The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage · Chapter 2Preface (2)
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II
ARGUMENTS FROM INTELLECTUAL GRIEV- ANCES 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 be- ing Required to Obey Man-Made Laws.
WE pass from the argument from elemen- tary natural rights to a different class of argu- ments--intellectual grievances. The suffra- gist 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; s 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 54 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 no- tion 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 prin- ciple of egalitarian equity limited in its appli- cation to the case between man and woman. It follows that she who holds that the suf- frage 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 55 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 56 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 con- tract. 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 ungrate- ful, and, possibly, when she places a quite ex- travagantly 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 in- 57 sulted by being told about oneself, or one's class, untruths, but only at being told about oneself, or one's class, truths which one dis- likes. And it is, of course, an offence against ethics to try to dispose of an unpalatable gen- eralisation 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 immor- ality. 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 legis- lative 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 ap- plication as an illogicality. It would on this principle be "illogical" to except, under con- 58 scription, 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 re- spect 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 char- acterising it as a prejudice. This is a funda- mentally important question not only in con- nexion with such an issue as woman suffrage, but in connexion with all search for truth in 59 those regions where crucial scientific experi- ments 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 pre- judgment. 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 them- selves. 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 anarch- ical to propose to abandon the system of guiding ourselves by prejudgments; and un- favourable prejudgments or prejudices are logically as well justified, and are obviously 60 as indispensable to us as favourable prejudg- ments. 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 experi- ence. But I hear the reader interpose, "Is there not a grave danger that generalisations may be erroneous?" And I can hear the woman suffragist inter- ject, "Is there not a grave danger that unflat- tering generalisations about woman may be erroneous?" The answer to the general question is that there is of course always the risk that our gen- eralisations may be erroneous. But when a 61 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 griev- ances of the suffragist; the grievance that the virtuous and intelligent woman has no vote, while the male drunkard has; and the griev- ance 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 in- dividuals ought for that to be abrogated; and, 62 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 intel- lectual 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 suf- fragist understands of the terms she employs; 63 and how unreal are the wrongs which she re- sents. Quite marvelously has the woman suffra- gist in this connexion misapprehended; or would she have us say misrepresented? The woman suffragist misapprehends--it will be better to assume that she "misappre- hends"--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 elec- tors--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 elec- tors had any power to alter an old, or to sug- gest a new law; except only in so far as by 64 voting Conservative or Liberal we may indi- rectly 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 draft- ing of statutes and the framing of judicial decisions man has always nefariously discrim- inated 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 formula- ting 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 op- portunity for discriminating between man and woman. There are, however, three questions in con- nexion 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 65 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 of- fender--escapes scot-free. The second point in which the law differ- entiates 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 66 army clothing establishment, or ordnance fac- tory, 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 dis- tinguishes between man and woman is with ref- erence 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 67 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 be- ing of such short sight, whose mind is always so taken up with whatever instances lie near- est to her--be capable of framing anything that could pass muster as a great generalisa- ition? 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 68 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 momen- tous 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 suf- fragists. In the background, behind the moral com- pulsion of expressed public opinion, there is, in the case of a Parliamentary State, also an- other 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 elec- tion. The control exercised by the suffrages of the electors in a general election is in certain 69 important respects less effective than that ex- ercised 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 ver- dicts; further, in the respect that it comes into application either before governmental pro- posals 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 con- cerns the control which is exercised through public opinion on the Government, the intelli- gent 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 opin- ion promulgated in a free State. Moreover, wherever the special interest of women are in- 70 volved, any woman may count on being lis- tened to if she is voicing the opinions of any considerable section of her sex. In reality, therefore, woman is disfran- chised 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 elec- toral 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 acrimoni- ously insisted upon. 71
III
ARGUMENTS WHICH TAKE THE FORM OF "COUNSELS OF PERFECTION" AD- DRESSED TO MAN
Argument that Woman Requires a Vote for her Protec- tion--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, 72 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 assur- edly 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." 73 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 representa- tive, 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 74 to his notice, imperil the fortunes of his under- taking 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 75 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 pro- posed 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. 76
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.
