhabitant, so as to secure the privacy which is very +necessary even to those who no longer believe in the home idea; it will +also have a common room where privacy can be dispensed with. Its +furniture will be partly personal, but not very, for a movement which is +developing in America will extend, and we too in England may be +provided, as are to-day the more fortunate Americans, with an abundance +of cupboards and dressers ready fixed to the walls. There will be no +coal, but only electricity and gas, run from the central plant. There +will be no kitchens, but one central kitchen, and a central dining room, +run--and this is very important--_by a committee of tenants_. + +That committee will appoint and control cooks and all servants; it will +buy all provisions, and it will buy them cheaply, for it will purchase +by the hundredweight. It will control the central laundry, and a paid +laundry maid will check the lists--there will no longer be, as once upon +a time on Saturday evenings, a hundred persons checking a hundred lists. +It is even quite possible that the central organization may darn socks. +The servants will no longer be slaves, personally attached to a few +persons, their chattel; they will be day workers, laboring eight hours, +without any master save their duty. The whole system of the household +will be grouped for the purpose of buying and distributing everything +that is needed at any hour. There will be no more personal shopping; the +wholesale cleaner will call on certain days without being told to; the +communistic window cleaners will dispose of every window on a given day; +there may even be in the garden a communistic system of dog kennels. I +have no proposal for controlling cats, for I understand that no man can +do that ... but then there will be no mice in those days. + +I think I will close upon that phrase: There will be no mice in those +days. For somehow the industrious mouse, scuffling behind the loose +wainscoting over the rotten boards, is to me curiously significant of +the old, hostile order, when every man jealously held what was his own +and determined that it should so remain--dirty, insanitary, tiresome, +labor-making, dull, inexpressibly ugly, inexpressibly inimical to +anything fresh and free, providing that it was wholly and sacredly his +own. + + + + +VI + +THE BREAK-UP OF THE FAMILY + + +1 + +As with the home, so with the family. It would be strange indeed if a +stained shell were to hold a sound nut. All the events of the last +century--the development of the factory system, the Married Women's +Property Act, the birth of Mr. Bernard Shaw, the entry of woman into +professions, the discovery of co-education and of education itself, +eugenics, Christian Science, new music halls and halfpenny papers, the +Russian ballet, cheap travel, woman suffrage, apartment houses--all this +change and stress has lowered the status of one whom Pliny admired--the +father of a family. The family itself tends to disappear, and it is many +years since letters appeared in _The Times_ over the signature, "Mother +of Six." The family is smaller, and, strangely enough, it is sweeter +tempered: would it be fair to conclude, as might an Irishman, that it +would agree perfectly if it disappeared? + +I do not think that the family will completely disappear any more than +scarlet fever or the tax collector. But certainly it will change in +character, and its evolution already points toward its new form. The +old-fashioned family sickened because it was a compulsory grouping. The +wife cleaved unto her husband because he paid the bills; the children +cleaved unto their parents because they must cleave unto something. +There was no chance of getting out, for there was nothing to get out to. +For the girl, especially, some fifty years ago, to escape from the +family into the world was much the same thing as burgling a +penitentiary; so she stayed, compulsorily grouped. Personally, I think +all kinds of compulsory groupings bad. If one is compelled to do a +thing, one hates it; possibly the dead warriors in the Elysian Fields +have by this time taken a violent dislike to compulsory chariot races, +and absolutely detest their endless rest on moss-grown banks and their +diet of honey. I do not want to stress the idea too far, but I doubt +whether the denizens of the Elysian Fields, after so many centuries, can +tolerate one another any more, for they are compelled to live all +together in this Paradise, and nothing conceivable will ever get them +out. + +Some groupings are worse than others, and I incline to think that +difference of age has most to do with the chafe of family life. For man +is a sociable animal; he loves his fellows, and so one wonders why he +should so generally detest his relations. There are minor reasons. +Relationship amounts to a license to be rude, to the right to exact +respect from the young and service from the old; there is the fact that, +however high you may rise in the world, your aunt will never see it. +There is also the fact that if your aunt does see it, she brags of it +behind your back and insults you about it to your face. There is all +that, but still I believe that one could to a certain extent agree with +one's relations if one met only those who are of one's own age, for +compulsory groupings of people of the same age are not always +unpleasant; boys are happiest at school, and there is fine fellowship +and much merriment in armies. On the other hand, there often reigns a +peculiar dislike in offices. I do not want to conclude too rashly, but I +cannot help being struck by the fact that in a school or in an army the +differences of age are very small, while in an office or a family they +are considerable. Add on to the difference of age compulsory +intercourse, and you have the seeds of hatred. + +This applies particularly where the units of a family are adult. The +child loves the grown-ups because he admires them; a little later he +finds them out; still a little later, he lets them see that he has found +them out, and then family life begins. In many cases it is a quite +terrible life, and the more united the family is the more it resembles +the union between the shirt of Nessus and Hercules's back. But it must +be endured because we have no alternative. I think of cases: of such a +one as that of a father and mother, respectively sixty-five and sixty, +who have two sons, one of whom ran away to Australia with a barmaid, +while the other lived on his sisters' patrimony and regrettably stayed +at home; they have four daughters, two of whom have revolted to the +extent of earning their living, but spend the whole of their holidays +with the old people; the other two are unmarried because the father, +imbued with the view that _his_ daughters were too good for any man, +refused to have any man in the house. There is another couple in my +mind, who have five children, four of whom live at home. I think I will +describe this family by quoting one of the father's pronouncements: +"There's only one opinion in this house, and that's mine!" I think of +other cases, of three sisters who have each an income of two hundred +dollars a year on which they would, of course, find it very difficult to +live separately. The total income of six hundred dollars a year enables +them to live--but together. The eldest loves cats; the next hates cats, +but loves dogs; this zooelogical quarrel is the chief occupation of the +household; the third sister's duty is to keep the cats and dogs apart. +Here we have the compulsory grouping; I believe that this lies at the +root of disunion in that united family. + +The age problem is twofold. It must not be thought that I hold a brief +against old age, though, being myself young, I tend to dislike old age +as I shall probably dislike youth by and by. On the whole, the attitude +of old age is tyrannical. I have heard dicta as interesting as the one +which I quote a few lines above. I have heard say a mother to a young +man, "You _ought_ to feel affection for me"; another, "It should be +enough for you that this is my wish." That is natural enough. It is the +tradition of the elders, the Biblical, Greek, Roman, savage hierarchies +which, in their time, were sound because, lacking education of any kind, +communities could resort only to the experience of the aged. But a thing +that is natural is not always convenient, and, after all, the chief +mission of the civilizer is to bottle up Nature until she is wanted. +This tyranny breeds in youth a quite horrible hatred, while it hardens +the old, makes them incapable of seeing the point of view of youth +because it is too long since they held it. They insist upon the society +of the young; they take them out to call on old people; they drive them +round and round the park in broughams, and then round again; they +deprive them of entertainments because they themselves cannot bear noise +and late hours, or because they have come to fear expense, or because +they feel weak and are ill. It is tragic to think that so few of us can +hope to die gracefully. + +The trouble does not lie entirely with the old; indeed, I think it lies +more with the young, who, crossed and irritated, are given to badgering +the old people because they are slow, because they do not understand the +problems of Lord Kitchener and are still thinking of the problems of Mr. +Gladstone. They are harsh because the old are forgetful, because their +faded memories are sweet, because they will always prefer the late Sir +Henry Irving to Mr. Charles Hawtrey. The young are cruel when the old +people refuse to send a letter without sealing it, or when they insist +upon buying their hats from the milliner who made them in 1890 and makes +them still in the same fashion. They are even harsh to them when they +are deaf or short-sighted and fumbling; they come to think that a wise +child should learn from his sire's errors. + +It is a pity, but thus it is; so what is the use of thinking that the +modern family must endure? It is no use to say that the old are right or +that the young are right; they disagree. It is nobody's fault, and it is +everybody's misfortune. They disagree largely because there is too much +propinquity. It is propinquity that brings one to think there is +something rather repulsive in blood relations. It is propinquity that +brings one to love and then later to dislike. Mr. George Moore has put +the case ideally in his _Memoirs of My Dead Life_, where Doris, the girl +who has escaped from her family with the hero says: "This is the first +time I have ever lived alone, that I have ever been free from questions. +It was a pleasure to remember suddenly, as I was dressing, that no one +would ask me where I was going; that I was just like a bird myself, free +to spring off the branch and to fly. At home there are always people +round one; somebody is in the dining room, somebody is in the +drawing-room; and if one goes down the passage with one's hat on, there +is always somebody to ask where one is going, and if you say you don't +know, they say: 'Are you going to the right or to the left? Because, if +you are going to the left, I should like you to stop at the apothecary's +and to ask....'" + +Yes, that is what happens. That is the tragedy of the family; it lives +on top of itself. The daughters go too much with their mothers to shop; +there are too many joint holidays, too many compulsory rejoicings at +Christmas or on birthdays. There are not enough private places in the +house. I have heard one young suffragist, sentenced to fourteen days for +breaking windows, say that, quite apart from having struck a blow for +the Cause, it was the first peaceful fortnight she had ever known. This +should not be confounded with the misunderstood offer of a wellknown +leader of the suffrage cause who offered a pound to the funds of the +movement for every day that his wife was kept in jail. + +In a family, friendships are difficult, for Maude does not always like +Arabella's dearest friend; or, which is worse, Maude will stand +Arabella's dearest friend, whom she detests, so that next day she may +have the privilege of forcing upon Arabella her own, whom Arabella +cannot bear. That sort of thing is called tolerance and self-sacrifice; +in reality it is mutual tyranny, and amounts to the passing on of +pinches, as it were, from boy to boy on the benches of schools. In a +developing generation this cannot endure; youthful egotism will not +forever tolerate youthful arrogance. As for the old, they cannot +indefinitely remain with the young, for, after all, there are only two +things to talk of with any intensity--the future and the past; they are +the topics of different generations. + +Still, for various reasons, this condition is endured. It is cheaper to +live together; it is more convenient socially; it is customary, which, +especially in England, is most important. But it demands an impossible +and unwilling tolerance, sometimes fraudulent exhibitions of love, +sometimes sham charity. It is not pleasant to hear Arabella, returning +from a walk with her father, say