NO COMPETITION BETWEEN THE SEXES
A brief discussion of the distinction between women as voters
and as statesmen.
While this chapter is parenthetical and is not essential to the
argument, yet a discussion of the philosophy of human happiness would
be incomplete without it.
If man had the power of creation his present wisdom would cause him not
only to omit competition between the sexes, but he would avoid the
possibility of even rivalry. The Creator in His wisdom did not put the
sexes in competition and man can neither improve nor amend.
Occasionally a woman develops a beard, but it is so rare that she
usually enters a museum. Many years ago I saw a woman with a
well-defined “Adam’s apple.” But none of us admire either “mannish”
women or “sissy” men.
Woman does not get her happiness from her creatorships or
sovereignties. The normal woman prefers that her husband be the
sovereign, and she his queen. Woman gets her happiness from her
sacrifices. She gives herself to husband, to children, to home, to
church, to hospital, to good deeds, and out of these sacrifices she
gets the maximum of her happiness. A boy asked the butcher for tough
meat and gave this reason: “If I get tender meat, dad’ll eat it all.”
That would be a libel upon woman. We have each seen a thousand times
where mother was getting more happiness in picking the neck and the
back than the children in eating the white meat, while dad grabbed both
upper joints.
But there is another side to this. When dad is refreshed, when his
blood is red, when he is a full-grown normal man, what does dad do? He
bears all the hardships and all the dangers this world holds in store;
he freezes in the arctics, he melts in the tropics, that he may bring
to those he loves the choicest of earth, and adorn his queen with the
brightest jewels that glitter.
I have never supposed that when our early ancestors were confronted
with danger that there was any controversy as to who should defend the
other. I have assumed that she as instinctively sprang to his left, as
he to her right, that _his_ sword arm might be free. His name was John.
Her name was Mary. His brother’s name was Peter; he married Margaret.
Each pair named their son Ole. There being two Oles in the tribe, a
distinguishing name was necessary. Do you suppose there was a family
controversy to determine whether one should be called “Ole Johnson” or
“Ole Maryson”?
No, woman does not wish to be the head of a clan, or to create or to
possess, but she does desire that her husband shall be a chieftain, a
builder and a landlord, and is willing to make any sacrifice to that
end. Woman wants to be loved and, incidentally, let me say, needs to be
told that she is, in the tenderest way, and more than once. If told
sufficiently often, she is even proud to be a slave to the man who
loves her and sometimes is without ever receiving a single post-nuptial
word of endearment.
I doubt if anyone would favor woman’s suffrage if he thought it would
result in changing woman’s nature, or in making her masculine in
manner. “Man’s chiefest inspiration to well-doing is hope of
companionship with that sacred, true and well-embodied soul—a
woman”—only because an All-wise Creator made the sexes as unlike as
possible and still keep them both human.
“For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse. Could we but make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain.”
Only one woman has occupied a seat in Congress and I am glad to record
that she remained womanly, and the other members manly. In that respect
the experiment was harmless. She was permitted to violate the rules and
to interrupt a rollcall to explain her vote. Neither the Speaker nor
the members called her to order. Perhaps they would have done so had
she not been crying at the time. During a speech criticising the
enforcement of law against a certain element in her state, she was
asked several questions which, together with her answers, were taken
down by the official stenographer. When she revised the extension of
the notes for the Congressional Record, she again violated the rules
and struck out the questions and answers and explained her conduct by
saying: “I didn’t want them in there.” The congressmen affected, still
chivalrous, did not even ask to have the Record corrected.
It will probably be some years before another woman occupies a seat in
either house, for statesmanship is not gauged by intelligence or purity
of motive, so much as by aptitude crossed on experience. Aptitude for
the law, aptitude for mechanics and aptitude for statecraft, are quite
rare, even among men. Many women have been admitted to the bar, and
while a few have had some practice as attorneys, thus far the sex has
developed no one of marked legal ability. If it should produce a lawyer
or a master mechanic or a statesman, it will not necessarily entitle
the unfortunate to a place in a museum, but it will be about as rare as
anything in a museum.