{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32479/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32479","id":"gutenberg_32479","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32479","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Women -- Social and moral questions"],"text":"Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.fadedpage.com\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  THE INTELLIGENCE\n  OF WOMAN\n\n  BY\n\n  W. L. GEORGE\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  BOSTON\n\n  LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY\n\n  1916\n\n  _Copyright, 1916_,\n\n  BY W. L. GEORGE.\n\n  _All rights reserved_\n\n  Published, November, 1916\n\n  Norwood Press\n\n  Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.\n  Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE\n\n    I THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN                                        1\n\n   II FEMINIST INTENTIONS                                             61\n\n  III UNIFORMS FOR WOMEN                                              94\n\n   IV WOMAN AND THE PAINT POT                                        119\n\n    V THE DOWNFALL OF THE HOME                                       130\n\n   VI THE BREAK-UP OF THE FAMILY                                     165\n\n  VII SOME NOTES ON MARRIAGE                                         204\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN\n\n\n1\n\nMen have been found to deny woman an intellect; they have credited her\nwith instinct, with intuition, with a capacity to correlate cause and\neffect much as a dog connects its collar with a walk. But intellect in\nits broadest sense, the capacity consecutively to plan and steadfastly\nto execute, they have often denied her.\n\nThe days are not now so dark. Woman has a place in the state, a place\nunder, but still a place. Man has recognized her value without coming to\nunderstand her much better, and so we are faced with a paradox: while\nman accords woman an improved social position, he continues to describe\nher as illogical, petty, jealous, vain, untruthful, disloyal to her own\nsex; quite as frequently he charges her with being over-loyal to her own\nsex: there is no pleasing him. Also he discerns in this unsatisfactory\ncreature extreme unselfishness, purity, capacity for self-sacrifice. It\nseems that the intelligence of man cannot solve the problem of woman,\nwhich is a bad sign in a superior intelligence. The trouble lies in\nthis: man assumes too readily that woman essentially differs from man.\nHardly a man has lived who did not so exaggerate. Nietzsche,\nSchopenhauer, agreed to despise women; Napoleon seemed to view them as\nengines of pleasure; for Shakespeare they may well have embodied a\nromantic ideal, qualified by sportive wantonness. In Walter Scott, women\nappear as romance in a cheap edition; Byron in their regard is a beast\nof prey, Doctor Johnson a pompous brute and a puritanical sensualist.\nCervantes mixed in his romantic outlook a sort of suspicious hatred,\nwhile Alexandre Dumas thought them born only to lay laurel wreaths and\norange blossoms (together with coronets) on the heads of musketeers.\nAll, all--from Thackeray, who never laid his hand upon a woman save in\nthe way of patronage, to Goethe, to Dante, to Montaigne, to\nWellington--all harbored this curious idea: in one way or another woman\ndiffers from man. And to-day, whether we read Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr.\nGeorge Moore, M. Paul Bourget, or Mr. Hall Caine, we find that there\nstill persists a belief in Byron's lines:--\n\n  \"What a strange thing is man! And what a stranger\n  Is woman!\"\n\nAlmost every man, except the professional Lovelace (and he knows\nnothing), believes in the mystery of woman. I do not. For men are also\nmysterious to women; women are quite as puzzled by our stupidity as by\nour subtlety. I do not believe that there is either a male or a female\nmystery; there is only the mystery of mankind. There are to-day\ndifferences between the male and the female intellect; we have to ask\nourselves whether they are absolute or only apparent, or whether they\nare absolute but removable by education and time, assuming this to be\ndesirable. I believe that these differences are superficial, temporary,\ntraceable to hereditary and local influences. I believe that they will\nnot endure forever, that they will tend to vanish as environment is\nmodified, as old suggestions cease to be made.\n\nThis leads us to consider present idiosyncrasies in woman as a sex, her\napparently low and apparently high impulses, her exaltations, and, in\nthe light of her achievements, her future. I do not want to generalize\nhastily. The subject is too complex and too obscure for me to venture so\nto do, and I would ask my readers to remember throughout this chapter\nthat I am not laying down the law, but trying only to arrive at the\ngreatest possible frequency of truth. This is a short research of\ntendencies. There are human tendencies, such as belief in a divine\nspirit, painting pictures, making war, composing songs. Are there any\nspecial female tendencies? Given that we glimpse what distinguishes man\nfrom the beast, is there anything that distinguishes woman from man? In\nthe small space at my disposal I cannot pretend to deal extensively with\nthe topic. One reason is the difficulty of securing true evidence.\nQuestions addressed to women do not always yield the truth; nor do\nquestions addressed to men; for a desire to please, vanity, modesty,\ninterfere. But the same question addressed to a woman may, according to\ncircumstances, be _sincerely_ answered in four ways,--\n\n     1. Truthfully, with a defensive touch, if she is alone with another\n     woman.\n\n     2. With intent to cause male rivalry if she is with two men.\n\n     3. With false modesty and seductive evasiveness if she is with one\n     man and one woman.\n\n     4. With a clear intention to repel or attract if she is with a man\n     alone.\n\nAnd there are variations of these four cases! A man investigating\nwoman's points of view often finds the response more emotional than\nintellectual. Owing to the system under which we live, where man is a\nvaluable prey, woman has contracted the habit of trying to attract. Even\naggressive insolence on her part may conceal the desire to attract by\nexasperating. These notes must, therefore, be taken only as hints, and\nthe reader may be interested to know that they are based on the\nobservation of sixty-five women, subdivided as follows: Intimate\nacquaintance, five; adequate acquaintance, nineteen; slight\nacquaintance, forty-one; married, thirty-nine; status uncertain, eight;\ncelibate, eighteen. Ages, seventeen to sixty-eight (average age, about\nthirty-five).