THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
We all know that the subject which appears above as the title of
this chapter is a very favourite subject in America. It is, I hope,
a very favourite subject in England also, and I am inclined to
think has been so for many years past. The rights of women, as
contradistinguished from the wrongs of women, has perhaps been the
most precious of the legacies left to us by the feudal ages. How
amidst the rough darkness of old Teuton rule women began to receive
that respect which is now their dearest right, is one of the most
interesting studies of history. It came, I take it, chiefly from
their own conduct. The women of the old classic races seem to have
enjoyed but a small amount of respect or of rights, and to have
deserved as little. It may have been very well for one Cæsar to have
said that his wife should be above suspicion; but his wife was put
away, and therefore either did not have her rights, or else had
justly forfeited them. The daughter of the next Cæsar lived in Rome
the life of a Messalina, and did not on that account seem to have
lost her "position in society," till she absolutely declined to throw
any veil whatever over her propensities. But as the Roman empire
fell, chivalry began. For a time even chivalry afforded but a dull
time to the women. During the musical period of the troubadours,
ladies, I fancy, had but little to amuse them save the music. But
that was the beginning, and from that time downwards the rights of
women have progressed very favourably. It may be that they have not
yet all that should belong to them. If that be the case, let the men
lose no time in making up the difference. But it seems to me that
the women who are now making their claims may perhaps hardly know
when they are well off. It will be an ill movement if they insist on
throwing away any of the advantages they have won. As for the women
in America especially, I must confess that I think they have a "good
time." I make them my compliments on their sagacity, intelligence,
and attractions, but I utterly refuse to them any sympathy for
supposed wrongs. _O fortunatas sua si bona nôrint!_ Whether or no,
were I an American married man and father of a family, I should not
go in for the rights of man--that is altogether another question.
This question of the rights of women divides itself into two
heads,--one of which is very important, worthy of much consideration,
capable perhaps of much philanthropic action, and at any rate
affording matter for grave discussion. This is the question of
women's work; how far the work of the world, which is now borne
chiefly by men, should be thrown open to women further than is now
done. The other seems to me to be worthy of no consideration, to be
capable of no action, to admit of no grave discussion. This refers to
the political rights of women; how far the political working of the
world, which is now entirely in the hands of men, should be divided
between them and women. The first question is being debated on our
side of the Atlantic as keenly perhaps as on the American side. As to
that other question, I do not know that much has ever been said about
it in Europe.
"You are doing nothing in England towards the employment of females,"
a lady said to me in one of the States soon after my arrival in
America. "Pardon me," I answered, "I think we are doing much, perhaps
too much. At any rate we are doing something." I then explained to
her how Miss Faithfull had instituted a printing establishment in
London; how all the work in that concern was done by females, except
such heavy tasks as those for which women could not be fitted, and I
handed to her one of Miss Faithfull's cards. "Ah," said my American
friend, "poor creatures! I have no doubt their very flesh will be
worked off their bones." I thought this a little unjust on her part;
but nevertheless it occurred to me as an answer not unfit to be made
by some other lady,--by some woman who had not already advocated the
increased employment of women. Let Miss Faithfull look to that. Not
that she will work the flesh off her young women's bones, or allow
such terrible consequences to take place in Coram-street; not that
she or that those connected with her in that enterprise will do aught
but good to those employed therein. It will not even be said of her
individually, or of her partners, that they have worked the flesh
off women's bones; but may it not come to this, that when the tasks
now done by men have been shifted to the shoulders of women, women
themselves will so complain. May it not go further, and come even to
this, that women will have cause for such complaint. I do not think
that such a result will come, because I do not think that the object
desired by those who are active in the matter will be attained. Men,
as a general rule among civilized nations, have elected to earn their
own bread and the bread of the women also, and from this resolve on
their part I do not think that they will be beaten off.
