Latest / Non-Fiction Library / The Subjection of Women - John Stuart Mill
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- 0:00Speaker 1: The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill, Chapter one,
- 0:05Speaker 1: Part one. The object of the saysay is to explain
- 0:10Speaker 1: as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion
- 0:13Speaker 1: which I have held from the very earliest period when
- 0:16Speaker 1: I had formed any opinions at all on social political matters,
- 0:20Speaker 1: and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been
- 0:24Speaker 1: constantly growing stronger by the progress, reflection, and the experience
- 0:29Speaker 1: of life. That the principle which regulates the existing social
- 0:33Speaker 1: relations between the two sexes, the legal subordination of one
- 0:38Speaker 1: sex to the other, is wrong itself, and now one
- 0:41Speaker 1: of the chief hindrances to human improvement, and that it
- 0:44Speaker 1: ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality,
- 0:48Speaker 1: admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor
- 0:51Speaker 1: disability on the other. The very words necessary to express
- 0:57Speaker 1: the task I have undertaken show how arduous it is.
- 1:00Speaker 1: But it would be a mistake to suppose that the
- 1:02Speaker 1: difficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency or
- 1:06Speaker 1: obscurity of the grounds of reason on which my convictions.
- 1:10Speaker 1: The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in
- 1:13Speaker 1: which there is a massive feeling to be contended against,
- 1:18Speaker 1: so long as opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings.
- 1:22Speaker 1: It gains rather than loses, instability, by having a preponderating
- 1:27Speaker 1: weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted
- 1:32Speaker 1: as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument
- 1:35Speaker 1: might shake the solidity of the conviction. But when it
- 1:38Speaker 1: rests solely on feeling, worse it fares in argumentative contest.
- 1:43Speaker 1: The more persuaded adherents are that their feeling must have
- 1:47Speaker 1: some deeper ground which the arguments do not reach. And
- 1:52Speaker 1: while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh
- 1:57Speaker 1: entrenchments of argument to repair any each made in the old.
- 2:02Speaker 1: And there are so many causes tending to make the
- 2:04Speaker 1: feelings connected with this subject the most intense and most
- 2:08Speaker 1: deeply rooted of those which gather around and protect old
- 2:11Speaker 1: institutions and custom, that we need not wonder to find
- 2:16Speaker 1: them as yet less undetermined and loosened than any of
- 2:19Speaker 1: the rest by the progress the great modern spiritual and
- 2:23Speaker 1: social transition. Nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men
- 2:27Speaker 1: cling longest must be less barbarisms than those which they
- 2:31Speaker 1: earlier shake off. In every respect, the Burthen is hard
- 2:37Speaker 1: on those who attack an almost universal opinion. They must
- 2:40Speaker 1: be very fortunate well as unusually capable. If they obtain
- 2:45Speaker 1: a hearing at all, they have more difficulty in obtaining
- 2:48Speaker 1: a trial than any other litigants have in getting a verdict.
- 2:53Speaker 1: If they do extort a hearing, they are subjective to
- 2:56Speaker 1: a set of logical requirements totally different from those exacted
- 3:00Speaker 1: from other people. In all other cases. Burthen of proof
- 3:05Speaker 1: is supposed to lie with the affirmative. If a person
- 3:08Speaker 1: is charged with the murder, it rests with those who
- 3:11Speaker 1: accuse him to give proof of his guilt, not with
- 3:14Speaker 1: him to prove his innocence. If there is a difference
- 3:18Speaker 1: of opinion about the reality of an alleged historical event
- 3:22Speaker 1: in which the feelings of men general are not much interested,
- 3:26Speaker 1: as the Siege of Troy, example, those who maintain that
- 3:30Speaker 1: the event took place expected to produce their proofs before
- 3:35Speaker 1: those who take the other side can be required to
- 3:37Speaker 1: say anything, and at no time these required to do
- 3:41Speaker 1: more than show that the evidence produced by the others
- 3:44Speaker 1: is of no value. Again, in practical matters, the burden
- 3:50Speaker 1: proof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty,
- 3:54Speaker 1: who contend for any restriction or prohibition, either any limitation
- 3:59Speaker 1: of the general freedom of human action, or any disqualification
- 4:03Speaker 1: or disparity of privilege affecting one person or kind of
- 4:07Speaker 1: persons as compared with others. The a priori presumption is
- 4:12Speaker 1: in favor of freedom and impartiality. It is held that
- 4:16Speaker 1: there should be no restreinth not required by the general goods,
- 4:19Speaker 1: and that the law should be no respector of persons,
- 4:22Speaker 1: but to treat all alike, save where the similarity of
- 4:25Speaker 1: treatment is required by positive reasons, either of justice or
- 4:30Speaker 1: of policy. But if none of these rules of evidence,
- 4:33Speaker 1: will the benefit be allowed to those who maintain the
- 4:35Speaker 1: opinion I profess. It is useless of me to say
- 4:41Speaker 1: that those who maintain the doctrine that men have a
- 4:43Speaker 1: right to command and women are under an obligation to obey,
- 4:47Speaker 1: or that men are fit for government and women unfit
- 4:49Speaker 1: on the affirmative side of the question, and that they
- 4:52Speaker 1: are bound to show positive evidence for the assertions or
- 4:55Speaker 1: submit to their rejection. It is equally unavailable to say
- 5:01Speaker 1: that those who denied that women any freedom or privilege
- 5:05Speaker 1: rightly allowed to men, having the double presumption against them
- 5:09Speaker 1: that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, must be
- 5:14Speaker 1: held to the strictest proof of their case, and unless
- 5:18Speaker 1: their success be such as to exclude all doubt, the
- 5:21Speaker 1: judgment ought to be against them. This would be thought
- 5:28Speaker 1: good please in any common case, but they will not
- 5:31Speaker 1: be thought so in this instance. Before I could hope
- 5:34Speaker 1: to make any impression, I should be expected not only
- 5:38Speaker 1: to answer all that has ever been said by those
- 5:41Speaker 1: who take the other side of the question, but to
- 5:43Speaker 1: imagine that could be said by them, define them in
- 5:47Speaker 1: reasons as I as answer all I find, And besides
- 5:51Speaker 1: refuting all arguments for the affirmative, I shall be called
- 5:54Speaker 1: upon for invincible positive arguments to prove a negative. And
- 5:58Speaker 1: even if I could do and leave the opposite party
- 6:01Speaker 1: with the host of unanswered arguments against them and not
- 6:05Speaker 1: a single unrefuted one on side, I should be thought
- 6:09Speaker 1: to have done little for a course supported on the
- 6:11Speaker 1: one hand by universal usage, and on the other by
- 6:14Speaker 1: so great a preponderance of popular sentiment is supposed to
- 6:18Speaker 1: have a presumption in its favor superior to any conviction
- 6:23Speaker 1: which an appeal to reason has power to produce. In intellects,
- 6:27Speaker 1: but those of a high class, I do not mention
- 6:32Speaker 1: these difficulties to complain of them first use, it would
- 6:36Speaker 1: be useless. They are inseparable from having to contend through
- 6:41Speaker 1: people's misunderstandings against the hostility their feelings and practical tendencies,
- 6:47Speaker 1: and truly the understandings of the majority of mankind would
- 6:50Speaker 1: need to be much better cultivated than has ever yet
- 6:54Speaker 1: been the case before they be asked to place such
- 6:57Speaker 1: reliance in their own power of estimating arguments, as to
- 7:00Speaker 1: give up practical principles in which have been born and bred,
- 7:04Speaker 1: and which are the basis of much existing order of
- 7:07Speaker 1: the world at the first argumentative attack, which they are
- 7:11Speaker 1: not capable of logically resisting. I do not therefore quarrel
- 7:16Speaker 1: with them for having too little faith in argument, but
- 7:19Speaker 1: for having too much faith in custom and the general feeling.
- 7:24Speaker 1: It is one of the characteristic prejudices of the ion
- 7:28Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth to accord to
- 7:32Speaker 1: the unreasoning elements in human nature, the infallibility which the
- 7:37Speaker 1: eighteenth century is supposed to have ascribed to the reasoning elements.
- 7:43Speaker 1: For the apotheosis of reason, we have substituted that of instinct,
- 7:48Speaker 1: And we call thing instinct, which we find in ourselves,
- 7:52Speaker 1: and for which we cannot trace any rational foundation. This idolatry,
- 7:58Speaker 1: infinitely more degree the other, and the most pernicious of
- 8:02Speaker 1: the false worships of the present day, all of which
- 8:06Speaker 1: it is the main support, will probably hold its ground
- 8:10Speaker 1: until it weigh before a sound psychology laying bear the
- 8:14Speaker 1: real root of much that is bowed down to as
- 8:17Speaker 1: the intention of nature and ordinance of God. As regards
- 8:20Speaker 1: the present question, I'm going to accept the unfavorable conditions
- 8:25Speaker 1: which the prejudice assigns to me. I consent that established
- 8:29Speaker 1: custom and the general feelings should be deemed conclusive against me,
- 8:35Speaker 1: unless that custom and feeling from age to age can
- 8:40Speaker 1: be shown to evode their existence to other causes than
- 8:44Speaker 1: their soundness, and who have derived their power from the
- 8:47Speaker 1: worse rather than the better parts of human nature. I
- 8:50Speaker 1: am willing that judgment should go against me unless I
- 8:53Speaker 1: can show that my judge has been tampered with. The
- 8:57Speaker 1: concession is not so great as it might appear, for
- 9:01Speaker 1: to prove this is by far the easiest portion of
- 9:05Speaker 1: my task. The generality of a practice is in some
- 9:10Speaker 1: cases a strong presumption that it is, or at all events,
- 9:14Speaker 1: once was conducive to laudable ends. This is the case
- 9:19Speaker 1: when the practice was first adopted or afterwards kept up
- 9:23Speaker 1: as a means to such ends, and was grounded on
- 9:26Speaker 1: experience of the mode in which they could be most
- 9:29Speaker 1: effectually attained. If the authority of men over women, when
- 9:34Speaker 1: first established, had been the result of a conscientious comparison
- 9:38Speaker 1: between different modes of constituting the government of society, if
- 9:43Speaker 1: after trying various other modes of social organization, the government
- 9:48Speaker 1: of women over men, equality between the two, and such
- 9:52Speaker 1: mixed and divided modes of government as might be invented,
- 9:55Speaker 1: it had been decided, on the testimony of experience, that
- 9:59Speaker 1: the mode in which we women are wholly under the
- 10:01Speaker 1: rule of men, having no share at all in purplet concerns,
- 10:05Speaker 1: and each in private being under the legal obligation of
- 10:09Speaker 1: obedience to the man with whom she has associated her destiny,
- 10:13Speaker 1: was the arrangement most conducive to the happiness and well
- 10:16Speaker 1: being of both. Its general adoption might then have been
- 10:21Speaker 1: fairly thought to be some evidence that, at the time
- 10:24Speaker 1: when it was adopted, it was the best. Though even
- 10:28Speaker 1: then the considerations which recommended Mey, like so many other
- 10:32Speaker 1: primeval social facts of the greatest importance, have subsequently, in
- 10:37Speaker 1: the course of ages ceased to exist. But the state
- 10:41Speaker 1: of the case is in every respect the reverse of this.
- 10:45Speaker 1: In the first place, the opinion in favor of the
- 10:49Speaker 1: present system, which entirely subordinates the weaker sex to the stronger,
- 10:55Speaker 1: rests upon theory only, for there never has been tried
- 11:00Speaker 1: made of any other, so that experience, in the sense
- 11:04Speaker 1: in which it is vulgarly opposed to theory, cannot be
- 11:08Speaker 1: pretended to have pronounced any verdict. And in the second place,
- 11:13Speaker 1: the adoption of this system of inequality never was the
- 11:17Speaker 1: result of deliberation or forethought of any social ideas, or
- 11:23Speaker 1: any notion whatever of what conduced to the benefit of
- 11:26Speaker 1: humanity or the good order of society. It arose simply
- 11:31Speaker 1: from the fact that from the very earliest twilight of
- 11:34Speaker 1: human society, every woman, owing to the value attached to
- 11:38Speaker 1: her by men, combined with her inferiority and muscular strength,
- 11:44Speaker 1: was found in a state of bondage to some man.
- 11:47Speaker 1: Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognizing the
- 11:52Speaker 1: relations they found already existing between individuals. They convert what
- 11:57Speaker 1: was a mere physical fact into a legal right, give
- 12:01Speaker 1: it the sanction of society, and principally aim at the
- 12:05Speaker 1: substitution of public and organized means of asserting and protecting
- 12:09Speaker 1: these rights. Instead of the irregular and lawless conflict of
- 12:13Speaker 1: physical strength, Those who had already been compelled to obedience became,
- 12:19Speaker 1: in this manner legally bound to it. Slavery, from being
- 12:25Speaker 1: a mere affair of force between the master and the slave,
- 12:29Speaker 1: became regularized and a matter of compact among the masters,
- 12:33Speaker 1: who binding themselves to one another for common protection, guaranteed
- 12:39Speaker 1: by their collective strength the private possessions of each, including
- 12:44Speaker 1: his slaves. In early times, the great majority of the
- 12:50Speaker 1: male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of
- 12:54Speaker 1: the female, and many ages elapsed, some of the mages
- 12:59Speaker 1: of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to
- 13:03Speaker 1: question the rightfulness and the absolute social necessity, either of
- 13:08Speaker 1: the one slavery or of the other. By degrees, such
- 13:13Speaker 1: thinkers did arise, and the general progress of society assisting
- 13:18Speaker 1: the slavery of the male sex has in all the
- 13:22Speaker 1: countries of Christian Europe at least, though in one of
- 13:26Speaker 1: them only within the last few years, been at length abolished,
- 13:31Speaker 1: and that of the female sex has been gradually changed
- 13:35Speaker 1: into a milder form of dependence. But this dependence as
- 13:40Speaker 1: it exists at present, is not an original institution taking
- 13:45Speaker 1: a fresh start from considerations of justice and social expediency.
- 13:51Speaker 1: It is the primitive state of slavery, lasting on through
- 13:55Speaker 1: successive mitigations and modifications occasioned by the same causes, which
- 14:00Speaker 1: have softened the general manners and brought all human relations
- 14:04Speaker 1: more under the control of justice and the influence of humanity.
- 14:08Speaker 1: It has not lost the taint of its brutal origin.
- 14:12Speaker 1: No presumption in its favor, therefore, can be drawn from
- 14:15Speaker 1: the fact of its existence. The only such presumption which
- 14:20Speaker 1: it could be supposed to have must be grounded on
- 14:24Speaker 1: its having lasted till now, when so many other things
- 14:27Speaker 1: which came down from the same odious source have been
- 14:30Speaker 1: done away with. And this, indeed is what makes it
- 14:34Speaker 1: strange to ordinary years to hear it asserted that the
- 14:39Speaker 1: inequality of rights between men and women has no other
- 14:43Speaker 1: source than the law of the strongest. That this statement
- 14:48Speaker 1: should have the effect of a paradox, is in some
- 14:52Speaker 1: respects creditable to the progress of civilization and the improvement
- 14:57Speaker 1: of the moral sentiments of mankind we now live. That
- 15:02Speaker 1: is to say, one or two of the most advanced
- 15:05Speaker 1: nations in the world now live in a state in
- 15:08Speaker 1: which the law the strongest seems to be entirely abandoned.
- 15:14Speaker 1: As the regulating principle of the world's affairs, nobody professes it,
- 15:19Speaker 1: and as regards most of the relations between human beings,
- 15:24Speaker 1: nobody is permitted to practice it. When anyone succeeds in
- 15:28Speaker 1: doing so, it is under cover of some pretext which
- 15:32Speaker 1: gives him the semblance of having some general social interest
- 15:36Speaker 1: on his side. This being the ostensible state of things.
- 15:41Speaker 1: People flatter themselves that the rule of mere force is ended,
- 15:46Speaker 1: that the law of the strongest cannot be the reason
- 15:48Speaker 1: of existence of anything which has remained in full operation
- 15:51Speaker 1: down to the present time. However any of our present
- 15:55Speaker 1: institutions may have begun, it can only, they think, have
- 16:00Speaker 1: been preserved to this period of advanced civilization by a
- 16:04Speaker 1: well grounded feeling of its adaptation to human nature and
- 16:09Speaker 1: conduciveness to the greater good. They do not understand the
- 16:13Speaker 1: great vitality and durability of institutions which place right on
- 16:19Speaker 1: the side of might, how intensely they are clung to,
- 16:23Speaker 1: how their good as well as the bad propensities and
- 16:25Speaker 1: sentiments of those who have power in their hands become
- 16:29Speaker 1: identified with retaining it. How slowly these bad institutions give way,
- 16:35Speaker 1: one at a time, the weakest, first, beginning with those
- 16:39Speaker 1: which are leased into woven with the daily habits of life.
- 16:43Speaker 1: And how very rarely those who have obtained legal power
- 16:47Speaker 1: because they first had physical have ever lost their hold
- 16:51Speaker 1: of it until the physical power had passed over to
- 16:53Speaker 1: the other side, such shifting of the physical force not
- 16:58Speaker 1: having taken place in the case of women. This fact,
- 17:03Speaker 1: combined with all the peculiar and characteristic features of the
- 17:07Speaker 1: particular case, made it certain from the first that this
- 17:11Speaker 1: branch of the system of right founded on might, though
- 17:15Speaker 1: softened in its most atrocious features at an earlier period
- 17:19Speaker 1: than several of the others, would be the very last
- 17:23Speaker 1: to disappear. It was inevitable that this one case of
- 17:27Speaker 1: a social relation grounded on force would survive through generations
- 17:33Speaker 1: of institutions grounded on equal justice, an almost solitary exception
- 17:38Speaker 1: to the general character of their laws and customs, but which,
- 17:42Speaker 1: so long as it does not proclaim its own origin
- 17:45Speaker 1: and its discussion has not brought out its true character,
- 17:49Speaker 1: is not felt to jar with modern civilization any more
- 17:54Speaker 1: than domestic slavery amongst the Greeks, jarred with their notion
- 17:58Speaker 1: of themselves as a people. The truth is that people
- 18:03Speaker 1: of the present, in the last two or three generations,
- 18:06Speaker 1: have lost all practical sense of the primitive condition of humanity,
- 18:11Speaker 1: and only the few who have studied history accurately or
- 18:14Speaker 1: have much frequented the parts of the world occupied by
- 18:18Speaker 1: the living representatives of ages long past, are able to
- 18:21Speaker 1: form any mental picture of what society then was. People
- 18:27Speaker 1: are not aware how entirely in former ages the law
- 18:31Speaker 1: of superior strength was the rule of life, how publicly
- 18:35Speaker 1: and openly it was avowed. I do not say cynically
- 18:39Speaker 1: or shamelessly, for these words imply a feeling that there
- 18:43Speaker 1: was something in it to be ashamed of, and no
- 18:46Speaker 1: such notion could have found a place in the faculties
- 18:49Speaker 1: of any person of those ages, except a philosopher or
- 18:53Speaker 1: a saint. History gives a cruel experience of human nature
- 18:58Speaker 1: in showing how exactly the regard due to the life, possessions,
- 19:03Speaker 1: and entire earthly happiness of any class of persons was
- 19:07Speaker 1: measured by what they had the power of enforcing. How
- 19:12Speaker 1: all who made any resistance to authorities that had arms
- 19:16Speaker 1: in their hands, however dreadful might be. The provocation had
- 19:20Speaker 1: not only the law of force, but all other laws
- 19:22Speaker 1: and all the notions of social obligation against them, and
- 19:27Speaker 1: in the eyes of those whom they resisted, were not
- 19:30Speaker 1: only guilty of crime, but of the worst of all crimes,
- 19:34Speaker 1: deserving the most cruel chastisement which human beings could inflict.
- 19:40Speaker 1: The first small vestige of feeling of obligation in a
- 19:44Speaker 1: superior to acknowledge any right in inferiors began when he
- 19:50Speaker 1: had been induced for convenience to make some promise to them.
- 19:56Speaker 1: Through these promises, even when sanctioned by the most solemn oath,
- 20:00Speaker 1: were from many ages, revoked or violated on the most
- 20:03Speaker 1: trifling provocation or temptation. It is probably that this, except
- 20:08Speaker 1: by persons of still worse than the average morality, was
- 20:12Speaker 1: seldom done without some twinges of conscience, the ancient republics
- 20:17Speaker 1: being mostly grounded from the first upon some kind of
- 20:20Speaker 1: mutual compact, or at any rate, formed by a union
- 20:23Speaker 1: of persons not very unequal in strength, afforded in consequence
- 20:29Speaker 1: the first instance of a portion of human relations fenced
- 20:32Speaker 1: round and placed under the dominion of another law than
- 20:36Speaker 1: that of force, And though the original law of force
- 20:40Speaker 1: remained in full operation between them and their slaves, and also,
- 20:45Speaker 1: except so far as limited by express compact between a
- 20:49Speaker 1: commonwealth and its subject or other independent commonwealths, the banishment
- 20:55Speaker 1: of that primitive law, even from so narrow a field,
- 20:59Speaker 1: commenced the regeneration of human nature, by giving birth to
- 21:03Speaker 1: sentiments of which experience soon demonstrated the immense value even
- 21:08Speaker 1: for material interests, and which thenceforward only required to be enlarged,
- 21:14Speaker 1: not created. Those slaves were no part of the commonwealth.
- 21:20Speaker 1: It was in the Free States that slaves were first
- 21:23Speaker 1: felt to have rights as human beings. The Stoics were,
- 21:28Speaker 1: I believe, the first, except so far as the Jewish
- 21:32Speaker 1: law constitutes an exception, who taught as a part of
- 21:35Speaker 1: morality that men were bound by moral obligation to their slaves.
- 21:41Speaker 1: No one, after Christianity became ascendant, could ever again have
- 21:46Speaker 1: been a stranger to this belief in theory, Nor after
- 21:50Speaker 1: the rise of the Catholic Church, was it ever without
- 21:53Speaker 1: persons to stand up for it, yet to enforce it.
- 21:57Speaker 1: Was the most arduous task which Christianity ever had to perform.
- 22:02Speaker 1: For more than a thousand years, the Church kept up
- 22:05Speaker 1: the contest with hardly any perceptible success. It was not
- 22:10Speaker 1: for want of power over men's minds. Its power was prodigious.
- 22:15Speaker 1: It could make kings and nobles resign their most valued
- 22:19Speaker 1: possessions to enrich the Church. It could make thousands, in
- 22:23Speaker 1: the prime of life and the height of worldly advantages,
- 22:27Speaker 1: shut themselves up in convents to work out their salvation
- 22:31Speaker 1: by poverty, fasting, and prayer. It could send hundreds of
- 22:35Speaker 1: thousands across land and sea, Europe and Asia to give
- 22:39Speaker 1: their lives for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulcher. It
- 22:43Speaker 1: could make kings relinquish wives who were the object of
- 22:47Speaker 1: their passionate attachment, because the Church declared that they were
- 22:51Speaker 1: within the seventh, by our calculation, fourteenth degree of relationship.
- 22:57Speaker 1: All this it did, but it could not make men
- 23:00Speaker 1: fight less with one another, nor tyrannize less cruelly over
- 23:05Speaker 1: the serfs. And when they were able over burgesses, it
- 23:09Speaker 1: could not make them renounce either of the applications of force,
- 23:14Speaker 1: force militant, or force triumphant. This they could never be
- 23:19Speaker 1: induced to do until they were themselves, in their turn,
- 23:23Speaker 1: compelled by superior force. Only by the growing power of
- 23:27Speaker 1: kings was an end put to fighting except between kings
- 23:31Speaker 1: or competitors for kingship, only by the growth of a
- 23:35Speaker 1: wealthy and warlike bourgeoisie in the fortified towns, and of
- 23:40Speaker 1: a plebeium infantry, which proved more powerful in the field
- 23:44Speaker 1: than the undisciplined chivalry. Was the insolent tyranny of the
- 23:48Speaker 1: nobles over the bourgeoisie and peasantry brought within some bounds,
- 23:53Speaker 1: it was persisted in not only until but long after
- 23:59Speaker 1: the oppressed had attained a power enabling them to take
- 24:04Speaker 1: conspicuous vengeance, and on the consonant. Much of it continue
- 24:08Speaker 1: to the time of the French Revolution, though in England
- 24:12Speaker 1: the earlier and better organization of the democratic classes put
- 24:17Speaker 1: an end to it sooner by establishing equal laws in
- 24:20Speaker 1: free national institutions. End of Chapter one, Part.
- 24:27Speaker 2: One, Chapter one, Part two. If people are mostly so
- 24:32Speaker 2: little aware, how completely, during the greater part of the
- 24:35Speaker 2: duration of our species, the law of force was the
- 24:38Speaker 2: avowed rule of general conduct, any other being only a
- 24:42Speaker 2: special and exceptional consequence of peculiar ties. And from how
- 24:46Speaker 2: very recent a date it is that the affairs of
- 24:48Speaker 2: society in general have been even pretended to be regulated
- 24:52Speaker 2: according to any moral law. As little do people remember
- 24:55Speaker 2: or consider how institutions and customs which never had any
- 24:59Speaker 2: great but the law of force last on into ages
- 25:03Speaker 2: and states of general opinion, which never would have permitted
- 25:06Speaker 2: their first establishment less than forty years ago. Englishmen might
- 25:10Speaker 2: still by law hold human beings in bondage as saleable property.
- 25:15Speaker 2: Within the present century, they might kidnap them and carry
- 25:18Speaker 2: them off and work them literally to death. This absolutely
- 25:22Speaker 2: extreme case of the law of force, condemned by those
- 25:25Speaker 2: who can tolerate almost every other form of arbitrary power,
- 25:29Speaker 2: and which of all others, presents features the most revolting
- 25:32Speaker 2: to the feelings of all who look at it from
- 25:34Speaker 2: an impartial position, was the law of civilized and Christian England.
- 25:39Speaker 2: Within the memory of persons now living and in one
- 25:42Speaker 2: half of Anglo Saxon America three or four years ago,
- 25:45Speaker 2: not only did slavery exist, but the slave trade and
- 25:49Speaker 2: the breeding of slaves expressly, for it was a general
- 25:52Speaker 2: practice between slave states. Yet not only was there a
- 25:55Speaker 2: greater strength of sentiment against it, but in England at
- 25:59Speaker 2: least a less amount either of feeling or of interest
- 26:02Speaker 2: in favor of it. Than of any other of the
- 26:04Speaker 2: customary abuses of force. For its motive was the love
- 26:08Speaker 2: of gain, unmixed and undisguised, and those who profited by
- 26:12Speaker 2: it were a very small numerical fraction of the country,
- 26:16Speaker 2: while the natural feeling of all who were not personally
- 26:19Speaker 2: interested in it was unmitigated abhorrence. So extreme an instance
- 26:24Speaker 2: makes it almost superfluous to refer to any other. But
- 26:28Speaker 2: consider the long duration of absolute monarchy in England. At present,
- 26:33Speaker 2: it is the almost universal conviction that military despotism is
- 26:37Speaker 2: a case of the law of force, having no other
- 26:40Speaker 2: origin or justification. Yet in all the great nations of
- 26:44Speaker 2: Europe except England, it either still exists or has only
- 26:48Speaker 2: just ceased to exist, and has even now a strong
- 26:51Speaker 2: party favorable to it in all ranks of the people,
- 26:54Speaker 2: especially among persons of station and consequence. Such is the
- 26:58Speaker 2: power of an established cists, even when far from universal,
- 27:03Speaker 2: when not only in almost every period of history there
- 27:06Speaker 2: have been great and well known examples of the contrary system,
- 27:10Speaker 2: but these have almost invariably been afforded by the most
- 27:13Speaker 2: illustrious and most prosperous communities. In this case too, the
- 27:18Speaker 2: possessor of the undue power. The person directly interested in
- 27:21Speaker 2: it is only one person, while those who are subject
- 27:25Speaker 2: to it and suffer from it are literally all the rest.
- 27:28Speaker 2: The yoke is naturally and necessarily humiliating to all persons
- 27:33Speaker 2: except the one who is on the throne, together with
- 27:35Speaker 2: at most the one who expects to succeed to it.
- 27:39Speaker 2: How different are these cases from that of the power
- 27:41Speaker 2: of men over women. I am not now prejudging the
- 27:45Speaker 2: question of its justifiableness. I am showing how vastly more
- 27:49Speaker 2: permanent it could not but be, even if not justifiable,
- 27:53Speaker 2: than these other dominations, which have nevertheless lasted down to
- 27:57Speaker 2: our own time. Whatever gratification of pride there is in
- 28:01Speaker 2: the possession of power, and whatever personal interest in its exercise,
- 28:06Speaker 2: is in this case not confined to a limited class,
- 28:09Speaker 2: but common to the whole male sex. Instead of being
- 28:12Speaker 2: to most of its supporters a thing desirable chiefly in
- 28:15Speaker 2: the abstract, or like the political ends usually contended for
- 28:19Speaker 2: by factions of little private importance to any but the leaders,
- 28:24Speaker 2: it comes home to the person and hearth of every
- 28:27Speaker 2: male head of a family, and of everyone who looks
- 28:30Speaker 2: forward to being so. The clodhopper exercises or is to
- 28:34Speaker 2: exercise his share of the power equally with the highest nobleman.
- 28:39Speaker 2: And the case is that in which the desire of
- 28:41Speaker 2: power is the strongest. For everyone who desires power desires
- 28:46Speaker 2: it most over those who are nearest to him, with
- 28:48Speaker 2: whom his life is past, with whom he has most
- 28:51Speaker 2: concerns in common, and in whom any independence of his
- 28:55Speaker 2: authority is oftenest likely to interfere with his individual preferences.
- 29:00Speaker 2: If in the other cases specified powers, manifestly grounded only
- 29:04Speaker 2: on force, and having so much less to support them,
- 29:07Speaker 2: are so slowly and with so much difficulty got rid of,
- 29:11Speaker 2: much more must it be so with this, even if
- 29:14Speaker 2: it rests on no better foundation than those. We must
- 29:17Speaker 2: consider too, that the possessors of the power have facilities,
- 29:21Speaker 2: in this case greater than in any other, to prevent
- 29:24Speaker 2: any uprising against it. Every one of the subjects lives
- 29:28Speaker 2: under the very eye, and almost, it may be said,
- 29:31Speaker 2: in the hands of one of the masters, in closer
- 29:35Speaker 2: intimacy with him than with any of her fellow subjects,
- 29:38Speaker 2: with no means of combining against him, no power of
- 29:41Speaker 2: even locally overmastering him, and on the other hand, with
- 29:45Speaker 2: the strongest motives for seeking his favor and avoiding to
- 29:48Speaker 2: give him offense. In struggles for political emancipation, everybody knows
- 29:54Speaker 2: how often its champions are bought off by bribes or
- 29:57Speaker 2: daunted by terrors. In the case of women, each individual
- 30:01Speaker 2: of the subject class is in a chronic state of
- 30:03Speaker 2: bribery and intimidation. Combined. In setting up the standard of resistance,
- 30:08Speaker 2: a large number of the leaders and still more of
- 30:11Speaker 2: the followers, must make an almost complete sacrifice of the
- 30:15Speaker 2: pleasures or the alleviations of their own individual lot. If ever,
- 30:19Speaker 2: any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke
- 30:23Speaker 2: tightly riveted on the necks of those who are kept
- 30:26Speaker 2: down by it, this has I have not yet shown
- 30:29Speaker 2: that it is a wrong system, but everyone who is
- 30:32Speaker 2: capable of thinking on the subject must see that, even
- 30:35Speaker 2: if it is, it was certain to outlast all other
- 30:39Speaker 2: forms of unjust authority. And when some of the grossest
- 30:43Speaker 2: of the other forms still exist in many civilized countries,
- 30:46Speaker 2: and have only recently been got rid of in others,
- 30:49Speaker 2: it would be strange if that which is so much
- 30:52Speaker 2: the deepest rooted had yet been perceptibly shaken anywhere. There
- 30:56Speaker 2: is more reason to wonder that the protests and testimony
- 31:00Speaker 2: against it should have been so numerous and so weighty
- 31:03Speaker 2: as they are. Some will object that a comparison cannot
- 31:08Speaker 2: fairly be made between the government of the male sex
- 31:11Speaker 2: and the forms of unjust power which I have adduced
- 31:14Speaker 2: in illustration of it, since these are arbitrary and the
- 31:17Speaker 2: effect of mere usurpation, while it, on the contrary, is natural.
- 31:22Speaker 2: But was there ever any domination which did not appear
- 31:25Speaker 2: natural to those who possessed it. There was a time
- 31:28Speaker 2: when the division of mankind into two classes, a small
- 31:31Speaker 2: one of masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared
- 31:35Speaker 2: even to the most cultivated minds, to be a natural
- 31:38Speaker 2: and the only natural condition of the human race, no
- 31:41Speaker 2: less an intellect, and one which contributed no less to
- 31:44Speaker 2: the progress of human thought than Aristotle held this opinion
- 31:48Speaker 2: without doubt or misgiving, and rested it on the same
- 31:52Speaker 2: premises on which the same assertion in regard to the
- 31:54Speaker 2: dominion of men over women is usually based, namely, that
- 31:59Speaker 2: there are different names among mankind, free natures and slave natures.
- 32:04Speaker 2: That the Greeks were of a free nature, the barbarian
- 32:06Speaker 2: races of Thracians and Asiatics of a slave nature. But
- 32:11Speaker 2: why need I go back to Aristotle? Did not the
- 32:14Speaker 2: slave owners of the southern United States maintain the same doctrine,
- 32:18Speaker 2: with all the fanaticism with which men cling to the
- 32:21Speaker 2: theories that justify their passions and legitimate their personal interests.
- 32:26Speaker 2: Did they not call Heaven and Earth to witness that
- 32:29Speaker 2: the dominion of white men over the black is natural,
- 32:32Speaker 2: that the black race is by nature incapable of freedom
- 32:35Speaker 2: and marked out for slavery, some even going so far
- 32:39Speaker 2: as to say that the freedom of manual laborers is
- 32:42Speaker 2: an unnatural order of things anywhere. Again, the theorists of
- 32:46Speaker 2: absolute monarchy have always affirmed it to be the only
- 32:49Speaker 2: natural form of government, issuing from the patriarchal which was
- 32:53Speaker 2: the primitive and spontaneous form of society, framed on the
- 32:57Speaker 2: model of the paternal which is anterior to society itself, and,
- 33:01Speaker 2: as they contend, the most natural authority of all. Nay,
- 33:05Speaker 2: for that matter, the law of force itself, to those
- 33:08Speaker 2: who could not plead any other, has always seemed the
- 33:11Speaker 2: most natural of all grounds for the exercise of authority.
- 33:14Speaker 2: Conquering races hold it to be nature's own dictate that
- 33:17Speaker 2: the conquered should obey the conquerors, or, as they euphoniously
- 33:22Speaker 2: paraphrase it, that the feebler and more unwarlike races should
- 33:26Speaker 2: submit to the braver and manlier. The smallest acquaintance with
- 33:29Speaker 2: human life in the Middle Ages shows how supremely natural
- 33:33Speaker 2: the dominion of the feudal nobility over men of low
- 33:35Speaker 2: condition appeared to the nobility themselves, and how unnatural the
- 33:39Speaker 2: conception seemed of a person of the inferior class claiming
- 33:43Speaker 2: equality with them or exercising authority over them. It hardly
- 33:48Speaker 2: seemed less so to the class held in subjection. The
- 33:51Speaker 2: emancipated serfs and burgesses, even in their most vigorous struggles,
- 33:56Speaker 2: never made any pretension to a share of authority. They
- 33:59Speaker 2: only demanded more or less of limitation to the power
- 34:02Speaker 2: of tyrannizing over them. So true is it that unnatural
- 34:06Speaker 2: generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual
- 34:11Speaker 2: appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a
- 34:14Speaker 2: universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural.
- 34:20Speaker 2: But how entirely even in this case, the feeling is
- 34:23Speaker 2: dependent on custom, appears by ample experience. Nothing so much
- 34:27Speaker 2: astonishes the people of distant parts of the world. When
- 34:30Speaker 2: they first learn anything about England, as to be told
- 34:34Speaker 2: that it is under a queen, the thing seems to
- 34:36Speaker 2: them so unnatural as to be almost incredible. To Englishmen
- 34:40Speaker 2: this does not seem in the least degree unnatural, because
- 34:43Speaker 2: they are used to it. But they do feel it
- 34:46Speaker 2: unnatural that women should be soldiers or members of parliament.
- 34:50Speaker 2: In the feudal ages. On the contrary, war and politics
- 34:53Speaker 2: were not thought unnatural to women, because not unusual, it
- 34:57Speaker 2: seemed natural that women of the privileged classes should be
- 35:00Speaker 2: of manly character, inferior in nothing but bodily strength to
- 35:03Speaker 2: their husbands and fathers. The independence of women seemed rather
- 35:08Speaker 2: less unnatural to the Greeks than to other ancients, on
- 35:11Speaker 2: account of the fabulous Amazons, whom they believed to be historical,
- 35:15Speaker 2: and the partial example afforded by the Spartan women, who,
- 35:19Speaker 2: though no less subordinate by law than in other Greek states,
- 35:22Speaker 2: were more free in fact, and being trained to bodily
- 35:25Speaker 2: exercises in the same manner with men, gave ample proof
- 35:28Speaker 2: that they were not naturally disqualified for them. But it
- 35:32Speaker 2: will be said the rule of men over women differs
- 35:36Speaker 2: from all these others in not being a rule of force,
- 35:39Speaker 2: it is accepted voluntarily. Women make no complaint and are
- 35:43Speaker 2: consenting parties to it. In the first place, a great
- 35:47Speaker 2: number of women do not accept it. Ever since there
- 35:50Speaker 2: have been women able to make their sentiments known by
- 35:52Speaker 2: their writings, the only mode of publicity which society permits
- 35:56Speaker 2: to them, an increasing number of them have recorded protests
- 36:00Speaker 2: against their present social condition, and recently many thousands of them,
- 36:04Speaker 2: headed by the most eminent women known to the public,
- 36:07Speaker 2: have petitioned Parliament for their admission to the parliamentary suffrage.
- 36:11Speaker 2: The claim of women to be educated as solidly and
- 36:15Speaker 2: in the same branches of knowledge as men is urged
- 36:17Speaker 2: with growing intensity and with a great prospect of success,
- 36:22Speaker 2: while the demand for their admission into professions and occupations
- 36:25Speaker 2: hitherto closed against them becomes every year more urgent. Though
- 36:29Speaker 2: there are not in this country, as there are in
- 36:32Speaker 2: the United States, periodical conventions and an organized party to
- 36:35Speaker 2: agitate for the rights of women, there is a numerous
- 36:38Speaker 2: and active society organized and managed by women for the
- 36:42Speaker 2: more limited object of obtaining the political franchise. Nor is
- 36:46Speaker 2: it only in our country and in America that women
- 36:49Speaker 2: are beginning to protest more or less collectively against the
- 36:53Speaker 2: disabilities under which they labor. France and Italy, and Switzerland
- 36:58Speaker 2: and Russia now afford examples the same thing. How many
- 37:02Speaker 2: more women there are who silently cherish similar aspirations, no
- 37:06Speaker 2: one can possibly know, But there are abundant tokens. How
- 37:10Speaker 2: many would cherish them were they not so strenuously taught
- 37:14Speaker 2: to repress them as contrary to the proprieties of their sex.
- 37:18Speaker 2: It must be remembered also that no enslaved class ever
- 37:22Speaker 2: asked for complete liberty at once. When Simon de Montfort
- 37:25Speaker 2: called the deputies of the Commons to sit for the
- 37:28Speaker 2: first time in parliament, did any of them dream of
- 37:31Speaker 2: demanding that an assembly elected by their constituents should make
- 37:35Speaker 2: and destroy ministries and dictate to the King and affairs
- 37:38Speaker 2: of state. No such thought entered into the imagination of
- 37:42Speaker 2: the most ambitious of them. The nobility had already these pretensions.
- 37:47Speaker 2: The Commons pretended to nothing but to be exempt from
- 37:50Speaker 2: arbitrary taxation and from the gross individual oppression of the
- 37:54Speaker 2: King's officers. It is a political law of nature that
- 37:57Speaker 2: those who are under any power of ancient order progen
- 38:00Speaker 2: never begin by complaining of the power itself, but only
- 38:04Speaker 2: of its oppressive exercise. There is never any want of
- 38:07Speaker 2: women who complain of ill usage by their husbands. There
- 38:11Speaker 2: would be infinitely more if complaint were not the greatest
- 38:14Speaker 2: of all provocatives to a repetition and increase of the
- 38:17Speaker 2: ill usage. It is this which frustrates all attempts to
- 38:21Speaker 2: maintain the power but protect the woman against its abuses.
