It may be objected that all this is very well in theory, and would work admirably if all women were wise, and all men worthy of them. But who does not know that ideals will never become healthful influences unless translated into facts, and that theories will never succeed in bettering the world unless exemplified here and there in trial cases? Would the theory of Christianity be worth anything to the outside world unless realized in the daily life of its Founder and in the model existences of thousands of saints? It is impossible that anything should take hold of the human mind and mould it to new perfections before it has been put into tangible shape, and it is equally impossible in our fallen state that all the world should be converted at once into so many perfect entities. Yet because all men will not become saints, because all cannot write like Shakespeare, paint like Raphael, or compose like Beethoven, are religion, poetry, and art to be eschewed by lower aspirants, and relegated to the barren region of things to be admired but not imitated? If, because absolute perfection was never attainable by man, every man had therefore resigned himself to a hopeless contemplation of the fine possibilities of Christianity, we should have had no Anthony, no Jerome, no Augustine. If, later on, because it was impossible to reform the whole world and strike at the root of every abuse, the pontiffs had calmly looked on while Christendom crumbled away, we should have had no Gregory the Great, no Hildebrand, no Innocent III., no Sixtus V. Again, if an inflexible adherence to rule were the only point worth aiming at, should we have had a Dominic, a Teresa, a Francis Xavier, a Philip Neri, a Vincent of Paul? In this world there are many experiments—tentative steps leading to higher things, and opening doors of possibility to hitherto untried systems. Even in the church, where all else is immovable, there is constant human progress, and if here or there one soldier falls at his post—not through lack of enthusiasm, but through the force of adverse circumstances, or the darkness of mind which still shrouds his contemporaries while he himself has prematurely pierced beyond it—still the great search after perfection, the great work of Christian development, rolls on. So it is in the world, in art, in philosophy, in science, in society. What if woman’s position never has been made absolutely and securely certain? The church has always theoretically pointed it out, and has often secured its partial realization within her pale; it remains for the world to open its eyes, and extend those barriers of the church to the furthest limits of civilization, taking with it those improvements which it has so long groped for in its wilful darkness, and which all the time have been steadily in operation in the sanctuary of the old church.
So that it is idle to object that all we have said about woman’s work, reward, and position is “very well in theory.” If a few pioneers will do for the system what companies or even enterprising individuals are ever ready to do for any material scheme that presents but the slightest chance of success, the world would soon see the noblest reform of all achieved in the very core of society. Nay, we will say more: the pioneers are there, the reform is going on; only let the busy, sceptical world stop a moment and look into the silent, gigantic work ever renewing its strength in the church; let it pause and see homes where woman, either as manager or worker, holds her supreme rod of gentle authority; let it see the maiden toiling cheerfully for her aged parents, or bringing home food and clothes to helpless little sisters or ailing brothers—the wife helping and encouraging the husband, and eking out by skilful management a pittance into an income, and evolving comfort out of what in careless hands could hardly compass necessaries; the widow keeping her sacred state, unassailed by calumny, through the earnings which secure her privacy, or the widowed mother joyfully burdened with the twofold legacy that gives her both an object to live for and a memory to live in. Hidden homes these may be, poor homes they almost all are—homes bounded by the four walls of one squalid room, homes cramped in the garrets of tenement-houses or saddened by the dreary respectability of furnished lodgings, but none the less precious in the sight of the angels, and an example in the sight of men.
We have spoken much of the Scriptural conception of woman as a bread-winner, because upon this as a solid foundation we can build up the further development of such a woman’s position. Everything that is compatible with the spirit of this conception may be said, in broad comprehensiveness, to be allowable in woman. Everything that can be referred to this ideal, as naturally flowing therefrom, is admissible in her relations with the great working hive of mankind. Intellectual labor especially is befitting to her, within the limits prescribed by modesty. Manual labor, especially agricultural or mining, is proportionately less fitting, both because of her physical weakness and more still because of the too free association with men which it often necessitates. Domestic labor, where this is not unreasonably heavy, is certainly within her sphere—and for this no better reason can be given than that the women of patriarchal times thought domestic labor no shame.
