A Modern Zoroastrian

by S. Laing

Nothing in fact gives one more hope in the progress of human society than to find that in the freest countries, and those farthest advanced towards modern ideas and democratic institutions, the tone with regard to women shows the greatest improvement. There is a regular crescendo scale of progress from Turkey to America. I do not refer so much to the fact that in the newer colonies and countries women can travel unprotected without fear of insult or injury, as to the almost instinctive recognition of their equal rights as intelligent and moral beings who have a personality and character of their own, which places them on the same platform as men though on opposite sides of it.

To understand rightly the real spirit of an age or country, it is not enough to study dry statistics or history in the form of records of wars and political changes. We must study the works of the best poets, novelists, and dramatists, who seek to embody types and to hold up the mirror to contemporary ideas and manners. A careful perusal of such works as those of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, and George Eliot at home, and of Bret Harte, Howells, James, and Mrs. Burnett in the United States, will give a truer insight into the inner life of the country and period than any number of blue-books or consular returns. They show what the writers of the greatest genius, that is, of the greatest insight, see as types of the actual ideas and characters surrounding them; and the fact of their works being popular shows that the types are recognised as true. Now it is certain that the English literature of fiction and its latest development, that of the American novelists, show an ever-increasing recognition of the female individual as an equal unit with the male in the constitution of modern society. Those dear ‘school marms’ of Bret Harte’s and Wendell Holmes’, who career so joyously through mining camps, receiving courtesy and radiating civilising influences among the rough inhabitants; or touch the hearts and throw a mellow light over the autumn days of middle-aged professors and philosophers, are far removed from the slaves of prehistoric savages or the inmates of a Turkish harem. So also in the more complex relations of a more crowded civilisation, in the circles of Washington, New York, and Boston, the ideal American woman is always depicted as bright, intelligent, and independent, with a character and personality of her own, and the suspicion never seems to enter the author’s head that she is in any respect inferior to the male characters with whom she is associated.

The same may be said to a great extent of English literature from the time of Shakespeare downwards. No better portrait than Portia was ever drawn of the

Perfect woman, nobly planned

To soothe, to comfort, and command;

And yet a spirit still, and bright

With something of an angel light.

And in the long gallery of good and loveable women, from Rosalind and Imogene down to Lucy Roberts and Laura Pendennis, we have not one who is a mere non-entity or child of passionate impulse. Nor is the recognition of woman’s equality less marked in the bad characters. Lady Macbeth is of a stronger nature than Macbeth; Becky Sharp more clever and full of resources than the men with whom she plays like puppets; Maggie Tulliver, with all her wild struggles with herself and her surroundings, has far more in her than her brother Tom. Compare these characters with those of the school of modern French novels, which turn mainly on adultery and seduction, committed for the most part not in any whirlwind of irresistible passion, but to gratify some passing caprice or vanity, and it is easy to see how wide is the gulf which separates the ideals and moral atmosphere of the two countries.

It is not therefore from any wish to indulge in what Herbert Spencer calls the ‘unpatriotic bias,’ and depreciate my own country, that I am disposed to think that the younger English-speaking communities are somewhat in advance of ourselves in this matter of the relations of the sexes, but simply because I think that the feeling is there more widespread and universal. We have in English society two strata in which women are still considered as inferior beings to men: a lower one, where better ideas have not yet permeated the dense mass of ignorance and brutality; and a higher one, where among a certain portion, let us hope a small one, of the gilded youth and upper ten, luxury and idleness have blunted the finer susceptibilities, and created what may be most aptly called a Turkish tone about women. There are many of this class, and unfortunately often in high places, where their example does widespread mischief, whose ideal might be summed up in the words of the Irish ballad:—