It may be true that women have quicker intuitions than men, though only over a limited range of subjects: but men, on the other hand, are more widely and studiously observant, besides being far more interested in the attainment of truth as the result of observation. Patient induction is, after all, an excellent substitute for brilliant guessing. Women would be extremely disappointed if men really acted on the “mystery” theory and took to thinking or writing as little about woman as the majority think or write about the problem of existence. Nothing, however, will prevent men from talking and thinking about women, and a glance at any bookshelf will prove that they do not always do so in complete ignorance of their subject. Balzac, who was no magician, was not entirely beside the mark in creating the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and Lady Teazle is a recognizable being. George Meredith’s Diana seems to have human substance: Mr Shaw’s Anne in “Man and Superman” and Mr Wells’ Anne Veronica, though founded on masculine observations, are admitted by women to be reasonable creations. The laziness of men, I repeat, and the vanity of women are responsible for the legend of woman’s inviolable mystery. The laws of gravitation were a mystery till Newton used his observation: the mystery still remains, but the experiments of Newton and other physicists has driven it further back. So it is with the human soul. Each one is a mystery, but observation and familiarity can penetrate a number of its veils, leaving only some of the intimate recesses unexplored, and even these recesses are threatened with exposure as our knowledge of telepathy and of the subconscious elements increases.
There are certain experiences of women which a man cannot share, certain aspirations and fears at whose poignancy he can only guess, certain instinctive impulses of which he is not directly conscious: but he can surmount the barriers in some measure by the use of his eyes and ears. If, therefore, he choose to record what his eyes and ears tell him, he is not exceeding the limits of masculine capacity. My uncle Joseph could hardly deplore so unpretentious a line of approach. A mere man may be content to leave Miss Dorothy Richardson and Miss May Sinclair delving gloomily in the jungles of feminine psychology where he would fear to follow them, and yet feel that, without presumption, he may hold some views about his natural complement. The question is what views are right and what are wrong. The war has changed many things, and man’s views about his natural complement among them. Most people, with that useful faculty of oblivion for which we thank Providence, have forgotten what they thought in 1914: if there were such a thing as a mental gramophone which could record their thoughts of five years ago, they would be extremely surprised. Things that seemed absurd then have now been taken for granted, and it is possible that many things taken for granted then may be shown to have become absurd. It has certainly become ridiculous to speak of the “weaker sex,” except in a strictly muscular sense. Women have revealed capacities for organisation and disciplined effort in large bodies, especially in this country, for which the epithet “surprising” is but feeble. Has this fact alone not caused a revolution of ideas? If we have not all accepted it yet, we shall all soon have to accept the principle that, in all but purely physical exertion, men and women have equal potential abilities. The potential ability of women is still in need of development, for they are starting some centuries behind the men, but the inevitable result will be the recognition of “equal opportunity.” To what sociological crisis this may lead, I do not know, and as this is not a sociological treatise, I need not prophesy: but it is an element that must count heavily in any review of old ideas.
Another element which must count is the franchise, which will, of course, be extended in the near future till there is no inequality between the sexes in this respect. Women are political beings with vast possibilities of becoming a political force. They will play a more and more important part in the history of the nation. They will dance a new dance in the ballet of humanity. That recently so familiar figure in a short skirt of khaki and close-fitting cap, seated firmly but not too gracefully astride a motor bicycle rushing with its side-car, and often its male passenger, through the traffic is more than a phenomenon, it is a symbol. The air has whipped her cheeks pink and blown loose a stray lock above her determined eyes. What beauties she has of form or feature are none of them hid. She is all the woman that the world has known, but with a new purpose and a new poise. For good or ill she has entered the machine, and we came to look on her with an indifferent and familiar eye. But what will she do, what will she think, whither will she carry us in that side-car of hers? To all her ancient qualities she has added a new one: object of desire, mother of children, guardian of the hearth, mate of man or virgin saint, she has now another manifestation, that of fellow-combatant; some say, also of adversary. One might almost say that, bending over the handle-bars of her machine, with her body curved and her legs planted firmly on the footboard she mimes the very mark of interrogation which her changes of social posture present. A living query in khaki, she is a challenge to the prophet and the philosopher. One who is neither will let the challenge pass, sure only of one thing—that develop as she may and carry us where she will, the tradition of the good Englishwoman is safe in her keeping.
