COMRADESHIP
The first outstanding social consequence of sex is the mutual
attraction of young men and women in general. With apologies in the
meantime to the girls who "have no use for men" and to the queer men
who "don't like girls," I propose to speak to the great majority. To
many a healthy and normal man there is nothing so wonderful or
beautiful in all God's earth as a woman. And the converse is often
true. The most interesting thing about the world for many of each sex
is that the other sex is in it also.
Those who share the assumption on which this book is written will agree
that an influence so strong, so profound, and so universal must have
some fine significance in the divine scheme of things. It is an element
in humanity which must affect the whole of life. To handle it rightly
must be necessary if life as a whole is to succeed. And the first step
towards a right handling of it is to accept the fact of it gladly and
openly. The convention lingers that it is a little weak in a man to
admit that he needs and craves woman's society, and that for a girl to
admit the converse is not quite modest. And thus there is often a
certain furtive element in the relations of the sexes between fifteen
and twenty-five which is all of it a great pity. It is here that Mrs.
Grundy has done us real injury. The poor old dear has been so fussy and
nervous about it all. She has often tried to close the doors upon free
and wholesome fellowship, and so has driven the young to find out other
ways of meeting. But even she has not been able to keep the sexes
apart. The truth is that the mutual relations of men and women in the
realm of comradeship, and quite apart from marriage, may be so happy
and enriching--so exhilarating and so bracing--that one may reverently
say the whole arrangement of having divided mankind into two such
groups, is one of the most splendid of the divine thoughts. For many a
man the joy and worth of life depend largely upon women. The things he
gets on his journey from his mother, his sisters, and his girl friends
--from his wife, his daughters, and the women friends of later days are
the golden things in life. And I know that many a woman would say a
corresponding thing about the life career of a woman. That is God's
plan--to make us dependent on one another for the stimuli, the
inspirations, and the joys which prevent life from becoming drab and
monotonous. "In the beginning God made them male and female," because
He loved them. He made them gloriously different that they might enjoy
and help each other.
It is one of the mysteries of history that for uncounted centuries man
imagined that he only needed woman in her capacity as a wife and
potential mother--that for long ages woman had no place in society
except as wife or mother. Why it was so long before the spirit of God
moved women to shatter that conception, I do not understand. But with
its shattering there appeared for a time a tendency to imagine that men
and women are in most things practically the same, and that the
difference of sex is a very little thing. Many people seemed inclined
to believe that a woman is just the same sort of being as a man, except
for one special function--that of motherhood--which can only be
exercised occasionally, and need not be exercised at all. That I am
sure was a mistake with the possibility of disaster in it. No doubt
there are men with many feminine characteristics, and women with many
masculine ones. But woman is not only physically different from man.
She is different mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And that is
just why we need her so much in all life's departments.
We need woman in politics, for instance, just because she is different
from man. If the extension of the franchise to some millions of women
had meant merely that the number of people had been increased who would
think and vote simply as men had previously thought and voted, it would
have been no great event. If women members of Parliament are going to
be mere replicas of the old type of M. P., then they might as well save
themselves the bondage of Westminster, for their presence there will
make no valuable difference. But we do need them in the constituencies
and in the House exactly because they bring new and different vital
forces to bear on the conduct of affairs. Experience is already
teaching us that men and women think more truly together than they do
apart. There is something about the sweep and range of man's thought
which is peculiarly stimulating to woman's mind, and there are aspects
of truth to which men remain blind until women point them out. For this
reason very often mixed committees act more wisely than committees of
only one sex. I suspect that the same thing holds in relation to art,
and even to scientific work. It certainly holds in connection with
social work, and church work. In fact in all life's departments, with a
few obvious exceptions, men and women supplement and stimulate one
another, and by comradeship make a bigger and better thing of life than
would be possible otherwise.
I am not assuming that a fine comradeship is necessarily an easy thing
to achieve. I should be surprised if it were, for I know of no fine
things that can be attained easily. Comradeship between the sexes is
rapidly spoilt by "silliness." It has to be based upon a considerable
amount of restraint. It can be and it ought to be "jolly," but it
becomes a poor thing at once when either man or woman forgets dignity.
We are still at the experimental stage in traveling through this new
country that has opened up to us within the last twenty years; and if
that is a reason for being very charitable about mistakes, it is also a
reason for being alert to find the right paths.
