THE “CHIVALRY” FAKE
The justification for the whole movement of Modern Feminism in one of
its main practical aspects—namely, the placing of the female sex in
the position of privilege, advantage and immunity—is concentrated
in the current conception of “chivalry.” It behoves us, therefore,
to devote some consideration to the meaning and implication of this
notion. Now this word chivalry is the _dernier ressort_ of those at
a loss for a justification of the modern privileging of women. But
those who use it seldom give themselves the trouble to analyse the
connotation of this term. Brought to book as to its meaning, most
persons would probably define it as deference to, or consideration for,
weakness, especially bodily weakness. Used in this sense, however,
the term covers a very much wider ground than the “kow-towing” to the
female section of the human race, usually associated with it. Boys,
men whose muscular strength is below the average, domestic animals,
etc., might all claim this special protection as a plea of chivalry,
in their favour. And yet we do not find different criminal laws, or
different rules of prison treatment, say, for men whose stamina is
below the average. Neither do we find such men or boys exempted by law
from corporal punishment in consequence of their weakness, unless as an
exception in individual cases when the weakness amounts to dangerous
physical disability. Neither, again, in the general affairs of life
are we accustomed to see any such deference to men of weaker muscular
or constitutional development as custom exacts in the case of women.
Once more, looking at the question from the other side, do we find the
claim of chivalry dropped in the case of the powerful virago or the
muscularly developed female athlete, the sportswoman who rides, hunts,
plays cricket, football, golf and other masculine games, and who may
even fence or box? Not one whit!
It would seem then that the definition of the term under consideration,
based on the notion of deference to mere weakness as such, will hardly
hold water, since in its application the question of sex always takes
precedence of that of weakness. Let us try again! Abandoning for the
moment the definition of chivalry as a consideration for weakness,
considered _absolutely_, as we may term it, let us see whether the
definition of consideration for _relative_ defencelessness—_i.e._
defencelessness in a given situation—will coincide with the current
usage of the word. But here again we are met with the fact that the
man in the hands of the law—to wit, in the grip of the forces of the
State, ay, even the strongest man, were he a very Hercules, is in as
precisely as defenceless and helpless a position relative to those in
whose power he finds himself, as the weakest woman would be in the like
case, neither more nor less! And yet an enlightened and chivalrous
public opinion tolerates the most fiendish barbarities and excogitated
cruelties being perpetrated upon male convicts in our gaols, while it
shudders with horror at the notion of female convicts being accorded
any severity of punishment at all even for the same, or, for that
matter, more heinous offences. A particularly crass and crucial
illustration is that infamous piece of one-sided sex legislation
which has already occupied our attention in the course of the present
volume—to wit, the so-called “White Slave Traffic Act” 1912.
It is plain then that chivalry as understood in the present day
really spells sex privilege and sex favouritism pure and simple, and
that any attempts to define the term on a larger basis, or to give
it a colourable rationality founded on fact, are simply subterfuges,
conscious or unconscious, on the part of those who put them forward.
The etymology of the word chivalry is well known and obvious enough.
The term meant originally the virtues associated with knighthood
considered as a whole, bravery even to the extent of reckless daring,
loyalty to the chief or feudal superior, generosity to a fallen foe,
general open-handedness, and open-heartedness, including, of course,
the succour of the weak and the oppressed generally, _inter alia_, the
female sex when in difficulties. It would be idle, of course, to insist
upon the historical definition of the term. Language develops and words
in course of time depart widely from their original connotation, so
that etymology alone is seldom of much value in practically determining
the definition of words in their application at the present day. But
the fact is none the less worthy of note that only a fragment of the
original connotation of the word chivalry is covered by the term as
used in our time, and that even that fragment is torn from its original
connection and is made to serve as a scarecrow in the field of public
opinion to intimidate all who refuse to act upon, or who protest
against, the privileges and immunities of the female sex.[101:1]
[101:1] One among many apposite cases, which has occurred
recently, was protested against in a letter to _The Daily
Telegraph_, 21st March 1913, in which it was pointed out that
while a suffragette got a few months’ imprisonment in the
second division for wilfully setting fire to the pavilion in
Kew Gardens, a few days previously, at the Lewes Assizes, a man
had been sentenced to five years’ penal servitude for burning a
rick!!
