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diff --git a/old/54704-0.txt b/old/54704-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 19a43bd..0000000 --- a/old/54704-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4995 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marriage as a Trade, by Cicely Hamilton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Marriage as a Trade - -Author: Cicely Hamilton - -Release Date: May 11, 2017 [EBook #54704] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIAGE AS A TRADE *** - - - - -Produced by Carlo Traverso, Les Galloway and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - Marriage as a Trade - - BY - - CICELY HAMILTON - - AUTHOR OF “DIANA OF DOBSON’S” - - [Illustration: Colophon] - - NEW YORK - - MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY - - 1909 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY - - MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY - - New York - - _All Rights Reserved_ - - THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS - RAHWAY, N. J., U. S. A. - - - - -PREFACE - - -The only excuse for this book is the lack of books on the subject with -which it deals—the trade aspect of marriage. That is to say, wifehood -and motherhood considered as a means of livelihood for women. - -I shall not deny for an instant that there are aspects of matrimony -other than the trade aspect; but upon these there is no lack of a very -plentiful literature—the love of man and woman has been written about -since humanity acquired the art of writing. - -The love of man and woman is, no doubt, a thing of infinite importance; -but also of infinite importance is the manner in which woman earns her -bread and the economic conditions under which she enters the family and -propagates the race. Thus an inquiry into the circumstances under which -the wife and mother plies her trade seems to me quite as necessary -and justifiable as an inquiry into the conditions of other and less -important industries—such as mining or cotton-spinning. It will not be -disputed that the manner in which a human being earns his livelihood -tends to mould and influence his character—to warp or to improve it. -The man who works amidst brutalizing surroundings is apt to become -brutal; the man from whom intelligence is demanded is apt to exercise -it. Particular trades tend to develop particular types; the boy who -becomes a soldier will not turn out in all respects the man he would -have been had he decided to enter a stockbroker’s office. In the same -way the trade of marriage tends to produce its own particular type, and -my contention is that woman, as we know her, is largely the product of -the conditions imposed upon her by her staple industry. - -I am not of those who are entirely satisfied with woman as she is; on -the contrary, I consider that we are greatly in need of improvement, -mental, physical and moral. And it is because I desire such -improvement—not only in our own interests but in that of the race in -general—that I desire to see an alteration in the conditions of our -staple industry. I have no intention of attacking the institution of -marriage in itself—the life companionship of man and woman; I merely -wish to point out that there are certain grave disadvantages attaching -to that institution as it exists to-day. These disadvantages I believe -to be largely unnecessary and avoidable; but at present they are very -real and the results produced by them are anything but favourable to -the mental, physical and moral development of women. - - - - -MARRIAGE AS A TRADE - - - - -I - - -The sense of curiosity is, as a rule, aroused in us only by the -unfamiliar and the unexpected. What custom and long usage has made -familiar we do not trouble to inquire into but accept without comment -or investigation; confusing the actual with the inevitable, and -deciding, slothfully enough, that the thing that is, is likewise the -thing that was and is to be. In nothing is this inert and slothful -attitude of mind more marked than in the common, unquestioning -acceptance of the illogical and unsatisfactory position occupied by -women. And it is the prevalence of that attitude of mind which is -the only justification for a book which purports to be nothing more -than the attempt of an unscientific woman to explain, honestly and -as far as her limitations permit, the why and wherefore of some of -the disadvantages under which she and her sisters exist—the reason -why their place in the world into which they were born is often so -desperately and unnecessarily uncomfortable. - -I had better, at the outset, define the word “woman” as I understand -and use it, since it is apt to convey two distinct and differing -impressions, according to the sex of the hearer. My conception of woman -is inevitably the feminine conception; a thing so entirely unlike the -masculine conception of woman that it is eminently needful to define -the term and make my meaning clear; lest, when I speak of woman in -my own tongue, my reader, being male, translate the expression, with -confusion as the result. - -By a woman, then, I understand an individual human being whose life -is her own concern; whose worth, in my eyes (worth being an entirely -personal matter) is in no way advanced or detracted from by the -accident of marriage; who does not rise in my estimation by reason of a -purely physical capacity for bearing children, or sink in my estimation -through a lack of that capacity. I am quite aware, of course, that her -life, in many cases, will have been moulded to a great extent by the -responsibilities of marriage and the care of children; just as I am -aware that the lives of most of the men with whom I am acquainted have -been moulded to a great extent by the trade or profession by which they -earn their bread. But my judgment of her and appreciation of her are -a personal judgment and appreciation, having nothing to do with her -actual or potential relations, sexual or maternal, with other people. -In short, I never think of her either as a wife or as a mother—I -separate the woman from her attributes. To me she is an entity in -herself; and if, on meeting her for the first time, I inquire whether -or no she is married, it is only because I wish to know whether I am to -address her as Mrs. or Miss. - -That, frankly and as nearly as I can define it, is my attitude towards -my own sex; an attitude which, it is almost needless to say, I should -not insist upon if I did not believe that it was fairly typical and -that the majority of women, if they analyzed their feelings on the -subject, would find that they regarded each other in much the same way. - -It is hardly necessary to point out that the mental attitude of the -average man towards woman is something quite different from this. It -is a mental attitude reminding one of that of the bewildered person -who could not see the wood for the trees. To him the accidental factor -in woman’s life is the all-important and his conception of her has -never got beyond her attributes—and certain only of these. As far -as I can make out, he looks upon her as something having a definite -and necessary physical relation to man; without that definite and -necessary relation she is, as the cant phrase goes “incomplete.” That -is to say, she is not woman at all—until man has made her so. Until -the moment when he takes her in hand she is merely the raw material of -womanhood—the undeveloped and unfinished article. - -Without sharing in the smallest degree this estimate of her own -destiny, any fair-minded woman must admit its advantages from the point -of view of the male—must sympathize with the pleasurable sense of -importance, creative power, even of artistry, which such a conviction -must impart. To take the imperfect and undeveloped creature and, with -a kiss upon her lips and a ring upon her finger, to make of her a -woman, perfect and complete—surely a prerogative almost divine in its -magnificence, most admirable, most enviable! - -It is this consciousness, expressed or unexpressed, (frequently the -former) of his own supreme importance in her destiny that colours every -thought and action of man towards woman. Having assumed that she is -incomplete without him, he draws the quite permissible conclusion that -she exists only for the purpose of attaining to completeness through -him—and that where she does not so attain to it, the unfortunate -creature is, for all practical purposes, non-existent. To him womanhood -is summed up in one of its attributes—wifehood, or its unlegalized -equivalent. Language bears the stamp of the idea that woman is a wife, -actually, or in embryo. To most men—perhaps to all—the girl is some -man’s wife that is to be; the married woman some man’s wife that is; -the widow some man’s wife that was; the spinster some man’s wife that -should have been—a damaged article, unfit for use, unsuitable. -Therefore a negligible quantity. - -I have convinced myself, by personal observation and inquiry, that -my description of the male attitude in this respect is in no way -exaggerated. It has, for instance, fallen to my lot, over and over -again, to discuss with men—most of them distinctly above the average -in intelligence—questions affecting the welfare and conditions of -women. And over and over again, after listening to their views for five -minutes or so, I have broken in upon them and pulled them up with the -remark that they were narrowing down the subject under discussion—that -what they were considering was not the claim of women in general, but -the claim of a particular class—the class of wives and mothers. I may -add that the remark has invariably been received with an expression of -extreme astonishment. And is it not on record that Henley once dashed -across a manuscript the terse pronouncement, “I take no interest in -childless women”? Comprehensive; and indicating a confusion in the -author’s mind between the terms woman and breeding-machine. Did it -occur to him, I wonder, that the poor objects of his scorn might -venture to take some interest in themselves? Probably he did not credit -them with so much presumption. - -The above has, I hope, explained in how far my idea of woman differs -from male ideas on the same subject and has also made it clear that I -do not look upon women as persons whose destiny it is to be married. -On the contrary, I hold, and hold very strongly, that the narrowing -down of woman’s hopes and ambitions to the sole pursuit and sphere of -marriage is one of the principal causes of the various disabilities, -economic and otherwise, under which she labours to-day. And I hold, -also, that this concentration of all her hopes and ambitions on the -one object was, to a great extent, the result of artificial pressure, -of unsound economic and social conditions—conditions which forced her -energy into one channel, by the simple expedient of depriving it of -every other outlet, and made marriage practically compulsory. - -To say the least of it, marriage is no more essentially necessary to -woman than to man—one would imagine that it was rather the other way -about. There are a good many drawbacks attached to the fulfilment of -a woman’s destiny; in an unfettered state of existence it is possible -that they might weigh more heavily with her than they can do at -present—being balanced, and more than balanced, by artificial means. -I am inclined to think that they would. The institution of marriage by -capture, for instance, has puzzled many inquirers into the habits of -primitive man. It is often, I believe, regarded as symbolic; but why -should it not point to a real reluctance to be reduced to permanent -servitude on the part of primitive woman—a reluctance comprehensible -enough, since, primitive woman’s wants being few and easily supplied by -herself, there was no need for her to exchange possession of her person -for the means of existence? - -It is Nietzsche, if I remember rightly, who has delivered himself of -the momentous opinion that everything in woman is a riddle, and that -the answer to the riddle is child-bearing. Child-bearing certainly -explains some qualities in woman—for instance, her comparative -fastidiousness in sexual relations—but not all. If it did, there -would be no riddle—yet Nietzsche admits that one exists. Nor is -he alone in his estimate of the “mysterious” nature of woman; her -unfathomable and erratic character, her peculiar aptitude for appearing -“uncertain, coy, and hard to please,” has been insisted upon time after -time—insisted upon alike as a charm and a deficiency. A charm because -of its unexpected, a deficiency because of its unreasonable, quality. -Woman, in short, is not only a wife and mother, but a thoroughly -incomprehensible wife and mother. - -Now it seems to me that a very simple explanation of this mystery which -perpetually envelops our conduct and impulses can be found in the fact -that the fundamental natural laws which govern them have never been -ascertained or honestly sought for. Or rather—since the fundamental -natural laws which govern us are the same large and simple laws which -govern other animals, man included—though they have been ascertained, -the masculine intellect has steadfastly and stubbornly refused to admit -that they can possibly apply to us in the same degree as to every other -living being. As a substitute for these laws, he suggests explanations -of his own—for the most part flattering to himself. He believes, -apparently, that we live in a world apart, governed by curious customs -and regulations of our own—customs and regulations which “have no -fellow in the universe.” Once the first principle of natural law was -recognized as applying to us, we should cease to be so unfathomable, -erratic, and unexpected to the wiseacres and poets who spend their -time in judging us by rule of thumb, and expressing amazement at the -unaccountable and contradictory results. - -I do not know whether it is essentially impossible for man to -approach us in the scientific spirit, but it has not yet been done. -(To approach motherhood or marriage in the scientific spirit is, of -course, not in the least the same thing.) His attitude towards us -has been by turns—and sometimes all at once—adoring, contemptuous, -sentimental, and savage—anything, in short, but open-minded and -deductive. The result being that different classes, generations, and -peoples have worked out their separate and impressionistic estimates -of woman’s meaning in the scheme of things—the said estimates -frequently clashing with those of other classes, generations, and -people. The Mahometan, for instance, after careful observation from -his point of view, decided that she was flesh without a soul, and to -be treated accordingly; the troubadour seems to have found in her a -spiritual incentive to aspiration in deed and song. The early Fathers -of the Church, who were in the habit of giving troubled and nervous -consideration to the subject, denounced her, at spasmodic intervals, -as sin personified. What the modern man understands by woman I have -already explained; and he further expects his theory to materialize and -embody itself in a being who combines the divergent qualities of an -inspiration and a good general servant. He is often disappointed. - -All these are rule of thumb definitions, based on insufficient -knowledge and inquiry, which, each in its turn, has been accepted, -acted upon, and found wanting. Each of the generations and classes -mentioned—and many more beside—has worked out its own theory of -woman’s orbit (round man); and has subsequently found itself in the -position of the painstaking astronomer who, after having mapped the -pathway of a newly-discovered heavenly body to his own satisfaction, -suddenly finds his calculations upset, and the heavenly body swerving -off through space towards some hitherto unexpected centre of -attraction. The theory of the early Fathers was upset before it was -enunciated—for sin personified had wept at the foot of the Cross, and -men adored her for it. The modern angel with the cookery-book under -her wing has expressed an open and pronounced dislike to domestic -service, and cheerfully discards her wings to fight her way into the -liberal professions. And those who hold fast to the Nietzschean theory -that motherhood is the secret and justification of woman’s existence, -must be somewhat bewildered by latter-day episcopal lamentations -over the unwillingness of woman to undergo the pains and penalties -of childbirth, and by the reported intention of an American State -Legislature to stimulate a declining birth-rate by the payment of -one dollar for each child born. One feels that the strength of an -instinct that has, in an appreciable number of cases, to be stimulated -by the offer of four shillings and twopence must have been somewhat -overestimated. No wonder woman is a mystery in her unreliability; she -has broken every law of her existence, and does so day by day. - -As a matter of fact, the various explanations which have been given -for woman’s existence can be narrowed down to two—her husband and her -child. Male humanity has wobbled between two convictions—the one, -that she exists for the entire benefit of contemporary mankind; the -other, that she exists for the entire benefit of the next generation. -The latter is at present the favourite. One consideration only male -humanity has firmly refused to entertain—that she exists in any degree -whatsoever for the benefit of herself. In consequence, woman is the -one animal from whom he demands that it shall deviate from, and act in -defiance of, the first law of nature—self-preservation. - -It seems baldly ridiculous, of course, to state in so many words that -that first and iron law applies to women as well as to men, birds, and -beetles. No one in cold blood or cold ink would contradict the obvious -statement; but all the same, I maintain that I am perfectly justified -in asserting that the average man does mentally and unconsciously -except the mass of women from the workings of that universal law. - -To give a simple and familiar instance. Year by year there crops up in -the daily newspapers a grumbling and sometimes acrid correspondence -on the subject of the incursion of women into a paid labour market -formerly monopolized by their brothers. (The unpaid labour market, of -course, has always been open to them.) The tone taken by the objector -is instructive and always the same. It is pointed out to us that we are -working for less than a fair wage; that we are taking the bread out -of the mouths of men; that we are filching the earnings of a possible -husband and thereby lessening, or totally destroying, our chances of -matrimony. - -The first objection is, of course, legitimate, and is shared by the -women to whom it applies; from the others one can only infer that it is -an impertinence in a woman to be hungry, and that, in the opinion of a -large number of persons who write to the newspapers, the human female -is a creature capable of living on air and the hopes of a possible -husband. The principle that it is impolite to mention a certain organ -of the body which requires to be replenished two or three times a -day is, in the case of a woman, carried so far that it is considered -impolite of her even to possess that organ; and as a substitute for the -wages wherewith she buys food to fill it, she is offered the lifting -of a hat and the resignation of a seat in a tramcar. She rejects the -offer, obeys the first law of nature, and is rebuked for it—the human -male, bred in the conviction that she lives for him alone, standing -aghast. Some day he will discover that woman does not support life only -in order to obtain a husband, but frequently obtains a husband only in -order to support life. - -The above is, to my mind, a clear and familiar instance of the manner -in which man is accustomed to take for granted our exemption from a -law from which there is no exemption. It matters not whether or no -he believes, in so many words, that we need not eat in order that we -may not die; the point is, that he acts as if he believed it. (The -extreme reluctance of local authorities to spend any of the money at -their disposal on unemployed women is a case in point. It would be -ridiculous to ascribe it to animosity towards the women themselves—it -must arise, therefore, from a conviction that the need of the foodless -woman is not so pressing as the need of the foodless man.) And it is -because I have so often come in contact with the state of mind that -makes such delusions possible, that I have thought it necessary to -insist on the fact that self-preservation is the first law of our -being. The purpose of race-preservation, which is commonly supposed -to be the excuse for our existence, is, and must be, secondary and -derivative; it is quite impossible for a woman to bring children into -the world unless she has first obtained the means of supporting her own -life. How to eat, how to maintain existence, is the problem that has -confronted woman, as well as man, since the ages dawned for her. Other -needs and desires may come later; but the first call of life is for the -means of supporting it. - -To support life it is necessary to have access to the fruits of the -earth, either directly—as in the case of the agriculturist—or -indirectly, and through a process of exchange as the price of work -done in other directions. And in this process of exchange woman, -as compared with her male fellow-worker, has always been at a -disadvantage. The latter, even where direct access to the earth was -denied to him, has usually been granted some measure of choice as to -the manner in which he would pay for the necessities the earth produced -for him—that is to say, he was permitted to select the trade by which -he earned his livelihood. From woman, who has always been far more -completely excluded from direct access to the necessities of life, who -has often been barred, both by law and by custom, from the possession -of property, one form of payment was demanded, and one only. It was -demanded of her that she should enkindle and satisfy the desire of the -male, who would thereupon admit her to such share of the property he -possessed or earned as should seem good to him. In other words, she -exchanged, by the ordinary process of barter, possession of her person -for the means of existence. - -Whether such a state of things is natural or unnatural I do not pretend -to say; but it is, I understand, peculiar to women, having no exact -counterpart amongst the females of other species. Its existence, at -any rate, justifies us in regarding marriage as essentially (from the -woman’s point of view) a commercial or trade undertaking. By marriage -she earned her bread; and as the instinct of self-preservation drove -man forth to hunt, to till the soil, to dig beneath it—to cultivate -his muscles and his brain so that he might get the better of nature and -his rivals—so brute necessity and the instinct of self-preservation -in woman urged and enjoined on her the cultivation of those narrow and -particular qualities of mind and body whereby desire might be excited -and her wage obtained. - -A man who was also a poet has thoughtfully explained that - - “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart, - ’Tis woman’s whole existence.” - -(It must be very pleasant to be a man and to entertain that -conviction.) Translated into feminine and vulgar prose, the effusion -runs something like this— - -The housekeeping trade is the only one open to us—so we enter the -housekeeping trade in order to live. This is not always quite the same -as entering the housekeeping trade in order to love. - -No one can imagine that it is the same who has ever heard one haggard, -underpaid girl cry to another, in a burst of bitter confidence— - -“I would marry any one, to get out of this.” - -Which, if one comes to think of it, is hard on “any one.” - - - - -II - - -If I am right in my view that marriage for woman has always been not -only a trade, but a trade that is practically compulsory, I have at -the same time furnished an explanation of the reason why women, as a -rule, are so much less romantic than men where sexual attraction is -concerned. Where the man can be single-hearted, the woman necessarily -is double-motived. It is, of course, the element of commerce and -compulsion that accounts for this difference of attitude; an impulse -that may have to be discouraged, nurtured or simulated to order—that -is, at any rate, expected, for commercial or social reasons to put -in an appearance as a matter of course and at the right and proper -moment—can never have the same vigor, energy and beauty as an impulse -that is unfettered and unforced. - -More than once in my life I have been struck by the beauty of a man’s -honest conception and ideal of love and marriage—a conception and -ideal which one comes across in unexpected and unlikely persons and -which is by no means confined to those whose years are still few in -number and whose hearts are still hot within them. Only a few weeks ago -I heard an elderly gentleman of scientific attainments talk something -which, but for its sincerity, would have seemed to me sheer sentimental -balderdash concerning the relations of men and women. And from other -equally respectable gentlemen I have heard opinions that were beautiful -as well as honest on the relations of the sexes, of a kind that no -woman, being alone with another woman, would ever venture to utter. -For we see the thing differently. I am not so foolish as to imagine -that theory and practice in this or any other matter are in the habit -of walking hand in hand; I know that for men the word love has two -different meanings, and therefore I should be sorry to have to affirm -on oath that the various gentlemen who have, at various times, favoured -me with their views on the marriage question have one and all lived up -to their convictions; but at least their conception of the love and -duty owed by man and woman to each other was a high one, honourable, -not wanting in reverence, not wanting in romance. Over and over again -I have heard women unreticent enough upon the same subject; but, when -they spoke their hearts, the picturesque touch—the flash and fire of -romance—was never nearly so strong and sometimes altogether absent. - -And I have never seen love—the sheer passionate and personal -delight in and worship of a being of the other sex—so vividly and -uncontrollably expressed on the face of a woman as on the face of a -man. I have with me, as one of the things not to be forgotten, the -memory of a cheap foreign hotel where, two or three years back, a -little Cockney clerk was making holiday in worshipful attendance on the -girl he was engaged to. At table I used to watch him, being very sure -that he had no eyes for me; and once or twice I had the impulse that -I should like to speak to him and thank him for what he had shown me. -I have seen women in love time after time, but none in whom the fire -burned as it burned in him—consumedly. I used to hope his Cockney -goddess would have understanding at least to reverence the holy thing -that passed the love of women.... - -How should it be otherwise—this difference in the attitude of man -and woman in their relations to each other? To make them see and -feel more alike in the matter, the conditions under which they live -and bargain must be made more alike. With even the average man love -and marriage may be something of a high adventure, entered upon -whole-heartedly and because he so desires. With the average woman it -is not a high adventure—except in so far as adventure means risk—but -a destiny or necessity. If not a monetary necessity, then a social. -(How many children, I wonder, are born each year merely because their -mothers were afraid of being called old maids? One can imagine no -more inadequate reason for bringing a human being into the world.) -The fact that her destiny, when he arrives, may be all that her heart -desires and deserves does not prevent him from being the thing that, -from her earliest years, she had, for quite other reasons, regarded as -inevitable. Quite consciously and from childhood the “not impossible -he” is looked upon, not simply as an end desirable in himself, but -as a means of subsistence. The marriageable man may seek his elective -affinity until he find her; the task of the marriageable woman is -infinitely more complicated, since her elective affinity has usually to -be combined with her bread and butter. The two do not always grow in -the same place. - -What is the real, natural and unbiased attitude of woman towards love -and marriage, it is perfectly impossible for even a woman to guess -at under present conditions, and it will continue to be impossible -for just so long as the natural instincts of her sex are inextricably -interwoven with, thwarted and deflected by, commercial considerations. -When—if ever—the day of woman’s complete social and economic -independence dawns upon her, when she finds herself free and upright -in a new world where no artificial pressure is brought to bear upon -her natural inclinations or disinclinations, then, and then only, will -it be possible to untwist a tangled skein and judge to what extent -and what precise degree she is swayed by those impulses, sexual and -maternal, which are now, to the exclusion of every other factor, -presumed to dominate her existence. And not only to dominate, but to -justify it. (A presumption, by the way, which seems to ignore the -fact—incompatible, surely, with the theory of “incompleteness”—that -celibacy irks the woman less than it does the man.) - -What, one wonders, would be the immediate result if the day of -independence and freedom from old restrictions were to dawn suddenly -and at once? Would it be to produce, at first and for a time, a -rapid growth amongst all classes of women of that indifference to, -and almost scorn of, marriage which is so marked a characteristic of -the—alas, small—class who can support themselves in comfort by work -which is congenial to them? Perhaps—for a time, until the revulsion -was over and things righted themselves. (I realize, of course, that -it is quite impossible for a male reader to accept the assertion -that any one woman, much less any class of women, however small its -numbers, can be indifferent to or scornful of marriage—which would be -tantamount to admitting that she could be indifferent to, or scornful -of, himself.—What follows, therefore, can only appear to him as an -ineffectual attempt on the part of an embittered spinster to explain -that the grapes are sour; and he is courteously requested to skip to -the end of the chapter. It would be lost labour on my part to seek -to disturb his deep-rooted conviction that all women who earn decent -incomes in intelligent and interesting ways are too facially unpleasant -to be placed at the head of a dinner-table. I shall not attempt -to disturb that conviction; I make it a rule never to attempt the -impossible.) This new-born attitude of open indifference and contempt, -while perhaps appearing strained and unnatural, is, it seems to me, a -natural one enough for women whose daily lives have falsified every -tradition in which they were born and bred. - -For the tradition handed down from generations to those girl children -who now are women grown was, with exceptions few and far between, the -one tradition of marriage—marriage as inevitable as lessons and far -more inevitable than death. Ordering dinner and keeping house: that -we knew well, and from our babyhood was all the future had to give to -us. For the boys there would be other things; wherefore our small -hearts bore a secret grudge against Almighty God that He had not -made us boys—since their long thoughts were our long thoughts, and -together we wallowed in cannibals and waxed clamorous over engines. For -them, being boys, there might be cannibals and engines in the world -beyond; but for us—oh, the flat sameness of it!—was nothing but a -husband, ordering dinner and keeping house. Therefore we dreamed of a -settler for a husband, and of assisting him to shoot savages with a -double-barrelled gun. So might the round of household duties be varied -and most pleasantly enlivened. - -Perhaps it was the stolid companionship of the doll, perhaps the -constant repetition of the formula “when you have children of your -own” that precluded any idea of shirking the husband and tackling the -savage off our own bat. For I cannot remember that we ever shirked -him. We selected his profession with an eye to our own interests; he -was at various times a missionary, a sailor and a circus-rider; but -from the first we recognized that he was unavoidable. We planned our -lives and knew that he was lurking vaguely in the background to upset -our best-laid calculations. We were still very young, I think, when we -realized that his shadowy personality was an actual, active factor in -our lives; that it was because of him and his surmised desires that -our turbulent inclinations were thwarted and compressed into narrow -channels, and that we were tamed and curbed as the boys were never -tamed and curbed. When that which the boys might do with impunity -was forbidden to us as a sin of the first water, we knew that it was -because he would not like it. The thought was not so consciously -expressed, perhaps; but it was there and lived with us. So we grew up -under his influence, presuming his wishes, and we learned, because -of him, to say, “I can’t,” where our brothers said, “I can,” and to -believe, as we had been taught, that all things, save a very few (such -as ordering dinner and keeping house) were not for us because we were -not men. (Yet we had our long, long thoughts—we had them, too!) That -was one thing that he desired we should believe; and another was that -only through him could we attain to satisfaction and achievement; that -our every desire that was not centred upon him and upon his children -would be barren and bitter as Dead Sea ashes in the mouth. We believed -that for a long time.... - -And he was certain to come: the only question was, when? When he came -we should fall in love with him, of course—and he would kiss us—and -there would be a wedding.... - -Some of us—and those not a few—started life equipped for it after -this fashion; creatures of circumstance who waited to be fallen in -love with. That was indeed all; we stood and waited—on approval. And -then came life itself and rent our mother’s theories to tatters. For -we discovered—those of us, that is, who were driven out to work that -we might eat—we discovered very swiftly that what we had been told -was the impossible was the thing we had to do. That and no other. So -we accomplished it, in fear and trembling, only because we had to; and -with that first achievement of the impossible the horizon widened with -a rush, and the implanted, hampering faith in our own poor parasitic -uselessness began to wither at the root and die. We had learned to say, -“I can.” And as we went on, at first with fear and then with joy, from -impossibility to impossibility, we looked upon the world with new eyes. - -To no man, I think, can the world be quite as wonderful as it is to -the woman now alive who has fought free. Those who come after her will -enter by right of birth upon what she attains by right of conquest; -therefore, neither to them will it be the same. The things that to -her brother are common and handed down, to her are new possessions, -treasured because she herself has won them and no other for her. It may -well be that she attaches undue importance to these; it could scarcely -be otherwise. Her traditions have fallen away from her, her standard -of values is gone. The old gods have passed away from her, and as yet -the new gods have spoken with no very certain voice. The world to her -is in the experimental stage. She grew to womanhood weighed down by the -conviction that life held only one thing for her; and she stretches out -her hands to find that it holds many. She grew to womanhood weighed -down by the conviction that her place in the scheme of things was the -place of a parasite; and she knows (for necessity has taught her) that -she has feet which need no support. She is young in the enjoyment of -her new powers and has a pleasure that is childish in the use of them. -By force of circumstances her faith has been wrested from her and the -articles of her new creed have yet to be tested by experience—her own. -Her sphere—whatever it may prove to be—no one but herself can define -for her. Authority to her is a broken reed. Has she not heard and read -solemn disquisitions by men of science on the essential limitations of -woman’s nature and the consequent impossibility of activity in this or -that direction?