Part 2
Males. [3]Mercers, Drapers, and Linen Drapers 45,660 Hair Dressers and Wig Makers 10,652 Haberdashers and Hosiers 4,327 Straw Hat and Bonnet Makers 1,687 Washermen and Laundry Keepers 1,165 Stay and Corset Makers 884 Milliners and Dress Makers 803 Artificial Flower Makers 761 Berlin Wool Dealers 63 Artists in Hair—Hair Workers 42 Baby Linen Makers 13 —————— 66,057
Disabilities of sex are parallel to disabilities of creed, and the economical results are likely to be the same. Silk weaving was driven _into_ England by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and I believe that now several light trades are being driven _out of_ England by the industrial proscription of women. “But supposing,” says Miss Boucherett, “that the competition for employment were so great that whatever was added to the prosperity of one sex must be deducted from that of the other, is it just that the whole of the suffering thus caused should be laid upon the weaker half of humanity? How great a contrast is there between the spirit of Christianity, and the course of conduct too frequently pursued in this our country!”
“Be just before you are chivalrous,” many a woman is tempted to exclaim, when she finds every door through which she might pass to a subsistence, closed in her face with expressions of deference. Signs have not been wanting which have justified the saying “that a selfish disregard of the interests of women, and indifference to their sufferings, is the great national sin of England,—and all national sins, if unrepented, meet with their punishment sooner or later.”
(3.) The defective training of the women themselves is the most serious of all the hindrances which I have been considering. Here it is that the vicious circle returns upon itself. These women cannot teach, because they are so ill educated, and again, they are so ill educated that they can do nothing _but_ teach.[4] Many a woman rejected from the shop-till or housekeeper’s room for ignorance and inefficiency, is compelled to offer herself among the lowest class of nursery governesses, or, failing all, to embrace the career, the avenues to which stand ever wide open, yawning like the gates of hell, when all other doors are closed.
The fault of this defective training lies mainly with the middle-class parents who, as the Endowed Schools Commissioners say plainly enough, educate their daughters to get husbands, and for nothing else.
Education was what the slave-owners most dreaded for their slaves, for they knew it to be the sure road to emancipation. It is to education that we must first look for the emancipation of women from the industrial restrictions of a bye gone age. In the meantime I may surely say that no lover of his country, of justice or of God, can see this misery unmoved. “He looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry.”
I sometimes hear it said “I am weary of this question of the rights, or the wrongs, of women.” Undoubtedly there are many who are quickly weary of any thought which is perplexing or painful: nevertheless the facts remain the same—that women constitute one half of the human race, that whatever effects them, for good or evil, affects not one half, but the whole of the human race, and that the _primary_ education of all generations of men rests in the hands of women.
There are two classes of advocates of the improvement of the education and condition of women. The one class urge everything from the domestic point of view. They argue in favour of all which is likely to make women better mothers, or better companions for men, but they seem incapable of judging of a woman as a human being by herself, and superstitiously afraid of anything which might strengthen her to stand alone, prepared, singlehanded, to serve her God and her country. When it is urged upon them that the women who do and must stand alone are counted by millions, they are perplexed, but only fell back on expressions of a fear lest a masculine race of women should be produced, if we admit any theories respecting them apart from conjugal and maternal relationships.
On the other hand, there are advocates who speak with some slight contempt of maternity, in whose advocacy there appears to me little evidence of depth of thought, or tenderness, or wisdom, and which bespeaks a dry, hard, unimaginative conception of human life. They appear to have no higher ideal for a woman than that of a _man_ who has been “tripos’ed,” and is going to “get on in the world,” either in the way of making money or acquiring fame. They speak of women as if it were a compliment to them, or in any way true, to say that they are like men. Now it appears to me that both these sets of advocates have failed to see something which is very true, and that their ears are deaf to some of the subtle harmonies which exist in God’s creation—harmonies sometimes evolved from discords—and which we are much hindered from hearing by the noise of the world, and by our own discordant utterances.
