THE MAIN DOGMA OF MODERN FEMINISM
We have pointed out in the last chapter that Modern Feminism has two
sides, the positive, definite, and articulate side, which ostensibly
claims equality between the sexes, the chief concern of which is
the conferring of all the rights and duties of men upon women, and
the opening up of all careers to them. The justification of these
demands is based upon the dogma, that, notwithstanding appearances
to the contrary, women are endowed by nature with the same capacity
intellectually and morally as men. We have further pointed out that
there is another side in Modern Feminism which in a vague way claims
for women immunity from criminal law and special privileges on the
ground of sex in civil law. The basis of this side of Feminism is a
sentimentalism—_i.e._ an unequally distributed sentiment in favour
of women, traditional and acquired. It is seldom even attempted to
base this sentimental claim for women on argument at all. The utmost
attempts in this direction amount to vague references to physical
weakness, and to the claim for special consideration deriving from
the old theory of the mental and moral weakness of the female sex, so
strenuously combated as out of date, when the first side of Modern
Feminism is being contended for. The more or less inchoate assumptions
of the second or sentimental side of the modern “Woman’s Movement”
amounts practically, as already stated, to a claim for women to be
allowed to commit crimes without incurring the penalties imposed by the
law for similar crimes when committed by men. It should be noted that
in practice the most strenuous advocates of the positive and articulate
side of Feminism are also the sincerest upholders of the unsubstantial
and inarticulate assumptions of the sentimental side of the same creed.
This is noticeable whenever a woman is found guilty of a particularly
atrocious crime. It is somewhat rare for women to be convicted of
such crimes at all, since the influence of sentimental Feminism with
judges and juries is sufficient to procure an acquittal, no matter how
conclusive the evidence to the contrary. Even if women are found guilty
it is usual for a virtually nominal sentence to be passed. Should,
however, a woman by any chance be convicted of a heinous crime, such
as murder or maiming, under specially aggravated circumstances, and a
sentence be passed such as would be unanimously sanctioned by public
opinion in the case of a man, then we find the whole Feminist world
up in arms. The outcry is led by self-styled upholders of equality
between the sexes, the apostles of the positive side of Feminism, who
_bien entendu_ claim the eradication of sex boundaries in political
and social life on the ground of women being of equal capacity with
men, but who, when moral responsibility is in question, conveniently
fall back on a sentiment, the only conceivable ground for which is to
be found in the time-honoured theory of the mental and moral weakness
of the female sex. As illustrations of the truth of the foregoing, the
reader may be referred to the cases of Florence Doughty in 1906, who
shot at and wounded a solicitor with whom she had relations, together
with his son; to Daisy Lord in 1908, for the murder of her new-born
child; to the case of the Italian murderess, Napolitano in Canada,
convicted of the cold-blooded butchery of her husband in his sleep
in 1911, for whose reprieve a successful agitation was got up by the
suffrage societies!
Let us first of all consider the dogma at the basis of the positive
side of Modern Feminism, which claims rational grounds of fact and
reason for itself, and professes to be able to make good its case
by virtue of such grounds. This dogma consists in the assertion of
equality in intellectual capacity, in spite of appearances to the
contrary, of women with men. I think it will be admitted that the
articulate objects of Modern Feminism, taking them one with another,
rest on this dogma, and on this dogma alone. I know it has been argued
as regards the question of suffrage, that the demand does not rest
solely upon the admission of equality of capacity, since men of a
notoriously inferior mental order are not excluded from voting upon
that ground, but the fallacy of this last argument is obvious. In
all these matters we have to deal with averages. Public opinion has
hitherto recognised the average of women as being intellectually below
the voting standard, and the average man as not. This, if admitted,
is enough to establish the anti-suffrage thesis. The latter is not
affected by the fact that it is possible to find certain individual men
of inferior intelligence and therefore less intrinsically qualified
to form a political judgment than certain specially gifted women.
The pretended absurdity of “George Eliot having no vote, and of her
gardener having one” is really no absurdity at all. In the first place,
given the economic advantages which conferred education upon the
novelist, and not upon the gardener, there is not sufficient evidence
available that his judgment in public affairs might not have been even
superior to that of George Eliot herself. Moreover, the possession
of exceptionally strong imaginative faculty, expressing itself as
literary genius or talent in works of fiction, does not necessarily
imply exceptional power of political judgment. But, be this as it may,
where averages are in question, exceptions obviously do not count.