to Maude: "Thank Heaven, that's over! +Your turn to-morrow." Perhaps it would not be so if the father did not +by threat or by prayer practically compel his daughters to "take duty." +There are alleviations--games, small social pleasures, dances--but +there is no freedom. A little for the sons, perhaps, but even they are +limited in their comings and goings if they live in their father's +house. As for the girls, they are driven to find the illusion of freedom +in wage labor, unless they marry and develop, as they grow older, the +same problem. + + +2 + +Fortunately, and this may save something of the family spirit, times are +changing. It must not be imagined from the foregoing that I am a +resolute enemy of any grouping between men and women, that I view with +hatred the family in a box at the theater or round the Sunday joint. I +am not attracted by the idea of family; a large family collected +together makes me think a little of a rabbit hutch. But I recognize that +couples will to the end want to live together, that they will be fond of +their children, and that their children will be fond of them; also that +it is not socially convenient for husband and wife to live in separate +blocks of flats and to hand over their children to the county council. +There are a great many children to-day who would be happier in the +workhouse than in their homes, but there exists in the human mind a +prejudice against the workhouse, and social psychology must take it into +account. All I ask is that members of a family should not scourge one +another with whips and occasionally with scorpions, and I conceive that +nothing could be more delightful than a group of people, not too far +removed from one another by age, banded together for mutual recreation +and support. So anything that tends to liberalize the family, to +exorcise the ghost of the old patriarch, is agreeable. + +Patriarch! What a word--the father as master! He will not be master very +long, and I do not think that he will want to remain master, for his +attitude is changing, not as swiftly as that of his children, but still +changing. He is not so sure of himself now when he doubts the +advisability of pulling down the shed at the back of the garden, and his +youngest daughter quotes from Nietzsche that to build a sanctuary you +must first destroy a sanctuary. And, though he is rather uncomfortable, +he does not say much when in the evening his wife appears dressed in a +Russian ballet frock or even a little less. He is growing used to +education, and he fears it less than he did. In fact, he is beginning to +appreciate it. + +His wife is more suspicious, for she belongs to a generation of women +that was ignorant and reveled in its ignorance and called it charm, a +generation when all women were fools except the spitfires and the wits. +She tends to think that she was "finished" as a lady; her daughters +consider that she was done for. The grandmother is a little jealous, but +the mother of to-day, the formed woman of about thirty-five, has made a +great leap and resembles her children much more than she does her +mother. Her offspring do not say: "What is home without a mother? Peace, +perfect peace." She is a little too conscientious, perhaps; she has +turned her back rather rudely upon her mother's pursuits, such as tea +and scandal, and has taken too virulently to lectures or evolution and +proteid. She is too vivid, like a newly painted railing, but, like the +railing, she will tone down. She pretends to be very socialistic or very +fast; on the whole she affects rather the fast style. We must not +complain. Is not brown paint in the dining room worse than pink paint on +the face? + +Whatever may be said about revolting daughters, I suspect that the +change in the parent has been greater than that in the child, because +the child in 1830 did not differ so much from the child of to-day as +might appear. Youth then was restless and insurgent, just as it is +to-day; only it was more effectively kept down. If to-day it is less +kept down, this is partly for reasons I will indicate, but largely +because the adult has changed. The patriarch is nearly dead; he is no +longer the polygamous brute who ruled his wives with rods, murdered his +infant sons, and sold his infant daughters; his successor, the knight of +the Middle Ages, who locked up his wife in a tower for seven years while +he crusaded in the Holy Land--he, too, has gone. And the merchant in +broadcloth of Victorian days, who slept vigorously in the dining room on +Sunday afternoon, has been replaced by a man who says he is sorry if +told he snores. He is more liberal; he believes in reason now rather +than in force, and generally would not contradict Milton's lines-- + + "Who overcomes by force + Hath overcome but half his foe." + +He has come to desire love rather than power, and, little by +little--thanks mainly to the "yellow" press--has acquired a chastened +liking for new ideas. The spread of pleasure all round him, the +vaudeville, the theaters, moving-picture shows, excursions to the +seaside--all these have taught him that gaiety may not clash with +respectability. Especially, he is more ready to argue, for a peaceful +century has taught him that a word is better than a blow. There may be a +change in his psychology after this war, for he is being educated by the +million in the point of view that a loaded rifle is worth half a dozen +scraps of paper; it is quite possible that he will carry this view into +his social life. There may, therefore, be a reaction for thirty years or +so, but thirty years is a trifle in questions such as these. + +Naturally, women have in this direction developed further than men, for +they had more leeway to make up. Man has so long been the educated +animal that he did not need so much liberalizing. I do not refer to the +Middle Ages, when learning was entirely preempted by the male (with the +exception of poetry and music), for in those days there was no education +save among the priests. I mean rather that the great development of +elementary learning, which took place in the middle of the nineteenth +century, affected men for about a generation before it affected women. +In England, at least, university education for women is very recent, for +Girton was opened only in 1873, Newnham, at Cambridge, in 1875; Miss +Beale made Cheltenham College a power only a little later, and indeed it +may be said that formal education developed only about 1890. Both in +England and in the United States women have not had much more than a +generation to make up the leeway of sixty centuries. It has benefited +them as mothers because they did not start with the prejudices left in +the male mind by the slow evolution from one form of learning to +another; women did not have to live down Plato, Descartes, or Adam +Smith; they began on Haeckel and H. G. Wells. The mothers of to-day have +been flung neck and crop into Paradise; they came in for the new times, +which are always better than the old times and inferior only to +to-morrow. They were made to understand a possible democracy in the +nursery because all round them, even in Russia, even in Turkey, +democracy was growing, some say as a rose, some say as a weed, but +anyhow irrepressibly. Who could be a queen by the cradle when more +august thrones were tottering? So woman quite suddenly became more than +a pretty foil to the educated man, she became something like his +superior and his elder; little by little she has begun to teach him who +once was her master and still in fond delusion believes he is. + +It cannot be said that the mother has until very recently liked +education. She has suffered from the prejudice that afflicted her own +mother, who thought that because she had worked samplers all girls must +work samplers; the "old" woman's daughter, because she went to +Cheltenham, tends to think that her little girl ought to go to +Cheltenham. It is human rather than feminine, for generations follow one +another at Eton and at Harvard. But more than feminine, I think it is +masculine because, until very recently, woman has disliked education, +while man has treated it with respect; he has not loved it for its own +sake, but because he thought that _nam et ipsa scientia potestas est_. +Not a very high motive, but still the future will preoccupy itself very +little with the reasons for which we did things; it will be glad enough +if we do them. Perhaps we may yet turn the edges of swords on the blasts +of rhetoric. + +An immediate consequence of the growth of education has been a change in +the status of the child. It is no longer property, for how can one +prevent a child from pulling down the window sash at night when it knows +something of ventilation? Or give it an iron tonic when it realizes +that full-blooded people cannot take iron? The child has changed; it is +no longer the creature that, pointing to an animal in the field, said, +"What's that?" and the reply being, "A cow", asked "Why?" The child is +perilously close to asking whether the animal is carnivorous or +herbivorous. That makes coercion very difficult. But I do not think that +the modern parent desires to coerce as much as did his forbear. Rather +he desires to develop the child's personality, and in its early years +this leads to horrid results, to children being "taught to see the +beautiful" or "being made to realize the duties of a citizen." We are in +for a generation made up half of bulbous-headed, bespectacled +precocities, and half of barbarians who are "realizing their +personality" by the continual use of "shall" and "shan't." This will +pass as all things pass, the old child and the rude child, just like the +weak parent after the brute parent, and it is enough that the new +generation points to another generation, for there seldom was a time +that was not better than its father and the herald of a finer son. + +Generally the parent will help, for his new attitude can be expressed in +a phrase. He does not say, "I am master", but, "I am responsible." He +has begun to realize that the child is not a regrettable accident or a +little present from Providence; he is beginning to look upon the care of +the child as a duty. He has extended the ideal of citizenship, born in +the middle of the nineteenth century, which was "to leave the world a +little better than he found it"; he has passed on to wanting his son to +be a little richer than he was, and a little more learned; he is coming +to want his son to be a finer and bolder man; he will come in time to +want his daughter to be a finer and bolder woman, which just now he +bears pretty well. His wife is helping him a great deal because she is +escaping from her home ties to the open trades and professions, to the +entertainments of psychic, political, and artistic lectures which make +of her head a waste paper basket of intellect, but still create in that +head a disturbance far better than the ancient and cow-like placidity. +The modern mother is often too much inclined to weigh the baby four +times a day, to feed it on ozoneid, or something equally funny, to +expose as much of its person as possible, to make it gaze at Botticelli +prints when in its bath. She will no doubt want it to mate eugenically, +in which she will probably be disappointed, for love laughs at Galtons; +but still, in her struggle against disease and wooden thinking, she will +have helped the child by giving it something to discard better than the +old respects and fears. The modern mother has begun to consider herself +as a human being as well as a mother; she no longer thinks that + + "A mother is a mother still, + The holiest thing alive." + +She is coming to look upon herself as a sort of aesthetic school +inspector. She lives round her children rather than in them; she is less +animal. Above all, she is more critical. Having more opportunity of +mixing with people, she ceases to see her child as marvelous because it +is her child. She is losing something of her conceit and has learned to +say, "_the_ baby" instead of "_my_ baby." It is a revolutionary +atmosphere, and the developing child has something to push against when +it wants to earn its parents' approval, for modern parents are fair +judges of excellence; they are educated. The old-time father was +nonplussed by his son, and could not help him in his _delectus_, but the +modern father is not so puzzled when his son wishes to converse of +railway finance. The parent, more capable of comradeship, has come to +want to be a comrade. He is no longer addressed as "sir"; he is often +addressed as "old chap." That is fine, but it is in dead opposition to +the close, hard family idea. + +Likewise, man and wife have come to look upon each other rather +differently; not differently enough, but then humanity never does +anything enough; when it comes near to anything drastic it grows afraid. +Man still thinks that "whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing", but +he is no longer finding the one he sought not so long ago. She is no +longer his property, and it would not occur to the roughest