\n\n\n2\n\nIt is most difficult to deduce the quality of woman's intellect from her\nconduct, because her impulses are frequently obscured by her policy. The\nphysical circumstances of her life predispose her to an interest in sex\nmore dominant than is the case with man. As intellect flies out through\nthe window when emotion comes in at the door, this is a source of\ncomplications. The intervention of love is a difficulty, for love,\nthough blind, is unfortunately not dumb, and habitually uses speech for\nthe concealment of truth. It does this with the best of intentions, and\nthe best of intentions generally yield the worst of results. It should\nbe said that sheer intellect is very seldom displayed by man. Intellect\nis the ideal skeleton of a man's mental power. It may be defined as an\naspiration toward material advantage, absolute truth, or achievement,\ncombined with a capacity for taking steps toward successful achievement\nor attaining truth. From this point of view such men as Napoleon,\nMachiavelli, Epictetus, Leo XIII, Bismarck, Voltaire, Anatole France,\nare typical intellectuals. They are not perfect: all, so far as we can\ntell, are tainted with moral feeling or emotion,--a frailty which\nprobably explains why there has never been a British or American\nintellectual of the first rank. Huxley, Spencer, Darwin, Cromwell, all\nalike suffered grievously from good intentions. The British and American\nmind has long been honeycombed with moral impulse, at any rate since\nthe Reformation; it is very much what the German mind was up to the\nmiddle of the nineteenth century. Intellect, as I conceive it, is seeing\nlife sanely and seeing it whole, without much pity, without love; seeing\nlife as separate from man, whose pains and delights are only phenomena;\nseeing love as a reaction to certain stimuli.\n\nIn this sense it can probably be said that no woman has ever been an\nintellectual. A few may have pretensions, as, for instance, \"Vernon\nLee,\" Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mrs. Wharton, perhaps Mrs. Hetty Green. I do not\nknow, for these women can be judged only by their works. The greatest\nwomen in history--Catherine of Russia, Joan of Arc, Sappho, Queen\nElizabeth--appear to have been swayed largely by their passions,\nphysical or religious. I do not suppose that this will always be the\ncase. For reasons which I shall indicate further on in this chapter, I\nbelieve that woman's intellect will tend toward approximation with that\nof man. But meanwhile it would be futile not to recognize that there\nexist to-day between man and woman some sharp intellectual divergences.\n\nOne of the sharpest lies in woman's logical faculty. This may be due to\nher education (which is seldom mathematical or scientific); it may\nproceed from a habit of mind; it may be the result of a secular\nwithdrawal from responsibilities other than domestic. Whatever the\ncause, it must be acknowledged that, with certain trained exceptions,\nwoman has not of logic the same conception as man. I have devoted\nparticular care to this issue, and have collected a number of cases\nwhere the feminine conception of logic clashes with that of man. Here\nare a few transcribed from my notebook:\n\n\n_Case 33_\n\nMy remark: \"Most people practice a religion because they are too\ncowardly to face the idea of annihilation.\"\n\nCase 33: \"I don't see that they are any more cowardly than you. It\ndoesn't matter whether you have a faith or not, it will be all the same\nin the end.\"\n\nThe reader will observe that Case 33 evades the original proposition; in\nher reply she ignores the set question, namely why people practice a\nreligion.\n\n\n_Case 17_\n\n_Votes for Women_, of January 22, 1915, prints a parallel, presumably\ndrawn by a woman, between two police-court cases. In the first a man,\ncharged with having struck his wife, is discharged because his wife\nintercedes for him. In the second a woman, charged with theft, is sent\nto prison in spite of her husband's plea. The writer appears to think\nthat these cases are parallel; the difference of treatment of the two\noffenders offends her logic. From a masculine point of view two points\ndifferentiate the cases:\n\nIn the first case the person who may be sent to prison is the\nbread-winner; in the second case it is the housekeeper, which is\ninconvenient but less serious.\n\nIn the first case the person who intercedes, the wife, is the one who\nhas suffered; in the second case the person who intercedes, the husband,\nhas not suffered injury. The person who has suffered injury is the one\nwho lost the goods.\n\n\n_Case 51_\n\nThis case is peculiar as it consists in frequent confusion of words. The\nwoman here instanced referred to a very ugly man as looking Semitic. She\nwas corrected and asked whether she did not mean simian, that is, like a\nmonkey. She said, \"Yes,\" but that Semitic meant looking like a monkey.\nWhen confronted with the dictionary, she was compelled to acknowledge\nthat the two words were not the same, but persisted in calling the man\nSemitic, and seriously explained this by asserting that Jews look like\nmonkeys.\n\nCase 51, in another conversation, referred to a man who had left the\nChurch of England for the Church of Rome as a \"pervert.\" She was asked\nwhether she did not mean \"convert.\"\n\nShe said, \"No, because to become a Roman Catholic is the act of a\npervert.\"\n\nAs I thought that this might come from religious animus, I asked whether\na Roman Catholic who entered a Protestant church was also a pervert.\n\nCase 51 replied, \"Yes.\"\n\nCase 51 therefore assumes that any change from an original state is\nabnormal. The application to the charge of bad logic consists in this\nfurther test:\n\nI asked Case 51 whether a man originally brought up in Conservative\nviews would be a pervert if he became a Liberal.\n\nCase 51 replied, \"No.\"\n\nOn another occasion Case 51 referred to exaggerated praise showered upon\na popular hero, and said that the newspapers were \"belittling\" him.\n\nI pointed out that they were doing the very contrary; that indeed they\nwere exaggerating his prowess.\n\nConfronted with the dictionary, and the meaning of \"belittle\", which is\n\"to cheapen with intent\", she insisted that \"belittling\" was the correct\nword because \"the result of this exaggerated praise was to make the man\nsmaller in her own mind.\"[1]\n\n[1] The notes as to Case 51 have not an absolute bearing upon logic in\ngeneral, but the reasons put forth in her defense by Case 51 are\nindicative of a certain kind of logic which is not masculine. I must add\nthat Case 51 is a woman of very good education, with many general\ninterests.--THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n_Case 63_\n\nIn the course of a discussion on the war in which Case 63 has given vent\nto moral and religious views, she remarks, \"Thou shalt not kill.\"\n\nI: \"Then do you accept war?\"\n\nCase 63: \"War ought to be done away with.\"\n\nI (attempting to get a straight answer): \"Do you accept war?\"\n\nCase 63: \"One must defend one's self.\"\n\nUpon this follows a long argument in which I attempt to prove to Case 63\nthat one defends, not one's self but the nation. When in difficulties\nshe repeats, \"One must defend one's self.