The underlying assumption of the suffrage movement may therefore be
taken to be the average equality of the sexes as regards intellectual
value.[24:1]
[24:1] I believe there are some Feminist fanatics who pretend
to maintain the superiority of the female mind, but I doubt
whether this thesis is taken seriously even by those who put it
forward. In any case there are limits to the patent absurditie
which it is worth while to refute by argument.
An initial difficulty exists in proving theoretically the intellectual
inferiority of women to men, or even their relative unsuitability for
fulfilling functions involving a special order of judgment. There are
such things as matters of fact which are open to common observation
and which none think of denying or calling in question unless they
have some special reason for doing so. Now it is always possible to
deny a fact, however evident it may be to ordinary perception, and it
is equally impossible to prove that the person calling in question
the aforesaid evident fact is either lying (or shall we say is
“prevaricating”), or even that he is a person hopelessly abnormal in
his organs of sense-perception.
At the time of writing, the normal person who has no axe to grind in
maintaining the contrary, declares the sun to be shining brightly,
but should it answer the purpose of anyone to deny this obvious fact,
and declare that the day is gloomy and overcast, there is no power of
argument by which I can prove that I am right and he is wrong. I may
point to the sun, but if he chooses to affirm that he doesn’t see it I
can’t prove that he does. This is, of course, an extreme case, scarcely
likely to occur in actual life. But it is in essence similar to those
cases of persons (and they are not seldom met with) who, when they
find facts hopelessly destructive of a certain theoretical position
adopted by them, do not hesitate to cut the knot of controversy in
their own favour by boldly denying the inconvenient facts. One often
has experience of this trick of controversy in discussing the question
of the notorious characteristics of the female sex. The Feminist driven
into a corner endeavours to save his face by flatly denying matters
open to common observation and admitted as obvious by all who are not
Feminists. Such facts are the pathological mental condition peculiar to
the female sex, commonly connoted by the term hysteria; the absence,
or at best the extremely imperfect development of the logical faculty
in most women; the inability of the average woman in her judgment of
things to rise above personal considerations; and, what is largely a
consequence of this, the lack of a sense of abstract justice and fair
play among women in general. The aforesaid peculiarities of women,
as women, are, I contend, matters of common observation and are only
disputed by those persons—to wit Feminists—to whose theoretical
views and practical demands their admission would be inconvenient if
not fatal. Of course these characterisations refer to averages, and
they do not exclude partial or even occasionally striking exceptions.
It is possible, therefore, although perhaps not very probable, that
individual experience may in the case of certain individuals play a
part in falsifying their general outlook; it is possible—although,
as I before said not perhaps very probable—that any given man’s
experience of the other sex has been limited to a few quite exceptional
women and that hence his particular experience contradicts that of
the general run of mankind. In this case, of course, his refusal to
admit what to others are self-evident facts would be perfectly _bona
fide_. The above highly improbable contingency is the only refuge for
those who would contend for sincerity in the Feminist’s denials. In
this matter I only deal with the male Feminist. The female Feminist is
usually too biassed a witness in this particular question.
Now let us consider the whole of the differentiations of the
mental character between man and woman in the light of a further
generalisation which is sufficiently obvious in itself and which has
been formulated with special clearness by the late Otto Weininger in
his remarkable book, “Geschlecht und Charakter” (Sex and Character). I
refer to the observations contained in Section II., Chaps. 2 and 3. The
point has been, of course, previously noted, and the present writer,
among others, has on various occasions called special attention to it.
But its formulation and elaboration by Weininger is the most complete
I know. The truth in question consists in the fact, undeniable to all
those not rendered impervious to facts by preconceived dogma, that,
as I have elsewhere put it, while man _has_ a sex, woman _is_ a sex.
Let us hear Weininger on this point. “Woman is _only_ sexual, man is
_also_ sexual. Alike in time and space this difference may be traced
in man, parts of his body susceptible to sexual excitement are small
in number and strictly localised. In woman sexuality is diffused over
the whole body, every contact on whatever part excites her sexually.”