The first class of advocates do not know how strong Nature is, how true she is for the most part, and how deeply the maternal character is rooted in almost all women, married or unmarried: they are not, therefore, likely to see that when a better education is secured to women, when permission is granted them not only to win bread for themselves, but to use for the good of society, every gift bestowed on them by God, we may expect to find, (as certainly we shall find,) that they will become the _more_ and not the _less_ womanly. Every good quality, every virtue which we regard as distinctively feminine, will, under conditions of greater freedom, develop more freely, like plants brought out into the light from a cellar in which they languished, dwarfed and blanched, without sun or air. The woman is strong in almost every woman; and it may be called an infidelity against God and against the truth of nature to suppose that the removal of unjust restrictions, and room given to breathe freely, and to do her work in life without depression and without bitterness, will cause her to cast off her nature. It will always be in her nature to foster, to cherish, to take the part of the weak, to train, to guide, to have a care for individuals, to discern the small seeds of a great future, to warm and cherish those seeds into fulness of life. “I serve,” will always be one of her favourite mottos, even should the utmost freedom be accorded her in the choice of vocation; for she, more readily perhaps than men do, recognises the wisdom and majesty of Him who said—“I am among you as he that serveth.” In Him,—“in Christ Jesus,” says the apostle, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female.” It has been the tendency of Christianity, gradually and slowly, to break down all unfriendly barriers between races, and to extinguish slavery; and last of all it will—this is our hope—remove disabilities imposed by the stronger portion of society upon the weaker.
What do we lose by the abandonment of national exclusiveness? Is labour demoralized because slaves are free? Does _service_ cease when servitude is at an end? Common sense alone, without the help of historical knowledge, might lead us to suppose that women will not do their _special_ work in the world worse, but better, when justice shall be done them.[5] It is in the name of _Christ_ that the removal of burdens and disabilities is preached: much wisdom might be learned regarding some of these matters if people would look more closely at this, and note that this is the Person in whom all virtues which are considered essentially womanly, as well as those which are considered essentially manly, found their perfect development. A little meditation on this double truth—that in Christ all distinctions are done away, and that in Him, nevertheless, were exhibited in perfect beauty the distinctive virtues of the feminine character—would suggest some lessons which the world has been very slow to learn, would tend to remove groundless fears regarding the consequences of the abandonment of many unreasonable and unchristian theories which prevail, and to counteract the materialistic doctrine which has sunk too deep into the heart of our so-called Christian community, a doctrine which amounts to this, that “the weaker races, classes, persons must struggle on unaided, and if they are trampled down and die out, the fact proves that it is better for the world that they should perish, so only a stronger and higher stock will remain;”[6] a doctrine of which we see the fruits in our wickednesses in Asia, &c., and which takes its stand on a supposed “law of nature” that the weak must go down.
The tone in which certain foolish popular writers speak of unmarried and childless women betrays both coarseness of feeling and ignorance. They speak of these women as having altogether missed their vocation, and as necessarily dwarfed in affection and motive, because they have not performed certain physical functions. We are all mothers or foster-mothers. The few exceptions to this rule,—the cases in which the maternal feelings are weak or wanting,—are to be found among mothers of families as well as among childless women. I have known many unmarried women in whom all the best characteristics of maternity are stronger than in some who are actually mothers. It would be wise of the State to avail itself of this abundance of generous womanliness, of tender and wise motherliness which lives in the hearts of thousands of women who are free to bring their capacities to bear where they are most needed. The country counts by tens of thousands its orphan and outcast children, in workhouses, and in the streets of our great cities. These orphans have lately been called “the children of the State:” for the care of these children of the State alone, mothers and nurses of the State are needed, women who must be free to some extent from domestic ties of their own. These workhouse children are not likely to grow up to be useful to the country or other than dangerous classes, while they are left wholly to the mercy of vulgar, uneducated people.[7]
Leon Fauchat exclaimed, when told of crimes committed in our country against children,—“Est-il possible que ces choses soient permises par une nation qui a des entrailles!” “Take heed that ye offend not one of these little ones,” are words of most solemn import: when women begin to deserve and acquire more weight in the community, the warning contained in them will be better understood. The interests of children will not remain unrepresented any longer than women remain so. I say this with certainty, knowing the nature of woman. It will not be left to an indignant father, or philanthropist, or to an impassioned poetess, at long intervals to translate in the ears of the public the inarticulate cry of the children:
“They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free, For the man’s grief abhorrent, draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy.”
