A DISCUSSION OF THE WOMAN QUESTION FROM ALL POINTS.
The bold intrusion of Miss Audacia Dangereyes into my apartment had left
a most disagreeable impression on my mind. This was not lessened by the
reception of her paper, which came to hand in due course of next mail;
and which I found to be an exposition of all the wildest principles of
modern French communism. It consisted of attacks directed about equally
against Christianity, marriage, the family state, and all human laws and
standing order, whatsoever. It was much the same kind of writing with
which the populace of France was indoctrinated and leavened in the era
preceding the first revolution, and which in time bore fruit in blood.
In those days, as now, such doctrines were toyed with in literary
_salons_ and aristocratic circles, where their novelty formed an
agreeable stimulus in the vapid common-place of fashionable life. They
were then, as now, embraced with enthusiasm by fair illuminati, who
fancied that they saw in them a dawn of some millennial glory; and were
awakened from their dream, like Madame Roland, at the foot of the
guillotine, bowing their heads to death and crying, "O Liberty, what
things are done in thy name!"
The principal difference between the writers on the _Emancipated Woman_,
and those of the French illuminati, was that the French prototypes were
men and women of elegance, culture, and education; whereas their
American imitators, though not wanting in a certain vigor and
cleverness, were both coarse in expression, narrow in education, and
wholly devoid of common decency in their manner of putting things. It
was a paper that a man who reverenced his mother and sisters could
scarcely read alone in his own apartments without blushing with
indignation and vexation.
Every holy secret of human nature, all those subjects of which the grace
and the power consists in their exquisite delicacy and tender
refinement, were here handled with coarse fingers. Society assumed the
aspect of a pack of breeding animals, and all its laws and institutions
were to return to the mere animal basis.
It was particularly annoying to me that this paper, with all its
coarseness and grossness, set itself up to be the head leader of Woman's
Rights; and to give its harsh clamors as the voice of woman. Neither was
I at all satisfied with the manner in which I had been dragooned into
taking it, and thus giving my name and money to its circulation. I had
actually been bullied into it; because, never having contemplated the
possibility of such an existence as a female bully, I had marked out in
my mind no suitable course of conduct adequate to the treatment of one.
"What _should_ I have done?" I said to myself. "What _is_ a man to do
under such circumstances? Shall he engage in a personal scuffle? Shall
he himself vacate his apartment, or shall he call in a policeman?"
The question assumed importance in my eyes, because it was quite
possible that, having come once, she might come again; that the same
course of conduct might be used to enforce any kind of exaction which
she should choose to lay on me. But, most of all was I sensitive, lest
by any means some report of it might get to the Van Arsdels. My
trepidation may then be guessed, on having the subject at once proposed
to me by Mr. Van Arsdel that evening as I was sitting with him and Ida
in her study.
"I want to know, Mr. Henderson," he said, "if you are a subscriber for
the _Emancipated Woman_, the new organ of the Woman's Rights party?"
"Now, papa," said Ida, "that is a little unjust! It only _professes_ to
be an organ of the party, but it is not recognized by us."
"Have you seen the paper?" said Mr. Van Arsdel to me.
Like a true Yankee I avoided the question by asking another.
"Have _you_ subscribed to it, Mr. Van Arsdel?"
"Well, yes," said he laughing, "I confess I have; and a pretty mess I
have made of it. It is not a paper that any decent man ought to have in
his house. But the woman came herself into my counting-room and,
actually, she badgered me into it; I couldn't get her out. I didn't know
what to do with her. I never had a woman go on so with me before. I was
flustered, and gave her my five dollars to get rid of her. If she had
been a man I'd have knocked her down."
"Oh, papa," said Ida, "I'll tell you what you should have done; you
should have called _me_. She'd have got no money and no subscriptions
out of me, nor you either if I'd been there."
"Now, Mr. Henderson, misery loves company; has she been to your room?"
said Mr. Van Arsdel.
"I confess she has," said I, "and that I have done just what you
did--yielded at once."