Weininger points out that while the sexual element in man, owing to
the physiological character of the sexual organs, may be at times more
violent than that in woman, yet that it is spasmodic and occurs in
crises separated by intervals of quiescence. In woman, on the other
hand, while less spasmodic, it is continuous. The sexual instinct with
man being, as he styles it, “an appendix” and no more, he can raise
himself mentally entirely outside of it. “He is conscious of it as
of something which he possesses but which is not inseparate from the
rest of his nature. He can view it objectively. With woman this is
not the case; the sex element is part of her whole nature. Hence, it
is not as with man, clearly recognisable in local manifestations, but
subtly affects the whole life of the organism. For this reason the
man is conscious of the sexual element within him as such, whereas
the woman is unconscious of it as such. It is not for nothing that
in common parlance woman is spoken of as ‘the sex.’ In this sexual
differentiation of the whole life-nature of woman from man, deducible
as it is from physiological and anatomical distinctions, lies the
ground of those differentiations of function which culminate in the
fact that while mankind in its intellectual, moral and technical
development is represented in the main by Man, Woman has continued
to find her chief function in the direct procreation of the race.”
A variety of causes, notably modern economic development, in their
effect on family life, also the illegitimate application of the modern
democratic notion of the equality of classes and races, to that of sex,
has contributed to the modern revolt against natural sex limitations.
Assuming the substantial accuracy of the above statement of fact, the
absurdity and cheapness of the clap-trap of the modern “social purity”
monger, as to having one and the same sexual morality for both sexes
will be readily seen. The recognition of the necessity of admitting
greater latitude in this respect to men than to women is based clearly
on physiology and common-sense. With men sexual instinct manifests
itself locally, and at intervals its satisfaction is an urgent and
pressing need. With woman this is not so. Hence the recognised
distinction between the sexes in this respect is, as far as it goes,
a thoroughly sound one. Not that I am championing the severity of
the restrictions of the current sexual code as regards women. On the
contrary, I think it ought to be and will be, in a reasonable society
of the future, considerably relaxed. I am only pointing out that the
urgency is not so great in the one case as in the other. And this fact
it is which has led to the toleration of a stringency, originally
arising mainly from economic causes (questions of inheritance and
the like), in the case of women, which would not have been tolerated
in that of men, even had similar reasons for its adoption in their
case obtained. Any successful attempt of social purity mongers to run
counter to physiology in enforcing either by legislation or public
opinion the same stringency on men in this respect as on women could
but have the most disastrous consequences to the health and well-being
of the community.
It was a saying of the late Dr Henry Maudsley: “_Sex lies deeper than
culture_.” By this we may understand to be meant that sex differences
are organic. All authorities on the physiological question are agreed
that woman is less well-organised, less well-developed, than man. Dr
de Varigny asserts that this fact is traceable throughout the whole
female organism, throughout all its tissues, and all its functions. For
instance, the stature of the human female is less than that of the man
in all races. As regards weight there is a corresponding difference.
The adult woman weighs, on the average, rather more than 11 lbs. less
than the man; moreover as a rule a woman completes her growth some
years earlier than a man. The bones are lighter in the woman than
in the man; not absolutely but in proportion to the weight of the
body. They are, it is stated, not merely thinner but more fragile.
The difference may be traced even to their chemical composition. The
whole muscular development is inferior in woman to that in man by
about one-third. The heart in woman is smaller and lighter than in
man—being about 10½ oz. in man as against slightly over 8 oz. in
woman. In the woman the respiratory organs show less chest and lung
capacity. Again, the blood contains a considerably less proportion of
red to white corpuscles. Finally, we come to the question of the size
and constitution of the brain. (It should be observed that all these
distinctions of sex show themselves more or less from birth onwards.)
Specialists are agreed that at all ages the size of the brain of woman
is less than that of man. The difference in relative size is greater in
proportion according to the degree of civilisation. This is noteworthy,
as it would seem as though the brain of man grew with the progress of
civilisation, whereas that of woman remains nearly stationary. The
average proportion as regards size of skull between the woman and man
of to-day is as 85 to 100. The weight of brain in woman varies from
38½ oz. to 45½ oz.; in man, from 42 oz. to 49 oz. This represents the
absolute difference in weight, but, according to Dr de Varigny, the
relative weight—_i.e._ the weight in proportion to that of the whole
body—is even more striking in its indication of inferiority. The
weight of the brain in woman is but one-forty-fourth of the weight of
the body, while in man it is one-fortieth. This difference accentuates
itself with age. It is only 7 per cent. in favour of man between twenty
and thirty years; it is 11 per cent. between thirty and forty years.