I am very much impressed by the opportunity that lies before students
as a class in this matter. In most of our universities and colleges men
and women meet in the freest way, and they only and for themselves can
discover how this new kind of life is best conducted. College rules and
regulations are not going to do it for them. Indeed the older
generation is not going to do it for them. But if they will find out
the right way and establish for themselves the right standards and
conventions, they may do an immense service for the rest of the nation.
And I believe they are already in large measure doing this. My
experience has on the whole made me entirely hopeful, and has deepened
my faith in the fitness of men and women for freedom.
None the less and although I belong to the older generation, I propose
to offer some suggestions for this part of life. I cannot make much use
of the word "flirting." It has nearly as many different meanings as
Bolshevism. By some people it is applied to any high-spirited and happy
intercourse between men and women, in which case it signifies only a
right and good thing. Some people mean by it "playing at being in
love," in which case it is a silly and unworthy occupation which saps
the real love power in men and women. Others again mean by it the whole
bundle of silly and sentimental manners which some men and some women
assume when in the presence of the other sex, and in that sense of the
word flirting means just exactly the foolish thing that common sense
would declare it to be. What I am quite sure of is that success in this
comradeship between the sexes depends upon the discovery of a right way
which lies between the coldness which is the negation of good
fellowship, and the undue familiarity which is both dangerous and
undignified. We men have in the past been accustomed to boast that we
will go just as far towards familiarity as women will allow, and have
declared that this whole matter is one which women must regulate. Male
opinion on the whole used to regard a man as something less than a
sport who would not take liberties wherever he saw they would not be
resented. To use any sort of compulsion was indeed held to be
ungentlemanly, but short of that men have recognized no compulsion of
honor bidding them refrain from familiarities. "That's the girl's
affair," they have often said. But this is really a flagrant case of
the way in which we men deceive ourselves and assume positions that are
both dishonest and cruel. I call this particular one dishonest because
it is absurd for us to pretend that our expectations and desires have
no influence on girls, and that therefore we have no responsibility for
events. Of course girls will tend to give what men in general persist
in asking. They are just as human as we are. Our conventional
assumption that they are always mistresses of the situation--models of
perfect self-mastery and understanding--is ridiculous and unkind. It is
the age-long injustice which men have practiced towards women to
pretend that they are creatures without passion and by nature always
in control of their emotions. We know it is not true, and yet we act on
the pretence that it is. And I call this position of ours cruel because
there is no reason whatever why we should try to lay on women the whole
burden of refining and controlling our mutual relations. Why should we
not take our share of the task? Since history began we have asked many
things of women, and then kept our real respect for those who refused
them--a mean and cowardly attitude. Women are not angels and it is mere
sentimental nonsense to pretend that they are. But they can be splendid
companions when men help them towards the attaining of that
relationship. Often we have seemed to want of them only sentimental
dalliance, with the result that they often grant it. But many women
would rather pass men by altogether than meet them in that way,
although most really long for some relationship that will call into
exercise the mental, aesthetic, and spiritual powers of both men and
women. Indeed there is ground for this charge against both men and
women, that often in social intercourse with one another they suspend
the exercise of the finer parts of their natures. We have all known men
of great intellectual gifts and wide experience who when "the ladies"
appear promptly put on the garb of mere triflers. And we have also
known women with very real literary, or artistic, or intellectual gifts
who treat men primarily as beings to be played with. And so do many
people miss the enriching joys of companionship, and make social
intercourse petty and wearisome. I believe most women want to know
whatever is big and strong and efficient in men and not merely to find
out whether they are good at badinage. And though many men think they
are afraid of serious and clever women, they really in their hearts
want to discover the responsible and sincere qualities in the
personalities of girls and not merely the surface ones.
God forbid that we should banish chaff and jest from our common life,
or pretend to be old while still we are young! God forbid that we
should be prim and Puritan when the sun shines and life calls! There
are no sillier things in life than the mere affectations of
intellectuality. Mere solemnity is both an ugly and a futile thing, and
nothing is duller than a constant enforced earnestness. I remember a
dear old celibate professor of mine who, having met a number of
self-consciously intellectual women, became so annoyed that at last
when asked whether he did not rejoice in the higher education of women
he broke out with the sentence, "No! I don't like clever women--I like
silly girls." The story may be apocryphal. The man at least was human
enough to have said it. All that I am pleading for is that men and
women should cease to hide from one another the deeper interests and
concerns that really are present in their lives--that they should not
merely play together but should also think together.