- 38:25Speaker 2: In no other case except that of a child, is
- 38:28Speaker 2: the person who has been proved judicially to have suffered
- 38:31Speaker 2: an injury replaced under the physical power of the culprit
- 38:34Speaker 2: who inflicted it. Accordingly, wives, even in the most extreme
- 38:39Speaker 2: and protracted cases of bodily ill usage, hardly ever dare
- 38:43Speaker 2: avail themselves of the laws made for their protection. And if,
- 38:47Speaker 2: in a moment of irrepressible indignation, or by the interference
- 38:51Speaker 2: of neighbors, they are induced to do so, their whole
- 38:54Speaker 2: effort afterwards is to disclose as little as they can,
- 38:57Speaker 2: and to beg off their tyrant from his marriage pastisement.
- 39:01Speaker 2: All cases, social and natural combine to make it unlikely
- 39:06Speaker 2: that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men.
- 39:10Speaker 2: They are so far in a position different from all
- 39:13Speaker 2: other subject classes that their masters require something more from
- 39:17Speaker 2: them than actual service. Men do not want solely the
- 39:21Speaker 2: obedience of women. They want their sentiments. All men, except
- 39:26Speaker 2: the most brutish, desire to have in the woman most
- 39:29Speaker 2: nearly connected with them, not a forced slave, but a
- 39:33Speaker 2: willing one, Not a slave merely, but a favorite. They
- 39:38Speaker 2: have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds.
- 39:42Speaker 2: The masters of all other slaves rely for maintaining obedience
- 39:45Speaker 2: on fear, either fear of themselves or religious fears. The
- 39:50Speaker 2: masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they
- 39:54Speaker 2: turn the whole force of education to affect their purpose.
- 39:58Speaker 2: All women are brought up from the very earliest years
- 40:01Speaker 2: in the belief that their ideal of character is the
- 40:03Speaker 2: very opposite to that of men. Not self will and
- 40:07Speaker 2: government by self control, but submission and yielding to the
- 40:11Speaker 2: control of others. All the moralities tell them that it
- 40:15Speaker 2: is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities,
- 40:18Speaker 2: that it is their nature to live for others, to
- 40:22Speaker 2: make complete ad negation of themselves, and to have no
- 40:25Speaker 2: life but in their affections, and by their affections are
- 40:29Speaker 2: meant the only ones they are allowed to have, those
- 40:32Speaker 2: to the men with whom they are connected, or to
- 40:35Speaker 2: the children, who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between
- 40:39Speaker 2: them and a man. When we put together three things,
- 40:43Speaker 2: first the natural attraction between opposite sexes, Secondly, the wife's
- 40:48Speaker 2: entire dependence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has,
- 40:53Speaker 2: being either his gift or depending entirely on his will.
- 40:57Speaker 2: And lastly, that the principal object of hum human pursuit, consideration,
- 41:02Speaker 2: and all objects of social ambition, can in general be
- 41:06Speaker 2: sought or obtained by her only through him. It would
- 41:09Speaker 2: be a miracle if the object of being attractive to
- 41:12Speaker 2: men had not become the polar star of feminine education
- 41:16Speaker 2: and formation of character. And this great means of influence
- 41:21Speaker 2: over the minds of women, having been acquired an instinct
- 41:24Speaker 2: of selfishness, made men avail themselves of it to the
- 41:27Speaker 2: utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, by
- 41:31Speaker 2: representing to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual
- 41:36Speaker 2: will into the hands of a man as an essential
- 41:39Speaker 2: part of sexual attractiveness. Can it be doubted that any
- 41:43Speaker 2: of the other yokes which mankind have succeeded in breaking
- 41:47Speaker 2: would have subsisted till now, if the same means had
- 41:49Speaker 2: existed and had been as sedulously used to bow down
- 41:54Speaker 2: their minds to it, if it had been made the
- 41:57Speaker 2: object of the life of every young plebeian to find
- 42:00Speaker 2: personal favor in the eyes of some patrician, of every
- 42:03Speaker 2: young serf with some seigneur, if domestication with him and
- 42:07Speaker 2: a share of his personal affections had been held out
- 42:10Speaker 2: as the prize which they all should look out for,
- 42:13Speaker 2: the most gifted and aspiring, being able to reckon on
- 42:16Speaker 2: the most desirable prizes, And if when this prize had
- 42:20Speaker 2: been attained, they had been shut out by a wall
- 42:23Speaker 2: of brass from all interests, not centering in him all
- 42:27Speaker 2: feelings and desires, but those which he shared or inculcated,
- 42:31Speaker 2: would not serfs and seigneurs, plebeians and patricians had been
- 42:35Speaker 2: as broadly distinguished as this day as men and women are,
- 42:39Speaker 2: and would not. All but a thinker here and there
- 42:42Speaker 2: have believed the distinction to be a fundamental and unalterable
- 42:46Speaker 2: fact in human nature. The preceding considerations are amply sufficient
- 42:52Speaker 2: to show that custom, however universal it may be, affords
- 42:56Speaker 2: in this case no presumption, and ought not to create
- 42:59Speaker 2: any prejudice in favor of the arrangements which place women
- 43:03Speaker 2: in social and political subjection to men. But I may
- 43:06Speaker 2: go farther and maintain that the course of history and
- 43:10Speaker 2: the tendencies of progressive human society afford not only no
- 43:14Speaker 2: presumption in favor of this system of inequality of rights,
- 43:18Speaker 2: but a strong one against it, And that so far
- 43:21Speaker 2: as the whole course of human improvement up to this time,
- 43:24Speaker 2: the whole stream of modern tendencies were once any inference
- 43:28Speaker 2: on the subject. It is that this relic of the
- 43:31Speaker 2: past is discordant with the future, and must necessarily disappear.
- 43:37Speaker 3: For what is the.
- 43:38Speaker 2: Peculiar character of the modern world, the difference which chiefly
- 43:42Speaker 2: distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from
- 43:48Speaker 2: those times of long past. It is that human beings
- 43:52Speaker 2: are no longer born to their place in life and
- 43:55Speaker 2: chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they
- 43:57Speaker 2: are born to, but are free to employ their faculties
- 44:01Speaker 2: and such favorable chances as offer to achieve the lot
- 44:04Speaker 2: which may appear to them most desirable. Human society of
- 44:08Speaker 2: old was constituted on a very different principle. All were
- 44:12Speaker 2: born to a fixed social position, and were mostly kept
- 44:16Speaker 2: in it by law or interdited from any means by
- 44:19Speaker 2: which they could emerge from it. As some men are
- 44:22Speaker 2: born white and others black, so some were born slaves
- 44:26Speaker 2: and others freemen and citizens. Some were born patricians, other plebeians.
- 44:32Speaker 2: Some were born feudal nobles, others commoners and roturiers. A
- 44:36Speaker 2: slave or serf could never make himself free, nor except
- 44:40Speaker 2: by the will of his master, become so. In most
- 44:43Speaker 2: European countries. It was not till towards the close of
- 44:45Speaker 2: the Middle Ages, and as a consequence of the growth
- 44:48Speaker 2: of regal power, that commoners could be ennobled. Even among nobles,
- 44:53Speaker 2: the eldest son was born the exclusive heir to the
- 44:56Speaker 2: paternal possessions, and a long time elapsed before it was
- 44:59Speaker 2: fully stifle lablished that the father could disinherit him. Among
- 45:03Speaker 2: the industrious classes, only those who were born members of
- 45:06Speaker 2: a guild or were admitted into it by its members
- 45:09Speaker 2: could lawfully practice their calling within its local limits, and
- 45:13Speaker 2: nobody could practice any calling deemed important in any but
- 45:16Speaker 2: the legal manner by processes authoritatively prescribed. Manufacturers have stood
- 45:22Speaker 2: in the pillory for presuming to carry on their business
- 45:25Speaker 2: by new and improved methods. In modern Europe, and most
- 45:29Speaker 2: in those parts of it which have participated most largely
- 45:31Speaker 2: in all other modern improvements, diametrically opposite doctrines now prevail.
- 45:37Speaker 2: Law and government do not undertake to prescribe by whom
- 45:40Speaker 2: any social or industrial operation shall or shall not be conducted,
- 45:45Speaker 2: or modes of conducting them shall be lawful. These things
- 45:49Speaker 2: are left to the unfettered choice of individuals. Even the
- 45:53Speaker 2: laws that required that workmen should serve an apprenticeship have
- 45:57Speaker 2: in this country been repealed, there being ample assurance that
- 46:01Speaker 2: in all cases in which an apprenticeship is necessary, its
- 46:05Speaker 2: necessity will suffice to enforce it. The old theory was
- 46:09Speaker 2: that the least possible should be left the choice of
- 46:12Speaker 2: the individual agent, that all he had to do should,
- 46:15Speaker 2: as far as practicable, be laid down for him by
- 46:18Speaker 2: superior wisdom. Left to himself, he was sure to go wrong.
- 46:23Speaker 2: The modern conviction, the fruit of a thousand years of experience,
- 46:27Speaker 2: is that things in which the individual is the person
- 46:30Speaker 2: directly interested, never go right, but as they are left
- 46:33Speaker 2: to his own discretion, and that any regulation of them
- 46:36Speaker 2: by authority except to protect the rights of others is
- 46:40Speaker 2: sure to be mischievous. This conclusion slowly arrived at, and
- 46:45Speaker 2: not adopted until almost every possible application of the contrary
- 46:48Speaker 2: theory had been made, with disastrous result. Now in the
- 46:52Speaker 2: industrial department prevails universally in the most advanced countries, almost
- 46:58Speaker 2: universally in all that have pretensions to any sort of advancement.
- 47:02Speaker 2: It is not that all processes are supposed to be
- 47:05Speaker 2: equally good, or all persons to be equally qualified for everything,
- 47:10Speaker 2: but that freedom of individual choice is now known to
- 47:14Speaker 2: be the only thing which procures the adoption of the
- 47:16Speaker 2: best processes and throws each operation into the hands of
- 47:20Speaker 2: those who are best qualified for it. Nobody thinks it
- 47:24Speaker 2: necessary to make a law that only a strong armed
- 47:26Speaker 2: man shall be a blacksmith. Freedom and competition suffice to
- 47:31Speaker 2: make blacksmiths strong armed men, because the weak armed can
- 47:34Speaker 2: earn more by engaging in occupations for which they are
- 47:37Speaker 2: more fit. In consonance with this doctrine, it is felt
- 47:41Speaker 2: to be an overstepping of the proper bounds of authority
- 47:43Speaker 2: to fix beforehand on some general presumption that certain persons
- 47:48Speaker 2: are not fit to do certain things. It is now
- 47:51Speaker 2: thoroughly known and admitted that if some such presumptions exist,
- 47:56Speaker 2: no such presumption is infallible. Even if it be well
- 48:00Speaker 2: grounded in a majority of cases, which it is very
- 48:03Speaker 2: likely not to be, there will be a minority of
- 48:05Speaker 2: exceptional cases in which it does not hold, and in
- 48:09Speaker 2: those it is both an injustice to the individuals and
- 48:12Speaker 2: a detriment to society to place barriers in the way
- 48:15Speaker 2: of their using their faculties for their own benefit and
- 48:18Speaker 2: for that of others. In the cases, on the other hand,
- 48:22Speaker 2: in which the unfitness is real, the ordinary motives of
- 48:25Speaker 2: human conduct will on the whole suffice to prevent the
- 48:28Speaker 2: incompetent person from making or from persisting in the attempt.
- 48:33Speaker 2: If this general principle of social and economical science is
- 48:37Speaker 2: not true, if individuals with such help as they can
- 48:40Speaker 2: derive from the opinion of those who know them are
- 48:43Speaker 2: not better judges than the law and the government of
- 48:46Speaker 2: their own capacities and vocation, the world cannot too soon
- 48:50Speaker 2: apend in this principle and return to the old system
- 48:53Speaker 2: of regulations and disabilities. But if the principle is true,
- 48:59Speaker 2: we ought to act as if we believed it, and
- 49:02Speaker 2: not to ordain that to be born a girl instead
- 49:05Speaker 2: of a boy, any more than to be born black
- 49:07Speaker 2: instead of white, or a commoner instead of a nobleman,
- 49:11Speaker 2: shall decide the person's position through all life, shall interdict
- 49:15Speaker 2: people from all the more elevated social positions, and from
- 49:19Speaker 2: all except a few respectable occupations. Even were we to
- 49:24Speaker 2: admit the utmost that is ever pretended as to the
- 49:27Speaker 2: superior fitness of men for all the functions now reserved
- 49:30Speaker 2: to them. The same argument applies which forbids illegal qualification
- 49:35Speaker 2: for members of parliament. If only once in a dozen
- 49:39Speaker 2: years the conditions of eligibility exclude a fit person, there
- 49:44Speaker 2: is a real loss, while the exclusion of thousands of
- 49:47Speaker 2: unfit persons is no gain. For if the constitution of
- 49:51Speaker 2: the electoral body disposes them to choose unfit persons, there
- 49:55Speaker 2: are always plenty of such persons to choose from. In
- 49:58Speaker 2: all things of any difficult, ciculty and importance, those who
- 50:02Speaker 2: can do them well are fewer than the need even
- 50:05Speaker 2: with the most unrestricted latitude of choice, And any limitation
- 50:09Speaker 2: of the field of selection deprives society of some chances
- 50:12Speaker 2: of being served by the competent, without ever saving it
- 50:15Speaker 2: from the incompetent end of Chapter one, Part.
- 50:19Speaker 4: Two, Chapter one, Part three. At present, in the more
- 50:27Speaker 4: improved countries, the disabilities of women are the only case
- 50:31Speaker 4: save one in which laws and institutions take persons at
- 50:35Speaker 4: their birth and ordain that they shall never, in all
- 50:38Speaker 4: their lives be allowed to compete for certain things. The
- 50:43Speaker 4: one exception is that of royalty. Persons still are born
- 50:47Speaker 4: to the throne. No one, not even of the reigning family,
- 50:51Speaker 4: can ever occupy it, and no one even of that
- 50:55Speaker 4: family can by any means, but the course of hereditary
- 50:58Speaker 4: succession attain it. All other dignities and social advantages are
- 51:03Speaker 4: open to the whole male sex. Many, indeed are only
- 51:07Speaker 4: attainable by wealth. But wealth may be striven for by anyone,
- 51:11Speaker 4: and is actually obtained by many men of the very
- 51:14Speaker 4: humblest origin. The difficulties to the majority are indeed insuperable
- 51:20Speaker 4: without the aid of fortunate accidents. But no male human
- 51:24Speaker 4: being is under any legal ban. Neither law nor opinion
- 51:29Speaker 4: superadd artificial articles to the natural ones. Royalty, as I
- 51:34Speaker 4: have said, is accepted, but in this case everyone feels
- 51:38Speaker 4: it to be an exception, an anomaly. In the modern world.
- 51:42Speaker 4: In marked opposition to its customs and principles, and to
- 51:45Speaker 4: be justified only by extraordinary special expediences, which, though individuals
- 51:51Speaker 4: and nations differ in estimating their weight, unquestionably do in
- 51:55Speaker 4: fact exist. But in this exceptional case in which a
- 52:01Speaker 4: high social function is for important reasons bestowed on birth,
- 52:05Speaker 4: instead of being put up to competition, all free nations
- 52:09Speaker 4: contrive in substance to subscribe to the principal form which
- 52:12Speaker 4: they nominally derogate. For they circumscribe this high function by
- 52:17Speaker 4: conditions avowedly intended to prevent the person to whom it
- 52:21Speaker 4: ostensibly belongs from really performing it, while the person to
- 52:26Speaker 4: whom it is performed, the responsible minister, does obtain the
- 52:30Speaker 4: post by a competition from which no full grown citizen
- 52:34Speaker 4: of the male sex is legally excluded. The disabilities therefore
- 52:39Speaker 4: to which women are subject from the mere fact of
- 52:41Speaker 4: their birth, are the solitary examples of the kind in
- 52:45Speaker 4: modern legislation. In no instance, except this, which comprehends half
- 52:51Speaker 4: the human race, are the higher social functions closed against
- 52:55Speaker 4: anyone by a fatality of birth, which no exertions and
- 53:00Speaker 4: no change of circumstances can overcome, for even religious disabilities.
- 53:06Speaker 4: Besides that, in England and in Europe, they have practically
- 53:09Speaker 4: almost ceased to exist. Do not close any career to
- 53:13Speaker 4: the disqualified person in case of conversion. The social subordination
- 53:20Speaker 4: of women thus stands out an isolated fact in modern
- 53:24Speaker 4: social institutions, a solitary breach of what has become their
- 53:29Speaker 4: fundamental law, a single relic of an old world of
- 53:33Speaker 4: thought and practice, exploded in everything else, but retained in
- 53:37Speaker 4: the one thing of most universal interest, as if a
- 53:40Speaker 4: gigantic dolmen or a vast temple of Jupiter Olympius occupied
- 53:45Speaker 4: the site of Saint Paul's and received daily worship, while
- 53:48Speaker 4: the surrounding Christian churches were only resorted to unfasts and festivals.
- 53:53Speaker 4: This entire discrepancy between one social fact and all those
- 53:58Speaker 4: which accompany it, and the radical opposition between its nature
- 54:02Speaker 4: and the progressive movement which is the boast of the
- 54:04Speaker 4: modern world, and which has successively swept away everything else
- 54:09Speaker 4: of an analogous nature, surely affords to a conscientious observer
- 54:14Speaker 4: of human tendencies serious matter for reflection. It raises a
- 54:19Speaker 4: prima facia presumption on the unfavorable side, far outweighing any
- 54:24Speaker 4: which custom and usage could in such circumstances create on
- 54:27Speaker 4: the favorable and should at least suffice to make this,
- 54:32Speaker 4: like the choice between republicanism and royalty, a balanced question.
- 54:39Speaker 4: The least that can be demanded is that the question
- 54:42Speaker 4: should not be considered as pre judged by existing fact
- 54:46Speaker 4: and existing opinion, but opened a discussion on its merits
- 54:50Speaker 4: as a question of justice and expediency. The decision on this,
- 54:55Speaker 4: as on any of the other social arrangements of mankind,
- 54:58Speaker 4: depending on what an enlightened estimate of tendencies and consequences
- 55:02Speaker 4: may show to be most advantageous to humanity in general,
- 55:07Speaker 4: without distinction of sex, and the discussion must be a
- 55:11Speaker 4: real discussion descending two foundations, and not resting satisfied with
- 55:17Speaker 4: vague and general assertions. It will not do, for instance,
- 55:22Speaker 4: to assert in general terms that the experience of mankind
- 55:26Speaker 4: has pronounced in favor of the existing system. Experience cannot
- 55:31Speaker 4: possibly have decided between two courses so long as there
- 55:35Speaker 4: has only been experience of one. If it be said
- 55:40Speaker 4: that the doctrine of equality of the sexes rests only
- 55:43Speaker 4: on theory, it must be remembered that the contrary doctrine
- 55:47Speaker 4: also has only theory to rest upon All that is
- 55:51Speaker 4: proved in its favor by direct experience is that mankind
- 55:56Speaker 4: have been able to exist under it and to attain
- 55:58Speaker 4: the degree of improvement prosperity which we now see. But
- 56:03Speaker 4: whether that prosperity has been attained sooner or is now
- 56:06Speaker 4: greater than it would have been under the other system,
- 56:09Speaker 4: experience does not say. On the other hand, experience does
- 56:14Speaker 4: say that every step in improvement has been so invariably
- 56:18Speaker 4: accompanied by a step made in raising the social position
- 56:22Speaker 4: of women, that historians and philosophers have been led to
- 56:25Speaker 4: adopt their elevation or debasement as on the whole the
- 56:29Speaker 4: surest test and most correct measure of the civilization of
- 56:33Speaker 4: a people or an age. Through all the progressive period
- 56:38Speaker 4: of human history, the condition of women has been approaching
- 56:41Speaker 4: nearer to equality with men. This does not of itself
- 56:46Speaker 4: prove that the assimilation must go on to complete equality,
- 56:50Speaker 4: but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is the case.
- 56:56Speaker 4: Neither does it avail anything to say that the nature
- 56:59Speaker 4: of the two second as adapts them to their present
- 57:01Speaker 4: functions and position, and renders these appropriate to them. Standing
- 57:07Speaker 4: on the ground of common sense and the constitution of
- 57:10Speaker 4: the human mind. I deny that any one knows or
- 57:14Speaker 4: can know the nature of the two sexes, as long
- 57:17Speaker 4: as they have only been seen in their present relation
- 57:20Speaker 4: to one another. If men had ever been found in
- 57:24Speaker 4: society without women, or women without men, or if there
- 57:28Speaker 4: had been a society of men and women in which
- 57:31Speaker 4: the women were not under the control of the men,
- 57:34Speaker 4: something might have been positively known about the mental and
- 57:37Speaker 4: moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each.
- 57:42Speaker 4: What is now called the nature of women is an
- 57:45Speaker 4: eminently artificial thing, the result of forced repression in some directions,
- 57:51Speaker 4: unnatural stimulation in others. It may be asserted without scruple
- 57:56Speaker 4: that no other class of dependence have had their character
- 58:01Speaker 4: so entirely distorted from its natural proportions by their relation
- 58:05Speaker 4: with their masters. For if conquered and slave races have been,
- 58:10Speaker 4: in some respects more forcibly repressed, whatever in them has
- 58:15Speaker 4: not been crushed down by an iron heel has generally
- 58:19Speaker 4: been let alone and left with any liberty of development.
- 58:24Speaker 4: It has developed itself according to its own laws. But
- 58:28Speaker 4: in the case of women, a hot house and stove
- 58:31Speaker 4: cultivation has always been carried on of some of the
- 58:33Speaker 4: capabilities of their nature for the benefit and pleasure of
- 58:37Speaker 4: their masters. Then, because certain products of the general vital
- 58:42Speaker 4: force sprout luxuriantly and reach a great development in this
- 58:46Speaker 4: heated atmosphere and under this act of nurture and watering,
- 58:51Speaker 4: while other shoots from the same root, which are left
- 58:54Speaker 4: outside in the wintry air, with ice purposely heaped all
- 58:58Speaker 4: round them, have a stund growth, and some are burnt
- 59:02Speaker 4: off with fire and disappear. Men with that inability to
- 59:06Speaker 4: recognize their own work which distinguishes the unanalytic mind, indolently
- 59:11Speaker 4: believe that the tree grows of itself in the way
- 59:13Speaker 4: they have made it grow, and that it would die
- 59:15Speaker 4: if one half of it were not kept in a
- 59:17Speaker 4: vapor bath and the other half in the snow. Of
- 59:22Speaker 4: all the difficulties which impede the progress of thought and
- 59:26Speaker 4: the formation of well grounded opinions on life and social arrangements,
- 59:30Speaker 4: the greatest is now the unspeakable ignorance and inattention of
- 59:34Speaker 4: mankind in respect to the influences which form human character.
- 59:39Speaker 4: Whatever any portion of the human species now are or
- 59:43Speaker 4: seem to be such, it is supposed they have a
- 59:47Speaker 4: natural tendency to be even when the most elementary knowledge
- 59:52Speaker 4: of the circumstances in which they have been placed clearly
- 59:55Speaker 4: points out the causes that made them what they are.
- 1:00:00Speaker 4: Because a courtier deeply in arrears to his landlord is
- 1:00:03Speaker 4: not industrious. There are people who think that the Irish
- 1:00:07Speaker 4: are naturally idle, because constitutions can be overthrown when the
- 1:00:12Speaker 4: authorities appointed to execute them turn their arms against them.
- 1:00:16Speaker 4: There are people who think the French incapable of free
- 1:00:19Speaker 4: government because the Greeks cheated the Turks, and the Turks
- 1:00:24Speaker 4: only plundered the Greeks. There are persons who think that
- 1:00:27Speaker 4: the Turks are naturally more sincere. And because women, as
- 1:00:32Speaker 4: is often said, care nothing about politics except their personalities,
- 1:00:37Speaker 4: it is supposed that the general good is naturally less
- 1:00:40Speaker 4: interesting to women than to men. History, which is now
- 1:00:44Speaker 4: so much better understood than formerly, teaches another lesson, if
- 1:00:49Speaker 4: only by showing the extraordinary susceptibility of human nature to
- 1:00:53Speaker 4: external influences, and the extreme variableness of those of its manifestations,
- 1:00:58Speaker 4: which are supposed to be more most universal and uniform.
- 1:01:03Speaker 4: But in history, as in traveling, men usually see only
- 1:01:07Speaker 4: what they already had in their own minds, and few
- 1:01:10Speaker 4: learn much from history, who do not bring much with
- 1:01:14Speaker 4: them to its study. Hence, in regard to that most
- 1:01:19Speaker 4: difficult question, what are the natural differences between the two sexes?
- 1:01:24Speaker 4: A subject on which it is impossible, in the present
- 1:01:27Speaker 4: state of society to obtain complete and correct knowledge. While
- 1:01:31Speaker 4: almost everybody dogmatizes upon it, almost all neglect and make
- 1:01:36Speaker 4: light of the only means by which any partial insight
- 1:01:39Speaker 4: can be obtained into it. This is an analytic study
- 1:01:44Speaker 4: of the most important department of psychology, the laws of
- 1:01:48Speaker 4: the influence of circumstances on character. For however great and
- 1:01:53Speaker 4: apparently ineradicable the moral and intellectual differences between men and
- 1:01:57Speaker 4: women might be, the evidence of their being natural, differences
- 1:02:02Speaker 4: could only be negative those only could be inferred to
- 1:02:06Speaker 4: be natural, which could not possibly be artificial. The residuum,
- 1:02:11Speaker 4: after deducting every characteristic of either sex which can admit
- 1:02:15Speaker 4: of being explained from education or external circumstances, the profoundest
- 1:02:21Speaker 4: knowledge of the laws of the formation of character is
- 1:02:24Speaker 4: indispensable to entitle anyone to affirm even that there is
- 1:02:28Speaker 4: any difference. Much more, what the difference is between the
- 1:02:31Speaker 4: two sexes considered as moral and rational beings, And since
- 1:02:37Speaker 4: no one as yet has that knowledge. For there is
- 1:02:40Speaker 4: hardly any subject which, in proportion to its importance, has
- 1:02:44Speaker 4: been so little studied. No one is thus far entitled
- 1:02:49Speaker 4: to any positive opinion on the subject. Conjectures are all
- 1:02:54Speaker 4: that can at present be made, conjectures more or less probable,
- 1:02:59Speaker 4: according as is more or less authorized by such knowledge
- 1:03:02Speaker 4: as we yet have of the laws of psychology as
- 1:03:05Speaker 4: applied to the formation of character. Even the preliminary knowledge
- 1:03:11Speaker 4: what the difference between the sexes now are, apart from
- 1:03:14Speaker 4: all question as to how they are made, what they
- 1:03:17Speaker 4: are is still in the crudest and most incomplete state.
- 1:03:22Speaker 4: Medical practitioners and physiologists have ascertained to some extent the
- 1:03:26Speaker 4: differences in bodily constitution, and this is an important element
- 1:03:31Speaker 4: to the psychologist. But hardly any medical practitioner is a psychologist.
- 1:03:37Speaker 4: Respecting the mental characteristics of women, their observations are of
- 1:03:41Speaker 4: no more worth than those of common men. It is
- 1:03:44Speaker 4: a subject on which nothing final can be known, so
- 1:03:47Speaker 4: long as those who alone can really know it. Women
- 1:03:50Speaker 4: themselves have given but little testimony, and that little mostly suborned.
- 1:03:57Speaker 4: It is easy to know stupid women. Stupidity is much
- 1:04:01Speaker 4: the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions
- 1:04:05Speaker 4: and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail
- 1:04:08Speaker 4: in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not
- 1:04:12Speaker 4: so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation
- 1:04:15Speaker 4: from their own nature and faculties. It is only a
- 1:04:20Speaker 4: man here and there who has any tolerable knowledge of
- 1:04:23Speaker 4: the character, even of the women of his own family.
- 1:04:27Speaker 4: I do not mean of their capabilities. These nobody knows,
- 1:04:31Speaker 4: not even themselves, because most of them have never been
- 1:04:34Speaker 4: called out. I mean there are actually existing thoughts and feelings.
- 1:04:40Speaker 4: Many a man thinks he perfectly understands women because he
- 1:04:44Speaker 4: has had amatory relations with several, perhaps with many of them.
- 1:04:49Speaker 4: If he is a good observer, and his experience extends
- 1:04:52Speaker 4: to quality as well as quantity, he may have learned
- 1:04:56Speaker 4: something of one narrow department of their nature, important department,
- 1:05:01Speaker 4: no doubt, but of all the rest of it. Few
- 1:05:03Speaker 4: persons are generally more ignorant, because there are few from
- 1:05:07Speaker 4: whom it is so carefully hidden. The most favorable case
- 1:05:12Speaker 4: which a man can generally have for studying the character
- 1:05:15Speaker 4: of a woman is that of his own wife, For
- 1:05:19Speaker 4: the opportunities are greater, and the cases of complete sympathy
- 1:05:23Speaker 4: not so unspeakably rare, and in fact this is the
- 1:05:26Speaker 4: source from which any knowledge worth having on the subject has,
- 1:05:29Speaker 4: I believe, generally come. But most men have not had
- 1:05:34Speaker 4: the opportunity of studying in this way more than a
- 1:05:37Speaker 4: single case. Accordingly, one can, to an almost laughable degree
- 1:05:42Speaker 4: infer what a man's wife is like from his opinions
- 1:05:45Speaker 4: about women in general. To make even this one case
- 1:05:50Speaker 4: yield any result, the woman must be worth knowing, and
- 1:05:53Speaker 4: the man not only a competent judge, but of a
- 1:05:57Speaker 4: character so sympathetic in itself and so well adapted to
- 1:06:01Speaker 4: hers that he can either read her mind by sympathetic intuition,
- 1:06:05Speaker 4: or has nothing in himself which makes her shy of
- 1:06:08Speaker 4: disclosing it. Hardly anything, I believe, can be more rare
- 1:06:13Speaker 4: than this conjunction. It often happens that there is the
- 1:06:18Speaker 4: most complete unity of feeling and community of interests as
- 1:06:21Speaker 4: to all external things, Yet the one has as little
- 1:06:25Speaker 4: admission into the internal life of the other as if
- 1:06:28Speaker 4: they were common acquaintances. Even with true affection. Authority on
- 1:06:33Speaker 4: the one side and subordination on the other prevent perfect confidence.
- 1:06:39Speaker 4: Though nothing may be intentionally withheld, much is not shown
- 1:06:45Speaker 4: in the analogous relation of parent and child. The corresponding
- 1:06:49Speaker 4: phenomenon must have been in the observation of everyone. As
- 1:06:53Speaker 4: between father and son. How many are the cases in
- 1:06:56Speaker 4: which the father, in spite of real affection on both sides,
- 1:07:00Speaker 4: obviously to all the world, does not know or suspect
- 1:07:04Speaker 4: parts of the son's character familiar to his companions and equals.
- 1:07:09Speaker 4: The truth is that the position of looking up to
- 1:07:12Speaker 4: another is extremely unpropitious to complete sincerity and openness with him.
- 1:07:17Speaker 4: The fear of losing ground in his opinion or in
- 1:07:20Speaker 4: his feelings is so strong that even in an upright character,
- 1:07:24Speaker 4: there is an unconscious tendency to show only the best side,
- 1:07:29Speaker 4: or the side which, though not the best, is that
- 1:07:32Speaker 4: which he most likes to see. And it may be
- 1:07:35Speaker 4: confidently said that thorough knowledge of one another hardly ever exists,
- 1:07:40Speaker 4: but between two persons who, besides being intimates, are equals.
- 1:07:47Speaker 4: How much more true then must all this be when
- 1:07:50Speaker 4: the one is not only under the authority of the other,
- 1:07:53Speaker 4: but has it inculcated on her as a duty to
- 1:07:55Speaker 4: reckon everything else subordinate to his comfort and pleasure, and
- 1:07:59Speaker 4: to let him him neither see nor feel anything coming
- 1:08:02Speaker 4: from her except what is agreeable to him. All these
- 1:08:06Speaker 4: difficulties stand in the way of a man's obtaining any
- 1:08:09Speaker 4: thorough knowledge, even of the one woman, whom alone, in
- 1:08:12Speaker 4: general he has sufficient opportunity of studying. When we further
- 1:08:18Speaker 4: consider that to understand one woman is not necessarily to
- 1:08:22Speaker 4: understand any other woman, that even if he could study
- 1:08:26Speaker 4: many women of one rank or of one country, he
- 1:08:29Speaker 4: would not thereby understand women of other ranks or countries.
- 1:08:34Speaker 4: And even if he did, they are still only the
- 1:08:36Speaker 4: women of a single period of history. We may safely
- 1:08:40Speaker 4: assert that the knowledge which men can acquire of women,
- 1:08:43Speaker 4: even as they have been and are, without reference to
- 1:08:47Speaker 4: what they might be, is wretchedly imperfect and superficial, and
- 1:08:51Speaker 4: always will be so until women themselves have told all
- 1:08:55Speaker 4: that they have to tell. And this time has not come,
- 1:09:01Speaker 4: nor will it come otherwise than gradually. It is but
- 1:09:06Speaker 4: of yesterday that women have either been qualified by literary
- 1:09:09Speaker 4: accomplishments or permitted by society to tell anything to the
- 1:09:13Speaker 4: general public. As yet very few of them dare tell
- 1:09:17Speaker 4: anything which men on whom their literary success depends are
- 1:09:22Speaker 4: unwilling to hear. Let us remember in what manner. Up
- 1:09:27Speaker 4: to a very recent time, the expression, even by a
- 1:09:30Speaker 4: male author, of uncustomary opinions or what are deemed eccentric feelings,
- 1:09:36Speaker 4: usually was, and in some degree still is received, And
- 1:09:41Speaker 4: we may form some faint conception under what impediments a
- 1:09:45Speaker 4: woman who is brought up to think custom and opinion
- 1:09:48Speaker 4: her sovereign rule, attempts to express in books anything drawn
- 1:09:52Speaker 4: from the depths of her own nature. The greatest woman
- 1:09:56Speaker 4: who has left writings behind her is sufficient to give
- 1:09:59Speaker 4: her an md eminent rank in the literature of her country.
- 1:10:02Speaker 4: Thought it necessary to prefix as a motto to her
- 1:10:05Speaker 4: boldest work unampu brave laupignon, un fame doisie zumer footnote,
- 1:10:14Speaker 4: title page of Madame de Stell's Delphine and footnote. The
- 1:10:21Speaker 4: greater part of what women write about women is mere
- 1:10:23Speaker 4: syncophancy to men. In the case of unmarried women, much
- 1:10:28Speaker 4: of it seems only intended to increase their chance of
- 1:10:31Speaker 4: a husband. Many, both married and unmarried, overstep the mark
- 1:10:37Speaker 4: and inculcate a servility beyond what is desired or relished
- 1:10:41Speaker 4: by any man except the very vulgarist. But this is
- 1:10:46Speaker 4: not so often the case as even at a quite
- 1:10:49Speaker 4: late period it still was literary. Women are becoming more
- 1:10:54Speaker 4: free spoken, and more willing to express their real sentiments. Unfortunately,
- 1:11:01Speaker 4: in this country especially, they are themselves such artificial products
- 1:11:06Speaker 4: that their sentiments are compounded of a small element of
- 1:11:09Speaker 4: individual observation and consciousness, and a very large one of
- 1:11:13Speaker 4: acquired associations. This will be less and less the case,
- 1:11:19Speaker 4: but it will remain true to a great extent, as
- 1:11:22Speaker 4: long as social institutions do not admit the same free
- 1:11:26Speaker 4: development of originality in women which is possible to men.
- 1:11:31Speaker 4: When that time comes, and not before we shall see,
- 1:11:35Speaker 4: and not merely here. As much as it is necessary
- 1:11:38Speaker 4: to know of the nature of women and the adaptation
- 1:11:41Speaker 4: of other things to it, I have dwelt so much
- 1:11:44Speaker 4: on the difficulties which at present obstruct any real knowledge
- 1:11:48Speaker 4: by men of the true nature of women, because in this,
- 1:11:51Speaker 4: as in so many other things, opiniocopier into Maximus calls
- 1:11:55Speaker 4: us inopier est. And there is little chance of reason
- 1:12:00Speaker 4: thinking on the matter when people flatter themselves that they
- 1:12:02Speaker 4: perfectly understand the subject of which most men know absolutely nothing,
- 1:12:07Speaker 4: and of which it is at present impossible that any
- 1:12:10Speaker 4: man or all men taken together should have knowledge which
- 1:12:14Speaker 4: can qualify them to lay down the law to women
- 1:12:17Speaker 4: as to what is or is not their vocation. Happily,
- 1:12:22Speaker 4: no such knowledge is necessary for any practical purpose connected
- 1:12:25Speaker 4: with the position of women in relation to society and life.
- 1:12:30Speaker 4: For according to all the principles involved in modern society,
- 1:12:34Speaker 4: the question rests with women themselves, to be decided by
- 1:12:38Speaker 4: their own experience and by the use of their own faculties.
- 1:12:44Speaker 4: There are no means of finding what either one person
- 1:12:47Speaker 4: or many can do but by trying, and no means
- 1:12:51Speaker 4: by which any one else can discover for them what
- 1:12:54Speaker 4: it is for their happiness to do or leave undone.
- 1:12:59Speaker 4: One thing. We may be certain of that what is
- 1:13:02Speaker 4: contrary to women's nature to do, they never will be
- 1:13:05Speaker 4: made to do by simply giving their nature free play.
- 1:13:10Speaker 4: The anxiety of mankind to interfere in behalf of nature,
- 1:13:15Speaker 4: for fear lest nature should not succeed in affecting its purpose,
- 1:13:19Speaker 4: is an altogether unnecessary solicitude. What women, by nature cannot do,
- 1:13:26Speaker 4: it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing what
- 1:13:31Speaker 4: they can do, but not so well as the men
- 1:13:33Speaker 4: who are their competitors. Competition suffices to exclude from them.
- 1:13:39Speaker 4: Since nobody asks for protective duties and bounties in favor
- 1:13:43Speaker 4: of women, it is only asked that the present bounties
- 1:13:46Speaker 4: and protective duties in favor of men should be recalled.
- 1:13:51Speaker 4: If women have a greater natural inclination for some things
- 1:13:54Speaker 4: than for others, there is no need of laws or
- 1:13:57Speaker 4: social inculcation to make the majority of them do the
- 1:14:00Speaker 4: former in preference to the latter. Whatever women's services are
- 1:14:06Speaker 4: most wanted for the free play of competition will hold
- 1:14:10Speaker 4: out the strongest inducements to them to undertake, And, as
- 1:14:15Speaker 4: the words imply, they are most wanted for the things
- 1:14:18Speaker 4: for which they are most fit, by the apportionment of
- 1:14:21Speaker 4: which to them, the collective faculties of the two sexes
- 1:14:24Speaker 4: can be applied on the whole with the greatest sum
- 1:14:28Speaker 4: of valuable result. The general opinion of men is supposed
- 1:14:32Speaker 4: to be that the natural vocation of a woman is
- 1:14:35Speaker 4: that of a wife and mother. I say is supposed
- 1:14:40Speaker 4: to be, because judging from acts from the whole of
- 1:14:44Speaker 4: the present constitution of society, one might infer that their
- 1:14:48Speaker 4: opinion was the direct contrary. They might be supposed to
- 1:14:52Speaker 4: think that the alleged natural vocation of women was, of
- 1:14:56Speaker 4: all things, the most repugnant to their nature. It is
- 1:14:59Speaker 4: much that if they are free to do anything else,
- 1:15:02Speaker 4: if any other means of living, our occupation of their
- 1:15:05Speaker 4: time and faculties is open, which has any chance of
- 1:15:08Speaker 4: appearing desirable to them, there will not be enough of
- 1:15:12Speaker 4: them who will be willing to accept the conditions said
- 1:15:15Speaker 4: to be natural to them. If this is the real
- 1:15:19Speaker 4: opinion of men in general, it would be well that
- 1:15:22Speaker 4: it should be spoken out. I should like to hear
- 1:15:25Speaker 4: somebody openly enunciating the doctrine. It is necessary to society
- 1:15:30Speaker 4: that women should marry and produce children. They will not
- 1:15:34Speaker 4: do so unless they are compelled. Therefore, it is necessary
- 1:15:37Speaker 4: to compel them. The merits of the case would then
- 1:15:41Speaker 4: be clearly defined. It would be exactly that of the
- 1:15:45Speaker 4: slaveholders of South Carolina and Louisiana. It is necessary that
- 1:15:49Speaker 4: cotton and sugar should be grown. White men cannot produce them.
