1In England and Wales there are, in a population of 8,000,-000 women between the ages of twenty and fifty, 3,000,000 un-married women.137
be thrown open to woman; she is to receiveeverywhere the same wages as man; male andfemale are to work side by side; and they areindiscriminately to be put in command the oneover the other. Furthermore, legal rights areto be secured to the wife over her husband'sproperty and earnings. The programme is,in fact, to give to woman an economic inde-pendence out of the earnings and taxes ofman.Nor does feminist ambition stop short here.It demands that women shall be included inevery advisory committee, every governingboard, every jury, every judicial bench, everyelectorate, every parliament, and every minis-terial cabinet; further, that every masculinefoundation, university, school of learning,academy, trade union, professional corpora-tion and scientific society shall be convertedinto an epicene institution--until we shall haveeverywhere one vast cock-and-hen show.The proposal to bring man and womantogether everywhere into extremely intimate 138relationships raises very grave questions. Itbrings up, first, the question of sexual compli-cations; secondly, the question as to whetherthe tradition of modesty and reticence betweenthe sexes is to be definitely sacrificed; and,most important of all, the question as towhether epicene conditions would place ob-stacles in the way of intellectual work.Of these issues the feminist puts the first twoquite out of account. I have already else-where said my say upon these matters.1Withregard to the third, the feminist either fails torealise that purely intellectual intercourse--asdistinguished from an intercommunion of men-tal images--with woman is to a large sectionof men repugnant; or else, perceiving this,she makes up her mind that, this notwithstand-ing, she will get her way by denouncing theman who does not welcome her asselfish; andby insisting that under feminism (the quota-tion is from Mill, the italics which question hissincerity are mine) "the mass of mental facul-
1VideAppendix, pp. 169-173.139
ties available for the higher service of man-kind would bedoubled."The matter cannot so lightly be disposed of.It will be necessary for us to find out whetherreally intimate association with woman on thepurely intellectual plane is realisable. And ifit is, in fact, unrealisable, it will be necessary toconsider whether it is the exclusion of womenfrom masculine corporations; or the perpetualattempt of women to force their way into these,which would deserve to be characterised asselfish.In connexion with the former of these issues,we have to consider here not whether that formof intellectual co-operation in which the manplays the game, and the woman moves thepawns under his orders, is possible. Thatform of co-operation is of course possible, andit has, doubtless, certain utilities.Nor yet have we to consider whether quiteintimate and purely intellectual association onan equal footing between a particular man anda selected woman may or may not be possible. 140It will suffice to note that the feminist allegesthat this also is possible; but everybody knowsthat the woman very often marries the man.What we have to ask is whether--even ifwe leave out of regard the whole system of at-tractions or, as the case may be, repulsionswhich come into operation when the sexes arethrown together--purely intellectual inter-course between man and the typical unselectedwoman is not barred by the intellectual im-moralities and limitations which appear to besecondary sexual characters of woman.With regard to this issue, there would seemto be very little real difference of opinionamong men. But there are great differencesin the matter of candour. There are men whospeak out, and who enunciate like Nietzschethat "man and woman are alien--never yethas any one conceived how alien."There are men who, from motives of delicacyor policy, do not speak out--averse to sayinganything that might be unflattering to woman.And there are men who are by their pro- 141fession of the feminist faith debarred fromspeaking out, but who upon occasion givethemselves away.Of such is the man who in the House ofCommons champions the cause of woman'ssuffrage, impassionately appealing to Justice;and then betrays himself by announcing thathe would shake off from his feet the dust of itspurlieus if ever women were admitted as mem-bers--i.e.if ever women were forced uponhimas close intellectual associates.Wherever we look we find aversion to com-pulsory intellectual co-operation with woman.We see it in the sullen attitude which the or-dinary male student takes up towards the pres-ence of women students in his classes. We seeit in the fact that the older English universi-ties, which have conceded everything else towomen, have made a strong stand against mak-ing them actual members of the university;for this would impose them on men as intellec-tual associates. Again we see the aversion inthe opposition to the admission of women to 142the bar. But we need not look so