PART I

Produced by Thomas Pollock

THE UNEXPURGATED CASE AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE

BY SIR ALMROTH E. WRIGHT M.D., F.R.S.

1913

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Programme of This Treatise--Motives from which Women Claim the

Suffrage--Types of Men who Support the Suffrage--John Stuart Mill.

PART I

ARGUMENTS WHICH ARE ADDUCED IN SUPPORT OF WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE

I

ARGUMENTS FROM ELEMENTARY NATURAL RIGHTS

Signification of the Term "Woman's Rights"--Argument from

"Justice"--Juridical Justice--"Egalitarian Equity"--Argument from

Justice Applied to Taxation--Argument from Liberty--Summary of

Arguments from Elementary Natural Rights.

II

ARGUMENTS FROM INTELLECTUAL GRIEVANCES OF WOMAN

Complaint of Want of Chivalry--Complaint of "Insults"--Complaint of

"Illogicalties"--Complaint of "Prejudices"--The Familiar Suffragist

Grievance of the Drunkard Voter and the Woman of Property Who is a

Non-Voter--The Grievance of Woman being Required to Obey Man-Made

Laws.

III

ARGUMENTS WHICH TAKE THE FORM OF "COUNSELS OF PERFECTION" ADDRESSED TO

MAN

Argument that Woman Requires a Vote for her Protection--Argument that

Woman ought to be Invested with the Responsibilities of Voting in

Order that She May Attain Her Full Intellectual Stature.

PART II

ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE CONCESSION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY SUFFRAGE TO

WOMAN

I

WOMAN'S DISABILITY IN THE MATTER OF PHYSICAL FORCE

International Position of State would be Imperilled by Woman's

Suffrage--Internal Equilibrium of State would be Imperilled.

II

WOMAN'S DISABILITY IN THE MATTER OF INTELLECT

Characteristics of the Feminine Mind--Suffragist Illusions with

Regard to the Equality of Man and Woman as Workers--Prospect for

the Intellectual Future of Woman--Has Woman Advanced?

III

WOMAN'S DISABILITY IN THE MATTER OF PUBLIC MORALITY

Standards by which Morality can be Appraised--Conflict between

Different Moralities--The Correct Standard of Morality--Moral

Psychology of Man and Woman--Difference between Man and Woman in

Matters of Public Morality.

IV

MENTAL OUTLOOK AND PROGRAMME OF THE FEMALE LEGISLATIVE REFORMER

V

ULTERIOR ENDS WHICH THE WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT HAS IN VIEW

PART III

IS THERE, IF THE SUFFRAGE IS BARRED, ANY PALLIATIVE OR CORRECTIVE FOR

THE DISCONTENTS OF WOMAN?

I

PALLIATIVES OR CORRECTIVES FOR THE DISCONTENT OF WOMAN

What are the Suffragist's Grievances?--Economic and Physiological

Difficulties of Woman--Intellectual Grievances of Suffragist and

Corrective.

APPENDIX

LETTER ON MILITANT HYSTERIA

PREFACE

It has come to be believed that everything that has a bearing upon the

concession of the suffrage to woman has already been brought forward.

In reality, however, the influence of women has caused man to leave

unsaid many things which he ought to have said.

Especially in two respects has woman restricted the discussion.

She has placed her taboo upon all generalisations about women, taking

exception to these on the threefold ground that there would be no

generalisations which would hold true of all women; that

generalisations when reached possess no practical utility; and that

the element of sex does not leave upon women any general imprint such

as could properly be brought up in connexion with the question of

admitting them to the electorate.

Woman has further stifled discussion by placing her taboo upon

anything seriously unflattering being said about her in public.

I would suggest, and would propose here myself to act upon the

suggestion, that, in connexion with the discussion of woman's

suffrage, these restrictions should be laid aside.

In connexion with the setting aside of the restriction upon

generalising, I may perhaps profitably point out that all

generalisations, and not only generalisations which relate to women,

are _ex hypothesi [by hypothesis]_ subject to individual exceptions.

(It is to generalisations that the proverb that "the exception proves

the rule" really applies.) I may further point out that practically

every decision which we take in ordinary life, and all legislative

action without exception, is based upon generalisations; and again,

that the question of the suffrage, and with it the larger question as

to the proper sphere of woman, finally turns upon the question as to

what imprint woman's sexual system leaves upon her physical frame,

character, and intellect: in more technical terms, it turns upon the

question as to what are the _secondary sexual character[istic]s_ of

woman.

Now only by a felicitous exercise of the faculty of successful

generalisation can we arrive at a knowledge of these.

With respect to the restriction that nothing which might offend

woman's _amour propre [self love]_ shall be said in public, it may be

pointed out that, while it was perfectly proper and equitable that no

evil (and, as Pericles proposed, also no good) should be said of woman

in public so long as she confined herself to the domestic sphere, the

action of that section of women who have sought to effect an entrance

into public life, has now brought down upon woman, as one of the

penalties, the abrogation of that convention.

A consideration which perhaps ranks only next in importance to that

with which we have been dealing, is that of the logical sanction of

the propositions which are enunciated in the course of such

controversial discussions as that in which we are here involved.

It is clearly a precondition of all useful discussion that the author

and reader should be in accord with respect to the authority of the

generalisations and definitions which supply the premisses for his

reasonings.

Though this might perhaps to the reader appear an impractical ideal, I

would propose here to attempt to reach it by explaining the logical

method which I have set myself to follow.

Although I have from literary necessity employed in my text some of

the verbal forms of dogmatism, I am very far from laying claim to any

dogmatic authority. More than that, I would desire categorically to

repudiate such a claim.

For I do not conceal from myself that, if I took up such a position, I

should wantonly be placing myself at the mercy of my reader. For he

could then, by merely refusing to see in me an authority, bring down

the whole edifice of my argument like a house of cards.

Moreover I am not blind to what would happen if, after I claimed to be

taken as an authority, the reader was indulgent enough still to go on

to read what I have written.

He would in such a case, the moment he encountered a statement with

which he disagreed, simply waive me on one side with the words, "So

you say."

