Inasmuch as there are almost a million more women than men in England, it is not surprising that women should thus seek to extend their sphere of usefulness. We live in an experimental epoch, when it is to be ascertained what is and what is not becoming to woman regarded as a labourer. It is therefore of the utmost importance that there should be some standard by which each employment is to be judged. And this standard, fortunately, is supplied by Romantic Love.
We have seen that the tendency of civilisation has been to differentiate the sexes more and more in appearance, character, and emotional susceptibilities, and that on this differentiation depends the existence and power of Love, because it individualises man and woman, and Love is the more intense the more it is individualised.
Hence every employment which tends to make woman masculine in appearance or habits is to be tabooed by her because antagonistic to Love. If she, nevertheless, persists in it, Love will have its revenge by eliminating her through Sexual Selection. No man will marry a masculine woman, or fall in love with her, so that her unnatural temperament will not be transmitted to the next generation and multiplied.
But what is to be accepted as the standard of femininity? The answer is given us by Nature. Throughout the animal world, with a few insignificant exceptions, the sexes are differentiated distinctly; and the female is the more tender and gentle of the two, the more devoted to domestic affection and the care and education of the young, the more amiable, and, above all, less aggressive, bold, and pugnacious than the male. “Any education which women undergo,” says the Spectator, “should be an education not for the militant life of war against evil but for the spiritual life inspiring a persuasive or patient charity.... Even in a field properly suited to them—the field of charitable institutions, of poor-law work, of educational representation—women no sooner take up the cudgels than they lose their appropriate influence, and are either unsexed or paralysed.”
According to Mr. Ruskin, “woman’s work is—(1) To please people. (2) To feed them in dainty ways. (3) To clothe them. (4) To keep them orderly. (5) To teach them.”
Statistics concerning the employments instinctively sought by the majority of women bear out Mr. Ruskin’s table quite well. Woman’s first duty is to please people by being beautiful, amiable, and fascinating in conversation and manners. No man would marry a woman unless she pleased him in one way or another; hence matrimony is the most successful female profession, which in England includes 4,437,962 women. But there are other ways in which women seek to please and prosper; hence there are in England 2368 actresses as against 2197 actors, and 11,376 women whose profession is music, as against 14,170 men.
Domestic service, which includes the “feeding in dainty ways” (though too often the “dainty” must be omitted), employs 1,230,406 women in England—about 30,000 fewer than industrial employments, which are somewhat more popular owing to the greater individual liberty they allow the employed. Yet domestic service is a much better preparation for married life than labour in a manufactory; so that, other things being equal, a labouring man looking for a wife would be apt to select one who has learned how to take care of his home. This thought ought to help to render domestic service more popular.
“To clothe them.” Dressmaking, staymaking (alas!), and millinery, employ 357,995 women in England.
“To keep them orderly.” Bathing and washing service employ 176,670 women; medicine and nursing, almost 50,000; missions, 1660.
“To teach them.” This, one of woman’s special vocations, eminently suited to her capacity, employs 123,995 females.