far afield.Practically every man feels that there is inwoman--patent, or hidden away--an elementof unreason which, when you come upon it,summarily puts an end to purely intellectualintercourse. One may reflect, for example,upon the way the woman's suffrage contro-versy has been conducted.Proceeding now on the assumption thatthese things are so, and that man feels that heand woman belong to different intellectualcastes, we come now to the question as towhether it is man who is selfish when he ex-cludes women from his institutions, or womanwhen she unceasingly importunes for admit-tance. And we may define asselfishall suchconduct as pursues the advantage of the agentat the cost of the happiness and welfare ofthe general body of mankind.We shall be in a better position to pronouncejudgment on this question of ethics when wehave considered the following series of analo-gies: 143When a group of earnest and devout be-lievers meet together for special intercessionand worship, we do not tax them with selfish-ness if they exclude unbelievers.Nor do we call people who are really de-voted to music selfish if, coming together forthis, they make a special point of excludingthe unmusical.Nor again would the imputation of selfish-ness lie against members of a club for black-balling a candidate who would, they feel, beuncongenial.Nor should we regard it as an act of selfish-ness if the members of a family circle, or ofthe same nation, or of any social circle, desiredto come together quite by themselves.Nor yet would the term selfish apply to anEast End music hall audience when they ejectany one who belongs to a different social classto themselves and wears good clothes.And the like would hold true of servants re-senting their employers intruding upon themin their hours of leisure or entertainments. 144If we do not characterise such exclusions asselfish, but rather respect and sympathise withthem, it is because we recognise that the wholeobject andraison d' êtreof association wouldin each case be nullified by the weak-mindedadmission of the incompatible intruder.We recognise that if any charge of selfish-ness would lie, it would lie against that in-truder.Now if this holds in the case where the in-terests of religious worship or music, or family,national, or social life, or recreation and relax-ation after labour are in question, it will holdtrue even more emphatically where the inter-ests of intellectual work are involved.But the feminist will want to argue. Shewill--taking it as always for granted thatwoman has a right to all that men's hands orbrains have fashioned--argue that it is veryimportant for the intellectual development ofwoman that she should have exactly the sameopportunities as man. And she will, scouting [rejecting with contempt]the idea of any differences between the intelli- 145gences of man and woman, discourse to you oftheir intimate affinity.It will, perhaps, be well to clear up thesepoints.The importance of the higher developmentof woman is unquestionable.But after all it is the intellect of man whichreally comes into account in connexion with"the mass of mental faculties available for thehigher service of mankind."The maintenance of the conditions whichallow of man's doing his best intellectual workis therefore an interest which is superior tothat of the intellectual development of woman.And woman might quite properly be referredfor her intellectual development to instruc-tional institutions which should be special toherself.Coming to the question of the intimate re-semblances between the masculine and thefeminine intelligence, no man would be ven-turesome enough to dispute these, but he may 146be pardoned if he thinks--one would hope inno spirit of exaltation--also of the differences.We have an instructive analogy in connexionwith the learned societies.It is uncontrovertible that every candidatefor election into such a society will have, andwill feel that he has, affinities with the membersof that association. And he is invited to setthese forth in his application. But there mayalso be differences of which he is not sensible.On that question the electors are the judges;and they are the final court of appeal.There would seem to be here a moral whichthe feminist would do well to lay to heart.There is also another lesson which she mightvery profitably consider. A quite small dif-ference will often constitute as effective a barto a useful and congenial co-operation as amore fundamental difference.In the case of a body of intellectual workersone might at first sight suppose that so smalla distinction as that of belonging to a different 147nationality--sex, of course, is an infinitely pro-founder difference--would not be a bar to un-restricted intellectual co-operation.But in point of fact it is in every country,in every learned society, a uniform rule thatwhen foreign scientists or scholars are admittedthey are placed not on the ordinary list ofworking members, but on a special list.One discerns that there is justification forthis in the fact that a foreigner would in cer-tain eventualities be an incompatible person.One may think of the eventuality of thelearned society deciding to recognise a nationalservice, or to take part in a national movement.And one is not sure that a foreigner might notbe an incompatible person in the eventualityof a scientist or scholar belonging to a national-ity with which the foreigner's country was atfeud being brought forward for election.And he would, of course, be an impossibleperson in a society if he were, in a spirit ofchauvinism, to press for a larger representa-tion of his own fellow-countrymen. 