- 1:15:53Speaker 4: Negroes will not for any wages which we choose to
- 1:15:56Speaker 4: give ergo. They must be compelled. An illustration, still closer
- 1:16:02Speaker 4: to the point, is that of impressment. Sailors must absolutely
- 1:16:06Speaker 4: be had to defend the country. It often happens that
- 1:16:10Speaker 4: they will not voluntarily enlist. Therefore there must be the
- 1:16:14Speaker 4: power of forcing them. How often has this logic been used,
- 1:16:19Speaker 4: and but for one flaw in it, without doubt it
- 1:16:22Speaker 4: would have been successful up to this day. But it
- 1:16:26Speaker 4: is open to the retort. First, pay the sailors the
- 1:16:29Speaker 4: honest value of their labor. When you have made it
- 1:16:32Speaker 4: as well worth their while to serve you as to
- 1:16:34Speaker 4: work for other employers, you will have no more difficulty
- 1:16:38Speaker 4: than others have in obtaining their services. To this, there
- 1:16:42Speaker 4: is no logical example except I will not. And as
- 1:16:46Speaker 4: people are now not only ashamed, but are not desirous
- 1:16:50Speaker 4: to rob the laborer of his hire, impressment is no
- 1:16:54Speaker 4: longer advocated. Those who attempt to force women into marriage
- 1:16:59Speaker 4: by close all other doors against them lay themselves open
- 1:17:03Speaker 4: to a similar retort. If they mean what they say,
- 1:17:06Speaker 4: their opinion must evidently be that men do not render
- 1:17:09Speaker 4: the married condition so desirable to women as to induce
- 1:17:13Speaker 4: them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is
- 1:17:16Speaker 4: not a sign of one's thinking. The boon one offers
- 1:17:19Speaker 4: very attractive when one allows only Hobson's choice that or none.
- 1:17:24Speaker 4: And here I believe is the clue to the feelings
- 1:17:27Speaker 4: of those men who have a real antipathy to the
- 1:17:29Speaker 4: equal freedom of women. I believe they are afraid not
- 1:17:34Speaker 4: lest women should be unwilling to marry, For I do
- 1:17:37Speaker 4: not think that any one in reality has that apprehension,
- 1:17:42Speaker 4: but lest they should insist that marriage should be on
- 1:17:45Speaker 4: equal conditions, lest all women of spirit and capacity should
- 1:17:50Speaker 4: prefer doing almost anything else, not in their own eyes degrading,
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: rather than marry, when marrying is giving themselves a master
- 1:17:59Speaker 4: and a master two of all their earthly possessions. And truly,
- 1:18:04Speaker 4: if this consequence were necessarily incident to marriage, I think
- 1:18:08Speaker 4: that the apprehension would be very well founded. I agree
- 1:18:12Speaker 4: in thinking it probable that few women capable of anything else, would,
- 1:18:17Speaker 4: unless under an irresistible entrainment rendering them for the time
- 1:18:21Speaker 4: insensible to anything but itself, choose such a lot when
- 1:18:26Speaker 4: any other means were open to them, of filling a
- 1:18:28Speaker 4: conventionally honorable place in life. And if men are determined
- 1:18:32Speaker 4: that the law of marriage shall be a law of despotism,
- 1:18:36Speaker 4: they are quite right in point of mere policy, in
- 1:18:39Speaker 4: leaving to women only Hobson's choice. But in that case,
- 1:18:44Speaker 4: all that has been done in the modern world. To
- 1:18:47Speaker 4: relax the chains on the minds of women has been
- 1:18:49Speaker 4: a mistake. They never should have been allowed to receive
- 1:18:53Speaker 4: a literary education. Women who read much more women who write, are,
- 1:19:00Speaker 4: in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a
- 1:19:04Speaker 4: disturbing element. And it was wrong to bring women up
- 1:19:07Speaker 4: with any acquirements but those of an autolisk or of
- 1:19:10Speaker 4: a domestic servant. End of Chapter one, Part three.
- 1:19:18Speaker 5: Chapter two, it will be well to commence the detailed
- 1:19:22Speaker 5: discussion of the subject by the particular branch of it
- 1:19:26Speaker 5: to which the course of our observations has led us.
- 1:19:29Speaker 5: The conditions which the laws of this and all other
- 1:19:32Speaker 5: countries are next to the marriage contract. Marriage being the
- 1:19:37Speaker 5: destination appointed by society for women, the prospect they are
- 1:19:42Speaker 5: brought up to, and the object which it is intended,
- 1:19:45Speaker 5: should be sought by all of them, except those who
- 1:19:47Speaker 5: are too little attractive to be chosen by any man
- 1:19:50Speaker 5: as his companion. One might have supposed that everything would
- 1:19:54Speaker 5: have been done to make this condition as eligible to
- 1:19:57Speaker 5: them as possible, that they might have no cause to
- 1:20:00Speaker 5: regret being denied the option of any other society. However,
- 1:20:05Speaker 5: both in this and at first in all other cases,
- 1:20:09Speaker 5: has preferred to attain its object by foul rather than
- 1:20:12Speaker 5: fair means, but this is the only case in which
- 1:20:16Speaker 5: it has substantially persisted in them even to the present day. Originally,
- 1:20:22Speaker 5: women were taken by force or regularly sold by their
- 1:20:26Speaker 5: father to the husband. Until a late period in European history,
- 1:20:31Speaker 5: the father had the power to dispose of his daughter
- 1:20:34Speaker 5: in marriage at his own will and pleasure, without any
- 1:20:37Speaker 5: regard to hers. The Church indeed was so far faithful
- 1:20:42Speaker 5: to a better morality as to require a formal yes
- 1:20:46Speaker 5: from the woman at the marriage ceremony, but there was
- 1:20:50Speaker 5: nothing to show that the consent was other than compulsory,
- 1:20:53Speaker 5: and it was practically impossible for the girl to refuse
- 1:20:57Speaker 5: compliance if the father persevered, except perhapps, when she might
- 1:21:01Speaker 5: obtain the protection of religion by a determined resolution to
- 1:21:04Speaker 5: take monastic vows after marriage. The man had anciently, but
- 1:21:10Speaker 5: this was anterior to Christianity the power of life and
- 1:21:14Speaker 5: death over his wife. She could invoke no law against him.
- 1:21:19Speaker 5: He was her sole tribunal and law. For a long time.
- 1:21:24Speaker 5: He could repudiate her, but she had no corresponding power
- 1:21:27Speaker 5: in regard to him. By the old laws of England,
- 1:21:30Speaker 5: the husband was called the lord of the wife. He
- 1:21:33Speaker 5: was literally regarded as her sovereign, inasmuch that the murder
- 1:21:38Speaker 5: of a man by his wife was called treason petty,
- 1:21:42Speaker 5: as distinguished from high treason, and was more cruelly avenged
- 1:21:46Speaker 5: than was usually the case with high treason, for the
- 1:21:49Speaker 5: penalty was burning to death. Because these various enormities had
- 1:21:53Speaker 5: fallen into disuse, for most of them were never formally abolished,
- 1:21:58Speaker 5: or not until they had long seen to be practiced.
- 1:22:01Speaker 5: Men suppose that all is now as it should be
- 1:22:04Speaker 5: in regard to the marriage contract, and we are continually
- 1:22:07Speaker 5: told that civilization and Christianity have restored to the woman
- 1:22:12Speaker 5: her just rights. Meanwhile, the wife is the actual bond
- 1:22:16Speaker 5: servant of her husband, no less so as far as
- 1:22:19Speaker 5: legal obligation goes than slaves commonly so called. She vows
- 1:22:24Speaker 5: a live long obedience to him at the altar, and
- 1:22:27Speaker 5: is held to it all through her life by law.
- 1:22:31Speaker 5: Casuists may say that the obligation of obedience stops short
- 1:22:35Speaker 5: of participation in crime, but it certainly extends to everything else.
- 1:22:40Speaker 5: She can do no act whatever, but by his permission
- 1:22:44Speaker 5: at least tacit. She can acquire no property, but for
- 1:22:48Speaker 5: him the instant it becomes hers, even if by inheritance
- 1:22:53Speaker 5: it becomes ipso facto his. In this respect, the wife's
- 1:22:57Speaker 5: position under the common law of England is worse than
- 1:23:01Speaker 5: that of slaves in the laws of many other countries.
- 1:23:05Speaker 5: By the Roman law, for example, a slave might have
- 1:23:08Speaker 5: his peculium, which, to a certain extent the law guaranteed
- 1:23:12Speaker 5: to him for his exclusive use. The higher classes in
- 1:23:16Speaker 5: this country have given an analogous advantage to their women
- 1:23:20Speaker 5: through special contracts, setting aside the law by conditions of
- 1:23:23Speaker 5: pin money, et cetera. Since parental feeling being stronger with
- 1:23:28Speaker 5: fathers than the class of feeling of their own sex,
- 1:23:31Speaker 5: a father generally prefers his own daughter to a son
- 1:23:35Speaker 5: in law who is a stranger to him. By means
- 1:23:38Speaker 5: of settlements, the rich usually contrived to withdraw the whole
- 1:23:42Speaker 5: or part of the inherited property of the wife from
- 1:23:45Speaker 5: the absolute control of the husband, but they do not
- 1:23:48Speaker 5: succeed in keeping it under her own control. The utmost
- 1:23:52Speaker 5: they can do only prevents the husband from squandering it,
- 1:23:56Speaker 5: at the same time debarring the rightful owner from its use.
- 1:24:00Speaker 5: The property itself is out of the reach of both,
- 1:24:03Speaker 5: and as to the income derived from it. The form
- 1:24:06Speaker 5: of settlements most favorable to the wife that called to
- 1:24:10Speaker 5: her separate use only precludes the husband from receiving it
- 1:24:14Speaker 5: instead of her. It must pass through her hands. But
- 1:24:18Speaker 5: if he takes it from her by personal violence, as
- 1:24:21Speaker 5: soon as she receives it, he can neither be punished
- 1:24:24Speaker 5: nor compelled to restitution. This is the amount of the
- 1:24:28Speaker 5: protection which, under the laws of this country, the most
- 1:24:31Speaker 5: powerful nobleman can give to his own daughter as respects
- 1:24:35Speaker 5: her husband. In the immense majority of cases, there is
- 1:24:40Speaker 5: no settlement, and the absorption of all rights, all property,
- 1:24:44Speaker 5: as well as all freedom of action is complete. The
- 1:24:48Speaker 5: two are called one person in law for the purpose
- 1:24:52Speaker 5: of inferring that whatever is hers is his, But the
- 1:24:56Speaker 5: parallel inference is never drawn that whatever is his. The
- 1:25:01Speaker 5: maxim is not applied against the man, except to make
- 1:25:05Speaker 5: him responsible to third parties for her acts, as a
- 1:25:08Speaker 5: master is for the acts of his slaves or of
- 1:25:11Speaker 5: his cattle. I am far from pretending that wives are
- 1:25:15Speaker 5: in general no better treated than slaves. But no slave
- 1:25:18Speaker 5: is a slave to the same lengths, and in so
- 1:25:21Speaker 5: full a sense of the word as a wife is
- 1:25:25Speaker 5: hardly any slave except one immediately attached to the master's
- 1:25:29Speaker 5: person is a slave at all hours and all minutes.
- 1:25:33Speaker 5: In general, he has, like a soldier, his fixed task,
- 1:25:37Speaker 5: and when it is done, or when he is off duty,
- 1:25:40Speaker 5: he disposes within certain limits of his own time, and
- 1:25:44Speaker 5: has a family life into which the master rarely intrudes.
- 1:25:49Speaker 5: Uncle Tom, under his first master, had his own life
- 1:25:52Speaker 5: in his cabin, almost as much as any man whose
- 1:25:56Speaker 5: work takes him away from his home is able to
- 1:25:59Speaker 5: have in his own family. But it cannot be so
- 1:26:03Speaker 5: with the wife. Above all, a female slave has in
- 1:26:07Speaker 5: Christian countries an admitted right, and is considered under a
- 1:26:11Speaker 5: moral obligation to refuse her master the last familiarity. Not
- 1:26:16Speaker 5: so the wife, however brutal a tyrant, she may unfortunately
- 1:26:20Speaker 5: be chained to, though she may know that he hates her,
- 1:26:23Speaker 5: though it may be his daily pleasure to torture her,
- 1:26:26Speaker 5: and though she may feel it impossible not to loathe him,
- 1:26:30Speaker 5: he can claim from her, and in force the lowest
- 1:26:33Speaker 5: degradation of a human being, that of being made the
- 1:26:36Speaker 5: instrument of an animal function contrary to her inclinations. While
- 1:26:41Speaker 5: she is held in the worst description of slavery as
- 1:26:44Speaker 5: to her own person. What is her position in regard
- 1:26:48Speaker 5: to the children in whom she and her master have
- 1:26:51Speaker 5: a joint interest. They are, by law his children. He
- 1:26:56Speaker 5: alone has any legal rights over them. Note act. Can
- 1:27:00Speaker 5: she do towards or in relation to them, except by
- 1:27:04Speaker 5: delegation from him? Even after he is dead. She is
- 1:27:08Speaker 5: not their legal guardian unless he by will has made
- 1:27:12Speaker 5: her so. He could even send them away from her
- 1:27:16Speaker 5: and deprive her of the means of seeing or corresponding
- 1:27:19Speaker 5: with them, until this power was in some degree restricted
- 1:27:22Speaker 5: by Sergeant Talford's Act. This is her legal state, and
- 1:27:28Speaker 5: from this state she has no means of withdrawing herself.
- 1:27:31Speaker 5: If she leaves her husband, she can take nothing with her,
- 1:27:35Speaker 5: neither her children, nor anything which is rightfully her own.
- 1:27:39Speaker 5: If he chooses, he can compel her to return by
- 1:27:43Speaker 5: law or by physical force, or he may content himself
- 1:27:47Speaker 5: with seizing for his own use anything which she may
- 1:27:50Speaker 5: earn or which may be given to her by her relations.
- 1:27:53Speaker 5: It is only legal separation by a decree of a
- 1:27:56Speaker 5: court of justice which entitles her to live apart with
- 1:27:59Speaker 5: other being forced back into the custody of an exasperated jailer,
- 1:28:04Speaker 5: or which empowers her to apply any earnings to her
- 1:28:07Speaker 5: own use without fear that a man whom perhaps she
- 1:28:10Speaker 5: has not seen for twenty years will pounce upon her
- 1:28:14Speaker 5: someday and carry it all off. This legal separation, until
- 1:28:19Speaker 5: lately the courts of justice would only give at an
- 1:28:22Speaker 5: expense which made it inaccessible to anyone out of the
- 1:28:25Speaker 5: higher ranks. Even now it is only given in cases
- 1:28:29Speaker 5: of desertion or of the extreme of cruelty, and yet
- 1:28:33Speaker 5: complaints are made every day that it is granted too easily. Surely,
- 1:28:38Speaker 5: if a woman is denied any lot in life but
- 1:28:41Speaker 5: that of being the personal body servant of a despot,
- 1:28:44Speaker 5: and is dependent for everything upon the chance of finding
- 1:28:48Speaker 5: one who may be disposed to make a favorite of
- 1:28:50Speaker 5: her instead of merely a drudge, it is a very
- 1:28:53Speaker 5: cruel aggravation of her fate that she should be allowed
- 1:28:57Speaker 5: to try this chance only once. Natural sequel and corollary
- 1:29:01Speaker 5: from this state of things would be that, since her
- 1:29:04Speaker 5: all in life depends upon obtaining a good master, she
- 1:29:08Speaker 5: should be allowed to change again and again until she
- 1:29:11Speaker 5: finds one. I am not saying that she ought to
- 1:29:14Speaker 5: be allowed this privilege. That is a totally different consideration.
- 1:29:19Speaker 5: The question of divorce in the sense involving liberty of
- 1:29:23Speaker 5: remarriage is one into which it is foreign to my
- 1:29:26Speaker 5: purpose to enter. All I now say is that to
- 1:29:30Speaker 5: those whom nothing but servitude is allowed, the free choice
- 1:29:34Speaker 5: of servitude is the only, though a most insufficient, alleviation.
- 1:29:40Speaker 5: Its refusal completes the assimilation of the wife to the slave,
- 1:29:45Speaker 5: and the slave under not the mildest form of slavery.
- 1:29:49Speaker 5: For in some slave codes the slave could, under certain
- 1:29:52Speaker 5: circumstances of ill usage, legally compel the master to sell him.
- 1:29:57Speaker 5: But no amount of ill usage without ad adultery superadded,
- 1:30:01Speaker 5: will in England free a wife from her tormentor I
- 1:30:07Speaker 5: have no desire to exaggerate, nor does the case stand
- 1:30:11Speaker 5: in any need of exaggeration. I have described the wife's
- 1:30:14Speaker 5: legal position, not her actual treatment. The laws of most
- 1:30:19Speaker 5: countries are far worse than the people who execute them,
- 1:30:23Speaker 5: and many of them are only able to remain laws
- 1:30:26Speaker 5: by being seldom or never carried into effect. If married
- 1:30:30Speaker 5: life were all that it might be expected to be,
- 1:30:33Speaker 5: looking to the laws alone, society would be a hell
- 1:30:37Speaker 5: upon earth. Happily, there are both feelings and interests, which
- 1:30:42Speaker 5: in many men exclude and in most greatly temper the
- 1:30:46Speaker 5: impulses and propensities which lead to tyranny, and of those feelings.
- 1:30:51Speaker 5: The tie which connects a man with his wife affords,
- 1:30:54Speaker 5: in a normal state of things, incomparably the strongest example,
- 1:31:00Speaker 5: the only tie which at all approaches to it, that
- 1:31:03Speaker 5: between him and his children, tends in all, save exceptional cases,
- 1:31:07Speaker 5: to strengthen instead of conflicting with the first. Because this
- 1:31:12Speaker 5: is true because men in general do not inflict, nor
- 1:31:16Speaker 5: women suffer, or the misery which could be inflicted and
- 1:31:19Speaker 5: suffered if the full power of tyranny with which the
- 1:31:22Speaker 5: man is legally invested were acted on. The defenders of
- 1:31:25Speaker 5: the existing form of the institution think that all its
- 1:31:29Speaker 5: iniquity is justified, and that any complaint is merely quarreling
- 1:31:33Speaker 5: with the evil which is the price paid for every
- 1:31:36Speaker 5: great good. But the mitigations in practice which are compatible
- 1:31:41Speaker 5: with maintaining in full legal force this or any other
- 1:31:44Speaker 5: kind of tyranny, instead of being an apology for despotism,
- 1:31:49Speaker 5: only serve to prove what power human nature possesses of
- 1:31:53Speaker 5: reacting against the vilest institutions, and with what vitality the
- 1:31:58Speaker 5: seeds of good as well as those of evil in
- 1:32:00Speaker 5: human character, diffuse, and propagate themselves. Not a word can
- 1:32:06Speaker 5: be said for despotism in the family which cannot be
- 1:32:09Speaker 5: said for political despotism. Every absolute king does not sit
- 1:32:14Speaker 5: at his window to enjoy the groans of his tortured subjects,
- 1:32:18Speaker 5: nor strips them of their last rag and turns them
- 1:32:21Speaker 5: out to shiver in the road. The despotism of Lewis
- 1:32:24Speaker 5: the sixteenth was not the despotism of Philippe le Belle,
- 1:32:28Speaker 5: or of Nadir Shah, or of Caligula, but it was
- 1:32:32Speaker 5: bad enough to justify the French Revolution and to palliate
- 1:32:35Speaker 5: even its horrors. If an appeal be made to the
- 1:32:39Speaker 5: intense attachments which exist between wives and their husbands, exactly
- 1:32:44Speaker 5: as much may be said of domestic slavery, It was
- 1:32:48Speaker 5: quite an ordinary fact in Greece and Rome for slaves
- 1:32:51Speaker 5: to submit to death by torture rather than betray their masters.
- 1:32:56Speaker 5: In the prescriptions of the Roman Civil Wars, it was
- 1:32:59Speaker 5: remarked that wives and slaves were heroically faithful sons very
- 1:33:04Speaker 5: commonly treacherous. Yet we know how cruelly many Romans treated
- 1:33:09Speaker 5: their slaves. But in truth, these intense individual feelings nowhere
- 1:33:15Speaker 5: rise to such a luxuriant height as under the most
- 1:33:18Speaker 5: atrocious institutions. It is part of the irony of life
- 1:33:23Speaker 5: that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude, of which human
- 1:33:26Speaker 5: nature seems to be susceptible, are called forth in human
- 1:33:30Speaker 5: beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush
- 1:33:34Speaker 5: their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power. How
- 1:33:40Speaker 5: great a place in most men this sentiment fills even
- 1:33:43Speaker 5: in religious devotion, it would be cruel to inquire. We
- 1:33:48Speaker 5: daily see how much their gratitude to Heaven appears to
- 1:33:51Speaker 5: be stimulated by the contemplation of fellow creatures to whom
- 1:33:55Speaker 5: God has not been so merciful as he has to themselves.
- 1:34:01Speaker 5: Whether the institution to be defended is slavery, political absolutism,
- 1:34:06Speaker 5: or the absolutism of the head of a family, we
- 1:34:08Speaker 5: are always expected to judge of it from its best instances,
- 1:34:13Speaker 5: and we are presented with pictures of loving exercise of
- 1:34:16Speaker 5: authority on one side, loving submission to it on the other,
- 1:34:21Speaker 5: superior wisdom ordering all things for the greatest good of
- 1:34:25Speaker 5: the dependents, and surrounded by their smiles and benedictions. All
- 1:34:30Speaker 5: this would be very much to the purpose if anyone
- 1:34:33Speaker 5: pretended that there are no such things as good men,
- 1:34:36Speaker 5: who doubts that there may be a great goodness and
- 1:34:40Speaker 5: great happiness and great affection under the absolute government of
- 1:34:44Speaker 5: a good man. Meanwhile, laws and institutions require to be
- 1:34:49Speaker 5: adapted not to good men, but to bad Marriage is
- 1:34:53Speaker 5: not an institution designed for a select few. Men are
- 1:34:57Speaker 5: not required, as a preliminary to them marriage ceremony to
- 1:35:01Speaker 5: prove by testimonials they are fit to be trusted with
- 1:35:04Speaker 5: the exercise of absolute power. The tie of affection and
- 1:35:08Speaker 5: obligation to a wife and children is very strong with
- 1:35:11Speaker 5: those whose general social feelings are strong, and with many
- 1:35:16Speaker 5: who are little sensible to any other social ties. But
- 1:35:19Speaker 5: there are all degrees of sensibility and insensibility to it,
- 1:35:24Speaker 5: as there are all grades of goodness and wickedness in men,
- 1:35:28Speaker 5: down to those whom no ties will bind, and on
- 1:35:31Speaker 5: whom society has no action, but through its ultimate ratio
- 1:35:35Speaker 5: the penalties of the law in every grade of this
- 1:35:39Speaker 5: descending scale, and men to whom are committed all the
- 1:35:42Speaker 5: legal powers of a husband. The vilest malefactor has some
- 1:35:47Speaker 5: wretched woman tied to him, against whom he can commit
- 1:35:51Speaker 5: any atrocity except killing her, and if tolerably cautious, can
- 1:35:56Speaker 5: do that without much danger of the legal penalty. And
- 1:36:00Speaker 5: how many thousands are there within the lowest classes in
- 1:36:04Speaker 5: every country, who, without being in a legal sense, malefactors
- 1:36:09Speaker 5: in any other respect, because in every other quarter their
- 1:36:12Speaker 5: aggressions meet with resistance, indulge the utmost habitual excesses of
- 1:36:17Speaker 5: bodily violence towards the unhappy wife, who alone, at least
- 1:36:22Speaker 5: of grown persons, can neither repel nor escape from their brutality,
- 1:36:28Speaker 5: And towards whom the excess of dependence inspires their mean
- 1:36:32Speaker 5: and savage natures, not with a generous forbearance and a
- 1:36:36Speaker 5: point of honor to behave well to one whose lot
- 1:36:39Speaker 5: in life is trusted entirely to their kindness, but on
- 1:36:42Speaker 5: the contrary, with the notion that the law has delivered
- 1:36:45Speaker 5: her to them as their thing to be used at
- 1:36:49Speaker 5: their pleasure, and that they are not expected to practice
- 1:36:53Speaker 5: the consideration towards her which is required from them towards
- 1:36:57Speaker 5: everybody else. Law, which till lately left even these atrocious
- 1:37:03Speaker 5: extremes of domestic oppression practically unpunished, has within these few
- 1:37:08Speaker 5: years made some feeble attempt to repress them, but its
- 1:37:12Speaker 5: attempts have done little and cannot be expected to do much,
- 1:37:16Speaker 5: because it is contrary to reason and experience to suppose
- 1:37:19Speaker 5: that there can be any real check to brutality consistent
- 1:37:23Speaker 5: with leaving the victim still in the power of the
- 1:37:25Speaker 5: executioner until a conviction for personal violence or at all events,
- 1:37:31Speaker 5: a repetition of it after a first conviction entitles the
- 1:37:34Speaker 5: woman ipso facto to a divorce or at least to
- 1:37:38Speaker 5: a judicial separation. The attempt to repress these quote aggravated
- 1:37:43Speaker 5: assaults end quote by legal penalties will break down for
- 1:37:47Speaker 5: want of a prosecutor or for want of a witness.
- 1:37:52Speaker 5: When we consider how vast is the number of men
- 1:37:56Speaker 5: in any great country who are little higher than brutes,
- 1:38:00Speaker 5: and that this never prevents them from being able, through
- 1:38:02Speaker 5: the law of marriage, to obtain a victim, the breadth
- 1:38:06Speaker 5: and depth of human misery caused in this shape alone
- 1:38:10Speaker 5: by the abuse of the institution swells to something appalling.
- 1:38:15Speaker 5: Yet these are only the extreme cases. They are the
- 1:38:19Speaker 5: lowest abysses, but there is a sad succession of depth
- 1:38:23Speaker 5: after depth before reaching them. In domestic as in political tyranny,
- 1:38:29Speaker 5: the case of absolute monsters chiefly illustrates the institution by
- 1:38:34Speaker 5: showing that there is scarcely any horror which may not
- 1:38:37Speaker 5: occur under it if the despot pleases, and thus setting
- 1:38:42Speaker 5: in a strong light what must be the terrible frequency
- 1:38:46Speaker 5: of things only a little less atrocious. Absolute fiends are
- 1:38:51Speaker 5: as rare as angels, perhaps rarer. Ferocious savages, with occasional
- 1:38:57Speaker 5: touches of humanity are, however, very frequently, and in the
- 1:39:01Speaker 5: wide interval which separates these from any worthy representatives of
- 1:39:05Speaker 5: the human species, how many are the forms and gradations
- 1:39:09Speaker 5: of animalism and selfishness, often under an outward varnish of
- 1:39:13Speaker 5: civilization and even cultivation, living at peace with the law,
- 1:39:18Speaker 5: maintaining a credible appearance to all who are not under
- 1:39:22Speaker 5: their power, yet sufficient often to make the lives of
- 1:39:25Speaker 5: all who are so a torment and a burthen to them.
- 1:39:30Speaker 5: It would be tiresome to repeat the commonplaces about the
- 1:39:33Speaker 5: unfitness of men in general for power, which, after the
- 1:39:36Speaker 5: political discussions of centuries, everyone knows by heart. Were it
- 1:39:41Speaker 5: not that hardly anyone thinks of applying these maxims to
- 1:39:44Speaker 5: the case in which, above all others they are applicable,
- 1:39:47Speaker 5: that of power not placed in the hands of a
- 1:39:50Speaker 5: man here and there, but offered to every adult male,
- 1:39:53Speaker 5: down to the basest and most ferocious. It is not
- 1:39:58Speaker 5: because a man is not known to have broken any
- 1:40:00Speaker 5: of the ten commandments, or because he maintains a respectable
- 1:40:05Speaker 5: character in his dealings with those whom he cannot compel
- 1:40:08Speaker 5: to have intercourse with him, or because he does not
- 1:40:11Speaker 5: fly out into violent bursteville temper against those who are
- 1:40:15Speaker 5: not obliged to bear with him, that it is possible
- 1:40:18Speaker 5: to surmise of what sort is conduct will be in
- 1:40:21Speaker 5: the unrestraint of home. Even the commonest men reserve the violent,
- 1:40:26Speaker 5: the sulky, the undisguisedly selfish side of their character for
- 1:40:31Speaker 5: those who have no power to withstand it. The relation
- 1:40:35Speaker 5: of superiors to dependence is the nursery of these vices
- 1:40:39Speaker 5: of character, which, wherever else they exist, are an overflowing
- 1:40:44Speaker 5: from that source. A man who is morose or violent
- 1:40:48Speaker 5: to his equals is surely to be one who has
- 1:40:51Speaker 5: lived among inferiors whom he could frighten or worry into submission.
- 1:40:57Speaker 5: If the family, in its best forms is as it
- 1:41:00Speaker 5: is often said to be, a school of sympathy, tenderness,
- 1:41:04Speaker 5: and loving forgetfulness of self. It is still oftener as
- 1:41:08Speaker 5: respects its chief, a school of wilfulness overbearingness, unbounded selfish indulgence,
- 1:41:15Speaker 5: and a double dyed and idealized selfishness, of which sacrifice
- 1:41:19Speaker 5: itself is only a particular form, the care for the
- 1:41:23Speaker 5: wife and children being only care for them as parts
- 1:41:26Speaker 5: of the man's own interests and belongings, and their individual
- 1:41:30Speaker 5: happiness being emoliated in every shape to his smallest preferences.
- 1:41:35Speaker 5: What better is to be looked for under the existing
- 1:41:38Speaker 5: form of the institution. We know that the bad propensities
- 1:41:42Speaker 5: of human nature are only kept within bounds when they
- 1:41:45Speaker 5: are allowed no scope for their indulgence. We know that
- 1:41:49Speaker 5: from impulse and habit, when not from deliberate purpose, almost
- 1:41:54Speaker 5: everyone to whom others yield goes on encroaching upon them
- 1:41:58Speaker 5: until a point is reached which they are compelled to resist.
- 1:42:03Speaker 5: Such being the common tendency of human nature. The almost
- 1:42:06Speaker 5: unlimited power which present social institutions give to the man
- 1:42:10Speaker 5: over at least one human being, the one with whom
- 1:42:13Speaker 5: he resides and whom he has always present, this power
- 1:42:17Speaker 5: seeks out and evokes the latent germs of selfishness in
- 1:42:22Speaker 5: the remotest corners of his nature, fans its faintest sparks
- 1:42:26Speaker 5: and smoldering embers, offers to him a license for the
- 1:42:30Speaker 5: indulgence of those points of his original character which in
- 1:42:34Speaker 5: all other relations he would have found it necessary to
- 1:42:37Speaker 5: repress and conceal, and the repression of which would in
- 1:42:41Speaker 5: time have become a second nature. I know that there
- 1:42:46Speaker 5: is another side of the question. I grant that the wife,
- 1:42:49Speaker 5: if she cannot effectually resist, can at least retaliate. She too,
- 1:42:54Speaker 5: can make the man's life extremely uncomfortable, and by that
- 1:42:58Speaker 5: power is able to carry men many points which she
- 1:43:01Speaker 5: ought and many which she ought not to prevail in.
- 1:43:06Speaker 5: But this instrument of self protection, which may be called
- 1:43:09Speaker 5: the power of the scold or the shrewish sanction, has
- 1:43:13Speaker 5: the fatal defect that it avails most against the least
- 1:43:16Speaker 5: tyrannical superiors, and in favour of the least deserving dependence.
- 1:43:22Speaker 5: It is the weapon of irritable and self willed women,
- 1:43:26Speaker 5: of those who would make the worst use of power
- 1:43:28Speaker 5: if they themselves had it, and who generally turn this
- 1:43:32Speaker 5: power to a bad use. The amiable cannot use such
- 1:43:36Speaker 5: an instrument. The high minded disdain it, and on the
- 1:43:40Speaker 5: other hand, the husbands against whom it is used most
- 1:43:43Speaker 5: effectively are the gentler and more inoffensive, those who cannot
- 1:43:48Speaker 5: be induced, even by provocation, to resort to any very
- 1:43:52Speaker 5: harsh exercise of authority. The wife's power of being disagreeable
- 1:43:57Speaker 5: generally only establishes a counter tyranny and makes victims in
- 1:44:02Speaker 5: their turn, chiefly of those husbands who are least inclined
- 1:44:05Speaker 5: to be tyrants. What is it, then, which really tempers
- 1:44:10Speaker 5: the corrupting effects of the power and makes it compatible
- 1:44:14Speaker 5: with such amount of good as we actually see? Mere
- 1:44:19Speaker 5: feminine blandishments, though of great effect in individual instances, have
- 1:44:24Speaker 5: very little effect in modifying the general tendencies of the situation.
- 1:44:28Speaker 5: For their power only lasts while the woman is young
- 1:44:31Speaker 5: and attractive, often only while her charm is new and
- 1:44:35Speaker 5: not dimmed by familiarity, and on many men they have
- 1:44:39Speaker 5: not much influence at any time. The real mitigating causes
- 1:44:43Speaker 5: are the personal affection, which is the growth of time,
- 1:44:47Speaker 5: in so far as the man's nature is susceptible of it,
- 1:44:50Speaker 5: and the woman's character sufficiently congenial with his to excite it.
- 1:44:55Speaker 5: Their common interests, as regard the children, and their general
- 1:44:58Speaker 5: community of interest as concerns third persons, to which, however,
- 1:45:03Speaker 5: there are very great limitations. The real importance of the
- 1:45:06Speaker 5: wife to his daily comforts and enjoyments, and the value
- 1:45:10Speaker 5: he consequently attaches to her on his personal account, which
- 1:45:14Speaker 5: in a man capable of feeling for others, lays the
- 1:45:17Speaker 5: foundations of caring for her on her own. And lastly,
- 1:45:21Speaker 5: the influence naturally acquired over almost all human beings by
- 1:45:25Speaker 5: those near to their persons, if not actually disagreeable to them,
- 1:45:30Speaker 5: who both by their direct entreaties and by the inseparable
- 1:45:34Speaker 5: contagion of their feelings and dispositions, are often able, unless
- 1:45:38Speaker 5: counteracted by some equally strong personal influence, to obtain a
- 1:45:42Speaker 5: degree of command over the conduct of the superior, altogether
- 1:45:47Speaker 5: excessive and unreasonable. Through these various means, the wife frequently
- 1:45:53Speaker 5: exercises even too much power over the man. She is
- 1:45:57Speaker 5: able to affect his conduct in things in which she
- 1:46:00Speaker 5: may not be qualified to influence it for good, in
- 1:46:03Speaker 5: which her influence may be not only unenlightened, but employed
- 1:46:07Speaker 5: on the morally wrong side, and in which he would
- 1:46:10Speaker 5: act better if left to his own prompting, But neither
- 1:46:14Speaker 5: in the affairs of families, nor in those of states,
- 1:46:17Speaker 5: is power a compensation for the loss of freedom. Her
- 1:46:21Speaker 5: power often gives her what she has no right to,
- 1:46:25Speaker 5: but does not enable her to assert her own rights.
- 1:46:29Speaker 5: A sultan's favourite slave has slaves under her, over whom
- 1:46:33Speaker 5: she tyrannizes, But the desirable thing would be that she
- 1:46:37Speaker 5: should neither have slaves nor be a slave. By entirely
- 1:46:41Speaker 5: sinking her own existence in her husband, by having no
- 1:46:45Speaker 5: will or persuading him that she has no will but
- 1:46:49Speaker 5: his in anything which regards their joint relation, and by
- 1:46:53Speaker 5: making it the business of her life to work upon
- 1:46:55Speaker 5: his sentiments, a wife may gratify herself by influencing and
- 1:47:01Speaker 5: very probably perverting his conduct in those of his external
- 1:47:04Speaker 5: relations which she has never qualified herself to judge of,
- 1:47:09Speaker 5: or in which she is herself wholly influenced by some
- 1:47:12Speaker 5: personal or other partiality or prejudice. Accordingly, as things are now,
- 1:47:18Speaker 5: those who act most kindly to their wives are quite
- 1:47:21Speaker 5: often made worse as better by the wife's influence. In
- 1:47:25Speaker 5: respect to all interests extending beyond the family. She is
- 1:47:30Speaker 5: taught that she has no business with things out of
- 1:47:33Speaker 5: that sphere, and accordingly she seldom has any honest and
- 1:47:37Speaker 5: conscientious opinion on them, and therefore hardly ever meddles with
- 1:47:40Speaker 5: them for any legitimate purpose, but generally for an interested one.
- 1:47:45Speaker 5: She neither knows nor cares which is the right side
- 1:47:48Speaker 5: in politics, but she knows what will bring in money
- 1:47:51Speaker 5: or invitations, give her husband a title, her son a place,
- 1:47:55Speaker 5: or her daughter a good marriage. End of Part one
- 1:48:02Speaker 5: of Chapter two.
- 1:48:04Speaker 6: Chapter two, Part two. But how it will be asked,
- 1:48:09Speaker 6: can any society exist without government? In a family, as
- 1:48:14Speaker 6: in a state, some one person must be the ultimate ruler,
- 1:48:18Speaker 6: who shall decide When married people differ in opinion. Both
- 1:48:23Speaker 6: cannot have their way, yet a decision one way or
- 1:48:26Speaker 6: the other must be come to. It is not true
- 1:48:30Speaker 6: that in all voluntary association between two people one of
- 1:48:34Speaker 6: them must be absolute master, still less that the law
- 1:48:38Speaker 6: must determine which of them it shall be. The most
- 1:48:41Speaker 6: frequent case of voluntary association, next to marriage, is partnership
- 1:48:45Speaker 6: and business. And it is not found or thought necessary
- 1:48:49Speaker 6: to enact that in every partnership one partner shall have
- 1:48:53Speaker 6: entire control over the concern, and the other shall be
- 1:48:56Speaker 6: bound to obey his orders. No one would enter into
- 1:49:00Speaker 6: partnership on terms which would subject him to the responsibilities
- 1:49:04Speaker 6: of a principle, with only the powers and privileges of
- 1:49:07Speaker 6: a clerk or agent. If the law dealt with other contracts,
- 1:49:12Speaker 6: as it does with marriage, it would ordain that one
- 1:49:15Speaker 6: partner should administer the common business as if it was
- 1:49:18Speaker 6: his private concern, that the others should only have delegated powers,
- 1:49:23Speaker 6: and that this one should be designated by some general
- 1:49:25Speaker 6: presumption of law, for example, as being the eldest. The
- 1:49:30Speaker 6: law never does this, nor does experience show it to
- 1:49:33Speaker 6: be necessary that any theoretical inequality of power should exist
- 1:49:37Speaker 6: between the partners, or that the partnership should have any
- 1:49:41Speaker 6: other conditions than what they may themselves appoint by their
- 1:49:44Speaker 6: articles of agreement. Yet it might seem that the exclusive
- 1:49:49Speaker 6: power might be conceded with less danger to the rights
- 1:49:52Speaker 6: and interests of the inferior in the case of partnership
- 1:49:56Speaker 6: than in that of marriage, since he is free to
- 1:49:59Speaker 6: cancel them power by withdrawing from the connection. The wife
- 1:50:03Speaker 6: has no such power, and even if she had, it
- 1:50:07Speaker 6: is almost always desirable that she should try all measures
- 1:50:10Speaker 6: before resorting to it. It is quite true that things
- 1:50:15Speaker 6: which have to be decided every day and cannot adjust
- 1:50:18Speaker 6: themselves gradually or wait for a compromise ought to depend
- 1:50:22Speaker 6: on one will, one person must have their sole control,
- 1:50:26Speaker 6: but it does not follow that this should always be
- 1:50:29Speaker 6: the same person. The natural arrangement is a division of
- 1:50:32Speaker 6: powers between the two, each being absolute in the executive
- 1:50:36Speaker 6: branch of their own department, and any change of system
- 1:50:40Speaker 6: and principle requiring the consent of both. The division neither
- 1:50:45Speaker 6: can nor should be pre established by the law, since
- 1:50:48Speaker 6: it must depend on individual capacities and suitabilities. If the
- 1:50:53Speaker 6: two persons chose, they might pre appoint it by the
- 1:50:56Speaker 6: marriage contract. As pecuniary arrangements are now often pre appointed,
- 1:51:01Speaker 6: there would seldom be any difficulty in deciding such things
- 1:51:04Speaker 6: by mutual consent, unless the marriage was one of those
- 1:51:08Speaker 6: unhappy ones, in which all other things, as well as this,
- 1:51:12Speaker 6: become subjects of bickerings. In dispute, the division of rights
- 1:51:16Speaker 6: would naturally follow the division of duties and functions, and
- 1:51:20Speaker 6: that is already made by consent, or at all events,
- 1:51:23Speaker 6: not by law, but by general custom, modified and modifiable
- 1:51:28Speaker 6: at the pleasure of the persons concerned. The real practical
- 1:51:33Speaker 6: decision of affairs to whichever may be given the legal
- 1:51:36Speaker 6: authority will greatly depend, as it even now does, upon
- 1:51:41Speaker 6: comparative qualifications. The mere fact that he is usually the
- 1:51:45Speaker 6: eldest will in most cases give the preponderance to the man,
- 1:51:50Speaker 6: at least until they both attain a time of life
- 1:51:53Speaker 6: at which the difference in their years is of no importance.