As regards the substance of the brain itself and its convolutions,
the enormous majority of physiologists are practically unanimous
in declaring that the female brain is simpler and smoother, its
convolutions fewer and more superficial than those of the male brain,
that the frontal lobes, generally associated with the intellectual
faculties, are less developed than the occipital lobes, which are
universally connected with the lower psychological functions. The grey
substance is poorer and less abundant in woman than in man, while
the blood vessels of the occipital region are correspondingly fuller
than those supplying the frontal lobes. In man the case is exactly
the reverse. It cannot be denied by any sane person familiar with
the barest elements of physiology that the whole female organism is
subservient to the functions of child-bearing and lactation, which
explains the inferior development of those organs and faculties which
are not specially connected with this supreme end of Woman.
It is the fashion of Feminists, ignoring these fundamental
physiological sex differences, to affirm that the actual inferiority
of women, where they have the honesty to admit such an obvious fact,
is accountable by the centuries of oppression in which Woman has been
held by wicked and evil-minded Man. The absurdity of this contention
has been more than once pointed out. Assuming its foundation in fact,
what does it imply? Clearly that the girls inherit only through their
mothers and boys only through their fathers, an hypothesis plainly at
variance with the known facts of heredity. Yet those who maintain that
distinction of intelligence, etc., between the sexes are traceable to
external conditions affecting one sex only and inherited through that
sex alone, cannot evade the above assumption. Those, therefore, who
regard it as an article of their faith that Woman would show herself
not inferior in mental power to man, if only she had the chance of
exercising that power, must find a surer foundation for their opinion
than this theory of the centuries of oppression, under which, as they
allege, the female sex has laboured.
We now come to the important question of morbid and pathological
mental conditions to which the female sex is liable and which are
usually connected with those constitutional disturbances of the
nervous system which pass under the name of _hysteria_. The word
is, as everyone knows, derived from _hystera_—_the womb_, and was
uniformly regarded by the ancients as directly due to disease of the
_uterus_, this view maintaining itself in modern medicine up till
well-nigh the middle of the nineteenth century. Thus Dr J. Mason Good
(in his “Study of Medicine,” 1822, vol. iii., p. 528, an important
medical text-book during the earlier half of the nineteenth century)
says: “With a morbid condition of this organ, hysteria is in many
instances very closely connected, though it is going too far to say
that it is always dependent upon such condition, for we meet with
instances, occasionally, in which no possible connexion can be traced
between the disease and the organ,” etc. This is perhaps the first
appearance, certainly in English medicine, of doubts being thrown on
the uterine origin of the various symptoms grouped under the general
term, _hysteria_. Towards the latter part of the nineteenth century
the prevalent view tended more and more to dissociate hysteria from
uterine trouble. Lately, however, some eminent pathologists have shown
a tendency to qualify the terms of the latter view. Thus Dr Thomas
Stevenson in 1902 admits that “it [hysteria] frequently accompanies
a morbid state of the uterus,” especially where inflammation and
congestion are present, and it is not an uncommon thing for surgeons at
the present time to remove the ovaries in obstinate cases of hysteria.
On the other hand Dr Thomas Buzzard, in an article on the subject in
Quain’s _Dictionary of Medicine_, 1902, states that hysteria is only
exceptionally found in women suffering from diseases of the genital
organs, and its relation to uterine and ovarian disturbances is
probably neither more nor less than that which pertains to the other
affections of the nervous system which may occur without any obvious
material cause. Dr Thomas Luff (“Text-Book on Forensic Medicine,”
1895) shows that the derangements of the reproductive functions are
undoubtedly the cause of various attacks of insanity in the female.
