the old tradition of the family is intimately connected with the old ideal of womanhood, and this in turn is summoned to the bar of modern criticism. a substantial change in the position of woman seems so revolutionary a disturbance, since it directly affects half the race and must very seriously affect the home and the state, that our conservatives employ against the proposal the whole arsenal of controversial rhetoric. we hear of the wisdom of the race—as if the race did not grow wiser as it grows older—and the thin end of the wedge. we are reminded that the ancient civilisations always came to an end when their women rebelled against their natural position. we have private appeals to our sensuous feelings and our instincts of proprietorship, and open appeals to the ascetic doctrine of the pauline epistles. we have history put before us, as usual, in chosen fragments, and on the strength of these detached bits of learning we hear impressive sermons on the “laws” of history and of nature.
the appeal to history, which men like dr. emil reich have so gravely abused, is in this case singularly unfortunate. in most cases the candid student of history finds some ancient abuse or irrational tradition making its way from one civilisation to another, and finds it natural that our more critical and independent generation should at length seek to dethrone it. but in the case of woman the conservative has not even “the wisdom of the race” to appeal to. her position in the past has varied greatly, but it is very far from true that she had always occupied that state of subjection in which our victorian reformers found her. i have elsewhere (woman in political evolution) surveyed the full story of woman’s development, and will here be content with a summary view which makes the feminist movement of our time intelligible.
during the greater part of the history of civilisation, in the egyptian and mesopotamian empires, woman had a considerable measure of freedom and respect. when the greeks and romans entered the stage, they brought with them a different tradition in regard to woman, but as soon as they reached the height of their cultural development, their women (and many of their men) rebelled against this tradition. the civilisation of greece was extinguished so speedily that the women of athens, aided by so eminent a thinker as plato, had not time to win their emancipation; but the roman women did succeed in lifting themselves from their position of subjection. in the meantime, however, the political and religious development of europe led to the reappearance of the barbaric tradition in a new form. the christian leaders had in their sacred documents the social code of a rude semitic tribe, the jews, which was sternly emphasised by st. paul, and they brooded darkly over the position of woman. tertullian fiercely reminded christians that, but for woman, the race would never have been damned. ambrose ingeniously reflected that eve was made out of a mere rib, not out of the brain, of adam. augustine regarded woman as an unpleasant institution created by providence for the relief of weak-willed males and for the maintenance of the race. jerome frowned heavily on the roman woman’s claim of emancipation. this quaint mixture of jewish contempt and ascetic dread was imposed on europe by the triumphant priesthood, educated mainly in the opinions of “the fathers,” and woman sank again to a position of inferiority and subjection.
women writers of many countries have written this story of the degradation of their sex in christian europe, and one can only admire the splendid audacity with which bishop welldon assures women that jesus christ (who never uttered a protest against the jewish conception or a warning against the coming abuse of it) was “the first to respect them,” or the bishop of london describes christianity as “woman’s best friend,” or bishop diggle represents the christian as an advance on the roman attitude. our clergy are distinguished for the facility with which they make historical statements without giving us any serious evidence of a command of history; they have the advantage of being able to assure their followers that it is a “sin” to read more accurate and less orthodox experts.
the historical truth is that the nineteenth century found woman in a position far lower than that she had occupied at rome seventeen centuries before—far lower, indeed, than she had occupied during (except for two brief periods) the many thousands of years of the history of civilisation. it was quite inevitable that a movement for her emancipation and uplifting should find a place among the great reforms initiated in the last century. to conceive this movement as a semi-hysterical rebellion against the settled usage of the race is merely to betray a gross ignorance of history. recent experience has taught us that there is a great deal in the settled usage of the race to rebel against; but it is false that in this case we are doing so. the undisputed historical truth is that woman had been comparatively free and respected during the greater part of the civilised period: that, when the early civilisations of greece and rome had placed her in subjection for a few centuries, she, at the beginning of the christian era, rebelled and won her emancipation: and that the later period of subjection was merely due to the incorporation in the christian religion of the primitive and crude ideal of a polygamous arab tribe. against this intolerable superstition modern civilisation has rebelled, and we are in the midst of a far deeper discussion of woman’s nature and position than ever occurred before.
