theories concerning the equality of the sexes; and I am sure that a
great deal of our force has been wasted on fruitless discussions such
as: “Why has there never been a female Shakespeare?” A Celt claiming
equal representation with a Saxon, _or any representation at all_, might
just as fairly be challenged to explain why there has never been a
Celtic Shakespeare, or a Celtic Tennyson? My own opinion is, that women
_en masse_ are by no means the intellectual equals of men _en
masse_;—and whether this inequality arise from irremediable causes or
from alterable circumstances of education and heredity, is not worth
debating. If the nation had established an intellectual test for
political equality, and admission to the franchise were confined to
persons passing a given Standard; well and good. Then, no doubt, there
would be (as things now stand) fifty per cent. of men who would win
votes, and perhaps only thirty per cent. of women. So much may be freely
admitted. But then that thirty per cent. of females _would_ obtain
political rights; and those who failed, would be debarred by a natural
and real, not an arbitrary inferiority. Such a state of things would not
present such ludicrous injustice as that which obtains,—for example,—in
a parish not a hundred miles from my present abode. There is in the
village in question a man universally known therein as “The _Idiot_;” a
poor slouching, squinting fellow, who yet rents a house and can do rough
field work, though he can scarcely speak intelligibly. _He_ has a vote,
of course. The owner of his house and of half the parish, who holds also
the advowson of the living, is a lady who has travelled widely,
understands three or four languages, and studies the political news of
Europe daily in the columns of the _Times_. That lady, equally of
course, has _no_ vote, no power whatever to keep the representation of
her county out of the hands of the demagogues naturally admired by the
Idiot and his compeers. Under the regulations which create inequalities
of this kind is it not rather absurd to insist perpetually, (as is the
practise of our opponents,) on the _intellectual_ inferiority of
women,—as if it were really in question?
I hold, however, that whatever be our real mental rank,—to be tested
thoroughly only in future generations, under changed conditions of
training and heredity,—we women are the _equivalents_, though not the
_equals_, of men. And to refuse a share in the law-making of a nation to
the most law-abiding half of it; to exclude on all largest questions the
votes of the most conscientious, temperate, religious and (above all)
most merciful and tender-hearted moiety, is a mistake which cannot fail,
and _has_ not failed, to entail great evil and loss.
I wrote, as I have mentioned in Chapter XV., a great many articles,
(chiefly in _Fraser_ and _Macmillan_,) on women’s concerns about the
years 1861–2–3: “_What shall we do with our Old Maids?_”; “_Female
Charity, Lay and Monastic_;” “_Women in Italy in 1862_;” “_The Education
of Women_;” “_Social Science Congress and Women’s Part in them_;” and,
later, “_The Fitness of Women for the Ministry of Religion_.” These made
me known to many women who were fighting in the woman’s cause; Miss
Bessie Parkes (now Madame Belloc), Madame Bodichon, Mrs. Grey, Miss
Shirreff, Mrs. Peter Taylor, Miss Becker, and others; and when
Committees were formed for promoting Woman Suffrage, I was invited to
join them. I did so; and frequently attended the meetings, though not
regularly. We had several Members of Parliament and other gentlemen
(notably Mr. Frederick Hill, brother of my old friend Recorder Hill and
of Sir Rowland), who generally helped our deliberations; and many able
women, among others Mrs. Augusta Webster, the poetess; and Lady Anna
Gore Langton, an exceedingly sensible woman, who also held Drawing-Room
Suffrage Meetings (at which I spoke) in her house. We had for secretary
Miss Lydia Becker; a woman of singular political ability, for whom I had
a sincere respect. Her premature death has been an incalculable loss to
the women of England. She gave me the impression of one of those
ill-fated people whose outward persons do not represent their inward
selves. I am sure she had a large element of softness and sensitiveness
in her nature, unsuspected by most of those with whom she laboured. She
was a most courageous and straightforward woman, with a single eye to
the great political work which she had undertaken, and which I think no
one has understood so well as she.
After Miss Becker’s lamented death the great schism between Unionists
and Home Rulers extended far enough to split even our Committee, (which
was avowedly of no party,) into two bodies. I naturally followed my
fellow-Unionist, Mrs. Fawcett when she re-organized the moiety of the
Society and established an office for it in College Street, Westminster.