\"\n\nShe refuses to face the fact that if nobody offered any resistance,\nnobody would be killed; she completely confuses the defense of self\nagainst a burglar with that of a nation against an invader. Finally she\nassumes that the defense of one's country is legitimate, and yet insists\non maintaining with the Bible that one may not kill!\n\n\n_Case 33_\n\nCase 33: \"Why didn't America interfere with regard to German atrocities\nin Belgium?\"\n\nI: \"Why should she?\"\n\nCase 33: \"America did protest when her trade was menaced.\"\n\nI: \"Yes. America wanted to protect her interests, but does it follow\nthat she should protest against atrocities which do not menace her\ninterests?\"\n\nCase 33: \"_But her interests are menaced._ Look at the trade\ncomplications; they've all come out of that.\"\n\nCase 33 has confused trade interests with moral duty; she has confused\ntwo issues: atrocities against neutrals and destruction of American\nproperty. When I tell her this, she states that there is a connection:\nthat if America had protested against atrocities, the war would have\nproceeded on better lines because the Germans would have been\nfrightened.\n\nI: \"How would this have affected the trade question?\"\n\nCase 33 does not explain but draws me into a morass of moral indignation\nbecause America protested against trade interference and not against\natrocities. She finally says America had no right to do the one without\nthe other, which logically is chaos. She also demands to be told what\nwas the use of America's signing the Geneva Convention and the Hague\nConvention. She ignores the fact that these conventions do not bind\nanybody to fight in their defense but merely to observe their\nprovisions. I would add that Case 33 is a well-educated woman,\nindependent in views, and with a bias toward social questions.\n\nNaturally, where there is a question of love, feminine logic reaches the\nzenith of topsy-turvy-dom. Here is a dialogue which took place in my\npresence.\n\n\n_Case 8_\n\nCase 8, who was about to be married, attacked a man who had had a\npronounced flirtation with her because he suddenly announced that he\nwas engaged.\n\nCase 8: \"How can you be so mean?\"\n\nThe man: \"But I don't understand. You're going to be married. What\nobjection can you have to my getting engaged?\"\n\nCase 8: \"It's quite different.\" Nothing could move Case 8 from that\npoint of view.[2]\n\n[2] Probably owing to woman's having for centuries been taught to regard\nthe vain aspirations of the male as her perquisites.--THE AUTHOR.\n\nI do not contend that bad logic is the monopoly of woman, for man is\nalso disposed to believe what he chooses in matters such as politics,\nwars, and so forth, and then to try to prove it. Englishmen as well as\nEnglishwomen find victory in the capture of a German trench,\ninsignificance in the loss of a British trench; man, as well as woman,\nis quite capable of saying that it always rains when the Republicans are\nin power, should he happen to be a Democrat; man also is capable of\ntracing to a dinner with twelve guests the breaking of a leg, while\nforgetting the scores of occasions on which he dined in a restaurant\nwith twelve other people and suffered no harm. Man is capable of every\nunreasonable deduction, but he is more inclined to justify himself by\nclose reasoning. In matters of argument, man is like the Italian brigand\nwho robs the friar, then confesses and asks him for absolution; woman is\nthe burglar unrepentant. This may be due to woman as a rule having few\nguiding principles or intellectual criteria. She often holds so many\nmoral principles that intellectual argument with her irritates the\ncrisper male mind. But she finds it difficult to retain a grasp upon a\ncentral idea, to clear away the side issues which obscure it. She can\nseldom carry an idea to its logical conclusion, passing from term to\nterm; somewhere there is a solution of continuity. For this reason\narguments with women, which have begun with the latest musical play,\neasily pass on, from its alleged artistic merit, to its costumes, their\nscantiness, their undesirable scantiness, the need for inspection,\ninspectors of theaters, and, little by little, other inspectors, until\none gets to mining inspectors and possibly to mining in general. The\nreader will observe that these ideas are fairly well linked. All that\nhappens is that the woman, tiring of the central argument, has pursued\neach side issue as it offered itself. This comes from a lack of\nconcentration which indisposes a woman to penetrate deeply into a\nsubject; she is not used to concentration, she does not like it. It\nmight lead her to disagreeable discoveries.\n\nIt is for this reason--because she needs to defend purely emotional\npositions against man, who uses intellectual weapons--that woman is so\nmuch more easily than man attracted by new religions and new\nphilosophies--by Christian Science, by Higher Thought, by Theosophy, by\nEucken, by Bergson. Those religions are no longer spiritual; they have\nan intellectual basis; they are not ideal religions like Christianity\nand Mohammedanism and the like, which frankly ask you to make an act of\nfaith; what they do is to attempt to seduce the alleged soul through the\nintellect. That is exactly what the aspiring woman demands: emotional\nsatisfaction and intellectual concession. Particularly in America, one\ndiscovers her intellectual fog in the continual use of such words as\nmental, elemental, cosmic, universality, social harmony, essential\ncosmos, and other similar ornaments of the modern logomachy.\n\n\n_Case 16_\n\nCase 16 told me that my mind did not \"functionalize\" properly. And gave\nme as an authority for the statement Aristotle, before whom, of course,\nI bow.\n\nA singular and suggestive fact is that woman generally displays pitiless\nlogic when she is dealing with things that she knows well. An expert\nhousekeeper is the type, and there are no lapses in her argument with a\ntradesman. It is a platitude to mention the business capacity of the\nFrenchwoman, and many women are expert in the investment of money, in\nthe administration of detail, in hospital management, in the rotation of\nservants' holidays (which, in large households, is most complex). It\nwould appear that woman is unconcentrated and inconsequent only where\nshe has not been properly educated, and this has a profound bearing on\nher future development. There is a growing class, of which Mrs. Fawcett,\nMrs. Havelock Ellis, the Countess of Warwick, Miss Jane Addams, are\ntypical, who have bent their minds upon intellectual problems; women\nlike Miss Emma Goldman; like Miss Mary McArthur, whose grasp of\nindustrial questions is as good as any man's. They differ profoundly\nfrom the average feminine literary artist, who is almost invariably\nunable to write of anything except love. I can think of only one modern\nexception,--Miss Amber Reeves; among her seniors, Mrs. Humphry Ward is\nthe most notable exception, but not quite notable enough.