I have said that even that subsidiary element in the old original
notion of chivalry which is now well-nigh the only surviving remnant
of its original connotation is torn from its connection and hence
has necessarily become radically changed in its meaning. From being
part of a general code of manners enjoined upon a particular guild or
profession it has been degraded to mean the exclusive right in one
sex guaranteed by law and custom to certain advantages and exemptions
without any corresponding responsibility. Let us make no mistake about
this. When the limelight of a little plain but critical common-sense is
turned upon this notion of chivalry hitherto regarded as so sacrosanct,
it is seen to be but a poor thing after all; and when men have acquired
the habit of habitually turning the light of such criticism upon it,
the accusation, so terrible in the present state of public opinion, of
being “unchivalrous” will lose its terrors for them. In the so-called
ages of chivalry themselves it never meant, as it does to-day, the
woman right or wrong. It never meant as it does to-day the general
legal and social privilege of sex. It never meant a social defence or
a legal exoneration for the bad and even the criminal woman, simply
because she is a woman. It meant none of these things. All it meant was
a voluntary or gratuitous personal service to the forlorn women which
the members of the Knights’ guild among other such services, many of
them taking precedence of this one, were supposed to perform.
So far as courage is concerned, which was perhaps the first of the
chivalric virtues in the old days, it certainly requires more courage
in our days to deal severely with a woman when she deserves it (as a
man would be dealt with in like circumstances) than it does to back up
a woman against her wicked male opponent.
It is a cheap thing, for example, in the case of a man and woman
quarrelling in the street, to play out the stage rôle of the bold and
gallant Englishman “who won’t see a woman maltreated and put upon,
not he!” and this, of course, without any inquiry into the merits of
the quarrel. To swim with the stream, to make a pretence of boldness
and bravery, when all the time you know you have the backing of
conventional public opinion and mob-force behind you, is the cheapest
of mock heroics.
Chivalry to-day means the woman, right or wrong, just as patriotism
to-day means “my country right or wrong.” In other words, chivalry
to-day is only another name for Sentimental Feminism. Every outrageous
pretension of Sentimental Feminism can be justified by the appeal
to chivalry, which amounts (to use the German expression) to an
“appeal from Pontius to Pilate.” This Sentimental Feminism commonly
called chivalry is sometimes impudently dubbed by its votaries,
“manliness.” It will presumably continue in its practical effects
until a sufficient minority of sensible men will have the moral
courage to beard a Feminist public opinion and shed a little of this
sort of “manliness.” The plucky Welshmen at Llandystwmdwy in their
dealings with the suffragette rowdies on a memorable occasion showed
themselves capable of doing this. In fact one good effect generally
of militant suffragetteism seems to be the weakening of the notion of
chivalry—_i.e._ in its modern sense of Sentimental Feminism—amongst
the populace of this country.
The combination of Sentimental Feminism with its invocation of the
old-world sentiment of chivalry which was based essentially on the
assumption of the mental, moral and physical inferiority of woman to
man, for its justification, with the pretensions of modern Political
Feminism, is simply grotesque in its inconsistent absurdity. In
this way Modern Feminism would fain achieve the feat of eating its
cake and having it too. When political and economic rights are in
question, _bien entendu_, such as involve gain and social standing,
the assumption of inferiority magically disappears before the strident
assertion of the dogma of the equality of woman with man—her mental
and moral equality certainly! When, however, the question is of a
different character—for example, for the relieving of some vile female
criminal of the penalty of her misdeeds—then Sentimental Feminism
comes into play, then the whole _plaidoyer_ is based on the chivalric
sentiment of deference and consideration for poor, weak woman. I may
point out that here, if it be in the least degree logical, the plea
for mercy or immunity can hardly be based on any other consideration
than that of an intrinsic moral weakness in view of which the
offence is to be condoned. The plea of physical weakness, if such be
entertained, is here in most cases purely irrelevant. Thus, as regards
the commutation of the death sentence, the question of the muscular
strength or weakness of the condemned person does not come in at all.