—knowing, all the while, that what they swear to her -she cannot do she does, is doing day by day! - -Some day, no doubt, the pendulum will adjust itself and swing true; a -generation brought up to a wider horizon as a matter of course will -look around it with undazzled eyes and set to work to reconstruct the -fundamental from the ruins of what was once esteemed so. But in the -meantime the new is—new; the independence that was to be as Dead Sea -ashes in our mouth tastes very sweet indeed; and the unsheltered -life that we were taught to shrink from means the fighting of a good -fight.... - -Selfishness, perhaps—all selfishness—this pleasure in ourselves and -in the late growth of that which our training had denied us. But then, -from our point of view, the sin and crime of woman in the past has been -a selflessness which was ignoble because involuntary. Our creed may be -vague as yet, but one article thereof is fixed: there is no merit in a -sacrifice which is compulsory, no virtue in a gift which is not a gift -but a tribute. - - - - -III - - -I have insisted so strongly upon what I believe to be the attitude -towards life of the independent woman mainly with the object of -proving my assertion that there are other faculties in our nature -besides those which have hitherto been forced under a hothouse system -of cultivation—sex and motherhood. It is quite possible that a woman -thinking, feeling and living in a manner I have described may be dubbed -unsexed; but even if she be what is technically termed unsexed, it does -not follow therefore that she is either unnatural or unwomanly. Sex is -only one of the ingredients of the natural woman—an ingredient which -has assumed undue and exaggerated proportions in her life owing to the -fact that it has for many generations furnished her with the means of -livelihood. - -In sexual matters it would appear that the whole trend and tendency of -man’s relations to woman has been to make refusal impossible and to -cut off every avenue of escape from the gratification of his desire. -His motive in concentrating all her energy upon the trade of marriage -was to deny it any other outlet. The original motive was doubtless -strengthened, as time went on, by an objection to allowing her to come -into economic competition with him; but this was probably a secondary -or derivative cause of his persistent refusal to allow her new spheres -of activity, having its primary root in the consciousness that economic -independence would bring with it the power of refusal. - -The uncompromising and rather brutal attitude which man has -consistently adopted towards the spinster is, to my mind, a -confirmation of this theory. (The corresponding attitude of the married -woman towards her unmarried sister I take to be merely servile and -imitative.) It was not only that the creature was chaste and therefore -inhuman. That would have justified neglect and contempt on his part, -but not the active dislike he always appears to have entertained for -her. That active and somewhat savage dislike must have had its origin -in the consciousness that the perpetual virgin was a witness, however -reluctantly, to the unpalatable fact that sexual intercourse was not -for every woman an absolute necessity; and this uneasy consciousness -on his part accounts for the systematic manner in which he placed -the spinster outside the pale of a chivalry, upon which, from her -unprotected position, one would have expected her to have an especial -claim. - -If it be granted that marriage is, as I have called it, essentially a -trade on the part of woman—the exchange of her person for the means -of subsistence—it is legitimate to inquire into the manner in which -that trade is carried on, and to compare the position of the worker in -the matrimonial with the position of the worker in any other market. -Which brings us at once to the fact—arising from the compulsory -nature of the profession—that it is carried on under disadvantages -unknown and unfelt by those who earn their living by other methods. -For the regulations governing compulsory service—the institution of -slavery and the like—are always framed, not in the interests of the -worker, but in the interests of those who impose his work upon him. -The regulations governing exchange and barter in the marriage market, -therefore, are necessarily framed in the interests of the employer—the -male. - -The position is this. Marriage, with its accompaniments and -consequences—the ordering of a man’s house, the bearing and rearing -of his children—has, by the long consent of ages, been established -as practically the only means whereby woman, with honesty and honour, -shall earn her daily bread. Her every attempt to enter any other -profession has been greeted at first with scorn and opposition; her -sole outlook was to be dependence upon man. Yet the one trade to which -she is destined, the one means of earning her bread to which she is -confined, she may not openly profess. No other worker stands on the -same footing. The man who has his bread to earn, with hands, or brains, -or tools, goes out to seek for the work to which he is trained; his -livelihood depending on it, he offers his skill and services without -shame or thought of reproach. But with woman it is not so; she is -expected to express unwillingness for the very work for which she has -been taught and trained. She has been brought up in the belief that -her profession is marriage and motherhood; yet though poverty may be -pressing upon her—though she may be faced with actual lack of the -necessities of life—she must not openly express her desire to enter -that profession, and earn her bread in the only way for which she is -fitted. She must stand aside and wait—indefinitely; and attain to her -destined livelihood by appearing to despise it. - -That, of course, is the outcome of something more than a convention -imposed on her by man; nature, from the beginning, has made her -more fastidious and reluctant than the male. But with this natural -fastidiousness and reluctance the commercialism imposed upon her by -her economic needs is constantly at clash and at conflict, urging -her to get her bread as best she can in the only market open to her. -Theoretically—since by her wares she lives—she has a perfect right to -cry those wares and seek to push them to the best advantage. That is to -say, she has a perfect right to seek, with frankness and with openness, -the man who, in her judgment, can most fittingly provide her with the -means of support. - -This freedom of bargaining to the best advantage, permitted as a matter -of course to every other worker, is denied to her. It is, of course, -claimed and exercised by the prostitute class—a class which has pushed -to its logical conclusion the principle that woman exists by virtue of -a wage paid her in return for the possession of her person; but it is -interesting to note that the “unfortunate” enters the open market with -the hand of the law extended threateningly above her head. The fact -is curious if inquired into: since the theory that woman should live -by physical attraction of the opposite sex has never been seriously -denied, but rather insisted upon, by men, upon what principle is -solicitation, or open offer of such attraction, made a legal offence? -(Not because the woman is a danger to the community, since the male -sensualist is an equal source of danger.) Only, apparently, because -the advance comes from the wrong side. I speak under correction, but -cannot, unaided, light upon any other explanation; and mine seems to -be borne out by the fact that, in other ranks of life, custom, like -the above-mentioned law, strenuously represses any open advance on the -part of the woman. So emphatic, indeed, is this unwritten law, that -one cannot help suspecting that it was needful it should be emphatic, -lest woman, adapting herself to her economic position, should take the -initiative in a matter on which her livelihood depended, and deprive -her employer not only of the pleasure of the chase, but of the illusion -that their common bargain was as much a matter of romance and volition -on her part as on his. - -As a matter of fact, that law that the first advances must come from -the side of the man is, as was only to be expected, broken and broken -every day; sometimes directly, but far more often indirectly. The woman -bent on matrimony is constantly on the alert to evade its workings, -conscious that in her attempt to do so she can nearly always count on -the ready, if unspoken, co-operation of her sisters. This statement -is, I know, in flat contravention of the firmly-rooted masculine -belief that one woman regards another as an enemy to be depreciated -consistently in masculine eyes, and that women spend their lives in -one long struggle to gratify an uncontrollable desire for admiration at -each other’s expense. (I have myself been told by a man that he would -never be so foolishly discourteous as to praise one woman in another’s -hearing. I, on my part, desirous also of being wisely courteous, did -not attempt to shake the magnificent belief in his own importance to -me which the statement betrayed.) Admiration is a very real passion -in some women, as it is a very real passion in some men; but what, in -women, is often mistaken for it is ambition, a desire to get on and -achieve success in life in the only way in which it is open to a woman -to achieve it—through the favour of man. Which is only another way -of saying what I have insisted on before—that a good many feminine -actions which are commonly and superficially attributed to sexual -impulse have their root in the commercial instinct. - -It is because women, consciously or unconsciously, recognize the -commercial nature of the undertaking that they interest themselves so -strongly in the business of match-making, other than their own. Men -have admitted that interest, of course—the thing is too self-evident -to be denied—and, as their manner is, attributed it to an exuberant -sexuality which overflows on to its surroundings; steadfastly declining -to take into account the “professional” element in its composition, -since that would necessarily imply the existence of an _esprit de -corps_ amongst women. - -I myself cannot doubt that there does exist a spirit of practical, if -largely unconscious, trade unionism in a class engaged in extracting, -under many difficulties and by devious ways, its livelihood from -the employer, man. (I need scarcely point out that man, like every -other wage-payer, has done his level best and utmost to suppress the -spirit of combination, and encourage distrust and division, amongst -the wage-earners in the matrimonial market; and that the trade of -marriage, owing to the isolation of the workers, has offered unexampled -opportunities for such suppression of unity and encouragement of -distrust and division.) But, in spite of this, women in general -recognize the economic necessity of marriage for each other, and in -a spirit of instinctive comradeship seek to forward it by every -means in their power. There must be something extraordinarily and -unnaturally contemptible about a woman who, her own bargain made and -means of livelihood secured, will not help another to secure hers; and -it is that motive, and not a rapturous content in their own unclouded -destiny, not an unhesitating conviction that their lot has fallen in -a fair ground, which makes of so many married women industrious and -confirmed match-makers. What has been termed the “huge conspiracy -of married women” is, in fact, nothing but a huge trade union whose -members recognize the right of others to their bread. To my mind, -one of the best proofs of the reality of this spirit of unconscious -trade unionism among women is the existence of that other feminine -conspiracy of silence which surrounds the man at whom a woman, for -purely mercenary reasons, is making a “dead set.” In such a case, the -only women who will interfere and warn the intended victim will be his -own relatives—a mother or a sister; others, while under no delusions -as to the interested nature of the motives by which the pursuer is -actuated, will hold their tongues, and even go so far as to offer -facilities for the chase. They realize that their fellow has a right to -her chance—that she must follow her trade as best she can, and would -no more dream of giving her away than the average decent workman would -dream of going to an employer and informing him that one of his mates -was not up to his job and should, therefore, be discharged. In these -emergencies a man must look to a man for help; the sympathies of the -practical and unromantic sex will be on the other side. - -I shall not deny, of course, that there is active and bitter -competition amongst women for the favour not only of particular men, -but of men in general; but, from what I have said already, it will -be gathered that I consider that competition to be largely economic -and artificial. Where it is economic, it is produced by the same -cause which produces active and bitter competition in other branches -of industry—the overcrowding of the labour market. Where it is -artificial, as distinct from purely economic, it is produced by the -compulsory concentration of energy on one particular object, and the -lack of facilities for dispersing that energy in other directions. It -is not the woman with an interest in life who spends her whole time in -competing with her otherwise unoccupied sisters for the smiles of a -man. - - - - -IV - - -Marriage being to them not only a trade, but a necessity, it -must follow as the night the day that the acquirement of certain -characteristics—the characteristics required by an average man in an -average wife—has been rendered inevitable for women in general. There -have, of course, always been certain exceptional men who have admired -and desired certain exceptional and eccentric qualities in their wives; -but in estimating a girl’s chances of pleasing—on which depended -her chances of success or a comfortable livelihood—these exceptions -naturally, were taken into but small account, and no specialization in -their tastes and desires was allowed for in her training. The aim and -object of that training was to make her approximate to the standard of -womanhood set up by the largest number of men; since the more widely -she was admired the better were her chances of striking a satisfactory -bargain. The taste and requirements of the average man of her class -having been definitely ascertained, her training and education was -carried on on the principle of cultivating those qualities which he -was likely to admire, and repressing with an iron hand those qualities -to which he was likely to take objection; in short, she was fitted for -her trade by the discouragement of individuality and eccentricity and -the persistent moulding of her whole nature into the form which the -ordinary husband would desire it to take. Her education, unlike her -brothers’, was not directed towards self-development and the bringing -out of natural capabilities, but towards pleasing some one else—was -not for her own benefit, but for that of another person. - -No one has better expressed the essential difference between the -education of men and women than Mr. John Burns in a speech delivered -to the “Children of the State” at the North Surrey District School -on February 13, 1909. Addressing the boys the President of the Local -Government Board said, “I want you to be happy craftsmen, because you -are trained to be healthy men.” Addressing the girls he is reported to -have used the following words— - -“To keep house, cook, nurse and delight in making others happy is your -mission, duty and livelihood.” - -The boys are to be happy themselves; the girls are to make others -happy. No doubt Mr. Burns spoke sincerely; but is he not one of the -“others”? And it is well to note that the “making of others happy” -is not put before the girls as an ideal, but as a duty and means of -livelihood. They are to be self-sacrificing as a matter of business—a -commercial necessity. It is because man realizes that self-sacrifice in -woman is not a matter of free-will, but of necessity, that he gives her -so little thanks for it. Her duty and means of livelihood is to make -others happy—in other words, to please him. - -Whether she was trained to be useful or useless that was the object of -her up-bringing. Men in one class of society would be likely to require -wives able to do rough house or field work; so to do rough house or -field work she was trained. Men in another class of society would be -likely to require of their wives an appearance of helpless fragility; -and girls in that particular class were educated to be incapable of -sustained bodily effort. - -It is this fact—that their training was a training not in their own, -but in some one else’s requirements—which, to my thinking, makes -women so infinitely more interesting to watch and to analyze than men. -Interesting, I mean, in the sense of exciting. Practically every woman -I know has two distinct natures: a real and an acquired; that which she -has by right of birth and heritage, and that which she has been taught -she ought to have—and often thinks that she has attained to. And it is -quite impossible even for another woman, conscious of the same division -of forces in herself, to forecast which of these two conflicting -temperaments will come uppermost at a given moment. - -The average man is a straightforward and simple-minded creature -compared to the average woman, merely because he has been allowed to -develop much more on his own natural lines. He has only one centre of -gravity; the woman has two. To put it in plain English, he usually -knows what he wants; she, much more often than not, does not know -anything of the kind. She is under the impression that she wants -certain things which she has been told from her earliest childhood, -and is being told all the time, are the things she ought to want. That -is as far as she can go with certainty. This also can be said with -certainty: that her first requirement, whether she knows it or not, is -the liberty to discover what she really does require. - -Once a man’s character is known and understood it can usually be -predicted with a fair degree of accuracy how he will act in any -particular crisis or emergency—say, under stress of strong emotion or -temptation. With his sister on the other hand you can never foresee -at what point artificiality will break down and nature take command; -which makes it infinitely more difficult, however well you know -her, to predict her course of action under the same circumstances. -The woman whose whole existence, from early dawn to dewy eve, is -regulated by a standard of manners imposed upon her from without, by -a standard of morals imposed upon her from without, whose ideals are -purely artificial and equally reflected, will suddenly, and at an -unexpected moment, reveal another and fundamental side of her nature -of which she herself has probably lived in entire ignorance. And on -the other hand—so ingrained in us all has artificiality become—a -woman of the independent type, with a moral standard and ideals of -her own setting up, may, when the current of her life is swept out of -its ordinary course by emergency or strong emotion, take refuge, just -as suddenly and unexpectedly, in words and actions that are palpably -unnatural to her and inspired by an instilled idea of what, under the -circumstances, a properly constituted woman ought to say or do. Faced -with a difficulty through which her own experience does not serve to -guide her, she falls back on convention and expresses the thoughts of -others in the stilted language that convention has put into her mouth. -I have known this happen more than once, and seen a real human being -of flesh and blood suddenly and unconsciously transformed into one of -those curious creatures, invented by male writers and called women for -lack of any other name, whose sins and whose virtues alike are the -sins and virtues considered by male writers to be suitable and becoming -to the opposite sex. - -For generation after generation the lives of women of even the -slightest intelligence and individuality must have been one long and -constant struggle between the forces of nature endeavouring to induce -in them that variety which is another word for progress and their own -enforced strivings to approximate to a single monotonous type—the -type of the standard and ideal set up for them by man, which was the -standard and ideal of his own comfort and enjoyment. However squarely -uncompromising the characteristics of any given woman, the only vacant -space for her occupation was round, and into the round hole she had to -go. Were her soul the soul of a pirate, it had to be encased in a body -which pursued the peaceful avocation of a cook. Even when she kicked -over the traces and gave respectability the go-by, she could only do so -after one particular and foregone fashion—a fashion encouraged if not -openly approved by man. The male sinner might go to the devil in any -way he chose; for her there was only one road to the nethermost hell, -and, dependent even in this, she needed a man to set her feet upon the -path. Her vices, like her virtues, were forced and stereotyped. They -sprang from the same root; vice, with her, was simply an excess of -virtue. Vicious or virtuous, matron or outcast, she was made and not -born. - -There must be many attributes and characteristics of the general run of -women which are not really the attributes and characteristics of their -sex, but of their class—a class persistently set apart for the duties -of sexual attraction, house-ordering and the bearing of children. And -the particular qualities that, in the eyes of man, fitted them for the -fulfilment of these particular duties, generation after generation of -women, whatever their natural temperament and inclination, have sought -to acquire—or if not the actual qualities themselves, at least an -outward semblance of them. Without some semblance of those qualities -life would be barred to them. - -There are very few women in whom one cannot, now and again, trace -the line of cleavage between real and acquired, natural and class, -characteristics. The same thing, of course, holds good of men, but -in a far less degree since, many vocations being open to them, they -tend naturally and on the whole to fall into the class for which -temperament and inclinations fit them. A man with a taste for an open -air life does not as a rule become a chartered accountant, a student -does not take up deep-sea fishing as a suitable profession. But with -women the endeavour to approximate to a single type has always been -compulsory. It is ridiculous to suppose that nature, who never makes -two blades of grass alike, desired to turn out indefinite millions of -women all cut to the regulation pattern of wifehood: that is to say, -all home-loving, charming, submissive, industrious, unintelligent, -tidy, possessed with a desire to please, well-dressed, jealous of their -own sex, self-sacrificing, cowardly, filled with a burning desire for -maternity, endowed with a talent for cooking, narrowly uninterested in -the world outside their own gates, and capable of sinking their own -identity and interests in the interests and identity of a husband. I -imagine that very few women naturally unite in their single persons -these characteristics of the class wife; but, having been relegated -from birth upwards to the class wife, they had to set to work, with or -against the grain, to acquire some semblance of those that they knew -were lacking. - -There being no question of a line of least resistance for woman, it -is fairly obvious that the necessity (in many instances) of making a -silk purse out of a sow’s ear and instilling the qualities of tidiness, -love of home, cowardice, unintelligence, etc., etc., into persons who -were born with quite other capacities and defects must have resulted -in a pitiable waste of good material, sacrificed upon the altar of a -domesticity arranged in the interests of the husband. But infinitely -worse in its effect upon womanhood in general was the insincerity -which, in many cases, was the prime lesson and result of a girl’s -education and upbringing. I do not mean, of course, that the generality -of girls were consciously, of set purpose, and in so many words taught -to be insincere; but it seems fairly certain to me that generations of -mothers have tacitly instructed their daughters to assume virtues (or -the reverse) which they had not. - -It could not be otherwise. Success in the marriage-market demanded -certain qualifications; and, as a matter of economic and social -necessity, if those qualifications were lacking, their counterfeit -presentment was assumed. When helplessness and fragility were the -fashion amongst wives, the girl child who was naturally as plucky as -her brothers was schooled into an affected and false timidity. Men were -understood to admire and reverence the maternal instinct in women; so -the girl who had no especial interest in children affected a mechanical -delight in, petted, fondled and made much of them. (I myself have seen -this done on more than one occasion; of course in the presence of men.) -And—worst and most treacherous insincerity of all—since men were -understood to dislike clever women, the girl who had brains, capacity, -intellect, sought to conceal, denied possession of them, so that her -future husband might enjoy, unchallenged, the pleasurable conviction of -her mental inferiority to himself. - -Of all the wrongs that have been inflicted upon woman there has been -none like unto this—the enforced arrest of her mental growth—and none -which bears more bitter and eloquent testimony to the complete and -essential servility of her position. For her the eleventh commandment -was an insult—“Thou shalt not think”; and the most iniquitous -condition of her marriage bargain this—that her husband, from the -height of his self-satisfaction, should be permitted to esteem her a -fool. - -It was not only that, from one generation to another, woman was without -encouragement to use her higher mental qualities—that her life was -lacking in the stimulus of emulation so far as they were concerned, -that her own particular trade made very few demands upon them. As if -these things in themselves were not discouragement enough, she was -directly forbidden to cultivate the small share of intellect she was -understood to possess. Science was closed to her and art degraded to -a series of “parlor tricks.” It was not enough that she should be -debarred from material possessions; from possessions that were not -material, from the things of the spirit, she must be debarred as well. -Nothing more plainly illustrates the fact that man has always regarded -her as existing not for herself and for her own benefit, but for his -use and pleasure solely. His use for her was the gratification of his -own desire, the menial services she rendered without payment; his -pleasure was in her flesh, not in her spirit; therefore the things of -the spirit were not for her. - -One wonders what it has meant for the race—this persistent desire of -the man to despise his wife, this economic need of countless women -to arrest their mental growth? It has amounted to this—that one of -the principal qualifications for motherhood has been a low standard -of intelligence. We hear a very great deal about the beauty and -sanctity of motherhood; we might, for a change, hear something about -the degradation thereof—which has been very real. To stunt one’s -brain in order that one may bear a son does not seem to me a process -essentially sacred or noble in itself; yet millions of mothers have -instructed their daughters in foolishness so that they, in their turn, -might please, marry and bear children. Most of those daughters, no -doubt—humanity being in the main slothful and indifferent—endured the -process with equanimity; but there must always have been some, and -those not the least worthy, who suffered piteously under the systematic -thwarting of definite instincts and vague ambitions. In every -generation there must have been women who desired life at first hand, -and in whom the crushing of initiative and inquiry and the substitution -of servile for independent qualities, must have caused infinite misery. -In every generation there must have been women who had something to -give to those who lived outside the narrowing walls of their home; and -who were not permitted to give it. They soured and stifled; but they -were not permitted to give it. - -But, after all, the suffering of individual women under the law of -imposed stupidity is a very small thing compared with the effect of -that law upon humanity as a whole. The sex which reserved to itself -the luxury of thinking appears to have been somewhat neglectful of -its advantages in that respect, since it failed to draw the obvious -conclusion that sons were the sons of their mothers as well as of -their fathers. Yet it is a commonplace that exceptional men are born -of exceptional women—that is to say, of women in whom the natural -instinct towards self-expansion and self-expression is too strong to be -crushed and thwarted out of existence by the law of imposed stupidity. - -That law has reacted inevitably upon those who framed and imposed it; -since it is truth and not a jest that the mission in life of many women -has been to suckle fools—of both sexes. Women have been trained to be -unintelligent breeding-machines until they have become unintelligent -breeding-machines—how unintelligent witness the infant death-rate -from improper feeding. Judging by that and other things, the process -of transforming the natural woman into flesh without informing spirit -would appear, in a good many instance, to have been attended by a fair -amount of success. In some classes she still breeds brainlessly. That -is what she is there for, not to think of the consequences. Has she -not been expressly forbidden to think? If she is a failure as a wife -and mother, it is because she is nothing else. And those of us who are -now alive might be better men and women, seeing more light where now -we strive and slip in darkness, if our fathers had not insisted so -strongly and so steadfastly upon their right to despise the women they -made their wives—who were our mothers. - -I have said that this condemnation to intellectual barrenness is the -strongest proof of the essential servility of woman’s position in the -eyes of man, and I repeat that statement. It cannot be repeated too -often. So long as you deprive a human being of the right to make use -of its own mental property, so long do you keep that human being in -a state of serfdom. You may disguise the fact even from yourself by -an outward show of deference and respect, the lifting of a hat or the -ceding of a pathway; but the fact remains. Wherever and whenever man -has desired to degrade his fellow and tread him under foot, he has -denied him, first of all, the right to think, the means of education -and inquiry. Every despotism since the world began has recognized -that it can only work in secret—that its ways must not be known. No -material tyranny can hope to establish itself firmly and for long -unless it has at its disposal the means to establish also a tyranny -that is spiritual and intellectual. When you hold a man’s mind in -thrall you can do what you will with his body; you possess it and not -he. Always those who desired power over their fellows have found it a -sheer necessity to possess their bodies through their souls; and for -this reason, when you have stripped a man of everything except his -soul, you have to go on and strip him of that too, lest, having it -left to him, he ask questions, ponder the answers and revolt. In all -ages the aim of despotism, small or great, material or intellectual, -has been to keep its subjects in ignorance and darkness; since, in all -ages, discontent and rebellion have come with the spread of knowledge, -light and understanding. So soon as a human being is intelligent enough -to doubt, and frame the question, “Why is this?” he can no longer be -satisfied with the answer, “Because I wish it.” That is an answer which -inevitably provokes the rejoinder, “But I do not”—which is the essence -and foundation of heresy and high treason. - -Those in high places—that is to say, those who desired power over -others—have, as a condition of their existence in high places, fought -steadfastly against the spread of the means of enlightenment. No -right has been more bitterly denied than the right of a man to think -honestly and to communicate his thoughts to his fellows. Persons who -claimed that right have been at various times (and for the edification -of other persons who might be tempted to go and do likewise) stoned, -devoured by wild beasts, excommunicated, shut up in dungeons, burned at -the stake and hanged, drawn, and quartered. In spite, however, of these -drastic penalties—and other lesser ones too numerous to mention—there -has always been a section of humanity which has stubbornly persisted, -even at the risk of roasting or dismemberment, in thinking its own -thoughts on some particular subject and saying what they were. To -persons of this frame of mind it probably did not much matter how soon -they had done with an existence which they had to look at through other -people’s eyes and talk about in suitable phrases arranged for them by -other people. So they risked the penalty and said what they wanted to. -The history of the world has been a succession of demands, more or less -spasmodic, more or less insistent, on the part of subjected classes, -nations and sects, to be allowed to see things in their own way and -with an eye to their own interests, spiritual or material. Which is why -a free press and a free pulpit have often seemed worth dying for. - -Wherever civilization exists various classes, sects and nations of men -have, one by one, claimed the right to that examination of things for -themselves which is called education. They have never attained to it -without opposition; and one of the most frequent and specious forms -of that opposition is embodied in the argument that education would -not only be useless to them, but would unfit them for their duties. -No doubt this argument was often put forward in all honesty as the -outcome of a conviction that was none the less sincere because it was -prompted by self-interest. That conviction had its roots in the common -and widespread inability to realize the actual human identity of other -persons—in the habit of summing them up and estimating them in the -light only of the salient (and often superficial) characteristics which -affect ourselves. I can best explain what I mean by saying that to many -of us the word “clerk” does not summon up the mental representation of -an actual man who spends some of his time writing, but of something in -the shape of a man that is continuously occupied in driving a pen. In -other words, we lose sight of the man himself in one of his attributes; -and the same with a miner, a sailor, etc. Thus to the persons in high -places who opposed the education of the agricultural labourer, the -agricultural labourer was not an actual man, but a hoe or a harrow in -human shape; and they were quite honestly and logically unable to see -what this animated implement of agricultural toil could want with the -inside of a book. Practically, however, they were denying humanity to -the labourer and sinking his identity in one particular quality—the -physical capacity for field-work. - -This, as I have explained elsewhere, is the manner in which woman, as a -rule, is still regarded—not as a human being with certain physical and -mental qualities which enable her to bring children into the world and -cook a dinner, but as a breeding-machine and the necessary adjunct to a -frying-pan. So regarded, independence of thought and anything beyond a -very limited degree of mental cultivation are unnecessary to her, even -harmful, since they might possibly result in the acquirement of other -attributes quite out of place in the adjunct to a frying-pan. - - - - -V - - -With the advance of civilization one subject class after another has -risen in revolt, more or less violent, more or less peaceful, and -asserted its right to inquire, to think in its own way—that is to -say, it has asserted its humanity. But it is a proof of my statement -that woman has never been regarded as fully human, that the successive -classes of men who have, in turn, asserted their own humanity have -totally forgotten to assert hers, have left her, whatever her rank, in -a class apart, and continued to treat her as a domestic animal whose -needs were only the needs of a domestic animal. - -The aristocratic instinct is by no means confined to those born in -the purple. (Some of the most startlingly aristocratic sentiments I -have ever heard came from the lips of persons believed by themselves -to entertain ultra-democratic ideas.) The sense of power over others -is just as attractive to the many as it is to the few; and thus it -has happened that men, in every class, have taken a pleasure in the -dependence and subjection of their womenfolk, and, lest their power -over them should be undermined, have refused to their womenfolk -the right to think for themselves. The essential cruelty of that -refusal they disguised from themselves by explaining that women could -not think even if they tried. We have all heard the definition of -woman—episcopal, I think—as a creature who cannot reason and pokes -the fire from the top. - -This disbelief in the existence of reasoning powers in woman is still, -it seems to me, a very real thing—at least, I have run up against it -a good many times in the course of my life, and I do not suppose that -I am an exception in that respect. And the really interesting thing -about this contemptuous attitude of mind is that it has led to the -adoption, by those who maintain it, of a very curious subterfuge. It -is, of course, quite impossible to deny that a woman’s mind does go -through certain processes which control and inspire her actions and -conclusions— sometimes very swiftly and effectively; but to these -mental processes, which in men are called reason, they give, in woman, -the title of intuition. - -Now the word “intuition,” when used in connection with woman, conveys -to the average male mind a meaning closely akin to that of the word -instinct—as opposed to reason. (In this insistence on the instinctive -character of our mental processes the average man is, of course, -quite consistent; since he imagines that we exist only for the -gratification of two instincts, the sexual and the maternal, it does -not seem unreasonable on his part to conclude that we also think by -instinct.) I am certain that I am right as to this masculine habit of -confusing intuition with instinct; since on every occasion on which I -have been more or less politely—but always firmly—informed that I -had no intellect, but could console myself for the deficiency by the -reflection that I possessed the usual feminine quality of intuition, I -have made a point of bringing the person who made the remark to book by -insisting upon an exact definition of the term. In every single case -within my own experience the exact definition—as I have been careful -to point out—has been not insight, but instinct. Our mental processes, -in short, are supposed to be on the same level as the mental process -which starts the newly-hatched gosling on its waddle to the nearest -pond. We are supposed to know what we want without knowing why we want -it—just like the gosling, which does not make a bee-line for the -water because it has carefully examined its feet, discovered that they -are webbed, and drawn the inference that webbed feet are suitable for -progress in water. - -This question of the intuitive or instinctive powers of woman is one -that has always interested me extremely; and as soon as I realized -that my mind was supposed to work in a different way from a man’s -mind, and that I was supposed to arrive at conclusions by a series of -disconnected and frog-like jumps, I promptly set to work to discover -if that was really the case by the simple expedient of examining the -manner in which I did arrive at conclusions. I believe that (on certain -subjects, at any rate) I think more rapidly than most people—which -does not mean, of course, that I think more correctly. It does mean, -however, that I very often have to explain to other people the process -by which I have arrived at my conclusions (which might otherwise appear -intuitive); therefore I may be called a good subject for investigation. -I can honestly say that I have never been at a loss for such an -explanation. I can trace the progress of my thought, step by step, just -as a man can trace his. I may reason wrongly, but I do not reason in -hops. And I have yet to meet the woman who does. I have met many women -who were in the habit of coming to conclusions that were altogether -ridiculous and illogical; but they were conclusions—drawn from -insufficient data—and not guesses. No sane human being regulates—or -does not regulate—its life, as we are supposed to do, by a series of -vague and uncontrolled guesses. - -I imagine that the idea that women do so control their lives must -have had its origin in the fact that men and women usually turn their -mental energy into entirely different channels. On subjects that are -familiar to us we think quickly, and acquire a mental dexterity akin -to the manual dexterity of a skilled artisan. But the subjects upon -which women exercise this mental dexterity are not, as a rule, the same -as those upon which men exercise theirs; the latter have usually left -narrow social and domestic matters alone, and it is in narrow social -and domestic matters that we are accustomed to think quickly. We are -swifter than they are, of course, at drawing the small inferences -from which we judge what a man will like or dislike; but then, for -generations the business of our lives has been to find out what a man -will like or dislike, and it would be rather extraordinary if we had -not, in the course of ages, acquired in it a measure of that rapid -skill which in any other business would be called mechanical, but in -ours is called intuitive. - -This theory of intuition or instinct, then, I take, as I have already -said, to be in the nature of a subterfuge on the part of the male—a -sop to his conscience, and a plausible excuse for assuming that we have -not the intelligence which (if it were once admitted that we possessed -it) we should have the right to cultivate by independent thinking. But -to admit the right of a human being to independent thinking is also to -admit something else far more important and unpleasant—his right to -sit in judgment upon you. That right every despotism that ever existed -has steadily denied to its subjects; therefore, there is nothing -extraordinary in the fact that man has steadily denied it to woman. -He has always preferred that she should be too ignorant to sit in -judgment upon him, punishing her with ostracism if she was rash enough -to attempt to dispel her own ignorance. One of her highest virtues, in -his eyes, was a childish and undeveloped quality about which he threw -a halo of romance when he called it by the name of innocence. So far -has this insistence on ignorance or innocence in a wife been carried, -that even in these days many women who marry young have but a very -vague idea of what they are doing; while certain risks attaching to the -estate of marriage are, in some ranks of life at any rate, sedulously -concealed from them as things which it is unfit for them to know. - -It is a subject that is both difficult and unpleasant to touch upon; -but while it will always be unpleasant, it ought not to be difficult, -and I should be false to my beliefs if I apologized for touching upon -it. Women, like men, when they enter upon a calling, have a perfect -right to know exactly what are the dangers and drawbacks attached -to their calling; you do not, when you turn a man into a pottery or -a dynamite factory, sedulously conceal from him the fact that there -are such things as lead-poisoning or combustion. On the contrary, you -warn him—as women are seldom warned. I have been astonished at the -number of women I have met who seem to have hardly more than a vague -inkling—and some not even that—of the tangible, physical consequence -of loose living. - -I have not the faintest intention of inditing a sermon on masculine -morals. If the average man chooses to dispense with morals as -we understand them, that is his affair and a matter for his own -conscience; if he is so constituted physically that he cannot live -as we do, and has practically no choice in the matter, that is his -misfortune. But I do say this: that the average woman has a perfect -right to know what are the results of loose living in so far as those -results may affect her and her children. If marriage is a trade we -ought to know its risks—concerning which there exists a conspiracy of -silence. Is the cause to which I have alluded ever mentioned, except in -technical publications, in connection with the infant death-rate? - -Those of us who have discovered that there are risks attaching to the -profession of marriage other than the natural ones of childbirth, have -very often made the discovery by accident—which ought not to be. I -made the discovery in that way myself while I was still very young—by -the idle opening of a book which, because it was a book, was a thing -to be opened and looked into. I was puzzled at first, and then the -thing stared me in the face—a simple matter of bald statement and -statistics. I remember the thought which flashed into my mind—we are -told we have got to be married, but we are never told _that_! It was my -first conscious revolt against the compulsory nature of the trade of -marriage. - - - - -VI - - -This insistent and deliberate stunting of woman’s intellectual growth -is, as I have already stated, the best proof of her essentially -servile position in the household; and that being the case, it is not -to be wondered at that her code of honour and morals is essentially -a servile code. That is to say, its origin and guiding motive is the -well-being, moral and material, of some one else. Like her stupidity -woman’s morality has been imposed on her, and to a great extent is not -morality at all, in the proper sense of the word, but a code of manners -formulated in the interests of her master. - -I wish to make it clear that when I speak of morality in this -connection I am not using the word in the narrow sense in which it is -sometimes employed. By a standard of morality I mean a rule of life -which we adopt as a guide to our conduct, and endeavour, more or less -successfully, to apply to every action—to our dealings with others as -well as to our dealings with our own hearts. - -I cannot better explain what I mean by the essential servility of -woman’s code of morals than by quoting Milton’s well-known line— - - “He for God only; she for God in him.” - -That one brief verse condenses into a nutshell the difference in -the moral position of the two sexes—expresses boldly, simply, -straightforwardly, the man’s belief that he had the right to divert -and distort the moral impulse and growth in woman to serve his own -convenience. No priesthood has ever made a claim more arrogant than -this claim of man to stand between woman and her God, and divert the -spiritual forces of her nature into the channel that served him best. -The real superiority of man consists in this: that he is free to obey -his conscience and to serve his God—if it be in him so to do. Woman -is not. She can serve Him only at second hand—can obey His commands -not directly but only by obeying the will of the man who stands between -her and the Highest, and who has arrogated to himself not merely the -material control of her person and her property, but the spiritual -control of her conscience. - -This is no fanciful piece of imagery. There are laws still in -existence—laws of an earlier age—which prove how complete has been -this moral control which we are only now shaking off, since they -presume a man’s entire responsibility for the actions of his wife, -be those actions good or ill. That a woman at her husband’s bidding -should bend her conscience to his will as a reed bends; that, because -he desired it of her, she should break and defy every commandment -of God and man; this seemed to our forefathers a natural thing, and -a course of action befitting her station and place in life. So far -from blaming, they condoned it in her and have expressed that view -of the matter in their law—sometimes with awkward and annoying -results for a later generation. Woman, until she began to feel in -herself the stirrings of independence—woman, when she was just the -wife-and-mother-and-nothing-else, the domestic animal—seems to me to -have been a creature whom you could not have described as being either -moral or immoral. She was just unmoral. Whether she did good or evil -was not, as far as her own individuality went, of very much account -since the standard set up for her was not of her own setting up; it had -been erected for the comfort and well-being of her master. Her virtues -were second-hand virtues, instilled into her for the convenience of -another; and she did what was right in his eyes, not in her own, after -the manner of a child. Therefore she was neither moral nor immoral, but -servile. The motive which guided and impelled her from childhood was -a low one—the desire (disinterestedly or for her own advantage) of -pleasing some one else. (To make others happy, as Mr. Burns expresses -it.) The desire to please being the motive power of her existence, -her code of honour and ethics was founded not on thought, conviction -or even natural impulse, but on observation of the likes and dislikes -of those she had to please. Hence its extraordinary and inconsistent -character, its obvious artificiality and the manifest traces it bears -of having been imposed upon her from without. For instance, no natural -ethical code emanating from within could have summed up woman’s virtue -in _a_ virtue—physical purity. That confusion of one virtue with -virtue in general was certainly of masculine origin arising from the -masculine habit of thinking of woman only in connection with her -relations to himself. To other aspects of her life and character man -was indifferent—they hardly existed for him. And of masculine origin, -too, was that extraordinary article of the code by which it was laid -down that a woman’s “honour” was, to all intents and purposes, a matter -of chance—a thing which she only possessed because no unkind fate had -thrown her in the way of a man sufficiently brutal to deprive her of it -by force. Her honour, in short, was not a moral but a physical quality. - -One sees, of course, the advantage from the male point of view, of -this peculiar provision of the code. In a world where the pickpocket -class had the upper hand a somewhat similar regulation would, no doubt, -be in force; and it would be enacted, by a custom stronger than law, -that to have one’s pocket picked was in itself a disgrace which must -on no account be cried aloud upon the housetops or communicated to -the police. To reveal and publish the fact that your purse had been -snatched from you by force would be to make yourself a mark of scorn -and for hissing, to bring upon yourself an obloquy far greater than -that accorded to the active partner in the transaction, whose doings -would be greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and the explanation -that pickpockets are pickpockets, and will never be anything but what -nature has made them; and, after all, you must have dangled the purse -temptingly before his eyes. Under these circumstances, with the thief -at liberty to ply his trade, the fact that you had money in your pocket -would be, strictly speaking, an accident; and, to make the parallel -complete, the lack of your money—the fact that it had been taken -from you even against your will—would have to be accounted a black -disgrace, leaving a lasting smear upon your whole life. That, it seems -to me, is the exact position with regard to what is commonly termed a -woman’s “honour.” I should prefer to put it that a woman has no honour; -only an accident. - -In such a world as I have described—a world run in the interest of the -light-fingered class—the average and decent man would find it just as -easy and just as difficult to take legal proceedings against the person -who had violently deprived him of his purse as the average and decent -woman would now find it were she to take legal proceedings against the -man who had violently deprived her of her honour. Nominally, of course, -justice would afford him a fair hearing and the process of law would be -at his disposal; actually he would make himself a target for contempt -and scorn, and the very men who tried his case, with every desire to be -unbiassed, would be prejudiced against him because he had not hidden -his disgrace in silence. In most cases the effect of such a public -opinion would be to make him hold his tongue, and practically by his -silence become an abettor and accomplice in the offence wrought upon -himself and by which he himself had suffered. He might, if his mould -were sensitive, choose the river rather than exposure—as women have -done before now. - -Honour, as I understand it, is not physical or accidental; is not even -reputation, which is a species of reflection of honour in the minds of -others; it is a state of mind resulting from a voluntary and conscious -adherence to certain rules of life and conduct. As such it is entirely -your own possession and a creation, a thing of which no one can rob -you but yourself; it is at no man’s mercy but your own. It is because -woman, as a rule, has not possessed the power of giving voluntary and -conscious adherence to rules of life and conduct, because the rules of -life and conduct which she follows have been framed in the interests -of others and forced upon her in the interests of others—that she has -been denied any other than a purely physical and accidental “honour.” - -One’s mind goes back to two children in the school-room pondering -seriously and in the light of their own unaided logic the puzzling -story of Lucrece—much expurgated and newly acquired during the course -of a Roman history lesson. The expurgated Roman history book had made -it clear that she was a woman greatly to be admired; we sat with -knitted brows and argued why. Something had been done to her—we were -vague as to the nature of the something, but had gathered from the -hurried manner of our instructress that here was a subject on which -you must not ask for precise information. Our ignorance baffled and -aggrieved us since fuller knowledge might have thrown light upon an -otherwise incomprehensible case. Something had been done to her by a -wicked man and against her will—so much we knew. She had tried all -she could to prevent it, but he was the stronger—the expurgated Roman -history had said, “By force.” Therefore, whatever had happened was not -her fault. Yet the next morning she had sent posthaste for her husband -and her father, told them all about it and stabbed herself to the heart -before their eyes! Try as we would to sympathize with this paragon of -Roman virtue, the action seemed inconsequent. It implied remorse where -remorse was not only unnecessary but impossible. If she had stabbed -Sextus Tarquinius, or if Sextus Tarquinius had stabbed himself in a fit -of repentance for his own mysterious ill-doing.... But why needlessly -distress your family by descending into an early grave because some one -else had been mysteriously wicked while you yourself had done no harm -at all? Our sense of logic and justice was shaken to its foundations. -The verdict of admiration recorded in the history book stared us in the -face, conflicting with our own conclusions; and it was our reverence -for the written word alone that prevented the open and outspoken -judgment, “She was silly.” - -So two small persons, to whom sex was still a matter of garments, -seriously troubled by their own inability to appreciate a virtue held -up to them for reverence, with views as yet level and unwarped on the -subject of justice, and still in complete ignorance of the “economic” -law that the cost of sin, like the cost of taxation, is always shifted -on to the shoulders of those least able to bear or to resent it. - -The key to the curious and inferior position of woman with regard -to breaches, voluntary or involuntary, of the moral law is to be -found in this right of the strongest to avoid payment. It is a right -that is recognized and openly acted upon in the world of business -and of property, that has to be considered and taken into account -by financiers and statesmen in the collection of revenue and the -imposition of taxes. It is the general exercise of this right that -makes the incidence of taxation a study for experts. Roughly its result -is, the weakest pays. Tax the business man and he will set to work to -send up prices, collecting his additional toll in farthings, pence and -shillings from his customers, or to save it by cutting down the wages -of his employees. Tax the landlord, and he sends up rents—perhaps in -the slums. The stronger the position of the capitalist, the more easily -does he avoid payment. If his position is so strong that he is an -actual monopolist he can avoid it with complete ease, simply taking the -amount required from the pockets of those who are unable to refuse his -demands, handing it over to the powers that be and paying himself for -his trouble in doing so. - -The incidence of blame in offences against the code which regulates -the sexual relations of men and women is governed by laws similar to -those which govern the incidence of taxation. The stronger party to -the offence, taking advantage of his strength, has refused to pay; -has simply and squarely declined to take his share of the mutual -punishment, and has shifted a double portion thereof on the shoulders -of the weaker party. So far as I can see that is the real and only -reason for the preferential treatment of man under the moral code—a -preferential treatment insisted upon by Adam in the garden of Eden -when he anxiously explained to the Deity that the woman was to blame, -and insisted upon ever since by his descendants. Is it not Adam who -sniggers over spicy stories at his club, retails them to the wife of -his bosom and then gives vent to manly and generous indignation at -the expense of the spinster who repeats them at third hand? while -the extreme reluctance of a purely male electorate to raise what is -termed the age of consent in girls is perhaps the most striking example -of this tendency of the stronger to shift the responsibility of his -misdeeds on to any shoulders but his own,—even on to the shoulders of -a child. - -Palpable and obvious hardship dealt out by men to women is usually -defended, if not explained, by that more or less vague reference to -natural law, which is again an attempt to shift responsibility; and -I have heard the position of woman as scapegoat for the sins of the -man justified by her greater importance to the race as the mother of -the next generation. This position of trust and responsibility, it is -urged, makes her fall more blameworthy in itself, since her offence -is not only an offence against her own person. One would feel more -inclined to give ear to this explanation if it could be proved that -it was only in the case of actual infractions of the moral code that -the male was in the habit of availing himself of his opportunities of -shifting the blame that should be his on to the back of the weaker -vessel. But it is not. Why, for instance, when a man who has been -engaged to a woman changes his mind and throws her over against her -will should the woman be regarded as to some extent humiliated and -disgraced by the action of another person, an action over which she -has had no control whatever, which has, in fact, been performed -against her express desire? Yet in such circumstances the woman who -has been left in the lurch is supposed to suffer, quite apart from -the damage to her affection, a sort of moral damage and disgrace from -the heartlessness or fickleness of another person—the man to whom -she has been engaged; and this moral damage is, I believe, taken into -account in actions for breach of promise of marriage (where there is -no question of seduction). In these instances of fickleness on the -side of the one party to the engagement, there is no suggestion of -guilt or offence in the other party—the woman; yet the consequences -of guilt and offence have been transferred to her shoulders, simply, -it seems to me, because the guilty and offending party, being the -stronger, declined to bear them himself. And woman’s code of honour and -morals being essentially a servile code, designed for the benefit of -those in authority over her, she accepts the position without protest -and takes shame to herself for the fault of another person. The first -provision of a wider code—a code drawn up by herself—must be that -she will only accept responsibility for her own actions. Until she -has taken her stand on that principle she cannot hope for a freedom -that is real, even a material freedom. At present her position, in -this respect, is analogous to that of the mediæval whipping-boy or -those slaves of antiquity who were liable to be put to death for the -sins of their masters—a position entirely incompatible with the most -elementary ideas of liberty and justice. The chaste and virtuous -Lucrece whose untimely fate so distraught our youthful brains was not -so much the victim of one man’s evil passions and wrong-doing as of -her own servile code of morals; she was (if she ever existed) a slave -of undoubted and heroic virtue—but certainly a slave and not a free -woman, accountable for her own acts and her own acts alone. - -As a matter of fact, if we come to look into them closely, we find -that the virtues that have been enjoined upon woman for generations -are practically all servile virtues—the virtues a man desires in and -enjoins upon those whom he wishes to hold in subjection. Honour, in the -proper sense of the word, truth-telling, independence of thought and -action, self-reliance and courage are the qualities of a free people; -and, because they are the qualities of a free people, they have not -been required of her. Submission, suppleness, coaxing manners, a desire -to please and ingratiate, tact and a capacity for hard work for which -no definite return is to be expected are the qualities encouraged in -a servile or subject race by those in authority over them; and it -is precisely these qualities which have been required of woman. The -ordinary male ideal of a mother is a servile ideal—a person who waits -on others, gives way to others, drudges for others, and only lives -for the convenience of others. The ordinary male ideal of a wife is a -servile ideal—a person with less brains than himself, who is pleasant -to look at, makes him comfortable at home and respects his authority. -And it is the unfortunate fact that she is expected to live down to -this ideal—and very often does—which accounts for that frequent -phenomenon, the rapid mental deterioration of the woman who has -fulfilled her destiny and attained to a completeness that is synonymous -with stagnation. - -It is obvious that marriage—the companionship of two reasonable human -beings—ought not, under natural conditions, to have a stupefying -effect upon one of the parties to the arrangement; and, as far as I -can see, where the woman is recognized as a responsible human being -with an individuality and interests of her own, and with a right to her -own opinion, it does not have that effect. The professional woman—a -class which I know fairly well—is not, as a rule, less interesting -and individual after marriage than before it, simply because she -does not usually marry the type of man who would expect her to swamp -her own ideas and personality in his; and the working woman of -another class, who, as the manager and financier of the household, -is obliged to keep her wits sharp, is often an extremely interesting -person with a shrewd and characteristic outlook on life. It is the -woman of the “comfortable” class, with narrow duties and a few petty -responsibilities, who now-a-days most readily conforms to the servile -type of manners and morals set up for her admiration and imitation, -sinks into a nonentity or a busybody, and does her best to gratify and -justify her husband’s predilection for regarding her mental capacity -with contempt. - - - - -VII - - -One peculiarity of the trade at which so many women earn their -livelihood I have, as yet, hardly touched upon. It is this: that -however arduous and exacting the labour that trade entails—and the -rough manual work of most households is done by women—it is not -paid except by a wage of subsistence. There may be exceptions, of -course, but, as a general rule, the work done by the wife and mother -in the home is paid for merely by supplying her with the necessaries -of existence—food, lodging, and clothing. She is fed and lodged on -the same principle as a horse is fed and lodged—so that she may do -her work, her cooking, her cleaning, her sewing, and the tending and -rearing of her children. She may do it very well or she may do it very -badly; but beyond food, lodging, and a certain amount of clothing, -she can claim no wage for it. In short, her work in the home is not -recognized either by the State or by the individual citizen (except in -occasional instances) as work which has any commercial value. - -There must, of course, be some reason why such intrinsically important -work as the rearing of children and ministering to the comfort of the -community should be held in such poor esteem that it is paid for at the -lowest possible rate—subsistence rate. (Which means, of course, that -wages in that particular branch of work have been forced just as low -as they can go, since human beings cannot continue to exist without -the means of supporting life.) And the principal reason for this state -of things I take to be the compulsory nature of the trade. Given a -sufficiently large number of persons destined and educated from birth -for one particular calling, with no choice at all in the matter, and -with every other calling and means of livelihood sternly barred to -them, and you have all the conditions necessary for the forcing down of -wages to the lowest possible point to which they will go—subsistence -point. In that calling labour will be as cheap as the heart of the -employer could desire; and incidentally it will tend to become what -ill-paid labour always tends to become—inefficient. Exactly the -same condition of affairs would prevail in any other trade—mining or -boiler-making, for instance—if immense numbers of boys were brought -up to be miners or boiler-makers, and informed that whatever their -needs or desires, or whatever the state of the labour market in these -particular callings, they could not turn their abilities into any other -direction. Under those circumstances miners and boiler-makers would -probably work for their keep and nothing more, as the ordinary wife has -to do. - -I shall be told, of course, that the position of a husband is not that -of an ordinary employer of labour, and that the financial relations -of a man and his wife are complicated by considerations of affection -and mutual interest which make it quite impossible to estimate the -exact wage-earning value of the wife’s services in the household, or -the price which she receives for them in other things than money. Even -if, for the sake of argument, this be admitted as a general rule, it -does not invalidate my point, which is that the compulsory nature of -woman’s principal trade is quite sufficient, in itself, to account -for the fact that the workers in that trade are not deemed worthy of -anything more than a wage of subsistence. Considerations of sentiment -and affection may help to keep her direct monetary remuneration down; -but to bring it down in the first instance nothing more was needed than -compulsory overcrowding of the “domestic service” market. - -That the wage of subsistence—the board, lodging, and clothing—dealt -out to a married woman is often board, lodging, and clothing on a -very liberal and comfortable scale, does not alter the fact that it -is essentially a wage of subsistence, regulated by the idea of what -is necessary for subsistence in the particular class to which she may -happen