the discussion is passing through the three phases which are customary in these controversies. at first the clergy and the conservative quoted the bible and the fathers. then, when women began to show that they were disposed to examine a little more closely the authority of documents which taught so obvious an injustice, it was pleaded that in this case the religious view coincided with “sound” science and sociology. in that phase we are to-day, discussing claims that “nature” and our social interest are on the side of the old ideal. in a few more decades, when the battle is won, the bishop of london of the time will be demonstrating that the reform was anticipated by the fathers sixteen hundred years ago and was contained, in germ, in the new testament.
at present the controversy about woman’s position turns largely on the question of her “nature,” and the literature of the subject is prodigious. woman has different organs and functions than those of man, and it is natural to suppose that they will give her a different character. here is the opportunity of the male: he has a solid scientific fact to build upon.
he sagely examines the intellectual life of woman and pronounces it inferior to that of man: he measures her brain and finds it smaller than that of man, and thus discovers the scientific basis of her inferiority; and he never reflects that, since he, on the whole, forbade her to develop her brain and intelligence during the fifteen centuries of christian domination, it may be that her brain is not working with all the energy of which it is capable. he lays down for this dependent creature a certain code of deportment and behaviour, and, when it has enfeebled her, he discourses on her inferior muscular development: if any girls or women defiantly exercise their muscles and become strong, he calls them “unwomanly” and happily exceptional. he observes that woman is more emotional than man; and, of course, he does not ask physiologists whether this may be merely, or mainly, the effect (as it is) of the muscular and intellectual restrictions he has placed on her. he bids her develop pretty curves on her body for his entertainment, and never thinks about the physiological and psychological effect of the dead mass of fat and the flabby muscles. he kindly undertakes (for a consideration) the care of this weaker companion, and, when she begins to prove that she can fend for herself, he severely censures her for intruding on his labour-market. he learns from novelists that she has a peculiar power of “intuition” (in fiction), and a greater fineness of perception than man (which exact experiment in america has shown to be untrue), and is altogether a deep and unfathomable being. and he then, in virtue of his superior understanding of her “mysterious” nature, proceeds to dictate to her about her sphere and her capacities.
the absurdities and contradictions of male writers on women, supported by some women writers, during the last two hundred years, would fill a volume. they were more or less intelligible, and certainly entertaining, in the earlier part of the modern period, but at a time when we have scientific and historical information to guide us they are neither intelligent nor amusing. we now know that there is no such thing as an unchangeable nature of a living organism. structure and function vary with use and environment, whatever theory of heredity one follows. forbid the brain and muscles to function for some centuries, and they will become feebler: restore their activity and they will return to strength. shut a woman out of politics or business or war, and she will lose her capacity for it: reintroduce her to it, and her faculties are sharpened. when the kings of dahomi formed a regiment of women in their army, the women were found to be more deadly fighters than the men, and they drank as heavily.
as far as the political phase of the modern feminist struggle is concerned, the application of these principles is clear enough. when statesmen can find no better argument against the enfranchisement of women than the fact that (like the politicians themselves) they do no military service, and when scientific men plead only their periodical perturbations and their “change of life,” it is time to cease arguing. even in countries which have a system of conscription it has never been proposed that those who are exempt from service should not have a vote. in a country like england the objection is supremely foolish: it reminds one of plato’s ironical argument, in this connection, that men who are bald should not be allowed to make shoes. as to the comparative disturbance of judgment which a certain proportion of women suffer at certain periods, it is preposterous to suppose that this does not unfit them for more important work, but does unfit them for casting a vote once in seven years. is it suggested that the conservative matron will, if an election fall in her period of nervous instability, march in a frenzy to the poll and vote for keir hardie? even the more or less intoxicated male voter does not overrule a settled conviction so easily. but it is waste of time to discuss such matters. a simple investigation of years of experience in america and australasia is more valuable than the pedantic declarations of one or two scientific men. even conservative australians smiled when i asked them if the consequences of female enfranchisement, as they are darkly foreboded by serious people in england, had been observed in their commonwealth.
