Now suddenly to one who thus profoundly meditates this giant scheme, a new phenomenon has appeared. All at once amid the long stretching lines of young men that seek the city from the far horizon appear the figures of young women, not by hundreds but by the thousands, following in the steps of their brothers, wage-earners animated by the same desire for independence, eager and determined for a larger view of life, urged outward by the same imperative revolt against stagnation, driven by the same unrest for the larger horizon. This culminative movement, begun in the decline of the nineteenth century, may well be destined to mark the twentieth century as the great era of social readjustment.
In the past the great block to woman's complete and equal communion with man has been her economic dependence on him; while she has not been necessary to man, man has been necessary to her. Hence her forced acceptation of his standard of her position and her duties. In one generation, by this portentous achievement of economic independence, woman in a night, like Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, has suddenly elevated herself to a position of aggressive equality. Those who see in the feminine movement no further than a question of political expediency perceive no more than a relatively unimportant manifestation. What has happened is that the purely masculine conception of society has been suddenly put to the challenge. Man's conception of religion, of marriage and the family, of property rights versus sentimental rights, of standards of conduct and political expediency, imperfect and groping as they have been, will, in the future, progress according to a new alliance between man and woman. And this world revolution has come, day by day, month after month, in the spectacle of young women, bundles in arms, light of purse, rebel in heart, moving in silent thousands toward the great cities. In this new army of women who have now intrenched themselves in the strongholds of economic independence, there are two distinct but related divisions, the great mass who must work and the relatively smaller class, socially more significant, who must live, those, of whom the Salamanders are the impatient outstripping advance, who are determined to liberate their lives and claim the same rights of judgment as their brothers.
What has brought this great emigration to pass? Several causes, some actively impelling, others merely passively liberating—the taking down of weakened bars.
The causes which have actively impelled this liberating emigration are more clearly perceived, the causes which have passively permitted this removal of the bars are less obvious. We are a society of passage—between two ports. Scarcely can we recall the thin shores we have departed, nor can any one foretell what outlines, at the end of the voyage, will rise out of the sea of experiment. In every social revolution there are three distinct generations, the first of intrenched traditions, the second of violent reaction and the third of reconstruction. And if it seem a law of nature's tireless action and reaction that fathers and sons should be ever set against one another, ever misunderstanding one another, the true measure of human progress lies in that degree of change which results between the first and the third generations. Between this old generation of authority and this present generation of logic has come a feminine revolution startling in the shock of its abruptness. Yet a social revolution that obliterates in an hour the landmarks of ages, frequently resembles a cataclysm of nature—the gathering torrent only becomes possible with the last six inches of earth. What has broken out in these last half a dozen years has been accumulating without beginning—for ideas can have no beginnings. They have existed in the unconscious human soul as the germ of physical evolution has lain among the glaciers and the wilderness.
What then was the position of women under the old order? That generation of authority was intrenched in the great social domination of the church. What in effect did religion say to women? It said:
"Remember always that this life is of no moment. It is given you that you may inherit eternity. Reckon not the present, aspire to the next. Abnegation is glorious, suffering is to be prized, sacrifices patiently made bring you by so much nearer to Heaven. Subordinate yourself, bear everything, accept all burdens gladly. Live for others; forgive, inspire. If this life seem to you narrow and motherhood staggering, bleak, joyless, think not on the fatigue but on the awakening."
With the turning of men's minds to the dormant truths of science came a great agnostic revolt that brought a scientific questioning of all facts and a demand that everything should fall or stand by the test of the reason. In this new enthusiasm for logic, which has overturned so many rooted institutions with its militant individualism, the authority of the home has been shattered, divorce has been multiplied in the protest against the old unreasoning tyranny of marriage, and the Puritan domination of the church has too often become a social institution for the better ordering of the masses and an outward form of polite respectability. In this complete breaking down of authority the voice of the church that spoke to women has been lost.
Another troubling phase began simultaneously, the period of miraculous material opportunity, the fungus growth of fortunes great and little. The suddenly prosperous parents began to plan for their children those opportunities which had been denied them, seeking to educate them beyond what they had known—a process ever linked with tragedy and disillusionment. What now results, with the thousands of young girls who have learned of magazines and novels or who have gone out from the confining narrowness of little homes to a broader education—not simply in books but in the experience of life, of a certain independency, of the opportunities beyond?