Women’s attitude toward political power differed from that of men where it did exist. When a class of men possess no political rights, it means that such rights inhere in a superior class which assumes a political and often an economic mastery over them. Such has not been true of women in the past. When women possessed no political rights their relationship to the state was consciously or unconsciously involved in the relationships of their husbands to the state.
History offers us an excellent example of this attitude toward the political rights of women in the old Roman patriarchal system which recognized the family as a complete unit, with one common interest, and that interest represented by a recognized head of the household.
We must remember that in the early development of society, political power has rested in the hands of a few individuals who by virtue of individual power, were able to wrest from the many, an authority carrying with it privileges enjoyed primarily by an exclusive governing class. These governmental privileges tend to increase at the expense of the governed until there is a recognition on the part of the people of the injustices practiced. It is then, and only then, that the ruling class defers to the wishes of the ruled. It is the way to preserve their most cherished rights and privileges. We see this state of affairs with the development of towns, and the decline of warfare as the only occupation through which one was enabled to accumulate wealth. The development of industries created a class of people who very soon controlled sufficient wealth to demand a voice in their government. The nobility was in need of the financial aid of the merchant class, and the latter by virtue of their economic strength were able to wrest political privileges from the ruling class.
In considering the political rights of men, there is a tendency to assume that they exercise their present rights in sheer virtue of their manhood, but history shows these rights have arisen out of a struggle which was economic in its nature. These rights are handed down from one generation to another and are often thought of as natural rights when in reality they are rights fought for and won by an industrial or economic class. Political concessions have been made by one class to the other, not from philanthropic motives, but rather from a recognition of the strength of the claimants. It is only when the battle is virtually won that the opposition grants rights because of their admiration of democratic principles.
The development of industries in the town tended to break up the large landed holdings and to create new forms of wealth. When wealth was no longer associated with a militant career a new adjustment of power had to be made, giving political recognition to the successful industrials who controlled the wealth in the towns. An exchange was effected. The merchants received political privileges, and the noblemen engaged primarily in war, received the financial assistance of the townsmen.
The expansion of the political rights of men shows a gradual increase in the power of the masses. It represents a progressive evolution. It is not so with the political rights of women. Before the era of machine industry, whatever legal recognition women enjoyed, or political rights they exercised, depended not upon their own efforts, but the efforts of the men who desired to protect their property interests, and to prevent these interests from passing outside the family circle.
Although the political rights of women vary in different countries, the evolution of these rights does not show a gradual development of privileges. Rights possessed at one period were lost at another, and at no time do we hear of them making a protest against a diminution of their power, or the narrow limits of their influence. Their part seems to have been a passive one.
No attempt will be made to give a history of the legal and political rights of women, but rather to point out the most striking features of this development, and to emphasize those characteristics in harmony with the general thesis that before the era of machine industry women assumed a passive attitude toward social institutions, and that their status was determined by forces, they made no effort as a class to control.
The voice of women in early historical times played no part in affairs which concerned them as a sex because it was never heard.
“In addition to many other objections which may be urged against the common allegation that the legal disabilities of women are merely part of the tyranny of sex over sex, it is historically and philosophically valueless, as indeed are most propositions concerning classes so large as sexes. What really did exist is the despotism of groups over members composing them.”[104]