A Sheaf

by John Galsworthy

Now social and political Equity emanates slowly, with infinite labour, from our dim consciousness of this serene and overlording principle of Equity. There would seem, for example, no fundamental reason why limits should ever have been put to autocracy, the open ballot destroyed, slavery abolished, save that these things came to be regarded as inequitable. In all such cases, before reaching the point of action the society of the day puts forward practical reasons, being, so to speak, unaware of its own sense of divinity. But, underneath all the seeming matter-of-factness of political and social movements, the spirit of Equity is guiding those movements, subtly, unconsciously, a compelling hand quietly pushing humanity onward, ever unseen save in the rare minutes when the spirits of men glow and light up and things are beheld for a moment as they are. The history of a nation’s spiritual development is but the tale of its wistful groping towards the provision of a machinery of State, which shall, as nearly as may be, accord with the demand of this spirit of Equity. Society, worthy of the name, is ever secretly shaping around it a temple, within which all the natural weaknesses and limitations of the dwellers shall be, not exploited and emphasized, but to the utmost levelled away and minimized. It is ever secretly providing for itself a roof under which there shall be the fullest and fairest play for all human energies, however unequal.

The destinies of mankind are seen to be guided, very slowly, by something more coherent than political opportunity; shaped steadily in a given direction towards the completion of that temple of Justice. There is no other way of explaining the growth of man from the cave-dweller to his present case. And this slow spiritual shaping towards Equity proceeds in spite of the workings of the twin bodily agents, force and expediency. Social and political growth is, in fact, a process of evolution, controlled, directed, spiritualized by the supreme principle of Equity.

This is to state no crazy creed, that because equality is mathematically admirable, equality should at all times and in all places forthwith obtain. Equality, balance, is a dream, the greatest of all visions, the beloved star—ever to be worshipped, never quite reached. And the long road towards it travels the illimitable land of compromise. It would have been futile, as it was in fact impossible, to liberate slaves, when the consciousness of the injustice of slavery was present only in a few abnormal minds, and incommunicable by them to the mind of the surrounding society of the time. The process is slow and steady. Equity well knows that there is a time for her, as for all other things. She is like the brain, saying to the limbs and senses: You are full of queer ways. It is for me to think out gradually the best rule of life, under which you must get on as you can, the Devil taking the hindmost; and from trying to devise this scheme of perfection I may not, nor ever shall, rest.

Social and political justice, then, advances by fits and starts, through ideas—children of the one great idea of Harmony—which are suggested now by one, now by another, section or phase of national life. The process is like the construction and shaping of a work of art. For an artist is ever receiving vague impressions from people unconsciously observed, from feelings unconsciously experienced, till in good time he discovers that he has an idea. This idea is but a generalization or harmonious conception derived subconsciously from these vague impressions. Being moved to embody that idea, he at once begins groping back to, and gathering in, those very types and experiences from which he derived this general notion in order adequately to shape the vehicle—his picture, his poem, his novel—which shall carry his idea forth to the world.

So in social and political progress. The exigencies and inequalities of existing social life produce a crop of impressions on certain receptive minds, which suddenly burst into flower in the form of ideas. The minds in which these abstractions or ideas have flowered seek then to burgeon them forth, and their method of doing so is to bring to public notice those exigencies and inequalities which were the original fuel of their ideas. In this way is the seed of an idea spread amongst a community. But wherever the seed of an idea falls it has to struggle up through layers of prejudice, to overcome the rule of force and expediency; and if this idea, this generalization from social exigencies or inequalities, be petty, retrograde, or distorted, it withers and dies during the struggle. If, on the other hand, it be large, consonant with the future, and of true promise, it holds fast and spreads.

Now, one may very justly say that this is all a platitudinal explanation of the crude process of social and political development. In taking a given idea, such as the full emancipation of women, the fight only begins to rage round the question whether that idea is in fact holding fast and spreading, and, if so, whether the community is, or is not, yet sufficiently permeated with the idea to be safely entrusted with its fulfilment. None the less must it be borne in mind that if this idea can be proved to be surely spreading, it must be an idea emanating from the root divinity in things, from the overmastering principle of Equity, and sure of ultimate fulfilment; and the only question will then be, exactly how long the rule of expediency and force may advisably postpone its fulfilment.

Now, in order to discover whether the idea of the full emanicipation of women is in accord with the great principle of Equity, it will be necessary, first, to show the present inferiority of woman’s political and social position; secondly, to consider the essential reason of that inferiority; and, thirdly, to see whether the facts and figures of the movement towards the removal of that inferiority clearly prove that the idea has long been holding fast and spreading.

To show, however, that the present political and social position of women is not equal to that of men, it will certainly suffice to state two admitted facts. Women have not the political vote. Women, who can be divorced for one offence, must, before they obtain divorce, prove two kinds of offence against their husbands.

And to ascertain the essential reason of this present inferiority we need hardly go beyond the ground facts of difference between men and women already mentioned:

Women are not physically as strong as men.