THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN BY JOHN STUART MILL LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER 1869 LONDON: SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO. , PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN. CHAPTER I. The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able, thegrounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest periodwhen I had formed any opinions at all on social or political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantlygrowing stronger by the progress of reflection and the experience oflife: That the principle which regulates the existing socialrelations between the two sexes--the legal subordination of one sexto the other--is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrancesto human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principleof perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other. The very words necessary to express the task I have undertaken, showhow arduous it is. But it would be a mistake to suppose that thedifficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency or obscurity ofthe grounds of reason on which my conviction rests. The difficulty isthat which exists in all cases in which there is a mass of feeling tobe contended against. So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in thefeelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having apreponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were acceptedas a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shakethe solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded itsadherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, whichthe arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it isalways throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair anybreach made in the old. And there are so many causes tending to makethe feelings connected with this subject the most intense and mostdeeply-rooted of all those which gather round and protect oldinstitutions and customs, that we need not wonder to find them as yetless undermined and loosened than any of the rest by the progress ofthe great modern spiritual and social transition; nor suppose thatthe barbarisms to which men cling longest must be less barbarismsthan those which they earlier shake off. In every respect the burthen is hard on those who attack an almostuniversal opinion. They must be very fortunate as well as unusuallycapable if they obtain a hearing at all. They have more difficulty inobtaining a trial, than any other litigants have in getting averdict. If they do extort a hearing, they are subjected to a set oflogical requirements totally different from those exacted from otherpeople. In all other cases, the burthen of proof is supposed to liewith the affirmative. If a person is charged with a murder, it restswith those who accuse him to give proof of his guilt, not withhimself to prove his innocence. If there is a difference of opinionabout the reality of any alleged historical event, in which thefeelings of men in general are not much interested, as the Siege ofTroy for example, those who maintain that the event took place areexpected to produce their proofs, before those who take the otherside can be required to say anything; and at no time are theserequired to do more than show that the evidence produced by theothers is of no value. Again, in practical matters, the burthen ofproof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty; whocontend for any restriction or prohibition; either any limitation ofthe general freedom of human action, or any disqualification ordisparity of privilege affecting one person or kind of persons, ascompared with others. The _à priori_ presumption is in favour offreedom and impartiality. It is held that there should be norestraint not required by the general good, and that the law shouldbe no respecter of persons, but should treat all alike, save wheredissimilarity of treatment is required by positive reasons, either ofjustice or of policy. But of none of these rules of evidence will thebenefit be allowed to those who maintain the opinion I profess. It isuseless for me to say that those who maintain the doctrine that menhave a right to command and women are under an obligation to obey, orthat men are fit for government and women unfit, are on theaffirmative side of the question, and that they are bound to showpositive evidence for the assertions, or submit to their rejection. It is equally unavailing for me to say that those who deny to womenany freedom or privilege rightly allowed to men, having the doublepresumption against them that they are opposing freedom andrecommending partiality, must be held to the strictest proof of theircase, and unless their success be such as to exclude all doubt, thejudgment ought to go against them. These would be thought good pleasin any common case; but they will not be thought so in this instance. Before I could hope to make any impression, I should be expected notonly to answer all that has ever been said by those who take theother side of the question, but to imagine all that could be said bythem--to find them in reasons, as well as answer all I find: andbesides refuting all arguments for the affirmative, I shall be calledupon for invincible positive arguments to prove a negative. And evenif I could do all this, and leave the opposite party with a host ofunanswered arguments against them, and not a single unrefuted one ontheir side, I should be thought to have done little; for a causesupported on the one hand by universal usage, and on the other by sogreat a preponderance of popular sentiment, is supposed to have apresumption in its favour, superior to any conviction which an appealto reason has power to produce in any intellects but those of a highclass. I do not mention these difficulties to complain of them; first, because it would be useless; they are inseparable from having tocontend through people's understandings against the hostility oftheir feelings and practical tendencies: and truly the understandingsof the majority of mankind would need to be much better cultivatedthan has ever yet been the case, before they can be asked to placesuch reliance in their own power of estimating arguments, as to giveup practical principles in which they have been born and bred andwhich are the basis of much of the existing order of the world, atthe first argumentative attack which they are not capable oflogically resisting. I do not therefore quarrel with them for havingtoo little faith in argument, but for having too much faith in customand the general feeling. It is one of the characteristic prejudicesof the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, toaccord to the unreasoning elements in human nature the infallibilitywhich the eighteenth century is supposed to have ascribed to thereasoning elements. For the apotheosis of Reason we have substitutedthat of Instinct; and we call everything instinct which we find inourselves and for which we cannot trace any rational foundation. Thisidolatry, infinitely more degrading than the other, and the mostpernicious of the false worships of the present day, of all of whichit is now the main support, will probably hold its ground until itgives way before a sound psychology, laying bare the real root ofmuch that is bowed down to as the intention of Nature and theordinance of God. As regards the present question, I am willing toaccept the unfavourable conditions which the prejudice assigns to me. I consent that established custom, and the general feeling, should bedeemed conclusive against me, unless that custom and feeling from ageto age can be shown to have owed their existence to other causes thantheir soundness, and to have derived their power from the worserather than the better parts of human nature. I am willing thatjudgment should go against me, unless I can show that my judge hasbeen tampered with. The concession is not so great as it mightappear; for to prove this, is by far the easiest portion of my task. The generality of a practice is in some cases a strong presumptionthat it is, or at all events once was, conducive to laudable ends. This is the case, when the practice was first adopted, or afterwardskept up, as a means to such ends, and was grounded on experience ofthe mode in which they could be most effectually attained. If theauthority of men over women, when first established, had been theresult of a conscientious comparison between different modes ofconstituting the government of society; if, after trying variousother modes of social organization--the government of women over men, equality between the two, and such mixed and divided modes ofgovernment as might be invented--it had been decided, on thetestimony of experience, that the mode in which women are whollyunder the rule of men, having no share at all in public concerns, andeach in private being under the legal obligation of obedience to theman with whom she has associated her destiny, was the arrangementmost conducive to the happiness and well being of both; its generaladoption might then be fairly thought to be some evidence that, atthe time when it was adopted, if was the best: though even then theconsiderations which recommended it may, like so many other primevalsocial facts of the greatest importance, have subsequently, in thecourse of ages, ceased to exist. But the state of the case is inevery respect the reverse of this. In the first place, the opinion infavour of the present system, which entirely subordinates the weakersex to the stronger, rests upon theory only; for there never has beentrial made of any other: so that experience, in the sense in which itis vulgarly opposed to theory, cannot be pretended to have pronouncedany verdict. And in the second place, the adoption of this system ofinequality never was the result of deliberation, or forethought, orany social ideas, or any notion whatever of what conduced to thebenefit of humanity or the good order of society. It arose simplyfrom the fact that from the very earliest twilight of human society, every woman (owing to the value attached to her by men, combined withher inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state of bondageto some man. Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognisingthe relations they find already existing between individuals. Theyconvert what was a mere physical fact into a legal right, give it thesanction of society, and principally aim at the substitution ofpublic and organized means of asserting and protecting these rights, instead of the irregular and lawless conflict of physical strength. Those who had already been compelled to obedience became in thismanner legally bound to it. Slavery, from being a mere affair offorce between the master and the slave, became regularized and amatter of compact among the masters, who, binding themselves to oneanother for common protection, guaranteed by their collectivestrength the private possessions of each, including his slaves. Inearly times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as wellas the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them agesof high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to questionthe rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of theone slavery or of the other. By degrees such thinkers did arise: and(the general progress of society assisting) the slavery of the malesex has, in all the countries of Christian Europe at least (though, in one of them, only within the last few years) been at lengthabolished, and that of the female sex has been gradually changed intoa milder form of dependence. But this dependence, as it exists atpresent, is not an original institution, taking a fresh start fromconsiderations of justice and social expediency--it is the primitivestate of slavery lasting on, through successive mitigations andmodifications occasioned by the same causes which have softened thegeneral manners, and brought all human relations more under thecontrol of justice and the influence of humanity. It has not lost thetaint of its brutal origin. No presumption in its favour, therefore, can be drawn from the fact of its existence. The only suchpresumption which it could be supposed to have, must be grounded onits having lasted till now, when so many other things which came downfrom the same odious source have been done away with. And this, indeed, is what makes it strange to ordinary ears, to hear itasserted that the inequality of rights between men and women has noother source than the law of the strongest. That this statement should have the effect of a paradox, is in somerespects creditable to the progress of civilization, and theimprovement of the moral sentiments of mankind. We now live--that isto say, one or two of the most advanced nations of the world nowlive--in a state in which the law of the strongest seems to beentirely abandoned as the regulating principle of the world'saffairs: nobody professes it, and, as regards most of the relationsbetween human beings, nobody is permitted to practise it. When anyone succeeds in doing so, it is under cover of some pretext whichgives him the semblance of having some general social interest on hisside. This being the ostensible state of things, people flatterthemselves that the rule of mere force is ended; that the law of thestrongest cannot be the reason of existence of anything which hasremained in full operation down to the present time. However any ofour present institutions may have begun, it can only, they think, have been preserved to this period of advanced civilization by awell-grounded feeling of its adaptation to human nature, andconduciveness to the general good. They do not understand the greatvitality and durability of institutions which place right on the sideof might; how intensely they are clung to; how the good as well asthe bad propensities and sentiments of those who have power in theirhands, become identified with retaining it; how slowly these badinstitutions give way, one at a time, the weakest first, beginningwith those which are least interwoven with the daily habits of life;and how very rarely those who have obtained legal power because theyfirst had physical, have ever lost their hold of it until thephysical power had passed over to the other side. Such shifting ofthe physical force not having taken place in the case of women; thisfact, combined with all the peculiar and characteristic features ofthe particular case, made it certain from the first that this branchof the system of right founded on might, though softened in its mostatrocious features at an earlier period than several of the others, would be the very last to disappear. It was inevitable that this onecase of a social relation grounded on force, would survive throughgenerations of institutions grounded on equal justice, an almostsolitary exception to the general character of their laws andcustoms; but which, so long as it does not proclaim its own origin, and as discussion has not brought out its true character, is not feltto jar with modern civilization, any more than domestic slavery amongthe Greeks jarred with their notion of themselves as a free people. The truth is, that people of the present and the last two or threegenerations have lost all practical sense of the primitive conditionof humanity; and only the few who have studied history accurately, orhave much frequented the parts of the world occupied by the livingrepresentatives of ages long past, are able to form any mentalpicture of what society then was. People are not aware how entirely, in former ages, the law of superior strength was the rule of life;how publicly and openly it was avowed, I do not say cynically orshamelessly--for these words imply a feeling that there was somethingin it to be ashamed of, and no such notion could find a place in thefaculties of any person in those ages, except a philosopher or asaint. History gives a cruel experience of human nature, in shewinghow exactly the regard due to the life, possessions, and entireearthly happiness of any class of persons, was measured by what theyhad the power of enforcing; how all who made any resistance toauthorities that had arms in their hands, however dreadful might bethe provocation, had not only the law of force but all other laws, and all the notions of social obligation against them; and in theeyes of those whom they resisted, were not only guilty of crime, butof the worst of all crimes, deserving the most cruel chastisementwhich human beings could inflict. The first small vestige of afeeling of obligation in a superior to acknowledge any right ininferiors, began when he had been induced, for convenience, to makesome promise to them. Though these promises, even when sanctioned bythe most solemn oaths, were for many ages revoked or violated on themost trifling provocation or temptation, it is probable that this, except by persons of still worse than the average morality, wasseldom done without some twinges of conscience. The ancientrepublics, being mostly grounded from the first upon some kind ofmutual compact, or at any rate formed by an union of persons not veryunequal in strength, afforded, in consequence, the first instance ofa portion of human relations fenced round, and placed under thedominion of another law than that of force. And though the originallaw of force remained in full operation between them and theirslaves, and also (except so far as limited by express compact)between a commonwealth and its subjects, or other independentcommonwealths; the banishment of that primitive law even from sonarrow a field, commenced the regeneration of human nature, by givingbirth to sentiments of which experience soon demonstrated the immensevalue even for material interests, and which thenceforward onlyrequired to be enlarged, not created. Though slaves were no part ofthe commonwealth, it was in the free states that slaves were firstfelt to have rights as human beings. The Stoics were, I believe, thefirst (except so far as the Jewish law constitutes an exception) whotaught as a part of morality that men were bound by moral obligationsto their slaves. No one, after Christianity became ascendant, couldever again have been a stranger to this belief, in theory; nor, afterthe rise of the Catholic Church, was it ever without persons to standup for it. Yet to enforce it was the most arduous task whichChristianity ever had to perform. For more than a thousand years theChurch kept up the contest, with hardly any perceptible success. Itwas not for want of power over men's minds. Its power was prodigious. It could make kings and nobles resign their most valued possessionsto enrich the Church. It could make thousands, in the prime of lifeand the height of worldly advantages, shut themselves up in conventsto work out their salvation by poverty, fasting, and prayer. It couldsend hundreds of thousands across land and sea, Europe and Asia, togive their lives for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. It couldmake kings relinquish wives who were the object of their passionateattachment, because the Church declared that they were within theseventh (by our calculation the fourteenth) degree of relationship. All this it did; but it could not make men fight less with oneanother, nor tyrannize less cruelly over the serfs, and when theywere able, over burgesses. It could not make them renounce either ofthe applications of force; force militant, or force triumphant. Thisthey could never be induced to do until they were themselves in theirturn compelled by superior force. Only by the growing power of kingswas an end put to fighting except between kings, or competitors forkingship; only by the growth of a wealthy and warlike bourgeoisie inthe fortified towns, and of a plebeian infantry which proved morepowerful in the field than the undisciplined chivalry, was theinsolent tyranny of the nobles over the bourgeoisie and peasantrybrought within some bounds. It was persisted in not only until, butlong after, the oppressed had obtained a power enabling them often totake conspicuous vengeance; and on the Continent much of it continuedto the time of the French Revolution, though in England the earlierand better organization of the democratic classes put an end to itsooner, by establishing equal laws and free national institutions. If people are mostly so little aware how completely, during thegreater part of the duration of our species, the law of force was theavowed rule of general conduct, any other being only a special andexceptional consequence of peculiar ties--and from how very recent adate it is that the affairs of society in general have been evenpretended to be regulated according to any moral law; as little dopeople remember or consider, how institutions and customs which neverhad any ground but the law of force, last on into ages and states ofgeneral opinion which never would have permitted their firstestablishment. Less than forty years ago, Englishmen might still bylaw hold human beings in bondage as saleable property: within thepresent century they might kidnap them and carry them off, and workthem literally to death. This absolutely extreme case of the law offorce, condemned by those who can tolerate almost every other form ofarbitrary power, and which, of all others, presents features the mostrevolting to the feelings of all who look at it from an impartialposition, was the law of civilized and Christian England within thememory of persons now living: and in one half of Anglo-Saxon Americathree or four years ago, not only did slavery exist, but the slavetrade, and the breeding of slaves expressly for it, was a generalpractice between slave states. Yet not only was there a greaterstrength of sentiment against it, but, in England at least, a lessamount either of feeling or of interest in favour of it, than of anyother of the customary abuses of force: for its motive was the loveof gain, unmixed and undisguised; and those who profited by it were avery small numerical fraction of the country, while the naturalfeeling of all who were not personally interested in it, wasunmitigated abhorrence. So extreme an instance makes it almostsuperfluous to refer to any other: but consider the long duration ofabsolute monarchy. In England at present it is the almost universalconviction that military despotism is a case of the law of force, having no other origin or justification. Yet in all the great nationsof Europe except England it either still exists, or has only justceased to exist, and has even now a strong party favourable to it inall ranks of the people, especially among persons of station andconsequence. Such is the power of an established system, even whenfar from universal; when not only in almost every period of historythere have been great and well-known examples of the contrary system, but these have almost invariably been afforded by the mostillustrious and most prosperous communities. In this case, too, thepossessor of the undue power, the person directly interested in it, is only one person, while those who are subject to it and suffer fromit are literally all the rest. The yoke is naturally and necessarilyhumiliating to all persons, except the one who is on the throne, together with, at most, the one who expects to succeed to it. Howdifferent are these cases from that of the power of men over women! Iam not now prejudging the question of its justifiableness. I amshowing how vastly more permanent it could not but be, even if notjustifiable, than these other dominations which have neverthelesslasted down to our own time. Whatever gratification of pride there isin the possession of power, and whatever personal interest in itsexercise, is in this case not confined to a limited class, but commonto the whole male sex. Instead of being, to most of its supporters, athing desirable chiefly in the abstract, or, like the political endsusually contended for by factious, of little private importance toany but the leaders; it comes home to the person and hearth of everymale head of a family, and of every one who looks forward to beingso. The clodhopper exercises, or is to exercise, his share of thepower equally with the highest nobleman. And the case is that inwhich the desire of power is the strongest: for every one who desirespower, desires it most over those who are nearest to him, with whomhis life is passed, with whom he has most concerns in common, and inwhom any independence of his authority is oftenest likely tointerfere with his individual preferences. If, in the other casesspecified, powers manifestly grounded only on force, and having somuch less to support them, are so slowly and with so much difficultygot rid of, much more must it be so with this, even if it rests on nobetter foundation than those. We must consider, too, that thepossessors of the power have facilities in this case, greater than inany other, to prevent any uprising against it. Every one of thesubjects lives under the very eye, and almost, it may be said, in thehands, of one of the masters--in closer intimacy with him than withany of her fellow-subjects; with no means of combining against him, no power of even locally over-mastering him, and, on the other hand, with the strongest motives for seeking his favour and avoiding togive him offence. In struggles for political emancipation, everybodyknows how often its champions are bought off by bribes, or daunted byterrors. In the case of women, each individual of the subject-classis in a chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined. Insetting up the standard of resistance, a large number of the leaders, and still more of the followers, must make an almost completesacrifice of the pleasures or the alleviations of their ownindividual lot. If ever any system of privilege and enforcedsubjection had its yoke tightly riveted on the necks of those who arekept down by it, this has. I have not yet shown that it is a wrongsystem: but every one who is capable of thinking on the subject mustsee that even if it is, it was certain to outlast all other forms ofunjust authority. And when some of the grossest of the other formsstill exist in many civilized countries, and have only recently beengot rid of in others, it would be strange if that which is so muchthe deepest-rooted had yet been perceptibly shaken anywhere. There ismore reason to wonder that the protests and testimonies against itshould have been so numerous and so weighty as they are. Some will object, that a comparison cannot fairly be made between thegovernment of the male sex and the forms of unjust power which I haveadduced in illustration of it, since these are arbitrary, and theeffect of mere usurpation, while it on the contrary is natural. Butwas there ever any domination which did not appear natural to thosewho possessed it? There was a time when the division of mankind intotwo classes, a small one of masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most cultivated minds, to be a natural, and theonly natural, condition of the human race. No less an intellect, andone which contributed no less to the progress of human thought, thanAristotle, held this opinion without doubt or misgiving; and restedit on the same premises on which the same assertion in regard to thedominion of men over women is usually based, namely that there aredifferent natures among mankind, free natures, and slave natures;that the Greeks were of a free nature, the barbarian races ofThracians and Asiatics of a slave nature. But why need I go back toAristotle? Did not the slaveowners of the Southern United Statesmaintain the same doctrine, with all the fanaticism with which mencling to the theories that justify their passions and legitimatetheir personal interests? Did they not call heaven and earth towitness that the dominion of the white man over the black is natural, that the black race is by nature incapable of freedom, and marked outfor slavery? some even going so far as to say that the freedom ofmanual labourers is an unnatural order of things anywhere. Again, thetheorists of absolute monarchy have always affirmed it to be the onlynatural form of government; issuing from the patriarchal, which wasthe primitive and spontaneous form of society, framed on the model ofthe paternal, which is anterior to society itself, and, as theycontend, the most natural authority of all. Nay, for that matter, thelaw of force itself, to those who could not plead any other, hasalways seemed the most natural of all grounds for the exercise ofauthority. Conquering races hold it to be Nature's own dictate thatthe conquered should obey the conquerors, or, as they euphoniouslyparaphrase it, that the feebler and more unwarlike races shouldsubmit to the braver and manlier. The smallest acquaintance withhuman life in the middle ages, shows how supremely natural thedominion of the feudal nobility over men of low condition appeared tothe nobility themselves, and how unnatural the conception seemed, ofa person of the inferior class claiming equality with them, orexercising authority over them. It hardly seemed less so to the classheld in subjection. The emancipated serfs and burgesses, even intheir most vigorous struggles, never made any pretension to a shareof authority; they only demanded more or less of limitation to thepower of tyrannizing over them. So true is it that unnaturalgenerally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usualappears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universalcustom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural. Buthow entirely, even in this case, the feeling is dependent on custom, appears by ample experience. Nothing so much astonishes the people ofdistant parts of the world, when they first learn anything aboutEngland, as to be told that it is under a queen: the thing seems tothem so unnatural as to be almost incredible. To Englishmen this doesnot seem in the least degree unnatural, because they are used to it;but they do feel it unnatural that women should be soldiers ormembers of parliament. In the feudal ages, on the contrary, war andpolitics were not thought unnatural to women, because not unusual; itseemed natural that women of the privileged classes should be ofmanly character, inferior in nothing but bodily strength to theirhusbands and fathers. The independence of women seemed rather lessunnatural to the Greeks than to other ancients, on account of thefabulous Amazons (whom they believed to be historical), and thepartial example afforded by the Spartan women; who, though no lesssubordinate by law than in other Greek states, were more free infact, and being trained to bodily exercises in the same manner withmen, gave ample proof that they were not naturally disqualified forthem. There can be little doubt that Spartan experience suggested toPlato, among many other of his doctrines, that of the social andpolitical equality of the two sexes. But, it will be said, the rule of men over women differs from allthese others in not being a rule of force: it is acceptedvoluntarily; women make no complaint, and are consenting parties toit. In the first place, a great number of women do not accept it. Ever