women have been opposed to blood-shed, we wondered--without doubting
the truth of his assertion--how he came to find it out. Certainly not
from the pages of history, which afford little or no evidence on the
subject. This may be one reason why feminists are protesting stoutly
against the way in which history has been written, its indiscreet
revelations, its disconcerting silences. At a meeting of the Women’s
Political Union in New York, October, 1914, it was boldly urged that
history should be re-written on a peace basis; less emphasis placed
upon nationalism, less space devoted to wars. At a meeting of the
National Municipal League in Baltimore the same year, it was urged that
history should be re-written on a feminine basis; less emphasis placed
upon men, less space devoted to their achievements. One revolutionist
complained with exceeding bitterness that President Wilson hardly
makes mention of women in his five volumes of American history. The
“knell” of that kind of narrative, she intimated, had “rung.”
The historian of the future will find his task pleasantly simplified.
He will be a little like two young Americans whom I once met scampering
blithely over southern Europe, and to whom I ventured to say that they
covered their ground quickly. “No trouble about that,” answered one of
them. “We draw the line at churches and galleries, and there’s nothing
left to see.” So, too, the chronicler who eliminates men and war from
his pages can move swiftly down the centuries. Even an earnest effort
to minimize these factors suggests that blight of my girlhood, Miss
Strickland, who forever strove to withdraw her wandering attention from
warrior and statesman, and fix it on the trousseau of a queen.
History is, and has always been trammelled by facts. It may ignore
some and deny others; but it cannot accommodate itself unreservedly
to theories; it cannot be stripped of things evidenced in favour of
things surmised. Perhaps instead of asking to have it remodelled in
our behalf, we women might take the trouble to read it as it is;
dominated by men, disfigured by conflict, but not altogether ignoble
or unprofitable, and always very enlightening. We might learn from it,
for example, that war may be wicked, and war may be justifiable; that
wife and child, far from being unconsidered trifles, have nerved men’s
arms to strike; and that when home, country, freedom and justice are
at stake, “it were treason to think of peace, until that peace can
consecrate the principles of right.”
The Repeal of Reticence
There is nothing new about the Seven Deadly Sins. They are as old as
humanity. There is nothing mysterious about them. They are easier
to understand than the Cardinal Virtues. Nor have they dwelt apart
in secret places; but, on the contrary, have presented themselves,
undisguised and unabashed, in every corner of the world, and in every
epoch of recorded history. Why then do so many men and women talk
and write as if they had just discovered these ancient associates of
mankind? Why do they press upon our reluctant notice the result of
their researches? Why this fresh enthusiasm in dealing with a foul
subject? Why this relentless determination to make us intimately
acquainted with matters of which a casual knowledge would suffice?
Above all, why should our self-appointed instructors assume that
because we do not chatter about a thing, we have never heard of it?
The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of
reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge, which is now recommended
as nourishing for childhood, strengthening for youth, and highly
restorative for old age, falls ripe from its stem; but those who have
eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion.
Human experience is very, very old. It is our surest monitor, our
safest guide. To ignore it crudely is the error of those ardent but
uninstructed missionaries who have lightly undertaken the re-building
of the social world.
Therefore it is that the public is being daily instructed concerning
matters which it was once assumed to know, and which, as a matter of
fact, it has always known. When “The Lure” was played three years
ago at the Maxine Elliott Theatre in New York, the redoubtable Mrs.
Pankhurst arose in Mrs. Belmont’s box, and, unsolicited, informed
the audience that it was the truth which was being nakedly presented
to them, and that as truth it should be taken to heart. Now, it is
probable that the audience--adult men and women--knew as much about
the situations developed in “The Lure” as did Mrs. Pankhurst. It is
possible that some of them knew more, and could have given her points.
But whatever may be the standard of morality, the standard of taste
(and taste is a guardian of morality) must be curiously lowered, when
a woman spectator at an indecent play commends its indecencies to
the careful consideration of the audience. Even the absurdity of the
proceeding fails to win pardon for its grossness.
