It is easy to assume that men are naturally the lawmakers and
law-enforcers, under the plain historic fact that they have been such
since the beginning of the patriarchate.
Back of law lies custom and tradition. Back of government lies the
correlative activity of any organized group. What group-insects
and group-animals evolve unconsciously and fulfill by their social
instincts, we evolve consciously and fulfill by arbitrary systems called
laws and governments. In this, as in all other fields of our action, we
must discriminate between the humanness of the function in process of
development, and the influence of the male or female upon it. Quite
apart from what they may like or dislike as sexes, from their differing
tastes and faculties, lies the much larger field of human progress, in
which they equally participate.
On this plane the evolution of law and government proceeds somewhat as
follows:--The early woman-centered group organized on maternal lines
of common love and service. The early combinations of men were
first a grouped predacity--organized hunting; then a grouped
belligerency,--organized warfare.
By special development some minds are able to perceive the need of
certain lines of conduct over others, and to make this clear to their
fellows; whereby, gradually, our higher social nature establishes rules
and precedents to which we personally agree to submit. The process of
social development is one of progressive co-ordination.
From independent individual action for individual ends, up to
interdependent social action for social ends we slowly move; the "devil"
in the play being the old Ego, which has to be harmonized with the new
social spirit. This social process, like all others, having been
in masculine hands, we may find in it the same marks of one-sided
Specialization so visible in our previous studies.
The coersive attitude is essentially male. In the ceaseless age-old
struggle of sex combat he developed the desire to overcome, which is
always stimulated by resistance; and in this later historic period of
his supremacy, he further developed the habit of dominance and mastery.
We may instance the contrast between the conduct of a man when "in love"
and while courting; in which period he falls into the natural position
of his sex towards the other--namely, that of a wooer; and his behavior
when, with marriage, they enter the, artificial relation of the master
male and servile female. His "instinct of dominance" does not assert
itself during the earlier period, which was a million times longer than
the latter; it only appears in the more modern and arbitrary relation.
Among other animals monogamous union is not accompanied by any such
discordant and unnatural features. However recent as this habit is when
considered biologically, it is as old as civilization when we consider
it historically: quite old enough to be a serious force. Under its
pressure we see the legal systems and forms of government slowly
evolving, the general human growth always heavily perverted by the
special masculine influence. First we find the mere force of custom
governing us, the _mores_ of the ancient people. Then comes the gradual
appearance of authority, from the purely natural leadership of the best
hunter or fighter up through the unnatural mastery of the patriarch,
owning and governing his wives, children, slaves and cattle, and making
such rules and regulations as pleased him.
Our laws as we support them now are slow, wasteful, cumbrous systems,
which require a special caste to interpret and another to enforce;
wherein the average citizen knows nothing of the law, and cares only
to evade it when he can, obey it when he must. In the household, that
stunted, crippled rudiment of the matriarchate, where alone we can find
what is left of the natural influence of woman, the laws and government,
so far as she is responsible for them, are fairly simple, and bear
visible relation to the common good, which relation is clearly and
persistently taught.
In the larger household of city and state the educational part of the
law is grievously neglected. It makes no allowance for ignorance. If a
man breaks a law of which he never heard he is not excused therefore;
the penalty rolls on just the same. Fancy a mother making solemn rules
and regulations for her family, telling the children nothing about them,
and then punishing them when they disobeyed the unknown laws!
The use of force is natural to the male; while as a human being he must
needs legislate somewhat in the interests of the community, as a male
being he sees no necessity for other enforcement than by penalty. To
violently oppose, to fight, to trample to the earth, to triumph in loud
bellowings of savage joy,--these are the primitive male instincts;
and the perfectly natural social instinct which leads to peaceful
persuasion, to education, to an easy harmony of action, are
contemptuously ranked as "feminine," or as "philanthropic,"--which is
almost as bad. "Men need stronger measures" they say proudly. Yes, but
four-fifths of the world are women and children!
As a matter of fact the woman, the mother, is the first co-ordinator,
legislator, administrator and executive. From the guarding and guidance
of her cubs and kittens up to the longer, larger management of human
youth, she is the first to consider group interests and co-relate them.
As a father the male grows to share in these original feminine
functions, and with us, fatherhood having become socialized while
motherhood has not, he does the best he can, alone, to do the world's
mother-work in his father way.
In study of any long established human custom it is very difficult to
see it clearly and dispassionately. Our minds are heavily loaded with
precedent, with race-custom, with the iron weight called authority.
These heavy forces reach their most perfect expression in the absolutely
masculine field of warfare. The absolute authority; the brainless,
voiceless obedience; the relentless penalty. Here we have male coercion
at its height; law and government wholly arbitrary. The result is as
might be expected, a fine machine of destruction. But destruction is not
a human process--merely a male process of eliminating the unfit.
The female process is to select the fit; her elimination is negative and
painless.