_Two hundred years hence, possibly less._
[3] First Published in 1909.
EUGENIA, _Prime Minister, is sitting at her writing table in her
library. She is a tall, fine looking woman of thirty, rather
untidy and worn in appearance._
EUGENIA [_to herself, taking up a paper_]. There is no doubt that we
must carry through this bill or the future of the country will be
jeopardized.
HENRY [_outside_]. May I come in?
EUGENIA. Do come in, dearest.
HENRY [_a tall, athletic man of thirty, faultlessly dressed, a
contrast to her dusty untidiness_]. I thought I could see the
procession best from here. [_Goes to windows and opens them._] It is
in sight now. They are coming down the wind at a great pace.
EUGENIA [_slightly bored_]. What procession?
HENRY. Why the Men's Reinfranchisement League, of course. You know,
Eugenia, you promised to interview a deputation of them at 5
o'clock, and they determined to have a mass meeting first.
EUGENIA. So they did. I had forgotten. I wish they would not pester me
so. Really, the government has other things to attend to than Male
Suffrage at times like this.
[_The procession sails past the windows in planes decked with the
orange and white colours of the league. The occupants preserve a
dead silence, saluting_ EUGENIA _gravely as they pass. From the
streets far below rises a confused hubbub of men's voices shouting
"Votes for men!"_
HENRY. How stately the clergy look, Eugenia! Why, there are the two
Archbishops in their robes heading the whole procession, and look at
the bevy of Bishops in their lawn sleeves in the great Pullman air
car behind. What splendid men. And here come the clergy in their
academic gowns by the hundred, in open trucks.
EUGENIA. I must say it is admirably organised, and no brawling.
HENRY. Why should they brawl? I believe you are disappointed that they
don't. They are all saluting you, Eugenia, as they pass. They won't
take any notice of me, of course, because it is known I am the
President of the Anti-Suffrage League. The doctors are passing now.
How magnificent they look in their robes! What numbers of them! It
makes me proud I am a man. And now come the lawyers in crowds in
their wigs and gowns.
EUGENIA. Every profession seems to be represented, but of course I am
well aware that it is not the real wish of the men of England to
obtain the vote. The suffragists must do something to convince me
that the bulk of England's thoughtful and intelligent men are not
opposed to it before I move in the matter.
HENRY. I often wonder what would convince you, Eugenia, or what they
could do that they have not done. These must be the authors and
artists and journalists, and quite a number of women with them. Do
you notice that? Look, that is Hobson the poet, and Bagg the
millionaire novelist, each in their own Swallow planes. How they
dart along. I should like to have a Swallow, Eugenia. And are all
those great lumbering tumbrils of men journalists?
EUGENIA. No doubt.
HENRY. It is very impressive. I wish they did not pass so fast, but
the wind is high. Here come all the trades with the Lord Mayor of
London in front! What hordes and hordes of them! The procession is
at least a mile long. And I suppose those are miners and
agricultural labourers, last of all, trying to keep up in those old
Wilbur Wrights and Zeppelins. I did not know there were any left
except in museums.
[_The procession passes out of sight._ EUGENIA _sighs_.
HENRY. Demonstrations like this make a man think, Eugenia. I really
can't see, though you often tell me I do, why men should not have
votes. They used to have them. You yourself say that there is no
real inequality between the sexes. The more I think of it the more I
feel I ought to retire from being President of the Anti-Suffrage
League. And all the men on it are old enough to be my father. The
young men are nearly all in the opposite camp. I sometimes wish I
was there too.
EUGENIA. Henry!
HENRY. Now don't, Eugenia, make any mistake. I abhor the "brawling
brotherhood" as much as you do. I was quite ashamed for my sex when
I saw that bellowing brute riveted to the balcony of your plane the
other day, shouting "Votes for men."
EUGENIA [_coldly_]. That sort of conduct puts back the cause of men's
reinfranchisement by fifty years. It shows how unsuited the sex is
to be trusted with the vote. Imagine that sort of hysterical
screaming in the House itself.
