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WOMEN'S SUFFBAG-E AND
NATIONAL DANGBE:
A PLEA FOR THE ASCENDENCY OF MAN.
WOMEN'S SUFFKAGE AND
NATIONAL DANGER:
A PLEA FOR THE ASCENDENCY OF MAN.
BY
HEBER L. HAET, LL.B.,
OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
" Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much
arguing, much writing, many opinions ; for opinion in good men is but
knowledge in the making." MILTON.
Zoirton :
ALEXANDER AND SHEPHEARD,
21 & 22, FURNIVAL STREET, HOLBORN, E.C. ;
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.
STATIONERS' HALL COURT
LONDON :
PRINTED BY ALEXANDER AND SHEPHEARD,
27, CHANCERY LANE, W. C.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE vii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1
PART I.
THE IMMEDIATE QUESTION OF THE EXTENSION OF THE
FRANCHISE TO WOMEN.
INTRODUCTION 10
SECTION I. THE CURRENT ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF
WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 13
SECTION II. THE THRESHOLD OF THE CASE AGAINST
WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 40
PART II.
THE LARGER QUESTION OF THE EQUALISATION OF THE SEXES
INVOLVED IN THE IMMEDIATE QUESTION.
INTRODUCTION . 89
SECTION I. THE ARGUMENT FROM RELIGION ... 93
SECTION II. THE ARGUMENT FROM CUSTOM . . . 112
SICTION III. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPEDIENCY . . 120
CONCLUSION 189
761849
PREFACE.
POSSIBLY it is now rather late in the history
of the Women's Suffrage movement for the
appearance of a treatise upon the subject. Yet
I cannot but think that, great as is the bulk of
the literature wherein the arguments of those
who favour the movement are set forth, the
comprehensive exposition of those reasons
which may be fairly suggested as justifying
opposition has been comparatively neglected.
Notwithstanding the brilliant speeches which
have been delivered by some of those who
have in Parliament resisted the claims on
behalf of women, so complete has been the
omission to systematise and aggressively cir-
culate the leading outlines of their case, that
I very much doubt whether the majority
of judicially-minded citizens are sufficiently
in possession of them. I am, therefore, con-
strained to think it well to submit the following
viii Preface,.
pages to the consideration of readers who may
still be inclined to the study of the question.
That ray views are those of the side which
not only lacks organisation, but which is
apathetic to the last degree that, indeed,
they seem likely to become positively un-
popular may suggest that their statement is
impolitic. I conceive, however, that the
almost unparalleled importance of the subject,
when regarded in connection with what it
necessarily involves, in comparison with which
the other questions which are now agitated
among politicians should seem of limited
concern, and the consequently peculiar desir-
ability in this instance of adequate discussion
before legislative change, render it manifestly
the duty of all whose conscientious convictions
with regard to the matter are the result of
careful deliberation to proclaim them with
respectful temperateness, but undisguised
through fear of disapproval.
H. L. H.
3, BRICK COURT, TEMPLE.
March, 1889.
WOMEN'S SUFFBAGE
AND
NATIONAL DANGEB:
A PLEA. FOR THE ASCEflDENCy QF MAN,
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
THE subject of the rights of the female sex has now been
before the country for several years. The advocates of the
most advanced claims on behalf of women have met with a
success which cannot be described as other than extra-
ordinary, and which we may well be disposed to think
must have exceeded their most sanguine anticipations. For
not only have the numbers of those who support such
claims, and particularly that for the political franchise,
increased with remarkable rapidity, but there is observable
on the part of those who really adhere to the old ideas a
singular disposition to smother their opinions, and to
practically give up their case as if hopelessly doomed to a
not far-distant failure. The revolutionary claims of the
Women's Suffrage Journal seem to be regarded as merely
the crest of a tremendous wave of opinion, against which it
would be vain to strive to stand, since it must soon bear
1
Women's Suffrage and National Danger,
away every vestige of opposition and submerge the
unhappy wights who have been too slow in shaping their
course so as to take advantage of the irresistible, or
even to escape into a position of comparatively safe neu-
trality. If anyone doubts that this is so, let me point him
to the occasions when these claims are the subject of debate,
either in a deliberative assembly or in the columns of a
journal. Does not the opposition too frequently degenerate
either into -dogmatic senti.tientalisin or unseemly pleasantry,
and is not a feeble attempt"" t'o ridicule the movement very
general] y-'suJbstiiU^ed 'for- seripusrand* painstaking argument,
supporte'd 'by 'the honest statement of well-considered
evidence? As a consequence, we find that the most extrava-
gantly sophistical arguments and the most hollow asser-
tions of the other side are confidently swallowed by the
unsuspicious Briton, as if he were imbibing the very nectar
of unadulterated philosophy.
On the side of the leaders of the attacking force, however,
there has been comparatively little disposition to treat the
matter as one of pure sentiment, or which may be decided
by natural intuition, albeit they may show a tendency to
demand for their propositions the character of fundamental
principles, whose self-evident excellence is only to be
supported by arguments in the nature of an unnecessary
and entirely voluntary concession. Their case has, at least
once, been stated with all the calmness of the experienced
sage, the power of a masterly logician, and the confident
temperateness of a veteran certain of success. Whether we
read essays or listen to speeches on the subject, we may
well arrive at the conclusion that, allowing for imperfections
necessarily incident to human effort, the treatise of Mr.
General Introduction.
John Stuart Mill on the " Subjection of Women " contains
the sum and substance of the whole matter from the new
point of view, and placed in the most favourable light
possible. Yet the gauntlet thus openly thrown down, not-
withstanding that it is the challenge of a most doughty
champion with whom conflict itself might be considered an
honour, can hardly be said to have been satisfactorily taken
up by any earnest warrior on the other side. Possibly the
very renown of Mill may have deterred his bravest opponents
from entering the lists where he was wielding the lance of
the combatant. I cannot, however, but think that even on
the part of one who was himself doubtful, not only of the
issue of the battle, but even of the strength of his case,
some serious effort to put the matter before the public from
an opposite point of view would have been a service to the
cause of truth, which all lovers of justice, whatever their
opinions as to the merits of this particular case, should have
esteemed. A lesser man than Mill might naturally
have suffered in personal reputation at his hands ; but, in
weighing the arguments of each, the judicious reader could
have been trusted to make fitting allowance for the com-
parative weakness of one of the advocates.
Considering that it is beyond the possibility of doubt that
the issue which has been raised is of immense importance,
and also that it is almost certain that there must be some-
thing worthy of consideration which may be said on the
side of the defence, and which is capable of systematic
statement, I hope it is not too late to make an attempt,
though possibly feeble, at a substantial answer to the
arguments and assertions of Mill and those who have
followed in his path. For though it be considered certain
4 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
that the contention of the latter will prevail, I venture to
submit that it is desirable, in the interest of the formation
of a sound and stable opinion upon the matter, that those
facts and arguments which tend, or which are supposed to
tend, in an opposite direction should be temperately, though
fearlessly stated. It must not be imagined that in such an
attempt there is involved anything like the faintest aspira-
tion on the part of him who makes it to a comparison with
the intellectual power or the literary style of Mill. The
wisest man may be, and perhaps generally is, wrong upon at
least one important point, and it is, therefore, conceived
quite possible to present an intrinsically better case than
this extremely able logician without the slightest presumption
at anything like an effort to remove the verdant laurels of
his wide-reaching philosophy.
To those who may be inclined to weary of the topic, it
may be well to emphasise the fact, that of all problems
which must be solved by this or any future age, few, if any,
can be imagined of such essential and extensive importance
as that which concerns the proper position and rights of the
entire female sex. I feel that it is hardly possible to
adequately state it is almost certainly not possible to
exaggerate the tremendously momentous nature of the
issue which has at length been raised. For not only are the
interests of one-half of the human race directly and
immediately concerned, but with these is necessarily and
obviously implicated the well-being of the other half. That
which is of cardinal importance to the female sex throughout
the world cannot be intelligently treated as of other than
the greatest importance to men also. I therefore contend
that, whatever may be our present views, or in whichever
General Introduction. 5
direction our opinions may at present incline, we ought not
to hesitate, for several years hence, to continually re-open our
minds for the study of the question, apart, as far as may be
possible, from all determined feelings but those of regard
for the claims of reason in the decision of this as of every
other question. Meanwhile let us be cautious of taking any
steps which it may be difficult to retrace, in case their
direction be found wrong.
Now, seeing that, with certain possible local and temporary
exceptions, the general rule of practice in all ages and among
all nations has been against the equality, political or otherwise,
of women with men, one might have been inclined to regard
it as an indisputable proposition that the onus of proving
that a contrary rule ought to be adopted lies upon those who
are desirous of change, and that it is not the duty of those
who incline to the principle of immemorial practice to stand
otherwise than on the defensive, in contending that such
practice is to any extent justifiable. Mill, however, is of a
contrary opinion. But I do not propose to pursue this point
of difference, because I feel that in a case where reply may
follow reply ad infinitum, and where, moreover, as is the
fact before the tribunal of the intelligent citizen's mind,
the party who would succeed must make out his own case,
the question is probably rather in the nature of an interesting
preliminary measuring of swords than of the actual
combat of opponents who are using the best weapons that
they can respectively procure.
Before entering upon a consideration of the arguments
and allegations in favour of the legal recognition of the abso-
lute equality of the two sexes, it may be well to briefly draw
attention to the history of the movement in this direction.
6 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
It appears, then, that the views of Mill and his con-
temporaries are by no means entitled to the merit of
originality. For, as Mr. Bouverie, then member for Kil-
marnock, pointed out in Parliament some eighteen years ago,
this subject was treated in a very advanced manner as far
back as the year 1825 by a certain Mr. W. Thompson. This
person is characterised by Mr. Bouverie as of the same
school of opinion as Mr. Owen, the notorious socialist, who
was apparently opposed to all religion, as well as to all
ordinary conceptions of morality and law. The title of his
work, which may be seen in the British Museum, is " An
appeal of one half the human race against the pretensions
of the other half " ; and the following is an extract there-
from :
" Even under the present arrangements of society, founded as they
all are on the basis of individual competition, nothing could be more
easy than to put the rights of women, political and civil, on a perfect
equality with those of men. It is only to abolish all prohibitory and
exclusive laws statute, or what are called ' common,' the remnants of
the barbarous customs of our ignorant ancestors, particularly the
horrible and obvious inequality and indissolubility of that disgrace of
civilisation the present marriage code."
We may easily form an estimate of the moral and
intellectual constitution of this writer, and it is both
interesting and important to observe how close an associa-
tion has continued from his time to subsist between the
principles which he advocated and the morality and bent of
mind which he illustrated. It is not intended to present
anything like a list of writers and statesmen, Continental,
American, or English, who have dealt with this subject in a
conspicuous manner. The names, and a superficial know-
ledge of the character, of many of these are widely
General Introduction. 7
known ; and one can hardly be expected to be specific in so
delicate a matter. My present point, indeed, may be
made in a very simple way. I ask the reader to recall to
mind all the prominent English men and women who have
eminently identified themselves with this movement, ever
since it became seriously considered by a large number of
the electors of the country, that is to say, since Mill
devoted his powers to its advocacy. Let it, then, be con-
sidered how many of these, either by their entire want of
religion or their piecemeal profession thereof, or, according
to the present public morality of England, the immoral
tendencies of their direct attacks upon, or thinly disguised
contempt for, marriage and other institutions and principles
which are happily still regarded by a majority of those who
have our social welfare in their keeping, as absolutely
fundamental and necessary to the highest possible civili-
sation ; or by their want of a generally healthy frame of
mind, have shown themselves barely worthy of the real
confidence of those who, being merely average though
honest citizens themselves, stand in need of guidance from
others whose opportunities for reflection have been better,
and whose abilities are greater, than their own. In spite of
not improbable general censure for so doing, I respectfully
press this point as one which ought by no means to
be neglected. It is replete with suggestions of dangers
unobserved, of rocks and shifting sands ; and should help
to concentrate the attention of those whose heads are
hot with anticipations of new joys and wonders when the
old landmarks of their fathers have been left behind, upon
the faintest indication of a threatening cloud, which may
perchance develop into a mighty tempest, through which,
8 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
not shunned in time, the seamen of the vessel of our State
may find it hard to ride. Undoubtedly, as a rule, anything
like personal attack upon political opponents may., with
good reason, be considered both useless and discreditable ;
yet where we have both an abnormally exceptional case
under discussion and sufficient homogeneity of character
among its leading supporters to challenge attention and
invite generalisation, or at least remark, it seems justifiable
to studiously inquire as to the significance of the position.
If, further, there be a prima facie case for supposing that a
large majority of the men and women who have led a move-
ment in favour of a change of the most vast importance to
the human race have shown themselves strikingly defective
in the attributes of those who are generally recognised as at
once of superior intelligence, moral goodness, and religious
belief, it is submitted that their speculations, suggestions,
and anticipations, as distinguished from the facts which
they adduce and the arguments which they put forward,
should be treated with the utmost caution, and by no means
readily accepted where apparently discordant with principles
which have been tested by experience and found good. Of
course, I do not for one moment pretend that there is
anything conclusive in this line of argument. Its force lies
principally in the warning conveyed to the minds of the
cautious, by the discovery if such it prove that a new
idea which is being pressed upon them was first conceived
by, and has subsequently more particularly recommended
itself to, men and women who have not been such good
specimens of the English character, considered at once in
its moral and intellectual aspect as to be safely imitated,
or even followed, without sufficient reason independent of
General Introduction.
the peculiarities of their teaching. Later on, we may find
distinct reason in the nature of the case for the character-
istics of the advocates of the movement.
As somewhat relevant and worthy of remark in this place,
the curious and suggestive fact may be mentioned, that the
new order of ideas seems to gain greater ground with Con-
servative than with Liberal politicians. In view of the
almost unparalleled revolution which these ideas foreshadow,
surely there must be a startling significance in such a fact.
This is not, however, a party treatise, and I will not, there-
fore, dwell upon this circumstance.
With a view to convenience, it seems to me desirable to
divide my argument into two branches, although the subject
of either is logically involved in that of the other.. In the
first part I deal with the immediate political question of
the day concerning the extension of the suffrage to women,
and in the second part with the inseparably connected,
though apparently wider, question of the complete equalisa-
tion of the sexes, more particularly in relation to the
condition of marriage.
PART I.
THE IMMEDIATE QUESTION OF THE EXTEN-
SION OF THE FRANCHISE TO WOMEN.
"Die Politik 1st Sache des Mannes." BLUNTSCHLI.
INTRODUCTION.
I NOW pass to the consideration of the leading arguments
and assertions by which it is attempted to show that the
Parliamentary Franchise ought to be extended to women.
And here I may at once observe that it would be clearly
unwise to limit my remarks to the case of single women.
For though many simple-minded people are induced to
favour the extension of the voting power to single women,
under the delusion that the force of the movement will be
spent when this is accomplished, it is but too clear to those
who have followed the contentions of the leading men and
women who have identified themselves with the claim on be-
half of women to vote, that these advocates have no idea of
stopping at the enfranchisement of spinsters and widows.
The extension of the suffrage to the latter is but regarded as
a step in the desired direction, which our opponents are very
anxious should be taken, since it is clearly one which it will
not only be difficult to retrace, but which will render the
further step of extending the suffrage to married women
possessing a property or occupation " qualification " almost
inevitable. The spinsters and the widows to whom the
voting power shall have been extended may well be trusted
The Extension of tJie Franchise to Women. 11
to bind down their would-be representatives to a measure
which shall take cognizance of their sex as a whole, and
which shall not allow the vote of women to be lost through
their alliances with men who, from the nature of the case,
have shown no special appreciation of the spinsters and the
widows themselves. However, there ought to be little need
of argument to establish this contention, as those who are
sustaining the present agitation make no secret of their
ultimate intentions. In support of this I will only insert
one quotation, which is from a speech by Mr. Jacob Bright,
delivered in the House of Commons, and reported at
column 703 of the 281st volume of " Hansard." "I have
never," says he, " concealed my opinion on this subject, or
that of the Women's Suffrage Associations throughout the*
kingdom . . . Their principle is electoral equality, and
when they say that, they mean that any qualification
established by Parliament which gives a vote to a man
should give a vote to a woman, and they do not ask the
question whether she is married or unmarried." That this
is so ought, I think, to be far more insisted upon than is the
case, for it is conceived that there are thousands of men and
women who are now supporting in one way or another this
movement, who would at once cease to do so if they realised
what is quite clear to anyone who has sufficiently observed
the position. It may well be said that we cannot in reason
draw the line at single women, even if women as a sex
would be contented therewith. But it is only too clear that
they will not. It is not conceivable that women having
been qualified to vote as spinsters would be content to lose
their votes on marriage, particularly if their husbands lived
with them in the very houses by viitue of their occupation
12 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
or ownership of which they enjoyed the right to vote before
marriage. Let anyone, therefore, who really has any fears
as to the larger extension bestir his wits ere he takes a step
which will make it a mere matter of course. For it is to be
remembered that when a woman has the right to go to the
poll we have no longer the opinion of men alone to reckon
with, and therefore anything like organisation among the
women of an electoral district in the present state of party
strife would present a phalanx which might well awe the
most courageous.
The bulk, however, of what follows in this branch of my
observations is equally applicable to the case of single
women considered alone.
SECTION I.
THE CURRENT ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF
WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.
FOBEMOST among the reasons which I am about to com-
bat, both in respect of the frequency with which it is urged
and the importance which is attached to it, is, I take it, the
proposition that it is the ownership or occupation of property
which alone gives the right to vote ; or, in other words, that
the vote is attached to the property owned or occupied,
and that therefore all consideration of sex is irrelevant.
Whoever has studied the speeches or writings of eminent
advocates of the extension of the suffrage to women, or has
argued the question in private conversation with their
followers, will probably admit that this contention is very
generally considered by them as the most important, or,
at least, one of the most important, of their arguments.
But surely of all methods of proving a case current in the
present age of education and intelligence, this is an illustra-
tion of one of the most extraordinary. Those who have
formulated it have done so by grasping at statutory enact-
ments, dragging them away from the previously existing law
to which they were added, and twisting them into a
distorted meaning both inaccurate and misleading, but yet
sufficiently plausible to gull our countrymen by millions, and
then founding a so-called argument on a basis so utterly
worthless. That this process should deceive many not
unused to controversy, is no less a matter for astonishment
14 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
than for regret. For whether we consider the statement
under examination in the light of history, or of our present
law, we shall find that it is totally incorrect. Property or
occupation alone never did, and certainly does not now, and
probably never will, give anyone a right to vote. But even
if the ownership or occupation of property did now give a
vote, this could not possibly be the basis of an argument in
favour of the case for women, in consideration of a condition
of affairs to which we are not improbably tending.
Now it must be remembered that in the reign of Henry
IV. it was expressly enacted probably in pursuance of a
custom which had existed at some previous time that all
freemen present in the county court on the day of election
should enjoy the right of voting for a representative of the
county. Therefore, the elector, speaking of the counties
only it is unnecessary to complicate the matter by dealing
also with the boroughs enjoyed the Franchise by virtue of
being (1) a man, (2) free, and (3) present in the county
court on the day of election. Subsequently, disfranchising
statutes, dating from the eighth year of the reign of Henry
VI., were passed, taking away the right of voting from those
ivho previously enjoyed it, and restricting it to those who
owned or occupied property of a certain value. The
tendency of recent statutes has, of course, been to lower the
value which was prescribed by the restricting statutes.
From this it is perfectly clear that the statute in which the
subject of property was first introduced did not purport to
give the Franchise to those who owned property, for they
already enjoyed it, but took away the right from others who
had previously enjoyed it. Subsequent statutes upon the
subject were merely modifications of the first disfranchising
Current Arguments for Women s Suffrage. 15
statute, ameliorating the harshness of the latter, and pro
tanto restoring the electorate to that position which it
occupied in earlier times. How then is it possible to
contend that, either by any statute or otherwise, the owner-
ship or occupation of property really gives the right of
voting to anyone ? We must bear in mind the far more
elementary conditions of (1) manhood, (2) freedom, and (3)
a disposition to exercise the Franchise, which have always
existed as the basis of the voting power. What inference,
indeed, is possible, as to the theory or principle of our
constitution, other than that the requirement of a property
qualification, as it is somewhat inaccurately termed, was
superadded as an additional test of fitness to the already
existing conditions of manhood and freedom ? And if we
press back into the records of times prior to those to which
allusion has been made, we shall find ourselves in the
regions of obscurity, but quite unable to discover any
vestige of foundation for the supposition that the ownership
or occupation of land or household property ever gave the
right to the electoral Franchise. So much, then, as to the
historical aspect of the matter.
Let us now briefly glance at the principle of the existing
law, and see whether any countenance is lent by it to the
extraordinary proposition with which we are dealing. Is
it then possible to say with any shadow of accuracy, even
with exclusive reference to the present day, that ownership
or occupation in any case gives the right to vote ? In order
to arrive at a decided answer to this question, it is only
necessary to bear in mind a very few facts of the easily
apprehended character of the following. Lunatics and
idiots of all ages, as well as infants of sound mind, both own
16 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
and occupy land and household property, but they do not
enjoy the right of voting. How then is it contended that
ownership or occupation, apart from other considerations of
fitness, gives the right of voting ? If it were so, how is it
that these subjects do not enjoy it ? Again, A. owns one
house in an electoral district in which B. owns 100 houses.
If the fact of owning a house gave the right to vote, would
not B. have exactly a hundred votes to A.'s single vote ?
And if, on the other hand, occupation of a house is the
foundation of the right to vote, how is it that any save
occupiers enjoy the franchise ? In short, if ownership,
occupation, payment of rates, residence, all, or any of then? ,
give the right to vote, is it possible to explain the present
position of the franchise ? Further, pressing the matter
more closely, the statement under consideration, at least in
its usual bare form, is grossly absurd. For property,
inanimate as it is, cannot of itself be endowed with rights,
or give rights to others, except by the most palpable fictions.
The law can only attach rights to the ownership or occupa-
tion of property, by fastening upon certain human beings,
and providing that with regard to them, and them only, the
ownership or occupation of property shall give rise to certain
rights in them as being previously objects of its considera-
tion, as subjects potentially capable of such rights. Apart
from a capable owner or trustee, property is absolutely
impotent to confer the right to exercise a discretionary
power. Indeed, if Parliament were to accept in their com-
plete fulness the dogmas of our opponents on this point, I am
not sure that we should not find unoccupied property as
well as property whose owners were beneath full age or
non compotes mentis, furnished with automatic voting
Current Arguments for W omens Suffrage. 17
machines, constructed on a principle somewhat similar to that
of those silent repositories of sweetmeats and cigarettes
which have now become familiar in our streets. I
venture, then, to arrive at the conclusion that the right to
vote never has been, and never could be, given by, enjoyed
exclusively through, identified with, or necessarily incidental
to, the ownership or possession of property, considered apart
from the fitness or capability of some human being. In
other words, ownership or occupation of property does not,
and never will, qualify anyone to vote.
It is possible, however, if need be, to go much further
than we are taken by the above attempted exposition. Let
us assume for one moment that the statement under discussion
is accurate at the present time. Even upon this assumption
is it in the least degree probable that this statement will
always, or even for very long, have any application or,
indeed, possess the faintest semblance of truth ? It is far
from my desire to make any assertion of an unfounded or
unwarrantable character, or to express in this place any
opinion as to the merits of the tendency to which I allude ;
but is there not ample ground for supposing that the
tendency of modern thought and legislation is in the
direction of the institution of practically universal, or, to
be more exact, with a view to our present topic, manhood
suffrage, or, putting it perhaps more accurately, in the
direction of an extension of the franchise to all who are not
subject to some disqualification, and not merely to all who
have some particular so-called qualification, or at all events
to all who can pro ye that they are gaining a respectable
livelihood and settled in a particular locality ? If this be
so, when the tendency becomes consummated, what will
18 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
become of the contention that, since property gives the
vote, the same relation to property which " qualifies " a
man ought also to " qualify " a woman ? The law con-
sidering the individual, and, instead of demanding a pro-
perty or occupation " qualification," insisting merely on the
absence of disqualification, there will no longer remain,
even in the intelligences of the very simple-minded, the
slightest scope for the sophistical, though plausible, theory we
are now considering. It will obviously cease to be capable
of impressment into the service of the advocates of women's
so-called rights. Nay more and here lies " the rub " what
will be the logical result of dealing equally with the sexes
under the present system, requiring the ownership or
occupation of property on the part of voters ? Surely,
beyond all possibility of doubt, the contention must follow,
and follow with unimpeachable force and reason, that, inas-
much as women have been treated identically with men when
a property or occupation qualification was required, they
must also be treated identically when that qualification is no
longer necessary. It is to be remembered, moreover, that
such a contention would presumably have for its support
the vote of the women who already possessed the franchise.
Indeed, would it be possible, with any show of consistency
or propriety, to retain a property or occupation qualification
in the case of women, while dispensing with it in the case of
men ? Who so subtle that he could invent a rationale for
such a proceeding ? Thus there would naturally follow the
result that, as the adult women of the United Kingdom are
more numerous than the adult men, the female voters would
actually outnumber the male. The wish of the former must,
therefore, supposing the existence among them of a quite
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 19
possible organisation and unity of purpose, in every matter
prevail, even to the extent of the exclusion, if desired, of
all save women from the Houses of Parliament and every
office of State. Da the advocates of the feoiale sex seriously
contemplate a condition of affairs in which such a result
would be within the bounds of possibility ? Do the
responsible English citizens, to whom the future history
of the most glorious Empire of the world is largely com-
mitted, venture to contemplate, with even momentary
indifference, so staggering a consummation of the rapidly
progressing views of the followers of Mill ? For the appreci-
ation of my suggestion, it is by no means necessary to
imagine the most extreme position involved by the supposi-
tion of organisation between the whole female sex. Stopping
far short of that, we have sufficient cause for well-founded
dismay in the inevitably vast weight of the opinion of the
sex, when constituting the majority of the electorate. And
let it never be forgotten, particularly by those who are
for drawing the restrictive line far short of the climax
suggested, that the vote once given to any number of women,
and necessarily forming an instrument for their operations in
the direction of an extended suffrage for their sex, can only
be recalled, when once the Parliament that gives it is
dissolved, with great and growing difficulty. For in every
constituency the candidate who would be successful would
of necessity be compelled to reckon with this vote, which,
on no hypothesis, would be of a very inconsiderable extent ;
and, in the present evenly - balanced state of parties,
the effect of the power of women when formulating a
demand for their sex will probably hardly be exaggerated.
Let this consideration " give us pause " ere we take one step,
2*
20 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
the logical consequences of which it requires the sang-froid of
the most consummate philosophy or stupidity to seriously
contemplate without an intellectual shudder of dismay.
It is, however, said, with a somewhat greater show of
reason, that taxation without representation is tyranny, and
that this maxim of constitutional justice applies to the case
of women as forcibly as to that of men.
Now we must bear in mind that maxims of the constitu-
tion, like maxims of the law, are not to be taken as ultimate
truths of legislative philosophy or morality. They are
verbal formulae sometimes convenient, but often misleading
and they are not necessarily more. They are, moreover,
to be considered with reference to their historical origin and
development, and their existing constitutional significance
and importance. But they are not in the nature of ultimate
principles to which we are bound to see that all our consti-
tutional rules conform, or by which the worth of these rules
is to be tested. In other words, in the absence of extraneous
reason to the contrary, the application of these maxims
cannot safely be extended beyond the orbit of cases ejusdem
generis with those for the regulation of which they have
been originated and maintained.
Is it, then, true, as a universal proposition admitting of
no exceptions, that taxation without representation is
tyranny ? It is easily shown that it is not. The British
Government, for example, taxes millions of its subjects
without the consent of their elected representatives. Yet,
as the large majority of the people of England believe that,
at all events at present, such fellow- subjects are not fit or
adapted for the exercise of a political suffrage, it is not con-
tended, except possibly by a few of peculiar opinions, that
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 21
their taxation is necessarily an act of tyranny. And it is
worth while observing in this place that, on almost every
conceivable hypothesis, there is as truly a difference I do
not say as great or as little, but as truly "a difference
between a man and a woman, as between an Englishman and
one of his own sex but of a different race, who is still
taxed although not represented in any assembly which con-
sents to his taxation.
Again, confining our attention to the United Kingdom, we
find that every full-aged man, outside of the workhouse, even
though not enjoying the Franchise, as well as every infant
and lunatic in the kingdom of ordinary habits, pays taxes in
some way or other, though no more represented than women
now are. The revenue from tobacco and alcoholic liquors
would be far smaller than it now is, if such men and boys
did not feel the incidence of the taxes thereon. Indeed, to
put the matter in a fair light, let me point out that, of the
direct taxes which bear principally, no doubt, on those
males who have the right to vote, the Income-Tax, for the
year 1887, was estimated as bringing in about sixteen
millions, and the Land and House Tax only about three
millions. The total of the death duties amounted to about
seven millions and a half. As against these figures, we find
that of the indirect taxes paid by all, absolutely in-
dependently of enjoyment of the suffrage, the customs were
estimated at more than twenty millions, the excise duties at
more than twenty- five millions, and the profits of the Post
Office at nearly three millions. Thus we see, upon a con-
sideration of the principal general taxes, that those which
are paid by all, irrespectively of the voting power, and, to a
vast extent, actually paid by those who, though males, have
22 Women 's Suffrage and National Danger.
not the Franchise, are considerably more important than
those which are almost exclusively paid, so far as males are
concerned, by those who have a share in the choice of the
representatives who sanction them. We may thus clearly
see that, though it is a rule of our constitution that taxation
without consent of Parliament is illegal, it is not, as a fact,
a rule which is even approximately followed, that taxation
without representation is tyranny. It is also to be observed
that lunatics and infants, though not possessing the
Franchise, are, of course, subject to direct taxation, if of
sufficient means, as well as to indirect taxation.
It being, therefore, clear that it is an obvious absurdity
to assert that it is tyrannical to tax anyone who is not
represented, or, in other words, that the maxim that taxation
without representation is tyranny, is not a truth of universal
application, does not the argument in favour of the
extension of the suffrage to tax-paying women, which is
based upon it, fall hopelessly to the ground ? For as it is
clear that many existing cases cannot be brought within the
range of its application, how is it possible, without
extraneous proof, to validly assert that a case, not hitherto
recognised as within that range, ought, henceforth, to be so
considered ?
Putting the matter in a slightly different form, there is an
easily detected fallacy in attempting to prove from the
alleged, or even admitted, fact, that taxation without
representation is tyranny, except in certain cases hitherto
undefined, that taxation without representation is tyranny
in a case which is not independently proved not to be one of
those which are excepted.
Indeed the maxim in question can hardly be said to be
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 23
more than a convenient modfe of expressing the right of
Englishmen who are actually in enjoyment of the Franchise
to exercise a legitimate influence in the particular phase of
government specified, as well as in others generally. There
is no indissoluble or essential connection between the right
to join in electing a representative and the liability to be
taxed, even in the case of fully qualified male citizens. For
if we imagine a state of affairs in which taxation should be
unnecessary, we shall not surely come to the conclusion
that representative institutions would be without any logical
foundation ? For the logical basis of political representation
is but the basis of political liberty, which philosophically
lies in the advantage to the community at large, which is
derived from the participation of men of mature years and
general fitness in the direction of its public affairs. There
is no natural right in any man or woman to vote by virtue
merely of paying taxes. The sole foundation in reason for
the claim of anyone to political power or freedom is the
advantage to the community generally which is consequent
upon the admission of such claim.
I may here refer to the hardship which has been pointed
out somewhat unimportant surely in female ratepayers
being compelled to pay a rate caused by the corruption of
the politicians of an electoral division. Assuming, without
admitting, that this is illogical while they have no right to
exercise the Franchise, it is sufficiently obvious that the
anomaly would be remedied more simply by an Act
exempting women from contribution to such rates and
any analogous rates, if such there be than by the mo-
mentous revolution of extending to them the same Franchise
as men now exercise. And what valid reason is there, upon
24 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
the above assumption, why such an Act should not be
passed ?
I now proceed to the argument that since women are as
much interested in good legislation and government as men are,
they ought, therefore, to have a similar voice in choosing
those who assist in making the laws by which the commu-
nity is regulated.