“The good Englishwoman,” an untranslatable phrase—I beseech our French neighbours not to translate it la bonne anglaise—is an expression which has a corresponding reality. We all know it, in our flesh, in our bones, in our minds and in our souls. The Englishwoman is a definite person to all of us in England: she is not merely the female of the species living in these isles, she has a significance in the world at large. We love her and we honour her, but we do not often reflect what it is that we love and honour. It is a mental occupation which might be more frequently indulged in, were we not such indifferent reflectors. The ingenious Henry Adams, that enlightened but pensive American, whose death has just given us one of the most fascinating books of modern times, spent his whole life in reflecting on his countrymen, with results which are stimulating if not encouraging. He did not spend so much time reflecting on his countrywomen, though he said that he owed more to them than to any man, but his reflections on that head resolved themselves into a question which no Englishman would formulate in similar circumstances. Henry Adams used to invite agreeable and witty people to dine,[1] and, at an unexpected moment, to propound to the “brightest” of the women the question: “Why is the American woman a failure?” He meant a failure as a force rather than as an individual, but it was an irritating question all the same, nor is it surprising that it usually drew the answer: “Because the American man is a failure.” The Englishman would be too chivalrous to ask such a question of his guests, but he would not even formulate it. The Englishman, even a considerably sophisticated one, could never think of the Englishwoman as a failure, whether as an individual, a force or an inspiration. He is bound by his experience, his upbringing and his instincts to think of her as a success. Let us then put the question “Why is the Englishwoman a success?” We shall get no very good impromptu answers, nor do I suggest that “Because the Englishman is a success” would be the correct one. We should be the last to take so much credit to ourselves. We are justly proud of the Englishwoman, but what is it of which we are proud? Of all the approving epithets that have been applied to women, which do we choose for our own? Is our pride in their beauty, their brilliance, their courage, their wit, their tact, their energy, their endurance, their sagacity, their skill in handicraft, their devotion to their young, their taste in art and dress, their grace of movement, the sweetness of their speech or the greatness of their minds? Are they only an attraction or an independent force? Are they better mistresses or mothers? When Henry Adams lived in this country as a young man he found that "Englishwomen, from the educational point of view, could give nothing until they approached forty years old. Then they become very interesting—very charming—to the man of fifty." What do we say to such a criticism from so acute a mind?
It is easier to ask questions than to answer them, and I propose to shirk the harder part of the task. Questions cannot be satisfactorily answered for other people, and, where everyone has to make up his or her mind, the mere asking of questions is in itself an aid to their solution. Each reader will answer the questions I have asked in a different way: having done so, he must pass to another consideration. We are proud of the Englishwoman, but we criticise her, again each one of us differently. We must consider the grounds of our criticism. She dresses badly, some will say; her hair is always untidy, say others; foreigners assert that she is proud and stupid; Englishmen, secretly glad that she is proud, try to forget that she is poorly educated. That she walks gracefully, none will say, but as an athlete she is second to none: it would be rash to say that her taste in the home is remarkable, but the atmosphere of home, which not even the most hideous decoration can kill nor the most beautiful create, emanates from her alone. As a housewife she has her glories and her failings. She has not the almost brutish industry of the German nor the avaricious acuteness of the French bourgeoise; she is, in general, neither expert in household industry nor in business. Nevertheless, the Englishman is only really contented in a household presided over and served by Englishwomen, and that is not only because they understand his wants, but because they are genial and simple, neither servile nor imperious, good comrades who do not expect too little or exact too much. Fearless in her actions, the Englishwoman is timid in her ideas: what she may do in the future is incalculable, her possibilities are unbounded; but there seem to be limits to the expansion, except by imitation, of her power of thought. As an administrator she will find no superior, but the political thinkers, as well as the artists, will for the most part come from other nations. These are but random criticisms which, among others, will occur to any mind that reflects upon the subject. They show, once more, that the essence of the Englishwoman or of her goodness is not a simple one. She is therefore an excellent topic for a conversation that should be provocative and stimulating. If I sustain one part, the reader will mentally sustain the other. Let us continue it.