148Now this is precisely the kind of way manfeels about woman. He recognises that she isby virtue of her sex for certain purposes an in-compatible person; and that, quite apart fromthis, her secondary sexual characters might incertain eventualities make her an impossibleperson.We may note, before passing on, that theseconsiderations would seem to prescribe thatwoman should be admitted to masculine insti-tutions only when real humanitarian groundsdemand it; that she should--following here theanalogy of what is done in the learned societieswith respect to foreigners--be invited to co-operate with men only when she is quite spe-cially eminent, or beyond all question usefulfor the particular purpose in hand; and lastly,that when co-opted into any masculine institu-tion woman should always be placed upon aspecial list, to show that it was proposed to con-fine her co-operation within certain specifiedlimits.From these general questions, which affect 149only the woman with intellectual aspirations,we pass to consider what would be the effectof feminism upon the rank and file of womenif it made of these co-partners with man inwork. They would suffer not only becausewoman's physiological disabilities and the re-strictions which arise out of her sex placeher at a great disadvantage when she has toenter into competition with man, but also be-cause under feminism man would be less andless disposed to take off woman's shoulders apart of her burden.And there can be no dispute that the mostvaluable financial asset of the ordinary womanis the possibility that a man may be willing--and may, if only woman is disposed to fulfil herpart of the bargain, be not only willing butanxious--to support her and to secure for her,if he can, a measure of that freedom whichcomes from the possession of money.In view of this every one who has a real fel-low-feeling for woman, and who is concernedfor her material welfare, as a father is con- 150cerned for his daughter's, will above every-thing else desire to nurture and encourage inman the sentiment of chivalry, and in womanthat disposition of mind that makes chivalrypossible.And the woman workers who have to fightthe battle of life for themselves would indi-rectly profit from this fostering of chivalry;for those women who are supported by men donot compete in the limited labour market whichis open to the woman worker.From every point of view, therefore, exceptperhaps that of the exceptional woman whowould be able to hold her own against mas-culine competition--and men always issue in-formal letters of naturalisation to such an ex-ceptional woman--the woman suffrage whichleads up to feminism would be a social disaster. 151
PART III
IS THERE, IF THE SUFFRAGE IS BARRED, ANYPALLIATIVE OF CORRECTIVE FOR THEDISCONTENTS OF WOMAN?
I
PALLIATIVES OR CORRECTIVES FOR THEDISCONTENTS OF WOMAN
What are the Suffragist's Grievances?--Economic andPhysiological Difficulties of Woman--IntellectualGrievances of Suffragist and Corrective.
Is there then, let us ask ourselves, if the suf-frage with its programme of feminism isbarred as leading to social disaster, any pallia-tive or corrective that can be applied to thepresent discontents of woman?If such is to be found, it is to be found onlyby placing clearly before us the suffragist'sgrievances.These grievances are,first,the economicdifficulties of the woman who seeks to earn herliving by work other than unskilled manuallabour;secondly, the difficult physiologicalconditions in which woman is placed by the 155excess of the female over the male populationand by her diminished chances of marriage1;andthirdly,the tedium which obsesses the lifeof the woman who is not forced, and cannotforce herself, to work. On the top of thesegrievances comes the fact that the suffragistconceives herself to be harshly and unfairlytreated by man. This last is the fire whichsets a light to all the inflammable material.It would be quite out of question to discusshere the economic and physiological difficultiesof woman. Only this may be said: it is impos-sible, in view of the procession of starved andfrustrated lives which is continuously filingpast, to close one's eyes to the urgency of thiswoman's problem.After all, the primary object of all civilisa-tion is to provide for every member of thecommunity food and shelter and fulfilment ofnatural cravings. And when, in what passesas a civilised community, a whole class is calledupon to go without any one of these our hu-
1Videfootnote, p. 138.