It is of course quite clear that women are vitally interested
in good legislation and government. This may safely be at
once admitted. Possibly, however, it would be difficult to
show that their interest in good legislation generally, using
the words in a comprehensive sense, though vital, is quite
as direct and immediate as is that of men, who are as a rule
more actively engaged in business and professional pursuits,
as well as practically exclusively liable to take part in
belligerent operations. It is nevertheless sufficient for the
purpose of the adequate consideration of the above argu-
ment, that their interest in good legislation is vital and
essential. Is, then, the conclusion which is drawn, one
which is capable of being supported ?
We must again bear in mind that millions of our fellow
subjects, to whom there is DO suggestion that the Franchise
ought to be extended, are quite as undeniably interested in
good legislation as are women. I allude to members of both
sexes beneath the age of majority, and to persons of
defective mental power. A consideration of this fact at
once shows that no necessary connection either now exists,
or ought, upon any intelligent hypothesis, to be made to
exist, between interest in good legislation, and a share in
the choice of legislators. But may we not go farther, and
say that no connection, even of an unessential character, can
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 25
in reason be said to exist between the individual interest in
question, and the right to vote as a consequence of that
interest ? It is, indeed, submitted that it is not in harmony
with the soundest principles of political science to allow a
merely personal interest in legislation to materially weigh
in favour of any member of the State in the matter of the
extension of the Franchise. For if it be otherwise, are we
not led to the conclusion that the greater the interest, the
greater should be the political Franchise enjoyed ; so that,
for example, the man who owns vast landed estates or
millions in the funds or English stocks ought to have an
immensely larger number of votes than the man of very
moderate means who is contemplating emigration to a
colony? But who is prepared to accept such a conse-
quence of the theory, as to a so-called " stake in the
country " ? Indeed, I venture to suggest that if any such
principle of the association of interest and the Franchise be
admitted, we shall be pointed to applications of the same
from which all save old-fashioned Tories would shrink. If
we once deny that the foundation of the right to vote lies
in ihejltness of the voter in point of moral and intellectual
capacity, and the consequent advantage to, or at least
compatibility with, the highest good of the State as a whole,
of the influence in its sovereign assembly of his opinion as
an elector ; and, instead, base our political arrangements
upon theories of selfishness or intolerant demagogy, we are
but too likely to live to regret the now visible inception of
the golden age of Liberalism, and, in place of continual
delight in renewed applications of the glorious principle
that we ought, in the decision of all political questions, to
regard the greatest happiness of the greatest number, to
26 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
remember with painful remorse the days when so- termed
modem Radicalism had not only not departed from the
lines of its talented inventors, but had never been seriously
cherished in the bosom of a responsible English politician.
For when once we dispense with the requirement of fitness
in the members of our governing body, however large, then
do our democratic views become a hideous delusion and a
very slaughterhouse of happiness and worth. Such a con-
summation is indeed to be both feared and avoided ; and it
is our part to diligently remember that, while the principles
of philosophical Eadicalism will never lead to national
disaster, they are, nevertheless, eminently liable to be
rudely seized on by untutored hands, and, by plausible and
easy fallacies of the leaders of the mob, to be degraded into
the abstract weapons of irresponsible rowdyism.
Somewhat similar to the argument with which we have
been dealing is the contention that the Franchise should be
extended to women because it is necessary in order that they
may obtain just legislation.
Now, if we consider the existing law regulating the
position of single women and the relation of the sexes in
marriage, and examine it, not superficially, but in connection
with the actual facts of human existence, I contend that,
with the possible exception of the provisions as to the
grounds upon which divorce can be obtained by members of
the two sexes respectively, and some few others of less
importance, it is by no means clear that it does not err in
favour of women. Is it fair, for instance, to the husband
that, while his wife is all her life practically entitled, though
somewhat indirectly, to a suitable provision out of his
means, yet if she succeeds to a large fortune she should be
Current Arguments for Women s Suffrage. 27
able to claim every farthing of this, to the entire exclusion
of all right on the part of the man who may have worked
for her during many years, diminishing to a large extent,
through his connection with her, the wealth available for
his own personal expenses, except in the extreme event of
his becoming a pauper ? I do not, however, for one
moment desire to suggest that the present state of the law
relating to women is perfect, except so far as it errs in their
favour. Changes in this branch of the whole law are, of
course, necessary or desirable, just as truly as they are in
that which relates to men. The real question is, admitting
the desirability of some changes in favour of women,
whether they are, as a sex, less likely to achieve a fair
legal position without the Franchise than with it.
Are, then, men as a clans organised in opposition to the
just claims of women? Are they, indeed, inattentive to
the requirements and welfare, as distinguished from the
claims, of women? In endeavouring to arrive at a fair
answer to these questions we ought to bear in mind some
very simple facts. Of these not the least noteworthy is
this. The large majority of our present legislators and voters
have more closely at heart the interests of one or more
women with whose lives their own are indissolubly asso-
ciated than that of any man or class of men who are, or can
possibly come, within the range of their consideration.
The average Englishman endowed with political power has
of necessity constantly present to his mind the interests of
women at large, as represented by his wife, his daughters,
his mother, or his sisters. As, moreover, the men in ques-
tion are of varying position in life so are the objects of
this consideration ; and therefore the interests of women
28 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
of all the classes to which in the case of men political power
is given are continually present to the minds of those who
have a share either in legislation or the election of legis-
lators. Whether, therefore, it be in considering a legislative
change, or the election of a representative to assist in legisla-
tion, I submit that the average member of Parliament and
voter respectively are preserved from greater avoidable
injustice to women than to men, by a study or contem-
plation of what is the most correct answer to the
self-examining question, " How should I regard the
proposed enactment if I thought that my wife or other
female relatives would be among the women whom it
affected?"
But further, is it possible to reasonably suppose that any
law which would appear to the best representatives of men
which the times afforded as advantageous to their own sex
generally, would be capable of being shown by women or
their representatives as unjust to the female sex ? On the
contrary, it is suggested as incontrovertible, that the interests
of the two sexes are so perpetually, and indeed inevitably,
blended, that legislation which appears to the best obtainable
representatives of men as advantageous to their sex, would
appear to the best contemporary representatives of women
as advantageous to women also. We cannot safely treat the
two sexes as being two distinct classes, or deal with them
with that separate intention with which we should regard
two classes of men and women combined, or of men only,
or women only. The entire constitution of the human race
rests upon the man and the woman as creatures of common
interests, as being jointly the unit of human happiness,
ability, power and aptitude, as well as of the fertilising
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 29
vitality, as the result of which the destinies of mankind are
not bounded by the narrow limits of a single generation.
In addition to the above, I refer to ordinary experience
for a refutation of the assertion under consideration. In
this connection I contend that, far as we may now be from
a perfect regulation of human affairs and ordinary conduct,
the sum of the power which is exercised over women by
men is tempered by more consideration and more generosity
than that which is exercised over women by members of
their own sex. It is, however, sufficient for the present
purpose if equality between the two sexes be admitted in
this matter. No doubt, glaring exceptions to the suggested
rule may exist, but let me ask the reader to carefully ponder
over the cases within his own knowledge, in which men and
women have respectively regulated the existences of women,
not being members of their own families, and then to
attempt, so far as practicable, to estimate in whose favour, if
either, has been the average merit in the exercise of power.
If inquiry be extended into historical records, the treatment
administered by Roman matrons to their slaves, and female
Russian proprietors to their serfs, may, among other
instances, prove both interesting and instructive, however
painful to readers of ordinary sensibility.
And though I confess to some weariness of repetition, I
must again refer to the legislation with regard to infants and
others who have not the Franchise at present, and obviously
never will. Is it not generally true, that in all States where
legislation is known, such persons receive a legislative treat-
ment which, in the light of the prevalent morality, is as
good as it is possible for any class of men not specially
privileged to receive at the hands of the legislature ? Or,
30 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
going further, is not the legislative morality of the State
almost invariably found as high with regard to the infant as
with regard even to the average elector of the State? It
may occur to some to answer these questions in the negative,
on the strength of a reference to one or more legal systems.
The Roman institution of the patria potestas, for instance,
may be treated as an illustration to the contrary. But we
must remember that a Roman's idea, not only of what was
due to the father, but of what was good for the child, was
very different from ours. We must consider, too, the
barbarity of many other branches of the law, which applied
to those who were themselves either in the enjoyment of
political power, or who only ceased to be so when they fell
under the operation of the branch of the law in question.
I point to the treatment of insolvent debtors and convicted
criminals. Were the legislators less benevolent, or more
harsh towards the children of the nation, of deliberate
intention, than to those in the possession of political power?
Indeed, it is a fact of importance in this matter, that long
after women had ceased to become subject to a similar
marital power, without having participated in any political
franchise whatever, the severity of the patria potestas still
existed in what we consider a barbarous vigour. Surely we
may from this infer that sons and daughters were not treated
better than they were because the level of general legislative
morality did not suggest this to the people of the times.
Otherwise, why did women cease to be treated with similar
harshness ? Because of their influence on their husbands
and sons ? Very likely ; but this influence, as I have said
above, remains unimpaired, and is probably greatly increased
at the present hour. If, again, the tenderness to the wife be
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 31
urged to explain the amelioration of her position, the counter-
part existing in the parental feelings towards the son and
daughter must be remembered. Indeed, I am not aware that
there is anything in the volumes of Latin authors, from the
earliest days of Roman literature until the decline of Roman
law after Justinian, which have been preserved to us, indicat-
ing that female opinion generally with regard to parental
power was materially different from that which was held by
the men of the times.
I therefore submit, on this branch of the subject, that
there is some reason for doubting whether the treatment
by the sovereign one or number of the male sex, of the
women subject to his or their authority, has not, at all
events in advanced stages of civilisation, been generally the
fair expression of the opinion or sentiments of men and
women indiscriminately of the rank of the sovereign one or
number ; and that no bias of men as a class, against women
as a class, has operated, in the main, to render the treatment
of women worse according to the philosophy of the time,
than that which was accorded to men. If, however, it be
considered otherwise, then I rest upon the safer ground that
there is no evidence in the present day that the English
Parliament is biassed against women, or even inclined to
neglect to pay a due regard to their interests, sufficient to
justify their admission to the Franchise as a means of
securing legislative fairness towards their sex. We must
not omit to give due regard to the inevitable, and, perhaps,
humanly unrivalled, influence of his female relatives over
the elector and the legislator respectively, as a guarantee
that the best intelligence of the age shall be fairly applied
for the benefit of women equally with that of men. To
32 Women's Buff rage and National Danger.
preserve this safeguard, it is entirely unnecessary to disturb
the established order of things as to the political position of
women,
Indeed, in this connection, one fact may be mentioned as,
in itself, absolutely conclusive against our opponents. At
present, men have the power to refuse to extend the
Franchise. In order that they may grant it, they must
evidence a disposition to show the greatest fairness to
women. This disposition would be a then existing fact,
which would completely demonstrate the unnecessary
character of its result. For how can it be contended that
those men who would grant women the Franchise, are not
disposed to treat women generally with fairness in legis-
lation ? Thus, on the hypothesis that those who wish to
extend the Franchise to women, wish to do so as an act of
justice to women, or as a measure for the benefit of women,
their argument, in justification of their contention, would
reach its most complete breakdown at the moment of its
success. The very fact of the extension of the suffrage
would, of itself, show the totally unnecessary character of
the measure. It must not, however, be supposed that none
save those who advocate the movement in question are
disposed to treat women fairly. For who are the men who
would not, at once, throw into it the weight of their
support, if they believed its success necessary in order to
obtain fair treatment for women ?
There is, however, one argument in favour of the claim
which I am endeavouring to combat that is apparently
more difficult to satisfactorily answer than any other. It is
said, certainly with considerable probability, but whether
correctly or not it is not for me to say, that whatever may be
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage.
said or done by the opponents of the movement under con-
sideration, it will inevitably be successful before long.
This view seems to have a remarkably staggering effect
upon an immense number of men. It is not surprising that
it should disarm the timid, and more particularly those
aspirants to Parliamentary honours who believe they will
one day depend upon the suffrages of women. Yet I doubt
whether honest intelligence ought not to indignantly
repudiate the slightest potency to silence or convince in
a plea of so vaguely principled a character. Possibly some
may think that it is inexpedient to attempt the refutation of
a contention of so closure-like a nature, and which has
possibly more of the meanly creeping than of the trans -
cendently dignified in its character. It may, however, be
well to say a little upon the point.
We ought, then, to remember that the assertion upon
which this argument is based cannot, from the most sanguine
point of view, be placed higher than that the Franchise
will in all human probability be extended to women. It
cannot be absolutely certain that such will be the case. For
though a Bill in this behalf had been introduced into the
House of Commons by Mr. Smith, and supported by Mr.
Gladstone and Lord Hartington through its first and second
reading and its committee stage, and Lords Salisbury,
Granville, and Selborne were notoriously in favour of its
passage through their House, one's imagination need not be
particularly strong to conceive possible events, the happen-
ing of which would relegate the Bill to a position in which
success would be improbable. However this may be, the
earnest politician must look, not only to the determination
of an issue by the present geaeration, but to the effect of his
34 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
efforts upon the intelligence of the future, in the legislation
of which there is no finality but that of the perfect age.
And even though we should be unsuccessful in our resist-
ance now, our action may render the duration of the reign of
the new ideas shorter and less disastrous than it might
otherwise be. The greater the influence and the numbers of
the defeated minority, the easier is its return to the position
whence it has fallen. We dare not, moreover, attempt to
justify ourselves in non-resistance to that which we believe
is wrong, by pleading the inutility of withstanding that
which is inevitable, until there is no room for reasonable
doubt that it is as a fact inevitable. Even then I very
much doubt the satisfactory nature of the excuse. Happily,
anarchy and the scaffold do not now stare the patriot in the
face, disturbing the normal operations of conscience or
warping the understanding of the timid.
Indeed, if the argument in question were generally
admitted as valid, would there not soon be an end to the
rationale, not only of all Conservatism, but of all political
contention or effort which was not made on the side con-
sidered sure of success ?
Many, however, without risking confusion in the mazes of
elaborate controversy are content to assert, tersely and posi-
tively, with all the oracular pomp of the untutored mind, that
the voting power is the right of women, whose position with
regard to property is similar to that of those men who are
at present electors, and that therefore it is unjust to with-
hold the power from them.
It ought to be hardly necessary to point out that we have
before us in this contention a very bare specimen of the
petitio principii. Yet, as it is so very common, it may be
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 35
well to demonstrate its utter want of logical force. By what
authority, then, has the alleged right been established?
For the electors of England must be put in mind of the
fact, though possibly it is rather regrettably late in the
history of philosophy for this to be needed, that a right
of any kind necessarily owes its existence to the institution
of some power other than that of the person in whom it
resides. The possible sources of rights have thus been
determined to be either (1) the law of God or nature,
ascertained by Revelation, the application of the principle
of utility, or conscience ; (2) the law or bent of opinion or
custom ; and (3) the law of a particular State.
Now, I doubt whether anyone has ever attempted with
any approach to success to prove that the alleged right to
the Franchise is given by the Law of God as expressly
revealed by Him. Whether the correct application of the
principle of utility makes it proper to extend the Franchise*
and so confers a right thereto on women, is obviously the
very point which has to be settled by all who are not
content merely to follow with unquestioning mind, the lead
of others. And we can hardly appeal to conscience or a moral
sense in such a matter, for surely this is pre-eminently a
case in which the individual conscience may be well sup-
posed to stand in need of enlightenment from extraneous
sources before it can itself become a teacher. Some,
however, may assert that the alleged right is of the
so-called " natural" order. But I could hardly dispose by
argument of this opinion without running the risk of un-
necessarily wearying the reader with a mere repetition of
the now long-standing refutation of the theory of the
existence of such rights, as distinguished from the others of
our series, by the pens of the analytical jurists.
3*
36 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
Further, if Parliament be taken to represent the male
opinion of the country, it is obviously impossible to say that
a right to the Franchise is awarded by this, so long as no
Act is passed in its favour. If, however, the opinion of
women is relied on, I think we are entitled, at least in this
connection, to wait for a little clearer expression thereof than
we have yet heard. As to custom, the nature of the case
excludes its operation in favour of the alleged right.
That the third source of rights cannot be relied upon in
this case is self-evident.
If, then, those who tell us simpliciter that the suff-
rage is the right of women, or that it is our duty to
give it to them, are really begging the question at issue,
it is clear that those who tell us that the extension of
the Franchise to them is required as an act of justice are in
no better position. For since justice consists in consonance
to some law, or in discharging one's own duties and
observing the rights of others, it is manifest that if it
remains to be proved that there is any right on the part of
women to the Franchise, or any duty on our part to accord
it to them, the justice of acceding to the claim which we
are considering must also be a matter for proof.
However, the expression which we have considered is pro-
bably hardly supposed to be worthy of attentive examination,
even by those who use it. It is probably often, if not generally,
intended to form an assertion that, for reasons not stated,
the claim to the Franchise for women ought to be admitted.
There is probably also present, in many cases, to the mind
of the person who uses the expression, a supplementary
opinion, to the effect that a failure to perceive its truth can
only result from insufficient or perverted understanding.
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 37
In connection with this branch of the subject, we find the
following startling language used by Mill : " Let me here
begin by marking out one function broadly distinguished
from all others, their right (i.e., the right of women) to
which is entirely independent of any question which can be
raised concerning their faculties. I mean the suffrage."
Now I will not affect to suppose that by the word " right "
this eminent thinker has any meaning less distinct than that
of valid claim based upon considerations of expediency or
justice. But what of the assertion that thousands, or rather
millions, of human beings are to be admitted to the
Franchise on the ground of right, or from motives of
expediency or justice, or otherwise, apart from any con-
sideration of their faculties ? When such an expression as
I have quoted is used by such a man as Mill, ought not
lesser minds than his to pause before giving way to the in-
fluence of what would seem to be an intellectually devastating
prejudice, by which one of the most renowned of modern
logicians has been apparently extraordinarily led astray from
the paths of political wisdom ? Not inquire concerning the
faculties of those on behalf of whom votes are being claimed
which may affect the destinies of the entire human race ? We
might as reasonably supplant our present Constitution of the
Queen, the Lords and the Commons, by a Republican Govern-
ment liberally recruited by infants from the hospital for found-
lings, and swayed by the eloquence of Bedlam. If we do
not demand from the ultimate constitutional repositories of
sovereign power some reasonable certificate of presumptive
fitness, ought we not, in consistency, to abolish Parliament,
and submit ourselves henceforth to the uncontrolled disposi-
tion of the most addle-pated hereditary sovereign whom all
38 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
the royal houses of the globe have yet to propagate for the
curse of nations ?
Indeed, it would seem but too obvious that the whole
rationale of democracy must disappear if we repudiate
presumable intellectual and moral fitness as the basis of the
electoral Franchise. The cardinal object of such a form of
government is surely that the greatest amount of ability and
integrity possible shall be brought to bear upon the deter-
minations of the legislative body. We are not, in undiscern-
ing reliance upon meaningless dogmas, to open the door of
the Constitution to those as to whose fitness no reasonable
presumption can be raised. But instead of amplifying this
topic in my own words, I prefer to quote the language of
Bentham. Speaking of national representation and kindred
topics, he says : " In deciding these same questions accord-
ing to the principle of utility, it will not do to reason upon
words ; we must look only at effects. In the election of a
legislative assembly, the right of suffrage should not be
allowed except to those who are esteemed by the nation fit
to exercise it ; for a choice made by men who do not possess
the national confidence will weaken the confidence of the
nation in the assembly, so chosen. Men who would not
be thought fit to be electors, are those who cannot be pre-
sumed to possess political integrity, and a sufficient degree
of knowledge. Now we cannot presume upon the political
integrity of those whom want exposes to the temptation of
selling themselves ; nor of those who have no fixed abode ;
nor of those who have been found guilty in the courts of
justice of certain offences forbidden by the law. We cannot
presume a sufficient degree of knowledge in women, whom
their domestic condition withdraws from the conduct of
Current Arguments for Women's Suffrage. 39
public affairs; in children and adults beneath a certain
age ; in those who are deprived by their poverty of the first
elements of education, &c., &c. It is according to these
principles, and others like them, that we ought to fix the
conditions necessary for becoming an elector." *
But Mill does not, of course, leave the matter with the
statement I have quoted. His contention may, I think, be
fairly summarised as follows. Women are, as a fact, quite
as fit to exercise the political Franchise as are men, or, if
they are not so at present, they will become so when their
position has been made thoroughly equal to that of men in
all respects, as it ought to be. This brings us to what is, I
contend, the only reasonable basis of the claim on
behalf of women to the voting power. I now proceed to
examine the accuracy of the assertion of fact, and, in
doing so, to consider the leading and more obvious reasons
against the claim which rests thereupon.
* " Theory of Legislation," compiled from the MSS. of Bentham,
by M. Duraont, and translated into English "by Mr. Hildreth, page 81.
SECTION II.
THE THRESHOLD OF THE CASE AGAINST
WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.
WE are now face to face with the reasons against the move-
ment. I have endeavoured to marshal the arguments of a
representative sort which are generally urged in some way
or another by our opponents, either in their barest form or
somewhat concealed by a drapery of plausible assertions.
It is now time to state expressly and clearly the leading
reasons why it is here contended that the Franchise should
not be extended to women. Of course, except so far as the
reader may be satisfied with the non-proof of our opponents'
case, it is for me to endeavour to show that, for some reason
or other, it would be inexpedient to do so.
I venture, then, setting aside, as one is entitled to do in
the serious consideration of so important a matter, all
equivocation arising from gallant delicacy, to submit, as a
proposition of general truth, that women are not fit to
exercise the political Franchise. It is here contended that
the average woman is, and probably will always remain, in
one respect or other, unadapted for political power. At
the outset of this topic I suggest unfitness of a kind as to
which there is very wide and possibly well-founded doubt,
namely, that which is owing to their general inferiority in
intellectual power as compared with men. This point is
not placed here because considered as one of the strongest
in my favour. On the contrary, it is, perhaps, the one, of all
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 41
those which I urge, as to which there is the greatest room
for reasonable doubt. Nor is it in any way essential to my case.
I would endeavour to lead the reader up from the region of
doubt as we progress, not by inviting him to make stepping-
stones of possibly weak arguments, as if they were the
solid rock of unimpeachable good sense, but by preparing
him, by means of a bird's-eye view of the whole aspect of
the question, to wend his way to the secure summit of a
philosophical determination.
Some may consider that much of what is here said is rude
to women; as, indeed, so many attempt to "bounce" this
terribly vast and important question by terming anything
but an answer in favour of the ill-considered claims of
women's so-called advocates, an affront to the sex. With
such trifling, however, I have little concern. It is
sufficiently plausible for those who regard every woman as a
natural subject for deception, to attempt to curry fleeting
favour by a gallantly simulated approval of a social change
which women are so far more likely to bitterly rue than
men. But those who fear no censure in the advocacy of
an honest cause, and who are looking to the future as well
as to the present day, can well afford to risk whatever
danger there may be in puny censures of this kind.
Is there, then, sufficient reason for believing that women
are intellectually inferior to men, or that their minds are
less adapted to the consideration of subjects of public
importance requiring careful deliberation and a power of
generalisation ?
It may, perhaps, be fairly observed, that the fact that
this question is really capable of being seriously raised that
it Las not long ago been settled in the negative is
42 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
cogent evidence that we ought now to give an affir-
mative answer. For we might reasonably have antici-
pated that if women are intellectually equal to men, they
would, long ere this, have demonstrated their equality
beyond the possibility of intelligent doubt. This, however,
can hardly be said to have been done.
Looking, then, at the unquestionable evidence before us,
we find that, regarding only those avocations in which
women might have distinguished themselves, there is not
one in which they have ever attained the foremost position.
There are no female names among the few leading lights of
literature, science, or art. In this country, as well as in
others where mental power can most easily assert itself,
women have been often distinguished, but they have
invariably fallen short of pre-eminence.
We are told by Mill that the fact that there has been no
female Shakespeare proves nothing, sinck women have been
trained away from all occupations and objects which would
naturally lead to the attainment of transcendent literary
eminence. This explanation of the matter is considered as
sufficient to prevent any arguments against intellectual
equality based thereon from obtaining credit. But it is
respectfully submitted that there is, in this contention of
Mill and others, a striking superficiality and want of
soundness. For it cannot be maintained that Shakespeare
became the prince of authors as a result of the circumstances
in which he was placed, or of the inducements held out to
him, or the culture afforded to him. If we consider
what is known of him and other illustrious authors,
we shall almost certainly arrive at the conclusion that
it was not what they received from the world which
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 43
rendered them remarkable, but what came from them,
as a vital stream of intellectual power, which no difficulty
or counter- training could effectually hamper, and which
no discouragement could destroy. And surely there is
but slight ground for the assertion that the English
women of Shakespeare's class in his own or any other
succeeding age were, or have been, subject to any restric-
tion or blighting education sufficient to prevent the assertion
of an equally mighty intellect if they had possessed it. If
we consider well the teaching of biography we shall, it is
submitted, assuredly arrive at the conclusion that, where
genius has existed, neither the want of education, nor a
cramping or perverting education, has been sufficient to
prevent its discovery. In other words, genius provides her
own education, and creates her own opportunities. Indeed
the assertion of the existence of extraordinarily stringent
restrictions upon women seems almost incapable of support.
For I question very much whether the dislike of the fathers
of Shakespeare and other great authors for the budding
signs of literary greatness, and the consequent aversion from
the paternal shambles or workshop on the part of their sons,
has not fully equalled, in its restrictive and antagonistic force,
anj r influence which has usually restrained or opposed in
England the blossoming of the first-fruits of female power.
The burgess who would have burnt his son's effusions might
well have been ready to spare the products of his frailer
offspring, for the satisfaction of a selfish pride without the
pecuniary loss incident to such clemency in the case of the
apprenticed son. And the opportunities of women would
probably be even more marked among the higher classes.
But whether we regard our own most illustrious writer, or
44 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
the darling of our northern fellow-countrymen, can it be
seriously said that these men, while sheering sheep, holding
the bridles of horses, or following the plough, had any
advantages for the development of greatness which have not
been almost equally possessed by ordinary English girls.
Perhaps the argument might to some extent avail if
women had hardly ever dabbled in the realms of literature.
The fact, however, is that, whether with genius or without,
women of various stations in life have attempted literary
work, and have succeeded to a great degree, but not, it is
suggested, to such a degree as is consistent with the theory
of the absolute intellectual equality of the sexes. For why
should not Sappho have been as great as Homer, or Mrs.
Browning be as lofty as Shelley or Lord Tennyson ? Indeed
the very fact of the great place of George Elliot in the
inferior region of the novelist speaks strongly against the
theory under discussion. Of course it may be said that the
mere fact that a larger number of women engage in literary
work now than formerly is owing to the change in our ideas
upon the subject of women's sphere, and proves the con-
tention of Mill. But the truth seems rather to be that,
though increased opportunities and encouragements have
brought a number of women into the field of the class of
professional writers, it has hardly demonstrably brought a
single woman to such literary excellence as indicates great
genius, who would not in all probability have been equally
distinguished before the new ideas came into vogue. The
crowd of small literary people, men and women, go for
nothing in the argument which I present. And it is well
worthy of observation in this connection, that in the Dorian
States no woman approaching Sappho in intellect is known to
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 45
have lived. This great authoress was trained among the
Ionic States, where the intellectual development of women
was comparatively neglected.
The inferiority of women in the fine arts is explained by
Mill by reference to the purely amateur or unprofessional
nature of their devotion to such studies until recently. One
may be tempted to suppose our logician hard pressed when
he resorts to such a refuge. Did Raphael achieve his
eminence through the love of gain, or did he not rather get
pecuniary reward as the result of a natural devotion to the
brush, which would have caused him to paint even at the
sacrifice of a more remunerative avocation ? Because the
male artist finding his work remunerative has adopted it as
a profession, surely we are not to infer that if he had
indulged no greater hope of gain than a female artist was
at liberty to do, he would not have pursued his natural taste
with the glittering crown of a perennial reputation before his
eyes. When once genius has popularised an art, crowds of
second-rate imitators will be sure to follow it for gain or
otherwise ; but what possible reason is there to suppose that
if women had possessed the talent, not only to follow others,
but to create the regular study of an art, they would not
have been readily permitted and sufficiently encouraged to
do so ? On the contrary, the very fact that Avomen have
been able to pursue the arts at their leisure, and have been,
indeed, by conventionality very largely, and somewhat
exclusively, encouraged so to do, would seem to indicate that,
if the genius had existed, the opportunities for its assertion
would have been at least equal to those existing in the case
of men. The political economist may imagine that the love
of gain was the strongest and indispensable motive to the
46 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
composition of the " Messiah " ; but will the musician, with
the sublime enthusiasm of the spirit of Handel or Mozart
welling up within his soul, admit that he would not have
composed his masterpiece had he been secure of a com-
petence independently of the expected gains from the
pursuit of his favourite theme ?
It is said, however, by Mill, that in the only art followed
by women as a profession, namely, the histrionic, they have
proved themselves equal, if not superior, to men. Now,
whether the alleged equality or superiority is to be con-
sidered an established fact or not, I do not think it is
important to consider. For if it be so, I should contend
that we are justified in concluding that this art has been
followed by women as a profession for the simple reason
that they have had the capacity to excel therein. I should
then suggest that it might be added, with considerable force,
that if a similar capacity on their part had existed with
regard to other arts, women would also have followed them
professionally. We can hardly treat the accession of
women to the theatrical avocation as a mere accident. The
art of dramatic performance does not, by any means, stand
alone in the respect that people prefer to see it well, rather
than badly, executed ; and, if other arts would have been
largely benefited by the fact of women professing them,
surely such profession would have been an ordinary matter
of experience. The observation, however, of Mill, upon
this point, which had certainly occurred to myself before
perusing his work, seems to fairly give rise to pertinent
remarks by no means favourable to the contentions
which he endeavours to support by it. For dramatic
talent is strikingly independent of that originality which is
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 47
the great characteristic of the highest intellectual power.
It is not, moreover, without significance, that this one art
stands almost alone in the peculiarity of its position, as an
avocation, the moral advantages of which are still a matter
of controversy among people of great intelligence and high
principles. That the profession of this art should be the
one sphere of women ? s alleged demonstrated equality is, to
say the least, prima fade remarkable, and pregnant with
suggestive indications.
The admitted inferiority of women in literature and the
arts generally is further accounted for by our illustrious
logician. He tells us that women, when first encouragement
was not wanting for their efforts, found a highly advanced
literature already created, and that thus their powers of
originality have been subdued by precedent. This does not,
however, apply in the least degree to the time when, as I
have contended, though encouragement might not have
existed, active suppression was not exercised, nor does the
principle of the contention at all apply to the still open
field for discovery and invention in the regions of applied
science. Again, we are told that very few women have
sufficient time for the pursuit of studies which require
systematic application, and that, therefore, what they do
must be done at odd times. That this is to a certain extent
true I do not dispute, but let me appeal to biography and
personal experience. Have the greatest men been born
in circumstances in which the achievement of greatness
would appear natural have they, as it were, had " greatness,
thrust upon them " or has it not rather continually ap-
peared that their greatness was achieved in spite of the
difficulties of their position and the demands of their
48 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
bread-winning career ? How many, indeed, like George
Stephenson, have, under peculiar disadvantages, and while
experiencing the fatigues of manual labour, successfully
educated themselves in the knowledge necessary for the
development of their renowned discoveries ! What of the
master-strokes of genius conceived by the flickering light of
a hardly-bought taper, while snatching the last hours of a
day of wearing toil? " Slow rises worth by poverty
oppressed," yet rise it surely does. Indeed, have not
women enjoyed unrivalled opportunities for inventions of
the class of the most famous of James Watt, whose observa-
tion of a kettle has seemed to his French biographer
the early prelude to the discoveries which have crowned him
with the lustre of a human benefactor's fame. In common
experience, again, who are found to have the most spare
time, the men who are making their thousands a year by
the use of their brains, or the idlers who are dreaming
through the existence which is made laboriously luxurious
with the wealth accumulated by men of the former stamp ?
And when do men, as a fact, feel at their best for abstract
thought when seated during whole days of leisure in a
room whose very comfort makes them fidgety, or when
seizing the golden moments from a busy life ?
