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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78463 ***
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber’s Note
+  Italic text displayed as: _italic_
+
+
+
+
+  The
+  Disadvantages of Being
+  a Woman
+
+  BY
+
+  GRACE ELLISON
+
+  Author of “Abdul Hamid’s Daughter,” “An Englishwoman
+  in a Turkish Harem,” etc., etc.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  A. M. PHILPOT, Ltd.
+  69 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. 1.
+
+
+
+
+  THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING A
+  WOMAN
+
+
+
+
+  The
+  Disadvantages of Being
+  a Woman
+
+  BY
+
+  GRACE ELLISON
+
+  Author of “Abdul Hamid’s Daughter,” “An Englishwoman
+  in a Turkish Harem,” etc., etc.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  A. M. PHILPOT, Ltd.
+  69 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. 1.
+
+
+
+
+  [_Copyright_]
+
+
+  PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY W. JOLLY AND SONS, LTD., ABERDEEN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  _Introduction._ Woman the Discovery of the Century.
+
+  CHAP.                                                             PAGE
+
+     I. Feminist Leaders—and their Mistakes
+          (i) Unwise Haste (ii) Legislation for the
+          élite, not for the masses (iii) Hostility to
+          Man, who should be the associate                             9
+
+    II. The Drawback of Health                                        16
+
+   III. Barred from the Professions                                   24
+
+    IV. The French Business Woman                                     33
+
+     V. Laws for Women illogical and inconsistent                     39
+
+    VI. Can Women succeed in Politics?                                48
+
+   VII. Sex in Work                                                   56
+
+  VIII. Is Femininity at a discount?                                  63
+
+    IX. Pin-money Women                                               71
+
+     X. What is wrong with Marriage?                                  77
+
+    XI. The Future                                                    86
+
+
+
+
+_PUBLISHER’S NOTE_
+
+
+_These are not the reflections of a woman who has failed. On the
+contrary, her literary record, her extensive travels, the work she did
+amongst the women of Turkey, and later her war-work in France, give her
+the right to speak with authority and to command a hearing._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Since every age has its own great discovery, who will deny “Woman” her
+laurels as the Discovery of this Century?
+
+Opinions are still divided as to how and why Woman as a Force actually
+made her first appearance. Some declare that she had been seeking
+enfranchisement for over sixty years; others maintain that the Woman
+Movement began with militancy.
+
+The truth is that no one noticed her first coming. Apparently without
+warning, she burst the fetters of domesticity and sprang from obscurity
+into the blazing sun. Wakening the dullest and the most awkward of the
+centuries, she stepped, one might say, bounded, into Freedom.
+
+Like radium or electricity, Woman the Force was always there, and the
+age that needed her discovered her. We believe that Nature intended
+this Force to balance the Force of Man. The scales must be even; and
+where one of the sexes has been either atrophied or over-developed, the
+State falls.
+
+But _the scales must be even_. We are too near our subject, and events
+now happening are not sufficiently in perspective for it to be possible
+to write even a résume of the Woman’s Movement, but it must be evident
+to everyone that there is something fundamentally wrong with the
+situation as it stands at present.
+
+Nothing has happened to weaken our faith in the possibilities of the
+great Discovery, but it cannot be denied that Woman as a Force has been
+and is being mishandled by many a clumsy engineer.
+
+It is our purpose, in these pages, to examine their mistakes.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+FEMINIST LEADERS AND THEIR MISTAKES
+
+_(i) Unwise haste (ii) legislation for the élite, not for the masses,
+(iii) hostility to man, who should be the associate._
+
+
+Resistless as the appointed tides, the Revolution of Woman has swept
+over us. Who can be held responsible? To criticise or to blame the
+women themselves would be as senseless as to attempt a judgment upon
+the shore washed by the sea. It had to be and it was. The end had come
+for Victorianism, with its soul-crushing hypocrisy. The new Force had
+to be set free.
+
+Most unfortunately the advanced feminists who took charge of the
+movement had few of the god-given gifts of leadership. There is but
+a step from revolution, with its healthy exaggerations, to complete
+anarchy. They sowed the seeds, and only the Great War—with its issues
+of life and death—has saved them and us from a terrible harvest.
+
+(i.) The leaders’ first tactical mistake, no doubt, was to set up a
+fighting corps before the average woman had learned how to march. To
+realise with what unstable rapidity they forged ahead, we have only to
+measure the distance between the women of this generation and of the
+last.
+
+History has always recorded the perils and suffering of any period
+that follows a too rapid emancipation of slaves; and as all Suffrage
+Societies alluded to women as slaves, we may adopt the comparison
+without offence. Our speed in settling the women’s question was no less
+than a crime. Women ought to have served a period as novitiates before
+taking the full vows of freedom.
+
+For our mothers the gates were locked. Their narrow horizon was
+bounded—on the one side by the needle and on the other by children.
+They had, in return, the safety and the protection of a home. For the
+women of this generation most doors have been flung wide. But with the
+full liberty to work, they have gained also full liberty to starve;
+and they are finding themselves too often forced down paths they have
+not the physical strength to tread. Rights demanded without tact, and
+the unconsidered outcry for absolute equality, have largely killed
+men’s protective instincts, and really amount to a “declaration of war
+between those who should be allies or partners in humankind.”
+
+Only a few women can go far, or last long, without a home, a pension,
+or a private income, to fall back on. Our mothers were “looked
+after” as a matter of course. So many women to-day are forced to
+work for themselves, however unqualified they may be. They have been
+given the Parliamentary vote, before even learning their municipal
+responsibilities. They have entered upon business careers without
+training or capacity. At the moment, indeed, one feels as if both the
+professional and the business worlds were actually clogged up with
+untried women.
+
+How different the whole situation might have been if the leaders had
+been content to move more slowly; feeling their way as they went
+along; organising, experimenting, and helping—teaching the meaning of
+responsibility, what it involves and how to use it?
+
+Above all, they should never have lost touch with the anchor of the
+home, until they were well able to navigate their own course in the
+variable currents of the world outside and secure not only work for an
+income, but some security for the future.
+
+_Independence, so called, that does not include economic provision for
+bad times and old age, is not independence at all._ What problem can be
+more terrible or more grave for the great army of superfluous women,
+than the absolute insecurity of their future?
+
+(ii.) The feminist leaders also made a very serious mistake when they
+based their demands for all women upon the needs of a very exceptional
+minority. “Take care of the weak part of your army,” said Napoleon,
+“the strong can look after themselves.” But in this movement it was the
+reverse policy which the leaders preferred to adopt. If a few workers
+had proved that despite obstacles, difficulties, and sex-prejudice,
+they could yet take their place in open competition with men, _these
+giant personalities were exceptions that proved the rule_. Why
+legislate for exceptions?
+
+It was maintained, from the first, that all professions should be open
+to all women; that the sexes should be at once placed upon absolute
+equality. “What one, the finest of women, can do, all should strive
+to do,” was the theory. And we had dangerous legislation, suddenly
+introduced, which was doomed in advance to disaster; carrying with it
+deceptions, disappointments, the unclassing and unsexing of women. For
+one woman who can succeed at the bar or in surgery there are hundreds
+who had far better be sighing for the cradle. They will never reach the
+bar, or prove fitted to wield the knife; and they will lose the cradle
+into the bargain.
+
+All the ages have brought forth exceptional women. At the time
+when Mahomet raised his voice in the desert, and was leading his
+dusky-skinned converts out of semi-barbarianism into the light of
+civilisation, his own daughter, the Lady of Paradise, was speaking and
+lecturing in many lands, so that her fame spread over the whole of the
+East. Yet other women were not encouraged to follow her example; and
+few made the attempt before the arrival of Zeyneb, the famous professor
+of Damascus.
+
+Yet in our own days, that woman might undertake man’s work, she was
+given the vote. It was held up, and fought for, as the key to unlock
+all professional doors—the instrument of the Millennium! It is true,
+of course, that the vote can, and perhaps will eventually be of great
+utility. But how can we judge? It is as yet scarcely out of its
+swaddling clothes; and, certainly for women, the promised Millennium is
+still far to seek.
+
+(iii.) The final, and most disastrous mistake of the feminist leaders
+was their entire _disregard of Nature herself_. It is by this means
+that the whole movement has been developed on a false premiss; for any
+overdrafts on the bank of Nature must be repaid with crushing interest.
+
+“Only the vote can right all wrongs,” said the leaders, “and as men
+used violence to obtain the vote, women must do the same. Men pillaged,
+burnt, destroyed; did evil that good might come. We must follow their
+example.” There is no real logic in such a claim. A woman simply cannot
+apply man’s weapons. Men who riot use fair violence against other
+men; whereas when women use violence against men, they gain an unfair
+advantage. When two men fight, it is the stronger who prevails; against
+women no man can strike the death-blow that is in his hands, lest he
+violate the most sacred laws of his manhood.
+
+The only “force” a woman may fairly use against men is to know what
+she wants and sit tight until she obtains it. It is, we admit, a slow
+process, but it is sure and certain—in fact the only way.
+
+What has woman, in fact, gained by violence? Since man considered
+she had not given him a square deal because he could not counter her
+violence by his own, he used the only weapon available—_complete
+indifference_. Instead of meeting man as an associate, woman became
+his enemy and his commercial competitor. As we shall later attempt to
+prove, woman is not so constituted, either physically or emotionally,
+that she can compete with men. Wherefore the loss is hers.
+
+The attitude of distrust, or at least indifference, thus created in man
+necessarily reacts on him. It was responsibility towards his womenkind
+that gave him a regular outlet for his chivalry and the moral backbone
+he would otherwise have seldom maintained.
+
+The lack of organisation in woman’s fight for independence has injured
+not only herself but man.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE DRAWBACK OF HEALTH
+
+
+One sometimes wonders whether, if more time had been given in schools
+to the study of physiology, women would have been tempted to enter upon
+physically exhausting careers.
+
+When we examine the complicated but delicately-made workmanship of the
+female body, compared with the simple robustness of the male, we must
+seriously consider whether Nature intended women for their present work.
+
+People have argued and will always argue that we have women who are
+stronger than men. This we do not deny; but the whole conformation of
+a woman’s body goes to prove that she is not fitted for heavy physical
+work, whatever her mental capacity may be.
+
+Thus it is that all the controversy about the abolition of a Woman’s
+Police Force, (which never existed), makes one wonder why a body of
+_Welfare Workers_, as they really are, should want to be called
+_Police_, when they are unable to protect themselves, far less to
+arrest a man. Think what a blow in a woman’s chest may mean! Or a kick!
+Or a chill at the wrong time!
+
+But here again, we have the advanced feminists attempting to spoil
+a very valuable “welfare” cause, by forcing women down a road which
+they are not fitted by Nature to tread. More than this, they can only
+succeed as “welfare” workers, when the police become interested in
+their work and will protect them, if necessary, whereas now they annoy
+the whole force by taking the title and uniform of a profession they
+cannot safely adopt.
+
+This is how a policeman summed them up. “God forbid that I should ever
+want to prevent a woman from earning her living; but it gives a fellow
+a kind of degraded feeling to be asked to take any woman into the
+immorality of Hyde Park at night.” So ought every policeman to feel,
+and the whole _raison d’être_ of his profession goes, when he has to
+share it with women.
+
+When the Great War came, woman had the unique experience of trying
+her hand at all work, from the land to the railway station and the
+omnibus, and from the counting-house to the Civil Service. She could
+then judge men’s work first-hand. There were no men for the hard
+fetching and carrying, so that she had to do it herself. The general
+opinion has been that she proved a remarkably good stop-gap; _but only
+a stop-gap_. The most intelligent women workers have recognised and
+owned this.
+
+During the War, too, there was always the patriotic ideal to help
+one along. Could so many have toiled day and night had they not ever
+ringing in their ears the eternal refrain, “I am helping to win the
+War, I am doing my bit.” It is not just to criticise, then, women who
+worked with a zeal and self-abnegation for which some of them will have
+to pay, physically and morally, till the end of their lives. At the
+same time, when women ask to be judged for their war-work according to
+men’s standards, they are playing the game of the little frog in the
+fable who tried to measure himself against the ox, and they will suffer
+as he did.
+
+And who amongst us has forgotten the physical strain for even the
+strongest women? During the war, the bus women used up their strength
+and their nerves. They were so over-wrought that a cross word would
+produce a torrent of wrath, and one spoke to them as seldom as
+possible. Yet the work is no more strain on a man than eating his
+breakfast.
+
+How can any one pretend that such war-work suited the women? I remember
+a woman porter who took charge of a suit case for me that few men would
+have found heavy, but which I myself could not carry. The pale-faced
+porteress soon became too exhausted for such a load. So I gave her a
+large tip and kind words in exchange for her insults; and under the
+influence of this unexpected kindness, she burst into tears. Were not
+most of our workers in a similar state of nervous prostration? Then
+there seemed no option; but looking at the havoc that was thus wrought
+upon women’s health, one wonders whether it would not have been better
+to have imported coolies or blacks.
+
+And where is the contractor who will pay for woman’s work at the same
+figure as man’s? In the labour market women must always be a poor
+speculation from the physical point of view, and so, when equal work
+means equal pay, the man, for whom there is less physical risk, secures
+the job. Woman must undercut man, which is economic suicide.
+
+In office life too the routine work proves a great strain. Women start
+off so full of zeal. They overwork, as they love and hate and take
+exercise, _always to excess_. And the flame of youth quickly burns
+itself out. German doctors have always advocated that to assure safety
+in middle age every woman, whether she thinks she requires it or not,
+ought to have two complete days’ rest a month. But how many can afford
+this? and what would their employers have to say?
+
+And who does not know how easily a woman’s health is wrecked by poor
+or insufficient food? Argue and warn as one may, no woman who has
+to choose between clothes and food would choose food. She cannot,
+clothes being a business asset. In short, since we are summing up the
+disadvantages of women’s work, it must be admitted that the question of
+health is her chief handicap—a handicap which often puts her altogether
+out of the race.
+
+In the days of primitive men and women, they divided their work, as
+it were, by instinct. He hunted the wild beasts; she cooked them and
+looked after the little savages in the tent. Neither attempted the
+other’s task, and yet to-day, with all her physical disqualifications,
+woman is often forced to do the work of both.
+
+Indeed, the whole situation seems to have been reversed. Very few
+women are really qualified to succeed in men’s professions, yet often
+they persist in trying until they break down, whereas it is doubtful
+if there is one part of a woman’s work that men cannot do as well, if
+not better than women—though they seldom care to try! That is to say,
+though men may not be good, all-round house-keepers, they are better at
+special jobs. As a tailor, a servant, a chef, a masseur, a hairdresser,
+a dressmaker and sometimes even in the care of babies, they are better
+specialists than a woman. In the United States, Chinamen are found to
+make excellent nurse-maids.
+
+When I was crossing the Atlantic during one of the worst storms of the
+year, a British officer took charge of his baby in a fashion that won
+universal admiration. Every woman on board, including his wife, was
+ill; so the father powdered and bathed, combed and fed the little
+thing; yet, when questioned, he owned he had never done anything of the
+kind before, or even watched the operation.
+
+How many outstanding women painters, musical composers or doctors, can
+we name? In the theatre, where she can keep her sex and give full sway
+to her emotions, woman reigns supreme; though even here sometimes, at
+the expense of health.
+
+Entirely without disloyalty, one must emphatically declare (for
+the statistics of the war are on record to prove it) that, for
+physical reasons alone, we cannot rely on women to replace men in
+professions, in the business world, nor as land-workers. They can, very
+successfully, supplement men and, temporarily, replace them, but their
+physical strength quickly gives way and their reign must of necessity
+be short.
+
+Then why not give our first consideration to health? Why attempt work
+for which we are not physically fit?
+
+In the administration of prisons, hospitals, and work-houses, as
+poor-law guardians and, above all, in the home, women can render
+invaluable service. It seems a thousand pities for them to neglect
+these spheres for others where they are too often foredoomed to failure.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+BARRED FROM THE PROFESSIONS
+
+
+Taking professional careers as a speculation, i.e., carefully counting
+the outlay and what it is likely to bring in, can we deny what a
+University woman once said: “With training at one British and at two
+foreign universities, and all our degrees, as well as dancing, singing,
+music, painting, riding and other accomplishments, should we not have
+been, so far as actual monetary gain is concerned, better off had we
+learnt to stick labels on jam-pots?”
+
+Look what a barrister’s education costs, and yet “briefless barristers”
+amongst men are the rule, not the exception. Hear what young barristers
+have to do and put up with until they can get their chance. Remember
+that some have to leave the thorny road without securing even a chance.
+For men, the Bar is a great career fraught with passionate interest,
+but bristling with disappointments. The prizes are few and far between.
+What then has taken woman along that most difficult of difficult ways?
+Is it a real love of the profession? Or is it a vain desire to be
+amongst the first interesting few? Has she any real chance of success
+at the Bar?
+
+Some people are inclined to think women ought to be able to plead
+for their own sex better than men—but can they? Have they the sound
+logic of the man barrister? Is not his fox-craftiness, cynicism, and
+self-possession more necessary than the fund of emotion which is her
+trump card? Perhaps the very qualities she is relying on to win her
+case will lose it. It must be a long while before women can make a name
+for themselves at the Bar, for only _super_ women will ever get briefs.
+“We trust women doctors with our lives,” it is said. “Yes, but you
+trust the woman lawyer with your purse!”
+
+From the first, Mlle. Miropolsky, the brilliant Polish-French
+barrister, herself a woman of unusual intelligence, very wisely placed
+a rich barrister husband between herself and the financial side of
+life. In any case, both have exceptional personalities, and are leaders
+in their profession.
+
+But would anyone in their senses consider the Bar as a suitable
+_provision_ for the average woman?
+
+In Medicine, though physically hard on women, and despite the cost
+of the long years of training, there is more chance of success. To
+begin with, the East can utilize a great many women doctors, and in
+the medical mission field they have proved their unique worth. Yet in
+spite of the war, sex-prejudice has not vanished, and only women of
+exceptional personality can keep a practice together. And despite all
+that has been said or written to the contrary, it will be long before
+this prejudice disappears. Her sex is against women here as in so many
+other fields of endeavour. When one recognises how much personality and
+capacity public opinion demands from a woman doctor, and how all her
+little slips are multiplied a thousandfold, one sees that medicine can
+only be a stop-gap, and that the experiment is indeed costly.
+
+In the early days, suffragettes quoted the father who said: “Had my
+girl been a boy, I would have risked the money and put him in practice;
+but, with my limited income, that would be too much to ask me for a
+girl.”
+
+As an investment, medicine for women is very risky. When the career is
+completed, a practice has to be bought. How is her health to stand the
+strain? Has she enough courage and personality to keep up her practice?
+Surely most fathers would do better if they used the money to purchase
+an annuity instead of spending it on training.
+
+Another great drawback to the woman doctor is the refusal of other
+women to trust her judgment. As a confessor, where above all one would
+have prophesied her success,—and every doctor is to a certain extent a
+confessor—she often fails. Is it lack of heart and of understanding,
+or simply of _savoir-faire_? The fact remains, however, that a large
+number of women, seeking the mental help that a doctor so often gives,
+would unburden themselves more readily to a man.
+
+When a man and a woman, both doctors, work together, the partnership is
+generally a success, and not only among married couples. The friendship
+of mutual interests, _where no love comes in_, often raises both to
+great heights of purpose, and achieves much that is conspicuously
+worth while. If one, or both, are married, so much the better.
+
+The solitary, spinster-practitioner can have no secretary in her work.
+In partnership the strain is diminished for both, and the patients feel
+much greater confidence with a man in the background.
+
+The two professions for which, at any rate in the past, no special
+training was required, are journalism and the stage. In these
+professions competition is fiercest. It is not always the best written
+work which pays; it is not the most talented actress who wins public
+applause. There are hundreds, however, who love the excitement of
+trying to find even a tiny corner of their own in these streets of
+adventure, and they are ready to go through fire to secure it.
+
+The University of Columbia, U.S.A., has now a Chair for “Journalism,”
+which shows the value of training in this profession. Paris has a
+Conservatoire where all their artists are trained, free of charge,
+after admission by open competition. The preliminary work thus
+entailed, however, does not in the least diminish the keen competition
+that we must expect in professions which hold the chance of such big
+possibilities. Yet once more, for both, good health is absolutely
+indispensable. The harassing strain of uncertainty plays havoc with the
+finest constitution, and the public, out for amusement and interest,
+has no time for waning or fallen stars.
+
+The fact is that women are only fitted constitutionally for certain
+kinds of journalism. The office night-work is too exhausting, and the
+path of the War Correspondent is one no woman should seek to tread.