man requirements, it is little wonder that itshould break out.But when a way of escape stands open revoltis not morally justified.Thus, for example, a man who is born into,but cannot support himself in, a superior classof society is not, as long as he can find a liveli-hood abroad in a humbler walk in life, entitledto revolt.No more is the woman who is in economic orphysiological difficulties. For, if only she hasthe pluck to take it, a way of escape standsopen to her.She can emigrate; she can go out from thesocial class in which she is not self-supportinginto a humbler social class in which she couldearn a living; and she can forsake conditionsin which she must remain a spinster for con-ditions in which she may perhaps become amother. Only in this way can the problem offinding work, and relief of tedium, for thewoman who now goes idle be resolved.If women were to avail themselves of these 157ways of escape out of unphysiological condi-tions, the woman agitator would probably findit as difficult to keep alive a passionate agita-tion for woman suffrage as the Irish Nation-alist agitator to keep alive, after the settlementof the land question and the grant of old agepensions, a passionate agitation for a separateParliament for Ireland.For the happy wife and mother is never pas-sionately concerned about the suffrage. It isalways the woman who is galled either by phy-siological hardships, or by the fact that she hasnot the same amount of money as man, or bythe fact that man does not desire her as a co-partner in work, and withholds the homagewhich she thinks he ought to pay to her intel-lect.For this class of grievances the present edu-cation of woman is responsible. The girl who isgrowing up to woman's estate is never taughtwhere she stands relatively to man. Sheis not taught anything about woman's phys-ical disabilities. She is not told--she is left 158to discover it for herself when too late--thatchild and husband are to woman physiologicalrequirements. She is not taught the defectsand limitations of the feminine mind. Onemight almost think there were no such defectsand limitations; and that woman was not al-ways overestimating her intellectual power.And the ordinary girl is not made to realisewoman's intrinsically inferior money-earningcapacity. She is not made to realise that thewoman who cannot work with her hands isgenerally hard put to earn enough to keep her-self alive in the incomplete condition of aspinster.As a result of such education, when, influ-enced by the feminist movement, woman comesto institute a comparison between herself andman, she brings into that comparison all thosequalities in which she is substantially his equal,and leaves out of account all those in which sheis his inferior.The failure to recognise that man is the mas-ter, and why he is the master, lies at the root 159of the suffrage movement. By disregardingman's superior physical force, the power ofcompulsion upon which all government is basedis disregarded. By leaving out of accountthose powers of the mind in which man is thesuperior, woman falls into the error of thinkingthat she can really compete with him, and thatshe belongs to the self-same intellectual caste.Finally, by putting out of sight man's superiormoney-earning capacity, the power of thepurse is ignored.Uninstructed woman commits also anotherfundamental error in her comparison. Insteadof comparing together the average man andthe average woman, she sets herself to estab-lish that there is no defect in woman which can-not be discovered also in man; and that thereis no virtue or power in the ordinary man whichcannot be discovered also in woman. Whichhaving been established to her satisfaction, sheis led inevitably to the conclusion that there isnothing whatever to choose between the sexes.And from this there is only a step to the posi- 160tion that human beings ought to be assigned,without distinction of sex, to each and everyfunction which would come within the rangeof their individual capacities, instead of beingassigned as they are at present: men to onefunction, and women to another.Here again women ought to have been safe-guarded by education. She ought to havebeen taught that even when an individualwoman comes up to the average of man thisdoes not abrogate the disqualification whichattaches to a difference of sex. Nor yet--asevery one who recognises that we live in aworld which conducts itself by generalisationswill see--does it abrogate the disqualificationof belonging to an inferior intellectual caste.The present system of feminine education isblameworthy not only in the respect that itfails to draw attention to these disqualificationsand to teach woman where she stands; it is evenmore blameworthy in that it fails to conveyto the girl who is growing up any conceptionof that absolutely elementary form of morality 161which consists in distinguishingmeumandtuum[that which is mineandthat which is yours].Instead of her educators encouraging everygirl to assert "rights" as against man, and putforward claims, they ought to teach her withrespect to him those lessons of behaviour whichare driven home once for all into every boy ata public school.Just as there you learn that you may notmake unwarranted demands upon your fel-low, and just as in the larger world every na-tion has got to learn that it cannot with im-punity lay claim to the possessions of its neigh-bours, so woman will have to learn that whenthings are not offered to her, and she has notthe power to take them by force, she has gotto make the best of things as they are.One would wish for every girl who is grow-ing up to womanhood that it might be broughthome to her by some refined and ethically-minded member of her own sex how insuffer-able a person woman becomes when, like aspoilt child, she exploits the indulgence of 162man; when she proclaims that it is his dutyto serve her and to share with her his powerand possessions; when she makes an outcrywhen he refuses to part with what is his own;and when she insists upon thrusting her societyupon men everywhere.And every girl ought to be warned that toembark upon a policy of recrimination whenyou do not get what you want, and to pro-claim yourself a martyr when, having hit, youare hit back, is the way to get yourself thor-oughly disliked.Finally, every girl ought to be shown, in theexample of the militant suffragist, how revoltand