3, 4.—“... _lowest boor is lordly ‘baron’ styled,
And highest bride as common ‘feme’ reviled_.”
“... husband and wife; or, as most of our elder law books call them,
‘baron’ and ‘feme.’”—(Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” Bk. I. Chap. 15.)
But the context of the words “baron” and “feme” involved something more
than a mere _façon de parler_ of the law books. Edward Christian says,
in Note 23 to the Chapter in “Blackstone” above quoted:—“Husband and
wife, in the language of the law, are styled _baron_ and _feme_; the
word baron, or lord, attributes to the husband not a very courteous
superiority. But we might be inclined to think this merely an unmeaning
technical phrase, if we did not recollect, that if the baron kills his
feme it is the same as if he had killed a stranger or any other person;
but if the feme kills her baron it is regarded by the laws as a much
more atrocious crime, as she not only breaks through the restraints of
humanity and conjugal affection, but throws off all subjection to the
authority of her husband. And, therefore, the law denominates her crime
a species of treason, and condemns her to the same punishment as if she
had killed the king. And for every species of treason (though in petit
treason the punishment of men was only to be drawn and hanged), till the
30 Geo. III., Chap. 48, the sentence of woman was to be drawn and burnt
alive.”
And Mr. Courtney Kenny says, on the same point, that the English Law of
Marriage in the twelfth century had “clothed the humblest husband with
more than the authority of a feudal lord, and merged his wife’s legal
existence altogether in his own.”—(“History of the Law of Married
Women’s Property,” p. 8.)
And he exemplifies the position of the “feme” as being accurately
depicted in the words of Petruchio:—
“I will be master of what is mine own,
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything.”
—(“The Taming of the Shrew,” Act III., scene 2.)
The picture of the past masculine proprietorship and “bullyism” is
scarcely overdrawn. Ere a distant day Englishmen will shudder in
reflecting on the male creatures who were their progenitors.
5, 6.—“_The tardier fear that grants the clown a share
In his own governance, denies it her._”
By a leading article on Woman Suffrage, in the _Times_ of 29th April,
1892, a clear light is thrown on the causes which largely influenced the
extension of the Parliamentary franchise to the poorer class of male
citizens,—“a share of political power which they are not particularly
well fitted to use,” says the _Times_;—and which denied the same right
of franchise to women of whatever class. The intellect of the _Times_
enounces that—
“Without desiring to disparage the sex in any way, we must venture to
maintain that in both camps a large female contingent would be a
mischievous element. The female Conservative politician would be an
obstacle to all rational reform; the female Liberal politician would
be the advocate of every crude and febrile innovation. No doubt we
have put plausible arguments in the mouths of mere logic-choppers by
treating the franchise as a right rather than as a privilege and a
trust. Men can demand a share of _political power which they are not
particularly well fitted to use_, because they possess _de facto_ a
share of the physical force upon which all political arrangements
ultimately repose. Women do not possess such physical force, and,
therefore, can prefer no such claim.”
Passing over, as unworthy of serious refutation, the wild assertions due
to sex-bias in the first part of the above extract, it may be noted how
instantly the lauded masculine weapon of logic is discarded and
contemned as soon as it points in the direction of equal justice for
woman. The “physical force” question is further dealt with in Note XLV.,
6. But considering the words we have italicised, does not the whole of
the _Times_ exposition as above justify the appellation of cowardly
“fear”? (See also p. 78.)
_Id._... Yet an even more unworthy thing than denial of the suffrage has
taken place, in that English women have been really robbed of their
earlier franchises. A lady Poor Law Guardian of the Tewkesbury Union has
written:—
“... the present position of women in regard to the various franchises
is anomalous and contradictory, unworthy of that great growth of
freedom which the nineteenth century has given to men, and degenerate
as regards the position which women held in the days of the
Plantagenets and the Tudors. Freedom for women has not broadened down
‘from precedent to precedent.’ Rather has it suffered by unnecessary
legislative interference. Every woman, except the Queen, is,
politically, non-existent. It was not always so. Restrictions unknown
to our ancient constitution have crept in.... Chief Justice Lee is
reported to have cited a case (in a manuscript collection of
Hakewell’s), Catherine _v._ Surrey, in which it was expressly decided,
that a _feme sole_, if she has a freehold, may vote for members of
Parliament; and a further one (from the same collection), Holt _v._
Lyle, in which it was decided, that a _feme sole_ householder may
claim a voice for Parliament men; but, if married, her husband must
vote for her; whilst Justice Page declared, ‘I see no disability in a
woman from voting for a Parliament man.’ So closely, in the minds of
our Judges, were the local and Parliamentary franchises bound up, that
a question as to the rights of women in local voting seemed to involve
considerations as to their right to vote for Parliament men.
“Yet, even in the matter of these local franchises, women have
suffered, and do suffer, from legislative tinkering and sex-biassed
decisions in our law courts.
“Down to 1835, women, possessing the qualifications which entitled men
to vote, voted freely in municipal elections, and in some important
cities, such as London and Edinburgh, the civic rights even of married
women, possessing a separate qualification from the husband, were well
established. The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, however (passed
by the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne), was framed upon the
evil precedent of the Reform Act of 1832, and by the use of the words
‘male persons,’ in treating of the franchises under it, disfranchised
every woman in the boroughs to which it applied, and this
disfranchisement lasted for thirty-four years.
“Nevertheless, in non-corporate districts, women continued to vote as
freely as before, and thus secured the ultimate restitution of the
rights of their disfranchised sisters in incorporated districts; for,
when in 1869, on the consideration of the Municipal Franchise Bill of
that year, these peculiar facts were brought to the notice of the
House of Commons, and it was shown that the incorporation of any
district involved the summary disfranchisement of the women
ratepayers, the House, without a dissentient word, or any shadow of
opposition, adopted the proposal to omit the word ‘male’ before the
word ‘person’ in Section 1 of the Bill, and thus restored the rights
of the women ratepayers, of whom many thousands voted, as a
consequence of the passing of the Act, in the municipal elections of
the following November.”—Mrs. Harriett McIlquham (“The Enfranchisement
of Women: An Ancient Right, a Modern Need,” pp. 5, 12, 13.)
8.—“... _infants, felons, fools_ ...”
This legal courteousness has afforded Miss Frances Power Cobbe the text
for an instructive paper: “Criminals, Idiots, Women, and Minors: Is the
Classification Sound?” (_Fraser’s Magazine_, December, 1868.)
A recent instance of the official collocation is to be found in the Act
5 and 6 Vict., Cap. 35, Sec. 41:—
“And be it enacted, that the trustee, guardian, tutor, curator, or
committee of any person, being an infant, or married woman, lunatic,
idiot, or insane, and having the direction, control, or management of
the property or concern of such infant, married woman, lunatic, idiot,
or insane person, whether such infant, married woman, lunatic, idiot, or
insane person shall reside in the United Kingdom or not,” etc., etc.