Believing her to be quite the ablest woman-economist and politician in
England, I entertain the hope that she may at last carry a Woman
Suffrage Bill and live to see qualified single women recording their
votes at Parliamentary elections. When that time arrives every one will
scoff at the objections which have so long closed the “right of way,” to
us of the “weaker sex.”
Beside the Committee of the Society for _Woman Suffrage_, I also joined
for a time the Committee which,—long afterwards,—effected the splendid
achievement of procuring the passage of the _Married Women’s Property
Act_; the greatest step gained up to the present time for women in
England. I can claim no part of that real honour, which is due in
greatest measure to Mrs. Jacob Bright.
The question of granting University Degrees to women, was opened as far
back as 1862. In that year I read, in the Guildhall in London at the
Social Science Congress, a paper, pleading for the privilege. Dean
Milman, who occupied the Chair, was very kind in praising my crude
address, and enjoyed the little jokes wherewith it was sprinkled; but
next morning every daily paper in London laughed at my demand, and for a
week or two I was the butt of universal ridicule. Nevertheless, just 17
years afterwards, I was invited to join a Deputation headed by Lady
Stanley of Alderley, to thank Lord Granville for having (as President of
London University) conceded those degrees to women, precisely as I had
demanded! I took occasion at the close of the pleasant interview, to
present him with one of the very few remaining copies of my original and
much ridiculed appeal.
From this time I wrote and spoke not unfrequently on behalf of women’s
political and civil claims. One article of mine in _Fraser_, 1868, was
reprinted more than once. It was headed “_Criminals, Idiots, Women and
Minors_;” and enquired “Whether the classification should be counted
sound?” I hope that the discussion it involved on the laws relating to
the property of married women was of some service in helping on the
great measure of justice afterwards granted.
Another paper of mine, circulated by the _London National Society for
Women’s Suffrage_, for whom I wrote it, was entitled “_Our Policy_.” It
was, in effect, an address to women concerning the best way to secure
the suffrage. I began this pamphlet by the following remarks:—
“There is an instructive story, told by Herodotus, of an African
nation which went to war with the South Wind. The wind had greatly
annoyed these Psyllians by drying up their cisterns, so they organised
a campaign and set off to attack the enemy at head-quarters—somewhere,
I presume, about the Sahara. The army was admirably equipped with all
the military engines of those days; swords and spears, darts and
javelins, battering rams and catapults. It happened that the South
Wind did not, however, suffer much from these weapons, but got up one
fine morning and blew!—The sands of the desert have lain for a great
many ages over those unfortunate Psyllians; and, as Herodotus placidly
concludes the story, ‘The Nasamones possess the territory of those who
thus perished.’
“It seems to me that we, women, who have been fighting for the
Suffrage with logical arguments—syllogisms, analogies, demonstrations,
and reductions-to-the-absurd of our antagonists’ position, in short,
all the weapons of ratiocinative warfare—have been behaving very much
like those poor Psyllians, who imagined that darts, and swords, and
catapults would avail against the Simoom. The obvious fact is, that it
is _Sentiment_ we have to contend against, not Reason; Feeling and
Prepossession, not intellectual Conviction. Had Logic been the only
obstacle in our way, we should long ago have been polling our votes
for Parliamentary as well as for Municipal and School Board elections.
To those who hold that Property is the thing intended to be
represented by the Constitution of England, we have shown that we
possess such property. To those who say that Tax-paying and
Representation should go together, we have pointed to the
tax-gatherers’ papers, which, alas! lie on our hall-tables wholly
irrespective of the touching fact that we belong to the ‘protected
sex.’ Where Intelligence, Education, and freedom from crime are
considered enough to confer rights of citizenship, we have remarked
that we are quite ready to challenge rivalry in such particulars with
those Illiterates for whose exercise of political functions our Senate
has taken such exemplary care. Finally, to the ever-recurring charge
that we cannot fight, and therefore ought not to vote, we have replied
that the logic of the exclusion will be manifest when all the men too
weak, too short, or too old for the military standard be likewise
disfranchised, and when the actual soldiers of our army are accorded
the suffrage.
“But it is Sentiment, not Logic, against which we have to struggle;
and we shall best do so, I think, by endeavouring to understand and
make full allowance for it; and then by steady working, shoulder to
shoulder so as to conquer, or rather _win_ it over to our side.”
