Goldwin Smith

“ It is still a necessity to woman in the countries where the primitive type of society remains. What would be the fate of a female Bedouin, if she were suddenly invested with Woman's Rights and emancipated from the protection of her husband?
That the present relation of women to their husbands literally has its origin in slavery, and is a hideous relic of that system, is a theory which Mr. Mill sets forth in language such as, if it could sink into the hearts of those to whom it is addressed, would turn all affection to bitterness and divide every household against itself. ”

“ No woman can imagine that her sex can execute, or in case of rebellion re-assert the law; for that they must look entirely to the men. The men would be conscious of this, and if any law were made exclusively in the interests of the women, and in contradiction to the male sense of justice, they would refuse to carry it into effect. In the United States there have been intimations, on the part of the women, of a desire to make a very lavish use of capital punishment, untrammelled by the technical rules of evidence, for offences or supposed offences against the sex. ”

“ It is needless to say that any discussion of the relative excellence, intellectual or moral, of the two moieties of humanity, would be equally barren and irrelevant. The only question is as to the proper spheres of the man and woman; and assuredly, by unsexing women, we should do no homage to their sex.
It is alleged that female influence would mitigate the violence of party politics. But what ground have we, in reason or experience, for believing that women, if introduced into the political arena, would be less violent than men? ”

“ Marriage itself, as it raises the position of a woman in the eyes of all but the very radical section of the Woman's Rights party, could hardly be treated as politically penal. And yet an Act conferring the suffrage on married women would probably be the most momentous step that could be taken by any legislature, since it would declare the family not to be a political unit, and for the first time authorise a wife, and make it in certain cases her duty as a citizen, to act publicly in opposition to her husband. ”

“ Female legislation with regard to education in the interest of clerical ascendency, would be apt to be attended by the same effects.
Elective government, with the liberty of opinion and the power of progress which are its concomitants, has been brought into existence by the most terrible throes of humanity. When perfected and firmly established, it will, as we hope, and have good grounds for believing, give to reason and justice an ascendency which they have never had before in human affairs, and increase the happiness of all by making all narrower interests subordinate to the public good. ”

“ But would the men submit? Would they, in compliance with the edict of the women, and in obedience to a woman's government, haul down the tricolor, hoist the white flag, bow their necks to the yoke of reaction, and march against the victors of Sedan in a cause which they detest? ”

“ Even now what is the amount of settled belief in the right, as it is termed, of "co-education?" What would be said to a young man if he presented himself in the name of that right at the door of Vassar, or any other female college? Without arraigning the past, those whose duty it is may consider, with the deliberation which they deserve, the two distinct questions, whether it is desirable that the education of both sexes shall be the same, and whether it is desirable that the young men and the young women of the wealthier classes shall be educated together in the same universities. ”

“ He affirms with the utmost breadth the essential equality of the sexes, and their necessary relations to each other as the two halves of humanity. Yet he no less distinctly ratifies the unity of the family, the authority of its head, and the female need of personal government; a need which, when it is natural, has nothing in it more degrading than the need of protection.
The "Revolt of Woman" is the name given to the movement by a female writer in America, who by the way, claims, in virtue of "superior complexity of organization," not only political equality, but absolute supremacy over man. ”

“ Men are not good housekeepers, and there need not be anything disparaging in saying that women, as a rule, are not likely to be good politicians. Most of them, after all, will be married, and their sphere will be one in which they do not directly feel the effects of good or bad government, which are directly felt by the man who goes forth to labour, and the practical sense of which, more than anything else, forms the political wisdom, such as it is, of the great mass of mankind. ”

“ Hitherto they have been free from political vices, because they have generally taken no part in politics, just as home has been an asylum from political rancour because political division has not been introduced between man and wife. But the chances are that, being more excitable, and having, with more warmth and generosity of temperament, less power of self-control, women would, when once engaged in party struggles, be not less, but more violent than men. ”

“ It is part of the irony of life that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using their power. ”

“ Those to whose hands it is committed at this crisis are trustees for posterity of a heritage bought by ages of effort and torrents of blood; and they are bound to allow neither their own ambition nor that of any one else, if they can help it, to imperil the safety of their trust. That women would be likely to vote for one set of aspirants to political office rather than for the opposite set, would be a very bad reason for withholding from them the suffrage even for a day ”

