It has been quite gravely asserted of late that “woman has just
discovered her intellect.” As a result of this we are told with great
earnestness that the nineteenth century belonged to her by virtue
of conquest, and that she is entering upon a new era of power and
intelligence which is to usher in the millennium.
On the other hand, we are assured with equal persistency that the
divine order of things is being upset: that women are spoiled by
over-education; that the time-honored privileges of men are ruthlessly
invaded and their mental vigor endangered; that morals are suffering;
that all the good old ideals are in process of destruction; and that we
have the dismal prospect of being ruled, to our sorrow, by a race of
Minervas who neglect their families, if they have any, and insist upon
running things in their own way, to the ruin of social order--all of
which has been said periodically since the beginning of the world.
With these serious questions I do not attempt to deal any further
than to picture, to the best of my ability in a limited space,
the position of women in the great ages of the past, and the
personality, aspirations, and achievements of a few of their most
famous representatives, so far as this is possible after the lapse of
centuries. From a multiplicity of facts which point their own moral,
each one of us may draw his or her special lessons.
It is quite true that the woman of to-day is putting her intellect to
new uses; possibly she has become more vividly conscious of it. We know
also that the average intelligence of all classes of women, as well
as of men, was never so high as now. But the intrinsic force of the
human intellect is not measured by averages. A thousand satellites do
not make a sun, though they may shine for ages by the light of one.
Then, whatever our achievements may be--and I do not underrate them--it
would reflect rather seriously on the feminine mind to suppose that
it could lie practically dormant all these centuries, even under the
heavy disabilities which were imposed upon it. The fact that women
have always been in subjection and on the whole very much oppressed
and trampled upon, especially in the early ages, makes it all the more
remarkable that they have left so many striking examples, not only
of the highest wisdom and intelligence, but of the highest executive
power, ever since Deborah sat as a judge in Israel, Miriam sang
immortal songs of heroic deeds, and Semiramis conquered Asia.
No doubt our own deserts are great, and we do well to burn a fair
amount of incense to them; but possibly the smoke of it is so dense
that we fail to see all the fine things that have been done before
us. Other women have been as clever as we are, and as strong, if not
individually stronger; many have been as good, a few perhaps have been
more wicked than most of us; and the majority have had a great deal
more to complain of. “There is nothing new under the sun” was written
so long ago that it seems as if there could have been nothing old.
Even the “new woman” has her prototypes in the past, who have thought,
written, lectured, ruled, asserted themselves, and been honored as well
as talked about in their day. Men have prophesied strange revolutions
in human affairs because of them, and sometimes have sent them back to
the chimney-corner and silence, as one of our own chivalrous writers
says they will do again if this irrepressible being who presumes to
have opinions makes things too uncomfortable for them. But the world
has gone on marrying and giving in marriage, and growing in the main,
let us hope, happier and better, while the social condition of women
has steadily improved, with an occasional reaction, in spite of the
fears of the timid and the sneers of the cynical.
It may be safely said that there was not much in the lives of the
women of two or three thousand years ago which we should care to
repeat. Their field was, as a rule, narrow and restricted, their
privileges were few, their burdens and sorrows were many. To go
outside the sphere prescribed for them called for great talent and
great courage, since respectability was usually regarded as synonymous
with insignificance. But even in this aspiring, much-knowing,
self-gratulatory, woman-honoring twentieth century, whenever we are
told that the feminine intellect is inherently weak and has never
created anything worthy of immortality, we point with pride to Sappho,
the one woman poet of the world whose claim to the first rank has
never been disputed. If we wish to illustrate the social and political
influence of woman, we cite Aspasia, the trusted confidante and adviser
of the greatest statesmen and philosophers, as well as the presiding
genius of the first salon of which we have any knowledge. Yet these
women lived in the dawn of the present order of things. We may recall
the scholarly mind and masterly executive qualities of Zenobia, which
perhaps have never been exceeded; the profound learning and brilliant
oratory of Hypatia, who was torn in pieces because of them by the
fanatical Alexandrian mob; Cornelia, gifted and austere, adding the
courage of a Stoic to the tenderness of a mother; Livia, wise, tactful,
and far-seeing; Marcella, saint and _grande dame_, a savante,
a leader, and a heroine. Other figures of the classic ages, grave
and thoughtful, clever and brilliant, or mystical and sweet, pass in
stately array before us, each supreme in her own field. It may have
been an intellectual gift that she had; it may have been a masterful
character, or a heroic virtue, or a spirit of sublime self-sacrifice,
or a faith so exalted that it has illuminated all the centuries. Each
of these traits has its illustrious examples among the women of long
ago.