Dr Savage, in his book “On Neuroses,” says that acute mania in women
occurs most frequently at the period of adult and mature life, and
may occasionally take place at either extreme age. Acute mania
sometimes occurs at the suppression of the _menses_. The same is true
of melancholia and other pathological mental symptoms. Dr Luff states
that acute mania may replace hysteria; that this happens at periods
such as puberty, change of life and menstruation. These patients in the
intervals of their attacks are often morbidly irritable or excitable,
but as time goes on their energies become diminished and their emotions
blunted (“Forensic Medicine,” ii. 307). Such patients are often seized
with a desire to commit violence; they are often very mischievous,
tearing up clothes, breaking windows, etc. In this mental disorder
the patient is driven by a morbid and uncontrollable impulse to such
acts. It is not accompanied by delusions, and frequently no change
will have been noticed in the individual prior to the commission of
the act, and consequently, says Dr Luff, “there is much difference
of opinion as to the responsibility of the individual” (ii. 297).
Among the acts spoken of Dr Luff mentions a propensity to set fire
to furniture, houses, etc. All this, though written in 1895, might
serve as a commentary on the Suffragette agitation of recent years.
The renowned French professor, Dr Paul Janet (“Les Hysteriques,” 1894)
thus defined hysteria: “Hysteria is a mental affection belonging to
the large group of diseases due to cerebral weakness and debility.
Its physical symptoms are somewhat indefinite, consisting chiefly
in a general diminution of nutrition. It is largely characterised
by moral symptoms, chief of which is an impairment of the faculty
of psychological synthesis, an abolition and a contraction of the
field of consciousness. This manifests itself in a peculiar manner
and by a certain number of elementary phenomena. Thus sensations and
images are no longer perceived, and appear to be blotted out from the
individual perception, a tendency which results in their persistent
and complete separation from the personality in some cases and in the
formation of many independent groups. This series of psychological
facts alternate the one with the other or co-exist. Finally this
synthetic defect favours the formation of certain independent ideas,
which develop complete in themselves, and unattached from the control
of the consciousness of the personality. These ideas show themselves
in affections possessing very various and unique characteristics.”
According to Mr A. S. Millar, F.R.C.S.E. (_Encyclopædia Medica_, vol.
v.), “Hysteria is that . . . condition in which there is imagination,
imitation, or exaggeration. . . . It occurs mostly in females and
persons of nervous temperament, and is due to some nervous derangement,
which may or may not be pathological.” Sir James Paget (“Clinical
Lectures on Mimicry”) says also that hysterical patients are mostly
females of nervous temperament. “They think of themselves constantly,
are fond of telling everyone of their troubles and thus court sympathy,
for which they have a morbid craving. Will power is deficient in one
direction, though some have it very strongly where their interests are
concerned.” He thinks the term “hysteria” in the sense now employed
incorrect, and would substitute “mimicry.” “The will should be
controlled by the intellect,” observes Dr G. F. Still of King’s College
Hospital, “rather than by the emotions and the lack of this control
appears to be at the root of some, at least, of the manifestations of
hysteria.”
Dr Thomas Buzzard, above mentioned, thus summarises the mental
symptoms: “The intelligence may be apparently of good quality, the
patient evincing sometimes remarkable quickness of apprehension; but
carefully tested it is found to be wanting in the essentials of the
highest class of mental power. The memory may be good, but the judgment
is weak and the ability to concentrate the attention for any length
of time upon a subject is absent. So also regard for accuracy, and
the energy necessary to ensure it in any work that is undertaken, is
deficient. The emotions are excited with undue readiness and when
aroused are incapable of control. Tears are occasioned not only by
pathetic ideas but by ridiculous subjects and peals of laughter may
incongruously greet some tragic announcement, or the converse may
take place. The ordinary signs of emotion may be absent and replaced
by an attack of syncope, convulsion, pain or paralysis. Perhaps more
constant than any other phenomenon in hysteria is a pronounced desire
for the sympathy and interest of others. This is evidently only one of
the most characteristic qualities of femininity, uncontrolled by the
action of the higher nervous centres which in a healthy state keep it
in subjection. There is very frequently not only a deficient regard
for truthfulness, but a proneness to active deception and dishonesty.
So common is this, that the various phases of hysteria are often
assumed to be simple examples of voluntary simulation and the title of
disease refused to the condition. But it seems more reasonable to refer
the symptoms to impairment of the highly complex nervous processes
which form the physiological side of the moral faculties” (Quain’s
_Dictionary of Medicine_, 1902).