- 1:51:57Speaker 6: There will naturally also be a more potential voice on
- 1:52:00Speaker 6: the side whichever it is that brings the means of support.
- 1:52:04Speaker 6: Inequality from this source does not depend on the law
- 1:52:07Speaker 6: of marriage, but on the general conditions of human society
- 1:52:11Speaker 6: as now constituted. The influence of mental superiority, either general
- 1:52:17Speaker 6: or special, and of superior decision of character will necessarily
- 1:52:21Speaker 6: tell for much. It always does so at present, And
- 1:52:26Speaker 6: this fact shows how little foundation there is for the
- 1:52:29Speaker 6: apprehension that the powers and responsibilities of partners in life
- 1:52:33Speaker 6: as of partners in business cannot be satisfactorily apportioned by
- 1:52:38Speaker 6: agreement between themselves. They always are so apportioned, except in
- 1:52:43Speaker 6: cases in which the marriage institution is a failure. Things
- 1:52:48Speaker 6: never come to an issue of downright power on one
- 1:52:51Speaker 6: side and obedience on the other, except where the connection
- 1:52:54Speaker 6: altogether has been a mistake. And it would be a
- 1:52:57Speaker 6: blessing to both parties to be relieved to be relieved
- 1:53:01Speaker 6: from it. Some may say that the very thing by
- 1:53:05Speaker 6: which an ambicable settlement of differences becomes possible is the
- 1:53:09Speaker 6: power of legal compulsion known to be in reserve. As
- 1:53:13Speaker 6: people submit to an arbitration because there is a court
- 1:53:16Speaker 6: of law in the background which they know that they
- 1:53:19Speaker 6: can be forced to obey. But to make the cases parallel,
- 1:53:23Speaker 6: we must suppose that the rule of the court of
- 1:53:25Speaker 6: law was not to try the cause, but to give judgment,
- 1:53:30Speaker 6: always for the same side. Suppose the defendant. If so,
- 1:53:34Speaker 6: the amenability to it would be a motive with the
- 1:53:37Speaker 6: plaintiff to agree to almost any arbitration, but it would
- 1:53:41Speaker 6: be just the reverse with the defendant. The despotic power
- 1:53:46Speaker 6: which the law gives to the husband may be a
- 1:53:49Speaker 6: reason to make the wife assent to any compromise by
- 1:53:52Speaker 6: which power is practically shared between the two, but it
- 1:53:55Speaker 6: cannot be the reason why the husband does that. There
- 1:53:59Speaker 6: is always, among decently conducted people a practical compromise, though
- 1:54:04Speaker 6: one of them at least is under no physical or
- 1:54:07Speaker 6: moral necessity of making. It shows that the natural motives
- 1:54:11Speaker 6: which lead to a voluntary adjustment of the united life
- 1:54:14Speaker 6: of two persons in a manner acceptable to both do
- 1:54:18Speaker 6: on the whole, accepting unfavorable cases prevail. The matter is
- 1:54:23Speaker 6: certainly not improved by laying down as an ordinance of
- 1:54:27Speaker 6: law that the superstructure of free government shall be raised
- 1:54:31Speaker 6: upon a legal basis of despotism on one side and
- 1:54:34Speaker 6: subjection on the other, and that every concession which the
- 1:54:38Speaker 6: despot makes may, at his mere pleasure and without any warning,
- 1:54:42Speaker 6: be recalled. Besides, that no freedom is worth much when
- 1:54:47Speaker 6: held on so precarious a tenure, Its conditions are not
- 1:54:50Speaker 6: likely to be the most equitable when the law throws
- 1:54:53Speaker 6: so prodigious a weight into one scale. When the adjustment
- 1:54:57Speaker 6: rests between two persons, one of whom is declared to
- 1:55:00Speaker 6: be entitled to everything, the other not only entitled to
- 1:55:04Speaker 6: nothing except during the good pleasure of the first, but
- 1:55:07Speaker 6: under the strongest moral and religious obligation not to rebel
- 1:55:11Speaker 6: under any excess of oppression. A pertinacious adversary pushed to
- 1:55:17Speaker 6: extremities may say that husbands indeed are willing to be
- 1:55:21Speaker 6: reasonable and to make fair concessions to their partners without
- 1:55:25Speaker 6: being compelled to it, but that wives are not that
- 1:55:30Speaker 6: if allowed any rights of their own, they will acknowledge
- 1:55:33Speaker 6: no rights at all in anyone else, and never will
- 1:55:36Speaker 6: yield in anything unless they can be compelled by the
- 1:55:39Speaker 6: man's mere authority to yield in everything. This would have
- 1:55:44Speaker 6: been said by many persons some generations ago, when satires
- 1:55:49Speaker 6: on women were in vogue, and men thought it a
- 1:55:51Speaker 6: clever thing to insult women for being what men made them.
- 1:55:57Speaker 6: But it will be said by no one now who
- 1:55:59Speaker 6: is worth replying to. It is not the doctrine of
- 1:56:02Speaker 6: the present day that women are less susceptible of good
- 1:56:06Speaker 6: feeling and consideration for those with whom they are united
- 1:56:09Speaker 6: by the strongest ties than men are. On the contrary,
- 1:56:14Speaker 6: we are perpetually told that women are better than men
- 1:56:18Speaker 6: by those who are totally opposed to treating them as
- 1:56:20Speaker 6: if they were as good, so that the saying has
- 1:56:23Speaker 6: passed into a piece of tiresome cant intended to put
- 1:56:26Speaker 6: a complimentary face upon an injury, and resembling those celebrations
- 1:56:31Speaker 6: of royal clemency, which, according to Gulliver, the King of Lilipute,
- 1:56:36Speaker 6: always prefixed to his most sanguinary decrees. If women are
- 1:56:41Speaker 6: better than men in anything, it is surely in individual
- 1:56:45Speaker 6: self sacrifice for those of their own family. But I
- 1:56:49Speaker 6: lay little stress on this, so long as they are
- 1:56:52Speaker 6: universally taught that they are born and created for self sacrifice.
- 1:56:56Speaker 6: I believe that equality of rights would abate the exact
- 1:56:59Speaker 6: tay rate it self abnegation, which is the present artificial
- 1:57:03Speaker 6: ideal of feminine character, and that a good woman would
- 1:57:07Speaker 6: not be more self sacrificing than the best man. But
- 1:57:11Speaker 6: on the other hand, men would be much more unselfish
- 1:57:15Speaker 6: and self sacrificing than at present, because they would no
- 1:57:18Speaker 6: longer be taught to worship their own will as such
- 1:57:22Speaker 6: a grand thing that it is actually the law for
- 1:57:25Speaker 6: another rational being. There is nothing which men so easily
- 1:57:29Speaker 6: learn as this self worship. All privileged persons and all
- 1:57:34Speaker 6: privileged classes have had it. The more we descend in
- 1:57:38Speaker 6: the scale of humanity, the intenser it is, and most
- 1:57:42Speaker 6: of all in those who are not and can never
- 1:57:44Speaker 6: expect to be raised above anyone except an unfortunate wife
- 1:57:48Speaker 6: and children. The honorable exceptions are proportionally fewer than in
- 1:57:53Speaker 6: the case of almost any other human infirmity. Philosophy and religion,
- 1:57:58Speaker 6: instead of keeping it in child, are generally suborn to
- 1:58:02Speaker 6: defend it, and nothing controls it, but that practical feeling
- 1:58:06Speaker 6: of the equality of human beings, which is the theory
- 1:58:09Speaker 6: of Christianity, but which Christianity will never practically teach, while
- 1:58:14Speaker 6: it sanctions institutions grounded on an arbitrary preference of one
- 1:58:18Speaker 6: human being over another. There are no doubt women as
- 1:58:24Speaker 6: there are men whom equality of consideration will not satisfy,
- 1:58:28Speaker 6: with whom there is no peace. While any will or
- 1:58:31Speaker 6: wish is regarded but their own. Such persons are a
- 1:58:35Speaker 6: proper subject for the law of divorce. They are only
- 1:58:39Speaker 6: fit to live alone, and no human beings ought to
- 1:58:42Speaker 6: be compelled to associate their lives with them. But the
- 1:58:46Speaker 6: legal subordination tends to make such characters among women more
- 1:58:51Speaker 6: rather than less frequent. If the man exerts his whole power,
- 1:58:55Speaker 6: the woman is of course crushed. But if she is
- 1:58:59Speaker 6: treated within ulgence and permitted to assume power, there is
- 1:59:03Speaker 6: no rule to set limits to her encroachments. The law,
- 1:59:07Speaker 6: not determining her rights, but theoretically allowing her none at all,
- 1:59:11Speaker 6: practically declares that the measure of what she has a
- 1:59:14Speaker 6: right to is what she can contrive to get. The
- 1:59:20Speaker 6: equality of married persons before the law is not only
- 1:59:23Speaker 6: the sole mode in which that particular relation can be
- 1:59:26Speaker 6: made consistent with justice to both sides and conducive to
- 1:59:30Speaker 6: the happiness of both. But it is the only means
- 1:59:34Speaker 6: of rendering the daily life of mankind in any high
- 1:59:37Speaker 6: sense the school of moral cultivation, though the truth may
- 1:59:41Speaker 6: not be felt or generally acknowledged for generations to come.
- 1:59:45Speaker 6: The only school of genuine moral sentiment is society between equals.
- 1:59:50Speaker 6: The moral education of mankind has hitherto emanated chiefly from
- 1:59:55Speaker 6: the law of force, and is adapted almost solely to
- 1:59:58Speaker 6: the relations which forces. In the less advanced states of society,
- 2:00:04Speaker 6: people hardly recognize any relation with their equals. To be
- 2:00:08Speaker 6: an equal is to be an enemy. Society from its
- 2:00:11Speaker 6: highest place to its lowest is one long chain, or
- 2:00:15Speaker 6: rather latter, where every individual is either above or below
- 2:00:20Speaker 6: his nearest neighbour, and wherever he does not command, he
- 2:00:23Speaker 6: must obey. Existing moralities accordingly, are mainly fitted to a
- 2:00:28Speaker 6: relation of command and obedience. Yet command and obedience are
- 2:00:33Speaker 6: but unfortunate necessities of human life. Society. Inequality is its
- 2:00:38Speaker 6: normal state already in modern life, and more and more
- 2:00:42Speaker 6: as it progressively improves, command and obedience become exceptional facts
- 2:00:47Speaker 6: in life, equal association its general rule. The morality of
- 2:00:52Speaker 6: the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power,
- 2:00:56Speaker 6: that of the age's next following on the right of
- 2:00:59Speaker 6: the week to the forbearance and protection of the strong.
- 2:01:03Speaker 6: How much longer is one form of society in life
- 2:01:06Speaker 6: to content itself with the morality made for another. We
- 2:01:10Speaker 6: have had the morality of submission, and the morality of
- 2:01:13Speaker 6: chivalry and generosity. The time is now come for the
- 2:01:17Speaker 6: morality of justice. Whenever, in former ages any approach has
- 2:01:22Speaker 6: been made to society in equality, justice has asserted its
- 2:01:26Speaker 6: claims as the foundation of virtue. It was thus in
- 2:01:30Speaker 6: the free republics of antiquity. But even in the best
- 2:01:34Speaker 6: of these, the equals were limited to the free male citizens.
- 2:01:38Speaker 6: Slaves women in the unfranchised residents were under the law
- 2:01:42Speaker 6: of force. The joint influence of Roman civilization and Christianity
- 2:01:47Speaker 6: obliterated these distinctions, and, in theory, if only partially, in practice,
- 2:01:53Speaker 6: declared the claims of the human being as such to
- 2:01:56Speaker 6: be paramount to those of sex, class, or social position.
- 2:02:00Speaker 6: The barriers which had begun to be leveled were raised
- 2:02:03Speaker 6: again by the Northern conquests, and the whole of modern
- 2:02:07Speaker 6: history consists of the slow process by which they have
- 2:02:11Speaker 6: since been wearing away. We are entering into an order
- 2:02:14Speaker 6: of things in which justice will again be the primary virtue,
- 2:02:19Speaker 6: grounded as before on equal but now also on sympathetic association,
- 2:02:25Speaker 6: having its route no longer in the instinct of equals
- 2:02:27Speaker 6: for self protection, but in a cultivated sympathy between them,
- 2:02:32Speaker 6: in no one being now left out, but in equal
- 2:02:35Speaker 6: measure being extended to all. It is no novelty that
- 2:02:40Speaker 6: mankind do not distinctly foresee their own changes, and that
- 2:02:44Speaker 6: their sentiments are adapted to past, not to the coming ages.
- 2:02:48Speaker 6: To see the futurity of the species has always been
- 2:02:51Speaker 6: the privilege of the intellectual elite, or of those who
- 2:02:55Speaker 6: have learnt from them. To have the feelings of that
- 2:02:58Speaker 6: futarity has been the distinction, and usually the martyrdom of
- 2:03:02Speaker 6: a still rarer elite. Institutions, books, education, society all go
- 2:03:09Speaker 6: on training human beings for the old long after the
- 2:03:12Speaker 6: new has come, much more when it is only coming.
- 2:03:17Speaker 6: But the true virtue of human beings is fitness to
- 2:03:20Speaker 6: live together as equals, claiming nothing for themselves but what
- 2:03:24Speaker 6: they as freely can see to everyone else, regarding command
- 2:03:28Speaker 6: of any kind as an exceptional necessity and in all
- 2:03:32Speaker 6: cases a temporary one, and preferring whenever possible the society
- 2:03:37Speaker 6: of those with whom leading and following can be alternate
- 2:03:40Speaker 6: and reciprocal to these virtues. Nothing in life, as at
- 2:03:45Speaker 6: present constituted gives cultivation by exercise. The family is a
- 2:03:50Speaker 6: school of despotism, in which the virtues of despotism, but
- 2:03:54Speaker 6: also its vices, are largely nourished. Citizenship in freeak countries
- 2:04:01Speaker 6: is partly a school of society inequality, But citizenship fills
- 2:04:05Speaker 6: only a small place in modern life, and does not
- 2:04:08Speaker 6: come near the daily habits or in most sentiments. The family,
- 2:04:13Speaker 6: justly constituted would be the real school of the virtues
- 2:04:16Speaker 6: of freedom. It is sure to be a sufficient one
- 2:04:19Speaker 6: of everything else. It will always be a school of
- 2:04:22Speaker 6: obedience for the children, of command for the parents. What
- 2:04:27Speaker 6: is needed is that it should be a school of sympathy,
- 2:04:30Speaker 6: in equality, of living together in love without power on
- 2:04:34Speaker 6: one side or obedience on the other. This it ought
- 2:04:38Speaker 6: to be between the parents. It would then be an
- 2:04:41Speaker 6: exercise of those virtues which each requires to fit them.
- 2:04:45Speaker 6: For all other association and a model to the children
- 2:04:49Speaker 6: of the feelings and conduct which their temporary training by
- 2:04:52Speaker 6: means of obedience is designed to render habitual and therefore
- 2:04:56Speaker 6: natural to them. The moral training of mankind will never
- 2:05:00Speaker 6: be adapted to the conditions of the life for which
- 2:05:03Speaker 6: all other human progress is a preparation, until they practice
- 2:05:07Speaker 6: in the family the same moral rule which is adapted
- 2:05:11Speaker 6: to the normal constitution of human society. Any sentiment of
- 2:05:15Speaker 6: freedom which can exist in a man whose nearest and
- 2:05:18Speaker 6: dearest intimacies are with those of whom he is absolute master,
- 2:05:23Speaker 6: is not the genuine or Christian love of freedom, but
- 2:05:27Speaker 6: what the love of freedom generally was in the Ancients
- 2:05:29Speaker 6: and in the Middle Ages, an intense feeling of the
- 2:05:33Speaker 6: dignity and importance of its own personality, making him disdain
- 2:05:37Speaker 6: a yoke for himself, of which he has no abhorrence
- 2:05:40Speaker 6: whatever in the abstract, but which he is abundantly ready
- 2:05:44Speaker 6: to impose on others for his own interest or glorification.
- 2:05:49Speaker 6: I readily admit, and it is the very foundation of
- 2:05:52Speaker 6: my hopes, that numbers of married people, even under the
- 2:05:56Speaker 6: present law, in the higher classes of England, probably a
- 2:05:59Speaker 6: great majority live in the spirit of a just law
- 2:06:02Speaker 6: of equality. Laws never would be improved if there were
- 2:06:06Speaker 6: not numerous persons whose moral sentiments are better than the
- 2:06:09Speaker 6: existing laws. Such persons ought to support the principles here advocated,
- 2:06:15Speaker 6: of which the only object is to make all other
- 2:06:18Speaker 6: married couples similar to what these are now. But persons,
- 2:06:23Speaker 6: even of considerable moral worth, unless they are also thinkers,
- 2:06:26Speaker 6: are very ready to believe that laws or practices, the
- 2:06:30Speaker 6: evils of which they have not personally experienced, do not
- 2:06:33Speaker 6: produce any evils, but if seeming to be generally approved of,
- 2:06:38Speaker 6: probably do good, and that it is wrong to object
- 2:06:41Speaker 6: to them. It would, however, be a great mistake in
- 2:06:45Speaker 6: such married people to suppose, because the legal conditions of
- 2:06:48Speaker 6: the tie which unites them do not occur to their
- 2:06:51Speaker 6: thoughts once in a twelvemonth, and because they live and
- 2:06:54Speaker 6: feel in all respects as if they were legally equals,
- 2:06:58Speaker 6: that the same is the case with all others their
- 2:07:00Speaker 6: married couples, wherever the husband is not a notorious ruffian.
- 2:07:05Speaker 6: To suppose this would be to show equal ignorance of
- 2:07:07Speaker 6: human nature and of fact, the less fit a man
- 2:07:11Speaker 6: is for the possession of power, the less likely to
- 2:07:14Speaker 6: be allowed to exercise it over any person. With that
- 2:07:17Speaker 6: person's voluntary consent. The more does he hug himself in
- 2:07:21Speaker 6: the consciousness of the power the law gives him exact
- 2:07:24Speaker 6: its legal rights to the utmost point, which custom, the
- 2:07:28Speaker 6: custom of men like himself, will tolerate and take pleasure
- 2:07:32Speaker 6: in using the power merely to enliven the agreeable sense
- 2:07:35Speaker 6: of possessing it. What is more, in the most naturally
- 2:07:39Speaker 6: brutal and morally uneducated part of the lower classes, the
- 2:07:43Speaker 6: legal slavery of the woman, and something in the merely
- 2:07:46Speaker 6: physical subjection to their will as an instrument, causes them
- 2:07:50Speaker 6: to feel a sort of disrespect and contempt towards their
- 2:07:53Speaker 6: own wife, which they do not feel towards any other
- 2:07:56Speaker 6: woman or any other human being with whom they come
- 2:07:59Speaker 6: in contact, and which makes her seem to them an
- 2:08:02Speaker 6: appropriate subject for any kind of indignity. Let an acute
- 2:08:06Speaker 6: observer of the signs of feeling, who has the requisite opportunities,
- 2:08:10Speaker 6: judge for himself whether this is not the case, and
- 2:08:14Speaker 6: if he finds that it is, let him not wonder
- 2:08:17Speaker 6: at any amount of disgust and indignation that can be
- 2:08:20Speaker 6: felt against institutions which lead naturally to this depraved state
- 2:08:24Speaker 6: of the human mind. We shall be told, perhaps that
- 2:08:29Speaker 6: religion imposes the duty of obedience, as every established fact
- 2:08:33Speaker 6: which is too bad to admit of any other defense
- 2:08:36Speaker 6: is always presented to us as an injunction of religion.
- 2:08:40Speaker 6: The Church, it is very true, enjoins it in her formularies,
- 2:08:45Speaker 6: but it would be difficult to derive any such injunction
- 2:08:47Speaker 6: from Christianity. We are told that Saint Paul said, wives,
- 2:08:52Speaker 6: obey your husbands, but he also said, slaves, obey your masters.
- 2:08:57Speaker 6: It was not Saint Paul's business, nor as it consistent
- 2:09:00Speaker 6: with his object the propagation of Christianity to incite anyone
- 2:09:05Speaker 6: to rebellion against existing laws. The apostles acceptance of all
- 2:09:09Speaker 6: social institutions as he found them is no more to
- 2:09:12Speaker 6: be construed as a disapproval of attempts to improve them
- 2:09:16Speaker 6: at the proper time than his declaration the powers that
- 2:09:20Speaker 6: be are ordained of God, gives his sanction to military
- 2:09:23Speaker 6: despotism and to that alone as the Christian form of
- 2:09:27Speaker 6: political government, or commands passive obedience to it. To pretend
- 2:09:32Speaker 6: that Christianity was intended to stereotype existing forms of government
- 2:09:36Speaker 6: in society and protect them against change is to reduce
- 2:09:40Speaker 6: it to the level of Islamism or Brahmanism. It is
- 2:09:44Speaker 6: precisely because Christianity has not done this, that it has
- 2:09:48Speaker 6: been the religion of the progressive portion of mankind, and Islamism, Brahmanism, etc.
- 2:09:54Speaker 6: Have been those of the stationary portions, or rather, for
- 2:09:58Speaker 6: there is no such thing as a really station may society,
- 2:10:01Speaker 6: of the declining portions. There have been abundance of people
- 2:10:06Speaker 6: in all ages of Christianity who try to make it
- 2:10:09Speaker 6: something of the same kind, to convert us into a
- 2:10:12Speaker 6: sort of Christian musclemans with the Bible for a Koran
- 2:10:15Speaker 6: prohibiting all improvement. And great has been their power, and
- 2:10:20Speaker 6: many have had to sacrifice their lives in resisting them.
- 2:10:24Speaker 6: But they have been resisted, and the resistance has made
- 2:10:27Speaker 6: us what we are, and will yet make us what
- 2:10:30Speaker 6: we are to be. After what has been said respecting
- 2:10:34Speaker 6: the obligation of obedience, it is almost superfluous to say
- 2:10:38Speaker 6: anything concerning the more special point included in the general one,
- 2:10:42Speaker 6: a woman's right to her own property. For I need
- 2:10:46Speaker 6: not hope that this treatise can make any impression upon
- 2:10:49Speaker 6: those who need anything to convince them that a woman's
- 2:10:52Speaker 6: inheritance or gains ought to be as much her own
- 2:10:55Speaker 6: after marriage as before. The rule is simple, whatever would
- 2:11:01Speaker 6: be the husbands or wives if they were not married,
- 2:11:03Speaker 6: should be under their exclusive control during marriage, which need
- 2:11:07Speaker 6: not interfere with the power to tie up property by
- 2:11:10Speaker 6: settlement in order to preserve it for children. Some people
- 2:11:14Speaker 6: are sentimentally shocked at the idea of a separate interest
- 2:11:18Speaker 6: in money matters, as inconsistent with the ideal fusion of
- 2:11:22Speaker 6: two lives into one. For my own part, I am
- 2:11:25Speaker 6: one of the strongest supporters of community of goods when
- 2:11:29Speaker 6: resulting from an entire unity of feeling in the owners,
- 2:11:32Speaker 6: which makes all things common between them. But I have
- 2:11:36Speaker 6: no relish for a community of goods, resting on the
- 2:11:39Speaker 6: doctrine that what is mine is yours, but what is
- 2:11:43Speaker 6: yours is not mine, and I should prefer to decline
- 2:11:46Speaker 6: entering into such a compact with anyone, though I were
- 2:11:50Speaker 6: myself the person to profit by it. This particular injustice
- 2:11:54Speaker 6: and oppression to women, which is to common apprehensions, more
- 2:11:58Speaker 6: obvious than all the rest, admits of remedy without interfering
- 2:12:02Speaker 6: with any other mischiefs, and there can be little doubt
- 2:12:05Speaker 6: that it will be one of the earliest remedied. Already
- 2:12:09Speaker 6: in many of the new and several of the old
- 2:12:11Speaker 6: states of the American Confederation, provisions have been inserted even
- 2:12:16Speaker 6: in the written constitutions, securing to women equality of rights
- 2:12:20Speaker 6: in this respect, and thereby improving materially the position in
- 2:12:24Speaker 6: the marriage relation of those women at least who have property,
- 2:12:28Speaker 6: by leaving them one instrument of power which they have
- 2:12:31Speaker 6: not signed away, and preventing also the scandalous abuse of
- 2:12:35Speaker 6: the marriage institution, which is perpetrated when a man entraps
- 2:12:39Speaker 6: a girl into marrying him without a settlement, for the
- 2:12:42Speaker 6: sole purpose of getting possession of her money. When the
- 2:12:45Speaker 6: support of the family depends not on property but on earnings,
- 2:12:50Speaker 6: the common arrangement by which the man earns the income
- 2:12:53Speaker 6: and the wife superintends the domestic expenditure seems to me
- 2:12:57Speaker 6: in general the most suitable division of labor between the
- 2:13:00Speaker 6: two persons, if, in addition to the physical suffering of
- 2:13:04Speaker 6: bearing children and the whole responsibility of their care and
- 2:13:08Speaker 6: education in early years, the wife undertakes the careful and
- 2:13:11Speaker 6: economical application of the husband's earnings to the general comfort
- 2:13:15Speaker 6: of the family. She takes not only her fair share,
- 2:13:18Speaker 6: but usually the larger share of the bodily and mental
- 2:13:22Speaker 6: exertion required by their joint existence. If she undertakes any
- 2:13:26Speaker 6: additional portion, it seldom relieves her from this, but only
- 2:13:30Speaker 6: prevents her from performing it properly. The care which she
- 2:13:34Speaker 6: is herself disabled from taking of the children in the household.
- 2:13:38Speaker 6: Nobody else takes. Those of the children who do not
- 2:13:41Speaker 6: die grow up as they best can, and the management
- 2:13:45Speaker 6: of the household is likely to be so bad as,
- 2:13:48Speaker 6: even in point of economy, to be a great drawback
- 2:13:51Speaker 6: from the value of the wife's earnings. In anotherwise just
- 2:13:55Speaker 6: state of things. It is not, therefore, I think, a
- 2:13:58Speaker 6: desirable custom that the wife should contribute by her labor
- 2:14:02Speaker 6: to the income of the family. In an unjust state
- 2:14:06Speaker 6: of things, her doing so may be useful to her
- 2:14:09Speaker 6: by making her of more value in the eyes of
- 2:14:11Speaker 6: the man who is legally her master, But on the
- 2:14:14Speaker 6: other hand, it enables him still farther to abuse his
- 2:14:17Speaker 6: power by forcing her to work and leaving the support
- 2:14:21Speaker 6: of the family to her exertions, while he spends most
- 2:14:24Speaker 6: of his time in drinking and idleness. The power of
- 2:14:28Speaker 6: earning is essential to the dignity of a woman. If
- 2:14:32Speaker 6: she has not independent property. But if marriage were an
- 2:14:35Speaker 6: equal contract, not implying the obligation of obedience, if the
- 2:14:40Speaker 6: connection were no longer enforced to the oppression of those
- 2:14:43Speaker 6: to whom it is purely a mischief, but a separation
- 2:14:46Speaker 6: on just terms I do not now speak of a
- 2:14:49Speaker 6: divorce could be obtained by any woman who is morally
- 2:14:52Speaker 6: entitled to it. And if she would then find all
- 2:14:55Speaker 6: honorable employments as freely open to her as to men,
- 2:14:59Speaker 6: it would not be necessary for her protection that during
- 2:15:02Speaker 6: marriage she should make this particular use of her faculties,
- 2:15:06Speaker 6: like a man when he chooses a profession. So when
- 2:15:09Speaker 6: a woman marries, it may in general be understood that
- 2:15:13Speaker 6: she makes choice of the management of a household and
- 2:15:16Speaker 6: the bringing up of a family as the first call
- 2:15:19Speaker 6: upon her exertions during as many years of her life
- 2:15:22Speaker 6: as may be required for the purpose, and that she
- 2:15:25Speaker 6: renounces not all other objects and occupations, but all which
- 2:15:29Speaker 6: are not consistent with the requirements of this The actual
- 2:15:33Speaker 6: exercise in a habitual or systematic manner of outdoor occupations
- 2:15:38Speaker 6: or such as cannot be carried on at home, would,
- 2:15:41Speaker 6: by this principle, be practically interdicted to the greater number
- 2:15:44Speaker 6: of married women. But the utmost latitude ought to exist
- 2:15:48Speaker 6: for the adaptation of general rules to individual suitabilities, and
- 2:15:52Speaker 6: there ought to be nothing to prevent faculties exceptionally adapted
- 2:15:56Speaker 6: to any other pursuit from obeying their vocation. Notwithstanding marriage,
- 2:16:01Speaker 6: do provision being made for supplying otherwise any falling short
- 2:16:05Speaker 6: which might become inevitable in her full performance of the
- 2:16:09Speaker 6: ordinary functions of mistress of a family. These things, if
- 2:16:13Speaker 6: one's opinion were rightly directed on the subject, might with
- 2:16:17Speaker 6: perfect safety, be left to be regulated by opinion without
- 2:16:21Speaker 6: any interference of law. End of Chapter two, Part two.
- 2:16:28Speaker 7: Chapter three, Part one. On the other point, which is
- 2:16:31Speaker 7: involved in the just equality of women, their admissibility to
- 2:16:35Speaker 7: all the functions and occupations hitherto retained as the monopoly
- 2:16:38Speaker 7: of the stronger sex, I would anticipate no difficulty in
- 2:16:41Speaker 7: convincing anyone who has gone with me on the subject
- 2:16:44Speaker 7: of the equality of women in the family. I believe
- 2:16:47Speaker 7: their disabilities elsewhere are only clung to in order to
- 2:16:50Speaker 7: maintain their subordination and domestic life, because the generality of
- 2:16:53Speaker 7: the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living
- 2:16:56Speaker 7: with an equal were it not for that, I think
- 2:16:59Speaker 7: that almost everyone in the existing state of opinion in
- 2:17:02Speaker 7: politics and political economy would admit the injustice of excluding
- 2:17:06Speaker 7: half the human race from the greater number of lucrative
- 2:17:09Speaker 7: occupations and from almost all high social functions ordaining from
- 2:17:13Speaker 7: their birth. Either that they are not and cannot, by
- 2:17:16Speaker 7: any possibility become fit for employments which are legally open
- 2:17:20Speaker 7: to the stupidest and basest of the other sex, or
- 2:17:23Speaker 7: else that, however fit they may be, those employments should
- 2:17:26Speaker 7: be interdicted to them in order to be preserved for
- 2:17:29Speaker 7: the exclusive benefit of males. In the last two centuries,
- 2:17:32Speaker 7: when which was seldom the case, any reason beyond the
- 2:17:35Speaker 7: mere existence of the fact was thought to be required
- 2:17:38Speaker 7: to justify the disabilities of women. People seldom assigned as
- 2:17:41Speaker 7: a reason their inferior mental capacity, which in times when
- 2:17:45Speaker 7: there was a real trial of personal faculties from which
- 2:17:47Speaker 7: all women were not excluded in the struggles of public life,
- 2:17:51Speaker 7: no one really believed in. The reason given in those
- 2:17:54Speaker 7: days was not women's unfitness, but the interest of society,
- 2:17:58Speaker 7: by which was meant the interest of men, just as
- 2:18:01Speaker 7: the reason detas meaning the convenience of the government and
- 2:18:04Speaker 7: the support of existing authority was deemed a sufficient explanation
- 2:18:08Speaker 7: and excuse for the most flagitious crimes. In the present day,
- 2:18:12Speaker 7: power holds a smoother language, and whomsoever it oppresses always
- 2:18:16Speaker 7: pretends to do so for their own good. Accordingly, when
- 2:18:19Speaker 7: anything is forbidden to women, it is thought necessary to
- 2:18:22Speaker 7: say and desirable to believe that they are incapable of
- 2:18:25Speaker 7: doing it, and that they depart from their real path
- 2:18:28Speaker 7: of success and happiness when they aspire to it. But
- 2:18:31Speaker 7: to make this reason plausible, I do not say valid.
- 2:18:34Speaker 7: Those by whom it is urged must be prepared to
- 2:18:37Speaker 7: carry it to a much greater length than anyone ventures
- 2:18:39Speaker 7: to do in the face of present experience. It is
- 2:18:42Speaker 7: not sufficient to maintain that women on the average are
- 2:18:45Speaker 7: less gifted than men on the average with certain of
- 2:18:47Speaker 7: the higher mental faculties, or that a smaller number of
- 2:18:51Speaker 7: women than of men are fit for occupations and functions
- 2:18:54Speaker 7: of the highest intellectual character. It is necessary to maintain
- 2:18:58Speaker 7: that no women at all are fit for them, and
- 2:19:00Speaker 7: that the most eminent women are inferior in mental faculties
- 2:19:03Speaker 7: to the most mediocre of the men on whom those
- 2:19:06Speaker 7: functions at present devolve. For If the performance of the
- 2:19:09Speaker 7: function is decided either by competition or by any mode
- 2:19:12Speaker 7: of choice which secures regard to the public interest. There
- 2:19:15Speaker 7: needs be no apprehension that any important employments will fall
- 2:19:19Speaker 7: into the hands of women inferior to average men or
- 2:19:22Speaker 7: to the average of their male competitors. The only result
- 2:19:25Speaker 7: would be that there would be fewer women than men
- 2:19:27Speaker 7: in such employments, a result certain to happen in any case,
- 2:19:31Speaker 7: if only from the preference always likely to be felt
- 2:19:33Speaker 7: by the majority of women for the one vocation in
- 2:19:36Speaker 7: which there is nobody to compete with them. Now, the
- 2:19:39Speaker 7: most determined appreciator of women will not venture to deny that.
- 2:19:42Speaker 7: When we add the experience of recent times to that
- 2:19:44Speaker 7: of ages past, women and not a few merely, but
- 2:19:48Speaker 7: many women have proved themselves capable of everything, perhaps without
- 2:19:52Speaker 7: a single exception, which is done by men, and of
- 2:19:54Speaker 7: doing it successfully and credibly. The utmost that can be
- 2:19:58Speaker 7: said is that there are many things which none of
- 2:20:00Speaker 7: them have succeeded in doing as well as they have
- 2:20:02Speaker 7: been done by some men, many in which they have
- 2:20:05Speaker 7: not reached the very highest rank. But there are extremely few,
- 2:20:08Speaker 7: dependent only on mental faculties in which they have not
- 2:20:11Speaker 7: attained the rank next to the highest. Is not this
- 2:20:15Speaker 7: enough and much more than enough to make it a
- 2:20:17Speaker 7: tyranny to them and a detriment to society that they
- 2:20:20Speaker 7: should not be allowed to compete with men for the
- 2:20:22Speaker 7: exercise of these functions. Is it not a mere truism
- 2:20:26Speaker 7: to say that such functions are often filled by men
- 2:20:29Speaker 7: far less fit for them than numbers of women, and
- 2:20:31Speaker 7: who would be beaten by women in any fair field
- 2:20:34Speaker 7: of competition. What difference does it make that there may
- 2:20:37Speaker 7: be men somewhere fully employed about other things, who may
- 2:20:40Speaker 7: be still better qualified for the things in question than
- 2:20:42Speaker 7: these women. Does not this take place in all competitions.
- 2:20:46Speaker 7: Is there so greate a superfluity of men fit for
- 2:20:48Speaker 7: high duties that society can afford to reject the service
- 2:20:51Speaker 7: of any competent person. Are we so certain of always
- 2:20:55Speaker 7: finding a man made to our hands for any duty
- 2:20:57Speaker 7: or function of social importance which falls vacant that we
- 2:21:01Speaker 7: lose nothing by putting a ban upon one half of
- 2:21:03Speaker 7: mankind and refusing beforehand to make their faculties available, however
- 2:21:07Speaker 7: distinguished they may be, And even if we could do
- 2:21:10Speaker 7: without them, would it be consistent with justice to refuse them?
- 2:21:13Speaker 7: Fair share of honor and distinction, or to deny them
- 2:21:16Speaker 7: the equal moral right of all human beings to choose
- 2:21:19Speaker 7: their occupation short of injury to others, according to their
- 2:21:23Speaker 7: own preferences, at their own risk. Nor is the injustice
- 2:21:26Speaker 7: confined to them. It is shared by those who are
- 2:21:29Speaker 7: in a position to benefit by their services. To ordain
- 2:21:32Speaker 7: that any kind of person shall not be physicians, or
- 2:21:35Speaker 7: shall not be advocates, or shall not be members of
- 2:21:37Speaker 7: parliament is to injure not them only, but all employ
- 2:21:41Speaker 7: physicians or advocates, or elect members of parliament, and who
- 2:21:45Speaker 7: are deprived of the stimulating effect of greater competition on
- 2:21:48Speaker 7: the exertions of the competitors, as well as restricted to
- 2:21:51Speaker 7: a narrower range of individual choice. It will perhaps be
- 2:21:55Speaker 7: sufficient if I confine myself in the details of my
- 2:21:58Speaker 7: argument to functions of the public nature, since if I
- 2:22:02Speaker 7: am successful as to those, it probably will be readily
- 2:22:05Speaker 7: granted that women should be admissible to all other occupations
- 2:22:08Speaker 7: to which it is at all material whether they are
- 2:22:11Speaker 7: admitted or not. Here let me begin by marking out
- 2:22:14Speaker 7: one function broadly distinguished from all others, their right to
- 2:22:18Speaker 7: which is entirely independent of any question which can be
- 2:22:21Speaker 7: raised concerning their faculties. I mean the suffrage both parliamentary
- 2:22:25Speaker 7: and municipal. The right to share in the choice of
- 2:22:28Speaker 7: those who are to exercise a public trust is altogether
- 2:22:31Speaker 7: a distinct thing from that of competing for the trust itself.
- 2:22:34Speaker 7: If no one could vote for a member of Parliament
- 2:22:36Speaker 7: who was not fit to be a candidate, the government
- 2:22:39Speaker 7: would be a narrow oligarchy. Indeed, to have a voice
- 2:22:42Speaker 7: in choosing those by whom one is to be governed
- 2:22:44Speaker 7: is a means of self protection due to everyone, though
- 2:22:47Speaker 7: he were to remain forever excluded from the function of governing.
- 2:22:50Speaker 7: And that women are considered fit to have such a
- 2:22:52Speaker 7: choice may be presumed from the fact that the law
- 2:22:55Speaker 7: already gives it to women, in the most important of
- 2:22:57Speaker 7: all cases, to themselves. For the choice of the life
- 2:23:00Speaker 7: man who is to govern a woman to the end
- 2:23:01Speaker 7: of life, it is always supposed to be voluntarily made
- 2:23:04Speaker 7: by herself. In the case of election to public trusts.