"Mr. Henderson, all this sort of proceeding is thoroughly vexatious and
disagreeable," said Ida; "and all the more so that it tends directly to
injure all women who are trying to be self-supporting and independent.
It destroys that delicacy and refinement of feeling which men, and
American men especially, cherish toward women, and will make the paths
of self-support terribly hard to those who have to tread them. There
really is not the slightest reason why a woman should cease to be a
woman because she chooses to be independent and pursue a self-supporting
career. And claiming a right to dispense with womanly decorums and act
like a man is just as ridiculous as it would be for a man to claim the
right to wear woman's clothes. Even if we supposed that society were so
altered as to give to woman every legal and every social right that man
has; and if all the customs of society should allow her to do the utmost
that she can for herself, in the way of self-support, still, women will
be relatively weaker than men, and there will be the same propriety in
their being treated with consideration and delicacy and gentleness that
there now is. And the assumptions of these hoydens and bullies has a
tendency to destroy that feeling of chivalry and delicacy on the part of
men. It is especially annoying and galling to me, because I do propose
to myself a path different from that in which young women in my position
generally have walked; and such reasoners as Aunt Maria and all the
ladies of her circle will not fail to confound Miss Audacia's
proceedings and opinions, and mine, as all belonging to the same class.
As to the opinions of the paper, it is mainly by the half truths that
are in it that it does mischief. If there were not real evils to be
corrected, and real mistakes in society, this kind of thing would have
no power. As it is, I have no doubt that it will acquire a certain
popularity and do immense mischief. I think the elements of mischief and
confusion in our republic are gathering as fast as they did in France
before the revolution."
"And," said I, "after all, republics are on trial before the world. Our
experiment is not yet two hundred years old, and we have all sorts of
clouds and storms gathering--the labor question, the foreign immigration
question, the woman question, the monopoly and corporation question, all
have grave aspects."
"You see, Mr. Henderson," said Ida, "as to this woman question, the
moderate party to which I belong is just at that disadvantage that
people always are when there is a party on ahead of them who hold some
of their principles and are carrying them to every ridiculous extreme.
They have to uphold a truth that is constantly being brought into
disrepute and made ridiculous by these ultra advocates. For my part, all
I can do is to go quietly on with what I knew was right before. What is
right _is_ right, and remains right no matter how much ultraists may
caricature it."
"Yes, my daughter," said Mr. Van Arsdel, "but what would become of our
country if all the women could vote, and people like Miss Audacia
Dangyereyes should stump the country as candidates for election?"
"Well, I am sure," said Ida, "we should have very disagreeble times, and
a great deal to shock us."
"It is not merely that," said Mr. Van Arsdel, "the influence of such
women on young men would be demoralizing."
"When I think of such dangers," said Ida, "I am, on the whole, very well
pleased that there is no immediate prospect of the suffrage being
granted to women until a generation with superior education and better
balanced minds and better habits of consecutive thought shall have grown
up among us. I think the gift of the ballot will come at last as the
result of a superior culture and education. And I am in no hurry for it
before."
"What is all this that you are talking about?" said Eva, who came into
the room just at this moment. "Ma and Aunt Maria are in such a state
about that paper that Papa has just brought home! They say there are
most horrid things in it, Mr. Henderson; and they say that it belongs to
the party which you, and Ida, and all your progressive people are in."
"It is an excresence of the party," said I; "a diseased growth; and
neither Miss Ida nor I will accept of it as any expression of our
opinion, though it does hold some things which we believe."
"Well," said Eva, "I am curious to see it, just because they don't want
I should. What can there be in it so very bad?"
"You may as well keep out of it, chick," said her father, caressing her.
