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Women's Rights as Preached by Women1

Helen Taylor (October 1881)

[A review of Women's Rights as Preached by Women Past and Present, by "A Looker-on" (London, 1881).]

THEOLOGICAL, political, and social reformers may be classified or characterized from many points of view, but there is one in particular from which they are most frequently judged, and from which, according to the mental bias of the judge, praise or blame is awarded to them—often in no measured terms. We refer to that special point of view from which reformers are pronounced advanced or backward, bold or timid, the unflinching exponents of principles, in season and out of season, or the conformists to what is often contemptuously called expediency. The now numerous advocates of Women's Rights belong to one or to the other of these two classes, and in an able and interesting pamphlet by "A Looker-on" the cautious exemplifiers of "expediency" are rather unmercifully dealt with. The pamphlet is in two parts, called, respectively, "Past" and "Present." In the "Past" we are introduced to a rediscovered heroine—"Sophia, a person of quality," who, as a precursor of Mary Wollstonecraft,2 published in 1740 a remarkable little book, with the quaint title, Women not inferior to Man; or, a short and modest Vindication of the natural Right of the Fair Sex to a perfect Equality of Power, Dignity, and Esteem with the Man. (Printed for John Hawkins, at the Falcon, in St. Paul's Church Yard, MDCCXL.) "A Looker-on" tells us that Sophia's

mind is logical and daring; her style quaint and original; and although, occasionally, she somewhat fails in command over her temper, she is very truly a person of quality in a far higher sense than that in which she herself claims to be such. She lacks the judicial calmness which distinguishes her greater sister (Mary Wollstonecraft), who views the question of Women's Rights from the high standpoint of the moral advantages to the whole human race which must necessarily follow in the train of justice. Sophia starts at once from the point of view that women are deprived of their rights through man's prejudice, selfishness, and quite unwarranted pride. "If," she exclaims, "this haughty sex would have us believe they have a natural right of superiority over us, why don't they prove their charter from Nature by making use of reason to subdue themselves?"

Sophia thinks that men and women alike are too nearly concerned in the decision of the question of women's equality with man to be even admitted as witnesses at the trial, much less as judges, "and therefore," she says,

"we must be obliged to appeal to a more impartial Judge; to one incapable of siding with either side, and, consequently unsuspected on both. This I apprehend to be rectified Reason, as it is a purely intellectual faculty, elevated above the consideration of any sex, and equally concerned in the welfare of the whole rational species, in general and in particular."

Though Sophia might have found it difficult to give a satisfactory definition of what she meant by "rectified Reason," it is evident that by means of it she so sharpened her intellectual vision as to be able to descry the position which is being achieved by her sex a century and a half after her death. She says:

"If from immemorable time the Men had been so little envious and so very impartial as to do justice to our talents, by admitting us to our right of sharing with them in public action, they would have been as accustomed to see us filling public offices as we are to see them disgrace them; and to see a lady at a bar or on a bench3 would have been no more strange than it is now to see a grave judge whimpering at his maid's knees, ... or a peer of Great Britain playing with his garter. . . .4 Men [she says], by thinking women incapable of improving their intellects, have entirely thrown them out of all the advantages of education, and thereby contributed as much as possible to make them the senseless creatures they imagine them. . . . Besides, let it be observed, what a wretched circle this poor way of reasoning among the Men draws them insensibly into. Why is learning useless to us? Because we have no share in public offices. And why have we no share in public offices? Because we have no learning. They are sensible of the injustice they do us, and are reduced to the mean shift of cloaking it at the expense of their own reason."

"It is interesting to observe," as pointed out by "A Looker-on," "that, while thus claiming education for her sex in the name of 'rectified Reason,' Sophia anticipates a portion of the progress realized in our own century." She says: "Our sex seem born to teach and practice physic; to restore health to the sick and to preserve it to the well. Neatness, handiness, and compliance are one-half of a patient's cure, and in this the Men must yield to us."

"A Looker-on" next refers to Sophia's greater sister and successor, Mary Wollstonecraft, who, we are told,

is something more than the most illustrious champion of the equality of women's rights with those of men, though this were distinction enough. But Mary founds her claim upon a higher equality than this: she has a profound belief in the equality of all humanity before the moral law, . . . Her complaint is that from women are withheld the rights belonging to the whole human species; rights which she, like Sophia, believes they must enjoy, when improvable reason is allowed to be the dignified distinction which raises man above the brute creation.... The very constitution of civil government has, [she says,] put almost insuperable obstacles in the way to prevent the cultivation of the female understanding, "yet virtue can be built on no other foundation."