since there have been women able to make their sentiments knownby their writings (the only mode of publicity which society permitsto them), an increasing number of them have recorded protests againsttheir present social condition: and recently many thousands of them, headed by the most eminent women known to the public, have petitionedParliament for their admission to the Parliamentary Suffrage. Theclaim of women to be educated as solidly, and in the same branches ofknowledge, as men, is urged with growing intensity, and with a greatprospect of success; while the demand for their admission intoprofessions and occupations hitherto closed against them, becomesevery year more urgent. Though there are not in this country, asthere are in the United States, periodical Conventions and anorganized party to agitate for the Rights of Women, there is anumerous and active Society organized and managed by women, for themore limited object of obtaining the political franchise. Nor is itonly in our own country and in America that women are beginning toprotest, more or less collectively, against the disabilities underwhich they labour. France, and Italy, and Switzerland, and Russia nowafford examples of the same thing. How many more women there are whosilently cherish similar aspirations, no one can possibly know; butthere are abundant tokens how many _would_ cherish them, were theynot so strenuously taught to repress them as contrary to theproprieties of their sex. It must be remembered, also, that noenslaved class ever asked for complete liberty at once. When Simon deMontfort called the deputies of the commons to sit for the first timein Parliament, did any of them dream of demanding that an assembly, elected by their constituents, should make and destroy ministries, and dictate to the king in affairs of state? No such thought enteredinto the imagination of the most ambitious of them. The nobility hadalready these pretensions; the commons pretended to nothing but to beexempt from arbitrary taxation, and from the gross individualoppression of the king's officers. It is a political law of naturethat those who are under any power of ancient origin, never begin bycomplaining of the power itself, but only of its oppressive exercise. There is never any want of women who complain of ill usage by theirhusbands. There would be infinitely more, if complaint were not thegreatest of all provocatives to a repetition and increase of the illusage. It is this which frustrates all attempts to maintain the powerbut protect the woman against its abuses. In no other case (exceptthat of a child) is the person who has been proved judicially to havesuffered an injury, replaced under the physical power of the culpritwho inflicted it. Accordingly wives, even in the most extreme andprotracted cases of bodily ill usage, hardly ever dare availthemselves of the laws made for their protection: and if, in a momentof irrepressible indignation, or by the interference of neighbours, they are induced to do so, their whole effort afterwards is todisclose as little as they can, and to beg off their tyrant from hismerited chastisement. All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely thatwomen should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They areso far in a position different from all other subject classes, thattheir masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want theirsentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in thewoman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but awilling one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have thereforeput everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of allother slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear ofthemselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more thansimple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education toeffect their purpose. All women are brought up from the very earliestyears in the belief that their ideal of character is the veryopposite to that of men; not self-will, and government byself-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and allthe current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live forothers; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have nolife but in their affections. And by their affections are meant theonly ones they are allowed to have--those to the men with whom theyare connected, or to the children who constitute an additional andindefeasible tie between them and a man. When we put together threethings--first, the natural attraction between opposite sexes;secondly, the wife's entire dependence on the husband, everyprivilege or pleasure she has being either his gift, or dependingentirely on his will; and lastly, that the principal object of humanpursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can ingeneral be sought or obtained by her only through him, it would be amiracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become thepolar star of feminine education and formation of character. And, this great means of influence over the minds of women having beenacquired, an instinct of selfishness made men avail themselves of itto the utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, byrepresenting to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of allindividual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part ofsexual attractiveness. Can it be doubted that any of the other yokeswhich mankind have succeeded in breaking, would have subsisted tillnow if the same means had existed, and had been as sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it? If it had been made the object of thelife of every young plebeian to find personal favour in the eyes ofsome patrician, of every young serf with some seigneur; ifdomestication with him, and a share of his personal affections, hadbeen held out as the prize which they all should look out for, themost gifted and aspiring being able to reckon on the most desirableprizes; and if, when this prize had been obtained, they had been shutout by a wall of brass from all interests not centering in him, allfeelings and desires but those which he shared or inculcated; wouldnot serfs and seigneurs, plebeians and patricians, have been asbroadly distinguished at this day as men and women are? and would notall but a thinker here and there, have believed the distinction to bea fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature? The preceding considerations are amply sufficient to show thatcustom, however universal it may be, affords in this case nopresumption, and ought not to create any prejudice, in favour of thearrangements which place women in social and political subjection tomen. But I may go farther, and maintain that the course of history, and the tendencies of progressive human society, afford not only nopresumption in favour of this system of inequality of rights, but astrong one against it; and that, so far as the whole course of humanimprovement up to this time, the whole stream of modern tendencies, warrants any inference on the subject, it is, that this relic of thepast is discordant with the future, and must necessarily disappear. For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world--thedifference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modernsocial ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past? Itis, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, andchained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, butare free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances asoffer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable. Human society of old was constituted on a very different principle. All were born to a fixed social position, and were mostly kept in itby law, or interdicted from any means by which they could emerge fromit. As some men are born white and others black, so some were bornslaves and others freemen and citizens; some were born patricians, others plebeians; some were born feudal nobles, others commoners and_roturiers_. A slave or serf could never make himself free, nor, except by the will of his master, become so. In most Europeancountries it was not till towards the close of the middle ages, andas a consequence of the growth of regal power, that commoners couldbe ennobled. Even among nobles, the eldest son was born the exclusiveheir to the paternal possessions, and a long time elapsed before itwas fully established that the father could disinherit him. Among theindustrious classes, only those who were born members of a guild, orwere admitted into it by its members, could lawfully practise theircalling within its local limits; and nobody could practise anycalling deemed important, in any but the legal manner--by processesauthoritatively prescribed. Manufacturers have stood in the pilloryfor presuming to carry on their business by new and improved methods. In modern Europe, and most in those parts of it which haveparticipated most largely in all other modern improvements, diametrically opposite doctrines now prevail. Law and government donot undertake to prescribe by whom any social or industrial operationshall or shall not be conducted, or what modes of conducting themshall be lawful. These things are left to the unfettered choice ofindividuals. Even the laws which required that workmen should servean apprenticeship, have in this country been repealed: there beingample assurance that in all cases in which an apprenticeship isnecessary, its necessity will suffice to enforce it. The old theorywas, that the least possible should be left to the choice of theindividual agent; that all he had to do should, as far aspracticable, be laid down for him by superior wisdom. Left to himselfhe was sure to go wrong. The modern conviction, the fruit of athousand years of experience, is, that things in which the individualis the person directly interested, never go right but as they areleft to his own discretion; and that any regulation of them byauthority, except to protect the rights of others, is sure to bemischievous. This conclusion, slowly arrived at, and not adopteduntil almost every possible application of the contrary theory hadbeen made with disastrous result, now (in the industrial department)prevails universally in the most advanced countries, almostuniversally in all that have pretensions to any sort of advancement. It is not that all processes are supposed to be equally good, or allpersons to be equally qualified for everything; but that freedom ofindividual choice is now known to be the only thing which procuresthe adoption of the best processes, and throws each operation intothe hands of those who are best qualified for it. Nobody thinks itnecessary to make a law that only a strong-armed man shall be ablacksmith. Freedom and competition suffice to make blacksmithsstrong-armed men, because the weak-armed can earn more by engaging inoccupations for which they are more fit. In consonance with thisdoctrine, it is felt to be an overstepping of the proper bounds ofauthority to fix beforehand, on some general presumption, thatcertain persons are not fit to do certain things. It is nowthoroughly known and admitted that if some such presumptions exist, no such presumption is infallible. Even if it be well grounded in amajority of cases, which it is very likely not to be, there will be aminority of exceptional cases in which it does not hold: and in thoseit is both an injustice to the individuals, and a detriment tosociety, to place barriers in the way of their using their facultiesfor their own benefit and for that of others. In the cases, on theother hand, in which the unfitness is real, the ordinary motives ofhuman conduct will on the whole suffice to prevent the incompetentperson from making, or from persisting in, the attempt. If this general principle of social and economical science is nottrue; if individuals, with such help as they can derive from theopinion of those who know them, are not better judges than the lawand the government, of their own capacities and vocation; the worldcannot too soon abandon this principle, and return to the old systemof regulations and disabilities. But if the principle is true, weought to act as if we believed it, and not to ordain that to be borna girl instead of a boy, any more than to be born black instead ofwhite, or a commoner instead of a nobleman, shall decide the person'sposition through all life--shall interdict people from all the moreelevated social positions, and from all, except a few, respectableoccupations. Even were we to admit the utmost that is ever pretendedas to the superior fitness of men for all the functions now reservedto them, the same argument applies which forbids a legalqualification for members of Parliament. If only once in a dozenyears the conditions of eligibility exclude a fit person, there is areal loss, while the exclusion of thousands of unfit persons is nogain; for if the constitution of the electoral body disposes them tochoose unfit persons, there are always plenty of such persons tochoose from. In all things of any difficulty and importance, thosewho can do them well are fewer than the need, even with the mostunrestricted latitude of choice: and any limitation of the field ofselection deprives society of some chances of being served by thecompetent, without ever saving it from the incompetent. At present, in the more improved countries, the disabilities of womenare the only case, save one, in which laws and institutions takepersons at their birth, and ordain that they shall never in all theirlives be allowed to compete for certain things. The one exception isthat of royalty. Persons still are born to the throne; no one, not ofthe reigning family, can ever occupy it, and no one even of thatfamily can, by any means but the course of hereditary succession, attain it. All other dignities and social advantages are open to thewhole male sex: many indeed are only attainable by wealth, but wealthmay be striven for by any one, and is actually obtained by many menof the very humblest origin. The difficulties, to the majority, areindeed insuperable without the aid of fortunate accidents; but nomale human being is under any legal ban: neither law nor opinionsuperadd artificial obstacles to the natural ones. Royalty, as I havesaid, is excepted: but in this case every one feels it to be anexception--an anomaly in the modern world, in marked opposition toits customs and principles, and to be justified only by extraordinaryspecial expediencies, which, though individuals and nations differ inestimating their weight, unquestionably do in fact exist. But in thisexceptional case, in which a high social function is, for importantreasons, bestowed on birth instead of being put up to competition, all free nations contrive to adhere in substance to the principlefrom which they nominally derogate; for they circumscribe this highfunction by conditions avowedly intended to prevent the person towhom it ostensibly belongs from really performing it; while theperson by whom it is performed, the responsible minister, does obtainthe post by a competition from which no full-grown citizen of themale sex is legally excluded. The disabilities, therefore, to whichwomen are subject from the mere fact of their birth, are the solitaryexamples of the kind in modern legislation. In no instance exceptthis, which comprehends half the human race, are the higher socialfunctions closed against any one by a fatality of birth which noexertions, and no change of circumstances, can overcome; for evenreligious disabilities (besides that in England and in Europe theyhave practically almost ceased to exist) do not close any career tothe disqualified person in case of conversion. The social subordination of women thus stands out an isolated fact inmodern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has becometheir fundamental law; a single relic of an old world of thought andpractice exploded in everything else, but retained in the one thingof most universal interest; as if a gigantic dolmen, or a vast templeof Jupiter Olympius, occupied the site of St. Paul's and receiveddaily worship, while the surrounding Christian churches were onlyresorted to on fasts and festivals. This entire discrepancy betweenone social fact and all those which accompany it, and the radicalopposition between its nature and the progressive movement which isthe boast of the modern world, and which has successively swept awayeverything else of an analogous character, surely affords, to aconscientious observer of human tendencies, serious matter forreflection. It raises a primâ facie presumption on the unfavourableside, far outweighing any which custom and usage could in suchcircumstances create on the favourable; and should at least sufficeto make this, like the choice between republicanism and royalty, abalanced question. The least that can be demanded is, that the question should not beconsidered as prejudged by existing fact and existing opinion, butopen to discussion on its merits, as a question of justice andexpediency: the decision on this, as on any of the other socialarrangements of mankind, depending on what an enlightened estimate oftendencies and consequences may show to be most advantageous tohumanity in general, without distinction of sex. And the discussionmust be a real discussion, descending to foundations, and not restingsatisfied with vague and general assertions. It will not do, forinstance, to assert in general terms, that the experience of mankindhas pronounced in favour of the existing system. Experience cannotpossibly have decided between two courses, so long as there has onlybeen experience of one. If it be said that the doctrine of theequality of the sexes rests only on theory, it must be rememberedthat the contrary doctrine also has only theory to rest upon. Allthat is proved in its favour by direct experience, is that mankindhave been able to exist under it, and to attain the degree ofimprovement and prosperity which we now see; but whether thatprosperity has been attained sooner, or is now greater, than it wouldhave been under the other system, experience does not say. On theother hand, experience does say, that every step in improvement hasbeen so invariably accompanied by a step made in raising the socialposition of women, that historians and philosophers have been led toadopt their elevation or debasement as on the whole the surest testand most correct measure of the civilization of a people or an age. Through all the progressive period of human history, the condition ofwomen has been approaching nearer to equality with men. This does notof itself prove that the assimilation must go on to completeequality; but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is thecase. Neither does it avail anything to say that the _nature_ of the twosexes adapts them to their present functions and position, andrenders these appropriate to them. Standing on the ground of commonsense and the constitution of the human mind, I deny that any oneknows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they haveonly been seen in their present relation to one another. If men hadever been found in society without women, or women without men, or ifthere had been a society of men and women in which the women were notunder the control of the men, something might have been positivelyknown about the mental and moral differences which may be inherent inthe nature of each. What is now called the nature of women is aneminently artificial thing--the result of forced repression in somedirections, unnatural stimulation in others. It may be assertedwithout scruple, that no other class of dependents have had theircharacter so entirely distorted from its natural proportions by theirrelation with their masters; for, if conquered and slave races havebeen, in some respects, more forcibly repressed, whatever in them hasnot been crushed down by an iron heel has generally been let alone, and if left with any liberty of development, it has developed itselfaccording to its own laws; but in the case of women, a hot-house andstove cultivation has always been carried on of some of thecapabilities of their nature, for the benefit and pleasure of theirmasters. Then, because certain products of the general vital forcesprout luxuriantly and reach a great development in this heatedatmosphere and under this active nurture and watering, while othershoots from the same root, which are left outside in the wintry air, with ice purposely heaped all round them, have a stunted growth, andsome are burnt off with fire and disappear; men, with that inabilityto recognise their own work which distinguishes the unanalytic mind, indolently believe that the tree grows of itself in the way they havemade it grow, and that it would die if one half of it were not keptin a vapour bath and the other half in the snow. Of all difficulties which impede the progress of thought, and theformation of well-grounded opinions on life and social arrangements, the greatest is now the unspeakable ignorance and inattention ofmankind in respect to the influences which form human character. Whatever any portion of the human species now are, or seem to be, such, it is supposed, they have a natural tendency to be: even whenthe most elementary knowledge of the circumstances in which they havebeen placed, clearly points out the causes that made them what theyare. Because a cottier deeply in arrears to his landlord is notindustrious, there are people who think that the Irish are naturallyidle. Because constitutions can be overthrown when the authoritiesappointed to execute them turn their arms against them, there arepeople who think the French incapable of free government. Because theGreeks cheated the Turks, and the Turks only plundered the Greeks, there are persons who think that the Turks are naturally moresincere: and because women, as is often said, care nothing aboutpolitics except their personalities, it is supposed that the generalgood is naturally less interesting to women than to men. History, which is now so much better understood than formerly, teaches anotherlesson: if only by showing the extraordinary susceptibility of humannature to external influences, and the extreme variableness of thoseof its manifestations which are supposed to be most universal anduniform. But in history, as in travelling, men usually see only whatthey already had in their own minds; and few learn much from history, who do not bring much with them to its study. Hence, in regard to that most difficult question, what are thenatural differences between the two sexes--a subject on which it isimpossible in the present state of society to obtain complete andcorrect knowledge--while almost everybody dogmatizes upon it, almostall neglect and make light of the only means by which any partialinsight can be obtained into it. This is, an analytic study of themost important department of psychology, the laws of the influence ofcircumstances on character. For, however great and apparentlyineradicable the moral and intellectual differences between men andwomen might be, the evidence of their being natural differences couldonly be negative. Those only could be inferred to be natural whichcould not possibly be artificial--the residuum, after deducting everycharacteristic of either sex which can admit of being explained fromeducation or external circumstances. The profoundest knowledge of thelaws of the formation of character is indispensable to entitle anyone to affirm even that there is any difference, much more what thedifference is, between the two sexes considered as moral and rationalbeings; and since no one, as yet, has that knowledge, (for there ishardly any subject which, in proportion to its importance, has beenso little studied), no one is thus far entitled to any positiveopinion on the subject. Conjectures are all that can at present bemade; conjectures more or less probable, according as more or lessauthorized by such knowledge as we yet have of the laws ofpsychology, as applied to the formation of character. Even the preliminary knowledge, what the differences between thesexes now are, apart from all question as to how they are made whatthey are, is still in the crudest and most incomplete state. Medicalpractitioners and physiologists have ascertained, to some extent, thedifferences in bodily constitution; and this is an important elementto the psychologist: but hardly any medical practitioner is apsychologist. Respecting the mental characteristics of women; theirobservations are of no more worth than those of common men. It is asubject on which nothing final can be known, so long as those whoalone can really know it, women themselves, have given but littletestimony, and that little, mostly suborned. It is easy to knowstupid women. Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupidperson's notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from thosewhich prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not sowith those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from theirown nature and faculties. It is only a man here and there who has anytolerable knowledge of the character even of the women of his ownfamily. I do not mean, of their capabilities; these nobody knows, noteven themselves, because most of them have never been called out. Imean their actually existing thoughts and feelings. Many a man thinkshe perfectly understands women, because he has had amatory relationswith several, perhaps with many of them. If he is a good observer, and his experience extends to quality as well as quantity, he mayhave learnt something of one narrow department of their nature--animportant department, no doubt. But of all the rest of it, fewpersons are generally more ignorant, because there are few from whomit is so carefully hidden. The most favourable case which a man cangenerally have for studying the character of a woman, is that of hisown wife: for the opportunities are greater, and the cases ofcomplete sympathy not so unspeakably rare. And in fact, this is thesource from which any knowledge worth having on the subject has, Ibelieve, generally come. But most men have not had the opportunity ofstudying in this way more than a single case: accordingly one can, toan almost laughable degree, infer what a man's wife is like, from hisopinions about women in general. To make even this one case yield anyresult, the woman must be worth knowing, and the man not only acompetent judge, but of a character so sympathetic in itself, and sowell adapted to hers, that he can either read her mind by sympatheticintuition, or has nothing in himself which makes her shy ofdisclosing it. Hardly anything, I believe, can be more rare than thisconjunction. It often happens that there is the most complete unityof feeling and community of interests as to all external things, yetthe one has as little admission into the internal life of the otheras if they were common acquaintance. Even with true affection, authority on the one side and subordination on the other preventperfect confidence. Though nothing may be intentionally withheld, much is not shown. In the analogous relation of parent and child, thecorresponding phenomenon must have been in the observation of everyone. As between father and son, how many are the cases in which thefather, in spite of real affection on both sides, obviously to allthe world does not know, nor suspect, parts of the son's characterfamiliar to his companions and equals. The truth is, that theposition of looking up to another is extremely unpropitious tocomplete sincerity and openness with him. The fear of losing groundin his opinion or in his feelings is so strong, that even in anupright character, there is an unconscious tendency to show only thebest side, or the side which, though not the best, is that which hemost likes to see: and it may be confidently said that thoroughknowledge of one another hardly ever exists, but between persons who, besides being intimates, are equals. How much more true, then, mustall this be, when the one is not only under the authority of theother, but has it inculcated on her as a duty to reckon everythingelse subordinate to his comfort and pleasure, and to let him neithersee nor feel anything coming from her, except what is agreeable tohim. All these difficulties stand in the way of a man's obtaining anythorough knowledge even of the one woman whom alone, in general, hehas sufficient opportunity of studying. When we further consider thatto understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any otherwoman; that even if he could study many women of one rank, or of onecountry, he would not thereby understand women of other ranks orcountries; and even if he did, they are still only the women of asingle period of history; we may safely assert that the knowledgewhich men can acquire of women, even as they have been and are, without reference to what they might be, is wretchedly imperfect andsuperficial, and always will be so, until women themselves have toldall that they have to tell. And this time has not come; nor will it come otherwise thangradually. It is but of yesterday that women have either beenqualified by literary accomplishments, or permitted by society, totell anything to the general public. As yet very few of them daretell anything, which men, on whom their literary success depends, areunwilling to hear. Let us remember in what manner, up to a veryrecent time, the expression, even by a male author, of uncustomaryopinions, or what are deemed eccentric feelings, usually was, and insome degree still is, received; and we may form some faint conceptionunder what impediments a woman, who is brought up to think custom andopinion her sovereign rule, attempts to express in books anythingdrawn from the depths of her own nature. The greatest woman who hasleft writings behind her sufficient to give her an eminent rank inthe literature of her country, thought it necessary to prefix as amotto to her boldest work, “Un homme peut braver l'opinion; une femmedoit s'y soumettre. ”[1] The greater part of what women write aboutwomen is mere sycophancy to men. In the case of unmarried women, muchof it seems only intended to increase their chance of a husband. Many, both married and unmarried, overstep the mark, and inculcate aservility beyond what is desired or relished by any man, except thevery vulgarest. But this is not so often the case as, even at a quitelate period, it still was. Literary women are becoming morefreespoken, and more willing to express their real sentiments. Unfortunately, in this country especially, they are themselves suchartificial products, that their sentiments are compounded of a smallelement of individual observation and consciousness, and a very largeone of acquired associations. This will be less and less the case, but it will remain true to a great extent, as long as socialinstitutions do not admit the same free development of originality inwomen which is possible to men. When that time comes, and not before, we shall see, and not merely hear, as much as it is necessary to knowof the nature of women, and the adaptation of other