“It is not uncommon to find hysteria in females accompanied by an
utter indifference and insensibility to sexual relations. Premature
cessation of ovulation is a frequent determining cause. In cases where
the ovaries are absent the change from girl to woman, which normally
takes place at puberty, does not occur. The girl grows but does not
develop, a masculine appearance supervenes, the voice becomes manly
and harsh, sexual passion is absent, the health remains good. The most
violent instances of hysteria are in young women of the most robust and
masculine constitution” (John Mason Good, M.D., “Study of Medicine,”
1822). Other determining causes are given, as painful impressions,
long fasting, strong emotions, imitation, luxury, ill-directed
education and unhappy surroundings, celibacy, where not of choice
but enforced by circumstances, unfortunate marriages, long-continued
trouble, fright, worry, overwork, disappointment and such like nervous
perturbations, all which causes predispose to hysteria. “It attacks
childless women more frequently than mothers and particularly young
widows,” and, says Dr J. Mason Good, “more especially still those who
are constitutionally inclined to that morbid salacity which has often
been called nymphomania . . . the surest remedy is a happy marriage”
(“Study of Medicine,” 1822, iii. 531). Hysteria is, in common with
other nervous disorders, essentially a hereditary malady, and Briquet
(“Traité de l’hysterie,” 1899) gives statistics to show that in nine
cases out of ten hysterical parents have hysterical children. Dr Paul
Sainton of the Faculty of Medicine, Paris, says: “The appearance of
a symptom of hysteria generally proves that the malady has already
existed for some time though latent. The name of a provocative agent of
hysteria is given to any circumstance which suddenly reveals the malady
but the real cause of the disorder is a hereditary disposition. If the
real cause is unique, the provocative agents are numberless. The moral
emotions, grief, fright, anger and other psychic disturbances are the
most frequent causes of hysterical affections and in every walk of life
subjects are equally liable to attacks.”
Hysteria may appear at any age. It is common with children, especially
during the five or six years preceding puberty. Of thirty-three cases
under twelve years which came under Dr Still’s notice, twenty-three
were in children over eight years. Hysteria in women is most frequent
between the ages of fifteen and thirty, and most frequently of all
between fifteen and twenty. As a rule there is a tendency to cessation
after the “change.” It frequently happens, however, that the disease is
continued into an advanced period of life.
“There is a constant change,” says Professor Albert Moll (“Das nervöse
Weib,” p. 165), “from a cheerful to a depressed mood. From being free
and merry the woman in a short time becomes sulky and sad. While a
moment before she was capable of entertaining a whole company without
pause, talking to each member about that which interested him, shortly
afterwards she does not speak a word more. I may mention the well-worn
example of the refusal of a new hat as being capable of converting
the most lively mood into its opposite. The weakness of will shows
itself here in that the nervous woman [by “nervous” Dr Moll means
what is commonly termed “hysterical”] cannot, like the normal one,
command the expression of her emotions. She can laugh uninterruptedly
over the most indifferent matter until she falls into veritable
laughing fits. The crying fits which we sometimes observe belong to
the same category. When the nervous woman is excited about anything
she exhibits outbreaks of fury wanting all the characteristics of
womanhood, and she is not able to prevent these emotional outbursts.
In the same way just as the emotions weaken the will and the woman
cannot suppress this or that action, it is noticeable in many nervous
women that quite independently of these emotions there is a tendency
to continuous alterations in their way of acting. It has been noticed
as characteristic of many nervous persons that their only consistency
lies in their inconsistency. But this must in no way be applied to all
nervous persons. On this disposition, discoverable in the nature of
so many nervous women, rests the craving for change as manifested in
the continual search for new pleasures, theatres, concerts, parties,
tours, and other things (p. 147). Things that to the normal woman are
indifferent or to which she has, in a sense, accustomed herself, are
to the nervous woman a source of constant worry. Although she may
perfectly well know that the circumstances of herself and her husband
are the most brilliant and that it is unnecessary for her to trouble
herself in the least about her material position as regards the future,
nevertheless the idea of financial ruin constantly troubles her. Thus
if she is a millionaire’s wife she never escapes from constant worry.
Similarly the nervous woman creates troubles out of things that are
unavoidable. If in the course of years she gets more wrinkles, and
her attraction for man diminishes, this may easily become a source of
lasting sorrow for the nervous woman.”
