To appreciate these virtues of woman at their proper worth, however, a stronger and more vital generation of people is needed than any that has appeared, in England at least, for the last 250 years. The very fact that, at the present day, the general concensus of opinion among men would accord to women quite a different set of virtues, is a sufficient sign of the degeneracy that has occurred.
To-day, for instance, a Parliament of Englishmen or Anglo-Saxons would, in enumerating woman’s virtues, speak about—(1) Her moralizing influence on Society;[189] (2) Her unselfishness (whatever that may mean!); (3) Her powers of self-sacrifice (this is the result of sick values and a confusion of thought—see pp. [77-79]); (4) Her intuition (a great myth, the outcome of woman’s habit of saying the first thing that enters her head, and which, according to the laws of chance, must be right sometimes); (5) Her humanitarianism (a mischievous misunderstanding)—all weak, or at least, fictitious qualities, that no full-blooded woman would ever do anything more than pretend to possess, and which made Huxley say “that woman’s virtue was man’s most poetic fiction!”
If, however, we choose to dwell on the five cardinal virtues that derive directly from the great vital impulse within her, and to think of the many useful minor virtues that spring from them, we have a list which, if it is less goody-goody than the above, is both hardier and more compatible with reality.
From (1), which we call the Unreflecting constancy to the demands of Life, we can see the following as derivatives: (a) Woman’s constancy to the circumstances (and therefore to the man) who enables her to meet the demands of Life. (b) Her intensely keen sense of self-preservation, when the danger threatening her is not life-promoting. This accounts for her caution, her sagacity in suspecting the unfamiliar, and her over-anxiousness in public thoroughfares, or on railway platforms, on board ship, and in the neighbourhood of restive horses, etc. (c) Her quick recognition of the fact that a given environment cannot procure the demands of Life—hence her mobility, tractableness, docility, amenability, and readiness to follow at great personal risk, until such time as she has found the environment that can procure her the demands of Life. In all communities where marriage is difficult owing to a superfluity of women, girls thus show a tendency frequently to change their environment, and are quite unconscious that in so doing they are pursuing tactics which are calculated to enable them to meet Life’s demands. Thus, they will leave home to study Political Economy, or Sculpture, and when that fails they will change over to child-welfare, or to nursing, and if that fails they will try secretarial work—giving as their reason at each change, that the previous work “did not satisfy them.” If economic pressure compels, they will of course be forced to remain in one occupation, whether it satisfies the demands of Life or not; but those who can afford it, will, as a rule, be restless until they find an environment which promises them fertilization. (d) Her ability to put up with any number of inconveniences and discomforts, provided that the demands of Life are procured for her—hence her stoicism in poverty, or any other kind of distress, despite the fact that her children share it; hence her cheerful courage in those vital inconveniences connected with an existence in which the demands of Life are being met—illness, the incessant clatter of many children, the hard work that a number of children imposes upon a poor female parent, etc., etc. (e) Her ability to treat all life emotionally. The very quality of unreasoning or unreflecting constancy to the demands of Life, involves an impulsive attitude towards them. I used the word “unreflecting” purposely. It is because woman does not pause to reflect whether it is proper, or expedient, or right, that she should perform a certain action to meet the demands of Life, that she can be so thoroughly relied upon to perform it punctually. If she reflected, it would presuppose hesitation, therefore delay, therefore possibly inaction. But it should be remembered that this attitude is a purely emotional one, and since the business of Life, with the various relationships the family creates, is largely a matter of the emotions too, and not of the reflective or reasoning faculties, it follows that the tradition or history of woman’s mental life is largely confined to the play and the exercise of the emotions. Life, as far as normal woman is concerned, is a matter of affection, of attachment and devotion, first to the man of her heart, and lastly to the children of her blood. Where she may be expected to be practised, gifted and versatile, therefore, is precisely in this sphere of the emotions; for they alone are capable of directing that unreflecting form of action that the demands of Life impose upon her. A mistress of feeling, therefore, we cannot expect her to be so perfect at reflection.[190]
From (2), which we call the Untiring interest in the processes of Life and its multiplication, we can see the following derivations: (a) Woman’s helpfulness and readiness to be of use in all those circumstances in a neighbour’s, friend’s, or relative’s home, in which she comes in close contact with Life’s most serious business, at moments of child-birth, serious illness, and death, and particularly at moments of great domestic upheavals, such as times of serious disagreement, and all tragic occurrences, between couples. The fact that these virtues necessarily involve such an all-embracing interest in human affairs, that a love of scandal is an almost inevitable counterpart of them, is not difficult to see. The evils of scandal-mongering, however, are grossly exaggerated. All decent, humane and humanity-loving people revel in scandal, and I have never yet met a woman who was worth knowing who was not an inveterate scandal-monger. “The proper study of mankind is Man,” said Pope, and he was entirely right. But what is scandal-mongering, and the exhaustive discussion of one’s acquaintances, relatives and friends, but an essential description of that “proper study”? Husbands who do not sympathize with their wives’ love of scandal, and who refuse to join with them in expatiating on tittle-tattle, are usually inhuman and narrow men, such men as make good engineers, good mathematicians, good chemists, and good sailors or explorers. These men will expect their wives to listen breathlessly when they discuss sport or some other futile subject as remote as possible from humanity, and yet will show impatience if their wives discuss the marital relations of their next-door neighbour. (b) This virtue makes women very observant of little odd characteristics in their fellow-creatures. And if women are, as a rule, such good mimics and imitators, it is due partly to the earnestness with which they observe other men and women (the other reason for their power of imitation I shall give under (5)). Women will frequently draw wrong conclusions from the traits they have observed—this I do not deny—but the interesting point is that they usually observe the traits.