And if he should encounter a statement with which he agreed, he would

in his wisdom, censure me for neglecting to provide for that

proposition a satisfactory logical foundation.

If it is far from my thoughts to claim a right of dictation, it is

equally remote from them to take up the position that I have in my

arguments furnished _proof_ of the thesis which I set out to

establish.

It would be culpable misuse of language to speak in such connexion of

_proof_ or _disproof_.

Proof by testimony, which is available in con-nexion with questions of

fact, is unavailable in connexion with general truths; and logical

proof is obtainable only in that comparatively narrow sphere where

reasoning is based--as in mathematics--upon axioms, or--as in certain

really crucial experiments in the mathematic sciences--upon

quasi-axiomatic premisses.

Everywhere else we base our reasonings on premisses which are simply

more or less probable; and accordingly the conclusions which we arrive

at have in them always an element of insecurity.

It will be clear that in philosophy, in jurisprudence, in political

economy and sociology, and in literary criticism and such like, we are

dealing not with certainties but with propositions which are, for

literary convenience, invested with the garb of certainties.

What kind of logical sanction is it, then, which can attach to

reasonings such as are to be set out here?

They have in point of fact the sanction which attaches to reasonings

based upon premisses arrived at by the method of _diacritical

judgment._

It is, I hasten to notify the reader, not the method, but only the

name here assigned to it, which is unfamiliar. As soon as I exhibit it

in the working, the reader will identify it as that by which every

generalisation and definition ought to be put to the proof.

I may for this purpose take the general statements or definitions

which serve as premisses for my reasonings in the text.

I bring forward those generalisations and definitions because they

commend themselves to my diacritical judgment. In other words, I set

them forth as results which have been reached after reiterated efforts

to call up to mind the totality of my experience, and to de-tect the

factor which is common to all the individual experiences.

When for instance I propose a definition, I have endeavoured to call

to mind all the different uses of the word with which I am

familiar--eliminating, of course, all the obviously incorrect uses.

And when I venture to attempt a generalisation about woman, I

endeavour to recall to mind without distinction all the different

women I have encountered, and to extricate from my impressions what

was common to all,--omitting from consideration (except only when I am

dealing specifically with these) all plainly abnormal women.

Having by this procedure arrived at a generalisation--which may of

course be correct or incorrect--I submit it to my reader, and ask from

him that he should, after going through the same mental operations as

myself, review my judgment, and pronounce his verdict.

If it should then so happen that the reader comes, in the case of any

generalisation, to the same verdict as that which I have reached, that

particular generalisation will, I submit, now go forward not as a

datum of my individual experience, but as the intellectual resultant

of two separate and distinct experiences. It will thereby be immensely

fortified.

If, on the other hand, the reader comes to the conclusion that a

particular generalisation is out of conformity with his experience,

that generalisation will go forward shorn of some, or perchance all,

its authority.

But in any case each individual generalisation must be referred

further.

And at the end it will, according as it finds, or fails to find,

acceptance among the thoughtful, be endorsed as a truth, and be

gathered into the garner of human knowledge; or be recognised as an

error, and find its place with the tares, which the householder, in

time of the harvest, will tell the reapers to bind in bundles to burn

them.

A. E. W.

1913.

INTRODUCTION

Programme of this Treatise--Motives from which Women Claim the

Suffrage--Types of Men who Support the Suffrage--John Stuart Mill.

The task which I undertake here is to show that the Woman's Suffrage

Movement has no real intellectual or moral sanction, and that there

are very weighty reasons why the suffrage should not be conceded to

woman.

I would propose to begin by analysing the mental attitude of those who

range themselves on the side of woman suffrage, and then to pass on to

deal with the principal arguments upon which the woman suffragist

relies.

The preponderating majority of the women who claim the suffrage do not

do so from motives of public interest or philanthropy.

They are influenced almost exclusively by two motives: resentment at

the suggestion that woman should be accounted by man as inherently his

inferior in certain important respects; and reprehension of a state of

society in which more money, more personal liberty (In reality only

more of the personal liberty which the possession of money confers),

more power, more public recognition and happier physiological

conditions fall to the share of man.

A cause which derives its driving force so little from philanthropy

and public interest and so much from offended _amour propre_ and

pretensions which are, as we shall see, unjustified, has in reality no

moral prestige.

For its intellectual prestige the movement depends entirely on the

fact that it has the advocacy of a certain number of distinguished

men.

It will not be amiss to examine that advocacy.

The "intellectual" whose name appears at the foot of woman's suffrage

petitions will, when you have him by himself, very often Make

confession:--"Woman suffrage," he will tell you, "is not the grave and

important cause which the ardent female suffragist deems it to be. Not

only will it not do any of the things which she imagines it is going

to do, but it will leave the world exactly where it is. Still--the

concession of votes to women is desirable from the point of view of

symmetry of classification; and it will soothe the ruffled feelings of

quite a number of very worthy women."

It may be laid down as a broad general rule that only two classes of

men have the cause of woman's suffrage really at heart.

The first is the crank who, as soon as he thinks he has discerned a

moral principle, immediately gets into the saddle, and then rides

hell-for-leather, reckless of all considerations of public expediency.

The second is that very curious type of man, who when it is suggested

in his hearing that the species woman is, measured by certain

intellectual and moral standards, the inferior of the species man,

solemnly draws himself up and asks, "Are you, sir, aware that you are

insulting my wife?"

To this, the type of man who feels every unfavourable criticism of

woman as a personal affront to himself, John Stuart Mill, had

affinities.

We find him writing a letter to the Home Secretary, informing him, in

relation to a Parliamentary Bill restricting the sale of arsenic to

male persons over twenty-one years, that it was a "gross insult to

every woman, all women from highest to lowest being deemed unfit to

have poison in their possession, lest they shall commit murder."

We find him again, in a state of indignation with the English marriage

laws, preluding his nuptials with Mrs. Taylor by presenting that lady

with a formal charter; renouncing all authority over her, and

promising her security against all infringements of her liberty which

might proceed from _himself_.