\n\nThis tendency is, I believe, entirely due to woman having always been\ndivorced from business and politics, to her having been until recently\nencouraged to delight in small material possessions, while discouraged\nfrom focusing on anything non-material except religion, and from\nconsidering general ideas. Particularly as regards general ideas woman\nhas lived in a bad atmosphere. The French king who said to his queen,\n\"Madam, we have taken you to give us children and not to give us\nadvice,\" was blowing a chill breath upon the tender shoot of woman's\nintelligence. Neither he nor other men wished women to conceive general\nideas: women became incapable of conceiving or understanding them.\nThence sprang generalization, the tendency in woman to make sweeping\nstatements, such as \"All men are deceivers,\" or \"Men can do what they\nlike in the world,\" or \"Men cannot feel as women do.\" It is not that\nthey dislike general questions, but that they have been thrust back from\ngeneral questions, so that they cannot hold them. Here is a case:\n\n\n_Case 2_\n\nWith the object of entertaining an elderly lady, who is an invalid, I\nexplain, _in response to her own request_, the case that Germany makes\nfor having declared war. She asks one or two questions, and then\nsuddenly interrupts me to ask what I have been doing with myself lately\nin the evenings.\n\nThis is a case of interest in the particular as opposed to the general.\nIt is an instance of what I want to show,--that woman drifts toward the\nparticular because she has been driven away from the general. To\nconcentrate too long upon the general is to her merely fatiguing.\nDoubtless because of this, many middle-aged women become exceedingly\ndull to men. So long as they are young all is well, for few men care\nwhat folly issues from rosy lips. But once the lips are no longer rosy,\nthen man fails to find the companion he needs, because companionship, as\ndifferentiated from love, can rest only on mental sympathy. Middle-aged\nman is often dull too; while the middle-aged woman may concern herself\novermuch with the indigestion of her pet dog, the middle-aged man is\noften unduly moved by his own indigestion. But, broadly speaking, a\ngreater percentage of middle-aged and elderly men than of such women\nare interested in political and philosophical questions.\n\nThese men are often dull for another reason: they are more conventional.\nThe reader may differ from me, but I believe that woman is much less\nconventional than man. She does all the conventional things and attacks\nother women savagely for breaches of convention. But you will generally\nfind that where a man may with impunity break a convention he will not\ndo so, while, if secrecy is guaranteed, a woman will please herself\nfirst and repent only if necessary. It follows that a man is\nconventional because he respects convention; woman conventional because\nshe is afraid of what may happen if she does not obey convention. I\nsubmit that this shows a greater degree of conventionality in man. The\ntypical Englishman of the world, wrecked on a desert island, would get\ninto his evening clothes as long as his shirts lasted; I do not think\nhis wife, alone in such circumstances, would wear a low-cut dress to\ntake her meal of cocoanuts, even if her frock did up in front.\n\nIt is this unconventionality that precipitates woman into the so-called\nnew movements in art or philosophy. She reacts against what is, seeking\na new freedom; even if she is only seeking a new excitement, a new\ncolor, a new god, unconsciously she seeks a more liberal atmosphere,\nwhile man is nearly always contented with the atmosphere that is. When\nhe rebels, his tendency is to destroy the old sanctuary, hers to build a\nnew sanctuary. That is a form of idealism,--not a very high idealism,\nfor woman seldom strains toward the impossible. In literature I cannot\ncall to mind that woman has ever conceived a Utopia such as those\nimagined by Bellamy, Samuel Butler, William Morris, and H. G. Wells. The\nonly woman who voiced ideas of this kind was Mary Wollstonecraft, and\nher views were hardly utopian. Nothings, such as Utopias, have been\nalways too airy for woman. The heroes in the novels she has written,\nuntil recently and with one or two exceptions,--such as some of the\nheroes of George Eliot,--are either stagey or sweet. Mr. Rochester is\nstagey, Grandcourt is stagey, while the hero of \"Under Two Flags\" is\nmerely Turkish Delight.\n\n\n3\n\nA quality which singularly contrasts with woman's vague idealism is the\naccuracy she displays in business. This is due to her being\nfundamentally inaccurate. It is not the accurate people who are always\naccurate; it is the inaccurate people on their guard.[3] Woman's\ninterest in the particular predisposes her to the exact, for accuracy\nmay be defined as a continuous interest in the particular. I suspect\nthat it indicates a probability that by education, and especially\nencouragement, woman may develop a far higher degree of concentration\nthan she has hitherto done. In her way stands a fatal facility, that of\ngrasping ideas before they are half-expressed. It is a quality of\nimagination, natural rather than induced. Any schoolteacher will confirm\nthe statement that in a mixed class, aged eleven to twelve, the essays\nof the girls are better than those of the boys. This is not so in a\nmixed university. I suspect that this latter is quite as much due to the\nacademic judgment, which does not recognize imagination, as to the fact\nthat in the later years of their lives the energies of girls are\ndiverted from intellectual concentration (and also expression) toward\nthe artistic and the social. This untrained concentration produces a\ncertain superficiality and an impetuousness which harmonize with the\nintrusion of side issues,--to which I have referred,--and with the\nburgeoning of side issues on the general idea.\n\n[3] I have observed for two years the steady growth in the accuracy of\nthe work of Case 33, due to her having concentrated upon her instinctive\ninaccuracy.--THE AUTHOR.\n\nNowhere is this better shown than in the postscript habit. Men do not,\nas a rule, use postscripts, and it is significant that artists and\npersons inclined toward the arts are much more given to postscripts than\nother kinds of men. One might almost say that women correspond by\npostscript; some of them put the subject of the letter in the\npostscript, as the scorpion keeps his poison in his tail. I have before\nme letters from Case 58, with two postscripts, and one extraordinary\nletter from Case 11, with four postscripts and a sentence written\noutside the envelope. This is the apogee of superficiality. The writers\nhave run on, seduced by irrelevance, and have not been able to stop to\nconsider in all its bearings the subject of the letter. Each postscript\nrepresents a development or qualification, which must indicate the waste\nby bad education of what may be a very good mind.