IDEALS.
There is a theory afloat, extensively prevalent, and probably
influencing many persons who have never stated it definitely to
themselves, that the human ideal is composed of two elements, the
male and the female, each requiring the other as its complement; and
that the realisation of this ideal is to be found in no single human
being, man or woman, but in the union of individuals by marriage, or
by some sort of vague marriage of the whole race. The conception of
character which rests on the broad basis of a common humanity falls
into the background, and there is substituted for it a dual theory,
with distinctly different forms of male and female excellence. Persons
who take this view are naturally governed by it in their conceptions
of what women ought to be. Having framed a more or less definite idea
of the masculine character, in constructing the feminine helpmeet they
look out, if not for the directly opposite, for what they would call
the complementary qualities, and the conclusion quickly follows, that
whatever is manly must be unwomanly, and _vice versâ_. The advocates
of this view usually hold in connexion with it certain doctrines, such
as, that the man is intended for the world, woman for the home; man’s
strength is in the head, woman’s in the heart; the man’s function is
to protect, woman’s to soothe and comfort; men must work, and women
must weep: everywhere we are to have a sharply marked division, often
honestly mistaken for the highest and most real communion. Closely
connected with these separatist doctrines is the double moral code,
with its masculine and feminine virtues, and its separate law of duty
and honour for either sex.
The general acceptance of the theory is not surprising. It gratifies
the logical instinct; and many persons, hastily taking for granted
that it is the only conception of the relations between men and women
which recognises real distinctions, assume it to be the only one which
satisfies the craving of the æsthetic sense for harmony and fitness.
Unfortunately it is not workable. We make the world even more puzzling
than it is by nature, when we shut our eyes to the facts of daily
life; and we know, as a fact, that women have a part in the world,
and that men are by no means ciphers in the home circle--we know that
a man who should be all head would be as monstrous an anomaly as a
woman all heart--that men require the protection of law, and women
are not so uniformly prosperous as to be independent of comfort and
consolation--men have no monopoly of working, nor women of weeping. The
sort of distinction it is attempted to establish, though not without
an element of truth when rightly understood, is for the most part
artificial, plausible in appearance, but breaking down under the test
of experience. When overstrained, and made the foundation of a divided
moral code, it is misleading in proportion to its attractiveness.
Happily this theory, though deeply and widely and most subtilely
influential, is not completely dominant. People who go to church,
and who read their Bibles, are perpetually reminded of one type and
exemplar, one moral law. The theory of education of our English Church
recognises no distinction of sex. The baptized child is signed with
the sign of the cross, ‘in token that hereafter he--or she--shall not
be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to
fight under His banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to
continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant to his--or her--life’s
end.’ The sponsors are charged to provide that the child be ‘virtuously
brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life, remembering always
that baptism doth represent unto us our profession, which is to follow
the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto Him.’
The catechism in which the child is to be instructed, gives no hint
of separate standards of duty. The catechumens are required to give
an account of their duty towards God and towards their neighbour.
The latter supplies a statement of social obligations, in which, if
anywhere, we should surely find a distinction laid down between the
duties of men and those of women. But no such distinction appears.
In Confirmation, the children, having come to years of discretion,
ratify and confirm in their own persons what has gone before, still
without a hint of divergent duties. The same principle appears in the
formularies of the Scotch Church. The Shorter Catechism teaches that
‘God created man, male and female, after His own image, in knowledge,
righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures;’ and
that ‘man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.’
Here all is clear and consistent. Thoroughly to carry out the Christian
theory would no doubt lead to some startling consequences; but the
theory itself is intelligible and workable. Can the same be said of
any other of the standards or tests by which educators might shape
their work? The only intelligible principle on which modern writers
show anything like unanimity, is that women are intended to supply, and
ought to be made, something which men want. What that may be, it is not
easy to discover. We are met at the outset by a difficulty as to the
nature of the want. We may want what we like, or we may want what will
do us good--and the two qualities are not always combined. Usually,
however, it is taken for granted that, in this case, men like what is
good for them; and it only remains, therefore, to be ascertained what
it is that they like.