To this lady he is always ascribing credit for his eminent

intellectual achievements. And lest his reader should opine that woman

stands somewhat in the shade with respect to her own intellectual

triumphs, Mill undertakes the explanation. "Felicitous thoughts," he

tells us, "occur by hundreds to every woman of intellect. But they

are mostly lost for want of a husband or friend . . . to estimate them

properly, and to bring them before the world; and even when they are

brought before it they generally appear as his ideas."

Not only did Mill see woman and all her works through an optical

medium which gave images like this; but there was upon his retina

a large blind area. By reason of this last it was inapprehensible

to him that there could be an objection to the sexes co-operating

indiscriminately in work. It was beyond his ken that the sex element

would under these conditions invade whole departments of life which

are now free from it. As he saw things, there was in point of fact a

risk of the human race dying out by reason of the inadequate

imperativeness of its sexual instincts.

Mill's unfaithfulness to the facts cannot, however, all be put down to

constitutional defects of vision. When he deals with woman he is no

longer scrupulously conscientious. We begin to have our suspicions of

his uprightness when we find him in his _Subjection of Women_ laying

it down as a fundamental postulate that the subjection of woman to man

is always morally indefensible. For no upright mind can fail to see

that the woman who lives in a condition of financial dependence upon

man has no moral claim to unrestricted liberty. The suspicion of

Mill's honesty which is thus awakened is confirmed by further critical

reading of his treatise. In that skilful tractate one comes across,

every here and there, a _suggestio falsi [suggestion of a falsehood],_

or a _suppressio veri [suppression of the truth],_ or a fallacious

analogy nebulously expressed, or a mendacious metaphor, or a passage

which is contrived to lead off attention from some weak point in the

feminist case.[1] Moreover, Mill was unmindful of the obligations of

intellectual morality when he allowed his stepdaughter, in connexion

with feminist questions, to draft letters [2] which went forward as

his own.

[1] _Vide [See]_ in this connexion the incidental references to Mill

on pp. 50, 81 footnote, and 139.

[2] Vide _Letters of John Stuart Mill,_ vol. ii, pp. 51, 79, 80, 100,

141, 157, 238, 239, 247, 288, and 349. There is yet another factor

which must be kept in mind in connexion with the writings of Mill. It

was the special characteristic of the man to set out to tackle concrete

problems and then to spend his strength upon abstractions.

In his _Political Economy_, where his proper subject matter was man

with his full equipment of impulses, Mill took as his theme an

abstraction: an _economic man_ who is actuated solely by the desire of

gain. He then worked out in great elaboration the course of conduct

which an aggregate of these puppets of his imagination would pursue.

Having persuaded

himself, after this, that he had in his possession a _vade mecum_

_[handbook]_ to the comprehension of human societies, he now took it

upon himself to expound the principles which govern and direct these.

Until such time as this procedure was unmasked, Mill's political

economy enjoyed an unquestioned authority.

Exactly the same plan was followed by Mill in handling the question of

woman's suffrage. Instead of dealing with woman as she is, and with

woman placed in a setting of actually subsisting conditions, Mill

takes as his theme a woman who is a creature of his imagination. This

woman is, _by assumption_, in mental endowments a replica of man. She

lives in a world which is, _by tacit assumption_, free from

complications of sex. And, if practical considerations had ever come

into the purview of Mill's mind, she would, _by tacit assumption_, be

paying her own way, and be making full personal and financial

contributions to the State. It is in connexion with this fictitious

woman that Mill sets himself to work out the benefits which women

would derive from co-partnership with men in the government of the

State, and those which such co-partnership would confer on the

community. Finally, practising again upon himself the same imposition

as in his _Political Economy_, this unpractical trafficker in

abstractions sets out to persuade his reader that he has, by dealing

with fictions of the mind, effectively grappled with the concrete

problem of woman's suffrage.

This, then, is the philosopher who gives intellectual prestige to the

Woman's Suffrage cause.

But is there not, let us in the end ask ourselves, here and there at

least, a man who is of real account in the world of affairs, and who

is--not simply a luke-warm Platonic friend or an opportunist

advocate--but an impassioned promoter of the woman's suffrage

movement? One knows quite well that there is. But then one suspects--one

perhaps discerns by "the spirit sense"--that this impassioned

promoter of woman's suffrage is, on the sequestered side of his life,

an idealistic dreamer: one for whom some woman's memory has become,

like Beatrice for Dante, a mystic religion.

We may now pass on to deal with the arguments by which the woman

suffragist has sought to establish her case.

PART I

ARGUMENTS WHICH ARE ADDUCED IN SUPPORT OF WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE

I

ARGUMENTS FROM ELEMENTARY NATURAL RIGHTS

Signification of the Term "Woman's Rights"--Argument from

"Justice"--Juridical Justice-"Egalitarian Equity"--Argument from Justice

Applied to Taxation--Argument from Liberty--Summary of Arguments from

Elementary Natural Rights.

Let us note that the suffragist does not--except, perhaps, when she is

addressing herself to unfledged girls and to the sexually

embittered--really produce much effect by inveighing against the legal

grievances of woman under the bastardy laws, the divorce laws, and the

law which fixes the legal age of consent. This kind of appeal does not

go down with the ordinary man and woman--first, because there are many

who think that in spite of occasional hardships the public advantage

is, on the whole, very well served by the existing laws; secondly,

because any alterations which might be desirable could very easily be

made without recourse to woman's suffrage; and thirdly, because the

suffragist consistently acts on the principle of bringing up against

man everything that can possibly be brought up against him, and of

never allowing anything to appear on the credit side of the ledger.

The arguments which the woman suffragist really places confidence in

are those which are provided by undefined general principles,

apothegms set out in the form of axioms, formulae which are vehicles

for fallacies, ambiguous abstract terms, and "question-begging"

epithets. Your ordinary unsophisticated man and woman stand almost

helpless against arguments of this kind.

For these bring to bear moral pressure upon human nature. And when

the intellect is confused by a word or formula which conveys an

ethical appeal, one may very easily find oneself committed to action

which one's unbiased reason would never have approved. The very first

requirement in connexion with any word or phrase which conveys a moral

exhortation is, therefore, to analyse it and find out its true

signification. For all such concepts as justice, rights, freedom,

chivalry--and it is with these that we shall be specially

concerned--are, when properly defined and understood beacon-lights,

but when ill understood and undefined, stumbling-blocks in the path of

humanity.