It is hardly necessary to say that any criticism of the Englishwoman in these pages is not an attack upon her: nor is any approbation to be considered a defence. At least I pay this much respect to my uncle Joseph that no woman shall flatter me into defending her: she is more than capable of doing this for herself. But, beyond this, I quite fail to understand what a friend of mine meant when he suggested that I should write in defence of women. “Against whom or against what?” I asked, but his explanation was not lucid. I gathered that he had in mind the complaint sometimes heard that women have ceased to be women in order to become inferior men; that they are getting hard and conceited; that they turn up their noses at the domestic virtues, at marriage and the whole conception of life as duty, and that they think only of having “a good time.” The isolated instances given as grounds for this complaint are, I am convinced, not typical. That women have developed and broken through the far too narrow restrictions of a hundred years ago is only a matter for thankfulness: something is always lost in every adjustment, but more is gained if the adjustment is natural. The flighty girl whom most grumblers of this kind have in mind is only a fraction, and a very imperfect fraction, of the Englishwoman. A far more serious line was taken by Henry Adams towards the end of his life, when he became finally convinced that he was a man of the eighteenth century living in an unfamiliar world whose guiding forces he could not fathom. Musing over the enormous mass of new forces put into the hand of man by the end of the nineteenth century, he wondered what should be the result of so much energy turned over to the use of women, according to the scientific notions of force. He could not write down the equation. The picture of the world that he saw was of man bending eagerly over the steering wheel of a rushing motor car too intent on keeping up a high speed and avoiding accidents to have leisure for any distractions. The old attraction of the woman, one of the most powerful forces of the past, had become a distraction, and woman, no longer able to inspire men, had been forced to follow them. Woman had been set free: as travellers, typists, telephone girls, factory hands, they moved untrammelled in the world. But in what direction were they moving? After the men, said Henry Adams; discarding all the qualities for which men had no longer any interest or pleasure, they too were bending over the steering wheel in the same rapid career. Woman the rebel was now free and there was only one thing left for her to rebel against, maternity, or the inertia of sex, to speak in terms of force. Inertia of sex, the philosopher truly remarked, could not be overcome without extinguishing the race, yet an immense force was working irresistibly to overcome it. What would happen? Henry Adams gave up the riddle, grateful for the illusion that woman alone of all the species was unable to change.
Superficial observers might say that this movement has been accelerated by the war. Hundreds of homes have loosened their ties in the stress of war, thousands of unrebellious daughters have left their narrow walls at the call of patriotism and are now unwilling to return to them. They have learnt to live in the herd with their own sex, and prefer it to living with their own sex in the pen; physical danger and discomfort are no longer bogeys to frighten them; they have been “on their own,” and “on their own” they intend to stay. All very true, no doubt, with the added complication of serious competition between the sexes in a restricted labour market. At the same time, these superficial observers forget that there has been an extraordinary return to the traditional relations between men and women during the war. The inspiration of the woman has never been stronger; once more, after many years, men have fought for their women and the women have regarded their champions with gratitude; women have tended and worked for men in greater numbers and with greater alacrity than ever before in the history of the world; the comradeship between the sexes has grown warmer and stronger without destroying the still more natural relation, for marriage as an institution has enjoyed a season of abnormal popularity. In a country at war, especially in a country invaded, men and women return to the relations of extreme antiquity; the men fight to protect the home and the family, which they alone can do. If they are beaten, the home is destroyed and the women are ravished.
