[CHAPTER XI
WOMAN'S CAUSE IS MAN'S: THEY RISE OR SINK TOGETHER ...]
"But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ: and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God ... but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."
Woman's position in the world, socially, politically, and economically was profoundly altered by the Great War. Every contact with the affairs of the world, save uxorially, was changed and I believe that one of the aftermaths of the war will be further to change that relationship, to extend her liberty, to enhance her privileges until every semblance of the cage that has confined her since time immemorial is destroyed.
Eye-witnesses of the political and social emancipation of women do not realize how extensively concerned with it the historian of the future will be. Even less do they realize how directly certain social and economic changes of the beginning of the twentieth century will be traced to the entrance of women into the political arena. The individual who would attempt to forecast the eventual effects of national prohibition upon a people would have no respect whatsoever for his reputation as a prophet. I assume there is little doubt that women initiated and in large measure accomplished that legislation. Small wonder they did. They had to bear the brunt and the pernicious effects of alcohol consumption. Man drank it, but women paid; paid in privation, in suffering, in disease, in ignominy—they and their children. There are many habits, conventions, laws that deal with women differently than they do with men. We may confidently anticipate that woman in full possession of political privileges will soon turn her attention to legislation whose purpose will be to change this, to effect a like relationship of all human beings but especially of men and women.
The most ardent and pious Christian must admit that the practice of its principles is inimical to woman's welfare or woman's full development, using the terms welfare and development in the conventional sense of to-day. There are undoubtedly many intelligent, honest, serious women who subscribe to St. Paul's teachings of woman's duties and privileges and who take no umbrage at his pronouncements. These were in a word that she should be man's aid, his servant, and his ornament; that she should minister unto his corporeal needs, and that she should be the instrument through which God permitted man to reproduce his image and perpetuate mankind. The Christian religion came gradually to be considered figurative in its practicability, an ethical system strict conformation to which would cause the individual to be looked upon as a victim of mental aberration, but ideally quite perfect. With this conception the restrictions put upon woman's activity gradually began to disappear, and those that remained, such as, for instance, being obliged to cover her head in church, were not only willingly accepted but were considered a prerogative in so far as they facilitated personal adornment and thus contributed to the realization of a fundamental, inherent ambition—to be attractive.
Opponents of feminism have busied themselves with extraordinary industry and tireless assiduity to point out the differences between man and woman, always to the disadvantage of the latter. Their mental endowment is inferior to man; their physical strength is less; their moral caliber more attenuated; their emotional nature shallower. Why should any one take the trouble to deny any of these? He who maintains that every specimen of the human species endowed with average reasoning power should live in the enjoyment of freedom and liberty should not allow himself the trouble of denying them. He should admit it with the same readiness that he admits that there are anatomical and physical differences between the sexes. But the opponents of "rights of women," to use the phrase that has now come to have a sinister meaning, are not satisfied with such admission. They want to have us admit that, in so far as these qualities are at variance with those of man, so in proportion is woman inferior. This no well-balanced, thoughtful, unprejudiced man who has had much to do with men and women for a sufficient period to entitle him to pass judgment upon the matter can possibly admit. One may say dogmatically that woman has not the potential or actual capacity of man in the field of politics and statecraft, in the field of art and literature, in the field of science and investigation, in the field of peace and strife. He may say it, but he can furnish very little substantiation of his statement. Neither will he be able to say it convincingly very much longer. It is not and will not be fair or just that any one should make ex cathedra statements upon such subjects until women have had the same freedom in fields of activity that men have had for countless centuries. No weight or credence need be given to statements that women are possessed of intellectual and moral qualities that militate against their fitness to occupy or adorn the important positions of life's constructive activities. Possessions or infirmities which many of their ill-wishers maintain unfit them for such places may disappear when they have had opportunity to indulge their freedom. These alleged infirmities may be merely reactionary to the restrictions of their environments since time immemorial, since it is notorious that the place often develops the man. No bird can tell how far it can fly until it tries its wings.