Still further, we are in effect told that women have seldom
eagerness for fame, and that they merely desire to receive
favourable consideration from their male relatives. If this
be so at present, whose is the ruthless hand that shall
disturb so excellent a disposition for domestic life ? But
since we see, indeed, that genius rarely exists apart from
love or desire of fame in some shape or another, should we
not well infer that where love of fame does not exist, neither
does the genius which must give it raison d'etre.
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 49
The matter seems summarised, from Mill's point of view
in these words : " Whoever is in the least capable of
estimating the influence on the mind of the entire domestic
and social position and the whole habit of a life, must easily
recognise in that influence a complete explanation of nearly
all the apparent differences between women and men,
including the whole of those which imply any inferiority."
Now, in considering this passage, one naturally thinks of
the many instances of women whose careers have been
totally unlike those of their sex generally, and of the little
countenance which such cases lend to the contention which
is contained in it. Probably most of us have many times
come across girls who have been brought up with, and
practically educated, as far as possible, like boys ; but I doubt
whether we have been uniformly struck with the superior
force of their intelligence. The "henpecking" matron,
too, is not wholly unknown in modern times, yet it may
be fairly questioned whether, save by her husband, she is
generally regarded as of a particularly remarkable wisdom
and breadth of intelligence. But, apparently with cases of
exceptional position and education in his mind, Mill tells us
that the ability of the ladies of reigning families who have
alone been allowed to develop their qualities has, in propor-
tion as their capacities for government have been tried,
been found adequate. In considering, however, the much-
vaunted benefits of female regime, we must remember that
very much is attributed to the Sovereign which would be
more properly imputed to the Minister, so much so that, the
more thoroughly a good Minister is trusted, the happier as a
rule are the results of the government. Nor must we over-
look the fact that we have been educated in a country of
4
50 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
constitutional rule, and that, therefore, the qualities which
we admire in a Sovereign are hardly those which are most
nearly associated with mental strength, or the fitness for the
exercise of direct political power. The reign of women
has been very generally approved by constitutional poli-
ticians, because free institutions have had a better chance of
development thereunder, owing to the personal weakness of
the monarch, than under the reign of men.
But let us scan the most notable instances in English
history which are so frequently relied upon, and consider
whether they are really inconsistent with the general
principles for which I am contending. I suppose the list of
such instances begins with Boadicea. With reference to her,
however, it is to be observed that, in harmony with the
passage cited below from Bentham, her heroic action did
not, it seems, result from a public motive or the desire of the
general welfare of her nation, but from the particularly private
instigation of her maternal feelings, prompting her to
revenge an outrage which had been committed by the
Romans upon her own daughters. And, pursuing her
career, we observe that, as if her enthusiasm had over-
stepped the limits of her natural qualifications for severe
activity, and the anxiety of government in troublous times,
the balance of her mind seems to have been upset by the
abnormal engrossments of her brilliant heroism, and disap-
pointment was followed, not by continued fortitude and
perseverance, but by despair and the administration to
herself of poison by her own hand. Looking, indeed, at the
matter seriously, can we consider that a pyrotechnical-like
display of enthusiastic courage and short-lived resolution,
wrought up by her maternal wrath against the injurers of
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 51
her own offspring, and soon followed by inglorious suicide,
constitute any very strong argument in favour of the capacity
of women generally for State government and the adminis-
tration of public affairs 1
I am not aware that the differences of the Empress Maud
and King Stephen have ever been thought to furnish any
argument to my opponents, and therefore it is unnecessary
to pause at this point of our history. We come next to
Mary I. With her historians have dealt in so very decidedly
severe a manner, linking her name with an extremely
unpleasant epithet, that it is presumably unnecessary for
me to say anything in order to prove that she is hardly a
forcible illustration of the height of combined greatness and
worth to which the ladies of royal families may be supposed
wont to attain.
But Elizabeth is now reached, and no doubt a triumphant
glow suffuses her champion's brow. Possibly she alone
will furnish to the minds of many an argument so convinc-
ing as to be incapable of answer. Yet it is to be observed
that, in order that an exampleTmay be clearly in favour of
the advocates of women's claims, I venture to think that its
subject must have demonstrated the compatibility of female
greatness with female goodness. And as to the greatness
of Elizabeth it may be fairly urged that she was peculiarly
favoured by the circumstances of her times. Following
upon a persecuting Papist, she has naturally been regarded
with favour by Protestant historians. Surrounded also as
she was by gifted statesmen, in whom her shrewdness taught
her to place confidence, her reign has certainly by no means
unnaturally been regarded as illustrious. Nor were the
adverse winds which helped to scatter the Armada without
4*
52 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
.their benign influence upon the glory of the reigning queen.
But admitting that she was a strong-willed and clear-headed
woman, and, at all events for the purposes of the argument,
that she constitutes the one example in our history of a
really able female ruler, was not her greatness so marred by
a lack of goodness as to render her character such that the
fewer women of her kind the world shall know, the happier
shall be the history of our race ? Smithfield fires did not
smoke so much in her reign as in that of her unhappy
sister, it is true ; but were not Protestant Dissenters, as
well as Roman Catholics, most atrociously persecuted by the
express desire of this renowned woman? What of her
mercy to Mary Stuart, among others ? What of her modesty
and her general virtue ? Depicting her as she lay upon her
bed of mortal pain, with the overbearing vixen in her
nature barely mastered by the grim, damp hand of death,
looking into her most unlovely visage, and remembering the
history of her life and the general traits of her character, is
it possible to say that she Wits a woman who can be held up
to the admiration of either sex ?
It is almost in the nature of a pleasant relief to speak of
Mary II. For apparently we find in her a good woman and
a devoted wife. Not possessing by law any share in the
Government while her husband was in England, it is not, sa
far as I am aware, known that this admirable woman sought
in any way to acquire reputation otherwise than as the
helpmeet of her illustrious husband.
The name of Queen Anne is, however, probably frequently
relied upon as an example of female excellence. But we
must not be led away by old-world traditions. Apparently,
for the times in which she lived, she was a fairly good woman,
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 53
of moderate intelligence, among whose more conspicuous
characteristics were an addiction to over-eating, followed by
consequent dyspepsia, and an over- weening confidence in
unworthy favourites. The actual course of events in her
reign is quite worthy of our attention in this connection.
For is it not true that, by her incapacity for government and
her natural womanly tenderness for a worthless brother, the
beneficial results of the Glorious Revolution were on the
very point of subversion, and that our country would have
been reduced again beneath the blighting sway of ribald
Stuarts, had not the patriotism and courage of the
Duke of Argyll, under Providence, averted the threatened
catastrophe ? This is surely not a slight thing for our
consideration, and, even if Anne had been a woman of
more than moderate intelligence, might well have sufficed
to obliterate all trace of true glory from her personal
history.
We now arrive at the name of a woman against whom
there has been probably said and thought as little evil
as against any one who has ever been as much before the
mind of a nation and the world. It is no sickly
sentiment of spaniel-like loyalty which induces me to
see in her present majesty a lady who commands, of
necessity, the admiration of good and wise people of all
classes. But let us consider the actual reason why the
people of England admire and, in many cases, almost love
their Queen, and have sympathised, with personal solicitude
and tenderness, in her many afflictions. Surely, it may be
suggested, with sufficient reason, that it is chiefly because they
believe that she was a consistently good wife, and continues
to be a consistently good mother because, in short, she
54 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
exhibits the distinctly female virtues in all the irresistible
charm of their natural display. If, moreover, we consider
why it is that the constitutional statesmen of all phases of
political opinion regard her reign with peculiar equanimity,
our difficulty in ascertaining the reason is apparently not
great. It is not, as I suggest, because anyone has claimed
for her the glory of a transcendent intellect or a peculiar
capacity for command, or because they attribute to her
innate powers the ability, or the results of the educating
influence, of the greatest statesmen of her reign, but rather
because, from her natural indisposition to affect the real
control of public affairs, she has allowed, more completely
than her predecessors, the actual executive authority of the
State to be wielded, and legislation to be initiated, by men
whose training and abilities have rendered them fitted for
their exercise ; and has thus, with the qualities on her own
part of moral excellence and the good sense of a well-
balanced mind, succeeded, possibly somewhat unconsciously,
in bringing our present Constitution, more thoroughly than
was the case before, into harmony with the feelings and
opinions of an enlightened people.
It is therefore submitted that a candid and well-informed
mind will find nothing in the characters of the conspicuous
females of English history inconsistent with a recognition
of the truth of the view that, both in respect of intellectual
strength and natural disposition, women are generally less
fitted for political power than men. Indeed, the compara-
tively rare cases where great intellect and great authority
have been possessed by women who have left behind a
reputation for goodness as well as for greatness, seem to
warrant no inference inconsistent with the contention that,
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 55
primarily and generally, the appropriate sphere of women is
domestic privacy.
Probably, however, every one will be more influenced in
the formation of his opinion on this subject by the observa-
tions which he has himself made in the course of his
personal experience than by general history. But the
nature of these observations, and the direction in which
they point, must evidently be left to the individual observer,
and can hardly be expected to be dealt with by a writer who
is a stranger to his person and his history.
Now, it is, of course, to be borne in mind that many
women, not only of royal, but of very humble families also,
have been in the past, and are at the present day, often
clearly above the average man in point of mental power and
general intelligence. This fact seems to weigh very power-
fully with many, but any difficulty to which it may give
rise is very simply removed by Mrs. Jamieson in these
words : " The intellect of woman bears the same relation to
that of man as her physical organisation ; it is inferior in
power, and different in kind. That certain women have
surpassed certain men in bodily strength or intellectual
energy, does not contradict the general principle founded in
nature." As, moreover, such exceptions exist, so, on the
other hand, we find many men, in prominent as well as in
private positions, who are conspicuously deficient in
intelligence and efficiency. With regard to such men, the
words of Mr. (now Baron) Dowse, the Attorney- General for
Ireland in Mr. Gladstone's first Administration, may well be
quoted. " He was quite aware that many a judge had been
an old woman ; but that was no reason why every old
woman ought to be a judge."
56 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
Perhaps a few words ought also to be said with regard to
the recent successes of ladies at the Universities. In esti-
mating the weight of these we should remember that
established examinations do not generally test the highest
forms of intellectual strength, such as originality. Many,
further, who attain the highest University honours are
subsequently found to have reached with them the summit
of their intellectual success. We must also bear in mind
that, under the present circumstances, the sons of opulent
parents present themselves for our University ordeals almost
entirely irrespectively of a perception on the part of anyone
of their special aptitude for success ; whereas, in the case of
the other sex, it may probably be fairly said that no one is,
as a rule, encouraged to study for examinations of a high
order, unless she has in some way formed the opinion that
she is above the average of her sex in mental faculties, or
has given to others the impression that such is the case.
In generalising the effect upon the understanding of Mill's
arguments upon this subject, one can hardly fail to be
struck by the prevailing uncertainty, and almost depressingly
speculative and hesitating character, of the opinions which
he expresses. Almost everything is left to the determination
of future generations, who shall enjoy opportunities for
comparison which are beyond the range of our attainment.
"We are, indeed, apparently asked to act as if the equality of
the sexes were proved, while, at the same time, we are told
that it is impossible for us to adequately determine the
matter.
According to Mill, it is even doubtful whether the brain
of a woman is smaller than that of a man. His doubtfulness,
indeed, extends so far upon the general question that one
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 57
may well despair of the probability of its being ever
effectually displaced by certainty, or, at all events, for
several generations. "The knowledge," says he, " which
men can acquire of women, even as they have been and
are, without reference to what they might be, is wretchedly
imperfect and superficial, and always will be so, until
women themselves have told all that they have to tell."
But may we not fairly observe that if the matter is so very
doubtful it is both dangerous and improper to act as if it
were proved in favour of women ? If their equality be still
unshown, ought we not to wait until it is shown before we
act as if it were an established fact ? If, indeed, before our
doubts are dispelled, we must wait until women have told us
all that they have to tell on the subject, and this they will
never be induced to do until they have been treated upon
the assumption that it has been done, surely the position of
those who advocate the movement we are discussing
involves the recognition of a very remarkable and a very
unsound principle. As a general observation, I venture to
submit that the true course of the reformer is to alter existing
institutions only when, and so far as, they have been
demonstrably shown to be unsuitable to existing facts, or
when, at least, overwhelming reason has been adduced in
favour of the existence of such facts as would clearly,
either from their present condition or their almost certain
consequences under an altered state of the law, justify the
contemplated change.
It cannot be admitted that until women are treated in the
same manner as men they will have had no opportunity of
proving their equality. It seems, if I may venture to say
so, to somewhat swour of sophistry in dealing with this
58 Women's Sit.fr age and National Danger.
branch of the subject to continually harp upon the general
condition and education of women. For we ought always to
bear in mind that women are not a hereditary class. Every
woman is as much the offspring of her father as of her
mother, and does not exclusively inherit the alleged stunted
intelligence of her maternal ancestors. And, briefly re-
suming much of what has been said above, we are bound to
take into consideration the fact that thousands of our
countrywomen have been abnormally educated, and that the
entire number have by no means been imprisoned by the
impenetrable walls of a sex hedged round with unvarying
conditions of disadvantage. The opportunity of proving
their equality has existed, and if it cannot be maintained
that the opportunity has already been so availed of as to
leave no room for reasonable doubt of the general existence
of potential equality, I suggest that no case has been made
for the subversion of ideas and customs which are based
upon the assumption of the general inferiority in point of
mental power of their sex to that of men.
It is worth while observing, as an incentive to caution,
that Mill is barely content with the theory of the equality
of women. He seems inclined to at least suggest their
superiority. For, as to the quality of their brains, he tells
us that the indications point to a greater average fineness in
theirs than in those of men, due, as he suggests, to a
possibly quicker cerebral circulation in their case. This, it
is surmised, may render them superior to men in matteis
requiring promptitude of decision. It is true that he is not
apparently indisposed to admit the superiority of the male
in cases demanding prolonged attention. The general
tendency, however, of his observations seems to point to the
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 59
not unlikely existence of general superiority. If this can
correctly be said to be his view it is indeed important ; for,
if it be not improbable that one sex is superior to the
other, many arguments against the existence of that
superiority on the part of men are at once disposed of, as
against this writer as well as very many others. When,
indeed, we are pointed to the value of women as an aid to
the speculative philosopher, we might be tempted to
imagine that our study was being relieved by a jest, if our
author were another man than Mill. It ought, perhaps, to
be added in this connection that the suggestion that
women, while superior to men in quickness of perception,
are inferior to men in matters requiring prolonged investiga-
tion, seems to point with considerable power in the direction
of the view that, while women are better adapted by their
nature for the speedy determination of the affairs of family
life, men have the superior capacity for the intelligent
exercise of the electoral Franchise with regard to a delibera-
tive assembly.
Before quitting the subject of the general intellectual
position of women, I must deal briefly with the marked
differences between the general bent of male and female
intelligence and morals respectively. For there may be
differences which do not necessarily imply absolute inferiority,
but which, nevertheless, do render women relatively to the
exercise of political power and influence less capable than
men.
The leading outline of the differences suggested seems to
be well drawn by Jeremy Bentham. I feel considerable
satisfaction in quoting his words, because in doing so I am
not drawing upon the authorities of old-fashioned Toryism,
60 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
or even of Conservative philosophy, iior upon the teaching
of a man whose Radicalism was unrestrained by the
conception of a definite principle. In the whole range of
political writers one can hardly cite a higher authority than
his, if indeed we can find one which is as high. Compara-
tively few, perhaps, are aware nowadays how much we,
in fact, owe to his extraordinary genius. Indeed, by far the
larger portion of the more important legislative reforms of
this century are traceable to his puissant influence.
Radicalism and very advanced ideas in law or politics seem
without a secular rationale apart from his philosophy. The
words quoted are found on page 39 of the work mentioned
above. " The sensibility of women seems to be greater
than that of men. Their health is more delicate. They are
generally inferior in strength of body, knowledge, the
intellectual faculties, and firmness of soul. Their moral and
religious sensibility is more lively; sympathies and antipathies
have a greater empire over them The religion
of a woman more easily deviates towards superstition ; that
is, towards minute observances. Her affections for her own
children are stronger during their whole life, and especially
during their early youth. Women are more compassionate
for those whose sufferings they see ; and the very pains they
take to relieve them form a new bond of attachment. But
their benevolence is locked up in a narrower circle, and is
less governed by the principle of utility. It is rare that they
embrace in their affections the well-being of their country,
much less that of mankind ; and the interest which they
take in a party depends almost always upon some private
sympathy. There enters into all their attachments and
antipathies more of caprice and imagination ; while men
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 61
have more regard to personal interests or public utility.
Their habitual amusements are more quiet and sedentary.
On the whole, woman is better fitted for the family, and
man for matters out of doors. The domestic economy is
best placed in the hands of the women; the principal
management of affairs in those of the men." Again, en
page 81, speaking of fitness for the electoral Franchise, he
says, in the words quoted above : " We cannot presume a
sufficient degree of knowledge in women, whom their
domestic condition withdraws from the conduct of public
affairs."
It might well be considered both wearisome and un-
satisfactory to continue the citation of opinions of this kind.
I should hardly have cared to lay very much stress upon the
above words if they had proceeded from a lesser man than
Bentham. But since they are his, I claim for them the
weight due in this matter to the utterances of one whose
entire works show him to have been as completely
emancipated from every prejudice and restraint of time-
honoured custom as human nature could well be. As,
moreover, the business of his life was to formulate and
support totally new ideas, such as appeared to the vast
majority of those who first heard them extravagant and
unsafe, we can hardly suppose that he would have hesitated
to launch out into the advocacy of the alleged rights of
women with regard to the Franchise, if it had occurred to
him possible in reason to do so.
Let me, therefore, request my readers to seriously ponder
over, and test by their own observation, the passage which
has been quoted. Will it not be found that the exceptions
to its general truth are comparatively rare, and the majority
62 Women's Suffrage and National Danyer.
of these by no means examples which it would be desirable
to multiply ? Who does not know the worth of womanly
affection? Who has not marked the unconquerable for-
bearance and generosity of the mother and the wife
especially towards undeserving objects ? One is almost
guilty of becoming a bore in even alluding to themes so often
and so deservedly descanted upon by those vast numbers
who have been competent to form an accurate opinion on
the subject. But who, of average intelligence, can say that
the woman is not rare who carries the vigour of her
sympathy, the mildness of her sentiments, and the un-
selfishness of her disposition, beyond the narrow circle of
her family and friends ? How often have we been grieved
to hear the matron, whose words upon the topics of her
family life have been wont to be, with justice, regarded as
the oracular and self-evident declarations of a modern
Minerva, degenerate into the comparatively unheeded
trifler, when joining in a conversation upon public questions!
Our opponents probably, to a certain extent, acknowledge
that there is force in such questions and remarks as these,
but they tell us that when women have obtained the vote
they will cultivate the knowledge which shall give them the
power to intelligently exercise it. But not only is it clear
that the occupation by women of the position in which they
are alone essential will always more or less exclude them from
that active participation in business life which qualifies
for the intelligent exercise of the Franchise, but, as is
suggested in this treatise, their nature is formed for different
purposes, and cannot be advantageously, or, indeed, possibly,
distorted into that of the now governing portion of the race.
Further, I appeal, as I have said above, to the only practice
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 63
sanctioned by wisdom or experience, when I say that those
who wish for what they do not possess ought to show, or
others ought to show for them, beyond reasonable doubt,
that they are already, or, within a short and measurable period
of time, will become, fit for its possession.
It is also relevant in this place to revert to the often
commented upon tyranny of women towards those who
claim no alliance of blood or marriage relationship, or of
friendship with them. Thackeray does but echo a very
prevalent complaint, when he says that women and priests
are the worst tyrants in the world. Who has not, in the
course of his reflections, compared the bearing of the
average man to his dependents, male as well as female, with
that of women to their domestic servants and other assistants ?
Indeed, one is almost tempted sometimes to revolt against
the platitudes with regard to the tenderness of the gentle
sex as meaningless cant, when he reflects upon the ceaseless
tyranny, untempered by delicacy or sympathy of bearing, of
some ladies towards the strangers in their power. In truth,
however, those platitudes have not been formed to meet such
cases as these, to which they have, indeed, no serious
application. If attempted to be enforced beyond the range
of her conduct towards those whom her nature has pro-
claimed to be 'her world, they are apt to jar like the
impious gallantry of a roue of Southern Europe. It may
be pleasant, when steeped with gratitude to a few good
women, to speak of their entire sex as if they were in truth
terrestrial angels ; but, when we are considering legislative
action, it behoves us to dispense with fictions, however poetic ;
and if we must needs perceive the angelic essence in their
character, let us not overlook the distinctly fallen element.
64 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
It may, too, be worth observing that the reason why there
is no more said of the injustice of women than is the case,
is probably because we find, as a fact, that it quite as often
tells in our favour as against us. Indeed, it is probably on
this account that we are apt to indulge in generalisations of
a character very dangerous to political excellence. But we
ought to remember that, when people are considering an
entire community, it is impossible, setting aside international
questions, to be unjust in favour of all of its members. For
that decision which errs in favour of over lenience or
indulgence to some, will necessarily disturb the balance of
justice, and militate unfairly against others.
Again, the power of intuitive, and, consequently, quick
perception, peculiar, as generally alleged, to the female cast
of mind, is well worthy of consideration in this connection.
According to an observation of Mill, which was referred to
above, this is likely to prove a permanent characteristic
of women. If it be admitted that this is so, the case for the
defence would seem very considerably strengthened. For
though the faculty in question has undoubtedly its own.
peculiar advantages, that of carefully reasoning out a
decision has no less certainly advantages peculiar to itself.
One might well suppose that the rough and ready justice
which is meted out within the family, and the quick
decisions in other respects which are arrived at as the result
of this intuitive perception, are replete with significant
suggestions that, according to the natural order of mundane
affairs, the family is the realm appointed as the woman's
sphere. For what if the intellectual process if process it
can be called by which the conclusion is arrived at, or
seized upon, in the hurry of domestic bustle, that of two
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 65
infant combatants one has been the aggressor and the other
the party aggrieved, be applied to the settlement of the
disputes of nations or the government of an Empire?
Just as this faculty is peculiarly adapted to the life of the
family, so, it is submitted, is the more slowly operating
faculty by which men are considered to arrive, through
observation and reason, at the determination of the questions
which are submitted to them, appropriate to the sphere of
public and international concerns. If the suggested
difference of mental constitution does exist, it ought not to
be overlooked that, in applying themselves to public ques-
tions, women cannot be supposed able to set aside the
natural method by which they habitually form their deci.
sions. These will often, therefore, in particular cases, be
too hastily reached, and will not easily be changed by the
maturity of knowledge or deliberation. The " will " having
been determined, the futility of an attempt, however philo-
sophical and able, to convince the mind against this will is
too well known to need a laboured proof.
The devotion to individuals which is characteristic of
women has also claims to our attention in respect of its politi-
cal operation. They are essentially creatures who love, and
whose love or hate is the major part of their existence,
or else they are as planets wandered from their sphere.
As beings of love, they hold a sacred place in the heart of
every honest man ; and unhappy is he who shall attempt to
rival them therein. As a consequence of this very beautiful
disposition of their character, the reverse of the maxim
" measures not men," is almost uniformly, though perhaps
unconsciously, the maxim of good women. Their opinions
radiate round the centre of some honoured man, and to
5
6fi Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
him, though perhaps long since deceased to his wisdom or
to his folly they constantly and faithfully adhere. The
real question with them thus too often becomes, not " what is
right ? " but " what did So-and-So say ? " or " would he have
said?" They cannot and happy is it that such should be
the case emancipate their intellects, any more than they
can their hearts, from one whom they have loved and
honoured in his life. Possibly this one is not always a man
whom they have personally known familiarly, but probably
such is generally the case. When it is otherwise, a family
virtue is, as it were, transplanted to another soil, and, if
accompanied with the power of giving effect to its sug-
gestions, is but too likely to be followed by all the conse-
quences of a native vice. As a consequence of, or at least
intimately connected with, the proclivity considered, we
find the gregarious propensity very strongly developed
among women, Suppose the question of Free Trade or
Protection discussed at a meeting exclusively composed of
females. A locally popular politician has pronounced that
the principles of the former are folly, and that Fair Trade
is the only panacea for the capitalist and the labourer
throughout the world. A resolution in favour of the latter
is not improbably put after but slight discussion, and
carried without a single dissentient among the numerous
assembly, out of which not one lady has probably ever read
a volume of Mill except, perhaps, that on the " Subjection
of Women" or has ever bought or bartered, save for the
purpose of supplies for person, household, or private
charity.
We have also to observe the distinctively female charac-
teristic which consists in a disposition to pay undue regard
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 67
to mere social prestige and the magnificence of the golden
calf. With how many women is it sufficient that a cause is
royally approved, or is that of the aristocratic classes that
its opposite is espoused by the commonalty or that it is
one the advocacy of which is particularly likely to assist
the ascent towards the pleasing heights of the Delectable
Mountains ? A handsome and ribald Stuart, or rather
his modern counterpart or nearest likeness, may be faith-
fully supported by the men, but the women will outdo them
in the ardour of their devotion to his person and almost
worshipping admiration of his imaginary virtues. Yet " a
brave man struggling with the storms of fate," a politician
with an unpopular programme, albeit based upon the noblest
foundation whereon a man can build, is possibly regarded
by his wife or mother by some one woman more deeply
sympathetic with him than others of her sex as a true,
though unappreciated, hero ; but in all probability he is
considered by the large majority of his female relatives and
friends as being, with regard to the main purposes of
life, indisputably foolish, or, at all events, sadly deficient in
his intellectual or moral constitution. To trace this charac-
teristic way of estimating public worth by personal success,
the smiles of monarchs, and the embraces of society, into
the ordinary ramifications of its practical working, might
be tedious. Common experience is probably sufficient to
bear out its alleged existence, and ordinary good sense to
point its importance in this connection.
Much of what I have recently said is admitted by Mill.
He tells us that while the standard of women is higher than
that of men in spirit and generosity, it is lower in the
quality of justice ; and he is "afraid" (is this the imparti-
68 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
ality of the judge, or the tenderness of the ancient gallant ?)
" that it must be said that disinterestedness in the general
conduct of life the devotion of the energies to purposes
which hold out no promise of private advantages to the family
is very seldom encouraged or supported by women's
influence." But he lays stress here, as elsewhere, upon the
change which he anticipates under altered conditions. For
example, their charity which, according to him, is now so
largely mischievous, would be directed into a better channel.
But may it not be effectually contended that the same cause
which shall prevent their charity continuing to be, accord-
ing to him, often mischievous, will render them like men in
not being so charitable in any respect as they are now?
Indeed, how can it be anticipated that altered conditions
will only develop good qualities, and only suppress bad
qualities ? Let it be seriously considered whether it is not
probable that, if we succeed in making women resemble men
in respect of those qualities wherein men have now the
advantage, we shall also cause them to grow like men in
respect of those qualities wherein men are now inferior to
them. In other words, if we unsex women, so far as the fail-
ings now considered incident to the sex are concerned, shall
we not unsex them also of their now characteristic virtues ?
We all know what we should anticipate as the result of
rendering men effeminate ; why should we not contemplate
equal disaster as the result of the opposite process with
regard to women ? Surely it is begging the whole question to-
say that the equalisation of the sexes, or the giving women
free scope, as it is called, for the development of their
faculties, will cause women to acquire all the virtues which
belong pre-eminently to men, and that, at the same time,.
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 69
they will retain all the virtues which are at present as con-
spicuously their own.
I have now viewed the unfitness of women for the
Franchise in various aspects. But one practical remark is
still necessary upon this subject. There is no doubt much
force in the contention that the present unfitness would at
all events diminish as a consequence of the concession of the
right to vote. Women would probably endeavour to
educate themselves for the proper discharge of a function
which had been accorded to them. Yet, and this is the
point upon which I venture to lay especial stress, the very
reason which Bentham gives for their unfitness for its
exercise must always remain so long as society is constituted
on the basis of family life so long, in fact, according to
present information, as national happiness and worth endure.
The average mother must pass the greater part of her
existence in the midst of her home, withdrawn by insur-
mountable necessity from that contact with the business
world the world in which men meet and settle those affairs
which constitute the relations of family to family and of
state to state which gives fitness for the discharge of
functions which, like the electoral franchise, are public and
extrafamilial in their character.
Moreover, the contention that the differences between
men and women may be educated away, or removed by the
alteration of the conditions of women's lives, may be met in
another way. Whatever may be thought of the mental
powers of women, there is no room for doubt as to their
present inferiority with regard to physical strength, or as
to the difference which exists between them and men in
respect of bodily conformation. There may possibly be
70 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
some who will contend that in process of time their bodily
strength will become equal to that of men. However this
may be, it is perfectly clear that for a very considerable
period of time their inferiority in point of physical strength
will remain, and their difference from men in respect of
conformation must always continue so long as the race
exists. It is certainly difficult to imagine that, on any
reasonable supposition, the majority of women would ever
be permanently in a condition of physical strength equal to
that of men. Now as long as government or political
institutions are necessary, so long will that force, by its
possession of which government is possible, be absolutely
essential. It, therefore, follows that, both for the support
of the internal administration and defence from external
interference, a male citizen will always be liable to be called
upon for his assistance in the way of physical effort. One
of his essential duties will always continue to be the
provision of forcible assistance to the State authority. But
this by no means unimportant duty cannot be equally well
fulfilled by women. They cannot fight so well, or maintain
internal order so effectually as men. What then? They
are incapable of discharging to the full one of the cardinal
and most onerous duties of citizenship. Have they, there-
fore, any real grievance if their rights are subject to
incompleteness as well us their duties ? The obligation of
bearing arms is quite as truly a part of the liabilities of a
citizen as the voting power is of his rights. If, therefore,
in no case a woman can be regarded by the law as his equal in
the former respect, it is hardly clear that she has a primd
facie ground of complaint agsinst a difference in the latter,
even on this comparatively low ground. I venture, indeed,
The Case against Women s Suffrage. 71
to lay it down as a general proposition that, since there must
always, while representative institutions are necessary, be a
difference of duty between men and women, it cannot be
considered sufficient to say that no difference of right ought
to exist, or, in considering the propriety of maintaining
any such difference, to say that it lies upon those who defend
it to show good cause for the existence of any difference at
all, beyond that which is found in this simple reference to
undoubted facts.
But before quitting the subject of the difference of physical
conformation between the sexes, let me ask whether this
difference does not lead to others ? In other words, can it
be seriously contended that the sole difference between a man
and a woman is in respect of bodily form ? On the contrary,
it seems to me demonstrably clear that other differences of
heart or mind exist, some as the consequences of the former,
some collaterally. And if the fact is, that there actually are
differences which can never be obliterated, is it truly
philosophical to press too closely the theory that the two
sexes should be treated similarly by the law ? Mill seems
to see no greater difference between a boy and a girl
than between a white man and a black man. Bub
even if this were admitted as accurate now, it must be
observed that it is quite conceivable that, in the course of
time, the sharp dividing line between the latter will
disappear, as the consequence of the intermarriage and
general association of their respective races ; and, though
such line should not entirely disappear, it will almost
inevitably become less noted and less important, as closer
intimacy induces greater similarity. On the other hand,
neither by intermarriage, nor intimacy, nor otherwise, can
72 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
the distinction between men and women be obliterated. It
is permanent, unmistakable, and, at least beyond a certain
now undefined limit, incapable of ever being diminished.
Surely this distinction must be recognised by the law.
Some politicians, however, seem to imply that we are now,
in a manner, estopped from raising the point of the unfitness
of women for the electoral Franchise, since we have
admitted women to the Throne, the Municipal and County
Franchise, the School Board, the County Council, the office
of Churchwarden, the Tribunal of the Manorial Court, and
so forth. Yet, unless it be admitted that the capacity so
conferred on women has been beneficial to the nation at
lirge, and this beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt,
or, in other words, that our institutions in this respect are
almost infallibly good, there are clearly no premises here on
which to base a sound conclusion. But I do not suggest the
contrary as a matter of experience, though I doubt whether
the immense advantages anticipated from the presence of
women on the School Board have been fully realised. The
basis, however, of my objection to this argument is, that
it is sought to transplant the conclusion from alleged
experience of one class of cases to another totally different
class. As to the often harped-on case of the Crown, I refer
to what is said above at page 50. But I may here observe
that the analogy completely breaks down on the point where
it is necessary for the purpose of the argument. For, so
far is intellectual fitness from being required by the
Constitution in the case of the sovereign, that a lunatic may
wear the crown, as, indeed, has actually been exemplified
more than once in our history. Yet I am not aware that it
is proposed, even by the most advanced thinkers, to extend
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 73
the Franchise in this direction. It, therefore, obviously
follows that if the fact that a lunatic may be the sovereign
is no reason why a lunatic should have the power of voting,
the fact that a woman may be the sovereign is no reason
why she should have the power of voting. Of course it
may be rejoined that a lunatic ought not to be allowed to
be a sovereign. If, however, the question of what ought to
be the rule is admitted, it will be open to us to say
though I do not say so, the entire matter being foreign to
my argument that a woman ought not to be the sovereign.
