CHAPTER IX.OTHER WOMEN.

CHAPTER IX.OTHER WOMEN.

“All sisters areco-parcenersone with another. The elder-born has no privilege over the younger.”

“All sisters areco-parcenersone with another. The elder-born has no privilege over the younger.”

“All sisters areco-parcenersone with another. The elder-born has no privilege over the younger.”

Ifin these pages I have not noted the great majority of women who never have had, under any condition, any privilege of any kind, it is not because I have forgotten them. The needle-workers, whose toil is doubled and whose pay is halved by self-enriching sweaters; the labouring women, toiling in unfavourable conditions alongside of men now privileged with voices powerful enough to control their earnings; the tempted women, whose temptations are made strong and dangerous for them through false social and economic views; the poor married women, who may be happy only according to the degree that their husbands are better than the Law allows them to be; the poor mother to whom Slave Law is still applied in regard to their children. But the principles of Method lead us to take one step at a time; the doctrines of Logic prevent us confusing two ideas; and the Precedents of the Law Courts teach us that “where claims are improperly consolidated they cannotbe heard” (seeBennetv.Bromfit, Queen’s Bench, 1868).

To lose the possible reward of any effort by misplacing it, is, to say the least of it, unwise.

Men have placed all women in one class now. We are all sisters, and “co-parceners” one with another. They have extended political privileges to all, under conditions very easy to fulfil, except to Aliens, Minors, Lunatics, Criminals, andWomen. The Aliens may become naturalised, the Minors may attain majority, Lunatics may regain their reason, and when a Criminal has served his time he may become once more a free British Elector. The noblest and the best, the most learned and philanthropic of women, classed with the worst, are reckoned as something lower than the lowest Criminal. He may, combining with others of his class, urge on his narrow, selfish views; they may not enrich the world by advancing the high, generous ideals that lie nearest their hearts. If any women, on any qualification, become enfranchised, the disability of sex-in-itself will be removed, and to all others thereby will be given a ray of hope. It has seemed to me, through following a Psychological study of the springs of human action, that the class most likely to receive Enfranchisement first, is that which formerly had it. Therefore I, with others who would not be immediately concerned in the success of our efforts, join hands in toil to help forward the claims of those who have been British Freewomen, as that section of the community which canclaim most on Historical grounds and by Legal Precedents. We hope that they, being given the chance, will help their less fortunate sisters.

We must not forget, that the very Charters, that have so mightily multiplied the legions ofFreemen in Esse, have likewise increased the number ofFreewomen in Posse.

When the light increases, so that men can see to read aright, then women may be able “to take up their Freedom too.”

M. Talleyrand Perigord,[24]once Bishop of Autun, observes “that to see one half of the human race excluded by the other, from all participation in Government, is a political phenomenon that on abstract principles it is impossible to explain.” We think the phenomenon very capable of explanation, but the reason is to be found, not in the perfection of human nature, but in its incompleteness.

24.SeeDedication of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s “Vindication of the Rights of Women.”

24.SeeDedication of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s “Vindication of the Rights of Women.”

24.SeeDedication of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s “Vindication of the Rights of Women.”

The Romance of the old world was carried on by the “fair women and brave men,” little being said of theplain womenand theweak men. Civilisation has advanced far enough to recognise the claims of theweak men; we want it to go further, and help wisely the cause of theweak women. For that we require, reversing the adjectives, armies of “brave women and fair men,”brave womenwho seek not their lost birthright with futile tears, but with self-sacrificing energies, and heart-inspiredsympathies; andfair menwho can understand that none lose through another’s gain, and that theirs is not Liberty but License, that use a self-asserted power to the restriction of the rights and privileges of others.

Various tests have been proposed to mark different degrees of Civilisation. I believe that the common-place man of to-day might suggest that the multiplication of Machinery is the most satisfactory index. More thoughtful men would consider a recognition of the first principles of Justice a safer ground. Some of these assert that the position of women is the surest test of the Civilisation of a Country and of a Time. If this be so, Nineteenth Century men must look to their character as posterity will judge it, for the Century is very near its close. They are apt to be judged not by what they have done, but by what they have left undone.

