C. C. Stopes

“ If the dignity of being able to earn money has raised women immensely in social life, their higher education has made this earning possible. Dependent sisters need no longer hang their heads in shame before supporting brothers. If they are not needed in their homes, they may go forth into the world, eat the sweet bread of honest labour, and become individuals.
But the woman is fettered still by the trammels of custom, by the protection accorded to males; false social and economic creeds which teach that man’s work must be paid higher than woman’s, whether it is better done or not ”

“ Before the close of the eighteenth century, however, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin blew a loud trumpet blast, in her indignant “Vindication of the Rights of Women.” She treats the subject on lines that men and women are only now beginning to learn to read. “There can be no duty without reason. There can be no morality without equality. There can be no justice when its recipients are only of one sex. Let us first consider women in the broad light of human creatures, who, in common with 128men, are placed upon the earth to unfold their faculties.” ”

“ The Laws of Chivalry refined the Upper Classes, inculcating Truth, Loyalty, Chastity, Courtesy, Liberality, Reverence for Women and Generosity to the Weak. But the real foundation of Privilege in Chivalric times was practically Strength, Courage and Success among men. Beauty, Grace and Honour among women. These qualities being temporary, were not synonymous with Justice. The position of Divinity is an unstable one, depending on the attitude of the worshippers. When Chivalry faded out of men’s hearts, women felt that the outer shell of custom meant little. ”

“ After an impartial analysis of the laws regarding women, can men say that they are just? Can they continue to assert that they know better than women do what they need, and wish, and strain after; and if they know, will they do the thing that is necessary? With the best will in the world, which I believe the majority of men have, they do not know how. Only the foot that wears the shoe knows just where it pinches, and feels keenly the need of alteration. ”

“ Inheritance was equal and independent of sex, either in relations of descent or of marriage. The children all inherited equally, with a certain special tender consideration for the youngest, male or female. A widow had the half of her husband’s property till she married again; a widower had the half of his wife’s property, while he remained single. This equality in property necessarily gave the women of Kent fuller privilege. The recognition of the freedom of womanhood naturally made the men of Kent more free. “Of all the English shires, be ye surnamed the Free.” ”

“ If women, oppressed by various burdens, wish their will should reach the House, they must be given a voice. The only method by which the needs and wishes of women can be considered duly is by classing them once more among the “represented.” In vain otherwise will they look to their friends in the House to help various Bills they desire to pass, or to restrain other Bills they desire not to pass. It is not their friends they require to affect, it is their opponents. And their opponents can only be converted to the woman’s cause when women become Electors. ”

“ The loudest Puritan cry of the seventeenth century was, it is true, “No Bishop;” but the practical work Puritanism was really allowed to do in politics was to make the representation of women in the Lower House theoretically impossible.
As antagonistic to the doctrine of the subjection of women are the Principles of Liberty. How can men become truly free that ignore, for others, the liberties founded on the same reasonings by which they enfranchised themselves? Yet every great era in the Evolution of so-called Popular Liberty has been marked by contemporary restrictions of Feminine Freedom. ”

“ An indivisible inheritance, such as a title, fell in abeyance among daughters until decided by the selection of the Crown, though it was generally granted to the eldest daughter. [i.] Unless a woman, therefore, was an only child, she did not succeed to the entire advantages of “the heir,” but as only child, and sole heiress, she inherited to the full the rights and privileges of her father, brother, or ancestor. Sex-in-itself did not disqualify a woman from anything. There was no excusing a woman a duty, and consequently no denying her a privilege. ”

“ In my second Chapter I spoke somewhat of women’s privilege as heiresses, but I would like here to add a few words about unprivileged earners.
Labour is the Basis of Property.—I do not wish now to analyse all the Economic Theories regarding the relations of Property to Labour, but only the one that touches our question. In olden times Labour was paid in kind. Money is an arbitrary sign of labour, as speech is of thought. Money is an easy medium by which the returns of labour can be transferred, either in purchase of other property or of other labour, or as a free gift or inheritance. ”

“ It is absurd, therefore, to believe that a wife’s earnings are limited to those hours that she takes from her husband’s service and sells to some other employer of labour, who pays her in so much coin of the realm. ”

“ The courage of Nicholaa de la Haye and Black Agnes of Dunbar; of the Countess of Derby and the Marchioness of Hamilton during the Civil War has been emulated by many others. Some men assert scornfully that women are not fit for privilege or power. To assert a thing is not to prove it. If women are not fit for the Franchise, perhaps it may be made fit for them. It is perfectly certain that they are fitted to enjoy justice and to benefit by freedom. Some sentimentalists say that women are too pliable and delicate to be exposed to the roughnesses of political life. ”

“ The more a woman is like an angel, the more is she needed to counsel and to work with men.
That women do not want it, is another futile objection. No classes or masses ever unanimously want saving regeneration of any kind, until the few have made it seem desirable to them. We know that at least a quarter of a million women in this country do want it, and have set their hands to the present great “Appeal to the Members of Parliament” to grant them political freedom for weighty reasons. ”