We know that Mrs. Dall, an American lady, has taken up this subject,
and has written a book on it, in which great good sense and honesty
of purpose are shown. Mrs. Dall is a strong advocate for the
increased employment of women, and I, with great deference, disagree
with her. I allude to her book now because she has pointed out,
I think very strongly, the great reason why women do not engage
themselves advantageously in trade pursuits. She by no means
overpraises her own sex, and openly declares that young women will
not consent to place themselves in fair competition with men. They
will not undergo the labour and servitude of long study at their
trades. They will not give themselves up to an apprenticeship. They
will not enter upon their tasks as though they were to be the tasks
of their lives. They may have the same physical and mental aptitudes
for learning a trade as men, but they have not the same devotion to
the pursuit, and will not bind themselves to it thoroughly as men
do. In all which I quite agree with Mrs. Dall; and the English of it
is,--that the young women want to get married.
God forbid that they should not so want. Indeed God has forbidden in
a very express way that there should be any lack of such a desire
on the part of women. There has of late years arisen a feeling
among masses of the best of our English ladies that this feminine
propensity should be checked. We are told that unmarried women may
be respectable, which we always knew; that they may be useful, which
we also acknowledge,--thinking still that if married they would be
more useful; and that they may be happy, which we trust,--feeling
confident however that they might in another position be more happy.
But the question is not only as to the respectability, usefulness,
and happiness of womankind, but as to that of men also. If women can
do without marriage, can men do so? And if not, how are the men to
get wives if the women elect to remain single?
It will be thought that I am treating the subject as though it were
simply jocose, but I beg to assure my reader that such is not my
intention. It certainly is the fact that that disinclination to an
apprenticeship and unwillingness to bear the long training for a
trade, of which Mrs. Dall complains on the part of young women,
arise from the fact, that they have other hopes with which such
apprenticeships would jar; and it is also certain that if such
disinclination be overcome on the part of any great number, it must
be overcome by the destruction or banishment of such hopes. The
question is, whether would good or evil result from such a change? It
is often said that whatever difficulty a woman may have in getting a
husband, no man need encounter difficulty in finding a wife. But in
spite of this seeming fact, I think it must be allowed that if women
are withdrawn from the marriage market, men must be withdrawn from it
also to the same extent.
In any broad view of this matter we are bound to look, not on any
individual case, and the possible remedies for such cases, but on the
position in the world occupied by women in general; on the general
happiness and welfare of the aggregate feminine world, and perhaps
also a little on the general happiness and welfare of the aggregate
male world. When ladies and gentlemen advocate the right of women to
employment, they are taking very different ground from that on which
stand those less extensive philanthropists who exert themselves
for the benefit of distressed needlewomen, for instance, or for
the alleviation of the more bitter misery of governesses. The two
questions are in fact absolutely antagonistic to each other. The
rights-of-women advocate is doing his best to create that position
for women, from the possible misfortunes of which the friend of the
needlewomen is struggling to relieve them. The one is endeavouring
to throw work from off the shoulders of men on to the shoulders of
women, and the other is striving to lessen the burden which women
are already bearing. Of course it is good to relieve distress in
individual cases. That Song of the Shirt, which I regard as poetry of
the immortal kind, has done an amount of good infinitely wider than
poor Hood ever ventured to hope. Of all such efforts I would speak
not only with respect, but with loving admiration. But of those whose
efforts are made to spread work more widely among women, to call upon
them to make for us our watches, to print our books, to sit at our
desks as clerks, and to add up our accounts; much as I may respect
the individual operators in such a movement, I can express no
admiration for their judgment.