“ In the United States, male legislatures, so far from being unwilling, display almost an exaggerated propensity to sever the interest of the wife from that of the husband. An eminent American jurist told the writer that he knew a case in which a woman was compelling her husband to work for her as a hired labourer, and another in which a woman had accomplished a divorce by simply shutting the door of the house, which was her own property, in her husband's face. ”

“ In answer to appeals to party allegiance I have to say, in the first place, that the Bill for removing the Electoral Disabilities of Women comes from the Conservative side of the House, and is apparently, like the enfranchisement of the residuum, not unconnected with the objects of a reactionary policy. In the second place, what is of much more importance, I have to say that I owe allegiance to party in politics, not when it invades the family and home. ”

“ Success with popular constituencies would probably fall to the lot, not of the grave matrons and spinsters whom Mr. Mill evidently has in view, but of dashing adventuresses, whose methods of captivating their constituents would often be by no means identical with legislative wisdom, or calculated to increase our veneration for their sex.
That high education will greatly change the female character, in a political point of view, there does not seem to be much reason to believe. ”

“ It is commonly said in the United States by the Woman's Right party, that women are underpaid for their labour, and a vague hope is held out that this might be set right by female legislation. In most fields of industry women are new-comers, and on all new-comers old custom is apt at first to bear hard. Female singers, pianoforte players, novelists, painters, milliners, are not underpaid. If female clerks and schoolmistresses are paid less than male clerks and schoolmasters, this may be partly because continuance in the calling is an element of value, and women are taken off by marriage. ”

“ Its existence having been so far a struggle, and an assertion at the sword's point, of principles, just in themselves, but needing qualification to make them available as the foundations of a polity, it is full of defects, to remedy which, so as to make it the deliberate expression of public reason, clear of sectional interest and passion, is now the great aim of political thought and effort. ”

“ A man and his wife taking opposite sides in politics would be brought into direct and public collision, especially if they happened to be active politicians, about a subject of the most exciting kind. Would the harmony of most households bear the strain? Would not a husband who cared for his own happiness be apt to say that if his wife wanted it she might have the vote, but that there should be only one vote between them? The most eminent of the living advocates of Female Suffrage suggests that in future agreement in politics will be one of the conditions of marriage ”

“ The lodger-franchise is evidently the vanishing point of the feudal connection between political privilege and the possession of houses or land. The suffrage will become personal in England, as it has elsewhere. If a property qualification remains, it will be one embracing all kinds of property: money settled on a married woman for her separate use, as well as the house or lodgings occupied by a widow or a spinster. In the counties already married women have qualifications in the form of land settled to their separate use ”

“ Those who know the Southern States say that the women are far more ready to renew the Civil War than the men. The most effective check on war is, to use the American phrase, that every one should do his own fighting. ”

“ But it by no means follows that it is expedient to put political power into the hands of the whole sex; much less that it is expedient to do so at a moment when it is morally certain that they would use their power to cancel a good deal of what has been done in their interest, as well as in that of their partners, by the efforts of the last two hundred years.
Some supporters of the movement flatter themselves that women would always vote for peace, and that Female Suffrage would consequently be a short method of ridding the world of war and standing armies. ”

“ Mill hardly notices any one of the four, and he treats the natural relation which arises from them as a purely artificial structure, like a paper constitution or an Act of Parliament, which legislatures can modify or abolish at their pleasure.
It has no doubt been far from a satisfactory world for either sex; but unless we attach a factitious value to public life and to the exercise of public professions, it will be very difficult to prove that it has been more unsatisfactory for one sex than the other. ”

“ In the United States the privileges of women may be said to extend to immunity, not only for ordinary outrage, but for murder. A murderess of her husband whose guilt has been proved by overwhelming evidence, is let off out of regard for her sex ”

“ With regard to the profession of law, indeed, so far as it is concerned with the administration of justice, there is, and, while human emotions retain their force, always will be, a reason, independent of the question of demand, for excluding women, at least for excluding one of the two sexes. ”