to belong. The plutocrat who wishes his wife to entertain cannot -habitually feed her on fish and chips from round the corner, or renew -her wardrobe in an old-clothes shop. But she does not get twelve-course -dinners and dresses from the Rue de la Paix because she has earned them -by extra attention to her duties as a wife and mother, but because -they are necessary qualifications for the place in his household which -her husband wishes her to take—because, without them, she could not -fulfil the duties that he requires of her. The monetary reward of -wifehood and motherhood depends entirely on the life, the good luck -and the good nature of another person; the strictest attention to duty -on the part of a wife and mother is of no avail without that. The -really hard labour of housework and rearing children is done in those -households where the wage of subsistence is lowest; and the women who -receive most money from their husbands are precisely those who pass on -the typical duties of a wife and mother to other persons—housekeepers, -cooks, nurses, and governesses. Excellence in the trade is no guarantee -of reward, which is purely a matter of luck; work, however hard, will -not bring about that measure of independence, more or less comparative, -which is attained by successful work in other trades. Dependence, -in short, is the essence of wifehood as generally understood by the -masculine mind. - -Under normal and favourable conditions, then, a married woman without -private means of her own obtains a wage of subsistence for the -fulfilment of the duties required of her in her husband’s household. -Under unfavourable (but not very abnormal) conditions she does not -even obtain that. In the case of the large army of married women who -support idle or invalid husbands by paid labour outside the home, the -additional work inside the home is carried on gratis, and without a -suggestion of payment of any kind. - -I am inclined to believe that the principle that payment should be -made for domestic service rendered does not really enter into the -question of a wife’s wages; that those wages (of subsistence) are paid -simply for the possession of her person, and that the other arts and -accomplishments she may possess are not supposed to have any exchange -value. At any rate, a mistress, from whom the domestic arts are not -expected, is often just as expensively kept as a wife—which seems to -point to my conclusion. What Mr. John Burns has called a woman’s “duty -and livelihood” is, in the strict sense of the term, not her livelihood -at all. Her livelihood, as an ordinary wife, is a precarious dependence -upon another person’s life; should that other person die, she could -not support herself and her children by remaining in “woman’s -sphere”—cooking, tending the house, and looking after her young -family. That sort of work having no commercial value, she and her young -family would very shortly starve. The profession of the prostitute is a -livelihood; the profession of the wife and mother is not. A woman can -support her children by prostitution; she cannot do so by performing -the duties ordinarily associated with motherhood. - -That marriage has another side than the economic I should be the last -to deny, as I should be the last to deny that there are many households -in which subjection and dependence in the wife are not desired by her -husband—households in which there is a sharing of material, as well -as of intellectual, interests. But that does not alter the fact that -the position of a great many other married women is simply that of an -unpaid domestic servant on the premises of a husband. The services -that, rendered by another, would command payment, or at least thanks, -from her are expected as a matter of course. They are supposed to be -natural to her; she is no more to be paid for them than she is to be -paid for breathing or feeling hungry. (One wonders why it should be -“natural” in woman to do so many disagreeable things. Does the average -man really believe that she has an instinctive and unquenchable craving -for all the unpleasant and unremunerative jobs? Or is that only a -polite way of expressing his deeply-rooted conviction that when once -she has got a husband she ought to be so thoroughly happy that a little -dirty work more or less really cannot matter to her?) - -It may be argued that in the greater number of cases marriage, for -the husband, means the additional labour and expense of supporting a -wife and children; and that this added labour and expense is expected -from him as a matter of course, and that neither does he receive any -thanks for it. Quite so; but, as I pointed out at the beginning of -this book, marriage is a voluntary matter on the part of a man. He -does not earn his living by it; he is under no necessity to undertake -its duties and responsibilities should he prefer not to do so. He has -other interests in life and no social stigma attaches to him if he does -not take to himself a wife and beget children. He enters the marriage -state because he wishes to enter it, and is prepared to make certain -necessary sacrifices in order to maintain a wife and family; whereas -the position of the woman is very different. She very often enters the -married state because she has to—because more lucrative trades are -barred to her, because to remain unmarried will be to confess failure. -This state of things in itself gives the man an advantage, and enables -him to ensure (not necessarily consciously) that his share of the -bargain shall be advantageous to himself—to ensure, in short, that he -gets his money’s worth. With his wife, on the other hand, it has often -been a case of take it or leave it; since she knows that, if she does -leave it, she will not be able to strike any more advantageous bargain -elsewhere. - -These being the conditions under which, consciously or unconsciously, -the average wife strikes her bargain, it follows that in the ensuing -division of labour she generally gets the worst of the transaction, the -duties assigned to her being those which her husband would prefer not -to perform. They are handed over to her as a matter of course, and -on the assumption that they enter into what is commonly known as her -“sphere.” And it is this principle—that woman’s work is the kind of -work which man prefers not to do—which regulates and defines not only -the labour of a woman in her own household, but the labour of women -generally. - -I am quite aware that this principle is not openly admitted in -assigning to woman her share of the world’s work—that, on the -contrary, the results of its application are explained away on the -theory that there is a “natural” division of labour between the two -sexes. But when one comes to examine that theory, dispassionately -and without prejudice, one finds that it does not hold water—or -very little—since the estimate of woman’s “natural” work is such -an exceedingly variable quantity. One nation, people, or class, -will esteem it “natural” in woman to perform certain duties which, -in another nation, people, or class, are entirely left to men—so -much so, that woman’s sphere, like morality, seems to be defined by -considerations “purely geographical.” Unless we grasp the underlying -principle that woman’s “natural” labour in any given community is -the form of labour which the men of that community do not care to -undertake, her share in the world’s work must appear to be regulated by -sheer and arbitrary chance. - - - - -VIII - - -As soon as one comes to examine this subject of the “natural” sphere -of woman and woman’s work with anything like an open mind, one -discovers that in at least nine cases out of ten the word “suitable” or -“artificial” must be substituted for the word “natural.” There are only -two kinds of work natural to any human being: the labour by which, in -fulfilment of the curse laid upon Adam, he needs to earn his bread; and -what may be called the artistic or spontaneous labour which he puts of -his own free will into his hobbies, his pleasures, and his interests. -In some cases the two kinds—the bread-winning and the artistic or -spontaneous form of labour—can be combined; and those who can so -combine them, be they rich or poor, are the fortunate ones of the -earth. To a person in actual need of the means of supporting existence -any form of labour by which he or she can earn or obtain those means -of existence is a perfectly natural one. A sufficiently hungry -coal-heaver would do his best to hemstitch a silk pocket-handkerchief -for the price of a meal, and a sufficiently hungry woman would wrestle -with a coal-heaver’s job for the same consideration. In neither case -could the action of the sufficiently hungry person be called unnatural; -on the contrary, it would be prompted by the first and most urgent of -natural laws—the law of self-preservation, which would over-ride any -considerations of unsuitability. It does not, of course, follow from -this example that certain forms of labour are not more suitable to -women in general, and others not more suitable to men in general; all I -wish to insist on is that suitable and natural are not interchangeable -terms, and that what may be suitable at one place and under one set of -conditions may not be suitable in another place and under another set -of conditions. - -The care of young children seems to be a department of labour so -suitable to women that one may venture to assume that it is natural -to a good many of them, though not by any means to all. (Not the -least serious result of compulsory marriage has been the compulsory -motherhood of women in whom the maternal instinct is slight—of whom -there are many.) I do not mean that men should necessarily be excluded -altogether from the tending of children; in many men the sense of -fatherhood is very strong, in spite of the discouragement it receives -under present conditions. If that discouragement were removed the -paternal instinct might manifest itself in a more personal care of -children; but on the whole one imagines that such personal care of -children will always come more easily to woman. On the other hand, -as most men are stronger muscularly than women, those departments of -labour which require the exertion of considerable muscular strength -must, under ordinary circumstances, naturally be monopolized by man. -But between these two extremes there lies what may be called a neutral -or debatable ground of labour requiring the exercise of qualities -which are the exclusive property of neither sex. It is in this -neutral field that the law to which I have alluded above comes into -operation—the law under which the activities of women are confined -to those departments of the labour market into which men do not -care, or actively object, to enter. Thus, if there were no question -of economic competition, it seems to me that the invasion by woman of -these departments of the labour market which were formerly monopolized -by men would be bound to awaken a certain amount of opposition; since -her consequent desertion of the dull, unpleasant, and monotonous tasks -assigned to her, might mean that these tasks would have to be performed -by those who had hitherto escaped the necessity by shifting it on to -her shoulders. Hence a natural and comprehensible resentment. - -The average and unthinking man who passes his existence in a modern -civilized town, if he were asked upon what principle the work of -the world were shared between the men and the women who inhabit it, -would very probably reply, in his average and unthinking way, that -the idea underlying the division of labour between the sexes was the -idea of sparing woman the hard bodily toil for which she was unfitted -by her lack of physical strength. If that really were the principle -upon which the division of labour was made, it is clear that the -ordinary male clerk ought at once to change places with the ordinary -housemaid or charwoman, the ordinary ticket-collector with the -ordinary laundress. The physical labour of holding a pen or collecting -tickets is infinitely less than the physical labour of carrying coals -upstairs, scrubbing a floor, or wringing out a dirty garment. There -is no particular or inevitable reason why such changes should not be -made—and no further away than France housemaid’s duties are very -commonly performed by men. Clerking, the duties of a ticket-collector, -laundry-work and housework are all situated upon that neutral ground -of labour to which I have alluded above; they are forms of work which -do not call for the exercise of qualities peculiar to either sex, and -which, therefore, can be equally well performed by persons of either -sex. - -To take another instance. In most civilized countries the rougher -branches of agriculture are looked upon as work which is unsuited to -women, because making too heavy demands upon their strength. Amongst -primitive and semicivilized peoples, on the other hand, the tilling -of the soil is often left entirely to women; while the dweller in -towns—who usually has most to say about these matters—would probably -be astonished if he realized how largely women’s work is employed, even -in Europe, in the rougher processes of agriculture. (Within less than a -twenty-four hours’ journey from London I have seen a woman yoked to a -plough.) In certain small communities on the Breton coast I understand -that the work of agriculture is carried on entirely by the women of the -community; the men—fishermen by trade—occupying themselves during -the long periods of enforced idleness between the fishing seasons by -dressmaking for the household, and other forms of sewing. I have before -me, as I write, a specimen of the needlework of one of these Breton -fishermen: a penwiper, neatly cut and sewn, and quaintly ornamented -with a design in yellow thread—the sort of trifle that we should -regard as an essentially feminine production. To me such a division -of labour does not seem in the least “unnatural.” Having regard to -the circumstances, I can well understand that the man who took needle -and scissors to produce my penwiper—and who had his fill of stormy -and open air toil at other times—should prefer to set his hand to a -restful occupation which would keep him in his home, rather than to the -plough or the spade, which would take him out of it. - -In the beginning of things, labour seems to have been divided between -the sexes on a fairly simple plan. Man did most of the hunting and most -of the fighting; and woman, only joining in the hunting and fighting -if necessity arose, did all the rest. In savage tribes which have -suddenly come under the domination of a civilized race—a domination -which usually means not only the cessation of tribal warfare, but a -rapid decrease in the raw material of the chase—the male, debarred -from the exercise of his former avocations, frequently refuses to -do anything at all. Deprived of the only work proper to man, and -disinclined, at first, to undertake the work he considers proper to -woman, he is apt to fold his hands and exist in idleness on what is, to -all intents and purposes, the slave-labour of his female belongings. -The distaste of certain South African races for what we esteem men’s -work is well known, and has had political consequences before now; -and it is said that in some primitive American tribes a man would -consider that he demeaned himself by undertaking such strictly feminine -work as the hewing and carrying of wood. (One is led to the conclusion -that the idea of woman as a wife-and-mother-and-nothing-else must be -of comparatively modern growth. “Natural” man did not think of her in -that light at all; he had so many other uses for her. Or, perhaps, one -might put it that his definition of the duties of a wife and mother was -comprehensive.) - -The early arts and the first processes of manufacture are supposed to -have originated with that half of the human race which is now denied -invention and initiative—arising naturally out of her more complicated -duties and more settled habits of living. Woman was certainly, and all -unknown to herself, the civilizing agent in the primitive community. -The hut, clearing, or cave where she tended the hearth and carried on -her rude industries, and whither her man returned from his roaming -expeditions, was the germ and nucleus of the city where her descendants -now dwell. - -It was not until the world grew more crowded, less of a place to -fight in, less of a place to hunt in, that man began to consider -other means and take to other ways of earning his living—to dig and -to engage in manufactures. In other words, he began to invade the -sphere of woman (it is as well to remember this), and to parcel out -and divide the industries hitherto monopolized by her. This process -of parcelling out and division was carried out in accordance with the -principle already mentioned—that woman was to keep those trades which -men did not care to embark upon; and, roughly speaking, his preference -in the matter has always been for those callings and professions -which ensured him, in addition to his livelihood, and, if possible, a -prospect of advancement, a certain amount of variety in his existence, -and a certain amount of intercourse with his fellows. His tendency, -therefore, has been to annex those trades which afforded him the -desired amount of variety, intercourse, and prospect of advancement, -and to leave to woman the monotonous, prospectless, and isolated -callings—callings which were usually connected with the home; and -that tendency seems to have continued with very little check until -the beginning of the revolution in our social and industrial system -which was brought about by the introduction of machinery—a revolution -which, incidentally and amongst other things, is changing almost beyond -recognition the institution known as the home, modifying the relations -of the sexes, and completely altering the position of woman by forcing -her, whether she likes it or not, to stand on her own feet. - -I have dwelt at some length upon this tendency in the dominant -sex—the outcome of no deliberate selfishness, but of the natural and -instinctive human impulse to take the line of least resistance and get -what one wants in the easiest way—because it seems to me to afford the -only reasonable explanation of the customary hard and fast division of -labour between an ordinary man and an ordinary wife. Fundamentally, I -can see no reason why it should be the duty of the wife, rather than -of the husband, to clean doorsteps, scrub floors, and do the family -cooking. Men are just as capable as women of performing all these -duties. They can clean doorsteps and scrub floors just as well as -women; they can cook just as well as women, sometimes better. Why, -then, should it be assumed that it is the natural thing for a married -woman to take over these particular departments of work, and that when -a bride undertakes to love, honour, and obey her husband, she also -undertakes to scrub his floors and fry his steaks? The answer to that -question seems to be, not that it is natural for a woman to like a form -of labour which is usually monotonous and without prospect, but that -it is quite natural for a man to dislike it—and therefore leave it to -some one else. - -One of the best examples, in a small way, of the tendency I have been -speaking of I got not long ago from a friend of mine, a woman of the -working-class. I happened to be one of an audience she was addressing, -when she suddenly put to it the unexpected question—“Why does the -father carve the joint in rich people’s houses, when in poor people’s -houses it is the mother who carves it?” One, at least, of her audience -was entirely at a loss for an answer to the conundrum until it was -duly furnished by the speaker—running as follows: “In rich people’s -houses the father carves the joint, because there is always enough -to go round and the carver can help himself to the tit-bits. In poor -people’s houses the mother carves the joint, because there mayn’t be -always enough to go round and the carver gets the last helping.” I have -no doubt that her explanation of the two customs is correct. Where the -labour of carving is a pleasant duty, likely to bring its reward, it is -performed by the head of the household; where it is an unpleasant duty, -incurring penalty in the place of reward, the head of the household -decides to pass it on to some one else. I do not mean that he decides -it after due and selfish deliberation—he simply obeys a natural -unthinking impulse. - -It will be urged, of course, that motherhood and the care of children -being the central point and fundamental interest in a woman’s life, -the domestic duties and arts spring naturally from that central point -and group themselves around it; and that this, and not any question of -masculine likes and dislikes in the matter, is the real reason why, all -over the world, certain forms of labour, some of them of a drudging and -unpleasant nature, are thrust upon her—by the decree of Providence, -and not by the will of her husband. - -I am always suspicious of those decrees of Providence which run -parallel to the interests of persons who have taken it upon themselves -to expound Providential wisdom; and, as I have already explained, I -am inclined to doubt that there exists in every woman an overpowering -maternal instinct which swamps all other interests and desires. But -even if, for the sake of argument, the universality of an overpowering -maternal instinct be admitted, it is legitimate to point out that -housework and its unpaid drudgery is not only performed in the -interests of children. It is performed in childless households; it -is expected, as a matter of course, by fathers from their daughters, -by brothers from their sisters. It is performed, in short, in the -interests of the man quite as much as in the interests of the -child—perhaps more, since, in a busy household, the child, so far -from being the central point and pivot of an establishment, is often -attended to only incidentally, and in the time that can be snatched -from other duties. Further, in the numerous households where husband -and wife alike go out to work—perhaps at the same form of labour, as -is the case in many factory districts—the woman on returning home -(after working all day, just as her husband does, to contribute her -share to the weekly expenses necessary for the support of household and -children) has to cook, clean, sew, etc., in the time which her husband -can employ as he chooses. In such instances the wife has taken her -share in what are usually considered the typical duties of a husband, -and it would be only reasonable to suppose that, in the consequent -rearrangement of the domestic economy, the husband, as a matter of -course, would take his share in the typical duties of a wife. In some -cases, no doubt, he does; but as a general rule the household duties -are left to the woman, in exactly the same manner as they would be left -to her if she did not leave her house to work for a wage. And they -are left to her simply because her husband considers them tiresome or -unpleasant, and therefore declines to perform them. - -I have laid stress on the conditions under which woman’s work as a -wife, mother, and housekeeper is usually carried on, because it seems -to me that the influence of those conditions has extended far beyond -that narrow circle of the home to which, until comparatively lately, -her energies have been confined. It was within the four walls of the -home that man learned to look upon her as a being whose share of work -was always the unpleasant share, and whose wages were the lowest wages -that could possibly be given. And—which is far worse—she learned to -look upon herself in the same light, as a creature from whom much must -be demanded and to whom little must be given. Small wonder, then, with -that age-long tradition behind her, that when she is forced out into -the world, unorganized and unprepared, she finds it hard to get even a -living wage for the work of her head and hands—and that when you speak -of a sweated you mean a woman’s trade. - -There is, so far as I can see, only one way in which woman can make -herself more valued, and free herself from the necessity of performing -duties for which she gets neither thanks nor payment. She must do as -men have always done in such a situation—shirk the duties. - - - - -IX - - -There is one element in the relations between man and wife to which, as -yet, I have hardly referred. I mean that element which is known as the -exercise of protection by the stronger over the weaker—by the man over -the woman. In considering the rewards of wifehood, great or small, it -cannot, of course, be passed over without examination, since it seems -to be assumed that a man pays his wife for services unpaid in other -ways by defending her against perils, physical or otherwise. - -Now there can be no doubt that in former ages and all over the -world—as in certain regions of the world to-day—this physical -protection of the weaker by the stronger, of the woman by the man, was -a thing that really counted in marriage. The women of a savage tribe -which was constantly at war with surrounding savage tribes, would have -to rely on the strength and skill in warfare of their men to deliver -them from capture or death. In such a primitive state of affairs every -man might be called upon at any moment to exercise in his own person -duties of defence and protection which the average man now delegates -to the paid soldier and the paid policeman. In the beginning of things -the head of every family possessed the right of private war and private -justice, and it was on his success in both these fields of activity -that the lives and the welfare of his womenfolk and children would very -largely depend. It was only by virtue of his strength that he could -maintain possession of his property in goods or in human flesh. It was -by virtue of his superior strength that he reduced woman to subjection, -and in return, and as a form of payment for her toil, defended her -from the attacks of others. So arose and originated the idea of the -physical protection necessarily meted out by husband to wife; an idea -real enough in the beginning. Circumstances alter cases; but they often -take a long time to alter ideas, and this particular one continues to -flourish luxuriantly in places where the order of things that gave it -birth has passed into the forgotten. One still hears people talk as if -a clerk or a greengrocer’s assistant, married in a suburban chapel and -going to Cliftonville for his honeymoon, undertook thereby to shelter -his better half from heaven knows what of vague and mysterious peril. -From other times and other manners, beginning with the days when a -stone axe formed a necessary part of a bridegroom’s wedding garment, -into places where moral force has fought the worst of its bitter battle -with physical force, into days when private war is called murder and -the streets are policed, there has come down the superstition that the -ordinary civilized man performs doughty feats of protection for the -benefit of the ordinary civilized wife. And it seems to be accepted -that that element of protection is a natural and unavoidable element in -the relations of married man and woman—even of married man and woman -living in a suburban flat. - -Once upon a time it was a natural and unavoidable element in -the relations of every married couple; just as it was natural -and unavoidable, once upon a time, that the unwarlike and -commercially-minded burghers of a mediæval city should bargain -with a neighbouring and predatory baron to keep at bay—for a -consideration—other barons no less predatory but a little less -neighbouring. That sort of arrangement, I believe, was fairly common -in the Middle Ages when predatory barons were in a position which -enabled them to bend the law to their own liking, and when the obvious -thing for honest and peaceable men to do was to set a thief to catch -a thief. A recognized institution in its day, this particular form of -protection passed with the growth of a central authority, with the -suppression of private warfare and the substitution of a national for -a tribal ideal. Instead of paying blackmail to a brigand, the city, in -its later days, organized a police force of its own and contributed -its share towards the upkeep of a national army. And the overlord -vanished because, his duties having been taken away from him, there was -nothing left for him to do. Much the same sort of thing has happened in -other directions; increasing civilization has left other than barons -without the duties that formerly appertained to their position. Like -the protective functions of the overlord, the protective functions of -the husband have been centralized and nationalized, regulated by the -community and delegated to the soldier and the policeman. Where stable -government exists the number of men who offer up their lives each -year in actual defence of their own hearths and their own wives is, I -imagine, small; so small that I do not suppose the insurance companies -take much account of it in estimating their risks. I have not the least -intention of casting any reflection upon the courage of the average -civilized husband or inferring that he is not willing to offer up his -life in defence of his better half if called upon to do so; I merely -state the obvious fact that he is not very often called upon to make -the sacrifice. Even in those countries where universal military service -is established, the duty of defending the national (not the individual) -hearth and home falls last upon men who are married and have a family -to support; it is the young, unmarried men who are called upon to form -the first line of defence and defiance. And in ordinary every-day -life it is the strong arm of the law and not the strong arm of the -individual husband which secures a woman from hurt and molestation. -If it were not so the unprotected spinster would be in a truly piteous -plight. As a matter of fact, she usually finds that the ordinary -constable is quite adequate for all her requirements in the protective -line. - -Closely allied to this idea of individual masculine protection is -that other, and still more vaguely nebulous, idea of chivalry or -preferential treatment of women in general by men in general. Which -necessitates an inquiry into what the average modern man really means -when he talks of chivalry in this connection. - -Frankly, it does not seem to me that he means very much. My own -experience leads me to define chivalry—not the real thing, but the -term as it is commonly used, say, in the public press—to define -chivalry as a form, not of respect for an equal, but of condescension -to an inferior; a condescension which expresses itself in certain rules -of behaviour where non-essentials are involved. In very few really -essential matters between man and woman is the chivalric principle -allowed to get so much as a hearing; in practically all such matters -it is, as I have already pointed out, an understood thing that woman -gets the worst of the bargain, does the unpleasant work in the common -division of labour, and, when blame is in question, sits down under the -lion’s share of it. In return for this attitude on her part—which, -if voluntary, would be really chivalrous, but being involuntary is -merely servile—man undertakes to regulate his conduct towards her by -certain particular forms of outward deference. His attitude, so far -as one can gather is something like this: as long as you refrain from -coming into competition with us, as long as you will allow us to look -down upon you, as long as you are content to regard yourselves not only -as our dependents, but as persons sent into the world to minister to -our comforts and our pleasures, so long shall our outward behaviour -towards you be framed in a particular code of manners which secures -you preferential treatment in unimportant matters. But, in order to -secure this preferential treatment in unimportant matters, you must put -no strain upon our courtesy, and you must defer to our wishes in more -important things; you must not trespass upon the domain that we have -reserved for our own use, you must not infringe the rules which have -been laid down for your guidance and whose aim is to secure our own -comfort. - -In other words what is commonly known as “chivalry” is not a -spontaneous virtue or impulse on the part of modern man, but the form -in which he pays his debt for value received from woman. Directly she -fails to fulfil her own important share of the bargain, he considers -himself at liberty to refuse payment; at least, one must conclude so -from the frequency with which the “independent” woman of to-day is -threatened with the extinction of chivalry if she continued to assert -herself in a manner which may be consistent with her own desires, but -which is not consistent with the desires of average male humanity. -Looked at in that light, the preferential code of manners, which is all -that is usually understood by chivalry, bears distinct resemblance to -the sugar that attempts to veil the flavour of a pill or the jam that -does its best to conceal the noxiousness of a lurking powder. By a -simple process of exchange and barter outward deference on the one side -is given in payment for real deference and subjection on the other; -and, that being the case, it is quite open to woman to look into the -terms of her bargain, reconsider them, and ask herself whether she is -not paying too high a price for value received. For, with every respect -for courtesy, the opening of a door and the lifting of a hat, however -reverential, are among the small things of life. - -It will no doubt be objected that chivalry is something infinitely -greater than what I have called outward forms of deference. I agree -that that is not the true meaning of the word; but I maintain that, in -general practice, the virtue of chivalry, in so far as it enters into -the daily lives of most women, amounts to outward forms of deference -and little more. As soon as we come to essentials, we realize that -the counteracting principle will inevitably be brought into play—the -principle that the woman must always be sacrificed to the interests of -the man. - -There are, of course, exceptions to that rule—and noble ones. It is -written that in common danger of death the stronger must think first, -not of his own life, but of the lives of those weaker and dependent -upon him; and whatever other laws a man might break with impudence and -impunity, he would very certainly be ashamed to confess to a breach of -this particular commandment. One respects such habitual obedience as -fine and finely disciplined; but it is not decrying it to point out -that not every man is called upon to exercise it and that the form of -chivalry cultivated by most is necessarily of a less strenuous type. -And into chivalry of the less strenuous type the idea of self-sacrifice -in essentials does not as a rule enter, since it is, as I have already -shown, in the nature of a reward or payment for self-sacrifice in -others. - -I am quite aware that there are a great many women