I have seen women with ropes round their necks drawing a harrow over
ploughed ground. No one will, I suppose, say that they approve of
that. But it would not have shocked me to see men drawing a harrow. I
should have thought it slow, unprofitable work, but my feelings would
not have been hurt. There must, therefore, be some limit; but if we
men teach ourselves to believe that work is good for women, where is
the limit to be drawn, and who shall draw it? It is true that there
is now no actually defined limit. There is much work that is commonly
open to both sexes. Personal domestic attendance is so, and the
attendance in shops. The use of the needle is shared between men and
women, and few, I take it, know where the sempstress ends and where
the tailor begins. In many trades a woman can be, and very often
is, the owner and manager of the business. Painting is as much open
to women as to men; as also is literature. There can be no defined
limit; but nevertheless there is at present a quasi limit, which the
rights-of-women advocates wish to move, and so to move that women
shall do more work and not less. A woman now could not well be a
cab-driver in London; but are these advocates sure that no woman will
be a cab-driver when success has attended their efforts? And would
they like to see a woman driving a cab? For my part I confess I do
not like to see a woman acting as road-keeper on a French railway.
I have seen a woman acting as ostler at a public stage in Ireland.
I knew the circumstances,--how her husband had become ill and
incapable, and how she had been allowed to earn the wages; but
nevertheless the sight was to me disagreeable, and seemed, as far as
it went, to degrade the sex. Chivalry has been very active in raising
women from the hard and hardening tasks of the world, and through
this action they have become soft, tender, and virtuous. It seems to
me that they of whom I am now speaking are desirous of undoing what
chivalry has done.
The argument used is of course plain enough. It is said that women
are left destitute in the world,--destitute unless they can be
self-dependent, and that to women should be given the same open
access to wages that men possess, in order that they may be as
self-dependent as men. Why should a young woman, for whom no father
is able to provide, not enjoy those means of provision which are
open to a young man so circumstanced? But I think the answer is very
simple. The young man under the happiest circumstances which may
befall him is bound to earn his bread. The young woman is only so
bound when happy circumstances do not befall her. Should we endeavour
to make the recurrence of unhappy circumstances more general or less
so? What does any tradesman, any professional man, any mechanic wish
for his children? Is it not this, that his sons shall go forth and
earn their bread, and that his daughters shall remain with him till
they are married? Is not that the mother's wish? Is it not notorious
that such is the wish of us all as to our daughters? In advocating
the rights of women it is of other men's girls that we think, never
of our own.
But, nevertheless, what shall we do for those women who must earn
their bread by their own work? Whatever we do, do not let us wilfully
increase their number. By opening trades to women, by making them
printers, watchmakers, accountants, or what not, we shall not simply
relieve those who must now earn their bread by some such work or else
starve. It will not be within our power to stop ourselves exactly
at a certain point; to arrange that those women who under existing
circumstances may now be in want, shall be thus placed beyond want;
but that no others shall be affected. Men, I fear, will be too
willing to relieve themselves of some portion of their present
burden, should the world's altered ways enable them to do so. At
present a lawyer's clerk may earn perhaps his two guineas a week, and
he with his wife lives on that in fair comfort. But if his wife, as
well as he, has been brought up as a lawyer's clerk, he will look to
her also for some amount of wages. I doubt whether the two guineas
would be much increased, but I do not doubt at all that the woman's
position would be injured.
It seems to me that in discussing this subject, philanthropists fail
to take hold of the right end of the argument. Money returns from
work are very good, and work itself is good, as bringing such returns
and occupying both body and mind; but the world's work is very hard,
and workmen are too often overdriven. The question seems to me to
be this,--of all this work have the men got on their own backs too
heavy a share for them to bear, and should they seek relief by
throwing more of it upon women? It is the rights of man that we are
in fact debating. These watches are weary to make, and this type is
troublesome to set. We have battles to fight and speeches to make,
and our hands altogether are too full. The women are idle,--many
of them. They shall make the watches for us and set the type; and
when they have done that, why should they not make nails as they do
sometimes in Worcestershire, or clean horses, or drive the cabs? They
have had an easy time of it for these years past, but we'll change
that. And then it would come to pass that with ropes round their
necks the women would be drawing harrows across the fields.
