At the opening of the nineteenth century, practically unfettered opportunity extended in all directions before women; but it was necessary for the century to spend its force before they had fully availed themselves of the privileges which were objected to only by those who still descanted on woman's sphere as a purely domestic one. The "woman question" is very modern, because woman has so lately come to be seriously regarded as a factor in the work of life. The changed conditions of the nineteenth century resulted from those forces which were operating for the larger liberty of the sex. Contributions to the widening of the scope of their lives came from many sources. Religion has been the evangel of woman; but even it cannot claim that the modern woman, with her versatility of touch and her multiform influence, is its product. Law reluctantly acknowledged the rights of the sex where it was futile to deny them; but it has sinned too grievously in the years that are past to receive recognition as a promoter of the new Renaissance, although it cherishes the rights which woman has achieved, and is to-day one of her most chivalrous defenders. Convention is too unadaptive to do more than recognize adjustments which have been otherwise brought about, but, as representing the rules of society, it is promotive of the dignity and the rights of the sex to the extent that these dignities and rights have been otherwise afforded.
MRS. ELIZABETH FRY
After the painting Mrs. E. M. Ward
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Mrs Elizabeth Fry was a Quakeress of gentle birth; though the
mother of a large family, she made the condition of the social outcasts
her constant care. The moral and physical degradation and suffering
of the inmates of prisons particularly appealed to her compassionate
nature, and she set herself the task of alleviating their
condition. Her first visit to Newgate Prison was in 1813; she
entered the pandemonium where nearly two hundred women were
confined, among them some of the most degraded and desperate of
their sex. Mrs. Fry's sincere compassion, gentleness and purity
conquered these women. Though her name is chiefly associated
with the reform of prisons and prisoners, her philanthropy embraced
the promotion of ecucation of the needy, religious movements, the
cause of freedom, and private charity.
Acknowledgment for the position which woman attained during the last century is due not to any one of these forces, but to all working together, although Nature must be chiefly credited with having brought it about. The great increase in population in England, and the excess of the female portion, led women to ponder the question of other spheres for their lives than solely the domestic. At the same time, the complex nature of modern business offered, to some extent, a practical solution of the problem. While the question of woman's sphere was greatly agitated, and was academically and forensically debated pro and con, women themselves were practically settling the matter at issue by accepting positions in commercial life, with little regard to the censure of critics or the praise of friends. The independence shown by women, their self-assertiveness, indicated that their failure previously to break into the outer world of affairs was not due to the force of convention, but to the lack of opportunity. Their excess in the population of the country afforded them strong ground for the claim, which they practically made in accepting the opportunities of business life,—that the sphere of domesticity was not open to them all. It is not a question as to whether woman is or is not in her sphere outside of the home or the limited circle of æsthetic following; for the time of theorizing is already past, and women have become so identified with industry as to preclude the possibility of a return to the narrower life. Vestigia nulla refrorsum is the motto of woman to-day, and has been from the early part of the nineteenth century. She is in the line of progress, and following her manifest destiny. The fears of the faint-hearted and the regrets of the conservative cannot alter the established fact that the practical status which women achieved in the nineteenth century is theirs, to be recognized and furthered.
The views prevailing in the nineteenth century with regard to matrimony were not greatly different from those of the eighteenth: it was considered just as discreditable to be an old maid, and marriage was the goal of existence for young women; but there was a portion of the sex who were willing to brave the aspersions cast upon them and to remain single—when the opportunity to do otherwise was not wanting—in order that they might follow careers which offered to them greater interest or profit. It was inevitable that such choice should lay them open to the charge of unsexing themselves and of being recreant to that esprit de corps of womankind which finds its common interest in the achieving of matrimony. Women would never have wrought out their independence of action if there had not been a great widening of life's opportunities. The ease of locomotion, abundant opportunities for education, and the lightening of domestic labor by inventions, were the important factors which made it possible for women to step out into the avenues of active business. The middle-class women, who were thrust out into the arena of life, were still the women who best preserved the pure idea of marriage. They were not subjected to the temptations which assailed those in the higher and the lower ranks of society, and, being less affected by tradition, they wrought out for themselves independent ideals. The marriage of convenience of the higher ranks and the marriage of necessity of the lower were not the forms which were common to the middle-class women. Unaffected by either of these influences, they regarded well the character of the men to whom they were to plight their troth, and were not disposed to pass over the weaknesses of suitors. Marriages were no longer contracted at the early ages of fifteen and sixteen years, which had been commonly the case heretofore. A bride under twenty-one was thought very youthful.
