THE ADVANCE OF WOMAN
Follow Light and do the Right—for man can half control his doom—
Till you find the deathless Angel seated in the vacant tomb!
—Tennyson, Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After.
Sixty years ago! To us of the present day it seems a very long time—a kind of “dark ages” period wherein we peer backward dubiously, wondering what everybody was like then. History, taking us by the hand, shows us, as in a magic glass, the Coronation of Victoria, one of the best Queens that the world has ever known, and tells us of the great men and masterly intellects of that past time, whose immortal works we still have with us, but whose mere mortal place knows them no more. Much may be seen in the backward glimpse that some of us may possibly regret and wish that we possessed again. Men of power and dominance, for example—great writers, great thinkers, great reformers—surely we lack these! Surely we need them sorely! But it seems to be a rule of Nature that if we gain in one direction we must lose in another, and whatever we have lost in that far-gone period, we have certainly gained much in the forward direction. One of the most remarkable changes, perhaps, that has taken place in the passing of the years is the different position assigned to Woman from that which she occupied when Dickens and Thackeray wrote their wonderful novels, and when Charlotte Brontë astonished the world by her woman’s genius, to be followed by the still more powerful and Scott-like display of brainpower in Mary Ann Evans (“George Eliot”). At that time men were still chivalrous. Woman was so rarely brilliant—or, shall we put it, she so rarely had the chance of asserting the brilliant qualities that are her natural endowment—that man was content to acknowledge any unusual talent on her part as an abnormal quality, infrequent enough to be safely admired. In this spirit, more or less, Sir Walter Scott paid tribute to Jane Austen, and Thackeray to Charlotte Brontë; but as time has progressed, and women have arisen one after another in the various departments of Art and Literature, men have begun to fall back and look askance, and somewhat threateningly, on the fair trespassers in their hitherto guarded domains. And the falling back and the looking askance continue in exact proportion to the swift and steady onward march of the white-robed Amazons into the Battle of Life. Braced with the golden shield of Courage, helmeted with Patience, and armed with the sword of Faith, the women-warriors are taking the field, and are to be seen now in massed ranks, daily marshalling themselves in more compact order, firm-footed and fearless, prepared to fight for intellectual freedom, and die rather than yield. They, too, will earn the right to live; they, too, will be something greater than the mere vessels of man’s desire—whether maids, wives, or mothers, they will prove themselves worthy to be all these three, and more than these, to the very utmost extent of their moral and intellectual being!
Perhaps there is nothing more entertaining to the wit of a cultured and intelligent woman than the recurrent piping wail of man’s assertion that “woman has no creative power.” Her place, says the didactic male, is the kitchen, the nursery, and beside the cradle. Certes, she can manage these three departments infinitely better than he can, especially the cradle part of it, wherein his fractious disposition is generally well displayed the moment he starts in life. But, as a matter of fact, there is hardly any vocation in which she cannot, if she puts her mind to it, distinguish herself just as easily and successfully as he can if he will only kindly stand out of her way. He makes himself ludicrous by persistently “crying her down” when all the world en masse beholds her taking the highest University honours over his head, and beating him intellectually on his own ground. In physical force he certainly outstrips her. Item,—he can kick her as heartily and skilfully as he can kick a football, vide the daily police reports. Item,—he can eat and drink much more than she can, because he devotes a great deal more time and attention to the study of gastronomy. Item,—he can smoke more. Item,—he can indulge freely in unbridled licentiousness, and amply prove his original savage right to be considered a polygamous animal, without being banned from “good society,” or anything being said against his moral character. This a woman cannot do. If she has many lovers, her conduct is severely criticized. But if she has none, she is still more bitterly condemned, especially if she happens to be in the least good-looking. And why? Simply because her indifference “reflects” on the male sex generally. The ugliest of masculine creatures experiences a vague sense of offence when he meets a charming woman who neither seeks his advice nor his company. And here we have the gist of the whole matter: man is a vain animal and wants to be admired. Like the peacock, he struts forward and spreads out his glittering tail. The central feature of the landscape, as he considers himself, he waits for the pea-hen to worship him. If, instead of the humble pea-hen, he finds another sort of bird entirely—with not only a tail as brilliant as his own, but wings which will carry it over his head, he is mightily incensed, and his shrill cry of rage echoes through that particular part of the universe where he is no longer “monarch of all he surveys.” His “other world” must be pea-hens or none!