The clear position is simply this. If we are to argue
merely on existing institutions, as if they were un-
questionably good, we must take them as we find them,
and we shall consequently probably be led into absurdity ;
but if we are to argue upon grounds of expediency, we
camiot base any conclusion merely on analogy to existing
institutions.
But the vote for a member of Parliament differs in its
nature toto ccelo from any other vote whatever. For so
long as the former is withheld from women, Parliament can
admit women to places and Franchises according to its
wisdom, while denying admission in its discretion to other
places and other Franchises. While increasing, so far as
may seem desirable, from time to time, the sphere of women,
Parliament can draw the line, as it were, between those
privileges which may be safely accorded to women and
those which cannot. It can, indeed, recognise and give
effect to those fundamental and immutable differences in
human nature between men and women which it may
consider as properly attended by differences of position
before the law, thus adapting existing institutions to new
74 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
views of the unchanging conditions of the relation between
man and woman. Once, however, let the Parliamentary
Franchise be accorded to women and the case is entirely
altered. There is no longer the power to withhold, or the
power to distinguish. Everything, in short, which human
legislative means can give to woman she will have attained,
and nothing but illegal force will be able to stay the com-
plete equalisation of her position before the law to that of
man, even though she do not aspire to positive superiority.
For the Franchise is the ultimate human legal power by
wt\ich everything in the region of human law is con-
trolled. This is certainly not recognised, as it clearly ought
to be, by many of our present Legislature. For have we
not known it contended in their assembly that it will be
quite possible for Parliament still to distinguish between the
sexes, even to the closing of its own doors against women ?
As an instance, I cite the words of Baron Henry de Worms :
" I do not think it in any way follows that, because a
woman exercises the right to vote for a member of Parlia-
ment, she would, as a natural sequitur, claim a right to sit
in the House of Commons." The same politician supports
his opinion by a reference to the case of beneficed clergy-
men, who are excluded from the House of Commons
although they possess the voting power. But with regard
to this attempted proof, it is sufficiently clear that the only
reason why such subjects do not claim and obtain admission
to that House is because it is generally considered by them-
selves, as well as by others, that they are adequately
represented in the Lords' House by the Bishops. I do not
say that this is actually a sufficient reason; my point is merely
that it passes as such. In addition, however, to this, we
The Case against Women s Suffrage. 75
must observe that the number of clergymen is totally
insufficient to make their votes of very substantial import-
ance, and therefore it is quite possible to exclude them
from further political power, while admitting them to the
electoral Franchise. But so far from the case of women
being similar in this respect, the number of those who will
acquire the Franchise on the success of any scheme in this
behalf which has ever been before Parliament will not by
any means be inconsiderable, but will constitute an amply
sufficient lever for the opening of the doors of Parliament
to their sex.
We must not consider the question of the Parliamentary
Franchise in the same way as that of the right of voting at a
municipal election, or indeed that of any other function
whatsoever. For the political Franchise potentially contains
in itself all other legal power. As I have said, if the
suffrage be conceded to the spinster and the widow, it is
hardly likely to be withheld from the wife. Indeed if once
the former be recognised as properly enjoying the vote, we
shall be hard pressed to show good reason for distinguishing
their case from that of the wealthy spouse. And when the
Franchise has been conceded to women generally, their
exclusion from the Houses of Parliament and the offices of
State can only continue for a limited time. The politician
above quoted, in disputing this, asks whether, because Miss
Florence Nightingale was permitted to perform her work with
the British army, it follows that a woman should be a general
commanding in the field ? It certainly does not. But her
woik is to be compared to that of a lady who, under existing
circumstances, pins a rosette to a candidate's breast, or in
any way cheers or helps one side by her encouragement
76 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
and her labours as a volunteer. If it were competent for a
woman to be part of the regular military force as nurse,
medical attendant, or private soldier, it would obviously be
emphasising the distinction between the sexes, in a way
almost unexampled in the present days, to withhold from
her the capacity of becoming head nurse, surgeon-general,
or general of the forces in the respective cases. Being then
established in Parliament, it is unlikely that women those
of the kind who would go there would tolerate any legal
inequality between men and women, even though linked
together in that institution which is the foundation of our
civilised life.
If, however, it be admitted that, as a general rule, it is
undesirable to admit to the Franchise a class considered unfit
for its intelligent exercise, and, further, that women are as a
class unfit for such exercise thereof, it is still possible to urge
that, rather than so large a class as women should be
entirely unrepresented, and their interests consequently
selfishly neglected by men, it would be better to make an
exception in their case. Now, I have above pointed out that
there is no such hardship in the present position of women
no such disposition on the part of men to treat them unfairly
and to neglect their interests as to justify such a contention.
But, in addition to this, it cannot be too carefully observed
that it is misleading and unsound to speak of women as a
class. Classes in the community are severally composed of
men and women considered together. We cannot compare
women to an unrepresented class of men. For the woman
of the higher classes is not of the same class as the woman
of the middle or lower classes, any more than are men of these
various classes men of the same class. So long as the
The Case against Women s Suffrage. 77
institution of marriage is not attacked, a woman will continue
to take the rank, not of any class of women, but of her
husband, unless her own be higher than his, and, together with
him, she forms as it were the complete unit of a particular
class the molecule, as distinguished from the atom, of per-
manent human society and the consideration of the legislator.
Apparently but little attempt is made in the direction of a
specification or forecast of the probable benefits which
would ensue from the extension of the Franchise to women
considered, I mean, as a question apart from the complete
equalisation of the sexes. Of course broad generalisations
are frequently indulged in, but few carefully considered
probabilities are presented as benefits. If we ask in what
way the greatest happiness of the greatest number of men,
women, and children will be furthered by the extension of the
Franchise, we are unlikely to gain very substantial information.
There is, however, one exceptional instance. We are pointed
to the value of the assistance of women in the detailed
control of expenditure. A small matter, indeed, as against
the uncertainty which attends the whole subject ! Financial
skill and judicious economy are, doubtless, highly desirable,
but even a political economist will scarcely elevate them
into greater importance than the evils which are suggested
below. It is not, however, by any means admitted that even
this alleged benefit would be really likely to ensue ; but
considering the matter somewhat trifling in comparison
with others here treated, I leave it to those who may think
it of cardinal importance, particularly to the Lords Randolph
Churchill and Charles Beresford, who may possibly detect
in the assertion a somewhat daring invasion of their own
peculiar province.
78 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
Let me now briefly advert to the more conspicuous evils
which would probably result immediately from the extension
of the Franchise to women, as distinguished from the more
remote consequences of attempted equalisation of the sexes
in every respect. The claim for the Franchise and the
claim for equality are practically inseparable, and logically
the consequences of either are the consequences of the other
or of both. Yet, for convenience' sake, we may consider
apart the evil consequences more immediately connected
with the extension of the suffrage. As above shown, we
must in reason regard the present claim as practically one for
universal female suffrage. It is this in its results, or it has
no solid foundation, according to the reasoning of its most
powerful and acknowledged advocates. But whatever harm
would ensue from the recognition of the larger claim would
probably appear in a very much lower degree from the
admission to the Franchise of only spinsters and widows
occupying or owning certain property.
It is sufficiently clear that, if it be true that women are
not fit, that is to say, not intellectually or otherwise adapted,
for the proper exercise of political power, the consequence
of the exercise by them of such power must be evil. This
is practically a mere truism. If good government and
legislation is the result of political wisdom, and bad govern-
ment and legislation is the result of the want of political
wisdom and the plentifulness of political folly, it is obvious
that the larger is the element of unfitness and intellectual
incapacity which is introduced into our political constitution,
the worse will be the government and legislation which is
thereby produced. Apparently, however, very many do not
realise this, for it is often said that, since agricultural
The Case against Women's Suffrage. 79
labourers have been admitted to the Franchise, there is no
longer any reason for keeping women out of the pale. Such
a view evidently proceeds upon a totally erroneous estimate
of the facts and probabilities of the case. It may be shown
to be untenable, quite apart from the truths that education is
improving among the labourers in question, and that there
is a fundamental difference between a want of capacity
which is the result of the want of education, which may
easily be obtained by the particular individual whose
capacity is in question, and which is consequently at the
most inevitable during one generation, and a want of capacity
which is natural and immutable, or, at all events, neces-
sarily or usually incident to the position in life in which an
individual is of necessity placed. For the contention under
consideration could only have any real force upon the sup-
position that the number of agricultural labourers these
being apparently the only class of male voters whose unfit-
ness is prominently before the minds of such reasoners
would in every constituency in the kingdom be precisely
equal to that of the women to whom it is proposed to
extend the Franchise, and that the latter would to a woman
always vote directly against the latter to a man, so that the
one section of the present electorate, which, it is contended
is incapable, would be neutralised by those whom it is pro-
posed to admit. If this supposition could be reasonably
entertained, I readily admit that there would be considerable
force in the contention ; but it is too obviously unfounded,
for the fact is that there would be no such precise equality
in numbers ; and the overwhelming probability is that, since
ignorance of the knowledge required for the due exercise of
a function whether arising from one cause or another
80 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
and natural incapacity for its proper exercise, both alike
lead to an exercise of the function which is wrong, and,
therefore, not right, in the case of political questions or
elections, when the real issue is between aye or no, or
Smith and Jones that is, where there is only one right side
and only one wrong side the wrong side, or, in other
words, the same side, would be chosen by the large majority
of both the classes we are considering. Thus assuming,
merely for the purposes of the present argument, and
without expressing any opinion upon the matter, that the
admission of the agricultural labourer to the Franchise has
been a bad thing, the consequent evil will not be counter-
acted, but can only be increased, by the admission thereto
of another incompetent body. In simple language, " two
wrongs don't make one right." Were this a party treatise,
moreover, I could easily point to a well-known moral
certainty, not only relevant, but of great practical import-
ance, in respect to this matter. As, however, I am writing
upon a subject upon which it is pre-eminently desirable
that every member of the Legislature, as \v ell as every voter,
should, if he be able to do so, make up his mind, apart from
simply party considerations, I forbear from more specific
allusion to the matter in this place.
Descending very briefly into fragmentary particulars, we
come to the transcendently important question as to the
probable influence of the vote of women upon the bellicose
proclivities of the national statesmen. Now, it is a very
easily observed fact that, both with boys at school and with
men, in whatever avocation or circle of the world they move,
the knowledge that certain rudeness and impropriety of
conduct on their part will probably be followed by the
The Case against Women s Suffrage. 81
necessity of standing their own champions in a bout of
fisticuffs or an affray of a more serious, or even of a different,
character, operates as a wholesome restraint upon excessive
provocativeness of bearing, on all save the unsubduable,
gigantic and asinine bully. I question very strongly
whether A. would be as much restrained as he is from giving
offence to B., if it were practically impossible that anyone
but C., or the rest of the alphabet, exclusive of himself,
would have to bear the principal brunt of the battle due to
his own conduct. I suppose, further, that no one not even
the most excited and infatuated advocate of equality-
seriously contends that women ought to march side by side
with men to battle. I do not mean behind as part of the
commissariat or hospital department, but side by side to the
hottest fire, submitting to precisely equal danger. As voters,
then, they will have the privilege of making quarrels which
will be left to others to fight out. Indeed, should the time
of Universal Suffrage come, and women be in the majority
as voters, it is conceivable, though I do not think it at all
probable, that they might determine upon a war in the very
teeth of the opposition of every one who would have to
carry arms therein, and order the refractory males to be
shot as deserters from the field of duty by the hands of
those of the male sex who survived such treatment suffi-
ciently long to be able to administer it. Improbable as such
a suggested consummation may be, who can believe
that the manhood of England will ever tolerate for long a
condition of affairs in which its realisation would be constitu-
tionally possible ? Nor can it be cogently argued that women
might be debarred from voting on a question of peace or war;
for this would be clearly impracticable. If they are to have
6
82 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
the right of electing representatives, the influence upon the
latter of their opinion must bear in all directions. And
whoever has in Parliament a vote upon one question has
potentially, as has been pointed out in recent times, to a
large extent, the power of voting upon every other, so long
as party Government continues; since a Government can be
ejected from office on one question as well as another, and
consequently can be compelled by those who are able to
vote upon one subject to take their opinion into consideration
upon every other. Thus, though, so far only as what has
been recently said is concerned, the voting power might be
entrusted to women when international arbitration or other
arrangements have completely and finally superseded war,
and women can discharge all the liabilities in these respects
to which their votes may give rise, the probable result of
the extension of the Franchise to them before the lapse of
very many years would, it is submitted, be fraught with
somewhat of the grave dangers above indicated.
But let us regard the matter in the light of ordinary
experience, in a strictly practical manner. It cannot, then,
be denied that national prestige and gunpowder glory have
an influence upon female opinion which might, with great
probability, be dangerous, if the decision of international
questions were committed to their votes. I do not suggest
that they would usually directly cry " war " ; what I contend
is, that they would uphold the hands of a favourite states-
man in a career of bombastic folly which would frequently
end in war. Imagine Lord Beaconsfield descanting upon
the ascendency of England in the councils of Europe to an
audience of female electors ! One may almost in imagination
smell the gunpowder and hear the roar of the cannon, as-
The Case against Women's Suffrage. S3
the passion of the hour k ' cries ' havock ' ! and lets loose the
dogs of war." Do my readers remember the famous jingo
song, and its effect upon the ladies of an audience when
well rendered by a good-looking male vocalist ? I fancy the
man who should argue for peace before listeners similarly
influenced, when some petty international squabble was on
hand, would run considerable risk of being denounced by
the fair as a sordid poltroon who begged for " peace at any
price." We all know that the ladies greatly admire
courage ; some, indeed, seem to know from experience that,
even in private life, the fair provoke many quarrels which
their male relatives have to settle it may be vi et armis
and which would be fewer if they had to fight them out in
their own persons. Let us not under- estimate the importance
of such facts or suggestions as these.
It may perhaps occur to some that the notorious and
admitted tenderness of women would prevent them from
encouraging wars, as I have suggested. But we must
observe that the large majority of wives and mothers and
sisters would hope their husbands, sons, and brothers would
escape the severity of the war, or would possibly have no
relatives likely to be specially endangered thereby. It
would, indeed, as has before been pointed out, be quite
unsafe to suppose that their tenderness in the matter would
extend generally to strangers, as a quality of practical
value. Theoretically, no doubt, it would, and practically so
far as distressed cases came under their personal cognisance.
But it is suggested that their tenderness and timidity would
not, as often as desirable, have the effect of shaking their
confidence in the propriety of the war proposed. A refer-
ence to history will, it is submitted, be found to support
6*
84 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
this view. Even, indeed, in the matter of the infliction of
the punishment of death, does not Queen Philippa stand
out in striking and honourable conspicuousness as an ex-
ception in respect of the ordinary bent of womanly tender-
ness ? But the main strength of my position lies in the
suggestion that the influence of women would operate
through the channel of a darling statesman.
Most Englishmen, moreover, although they may be
sincerely religious themselves, and anxious for the spread of
Christianity, have considerable aversion to the increase to
undue proportions of the direct influence of priests, and
other ministers of religion, upon politics, as distinguished
from their influence in religious and moral matters. They
see in various parts of the world the baneful results of a too
widely pervading ecclesiasticism, and they learn from their
own history to how great an extent the liberty and other
advantages which their nation now enjoys are due to the
resistance of their ancestors to the encroachments of priest-
craft. It is easily observable that, in proportion as the
order of teachers of religion gains temporal power, its
spirituality declines, by reason partly of the intrusion into
its ranks of really irreligious men, and partly by the
corrupting influence of power improperly possessed and
unbecomingly exerted. And it requires but little discern-
ment to perceive that confidence in men, begotten by
appreciation of the religious advantages of which they have
been the channel or the means of realisation, is pre-eminently
liable to form an altogether unwarrantable submission to
their opinion in matters which are not directly concerned
with faith. Now it is a subject of common remark that the
devotion to, or weakness for, their minister whether he be
The Case against Women s Suffrage. 85
a Romanist priest, an Anglican clergyman, or a Noncon-
formist pastor which is felt by a vast number of women is
excessive, and leads to an unreasoning confidence in his
opinion and direction in matters of which he is by no means
peculiarly qualified to judge. Under existing circumstances,
this fact does not appear to produce very alarming results ;
it is the theme of pleasantries, and, perhaps, of occasionally
serious mischief, but it does not rauk as a recognised source
of national danger. If, however, women are to be accorded
political power especially in these days of aggressive
ecclesiasticism will not the danger of the undue influence
of the priest be very real ? The personal attachments must
continue ; and we can hardly anticipate that women will
suddenly develop the capacity of drawing the distinctions,
in point of the province of the respected teacher, which are
easily perceived and acted upon by men.
I am under the impression that it is rather less necessary
to press the importance of this danger than that of many
others. For apparently it stands almost alone in respect of
the manner, in which it weighs with the bulk of reflecting
men, as an alarming and probable consequence of the move-
ment under consideration. I will, therefore, only add the
expression of my anxiety that no jealousy on my part of
the increase of the religious element in political discussion
should be inferred. So far from such an inference being
justifiable, the ultimate basis of my dislike to the increase
of the influence of the priest, as priest, in politics, is the
harm to religion itself which, I believe, would be the
consequence.
In treating above of the differences of men and women I
have indirectly pointed to some of the probable and disastrous
86 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
consequences which would follow the admission of women
to the Franchise. It would be almost an endless task to
attempt to minutely and particularly describe them. One
would have to imagine, according to my position, every evil
consequent upon bad electors and bad representatives, to
form a correct and complete conception of the probable
consequences of the presence in the electorate of a body
either unfit intellectually, or in point of education and
contact with the world of business and international affairs,
or owing to insufficient responsibility for the consequences of
their votes. I have alluded to the topics of war and
ecclesiasticism on account of their vast and easily realised
importance in this connection, but I should not probably do
well to attempt to specify many particular directions in
which evil would probably be experienced.
There is, however, one other very important matter to be
mentioned in this place. I readily admit that the com-
plexion of the whole case would be entirely different if we
had to take into consideration the denial of an expectation
grounded upon custom, or the disappointment of wide-
spread and reasonable hopes. If women already had the
vote, it would be an entirely different matter to take it away
from them. A much stronger case than justifies the with-
holding it from them would be required to upset the
opinions, the calculations, and the habits which would then
have been formed. It is therefore, as well as for other
reasons, that an experiment is so eminently undesirable in
this case. But not only has no right grounded on
possession, or expectation founded upon custom, yet arisen,
but there are no anticipations which we need consider in the
least degree. For the women who want the power to vote
The Case ayainst Women's Suffrage. 87
are, for the most part, the very women who have no special
claims upon the consideration of anyone save themselves
in political matters. During many years it was simply the
<k shrill voice of a small minority " the noisy clamour of a
discontented few who demanded the Franchise for their
sex. The women of England, generally, were naturally
silent ; the voices of the former were alone heard. And these,
empty of the virtues and the wisdom of their sex,
reverberated long with but a slight effect ; but in process
of time, it is true, others, seeing good and able men
espousing the cause, have been persuaded that there is
something worthy of their notice in the agitation. But
there is this to be observed. It remains now as true as it
ever was, that the vast majority of the women of England,
comprising almost every female worthy of consideration in
the matter, do not want the vote, or, in other words, do not
wish for it. Many of these a vast number, possibly
amounting to a majority have been persuaded that it is
" the right " of women owning or occupying houses to have
a vote, because they are told that it is the property that
gives the vote. But even if they wished us to acknowledge
this, they would be satisfied that we acted no further on our
admission. For the rest, the women the happily rare
specimens of our spinsters and our widows who really
desire the Franchise, so far from deriving satisfaction there-
from, will merely find their appetite whetted by the exciting
taste of what is for them but a small instalment of the
substantial object of their unwholesome and degrading
ambition.
No doubt there may be legitimate aspirations on the part
of women, either fully developed or still latent, which
88 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
remain to be satisfied in the future. But is there one,
which will remain to grieve their sex, or the suppression
of which will retard the progress of our race, which cannot
be amply satisfied without their possession of the political
Franchise ? What then ? Shall we allow ourselves to be
led into a dangerous, or, at least, an unknown and un-
necessary course, without requiring stronger reasons than
are now forthcoming? If the Franchise is ever to be
granted to women, let us wait until the expediency of its
concession shall be shown, and not rely upon arguments
which are based upon a piltry fallacy as to the qualifying
virtue of property or its occupation. At present, it is
submitted, there is but little said or written in favour of
such a concession which does not rest either on puerile
gallantry, speculative generalisation, unfounded assertion,
or dogmatic declaration of purely imaginary rights.
PART II.
THE LARGER QUESTION OF THE EQUALI-
SATION OF THE SEXES INVOLVED IN THE
IMMEDIATE QUESTION.
" Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king."
SHAKESPEAKE.
INTRODUCTION.
WE have now arrived at the real issue which is raised by the
present movement in favour of women's suffrage an issue
of which the importance is probably unparalleled in political
history namely, whether any difference whatever of
position or capacity is to be recognised by law or custom as
properly existing between the members of the two sexes, or,
which in effect is very much the same question, whether any
subordination on the part of the wife to the husband is to
be maintained under the authority of law or custom.
Of course, the logician Mill, as well as probably all his
followers who have really dealt with the subject in an
exhaustive manner, go to the entire length to which they are
led by their immediate contention, and proji ounce in favour
of the abolition of every vestige of inequality between the
90 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
sexes, even in the married state itself. Are we then
prepared for this larger movement, or shall we pause if
for no other reason, at least for the sake of avoiding its
consummation ere we concede the apparently minor point
of the political Franchise as a matter of small moment, or as a
means of quieting an importunate clamour ? Let us not forget
that, in considering the question of the justice or expediency
of the latter step, we cannot properly confine our attention
to those facts which are clear to all at a single glance, but
are bound to determine, as far as we may be able, what it in
reality is, from a comprehensive point of view, which we are
told is just or expedient. And I would here respectfully add,
that an adequate regard for justice or expediency never
shattered the happiness of an empire or impaired its
example to the world. We shall do well to look to con-
sequences, when we are endeavouring to ascertain the
position in respect of justice or expediency of a proposed
course of political action.
But, ere we trust ourselves in the regions of reason
supernaturally unaided, there is one source of authority
the validity of which does not depend upon our approval,
to which I could hardly do well, on any assumption, to omit
to appeal. It is on several grounds that I justify a reference
to the authority of religion as foremost among the sources of
information and instruction upon our subject which are open
to us. Many, for instance, of our countrymen who will be
called upon to decide the question under consideration are
sincere adherents of the Christian religion. As such, the ulti-
mate motive of all their political action can properly be no
other than a desire to faithfully serve the Divine Head of
that religion, and the test, of every proposition which they
Equalisation of the Sexes. 91
have to consider is the best perception of His will at which
they are able to arrive. As, moreover, it is now no mere
matter of temporary expediency which is in question, but
the universally important matter of the proper relation of
the sexes is raised, it is hardly likely that revelation, in
whatever light we view it, can be without express teaching,
or at least indication, on the point. While, therefore, by
no means unmindful of the extreme undesirability of
attempting to supply the defects in a weak argument by the
citation of irrelevant texts, or of unnecessarily importing so
sacred a subject as religion into a controversy of a nature
which may well be settled without direct verbal reference
thereto, I am clear that to the enlightened Protestant, upon
any matter upon which he believes the Bible speaks, it is an
authority from which there is no appeal, being a revelation
emanating from the Source and Judge of truth. Upon this
I unhesitatingly rely at the present branch of my argument.
It may, indeed, be well added that, as women admittedly
owe to Christianity an immense improvement in their
position, it can hardly be considered as unfair to appeal to
this authority to prevent a contemplated further alteration
in their position, notwithstanding many may consider it
would be a further elevation. Having been often relied
upon in their favour, it ought hardly to be repudiated, even
on the lowest ground, when considered of course, wrongly
so as urged against their advantage. But while Christianity
exercises so powerfully beneficial an influence over other
relations, who would exclude its consideration from the
subject of the marriage state ? Indeed, Mill himself does
not exclude it from his treatise. I shall subsequently advert
more particularly to his remarks upon this matter.
92 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
I must, therefore, now invite the " courteous reader" to
bear with me while I endeavour to satisfy him that the
subordination of the wife to the husband is (1) inculcated
by religion ; (2) supported by the authority of universal
practice ; and (3) obviously expedient in the interests of
both. If this be established, and it be acknowledged that
the possession of the Franchise by women is inconsistent
therewith, it clearly ought not to be extended to them,
whether they are intellectually fit for its exercise or not.
SECTION I.
THE ARGUMENT FROM RELIGION.
LET me now introduce what seems to me the correct outline
of the Scriptural teaching upon the matter.
I take it that, in endeavouring to estimate the real force
of the present argument, we ought not to be contented with
the consideration of a few texts from the writings of the
Apostles, but that we should try, as far as posible, to
appreciate what is the real import of the whole teaching of
revelation upon the subject, what, in other words, is the
view of the relation between the sexes which appears from
the tenor of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, to be of
Divine appointment. Then, whether we base our opinion upon
the letter, or rely in preference upon the spirit or underlying
meaning, I suggest that we cannot, with candour and intelli-
gence, arrive at any other conclusion than that it is part of
the Divine will revealed to us, that the wife should live in a
state of obedience to her husband.
Let attention be first fixed upon the Biblical description
of the Creation, *and the condition of our great ancestor and
ancestress before the Fall. Is not the plain inference from
this record that, putting it shortly, the woman was made for
the benefit of the man, and not the man for the benefit of
94 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
the woman, nor the woman primarily for the same immediate
purpose as man, or, in other words, that, whereas the
creation of man was for inscrutable reasons of the Divine
pleasure, that of woman was more immediately for the
perfecting of the existence of man ? To weary the reader by
the repetition of words which presumably are of almost
life-long familiarity to him would possibly be unwise.
I therefore merely appeal to a recollection of, or a reference
to, the early chapters of Genesis, without further comment
or gloss.
If, however, we go a step further, and come to the time
when Adam, having hearkened to the voice of his wife, has
with her brought about the degradation of the human race,
we are on ground which, for the present purpose, seems
still firmer than the above. For the consequent punishment
pronounced upon our progenitors, so far as it related to the
woman, had two specific branches, the latter of which is
expressed in these words : " Thy desire shall be to thy
husband, and he shall rule over thee."
To follow the nature of the relation of the sexes
through the entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures would
probably be both tedious and superfluous. For it must
be sufficiently obvious to all who possess even a super-
ficial acquaintance with these, that the nature of the
relation instituted by the words I have cited is uniformly
treated as subsisting from beginning to end. We find,
indeed, the matrimonial condition continually regarded from
the husband's point of view, if I may so express it. Yet the
condition of the wife does not by any means appear to have
been so far from what it at present is as the language of
some may imply. The good wife was then, as she is now,
The Argument from Religion. 95
the most precious of earthly possessions which a man could
enjoy; but still she was clearly the possession and help-
meet of the husband, in a sense distinctly different from
that in which the husband was the possession and help-
meet of the wife. Let a few landmarks suffice.
In the Decalogue, then, we find the law, " Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbour's wife .... nor anything that is thy
neighbour's." But there is no corresponding provision as
to the coveting of a husband. I do not for one moment
mean that the latter would not have been wrong beyond all
doubt. My contention is merely that the wife is treated as
a being existing for the benefit of her husband. He is
subject to certain duties to her, but not to duties of the
engrossing nature of her's to him. It can hardly be validly
objected that, in the commandment cited, the converse case
is included, for the sexes are expressly distinguished in
other of the commandments as well as in another clause of
the commandment from which I have quoted.
Again, we find repeatedly the expression " to take a
wife, "as well as others, clearly referring to the woman as
one the most valuable, doubtless of the man's possessions.
The constant phraseology places it beyond doubt that a
man by marriage becomes entitled to a self-renouncing
helpmeet, who is the desirable complement of himself, and
whom, in return, he is bound to affectionately cherish and
respect, but in whom he is not reciprocally merged. In other
words, a wife is regarded as an addition of a most important
kind to her husband's possessions. "He that smiteth
Kiriath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah
my daughter to wife." ** House and riches are an inherit-
ance from fathers : but a prudent wife is from the Lord."
96 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
It is, however, probably superfluous to say anything in
support of the assertion that the dispensation with regard to
the position of a wife which commenced in the person of
Eve continued throughout the whole of the period covered
by the Old Testament Scriptures.
But some, while admitting that this is so, nevertheless
contend that the relation of the sexes was clanged by Our
Lord, and that one of the results of His redeeming work
was the equalisation of women to men. , Yet I doubt
whether a single passage or fact can be cited from the
Scriptures which in any way establishes this view. It is,
however, broadly laid down by some that, as a matter of
truth, the punishment inflicted upon women -_a the person
of Eve was revoked. This is a sweeping proposition, and
one would apparently be justified, before admitting it, in
requiring very clear proof. But far from anything of the
kind being forthcoming, we know, beyond all doubt, that in
the punishment of men, so far as relates to their temporal
condition in this world, which is all that is relevant to the
present argument, no change whatever has been made.
Spiritual and intellectual blessings have marvellously
ameliorated the suffering which is naturally incident to the
fallen lot, yet it is still, as much as ever, a truth of nature,
that in toil or sorrow man eats of the ground all the days of
his life, that thorns and thistles are brought forth by the
ground to him, that he eats the herb of the field, and that
in the sweat of his face he eats bread till he returns unto
the ground, for that dust he is and unto dust does he
return. The earthly paradise, with its ambrosial fruits and
its perfect loveliness, unchequered by an uncongenial
.growth, is not restored, but a celestial habitation of wholly
The Argument from Eeligion. 97
unimaginable glory is discovered as a sphere which may be
reached by man, when the unremitted penalty of bodily
dissolution, which was first decreed to Adam, has been
tasted by his spiritually restored descendants. But more
than this, we know, as an unquestionable physiological fact,
that the first of the two specific branches of the punishment
of the woman exists to this day nay, more, that its con-
tinuance was expressly recognised by the language of Our
Lord Himself (John xvi. 21). How, then, is it possible to
contend that the other branch of the punishment of the
woman, if punishment it really be, has been revoked as a
matter of inference ? Knowing that neither were expressly
altered, and ^eing, further, that the one, the existence of
which is in its nature obvious to the senses at this moment,
was not revoked, is it not clearly a wilful, or, at least, an
inexcusable, distortion of the meaning of the Scriptures to
pretend that the other, which is not in the same way as the
former a fact the existence of which is in its nature per-
ceptible to the senses, and which, therefore, would stand
incomparably more in need of clear and express revocation,
were revocation intended, has been impliedly revoked ?
But who will seriously contend that the truth is really left
to inference, either one way or the other ? Is there really any
lack of express teaching upon the subject which places the
matter beyond the possibility of any reasonable doubt ? It
is somewhat regrettable to be obliged to cite certain partially
well-known passages, but for the completeness of the present
argument it seems eminently necessary to do so.
From Peter, then, who, as the marriage service of the
Church of England so aptly remind3 us, was himself a
married man, we have the following : " In like manner, ye
7
98 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. . . . For
after this manner aforetime the holy women also, who hoped
in God .... being in subjection to their own husbands : a&
Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose children
ye now are, if ye do well" (1 Peter iii. 1, 5, 6). Could
anything be more significant with regard to the contention
that no fundamental change in the relation of the sexes was
brought about by the new dispensation. A woman who
faithfully fulfilled her duties towards her husband under the
old dispensation is held up as an example in this very respect,
for the imitation of women under the new dispensation.