THE woman suffrage movement has now gone too far to be disposed of by the over- throw of its arguments, and by a mere indica- tion of those which could be advanced on the other side. The situation demands the bring- ing forward of the case against woman's suf- frage; and it must be the full and quite unex- purgated case. I shall endeavour to do this in the fewest pos- sible words, and to be more especially brief where I have to pass again over ground which I have previously traversed in dealing with the arguments of the suffragists. I may begin with what is fundamental. 79 It is an axiom that we should in legislating guide ourselves directly by considerations of utility and expediency. For abstract princi- ples--I have in view here rights, justice, egali- tarian equity, equality, liberty, chivalry, logi- cality, and such like--are not all of them guides to utility; and each of these is, as we have seen, open to all manner of private mis- interpretation. Applying the above axiom to the issue be- fore us, it is clear that we ought to confine ourselves here to the discussion of the ques- tion as to whether the State would, or would not, suffer from the admission of women to the electorate. We can arrive at a judgment upon this by considering, on the one hand, the class-char- acters of women so far as these may be rele- vant to the question of the suffrage; and, on the other hand, the legislative programmes put forward by the female legislative re- former and the feminist. In connexion with the class-characters of 80 woman, it will be well, before attempting to indicate them, to interpolate here the general consideration that the practical statesman, who has to deal with things as they are, is not required to decide whether the characters of women which will here be considered are, as the physiologist (who knows that the sexual products influence every tissue of the body) cannot doubt, "secondary sexual characters"; or, as the suffragist contends, "acquired char- acters." It will be plain that whether defects are "secondary sexual characters" (and there- fore as irremediable as "racial characters"); or whether they are "acquired characters" (and as such theoretically remediable) they are relevant to the question of the concession of the suffrage just so long as they continue to be exhibited.1
1 This is a question on which Mill (vide Subjection of Women , last third of Chapter I) has endeavoured to confuse the issues for his reader, first, by representing that by no possibility can man know anything of the "nature," i.e. , of the "secondary sexual characters" of woman; and, secondly, by distracting at- tention from the fact that "acquired characters" may produce unfitness for the suffrage. 81
The primordial argument against giving woman the vote is that that vote would not represent physical force. Now it is by physical force alone and by prestige--which represents physical force in the background--that a nation protects itself against foreign interference, upholds its rule over subject populations, and enforces its own laws. And nothing could in the end more cer- tainly lead to war and revolt than the decline of the military spirit and loss of prestige which would inevitably follow if man admitted woman into political co-partnership. While it is arguable that such a partnership with woman in government as obtains in Aus- tralia and New Zealand is sufficiently unreal to be endurable, there cannot be two opinions on the question that a virile and imperial race will not brook any attempt at forcible control by women. Again, no military foreign nation or native race would ever believe in the stamina and 82 firmness of purpose of any nation that submit- ted even to the semblance of such control. The internal equilibrium of the State also would be endangered by the admission to the register of millions of electors whose vote would not be endorsed by the authority of physical force. Regarded from this point of view a Woman's Suffrage measure stands on an ab- solutely different basis to any other extension of the suffrage. An extension which takes in more men--whatever else it may do--makes for stability in the respect that it makes the decrees of the legislature more irresistible. An extension which takes in any women undermines the physical sanction of the laws. We can see indications of the evil that would follow such an event in the profound dissatis- faction which is felt when--in violation of the democratic principle that every man shall count for one, and no man for more than one 83 --the political wishes of the large constituen- cies which return relatively few members to Parliament, are overborne by those of con- stituencies which, with a smaller aggregate population, return more members. And we see what such evil finally culminates in when the over-representation of one part of a country and the corresponding under-rep- resentation of other portions has led a large section of the people to pledge themselves to disregard the eventual ordinances of Parlia- ment. If ever the question as to whether the will of Ulster or that of the Nationalists is to pre- vail is brought to the arbitrament of physical force, it will be due to the inequalities of parlia- mentary representation as between England and Ireland, and as between the Unionist and Nationalist population of Ulster. The general lesson that all governmental action ought to be backed by force, is fur- ther brought home to the conscience when we take note of the fact that every one feels that 84 public morality is affronted when senile, in- firm, and bedridden men are brought to the poll to turn the scale in hotly contested elec- tions. For electoral decisions are felt to have moral prestige only when the electoral figures quan- titatively represent the physical forces which are engaged on either side. And where vital interests are involved, no class of men can be expected to accept any decision other than one which rests upon the ultima ratio. Now all the evils which are the outcome of disparities between the parliamentary power and the organised physical force of contend- ing parties would "grow" a hundredfold if women were admitted to the suffrage. There would after that be no electoral or parliamentary decision which would not be open to challenge on the ground that it was impossible to tell whether the party which came out the winner had a majority which could enforce its will, or only a majority ob- tained by the inclusion of women. And no 85 measure of redistribution could ever set that right. There may find place here also the considera- tion that the voting of women would be an un- settling element in the government of the State, forasmuch as they would, by reason of a general lack of interest in public affairs, only very; seldom come to the poll: would, in fact, come to the poll in full strength only when some special appeal had come home to their emotions. Now an electorate which includes a very large proportion of quite uninterested voters would be in the same case as a legislature which included a very large proportion of members who made a practice of staying away. It would be in the same case, because the ab- sentees, who would not have acquired the train- ing which comes from consecutive attention to public affairs, might at any moment step in and upset the stability of State by voting for some quite unconsidered measure. Coming back in conclusion to our main is- 86 sue, I would re-emphasise an aspect of the question upon which I have already elsewhere insisted.1 I have in view the fact that woman does, and should, stand to physical violence in a fundamentally different relation to man. Nothing can alter the fact that, the very mo- ment woman resorts to violence, she places herself within the jurisdiction of an ethical law, which is as old as civilisation, and which was framed in its interests.