There is no lack of evidence. English literature is full of oracular
information on the subject. Mr Anthony Trollope says: ‘We like women
to be timid.’ Mr Helps complains that ‘women are not taught to be
courageous. Indeed, to some persons courage may seem as unnecessary
for women as Latin and Greek. Yet there are few things that would tend
to make women happier in themselves, and more acceptable to those with
whom they live, than courage.... So far from courage being unfeminine,
there is a peculiar grace and dignity in those beings who have little
active power of attack or defence, passing through danger with a moral
courage which is equal to that of the strongest.’
Abundance of applause has been bestowed upon Miss Nightingale and the
other ‘heroines of the Crimea,’ whose enterprise certainly required no
small share of masculine resolution. On the other hand, a writer on
the position of women confesses to ‘an admiration for the commonplace,
unambitious kind of old maid, who is content to do good in her own
neighbourhood, and among the few persons whom she really knows--who
takes a lively interest in the welfare of her nephews and nieces, and
who regales herself occasionally with tea and gossip.’
One writer tells us that there are things for which women are
exclusively fitted. ‘In the first place, women have the power of
pleasing. Accomplishments are cultivated as instrumental to the
successful exercise of this power, and therefore are not to be
rejected on the ground that they waste the time that might be given
to mathematics. The common sense of the world has long ago settled
that men are to be pleased, and women are to please. Accordingly women
acquire an agreeable expertness at the piano, and view the acquisition
as a solemn duty.’ Another, in answer to the question, what ought all
young ladies to learn, says, ‘Accomplishments are quite a secondary
matter. If men do not get tired of the songs, they soon get tired of
the singer, if she can do nothing but sing. What is really wanted in a
woman is, that she should be a permanently pleasant companion. So far
as education can give or enhance pleasantness, it does so by making the
view of life wide, the wit ready, the faculty of comprehension vivid.’
One authority, delightfully contented with things as they are, assures
us that, ‘humanly speaking, the best sort of British young lady is all
that a woman can be expected to be--civil, intelligent, enthusiastic,
decorous, and, as a rule, prettier than in any other country. We are
perfectly satisfied with what we have got.’ Another, less happily
constituted, asserts that ‘all good judges and good teachers lament
the present system of girls’ education. It is all cramming, and with
such very poor results. After all is over, girls know very little and
care about less. Most girls are decidedly stupid, and what good can
cramming of the most barren and repulsive kind do to stupid girls? We
should consider what we want women to be. That they should be trained
to be good and generous is by far the first thing.... The next thing is
that they should be well-mannered and healthy. The third requisite is,
that they should know how to express themselves--should have a right
standard in judging books and men, and public and private life....
The fourth requisite is, that they should know how to bear rule in a
household.... These are all the essentials.’
Another view is, that a woman should be ‘a gentle tyrant, capricious
indeed, yet generous and kindhearted withal, varying in mood, now
clouded, now serene, though given less to tears than laughter, and
bright with gleams of hopeful sunshine like the spring. She should
be no dunce, no ignoramus, this enviable woman; she should not have
stopped in her education when the governess’s back was turned, nor hold
that to play Mr Chappell’s music creditably is the one aim and end of
all instruction; she should know enough to take her part in topics of
general conversation, to read the _Times_ with interest, and talk
about the leading article without a yawn; she should be fond enough of
learning to find that her leisure seldom hangs heavy on her hands; and
if (though it is almost too much to expect) she has sufficient patience
with the process of induction to be able to reason on any subject for
two minutes together without jumping to a conclusion either way, we
may well congratulate ourselves on having drawn the great prize in the
lottery of life.’ Mr Coventry Patmore seems to prefer that the gentle
tyranny and the capriciousness should be on the other side.
‘He who toils all day,
And comes home hungry, tired or cold,
And feels ’twould do him good to scold
His wife a little, let him trust
Her love, and boldly be unjust,
And not care till she cries! How prove
In any other way his love
Till soothed in mind by meat and rest?
If, after that, she’s well caress’d,
And told how good she is to bear
His humour, fortune makes it fair.
Women like men to be like men,
That is, at least, just now and then!’
The wife is here represented as rejoicing in her husband’s ill-temper,
as affording her an opportunity of dispelling it by soothing arts,
a practical illustration, it may be observed, of the complementary
theory, the woman’s patience actually demanding a man’s sulkiness to
practise upon. Contrast Mr Patmore’s ‘Jane’ with Mr Tennyson’s ‘Isabel.’
‘Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane
Of her still spirit; locks not wide-dispread,
Madonna-wise on either side her head;
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,
The stately flower of female fortitude,
Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.
‘The intuitive decision of a bright
And thorough-edged intellect to part
Error from crime; a prudence to withhold;
The laws of marriage character’d in gold
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart;
A love still burning upward, giving light
To read those laws; an accent very low
In blandishment, but a most silver flow
Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, though undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Through all the outworks of suspicious pride;
A courage to endure and to obey;
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crown’d Isabel, through all her placid life,
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.’
The self-defence which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Queen
Katherine describes a different type:--
‘Heaven witness
I have been to you a true and humble wife,
At all times to your will conformable;
Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,
Yea, subject to your countenance; glad or sorry,
As I saw it incline. When was the hour
I ever contradicted your desire,
Or made it not mine too? or which of your friends
Have I not strove to love, although I knew
He were mine enemy? what friend of mine
That had to him derived your anger, did I
Continue in my liking? nay, gave notice
He was from thence discharged?’
This picture of trembling devotion, of ‘distrust qualified by fear,’
appears in a selection called ‘Beautiful Poetry,’ under the heading
‘A True Wife.’ But this kind of wife would be positively disliked by
some husbands. It has been said that ‘perhaps--such is masculine
nature--a wife with more knowledge, more fixity of thought, and more
general mental power than one’s-self might be “a blessing in disguise.”
But one who is goose enough to sympathise at random on subjects of
which she knows little or nothing, because it is “feminine” to do
so, is a nuisance _not_ in disguise.... For our own part, we would
just as soon have the sympathy of a chameleon as that of a woman who
lives completely in particulars, and is quite destitute of power to
appreciate a universal principle.’
These are but a few samples, culled almost at random from the mass of
contradictory evidence to be found in English literature. Conceive a
governess or schoolmistress, duly impressed with the obligation of
training her pupils to be accomplished pleasers of men, and trying to
fashion for them a model out of such materials! Must not the result be
simply blank despair? The same conclusion might be reached by a shorter
process. Men are supposed to marry the sort of women they like. But
looking upon the infinite variety of wives to be met with in society,
could any one generalise from them a model wife, who might serve as a
pattern to educators? Would any man wish for a wife so modelled? Might
it not be as well to abandon this distracting theory--to discard the
shifting standard of opinion, and to fall back upon the old doctrine
which teaches educators to seek in every human soul for that divine
image which it is their work to call out and to develope?
The educational question depends, as we have seen, on the larger
question of women’s place in the social order. Are they to be regarded,
and to regard themselves, primarily as children of God, members of
Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and, secondarily, as
wives, mothers, daughters, sisters? or are the family relationships
to overshadow the divine and the social, and to be made the basis
of a special moral code, applying to women only? According to the
first view, all human duties--everything that is lovely and of good
report--all moral virtues and all Christian graces are inculcated and
enforced by the highest sanctions. An ascetic contempt for wifely and
motherly and daughterly ties is no part of the Christian ideal. But the
view which teaches women to think of family claims as embracing their
whole duty--which bids them choose to serve man rather than God--sets
before them a standard of obligation which, in proportion as it is
exclusively adhered to, vitiates not their lives only, but those of the
men on whom their influence might be of a far different sort. That such
a theory is radically inconsistent with the divine order might easily
be shown. That its action on society is profoundly demoralising is a
lesson taught by mournful experience.
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