It is not so much the nature of the advice showered upon us to which
we reasonably object, but the fact that a great deal of it is given
in the wrong way, at the wrong time, by the wrong people. Who made
Mrs. Pankhurst our nursery governess, and put us in _her_ hands for
schooling? We might safely laugh at and ignore these unsolicited
exhortations, were it not that the crude detailing of matters offensive
to modesty is as hurtful to the young as it is wearisome to the old.
Does it never occur to the women, who are now engaged in telling the
world what the world has known since the days of Nineveh, that more
legitimate, and, on the whole, more enlightened avenues exist for the
distribution of such knowledge?
“Are there no clinics at our gates,
Nor any doctors in the land?”
The “Conspiracy of Silence” is broken. Of that no one can doubt. The
phrase may be suffered to lapse into oblivion. In its day it was a
menace, and few of us would now advocate the deliberate ignoring
of things not to be denied. Few of us would care to see the rising
generation as uninstructed in natural laws as we were, as adrift amid
the unintelligible, or partly intelligible things of life. But surely
the breaking of silence need not imply the opening of the floodgates
of speech. It was never meant by those who first cautiously advised
a clearer understanding of sexual relations and hygienic laws that
everybody should chatter freely respecting these grave issues; that
teachers, lecturers, novelists, story-writers, militants, dramatists,
and social workers should copiously impart all they know, or assume
they know, to the world. The lack of restraint, the lack of balance,
the lack of soberness and common sense were never more apparent than
in the obsession of sex, which has set us all a-babbling about matters
once excluded from the amenities of conversation.
Knowledge is the cry. Crude, undigested knowledge, without limit
and without reserve. Give it to boys, give it to girls, give it to
children. No other force is taken into account by the visionaries
who--in defiance, or in ignorance, of history--believe that evil
understood is evil conquered. “The menace of degradation and
destruction can be checked _only_ by the dissemination of knowledge
on the subject of sex-physiology and hygiene,” writes an enthusiast
in the “Forum,” calling our attention to the methods which have been
employed by some public schools, noticeably the Polytechnic High School
of Los Angeles, for the instruction of students; and urging that
similar lectures be given to boys and girls in the grammar schools.
It is noticeable that while a woman doctor was employed to lecture to
the girl students of the Polytechnic, a “science man” was chosen by
preference for the boys. Doctors are proverbially reticent,--except,
indeed, on the stage, where they prattle of all they know; but a
“science man”--as distinct from a man of science--may be trusted, if
he be young and ardent, to conceal little or nothing from his hearers.
The lectures were obligatory for the boys, but optional for the girls,
whose inquisitiveness could be relied upon. “The universal eagerness
of under-classmen to reach the serene upper heights” (I quote the
language of the “Forum”) “gave the younger girls increased interest in
the advanced lectures, if, indeed, a girl’s natural curiosity regarding
these vital facts needs any stimulus.”
Perhaps it does not, but I am disposed to think it receives a strong
artificial stimulus from instructors whose minds are unduly engrossed
with sexual problems, and that this artificial stimulus is a menace
rather than a safeguard. We hear too much about the thirst for
knowledge from people keen to quench it. Dr. Edward L. Keyes advocates
the teaching of sex-hygiene to children, because he thinks it is the
kind of information that children are eagerly seeking. “What is this
topic,” he asks, “that all these little ones are questioning over,
mulling over, fidgeting over, imagining over, worrying over? Ask your
own memories.”
I do ask my memory in vain for the answer Dr. Keyes anticipates.
A child’s life is so full, and everything that enters it seems of
supreme importance. I fidgeted over my hair, which would not curl. I
worried over my examples, which never came out right. I mulled (though
unacquainted with the word) over every piece of sewing put into my
incapable fingers, which could not be trained to hold a needle. I
imagined I was stolen by brigands, and became--by virtue of beauty
and intelligence--spouse of a patriotic outlaw in a frontierless
land. I asked artless questions which brought me into discredit with
my teachers, as, for example, who “massacred” St. Bartholomew. But
vital facts, the great laws of propagation, were matters of but casual
concern, crowded out of my life, and out of my companions’ lives (in a
convent boarding-school) by the more stirring happenings of every day.