The entrance of woman into the ranks of labor has not been uncontested, for she has been charged with taking the bread out of the mouths of husbands and fathers; and, by working for much less wage than is given the men, she has been thought dangerously to affect the standard of payment for men's work. Just what will be the effect of the innovation of woman in industry cannot at present be stated, as she has not as yet gotten into normal and recognized relationship to men as a sharer of their work. One effect, however, of woman's contact with the other sex in the brusque business world has been to reduce her claim to special consideration in the way of the amenities which were accorded her at a time when she was not nearly so sincerely respected as she has become in recent years. A modern writer has summed up the matter in the following words: "Not the least among the changes is that effected by the fuller and freer life led by all women. A greater companionship and friendship is permitted them with the other sex; there is a larger sharing of interest, and women are expected to have a higher standard of education and to conceal their knowledge and culture with tasteful skill. Their interest in the political life of the country, and their acknowledged usefulness in their place in the working out of the political machine, the works, philanthropical and social, which are admitted by all to be within their sphere, have broadened and deepened the stream of life which is common to both sexes, and brought the social life on to a different level."
This broadening influence brought greater recognition of woman's activities in social and philanthropic measures and a corresponding increase of responsibility on her part. There are many women of this century whose noble deeds will never be forgotten, but one may be singled out as a splendid example of self-sacrifice and devotion to others, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry was a Quakeress of gentle birth, though the mother of a large family, she made the condition of the social outcasts her constant care. She was, in truth, a worthy successor to John Howard. The moral and physical degradation and suffering of the inmates of prisons particularly appealed to her compassionate nature, and she set herself the task of alleviating their condition. Her first visit to Newgate Prison was in 1813; alone and unprotected, she entered the pandemonium where nearly two hundred women were confined, among them some of the most degraded and desperate of their sex. Mrs. Fry's sincere compassion, gentleness, and purity conquered these women. Four years later she organized an association for the reformation of female prisoners. Though her name is chiefly associated with the reform of prisons and prisoners, her philanthropy embraced the promotion of education of the needy, religious movements, the cause of freedom, and private charity. The influence of this good woman was widespread, and her labors were not confined to her own country, but extended to the continent of Europe.
One of the most striking of the phenomena of modern life which came about in the nineteenth century is the fusion of classes, making it increasingly difficult to use class definitions. The passage from one to another has become so easy as to make mobility the principal characteristic of modern society. Travel, education, art appreciation, and home decoration are not confined to any section or class. The degree of luxury of living, and not the distinction between luxury and lack, is the only way to set aside one circle of society from another. A result of this wider diffusion of the comforts of life has been the awakening of the altruistic spirit, which finds expression in many and varied benevolences—so many, in fact, that the danger of the times is over-organization. This tendency, if pursued, will react to the disadvantage of women by depriving them of a sense of personal responsibility and individual initiative.
The assumption by society, as a whole, of the responsibility of its members of necessity gives an organized form to all efforts for its improvement. The nature of problems of this sort requires wide organization in order to bring into touch with the social need, for its satisfying, as many persons as possible of means and talent. If the philanthropist is rich, she employs her money as the expression of her interest in and recognition of her duty toward society. If not wealthy, but possessed of time and talent, the woman herself becomes the instrument of social amelioration, and the money from the coffers of others is placed in her hands for judicious expenditure. The great interest in philanthropy which in modern times is evinced by all classes of society tends to unite the women of to-day in a bond of common sympathy and purpose. It is not solely because they have more abundant leisure than men that the burden of philanthropy rests upon their shoulders, for their wider sympathy and clearer insight lead them to perceive more readily and to meet more effectively the needs of mankind.
One of the prominent women of England who gave herself largely to benevolent labors was the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The generous and wise use of her immense fortune has secured her an enduring name; she built churches, she founded charities; and although London was the chief field for her philanthropy, her native country of Ireland was remembered in a way to shrine her name there in grateful memory. She possessed the spirit of the great ladies of old England, who felt a responsibility toward the dependent and necessitous classes about them, and to this spirit she gave the wide expression her fortune and her exceptional environment made possible. The great variety of her benevolent sympathies and the personal part she took in the various charities which enlisted them cause her life to mark an era in the history of philanthropy. There was nothing beyond the catholicity of her spirit.