In reality one cause of the existence of so much statutory evil is this, that the majority of men are so much better than the laws—they do not understand their full bearing.

Victor Hugo has said, “Man was the problem of the eighteenth century, Woman is the problem of the nineteenth.” To understand and solve that problem, a totally different set of reasonings must be applied than have hitherto been used by the majority of men. The so-called “Physical Force Argument” is, after all, but the ghost of a Dead Argument raised to scare the timid in the night. It can be valid only in Savage times, when Might makes Right. It is inoperative in Civilisations,where Justice evenpretendsto decide the rights of men. Even under the “physical force argument,” some women might be free. Many women are stronger than many men; and many women have been known to signalise that strength, not only in disguise as soldiers, or as navvies, but openly fearless and free.[ix.] The courage of Nicholaa de la Haye and Black Agnes of Dunbar; of the Countess of Derby and the Marchioness of Hamilton during the Civil War has been emulated by many others. Some men assert scornfully that women are not fit for privilege or power. To assert a thing is not to prove it. If women are not fit for the Franchise, perhaps it may be made fit for them. It is perfectly certain that they are fitted to enjoy justice and to benefit by freedom. Some sentimentalists say that women are too pliable and delicate to be exposed to the roughnesses of political life. It would destroy their charm. To such objectors I would answer, Look out into the flat meadows where sluggish streamlets wind, and see in the inartistic clumps of pollard-willows an illustration of the manner in which “woman’s nature” has been treated by such men. Though their roots and leaves are the same, though their upward aspirations are permanent, and their vital energies restorative, yet through top-pruning at the will of others, for the use of others, the growth and the ideals of the trees have been marred for ever. Nothing can ever restore to a Pollard-Willow its natural place in the picture-gallery of trees. But its distortion has only been individual, its offspring through freedom may developeinto a perfect tree, really sweet and graceful, and not artificially so.

Other sentimentalists say that women are angels, and their purity must not be contaminated by contact with the great outer world of vile realities. They mistake fragile butterflies for God’s angels. These are spirits strong in His strength, whose inward purity gives them power to pass unscathed through external impurity, whose sympathy gives them knowledge and whose presence purifies and refines the moral atmosphere. The more a woman is like an angel, the more is she needed to counsel and to work with men.

That women do not want it, is another futile objection. No classes or masses ever unanimously want saving regeneration of any kind, until the few have made it seem desirable to them. We know that at least a quarter of a million women in this country do want it, and have set their hands to the present great “Appeal to the Members of Parliament” to grant them political freedom for weighty reasons. To refuse that quarter million what the other millions do not ask, is like refusing to the Eagle and the Lark the right to fly, because the Ostrich and the Swan do not care for the exercise.

Others boldly say that this is a man’s world, and in it men must rule. It is true that man has long led in the Song of Life, with words and music written at his will, and woman has but played an Accompaniment. Sometimes in their Duets she has been forced to sing a shrill second, or a piping Bass, in notes that have no meaningwhen they are sung alone. But he did not see or hear, and she dared not say, that this was not the sole part that she could sing or play. In the many-voiced Concert of the Universe, where harmonious “parts” should combine in balanced perfection, there are constant discords and recurrent “clangs,” because man has misunderstood the Rules of Harmony. The Bass voices are necessary for perfection, but too much Bass becomes monotonous to the listening ear, and overpowering the finer notes, spoils the Conception of the Whole. If there is anything in this Analogy, it is the Woman’s voice that should lead the Melody and express the meaning, and the man’s voice should support her notes and enrich the Harmony. One need not analyse the various other objections. None of them are based on Truth, Justice, Logic, or History.

In my second Chapter I spoke somewhat of women’s privilege as heiresses, but I would like here to add a few words about unprivileged earners.

Labour is the Basis of Property.—I do not wish now to analyse all the Economic Theories regarding the relations of Property to Labour, but only the one that touches our question. In olden times Labour was paid in kind. Money is an arbitrary sign of labour, as speech is of thought. Money is an easy medium by which the returns of labour can be transferred, either in purchase of other property or of other labour, or as a free gift or inheritance.

