Observe also the manner of the control and the submission,—“as unto the Lord.” The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. The wife is to be subject to the husband, as the church is subject to Christ. Why, this is just what I want. Not a wife in Christendom but would rejoice to recognize her husband to be her head as Christ is the head of the church. Only let husbands follow their model, and there would be no more question of obedience. Quote St. Paul against me? St. Paul is my standard-bearer! If you had only obeyed St. Paul, I should not be fighting at all. The world would go on so smoothly and lovingly that I should never be required to stir up its impure mind by way of remembrance, but should be occupied in writing the loveliest little idyls that ever were thought of. It is the flagrant disregard and violation of Paul’s teachings that brings me unto you with a rod instead of in love and the spirit of meekness. I want no higher standard than was set up by Paul.
Men reason very well so long as they confine their reasoning to pure mathematics, but when they attempt to apply their logic to practical life, they are at fault. They find it difficult to make allowance for friction. They do not observe, and they do not know what to do with their observations when they have made them. Consequently, though their arguments look very well, they do not stand the test of experiment. Nothing can be more charming than this implicit trust which men so love and laud, this unhesitating submission of the fond wife,—the “God is thy law, thou mine” of Milton (which most men evidently believe is to be found in all the Four Gospels and most of the Epistles). Yet its only practical justification would be the infallibility of men. But in actual life men are not infallible. They are just as likely to be wrong as women. The only obedience practicable or desirable is the adoption of the wisest course after consultation. Practically, there is seldom much trouble about this matter; but there is none the less for all the theories and all the vows of obedience. Yet we have it from good authority, that it is better not to vow than to vow and not pay.
When I see the strenuousness with which man has ever enjoined upon woman respect for his position and submission to his will, the persistence with which he has maintained his superiority and her subordination, the compensatory and unreasonable, inconsequent homage which he awards to those who acquiesce in his claims, I seem to be reading a new version of an old story. Man takes woman up into an exceeding high mountain, and shows her what seems to her dazzled eyes all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and says unto her, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” But as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,—“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” For many generations the world has reaped a bitter harvest from worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator. Eve’s desire was to the man, and he ruled over her consequently, and she brought forth a murderer. The virgin-mother rejoiced primarily in God, and that Holy Thing which was born of her was called the Son of God. For six thousand years the works of the flesh have been manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
When women begin to talk of right, men begin to talk of courtesy. They are very willing that women should be angels, but they are not willing that they should be naturally-developed women. They like to pay compliments, but they like not to award dues. One great article of their belief is, that
“A woman ripens like a peach,
In the cheeks chiefly,”
and the rod perpetually held over any deeper ripening is the not always unspoken threat of a forfeiture of masculine deference. From those who want what they have not shall be taken away that which they have. Very well, take it away. No thoughtful woman desires any homage that can be given or withheld at pleasure. The only reverence, the only respect, which has any value, is that which springs from the depths of the heart spontaneously. If the politeness which men show to women, and for which American men are famous, does not spring from their own sense of fitness, if it is a kind of barter, a reward of merit, let us dispense with it altogether. Sometimes I almost fear that it is so. Sometimes I am half inclined to believe that men are kind and courteous chiefly to those who are independent of them. In a railroad-car, not long since, I saw a woman, hard-featured, coarse-complexioned, ignorant, rude, and boisterous, engaged in an altercation with the conductor regarding her fare. The dozen men in the vicinity leaned forward or looked around with intent eyes, and—must I say, smiling? no—grinning faces, and saluted each fresh outburst of violence with laughter. Could a true courtesy have found amusement, or anything but pain, in such an exhibition? The woman was most unwomanly, but she was a woman. That should be enough, on your principles. She was a human being. That is enough, on mine.
In “Our Old Home,” Hawthorne—O the late sorrow of that beloved name!—has most tenderly told the story of Delia Bacon. When her book was published, we are informed, “it fell with a dead thump at the feet of the public, and has never been picked up. A few persons turned over one or two of the leaves, as it lay there, and essayed to kick the volume deeper into the mud…. From the scholars and critics in her own country, indeed, Miss Bacon might have looked for a worthier appreciation.” But, “If any American ever wrote a word in her behalf, Miss Bacon never knew it, nor did I. Our journalists at once republished some of the most brutal vituperations of the English press, thus pelting their poor countrywoman with stolen mud, without even waiting to know whether the ignominy was deserved. And they never have known it to this day, nor ever will.”
Is this courtesy? Is this the lofty manhood which women are to bow down and worship? To such as these is it that women are to say, “What thou bid’st, unargued I obey”? Men may promise all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, and women may make never so persistent efforts to bow down and enter into possession; but the worship will never be heartsome, nor the title ever secure. Never will the human mind, whether of man or woman, rest in that which is not excellent. So long as men are unworthy of fealty, they may forever grasp, but they cannot retain it. Their empire will be turbulent and their claim disputed. They will have a secure hold on woman’s respect only so far as character commands it. Feudalism was better than barbarism, and the nineteenth is an advance on the fifteenth century. But the inmost germ of chivalry has not yet flowered into perfect blossom. By the restiveness of woman under the tutelage of man may he measure his own short-comings. It is not necessary that men should be renowned, but they should be great. Fame is a matter of gifts, but character is always at command. Not every man can be a philosopher, poet, or president, but every man can be gentle, reverent, unselfish, upright, magnanimous, pure. In field and wood and prairie, standing behind the counter, bending over lapstone or anvil, day-book, ledger, or graver, a man may fashion himself on the true heroic model, and so
“Move onward, leading up the golden year;