of the upper and -middle classes—women, for the most part, who lead a leisured and -comfortable existence—who attach an inordinately high value to outward -forms of deference from the men with whom they come in contact. -Considering their training and education, and the trend of their whole -lives, it is perhaps only natural that they should. The aim of that -training and education has been, as I have shown, not to develop their -individuality and capacities, but to make themselves and their actions -pleasing to the men with whom they may happen to come in contact; and, -that being so, approval from the men with whom they may happen to come -in contact is naturally a thing of the utmost importance to them. To -lack it is to lack the whole reward of a well-spent life. By women with -this narrow outlook on the world superficial courtesies and superficial -deference are interpreted to mean approval and, therefore, success in -pleasing—almost the only form of success open to them. Further, the -lives of such women are usually sheltered, and thus they do not have -very much opportunity of realizing that the meed of ceremony to which -they are accustomed is largely a tribute paid, not to themselves or to -their womanhood, but to the particular leisured class to which they -happen to belong. - -Whatever the reason, it is certain that many women of the “comfortable” -class do cling desperately and rather pathetically to the idea of -their little privileges in this respect; I have over and over again -heard such women oppose efforts to better their own position and that -of others simply on the ground that “men would not treat us in the -same way—there would be no chivalry, they would not be polite to -us any longer.” Apparently the good souls are under the impression -that no man is ever polite to a person he does not despise; and this -sort of argument shows how completely those who use it have learned -to substitute the shadow for the reality and dissociate what is -commonly called chivalry from respect. To them masculine courtesy is -an expression not of reverence for women, but of more or less kindly -contempt for them—and they are quite content that it should be so. -Personally, this attitude—an attitude of voluntary abasement assumed -in order that man may know the pleasure of condescension—is the only -thing that ever makes me ashamed of being a woman; since it is the -outward and visible expression of an inward servility that has eaten -and destroyed a soul. - - - - -X - - -Modern chivalry, then, has been narrowed down, if not in theory, at -any rate in practice, to a code of deferential behaviour affecting -such matters and contingencies as the opening of doors, the lifting of -hats, and the handing of teacups; but not touching or affecting the -pre-eminence and predominance of man in the more important interests of -life. At its best, such a code of behaviour is a meritorious attempt to -atone for advantage in essentials by self-abnegation in non-essentials; -at its worst, it is simply an expression of condescension. - -That there is a chivalry which means something other and more than -this—which is based upon the idea, not of condescension, but of real -respect for women—I shall not deny; but it is comparatively rare—for -the simple reason that the qualities encouraged and fostered in the -ordinary woman are not the sort of qualities which command respect. -They may have other merits, but that one they lack. For, be it noted, -respect is a tribute to be commanded; not a reward to be won by -supplication, by abasement, or compliance with the wishes of others. We -do not necessarily like what we respect—for instance, the strength, -the skill, and the resources of an enemy; and we do not necessarily -respect in other people qualities which, in our own interests, we -should like them to possess—qualities of subservience, submission, -and timidity, which we are quite willing to make use of even while we -despise them. - -This latter attitude, it seems to me, is the attitude of man to woman. -For generations the training of woman has been directed towards the -encouragement in her of certain qualities and characteristics—such -as subservience, narrowness of mind, stupidity—all of them designed -to promote the comfort and well-being of her owner, but none of them -calculated to arouse in him a sensation of esteem. One may be kind to a -person who is subservient, narrow-minded, and stupid; but one does not -respect that person. It is no reproach whatever to a man to say that -he does not respect women so long as he believes (and is encouraged -to believe) that their only interests in life are the interests -represented in a newspaper by the page entitled, _Woman’s World_, -or the _Sphere of Woman_—a page dealing with face-powder, frilled -nightgowns, and anchovy toast. No sane and intelligent man could feel -any real respect for a woman whose world was summed up in these things. -If the face-powder were applied with discretion and the directions on -the subject of anchovy toast carried out with caution, he might find -her an ornament as well as a convenience in his home; but it would be -impossible for him to respect her, because she would not be, in the -proper sense of the word, respectable. If he encourages the type, it is -not because he respects it. - -It may, of course, be urged that woman’s claim to reverence and respect -is based on far higher and surer ground than mere intelligence, or -even character—on the fulfilment of her duties as wife and mother. -Personally, I fail to see that any very great measure of respect or -reverence is dealt out to her on this or any other ground—except, -perhaps, now and again on paper; and even if it were, I should not, -under present conditions, consider it justified. As long as the -fulfilment of those duties is not a purely voluntary action on the -part of woman, it gives her no claim upon any one’s respect. Heroism -under pressure is not heroism at all; and there is, to my mind, nothing -the least exalted or noble in bringing up children, cooking chops, -and cleaning doorsteps merely because very few other ways of earning -a decent living happen to be open to you. And so long as marriage and -motherhood are not matters of perfectly free choice on the part of the -majority of women, so long will the performance of the duties incurred -by marriage and motherhood, however onerous and however important, -constitute no particular title to respect. - -In so far as men do respect women, and not despise them, it seems -to me that they respect them for exactly those qualities which they -esteem in each other—and which, paradoxically enough, are for the -most part exactly those qualities which they have done their best to -erase and eradicate from the feminine character. The characteristics -which make a man or a woman “respectable” are not the characteristics -of subserviency and servility; on the contrary, those particular -characteristics, even when encouraged for interested reasons, are -rightly and naturally regarded with contempt. They may be more -comfortable to live with—man evidently thinks so—but, comfortable -or not, they are despised instinctively. They have their reward, no -doubt; but that reward is not reverence and respect—since reverence -and respect must be commanded, not coaxed or cringed for. A woman -who insists on flinging aside the traditions of her early training, -standing on her own feet, fighting her own battle, and doing that which -is right in her own eyes, may not get from man anything more than -respect, but, in the long run, she will certainly get that. It may be -given grudgingly, but it will be given, all the same; since courage and -independence of thought are qualities respectable in themselves. And, -on the other hand, and however much he may desire to do so, it is, I -should say, quite impossible for any thinking man to entertain a real -reverence and esteem for a section of humanity which he believes to -exist solely in order to perform certain animal functions connected -with, and necessary to, the reproduction of the race. After all, it is -not upon the performance of a purely animal function that a human being -should found his or her title to respect; if woman is reverenced only -because she reproduces her kind, a still higher meed of reverence is -due to the rabbit. - -And in this connection it is interesting to note that the mediæval -institution of chivalry, with its exalted, if narrow, ideal of -reverence for, and service of, womanhood, took its rise and flourished -in times when the housekeeping and child-bearing trade was not the -only occupation open to women; when, on the contrary, they had, in the -religious life, an alternative career, equally honoured with, if not -more honoured than, marriage; and when it was not considered essential -to the happiness and well-being of every individual woman to pair off, -after the fashion of the animals going into the ark. Whatever the -defects and drawbacks of conventual life, it stood for the principle, -denied before and since, that woman had an existence of her own apart -from man, a soul to be saved apart from man. It was a flat defiance of -the theory that she came into the world only to marry and reproduce her -kind; it acknowledged and admitted the importance of her individual -life and conduct; in short, it recognized her as something besides -a wife and a mother, and gave her other claims to respect than that -capacity for reproduction which she shared with the lower animals. -Further, by making celibacy an honourable instead of a despised estate, -it must have achieved an important result from an economic point of -view; it must have lessened the congestion in the marriage market by -lessening the number of women who regarded spinsterhood as the last -word in failure. It enhanced the value of the wife and mother by making -it not only possible, but easy, for her to become something else. It -opened up a career to an ambitious woman; since, in the heyday of the -Church, the head of a great community of nuns was something more than -a recluse—a power in the land, an administrator of estates. None of -these things, of course, were in the minds of those who instituted the -celibate, conventual life as a refuge from the world; they were its -unforeseen results, but none the less real because unforeseen. They -followed on the institution of the conventual life for woman because it -represented the only organized attempt ever made to free her from the -necessity of compulsory marriage and child-bearing. - -I have no bias, religious or otherwise, in favour of the conventual -life, which, as hitherto practised, is no doubt open to objection on -many grounds; but it seems to me that any institution or system which -admits or implies a reason for woman’s existence other than sexual -intercourse and the reproduction of her kind must tend inevitably to -raise the position not only of the celibate woman, but, indirectly, of -the wife and mother. In its palmy days, when it was a factor not only -in the spiritual life of a religious body, but in the temporal life of -the State, the convent, with all its defects, must have stood for the -advancement of women; and if it had never come into existence, I very -much doubt whether the injunctions laid upon knighthood would have -included respect for and service of womanhood. - -The upheaval which we term the Reformation, whatever its other merits, -was distinctly anti-feminist in its tendencies. Where it did not sweep -the convent away altogether, it narrowed its scope and sapped its -influence; and, being anti-feminist, evolved no new system to take -the place of that which it had swept away. The necessity of replacing -the monk by the schoolmaster was recognized, but not the necessity -of replacing the nun by the schoolmistress; the purely physical and -reproductive idea of woman being once again uppermost, the need for -training her mind no longer existed. The masterful women of the -Renaissance had few successors; and John Knox, with his _Monstrous -Regiment of Women_, but the mouthpiece of an age which was setting -vigorously to work to discourage individuality and originality in the -weaker sex by condemning deviations from the common type to be burnt as -witches. - -This favourite pastime of witch-burning has not, I think, been -sufficiently taken into account in estimating the reason for the -low standard of intelligence attained by women at a time when -men were making considerable progress in social and intellectual -fields. The general impression appears to be that only old, ugly, -and decrepit hags fell victims to popular superstition or the -ingenuity of the witch-finder; but, as a matter of fact, when the -craze for witch-finding was at its height, any sort of peculiarity, -even beauty of an unusual and arresting type, seems to have been -sufficient to expose a woman to the suspicion of secret dealings -with the Prince of Darkness. At first sight it seems curious (since -the religious element in a people is usually the feminine element) -that the Prince of Darkness should have confined his dealings almost -exclusively to women—it has been estimated that wizards were done -to death in the proportion of one to several thousand witches; but -on further consideration one inclines to the belief that the fury of -witch-burning by which our ancestors were possessed must have been -prompted by motives other than purely devotional. In all probability -those motives were largely unconscious; but the rage of persecution -against the witch has so much in common with the customary masculine -policy of repressing, at any cost, all deviations from the type of -wife-and-mother-and-nothing-else, that one cannot help the suspicion -that it was more or less unconsciously inspired by that policy. - - - - -XI - - -So far as I have treated of the various influences which have been -brought to bear upon women with the object of fitting them for the -trade to which the male half of humanity desired to confine them; and I -have, I hope, made it clear that, to a certain extent, these influences -have defeated their own ends by discouraging the intelligence which -ought to be a necessary qualification for motherhood, even if it is not -a necessary qualification for wifehood. It remains to be considered -what effect this peculiar training for one particular and peculiar -trade has had upon woman’s activity in those departments of the world’s -work which are not connected with marriage and motherhood, how it has -acted upon her capacity for wage-earning and bread-winning on her own -account, how it has affected her power of achievement in every other -direction; what, in short, has been its effect upon woman in the life -that she leads apart from man. (I must ask the male reader to be good -enough to assume, even if he cannot honestly believe, that woman can, -and occasionally does, lead a life apart from man.) - -And one notes, to begin with, that the customary training, or lack of -training, for marriage tends almost inevitably to induce that habit and -attitude of mind which is known as amateurishness. And particularly, I -should say, in the large class of society, which we describe roughly as -the middle class; where the uncertainty with regard to the position, -profession and consequent manner of living of the probable husband -is so great as to make a thorough and businesslike training for the -future nearly an impossibility. The element of chance—an element -which plays such a very large part in the life, at any rate, of the -average married woman—may upset all calculations based on the probable -occupation and requirements of the husband, render carefully acquired -accomplishments useless or unnecessary, and call for the acquirement -of others hitherto unwanted and even undreamed of. Two sisters brought -up in exactly the same surroundings and educated in exactly the same -manner may marry, the one a flourishing professional or city man, who -expects her to dress well, talk well, give good dinners and generally -entertain his friends; the other a man whose work lies on the frontier -of civilization where she will find it necessary to learn something of -the management of horses and to manufacture her own soap and candles. -While a third sister in the same family may never marry at all, but -pass her life in furnished apartments, being waited on by landladies. -These may be extreme, but they are not very unusual instances of the -large part taken by sheer chance in the direction of a woman’s life -and the consequent impossibility of mapping out and preparing for the -future. Hence a lack of thoroughness and an attitude towards life of -helplessness and what I have called amateurishness. (The corresponding -male attitude is found in the unskilled labourer of the “odd job” -type.) Hence also the common feminine habit of neglecting more solid -attainments in order to concentrate the energies on an endeavour to be -outwardly attractive. - -This concentration of energy on personal adornment, usually attributed -to vanity or overflowing sexuality, is, so far as I can see, largely -the outcome of a sound business instinct. For, be it remembered, -that the one solid fact upon which an ordinary marriageable girl has -to build the edifice of her life is the fact that men are sensitive -to, and swayed by, that quality in woman which is called personal -charm. What else her future husband will demand of her is more or -less guess-work—nothing upon which to raise a solid foundation of -preparation for his requirements and her own. He may require her to sit -at the head of his table and talk fashionable gossip to his friends; -he may require her to saddle horses and boil soap; the only thing she -can be fairly certain of is that he will require her to fulfil his -idea of personal attractiveness. As a matter of business then, and not -purely from vanity, she specializes in personal attractiveness; and -the care, the time and the thoroughness which many women devote to -their own adornment, the choosing of their dresses and the curling of -their hair is thoroughly professional and a complete contrast to their -amateurishness in other respects. - -The cultivation of personal charm, sometimes to the neglect of more -solid and valuable attainments, is the more natural, because, as I have -already pointed out, the material rewards of wifehood and motherhood -have no connection at all with excellence in the performance of the -duties of wifehood and motherhood—the wage paid to a married woman -being merely a wage for the possession of her person. That being the -case, the one branch of woman’s work which is likely to bring her a -material reward in the shape of an economically desirable husband is -cultivation of a pleasing exterior and attractive manners; and to this -branch of work she usually, when bent on marriage, applies herself in -the proper professional spirit. A sensible, middle-class mother may -insist on her daughter receiving adequate instruction in the drudgery -of household work and cookery; but if the daughter should be fortunate -enough to marry well such instruction will be practically wasted, -since the scrubbing, the stewing, the frying and the making of beds, -will inevitably be deputed to others. And the sensible, middle-class -mother is quite aware that her daughter’s chance of marrying well and -shirking disagreeable duties does not depend on the excellent manner -in which she performs those duties, but on the quality of her personal -attractions. The cultivation of her personal attractions, therefore, is -really a more important and serious business for the girl who desires -to marry than the acquirement of domestic accomplishments, which may, -or may not, be useful in her after life, and which in themselves are -unlikely to secure her the needful husband. This state of things is -frankly recognized in the upper or wealthier ranks of society. There -the typical domestic arts find practically no place in a girl’s scheme -of training, which is directed solely towards the end of making her -personally attractive and therefore desirable. Which means, of course, -that those women who are in a position to do so concentrate their -energies on the cultivation of those particular outward qualities by -which alone they can hope to satisfy their ambition, their need for -comfort, luxury, etc., or their desire to bring children into the -world. They recognize that however much man may profess to admire -the domestic and maternal qualities in woman, it is not that side of -her which arouses in him the desire for possession, and that the most -effective means of arousing that desire for possession is personal -charm. We have been told that every woman is at heart a rake; it would, -I think, be more correct to say that every woman who desires to attract -some member of the opposite sex so that she may marry and bear children -must, whatever she is at heart, be something of a rake on the surface. - -With girls of the working-class, of course, a certain amount of -training in domestic work is usually gone through, since it is obvious -that domestic work will be required of them in after life; but even in -the humblest ranks of society the rule holds good that it is personal -attractiveness and not skill in the duties required of a wife and -mother which make a girl sought after and admired by the opposite sex. -Consequently even working-class wives and mothers, women who have -no chance of deputing their duties to paid servants, are frequently -nothing but amateurs at their trade—which they have only acquired -incidentally. In practically all ranks of society the real expert in -housekeeping or the care and management of infants is the “unattached” -woman who works in other people’s houses and attends to other people’s -children. She is the professional who knows her business and earns her -living by it; the wife and mother, as often as not, being merely the -amateur. - -Human nature, and especially male human nature, being what it is, I do -not know whether it is possible or even desirable that this state of -things should be altered. My object in calling attention to it is not -to suggest alteration (I have none to suggest), but simply to point -out that women who are brought up in the expectation of marriage and -nothing but marriage are almost of necessity imbued with that spirit of -amateurishness which makes for inefficiency; and that this spirit has -to be taken into account in estimating their difficulties where they -have to turn their attention to other trades than marriage. - -There are several other respects in which the marriage tradition (by -which I mean the practical identification during many generations of -womanhood with wifehood and motherhood) acts as a drag and a hindrance -to the woman who, married or unmarried and with or against her will, -has been swept out of the sacred and narrow sphere of home to compete -for a wage in the open market. (Be it remembered that she is now -numbered not by hundreds or thousands, but by millions.) As I have -already pointed out, the trade of marriage is, by its very nature, an -isolated trade, permitting of practically no organization or common -action amongst the workers; and consequently the marriage-trained woman -(and nearly all women are marriage-trained—or perhaps it would be more -correct to say marriage expectant) enters industrial or commercial life -with no tradition of such organization and common action behind her. - -I do not think that the average man realizes how much the average woman -is handicapped by the lack of this tradition, nor does he usually -trouble to investigate the causes of his own undoubted superiority -in the matter of combination and all that combination implies. In -accordance with his usual custom of explaining the shortcomings of -womanhood by an inferiority that is inherent and not artificial and -induced, he assumes that women cannot combine for industrial and other -purposes because it is “natural” for them to be jealous and distrustful -of one another. (This assumption is, of course, an indirect compliment -to himself, since the jealousy and distrust of women for each other -is understood to be inspired solely by their overpowering desire to -attract the admiration of the opposite sex.) - -This simple and—to man—flattering explanation of woman’s inferiority -in this respect completely fails to take into account the fact that -the art of combination for a common purpose has been induced in one -half of humanity by influences which have not been brought to bear -upon the other half. I do not suppose that even the firmest and most -hardened believer in woman’s essential disloyalty, treachery and -incapacity for common action, would venture to maintain that if all -the men of past generations had been compelled to earn their living at -isolated forms of labour—say, as lighthouse-keepers or shepherds in -mountainous districts— the faculty of united action for common ends -would be very highly developed amongst them. As I have already tried to -show, in the division of labour between the two sexes man has almost -invariably reserved for himself (having the power to do so, and because -he considered them preferable) those particular occupations which -brought him into frequent contact with his fellows, which entailed -meeting others and working side by side with them; and this frequent -contact with his fellows was, in itself, a form of education which has -been largely denied to the other half of humanity. Woman’s intercourse -with her kind has been much more limited in extent, and very often -purely and narrowly social in character. Until comparatively recent -years it was unusual for women to form one of a large body of persons -working under similar conditions and conscious of similar interests. It -is scarcely to be wondered at that the modern system of industrialism -with its imperative need for co-operation and common effort should -have found her—thanks to her training—unprepared and entirely at a -disadvantage. - -It must be remembered also that the generality and mass of women have -never come under the direct influence of two of the most potent factors -in the social education and evolution of man as we know him—war and -politics. However de-civilizing an agency war may appear to-day, it -has not been without its civilizing influence, since it was through -the necessity of standing side by side for purposes of offence and -defence that man first learned the art of combining for a common end, -and acquired the virtues, at first purely military, that, in course -of time and under different circumstances, were to develop into civic -virtues. The camp was the state in embryo, the soldier the citizen in -embryo, and the military tradition the collective and social tradition -of organization for a common purpose and common interests. In the face -of a common peril, such as war, men readily forget their differences -and work shoulder to shoulder. Hence an appeal to the fears or the -warlike spirit of a discontented people is the instinctive refuge of -a government in difficulties, since there is no means so effective -for producing at least a passing phase of unity amongst the jarring -elements of a nation. - -Woman, so far as one can judge, is, when occasion arises, just as much -influenced by that necessity of common action in a common danger which -first produced unity of effort and public spirit in man; but for her, -as a rule, occasion has not arisen. Now and again under exceptional -circumstances, such as a desperate and hard-fought siege, she has shown -that the sense of peril acts upon her in exactly the same way as it -acts upon her brethren; but the actual waging of battle has not often, -even in the most turbulent of ages, entered into her life to teach her -(along with other and less desirable lessons) the lesson of united -effort and subordination of individual interest to the common weal. - -The exclusion of woman from the arena of politics has barred to -her another method of acquiring the art of combination and the -strength that inevitably springs from it; an exclusion based upon -the deep-rooted masculine conviction that she exists not for her own -benefit and advantage, but for the comfort and convenience of man. -Granted that she came into the world for that purpose only, the right -of effective combination in her own interests is clearly unnecessary -and undesirable, since it might possibly lead to results not altogether -conducive to the comfort and convenience of man. The masculine attitude -in this matter seems quite logical. - - - - -XII - - -The above are not the only respects in which the peculiar training -for, or expectation of, marriage acts disadvantageously upon woman -as soon as she steps outside the walls of the home to earn her bread -by other means than household work and the bearing and rearing of -children. I have already pointed out that the wage she receives for -her work as a wife and mother is the lowest that she can receive—a -wage of subsistence only; and I believe that the exceedingly low rate -at which her services inside the home are valued has had a great deal -to do with the exceedingly low value placed upon her services outside -the home. Because her work as a wife and mother was rewarded only by -a wage of subsistence, it was assumed that no other form of work she -undertook was worthy of a higher reward; because the only trade that -was at one time open to her was paid at the lowest possible rate, it -was assumed that in every other trade into which she gradually forced -her way she must also be paid at the lowest possible rate. The custom -of considering her work as worthless (from an economic point of view) -originated in the home, but it has followed her out into the world. -Since the important painful and laborious toil incurred by marriage and -motherhood was not deemed worthy of any but the lowest possible wage, -it was only natural that other duties, often far less toilsome and -important, should also be deemed unworthy of anything much in the way -of remuneration. - -It is very commonly assumed, of course, that the far higher rate of -wage paid to a man is based on the idea that he has, or probably will -have, a wife and children for whom he is bound to make provision. -If this were really the case, a widow left with a young family to -support by her labour, or even the mother of an illegitimate child, -would be paid for her work on the same basis as a man is paid for -performing similar duties. It is hardly needful to state that the -mother of fatherless children is not, as a rule, paid more highly than -her unmarried sister. Nor is the theory that the “unattached” woman -has only herself to support, and does not contribute to the needs of -others, borne out by facts. I believe that in all ranks of society -there is a pronounced disposition on the part of the family to regard -the income, earned or unearned, of its female members as something in -the nature of common property—the income, earned or unearned, of its -male members as much more of an individual possession. Wives who work -for a wage in factories, workshops, etc., usually devote the whole of -their earnings to the upkeep of the home; their husbands very commonly -only a part. Where sons and daughters of the same family go out to -work and live under one roof, it is customary for the girls to put -practically the entire amount of their wage into the common domestic -fund, while their brothers, from quite early years, pay a fixed sum to -cover the expenses of their board and lodging, retaining, as a matter -of course, the rest of their earnings for their own individual use. -And, so far as my observation goes, the same rule holds good in the -upper and middle classes. In the case of any monetary difficulty, any -need of financial help, the appeal, in the first instance, is nearly -always made to those women of the family who are understood to be in -a position to respond to it; it is tacitly assumed that they must be -the first to suffer and sacrifice themselves, the men of the family -being appealed to only when the women are unable or unwilling to meet -the demand. My experience may be unusual, but I have met very few -working-women of any class who, earning a decent livelihood at their -trade or profession, were not called upon to share their livelihood -with others. - -It is not, therefore, on the ground that she has no one but herself -to support that a woman is almost invariably paid at a rate far lower -than the wage which would be given to a man for the performance of -the same work. A good many causes have combined to bring about the -sweating of women customary in most, if not all, departments of the -labour market; but it seems to me that not the least of those causes -is the long-established usage of regarding the work of a wife in the -home as valueless from the economic point of view—a thing to be -paid for (if paid for at all) by occasional gushes of sentiment. -Woman and wife being, according to masculine ideas, interchangeable -terms, it follows that, since the labour of a wife is valueless from -the economic point of view, the labour of any woman is valueless. -Naturally enough, this persistent undervaluing of her services has had -its effect upon woman herself; having been taught for generations that -she must expect nothing but the lowest possible wage for her work, she -finds considerable difficulty in realizing that it is worth more—and -undersells her male competitor. Thereupon angry objections on the part -of the male competitor, who fails to realize that cheap female labour -is one of the inevitable results of the complete acceptance by woman of -the tradition of her own inferiority to himself. - -One wonders what sort of generation of women that would be which grew -from childhood to maturity unhampered and unhindered by the tradition -of its own essential inferiority to the male half of humanity. Such -a generation, at present, is a matter of pure guesswork; at least, I -have never yet known the woman, however independent, self-reliant, -indulged, or admired, who was not in some way affected by that -tradition—consciously or unconsciously. Even those of us who have -never known what it was to have a man to lean on, who have had to -fight our way through the world as the average male fights his, and -(since things are made infinitely easier for him) under disadvantages -unknown to the average man—even we find ourselves, unaccountably and -at unexpected moments, acting in accordance with the belief in which -we were reared, and deferring to the established tradition of inherent -masculine superiority; deferring to it after a fashion that, being -realized, is amusing to ourselves. - -The effect of this attitude of the two sexes towards each other—an -attitude of inherent and essential superiority on the one side, of -inherent and essential inferiority on the other—is nearly always -apparent when men and women work together at the same trade. (Apparent, -at least, to the women; the men, one concludes, do not really grasp the -system by which they benefit.) What I refer to is the ordered, tacit, -but usually quite conscious endeavour on the part of women who work -side by side with men to defer to a