From the Epistles of Paul," wherein," as Peter says in his
Second Epistle (iii. 16), "are some things hard to be under-
stood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do
also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction," we
may cite the following teaching. " I would have you know
that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the
woman is the man. . . . Man .... is the image and
glory of God : but the woman is the glory of the man. For
the man is not of the woman ; but the woman of the man :
for neither was the man created for the woman ; but the
woman for the man " (1 Corinth, xi. 3, 7, 8, 9). " Wives
be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord"
(Colossians iii. 18). " But speak thou the things which
befit the sound doctrine .... that aged women ....
may train the young women to love their husbands. . . .
being in subjection to their own husbands, that the
word of God be not blasphemed" (Titus ii. 1, 3, 4, 5).
" Let the women keep silence in the churches . . . .let
them be in subjection, as also saith the law. And if they would
learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home "
The Argument from Religion.
(1 Corinth, xiv. 34, 35). " Wives, be in subjection unto your
own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the
head of the wife, as Christ also is the Head of the church,
being Himself the Saviour of the body. But as the church
is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands
in everything .... Let the wife see that she fear her
husband" (Ephes. v. 22, 23, 24, 33).
It is well to carefully bear in mind, as of pre-eminent
importance in this matter, the sublime and enduring
metaphor, by which, in the last of the above passages, the
relation between Our Saviour and the Church is portrayed
as that of the bridegroom and the bride. This metaphor
seems to be foreshadowed in Isaiah (liv. 5, 6), in the words,
" Thy Maker is thine husband .... and the Holy One of
Israel is thy Redeemer For the Lord hath called
thee as a wife." It is apparently adopted by John the
Baptist, in the words, " He that hath the bride is the bride-
groom : but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth
and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bride-
groom's voice : this my joy therefore is fulfilled " (John
iii. 29) ; and by Our Lord in the words, " Can the sons of
the bridechamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with
them?" (Matthew ix. 15); as also in the parable of the
ten virgins (Matthew xxv. 1-13). In the Revelation it seems
still preserved, in the passage commencing with the
words, " Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the wife
of the Lamb " (xxi. 9) ; and in the words, " The Spirit and
the bride say, Come" (xxii. 17). Now, if this metaphor
stood alone, would it not be fraught with instruction upon
our subject, but, applied as it is by Paul, is it not absolutely
conclusive ? The Church being immeasurably inferior to
100 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
her Head, can the relation between the two be adequately
represented by a figure which denotes equality? It is,
moreover, to be remembered that this metaphor is naturally
studied in connection with the remainder of the Scriptures,
and can hardly fail to convey to a candid reader an impres-
sion consonant to the effect produced by the literal teaching
of the kind which I have cited. And it is clearly a sign of
a want of religion or of piety to treat, a figure of revelation
as imprcper or misleading.
There are some, however, who seem to suppose that,
though the letter of the Scriptures may apparently be
against the equality of the sexes in marriage, yet since the
effect of Christianity has, as a matter of fact, been to greatly
raise the position of women, its spirit must be in favour of
absolute equality. This is a somewhat curious argument.
In the face of the actual authorities which I have cited, it
may appear unnecessary to grapple with it. But as many
are extremely hard to convince where the issue turns upon
textual authority, it may be well to point out that, though it
may be admitted that the tendencies of Christianity are in
the direction of the equality of men, it is not contended by
many serious and able thinkers that all power and in-
equality is contrary to Christian teaching. Government is
necessary ; the institution of property, under proper regula-
tions, is apparently desirable. And the facts of sex, that
the woman is, in some way, the weaker vessel, and the man
the stronger, remain just as truly as the other facts of infancy
and immaturity in both boys and girls. Surely we ought to
recognise in the effect of Christianity upon the position of
woman, not her emancipation from a position of natural
subjection, but the amelioration of that position by virtue of
The Argument from Religion. 101
the government of the husband having been so largely
converted from a bad into a good form of rule. The subjec-
tion of Englishmen to our Parliament, restrained as it is by
the principles of Christianity, is very far better than the
subjection of the Romans to their Caesar. Yet, as we know
from, juristic science, the one government is as absolute as the
other, and the facts of government aid subjection remain
unimpaired. And just as ths ordinary well-disposed citizen
except, perhaps, in the matter of taxation- -ffecls^s .Tt has
been well said, the burden of State control as little as he
does the enormous pressure of the atmosphere, so little does
a Christian wife feel the burden of a Christian husband's
rule. But the fact of the relation of headship and subjec-
tion ought, it is submitted, in point of religious righteous-
ness, to exist as much in the one case as in the other. The
removal of the sense of the painful pressure of the rule, by
the improvement in the mode of regulating its imposition,
is the true result of Christianity in either case.
But the entire statement with regard to the effect of
Christianity on the position of women, which is so much relied
upon, seems to be inaccurate, or, at least, misleading. For
the tendency of Christianity b as not been to place women on
an equality with men, or, indeed, to allow them the position
which heathenism has, in at least one very conspicuous
instance, assigned them. We must throw aside the influence
of Christianity upon the unprogressive races, and confine
our attention to those nations which have shown a capacity
for advanced civilisation, for otherwise we might attribute to
religion that which was owing to human intelligence. Again,
we must leave out of our consideration the present movement
in England, not only because it is the case which has to
102 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
be made out, but because it cannot be said that it has
originated with, or been principally sustained by, Christians
or Christianity. If, then, we trace the effect of the reception
of our religion by the progressive and civilised races, I doubt
if it can be said with general truth that its effect has been
to raise the position of the wife relatively to her husband.
If we compare the. position o? the Roman matron which is
treated of below,* or possibly Jhat of the wives of Grecian
race, ar the time ot their reception of Christianity, with
their position immediately afterwards, and as inculcated by
Christian teachers, I do not think it is by any means clear
that the subjection of the wife was not either formulated
anew, or, at all events, additionally emphasised. Certainly
the position of the Roman wife, when Constantino declared
Christianity the religion of the Empire, was not, in the eye
of the law, that of one who was bound to permanently
honour and obey her husband. Indeed, the truth seems
rather to be that the real effect of Christianity has been to
raise the wife from a servile condition, where it has
existed, but to restrain her from equality, or the too
near approach thereto, which has existed among heathens,
and is, in fact, consistent only with ignorance or repudia-
tion of its teaching.
Let me now call the reader's attention to Mill's argument
on this aspect of the subject. Considering that his work
extends over some 188 pages, and that less than one page
and a half are devoted to the religious argument, it will not
probably be thought unreasonable to say that he treats the
subject very lightly perhaps I might say that he handles it
with a somewhat cavalier deportment. Touching this
matter at all, and affecting to answer the objections to his
The Argument from Religion. 103
views based upon the Bible, he might naturally have been
expected to deal with these rather more explicitly and
amply than he does. Possibly those who estimate the
importance of this aspect of the question more highly than
he, may be inclined to draw an inference from this fact
unfavourable to the cause which he advocates.
As the only passage in his work which deals directly with
this matter is so short, it may be well, in the interests of the
formation of a sound opinion upon the point, to set it forth
verbatim. " We shall," he says, " be told, perhaps, that
religion imposes the duty of obedience ; as every established
fact which is too bad to admit of any other defence, is
always presented to us as an injunction of religion. The
Church, it is very true, enjoins it in her formularies, but it
would be difficult to derive any such injunction from
Christianity. We are told that St. Paul said, ' Wives, obey
your husbands ' : but he also said, 4 Slaves, obey your
masters/ It was not St. Paul's business, nor was it
consistent with his object, the propagation of Christianity,
to incite any one to rebellion against existing laws. The
Apostle's acceptance of all social institutions as he found
them, is no more to be construed as a disapproval of
attempts to improve them at the proper time, than his
declaration, * The powers that be are ordained of God,'
gives his sanction to military despotism, and to that alone,
as the Christian form of political government, or commands
passive obedience to it. To pretend that Christianity was
intended to stereotype existing forms of government and
society, and protect them against change, is to reduce it to
the level of Islamism or of Brahmanism. It is precisely
because Christianity has not done this, that it has been the
104 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
religion of the progressive portion of mankind, and Islamism,
Brahmanism, &c., have been those of the stationary
portions ; or rather (for there is no such thing as a really
stationary society) of the declining portions. There have
been abundance of people, in all ages of Christianity, who
tried to make it something of the same kind ; to convert us
into a sort of Christian Mussulmans, with the Bible for a
Koran, prohibiting all improvement : and great has been
their power, and many have had to sacrifice their lives in
resisting them. But they have been resisted, and the
resistance has made us what we are, and will yet make us
what we are to be."
Now the sneer contained in the opening sentence of this
passage is hardly to the present point ; for the sole question
when dealing with the religious argument is this : Is the
submission of the wife to the husband an injunction of
religion, or is it not ? It is quite beside the matter whether
the old-fashioned idea is incapable of any other defence or
not. Indeed, one who is endeavouring to convince a
Christian to his own views without repudiating the authority
of his religion, is under the necessity of showing, either
that the matter in question is not explicitly dealt with by
the authorities of his religion, or that those authorities are
not against him. For consistency requires that if he should
fail to do this, his would-be proselyte should be estopped
by the precepts of his religion, so long as he believes they
are against the views pressed upon him, from all hesitation
or need of further disputation in the matter.
That the visible Church, moreover, in probably almost
every one of its branches down to the time of the spread of
the new ideas by Mill and his contemporaries, has apparently
The Argument from Religion. 105
always been of opinion that the relation of the wife to her
husband approved by the authorities of the Christian
religion was really such as I contend is the case, can hardly
be taken as of no evidentiary value at all, from any reasonable
point of view. It is, indeed, both interesting and instructive
to observe how the ministers of the dissenting communities,
of all men on the earth, in their gallant efforts to escape
from the imagined unpleasantness of the word " obey " in the
marriage service, resort to curious substitutions, which are
either practically synonyms, or fall short of the meaning
desired by them. Coming, however, to the really important
part of the above passage, the reader may be somewhat
struck with the fact that there is little citation from the
Sacred Writings ; but, attempting to answer that which is
quoted, apparently the writer feels that he has disposed of
the whole matter. Let it not be forgotten that, in the
argument presented above, I rested, not on a single
text, or on one or many only, but on the whole weight of
Scriptural teaching, from the first to the last chapter of
the Bible.
But let us take the argument as we find it. The word
which Mill translates as slave may, it is submitted, well be
held to apply to many cases of service as to which no widely
entertained objection has yet been raised. This is, however,
a mere matter of observation, on which I do not by any
means rely. We must look at the reasoning closely, for it
is excessively sophistical, and may well puzzle us to answer
for awhile. Now, a slave or other servant is one who ex vi
termini is legally bound to serve. To such an one the
Apostle in effect says, " Perform your legal duty, and do
not let it be said that because you are a Christian you are a
106 Women's Suffrage, and National Danger.
refractory slave or servant." But what is a wife ? One
who is bound to perform wifely duties. What are wifely
duties not merely in Rome, or any particular locality when
the Apostle wrote, but everywhere and always ? It is
precisely upon this point that Paul, as well as the other
authorities of Scripture, inform us. " The husband is the
head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the Church,
being Himself the saviour of the body." In Ephesus only,
and there only for a time ? On the contrary, just as the
relation to which the conjugal is compared is eternal, so,
apparently, is the latter as enduring as the nature of men
and women. But further, " For this cause," says the
Apostle, " shall a man leave his father and mother, and
shall cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall become one
flesh." Was this the law of Colossae, or of any of the cities
to which the Epistle to the Ephesians was sent, and
obedience to which is all that is enjoined ? or is it not
rather part of an entire lesson to husbands and wives which
was to endure, not only until ColossaB and other cities of St.
Paul's time and their laws no longer existed, but until the
last pair should have quitted this present world ? And, let
it be noted, the Apostle is not merely addressing wives, but
husbands also. He is not merely saying to the former,
"Perform your legal duties," and to the latter, "I do
not ask you, by freeing your wife, to diminish your
temporal assets." He declares the duties of both by a
reference to the eternal relation between Christ and the
Church.
Again, though he who is actually a slave is exhorted to
obey his master, it would be impossible to contend that there
is any Biblical injunction in favour of the continuance of
The Argument from Religion. 107
the institution of slavery ; indeed, such continuance is clearly
against the golden rule of the 12th verse of the
7th chapter of Matthew. And some may consider that
the words of Paul to Philemon with reference to
Onesimus, the slave of the latter, amount to express
teaching that the relation of master and slave is inconsistent
with the bond of Christian fellowship between the two. If
this be so, as the object of the Apostle's labours was the
increase of the Church on earth that is, of the body
between whose members Christian fellowship exists it
must evidently follow that the abolition of slavery was
regarded by him as properly commensurate with the spread
of Christianity among slave owners and their slaves. But
the relation of husband and wife is not only not opposed to
Christianity, but is obviously both approved by it and
essential to the well-being of the human race. Therefore
we must assume that, while the Apostle not improbably
regarded slavery as a temporary institution, he must have
regarded marriage as a permanent condition. The fact that
he merely tells both slaves and wives to obey their masters
and husbands respectively would seem to show that, just as
he regarded it as self-evident that a slave was, and while
slavery existed would continue to be, one who was bound
to obey, so he regarded a wife as one who was, and
always would continue, till the end of the world,
bound to obey her husband. While slavery exists under
any system the slave must be legally bound to obey.
Without such obligation the institution cannot possibly
exist. While marriage continues the wife must be bound to
obey, and it is submitted that without such obligation this
institution also cannot permanently exist.
108 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
I submit, then, that, in the light of all of the passages
from Paul's epistles to which I referred, we cannot safely
regard his words as merely discouraging rebellion against
existing laws. They seem rather to be written for the
eJification of the Church during the entire duration of its
militant state. Nor does there seem to be any necessarily
temporary character in the words, " The powers that be are
ordained of God," and those which follow them. Surely no
one pretends that in endeavouring to understand an apostolic
direction we are to bid adieu to our intelligence and
knowledge. I certainly did not suggest that this was so in
gathering together the arguments against Mill's ideas from
the Scriptural point of view. Seeing, then, that when the
Apostle wrote the words last cited, the Emperor Nero was
on the Roman throne, it would seem obvious that the Apostle
is speaking rather of the necessary fact of some form of
government government in any form being necessarily
absolute than of any particular and temporary instance of
it. We may take into consideration the possibility that he
had some patriotic weakness for the Roman constitution,
retaining as it did, even ia his time, to a considerable extent
the forms, though not the essence, of a republican government
or a limited monarchy. But this will not explain away the
words, " Rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to
the evil." If this were a statement of fact referring to
particulars, it would clearly be inaccurate ; and surely Paul
must have been quite as well aware of this, from his personal
experience, as are we. It is, therefore, evident that this
passage does not amount to a justification for any particular
form of government other than the best. What then does
it mean ? I do not pretend to speak with any remarkable
The Argument from Religion. 109
jucidity upon the matter, but I would suggest that its
meaning can hardly be anything but this. Christianity
teaches men to love one another, it favours approximation
towards equality. But its highly spiritual character which,
to some extent, places its sincere adherents in a manner
above the world, does not prevent it from being a practical
religion adapted to the natural condition of men in this
life. The new convert, burning with enthusiastic concep-
tions of the kingship of the Divine Head of his Church, may
be apt to despise all authority of worldly princes as an
unwarrantable usurpation over his freedom. A modus vivendi
is necessary, and the Apostle tells such men that their duty
to God is not necessarily incompatible with their legal duty to
a secular government. Just as God is the Supreme Ruler of
the universe, and His power is necessary for its ordering, so
.-an earthly government is necessary for the control of the
people of the State in which it exists. There is no stumbling-
block to religious life in this fact, for power is a Divine
institution, and it is necessary for the avoidance of continual
anarchy that the secular power should be habitually obeyed.
Government is not necessarily a source of terror to well-doers.
And it must be carefully remembered that the powers of every
supreme government, whether monarchical or republican,
are precisely the same, from a juristic point of view. But
the repositories of the powers differ in every different form
of government. I suggest that the former are " the
powers that be," in the sense of the Apostle; the latter
are but the occasional and accidental possessors of the
same.
The matter may possibly be made somewhat clearer by a
reference to a similar passage of Peter (1st Epistle, chap.
110 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
ii.13-17). We see that Christians are exhorted to be subject
to every ordinance of man " for the Lord's sake." It is as if
the Apostles told their followers to avoid bringing un-
necessary reproach upon their body; that because they were
Christians they ought not to be bad citizens, but that they
should see that, by being known as law-abiding and upright
men, their personal reputations did not retard the progress
of their missionary work.
In short, it is not here suggested for one moment that
Christianity was intended to stereotype existing forms of
government and society. On the contrary, the inevitable
effect of the reception of its doctrines was to radically
change existing political and social institutions. Everyone
knows the difference between an honest reformer and one
who simply agitates because he despises all authority except
his own. And what the Apostles tell us is to remember
that the institution of government is necessary. So, it
may be added, though this is an a fortiori case, the institu-
tion of marriage is necessary, and being, like a state, an
association of more than one person, government is necessary
for its existence. But, as I have said, in speaking of
marriage, I submit that the Apostles go further, and tell us
with considerable amplification, not only what it in their
day necessarily was, but what in its best regulated state it
ought to be.
We must, then, remember the immense importance of the
proper regulation of the relation between the sexes, and the
consequent improbability that this is left unindicated in the
Scriptures, otherwise than by the general teaching of the
Golden Rule. But, as a fact, is express teaching, or at all
events sufficient ground for safe inference, wanting ? If not, .
The Argument from Eeligion. Ill
what is that inference ? I submit that both the language
and the spirit of revelation from beginning to end point us
to this conclusion, and to this alone : the wife cannot,
without pro tanto defying the authority of the Christian
religion, claim equality with her husband; but, living
according to the manner inculcated in the Bible, she will
live for the benefit of her husband, submitting her will in
obedience to him.
SECTION II.
THE ARGUMENT FROM CUSTOM.
HAVING now endeavoured to appreciate the religious
argument, it is time to advert to other sources of information
upon our subject. For it would be unsatisfactory in
political discussion to forget that there are those to whom
Biblical authority is insufficient, and who therefore require
arguments founded upon another basis. Moreover, it is
possible that there are some who still think that the matter is
left open by the Scriptures for the decision of every age and
nation, according to their own particular views of expediency
or justice.
I now, therefore, appeal to the authority of custom. In
doing so, my meaning must not be understood as being that
any weighty reason in favour of the continuance of the
existing state of things in England arises from the fact of
the custom of England hitherto. For this custom is now
impeached, and if it be supported at all, it must be supported
on other grounds than that of its own existence. It is,
however, conceived to be a permissible course to appeal for
the support of a particular custom to the authority of a
universal custom which has, so far as our information ex-
tends, existed among every nation and in every age down
The Argument from Custom. 113
to the present time, or at least with a few doubtful excep-
tions. This custom of the marital headship has, of course,
presented very many shades of variation in the degree in
which it has been limited. But the fact of the headship,
whether existing in an extravagant or in a moderate form,
has very generally remained. And it is reserved for the
latter half of the nineteenth century to discover, if so
discover it will, that the whole human race, or at least the
male portion of it, from the earliest times until now, has
laboured under a miserable misapprehension, and, in so
fundamental a matter as that under discussion, has not
only uniformly erred, but has practically always done so on
the same side. This fact is surely worthy of very careful con-
sideration. It is easy to underestimate its importance. Some
may think that, as we are still progressing in other respects,
there is no reason why we should not also be doing so in this.
By such ideas my contention may be obscured. The point
is, that in the case under consideration we have practically
no basis of experience except on one side, and we know as
a fact that the physical differences between the sexes
renders absolute equality in every respect impossible. We
are being invited to attempt to evolve by legal institutions
a factitious and technical equality. The world has existed
up to the present time without any considerable portion of
its inhabitants apparently considering this desirable or
practicable. We have no precedents on which to rely. A
totally new path is before us, and its dangers are conse-
quently unknown.
On the other hand, in ordinary questions of political
reform, we have either experience or analogy to help us to
a safe determination. Republics have alternated with
8
114 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
empires, and various intermediary forms of government
have been known for thousands of years. So anarchy, that
is to say a condition in which there is no government at all,
and highly centralised states, where the force and influence
of the supreme power are everywhere observable, as well as
innumerably varied forms of government between these two
extremes, have long afforded either danger-marks or patterns
to the race.
It is argued, however, by Mill that " custom, however
universal it may be, affords in this case no presumption, and
ought not to create any prejudice, in favour of the arrange-
ments which place women in social and political subjection
to men." " This dependence, as it exists at present, is not
an original institution, taking a fresh start from considera-
tions of justice and social expediency it is the primitive
state of slavery lasting on through successive mitigations
and modifications occasioned by the same causes which have
softened the general manners and brought all human rela-
tions more under the control of justice and the influence of
humanity. It has not lost the taint of its brutal origin.
No presumption in its favour, therefore, can be drawn from
the fact of its existence." In answer, further, to the
assertion that the government of the male sex, unlike other
forms of power, is natural, he asks, " Was there ever any
domination which did not appear natural to those who
possessed it ?" Now if it be intended that originally the
position of the wife was practically no other than that of the
ordinary slave, it is sufficiently clear, as, indeed, was
contended by Mr. Goldwin Smith some years ago, that
historical support for the position is entirely lacking. The
condition of the wife may have f reqently approached that of
The Argument from Custom. 115
the slave, especially in savage or semi-savage nations, but
inquiries into the primitive condition of human institutions
have yet to show that the two were originally identical,
or, indeed, that they were not clearly distinguished.
If, indeed, we carefully examine the condition of women
in early times, we shall find that just as certainly as to call the
matron of the present day " a slave " is to use the language
of exaggeration, so there is no solid foundation for this asser-
tion as to the origin of marital power. I do not propose to
trouble the reader with an examination of the condition of
women among the unprogressive races of the world, for it
cannot be shown that we have derived our institutions from
them. The fact that we find that among them the women
are often practically in a somewhat servile state is not the
least in favour of the assertion under consideration. On the
contrary, since there is strong reason to believe that the
races which we call unprogressive are better described as
declining, the more just inference would seem to be that the
state of women, as being that of the weaker portion of human-
ity, has among such r^ces declined to its present state of
humiliation, rather than continued from such an original
condition. But whatever be the fact as to this point, we are
amply justified in attempting to establish the general truth
by a reference to the antiquities of the progressive races.
If, then, we study the Old Testament Scriptures, in what-
ever light we may regard them, no foundation can be found
for the suggestion either that the wife was confused with
the bondwoman, or that her condition was other than well
defined as distinct from that of a servile member of the
household. And if we turn to Greece, so far from finding
that in the earliest ages the wife was regarded as little better
8*
116 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
than a slave, or, indeed, any evidence that such was her
original position, the fact appears to be that women occupied
a better position, and were more respected in the heroic
age described by Homer than at any subsequent period of
the history of free Greece. Instead of observing the restric-
tions upon the freedom of women amounting to something very
like imprisonment, and the apparently general opinion of men
in their disfavour, which characterise the subsequent history of
the Ionian States, we find that women are pictured, as every-
one knows who has studied the Iliad and Odyssey, as not only
worthy of respectful con sideration and capable of moral emin-
ence, but as actually held in well-deserved respect, and not
unfrequently attaining to magnificent virtue and heroism.
Nay, more, the sex and nature of the woman are thought
worthy of the gods, and, with the exception of Zeus or
Jupiter, the female objects of Grecian imagination and
worship were regarded and described as no less powerful
than the male. Is it, then, possible to conceive, inasmuch
as in the earliest condition of the Grecian woman of which
we can obtain any information they were not only treated as
worthy and highly respected companions of the greatest
heroes, but their peculiar characteristics vicious as well as
virtuous were embodied in the persons of the national gods,
that the primitive Grecian woman was a slave ? The
condition, indeed, of the heroic ages continued in a large
measure among the Dorians during historical times. And
it has been pointed out that the decline in the state of
women among the lonians was not apparently due to
indigenous causes, but seems to have resulted from the
influence of the Eastern races. It may be added that during
the decline of Greece a revulsion of feeling with regard to
The Argument from Custom. 117
women seems to have taken place, similar to that which was
experienced in Rome, and which is now observable in
England. From a condition of stringent restraint they seem
to have emerged into dissolute license.
Again, in Rome, though we mount up to the earliest sources
of our information, no trace of the wife's slavery can be
found. The materfamilias is nowhere, and in no degree,
confused or classed with the serva. True, the marital
power is said to have been probably unlimited at first, but
so is that of the British Parliament over every subject in
the land. But Britons, as every one knows, are not slaves,
neither was the Roman matron a serva. The paterfamilias
may have had the same power of disposition over his wife as
over his herds, but the position and condition of a woman
were not those of the horse, the ox, or the swine. On the
contrary, so far as we have any indications of the truth,
the Roman wife occupied a position of respect and honour.
Of the subsequent position of women I shall say more later
on ; but it may be well to point out in this place that what
is called the emancipation of women, or the nearest approach
thereto which was seen in Greece and Rome, took place
concurrently with the decline of their national greatness.
But does it follow, even assuming for the purposes of
argument that the power of the husband over the wife had
its origin in force, that this power, like that of the master
over the slave, which also had its origin in force, is bad, or,
indeed, that its origin was sufficiently brutal to prevent the
ordinary presumption from immemorial custom from
arising ? The cases are evidently separated by a broad
difference, which apparently renders all inference from the
origin or history of the one to those of the other improper
118 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
and misleading. For the power exercised by men over
other men was, as a rule, possible merely because of the
superior education, organisation, or equipment in point of
arms, or other accidental circumstances, on the part of the
former. Thus the slave of one day might, if emancipated, be
without difficulty the slave owner of the next. The difference
was not of innate capacity, but of the circumstances of the
career in life of the individual. With the dependence of
women the case is entirely different. The power of men
with regard to them is irremovable, it is a permanent fact
of human nature. It is not that it merely seems natural to us.
The fact upon which it is based is indisputably natural. If,
then, it be no matter of variable circumstances, but the
result of immutable conditions of relative capacity, how
can we say that the marital power has been arbitrarily
assumed ? The ordinary husband cannot, and never could,
avoid possessing the power. He has not assumed it : it has
existed as a consequence of the natures and constitutions of
the two sexes. True, he need not exercise the power ; but,
notwithstanding this, he cannot emancipate his wife there-
from. We ought, indeed, to bear in mind that the relation
of the man to the woman is in some respects midway
between that of the father and the child and that of equals.
The paternal authority is clearly based upon power, but
upon power the necessity of which is obvious to the most
obtuse as well as the most philosophical. It therefore
escapes the designation of arbitrary control. The marital
headship is, however, no less necessary, both from natural
causes and from motives of expediency, but from the superior
capabilities of the woman as compared with the child its
necessity is not so conspicuously clear.
The Argument from Custom. 119
But we may handle the matter somewhat differently.
Probably no one would dispute that the universality of
government in civilised countries raises a presumption in
favour of the institution. Yet, I suppose, it is undeniable
that government had its origin in force. And if it be
answered that in the case of this institution mankind have
been enabled from observation of anarchy to arrive at an
opinion upon its utility, after the institution of an instructive
comparison, it may surely be rejoined that the many
individual cases where the headship of the husband has not
existed, furnish material for a similar process in the case of
this institution.
Considerations such as the above seem also to furnish a
sufficient reply to arguments based upon the course of history
and the tendencies of progressive society in the direction of
equality of rights, and to the idea that this " relic of the
past" the social and political subjection of women to
men " is discordant with the future,!' and must therefore
necessarily disappear.
Upon this branch of my subject, then, I will content
myself with saying that reasons of prudence must compel
us, in a matter of the most wide- reaching and obvious
importance, to attach considerable weight to the fact that
the inequality, in some respect or other, of women to men
has been practically recognised in all ages and among all
nations ; and that the consequent superiority, political or
marital, of men I am speaking of its actual existence as
distinguished from the abuses by which it may have been
characterised has been unopposed down to the latter half
of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, by any
extensively believed religion, by any widely approved
morality, philosophy or poetry, by custom, or by law.
SECTION III.
THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPEDIENCY.
IT is now my task to consider the matter in the light of
reason, unaided by Revelation, and also apart from custom
as a distinct source of authority independent of the
evidentiary materials which it furnishes for speculation as to
the future. We are, therefore, now shut up to the question
of expediency a sufficiently wide field of consideration
indeed in other words, we have to consider whether the
equality or the inequality of the sexes tends to the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. What is expedient for
men and women indiscriminately, attaching equal importance
to the happiness of both sexes ? In endeavouring to answer
this question we may neglect all thought of the differences,
real or supposed, between the intellectual powers of the
sexes. Let the reader for the present suppose them equal,
if he will. The argument following is independent of any
consideration of the kind.
Marriage is evidently a desirable institution. If direct
proof of this statement were needed, it would be sufficiently
easy to give it ; but as it is conceived that no very leading
politician impugns the accuracy of this, it would hardly be
occupying attention well to treat it as a debatable matter.
Now my contention here is that this institution cannot
The Argument /rom Expediency. 121
extensively exist where equality between the parties thereto
is legally and morally recognised and insisted upon, or, at
all events, that the parties cannot attain their highest
possible happiness by it where such is the case. In other
words, equality between man and woman is not only incon-
sistent, but is, generally speaking, absolutely incompatible,
with the marriage state.
By marriage I must be understood to mean, using the
words of Lord Penzance, in the case of Hyde v. Hyde,
which is reported at page 130 of the first volume of the
" Law Reports, Probate, Divorce and Matrimonial Causes,"
" the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to
the exclusion of all others." That union called marriage
which is capable of dissolution, bona gratia, as it is called,
that is to say, at the will of the parties, seems to me to be
merely an intercourse short of marriage, though subject to
certain regulations and consequences during its continuance.
Sufficient reason why the institution of marriage should, in
the interests of women, be indissoluble, except for one
cause, will appear later ou.
In support of the above contention it is submitted that in
the case of every permanent relation between two or more
human beings by which intimate association is involved, the
right to command and the power of enforcing obedience is
necessarily possessed by one or some number less than all.
And it must be remembered that a woman has a will, and is
subject to inclinations of her own, just as is the case with a
man. In the union of every husband and wife we have,
therefore, two distinct sources of volition ; and, as we are
speaking of people as they are and will continue until the
millenial year, and not of people as we might wish them to
122 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
be, it is obvious that the dispositions and inclinations of
desire controlling these two sources must often differ, and,
in the absence of constraint, a difference of will must ensue.
What then ? Assuming equality to be not only inculcated
by law but demanded in practice, can anything but anarchy
on a small scale ensue ? And anarchy, moreover, attended
with the supreme inconvenience of its consequences on the
minds and hearts of the pair, being consequences from which
there is practically no escape in separation for honourable
people. It is quite inadequate to say that well-disposed
couples will give and take, and bear and forbear. " The
law was added because of transgressions." If couples were
all well disposed, we should have small need of marriage
laws at all. Their only raison d'etre, as laws, is based upon the
fact that couples are not necessarily well-disposed. Some,
however, may contend that, rather than the woman should
have any special motive for giving way in case of a
disagreement, the bitter end should be pressed on, and the
parties, while remaining married, should live apart. But
with men and women of normal feelings this contention
ought to have a very scanty weight. For is it possible to
strike a more staggering blow at morality, in the specific
sense of the term, than to bring about a state of things in
which people under middle age should live apart from a con-
jugal companion, while incapacitated from second marriage
by the subsistence of a link from which they were unable
to break free ? And, surely, the offspring of the curiously
regulated union approved by our opponents are entitled to
some consideration. Parodying, then, some words of Mill
which are quoted below, I contend that there is nothing to
be said in favour of anarchy and lawlessness in the family,
The Argument from Expediency. 123
which cannot be said, mutatis mutandis, for anarchy and
lawlessness in the State. For supreme power is just as truly
necessary between man and wife, while they are not in a
condition of perfect excellence, as similar power is necessary
in a State, so long as its members are not all in a condition
of such excellence.
On referring to Bentham (pages 230-231 of the work
mentioned above) we find the following : " There may at
any moment arise a contradiction between the wills of two
persons who pass their lives together. The good of peace
requires that a pre-eminence should be established which
may prevent or end these contests. But why should the
man govern? Because he is the stronger. In his hands
the power maintains itself. Give the authority to the
woman, and every moment a revolt would break out on the
part of her husband. This reason is not the only one. It
is probable that the man, by his kind of life, has acquired
more experience, more aptitude for affairs, more steadiness
of mind. In these respects there are exceptions ; but there
are exceptions to every general rule Those ....
who out of some vague notion of justice and generosity
wish to give to the woman an absolute equality, only spread
for her a dangerous snare. To absolve her by law, as far as
possible, from the necessity of pleasing her husband, would
operate to weaken her empire instead of strengthening it."