In ancient times fighting was considered a kind of labour, the highest kind. The Service of the King wasthe most honourable, save that of the Service of the Church. Fighting and praying were alike paid in land, or in coin, and the land or the coin could be inherited by those who neither fought nor prayed. Hard-working traders and farmers also earned coin and land, and sometimes left their gains to idle children. Hence owners have not always been earners. Some writers on National Economy have inveighed against the principle of inheritance. To me it seems natural and right that what a man has produced by labour, he may leave to his descendants, at least, when he does so by old Saxon Law. There has been much virulent denunciation of Landlords, especially in relation to theunearned increment of propertyin thriving towns. I do not know any however, who have discussed a question, that bears much upon the Argument of this book.

The Unrecorded Increment of Woman’s Labour.—Earners are not always owners. Except where a woman brought some fortune at her marriage it has been supposed that her husband “supported her.” But in the majority of respectable middle-class or workmen’s dwellings, this is very far from being the case.

The woman labours as well as her husband. If property is the result of labour, both can be expressed in figures. Let us take a man earning 30s. a week for eight hours’ work a day, and five hours on Saturday, forty-five in all. The payment for each hour is 8d. As the woman spends no time walking to and from her work; as she has no rest on Saturdays or Sundays exceptthrough extra work on other days; as she on these other days works very many more hours than her husband, she has bettered the common stock by the amount of ninety hours of work; which taken at half the wage, rises to the same sum, so that the common income should be reckoned at 60s. instead of 30s. But her share being received in kind, it is unrecognised and unrecorded. This may be made clear by supposing that some other person had fulfilled the wife’s duties. In transferring flour into bread she earns what the baker otherwise would gain in the difference between flour and the price of the loaf. In washing and ironing the family linen she earns what the laundress would charge for the same, minus the cost of soap and coals. In carrying a heavy basket from the distant stores, she earns what the local grocer would have done in the difference between wholesale and retail prices; in making clothes for her children out of her own frayed garments, she earns what the draper would have charged for similar material, and what the dressmaker would have required for making it up. If she patches her husband’s clothes, she earns the tailor’s charge. Her daily scrubbing and cooking may be reckoned at charwoman’s wages, and thus, multiplied by the hours of labour, the proportion may come out. Both she and her husband dimly feel that she has saved expenditure, they never realise that she has acquired property.

The spending also must be reckoned. The result of the man’s labour has been translated into coin, amore convenient form in which to pay rent and taxes, the Club-money and direct Shop-purchases for both. Of the common diet the man has the larger and better share. Beyond this he generally has a daily paper, a pipe, and beer. At the lowest estimation these cost 3s. 6d. a week. If he has no vices, there may be 3s. in his pocket at the end of the week, and that 3s. may be put into a Savings Bank in his name, which after years of saving,by modernlaw, he may will away from his wife and children.

What of her toil, her earnings, her increment of property? It has seemed to vanish, but it has really enriched him. This may easily be seen if, leaving her domestic employments, she goes out to labour as charwoman in the house of others at 2s. 6d. a day of ten hours. She there also receives food. The position then is this. The common house-property is increased by the expenditure on her food being saved. She still saves somewhat to the family in comfort and money by working overtime. Her husband has either to do without some of his comforts or her economies, or spend some hours of his relaxation in home-work. But at the end of the week, there is the visible increment of fifteen shillings. Before 1870 all that belonged legally to the husband, since that time it belongs nominally to the wife. That is the meaning of the Married Women’s Property Bill. A husband should support a wife, but the money she earns she may keep to herself. But it is hard on wives and mothers that their share in the commonproperty should be unrecognised when their toil is continued under the ordinary domestic conditions; but be recognised when circumstances or inclination make it possible for them to seek a visible money reward elsewhere.