superiority, real or supposed, on -the part of their male colleagues. Thus a woman will not only decline -to call attention to a blunder or oversight on the part of a male -fellow-worker, but she will, if possible, cover up his mistake, even if -she suffer by it, and, at any rate, will try to give him the impression -that it has escaped her notice; and this under circumstances where no -sort of injury to the blunderer would be involved, and which would not -prevent her from calling prompt attention to a similar slip if made by -a colleague of her own sex. - -I have not the slightest doubt that this tendency on the part of -the working or business woman to pass over in silence the errors or -mistakes of the working or business man is attributed by the latter -(if, indeed, he notices it at all) to some mysterious operation of -the sexual instinct; while the lack of a similar palliative attitude -towards the errors and mistakes of a comrade of her own sex is, I -should imagine, attributed to the natural, inevitable, and incorrigible -“cattiness” of one woman towards another—the belief in such a natural, -inevitable, and incorrigible “cattiness” being a comfortable article -of the masculine faith. - -The practice, it seems to me, can be explained without having recourse -to the all-pervading sexual instinct (usually understood to regulate -every action performed by women, from the buttoning of boots to the -swallowing of cough-drops). A similar practice, which can hardly -have originated in the sexual instinct, obtains amongst male persons -conscious of inferiority and desirous of standing well with their -superiors. Junior clerks are in the habit of preserving a discreet -silence with regard to errors of judgment traceable to employers, -managers, and heads of firms; and the understrapper who wishes to get -on in the world seldom makes a point of calling public attention to -the shortcomings of foremen and others who are set in authority over -him. On the contrary, he is usually—and wisely—tender towards their -failings; and in the same way women are frequently tender towards the -failings of those who, by virtue of sex and not of position, they -believe to be set in authority over them. The attitude in this respect -of working-woman to working-man is, as often as not, the attitude of -a subordinate, and in itself an acknowledgment of inferiority; it has -about it that tinge of servility which enjoins the turning of a blind -eye to the faults of a superior. - -I do not mean that the practice of condoning masculine slips is always -prompted by an unthinking and servile compliance; on the contrary, it -is very general amongst the increasing class of women who have learned -to consider themselves as good as their masters—no less general, I -should say, than amongst those who accept feminine inferiority to -the male as a decree of nature. In their case the tenderness shown -to masculine failings, the desire to save the masculine “face,” is -usually quite conscious—I myself have heard it frankly discussed, -analyzed, and commented upon, time after time, by women whose -occupations brought them into daily contact with men. And as the -result of such frank discussion, analysis, and comment, I am inclined -to believe that on the whole the motives which, in this particular -class of women, induce extra consideration for the failings of a male -fellow-worker are motives which, in man himself, would probably be -described as chivalrous. Those of us who rub shoulders day after day -with the ordinary man are perfectly well aware that the ordinary man -(however much and however kindly he may seek to conceal the fact from -us) regards us as his inferiors in mental capacity; and that hence he -feels a peculiar and not unnatural soreness at having his errors and -failings either exposed to us or exposed by us. To be shown up before -your inferior brings with it, to most people, a sense of degradation; -to be shown up by your inferior makes the sense of degradation yet more -keenly unpleasant. - -Most women who have had to pit their brain against the brain of the -ordinary man have learned to realize—sometimes with amusement, -sometimes, perhaps, with a measure of exultation—that the ordinary -man’s very belief in their essential inferiority has placed in their -hands a weapon whose edge is infinitely keener than any that he -possesses to use against them. It is just because she is regarded as -his inferior that it is in the power of a woman to humiliate a man -by the simple process of getting the better of him or holding his -weaknesses up to contempt. When we quarrel or argue with an average -man we know perfectly well that the vantage of the ground is ours; we -know perfectly well that defeat, for us, will not bring humiliation -in its train; that our antagonist, imbued with the conviction of his -own intense and inherent natural superiority, will take his victory -as a matter of course, and think it no disgrace to us that we have -been routed by a higher intelligence than our own. We have not much to -lose by defeat, we are not degraded by it—because we are the weaker -side. With a man who gets the worst of it in a contest with a woman -the case is quite different; since he suffers, in addition to actual -defeat, all the humiliation of the stronger when beaten by the weaker, -of the superior routed by the inferior force. With him defeat is not -only defeat, but ignominy; his vanity is wounded and his prestige -lowered. That being the case, the often expressed dislike of the -clever woman—that is to say, of the woman who possesses the power to -humiliate—is comprehensible enough. - -It is, I think, because so many women realize how bitterly the ordinary -man resents and suffers under defeat by an inferior that they humour -and are tolerant of his somewhat galling attitude of what has been -called—I think by Mr. Bernard Shaw—intellectual condescension. They -realize that the punishment which it is in their power to inflict -on the offender would be out of all proportion to the unintentional -offence—infinitely harder and sharper than it deserves. It is for this -reason, I believe, that a woman, unless she is really stirred to strong -indignation and consequent loss of self-control, will seldom attempt to -“show up” a man or drive him into a corner with unanswerable argument. -Under far less provocation she would probably “show up” or corner a -woman; not because she bears a natural grudge against her own sex, but -because her victory over one of her own sex is a victory over an equal, -and does not necessarily involve wounded self-esteem and humiliation on -the part of the vanquished. The same decent instinct which prevents a -man from striking her with his clenched fist prevents her from striking -too hard at his self-esteem. - -As far as my experience goes, this need of humouring the belief of -the average man in his own essential intellectual superiority is— -though not without its amusing side—a constant source of worry and -petty hindrance to the woman who has to earn her living by any form -of brain-work which brings her into contact with men. It means, of -course, that she puts a drag on her natural capacities, and attempts to -appear less efficient than she really is; it means that ideas which one -man would reveal frankly to another, suggestions which one man would -make openly to another, have by her to be wrapped up, hinted at, and -brought into operation by devious ways—lest the “predominant partner” -should take alarm at the possibility of being guided and prompted -by an inferior intelligence. The only remedy for such a tiresome -and unnecessary state of things seems to be the recognition by the -“predominant partner” of the fact that the human female is not entirely -composed of sex (inferior to his own); that the brain is not a sexual -organ; and that there is a neutral ground of intelligence (from which -sex and its considerations are excluded) where man and woman can meet -and hold intercourse, mutually unhampered by etiquette and respect for -a vulnerable masculine dignity. - - - - -XIII - - -In dealing with the training for marriage, I pointed out that the -qualities which make for success in the matrimonial market have -little or no connection with the qualities required for the efficient -performance of what is supposed to be the life-work of woman—the -care of home, of husband and of children. I pointed out that the -characteristics which are likely to obtain for a girl a desirable -husband are not the same characteristics which will have to be brought -into play if the husband, when he is obtained, is to find in her a -desirable wife from the domestic point of view; and that, as a general -rule, she is promoted to what should be the important and responsible -position of wife and mother on the strength of attainments which have -nothing to do with her fitness for the duties of that position. - -The habit of judging a woman entirely by externals—appearance, dress, -and manners—is not confined to the man who is in search of a wife. -(“Judging” is, perhaps, the wrong phrase to use—it is, rather, a habit -of resigning judgment so as to fall completely under the influence of -externals.) It is very general amongst all classes of male employers, -and its result is, it seems to me, a serious bar to efficiency in -women’s work. It pays better in the marriage market to be attractive -than to be efficient, and in a somewhat lesser degree the same rule -holds good in certain other departments of women’s labour. - -To a certain degree, of course, a man’s fitness for any particular work -is judged by externals; but never to the same degree as a woman’s. -Further, the judgment passed upon a man who is chosen to fill a -vacancy because his prospective employer “likes the look of him” has -some relation to the qualities which will be required of him in the -execution of the duties he will be called upon to perform—it is not -biased by irrelevant considerations of sex. A merchant will like the -looks of a clerk who has the outward appearance of being smart, well -mannered, well educated, and intelligent; an employer who wishes to -engage a man for work which involves the carrying of heavy sacks will -like the looks of a man who is possessed of muscular arms and a pair of -broad shoulders. In each case he is favourably influenced by the man’s -externals because they seem to him to indicate the qualities which he -requires in his prospective employé. - -The number of men who could engage a young woman to work under them -on this purely commercial and unemotional basis is, I should say, -comparatively limited. I do not mean, of course, that the element of -sexual attraction enters consciously into the calculations of the -ordinary male employer when engaging a woman, but it certainly enters -unconsciously into the calculations of a good many. A man who says -that he likes the looks of a girl whom he has engaged to fill the -position of typist or cashier, does not usually mean at all the same -thing that he means when he says that he likes the looks of his new -porter or junior clerk: he does not mean that the girl strikes him as -appearing particularly fitted for the duties of typist or cashier—more -alert, more intelligent, or more experienced than her unsuccessful -competitors for the post—but that she has the precise shape of nose, -the exact shade of hair, or the particular variety of smile or manner -that he admires and finds pleasing. That is to say, he is influenced in -engaging her by considerations unconnected with her probable fitness -for the duties of her post, since a straight nose, auburn hair, or -an engaging smile have no necessary connection with proficiency in -typewriting or accounts. - -I am not insisting on this intrusion of the sexual element into the -business relations of men and women in any fault-finding spirit; I -call attention to it merely in order to show that the conditions -under which women obtain their bread in the labour market are not -precisely the same as the conditions under which men obtain theirs. -The intrusion of the sexual element into commercial relations may be -not only unavoidable, but defensible and desirable, on other than -commercial grounds; but it must be admitted that it does not tend to -encourage efficiency, and the necessary discouragement of efficiency -should be taken into account in estimating the value of woman’s -work in many departments of the labour market. I do not know whether -the consciousness that they are liable to be promoted or degraded -in business matters for reasons which have nothing to do with their -business merits or demerits is humiliating or the reverse to the -majority of women, but I do know that it is humiliating to some. (Not -only to those who are deficient in good looks; I have frequently -heard it resented by those whom the system favoured.) There is, too, -a certain amount of irritating uncertainty about the working of the -system, one man’s taste in feminine looks varying from that of his -next-door neighbour. - -As in marriage, so in other departments of the labour market, the -result of this tendency to appraise a woman on the strength of -externals alone has been the intellectual deterioration of the -good-looking girl. I should be very sorry to have to maintain that -the good-looking girl is necessarily born less intelligent than her -plainer sister; but I do not think that it can be denied that it is -made extremely easy for her to become so. The conspicuously attractive -girl who enters a trade or business usually takes a very short time to -find out that her advancement depends more on her conspicuous personal -attractions than on the steady work and strict attendance to business -which has to be rendered by the woman less bountifully endowed by -nature. Hence she has every inducement to be less thorough in her work, -less intelligent, less reliable, and less trustworthy. The deep-rooted -masculine conviction that brains and repulsiveness invariably go -together in woman has this much justification in fact—the unattractive -girl has to rely on her work and intelligence for advancement and -livelihood, and, therefore, is not exposed to the temptation to allow -her brains to run to seed as unnecessary. There is plenty of proof that -the temptation is often resisted by the woman born beautiful; but she -is exposed to it all the same, and is not to be over blamed when she -succumbs. - -There is one other disadvantage under which women’s work in the paid -labour market is apt to suffer—a disadvantage from which men’s work is -exempt, and which is directly traceable to the idea that marriage is -woman’s only trade. I alluded to it in an earlier chapter when I spoke -of the common masculine attitude on the subject of feminine competition -and the common masculine conviction that woman can somehow manage to -exist without the means of supporting existence. One result of the -assumption that every woman is provided with the necessaries of life by -a husband, father, or other male relative is that the atmosphere which -surrounds the working-woman is considerably more chilling than that -which surrounds the working-man. His right to work is recognized; hers -is not. He is more or less helped, stimulated, and encouraged to work; -she is not. On the contrary, her entry into the paid labour market -is often discouraged and resented. The difference is, perhaps, most -clearly marked in those middle-class families where sons and daughters -alike have no expectation of independence by inheritance, but where -money, time, and energy are spent in the anxious endeavour to train and -find suitable openings for the sons, and the daughters left to shift -for themselves and find openings as they can. The young man begins his -life in an atmosphere of encouragement and help; the young woman in -one of discouragement, or, at best, of indifference. Her brother’s -work is recognized as something essentially important; hers despised as -something essentially unimportant—even although it brings her in her -bread. Efforts are made to stimulate his energy, his desire to succeed; -no such efforts are made to stimulate hers.... And it is something, in -starting work, to feel that you are engaged on work that matters. - - - - -XIV - - -There is one field for the activities of women upon which as yet I have -not touched. It is a field where they come into direct competition with -the activities of men; from which, moreover, they have not always been -so completely and so jealously excluded as they have been from other -spheres of the world’s work. I mean the field of art and literature. - -Let it be admitted, at once and without hesitation, that women have not -made much of a mark in art and literature; that whatever we may achieve -in the future we have given little of achievement to the past. Women -artists of the first rank in whatever medium—in words, in music, in -colour, in form—there have been none; and of the second rank and of -the third rank but few—a very few. Let it be admitted that there has -come down to us a goodly heritage of the wisdom, the aspiration and -inspiration of our fathers, and that of the wisdom, the aspiration and -the inspiration of our mothers (for some they must have had) there has -come down to us practically nothing. Art, as we know it, is a masculine -product, wrought by the hands and conceived by the brains of men; the -works of art that have forced themselves into the enduring life of the -world have been shaped, written, builded, painted by men. They have -achieved and we have imitated—on the whole, pitifully. Let that be -admitted; and then let it also be admitted that it could hardly have -been otherwise, and that the wonder is that woman has wrought in art -not so little, but so much. - -For when one comes to consider the conditions under which successive -generations of women have lived such narrow life as was permitted to -them, have realized such narrow ambitions as they were permitted to -entertain, one begins to understand that it would have been something -of a miracle if there had arisen amongst them thinkers and artists -worthy to walk with the giants who have left their impress on the -race. One begins to understand that it would be difficult to devise a -better means of crushing out of the human system the individuality, -the sincerity and the freedom of thought and expression, which is the -very breath and inspiration of art, than the age-long training of -woman for compulsory marriage and the compulsory duties thereof. For -the qualities man has hitherto demanded and obtained in the woman he -delights to honour (and incidentally to subdue) have been qualities -incompatible with success in, or even with understanding of, art. - -It is better, perhaps, to pause here and explain; since one is always -liable to misinterpretation, and in the minds of many the term “artist” -is synonymous with a person having a tendency towards what is called -free love. Let me explain, then, that by marriage, in this connection, -I mean not only the estate of matrimony, but its unlegalized -equivalent. As far as art is concerned, the deadening influences -brought to bear upon the mistress are practically the same as those -brought to bear upon the wife. (Both, for instance, are required to be -attractive rather than sincere.) It is not, of course, actual sexual -intercourse, legalized or the reverse, which renders a woman incapable -of great creative art; it is the servile attitude of mind and soul -induced in her by the influences brought to bear on her in order to fit -her for the compulsory trade of marriage or its unsanctified equivalent. - -In earlier chapters I have dealt with these influences at considerable -length, striven to show exactly what they are and pointed out that -their aim was to induce the girl who would eventually become a woman -to conform to one particular and uniform type—the type admired and -sought after by the largest number of men. Hence the crushing out -of individuality, the elimination of the characteristics that make -for variety and the development of the imitative at the expense of -the creative qualities. From generation to generation the imperative -necessity of earning her livelihood in the only trade that was not -barred to her—of making for herself a place in the world not by -the grace of God but by the favour of man—has been a ceaseless -and unrelenting factor in the process of weeding out the artistic -products of woman’s nature. The deliberate stunting and repression -of her intellectual faculties, the setting up for her admiration and -imitation of the ideal of the “silly angel,” have all contributed -to make of her not only a domestic animal, more or less sleek and -ornamental, but a Philistine as well. Silly angels may, from the male -point of view, be desirable and even adorable creatures; but one would -not entrust them with the building of temples or the writing of great -books. (Personally, I would not entrust them with the bringing up of -children; but that is another matter.) - -Art that is vital demands freedom of thought and expression, wide -liberty of outlook and unhampered liberty of communication. And what -freedom of thought and expression can be expected from a section of -humanity which has not even a moral standard of its own, and adds to -every “thou shalt not” in its law the saving and unspoken clause, -“unless my master shall desire it of me.” A man’s body may be enslaved -and subdued and the faculties of the thinker and the artist still be -left alive in him; but they have never been known to survive when -once his mind has been subdued and brought down to utter subjection. -Epictetus came of a race that had known freedom; and the nameless man -who, by the waters of Babylon, poured out his passion in a torrent of -hatred and desire, wore no chains on his soul when he remembered Zion. - -It is the systematic concentration of woman’s energies upon the -acquirement of the particular qualities which are to procure her -a means of livelihood by procuring her the favour of man that has -deprived her, steadily and systematically, of the power of creation -and artistic achievement; so much so that the commonly accepted -ideals of what is known as a womanly woman are about as compatible -with the ideals of an artist as oil is compatible with water. The -methods of the one are repressive of self-development, calculated to -ingratiate, bound by convention, servile; the methods of the other -are self-assertive, experimental and untrammelled. The perfected type -of wife-and-mother-and-nothing-else sees life only through another’s -eyes; the artist through his own. Of a system designed to foster and -encourage the creative instinct in human beings one might safely -predict that it would have to be the exact opposite of the system still -in force for the conversion of the natural woman into the conventional -wife and mother. - -For the first and fundamental quality which such a system would aim -at cultivating would be sincerity; which is not in itself art, but -the foundation whereon art is laid. Without it, greatness in art or -literature is impossible; and for this reason greatness in art or -literature has hitherto been impossible to woman. The tendency and -purpose of her whole training has been the repression of individuality -and the inducement of artificiality; and even in the comparatively few -instances where she recognizes what her training has done for her, -when she realizes the poor thing it has made of her, and sets to work, -deliberately and of firm resolve, to counteract its effects upon her -life and character, it may take her the best part of a lifetime to -struggle free of her chains. She does not know what she really needs, -since from childhood upwards the natural bent of her inclinations -has been twisted and thwarted; her only guide is what she has been -told she ought to need. And thus she may waste years in attempting to -draw inspiration from a form of love which it is not in her to feel, -or from a passion for maternity which has no power to stir her to -achievement. - -This, at least, can safely be said: that any woman who has attained -to even a small measure of success in literature or art has done so -by discarding, consciously or unconsciously, the traditions in which -she was reared, by turning her back upon the conventional ideals of -dependence that were held up for her admiration in her youth. - - - - -XV - - -In dealing with this problem of the inferior place hitherto occupied -by woman in literature and art, let me admit, frankly and at once, -that I have none of the qualifications of a critic. Of the technique -of any branch of creative art I know practically nothing; nor can I -say that I have any great measure of curiosity concerning it. I must -confess to being one of that large mass of unenlightened persons who -judge of works of art simply and solely by the effect such works of -art produce upon themselves, who, where they are stirred to pleasure, -to reverence, or to laughter, are content to enjoy, to be reverent, -or to laugh, without too close inquiry as to the means whereby their -emotions are produced, with still less inquiry as to whether such -means be legitimate or the reverse. I speak, therefore, not from the -standpoint of the instructed critic, but from that of the public, more -or less impressionable, more or less uneducated, upon whom the artist -works; and it follows that when I speak of woman’s inferiority to man -in creative art I mean, not her inferiority in technique (whereon I am -not competent to express opinion), but her incapacity to arouse in the -ordinary human being such emotions of wonder, delight, and sorrow as -men who have the requisite skill in creative art have power to arouse. -I have thought it necessary to explain thus much lest my point of -view be misunderstood, and I be credited with an attempt to usurp the -functions of the trained critic. - -Speaking, then, as one of the common herd—the public—I ask myself -why it is that as a rule woman’s art leaves me cold, woman’s -literature unconvinced, dissatisfied, and even irritated? And the -only answer I can find is that they are artificial; that they are not -a representation of life or beauty seen by a woman’s eyes, but an -attempt to render life or beauty as man desires that a woman should -see and render it. The attempt is unconscious, no doubt; but it is -there—thwarting, destroying, and annulling. - -Perhaps it is necessary to be a woman oneself in order to understand -how weak, false, and insincere is the customary feminine attempt at -creative art. I do not think that a man can understand how bad most of -our work in art and literature really is, for the simple reason that -he cannot see the lie in it. He believes, for instance, that we are -such creatures as we represent ourselves to be in most of the books we -write; we only try to believe it. Wherein is all the difference between -a blunder and a lie. We cannot even draw ourselves, our passions and -emotions—because we are accustomed to look at ourselves, our passions -and emotions, not with our own eyes, but through the spectacles with -which he has provided us. When we come to portray our own hearts, it -would seem that they are almost as much of a mystery to ourselves -as they are to him; but then we are not striving to portray our own -hearts, but to describe beings who shall be something like what we have -been taught women ought to be (and to account for their actions by -motives which we have been told ought to actuate them). Because we have -been told that we are creatures existing only for love and maternity, -we draw creatures existing only for love and maternity—and call them -women. It is perfectly natural that men should draw such creatures; -they could not very well draw anything else, for they see them like -that. Their portraits are honest, if lop-sided; ours are lop-sided -without being honest—the result of an attempt to see ourselves through -another’s eyes. - -The point of view is everything. An artist is not to be blamed for -his natural limitations, for his inability to see beyond his range of -vision; but I am inclined to think that he ought to be execrated when -he proceeds to stunt his powers by imposing unnatural limitations on -himself. A man afflicted with a colour-blindness which leads him to -turn out a portrait of me resplendent in beetroot hair and eyes of a -vivid green cannot help himself. As he sees me, so he paints me; the -effect may be curious, but the thing itself is sincere. But that is no -reason why artists endowed with normal vision should bind themselves -down to slavish imitation of his peculiar colour-scheme. In the same -way a person who is convinced that woman is a form of animated doll -whereof the mechanism, when pressed on the right spot, squeaks out -the two ejaculations of, “I love you,” and “Oh, my dear baby,” has -a perfect right to describe her in those terms; but no woman has the -right so to describe herself. - -For countless generations the thoughts, the energies, and aspirations -of woman have been concentrated upon love and maternity; yet how many -are the works of art in which she has immortalized either passion which -have endured because they were stamped with the impress of her own -individuality and experience? For all that love is her whole existence, -no woman has ever sung of love as man has sung of it, has painted it, -has embodied it in drama. And of her attitude towards maternity what -has she told us in her art? Practically nothing that is illuminating, -that is not obvious, that has not been already said for her—usually -much better than she herself can say it. As a matter of fact, her -description of her emotions when she is in love or bears children is -not, as a rule, a first-hand description; it is a more or less careful, -more or less intelligent copy of the masculine conception of her -emotions under those particular circumstances. Thus the business-like -aspect of love in woman, the social or commercial necessity for sexual -intercourse is usually ignored by an imitative feminine art—because it -is lacking in man, and is, therefore, not really grasped by him. When -he becomes aware of it he dislikes it—and draws a Becky Sharp (who has -the secret sympathy of every woman not an heiress in her own right—if -also the openly-expressed contempt). - -Women who have treated of maternity in books or pictures have usually -handled it in exactly the same spirit in which it is commonly handled -by men—from what may be termed the conventional or Raphaelesque point -of view. That is to say, they treat it from the superficial point -of view of the outsider, the person who has no actual experience of -the subject; yet even the most acid and confirmed of spinsters has -an inside view of maternity unattainable by the most sympathetic and -intuitive of men—since it has once been a possibility in her life. -Yet from woman’s art and woman’s literature what does one learn of the -essential difference between the masculine and feminine fashion of -regarding that closest of all relations—the relation of mother and -child? - -I do not feel that I myself am qualified to define and describe that -difference. It will have to be defined and described by a woman who has -had experience of maternity; but at least I know that the difference -exists. Men are capable of being both reverent and ribald on the -subject of maternity; I have never met a woman who was either. (I have, -of course, met one or two women who adopted the reverent pose; but in -all such cases which have come within my experience it has been an -undoubted pose, a more or less unconscious imitation of the reverent -attitude in the men—usually husbands—with whom they came in contact.) -For us the bearing of children is a matter far too serious to be -treated with ribaldry; while as regards the lack of extreme reverence, -it seems to me that it is impossible for any human being to revere—in -the proper sense of the word—the performance by him or herself of a -physical function. No doubt it will be objected that maternity has not -only a physical aspect; to which I can only reply that it appears to -be the purely physical aspect thereof which calls forth reverence and -admiration in man. The typical duties of a mother to her children are -often performed, as efficiently and as tenderly as any mother could -perform them, by an aunt or a nurse; but they have never, when so -performed, called forth the flood of idealism and admiration which has -been lavished upon the purely physical relationship of mother and child -as typified by a woman suckling her offspring. The sight of a mother so -engaged has meant inspiration to a good many men; I may be wrong, but I -do not imagine that it will ever mean real inspiration to any woman. - -My own opinion—which I put forth in all diffidence, as one of -the uninitiated—is, that while women, left to themselves, have -considerably less reverence than men have for the physical aspect -of maternity, they have a good deal more respect for its other -aspects. Thus I have several times asked women whom I knew from the -circumstances of their lives to have been exposed to temptation whether -the thought that they might some day bear a child had not been a -conscious and not merely an instinctive factor in their resistance -to temptation and the restraint they had put upon their passions and -emotions; and the reply has usually been in the affirmative. I do not -know whether such a deliberate attitude towards the responsibilities -of motherhood is general, but it seems to me essentially feminine, -implying, as it does, the consciousness that it is not enough to bear -a child, but that the child must be born of a clean body and come in -contact with a clean mind—that the actual bringing of a new life into -the world is only a small part of motherhood. It is the circumstances -under which the child is born and the circumstances under which it is -reared to which women attach infinitely more importance than men are -apt to do; but, of course, where child-bearing is compulsory—and until -very lately it has been practically compulsory upon all classes of -wives—such an instinct does not get free play. - -A good many times in my life I have heard the practice of passing -the death sentence for the common crime of infanticide discussed by -women, sometimes in an assemblage convened for the purpose, but more -often where the subject has come up by chance. And I have always been -struck by the attitude of the women who have discussed it—an attitude -which, judged by the conventional or Raphaelesque standard, might -be described as typically unfeminine and unmaternal—since their -sympathies were invariably and unreservedly on the side of the erring -mother, and I cannot remember having heard a single woman’s voice -raised in defence of the right to its life of the unwanted child. On -the contrary, mothers of families, devoted to their own children and -discharging their duties to them in a manner beyond reproach, have, in -my hearing, not only pitied, but justified, the unfortunate creatures -who, goaded by fear of shame and want of money, destroy the little life -they themselves have given. That attitude seems to me to show that -women