+There are insurmountable difficulties all the way, and, speaking from
+personal experience, I am convinced that she can only pull through at
+all by throwing herself on the chivalry of men. In the French army,
+officers were seriously punished for uselessly exposing men’s lives;
+yet in order to furnish the sensational head-line of “A Woman in the
+Trenches,” fathers of families had to risk their lives to protect
+her, to my certain knowledge, over and over again. It ought not to be
+allowed.
+
+In the early Victorian era, teaching and nursing used to be the two
+professions for women. They were both badly paid, and if the school
+teacher had little or no prestige, the governess had none at all.
+Nursing was and is still done in hospitals for a pittance; private
+work is better paid, but the women who do it tell me they dislike the
+profession.
+
+Both teaching and nursing are, however, vocations, and girls who only
+take them for want of something better, do not, of course, give their
+best. Yet no work requires women of more solid character. They have at
+their mercy, to make or to mar, the young and the sick, yet candidates
+for these professions cannot be chosen. Neither nursing nor teaching,
+taken seriously, is a sinecure, and again robust health is required for
+both.
+
+In the arts, _i.e._, music, painting and literature, training is
+not enough, and since men have not only to be put on their feet but
+“seen through,” women must also be “seen through.” Genius, generally
+speaking, will find its public, but the arts too frequently mean that
+lessons are given for bread and butter. From both the artistic and
+financial aspect, however, one wonders whether such poor results are
+really worth while. Things have naturally been much worse since the War.
+
+The hand-to-mouth, Quartier Latin or Chelsea Studio existence is all
+very well as a stop-gap, for a change or even a picnic; but what of the
+future? When is the woman paid enough at this work to save for her old
+age. It simply cannot be done. There is Florence Barclay, it is true,
+who made more than enough for a life-time with one book—and there are
+other exceptions. But these are rare enough to be called miraculous.
+
+In the Middle Ages, teaching and nursing were done by nuns. They gave
+their lives to the community; and the community cared for them—in
+sickness, unto death. Nowadays, if women still give their lives to the
+community, a lay community, the community (or the State) must see that
+they never want.
+
+Considering the strain of teaching, the terrible risks of nursing, and
+the uncertainty of women being strong enough to pursue their work after
+middle age, they ought not to be left dependent upon any profession
+that does not carry with it the security of a pension; unless, indeed,
+they are well insured, and, for greater safety, insured by the State.
+
+A profession cannot be abandoned and then picked up again for rainy
+days. A woman will come back, as men have, to find herself out of
+date, out of the running. She is not wanted; her place is taken by
+younger women.
+
+In every profession—the Bar, Medicine, Teaching, Nursing, or
+Journalism, woman is hindered by her physique. It is idle to contend
+with the statistics which prove how many women between forty and fifty
+break down seriously, and never get fit again. Even in partnership with
+men, where all the risks are obviously diminished, they must be sure of
+provision in case of sickness. Most professions are good ladders but
+bad crutches. Under the present conditions of destructive competition,
+they too often prove no more than an expensive hobby.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FRENCH BUSINESS WOMAN
+
+
+From long residence on the Continent I have been able to study at first
+hand that admirable person the Frenchwoman in business. What a power is
+hers! What would France be without her!
+
+There is certainly no need nor any intention to undervalue Frenchmen;
+but in France one sees woman in her right place, holding the balance
+of power that follows most closely Nature’s obvious design. There, on
+the one side, is man performing the hard physical labour which he alone
+is wise to attempt; on the other, his partner, woman, with her clear
+business judgment, advising, supervising, suggesting, persuading: never
+allowing herself to be carried away by sentiment, but always looking
+facts in the face. A very tiger over her own offspring, she would sell
+her own soul—or anyone else’s—to save her children; and for that
+reason must be met with extreme caution by the foreigner. Her personal
+judgments nevertheless are always based on clear-headed common-sense.
+
+Wherefore, despite her large army of mateless women, France will never
+be faced with the “women’s question,” as we know it. Women in France
+are, to a large extent, independent of public opinion: they do not fear
+facts.
+
+Any ideal of “single-blessedness” would not appeal to them. “It
+is neither practical nor natural; why therefore should we pretend
+otherwise?” We question indeed if English women are quite sincere in
+this matter. “It is better,” they say, “to be alone than with the wrong
+man.” “A strange ideal,” answers Madame, “how do you know that he _is_
+wrong until you have tried?”
+
+As the French believe, whatever work a woman may undertake, she must
+be man’s associate and partner; neither his subordinate nor his
+rival. Wherefore she gives her daughter a professional, or business
+training; _and_ above all, money. A shopkeeper’s daughter generally
+marries her father’s most promising assistant. The business becomes
+a sort of double partnership, and most of these marriages prove quite
+satisfactory. So if a girl’s father is in the army she generally
+marries an officer; if a banker she will choose a man in a bank. It
+is a practical family arrangement seldom leading women out of their
+own class. The disastrous sort of “The Earl and the Girl” affair, so
+familiar to us, could scarcely ever take place in France.
+
+It is true that France has now a large army of mateless women, but the
+greater number are widows. As widows they are either carrying on the
+family business, working in government posts, or living with their
+parents. Few, of their own choice, would set up alone for themselves.
+
+In their eyes the English woman seems always struggling with “so much
+work for such small results:” driven to occupations for which she
+is not properly equipped. They would never expect or permit their
+own daughters to face the material insecurity which few of our women
+workers can avoid. Here they may swim, more often they sink. The
+Frenchwoman says, “swim by all means if you can, but first make sure
+that you never sink.” A profession or a business is not enough. The
+girl must have a home _or_ money. Mothers who cannot provide all three
+will at least insist on one.
+
+Even a short residence on the Continent will suffice to show us what
+sacrifices all Frenchwomen are prepared to make in order that the
+“daughter” may never find herself in the humiliating position of having
+no money behind her, whether she marries or not. I knew, for instance,
+a doctor who was killed in the war before his daughter’s dowry had
+been saved up. The widow at once let her furnished house, and took the
+position as housekeeper in a school. She is living on her husband’s
+pension; the rest is put by for the girl. This of course is only one
+example out of a thousand. The woman thinks no work beneath her, or too
+heavy to undertake for her daughter’s future. Public opinion accepts
+her sacrifice as a mere matter of course. It is her duty.
+
+As a matter of fact, however, our snobbish attitude towards
+shop-keepers is unknown in France. The woman who sees that she can do
+better at business than in a profession, goes into business. As a rule
+she succeeds in both, because she will sink her personality and take up
+the position in which she is needed most, whatever her qualifications
+for better work. An expert at embroidery, bodice-making, or
+hair-dressing will devote her life to keeping the books of the family
+business for the good of the firm. The woman doctor may be sighing to
+make her name as a surgeon or oculist; but for the good of the practice
+she will readily give her mind to research work, or, if her husband is
+also a doctor, to writing his lectures. Her whole career may have its
+course changed, but she remains content.
+
+Moreover, the Frenchwoman never forgets, or ignores, her real
+object—_permanent security_. They are a race of cautious investors,
+who will invest almost everything they possess to put a child on his
+feet. They will not make him a clerk, always subject to dismissal; a
+secretary, always looking for better posts. They put capital, however
+small, into his business to _establish_ him there.
+
+It is for this reason that, at the boot-makers, dress-makers,
+milliners, and elsewhere, you so continually meet the familiar faces.
+The assistants, whether married or not, keep their jobs until they can
+face the world with a fixed income. A few English, and more Americans,
+make larger fortunes, it is true; but how many of us would have the
+patience to “heap up” franc by franc, the security which is the great
+aim of every Frenchwoman.
+
+Comparisons are odious, but we certainly have much to learn from the
+French business woman.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE LAWS FOR WOMEN—ILLOGICAL AND INCONSISTENT
+
+
+How strange it is that Englishwomen, who enjoy a liberty of action
+their sisters on the continent regard with envy, should yet be governed
+by a code of laws as inconsistent as they are unjust. From this code
+were taken the chief planks of the Suffrage platforms.
+
+Though the feministic appeal was made first to unhappy, or dissatisfied
+women, it was easy to rouse righteous wrath in all by dwelling upon the
+cruel laws to which women in this land are subjected.
+
+Tell a woman that “by the law you are not the legal parent of your
+child,” and who could not secure a majority by such an appeal?
+
+When the “master” is good and kind, the position of wife, mother, or
+daughter may be quite satisfactory. When, however, a woman is thrown
+into the grip of these cruel laws, then Heaven have mercy on her!
+
+Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, because they might otherwise
+have been more quickly reformed, Englishwomen have, to protect them,
+the Englishman’s own self-made code, really of more effect than any
+law:—simply, “_It isn’t done._” Every British gentleman bows to the
+great judge, Public Opinion. Alas, however, every Britisher is not a
+gentleman, and again one asks: “What chance has a woman when left to
+the mercy of the laws of the realm?” Even the Moslems, who are not
+supposed to credit women with the possession of a soul at all, have
+more consistent and just laws than ours, and, what is of the greatest
+importance, children are always given a legal status.
+
+It is astonishing that the British gentleman, the world-renowned
+sportsman in the very highest sense, can stand not only for the wrongs
+that are done to unmarried mothers, but worse still, for the wrongs
+done to the poor defenceless beings who come into the world unasked,
+and yet suffer all their lives for what has not been in any way their
+own fault. Considering the real nature of that very fine being, the
+British gentleman, and a finer than he does not exist on this earth,
+in comparison with the men of every other land, one wonders whether,
+after all, his attention has ever been properly drawn to this injustice.
+
+The laws are so out of harmony with all the “fairplay” for which he
+stands. First, taking woman as a wife. There are far too few obstacles
+to prevent her marrying in haste, and far too many, since these hasty
+marriages are allowed, to prevent her unmarrying. One cannot, perhaps,
+altogether approve of the Continental arranged marriage, but there is
+certainly something to be said for the wisdom of a system that demands
+the parent’s or guardian’s consent up to the age of twenty-five. At
+least it puts off the “evil day”; and gives the families on both sides
+time to act. Both family histories, and both family banking accounts
+are carefully examined; and, in most cases, the State ceremony and
+service in church combined are calculated to impress upon young people
+the solemnity of the partnership into which they are about to enter,
+and the interests of the future generation it will be theirs to
+safeguard.
+
+Compare these carefully arranged marriages with some of our slipshod,
+ill-considered unions, based on pure physical attraction which
+naturally cannot last!
+
+If neither the State, nor the parent, will—or can—do anything to
+prevent hasty marriage, why should the laws for Divorce be so
+consistently illogical. They are not only illogical, but disgracefully
+unfair. In Italy there is no divorce—neither the Church nor the State
+grants it—so the situation is quite clear; both sexes are treated alike.
+
+In France, the State, not the Church, grants divorce for men and women
+on equal terms; that, too, is fair.
+
+In England, however, _the divorce laws do not help the right class of
+men and women_, and release is not granted to women on equal terms with
+men.
+
+A frivolous-minded couple, who have rushed into matrimony without a
+thought, and have very quickly had quite enough of one another, can go
+through the usual “restitution of conjugal rights” comedy—disgraceful
+legislation, unworthy of our traditions.
+
+It is the wife of a criminal lunatic or a confirmed drunkard who has
+our pity. For her, or the woman tied to a thoroughly immoral man
+who tries to lead the sons astray, there should be permanent relief.
+Judicial separation is not a sufficient protection for the children.
+
+No thinking woman wants easier divorce or anything to loosen family
+ties and lead to legitimatised “free love.” But even devout Roman
+Catholics are now prepared to “use scissors” for the protection of
+children. Handicapped by nature, often the victim of circumstances,
+the unmarried mother is always to be pitied. Although she has the
+advantage over the married woman in being the legal parent of her
+child, yet for her public opinion is merciless. From the father of the
+child, when she can prove who he is, she gets a mere pittance; and if,
+driven to distraction and temporary insanity, she puts an end to the
+little life that began with so much sorrow, she must stand alone in
+the dock. Without defending the woman—God forbid, a little life is too
+sacred!—one cannot help asking: “Where is the man?”
+
+In summing up the disadvantages of being a woman, here is one of
+the greatest. Public opinion and the law defy nature, and by their
+cowardly unchristian attitude frequently drive poor erring humanity to
+the crime of infanticide.
+
+Perhaps the German treatment of this problem is the most Christlike.
+Human nature being what it is, such things will happen; no legislation
+can stop them. Therefore, these children must be brought up as honest
+citizens, _not as children of sin_. The German “Mothers’ Home,” where
+no difference is made between the married and unmarried, is well worth
+a visit and might be imitated with advantage.
+
+“For every sin there is pardon,” we repeat mechanically; and yet
+the British Code puts the awful scarlet letter of illegitimacy on
+defenceless children, and not even the marriage of the parents can wipe
+it out.
+
+One of the most unjust of laws in this realm is that which allows
+parents to disinherit their children. On the Continent this cannot be
+done. Children are entitled to one-third of the parents’ possessions.
+However worthless, they are the parents’ “creations,” for whom the
+responsibility cannot be evaded.
+
+It is true that some parents give away all they possess in their
+life-time in order to deprive the children of their inheritance. This
+is illegal, however, and punishable by the law.
+
+There is something very mean in the attitude of parents who cut off
+their children with the proverbial shilling. They are often influenced
+by mere caprice, a marriage they dislike, or a change of religion. Yet
+whatever a child has done, is this justifiable? And surely a daughter
+who acts in defiance of the wishes of her parents, needs them all the
+more when the predicted day of sorrow arrives. To disinherit a son is
+bad enough, but to disinherit an unmarried daughter is criminal.
+
+The case of the daughter who does not marry in order to look after
+her widowed father and suddenly finds herself penniless because the
+new wife will not let him provide for her, could not happen on the
+Continent. Over and over again one has met these poor victims. Well
+over thirty-five, and yet just starting to work. How can parents be so
+heartless?
+
+On the Continent there is, at least an unwritten law which forces a
+brother to look after his sister. No one likes to accept charity from
+a brother, yet Continental public opinion deals harshly with the man
+who deserts his mother and sisters in their time of need. It is more
+lenient to those who neglect their wives; children and one’s own flesh
+and blood, however, seem somehow to have a closer claim.
+
+A good brother is the dearest possible pal. And what a difference his
+mere existence makes sometimes in the attitude of his sister’s male
+employer. Yet, as many Englishwomen must admit, their brothers are
+scarcely aware of their existence. There has been no quarrel, but they
+do not even correspond; he has married and has new interests. The
+companion of his childhood is a memory that cannot even be kept alive
+by a postcard.
+
+Brothers know perfectly well, or if they do not know they ought to be
+told, that woman’s value as she grows older decreases in the labour
+market. They have become so used to sisters helping themselves when
+they are not married, or badly married, that they lose interest:
+influenced, in some cases, maybe, by a jealous wife. How bitter the
+heart-ache of many a “Maggie Tulliver” at the indifference of “brother
+Tom.”
+
+None can deny the injustice of these English laws. It was said that
+they would never be changed until women obtained the vote. As no
+thinking worker could uphold such crushing, humiliating, and dangerous
+laws, they worked whole-heartedly for the Vote, and obtained it. Yet
+the laws have not yet been changed. It was then maintained that the
+Vote was not enough, women must sit in the House of Commons.
+
+What have they done in the House of Commons?
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+CAN WOMEN SUCCEED IN POLITICS?
+
+
+Can women succeed in politics? It is, perhaps, too early to say.
+Suddenly some giant personality may give the lie to all that could be
+said against woman as a politician.
+
+Meantime, who but Lady Astor could have been the first woman M.P.?
+Who but a woman of her social position, wealth, and personality could
+have secured the reception accorded her by the House of Commons? And
+who but a woman—trained in America and as a Christian Scientist—would
+have had the courage to take up a work for which she was not educated;
+braving the criticism of the whole civilised world. But she has done
+it, and in spite of serious blunders at the beginning, she has done it
+remarkably well. When one remembers her demoralising wealth, that she
+had no business training at all, that she has to rely on her quick wit
+for speeches, one wonders what she might not have accomplished had she
+been through the professional mill.
+
+But will she really help women at Westminster? Has she really their
+cause at heart? Can she understand them? Certainly she belongs to that
+fine school of American idealists who want to make great reforms.
+Only, to do these great things, you must understand them, and can she
+understand women’s needs, who has not herself been in need? She has a
+chance to help women, such as no one else has ever had, or may have
+again. Will she take it?
+
+The cause of the working woman will always be well championed.
+Besides, the poor can beg; professional women cannot. On their way to
+independence some women have found sorrow and humiliation and suffering
+at every corner, but to whom will they ever confess?
+
+Lady Astor was certainly not very successful in her attitude towards
+divorce. Had she studied the question sufficiently? Possibly not, and
+that was the reason. She supposed the thinking women of England were
+trying for _easier divorce_, not _reformed divorce_, and who could
+blame her for wishing to keep out of England the “easy divorce” laws
+of the U.S.A.
+
+As a professional working woman, Mrs. Wintringham ought to be able
+to give the professional woman’s point of view with much more
+understanding than Lady Astor. Her speeches are commendably brief and
+to the point, but the public usually prefers personality and social
+standing to the highest, technical qualifications. It is, indeed,
+another very great point in Lady Astor’s favour that she has no axe
+to grind. The constituents who elected her because she is Lady Astor,
+will elect her again; whereas, with other woman candidates we have yet
+to find out whether they will put their own personal interests before
+their cause.
+
+There was a time when one supposed women would clear up politics as
+they cleared up a dirty house. But are they more to be trusted in
+politics than men? A woman comes out of Labour ranks; as she gets on,
+she becomes socially ambitious, then she throws her party aside. Men
+have done it over and over again; they call it “evolution,” and women
+no doubt will say the same.
+
+The few women who are likely to sit in the House of Commons can make
+_very little difference to the constitution_, and it might be wiser for
+women to use their vote for forcing men on to their side, and so making
+sure that their wishes are carried out with regard to Bills with which
+they are particularly concerned. Women and children’s laws need reform
+so badly; is it safe to rely on future women M.P.’s? It is true that
+we have not yet had any bills framed by women for women; they may be
+master-pieces of statesmanship. Let it be said meanwhile that at least
+they could not be worse than the existing man-made laws.
+
+The danger of trusting women in politics, comes from their lack of
+_esprit de corps_, yet the very _raison d’être_ of their being in
+Parliament is to protect and help other women; to uphold other women’s
+interests. But see how they run their clubs! No men’s clubs are
+conducted on such lines. The best of them cannot choke that Mothers’
+Meeting spirit, which shows itself at the most unfortunate moments. And
+the meetings are often conducted in the most unsportsmanlike manner.
+Over and over again a woman in the Chair will close the meeting if
+the feeling is going against her party, or her speaker cannot answer
+questions.
+
+Individual women are magnificent; but to trust them collectively is
+futile as yet. Either from ignorance or from something in woman’s
+nature, somehow or other she so often seems to let other women down.
+We have said that Lady Astor, if she really cares to understand the
+professional woman’s point of view, could be of the greatest service to
+the women’s cause.
+
+Outside the House of Commons, however, the women’s cause has suffered
+a great deal from the rich and titled women who annex it as an
+interesting hobby, draw up impossible charters for women, hold
+drawing-room meetings, agitate and drive their hearers on much faster
+than they ever ought to attempt to go. As one of the victims said: “I
+wish she would talk less, and offer us instead a good meal.”
+
+There is not this terrible gulf of misunderstanding between rich men
+and professional men. Not even a workman would have his interests
+meddled with by people who have neither the right nor the capacity to
+interfere. They would very soon send Lord X. about his business, if he
+addressed them as his wife once addressed a women’s meeting. Stretching
+her pretty Paradise-plumed head out of her magnificent sable furs,
+she said: “Twopence is quite enough to spend on a meal; one penny for
+a packet of pea soup powder, and one penny for margarine. It makes
+a most delicious soup. I give it to my guests.” The pearls she was
+wearing would have fed a whole community for a long time on a much more
+substantial menu than two penny-worth of pea soup.
+
+Another lady of great wealth advised a typist, earning only one pound a
+week, and forced to live on bread and cheese with a cup of tea, to “cut
+out the tea; it is indigestible. One good meal of bread and cheese a
+day is _excellent_; that is my régime.”
+
+What is the use of answering such cruel folly by talk of sisterhood
+and democracy? Are they not mere idle words? Have we advanced one step
+since Marie Antoinette asked her historic question, “Why are the poor
+crying because they have no bread; can they not eat cake?”
+
+There is no more fascinating, or useful, study than Foreign Politics.
+See what a conscientious student can learn in its train—history,
+geography, foreign languages, the literature and the psychology of
+different races. Then comes the longing to visit foreign lands, to see
+and judge their civilisation, and to understand them through their art
+and music. What better League of Nations Study-circle can there be than
+this?