- 2:23:09Speaker 7: It is the business of constitutional law to surround the
- 2:23:12Speaker 7: right of suffrage with all needful securities and limitations. But
- 2:23:15Speaker 7: whatever securities are sufficient in the case of the male sex,
- 2:23:19Speaker 7: no others need be required in the case of women,
- 2:23:22Speaker 7: under whatever conditions and within whatever limits, men are admitted
- 2:23:25Speaker 7: to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification
- 2:23:28Speaker 7: for not admitting women under the same The majority of
- 2:23:32Speaker 7: women of any class are not likely to differ in
- 2:23:34Speaker 7: political opinion from the majority of the men of the
- 2:23:37Speaker 7: same class, unless the question be one in which the
- 2:23:40Speaker 7: interests of women as such are in some way involved,
- 2:23:43Speaker 7: And if they are so, women require the suffrage as
- 2:23:46Speaker 7: their guarantee of just and equal consideration. This ought to
- 2:23:50Speaker 7: be obvious even to those who coincide in no other
- 2:23:53Speaker 7: of the doctrines for which I contend. Even if every
- 2:23:56Speaker 7: woman were a wife, and if every wife ought to
- 2:23:58Speaker 7: be a slave, all the more would these slaves stand
- 2:24:01Speaker 7: in need of legal protection. And we know what legal
- 2:24:04Speaker 7: protection the slaves have where the laws are made by
- 2:24:07Speaker 7: their masters. With regard to the fitness of women not
- 2:24:10Speaker 7: only to participate in elections, but themselves to hold offices
- 2:24:14Speaker 7: or practice professions involving important public responsibilities. I have already
- 2:24:18Speaker 7: observed that this consideration is not essential to the practical
- 2:24:21Speaker 7: question in dispute, since any woman who succeeds in an
- 2:24:25Speaker 7: open profession proves by that very fact that she is
- 2:24:28Speaker 7: qualified for it, and in the case of public offices,
- 2:24:31Speaker 7: if the political system of the country is such as
- 2:24:33Speaker 7: to exclude unfit men, it will equally exclude unfit women,
- 2:24:38Speaker 7: while if it is not, there is no additional evil
- 2:24:40Speaker 7: in the fact that the unfit persons whom it admits
- 2:24:43Speaker 7: may be either women or men. As long therefore, as
- 2:24:46Speaker 7: it is acknowledged that even a few women may be
- 2:24:48Speaker 7: fit for these duties, the laws which shut the door
- 2:24:51Speaker 7: on those exceptions cannot be justified by any opinion which
- 2:24:54Speaker 7: can be held respecting the capacities of women in general.
- 2:24:57Speaker 7: But though this last consideration is not essential, it is
- 2:25:00Speaker 7: far from being irrelevant. An unprejudiced view of it gives
- 2:25:03Speaker 7: additional strength to the arguments against the disabilities of women,
- 2:25:07Speaker 7: and reinforces them by high considerations of practical utility. Let
- 2:25:11Speaker 7: us first make entire abstraction of all psychological considerations tending
- 2:25:15Speaker 7: to show that any of the mental differences supposed to
- 2:25:18Speaker 7: exist between men and women are but the natural effect
- 2:25:21Speaker 7: of the differences in their education and circumstances, and indicate
- 2:25:25Speaker 7: no radical difference, far less radical inferiority of nature. Let
- 2:25:29Speaker 7: us consider women only as they already are, or as
- 2:25:32Speaker 7: they are known to have been, and the capacities which
- 2:25:35Speaker 7: which they have already practically shown what they have done, that,
- 2:25:38Speaker 7: at least, if nothing else, it is proved that they
- 2:25:41Speaker 7: can do. When we consider how sedulously they are all
- 2:25:44Speaker 7: trained away from instead of being trained towards any of
- 2:25:47Speaker 7: the occupations or objects reserved for men, it is evident
- 2:25:50Speaker 7: that I am taking a very humble ground for them
- 2:25:52Speaker 7: when I rest their case on what they have actually achieved.
- 2:25:56Speaker 7: For in this case, negative evidence is worth little, while
- 2:25:59Speaker 7: any possiative evidence is conclusive. It cannot be inferred to
- 2:26:03Speaker 7: be impossible that a woman should be a Homer or
- 2:26:05Speaker 7: an Aristotle, or a Michelangelo or a Beethoven, because no
- 2:26:09Speaker 7: woman has yet actually produced works comparable to theirs in
- 2:26:12Speaker 7: any of those lines of excellence. This negative fact at
- 2:26:15Speaker 7: most leaves the question uncertain and open to psychological discussion.
- 2:26:19Speaker 4: But it is.
- 2:26:20Speaker 7: Quite certain that a woman can be a Queen Elizabeth,
- 2:26:23Speaker 7: or a Deborah or a Joan of arc since this
- 2:26:25Speaker 7: is not inference but fact. Now it is a curious
- 2:26:28Speaker 7: consideration that the only things which the existing law excludes
- 2:26:32Speaker 7: women from doing are the things which they have proved
- 2:26:35Speaker 7: that they are able to do. There is no law
- 2:26:37Speaker 7: to prevent a woman from having written all the plays
- 2:26:39Speaker 7: of Shakespeare or composed all the operas of Mozart. But
- 2:26:43Speaker 7: Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria, had they not inherited the throne,
- 2:26:47Speaker 7: could not have been entrusted with the smallest of the
- 2:26:49Speaker 7: political duties of which the former showed herself equal to
- 2:26:52Speaker 7: the greatest. If anything conclusive could be inferred from experience
- 2:26:56Speaker 7: without psychological analysis, it would be that the things which
- 2:27:00Speaker 7: women are not allowed to do are the very ones
- 2:27:02Speaker 7: for which they are peculiarly qualified, since their vocation for
- 2:27:06Speaker 7: government has made its way and become conspicuous through the
- 2:27:09Speaker 7: very few opportunities which have been given, while in the
- 2:27:12Speaker 7: lines of distinction which apparently were fully open to them,
- 2:27:15Speaker 7: they have by no means so eminently distinguished themselves. We
- 2:27:19Speaker 7: know how small a number of reigning queens history presents
- 2:27:22Speaker 7: in comparison with that of kings. Of this smaller number,
- 2:27:25Speaker 7: a far larger proportion have shown talents for the rule.
- 2:27:29Speaker 7: Though many of them have occupied the throne in difficult periods.
- 2:27:32Speaker 7: It is remarkable too that they have, in a great
- 2:27:35Speaker 7: number of instances been distinguished by merits the most opposite
- 2:27:38Speaker 7: to the imaginary and conventional character of women. They have
- 2:27:42Speaker 7: been as much remark for the firmness and vigor of
- 2:27:44Speaker 7: their rule as for its intelligence. When to queens and
- 2:27:48Speaker 7: empresses we add regents and viceroys of provinces, the list
- 2:27:52Speaker 7: of women who have been eminent rulers of mankind swells
- 2:27:55Speaker 7: to a great length Footnote one. Especially, is this true
- 2:27:59Speaker 7: if we take into concer sideration Asia as well as Europe.
- 2:28:02Speaker 7: If a Hindu principality is strongly, vigilantly and economically governed,
- 2:28:06Speaker 7: if order is preserved without oppression, if cultivation is extending,
- 2:28:10Speaker 7: and the people prosperous, in three cases out of four,
- 2:28:14Speaker 7: that principality is under a woman's rule. This fact, to
- 2:28:17Speaker 7: me an entirely unexpected one I have collected from a
- 2:28:20Speaker 7: long knowledge of Hindu governments. There are many such instances.
- 2:28:24Speaker 7: For though by Hindu institutions a woman cannot reign, she
- 2:28:28Speaker 7: is the legal region of a kingdom during the minority
- 2:28:30Speaker 7: of the air and minorities are frequent, the lives of
- 2:28:33Speaker 7: the male rulers being so often prematurely terminated through the
- 2:28:37Speaker 7: effect of inactivity. In central excesses. One, we consider that
- 2:28:41Speaker 7: these princesses have never been seen in public, have never
- 2:28:44Speaker 7: conversed with any man not of their own family, except
- 2:28:46Speaker 7: from behind a curtain. That they do not read, and
- 2:28:49Speaker 7: if they did, there is no book in their languages
- 2:28:51Speaker 7: which can give them the smallest instruction on political affairs.
- 2:28:55Speaker 7: The example they afford of the natural capacity of women
- 2:28:57Speaker 7: for government is very striking end footnote. This fact is
- 2:29:02Speaker 7: so undeniable that some one long ago tried to retort
- 2:29:05Speaker 7: the argument and turn the admitted truth into an additional
- 2:29:08Speaker 7: insult by saying that queens are better than kings, because
- 2:29:12Speaker 7: under kings women govern, but under queens men. It may
- 2:29:16Speaker 7: seem a waste of reasoning to argue against a bad joke,
- 2:29:19Speaker 7: but such things do affect people's minds, and I have
- 2:29:21Speaker 7: heard men quote this saying with an air as if
- 2:29:24Speaker 7: they thought that there was something in it. At any rate,
- 2:29:26Speaker 7: it will serve as anything else for a starting point
- 2:29:29Speaker 7: in discussion. I say, then, that it is not true
- 2:29:32Speaker 7: that under kings women govern. Such cases are entirely exceptional,
- 2:29:36Speaker 7: and we kings have quite as often governed ill through
- 2:29:39Speaker 7: the influence of male favorites as a female. When a
- 2:29:42Speaker 7: king is governed by a woman merely through his amatory propensities.
- 2:29:45Speaker 7: Good government is not probable, though even then there are exceptions.
- 2:29:49Speaker 7: But French history counts two kings who have voluntarily given
- 2:29:52Speaker 7: the direction of affairs during many years, the one to
- 2:29:55Speaker 7: his mother, the other to his sister. One of them,
- 2:29:58Speaker 7: Charles the seventh, was a mere boy, but in doing
- 2:30:01Speaker 7: so he followed the intentions of his father, Louis the eleventh,
- 2:30:05Speaker 7: the ablest monarch of his age. The other, Saint Louis,
- 2:30:08Speaker 7: was the best and one of the most vigorous rulers
- 2:30:11Speaker 7: since the time of Charlemagne. Both these princesses ruled in
- 2:30:14Speaker 7: a manner hardly equaled by any prince Among their contemporaries.
- 2:30:18Speaker 7: The Emperor Charles the Fifth, the most politic prince of
- 2:30:21Speaker 7: his time, who had as great a number of able
- 2:30:23Speaker 7: men in his service as a ruler ever had, and
- 2:30:26Speaker 7: was one of the least likely of all sovereigns to
- 2:30:28Speaker 7: sacrifice his interest to personal feelings, made two princesses of
- 2:30:32Speaker 7: his family successively governors of the Netherlands, and kept one
- 2:30:35Speaker 7: or the other of them in that post during his
- 2:30:37Speaker 7: whole life. They were afterwards succeeded by a third. Both
- 2:30:41Speaker 7: ruled very successfully, and one of them Margaret of Austria
- 2:30:45Speaker 7: as one of the ablest politicians of the age. So
- 2:30:48Speaker 7: much for one side of the question now as to
- 2:30:50Speaker 7: the other. When it is said that under queen's men
- 2:30:53Speaker 7: govern is the same meaning to be understood as when
- 2:30:56Speaker 7: kings are said to be governed by women. Is it
- 2:30:58Speaker 7: meant that queens choose as their instruments of government the
- 2:31:01Speaker 7: associates of their personal pleasures. The case is rare, even
- 2:31:05Speaker 7: with those who are as unscrupulous on the latter point
- 2:31:08Speaker 7: as Catherine the Second, And it is not in these
- 2:31:11Speaker 7: cases that the good government alleged to arise for male
- 2:31:14Speaker 7: influence is.
- 2:31:14Speaker 8: To be found.
- 2:31:16Speaker 7: If it be true, then that the administration is in
- 2:31:18Speaker 7: the hands of better men under a queen than under
- 2:31:21Speaker 7: an average king, it must be that queens have a
- 2:31:23Speaker 7: superior capacity for choosing them, and women must be better
- 2:31:27Speaker 7: qualified than men, both for the position of sovereign and
- 2:31:30Speaker 7: for that of chief minister. For the principal business of
- 2:31:33Speaker 7: a prime minister is not to govern in person, but
- 2:31:36Speaker 7: to find the fittest persons to conduct every department of
- 2:31:39Speaker 7: public affairs. The more rapid insight into character, which is
- 2:31:43Speaker 7: one of the admitted points of superiority in women over
- 2:31:46Speaker 7: men must certainly make them, with anything like parity of
- 2:31:49Speaker 7: qualifications in other respects, more apt than men in that
- 2:31:52Speaker 7: choice of instruments, which is nearly the most important business
- 2:31:55Speaker 7: of every one who has had to do with governing mankind.
- 2:31:59Speaker 7: Even the unprincipled Catherine de Medici could feel the value
- 2:32:03Speaker 7: of a chancellor delopetale. But it is also true that
- 2:32:06Speaker 7: most great queens have been great by their own talents
- 2:32:09Speaker 7: for government, and have been well served precisely for that reason.
- 2:32:12Speaker 7: They retained the supreme direction of affairs in their own hands,
- 2:32:16Speaker 7: and if they listened to good advisers, they gave, by
- 2:32:19Speaker 7: that fact the strongest proof that their judgment fitted them
- 2:32:22Speaker 7: for dealing with the great questions of government. Is it
- 2:32:25Speaker 7: reasonable to think that those who are fit for the
- 2:32:27Speaker 7: greater functions of politics are incapable of qualifying themselves for
- 2:32:31Speaker 7: the less? Is there any reason in the nature of
- 2:32:34Speaker 7: things that the wives and sisters of princes should, whenever
- 2:32:37Speaker 7: called upon, be found as competent as the princes themselves
- 2:32:40Speaker 7: to their business, but that the wives and sisters of statesmen,
- 2:32:44Speaker 7: and administrators and directors of companies and managers of public
- 2:32:48Speaker 7: institutions should be unable to do what is done by
- 2:32:50Speaker 7: their brothers and husbands. The real reason is plain enough.
- 2:32:55Speaker 7: It is that princesses, being more raised above the generality
- 2:32:58Speaker 7: of men by their rank than place below them by
- 2:33:01Speaker 7: their sex, have never been taught that it was improper
- 2:33:03Speaker 7: for them to concern themselves with politics, but have been
- 2:33:06Speaker 7: allowed to feel the liberal interest natural to any cultivated
- 2:33:10Speaker 7: human being in the great transactions which took place around them,
- 2:33:13Speaker 7: and in which they might be called upon to take
- 2:33:15Speaker 7: a part. The ladies of reigning families are the only
- 2:33:19Speaker 7: women who are allowed the same range of interests and
- 2:33:21Speaker 7: freedom of development as men. And it is precisely in
- 2:33:24Speaker 7: their case that there is not found to be any inferiority.
- 2:33:28Speaker 7: Exactly where and in proportion as women's capacities for government
- 2:33:32Speaker 7: have been tried, in that proportion have they been found adequate.
- 2:33:36Speaker 7: This fact is in accordance with the best general conclusions
- 2:33:39Speaker 7: which the world's imperfect experience seems as yet to suggest.
- 2:33:43Speaker 7: Concerning the peculiar tendencies and aptitudes characteristic of women, as
- 2:33:47Speaker 7: women have hitherto been, I do not say as they
- 2:33:50Speaker 7: will continue to be, For as I have already said,
- 2:33:53Speaker 7: more than once, I consider it presumption in anyone to
- 2:33:56Speaker 7: pretend to decide what women are or are not, can
- 2:33:59Speaker 7: or cannot be by natural constitution. They have always hitherto
- 2:34:03Speaker 7: been kept, as far as regards spontaneous development, in so
- 2:34:07Speaker 7: unnatural a state that their nature cannot but have been
- 2:34:10Speaker 7: greatly distorted and disguised. And no one can safely pronounce
- 2:34:13Speaker 7: that if women's nature were left to choose its direction
- 2:34:16Speaker 7: as freely as men's, and if no artificial bent were
- 2:34:19Speaker 7: attempted to be given to it, except that required by
- 2:34:21Speaker 7: the conditions of human society, and given to both sexes alike,
- 2:34:25Speaker 7: there would be any material difference, or perhaps any difference
- 2:34:28Speaker 7: at all, in the character and capacities which would unfold themselves.
- 2:34:33Speaker 7: I shall presently show that even the least contestable of
- 2:34:35Speaker 7: the differences which now exist, of such as may very
- 2:34:38Speaker 7: well have been produced merely by circumstances, without any difference
- 2:34:42Speaker 7: of natural capacity. But looking at women as they are
- 2:34:45Speaker 7: known in experience, it may be said of them with
- 2:34:48Speaker 7: more truth than belongs to most other generalizations on the subject,
- 2:34:51Speaker 7: that the general bent of their talents is towards the practical.
- 2:34:55Speaker 7: This statement is conformable to all the public history of
- 2:34:58Speaker 7: women in the present and the past. It is no
- 2:35:01Speaker 7: less borne out by common and daily experience. Let us
- 2:35:04Speaker 7: consider the special nature of the mental capacities most characteristic
- 2:35:07Speaker 7: of a woman of talent. They are all of a
- 2:35:10Speaker 7: kind which fits them for practice and makes them tend
- 2:35:13Speaker 7: towards it. What is meant by a woman's capacity of
- 2:35:16Speaker 7: intuitive perception? It means a rapid and correct insight into
- 2:35:20Speaker 7: present fact. It has nothing to do with general principles.
- 2:35:24Speaker 7: Nobody ever perceived a scientific law of nature by intuition,
- 2:35:27Speaker 7: nor arrived at a general rule of duty or prudence
- 2:35:30Speaker 7: by it. These are results of slow and careful collection
- 2:35:33Speaker 7: in comparison of experience, and neither the men nor the
- 2:35:36Speaker 7: women of intuition usually shine in this department, unless indeed
- 2:35:40Speaker 7: the experience necessary is such as they can acquire by themselves.
- 2:35:44Speaker 7: For what is called their intuitive sagacity makes them peculiarly
- 2:35:48Speaker 7: apt in gathering such general truths as can be collected
- 2:35:51Speaker 7: from their individual means of observation, when consequently they chance
- 2:35:55Speaker 7: to be as well provided as men are with the
- 2:35:57Speaker 7: results of other people's experience by reading and education. I
- 2:36:01Speaker 7: use the word chance advisedly, for in respect to the
- 2:36:04Speaker 7: knowledge that tends to fit them for the greater concerns
- 2:36:07Speaker 7: of life. The only educated women are the self educated.
- 2:36:10Speaker 7: They are better furnished than men in general with the
- 2:36:13Speaker 7: essential requisites of skillful and successful practice. Men who are
- 2:36:17Speaker 7: much taught are apt to be deficient in the sense
- 2:36:19Speaker 7: of present fact. They do not see in the facts
- 2:36:22Speaker 7: which they are called upon to deal with, what is
- 2:36:24Speaker 7: really there, but what they have been taught to expect.
- 2:36:28Speaker 7: This is seldom the case with women of any ability.
- 2:36:30Speaker 7: Their capacity of intuition preserves them from it. With equality
- 2:36:35Speaker 7: of experience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees
- 2:36:38Speaker 7: much more than a man of what is immediately before her.
- 2:36:41Speaker 1: Now.
- 2:36:41Speaker 7: This sensibility to the present is the main quality on
- 2:36:44Speaker 7: which the capacity for practice, as distinguished from theory, depends.
- 2:36:49Speaker 7: To discover general principles belongs to the speculative faculty. To
- 2:36:53Speaker 7: discern and discriminate the particular cases in which they are
- 2:36:56Speaker 7: and are not applicable constitutes practical talent, and for them
- 2:37:00Speaker 7: this women, as they now are, have a peculiar aptitude.
- 2:37:03Speaker 7: I admit that there can be no good practice without principles,
- 2:37:06Speaker 7: and that the predominant place where quickness of observation holds
- 2:37:09Speaker 7: among a woman's faculties makes her particularly apt to build
- 2:37:13Speaker 7: over hasty generalizations upon her own observation, though at the
- 2:37:17Speaker 7: same time no less ready in rectifying those generalizations as
- 2:37:20Speaker 7: her observation takes a wider range. But the corrective to
- 2:37:24Speaker 7: this defect is access to the experience of the human race,
- 2:37:27Speaker 7: general knowledge, exactly the thing which education can best supply.
- 2:37:32Speaker 7: A woman's mistakes are specifically those of a clever, self
- 2:37:35Speaker 7: educated man who often sees what men trained and routine
- 2:37:38Speaker 7: do not see, but falls into errors of want of
- 2:37:41Speaker 7: knowing things which have long been known. Of course, he
- 2:37:44Speaker 7: has acquired much of the pre existing knowledge, or he
- 2:37:47Speaker 7: could not have got on at all. But what he
- 2:37:49Speaker 7: knows of it he has picked up in fragments and
- 2:37:51Speaker 7: at random, as women do. But this gravitation of women's
- 2:37:55Speaker 7: minds to the present, to the real, to actual fact,
- 2:37:58Speaker 7: while in its exclusiveness, is the source of errors, is
- 2:38:01Speaker 7: also a much useful counteractive of the contrary error. The
- 2:38:05Speaker 7: principal and most characteristic aberration of speculative minds as such
- 2:38:09Speaker 7: consists precisely in the deficiency of this lively perception an
- 2:38:13Speaker 7: ever present sense of objective fact. For want of this,
- 2:38:16Speaker 7: they often not only overlook the contradiction which outward facts
- 2:38:19Speaker 7: oppose to their theories, but lose sight of the legitimate
- 2:38:22Speaker 7: purpose of speculation altogether, and let their speculative faculties go
- 2:38:26Speaker 7: astray into regions not peopled with real beings, animate or inanimate,
- 2:38:31Speaker 7: even idealized, but with personified shadows created by the illusions
- 2:38:35Speaker 7: of metaphysics or by the mere entanglement of words and think.
- 2:38:39Speaker 7: These shadows the proper objects of the highest, the most
- 2:38:42Speaker 7: transcendent philosophy. Hardly anything can be of greater value to
- 2:38:46Speaker 7: a man of theory and speculation who employs himself not
- 2:38:50Speaker 7: in collecting materials of knowledge by observation, but in working
- 2:38:53Speaker 7: them up by processes of thought into comprehensive truths of
- 2:38:56Speaker 7: science and laws of conduct, than to carry on his
- 2:38:59Speaker 7: speculations in the companionship and under the criticism of a
- 2:39:03Speaker 7: really superior woman. There is nothing comparable to it for
- 2:39:06Speaker 7: keeping his thoughts within the limits of real things and
- 2:39:09Speaker 7: the actual facts of nature. A woman seldom runs wild
- 2:39:12Speaker 7: after an abstraction. The habitual direction of her mind to
- 2:39:15Speaker 7: dealing with things as individuals rather than in groups, and
- 2:39:19Speaker 7: what is closely connected with it are more lively interests
- 2:39:22Speaker 7: in the present feelings of persons, which makes her consider,
- 2:39:25Speaker 7: first of all, in anything which claims to be applied
- 2:39:27Speaker 7: to practice in what manner persons will be affected by it.
- 2:39:31Speaker 7: These two things make her extremely unlikely to put faith
- 2:39:34Speaker 7: in any speculation which loses sight of individuals and deals
- 2:39:38Speaker 7: with things as if they existed for the benefit of
- 2:39:40Speaker 7: some imaginary entity, some mere creation of the mind, not
- 2:39:44Speaker 7: resolvable into the feelings of living beings. Women's thoughts are
- 2:39:48Speaker 7: thus as useful in giving reality to those of thinking
- 2:39:51Speaker 7: men as men's thoughts in giving with and largeness to
- 2:39:54Speaker 7: those of women in depth as distinguished from breath. I
- 2:39:57Speaker 7: greatly doubt if even now women compare with men, are
- 2:40:00Speaker 7: any disadvantage end of Chapter three, Part one, Chapter three,
- 2:40:06Speaker 7: Part two. If the existing mental characteristics of women are
- 2:40:11Speaker 7: thus valuable even in aid of speculation, they are still
- 2:40:15Speaker 7: more important when speculation has done its work for carrying
- 2:40:18Speaker 7: out the results of speculation into practice. For the reasons
- 2:40:22Speaker 7: already given, women are comparatively unlikely to fall into the
- 2:40:26Speaker 7: common error of men, that of sticking to their rules
- 2:40:29Speaker 7: in a case whose specialties either take it out of
- 2:40:32Speaker 7: the class to which the rules are applicable or require
- 2:40:35Speaker 7: a special adaptation of them. Let us now consider another
- 2:40:39Speaker 7: of the odmitted superiorities of clever women. Greater quickness of apprehension.
- 2:40:44Speaker 7: Is not this pre eminently a quality which fits a
- 2:40:47Speaker 7: person for practice. In action, everything continually depends upon deciding promptly.
- 2:40:53Speaker 7: In speculation, nothing does a mere thinker can wait, can
- 2:40:58Speaker 7: take time to consider, can close additional evidence. He is
- 2:41:02Speaker 7: not obliged to complete his philosophy at once, lest the
- 2:41:05Speaker 7: opportunity should go by the power of drawing the best
- 2:41:08Speaker 7: conclusion possible from insufficient data is not indeed useless in philosophy.
- 2:41:14Speaker 7: The construction of a provisional hypothesis consistent with all known
- 2:41:18Speaker 7: facts is often a needful basis for further inquiry. But
- 2:41:22Speaker 7: this faculty is rather serviceable in philosophy than the main
- 2:41:25Speaker 7: qualification for it, and for the auxiliary as well as
- 2:41:29Speaker 7: for the main operation. The philosopher can allow himself.
- 2:41:32Speaker 8: Any time he pleases. He is in no need of
- 2:41:35Speaker 8: the capacity of doing rapidly what he does. What he
- 2:41:38Speaker 8: rather needs is patience to work on slowly until imperfect
- 2:41:43Speaker 8: lights have become perfect and the conjecture has ripened into
- 2:41:46Speaker 8: a theorem. For those on the contrary, whose business is
- 2:41:50Speaker 8: with the fugitive and perishable, with individual facts, not kinds
- 2:41:55Speaker 8: of facts. Rapidity of thought is a qualification next only
- 2:41:59Speaker 8: in importance to the power of thought itself. He who
- 2:42:03Speaker 8: has not his faculties under immediate command in the continuencies
- 2:42:06Speaker 8: of action might as well not have them at all.
- 2:42:09Speaker 8: He may be fit to criticize, but he is not
- 2:42:12Speaker 8: fit to act now. It is in this that women
- 2:42:15Speaker 8: and the men who are most like women confessedly excel.
- 2:42:20Speaker 8: The other sort of men, however pre eminent, may be
- 2:42:22Speaker 8: his faculties, arrives slowly at complete command of them. Rapidity
- 2:42:27Speaker 8: of judgment and promptitude of judicious action, even in the
- 2:42:30Speaker 8: things he knows best, are the gradual and late result
- 2:42:34Speaker 8: of strenuous effort grown into habit. It will be said,
- 2:42:38Speaker 8: perhaps that the greater nerve's susceptibility of women is a
- 2:42:41Speaker 8: disqualification for practice in anything but domestic life, by rendering
- 2:42:46Speaker 8: them mobile, changeable, too vehemently under the influence of the moment,
- 2:42:51Speaker 8: incapable of dogged perseverance, unequal and uncertain in the power
- 2:42:56Speaker 8: of using their faculties. I think that these phrases sum
- 2:43:00Speaker 8: up the greater part of the objections commonly made to
- 2:43:03Speaker 8: the fitness of women for the higher class of serious business.
- 2:43:07Speaker 8: Much of all this is the mere overflow of nervous
- 2:43:10Speaker 8: energy run to waste, and would cease when the energy
- 2:43:13Speaker 8: was directed to a definite end, much as also the
- 2:43:17Speaker 8: result of conscious or unconscious cultivation, as we see by
- 2:43:21Speaker 8: the almost total disappearance of hysterics and fainting fits since
- 2:43:25Speaker 8: they have gone out of fashion. Moreover, when people are
- 2:43:29Speaker 8: brought up, like many women of the higher classes, though
- 2:43:32Speaker 8: less so in our own country than any other, a
- 2:43:35Speaker 8: kind of hot house plants shielded from the wholesome facissitudes
- 2:43:38Speaker 8: of air and temperature, and untrained in any of the
- 2:43:41Speaker 8: occupations and exercises which give stimulus and development to the
- 2:43:45Speaker 8: circulatory and muscular system, while their nervous system, especially in
- 2:43:50Speaker 8: its emotional department, is kept in unnatural active play. It
- 2:43:54Speaker 8: is no wonder if those of them who do not
- 2:43:56Speaker 8: die of consumption grow up with constitutions liable to the
- 2:44:00Speaker 8: derangement from slight causes, both internal and external, and without
- 2:44:05Speaker 8: stamina to support any task physical or mental, requiring continuity
- 2:44:10Speaker 8: of effort. But women brought up to work for their
- 2:44:13Speaker 8: livelihood show none of these morbid characteristics, unless indeed they
- 2:44:17Speaker 8: are chained to an excess of sedentary work in confined
- 2:44:21Speaker 8: and unhealthy rooms. Women who in their early years have
- 2:44:25Speaker 8: shared in the healthful physical education and bodily freedom of
- 2:44:28Speaker 8: their brothers, and who obtain a sufficiency of pure error
- 2:44:31Speaker 8: and exercise in after life, very rarely have any excessive
- 2:44:35Speaker 8: susceptibility of nerves which can disqualify them for active pursuits.
- 2:44:40Speaker 8: There is, indeed a certain proportion of persons in both sexes,
- 2:44:44Speaker 8: in whom an unusual degree of nervous sensibility is constitutional,
- 2:44:48Speaker 8: and of so marked a character as to be the
- 2:44:50Speaker 8: feature of their organization, which exercises the greatest influence over
- 2:44:54Speaker 8: the whole character of the vital phenomena. This constitution, like
- 2:44:58Speaker 8: other physical confirmation, is hereditary, and is transmitted to sons
- 2:45:03Speaker 8: as well as daughters. But it is possible and probable
- 2:45:06Speaker 8: that the nervous temperament, as it is called, is inherited
- 2:45:10Speaker 8: by a greater number of women than of men. We
- 2:45:13Speaker 8: will assume this as a fact, and let me then ask,
- 2:45:16Speaker 8: are men of nervous temperament found to be unfit for
- 2:45:20Speaker 8: the duties and pursuits usually followed by men. If not,
- 2:45:24Speaker 8: why should women of the same temperament be unfit for them?
- 2:45:28Speaker 8: The peculiarities of the temperament are, no doubt, within certain limits,
- 2:45:32Speaker 8: an obstacle to success in some employments, though in aid
- 2:45:35Speaker 8: to it in others. But when the occupation is suitable
- 2:45:38Speaker 8: to the temperament, and sometimes even when it is unsuitable,
- 2:45:42Speaker 8: that the most brilliant examples of success are continually given
- 2:45:45Speaker 8: by the men of high nervous sensibility. They are distinguished
- 2:45:48Speaker 8: in their practical manifestations chiefly by this, that, being susceptible
- 2:45:53Speaker 8: of a higher degree of excitement than those of another
- 2:45:56Speaker 8: physical constitution, their powers when excited differ more than in
- 2:46:00Speaker 8: the case of other people, from those shown in their
- 2:46:02Speaker 8: ordinary state. They are raised, as it were, above themselves,
- 2:46:06Speaker 8: and do things with ease which they are wholly incapable
- 2:46:09Speaker 8: of at other times. But this lofty excitement is not
- 2:46:13Speaker 8: except in weak bodily constitutions, a mere flesh which passes
- 2:46:17Speaker 8: away immediately, leaving no permanent traces, and incompatible with persistent
- 2:46:22Speaker 8: and steady pursuit of an object. It is the character
- 2:46:25Speaker 8: of the nervous temperament to be capable of sustained excitement
- 2:46:29Speaker 8: holding out through long, continued efforts. It is what is
- 2:46:33Speaker 8: meant by spirit. It is what makes the high bred
- 2:46:36Speaker 8: race horse run without slackening speed till he drops down dead.
- 2:46:41Speaker 8: It is what has enabled so many delicate women to
- 2:46:44Speaker 8: maintain the most sublime constancy, not only at the stake,
- 2:46:48Speaker 8: but through a long preliminary succession of mental and bodily tortures.
- 2:46:53Speaker 8: It is evident that people of this temperament are particularly
- 2:46:56Speaker 8: apt for what may be called the executive department of
- 2:47:00Speaker 8: leadership of mankind. They are the material of great orators,
- 2:47:04Speaker 8: great preachers, impressive diffusers of moral influences. Their constitution might
- 2:47:10Speaker 8: be deemed less favorable to the qualities required from a
- 2:47:13Speaker 8: statement in the cabinet or from a judge. It would
- 2:47:17Speaker 8: be so if the consequence necessarily followed that, because people
- 2:47:20Speaker 8: are excitable, they must always be in a state of excitement.
- 2:47:24Speaker 8: But this is wholly a question of training. Strong feeling
- 2:47:28Speaker 8: is the instrument, an element of strong self control, but
- 2:47:32Speaker 8: it requires to be cultivated in that direction. When it is,
- 2:47:36Speaker 8: it forms not the heroes of impulse only, but those
- 2:47:39Speaker 8: also of self conquest. History and experience prove that the
- 2:47:44Speaker 8: most passionate characters are the most fanatically rigid in their
- 2:47:47Speaker 8: feelings of duty when their passion has been trained to
- 2:47:50Speaker 8: act in that direction. The judge who gives a just
- 2:47:53Speaker 8: decision in a case whereas feelings are intensely interested on
- 2:47:56Speaker 8: the other side, derives from that same strength feeling the
- 2:48:00Speaker 8: determined sense of the obligation of justice which enables him
- 2:48:04Speaker 8: to achieve this victory over himself. The capability of that
- 2:48:08Speaker 8: lofty enthusiasm which takes the human being out of his
- 2:48:11Speaker 8: everyday character, reacts upon the daily character itself. His aspirations
- 2:48:17Speaker 8: and powers when he is in this exceptional state become
- 2:48:20Speaker 8: the type with which he compares and by which he estimates.
- 2:48:24Speaker 8: His sentiments and proceedings at other times, and his habitual
- 2:48:28Speaker 8: purposes assume a character molded by and assimilated to the
- 2:48:33Speaker 8: moments of lofty excitement, although those from the physical nature
- 2:48:38Speaker 8: of a human being can only be trenchant, experience of
- 2:48:42Speaker 8: races as well as of individuals does not show those
- 2:48:46Speaker 8: of excitable temperament to be less fit on the average,
- 2:48:50Speaker 8: either for speculation or practice than the more unexcitable. The
- 2:48:54Speaker 8: French and the Italians are undoubtedly by nature more nervously
- 2:48:59Speaker 8: excitable than the Teutonic races, and compared at least with
- 2:49:03Speaker 8: the English, they have a much greater habitual and daily
- 2:49:06Speaker 8: emotional life. But have they been less great in science,
- 2:49:10Speaker 8: in public business, in legal and judicial eminence, or in war?
- 2:49:15Speaker 8: There is abundant evidence that the Greeks were of old,
- 2:49:17Speaker 8: as their descendants and successes still are one of the
- 2:49:21Speaker 8: most excitable of the races of mankind. It is superfluous
- 2:49:25Speaker 8: to ask what among the achievements of men they did
- 2:49:28Speaker 8: not excel in that Romans, probably as an equally southern people,
- 2:49:33Speaker 8: had the same original temperament, but the stern character of
- 2:49:36Speaker 8: their national discipline, like that of the Spartans, made them
- 2:49:40Speaker 8: an example of the opposite type of national character, the
- 2:49:44Speaker 8: greater strength of their natural feelings being chiefly apparent in
- 2:49:47Speaker 8: the intensity which the same original temperament made it possible
- 2:49:52Speaker 8: to give to the artificial. If these cases exemplify what
- 2:49:56Speaker 8: a naturally excitable people may be made, the art Riish
- 2:50:00Speaker 8: Celts afford one of the aptest examples of what they
- 2:50:03Speaker 8: are when left to themselves, If those can be said
- 2:50:07Speaker 8: to be left to themselves, who have been for centuries
- 2:50:10Speaker 8: under the indirect influence of bad government and the direct
- 2:50:13Speaker 8: training of a Catholic hierarchy, and of a sincere belief
- 2:50:17Speaker 8: in the Catholic religion. The Irish character must be considered
- 2:50:21Speaker 8: therefore as an unfavorable case. Yet, whenever the circumstances of
- 2:50:26Speaker 8: the individual have been at all favorable, what people have
- 2:50:29Speaker 8: shown greater capacity for the most varied and multifarious individual eminence?
- 2:50:35Speaker 8: Like the French compared with the English, the Irish with
- 2:50:37Speaker 8: the Swiss, the Greeks, or Italians compared with the German races.
- 2:50:42Speaker 8: So women compared with men, may be found on the
- 2:50:45Speaker 8: average to do the same things with some variety in
- 2:50:48Speaker 8: the particular kind of excellence. But that they would do
- 2:50:51Speaker 8: them fully as well on the whole if their education
- 2:50:54Speaker 8: and cultivation were adapted to correcting instead of aggravating the
- 2:50:58Speaker 8: infirmities incident, and to their temperament. I see not the
- 2:51:02Speaker 8: smallest reason to doubt supposing it, however, to be true,
- 2:51:07Speaker 8: that women's minds are by nature more mobile than those
- 2:51:10Speaker 8: of men, less capable of persisting long in the same
- 2:51:14Speaker 8: continuous effort, more fitted for dividing their faculties among many things,
- 2:51:19Speaker 8: than for traveling in any one path to the highest
- 2:51:21Speaker 8: point which can be reached by it. This may be
- 2:51:24Speaker 8: true of women as they now are, though not without
- 2:51:27Speaker 8: great and numerous exceptions, and may account for their having
- 2:51:31Speaker 8: remained behind the highest order of men in precisely the
- 2:51:34Speaker 8: things in which this absorption of the whole mind in
- 2:51:36Speaker 8: one set of ideas and occupations may seem to be
- 2:51:40Speaker 8: most requisite. Still, this difference is one which can only
- 2:51:44Speaker 8: affect the kind of excellence, not the excellence itself or
- 2:51:48Speaker 8: its practical worth. And it remains to be shown whether
- 2:51:52Speaker 8: this exclusive working of a part of the mind, this
- 2:51:55Speaker 8: absorption of the whole thinking faculty in a single subject,
- 2:51:58Speaker 8: and concentration of it on a single work, is a
- 2:52:01Speaker 8: normal and healthful condition of the human faculties, even for
- 2:52:04Speaker 8: speculative uses. I believe that what is gained in special
- 2:52:08Speaker 8: development by this concentration is lost in the capacity of
- 2:52:12Speaker 8: the mind for the other purposes of life, and even
- 2:52:15Speaker 8: in an abstract thought. It is my decided opinion that
- 2:52:18Speaker 8: the mind is more by frequently returning to a difficult
- 2:52:22Speaker 8: problem than by sticking to it without interruption, for the
- 2:52:26Speaker 8: purposes at all events of practice, from its highest to
- 2:52:30Speaker 8: its humblest departments. The capacity of passing promptly from one
- 2:52:34Speaker 8: subject of consideration to another without letting the active spring
- 2:52:38Speaker 8: of the intellect run down between the two is a
- 2:52:40Speaker 8: power far more valuable, and this power women pre eminently
- 2:52:45Speaker 8: possess by virtue of the very mobility of which they
- 2:52:48Speaker 8: are accused. They perhaps have it from nature, but they
- 2:52:52Speaker 8: certainly have it by training and education. For nearly the
- 2:52:57Speaker 8: whole of the occupations of women consists in the mass
- 2:53:00Speaker 8: management of small but multitudinous details, on each of which
- 2:53:04Speaker 8: the mind cannot dwell even for a minute, but must
- 2:53:06Speaker 8: pass on to other things, and if anything requires longer thought,
- 2:53:11Speaker 8: must steal time at odd moments for thinking of it.
- 2:53:15Speaker 8: The capacity, indeed, which women show for doing their thinking
- 2:53:19Speaker 8: in circumstances and at times which almost any man would
- 2:53:22Speaker 8: make an excuse to himself for not attempting it, has
- 2:53:26Speaker 8: often been noticed, and a woman's mind, though it may
- 2:53:29Speaker 8: be occupied only with small things, can hardly ever permit
- 2:53:33Speaker 8: itself to be vacant, as a man's so often is
- 2:53:36Speaker 8: when not engaged in what he chooses to consider the
- 2:53:38Speaker 8: business of his life. The business of a woman's ordinary
- 2:53:42Speaker 8: life is things in general, and can as little cease
- 2:53:45Speaker 8: to go on as the world to go round. But
- 2:53:49Speaker 8: it is said there is anatomical evidence of the superior
- 2:53:52Speaker 8: mental capacity of men compared with women, they have a
- 2:53:56Speaker 8: larger brain. I reply that, in the first place, the
- 2:54:00Speaker 8: fact itself is doubtful. It is by no means established
- 2:54:03Speaker 8: that the brain of a woman is smaller than that
- 2:54:06Speaker 8: of a man. If it is inferred merely because a
- 2:54:08Speaker 8: woman's bodily frame generally is of less dimensions than a man's,
- 2:54:13Speaker 8: this criterion would lead to strange consequences. A tall and
- 2:54:17Speaker 8: large boned man must, on this showing, be wonderfully superior
- 2:54:21Speaker 8: in intelligence to a small man, and an elephant or
- 2:54:24Speaker 8: a whale must prodigiously excel mankind. The size of the
- 2:54:29Speaker 8: brain in human beings, anatomists say, varies much less than
- 2:54:33Speaker 8: the size of the body, or even of the head,
- 2:54:36Speaker 8: and the one cannot be at all inferred from the other.