among us to +offer a wife for sale for five shillings in Smithfield market, as was +done now and then as late as the early nineteenth century. Woman is no +longer property; she has been freed; in England she has even been +allowed, by the Married Women's Property Act, to hold that which was her +own. The Married Women's Property Act has modified the attitude of the +mother to her child and to her husband. She is less linked when she has +property, for she can go. If every woman had means, or a trade of her +own, we should have achieved something like free alliance; woman would +be in the position of the woman in "Pygmalion", whom her man could not +beat because, she not being married to him, if he beat her she might +leave him--in its way a very strong argument against marriage. + +But most women have no property, and yet, somehow, by the slow loosening +of family links, they have gained some independence. I am not talking of +America, where men have deposited their liberty and their fortunes into +the prettiest, the greediest, the most ruthless hands in the world; but +rather of England, where for a long time a man set up in life with a dog +as a friend, a wife to exercise it, and a cat to catch the mice. Until +recently the householder kept a tight hand upon domestic expenditure; he +paid all the bills, inspected the weekly accounts with a fierce air and +an internal hope that he understood them; rent, taxes, heat, light, +furniture, repairs, servants' wages, school fees--he saw to it that +every penny was accounted for and then, when pleased, gave his wife a +tip to go and buy herself a ribbon with. (There are still a great many +men who cannot think of anything a woman may want except a ribbon; in +1860 it was a shawl.) When a woman had property, even for some time +after the Act, she was not considered fit to administer it. She was not +fit, but she should have been allowed to administer it so as to learn +from experience how not to be swindled. Anyhow, the money was taken from +her, and I know of three cases in a single large family where the wife +meekly indorses her dividend warrant so that the husband may pay it into +his banking account. That spirit survives, but every day it decays; man, +finding his wife competent, tends to make her an allowance, to let her +have her own banking account, and never to ask for the pass book. He has +thrown upon her the responsibility for all the household and its +finance; by realizing that she was capable he has made her capable. +Though she be educated, he loves her not less; perhaps he loves her +more. It is no longer true to say with Lord Lyttleton that "the lover in +the husband may be lost." Formerly the lover was generally lost, for +after she had had six children before she was thirty the mother used to +put on a cap and retire. Now she does not retire; indeed, she hides his +bedroom slippers and puts out his pumps, for life is more vivid and +exterior now; this is the cinema age. + +Finding her responsible, amusing, capable of looking after herself, man +is developing a still stranger liberalism; he has recognized that he +may not be enough to fill a woman's life, that she may care for +pleasures other than his society, and indeed for that of other men. He +has not abandoned his physical jealousy and will not so long as he is a +man, but he is slowly beginning to view without dismay his wife's +companionship with other men. She may be seen with them; she may lunch +with them; she may not, as a rule, dine with them, but that is an +evolution to come. This springs from the deep realization that there are +between men and women relations other than the passionate. It is still +true that between every man and every woman there is a flicker of love, +just a shadow, perhaps; but not so long ago between men and women there +was only "yes" or "no," and to-day there are also common tastes and +common interests. This is fine, this is necessary, but it is not good +for the old British household where husband and wife must cleave unto +each other alone; where, as in the story books, they lived happy ever +after. As with the home, so with the family; neither can survive when it +suffers comparison, for it derives all its strength from its +exclusivism. As soon as a woman begins to realize that there is charm in +the society of men other than her uncles, her brothers, and her +cousins, the solid, four-square attitude of the family is menaced. +Welcome the stranger, and legal hymen is abashed. + +All this springs from woman's new estate--that of human being. She must +be considered almost as much as a man. Where there is wealth her tastes +must be consulted, and more than one man has been sentenced by a +tyrannous wife to wear blue coats and blue ties all his life. She is +coming to consider that the husband who dresses in his wife's bedroom +should be flogged, while the one who shaves there should be +electrocuted. And she defends her view with entirely one-sided logic and +an extended vocabulary. Here again is a good, a necessary thing; but +where is the old family where a husband could in safety, when slightly +overcome, retire to bed with his boots on? He is no longer king of the +castle, but a menaced viceroy in an insurgent land. + +All through society this loosening of the marriage bond is operative. By +being freer within matrimony men and women view more tolerantly breaches +of the matrimonial code. There was a time when a male co-respondent was +not received: that is over. In those days a divorcee was not received +either, even when the divorce was pronounced in her favor. Nowadays, in +most social circles, the decree absolute is coming to be looked upon as +an absolution. I do not refer to the United States, where (I judge only +from your novels) divorce outlaws nobody, but to steady old England, who +still pretends that she frowns on the rebels and finally takes them back +with a sigh and wonders what she is coming to. What England is coming to +is to a lesser regard for the marriage bond, to a recognition that +people have the right to rebel against their yoke. There totters the +family--for marriage is its base, and the more English society receives +in its ranks those who have flouted it, the more it will be shaken by +the new spirit which bids human creatures live together, but also with +the rest of the world. Woman was kept within the family by threats, by +banishment, by ostracism, but now she easily earns forgiveness. At least +English society is deciding to forget if it cannot forgive the guilt--a +truly British expedient. At the root is a decaying respect for the +marriage bond, a growing respect for rebellion. That tendency is +everywhere, and it is becoming more and more common for husband and wife +to take separate holidays; there are even some who leave behind them +merely a slip: "Gone away, address unknown." They are cutting the wire +entanglements behind which lie dangers and freedoms. All this again +comes from mutual respect with mutual realization, from education, and +especially from late marriages. Late marriages are one of the most +potent causes of the break-up of the family, for now women are no longer +caught and crushed young; they are no longer burdened matrons at thirty. +The whole point of view has changed. I remember reading in an +early-Victorian novel this phrase: "She was past the first bloom of her +youth; she was twenty-three." The phrase is not without its meaning; it +meant that the male was seeking not a wife, but a courtesan who, her +courtesanship done, could become a perfect housekeeper. Now men prefer +women of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, forsake the _backfisch_ for her +mother, because the mother has personality, experience, can stimulate, +amuse, and accompany. Only the older and more formed woman is no longer +willing to enter the family as a jail; she will enter it only as a +hotel. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, from child to parent erosion also operates. I do not think +that the modern child honors its father and its mother unless it thinks +them worthy of honor. There is a slump in respect, as outside the family +there is a slump in reverence. As in the outer world a man began by +being a worthy, then a member of Parliament, then a minister, finally +was granted a pension and later a statue; and as now a man is first a +journalist, then a member of Parliament, a minister, and in due course a +scoundrel, so inside the family does a father become an equal instead of +a tyrant, and a good sort instead of an old fogy. For respect, I +believe, was mainly fear and greed. The respect of the child for its +father was very like the respect that Riquet, the little dog, felt for +Monsieur Bergeret. Anatole France has expressed it ideally: + +"Oh, my master, Bergeret, God of Slaughter, I worship thee! Hail, oh God +of wrath! Hail, oh bountiful God! I lie at thy feet, I lick thy hand. +Thou art great and beautiful when at the laden board thou devourest +abundant meats. Thou art great and beautiful when, from a thin strip of +wood causing flame to spring, thou dost of night make day...." + +That was a little the child's cosmogony. Then the child became educated, +capable of argument. In contact with more reasonable parents it grew +more reasonable. The parent, confronted with the question, "Why must I +do what you order?" ceased to say, "Because I say so." That reply did +not seem good enough to the parent, and it ceased to be good enough for +the child. If the child rebelled, the only thing to do was to strike it, +and striking is no longer done; the parent prefers argument because the +child is capable of understanding argument. The child is more lawful, +more sensitive; it is unready to obey blindly, and it is no longer +required to obey blindly, because, while the parent has begun to doubt +his own infallibility, the child has been doing so, too. The child is +more ready and more able to criticize its parents; indeed, the whole +generation is critical, has acquired the habit of introspection. The +child is a little like the supersoul of Mr. Stephen Leacock, and is +developing thoughts like, "Why am I? Why am I what I am? How? and why +how?" Obviously, such questions, when directed at one's father and +mother, are a little shattering. It is true that once upon a time the +child readily obeyed; now and then it criticized, but still it obeyed, +for it had been told that its duty was to execute, as was its parents' +to command. But duty is in a bad way, and I, for one, think that we +should be well rid of duty, for it appears to me to be merely an excuse +for acting without considering whether the deed is worthy. The man who +dies for his country because he loves it is an idealist and a hero; the +man who does that because he thinks it his duty is a fool. The +conception of duty has suffered; from the child's point of view, it is +almost extinct; it has been turned upside down, and there is a growth of +opinion that the parent should have the duties and the child the +privileges. It is the theory of _La Course du Flambeau_, where Hervieu +shows us each generation using and bleeding the elder generation. Or +perhaps it is a more subtle conception. It may be that the eugenic idea +is vaguely forming in the young generation, and that, in an unperceived +return to nature, they are deciding to eat their grandfathers, a +primitive taste which I have never been able to understand. Youth, +feeling that the world is its orange to suck, is inclined to consider +that the elder generation, being responsible for its presence, should +look after it and serve it. That is not at all illogical; it is borne +out by Chinese law, where, if you save a man from suicide, you must feed +him for the rest of his life. + +Or perhaps it is a broader view, a more socialized one. Very young, the +child is acquiring a vague sense of its responsibility to the race, is +very early becoming a citizen. It is directed that way; it hears that +liberty consists in doing what you like, providing you injure no other +man. Its personality being encouraged to develop, the child acquires a +higher opinion of itself, considers that it owes something to itself, +that it has rights. Sacrifice is still inculcated in the child, but not +so much because it is a moral duty as because it is mental discipline. +The little boy is not told to give the chocolates to his little sister +because she is a dear little thing, and he must not be cruel to her and +make her cry; he is told that he must give her the chocolates because it +is good for him to learn to give up something. That impulse is the +impulse of Polycrates, who threw his ring into the sea. But, then, +Polycrates had no luck. The child, more fortunate, is tending to realize +itself as a person, and so, as it becomes more responsible, acquires +tolerance; it makes allowances for its parents, it is kind, it realizes +that its parents have not had its advantages. All that is very +swollen-headed and unpleasant, but still I prefer it to the old +attitude, to the time when voices were hushed and footsteps