martyrdom, undertaken in order to possessoneself of what belongs to others, effects thecomplete disorganisation of moral character.No one would wish that in the education ofgirls these quite unlovely things should be in-sisted upon more than was absolutely neces-sary. But one would wish that the educatorsof the rising generation of women should, bas-ing themselves upon these foundations, point 163out to every girl how great is woman's debt tocivilisation; in other words, how much is undercivilisation done for woman by man.And one would wish that, in a world which isrendered unwholesome by feminism, everygirl's eyes were opened to comprehend thegreat outstanding fact of the world: the factthat, turn where you will, you find individ-ual man showering upon individual woman--one man in tribute to her enchantment, an-other out of a sense of gratitude, and anotherjust because she is something that is his--everygood thing which, suffrage or no suffrage, shenever could have procured for herself. 164
APPENDIX
LETTER ON MILITANT HYSTERIA
Reprinted by permission fromThe Times(London), March28, 1912.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
SIR,--For man the physiological psychologyof woman is full of difficulties.He is not a little mystified when he encoun-ters in her periodically recurring phases ofhypersensitiveness, unreasonableness, and lossof the sense of proportion.He is frankly perplexed when confrontedwith a complete alteration of character in awoman who is child-bearing.When he is a witness of the "tendency ofwoman to morally warp when nervously ill,"and of the terrible physical havoc which thepangs of a disappointed love may work, he isappalled.And it leaves on his mind an eerie feelingwhen he sees serious and long-continued men-tal disorders developing in connexion with the 167approaching extinction of a woman's repro-ductive faculty.No man can close his eyes to these things;but he does not feel at liberty to speak ofthem.
For the woman that God gave him is not his to give away. [From "The Female of the Species" by Rudyard Kipling]
As for woman herself, she makes very lightof any of these mental upsettings.She perhaps smiles a little at them. . . .1None the less, these upsettings of her men-tal equilibrium are the things that a womanhas most cause to fear; and no doctor can everlose sight of the fact that the mind of womanis always threatened with danger from thereverberations of her physiological emer-gencies.It is with such thoughts that the doctor letshis eyes rest upon the militant suffragist. Hecannot shut them to the fact that there is
1In the interests of those who feel that female dignity iscompromised by it, I have here omitted a woman's flippantoverestimate of the number of women in London society whosuffer from nervous disorders at the climacteric [i.e. menopause].168
mixed up with the woman's movement muchmental disorder; and he cannot conceal fromhimself the physiological emergencies which liebehind.The recruiting field for the militant suf-fragists is the million of our excess femalepopulation--that million which had better longago have gone out to mate with its comple-ment of men beyond the sea.Among them there are the following dif-ferent types of women:--(a)First--let usput them first--come a class of women whohold, with minds otherwise unwarped, thatthey may, whenever it is to their advantage,lawfully resort to physical violence.The programme, as distinguished from themethods, of these women is not very differentfrom that of the ordinary suffragist woman.(b) There file past next a class of womenwho have all their life-long been strangers tojoy, women in whom instincts long suppressedhave in the end broken into flame. These arethe sexually embittered women in whom every- 169thing has turned into gall and bitterness ofheart, and hatred of men.Their legislative programme is license forthemselves, or else restrictions for man.(c) Next there file past the incomplete.One side of their nature has undergone atro-phy, with the result that they have lost touchwith their living fellow men and women.Their programme is to convert the wholeworld into an epicene institution--an epiceneinstitution in which man and woman shalleverywhere work side by side at the selfsametasks and for the selfsame pay.These wishes can never by any possibility berealised. Even in animals--I sayeven,be-cause in these at least one of the sexes hasperiods of complete quiscence--male and fe-male cannot be safely worked side by side, ex-cept when they are incomplete.While in the human species safety can beobtained, it can be obtained only at the priceof continual constraint. 170And even then woman, though she proteststhat she does not require it, and that she doesnot receive it, practically always does receivedifferential treatment at the hands of man.It would be well, I often think, that everywoman should be clearly told--and the womanof the world will immediately understand--that when man sets his face against the pro-posal to bring in an epicene world, he does sobecause he can do his best work only in sur-roundings where he is perfectly free from sug-gestion and from restraint, and from the onuswhich all differential treatment imposes.And I may add in connexion with my ownprofession that when a medical man asks thathe should not be the yoke-fellow of a medicalwoman he does so also because he would wishto keep up as between men and women--evenwhen they are doctors--some of the modestiesand reticences upon which our civilisation hasbeen built up.Now the medical woman is of course never 171on the side of modesty,1or in favour of anyreticences. Her desire for knowledge doesnot allow of these.(d) Inextricably mixed up with the typeswhich we have been discussing is the type ofwoman whom Dr. Leonard Williams's recentletter brought so distinctly before our eyes--the woman who is poisoned by her misplacedself-esteem; and who flies out at every manwho does not pay homage to her intellect.She is the woman who is affronted when aman avers thatfor himthe glory of woman liesin her power of attraction, in her capacity formotherhood, and in unswerving allegiance tothe ethics which are special to her sex.I have heard such an intellectually embit-tered woman say, though she had been self-denyingly taken to wife, that "never in thewhole course of her life had a man ever as muchas done her a kindness."