We now have to consider a point which is being continually urged by
Feminists in the present day when confronted with the pathological
mental symptoms so commonly observed in women which are usually
regarded as having their origin in hysteria. We often hear it said by
Feminists in answer to arguments based on the above fact: “Oh, but
men can also suffer from hysteria!” “In England,” says Dr Buzzard,
“hysteria is comparatively rarely met with in males, the female sex
being much more prone to the affection.” The proportion of males
to females in hysteria is, according to Dr Pitrè (“Clinical Essay
on Hysteria,” 1891), 1 to 3; according to Bodensheim, 1 to 10; and
according to Briquet, 1 to 20. The author of the article on Hysteria in
_The Encyclopædia Britannica_ (11th edition, 1911) also gives 1 to 20
as the numerical proportion between male and female cases. Dr Pitrè,
in the work above cited, gives 82 per cent. of cases of convulsions in
women as against 22 in men. But in all this, under the concept hysteria
are included, and indeed chiefly referred to, various physical symptoms
of a convulsive and epileptic character which are quite distinct from
the mental conditions rightly or wrongly connected, or even identified,
with hysteria in the popular mind, and by many medical authorities.
But even as regards hysteria in the former sense of the word, a sharp
line of distinction based on a diagnosis of cases was long ago drawn
by medical men between _hysteria masculina_ and _hysteria fœminina_,
and in the present day eminent authorities—_e.g._ Dr Bernard
Holländer—would deny that the symptoms occasionally diagnosed as
hysteria in men are identical with or due to the same causes as the
somewhat similar conditions known in women under the name.
After all, this whole question in its broader bearings is more a
question of common-sense observation than one for medical experts.
What we are here chiefly concerned with as “hysteria” (in accordance
with popular usage of the term) are certain pathological mental
symptoms in women open to everybody’s observation, and denied by no one
unprejudiced by Feminist views. Every impartial person has only to cast
his eye round his female acquaintance, and to recall the various women,
of all classes, conditions and nationalities, that he may have come in
contact with in the course of his life, to recognise those symptoms
of mental instability commonly called hysterical, as obtaining in at
least a proportion of one to every four or five women he has known, in
a marked and unmistakable degree. The proportion given is, in fact,
stated in an official report to the Prussian Government issued some ten
years back as that noticeable among female clerks, post office servants
and other women employed in the Prussian Civil Service. Certainly as
regards women in general, the observation of the present writer, and
others whom he has questioned on the subject, would seem to indicate
that the proportions given in the Prussian Civil Service report as
regards the number of women afflicted in this way are rather under than
over stated.[44:1] There are many medical men who aver that no woman
is entirely free from such symptoms at least immediately before and
during the menstrual period. The head surgeon at a well-known London
hospital informed a friend of mine that he could always tell when this
period was on or approaching with his nurses, by the mental change
which came over them.
[44:1] The insanities mentioned above are the extremes. There
are mental disturbances of less severity constantly occurring
which are connected with the regular menstrual period as
well as with disordered menstruation, with pregnancy, with
parturition, with lactation, and especially with the change of
life.
Now these pathological symptoms noticeable in a slight and more or
less unimportant degree in the vast majority, if not indeed in all
women, and in a marked pathological degree in a large proportion of
women, it is scarcely too much to say do not occur at all in men. I
have indeed known, I think, two men, and only two, in the course of my
life, exhibiting mental symptoms analogous to those commonly called
“hysterical” in women. On the other hand my own experience, and it is
not alone, is that very few women with whom I have come into more or
less frequent contact, socially or otherwise, have not at times shown
the symptoms referred to in a marked degree. If, therefore, we are to
admit the bare possibility of men being afflicted in a similar way it
must be conceded that such cases represent such _raræ aves_ as to be
negligible for practical purposes.
A curious thing in pronounced examples of this mental instability in
women is that the symptoms are often so very similar in women of quite
different birth, surroundings and nationality. I can recall at the
present moment three cases, each different as regards birth, class, and
in one case nationality, and yet who are liable to develop the same
symptoms under the influence of quite similar _idées fixes_.
But it seems hardly necessary to labour the point in question at
greater length. The whole experience of mankind since the dawn of
written records confirmed by, as above said, that of every living
person not specially committed to the theories of Modern Feminism,
bears witness alike to the prevalence of what we may term the
hysterical mind in woman and to her general mental frailty. It is not
for nothing that women and children have always been classed together.