"And now, I'll tell you, Ida, just what I think; you _good_ women are
not fit to govern the world, because you do not know, and you oughtn't
to know, the wickedness that you have got to govern. We men have to
know all about the rogues, and the sharpers, and the pickpockets, and
the bullies; we have to grow hard and sharp, and 'cut our eye-teeth,' as
the saying is, so that at last we come to not having much faith in
anybody. The rule is, pretty much, not to believe anybody that you meet,
and to take for granted that every man that you have dealings with will
cheat you if he can. That's bad enough, but when it comes to feeling
that every _woman_ will cheat you if she can, when women cut their
eye-teeth, and get to be sharp, and hard, and tricky, as men are, then I
say, Look out for yourself, and deliver me from having anything to do
with them."
"Why, really!" said Eva, "papa is getting to be quite an orator. I never
heard him talk so much before. Papa, why don't you go on to the platform
at the next Woman's Rights Convention, and give them a good blast?"
"Oh I'll let them alone," said Mr. Van Arsdel; "I don't want to be mixed
up with them, and I don't want my girls to be, either. Now, I do not
object to what Ida is doing, and going to do. I think there is real
sense in that, although Mother and Aunt Maria feel so dreadfully about
it. I like to see a woman have pluck, and set herself to be good for
something in the world. And I don't see why there shouldn't be women
doctors; it is just the thing there ought to be. But I don't go for all
this hurrah and hullaballoo, and pitching women head-first into
politics, and sending them to legislatures, and making them candidates
for Congress, and for the Presidency, and nobody knows what else."
"Well," said I, "why not a woman President, as well as a woman Queen of
England?"
"Because," said he, "look at the difference. The woman Queen in England
comes to it quietly; she is born to it, and there is no fuss about it.
But whoever is set up to be President of the United States is just set
up to have his character torn off from his back in shreds, and to be
mauled, pummeled, and covered with dirt by every filthy paper all over
the country. And no woman that was not willing to be draggled through
every kennel, and slopped into every dirty pail of water, like an old
mop, would ever consent to run as a candidate. Why, it's an ordeal that
kills a man. It killed Gen. Harrison, and killed old Zack. And what sort
of a brazen tramp of a woman would it be that could stand it, and come
out of it without being killed? Would it be any kind of a woman that we
should want to see at the head of our government? I tell you, it's quite
another thing to be President of a democratic republic, from what it is
to be hereditary Queen."
"Good for you, papa!" said Eva, clapping her hands. "Why how you go on!
I never did hear such eloquence. No, Ida, set your mind at rest, you
shan't be run for President of the United States. You are a great deal
too good for that."
"Now," said Mr. Van Arsdel, "there's your friend, Mrs. Cerulean, tackled
me the other night, and made a convert of me, she said. Bless me! she's
a handsome woman, and I like to hear her talk. And if we didn't live in
the world we do, and things weren't in any respect what they are,
nothing would be nicer than to let her govern the world. But in the
great rough round of business she's nothing but a pretty baby after
all,--nothing else in the world. We let such women convert us, because
we like to have them around. It amuses us, and don't hurt them. But you
can't let your baby play with matches and gunpowder, if it wants to ever
so much. Women are famous for setting things agoing that they don't know
anything about. And then, when the explosion comes, they don't know what
did it, and run screaming to the men."
"As to Mrs. Cerulean," said Eva, "I never saw anybody that had such a
perfectly happy opinion of herself, as she has. She always thinks that
she understands everything by intuition. I believe in my heart that
she'd walk into the engine-room of the largest steamship that ever was
navigated, and turn out the chief engineer and take his place, if he'd
let her. She'd navigate by woman's God-given instincts, as she calls
them."
"And so she'd keep on till she'd blown up the ship," said Mr. Van
Arsdel.
"Well," said I, "one fact is to be admitted, that men, having always
governed the world, must by this time have acquired a good deal of
traditional knowledge of the science of government, and of human nature,
which women can't learn by intuition in a minute."