It is not surprising, [continues "A Looker-on,"] that, keeping for ever in view her grand principle of the equal rights of all the children of the same parent, Mary has not one word to say of the so-called "rights" of property. She troubles herself no more with such arguments than with the remark of "a lively writer" (whose name she cannot remember), and who obtains but a passing word of contempt for having inquired: What business women of forty have in the world?

Here, in the short paragraph last quoted, we discover the gist and inspiration of "A Looker-on's" pamphlet: he, or she (we say "or she," for in these days the sex of authors is becoming undistinguishable), is horrified by the proceedings of those advocates of the legal claims of women who demand for each of them possessing the property qualification, which if possessed by a man would confer on him the suffrage, the privilege of voting for members of Parliament.

On the 7th of June, 1866, the late Mr. J.S. Mill presented to the House of Commons a petition, signed by 1,500 ladies. The petition set forth that the possession of property in this country carries with it the right to vote in the election of representatives in Parliament, that the exclusion from this right of women holding property is therefore anomalous, and that the petitioners pray that the representation of householders may be provided for without distinction of sex. Shortly after this petition was presented we observed5—

This claim, that, since women are permitted to hold property, they should also be permitted to exercise all the rights which, by our laws, the possession of property brings with it, is put forward in this petition on such strictly constitutional grounds, and is advanced so entirely without reference to any abstract rights or fundamental changes in the institutions of English society, that it is impossible not to feel that the ladies who make it have done so with a practical purpose in view, and that they conceive themselves to be asking only for the recognition of rights which flow naturally from the existing laws and institutions of the country.

In connection with the effort denoted by this petition Mr. Mill introduced into the House of Commons a Bill intended to give unmarried women possessing the property qualification the Parliamentary franchise.6 This movement, thus initiated, has been vigorously and persistently supported by a considerable number of the most intelligent women of England, a fact frankly attested by "A Looker-on," who says:

All who have studied the speeches delivered at the Women's Suffrage meetings which have taken place in the past fourteen years, must have gladly noted how much of logic, wit, and truth, and how little of mere verbiage, has fallen from women's lips on those occasions. It might, no doubt, be said, that the majority of the female orators were picked women, exceptional alike in capacity and education; but, whatever the explanation of the fact may be, I think that all impartial judges would admit that the ladies have generally shown themselves superior both in wit and arguments to their male opponents; that they have displayed a quite special aptitude for debate, and have proved themselves able to rival male politicians in the adoption of those tactics which are the recognized methods of political success. And it is especially noteworthy that in none of the able addresses, and still abler replies spoken by women, can one detect any trace of that sentimentalism which it was customary to assume that they would introduce into political life. I might almost go so far as to say that they have introduced neither sentiment nor imagination into the question. (P. 21.)

A movement, headed by Mr. Mill, and steadily carried on by a large body of women with the calm dignity, energy, ability, and business-like skill ascribed to them by "A Looker-on," must possess great intrinsic claims on public attention, and cannot fail to command the cordial respect and interest of the great majority of all who are truly anxious to promote both the political and social improvement of the English people. "A Looker-on," however, disapproves this movement altogether, and occupies eighteen octavo pages in denouncing it as a practical abandonment of the great principle contended for by "Sophia" and Mary Wollstonecraft—the essential equality of the sexes—and a "degrading retrogression signalised by the sanction given to Mr. Forsyth's attempt to confirm and perpetuate the political subjection of married women by statutory law."7 It is always an advantage to have the mind's eye of every reformer steadily fixed on the broad general principle for the realization of which he is working; for it ought always to be his guide and inspiration; and there can be no doubt that many such workers for an installment only of that which the general principle in question declares due, too often lapse into forgetfulness of the full extent of their claim, in consequence of their complete mental absorption in the work immediately before them. This consideration makes us grateful to "A Looker-on" for holding up aloft the flag of the general principle—equality of the sexes, and warning his, or her, co-workers of the danger of ignoring it, while concentrating their thoughts and energies (it may be too exclusively) on the endeavour to enforce a concession of some small part only of the whole which that principle exacts. In favour of the doctrine and method espoused by the author, probably all has been said that can be said, and the position assumed is certainly maintained with remarkable ability, the writer's arguments being often illuminated with flashes of humour, which do as much, perhaps, as the arguments themselves, to win the reader's acquiescence. The following passage is a clear and concise expression of the author's objection to the movement in question:

It is because we hold it to be essential to the just government of the human race, that the mind and heart of the mother of the race should have full expression in the councils of her children, that outsiders like myself regret that representative women should have abandoned Mary Wollstonecraft's demand for full justice towards her sex, and substituted for it the mere reiteration of the narrow claim that a political privilege enjoyed by a large number of their countrymen should be conceded to a favoured few of their countrywomen. They do well to demand the suffrage: the right to be heard is the first step towards the acquirement of their fitting place in the human family; but it is grievous that they should stoop to demand it on the paltry plea that the material superiority over their less fortunate sisters which they already possess—the property, which, in the case of spinsters and widows, is not a fiction but a reality—is liable to the same form of direct taxation as the property of men. . . . From the day of their first public meeting, down to the recent demonstration in Manchester and London, the "cry of the women" has never been raised in the name of the dignity and rights of womanhood. They have not said to their brothers: "Respect in us the distinctive qualities of heart and mind, the special aptitudes, intelligence, and aspirations of our sex." Their cry has been and is: "Respect our property: let not the sex of the possessor interfere with the sacred rights of property." One might fancy the leading ladies to be lineal descendants of the celebrated "Northern Farmer," and that their carriage-wheels echo in their ears the refrain sounded in his by his horse's hoofs: "Proputty, proputty, proputty!"8

But, to whatever extent this charge may be justifiable, it is certainly groundless in respect to the great leader of the movement in question—Mr. J. S. Mill: his admirable book on The Subjection of Women effectually shields him from the possibility of such an imputation. In the opening page of that book he affirms "that the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex to the other—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement, and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of per feet equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other."9 We may add the expression of our belief that, at any rate, 99 out of every 100 of the women who have taken an active part in the Women's Suffrage Movement have read that book, have been mainly guided as co-operators in that movement by its teachings, and that, along with its distinguished author, they have looked on the limited claim set forth in the "Ladies' Petition" as a method of enforcing the concession of a small installment of their rights, or in other words, of inserting the thin end of the wedge, which they confidently expect to drive home by-and-by.

Under one name or another the world of humanity is ever divided between Reformers and Conservatives; men of action and men of repose; of claimants and possessors; of those who attack and of those who defend the existing order of things: in short, of reformers and the opponents of reform. The manifold struggles between these two great parties are constantly proceeding with only brief intervals of rest; but during these intervals temporary compromises are effected, and these become fresh and ever higher vantage ground for new attacks. Thus compromises become the means by which region after region of the vast domain of conservatism is successively detached and annexed to the ever-increasing republic of true liberty and civilization. Compromises are, in fact, the successive incarnations of the spirit of progress, and those who denounce and stigmatize them as abdications of principle and pusillanimous yieldings to expediency, do but reveal their own impatience or excess of ardour—seemingly forgetful of the calm measured steps of Nature's processes of evolution.

When Mr. Mill introduced the original Women's Suffrage Bill,10 which would have conferred the suffrage on the comparatively small number of spinsters and widows who possess the requisite qualification, the demand for that small installment of the great debt still due to women by the State was in our opinion both a legitimate and a judicious one. It was "asking only," as we said at the time, "for the recognition of rights which flow naturally from the existing laws and institutions of the country."11 But, now, fourteen years have elapsed since that demand—not yet acceded to—was made; and, meanwhile, public opinion on the subject has so far developed and matured that what would then have been acceptable as a first concession of voting-power to women, will seem, we believe, to most thoughtful persons, a compromise too inadequate and insignificant for acceptance now; the more especially as—it is to be hoped—a minister, supported by the very large Liberal majority which supports Mr. Gladstone, can have no difficulty at the present time, if he deals with the subject at all, in extorting for women an amount of justice much more ample than that which would have been gratefully accepted, and which would have been representative of the state of public opinion, in 1867.12 Moreover, the literate ladies of this generation are not likely to ignore the significant lesson conveyed in the story of the Sibylline books.13

We regret our inability to concur in the opinion of "A Looker-on" respecting the aim and method of procedure of the "Women's Movement." The leaders of that movement ask, we are told, "that the suffrage be accorded to them 'on the same terms as it is, or may be, accorded to men.' Wherefore?" demands the writer; and then observes: "If the Rights of Women be not an empty phrase, women have no cause for such reverence for the law as it is, or even as it may be, so long as it is framed exclusively by men." We freely admit that the extraordinarily various, and even bizarre qualifications which confer the Parliamentary franchise on Englishmen, are not likely to command the admiration of anyone intent on devising, de novo,14 a system by which the admission of women to the franchise may be most advantageously regulated; and, certainly, we do not think such a reformer would be disposed, in constructing his system, to imitate the heterogeneous one now in operation. But it seems to us neither necessary nor desirable to devise a new system; and, if it were, such a system would certainly be framed exclusively by men in the first instance, and, whether afterwards retaining its original form, or modified from time to time, it would continue to exist by the authority of men only for an indefinitely long period—at least until women become members of the House of Commons, and obtain a majority there. Hence "the leaders of the Women's Movement" must either "ask that the suffrage be accorded to them on the same terms as it is, or may be, accorded to men," or they must themselves be prepared to propose the terms on which they are willing to accept it. Now, we are of the opinion that to adopt the latter plan would be to render their acquirement of the suffrage at all very problematical—at least, until social changes in England so vast as to be at present wholly unforeseeable and incalculable shall have come to pass; whereas, the adoption of the former plan is, we think, the indisputably right road to success, is in every respect eminently practicable, and is, therefore, the one which wisdom and common sense alike indicate should be chosen for "the Women's Movement."