things to it. I have dwelt so much on the difficulties which at present obstructany real knowledge by men of the true nature of women, because inthis as in so many other things “opinio copiæ inter maximas causasinopiæ est;” and there is little chance of reasonable thinking on thematter, while people flatter themselves that they perfectlyunderstand a subject of which most men know absolutely nothing, andof which it is at present impossible that any man, or all men takentogether, should have knowledge which can qualify them to lay downthe law to women as to what is, or is not, their vocation. Happily, no such knowledge is necessary for any practical purpose connectedwith the position of women in relation to society and life. For, according to all the principles involved in modern society, thequestion rests with women themselves--to be decided by their ownexperience, and by the use of their own faculties. There are no meansof finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying--andno means by which any one else can discover for them what it is fortheir happiness to do or leave undone. One thing we may be certain of--that what is contrary to women'snature to do, they never will be made to do by simply giving theirnature free play. The anxiety of mankind to interfere in behalf ofnature, for fear lest nature should not succeed in effecting itspurpose, is an altogether unnecessary solicitude. What women bynature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing. What they can do, but not so well as the men who are theircompetitors, competition suffices to exclude them from; since nobodyasks for protective duties and bounties in favour of women; it isonly asked that the present bounties and protective duties in favourof men should be recalled. If women have a greater naturalinclination for some things than for others, there is no need of lawsor social inculcation to make the majority of them do the former inpreference to the latter. Whatever women's services are most wantedfor, the free play of competition will hold out the strongestinducements to them to undertake. And, as the words imply, they aremost wanted for the things for which they are most fit; by theapportionment of which to them, the collective faculties of the twosexes can be applied on the whole with the greatest sum of valuableresult. The general opinion of men is supposed to be, that the naturalvocation of a woman is that of a wife and mother. I say, is supposedto be, because, judging from acts--from the whole of the presentconstitution of society--one might infer that their opinion was thedirect contrary. They might be supposed to think that the allegednatural vocation of women was of all things the most repugnant totheir nature; insomuch that if they are free to do anything else--ifany other means of living, or occupation of their time and faculties, is open, which has any chance of appearing desirable to them--therewill not be enough of them who will be willing to accept thecondition said to be natural to them. If this is the real opinion ofmen in general, it would be well that it should be spoken out. Ishould like to hear somebody openly enunciating the doctrine (it isalready implied in much that is written on the subject)--“It isnecessary to society that women should marry and produce children. They will not do so unless they are compelled. Therefore it isnecessary to compel them. ” The merits of the case would then beclearly defined. It would be exactly that of the slaveholders ofSouth Carolina and Louisiana. “It is necessary that cotton and sugarshould be grown. White men cannot produce them. Negroes will not, forany wages which we choose to give. _Ergo_ they must be compelled. ” Anillustration still closer to the point is that of impressment. Sailors must absolutely be had to defend the country. It oftenhappens that they will not voluntarily enlist. Therefore there mustbe the power of forcing them. How often has this logic been used!and, but for one flaw in it, without doubt it would have beensuccessful up to this day. But it is open to the retort--First paythe sailors the honest value of their labour. When you have made itas well worth their while to serve you, as to work for otheremployers, you will have no more difficulty than others have inobtaining their services. To this there is no logical answer except“I will not:” and as people are now not only ashamed, but are notdesirous, to rob the labourer of his hire, impressment is no longeradvocated. Those who attempt to force women into marriage by closingall other doors against them, lay themselves open to a similarretort. If they mean what they say, their opinion must evidently be, that men do not render the married condition so desirable to women, as to induce them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is nota sign of one's thinking the boon one offers very attractive, whenone allows only Hobson's choice, “that or none. ” And here, I believe, is the clue to the feelings of those men, who have a real antipathyto the equal freedom of women. I believe they are afraid, not lestwomen should be unwilling to marry, for I do not think that any onein reality has that apprehension; but lest they should insist thatmarriage should be on equal conditions; lest all women of spirit andcapacity should prefer doing almost anything else, not in their owneyes degrading, rather than marry, when marrying is giving themselvesa master, and a master too of all their earthly possessions. Andtruly, if this consequence were necessarily incident to marriage, Ithink that the apprehension would be very well founded. I agree inthinking it probable that few women, capable of anything else, would, unless under an irresistible _entrainement_, rendering them for thetime insensible to anything but itself, choose such a lot, when anyother means were open to them of filling a conventionally honourableplace in life: and if men are determined that the law of marriageshall be a law of despotism, they are quite right, in point of merepolicy, in leaving to women only Hobson's choice. But, in that case, all that has been done in the modern world to relax the chain on theminds of women, has been a mistake. They never should have beenallowed to receive a literary education. Women who read, much morewomen who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, acontradiction and a disturbing element: and it was wrong to bringwomen up with any acquirements but those of an odalisque, or of adomestic servant. [Footnote 1: Title-page of Mme. De Stael's “Delphine. ”] CHAPTER II. It will be well to commence the detailed discussion of the subject bythe particular branch of it to which the course of our observationshas led us: the conditions which the laws of this and all othercountries annex to the marriage contract. Marriage being thedestination appointed by society for women, the prospect they arebrought up to, and the object which it is intended should be soughtby all of them, except those who are too little attractive to bechosen by any man as his companion; one might have supposed thateverything would have been done to make this condition as eligible tothem as possible, that they might have no cause to regret beingdenied the option of any other. Society, however, both in this, and, at first, in all other cases, has preferred to attain its object byfoul rather than fair means: but this is the only case in which ithas substantially persisted in them even to the present day. Originally women were taken by force, or regularly sold by theirfather to the husband. Until a late period in European history, thefather had the power to dispose of his daughter in marriage at hisown will and pleasure, without any regard to hers. The Church, indeed, was so far faithful to a better morality as to require aformal “yes” from the woman at the marriage ceremony; but there wasnothing to shew that the consent was other than compulsory; and itwas practically impossible for the girl to refuse compliance if thefather persevered, except perhaps when she might obtain theprotection of religion by a determined resolution to take monasticvows. After marriage, the man had anciently (but this was anterior toChristianity) the power of life and death over his wife. She couldinvoke no law against him; he was her sole tribunal and law. For along time he could repudiate her, but she had no corresponding powerin regard to him. By the old laws of England, the husband was calledthe _lord_ of the wife; he was literally regarded as her sovereign, inasmuch that the murder of a man by his wife was called treason(_petty_ as distinguished from _high_ treason), and was more cruellyavenged than was usually the case with high treason, for the penaltywas burning to death. Because these various enormities have falleninto disuse (for most of them were never formally abolished, or notuntil they had long ceased to be practised) men suppose that all isnow as it should be in regard to the marriage contract; and we arecontinually told that civilization and Christianity have restored tothe woman her just rights. Meanwhile the wife is the actualbond-servant of her husband: no less so, as far as legal obligationgoes, than slaves commonly so called. She vows a lifelong obedienceto him at the altar, and is held to it all through her life by law. Casuists may say that the obligation of obedience stops short ofparticipation in crime, but it certainly extends to everything else. She can do no act whatever but by his permission, at least tacit. Shecan acquire no property but for him; the instant it becomes hers, even if by inheritance, it becomes _ipso facto_ his. In this respectthe wife's position under the common law of England is worse thanthat of slaves in the laws of many countries: by the Roman law, forexample, a slave might have his peculium, which to a certain extentthe law guaranteed to him for his exclusive use. The higher classesin this country have given an analogous advantage to their women, through special contracts setting aside the law, by conditions ofpin-money, &c. : since parental feeling being stronger with fathersthan the class feeling of their own sex, a father generally prefershis own daughter to a son-in-law who is a stranger to him. By meansof settlements, the rich usually contrive to withdraw the whole orpart of the inherited property of the wife from the absolute controlof the husband: but they do not succeed in keeping it under her owncontrol; the utmost they can do only prevents the husband fromsquandering it, at the same time debarring the rightful owner fromits use. The property itself is out of the reach of both; and as tothe income derived from it, the form of settlement most favourable tothe wife (that called “to her separate use”) only precludes thehusband from receiving it instead of her: it must pass through herhands, but if he takes it from her by personal violence as soon asshe receives it, he can neither be punished, nor compelled torestitution. This is the amount of the protection which, under thelaws of this country, the most powerful nobleman can give to his owndaughter as respects her husband. In the immense majority of casesthere is no settlement: and the absorption of all rights, allproperty, as well as all freedom of action, is complete. The two arecalled “one person in law, ” for the purpose of inferring thatwhatever is hers is his, but the parallel inference is never drawnthat whatever is his is hers; the maxim is not applied against theman, except to make him responsible to third parties for her acts, asa master is for the acts of his slaves or of his cattle. I am farfrom pretending that wives are in general no better treated thanslaves; but no slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full asense of the word, as a wife is. Hardly any slave, except oneimmediately attached to the master's person, is a slave at all hoursand all minutes; in general he has, like a soldier, his fixed task, and when it is done, or when he is off duty, he disposes, withincertain limits, of his own time, and has a family life into which themaster rarely intrudes. “Uncle Tom” under his first master had hisown life in his “cabin, ” almost as much as any man whose work takeshim away from home, is able to have in his own family. But it cannotbe so with the wife. Above all, a female slave has (in Christiancountries) an admitted right, and is considered under a moralobligation, to refuse to her master the last familiarity. Not so thewife: however brutal a tyrant she may unfortunately be chainedto--though she may know that he hates her, though it may be his dailypleasure to torture her, and though she may feel it impossible not toloathe him--he can claim from her and enforce the lowest degradationof a human being, that of being made the instrument of an animalfunction contrary to her inclinations. While she is held in thisworst description of slavery as to her own person, what is herposition in regard to the children in whom she and her master have ajoint interest? They are by law _his_ children. He alone has anylegal rights over them. Not one act can she do towards or in relationto them, except by delegation from him. Even after he is dead she isnot their legal guardian, unless he by will has made her so. He couldeven send them away from her, and deprive her of the means of seeingor corresponding with them, until this power was in some degreerestricted by Serjeant Talfourd's Act. This is her legal state. Andfrom this state she has no means of withdrawing herself. If sheleaves her husband, she can take nothing with her, neither herchildren nor anything which is rightfully her own. If he chooses, hecan compel her to return, by law, or by physical force; or he maycontent himself with seizing for his own use anything which she mayearn, or which may be given to her by her relations. It is only legalseparation by a decree of a court of justice, which entitles her tolive apart, without being forced back into the custody of anexasperated jailer--or which empowers her to apply any earnings toher own use, without fear that a man whom perhaps she has not seenfor twenty years will pounce upon her some day and carry all off. This legal separation, until lately, the courts of justice would onlygive at an expense which made it inaccessible to any one out of thehigher ranks. Even now it is only given in cases of desertion, or ofthe extreme of cruelty; and yet complaints are made every day that itis granted too easily. Surely, if a woman is denied any lot in lifebut that of being the personal body-servant of a despot, and isdependent for everything upon the chance of finding one who may bedisposed to make a favourite of her instead of merely a drudge, it isa very cruel aggravation of her fate that she should be allowed totry this chance only once. The natural sequel and corollary from thisstate of things would be, that since her all in life depends uponobtaining a good master, she should be allowed to change again andagain until she finds one. I am not saying that she ought to beallowed this privilege. That is a totally different consideration. The question of divorce, in the sense involving liberty ofremarriage, is one into which it is foreign to my purpose to enter. All I now say is, that to those to whom nothing but servitude isallowed, the free choice of servitude is the only, though a mostinsufficient, alleviation. Its refusal completes the assimilation ofthe wife to the slave--and the slave under not the mildest form ofslavery: for in some slave codes the slave could, under certaincircumstances of ill usage, legally compel the master to sell him. But no amount of ill usage, without adultery superadded, will inEngland free a wife from her tormentor. I have no desire to exaggerate, nor does the case stand in any needof exaggeration. I have described the wife's legal position, not heractual treatment. The laws of most countries are far worse than thepeople who execute them, and many of them are only able to remainlaws by being seldom or never carried into effect. If married lifewere all that it might be expected to be, looking to the laws alone, society would be a hell upon earth. Happily there are both feelingsand interests which in many men exclude, and in most, greatly temper, the impulses and propensities which lead to tyranny: and of thosefeelings, the tie which connects a man with his wife affords, in anormal state of things, incomparably the strongest example. The onlytie which at all approaches to it, that between him and his children, tends, in all save exceptional cases, to strengthen, instead ofconflicting with, the first. Because this is true; because men ingeneral do not inflict, nor women suffer, all the misery which couldbe inflicted and suffered if the full power of tyranny with which theman is legally invested were acted on; the defenders of the existingform of the institution think that all its iniquity is justified, andthat any complaint is merely quarrelling with the evil which is theprice paid for every great good. But the mitigations in practice, which are compatible with maintaining in full legal force this or anyother kind of tyranny, instead of being any apology for despotism, only serve to prove what power human nature possesses of reactingagainst the vilest institutions, and with what vitality the seeds ofgood as well as those of evil in human character diffuse andpropagate themselves. Not a word can be said for despotism in thefamily which cannot be said for political despotism. Every absoluteking does not sit at his window to enjoy the groans of his torturedsubjects, nor strips them of their last rag and turns them out toshiver in the road. The despotism of Louis XVI. Was not the despotismof Philippe le Bel, or of Nadir Shah, or of Caligula; but it was badenough to justify the French Revolution, and to palliate even itshorrors. If an appeal be made to the intense attachments which existbetween wives and their husbands, exactly as much may be said ofdomestic slavery. It was quite an ordinary fact in Greece and Romefor slaves to submit to death by torture rather than betray theirmasters. In the proscriptions of the Roman civil wars it was remarkedthat wives and slaves were heroically faithful, sons very commonlytreacherous. Yet we know how cruelly many Romans treated theirslaves. But in truth these intense individual feelings nowhere riseto such a luxuriant height as under the most atrocious institutions. It is part of the irony of life, that the strongest feelings ofdevoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible, arecalled forth in human beings towards those who, having the powerentirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain fromusing that power. How great a place in most men this sentiment fills, even in religious devotion, it would be cruel to inquire. We dailysee how much their gratitude to Heaven appears to be stimulated bythe contemplation of fellow-creatures to whom God has not been somerciful as he has to themselves. Whether the institution to be defended is slavery, politicalabsolutism, or the absolutism of the head of a family, we are alwaysexpected to judge of it from its best instances; and we are presentedwith pictures of loving exercise of authority on one side, lovingsubmission to it on the other--superior wisdom ordering all thingsfor the greatest good of the dependents, and surrounded by theirsmiles and benedictions. All this would be very much to the purposeif any one pretended that there are no such things as good men. Whodoubts that there may be great goodness, and great happiness, andgreat affection, under the absolute government of a good man?Meanwhile, laws and institutions require to be adapted, not to goodmen, but to bad. Marriage is not an institution designed for a selectfew. Men are not required, as a preliminary to the marriage ceremony, to prove by testimonials that they are fit to be trusted with theexercise of absolute power. The tie of affection and obligation to awife and children is very strong with those whose general socialfeelings are strong, and with many who are little sensible to anyother social ties; but there are all degrees of sensibility andinsensibility to it, as there are all grades of goodness andwickedness in men, down to those whom no ties will bind, and on whomsociety has no action but through its _ultima ratio_, the penaltiesof the law. In every grade of this descending scale are men to whomare committed all the legal powers of a husband. The vilestmalefactor has some wretched woman tied to him, against whom he cancommit any atrocity except killing her, and, if tolerably cautious, can do that without much danger of the legal penalty. And how manythousands are there among the lowest classes in every country, who, without being in a legal sense malefactors in any other respect, because in every other quarter their aggressions meet withresistance, indulge the utmost habitual excesses of bodily violencetowards the unhappy wife, who alone, at least of grown persons, canneither repel nor escape from their brutality; and towards whom theexcess of dependence inspires their mean and savage natures, not witha generous forbearance, and a point of honour to behave well to onewhose lot in life is trusted entirely to their kindness, but on thecontrary with a notion that the law has delivered her to them astheir thing, to be used at their pleasure, and that they are notexpected to practise the consideration towards her which is requiredfrom them towards everybody else. The law, which till lately lefteven these atrocious extremes of domestic oppression practicallyunpunished, has within these few years made some feeble attempts torepress them. But its attempts have done little, and cannot beexpected to do much, because it is contrary to reason and experienceto suppose that there can be any real check to brutality, consistentwith leaving the victim still in the power of the executioner. Untila conviction for personal violence, or at all events a repetition ofit after a first conviction, entitles the woman _ipso facto_ to adivorce, or at least to a judicial separation, the attempt to repressthese “aggravated assaults” by legal penalties will break down forwant of a prosecutor, or for want of a witness. When we consider how vast is the number of men, in any great country, who are little higher than brutes, and that this never prevents themfrom being able, through the law of marriage, to obtain a victim, thebreadth and depth of human misery caused in this shape alone by theabuse of the institution swells to something appalling. Yet these areonly the extreme cases. They are the lowest abysses, but there is asad succession of depth after depth before reaching them. In domesticas in political tyranny, the case of absolute monsters chieflyillustrates the institution by showing that there is scarcely anyhorror which may not occur under it if the despot pleases, and thussetting in a strong light what must be the terrible frequency ofthings only a little less atrocious. Absolute fiends are as rare asangels, perhaps rarer: ferocious savages, with occasional touches ofhumanity, are however very frequent: and in the wide interval whichseparates these from any worthy representatives of the human species, how many are the forms and gradations of animalism and selfishness, often under an outward varnish of civilization and even cultivation, living at peace with the law, maintaining a creditable appearance toall who are not under their power, yet sufficient often to make thelives of all who are so, a torment and a burthen to them! It would betiresome to repeat the commonplaces about the unfitness of men ingeneral for power, which, after the political discussions ofcenturies, every one knows by heart, were it not that hardly any onethinks of applying these maxims to the case in which above all othersthey are applicable, that of power, not placed in the hands of a manhere and there, but offered to every adult male, down to the basestand most ferocious. It is not because a man is not known to havebroken any of the Ten Commandments, or because he maintains arespectable character in his dealings with those whom he cannotcompel to have intercourse with him, or because he does not fly outinto violent bursts of ill-temper against those who are not obligedto bear with him, that it is possible to surmise of what sort hisconduct will be in the unrestraint of home. Even the commonest menreserve the violent, the sulky, the undisguisedly selfish side oftheir character for those who have no power to withstand it. Therelation of superiors to dependents is the nursery of these vices ofcharacter, which, wherever else they exist, are an overflowing fromthat source. A man who is morose or violent to his equals, is sure tobe one who has lived among inferiors, whom he could frighten or worryinto submission. If the family in its best forms is, as it is oftensaid to be, a school of sympathy, tenderness, and lovingforgetfulness of self, it is still oftener, as respects its chief, aschool of wilfulness, overbearingness, unbounded self-indulgence, anda double-dyed and idealized selfishness, of which sacrifice itself isonly a particular form: the care for the wife and children being onlycare for them as parts of the man's own interests and belongings, andtheir individual happiness being immolated in every shape to hissmallest preferences. What better is to be looked for under theexisting form of the institution? We know that the bad propensitiesof human nature are only kept within bounds when they are allowed noscope for their indulgence. We know that from impulse and habit, whennot from deliberate purpose, almost every one to whom others yield, goes on encroaching upon them, until a point is reached at which theyare compelled to resist. Such being the common tendency of humannature; the almost unlimited power which present social institutionsgive to the man over at least one human being--the one with whom heresides, and whom he has always present--this power seeks out andevokes the latent germs of selfishness in the remotest corners of hisnature--fans its faintest sparks and smouldering embers--offers tohim a license for the indulgence of those points of his originalcharacter which in all other relations he would have found itnecessary to repress and conceal, and the repression of which wouldin time have become a second nature. I know that there is anotherside to the question. I grant that the wife, if she cannoteffectually resist, can at least retaliate; she, too, can make theman's life extremely uncomfortable, and by that power is able tocarry many points which she ought, and many which she ought not, toprevail in. But this instrument of self-protection--which may becalled the power of the scold, or the shrewish sanction--has thefatal defect, that it avails most against the least tyrannicalsuperiors, and in favour of the least deserving dependents. It is theweapon of irritable and self-willed women; of those who would makethe worst use of power if they themselves had it, and who generallyturn this power to a bad use. The amiable cannot use such aninstrument, the highminded disdain it. And on the other hand, thehusbands against whom it is used most effectively are the gentler andmore inoffensive; those who cannot be induced, even by provocation, to resort to any very harsh exercise of authority. The wife's powerof being disagreeable generally only establishes a counter-tyranny, and makes victims in their turn chiefly of those husbands who areleast inclined to be tyrants. What is it, then, which really tempers the corrupting effects of thepower, and makes it compatible with such amount of good as weactually see? Mere feminine blandishments, though of great effect inindividual instances, have very little effect in modifying thegeneral tendencies of the situation; for their power only lasts whilethe woman is young and attractive, often only while her charm is new, and not dimmed by familiarity; and on many men they have not muchinfluence at any time. The real mitigating causes are, the personalaffection which is the growth of time, in so far as the man's natureis susceptible of it, and the woman's character sufficientlycongenial with his to excite it; their common interests as regardsthe children, and their general community of interest as concernsthird persons (to which however there are very great limitations);the real importance of the wife to his daily comforts and enjoyments, and the value he consequently attaches to her on his personalaccount, which, in a man capable of feeling for others, lays thefoundation of caring for her on her own; and lastly, the influencenaturally acquired over almost all human beings by those near totheir persons (if not actually disagreeable to them): who, both bytheir direct entreaties, and by the insensible contagion of theirfeelings and dispositions, are often able, unless counteracted bysome equally strong personal influence, to obtain a degree of commandover the conduct of the superior, altogether excessive andunreasonable. Through these various means, the wife frequentlyexercises even too much power over the man; she is able to affect hisconduct in things in which she may not be qualified to influence itfor good--in which her influence may be not only unenlightened, butemployed on the morally wrong side; and in which he would act betterif left to his own prompting. But neither in the affairs of familiesnor in those of states is power a compensation for the loss offreedom. Her power often gives her what she has no right to, but doesnot enable her to assert her own rights. A Sultan's favourite slavehas slaves under her, over whom she tyrannizes; but the desirablething would be that she should neither have slaves nor be a slave. Byentirely sinking her own existence in her husband; by having no will(or persuading him that she has no will) but his, in anything whichregards their joint relation, and by making it the business of herlife to work upon his sentiments, a wife may gratify herself byinfluencing, and very probably perverting, his conduct, in those ofhis external relations which she has never qualified herself to judgeof, or in which she is herself wholly influenced by some personal orother partiality or prejudice. Accordingly, as things now are, thosewho act most kindly to their wives, are quite as often made worse, asbetter, by the wife's influence, in respect to all interestsextending beyond the family. She is taught that she has no businesswith things out of that sphere; and accordingly she seldom has anyhonest and conscientious opinion on them; and therefore hardly evermeddles with them for any legitimate purpose, but generally for aninterested one. She neither knows nor cares which is the right sidein politics, but she knows what will bring in money or invitations, give her husband a title, her son a place, or her daughter a goodmarriage. But how, it will be asked, can any society exist without government?In a family, as in a state, some one person must be the ultimateruler. Who shall decide when married people differ in opinion? Bothcannot have their way, yet a decision one way or the other must become to. It