+
+And now, when in spite of conferences and meetings and reunions, the
+great cry is “less Europe and more England,” is there any chance for
+a serious study of foreign policy? The papers give us less and less
+foreign news; and how then are we to stimulate the great cosmopolitan
+spirit which ought to awaken a new breath of life?
+
+If only such women as Lady Astor would revive the political “Salon,”
+where the great statesmen of the world could meet and discuss the
+affairs of nations, they might surely accomplish more for humanity than
+as members of Parliament?
+
+Those wise old French _salonières_ who have passed into the realm of
+history, could no doubt have secured direct representation. They had
+no such desire—and therein showed their wisdom!
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+SEX IN WORK
+
+
+Some women workers are curiously inconsistent. They have declared that
+sex shall not on any account enter into the business world. They cut
+off their hair and dress themselves as nearly as they dare in men’s
+attire; yet they deliberately put a _feminine label_ on their work.
+
+Why the label? Is it lack of sex confidence, or is the work so weak
+that it must trust to that label and beg for mercy?
+
+Take the title of “Women Journalists.” What does this suggest? Either
+an agency for supplying articles on dress or cookery, or a group of
+women banded together to demand their professional rights. As neither
+is meant, the term is misleading. And why should a journalist, whether
+man or woman, want to belong to any but a Society of Journalists?
+
+It is the same with the Women Artists. Why the label? At the Leipzig
+Palace of Women’s Work in 1914, the work of one artist drew everyone’s
+attention, and presumably she was a woman, since the Society had taken
+her to its bosom. Her pictures of Berlin’s underworld were so powerful,
+that they gave birth to all kinds of important prison reforms. But what
+was she doing in that anæmic assembly? Kathie Kollwitz was her name.
+
+Her idea in allowing her work to be labelled “woman” was to help other
+women. Alas, how often the Christian spirit achieves the precise
+opposite of its intention! Kathie Kollwitz’s work, rather than helping
+women, killed by its superiority any chance of appreciation others
+might have secured. The terms artist, writer, author, musician, actor,
+professor and doctor should be used for both sexes. Work must be judged
+regardless of sex, or it is not worth judging at all.
+
+Yet however much we protest against the label, sex is there all the
+same. Lifeless work is sexless work. Sex is like fire, water, and the
+other vital things of life, a great power when properly dominated. At
+the same time its legitimate use in art, as in life, is too subtle
+a weapon to be flourished recklessly as we stumble over the rocks of
+progress.
+
+In the world of workers, sex often makes difficulties in business
+relations. It is for men to judge exactly how a woman handles the
+men under her control. Towards other women she is often the hardest
+task-mistress, when not actually unkind and unjust. In her search after
+the tiny flaws in a piece of work, she loses the great spirit of the
+whole. Her values are wrong; for this reason it is dangerous to give
+average women the final word.
+
+It has been said that men put up more readily with incompetence than
+women. But this is not quite the case. They are more patient and more
+indulgent, and they take the trouble to judge from all round. The most
+aggravating little imperfections may well be balanced by some sound
+practical efficiency which, in the business eye of an employer, cancels
+all other faults. He knows he cannot expect perfection, and is content.
+
+Women are not so much exacting as unreasonable. With the exacting
+one can deal; but not with the unreasonable. In business the terms
+_unreasonable_ and _incompetent_ are synonymous. In time, no doubt,
+women will learn to take broader views of life and will acquire sense
+of proportion. The question of kindness to their own sex will thus
+adjust itself, but in the meantime only a very limited number of
+them are _big_ enough to employ others: which obviously means much
+unnecessary suffering for the workers.
+
+On the other hand, relations between men and women in business are
+not always easy. A woman may be allowed to take positions of such
+importance in the office that she will shake the whole foundations of
+business; which is obviously unwise.
+
+On the other hand, a man will often take advantage of a woman in
+business and find her an easy prey, just as he makes a good bargain
+for himself with a less wide-awake rival, without any offence to his
+business conscience; or if, under the influence of a smile and pearly
+teeth, he make a bargain that he regrets when thinking it over, he will
+soon find a means for catching up the pretty incompetent. Sometimes,
+again, a feeling of pity for a woman fighting life’s battles leads him
+to do things for her he would never dream of doing for a man. Alas! how
+many business careers have been wrecked on the rocks of sympathy.
+
+The much criticised _impresario_ is not the only sinner. Wolves in
+sheep’s clothing are to be found in every walk of life, and the very
+harmless act of accepting a lunch from an employer may swing the
+business relations on to entirely the wrong footing. After that, it is
+too late.
+
+A woman who has business dealings with men must train herself to be
+two personalities—official and private. The more she is accustomed
+outside the office to being her own sweet self, the more must she
+school herself to leave the charming female on the doormat, and convert
+herself into a shrewd business woman who wants all her wits about her
+to conclude a bargain.
+
+The woman in business who allows a man to take any but a business
+footing with her, must lose, _the odds being against her always_. By
+not putting her foot down at once, she finds herself quickly out of
+things altogether, with no chance of return.
+
+There are, of course, many trying feminine types in business. For
+example, there is the woman who wants to be treated with 18th century
+courtesy. When asked why he objected to women lecturers, a secretary of
+a big society replied: “We hate being discourteous, but we really have
+not time to meet women at the station, dine them, and look after them.
+A man looks after himself. You will say a woman ought to do the same.
+Well, she does not. You can’t let her. A woman’s a woman....”
+
+A very distressing type of worker is the one who, having signed a
+contract, wants to get out of it directly a better offer is in sight.
+This happens too frequently. She knows very well a man would have to
+pay heavy damages for doing such a thing. So she plays the feminine
+note, and the employer is cornered. All he can do without scandal is to
+cut his loss and get rid of her as quickly as possible. But his whole
+attitude towards women becomes filled with distrust, and the innocent
+have to suffer in consequence.
+
+Once women learn to work more as the associates of men, these
+uncomfortable questions of “sex” will necessarily to a large extent
+disappear. But at the present moment they must unfortunately fill a
+large space in any attempt to sum up the disadvantages under which
+women work.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+IS FEMININITY AT A DISCOUNT?
+
+
+Femininity is a disadvantage to the professional woman, first of all,
+because it is expensive, and secondly because it takes up too much time.
+
+If the hours spent trying on dresses, hats and other items of the
+wardrobe were presented in the form of a bill, one may wonder how many
+feminine existences would have a life balance at all.
+
+Some women make dress their life work, the planning of their clothes
+and going out to show themselves in them, dominating all else in their
+minds. While others, the workers, are sighing for just a little more
+time, mostly to keep themselves neat and tidy. Life does sometimes seem
+out of proportion.
+
+The subject of dress in a professional woman’s life is a vexed problem.
+How is she to find time to attend to her wardrobe? A short while ago,
+I saw a woman at the club sipping hot water. She owned she was banting.
+“I’m getting fat,” she said, “too fat to be stock-size, and that
+would be a calamity. Where can I find time to wear any but ready-made
+dresses?”
+
+Yet unreasonable as it is to wear lace cuffs, collars and blouses which
+require constant washing and ironing, what true woman would give them
+up? Laundry bills are too heavy, so these things have to be done at
+home, and the already long day must begin an hour earlier, probably
+at six instead of seven. And how much time is squandered sewing on
+buttons, mending, and other things. For a woman suffers when she feels
+all her garments are not in order; those unseen, as well as those
+seen. Whilst the man worker goes off to tennis, cricket or football
+on Saturday afternoons without a thought of the clothes to be mended
+for him by some female hand, the woman worker stays at home to do her
+tidying up herself.
+
+Although the final result is often quite as satisfactory as when the
+work is done by a woman, there is something pathetic in the sight of
+a male using a needle. He holds his garments in such awkward, though
+mathematically correct, positions, and the table is his thimble.
+Nothing more quickly arouses the maternal side of a woman than the
+sight of a man with a needle. “Has he no woman to look after him?”
+is the question which comes instinctively. And, in the same way a
+chivalrous man will ask, “Has she no man to take care of her?” when he
+sees a woman wearing herself out in an office.
+
+People may argue as they like; the old primitive division—man the
+hunter, woman the tent-keeper—is the natural order of things. Will the
+world’s mind really grasp any other? It is true that women workers are
+to be seen everywhere in England, but, as one witty woman said, “their
+real work has to be done out of hours.”
+
+“However severe the orders given my servants to leave me to work
+undisturbed,” said Flora Annie Steele, “just when I am wondering how
+I can best kill off my hero, the cook comes in to tell me she has no
+lemon.” Such a thing would never happen to her husband were he the
+writer of books.
+
+Another woman, the editress of a big woman’s paper, tells me she leaves
+home to this tune—“the pipe has burst,” “the gas is out of order,”
+“the ceiling is leaking,” and then more of these important items are
+sometimes communicated by telephone to the office during her busiest
+days. All this side of life, of course, is kept from a busy man. He has
+to think only of his work.
+
+Knowing, as she does, the time that clothes take to keep in order,
+knowing that long hair means at least an afternoon to wash, and always
+constant attention, a feminine woman defies all reason and somehow
+makes time for these things. And so it is with the care of her house or
+flat. She could live in lodgings or have a corner in a hostel, but she
+cannot bear the atmosphere that is not of her own creation. She must
+therefore have a place of her own. The whole of her income probably
+goes on the upkeep of her home; she cannot afford a servant, she cannot
+even really afford a flat if she looked into the future as a man looks.
+But she will have it. From an outsider’s point of view, one wonders
+where the pleasure comes in. She begins the day by getting her own
+breakfast, and having worked in an office all day, she returns to shop
+and sweep and dust and sew, or to cook and wash up for friends when
+they come to spend the evening. “It’s silly, I know,” said a bachelor
+woman, “I’m always having to draw on my sleep capital, but I couldn’t
+stand “apartments,” and I’m not going to try.” Were women really
+intended to live in this way?
+
+Seeing then the time that femininity absorbs in a woman’s career, can
+we not understand those who cast it aside for ever? They cut off their
+useless hair, buy substantial masculine boots with low, flat heels,
+and dress themselves as nearly as they dare in the comfortable, ugly
+fashions of men.
+
+From the artistic point of view the result is often deplorable. It
+needs a brave woman to be seen in such clothing, except at a carnival;
+but for the work they have to do perhaps male attire is more consistent.
+
+Such clothing, however, convenient as it may be, tends to unsex the
+wearer. No longer feminine, unable to be quite masculine, she becomes
+a _neutral_, and her real friends, male or female, are few and far
+between.
+
+I shared a cabin, crossing the Atlantic, with one of these “neutrals.”
+Except for a very short skirt, her garments were all masculine until
+the evening when, remembering her original sex, she extracted some
+rings from a grandmother’s pocket somewhere in her nether garments, and
+at the same time allowed her femininity to go the length of wearing
+lace stockings, without ceasing, however, to don her major’s coat. Such
+a woman would probably never do any great good nor any great harm, and,
+supposing she had sex, it could easily be transmuted to her work.
+
+This type, nevertheless, gets a perfectly square deal from a man
+employer. “With such a woman as a business associate or a secretary, I
+can treat her like a man,” said a member of Parliament.
+
+Probably this type of woman would be excellent on a jury, even a jury
+to try a murderer. But to ask some women to sit on juries is next to a
+crime. It is not at all in their line of thinking. They would be much
+happier buying silk stockings and leaving this grim and complicated
+subject to men or to other women of tried experience.
+
+In the question of juries we have another example of the part being
+made greater than the whole. For one woman who can be of any real use
+in a police court, a hundred are no good at such work, at least until
+they have learnt to be more just to their own sex, and more balanced in
+judgment. No woman should sit on a jury against her will.
+
+Face to face with two million superfluous women, perhaps the “neutral”
+may offer a solution, who can tell? They work mechanically, like the
+bees, and judging the work, one forgets the worker.
+
+But it was neither as a hybrid nor through any male mentality that Mme.
+Curie succeeded in helping her husband to discover radium. It was the
+feminine quality of her mind that was of such great value. And when he
+was killed in the most stupid of street accidents, that female mind
+became sterile until the day when she found a substitute for the great
+masculine mind at rest.
+
+George Eliot, before she met George Lewis, was no more than a competent
+journalist. With the assistance of his mind she wrote _Adam Bede_.
+Without him, would her novels have ever been produced?
+
+And the hybrid can never be good for the community. It may be
+convenient for us to ask women to give up their femininity, but the
+sacrifice is too great. It is marking her with the same gender as a
+table.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+PIN-MONEY WOMEN
+
+
+After health, women’s great obstacle in work, comes the pin-money
+woman. There must be something fundamentally unnatural in a system that
+makes women disloyal to one another, yet it is pin-money women who are
+the hardest on those who must work.
+
+When the proprietor of a girl’s magazine can obtain a Girton Honours
+student as editor for thirty shillings to three pounds a week; or
+when another University graduate, with five years linguistic training
+in Germany, France and Italy, will work in a Government office for
+three pounds a week, how is the woman who absolutely depends on her
+own efforts to compete with her? Thirty shillings is the price of a
+none too luxurious room in London, without a meal; it is, therefore,
+very wrong of qualified women with enough to live on, to accept three
+pounds a week. A competent woman secretary may be satisfied with one
+hundred and fifty pounds a year, because she has a handsome allowance
+from her father so that she need not live with her step-mother. She
+has two incomes. Work keeps her from getting bored and gives her a
+certain _raison d’être_. But it is her low salary that helps to kill
+all possibility of women’s work being taken seriously.
+
+Apply for the post which Miss X. has given up for another hobby, and
+ask for a living wage. You will be stared at in amazement. “Miss X.
+with her exceptional qualifications did it for so much,” they say, “we
+must find another Miss X.”
+
+How do pin-money women come into existence? And why do they increase?
+“It is useless having more than one or two daughters at home,” says
+the father of four daughters. “Supposing my daughter can earn only one
+hundred pounds a year, that will keep her in clothes and pin-money and
+save me that amount in allowance.” But her work cannot be considered
+either a career or an independence. She does not even supply her own
+“bread and butter,” whereas most of the salary of the serious worker
+goes on that alone.
+
+The head of the house supposes, and continues to hope, that his
+daughters will marry, and his responsibility come to an end. With this
+in view, he thinks that a little office experience will do her no harm.
+It will teach her at least the value of money. And so, year in, year
+out, the army of pin-money women, marking time, make it more and more
+impossible for those who must work to earn their living. One sometimes
+wonders whether these pin-money women have any idea of the sorrow and
+hardship they bring to other women; only the wearer feels the shoe
+pinch. The amateur, who is not forced to work and can give it up at any
+time, so easily becomes slipshod. Hence arises the tendency to class
+even the best women’s work as amateur.
+
+Amongst those who are making the professional woman’s career more
+difficult, we can now also count the Society women.
+
+The number of Society women who, since the war, have pushed their way
+into literature, art, films and the business world, is bewildering.
+It frequently means that the poor girl, who naturally cannot compete
+with the beautiful and much advertised fine lady, has to serve as
+“ghost” and rewrite the Countess’s articles, for which she gets a
+mere pittance. The Countess is paid for her name: and the “ghost” must
+submit, as she knows that hundreds of other women are ready to take the
+work.
+
+In business there may be nothing against a combination by which the
+Countess X supplies the capital and Miss X does the work. Men lend
+their noble names to help along financial schemes, and women may do the
+same, if only a fair share of the profits be allowed to the worker.
+
+One must admit that nowadays many Society women are out to make money,
+and generally succeed, thus doing far less mischief than the pin-money
+women who are qualified to make money and yet work for a pittance.
+
+There were days when the middle-class professional worker was
+considered the backbone of the nation. Are those days past?
+
+Democracy, with its blundering fingers, has shuffled the cards so badly
+that it is difficult to see where things will right themselves. It is
+as useless to sigh for the days when a countess was a countess, and an
+actress an actress, and a worker a worker, as to weep for the fine men
+of England who are asleep amongst the Flanders poppies. No competent
+worker fears competition; lack of competition means stagnation.
+There is a great difference, however, between _competition_ and
+_under-cutting_, which is what the pin-money women are systematically
+creating. Competition builds the edifice, under-cutting makes it fall.
+And no words are sufficiently harsh for the amateur worker who, to
+avoid _ennui_, does not hesitate to ruin her poorer sisters, actually
+lowering men’s wages in the process, and—indirectly—forcing more women
+into the labour market. There is great importance in the distinction
+between the woman who works in collaboration with her husband, and
+the woman who works to help keep the household. The latter is always
+a dangerous experiment, and one which often ends in the wife having
+to keep the whole house. When a woman is able to earn money, the man
+so easily falls into the habit of letting her do it, till gradually
+his efforts become slacker and slacker and he often leaves off working
+altogether. _An energetic, wage-earning wife always demoralises a man._
+
+An able-bodied man who allows his wife to keep the family is a poor
+being; yet in these days of women’s work, it is becoming more and more
+frequent, the energetic, clever woman attracting a weak, lazy type of
+man. Women ought to let men understand from the first that husbands
+are responsible for the family expenses. In the day of misfortune, of
+course, normal rules do not apply.
+
+At the same time, the married worker may be as great an obstacle to the
+single woman as the pin-money woman. Under the shelter of her husband’s
+roof, she can do work for a comparatively low figure which must injure
+her less fortunate rival.
+
+Work has been done from mere vanity! In fact, as one man said about his
+wife’s work: “One requires a really large income to be the husband of a
+literary woman.”
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+WHAT IS WRONG WITH MARRIAGE?
+
+
+Pages have been, and always will be, written about love and marriage,
+or marriage without love, or even marriage as a profession. All the
+roads of romance lead that way, all sorrows spring from its wrong
+vibrations, or because it never came. Whatever may be written or
+thought to the contrary, marriage will always remain the woman’s
+vocation.
+
+When one sees a worn-out, middle-aged, woman taking notes at some
+tiresome political meeting and knows that she still has to write her
+report before she can struggle home in the small hours of the morning,
+one asks: “What has she gained, morally or financially? Would she not
+be far better at the fireside mending stockings?”
+
+We have set out, one by one, the disadvantages under which women labour
+in the different professions they have taken up. What, after all, is
+safer or better than matrimony?
+
+Not, however, the matrimony of our grandparents, but matrimony on the
+basis of _moral partnership_.
+
+In the past century, when the wife was a kind of head servant and
+obeyed the master without questioning his authority, matrimony ran on
+easy enough lines. Now, when modern woman has a distinct personality of
+her own, unless both husband and wife have a high sense of duty and a
+feeling of partnership in the family they have created, their home-life
+cannot be a success.
+
+And yet, with all its imperfections, on what better arrangement can
+they co-operate?
+
+We have admitted that exceptional women, with unusually good health,
+can succeed in the professions, but certainly the majority are, both
+physically and morally, best fitted for married life. All the emotional
+qualities of women, the worrying over details, the love of order, the
+forgive-and-forget process of training children, are home virtues. The
+qualifications for success in business are entirely different.
+
+And, for our generation, noting the moral upheaval and depravity
+following the war, there was never a time when clear-thinking women of
+high principles were more needed in home-life. There was never a period
+when young men had more need of the one love that will never betray
+them—the mother love.
+
+We in England have so much that could never be found in France, but we
+now need to learn a few lessons from France with regard to family life.
+
+Most unfortunately, the literature of France seldom depicts French
+home-life. Frenchmen read novels that, in frank contrast to their
+lives, scoff at marriage and extol adultery. Are we not, alas,
+following in the same tragic footsteps? It is more tragic for us, for
+we have not the same critical balance. Sentimental natures like ours do
+not reflect, and thus easily digest the tainted food which the French
+are critical enough to analyse. Those who have lived in France know
+that the Frenchman loves his home. It is his one ambition to have a
+home and family, and for this ambition he can depend on encouragement
+and support from all.
+
+The English marriage system may be idealistic, but is it practical? The
+French system, with the bride’s dowry, has often been criticised and
+condemned, but there can be no question that on the whole it is far
+better for the bride. It is said that in France a man marries a woman
+for her dowry; which is sometimes true. Here, however, he often cannot
+marry for lack of it, which is worse. Just one or two hundred pounds
+a year which the French mother begins to collect when the daughter
+is born, and scarcely misses herself, would hardly tempt mercenary
+suitors, yet it makes all the difference to the girl. The provision of
+a dowry is rightly considered a sacred duty. To allow a daughter to
+marry without something of her own is looked upon as a disgrace, and
+even the poorest _concierge_ finds the wherewithal for her girl’s dot.
+
+But apart from the fact that this small standby is an encouragement
+to early marriage, it raises the wife to the position of a “partner,”
+and as a partner she naturally has a right to know exactly how the
+household works. “I haven’t the least idea what my husband’s position
+is,” English wives have said. “I spend my allowance, but perhaps I
+ought not—who knows?” Imagine her feelings if her husband should
+suddenly announce that he is a bankrupt. She has contributed without
+knowing to the general useless expenditure. That could never happen in
+France where the woman takes her full share of management.
