Frances Emily White

“ Probably not; no great question has ever yet been fully answered—and, although the human organism may be divided, for purposes of study, into numerous sets of apparatus, each having a definite office in the general economy—as the digestive apparatus, the reproductive, the intellectual, etc.—the correlation of all the forces and functions of the body is so intimate and subtile that true philosophy makes no attempt to measure the exact and separate influence of any one force or function upon the rest, or upon the organism as a whole. ”

“ In fact, the subordination of man to woman, different in kind from its converse, is equally apparent; both seem to be matters of common consciousness. It may be readily seen how, in early times, when muscular strength and general physical power were held in the highest esteem, that the position of woman should have been a subordinate one. Animal courage, endurance of physical hardships, the strength, cunning, and agility, which enabled men to cope with wild beasts and with each other, were the traits of character most prized, because most conservative of life in those barbarous times ”

“ The cause of this seems to lie in the males of almost all animals having stronger passions than the females. Hence it is that the males fight together, and sedulously display their charms before the females; and those which are victorious transmit their superiority to their male offspring." The question naturally arises, How have the males of the lower animals acquired this greater strength of passion? Says Darwin: "It would be no advantage, and some loss of power, if both sexes were mutually to search for each other; but why should the male almost always be the seeker?" ”

“ When a machine is taken to pieces, or falls into decay, what becomes of the forces previously manifested by it? Have they gone off, in some associated way, to manifest themselves elsewhere in manufacturing carpets, impelling railroad-trains, or printing newspapers as determined by the original construction of the machine which they have deserted? This question belongs as legitimately to science as the one discussed in the article previously referred to; for the scientist has no knowledge of mind apart from the brain which manifests it. ”

“ While man has been engaged in contests with the common enemy, during which his fiercest passions will have been aroused, woman has been subjected to the discipline of family life. To meet emergencies successfully, to provide for the sick, to maintain order and discipline in the household, which, at an early period in human history, included slaves as well as children, will have required mental powers of a high order. At the same time she will have developed a milder character through the exercise of the beneficent traits of maternal love, and solicitude for the absent husband and father. ”

“ As man's place in Nature is to be comprehended only by comparison with the various grades of organisms below him in the scale of being, so woman's place, as compared with that of man, is to be rightly understood only by a study of the relations of the sexes through the whole range of organized beings, involving a consideration of vegetable existence even, since sex accompanies all its higher forms. Paradoxical as it may seem, the less includes the greater—evolution being an unrolling or unfolding of that which potentially exists. ”

“ Although men do not now fight for the sake of obtaining wives, and this form of selection has passed away, yet they generally have to undergo, during manhood, a severe struggle in order to maintain themselves and their families, and this will tend to keep up, or even increase, their mental powers, and, as a consequence, the present inequality between the sexes.... In order that woman should reach the same standard as man, she ought, when nearly adult, to be trained to energy and perseverance, and to have her reason and imagination exercised to the highest point ”

“ Thus it appears that while sexual selection and intellectual development have gone hand-in-hand, it is no less true that the moral and emotional sides of, human nature have been developed by the operation of the same laws mainly through the female portion of the race. Though Darwin scarcely does more than touch upon this phase of the subject, he says: "Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition, chiefly in her greater tenderness and less selfishness;" ”

“ Among which of its parts shall we look for the grandeur of movement, the rush of harmonies, and the eloquence, more powerful than that of words, which, as it thrills the metallic strings, awakens responsive vibrations among those differently constituted and conditioned strings which form the organ of hearing, and through this organ arouses emotions among the deepest of which our natures are susceptible? ”

“ The human brain presents the most complex and highly-organized form of matter known. Its relations and means of communication with the other less complex organs which make up the entire body are most subtile and intimate; through the organs of the special senses it is also brought into communication with an environment limited only by the range of vision, which is extended, by telescope and microscope, to the nebulosities which belong to immensity on the one hand, and to the obscurities of the infinitesimal on the other. ”

“ If the forces emanating from this great source of life and mind are convertible into human energies, then—according to the same law—human energies are convertible into those of the prototype. No new principle is introduced by such a conception, and, in order to make the figure good, the forces of the prototype must even be regarded as of a lower order than human energies. ”

“ Among these are the greater size, strength, courage, and pugnacity of the male, which most naturalists admit to have been acquired or modified by sexual selection—not depending on any superiority in the general struggle for life, but on certain individuals of one sex, generally the male, having been successful in conquering other males, and thus having left a larger number of offspring to inherit their superiority.
In the human species, the differences between the sexes are marked. The greater size and strength of man are apparent. ”

“ While the distinction of sex has for its manifest object the continuation of the race, that it is of deeper significance than this—that it has important bearings upon race-development as well as race-preservation—is indicated by a mass of evidence of so great weight as to carry with it the force of a demonstration. In Darwin's "Descent of Man" we have an accumulation of statements of facts gathered from vast fields of observation by many of the foremost naturalists of the age ”