How could we fidget over obstetrics when we were learning to skate, and
our very dreams were a medley of ice and bumps? How could we worry over
“natural laws” in the face of a tyrannical interdict which lessened our
chances of breaking our necks by forbidding us to coast down a hill
covered with trees? The children to be pitied, the children whose minds
become infected with unwholesome curiosity, are those who lack cheerful
recreation, religious teaching, and the fine corrective of work. A
playground or a swimming-pool will do more to keep them mentally and
morally sound than scores of lectures upon sex-hygiene.
The point of view of the older generation was not altogether the
futile thing it seems to the progressive of to-day. It assumed that
children brought up in honour and goodness, children disciplined into
some measure of self-restraint, and taught very plainly the difference
between right and wrong in matters childish and seasonable, were in
no supreme danger from the gradual and somewhat haphazard expansion
of knowledge. It unconsciously reversed the adage, “Forewarned,
forearmed,” into “Forearmed, forewarned”; paying more heed to the
arming than to the warning. It held that the workingman was able
to rear his children in decency. The word degradation was not so
frequently coupled with poverty as it is now. Nor was it anybody’s
business in those simple days to impress upon the poor the wretchedness
of their estate.
If knowledge alone could save us from sin, the salvation of the world
would be easy work. If by demonstrating the injuriousness of evil,
we could insure the acceptance of good, a little logic would redeem
mankind. But the laying of the foundation of law and order in the mind,
the building up of character which will be strong enough to reject both
folly and vice,--this is no facile task.
The justifiable reliance placed by our fathers upon religion and
discipline has given place to a reliance upon understanding. It is
assumed that youth will abstain from wrong-doing, if only the physical
consequences of wrong-doing are made sufficiently clear. There are
those who believe that a regard for future generations is a powerful
deterrent from immorality, that boys and girls can be so interested
in the quality of the baby to be born in 1990 that they will master
their wayward impulses for its sake. What does not seem to occur to us
is that this deep sense of obligation to ourselves and to our fellow
creatures is the fruit of self-control. A course of lectures will not
instil self-control into the human heart. It is born of childish
virtues acquired in childhood, youthful virtues acquired in youth, and
a wholesome preoccupation with the activities of life which gives young
people something to think about besides the sexual relations which are
pressed so relentlessly upon their attention.
The world is wide, and a great deal is happening in it. I do not plead
for ignorance, but for the gradual and harmonious broadening of the
field of knowledge, and for a more careful consideration of ways and
means. There are subjects which may be taught in class, and subjects
which commend themselves to individual teaching. There are topics which
admit of _plein-air_ handling, and topics which civilized man, as apart
from his artless brother of the jungles, has veiled with reticence.
There are truths which may be, and should be, privately imparted by
a father, a mother, a family doctor, or an experienced teacher; but
which young people cannot advantageously acquire from the platform, the
stage, the moving-picture gallery, the novel, or the ubiquitous monthly
magazine.
Yet all these sources of information are competing with one another as
to which shall tell us most. All of them have missions, and all the
missions are alike. We are gravely assured that the drama has awakened
to a high and holy duty, that it has a “serious call,” in obedience
to which it has turned the stage into a clinic for the diagnosing of
disease, and into a self-authorized commission for the intimate study
of vice. It advertises itself as “battling with the evils of the
age,”--which are the evils of every age,--and its method of warfare is
to exploit the sins of the sensual for the edification of the virtuous,
to rake up the dunghills with the avowed purpose of finding a jewel.
The doors of the brothel have been flung hospitably open, and we have
been invited to peep and peer (always in the interests of morality)
into regions which were formerly closed to the uninitiated. It has
been discovered that situations, once the exclusive property of the
police courts, make valuable third acts, or can be usefully employed
in curtain-lifters, unclean and undramatic, but which claim to “tell
their story so clearly that the daring is lost in the splendid moral
lesson conveyed.” Familiarity with vice (which an old-fashioned but
not inexperienced moralist like Pope held to be a perilous thing)
is advocated as a safeguard, especially for the young and ardent.