+
+The French system differs from ours because money is given at the time
+of the daughter’s marriage instead of at the parent’s death, when it is
+often only half as valuable as it would have been in early life. Either
+the couples have married and set up for themselves, struggling along
+in a crippled way for want of a little extra money, or the young man,
+not daring to risk life for two on his first earnings, has married less
+happily than he would have done in earlier manhood.
+
+Above all, a sense of humiliation prevents many women from marrying.
+Rather than be utterly dependent on a man, they prefer to work for
+themselves. “You feel so cheap taking a salary as if you were a
+housekeeper.” In a struggling or unhappy marriage, where too often the
+man resents every penny he doles out, the position is heartrending for
+a woman. Some, ashamed of not contributing to the home and unable to
+make ends meet out of their small allowance, supplement it by adopting
+a profession. This may help, but as already suggested, it often leads
+to all sorts of complications.
+
+Girls should be encouraged to marry young, though not too young. It is
+dangerous for them to have gone too far on the road of independence,
+for success may make them so “difficult” in their choice that they
+wait too long and do not bother to marry at all. The Turkish proverb:
+“Friendless still he remaineth who demands a perfect friend,” may prove
+a wise warning in the matter of choosing a husband.
+
+In an Empire like ours, where many of our young men have to emigrate,
+and cannot afford to take a wife out with them, there would be many
+obvious advantages in some system of dowries.
+
+No French mother would let her son go to the end of the earth without
+a wife to look after him. She knows, “it is not good for man to be
+alone.” Nor does she relish the idea of daughters left to “wither on
+the virgin thorn.” Perhaps, even, she considers the daughter’s case
+more seriously than the son’s. For she has made up her mind that
+matrimony is not only the most natural, but the only path for a woman,
+and she leaves no stone unturned to bring about a marriage. Friends
+help, the family confessor helps; the conspiracy is an open secret, and
+no one thinks any the worse of her for her scheming.
+
+Perhaps the best and happiest marriages are those arranged by brothers.
+When a girl marries her loved brother’s best friend, it is the safest
+way of making assurance doubly sure.
+
+Between the too cautious system of the French and our careless methods,
+there ought to be a happy mean. We have been arguing by extremes. Could
+we not compromise and secure the advantages of both methods?
+
+We have advocated early marriage. We who love children know what it
+means for them to have young parents. Early marriage, however, is a
+danger, unless the family ties are tightened. Would Englishmen and
+women ever take their mothers into their confidence, and act on advice,
+as the French do? Yet every great virtue has its own defects, and
+very often the Frenchwoman’s great love for her son will tempt her to
+cripple his best interests both in marriage and in his career. She
+may spoil his career by keeping him in France where he does not obtain
+either experience or promotion. She may force him to marry “well” when
+his heart is elsewhere, though an understanding and unselfish mother
+generally chooses a better wife than he would have found for himself.
+
+There was a time when every Englishman scorned the idea of a dowry.
+Now, though not actually applauding the system, they do fall in love
+more easily with the daughter of rich parents, and, in these hard
+times, who can blame them? A woman naturally resents being married for
+money; but we have never seen any signs of rejoicing in those who have
+been left penniless in the hands of the best husband. That is more
+humiliating, not less.
+
+The greatest advantage of the French system, which provides something
+for both husband and wife, is that a young couple _can_ marry, and
+their children will have the immense advantage of young and healthy
+parents. How, in these hard times for professional men, can one of
+these afford to marry before he is nearly forty, and this often results
+in his wife being left a young widow with a family, the children
+without the moral and material support of the father when he is most
+needed.
+
+It is only a small sacrifice that these French parents make in slowly
+and steadily saving money for their daughters, and it seems incredible
+that for want of similar unselfishness, this country should eventually
+abound, as it must, in destitute women.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE FUTURE
+
+
+What is to be the Future of the army of two million superfluous women?
+
+We maintain that, with few exceptions, the vocation of women is
+matrimony. But where are all these two million to find husbands?
+Certainly not in England.
+
+From time to time, the papers are full of the need for women in our
+colonies:—Rhodesia, Western Canada, or Australia. But does such a need
+really exist? Why cannot some thoroughly competent and trustworthy
+woman be sent out on a mission to these places—as the _Daily Mail_
+quite recently sent one of its men representatives—to investigate, and
+produce a reliable report of all the facilities for emigration? It
+is idle and dangerous to pursue such ideas blindfold: we need exact
+figures and precise facts.
+
+If there is work in the colonies for our women, why not send them
+out? If there _are_ men there wanting wives, the rest will follow as a
+matter of course.
+
+When we read what the first Puritan colonists of America endured and
+suffered, and how the women battled along beside them, we need feel no
+fear of what Englishwomen can do when put to the test. In the fight for
+home and children woman stands out supreme. Who knows what a marvellous
+tale of love, adventure, and real heroism, a new exodus might call
+forth? But we must know the truth. Are women really needed in the
+colonies, or are they not?
+
+Every woman has the right to some goal in life. She was not born to
+vegetate; and where the vocation of husband and children is lacking, a
+field of sufficient interest to absorb her whole life must be found.
+What about the Church? Or some other form of work in the service of
+Humanity?
+
+Every student of human nature knows that great insatiable longing of
+one being for the special sympathy of another, the two making one
+perfect whole. The Roman and Anglican Churches have expressed this
+instinct under the simile of Christ the bridegroom and the nun or
+sister, His bride. This Union between God and man is perhaps the only
+one that can replace the wonderful exclusive tie between a man and a
+woman. How many women who buried their “one man” in the battle-fields
+of France, have found their consolation in Heavenly Union and taken
+refuge from the world in the service of humanity with the protection of
+the veil?
+
+In Protestant England, however, the convent does not mean what it
+means in Latin countries, yet England assuredly needs women to labour
+for the certain benefit of their sex. She wants another St. Theresa,
+without her delusions. But where is she? Certainly not in the ranks
+of the women who would drive us to the Bar and the House of Commons.
+Nor amongst those who would send us back to crochet in our mother’s
+drawing-rooms.
+
+Help must come from the religion of _practical service_; and who knows
+whether if women once gain a broader and saner outlook, they would not
+do fine and noble work in the pulpit. They must be chosen, of course,
+with the greatest care, or more harm than good will be done.
+
+If only there were more of us like Miss Maud Royden, a broad-minded,
+deep-thinking, human woman, who can do only good wherever she goes.
+
+We do not want the “shrieking sister” type. We want women who will
+preach that human nature is neither foul nor base, but a noble,
+beautiful thing; that men and women are neither angels nor beasts, but
+just men and women in sore need of help.
+
+The non-conformist Church, too, should make room for more women in its
+foreign missions; and what a fine field there is for the trained nurse
+as Florence Nightingale conceived her. To-day the mere ‘paid’ nurse is
+a different being altogether, with few, if any, of the qualities of the
+pioneer. Too often she is neither working in God’s service to relieve
+suffering, nor straining her mind and strength to learn the laws of
+health. Florence Nightingale’s religion was her work. But where are her
+disciples now?
+
+Nevertheless, there is a practical side to the Service of Humanity.
+It simply cannot be done without organisation and support. The
+“Sisterhood” provides this. Sister Leonie, working day and night in
+the St. Lazare prison, Paris, could not be tortured by the material
+worries of daily life. What a waste of effort that would have been,
+disturbing the work of service as she prays with and comforts her
+penitents.
+
+Everywhere, in fact, and whatever their work or their mission,
+_provision for the Future must prove to be Women s real problem_.
+At present there is no sphere open to her in which the returns are
+substantial enough to allow of saving. Those who feel the Call may be
+freed from such anxieties; but where there is neither a home nor an
+income to depend on, in business or professions that do not carry with
+them an adequate pension, _some kind of insurance must be devised by
+the State_.
+
+This is obviously a big question needing most careful thought. To-day,
+indeed, we must feel serious doubt whether women can place any real
+dependence even on the home and the family. Times are hard, and society
+is unstable. At any moment revolution or anarchy may sweep away,
+through no fault of our own, whatever provision the most prudent of us
+have been able to make.
+
+There can, therefore, be no doubt that the Economic Insecurity among
+women is a grave problem. It may lead anywhere—to suicide, immorality,
+or crime. The matter is too serious for delay. All single women who
+have passed the age of thirty should now be included in some scheme
+of _National Insurance_. The other disadvantages, however great they
+be, are actually dwarfed before the monster terror of no money in our
+old age—or in times of sickness. True, there are old age pensions,
+there are charities for distressed gentlewomen, but no self-respecting
+professional worker can be beholden to these. We ought not to allow it.
+
+Finally, as one who stands whole-heartedly for progress, may we not
+once more ask what is the use of a femininism that preaches hatred
+of the other sex, or a desire to exercise the wearing—for women,
+tearing—professions of men?
+
+Man, with his better-balanced brain and uncomplicated physique, fills
+us with awe. See him at his magnificent work of building bridges,
+stemming rivers and piercing mountains, conquering Nature inch by inch!
+Woman can help his work and complete his life, but she may not enter
+into competition with him.
+
+Let her not deceive herself: in spite of women in Parliament and other
+signs of advanced femininism, she has not gone very far. What she needs
+now is more humanity, more commonsense, and some of the Latin charm. If
+she works as man’s antagonist, she will be beaten back steadily.
+
+  _Male and Female created He them.
+  And a little child shall lead them._
+
+There, in a nutshell, is the truth.
+
+
+
+
+. From A. M. PHILPOT’S LIST .
+
+
+BLUE BOOKLET, VOL. I
+
+THE
+
+FALLACIES _of_ SPIRITUALISM
+
+By A. LEONARD SUMMERS
+
+2s. 6d. net.
+
+SOME EARLY REVIEWS
+
+“This booklet is an extremely able and interesting criticism of a craze
+that has become wide-spread with the most pernicious results. The
+writer does not limit himself to an account of the sensational frauds
+that have been exposed on both sides of the Atlantic, but he analyses
+the evidence of Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Mr. Vale Owen,
+and other distinguished spiritualists, with merciless severity and very
+great acumen.”—_Freemans Journal._
+
+“Lucidly written, and without bitterness, Mr. Summers makes out a good
+case for the ‘against’ in this little book.”—_Glasgow Citizen._
+
+“As a popular indictment, Mr. Summers’ pamphlet is likely to make
+considerable impression. It remains for his opponents to offer
+as succinct and well-documented an answer.”—_The Times Literary
+Supplement._
+
+
+BLUE BOOKLET, VOL. II
+
+PSYCHIC PHENOMENA IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
+
+By SARAH A. TOOLEY
+
+2s. 6d. net.
+
+Scenes and occurrences in the Old Testament, so familiar as to have
+lost their real significance, are here described in a way that will be
+of extraordinary interest to the psychic student of to-day.
+
+
+BLUE BOOKLET, VOL. III
+
+MORAL POISON IN MODERN FICTION
+
+By R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON
+
+2s. 6d. net.
+
+The truth about certain new theories of morality, taught in some modern
+novels, assumed in others, and to some extent already put in practice
+by young readers, frankly and carefully examined, with an exposure
+of their probable evil influence. Extracts from novels by well-known
+writers give point and interest to what amounts to an unhesitating
+condemnation.
+
+
+_NEW BOOK BY TROWARD._
+
+  THE HIDDEN POWER. By T. TROWARD. With frontispiece portrait of the
+  author. Uniform with author’s Complete Works. Crown 8vo, cloth and
+  linen, 8s. 6d. net.
+
+This important volume, which includes practically all Troward’s
+unpublished manuscripts and magazine articles, concludes the series
+of books on Mental Science by an author who was described by the
+late Archdeacon Wilberforce as “one of the greatest thinkers of our
+times.” It is significant to note that these books, beautiful in their
+sustained clearness of thought and style, are now included in the
+curriculum of societies, clubs and classes devoted to the study of
+Mental Science.
+
+
+_Complete List of the Series._
+
+  1. THE EDINBURGH LECTURES ON MENTAL SCIENCE. Crown 8vo, cloth and
+  linen, 6s. net.
+
+Mental Science defined as the proper understanding of Livingness, based
+on the distinction between Spirit and Matter, i.e., Thought and Form.
+
+  2. THE DORÉ LECTURES ON MENTAL SCIENCE. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. net.
+
+An exposition of the relation of the Individual to the Universal
+Originating Principal of the Cosmos—the Mind of God.
+
+  3. THE CREATIVE PROCESS IN THE INDIVIDUAL. Crown 8vo, cloth, 8s. 6d.
+  net.
+
+A study of spiritual evolution which, the author maintains, is but
+another aspect of physical evolution.
+
+“_No thinker should be without this book._”—The late Archdeacon
+WILBERFORCE.
+
+  4. BIBLE MYSTERY AND BIBLE MEANING. Demy 8vo, cloth, 10s. 6d. net.
+
+Troward here proposes that “we shall re-read the Bible on the
+supposition that Jesus and these other speakers _really meant what
+they said_, which is a startling proposition from the standpoint of
+the traditional interpretation.” An illumination for those who seek to
+render the older theology into terms of modern science.
+
+  5. BIBLE PROPHECY, 1914-23. Crown 8vo, paper, 1s. net.
+
+An arresting pamphlet upon the Great War; providing clues to prophetic
+utterances of the Bible concerning the Time of the End. To-day _is_ the
+End of the Age.
+
+  6. THE LAW AND THE WORLD. With a Foreword by PAUL DERRICK. Crown 8vo,
+  cloth, 8s. 6d. net.
+
+In this posthumous volume, Troward formulates a final statement of his
+beliefs after long investigation and profound study in the field of
+Mental Science.
+
+
+A. M. PHILPOT, LTD., 69 Great Russell Street, W.C. 1
+
+
+  _TWO WORKS OF GENIUS_
+
+VOL. IV of Les Fleurs de France.
+
+THE CRYSTAL COFFIN
+
+By MAURICE ROSTAND
+
+6s. net.
+
+An amazing first novel by the son of the author of _Cyrano de Bergerac_.
+
+“It is written in the form of a diary in which the author narrates
+his soul-corruption by a life of luxury and incessant pleasure until,
+finally, he commits suicide on his father’s grave in a mood of
+remorse....
+
+There is veri-similitude throughout. We see the leading figures of
+French life crossing the stage; often Rostand himself stands revealed
+in the intimacy of this diary. While one is inclined to resent an
+exposure so candid, from which the father emerges still greater, it is
+true that the recorder has not spared himself....
+
+A bare outline of the tragedy gives no conception of the fascination
+of this astounding volume. Throughout one cannot separate fact from
+fiction, history from imagination, and everyone asks, ‘How much of this
+is the real Rostand?’ It is a book of astounding candour, of merciless
+introspection, with passages of sheer lyricism....
+
+As a first volume and a _roman à-clef_, _The Crystal Coffin_ is
+something new in the experience of the reviewer. It is undeniable
+evidence of a case of inherited genius, and it seems probable that
+the man who could write this book will create such works that he will
+be independent of the fact that he is his father’s son.”—_Liverpool
+Courier._
+
+
+VOL. V. of Les Fleurs de France.
+
+THE FOSTER MOTHER
+
+By ERNEST PÉROCHON
+
+6s. net.
+
+A poignant story of the conflict between Mother Love and the power of
+the showy, heartless “Vampire Girl”. It is not often that a work of
+genius is “everyone’s book,” but this simply-told story of country life
+is also an exquisite piece of writing which gained the much-coveted
+Prix Goncourt, 1920.
+
+“A tragedy so poignant and so free from sentimental dilution is a truly
+fine achievement.”—_Times Literary Supplement._
+
+“The story is worthy of comparison with big things.”—_Manchester
+Guardian._
+
+
+  _ALL ABOUT PARIS RESTAURANTS_
+
+PARIS À LA CARTE
+
+Where the Frenchman Dines and How.
+
+By SOMMERVILLE STORY
+
+Author of _The Spirit of Paris_, etc.
+
+4s. 6d. net.
+
+A book of great interest and value to all who visit Paris or are
+interested in French cuisine. In a series of sparkling sketches, the
+author describes the different restaurants, past and present, night
+and day, their specialities, habitués, etc., and there are chapters
+describing the preparation and origin of the best-known French dishes,
+the apéritif hour, the chief French wines, and everything connected
+with the subject.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+Pg 14 Changed: the instrument of the Millenium To: the instrument of
+the Millennium
+
+Pg 14 Changed: the promised Millenium is still far to seek To: the
+promised Millennium is still far to seek
+Pg 26 Changed: women doctors, and in the medical mission-field To:
+women doctors, and in the medical mission field
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78463 ***
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+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      The Disadvantages of Being a Woman | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
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+
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+    margin: auto;
+    text-align: center;
+    page-break-inside: avoid;
+    max-width: 100%;
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+
+/* Transcriber's notes */
+.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA;
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+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78463 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1 class="wsp">
+The<br>
+Disadvantages of Being<br>
+a Woman
+</h1>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">
+  <span class="fs70">BY</span><br>
+  <span class="fs120">GRACE ELLISON</span><br>
+  <span class="fs90">Author of “Abdul Hamid’s Daughter,” “An Englishwoman<br>
+  in a Turkish Harem,” etc., etc.</span></p>
+  <br>
+  <br>
+
+  <figure class="figcenter illowp20" id="title" style="max-width: 22.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/title.jpg" alt="">
+  </figure>
+  <br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">
+  <span class="fs120">A. M. PHILPOT, Ltd.</span><br>
+  69 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. 1.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp">
+  THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING A<br>
+  WOMAN
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center no-indent fs200 bold wsp">
+The<br>
+Disadvantages of Being<br>
+a Woman
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">
+  <span class="fs70">BY</span><br>
+  <span class="fs120">GRACE ELLISON</span><br>
+  <span class="fs90">Author of “Abdul Hamid’s Daughter,” “An Englishwoman<br>
+  in a Turkish Harem,” etc., etc.</span></p>
+  <br>
+  <br>
+
+  <figure class="figcenter illowp20" id="title2" style="max-width: 22.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/title.jpg" alt="">
+  </figure>
+  <br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">
+  <span class="fs120">A. M. PHILPOT, Ltd.</span><br>
+  69 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. 1.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center no-indent">
+  [<em>Copyright</em>]<br>
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <span class="fs70">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY W. JOLLY AND SONS, LTD., ABERDEEN</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">
+    CONTENTS
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="autotable lh">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+<em>Introduction.</em>
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+Woman the Discovery of the Century.
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr fs80">
+CHAP.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+</td>
+<td class="tdr fs80">
+PAGE
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+I.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+Feminist Leaders—and their Mistakes<br> (i) Unwise Haste (ii) Legislation for the élite, not for the masses (iii) Hostility to Man, who should be the associate
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_9">9</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+II.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+The Drawback of Health
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_16">16</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+III.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+Barred from the Professions
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_24">24</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+IV.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+The French Business Woman
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_33">33</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+V.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+Laws for Women illogical and inconsistent
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_39">39</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+VI.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+Can Women succeed in Politics?
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_48">48</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+VII.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+Sex in Work
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_56">56</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+VIII.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+Is Femininity at a discount?
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_63">63</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+IX.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+Pin-money Women
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_71">71</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+X.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+What is wrong with Marriage?
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_77">77</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+XI.