the anti-suffrage campaign has been the death-blow of the prejudice against the enfranchisement of women. it has shown the complete futility of the conservative position. women would probably have the vote in england to-day if a section of those who demand it had not taken a false path. the end, however sacred, does not justify criminal means; nor can any serious statesman yield to violence and intimidation. yet there is nothing in this temporary aberration to strengthen the anti-feminist position. it was an error of judgment and a misreading of history. i am well acquainted with many of the ladies who did these regrettable things, and i know that the suggestion of “hysteria” is an insult. it is, however, useless to discuss this question further. women will be enfranchised in england within a few years, and in all civilised nations within a quarter of a century.
then will begin the campaign for the right to sit in parliament, even in the ministry. from sheer force of prejudice the great majority of the enfranchised women will resist this further claim, and the long story of education and agitation will be repeated. this is the outcome of our habit of persistently compromising with false traditions instead of frankly discarding them. the immortal jokes about women will be retailed in the house of commons by our legislators; the same dark warnings will come from scientific cassandras who have felt social influence; the same tragic whispers about “what every woman knows” will be heard in drawing-rooms. then, about the year 1930, we will discover that woman is really capable of undertaking the not very exacting duties of the average member of parliament,—if we have not in the meantime abolished these aimless long debates on subjects which all approach with a fixed conviction,—and that it may not be impossible to find a woman with the capacity of mr. reginald m’kenna or lord gladstone or mr. walter long. our mrs. humphry wards will be the first to compete for the office.
i turn to the more serious question of the economic enfranchisement of women. on this side of the feminist movement our views are hardly less hazy than in regard to politics. the middle-class, being the brain as well as the backbone of england, is chiefly responsible for the maxim that woman’s place is the home; but the middle-class is also the great employer of labour, and it has found that female labour is cheaper than male, and has therefore concluded that woman’s proper place is the office or the workshop. more than a fourth of the girls and women of england work outside the home. this material incentive to right views is, however, limited in its action. when the middle-class woman in turn seeks economic independence, she is received with coldness, if not derision. women may be clerks, teachers, actresses, telegraphists, hosiery-makers, etc., but they ought not to aspire to be doctors, lawyers, or stockbrokers. if they ask the reason, they hear an inconsistent jumble of statements. in the first place, of course, they are not clever enough; in the second place, however, they are likely to be so far successful that they would lessen the available employment of men.
certainly in such a haphazard industrial world as ours the accession of a fresh army of workers will cause, and is causing, confusion. on the laissez-faire principle this overcrowding of the market is good; it gives a greater play to selection and promotes efficiency. but we have, as i said, forced laissez-faire to compromise with decency. we prefer a little overcrowding, but not too much. the opening of the doors of all the professions to woman means a worse overcrowding than ever in the medical and legal worlds, and we naturally hesitate.
naturally, but not justly or logically. between logic and justice the modern man pleads that he is distracted, and he asks time for reconstruction; asks, in other words, that we should leave the trouble to another generation. this shrinking from trouble is of no avail. we have sanctioned the principle of female industry outside the home—millions of women are so employed in england to-day—and we have absolutely no ground to limit it except the natural disability of woman or the social need for her to undertake other functions. of her natural disability little need be said here. we have had, in most countries, decades of experience of the employment of women in many industries—teaching, nursing, journalism, factory-work, art, theatre, post-office, type-writing, shop-work, and so on. what proportion of complaint to the number of workers is there that their periodical functions make them unfit for employment? we do not need learned experts on gynecology to tell us of the acute and exceptional cases which have come under their observation. the scientific and practical procedure is to make a general inquiry into the net result of our employment of millions of girls and women. most of us would await such a report with confidence. as long as the wages of women are lower than those of men, we hear very little complaint; nor do we find the work of our schools or the play of our theatres very much interrupted by peculiarly feminine weaknesses. of late years women have shown that they are equally qualified to be dentists, doctors, chartered accountants, etc. common-sense would persuade us, if we would find the real limits of woman’s capacity, to open to her all the doors of the world of work and learn it by experience.