With this view, we say that as many openings for the employment of woman as can possibly be made, consistently with delicacy and womanly modesty, should be speedily contrived. No one need fear that such openings will deprive us of necessary comforts in the way of domestic attendance; there will always be a residuum of womankind to whom service will be the most natural and desirable outlet, to whom in fact it will be the only career which will give scope to the capacities they have. This will be the least difficulty; the real problem will always remain rather on the other side—that is, as to how many women can be redeemed from the bondage of circumstances by any known method of redemption. It is appalling to think of the many women, delicate-minded, earnest, persevering, who see in their womanhood, which should be their crown and their boast, only the barrier to their aspirations, the prison-door of their capabilities. It is terrible to reckon the number of women who lose themselves, and wander away from their place in society, either through the door of open shame or through the only less revolting path of that which is called but is not marriage; or visionary, defiant “independence.” How many fallen women sadly excuse themselves by saying that they could find no work to do, and yet could not bear to starve! On the other hand, in women who have obviated that degradation by leaping into another, we see the inevitable action of the narrow-mindedness of the world upon an undisciplined nature. Women are often accused of being always in extremes, and the accusation, in the case of women untrained by religious influences, is in the main true, although it may as well be said that the fact holds equally good with men who are not restrained by such influences. So, between open degradation and blatant “woman’s rightism,” the mind of the untutored woman will almost certainly, except by a happy chance, find no mean.
Is this picture overdrawn? We are ready to affirm again and again that it is not; the annals of society scandals and the records of the divorce courts show that it is not; for what difference is there but a despicable and conventional one between the legalized re-marriage of a guilty woman to her seducer, and the illegal union of so many unhappy couples whose relations it is a breach of propriety even to mention?
This is womanhood outside the church. It is no more a fancy picture than that other blessed one of the homes we have already praised, the homes of honest work and perfect peace. The world, to secure a nation of women bred in such homes, must turn to the church, and ask her to teach it the secret of such womanhood. The secret is in the Gospels, in the old hallowed traditions of the Hebrews, and in the fulfilled evangelical counsels. Voluntary poverty is the safeguard of holy and allowable wealth; voluntary obedience is the counterpart of lawful freedom; voluntary chastity is the hidden grace that obtains for others wedded love and a grave Christian home. The hostages of humanity are praying in the cloisters for the commendable domestic happiness of their numerous brethren, and, in proportion as the world scorns their sacrifice, so does it lose the fruit of their prayers.
We have said that woman’s work should be decided, God willing, by her capabilities. This is to say that more ways should be open to her than are open now to improve the talents God may have given her. In a great measure she can, and does, open these ways for herself, and an energetic nature of course will, like water, sooner or later “find its own level.” Still, many who have mental powers have little strength in battling with life, and might be helped if their luckier sisters would be a little less selfish in their easily acquired security. Work means self-respect, and self-respect means success. There is no one so proud as the woman who knows her own worth, and lifts herself by this knowledge high above all sordid temptations. She will be a good wife, for she will choose no man for a husband save on the lofty principle of his own worthiness of her, while her estimate of herself will unconsciously become his also. She will be a tribunal to herself and to him, and the slightest wrong action or paltry motive in either will take, in the eyes of the other, the proportions of a blot on their self-esteem. She will be a good mother, for her standard of superiority will be the first her children will know, and with them it will be inseparably blent with their personal affection for their mother. The home will thus be created on a footing that years will strengthen as they pass, and the austere yet happy gravity of a Christian household will become a hereditary tradition with the children. But for all this, the basis of work is wanted—work of some sort, voluntary occupation or necessary drudgery, it matters little. It is the discipline, not the fact, of work which is essential, and in this sense the rich and high-born may be as hard workers as the poor seamstress or the factory-girl. Yet, since this labor question touches the poor chiefly, it is for them we would chiefly speak. Woman’s work is circumscribed by her physical powers, man’s is not. Therefore, in all things that a woman can do as well as a man (and of course in all those which she can do better), the preference should be given to her. There are many trades in which men cut not only a very useless but a most ridiculous figure, and which the fittingness of things would point out as woman’s proper field. Everything relating to feminine clothing comes under this head; and were this department wholly given over to women, it would at once relieve the poverty and shield the virtue of many homes, and also spare the public the absurd spectacle of strong men engaged in handling delicate ribbons and filmy laces. Printing and kindred trades have been found practicable for women, and we know that watchmaking and jewellery work are also accessible to the “weaker vessel.” Still, it has at present gone no further than this, that women are associated with men in many employments. Now, we could wish that there should be many trades of which they would have an exclusive monopoly. In this we think there would be no inconvenience; at any rate, no one could assert that there was until the system had been given a fair trial.