1To those who have out of inadvertence and as laymen andwomen misunderstood, it may be explained that the issue herediscussed is the second in order of the three which are set outon p. 139 (supra).172
The programme of this type of woman is,as a preliminary, to compel man to admit herclaim to be his intellectual equal; and, thatdone, to compel him to divide up everythingwith her to the last farthing, and so make heralso his financial equal.And her journals exhibit to us the kind ofparliamentary representative she desiderates.He humbly, hat in hand, asks for his ordersfrom a knot of washerwomen standing armsa-kimbo.2(e) Following in the wake of these em-bittered human beings come troops of girlsjust grown up.All these will assure you, these young girls--and what is seething in their minds is stir-ring also in the minds in the girls in the col-leges and schools which are staffed by un-married suffragists--that woman has sufferedall manner of indignity and injustice at thehands of man.
2I give, in response to a request, the reference:Votes forWomen,March 18, 1910, p. 381.173
And these young girls have been told aboutthe intellectual, and moral, and financial valueof woman--such tales as it never entered intothe heart of man to conceive.The programme of these young women is tobe married upon their own terms. Man shall--so runs their scheme--work for their sup-port--to that end giving up his freedom, andputting himself under orders, for many hoursof the day; but they themselves must not beasked to give up any of their liberty to him,or to subordinate themselves to his interests,or to obey him in anything.To obey a man would be to commit theunpardonable sin.It is not necessary, in connexion with amovement which proceeds on the lines set outabove, any further to labour the point thatthere is in it an element of mental disorder.It is plain that it is there.There is also a quite fatuous element in theprogrammes of the militant suffragist. Wehave this element, for instance, in the doctrine 174that, notwithstanding the fact that the con-ditions of the labour market deny it to her,woman ought to receive the same wage as aman for the same work.This doctrine is fatuous, because it leavesout of sight that, even if woman succeeds indoing the same work as man, he has behind hima much larger reserve of physical strength.As soon as a time of strain comes, areserve ofstrength and freedom from periodic indisposi-tion is worth paying extra for.Fatuous also is the dogma that womanought to have the same pay for the same work--fatuous because it leaves out of sight thatwoman's commercial value in many of the bestfields of work is subject to a very heavy dis-count by reason of the fact that she cannot,like a male employee, work cheek by jowl witha male employer; nor work among men as aman with his fellow employees.So much for the woman suffragist's protestthat she can conceive of no reason for a dif-ferential rate of pay for man. 175Quite as fatuous are the marriage projects ofthe militant suffragist. Every woman of theworld could tell her--whispering it into herprivate ear--that if a sufficient number of menshould come to the conclusion that it was notworth their while to marry except on the termsof fair give-and-take, the suffragist woman'sdemands would have to come down.It is not at all certain that the institution ofmatrimony--which, after all, is the great in-strument in the levelling up of the financialsituation of woman--can endure apart fromsome willing subordination on the part of thewife.It will have been observed that there is inthese programmes, in addition to the elementof mental disorder and to the element of thefatuous, which have been animadverted upon,also a very ugly element of dishonesty. Inreality the very kernel of the militant suffragemovement is the element of immorality.There is here not only immorality in the 176ends which are in view, but also in the methodsadopted for the attainment of those ends.We may restrict ourselves to indicatingwherein lies the immorality of the methods.There is no one who does not discern thatwoman in her relations to physical force standsin quite a different position to man.Out of that different relation there must ofnecessity shape itself a special code of ethicsfor woman. And to violate that code must befor woman immorality.So far as I have seen, no one in this con-troversy has laid his finger upon the essentialpoint in the relations of woman to physicalviolence.It has been stated--and in the main quitetruly stated--that woman in the mass cannot,like man, back up her vote by bringing physi-cal force into play.But the woman suffragist here counters byinsisting that she as an individual may havemore physical force than an individual man. 177And it is quite certain--and it did not needsuffragist raids and window-breaking riots todemonstrate it--that woman in the mass canbring a certain amount of physical force tobear.The true inwardness of the relation in whichwoman stands to physical force lies not in thequestion of her having it at command, but inthe fact that she cannot put it forth withoutplacing herself within the jurisdiction of anethical law.The law against which she offends when sheresorts to physical violence is not an ordinanceof man; it is not written in the statutes of anyState; it has not been enunciated by any hu-man law-giver. It belongs to those unwritten,and unassailable, and irreversible command-ments of religion, [Greek1],which we suddenly and mysteriously becomeaware of when we see them violated.The law which the militant suffragist hasviolated is among the ordinances of that codewhich forbade us even to think of employing 178
[1FromAntigoneby Sophocles; "the unwrittenand unassailable statutes given to us by the gods."Sir Almroth had it in the original Greek with Greek fonts.]