As to the detailed manners and customs which should control comradeship
I claim no authority to speak dogmatically, and, as I have said, I am
sure the rising generation will have to settle these things for itself.
I am at least sure that both the stately coldness of Lady Vere de Vere
and the familiarity in which dignity is forgotten are fatal. I confess
to the hope that the linking of arms and the slapping of one another on
the shoulder are not going to be characteristics of social intercourse
in the future. And as to kissing I confess myself unblushingly
conservative--Victorian if you will. Nine times out of ten it may not
be a thing worth making any fuss about. But it is a mistake. Partly, to
put it bluntly, because kissing sometimes arouses desires which kissing
cannot satisfy; and partly because it is, I believe, a fine instinct
which suggests to both men and women that they should keep their kisses
for the one person who will or may some day have love's right to them.
And here I think I ought to put down for the sake of girls a fact of
which they are often ignorant. When you allow men to embrace and kiss
you--even when you allow them lesser familiarities--you may go your way
thinking no more about it and undisturbed. The whole thing may not
really have stirred you. But with men it is not so. Often by such
things tumults are raised in them whereby the way of self-control and
chastity is made cruelly difficult. Only some of you do it, and you
have done it generally in ignorance. When you realize the truth you
will see that it is unkind--possibly you may even realize that it is
dangerous. And yet I do not want to overstate even this point. I heard
lately of a girl who, having been told the truth, became so nervous
that she was afraid to sit within five feet of a man and found general
social intercourse spoilt for her. There are no dangers for men, but on
the contrary there is very great help for men, in the society of girls
who will meet them in a spontaneous, natural, and friendly way. It is
when the girls who should be their natural companions are found to be
prudish and stiff that men are all too apt to look for other girls who
will at least be friendly and often much more than friendly. All that I
want girls to know is that there are dangers on the horizon of this
part of life, and to ask them to use their wisdom and their common
sense. What I ask of men is that they should cease meanly trying to
avoid responsibility in this connection, and should face their half of
the problem. For the problem _is_ worth solving. Happy, free, wholesome
companionship between men and women is a bracing and splendid thing. We
cannot possibly solve the whole problem of human life till we have
attained to it.
And now a last word to the people to whom at the beginning I offered an
apology--to the exceptional young people who take no interest in the
other sex. I do not commend your attitude. It is not wise. If it is in
your case instinctive and spontaneous you need not worry, for nature
will soon cure it. But if you have consciously adopted it, or are
deliberately retaining it, you are making a serious mistake. You are
not sexless beings, and by adopting this attitude you are repressing
certain parts of your natures which will one day make their presence
felt whether you like it or no, and possibly in unhappy and unnatural
ways. Girl friendships cannot fully and finally satisfy any girl.
Companionships with other men are insufficient for any man. Instincts
in your beings which may not be denied demand something else.
If you have decided that there is nothing worth while in the
fellowships that may exist between men and women, surely it is plain
that you must be wrong, for the verdict of nine-tenths of mankind is
against you. If you have in you any positive antagonism to the other
sex, that is in itself a manifestation of your sexual nature, and a bad
one.
There is a fine, breezy, sunny world full of beauty, interest, and deep
satisfaction for our humanity, the doors of which you are closing on
yourselves. If some people have traveled there unwisely or have lost
their way in it, that is only a coward's reason for staying outside.
Things may seem to be going very well with you in spite of your
attitude while you are still in the early twenties--you may say that
you are getting from life all that you want. But as you approach the
thirties you will infallibly discover your mistake. Nature will then
assert herself. A certain mysterious loneliness will overtake you, and
life will lose its flavor. In all modern life there is no harder
problem than the one which arises for those who without any will of
their own have to face that situation. To court it is mere folly. As a
matter of fact behind your attitude there lies concealed the attempt to
deny your sex, and that is the one impossible thing to do. You may
control it, discipline it, or sublimate it; but you will do nothing but
make trouble for yourself till you have accepted it. If it annoys you
to find that you are not sufficient in yourself for yourself--if in
particular you resent the mere suggestion that the other sex should in
any way be necessary to your completeness and happiness, you are really
quarrelling with the established nature of things. You may do that if
you like, but there is always only one end to the quarrel. It is we who
get broken, not the eternal order.