“ When free institutions are firmly established in Europe, the question of Female Suffrage may, perhaps, be raised with less peril, so far as political interests are concerned; but to take a female vote on their fate at present would be as suicidal as it would have been to take a female vote on the issues between Charles the First and the Parliament in the middle of the Civil War.
So far as elective government has succeeded, women in general have fully reaped the benefit of the improvements, moral and material, which it has produced. ”

“ Such a constitution was essential to the existence of the family in primitive times; without it the germs of nations and of humanity would have perished. To suppose that it was devised by the male sex for the gratification of their own tyrannical propensities would be most absurd. It was at least as much a necessity to the primitive woman as it was to the primitive man. ”

“ The framer of the Bill, in fact, himself tells his dissatisfied supporters that the limitation to unmarried women is introduced only to hoodwink the House of Commons, which must be very manageable if it can be so easily duped. It is for married women especially that the boon is sought by the authors of the movement, whose favourite argument is the elevating effect which would be produced on the marriage bond by making political interests common to man and wife. ”

“ There may be some repugnance, natural or traditional, to be overcome in admitting women to seats in Parliament, but there is also some repugnance to be overcome in throwing them into the turmoil of contested elections, in which, as soon as Female Suffrage is carried, some ladies will unquestionably claim their part. Supposing Parliament to declare sex no longer a political disqualification, it is difficult to see on what ground Peeresses in their own right could be prevented from taking their seats in the House of Lords. ”

“ The Jesuit is an object of sympathy, because he is the enemy of the domestic tyrant, and it is assumed that the husband can have no motive but the love of undivided tyranny for objecting to being superseded by an intriguing interloper in his wife's affections. As though a wife would regard with complacency, say a female spiritualist installed beside her hearth! It is impossible to doubt that Mr. Mill's views, in writing such passages, were coloured by the incidents of his life. ”

“ The female need of protection, of which, so long as women remain physically weak, and so long as they are mothers, it will be impossible to get rid, is apparently accompanied by a preference for personal government, which finds its proper satisfaction in the family, but which gives an almost uniform bias to the political sentiments of women. The account commonly accepted of the reactionary tendency which all admit to be generally characteristic of the sex, is, that they are priest-ridden. ”

“ A woman, in fact, can never be a full citizen in countries where, as in Germany, it is part of a citizen's duty to bear arms.
That political discussion is essential to the happiness of the fireside, is an assertion about a matter of taste and sentiment, which it is difficult to combat; and the same thing may be said as to the assertion that without politics marriage is wanting in interest and affection lacks a bond. ”

“ If the woman has had her sorrows at home, the man has had his wars and his rough struggles with nature abroad, and with the sweat of his brow he has reclaimed the earth, and made it a habitation for his partner as well as for himself If the woman has had her disabilities, she has also had her privileges. War has spared her; for if in primitive times she was made a slave, this was better, in the days before sentiment at least, than being massacred. ”

“ The great mass of them are completely identified in interest with their husbands, while even those who are not married can hardly be said to form a class, or to have any common interest, other than mere sex, which is liable to be unfairly affected by class legislation. There is, therefore, no reason why Parliament should not do justice in any practical question relative to the rights of women which may be brought before it, as it has already done justice in several such questions, without invoking upon itself the coercion of Female Suffrage. ”

“ We may discuss on its own merits the question whether female suffrage would be a good thing for the whole community. The interest of the whole community must be the test. As to natural rights, they must be sought by those who desire them, not in communities, but in the primeval woods, where the available rights of women will be small. ”

“ No doubt many of them are priest-ridden, and female suffrage would give a vast increase of power to the clergy. But the cause is probably deeper and more permanent, being, in fact, the sentiment inherent in the female temperament, which again is formed by the normal functions and circumstances of the sex. And if this is the case, to give women the franchise is simply to give them the power of putting an end, actually and virtually, to all franchises together. ”

“ It may not be easy to say beforehand exactly what course the demolition of free institutions by female suffrage would take. In the United States probably some woman's favourite would be elected President, and re-elected till his power became personal, and perhaps dynastic. In that country, assuredly, the Republic could not survive the addition of the female vote to all the anti-republican or non-republican elements already existing, such as negro suffrage and Irish and South-German immigration. ”