is not true that in all voluntary association between two people, one of them must be absolute master: still less that the law mustdetermine which of them it shall be. The most frequent case ofvoluntary association, next to marriage, is partnership in business:and it is not found or thought necessary to enact that in everypartnership, one partner shall have entire control over the concern, and the others shall be bound to obey his orders. No one would enterinto partnership on terms which would subject him to theresponsibilities of a principal, with only the powers and privilegesof a clerk or agent. If the law dealt with other contracts as it doeswith marriage, it would ordain that one partner should administer thecommon business as if it was his private concern; that the othersshould have only delegated powers; and that this one should bedesignated by some general presumption of law, for example as beingthe eldest. The law never does this: nor does experience show it tobe necessary that any theoretical inequality of power should existbetween the partners, or that the partnership should have any otherconditions than what they may themselves appoint by their articles ofagreement. Yet it might seem that the exclusive power might beconceded with less danger to the rights and interests of theinferior, in the case of partnership than in that of marriage, sincehe is free to cancel the power by withdrawing from the connexion. Thewife has no such power, and even if she had, it is almost alwaysdesirable that she should try all measures before resorting to it. It is quite true that things which have to be decided every day, andcannot adjust themselves gradually, or wait for a compromise, oughtto depend on one will: one person must have their sole control. Butit does not follow that this should always be the same person. Thenatural arrangement is a division of powers between the two; eachbeing absolute in the executive branch of their own department, andany change of system and principle requiring the consent of both. Thedivision neither can nor should be pre-established by the law, sinceit must depend on individual capacities and suitabilities. If the twopersons chose, they might pre-appoint it by the marriage contract, aspecuniary arrangements are now often pre-appointed. There wouldseldom be any difficulty in deciding such things by mutual consent, unless the marriage was one of those unhappy ones in which all otherthings, as well as this, become subjects of bickering and dispute. The division of rights would naturally follow the division of dutiesand functions; and that is already made by consent, or at all eventsnot by law, but by general custom, modified and modifiable at thepleasure of the persons concerned. The real practical decision of affairs, to whichever may be given thelegal authority, will greatly depend, as it even now does, uponcomparative qualifications. The mere fact that he is usually theeldest, will in most cases give the preponderance to the man; atleast until they both attain a time of life at which the differencein their years is of no importance. There will naturally also be amore potential voice on the side, whichever it is, that brings themeans of support. Inequality from this source does not depend on thelaw of marriage, but on the general conditions of human society, asnow constituted. The influence of mental superiority, either generalor special, and of superior decision of character, will necessarilytell for much. It always does so at present. And this fact shows howlittle foundation there is for the apprehension that the powers andresponsibilities of partners in life (as of partners in business), cannot be satisfactorily apportioned by agreement between themselves. They always are so apportioned, except in cases in which the marriageinstitution is a failure. Things never come to an issue of downrightpower on one side, and obedience on the other, except where theconnexion altogether has been a mistake, and it would be a blessingto both parties to be relieved from it. Some may say that the verything by which an amicable settlement of differences becomespossible, is the power of legal compulsion known to be in reserve; aspeople submit to an arbitration because there is a court of law inthe background, which they know that they can be forced to obey. Butto make the cases parallel, we must suppose that the rule of thecourt of law was, not to try the cause, but to give judgment alwaysfor the same side, suppose the defendant. If so, the amenability toit would be a motive with the plaintiff to agree to almost anyarbitration, but it would be just the reverse with the defendant. Thedespotic power which the law gives to the husband may be a reason tomake the wife assent to any compromise by which power is practicallyshared between the two, but it cannot be the reason why the husbanddoes. That there is always among decently conducted people apractical compromise, though one of them at least is under nophysical or moral necessity of making it, shows that the naturalmotives which lead to a voluntary adjustment of the united life oftwo persons in a manner acceptable to both, do on the whole, exceptin unfavourable cases, prevail. The matter is certainly not improvedby laying down as an ordinance of law, that the superstructure offree government shall be raised upon a legal basis of despotism onone side and subjection on the other, and that every concession whichthe despot makes may, at his mere pleasure, and without any warning, be recalled. Besides that no freedom is worth much when held on soprecarious a tenure, its conditions are not likely to be the mostequitable when the law throws so prodigious a weight into one scale;when the adjustment rests between two persons one of whom is declaredto be entitled to everything, the other not only entitled to nothingexcept during the good pleasure of the first, but under the strongestmoral and religious obligation not to rebel under any excess ofoppression. A pertinacious adversary, pushed to extremities, may say, thathusbands indeed are willing to be reasonable, and to make fairconcessions to their partners without being compelled to it, but thatwives are not: that if allowed any rights of their own, they willacknowledge no rights at all in any one else, and never will yield inanything, unless they can be compelled, by the man's mere authority, to yield in everything. This would have been said by many personssome generations ago, when satires on women were in vogue, and menthought it a clever thing to insult women for being what men madethem. But it will be said by no one now who is worth replying to. Itis not the doctrine of the present day that women are lesssusceptible of good feeling, and consideration for those with whomthey are united by the strongest ties, than men are. On the contrary, we are perpetually told that women are better than men, by those whoare totally opposed to treating them as if they were as good; so thatthe saying has passed into a piece of tiresome cant, intended to puta complimentary face upon an injury, and resembling thosecelebrations of royal clemency which, according to Gulliver, the kingof Lilliput always prefixed to his most sanguinary decrees. If womenare better than men in anything, it surely is in individualself-sacrifice for those of their own family. But I lay little stresson this, so long as they are universally taught that they are bornand created for self-sacrifice. I believe that equality of rightswould abate the exaggerated self-abnegation which is the presentartificial ideal of feminine character, and that a good woman wouldnot be more self-sacrificing than the best man: but on the otherhand, men would be much more unselfish and self-sacrificing than atpresent, because they would no longer be taught to worship their ownwill as such a grand thing that it is actually the law for anotherrational being. There is nothing which men so easily learn as thisself-worship: all privileged persons, and all privileged classes, have had it. The more we descend in the scale of humanity, theintenser it is; and most of all in those who are not, and can neverexpect to be, raised above any one except an unfortunate wife andchildren. The honourable exceptions are proportionally fewer than inthe case of almost any other human infirmity. Philosophy andreligion, instead of keeping it in check, are generally suborned todefend it; and nothing controls it but that practical feeling of theequality of human beings, which is the theory of Christianity, butwhich Christianity will never practically teach, while it sanctionsinstitutions grounded on an arbitrary preference of one human beingover another. There are, no doubt, women, as there are men, whom equality ofconsideration will not satisfy; with whom there is no peace while anywill or wish is regarded but their own. Such persons are a propersubject for the law of divorce. They are only fit to live alone, andno human beings ought to be compelled to associate their lives withthem. But the legal subordination tends to make such characters amongwomen more, rather than less, frequent. If the man exerts his wholepower, the woman is of course crushed: but if she is treated withindulgence, and permitted to assume power, there is no rule to setlimits to her encroachments. The law, not determining her rights, buttheoretically allowing her none at all, practically declares that themeasure of what she has a right to, is what she can contrive to get. The equality of married persons before the law, is not only the solemode in which that particular relation can be made consistent withjustice to both sides, and conducive to the happiness of both, but itis the only means of rendering the daily life of mankind, in any highsense, a school of moral cultivation. Though the truth may not befelt or generally acknowledged for generations to come, the onlyschool of genuine moral sentiment is society between equals. Themoral education of mankind has hitherto emanated chiefly from the lawof force, and is adapted almost solely to the relations which forcecreates. In the less advanced states of society, people hardlyrecognise any relation with their equals. To be an equal is to be anenemy. Society, from its highest place to its lowest, is one longchain, or rather ladder, where every individual is either above orbelow his nearest neighbour, and wherever he does not command he mustobey. Existing moralities, accordingly, are mainly fitted to arelation of command and obedience. Yet command and obedience are butunfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is itsnormal state. Already in modern life, and more and more as itprogressively improves, command and obedience become exceptionalfacts in life, equal association its general rule. The morality ofthe first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power; that ofthe ages next following, on the right of the weak to the forbearanceand protection of the strong. How much longer is one form of societyand life to content itself with the morality made for another? Wehave had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry andgenerosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice. Whenever, in former ages, any approach has been made to society inequality, Justice has asserted its claims as the foundation ofvirtue. It was thus in the free republics of antiquity. But even inthe best of these, the equals were limited to the free male citizens;slaves, women, and the unenfranchised residents were under the law offorce. The joint influence of Roman civilization and of Christianityobliterated these distinctions, and in theory (if only partially inpractice) declared the claims of the human being, as such, to beparamount to those of sex, class, or social position. The barrierswhich had begun to be levelled were raised again by the northernconquests; and the whole of modern history consists of the slowprocess by which they have since been wearing away. We are enteringinto an order of things in which justice will again be the primaryvirtue; grounded as before on equal, but now also on sympatheticassociation; having its root no longer in the instinct of equals forself-protection, but in a cultivated sympathy between them; and noone being now left out, but an equal measure being extended to all. It is no novelty that mankind do not distinctly foresee their ownchanges, and that their sentiments are adapted to past, not to comingages. To see the futurity of the species has always been theprivilege of the intellectual élite, or of those who have learnt fromthem; to have the feelings of that futurity has been the distinction, and usually the martyrdom, of a still rarer élite. Institutions, books, education, society, all go on training human beings for theold, long after the new has come; much more when it is only coming. But the true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together asequals; claiming nothing for themselves but what they as freelyconcede to every one else; regarding command of any kind as anexceptional necessity, and in all cases a temporary one; andpreferring, whenever possible, the society of those with whom leadingand following can be alternate and reciprocal. To these virtues, nothing in life as at present constituted gives cultivation byexercise. The family is a school of despotism, in which the virtuesof despotism, but also its vices, are largely nourished. Citizenship, in free countries, is partly a school of society in equality; butcitizenship fills only a small place in modern life, and does notcome near the daily habits or inmost sentiments. The family, justlyconstituted, would be the real school of the virtues of freedom. Itis sure to be a sufficient one of everything else. It will always bea school of obedience for the children, of command for the parents. What is needed is, that it should be a school of sympathy inequality, of living together in love, without power on one side orobedience on the other. This it ought to be between the parents. Itwould then be an exercise of those virtues which each requires to fitthem for all other association, and a model to the children of thefeelings and conduct which their temporary training by means ofobedience is designed to render habitual, and therefore natural, tothem. The moral training of mankind will never be adapted to theconditions of the life for which all other human progress is apreparation, until they practise in the family the same moral rulewhich is adapted to the normal constitution of human society. Anysentiment of freedom which can exist in a man whose nearest anddearest intimacies are with those of whom he is absolute master, isnot the genuine or Christian love of freedom, but, what the love offreedom generally was in the ancients and in the middle ages--anintense feeling of the dignity and importance of his own personality;making him disdain a yoke for himself, of which he has no abhorrencewhatever in the abstract, but which he is abundantly ready to imposeon others for his own interest or glorification. I readily admit (and it is the very foundation of my hopes) thatnumbers of married people even under the present law, (in the higherclasses of England probably a great majority, ) live in the spirit ofa just law of equality. Laws never would be improved, if there werenot numerous persons whose moral sentiments are better than theexisting laws. Such persons ought to support the principles hereadvocated; of which the only object is to make all other marriedcouples similar to what these are now. But persons even ofconsiderable moral worth, unless they are also thinkers, are veryready to believe that laws or practices, the evils of which they havenot personally experienced, do not produce any evils, but (if seemingto be generally approved of) probably do good, and that it is wrongto object to them. It would, however, be a great mistake in suchmarried people to suppose, because the legal conditions of the tiewhich unites them do not occur to their thoughts once in atwelvemonth, and because they live and feel in all respects as ifthey were legally equals, that the same is the case with all othermarried couples, wherever the husband is not a notorious ruffian. Tosuppose this, would be to show equal ignorance of human nature and offact. The less fit a man is for the possession of power--the lesslikely to be allowed to exercise it over any person with thatperson's voluntary consent--the more does he hug himself in theconsciousness of the power the law gives him, exact its legal rightsto the utmost point which custom (the custom of men like himself)will tolerate, and take pleasure in using the power, merely toenliven the agreeable sense of possessing it. What is more; in themost naturally brutal and morally uneducated part of the lowerclasses, the legal slavery of the woman, and something in the merelyphysical subjection to their will as an instrument, causes them tofeel a sort of disrespect and contempt towards their own wife whichthey do not feel towards any other woman, or any other human being, with whom they come in contact; and which makes her seem to them anappropriate subject for any kind of indignity. Let an acute observerof the signs of feeling, who has the requisite opportunities, judgefor himself whether this is not the case: and if he finds that it is, let him not wonder at any amount of disgust and indignation that canbe felt against institutions which lead naturally to this depravedstate of the human mind. We shall be told, perhaps, that religion imposes the duty ofobedience; as every established fact which is too bad to admit of anyother defence, is always presented to us as an injunction ofreligion. The Church, it is very true, enjoins it in her formularies, but it would be difficult to derive any such injunction fromChristianity. We are told that St. Paul said, “Wives, obey yourhusbands:” but he also said, “Slaves, obey your masters. ” It was notSt. Paul's business, nor was it consistent with his object, thepropagation of Christianity, to incite any one to rebellion againstexisting laws. The apostle's acceptance of all social institutions ashe found them, is no more to be construed as a disapproval ofattempts to improve them at the proper time, than his declaration, “The powers that be are ordained of God, ” gives his sanction tomilitary despotism, and to that alone, as the Christian form ofpolitical government, or commands passive obedience to it. To pretendthat Christianity was intended to stereotype existing forms ofgovernment and society, and protect them against change, is to reduceit to the level of Islamism or of Brahminism. It is precisely becauseChristianity has not done this, that it has been the religion of theprogressive portion of mankind, and Islamism, Brahminism, &c. , havebeen those of the stationary portions; or rather (for there is nosuch thing as a really stationary society) of the declining portions. There have been abundance of people, in all ages of Christianity, whotried to make it something of the same kind; to convert us into asort of Christian Mussulmans, with the Bible for a Koran, prohibitingall improvement: and great has been their power, and many have had tosacrifice their lives in resisting them. But they have been resisted, and the resistance has made us what we are, and will yet make us whatwe are to be. After what has been said respecting the obligation of obedience, itis almost superfluous to say anything concerning the more specialpoint included in the general one--a woman's right to her ownproperty; for I need not hope that this treatise can make anyimpression upon those who need anything to convince them that awoman's inheritance or gains ought to be as much her own aftermarriage as before. The rule is simple: whatever would be thehusband's or wife's if they were not married, should be under theirexclusive control during marriage; which need not interfere with thepower to tie up property by settlement, in order to preserve it forchildren. Some people are sentimentally shocked at the idea of aseparate interest in money matters, as inconsistent with the idealfusion of two lives into one. For my own part, I am one of thestrongest supporters of community of goods, when resulting from anentire unity of feeling in the owners, which makes all things commonbetween them. But I have no relish for a community of goods restingon the doctrine, that what is mine is yours but what is yours is notmine; and I should prefer to decline entering into such a compactwith any one, though I were myself the person to profit by it. This particular injustice and oppression to women, which is, tocommon apprehensions, more obvious than all the rest, admits ofremedy without interfering with any other mischiefs: and there can belittle doubt that it will be one of the earliest remedied. Already, in many of the new and several of the old States of the AmericanConfederation, provisions have been inserted even in the writtenConstitutions, securing to women equality of rights in this respect:and thereby improving materially the position, in the marriagerelation, of those women at least who have property, by leaving themone instrument of power which they have not signed away; andpreventing also the scandalous abuse of the marriage institution, which is perpetrated when a man entraps a girl into marrying himwithout a settlement, for the sole purpose of getting possession ofher money. When the support of the family depends, not on property, but on earnings, the common arrangement, by which the man earns theincome and the wife superintends the domestic expenditure, seems tome in general the most suitable division of labour between the twopersons. If, in addition to the physical suffering of bearingchildren, and the whole responsibility of their care and education inearly years, the wife undertakes the careful and economicalapplication of the husband's earnings to the general comfort of thefamily; she takes not only her fair share, but usually the largershare, of the bodily and mental exertion required by their jointexistence. If she undertakes any additional portion, it seldomrelieves her from this, but only prevents her from performing itproperly. The care which she is herself disabled from taking of thechildren and the household, nobody else takes; those of the childrenwho do not die, grow up as they best can, and the management of thehousehold is likely to be so bad, as even in point of economy to be agreat drawback from the value of the wife's earnings. In an otherwisejust state of things, it is not, therefore, I think, a desirablecustom, that the wife should contribute by her labour to the incomeof the family. In an unjust state of things, her doing so may beuseful to her, by making her of more value in the eyes of the man whois legally her master; but, on the other hand, it enables him stillfarther to abuse his power, by forcing her to work, and leaving thesupport of the family to her exertions, while he spends most of histime in drinking and idleness. The _power_ of earning is essential tothe dignity of a woman, if she has not independent property. But ifmarriage were an equal contract, not implying the obligation ofobedience; if the connexion were no longer enforced to the oppressionof those to whom it is purely a mischief, but a separation, on justterms (I do not now speak of a divorce), could be obtained by anywoman who was morally entitled to it; and if she would then find allhonourable employments as freely open to her as to men; it would notbe necessary for her protection, that during marriage she should makethis particular use of her faculties. Like a man when he chooses aprofession, so, when a woman marries, it may in general be understoodthat she makes choice of the management of a household, and thebringing up of a family, as the first call upon her exertions, duringas many years of her life as may be required for the purpose; andthat she renounces, not all other objects and occupations, but allwhich are not consistent with the requirements of this. The actualexercise, in a habitual or systematic manner, of outdoor occupations, or such as cannot be carried on at home, would by this principle bepractically interdicted to the greater number of married women. Butthe utmost latitude ought to exist for the adaptation of generalrules to individual suitabilities; and there ought to be nothing toprevent faculties exceptionally adapted to any other pursuit, fromobeying their vocation notwithstanding marriage: due provision beingmade for supplying otherwise any falling-short which might becomeinevitable, in her full performance of the ordinary functions ofmistress of a family. These things, if once opinion were rightlydirected on the subject, might with perfect safety be left to beregulated by opinion, without any interference of law. CHAPTER III. On the other point which is involved in the just equality of women, their admissibility to all the functions and occupations hithertoretained as the monopoly of the stronger sex, I should anticipate nodifficulty in convincing any one who has gone with me on the subjectof the equality of women in the family. I believe that theirdisabilities elsewhere are only clung to in order to maintain theirsubordination in domestic life; because the generality of the malesex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal. Were it notfor that, I think that almost every one, in the existing state ofopinion in politics and political economy, would admit the injusticeof excluding half the human race from the greater number of lucrativeoccupations, and from almost all high social functions; ordainingfrom their birth either that they are not, and cannot by anypossibility become, fit for employments which are legally open to thestupidest and basest of the other sex, or else that however fit theymay be, those employments shall be interdicted to them, in order tobe preserved for the exclusive benefit of males. In the last twocenturies, when (which was seldom the case) any reason beyond themere existence of the fact was thought to be required to justify thedisabilities of women, people seldom assigned as a reason theirinferior mental capacity; which, in times when there was a real trialof personal faculties (from which all women were not excluded) in thestruggles of public life, no one really believed in. The reason givenin those days was not women's unfitness, but the interest of society, by which was meant the interest of men: just as the _raison d'état_, meaning the convenience of the government, and the support ofexisting authority, was deemed a sufficient explanation and excusefor the most flagitious crimes. In the present day, power holds asmoother language, and whomsoever it oppresses, always pretends to doso for their own good: accordingly, when anything is forbidden towomen, it is thought necessary to say, and desirable to believe, thatthey are incapable of doing it, and that they depart from their realpath of success and happiness when they aspire to it. But to makethis reason plausible (I do not say valid), those by whom it is urgedmust be prepared to carry it to a much greater length than any oneventures to do in the face of present experience. It is notsufficient to maintain that women on the average are less gifted thanmen on the average, with certain of the higher mental faculties, orthat a smaller number of women than of men are fit for occupationsand functions of the highest intellectual character. It is necessaryto maintain that no women at all are fit for them, and that the mosteminent women are inferior in mental faculties to the most mediocreof the men on whom those functions at present devolve. For if theperformance of the function is decided either by competition, or byany mode of choice which secures regard to the public interest, thereneeds be no apprehension that any important employments will fallinto the hands of women inferior to average men, or to the average oftheir male competitors. The only result would be that there would befewer women than men in such employments; a result certain to happenin any ease, if only from the preference always likely to be felt bythe majority of women for the one vocation in which there is nobodyto compete with them. Now, the most determined depreciator of womenwill not venture to deny, that when we add the experience of recenttimes to that of ages past, women, and not a few merely, but manywomen, have proved themselves capable of everything, perhaps withouta single exception, which is done by men, and of doing itsuccessfully and creditably. The utmost that can be said is, thatthere are many things which none of them have succeeded in doing aswell as they have been done by some men--many in which they have notreached the very highest rank. But there are extremely few, dependentonly on mental faculties, in which they have not attained the ranknext to the highest. Is not this enough, and much more than enough, to make it a tyranny to them, and a detriment to society, that theyshould not be allowed to compete with men for the exercise of thesefunctions? Is it not a mere truism to say, that such functions areoften filled by men far less fit for them than numbers of women, andwho would be beaten by women in any fair field of competition? Whatdifference does it make that there may be men somewhere, fullyemployed about other things, who may be still better qualified forthe things in question than these women? Does not this take place inall competitions? Is there so great a superfluity of men fit for highduties, that society can afford to reject the service of anycompetent person? Are we so certain of always finding a man made toour hands for any duty or function of social importance which fallsvacant, that we lose nothing by putting a ban upon one-half ofmankind, and refusing beforehand to make their faculties available, however distinguished they may be? And even if we could do withoutthem, would it be consistent with justice to refuse to them theirfair share of honour and distinction, or to deny to them the equalmoral right of all human beings to choose their occupation (short ofinjury to others) according to their own preferences, at their ownrisk? Nor is the injustice confined to them: it is shared by thosewho are in a position to benefit by their services. To ordain thatany kind of persons shall not be physicians, or shall not beadvocates, or shall not be members of parliament, is to injure notthem only, but all who employ physicians or advocates, or electmembers of parliament, and who are deprived of the stimulating effectof greater competition on the exertions of the competitors, as wellas restricted to a narrower range of individual choice. It will perhaps be sufficient if I confine myself, in the details ofmy argument, to functions of a public nature: since, if I amsuccessful as to those, it probably will be readily granted thatwomen should be admissible to all other occupations to which it is atall material whether they are admitted or not. And here let me beginby marking out one function, broadly distinguished from all others, their right to which is entirely independent of any question whichcan be raised