From (3), which we called Desperate bravery in defending and succouring human life, we can see the following derivatives: (a) The readiness to incur mortal risk for a child of their own (quite common); for a husband (very rare, except in early days of marriage when children have not yet arrived); for a loved human creature of any kind. (b) A certain foolhardy and reckless daring in engaging overwhelming odds for the sake of achieving a vital purpose (a woman will assault a man twice her size and three or four times her strength at such moments). (c) A capacity for a fierce unrelenting hatred towards enemies, deceivers, or betrayers of those she loves. (d) In the realm of the spirit, a readiness to perform a mad feat of intrepidity to defend or promote an idea (Miss Emily Davison in that marvellous rush at the King’s horse in the Derby of 1913.[191] We loathed the cause for which she fought, but we honoured and admired the fierce single-mindedness with which she and the other militant suffragettes fought for it).
From (4), which we call A capacity for single-minded devotion to her own offspring, we can see the following derivatives: (a) Woman’s unswerving tenacity of purpose in serving and ministering to those she loves. (b) Her indefatigable industry on behalf of those who depend on her, so that she is able, like a horse, to work herself to death, provided she loves and knows she is loved. (c) In the spiritual realm, her capacity for fanatical adherence to a cause, to a belief, to a faith, and her corresponding fierce antagonism to those who oppose that cause or faith. (d) Her pride in her own offspring and her consequent tendency to undervalue or to dislike the offspring of others. When this sentiment is stimulated to its zenith by the fact that the offspring of others happen to be the offspring of the former possessor of her man’s love, you get the staggering cruelties of the stepmother. Thus in woman’s nature does good merge into evil, and evil merge into good.[192]
It is certainly in this capacity for single-minded devotion to her own offspring that, generally speaking, the greatest beauty of woman’s character is revealed; and to one who has experienced it in all its perfection and intensity, there is perhaps some pardonable difficulty in speaking about it either with calm or with moderation. The very effort of seeking, in writing, a suitable expression for his feelings in this matter may well seem to a man to subject them to a limitation and temperateness which he can hardly regard as sincere; and, ultimately, in the coldness of the printed page, he can perceive, at best, but a poor travesty of the sentiments he wished to convey.
Everything connected with this virtue is at once so useful to the race, and so unique and unforgettable as an individual experience, that it seems only fitting to pause for a moment here to dwell on one or two of its most stirring features. Passing over the first months and years when the only force between helpless, pitiably dependent life, and death—or at least neglect—is precisely this mother’s instinct, this jealous care, when inarticulate infancy can neither acknowledge, return thanks for, nor, what is perhaps more perplexing, realize all the thousand and one services that are cheerfully performed in order to promote its growth and its comfort; passing over, too, those moments of the silent watcher, of the sleepless sentry, in which, during times of danger, every breath is a prayer, and every smile a song of thanksgiving; we would like more particularly to concentrate upon that period of early childhood, on that age of babbling tongue and unsteady gait, when most of that which is to be of use in life, and indeed most of that which is never to be forgotten in life, is learnt at the mother’s side. Not that we would wish to reduce by one iota the importance of the former period, the most wonderful aspect of which is, perhaps, the joy that is felt by either side in simply playing its appointed rôle; but rather because in the latter period both parties are conscious of this same joy, and are in a position to prolong it, transmute it and preserve it, until long after that age when the positions become reversed, and dependence has begun on the side of the once protecting mother.
There is in the child of a good mother, a spirit so confiding, so receptive, so perfectly trustful, that possibly at no other age are the pre-requisites for sound education more completely present than in those first years of life at the dawn of which a fold of the mother’s skirt still offers a substantial amount of support to legs that are learning both bearing power and balance. What happens then, and how it happens, will, of course, never be properly recorded; for lessons are given and lessons are learnt without sufficient conscious effort on either side for the method to be made a subject of exact knowledge. But the result is gradually made manifest by the marvellous transformation of an inarticulate little animal, whose whole horizon is bounded by food, sleep and apparently purposeless limb-exercises, into a creature that can express its wishes, demand explanations of the things about it, learn to recognize the first rules of decent behaviour, and, what is more, shed its own fresh light on the problems of existence; and, if what it learns later on may, from the standpoint of material utility, bear a more imposing and less chaotic aspect, certainly nothing it has failed to learn at this period will ever be acquired at any subsequent stage of its existence. It cannot be said that it has mastered any definite system of thought, or that it has memorized any particularly striking fact; it may not even have learnt the very patience and gentleness which its mother has constantly exhibited in her care of it. Nevertheless, it has learnt things which, in solemn truth, can be said to be little short of priceless.