recognize the comparative slightness of the mere physical tie, -and that to them it is the other factors in the relationship of mother -and child which really count—factors which have practically no chance -of being brought into play in the case of the unwanted child. - -It is eminently characteristic of the servile, and therefore imitative, -quality of women’s literature that the unwanted child—other than -the illegitimate—has played practically no part in it. As long -as child-bearing was an involuntary consequence of a compulsory -trade—as, to a great extent, it still is—there must have been -innumerable women who, year after year, bore children whom they did -not desire to bear; who suffered the discomforts of pregnancy and the -pangs of childbirth not that they might rejoice when a man was born -into the world, but that a fresh and unwelcome burden might be added to -their lives. And how unwelcome was that burden in many cases is proved -by the voluntary and deliberate restriction of the modern family! Yet -no woman, so far as I know, has ever taken up pen to write with truth -and insight of this, the really tragic element in the life of countless -wives—simply because man, not understanding, has never treated of -it, because, in his ignorance, he has laid it down that woman finds -instinctive and unending joy in the involuntary reproduction of her -kind. One sees the advantage of such a comfortable belief to a husband -disinclined to self-control. - - - - -XVI - - -If I have dwelt at some length upon woman’s failure to achieve -greatness in art and literature, it is because its art and literature -reflect the inward life of a people, and the puny, trammelled and -almost entirely imitative art of woman is a faithful reflection of the -artificial habit and attitude of mind induced in her by the training -for the married state, or its equivalent outside the law. As I have -already said, the wonder is—when the tendency of that training is -taken into account—not that she has done so little, but that she has -done so much; for it must be borne in mind that as long as sexual -love and maternity are in the slightest degree compulsory upon woman -they can never prove to her the source of inspiration which they have -so often proved to man. It is freedom and unfettered desire, not -inevitable duty or the prospect of monetary gain, which awakens the -creative instinct in humanity. The commercial element has always been -incompatible with effective expression in art; no stockbroker, however -exultant, has burst into lyric rhapsody over a rise in Home Rails, no -grocer lifted up a psalm of praise because his till was full. It is -because her love has always been her livelihood that woman has never -been inspired by it as man has been inspired. And it is just because -it is so business-like that her interest in love is often so keen. -For instance, her customary appreciation of a book or a work of art -dealing with love, and nothing but love, is the outcome of something -more than sentiment and overpowering consciousness of sex. To her a -woman in love is not only a woman swayed by emotion, but a human being -engaged in carving for herself a career or securing for herself a means -of livelihood. Her interest in a love story is, therefore, much more -complex than a man’s interest therein, and the appreciation which she -brings to it is of a very different quality. - -Love and maternity, then, have failed because of their compulsory -character to inspire woman to artistic achievement; and from -other sources of inspiration she has, as a rule, been debarred -systematically. One hears, over and over again, of the artist who is -inspired by the spirit of his time, who gives effective expression to -the life and ideals of his time; and one remembers that man has always -desired that woman should be debarred from contact with the life and -spirit of the world in which she lived and moved and had her being, has -always desired that she should drift and stagnate in a backwater of -existence. The inspiration that springs from the sense of community, -of fellowship, from enthusiasm for great interests shared with others -was not to be for her; she was denied part or lot or interest in the -making of contemporary history and to the passions enkindled by it -she must be a stranger. Art has always responded to the uprush of -a genuine popular enthusiasm, has embodied, shaped and moulded the -ideas tossed about from mind to mind, and from man to man in a period -of national effervescence and progress. The men who have left behind -them an enduring name in the annals of art and literature were not -unconscious of the life around them, were often enough caught up in -the swirl of contemporary interests, and played an eager part in that -making of contemporary history which we call politics. How many works -of art do we not owe to the civic consciousness, to a man’s pride in -his own place, his desire to be worthy of it, his sense of comradeship -and his glory in communal service? In every city worthy of the name, in -every city that is anything more than an enlarged manufacturing slum, -there stands, in brick or stone, some witness to the force and reality -of the communal impulse in art. It was an impulse that seldom reached -woman; who stood apart from the communal life, who knew not the service -that brings with it sense of fellowship, who had not so much as a place -to be proud of. Even to-day a woman takes her husband’s nationality, -and the place that was her own is hers no longer. She has drawn no -inspiration from the thought that she is a citizen of no mean city. - -We think of Milton as a poet; but to the men of his time he was -something else. Twenty years of his life were given to politics and -statecraft, and his verse is the product not only of his own genius, -but of the national spirit of Puritanism—which was the desire to -establish the kingdom of God upon earth. Dante, to us, is the man who -ascended into heaven and descended into hell and wrote of what he saw; -but it was not for these things, but for his partisanship of a losing -cause, that he ate the bread of a stranger and found it salt. Few, if -any, of the great ones of all time have stood apart in spirit from -their own world with its hopes and its seething discontents; they spoke -of it because they lived in it, loved it and wondered at it. It is -significant that one of the few women whose written words have stood -the test of centuries—St. Teresa—was one whose aspirations were not -narrowed to the duties of a husband’s dwelling, who was passionately -conscious of her part in the life of a great community, who made -herself a power in the public life of the day—a woman capable of -organization and able to bend men and systems to an indomitable will. - -My meaning, I hope, will not be misinterpreted or narrowed. I do not -look upon the British House of Commons or the American House of -Representatives, as at present instituted, as a likely forcing-ground -for poets or composers; nor do I consider that no human being is -qualified to produce a decent novel or paint a decent picture until his -name is included in the electoral register. I have endeavoured to make -it clear that it is not the letter of political life, but the spirit -of a conscious communal life which kindles enthusiasm, arouses the -desire of service and awakens art; that, as far as art is concerned, -the important point is participation in ideas, not in elections. When -women are informed that they cannot think publicly, or, as the cant -phrase goes, think imperially, it should be borne in mind that public -or imperial ideas have usually been labelled, “For men only.” - -There is, so far as I can see, no reason to suppose that the minds -of women are naturally less accessible than the minds of men to the -influence of what has been termed the crowd spirit. Such subordinate -share as they have been permitted to take in the communal life of the -various sects and churches they have availed themselves of to the -full; at least they have understood the meaning of the term Communion -of Saints. And the few women whose high birth has qualified them for -the responsibilities of practical statesmanship, the guidance and -governance of nations, have usually grasped their responsibilities with -capability and understanding. Public spirit has been manifested in -these exceptions to masculine rule as surely as it was manifested in -the dreadful, hopeful crowd that once went marching to Versailles; and -it has been written that if the men of the Paris Commune had espoused -their cause with the desperate courage of the women, that cause had not -been lost. - - - - -XVII - - -My object in writing so far has been to set forth reasons for my belief -that woman, as we know her to-day, is largely a manufactured product; -that the particular qualities which are supposed to be inherent in -her and characteristic of her sex are often enough nothing more than -the characteristics of a repressed class and the entirely artificial -result of her surroundings and training. I have tried to show that, -given such surroundings and training, the ordinary or womanly woman was -the kind of development to be expected; that even if it be the will -of Providence that she should occupy the lower seat, man has actively -assisted Providence by a resolute discouragement of her attempts -to move out of it; and that it is impossible to say whether her -typical virtues and her typical defects are inherent and inevitable, -or induced and artificial, until she has been placed amidst other -surroundings and subjected to the influence and test of a different -system of education. Until such an experiment has been tried no really -authoritative conclusion is possible; one can only make deductions and -point to probabilities. - -If, after four or five generations of freer choice and wider life, -woman still persists in confining her steps to the narrow grooves where -they have hitherto been compelled to walk; if she claims no life of -her own, if she has no interests outside her home, if love, marriage -and maternity is still her all in all; if she is still, in spite of -equal education, of emulation and respect, the inferior of man in -brain capacity and mental independence; if she still evinces a marked -preference for disagreeable and monotonous forms of labour, for which -she is paid at the lowest possible rate; if she still attaches higher -value to the lifting of a top hat than to the liberty to direct her -own life; if she is still untouched by public spirit, still unable to -produce an art and a literature that is individual and sincere; if she -is still servile, imitative, pliant—then, when those four or five -generations have passed, the male half of humanity will have a perfect -right to declare that woman is what he has always believed and desired -her to be, that she is the chattel, the domestic animal, the matron or -the mistress, that her subjection is a subjection enjoined by natural -law, that her inferiority to himself is an ordained and inevitable -inferiority. Then he will have that right; but not till then. - -Some of us believe and hope with confidence that, given such wider life -and freer choice, he would have to admit himself mistaken, would have -to confess that the limitations once confining us were, for the most -part, of his own invention. And we base that belief and very confident -hope on the knowledge that there are in us, and in our sisters, many -qualities which we are not supposed to possess and which once were -unsuspected by ourselves; and on the certainty that the needs and -circumstances of modern life are encouraging, whether or no we will it, -the development of a side of our nature which we have heretofore been -strictly forbidden to develop—the side that comes in contact with the -world. Economic pressure and the law of self-preservation produced the -“womanly woman”; now, from the “womanly woman” economic pressure and -the law of self-preservation are producing a new type. It is no use for -a bland and fatuous conservatism to repeat the parrot cry anent the -sphere of woman being the home; we could not listen to its chirpings -even if we would. For our stomachs are more insistent than any parrot -cry, and they inform us that the sphere of woman, like the sphere of -man, is the place where daily bread can be obtained. - -There was a certain amount of truth in the formula once, in days when -our social and industrial system was run on more primitive lines, when -the factory was not, and the home was a place of trade and business -as well as a place to live in. But the modern civilized home is, as a -rule, and to all intents and purposes, only the shell of what it was -before that revolution in industrial methods which began about the -middle of the eighteenth century. - -The alteration in the status and scope of the home is best and most -clearly typified by the divided life led by the modern trader, -manufacturer or man of business; who, in the morning, arises, swallows -his breakfast and goes forth to his shop, his factory or his office; -and, his day’s work done, returns to the suburban residence which -it is the duty of his wife to look after, either personally or by -superintendence of the labour of servants. His place of business and -his place of rest and recreation are separate institutions, situated -miles apart; the only connection between the two is the fact that he -spends a certain portion of the day in each, and that one provides -the money for the upkeep of the other. But his ancestor, if in the -same line of business, had his place of money-making and his place of -rest under the same roof, and both were comprehended in the meaning -of the term “home.” The primitive form of shop, though in gradual -and inevitable process of extinction, is still plentiful enough in -villages, in country towns and even in the by-streets of cities. -It takes the shape of a ground-floor apartment in the proprietor’s -dwelling-house, provided with a counter upon which the customer raps, -with a more or less patient persistence, with the object of arousing -the attention of some member of the hitherto invisible household. -Eventually, in response to the summons, a man, woman or child emerges -from behind the curtained door which separates the family place of -business from the family sitting-room, and proceeds to purvey the -needful string, matches or newspapers. In such an establishment no -outside labour is engaged, the business is carried on under the same -roof as the home and forms an integral part of the duties of the -home; it is a family affair giving a certain amount of employment -to members of the family. And when, owing to the erection round the -corner of a plateglass-windowed establishment run on more business-like -and attractive lines, it fails and has to put up its shutters, those -members of the family who have been dependent on it for a livelihood -will have to seek that livelihood elsewhere. The boy who has been -accustomed to help his parents in looking after the shop, running -errands and delivering orders, will have to turn to a trade, if he is -to be sure of his bread; the girl who has been fulfilling duties of the -same kind will have to enter domestic service, a factory or a shop in -which she is a paid assistant. In other words, she, like her brother, -will be driven out of the home because the home can no longer support -her; and it can no longer support her because its scope has been -narrowed. Formerly it had its bread-winning as well as its domestic -side; now, as an inevitable consequence of the growth of collective -industry, of specialization and centralization, the bread-winning or -productive side has been absorbed, and nothing remains but the domestic -or unproductive. And in the event of the failure of such a family -business as I have described, the head of the household, however firmly -convinced he might be that the true and only sphere of woman is the -home, would probably do his level best to obtain for his daughter a -situation and means of livelihood outside her proper sphere. - -As an example of the tendency of the home to split up into departments -I have instanced the familiar process of the disappearance of a small -retail business, simply because it is familiar, and a case where we -can see the tendency at work beneath our own eyes. But, as a matter -of fact, the division of what was formerly the home into unproductive -and productive departments, into domestic work and work outside the -house, has been far less thorough and complete in the retail trade than -in other spheres of labour. The factory, which has absorbed industry -after industry formerly carried on in the house, is a comparatively -modern institution; so is the bake-house. Weaving and spinning were -once domestic trades; so was brewing. Not so very long ago it was usual -enough for the housewife, however well-to-do, to have all her washing -done in her own home; not so very long ago she made her own pickles and -her own jam. When the average household was largely self-supporting, -producing food for its own consumption, and linen for its own wearing, -it gave employment to many more persons than can be employed in it -to-day. The women’s industries of a former date have, for the most -part, been swallowed by the factory. They were never industries at -which she earned much money; so far as the members of a family were -concerned they were rewarded with nothing more than the customary wage -of subsistence; but—and this is the real point—they were industries -at which woman not only earned her wage of subsistence, but indirectly -a profit for her employer, the head of the household—the husband or -father. - -The displacement of labour which followed the adoption of machinery -in crafts and manufactures formerly carried on by hand affected the -conditions of women’s work just as it affected the work of men. -Factories and workshops took the place of home industries; the small -trader and the master-craftsman fell under the domination first of the -big employer and later of the limited liability company. It was cheaper -to produce goods in large quantities by the aid of machinery than in -small quantities by hand; so the “little man” who ran his own business -with the aid of his own family, being without capital to expend on -the purchase of machinery, was apt to find competition too much for -him and descend to the position of a wage-earner. For woman the -serious fact was that under the new system of collective industry and -production on a large scale her particular sphere, the home, ceased to -be self-supporting, since its products were under-sold by the products -of the factory. Jam and pickles could be produced more cheaply in a -factory furnished with vats than in a kitchen supplied with saucepans; -it was more economical to buy bread than to bake it, because the most -economical way of baking was to bake it in the mass. A man might esteem -the accomplishment of pickle-making or linen-weaving as an excellent -thing in woman; but unless expense was really no object he would not -encourage his wife and daughters to excel in these particular arts, -since it was cheaper to buy sheets and bottled onions round the corner -than to purchase the raw material and set the female members of his -family to work upon it. In the redistribution of labour which followed -upon the new order of things man, not for the first time, had invaded -the sacred sphere of woman and annexed a share thereof. - -The natural and inevitable result of this new and improved state of -things was that woman deprived of the productive industries at which -she had formerly earned her keep and something over for her employer, -was no longer a source of monetary profit to that employer. On the -contrary, so far as money went and so long as she remained in the -home, she was often a distinct loss. Instead of baking bread for her -husband or father, her husband or father had to expend his money on -buying bread for her to eat; she no longer wove the material for other -people’s garments; on the contrary the material for her own had to be -obtained at the draper’s. The position, for man, was a serious one; for -be it remembered, he could not lower the wages of his domestic animal. -These had always been fixed, whatever work she did, at the lowest -possible rate—subsistence rate; so that even when her work ceased to -be profitable her wages could not be made to go any lower—there was -nowhere lower for them to go. One’s daughter had to be fed, clothed and -lodged even if the narrowed scope of the home provided her with no more -lucrative employment than dusting china dogs on the mantelpiece. - -Under these circumstances the daughters of a household found -themselves, often enough, face to face with a divided duty: the duty of -earning their keep, which would necessitate emergence from the home, -and the duty of remaining inside the sacred sphere—and confining -their energies to china dogs. Left to themselves the more energetic -and ambitious would naturally adopt the first alternative, the more -slothful and timid as naturally adopt the second; but they were not -always left to themselves, nor were their own desires and predilections -the sole factor in their respective decisions. The views of the head -of the household, who now got little or no return for the outlay he -incurred in supporting them, had also to be taken into consideration; -and his views were usually influenced by the calls made upon his purse. -Theoretically he might hold fast to the belief that woman’s sphere was -the home and nothing but the home. Actually he might object to the -monetary outlay incurred if that belief was acted upon. The father -of five strapping girls (all hungry several times a day), who might -or might not succeed in inducing five desirable husbands to bear the -expense of their support, would probably discover that, even if home -was the sphere of woman, there were times when she was better out of -it. It is a curious fact that when women are blamed for intruding into -departments of the labour market hitherto reserved for men, the abuse -which is freely showered upon the intruders is in no wise poured forth -upon the male persons appertaining to the said intruders—who have -presumably neglected to provide the funds necessary to enable their -female relations to pass a blameless, if unremunerative, existence -making cakes for home consumption, or producing masterpieces in -Berlin wool-work. The different treatment meted out to the guilty -parties in this respect seems to be another example of the practice -of apportioning blame only to the person least able to resent it. -It is quite natural that man should refuse to support healthy and -able-bodied females; but he must not turn round and be nasty when, as a -direct consequence of his refusal, the healthy and able-bodied females -endeavour to support themselves. - -For good or for evil a good many millions of us have been forced out of -the environment which we once believed to be proper to our sex; and to -our new environment we have to adapt ourselves—if we are to survive. -Work in the factory or in the office, work which brings us into -contact with the outside world, calls for the exercise of qualities -and attainments which we had no need of before, for the abandonment -of habits and ideas which can only hamper our progress in our changed -surroundings. Our forefathers—those, at any rate, of the upper and -middle class—admired fragility of health in woman; and, in order to -please them, our foremothers fell in with the idea and appealed to -the masculine sense of chivalry by habitual indulgence in complaints -known as swoons and vapours. Persons subject to these tiresome and -inconvenient diseases would stand a very poor chance of regular and -well-paid employment as teachers, sanitary inspectors, journalists and -typists; so teachers, sanitary inspectors, journalists and typists -have repressed the tendency to swoons and vapours. In these classes an -actual uncertainty prevails as to the nature of vapours, and swooning -is practically a lost art. Instead of applying their energies to the -cultivation of these attractive complaints, working and professional -women are inclined to encourage a condition of rude bodily health which -stands them in good stead in their work, and is, therefore, a valuable -commercial asset. - -Just as we have been forced by contact with the outside world to -cultivate not weakness but health, so by the same contact we have been -forced to cultivate not folly but intelligence. The silly angel may -be a success in the home; she is not a success in trade or business. -Man may desire to clasp her and kiss her and call her his own; but -there are moments when he tires of seeing her make hay of his accounts -and correspondence. His natural predilection for her type may, and -often does, induce him to give her the preference over her fellows in -business matters; but he usually ends by admitting that, for certain -purposes at least, the human being with brains is preferable to the -seraph without them. It has been borne in upon the modern woman that -it pays her to have brains—even although they must be handled very -cautiously for fear of wounding the susceptibilities of her master. -She learned that lesson not in her own sphere, but in the world -outside it; and it is a lesson that has already had far-reaching -consequences. Having, in the first instance, acquired a modicum of -intelligence because she had to, she is now acquiring it in larger -quantities because she likes it. The trades which do not require the -qualification of stupidity are counteracting the effect upon her of the -trade which did—the compulsory trade of marriage. - - - - -XVIII - - -If the division of the home, and the inevitable consequences that -followed on that division, had done nothing more than teach some of us -to value our health and respect our brains we should have very good -cause to bless the break-up of that over-estimated institution. But, -as a matter of fact, our contact with the wider world is doing a great -deal more for us than that. It is testing our powers in new directions; -it is bringing new interests into our lives; it is teaching us how very -like we are unto our brothers—given similar environment; and, most -important of all, it is sweeping away with a steady hand that distrust -and ignorance of each other which was alike the curse and the natural -result of age-long isolation in the home and immemorial training in the -service, not of each other, but only of our masters. - -It may be true that women in general once disliked and meanly despised -each other. At any rate, man has always desired that it should be -true; so, the aim and object of woman’s life being the gratification of -his desires, such mutual dislike and contempt was no doubt cultivated -and affected by her. But if it was true once, it is not true now; -except, maybe, amongst the silly angel class—a class already growing -rarer, and soon, one hopes, to be well on the way to extinction. The -working-woman, the woman with wider interests than her mother’s, in -learning to respect herself is learning to respect her counterpart—the -human being, like unto herself, who, under the same disadvantages, -fights the same battle as her own. And recognizing the heaviness, the -unfairness of those disadvantages, she recognizes the bond of common -interest that unites her to her sister. In short, for the first time in -her history she is becoming actively class-conscious. - -We speak best of that which we have seen with our own eyes and heard -with our own ears; therefore I make no excuse for obtruding my personal -experiences in this connection. For many years the women who came -into my life intimately and closely were, with few exceptions, women -who had to work—journalists, artists, typists, dressmakers, clerks; -practically all of them dependent on their own work and practically all -of them poor—some bitterly poor. And that class, because I know it so -well, I have learned to respect. It is a class which has few pleasures -in life, because it has so little money to spend on them; which, as a -rule, works harder than a man would work in the same position, because -its pay is less; which is not unexposed to temptation, but holds -temptation as a thing to be resisted; yet which is tolerant to those -who fail under it, knowing the excuse to be made for them. The woman -belonging to that class does not turn away from the sinner who walks -the street with a painted face; likely enough she remembers that she, -too, was brought up to believe that the awakening of sexual desire must -be her means of livelihood, and she knows that, if she had not cast -that belief behind her, she, too, when need pressed upon her, might -have walked the streets for hire. Wherefore she is more inclined to say -to herself, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” She has learned to -know men as the sheltered woman seldom knows them; to know more of -the good in them, more of the ill; she has met and talked with them -without compliment and without ceremony; has taken orders from and been -rebuked by them; has been to them fellow-worker and sometimes friend; -has sometimes met and fought the brute in them. In the same way she -has worked with women and learned to know them; and the result of her -experience is, that she has lost any natural distrust of her own sex -which she may once have possessed; has come to rely upon her own sex -for the help which she herself is willing enough to render. The sense -of a common interest, the realization of common disabilities, have -forced her into class-consciousness and partisanship of her class. -I know many women of the type I have described—women who have gone -through the mill, some married, some unmarried. And of them all I know -hardly one whose life is not affected, to an appreciable extent, by the -sense of fellowship with her sisters. - -The average man, it seems to me, fails utterly to realize how strong -this sense of fellowship, of trade unionism, can be in us; he has (as -I have already pointed out) explained away its manifestations in the -match-making industry by accounting for them on other grounds. He has -forgotten that it was a woman who, for the sake, not of a man, but of -another woman, went out into a strange land, saying: “Whither thou -goest I will go; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” To -him, one imagines, that saying must always have been a dark one; to us -there seems nothing strange in it. - -A friend of my own (who will forgive me for repeating her confidence) -told me the other day of a happening in her life that, to my mind, -exactly illustrates the awakening of class-consciousness amongst women. -It was the careless speech of a man, addressed to her while she was -still a very young girl, to the effect that all women over fifty should -be shot. The words were lightly spoken, of course, and were probably -intended half as a compliment to her manifest youth; certainly they -were not intended as an insult. But their effect was to rouse in her -a sense of insult and something akin to a passion of resentment that -she and her like should only be supposed to exist so long as they were -pleasing, only so long as they possessed the power of awakening sexual -desire. She took them as an insult to herself because they were an -insult to women in general; and, lightly spoken as they were they made -upon her an impression which helped to mould her life. - -I give my friend’s experience because it seems to me to be typical; -because amongst women of my own class I know others who have felt the -same rush of anger at the revelation of a similar attitude towards the -sex they belong to; who have raged inwardly as they recognized that -character, worth, intellect were held valueless in woman, that nothing -counted in her but the one capacity—the power of awaking desire. That -is an attitude which we who have become conscious of our class resent -with all our souls; since we realize that to that attitude on the -part of man, to compliance with it on the part of woman, we owe the -degradation of our class. - -Most important of all, the knowledge of each other and the custom and -necessity of working side by side in numbers is bringing with it the -consciousness of a new power—the power of organization. It is a power -that we have hitherto lacked, not because we were born without the -seed of it in our souls, but because our fenced-in, isolated lives -have given small opportunity for its growth and development. And it -is a power which we are now acquiring because we have been forced to -recognize the need of it, because we can no longer do without it. It -is being borne in on us that if we are to have fair play, if our wages -are to rise above subsistence point, if we are to be anything more -than hewers of wood, drawers of water, and unthinking reproducers of -our kind, we have to stand together; that if we are to have any share -of our own in the world into which we were born, if our part in it is -to be anything more than that of the beggar with outstretched hand -awaiting the crumbs that fall from another’s table, we have to work -together. And it is work in the mill, the factory, the office that is -teaching us the lesson of public spirit, of combination for a common -purpose—a lesson that was never taught us in the home where we once -lived narrowly apart. - - - - -XIX - - -IF what I have written has any truth in it, I have shown that we have -good grounds for believing that the degradation of woman’s position and -the inferiority of woman’s capacities are chiefly due to the compulsory -restriction of her energies and ambitions to the uncertain livelihood -and ill-paid trade of marriage. I have shown that the trade is ill -paid simply because it is largely compulsory; that, in accordance with -economic law, the wife and mother will be held cheap for just so long -as she is a drug in the market. I have shown how the unsatisfactory -position of the wife and mother, the unsatisfactory training to which -she has been subjected from her childhood up, affects the earning and -productive powers of woman in those other occupations which the change -in social and industrial conditions has forced her to adopt; and I -have shown how the new influences engendered by her new surroundings -are gradually and inevitably counteracting the peculiar habit of -mind acquired in the narrow precincts of the home. It remains to be -considered how far these influences are reaching and affecting the life -of the home itself—how far they are likely to improve the position not -only of the woman who earns her own wage and directs her own life, but -of the woman who has no means of augmenting the low remuneration which -is at present considered sufficient for the duties of a wife and mother. - -I suppose that in the recent history of woman nothing is more striking -than the enormous improvement that has taken place in the social -position of the spinster. In many ranks of life the lack of a husband -is no longer a reproach; and some of us are even proud of the fact -that we have fought our way in the world without aid from any man’s -arm. At any