Passing ages of darkness, in which here and there the talent of a
Countess Matilda or an Héloïse shone brightly through the mists of
ignorance and superstition, we find the women of a new era delving side
by side with men in the mines of classic lore, and bringing to their
work the same enthusiasm, the same untiring patience. We find them,
too, versed in all the learning of their time. If we are disposed to
plume ourselves overmuch on our intellectual glories, it may serve as
a lesson in humility to recall the wonderful women of the Renaissance,
who filled chairs of philosophy and law in the universities, sustained
public theses, spoke in Latin before learned societies, wrote pure
Greek and studied Hebrew, preached in cathedrals were sent on special
embassies and consulted on grave affairs of State by popes and kings.
With all our latter-day prestige and the chivalry of modern men, it
would be difficult to imagine Leo XIII or the German Emperor consulting
a woman on serious questions of policy, or even listening to one unless
she were a queen with power that must be reckoned with. If they did, it
would be behind closed doors where no one could know it. Yet we have
wise women and able ones.
When men lost themselves in metaphysical abstractions it was the “new
woman” of the Renaissance who lent wings to their minds and stimulated
creation. A touch from her uncaged intellect thrilled the learning
of the age and put into it a soul. A Vittoria Colonna inspires a
Michelangelo, writes an immortal _in memoriam_, and brings poetry
to the service of religion. An Olympia Morata pauses in her high
intellectual flight to give an object-lesson in moral courage and the
virtues of a gentle womanhood. A Catherine of Siena thinks as well as
loves, writes as well as prays; the head of Christendom is moved by her
wise counsels, and the currents of the world are changed.
It was woman, too, who married thought to life, presided at the
birth of society, and diffused the seeds of the new knowledge. She
took philosophy out of the obscurity of ponderous tomes, and made
men reduce it to clear terms with the logical processes left out, so
that the unlettered might read. If men held the palm of supremacy in
reason and abstract thought, women illuminated them by sentiment
and imagination, so touching the world to living issues. The swift,
facile, intuitive intellects of women complemented the slower and more
logical minds of men, and it is this union that creates life in all its
larger, more enduring forms. It was the social gifts of women added
to a flexible intelligence that raised conversation to a fine art. A
Duchess Leonora, an Isabella d’Este, a Duchess Elisabetta, call about
them the wit, learning, talent, and genius of an age, and in this
atmosphere poets, artists, and men of letters find an audience and an
inspiration. Each gives of his best, which is fostered and turned into
new channels. Standards are raised by the association of various forms
of excellence, and society reaches a higher altitude of living and
thinking. To be sure, the day comes when it matters more to talk and be
talked about than it does to know. The rank weeds of mediocrity spring
up in profusion and overshadow the flowers. The ideals droop and the
brilliant age ends. But it has fulfilled its mission, and all ages end,
great and small, luminous and dark alike.
Did men degenerate in the intellectual companionship of women? To what
glorious heights did they attain in the dark ages, when no woman’s
voice was heard, except in prayer? What heights have they reached in
any period that did not find its ideals in brute force, when, at least,
a few women of light and leading did not stand at their side, though
only by courtesy, instead of sitting at their feet?
Did women lose in morals when they gained in intelligence, as men so
often delight to tell us? Quite the reverse, if I have read history
aright. In seasons of moral decadence it is the women of serious
education who have been among the first to lift their voices against
the sins of the period in which they lived. If they were often swept
along by the current which they had no power to stem, it was because
of their helplessness, not of their knowledge. They were not faultless
but human, and subject at all periods to the same conditions that were
fatal to men, who claimed supremacy in strength. If they have sometimes
broken on the rocks of superstition, it was because they had too little
intelligence, not too much.