concerning their faculties. I mean the suffrage, bothparliamentary and municipal. The right to share in the choice ofthose who are to exercise a public trust, is altogether a distinctthing from that of competing for the trust itself. If no one couldvote for a member of parliament who was not fit to be a candidate, the government would be a narrow oligarchy indeed. To have a voice inchoosing those by whom one is to be governed, is a means ofself-protection due to every one, though he were to remain for everexcluded from the function of governing: and that women areconsidered fit to have such a choice, may be presumed from the fact, that the law already gives it to women in the most important of allcases to themselves: for the choice of the man who is to govern awoman to the end of life, is always supposed to be voluntarily madeby herself. In the case of election to public trusts, it is thebusiness of constitutional law to surround the right of suffrage withall needful securities and limitations; but whatever securities aresufficient in the case of the male sex, no others need be required inthe case of women. Under whatever conditions, and within whateverlimits, men are admitted to the suffrage, there is not a shadow ofjustification for not admitting women under the same. The majority ofthe women of any class are not likely to differ in political opinionfrom the majority of the men of the same class, unless the questionbe one in which the interests of women, as such, are in some wayinvolved; and if they are so, women require the suffrage, as theirguarantee of just and equal consideration. This ought to be obviouseven to those who coincide in no other of the doctrines for which Icontend. Even if every woman were a wife, and if every wife ought tobe a slave, all the more would these slaves stand in need of legalprotection: and we know what legal protection the slaves have, wherethe laws are made by their masters. With regard to the fitness of women, not only to participate inelections, but themselves to hold offices or practise professionsinvolving important public responsibilities; I have already observedthat this consideration is not essential to the practical question indispute: since any woman, who succeeds in an open profession, provesby that very fact that she is qualified for it. And in the case ofpublic offices, if the political system of the country is such as toexclude unfit men, it will equally exclude unfit women: while if itis not, there is no additional evil in the fact that the unfitpersons whom it admits may be either women or men. As long thereforeas it is acknowledged that even a few women may be fit for theseduties, the laws which shut the door on those exceptions cannot bejustified by any opinion which can be held respecting the capacitiesof women in general. But, though this last consideration is notessential, it is far from being irrelevant. An unprejudiced view ofit gives additional strength to the arguments against thedisabilities of women, and reinforces them by high considerations ofpractical utility. Let us at first make entire abstraction of all psychologicalconsiderations tending to show, that any of the mental differencessupposed to exist between women and men are but the natural effect ofthe differences in their education and circumstances, and indicate noradical difference, far less radical inferiority, of nature. Let usconsider women only as they already are, or as they are known to havebeen; and the capacities which they have already practically shown. What they have done, that at least, if nothing else, it is provedthat they can do. When we consider how sedulously they are alltrained away from, instead of being trained towards, any of theoccupations or objects reserved for men, it is evident that I amtaking a very humble ground for them, when I rest their case on whatthey have actually achieved. For, in this case, negative evidence isworth little, while any positive evidence is conclusive. It cannot beinferred to be impossible that a woman should be a Homer, or anAristotle, or a Michael Angelo, or a Beethoven, because no woman hasyet actually produced works comparable to theirs in any of thoselines of excellence. This negative fact at most leaves the questionuncertain, and open to psychological discussion. But it is quitecertain that a woman can be a Queen Elizabeth, or a Deborah, or aJoan of Arc, since this is not inference, but fact. Now it is acurious consideration, that the only things which the existing lawexcludes women from doing, are the things which they have proved thatthey are able to do. There is no law to prevent a woman from havingwritten all the plays of Shakspeare, or composed all the operas ofMozart. But Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria, had they not inheritedthe throne, could not have been intrusted with the smallest of thepolitical duties, of which the former showed herself equal to thegreatest. If anything conclusive could be inferred from experience, withoutpsychological analysis, it would be that the things which women arenot allowed to do are the very ones for which they are peculiarlyqualified; since their vocation for government has made its way, andbecome conspicuous, through the very few opportunities which havebeen given; while in the lines of distinction which apparently werefreely open to them, they have by no means so eminently distinguishedthemselves. We know how small a number of reigning queens historypresents, in comparison with that of kings. Of this smaller number afar larger proportion have shown talents for rule; though many ofthem have occupied the throne in difficult periods. It is remarkable, too, that they have, in a great number of instances, beendistinguished by merits the most opposite to the imaginary andconventional character of women: they have been as much remarked forthe firmness and vigour of their rule, as for its intelligence. When, to queens and empresses, we add regents, and viceroys of provinces, the list of women who have been eminent rulers of mankind swells to agreat length. [1] This fact is so undeniable, that some one, long ago, tried to retort the argument, and turned the admitted truth into anadditional insult, by saying that queens are better than kings, because under kings women govern, but under queens, men. It may seem a waste of reasoning to argue against a bad joke; butsuch things do affect people's minds; and I have heard men quote thissaying, with an air as if they thought that there was something init. At any rate, it will serve as well as anything else for astarting point in discussion. I say, then, that it is not true thatunder kings, women govern. Such cases are entirely exceptional: andweak kings have quite as often governed ill through the influence ofmale favourites, as of female. When a king is governed by a womanmerely through his amatory propensities, good government is notprobable, though even then there are exceptions. But French historycounts two kings who have voluntarily given the direction of affairsduring many years, the one to his mother, the other to his sister:one of them, Charles VIII. , was a mere boy, but in doing so hefollowed the intentions of his father Louis XI. , the ablest monarchof his age. The other, Saint Louis, was the best, and one of the mostvigorous rulers, since the time of Charlemagne. Both these princessesruled in a manner hardly equalled by any prince among theircontemporaries. The emperor Charles the Fifth, the most politicprince of his time, who had as great a number of able men in hisservice as a ruler ever had, and was one of the least likely of allsovereigns to sacrifice his interest to personal feelings, made twoprincesses of his family successively Governors of the Netherlands, and kept one or other of them in that post during his whole life, (they were afterwards succeeded by a third). Both ruled verysuccessfully, and one of them, Margaret of Austria, was one of theablest politicians of the age. So much for one side of the question. Now as to the other. When it is said that under queens men govern, isthe same meaning to be understood as when kings are said to begoverned by women? Is it meant that queens choose as theirinstruments of government, the associates of their personalpleasures? The case is rare even with those who are as unscrupulouson the latter point as Catherine II. : and it is not in these casesthat the good government, alleged to arise from male influence, is tobe found. If it be true, then, that the administration is in thehands of better men under a queen than under an average king, it mustbe that queens have a superior capacity for choosing them; and womenmust be better qualified than men both for the position of sovereign, and for that of chief minister; for the principal business of a primeminister is not to govern in person, but to find the fittest personsto conduct every department of public affairs. The more rapid insightinto character, which is one of the admitted points of superiority inwomen over men, must certainly make them, with anything like parityof qualifications in other respects, more apt than men in that choiceof instruments, which is nearly the most important business of everyone who has to do with governing mankind. Even the unprincipledCatherine de' Medici could feel the value of a Chancellor del'Hôpital. But it is also true that most great queens have been greatby their own talents for government, and have been well servedprecisely for that reason. They retained the supreme direction ofaffairs in their own hands: and if they listened to good advisers, they gave by that fact the strongest proof that their judgment fittedthem for dealing with the great questions of government. Is it reasonable to think that those who are fit for the greaterfunctions of politics, are incapable of qualifying themselves for theless? Is there any reason in the nature of things, that the wives andsisters of princes should, whenever called on, be found as competentas the princes themselves to _their_ business, but that the wives andsisters of statesmen, and administrators, and directors of companies, and managers of public institutions, should be unable to do what isdone by their brothers and husbands? The real reason is plain enough;it is that princesses, being more raised above the generality of menby their rank than placed below them by their sex, have never beentaught that it was improper for them to concern themselves withpolitics; but have been allowed to feel the liberal interest naturalto any cultivated human being, in the great transactions which tookplace around them, and in which they might be called on to take apart. The ladies of reigning families are the only women who areallowed the same range of interests and freedom of development asmen; and it is precisely in their case that there is not found to beany inferiority. Exactly where and in proportion as women'scapacities for government have been tried, in that proportion havethey been found adequate. This fact is in accordance with the best general conclusions whichthe world's imperfect experience seems as yet to suggest, concerningthe peculiar tendencies and aptitudes characteristic of women, aswomen have hitherto been. I do not say, as they will continue to be;for, as I have already said more than once, I consider it presumptionin any one to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can orcannot be, by natural constitution. They have always hitherto beenkept, as far as regards spontaneous development, in so unnatural astate, that their nature cannot but have been greatly distorted anddisguised; and no one can safely pronounce that if women's naturewere left to choose its direction as freely as men's, and if noartificial bent were attempted to be given to it except that requiredby the conditions of human society, and given to both sexes alike, there would be any material difference, or perhaps any difference atall, in the character and capacities which would unfold themselves. Ishall presently show, that even the least contestable of thedifferences which now exist, are such as may very well have beenproduced merely by circumstances, without any difference of naturalcapacity. But, looking at women as they are known in experience, itmay be said of them, with more truth than belongs to most othergeneralizations on the subject, that the general bent of theirtalents is towards the practical. This statement is conformable toall the public history of women, in the present and the past. It isno less borne out by common and daily experience. Let us consider thespecial nature of the mental capacities most characteristic of awoman of talent. They are all of a kind which fits them for practice, and makes them tend towards it. What is meant by a woman's capacityof intuitive perception? It means, a rapid and correct insight intopresent fact. It has nothing to do with general principles. Nobodyever perceived a scientific law of nature by intuition, nor arrivedat a general rule of duty or prudence by it. These are results ofslow and careful collection and comparison of experience; and neitherthe men nor the women of intuition usually shine in this department, unless, indeed, the experience necessary is such as they can acquireby themselves. For what is called their intuitive sagacity makes thempeculiarly apt in gathering such general truths as can be collectedfrom their individual means of observation. When, consequently, theychance to be as well provided as men are with the results of otherpeople's experience, by reading and education, (I use the word chanceadvisedly, for, in respect to the knowledge that tends to fit themfor the greater concerns of life, the only educated women are theself-educated) they are better furnished than men in general with theessential requisites of skilful and successful practice. Men who havebeen much taught, are apt to be deficient in the sense of presentfact; they do not see, in the facts which they are called upon todeal with, what is really there, but what they have been taught toexpect. This is seldom the case with women of any ability. Theircapacity of “intuition” preserves them from it. With equality ofexperience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees much morethan a man of what is immediately before her. Now this sensibility tothe present, is the main quality on which the capacity for practice, as distinguished from theory, depends. To discover generalprinciples, belongs to the speculative faculty: to discern anddiscriminate the particular cases in which they are and are notapplicable, constitutes practical talent: and for this, women as theynow are have a peculiar aptitude. I admit that there can be no goodpractice without principles, and that the predominant place whichquickness of observation holds among a woman's faculties, makes herparticularly apt to build over-hasty generalizations upon her ownobservation; though at the same time no less ready in rectifyingthose generalizations, as her observation takes a wider range. Butthe corrective to this defect, is access to the experience of thehuman race; general knowledge--exactly the thing which education canbest supply. A woman's mistakes are specifically those of a cleverself-educated man, who often sees what men trained in routine do notsee, but falls into errors for want of knowing things which have longbeen known. Of course he has acquired much of the pre-existingknowledge, or he could not have got on at all; but what he knows ofit he has picked up in fragments and at random, as women do. But this gravitation of women's minds to the present, to the real, toactual fact, while in its exclusiveness it is a source of errors, isalso a most useful counteractive of the contrary error. The principaland most characteristic aberration of speculative minds as such, consists precisely in the deficiency of this lively perception andever-present sense of objective fact. For want of this, they oftennot only overlook the contradiction which outward facts oppose totheir theories, but lose sight of the legitimate purpose ofspeculation altogether, and let their speculative faculties go astrayinto regions not peopled with real beings, animate or inanimate, evenidealized, but with personified shadows created by the illusions ofmetaphysics or by the mere entanglement of words, and think theseshadows the proper objects of the highest, the most transcendant, philosophy. Hardly anything can be of greater value to a man oftheory and speculation who employs himself not in collectingmaterials of knowledge by observation, but in working them up byprocesses of thought into comprehensive truths of science and laws ofconduct, than to carry on his speculations in the companionship, andunder the criticism, of a really superior woman. There is nothingcomparable to it for keeping his thoughts within the limits of realthings, and the actual facts of nature. A woman seldom runs wildafter an abstraction. The habitual direction of her mind to dealingwith things as individuals rather than in groups, and (what isclosely connected with it) her more lively interest in the presentfeelings of persons, which makes her consider first of all, inanything which claims to be applied to practice, in what mannerpersons will be affected by it--these two things make her extremelyunlikely to put faith in any speculation which loses sight ofindividuals, and deals with things as if they existed for the benefitof some imaginary entity, some mere creation of the mind, notresolvable into the feelings of living beings. Women's thoughts arethus as useful in giving reality to those of thinking men, as men'sthoughts in giving width and largeness to those of women. In depth, as distinguished from breadth, I greatly doubt if even now, women, compared with men, are at any disadvantage. If the existing mental characteristics of women are thus valuableeven in aid of speculation, they are still more important, whenspeculation has done its work, for carrying out the results ofspeculation into practice. For the reasons already given, women arecomparatively unlikely to fall into the common error of men, that ofsticking to their rules in a case whose specialities either take itout of the class to which the rules are applicable, or require aspecial adaptation of them. Let us now consider another of theadmitted superiorities of clever women, greater quickness ofapprehension. Is not this pre-eminently a quality which fits a personfor practice? In action, everything continually depends upon decidingpromptly. In speculation, nothing does. A mere thinker can wait, cantake time to consider, can collect additional evidence; he is notobliged to complete his philosophy at once, lest the opportunityshould go by. The power of drawing the best conclusion possible frominsufficient data is not indeed useless in philosophy; theconstruction of a provisional hypothesis consistent with all knownfacts is often the needful basis for further inquiry. But thisfaculty is rather serviceable in philosophy, than the mainqualification for it: and, for the auxiliary as well as for the mainoperation, the philosopher can allow himself any time he pleases. Heis in no need of the capacity of doing rapidly what he does; what herather needs is patience, to work on slowly until imperfect lightshave become perfect, and a conjecture has ripened into a theorem. Forthose, on the contrary, whose business is with the fugitive andperishable--with individual facts, not kinds of facts--rapidity ofthought is a qualification next only in importance to the power ofthought itself. He who has not his faculties under immediate command, in the contingencies of action, might as well not have them at all. He may be fit to criticize, but he is not fit to act. Now it is inthis that women, and the men who are most like women, confessedlyexcel. The other sort of man, however pre-eminent may be hisfaculties, arrives slowly at complete command of them: rapidity ofjudgment and promptitude of judicious action, even in the things heknows best, are the gradual and late result of strenuous effort growninto habit. It will be said, perhaps, that the greater nervous susceptibility ofwomen is a disqualification for practice, in anything but domesticlife, by rendering them mobile, changeable, too vehemently under theinfluence of the moment, incapable of dogged perseverance, unequaland uncertain in the power of using their faculties. I think thatthese phrases sum up the greater part of the objections commonly madeto the fitness of women for the higher class of serious business. Much of all this is the mere overflow of nervous energy run to waste, and would cease when the energy was directed to a definite end. Muchis also the result of conscious or unconscious cultivation; as we seeby the almost total disappearance of “hysterics” and fainting fits, since they have gone out of fashion. Moreover, when people arebrought up, like many women of the higher classes (though less so inour own country than in any other) a kind of hot-house plants, shielded from the wholesome vicissitudes of air and temperature, anduntrained in any of the occupations and exercises which give stimulusand development to the circulatory and muscular system, while theirnervous system, especially in its emotional department, is kept inunnaturally active play; it is no wonder if those of them who do notdie of consumption, grow up with constitutions liable to derangementfrom slight causes, both internal and external, and without staminato support any task, physical or mental, requiring continuity ofeffort. But women brought up to work for their livelihood show noneof these morbid characteristics, unless indeed they are chained to anexcess of sedentary work in confined and unhealthy rooms. Women whoin their early years have shared in the healthful physical educationand bodily freedom of their brothers, and who obtain a sufficiency ofpure air and exercise in after-life, very rarely have any excessivesusceptibility of nerves which can disqualify them for activepursuits. There is indeed a certain proportion of persons, in bothsexes, in whom an unusual degree of nervous sensibility isconstitutional, and of so marked a character as to be the feature oftheir organization which exercises the greatest influence over thewhole character of the vital phenomena. This constitution, like otherphysical conformations, is hereditary, and is transmitted to sons aswell as daughters; but it is possible, and probable, that the nervoustemperament (as it is called) is inherited by a greater number ofwomen than of men. We will assume this as a fact: and let me thenask, are men of nervous temperament found to be unfit for the dutiesand pursuits usually followed by men? If not, why should women of thesame temperament be unfit for them? The peculiarities of thetemperament are, no doubt, within certain limits, an obstacle tosuccess in some employments, though an aid to it in others. But whenthe occupation is suitable to the temperament, and sometimes evenwhen it is unsuitable, the most brilliant examples of success arecontinually given by the men of high nervous sensibility. They aredistinguished in their practical manifestations chiefly by this, thatbeing susceptible of a higher degree of excitement than those ofanother physical constitution, their powers when excited differ morethan in the case of other people, from those shown in their ordinarystate: they are raised, as it were, above themselves, and do thingswith ease which they are wholly incapable of at other times. But thislofty excitement is not, except in weak bodily constitutions, a mereflash, which passes away immediately, leaving no permanent traces, and incompatible with persistent and steady pursuit of an object. Itis the character of the nervous temperament to be capable of_sustained_ excitement, holding out through long continued efforts. It is what is meant by _spirit_. It is what makes the high-bredracehorse run without slackening speed till he drops down dead. It iswhat has enabled so many delicate women to maintain the most sublimeconstancy not only at the stake, but through a long preliminarysuccession of mental and bodily tortures. It is evident that peopleof this temperament are particularly apt for what may be called theexecutive department of the leadership of mankind. They are thematerial of great orators, great preachers, impressive diffusers ofmoral influences. Their constitution might be deemed less favourableto the qualities required from a statesman in the cabinet, or from ajudge. It would be so, if the consequence necessarily followed thatbecause people are excitable they must always be in a state ofexcitement. But this is wholly a question of training. Strong feelingis the instrument and element of strong self-control: but it requiresto be cultivated in that direction. When it is, it forms not theheroes of impulse only, but those also of self-conquest. History andexperience prove that the most passionate characters are the mostfanatically rigid in their feelings of duty, when their passion hasbeen trained to act in that direction. The judge who gives a justdecision in a case where his feelings are intensely interested on theother side, derives from that same strength of feeling the determinedsense of the obligation of justice, which enables him to achieve thisvictory over himself. The capability of that lofty enthusiasm whichtakes the human being out of his every-day character, reacts upon thedaily character itself. His aspirations and powers when he is in thisexceptional state, become the type with which he compares, and bywhich he estimates, his sentiments and proceedings at other times:and his habitual purposes assume a character moulded by andassimilated to the moments of lofty excitement, although those, fromthe physical nature of a human being, can only be transient. Experience of races, as well as of individuals, does not show thoseof excitable temperament to be less fit, on the average, either forspeculation or practice, than the more unexcitable. The French, andthe Italians, are undoubtedly by nature more nervously excitable thanthe Teutonic races, and, compared at least with the English, theyhave a much greater habitual and daily emotional life: but have theybeen less great in science, in public business, in legal and judicialeminence, or in war? There is abundant evidence that the Greeks wereof old, as their descendants and successors still are, one of themost excitable of the races of mankind. It is superfluous to ask, what among the achievements of men they did not excel in. The Romans, probably, as an equally southern people, had the same originaltemperament: but the stern character of their national discipline, like that of the Spartans, made them an example of the opposite typeof national character; the greater strength of their natural feelingsbeing chiefly apparent in the intensity which the same originaltemperament made it possible to give to the artificial. If thesecases exemplify what a naturally excitable people may be made, theIrish Celts afford one of the aptest examples of what they are whenleft to themselves; (if those can be said to be left to themselveswho have been for centuries under the indirect influence of badgovernment, and the direct training of a Catholic hierarchy and of asincere belief in the Catholic religion. ) The Irish character must beconsidered, therefore, as an unfavourable case: yet, whenever thecircumstances of the individual have been at all favourable, whatpeople have shown greater capacity for the most varied andmultifarious individual eminence? Like the French compared with theEnglish, the Irish with the Swiss, the Greeks or Italians comparedwith the German races, so women compared with men may be found, onthe average, to do the same things with some variety in theparticular kind of excellence. But, that they would do them fully aswell on the whole, if their education and cultivation were adapted tocorrecting instead of aggravating the infirmities incident to theirtemperament, I see not the smallest reason to doubt. Supposing it, however, to be true that women's minds are by naturemore mobile than those of men, less capable of persisting long in thesame continuous effort, more fitted for dividing their facultiesamong many things than for travelling in any one path to the highestpoint which can be reached by it: this may be true of women as theynow are (though not without great and numerous exceptions), and mayaccount for their having remained behind the highest order of men inprecisely the things in which this absorption of the whole mind inone set of ideas and occupations may seem to be most requisite. Still, this difference is one which can only affect the kind ofexcellence, not the excellence itself, or its practical worth: and itremains to be shown whether this exclusive working of a part of themind, this absorption of the whole thinking faculty in a singlesubject, and concentration of it on a single work, is the normal andhealthful condition of the human faculties, even for speculativeuses. I believe that what is gained in special development by thisconcentration, is lost in the capacity of the mind for the otherpurposes of life; and even in abstract thought, it is my decidedopinion that the mind does more by frequently returning to adifficult problem, than by sticking to it without interruption. Forthe purposes, at all events, of practice, from its highest to itshumblest departments, the capacity of passing promptly from onesubject of consideration to another, without letting the activespring of the intellect run down between the two, is a power far morevaluable; and this power women pre-eminently possess, by virtue ofthe very mobility of which they are accused. They perhaps have itfrom nature, but they certainly have it by training and education;for nearly the whole of the occupations of women consist in themanagement of small but multitudinous details, on each of which themind cannot dwell even for a minute, but must pass on to otherthings, and if anything requires longer thought, must steal time atodd moments for thinking of it. The capacity indeed which women showfor doing their thinking in circumstances and at times which almostany man would make an excuse to himself for not attempting it, hasoften been noticed: and a woman's mind, though it may be occupiedonly with small things, can hardly ever permit itself to be vacant, as a man's so often is when not engaged in what he chooses toconsider the business of his life. The business of a woman's ordinarylife is things in general, and can as little cease to go on as theworld to go round. But (it is said) there is anatomical evidence of the superior mentalcapacity of men compared with women: they have a larger brain. Ireply, that in the first place the fact itself is doubtful. It is byno means established that the brain of a woman is smaller than thatof a man. If it is inferred merely because a woman's bodily framegenerally is of less dimensions than a man's, this criterion wouldlead to strange consequences. A tall and large-boned man must on thisshowing be wonderfully superior in intelligence to a small man, andan