The Friendships of Women

by William Rounseville Alger

Multitudes of women have too much self respect to be desirous of being supported in idleness by men; too much genius and ambition to be content with spending their lives in trifles; and too much devotedness not to burn to be doing their share in the relief of humanity, the work and progress of the world. If these were all happy wives and mothers, that might be best. But denied that function, and being what they are, why should not all the provinces of public labor and usefullness, which they are capable of occupying, be freely open to them? What else is it save prejudice that applauds a woman dancing a ballet or performing an opera, but shrinks with disgust from one delivering an oration, preaching a sermon, or casting a vote? Why is it less womanly to prescribe as a physician than to tend as a nurse? If a woman have a calling to medicine, divinity, law, literature, art, instruction, trade, or honorable handicraft, it is hard to see any reason why she should not have a fair chance of pursuing it.

Of course, such must ever be the exceptional callings of women; but in proportion as those not otherwise more satisfactorily employed enter into them, we must believe that the burden on men, instead of being aggravated by the new competition, will be shared, and thus lightened, and the best interests of society receive impulse. Is it not, then, a sound claim which demands for women a full initiation into all the noble realms and interests of humanity? Slavery and ignorance engender worse vices and more hopeless degradation than can result from the exposures of freedom and knowledge. Besides, freedom and knowledge are the guides to every form of nobleness. They alone can fit women truly to exert their most sacred prerogatives. Those who have enjoyed the best means of knowing the truth say, that the Harems of the East are the hot-beds of every wicked quality whose seeds slumber in the heart of woman. Surrounded by rivals; incessantly watched by those cunning and merciless monsters, the eunuchs; knowing nothing of science, art, literature, or industry— they must be devoured by animal passion, by love of intrigue and deception, by jealousy, envy, and hatred. The true remedy for the melancholy stagnation or the frightful effervescence of their existence is not indeed to call them forth into a contest with men for the notice of society and the prizes of the world; but to give them their liberty, remanding them to their own consciences and the social sanctions of the great laws of right and wrong, to educate them to the highest point in every department of knowledge and sentiment, and to throw open to them the boundless field of private and public moral influence, with a fair chance for the achievement of happiness.

Therefore, while as perfect an education, and as absolute a liberty, are claimed for women as for men, they are to be adjured to remember that their conscious aims should be wisdom, goodness, spiritual force, delicacy, and harmony, with the consequent moral influence and contentment; and not the trophies of power, or the publicities of fame. And precisely the same duty holds with regard to men.

The effort to attain the highest graces of character, instead of plunging recklessly into the selfish ways of the world, is as truly obligatory for man as for woman.

Brazen impudence, unprincipled greed, ignorance, cruelty, are vices in him too; modesty, patience, obedience, cleanliness, and aspiration, are virtues in him too. If those vices were to receive a new development, these virtues a new check, by setting before women the higher industries and prizes of society, it would be an immense evil. But is it not probable that such a course will do more to elevate than to degrade, by a larger diffusion of the moral stimulants and restraints of life more closely assimilating the sexes in their diversity, interchanging their respective traits for mutual advantage, and speeding them forward in the common race? The two most pronounced feminine characteristics are tenderness and purity; masculine, courage and knowledge. Humanity will not be perfected, either in individual character or social destiny, by the greater separate enhancement of these in the sexes, but only by their balanced diffusion in both, making the women wise and courageous, the men tender and pure.

It is necessary to see more clearly the grounds on which women, as a class, have hitherto been excluded from public activity and authority, in order properly to understand the justice or the injustice of that exclusion. And, in studying the origin of customs and opinions now prevalent, it is as much our right to do it with freedom, as it is our duty to do it with reverence. Many persons forget that the highest question is, what ought to be? and not, What has been or is? Usages frequently endure after their utility has ceased, after their propriety has gone. The true ideal of human conduct is not to be seen in the imperfections of the past, but to be constructed from the perfections of the future. The fact that a thing has always been, is an historic justification of it for bygone time, but not a moral justification of it for coming time. This requires intrinsic and enduring reasons—reasons of right and use. While the exclusion of women from public life has been natural in the ages behind us, it is a distinct inquiry whether such an exclusion be either obligatory or expedient now.