We may appropriately begin by analysing the term "Woman's Rights" and

the correlative formula "Woman has a right to the suffrage."

Our attention here immediately focuses upon the term _right_. It is

one of the most important of the verbal agents by which the suffragist

hopes to bring moral pressure to bear upon man.

Now, the term _right_ denotes in its juridical sense a debt which is

owed to us by the State. A right is created when the community binds

itself to us, its individual members, to intervene by force to

restrain any one from interfering with us, and to protect us in the

enjoyment of our faculties, privileges, and property.

The term is capable of being given a wider meaning. While no one

could appropriately speak of our having a _right_ to health or

anything that man has not the power to bestow, it is arguable that

there are, independent of and antecedent to law, elementary rights: a

right to freedom; a right to protection against personal violence; a

right to the protection of our property; and a right to the impartial

administration of regulations which are binding upon all. Such a use

of the term _right_ could be justified on the ground that everybody

would be willing to make personal sacrifices, and to combine with his

fellows for the purpose of securing these essentials--an understanding

which would almost amount to legal sanction.

The suffragist who employs the term "Woman's _Rights_" does not employ

the word rights in either of these senses. Her case is analogous to

that of a man who should in a republic argue about the divine _right_

of kings; or that of the Liberal who should argue that it was his

_right_ to live permanently under a Liberal government; or of any

member of a minority who should, with a view of getting what he wants,

argue that he was contending only for his rights.

The woman suffragist is merely bluffing. Her formula "_Woman's

Rights_" means simply "_Woman's Claims_."

For the moment--for we shall presently be coming back to the question

of the enforcement of rights--our task is to examine the arguments

which the suffragist brings forward in support of her claims.

First and chief among these is the argument that the _Principle of

Justice_ prescribes that women should be enfranchised.

When we inquire what the suffragist understands under the Principle of

Justice, one receives by way of answer only the _petitio principii

[question begging]_ that Justice is a moral principle which includes

woman suffrage among its implications.

In reality it is only very few who clearly apprehend the nature of

Justice. For under this appellation two quite different principles are

confounded.

The primary and correct signification of the term Justice will perhaps

be best arrived at by pursuing the following train of considerations:--

When man, long impatient at arbitrary and quite incalculable

autocratic judgments, proceeded to build up a legal system to take the

place of these, he built it upon the following series of

axioms:--(_a_) All actions of which the courts are to take cognisance

shall be classified. (_b_) The legal consequences of each class of

action shall be definitely fixed. (_c_) The courts shall adjudicate

only on questions of fact, and on the issue as to how the particular

deed which is the cause of action should be classified. And (_d_) such

decisions shall carry with them in an automatic manner the appointed

legal consequences.

For example, if a man be arraigned for the appropriation of another

man's goods, it is an axiom that the court (when once the questions of

fact have been disposed of) shall adjudicate only on the issue as to

whether the particular appropriation of goods in dispute comes under

the denomination of larceny, burglary, or other co-ordinate category;

and that upon this the sentence shall go forth: directing that the

legal consequences which are appointed to that particular class of

action be enforced.

This is the system every one can see administered in every court of

justice.

There is, however, over and above what has just been set out another

essential element in Justice. It is an element which readily escapes

the eye.

I have in view the fact that the classifications which are adopted and

embodied in the law must not be arbitrary classifications. They must

all be conformable to the principle of utility, and be directed to the

advantage of society.

If, for instance, burglary is placed in a class apart from larceny, it

is discriminated from it because this distinction is demanded by

considerations of public advantage. But considerations of utility

would not countenance, and by consequence Justice would not accept, a

classification of theft into theft committed by a poor man and theft

committed by a rich man.

The conception of Justice is thus everywhere interfused with

considerations of utility and expediency.

It will have become plain that if we have in view the justice which is

administered in the courts--we may here term it _Juridical

Justice_--then the question as to whether it is _just_ to refuse the

suffrage to woman will be determined by considering whether the

classification of men as voters and of women as non-voters is in the

public interest. Put otherwise, the question whether it would be just

that woman should have a vote would require the answer "Yes" or "No,"

according as the question whether it would be expedient or inexpedient

that woman should vote required the answer "Yes" or "No." But it would

be for the electorate, not for the woman suffragist, to decide that

question.

There is, as already indicated, another principle which passes under

the name of Justice. I have in view the principle that in the

distribution of wealth or political power, or any other privileges

which it is in the power of the State to bestow, every man should

share equally with every other man, and every woman equally with every

man, and that in countries where Europeans and natives live side by

side, these latter should share all privileges equally with the

white--the goal of endeavour being that all distinctions depending

upon natural endowment, sex, and race should be effaced.

We may call this principle the _Principle of Egalitarian

Equity_--first, because it aims at establishing a quite artificial

equality; secondly, because it makes appeal to our ethical instincts,

and claims on that ground to override the distinctions of which formal

law takes account.

But let us reflect that we have here a principle which properly

understood, embraces in its purview all mankind, and not mankind only

but also the lower animals. That is to say, we have here a principle,

which consistently followed out, would make of every man and woman _in

primis [at first]_ a socialist; then a woman suffragist; then a

philo-native, negrophil, and an advocate of the political rights of

natives and negroes; and then, by logical compulsion ant

anti-vivisectionist, who accounts it _unjust_ to experiment on an

animal; a vegetarian, who accounts it _unjust_ to kill animals for

food; and findly one who, like the Jains, accounts it unjust to take

the life of even verminous insects.

If we accept this principle of egalitarian equity as of absolute

obligation, we shall have to accept along with woman's suffrage all

the other "isms" believed in, and agitated for, by the cranks who are

so numerously represented in the ranks of woman suffragists.

If, on the other hand, we accept the doctrine of egalitarian equity

with the qualification that it shall apply only so far as what it

enjoins is conformable to public advantage, we shall again make

expediency the criterion of the justice of woman's suffrage.