· · · · ·
“They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see, For they mind you of their Angels in their places, With eyes meant for Deity: ‘How long,’ they say, ‘how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart, Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upwards, O our tyrants, And your purple shows your path; _But the child’s sob curseth deeper in the silence Than the strong man in his wrath_.’”
The ears of my reader would not endure to hear what I could tell, what my eyes have seen, of outraged innocence, of horrors and miseries endured among the children of the poor. I am not unmindful of the benevolent enterprise there is in our country, the orphanages, schools and homes springing up everywhere. God be thanked for these! but they do not yet meet the evil; and we must remember that stone walls do not shut out crime, nor regulations confer blessing; these institutions themselves fail in their purpose unless the compassionate motive which originated them be sustained in a constant and abundant flow. The histories of many charities in foreign countries and at home prove that institutions devised by loving hearts for protection and blessing, have become, for lack of the constancy of the internal impulse, neither more nor less than “habitations of cruelty.” What I here complain of is the thriftless waste of good feelings, of emotion,—emotion which on the one hand is ill trained, and consequently takes a false or unreal direction, and on the other is wearing itself out, unclaimed. Tears shed over sentimental works of fiction or some imaginative woe might well be bestowed on the realities around us. Surely there is room enough among _them_ for the promptings of a mighty compassion! Surely there is cause enough _here_ for tears! “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
And there is other work on every side waiting to be done by women,—the work of healers, preachers, physicians, artists, organizers of labour, captains of industry, &c., while on the other hand women are waiting to be prepared for service, and ready to bridge over, as they alone can, many a gulf between class and class which now presents a grave obstacle to social and political progress.
The second kind of advocacy of the rights of women, of which I spoke, may be said to be simply a reaction against the first. It is chiefly held by a few women of superior intellect who feel keenly the disadvantages of their class, their feebleness, through want of education, against public opinion, which is taken advantage of by base people, their inability, through want of representation, to defend their weaker members, and the dwarfing of the faculties of the ablest and best among them. These women have associated little with men, or at best, know very little of their inner life, and do not therefore see as clearly as they see their own loss, the equal loss that it is to men, and the injury it involves to their characters, to live dissociated from women: they therefore look forth from their isolation with something of an excusable envy on the freer and happier lot, which includes, they believe, a greater power to do good, and imagine that the only hope for themselves is to push into the ranks of men, to demand the same education, the same opportunities, in order that they may compete with them on their own ground. They have lost the conception of the noblest development possible for both men and women; for assuredly that which men, for the most part, aim at, is not the noblest, and yet that is what such women appear to wish to imitate; they have lost sight of the truth, too, that men and women were made equal indeed, but not alike, and were meant to supplement one another, and that in so doing,—each supplying force which the other lacks,—they are attracted with a far greater amount of impulse to a common centre. When St. Chrysostom preached in Constantinople, that “men ought to be pure, and women courageous,” he was treated as a dangerous innovator, a perverter of the facts of nature, a changer of customs. I hope that many such innovators will arise, who will shew forth in practice the possibility of the attainment of a common standard of excellence for man and woman, not by usurpation on either hand, nor by servile imitation, but by the action of each upon each, by mutual teaching and help. The above misconception, like many other errors, results from men and women living so dissociated as they do in our country; hence comes also all that reserve, and incapacity for understanding each other which has existed between the sexes for so many generations, those false notions about women which are entertained in society, and great injury to the work, and happiness, and dignity of man and woman alike: for it may be truly said that many of the most serious evils in England are but the bitter and various fruit of the sacreligious disjoining of that which God had joined together, the disunion of men and women, theoretically and practically, in all the graver work of life.