History demonstrates that the male sex has greater muscular strength, with its natural accompaniments, than the female. The more differentiated and largely supplied nervous structure, connected with the offices of maternity, detracts so much from the amount of force furnished for the muscles and the will. In the rudeness of the primitive state, it is an unavoidable result of the superior muscular power of man that woman is his subject. But the more pronounced nervous system of woman gives her certain spiritual advantages. Her greater sensibility, her greater seclusion, with its relative stimulus of solitude and meditation; the closer endearments of maternity—develop her affections in a higher degree than his. Hence arises a tendency to refinement, elevation, influence, on her part—a tendency, to which, in proportion to his moral susceptibility, he responds with sympathy, respect, and veneration. Every step of social progress has been marked by a softening of the tyranny of man and a lifting of the position of woman—an approximation towards an equal companionship. First the tool of his will, next the toy of his pleasure, then the minister of his vanity, she is at last to become the free sharer of his life, the friend of his mind and heart. In the first of these stages, no question of right was consciously raised: the brute preponderance of strength decided all. In the last stage, there will be no question in debate, no exercise of executive authority on either side; all being settled by a spontaneous harmony of privileges and renunciations on both sides. But in the intermediate stages, covering the whole historic period thus far, man has sought to justify himself in monopolizing authority.

The first argument of the master was the argument, prompted by the unneutralized selfish instincts, that the mere possession of power to rule, gives the right to rule. Muscular superiority is, by intrinsic fitness and necessity, divinely installed to reign. Woman, as "the weaker vessel," must obey. Such a mode of thought was unavoidable, and had its legitimate ages of sway. But no moralist would dream of adopting it, after the conscience has advanced to the stage of general principles, has risen into the region of disinterested sympathy or justice. No one would now consciously employ this argument to maintain the subjection of women; yet in multitudes, below the stratum of their conscious thoughts, it blindly upholds that subjection. A single consideration is enough to show the logical absurdity of the assumption. If men are entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of political privileges, simply because they have more physical might, then, by the same principle, among men themselves, the weak should be subject to the strong. But the very purpose of law, the moral essence of civilization, is to rectify the natural domination of strength, and bring all before a common standard.

The argument from intellectual inferiority is as vacant as that from muscular inferiority. In the first place, it is an open question whether women, as a whole, are inferior in mind to men. Many intelligent judges firmly believe, that, taken as a whole, they are superior. Cornelius Agrippa wrote a book in 1509, entitled "The Nobility of the Female Sex, and the Superiority of Woman over Man." Lucretia Marinella published a book at Venice, in 1601, undertaking to prove the superiority of her sex to the other. A book entitled "La Femme Genereuse," an attempt to demonstrate "that the women are more noble, more polite, more courageous, more knowing, more virtuous, and better managers than the men," was published at Paris, in 1643. Madame Guillaume also published at Paris, in 1665, a work called "Les Dames Illustres," devoted to the proof of the proposition that the female sex surpasses the masculine in all kinds of valuable qualifications. Mrs. Farnham devotes her book "Woman and her Era," published in New York in 1864, to the support of the same thesis, with new arguments and illustrations. That woman is intellectually superior to man, was likewise the opinion of Schopenhauer, an exceedingly strong and independent thinker. The supreme examples of genius have indeed been furnished by men; but this is no disproof of the opinion, that the average height and quickness of feminine mentality are above the masculine average.

Granting, however, that women have less spiritual force than men, they certainly have greater fineness. Their smaller volume of power is compensated by their greater delicacy and tact, their more sensitive moral capacity: the power of self-sacrifice is surely higher than the power of self-assertion. The examples of queens, from Semiramis to Domna, from Zenobia to Catherine; of philosophers and scholars, like Theano, Hypatia, and Olympia Morata; of founders of orders and institutions, organizers and leaders of great enterprises, like Clara and Chantal; of actresses, like Siddons; of singers, like Malibran; of scientists, like Somerville; of heroines, like Charlotte Corday and Joan of Arc; of mystic prophetesses, like Kriidener; of religious thinkers, like Sarah Hennell; of novelists, like Madame Dudevant and Marian Evans; of artists, teachers, martyrs, saints—a host whose faces shine on us out of history, have abundantly vindicated for their sex, so far as force of will, intellect, imagination, and passion is concerned, the right of eminent domain in the whole empire of human experience. Besides, admitting the courage, knowledge, skill, and energy of average men to be greater than those of average women, the difference in their respective opportunities and training would go far towards explaining it. Women, as a class, have been excluded from a thousand lists and stimulants, under whose influences men have been sedulously educated. And, finally, even if we confess the hopeless inferiority of woman to man in some of the highest departments of action, that is no reason for denying her the chance to go as far as she can. If her mental victories must be lower and narrower than his, still she should enjoy the stimulus of the struggle, as one means of aiding the fulfilment of her human destiny. Because one can do more than another, shall he compel the other to do nothing?