slowed when +father's latchkey was heard in the lock. To the child the parent is +becoming a person instead of the God of Wrath; a person with rights, but +not a person to whom everything must be given up. Sacrifice is out of +date, and in the child as well as in the elders there is a denial of the +dream of Ellen Sturges Cooper, for few wake up and find that life is +duty. _My_ life, _my_ personality--all that has sprung from Stirner, +from Nietzsche, from the great modern reaction against socialism and +uniformity; it is the assertion of the individual. It is often harsh; +the daughter who used to take her father for a walk now sends the dog. +But still it is necessary; old hens make good soup. I do not think that +this has killed love, for love can coexist with mutual forbearance, +however much Doctor Johnson may have doubted it. Doctor Johnson was the +bad old man of the English family, and I do not suppose that anybody +will agree that + + "If the man who turnips cries + Cry not when his father dies, + 'Tis a proof that he had rather + Have a turnip than his father." + +A possible sentiment in an older generation, but sentiments, like +generations, grow out of date; they are swept out by new ideas and new +rejections--rejection of religion, rejection of morals. We tend toward +an agnostic world, with a high philosophical morality; we have attained +as yet neither agnosticism nor high morality, but the child is shaking +off the ready-made precepts of the faiths and the Smilesian theories. It +is unwillingly bound by the ordinances of a forgotten alien race; as a +puling child, carried in a basket by an eagle, like the tiny builders of +Ecbatana, it calls for bricks and mortar with which to build the airy +castle of the future. + + +3 + +As a house divided against itself, the family falls. It protests, it +hugs that from which it suffered; it protests in speech, in the +newspapers, that still it is united. The clan is dead, and blood is not +as thick as marmalade. There are countries where the link is strong, as +in France, for instance. I quote from a recent and realistic novel the +words of a mother speaking of her young married daughter: + +"Every Tuesday we dine at my mother's, and every Thursday at my +mother-in-law's. Of course, now, at least once a week we go to Madame +de Castelac; later on I shall expect Pauline and her husband every +Wednesday." + +"That is a pity," said Sorel. "That leaves three days." + +"Oh, there are other calls. Every week my mother comes to us the same +evening as does my father-in-law, but that is quite informal." + +Family dinners are rare in England. They flourish only at weddings and +at funerals, especially at funerals, for mankind collected enjoys woe. +But other occasions--birthdays, Christmas--are shunned; Christmas +especially, in spite of Dickens and Mr. Chesterton, is not what it was, +for its quondam victims, having fewer children, and being less bound to +their aunts' apron strings, go away to the seaside, or stay at home and +hide. That is a general change, and many modern factors, such as travel, +intercourse with strangers, emigration, have shown the family that there +are other places than home, until some of them have begun to think that +"East or West, home's worst." There is a frigidity among the relations +in the home, a disinclination to call one's mother-in-law "Mother." +Indeed, relations-in-law are no longer relatives; the two families do +not immediately after the wedding call one another Kitty or Tom. The +acquired family is merely a sub-family, and often the grouping resembles +that of the Montagues and the Capulets, if Romeo and Juliet had married. +Mrs. Herbert said, charmingly, in _Garden Oats_, "Our in-laws are our +strained relations." + +With the closeness of the family goes the regard for the name, once so +strong. I feel sure that in all seriousness, round about 1850, a father +may have said to his son that he was disgracing the name of Smith. Now +he may almost disgrace the name of FitzArundel for all anybody cares. +There was a time when it was thought criminal that a man should become a +bankrupt, but few families will now mortgage their estate to prevent a +distant member's appearance before the official receiver. The name of +the family is now merely generic, and the bold young girl of to-morrow +will say, "My father began life as a forger and was ultimately hanged, +but that shouldn't bother you, should it?" Much of that deliquescence is +due to the factory system, for it opened opportunities to all, which +many took, raised men high in the scale of wealth; one brother might be +a millionaire in Manchester, while another tended a bar in Liverpool. +Sometimes the rich member of the family came back, such as the uncle who +returned from America with a fortune, in a state of sentimental +generosity, but most of the time it has meant that the family split into +those who keep their carriage and those who take the tram. Perhaps +Cervantes did not exaggerate when saying that there are only two +families: Have-Much and Have-Little. + + +4 + +What the future reserves I disincline to prophesy. It is enough to point +to tendencies, and to say, "Along this road we go, we know not whither." +But of one thing I feel certain: the family will not become closer, for +the individualistic tendency of man leads to instinctive rebellion; his +latent anarchism to isolate him from his fellows. There is a growing +rebellion among women against the thrall of motherhood, which, however +delightful it may be, is a thrall--the velvet-coated yoke is a yoke +still. I do not suppose that the mothers of the future will unanimously +deposit their babies in the municipal creche. But I do believe that with +the growth of cooeperative households, and especially of that quite new +class, the skilled Princess Christian or Norland nurses, there will be a +delegation of responsibility from the mother to the expert. It will go +down to the poor as well as to the rich. Already we have district +nurses for the poor, and I do not see why, as we realize more and more +the value of young life, there should not be district kindergartens. +They would remove the child still more from its home; they would throw +it in contact with creatures of its own age in its very earliest years, +prepare it for school, place it in an atmosphere where it must stand by +itself among others who will praise or blame without special +consideration, for they are strangers to it and do not bear its name. + +I suspect, too, that marriage will be freer; it will not be made more +easy or more difficult, but greater facilities will be given for divorce +so that human beings may no longer be bound together in dislike, because +they once committed the crime of loving unwisely. This, too, must loosen +the family link, to-day still strong because people know that it is so +hard to break it. It will be a conditional link when it can easily be +done away with, a link that will be maintained only on terms of good +behavior on both sides. The marriage service will need a new clause; we +shall have to swear to be agreeable. The relation between husband and +wife must change more. Conjugal tyranny still exists in a country such +as England where the wife is not co-guardian of the child, for during +his wife's lifetime a husband may remove her child into another country, +refuse her access save at the price of a costly and uncertain legal +action. The child itself must have rights. At present, all the rights it +has are to such food as its parents will give it; it needs very gross +cruelty before a man can be convicted of starving or neglecting his +child. And when that child is what they call grown up--that is to say, +sixteen--in practice it loses all its rights, must come out and fend for +itself. I suspect that that will not last indefinitely, and that the new +race will have upon the old race the claim that owing to the old race it +was born. A socialized life is coming where there will be less freedom +for those who are unfit to be free, those who do not feel categorical +impulses, the impulse to treat wife and child gently and procure their +happiness. Men will not indefinitely draw their pay on a Friday and +drink half of it by Sunday night. Their wages will be subject to liens +corresponding to the number of their children. These liens may not be +light, and may extend long beyond the nominal majority of the child. I +suspect that after sixteen, or some other early age, children will, if +they choose, be entitled to leave home for some municipal hostel where +for a while their parents will be compelled to pay for their support. It +will be asked, "Why should a parent pay for the support of a child who +will not live in his house?" It seems to me that the chief reply is, +"Why did you have that child?" There is another, too: "By what right +should this creature for whom you are responsible be tied to a house +into which it has been called unconsulted? Why should it submit to your +moral and religious views? to your friends? to your wall-paper?" It is a +strong case, and I believe that, as time goes on and the law is +strengthened, the young will more and more tend to leave their homes. In +good, liberal homes they will stay, but the others they will abandon, +and I believe that no social philosopher will regret that children +should leave homes where they stay only because they are fed and not +because they love. + +So, flying apart by a sort of centrifugal force, the family will become +looser and looser, until it exists only for those who care for one +another enough to maintain the association. It cannot remain as it is, +with its right of insult, its claim to society; we can have no more +slave daughters and slave wives, nor shall we chain together people who +spy out one another's loves and crush one another's youth. The family +is immortal, but the immortals have many incarnations--from Pan and +Bacchus sprang Lucifer, Son of the Morning. There is a time to +come--better than this because it is to come--when the family, +humanized, will be human. + + + + +VII + +SOME NOTES ON MARRIAGE + + +1 + +The questioning mind, sole apparatus of the socio-psychologist, has of +late years often concerned itself with marriage. Marriage always was +discussed, long before Mrs. Mona Caird suggested in the respectable +'eighties that it might be a failure, but it is certain that with the +coming of Mr. Bernard Shaw the institution which was questioned grew +almost questionable. Indeed, marriage was so much attacked that it +almost became popular, and some believe that the war may cut it free +from the stake of martyrdom. Perhaps, but setting aside all prophecies, +revolts and sermons, one thing does appear: marriage is on its trial +before a hesitating jury. The judge has set this jury several questions: +Is marriage a normal institution? Is it so normal as to deserve to +continue in a state of civilization? given that civilization's function +is to crush nature. + +A thing is not necessarily good because it exists, for scarlet fever, +nationality, art critics, and black beetles exist, yet all will be +rooted out in the course of enlightenment. Marriage may be an invention +of the male to secure himself a woman freehold, or, at least, in fee +simple. It may be an invention of the female designed to secure a +somewhat tyrannical protection and a precarious sustenance. Marriage may +be afflicted with inherent diseases, with antiquity, with spiritual +indigestion, or starvation: among these confusions the +socio-psychologist, swaying between the solidities of polygamy and the +shadows of theosophical union, loses all idea of the norm. There may be +no norm, either in Christian marriage, polygamy, Meredithian marriage +leases; there may be a norm only in the human aspiration to utility and +to happiness. + +For we know very little save the aimlessness of a life that may be +paradise, or its vestibule, or an instalment of some other region. Still +there is a key, no doubt: the will to happiness, which, alas! opens +doors most often into empty rooms. It is the search for happiness that +has envenomed marriage and made it so difficult to bear, because in the +first rapture it is so hard to realize that there are no ways of +living, but only ways of dying more or less agreeably. + +Personally, I believe that with all its faults, with its crudity, its +stupidity shot with pain, marriage responds to a human need to live +together and to foster the species, and that though we will make it +easier and approach free union, we shall always have something of the +sort. And so, because I believe it eternal, I think it necessary. + +But why does it fare so ill? Why is it that when we see in a restaurant +a middle-aged couple, mutually interested and gay, we say: "I wonder if +they are married?" Why do so many marriages persist when the love knot +slips, and bandages fall away from the eyes? Strange cases come to my +mind: M 6 and M 22, always apart, except to quarrel, meanly jealous, +jealously mean, yet full of affability--to strangers; M 4 and many +others, all poor, where