We will take another example from a higher rank. Suppose a man has £300 a year, and is left a widower with four young children, he at once feels the diminution of his income, through the increase of his needs. He must have a housekeeper, at a salary, at least, of £25. Her keep costs him another £30. He must find a daily governess to teach the children, and walk with them. Without keep that may cost another £25. He has to pay the dressmaker for making and repairing the children’s clothes, at least £10. He has to pay workmen to hang pictures, put up curtains, to paint the back-garden fence, or enamel the nursery bath; to cover the drawing-room chairs, or patch the dining-room sofa, quite £10 a year. His wife’s whole keep had been saved through greater care in purchasing and managing food, and higher skill in cooking than either his housekeeper or assistant-girl possesses; and the man has not only lost the love and comfort of his wife, but the £100 a year which she indirectly earned for him. He thought his income was £300 and was all his own; he finds it had been really £400, as compared to the present receipts of expenditure, and that the missing £100 had been earned by her. He would have found this out had he allowed her to give music-lessons as she wished to do, a light labour that she loved. Or she might have written that weekly letter to the countrypaper she was asked to do. She might have earned £100 a year at that, and that money would have beenher ownto spend in luxury or charity if she pleased, or to have saved up for her children’s future. But then his tradesmen’s bills would have been increased. It is absurd, therefore, to believe that a wife’s earnings are limited to those hours that she takes from her husband’s service and sells to some other employer of labour, who pays her in so much coin of the realm.

But thepartnerthat touches the coin seems always to take the lead. We may see this in the circumstances where the positions are altered, as, for instance, among many fishing communities. There, though the men go out at night and fish, the women not only do their domestic work, but receive the fish, go out and sell it, make the necessary purchases, and “bank” the remainder of the money. The superior intelligence and relative social position of the women in fishing communities has often been noted. I have heard it scornfully said of a fisher-girl, “She marry? Why, she is not able to keep a man!” In this illustrative case, the woman holds the purse, and her share in the family earnings is recognised.

Now, if privilege is based on property, and property is based on labour, how is an industrious woman shut out from the benefits of both? Why must the man only have the earner’s vote? One vivifying revelation of our half-century is the recognition of the nobility of labour. No one has so gracefully expressed it as Mrs. BarretBrowning in “Aurora Leigh,” when, urging all to work, she adds:

“Get leave to work;In this world ’tis the best you get at all,For God in cursing, gives us better giftsThan man in benediction.”

“Get leave to work;In this world ’tis the best you get at all,For God in cursing, gives us better giftsThan man in benediction.”

“Get leave to work;In this world ’tis the best you get at all,For God in cursing, gives us better giftsThan man in benediction.”

“Get leave to work;

In this world ’tis the best you get at all,

For God in cursing, gives us better gifts

Than man in benediction.”

But even with her it was too much work for its own sake. It has taken fuller education, even since her time, for women to recognise that it is equally noble and just for them to receive the reward of toil in earning as it is for a man; and to be able to keep or use these earnings as they will. A century ago, men suffered somewhat from the state of things they had themselves initiated. An eldest son that received all the inheritance and privilege had therewith to support the women of his father’s family as well as of his own. It was disgraceful for him as well as for them that they shouldearn money. But they gave him labour, acting as upper servants, butts of ridicule, as the case might be, or blind worshippers when all the outer world had learned to disbelieve in him. Their recreation was the manufacture of useless Berlin-wool monstrosities; or self-sacrificing work in pauperising the poor of the parish, under the misdirection of a callow curate. Higher education was discredited; literary aspiration a shame-faced secret. Miss Austen had to hide her pen and ink and manuscripts by a piece of fancy-work kept handy, lest her world should know and speak its mind of her and her dreadful doings.The only profession open to a lady was matrimony; and the chances of happy matrimony were thereby enormously decreased.

If the dignity of being able to earn money has raised women immensely in social life, their higher education has made this earning possible. Dependent sisters need no longer hang their heads in shame before supporting brothers. If they are not needed in their homes, they may go forth into the world, eat the sweet bread of honest labour, and become individuals.