\n\nI would say in passing that we should not attach undue importance to\nwoman's physical disabilities. It is true that woman is more conscious\nof her body than is man. So long as he is fed, sufficiently busy, in\ngood general health, he is normal. But woman is far more often in an\nunbalanced physical condition. There is a great deal to be said for the\nHindu philosophical point of view, that the body needs to be just so\nsatisfied as to become imperceptible to the consciousness, as opposed to\nthe point of view of the Christian ascetics, who unfortunately carried\ntheir ideas so far that they ended by thinking more of their hair shirt\nthan of Him for whose sake they wore it. In this sense woman is\nintellectually handicapped because her body obtrudes itself upon her. It\nis a subject of brooding and agitation. I suspect that this is largely\nremediable, for I am not convinced that it is woman's peculiar physical\nconditions that occasionally warp her intellect; it is equally possible\nthat a warped intellect produces unsatisfactory physical conditions.\nTherefore, if, as I firmly believe that we can, we develop this\nintellect, profound changes may with time appear in these physical\nconditions.\n\n\n4\n\nThe further qualification of woman's intellect is in her moral attitude.\nI would ask the reader to divest himself of the idea that \"moral\"\nrefers only to matters of sex. Morality is the rule of conduct of each\nhuman being in his relations with other human beings, and this covers\nall relations. Because in some senses the morality of woman is not the\nmorality of man, we are not entitled to say with Pope that\n\n     \"Woman's at best a contradiction still.\"\n\nShe is a contradiction. Man is a contradiction, apparently of a\ndifferent kind, and that is all. Thence spring misunderstandings and\nsometimes dislike, as between people of different nations. I do not want\nto labor the point, but I would suggest that in a very minor degree the\napparent difference between man and woman may be paralleled by the\napparent difference between the Italian and the Swede, who, within two\ngenerations, produce very similar American children. But man, who\ngeneralizes quite as wildly as woman when he does not understand, is\ndetermined to emphasize the difference in every relation of life. For\ninstance, it is commonly said that woman cannot keep her promise. This\nseems to me entirely untrue; given that as a rule woman's intellect is\nnot sufficiently educated to enable her to find a good reason for\nbreaking her promise, it is much more difficult for her to do so. For we\nare all moral creatures, and if a man must steal the crown jewels, he is\nhappier if he can discover a high motive for so doing. Man has a\ndefinite advantage where a loophole has to be found, and I have known\nfew women capable of standing up in argument against a trained lawyer\nwho has acquired the usual dexterity in misrepresentation.\n\nIn love and marriage, particularly, woman will keep plighted troth more\nclosely than man; there is no male equivalent of jilt, but the male does\njilt on peculiar lines; while a woman who knows that her youth, her\nbeauty are going must bring things to a head by jilting, the male is\nnever in a hurry, for his attractions wane so very slowly. Why should he\njilt the woman,--make a stir? So he just goes on. In due course she\ntires and releases him, when he goes to another woman. That is jilting\nby inches, and as regards faithfulness a pledged woman is more difficult\nto win away than a pledged man. (To be just, it should be said that\nunfaithfulness is in the eyes of most men a small matter, in the eyes of\nmost women a serious matter.) A pledged woman will remain faithful long\nafter love has flown; the promise is a mystic bond; none but a tall\nflame can hide the ashes of the dead love. And so, when Shakespeare\nasserts,--\n\n  \"Frailty, thy name is woman,\"\n\nhe is delivering one of the hasty judgments that abound in his solemn\nromanticism.\n\nThis applies in realms divorced from love,--in questions of money, such\nas debts or bets. Women do run up milliners' bills, but men boast of\nnever paying their tailors. And if sometimes women do not discharge the\nlost bet, it is largely because a tradition of protection and patronage\nhas laid down that women need not pay their bets. Besides, women usually\npay their losses, while several men have not yet discharged their debts\nof honor to me. It is a matter of honesty, and I think the criminal\nreturns for the United States would produce the same evidence as those\nfor England and Wales. In 1913 there were tried at Assizes for offences\nagainst property 1616 men and 122 women. The records of Quarter Sessions\nand of the courts of Summary Jurisdiction yield the same result, an\nenormous majority of male offenders,--though there be more women than\nmen in England and Wales! And yet, in the face of such official figures,\nof the evidence of every employer, man cherishes a belief in woman's\ndishonesty! One reason, no doubt, is that woman's emotional nature leads\nher, when she is criminal, to criminality of an aggravated kind. She\nthen justifies Pope's misogynist lines:\n\n  \"O woman, woman! When to ill thy mind\n  Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.\"\n\nMost men, however, have abandoned the case against woman's dishonesty\nand confine themselves to describing her as a liar, forgetting that they\ngenerally dislike the truth when it comes from a woman's lips, and\nalways when it reflects upon their own conduct. For centuries man has\nasked that woman should flatter, but also that she should tell the\ntruth: such a confusion of demands leads the impartial mind to the\nconclusion that vanity cannot be a monopoly of the female. But it is\nquite true that woman does not always cherish truth so well as man. The\ndesire for truth is intellectual, not emotional. Truth is a cold\nbed-fellow, as might be expected of one who rose from a well. And among\nwomen cases of disinterested lying are not uncommon. Here is Case 16:\n\nAn elderly woman talked at length about not having received insurance\npapers, and made a great disturbance. It later appeared that she had not\ninsured. On another occasion she informed the household that her\nson-in-law had been cabled to from South Africa to come and visit his\ndying mother. It was proved that no cable had been sent.\n\nI have a number of cases of this kind, but this is the most curious. I\nsuspect that this sort of lying is traceable to a need for romance and\ndrama in a colorless life. It springs from the wish to create a romantic\natmosphere round one's self and to increase one's personal importance.\nBecause men hold out hands less greedy toward drama and romance they are\nless afflicted, but they do not entirely escape, and we have all\nobserved the new importance of the man whose brother has been\nphotographed in a newspaper or, better still, killed in a railway\naccident. If he has been burned in a theater, the grief of his male\nrelatives is subtly tinged with excited delight. Romance, the wage of\nlies, is woman's compensation for a dull life.