at once the wife has decayed; when you see youth +struggling in vain on the features under the cheap hat, you need not +look at the left hand: she is married. It is true that however much they +may decay in pride of body and pride of life, when all allowances are +made for outer gaiety and grace, the married of forty are a sounder, +deeper folk than their celibate contemporaries. Often bled white by +self-sacrifice, they have always learnt a little of the world's lesson, +which is to know how to live without happiness. They may have been +vampires, but they have not gone to sleep in the cotton wool of their +celibacy. Even hateful, the other sex has meant something to them. It +has meant that the woman must hush the children because father has come +home, but it has also meant that she must change her frock, because even +father is a man. It has taught the man that there are flowers in the +world, which so few bachelors know; it has taught the woman to interest +herself in something more than a fried egg, if only to win the favor of +her lord. Marriage may not teach the wish to please, but it teaches the +avoidance of offence, which, in a civilization governed by negative +commandments, is the root of private citizenship. + + +2 + +For the closer examination of the marriage problem, I am considering +altogether one hundred and fifty cases; my acquaintance with them varies +between intimate and slight. I have thrown out one hundred and sixteen +cases where the evidence is inadequate: the following are therefore not +loose generalizations, but one thing I assert: those one hundred and +sixteen cases do not contain a successful marriage. Out of the remaining +thirty-four, the following results arise: + + Apparently successful 9 + Husband unfaithful 5 + Wife unfaithful 10 + Husband dislikes wife 3 + Wife dislikes husband 7 + +Success is a vague word, and I attempt no definition, but we know a +happy marriage when we see it, as we do a work of art. + +It should be observed that when one or both parties are unfaithful, the +marriage is not always unsuccessful, but it generally is; moreover, +there are difficulties in establishing proportion, for women are +infinitely more confidential on this subject than are men; they also +frequently exaggerate dislike, which men cloak in indifference. Still, +making all these allowances, I am unable to find more than nine cases of +success, say six per cent. This percentage gives rise to platitudinous +thoughts on the horrid gamble of life. + +Two main conclusions appear to follow: that more wives than husbands +break their marriage vows, and (this may be a cause as well as an +effect) that more wives than husbands are disappointed in their hopes. +This is natural enough, as nearly all women come ignorant to a state +requiring cool knowledge and armored only with illusion against truth, +while men enter it with experience, if not with tolerance born of +disappointment. I realize that these two conclusions are opposed to the +popular belief that a good home and a child or two are enough to make a +woman content. (A bad home and a child or nine is not considered by the +popular mind.) + +There is no male clamor against marriage, from which one might conclude +that man is fairly well served. No doubt he attaches less weight to the +link; even love matters to him less than to women. I do not want to +exaggerate, for Romeo is a peer to Juliet, but it is possible to +conceive Romeo on the Stock Exchange, very busy in pursuit of money and +rank, while Juliet would remain merely Juliet. Juliet is not on the +Stock Exchange. If business is good, she has nothing to do, and if Satan +does not turn her hands to evil works, he may turn them to good ones, +which will not improve matters very much. Juliet, idle, can do nothing +but seek a deep and satisfying love: mostly it is a lifelong +occupation. All this makes Juliet very difficult, and no astronomer will +give her the moon. + +Romeo is in better plight, for he makes less demands. Let Juliet be a +good housekeeper, fairly good looking and good tempered; not too stupid, +so as to understand him; not too clever, so that he may understand her; +such that he may think her as good as other men's wives, and he is +satisfied. The sentimental business is done; it is "Farewell! Farewell! +ye lovely young girls, we're off to Rio Bay." So to work--to money--to +ambition--to sport--to anything--but Juliet. While he forgets her, the +modern woman grows every day more attractive, more intellectually vivid. +She demands of her partner that he should give her stimulants, and he +gives her soporifics. She asks him for far too much; she is cruel, she +is unjust, and she is magnificent. She has not the many children on whom +in simpler days her mother used to vent an exacting affection, so she +vents it on her husband. + +Yet it is not at first sight evident why so easily in England a lover +turns into a husband, that is to say, into a vaguely disagreeable person +who can be coaxed into paying bills. I suspect there are many +influences corrupting marriage, and most of them are mutual in their +action; they are of the essence of the contract; they are the mental +reservations of the marriage oath. So far as I can see, they fall into +sixteen classes:-- + + 1. The waning of physical attraction. + 2. Diverging tastes. + 3. Being too much together. + 4. Being too much apart. (There is no pleasing this institution.) + 5. The sense of mutual property. + 6. The sense of the irremediable. + 7. Children. + 8. The cost of living. + 9. Rivalry. + 10. Polygamy in men and "second blooming" in women. + 11. Coarseness and talkativeness. + 12. Sulkiness. + 13. Dull lives. + 14. Petty intolerance. + 15. Stupidity. + 16. Humour and aggressiveness. + +There are other influences, but they are not easily ascertained; +sometimes they are subtle. + +M 28 said to me: "My husband's grievance against me is that I have a +cook who can't cook; my grievance against him is that he married me." + +Indeed, sentiment and the scullery painfully represent the divergence of +the two sexes. One should not exaggerate the scullery; the philosopher +who said "Feed the brute" was not entirely wrong, but it is quite easy +for a woman to ignore the emotional pabulum that many a man requires. It +is quite true that "the lover in the husband may be lost", but very few +women realize that the wife can blot out the mistress. Case M 19 +confessed that she always wore out her old clothes at home, and she was +surprised when I suggested that though her husband was no critic of +clothes, he might often wonder why she did not look as well as other +women. Many modern wives know this; in them the desire to please never +quite dies; between lovers, it is violent and continuous; between +husband and wife, it is sometimes maintained only by shame and +self-respect: there are old slippers that one can't wear, even before +one's husband. + +The problem arises very early with the waning of physical attraction. I +am not thinking only of the bad and hasty marriages so frequent in young +America, but of the English marriages, where both parties come together +in a state of sentimental excitement born of ignorance and rather +puritanical restraint. Europeans wed less wisely than the Hindoo and +the Turk, for these realize their wives as Woman. Generally they have +never seen a woman of their own class, and so she is a revelation, she +is indeed the bulbul, while he, being the first, is the King of men. But +the Europeans have mixed too freely, they have skimmed, they have +flirted, they have been so ashamed of true emotion that they have made +the Song of Solomon into a vaudeville ditty. They have watered the wine +of life. + +So when at last the wine of life is poured out, the draught is not new, +for they have quaffed before many an adulterated potion and have long +pretended that the wine of life is milk. For a moment there is a +difference, and they recognize that the incredible can happen; each +thinks the time has come: + + _"Wenn ich dem Augenblick werd sagen: + Verweile doch, du bist so schoen . . ."_ + +Then the false exaltation subsides: not even a saint could stand a daily +revelation; the revelation becomes a sacramental service, the +sacramental service a routine, and then, little by little, there is +nothing. But nature, as usual abhorring a vacuum, does not allow the +newly opened eyes to dwell upon a void; it leaves them clear, it allows +them to compare. One day two demi-gods gaze into the eyes of two +mortals and resent their fugitive quality. Another day two mortals gaze +into the eyes of two others, whom suddenly they discover to be +demi-gods. Some resist the trickery of nature, some succumb, some are +fortunate, some are strong. But the two who once were united are +divorced by the three judges of the Human Supreme Court: Contrast, +Habit, and Change. + +Time cures no ills; sometimes it provides poultices, often salt, for +wounds. Time gives man his work, which he always had, but did not +realize in the days of his enchantment; but to woman time seldom offers +anything except her old drug, love. Oh! there are other things, +children, visiting cards, frocks, skating rinks, Christian Science teas, +and Saturday anagrams, but all these are but froth. Brilliant, worldly, +hard-eyed, urgent, pleasure-drugged, she still believes there is an +exquisite reply to the question: + + "Will the love you are so rich in + Light a fire in the kitchen, + And will the little God of Love turn the spit, spit, spit?" + +Only the little God of Love does not call, and the butcher does. + +It is her own fault. It is always one's own fault when one has +illusions, though it is, in a way, one's privilege. She is attracted to +a strange man because he is tall and beautiful, or short and ugly and +has a clever head, or looks like a barber; he comes of different stock, +from another country, out of another class--and these two strangers +suddenly attempt to blend a total of, say, fifty-five years of different +lives into a single one! Gold will melt, but it needs a very fierce +fire, and as soon as the fire is withdrawn, it hardens again. Seldom is +there anything to make it fluid once more, for the attraction, once +primary, grows with habit commonplace, with contrast unsatisfactory, +with growth unsuitable. The lovers are twenty, then in love, then old. + +It is true that habit affects man not in the same way as it does woman; +after conquest man seems to grow indifferent, while, curiously enough, +habit often binds woman closer to man, breeds in her one single fierce +desire: to make him love her more. Man buys cash down, woman on the +instalment plan, horribly suspecting now and then that she is really +buying on the hire system. A rather literary case, Case M 11, said to +me: "I am much more in love with him than I was in the beginning; he +seemed so strange and hard then. Now I love him, but ... he seems tired +of me; he knows me too well. I wonder whether we only fall in love with +men just about the time that they get sick of us." + +Her surmise may be correct: there is no record of the after-life of +Perseus and Andromeda, and it is more romantic not to delve into it. +Neither they nor any other lovers could hope to maintain the early +exaltations. I am reminded of a well-known picture by Mr. Charles Dana +Gibson, showing two lovers in the snow by the sea. They are gazing into +each other's eyes; below is written: "They began saying good-by last +summer." Does any one doubt that a visit to the minister, say, in the +autumn, might have altered the complexion of things? And no wonder, for +they were the unknown, and through marriage would become the known. It +is only the unknown that tempts, until one realizes that the unknown and +the known are the same thing, as Socrates realized that life and death +are the same thing, mere converses of a single proposition. It is the +unknown makes strange associates, attracts men to ugly women, slatterns +to dandies. It is not only contrast, it is the suspicion that the +unexpected outside must conceal something. The breaking down of that +concealment is conquest, and after marriage there is no conquest; there +is only security: who could live dangerously in Brooklyn? Once licensed, +love is official; its gifts are doled out as sugar by a grocer, and +sometimes short weighed. Men suffer from this and many go dully +wondering what it is they miss that once they had; they go rather heavy, +rather dense, cumbrously gallant, asking to be understood, and +whimpering about it in a way that would be ridiculous if it were not a +little pathetic. Meanwhile, their wives wonder why all is not as it was. +It is no use telling them that nothing can ever be as it was, that as +mankind by living decays, the emotions and outlook must change; to have +had a delight is a deadly thing, for one wants it again, just as it was, +as a child demands always the same story. It must be the same delight, +and none who feel emotion will ever understand that "the race of +delights is short and pleasures have mutable faces." + +It is