our native Indian troops against the Boers;which brands it as an ignominy when a manleaves his fellow in the lurch and saves hisown life; and which makes it an outrage for aman to do violence to a woman.To violate any ordinance of that code ismore dishonourable than to transgress everystatutory law.We see acknowledgment of it in the factthat even the uneducated man in the streetresents it as an outrage to civilisation when hesees a man strike a blow at a woman.But to the man who is committing the out-rage it is a thing simply unaccountable thatany one should fly out at him.In just such a case is the militant suffragist.She cannot understand why any one shouldthink civilisation is outraged when she scufflesin the street mud with a policeman.If she asks for an explanation, it perhapsbehoves a man to supply it.Up to the present in the whole civilised worldthere has ruled a truce of God as between man 179and woman. That truce is based upon thesolemn covenant that within the frontiers ofcivilisation (outside them of course the rulelapses) the weapon of physical force may notbe applied by man against woman; nor bywoman against man.Under this covenant, the reign of forcewhich prevails in the world without comes toan end when a man enters his household.Under this covenant that half of the humanrace which most needs protection is raised upabove the waves of violence.Within the terms of this compact everythingthat woman has received from man, and every-thing man receives from woman, is given as afree gift.Again, under this covenant a full half of theprogramme of Christianity has been realised;and a foundation has been laid upon which itmay be possible to build higher; and perhapsfinally in the ideal future to achieve the aboli-tion of physical violence and war.And it is this solemn covenant, the covenant 180so faithfully kept by man, which has beenviolated by the militant suffragist in the in-terest of her morbid, stupid, ugly, and dis-honest programmes.Is it wonder if men feel that they have hadenough of the militant suffragist, and that theState would be well rid of her if she werecrushed under the soldiers' shields like thetraitor woman at the Tarpeian rock [in ancient Rome where traitors were killed] ?We may turn now to that section of womansuffragists--one is almost inclined to doubtwhether it any longer exists--which is opposedto all violent measures, though it numbers inits ranks women who are stung to the quickby the thought that man, who will concede thevote to the lowest and most degraded of hisown sex, withholds it from "even the noblestwoman in England."When that excited and somewhat patheticappeal is addressed to us, we have only to con-sider what a vote really gives.The parliamentary vote is an instrument--and a quite astonishly disappointing instru- 181ment it is--for obtaining legislation; that is,for directing that the agents of the State shallin certain defined circumstances bring into ap-plication the weapon of physical compulsion.Further, the vote is an instrument by whichwe give to this or that group of statesmen an-thority to supervise and keep in motion thewhole machinery of compulsion.To take examples. A vote cast in favourof a Bill for the prohibition of alcohol--if wecould find opportunity for giving a vote onsuch a question--would be a formal expressionof our desire to apply, through the agency ofthe paid servants of the State, that same physi-cal compulsion which Mrs. Carrie Nation putinto application in her "bar-smashing" cru-sades.And a vote which puts a Government intooffice in a country where murder is punishableby death is a vote which, by agency of thehangman, puts the noose round the neck ofevery convicted murderer.So that the difference between voting and 182direct resort to force is simply the differencebetween exerting physical violence in person,and exerting it through the intermediary ofan agent of the State.The thing, therefore, that is withheld from"the noblest woman in England," while it isconceded to the man who is lacking in nobilityof character, is in the end only an instrumentby which she might bring into applicationphysical force.When one realises that that same noblestwoman of England would shrink from anypersonal exercise of violence, one would havethought that it would have come home to herthat it is not precisely her job to commissiona man forcibly to shut up a public-house, orto hang a murderer.One cannot help asking oneself whether, ifshe understood what a vote really means, thenoblest woman in England would still go oncomplaining of the bitter insult which is doneto her in withholding the vote.But