rate, we no longer feel it necessary to apologize for our -existence; and when we are assured that we have lost the best that -life has to offer us, we are not unduly cast down. (I am speaking, -of course, of the independent woman with an interest in life and -in herself; not of the poor, mateless product of tradition that -we exist only to awaken desire in man. There are still many such, -no doubt—the victims of a servile training. On whom may God have -mercy—man having no use for them and they none for themselves!) By -sheer force of self-assertion we have lifted ourselves from the dust -where we once crawled as worms and not women; we no longer wither on -the virgin thorn—we flourish on it; and ungarnished though we be with -olive-boughs, we are not ashamed when we meet with our enemies in the -gate. - -So far as I can see, nothing like the same improvement has taken place -in recent years in the position of the average married woman. So far -as I can see, the average husband, actual or to be, still entertains -the conviction that the word helpmeet, being interpreted, means second -fiddle; and acts in accordance with that honest conviction. He still -feels that it is the duty of his wife to respect him on the ground -that he did not happen to be born a woman; he still considers it -desirable that the mother of his children should not be over wise. He -still clings to the idea that a wife is a creature to be patronized; -with kindness, of course—patted on the head, not thumped—but still -patronized. While he is yet unmated his dream of the coming affinity -still takes the shape of some one smaller than himself who asks him -questions while he strokes her hair. On the whole, therefore, he -tends to avoid marriage with those women who are not fit subjects for -patronage—who, be it noted, also tend to avoid marriage with him; and -thus, in the natural order of things, the average wife is the person -who is willing to submit to be patronized. I do not mean that there are -not many exceptions to this rule, but they are exceptions. And it is -obvious that human beings, men, or women, who consider themselves fit -subjects for patronage are not those who make for progress or possess -any very great power of improving their own status. - -Myself I have not the least doubt that such improvement as has already -been affected in the status of the wife and mother has originated -outside herself, and is, to a great extent, the work of the formerly -contemned spinster. I do not mean that the spinster has always laboured -to that end intentionally; I mean, rather, that as she improves her -own position, as she takes advantage of its greater freedom, its less -restricted opportunities, its possibilities of pleasing herself and -directing her own life, she inevitably, by awaking her envy, drags -after her the married woman who once despised her and whose eyes she -has opened to the disadvantages of her own dependent situation. It is -the independent woman with an income, earned or unearned, at her own -disposal, with the right to turn her energies into whatever channel -may seem good to her, who is steadily destroying the prestige of -marriage; and the prestige of marriage has hitherto been an important -factor in the eagerness of women for matrimony. Once it has gone, -once it makes absolutely no difference to the esteem in which a woman -is held, whether she is called Mrs. or whether she is called Miss, a -new inducement will have to be found, at any rate for the woman who -is not obliged to look upon marriage as a means of providing her with -bread and butter. Such women will require some additional advantage -to replace the social prestige to which they no longer attach any -value—that is to say, as a condition of becoming wives and mothers, -they will require their status to be raised; and their action in -raising their own status will tend to raise the status of married women -in general. - -Not very long ago, in one of the columns which a daily paper was -devoting to animated correspondence dealing with the rights and wrongs -of an agitation carried on by women, I came across a brief contribution -to the discussion which furnished me with considerable food for -thought. It was a letter written by a palpably infuriated gentleman, -who denounced the agitation in question as the outcome of the unmarried -woman’s jealousy of the privileges of her married sister. This very -masculine view of the controversy had never struck me before; and, -being a new idea to me, I sat down to consider whether it was in any -way justified by facts. - -The first step, naturally, was to ascertain what were the special -privileges which were supposed to arouse in those deprived of them a -sense of maddened envy. On this point I did not rely solely on my own -conclusions; I consulted, at various times, interested friends, married -and unmarried; with the result that I have ascertained the privileges -of the married woman to be, at the outside, three in number. (About two -of them there is no doubt; the third is already being invaded, and can -no longer be esteemed the exclusive property of the matron.) They are -as follows— - -1. The right to wear on the third finger of the left hand a gold ring -of approved but somewhat monotonous pattern. - -2. The right to walk in to dinner in advance of women unfurnished with -a gold ring of the approved, monotonous pattern. - -3. The right of the wife and mother to peruse openly and in the -drawing-room certain forms of literature—such as French novels of an -erotic type—which the ordinary unmarried woman is supposed to read -only in the seclusion of her bedroom. - -I cannot honestly say that any one of these blessings arouses in me a -spasm of uncontrollable envy, a mad desire to share in it at any cost. -As a matter of fact, I have—like many of my unmarried friends—annexed -one of the above matrimonial privileges, if not in deed, at any rate -potentially and in thought. I have never yet felt the desire to study -French novels of an erotic type; but if I ever do feel it, I shall have -no hesitation whatever in perusing them in public—even on the top of a -’bus. - -One does not imagine that the mere wearing of a plain gold ring -would in itself awaken perfervid enthusiasm in any woman of ordinary -intelligence; nor does one imagine that any woman of ordinary -intelligence would be greatly elated or abashed by entering a -dining-room first or seventh—provided, of course, that the table -was furnished with enough food to go round. One feels that these -temptations are hardly glittering enough to entice reluctant woman into -marriage. That there has been a social pressure which has impelled her -into it I have not denied! on the contrary, I have affirmed it. But -that social pressure has not taken the form of a passionate desire for -one or two small and formal distinctions, but of a fear of spinsterhood -with its accompaniments, scorn and confession of failure in your trade. -And as spinsterhood grows more enviable, so does the fear of it grow -less. - -It may be objected that in my brief list of the matron’s privileges -I have omitted the most important of them all—motherhood. I have -done so deliberately and for two reasons—because under any system of -more or less compulsory marriage there must always be an appreciable -number of wives who look upon motherhood rather as a burden than as a -privilege; and because motherhood does not appertain exclusively to the -married state. There is such a thing as an illegitimate birth-rate. - -I myself am far from desiring that the wife and mother should not -possess privileges; it seems to me that the work of a woman who brings -up children decently, creditably, and honourably is of such immense -importance that it ought to be suitably rewarded. (That, of course, -is a very different thing from admitting that a person who has gone -through a ceremony which entitles her to hold sexual intercourse with -another person is thereby entitled to consider herself my superior.) -But I am very certain that it never will be suitably rewarded until -it is undertaken freely and without pressure, and until the wife and -mother herself summons up courage to insist on adequate payment for -her services. It may not be necessary that that payment should be -made in actual money; but, in whatever form it is made, it must be of -a more satisfactory and substantial nature than the present so-called -privileges of the married woman, involving an all-round improvement -in her status. And that all-round improvement she will demand—and -get—only when it is borne in upon her that her unmarried sisters have -placed themselves in a position to get out of life a great deal more -than she is permitted to get out of it. When she realizes that fact to -the full she will go on strike—and good luck to her! - -Meanwhile, it seems to me that there is something more than a little -pathetic in the small airs of superiority which are still affected -by the average unintelligent matron towards her husbandless sister. -Personally I always feel tender towards these little manifestations of -the right to look down on the “incomplete,” the unconsciously servile -imitation of the masculine attitude in this respect. You watch the -dull lives that so many of these married women lead, you realize the -artificial limitations placed upon their powers, you pity them for the -sapping of individuality which is the inevitable result of repression -of their own and unquestioning acceptance of other people’s opinions, -for the cramping of their interests, perhaps for the necessity of -cultivating the animal side of their natures—and you do not grudge -them such small compensations as comes their way. It will be better -for them and for their children when they realize in what this fancied -superiority of the married woman consists; but meanwhile let them enjoy -it. - -Only a little while past I met a perfect example of this tendency -on the part of a married woman to plume herself on marriage as -a virtue—or rather, I met her again. She had been my friend -once—several years ago—and I had liked her for her intelligence, her -humour, her individual outlook on life. We knew each other well for -some months; then we were separated, and she wrote to me that she was -getting married; and with her marriage she gave up professional work -and passed out of my life. I heard little and saw nothing of her for -years, until she wrote that she was staying near me and would like us -to meet again. I went, and she told me what her life had been since -she married. It was a story that I can only call foul—of insult, -brutality, and degradation. What sickened me about it was the part -that remained unspoken—the thought that the woman I once knew, clean, -high-minded, and self-respecting, should have consented to stand for -so long in the relation of wife to such a man as she described. One -could see what contact with him had done for her; it had dragged her -down morally and spiritually; the pitch had defiled her. She had, -I knew, a small income of her own—sufficient to live upon without -having recourse to her husband—so I urged her bluntly to leave him. -She refused, crying feebly; made the usual rejoinder of weak-minded -married women run into a corner—that I was not married myself and -could not understand; and spent another hour bewailing her lot with -tears. I saw that her courage and character had been sapped out of her, -that it was no use appealing to what she no longer possessed, and that -all she asked was sympathy of the type that listens with an occasional -pat on the shoulder or soothing stroke on the arm; so I gave of it, in -silence, as well as I could. At the end of a good hour she dried her -tears, and declared that she was selfish to talk about nothing but -herself, that she must hear my news and what I had been doing. I did -not like to refuse, for I thought it better to turn her thoughts away -from her troubles, if only for a little; besides, she had liked me -genuinely once, and I think her interest in me was still genuine. But -as I complied and talked to her about myself, I felt miserably ashamed. -For, as it happened, I was very happy then—happier, in some ways, -than I had ever been in my life, since, almost for the first time in -my life, I had learned the meaning of good luck. I thought of all the -kindness, the friendliness, the consideration that was being shown to -me—I thought of my work and my pleasure in it—of my interest in work -done with others and the sense of comradeship it brings. And I thought -how the poor soul who had wept her handkerchief into a rag must realize -the contrast of our two lives, must feel how unjust it was that one -woman should have so little and another have so much. So, as I say, I -felt ashamed, and talked on, conscious of mental discomfort, until I -saw her looking at me thoughtfully, as if she were about to speak. I -stopped to hear what she had to say; and it was this— - -“I suppose you will never marry now?” - -For a moment I did not see the real purport of the question, and I dare -say I looked astonished as I answered that it was most unlikely, and I -had no thought of it. She surveyed me steadily, to make sure that I was -speaking the truth; then, having apparently convinced herself that I -was, she sighed. - -“It is a pity. Every woman ought to get married. Your life isn’t -complete without it. It is an experience....” - -Those, as far as I remember, were the exact words she used. (There -is no danger that she will ever read them.) They left me dumb; their -unconscious irony was so pathetic and so dreadful. Marriage an -experience—it had been one for her! And “your life isn’t complete -without it.” This from a woman whose husband had threatened to knock -pieces out of her with a poker! The situation seemed to me beyond -tears and beyond laughter—the poor, insulted, bullied thing, finding -her one source of pride in the fact that she had experienced sexual -intercourse. If there had been a child I could have understood; but -there had, I think, never been a child—at any rate, there was not one -living. If there had been, I believe I should have said to her what -was in my mind—for the child’s sake; I should have hated to think of -it growing up in that atmosphere, in its mother’s squalid faith in -the essential glory of animalism. But as there was no child, and as -she was so dulled, so broken, I said nothing. It was all she had—the -consciousness that she, from her vantage-ground of completeness and -experience, had the right to look down on me—on one of the unmarried, -a woman who “could not understand.” It was her one ewe-lamb of petty -consolation; and I had not the heart to try and take it from her. - - - - -XX - - -My intention in writing this book has not been to inveigh against the -institution of marriage, the life companionship of man and woman; all -that I have inveighed against has been the largely compulsory character -of that institution—as far as one-half of humanity is concerned—the -sweated trade element in it, and the glorification of certain qualities -and certain episodes and experiences of life at the expense of all the -others. I believe—because I have seen it in the working—that the -companionship in marriage of self-respecting man and self-respecting -woman is a very perfect thing; but I also believe that, under present -conditions, it is not easy for self-respecting woman to find a mate -with whom she can live on the terms demanded by her self-respect. -Hence a distinct tendency on her part to avoid marriage. Those women -who look at the matter in this light are those who, while not denying -that matrimony may be an excellent thing in itself, realize that there -are some excellent things which may be bought too dear. That is the -position of a good many of us in these latter days. If we are more or -less politely incredulous when we are informed that we are leading an -unnatural existence, it is not because we have no passions, but because -life to us means a great deal more than one of its possible episodes. -If we decline to listen with becoming reverence to disquisitions on the -broadening effect of motherhood upon our lives, the deep and miraculous -understanding that it brings into our hearts, it is not because we -are contemptuous of maternity, but because we have met so many silly -persons who brought babies into the world and remained just as silly -as they were before. We are quite aware, too, that it is, for the most -part, women of our own unmated class, and, likely enough, of our own -way of thinking, who spend their days in teaching bungling mothers how -to rear the children who would otherwise only come into the world in -order to afford employment to the undertaker by going out of it. (A -considerable proportion of the infant population of this country would -be in a parlous state if the “superfluous women” thereof were suddenly -caught up into the air and dumped _en bloc_ in the Sahara.) - -And in this connection I feel it necessary to state that I have -hitherto sought in vain in real life for that familiar figure in -fiction—the unmarried woman whose withered existence is passed in -ceaseless and embittered craving for the possession of a child of -her own. The sufferings of this unfortunate creature, as depicted -by masculine writers, have several times brought me to the verge of -tears; it is difficult to believe that they are entirely the result of -vivid masculine imagination; but honesty compels me to admit that I -have never discovered their counterpart in life, in spite of the fact -that my way has led me amongst spinsters of all ages. Young unmarried -women have told me frankly that they would like to bear a child; a -very few elderly unmarried women have told me that they would have -preferred to marry; and quite a number of married women have told me -that they should have done better for themselves by remaining single. -I have known wives who desired maternity as anxiously as others -desired to avoid it; but the spinster whose days are passed in gloomy -contemplation of her lack of olive-branches I have not yet met. I -started by believing in her, just as I started by believing that the -world held nothing for me but marriage and reproduction of my kind. -Later on I discovered that there were more things in heaven and earth -than marriage and reproduction of my kind, and I have no reason to -suppose that I am the only woman who has made that discovery. - -The women I have known who lamented their single state as a real evil -have been actuated in their dislike of it by mixed motives. A desire to -bear children has, perhaps, been one; but it has always been interwoven -with the desire to improve their position socially or commercially, and -the corresponding fear of failure or poverty implied by spinsterhood. -So far as my experience goes, the only women who fret passionately at -the lack of children of their own are married women whose husbands are -desirous of children. - -I should be the last to deny that many unmarried women have the sense -of maternity strongly developed; but the sense of maternity, as I see -it, is not completely dependent on the accidents of marriage and -child-birth. As I have already said, I believe it is not the physical -side of maternity—the side which appeals so strongly to men—which -appeals most strongly to women; and from the other, and, to me, -infinitely more beautiful side, no unmarried woman is necessarily -debarred. The spinster who devotes herself to permanent lamentation -over her lack of descendants must (if she exists) be a person who has -never risen above the male conception of motherhood as a physical and -instinctive process. Some of the best mothers I have met have never -borne a child; but one does not imagine that it will be counted to them -for unrighteousness that the children who rise up and call them blessed -are not their own. Nor is it childhood alone which enkindles the sense -of maternity in women; the truest mother I know is one who enwraps with -her love a “child” who came into the world before she was thought of. - -After all, there is a kinship that is not that of the flesh, and -some of us are very little the children of our parents. The people -who have framed and influenced the conditions under which we live, -whose thoughts have moulded our lives, have also had a share in -our making. It is possible that descendants of Homer walk the earth -to-day—very worthy persons whose existence is of no particular moment -to any but themselves. Shakespeare was married I know, and I believe -he was the father of a family; but of how many that family consisted, -what were their names and what became of them all, I have never even -troubled to inquire. Did Goethe leave descendants, or did he not? I -frankly confess that I don’t know, simply because I have never had -the slightest curiosity on the subject. But Faust has been part of my -life. It matters very little to the world at large what became of the -children whom Jean Jacques Rousseau handed over to the tender mercies -of a foundling hospital; but there are very few people alive to-day to -whom it does not matter that the current of the world’s striving was -turned into a new channel by the spiritual sons of Rousseau—the men -who made the French Revolution. Reproduction is not everything; the -men and women who have striven to shorten the hours of child-labour -have often been possessed of a keener sense of responsibility and -tenderness, a keener sense of fatherhood and motherhood, than the -parents whose children they sought to protect. If I were one of those -who have so striven, I should consider that the help I had given to the -world was no less worthy of honour and commendation than that of the -paterfamilias who marches a family of fourteen to church on Sundays. -If humanity had only been created in order to reproduce its kind, we -might still be dodging cave-bears in the intervals of grubbing up roots -with our nails. It is not only the children who matter: there is the -world into which they are born. Every human being who influences for -the better, however slightly, the conditions under which he lives is -doing something for those who come after; and thus, it seems to me, -that those women who are proving by their lives that marriage is not -a necessity for them, that maternity is not a necessity for them, -are preparing a heritage of fuller humanity for the daughters of -others—who will be daughters of their own in the spirit, if not in -the flesh. The home of the future will be more of an abiding-place and -less of a prison because they have made it obvious that, so far as many -women are concerned, the home can be done without; and if the marriage -of the future is what it ought to be—a voluntary contract on both -sides—it will be because they have proved the right of every woman to -refuse it if she will, by demonstrating that there are other means of -earning a livelihood than bearing children and keeping house. It is -the woman without a husband to support her, the woman who has no home -but such as she makes for herself by her own efforts, who is forcing a -reluctant masculine generation to realize that she is something more -than the breeding factor of the race. By her very existence she is -altering the male conception of her sex. - -According to latter-day notions, to speak in praise of celibacy in -man or in woman is tantamount to committing the crime of high treason -against the race. Other centuries—some of them with social systems -quite as scientific as our own—have not been of that way of thinking; -and one is half inclined to suspect that the modern dislike of the -celibate has its root in the natural annoyance of an over-sexed and -mentally lax generation at receiving ocular demonstration of the fact -that the animal passions can be kept under control. It saves such -a lot of trouble to assume at once that they cannot be kept under -control; so, in place of the priest, we have the medicine man, whose -business it is to make pathological excuses for original sin. Myself -I have a good deal of respect for the celibate; not because he has no -children, but because he is capable of self-control—which is a thing -respectable in itself. - -At the same time, I do not advocate celibacy except for persons whom it -suits; but I do not see why persons whom it does suit should be ashamed -of acknowledging the fact. I am inclined to think that they are more -numerous than is commonly supposed, and I will admit frankly that I am -exceedingly glad that it seems, in these latter days, to suit so many -women. I am glad, not because the single life appears to me essentially -better than the married, but because I believe that the conditions of -marriage, as they affect women, can only be improved by the women who -do without marriage—and do without it gladly. Other generations have -realized that particular duties could best be performed by persons -without engrossing domestic interests; and I believe that the wives -and mothers of this generation require the aid of women unhampered by -such interests—women who will eventually raise the value of the wife -and mother in the eyes of the husband and father by making it clear -to him that she did not enter the married state solely because there -was nothing else for her to do, and that his child was not born simply -because its mother had no other way of earning a living. There are -women married every day, there are children born every day, for no -better reasons than these. - - - - -XXI - - -And the husband and father? What does he stand to gain or lose by that -gradual readjustment of the conditions inside the home which must -inevitably follow on the improvement of woman’s position outside the -home, the recognition of her right to an alternative career and the -consequent discovery that she can be put to other uses than sexual -attraction and maternity? How will he be affected by the fact that -marriage has become a voluntary trade? - -So far as one can see, he stands to lose something of his comfortable -pride in his sex, his aristocratic pleasure in the accident of his -birth, his aristocratic consciousness that deference is due to him -merely because he was born in the masculine purple. The woman who has -established her claim to humanity will no longer submit herself to -the law of imposed stupidity; so the belief in her inherent idiocy -will have to go, along with the belief in his own inherent wisdom. -No longer will he take his daily enjoyment in despising the wife of -his bosom—because nature has decreed that she shall be the wife of -his bosom and not the husband of some one else’s. There will be a -readjustment of the wage-scale, too—a readjustment of the conditions -of labour. With better conditions available outside the home, the -wife and mother—no longer under the impression that it is a sin to -think and a shame to be single—will decline to work inside the home -for a wage that can go no lower, will decline to take all the dirty, -monotonous and unpleasant work merely because her husband prefers to -get out of it. She will agree that it is quite natural that he should -dislike such dirty, monotonous or unpleasant toil; but she will point -out to him that it is also quite natural that she should dislike it. -And one imagines that they will come to a compromise. So far, under -a non-compulsory marriage system, he would stand to lose; but on the -other hand he would stand to gain—greatly. - -He could be reasonably sure that his wife married him because she -wanted to marry him, not because no other trade was open to her, not -because she was afraid of being jeered and sneered at as an old maid. -That in itself would be an advantage substantial enough to outweigh -some loss of sex dignity. For it would be only his sense of sex dignity -that would be impaired; his sense of personal dignity would be enhanced -by the knowledge that he was a matter not of necessity but of choice. -His wife’s attitude towards him would be a good deal less complimentary -to his class, but a good deal more complimentary to himself. The -attitude of the girl who would “marry any one to get out of this” is by -no means complimentary to her future husband. - -The fact that, under a voluntary system of marriage, he would have to -pay, either in money or some equivalent of money, for work which he now -gets done for nothing—and despises accordingly—would also bring with -it a compensatory advantage. Woman’s work in the home is often enough -inefficient simply because it is sweated; there is a point at which -cheap labour tends to become inefficient, and therefore the reverse -of cheap; and that point appears to have been reached in a good many -existing homes. - -There is, it seems to me, another respect in which man, as well as -woman, would eventually be the gainer by the recognition of woman’s -right to humanity on her own account. The custom of regarding one -half of the race as sent into the world to excite desire in the other -half does not appear to be of real advantage to either moiety, in -that it has produced the over-sexed man and the over-sexed woman, the -attitude of mind which sneers at self-control. Such an attitude the -establishment of marriage for woman upon a purely voluntary basis ought -to go far to correct; since it is hardly conceivable that women, who -have other careers open to them and by whom ignorance is no longer -esteemed as a merit, will consent to run quite unnecessary risks from -which their unmarried sisters are exempt. When the intending wife and -mother no longer considers it her duty to be innocent and complacent, -the intending husband and father will learn, from sheer necessity, -to see more virtue in self-restraint. With results beneficial to the -race—and incidentally to himself. Humanity would seem to have paid -rather a heavy price for the feminine habit of turning a blind eye to -evil which it dignifies by the name of innocence. - -I have sufficient faith in my brethren to be in no wise alarmed -by dismal prophecies of their rapid moral deterioration when our -helplessness and general silliness no longer make a pathetic appeal -to their sense of pity and authority. No doubt the consciousness of -superiority is favourable to the cultivation of certain virtues—the -virtues of the patron; just as the consciousness of inferiority is -favourable to the cultivation of certain other virtues—the virtues of -the patronized. But I will not do my brother the injustice of believing -that the virtues of the patron are the only ones he possesses; on the -contrary, I have found him to be possessed of many others, have seen -him just to an equal, courteous and considerate to those whom he had -no reason to pity or despise. When the ordinary man and the ordinary -wife no longer stand towards each other in the attitude of patron and -patronized the virtues of both will need overhauling—that is all. - -Nor does one see how the advancement of marriage to the position of a -voluntary trade can work for anything but good upon the children born -of marriage. Motherhood can be sacred only when it is voluntary, when -the child is desired by a woman who feels herself fit to bear and to -rear it; the child who is born because of his mother’s inability to -earn her bread by any trade but marriage, because of his mother’s fear -of the social disgrace of spinsterhood, has no real place in the world. -He comes into it simply because the woman who gives him life was less -capable or less courageous than her sisters; and it is not for such -reasons that a man should be born. - -And I fail to see that a future generation will be in any way injured -because the mothers of that generation are no longer required to please -their husbands by stunting and narrowing such brains as they were -born with, because ignorance and silliness are no longer considered -essential qualifications for the duties of wifehood and motherhood. The -recognition of woman’s complete humanity, apart from husband or lover, -must mean inevitably the recognition of her right to develop every side -of that humanity, the mental and moral as well as the physical and -sexual; and inevitably and insensibly the old aristocratic masculine -cruelty which, because she was an inferior, imposed stupidity upon her -and made lack of intelligence a preliminary condition of motherhood, -will become a thing of the past. Nor will a man be less fitted to fight -the battle of life with honour and advantage to himself, because he was -not born the son of a fool. - -The male half of creation is still apt to talk (if not quite so -confidently as of yore) as if the instinct and desire for maternity -were the one overpowering factor in our lives. It may be so as regards -the majority of us, though the shrinkage of the birth-rate in so far as -it is attributable to women would seem to point the other way; but as -I have shown it is impossible to be certain on the point until other -instincts and desires have been given fair play. Under a voluntary -system of marriage they would be given fair play; in a world where a -woman might make what she would of her own life, might interest herself -in what seemed good to her, she would hardly bear a child unless she -desired to bear it. That is to say she would bear a child not just -because it was the right thing for her to do—since there would be a -great many other right things for her to do—but because the maternal -instinct was so strong in her that it overpowered other interests, -desires or ambitions, because she felt in her the longing to give birth -to a son of whom she had need. And such a son would come into a world -where his place was made ready for him; being welcome, and a hundred -times welcome, because he was loved before he was conceived. - -Nor does one imagine that such a son, when he grew of an age to -understand, would think the less of his mother because he knew that -he was no accident in her life, but a choice; because he learned that -his birth was something more than a necessary and inevitable incident -in her compulsory trade. One does not imagine that he would reverence -her the less because he saw in her not only the breeding factor in -the family, but a being in all respects as human as himself, who had -suffered for him and suffered of her own free will; nor that he would -be less grateful to her because she, having the unquestioned right to -hold life from him, had chosen instead to give it. - - * * * * * - -Transcriber's Notes - -Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations -in hyphenation, spelling and punctuation remain unchanged. - -In the Preface “largely unnecessary and unavoidable” has been changed -to “largely unnecessary and avoidable” - -The multiple repeats of the title before the title page have been -removed. - -Italics are represented thus _italic_. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marriage as a Trade, by Cicely Hamilton - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIAGE AS A TRADE *** - -***** This file should be named 54704-0.txt or 54704-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/7/0/54704/ - -Produced by Carlo Traverso, Les Galloway and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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