true that early joys may unite, especially if one can believe that +there is only one fountain of joy. I think of many cases,--M 5, M +33,--where there is only one cry: "It is cruel to have had delights, for +the glamour of the past makes the day darker." They will live to see the +past differently when they are older and the present matters less. But +until then, the dead joy poisons the animate present; the man must drift +away to his occupation, for there is nothing else, and the woman must +harden by wanting what she cannot have. She will part herself from him +more thoroughly by hardening, for one cannot count upon a woman's +softness; it can swiftly be transmuted into malicious hatred. + + +3 + +This picture of pain is the rule where two strangers wed, but there are +some who, taking a partner discover a friend, many who develop agreeable +acquaintanceship. Passion may be diverted into a common interest, say in +conchology; if people are not too stupid, not too egotistic, they very +soon discover in each other a little of the human good will that will +not die. They must, or they fail. For whereas in the beginning foolish +lips may be kissed, a little later they must learn to speak some wisdom. +In this men are most exacting; they are most inclined to demand that +women should hold up to their faces the mirror of flattery, while women +seem more tolerant, often because they do not understand, very often +because they do not care, and echo the last words of Mr. Bernard Shaw's +Ann: "Never mind her, dear, go on talking;" perhaps because they have +had to tolerate so much in the centuries that they have grown expert. +One may, however, tolerate whilst strongly disapproving, and one must +disapprove when one's egotism is continually insulted by the other +party's egotism. There is very little room for twice "I" in what ought +to have been "We", and we nearly all feel that the axis of the earth +passes through our bodies. So the common interests of two egotisms can +alone make of these one egotism. The veriest trifle will serve, and pray +do not smile at Case M 4, who forgive each other all wrongs when they +find for dinner a _risotto a la Milanaise_. A slightly spasmodic +interest, and one not to be compared with a common taste for golf, or +motoring, or entertaining, but still it is not to be despised. It is so +difficult to pick a double interest from the welter of things that +people do alone; it is so difficult for wives truly to sympathize with +games, business, politics, newspapers, inventions; most women hate all +that. And it is still more difficult, just because man is man and +master, for him really to care for the fashions, for gossip, for his +wife's school friends, and especially her relations, for tea parties, +tennis tournaments at the Rectory, lectures at the Mutual Improvement +Association, servants' misdeeds, and growths in the garden. Most men +hate all that. People hold amazing conversations: + +She: "Do you know, dear, I saw Mrs. Johnson again to-day with that man." + +He: (Trying hard) "Oh! yes, the actor fellow, you mean." + +She: (Reproachfully) "No, of course not, I never said he was an actor. +He's the new engineer at the mine, the one who came from Mexico." + +He: "Oh! yes, that reminds me, did you go to the library and get me +Roosevelt's book on the Amazon?" + +She: "No dear, I'm sorry I forgot. You see I had such a busy day, and I +couldn't make up my mind between those two hats. The very big one and +the very small one. _You_ know. Now tell me what you _really_ think--" +and so on. + +It is exactly like a Tchekoff play. They make desperate efforts to be +interested in each other's affairs, and sometimes they succeed, for they +manage to stand each other's dullness. They assert their egotism in +turns. He tells the same stories several times. He takes her for a +country walk and forgets to give her tea, and she never remembers that +he hates her dearest friend Mabel. Where the rift grows more profound is +when trifles such as these are overlooked, and particularly where a man +has work that he loves, or to which he is used, which is much the same +thing. In early days the woman's attitude to a man's work varies a good +deal, but she generally suspects it a little. She may tolerate it +because she loves him, and all that is his is noble. Later, if this work +is very profitable, or if it is work which leads to honour, she may take +a pride in it, but even then she will generally grudge it the time and +the energy it costs. She loves him, not his work. She will seldom +confess this, even to herself, but she will generally lay down two +commandments: + + 1. Thou shalt love me. + + 2. Thou shalt succeed so that I may love thee. + +All this is not manifest, but it is there. It is there even in the days +of courtship, when a man's work, a man's clothes, a man's views on +bimetallism are sacred; in those days, the woman must kowtow to the +man's work, just as he must keep on good terms with her pet dog. But the +time almost invariably comes when the man kicks the pet dog, because +pet dogs are madly irritating sometimes--and so is a man's work. There +is something self-protective in this, for work is so domineering. I +should not be at all surprised to hear that Galatea saw to it that +Pygmalion never made another statue. (On second thoughts it strikes me +that there might be other reasons for that.) + +It is true that Pygmalion was an artist, and these are proverbially +difficult husbands: after an hour's work an artist will "sneer, backbite +and speak daggers." Art is a vampire, and it will gladly gobble up a +wife as well as a husband, but the wife must not do any gobbling. She +does not always try to, and there are many in London who follow their +artist husbands rather like sandwichmen between two boards, but they are +of a trampled breed, indigenous, I suspect, to England. I think they +arise but little in America, where, as an American said to me, "women +labor to advance themselves along a road paved with discarded husbands." +(This is an American's statement, not mine, so I ask the Reverend John +Bootfeller, President of the Kansas and Nevada Society for the +Propagation of the Intellect, to spare me his denunciations.) + +But leaving aside such important things as personal pettinesses, which +too few think important, it must be acknowledged that women seldom +conceive the passion for art that can inflame a man. They very seldom +conceive a passion for anything except passion,--an admirable tendency +for which they blush as one does for all one's natural manifestations. +They hardly ever care for philosophy; they generally hate politics, but +they nearly always love votes. They are quite as irritating in that way +as men, who almost invariably adore politics and detest realities, +sometimes love science and generally prefer record railway runs. But +where such an interest as a science or an art has reigned supreme in a +man, and reasserts itself after marriage, she recognizes her enemy, the +serpent, for is he not the symbol of wisdom? Invariably he rears his +head when the love fever has subsided. Woman's impulse is more artistic +than man's, but it seldom touches art; her artistic impulse is not yet +one of high grade; she is the flower arranger rather than the flower +painter, the flower painter rather than just the painter. But this +instinct that is in all women and in so few men avails just enough to +make them discontented, while the great instinct that is in a few men is +always enough to make them wretched. + +It would not be so bad if they had not to live together, but social +custom has decided that couples must forsake their separate ways and +evermore follow the same. Most follow the common path easily enough, +because most follow the first path that offers, but many grumble and +cast longing eyes at side tracks or would return to the place whence +they came. They cannot do so because it is not done, because other feet +have not broken paths so wide that they shall seem legitimate. When +husband and wife care no longer for their common life, the only remedy +is to part: then the contradictory strain that is in all of us will +reassert itself and make them rebound towards each other. If the law +were to edict that man and wife should never be together for more than +six months in the year, it would be broken every day, and men and women +would stand hunger and stripes to come together for twelve months in +twelve. If love of home were made a crime, a family life would arise +more touching than anything Queen Victoria ever dreamed. But from the +point of view of a barbarous present, this would never do, for the very +worst that can happen to two people is to reach the fullness of their +desire. The young man who raves at the young woman's feet: "Oh! that I +were by your side day and night! Oh! that ever I could watch you move! +I grudge the night the eight hours in which you sleep!"-- Well, that +young man is generally successful in his wooing and gets what he wants; +a little later he gets a little more. For proximity is a dangerous +thing; it enables one to know another rather well: full knowledge of +mankind is seldom edifying. One sees too much, one sees too close; a +professional Don Juan who honors me with his friendship told me that he +has an infallible remedy against falling in love more often than three +times a day: "Stand as close to your charmer as you can, look at her +well, very well, at every feature; watch her attitudes, listen to every +tone of her voice; then you will discover something unpleasant, and you +will be saved." That is a little what happens in marriage; for ever and +ever people are together, hearing each other, watching each other. +Listen to M 14: + +"I really was very much in love with him and only just at the end of the +engagement did I notice how hard he blew his nose. After we were +married, I thought: 'Oh! don't be so silly and notice such little +things, he's such a splendid fellow.' A little later--'Oh! I do wish he +wouldn't blow his nose like that, it drives me mad.' Now I find myself +listening and telling myself with an awful feeling of doom: 'He's going +to blow his nose!'" + +(She never tells him that he trumpets like an elephant. She fears to +offend him. She prefers to stand there, exasperated and chafed. One day +he will trumpet down the walls of her Jericho.) + +There are awful little things between two people. Here are some of them: + +M 43. When tired, the wife has a peculiar yawn, roughly: "Hoo-hoo! +Hoo-hoo!" The husband hears it coming, and something curls within him. + +M 98. Every morning in his bath the husband sings: "There is a fountain +fill'd with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins," always the same. + +M 124. The wife buys shoes a quarter size too small and always slips +them off under the table at dinner. Then she loses them and develops +great agitation. This fills her husband with an unaccountable rage. + +M 68. The wife is afflicted with the _cliche_ habit and can generally +sum up a situation by phrases such as: "All is not gold that glitters." +Or, "Such is life." Or, "Well, well, it's a weary world." The husband +can hear them coming. + +There are scores of these little cruel things which wear away love as +surely as trickling water will wear away a stone. (Observe how +contagious _cliches_ are!) The dilemma is horrible; if the offended +party speaks out, he or she may speak out much too forcibly and raise +this sort of train of thought: "He didn't seem to mind when we were +engaged. He loved me then, and little things didn't matter. He doesn't +love me now. I wonder whether he is in love with some one else. Oh! I'm +so unhappy." If, on the other hand, one does not speak out forcibly, or +does not speak at all, the offender goes on doing it for the rest of his +or her life, and there is nothing to do except to wait until one has got +used to it and has ceased to care. But by that time one has generally +ceased to care for the offender. + +There are ideal marriages where both parties aim at perfection and are +willing to accept mutual criticism. But there is something a little +callous in this form of self-improvement society. People who are too +much together are always making notes, adding up in their hearts bitter +little adverse balances with which they will one day confront the fallen +lover. Some slight offense will bring up the bill of arrears. A quarrel +about a forgotten ticket will give life to the cruel thing he said seven +years before about her mother's bonnets, or her sudden dismissal of the +cook, or the dreadful day when he sat on the eggs in the train. (Clumsy +brute!) All these things pile up and pile up until they form a terrible, +towering cairn made up of tiny stones, but of great total weight, just +as an avalanche rests securely upon a crest until a whisper releases it. +Nearly all marriages are in a state of permanent mobilization. There is +only one thing to do, to remember all the time that one could not hope +to meet one quite great enough to be one's mate, and that this is the +best