elephant or a whale must prodigiously excel mankind. The size ofthe brain in human beings, anatomists say, varies much less than thesize of the body, or even of the head, and the one cannot be at allinferred from the other. It is certain that some women have as largea brain as any man. It is within my knowledge that a man who hadweighed many human brains, said that the heaviest he knew of, heaviereven than Cuvier's (the heaviest previously recorded, ) was that of awoman. Next, I must observe that the precise relation which existsbetween the brain and the intellectual powers is not yet wellunderstood, but is a subject of great dispute. That there is a veryclose relation we cannot doubt. The brain is certainly the materialorgan of thought and feeling: and (making abstraction of the greatunsettled controversy respecting the appropriation of different partsof the brain to different mental faculties) I admit that it would bean anomaly, and an exception to all we know of the general laws oflife and organization, if the size of the organ were whollyindifferent to the function; if no accession of power were derivedfrom the greater magnitude of the instrument. But the exception andthe anomaly would be fully as great if the organ exercised influenceby its magnitude _only_. In all the more delicate operations ofnature--of which those of the animated creation are the mostdelicate, and those of the nervous system by far the most delicate ofthese--differences in the effect depend as much on differences ofquality in the physical agents, as on their quantity: and if thequality of an instrument is to be tested by the nicety and delicacyof the work it can do, the indications point to a greater averagefineness of quality in the brain and nervous system of women than ofmen. Dismissing abstract difference of quality, a thing difficult toverify, the efficiency of an organ is known to depend not solely onits size but on its activity: and of this we have an approximatemeasure in the energy with which the blood circulates through it, both the stimulus and the reparative force being mainly dependent onthe circulation. It would not be surprising--it is indeed anhypothesis which accords well with the differences actually observedbetween the mental operations of the two sexes--if men on the averageshould have the advantage in the size of the brain, and women inactivity of cerebral circulation. The results which conjecture, founded on analogy, would lead us to expect from this difference oforganization, would correspond to some of those which we mostcommonly see. In the first place, the mental operations of men mightbe expected to be slower. They would neither be so prompt as women inthinking, nor so quick to feel. Large bodies take more time to getinto full action. On the other hand, when once got thoroughly intoplay, men's brain would bear more work. It would be more persistentin the line first taken; it would have more difficulty in changingfrom one mode of action to another, but, in the one thing it wasdoing, it could go on longer without loss of power or sense offatigue. And do we not find that the things in which men most excelwomen are those which require most plodding and long hammering at asingle thought, while women do best what must be done rapidly? Awoman's brain is sooner fatigued, sooner exhausted; but given thedegree of exhaustion, we should expect to find that it would recoveritself sooner. I repeat that this speculation is entirelyhypothetical; it pretends to no more than to suggest a line ofenquiry. I have before repudiated the notion of its being yetcertainly known that there is any natural difference at all in theaverage strength or direction of the mental capacities of the twosexes, much less what that difference is. Nor is it possible thatthis should be known, so long as the psychological laws of theformation of character have been so little studied, even in a generalway, and in the particular case never scientifically applied at all;so long as the most obvious external causes of difference ofcharacter are habitually disregarded--left unnoticed by the observer, and looked down upon with a kind of supercilious contempt by theprevalent schools both of natural history and of mental philosophy:who, whether they look for the source of what mainly distinguisheshuman beings from one another, in the world of matter or in that ofspirit, agree in running down those who prefer to explain thesedifferences by the different relations of human beings to society andlife. To so ridiculous an extent are the notions formed of the nature ofwomen, mere empirical generalizations, framed, without philosophy oranalysis, upon the first instances which present themselves, that thepopular idea of it is different in different countries, according asthe opinions and social circumstances of the country have given tothe women living in it any speciality of development ornon-development. An Oriental thinks that women are by naturepeculiarly voluptuous; see the violent abuse of them on this groundin Hindoo writings. An Englishman usually thinks that they are bynature cold. The sayings about women's fickleness are mostly ofFrench origin; from the famous distich of Francis the First, upwardand downward. In England it is a common remark, how much moreconstant women are than men. Inconstancy has been longer reckoneddiscreditable to a woman, in England than in France; and Englishwomenare besides, in their inmost nature, much more subdued to opinion. Itmay be remarked by the way, that Englishmen are in peculiarlyunfavourable circumstances for attempting to judge what is or is notnatural, not merely to women, but to men, or to human beingsaltogether, at least if they have only English experience to go upon:because there is no place where human nature shows so little of itsoriginal lineaments. Both in a good and a bad sense, the English arefarther from a state of nature than any other modern people. Theyare, more than any other people, a product of civilization anddiscipline. England is the country in which social discipline hasmost succeeded, not so much in conquering, as in suppressing, whatever is liable to conflict with it. The English, more than anyother people, not only act but feel according to rule. In othercountries, the taught opinion, or the requirement of society, may bethe stronger power, but the promptings of the individual nature arealways visible under it, and often resisting it: rule may be strongerthan nature, but nature is still there. In England, rule has to agreat degree substituted itself for nature. The greater part of lifeis carried on, not by following inclination under the control ofrule, but by having no inclination but that of following a rule. Nowthis has its good side doubtless, though it has also a wretchedly badone; but it must render an Englishman peculiarly ill-qualified topass a judgment on the original tendencies of human nature from hisown experience. The errors to which observers elsewhere are liable onthe subject, are of a different character. An Englishman is ignorantrespecting human nature, a Frenchman is prejudiced. An Englishman'serrors are negative, a Frenchman's positive. An Englishman fanciesthat things do not exist, because he never sees them; a Frenchmanthinks they must always and necessarily exist, because he does seethem. An Englishman does not know nature, because he has had noopportunity of observing it; a Frenchman generally knows a great dealof it, but often mistakes it, because he has only seen itsophisticated and distorted. For the artificial state superinduced bysociety disguises the natural tendencies of the thing which is thesubject of observation, in two different ways: by extinguishing thenature, or by transforming it. In the one case there is but a starvedresiduum of nature remaining to be studied; in the other case thereis much, but it may have expanded in any direction rather than thatin which it would spontaneously grow. I have said that it cannot now be known how much of the existingmental differences between men and women is natural, and how muchartificial; whether there are any natural differences at all; or, supposing all artificial causes of difference to be withdrawn, whatnatural character would be revealed. I am not about to attempt what Ihave pronounced impossible: but doubt does not forbid conjecture, andwhere certainty is unattainable, there may yet be the means ofarriving at some degree of probability. The first point, the originof the differences actually observed, is the one most accessible tospeculation; and I shall attempt to approach it, by the only path bywhich it can be reached; by tracing the mental consequences ofexternal influences. We cannot isolate a human being from thecircumstances of his condition, so as to ascertain experimentallywhat he would have been by nature; but we can consider what he is, and what his circumstances have been, and whether the one would havebeen capable of producing the other. Let us take, then, the only marked case which observation affords, ofapparent inferiority of women to men, if we except the merelyphysical one of bodily strength. No production in philosophy, science, or art, entitled to the first rank, has been the work of awoman. Is there any mode of accounting for this, without supposingthat women are naturally incapable of producing them? In the first place, we may fairly question whether experience hasafforded sufficient grounds for an induction. It is scarcely threegenerations since women, saving very rare exceptions, have begun totry their capacity in philosophy, science, or art. It is only in thepresent generation that their attempts have been at all numerous; andthey are even now extremely few, everywhere but in England andFrance. It is a relevant question, whether a mind possessing therequisites of first-rate eminence in speculation or creative artcould have been expected, on the mere calculation of chances, to turnup during that lapse of time, among the women whose tastes andpersonal position admitted of their devoting themselves to thesepursuits. In all things which there has yet been time for--in all butthe very highest grades in the scale of excellence, especially in thedepartment in which they have been longest engaged, literature (bothprose and poetry)--women have done quite as much, have obtained fullyas high prizes and as many of them, as could be expected from thelength of time and the number of competitors. If we go back to theearlier period when very few women made the attempt, yet some ofthose few made it with distinguished success. The Greeks alwaysaccounted Sappho among their great poets; and we may well supposethat Myrtis, said to have been the teacher of Pindar, and Corinna, who five times bore away from him the prize of poetry, must at leasthave had sufficient merit to admit of being compared with that greatname. Aspasia did not leave any philosophical writings; but it is anadmitted fact that Socrates resorted to her for instruction, andavowed himself to have obtained it. If we consider the works of women in modern times, and contrast themwith those of men, either in the literary or the artistic department, such inferiority as may be observed resolves itself essentially intoone thing: but that is a most material one; deficiency oforiginality. Not total deficiency; for every production of mind whichis of any substantive value, has an originality of its own--is aconception of the mind itself, not a copy of something else. Thoughtsoriginal, in the sense of being unborrowed--of being derived from thethinker's own observations or intellectual processes--are abundant inthe writings of women. But they have not yet produced any of thosegreat and luminous new ideas which form an era in thought, nor thosefundamentally new conceptions in art, which open a vista of possibleeffects not before thought of, and found a new school. Theircompositions are mostly grounded on the existing fund of thought, andtheir creations do not deviate widely from existing types. This isthe sort of inferiority which their works manifest: for in point ofexecution, in the detailed application of thought, and the perfectionof style, there is no inferiority. Our best novelists in point ofcomposition, and of the management of detail, have mostly been women;and there is not in all modern literature a more eloquent vehicle ofthought than the style of Madame de Stael, nor, as a specimen ofpurely artistic excellence, anything superior to the prose of MadameSand, whose style acts upon the nervous system like a symphony ofHaydn or Mozart. High originality of conception is, as I have said, what is chiefly wanting. And now to examine if there is any manner inwhich this deficiency can be accounted for. Let us remember, then, so far as regards mere thought, that duringall that period in the world's existence, and in the progress ofcultivation, in which great and fruitful new truths could be arrivedat by mere force of genius, with little previous study andaccumulation of knowledge--during all that time women did not concernthemselves with speculation at all. From the days of Hypatia to thoseof the Reformation, the illustrious Heloisa is almost the only womanto whom any such achievement might have been possible; and we knownot how great a capacity of speculation in her may have been lost tomankind by the misfortunes of her life. Never since any considerablenumber of women have begun to cultivate serious thought, hasoriginality been possible on easy terms. Nearly all the thoughtswhich can be reached by mere strength of original faculties, havelong since been arrived at; and originality, in any high sense of theword, is now scarcely ever attained but by minds which have undergoneelaborate discipline, and are deeply versed in the results ofprevious thinking. It is Mr. Maurice, I think, who has remarked onthe present age, that its most original thinkers are those who haveknown most thoroughly what had been thought by their predecessors:and this will always henceforth be the case. Every fresh stone in theedifice has now to be placed on the top of so many others, that along process of climbing, and of carrying up materials, has to begone through by whoever aspires to take a share in the present stageof the work. How many women are there who have gone through any suchprocess? Mrs. Somerville, alone perhaps of women, knows as much ofmathematics as is now needful for making any considerablemathematical discovery: is it any proof of inferiority in women, thatshe has not happened to be one of the two or three persons who in herlifetime have associated their names with some striking advancementof the science? Two women, since political economy has been made ascience, have known enough of it to write usefully on the subject: ofhow many of the innumerable men who have written on it during thesame time, is it possible with truth to say more? If no woman hashitherto been a great historian, what woman has had the necessaryerudition? If no woman is a great philologist, what woman has studiedSanscrit and Slavonic, the Gothic of Ulphila and the Persic of theZendavesta? Even in practical matters we all know what is the valueof the originality of untaught geniuses. It means, inventing overagain in its rudimentary form something already invented and improvedupon by many successive inventors. When women have had thepreparation which all men now require to be eminently original, itwill be time enough to begin judging by experience of their capacityfor originality. It no doubt often happens that a person, who has not widely andaccurately studied the thoughts of others on a subject, has bynatural sagacity a happy intuition, which he can suggest, but cannotprove, which yet when matured may be an important addition toknowledge: but even then, no justice can be done to it until someother person, who does possess the previous acquirements, takes it inhand, tests it, gives it a scientific or practical form, and fits itinto its place among the existing truths of philosophy or science. Isit supposed that such felicitous thoughts do not occur to women? Theyoccur by hundreds to every woman of intellect. But they are mostlylost, for want of a husband or friend who has the other knowledgewhich can enable him to estimate them properly and bring them beforethe world: and even when they are brought before it, they generallyappear as his ideas, not their real author's. Who can tell how manyof the most original thoughts put forth by male writers, belong to awoman by suggestion, to themselves only by verifying and working out?If I may judge by my own case, a very large proportion indeed. If we turn from pure speculation to literature in the narrow sense ofthe term, and the fine arts, there is a very obvious reason whywomen's literature is, in its general conception and in its mainfeatures, an imitation of men's. Why is the Roman literature, ascritics proclaim to satiety, not original, but an imitation of theGreek? Simply because the Greeks came first. If women lived in adifferent country from men, and had never read any of their writings, they would have had a literature of their own. As it is, they havenot created one, because they found a highly advanced literaturealready created. If there had been no suspension of the knowledge ofantiquity, or if the Renaissance had occurred before the Gothiccathedrals were built, they never would have been built. We see that, in France and Italy, imitation of the ancient literature stopped theoriginal development even after it had commenced. All women who writeare pupils of the great male writers. A painter's early pictures, even if he be a Raffaelle, are undistinguishable in style from thoseof his master. Even a Mozart does not display his powerfuloriginality in his earliest pieces. What years are to a giftedindividual, generations are to a mass. If women's literature isdestined to have a different collective character from that of men, depending on any difference of natural tendencies, much longer timeis necessary than has yet elapsed, before it can emancipate itselffrom the influence of accepted models, and guide itself by its ownimpulses. But if, as I believe, there will not prove to be anynatural tendencies common to women, and distinguishing their geniusfrom that of men, yet every individual writer among them has herindividual tendencies, which at present are still subdued by theinfluence of precedent and example: and it will require generationsmore, before their individuality is sufficiently developed to makehead against that influence. It is in the fine arts, properly so called, that the _primâ facie_evidence of inferior original powers in women at first sight appearsthe strongest: since opinion (it may be said) does not exclude themfrom these, but rather encourages them, and their education, insteadof passing over this department, is in the affluent classes mainlycomposed of it. Yet in this line of exertion they have fallen stillmore short than in many others, of the highest eminence attained bymen. This shortcoming, however, needs no other explanation than thefamiliar fact, more universally true in the fine arts than inanything else; the vast superiority of professional persons overamateurs. Women in the educated classes are almost universally taughtmore or less of some branch or other of the fine arts, but not thatthey may gain their living or their social consequence by it. Womenartists are all amateurs. The exceptions are only of the kind whichconfirm the general truth. Women are taught music, but not for thepurpose of composing, only of executing it: and accordingly it isonly as composers, that men, in music, are superior to women. Theonly one of the fine arts which women do follow, to any extent, as aprofession, and an occupation for life, is the histrionic; and inthat they are confessedly equal, if not superior, to men. To make thecomparison fair, it should be made between the productions of womenin any branch of art, and those of men not following it as aprofession. In musical composition, for example, women surely haveproduced fully as good things as have ever been produced by maleamateurs. There are now a few women, a very few, who practisepainting as a profession, and these are already beginning to showquite as much talent as could be expected. Even male painters (_pace_Mr. Ruskin) have not made any very remarkable figure these lastcenturies, and it will be long before they do so. The reason why theold painters were so greatly superior to the modern, is that agreatly superior class of men applied themselves to the art. In thefourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Italian painters were the mostaccomplished men of their age. The greatest of them were men ofencyclopædical acquirements and powers, like the great men of Greece. But in their times fine art was, to men's feelings and conceptions, among the grandest things in which a human being could excel; and byit men were made, what only political or military distinction nowmakes them, the companions of sovereigns, and the equals of thehighest nobility. In the present age, men of anything like similarcalibre find something more important to do, for their own fame andthe uses of the modern world, than painting: and it is only now andthen that a Reynolds or a Turner (of whose relative rank amongeminent men I do not pretend to an opinion) applies himself to thatart. Music belongs to a different order of things; it does notrequire the same general powers of mind, but seems more dependant ona natural gift: and it may be thought surprising that no one of thegreat musical composers has been a woman. But even this natural gift, to be made available for great creations, requires study, andprofessional devotion to the pursuit. The only countries which haveproduced first-rate composers, even of the male sex, are Germany andItaly--countries in which, both in point of special and of generalcultivation, women have remained far behind France and England, beinggenerally (it may be said without exaggeration) very little educated, and having scarcely cultivated at all any of the higher faculties ofmind. And in those countries the men who are acquainted with theprinciples of musical composition must be counted by hundreds, ormore probably by thousands, the women barely by scores: so that hereagain, on the doctrine of averages, we cannot reasonably expect tosee more than one eminent woman to fifty eminent men; and the lastthree centuries have not produced fifty eminent male composers eitherin Germany or in Italy. There are other reasons, besides those which we have now given, thathelp to explain why women remain behind men, even in the pursuitswhich are open to both. For one thing, very few women have time forthem. This may seem a paradox; it is an undoubted social fact. Thetime and thoughts of every woman have to satisfy great previousdemands on them for things practical. There is, first, thesuperintendence of the family and the domestic expenditure, whichoccupies at least one woman in every family, generally the one ofmature years and acquired experience; unless the family is so rich asto admit of delegating that task to hired agency, and submitting toall the waste and malversation inseparable from that mode ofconducting it. The superintendence of a household, even when not inother respects laborious, is extremely onerous to the thoughts; itrequires incessant vigilance, an eye which no detail escapes, andpresents questions for consideration and solution, foreseen andunforeseen, at every hour of the day, from which the personresponsible for them can hardly ever shake herself free. If a womanis of a rank and circumstances which relieve her in a measure fromthese cares, she has still devolving on her the management for thewhole family of its intercourse with others--of what is calledsociety, and the less the call made on her by the former duty, thegreater is always the development of the latter: the dinner parties, concerts, evening parties, morning visits, letter writing, and allthat goes with them. All this is over and above the engrossing dutywhich society imposes exclusively on women, of making themselvescharming. A clever woman of the higher ranks finds nearly asufficient employment of her talents in cultivating the graces ofmanner and the arts of conversation. To look only at the outward sideof the subject: the great and continual exercise of thought which allwomen who attach any value to dressing well (I do not meanexpensively, but with taste, and perception of natural and ofartificial _convenance_) must bestow upon their own dress, perhapsalso upon that of their daughters, would alone go a great way towardsachieving respectable results in art, or science, or literature, anddoes actually exhaust much of the time and mental power they mighthave to spare for either. [2] If it were possible that all this numberof little practical interests (which are made great to them) shouldleave them either much leisure, or much energy and freedom of mind, to be devoted to art or speculation, they must have a much greateroriginal supply of active faculty than the vast majority of men. Butthis is not all. Independently of the regular offices of life whichdevolve upon a woman, she is expected to have her time and facultiesalways at the disposal of everybody. If a man has not a profession toexempt him from such demands, still, if he has a pursuit, he offendsnobody by devoting his time to it; occupation is received as a validexcuse for his not answering to every casual demand which may be madeon him. Are a woman's occupations, especially her chosen andvoluntary ones, ever regarded as excusing her from any of what aretermed the calls of society? Scarcely are her most necessary andrecognised duties allowed as an exemption. It requires an illness inthe family, or something else out of the common way, to entitle herto give her own business the precedence over other people'samusement. She must always be at the beck and call of somebody, generally of everybody. If she has a study or a pursuit, she mustsnatch any short interval which accidentally occurs to be employed init. A celebrated woman, in a work which I hope will some day bepublished, remarks truly that everything a woman does is done at oddtimes. Is it wonderful, then, if she does not attain the highesteminence in things which require consecutive attention, and theconcentration on them of the chief interest of life? Such isphilosophy, and such, above all, is art, in which, besides thedevotion of the thoughts and feelings, the hand also must be kept inconstant exercise to attain high skill. There is another consideration to be added to all these. In thevarious arts and intellectual occupations, there is a degree ofproficiency sufficient for living by it, and there is a higher degreeon which depend the great productions which immortalize a name. Tothe attainment of the former, there are adequate motives in the caseof all who follow the pursuit professionally: the other is hardlyever attained where there is not, or where there has not been at someperiod of life, an ardent desire of celebrity. Nothing less iscommonly a sufficient stimulus to undergo the long and patientdrudgery, which, in the case even of the greatest natural gifts, isabsolutely required for great eminence in pursuits in which wealready possess so many splendid memorials of the highest genius. Now, whether the cause be natural or artificial, women seldom havethis eagerness for fame. Their ambition is generally confined withinnarrower bounds. The influence they seek is over those whoimmediately surround them. Their desire is to be liked, loved, oradmired, by those whom they see with their eyes: and the proficiencyin knowledge, arts, and accomplishments, which is sufficient forthat, almost always contents them. This is a trait of character whichcannot be left out of the account in judging of women as they are. Ido not at all believe that it is inherent in women. It is only thenatural result of their circumstances. The love of fame in men isencouraged by education and opinion: to “scorn delights and livelaborious days” for its sake, is accounted the part of “noble minds, ”even if spoken of as their “last infirmity, ” and is stimulated by theaccess which fame gives to all objects of ambition, including eventhe favour of women; while to women themselves all these objects areclosed, and the desire of fame itself considered daring andunfeminine. Besides, how could it be that a woman's interests shouldnot be all concentrated upon the impressions made on those who comeinto her daily life, when society has ordained that all her dutiesshould be to them, and has contrived that all her comforts shoulddepend on them? The natural desire of consideration from our fellowcreatures is as strong in a woman as in a man; but society has soordered things that public consideration is, in all ordinary cases, only attainable by her through the consideration of her husband or ofher male relations, while her private consideration is forfeited bymaking herself individually prominent, or appearing in any othercharacter than that of an appendage to men. Whoever is in the leastcapable of estimating the influence on the mind of the entiredomestic and social position and the whole habit of a life, musteasily recognise in that influence a complete explanation of nearlyall the apparent differences between women and men, including thewhole of those which imply any inferiority. As for moral differences, considered as distinguished fromintellectual, the distinction commonly drawn is to the advantage ofwomen. They are declared to be better than men; an empty compliment, which must provoke a bitter smile from every woman of spirit, sincethere is no other situation in life in which it is the establishedorder, and considered quite natural and suitable, that the bettershould obey the worse. If this piece of idle talk is good foranything, it is only as an admission by men, of the corruptinginfluence of power; for that is certainly the only truth which thefact, if it be a fact, either proves or illustrates. And it _is_ truethat servitude, except when it actually brutalizes, though corruptingto both, is less so to the slaves than to the slave-masters. It iswholesomer for the moral nature to be restrained, even by arbitrarypower, than to be allowed to exercise arbitrary power withoutrestraint. Women, it is said, seldomer fall under the penallaw--contribute a much smaller number of offenders to the criminalcalendar, than men. I doubt not that the same thing may be said, withthe same truth, of negro slaves. Those who are under the control ofothers cannot often commit crimes, unless at the command and for thepurposes of their masters. I do not know a more signal instance ofthe blindness with which the world, including the herd of studiousmen, ignore and pass over all the influences of social circumstances, than their silly depreciation of the intellectual, and sillypanegyrics on the moral, nature of women. The complimentary dictum about women's superior moral goodness may beallowed to pair off with the disparaging one respecting their greaterliability to moral bias. Women, we are told, are not