- 2:54:40Speaker 8: It is certain that some women have as large a
- 2:54:42Speaker 8: brain as any man. It is within my knowledge that
- 2:54:45Speaker 8: a man who had weighed many human brains said that
- 2:54:48Speaker 8: the heaviest he knew of heavier even than Cuvier's. The
- 2:54:52Speaker 8: heaviest previously recorded was that of a woman. Next, I
- 2:54:57Speaker 8: must observe that the precise relation wh which exists between
- 2:55:01Speaker 8: the brain and the intellectual powers is not yet well understood,
- 2:55:04Speaker 8: but is a subject of great dispute that there is
- 2:55:07Speaker 8: a very close relation. We cannot doubt the brain is
- 2:55:11Speaker 8: certainly the material organ of thought and feeling, and making
- 2:55:15Speaker 8: abstraction of the great unsettled controversy respecting the appropriation of
- 2:55:19Speaker 8: different parts of the brain to different mental faculties, I
- 2:55:23Speaker 8: admit that it would be an anomaly and an exception
- 2:55:26Speaker 8: to all we know of the general laws of life
- 2:55:29Speaker 8: and organization if the size of the organ were wholly
- 2:55:32Speaker 8: indifferent to the function, if no accession of power were
- 2:55:36Speaker 8: derived from the great magnitude of the instrument. But the
- 2:55:39Speaker 8: exception and the anomaly would be fully as great if
- 2:55:43Speaker 8: the organ exercised influence by its magnitude only in all
- 2:55:47Speaker 8: the more delicate operations of nature, of which those of
- 2:55:50Speaker 8: the animated creation are the most delicate, and those of
- 2:55:53Speaker 8: the nervous system by far the most delicate. Of These
- 2:55:57Speaker 8: differences in the effect depend as much differences of quality
- 2:56:01Speaker 8: in the physical agents as on their quantity. And if
- 2:56:05Speaker 8: the quality of an instrument is to be tested by
- 2:56:07Speaker 8: the nicety and delicacy of the work it can do.
- 2:56:10Speaker 8: The indications point to a greater average fineness of quality
- 2:56:14Speaker 8: in the brain and nervous system of women than of men.
- 2:56:17Speaker 8: Dismissing abstract difference of quality a thing difficult to verify.
- 2:56:22Speaker 8: The efficiency of an organ is known to depend not
- 2:56:25Speaker 8: solely on its size, but on its activity, and of
- 2:56:28Speaker 8: this we have an approximate measure in the energy with
- 2:56:31Speaker 8: which the blood circulates through it, both the stimulus and
- 2:56:35Speaker 8: the reparative force being mainly dependent on the circulation. It
- 2:56:39Speaker 8: would not be surprising. It is, indeed, a hypothesis which
- 2:56:43Speaker 8: accords well with their differences actually observed between the mental
- 2:56:46Speaker 8: operations of the two sexes. If men, on the average
- 2:56:50Speaker 8: should have the advantage in the size of the brain
- 2:56:52Speaker 8: and women in activity of cerebral circulation, the results which
- 2:56:57Speaker 8: conjecture founded on analogy would leaders to expect from this
- 2:57:02Speaker 8: difference of organization would correspond to some of those which
- 2:57:06Speaker 8: we most commonly see. In the first place, the mental
- 2:57:09Speaker 8: operations of men might be expected to be slower. They
- 2:57:13Speaker 8: would neither be so prompt as women in thinking, nor
- 2:57:16Speaker 8: so quick to feel. Large bodies take more time to
- 2:57:20Speaker 8: get into full action. On the other hand, when once
- 2:57:23Speaker 8: got thoroughly into play, men's brain would bear more work,
- 2:57:27Speaker 8: It would be more persistent than the line first taken.
- 2:57:30Speaker 8: It would have more difficulty in changing from one mode
- 2:57:33Speaker 8: of action to another, But in the one thing it
- 2:57:36Speaker 8: was doing, it could go on longer without loss of
- 2:57:39Speaker 8: power or sense of fatigue. And do we not find
- 2:57:42Speaker 8: that the things in which men most excel women are
- 2:57:45Speaker 8: those which require most plotting and long hammering at a
- 2:57:48Speaker 8: single thought, while women do best what must be done rapidly.
- 2:57:53Speaker 8: A woman's brain is sooner fatigued, sooner exhausted, But given
- 2:57:57Speaker 8: the degree of exhaustion, we should expect it to find
- 2:58:00Speaker 8: that it would recover itself sooner. I repeat that this
- 2:58:04Speaker 8: speculation is entirely hypothetical. It pretends to no more than
- 2:58:08Speaker 8: to suggest a line of inquiry. I have before repudiated
- 2:58:12Speaker 8: the notion of its being yet certainly known that there
- 2:58:15Speaker 8: is any natural difference at all in the average strength
- 2:58:19Speaker 8: or direction of the mental capacities of the two sexes,
- 2:58:22Speaker 8: much less what that difference is. Nor is it possible
- 2:58:26Speaker 8: that this should be known, so long as the psychological
- 2:58:29Speaker 8: laws of the formation of character have been so little studied,
- 2:58:32Speaker 8: even in a general way, and in the particular case,
- 2:58:36Speaker 8: never scientifically applied. At all so long as the most
- 2:58:39Speaker 8: obvious external causes of difference of character are habitually disregarded,
- 2:58:44Speaker 8: left unnoticed by the observer, and looked down upon with
- 2:58:48Speaker 8: a kind of supercilious contempt by the prevalent schools, both
- 2:58:51Speaker 8: of natural history and of mental philosophy, who, whether they
- 2:58:56Speaker 8: look for the source of what mainly distinguishes human beings
- 2:58:59Speaker 8: from one another in the world of matter or in
- 2:59:01Speaker 8: that of spirit, agree in running down those who prefer
- 2:59:05Speaker 8: to explain these differences by the different relations of human
- 2:59:08Speaker 8: beings to society and life. To so ridiculous an extent
- 2:59:13Speaker 8: are the notions formed of the nature of women, mere
- 2:59:16Speaker 8: empirical generalizations, framed without philosophy or analysis upon the first instances,
- 2:59:23Speaker 8: which present themselves that the popular idea of it is
- 2:59:27Speaker 8: different in different countries, according as the opinions and social
- 2:59:30Speaker 8: circumstances of the country have given to the women living
- 2:59:33Speaker 8: in it any specialty of development or non development, and
- 2:59:37Speaker 8: oriental things that women are by nature peculiarly voluptuous, see
- 2:59:42Speaker 8: the violent abuse of them on this ground in Hindu writings.
- 2:59:47Speaker 8: An Englishman usually thinks that they are by nature cold.
- 2:59:51Speaker 8: The sayings about women's fickleness are mostly of French origin,
- 2:59:55Speaker 8: from the famous district of France as the first upward
- 2:59:58Speaker 8: and downward in England. It is a common remark how
- 3:00:02Speaker 8: much more constant women are than men. Inconstancy has been
- 3:00:06Speaker 8: longer reckoned discreditable to a woman in England than in France.
- 3:00:11Speaker 8: And English women are, besides, in their inmost nature, much
- 3:00:14Speaker 8: more subdued to opinion. It may be remarked by the
- 3:00:18Speaker 8: way that Englishmen are in peculiarly unfavorable circumstances for attempting
- 3:00:23Speaker 8: to judge what is or is not natural, not merely
- 3:00:26Speaker 8: to women, but to men, or to human beings altogether,
- 3:00:29Speaker 8: at least if they have only English experience to go upon.
- 3:00:33Speaker 8: Because there is no place where human nature shows so
- 3:00:36Speaker 8: little of its original lineaments. Both in a good and
- 3:00:39Speaker 8: a bad sense, the English are farther from a state
- 3:00:42Speaker 8: of nature than any other modern people. They are, more
- 3:00:46Speaker 8: than any other people, a product of civilization and discipline.
- 3:00:50Speaker 8: England is the country in which its social discipline has
- 3:00:53Speaker 8: most succeeded, not so much in conquering as in suppressing
- 3:00:57Speaker 8: whatever is liable to conflict with it. The English, more
- 3:01:01Speaker 8: than any other people, not only act but feel according
- 3:01:05Speaker 8: to rule in other countries, the taught opinion or their
- 3:01:09Speaker 8: requirement of society may be the stronger power, but the
- 3:01:11Speaker 8: promptings of the individual nature are always visible under it,
- 3:01:15Speaker 8: and often resisting it. Rule may be stronger than nature,
- 3:01:19Speaker 8: but nature is still there. In England, rule has to
- 3:01:23Speaker 8: a great degree substituted itself for nature. The greater part
- 3:01:27Speaker 8: of life is carried on not by following inclination under
- 3:01:30Speaker 8: the control of rule, but by having no inclination but
- 3:01:34Speaker 8: that of following a rule. Now this has its good side, doubtless,
- 3:01:39Speaker 8: though it has also a wretchedly bad one. But it
- 3:01:42Speaker 8: must render an Englishman peculiarly ill qualified to pass a
- 3:01:46Speaker 8: judgment on the original tendencies of the human nature from
- 3:01:49Speaker 8: its own experience. The errors to which observers elsewhere are
- 3:01:53Speaker 8: liable on the subject are of a different character. An
- 3:01:57Speaker 8: Englishman is ignorant respecting human nature. A Frenchman is prejudiced.
- 3:02:02Speaker 8: An Englishman's errors are negative of frenchman's positive. An Englishman
- 3:02:07Speaker 8: fancies that things do not exist because he never sees them.
- 3:02:11Speaker 8: A Frenchman thinks they must always and necessarily exist because
- 3:02:16Speaker 8: he does see them. An Englishman does not know nature
- 3:02:19Speaker 8: because he has had no opportunity of observing it. A
- 3:02:22Speaker 8: Frenchman generally knows a great deal of it, but often
- 3:02:25Speaker 8: mistakes it because he has only seen it sophisticated and distorted.
- 3:02:30Speaker 8: For the artificial state superinduced by society disguises the natural
- 3:02:34Speaker 8: tendencies of the thing which is the subject of observation
- 3:02:38Speaker 8: in two different ways, by extinguishing the nature or by
- 3:02:42Speaker 8: transforming it. In the one case, there is but a
- 3:02:45Speaker 8: starved residuum of nature remaining to be studied. In the
- 3:02:48Speaker 8: other case, there is much, but it may have expanded
- 3:02:51Speaker 8: in any direction rather than that in which it would
- 3:02:54Speaker 8: spontaneously grow. I have said that it cannot now be
- 3:02:59Speaker 8: known how much of the existing mental differences between men
- 3:03:02Speaker 8: and women is natural and how much artificial, Whether there
- 3:03:06Speaker 8: are any natural differences at all, or supposing all artificial
- 3:03:11Speaker 8: causes of differences to be withdrawn, what natural character would
- 3:03:15Speaker 8: be revealed. I am not about to attempt what I
- 3:03:18Speaker 8: have pronounced impossible. But doubt does not forbid conjecture, And
- 3:03:22Speaker 8: where certainty is unattainable, there may yet be the means
- 3:03:25Speaker 8: of arriving at some degree of probability. The first point,
- 3:03:29Speaker 8: the origin of the differences actually observed is the one
- 3:03:32Speaker 8: most accessible to speculation, and I shall attempt to approach
- 3:03:35Speaker 8: it by the only path by which it can be reached,
- 3:03:38Speaker 8: by tracing the mental consequences of external influences. We cannot
- 3:03:42Speaker 8: isolate a human being from the circumstances of his condition,
- 3:03:46Speaker 8: so as to a certain experimentally what he would have
- 3:03:49Speaker 8: been by nature, But we can consider what he is
- 3:03:52Speaker 8: and what his circumstances have been, and whether the one
- 3:03:55Speaker 8: would have been capable of producing the other. Let us
- 3:03:59Speaker 8: take then, the only marked case which observation affords of
- 3:04:02Speaker 8: apparent inferiority of women to men, if we accept the
- 3:04:06Speaker 8: merely physical one of bodily strength, no production in philosophy, science,
- 3:04:12Speaker 8: or art entitled to the first rank has been the
- 3:04:15Speaker 8: work of a woman. Is there any mode of accounting
- 3:04:18Speaker 8: for this? Without supposing that women are naturally incapable of
- 3:04:22Speaker 8: producing them in the first place, We may fairly question
- 3:04:26Speaker 8: whether experience has afforded sufficient grounds for an induction. It
- 3:04:30Speaker 8: is scarcely three generations since women, saving very rare exceptions,
- 3:04:35Speaker 8: have begun to try their capacity in philosophy, science, or art.
- 3:04:39Speaker 8: It is only the present generation that their attempts have
- 3:04:42Speaker 8: been at all numerous, and they are even now extremely
- 3:04:45Speaker 8: few everywhere, but in England and France. It is a
- 3:04:49Speaker 8: relevant question whether a mind possessing the requisites of first
- 3:04:52Speaker 8: rate eminence in speculation or creative art could have been
- 3:04:56Speaker 8: expected on the mere calculation of chances to turn up
- 3:04:59Speaker 8: during that lapse of time among the women whose tastes
- 3:05:02Speaker 8: and personal position admitted of their devoting themselves to these
- 3:05:06Speaker 8: pursuits in all things which there has yet been time for.
- 3:05:10Speaker 8: In all but the very highest grades in the skill
- 3:05:12Speaker 8: of excellence, especially in the department in which they have
- 3:05:15Speaker 8: been longest engaged, literature, both prose and poetry, women have
- 3:05:20Speaker 8: done quite as much, have obtained fully as high prizes,
- 3:05:24Speaker 8: and as many of them as could be expected from
- 3:05:26Speaker 8: the length of time and a number of competitors. If
- 3:05:30Speaker 8: we go back to the earlier period, when very few
- 3:05:32Speaker 8: women made the attempt, yet some of those few made
- 3:05:36Speaker 8: it with distinguished success. The Greeks always accounted Sappho among
- 3:05:40Speaker 8: their great poets, and we may well suppose that Meritis,
- 3:05:44Speaker 8: said to have been the teacher of Pindar and Karina,
- 3:05:47Speaker 8: who five times bore away from him the prize of poetry,
- 3:05:50Speaker 8: must at least have had sufficient merit to admit of
- 3:05:53Speaker 8: being compared with that great name. As Pasia did not
- 3:05:57Speaker 8: leave any philosophical writings, but it is an admitted fact
- 3:06:01Speaker 8: that Socrates resorted to her for instruction and avowed himself
- 3:06:05Speaker 8: to have obtained it. If we consider that the works
- 3:06:09Speaker 8: of women in modern times and contrast them with those
- 3:06:11Speaker 8: of men, either in the literary or the artistic department,
- 3:06:15Speaker 8: such inferiority, as may be observed, resolves itself essentially into
- 3:06:19Speaker 8: one thing. But that is a most material one deficiency
- 3:06:24Speaker 8: of originality, not total deficiency. For every production of mind
- 3:06:28Speaker 8: which is of any substantive value has an originality of
- 3:06:32Speaker 8: its own, is a conception of the mind itself, not
- 3:06:35Speaker 8: a copy of something else. Thoughts, original in the sense
- 3:06:39Speaker 8: of being unborrowed, of being derived from the thinker's own
- 3:06:42Speaker 8: observations or intellectual processes are abundant in the writings of women,
- 3:06:47Speaker 8: But they have not yet produced any of those great
- 3:06:50Speaker 8: and luminous new ideas which form an error in thought,
- 3:06:53Speaker 8: nor those fundamentally new conceptions in art which open a
- 3:06:57Speaker 8: vista of possible effects not before thought and found a
- 3:07:01Speaker 8: new school. Their compositions are mostly granted on the existing
- 3:07:05Speaker 8: fund of thought, and their creations do not deviate widely
- 3:07:09Speaker 8: from existing types. This is a sort of inferiority which
- 3:07:13Speaker 8: their works manifest for a point of execution. In the
- 3:07:16Speaker 8: detailed application of thought and the perfection of style, there
- 3:07:20Speaker 8: is no inferiority. Our best novelists, in point of composition
- 3:07:25Speaker 8: and of the management of detail, have mostly been women.
- 3:07:29Speaker 8: And there is not in all modern literature a more
- 3:07:32Speaker 8: eloquent vehicle of thought than the style of Madame de Style,
- 3:07:36Speaker 8: nor as a specimen of purely artistic excellence, anything superior
- 3:07:40Speaker 8: to the prose of Madame's sound, whose style acts upon
- 3:07:44Speaker 8: the nervous system like a symphony of Haydn or Mozart.
- 3:07:48Speaker 8: High originality of conception is, as I have said, what
- 3:07:51Speaker 8: is chiefly wanting, and now to examine if there is
- 3:07:55Speaker 8: any manner in which this deficiency can be accounted for.
- 3:08:00Speaker 8: As remember, then, so far as regards mere thought, that
- 3:08:03Speaker 8: during all that period in the world's existence and in
- 3:08:06Speaker 8: the progress of cultivation, in which great and fruitful new
- 3:08:09Speaker 8: truths could be arrived at by mere force of genius,
- 3:08:13Speaker 8: with little precious study and accumulation of knowledge, during all
- 3:08:17Speaker 8: that time, women did not concern themselves with speculation at all.
- 3:08:22Speaker 8: From the days of Hypatia to those of the Reformation.
- 3:08:25Speaker 8: The illustrious Heloisa is almost the only woman to whom
- 3:08:29Speaker 8: any such achievement might have been possible, and we know
- 3:08:32Speaker 8: not how great a capacity of speculation in her may
- 3:08:35Speaker 8: have been lost to mankind by the misfortunes of her life.
- 3:08:40Speaker 8: Never since any considerable number of women have begun to
- 3:08:43Speaker 8: cultivate serious thought, has originality been possible on easy terms.
- 3:08:49Speaker 8: Nearly all the thoughts which can be reached by mere
- 3:08:51Speaker 8: strength of original faculties have long since been arrived at,
- 3:08:55Speaker 8: and originality in any high sense of the world is
- 3:08:58Speaker 8: now scarcely ever attained, but by minds which have undergone
- 3:09:01Speaker 8: elaborate discipline and are deeply versed in the results of
- 3:09:05Speaker 8: previous thinking. It is mister Maurice, I think, who has
- 3:09:09Speaker 8: remarked on the present age that its most original thinkers
- 3:09:12Speaker 8: are those who have known most thoroughly what had been
- 3:09:15Speaker 8: thought by their predecessors, And this will always henceforth be
- 3:09:19Speaker 8: the case. Every fresh stone in the edifice has now
- 3:09:23Speaker 8: to be placed on the top of so many others,
- 3:09:25Speaker 8: that a long process of climbing and of carrying up
- 3:09:28Speaker 8: materials has to be gone through by whoever aspires to
- 3:09:32Speaker 8: take a share in the present stage of the work.
- 3:09:35Speaker 8: How many women are there who have gone through any
- 3:09:38Speaker 8: such process? Missus Somerville alone, perhaps, of women, knows as
- 3:09:43Speaker 8: much of mathematics as is now needful for making any
- 3:09:46Speaker 8: considerable mathematical discovery. Is it any proof of inferiority in
- 3:09:50Speaker 8: women that she has not happened to be one of
- 3:09:53Speaker 8: the two or three persons who, in her lifetime have
- 3:09:56Speaker 8: associated their names with some striking advancement of the science.
- 3:10:01Speaker 8: Two women, since political economy has been made as science,
- 3:10:05Speaker 8: have known enough of it to write usefully on the
- 3:10:07Speaker 8: subject of How many of the innumerable men who have
- 3:10:11Speaker 8: written on it during the same time? Is it possible
- 3:10:13Speaker 8: with truth to say more? If no woman has hitherto
- 3:10:18Speaker 8: been a great historian, what woman has had the necessary erudition?
- 3:10:23Speaker 8: If no woman is a great philologist? What woman has
- 3:10:26Speaker 8: studied Sanskrit and Slavonic, the Gothic of Old Phylla, and
- 3:10:30Speaker 8: the Persic of the Santa Vesta. Even in practical matters
- 3:10:34Speaker 8: we all know what is the value of the originality
- 3:10:37Speaker 8: of untaught geniuses?
- 3:10:39Speaker 4: It means inventing.
- 3:10:40Speaker 8: Over again in its rudimentary form, something already invented and
- 3:10:44Speaker 8: improved upon by many successive inventors. When women have had
- 3:10:49Speaker 8: the preparation which all men now require to be eminently original,
- 3:10:53Speaker 8: it will be time enough to begin, judging by experience
- 3:10:57Speaker 8: of their capacity for originality. It, no doubt often happens
- 3:11:02Speaker 8: that a person who has not widely and accurately studied
- 3:11:05Speaker 8: the thoughts of others on a subject has, by natural
- 3:11:08Speaker 8: sagacity a happy intuition which he can suggest but cannot prove,
- 3:11:12Speaker 8: which yet, when matured, may be an important addition to knowledge.
- 3:11:17Speaker 8: But even then no justice can be done to it
- 3:11:19Speaker 8: until some other person who does possess the previous acquirements
- 3:11:23Speaker 8: takes it in hand, tests it, gives it a scientific
- 3:11:27Speaker 8: or practical form, and fits it into its place among
- 3:11:30Speaker 8: the existing truths of philosophy or science. Is it supposed
- 3:11:34Speaker 8: that such felicitous thoughts do not occur to women. They
- 3:11:38Speaker 8: occur by hundreds to every woman of intellect, but they
- 3:11:42Speaker 8: are mostly lost for want of a husband or friend
- 3:11:45Speaker 8: who has the other knowledge which can enhible him to
- 3:11:47Speaker 8: estimate them properly and bring them before the world. And
- 3:11:51Speaker 8: even when they are brought before it, they generally appear
- 3:11:53Speaker 8: as his ideas, not their real orders. Who can tell
- 3:11:58Speaker 8: how many of the most original thoughts put forth by
- 3:12:00Speaker 8: male writers belonged to a woman by suggestion to themselves
- 3:12:05Speaker 8: only by verifying and working out, if I may judge
- 3:12:08Speaker 8: by my own case, a very large proportion. Indeed, end
- 3:12:14Speaker 8: of Chapter three, Part two.
- 3:12:18Speaker 9: Chapter three, Part three. If we turn from pure speculation
- 3:12:23Speaker 9: to literature in the narrow sense of the term and
- 3:12:26Speaker 9: the fine arts, there is a very obvious reason why
- 3:12:29Speaker 9: women's literature is, in its general conception and in its
- 3:12:33Speaker 9: main features, an imitation of men's. Why is the Roman literature,
- 3:12:39Speaker 9: as critics proclaim to satiety, not original, but an imitation
- 3:12:43Speaker 9: of the Greek simply because the Greeks came first. If
- 3:12:48Speaker 9: women lived in a different country from men and had
- 3:12:51Speaker 9: never read any of their writings, they would have had
- 3:12:53Speaker 9: a literature of their own. As it is, they have
- 3:12:57Speaker 9: not created one because they found the highly advanced literature
- 3:13:01Speaker 9: already created. If there had been no suspension of the
- 3:13:04Speaker 9: knowledge of antiquity, or if the Renaissance had occurred before
- 3:13:08Speaker 9: the Gothic cathedrals were built, they never would have been built.
- 3:13:12Speaker 9: We see that in France and Italy imitation of the
- 3:13:16Speaker 9: ancient literature stopped the original development even after it had commenced.
- 3:13:21Speaker 9: All women who write are pupils of the great male writers.
- 3:13:25Speaker 9: A painter's early pictures, even if he be a raphaello,
- 3:13:29Speaker 9: are undistinguishable in style from those of his master. Even
- 3:13:33Speaker 9: a Mozart does not display his powerful originality in his
- 3:13:37Speaker 9: earliest pieces. What years are to a gifted individual generations
- 3:13:43Speaker 9: are to a mass. If women's literature is destined to
- 3:13:47Speaker 9: have a different collective character from that of men, depending
- 3:13:50Speaker 9: on any difference of natural tendencies, much longer time is
- 3:13:54Speaker 9: necessary than has yet elapsed before it can emancipate itself
- 3:13:59Speaker 9: from the influence of a accepted models and guide itself
- 3:14:02Speaker 9: by its own impulses. But if, as I believe, they
- 3:14:06Speaker 9: will not prove to be any natural tendencies common to
- 3:14:09Speaker 9: women and distinguishing their genius from that of men, yet
- 3:14:13Speaker 9: every individual writer among them has her individual tendencies, which
- 3:14:17Speaker 9: at present are still subdued by the influence of precedent
- 3:14:21Speaker 9: and example, And it will require generations more before their
- 3:14:25Speaker 9: individuality is sufficiently developed to make head against that influence.
- 3:14:32Speaker 9: It is in the fine arts properly so called that
- 3:14:35Speaker 9: the prima fasci evidence of inferior original powers in women,
- 3:14:39Speaker 9: at first sight, appears the strongest since opinion, it may
- 3:14:42Speaker 9: be said, does not exclude them from these, but rather
- 3:14:46Speaker 9: encourages them and their education instead of passing over this
- 3:14:49Speaker 9: department is in the affluent classes mainly composed of it.
- 3:14:54Speaker 9: Yet in this line of exertion they have fallen still
- 3:14:56Speaker 9: more short than in many others of the highest eminence
- 3:15:00Speaker 9: attained by men. This shortcoming, however, needs no other explanation
- 3:15:05Speaker 9: than the familiar fact, more universally true in the fine
- 3:15:08Speaker 9: arts than in anything else, the vast superiority of professional
- 3:15:13Speaker 9: persons over amateurs. Women in the educated classes are almost
- 3:15:19Speaker 9: universally taught more or less of some branch or other
- 3:15:21Speaker 9: of the fine arts, but not that they may gain
- 3:15:24Speaker 9: their living or their social consequence by it. Women artists
- 3:15:29Speaker 9: are all amateurs. The exceptions are only of the kind
- 3:15:33Speaker 9: which confirm the general truth. Women are taught music, but
- 3:15:37Speaker 9: not for the purpose of composing, only of executing it,
- 3:15:41Speaker 9: and accordingly it is only as composers that men in
- 3:15:45Speaker 9: music are superior to women. The only one of the
- 3:15:49Speaker 9: fine arts which women do follow to any extent as
- 3:15:52Speaker 9: a profession and an occupation for life is the histrionic,
- 3:15:57Speaker 9: and in that they are confessedly equal, if not superior,
- 3:16:00Speaker 9: to men. To make the comparison fair, it should be
- 3:16:03Speaker 9: made between the productions of women in any branch of
- 3:16:06Speaker 9: art and those of men not following it as a profession.
- 3:16:10Speaker 9: In musical composition, for example, women surely have produced fully
- 3:16:14Speaker 9: as good things as have ever been produced by male amateurs.
- 3:16:19Speaker 9: There are now a few women, a very few, who
- 3:16:22Speaker 9: practice painting as a profession, and these are already beginning
- 3:16:26Speaker 9: to show quite as much talent as could be expected.
- 3:16:29Speaker 9: Even male painters Peche mister Ruskin have not made any
- 3:16:33Speaker 9: very remarkable figure these last centuries, and it will be
- 3:16:36Speaker 9: long before they do so. The reason why the old
- 3:16:40Speaker 9: painters were so greatly superior to the modern is that
- 3:16:43Speaker 9: a greatly superior class of men applied themselves to the art.
- 3:16:47Speaker 9: In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Italian painters were
- 3:16:51Speaker 9: the most accomplished men of their age. The greatest of
- 3:16:55Speaker 9: them were men of encyclopedical achievements and powers, like the
- 3:16:58Speaker 9: great men of Greece. But in their times fine art
- 3:17:03Speaker 9: was to men's feelings and conceptions. Among the grandest things
- 3:17:07Speaker 9: in which a human being could excel, and by it
- 3:17:10Speaker 9: men were made what only political or military distinction now
- 3:17:14Speaker 9: makes them the companions of sovereigns and the equals of
- 3:17:18Speaker 9: the highest nobility. In the present age, men of anything
- 3:17:23Speaker 9: like similar caliber find something more important to do for
- 3:17:26Speaker 9: their own fame and the uses of the modern world
- 3:17:29Speaker 9: than painting. And it is only now and then that
- 3:17:33Speaker 9: a Reynolds or a Turner, of whose relative rank among
- 3:17:37Speaker 9: eminent men I do not pretend to an opinion, applies
- 3:17:40Speaker 9: himself to that art. Music belongs to a different order
- 3:17:45Speaker 9: of things. It does not require the same general powers
- 3:17:48Speaker 9: of mind, but seems more dependent on a natural gift.
- 3:17:52Speaker 9: And it may be thought surprising that no one of
- 3:17:54Speaker 9: the great musical composers has been a woman. But even
- 3:17:58Speaker 9: this natural gift, to be made available for great creations
- 3:18:02Speaker 9: requires study and professional devotion to the pursuit. The only
- 3:18:07Speaker 9: countries which have produced first rate composers, even of the
- 3:18:10Speaker 9: male sex, are Germany and Italy, countries in which both
- 3:18:15Speaker 9: in point of special and of general cultivation, women have
- 3:18:19Speaker 9: remained far behind. France and England, being generally, it may
- 3:18:23Speaker 9: be said without exaggeration, very little educated and having scarcely
- 3:18:27Speaker 9: cultivated at all any of the higher faculties of mind,
- 3:18:31Speaker 9: and in those countries, the men who are acquainted with
- 3:18:34Speaker 9: the principles of musical composition must be counted by hundreds,
- 3:18:38Speaker 9: or more probably by thousands, the women barely by scores,
- 3:18:42Speaker 9: so that here again on the doctrine of averages, we
- 3:18:46Speaker 9: cannot reasonably expect to see more than one eminent women
- 3:18:49Speaker 9: to fifty eminent men, And the last three centuries have
- 3:18:53Speaker 9: not produced fifty eminent male composers, either in Germany or
- 3:18:57Speaker 9: in Italy. There are other reason besides those which we
- 3:19:01Speaker 9: have now given, but help to explain why women remain
- 3:19:05Speaker 9: behind men, even in the pursuits which are open to both.
- 3:19:09Speaker 9: For one thing, very few women have time for them.
- 3:19:12Speaker 9: This may seem a paradox, it is an undoubted social fact.
- 3:19:17Speaker 9: The time and thoughts of every woman have to satisfy
- 3:19:20Speaker 9: great previous demands on them. For things practical. There is
- 3:19:24Speaker 9: first the superintendence of the family and the domestic expenditure,
- 3:19:29Speaker 9: which occupies at least one woman in every family, generally
- 3:19:32Speaker 9: the one of mature years and acquired experience, unless the
- 3:19:37Speaker 9: family is so rich as to admit of delegating that
- 3:19:40Speaker 9: task to hired agency and submitting to all the waste
- 3:19:43Speaker 9: and malversation inseparable from that mode of conducting it. The
- 3:19:47Speaker 9: superintendence of a household, even when not in other respects laborious,
- 3:19:52Speaker 9: is extremely honorous to the thoughts. It requires incessant vigilance,
- 3:19:57Speaker 9: an eye which no detail escapes, and press sence questions
- 3:20:00Speaker 9: for consideration and solution, foreseen and unforeseen at every hour
- 3:20:05Speaker 9: of the day, from which the person responsible for them
- 3:20:08Speaker 9: can hardly ever shake herself free. If a woman is
- 3:20:12Speaker 9: of a rank and circumstances which relieve her in a
- 3:20:15Speaker 9: measure from these cares, she has still devolving on her
- 3:20:19Speaker 9: the management for the whole family of its intercourse with
- 3:20:21Speaker 9: others of what is called society. And the less the
- 3:20:26Speaker 9: call made on her by the former duty, the greater
- 3:20:28Speaker 9: is always the development of the latter, the dinner parties, concerts,
- 3:20:33Speaker 9: evening parties, morning visits, letter writing, and all that goes
- 3:20:37Speaker 9: with them. All this is over and above the engrossing
- 3:20:41Speaker 9: duty which society imposes exclusively on women of making themselves charming.
- 3:20:47Speaker 9: A clever woman of the higher ranks finds nearly a
- 3:20:50Speaker 9: sufficient employment of her talents in cultivating the graces of
- 3:20:54Speaker 9: manner and the arts of conversation, to look only at
- 3:20:57Speaker 9: the outward side of the subject. The great and continual
- 3:21:01Speaker 9: exercise of thought, which all women who address any value
- 3:21:04Speaker 9: to dressing well, I do not mean expensively, but with
- 3:21:08Speaker 9: taste and perception of natural and of artificial convenience, must
- 3:21:13Speaker 9: bestow upon their own dress, perhaps also upon that of
- 3:21:16Speaker 9: their daughters, would alone go a great way towards achieving
- 3:21:20Speaker 9: respectable results in art or science or literature, and does
- 3:21:26Speaker 9: actually exhaust much of the time and mental power they
- 3:21:29Speaker 9: might have to spare for either. If it were possible
- 3:21:32Speaker 9: that all this number of little practical interests which are
- 3:21:35Speaker 9: made great to them should leave them either much leisure
- 3:21:39Speaker 9: or much energy and freedom of mind to be devoted
- 3:21:42Speaker 9: to art or speculation, they must have a much greater
- 3:21:45Speaker 9: original supply of active faculty than the vast majority of men.
- 3:21:50Speaker 9: But this is not all independently of the regular offices
- 3:21:55Speaker 9: of life which devolve upon a woman. She is expected
- 3:21:58Speaker 9: to have her time and faculties always at the disposal
- 3:22:01Speaker 9: of everybody. If a man has not a profession to
- 3:22:04Speaker 9: exempt him from such demands. Still, if he has a pursuit,
- 3:22:09Speaker 9: he offends nobody by devoting his time to it. Occupation
- 3:22:12Speaker 9: is received as a valid excuse for his not answering
- 3:22:15Speaker 9: to every casual demand which may be made on him.
- 3:22:19Speaker 9: Are a woman's occupations, especially her chosen and voluntary ones, ever,
- 3:22:23Speaker 9: regarded as excusing her from any of what are termed
- 3:22:26Speaker 9: the cause of society. Scarcely are her most necessary and
- 3:22:31Speaker 9: recognized duties allowed as an exemption. It requires an illness
- 3:22:35Speaker 9: in the family or something else out of the common
- 3:22:38Speaker 9: way to entitle her. To give her own business the
- 3:22:40Speaker 9: precedence over other people's amusement. She must always be at
- 3:22:44Speaker 9: the beck and call of somebody, generally of everybody. If
- 3:22:49Speaker 9: she has a study or a pursuit, she must snatch
- 3:22:52Speaker 9: any short interval which accidentally occurs to be employed in it.
- 3:22:56Speaker 9: A celebrated woman, in a work which I hope will
- 3:22:59Speaker 9: someday be published, remarks truly that everything a woman does
- 3:23:03Speaker 9: is done at odd times. Is it wonderful? Then if
- 3:23:07Speaker 9: she does not attain the highest eminence in things which
- 3:23:10Speaker 9: require consecutive attention and the concentration on them of the
- 3:23:14Speaker 9: chief interest of life, such as philosophy and such. Above
- 3:23:18Speaker 9: all is art in which, besides the devotion of the
- 3:23:22Speaker 9: thoughts and feelings. The hand must also be kept in
- 3:23:26Speaker 9: constant exercises to attain high skill. There is another consideration
- 3:23:31Speaker 9: to be added to all these. In the various arts
- 3:23:34Speaker 9: and intellectual occupations, there is a degree of proficiency sufficient
- 3:23:39Speaker 9: for living by it, and there is a higher degree
- 3:23:42Speaker 9: on which depend the great productions which immortalize a name.
- 3:23:46Speaker 9: To the attainment of the former, there are adequate motives
- 3:23:49Speaker 9: in the case of all who follow the pursuit professionally.
- 3:23:52Speaker 9: The other is hardly ever attained where there is not,
- 3:23:55Speaker 9: or where there has not been, at some period of life,
- 3:23:58Speaker 9: an ardent desire of slielebrity, nothing less, is commonly a
- 3:24:03Speaker 9: sufficient stimulus to undergo the long and patient drudgery, which,
- 3:24:08Speaker 9: in the case even of the greatest natural gifts, is
- 3:24:11Speaker 9: absolutely required for great eminence in pursuits in which we
- 3:24:14Speaker 9: already possess so many splendid memorials of the highest genius. Now,
- 3:24:20Speaker 9: whether the cause be natural or artificial, women seldom have
- 3:24:24Speaker 9: this eagerness for fame. Their ambition is generally confined within
- 3:24:28Speaker 9: narrower bounds. The influence they seek is over those who
- 3:24:32Speaker 9: immediately surround them. Their desire is to be liked, loved
- 3:24:36Speaker 9: or admired by those whom they see with their eyes,
- 3:24:40Speaker 9: and the proficiency in knowledge, arts and accomplishments which is
- 3:24:44Speaker 9: sufficient for that almost always contents them. This is a
- 3:24:48Speaker 9: trait of character which cannot be left out of the
- 3:24:50Speaker 9: account in judging of women as they are. I do
- 3:24:54Speaker 9: not at all believe that it is inherent in women.
- 3:24:57Speaker 9: It is only the natural result of their circumstances. The
- 3:25:01Speaker 9: love of fame in men is encouraged by education and opinion,
- 3:25:05Speaker 9: to scorn delights and live laborious days for its sake,
- 3:25:09Speaker 9: is accounted the part of noble minds, even if spoke
- 3:25:12Speaker 9: of as their last infirmity, and is stimulated by the
- 3:25:16Speaker 9: access which fame gives to all objects of ambition, including
- 3:25:20Speaker 9: even the favour of women. While to women themselves all
- 3:25:24Speaker 9: these objects are closed, and the desire of fame itself
- 3:25:27Speaker 9: considered daring and unfeminine. Besides, how could it be that
- 3:25:32Speaker 9: a woman's interests should not all be concentrated upon the
- 3:25:36Speaker 9: impressions made on those who come into her daily life,
- 3:25:39Speaker 9: When society has ordained that all her duties should be
- 3:25:42Speaker 9: to them, and has contrived that all her comforts should
- 3:25:45Speaker 9: depend on them. The natural desire of consideration from our
- 3:25:49Speaker 9: fellow creatures is as strong in a woman as in
- 3:25:52Speaker 9: a man. But society has so ordered things that public
- 3:25:56Speaker 9: consideration is in all ordinary cases only attainable by her
- 3:26:01Speaker 9: through the consideration of her husband or of her male relations,
- 3:26:05Speaker 9: while her private consideration is forfeited by making herself individually
- 3:26:09Speaker 9: prominent or appearing in any other character than that of
- 3:26:13Speaker 9: an appendage to men. Whoever is in the least capable
- 3:26:17Speaker 9: of estimating the influencer on the mind of the entire
- 3:26:20Speaker 9: domestic and social position and the whole habit of a life,
- 3:26:24Speaker 9: must easily recognize in that influence a complete explanation of
- 3:26:29Speaker 9: nearly all the apparent differences between women and men, including
- 3:26:34Speaker 9: the whole of those which imply any inferiority. As for
- 3:26:38Speaker 9: moral differences considered as distinguished from intellectual the distinction commonly
- 3:26:44Speaker 9: drawn is to the advantage of women. They are declared
- 3:26:47Speaker 9: to be better than men, an empty compliment which must
- 3:26:50Speaker 9: provoke a bitter smile from every woman of spirit, since
- 3:26:54Speaker 9: there is no other situation in life in which it
- 3:26:56Speaker 9: is the established order and considered quite natural and suitable,
- 3:27:00Speaker 9: that the better should obey the worse. If this piece
- 3:27:03Speaker 9: of idle talk is good for anything, It is only
- 3:27:05Speaker 9: as an admission by men of the corrupting influence of power,
- 3:27:10Speaker 9: for that is certainly the only truth which the fact,
- 3:27:13Speaker 9: if it be a fact, either proves or illustrates. And
- 3:27:17Speaker 9: it is true that servitude, except when it actually brutalizes,
- 3:27:22Speaker 9: though corrupting to both, is less so to the slaves
- 3:27:25Speaker 9: than to the slave masters. It is wholesomer for the
- 3:27:29Speaker 9: moral nature to be restrained even by arbitrary power, than
- 3:27:33Speaker 9: to be allowed to exercise arbitrary power without restraint. Women,
- 3:27:37Speaker 9: it is said, seldom a fall under the penal law
- 3:27:41Speaker 9: contribute a much smaller number of offenders to the criminal
- 3:27:44Speaker 9: calendar than men. I doubt not that the same thing
- 3:27:47Speaker 9: may be said with the same truth of negro slaves.