"For my part," said Ida, "I never was disposed to insist on the
_immediate_ granting of political rights to women. I think that they
_are_ rights, and that it is very important for the good of society that
these rights should finally be respected. But I am perfectly willing,
for my part, to wait and come to them in the way, and at the time, that
will be best for the general good. I would a great deal rather come to
them by gradual evolution than by destructive revolution. I do not want
them to be forced upon society, when there is so little preparation
among women that they will do themselves no credit by it. All history
shows that the most natural and undeniable human rights may be granted
and maintained in a way that will just defeat themselves, and bring
discredit on all the supporters of them, just as was the case with the
principles of democratic liberty in the first French Revolution. I do
not want the political rights of woman advocated in a manner that will
create similar disturbances, and bring a lasting scandal on what really
is the truth. I do not want women to have the ballot till they will do
themselves credit and improve society by it. I like to have the subject
proposed, and argued, and agitated, and kept up, in hopes that a
generation of women will be educated for it. And I think it is a great
deal better and safer, where it can be done, to have people educated
_for_ the ballot, than to have them educated _by_ the ballot."
"Well, Ida, there's more sense in you than in the most of 'em," said Mr.
Van Arsdel.
"Yes," said Ida, "I think that an immediate rush into politics of such
women as we have now, without experience or knowledge of political
economy of affairs, would be, as Eva says, just like women's undertaking
to manage the machinery of a large steamer by feminine instincts. I hope
never to see women in public life till we have had a generation of women
who have some practical familiarity with the great subjects which are to
be considered, about which now the best instructed women know
comparatively nothing. The question which mainly interests me at present
is a humanitarian one. It's an absolute fact that a great portion of
womankind have their own living to get; and they do it now, as a general
rule, with many of the laws and institutions of society against them.
The reason of this is, that all these laws and institutions have been
made by men, without any consent or concurrence of theirs. Now, as women
are different from men, and have altogether a different class of
feelings and wants and necessities, it certainly is right and proper
that they should have some share in making the laws with which they are
to be governed. It is true that the laws have been made by fathers and
brothers and husbands; but no man, however, near, ever comprehends fully
the necessities and feelings of women. And it seems to me that a State
where all the laws are made by men, without women, is just like a family
that is managed entirely by fathers and brothers, without any
concurrence of mothers and sisters. That's my testimony, and my view of
the matter."
"I don't see," said Eva, "if women are to make the laws in relation to
their own interests, or to have a voice in making them, why they need go
into politics with men in order to do it, or why they need cease to act
like women. If the thing has got to be done, I would have a parliament
of women meet by themselves, and deliberate and have a voice in all that
concerns the State. There, that's my contribution to the programme."
"That's the way the Quakers manage their affairs in their yearly
meetings," said Ida. "I remember I was visiting Aunt Dinah once, during
a yearly meeting, and learned all about it. I remember the sisters had a
voice in everything that was done. The Quaker women have acquired in
this way a great deal of facility in the management of business, and a
great knowledge of affairs. They really seem to me superior to the men."
"I can account for that," said I. "A man among the Quakers is restricted
and held in, and hasn't as much to cultivate and develop him as ordinary
men in the world; whereas, woman, among the Quakers, has her sphere
widened and developed."
At this moment our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Jim
Fellows. He seemed quite out of breath and excited, and had no sooner
passed the compliments of the evening, than he began.
"Well," said he, "Hal, I have just come from the Police Court, where
there's a precious row. Our friend Dacia Dangyereyes is up for
blackmailing and swindling; and there's a terrible wash of dirty linen
going on. I was just in time to get the very earliest notes for our
paper."
"Good!" said Mr. Van Arsdel. "I hope the creature is caught at last."
"Never believe that," said Jim. "She has as many lives as a cat. They
never'll get a hold on her. She'll talk 'em all round."
"Disgusting!" said Ida.
"Ah!" said Jim, "it's part of the world as it goes. She'll come off with
flying colors, doubtless, and her cock's feathers will be flaunting all
the merrier for it."
"How horribly disagreeable," said Eva, "to have such women around. It
makes one ashamed of one's sex."