Before passing on it will be well to point out that the argument from

Justice meets us not only in the form that Justice requires that woman

should have a vote, but also in all sorts of other forms. We encounter

it in the writings of publicists, in the formula _Taxation_ _carries

with it a Right to Representation_; and we encounter it in the

streets, on the banners of woman suffrage processions, in the form

_Taxation without Representation is Tyranny_.

This latter theorem of taxation which is displayed on the banners of

woman suffrage is, I suppose, deliberately and intentionally a

_suggestio falsi_. For only that taxation is tyrannous which is

diverted to objects which are not useful to the contributors. And even

the suffragist does not suggest that the taxes which are levied on

women are differentially applied to the uses of men.

Putting, then, this form of argument out of sight, let us come to

close quarters with the question whether the payment of taxes gives a

title to control the finances of the State.

Now, if it really did so without any regard to the status of the

claimant, not only women, but also foreigners residing in, or holding

property in, England, and with these lunatics and miners with

property, and let me, for the sake of a pleasanter collocation of

ideas, hastily add peers of the realm, who have now no control over

public finance, ought to receive the parliamentary franchise. And in

like manner if the payment of a tax, without consideration of its

amount, were to give a title to a vote, every one who bought an

article which had paid a duty would be entitled to a vote in his own,

or in a foreign, country according as that duty has been paid at home

or abroad.

In reality the moral and logical nexus between the payment of taxes

and the control of the public revenue is that the solvent and

selfsupporting citizens, and only these, are entitled to direct its

financial policy.

If I have not received, or if I have refunded, any direct

contributions I may have received from the coffers of the State; if I

have paid my _pro rata_ share of its establishment charges--_i.e._ of

the costs of both internal administration and external defence; and I

have further paid my proportional share of whatever may be required to

make up for the deficit incurred on account of my fellow-men and women

who either require direct assistance from the State, or cannot meet

their share of the expenses of the State, I am a _solvent citizen_;

and if I fail to meet these liabilities, I am an _insolvent citizen_

even though I pay such taxes as the State insists upon my paying.

Now if a woman insists, in the face of warnings that she had better

not do so, on taxing man with dishonesty for withholding from her

financial control over the revenues of the State, she has only herself

to blame if she is told very bluntly that her claim to such control is

barred by the fact that she is, as a citizen insolvent. The taxes paid

by women would cover only a very small proportion of the

establishment charges of the State which would properly be assigned to

them. It falls to man to make up that deficit.

And it is to be noted with respect to those women who pay their full

pro rata contribution and who ask to be treated as a class apart from,

and superior to, other women, that only a very small proportion of

these have made their position for themselves.

Immeasurably the larger number are in a solvent position only because

men have placed them there. All large fortunes and practically all the

incomes which are furnished by investments are derived from man.

Nay; but the very revenues which the Woman Suffrage Societies devote

to man's vilification are to a preponderating extent derived from

funds which he earned and gave over to woman.

In connexion with the financial position of woman as here stated, it

will be well to consider first the rich woman's claim to the vote.

We may seek light on the logical and moral aspects of this claim by

considering here two parallel cases.

The position which is occupied by the peer under the English

Constitution furnishes a very interesting parallel to the position of

the woman who is here in question.

Time out of mind the Commons have viewed with the utmost jealousy any

effort of the House of Lords to obtain co-partnership with them in the

control of the finances of the State; and, in pursuance of that

traditional policy, the peers have recently, after appeal to the

country, been shorn of the last vestige of financial control. Now we

may perhaps see, in this jealousy of a House of Lords, which

represents inherited wealth, displayed by a House of Commons

representing voters electing on a financial qualification, an

unconscious groping after the moral principle that those citizens who

are solvent by their own efforts, and only these, should control the

finances of the State.

And if this analogy finds acceptance, it would not--even if there were

nothing else than this against such proposals--be logically possible,

after ousting the peers who are large tax-payers from all control over

the finances of the State, to create a new class of voters out of the

female representatives of unearned wealth.

The second parallel case which we have to consider presents a much

simpler analogy. Consideration will show that the position occupied in

the State by the woman who has inherited money is analogous to that

occupied in a firm by a sleeping partner who stands in the shoes of a

deceased working partner, and who has only a small amount of capital

in the business. Now, if such a partner were to claim any financial

control, and were to make trouble about paying his _pro rata_

establishment charges, he would be very sharply called to order. And

he would never dream of appealing to Justice by breaking windows,

going to gaol, and undertaking a hunger strike.

Coming back from the particular to the general, and from the logical

to the moral aspect of woman's claim to control the finances of the

State on the ground that she is a tax-payer, it will suffice to point

out that this claim is on a par with the claim to increased political

power and completer control over the finances of the State which is

put forward by a class of male voters who are already paying much less

than their _pro rata_ share of the upkeep of the State.

In each case it is a question of trying to get control of other

people's money. And in the case of woman it is of "trying on" in

connexion with her public partnership with man that principle of

domestic partnership, "All yours is mine, and all mine's my own."

Next to the plea of justice, the plea which is advanced most

insistently by the woman who is contending for a vote is the plea of

liberty.

We have here, again, a word which is a valuable asset to woman

suffrage both in the respect that it brings moral pressure to bear,

and in the respect that it is a word of ambiguous meaning.

In accordance with this we have John Stuart Mill making propaganda for

woman suffrage in a tractate entitled the_ Subjection of_ _Women_; we

have a Woman's _Freedom_ League--"freedom" being a question-begging

synonym for "parliamentary franchise"--and everywhere in the

literature of woman's suffrage we have talk of woman's "emancipation";

and we have women characterised as serfs, or slaves--the terms _serfs_

and _slaves_ supplying, of course, effective rhetorical synonyms for

non-voters.

When we have succeeded in getting through these thick husks of untruth

we find that the idea of liberty which floats before the eyes of woman

is, not at all a question of freedom from unequitable legal

restraints, but essentially a question of getting more of the personal

liberty (or command of other people's services), which the possession

of money confers and more freedom from sexual restraints.