That the occasions for the exercise of power by the
husband over his wife may not be so conspicuous or fre-
quent, even regarding numerical proportion, as by the
sovereign power over the State is easily accounted for.
Among other possible reasons, the fact exists that in a vast
number, and in probably a majority, of the cases of marriage
124 Women'* Suffrage and National Danger.
in England, the parties are agreeable objects to one another,
whereas in the State the repository of power is not neces-
sarily the choice of all of its members, and generally not
completely so of any, and is certainly not the object of the
extreme and unparalleled affection or passion which often
exists between, or at least on the part of one of, those who
are first betrothed sweethearts and subsequently man and
wife. Mill, indeed, tells us that " things never come to an
issue of downright power on one side, and obedience on the
other, except where the connection altogether has been a
mistake and it would be a blessing to both parties to be
relieved from it." I do not, however, think it by any means
safe to go so far as this. For, even setting apart the last
clause, this passage can probably only be supported according
to the view of those who regard marriage as a state for
which only a minority of the human race are adapted. If it
be admitted, as I contend it must by all true moral philo-
sophers, that, in the interests of morality, it is well that
people should not be so extremely scrupulous in the selec-
tion of a spouse as to stickle for almost absolute identity
of tastes ; or, in other words, that it is eminently desirable,
and, indeed, if morality is not to be a virtue very rare, even
necessary, that marriage should be the condition of the large
majority of the adults of both sexes, the passage can hardly
be assented to, except so far as it contains the element of
the undoubted truth that, even as matters at present are,
the conjugal union is not a condition of human beings in
which one party is perpetually fulminating lordly mandates,
which are obeyed by the other merely through the fear of
the consequences of the displeasure of the former in the
contrary event.
The Argument from Expediency. 125
But Mill asserts that " it is not true that in all voluntary
association between two people one of them must be abso-
lute." I am not aware that anyone has ever said otherwise
where the association is deter minable either at the will of
both parties or for the simple reason that serious disagree-
ment between them exists. Indeed, if the word " volun-
tary" applies to the time subsequent to the entering upon
the association, as well as to the entering thereupon itself,
so as to signify that either party is at liberty to withdraw
from the association, the statement is, if it may respectfully
be so said, very much in the nature of a meaningless truism,
In support of this statement, and also of the contention
totally unconnected in point of reason where marriage is,
understood as above described that the case of marriage is
similar in this respect, the renowned logician points us to
the case of partnership. Partners are often equals ; and yet
we know that their association is not only possible but very
usual in commercial countries. Therefore, as well as because
it is part of the common warfare of our less cultured adver-
saries to tell us flatly tliat marriage is a partnership, it is
evidently well to attempt to minutely refute the view which
is suggested in this reasoning.
Is there, then, any substantial analogy between partnership
and marriage, such as to justify the above view ? The answer
ought indeed to be clear to any one who, although not a
lawyer, has a tolerably clear perception of the principles
which govern the two cases respectively. In the first place,
the object of a partnership is not the pleasure or gratification
of the heart or mind, contemplated from the association of
the members, but it is the acquisition of one thing pecuniary
gain as a consequence of combined effort. The object of
126 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
marriage, on the other hand, if, at least, we consider the
case from the point of view of buth parties, is certainly not
generally this, and probably is hardly ever this alone.
What the objects in reality are, it would be rather late in
the day for me to attempt to inform those who are more
particularly acquainted with the facts of their own cases
than I can be reasonably expected to be. Let it suffice for
me to point out that the pleasure or advantage to be
derived from the association, not as a means to an end, but
as the very end itself, is generally the motive of marriage,
at least on the part of one of the parties concerned, so far
as the motive is at all clearly denned, or aught but an un-
reasoning passion. Some of the consequences of this
cardinal difference between marriage and partnership may
be easily worked out by the reader.
But again, a fundamental principle of partnership is the
rule that MI re communi potior est conditio prohibentis. This
rule, working together with that as to the power of
majorities, where there are more than two partners, renders
the institution of partnership thoroughly consistent with
the approved principles of sovereignty as opposed to
anarchy, and therefore no exception to the rule above laid
down from any point of view. For just as government may
go on where one magistrate can veto the actions of an
equal, and^?r0 tanto, become in a sense the sovereign of the
other, so a partner who can veto his associate's desire,
occupies momentarily a similar relation towards the latter.
Where there is a. possibility of a majority, a clear case of
the capacity for the exercise of controlling power exists.
But in the case of marriage, no majority is possible in
monogamous states. And if the rule of the preservation of
The Argument from Expediency. 1 27
the status quo, in case of difference of opinion as to a pro-
posed course of action, were applied to the ordinary life of
a family, it hardly needs the pen of a humourist to describe
the inevitable disaster which would ensue. For marriage is
a relation dominating almost every phase and every moment
of the existence of the parties, and which is not, like
partnership, confined to one aspect of the life of mortals.
The foregoing considerations are, however, small in com-
parison with the following. The essential principle which
renders partnership a relation which is frequently adopted
is, that it can at any time be dissolved, either at the
will of any one partner, or, where this has been excluded
by the contract and the partnership is for a term, at the
joint will of all the partners, or at the instance of one
partner only, where circumstances have arisen which render
its continuance no longer desirable in the immediate interests
of all the partners, or putting it more simply, where the true
object of the partnership relation is no longer likely to be
obtained. For example, the Court will dissolve a partner-
ship before the expiration of the term of its continuance
agreed upon, where the business of the partnership can
only be carried on at a pecuniary loss (pecuniary gain
being always the only legally recognised object of a
partnership) ; where a partner, other than the one desiring
a dissolution, so conducts himself in matters relating to the
partnership business that it is not reasonably practicable for
the other partner or partners to carry on the business in
partnership with him ; and where a partner, other than the
partner seeking dissolution, becomes of permanently unsound
mind, or in any way permanently incapable of performing
Ms part of the partnership contract; or even when he
128 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
becomes liable to a criminal prosecution. Now the essence of
the marriage relation, as at present regulated in our country,
is precisely the reverse. The parties accept one another for
better or for worse perhaps it may be added that they very
often find one another a little worse than they expected.
What of a marriage which could be dissolved where it could
only be carried on at what is the appropriate counterpart or
equivalent of pecuniary loss in the case of partnership, or
where one of the parties so conducts himself or herself in
matters relating to the marriage concerns as to render it not
reasonably practicable that the marriage should be continued
so as to obtain the objects for which it was entered into, or
where one of the parties becomes incapable of discharging
his or her part of the innumerable duties of married life, or
for any other reason which is the counterpart or equivalent
of those enumerated above, as sufficient to obtain a dissolu-
tion of a partnership ? Once allow the possibility of dissolu-
tion on such grounds, and the opportunity for anyone to
obtain a dissolution would hardly appear difficult, at all events
if the other party were not disposed to submit to the most
irritating and systematic tyranny. The phrase, " Matters
relating to the partnership business," is capable of a practi-
cal application, being necessarily of limited import. But in
the case of marriage, the question would be not as to what
matters do relate to the marriage concerns or objects, but as
to what conceivable matters do not. And what would be
the limits of the scope of admissible allegations that from
circumstances of disagreement it was no longer practicable
to continue the marriage relation with advantage ?
In short, the institutions of marriage and partnership as
at present recognised are widely and essentially different.
The Argument from Expediency. 129
They are different in their nature, their objects, and the
rules by which they are regulated and without which
they would cease to be what they now are ; and, above all,
marriage is primarily a permanent relation, partnership is
primarily a temporary relation. We see, therefore, owing
to the rules which I have set forth, partnership is no excep-
tion to the fundamental condition of human relations : that
where there is a union between two persons, the effects of which
pervade their entire existence, and which is also permanent,
or not capable of dissolution if found disadvantageous, one
of the two is necessarily subject to the other, unless anarchy
and unhappiness are the normal condition of the parties,
so far as there is any necessity for law or custom in the
case.
Many, however, while agreeing with me that in the case
of a practically indissoluble marriage a marriage from
which there is no escape but with the greatest dishonour
one of the parties must be subject to the other, will perhaps
consider that this constitutes no reason why this subjection
should exist, because the marriage may well be made disso-
luble on easy terms. Since this is so, as well as for the
completion of the argument which has been entered upon,
it now becomes desirable that I should attempt to establish
that indissoluble marriage, by which I mean marriage only
capable of being dissolved on the one ground now recog-
nised by our law, is necessary in the interests primarily of
women, and secondarily of the whole race. It should, then,
be made to appear that not only, as it has been already
attempted to be shown, would such a marriage, if entered
into when equality between the sexes was recognised,
bring about discord and misery to both parties, but as a
130 Women's {suffrage and National Danger.
matter of practical certainty, or at least great probability,
if equality were recognised, such a marriage would be very
rarely entered into. If these positions be established, it will
necessarily follow that it is undesirable to recognise the
equality of the sexes.
I do not intend again to trouble the reader with a lengthy
religious argument, but it may be well to remind him on the
point of the in dissolubility of marriage, of the express
teaching of the Central Authority of religion.
Now it must probably almost always be the case, that a
woman will be more intensely interested in entering the mar-
riage condition than is a man. " Marriage,' ' according to that
prominent advocate of the suffrage movement, Miss Lydia
Becker, amongst others, " is the natural and honourable
profession in which the majority of women maintain
themselves." Without by any means assenting to this
manner of expressing the female view of marriage, we may
agree, as is presumably implied by the words, that marriage
is the natural avocation of women, in a sense more distinctly
emphatic than is the case with men. The main duties, for
instance, of a married woman's life are limited to the
immediate consequences of the marriage relation, whereas
this is obviously not the case with the husband, who has to
adopt a distinct path of duty in order to provide a com-
petence, by the wife's manipulation of which the family
duties may be fulfilled. It cannot be said that marriage i&
of the same essential and immediate importance to man. It
is highly desirable, no doubt ; but it is quite in accord with
experience that the life of an average male can be fairly
comfortably passed through without the exclusive devotion
of a monogamous wife. With woman it is otherwise. As-
The Argument from Expediency. 131
Miss Becker has also said, " Every woman regards marriage
either from the side of experience oi\of expectation." And
Bentham says, at page 216, that "Marriage has drawn
woman from the severest and most humiliating servitude. "
To the average member of her sex we may say that it is not
merely a condition but almost an existence, outside of which
she cannot be imagined really useful and happy. The
exclusive devotion of one man to her through life is a
matter of vital importance. Without such devotion, which
is seldom experienced from any save a husband, the world
and its pleasures are to a large extent a sphere from which,
by the very conditions of her nature, she is excluded.
Setting apart the subject of a pecuniary competence, which
might conceivably sink into the background under altered
conditions of national customs and opinion restrictive of
female enterprise and increased general prosperity, we shall
do well to concentrate attention upon facts which no
legislation can alter and no philosophy or subtlety can
explain away. Without a husband the wells of latent
maternal affection in the woman are either destined to
perpetual suppression through want of an appropriate
object, or she is associated with offspring who,, from
the absence of marital assistance in their government and
support, even if for no other reason, become a burden
rather than a blessing to her. Let us, indeed, rather
live and die in the unreasoning prejudice of old-fashioned
Toryism than be led away by the plausible but empty
and sophistical rant of the pseudo - philosophy of the
modern gallant. Men and women are separated in their
natural position by an abyss of difference which, however
formed, can never be bridged over by the wisdom or the
9*
132 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
foolishness of men. However we may alter the conditions
of human existence,* however much we may speculate
upon the future development of women, what imaginable
process can ever turn the man into the mother, or give him
the same inevitable interest in life-long association with the
mother, which she of necessity must have in such association
with him ? Until we have done this, we can never achieve the
equalisation of the sexes ; but we can irritate the man into a
tyrant, and substitute savage ascendency for the headship which
is regulated by law. 'Legislate and blunder as we may, there
is a curse or a blessing it matters not which it may be
called there is a crucial fact which can never be sur-
mounted or removed, though every woman be dubbed an
Empress, and every man be fettered as a slave. The in-
feriority in point of independence of marriage and otherwise,
which is inevitably, indubitably, and unalterably associated
with the woman's lot, will still endure, for the simple
reason, did not a single other remain, that, unlike the man,
she is not only capahle of the affections of the mother, but
is, and always will be, as a general rule, the actual mother
of a family, with an undying affection for her offspring.
Thus also it is that she is necessarily incomparably more
interested in the indissolubility of marriage than the ordinary
man can ever be. He would too often, finding his wife
other than he had thought her, and having grown tired
of her attractions, be but too glad, if it were possible
by law, to be set free to live alone, or find another and a more
congenial sharer of his home. But as for her, the first few
years of marriage being past, her charms would, perchance,
have faded, she would be the object of no one's desire, and,
to make use of the repulsive phraseology of Miss Becker,
The Argument from Expediency. 133
another professional engagement would not be likely to be
easily obtained. In short, man is primarily interested in,
and marries for, the first few years of married life, and
would very often, speaking of him as he is, be better pleased
with a union in proportion to the brevity of its duration,
down to the limit of a few short months ; whereas woman
is primarily interested in, and, so far as prudence must be
taken to enter into the matter, marries for, the later years
of marriage. It is all-important to her that the husband
should be bound to live with, and provide for, her and her
children, when the first brief years of married life have
passed. In different language, speaking of this hallowed
institution in terms rendered necessary by some modern
political philosophers if so these soulless, passionless, religion-
bereft, and self-asserting speculators are aptly styled we are
compelled to say that the woman lives with the man for the
first few years, in consideration of his undertaking to live
with her indefinitely when these have passed away. What,
then, is the position of those who tell us of the benefit to
women of the recognition of their so-called natural rights ?
The sexes always have, and always will, live together,
either permanently or temporarily. It is the women who
are peculiarly and vitally interested in the permanence of
the association. Make, then, marriage a relation of equality,
and you must make it comparatively easily dissoluble.
Make it so dissoluble, and men will take care that its dura-
tion shall be short ; and, when marriages are of short dura-
tion, then have the honour, the self-respect, and the
happiness of women been sacrificed upon the altar of
modern thought, and the human race is urged back to the
vice of promiscuity and inevitably consequent barbarism.
134 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
These are no trifling considerations. The race, males as
well as females, are vitally interested in averting the
suggested consummation, but the interest of the men of one
generation will never be so immediately and essentially
against it as must always and invariably be that of
women.
Indeed, observations which frequently occur in the
writings of those who hold the new ideas upon the subject
of the relation between the sexes which ought to exist, seem
to point to the necessity for somewhat emphasising the
importance of marriage. But let it suffice here for me to
quote the words of Bentham. " Under whatever point of
view the institution of marriage is considered, nothing can
be more striking than the utility of that noble contract, the
tie of society, and the basis of civilisation. Marriage, con-
sidered as a contract .... has distributed the mass of the
community into distinct families ; it has created a domestic
magistracy ; it has formed citizens ; it has extended the
views of men to the future, through affection for the rising
generation ; it has multiplied social sympathies. To perceive
all its benefits, it is only necessary to imagine for a moment
what men would be without that institution " (pages 21 5, 21 6).
At the present moment, owing to the reactionary extremity
of the recent legislation in supposed favour of women, we
are in a transition state with regard to the benefit of
marriage from the point of view of men. Probably it is
still very beneficial to those who are in a position to
comfortably afford its expenses. But how long will this be
so ? Already by marriage a man sacrifices more than can
well be adequately described. A comfortable and unanxious
home, with the intimate society of affectionate relatives, is
The Argum ent from Expediency. 135
often renounced ; the kindly services of female friends
generally is to a large extent forfeited ; liberty of associa-
tion with the fairer half of creation is greatly circumscribed ;
the income available for immediate personal comfort is
practically halved or quartered, or further divided as the
family increases ; the anxieties and responsibilities of the
man, from being limited to the due pursuit of his
avocation, and the consequent acquisition of a compe-
tence, are swelled to all the varied trials of a house
which must be kept in good repair, and from which, in the
majority of cases, he cannot easily scuttle out into a
luxurious hotel, and a family who for a large portion of the
year are under the doctor's supervision, and who must
always be considered, and whose sorrows and troubles are
his own ; absolute freedom, so long as income be not
stopped, to change from one avocation to another, and one
country or one district to another, is limited by the necessity
that the mill which supplies some half-a-dozen should never
cease to grind in such a way that the supply should be regu-
larly kept up ; the man's liberty to change his views, his
habits and his friends, is hampered by the consideration of
the pleasure of his wife and adult children ; his choice of
companionship is limited by a necessary association with a
woman who may prove very different from what he thought
her ere passion died away before experience, and who, in
many cases, even under existing regulations, is willing to
thwart and contradict him when opportunity allows ; his
patriotism and his charity are largely subordinated to the
more immediate claims of his family ; in short, almost every
kind of freedom and the bulk of his relative wealth are gone,
&c., &c. Extend the Franchise to women, and subsequently
136 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
complete the consequent equalisation before the law
of the sexes, and the husband's losses will become too
great to adequately depict. To say that he will then be
liable to have his political power neutralised by his wife r
and his political influence, so far as the propagation of
opinion is concerned, perhaps outweighed by her, seeing that
she will not unlikely have more leisure for conversation
than himself; and that he will be subject to have his self-
respect continually outraged by the defiance of spoiled
children ever screening themselves behind the rival authority
of an indulgent mother ; and that he will nevertheless be
linked to, and bound to provide for, his useless rival and the
destroyer of his peace and self respect, is to depict but a
small portion of the entire aspect of the union.
And what does the husband gain as the quid pro quo from
his point of view, or, rather, what will he gain if the new
ideas should ever be acknowledged as correct by our law
and custom ? The pleasure of so much association with one
woman as he may desire and she may see fit to concede,
together with whatever advantages he may be able to derive
from a progeny who are either reduced to order by the
usurpation of sole authority over them by himself or his
wife, or, in default of this, are practically rendered an
anarchical community on account of the attempted regime of
two independent and opposing powers. Would he also gain
a housekeeper ? By no means, for the wife under such a
system would keep house or not at the pleasure of her own
unforced and unforceable will. True, she might be incited
by reward, though not compelled by authority; but the
husband's power of reward would probably be vastly less than
hers, for almost every benefit of the marriage to him would
The Argument from Expediency. 137
be capable of being conferred as a voluntary favour on the
part of the wife.
Now it cannot be cogently objected that the above is a
mere abstraction. Laws, as I have said, are made for those
who need them, and not for those who are so well disposed
that they would perform their duty in the absence of any
human sanction or compulsion. If we were all thorough
Christians we could very well dispense with the greater
part, if not the whole, of the labours of Parliament. The
chief object of legislation is to compel, by the intervention
of State power, the performance of those moral duties of
which the compu^ory fulfilment is expedient in the interests
of the community, but which many would neglect if left to the
free exercise of their own discretion. True, indeed, human
nature would revolt before ever custom had arrived at the
extreme pitch foreshadowed above as the legally possible
result of the proposed legislation. Nevertheless, that ex-
tremity is apparently the direction in which our laws are
tending, and in which every assertion of the propriety of the
legal equality of the sexes as now understood must tend. Its-
consummation will undoubtedly never be reached, but and
this is the important point will be avoided, if legislation
gives effect to the new ideas, by a process which must bring,
disaster upon our nation. For how, indeed, will it be
avoided otherwise than by the practical disuse of the
institution of marriage ?
Already marriage seems to be commonly relegated to a
later period of life than used to be the case ; and as love's
young dream is, generally speaking, rather out of date after
about twenty-five, the blinding operations of Cupid are less
frequent, and the lover is beginning to contract with his
138 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
eyes well open. Probably, at the present day, the majority
of marriages are not arranged under the influence of an
entirely unreflecting passion. The voice of reason is listened
to, and the cost of the step is counted. And when once it
is found that men are calculating the consequences of
marriage, that they are inquiring whether in this, as in
other contracts into which they enter, the advantages are an
adequate compensation for the consideration which they
have to give, what conceivable motive, other than that of
religion, the operation of which must not be assumed in
these days to be probable in the case of the majority, can
induce them to enter into a practically indissoluble marriage
upon terms of absolute equality ?
In short, my contention is, that where the absolute
equality of the sexes is recognised by law and custom,
concubinage may, and will, exist; but marriage will cease to
be common, at least except among religious people. Let it
be remembered, as a solemn warning, that every law making
marriage less attractive to men is a staggering blow struck
at the foundations of morality.
Now the statements above made are not based upon merely
a priori reasoning; they are supported by historical
evidence. We cannot, however, reasonably expect a very
large amount of such testimony, seeing that the nature of the
relations of the sexes all over the world has very generally
excluded it. "Women have never, so far as we can learn
upon any reliable authority, been treated on a footing of
absolute equality with men, and, therefore, we are, of course,
unable to point to any historical evidence as to the effects of
such treatment. Moreover, as we have seen, the inequality
between the two sexes has for the most part been strongly
The Argument from Expediency. 139
marked. All, therefore, we can hope to learn from the
teaching of history would appear to be the record of the
apparent results of the nearest approach to general
equality between the parties to the marriage relation which
has ever to our knowledge been made, and of the greatest
facility of dissolving the matrimonial tie which has been
permitted, and of institutions to some considerable extent
resembling those which we are now asked to establish. In
this connection I propose rather to suggest matter for
further inquiry and study than to attempt academic
profundity.
Those who are even superficially acquainted with later
Roman law and history will hardly be surprised that I turn
with confidence to the lessons to be gathered from these.
The ancient jus civile, in its provisions with regard to
marital power, exhibited the barbarous austerity which
characterised it throughout. The wife on her marriage
passed, as it was termed, into the manus of her husband, and
became, like his children, theoretically subject to his unre-
strained and unregulated potestas. In practice, however, it
seems doubtful whether, in historical times, the power over
the wife was quite as extensive and free from customary
limitations as that which was exercised over the son or
daughter. Naturally, as civilisation advanced, a marital
power which in theory extended to the infliction of death,
and in practice stopped little short of this, became quite
unsuited to the current opinion and morality. But the
manus was to the Roman lawyer a form of potestas, and
potestas, whether existing over sons, or slaves, or cattle, or
inanimate objects, was legally incapable of limitation in
favour of the person or thing over which it was exercised.
140 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
There was apparently no analogous institution to assist the
reformer. The manus, which was in the eyes of the Roman
an institution which would have ceased to exist if tampered
with, just as a balloon collapses if it is pricked, either
existed in its full extent or it did not exist at all, and the
relations of the man and the woman were outside it.
Enlightened reformers were thus driven to the clumsy and
dangerous expedient of cutting the knot which they
encountered. Devices were resorted to by which the wife
was saved from coming under the manus of her husband at
all ; and, from being the exception, became ere long the
rule, until the institution of manus became merely an
obsolete recollection of the past. Thus anything like
marriage seemed in danger of temporary suspension, for the
old form was cast away, and no new and adequate institu-
tion was ready for adoption in the religion or the custom
of the nation. Every legal result, therefore, of the fact of
marriage, which consisted simply of the parties living
together with the intention of regarding one another as
husband and wife, with the exception of the father's power
over the issue, had now to be anticipated in a contract.
Everything had to be positively stipulated for, and
beyond was the region of ordinary law. By the dotai
contract the husband, if so he may be rightly called,
acquired certain enjoyment of a part of his wife's
property, and later on, by a corresponding institution
called the donatio ante (or, subsequently, propter] nuptias,
the wife acquired certain advantages in a portion of the
property coining from the husband or his relatives. To this
compact with regard to the property of the parties, no
religious rites were superadded, nor were civil rites by any
The Argument from Expediency. 141
means essential. A custom, however, apparently grew up
of leading the wife to the house of her husband ; but her
delivery there was quite as effectual in the eyes of the law
and custom if her husband were absent, the contract
partaking, in this respect, of the nature of the contracts re,
of deposit, loan, and pledge, rather than of the so-called
consensual contracts of sale, hiring, partnership, or man-
date. It could hardly be anticipated that such unions as
then became common were of a very stable character.
Gibbon, who will not be suspected of religious bias, puts
the matter in the following words, at page 395 of his fifth
volume : " When the Roman matrons became the equal and
voluntary companions of their lords, a new jurisprudence
was introduced, that marriage, like other partnerships,
might be dissolved by the abdication of one of the associates.
In three centuries of prosperity and corruption, this
principle was enlarged to frequent practice and pernicious
abuse. Passion, interest, or caprice suggested daily
motives for the dissolution of marriage ; a word, a sign, a
message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the
separation ; the most tender of human connections was
degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure.
According to the various conditions of life, both sexes
alternately felt the disgrace and injury : an inconstant
spouse transferred her wealth to a new family, abandoning
a numerous, perhaps a spurious, progeny to the paternal
authority and care of her late husband ; a beautiful virgin
might be dismissed to the world, old, indigent, and
friendless; but the reluctance of the Romans, when they
were pressed to marriage by Augustus, sufficiently marks
that the prevailing institutions were least favourable to the
142 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
males. A specious theory is confuted by this free and
perfect experiment, which demonstrates that the liberty of
divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. The
facility of separation would destroy all mutual confidence,
and inflame every trifling dispute : the minute difference
between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be
removed, might still more easily be forgotten ; and the
matron, who in five years can submit to the embraces of
eight husbands, must cease to reverence the chastity of her
own person." In a note, this author quotes the words of
Juvenal (Satir. vi., 20),
" Sic fiunt octo mariti
Quinque per autumnos,"
and adds, " A rapid succession, which may yet be credible,
as well as the non consulum numero, sed maritorum annos
suos computant, of Seneca (De Bene/iciis^ iii., 16). Jerom
saw at Rome a triumphant husband bury his twenty- first
wife, who had interred twenty-two of his less sturdy
predecessors (Opp., torn, i., p. 90, 'ad Gerontiam')." " In-
sufficient steps," he adds, " followed the rapid progress of
the evil. . . . Augustus, who united the powers of both
magistrates (that is to say, the censor and the praetor),
adopted their different modes of repressing or chastising the
license of divorce. The presence of seven Roman witnesses
was required for the validity of this solemn and deliberate
act : if any adequate provocation had been given by the
husband, instead of the delay of two years (that is, for the
recovery by his wife of her marriage portion), he was com-
pelled to refund immediately, or in the space of six months :
but if he could arraign the manners of his wife, her guilt or
levity was expiated by the loss of the sixth or eighth part of
The Argument from Expediency. 143
her marriage portion. The Christian princes were the first
who specified the just causes of a private divorce ; their
institutions, from Constantine to Justinian, appear to
fluctuate between the custom of the empire and the wishes of
the church, and the author of the " Novels' ' (i.e., Justinian)
too frequently reforms the jurisprudence of the Code and
Pandects (which also had previously been compiled by the
authority of Justinian). . . . The successor of Justinian
yielded to the prayers of his unhappy subjects, and restored
the liberty of divorce by mutual consent : the civilians were
unanimous, the theologians were divided."
At page 399 of the same volume we find a brief record of
what has been above suggested as the effect of a marriage
law which is unfavourable to men. " A concubine, in the
strict sense of the civilians, was a woman of servile or
plebeian extraction, the sole and faithful companion of a
Roman citizen who continued in a state of celibacy. Her
modest station, below the honours of a wife, above the
infamy of a prostitute, was acknowledged and approved by
the laws : from the age of Augustus to the tenth century,
the use of this secondary marriage prevailed both in the
West and the East, and the humble virtues of a concubine
were often preferred to the pomp and insolence of a noble
matron. In this connection, the two Antonines, the best of
princes and of men, enjoyed the comforts of domestic love :
the example was imitated by many citizens impatient of
celibacy, but regardful of their families. If at any time
they desired to legitimate their natural children, the con-
version was instantly performed by the celebration of their
nuptials with a partner whose fruitfulness and fidelity they
had already tried." Thus do we see the degrading means.
144 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
by which men escaped from the injustice, or, as our
opponents would perhaps rather call it, the justice of the
marriage law of Rome. I am not concerned here to labour
the point of the abstract merits of that law ; my object is
to convey clearly the simple truth, that though women may
marry, however harsh towards them the law may be, men,
if the law be such as to discourage them, will take the easy
course of avoiding it by keeping themselves outside of the
range of its operation.
Again, Mommsen, as we find at the 432nd page of Vol. II.
of Dickson's translation of his history, speaking of the
revolution which the degenerate Hellenism of the sixth
century of the existence of Rome accomplished in the modes
of life and thought among the Romans, uses the following
expressions. " Celibacy as to which grave complaints
were made as early as 520 (A.U.C.) and divorces naturally
increased in proportion [i.e., to the amount of the immorality
described by him]. Horrible crimes were perpetrated in
the bosom of families of the highest rank ; for instance, the
Consul Gaius Calpurnius Piso was poisoned by his wife and his
step-son, in order to occasion a supplementary election to the
consulship and so to procure the supreme magistracy for
the latter a plot which was successful (574). Moreover
the emancipation of women began. . . . Now women
began to aspire to independence in respect to property ; and,
getting quit of the guardianship of their agnati by evasive
lawyers' expedients particularly through mock marriages
they took the management of their property into their own
hands, or, in the event of being married, sought by means
not much better to withdraw themselves from the marital
power, which, under the strict letter of the law, was neces-
The Argument from Expediency. 145
sary.* ... In like manner the family jurisdiction over
women, which was connected with that marital and tutorial
power, became practically more and more antiquated. Even
in public matters women already began to have a will of
their own and occasionally, as Cato thought, ' to rule the
rulers of the world ; ' their influence might be traced in the
comitia, and already statues were erected in the provinces
to Roman ladies. Luxury prevailed more and more in dress,
ornaments, and furniture, in buildings and at table. Espe-
cially after the expedition to Asia Minor in 564 Asiatic o-
Hellenic luxury, such as prevailed at Ephesus and Alexandria,
transferred its empty refinement and its petty trifling, de-
structive alike of money, time, and pleasure, to Rome. Here
too women took the lead." Again, he speaks of the time
of Julius Cresar as follows (vol. iv., p. 546) : " An equally
characteristic feature in the brilliant decay of this period was
the emancipation of women. ... It was not merely
from the economic guardianship of father or husband that
women felt themselves emancipated. Love intrigues of all
sorts were constantly in progress. . . . Liaisons in the first
houses had become so frequent, that only a scandal altogether
exceptional could make them the subject of special talk ; a
judicial interference seemed now almost ridiculous. An
unparalleled scandal, such as Publius Clodius produced in
693 at the women's festival in the house of the Pontifex
Maximus, although a thousand times worse than the
* I think it would be more correct to say that women avoided
falling under the marital power. In other words, they refused to
pass into the manus of their husbands by joining either in a con-
farreatio or coemptio, or remaining for any entire year in his possession,
which were the only three ways in which the marital power arose.
10
146 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
occurrences which fifty years before had led to a series of
capital sentences, passed almost without investigation and
wholly without punishment. The watering-place season
in April, when political business was suspended and the
world of quality congregated in Baiae and Puteoli derived
its chief charm from the relations, licit and illicit which,
along with music and song and elegant breakfasts on board
or on shore, enlivened the gondola voyages. There the
ladies held absolute sway ; but they were by no means
content with this domain which rightfully belonged to
them; they also acted as politicians, appeared in party
conferences, and took part with their money and their
intrigues in the wild coterie-proceedings of the time. Any
one who beheld these female statesmen performing upon
the stage of Scipio and Cato and saw at their side the young
fop as with smooth chin, delicate voice, and mincing gait,
with head-dress and neckerchiefs, frilled robe, and women's
sandals, he copied the loose courtesan might well have a
horror of the unnatural world, in which the sexes seemed as
though they wished to change parts. . . . Celibacy
and childlessness became more and more common, especially
among the upper classes. While among these marriage
had for long been regarded as a burden which people took
upon them at the best in the public interest, we now
encounter even in Cato and those who shared Cato's
sentiments the maxim to which Polybius a century before
traced the decay of Hellas, that it is the duty of a citizen
to keep great wealth together and therefore not to beget
too many children. Where were the times, when the
designation "children-producer" ( proletarius) had been
a^ term of honour for the Roman ? In consequence of
The Argument from Expediency. 147
such a social condition the Latin stock in Italy underwent
an alarming diminution, and its fair provinces were over-
spread partly by parasitic immigrants, partly by sheer
desolation." I may well add one more extract from page
605 of the same volume : " The female world also took a
lively part in these literary pursuits ; the ladies did not confine
themselves to dancing and music, but by their spirit and
wit ruled conversation and talked excellently on Greek and
Latin literature."