the world can do. The thought that nobody can quite understand one +or quite appreciate one arouses a delicious sorrow and an enormous +pride. + + +4 + +Too much together is bad, and too much apart may be worse. As I +suggested before, there is no pleasing this institution. + +It is easier to live too separate than too close, for one comes together +freshly, and marriage feels less irremediable when it hardly exists. +There really are couples who care for each other very well, who meet in +a country house and say: "What! you here! How jolly!" That is an extreme +case. In practice, separateness means conjugal acquaintanceship. +Different pleasures, different friends, perhaps different worlds; +indeed, one is mutually fresh, but traveling different roads, one may +find that there is nothing in common. Of two evils, it is better perhaps +to be too intimate than too distant, because there are many irritating +things that with reminiscence become delightful. The dreadful day when +he sat on the eggs in the train is not entirely dreadful, for he looked +so silly when he stood up, removing the eggs, and though one was angry, +one vaguely loved him for having made a fool of himself. (There are nine +and sixty ways of gaining affection, and one of them is to be a +good-tempered butt.) + +Separateness, naturally, cannot coincide with the sense of mutual +property. This is perhaps the cause of the greatest unhappiness in +marriage, for so many forget that to be married is not to be one. They +do not understand that however much they may love, whatever delights +they may share, whatever common ambitions they may harbor, whatever they +hope, or endeavor, or pray, two people are still two people. Or if they +know it, they say, "He is mine." "She is mine." If one could give +oneself entirely, it would be well enough, but however much one may want +to do so one cannot, just because one is the axis of the earth. Because +one cannot, one will not, and he that would absorb will never forgive. +He will be jealous, he will be suspicious, tyrannical, he will watch and +lay traps, he will court injury, he will air grievances, because the +next best thing to complete possession is railing at his impotency to +conquer. That jealousy is turned against everything, against work, +against art, against relatives, friends, dead loves, little children, +toy dogs: "Thou shalt have none other gods but me" is a human +commandment. + +Men do not, as a rule, suffer very much from this desire to possess, +because they are so sure that they do possess, because they find it so +difficult to conceive that their wife can find any other man attractive. +They are too well accustomed to being courted, even if they are old and +repulsive, because they have power and money; only they think it is +because they are men. Beyond a jealous care for their wives' fidelity, +which I suspect arises mainly from the feeling that an unfaithful wife +is a criticism, they do not ask very much. But women suffer more deeply +because they know that man has lavished on them for centuries a +condescending admiration, that the king who lays his crown at their feet +knows that his is the crown to give. While men possess by right of +possession, women possess only by right of precarious conquest. They +feel it very bitterly, this fugitive empire, and their greatest tragedy +is to find themselves growing a little older, uncertain of their power, +for they know they have only one power; they are afraid, as age comes, +of losing their man, while I have never heard of a husband afraid of +losing his wife, or able to repress his surprise if she forsook him. + +It would not matter so much if the feeling of property were that of a +good landlord, who likes to see his property develop and grow beautiful, +but mutual property is the feeling of the slave owner. Sometimes both +parties suffer so, and by asking too much lose all. Man seldom asks +much: if only a wife will not compromise his reputation for +attractiveness while maintaining her own by flirtation, if she will +accept his political views, acquire a taste for his favorite holiday +resorts, and generally say, "Yes, darling", or "No, darling", +opportunely, she need do nothing, she has only "beautifully to be." He +is not so fortunate, however, when she wants to possess him, for she +demands that he should be active, that the pretty words, caresses, the +anxious inquiries after health, the presents of flowers and of stalls +should continue. It is not enough that he should love her; he must still +be her lover. When she is not sure that he still is her lover, a +madness of unrest comes over her; she will lacerate him, she will invent +wishes so that he may thwart them, she will demand his society when she +knows it is mortgaged to another occupation, so that she may suffer his +refusal, exaggerate his indifference. Here are cases: + +M 21. She: "He used to take me to dances. The other day he wouldn't +come, he said he was tired. He wasn't tired when we were engaged." + +The Investigator: "But why should he go if he didn't want to?" + +She: "Because I wanted to." + +The Investigator: "But he didn't want to." + +She: "He _ought_ to take pleasure in pleasing me." + +(The conversation here degenerates into a discussion on duty and becomes +uninteresting.) + +M 4. The husband is a doctor with a very extended city practice. He is +busy eleven hours a day and has night calls. His marriage has been +spoilt because in the first years the wife, who is young and gay, could +not understand that the man, who was always surrounded by people, in +houses, streets, conveyances, should not desire society. She resented +his wish to be alone for some hours, to shut himself up. There were +tears, and like most people she looked ugly when she cried. She was +lonely, and when one is lonely, it is difficult to realize that other +people may be too much surrounded. + + +5 + +A great deal of all this, however, might pass away if one could feel +that it would not last. Nothing matters that does not last. Only one +must be conscious of it, and in marriage many people are dully aware +that they have settled down, that they have drawn the one and only +ticket they can ever hope to draw, unless merciful death steps in. There +will be no more adventures, no more excitements, no more marsh fires, +which one knows deceptive yet loves to follow. It will be difficult to +move to other towns or countries, to change one's occupation; it will +even be difficult to adopt new poses, for the other will not be taken +in. One will be for evermore what one is. True there is elopement, +divorce; in matters of art, there is the artist courage that enables a +man to see another suffer for the sake of his desire. But all this is +very difficult, and few of us have courage enough to make others suffer; +if one had the courage to do no harm at all, it might not be so bad, but +not many can follow Mr. Bernard Shaw: "If you injure your neighbor, let +it not be by halves." They almost invariably do injure by halves: he +that will not kill, scratches. There is no refuge from a world of rates, +and taxes, and bills, and houses overcrowded by children, and old +clothes, dull leaders in the papers, stupid plays, the morning train, +the unvarying Sunday dinner. It is so bad sometimes that it causes +willful revolt. I sincerely believe that a great many men would be model +husbands if only they were not married. Only when everything is +respectable and nice there is a terrible temptation to introduce a +change; the wild animal in man, that is in a few a lion, in most a +weasel, reacts against the definite, the irremediable, the assured. He +must do something. He must break through. He must prove to himself that +he has not really sentenced himself to penal servitude for life. That is +why so few of the respectable are respectable, and why reformed rakes do +make good husbands. (Generally, that is, for a few rakes feel that they +must keep up their reputation; on the other hand, a really respectable +man knows no shame.) + +Curiously enough, children seem to act both against and in favor of +these disruptive factors. It is difficult to deprive children of +influence; they must part, or they must unite. They are somebody in the +house; they make a noise, and it depends upon temperament whether the +noise exasperates or delights. Parents are divided into those who love +them, and those who bear their children; generally, men dislike little +babies, unless they are rather strong men whom weakness attracts, or +unless they feel pride of race, while women, excepting those who live +only for light pleasures, give them a quite unreasoning affection. +Children are a frequent source of trouble, for the tired man's nerves +are horribly frayed by screams and exuberances. He shouts: "Stop that +child howling!" and if his wife assumes a saintly air and says that "she +would rather hear a child cry than a man swear," the door opens towards +the club or public house. Likewise, a man who has given so many jewels +that the mother of the Gracchi might be jealous, will never understand +the appalling weariness that can come over the mother in the evening, +when she has administered, say, twelve meals, four or eight baths, and +answered several hundreds of questions varying between the existence of +God and the esoterics of the steam engine. Loving the children too much +to blame them, she must blame some one, and blames him. + +People do not confess these things, but the socio-psychologist must +remember that when a man quietly picks up a flower pot and hurls it +through the window, the original cause may be found in the behavior of +the departmental manager six hours before. The irritation of children +can envenom two lives, for it seems almost inevitable that each party +should think the other spoils or tyrannizes. It is not always so, and +sometimes children unite by the bond of a common love; very much more +often they unite by the burden of a common responsibility. Indeed, it is +this financial responsibility that draws two people close, because tied +together they must swim together or sink together, until they are so +concerned individually with their salvation that they think they are +concerned with the salvation of the other. That bond of union is +dangerous, because marriage is expensive, and because one tends to +remember the time when bread was not so dear and flesh and blood so +cheap. There is affluence in bachelordom; there is atrocious discomfort +too, but when one thinks of the good old times, one generally forgets +all except the affluence. Of the present, one sees only that one cannot +take the whole family to Yellowstone; of the past, one does not see the +sitting room, or the hangings on which the landlady merely blew. The +wife thinks of her frocks, garlands of the sacrificial heifer, the +husband of the days when he could afford to be one of the boys. And, as +soon as the past grows glamorous, the present day grows dull; always +because one must blame something, one blames the other. It is so much +more agreeable to spend a thousand dollars than to spend a hundred, even +if one gets nothing for it. It is power. It is excitement. One thinks of +money until one may come to think of nothing but money, until, as +suggested before, a husband turns into a vaguely disagreeable person who +can be coaxed into paying bills. In the working class especially there +is bitterness among the women, who before their marriage knew the taste +of independence and of earned money in their purses. It is a great love +that can compensate a woman for the loss of freedom after she has +enjoyed it. + +Nothing indeed can compensate a woman for this, except a lover, that is +to say, a return to an older state. That is to what she turns, for +strange as it may seem, marriage does not vaccinate against the +temptations of love. She does not easily love again, for she has been +married, and while it is easy to love again when one has been +atrociously betrayed, just because one invests the new with everything +that the old held back, it is difficult to love again when the promised +love turned merely to dullness. There is nothing to strike against. +There is no contrast, and so women slip into relationships that are +silly, because there is nothing real behind them. Boredom is the root of +all evil, and I doubt whether busy and happy women seek adventure, for +few of them want it for adventure's sake: they seek only satisfaction. +That is what most men cruelly misunderstand; they blame woman instead of +searching out their own remissness. Sins of omission matter more than +sins of commission, more even than infidelities, for love, which is all +a woman's life, is only a momentous incident in that of a man. Love may +be the discovery of a happiness, but man remains conscious of many other +delights. Woman is seldom like that. You will imagine a man and a woman +who have blundered upon mutual understanding standing upon the hill from +which Moses saw Canaan. The woman would fill her eyes with Canaan, and +could see nought else, while the man gazing at