In masculine administration of the laws we may follow the instinctive
love of battle down through the custom of "trial by combat"--only
recently outgrown, to our present method, where each contending party
hires a champion to represent him, and these fight it out in a wordy
war, with tricks and devices of complex ingenuity, enjoying this kind of
struggle as they enjoy all other kinds.
It is the old masculine spirit of government as authority which is so
slow in adapting itself to the democratic idea of government as
service. That it should be a representative government they grasp, but
representative of what? of the common will, they say; the will of
the majority;--never thinking that it is the common good, the common
welfare, that government should represent.
It is the inextricable masculinity in our idea of government which so
revolts at the idea of women as voters. "To govern:" that means to boss,
to control, to have authority; and that only, to most minds. They
cannot bear to think of the woman as having control over even their own
affairs; to control is masculine, they assume. Seeing only self-interest
as a natural impulse, and the ruling powers of the state as a sort of
umpire, an authority to preserve the rules of the game while men fight
it out forever; they see in a democracy merely a wider range of self
interest, and a wider, freer field to fight in.
The law dictates the rules, the government enforces them, but the
main business of life, hitherto, has been esteemed as one long fierce
struggle; each man seeking for himself. To deliberately legislate for
the service of all the people, to use the government as the main engine
of that service, is a new process, wholly human, and difficult of
development under an androcentric culture.
Furthermore they put forth those naively androcentric protests,--women
cannot fight, and in case their laws were resisted by men they could not
enforce them,--_therefore_ they should not vote!
What they do not so plainly say, but very strongly think, is that women
should not share the loot which to their minds is so large a part of
politics.
Here we may trace clearly the social heredity of male government.
Fix clearly in your mind the first head-ship of man--the leader of the
pack as it were--the Chief Hunter. Then the second head-ship, the Chief
Fighter. Then the third head-ship, the Chief of the Family. Then the
long line of Chiefs and Captains, Warlords and Landlords, Rulers and
Kings.
The Hunter hunted for prey, and got it. The Fighter enriched himself
with the spoils of the vanquished. The Patriarch lived on the labor of
women and slaves. All down the ages, from frank piracy and robbery to
the measured toll of tribute, ransom and indemnity, we see the same
natural instinct of the hunter and fighter. In his hands the government
is a thing to sap and wreck, to live on. It is his essential impulse to
want something very much; to struggle and fight for it; to take all he
can get.
Set against this the giving love that comes with motherhood; the endless
service that comes of motherhood; the peaceful administration in the
interest of the family that comes of motherhood. We prate much of the
family as the unit of the state. If it is--why not run the state on that
basis? Government by women, so far as it is influenced by their sex,
would be influenced by motherhood; and that would mean care, nurture,
provision, education. We have to go far down the scale for any instance
of organized motherhood, but we do find it in the hymenoptera; in
the overflowing industry, prosperity, peace and loving service of the
ant-hill and bee-hive. These are the most highly socialized types of
life, next to ours, and they are feminine types.
We as human beings have a far higher form of association, with further
issues than mere wealth and propagation of the species. In this human
process we should never forget that men are far more advanced than
women, at present. Because of their humanness has come all the noble
growth of civilization, in spite of their maleness.
As human beings both male and female stand alike useful and honorable,
and should in our government be alike used and honored; but as creatures
of sex, the female is fitter than the male for administration of
constructive social interests. The change in governmental processes
which marks our times is a change in principle. Two great movements
convulse the world to-day, the woman's movement and the labor movement.
Each regards the other as of less moment than itself. Both are parts of
the same world-process.
We are entering upon a period of social consciousness. Whereas so far
almost all of us have seen life only as individuals, and have regarded
the growing strength and riches of the social body as merely so much the
more to fatten on; now we are beginning to take an intelligent interest
in our social nature, to understand it a little, and to begin to feel
the vast increase of happiness and power that comes of real Human Life.
In this change of systems a government which consisted only of
prohibition and commands; of tax collecting and making war; is rapidly
giving way to a system which intelligently manages our common interests,
which is a growing and improving method of universal service. Here the
socialist is perfectly right in his vision of the economic welfare to be
assured by the socialization of industry, though that is but part of
the new development; and the individualist who opposes socialism, crying
loudly for the advantage of "free competition" is but voicing the spirit
of the predacious male.
So with the opposers to the suffrage of women. They represent, whether
men or women, the male viewpoint. They see the woman only as a female,
utterly absorbed in feminine functions, belittled and ignored as her
long tutelage has made her; and they see the man as he sees himself, the
sole master of human affairs for as long as we have historic record.
This, fortunately, is not long. We can now see back of the period of
his supremacy, and are beginning to see beyond it. We are well under
way already in a higher stage of social development, conscious,
well-organized, wisely managed, in which the laws shall be simple
and founded on constructive principles instead of being a set of
ring-regulations within which people may fight as they will; and in
which the government shall be recognized in its full use; not only the
sternly dominant father, and the wisely servicable mother, but the real
union of all people to sanely and economically manage their affairs.