- 3:27:51Speaker 9: Those who are under the control of others cannot often
- 3:27:54Speaker 9: commit crimes, unless at the command and for the purposes
- 3:27:58Speaker 9: of their masters. I do not know of a more
- 3:28:01Speaker 9: signal instance of the blindness with which the world, including
- 3:28:05Speaker 9: the herd of studious men, ignore and pass over all
- 3:28:08Speaker 9: the influences of social circumstances, than their silly depreciation of
- 3:28:13Speaker 9: the intellectual and silly panegyrics on the moral nature of women.
- 3:28:18Speaker 9: The complimentary dictum about women's superior moral goodness may be
- 3:28:22Speaker 9: allowed to pair off with a disparaging one, respecting their
- 3:28:26Speaker 9: greater liability to moral bias. Women, we are told, are
- 3:28:31Speaker 9: not capable of resisting their personal partialities. The judgment in
- 3:28:35Speaker 9: grave affairs is warped by their sympathies and antipathies. Assuming
- 3:28:41Speaker 9: it to be so, it is still to be proved
- 3:28:43Speaker 9: that women are oftener misled by their personal feelings than
- 3:28:47Speaker 9: men by their personal interests. The chief difference would seem,
- 3:28:51Speaker 9: in that case to be that men are led from
- 3:28:53Speaker 9: the course of duty and the public interest by their
- 3:28:56Speaker 9: regard for themselves, women not being allowed to have private
- 3:29:00Speaker 9: interests of their own by their regard for somebody else.
- 3:29:04Speaker 9: It is also to be considered that all the education
- 3:29:07Speaker 9: which women received from society inculcates on them the feeling
- 3:29:11Speaker 9: that the individuals concerned with them are the only ones
- 3:29:14Speaker 9: to whom they owe any duty, the only ones whose
- 3:29:17Speaker 9: interest they are called upon to care for, while as
- 3:29:20Speaker 9: far as education is concerned, they are left strangers even
- 3:29:24Speaker 9: to the elementary ideas which are presupposed in any intelligent
- 3:29:28Speaker 9: regard for larger interests or higher moral objects. The complaint
- 3:29:32Speaker 9: against them resolves itself merely into this, that they fulfill
- 3:29:36Speaker 9: only too faithfully the sole duty which they are taught,
- 3:29:40Speaker 9: and almost the only one which they are permitted to practice.
- 3:29:44Speaker 9: The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so
- 3:29:48Speaker 9: seldom brought about by any better motive than the power
- 3:29:51Speaker 9: of the unprivileged to extort them, that any arguments against
- 3:29:55Speaker 9: the prerogative of sex are likely to be little attended
- 3:29:59Speaker 9: to by the general as long as they are able
- 3:30:01Speaker 9: to say to themselves that women do not complain of it.
- 3:30:05Speaker 9: That fact certainly enables men to retain the unjust privilege
- 3:30:09Speaker 9: sometime longer, but does not render it less unjust. Exactly
- 3:30:14Speaker 9: the same thing may be said of the women in
- 3:30:16Speaker 9: the harem of an Oriental They do not complain of
- 3:30:19Speaker 9: not being allowed the freedom of European women. They think
- 3:30:22Speaker 9: are women insufferably bold and unfeminine. How rarely it is
- 3:30:26Speaker 9: that even men complain of the general order of society,
- 3:30:30Speaker 9: And how much rarer still would such complaint be if
- 3:30:33Speaker 9: they did not know of any different order existing anywhere else.
- 3:30:37Speaker 9: Women do not complain of the general lot of women,
- 3:30:40Speaker 9: or rather they do for plaintive elegies on it are
- 3:30:43Speaker 9: very common in the writings of women, and were still
- 3:30:46Speaker 9: more so as long as the lamentations could not be
- 3:30:48Speaker 9: suspected of having any practical object. Their complaints are like
- 3:30:52Speaker 9: the complaints which men make of the general unsatisfactoriness of
- 3:30:56Speaker 9: human life. They are not meant to imply blame or
- 3:30:59Speaker 9: to plead for any change. But though women do not
- 3:31:02Speaker 9: complain of the power of husbands, each complains of her
- 3:31:06Speaker 9: own husband or of the husbands of her friends. It
- 3:31:10Speaker 9: is the same in all other cases of servitude. At
- 3:31:13Speaker 9: least in the commencement of the emancipatory movement, the serfs
- 3:31:17Speaker 9: did not at first complain of the power of their lords,
- 3:31:20Speaker 9: but only of their tyranny. The commons began by claiming
- 3:31:23Speaker 9: a few municipal privileges. They next asked an exemption for
- 3:31:27Speaker 9: themselves from being taxed without their own consent. But they
- 3:31:31Speaker 9: would at that time have thought it a great presumption
- 3:31:34Speaker 9: to claim any share in the king's sovereign authority. The
- 3:31:37Speaker 9: case of women is now the only case in which
- 3:31:40Speaker 9: to rebel against established rules is still looked upon with
- 3:31:44Speaker 9: the same eyes as was formerly a subject's claim to
- 3:31:47Speaker 9: the right of rebelling against his king. A woman who
- 3:31:50Speaker 9: joins in any movement which her husband disapproves makes herself
- 3:31:54Speaker 9: a martyr, without even being able to be an apostle,
- 3:31:58Speaker 9: for the husband can legally to stop to her apostleship.
- 3:32:02Speaker 9: Women cannot be expected to devote themselves to the emancipation
- 3:32:05Speaker 9: of women until men in considerable number are prepared to
- 3:32:10Speaker 9: join with them. In the undertaking end of Chapter three,
- 3:32:14Speaker 9: Part three.
- 3:32:17Speaker 3: Chapter four, Part one, there remains a question not of
- 3:32:24Speaker 3: less importance than those already discussed, and which will be
- 3:32:28Speaker 3: asked the most importunately by the opponents, whose conviction is
- 3:32:32Speaker 3: somewhat shaken on the main point, What good are we
- 3:32:36Speaker 3: to expect from the changes proposed in our customs and institutions?
- 3:32:41Speaker 3: Would mankind be it all better off if women were free?
- 3:32:46Speaker 3: If not, why disturb their brains an attempt to make
- 3:32:49Speaker 3: social revolution in the name of an abstract right. It
- 3:32:54Speaker 3: is hardly to be expected that this question will be
- 3:32:57Speaker 3: asked in respect to the change propose in the condition
- 3:33:01Speaker 3: of women and marriage. The sufferings, immoralities, evils of all sorts,
- 3:33:07Speaker 3: produced in innumerable cases by the subjection of individual women
- 3:33:12Speaker 3: to individual men, are far too terrible to be overlooked.
- 3:33:17Speaker 3: Unthinking or uncandid persons counting those cases alone which are
- 3:33:23Speaker 3: extreme or which attain publicity, may say that the evils
- 3:33:27Speaker 3: are exceptional. But no one can be blind to their existence,
- 3:33:32Speaker 3: nor in many cases, to their intensity. And it is
- 3:33:36Speaker 3: perfectly obvious that the abuse of the power cannot be
- 3:33:40Speaker 3: much checked while the power remains. It is a power
- 3:33:44Speaker 3: given or offered not to good men or to decently
- 3:33:48Speaker 3: respectable men, but to all men, the most brutal and
- 3:33:52Speaker 3: the most criminal. There is no check but that of opinion.
- 3:33:57Speaker 3: And such men are in general within the reason of
- 3:34:00Speaker 3: no opinion but that of men like themselves. If such
- 3:34:05Speaker 3: men do not brutally tyrannize over the one human being
- 3:34:09Speaker 3: whom the law compels to bear everything from them, society
- 3:34:13Speaker 3: must have already reached a paradisical state. There could be
- 3:34:17Speaker 3: no need any longer of laws to curb men's vicious propensities.
- 3:34:22Speaker 3: Astraea must not only have returned to earth, but the
- 3:34:25Speaker 3: heart of the worst men must have become her temple.
- 3:34:29Speaker 3: The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous contradiction
- 3:34:33Speaker 3: to all the principles of the modern world and all
- 3:34:37Speaker 3: the experience through which those principles have been slowly and
- 3:34:41Speaker 3: painfully worked out. It is the sole case now that
- 3:34:46Speaker 3: negro slavery has been abolished, in which a human being,
- 3:34:51Speaker 3: in the plenitude of every faculty, is delivered up to
- 3:34:54Speaker 3: the tender mercies of another human being, in the hope
- 3:34:58Speaker 3: forsooth that this other will use the power solely for
- 3:35:02Speaker 3: the good of the person subjected to it. Marriage is
- 3:35:07Speaker 3: the only actual bondage known to our law. There remains
- 3:35:11Speaker 3: no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house. It
- 3:35:17Speaker 3: is not, therefore, on this part of the subject, that
- 3:35:20Speaker 3: the question is likely to be asked qui bono. We
- 3:35:25Speaker 3: may be told that the evil would outweigh the good,
- 3:35:28Speaker 3: but the reality of the good admits no dispute. In regard, however,
- 3:35:34Speaker 3: to the larger question, the removal of women's disabilities, their
- 3:35:38Speaker 3: recognition as the equals of men in all that belongs
- 3:35:42Speaker 3: to citizenship, the opening to them of all honorable employments,
- 3:35:48Speaker 3: and of the training and education which qualifies for those employments.
- 3:35:53Speaker 3: There are many persons for whom it is not enough
- 3:35:57Speaker 3: that the inequality has no justice or legitimate defense. They
- 3:36:02Speaker 3: require to be told what the express advantage would be
- 3:36:06Speaker 3: obtained by abolishing it, to which let me first answer
- 3:36:10Speaker 3: the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of
- 3:36:14Speaker 3: all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice. The
- 3:36:19Speaker 3: vast amount of this gain to human nature, it is
- 3:36:22Speaker 3: hardly possible by any explanation or illustration to place in
- 3:36:26Speaker 3: a stronger light than it is placed by the bare
- 3:36:29Speaker 3: statement to any one who attaches a moral meaning to words.
- 3:36:35Speaker 3: All the selfish propensities, the self worship, the unjust self preference,
- 3:36:40Speaker 3: which exist among mankind, have their source and root in,
- 3:36:44Speaker 3: and derive their principal nourishment from the present construction of
- 3:36:48Speaker 3: the relation between men and women. Think what it is
- 3:36:52Speaker 3: to a boy to grow up to manhood in the
- 3:36:55Speaker 3: belief that, without any merit or any exertion of his own,
- 3:37:00Speaker 3: though he may be the most frivolous and empty, or
- 3:37:03Speaker 3: the most ignorant and stolid of men, by the mere
- 3:37:06Speaker 3: fact of being born a male, he is by right
- 3:37:10Speaker 3: the superior of all, in every one of an entire
- 3:37:14Speaker 3: half of the human race, including probably some whose real
- 3:37:18Speaker 3: superiority to himself he has a daily or hourly occasion
- 3:37:22Speaker 3: to feel. But even if in his whole conduct he
- 3:37:27Speaker 3: habitually follows a woman's guidance. Still, if he is a fool,
- 3:37:32Speaker 3: she thinks that, of course she is not and cannot
- 3:37:35Speaker 3: be equal inability and judgment to himself. And if he
- 3:37:40Speaker 3: is not a fool, he does worse. He sees that
- 3:37:43Speaker 3: she is superior to him, and believes that, notwithstanding her superiority,
- 3:37:48Speaker 3: he is entitled to command, and she is bound to obey.
- 3:37:53Speaker 3: What must be the effect of his character on this lesson,
- 3:37:57Speaker 3: and men of the cultured classes are often not aware
- 3:38:00Speaker 3: how deeply it sinks into the immense majority of male minds.
- 3:38:06Speaker 3: Four Among right feeling and well bred people, the inequality
- 3:38:11Speaker 3: is kept as much as possible out of sight, above
- 3:38:15Speaker 3: all out of sight of the children. As much obedience
- 3:38:20Speaker 3: is required from boys to their mother as to their father,
- 3:38:24Speaker 3: they are not permitted to domineer over their sisters, nor
- 3:38:29Speaker 3: are they accustomed to see these postponed to them. But
- 3:38:34Speaker 3: the contrary, the compensations of the chivalrous feeling being made prominent,
- 3:38:39Speaker 3: while the servitude which requires them is kept in the background.
- 3:38:46Speaker 3: Well brought up youths in the higher classes thus often
- 3:38:50Speaker 3: escape the bad influences of the situation in their early years,
- 3:38:55Speaker 3: and only experience them when arrived at manhood, they fall
- 3:39:00Speaker 3: under the dominion of facts as they really exist. Such
- 3:39:06Speaker 3: people are little aware when a boy is differently brought up,
- 3:39:11Speaker 3: how early the notion of his inherent superiority to a
- 3:39:14Speaker 3: girl arises in his mind, How it grows with his
- 3:39:18Speaker 3: growth and strengthens with his strength, how it is inoculated
- 3:39:23Speaker 3: by one schoolboy upon another. How early the youth thinks
- 3:39:28Speaker 3: himself superior to his mother, oweing her perhaps forbearance, but
- 3:39:33Speaker 3: no real respect. In how sublime and sultan like a
- 3:39:38Speaker 3: sense of superiority he feels above all over the woman,
- 3:39:43Speaker 3: whom he honors by admitting her to the partner of
- 3:39:47Speaker 3: his life. Is it imagined that all this does not
- 3:39:51Speaker 3: pervert the whole manner of existence of the man, both
- 3:39:55Speaker 3: as an individual and as a social being. It is
- 3:40:00Speaker 3: an exact parallel to the feeling of a hereditary king
- 3:40:05Speaker 3: that he is excellent above all others by being born
- 3:40:08Speaker 3: a king, or a noble by being born a noble.
- 3:40:12Speaker 3: The relation between husband and wife is very like that
- 3:40:16Speaker 3: between lord and vassal, except that his wife is held
- 3:40:20Speaker 3: to more unlimited obedience than the vassal was. However, the
- 3:40:25Speaker 3: vassal's character may have been affected for better or worse
- 3:40:30Speaker 3: by his subordination. Who can help seeing that the lords
- 3:40:35Speaker 3: was affected greatly for the worse, whether he was led
- 3:40:38Speaker 3: to believe that his vassals were really superior to himself,
- 3:40:43Speaker 3: or to feel that he was placed in common in
- 3:40:46Speaker 3: command over people as good as himself, for no merits
- 3:40:50Speaker 3: or labors of his own, but merely for having, as
- 3:40:54Speaker 3: Figaro says, taken the trouble to be born. The self
- 3:40:59Speaker 3: worship of the monarch or of the feudal superior is
- 3:41:04Speaker 3: matched by the self worship of the male. Human beings
- 3:41:08Speaker 3: do not grow up from childhood in the possession of
- 3:41:11Speaker 3: unearned distinctions without plumbing themselves upon them. Those whom privileges
- 3:41:18Speaker 3: not acquired by their merit, and which they feel to
- 3:41:21Speaker 3: be disproportioned to it inspire with additional humility are always
- 3:41:27Speaker 3: the few and the best few. The rest are only
- 3:41:31Speaker 3: inspired with pride, and the worst sort of pride that
- 3:41:35Speaker 3: which values itself upon accidental advantages, not of its own, achieving.
- 3:41:42Speaker 3: Above all, when the feeling of being raised above the
- 3:41:47Speaker 3: whole of another sex is combined with the personal authority
- 3:41:51Speaker 3: over one individual among them. The situation if a school
- 3:41:57Speaker 3: of conscientious and affectionate forbearance for those whose strongest points
- 3:42:01Speaker 3: of character are conscience, and affection is to men of
- 3:42:06Speaker 3: another quality or regularly constituted academy or gymnasium, for training
- 3:42:11Speaker 3: them in arrogance and overbearingness, which vices, if curbed by
- 3:42:17Speaker 3: the certainty of resistance in their intercourse with other men,
- 3:42:21Speaker 3: their equals break out towards all who are in position
- 3:42:25Speaker 3: to be obliged to tolerate them, and often revenge themselves
- 3:42:29Speaker 3: upon the unfortunate wife for the involuntary restraint which they
- 3:42:33Speaker 3: are obliged to submit to. Elsewhere, the example afforded in
- 3:42:39Speaker 3: the education given to the sentiments, by laying the foundation
- 3:42:43Speaker 3: of domestic existence upon the relation contradictory to the first
- 3:42:48Speaker 3: principles of social justice, must from the very nature of man,
- 3:42:53Speaker 3: have a perverting influence of such magnitude that it is
- 3:42:57Speaker 3: hardly possible, with our present excs experience, to raise our
- 3:43:01Speaker 3: imaginations to the conception of so great a change for
- 3:43:05Speaker 3: the better as would be made by its removal. All
- 3:43:08Speaker 3: that education and civilization are doing to efface the influences
- 3:43:13Speaker 3: on character of the law of force and replace them
- 3:43:18Speaker 3: by those of justice remains merely on the surface, as
- 3:43:22Speaker 3: long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked.
- 3:43:26Speaker 3: The principle of the modern movement in morals and politics
- 3:43:30Speaker 3: is that conduct and conduct alone entitles to respect, that
- 3:43:36Speaker 3: not what men are, but what they do, constitutes their
- 3:43:40Speaker 3: claim to difference, That above all merit and not birth,
- 3:43:46Speaker 3: is the only rightful claim to power and authority. If
- 3:43:50Speaker 3: no authority, not in its nature temporary, were allowed to
- 3:43:55Speaker 3: one human being over another, society would not be employed
- 3:43:59Speaker 3: in building up propensities with one hand, which has to
- 3:44:03Speaker 3: curb with the other. The child would really, from the
- 3:44:07Speaker 3: first time in man's existence on earth, be trained in
- 3:44:11Speaker 3: the way he should go, and when he was old,
- 3:44:14Speaker 3: there would be a chance that he would not depart
- 3:44:17Speaker 3: from it. But so long as the right of strong
- 3:44:21Speaker 3: to power over weak rules in the very heart of society,
- 3:44:26Speaker 3: the attempt to make equal right of the weak the
- 3:44:29Speaker 3: principle of its outward actions, will always be an uphill struggle.
- 3:44:34Speaker 3: For the law of justice, which is also that of Christianity,
- 3:44:38Speaker 3: will never get possession of men's inmost sentiments. They will
- 3:44:44Speaker 3: be working against it, even when bending to it. The
- 3:44:48Speaker 3: second benefit to be expected from giving to women the
- 3:44:52Speaker 3: free use of their faculties by leaving them the free
- 3:44:56Speaker 3: choice of their employments and opening them to the same
- 3:44:59Speaker 3: thing field of occupation. The same prizes and encouragements as
- 3:45:04Speaker 3: to other human beings would be that of doubling the
- 3:45:08Speaker 3: mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity.
- 3:45:13Speaker 3: Where there is now one person qualified to benefit mankind
- 3:45:17Speaker 3: and promote the general improvement as a public teacher or
- 3:45:21Speaker 3: an administrator of some branch of public or social affairs,
- 3:45:27Speaker 3: there would then be a chance of two. Mental superiority
- 3:45:31Speaker 3: of any kind is at present everywhere so much below
- 3:45:35Speaker 3: the demand. There is such a deficiency of persons competent
- 3:45:40Speaker 3: to do excellently anything which it requires any considerable amount
- 3:45:44Speaker 3: of ability to do that loss, that the loss to
- 3:45:48Speaker 3: the world by refusing to make use of one half
- 3:45:51Speaker 3: of the whole quantity of talent it possesses is extremely serious.
- 3:45:58Speaker 3: It is true that this amount of mental power is
- 3:46:01Speaker 3: not totally lost. Much of it is employed, and would
- 3:46:05Speaker 3: in any case be employed in domestic management and in
- 3:46:10Speaker 3: the few other occupations open to women, And from the
- 3:46:14Speaker 3: remainder indirect benefit is, in many individual cases obtained through
- 3:46:20Speaker 3: the personal influence of individual women over individual men. But
- 3:46:25Speaker 3: these benefits are partial, their range is extremely circumscribed, and
- 3:46:32Speaker 3: if they must be omitted on the one hand, as
- 3:46:35Speaker 3: a deduction from the amount of fresh social power that
- 3:46:39Speaker 3: would be acquired by giving freedom to one half of
- 3:46:42Speaker 3: the whole sum of human intellect, there must be added
- 3:46:46Speaker 3: on the other the benefit of the stimulus that would
- 3:46:50Speaker 3: be given to the intellect of men by the competition, or,
- 3:46:55Speaker 3: to use a more true expression, by the necessity that
- 3:46:59Speaker 3: would be posed on them of deserving precedency before they
- 3:47:03Speaker 3: could expect to obtain it. This great accession to the
- 3:47:08Speaker 3: intellectual power of the species, and to the amount of
- 3:47:12Speaker 3: intellect available for the good management of its affairs, would
- 3:47:17Speaker 3: be obtained partly through the better and more complete intellectual
- 3:47:21Speaker 3: education of women, which would then improve pari passu with
- 3:47:27Speaker 3: that of men. Women in general would be brought up
- 3:47:31Speaker 3: equally capable of understanding business, public affairs, and the high
- 3:47:36Speaker 3: matters of speculation with men in the same class of society,
- 3:47:41Speaker 3: and the select few of the one as well as
- 3:47:44Speaker 3: the other sex, who were qualified not only to comprehend
- 3:47:49Speaker 3: what is done or thought by others, but to think
- 3:47:52Speaker 3: or do something considerable themselves, would meet with the same
- 3:47:56Speaker 3: faculties for improving and training their capacity cities in the
- 3:48:00Speaker 3: one sex as in the other. In this way, the
- 3:48:05Speaker 3: widening of the sphere of action for women would operate
- 3:48:09Speaker 3: for good by raising their education to the level of
- 3:48:12Speaker 3: that of men, and making the one participate in all
- 3:48:16Speaker 3: improvements made in the other. But independently of this, the
- 3:48:22Speaker 3: mere breaking down of the barrier would itself have an
- 3:48:25Speaker 3: educational virtue of the highest worth, the mere getting rid
- 3:48:29Speaker 3: of the idea that all the wider subjects of thought
- 3:48:33Speaker 3: in action, all the things which are generally and not
- 3:48:38Speaker 3: solely of private interests, are men's business, from which women
- 3:48:43Speaker 3: are to be warned off, positively indirected from most of it,
- 3:48:48Speaker 3: coldly tolerated in the little which is allowed to them.
- 3:48:52Speaker 3: The mere consciousness of women would then have of being
- 3:48:57Speaker 3: human like any other, entitled to choose her pursuits, urged
- 3:49:02Speaker 3: or invited by the same inducements as any one else,
- 3:49:06Speaker 3: to interest herself in whatever is interesting to human beings,
- 3:49:11Speaker 3: entitled to exert the share of influence on all human
- 3:49:15Speaker 3: concerns which belongs to an individual opinion, whether she attempted
- 3:49:20Speaker 3: actual participation in them or not. This alone would affect
- 3:49:25Speaker 3: an immense expansion of the faculties of women, as well
- 3:49:29Speaker 3: as an enlargement of the range of their moral sentiments,
- 3:49:34Speaker 3: besides the addition to the amount of individual talent available
- 3:49:39Speaker 3: to the conduct of human affairs, which certainly are not
- 3:49:42Speaker 3: at present so abundantly provided in that respect that they
- 3:49:46Speaker 3: can afford to dispense with one half of what nature proffers.
- 3:49:51Speaker 3: The opinion of women would then possess a more beneficial
- 3:49:55Speaker 3: rather than a greater influence upon the mass of human
- 3:49:58Speaker 3: belief and sentiment. I say, more beneficial rather than a
- 3:50:02Speaker 3: greater influence. For the influence of women over the general
- 3:50:07Speaker 3: tone of opinion, has always, or at least from the
- 3:50:11Speaker 3: earliest known period, been very considerable. The influence of mothers
- 3:50:16Speaker 3: on the early character of their sons, and the desire
- 3:50:20Speaker 3: of young men to recommend themselves to young women, have
- 3:50:24Speaker 3: in all recorded times been important agencies in the formation
- 3:50:28Speaker 3: of character, and have determined some of the chief steps
- 3:50:32Speaker 3: in the progress of civilization. Even in the Homeric age
- 3:50:37Speaker 3: alpha iota delta, omega sigma, towards the Tao row omega
- 3:50:42Speaker 3: alpha delta alpha sigma, epsilon lambda chi epsilon sigma iota
- 3:50:49Speaker 3: pi epsilon pi lambda omega epsilon sigma is an acknowledged
- 3:50:55Speaker 3: and powerful motive of the action in the Great Hector.
- 3:51:00Speaker 3: The moral influence of women has had two modes of operation. First,
- 3:51:06Speaker 3: it has been softened by influence. Those who were most
- 3:51:10Speaker 3: liable to be the victims of violence have naturally tended
- 3:51:15Speaker 3: to be as much as they could towards limiting its
- 3:51:18Speaker 3: sphere in mitigating its excesses. Those who were not taught
- 3:51:23Speaker 3: to fight have naturally inclined in favor of any other
- 3:51:28Speaker 3: mode of settling differences rather than of fighting. In general,
- 3:51:32Speaker 3: those who have been the greatest sufferers by the indulgence
- 3:51:36Speaker 3: of selfish passion have been the most earnest supporters of
- 3:51:40Speaker 3: any moral law which offered a means of bridling passion.
- 3:51:45Speaker 3: Women were powerfully instrumental in inducing the Northern conquerors to
- 3:51:50Speaker 3: adopt the creed of Christianity, a creed so much more
- 3:51:54Speaker 3: favorable to women than any that preceded it. The conversion
- 3:51:58Speaker 3: of the Anglo Saxon and of the Franks may be
- 3:52:02Speaker 3: said to have been begun by the wives of Ethelbert
- 3:52:06Speaker 3: and Clovis. The other mode in which the effect of
- 3:52:10Speaker 3: women's opinion has been conspicuous is, by giving a powerful
- 3:52:15Speaker 3: stimulus to those qualities in men which, not being themselves
- 3:52:20Speaker 3: trained in, it was necessary for them that they should
- 3:52:23Speaker 3: find in their protectors. Courage and the military virtues generally
- 3:52:29Speaker 3: have at all times been greatly indebted to the desire
- 3:52:33Speaker 3: which men felt of being admired by women, and the
- 3:52:38Speaker 3: stimulus reaches far beyond this one class of eminent qualities, since,
- 3:52:44Speaker 3: by the very natural effect of their position, the best
- 3:52:48Speaker 3: passport to the admiration and favor of women has always
- 3:52:52Speaker 3: been to be thought highly of by men. From the
- 3:52:56Speaker 3: combination of the two kinds of moral influence thus act
- 3:53:00Speaker 3: exercised by women arose the spirit of chivalry, the peculiarity
- 3:53:05Speaker 3: of which is to aim at combining the highest standard
- 3:53:09Speaker 3: of the warlike qualities with the cultivation of a totally
- 3:53:13Speaker 3: different class of virtues, those of gentleness, generosity, and self
- 3:53:18Speaker 3: abnegation towards the non military and defenseless classes generally, and
- 3:53:24Speaker 3: the special submission and worship directed towards women, who were
- 3:53:28Speaker 3: distinguished from the other defenseless classes by the high rewards
- 3:53:33Speaker 3: which they had it in their power voluntarily to bestow
- 3:53:37Speaker 3: on those who endeavored to earn their favor. Instead of
- 3:53:41Speaker 3: exhorting their subjection. Though the practice of chivalry fell even
- 3:53:46Speaker 3: more sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generally
- 3:53:51Speaker 3: falls below theory, it remains one of the most precious
- 3:53:55Speaker 3: monuments of the moral history of our race as a
- 3:53:59Speaker 3: romance remarkable instance of the concerted and organized attempt by
- 3:54:04Speaker 3: a most disorganized and distructed society to raise up and
- 3:54:08Speaker 3: carry into practice a moral ideal greatly in advance of
- 3:54:13Speaker 3: its social condition and institutions, so much so as to
- 3:54:18Speaker 3: have been completely frustrated in the main object, yet never
- 3:54:22Speaker 3: entirely in efficacious, and which has left a most sensible
- 3:54:27Speaker 3: and for the most part, a highly valuable impress on
- 3:54:31Speaker 3: the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times. The chival
- 3:54:36Speaker 3: ris idea is the acme of the influence of women's
- 3:54:41Speaker 3: sentiment on the moral cultivation of mankind, and if women
- 3:54:46Speaker 3: are to remain in their subordinate situation, it were greatly
- 3:54:51Speaker 3: to be lamented that the chivalrous standard should have passed away,
- 3:54:55Speaker 3: for it is the only one at all capable of
- 3:54:58Speaker 3: mitigating the demor moralizing influences of that position. But the
- 3:55:04Speaker 3: changes in the general state of the species rendered inevitable
- 3:55:09Speaker 3: the substitution of a totally different ideal of morality for
- 3:55:13Speaker 3: the chivalrous one. Chivalry was the attempt to infuse moral
- 3:55:18Speaker 3: elements into a state of society in which everything depended,
- 3:55:22Speaker 3: for good or evil, on individual prowess under the softening
- 3:55:27Speaker 3: influences of individual delicacy and generosity. In modern societies, all things,
- 3:55:35Speaker 3: even the military department of Affairs, are decided not by
- 3:55:39Speaker 3: individual effort but by the combined operations of numbers. While
- 3:55:44Speaker 3: the main occupation of society has changed from fighting to business,
- 3:55:49Speaker 3: from military to industrial life, the exigencies of the new
- 3:55:55Speaker 3: life are no more exclusive of the virtues of generosity
- 3:56:00Speaker 3: than those of the old, but it no longer entirely
- 3:56:03Speaker 3: depends on them. The main foundations of the moral life
- 3:56:08Speaker 3: of modern times must be justice and prudence, the respect
- 3:56:13Speaker 3: of each for the rights of every other, in the
- 3:56:15Speaker 3: ability of each to take care of himself. Chivalry left
- 3:56:20Speaker 3: without legal check all forms of wrong which reigned unpunished
- 3:56:24Speaker 3: throughout society. It only encouraged a few to do right
- 3:56:28Speaker 3: in preferences to wrong by the direction it gave to
- 3:56:32Speaker 3: the instruments of praise and admiration. But the real dependence
- 3:56:36Speaker 3: of morality must always be upon its penal sanctions its
- 3:56:41Speaker 3: power to deter from evil. The security of society cannot
- 3:56:46Speaker 3: rest on merely rendering honour to right, a motive so
- 3:56:50Speaker 3: comparatively weak in all but a few, and which on
- 3:56:54Speaker 3: very many does not operate at all. Modern society is
- 3:57:00Speaker 3: able to repress wrong through all departments of life by
- 3:57:04Speaker 3: a fit exertion of the superior strength which civilization has
- 3:57:09Speaker 3: given to it, and thus to render the existence of
- 3:57:13Speaker 3: the weaker members of society no longer defenseless, but protected
- 3:57:17Speaker 3: by law tolerable to them, without reliance on the chivalrous
- 3:57:21Speaker 3: feelings of those who are in a position to tyrannize.
- 3:57:26Speaker 3: The beauties and graces of the chivalrous character are still
- 3:57:30Speaker 3: what they were, but the rights of the weak and
- 3:57:33Speaker 3: the general comfort of human life now rest on a
- 3:57:37Speaker 3: far surer and steadier support, or rather, they do so
- 3:57:42Speaker 3: in every relation of life except the conjugal. At present,
- 3:57:48Speaker 3: the moral influence of women is no less real, but
- 3:57:52Speaker 3: it is no longer of so marked and definite a character.
- 3:57:55Speaker 3: It has more nearly merged in the general influence of
- 3:57:59Speaker 3: public opinion, both through the contigation of sympathy and through
- 3:58:04Speaker 3: the desire of men to shine in the eyes of women.
- 3:58:08Speaker 3: Their feelings have great effect in keeping alive what remains
- 3:58:12Speaker 3: of the chivalrous ideal, in fostering the sentiments, and continuing
- 3:58:16Speaker 3: the traditions of spirit and generosity. In these points of character,
- 3:58:22Speaker 3: their standard is higher than that of men in the
- 3:58:25Speaker 3: quality of justice, somewhat lower as regards the relations of
- 3:58:30Speaker 3: private life. It may be said generally that their influence
- 3:58:34Speaker 3: is on the whole, encouraging to the softer virtues, discouraging
- 3:58:39Speaker 3: to the sterner, though the statement must be taken with
- 3:58:43Speaker 3: all the modifications dependent on individual character. In the chief
- 3:58:49Speaker 3: of the greater trials which virtue is subject in the
- 3:58:53Speaker 3: concerns of life, the conflict between interest and principle, the
- 3:58:57Speaker 3: tendency of women's influence it is of a very mixed character.
- 3:59:05Speaker 3: When the principle involved happens to be one of the
- 3:59:09Speaker 3: very few which the course of their religious or moral
- 3:59:12Speaker 3: education has strongly impressed upon themselves. They are potent auxiliaries
- 3:59:17Speaker 3: to virtue, and their husbands and sons are often prompted
- 3:59:21Speaker 3: by them to acts of abnegation which they would never
- 3:59:24Speaker 3: have been capable of without that stimulus. But with the
- 3:59:29Speaker 3: present education and position of women. The moral principles which
- 3:59:33Speaker 3: have been impressed on them cover but a comparatively small
- 3:59:37Speaker 3: part of the field of virtue, and are moreover principally
- 3:59:42Speaker 3: negative forbidding particular acts, but having little to do with
- 3:59:46Speaker 3: the general direction of the thoughts and purposes. I am
- 3:59:50Speaker 3: afraid it must be said that disinterestedness in the general
- 3:59:55Speaker 3: conduct of life, the devotion of the energies to purposes
- 3:59:59Speaker 3: which hol out no promise of private advantages to the family,
- 4:00:04Speaker 3: is very seldom encouraged or supported by women's influence. It
- 4:00:10Speaker 3: is small blame to them that they discourage objects of
- 4:00:14Speaker 3: which they have not learned to see the advantage, and
- 4:00:17Speaker 3: which withdraw their men from them and from the interests
- 4:00:21Speaker 3: of the family. But the consequence is that the women's
- 4:00:25Speaker 3: influence is often anything but favorable to public virtue. Women have, however,
- 4:00:32Speaker 3: some share of the influence in giving the tone to
- 4:00:35Speaker 3: public moralities, since their sphere of action has been little dwindled,
- 4:00:40Speaker 3: and since a considerable number of them have occupied themselves
- 4:00:44Speaker 3: practically in the promotion of objects reaching beyond their own
- 4:00:48Speaker 3: family and household. The influence of women counts for a
- 4:00:53Speaker 3: great deal in two of the most marked features of
- 4:00:56Speaker 3: modern European life, its aversion to war and its addiction
- 4:01:01Speaker 3: to philanthropy excellent characteristics both, but unhappily. If the influence
- 4:01:08Speaker 3: of women is valuable in the encouragement it gives to
- 4:01:11Speaker 3: these feelings in general, in the particular applications, the direction
- 4:01:16Speaker 3: it gives to them is at least as often mischievous
- 4:01:19Speaker 3: as useful. In the philanthropic department. More particularly, the two
- 4:01:24Speaker 3: provinces chiefly cultivated by women are religious prospolytism and charity.
- 4:01:30Speaker 3: Religious prospolytism at home is but another word for embittering
- 4:01:35Speaker 3: of religious animosities abroad. It is usually a blind running
- 4:01:40Speaker 3: at an object, without either knowing or heeding the fatal
- 4:01:44Speaker 3: mischiefs fatal to the religious object itself, as well as
- 4:01:48Speaker 3: to all other desirable objects which may be produced by
- 4:01:52Speaker 3: the means employed. As for charity, it is a matter
- 4:01:56Speaker 3: in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned
- 4:02:00Speaker 3: and the ultimate consequence to the general good are apt
- 4:02:03Speaker 3: to be at complete war with one another. While the
- 4:02:07Speaker 3: education given to women, and education of the sentiments rather
- 4:02:12Speaker 3: than of the understanding and the habit inculcated by their
- 4:02:16Speaker 3: whole life, or looking to immediate effects on persons, and
- 4:02:21Speaker 3: not to remote effects on classes of persons, make them
- 4:02:24Speaker 3: both unable to see and unwilling to admit the ultimate
- 4:02:28Speaker 3: evil tendency of any form of charity or philanthropy which
- 4:02:32Speaker 3: commends itself to their sympathetic feelings, the great and continually
- 4:02:37Speaker 3: increasing mass of unenlightened and short sighted benevolence, which, taking
- 4:02:42Speaker 3: the care of people's lives out of their own hands
- 4:02:45Speaker 3: and relieving them from the disagreeable consequences of their own acts,
- 4:02:49Speaker 3: SAPs the very foundation of the self respect, self help,
- 4:02:53Speaker 3: and self control which are the essential conditions both of
- 4:02:57Speaker 3: individual prosperity and of social vers This waste of resources
- 4:03:02Speaker 3: and of benevolent feelings in doing harm instead of good
- 4:03:06Speaker 3: is immensely swelled by women's contributions and stimulated by their influence.
- 4:03:12Speaker 3: Not that this is a mistake likely to be made
- 4:03:15Speaker 3: by women where they have actually the practical management of
- 4:03:18Speaker 3: schemes of beneficence. It sometimes happens that women who administer
- 4:03:24Speaker 3: public charities with that insight into present fact, and especially
- 4:03:29Speaker 3: into the minds and feelings of those with whom they
- 4:03:32Speaker 3: are in immediate contact, in which women generally excel men
- 4:03:38Speaker 3: recognize in the clearest manner, the demoralizing influence of the
- 4:03:42Speaker 3: alms given or the help afforded, and could give lessons
- 4:03:47Speaker 3: on the subject to many a male political economist. But
- 4:03:52Speaker 3: women who only give their money and are not brought
- 4:03:55Speaker 3: face to face with the effects it produces, how can
- 4:03:58Speaker 3: they be expected to or see them A woman born
- 4:04:02Speaker 3: to the present lot of women and content with it,
- 4:04:05Speaker 3: how should she appreciate the value of self dependence. She
- 4:04:10Speaker 3: is not self dependent, She is not taught self dependence.
- 4:04:14Speaker 3: Her destiny is to receive everything from others. And why
- 4:04:18Speaker 3: should what is good enough for her be bad for
- 4:04:21Speaker 3: the poor? Her familiar notions of good are blessings descending
- 4:04:25Speaker 3: from a superior She forgets that she is not free,
- 4:04:29Speaker 3: and that they poor are. That if what they need
- 4:04:33Speaker 3: is to be given to them unearned, they cannot be
- 4:04:36Speaker 3: compelled to earn it. That everybody cannot be taken care
- 4:04:40Speaker 3: of by everybody. But there must be some motive to
- 4:04:44Speaker 3: induce people to take care of themselves, and that to
- 4:04:48Speaker 3: be helped to help themselves if they are physically capable
- 4:04:52Speaker 3: of it. Is the only charity which proves to be charity.
- 4:04:57Speaker 3: In the end end of four Part one, Chapter four
- 4:05:03Speaker 3: Part two. These considerations show how usefully the part which
- 4:05:08Speaker 3: women take in the formation of general opinion would be
- 4:05:11Speaker 3: modified for the better by that more enlarged instruction and
- 4:05:15Speaker 3: practical conversency with the things which their opinions influence that
- 4:05:20Speaker 3: would necessarily arise from their social and political emancipation. But
- 4:05:25Speaker 3: the improvement it would work through the influence they exercise
- 4:05:29Speaker 3: each in her own family would be still more remarkable.
- 4:05:33Speaker 3: It is often said that in the classes most exposed
- 4:05:37Speaker 3: to temptation, a man's wife and children tend to keep
- 4:05:40Speaker 3: him honest and respectable, both by the wife's direct influence
- 4:05:45Speaker 3: and by the concern she feels for their future welfare.
- 4:05:49Speaker 3: This may be so, and no doubt often is so
- 4:05:52Speaker 3: with those who are more weak than wicked, and this
- 4:05:56Speaker 3: beneficial influence would be preserved and strengthened under equal laws.