The American people are less astonished than any other nation to find that women have invaded every field of human activity save that of active warfare. They have long since thrown down the barriers that kept women from entering such fields of activity, and welcomed their entrance into them. They were encouraged to believe that they would give an earnest of their activities and they have accomplished it without loss of their sex attractiveness. The matter, however, is quite different in the countries of Europe. There only the women of the lower classes have earned their bread in the sweat of their brow, and particularly in the fields, in the mills, and in the shops. But to-day all that is changed. They drive tram-cars, load and unload ships, they till the soil and work the mines, they make and deliver munitions; they have replaced the porter and the ticket-taker at the stations; they are the letter-carriers, cab-drivers, guardians of the peace; they direct and administer great mercantile houses; and they are forcing their way into every profession. They have not yet been in any of these activities a sufficient length of time to enable any one to say whether or not they can successfully compete with man. The prophets of old were stoned, and he would be a daring one who would venture the statement that man will successfully dislodge woman from all the positions she so satisfactorily filled during the war. In some countries she will have gained, before the end of the great social and economic adjustment which we are now attempting, the political privileges which more than anything else will put her on an equality with man, namely, the franchise. From such vantage-point she will most successfully hold what she has gained. It is too much to expect that woman will emancipate herself and come into the arena of man's activities with her handicaps and lack of training and not make mistakes prejudicial to her welfare. To expect it would be as illegitimate as to expect that a strong man who had never trained for a prize fight could enter the ring and successfully contend against a man equally strong or stronger who had been training for the contest for a long time.
No one was so fatuous as to believe in 1914 that the Central Powers, after having devoted a quarter of a century to the most assiduous training and preparation for the war that they thrust upon the civilized world, would not jeopardize the liberty of the world. The Allied nations had been content apparently to risk their fate without such preparation merely because they had right on their side. They made many mistakes and some of them were so flagrant and enormous as nearly to have cost them their existence. Women likewise have right on their side in the struggle which they have waged against the mandates of Christianity and the usurpation of man. But right alone is not sufficient in such a contest. They must combine might with it and might these days spells organization. Without it nothing worth while can be accomplished. I venture to prophesy that the striking legislation of our country of the next generation will be accomplished largely by the influence of organized women. This war has given them opportunity to display their might and examples of what organization can accomplish. Unless I misconstrue all signs, they will never again be deprived of the privileges which they have at the present day. On the contrary, such privileges will become larger and more comprehensive until they are upon an absolute equality in every walk of life with man.
In the world of politics, society, economics, education, and religion the question of rights of woman may not be given the constructive attention to which it is entitled. In our country it is possible that women are sufficiently organized to present their claims and insist upon their being heard, and not only demand their rights, which are liberty and equality, but they will get them. In England I am not so confident of the result. In France and Italy I am still less confident; in fact, their cause in these countries as things are at present seems to me almost a hopeless struggle. The only thing that consoles me is history. When one recalls that all that which we now speak of as democracy flowed from one master mind in Cromwell's little army; that the Laocoön hold which the church had upon the people in the Middle Ages was broken by Luther and a few similar masters whose spirits successfully carried the idea of liberty; that all that which is now spoken of as industrial ascendancy flowed from the activities of one or two supermen in the mill districts of northern England only three or four generations ago; then one is lifted above his depression. Liberty and tolerance have taken on a new significance. This is not due entirely to the war. The war minted the meanings, but the gold was ready for the stamp. Liberty has come to mean that woman and man are not only equal before God but that they are equal before man. And, now that this admission has been wrung from unwilling man and imposed upon governments one after the other, what kind of a life do we wish? What are our visions? What are our sane and legitimate aspirations? Are we willing to yield supinely to the tyranny of state or of money? Are we content further to tolerate the infirmities and impotency of present-day education? Shall we continue to close our eyes to the hypocrisies of the church? Shall we be willing to submit to the restrictions that are put upon us by law and covenant concerning marriage and its entailments? Shall we bow down to autocratic governments whose rulers claim, and apparently have their claims allowed, to have divine guidance? Shall we be content with the concentration of property or of private capitalistic enterprise? Shall we be callous enough to see countless thousands of God's own, the poor, deprived of the advantages of food and clothing, education and the gifts of hygiene—in brief, of everything that makes life worth living? I firmly believe that the rank and file of educated, thinking, serious-minded persons who are not immediately concerned with the possession or administration of any of these, will not tolerate them, and in so expressing my belief I do not feel that I label myself socialist. I feel that I enroll myself in the legion marching forward under the banner of liberty and the belief that enlightenment is followed by progress as unerringly as night is followed by day.