But the woman is fettered still by the trammels of custom, by the protection accorded to males; false social and economic creeds which teach that man’s work must be paid higher than woman’s, whether it is better done or not; by men’s power of place, which gives them power of veto; by inherited thought-fallacies and linguistic inaccuracies; by the nature of the medium through which things are seen.

Bacon wisely advised men to study all things in the “lumen siccum” or dry light of science, lest vapours arising from the mind should obscure the vision. He also pointed out that “There are four classes of Idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction sake I have assigned names—calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-place; the fourth, Idols of the Theatre” (“Novum Organum,” Article xxxix., p. 53; also in lix.). “But the Idols of the Market-place are the most troublesome of all; idols which have crept into theunderstanding through the alliances of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that words react on the understanding.” Is the word “man” a common or masculine term?

After an impartial analysis of the laws regarding women, can men say that they are just? Can they continue to assert that they know better than women do what they need, and wish, and strain after; and if they know, will theydothe thing that is necessary? With the best will in the world, which I believe the majority of men have, they do not know how. Only the foot that wears the shoe knows just where it pinches, and feels keenly the need of alteration.

Why must a woman be unable to free herself from an unfaithful husband if his hand is restrained from personal cruelty?

Why may a noble and loving mother have less power over the children she bore, and toiled for, than a selfish, indifferent father, who still “has sacred rights, because he has sacred duties” that he has despised?

Why must strong men inherit their father’s unwilled property before weak women?

Why must a bad workman be paid higher wages than a good workwoman?

Why are all laws in regard to vice notoriously unequal?

Why have labouring men the right injuriously to determine the conditions and opportunities of the labour of women working by their side?

It is because men are represented in Parliament and women are not.

“The House of Commons is as sensitive to the claims of the Represented as the mercury is to the weather.” If women, oppressed by various burdens, wish their will should reach the House, they must be given a voice. The only method by which the needs and wishes of women can be considered duly is by classing them once more among the “represented.” In vain otherwise will they look to their friends in the House to help various Bills they desire to pass, or to restrain other Bills they desire not to pass. It is not their friends they require to affect, it is their opponents. And their opponents can only be converted to the woman’s cause when women become Electors. That Bills affecting the liberties of more than half of the whole population should be left in the hands of “private members,” that they should be left to the chance of a private members’ ballot, that a Machinery Bill, or any other Bill affecting the interests of the smallest class of Electors, should be allowed to “talk out” the limited time allowed for the discussion of a question of such magnitude, shows the peculiar and sinister aspect in which Bills affecting the “unrepresented” can be viewed.

Archimedes of old said that he could move the world if he had but a “place where to stand.” If women want to move their world, to affect its destinies and their own, they too must have a place where to stand, and the place where to stand is the Suffrage.

“I trust the suffrage will be extended on good old English principles, and in conformity with good old English notions of representation” (“Essay on the Constitution,” by Lord Russell).

What these were I have attempted to show.

Apart from the special measures urgently needed on behalf of women, most public measures affect them equally with men.

A woman grocer is as much interested in Sugar Bounties and in Tea-taxes as her male rivals.

A woman housekeeper needs as much to be protected against the imposition of frozen home or foreign meat, at fresh English prices, as does the burdened British farmer.

All women suffer as much in War, and gain as much by Peace as men do.

Noxious trades, impure air, bad drainage, poison women as they do men. Women have as much interest in the character and wisdom of the members of the house as men have, because they also suffer from the consequences of their unwise actions. How, therefore, can anyone say—these things do not concern women?

It would be better for men too, if women were represented. They would then understand the meaning of Justice, and enjoy the return blessings of fair-play. They would discover that in the very difference of women lies one great argument for their being consulted.

If public-spirited women continue to be denied the power of offering their judgment in the consensus of public opinion on political matters, the nation will be thepoorer. It will ere long recognise this. But it does not yet.

How can any Assembly be said to be “Representative of the People,” when the best half of the People are not represented there; the best half in numbers, through the working out of the modern doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest; the best half by Statistics, as there are five times as many male criminals as female; the best half, by the position in which God placed woman at the Creation, at the Fall, and the Redemption. If it starts under false pretences how can it do the best possible to itself?