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+The Future
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<a href="#Page_86">86</a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="PUBLISHERS_NOTE">
+    <em>PUBLISHER’S NOTE</em>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>These are not the reflections of a woman who has failed. On
+the contrary, her literary record, her extensive travels, the work
+she did amongst the women of Turkey, and later her war-work
+in France, give her the right to speak with authority and
+to command a hearing.</em></p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">
+    INTRODUCTION
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Since</span> every age has its own great discovery,
+who will deny “Woman” her laurels as the
+Discovery of this Century?</p>
+
+<p>Opinions are still divided as to how and why
+Woman as a Force actually made her first
+appearance. Some declare that she had been
+seeking enfranchisement for over sixty years;
+others maintain that the Woman Movement
+began with militancy.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is that no one noticed her first
+coming. Apparently without warning, she
+burst the fetters of domesticity and sprang
+from obscurity into the blazing sun. Wakening
+the dullest and the most awkward of the
+centuries, she stepped, one might say, bounded,
+into Freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Like radium or electricity, Woman the
+Force was always there, and the age that
+needed her discovered her. We believe that
+Nature intended this Force to balance the
+Force of Man. The scales must be even; and
+where one of the sexes has been either
+atrophied or over-developed, the State falls.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p>
+
+<p>But <em>the scales must be even</em>. We are too
+near our subject, and events now happening
+are not sufficiently in perspective for it to be
+possible to write even a résume of the Woman’s
+Movement, but it must be evident to everyone
+that there is something fundamentally wrong
+with the situation as it stands at present.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing has happened to weaken our faith
+in the possibilities of the great Discovery, but
+it cannot be denied that Woman as a Force
+has been and is being mishandled by many a
+clumsy engineer.</p>
+
+<p>It is our purpose, in these pages, to examine
+their mistakes.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="I">
+    I
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">FEMINIST LEADERS AND THEIR MISTAKES</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>(i) Unwise haste (ii) legislation for the élite, not for the
+masses, (iii) hostility to man, who should be the associate.</em></p>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Resistless</span> as the appointed tides, the Revolution
+of Woman has swept over us. Who
+can be held responsible? To criticise or to
+blame the women themselves would be as
+senseless as to attempt a judgment upon the
+shore washed by the sea. It had to be and
+it was. The end had come for Victorianism,
+with its soul-crushing hypocrisy. The new
+Force had to be set free.</p>
+
+<p>Most unfortunately the advanced feminists
+who took charge of the movement had few of
+the god-given gifts of leadership. There is
+but a step from revolution, with its healthy
+exaggerations, to complete anarchy. They
+sowed the seeds, and only the Great War—with
+its issues of life and death—has saved
+them and us from a terrible harvest.</p>
+
+<p>(i.) The leaders’ first tactical mistake, no
+doubt, was to set up a fighting corps before
+the average woman had learned how to march.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>To realise with what unstable rapidity they
+forged ahead, we have only to measure the
+distance between the women of this generation
+and of the last.</p>
+
+<p>History has always recorded the perils and
+suffering of any period that follows a too rapid
+emancipation of slaves; and as all Suffrage
+Societies alluded to women as slaves, we may
+adopt the comparison without offence. Our
+speed in settling the women’s question was no
+less than a crime. Women ought to have
+served a period as novitiates before taking
+the full vows of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>For our mothers the gates were locked.
+Their narrow horizon was bounded—on the
+one side by the needle and on the other
+by children. They had, in return, the safety
+and the protection of a home. For the
+women of this generation most doors have
+been flung wide. But with the full liberty
+to work, they have gained also full liberty to
+starve; and they are finding themselves too
+often forced down paths they have not the
+physical strength to tread. Rights demanded
+without tact, and the unconsidered outcry for
+absolute equality, have largely killed men’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>protective instincts, and really amount to a
+“declaration of war between those who should
+be allies or partners in humankind.”</p>
+
+<p>Only a few women can go far, or last long,
+without a home, a pension, or a private income,
+to fall back on. Our mothers were “looked
+after” as a matter of course. So many women
+to-day are forced to work for themselves,
+however unqualified they may be. They have
+been given the Parliamentary vote, before even
+learning their municipal responsibilities. They
+have entered upon business careers without
+training or capacity. At the moment, indeed,
+one feels as if both the professional and the
+business worlds were actually clogged up with
+untried women.</p>
+
+<p>How different the whole situation might
+have been if the leaders had been content
+to move more slowly; feeling their way as
+they went along; organising, experimenting,
+and helping—teaching the meaning of responsibility,
+what it involves and how to use it?</p>
+
+<p>Above all, they should never have lost touch
+with the anchor of the home, until they were
+well able to navigate their own course in the
+variable currents of the world outside and secure
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>not only work for an income, but some security
+for the future.</p>
+
+<p><em>Independence, so called, that does not include
+economic provision for bad times and old age,
+is not independence at all.</em> What problem can
+be more terrible or more grave for the great
+army of superfluous women, than the absolute
+insecurity of their future?</p>
+
+<p>(ii.) The feminist leaders also made a very
+serious mistake when they based their demands
+for all women upon the needs of a very
+exceptional minority. “Take care of the weak
+part of your army,” said Napoleon, “the strong
+can look after themselves.” But in this movement
+it was the reverse policy which the
+leaders preferred to adopt. If a few workers
+had proved that despite obstacles, difficulties,
+and sex-prejudice, they could yet take their
+place in open competition with men, <em>these
+giant personalities were exceptions that proved
+the rule</em>. Why legislate for exceptions?</p>
+
+<p>It was maintained, from the first, that all
+professions should be open to all women; that
+the sexes should be at once placed upon absolute
+equality. “What one, the finest of women, can
+do, all should strive to do,” was the theory.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>And we had dangerous legislation, suddenly
+introduced, which was doomed in advance to
+disaster; carrying with it deceptions, disappointments,
+the unclassing and unsexing of women.
+For one woman who can succeed at the bar
+or in surgery there are hundreds who had far
+better be sighing for the cradle. They will
+never reach the bar, or prove fitted to wield
+the knife; and they will lose the cradle into
+the bargain.</p>
+
+<p>All the ages have brought forth exceptional
+women. At the time when Mahomet raised
+his voice in the desert, and was leading his
+dusky-skinned converts out of semi-barbarianism
+into the light of civilisation, his own
+daughter, the Lady of Paradise, was speaking
+and lecturing in many lands, so that her fame
+spread over the whole of the East. Yet other
+women were not encouraged to follow her
+example; and few made the attempt before
+the arrival of Zeyneb, the famous professor
+of Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in our own days, that woman might
+undertake man’s work, she was given the vote.
+It was held up, and fought for, as the key to
+unlock all professional doors—the instrument
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>of the Millennium! It is true, of course, that
+the vote can, and perhaps will eventually be
+of great utility. But how can we judge? It
+is as yet scarcely out of its swaddling clothes;
+and, certainly for women, the promised Millennium
+is still far to seek.</p>
+
+<p>(iii.) The final, and most disastrous mistake
+of the feminist leaders was their entire <em>disregard
+of Nature herself</em>. It is by this means that
+the whole movement has been developed on
+a false premiss; for any overdrafts on the
+bank of Nature must be repaid with crushing
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>“Only the vote can right all wrongs,” said
+the leaders, “and as men used violence to
+obtain the vote, women must do the same.
+Men pillaged, burnt, destroyed; did evil that
+good might come. We must follow their
+example.” There is no real logic in such a
+claim. A woman simply cannot apply man’s
+weapons. Men who riot use fair violence
+against other men; whereas when women use
+violence against men, they gain an unfair
+advantage. When two men fight, it is the
+stronger who prevails; against women no man
+can strike the death-blow that is in his hands, lest
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>he violate the most sacred laws of his manhood.</p>
+
+<p>The only “force” a woman may fairly use
+against men is to know what she wants and sit
+tight until she obtains it. It is, we admit, a
+slow process, but it is sure and certain—in fact
+the only way.</p>
+
+<p>What has woman, in fact, gained by violence?
+Since man considered she had not given him a
+square deal because he could not counter her
+violence by his own, he used the only weapon
+available—<em>complete indifference</em>. Instead of
+meeting man as an associate, woman became
+his enemy and his commercial competitor. As
+we shall later attempt to prove, woman is not
+so constituted, either physically or emotionally,
+that she can compete with men. Wherefore
+the loss is hers.</p>
+
+<p>The attitude of distrust, or at least indifference,
+thus created in man necessarily reacts on
+him. It was responsibility towards his womenkind
+that gave him a regular outlet for his
+chivalry and the moral backbone he would
+otherwise have seldom maintained.</p>
+
+<p>The lack of organisation in woman’s fight
+for independence has injured not only herself
+but man.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="II">
+    II
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">THE DRAWBACK OF HEALTH</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">One</span> sometimes wonders whether, if more time
+had been given in schools to the study of
+physiology, women would have been tempted
+to enter upon physically exhausting careers.</p>
+
+<p>When we examine the complicated but
+delicately-made workmanship of the female
+body, compared with the simple robustness of
+the male, we must seriously consider whether
+Nature intended women for their present work.</p>
+
+<p>People have argued and will always argue
+that we have women who are stronger than
+men. This we do not deny; but the whole
+conformation of a woman’s body goes to prove
+that she is not fitted for heavy physical work,
+whatever her mental capacity may be.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is that all the controversy about the
+abolition of a Woman’s Police Force, (which
+never existed), makes one wonder why a body
+of <em>Welfare Workers</em>, as they really are, should
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>want to be called <em>Police</em>, when they are unable
+to protect themselves, far less to arrest a man.
+Think what a blow in a woman’s chest may
+mean! Or a kick! Or a chill at the wrong
+time!</p>
+
+<p>But here again, we have the advanced
+feminists attempting to spoil a very valuable
+“welfare” cause, by forcing women down a
+road which they are not fitted by Nature to
+tread. More than this, they can only succeed
+as “welfare” workers, when the police become
+interested in their work and will protect them,
+if necessary, whereas now they annoy the
+whole force by taking the title and uniform of
+a profession they cannot safely adopt.</p>
+
+<p>This is how a policeman summed them up.
+“God forbid that I should ever want to prevent
+a woman from earning her living; but it gives
+a fellow a kind of degraded feeling to be asked
+to take any woman into the immorality of
+Hyde Park at night.” So ought every policeman
+to feel, and the whole <em>raison d’être</em> of his
+profession goes, when he has to share it with
+women.</p>
+
+<p>When the Great War came, woman had the
+unique experience of trying her hand at all
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>work, from the land to the railway station and
+the omnibus, and from the counting-house to
+the Civil Service. She could then judge men’s
+work first-hand. There were no men for the
+hard fetching and carrying, so that she had to
+do it herself. The general opinion has been
+that she proved a remarkably good stop-gap;
+<em>but only a stop-gap</em>. The most intelligent
+women workers have recognised and owned
+this.</p>
+
+<p>During the War, too, there was always the
+patriotic ideal to help one along. Could so
+many have toiled day and night had they not
+ever ringing in their ears the eternal refrain,
+“I am helping to win the War, I am doing my
+bit.” It is not just to criticise, then, women
+who worked with a zeal and self-abnegation for
+which some of them will have to pay, physically
+and morally, till the end of their lives. At the
+same time, when women ask to be judged for
+their war-work according to men’s standards,
+they are playing the game of the little frog in
+the fable who tried to measure himself against
+the ox, and they will suffer as he did.</p>
+
+<p>And who amongst us has forgotten the
+physical strain for even the strongest women?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>During the war, the bus women used up their
+strength and their nerves. They were so
+over-wrought that a cross word would produce
+a torrent of wrath, and one spoke to them as
+seldom as possible. Yet the work is no more
+strain on a man than eating his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>How can any one pretend that such war-work
+suited the women? I remember a
+woman porter who took charge of a suit case
+for me that few men would have found heavy,
+but which I myself could not carry. The pale-faced
+porteress soon became too exhausted for
+such a load. So I gave her a large tip and
+kind words in exchange for her insults; and
+under the influence of this unexpected kindness,
+she burst into tears. Were not most of our
+workers in a similar state of nervous prostration?
+Then there seemed no option; but
+looking at the havoc that was thus wrought
+upon women’s health, one wonders whether it
+would not have been better to have imported
+coolies or blacks.</p>
+
+<p>And where is the contractor who will pay for
+woman’s work at the same figure as man’s? In
+the labour market women must always be a
+poor speculation from the physical point of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>view, and so, when equal work means equal
+pay, the man, for whom there is less physical
+risk, secures the job. Woman must undercut
+man, which is economic suicide.</p>
+
+<p>In office life too the routine work proves a
+great strain. Women start off so full of zeal.
+They overwork, as they love and hate and take
+exercise, <em>always to excess</em>. And the flame of
+youth quickly burns itself out. German doctors
+have always advocated that to assure safety in
+middle age every woman, whether she thinks
+she requires it or not, ought to have two
+complete days’ rest a month. But how many
+can afford this? and what would their employers
+have to say?</p>
+
+<p>And who does not know how easily a
+woman’s health is wrecked by poor or insufficient
+food? Argue and warn as one may, no woman
+who has to choose between clothes and food
+would choose food. She cannot, clothes being
+a business asset. In short, since we are
+summing up the disadvantages of women’s work,
+it must be admitted that the question of health
+is her chief handicap—a handicap which often
+puts her altogether out of the race.</p>
+
+<p>In the days of primitive men and women,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>they divided their work, as it were, by instinct.
+He hunted the wild beasts; she cooked them
+and looked after the little savages in the tent.
+Neither attempted the other’s task, and yet
+to-day, with all her physical disqualifications,
+woman is often forced to do the work of both.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the whole situation seems to have
+been reversed. Very few women are really
+qualified to succeed in men’s professions, yet
+often they persist in trying until they break
+down, whereas it is doubtful if there is one part
+of a woman’s work that men cannot do as well,
+if not better than women—though they seldom
+care to try! That is to say, though men may
+not be good, all-round house-keepers, they
+are better at special jobs. As a tailor, a
+servant, a chef, a masseur, a hairdresser, a
+dressmaker and sometimes even in the care of
+babies, they are better specialists than a
+woman. In the United States, Chinamen are
+found to make excellent nurse-maids.</p>
+
+<p>When I was crossing the Atlantic during one
+of the worst storms of the year, a British officer
+took charge of his baby in a fashion that won
+universal admiration. Every woman on board,
+including his wife, was ill; so the father
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>powdered and bathed, combed and fed the
+little thing; yet, when questioned, he owned he
+had never done anything of the kind before, or
+even watched the operation.</p>
+
+<p>How many outstanding women painters,
+musical composers or doctors, can we name?
+In the theatre, where she can keep her sex and
+give full sway to her emotions, woman reigns
+supreme; though even here sometimes, at the
+expense of health.</p>
+
+<p>Entirely without disloyalty, one must
+emphatically declare (for the statistics of the
+war are on record to prove it) that, for physical
+reasons alone, we cannot rely on women to
+replace men in professions, in the business
+world, nor as land-workers. They can, very
+successfully, supplement men and, temporarily,
+replace them, but their physical strength quickly
+gives way and their reign must of necessity be
+short.</p>
+
+<p>Then why not give our first consideration to
+health? Why attempt work for which we are
+not physically fit?</p>
+
+<p>In the administration of prisons, hospitals,
+and work-houses, as poor-law guardians and,
+above all, in the home, women can render
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>invaluable service. It seems a thousand pities
+for them to neglect these spheres for others
+where they are too often foredoomed to
+failure.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="III">
+    III
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">BARRED FROM THE PROFESSIONS</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Taking</span> professional careers as a speculation,
+i.e., carefully counting the outlay and what it
+is likely to bring in, can we deny what a
+University woman once said: “With training
+at one British and at two foreign universities,
+and all our degrees, as well as dancing, singing,
+music, painting, riding and other accomplishments,
+should we not have been, so far as
+actual monetary gain is concerned, better off
+had we learnt to stick labels on jam-pots?”</p>
+
+<p>Look what a barrister’s education costs, and
+yet “briefless barristers” amongst men are the
+rule, not the exception. Hear what young
+barristers have to do and put up with until
+they can get their chance. Remember that
+some have to leave the thorny road without
+securing even a chance. For men, the Bar is
+a great career fraught with passionate interest,
+but bristling with disappointments. The prizes
+are few and far between. What then has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>taken woman along that most difficult of
+difficult ways? Is it a real love of the profession?
+Or is it a vain desire to be amongst
+the first interesting few? Has she any real
+chance of success at the Bar?</p>
+
+<p>Some people are inclined to think women
+ought to be able to plead for their own sex
+better than men—but can they? Have they the
+sound logic of the man barrister? Is not his fox-craftiness,
+cynicism, and self-possession more
+necessary than the fund of emotion which is
+her trump card? Perhaps the very qualities
+she is relying on to win her case will lose it.
+It must be a long while before women can
+make a name for themselves at the Bar, for
+only <em>super</em> women will ever get briefs. “We
+trust women doctors with our lives,” it is said.
+“Yes, but you trust the woman lawyer with
+your purse!”</p>
+
+<p>From the first, Mlle. Miropolsky, the
+brilliant Polish-French barrister, herself a
+woman of unusual intelligence, very wisely
+placed a rich barrister husband between herself
+and the financial side of life. In any case,
+both have exceptional personalities, and are
+leaders in their profession.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p>
+
+<p>But would anyone in their senses consider
+the Bar as a suitable <em>provision</em> for the average
+woman?</p>
+
+<p>In Medicine, though physically hard on
+women, and despite the cost of the long years
+of training, there is more chance of success.
+To begin with, the East can utilize a great many
+women doctors, and in the medical mission field
+they have proved their unique worth.
+Yet in spite of the war, sex-prejudice has not
+vanished, and only women of exceptional
+personality can keep a practice together. And
+despite all that has been said or written to the
+contrary, it will be long before this prejudice
+disappears. Her sex is against women here as
+in so many other fields of endeavour. When
+one recognises how much personality and capacity
+public opinion demands from a woman
+doctor, and how all her little slips are multiplied
+a thousandfold, one sees that medicine can only
+be a stop-gap, and that the experiment is
+indeed costly.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days, suffragettes quoted
+the father who said: “Had my girl been a
+boy, I would have risked the money and
+put him in practice; but, with my limited
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>income, that would be too much to ask me
+for a girl.”</p>
+
+<p>As an investment, medicine for women is
+very risky. When the career is completed, a
+practice has to be bought. How is her health
+to stand the strain? Has she enough courage
+and personality to keep up her practice? Surely
+most fathers would do better if they used the
+money to purchase an annuity instead of
+spending it on training.</p>
+
+<p>Another great drawback to the woman
+doctor is the refusal of other women to trust
+her judgment. As a confessor, where above
+all one would have prophesied her success,—and
+every doctor is to a certain extent a confessor—she
+often fails. Is it lack of heart and
+of understanding, or simply of <em>savoir-faire</em>?
+The fact remains, however, that a large
+number of women, seeking the mental help
+that a doctor so often gives, would unburden
+themselves more readily to a man.</p>
+
+<p>When a man and a woman, both doctors,
+work together, the partnership is generally a
+success, and not only among married couples.
+The friendship of mutual interests, <em>where no love
+comes in</em>, often raises both to great heights of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>purpose, and achieves much that is conspicuously
+worth while. If one, or both, are
+married, so much the better.</p>
+
+<p>The solitary, spinster-practitioner can have
+no secretary in her work. In partnership the
+strain is diminished for both, and the patients
+feel much greater confidence with a man in the
+background.</p>
+
+<p>The two professions for which, at any rate
+in the past, no special training was required,
+are journalism and the stage. In these professions
+competition is fiercest. It is not
+always the best written work which pays; it is
+not the most talented actress who wins public
+applause. There are hundreds, however, who
+love the excitement of trying to find even a
+tiny corner of their own in these streets of
+adventure, and they are ready to go through
+fire to secure it.</p>
+
+<p>The University of Columbia, U.S.A., has
+now a Chair for “Journalism,” which shows
+the value of training in this profession. Paris
+has a Conservatoire where all their artists are
+trained, free of charge, after admission by open
+competition. The preliminary work thus entailed,
+however, does not in the least diminish
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>the keen competition that we must expect in
+professions which hold the chance of such big
+possibilities. Yet once more, for both, good
+health is absolutely indispensable. The harassing
+strain of uncertainty plays havoc with
+the finest constitution, and the public, out for
+amusement and interest, has no time for waning
+or fallen stars.</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that women are only fitted
+constitutionally for certain kinds of journalism.
+The office night-work is too exhausting, and
+the path of the War Correspondent is one no
+woman should seek to tread. There are insurmountable
+difficulties all the way, and, speaking
+from personal experience, I am convinced that
+she can only pull through at all by throwing
+herself on the chivalry of men. In the French
+army, officers were seriously punished for
+uselessly exposing men’s lives; yet in order to
+furnish the sensational head-line of “A Woman
+in the Trenches,” fathers of families had to risk
+their lives to protect her, to my certain knowledge,
+over and over again. It ought not to
+be allowed.</p>
+
+<p>In the early Victorian era, teaching and
+nursing used to be the two professions for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>women. They were both badly paid, and if
+the school teacher had little or no prestige, the
+governess had none at all. Nursing was and
+is still done in hospitals for a pittance; private
+work is better paid, but the women who do it
+tell me they dislike the profession.</p>
+
+<p>Both teaching and nursing are, however,
+vocations, and girls who only take them for
+want of something better, do not, of course,
+give their best. Yet no work requires women
+of more solid character. They have at their
+mercy, to make or to mar, the young and the
+sick, yet candidates for these professions cannot
+be chosen. Neither nursing nor teaching,
+taken seriously, is a sinecure, and again robust
+health is required for both.</p>
+
+<p>In the arts, <em>i.e.</em>, music, painting and literature,
+training is not enough, and since men
+have not only to be put on their feet but “seen
+through,” women must also be “seen through.”