The lowering of our standard of taste, the deadening of our finer
sensibilities, are matters of no moment to dramatist or to manager.
They have other interests at stake.
For depravity is a valuable asset when presented to the consideration
of the undepraved. It has coined money for the proprietors of
moving-pictures, who for the past few years have been sending shows
with attractive titles about “White Slaves,” and “Outcasts,” and
“Traffic in Souls,” all over the country. Many of these shows claimed
to be dramatizations of the reports of vice-commissioners, who have
thus entered the arena of sport, and become purveyors of pleasure to
the multitude. “Original,” “Authentic,” “Authorized,” are words used
freely in their advertisements. The public is assured that “care has
been taken to eliminate all suggestiveness,” which is in a measure
true. When everything is told, there is no room left for suggestions.
If you kick a man down stairs and out of the door, you may candidly
say that you never suggested he should leave your house. Now and
then a particularly lurid revelation is commended to us as having
received the endorsement of leading feminists; and again we are driven
to ask why should these ladies assume an intimate knowledge of such
alien matters? Why should they play the part of mentors to such an
experienced Telemachus as the public?
It is hard to estimate the harm done by this persistent and crude
handling of sexual vice. The peculiar childishness inherent in all
moving-picture shows may possibly lessen their hurtfulness. What if the
millionaires and the political bosses so depicted spend their existence
in entrapping innocent young women? A single policeman of tender
years, a single girl, inexperienced but resourceful, can defeat these
fell conspirators, and bring them all to justice. Never were villains
so helpless in a hard and virtuous world. But silliness is no sure
safeguard, and to excite in youth a curiosity concerning brothels and
their inmates can hardly fail of mischief. To demonstrate graphically
and publicly the value of girls in such places is to familiarize them
dangerously with sin. I can but hope that the little children who sit
stolidly by their mothers’ sides, and whom the authorities of every
town should exclude from all shows dealing with prostitution, are
saved from defilement by the invincible ignorance of childhood. As for
the groups of boys and young men who compose the larger part of the
audiences, and who snigger and whisper whenever the situations grow
intense, nobody in his senses could assert that the pictures convey a
“moral lesson” to them.
Nor is it for the conveying of lessons that managers present these
photo-plays to the public. They are out to make money, and they are
making it. Granted that when M. Brieux wrote “Les Avariés,” he purposed
a stern warning to the pleasure-loving world. No one can read the
simple and sober words with which he prefaced the work, and doubt his
absolute sincerity. Granted, though with some misgivings, that the
presentation of “Damaged Goods” in this country--albeit commercialized
and a smart business venture--had still a moral and scientific
significance. It was not primarily designed as an exploitation of vice.
But to tell such a story in moving pictures is to rob it of all excuse
for being told at all. To thrust such a theme grossly and vulgarly
before the general public, stripping it of nobility of thought and
exactitude of speech, and leaving only the dull dregs of indecency, is
an uncondonable offense,--the deeper because it claims to be beneficent.
In one respect all the studies of seduction now presented so urgently
to our regard are curiously alike. They all conspire to lift the burden
of blame from the woman’s shoulders, to free her from any sense of
human responsibility. It is assumed that she plays no part in her own
undoing, that she is as passive as the animal bought for vivisection,
as mute and helpless in the tormentors’ hands. The tissue of false
sentiment woven about her has resulted in an extraordinary confusion
of outlook, a perilous nullification of honesty and honour.
To illustrate this point, I quote some verses which appeared in a
periodical devoted to social work, a periodical with high and serious
aims. I quote them reluctantly (not deeming them fit for publication),
and only because it is impossible to ignore the fact that their
appearance in such a paper makes them doubly and trebly reprehensible.
They are entitled “The Cry to Christ of the Daughters of Shame.”
“Crucified once for the sins of the world,
O fortunate Christ!” they cry:
“With an Easter dawn in thy dying eyes,
O happy death to die!
“But we,--we are crucified daily,
With never an Easter morn;
But only the hell of human lust,
And worse,--of human scorn.