The same applies, _mutatis mutandis_, to many other forms of criminal
punishment. But it must not be forgotten that there are two aspects of
physical strength or weakness. There is, as we have already pointed
out, the muscular aspect and the constitutional aspect. If we concede
the female sex as essentially and inherently weaker in muscular power
and development than the male, this by no means involves the assumption
that woman is constitutionally weaker than man. On the contrary, it
is a known fact attested, as far as I am aware, by all physiologists,
no less than by common observation, that the constitutional toughness
and power of endurance of woman in general far exceeds that of man, as
explained in an earlier chapter. This resilient power of the system,
its capacity for enduring strain, it may here be remarked in passing,
is by no means necessarily a characteristic of a specially high stage
of organic evolution. We find it indeed in many orders of invertebrate
animals in striking forms. Be this as it may, however, the existence
of this greater constitutional strength or resistant power in the
female than in the male organic system—as crucially instanced by
the markedly greater death-rate of boys than of girls in infancy and
early childhood—should, in respect of severity of punishment, prison
treatment, etc., be a strong counter-argument against the plea for
leniency, or immunity in the case of female criminals, made by the
advocates of Sentimental Feminism.
But these considerations afford only one more illustration of the utter
irrationality of the whole movement of Sentimental Feminism identified
with the notion of “chivalry.” For the rest, we may find illustrations
of this galore. A very flagrant case is that infamous “rule of the
sea” which came so much into prominence at the time of the _Titanic_
disaster. According to this preposterous “chivalric” Feminism, in the
case of a ship foundering, it is the unwritten law of the seas, not
that the passengers shall leave the ship and be rescued in their order
as they come, but that the whole female portion shall have the right of
being rescued before any man is allowed to leave the ship. Now this
abominable piece of sex favouritism, on the face of it, cries aloud in
its irrational injustice. Here is no question of bodily strength or
weakness, either muscular or constitutional. In this respect, for the
nonce, all are on a level. But it is a case of life itself. A number of
poor wretches are doomed to a watery grave, simply and solely because
they have not had the luck to be born of the privileged female sex.
Such is “chivalry” as understood to-day—the deprivation, the robbery
from men of the most elementary personal rights in order to endow women
with privileges at the expense of men. During the ages of chivalry and
for long after it was not so. Law and custom then was the same for
men as for women in its incidence. To quote the familiar proverb in a
slightly altered form, _then_—“what was sauce for the gander was sauce
for the goose.” Not until the nineteenth century did this state of
things change. Then for the first time the law began to respect persons
and to distinguish in favour of sex.
Even taking the matter on the conventional ground of weakness and
granting, for the sake of argument, the relative muscular weakness
of the female as ground for her being allowed the immunity claimed
by Modern Feminists of the sentimental school, the distinction is
altogether lost sight of between weakness as such and _aggressive_
weakness. Now I submit there is a very considerable difference between
what is due to weakness that is harmless and unprovocative, and
weakness that is _aggressive_, still more when this aggressive weakness
presumes on itself as weakness, and on the consideration extended to
it, in order to become tyrannical and oppressive. Weakness as such
assuredly deserves all consideration, but aggressive weakness deserves
none save to be crushed beneath the iron heel of strength. Woman at
the present day has been encouraged by a Feminist public opinion to
become meanly aggressive under the protection of her weakness. She has
been encouraged to forge her gift of weakness into a weapon of tyranny
against man, unwitting that in so doing she has deprived her weakness
of all just claim to consideration or even to toleration.