+Genius, generally speaking, will find its public,
+but the arts too frequently mean that lessons are
+given for bread and butter. From both the
+artistic and financial aspect, however, one
+wonders whether such poor results are really
+worth while. Things have naturally been much
+worse since the War.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p>
+
+<p>The hand-to-mouth, Quartier Latin or Chelsea
+Studio existence is all very well as a stop-gap,
+for a change or even a picnic; but what of the
+future? When is the woman paid enough at
+this work to save for her old age. It simply
+cannot be done. There is Florence Barclay, it
+is true, who made more than enough for a life-time
+with one book—and there are other exceptions.
+But these are rare enough to be called miraculous.</p>
+
+<p>In the Middle Ages, teaching and nursing
+were done by nuns. They gave their lives to
+the community; and the community cared for
+them—in sickness, unto death. Nowadays, if
+women still give their lives to the community,
+a lay community, the community (or the State)
+must see that they never want.</p>
+
+<p>Considering the strain of teaching, the
+terrible risks of nursing, and the uncertainty of
+women being strong enough to pursue their
+work after middle age, they ought not to
+be left dependent upon any profession that
+does not carry with it the security of a pension;
+unless, indeed, they are well insured, and, for
+greater safety, insured by the State.</p>
+
+<p>A profession cannot be abandoned and then
+picked up again for rainy days. A woman
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>will come back, as men have, to find herself
+out of date, out of the running. She is
+not wanted; her place is taken by younger
+women.</p>
+
+<p>In every profession—the Bar, Medicine,
+Teaching, Nursing, or Journalism, woman is
+hindered by her physique. It is idle to contend
+with the statistics which prove how many
+women between forty and fifty break down
+seriously, and never get fit again. Even in
+partnership with men, where all the risks are
+obviously diminished, they must be sure of
+provision in case of sickness. Most professions
+are good ladders but bad crutches. Under
+the present conditions of destructive competition,
+they too often prove no more than an expensive
+hobby.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">
+    IV
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">THE FRENCH BUSINESS WOMAN</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">From</span> long residence on the Continent I have
+been able to study at first hand that admirable
+person the Frenchwoman in business. What
+a power is hers! What would France be without
+her!</p>
+
+<p>There is certainly no need nor any intention
+to undervalue Frenchmen; but in France one
+sees woman in her right place, holding the
+balance of power that follows most closely
+Nature’s obvious design. There, on the one
+side, is man performing the hard physical
+labour which he alone is wise to attempt; on
+the other, his partner, woman, with her clear
+business judgment, advising, supervising, suggesting,
+persuading: never allowing herself to
+be carried away by sentiment, but always
+looking facts in the face. A very tiger over
+her own offspring, she would sell her own soul—or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>anyone else’s—to save her children; and
+for that reason must be met with extreme
+caution by the foreigner. Her personal judgments
+nevertheless are always based on clear-headed
+common-sense.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore, despite her large army of mateless
+women, France will never be faced with
+the “women’s question,” as we know it.
+Women in France are, to a large extent, independent
+of public opinion: they do not fear
+facts.</p>
+
+<p>Any ideal of “single-blessedness” would not
+appeal to them. “It is neither practical nor
+natural; why therefore should we pretend
+otherwise?” We question indeed if English
+women are quite sincere in this matter. “It
+is better,” they say, “to be alone than with
+the wrong man.” “A strange ideal,” answers
+Madame, “how do you know that he <em>is</em> wrong
+until you have tried?”</p>
+
+<p>As the French believe, whatever work a
+woman may undertake, she must be man’s
+associate and partner; neither his subordinate
+nor his rival. Wherefore she gives her daughter
+a professional, or business training; <em>and</em> above
+all, money. A shopkeeper’s daughter generally
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>marries her father’s most promising assistant.
+The business becomes a sort of double partnership,
+and most of these marriages prove quite
+satisfactory. So if a girl’s father is in the
+army she generally marries an officer; if a
+banker she will choose a man in a bank. It
+is a practical family arrangement seldom
+leading women out of their own class. The
+disastrous sort of “The Earl and the Girl”
+affair, so familiar to us, could scarcely ever
+take place in France.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that France has now a large army
+of mateless women, but the greater number
+are widows. As widows they are either carrying
+on the family business, working in government
+posts, or living with their parents. Few,
+of their own choice, would set up alone for
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In their eyes the English woman seems
+always struggling with “so much work for
+such small results:” driven to occupations for
+which she is not properly equipped. They
+would never expect or permit their own
+daughters to face the material insecurity
+which few of our women workers can avoid.
+Here they may swim, more often they sink.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>The Frenchwoman says, “swim by all means
+if you can, but first make sure that you never
+sink.” A profession or a business is not
+enough. The girl must have a home <em>or</em>
+money. Mothers who cannot provide all
+three will at least insist on one.</p>
+
+<p>Even a short residence on the Continent
+will suffice to show us what sacrifices all
+Frenchwomen are prepared to make in order
+that the “daughter” may never find herself in
+the humiliating position of having no money
+behind her, whether she marries or not. I
+knew, for instance, a doctor who was killed
+in the war before his daughter’s dowry
+had been saved up. The widow at once let
+her furnished house, and took the position
+as housekeeper in a school. She is living on
+her husband’s pension; the rest is put by for
+the girl. This of course is only one example
+out of a thousand. The woman thinks no
+work beneath her, or too heavy to undertake
+for her daughter’s future. Public opinion
+accepts her sacrifice as a mere matter of
+course. It is her duty.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, however, our snobbish
+attitude towards shop-keepers is unknown in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>France. The woman who sees that she can
+do better at business than in a profession, goes
+into business. As a rule she succeeds in both,
+because she will sink her personality and take
+up the position in which she is needed most,
+whatever her qualifications for better work.
+An expert at embroidery, bodice-making, or
+hair-dressing will devote her life to keeping
+the books of the family business for the good
+of the firm. The woman doctor may be
+sighing to make her name as a surgeon or
+oculist; but for the good of the practice she
+will readily give her mind to research work,
+or, if her husband is also a doctor, to writing
+his lectures. Her whole career may have its
+course changed, but she remains content.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the Frenchwoman never forgets,
+or ignores, her real object—<em>permanent security</em>.
+They are a race of cautious investors, who will
+invest almost everything they possess to put a
+child on his feet. They will not make him a
+clerk, always subject to dismissal; a secretary,
+always looking for better posts. They put
+capital, however small, into his business to
+<em>establish</em> him there.</p>
+
+<p>It is for this reason that, at the boot-makers,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>dress-makers, milliners, and elsewhere, you so
+continually meet the familiar faces. The
+assistants, whether married or not, keep their
+jobs until they can face the world with a fixed
+income. A few English, and more Americans,
+make larger fortunes, it is true; but how many
+of us would have the patience to “heap up”
+franc by franc, the security which is the great
+aim of every Frenchwoman.</p>
+
+<p>Comparisons are odious, but we certainly
+have much to learn from the French business
+woman.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="V">
+    V
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">THE LAWS FOR WOMEN—ILLOGICAL AND
+    INCONSISTENT</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">How</span> strange it is that Englishwomen, who
+enjoy a liberty of action their sisters on the
+continent regard with envy, should yet be
+governed by a code of laws as inconsistent as
+they are unjust. From this code were taken
+the chief planks of the Suffrage platforms.</p>
+
+<p>Though the feministic appeal was made first
+to unhappy, or dissatisfied women, it was easy to
+rouse righteous wrath in all by dwelling upon
+the cruel laws to which women in this land are
+subjected.</p>
+
+<p>Tell a woman that “by the law you are not
+the legal parent of your child,” and who could
+not secure a majority by such an appeal?</p>
+
+<p>When the “master” is good and kind, the
+position of wife, mother, or daughter may be
+quite satisfactory. When, however, a woman
+is thrown into the grip of these cruel laws, then
+Heaven have mercy on her!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, because
+they might otherwise have been more quickly
+reformed, Englishwomen have, to protect
+them, the Englishman’s own self-made code,
+really of more effect than any law:—simply,
+“<em>It isn’t done.</em>” Every British gentleman
+bows to the great judge, Public Opinion.
+Alas, however, every Britisher is not a
+gentleman, and again one asks: “What chance
+has a woman when left to the mercy of the
+laws of the realm?” Even the Moslems, who
+are not supposed to credit women with the
+possession of a soul at all, have more consistent
+and just laws than ours, and, what is of the
+greatest importance, children are always given
+a legal status.</p>
+
+<p>It is astonishing that the British gentleman,
+the world-renowned sportsman in the very
+highest sense, can stand not only for the
+wrongs that are done to unmarried mothers,
+but worse still, for the wrongs done to the poor
+defenceless beings who come into the world
+unasked, and yet suffer all their lives for what
+has not been in any way their own fault.
+Considering the real nature of that very fine
+being, the British gentleman, and a finer than
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>he does not exist on this earth, in comparison
+with the men of every other land, one wonders
+whether, after all, his attention has ever been
+properly drawn to this injustice.</p>
+
+<p>The laws are so out of harmony with all the
+“fairplay” for which he stands. First, taking
+woman as a wife. There are far too few
+obstacles to prevent her marrying in haste,
+and far too many, since these hasty marriages
+are allowed, to prevent her unmarrying. One
+cannot, perhaps, altogether approve of the
+Continental arranged marriage, but there is
+certainly something to be said for the wisdom
+of a system that demands the parent’s or
+guardian’s consent up to the age of twenty-five.
+At least it puts off the “evil day”; and gives
+the families on both sides time to act. Both
+family histories, and both family banking
+accounts are carefully examined; and, in most
+cases, the State ceremony and service in church
+combined are calculated to impress upon
+young people the solemnity of the partnership
+into which they are about to enter, and the
+interests of the future generation it will be
+theirs to safeguard.</p>
+
+<p>Compare these carefully arranged marriages
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>with some of our slipshod, ill-considered unions,
+based on pure physical attraction which
+naturally cannot last!</p>
+
+<p>If neither the State, nor the parent, will—or
+can—do anything to prevent hasty marriage,
+why should the laws for Divorce be so consistently
+illogical. They are not only illogical,
+but disgracefully unfair. In Italy there is no
+divorce—neither the Church nor the State
+grants it—so the situation is quite clear; both
+sexes are treated alike.</p>
+
+<p>In France, the State, not the Church, grants
+divorce for men and women on equal terms;
+that, too, is fair.</p>
+
+<p>In England, however, <em>the divorce laws do
+not help the right class of men and women</em>,
+and release is not granted to women on equal
+terms with men.</p>
+
+<p>A frivolous-minded couple, who have rushed
+into matrimony without a thought, and have
+very quickly had quite enough of one another,
+can go through the usual “restitution of
+conjugal rights” comedy—disgraceful legislation,
+unworthy of our traditions.</p>
+
+<p>It is the wife of a criminal lunatic or a
+confirmed drunkard who has our pity. For
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>her, or the woman tied to a thoroughly
+immoral man who tries to lead the sons
+astray, there should be permanent relief.
+Judicial separation is not a sufficient protection
+for the children.</p>
+
+<p>No thinking woman wants easier divorce
+or anything to loosen family ties and lead to
+legitimatised “free love.” But even devout
+Roman Catholics are now prepared to “use
+scissors” for the protection of children.
+Handicapped by nature, often the victim of
+circumstances, the unmarried mother is always
+to be pitied. Although she has the advantage
+over the married woman in being the
+legal parent of her child, yet for her public
+opinion is merciless. From the father of the
+child, when she can prove who he is, she gets
+a mere pittance; and if, driven to distraction
+and temporary insanity, she puts an end to
+the little life that began with so much sorrow,
+she must stand alone in the dock. Without
+defending the woman—God forbid, a little
+life is too sacred!—one cannot help asking:
+“Where is the man?”</p>
+
+<p>In summing up the disadvantages of being
+a woman, here is one of the greatest. Public
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>opinion and the law defy nature, and by
+their cowardly unchristian attitude frequently
+drive poor erring humanity to the crime of
+infanticide.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the German treatment of this
+problem is the most Christlike. Human
+nature being what it is, such things will
+happen; no legislation can stop them. Therefore,
+these children must be brought up as
+honest citizens, <em>not as children of sin</em>. The
+German “Mothers’ Home,” where no difference
+is made between the married and unmarried,
+is well worth a visit and might be imitated
+with advantage.</p>
+
+<p>“For every sin there is pardon,” we repeat
+mechanically; and yet the British Code puts
+the awful scarlet letter of illegitimacy on
+defenceless children, and not even the marriage
+of the parents can wipe it out.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most unjust of laws in this realm
+is that which allows parents to disinherit
+their children. On the Continent this cannot
+be done. Children are entitled to one-third
+of the parents’ possessions. However worthless,
+they are the parents’ “creations,” for
+whom the responsibility cannot be evaded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is true that some parents give away all
+they possess in their life-time in order to
+deprive the children of their inheritance.
+This is illegal, however, and punishable by
+the law.</p>
+
+<p>There is something very mean in the
+attitude of parents who cut off their children
+with the proverbial shilling. They are often
+influenced by mere caprice, a marriage they
+dislike, or a change of religion. Yet whatever
+a child has done, is this justifiable? And
+surely a daughter who acts in defiance of the
+wishes of her parents, needs them all the more
+when the predicted day of sorrow arrives. To
+disinherit a son is bad enough, but to disinherit
+an unmarried daughter is criminal.</p>
+
+<p>The case of the daughter who does not
+marry in order to look after her widowed
+father and suddenly finds herself penniless
+because the new wife will not let him provide
+for her, could not happen on the Continent.
+Over and over again one has met these poor
+victims. Well over thirty-five, and yet just
+starting to work. How can parents be so
+heartless?</p>
+
+<p>On the Continent there is, at least an unwritten
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>law which forces a brother to look after
+his sister. No one likes to accept charity from
+a brother, yet Continental public opinion deals
+harshly with the man who deserts his mother
+and sisters in their time of need. It is more
+lenient to those who neglect their wives;
+children and one’s own flesh and blood, however,
+seem somehow to have a closer claim.</p>
+
+<p>A good brother is the dearest possible pal.
+And what a difference his mere existence
+makes sometimes in the attitude of his sister’s
+male employer. Yet, as many Englishwomen
+must admit, their brothers are scarcely aware of
+their existence. There has been no quarrel, but
+they do not even correspond; he has married
+and has new interests. The companion of his
+childhood is a memory that cannot even be
+kept alive by a postcard.</p>
+
+<p>Brothers know perfectly well, or if they do
+not know they ought to be told, that woman’s
+value as she grows older decreases in the
+labour market. They have become so used to
+sisters helping themselves when they are not
+married, or badly married, that they lose
+interest: influenced, in some cases, maybe, by
+a jealous wife. How bitter the heart-ache of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>many a “Maggie Tulliver” at the indifference
+of “brother Tom.”</p>
+
+<p>None can deny the injustice of these English
+laws. It was said that they would never be
+changed until women obtained the vote. As
+no thinking worker could uphold such crushing,
+humiliating, and dangerous laws, they worked
+whole-heartedly for the Vote, and obtained
+it. Yet the laws have not yet been changed.
+It was then maintained that the Vote was
+not enough, women must sit in the House of
+Commons.</p>
+
+<p>What have they done in the House of
+Commons?</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">
+    VI
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">CAN WOMEN SUCCEED IN POLITICS?</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Can</span> women succeed in politics? It is, perhaps,
+too early to say. Suddenly some giant
+personality may give the lie to all that could be
+said against woman as a politician.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, who but Lady Astor could have
+been the first woman M.P.? Who but a woman
+of her social position, wealth, and personality
+could have secured the reception accorded her
+by the House of Commons? And who but a
+woman—trained in America and as a Christian
+Scientist—would have had the courage to take
+up a work for which she was not educated;
+braving the criticism of the whole civilised
+world. But she has done it, and in spite of
+serious blunders at the beginning, she has done
+it remarkably well. When one remembers her
+demoralising wealth, that she had no business
+training at all, that she has to rely on her quick
+wit for speeches, one wonders what she might
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>not have accomplished had she been through
+the professional mill.</p>
+
+<p>But will she really help women at Westminster?
+Has she really their cause at heart?
+Can she understand them? Certainly she belongs
+to that fine school of American idealists
+who want to make great reforms. Only, to do
+these great things, you must understand them,
+and can she understand women’s needs, who
+has not herself been in need? She has a
+chance to help women, such as no one else
+has ever had, or may have again. Will she
+take it?</p>
+
+<p>The cause of the working woman will always
+be well championed. Besides, the poor can
+beg; professional women cannot. On their
+way to independence some women have
+found sorrow and humiliation and suffering
+at every corner, but to whom will they ever
+confess?</p>
+
+<p>Lady Astor was certainly not very successful
+in her attitude towards divorce. Had she studied
+the question sufficiently? Possibly not, and
+that was the reason. She supposed the thinking
+women of England were trying for <em>easier
+divorce</em>, not <em>reformed divorce</em>, and who could
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>blame her for wishing to keep out of England
+the “easy divorce” laws of the U.S.A.</p>
+
+<p>As a professional working woman, Mrs.
+Wintringham ought to be able to give the
+professional woman’s point of view with much
+more understanding than Lady Astor. Her
+speeches are commendably brief and to the
+point, but the public usually prefers personality
+and social standing to the highest, technical
+qualifications. It is, indeed, another very
+great point in Lady Astor’s favour that she has
+no axe to grind. The constituents who elected
+her because she is Lady Astor, will elect her
+again; whereas, with other woman candidates
+we have yet to find out whether they will put
+their own personal interests before their cause.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when one supposed women
+would clear up politics as they cleared up a
+dirty house. But are they more to be trusted
+in politics than men? A woman comes out of
+Labour ranks; as she gets on, she becomes
+socially ambitious, then she throws her party
+aside. Men have done it over and over again;
+they call it “evolution,” and women no doubt
+will say the same.</p>
+
+<p>The few women who are likely to sit in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>the House of Commons can make <em>very little
+difference to the constitution</em>, and it might be
+wiser for women to use their vote for forcing
+men on to their side, and so making sure that
+their wishes are carried out with regard to
+Bills with which they are particularly concerned.
+Women and children’s laws need
+reform so badly; is it safe to rely on future
+women M.P.’s? It is true that we have not
+yet had any bills framed by women for women;
+they may be master-pieces of statesmanship.
+Let it be said meanwhile that at least they
+could not be worse than the existing man-made
+laws.</p>
+
+<p>The danger of trusting women in politics,
+comes from their lack of <em>esprit de corps</em>, yet
+the very <em>raison d’être</em> of their being in
+Parliament is to protect and help other
+women; to uphold other women’s interests.
+But see how they run their clubs! No men’s
+clubs are conducted on such lines. The best
+of them cannot choke that Mothers’ Meeting
+spirit, which shows itself at the most unfortunate
+moments. And the meetings are often conducted
+in the most unsportsmanlike manner.
+Over and over again a woman in the Chair
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>will close the meeting if the feeling is going
+against her party, or her speaker cannot
+answer questions.</p>
+
+<p>Individual women are magnificent; but to
+trust them collectively is futile as yet. Either
+from ignorance or from something in woman’s
+nature, somehow or other she so often seems
+to let other women down. We have said
+that Lady Astor, if she really cares to understand
+the professional woman’s point of view,
+could be of the greatest service to the women’s
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the House of Commons, however,
+the women’s cause has suffered a great deal
+from the rich and titled women who annex it
+as an interesting hobby, draw up impossible
+charters for women, hold drawing-room
+meetings, agitate and drive their hearers on
+much faster than they ever ought to attempt
+to go. As one of the victims said: “I wish
+she would talk less, and offer us instead a good
+meal.”</p>
+
+<p>There is not this terrible gulf of misunderstanding
+between rich men and professional
+men. Not even a workman would have his
+interests meddled with by people who have
+neither the right nor the capacity to interfere.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>They would very soon send Lord X. about
+his business, if he addressed them as his
+wife once addressed a women’s meeting.
+Stretching her pretty Paradise-plumed head
+out of her magnificent sable furs, she said:
+“Twopence is quite enough to spend on a
+meal; one penny for a packet of pea soup
+powder, and one penny for margarine. It
+makes a most delicious soup. I give it to my
+guests.” The pearls she was wearing would
+have fed a whole community for a long time
+on a much more substantial menu than two
+penny-worth of pea soup.</p>
+
+<p>Another lady of great wealth advised a
+typist, earning only one pound a week, and
+forced to live on bread and cheese with a cup
+of tea, to “cut out the tea; it is indigestible.
+One good meal of bread and cheese a day is
+<em>excellent</em>; that is my régime.”</p>
+
+<p>What is the use of answering such cruel
+folly by talk of sisterhood and democracy?