the promised land would +still be conscious of other countries. In the heart of a man who is +worth anything at all, love must have rivals,--art, science, +ambition,--and it is a delight to woman that there should be rivals to +overcome, even though it be a poor slave she tie to her chariot wheels. + +Marriage does not always suffer when people drift away from their +allegiance; in countries such as France notably, where many husbands and +wives do not think it necessary to trust, or tactful to watch each +other, the problem does not set itself so sharply. It is mainly in +Anglo-Saxon countries where the little blue flower has its altars that +the trouble begins. A rather fascinating foreigner said to me once: +"Englishwomen are very troublesome; they are either so light that they +do not understand you when you tell them you love them, or so deep that +you must elope every time. This is a difficult country." I do not want +to seem cynical, but the polygamous nature of man is so ill-recognized +and the boredom of woman such a national institution that when it is too +late to pretend that that which has happened has not happened, most of +the mischief has already been done. Why a husband or wife who has found +attraction in another should immediately treat his partner abominably is +not easily understood, for falling in love with the present victim need +not make him rude or remiss to the rest of the world. But the British +are a strange and savage people. Also, when in doubt they get drunk, so +I fear I must leave a clearer recognition of polygamous instincts to the +slow-growing enlightenment of the mind of man. + +He is growing enlightened; at least he is infinitely more educated than +he was, for he has begun to recognize that woman is to a certain extent +a human being, a savage, a barbarian, but entitled to the consideration +generally given to the Hottentot. I do not think woman will always be +savage, though I hope she will not turn into the clear-eyed, +weather-beaten mate that Mr. H. G. Wells likes to think of--for the +future. She has come to look upon man as an equation that can be solved. +He, too, in a sense, and both are to-day much less inclined than they +were fifty years ago to overlook a chance of pleasing. It is certain +that men and women to-day dress more deliberately for each other than +they ever did before, that they lead each other, sometimes with dutiful +unwillingness, to the theatre or the country; it is very painful +sometimes, this organization of pleasure, but it is necessary because +dull lives are bad lives, and better fall into the river than never go +to the river at all. It is dangerous and vain to take up the attitude, +"I alone am enough." Yet many do: as one walks along a suburban street, +where every window is shut, where every dining room has its aspidistra +in a pot, one realizes that scores of people are busily heaping ash upon +the once warm fire of their love. The stranger is the alternative; he +obscures small quarrels; if the stranger is beautiful, he urges to +competition; if he is inferior, he soothes pride. But above all, the +stranger is change, therefore hope. The stranger is an insurance against +loss of personal pride; he compels adornment, for what is "good enough +for my husband" is not good enough for the lady over the way. The +stranger serves the pleasure lust, this violent passion of man, and +cannot harm him because the lust for pleasure, within the limits of +hysteria, involves a desire for good looks, for elegance, for gaiety; +above all, love of pleasure was reviled of our fathers, and whatever our +fathers thought bad is become a good thing. Our fathers did not +understand certain forms of pride: there is more than pride of body in +good looks, good clothes, and showing off before acquaintances: there is +achievement, which means pride of conquest. I imagine that the happiest +couple in the world is the one where each lives in perpetual fear that +somebody will run away with the other. + +Looking at it broadly, I see marriage as a Chinese puzzle, almost, but +not quite, insoluble. Spoilt by coldness, spoilt by ardour, spoilt by +excess, spoilt by indifference, spoilt by obedience, by stupidity, by +self-assertion, spoilt by familiarity, spoilt by ignorance. Spoilt in +every possible way that man can invent. Spoilt by every ounce of +influence a jealous or ironical world can muster, spoilt by habit, by +contrast, by obtuseness quite as much as by overclose understanding. And +yet it stands. It stands because there is nothing much to put into its +place, because marriage is the only road that leads a man away from his +dinner when he is forty-five, or teaches a woman to preserve her +complexion. It stands like most human things, because it is the better +of two bad alternatives. Only because it stands we must not think that +it will never change. All things change, otherwise one could not bear +them. I suspect that marriage, that was once upon a time the taking of a +woman by a man, which has now grown legalized, and may become courteous, +will turn into a very skilled occupation. It will be recognized still +more than now that all freedom need not be lost after putting on the +wedding ring. As legal right and privilege grow, as women develop +private earnings, a consciousness of worth must arise. Already women +realize their value and demand its recognition. If they demand it long +enough, they will get it. I suspect that the economic problem is at the +root of the marriage problem, for people are not indiscriminate in their +relationships, and even Don Juan, after a while, longs to be faithful, +if only somebody could teach him how to be it. Marriage can be made +close only by making divorce easy, by extending female labor. For labor +makes woman less attractive and to be attractive is rather a trap: how +much higher can a woman rise? But the economic freedom of woman will +mean that she need not bind herself; she will be able to break away, and +in those days she will be most completely bound, for who would run away +from a jail if the door were always left open? + +I detest Utopia, and these things seem so far away that I am more +content to take marriage as it is in the hope that unhealthy novels, +unnecessary discussions, unwholesome views, and unnatural feelings may +little by little reform mankind. Meanwhile, I hold fast to the private +maxim that hardly anything is unendurable if one sets up that all +mankind could not give one a quite worthy mate. But there is another +alleviation: understanding not only that one is married to somebody +else, but also that somebody else is married to yourself, and that it is +quite as hard for the other party. There are many excellent things to be +done; here are a few: + + (1) Do not open each other's letters. (For one reason you might not + like the contents.) And try not to look liberal if you don't even + glance at the address or the postmark. + + (2) Vary your pursuits, your conversation, and your clothes. If + required, vary your hair. + + (3) If you absolutely must be sincere, let it be in private. + + (4) (Especially for wives.) Find out on the honeymoon whether + crying or swearing is the more effective. + + (5) Once a day say to a wife: "I love you"; to a husband: "How + strong you are!" If the latter remark is ridiculous, say: "How + clever you are!" for everybody believes that. + + (6) Forgive your partner seventy times seven. Then burn the ledger. + +[Illustration] + + + * * * * * + + +_By the author of "The Second Blooming"_ + +THE STRANGERS' WEDDING + +_By_ W. L. GEORGE + +12mo. Cloth. 450 pages. $1.35 _net_. + +Readers of "The Second Blooming," one of the most discussed novels of +1915, will welcome the announcement of another novel of married life by +this talented English author. + +"The Strangers' Wedding" is the story of Roger Huncote, a young man of +the upper classes who, inflamed with philanthropic ideals, joins a +settlement to work among the poor. He is speedily undeceived as to the +usefulness of the movement and the worthiness of those who control it, +and conceiving an unreasonable disgust of his own class, marries the +daughter of a washerwoman. Realizing that there may be little +difficulties, he believes that when two people care deeply for each +other nothing else can matter. But Huncote has much to learn; and most +of the story is concerned with the pitiful misunderstandings between +the young husband and the young wife, both of whom are charming but as +unable to meet as east and west. Mr. George indicates with much +psychological subtlety the reversion of the "strangers" to their own +class, which ultimately leads them to a happy ending. + +This novel is throughout pathetic, but it contains a great deal of broad +humor and deserves its sub-title, "The Comedy of a Romantic." + + +_By the Author of "The Stranger's Wedding"_ + +THE SECOND BLOOMING + +_By_ W. L. GEORGE + +12mo. 438 pages. $1.35 _net_. + +A strong and thoughtful story.--_New York World._ + +A story of amazing power and insight.--_Washington Evening Star._ + +Mr. George is one of the Englishmen to be reckoned with. One now says +Wells, Galsworthy, Bennett--and W. L. George.--_New York Globe._ + +This writer has entered with more courage and intensity into the inner +sanctuaries of life than Mr. Howells and Mr. Bennett have cared to +do.--_Chicago Tribune._ + +Mr. George follows a vein of literary brilliancy that is all his own, +and his study of feminine maturity will find ample vindication the round +world over.--_Philadelphia North American._ + +It is a book which is bound to appeal to women, for it is so +extraordinarily true to life; so many women have passed and are passing +through remarkably similar experiences.--_London Evening Standard._ + +It is perhaps the biggest piece of fiction that the present season has +known. The present reviewer may frankly say, without exaggeration, that +he has not had a treat of similar order since the still memorable day +when he first made the acquaintance of Mr. Galsworthy's "Man of +Property."--_Frederic T. Cooper in the Bookman (N. Y.)._ + + +_The Racial Characteristics of French and English_ + +THE LITTLE BELOVED + +_By_ W. L. GEORGE + +12mo. Cloth. $1.35 _net_ + +Not since Thackeray, indeed, has any English novelist done a more +impressive study of the typical Englishman. It is not only a good story; +it is a notable study of national character.--_Baltimore Sun._ + +Not merely a splendid opportunity for contrast between the temperamental +differences of French and English, but a narrative of earnest merit. We +are met by a full world of English characters.--_New York Post_. + +First and last, interesting. It is crowded with impressions, glimpses, +and opinions. There are many characters and they are all living.... +Reading his book is a real adventure, by no means to be missed.--_New +York Times._ + +A vigorous novel based upon the process--constructive and +destructive--whereby a typical French youth, mercurial, passionate, +spectacular, is transformed into a staid and stolid English householder +and husband.--_Chicago Herald._ + +Mr. George, one of the most promising of the younger English writers, +has shown the process of naturalization from a more striking viewpoint, +in this story of the changing of a Frenchman into an English citizen. +With this purpose and his nervous, irritable nature trouble is sure to +ensue, and he has adventures in plenty.--_Boston Transcript._ + + +"Once read, will not quickly be forgotten."--_Providence Journal._ + +UNTIL THE DAY BREAK + +_By_ W. L. GEORGE + +12mo. Cloth. $1.35 _net._ + +Mr. George's study of the evolution of this Israel Kalisch is a +remarkable work in realistic fiction.--_New York World._ + +A novel of more than usual value.... It is a life-drama, such as is +going on continually in London and New York.--_Hearst's Magazine._ + +The story contains a very pretty love element.... Such an objective +picture as is here presented will do more than sermons to reveal the +futility of the sacrifice which anarchy sometimes makes of noble +minds.--_New York Post._ + +Mr. George unquestionably has the gift of description, not only of +places but of men. Kalisch, egotistic, self-confident, fearless, making +his way from Gallicia through Hungary to starve and fight in New York, +is an impressive conception.--_The Bookman._ + +Israel, Warsch, Leimeritz, the various women who successively love +Israel, they are so true, so vital that we can almost see and hear them +speak and breathe. Yes, this is a great novel, even though it +alternately fires and freezes the very marrow of the soul.--_Chicago +Herald._ + +LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS + +34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Intelligence of Woman, by W. L. George + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 32479.txt or 32479.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/7/32479/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.fadedpage.com + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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