The suffragist agitator makes profit out of this ambiguity. In

addressing the woman worker who does not, at the rate which her labour

commands on the market, earn enough to give her any reasonable measure

of financial freedom, the agitator will assure her that the suffrage

would bring her more money, describing the woman suffrage cause to her

as the cause of liberty. By juggling in this way with the two meanings

of "liberty" she will draw her into her toils.

The vote, however, would not raise wages of the woman worker and bring

to her the financial, nor yet the physiological freedom she is

seeking.

The tactics of the suffragist agitator are the same when she is

dealing with a woman who is living at the charges of a husband or

relative, and who recoils against the idea that she lies under a moral

obligation to make to the man who works for her support some return of

gratitude. The suffragist agitator will point out to her that such an

obligation is slavery, and that the woman's suffrage cause is the

cause of freedom.

And so we find the women who want to have everything for nothing, and

the wives who do not see that they are beholden to man for anything,

and those who consider that they have not made a sufficiently good

bargain for themselves--in short, all the ungrateful women--flock to

the banner of Women's Freedom--the banner of financial freedom for

woman at the expense of financial servitude for man.

The grateful woman will practically always be an anti-suffragist.

It will be well, before passing on to another class of arguments, to

summarise what has been said in the three foregoing sections.

We have recognised that woman has not been defrauded of elementary

natural rights; that Justice, as distinguished from egalitarian

equity, does not prescribe that she should be admitted to the

suffrage; and that her status is not, as is dishonestly alleged, a

status of serfdom or slavery.

With this the whole case for recrimination against man, and _a

fortiori [for greater reason]_ the case for [a] resort to violence,

collapses.

And if it does collapse, this is one of those things that carries

consequences. It would beseem man to bethink himself that to give in

to an unjustified and doubtfully honest claim is to minister to the

demoralisation of the claimant.

II

ARGUMENTS FROM INTELLECTUAL GRIEVANCES OF WOMAN

Complaint of Want of Chivalry--Complaint of "Insults"--Complaint of

"Illogicalities"--Complaint of "Prejudices"--The Familiar Suffragist

Grievance of the Drunkard Voter and the Woman of Property Who is a

Non-Voter--The Grievance of Woman being Required to Obey Man-Made

Laws.

We pass from the argument from elementary natural rights to a

different class of arguments--intellectual grievances. The suffragist

tells us that it is unchivalrous to oppose woman's suffrage; that it

is insulting to tell woman that she is unfit to exercise the

franchise; that it is "illogical" to make in her case an exception to a

general rule; that it is mere "prejudice" to withhold the vote from

her; that it is indignity that the virtuous and highly intelligent

woman has no vote, while the drunkard has; and that the woman of

property has no vote, while her male underlings have; and, lastly,

that it is an affront that a woman should be required to obey

"man-made" laws.

We may take these in their order.

Let us consider chivalry, first, from the standpoint of the woman

suffragist. Her notion of _chivalry_ is that man should accept every

disadvantageous offer which may be made to him by woman.

That, of course, is to make chivalry the principle of egalitarian

equity limited in its application to the case between man and woman.

It follows that she who holds that the suffrage ought, in obedience to

that principle of justice, to be granted to her by man, might quite

logically hold that everything else in man's gift ought also to be

conceded.

But to do the woman suffragist justice, she does not press the

argument from chivalry. Inasmuch as life has brought home to her that

the ordinary man has quite other conceptions of that virtue, she

declares that "she has no use for it."

Let us now turn to the anti-suffragist view. The anti-suffragist (man

or woman) holds that chivalry is a principle which enters into every

reputable relation between the sexes, and that of all the civilising

agencies at work in the world it is the most important.

But I think I hear the reader interpose, "What, then, is chivalry if

it is not a question of serving woman without reward?"

A moment's thought will make the matter clear.

When a man makes this compact with a woman, "I will do you reverence,

and protect you, and yield you service; and you, for your part, will

hold fast to an ideal of gentleness, of personal refinement, of

modesty, of joyous maternity, and to who shall say what other graces

and virtues that endear woman to man," that is _chivalry_.

It is not a question of a purely one-sided bargain, as in the

suffragist conception. Nor yet is it a bargain about purely material

things.

It is a bargain in which man gives both material things, and also

things which pertain perhaps somewhat to the spirit; and in which

woman gives back of these last.

But none the less it is of the nature of a contract. There is in it

the inexorable _do ut des; facio ut facias [give me this, and I will

give you that; do this for me, and I will do that for you]._

And the contract is infringed when woman breaks out into violence,

when she jettisons her personal refinement, when she is ungrateful,

and, possibly, when she places a quite extravagantly high estimate

upon her intellectual powers.

We now turn from these almost too intimate questions of personal

morality to discuss the other grievances which were enumerated above.

With regard to the suffragist's complaint that it is _"insulting"_ for

woman to be told that she is as a class unfit to exercise the

suffrage, it is relevant to point out that one is not insulted by

being told about oneself, or one's class, untruths, but only at being

told about oneself, or one's class, truths which one dislikes. And it

is, of course, an offence against ethics to try to dispose of an

unpalatable generalisation by characterising it as "insulting." But

nothing that man could do would be likely to prevent the suffragist

resorting to this aggravated form of intellectual immorality.

We may now turn to the complaint that it is "illogical" to withhold

the vote from women.

This is the kind of complaint which brings out in relief the logical

endowment and legislative sagacity of the suffragist.

With regard to her logical endowment it will suffice to indicate that

the suffragist would appear to regard the promulgation of a rule which

is to hold without exception as an essentially logical act; and the

admission of any class exception to a rule of general application as

an illogicality. It would on this principle be "illogical" to except,

under conscription, the female population from military service.

With regard to the suffragist's legislative sagacity we may note that

she asks that we should put back the clock, and return to the days

when any arbitrary principle might be adduced as a ground for

legislation. It is as if Bentham had never taught:--

"What is it to offer a _good reason_ with respect to a law? It is to

allege the good or evil which the law tends to produce; so much good,

so many arguments in its favour; so much evil, so many arguments

against it.

"What is it to offer a _false reason?_ It is the alleging for, or

against a law, something else than its good or evil effects."