The following account of the School of Art, in Newman Street, London, is interesting, as affording some illustration of this subject. Mrs. Heatherley writes, “This School was begun on the separate principle, about twenty-three years ago, by Mr. James Mathews Leigh. I first knew the place in 1848, when I studied as an amateur. Mr. Leigh, whilst agreeing to the idea of mixed classes as a theory, always declared that the men’s conduct and conversation would render it impossible for any lady to come amongst them, and they were certainly very rough in manner when, after Mr. Leigh’s death, we took the school. We were warned that we should be ruined by introducing the mixed system. Very soon both parties found the convenience of studying in the Gallery every day, instead of having to take their places on alternate days. Finding it succeed, at the end of 1861 we admitted ladies to the evening school: there are about two hundred students in the course of the year. Great individual freedom is allowed, and a most friendly feeling exists amongst the students. Every one who knew the place before the admission of women agrees that there has been great improvement; quite another tone prevails. We have never had to dismiss anyone for conduct that was disapproved. From here went the first ladies to the Royal Academy, one of whom, a girl of about twenty-one, gained the gold medal, last December, for the best historical picture. As a general rule, where there are equal facilities, the women are the most successful. The Academy ceased to admit them when their numbers reached about twelve, and now takes them in only when the time of studentship of others expires. They made this change at the end of two years, without giving any notice here or at any other school, to the great disappointment of a number of girls. This I think is an act of hardship, as there has been shown positively that no incompetence exists. Unless there be chances offered to women of being able to follow a profession, parents will invest in consols, as a general rule, rather than in a superior education. The mention of our school may be useful, because there are doubts in many minds as to the expediency of free intercourse between young people, and facts are better than theories. The more that is done to bring young men and women together in a rational manner, the sooner we may hope to arrive at a social state less immoral than the present.”
I am persuaded that anyone who will candidly and carefully consider the histories of separate communities of men or women, for educational or other purposes, must see that the evils attendant on such a system as they represent outweigh its conveniences. The arrangement is for a given period, but not so the evils which accompany it, for they,—and of this men are not ignorant,—too often leave their effects, I may say their curse, throughout life. The objection rises at once of the difficulty of adopting any other arrangement than the present, which may be called an unnatural one. This objection will be more effectually met by facts than by reasoning, and in time facts will speak for themselves, while up to the present they attest that whenever the experiment of a different system has been tried, the difficulties have been found to be very much less than it was believed they would be, before the trial was made.
To conclude this part of my subject, although I grant that too much stress cannot be laid upon the improvement of the education of women who will be actually the mothers of a future generation, yet I wish, on the one hand, that persons who only look at it from this point of view would take more into account the valuable service our country might command if it but understood the truth about the condition and feelings of its unmarried women, and that a more generous trust were felt in the strength of woman’s nature, and the probable direction of its development when granted more expansion, while on the other hand I should like to see a truer conception of the highest possibilities for women than is implied in the attempt to imitate men, and a deeper reverence for the God of nature, whose wisdom is more manifested in variety than in uniformity. It cannot be denied that a just cause has sometimes been advocated by women in a spirit of bitterness. Energy impeded in one direction, will burst forth in another; hence the defiant and sometimes grotesque expression which the lives and acts of some few women have been of the injustice done to them by society. This will cease, and while it lasts, it ought to excite our pity rather than our anger. It must be remembered that it is but a symptom of a long endured servitude, a protest against a state of things which we hope will give place to a better. It is folly to regard it as the natural fruit of that of which we have scarcely seen the beginning. Acts of violence on the part of a long oppressed nation are not the offspring of dawning liberties, but of a doomed tyranny. Again, no important reform can be carried without a measure of attendant confusion. Evil agencies are the most vigilant for destruction at the beginning of a great and good work, and many lives have to be consumed in its inauguration. Any evils which may at first attend a social reform ought not to alarm us: they are transient; they are but the breakers on the bar which must be crossed before we launch into deep waters, but the “noise and dust of the wagon which brings the harvest home.”
There is a near future and there is a far future; there are plans for the near future and plans for the far future. The world is full of plans for the near future; not so of plans for the far future. There are people who do just what comes first to their hand to do, there are others who do all for a near future, others again who do all for a far off end. The first and the last have much in common; it is the second aim, which when exclusively pursued, misleads. Plans and schemes for the near future gain and obtain with most people; not unfrequently they wither away like untimely fruit: those who look afar off prevail, yet not they, but rather He prevails in them, who taught them to stretch their vision to the distant horizon, and enables them to bear with composure the disappointment of present hopes.