Have they lost the tender instincts of wifehood and motherhood? The
records of the world are full of the unselfish devotion of great wives
and great mothers, and the men who shine most conspicuously on the
pages of history, from Cæsar and the Gracchi to George Washington and
Daniel Webster, have been the sons of able and intelligent women. A
cultivated intellect is not a guaranty of virtue, but it has never yet
made a woman forget her love and allegiance to a strong and noble man,
or turn a cold ear to the artless prattle of a child, though vanity
and weakness and folly have done so very often. But it has many a time
given her the power and the impulse to rear a world-famed monument to
the one, and to give the best work and thought of a self-sacrificing
life for the glory of the other. It is not simply heredity, but the
atmosphere and companionship of the first years, that make or mar a
destiny. But let us not confound intelligent women with pedants and
pretenders, or great women with small ones on a pedestal of any sort,
self-erected or other.
All this I trust will be made clear by illustration in these pages,
together with the fact that the intellects of at least a few women have
been very much awake in all the golden ages of the world, and exercised
on many of the same problems that confront them to-day. The question of
equality has been discussed in every period. It is needless to pursue
these discussions here any further than to recall them. It does not
signify whether women have or have not done this, that, or the other
thing as well as men--whether they have or have not been conspicuous
for creative genius, or scientific genius, or any other special form
of genius. It is as idle to ask whether they are, on the whole, equal
or inferior to men, as to ask whether an artist is equal to a general,
an inventor to a philosopher, or a poet to a man of science. There are
certain things that will always be done better by men; there are other
things of equal value to the happiness and well-being of the race,
and worthy of equal honor, that will always be done better by women;
there are still other and many things that may be done equally well by
either. The final proof of ability lies in its tangible result, and it
is a waste of words to speculate on unknown quantities, or to say that
under certain conditions women might have attained specific heights
which they have not attained. No doubt it is true, but one cannot
deal with shadows. We have to consider things as they are, with the
possibilities toward which they point.
But the past we have, with its achievements and its lessons. We find
that women, with all their restrictions and in spite of denunciations
from men which seem incredible, have long ago touched their highest
mark in poetry, in wisdom, in administration, in learning, and
in social power. In the great ages of the flowering of the human
intellect, a rare few have always stood on the heights, beacon-stars
which sent out their rays to distant centuries. As the world has
advanced they have increased in number more than in altitude; but
barriers have been removed, one after another, until they have
practically ceased to exist. It is worth while, however, to bear in
mind that four hundred years ago a woman, with many disabilities,
had ample facilities for reaching her full intellectual stature with
honor and without hindrance. Why did her sex lose these privileges so
liberally accorded to men, in the “land of the free” and the early
nineteenth century?
We too have our stars--our women who think, our women who know, our
women who do; we too have our special distinctions--our triumphs in
new fields in which we have had no rivals. But I have touched only a
single phase of modern life. There are too many fresh and difficult
problems to be disposed of in an essay. Then we can hardly hear the
message of the age for the din of the voices. It is true enough that
the old ideals are disappearing. What we do not know yet is whether,
apart from the intelligence which gives all life a fresh impulse and
meaning, the new ones forced upon us by the march of events are better.
It suffices here to say that what really signifies to the woman of
to-day is to expand in her own natural proportions, to maintain her
own individuality without the loss of her essential charm, to temper
strength of soul with tenderness, to strive for achievement instead
of the passing honors of the hour, to preserve the fine and dignified
quality of an enlarged and perfected womanhood. It is not as the poor
copy of a man that she will ever come into her rightful kingdom. Duty
or necessity may lead one into strange and hard paths, but the crown of
glory is not for those who fling away their birthright to join in the
strident chorus of the eager crowd that kneels before the glittering
altars of the money-gods, or to follow the procession that throngs the
dusty highways and, lifting its eyes no more to the mountain-tops,
sings its own apotheosis in the market-place.