- 4:06:01Speaker 3: It does not depend on the woman's servitude, but is,
- 4:06:04Speaker 3: on the contrary, diminished by the disrespect which the inferior
- 4:06:09Speaker 3: class of men always at heart feels towards those who
- 4:06:13Speaker 3: are subject to their power. But when we ascend higher
- 4:06:17Speaker 3: in the scale, we come among a totally different set
- 4:06:21Speaker 3: of moving forces. The wife's influence tends as far as
- 4:06:25Speaker 3: it goes to prevent the husband from falling below the
- 4:06:28Speaker 3: common standard of approbation of the country, it tends quite
- 4:06:33Speaker 3: as strongly to hinder him from rising above it. The
- 4:06:37Speaker 3: wife is the auxiliary of the common public opinion. A
- 4:06:41Speaker 3: man who is married to a woman his inferior in
- 4:06:44Speaker 3: intelligence finds her a perpetual dead weight, or worse than
- 4:06:48Speaker 3: a dead weight, a drag upon every aspiration of his
- 4:06:52Speaker 3: to be better than the public opinion requires him to be.
- 4:06:57Speaker 3: It is hardly possible for one who is in these
- 4:07:00Speaker 3: bonds to attain exalted virtue if he differs in his
- 4:07:04Speaker 3: opinion from the mass, if he sees truths which have
- 4:07:08Speaker 3: not yet been dawned upon them, or if feeling in
- 4:07:12Speaker 3: his heart truths which they nominally recognize, he would like
- 4:07:16Speaker 3: to act up to those truths more conscientiously than the
- 4:07:20Speaker 3: generality of mankind. To all such thoughts and desires, marriage
- 4:07:26Speaker 3: is the heaviest of drawbacks, unless he be so fortunate
- 4:07:30Speaker 3: as to have a wife as much above the common
- 4:07:32Speaker 3: level as he himself is. For in the first place,
- 4:07:37Speaker 3: there is always some sacrifice of personal interests required, either
- 4:07:42Speaker 3: of social consequence or of pecuniary means. Perhaps the risk
- 4:07:47Speaker 3: even of the means of subsistence. These sacrifices and risks
- 4:07:52Speaker 3: he may be willing to encounter for himself, but he
- 4:07:56Speaker 3: will pause before he imposes them on his family. And
- 4:08:00Speaker 3: his family, in this case means his wife and daughters,
- 4:08:04Speaker 3: for he always hopes that his sons will feel as
- 4:08:07Speaker 3: he feels himself, and that what he can do without
- 4:08:11Speaker 3: they will do without willingly. Is the same cause. But
- 4:08:16Speaker 3: his daughters their marriage may depend upon it. And his wife,
- 4:08:20Speaker 3: who is unable to enter into or understand the objects
- 4:08:24Speaker 3: for which these sacrifices are made, who, if she thought
- 4:08:27Speaker 3: them worthy any sacrifice, would think so on trust and
- 4:08:32Speaker 3: solely for his sake, who could participate in none of
- 4:08:35Speaker 3: the enthusiasm or self approbation he himself may feel, while
- 4:08:40Speaker 3: the things which he is disposed to sacrifice are all
- 4:08:44Speaker 3: in all to her will not the best and most
- 4:08:47Speaker 3: selfish man hesitate the longest before bringing on her this consequence.
- 4:08:52Speaker 3: If it be not the comforts of life, but only
- 4:08:55Speaker 3: social consideration, that is at stake, the Burthen, upon his
- 4:08:59Speaker 3: conscient and feelings, is still very severe. Whoever has a
- 4:09:04Speaker 3: wife and children has given hostages to missus Grundy the
- 4:09:08Speaker 3: approbation of that potentiate may be a matter of indifference
- 4:09:12Speaker 3: to him, but it is of greatest importance to his wife.
- 4:09:16Speaker 3: The man himself may be above opinion, or may find
- 4:09:20Speaker 3: sufficient compensation in the opinion of those of his own
- 4:09:24Speaker 3: way of thinking, but to the women connected with him
- 4:09:27Speaker 3: he can offer no compensation. The almost invariable tendency of
- 4:09:32Speaker 3: the wife to place her influence in the same scale
- 4:09:35Speaker 3: with social consideration is sometimes made a reproach to women,
- 4:09:41Speaker 3: and represented as a peculiar trait of feebleness and childishness
- 4:09:45Speaker 3: of character in them. Surely, with great injustice, society makes
- 4:09:51Speaker 3: the whole life of a woman in the easy classes
- 4:09:54Speaker 3: a continued self sacrifice. It exacts from her in unrementing
- 4:09:59Speaker 3: restraint of the whole of her natural inclinations, and the
- 4:10:04Speaker 3: sole return it makes to her for what often deserves
- 4:10:07Speaker 3: the name of a martyrdom is consideration. Her consideration is
- 4:10:12Speaker 3: inseparably connected with that of her husband, and after paying
- 4:10:16Speaker 3: the full price of it, she finds that she is
- 4:10:19Speaker 3: to lose it for no reason of which she can
- 4:10:22Speaker 3: feel the cogency. She has sacrificed her whole life to it,
- 4:10:27Speaker 3: and her husband will not sacrifice it to a whim,
- 4:10:30Speaker 3: a freak and eccentricity, something not recognized or allowed for
- 4:10:35Speaker 3: by the world, and which the world will agree with
- 4:10:38Speaker 3: her in thinking a folly, if it thinks no worse.
- 4:10:42Speaker 3: The dilemma is hardest upon that very meritorious class of men, who,
- 4:10:48Speaker 3: without possessing talents which qualify them to make a figure
- 4:10:51Speaker 3: among those whom they agree in opinion, hold their opinion
- 4:10:56Speaker 3: from conviction, and feel bound in honor and conscience to
- 4:11:00Speaker 3: serve it by making profession of their belief, and giving
- 4:11:04Speaker 3: their time, labor, and means to anything undertaken in its behalf.
- 4:11:11Speaker 3: The worst case of all is when such men happen
- 4:11:14Speaker 3: to be of a rank and position which of itself
- 4:11:17Speaker 3: neither gives them nor excludes them from what is considered
- 4:11:22Speaker 3: the best society, when their admission to it depends mainly
- 4:11:27Speaker 3: on what is thought of them personally, and however unexceptionable
- 4:11:32Speaker 3: their breeding and habits, their being identified with opinions and
- 4:11:36Speaker 3: public conduct unacceptable to those who give the tone of society,
- 4:11:41Speaker 3: would operate as an effectual exclusion. Many a woman flatters
- 4:11:47Speaker 3: herself nine times out of ten, quite erroneously that nothing
- 4:11:51Speaker 3: prevents her and her husband from moving in the highest
- 4:11:54Speaker 3: society of her neighborhood, society in which others well known
- 4:11:59Speaker 3: to her and in the same class of life mix freely,
- 4:12:03Speaker 3: except that her husband is unfortunately a dissenter or has
- 4:12:07Speaker 3: the reputation of mingling in low radical politics. That is,
- 4:12:13Speaker 3: she thinks, which hinders George from getting a commission or
- 4:12:17Speaker 3: a place, Caroline from making an advantageous match, and prevents
- 4:12:22Speaker 3: her and her husband from obtaining invitations perhaps honors, which
- 4:12:28Speaker 3: for aught, she sees, they are as well entitled to
- 4:12:31Speaker 3: as some folks with such an influence in every house,
- 4:12:37Speaker 3: either exerted actively or operating all the more powerfully for
- 4:12:42Speaker 3: not being asserted. Is it any wonder that people in
- 4:12:46Speaker 3: general are kept down in that mediocrity of respectability which
- 4:12:51Speaker 3: is becoming a marked characteristic of modern times. There is
- 4:12:56Speaker 3: another very injurious aspects in which the effect not of
- 4:13:00Speaker 3: women's disabilities directly, but of the broad line of difference
- 4:13:05Speaker 3: which those disabilities create between the education and character of
- 4:13:10Speaker 3: a woman and that of a man, requires to be considered.
- 4:13:15Speaker 3: Nothing can be more unfavorable to that union of thoughts
- 4:13:19Speaker 3: and inclinations which is the ideal of married life. Intimate
- 4:13:24Speaker 3: society between people radically dissimilar to one another is an
- 4:13:29Speaker 3: idle dream. Unlikeness may attract, but it is likeness which retains,
- 4:13:36Speaker 3: And in proportion to the likeness is the sustainability of
- 4:13:41Speaker 3: the individuals to give each other a happy life. While
- 4:13:45Speaker 3: women are so unlike men, it is not wonderful that
- 4:13:49Speaker 3: selfish men should feel the need of arbitrary power in
- 4:13:52Speaker 3: their own hands to arrest in lemana the lifelong conflict
- 4:13:57Speaker 3: of inclinations by deciding every question on the side of
- 4:14:01Speaker 3: their own preference. When people are extremely unlike there can
- 4:14:06Speaker 3: be no real identity of interest. Very often there is
- 4:14:11Speaker 3: conscientious difference of opinion between married couple on the highest
- 4:14:15Speaker 3: points of duty. Is there any reality in the marriage
- 4:14:19Speaker 3: union where this takes place? Yet, it is not uncommon
- 4:14:24Speaker 3: anywhere when the woman has an earnestness of character, and
- 4:14:29Speaker 3: it is a very general case in Catholic countries when
- 4:14:32Speaker 3: she is supported in her descent by the only other
- 4:14:36Speaker 3: authority to which she is taught to bow, the priest,
- 4:14:40Speaker 3: with the usual bare facedness of power, not accustomed to
- 4:14:44Speaker 3: find itself disputed. The influence of priests over women is
- 4:14:49Speaker 3: attacked by Protestant and liberal writers less for being bad
- 4:14:54Speaker 3: in itself than because it is a rival authority to
- 4:14:57Speaker 3: the husband and raises up a revolt against his infallibility.
- 4:15:02Speaker 3: In England, similar differences occasionally exist when an evangelical wife
- 4:15:08Speaker 3: has allied herself with a husband of a different quality.
- 4:15:12Speaker 3: But in general this source, at least of dissension is
- 4:15:16Speaker 3: got rid of by reducing the minds of women to
- 4:15:19Speaker 3: such a nulogy that they have no opinions, but those
- 4:15:22Speaker 3: of missus Grundy were those which the husband tells them
- 4:15:26Speaker 3: to have. When there is no difference of opinion, differences
- 4:15:31Speaker 3: merely of taste may distract greatly from the happiness of
- 4:15:35Speaker 3: married life. And though it may stimulate the amatory propensities
- 4:15:40Speaker 3: of men, it does not conduce to married happiness. To
- 4:15:43Speaker 3: exaggerate by differences of education, whatever may be the native
- 4:15:47Speaker 3: differences of the sexes. If the married pair are well
- 4:15:52Speaker 3: bred and well behaved people, they tolerate each other's tastes.
- 4:15:58Speaker 3: But is mutual toleration what people look forward to when
- 4:16:02Speaker 3: they enter into marriage. These differences of inclination will naturally
- 4:16:07Speaker 3: make their wishes different, if not restrained by affection or duty.
- 4:16:11Speaker 3: As to almost all domestic questions which arise, what a
- 4:16:15Speaker 3: difference there must be in the society which the two
- 4:16:19Speaker 3: persons will wish to frequent or be frequented by. Each
- 4:16:23Speaker 3: will desire associations who share their own tastes. The persons
- 4:16:28Speaker 3: agreeable to one will be indifferent or positively disagreeable to
- 4:16:33Speaker 3: the other. Yet there can be none who are not
- 4:16:36Speaker 3: common to both. For married people do not now live
- 4:16:40Speaker 3: in different parts of the house and have totally different
- 4:16:43Speaker 3: visiting lists as in the reign of Louis the fifteenth.
- 4:16:48Speaker 3: They cannot help having different wishes as to the bringing
- 4:16:52Speaker 3: up of the children. Each will wish to see reproduced
- 4:16:56Speaker 3: in them their own tastes and sentiments, and their is
- 4:17:00Speaker 3: either a compromise and only a half satisfaction to either,
- 4:17:05Speaker 3: or the wife has to yield, often with bitter suffering,
- 4:17:09Speaker 3: and with or without intention, her occult influence continues to
- 4:17:14Speaker 3: counter work the husband's purposes. It would of course be
- 4:17:18Speaker 3: extreme folly to suppose that these differences of feeling an
- 4:17:22Speaker 3: inclination only exist because women are brought up differently from men,
- 4:17:28Speaker 3: and that there would not be differences of taste under
- 4:17:31Speaker 3: any imaginable circumstances. But there is nothing beyond the mark
- 4:17:36Speaker 3: in saying that the distinction in bringing up immensely aggravates
- 4:17:40Speaker 3: those differences and renders them wholly inevitable. While women are
- 4:17:45Speaker 3: brought up as they are, a man and a woman
- 4:17:49Speaker 3: will but rarely find in one another a real agreement
- 4:17:52Speaker 3: of tastes and wishes. As to daily life. They will
- 4:17:57Speaker 3: generally have to give it up as hopeless and renounce
- 4:18:00Speaker 3: the attempt to have in the immediate associate of their
- 4:18:04Speaker 3: daily life that idem villa i deem nole, which is
- 4:18:08Speaker 3: the recognized bond of any society that is really such.
- 4:18:13Speaker 3: Or if the man succeeds in obtaining it, he does
- 4:18:17Speaker 3: so by choosing a woman who is so complete a
- 4:18:20Speaker 3: nullity that she has no vili or nole at all,
- 4:18:24Speaker 3: and is as ready to comply with one thing as
- 4:18:28Speaker 3: another if anybody tells her to do so. Even this
- 4:18:32Speaker 3: calculation is apt to fail. Dulness and want of spirit
- 4:18:37Speaker 3: are not always a guarantee of the submission which is
- 4:18:40Speaker 3: so confidently expected from them. But if they were, is
- 4:18:45Speaker 3: this the ideal of marriage? What in this case does
- 4:18:50Speaker 3: the man obtained by it except an upper servant, a nurse,
- 4:18:53Speaker 3: or a mistress. On the contrary, when each of two persons,
- 4:18:58Speaker 3: instead of being an is a something. When they are
- 4:19:03Speaker 3: attached to one another and are not too much unlike
- 4:19:07Speaker 3: to begin with, the constant partaking in the same things,
- 4:19:11Speaker 3: assisted by their sympathy, draws out the latent capabilities of
- 4:19:16Speaker 3: each for being interested in the things which were at
- 4:19:19Speaker 3: first interesting only to the other, and works a gradual
- 4:19:24Speaker 3: assimilation of the tastes and characters to one another, partly
- 4:19:29Speaker 3: by the insensible modification of each, but more by a
- 4:19:33Speaker 3: real enriching of the two natures, each acquiring the tastes
- 4:19:38Speaker 3: and capabilities of the other in addition to its own.
- 4:19:42Speaker 3: This often happens between two friends of the same sex
- 4:19:46Speaker 3: who are much associated in their daily life, and it
- 4:19:50Speaker 3: would be a common, if not the commonest case in marriage,
- 4:19:54Speaker 3: did not the totally different bringing up of the two
- 4:19:57Speaker 3: sexes make it next to an impossible ability to form
- 4:20:01Speaker 3: a really well assorted union. Where this remedied whatever differences
- 4:20:07Speaker 3: there might still be in individual tastes, there would at
- 4:20:11Speaker 3: least be, as a general rule, complete unity and unanimity
- 4:20:16Speaker 3: as to the great objects of life. When the two
- 4:20:20Speaker 3: persons both care for great objects and are a help
- 4:20:24Speaker 3: and encouragement to each other in whatever regards these The
- 4:20:28Speaker 3: minor matters of which their tastes may differ are not
- 4:20:32Speaker 3: all important to them, and there is a foundation for
- 4:20:36Speaker 3: a solid friendship of an enduring character, more likely than
- 4:20:40Speaker 3: anything else to make it through the whole of their life.
- 4:20:43Speaker 3: A greater pleasure to each to give pleasure to the
- 4:20:46Speaker 3: other than to receive it. I have considered thus far
- 4:20:51Speaker 3: the effects on the pleasures and benefits of the marriage
- 4:20:55Speaker 3: union which depend on the mere unlikeness between the wife
- 4:20:59Speaker 3: and dad the husband. But the evil tendency is prodigiously
- 4:21:04Speaker 3: aggravated when the unlikeness is inferiority. Mere unlikeness, when it
- 4:21:10Speaker 3: only means difference of good qualities, may be more a
- 4:21:15Speaker 3: benefit in the way of mutual improvement than a drawback
- 4:21:18Speaker 3: from comfort. When each emulates and desires and endeavors to
- 4:21:24Speaker 3: acquire the other's peculiar qualities, the difference does not produce
- 4:21:30Speaker 3: diversity of interest, but increased identity of it, and makes
- 4:21:35Speaker 3: each still more valuable to the other. But when one
- 4:21:40Speaker 3: is much the inferior of the two in mental ability
- 4:21:44Speaker 3: and cultivation, and is not actively attempting, by the other's
- 4:21:49Speaker 3: aid to rise to the other's level, the whole influence
- 4:21:53Speaker 3: of the connection upon the development of the superior of
- 4:21:57Speaker 3: the two is deteriorating, and still more so in a
- 4:22:02Speaker 3: tolerably happy marriage than in an unhappy one. It is
- 4:22:07Speaker 3: not with the impunity that the superior in intellect shuts
- 4:22:11Speaker 3: himself up with an inferior and elects that that inferior
- 4:22:16Speaker 3: for his chosen and sole, completely intimate associate. Any society
- 4:22:22Speaker 3: which is not improving is deteriorating, and the more so
- 4:22:27Speaker 3: the closer and more familiar it is. Even a really
- 4:22:33Speaker 3: superior man almost always begins to deteriorate when he is habitually,
- 4:22:39Speaker 3: as the phrase is, king of his company, and in
- 4:22:43Speaker 3: his most habitual company. The husband who has a wife
- 4:22:47Speaker 3: inferior to him is always so when his self satisfaction
- 4:22:52Speaker 3: is incessantly ministered to. On the other hand, on the
- 4:22:57Speaker 3: other he insensibly imbibes the modes of feeling and of
- 4:23:01Speaker 3: looking at things which belonged to a more vulgar and
- 4:23:05Speaker 3: a more limited mind than his own. This evil differs
- 4:23:10Speaker 3: from many of those which have hitherto been dwelt on
- 4:23:14Speaker 3: by being an increasing one. The association of men and
- 4:23:19Speaker 3: women in daily life is much closer and more complete
- 4:23:23Speaker 3: than it ever was before. Men's life is more domestic. Formerly,
- 4:23:28Speaker 3: their pleasures and chosen occupations were among men, and in
- 4:23:33Speaker 3: men's company. Their wives had but a fragment of their
- 4:23:37Speaker 3: lives at the present time. The progress of civilization and
- 4:23:42Speaker 3: the turn of opinion against the rough amusements and convivial
- 4:23:46Speaker 3: excesses which formerly occupied most men in their hours of relaxation,
- 4:23:52Speaker 3: together with it must be said the improved tone of
- 4:23:56Speaker 3: modern feeling as to their reciprocity of duty, which binds
- 4:24:00Speaker 3: the husband towards the wife, have thrown the man very
- 4:24:04Speaker 3: much more upon the home and its inmates for his
- 4:24:08Speaker 3: personal and social pleasures, while the kind and degree of
- 4:24:12Speaker 3: improvement which has been made in women's education has made
- 4:24:16Speaker 3: them in some degree capable of being his companions and
- 4:24:20Speaker 3: ideas and mental tastes, while leaving them in most cases
- 4:24:24Speaker 3: still hopelessly inferior to him. His desire of mental communion
- 4:24:30Speaker 3: is thus, in general satisfied by a communion from which
- 4:24:34Speaker 3: he learns nothing. An unimproving and unstimulating companionship is substituted
- 4:24:41Speaker 3: for what he might otherwise have been obliged to seek
- 4:24:45Speaker 3: the society of his equals in power and his fellows
- 4:24:49Speaker 3: in the higher pursuits. We see accordingly that young men
- 4:24:54Speaker 3: of the greatest promise generally cease to improve as soon
- 4:24:58Speaker 3: as they marry, and not improving, inevitably degenerate. If the
- 4:25:04Speaker 3: wife does not push the husband forward, she always holds
- 4:25:08Speaker 3: him back. He ceases to care for what she does
- 4:25:11Speaker 3: not care for. He no longer desires, and ends by
- 4:25:15Speaker 3: disliking and shunning society congenial to his former aspirations, and
- 4:25:21Speaker 3: which would now shame his falling off from them. His
- 4:25:25Speaker 3: higher faculties, both of mind and heart, cease to be
- 4:25:28Speaker 3: called into activity, and this change coinciding with the new
- 4:25:33Speaker 3: and selfish interests which are created by the family. After
- 4:25:38Speaker 3: a few years, he differs in no material respect from
- 4:25:41Speaker 3: those who have never had wishes for anything but the
- 4:25:45Speaker 3: common vanities and the common pecuniary objects. What marriage may
- 4:25:50Speaker 3: be in the case of two persons of cultivated faculties
- 4:25:55Speaker 3: identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there exists the
- 4:25:59Speaker 3: best kind of equality, similarity of powers and capabilities, with
- 4:26:04Speaker 3: reciprocal superiority in them, so that each can enjoy the
- 4:26:08Speaker 3: luxury of looking up to the other, and can have
- 4:26:12Speaker 3: alternatively the pleasure of leading and being led in the
- 4:26:15Speaker 3: path of development. I will not attempt to describe to
- 4:26:20Speaker 3: those who can conceive it, there is no need, and
- 4:26:23Speaker 3: to those who cannot it would appear the dream of
- 4:26:26Speaker 3: an enthusiast. But I maintain with the profoundest conviction that
- 4:26:32Speaker 3: this and this only is the ideal of marriage, and
- 4:26:37Speaker 3: that all opinions, customs, and institutions which favor any other
- 4:26:41Speaker 3: notion of it, or turn the conceptions and aspirations connected
- 4:26:46Speaker 3: with it into any other direction, by whatever pretenses they
- 4:26:51Speaker 3: may be colored, are relics of primitive barbarism. The moral
- 4:26:56Speaker 3: regeneration of mankind will only really when the most fundamental
- 4:27:02Speaker 3: of the social relations is placed under the rule of
- 4:27:06Speaker 3: equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their
- 4:27:11Speaker 3: strongest sympathy with an equal in knights and in cultivation.
- 4:27:18Speaker 3: Thus far, the benefits which it has appeared that the
- 4:27:22Speaker 3: world would gain by ceasing to make sex a disqualification
- 4:27:26Speaker 3: for privileges and a badge of subjection are social rather
- 4:27:32Speaker 3: than individual, consisting in an increase of the general fund
- 4:27:36Speaker 3: of thinking and acting power, and an improvement in the
- 4:27:40Speaker 3: general conditions of the association of men and women. But
- 4:27:44Speaker 3: it would be a grievous understatement of the case to
- 4:27:47Speaker 3: omit the most direct benefit of all, the unspeakable gain
- 4:27:52Speaker 3: in the private happiness to the liberated half of the species,
- 4:27:57Speaker 3: the difference to them between a life of injection to
- 4:28:00Speaker 3: the will of others and a life of rational freedom
- 4:28:05Speaker 3: after the primary necessities of food and raiment. Freedom is
- 4:28:10Speaker 3: the first and strongest want of human nature. While mankind
- 4:28:16Speaker 3: are lawless, their desire is for lawless freedom. When they
- 4:28:20Speaker 3: have learnt to understand the meaning of duty and the
- 4:28:23Speaker 3: value of reason, they incline more and more to be
- 4:28:27Speaker 3: guided and restrained by these in the exercise of their freedom.
- 4:28:32Speaker 3: But they do not therefore desire freedom less. They do
- 4:28:36Speaker 3: not become disposed to accept the will of other people
- 4:28:40Speaker 3: as the representative and interpreter of those guiding principles. On
- 4:28:45Speaker 3: the contrary, the communities in which the reason has been
- 4:28:48Speaker 3: most cultivated and in which the idea of social duty
- 4:28:53Speaker 3: has been most powerful, are those which have most strongly
- 4:28:57Speaker 3: asserted the freedom of action of the ana individual, the
- 4:29:01Speaker 3: liberty of each to govern his conduct by his own
- 4:29:04Speaker 3: feelings of duty and by such laws in social restraints
- 4:29:09Speaker 3: as his own conscience can subscribe. To he who would
- 4:29:13Speaker 3: rightly appreciate the worth of personal independence as an element
- 4:29:17Speaker 3: of happiness, should consider the value he himself puts on
- 4:29:22Speaker 3: it as an ingredient of his own. There is no
- 4:29:25Speaker 3: subject on which there is a greater habitual difference of
- 4:29:28Speaker 3: judgment between a man judging for himself and the same
- 4:29:32Speaker 3: man judging for other people. When he hears others complaining
- 4:29:36Speaker 3: that they are not allowed freedom of action, that their
- 4:29:39Speaker 3: own will has not sufficient influence in the regulation of
- 4:29:43Speaker 3: their affairs, his inclination is to ask, what are their grievances,
- 4:29:49Speaker 3: what positive damage they sustain, and in what respect they
- 4:29:53Speaker 3: consider their affairs to be mismanaged? And if they fail
- 4:29:58Speaker 3: to make out in answer to these questions, what appears
- 4:30:02Speaker 3: to him a sufficient case, he turns a deaf ear
- 4:30:06Speaker 3: and regards their complaint as the fancible querulousness of people
- 4:30:10Speaker 3: whom nothing reasonable will satisfy. But he has a quite
- 4:30:15Speaker 3: different standard of judgment when he is deciding for himself.
- 4:30:20Speaker 3: Then the most unexceptionable administration of his interests by a
- 4:30:25Speaker 3: tutor set over him does not satisfy his feelings. His
- 4:30:30Speaker 3: personal exclusion from the deciding authority itself appears the greatest
- 4:30:35Speaker 3: grievance of all, rendering it superfluous even to enter into
- 4:30:39Speaker 3: the question of mismanagement. It is the same with nations.
- 4:30:45Speaker 3: What citizen of a free country would listen to any
- 4:30:49Speaker 3: offers of good and skillful administration in return for the
- 4:30:53Speaker 3: abdication of freedom? Even if he could believe that good
- 4:30:58Speaker 3: and skillful administration can exist among a people ruled by
- 4:31:02Speaker 3: a will not their own, would not the consciousness of
- 4:31:06Speaker 3: working out their own destiny under their own moral responsibility
- 4:31:11Speaker 3: be a compensation to his feelings for great rudeness and
- 4:31:15Speaker 3: imperfection in the dealings of public affairs. Let him rest
- 4:31:20Speaker 3: assured that whatever he feels on this point, women feel
- 4:31:24Speaker 3: in fully equal degree. Whatever has been said or written
- 4:31:29Speaker 3: from the time of Herodotus to the present of the
- 4:31:33Speaker 3: ennobling influence of free government, the nerve and spring which
- 4:31:37Speaker 3: it gives to all the faculties, the larger and higher
- 4:31:41Speaker 3: objects which it presents to the intellect and feelings, the
- 4:31:45Speaker 3: more unselfish public spirit and calmer and broader views of
- 4:31:49Speaker 3: duty that it engenders, and the generally loftier platform on
- 4:31:54Speaker 3: which it elevates the individual as a moral, spiritual, and
- 4:31:58Speaker 3: social being. Is every particle as true of women as
- 4:32:02Speaker 3: of men. Are these things no important part of individual happiness?
- 4:32:09Speaker 3: Let any man call to mind what he himself felt
- 4:32:12Speaker 3: on emerging from boyhood, from the tutelage and control of
- 4:32:16Speaker 3: even loved and affectionate elders, and entering upon the responsibilities
- 4:32:21Speaker 3: of manhood. Was it not like the physical effect of
- 4:32:25Speaker 3: taking off a heavy weight or releasing him from obstructive
- 4:32:29Speaker 3: even if not otherwise painful bonds. Did he not feel
- 4:32:35Speaker 3: twice as much alive, twice as much a human being
- 4:32:38Speaker 3: as before? And does he imagine that women have none
- 4:32:41Speaker 3: of these feelings? But it is a striking fact that
- 4:32:46Speaker 3: the satisfactions and mortifications of personal pride, though all in
- 4:32:51Speaker 3: all to most men when the case is their own,
- 4:32:55Speaker 3: have less allowance made for them in the case of
- 4:32:57Speaker 3: other people, and are less listened to as a ground
- 4:33:01Speaker 3: or justification of conduct than any other natural human feelings.
- 4:33:07Speaker 3: Perhaps because men compliment them in their own case with
- 4:33:11Speaker 3: the names of so many other qualities that they are
- 4:33:14Speaker 3: seldom conscious how mighty an influence these feelings exercise in
- 4:33:19Speaker 3: their own lives. No less large and powerful is their part,
- 4:33:24Speaker 3: we may assure ourselves in the lives and feelings of
- 4:33:28Speaker 3: women women are schooled into suppressing them in their most
- 4:33:32Speaker 3: natural and most healthy direction, But the internal principle remains
- 4:33:38Speaker 3: in a different outward form. An active and energetic mind,
- 4:33:42Speaker 3: if denied liberty, will seek for power, refuse the command
- 4:33:47Speaker 3: of itself. It will assert its personality by attempting to
- 4:33:51Speaker 3: control others, to allow any human beings no existence of
- 4:33:56Speaker 3: their own. But what depends on others is giving far
- 4:34:00Speaker 3: too high a premium on bending others to their purposes.
- 4:34:04Speaker 3: Where liberty cannot be hoped for and power can, power
- 4:34:09Speaker 3: becomes the grand object of human desire. Those to whom
- 4:34:13Speaker 3: others will not leave the undisturbed management of their own
- 4:34:16Speaker 3: affairs will compensate themselves if they can, by meddling for
- 4:34:21Speaker 3: their own purposes with the affairs of others. Hence also
- 4:34:25Speaker 3: women's passion for personal beauty and dress and display, and
- 4:34:30Speaker 3: all the evils that flow from it in the way
- 4:34:33Speaker 3: of mischievous luxury and social immorality. The love of power
- 4:34:38Speaker 3: and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism. Where
- 4:34:42Speaker 3: there is least liberty, the passion for power is the
- 4:34:45Speaker 3: most ardent and unscrupulous. The desire for power over others
- 4:34:50Speaker 3: can only cease to be a depraving agency among mankind
- 4:34:55Speaker 3: when each of them individually is able to do without it,
- 4:35:00Speaker 3: which can only be where respect for liberty in the
- 4:35:03Speaker 3: personal concerns of each is an established principle. But it
- 4:35:09Speaker 3: is not only through the sentiment of personal dignity that
- 4:35:12Speaker 3: the free direction and disposal of their own faculties is
- 4:35:16Speaker 3: a source of individual happiness, and to be fettered and
- 4:35:20Speaker 3: restricted in it a source of unhappiness to human beings,
- 4:35:24Speaker 3: and not least to women. There is nothing, after disease, indigence,
- 4:35:30Speaker 3: and guilt, so fatal to the pleasurable enjoyment of life
- 4:35:34Speaker 3: as the want of a worthy outlet for the active faculties.
- 4:35:39Speaker 3: Women who have the cares of a family, and while
- 4:35:42Speaker 3: they have the cares of a family, have this outlet,
- 4:35:46Speaker 3: and it generally suffices for them. But what of the
- 4:35:49Speaker 3: greatly increasing number of women who have had no opportunity
- 4:35:53Speaker 3: of exercising the vocation which they are mocked by telling
- 4:35:57Speaker 3: them is their proper one of the women whose children
- 4:36:01Speaker 3: have been lost to them by death or distance, or
- 4:36:04Speaker 3: have grown up, married and formed homes of their own.
- 4:36:09Speaker 3: There are abundant examples of men who, after a life
- 4:36:13Speaker 3: engrossed by business, retire with a competency to the enjoyment
- 4:36:17Speaker 3: as they hope of rest, but to whom as they
- 4:36:21Speaker 3: are unable to acquire new interests and excitements that can
- 4:36:25Speaker 3: replace the old, the change to a life of inactivity
- 4:36:29Speaker 3: brings on we melancholy and premature death. Yet no one
- 4:36:34Speaker 3: thinks of the parallel case of so many worthy and
- 4:36:37Speaker 3: devoted women, who, having paid what they are told is
- 4:36:41Speaker 3: their debt to society, have brought up a family blamelessly
- 4:36:45Speaker 3: to manhood and womanhood, having kept a house so long
- 4:36:49Speaker 3: as they have a house needing to be kept, are
- 4:36:52Speaker 3: deserted by the sole occupation for which they have fitted themselves,
- 4:36:57Speaker 3: and remain with undiminished activity, but with no employment for it,
- 4:37:02Speaker 3: unless perhaps a daughter or daughter in law is willing
- 4:37:05Speaker 3: to abdicate in their favor the discharge of the same
- 4:37:09Speaker 3: functions in her young household. Surely a hard lot for
- 4:37:13Speaker 3: the old age of those who have worthily discharged as
- 4:37:17Speaker 3: long as it was given to them to discharge what
- 4:37:20Speaker 3: the world accounts their only social duty. Of such women,
- 4:37:25Speaker 3: and of those to whom this duty has not been
- 4:37:28Speaker 3: committed at all, many of whom pine through life with
- 4:37:32Speaker 3: the consciousness of thwarted vocations and activities which are not
- 4:37:37Speaker 3: suffered to expand. The only resources, speaking generally, are religion
- 4:37:42Speaker 3: and charity. But their religion, though it may be one
- 4:37:46Speaker 3: of feeling and of ceremonial observance, cannot be a religion
- 4:37:51Speaker 3: of action unless in the form of charity. For charity.
- 4:37:55Speaker 3: Many of them are by nature admirably fitted, But to
- 4:37:59Speaker 3: practic to sit usefully or even without doing mischief, requires
- 4:38:04Speaker 3: the education and the manifold preparation, the knowledge and the
- 4:38:08Speaker 3: thinking powers of a skillful administrator. There are few of
- 4:38:13Speaker 3: the administrative functions of government for which a person would
- 4:38:17Speaker 3: not be fit who is fit to bestow charity usefully.
- 4:38:22Speaker 3: In this as in other cases, pre eminently in that
- 4:38:26Speaker 3: of the education of children, the duties permitted to women
- 4:38:30Speaker 3: cannot be performed properly without their being trained for duties which,
- 4:38:35Speaker 3: to the great loss of society, are not permitted to them.
- 4:38:39Speaker 3: And here let me notice the singular way in which
- 4:38:42Speaker 3: the question of women's disabilities is frequently presented to view
- 4:38:47Speaker 3: by those who find it easier to draw a ludicrous
- 4:38:50Speaker 3: picture of what they do not like than to answer
- 4:38:53Speaker 3: the arguments for it. When it is suggested that women's
- 4:38:57Speaker 3: executive capabilities and prudent councils might sometimes be found valuable
- 4:39:02Speaker 3: in the affairs of state. These lovers of fun hold
- 4:39:06Speaker 3: up to the ridicule of the world as sitting in
- 4:39:09Speaker 3: Parliament or in the cabinet, girls in their teens or
- 4:39:13Speaker 3: young wives of two or three and twenty, transported bodily
- 4:39:17Speaker 3: exactly as they are from the drawing room to the
- 4:39:20Speaker 3: House of Commons. They forget that males are not usually
- 4:39:25Speaker 3: selected at this early age for a seat in Parliament
- 4:39:28Speaker 3: or for responsible political functions. Common sense would tell them
- 4:39:33Speaker 3: that if such trusts were confided to women, it would
- 4:39:36Speaker 3: be too such as having no special vocation for married life,
- 4:39:41Speaker 3: or preferring other employment of their faculties, as many women
- 4:39:45Speaker 3: even now prefer to marriage, some of the few honorable
- 4:39:49Speaker 3: occupations within their reach. Have spent the best years of
- 4:39:52Speaker 3: their youth in attempting to qualify themselves for the pursuits
- 4:39:56Speaker 3: in which they desire to engage. Or still more, are
- 4:40:00Speaker 3: frequently perhaps widows or wives of forty or fifty, by
- 4:40:04Speaker 3: whom the knowledge of life and faculty of government which
- 4:40:07Speaker 3: they have acquired in their families could, by the aid
- 4:40:11Speaker 3: of appropriate studies, be made available on a less contracted scale.
- 4:40:16Speaker 3: There is no country of Europe in which the ablest
- 4:40:20Speaker 3: men have not frequently experienced and keenly appreciated the value
- 4:40:25Speaker 3: of the advice and help of clever and experienced women
- 4:40:29Speaker 3: of the world in attainment both of private and of
- 4:40:33Speaker 3: public objects. And there are important matters of public administration
- 4:40:38Speaker 3: to which few men are equally competent as such women,
- 4:40:42Speaker 3: among others the detailed controlled of expenditure. But what we
- 4:40:49Speaker 3: are now discussing is not the need which society has
- 4:40:52Speaker 3: of the services of women in public business, but the
- 4:40:56Speaker 3: dull and hopeless life to which it so often condemns
- 4:40:59Speaker 3: them by forbidding them to exercise the practical abilities which
- 4:41:04Speaker 3: many of them are conscious of in a wider field
- 4:41:07Speaker 3: than one to which some of them never was, and
- 4:41:10Speaker 3: to the others is no longer open. If there is
- 4:41:13Speaker 3: anything vitally important to the happiness of human beings, it
- 4:41:18Speaker 3: is that they should relish their habitual pursuit. This requisite
- 4:41:22Speaker 3: of an enjoyable life is very imperfectly granted, were altogether
- 4:41:27Speaker 3: denied to a large part of mankind, and by its
- 4:41:31Speaker 3: absence many a life is a failure which is provided
- 4:41:34Speaker 3: in appearance with every requisite of success. But if circumstances
- 4:41:40Speaker 3: which society is not yet skillful enough to overcome, render
- 4:41:45Speaker 3: such failures, often for the present inevitable society need not
- 4:41:50Speaker 3: itself inflict them the injudiciousness of parents, a youth's own inexperience,
- 4:41:57Speaker 3: or the absence of external opportunities for them. Congenial vocation
- 4:42:02Speaker 3: and their presence for an uncongenial condemn numbers of men
- 4:42:06Speaker 3: to pass their lives in doing one thing reluctantly and ill,
- 4:42:11Speaker 3: when there are other things which they could have done
- 4:42:14Speaker 3: well and happily. But on women this sentence is imposed
- 4:42:18Speaker 3: by actual law and by customs equivalent to law. What
- 4:42:23Speaker 3: in unenlightened societies color, race, religion, or, in the case
- 4:42:28Speaker 3: of a conquered country, nationality are to some men, sex
- 4:42:32Speaker 3: is to all women a peremptory exclusion from almost all
- 4:42:37Speaker 3: honorable occupations, but either as such cannot be fulfilled by others,
- 4:42:43Speaker 3: or such as those others do not think worthy of
- 4:42:46Speaker 3: their acceptance. Sufferings arising from causes of this nature usually
- 4:42:51Speaker 3: meet with so little sympathy that few persons are aware
- 4:42:55Speaker 3: of the great amount of unhappiness even now produced by
- 4:42:59Speaker 3: the feeling of wasted life. The case will be even
- 4:43:03Speaker 3: more frequent as increased cultivation creates a greater and greater
- 4:43:08Speaker 3: disproportion between the ideas and faculties of women and the
- 4:43:13Speaker 3: scope which society allows to their activity. When we consider
- 4:43:18Speaker 3: the positive evil caused to the disqualified half of the
- 4:43:22Speaker 3: human race by their disqualification, first in the loss of
- 4:43:26Speaker 3: the most inspiriting and elevating kind of personal enjoyment, and
- 4:43:31Speaker 3: next in the weariness, disappointment, and profound dissatisfaction with life,
- 4:43:37Speaker 3: which are so often the substitute for it, one feels
- 4:43:41Speaker 3: that among all the lessons which men require for carrying
- 4:43:45Speaker 3: on the struggle against the inevitable imperfections of their lot
- 4:43:49Speaker 3: on earth, there is no lesson which they more need
- 4:43:53Speaker 3: than not to add to the evils which nature inflicts.
- 4:43:56Speaker 3: By their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on one another, their
- 4:44:01Speaker 3: vain fears only substitute other and worse evils for those
- 4:44:06Speaker 3: which they are idly apprehensive of, While every restraint on
- 4:44:11Speaker 3: the freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow creatures,
- 4:44:15Speaker 3: otherwise than by making them responsible for an evil actually
- 4:44:19Speaker 3: caused by it, dries up. Pro Tanto, the principal foundation
- 4:44:24Speaker 3: of human happiness, and leaves the species less rich to
- 4:44:28Speaker 3: an inappreciable degree in all that makes life valuable to
- 4:44:33Speaker 3: the individual human being. End of Chapter four, Part two.
- 4:44:39Speaker 3: End of the Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill