seems not impossible to place the question on a fairly sound and rational
base. In so complex a question there must always be room for some
variations of individual opinion, for no two persons can approach the
consideration of it with quite the same prepossessions, or with quite the
same experience.
At the outset there is one great fundamental fact always to be borne
in mind: the difference of the sexes in physical organisation. That we
may term the _biological_ factor in determining the sexual mental
differences. A strong body does not involve a strong brain nor a weak
body a weak brain; but there is still an intimate connection between the
organisation of the body generally and the organisation of the brain,
which may be regarded as an executive assemblage of delegates from all
parts of the body. Fundamental differences in the organisation of the
body cannot fail to involve differences in the nervous system generally,
and especially in that supreme collection of nervous ganglia which we
term the brain. In this way the special adaptation of woman's body to the
exercise of maternity, with the presence of special organs and glands
subservient to that object, and without any important equivalents in
man's body, cannot fail to affect the brain. We now know that the
organism is largely under the control of a number of internal secretions
or hormones, which work together harmoniously in normal persons,
influencing body and mind, but are liable to disturbance, and are
differently balanced and with a different action in the two sexes.[1] It
is not, we must remember, by any means altogether the exercise of the
maternal function which causes the difference; the organs and aptitudes
are equally present even if the function is not exercised, so that a
woman cannot make herself a man by refraining from childbearing.
In another way this biological factor makes itself felt, and that is in
the differences in the muscular systems of men and women. These we must
also consider fundamental. Although the extreme muscular weakness of
average civilised women as compared to civilised men is certainly
artificial and easily possible to remove by training, yet even in
savages, among whom the women do most of the muscular work, they seldom
equal or exceed the men in strength; any superiority, when it exists,
being mainly shown in such passive forms of exertion as bearing burdens.
In civilisation, even under the influence of careful athletic training,
women are unable to compete muscularly with men; and it is a significant
fact that on the variety stage there are very few "strong women." It
would seem that the difficulty in developing great muscular strength in
women is connected with the special adaptation of woman's form and
organisation to the maternal function. But whatever the cause may be, the
resulting difference is one which has a very real bearing on the mental
distinctions of men and women. It is well ascertained that what we call
"mental" fatigue expresses itself physiologically in the same bodily
manifestation as muscular fatigue. The avocations which we commonly
consider mental are at the same time muscular; and even the sensory
organs, like the eye, are largely muscular. It is commonly found in
various great business departments where men and women may be said to
work more or less side by side that the work of women is less valuable,
largely because they are not able to bear additional strain; under
pressure of extra work they give in before men do. It is noteworthy that
the claims for sick benefit made by women under the National Insurance
System in England have proved much greater (even three times greater)
than the actuaries anticipated beforehand; while the Sick Insurance
Societies of Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland also report that
women are ill oftener and for longer periods than men. Largely, no doubt,
that is due to the special strain and the rigid monotony of our modern
industrial system, but not entirely. Nearly two hundred years ago (in
1729) Swift wrote of women to Bolingbroke: "I protest I never knew a very
deserving person of that sex who had not too much reason to complain of
ill-health." The regulations of the world have been mainly made by men on
the instinctive basis of their own needs, and until women have a large
part in making them on the basis of their needs, women are not likely to
be so healthy as men.
This by no means necessarily implies any mental inferiority; it is much
more the result of muscular inferiority. Even in the arts muscular
qualities count for much and are often essential, since a solid muscular
system is needed even for very delicate actions; the arts of design
demand muscular qualities; to play the violin is a muscular strain, and
only a robust woman can become a famous singer.
The greater precocity of girls is another aspect of the biological factor
in sexual mental differences. It is a psychic as well as a physical fact.
This has been shown conclusively by careful investigation in many parts
of the civilised world and notably in America, where the school system
renders such sexual comparison easy and reliable at all ages. There can
now be no doubt that a girl at, let us say, the age of fourteen is on the
average taller and heavier than a boy at the same age, though the degrees
of this difference and the precise age at which it occurs vary with the
individual and the race. Corresponding to this is a mental difference; in
many branches of study, though not all, the girl of fourteen is superior
to the boy, quicker, more intelligent, gifted with a better memory.
Precocity, however, is a quality of dubious virtue. It is frequently
found, indeed, in men of the highest genius; but, on the other hand, it
is found among animals and among savages, and is here of no good augury.
Many observers of the lower races have noted how the child is highly
intelligent and well disposed, but seems to degenerate as he grows older;
In the comparison of girls and boys, both as regards physical and mental
qualities, it is constantly found that while the girls hold their own,
and in many respects more than hold their own, with boys up to the age of
fifteen or sixteen, after that the girls remain almost or quite
stationary, while in the boys the curve of progress is continued without
interruption. Some people have argued, hypothetically, that the greater
precocity of girls is an artificial product of civilisation, due to the
confined life of girls, produced, as it were, by the artificial
overheating of the system in the hothouse of the home. This is a mistake.
The same precocity of girls appears to exist even among the uncivilised,
and independently of the special circumstances of life. It is even found
among animals also, and is said to be notably obvious in giraffes. It
will hardly be argued that the female giraffe leads a more confined and
domestic life than her brother.
Yet another aspect of the biological factor is to be found in the bearing
of heredity on this question. To judge by the statements that one
sometimes sees, men and women might be two distinct species, separately
propagated. The conviction of some men that women are not fitted to
exercise various social and political duties, and the conviction of some
women that men are a morally inferior sex, are both alike absurd, for
they both rest on the assumption that women do not inherit from their
fathers, nor men from their mothers. Nothing is more certain than
that--when, of course, we put aside the sexual characters and the special
qualities associated with those characters--men and women, on the
average, inherit equally from both of their parents, allowing for the
fact that that heredity is controlled and modified by the special
organisation of each sex. There are, indeed, various laws of heredity
which qualify this statement, and notably the tendency whereby extremes
of variation are more common in the male sex--so that genius and idiocy
are alike more prevalent in men. But, on the whole, there can be no doubt
that the qualities of a man or of a woman are a more or less varied
mixture of those of both parents; and, even when there is no blending,
both parents are almost equally likely to be influential in heredity. The
good qualities of the one parent will therefore benefit the child of the
opposite sex, and the bad qualities will equally be transmitted to the
offspring of opposite sex.
There is another element in the settlement of this question which may
also be fairly called objective, and that is the _historical_ factor. We
are prone to believe that the particular status of the sexes that
prevails among ourselves corresponds to a universal and unchangeable
order of things. In reality this is far from being the case. It may,
indeed, be truly said that there is no kind of social position, no sort
of avocation, public or domestic, among ourselves exclusively
appertaining to one sex, which has not at some time or in some part of
the world belonged to the opposite sex, and with the most excellent
results. We regard it as alone right and proper for a man to take the
initiative in courtship, yet among the Papuans of New Guinea a man would
think it indecorous and ridiculous to court a girl; it was the girl's
privilege to take the initiative in this matter, and she exercised it
with delicacy and skill and the best moral results, until the shocked
missionaries upset the native system and unintentionally introduced
looser ways. There is, again, no implement which we regard as so
peculiarly and exclusively feminine as the needle. Yet in some parts of
Africa a woman never touches a needle; that is man's work, and a wife who
can show a neglected rent in her petticoat is even considered to have a
fair claim for a divorce. Innumerable similar examples appear when we
consider the human species in time and space. The historical aspect of
this matter may thus be said in some degree to counterbalance the
biological aspect. If the fundamental constitution of the sexes renders
their mental characters necessarily different, the difference is still
not so pronounced as to prevent one sex sometimes playing effectively the
parts which are generally played by the other sex.
It is not necessary to go outside the white European race to find
evidences of the reality of this historical factor of the question before
us. It would appear that at the dawn of European civilisation women were
taking a leading part in the evolution of human progress. Various
survivals which are enshrined in the myths and legends of classic
antiquity show us the most ancient deities as goddesses; and, moreover,
we encounter the significant fact that at the origin nearly all the arts
and industries were presided over by female, not by male, deities. In
Greece, as well as in Asia Minor, India, and Egypt, as Paul Lafargue has
pointed out, woman seems to have taken divine rank before men; all the
first inventions of the more useful arts and crafts, except in metals,
are ascribed to goddesses; the Muses presided over poetry and music long
before Apollo; Isis was "the lady of bread," and Demeter taught men to
sow barley and corn instead of eating each other. Thus even among our own
forefathers we may catch a glimpse of a state of things which, as various
anthropologists have shown (notably Otis Mason in his _Woman's Share in
Primitive Culture_), we may witness in the most widely separated parts of
the world. Thus among the Xosa Kaffirs, as well as other A-bantu stocks,
Fritsch states that "the man claims for himself war, hunting, occupation
with cattle; all household cares, even the building of the house, as well
as the cultivation of the ground, are woman's affair; hardly in the most
laborious work will a man lend a hand."[2] So that when to-day we see
women entering the most various avocations, that is not a dangerous
innovation, but perhaps merely a return to ancient and natural
conditions.
It is not until specialisation becomes necessary and until men are
relieved from the constant burden of battle and the chase that the
frequent superiority of woman is lost. The modern industrial activities
are dangerous, when they are dangerous, not because the work is too
hard--for the work of primitive women is harder--but because it is an
unnaturally and artificially dreary and monotonous work which stifles the
mind, depresses the spirits, and injures the body, so that, it is said,
40 per cent. of married women who have been factory girls are treated for
pelvic disorders before they are thirty. It is the conditions of women's
work which need changing in order that they may become, like those of
primitive women, so various that they develop the mind and fortify the
body. This, however, is an evil which will be righted by the development
of the mechanical side of industry, for machines tend constantly to
become larger, heavier, speedier, more numerous and more automatic,
requiring fewer workers to tend them, and these more frequently men.[3]
It may be added that the early predominance of woman in the work of
civilisation is altogether independent of that conception of a primitive
matriarchate, or government of women, which was set forth some fifty
years ago by Bachofen, and has since caused so much controversy. Descent
in the female line, not uncommonly found among primitive peoples,
undoubtedly tended to place women in a position of great influence; but
it by no means necessarily involved any gynecocracy, or rule of women,
and such rule is merely a hypothesis which by some enthusiasts has been
carried to absurd lengths.
We see, therefore, that when we are approaching the question of the
mental differences of the sexes among ourselves to-day, it is not
impossible to find certain guiding clues which will save us from running
into extravagance in either direction.
Without doubt the only way in which we can obtain a satisfactory answer
to the numerous problems which meet us when we approach the question is
by experiment. I have, indeed, insisted on the importance of these
preliminary biological and historical considerations mainly because they
indicate with what safety and freedom from risk we may trust to
experiment. The sexes are far too securely poised by organic constitution
and ancient tradition for any permanently injurious results to occur from
the attempt to attain a better social readjustment in this matter. When
the experiment fails, individuals may to some extent suffer, but social
equilibrium swiftly and automatically rights itself. Practically,
however, nearly every social experiment of this kind means that certain
restrictions limiting the duties or privileges of women are removed, and
when artificial coercions are thus taken away it can merely happen, as
Mary Wollstonecraft long ago put it, that by the common law of gravity
the sexes fall into their proper places. That, we may be sure, will be
the final result of the interesting experiments for which the laboratory
to-day is furnished by all the belligerent countries.
Definitely formulated statistical data of these results are scarcely yet
available. But we may study the action of this natural process on one
great practical experiment in mental sexual differences which has been
going on for some time past. At one time in the various administrations
of the International Postal Union there was a sudden resolve to introduce
female labour to a very large extent; it was thought that this would be
cheaper than male labour and equally efficient. There was consequently a
great outcry at the ousting of male labour, the introduction of the thin
end of a wedge which would break up society. We can now see that that
outcry was foolish. Within recent years nearly all the countries which
previously introduced women freely into their postal and telegraph
services are now doing so only under certain conditions, and some are
ceasing to admit them at all. This great practical experiment, carried
out on an immense scale in thirty-five different countries, has, on the
whole, shown that while women are not inferior to men, at all events
within the ordinary range of work, the substitution of a female for a
male staff always means a considerable increase of numbers, that women
are less rapid than men, less able to undertake the higher grade work,
less able to exert authority over others, more lacking both in initiative
and in endurance, while they require more sick leave and lose interest
and energy on marriage. The advantages of female labour are thus to some
extent neutralised, and in the opinions of the administrations of some
countries more than neutralised, by certain disadvantages. The general
result is that men are found more fitted for some branches of work and
women more fitted for other branches; the result is compensation without
any tendency for one sex to oust the other.
It may, indeed, be objected that in practical life no perfectly
satisfactory experiments exist as to the respective mental qualities of
men and women, since men and women are never found working under
conditions that are exactly the same for both sexes. If, however, we turn
to the psychological laboratory, where it is possible to carry on
experiments under precisely identical conditions, the results are still
the same. There are nearly always differences between men and women, but
these differences are complex and manifold; they do not always agree;
they never show any general piling up of the advantages on the side of
one sex or of the other. In reaction-time, in delicacy of sensory
perception, in accuracy of estimation and precision of movement, there
are nearly always sexual differences, a few that are fairly constant,
many that differ at different ages, in various countries, or even in
different groups of individuals. We cannot usually explain these
differences or attach any precise significance to them, any more than we
can say why it is that (at all events in America) blue is most often the
favourite colour of men and red of women. We may be sure that these
things have a meaning, and often a really fundamental significance, but
at present, for the most part, they remain mysterious to us.
When we attempt to survey and sum up all the variegated facts which
science and practical life are slowly accumulating with reference to the
mental differences between men and women[4] we reach two main
conclusions. On the one hand there is a fundamental equality of the
sexes. It would certainly appear that women vary within a narrower range
than men--that is to say, that the two extremes of genius and of idiocy
are both more likely to show themselves in men. This implies that the
pioneers in progress are most likely to be men. That, indeed, may be said
to be a biological fact. "In all that concerns the evolution of
ornamental characters the male leads; in him we see the trend which
evolution is taking; the female and young afford us the measure of their
advance along the new line which has to be taken."[5] In the human sphere
of the arts and sciences, similarly, men, not women, take the lead. That
men were the first decorative artists, rather than women, is indicated by
the fact that the natural objects designed by early pre-historic artists
were mainly women and wild beasts, that is to say, they were the work of
masculine hunters, executed in idle intervals of the chase. But within
the range in which nearly all of us move, there are always many men who
in mental respects can do what most women can do, many women who can do
what most men can do. We are not justified in excluding a whole sex
absolutely from any field. In so doing we should certainly be depriving
the world of some portion of its executive ability. The sexes may always
safely be left to find their own levels.
On the other hand, the mental diversity of men and women is equally
fundamental. It is rooted in organisation. The well-intentioned efforts
of many pioneers in women's movements to treat men and women as
identical, and, as it were, to force women into masculine moulds, were
both mischievous and useless. Women will always be different from men,
mentally as well as physically. It is well for both sexes that it should
be so. It is owing to these differences that each sex can bring to the
world's work various aptitudes that the other lacks. It is owing to these
differences also that men and women have their undying charm for each
other. We cannot change them, and we need not wish to.
[1] See, for instance, Blair Bell's _The Sex Complex_, 1916, though
the deductions drawn in this book must not always be accepted without
qualifications.
[2] G. Fritsch, _Die Eingeborene Süd-Afrikas_, 1892, p. 79.
[3] 1 D.R. Malcolm Keir, "Women in Industry," _Popular Science Monthly_,
October, 1913.
[4] See, for many of the chief of these, Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_,
5th Edition, 1914.
[5] W.P. Pycraft, _The Courtship of Animal_, p. 9.
X
THE WHITE SLAVE CRUSADE
During recent years we have witnessed a remarkable attempt--more popular
and more international in character than any before--to deal with that
ancient sexual evil which has for some time been picturesquely described
as the White Slave Traffic. Less than forty years ago Professor Sheldon
Amos wrote that this subject can scarcely be touched upon by journalists,
and "can never form a topic of common conversation." Nowadays Churches,
societies, journalists, legislators have all joined the ranks of the
agitators. Not only has there been no voice on the opposite side, which
was scarcely to be expected--for there has never been any anxiety to cry
aloud the defence of "White Slavery" from the house-tops--but there has
been a new and noteworthy conquest over indifference and over that sacred
silence which was supposed to encompass all sexual topics with suitable
darkness. The banishment of that silence in the cause of social hygiene
is, indeed, not the least significant feature of this agitation.
It is inevitable, however, that these periodical fits of virtuous
indignation by which Society is overtaken should speedily be spent. The
victim of the moral fever finds himself exhausted by the struggle,
scarcely able to cope with the complications of the disease, and, at the
best, only too anxious to forget what he has passed through. He has an
uneasy feeling that in the course of his delirium he has said and done
many foolish things which it would now be unpleasant to recall too
precisely.
There is no use in attempting to disguise the fact that this is what
happened in the White Slave Traffic agitation. It became clear that we
had been largely misled in regard to the evils to be combated, and that
we were seduced into sanctioning various remedies for these evils which
in cold blood it is impossible to approve of, even if we could believe
them to be effective.
It is not even clear that all those who have talked about the "White
Slave Traffic" have been quite sure what they meant by the term. Some
people, indeed, have seemed to think that it meant prostitution in
general. That is, of course, an absurd misapprehension. We are
concerned with a trade which flourishes on prostitution, but that
trade is not itself the trade or (as some prefer to call it) the
profession of prostitutes. Indeed, the prostitute, under ordinary
conditions and unharassed by persecution, is in many respects anything
but a slave. She is much less a slave than the ordinary married woman.
She is not fettered in humble dependence on the will of a husband from
whom it is the most difficult thing in the world to escape; she is
bound to no man and free to make her own terms in life; while if she
should have a child, that child is absolutely her own, and she is not
liable to have it torn from her arms by the hands of the law. Apart
from arbitrary and accidental circumstances, due to the condition of
social feeling, the prostitute enjoys a position of independence which
the married woman is still struggling to obtain.