Whenever one contemplates the effect of more coarse experience of the world, more knowledge, and more rough and hard work on such a nature, one is invariably tempted to acquiesce in the view that it is good for man to have her in the state she is. One feels disposed to object to notions of female emancipation as profane. Education and science, thought and philosophy, like the winds of heaven, should never visit her cheek too roughly. The great thing is, to preserve in her that sort of luxurious unworldliness which represents the religious and refined element in the household to which she belongs. And a hundred things may be and have often been said about the advantage of making pure sentiment the foundation of all the relations that obtain between her and man.
As Plato thought, man elevates himself by elevating and sentimentalizing his affections. All poetry and most literature is given up to this sentimentalizing or refining process. Nor can it be denied that the effect is to increase very much the capacity of happiness in all people who are born to be happy or to enjoy life. What would youth be without its imaginative emotions? We all know, and are taught to believe, that it would be something much poorer than it is.
There is another side to the picture, and it is as well to contemplate it seriously, before we make up our minds to treat with undisguised contempt all the vagaries of those who wish definitely to alter the social condition of women. At present women are beautiful and delicate adjuncts of life. As Prometheus said of horses, they are the ornaments of wealth and luxury. They add perfume and refinement to existence. But, after all, it is an important question whether the conversion of women into this sort of drawing-room delicacy is not sacrificing the welfare of the many to the intellectual and social comfort of the few.
The world pays a heavy price for having its imagination sentimentalized. One of the items in the bill is the disappointment of the thousands whose sensibilities are never destined to be satisfied. For every woman who marries happily, a large percentage never marry at all, or marry in haste and repent at leisure. It remains to be proved that it is wise to teach and train the sex to fix all their views in life and to stake all their fortunes on the chance of the one rare thing—a lucky matrimonial choice. If one could succeed in de-sentimentalizing society, one would take from a few the chief pleasure of living, but it is far from certain that the material welfare of the majority would not be proportionately increased. Half-measures would of course be of very little use.
It would be a poor exchange to take from women all their reserve and innocence and refinement, without giving them free play in the world. They would be only coarse and wicked caricatures of what they are now. The change, to be tolerable, would have to be effectual and thorough. It would be necessary to change the whole current of their ideas, and the whole view of man about them also; to persuade the human race to fix its mind less on the difference of sexes, and to become less imaginative upon the subject. If so sweeping an alteration could be completely effected, perhaps it might be worth while to consider whether woman's absolute independence would not strengthen her character, and add permanently to the world's natural wealth.
One thing is certain, that if woman is to continue for ever in her present condition, the moral and social condition of large numbers of human beings must remain hopeless. Their future appears dreary in the extreme. It is Utopian to expect that men and women will grow less and less self-indulgent, so long as the education they undergo from their earliest years renders them prone to every species of temptation. There are some things which make social philosophers hopeful and confident, but no social philosopher can ever do anything but despair of real progress if he is to take for granted that women are always to play the part in life which they at present play. The emancipation of the goose is an experiment, but it is not surprising that many enthusiasts should believe it to be an experiment well deserving of a trial.
ENGAGEMENTS.
A great writer has pathetically described the last days of a man under sentence of death. He has found appropriate expression for every phase of the protracted agony with characteristic richness and variety of language; we are made to taste each drop in the bitter cup—the remorse and the awful expectation, and the desperate clinging to deceitful straws of hope. Indeed it scarcely requires the eloquence of a first-rate writer to impress upon us the fact that it is very unpleasant to expect to be hanged. Every man's imagination is sufficient to realize some of the unpleasant consequences of such a state of mind; for though the number of persons who have encountered this particular experience is inconsiderable, most of us have gone through something more or less analogous—we have been significantly told to wait after school, or have paid visits to dentists, or have been candidates at competitive examinations, or have been engaged to be married. These and many other situations, though varying in the intrinsic pain or pleasure of the anticipated event, have thus much in common, that they are all states of abnormal suspense. The nerves are kept in a state of equal tension by the uncomfortable feeling that we are in for it, whatever the "it" may turn out to be.