\n\n\n5\n\nVanity is as old as the mammoth. Romantic lying, obviously connected\nwith vanity, is justly alleged to be developed in woman. No doubt\nwoman's chief desire has been to appear beautiful, and it is quite open\nto question whether the leaves that clothed our earliest ancestress were\ngathered in a spirit of modesty rather than in response to a desire for\nadornment.\n\nBut it should not be too readily assumed that vanity is purely a\nfeminine characteristic. It is a human characteristic, and the favor of\nany male savage can be bought at the price of a necklace of beads or of\nan admiral's cocked hat. The modern man is modish too, as much as he\ndares. At Newport as at Brighton the dandy is supreme. It would be\ninaccurate, however, to limit vanity to clothes. Vanity is more subtle,\nand I would ask the reader which of the three principal motives that\nanimate man--love, ambition, and gold lust--is the strongest. The desire\nto shine in the eyes of one's fellows has produced much in art and\npolitical service; it has produced much that is foolish and ignoble. It\nhas led to political competition, to a wild race for ill-remunerated\noffices, governorships, memberships of Parliament. Representatives of\nthe people often wish to serve the people; they also like to be marked\nout as the people's men. There are no limits to masculine desire for\nhonors; seldom in England does a man refuse a peerage; Frenchmen are\nmartyrs to their love of ribbons, and not a year passes without a\nscandal because an official has been bribed to obtain the Legion\nd'Honneur for somebody, or, funnier still, because an adventurer has\nblacked his face, set up in a small flat, impersonated a negro\npotentate, and distributed for value received grand crosses of fantastic\nkingdoms. Even democratic Americans have been known to seek titled\nhusbands for their daughters, and a few have become Papal barons or\ncounts.\n\nMale vanity differs from female, but both are vanity. The two sexes even\nshare that curious form of vanity which in man consists in his calling\nhimself a \"plain man\", bragging of having come to New York without shoes\nand with a dime in his pocket; which, in woman, consists in neglecting\nher appearance. Both sexes convey more or less: \"I am what I am, a\nhumble person ... but quite good enough.\" The arrogance of humility is\nsimply repulsive.\n\nIdeas such as the foregoing may proceed from a certain simplicity. Woman\nis much less complex than the poets believe. For instance, many men hold\nthat woman's lack of self-consciousness, as exemplified by disturbances\nin shops, has its roots in some intricate reasoning process. One must\nnot be carried away: the truth is that woman, having so long been\ndependent upon man, has an exaggerated idea of the importance of small\nsums. Man has earned money; woman has been taught only to save it. Thus\nshe has been poor, and poverty has caused her to shrink from\nexpenditure; often she has become mean and, paradoxically enough, she\nhas at the same time become extravagant. Poverty has taught her to\nrespect the penny, while it has taught her nothing about the pound. If\nwoman finds it quite easy to spend one tenth of the household income on\ndress, and even more,[4] it is because her education makes it as\ndifficult for her to conceive a thousand dollars as it is for a man to\nconceive a million. It is merely a question of familiarity with money.\n\n[4] See \"Uniforms for Women,\" and observe extreme figures and details of\nfeminine expenditure on clothes.\n\nBesides, foolish economy and reckless expenditure are indications of an\nelementary quality. In that sense woman is still something of a savage.\nShe is still less civilized than man, largely because she has not been\neducated. This may be a very good thing, and it certainly is an\nagreeable one from the masculine point of view. Whether we consider\nwoman's attitude to the law, to social service, or to war, it is the\nsame thing. In most cases she is lawless; she will obey the law because\nshe is afraid of it, but she will not respect it. For her it is always\n_sic volo, sic jubeo_. I suspect that if she had had a share in making\nthe law she would not have been like this, for she would have become\naware of the relation between law and life. Roughly she tends to look\nupon the law as tyrannous if she does not like it, as protective if she\ndoes like it. Probably there is little relation between her own moral\nimpulse, which is generous, and the law, which is only just. (That is,\njust in intention.) This is qualified by the moral spirit in woman,\nwhich increasingly leads her to the view that certain things should be\ndone and others not be done. But even then it is likely that at heart\nwoman does not respect the law; she may respect what it\nrepresents,--strength,--but not what it implies,--equity. She is\ninfinitely more rebellious than man, and where she has power she\ninflames the world in protest. I do not refer to the militant\nsuffragists, but to woman's general attitude. For instance, when it is\nproposed to compel women to insure their servants, to pay employer's\ncompensation for accident, to restrict married women's control of their\nproperty, to establish laws regulating the social evil, we find female\nopposition very violent. I do not mean material opposition, although\nthat does occur, but mental hostility. Woman surrenders because she\nmust, man because he ought to.\n\nThat is an attitude of barbarism. It is a changing attitude; the ranks\nof social service have, during the last half-century, been\ndisproportionately swollen by woman. Our most active worker in the\ncauses of factory inspection, child protection, anti-sweating, is to-day\nwoman. Woman is emerging swiftly from the barbarous state in which she\nwas long maintained. She will change yet more,--and further on in this\nchapter I will attempt to show how,--but to-day it must be granted that\nthere runs in her veins much vigorous barbarian blood. Her attitude to\nwar is significant. During the past months I have met many women who\nwere inflamed by the idea of blood; so long as they were not losing\nrelatives or friends themselves, they tended to look upon the war as the\nmost exciting serial they had ever read. Heat and heroism, what could be\nmore romantic? Every woman to whom I told this said it was untrue, but\nin no country have the women's unions struck against war; the\nsuffragettes have organized, not only hospitals, but kitchens,\nrecreation rooms, canteens for the use of soldiers; many have clamored\nto be allowed to make shells; some, especially in Russia, have carried\nrifles. In England, thirteen thousand women volunteered to make war\nmaterial; women filled the German factories. Of course, I recognize that\nthis is partly economic: women must live in wartime even at the price of\nmen's lives, and I am aware that a great many women have done all they\ncould to arrest the spread of war. In England many have prevented their\nmen from volunteering; in America, I am told, women have been solid\nagainst war with Germany. But let the reader not be deceived. A subtle\npoint arises which is often ignored. If women went to war instead of\nmen, their attitude might be different. Consider, indeed, these two\nparagraphs, fictitious descriptions of a battlefield:--\n\n\"Before the trenches lay heaped hundreds of young men, with torn bodies,\ntheir faces pale in the moonlight. The rays lit up the face of one that\nlay near, made a glitter upon his little golden moustache.