And yet Man’s delightful and utter want of the commonest logic is never more flagrantly exhibited than in this vital matter of his estimate of Woman, taking it all round in a broad sense. Daily, hourly, in the household and in the market-place, he may be heard cheapening her abilities, sneering at such triumphs as she attains, cracking stale jests at her “love of gossip,” “love of dress” (for he is seldom original even in a joke), and her “incessant tongue,” blissfully ignoring the fact that his own is wagging all the time; and yet no one can twist him so limply and helplessly round the littlest of her little fingers as she can. Moreover, throughout all the ages, so far as the keenest explorer or historical student can discover, his highest ideals of life have been depicted in the Feminine form. Fortune, Fame, Justice, the Arts and Sciences, are all represented by female figures lovingly designed by male hands. Evidently conscious in himself that a woman’s purity, honesty, fidelity, and courage are nobler types of these virtues than his own, Man apparently is never weary of idealizing them as Woman womanly. Thoroughly aware of the supreme sovereignty Woman can exercise whenever he gives her the chance, he, while endeavouring to bind and hold her intellectual forces by his various edicts and customs, takes ever an incongruous satisfaction in doing her full justice by the magnitude of his feminine ideals. The divine spirit of Nature itself, called “Egeria,” is always depicted by man as a woman. Faith, Hope and Charity, are represented as female spirits, as are the Three Graces. The Muses are women; so are the Fates. Hence, as all the virtues, morals, arts, and sciences are shown by the highest masculine skill as wearing woman’s form and possessing woman’s attributes, it is easy to see that man has always been perfectly aware in his inward intelligence of Woman’s true worth and right place in creation, though, by such laws as he has made for his own better convenience, he has put up whatever barriers he can in the way of the too swift advancement of so superior and victorious a creature. Now that she is beginning to take an important share in the world’s work and progress, he is becoming vaguely alarmed. In each art, in each profession he sees her gaining step by step to higher intellectual dominance. He watches her move from plane to plane of study, learning, as she goes, that the mere animalism of unthinking subservience to his passions is not her only heritage. And straightway the long-spoilt child begins to whimper. “A woman has no creative power!” he cries. “No imagination!—no originality!—no force of character! What she does in the Arts is so very little——!”
Stop, oh Man! You have had a very long, long innings, remember! From the time of Abraham, and ages before that worthy patriarch ever turned Hagar out into the wilderness, you have been setting Woman alongside your cattle, and curling your whip with a magnificent carelessness round both at your pleasure, yea! even offering both with indifferent readiness for sale and barter. You have enjoyed centuries of liberty; it is now woman’s turn to taste the sweets of freedom. She does very little in the Arts, you say? I grant you that in the first of them, Poetry, she does little indeed. I do not think we shall ever have a female Shakespeare, for instance. But, at the same time, I equally do not think we shall ever again have a male one! Yet it is to be admitted that none of the leading women poets can compare for an instant with the leading men in that most divine and primæval of Arts. But I should not like to assert that the great woman-Dante or woman-Shelley may not yet arise, for it is to be borne in mind that woman’s education and woman’s chances have only just begun. In Music, again, she is deemed deficient. Yet we are confronted at the present day by the fact that many of the most successful and charming of song writers are women. And the following appears in the Dresden Neueste Nachricten (October 18, 1902):—
“Up to the present date we have always entertained the opinion that the composition of music was a gift denied to the female sex, elegant trifles (as exceptions) only confirming our doubts. And now an English lady appears on the scene, amazing the musical world of Dresden. She was as a young girl already a distinguished artist, a virtuoso on the piano, and played—as ‘Miss Bright,’—under the direction of Dr. Wullner, a piano concerto of her own composition, with extraordinary success. Then marriage separated her from her art for several years. Now (after the death of her husband), the young widow, Mrs. Knatchbull, has composed an opera—text, music, and instrumentation all being her own work—and has brought it with her to Dresden. The music is so captivating, and above all, holds one so strongly that one exclaims in astonishment, ‘Can this be the work of a woman?’ It is more than probable that the opera will be produced at the Dresden Opera House.”
