Much the same teaching is continued a century later in the noted Dr. Gregory’s “A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters”; and again, hideously true is the picture which Mill has to draw, in 1869:—“Above all, a female slave has (in Christian countries) an admitted right, and is considered under a moral obligation to refuse to her master the last familiarity. Not so the wife; however brutal a tyrant she may unfortunately be chained to, though she may know that he hates her, though it may be his daily pleasure to torture her, and though she may feel it impossible not to loathe him, he can claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of a human being, that of being made the instrument of an animal function contrary to her inclinations.... No amount of ill-usage, without adultery superadded, will in England free a wife from her tormentor.”—(“The Subjection of Women,” pp. 57, 59.)
As to how far public feeling, if not law, has amended some of these conditions, see Note XXXVI., 6. Meanwhile, as an evidence of what is the “orthodox” opinion and sentiment at this present day, it may be noted that Cardinal Manning wrote in the Dublin Review, July, 1891:—“A woman enters for life into a sacred contract with a man before God at the altar to fulfil to him the duties of wife, mother, and head of his home. Is it lawful for her, even with his consent, to make afterwards a second contract for so many shillings a week with a millowner whereby she becomes unable to provide her husband’s food, train up her children, or do the duties of her home? It is no question of the lawfulness of gaining a few more shillings for the expenses of a family, but of the lawfulness of breaking a prior contract, the most solemn between man and woman. No arguments of expediency can be admitted. It is an obligation of conscience to which all things must give way. The duties of home must first be done” (by the woman) “then other questions may be entertained.”
Are not these English injunctions to womanly and wifely slavery as trenchant and merciless as any ascribed to so-called “heathenism”? And is it not the fuller truth that the spirit of the male teaching against woman is the same all the world over, and no mere matter of creed—which is nevertheless made the convenient vehicle for such teaching; and that, in brief, the precepts of womanly and wifely servitude are blind, brutal, and universal?
See also Note XXXIV., 8.
XVIII.
8.—“To compass power unknown in body and in mind.”
“We need a new ethic of the sexes, and this not merely, or even mainly, as an intellectual construction, but as a discipline of life, and we need more. We need an increasing education and civism of women.”—P. Geddes and J. A. Thomson (“The Evolution of Sex,” p. 297).
Newnham and Girton, Vassar and Zurich, are already rendering account of woman’s scope of mental power; while the circus, the gymnasium, swimming and mountaineering are showing what she might do corporeally, apart from her hideous and literally impeding style of clothing. As for some other forms of utilitarian occupation, read the following concerning certain of the Lancashire women:—
“Mr. Edgar L. Wakeman, an observant American author, is at present on a visit to this country, and is giving his countrymen the benefit of his impressions of English life and social conditions.
“The ‘pit-brow’ lasses of the Wigan district will not need to complain, for he writes of them not only in a kindly spirit, but even with enthusiasm for their healthy looks, graceful figures, and good conduct. We need not follow his description of the processes in which the women of the colliery are employed, but we may say in passing that Mr. Wakeman was astonished by the ‘wonderful quickness of eye and movement’ shown by the ‘screeners,’ and by the ‘superb physical development’ and agility of the ‘fillers.’ He had expected to find them ‘the most forlorn creatures bearing the image of women,’ and he found them strong, healthy, good-natured, and thoroughly respectable. ‘English roses glow from English cheeks. You cannot find plumper figures, prettier forms, more shapely necks, or daintier feet, despite the ugly clogs, in all of dreamful Andalusia. The “broo gear” is laid aside on the return home from work, and then the “pit-brow” lass is arrayed as becomingly as any of her class in England, and in the village street, or at church of a Sunday, you could not pick her out from among her companions, unless for her fine colour, form, and a positively classic poise and grace of carriage possessed by no other working women of England. Altogether,’ he says, ‘I should seriously regard the pit-brow lasses as the handsomest, healthiest, happiest, and most respectable working women in England.’—(Manchester Guardian, Aug. 28, 1891.)