Next, we may take up the question as to whether an unwelcome

generalisation may legitimately be got out of the way by

characterising it as a prejudice. This is a fundamentally important

question not only in connexion with such an issue as woman suffrage,

but in connexion with all search for truth in those regions where

crucial scientific experiments cannot be instituted.

In the whole of this region of thought we have to guide ourselves by

generalisations.

Now every generalisation is in a sense a _prejudgment_. We make

inferences from cases or individuals that have already presented

themselves to such cases or individuals of the same class as may

afterwards present themselves. And if our generalisation happens to be

an unfavourable one, we shall of necessity have prejudged the case

against those who are exceptions to their class.

Thus, for example, the proposition that woman is incapable of usefully

exercising the parliamentary franchise prejudges the case against a

certain number of capable women. It would none the less be absolutely

anarchical to propose to abandon the system of guiding ourselves by

prejudgments; and unfavourable prejudgments or prejudices are

logically as well justified, and are obviously as indispensable to us

as favourable prejudgments.

The suffragist who proposes to dispose of generalisations which are

unfavourable to woman as prejudices ought therefore to be told to

stand down.

It has probably never suggested itself to her that, if there were a

mind which was not stored with both favourable prejudgments and

prejudices, it would be a mind which had learned absolutely nothing

from experience.

But I hear the reader interpose, "Is there not a grave danger that

generalisations may be erroneous?"

And I can hear the woman suffragist interject, "Is there not a grave

danger that unflattering generalisations about woman may be

erroneous?"

The answer to the general question is that there is of course always

the risk that our generalisations may be erroneous. But when a

generalisation finds wide acceptance among the thoughtful, we have

come as close to truth as it is possible for humanity to come.

To the question put by the suffragist the reply is that experience

with regard to the capacity of woman has been accumulating in all

climes, and through all times; and that the belief of men in the

inherent inferiority of women in the matter of intellectual morality,

and in the power of adjudication, has never varied.

I pass now to the two most familiar grievances of the suffragist; the

grievance that the virtuous and intelligent woman has no vote, while

the male drunkard has; and the grievance that the woman of property

has no vote, while her male underlings have.

All that is worth while saying on these points is that the suffragist

is here manufacturing grievances for herself, _first_, by reasoning

from the false premiss that every legal distinction which happens to

press hardly upon a few individuals ought for that to be abrogated;

and, _secondly_, by steady leaving out of sight that logical

inconsistencies can, for the more part, be got rid of only at the

price of bringing others into being.

The man who looks forward to the intellectual development of woman

must be brought near to despair when he perceives that practically

every woman suffragist sees in every hard case arising in connexion

with a legal distinction affecting woman, an insult and example of the

iniquity of man-made laws, or a logical inconsistency which could with

a very little good-will be removed.

We have come now to the last item on our list, to the grievance that

woman has to submit herself to "_man-made laws_."

This is a grievance which well rewards study. It is worth study from

the suffragist point of view, because it is the one great injury under

which all others are subsumed. And it is worth studying from the

anti-suffragist point of view, because it shows how little the

suffragist understands of the terms she employs; and how unreal are

the wrongs which she resents.

Quite marvelously has the woman suffragist in this connexion

misapprehended; or would she have us say misrepresented?

The woman suffragist misapprehends--it will be better to assume that

she "misapprehends"--when she suggests that we, the male electors,

have framed the laws.

In reality the law which we live under--and the law in those States

which have adopted either the English, or the Roman law--descends from

the past. It has been evolved precedent, by precedent, by the

decisions of generation upon generation of judges, and it has for

centuries been purged by amending statutes. Moreover we, the present

male electors--the electors who are savagely attacked by the

suffragist for our asserted iniquities in connexion with the laws

which regulate sexual relations--have never in our capacity as

electors had any power to alter an old, or to suggest a new law;

except only in so far as by voting Conservative or Liberal we may

indirectly have remotely influenced the general trend of legislation.

"Well but"--the suffragist will here rejoin--"is it not at any rate

true that in the drafting of statutes and the framing of judicial

decisions man has always nefariously discriminated against woman?"

The question really supplies its own answer. It will be obvious to

every one who considers that the drafting of statutes and the

formulating of legal decisions is almost as impersonal a procedure as

that of drawing up the rules to govern a game; and it offers hardly

more opportunity for discriminating between man and woman.

There are, however, three questions in connexion with which the law

can and does make a distinction between man and woman.

The _first_ is that of sexual relations: rape, divorce, bastardy, and

the age of consent. In connexion with _rape_, it has never been

alleged that the law is not sufficiently severe. It is, or has been,

under colonial conditions, severe up to the point of ferocity. In the

matter of _divorce_ the law of a minority of man-governed States

differentiates in favour of man. It does so influenced by tradition,

by what are held to be the natural equities, and by the fact that a

man is required to support his wife's progeny. The law of _bastardy

[illegitimate childbirth]_ is what it is because of the dangers of

blackmail. The law which fixes the age of consent discriminates

against man, laying him open to a criminal charge in situations where

woman--and it is not certain that she is not a more frequent

offender--escapes scot-free.

The _second_ point in which the law differentiates is in the matter of

exacting personal service for the State. If it had not been that man

is more prone to discriminate in favour of woman than against her,

every military State, when exacting personal military service from

men, would have demanded from women some such equivalent personal

service as would be represented by a similar period of work in an army

clothing establishment, or ordnance factory, or army laundry; or would

at any rate have levied upon woman a ransom in lieu of such service.

The _third_ point in which the law distinguishes between man and woman

is with reference to the suffrage. The object of this book is to show

that this is equitable and in the interests of both.

The suffragist further misapprehends when she regards it as an

indignity to obey laws which she has not herself framed, or

specifically sanctioned. (The whole male electorate, be it remarked,

would here lie under the same dignity as woman.)

But in reality, whether it is a question of the rules of a game, or of

the reciprocal rights and duties of members of a community, it is, and

ought to be, to every reasonable human being not a grievance, but a

matter of felicitation, that an expert or a body of experts should

have evolved a set of rules under which order and harmony are

achieved. Only vanity and folly would counsel amateurs to try to draw

up rules or laws for themselves.