one must give more serious attention to the claim that this economic enfranchisement of women will tend to lessen maternity, and will therefore endanger our social interests. this question of the birth-rate is, in fact, very important from many points of view, and it is extremely advisable to have a clear and reasoned grasp of it. many people are at once alarmed if it is shown that a practice will tend to lessen the birth-rate. they rarely examine with critical attention the reasons which would be alleged by those who maintain that a lowering of the birth-rate is a social menace.
but one needs no lengthy reflection to discover that at the root of all this clamour for maintaining or increasing the birth-rate we have only military requirements. some, indeed, urge that a nation needs as many soldiers as possible for her industrial army as well as for her military forces; but, seeing that each nation already has more than she can employ, we are not impressed by this phrase. it is not volume of production, or gross largeness of revenue, which makes a nation great. it is the proportion of her revenue to her population, and in that respect some of the smallest states are the most happily situated. the need of a large army alone justifies complaints about a falling birth-rate, and it is monstrous that we should lay this strain on parents merely in order to produce “fodder for cannon.” the actual need of each country, as long as the military system lasts, must, of course, be met, but—apart from the hope that we will soon cast off the greater part of this military burden—two circumstances show that we have not here a sound and permanent social need. the birth-rate is falling in all civilised countries, and will eventually reach a common low level; and the war has shown us that a nation with a reduced population may, like any nation with a small population, find compensation for its weakness in alliances.
the truth is that the premature advance of france in restricting its birth-rate has led to a general fallacy. france exposed itself to a particular danger in face of germany, and this special weakness of france was converted into the general statement that any nation which reduces its birth-rate is in danger. not only is the general statement untrue, but the particular case of france is very carelessly conceived. after 1871 the german empire had such an advantage in population over france, and (until 1895) so much less need of maintaining a fleet, that even a full birth-rate would not have equipped france confidently for a combat. in any case, we come back always to military needs, and we may trust that these will not long impose their terrible strain on civilisation. there is, apart from them, no reason why the birth-rate should not sink in every country to the level of the death-rate, and in many countries even lower.
on the other hand, the superficial folk who cry for heavy maternity and full cradles overlook a very important social fact. i am thinking chiefly of the men and women who denounce in principle the practice of restricting births. not only do they ignore the overcrowding of our trades and professions,—and they are usually amongst the most reluctant to organise them,—but they fail to notice that the increasing application of science and humane sentiment to our modes of living threatens the earth, as a whole, with enormous over-population, unless the birth-rate be checked. the population of england has increased nearly fourfold in the past hundred years, whereas it had little more than doubled in the previous two hundred years. the factors which are responsible for this vast modern increase are becoming more active every decade, and are spreading over the world. how will the population of europe and asia stand when they are fully applied in russia, china, and india? within twenty years the united states, according to its agricultural experts, will have as large a population as it can support, and we have already seen germany very largely thrust into war because of its superabundant population. the future is full of peril and misery if we continue to allow this military demand for men to masquerade as a sound and permanent human need. the birth-rate must be checked.