In connection with the foregoing, it may be well to
observe that of the forms of power kindred to that of the
husband in early times, the patriapotestas, or paternal power,
and the dominica potestas, or power of the master over his
slave, continued to exist down to the last days of Roman
greatness, subject only to very moderate modifications,
introduced at a comparatively late period ; all of legal im-
portance, in fact, having been introduced by the Emperors.
Now I venture to think that the historical evidence
above furnished is very strong in support of the propositions
which I have laid down. We see that where the marriage
laws were practically similar in their operation upon each
sex, men were slow to marry, and took refuge from an
unattractive condition in concubinage. We see, more-
over, that marriage was necessarily regarded as easily
dissolved, and the liberty of divorce was abused with
disgusting generality. Nor do we fail to notice the natural
lowering of general morals, consequent upon this state of
affairs. With the so-called emancipation of women we
meet the collapse of high-toned morality, the loss of the
characteristic manliness of the free Roman people, and their
degradation to a luxurious and corrupt servitude under a
10*
148 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
series of infamous Emperors. There is little that is really
glorious and permanently progressive in the history of the
Roman people after the attempted equalisation of the sexes
in matrimony.
I would further call the attention of the reader to the
fact that I am not merely referring to the history of one
among many similar States. In citing Roman experience,
fall back upon the history of the only State which can be
compared with our own, which was the great and all-
influencing race of antiquity in Europe, as ours has been in
a vast portion of the modern world. Indeed, the laws
which have been cited from the records of Rome form part
of the one legal system which has practically given law to
almost all parts of the civilised world of to-day, except
those which have been supplied from the fountains of
English law itself.
The force of the teaching under consideration will hardly
be exaggerated. My present contention is in the nature of
the answer given by a character in a fictitious anecdote, to
one who asked him how it was he knew that " honesty was
the better policy than its opposite." " Because," said he, " I
have tried both." So I maintain the world has tried both
the system of the inequality of the sexes in marriage and
the system of approximate legal equality, and that it has
reason for concluding that the first is the only system under
which a nation can develop and maintain her full energies,
and be permanently prosperous and progressive.
The Common Law of England, like the^'ws civile of ancient
Rome, may have been very much too unfavourable to the
wife. The reaction against the latter was, as we have seen,
violent and disastrous. Modification and amelioration were
The Argument from Expediency. 149
not attempted, or, if attempted, did not succeed ; but
emancipation from a bad regime was childishly sought in
the freedom of anarchy. We, in England, are now in the
midst of the reactionary period. Shall we complete the
Roman process in this respect, and, consequently, assume the
role of a State whose sun has set, and whose nocturnal
darkness having once begun, will never see the dawn of day
again? Or shall we not rather be content with rational,
moderate, and abiding reform ?
In order, however, that we may leave no important feature
of our subject un considered, let us assume that there would
be no very grievous wrong in the equalisation of the sexes,
and that, when this was effected, marriage would still be an
institution generally prevalent among the race. Is there
then, even on this assumption, anything that can be seriously
urged against a general headship on the part of the
husband, limited by well-defined legal restraints upon its
arbitrary exercise ?
Our opponents seem to create a considerable amount of
confusion, and, consequently, to work great mischief, by
abusing such a headship as if it were necessarily a tyranny,
and by various other extravagant ways of describing the
present condition of affairs. For instance, Mill makes use
of such expressions as the following. " This dependence "
[of the female sex] . . . . " has not lost the taint of its
brutal origin." " The possessors of the power have
facilities in this case, greater than in any other, to prevent
any uprising against it." " In the case of women, each
individual of the subject class is in a chronic state of
bribery and intimidation combined." *' If ever any system of
privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke tightly
150 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
riveted on the necks of those who are kept down by it, this
has." " All men, except the most brutish, desire to have,
in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced
slave but a willing one, not a slave merely but a favourite.
They have, therefore, put everything in practice to enslave
their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for
maintaining obedience, on fear ; either fear of themselves,
or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more
than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of
education to effect their purpose." " What is now called
the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing the
result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural
stimulation in others. It may be asserted without
scruple, that no other class of dependents have had
their character so entirely distorted from its natural
proportions by their relation with their masters." " The
wife is the actual bondservant of her husband : no
less so, as far as legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly
so called." " I am far from pretending that wives are in
general no better treated than slaves ; but no slave is a slave
to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as
a wife is." " To those to whom nothing but servitude is
ill owed, the free choice of servitude is the only, though a
most insufficient, alleviation. Its refusal completes the
assimilation of the wife to the slave and the slave under
not the mildest form of slavery." " I have described the
wife's legal position, not her actual treatment. . . .
But the mitigations in practice, which are compatible with
maintaining in full legal force this or any other kind of
tyranny, instead of being any apology for despotism, only
serve to prove what power human nature possesses of
The Argument from Expediency. 151
reacting against the vilest institutions, and with what
vitality the seeds of good as well as those of evil in human
character diffuse and propagate themselves. Not a word
can be said for despotism in the family which cannot be
said for political despotism. Every absolute king does not
sit at his window to enjoy the groans of his tortured
subjects, nor strips them of their last rag and turns them
out to shiver in the road. . . . If an appeal be made to
the intense attachments which exist between wives and
their husbands, exactly as much may be said of domestic
slavery." " The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous
contradiction to all the principles of the modern world,
and to all the experience through which those principles
have been slowly and painfully worked out.
Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law.
There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress [sic'] of
every house."
I have avoided quoting references to laws which have
been altered since the above expressions were published.
It would seem that Mill would have thought the above
opinions little less applicable to the present state of the law
than they were before the passing of the Married Women's
Property Acts and other recent statutes; for there is no
limitation of his remarks to the case of property, nor,
indeed, does he by any means appear to lay chief stress upon
the rules relating to it. So far, however, as the condition
of the wife has been improved, it would seem that there is
less urgent need of further change, even from his point of
view. But what of the value and accuracy of the method
of regarding the position of the wife conveyed in the
passages cited ?
152 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
Tyranny ! slavery ! and these of the worst kind !
Matrons of England, with your " at homes " and your
receptions, your outward majesty and your ever-increasing
tribute of respect, ushered by your husbands, flattered by
your friends of the male sex, and envied by your sisters
from China to Peru ; ye oracles of the wisdom of the
drawing-room, is it possible that you are living in a state of
stupefaction or of sleep ? How is it that, if the clear
eye of the logician or the socialist had not discerned it, the
vast majority of your sex had never even dreamt of this
degrading and life-wearing slavery ? Well, indeed, may
such disturbers of your peace, with the excited ardour of
true discoverers, bid you " awake, arise, or be for ever
fallen." Alas ! such has been the ignorance of most of us,
if we are to accept the view of the eminent Mill, that,
whether we have reflected upon our matron relatives or
friends, or have observed the demeanour of the "better
halves" whom we have encountered in the course of our
general experience, whether it has been amid the stately
artificialities of the well-to-do, or in the narrow and over-
crowded alleys where the poor are found, and where for
every bully who is abusing his wife there not unlikely issues
forth the sound of several shrill syrens of the gentler sex
passing free comments on their sturdier spouses wherever
indeed observation has been made or imagination allowed to
roam this alleged prevalent state of slavery has not only
been unmarked, but even unsuspected. If we are to believe
that there is any element of truth in the observation of Mr.
Bumble, that " the law is a ass a idiot," and, indeed, " a
bachelor," when it supposes that the wife acts under the
direction of her husband, what must be our opinion of that
1 he Argument from Expediency. 153
philosophy which tells us that the man is a tyrant and the
woman is a slave ? Surely we must feel that we are pre-
sented with the results of that marvellous intellectual power
which can give " to airy nothing a local habitation and a
name." One would have thought, and surely with strong
2irima facie reason, that, were marriage really the worst
form of slavery, the bewitching blushes of maidens would
have been rather indicative of alarm than, as is so often
supposed to be the case, of gratified modesty ; that their
accomplishments would have been less adapted to fascinate
and charm, their dress and adornments less captivating, and
their conquests vastly less numerous nay more, one might
have well thought that they alone would have had need to
be on their guard against being drawn into the matrimonial
state, by too unwary taking of the baits which are set to
allure the unsuspecting heart of ardent youth.
But let us seek for the vestige, or scintilla of truth, in
these extraordinary announcements as to slavery in our
midst. Probably, then, one or two men, in the course of
the personal experience of each of us speaking for a
moment of the upper and middle classes only have, more
or less, cruelly domineered, over their respective wives.
But what are the further probabilities ? One of the wives
in question, perhaps, released herself by a separation, and
the other was emancipated with a good term of life before
her, by the apoplectic termination of her husband's mortal
career. Among the lower classes, no doubt, bad cases of the
kind are more numerous. Perhaps one wife in every thickly
populated street is habitually kicked and cursed. I yield to
no one in my pity for such an one, unless she has provoked
this savage treatment by a habit of unwomanly nagging,
154 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
unmatronly slovenliness, intemperance, or neglect. But
why does she stay, since by the 4th section of the 41 Viet.,
c. 19, if a husband is convicted of an aggravated assault on
his wife, the Court or magistrate before whom he is con-
victed, may order that she be no longer bound to live with
him, and such order has the effect of a decree for judicial
separation. If, indeed, there be any unnecessary difficulties
in obtaining such an order, by all means let them be satis-
factorily removed. Let no one have to live in dread of
extreme personal violence, or, indeed, of any severities
exceeding a reasonable limit. But some may say, that by
doing as I suggest, the woman would lose her home and her
support. Yet, if the treatment be excessively bad and
cruel, the house where she experiences it can hardly be
aptly described as her home, and the ruffian who is con-
tinually knocking her down, is hardly felicitously referred
to as her support. By the above-mentioned Act, moreover,
in the circumstances described, the Court or magistrate may
order the husband to pay weekly alimony to his wife. In
addition to the exaction of this periodical payment from her
husband, she has her own efforts to rely upon ; and if both
of these sources of income fail her and the children, whom
she may have to consider, she can look to her relations or
her friends, if she has any, just as if any other pecuniary
calamity had befallen her. If, however, all these fall short of
furnishing her with means of support, the State either
does, or it is submitted ought to, provide her with a tolerably
comfortable abode, while it temporarily lodges her spouse,
according to the degree of his failings, under circumstances
of a considerably less agreeable character.
But we must not overlook this fact. After all that can be
The Argument from Expediency. 155
said upon such cases as above described, not only do they
remain comparatively rare exceptions, but they seem totally
irrelevant to the case we are discussing. For they are outside
the region of law, being already illegal outrages. Neither the
matrimonial law of the present or of the future can be
considered as capable of regulating them, for they are
subjects of a different portion of the corpus juris, to wit,
the criminal department. How then will the legal equalisa-
tion of the sexes affect this matter ? Murder, robbery, and
theft are forbidden under heavy penalties, but they are of
frequent occurrence. Kicking a wife is forbidden, but it is
still occasionally resorted to. And inasmuch as men kill,
rob, and steal from their equals, how can we say that they
would cease to kick their equals ? Abnormal deviations
from the standard of right conduct, owing to drunkenness,
debauchery, and so forth, will still occur as incident to the
condition of our race.
Even, however, if we consider the cases of cruelty of
husbands towards their wives which are not forbidden by
the law, still we are able, not only to characterise them as
exceptions, but to put them outside the orbit of the effect
of the present law, by pointing to what Mill calls the
" counter-tyranny " of the wife. Who is so inexperienced
as not to have observed a number of cases in which the
husband is habitually crushed, and wearied, and tormented
by either a fierce, a wilful, or an otherwise unpleasant
woman, who has acquired an ascendency over him. Perhaps
I may do well to ask whether the cases of ill-treatment of
husbands by wives are not, after all, almost as numerous as
the cases of the opposite class. But whether this be so or
not, the undoubted fact of their by no means extremely rare
156 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
existence would seem to demonstrate that the law which
does not render them impracticable can hardly be the cause
of the existence of cases of the opposite class. Are we
then to turn the happy homes of England upside down
because theorists are wont to generalise from a comparatively
few exceptional cases of any kind ? Surely such a course is
uncalled for, and would be unwise. Unless it can be shown
that the average English wife is a slave, but little force
remains in the general assertion that a wife is a slave ; and
unless, further, the slavery, if it exist, can be traced to the
provisions of the law, all arguments based upon the assertion
of its existence which are directed towards a legal change
must fall hopelessly to the ground.
But what can really be urged in favour of the ex-
traordinary process of abstraction by which the conclusions
of Mill are arrived at? Religion, morality, custom, the
restraints of affection, and a regard for decency and the
opinion of others, as well as the restraint of law, must all be
thrown aside to gratify the clear discernment of our
logician. Where, then, is the practical value of such a
process ? If every law ought to be adapted to the customs
of a people, what of a law which should be enacted on
assumptions so glaringly at variance with fact as those
which have been stated ? For in spite of the modification
introduced in the extracts I have made, the arguments of
Mill seem based upon the broad assertion of the actual
slavery of wives. In considering, indeed, an English
institution, we must remember that we are dealing with a
country where the general teaching of Christianity, whether
believed in as a religion or not, by the particular individual
whose conduct may be in question, is, as an indisputable fact,
The Argument from Expediency. 157
largely acted upon, even where not expressly recognised,
and where this teaching, has, as it were, permeated the very
fibres of national feeling. Moreover, though it cannot be
treated as distinct, there is a highly civilised and humane
morality and public opinion to be taken into consideration.
And, in dealing with married life, it were absurd to forget
that, as a matter of common observation and knowledge, the
large majority of men I say nothing in this place as to
women do,' as a fact, speak kindly to, and of, and feel
delicately towards, their wives, with whom their lives are
largely spent, and with whose destinies their own are gladly
linked. Let us guard against the danger, particularly great
in the case of those whose ordinary life or education
precludes them from a habit of contemplation and study at
once far-reaching and minute, of forming a hasty and
general conclusion from the observation of instances which,
though exceptional, are very prominently before the eye.
I have now dealt with the most striking feature of the
above extracts from the work of Mill. It remains for me
to glance briefly at a few others.
It is apparently objected to the marriage relation as at
present regulated that it is the " one case of a social relation
grounded on force." But though it should be admitted that
the relation is so grounded, it does not follow that it is bad.
The parental power over children is founded, in a similar
way, and to a certain degree, on force, and is, moreover,
the result, not of parental merit, but of the fact of birth ;
yet it is not capable of being denounced, in general terms^
as bad and tyrannical. Government^again, is necessary ; yet,
in the most thorough democracy that has ever been attained
to, it is grounded upon force upon the power of the
158 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
majority. So far, indeed, from it following that government
is tad, it is sufficiently clear that its existence constitutes
the most marked difference between a European State and a
tribe of savages. And why should the word " despotism " be
used when speaking of the general principle of the case ?
All sovereign power, it is true, however wisely ordered and
temperately administered, in the United States and in
England, as well as in Russia or Turkey, is unrestricted by
any legal limitation, and is in that sense capable of being
termed, by a distorting use of the word, despotism. But the
term is generally used to denote monarchical power badly
exercised. It would, therefore, seem unfair to apply it to
the marital power generally, considering the usually
temperate method of its exercise. More than this, the
husband's power is not, like that of a sovereign government,
legally unrestrained. For it is at present, and in a civilised
community always will be, subject to considerable limi-
tation. How, then, can it, in any sense, be called a
despotism, except by those who would " darken counsel by
words without understanding " ? The origin, too, of the
marital power would seem little to the purpose. Assuming,
which of course cannot be admitted by one who accepts the
account of the early history of our race given in the Book
of Genesis, that it had its origin in force, precisely the same
must be said of other government ; and just as the progress
of the latter institution has been from bad government
exercised by one, or a few, the majority of whose subjects
had exercised no choice in the matter, to good government
exercised by few or many, some of them being chosen by
the people governed, the institution of government itself
remaining unimpaired, so has the regime of a savage
The Argument from Expediency. 159
husband, who seized or bought his wife without her own
consent, been exchanged for the comparatively good regime
of a husband chosen by his wife.
It may, however, not unlikely be said that, though it may
be desirable that women should, as a rule, recognise the
headship of their husbands, yet many men are clearly
unfit for the position of the head of a family. We may be
pointed to the injustice of subordinating an excellent and
able woman to the dominion of a man of inferior disposition
and ability, and who perhaps would gladly recognise her
supremacy did the law allow him to do so. But the cardinal
truth remains that we must look to the general rule. And
as, further, men have to submit in the ordinary course of
life to much that is not reasonable, considered by itself,
so there is no peculiar hardship in the fact of many
women having to submit to husbands who are inferior to
them in point of moral and intellectual excellence. Such
inconveniences are part of the common lot of our race. The
patience of both sexes is tried throughout life by the neces-
sity of submitting to many courses which are not approved,
and to persons whose authority does not commend itself,
considered alone, to their judgment. But a still more
practical answer to the contention consists in the mention
of a simple fact. The influence of superior women is a
powerful instrument in righting the balance of power where
it legally inclines to the less competent person. And, among
other possible arguments in reference to this subject, may be
well mentioned the discretion which pertains to the woman
in choosing whether or not she will marry the man who
invites her to do so.
Is there not, moreover, assumed in the sentences ]of Mill,
100 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
the existence of a combination of men against women which
is a mere imagination in these days, and which I have above
endeavoured to refute ? I will not again examine the
subject here, nor deal further with the phraseology which
has been quoted, beyond observing that the comparison of
the attachments of slaves to their masters to those of wives
to their husbands, appears to point to a well-grounded
conclusion that the mysterious love which exists between
the sexes, and which is the foundation, and probably still a
cardinal portion of the rationale of marriage, was outside,
not only the personal experience, but the imaginative
powers of the author of this comparison.
But, while taking into consideration the many particular
cases of hardship which exist under the present law, it
must surely be worthy of remark that, in spite of the gloomy
pictures of women's lot which are presented to us, it is by
no means clear that women are less happy than men, or that
as a rule they pass their lives in a less congenial manner
than is the case with men. Certainly their sorrows do not
cause them to be shorter-lived than men; and perhaps the
fact of the greater duration of their existence should be
considered some evidence that their cares are rather less
than those of men. I am aware of the many dangers to
which men are exposed from which women are exempt,
which, to a certain extent, diminishes the significance of
the point ; but, perhaps, this circumstance is in some degree
counterbalanced by the general principle which might lead
us to expect greater length of years in men, owing to the
fact that they arrive more slowly at maturity than do women.
Nor should we overlook the fact that, owing to physical
reasons, women are less fitted for the exercise of power than
The Argument from Expediency. 161
men, even considering the matter merely from the point
of view of their own advantage. Whether it is over a state
or a family that it exists, power is necessarily accompanied
by responsibilities and cares. A nd whom do we now find
are the happiest of their sex, leading the most useful lives,
and who will go down in the fulness of years to an honoured
grave ; whose children will rise up and call them blessed ?
I suggest that they are those who have no desire to dispute
the headship of the family with their husbands. On the
other hand, where we observe a woman head de facto of her
husband and her children, ruling the family and ordering
its concerns, is her power exercised with happiness, peace
of mind, or contentment ? Does it not usually appear that
the burden of supreme command is unsuited to her nature
and her powers ? A woman may be, and is, happy as a
subject, with a wise or moderately good head in her husband,
but she has a chequered and harrassing career with herself
as the head of her husband and family. Of course it is the
rule which is here spoken of, to which there may exist
numerous exceptions. But men are naturally adapted to be
the repositories of power. The moderate scope for its
exercise within the family does not, in the normal case,
corrupt or spoil their characters and dispositions, nor, in its
ordinary discharge, does its prematurely wear them out,
at all events not so soon as is the case with the physically
weaker sex. I appeal, therefore, in this case, as throughout
my observations, on behalf of women themselves, as being
quite as immediately concerned in the retention of marital
supremacy as are men ; indeed, so far as any difference in
this respect exists, as still more interested than are men.
The words of Frederick Denison Maurice seem peculiarly
11
162 Women s Suffrage and National Danger.
appropriate in this connection, which he used in answer to
a bride, who, at her wedding breakfast, exclaimed to him,
*' I call you, Doctor, to witness that I have no intention of
obeying my husband." "Ah! madam," said he, "you
little know the blessedness of obedience."
Probably it will be very extensively thought that Mill
is rather inaccurate in dealing with the present influence of
women in certain classes of society upon their husbands.
" Whoever," he says, " has a wife and children has given
hostages to Mrs. Grundy." May we not more correctly and
fairly express the truth of the ordinary case by saying that
" whoever has a wife and children has given pledges to the
State for his good conduct ? " But Mill adds : " So people
are kept down in that mediocrity of respectability which is
becoming a marked characteristic of modern times." It is
submitted that the more potent and important effect of the
family upon its head may be expressed, in far more
euphemistic language, as an influence restraining him from
deviations from morality and that social respectability which
is one of the most glorious features of our national life. No
doubt occasionally the conscientious bent of a man's inclina-
tions may be diverted by the influence of his family, but
probably in such cases the world of politics or public affairs
sustains a merely trifling loss, for the true man will surely
break free from attempted control of his conscientious public
action, while he will be sweetly fettered in the former way
as securely as if restrained by adamantine bonds.
Before quitting the consideration of the existing condition
of the marriage relation, it should be clearly pointed out
that, even according to Mill, in spite of the present law, the
wife sometimes establishes a control over her husband.
The Argument from Expediency. 163
" The wife's power of being disagreeable," says he,
" generally only establishes a counter- tyranny, and makes
victims in their turn chiefly of those husbands who are least
inclined to be tyrants. . . . The wife frequently
exercises even too much power over the man." Thus it
would seem that even under the proposed system cases of
hardship will arise, and if even nowadays some women are
able to tyranise, surely the great probability is that many
more would do so if the new ideas were established as law.
If, indeed, there will be many cases under such a system of
the outrageous assumption of a domineering authority by wives
over their husbands, surely the cases of hardship on the part
of wives which now exist can constitute not the slightest
reason in favour of the proposed change.
To sum up. The present system does not give rise, in the
course of its ordinary working, to marital tyranny. The
man who is a tyrant now would not cease to be so on the
legal equalisation of the sexes ; but, so far as he escaped the
operation of the criminal law, would be a tyrant still, owing
to the means of tyranny inseparably incident to the strong-
minded and robust man living habitually with a woman.
On the other hand, the present system, by giving legal
recognition to the headship of the husband, which is in
reality part of an immutable condition of human nature,
while it induces the wife to refrain from giving avoidable
offence, influences the husband to abstain from unnecessary
exercise of his power, by means of assuring him of its legal
existence. His chivalry is successfully appealed to, and his
power is diverted from selfish dictation into the channel of
benevolent protection; and the woman, far from being
injured by the legal recognition of her subordination, is in
164 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
practice benefited thereby. The inevitable natural ascen-
dency of man is beneficently tempered by its absorption into
the system of our law. Moreover, just as bad government in
the State is better than no government at all, so the bad
exercise of marital power is no argument in favour of
attempting its abolition. Nor does its even frequently
unwise exercise point to any hardship peculiar to women.
So long as our race falls short of perfection, so long will men
as well as women occasionally be subject to bad control of
some kind or other. We may continually endeavour to
minimise the evil which thence ensues, but we ought to do
so without attacking the institution of government in the
one case, and of headship in the other.
Let us glance briefly at Mill's ideas upon the married life
of the future. " What marriage," he says, " may be in the
case of two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in
opinions and purposes, between whom there exists that best
kind of equality, similarity of powers and capacities with
reciprocal superiority in them so that each can enjoy the
luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternately
the pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of
development I will not attempt to describe, ... I
maintain, with the profoundest conviction, that this, and
this only, is the ideal of marriage ; and that all opinions,
customs, and institutions which favour any other notion of
it, or turn the conceptions and aspirations connected with it
into any other direction, by whatever pretences they may
be coloured, are relics of primitive barbarism."
Probably the luxury of looking up to one another is at
the present day enjoyed by the parties to most marriages
which can be called happy. It does not seem to me that
The Argument from Expediency. 165
we need alter our institutions to obtain thus much of the
ideal of marriage. Ordinary life teems with examples of
the respect of husbands for their wives, and the appreciation
for, and almost final importance which they attach to, the
opinions of their wives in matters which they consider within
their province. And, apart from an altogether independent
improvement of the race, can we really hope for more
reciprocity of veneration or respect than exists at present ?
Identity in opinions and purposes seems, indeed, an
exaggerated conception. If marriage were a condition into
which only two in every thousand of the population were to
enter, we might encourage the desire of an approach on
their part to such identity. But if, as I submit is the case,
marriage ought to be the condition of almost every one, to
look for such identity seems wholly disconsonant with sober
judgment.
While acknowledging, however, that it would be extreme
folly to suppose that differences of feeling and inclination
between the sexes only exist because women are brought up
differently from men, and that there would not be differences
of taste under any imaginable circumstances, Mill tells us
that " there is nothing beyond the mark in saying that the
distinction in bringing - up immensely aggravates those
differences, and renders them wholly inevitable." He
considers that the " totally different bringing-up " of the two
sexes makes it next to an impossibility to form a really well-
assorted union. " Were this remedied, whatever differences
there might still be in individual tastes, there would at least
be, as a general rule, complete unity and unanimity as to
the great objects of life." But is not much attributed to
the effect of education in this view which would more
166 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
properly be ascribed to nature ? For we find in common
experience that, far from brothers who have been similarly
brought up having complete unity and unanimity as to the
great objects of life, their tastes and opinions are often so
radically different that intimate association is impracticable.
And it is to be remembered that the contention of Mill is
that there does not appear sufficient reason for assuming
that there is very much difference between the two sexes
generally. But, further, do we not also know that it is at
least as common to find a brother and sister living happily
together, as two brothers or two sisters ? If this be so, the
inference would seem to be that difference of bringing-up
in the case of the two sexes, so far from rendering intimate
association impracticable, renders it interesting and agreeable,
provided, of course, the difference be not greater than such
as we now contemplate in this respect.
Indeed, one can hardly believe that Mill had anything
approaching to a correct conception of what marriage
ordinarily is, or of the nature of that mysterious attraction
which probably leads to the majority of marriages. This
consideration seems to me to be of great practical importance,
and to indicate the danger of placing great confidence in
the theoretical view of the matter which he places before
us. Men do not now, and, as far as there is any ground
upon which to form an opinion on the subject, we are
justified in saying they probably never will, as a rule, enter
upon the marriage relation as the result primarily of a
deliberate scrutiny of the intellectual and general moral
endowments of particular women, independently of an
inexplicable fascination which is exercised over them, and
which renders the critical faculties to a large extent
The Argument from Expediency. 167
blunted ar.d dulled. To omit from our consideration of the
subject of marriage the element of love or passion, or
whatever it may be called, which most men and women
experience, but which they cannot adequately describe to
those who do not seems as unphilosophical as it would
be to omit the subject of the heart in a treatise upon human
physiology.
We must remember, in considering the new ideas upon
marriage, the admission that " there are, no doubt, women,
as there are men, whom equality of consideration will not
satisfy ; with whom there is no peace while any will or
wish is regarded but their own. Such persons are a proper
subject for the law of divorce." This is really the necessary
keystone of the whole fabric of our opponents. Without
it, as it has been attempted to show above, it is clearly
incapable of standing. But the important point to observe
in this connection is, that the great advantage of the present
system consists in the fact that, while the headship of the
husband does no harm where both parties are of excellent
disposition, it provides a modus vivendi where the case is
otherwise, and their views and inclinations conflict It
renders permanent marriage possible. Without it, as it is easy
to see, and as appears almost to be indicated in the passage
last cited, marriage must be easily dissoluble. And if
this be so, as I have said above, even if men would enter
upon the new kind of marriage, the duration of marriages in
England, as was the case in Rome, would be not unlikely
extremely uncertain, and very frequently extremely short.
We are, therefore, brought back to the dilemma above-
mentioned. If marriage be made legally equal in respect of
both parties, either it must be easily capable of dissolution,
168 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
which in itself is an immense evil, or men would avoid
entering upon it, which is also an equal or greater evil.
In connection with this branch of the subject I pass
to the consideration of the following expression of Mill :
" Men," he says, " are not required, as a preliminary to the
marriage ceremony, to prove by testimonials that they are
fit to be trusted with the exercise of absolute power." Now
it is quite clear, as I have before indicated, that absolute
power on the part of men does not now exist. What power
they, have is limited by law. But is the rest of the assertion
well founded in fact ? It will hardly be disputed that a
man who wishes to marry has ordinarily to prove to the
satisfaction of at least two people, namely, the woman whom
he wishes to be his wife, and her father, mother, or other
protector, that he is likely to prove a desirable husband.
At all events, such satisfaction on the part of one person is
necessary in all but exceptional cases. Moreover, this proof
is not of the shadowy character of the mere production of
testimonials, but consists of conduct and language, in which
it is very difficult to consistently dissimulate. We must
remember that the amplest freedom in practice exists on the
part of the woman to break off even the engagement to
marry up to the last moment before the actual marriage,
seeing the slight probability, however capricious the ground
of her conduct, that a jury will mulct her in damages for so
doing. If entire practical freedom in this matter does not
exist if any impediment be thrown by law or custom in the
way of the free exercise of her discretion in this respect by all
means let such alterations be made as are necessary to secure
such freedom on her part. The interval between the first
acquaintance of the parties and their marriage is clearly, in
The Argument from Expediency. 169
every sense of the words, a period of probation, the possible
severity of which might perhaps be correctly termed un-
rivalled. For intimacy exists, restraints are thrown off in
unguarded moments, patience and good-nature are tested ;
and if the man is not known fairly well before marriage,
he is an exceptional character who will probably defy legis-
lative efforts in the direction of the regulation of the marriage
state, and whom it would be therefore unsafe to adopt as
the norma upon which to shape our schemes of legislative
reform. I am aware that it is said that very soon after
marriage a little friction is caused by the wife's observation
of the diminished gallantry of her spouse. This is, however,
nothing to the point. I have been speaking of the oppor-
tunity of gauging the general character of the man. The
maiden who imagines that the foolish compliments and eager
anticipations of her slightest wish, which she receives from
the infatuated lover, will continue when he has settled down
into a sensible citizen, is sadly deficient in womanly good
sense.
Of course one very large feature of my subject is the
question whether the general recognition of women " as the
equals of men in all that belongs to citizenship the opening
to them of all honourable employments, and of the
training and education which qualifies for those em-
ployments " is desirable. But, from my point of view, this
is a subordinate matter, and apart from the two great
principles for which I am contending first, that the
Parliamentary Franchise ought never to be extended to
women, and, secondly, that the subordination of the wife ''
to the husband should be legally maintained. Though
I should not contemplate with equanimity the complete
170 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
realisation of Mill's wish, as expressed in the above words,
yet, acknowledging the probability that the condition of
women, as well as that of men, will improve as civilisation
advances, I by no means contend that no employment or
occupation which is not at present open to women should
ever, in the future, be opened to them. But it is submitted
that every particular movement in the direction of increased
scope for women should be considered upon its own merits,
and that we ought not to leap to a general consummation of
extreme contentions. While, therefore, not considering it
consistent with the general objects of this treatise to argue
questions of detail as to what particular branches of activity
should at once be opened to women, I will venture to
suggest a few practical limitations to the theory of equality
in this direction.
At the outset of our consideration of this subject, it
should be borne in mind, that, whereas there is hardly any
employment of very great importance except those incident
to the position of the wife and the mother, which cannot be
as well, or nearly as well, carried on by men as by women,
women are the only people who are competent to be wives
and mothers. Rather, therefore, than divert the necessary
supply from the discharge of the pre-eminently necessary
functions incident to such positions, we may well
incur considerable risk of occasionally shutting out
women who would be neither mothers nor wives from
employments in which they would personally be useful.