"I think," said Ida, "there is not sufficient resemblance to a real
woman in her to make much trouble on her account. She's an amphibious
animal, belonging to a transition period of human society."
"Well," said Jim, "if you'll believe it, Mrs. Cerulean and two or three
of the ladies of her set are actually going to invite Dacia to their
_salon_, and patronize her."
"Impossible!" said Ida, flushing crimson; "it _cannot_ be!"
"Oh, you don't know Mrs. Cerulean," said Jim; "Dacia called on her with
her newspaper, and conducted herself in a most sweet and winning manner,
and cast herself at her feet for patronage; and Mrs. Cerulean, regarding
her through those glory spectacles which she usually wears, took her up
immediately as a promising candidate for the latter-day. Mrs. Cerulean
don't see anything in Dacia's paper that, properly interpreted, need
make any trouble; because, you see, as she says, _everything ought to be
love_, everywhere, above and below, under and over, up and down, top and
side and bottom, ought to be _love_, LOVE. And then when there's general
all-overness and all-throughness, and an entire mixed-up-ativeness, then
the infinite will come down into the finite, and the finite will
overflow into the infinite, and, in short, Miss Dacia's cock's feathers
will sail right straight up into heaven, and we shall see her cheek by
jowl with the angel Gabriel, promenading the streets of the new
Jerusalem. That's the programme. Meanwhile, Dacia's delighted. She
hadn't the remotest idea of being an angel, or anything of the sort; but
since good judges have told her she is, she takes it all very
contentedly."
"Oh," said Ida, "it really can't be true, Mr. Fellows; it really is
impossible that such ladies as Mrs. Cerulean's set--ladies of family and
position, ladies of real dignity and delicacy--are going to indorse the
principles of that paper; principles which go to the immediate
dissolution of civilized society."
"That's just what they are doing," said Jim; "And they are having a
glorious high old time doing it too. Mrs. Cerulean herself intends to
write for the paper on the subject of fortyfication and twentification
and unification, and everything else that ends with _ation_. And it is
thought it will improve the paper to have some nice little hymns
inserted in it, to the tune of 'I Want to be an Angel.' I asked Mrs.
Cerulean what if my friend Dacia should rip an oath in the midst of one
of her _salons_--you know the little wretch does swear like a pirate;
and you ought to see how serenely she looked over my head into the far
distant future, and answered me so tenderly, as if I had been a two
hours' chicken peeping to her. 'Oh, James,' says she, 'there are many
opinions yet to be expressed on the subject of what is commonly called
profanity. I have arrived at the conclusion myself, that in impassioned
natures, what is called profanity, is only the state of prophetic
exaltation which naturally seeks vent in intensified language. I
shouldn't think the worse of this fine vigorous creature if, in a
moment's inspired frenzy, she should burst the tame boundaries of
ordinary language. It is true, the vulgar might call it profane. It
requires anointed eyes to see such things truly. When we have risen to
these heights where we now stand, we behold all things purified. There
is around us a new heaven and a new earth.' And so you see, Dacia
Dangyereyes turns out a tip-top angel of the new dispensation."
"Well," said Ida, rising, with heightened color, "this, of course, ends
my intercourse with Mrs. Cerulean, if it be true."
"But," said Eva, "how can they bear the scandal of this disgraceful
trial? This certainly will open their eyes."
"Oh," said Jim, "you will see, Mrs. Cerulean will adhere all the closer
for this. It's persecution, and virtue in all ages has been persecuted;
therefore, all who are persecuted, are virtuous. Don't you see the
logical consistency? And then, don't the Bible say, 'Blessed are ye when
men persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you?'"
"It don't appear to me," said Ida, "that she can so far go against all
common sense."
"_Common_ sense!" said Jim; "Mrs. Cerulean and her clique have long
since risen above anything like common sense; all their sense is of the
most uncommon kind, and relates to a region somewhere up in the clouds,
where everything is made to match. They live in an imaginary world, and
reason with imaginary reasons, and see people through imaginary
spectacles, and have glorious good times all the while. All I wish is,
that I could get up there and live; for you see I get into the state of
prophetic ecstasy pretty often with this confounded hard grind below
here, and then, when I rip out a naughty word, nobody sees the beauty of
it. Mother looks glum. Sister Nell says, 'Oh, Jim!' and looks
despairing."