we must therefore refuse to allow the path of reform to be obstructed by either the priest or the drill-sergeant. if ever a time comes when some real interest of the race is endangered by too low a birth-rate, we may trust the race to see to it. conservatives often imagine that those who would reform life on common-sense lines are devoid of sentiment. they confuse sentiment and sentimentality, which is sentiment out of accord with reason. the man of the future will be, in my judgment, not less, but more emotional than the man of to-day; but he will not allow ancient prejudices and mere phrases to have the unchecked support of his feelings. it will not be enough to tell him that divorce is increasing, or the birth-rate falling, or respect for the clergy deteriorating. he will ask the precise value in social terms of your bogy. at present we have, on broad social grounds, much to gain and nothing to lose by a fall of the birth-rate. indeed, the prospect of a fall is, as far as this economic development alone is concerned, much exaggerated. millions of employed women have, and will continue to have, children. under our present system of industry this has undoubtedly certain risks and burdens; under the organised system of employment for which i plead it will be possible to adjust employment to maternal functions.
and this brings me to the cardinal issue of the whole controversy: the economic position of the married woman or the mother. let us face this graver position quite candidly. the industrial disorganisation will right itself in the course of time. the middle-class father of our time whose daughter does a certain amount of work, not in order to relieve his pocket, but in order to buy additional luxuries for herself, has assuredly a grievance. she takes part of a man’s work and pay, yet leaves on him the old burden of maintenance. she makes matters worse by accepting a low wage, because she is not self-maintaining. i am assuming that women will become independent economic units, and that the rate of payment will be—equal wage for equal service.
but the position of the married woman, or of the independent woman who undertakes maternal functions, forms a special and difficult problem, which is pressing upon us more heavily every decade. there is spreading rapidly through the civilised world a feeling of rebellion against the economic dependence of wife or husband. no conservative argumentation, no censure of new ideas, no religious preaching of self-sacrifice for a doubtful reward in heaven, will relieve us of this difficulty. educated women—statistics of college-taught women are available—are increasingly rebelling against the subjection or inferiority which this economic dependence seems to entail. it is the chief motive of the general demand for economic independence (or an independent place in the industrial world) and has much to do with the revolt against marriage itself. whether or no we adopt new ideals of social life, this revolt will spread.
one very quickly sees that it is not so much marriage as the traditional practice of husbands which is chiefly responsible for the revolt. the practice varies considerably, but, apart from a small class in which the wife brings with her or earns an independent income, it is still generally true to say that the wife receives what the husband chooses to give. now it is plain that this difficulty may be met in a very large proportion of cases by an equitable voluntary agreement. various domestic experiments of the kind are being tried, and a comparison of experiences would be useful. many people are agreed in the just view that, since the wife works at home while the husband works abroad, all income is joint income. a common fund, accessible to both, is assigned for household and saving, and an equal and fixed personal share is taken by each from the income or wage. such an arrangement is quite easily practised by middle-class people, and it seems to me to remove every legitimate suspicion of ignominy from the wife’s position.
when unmarried women have secured economic independence they will be able to demand some such arrangement before marrying. the kind of “modesty” which would prevent a woman from having an understanding before marriage in regard to income and children is a very costly and foolish luxury. let them insist that the ritual words, “with all my worldly goods i thee endow,” must mean something more than that they shall have chocolates and pretty dresses if they humour the moods of a husband. our law, which secures for a wife full maintenance when she has ceased to do any work for it (after a separation), but has no interest in her when she is working dutifully for twelve or fourteen hours a day, is infinitely more dangerous to marriage than are the puritan assaults of mr. g. b. shaw. in any case, a voluntary agreement that a wife has access to the bank and cash-box, and a right to take for personal use the same sum as her husband, removes all need of asking money from a husband (which is justly odious to many women), and makes a wife economically independent in any important sense of the word.