Again, the woman suffragist takes it as a matter of course that she

would herself be able to construct a system of workable laws. In point

of fact, the framing of a really useful law is a question of divining

something which will apply to an infinite number of different cases

and individuals. It is an intellectual feat on a par with the framing

of a great generalisation. And would woman--that being of such short

sight, whose mind is always so taken up with whatever instances lie

nearest to her--be capable of framing anything that could pass muster

as a great generalisation?

Lastly, the suffragist fails to see that the function of framing the

laws is not an essential function of citizenship.

The essential functions of citizenship are the shaping of public

policy, and the control of the administrative Acts of Government.

Such directive control is in a state of political freedom exercised

through two quite different agencies.

It is exercised--and it is of the very essence of political freedom

that this should be the normal method of control--in the first place,

through expressed public opinion. By this are continuously regulated

not only momentous matters of State, such as declarations of war and

the introduction of constitutional changes, but also smaller and more

individual matters, such as the commutation of a capital sentence, or

the forcible feeding of militant suffragists.

In the background, behind the moral compulsion of expressed public

opinion, there is, in the case of a Parliamentary State, also another

instrument of control. I have in view that periodical settlement of

the contested rulership of the State by the force of a majority of

electors which is denoted a general election.

The control exercised by the suffrages of the electors in a general

election is in certain important respects less effective than that

exercised by the everyday public expression of opinion. It falls short

in the respect that its verdicts are, except only in connexion with

the issue as to whether the Government is to be retained in office or

dismissed, ambiguous verdicts; further, in the respect that it comes

into application either before governmental proposals have taken

definite shape, or only after the expiration of a term of years, when

the events are already passing out of memory.

If we now consider the question of woman's franchise from the wider

point of view here opened up, it will be clear that, so far as

concerns the control which is exercised through public opinion on the

Government, the intelligent woman, and especially the intelligent

woman who has made herself an expert on any matter, is already in

possession of that which is a greater power than the franchise. She

has the power which attaches to all intelligent opinion promulgated in

a free State. Moreover, wherever the special interest of women are

involved, any woman may count on being listened to if she is voicing

the opinions of any considerable section of her sex.

In reality, therefore, woman is disfranchised only so far as relates

to the confirmation of a Government in office, or its dismissal by the

_ultima ratio [ultimate reason]_ of an electoral contest. And when we

reflect that woman does not come into consideration as a compelling

force, and that an electoral contest partakes of the nature of a civil

war, it becomes clear that to give her the parliamentary vote would be

to reduce all those trials of strength which take the form of

electoral contests to the level of a farce.

With this I have, I will not say completed the tale of the

suffragist's grievances--that would be impossible--but I have at any

rate dealt with those which she has most acrimoniously insisted upon.

III

ARGUMENTS WHICH TAKE THE FORM OF "COUNSELS OF PERFECTION" ADDRESSED TO

MAN

Argument that Woman Requires a Vote for her Protection--Argument that

Woman ought to be Invested with the Responsibilities of Voting in

Order that She May Attain Her Full Intellectual Stature.

There, however, remains still a further class of arguments. I have in

view here arguments which have nothing to do with elementary natural

rights, nor yet with wounded _amour propre._ They concern ethics, and

sympathy, and charitable feelings.

The suffragist here gives to man "counsels of perfection."

It will be enough to consider here two of these:--the _first_, the

argument that woman, being the weaker vessel, needs, more than man,

the suffrage for her _protection_; the _second_, that woman, being

less than man in relation to public life, ought to be given the vote

for _instructional purposes_.

The first of these appeals will, for instance, take the following

form:--"Consider the poor sweated East End woman worker. She knows

best where the shoe pinches. You men can't know. Give her a vote; and

you shall see that she will very soon better her condition."

When I hear that argument I consider:--We will suppose that woman was

ill. Should we go to her and say: "You know best, know better than any

man, what is wrong with you. Here are all the medicines and remedies.

Make your own selection, for that will assuredly provide what will be

the most likely to help."

If this would be both futile and inhuman, much more would it be so to

seek out this woman who is sick in fortune and say to her, "Go and

vote for the parliamentary candidate who will be likely to influence

the trend of legislation in a direction which will help."

What would really help the sweated woman labourer would, of course, be

to have the best intellect brought to bear, not specially upon the

problem of indigent woman, but upon the whole social problem.

But the aspect of the question which is, from our present point of

view, the fundamentally important one is the following: Granting that

the extension of the suffrage to woman would enable her, as the

suffragist contends, to bring pressure upon her parliamentary

representative, man, while anxious to do his very best for woman,

might very reasonably refuse to go about it in this particular way.

If a man has a wife whom he desires to treat indulgently, he does not

necessarily open a joint account with her at his bankers.

If he wants to contribute to a charity he does not give to the

managers of that charity a power of attorney over his property.

And if he is a philanthropical director of a great business he does

not, when a pathetic case of poverty among his staff is brought to his

notice, imperil the fortunes of his undertaking by giving to his

workmen shares and a vote in the management.

Moreover, he would perhaps regard it as a little suspect if a group of

those who were claiming this as a right came and told him that "it was

very _selfish_ of him" not to grant their request.

Precious above rubies to the suffragist and every other woman who

wants to apply the screw to man is that word _selfish_. It furnishes

her with the _petitio principii_ that man is under an ethical

obligation to give anything she chooses to ask.

We come next--and this is the last of all the arguments we have to

consider--to the argument that the suffrage ought to be given to woman

for instructional purposes.

Now it would be futile to attempt to deny that we have ready to hand

in the politics of the British Empire--that Empire which is swept

along in "the too vast orb of her fate"--an ideal political

training-ground in which we might put woman to school. The woman voter

would there be able to make any experiment she liked.

But one wonders why it has not been proposed to carry woman's

instruction further, and for instructional purposes to make of a woman

let us say a judge, or an ambassador, or a Prime Minister.

There would--if only it were legitimate to sacrifice vital national

interests--be not a little to say in favour of such a course. One

might at any rate hope by these means once for all to bring home to

man the limitations of woman.