In 1876, May 13th, I made a rather long and elaborate speech on the
subject of women’s suffrage in a meeting in St. George’s Hall, at which
Mr. Russell Gurney, the Recorder of London, took the chair. John Bright
had spoken against our Bill in the House, and though I had not intended
to speak at our meeting, I was spurred by indignation to reply to him.
In this address I spoke chiefly of the wrongs of mothers whose children
are taken from them at the will of a living or dead father. I ended by
saying:—
“I advocate Woman Suffrage as the natural and needful constitutional
means of protection for the rights of the weaker half of the nation. I
do this as a woman pleading for women. But I do it also, and none the
less confidently, as a citizen, and for the sake of the whole
community, because it is my conviction that such a measure is no less
expedient for men than just for women; and that it will redound in
coming years ever more and more to the happiness, the virtue and the
honour of our country.”
Several years after this, I wrote a letter which was printed in the
(American) _Woman’s Tribune_, May 1st, 1884. It expresses so exactly
what I feel still on the subject that I shall redeem it if possible from
oblivion. The following are the passages for which I should like to ask
the reader’s attention:
“If I may presume to offer an old woman’s counsel to the younger
workers in our cause, it would be that they should adopt the point of
view—that it is before all things our _Duty_ to obtain the franchise.
If we undertake the work in this spirit, and with the object of using
the power it confers, whenever we gain it, for the promotion of
justice and mercy and the kingdom of God upon earth, we shall carry on
all our agitation in a corresponding manner, firmly and bravely, and
also calmly and with generous good temper. And when our opponents come
to understand that this is the motive underlying our efforts, they, on
their part, will cease to feel bitterly and scornfully toward us, even
when they think we are altogether mistaken.
“That people MAY conscientiously consider that we are mistaken in
asking for woman suffrage, is another point which it surely behoves us
to carry in mind.
“We naturally think almost exclusively of many advantages which would
follow to our sex and to both sexes from the entrance of woman into
political life. But that there are some ‘lions in the way,’ and rather
formidable lions, too, ought not to be forgotten.
“For myself, I would far rather that women should remain without
political rights to the end of time than that they should lose those
qualities which we comprise in the word ‘womanliness;’ and I think
nearly every one of the leaders of our party in America and in England
agrees with me in this feeling.
“The idea that the possession of political rights will destroy
‘womanliness,’ absurd as it may seem to us, is very deeply rooted in
the minds of men; and when they oppose our demands, it is only just to
give them credit for doing so on grounds which we should recognize as
valid, _if their premises were true_. It is not so much that our
opponents (at least the better part of them) despise women, as that
they really prize what women _now are_ in the home and in society so
highly that they cannot bear to risk losing it by any serious change
in their condition. These fears are futile and faithless, but there is
nothing in them to affront us. To remove them, we must not use violent
words, for every such violent word confirms their fears; but, on the
contrary, show the world that while the revolutions wrought by men
have been full of bitterness and rancour, and stormy passions, if not
of bloodshed, we women will at least strive to accomplish our great
emancipation calmly and by persuasion and reason.”
I was honoured about this time by several friendly advances from
American ladies and gentlemen interested like myself in woman’s
advancement. The astronomer, Prof. Maria Mitchell, wrote me a charming
letter, which I exceedingly regret should have been lost, as I felt
particular interest in her great achievements. I had the pleasure of
receiving Mrs. Julia Ward Howe in Hereford Square, and also Mrs.
Livermore, whose speech at one of our Suffrage Meetings realised my
highest ideal of a woman’s public address. Her noble face and figure
like that of a Roman Matron, her sweet manners and playful humour
without a scintilla of bitterness in it,—as if she were a mother
remonstrating with a foolish, school-boy son,—were all delightful to me.
Col. J. W. Higginson, who has been so good a friend and adviser to
women, also came to see me, and gave me some bright hours of
conversation on his wonderful experiences in the war, during which he
commanded a coloured regiment, which fought valiantly under his
leadership. Finally I had the privilege of being elected a member of the
famous _Sorosis_ Club of New York, and of receiving the following very
pleasant letter conveying the gift of a pretty gold and enamel brooch,
the badge of the Sisterhood.