"But the fact is," said Mr. Van Arsdel, "Mrs. Cerulean is a respectable
woman, of respectable family, and this girl is a tramp; that's what she
is; and it is absolutely impossible that Mrs. Cerulean can know what she
is about."
"Well, I delicately suggested some such thing to Mrs. Cerulean," said
Jim; "but, bless me! the way she set me down! Says she, 'Do you men ever
inquire into the character of people that you unite with to carry your
purposes? You join with anybody that will help you, without regard to
antecedents!"
"She don't speak the truth," said Mr. Van Arsdel. "We men are very
particular about the record of those we join with to carry our purposes.
You wouldn't find a board of bankers taking a man that had a record for
swindling, or a man that edited a paper arguing against all rights of
property. Doctors won't admit a man among them who has the record of a
quack or a malpractitioner. Clergymen won't admit a man among them who
has a record of licentiousness or infidel sentiments. And if women will
admit women, in utter disregard to their record of chastity, or their
lax principles as to the family, they act on lower principles than any
body of men."
"Besides," said I, "that kind of tolerance cuts the very ground from
under the whole woman movement; for the main argument for proposing it,
was to introduce into politics that superior delicacy and purity, which
women manifest in family life. But if women are going to be less careful
about delicacy and decorum and family purity than men are, the quagmire
of politics, foul enough now, will become putrid."
"Oh, come," said Eva, "the subject does get too dreadful; I can't bear
to think of it, and I move that we have a game of whist, and put an end
to it. Come, now, do let's sit down sociably, and have something
agreeable."
We went out into the parlor and sat down to the whist-table, Eva and
Alice, with Jim Fellows and myself respectively as partners, and
indulged ourselves in one of those agreeable chatty games which make the
designation "whist" quite an amusing satire--one of those games played
with that charming disregard of all rules which is so inspiring. In the
best of spirits we talked across the table to each other, trumped our
partners' queens, and did all sorts of enormities in the excitement of
the brilliant by-play of conversation which we kept up all the while. It
may be a familiar experience to many, that one never thinks of so many
things to say, and so many fruitful topics for immediate discussion, as
when one professes to be playing whist. But then, if a young gentleman
wishes a good opportunity to reconnoiter a certain face, no more
advantageous position can be given him than to have it _vis à vis_ at
the whist-table.
"Now, Mr. Henderson," said Alice, "we are going to make a good churchman
of you."
"I am happy to hear it," said I. "I am ready to be made anything good
of, that you can mention."
"Well," said Alice, "we are going to press you and Mr. Fellows, here,
into the service of the church."
"Shall be perfectly enchanted!" said Jim. "If the church only knew my
energies, they would have tried to get me long before."
"Then," said Eva, "you must go with us to-morrow evening; for we are
going to be up all night, about the floral decorations of our church for
Easter morning. Oh! you have no idea what splendid things we are going
to do. We shall be at work hard, all day to-morrow, upon our wreaths and
crosses; and the things must all be put up late at night so as to keep
them from withering. Then, you know, we must be out again to the sunrise
service."
"Why," said I, "it is a regular piece of dissipation."
"Certainly,--religious dissipation, you know," said Alice.
"Well," said Eva, "I don't know why we should not be up all night to
dress the church, for once in our lives, as well as to be up all night
dancing the German. Ida says it is wicked to do either. Ida makes a
perfect hobby of everybody's keeping their health."
"Yes, but," said I, "if people keep themselves, generally, in temperance
and soberness, they can afford a great strain, now and then, if it be
for a good purpose."
"At any rate," said Eva, "you and Mr. Fellows come round and take tea
with us and help us carry our trophies to the church."