+Are they not mere idle words? Have we
+advanced one step since Marie Antoinette
+asked her historic question, “Why are the
+poor crying because they have no bread; can
+they not eat cake?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is no more fascinating, or useful,
+study than Foreign Politics. See what a conscientious
+student can learn in its train—history,
+geography, foreign languages, the literature
+and the psychology of different races. Then
+comes the longing to visit foreign lands, to see
+and judge their civilisation, and to understand
+them through their art and music. What
+better League of Nations Study-circle can
+there be than this?</p>
+
+<p>And now, when in spite of conferences and
+meetings and reunions, the great cry is “less
+Europe and more England,” is there any
+chance for a serious study of foreign policy?
+The papers give us less and less foreign
+news; and how then are we to stimulate the
+great cosmopolitan spirit which ought to
+awaken a new breath of life?</p>
+
+<p>If only such women as Lady Astor would
+revive the political “Salon,” where the great
+statesmen of the world could meet and discuss
+the affairs of nations, they might surely
+accomplish more for humanity than as members
+of Parliament?</p>
+
+<p>Those wise old French <em>salonières</em> who have
+passed into the realm of history, could no
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>doubt have secured direct representation.
+They had no such desire—and therein showed
+their wisdom!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">
+    VII
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">SEX IN WORK</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Some</span> women workers are curiously inconsistent.
+They have declared that sex shall not on any
+account enter into the business world. They
+cut off their hair and dress themselves as
+nearly as they dare in men’s attire; yet they
+deliberately put a <em>feminine label</em> on their work.</p>
+
+<p>Why the label? Is it lack of sex confidence,
+or is the work so weak that it must trust to
+that label and beg for mercy?</p>
+
+<p>Take the title of “Women Journalists.”
+What does this suggest? Either an agency
+for supplying articles on dress or cookery, or
+a group of women banded together to demand
+their professional rights. As neither is meant,
+the term is misleading. And why should a
+journalist, whether man or woman, want to
+belong to any but a Society of Journalists?</p>
+
+<p>It is the same with the Women Artists.
+Why the label? At the Leipzig Palace of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>Women’s Work in 1914, the work of one
+artist drew everyone’s attention, and presumably
+she was a woman, since the Society had
+taken her to its bosom. Her pictures of
+Berlin’s underworld were so powerful, that
+they gave birth to all kinds of important
+prison reforms. But what was she doing in
+that anæmic assembly? Kathie Kollwitz was
+her name.</p>
+
+<p>Her idea in allowing her work to be labelled
+“woman” was to help other women. Alas,
+how often the Christian spirit achieves the
+precise opposite of its intention! Kathie
+Kollwitz’s work, rather than helping women,
+killed by its superiority any chance of appreciation
+others might have secured. The terms
+artist, writer, author, musician, actor, professor
+and doctor should be used for both sexes. Work
+must be judged regardless of sex, or it is not
+worth judging at all.</p>
+
+<p>Yet however much we protest against the
+label, sex is there all the same. Lifeless work
+is sexless work. Sex is like fire, water, and
+the other vital things of life, a great power
+when properly dominated. At the same time
+its legitimate use in art, as in life, is too
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>subtle a weapon to be flourished recklessly
+as we stumble over the rocks of progress.</p>
+
+<p>In the world of workers, sex often makes
+difficulties in business relations. It is for men
+to judge exactly how a woman handles the
+men under her control. Towards other
+women she is often the hardest task-mistress,
+when not actually unkind and unjust. In
+her search after the tiny flaws in a piece of
+work, she loses the great spirit of the whole.
+Her values are wrong; for this reason it is
+dangerous to give average women the final
+word.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that men put up more
+readily with incompetence than women. But
+this is not quite the case. They are more
+patient and more indulgent, and they take
+the trouble to judge from all round. The
+most aggravating little imperfections may
+well be balanced by some sound practical
+efficiency which, in the business eye of an
+employer, cancels all other faults. He
+knows he cannot expect perfection, and is
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Women are not so much exacting as
+unreasonable. With the exacting one can
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>deal; but not with the unreasonable. In business
+the terms <em>unreasonable</em> and <em>incompetent</em>
+are synonymous. In time, no doubt, women
+will learn to take broader views of life and
+will acquire sense of proportion. The question
+of kindness to their own sex will thus adjust
+itself, but in the meantime only a very limited
+number of them are <em>big</em> enough to employ
+others: which obviously means much unnecessary
+suffering for the workers.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, relations between men
+and women in business are not always easy.
+A woman may be allowed to take positions
+of such importance in the office that she will
+shake the whole foundations of business;
+which is obviously unwise.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, a man will often take
+advantage of a woman in business and find
+her an easy prey, just as he makes a good
+bargain for himself with a less wide-awake
+rival, without any offence to his business
+conscience; or if, under the influence of a
+smile and pearly teeth, he make a bargain
+that he regrets when thinking it over, he
+will soon find a means for catching up the
+pretty incompetent. Sometimes, again, a feeling
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>of pity for a woman fighting life’s battles leads
+him to do things for her he would never dream
+of doing for a man. Alas! how many business
+careers have been wrecked on the rocks of
+sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>The much criticised <em>impresario</em> is not the
+only sinner. Wolves in sheep’s clothing are
+to be found in every walk of life, and the very
+harmless act of accepting a lunch from an
+employer may swing the business relations
+on to entirely the wrong footing. After that,
+it is too late.</p>
+
+<p>A woman who has business dealings with
+men must train herself to be two personalities—official
+and private. The more she is accustomed
+outside the office to being her own sweet self,
+the more must she school herself to leave the
+charming female on the doormat, and convert
+herself into a shrewd business woman who wants
+all her wits about her to conclude a bargain.</p>
+
+<p>The woman in business who allows a man
+to take any but a business footing with her,
+must lose, <em>the odds being against her always</em>.
+By not putting her foot down at once, she finds
+herself quickly out of things altogether, with
+no chance of return.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span></p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, many trying feminine
+types in business. For example, there is
+the woman who wants to be treated with
+18th century courtesy. When asked why he
+objected to women lecturers, a secretary of
+a big society replied: “We hate being discourteous,
+but we really have not time to meet
+women at the station, dine them, and look
+after them. A man looks after himself. You
+will say a woman ought to do the same. Well,
+she does not. You can’t let her. A woman’s
+a woman....”</p>
+
+<p>A very distressing type of worker is the
+one who, having signed a contract, wants to
+get out of it directly a better offer is in sight.
+This happens too frequently. She knows very
+well a man would have to pay heavy damages
+for doing such a thing. So she plays the
+feminine note, and the employer is cornered.
+All he can do without scandal is to cut his
+loss and get rid of her as quickly as possible.
+But his whole attitude towards women becomes
+filled with distrust, and the innocent have to
+suffer in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Once women learn to work more as
+the associates of men, these uncomfortable
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>questions of “sex” will necessarily to a large
+extent disappear. But at the present moment
+they must unfortunately fill a large space in
+any attempt to sum up the disadvantages
+under which women work.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">
+    VIII
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">IS FEMININITY AT A DISCOUNT?</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Femininity</span> is a disadvantage to the
+professional woman, first of all, because it is
+expensive, and secondly because it takes up too
+much time.</p>
+
+<p>If the hours spent trying on dresses, hats
+and other items of the wardrobe were presented
+in the form of a bill, one may wonder how
+many feminine existences would have a life
+balance at all.</p>
+
+<p>Some women make dress their life work,
+the planning of their clothes and going out to
+show themselves in them, dominating all else in
+their minds. While others, the workers, are
+sighing for just a little more time, mostly to
+keep themselves neat and tidy. Life does
+sometimes seem out of proportion.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of dress in a professional
+woman’s life is a vexed problem. How is she
+to find time to attend to her wardrobe? A
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>short while ago, I saw a woman at the club
+sipping hot water. She owned she was
+banting. “I’m getting fat,” she said, “too fat
+to be stock-size, and that would be a calamity.
+Where can I find time to wear any but ready-made
+dresses?”</p>
+
+<p>Yet unreasonable as it is to wear lace cuffs,
+collars and blouses which require constant
+washing and ironing, what true woman would
+give them up? Laundry bills are too heavy,
+so these things have to be done at home, and
+the already long day must begin an hour
+earlier, probably at six instead of seven. And
+how much time is squandered sewing on buttons,
+mending, and other things. For a woman
+suffers when she feels all her garments are not
+in order; those unseen, as well as those seen.
+Whilst the man worker goes off to tennis,
+cricket or football on Saturday afternoons
+without a thought of the clothes to be mended
+for him by some female hand, the woman
+worker stays at home to do her tidying
+up herself.</p>
+
+<p>Although the final result is often quite as
+satisfactory as when the work is done by a
+woman, there is something pathetic in the sight
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>of a male using a needle. He holds his
+garments in such awkward, though mathematically
+correct, positions, and the table is his
+thimble. Nothing more quickly arouses the
+maternal side of a woman than the sight of a
+man with a needle. “Has he no woman to
+look after him?” is the question which comes
+instinctively. And, in the same way a chivalrous
+man will ask, “Has she no man to take care of
+her?” when he sees a woman wearing herself
+out in an office.</p>
+
+<p>People may argue as they like; the old
+primitive division—man the hunter, woman the
+tent-keeper—is the natural order of things.
+Will the world’s mind really grasp any other?
+It is true that women workers are to be seen
+everywhere in England, but, as one witty
+woman said, “their real work has to be done
+out of hours.”</p>
+
+<p>“However severe the orders given my
+servants to leave me to work undisturbed,”
+said Flora Annie Steele, “just when I am
+wondering how I can best kill off my hero, the
+cook comes in to tell me she has no lemon.”
+Such a thing would never happen to her
+husband were he the writer of books.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p>
+
+<p>Another woman, the editress of a big woman’s
+paper, tells me she leaves home to this tune—“the
+pipe has burst,” “the gas is out of order,”
+“the ceiling is leaking,” and then more of these
+important items are sometimes communicated
+by telephone to the office during her busiest
+days. All this side of life, of course, is kept
+from a busy man. He has to think only of his
+work.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing, as she does, the time that clothes
+take to keep in order, knowing that long hair
+means at least an afternoon to wash, and
+always constant attention, a feminine woman
+defies all reason and somehow makes time for
+these things. And so it is with the care of her
+house or flat. She could live in lodgings or
+have a corner in a hostel, but she cannot bear
+the atmosphere that is not of her own creation.
+She must therefore have a place of her own.
+The whole of her income probably goes on
+the upkeep of her home; she cannot afford
+a servant, she cannot even really afford a flat
+if she looked into the future as a man looks.
+But she will have it. From an outsider’s point
+of view, one wonders where the pleasure comes
+in. She begins the day by getting her own
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>breakfast, and having worked in an office all
+day, she returns to shop and sweep and dust
+and sew, or to cook and wash up for friends
+when they come to spend the evening. “It’s
+silly, I know,” said a bachelor woman, “I’m
+always having to draw on my sleep capital, but
+I couldn’t stand “apartments,” and I’m not
+going to try.” Were women really intended to
+live in this way?</p>
+
+<p>Seeing then the time that femininity absorbs
+in a woman’s career, can we not understand
+those who cast it aside for ever? They cut off
+their useless hair, buy substantial masculine
+boots with low, flat heels, and dress themselves
+as nearly as they dare in the comfortable, ugly
+fashions of men.</p>
+
+<p>From the artistic point of view the result is
+often deplorable. It needs a brave woman to
+be seen in such clothing, except at a carnival;
+but for the work they have to do perhaps male
+attire is more consistent.</p>
+
+<p>Such clothing, however, convenient as it
+may be, tends to unsex the wearer. No longer
+feminine, unable to be quite masculine, she
+becomes a <em>neutral</em>, and her real friends, male
+or female, are few and far between.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p>
+
+<p>I shared a cabin, crossing the Atlantic, with
+one of these “neutrals.” Except for a very
+short skirt, her garments were all masculine
+until the evening when, remembering her
+original sex, she extracted some rings from
+a grandmother’s pocket somewhere in her
+nether garments, and at the same time allowed
+her femininity to go the length of wearing
+lace stockings, without ceasing, however, to
+don her major’s coat. Such a woman would
+probably never do any great good nor any
+great harm, and, supposing she had sex, it
+could easily be transmuted to her work.</p>
+
+<p>This type, nevertheless, gets a perfectly
+square deal from a man employer. “With
+such a woman as a business associate or a
+secretary, I can treat her like a man,” said
+a member of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Probably this type of woman would be
+excellent on a jury, even a jury to try a
+murderer. But to ask some women to sit on
+juries is next to a crime. It is not at all in
+their line of thinking. They would be much
+happier buying silk stockings and leaving this
+grim and complicated subject to men or to
+other women of tried experience.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span></p>
+
+<p>In the question of juries we have another
+example of the part being made greater than
+the whole. For one woman who can be of
+any real use in a police court, a hundred are
+no good at such work, at least until they have
+learnt to be more just to their own sex, and
+more balanced in judgment. No woman
+should sit on a jury against her will.</p>
+
+<p>Face to face with two million superfluous
+women, perhaps the “neutral” may offer a
+solution, who can tell? They work mechanically,
+like the bees, and judging the
+work, one forgets the worker.</p>
+
+<p>But it was neither as a hybrid nor through
+any male mentality that Mme. Curie succeeded
+in helping her husband to discover
+radium. It was the feminine quality of her
+mind that was of such great value. And
+when he was killed in the most stupid of
+street accidents, that female mind became
+sterile until the day when she found a
+substitute for the great masculine mind at
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>George Eliot, before she met George Lewis,
+was no more than a competent journalist.
+With the assistance of his mind she wrote
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span><em>Adam Bede</em>. Without him, would her novels
+have ever been produced?</p>
+
+<p>And the hybrid can never be good for the
+community. It may be convenient for us to
+ask women to give up their femininity, but the
+sacrifice is too great. It is marking her with
+the same gender as a table.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">
+    IX
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">PIN-MONEY WOMEN</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">After</span> health, women’s great obstacle in work,
+comes the pin-money woman. There must be
+something fundamentally unnatural in a system
+that makes women disloyal to one another, yet
+it is pin-money women who are the hardest on
+those who must work.</p>
+
+<p>When the proprietor of a girl’s magazine can
+obtain a Girton Honours student as editor for
+thirty shillings to three pounds a week; or
+when another University graduate, with five
+years linguistic training in Germany, France
+and Italy, will work in a Government office
+for three pounds a week, how is the woman
+who absolutely depends on her own efforts to
+compete with her? Thirty shillings is the
+price of a none too luxurious room in London,
+without a meal; it is, therefore, very wrong of
+qualified women with enough to live on, to
+accept three pounds a week. A competent
+woman secretary may be satisfied with one
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>hundred and fifty pounds a year, because she
+has a handsome allowance from her father so
+that she need not live with her step-mother.
+She has two incomes. Work keeps her from
+getting bored and gives her a certain <em>raison
+d’être</em>. But it is her low salary that helps to
+kill all possibility of women’s work being taken
+seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Apply for the post which Miss X. has given
+up for another hobby, and ask for a living
+wage. You will be stared at in amazement.
+“Miss X. with her exceptional qualifications
+did it for so much,” they say, “we must find
+another Miss X.”</p>
+
+<p>How do pin-money women come into existence?
+And why do they increase? “It
+is useless having more than one or two
+daughters at home,” says the father of four
+daughters. “Supposing my daughter can earn
+only one hundred pounds a year, that will keep
+her in clothes and pin-money and save me that
+amount in allowance.” But her work cannot
+be considered either a career or an independence.
+She does not even supply her own
+“bread and butter,” whereas most of the salary
+of the serious worker goes on that alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p>
+
+<p>The head of the house supposes, and continues
+to hope, that his daughters will marry,
+and his responsibility come to an end. With
+this in view, he thinks that a little office experience
+will do her no harm. It will teach
+her at least the value of money. And so, year
+in, year out, the army of pin-money women,
+marking time, make it more and more impossible
+for those who must work to earn their
+living. One sometimes wonders whether these
+pin-money women have any idea of the sorrow
+and hardship they bring to other women; only
+the wearer feels the shoe pinch. The amateur,
+who is not forced to work and can give it
+up at any time, so easily becomes slipshod.
+Hence arises the tendency to class even the
+best women’s work as amateur.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst those who are making the professional
+woman’s career more difficult, we can
+now also count the Society women.</p>
+
+<p>The number of Society women who, since
+the war, have pushed their way into literature,
+art, films and the business world, is bewildering.
+It frequently means that the poor girl, who
+naturally cannot compete with the beautiful
+and much advertised fine lady, has to serve as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>“ghost” and rewrite the Countess’s articles,
+for which she gets a mere pittance. The
+Countess is paid for her name: and the
+“ghost” must submit, as she knows that
+hundreds of other women are ready to take
+the work.</p>
+
+<p>In business there may be nothing against a
+combination by which the Countess X supplies
+the capital and Miss X does the work. Men
+lend their noble names to help along financial
+schemes, and women may do the same, if only
+a fair share of the profits be allowed to the
+worker.</p>
+
+<p>One must admit that nowadays many Society
+women are out to make money, and generally
+succeed, thus doing far less mischief than the
+pin-money women who are qualified to make
+money and yet work for a pittance.</p>
+
+<p>There were days when the middle-class
+professional worker was considered the backbone
+of the nation. Are those days past?</p>
+
+<p>Democracy, with its blundering fingers, has
+shuffled the cards so badly that it is difficult to
+see where things will right themselves. It is
+as useless to sigh for the days when a countess
+was a countess, and an actress an actress, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>a worker a worker, as to weep for the fine men
+of England who are asleep amongst the
+Flanders poppies. No competent worker fears
+competition; lack of competition means stagnation.
+There is a great difference, however,
+between <em>competition</em> and <em>under-cutting</em>, which
+is what the pin-money women are systematically
+creating. Competition builds the edifice,
+under-cutting makes it fall. And no words are
+sufficiently harsh for the amateur worker who,
+to avoid <em>ennui</em>, does not hesitate to ruin her
+poorer sisters, actually lowering men’s wages
+in the process, and—indirectly—forcing more
+women into the labour market. There is great
+importance in the distinction between the
+woman who works in collaboration with her
+husband, and the woman who works to help
+keep the household. The latter is always a
+dangerous experiment, and one which often
+ends in the wife having to keep the whole
+house. When a woman is able to earn
+money, the man so easily falls into the habit
+of letting her do it, till gradually his efforts
+become slacker and slacker and he often leaves
+off working altogether. <em>An energetic, wage-earning
+wife always demoralises a man.</em></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span></p>
+
+<p>An able-bodied man who allows his wife to
+keep the family is a poor being; yet in these
+days of women’s work, it is becoming more
+and more frequent, the energetic, clever woman
+attracting a weak, lazy type of man. Women
+ought to let men understand from the first
+that husbands are responsible for the family
+expenses. In the day of misfortune, of course,
+normal rules do not apply.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, the married worker may
+be as great an obstacle to the single woman
+as the pin-money woman. Under the shelter
+of her husband’s roof, she can do work for a
+comparatively low figure which must injure her
+less fortunate rival.</p>
+
+<p>Work has been done from mere vanity! In
+fact, as one man said about his wife’s work:
+“One requires a really large income to be the
+husband of a literary woman.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="X">
+    X
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">WHAT IS WRONG WITH MARRIAGE?</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Pages</span> have been, and always will be, written
+about love and marriage, or marriage without
+love, or even marriage as a profession. All
+the roads of romance lead that way, all
+sorrows spring from its wrong vibrations, or
+because it never came. Whatever may be
+written or thought to the contrary, marriage
+will always remain the woman’s vocation.</p>
+
+<p>When one sees a worn-out, middle-aged,
+woman taking notes at some tiresome political
+meeting and knows that she still has to write
+her report before she can struggle home in the
+small hours of the morning, one asks: “What
+has she gained, morally or financially? Would
+she not be far better at the fireside mending
+stockings?”</p>
+
+<p>We have set out, one by one, the disadvantages
+under which women labour in the different
+professions they have taken up. What, after
+all, is safer or better than matrimony?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p>
+
+<p>Not, however, the matrimony of our grandparents,
+but matrimony on the basis of <em>moral
+partnership</em>.</p>
+
+<p>In the past century, when the wife was a
+kind of head servant and obeyed the master
+without questioning his authority, matrimony
+ran on easy enough lines. Now, when modern
+woman has a distinct personality of her own,
+unless both husband and wife have a high sense
+of duty and a feeling of partnership in the family
+they have created, their home-life cannot be a
+success.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, with all its imperfections, on what
+better arrangement can they co-operate?</p>
+
+<p>We have admitted that exceptional women,
+with unusually good health, can succeed in the
+professions, but certainly the majority are, both
+physically and morally, best fitted for married
+life. All the emotional qualities of women, the
+worrying over details, the love of order, the
+forgive-and-forget process of training children,
+are home virtues. The qualifications for
+success in business are entirely different.</p>
+
+<p>And, for our generation, noting the moral
+upheaval and depravity following the war, there
+was never a time when clear-thinking women
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>of high principles were more needed in home-life.