\"\n\n\"Before the trenches lay heaped hundreds of young girls. The moonlight\nstreamed upon their torn bodies and their fair skins. The rays fell upon\none that lay near, drawing a glow from the masses of her golden hair.\"\n\nLet the masculine reader honestly read these two paragraphs (which I do\nnot put forward as literature). The first will pain him; the second will\nhurt him more. That men should be slaughtered--how hateful! That girls\nshould be slaughtered--it is unbearable. Here, I submit, is part of\nwoman's opposition to war, of the exaggerated idea people have of her\nhumanitarian attitude. I will not press the point that as a savage she\nmay like blood better than man; I will confine myself to suggesting that\na large portion of her opposition to war comes out of a sexual\nconsciousness; it seems horrible to her that young men should be killed,\njust as horrible as my paragraph on the dead girls may seem to the male\nreader.\n\nSome men have seen women as barbarous and dangerous only, have based\ntheir attitude upon the words of Thomas Otway: \"She betrayed the\nCapitol, lost Mark Antony to the world, laid old Troy in ashes.\" This is\nabsurd; if man cannot resist the temptation of woman, he can surely\nclaim no greater nobility. Mark Antony \"lost\" Cleopatra by wretched\nsuicide as much as she \"lost\" him. If because of Helen old Troy was laid\nin ashes, at least another woman, guiltless Andromache, paid the price.\nTo represent woman so, to suggest that there were only two people in\nEden, Adam and the Serpent, is as ridiculous as making a woman into a\ngoddess. It is the hope of the future that woman shall be realized as\nneither diabolical nor divine, but as merely human.\n\n\n6\n\nWe must recognize that the emotional quality in woman is not a\ncharacteristic of sex; it is merely the exaggeration of a human\ncharacteristic. For instance, it is currently said that women make\ntrouble on committees. They do; I have sat with women on committees and\nwill do it again as seldom as possible: their frequent inability to\nunderstand an obvious syllogism, their passion for side issues, their\ngeneralizations, and their particularism whenever emotion is aroused,\nmake committee work very difficult. But every committee has its male\nmember who cannot escape from his egotism or from his own conversation.\nWhat woman does man does, only he does it less. The difference is one of\ndegree, not of quality.\n\nWhere the emotionalism of women grows more pronounced is in matters of\nreligion and love. There is a vague correspondence between her attitude\nto the one and to the other, in outwardly Christian countries, I mean.\nShe often finds in religion a curious philter, both a sedative and a\nstimulant. Religion is often for women an allotrope of romance; blind\nas an earthworm she seeks the stars, and it is curious that religion\nshould make so powerful an appeal to woman, considering how she has been\ntreated by the faiths. The Moslem faith has made of her a toy and a\nreward; the Jewish, a submissive beast of burden; the Christian, a\ndanger, a vessel of impurity. I mean the actual faiths, not their\noriginal theory; one must take a faith as one finds it, not as it is\nsupposed to be, and in the case of woman the Christian religion is but\nlittle in accord with the view of Him who forgave the woman taken in\nadultery. The Christian religion has done everything it could to heap\nignominy upon woman: head-coverings in church, practical tolerance of\nmale infidelity, kingly repudiation of queens, compulsory child-bearing,\nand a multiplicity of other injustices. The Proverbs and the Bible in\ngeneral are filled with strictures on \"a brawling woman\", \"a\ncontentious woman\"; when man is referred to, mankind is really implied.\nYet woman has kissed the religious rods. One might think that indeed she\nwas seduced and held only by cruelty and contempt. She is now, in a\nmeasure, turning against the faiths, but still she clings to them more\nclosely than man because she is more capable of making an act of faith,\nof believing that which she knows to be impossible.\n\nThe appeal of religion to woman is the appeal of self-surrender,--that\nis, ostensibly. In the case of love it is the same appeal, ostensibly;\nthough I suspect that intuition has told many a woman who gave herself\nto a lover or to a god that she was absorbing more than she gave: in\nlove using the man for nature whom she represents, in faith performing a\npantheistic prodigy, the enclosing of Nirvana within her own bosom.\n\nBut speculation as to the impulse of sex in relation to religion, in\nGreece, in Egypt, in Latin countries, would draw me too far. I can\nrecord only that to all appearances a portion of the religious instinct\nof woman is derived from the love instinct, which many believe to be\nwoman's first and only motive. It is significant that among the\nsixty-five cases upon which this article is based there are several\ndeeply religious single women, while not one of the married women shows\nsigns of more than conventional devotion. I incline to believe that\nwoman is firstly animal, secondly, intellectual; while man appears to be\noccasionally animal and primarily intellectual.\n\nObserve indeed the varying age at which paternal and maternal instincts\nmanifest themselves. A woman's passion for her child generally awakes at\nbirth, and there are many cases where an unfortunate girl, intending to\nmurder her child, as soon as it is born discovers that she loves it. On\nthe other hand, a great many men are indifferent to their children in\ninfancy and are drawn to them only as they develop intellectual quality.\nThis is just the time when woman drifts from them. Qualified by\ncivilized custom, the attitude of woman toward her child is very much\nthat of the cat toward her kitten; as soon as the kitten is a few weeks\nold, the mother neglects it. A few months later she will not know it.\nHer part is played. So it is not uncommon to find a woman who has been\nenthralled by her baby giving it over entirely to hired help: the baby\nis growing intellectualized; it needs her no more except as a kindly but\ncalm critic. And frequently at that time the father begins to\nintervene, to control the education, to prepare for the future. Whether\nin the mental field this means much more than the difference in\ntemperament between red hair and black hair (if that means anything), I\ndo not know; but it is singular that so often the mother should drift\naway from her child just at the moment when the father thinks of\nteaching it to ride and shoot and tell the truth. Possibly by that time\nher critical work is done.