CHAPTER X
The Virtues and Vices of Women
Whether we appeal to folklore, to the proverbs of the nations, or to the earliest legends of mankind, we invariably encounter in the traditional wisdom of humanity judgments upon woman which are more or less unanimous in condemning her bad temper, her disloyalty, her dishonesty, her vanity, her malice and her indolence. The very attitude of the common people towards witchcraft, after the Reformation, points to a curious popular readiness to believe in the evil influences of the female; for the fact that aged women and not aged men were the suspected parties in the persecutions against supposed cases of necromancy, is significant, even if we deny the validity of the charges that were brought against these unfortunate wretches. In another work[142] I have dealt with the two principal legends of antiquity—that of Pandora and that of Eve—in which woman is specifically identified with the introduction of evil on earth, and I shall have to return to this subject here; for it cannot be merely a coincidence that in these oldest of human myths there is this connexion between woman and evil. In the Law Book of Manu, which represents ancient Hindu opinion, the character of women meets again with the same charges. We read:
“Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their natural heartlessness, they become disloyal to their husbands, however carefully they may be guarded in this world.
“Knowing their disposition, which the Lord of creatures laid in them at the creation, to be such, (even) man must strenuously exert himself to guard them.
“When creating them, Manu allotted to woman (love of their) bed, (of their) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wroth, dishonesty, malice and bad conduct.”[143]
Lombroso and Ferrero actually regard deception as being “physiological” in women. They ascribe it to her weakness (which makes it necessary for her to rely on craft to achieve her ends), to her periodical functional disturbances, to her modesty, to the pretences necessary to acquiring an ascendancy over man, to the duties of maternity, and to one or two other inevitable circumstances in her life.[144] In Chapter VII of their work, they adduce the testimony of such acute psychologists as Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Schopenhauer, Weininger, Molière, to support their contention that in woman lying is instinctive. We might add Shakespeare, Luther, Byron, Nietzsche, La Bruyère, and many others to the list. No matter where we turn, or to whom we refer, we find, more or less, the same verdict. It lies recorded even in an Arab proverb,[145] just as it lies, though perhaps more obscurely, in most of that “tinsel of sentiment” with which, utterly false as it is, woman insists upon veiling the natural relations of the sexes; while we must not forget that for hundreds of years a great and very profound people—the Mussulmans of Europe and Asia—have denied woman a soul.
The evidence of profound psychologists, the substance of myths, the content of national proverbs, the personal experience, in short, of all those who have learnt to know women generation after generation, all point to this conclusion, that there is a certain duplicity and unscrupulousness in their nature, against which it is only a matter of ordinary caution for man to be on his guard.
On the other hand, in all countries with a modern, democratic outlook, where woman’s influence is in the ascendant, and where men are inclined to a pronounced romanticism of thought, there is no quality, no jewel of human virtue, too priceless for woman to be thought worthy of it.
Perhaps the most radical attempt to contradict the tradition of ages, concerning woman, and to cast suspicion for ever upon all those who might venture to criticize her adversely, was made by that gallant but, alas! henpecked English “philosopher,” John Stuart Mill, than whom no writer is perhaps more responsible for the sudden access of strength that the Feminist movement acquired in the latter half of the nineteenth century in England. And, before proceeding with our inquiry, it will be necessary to pause in order to deal with his views and to dispose of them; for, since they represent the maximum that can be said on the other side, in accomplishing this, we shall have dealt vicariously with most of what has been advanced as scientific argumentation against the verdict of the rest of mankind.
John Stuart Mill admitted that all his writings, except his Logic, were as much his own work as that of the lady, Mrs. Taylor, who ultimately became his wife. He was not ashamed to acknowledge that Mrs. John Taylor was “in part the author of all that is best” in his writings; and speaking of his treatise on Liberty, Mr. W. L. Courtney says it “was written especially under her authority and encouragement.” The same author referring to the famous work The Subjection of Women, which is going to occupy our attention, writes: “Mill’s share was the result of discussions and conversations with his wife.”[146]