but it would be futile to hope either that the majority of men will thus surrender their privileged position, or that all women will recognise even such an arrangement as economic independence. a grave conflict undoubtedly lies before us, and there will be an increasing demand for the state-endowment of wifehood, or at least of motherhood. the suffrage movement has naturally inflamed the difficulty by educating women in a sense of grievance. indeed, it seems to many of us that feminist writers have at times gone far beyond legitimate grievances and set up fictitious and mischievous standards. this is a very common development of propagandist movements which meet with a prolonged resistance. the first generation of agitators says the obvious and just things in regard to the reform: the next generation must revive the jaded sentiment with stimulating novelties and exaggerations. it seems to me one of these morbid exaggerations to speak of marriage as “legalised prostitution”; to imagine that one is “selling one’s body” to a man, or receiving payment for ministering to his “lust.” one feminist writer of some influence, and some pretension to knowledge of science, has actually compared the human male very unfavourably with all other male animals in the world, on the ground that the latter are content with a restricted period of “rut”!
this mixture of ancient puritanism and advanced sociology is as incongruous as it is mischievous. a woman who sincerely regards sex-pleasure in the way generally implied by the use of the word “lust”—a woman who has not the same healthy desire of it as her partner—has no right to marry: except, of course, to marry a man with similarly antique views. a wife of such a kind may very well consider that she is being “paid” to surrender her body. the normal wife is not paid for that at all. she is paid—if there is any paying—to care for the home and her children: which is as well earned a payment as the fee of a lawyer. and from the sentimental point of view it does not make a particle of difference whether she is paid out of her husband’s income or out of the coffers of the state. she would still “sell her body,” if there is any selling of body. but there is not. maternity and sex-pleasure are entirely different matters.
i am deliberately trying to undermine the plea for the endowment of motherhood, because the proposal seems to me to present very grave difficulties which even so penetrating a sociologist as mr. h. g. wells has, apparently, not appreciated. mr. wells is, of course, in a very different position from the feminist writers who advocate the complete endowment or maintenance of wives or mothers by the state. such a scheme would cost about £300,000,000 a year, and need not be discussed. mr. wells suggests rather a modest contribution per child born (leaving out, i assume, wealthier mothers); a practicable scheme, with much in its favour. yet it seems to me that such endowment would mean that we would encourage the weakest in will, the most sensual, the least intelligent and least provident of our people, to breed. intelligent women would not abandon the practice of restricting births because the state offered them a few shillings per child. the better class—whether of manual or professional workers—would have to pay for the undesirable fertility of the worst class. we are just beginning to realise that quality of children is more precious than quantity, and the endowment of motherhood would not encourage this saner view. the kind of brute who is at present restrained by the paternity-law would be restrained no longer: the rougher type of husband—a very numerous type—would pay so much less to his wife when he found the state contributing (either in cash or kind) to her: the man who at present practises restriction, not out of consideration for his wife and family, but to have more shillings for himself, would cease to practise it, and lay a greater burden on his wife.
but, while there seem to be such grave objections to the endowment of motherhood that we do better to strengthen women in their individual demand of justice, we must remember that the wife will have the advantage of other changes in the home. domestic service is becoming more and more repugnant to girls, and some form of co-operative and efficient housekeeping, with common servants and restaurant, will be adopted. some day a photograph of a twentieth-century suburb will provoke a smile. perhaps the museum of the future will set up models of our establishments, just as we set up in our ethnographical galleries models of a kaffir or a papuan household. boys and girls will gaze with admiring delight at the naïveté of the model: a thousand brick boxes, separated by a thousand little gardens, with three thousand little chimneys smoking, a thousand amateur cooks perspiring over a thousand fires, and a thousand inefficient servant-girls flirting with the servants of rival butchers and dairymen. the common nursery will especially relieve the mother and lower the death-rate. the state will one day have an interest in seeing that each babe ushered into the world, at such pain and sacrifice, becomes a useful citizen. if any mothers care to entrust the child more fully to it, the state will find it profitable to respond. these things can be arranged without more detriment to parental affection than there is in the case of women—often women who write beautiful things in defence of the old tradition—who have nurses for the child and send it later to a distant school for the greater part of the year.