I don't think this will come to pass. The women generally do know
when they are well off, and are not particularly anxious to accept
the philanthropy proffered to them;--as Mrs. Dall says, they do not
wish to bind themselves as apprentices to independent money-making.
This cry has been louder in America than with us, but even in America
it has not been efficacious for much. There is in the States, no
doubt, a sort of hankering after increased influence, a desire for
that prominence of position which men attain by loud voices and
brazen foreheads, a desire in the female heart to be up and doing
something, if the female heart only knew what; but even in the States
it has hardly advanced beyond a few feminine lectures. In many
branches of work women are less employed than in England. They are
not so frequent behind counters in the shops, and are rarely seen
as servants in hotels. The fires in such houses are lighted and the
rooms swept by men. But the American girls may say they do not desire
to light fires and sweep rooms. They are ambitious of the higher
classes of work. But those higher branches of work require study,
apprenticeship, a devotion of youth; and that they will not give. It
is very well for a young man to bind himself for four years, and to
think of marrying four years after that apprenticeship is over. But
such a prospectus will not do for a girl. While the sun shines the
hay must be made, and her sun shines earlier in the day than that of
him who is to be her husband. Let him go through the apprenticeship
and the work, and she will have sufficient on her hands if she looks
well after his household. Under nature's teaching she is aware of
this, and will not bind herself to any other apprenticeship, let Mrs.
Dall preach as she may.
I remember seeing, either at New York or Boston, a wooden figure of a
neat young woman, as large as life, standing at a desk with a ledger
before her, and looking as though the beau ideal of human bliss were
realized in her employment. Under the figure there was some notice
respecting female accountants. Nothing could be nicer than the lady's
figure, more flowing than the broad lines of her drapery, or more
attractive than her auburn ringlets. There she stood at work, earning
her bread without any impediment to the natural operation of her
female charms, and adjusting the accounts of some great firm with as
much facility as grace. I wonder whether he who designed that figure
had ever sat or stood at a desk for six hours,--whether he knew the
dull hum of the brain which comes from long attention to another
man's figures; whether he had ever soiled his own fingers with the
everlasting work of office hours, or worn his sleeves threadbare as
he leaned, weary in body and mind, upon his desk? Work is a grand
thing,--the grandest thing we have; but work is not picturesque,
graceful, and in itself alluring. It sucks the sap out of men's
bones, and bends their backs, and sometimes breaks their hearts; but
though it be so, I for one would not wish to throw any heavier share
of it on to a woman's shoulders. It was pretty to see those young
women with spectacles at the Boston library, but when I heard that
they were there from eight in the morning till nine at night, I
pitied them their loss of all the softness of home, and felt that
they would not willingly be there if necessity were less stern.
Say that by advocating the rights of women, philanthropists succeed
in apportioning more work to their share, will they eat more, wear
better clothes, lie softer, and have altogether more of the fruits of
work than they do now? That some would do so there can be no doubt,
but as little that some would have less. If on the whole they would
not have more, for what good result is the movement made? The first
question is, whether at the present time they have less than their
proper share. There are, unquestionably, terrible cases of female
want, and so there are also of want among men. Alas! do we not
all feel that it must be so, let the philanthropists be ever so
energetic? And if a woman be left destitute, without the assistance
of father, brother, or husband, it would be hard if no means of
earning subsistence were open to her. But the object now sought is
not that of relieving such distress. It has a much wider tendency,
or at any rate a wider desire. The idea is that women will ennoble
themselves by making themselves independent, by working for their own
bread instead of eating bread earned by men. It is in that that these
new philosophers seem to me to err so greatly. Humanity and chivalry
have succeeded after a long struggle in teaching the man to work
for the woman; and now the woman rebels against such teaching,--not
because she likes the work, but because she desires the influence
which attends it. But in this I wrong the woman,--even the American
woman. It is not she who desires it, but her philanthropical
philosophical friends who desire it for her.