HENRY. But ought the cause to be judged by the folly of a few howling
dervishes? Sometimes it really seems, Eugenia, as if women were
determined to regard the brawling brotherhood as if it represented
the men who seek for the vote. And yet the sad part is that these
brawlers have done more in two years to advance the cause than their
more orderly brothers have achieved in twenty. For years past I
have heard quiet suffragists say that all their efforts have been
like knocking in a padded room. They can't make themselves heard.
Women smiled and said the moment was not opportune. The press gave
garbled accounts of their sayings and doings.
EUGENIA. Your simile is unfortunate. No one wants to emancipate the
only persons who are confined in padded rooms.
HENRY. Not if they are unjustly confined?
EUGENIA [_with immense patience_]. Dear Henry, must we really go over
this old ground again? Men used to have votes as we all know. In the
earliest days of all, of course, both men and women had them. The
ancient records prove that beyond question, and that women presented
themselves with men at the hustings. Then women were practically
disfranchised, and for hundreds of years men ruled alone, though it
was not until near the reign of Victoria the First that by the
interpolation of the word "male" before "persons" in the Reform Act
of 1832 women were legally disfranchised. Men were disfranchised
almost as suddenly in the reign of Man-hating Mary the Second of
blessed memory.
HENRY. I know, I know, but....
EUGENIA [_whose oratorical instincts are not exhausted by her public
life_]. You must remember I would have you all--I mean I would have
you, Henry, remember that men were only disfranchised after the
general election of 2009. It was the wish of the country. We must
bow to that.
HENRY. You mean it was the wish of the women of the country, who were
a million stronger numerically than men.
EUGENIA. It was the wish of the majority, including many thousands of
enlightened men, my grandfather among them, who saw the danger to
their country involved in continued male suffrage. After all, Henry,
it was men who were guilty of the disaster of adult suffrage. Women
never asked for it--they were deeply opposed to it. They only
demanded the suffrage on the same terms that men had it in Edward
the Seventh's time. Adult suffrage was the last important enactment
of men, and one which ought to prove to you, considering the
incalculable harm it did, that men, in spite of their admirable
qualities, are not sufficiently far-sighted to be trusted with a
vote. Adult suffrage lost us India. It all but lost us our Colonies,
for the corner-men and wastrels and unemployed who momentarily
became our rulers saw no use for them. The only good result of adult
suffrage was that women, by the happy chance of their numerical
majority, and with the help of Mary the Man-hater, were able to
combine, to outvote the men and so to seize the reins and abolish
it.
HENRY. And abolish us too.
EUGENIA. It was an extraordinary _coup d'état_, the one good result of
the disaster of adult suffrage. It was a bloodless revolution, but
the most amazing in the annals of history. And it saved the country.
HENRY. I do not deny it. But you can't get away from the fact that men
did give women the vote originally. And now men have lost it
themselves. Why should not women give it back to men--I mean, of
course, only to those who have the same qualifications as to
property as women voters have? After all it was by reason of our
physical force that we were entitled to rule, at least men always
said so. Over and over again they said so in the House, and that
women can't be soldiers and sailors and special constables as we
can. And our physical force remains the greater to this day.
EUGENIA. We do everything to encourage it.
HENRY. Without us, Eugenia, you would have no army, no navy, no
miners. We do the work of the world. We guard and police the nation,
and yet we are not entitled to a hearing.
EUGENIA. Your ignorance of the force that rules the world is assumed
for rhetorical purposes.
HENRY. I suppose you will say brain ought to rule. Well, some of us
are just as able as some of you. Look at our great electricians, our
shipbuilders, our inventors, our astronomers, our poets, nearly all
are men. Shakespeare was a man.
EUGENIA [_sententiously_]. There was a day, and a very short day it
was, when it was said that brain ought to rule. Brain did make the
attempt, but it could no more rule this planet than brute force
could continue to do so. You know, and I know, and every schoolgirl
knows, that what rules the birth-rate rules the world.
HENRY [_for whom this sentiment has evidently the horrid familiarity
of the senna of his childhood_]. It used not to be so.
EUGENIA. It is so now. It is no use arguing; it is merely hysteria to
combat the basic fact that the sex which controls the birth-rate
must by nature rule the nation which it creates. This is not a
question with which law can deal, for nature has decided it.
[HENRY _preserves a paralysed silence_.