capable ofresisting their personal partialities: their judgment in graveaffairs is warped by their sympathies and antipathies. Assuming it tobe so, it is still to be proved that women are oftener misled bytheir personal feelings than men by their personal interests. Thechief difference would seem in that case to be, that men are led fromthe course of duty and the public interest by their regard forthemselves, women (not being allowed to have private interests oftheir own) by their regard for somebody else. It is also to beconsidered, that all the education which women receive from societyinculcates on them the feeling that the individuals connected withthem are the only ones to whom they owe any duty--the only ones whoseinterest they are called upon to care for; while, as far as educationis concerned, they are left strangers even to the elementary ideaswhich are presupposed in any intelligent regard for larger interestsor higher moral objects. The complaint against them resolves itselfmerely into this, that they fulfil only too faithfully the sole dutywhich they are taught, and almost the only one which they arepermitted to practise. The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so seldombrought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivilegedto extort them, that any arguments against the prerogative of sex arelikely to be little attended to by the generality, as long as theyare able to say to themselves that women do not complain of it. Thatfact certainly enables men to retain the unjust privilege some timelonger; but does not render it less unjust. Exactly the same thingmay be said of the women in the harem of an Oriental: they do notcomplain of not being allowed the freedom of European women. Theythink our women insufferably bold and unfeminine. How rarely it isthat even men complain of the general order of society; and how muchrarer still would such complaint be, if they did not know of anydifferent order existing anywhere else. Women do not complain of thegeneral lot of women; or rather they do, for plaintive elegies on itare very common in the writings of women, and were still more so aslong as the lamentations could not be suspected of having anypractical object. Their complaints are like the complaints which menmake of the general unsatisfactoriness of human life; they are notmeant to imply blame, or to plead for any change. But though women donot complain of the power of husbands, each complains of her ownhusband, or of the husbands of her friends. It is the same in allother cases of servitude, at least in the commencement of theemancipatory movement. The serfs did not at first complain of thepower of their lords, but only of their tyranny. The Commons began byclaiming a few municipal privileges; they next asked an exemption forthemselves from being taxed without their own consent; but they wouldat that time have thought it a great presumption to claim any sharein the king's sovereign authority. The case of women is now the onlycase in which to rebel against established rules is still looked uponwith the same eyes as was formerly a subject's claim to the right ofrebelling against his king. A woman who joins in any movement whichher husband disapproves, makes herself a martyr, without even beingable to be an apostle, for the husband can legally put a stop to herapostleship. Women cannot be expected to devote themselves to theemancipation of women, until men in considerable number are preparedto join with them in the undertaking. [Footnote 1: Especially is this true if we take into considerationAsia as well as Europe. If a Hindoo principality is strongly, vigilantly, and economically governed; if order is preserved withoutoppression; if cultivation is extending, and the people prosperous, in three cases out of four that principality is under a woman's rule. This fact, to me an entirely unexpected one, I have collected from along official knowledge of Hindoo governments. There are many suchinstances: for though, by Hindoo institutions, a woman cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir;and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being sooften prematurely terminated through the effect of inactivity andsensual excesses. When we consider that these princesses have neverbeen seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of theirown family except from behind a curtain, that they do not read, andif they did, there is no book in their languages which can give themthe smallest instruction on political affairs; the example theyafford of the natural capacity of women for government is verystriking. ] [Footnote 2: “It appears to be the same right turn of mind whichenables a man to acquire the _truth_, or the just idea of what isright, in the ornaments, as in the more stable principles of art. Ithas still the same centre of perfection, though it is the centre of asmaller circle. --To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in whichthere is allowed to be a good or bad taste. The component parts ofdress are continually changing from great to little, from short tolong; but the general form still remains: it is still the samegeneral dress which is comparatively fixed, though on a very slenderfoundation; but it is on this which fashion must rest. He who inventswith the most success, or dresses in the best taste, would probably, from the same sagacity employed to greater purposes, have discoveredequal skill, or have formed the same correct taste, in the highestlabours of art. ”--_Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses_, Disc. Vii. ] CHAPTER IV. There remains a question, not of less importance than those alreadydiscussed, and which will be asked the most importunately by thoseopponents whose conviction is somewhat shaken on the main point. Whatgood are we to expect from the changes proposed in our customs andinstitutions? Would mankind be at all better off if women were free?If not, why disturb their minds, and attempt to make a socialrevolution in the name of an abstract right? It is hardly to be expected that this question will be asked inrespect to the change proposed in the condition of women in marriage. The sufferings, immoralities, evils of all sorts, produced ininnumerable cases by the subjection of individual women to individualmen, are far too terrible to be overlooked. Unthinking or uncandidpersons, counting those cases alone which are extreme, or whichattain publicity, may say that the evils are exceptional; but no onecan be blind to their existence, nor, in many cases, to theirintensity. And it is perfectly obvious that the abuse of the powercannot be very much checked while the power remains. It is a powergiven, or offered, not to good men, or to decently respectable men, but to all men; the most brutal, and the most criminal. There is nocheck but that of opinion, and such men are in general within thereach of no opinion but that of men like themselves. If such men didnot brutally tyrannize over the one human being whom the law compelsto bear everything from them, society must already have reached aparadisiacal state. There could be no need any longer of laws to curbmen's vicious propensities. Astræa must not only have returned toearth, but the heart of the worst man must have become her temple. The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous contradiction to allthe principles of the modern world, and to all the experience throughwhich those principles have been slowly and painfully worked out. Itis the sole case, now that negro slavery has been abolished, in whicha human being in the plenitude of every faculty is delivered up tothe tender mercies of another human being, in the hope forsooth thatthis other will use the power solely for the good of the personsubjected to it. Marriage is the only actual bondage known to ourlaw. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of everyhouse. It is not, therefore, on this part of the subject, that the questionis likely to be asked, _Cui bono_? We may be told that the evil wouldoutweigh the good, but the reality of the good admits of no dispute. In regard, however, to the larger question, the removal of women'sdisabilities--their recognition as the equals of men in all thatbelongs to citizenship--the opening to them of all honourableemployments, and of the training and education which qualifies forthose employments--there are many persons for whom it is not enoughthat the inequality has no just or legitimate defence; they requireto be told what express advantage would be obtained by abolishing it. To which let me first answer, the advantage of having the mostuniversal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justiceinstead of injustice. The vast amount of this gain to human nature, it is hardly possible, by any explanation or illustration, to placein a stronger light than it is placed by the bare statement, to anyone who attaches a moral meaning to words. All the selfishpropensities, the self-worship, the unjust self-preference, whichexist among mankind, have their source and root in, and derive theirprincipal nourishment from, the present constitution of the relationbetween men and women. Think what it is to a boy, to grow up tomanhood in the belief that without any merit or any exertion of hisown, though he may be the most frivolous and empty or the mostignorant and stolid of mankind, by the mere fact of being born a malehe is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half ofthe human race: including probably some whose real superiority tohimself he has daily or hourly occasion to feel; but even if in hiswhole conduct he habitually follows a woman's guidance, still, if heis a fool, she thinks that of course she is not, and cannot be, equalin ability and judgment to himself; and if he is not a fool, he doesworse--he sees that she is superior to him, and believes that, notwithstanding her superiority, he is entitled to command and she isbound to obey. What must be the effect on his character, of thislesson? And men of the cultivated classes are often not aware howdeeply it sinks into the immense majority of male minds. For, amongright-feeling and well-bred people, the inequality is kept as much aspossible out of sight; above all, out of sight of the children. Asmuch obedience is required from boys to their mother as to theirfather: they are not permitted to domineer over their sisters, norare they accustomed to see these postponed to them, but the contrary;the compensations of the chivalrous feeling being made prominent, while the servitude which requires them is kept in the background. Well brought-up youths in the higher classes thus often escape thebad influences of the situation in their early years, and onlyexperience them when, arrived at manhood, they fall under thedominion of facts as they really exist. Such people are little aware, when a boy is differently brought up, how early the notion of hisinherent superiority to a girl arises in his mind; how it grows withhis growth and strengthens with his strength; how it is inoculated byone schoolboy upon another; how early the youth thinks himselfsuperior to his mother, owing her perhaps forbearance, but no realrespect; and how sublime and sultan-like a sense of superiority hefeels, above all, over the woman whom he honours by admitting her toa partnership of his life. Is it imagined that all this does notpervert the whole manner of existence of the man, both as anindividual and as a social being? It is an exact parallel to thefeeling of a hereditary king that he is excellent above others bybeing born a king, or a noble by being born a noble. The relationbetween husband and wife is very like that between lord and vassal, except that the wife is held to more unlimited obedience than thevassal was. However the vassal's character may have been affected, for better and for worse, by his subordination, who can help seeingthat the lord's was affected greatly for the worse? whether he wasled to believe that his vassals were really superior to himself, orto feel that he was placed in command over people as good as himself, for no merits or labours of his own, but merely for having, as Figarosays, taken the trouble to be born. The self-worship of the monarch, or of the feudal superior, is matched by the self-worship of themale. Human beings do not grow up from childhood in the possession ofunearned distinctions, without pluming themselves upon them. Thosewhom privileges not acquired by their merit, and which they feel tobe disproportioned to it, inspire with additional humility, arealways the few, and the best few. The rest are only inspired withpride, and the worst sort of pride, that which values itself uponaccidental advantages, not of its own achieving. Above all, when thefeeling of being raised above the whole of the other sex is combinedwith personal authority over one individual among them; thesituation, if a school of conscientious and affectionate forbearanceto those whose strongest points of character are conscience andaffection, is to men of another quality a regularly constitutedAcademy or Gymnasium for training them in arrogance andoverbearingness; which vices, if curbed by the certainty ofresistance in their intercourse with other men, their equals, breakout towards all who are in a position to be obliged to tolerate them, and often revenge themselves upon the unfortunate wife for theinvoluntary restraint which they are obliged to submit to elsewhere. The example afforded, and the education given to the sentiments, bylaying the foundation of domestic existence upon a relationcontradictory to the first principles of social justice, must, fromthe very nature of man, have a perverting influence of suchmagnitude, that it is hardly possible with our present experience toraise our imaginations to the conception of so great a change for thebetter as would be made by its removal. All that education andcivilization are doing to efface the influences on character of thelaw of force, and replace them by those of justice, remains merely onthe surface, as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked. Theprinciple of the modern movement in morals and politics, is thatconduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what menare, but what they do, constitutes their claim to deference; that, above all, merit, and not birth, is the only rightful claim to powerand authority. If no authority, not in its nature temporary, wereallowed to one human being over another, society would not beemployed in building up propensities with one hand which it has tocurb with the other. The child would really, for the first time inman's existence on earth, be trained in the way he should go, andwhen he was old there would be a chance that he would not depart fromit. But so long as the right of the strong to power over the weakrules in the very heart of society, the attempt to make the equalright of the weak the principle of its outward actions will always bean uphill struggle; for the law of justice, which is also that ofChristianity, will never get possession of men's inmost sentiments;they will be working against it, even when bending to it. The second benefit to be expected from giving to women the free useof their faculties, by leaving them the free choice of theiremployments, and opening to them the same field of occupation and thesame prizes and encouragements as to other human beings, would bethat of doubling the mass of mental faculties available for thehigher service of humanity. Where there is now one person qualifiedto benefit mankind and promote the general improvement, as a publicteacher, or an administrator of some branch of public or socialaffairs, there would then be a chance of two. Mental superiority ofany kind is at present everywhere so much below the demand; there issuch a deficiency of persons competent to do excellently anythingwhich it requires any considerable amount of ability to do; that theloss to the world, by refusing to make use of one-half of the wholequantity of talent it possesses, is extremely serious. It is truethat this amount of mental power is not totally lost. Much of it isemployed, and would in any case be employed, in domestic management, and in the few other occupations open to women; and from theremainder indirect benefit is in many individual cases obtained, through the personal influence of individual women over individualmen. But these benefits are partial; their range is extremelycircumscribed; and if they must be admitted, on the one hand, as adeduction from the amount of fresh social power that would beacquired by giving freedom to one-half of the whole sum of humanintellect, there must be added, on the other, the benefit of thestimulus that would be given to the intellect of men by thecompetition; or (to use a more true expression) by the necessity thatwould be imposed on them of deserving precedency before they couldexpect to obtain it. This great accession to the intellectual power of the species, and tothe amount of intellect available for the good management of itsaffairs, would be obtained, partly, through the better and morecomplete intellectual education of women, which would then improve_pari passu_ with that of men. Women in general would be brought upequally capable of understanding business, public affairs, and thehigher matters of speculation, with men in the same class of society;and the select few of the one as well as of the other sex, who werequalified not only to comprehend what is done or thought by others, but to think or do something considerable themselves, would meet withthe same facilities for improving and training their capacities inthe one sex as in the other. In this way, the widening of the sphereof action for women would operate for good, by raising theireducation to the level of that of men, and making the one participatein all improvements made in the other. But independently of this, themere breaking down of the barrier would of itself have an educationalvirtue of the highest worth. The mere getting rid of the idea thatall the wider subjects of thought and action, all the things whichare of general and not solely of private interest, are men'sbusiness, from which women are to be warned off--positivelyinterdicted from most of it, coldly tolerated in the little which isallowed them--the mere consciousness a woman would then have of beinga human being like any other, entitled to choose her pursuits, urgedor invited by the same inducements as any one else to interestherself in whatever is interesting to human beings, entitled to exertthe share of influence on all human concerns which belongs to anindividual opinion, whether she attempted actual participation inthem or not--this alone would effect an immense expansion of thefaculties of women, as well as enlargement of the range of theirmoral sentiments. Besides the addition to the amount of individual talent available forthe conduct of human affairs, which certainly are not at present soabundantly provided in that respect that they can afford to dispensewith one-half of what nature proffers; the opinion of women wouldthen possess a more beneficial, rather than a greater, influence uponthe general mass of human belief and sentiment. I say a morebeneficial, rather than a greater influence; for the influence ofwomen over the general tone of opinion has always, or at least fromthe earliest known period, been very considerable. The influence ofmothers on the early character of their sons, and the desire of youngmen to recommend themselves to young women, have in all recordedtimes been important agencies in the formation of character, and havedetermined some of the chief steps in the progress of civilization. Even in the Homeric age, αιδως towards the Τρωαδας ἑλκεσιπεπλους isan acknowledged and powerful motive of action in the great Hector. The moral influence of women has had two modes of operation. First, it has been a softening influence. Those who were most liable to bethe victims of violence, have naturally tended as much as they couldtowards limiting its sphere and mitigating its excesses. Those whowere not taught to fight, have naturally inclined in favour of anyother mode of settling differences rather than that of fighting. Ingeneral, those who have been the greatest sufferers by the indulgenceof selfish passion, have been the most earnest supporters of anymoral law which offered a means of bridling passion. Women werepowerfully instrumental in inducing the northern conquerors to adoptthe creed of Christianity, a creed so much more favourable to womenthan any that preceded it. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and ofthe Franks may be said to have been begun by the wives of Ethelbertand Clovis. The other mode in which the effect of women's opinion hasbeen conspicuous, is by giving a powerful stimulus to those qualitiesin men, which, not being themselves trained in, it was necessary forthem that they should find in their protectors. Courage, and themilitary virtues generally, have at all times been greatly indebtedto the desire which men felt of being admired by women: and thestimulus reaches far beyond this one class of eminent qualities, since, by a very natural effect of their position, the best passportto the admiration and favour of women has always been to be thoughthighly of by men. From the combination of the two kinds of moralinfluence thus exercised by women, arose the spirit of chivalry: thepeculiarity of which is, to aim at combining the highest standard ofthe warlike qualities with the cultivation of a totally differentclass of virtues--those of gentleness, generosity, andself-abnegation, towards the non-military and defenceless classesgenerally, and a special submission and worship directed towardswomen; who were distinguished from the other defenceless classes bythe high rewards which they had it in their power voluntarily tobestow on those who endeavoured to earn their favour, instead ofextorting their subjection. Though the practice of chivalry fell evenmore sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generallyfalls below theory, it remains one of the most precious monuments ofthe moral history of our race; as a remarkable instance of aconcerted and organized attempt by a most disorganized and distractedsociety, to raise up and carry into practice a moral ideal greatly inadvance of its social condition and institutions; so much so as tohave been completely frustrated in the main object, yet neverentirely inefficacious, and which has left a most sensible, and forthe most part a highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings ofall subsequent times. The chivalrous ideal is the acme of the influence of women'ssentiments on the moral cultivation of mankind: and if women are toremain in their subordinate situation, it were greatly to be lamentedthat the chivalrous standard should have passed away, for it is theonly one at all capable of mitigating the demoralizing influences ofthat position. But the changes in the general state of the speciesrendered inevitable the substitution of a totally different ideal ofmorality for the chivalrous one. Chivalry was the attempt to infusemoral elements into a state of society in which everything dependedfor good or evil on individual prowess, under the softeninginfluences of individual delicacy and generosity. In modernsocieties, all things, even in the military department of affairs, are decided, not by individual effort, but by the combined operationsof numbers; while the main occupation of society has changed fromfighting to business, from military to industrial life. Theexigencies of the new life are no more exclusive of the virtues ofgenerosity than those of the old, but it no longer entirely dependson them. The main foundations of the moral life of modern times mustbe justice and prudence; the respect of each for the rights of everyother, and the ability of each to take care of himself. Chivalry leftwithout legal check all forms of wrong which reigned unpunishedthroughout society; it only encouraged a few to do right inpreference to wrong, by the direction it gave to the instruments ofpraise and admiration. But the real dependence of morality mustalways be upon its penal sanctions--its power to deter from evil. Thesecurity of society cannot rest on merely rendering honour to right, a motive so comparatively weak in all but a few, and which on verymany does not operate at all. Modern society is able to repress wrongthrough all departments of life, by a fit exertion of the superiorstrength which civilization has given it, and thus to render theexistence of the weaker members of society (no longer defenceless butprotected by law) tolerable to them, without reliance on thechivalrous feelings of those who are in a position to tyrannize. Thebeauties and graces of the chivalrous character are still what theywere, but the rights of the weak, and the general comfort of humanlife, now rest on a far surer and steadier support; or rather, theydo so in every relation of life except the conjugal. At present the moral influence of women is no less real, but it is nolonger of so marked and definite a character: it has more nearlymerged in the general influence of public opinion. Both through thecontagion of sympathy, and through the desire of men to shine in theeyes of women, their feelings have great effect in keeping alive whatremains of the chivalrous ideal--in fostering the sentiments andcontinuing the traditions of spirit and generosity. In these pointsof character, their standard is higher than that of men; in thequality of justice, somewhat lower. As regards the relations ofprivate life it may be said generally, that their influence is, onthe whole, encouraging to the softer virtues, discouraging to thesterner: though the statement must be taken with all themodifications dependent on individual character. In the chief of thegreater trials to which virtue is subject in the concerns oflife--the conflict between interest and principle--the tendency ofwomen's influence is of a very mixed character. When the principleinvolved happens to be one of the very few which the course of theirreligious or moral education has strongly impressed upon themselves, they are potent auxiliaries to virtue: and their husbands and sonsare often prompted by them to acts of abnegation which they neverwould have been capable of without that stimulus. But, with thepresent education and position of women, the moral principles whichhave been impressed on them cover but a comparatively small part ofthe field of virtue, and are, moreover, principally negative;forbidding particular acts, but having little to do with the generaldirection of the thoughts and purposes. I am afraid it must be said, that disinterestedness in the general conduct of life--the devotionof the energies to purposes which hold out no promise of privateadvantages to the family--is very seldom encouraged or supported bywomen's influence. It is small blame to them that they discourageobjects of which they have not learnt to see the advantage, and whichwithdraw their men from them, and from the interests of the family. But the consequence is that women's influence is often anything butfavourable to public virtue. Women have, however, some share of influence in giving the tone topublic moralities since their sphere of action has been a littlewidened, and since a considerable number of them have occupiedthemselves practically in the promotion of objects reaching beyondtheir own family and household. The influence of women counts for agreat deal in two of the most marked features of modern Europeanlife--its aversion to war, and its addiction to philanthropy. Excellent characteristics both; but unhappily, if the influence ofwomen is valuable in the encouragement it gives to these feelings ingeneral, in the particular applications the direction it gives tothem is at least as often mischievous as useful. In the philanthropicdepartment more particularly, the two provinces chiefly cultivated bywomen are religious proselytism and charity. Religious proselytism athome, is but another word for embittering of religious animosities:abroad, it is usually a blind running at an object, without eitherknowing or heeding the fatal mischiefs--fatal to the religious objectitself as well as to all other desirable objects--which may beproduced by the means employed. As for charity, it is a matter inwhich the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and theultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at completewar with one another: while the education given to women--aneducation of the sentiments rather than of the understanding--and thehabit inculcated by their whole life, of looking to immediate effectson persons, and not to remote effects on classes of persons--makethem both unable to see, and unwilling to admit, the ultimate eviltendency of any form of charity or philanthropy which commends itselfto their sympathetic feelings. The great and continually increasingmass of unenlightened and shortsighted benevolence, which, taking thecare of people's lives out of their own hands, and relieving themfrom the disagreeable consequences of their own acts, saps the veryfoundations of the self-respect, self-help, and self-control whichare the essential conditions both of individual prosperity and ofsocial virtue--this waste of resources and of benevolent feelings indoing harm instead of good, is immensely swelled by women'scontributions, and stimulated by their influence. Not that this is amistake likely to be made by women, where they have actually thepractical management of schemes of beneficence. It sometimes happensthat women who administer public charities--with that insight intopresent fact, and especially into the minds and feelings of thosewith whom they are in immediate contact, in which women generallyexcel men--recognise in the clearest manner the demoralizinginfluence of the alms given or the help afforded, and could givelessons on the subject to many a male political economist. But womenwho only give their money, and are not brought face to face with theeffects it produces, how can they be expected to foresee them? Awoman born to the present lot of women, and content with it, howshould she appreciate the value of self-dependence? She is notself-dependent; she is not taught self-dependence; her destiny is toreceive everything from others, and why should what is good enoughfor her be bad for the poor? Her familiar notions of good are ofblessings descending from a superior. She forgets that she is notfree, and that the poor are; that if what they need is given to themunearned, they cannot be compelled to earn it: that everybody cannotbe taken care of by everybody, but there must be some motive toinduce people to take care of themselves; and that to be helped tohelp themselves, if they are physically capable of it, is the onlycharity which proves to be charity in the end. These considerations show how usefully the part which women take inthe formation of general opinion, would be modified for the better bythat more enlarged instruction, and practical conversancy with thethings which their opinions