Here followeth an instructive story:—A recent opera performed with considerable success at Monte Carlo and other Continental resorts is the work of a woman, stolen by a man. The facts are well known, as are the names of the hero and heroine of the sordid tragedy. A little love-making on the part of the male composer, who could show nothing of ability save the composition of a few amorous drawing-room songs—a confiding trust on the part of the woman-genius, whose brain was full of God-given melody—these were the motives of the drama. She played the score of her opera through to him—he listened with admiration—with words of tender flattery, precious to her who was weak enough to care for such a rascal; and then he took it away to be “transcribed,” as he said, and set out for the orchestra. He loved her, so the poor credulous soul thought!—and she trusted him—such an old story! He copied her opera in his own manuscript—stole it, in short, and left for the Continent, where he had it produced as his own composition. Had she complained, the law would have gone against her. She had no proof save that of her love. Before a grinning, jesting court of law she would have had to publish the secret of her heart. People would have shaken their heads and said, “Poor thing! A case of self-delusion and hysteria!” He himself would have shaken his dirty pate and said, “Poor soul! Mad—quite mad! Many women have had their heads turned likewise for love of me!” So it chances that only those “in the know” are aware of the story, and the man-Fraud is left unmolested; but it is a curious and suggestive fact that he produces no more operas.
There is one thing that women generally, in the struggle for intellectual free life, should always remember—one that they are too often apt to forget—namely, that the Laws, as they at present exist, are made by men, for men. There are no really stringent laws for the protection of women’s interests except the Married Woman’s Property Act, which is a great and needful boon. But take the following instances of the eccentricities of English law, both of which have come under my own knowledge as having occurred to personal friends. A certain foreign nobleman residing in England made a will leaving all his fortune to his mistress. His legitimate children were advised to dispute the will, as under the law of his native country he could not dispossess his lawful heirs of their inheritance. He had not naturalized himself at any time as a British subject, and the plain proof of this was, that but a year before his death, he had applied to the Government of his own country for permission to wear a certain decoration, which permission was accorded him. The nature of his application proved that he still considered himself a subject of his own native land. The case came before an English judge, who had apparently eaten some very indigestible matter for his luncheon. With an apoplectic countenance and an injured demeanour, the learned gentleman declined to go into any of the details of the case, and administered “justice” by deciding the whole thing on “a question of domicile”—namely, that as the man had lived in England twenty-five years, he was, naturalized or unnaturalized, a British subject and could make his will as he liked. The fortune was, therefore, handed over to his mistress, and the legal wife and legitimately-born children were left out in the cold! Another case is that of a lady, well-born and well-educated, who married a man with a fortune of some twenty thousand a year. After the expiration of about fifteen years, when she had borne her husband three children, he suddenly took a fantastic dislike to her, and an equally fantastic liking for a chorus girl. He promptly sought a divorce. As there was no ground for divorce, he failed to obtain it. He, therefore, adopted a course of action emanating entirely from his own brilliant brain. Starting for a cruise on board his yacht, in company with the bewildering chorus girl, he left orders with his solicitor to have the whole of his house dismantled of its furniture and “cleared.” This was promptly done, the wife and children being left without so much as a bed to lie upon, or a chair to sit upon. The unfortunate lady told her story to a court, and applied for “maintenance.” This, of course, the recalcitrant husband was forced to pay, but the sum was cut down to the smallest possible amount, under the supervision of the blandly approving court, with the result that this man’s wife, accustomed from her girlhood to every home comfort and care, now lives with her children in a condition of genteel penury more degrading than absolute poverty. There is no remedy for these things. One welcomes heartily the idea of women lawyers, in the hope that when their keen, quick brains learn to grasp the huge, unwieldy, and complex machinery of the muddle called Legal Justice, they may, perhaps, be able to effect some reforms on behalf of their own sex. As matters at present stand, the unbridled and extravagant licentiousness of men, and the consequent degradation of women, are protected by law. Even a fraudulent financial concern is so guarded by “legal” advice that it would take the lifetime’s earning of an honest man to bring about any exposure. We want women-lawyers—Portias, with quick brains, to see the way out of a difficulty into which men plunge only to flounder more hopelessly. “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?”