If work were more equally divided between the sexes some women would,
of course, receive more of the good things of the world. But women
generally would not do so. The tendency then would be to force young
women out upon their own exertions. Fathers would soon learn to think
that their daughters should be no more dependent on them than their
sons; men would expect their wives to work at their own trades;
brothers would be taught to think it hard that their sisters should
lean on them; and thus women, driven upon their own resources, would
hardly fare better than they do at present.
After all it is a question of money, and a contest for that power and
influence which money gives. At present men have the position of the
Lower House of Parliament. They have to do the harder work, but they
hold the purse. Even in England there has grown up a feeling that the
old law of the land gives a married man too much power over the joint
pecuniary resources of him and his wife, and in America this feeling
is much stronger, and the old law has been modified. Why should a
married woman be able to possess nothing? And if such be the law of
the land, is it worth a woman's while to marry and put herself in
such a position? Those are the questions asked by the friends of the
rights of women. But the young women do marry, and the men pour their
earnings into their wives' laps.
If little has as yet been done in extending the rights of women by
giving them a greater share of the work of the world, still less has
been done towards giving them their portion of political influence.
In the States there are many men of mark, and women of mark also, who
think that women should have votes for public elections. Mr. Wendell
Phillips, the Boston lecturer who advocates abolition, is an apostle
in this cause also; and while I was at Boston I read the provisions
of a will lately left by a millionaire, in which he bequeathed some
very large sums of money to be expended in agitation on this subject.
A woman is subject to the law; why then should she not help to make
the law? A child is subject to the law, and does not help to make it;
but the child lacks that discretion which the woman enjoys equally
with the man. That I take it is the amount of the argument in favour
of the political rights of women. The logic of this is so conclusive,
that I am prepared to acknowledge that it admits of no answer. I will
only say that the mutual good relations between men and women, which
are so indispensable to our happiness, require that men and women
should not take to voting at the same time and on the same result. If
it be decided that women shall have political power, let them have
it all to themselves for a season. If that be so resolved, I think
we may safely leave it to them to name the time at which they will
begin.
I confess that in the States I have sometimes been driven to
think that chivalry has been carried too far;--that there is an
attempt to make women think more of the rights of their womanhood
than is needful. There are ladies' doors at hotels, and ladies'
drawing-rooms, ladies' sides on the ferry-boats, ladies' windows at
the post office for the delivery of letters;--which, by-the-by, is
an atrocious institution, as anybody may learn who will look at the
advertisements called personal in some of the New York papers. Why
should not young ladies have their letters sent to their houses,
instead of getting them at a private window? The post-office clerks
can tell stories about those ladies' windows. But at every turn it
is necessary to make separate provision for ladies. From all this
it comes to pass that the baker's daughter looks down from a great
height on her papa, and by no means thinks her brother good enough
for her associate. Nature, the great restorer, comes in and teaches
her to fall in love with the butcher's son. Thus the evil is
mitigated; but I cannot but wish that the young woman should not see
herself denominated a lady so often, and should receive fewer lessons
as to the extent of her privileges. I would save her if I could from
working at the oven; I would give to her bread and meat earned by
her father's care and her brother's sweat; but when she has received
these good things, I would have her proud of the one and by no means
ashamed of the other.
Let women say what they will of their rights, or men who think
themselves generous say what they will for them, the question has all
been settled both for them and for us men by a higher power. They are
the nursing mothers of mankind, and in that law their fate is written
with all its joys and all its privileges. It is for men to make those
joys as lasting and those privileges as perfect as may be. That women
should have their rights no man will deny. To my thinking neither
increase of work nor increase of political influence are among them.
The best right a woman has is the right to a husband, and that is
the right to which I would recommend every young woman here and in
the States to turn her best attention. On the whole, I think that
my doctrine will be more acceptable than that of Mrs. Dall or Mr.
Wendell Phillips.