“ I have always felt that our sex owes much to our Queen simply for being what she is. At the time of the Reform Bill of 1832, she was being trained wisely for her future duties. The intellectual powers of a girl, when educated under favourable conditions, were brilliantly illustrated in her. The young Queen succeeded in 1837, and from the commencement of her reign there has been a constantly expanding view of the educatability even of ordinary girls. The want of good secondary schools was at first severely felt; but women began to patch up their education by private study or at public Lectures. ”

“ The relations of representation to taxation are assailed. New bases of privilege are being proposed. There are those who hold that Property is no sound foundation on which to build a Constitution. Some would put in its place the notion of Justice, which others name the right of the Individual. But those who accept this are divided into two great classes, the first considering Justice in its own nature, and treating Individuals as the indivisible units to which Justice is to be applied, units not to be segregated by any test into groups receiving Justice or no Justice. ”

“ Many mistakes have been taken for facts, many fallacious arguments based upon erroneous premises. A Review of the History of Women that have hitherto ever exercised any privilege is necessary for generalisations to be based thereon. For by this process we may unite the followers of Legality and Precedent with the worshippers of Justice and Equality, and the union of the two forces, like those of the sun and moon upon the sea, may raise the high “tide in the affairs of women that leads on to fortune.” ”

“ The twenty-six years have not been lost, however, even in regard to Women’s Suffrage. Meanwhile have been growing up young men and young women, educated under the broadening effect of more equal privileges in 157learning. The old restrictions seem to them meaningless in the new light of reason. A generous youth, in the older Universities, who has been beaten by a woman in a mathematical examination, feels his brow flush when he receives the reward that is denied to her, and feels shame instead of pride that he has to be protected against her competition. ”

“ What is simply unjust, when individuals are selected on the basis of sex, becomes both illogical and unjust when questions of sex are imposed on those of property. Sex is an inseparable accident, and when accepted as the Basis of Justice, closes the question; property is a separable accident, and must be considered upon different lines. The various objections to any simple, logical, homogeneous, and just arrangement of the Bases of Privilege, while depending on the doctrine of sex, are worked out by two sub-sections of thinkers upon different lines. ”

“ Men have placed all women in one class now. We are all sisters, and “co-parceners” one with another. They have extended political privileges to all, under conditions very easy to fulfil, except to Aliens, Minors, Lunatics, Criminals, and Women. The Aliens may become naturalised, the Minors may attain majority, Lunatics may regain their reason, and when a Criminal has served his time he may become once more a free British Elector. The noblest and the best, the most learned and philanthropic of women, classed with the worst, are reckoned as something lower than the lowest Criminal. ”

“ Representative Freewomen, therefore, have always been in a small minority. The dominance of a temporary majority sends a minority into the Opposition; in which exile it lays plans for future action, when in the see-saw of political change its turn comes to rise again. The majority has always to consider the minority in its calculations and actions. But a permanent majority, consciously or unconsciously, labours to oust a permanent minority from recognised and recognisable existence even as an Opposition. ”

“ Noxious trades, impure air, bad drainage, poison women as they do men. Women have as much interest in the character and wisdom of the members of the house as men have, because they also suffer from the consequences of their unwise actions. How, therefore, can anyone say—these things do not concern women?
It would be better for men too, if women were represented. They would then understand the meaning of Justice, and enjoy the return blessings of fair-play. They would discover that in the very difference of women lies one great argument for their being consulted. ”

“ John Stuart Mill redeemed his father’s errors and moved an Amendment that it should be made expressly to include women. “We ought not to deny to them what we are conceding to everyone else, a right to be consulted; of having, what every petty trade or profession has, a few members who feel specially called on to attend to their interests, to point out how these interests are affected by law.” “The want of this protection has affected their interests vitally. The rich can make private laws unto themselves by settlements, but what of the poor?” ”

“ In none of these Universities can women, either as Undergraduates or Graduates, vote for the University Member of Parliament. The same anomaly exists as existed in relation to a property qualification. The real qualification in a University is based upon attending certain classes, passing certain examinations, living under certain conditions, and paying certain fees. Women fulfil all these duties, but they do not, even from their Alma Mater, receive the same privilege as their brothers, on a University Qualification ”

“ The understanding of proportional representation, and the far-reaching economic results of bi-metallism, have been seriously proposed as tests for women. But have the whole series, or any one of them, ever been applied to the mere male electors of the realm? When pressed hard on this point, these objectors, in their confusion, fall back upon precedent and on authority to prove that to be legal which they cannot prove to be just or reasonable. It is no argument in favour of anything that it has been, or else reformation would be impossible. ”

“ No one can deny that it is just to grant women the Suffrage, no one can deny that it would be advantageous for them to receive it. There is no reason that a thing should be because it has been, but when the only objection brought against a thing is, that it has not been, it is time to test if that statement be really true. ”

“ As part of the curse of Satan it is part of the primeval blessing of Humanity, that “I will put enmity between thee and the Woman.” The hands that restrict the Woman’s power, and limit her opportunity of fulfilling her mission, are fighting against God’s Will. ”