influence, that would necessarily arisefrom their social and political emancipation. But the improvement itwould work through the influence they exercise, each in her ownfamily, would be still more remarkable. It is often said that in the classes most exposed to temptation, aman's wife and children tend to keep him honest and respectable, bothby the wife's direct influence, and by the concern he feels for theirfuture welfare. This may be so, and no doubt often is so, with thosewho are more weak than wicked; and this beneficial influence would bepreserved and strengthened under equal laws; it does not depend onthe woman's servitude, but is, on the contrary, diminished by thedisrespect which the inferior class of men always at heart feeltowards those who are subject to their power. But when we ascendhigher in the scale, we come among a totally different set of movingforces. The wife's influence tends, as far as it goes, to prevent thehusband from falling below the common standard of approbation of thecountry. It tends quite as strongly to hinder him from rising aboveit. The wife is the auxiliary of the common public opinion. A man whois married to a woman his inferior in intelligence, finds her aperpetual dead weight, or, worse than a dead weight, a drag, uponevery aspiration of his to be better than public opinion requires himto be. It is hardly possible for one who is in these bonds, to attainexalted virtue. If he differs in his opinion from the mass--if hesees truths which have not yet dawned upon them, or if, feeling inhis heart truths which they nominally recognise, he would like to actup to those truths more conscientiously than the generality ofmankind--to all such thoughts and desires, marriage is the heaviestof drawbacks, unless he be so fortunate as to have a wife as muchabove the common level as he himself is. For, in the first place, there is always some sacrifice of personalinterest required; either of social consequence, or of pecuniarymeans; perhaps the risk of even the means of subsistence. Thesesacrifices and risks he may be willing to encounter for himself; buthe will pause before he imposes them on his family. And his family inthis case means his wife and daughters; for he always hopes that hissons will feel as he feels himself, and that what he can do without, they will do without, willingly, in the same cause. But hisdaughters--their marriage may depend upon it: and his wife, who isunable to enter into or understand the objects for which thesesacrifices are made--who, if she thought them worth any sacrifice, would think so on trust, and solely for his sake--who can participatein none of the enthusiasm or the self-approbation he himself mayfeel, while the things which he is disposed to sacrifice are all inall to her; will not the best and most unselfish man hesitate thelongest before bringing on her this consequence? If it be not thecomforts of life, but only social consideration, that is at stake, the burthen upon his conscience and feelings is still very severe. Whoever has a wife and children has given hostages to Mrs. Grundy. The approbation of that potentate may be a matter of indifference tohim, but it is of great importance to his wife. The man himself maybe above opinion, or may find sufficient compensation in the opinionof those of his own way of thinking. But to the women connected withhim, he can offer no compensation. The almost invariable tendency ofthe wife to place her influence in the same scale with socialconsideration, is sometimes made a reproach to women, and representedas a peculiar trait of feebleness and childishness of character inthem: surely with great injustice. Society makes the whole life of awoman, in the easy classes, a continued self-sacrifice; it exactsfrom her an unremitting restraint of the whole of her naturalinclinations, and the sole return it makes to her for what oftendeserves the name of a martyrdom, is consideration. Her considerationis inseparably connected with that of her husband, and after payingthe full price for it, she finds that she is to lose it, for noreason of which she can feel the cogency. She has sacrificed herwhole life to it, and her husband will not sacrifice to it a whim, afreak, an eccentricity; something not recognised or allowed for bythe world, and which the world will agree with her in thinking afolly, if it thinks no worse! The dilemma is hardest upon that verymeritorious class of men, who, without possessing talents whichqualify them to make a figure among those with whom they agree inopinion, hold their opinion from conviction, and feel bound in honourand conscience to serve it, by making profession of their belief, andgiving their time, labour, and means, to anything undertaken in itsbehalf. The worst case of all is when such men happen to be of a rankand position which of itself neither gives them, nor excludes themfrom, what is considered the best society; when their admission to itdepends mainly on what is thought of them personally--and howeverunexceptionable their breeding and habits, their being identifiedwith opinions and public conduct unacceptable to those who give thetone to society would operate as an effectual exclusion. Many a womanflatters herself (nine times out of ten quite erroneously) thatnothing prevents her and her husband from moving in the highestsociety of her neighbourhood--society in which others well known toher, and in the same class of life, mix freely--except that herhusband is unfortunately a Dissenter, or has the reputation ofmingling in low radical politics. That it is, she thinks, whichhinders George from getting a commission or a place, Caroline frommaking an advantageous match, and prevents her and her husband fromobtaining invitations, perhaps honours, which, for aught she sees, they are as well entitled to as some folks. With such an influence inevery house, either exerted actively, or operating all the morepowerfully for not being asserted, is it any wonder that people ingeneral are kept down in that mediocrity of respectability which isbecoming a marked characteristic of modern times? There is another very injurious aspect in which the effect, not ofwomen's disabilities directly, but of the broad line of differencewhich those disabilities create between the education and characterof a woman and that of a man, requires to be considered. Nothing canbe more unfavourable to that union of thoughts and inclinations whichis the ideal of married life. Intimate society between peopleradically dissimilar to one another, is an idle dream. Unlikeness mayattract, but it is likeness which retains; and in proportion to thelikeness is the suitability of the individuals to give each other ahappy life. While women are so unlike men, it is not wonderful thatselfish men should feel the need of arbitrary power in their ownhands, to arrest _in limine_ the life-long conflict of inclinations, by deciding every question on the side of their own preference. Whenpeople are extremely unlike, there can be no real identity ofinterest. Very often there is conscientious difference of opinionbetween married people, on the highest points of duty. Is there anyreality in the marriage union where this takes place? Yet it is notuncommon anywhere, when the woman has any earnestness of character;and it is a very general case indeed in Catholic countries, when sheis supported in her dissent by the only other authority to which sheis taught to bow, the priest. With the usual barefacedness of powernot accustomed to find itself disputed, the influence of priests overwomen is attacked by Protestant and Liberal writers, less for beingbad in itself, than because it is a rival authority to the husband, and raises up a revolt against his infallibility. In England, similardifferences occasionally exist when an Evangelical wife has alliedherself with a husband of a different quality; but in general thissource at least of dissension is got rid of, by reducing the minds ofwomen to such a nullity, that they have no opinions but those of Mrs. Grundy, or those which the husband tells them to have. When there isno difference of opinion, differences merely of taste may besufficient to detract greatly from the happiness of married life. Andthough it may stimulate the amatory propensities of men, it does notconduce to married happiness, to exaggerate by differences ofeducation whatever may be the native differences of the sexes. If themarried pair are well-bred and well-behaved people, they tolerateeach other's tastes; but is mutual toleration what people lookforward to, when they enter into marriage? These differences ofinclination will naturally make their wishes different, if notrestrained by affection or duty, as to almost all domestic questionswhich arise. What a difference there must be in the society which thetwo persons will wish to frequent, or be frequented by! Each willdesire associates who share their own tastes: the persons agreeableto one, will be indifferent or positively disagreeable to the other;yet there can be none who are not common to both, for married peopledo not now live in different parts of the house and have totallydifferent visiting lists, as in the reign of Louis XV. They cannothelp having different wishes as to the bringing up of the children:each will wish to see reproduced in them their own tastes andsentiments: and there is either a compromise, and only ahalf-satisfaction to either, or the wife has to yield--often withbitter suffering; and, with or without intention, her occultinfluence continues to counterwork the husband's purposes. It would of course be extreme folly to suppose that these differencesof feeling and inclination only exist because women are brought updifferently from men, and that there would not be differences oftaste under any imaginable circumstances. But there is nothing beyondthe mark in saying that the distinction in bringing-up immenselyaggravates those differences, and renders them wholly inevitable. While women are brought up as they are, a man and a woman will butrarely find in one another real agreement of tastes and wishes as todaily life. They will generally have to give it up as hopeless, andrenounce the attempt to have, in the intimate associate of theirdaily life, that _idem velle, idem nolle_, which is the recognisedbond of any society that is really such: or if the man succeeds inobtaining it, he does so by choosing a woman who is so complete anullity that she has no _velle_ or _nolle_ at all, and is as ready tocomply with one thing as another if anybody tells her to do so. Eventhis calculation is apt to fail; dulness and want of spirit are notalways a guarantee of the submission which is so confidently expectedfrom them. But if they were, is this the ideal of marriage? What, inthis case, does the man obtain by it, except an upper servant, anurse, or a mistress? On the contrary, when each of two persons, instead of being a nothing, is a something; when they are attached toone another, and are not too much unlike to begin with; the constantpartaking in the same things, assisted by their sympathy, draws outthe latent capacities of each for being interested in the thingswhich were at first interesting only to the other; and works agradual assimilation of the tastes and characters to one another, partly by the insensible modification of each, but more by a realenriching of the two natures, each acquiring the tastes andcapacities of the other in addition to its own. This often happensbetween two friends of the same sex, who are much associated in theirdaily life: and it would be a common, if not the commonest, case inmarriage, did not the totally different bringing-up of the two sexesmake it next to an impossibility to form a really well-assortedunion. Were this remedied, whatever differences there might still bein individual tastes, there would at least be, as a general rule, complete unity and unanimity as to the great objects of life. Whenthe two persons both care for great objects, and are a help andencouragement to each other in whatever regards these, the minormatters on which their tastes may differ are not all-important tothem; and there is a foundation for solid friendship, of an enduringcharacter, more likely than anything else to make it, through thewhole of life, a greater pleasure to each to give pleasure to theother, than to receive it. I have considered, thus far, the effects on the pleasures andbenefits of the marriage union which depend on the mere unlikenessbetween the wife and the husband: but the evil tendency isprodigiously aggravated when the unlikeness is inferiority. Mereunlikeness, when it only means difference of good qualities, may bemore a benefit in the way of mutual improvement, than a drawback fromcomfort. When each emulates, and desires and endeavours to acquire, the other's peculiar qualities, the difference does not producediversity of interest, but increased identity of it, and makes eachstill more valuable to the other. But when one is much the inferiorof the two in mental ability and cultivation, and is not activelyattempting by the other's aid to rise to the other's level, the wholeinfluence of the connexion upon the development of the superior ofthe two is deteriorating: and still more so in a tolerably happymarriage than in an unhappy one. It is not with impunity that thesuperior in intellect shuts himself up with an inferior, and electsthat inferior for his chosen, and sole completely intimate, associate. Any society which is not improving, is deteriorating: andthe more so, the closer and more familiar it is. Even a reallysuperior man almost always begins to deteriorate when he ishabitually (as the phrase is) king of his company: and in his mosthabitual company the husband who has a wife inferior to him is alwaysso. While his self-satisfaction is incessantly ministered to on theone hand, on the other he insensibly imbibes the modes of feeling, and of looking at things, which belong to a more vulgar or a morelimited mind than his own. This evil differs from many of those whichhave hitherto been dwelt on, by being an increasing one. Theassociation of men with women in daily life is much closer and morecomplete than it ever was before. Men's life is more domestic. Formerly, their pleasures and chosen occupations were among men, andin men's company: their wives had but a fragment of their lives. Atthe present time, the progress of civilization, and the turn ofopinion against the rough amusements and convivial excesses whichformerly occupied most men in their hours of relaxation--togetherwith (it must be said) the improved tone of modern feeling as to thereciprocity of duty which binds the husband towards the wife--havethrown the man very much more upon home and its inmates, for hispersonal and social pleasures: while the kind and degree ofimprovement which has been made in women's education, has made themin some degree capable of being his companions in ideas and mentaltastes, while leaving them, in most cases, still hopelessly inferiorto him. His desire of mental communion is thus in general satisfiedby a communion from which he learns nothing. An unimproving andunstimulating companionship is substituted for (what he mightotherwise have been obliged to seek) the society of his equals inpowers and his fellows in the higher pursuits. We see, accordingly, that young men of the greatest promise generally cease to improve assoon as they marry, and, not improving, inevitably degenerate. If thewife does not push the husband forward, she always holds him back. Heceases to care for what she does not care for; he no longer desires, and ends by disliking and shunning, society congenial to his formeraspirations, and which would now shame his falling-off from them; hishigher faculties both of mind and heart cease to be called intoactivity. And this change coinciding with the new and selfishinterests which are created by the family, after a few years hediffers in no material respect from those who have never had wishesfor anything but the common vanities and the common pecuniaryobjects. What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivatedfaculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom thereexists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers andcapacities with reciprocal superiority in them--so that each canenjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternatelythe pleasure of leading and of being led in the path ofdevelopment--I will not attempt to describe. To those who canconceive it, there is no need; to those who cannot, it would appearthe dream of an enthusiast. But I maintain, with the profoundestconviction, that this, and this only, is the ideal of marriage; andthat all opinions, customs, and institutions which favour any othernotion of it, or turn the conceptions and aspirations connected withit into any other direction, by whatever pretences they may becoloured, are relics of primitive barbarism. The moral regenerationof mankind will only really commence, when the most fundamental ofthe social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice, andwhen human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with anequal in rights and in cultivation. Thus far, the benefits which it has appeared that the world wouldgain by ceasing to make sex a disqualification for privileges and abadge of subjection, are social rather than individual; consisting inan increase of the general fund of thinking and acting power, and animprovement in the general conditions of the association of men withwomen. But it would be a grievous understatement of the case to omitthe most direct benefit of all, the unspeakable gain in privatehappiness to the liberated half of the species; the difference tothem between a life of subjection to the will of others, and a lifeof rational freedom. After the primary necessities of food andraiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature. While mankind are lawless, their desire is for lawless freedom. Whenthey have learnt to understand the meaning of duty and the value ofreason, they incline more and more to be guided and restrained bythese in the exercise of their freedom; but they do not thereforedesire freedom less; they do not become disposed to accept the willof other people as the representative and interpreter of thoseguiding principles. On the contrary, the communities in which thereason has been most cultivated, and in which the idea of social dutyhas been most powerful, are those which have most strongly assertedthe freedom of action of the individual--the liberty of each togovern his conduct by his own feelings of duty, and by such laws andsocial restraints as his own conscience can subscribe to. He who would rightly appreciate the worth of personal independence asan element of happiness, should consider the value he himself putsupon it as an ingredient of his own. There is no subject on whichthere is a greater habitual difference of judgment between a manjudging for himself, and the same man judging for other people. Whenhe hears others complaining that they are not allowed freedom ofaction--that their own will has not sufficient influence in theregulation of their affairs--his inclination is, to ask, what aretheir grievances? what positive damage they sustain? and in whatrespect they consider their affairs to be mismanaged? and if theyfail to make out, in answer to these questions, what appears to him asufficient case, he turns a deaf ear, and regards their complaint asthe fanciful querulousness of people whom nothing reasonable willsatisfy. But he has a quite different standard of judgment when he isdeciding for himself. Then, the most unexceptionable administrationof his interests by a tutor set over him, does not satisfy hisfeelings: his personal exclusion from the deciding authority appearsitself the greatest grievance of all, rendering it superfluous evento enter into the question of mismanagement. It is the same withnations. What citizen of a free country would listen to any offers ofgood and skilful administration, in return for the abdication offreedom? Even if he could believe that good and skilfuladministration can exist among a people ruled by a will not theirown, would not the consciousness of working out their own destinyunder their own moral responsibility be a compensation to hisfeelings for great rudeness and imperfection in the details of publicaffairs? Let him rest assured that whatever he feels on this point, women feel in a fully equal degree. Whatever has been said orwritten, from the time of Herodotus to the present, of the ennoblinginfluence of free government--the nerve and spring which it gives toall the faculties, the larger and higher objects which it presents tothe intellect and feelings, the more unselfish public spirit, andcalmer and broader views of duty, that it engenders, and thegenerally loftier platform on which it elevates the individual as amoral, spiritual, and social being--is every particle as true ofwomen as of men. Are these things no important part of individualhappiness? Let any man call to mind what he himself felt on emergingfrom boyhood--from the tutelage and control of even loved andaffectionate elders--and entering upon the responsibilities ofmanhood. Was it not like the physical effect of taking off a heavyweight, or releasing him from obstructive, even if not otherwisepainful, bonds? Did he not feel twice as much alive, twice as much ahuman being, as before? And does he imagine that women have none ofthese feelings? But it is a striking fact, that the satisfactions andmortifications of personal pride, though all in all to most men whenthe case is their own, have less allowance made for them in the caseof other people, and are less listened to as a ground or ajustification of conduct, than any other natural human feelings;perhaps because men compliment them in their own case with the namesof so many other qualities, that they are seldom conscious how mightyan influence these feelings exercise in their own lives. No lesslarge and powerful is their part, we may assure ourselves, in thelives and feelings of women. Women are schooled into suppressing themin their most natural and most healthy direction, but the internalprinciple remains, in a different outward form. An active andenergetic mind, if denied liberty, will seek for power: refused thecommand of itself, it will assert its personality by attempting tocontrol others. To allow to any human beings no existence of theirown but what depends on others, is giving far too high a premium onbending others to their purposes. Where liberty cannot be hoped for, and power can, power becomes the grand object of human desire; thoseto whom others will not leave the undisturbed management of their ownaffairs, will compensate themselves, if they can, by meddling fortheir own purposes with the affairs of others. Hence also women'spassion for personal beauty, and dress and display; and all the evilsthat flow from it, in the way of mischievous luxury and socialimmorality. The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternalantagonism. Where there is least liberty, the passion for power isthe most ardent and unscrupulous. The desire of power over others canonly cease to be a depraving agency among mankind, when each of themindividually is able to do without it: which can only be whererespect for liberty in the personal concerns of each is anestablished principle. But it is not only through the sentiment of personal dignity, thatthe free direction and disposal of their own faculties is a source ofindividual happiness, and to be fettered and restricted in it, asource of unhappiness, to human beings, and not least to women. Thereis nothing, after disease, indigence, and guilt, so fatal to thepleasurable enjoyment of life as the want of a worthy outlet for theactive faculties. Women who have the cares of a family, and whilethey have the cares of a family, have this outlet, and it generallysuffices for them: but what of the greatly increasing number ofwomen, who have had no opportunity of exercising the vocation whichthey are mocked by telling them is their proper one? What of thewomen whose children have been lost to them by death or distance, orhave grown up, married, and formed homes of their own? There areabundant examples of men who, after a life engrossed by business, retire with a competency to the enjoyment, as they hope, of rest, butto whom, as they are unable to acquire new interests and excitementsthat can replace the old, the change to a life of inactivity bringsennui, melancholy, and premature death. Yet no one thinks of theparallel case of so many worthy and devoted women, who, having paidwhat they are told is their debt to society--having brought up afamily blamelessly to manhood and womanhood--having kept a house aslong as they had a house needing to be kept--are deserted by the soleoccupation for which they have fitted themselves; and remain withundiminished activity but with no employment for it, unless perhaps adaughter or daughter-in-law is willing to abdicate in their favourthe discharge of the same functions in her younger household. Surelya hard lot for the old age of those who have worthily discharged, aslong as it was given to them to discharge, what the world accountstheir only social duty. Of such women, and of those others to whomthis duty has not been committed at all--many of whom pine throughlife with the consciousness of thwarted vocations, and activitieswhich are not suffered to expand--the only resources, speakinggenerally, are religion and charity. But their religion, though itmay be one of feeling, and of ceremonial observance, cannot be areligion of action, unless in the form of charity. For charity manyof them are by nature admirably fitted; but to practise it usefully, or even without doing mischief, requires the education, the manifoldpreparation, the knowledge and the thinking powers, of a skilfuladministrator. There are few of the administrative functions ofgovernment for which a person would not be fit, who is fit to bestowcharity usefully. In this as in other cases (pre-eminently in that ofthe education of children), the duties permitted to women cannot beperformed properly, without their being trained for duties which, tothe great loss of society, are not permitted to them. And here let menotice the singular way in which the question of women's disabilitiesis frequently presented to view, by those who find it easier to drawa ludicrous picture of what they do not like, than to answer thearguments for it. When it is suggested that women's executivecapacities and prudent counsels might sometimes be found valuable inaffairs of state, these lovers of fun hold up to the ridicule of theworld, as sitting in parliament or in the cabinet, girls in theirteens, or young wives of two or three and twenty, transported bodily, exactly as they are, from the drawing-room to the House of Commons. They forget that males are not usually selected at this early age fora seat in Parliament, or for responsible political functions. Commonsense would tell them that if such trusts were confided to women, itwould be to such as having no special vocation for married life, orpreferring another employment of their faculties (as many women evennow prefer to marriage some of the few honourable occupations withintheir reach), have spent the best years of their youth in attemptingto qualify themselves for the pursuits in which they desire toengage; or still more frequently perhaps, widows or wives of forty orfifty, by whom the knowledge of life and faculty of government whichthey have acquired in their families, could by the aid of appropriatestudies be made available on a less contracted scale. There is nocountry of Europe in which the ablest men have not frequentlyexperienced, and keenly appreciated, the value of the advice and helpof clever and experienced women of the world, in the attainment bothof private and of public objects; and there are important matters ofpublic administration to which few men are equally competent withsuch women; among others, the detailed control of expenditure. Butwhat we are now discussing is not the need which society has of theservices of women in public business, but the dull and hopeless lifeto which it so often condemns them, by forbidding them to exercisethe practical abilities which many of them are conscious of, in anywider field than one which to some of them never was, and to othersis no longer, open. If there is anything vitally important to thehappiness of human beings, it is that they should relish theirhabitual pursuit. This requisite of an enjoyable life is veryimperfectly granted, or altogether denied, to a large part ofmankind; and by its absence many a life is a failure, which isprovided, in appearance, with every requisite of success. But ifcircumstances which society is not yet skilful enough to overcome, render such failures often for the present inevitable, society neednot itself inflict them. The injudiciousness of parents, a youth'sown inexperience, or the absence of external opportunities for thecongenial vocation, and their presence for an uncongenial, condemnnumbers of men to pass their lives in doing one thing reluctantly andill, when there are other things which they could have done well andhappily. But on women this sentence is imposed by actual law, and bycustoms equivalent to law. What, in unenlightened societies, colour, race, religion, or in the case of a conquered country, nationality, are to some men, sex is to all women; a peremptory exclusion fromalmost all honourable occupations, but either such as cannot befulfilled by others, or such as those others do not think worthy oftheir acceptance. Sufferings arising from causes of this natureusually meet with so little sympathy, that few persons are aware ofthe great amount of unhappiness even now produced by the feeling of awasted life. The case will be even more frequent, as increasedcultivation creates a greater and greater disproportion between theideas and faculties of women, and the scope which society allows totheir activity. When we consider the positive evil caused to the disqualified half ofthe human race by their disqualification--first in the loss of themost inspiriting and elevating kind of personal enjoyment, and nextin the weariness, disappointment, and profound dissatisfaction withlife, which are so often the substitute for it; one feels that amongall the lessons which men require for carrying on the struggleagainst the inevitable imperfections of their lot on earth, there isno lesson which they more need, than not to add to the evils whichnature inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on oneanother. Their vain fears only substitute other and worse evils forthose which they are idly apprehensive of: while every restraint onthe freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow creatures, (otherwise than by making them responsible for any evil actuallycaused by it), dries up _pro tanto_ the principal fountain of humanhappiness, and leaves the species less rich, to an inappreciabledegree, in all that makes life valuable to the individual humanbeing. THE END.