Neither our law nor our custom should point women
away from marriage, and marriage under the con-
ditions which have been indicated as proper, since the preva-
lence of marriages is far more important to the race than the
The Argument from Expediency. 171
performance by women of functions which, can be sufficiently
well discharged by men. No doubt we have to consider the
cases of those women who constitute the excess in number of
their sex over males. But this class must continually
diminish with the disuse of war and the diminution of the
dangers incident to many now frequently destructive employ-
ments, consequent upon the progress of civilisation and
science. The true means, I take it, of finding employment
for women is to render marriage both easy and advantageous
to men. For the rest, there are obviously several remunera-
tive duties, which need not be specified, which women
discharge even better, or, at all events, with more apparent
appropriateness than men, and possibly there are some which
the average woman discharges neither better nor worse than
the average man. It is for each generation to settle the
question as to which employments these are in its own way.
But there will remain the abnormal woman, not content to
be the helpmeet and complement of one man, and not content
with the employments which her sex generally perform as
well as, or better than, men. Such an one may well have no
unnecessary restriction thrown in the way of the develop-
ment of her powers, provided proper care be taken by the
framers of our laws and the leaders of our customs that no
undue temptation be placed in the way of ordinary women
to relinquish the path for which they are best adapted.
Mill apparently thinks that if marriage continue unequal
and other honourable avocations be opened to women, they
will not marry. This, however, I very much doubt, because,
amongst many reasons, women are probably sufficiently
shrewd to see that the so-called inequality of marriage, as
against themselves, is amply compensated for by the con-
172 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
siderably greater, or rather more urgently required,
advantages which they derive therefrom than men.
But we must not be led away by the fact that it may
be desirable to open up certain employments, and to give
certain kinds of education, to women, which are now
forbidden to them, to suppose that it is well or possible, to
acknowledge the absolute equality of the sexes, even apart
from the question of marriage. For whatever conclusion we
may reach as to the comparative strength of mind of men
and women, it is beyond any doubt that at present, and
certainly for a very long time it will remain so, the
inferiority of women in respect of physical strength cannot
be disputed. This difference between the sexes must be
accompanied by a difference in the capacity for the exercise,
not only of manual functions, but of duties requiring mental
effort, for in these there is involved exertion, which is really
physical, and the capacity for which is dependent upon
bodily strength. We ought, therefore, to avoid any appear-
ance of encouraging the unsexing of women by their
general entry into open competition with men. For the
inevitable result of such a course would seem to be, primarily,
the complete demonstration, in a manner heretofore almost
entirely unknown, of the actual general inferiority of
women, either considered as wealth-making machines, or in
respect of any matter of general competition, by reason of
their inferior bodily strength, if for no other reason. No
longer would a woman be recognised as a different creature
of a lovelier order than man, to be honoured and admired by
him as the weaker vessel, replete with tender and unselfish
thoughts, but she would tend to rank as an inferior being of
the same kind as man a female man, and consequently an
The Argument from Expediency.
inferior sort of man. As a woman, it is evident that no
woman need be ashamed of her difference from man, but, as
an attempted rival in the arenas of life, she becomes dis-
feminated in our minds, and her points of difference from
man cease to be valuable, and become mere marks of lesser
worth. There is ample room in the world, as everyone
knows, for the woman as well as for the man, while one is
the complement or completion of the other, but I suggest
that the man who endeavours to effeminate himself into a
woman, and the woman who attempts to reverse the process,
will not only fail to become good specimens of their adopted
sexes, but will be winnowed out by the practice of common life,
as being neither marketable nor precious, neither retaining the
virtues of one sex nor acquiring the advantages of the other.
Now, the benefits which are anticipated from the
equalisation of the sexes are somewhat indefinite in their
description, and fraught with the greatest uncertainty.
Before it can be worth while to gauge them, it ought,
perhaps, to be ascertained that they are reasonably likely to
ensue. I have already said somewhat to throw doubt upon
the sequence of many alleged advantages, but it may, never-
theless, be well to specially allude to some of those which
are prominently treated by Mill.
He points us, then, to the advantage of having the most
universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by
justice instead of injustice. " The vast amount of this
gain," he says, " to human nature, it is hardly possible, by
any explanation or illustration, to place in a stronger light
than it is placed by the bare statement, to anyone who
attaches a moral meaning to words. All the selfish
propensities, the self-worship, the unjust self-preference,
17-4 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
which exist among mankind, have their source and root in,
and derive their principal nourishment from, the present
constitution of the relation between men and women."
We are then directed to the demoralising effects on a boy
of his growing up to manhood in the belief that by the
mere fact of being born a male he is by right the superior of
all and every one of an entire half of the human race,
including, probably, some whose real superiority to himself
he has daily and hourly occasion to feel ; and even if in
his whole conduct habitually following a woman's guidance,
still, if he is a fool, thinking that of course she is not, and
cannot be, equal in ability and judgment to himself ; and if
he is not a fool, doing worse seeing that she is superior to
him, and believing that, notwithstanding her superiority,
he is entitled to command and she is bound to obey. Here,
as elsewhere, it is acknowledged by Mill that among the
cultivated classes the evil is somewhat modified. But in
amplifying his conclusions he says : " All that education
and civilisation are doing to efface the influences on
character of the law of force, and replace them by those of
justice, remains merely on the surface, as long as the citadel
of the enemy is not attacked. The principle of the modern
movement in morals and politics, is that conduct, and conduct
alone, entitles to respect : that not what men are, but what
they do, constitutes their claim to deference ; that, above
all, merit, and not birth, is the only rightful claim to power
and authority." " So long as the right of the strong to
power over the weak rules in the very heart of society, the
attempt to make the equal right of the weak the principle
of its outward actions will always be an uphill struggle ; for
the law of justice, which is also that of Christianity, will
The Argument from Expediency. 175
never get possession of men's inmost sentiments ; they will
be working against it, even when bending to it."
Now it was above attempted to show that it is not unjust
for the man to enjoy the headship of the family, inasmuch
as under any other system he would lose far more, and
gain far less, by marriage than the woman. In order that
the respective advantages of the marriage condition may as
nearly approach equality as is possible, the marriage relation
must invest the husband with a right to the obedience of
the wife. It is useless for us to quarrel with the facts of
nature. We may allege that they are not immutable ; but
while they continue such as they are, we must frame our
laws in appreciation of their existence. No philosophy
and no law can render woman, for many generations at all
events, the full equal of man, because, if for no other
reason whatever, she is physically less powerful than he,
and she alone is habitually weighted with the various cares
of indisputable maternity. This constitutes a cardinal truth
for the legislator's remembrance, and it should be coupled
with another. Man, having the advantage of being a
more powerful wealth-producer than woman, it is possible
to place the principal burden of hard work upon his
shoulders, and to gain from his efforts the main necessities
of individual and State existence. From the very fact of
his greater capacity for hard work, he will generally find
that a greater portion of such work falls to his share. It is,
therefore, both from the point of view of personal superiority,
and as being the harder worker, that men always will
have superiority over women, and will always, as a rule,
claim its recognition. Positive laws cannot upset this order,
and by weighting women with legal rights depress the
1 76 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
balance in their favour. It can irritate men, and change
their good feeling and forbearance towards women into
contempt, and a disposition to exact whatever it is in their
power to obtain, but it cannot, although theoretically sup-
ported by the supreme power of a great nation, defeat the
inequality of power existing between the sexes which has
its foundation in the nature of the human race. Human
justice may be the creature of human law, but human
nature is beyond the range of the creative power of that
law, by which, though it may be distorted, its more
cardinal features cannot be altered or destroyed.
In studying the passages which have been quoted, it
would seem, if so it may be respectfully said, that we are
face to face with the one underlying fallacy of the entire
argument of Mill and his followers. It is apparently
assumed that the political and social principles which
apply between the citizens of a State, as such, can and
ought to be applied within the narrow limits of the family
circle. But law can never so fully regulate action within
the family as without. Partnership, hiring and service, co-
operation in companies, and all purely contractual relations,
are subject to the complete control of the law. Marriage
and paternity, on the other hand, are on an entirely different
footing. The relation of husband and wife, and of father and
child, existed long anterior to human law ; they are natural,
not artificial relationships ; they may be regulated, but can
never be completely ordered by positive human law. We
cannot apply within the circle of the family those maxims
which are of important truth concerning the general
relations of mankind. Whether we rely upon the Scriptural
records, or upon the researches of jurists, like the late Sir
The Argument from Expediency. 177
Henry Maine, we find that the family has almost everywhere
been the unit of the primitive national life of progressive races,
or, in other words, that it is the " primary cell" from which
society appears to have sprung. Enterprising speculators
may endeavour to subvert this natural order to an undue
degree, as did the authorities of Sparta and Crete ; and
intelligent legislation will always limit the flagrant excesses
of any one of the members of the family towards another.
Yet we must still regard the family as entirely different
from a petty nation, or a mere contractual union of several
equal citizens, and as still maintaining somewhat of its former
character of a unit in the social system of an imperium in
imperio. True, as Maine has so ably pointed out, in the
movement of progressive societies, the individual is steadily
substituted for the family as the unit of which civil laws
take account, and gradually the relations of persons formerly
determined by status are becoming settled for themselves by
contract. But this movement has its impassable limits. The
law may deny the father the power of life and death over
his child, but the power of moderate control cannot be safely
withheld. And here, if nowhere else, the theories of equality
break down. There is at least obviously one case in which
men must be allowed to claim formal respect, and exercise
control, apart from personal merit or voluntary submission.
And if there is one case, why may there not be two ? Indeed,
the very existence of the one case forms the link which binds
the parents in the irrevocable bond which renders the
power of the one over the other inevitable in point of ex-
pediency. Whatever the law may say, the family, in quite
a different sense from contract, is still, and must ever remain,
the basis of all civilised society. And we must beware of
12
178 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
mistaking the truecharacter of marriage calling it a contract
merely. It is such, simply, only in its inception, for
it is " a contract by which one enters into a status" and
thus the old system of law is linked with the new. When
marriage is called, and understood merely as, a contract, all
manner of misconceptions ensue. It is, indeed, a word signi-
fying two things : the one contractual, and the other a natural
state the act of marrying, and the condition of married
people. Just as there is an entire difference between a
contract for the sale and purchase of land, followed by con-
veyance, and the condition of being a landed proprietor, so
there is a similar difference between the engagement to marry,
followed by the marriage ceremony, on the one hand, and the
consequent condition of a married person on the other. This con-
dition, like that of the appropriates of the soil, existed before
positive laws of men were framed, and it exists just as truly
now, the main difference from its former state being that at
present it is the consequence of a contract, and not of force
or other involuntary inception. Over the contractual part
of the matter law has ample dominion ; but, as to the latter
part, though it may studiously regulate it, law cannot
absolutely engross it in its own forms and rules. Thus the
family, consisting of husband, wife, and children, has, up to
the present time, remained largely exempt from the sphere
of the operation of law, and it will so continue as long as
civilisation endures. And as the application of law to the
family is limited in a manner quite different from the appli-
cation of law to contractual and other relations of citizens
generally, so are the philosophical principles of liberty in a
large measure excluded from the hallowed precincts of the
domestic hearth.
The Argument from Expediency. 179
Returning briefly to the citations from the work of Mill,
it is submitted that if it be acknowledged that the marital
power, though very properly regulated and largely controlled
by law, is still a fact of human nature which our legislation
can never efface, it cannot be fairly contended that it
necessarily leads to any balance of evil at all, much less to
all the bad consequences suggested by Mill. Moreover, it
must surely be clear to all that it is by no means a fact that
stupid men consider themselves superior to more gifted
women. We may well believe that the average man is
superior to the average woman, and properly her head if
united to her in marriage ; while, at the same time, it would
be impossible to deny that a particular woman is sometimes
found who is not only superior to a particular man, but to
the average man. But is it not generally observable in
common experience that the husband is only too ready to
acknowledge the superiority of his wife in cases wher*
ordinary people might consider the matter doubtful? In
practice he often allows the wife to lead ; and she, if right-
minded, endeavours to study his comfort and wishes, while
inducing him without thwarting him, and habitually obeying
his mandates without inconvenience to herself, as being, in
fact, the result of her own suggestion. If he is not very
stupid, or, in the language of Mill, not a fool, the case is
& fortiori in favour of my contention.
Yet one more observation in this connection. What is
meant by the equal right of the weak ? Formerly, I take it,
the phrase signified the equal right of all men, whether already
in possession of power or not, and whether belonging to the
wealthy, well armed, and educated classes, or to the poor, the de-
fenceless, and the ignorant. A man was to be considered with
12*
180 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
regard, not to his attainments or possessions, but to his capa-
bilities. So far the phrase is the motto of sound Liberalism.
But can we go further, and place power in the hands of those
whose natural weakness cannot, in Bentham's language,
support it ? Can we say to the physically or intellectually
weaker sex, " We will treat you as we have formerly treated
classes physically and intellectually equal to the most favoured,
so far as natural capacity goes, but depressed on account of
poverty, exclusion from the Franchise, or other removable
causes " ? Manifestly the rationale of equality of absolute
equality breaks down. We can so clothe the beggar with
the robes of legal capacity as to make him potentially the
prince, but we cannot alter the condition of our species so
as to convert a woman into a man. We can throw around
her the protection of the law from abuse of her position ;
we can chivalrously compensate her in private for any
disadvantages of her sex ; but we cannot alter her natural
capabilities, and, therefore, we cannot judiciously thrust rights
upon her which will weigh her down from a position of
difference to one of demonstrated and patent inferiority, of
neglect, of actual humiliation, and of misery. The law
mu*t so order the legal surroundings of marriage that the
greater sacrifices which it necessarily entails upon the man
in the ordinary case, shall be compensated by advantages of
the relation apparently peculiar to himself, but, in reality
and ultimately, for the benefit of both himself and his wife.
The general benefits anticipated from opening to women
the same field of occupation, and the same prizes and
encouragements as are open to other human beings, are
hardly sufficiently important to my present object to justify
me in occupying the attention of the reader by specific
The Argument from Expediency. 181
reference to their description. Moreover, the mere perusal
of this will probably suggest many objections which will
considerably diminish, if not efface, its effect. But in this
matter my contention is, as I have indicated, not that no occu-
pation which is not now open to women should be opened,
but that each particular case of suggested alteration should
be considered and decided upon its own merits. If this be
acknowledged, as it is submitted it clearly must be, at least
in practice, it will be quite time enough to consider the
suggested advantages of a proposed change when a specific
agitation to obtain it has commenced. At present the
question of opening all avocations to women is entirely
outside the range of practical politics.
It may, however, be conveniently observed here that, in
giving the nature of women free scope for its development,
we shall not be under the necessity of rendering their position
in marriage that of the equals of their husbands. Indeed,
as I have endeavoured to show, we should never practically
succeed in doing this, whatever laws we were to enact, or
whatever intentions we were to form. But, in addition to
this, we have to bear in mind the simple fact that the entire
sum of the capabilities of a woman, taking into consideration
bodily as well as mental power, being less than that of a
man, by allowing their development we shall not place her
in a position of equality to man. To even attempt the latter
would necessarily involve far more than the permission of
free natural development ; we should be obliged to assist her
efforts by conferring upon her legal advantages greatly
superior to those of men. To render, even in appearance,
the positions of the two sexes equal, we should have to add
legal rights to the natural capacities of women over and
182 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
above the legal rights of men, or, which would practically
be the same thing, to handicap men by the imposition of
legal duties from which women were left free.
Now as the practical equalisation of the sexes in marriage
may be seen to be impossible, it follows that the advantage
which Mill expects from giving women an equal chance of
ordinary employments with men, namely, the rendering the
marriage relation just according to his view, cannot ensue.
But not only for this reason will the contemplated advantage
never be realised. For as the sum of men's abilities renders
them more valuable in most employments than are women, and
equally valuable in almost all, the full pressure upon men,
compelling them to offer^the advantages of equality to
women as wives, which Mill anticipates, can never come
into operation.
I must not omit to mention the second great advantage
which Mill anticipates from the reception of the new ideas.
It has already been partly considered in dealing with the
influence of wives of the kind contemplated by him in the
future, but its generality and full scope deserve specific
notice. In his language, it is "the advantage of doubling
the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service
of humanity." Now this seems to me a singularly specious
and misleading expression. We must remember that the
main force of one person's mental energy cannot be bent in
two entirely different directions at the same time. Is it
then true that the utility of female intelligence is now
practically nil, so that by making it equal in magnitude to
that of men we can double the total utility of human
intelligence as it now exists. By elaborately educating
women, and by investing them with new powers, we may
The Argument from Expediency. 183
change the form of their utility, but we cannot develop an
entirely new kind of value except at the expense of some
surrender of what we have hitherto enjoyed. Let us not be
deceived by the consideration of statistics, and other
prominent and easily stated facts, into imagining that the
new forms of the utility of women which are anticipated by
our opponents will, if realised, be in the nature of a pure
gain to the race. There is something, not clearly denned,
not recorded in secretarial reports, which, being lost, must be
deducted from the gains. Maternal culture, and the influence
of women, so sweetly undefined that it is hardly recognised as
power albeit of humanly unequalled might must be
lessened and impaired. We may easily underestimate the
importance of this fact. It is a trite saying that every
great man has had a clever or a good mother ; and no doubt
there is a general truth in this, which we may discover in
the biographies of illustrious men, from Julius Csosar
downwards. But there is a humbler truth than this for our
digestion, for it is sufficiently clear that the average steady-
going Englishman has a great reverence for the memory and
teaching of his mother. As, morever, the average matron
who is the mother of a family, is naturally interested in the
maintenance of the cardinal principles of virtue by those
around her, it can hardly be doubted that the glorious
stability and respectability which are the backbone of
our national character are very largely and vitally
associated with the training and influence under con-
sideration. I feel that it would be scarcely respectful
to the intelligence of the reader to labour this point. But,
to use a simple and childish phrase, which, however, is in-
disputably sound, " we cannot eat our cake and have it
184 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
too." If the intelligence and virtue of the best women of
England is to be attracted by other calls than those of
maternal duty, the latter must remain unanswered to a
considerable extent, or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, be
pro tanto non-existent. It is but too clear that the active
man does not ordinarily train his children to the same
extent as their mother does, or gain anything like the same
amount of affection as she ; not simply because a woman
seems naturally a more lovable being than a man though
doubtless this is true to a certain extent, she being formed,
as it were, as an object of the love of the man but because
from the nature of his other duties his opportunities in
respect of these matters are fewer. But not only would
the influence of the mother be lessened, and her offspring
consequently less morally healthy, as well as less physically
sound, for reasons as to which the evidence, medical and
otherwise, is too strong and easily perceived to demand
comment, under the contemplated system ; the actual
number of mothers must be fewer. For as the cares of the
spouse and of maternity, even in the limited degree of the
future, would be a fretting hindrance to the intellectual
woman of its times, it would seem, were not nature happily
against the consummation of the modern views, that the
number of clever mothers would be small the dolts, or less
able of the sex, being relegated to the maternal position.
Where, then, should we find our great men and women of
the next generation, for it is well worthy of notice that
even women themselves emancipated to any conceivable
degree are, like men, equally dependent upon their
mothers ?
Keeping, however, closely to the immediate point, without
The Argument from Expediency. 185
indulging in speculation as to the distant future, it would
surely be very much to be regretted if, in our calculations
and our reflections upon the present subject, we should,
from any cause, inadequately estimate the present value
of the influence of the mother. Let us, indeed, be careful
how we disturb that mighty source of good, that human
fountain-head of virtue. Let us hesitate to lay rash
hands upon that sacred shrine. Is it not a truth which
we must now acknowledge, that, so far as our experience
goes, of every ten men who have been a blessing to their
day and generation, nine have traced the foundation
principles, which have been dearer to them than life itself,
and incorruptible by fire, famine, pestilence, and the sword,
and the remembrance of which the " witching voice" of
temptation has never succeeded in obliterating, to that
cherished authority from which, under God, their nascent
consciences have first assimilated the simple formulas of
right and wrong? If the bend of the sapling foreshows the
inclination of the oak, surely that force which gently gives
the former its direction must be that from which the latter
takes its shape. I say nothing, of course, against free will
in men, but who can possibly doubt the mighty influence on
the character of the adult of her who first inclined his will
from its own unaided course ? Hers are the first words
which fall upon his newly-opened ear ; her God, her nation,
and her home are always his at first. His mind is first
enlightened by the rays which come from her ; his heart is
first enraptured by the good which she bestows. Let us
avoid the foolish supposition that, because the adult man
and his mother may be at issue upon almost every specific
public question which comes prominently into their con-
186 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
versation, the former has derived but little of permanent
value from the latter. For the highest influence consists in
instilling the principles which are the foundation of a faith,
an 1 upon which integrity and intelligence are built. It is
not in the application of a principle that its professors
will in all cases necessarily, or even naturally, agree.
Every Christian believes in the Golden Rule of the
New Testament, and every Utilitarian in its politically
formulated equivalent as enunciated by Bentham. Yet,
do any two Christians, or any two Utilitarians, agree in
the application of these principles ? And if not, are these
principles of little value ? By no means. It is the mould
of mind, the disposition of the heart, the foundation
principles of worthy life, upon which subsequently acquired
information and wisdom form the superstructure, which are
of primary value and importance, and it is these which are
owed so often to the influence and the teaching of the
mother. It is these which contain in themselves the vital
kernel of our happiness or woe, of our well-doing or the
curses that we work. But it' we change the sphere and
habits of the mother, we must change the operation of that
force which she now wields like " an angel's power" for
good. Nay, more, would the mother, as conceived by Mill
and his followers, be the woman to spend her time in the
functions to which I have alluded, sublime though they
may appear to some, contemptible, or servile, or undignified
as they may appear to them ? They would, forsooth, increase
woman's influence and her capacity for good ! But to do
this they must increase the number of her children and the
intimacy of her relation with her own. Let us, for the
sake of all the good upon the earth, be very wary lest we
The Argument from Expediency. 187
dimmish the scope of that beneficent love, which there is
but small reason to believe it is in the power of mortals to
enlarge.
I do not intend to fully recapitulate the disadvantages of
conceding the principle of the equality of the sexes in mar-
riage. The subject is vast, and, indeed, so great is the connec-
tion between each branch of the subject with which I have
been dealing that it is difficult to preserve a particular order
in treating it, or to sharply distinguish the various
arguments which may be adduced against the contemplated
changes. As I have said, the equalisation of the sexes in
marriage, which is the chief danger to which I point, is itself
a probable consequence of the extension of the Franchise to
women. Some of the more immediate consequences of the
latter have been noticed above, as also the probable result
of complete assimilation of the sexes in respect of their
addiction to even mental pursuits. But the disadvantages
of the equalisation of the sexes in marriage have been treated
in the course of the main argument. The result, whatever
it be, must be vast and indefinite ; but I would so far repeat
myself as to point to the following disasters. First in im-
portance, in the not far distant future, there is the suggested
practical cessation of marriages to contemplate, attended
immediately and inevitably by unregulated relations between
the sexes, the extinction of morality in its specific sense,
and the immeasurable degradation of morality in its general
sense. Nothing, indeed, but a confidence in religion could
well enable any one who goes with me in the contemplation
of the disuse of marriage, to shut out from his imagina-
tive perspective a return to a state little better than one
of barbarism. For without the prevalence of the institution
188 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
of marriage there can be no true civilisation. But far more
immediately in the future, we see the ruin of the domestic
happiness which has so long been England's national glory,
and the degradation of women to a state of servitude
comprehensible by the ordinary mind, and not merely by
that of the philosopher.
CONCLUSION.
I VENTURE to think that shadowy views of progress are apt to
lead astray even those who are most accustomed to reflection.
Grandiloquent phrases as to the future of the human race
seem often to warp the independence of the mind, and to
confine its freedom in a way no less dangerous than a
bondage to antiquated dogma and prejudice. But, in truth,
the static, no less than the dynamic, element in the genius of a
nation, is essential to its permanent greatness. We are
surely bound to cling to a fundamental principle of human
relations, which has existed compatibly with order and
stability, until we are moved to work for change by valid
reasons, not founded upon mere speculation, but upon
inference from existing facts. Probably in these days of
all-pervading party rivalry, when one body of men are so
often striving to be before another with reform, this truth
cannot be too clearly and too often driven home to the
minds of the electorate. Knowing from experience what
vast improvements have been achieved through emancipa-
tion from ignorant and selfish prejudice and attention to
the voice of reason, many men seem apt to form their
opinions upon the assumption that they are bound to follow a
notorious political leader who adopts a programme sufficiently
190 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
startling, and ornamented with sufficient reference to the
capabilities of the human race in the future. Indeed, it is
possible to work oneself up into such an excessive infatuation
with the name, as distinguished from the substance and essence,
of Liberty, as to almost begin to look upon the condition of
the child as one of abnormal, and consequently improper,
restriction upon freedom and natural development, and the
authority of the father, or even of the mother, as a
*' citadel of the enemy of justice and equality."
We shall do well to bear in mind that a time comes in
the history of most progressive nations when the desire for
improvement becomes too much associated with the habit of
unnecessary, or, at all events, too sudden and too violent
change; when the spirit of the reformer is insufficiently
tempered by a regard for the stability of the order which is
embodied by the institutions which he attacks. How other-
wise can we satisfactorily and completely account for the
undeniable fact, that nations which have enjoyed a high
state of prosperity during a condition of comparatively
primitive ignorance and prejudiced conservatism, instead of
maintaining their pristine greatness, after the desire for in-
telligent improvement has operated for some considerable
time, have so often sunk into absolute decay, emaciated, as
it were, by the feverish effort of continual restlessness for
change, for which their organisms were not adequately
prepared.
Of course, it is clear that a nation, like an individual, may
perish through inertia,or through insufficient desire and capaci-
ty to adapt itself to the changing circumstances of its existence.
But while bearing clearly in mind this truth, it is wholesome
to remember that the progress of the world has not gone
Conclusion. 191
on in an unbroken sequence. More than once the race has
had, as it were, to begin almost over again. If it had been
otherwise, it might have been found difficult to resist a
proposal for change of any kind. It is, however, sufficiently
obvious that some changes of opinion and law have not only
been disastrous, but, as far as superficial appearances are
considered, seem, to a large extent, to have operated
in throwing the race back. I understand, for instance,
that Egyptologists tell us that the nation of their study had,
in the far distant past, arrived at a state of civilisa-
tion approaching in many respects that to which we have
but comparatively recently attained. If, then, this people
had progressed from a primitive state to the condition which
is described to us, how is it that their onward march was
stopped ? It is submitted that it would be unsatisfactory to
adopt, as a complete explanation, any merely physical or
external cause. Assuming this to be so, we are driven to the
supposition that either some change was not adopted which
circumstances rendered necessary, or that some change was
adopted which proved incompatible with stability and
progress. As the bulk and functions of the State in-
crease and alter, so, doubtless, must custom and law also
change, if permanent progress is to be made by its
people. But though this is true, it is equally indisputable
that a nation flushed with triumphs over primitive ignorance,
and the success of many bold enterprises in politics, may
adopt laws or customs which are inconsistent with the
continued vitality of its organism. I will not by any means
presume to say that the latter was the case in the decline of
Egypt. Nevertheless, in considering the case in question,
or that of Greece or Rome, or any other great nation, we must
192 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
recognise the fact that it endured for a long period under
certain laws and customs which were compatible with its
deyelopment and strength. It may be that these speaking
of them in their fundamental characteristics became
utterly incompatible with further national energy. But it
would seem equally probable, pr ima facie, that the actually
ruinous mistake consisted of some undesirable and pernicious
change. If this be so, or if there be any element whatever
of truth in the suggestion, is it not replete with warning
against an overweening confidence in theories which do not
rest upon the foundation either of religion, or of any clearly
apprehended experience, or of any well-approved principle,
but which are mainly the outcome of scientific speculation ?
On one thing we may surely depend : whatever mistaken
courses were entered upon by these nations, after intelligent
consideration, were pointed out by their advocates as paths
of progress, or of whatever was the verbal counterpart of
the word progress in the days of their decline. My suggestion,
therefore, is, that in considering demands for changes which
practically deal with fundamental matters, and the con-
sequences of which must necessarily be largely unforeseen,
and the subject of simple speculation, however much such
demands may be glossed over with the name of progress,
it behoves us to exercise the utmost caution, lest we be
enticed by a phantom of thought to an abyss from which
we may never, as a nation, reascend.
I have now briefly indicated the desirability of careful and
scrutinising consideration of the great question which has
been discussed above, where it has been attempted to set
forth cogent reasons against the adoption of the changes
which are proposed. I might well appeal in aid of reason
Conclusion. 193
to the sentiment of my countrymen in favour of the
retention of the main features of that condition which has
secured the innumerable charms and graces of the fair
which are still so dear to men, and which must, in a con-
siderable degree, vanish like the floral glory of a summer's
growth before the withering blast of noisy rivalry, and the
chilling influence of the indifference of manly hearts no
longer warmed by sympathy and love. But I do not urge
a selfish view, for it is to the highest good of women that I
firmly point. It is, however, too late to return in this place
to subjects which have been adverted to above.
Yet, in conclusion, let me ask my readers not to allow
themselves to be led away by appeals to the gallant or
weaker part of human nature, into a course pre-eminently
dangerous, and the necessity of which is wholly unestab-
lished. Let me caution them by reference to the examples
of the great in every age and nation who have abdicated
the dignity of manhood and subjugated intelligence
to the charms and influence of women. Since the time
of Adam, where manly wisdom has been put aside to
please the weaker vessel, and the stronger has renounced
his rights in gentle dalliance with the fair, has aught but
disaster and decline ensued ? Far be it from me to speak
against the natural and due influence of women. I combat
the subjugation of the mind of man, as distinguished from
attention to the voice of reason, from whatever quarter it
may come. And if the intellect of the wisest man of
history was defeated and degraded by the wiles and blandish-
ments of the other sex, we may be certain that there is
need ior us to be vigilant, when claims which are dignified
by association with the rights of women are set forth for
13
194 Women's Suffrage and National Danger.
our review. Rather than the Samson strength of Britain
should be shorn in the lap of the Delilah, who courts us in
the guise of polished dogmas and the reasoning of the age,
let every honest man valiantly determine to encounter in
his own career all the conceivable inconveniencies which are
consequent upon the displeasure of the fair.
For, by the sacred name of Religion, by the light of reason,
by the teaching of experience, and by common sense, I
exhort my readers to think carefully and long, ere from
fear, from uxoriousness, or from indifference, they cast away
that crown of lordship which was placed upon the head of
their ancestor by the decree of the Almighty Himself, which
his descendants have never forfeited, and which has never
been removed, and which, in the present day, as in the past,
the imperative necessity of their position both justifies and
explains. To intelligent Liberals, in particular, I say : You
are deeply committed, it is true, to the cause of progress
and reform, and " forward " is the watchword of your ranks.
You are ever looking, as is right, into thefuture for your golden
age, and I would by no means point you back. But if you would
maintain your character as the tried and faithful servants of
the nation, whose interests are very largely committed to
your care ; if you would be dissociated from the character
of men having a desire for change which reason does not
warrant nor necessity demand it behoves you to remember
that there are cases in the present, as in every other age,
when to an invitation to pursue a path which the authorities
you have been wont to revere, and which your intelligence,
your patriotism, and the prudence tempering the courage of
your manly zeal, pronounce improper, unnecessary, and
unsafe, you have but one answer to make but one answer
Conclusion. 195
by which to stoutly stand and that, an unconquerable
"No " To the Conservatives of the kingdom it is strange
to have to appeal in the matter of so extreme a change.
Yet, let me say to such : If you have ever seriously believed
in one tittle of the principles which you pro r ess, now, if
ever, is the time to show the value of the policy which you
proclaim, and to save from the most utter contempt your
very raison d'etre^ by clinging to the order of the past, amid
the agitation for a fundamental change, by which all that
has been good therein is threatened with subversion and
decay.
Whatever, indeed, may be our general political bias, or
our ordinary methods of investigation and decision, let us
not refuse to listen to the warning voices of the past, or
fail to calmly look into the long vista of the uncertain
future. And until we can discover one nation which has
attempted the equalisation of the sexes before the period
of its visible decay ; until we can discern one spark of
illuminating experience to guide us on; or until one solid
argument, based upon facts ascertained and substantial
benefits to come, induces effort for this mighty change let us
not array ourselves, like puny Titans, against high Heaven's
decree, which conscience witnesses is just and reason,
declares to us is wise.
ALEXANDER & SHEPIIEAKD, Printers, 27, Chancery Lane, London, W.C.
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