“For the sins of passionless women,
For the sins of passionate men,
Daily we make atonement,
Golgotha again and again.
“O happy Christ, who died for love,
Judge us who die for lust.
For thou wast man, who now art God.
Thou knowest. Thou art just.”
Now apart from the offence against religion in this easy comparison
between the Saviour and the woman of the streets, and apart from the
deplorable offence against good taste, which might repel even the
irreligious, such unqualified acquittal stands forever in the way of
reform, of the judgment and common sense which make for the betterment
of the world. How is it possible to awaken any healthy emotion in the
hearts of sinners so smothered in sentimentality? How is it possible to
make girls and young women (as yet respectable) understand not only the
possibility, but the obligation of a decent life?
There would be less discussion of meretricious subjects, either in
print or in conversation, were it not for the morbid sensibility which
has undermined our judgment, and set our nerves a-quivering. Even
a counsellor so sane and so experienced as the Reverend Honourable
Edward Lyttelton, Headmaster of Eton, who has written an admirable
volume on “Training of the Young in Laws of Sex,” drops his tone of
wholesome austerity as soon as he turns from the safeguarding of lads
to the pensive consideration of women. Boys and men he esteems to be
captains of their souls, but the woman is adrift on the sea of life.
He does not urge her to restraint; he pleads for her to the masters of
her fate. “The unhappy partners of a rich man’s lust,” he writes, “are
beings born with the mighty power to love, and are endowed with deep
and tender instincts of loyalty and motherhood. When these divine and
lovely graces of character are utterly shattered and foully degraded,
the man, on whom all the treasure has been lavished, tries to believe
that he has made ample reparation by an annuity of fifty pounds.”
This kind of sentiment is out of place in everything save
eighteenth-century lyrics, which are not expected to be a guiding force
in morals. A woman with “lovely graces of character” does not usually
become the mistress even of a rich man. After all, there is such a
thing as triumphant virtue. It has an established place in the annals
and traditions, the ballads and stories of every land.
“A mayden of England, sir, never will be
The wench of a monarcke,” quoth Mary Ambree.
It is like a breath of fresh air blowing away mists to hear this gay
and gallant militant assert the possibilities of resistance.
Forty years ago, a writer in “Blackwood’s Magazine” commented upon
the amazing fact that in Hogarth’s day (more than a century earlier)
vignettes representing the “Rake’s Progress,” and the “Harlot’s
Progress,” were painted upon fans carried by young women. “English
girls,” said this sober essayist, “were thus, by way of warning, made
familiar with subjects now wisely withheld from their consideration.”
The pendulum has swung backward since 1876. Even Hogarth, who dealt
for the most part with the robust simplicities of sin, would have
little to teach the rising generation of 1916. Its sources of knowledge
are manifold, and astoundingly explicit. Stories minutely describing
houses of ill-fame, their furniture, their food, their barred windows,
their perfumed air, and the men with melancholy eyes who visit them.
Novels purporting to be candid and valuable studies of degeneracy and
nymphomania. Plays and protests urging stock-farm methods of breeding
the human race. Papers on venereal diseases scattered broadcast through
the land. Comment upon those unnatural vices which have preceded the
ruin of cities and the downfall of nations, and veiled allusions to
which have marked the deepest degradation of the French stage. All
these horrors, which would have made honest old Hogarth turn uneasily
in his grave, are offered for the defence of youth and the purifying of
civilized society.
The lamentable lack of reserve is closely associated with a lamentable
absence of humour. We should be saved from many evils, if we could
laugh at more absurdities. We could clearly estimate the value of
reform, if we were not so befuddled with the sensationalism of
reformers, and so daunted by the amazing irregularity of their methods.
What can be thought of a woman who goes to a household of strangers,
and volunteers to instruct its members in sex-hygiene! In the case
which came under my notice, the visitor chanced upon a family of
spinsters, discreet, retiring, well-conducted gentlewomen, the eldest
of whom was eighty, and the youngest sixty years of age. But while
this circumstance added to the humour of the situation, it in no wise
lessened its insolent impropriety.