In Medicine, women have made more than a decided mark of triumph. It is almost impossible to over-estimate the priceless value of the work done by women doctors and women surgeons in the harems of India and Turkey, where the selfishness and jealousy of the Eastern sybarite would give his women over to cruel agonies of disease and death, rather than suffer them to be so much as looked upon by another of his own sex. Yet, though perfectly conscious that Woman’s work in this branch of science is day by day becoming more and more precious to suffering humanity, we have quite recently been confronted by the spectacle of a number of men deciding to resign their appointments at a certain hospital, rather than suffer a woman to be nominated house-surgeon. Her skill and efficiency were as great as theirs, and she had all the qualifications necessary for the post; but no! sooner than honour a woman’s ability, they preferred to resign. Comment on this incident is needless, but it is one of the straws that show which way the wind blows.
Much excellent work is done, and remains yet to be done by women, as inspectors of schools. They alone are really fitted for the task of ascertaining the conditions under which children are made to study, and they are not likely, while examining infant classes, to make such ponderous statements as that passed by a certain male inspector, who, according to an amusing story told me by Sir John Gorst, found the babies (not above five years old) “deplorably deficient in mental arithmetic!” It takes a man to deplore “lack of mental arithmetic” in a baby. A woman would never be capable of such weighty stupidity. Perhaps it will be just as well to glance casually at the state of things in this country respecting the education of mere infants, as arranged by certain laws drawn up by men, laws in which women, who are the mothers of the race, are not allowed to have a voice.
1. The law allows them to enter at three years old, and compels them to enter at five years old.
2. Men inspectors constantly examine children of four years old in arithmetic, and the “mental arithmetic of the baby class,” is constantly mentioned in reports.
3. Needlework is taught before five years old; two to three hours form the staple instruction. Needlework injures the eyesight at such a tender age, and two or three hours are a cruelty and a waste of time for tiny children.
4. Desks, blackboards, slates and books are everywhere in excess of “Kindergarten” occupations, and the “development of the spontaneous activity in the child” is twisted into the development of uniformity. To differ from the usual is to be naughty; every one must do the same thing at the same time. Every one must build a like house, a like table, a like chair; each brick must be on the table at the same minute.
5. Despite male inspectors, the babies sleep. They fall off their seats and bump their foreheads against the desks, and their spines are twisted and crooked as they lie on their arms, heads forward, upon the hard supports. Curvature must be produced in many cases, solely from these causes.
6. To maintain order, corporal punishment is habitual, and “fear” the chief motive for right-doing. To quote from a letter of Sir John Gorst’s:—
“The reform of this system is not a matter of sentiment. These babies are the future scholars of our improved schools that the Education Act is intended to produce, and the future citizens by whom our Imperial position is to be maintained. If we prematurely addle their intellects by schooling—for which their tender years are unfit; if we cripple their bodies by cooping them up in deforming desks; if we destroy their sight by premature needlework, and confuse their senses by over-study of subjects which they are too young to understand, we shall neither have fit scholars for our future schools, nor fit citizens to uphold the Empire.”