This view, based as it is on the unanimous experience of mankind and
confirmed by the observation of all independent persons, has, I repeat,
not been challenged before the appearance of the present Feminist
Movement and hardly by anyone outside the ranks of that movement.
* * * * *
It is not proposed here to dilate at length on the fact, often before
insisted upon, of the absence throughout history of the signs of
genius, and, with a few exceptions, of conspicuous talent, in the
human female, in art, science, literature, invention or “affairs.”
The fact is incontestable, and if it be argued that this absence in
women, of genius or even of a high degree of talent, is no proof of
the inferiority of the average woman to the average man the answer is
obvious.
Apart from conclusive proof, the fact of the existence in all periods
of civilisation, and even under the higher barbarism, of exceptionally
gifted men, and never of a correspondingly gifted woman, does
undoubtedly afford an indication of inferiority of the average woman as
regards the average man. From the height of the mountain peaks we may,
other things equal, undoubtedly conclude the existence of a tableland
beneath them in the same tract of country whence they arise. I have
already, in the present chapter, besides elsewhere, referred to the
fallacy that intellectual or other fundamental inferiority in woman
existing at the present day is traceable to any alleged repression in
the past, since (Weissmann and his denial of transmission of acquired
characteristics apart), assuming for the sake of the argument such
repression to have really attained the extent alleged, and its effects
to have been transmitted to future generations, it is against all
the laws of heredity that such transmission should have taken place
_through the female line alone_, as is contended by the advocates of
this theory. Referring to this point, Herbert Spencer has expressed the
conviction of most scientific thinkers on the subject when he declares
a difference between the mental powers of men and women to result
from “a physiological necessity, and [that] no amount of culture can
obliterate it.” He further observes (the passages occur in a letter of
his to John Stuart Mill) that “the relative deficiency of the female
mind is in just those most complex faculties, intellectual and moral,
which have political action for their sphere.”
One of the points as regards the inferiority of women which Feminists
are willing and even eager to concede, and it is the only point of
which this can be said, is that of physical weakness. The reason why
they should be particularly anxious to emphasise this deficiency
in the sex is not difficult to discern. It is the only possible
semblance of an argument which can be plausibly brought forward to
justify female privileges in certain directions. It does not really
do so, but it is the sole pretext which they can adduce with any
show of reason at all. Now it may be observed (1) that the general
frailty of woman would militate _coetaris paribus_, against their own
dogma of the intellectual equality between the sexes; (2) that this
physical weakness is more particularly a muscular weakness, since
constitutionally the organism of the human female has enormous power
of resistance and resilience, in general, far greater than that of man
(see below, pp. 125-128). It is a matter of common observation that the
average woman can pass through strains and recover in a way few men
can do. But as we shall have occasion to revert to these two points at
greater length later on, we refrain from saying more here.
How then, after consideration, shall we judge of the Feminist
thesis, affirmed and reaffirmed, insisted upon by so many as an
incontrovertible axiom, that woman is the equal, intellectually
and morally, if not physically, of man? Surely that it has all the
characteristics of a true dogma. Its votaries might well say with
Tertullian, _credo quia absurdum_. It contradicts the whole experience
of mankind in the past. It is refuted by all impartial observation in
the present. The facts which undermine it are seriously denied by none
save those committed to the dogma in question. Like all dogmas, it is
supported by “bluff.” In this case the “bluff” is to the effect that
it is the “part, mark, business, lot” (as the Latin grammars of our
youth would have had it) of the “advanced” man who considers himself up
to date, and not “Early Victorian,” to regard it as unchallengeable.
Theological dogmas are backed up by the bluff of authority, either
of scriptures or of churches. This dogma of the Feminist cult is not
vouchsafed by the authority of a Communion of saints but by that of
the Communion of advanced persons up to date. Unfortunately dogma does
not sit so well upon the community of advanced persons up to date—who
otherwise profess to, and generally do, bring the tenets they hold
to the bar of reason and critical test—as it does on a church or
community of saints who suppose themselves to be individually or
collectively in communication with wisdom from on high. Be this as
it may, the “advanced man” who would claim to be “up to date” has to
swallow this dogma and digest it as best he can. He may secretly, it is
true, spew it out of his mouth, but in public, at least, he must make a
pretence of accepting it without flinching.