the opportunist--the practical politi- 183cian, as he calls himself--will perhaps here in-tervene, holding some such language as this:--"Granting all you say, granting, for the sakeof argument, that the principle of giving votesto woman is unsound, and that evil must ulti-mately come of it, how can you get over thefact that no very conspicuous harm has re-sulted from woman suffrage in the countrieswhich have adopted it? And can any firmreasons be rendered for the belief that the giv-ing of votes to women in England would beany whit more harmful than in the Colo-nies?"A very few words will supply the answer.The evils of woman suffrage lie,first,in thefact that to give the vote to women is to giveit to voters who as a class are quite incom-petent to adjudicate upon political issues;secondly,in the fact that women are a class ofvoters who cannot effectively back up theirvotes by force; and,thirdly,in the fact thatit may seriously embroil man and woman.The first two aspects of the question have 184already in this controversy been adequatelydealt with. There remains the last issue.From the point of view of this issue the con-ditions which we have to deal with in this coun-try are the absolute antithesis of those rulingin any of the countries and States which haveadopted woman suffrage.When woman suffrage was adopted in thesecountries it was adopted in some for onereason, in others for another. In some it wasadopted because it appealed to thedoctrinaire [theoretical]politician as the proper logical outcome of ademocratic and Socialistic policy. In othersit was adopted because opportunist politicianssaw in it an instrument by which they mightgain electioneering advantages. So much wasthis the case that it sometimes happened thatthe woman's vote was sprung upon a com-munity which was quite unprepared and in-different to it.The cause of woman suffrage was thus inthe countries of which we speak neither in itsinception nor in its realisation a question of 185revolt of woman against the oppression ofman. It had, and has, no relation to the pro-grammes of the militant suffragists as set outat the outset of this letter.By virtue of this, all the evils which springfrom the embroiling of man and woman havein the countries in question been conspicuouslyabsent.Instead of seeing himself confronted by asection of embittered and hostile women voterswhich might at any time outvote him and helpto turn an election, man there sees his womenfolk voting practically everywhere in accord-ance with his directions, and lending him ahand to outvote his political opponent.Whether or no such voting is for the goodof the common weal is beside our present ques-tion. But it is clearly an arrangement whichleads to amity and peace between a man andhis womenkind, and through these to good-willtowards all women.In England everything is different.If woman suffrage comes in here, it will 186have come as a surrender to a very violentfeminist agitation--an agitation which we havetraced back to our excess female populationand the associated abnormal physiological con-ditions.If ever Parliament concedes the vote towoman in England, it will be accepted by themilitant suffragist, not as an eirenicon, but as avictory which she will value only for the bettercarrying on of her fightà outrance[to the bitter end]against theoppression and injustice of man.A conciliation with hysterical revolt isneither an act of peace; nor will it bringpeace.Nor would the conferring of the vote uponwomen carry with it any advantages from thepoint of view of finding a way out of the ma-terial entanglements in which woman is en-meshed, and thus ending the war between manand woman.One has only to ask oneself whether or notit would help the legislator in remodelling thedivorce or the bastardy laws if he had con- 187joined with him an unmarried militant suf-fragist as assessor.Peace will come again. It will come whenwoman ceases to believe and to teach all man-ner of evil of man despitefully. It will comewhen she ceases to impute to him as a crime herown natural disabilities, when she ceases toresent the fact that man cannot and does notwish to work side by side with her. And peacewill return when every woman for whom thereis no room in England seeks "rest" beyond thesea, "each one in the house of her husband," andwhen the woman who remains in Englandcomes to recognise that she can, without sacri-fice of dignity, give a willing subordination tothe husband or father, who, when all is saidand done, earns and lays up money for her.A. E. WRIGHT.March27, 1912.188
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