“Dear Madam,
“The ladies of _Sorosis_—The Woman’s Club of New York—beg your
acceptance of the accompanying Pin, the insignia of their
organization, which they send by the hand of their foreign
correspondent, Mrs. Laura Curtis Ballard.
“Trifling as is this testimonial in itself, they feel that if you knew
the genuine appreciation of you and your work that goes with it—the
gratitude with which each one regards you as a faithful worker for
women—you would not consider it unworthy your acceptance. With best
wishes for your continued health, which in your case means continued
usefulness,
“I am, dear Madam,
“With great respect and esteem,
“Your obedient Servant,
“CELIA BURLEIGH,
“Cor. Sec. Sorosis.
“37, Huntingdon Street, Brooklyn, New York,
“June 21st, 1869.”
The part of my work for women, however, to which I look back with most
satisfaction was that in which I laboured to obtain protection for
unhappy wives, beaten, mangled, mutilated or trampled on by brutal
husbands. One day in 1878 I was by chance reading a newspaper in which a
whole series of frightful cases of this kind were recorded, here and
there, among the ordinary news of the time. I got up out of my armchair,
half dazed, and said to myself: “I will never rest till I have tried
what I can do to stop this.”
I thought anxiously what was the sort of remedy I ought to endeavour to
put forward. A Parliamentary Blue Book had been printed in 1875
entitled: “Reports on the State _of the law relating to Brutal
Assaults_,” and the following is a summary of the results. There was a
large consensus of opinion that the law as it now stands is insufficient
for its purpose. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Mr. Justice Lush, Mr.
Justice Mellor, Chief Baron Kelly, Barons Bramwell, Pigott and Pollock,
all expressed the same judgment (pp. 7–19). The following gave their
opinion in favour of flogging offenders in cases of brutal assaults.
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Mr. Justices Blackburn, Mellor, Lush,
Quain, Archibald, Brett, Grove, Chief Baron Kelly, Barons Bramwell,
Pigott, Pollock, Charles, and Amphlett. Only Lord Coleridge and Lord
Denman hesitated, and Mr. Justice Keating opposed flogging. Of Chairmen
of Quarter Sessions 64 (out of 68, whose answers were sent to the Home
Office,) and the Recorders of 41 towns, were in favour of flogging.
After all this testimony of the opinions of experts (collected of course
at the public expense), _three years_ elapsed during which absolutely
nothing was done to make any practical use of it! During the interval,
scores of Bills, _interesting to the represented sex_, passed through
Parliament; but _this_ question on which the lives of women literally
hung, was never mooted! Something like 5,000 women, judging by the
published judicial statistics, were in those years “brutally assaulted;”
_i.e._, not merely struck, but maimed, blinded, burned, trampled on by
strong men in heavy shoes, and, in many cases, murdered outright; and
thousands of children were brought up to witness scenes which (as
Colonel Leigh said) “infernalise a whole generation.” Where lay the
fault? Scarcely with the Government, or even with Parliament, but with
the simple fact that, under our present constitution, Women, having no
votes, can only exceptionally and through favour, bring pressure to bear
to force attention even to the most crying of injustices under which
they suffer. The Home Office _must_ attend first to the claims of those
who can bring pressure to bear on it; and Members of Parliament _must_
bring in the measures pressed by their constituents; and thus the
unrepresented _must_ go to the wall.
The cases of cruelty of which I obtained statistics, furnished to me
mainly by the kindness of Miss A. Shore, almost surpassed belief. It
appeared that about 1,500 cases of aggravated (over and above ordinary)
assaults on wives took place every year in England; on an average about
four a day. Many of them were of truly incredible savagery; and the
victims were, in the vast majority of cases, not drunken viragos (who
usually escape violence or give as good as they receive), but poor,
pale, shrinking creatures, who strove to earn bread for their children
and to keep together their miserable homes; and whose very tears and
pallor were reproaches which provoked the _heteropathy_ and cruelty of
their tyrants.