There is a strange suggestive duality even in our physical frame. We have two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet, many other dualities, and two lobes of the brain to control them. If by any cause one lobe of the brain is injured, it is theother sideof the body that becomes paralysed, but the whole body suffers with its members. If men persist in using only one eye, they not only see things out of focus, but restrict their range of vision. They can only see things on the near side of them. A Government that only uses the masculine eye, and sees but the masculine side of things, is at best but aone-eyedGovernment. The builder that only toils with one hand impoverishes himself, and makes meaner the design of the great Architect. The traveller that through some brain-sick fancy imagines one of his feet to be decrepit, can get along but by hops and jerks, or by using crutches made of dead wood, instead ofliving limbs that make motion graceful, equal, and rapid. Yet thus men do, wondering, meanwhile, that the “times are out of joint.”

Let them apply reason to their time-worn aphorisms, and the scales of justice to their out-worn Customs. Let them look at Humanity as it is, and as it ought to be.

Two comparisons will help them in the review, their comparison with their ancestors in this respect, and their comparison with “the perfect man in Christ Jesus,” and his “perfect Law of Liberty.”

For Revelation has enriched our education. Through much misconstruction and misconception the vision of Creation has been coloured by the prejudice of men.

God made man in His own image, male and female; man has made him altogether male. The Creator said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” His creature asserts, “It is best for us to be alone.” But it never has been good; it is not good now. Only in following out the lines of God’s conception canman(homo) remain in the image of God. Early names were all connotative, recording some special quality or association, and the early name of Adam was “Dust,” and the meaning of Eve is “Life.” The Titanic and Earth-born Physical force of which Adam was made the representative, must be united to that whichlives and brings Life, to make one perfect being. Only through the spiritual and practical union of Man with Woman can society be regenerated. When Woman ate of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, she learned more clearly to distinguish the good fromthe evil and to choose that good. Therefore, God chose the Woman as His fellow-worker in the scheme of Redemption. As part of the curse of Satan it is part of the primeval blessing of Humanity, that “I will put enmity between thee and the Woman.” The hands that restrict the Woman’s power, and limit her opportunity of fulfilling her mission, are fighting against God’s Will.

The words of God, “Thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee,” is a prophecy of man’s wrong and not a statute of man’s right. To understand this we have only to collate the passage with that other in which God speaks to Cain before he slew his brother—“If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou doest not well sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

The result of the first “physical force argument” was the death of the “righteous Abel.” The result of the same argument, through centuries of human existence, has been the death-in-life of the Woman whom God opposed to Satan. And the paralysis of the half has affected the whole body Social and Politic.

The Divine and Human are united through the Woman.

It is only by the representative Woman that Christ becomes the “Son of Man.”i

Christ, as His Father did, took women to be His friends and fellow-workers. Women never forsook Him. Woman watched by His cradle and spread the “gladtidings” ere yet He had opened His lips. Fearless women stood by His Cross and saw the last of His life; faithful women went to the Tomb and learned first of His Resurrection.

Through the ages, the contest between Satan and the Woman and between the Seed of Satan and the Seed of the Woman, has been made unduly hard both for Man and Woman, because of the Woman being bound both hand and foot. “The Dragon was wroth with the Woman and went to make war with the Remnant of her Seed which keep the Commandments of God, and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. xii. 17).

Let her have Freedom and Fair Play. Let her show what, God helping her, she can do, when men cease hindering her in the development ofHerself. They also will be gainers thereby. It will seem a new Creation when the earlier-bornFreemanmeets the later-bornFreewomanand recognises at last that it was not good for him to have been so long alone. For any Moral Regeneration, or for any Political Stability, men must learn to distinguish Good from Evil, Justice from short-sighted Selfishness, and to see, in the recognition of Woman as a help-meet for themin all things, the fulfilment of God’s Will in regard to both.

The Truth shall make youFree!THE END.

The Truth shall make youFree!THE END.

The Truth shall make youFree!

THE END.

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