EUGENIA [_with benignant dignity_]. I am all for the equality of the
sexes within certain limits, the limits imposed by nature. But the
long and the short of it is, to put it bluntly, no man, my dear
Henry, can give birth to a child, and until he can he will be
ineligible by the laws of nature, not by any woman-made edict, to
govern, and the less he talks about it the better. Sensible men and
older men know that and hold their tongues, and women respect their
silence. Man has his sphere, and a very important and useful sphere
in life it is. The defence of the nation is entrusted to him. Where
should we be without our trusty soldiers and sailors, and, as you
have just reminded me, our admirable police force? Where physical
strength comes in men are paramount. When I think of all the work
men are doing in the world I assure you, Henry, my respect and
admiration for them knows no bounds. But if they step outside their
own sphere of labour, then--
HENRY. But if only you would look into the old records, as I have been
doing, you would see that Lord Curzon and Lord James and Lord
Cromer, and many others employed these same arguments in order to
withhold the suffrage from women.
EUGENIA. I dare say.
HENRY. And there is another thing which does not seem to me to be
fair. Men are so ridiculed if they are suffragists. _Punchinella_
always draws them as obese disappointed old bachelors, and there are
many earnest young married men among the ranks of the suffragists.
Look at the procession which has just passed. Our best men were in
it. And to look at _Punchinella_ or to listen to the speeches in the
House you would think that the men who want the vote are mostly
repulsive old bachelors stung by the neglect of women. Why only last
week the member for Maidenhead, Mrs. Colthorpe it was got up and
said that if only this "brawling brotherhood" of single gentlemen,
who had missed domestic bliss, could find wives they would not
trouble their heads about reinfranchisement.
EUGENIA. There is no doubt there is an element of sex resentment in
the movement, dear Henry. That is why I have always congratulated
myself on the fact that, you, as my husband, were opposed to it.
HENRY. Personally I can't imagine now that women have the upper hand
why they don't keep up their number numerically. It is their only
safeguard against our one day regaining the vote. It was their
numerical majority plus adult suffrage which suddenly put them in
the position to disfranchise men. And yet women are allowing their
number to decline and decline until really for all practical
purposes there seems to be about two men to every woman.
EUGENIA. The laws of nature render our position infinitely stronger
than that of men ever was. We mounted by the ladder of adult
suffrage, but we kicked it down immediately afterwards. It will
never be revived. Men had no tremors about the large surplusage of
women as long as they were without votes. Why should we have any now
about the surplusage of men?
HENRY. Then there is another point. You talk so much about the
importance of the physique of the race, and I agree with all my
heart. But there are so few women to marry nowadays, and women show
such a marked disinclination towards marriage till their youth is
quite over, that half the men I know can't get wives at all. And
those who do, have almost no power of selection left to them, and
are forced to put up with ill-developed, sickly, peevish, or ugly
women past their first bloom rather than remain unmarried and
childless.
EUGENIA. The subject is under consideration at this moment, but when
the position was reversed in Edward the Seventh's time, and there
were not enough men to go round, women were in the same plight, and
men said nothing _then_ about the deterioration of the race. They
did not even make drunkards' marriages a penal offence. Drunkards
and drug-takers, and men dried up by nicotine constantly married and
had children in those days.
HENRY. I can't think the situation was as difficult for women as it is
now for men. I was at Oxford last week, and do you know that during
the last forty years only five per cent. of the male Dons and
Professors have been able to find mates. Women won't look at them.
EUGENIA. In the nineteenth century, when first women went to
Universities and became highly educated, only four per cent. of them
afterwards married, and then to schoolmasters.
HENRY. And I assure you the amount of hysteria and quarrelling among
the older Dons is lamentable.
EUGENIA. I appointed a committee which reported to me on the subject
last year, and I gathered that the present Dons are not more
hysterical than they were in Victorian days, when they forfeited
their fellowships on marriage. You must remember, Henry, that from
the earliest times men and women have always hated anything "blue"
in the opposite sex. Female blue stockings were seldom attractive to
men in bygone days. And nowadays women are naturally inclined to
marry young men, and healthy and athletic men, rather than sedentary
old male blue stockings. It is most fortunate for the race that is
is so.
HENRY [_with a sigh_]. Well, all the "blue" women can marry nowadays.