We in England have escaped this last simplification: we have been lucky, but we have lost the directness of the lesson. Nevertheless, it is patent enough to thoughtful people. War has revealed men and women pretty much as they always have been, and the revelation will not be forgotten. The apprehensions of a Henry Adams, after the five years of war, do, in fact, appear to be exaggerated. The futility of all that vast array of mechanical force which so appalled him has been thoroughly exposed: ideas have come to their own again as the only things that matter. In his search for ideas and in their application man can well afford to listen to women: nor will he be backward in doing so. For my part, I cannot see him racing towards the future alone in an evil-looking 120-horse-power car, leaving women dustily in the distance. I prefer to come back to the khaki figure on a motor-bicycle with a man in the side-car, the woman guiding but in the service of the man, the man a passenger but in transit to his work. And the picture is not, as it may seem at first sight, an inversion of older relations, for it has always been the woman who drives. Men can attract women, seduce them, bully them, desert them and hypnotize them, but they cannot drive them; yet a wise woman can drive almost any man. This art is not likely to be lost by the sex in this or any other country, it is therefore important that the driving should be in the right direction.
This is the chief responsibility that the future lays on the Englishwoman: she must have good hands and a clear head, and it would perhaps be well if she could improve her head without spoiling her hands. Man, regarded not as a passenger but as an animal, is spirited but docile. If the women of this country ever made up a corporate mind to secure any desirable end, they could drive the men towards it with ease, provided they chose the right bits and bridles: and those bits and bridles will be the old patterns. It is the women who think there is no need to drive with skill but trust to their power to progress by themselves on their own machines that make the mistake. When it comes to a tug of war they find their inferiority to the stronger animal. But, my dear ladies, there need be no tug-of-war if you use the forces which are already in your hands. You would have got the suffrage long ago if you had all really wanted it. And when you did get it, it was not by assaulting policemen in small sections and chaining a few of yourselves to Cabinet Ministers’ railings; you got it by exercising an old force, the force of admiration. Your services in the war won you the admiration of all Englishmen, and what an Englishman will not do for women he admires cannot be imagined.
The future of England, or more than half of it, lies in your hands. You are the great reproductive force and the great educative force: you can divert the masculine forces to worthy or unworthy ends by your powers of attraction and inspiration. You are as yet inexperienced in the forum, but in every other place of propaganda—the home, the theatre, the lawn, the beach, the garden, the club and even the press—your voice can make itself heard continuously and without interruption. You can approach man when he is at his weakest, when he is no longer encased in his armour of business, but when he is tired, when he wants sympathy, when he is disposed to be affectionate, when he is comfortable, when he is well fed, when his chivalry deprives him of effective repartee, when he must either listen or run ignominiously away. Who can save a man from a woman but another woman? That was why Madame de Warens gave herself to Rousseau. A man is a bore at his peril, but a woman can be tiresome with impunity. Jeanne d’Arc was tiresome, so was Florence Nightingale: but they got their way. A man has only one reason for being listened to, that what he says is intelligible and advantageous to his hearer: unless he is a clergyman in a pulpit he is bound to persuade his audience that his matter possesses these qualities. But you have a hundred other reasons for being listened to. If you have beauty, that is enough; if you are well dressed, that is also enough; if you are beloved, your speech will sound as music; if you are a wife, a mother, a sister, you have an audience of husband, sons, brothers by natural right; if a man has misunderstood you, he will hear you humbly; if you have understood him, your words will be wisdom. You can preach when you pour out tea, and make proselytes at the dinner table; at rising up and lying down the word is with you. With a whisper and a sigh, or a sally and a smile, you can accomplish more than an hour of oratory in Parliament: make a man feel a brute and he is soil for your seed; make him feel wise and he will praise your wit; make him feel a god and he will graciously hear your prayer. Irritate him and your cause is lost, your sex betrayed. What need you more of arts or opportunities? Pray rather for ideas to be given to you. Man is the chief inventor of ideas, and is likely to remain so, but he is a wise inventor who gets woman to stand for his invention. The ideas for which you, as a body, choose to stand will prevail: heaven send that you choose them wisely.