Some women who have taken up the cause of their sex seem to think they will hasten their success by assuming an attitude of antagonism towards men whom they denounce as their selfish and cruel oppressors. Sophia is a notable leader of this class of reformers; but their achievements are not in proportion to the noise and vehemence of their attacks. Others, while agitating for reform, without asking the help of men, proceed in a quiet and more dignified manner; but both abstain from inviting the co-operation of men, and actually exclude them from their meetings! At their last great meeting at St. James's Hall no man was allowed to be present, we believe, in the body of the hall; and any male creature who was permitted to enter the narrow gallery had to pay 2s. 6d. for the privilege.15 With all due respect to those who adopt this method of procedure, we feel constrained to say that, alike in spirit and conduct, it is a grave mistake. As a matter of fact, the interests of men and women in this matter are not antagonistic or divided, but harmonious and identical. Every man who has really studied the question knows quite well that every advantage gained by women from an increase of physical, intellectual, and moral development, and from that greater individuality and personal independence which would come of their complete political enfranchisement and equality with men before the law, would be at least shared by the two sexes equally, and that, indeed, men would probably be the chief gainers. We believe that in England at the present time the number of men who are convinced of the necessity of the complete legal and social emancipation of women, and who earnestly desire it, greatly exceeds the number of women having a like conviction and desire, and we are confident that in proportion as the "leaders of the Women's Movement" encourage and ensure the co-operation of their brethren, will their success become increasingly great and rapid.

For the reasons just given, we are of opinion that it is especially expedient that the "leaders of the Women's Movement" should in all their proceedings insist implicitly or explicitly that the interest of the two sexes are identical; and, as one form of affirming this conviction, should ask that the suffrage be accorded to them "on the same terms as it is, or may be, accorded to men." If they do this, the claim of spinsters and widows having the property qualification will be included in the larger claim of all women, whether married or single, having that qualification; and it is to be hoped that in due time the importance and dignity attaching to the responsibility of having the Parliamentary franchise will induce women about to marry to abstain from surrendering their property, when they have any, into the hands of their husbands, and thus to retain the qualification for exercising the franchise, their marriage notwithstanding. And, following up their success in this respect, they will do well to continue their agitation in the direction men have already taken. "A Looker-on" remarks: "Their vigorous assertion of the principle of manhood suffrage did undoubtedly extort from their rulers a far wider extension of household suffrage than the limited demand would have done." And the writer justly adds: "But the same is true of every successful reform movement." And why should not the women who feel themselves qualified to exercise the franchise, and who do not possess the property qualification, imitate the men who by their efforts obtained the household suffrage? Indeed, as men have already begun to agitate for manhood suffrage, women would act most judiciously, because they would thus greatly increase their chance of success, were they to combine and concentrate their strength for the one object of inducing men on every occasion when they advocate in public meetings or through the press for an extension of the suffrage, to advocate it for each adult human being, irrespective of sex; to inscribe on their banner not only manhood but womanhood suffrage; to associate women with them throughout every phase of their agitation, and thus practically declare their recognition of the solidarity of the claims and interests, as well as the essential equality and dignity, of the two sexes. Co-operating in this way, men and women reformers will exemplify anew and on a vast scale the truth of the maxim, "Union is strength; whereas, if English women, in their struggle for political enfranchisement desert the well-beaten paths which English men have trod in pursuit of their own political freedom, and striking out new paths for themselves, endeavour to acquire the franchise in accordance with some principle or method which may be scientifically admirable, but which is wholly unsupported by English customs or precedents, they will enormously and needlessly increase the difficulties between them and the goal towards which they are struggling, and, we fear, the time, also, which has yet to elapse before they reach it.

Footnotes:

References:

From Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (eds.), Sexual Equality:Writings by John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill, and Helen Taylor [Toronto: University of Toronto, 1994] pp. 292 - 302

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