+There was never a period when young
+men had more need of the one love that will
+never betray them—the mother love.</p>
+
+<p>We in England have so much that could
+never be found in France, but we now need
+to learn a few lessons from France with regard
+to family life.</p>
+
+<p>Most unfortunately, the literature of France
+seldom depicts French home-life. Frenchmen
+read novels that, in frank contrast to their lives,
+scoff at marriage and extol adultery. Are
+we not, alas, following in the same tragic footsteps?
+It is more tragic for us, for we have
+not the same critical balance. Sentimental
+natures like ours do not reflect, and thus easily
+digest the tainted food which the French are
+critical enough to analyse. Those who have
+lived in France know that the Frenchman
+loves his home. It is his one ambition to have
+a home and family, and for this ambition he
+can depend on encouragement and support
+from all.</p>
+
+<p>The English marriage system may be
+idealistic, but is it practical? The French
+system, with the bride’s dowry, has often been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>criticised and condemned, but there can be no
+question that on the whole it is far better for
+the bride. It is said that in France a man
+marries a woman for her dowry; which is
+sometimes true. Here, however, he often
+cannot marry for lack of it, which is worse.
+Just one or two hundred pounds a year which
+the French mother begins to collect when the
+daughter is born, and scarcely misses herself,
+would hardly tempt mercenary suitors, yet it
+makes all the difference to the girl. The
+provision of a dowry is rightly considered a
+sacred duty. To allow a daughter to marry
+without something of her own is looked
+upon as a disgrace, and even the poorest
+<em>concierge</em> finds the wherewithal for her girl’s
+dot.</p>
+
+<p>But apart from the fact that this small
+standby is an encouragement to early marriage,
+it raises the wife to the position of a “partner,”
+and as a partner she naturally has a right
+to know exactly how the household works.
+“I haven’t the least idea what my husband’s
+position is,” English wives have said. “I
+spend my allowance, but perhaps I ought not—who
+knows?” Imagine her feelings if her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>husband should suddenly announce that he is
+a bankrupt. She has contributed without
+knowing to the general useless expenditure.
+That could never happen in France where the
+woman takes her full share of management.</p>
+
+<p>The French system differs from ours because
+money is given at the time of the daughter’s
+marriage instead of at the parent’s death, when
+it is often only half as valuable as it would have
+been in early life. Either the couples have
+married and set up for themselves, struggling
+along in a crippled way for want of a little
+extra money, or the young man, not daring to
+risk life for two on his first earnings, has
+married less happily than he would have done
+in earlier manhood.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, a sense of humiliation prevents
+many women from marrying. Rather than be
+utterly dependent on a man, they prefer to
+work for themselves. “You feel so cheap
+taking a salary as if you were a housekeeper.”
+In a struggling or unhappy marriage, where
+too often the man resents every penny he doles
+out, the position is heartrending for a woman.
+Some, ashamed of not contributing to the
+home and unable to make ends meet out of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>their small allowance, supplement it by adopting
+a profession. This may help, but as already
+suggested, it often leads to all sorts of complications.</p>
+
+<p>Girls should be encouraged to marry young,
+though not too young. It is dangerous for
+them to have gone too far on the road of
+independence, for success may make them so
+“difficult” in their choice that they wait too
+long and do not bother to marry at all.
+The Turkish proverb: “Friendless still he
+remaineth who demands a perfect friend,”
+may prove a wise warning in the matter of
+choosing a husband.</p>
+
+<p>In an Empire like ours, where many of our
+young men have to emigrate, and cannot afford
+to take a wife out with them, there would be
+many obvious advantages in some system of
+dowries.</p>
+
+<p>No French mother would let her son go to
+the end of the earth without a wife to look after
+him. She knows, “it is not good for man to
+be alone.” Nor does she relish the idea of
+daughters left to “wither on the virgin thorn.”
+Perhaps, even, she considers the daughter’s
+case more seriously than the son’s. For she
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>has made up her mind that matrimony is not
+only the most natural, but the only path for
+a woman, and she leaves no stone unturned
+to bring about a marriage. Friends help, the
+family confessor helps; the conspiracy is an
+open secret, and no one thinks any the worse
+of her for her scheming.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the best and happiest marriages
+are those arranged by brothers. When a girl
+marries her loved brother’s best friend, it is the
+safest way of making assurance doubly sure.</p>
+
+<p>Between the too cautious system of the
+French and our careless methods, there ought
+to be a happy mean. We have been arguing
+by extremes. Could we not compromise and
+secure the advantages of both methods?</p>
+
+<p>We have advocated early marriage. We
+who love children know what it means for
+them to have young parents. Early marriage,
+however, is a danger, unless the family ties are
+tightened. Would Englishmen and women
+ever take their mothers into their confidence,
+and act on advice, as the French do? Yet
+every great virtue has its own defects,
+and very often the Frenchwoman’s great
+love for her son will tempt her to cripple his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>best interests both in marriage and in his
+career. She may spoil his career by keeping
+him in France where he does not obtain either
+experience or promotion. She may force him
+to marry “well” when his heart is elsewhere,
+though an understanding and unselfish mother
+generally chooses a better wife than he would
+have found for himself.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when every Englishman
+scorned the idea of a dowry. Now, though
+not actually applauding the system, they do
+fall in love more easily with the daughter of
+rich parents, and, in these hard times, who can
+blame them? A woman naturally resents
+being married for money; but we have never
+seen any signs of rejoicing in those who have
+been left penniless in the hands of the best
+husband. That is more humiliating, not less.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest advantage of the French
+system, which provides something for both
+husband and wife, is that a young couple <em>can</em>
+marry, and their children will have the immense
+advantage of young and healthy parents.
+How, in these hard times for professional men,
+can one of these afford to marry before he is
+nearly forty, and this often results in his wife
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>being left a young widow with a family, the
+children without the moral and material support
+of the father when he is most needed.</p>
+
+<p>It is only a small sacrifice that these French
+parents make in slowly and steadily saving
+money for their daughters, and it seems incredible
+that for want of similar unselfishness, this
+country should eventually abound, as it must,
+in destitute women.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="XI">
+    XI
+    <br>
+    <span class="fs80">THE FUTURE</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">What</span> is to be the Future of the army of two
+million superfluous women?</p>
+
+<p>We maintain that, with few exceptions, the
+vocation of women is matrimony. But where
+are all these two million to find husbands?
+Certainly not in England.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time, the papers are full of
+the need for women in our colonies:—Rhodesia,
+Western Canada, or Australia. But
+does such a need really exist? Why cannot
+some thoroughly competent and trustworthy
+woman be sent out on a mission to these
+places—as the <em>Daily Mail</em> quite recently sent
+one of its men representatives—to investigate,
+and produce a reliable report of all the facilities
+for emigration? It is idle and dangerous to
+pursue such ideas blindfold: we need exact
+figures and precise facts.</p>
+
+<p>If there is work in the colonies for our
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>women, why not send them out? If there <em>are</em>
+men there wanting wives, the rest will follow
+as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>When we read what the first Puritan
+colonists of America endured and suffered, and
+how the women battled along beside them, we
+need feel no fear of what Englishwomen can
+do when put to the test. In the fight for home
+and children woman stands out supreme. Who
+knows what a marvellous tale of love, adventure,
+and real heroism, a new exodus might call
+forth? But we must know the truth. Are
+women really needed in the colonies, or are
+they not?</p>
+
+<p>Every woman has the right to some goal in
+life. She was not born to vegetate; and
+where the vocation of husband and children
+is lacking, a field of sufficient interest to absorb
+her whole life must be found. What about
+the Church? Or some other form of work in
+the service of Humanity?</p>
+
+<p>Every student of human nature knows that
+great insatiable longing of one being for the
+special sympathy of another, the two making
+one perfect whole. The Roman and Anglican
+Churches have expressed this instinct under
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>the simile of Christ the bridegroom and the
+nun or sister, His bride. This Union between
+God and man is perhaps the only one that can
+replace the wonderful exclusive tie between a
+man and a woman. How many women who
+buried their “one man” in the battle-fields of
+France, have found their consolation in
+Heavenly Union and taken refuge from the
+world in the service of humanity with the
+protection of the veil?</p>
+
+<p>In Protestant England, however, the convent
+does not mean what it means in Latin
+countries, yet England assuredly needs women
+to labour for the certain benefit of their sex.
+She wants another St. Theresa, without her
+delusions. But where is she? Certainly not
+in the ranks of the women who would drive us
+to the Bar and the House of Commons. Nor
+amongst those who would send us back to
+crochet in our mother’s drawing-rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Help must come from the religion of <em>practical
+service</em>; and who knows whether if women once
+gain a broader and saner outlook, they would
+not do fine and noble work in the pulpit. They
+must be chosen, of course, with the greatest
+care, or more harm than good will be done.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p>
+
+<p>If only there were more of us like Miss
+Maud Royden, a broad-minded, deep-thinking,
+human woman, who can do only good wherever
+she goes.</p>
+
+<p>We do not want the “shrieking sister” type.
+We want women who will preach that human
+nature is neither foul nor base, but a noble,
+beautiful thing; that men and women are
+neither angels nor beasts, but just men and
+women in sore need of help.</p>
+
+<p>The non-conformist Church, too, should
+make room for more women in its foreign
+missions; and what a fine field there is for the
+trained nurse as Florence Nightingale conceived
+her. To-day the mere ‘paid’ nurse is
+a different being altogether, with few, if any,
+of the qualities of the pioneer. Too often she
+is neither working in God’s service to relieve
+suffering, nor straining her mind and strength
+to learn the laws of health. Florence
+Nightingale’s religion was her work. But
+where are her disciples now?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, there is a practical side to the
+Service of Humanity. It simply cannot be
+done without organisation and support. The
+“Sisterhood” provides this. Sister Leonie,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>working day and night in the St. Lazare
+prison, Paris, could not be tortured by the
+material worries of daily life. What a waste
+of effort that would have been, disturbing the
+work of service as she prays with and comforts
+her penitents.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere, in fact, and whatever their
+work or their mission, <em>provision for the Future
+must prove to be Women s real problem</em>. At
+present there is no sphere open to her in which
+the returns are substantial enough to allow
+of saving. Those who feel the Call may be
+freed from such anxieties; but where there is
+neither a home nor an income to depend on, in
+business or professions that do not carry with
+them an adequate pension, <em>some kind of insurance
+must be devised by the State</em>.</p>
+
+<p>This is obviously a big question needing
+most careful thought. To-day, indeed, we
+must feel serious doubt whether women can
+place any real dependence even on the home
+and the family. Times are hard, and society
+is unstable. At any moment revolution or
+anarchy may sweep away, through no fault of
+our own, whatever provision the most prudent
+of us have been able to make.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p>
+
+<p>There can, therefore, be no doubt that the
+Economic Insecurity among women is a grave
+problem. It may lead anywhere—to suicide,
+immorality, or crime. The matter is too
+serious for delay. All single women who have
+passed the age of thirty should now be included
+in some scheme of <em>National Insurance</em>. The
+other disadvantages, however great they be,
+are actually dwarfed before the monster terror
+of no money in our old age—or in times of
+sickness. True, there are old age pensions,
+there are charities for distressed gentlewomen,
+but no self-respecting professional worker can be
+beholden to these. We ought not to allow it.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, as one who stands whole-heartedly
+for progress, may we not once more ask what
+is the use of a femininism that preaches hatred
+of the other sex, or a desire to exercise the
+wearing—for women, tearing—professions of
+men?</p>
+
+<p>Man, with his better-balanced brain and uncomplicated
+physique, fills us with awe. See
+him at his magnificent work of building
+bridges, stemming rivers and piercing
+mountains, conquering Nature inch by inch!
+Woman can help his work and complete his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>life, but she may not enter into competition
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>Let her not deceive herself: in spite of
+women in Parliament and other signs of
+advanced femininism, she has not gone very
+far. What she needs now is more humanity,
+more commonsense, and some of the Latin
+charm. If she works as man’s antagonist, she
+will be beaten back steadily.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs90">
+  <em>Male and Female created He them.</em><br>
+  <em>And a little child shall lead them.</em>
+</p>
+
+<p>There, in a nutshell, is the truth.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <p class="center no-indent wsp fs150">
+    . From A. M. PHILPOT’S LIST .
+  </p>
+</div>
+<hr class="rdouble">
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs90">BLUE BOOKLET, VOL. I</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent">THE</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">FALLACIES <em>of</em> SPIRITUALISM</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">By A. LEONARD SUMMERS</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp bold">2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp fs90">SOME EARLY REVIEWS</p>
+
+<p class="fs80">“This booklet is an extremely able and interesting criticism of a craze that has become
+wide-spread with the most pernicious results. The writer does not limit himself
+to an account of the sensational frauds that have been exposed on both sides of the
+Atlantic, but he analyses the evidence of Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Mr.
+Vale Owen, and other distinguished spiritualists, with merciless severity and very
+great acumen.”—<em>Freemans Journal.</em></p>
+
+<p class="fs80">“Lucidly written, and without bitterness, Mr. Summers makes out a good case for
+the ‘against’ in this little book.”—<em>Glasgow Citizen.</em></p>
+
+<p class="fs80">“As a popular indictment, Mr. Summers’ pamphlet is likely to make considerable
+impression. It remains for his opponents to offer as succinct and well-documented
+an answer.”—<em>The Times Literary Supplement.</em></p>
+
+<hr class="r5">
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs90">BLUE BOOKLET, VOL. II</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">PSYCHIC PHENOMENA IN THE
+OLD TESTAMENT</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">By SARAH A. TOOLEY</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp bold">2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="fs80 no-indent">Scenes and occurrences in the Old Testament, so familiar as to have lost
+their real significance, are here described in a way that will be of
+extraordinary interest to the psychic student of to-day.</p>
+
+<hr class="r5">
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs90">BLUE BOOKLET, VOL. III</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">MORAL POISON IN MODERN
+FICTION</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">By R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp bold">2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="fs80 no-indent">The truth about certain new theories of morality, taught in some
+modern novels, assumed in others, and to some extent already put in
+practice by young readers, frankly and carefully examined, with an
+exposure of their probable evil influence. Extracts from novels by well-known
+writers give point and interest to what amounts to an unhesitating
+condemnation.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp"><em>NEW BOOK BY TROWARD.</em></p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">THE HIDDEN POWER. By <span class="smcap">T. Troward</span>. With frontispiece
+portrait of the author. Uniform with author’s
+Complete Works. Crown 8vo, cloth and linen, 8s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="fs80">This important volume, which includes practically all Troward’s unpublished
+manuscripts and magazine articles, concludes the series of books on Mental
+Science by an author who was described by the late Archdeacon Wilberforce as
+“one of the greatest thinkers of our times.” It is significant to note that these
+books, beautiful in their sustained clearness of thought and style, are now
+included in the curriculum of societies, clubs and classes devoted to the study of
+Mental Science.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent"><em>Complete List of the Series.</em></p>
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+1.
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx">
+<span style="padding-left: 1em">THE</span> EDINBURGH LECTURES ON MENTAL SCIENCE. Crown 8vo, cloth and linen, 6s. net.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx fs80">
+Mental Science defined as the proper understanding of Livingness, based on the
+ distinction between Spirit and Matter, i.e., Thought and Form.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+2.
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx">
+<span style="padding-left: 1em">THE</span> DORÉ LECTURES <span class="allsmcap">ON</span> MENTAL SCIENCE. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. net.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx fs80">
+An exposition of the relation of the Individual to the Universal Originating Principal
+ of the Cosmos—the Mind of God.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+3.
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx">
+<span style="padding-left: 1em">THE</span> CREATIVE PROCESS <span class="allsmcap">IN THE</span> INDIVIDUAL. Crown 8vo, cloth, 8s. 6d. net.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx fs80">
+A study of spiritual evolution which, the author maintains, is but another aspect
+ of physical evolution.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx fs80">
+“<em>No thinker should be without this book.</em>”—The late Archdeacon
+<span class="smcap">Wilberforce</span>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+4.
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx">
+<span style="padding-left: 1em">BIBLE</span> MYSTERY AND BIBLE MEANING. Demy 8vo, cloth, 10s. 6d. net.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx fs80">
+Troward here proposes that “we shall re-read the Bible on the supposition that Jesus
+ and these other speakers <em>really meant what they said</em>, which is a startling
+ proposition from the standpoint of the traditional interpretation.” An illumination
+ for those who seek to render the older theology into terms of modern science.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+5.
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx">
+<span style="padding-left: 1em">BIBLE</span> PROPHECY, 1914-23. Crown 8vo, paper, 1s. net.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx fs80">
+An arresting pamphlet upon the Great War; providing clues to prophetic utterances
+ of the Bible concerning the Time of the End. To-day <em>is</em> the End of the Age.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+6.
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx">
+<span style="padding-left: 1em">THE</span> LAW AND THE WORLD. With a Foreword by <span class="smcap">Paul Derrick</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth, 8s. 6d. net.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx">
+</td>
+<td class="tdlx fs80">
+In this posthumous volume, Troward formulates a final statement of his beliefs after
+ long investigation and profound study in the field of Mental Science.
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+
+<hr class="rdouble">
+<p class="center no-indent bold">A. M. PHILPOT, LTD., 69 Great Russell Street, W.C. 1</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="no-indent wsp"><em>TWO WORKS OF GENIUS</em></p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent">VOL. IV of <span class="bold">Les Fleurs de France</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">THE CRYSTAL COFFIN</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">By MAURICE ROSTAND</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp bold">6s. net.</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent">An amazing first novel by the son of the author of <em>Cyrano de Bergerac</em>.</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs80">“It is written in the form of a diary in which the author narrates his soul-corruption
+by a life of luxury and incessant pleasure until, finally, he commits suicide on his
+father’s grave in a mood of remorse....</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs80">There is veri-similitude throughout. We see the leading figures of French life
+crossing the stage; often Rostand himself stands revealed in the intimacy of this
+diary. While one is inclined to resent an exposure so candid, from which the father
+emerges still greater, it is true that the recorder has not spared himself....</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs80">A bare outline of the tragedy gives no conception of the fascination of this
+astounding volume. Throughout one cannot separate fact from fiction, history from
+imagination, and everyone asks, ‘How much of this is the real Rostand?’ It is a
+book of astounding candour, of merciless introspection, with passages of sheer
+lyricism....</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs80">As a first volume and a <em>roman à-clef</em>, <em>The Crystal Coffin</em> is something new in the
+experience of the reviewer. It is undeniable evidence of a case of inherited genius,
+and it seems probable that the man who could write this book will create such works
+that he will be independent of the fact that he is his father’s son.”—<em>Liverpool Courier.</em></p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent">VOL. V. of <span class="bold">Les Fleurs de France</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">THE FOSTER MOTHER</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">By ERNEST PÉROCHON</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp bold">6s. net.</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent">A poignant story of the conflict between Mother Love and the power
+of the showy, heartless “Vampire Girl”. It is not often that a work
+of genius is “everyone’s book,” but this simply-told story of country
+life is also an exquisite piece of writing which gained the much-coveted
+Prix Goncourt, 1920.</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs80">“A tragedy so poignant and so free from sentimental dilution is a truly fine
+achievement.”—<em>Times Literary Supplement.</em></p>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs80">“The story is worthy of comparison with big things.”—<em>Manchester Guardian.</em></p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><em>ALL ABOUT PARIS RESTAURANTS</em></p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">PARIS À LA CARTE</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp">Where the Frenchman Dines and How.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp">By SOMMERVILLE STORY</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs90 wsp">Author of <em>The Spirit of Paris</em>, etc.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent wsp bold">4s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent">A book of great interest and value to all who visit Paris or are interested
+in French cuisine. In a series of sparkling sketches, the author
+describes the different restaurants, past and present, night and day,
+their specialities, habitués, etc., and there are chapters describing the
+preparation and origin of the best-known French dishes, the apéritif
+hour, the chief French wines, and everything connected with the
+subject.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak bold fs150" id="Transcribers_Notes">
+    Transcriber’s Notes
+  </h2>
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+Pg 14 Changed:
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+the instrument of the Millenium
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+To:
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+the instrument of the Millennium
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+Pg 14 Changed:
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+the promised Millenium is still far to seek
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+To:
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+the promised Millennium is still far to seek
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+Pg 26 Changed:
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+women doctors, and in the medical mission-field
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">
+To:
+</td>
+<td class="tdl">
+women doctors, and in the medical mission field
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78463 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78463
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78463)