reforms of this kind will enormously relieve the home life and enable even mothers to earn, if they wish, quite as much as the state would ever be able to award them. the work will be better done, by trained workers, at less cost. people do not reflect that this change has been proceeding for centuries. once the wife brewed the ale, and baked the bread, and spun the linen: later she entrusted these things to experts working for the community, and reserved for herself the making of preserves, pickles, underclothing, and antimacassars: now these things have gone to the expert, and the wife confines her amateur efforts to scolding children and cooking refractory joints. she will be relieved when it is all over, and we shall have no more of the “beautiful doll” or the domestic drudge. the independent position and greater leisure and broader interest in life will make her intellectual activity more similar to that of man’s.
i speak, of course, of the mass of women, and do not forget that already the intellect of alert and thoughtful women is equal to that of men of the corresponding class. the majority will be, as it were, differently orientated toward life by these changes. a saner muscular activity will restore the balance of the system, and will rid them of the excessive nerve-energy, particularly of the sympathetic system, which finds expression in facile and explosive emotion. there will assuredly always be a bias toward sentiment in woman, and we have no reason to fear a deterioration of the distinctively feminine sentiments of tenderness, refinement, and sympathy. the relief from the more irritating domesticities ought to accentuate them. on the other hand, the idea of obeying the male or practising self-sacrifice for his undue benefit, will certainly disappear; and it is quite time that it did. self-sacrifice, in case of need, comes instinctively to either sex, but the kind of self-sacrifice which a selfish masculine tradition has pressed on women is degrading to the man and unjust to wife and daughter. all that is attractive and really beneficent in woman will be fostered, but on the emotional side it will become less and less characteristic of one sex. the sharp contrast of the sexes tends to disappear. there is something grotesque about the traditional idea that the human male must be distinguished by a greater capacity for taking alcohol and using meaningless expletives and telling sexual stories. even in physical strength and athletic skill the sexes are approaching; nor does one find any loss of charm or grace in some of the finest women athletes.
these changes are proceeding, and, apart from inevitable errors and excesses, on which caricaturists fasten with their genial unscrupulousness, the result is promising. contemporary expressions of alarm are often ludicrous. thousands of ladies who are horrified at the emergence of “a new sex” are themselves contriving, by means which would have caused their prolific grandmothers to raise white hands to heaven, to limit their families to two children. we take our reform in small doses, as if complete social health were a thing to be considered very seriously. yet if one patiently traces in imagination the effect of all these changes on the womanhood of the race, one foresees a generation of women which recalls shelley’s lines:
“and women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind
as the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew
on the wide earth, past; gentle radiant forms,
from custom’s evil taint exempt and pure;
speaking the wisdom once they could not think,
looking emotions once they feared to feel,
and changed to all which once they dared not be,
yet, being now, made earth like heaven; nor pride,
nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill-shame,
the bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,
spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love.”
grant the poet his licence; women are not more likely than men to become angels. the moral superiority which some feminist writers claim for their sex is founded on a curiously narrow view of life; if man, instead of woman, had to pay the penalty of sexual intercourse, we should probably find the aggression on the other side. yet the most sober-minded of us must expect from this healthier balance of powers, this easing of the domestic burden, this limitation of care to a few children, and this independence of marital generosity or marital selfishness, a great advancement in the character and happiness of woman.
shelley, however, was thinking less of wives than of free women, and economic independence will swell their numbers. the changes i have described will make marriage far less onerous, but they will also make it easier for a woman to dispense with marriage, and before the end of the twentieth century there will be in every city a growth of temporary unions and independent conduct. woman will be mistress, morally and economically, of her own destiny; she will consult neither husband nor priest. the plain moral law, which forbids a man to inflict pain or injustice, will be more faithfully observed than it ever was before. there will be an immense reduction of the hypocrisy, the prostitution, the misery and illness, which this fictitious law of chastity has always caused; and the alteration of public opinion will remove from a woman the unpleasant consequences which unwedded love entails at the present time. it is preposterous to say that the state will be injured by these changes, and it seems clear that woman will be happier, more healthily developed, and not less tender and graceful than she can be under the present reign of shams.