“ The idea of annihilation either of matter or of force is inadmissible to science; but there is a constant shifting—a disappearing and reappearing—of different modes of energy, corresponding to the unceasing mutations of matter ”

“ Lecky says that "the change from the ideal of paganism to the ideal of Christianity was a change from a type which was essentially male to a type which was essentially feminine." As the race shall continue to approach the level of its lofty ideal, the subordination of woman, as well as that of man, will continue to lessen, since both have their chief foundation in the lower traits of character, the force in the one case being superior strength combined with power of will, and, in the other, superior beauty with the desire to fascinate. ”

“ Whether or not this relationship be accepted, the same principles which have prevailed among lower animals must have been operative in the progress and development of the human race.
During the long ages when man was in a condition of barbarism, it must have been the strongest and boldest hunters and warriors who would succeed best in the struggle for existence, thus improving the race through the operation of natural selection, and the survival of the fittest; while the stronger passions accompanying these traits would lead to their success in securing the wives of their choice. ”

“ The perception of musical cadences, and a sensitiveness to the influence of rhythm, manifested even by many of the lower animals, naturally associating themselves with the rhythm of motion, would tend to early development, on the part of the female, in the care and nursing of her young; while sexual selection has probably played a still more important part in the origin of music. ”

“ Should some onward glances be attempted, "a scientific use of the imagination" only will be indulged in, and the possibilities of the future will be inferred from the actualities of the past and the present. ”

“ With lowly-organized animals permanently affixed to the same spot, and having their sexes separate, the male element is invariably brought to the female; and we can see the reason; for the ova, even if detached before being fertilized, and not requiring subsequent nourishment or protection, would be, from their larger relative size, less easily transported than the male element.... In case of animals having little power of locomotion, the fertilizing element must be trusted to the risk of at least a short transit through the waters of the sea. ”

“ During the battles of rival males, the female will have occupied the less active but more dignified position of arbiter and judge. Net being in the heat of the conflict, she will have had opportunity to observe the strategy of each, and to weigh their comparative merits. By this exercise of the faculties of observation, comparison, judgment, and reason, her intellectual powers will have been "continually put to the test and selected during" womanhood. ”

“ Hence the advantages primarily gained by man have been bestowed upon his descendants of both sexes, though as has been shown, in a somewhat less degree upon the female. Let us now glance at the converse of these vivid pictures of the advantages accruing to man through habits and conditions arising from primary sexual characters, and endeavor to learn whether the habits and conditions necessarily attaching to the female have been the source of any gain either to herself or to the race as a whole. ”

“ The phrase "principle of life" is deceptive; the expression "manifestation of life" means something definite, since life may be regarded as the sum of the forces manifested by certain forms of matter brought into certain relations with each other, and with the environment ”

“ This is a general statement, applicable to the race as a whole, but it follows that, in so far as reproduction is a greater physical tax upon woman than upon man, so far she labors under a natural disability to equal man intellectually, there being a necessary antagonism between self-evolution and race evolution, since energy expanded in one direction is not available in another. ”

“ The less degree of hardship and exposure to Which she has been subjected have doubtless tended to develop in her the physical beauty in which she is generally acknowledged to be man's superior; while the fact that women have long been selected and prized for their beauty will have tended, on the principle of sexual selection, to increase the differences originally acquired through natural selection. ”

“ Darwin, in suggesting a method—evidently impracticable, however—by which women may become the intellectual peers of men, fails to provide for the elevation of man to a moral equality with woman, although he admits that "the moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers." ”

“ The principal argument against its equal force in the two cases is found in the fact that the young of both sexes in many animals, including the human, most resemble the mother. While this is true in a limited sense, the points of greater resemblance being mainly of a physical character, as superior softness and smoothness of skin, greater delicacy of muscles, muscular tissue, etc., it is not applicable to the qualities of tenderness and unselfishness, the cruelty and selfishness of children, especially boys, being proverbial. ”

“ As these influences are gradually losing their power of despotic sway, woman, in place of acting as the slave, the toy, or the tyrant of man, is becoming not only his companion, but the custodian of the moral and religious interests of society, man looking at her as the natural critic and judge of the moral aspects of his conduct. ”

“ Those qualities, regarded as preeminently feminine, have risen in common estimation, and mere muscular superiority, and even intellectual power, are now put to the test of comparison with the higher moral qualities.
It is true that the laws of most countries still discriminate in a manner unfavorable to women. Legislation has been largely upon the ideal basis of every woman being under the protection of some man, and of all men being the true defenders of all women, and this is evidently traceable to the conviction, already alluded to, that a subordidate position belongs naturally to woman. ”