After much reflection I came to the conclusion that in spite of all the
authority in favour of flogging the delinquents, it was _not_ expedient
on the women’s behalf that they should be so punished, since after they
had undergone such chastisement, however well merited, the ruffians
would inevitably return more brutalised and infuriated than ever; and
again have their wives at their mercy. The only thing really effective,
I considered, was to give the wife the power of separating herself and
her children from her tyrant. Of course in the upper ranks, where people
could afford to pay for a suit in the Divorce Court, the law had for
some years opened to the assaulted wife this door of escape. But among
the working classes, where the assaults were ten-fold as numerous and
twenty times more cruel, no legal means whatever existed of escaping
from the husband returning after punishment to beat and torture his wife
again. I thought the thing to be desired was the extension of the
privilege of rich women to their poorer sisters, to be effected by an
Act of Parliament which should give a wife whose husband had been
convicted of an aggravated assault on her, the power to obtain a
Separation Order under Summary Jurisdiction.
Mr. Alfred Hill, J.P., of Birmingham, son of my old friend Recorder
Hill, most kindly interested himself in my project, and drafted a Bill
to be presented to Parliament embodying my wishes. Meanwhile; I set
about writing an article setting forth the extent of the evil, the
failure of the measures hitherto taken in various Acts of Parliament,
and, finally, the remedy I proposed. This article my friend Mr. Percy
Bunting was good enough to publish in the _Contemporary Review_ in the
spring of 1878. I also wrote an article in _Truth_ on _Wife Torture_,
afterwards reprinted. Meanwhile, I had obtained the most cordial
assistance from Mr. Frederick Pennington and Mr. Hopwood, both of whom
were then in Parliament, and it was agreed that I should beg Mr. Russell
Gurney to take charge of the Bill which these gentlemen would support. I
went accordingly, armed with the draft Bill, to the Recorder’s house in
Kensington Palace Gardens, and, as I anxiously desired to find him at
home, I ventured to call as early as 10.30. Mr. Gurney read the draft
Bill carefully, and entirely approved it. “Then,” I said, “you will take
charge of it, I earnestly hope?” “No,” said Mr. Gurney, “I cannot do
that; I am too old and over-worked to undertake all the watching and
labour which may be necessary; but I will put my name on the back of it,
with pleasure.”
I knew, of course, that his name would give the measure great importance
and also help me to find some other M.P. to take charge of it, so I
could not but thank him gratefully. At that moment of our interview, his
charming wife entered the room leading a little boy; I believe his
nephew. Naturally I apologized to Mrs. Gurney for my presence at that
unholy hour of the morning; and said, “I came to Mr. Gurney in my
anxiety, as the Friend of Women.” Mr. Gurney, hearing me, put his hands
on the little lad’s shoulder and said to him, “Do you hear that, my boy?
I hope that when you are an old man, as I am, some lady like Miss Cobbe
may call you _the Friend of Women_!”
At last, the Bill embodying precisely the purport of that drawn up for
me by Mr. Hill, and subsequently published in the _Contemporary Review_,
was read a first time, the names of Mr. Herschell (now Lord Herschell)
and Sir Henry Holland (afterwards Lord Knutsford) being on the back of
it. Every arrangement was made for the second Reading; and for avoiding
the opposition which we expected to meet from a party which seems always
to think that by _calling_ certain unions “Holy” a Church can sanctify
that which has become a bond of savage cruelty on one side, and
soul-degrading slavery on the other. Just at this crisis, Lord Penzance,
who was bringing a Bill into the House of Lords to remedy some defects
concerning the costs of the intervention of the Queen’s Proctor in
Matrimonial causes, introduced into it a clause dealing with the case of
the assaulted wives, and giving them precisely the benefit contemplated
in our Bill and in my article; namely, that of Separation Orders to be
granted by the same magistrates who have convicted the husband of
aggravated assaults upon them. That Lord Penzance had seen our Bill,
then before the Lower House, (it was ordered to be printed February
14th) and had had his attention called to the subject, either by it, or
by my article in the _Contemporary Review_, I have taken as probable,
but have no exact knowledge. I went at once to call on him and thank him
from my heart for undertaking to do this great service of mercy to
women; and also to pray him to consider certain points about the custody
of the children of such assaulted wives. Lord Penzance received me with
the utmost kindness and likewise gave favourable consideration to a
letter or two which I ventured to address to him. It is needless to say
that his advocacy of the measure carried it through the House of Lords
without opposition. I believe that in speaking for it he said that if
any noble Lord needed proof of the grievous want of such protection for
wives they would find it in my article, which he held in his hand.