Starting on these premises it will surely be acknowledged that women have an indisputable right to be inspectors of schools. They have the natural instinct to know what is best for the health and well-being of children, and they are also capable of correctly judging by that maternal sympathy which is their inherited gift, how a child’s mental abilities should best be encouraged and trained.
I have often been asked if I would like to see women in Parliament. I may say frankly, and at once, that I should detest it. I should not like to see the sex, pre-eminent for grace and beauty, degraded by having to witness or to take part in such “scenes” of heated and undignified disputation as have frequently lowered the prestige of the House of Commons. On the same lines I may say that I do not care to see women playing “hockey” or indulging in any purely “tom-boy” sports and pastimes. They lose “caste” and individuality. One of the many brilliant and original remarks of mankind concerning the female sex is that women should be cooks and housekeepers. So they should. No woman is a good housekeeper unless she understands cooking, nor can she be a good cook unless she be a good housekeeper. The two things are inseparable, and combine to make comfort with economy. A woman should know how to cook and keep house for herself, not only for man. Man says to her: “Be a cook,”—because of all things in the world he loves a good dinner; loves it better than his wife, inasmuch as he will often “bully” the wife if the dinner fails. But a woman must also eat, and she should learn to cook for her own comfort, quite apart from his. In the same way she should study housekeeping. If she lives a single life, she will find such knowledge eminently useful. But to devote all her energy and attention to cooking and housekeeping, as most men would have her do, would be a waste of power and intelligence. As well ask a great military hero to devote his entire time to the canteen.
In breaking her rusty fetters, and stepping out into the glorious liberty of the free, Woman has one great thing to remember and to strive for,—a thing that she is at present, in her newly emancipated condition, somewhat prone to forget. In claiming and securing intellectual equality with Man, she should ever bear in mind that such a position is only to be held by always maintaining and preserving as great an Unlikeness to him as possible in her life and surroundings. Let her imitate him in nothing but independence and individuality. Let her eschew his fashions in dress, his talk and his manners. A woman who wears “mannish” clothes, smokes cigars, rattles out slang, gambles at cards, and drinks brandy and soda on the slightest provocation, is lost altogether, both as woman and man, and becomes sexless. But the woman whose dress is always becoming and graceful, whose voice is equable and tender, who enhances whatever beauty she possesses by exquisite manner, unblemished reputation, and intellectual capacity combined, raises herself not only to an equality with man, but goes so far above him that she straightway becomes the Goddess and he the Worshipper. This is as it should be. Men adore what they cannot imitate. Therefore when men are drunken, let women be sober; when men are licentious, let women be chaste; when men are turf-hunters and card-players, let women absent themselves from both the race-course and the gambling-table; and while placing a gentle yet firm ban on laxity in morals and disregard of the binding sanctity of family life, let them silently work on and make progress in every art, every profession, every useful handicraft, that they may not be dependent for home or livelihood on man’s merely casual fancy or idle whim. The mistake of Woman’s progress up to the present, has been her slavish imitation of Man’s often unadmirable tastes, and a pathetic “going down” under his lofty disdain. Once grasp the fact that his disdain is not “lofty” but merely comic, and that his case is only that of the Distressful Peacock, hurt by indifference to his tail, things will right themselves. Nature has already endowed Woman with the contrasting elements of beauty, delicacy, and soft charm, as opposed to man’s frequent ugliness and roughness; let Woman herself continue to emphasize the difference by bringing out her original and individual qualities in all she does or attempts to do. Of course for a long time yet, Man will declare “feminine individuality” to be non-existent; but as we know the quality is as plain and patent as “masculine individuality,” we have only to insist upon it and assert it, and in due course it will be fully admitted and acknowledged. Meantime, while pressing on towards the desired goal, Woman must learn the chief lesson of successful progress, which is, not to copy Man, but to carefully preserve her beautiful Unlikeness to him in every possible way, so that, while asserting and gaining intellectual equality with him, she shall gradually arrive at such ascendancy as to prove herself ever the finer and the nobler Creature.