EUGENIA. Yes, thank heaven, _all_ women can marry nowadays. What women
must have endured in the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth
century makes me shudder. For if they did not marry they were never
spared the ridicule or the contemptuous compassion of men. It seems
incredible, looking back, to realise that large families of
daughters were kept idle and unhappy at home, after their youth was
over, not allowed to take up any profession, only to be turned
callously adrift in their middle age at their father's death, with a
pittance on which they could barely live. And yet these things were
done by educated and kindly men who professed to care for the
interests of women, and were personally fond of their daughters.
Over and over again in the biographies of notable women of the
Victorian and Edward the Seventh's time one comes across instances
of the way in which men of the country-squire type kept their
daughters at home uneducated till they were beyond the age when they
could take up a profession, and then left them to poverty. They did
not even insure their lives for each child as we do now. Surely,
Henry, it is obvious that women have done one thing admirably. The
large reduction which they have effected in their own numbers has
almost eliminated the superfluous, incompetent, unhappy women who
found it so difficult to obtain a livelihood a hundred years ago,
and has replaced them by an extra million competent, educated,
fairly contented men who are all necessary to the State, who are
encouraged, almost forced into various professions.
HENRY. Not contented, Eugenia.
EUGENIA. More contented, because actively employed, than if they were
wandering aimlessly in the country lanes of their fathers' estates
as thousands of intelligent uneducated women were doing a hundred
years ago, kept ferociously at home by the will of the parent who
held the purse-strings.
HENRY. I rather wish I had lived in those good old times, when the
lanes were full of pretty women.
EUGENIA. But you, at any rate, Henry, had a large choice. I was much
afraid at one time that you would never ask me.
HENRY. Ah! But then I was a great heir, and all heirs have a wide
choice. Not that I had any choice at all. I had the good luck to be
accepted by the only woman I ever cared a pin about, and the only
one I was sure was disinterested.
EUGENIA. Dearest!
HENRY [_tentatively_]. And yet our marriage falls short of an ideal
one, my Eugenia.
EUGENIA [_apologetically_]. Dear Henry, I know it does, but as soon as
I cease to be Prime Minister I will do my duty to the country, and,
what I think much more of, by you. What is a home without children?
Besides, I must set an example. When you came in I was framing a
bill to meet the alarming decline of the birth-rate. Unless
something is done the nation will become extinct. The results of
this tendency among women to marry later and later are disastrous.
HENRY. And what is your bill, Eugenia?
EUGENIA. That every healthy married woman or female celibate over
twenty-five and under forty, members of the government excepted,
must do her duty to the State by bringing into the world--
HENRY. Celibate! Bringing into the world! Eugenia! and I thought the
sanctity of marriage and home life were among your deepest
convictions. Just think how you have upheld them to--_men_.
EUGENIA. Patriotism must come first. By bringing into the world three
children, a girl and two boys. If her income is insufficient to rear
them, the State will take charge of them. One extra boy is needed to
supply the wastage of accidents in practical work, and in case of
war. I shall stand or fall by this bill, for unless the women of
England can be aroused to do their duty--unless there is general
conscription to motherhood, as in Germany, England will certainly
become a second-class power.
HENRY. Perhaps when there are two men to every woman we shall be
strong enough to force women to do justice to us.
EUGENIA. Men never did justice to us when they had the upper hand.
HENRY. They did not. And I think the truth lies there. Those who have
the upper hand cannot be just to those who are in their power. They
don't intend to be unfair, but they seem unable to give their
attention to the rights of those who cannot enforce them. Men were
unintentionally unjust to women for hundreds of years. They kept
them down. Now women are unjust to us. Yes, Eugenia, you are. You
keep us down. It seems to be an inevitable part of the _rôle_ of
"top dog," and perhaps it is no use discussing it. If you don't want
your plane, would you mind if I borrow it? I promised to meet
Carlyon at four above the Florence Nightingale column in Anne Hyde's
park, and it is nearly four now.
EUGENIA. Good-bye, Henry. Do take my plane. And I trust there will be
no more doubt in your dear head as to your Presidency of the
Anti-Suffrage League.
HENRY. None. I realise these wrigglings of the under dog are unseemly,
and only disturb the equanimity and good-will of the "top dog."
Good-bye, Eugenia.