Society, in its present state of godless disorganization, not only affords very little help to women who are eager and willing to help themselves, but positively, despite the loud boasting of the century as having originated “woman-reform,” places barriers in their way. For what else is it but a barrier to honest advancement that, when a respectable and virtuous woman of pleasing appearance goes to apply for some desirable situation offered by advertisement, she is often, very often, insulted by disgusting propositions, and her very expressions of indignant surprise put down as a part skilfully played by her before the inevitable surrender? This has been repeatedly done, in many cases successfully, for precautions had been taken beforehand to cut off the victim’s retreat and drown her cries; in others, when cowardice, the twin-sister of vice, has shrunk from the determined attitude of a virtuous woman at bay, the effort has happily failed. The public papers have sometimes—with their proverbial inefficiency and spasmodic, theatrical manner of showing up an abuse they know it will pay better to speak of than to act against—taken in hand this outrage to civilization, and published letters from the aggrieved women detailing the attempted insult, but how many more women, sensitive and gentle, shrink with horror from putting into print an experience they would gladly blot from their memory! It will be asked, what remedy can be devised for this? Immediate remedy, perhaps none; but remotely, the remedy of a newly formed habit of regarding women with at least the same respect as men who earn their daily bread. Physical weakness will always be an incentive to wicked men to insult unprotected women—that is to say, the vices of fallen human nature will never be wholly blotted out; and in this juncture, as in all others, the real remedy is the influence and authority of the church. Nowhere more than in Italy—that maligned country in which Protestants refuse to see anything save the last stage of corruption brought on by an “effete priesthood and a degraded religion”—is that touching charity known of portioning poor girls and affording them temporary refuge while out of employment. In Rome, this was one of the foremost Papal charities; the Holy Father took an especial personal interest in it; the Roman ladies vied with each other in enlarging the numbers of its recipients and adding to the fund provided for its continuance. In Venice, it used to be the affair of the Doge, who was conventionally father to all the dowerless, and the sworn protector of impoverished and threatened innocence. Many saints have made this their favorite charity, and many Italian marriages in the higher grades of life are accompanied by this crowning token of Christian brotherhood—the portioning and safe marrying of a poor young girl who might have otherwise fallen a victim to the licentiousness of some professional roué.
While it is to be deplored that the openings for female employment should still be so restricted, it is still more to be lamented that there are actually employments in which female labor is most unwarrantably used. In mining districts, this is peculiarly the case. There men and women work promiscuously, often with very little clothing on, and with still less sense of decency and morality. Little girls are brought up there with no knowledge of themselves as responsible moral agents, and conscious only that their work is not quite so valuable because their muscles are not quite so strong as those of their companions. Ignorance of religion, of moral restraints, and of social decencies, combine to make of these immortal beings only lithe savages, less enduring than the negro, less clever than the Indian. For the white race in some sense seems born to civilization, and when removed from civilizing influences relapses into far more brutal savageness than others. Again, we find the problem only solvable through the influence of the church; for she who originally drew together the nomad hordes of the North and East, and gathered from their ranks the founders of empires, the lawgivers of her own system, and the discoverers of the New World, is still the only mistress the dominant race which she once civilized will ever again acknowledge. Christendom has been rent in twain, and the Christian nations deprived of the bond that once knit them in one vast confederation and unity of interests; and until this whole has been restored, barbarism will struggle periodically to the surface, and strive to regain that ascendency it lost more than a thousand years ago. The abuses and horrors of female labor in mining districts are a blot upon civilization which never had any existence before the recent disruption of Christendom; for, wherever an abuse reared its serpent head, the church was at least there to protest, and exert her moral influence if not material force. It is idle to object that she did not, as a matter of fact, quell all abuses; this objection might be urged against the apparently frustrated mission of our Lord himself, as far as immediate tangible reforms were concerned, but the essential fact stands, that as long as the church’s authority remained undisputed there was at least in the world one tribunal which, being the acknowledged visible representative of God, could brand beyond appeal all encroachments on the rights of the defenceless, and wither the plans of cunning and cruelty against the poor. To those defended, this was a consolation; to those upbraided, it was at least a secret dread.
Having said so much upon the question of woman’s position as a bread-winner, we can only end by acknowledging that whatever is to be done will have to be done in fragments, and under the auspices of private enterprise alone. We cannot expect that in the present condition of the world any but individual efforts will be made for the advancement of the weaker sex, nor can we anticipate any but partial and isolated results. But, nevertheless, these efforts will not lack their reward, and we, who in the eyes of the world are now working in the dark, can be content with the knowledge that from these disjointed earthly efforts God is silently building up a great spiritual temple of rescued souls. It may be that we never shall succeed but in part, but this is the fate of all workers at a perfect system, and need not dismay us in the least. Theologians say that if the merits of our Lord’s Incarnation and Passion had redeemed but the single soul of his Blessed Mother, still such unheard-of merits would not therefore have been in the least superfluously applied; and in the same way may we humbly think of ourselves, that if each life spent in the effort of bettering the condition and widening the intellectual horizon of woman had no result save in the increased welfare of one individual, still the labor of such a life would not have been in vain.