\n\nIndicative of the influence of the emotions is the peculiar\nintensification of love in moments of crisis, such as war, revolution,\nor accident. Men do not escape this any more than women: the German\natrocities, for instance, largely proceed from extreme excitement. But\nmen have but slender bonds to break, being nearly all ready to take\ntheir pleasure where they can, while women are more fastidious. Woman\nneeds a more highly charged atmosphere, the whips of fear or grief, the\nintoxication of glory. When these are given her, her emotions more\nreadily break down her reserves; and it is not remarkable that in times\nof war there should be an increase in illegitimate births as well as an\nincrease in marriages. Woman's intellect under those pressures gives\nway. A number of the marriages contracted by British soldiers about to\nleave for the front are simple manifestations of hysteria.\n\nAs for caprice, it has long been regarded as woman's privilege, part of\nher charm. Man was the hunter, and his prey must run. Only he is annoyed\nwhen it runs too fast. He is ever asking woman to charm him by\nelusiveness and then complaining because she eludes him. There is hardly\na man who would not to-day echo Sir Walter Scott's familiar lines,--\n\n  \"O Woman! in our hours of ease\n  Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,\n  And variable as the shade\n  By the light quivering aspen made.\"\n\nIt is not woman's fault. The poetry of the world is filled with the\nwords \"to win\" and \"to woo\"; one cannot win or woo one who does not\nbaffle; one can only take her, and men are not satisfied to do only\nthat. Man loves sincerity until he finds it; he can live neither with it\nnor without it; this is true most notably in the lists of love. He is\nfor falsehood, for affectation, lest the prize should too easily be won.\nBoth sexes are equally guilty, if guilt there be.\n\nMore true is it that many women lie and curvet as a policy because they\nbelieve thus best to manage men. They generally believe that they can\nmanage men. They look upon them as \"poor dears.\" They honestly believe\nthat the \"poor dears\" cannot cook, or run houses, or trim hats, ignoring\nthe fact that the \"poor dears\" do these things better than anybody, in\nkitchens, in hotels, and in hat shops. Especially they believe that they\ncan outwit them in the game of love. This curious idea is due to woman's\nconsciousness of having been sought after in the past and told that she\ndid not seek man but was sought by him. Centuries of thraldom and\ncenturies of flattery have caused her to believe this--the poor dear!\n\nIn ordinary times, when no world-movements stimulate, the chief\nexasperation of woman resides in jealousy. It differs from male\njealousy, for the male is generally possessive, the female competitive.\nI suspect that Euripides was generalizing rashly when he said that woman\nis woman's natural ally. She is too sex-conscious for that, and many of\nus have observed the annoyance of a mother when her son weds.\nCompetition is always violent, so much so that woman is generally\nmocking or angry if a man praises ever so slightly another woman. If\nshe is young and able to make a claim on all men, she tends to be still\nmore virulent because her claim is on _all_ men. This is partly due to\nthe marriage market and its restrictions, but it is also partly natural.\nNo doubt because it is natural, woman attempts to conceal that jealousy,\nnature being generally considered ignoble by the civilized world. In\nthis respect we must accept that an assumption of coldness is considered\na means of enticing man. It may well be that, where woman does not\nexhibit jealousy, she is with masterly skill suggesting to the man a\nproblem: why is she not jealous? On which follows the desire to make her\njealous, and entanglement.\n\nBecause of these powerful preoccupations, when woman adopts a career she\nhas hitherto frequently allowed herself to be diverted therefrom by\nlove. Up to the end of the nineteenth century it was very common for a\nwoman to abandon the stage, the concert platform, and so forth, when she\nmarried. A change has come about, and there is a growing tendency in\nwomen, whether or not at the expense of love I do not know, to retain\ntheir occupations when they marry. But the tendency of woman still is to\nrevert to the instinctive function. In days to come, when we have\ndeveloped the individual and broken up the socialized society in which\nwe live, when the home has been swept away and the family destroyed, I\ndo not believe that this factor will operate so powerfully. In the way\nof change stand the remnants of woman's slavish habit. No longer a\nslave, she tends to follow, to submit, to adjust her conduct to the wish\nof man, and it is significant that a powerful man is seldom henpecked.\nThe henpecked deserve to be henpecked, and I would point out that there\nis no intention in these notes to attempt to substitute henpecked\nhusbands for cockpecked wives. The tendency is all the other way, for\nwoman tends to mould herself to man.\n\nA number of cases lie before me:\n\nCase 61 married a barrister. Before her marriage she lived in a\ncommercial atmosphere; after marriage she grew violently legal in her\nconversation. Her husband developed a passion for motoring; so did Case\n61. Observe that during a previous attachment to a doctor, Case 61 had\nmanifested a growing interest in medicine.\n\nCase 18 comes from a hunting family, married a literary man, and within\na few years has ceased to take any exercise and mixes exclusively with\nliterary people.\n\nCase 38, on becoming engaged to a member of the Indian Civil Service,\nbecame a sedulous student of Indian literature and religion. On her\nhusband's appointment to a European post, her interest did not diminish.\nShe has paid a lengthy visit to India.\n\nThere are compensating cases among men: I have two. In one case a\nsoldier who married a literary woman has turned into a scholar. In the\nother a commercial man, who married a popular actress, has been\ncompletely absorbed by the theater, and is now writing successful plays.\n\nIt would appear from these rather disjointed notes that the emotional\nquality in woman is more or less at war with her intellectual aims.\nIndeed it is sometimes suggested that where woman appears, narrowness\nfollows; that books by women are mostly confined to love, are not cosmic\nin feeling. This is generally true, for reasons which I hope to indicate\na little farther on; but it is not true that books where women are the\nchief characters are narrow. Such novels as _Anna Karenina_, _Madame\nBovary_, _Une Vie_, _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ make that point\nobvious. As a rule, books about men, touching as they do, not only upon\nlove, but upon art, politics, business, are more powerful than books\nabout women. But one should not forget that books written round women\nare mostly written by women. As women are far less powerful in\nliterature than men, we must not conclude that books about women are\nnaturally lesser than books about men. The greatest books about women\nhave been written by men. But few men are sufficiently unprejudiced to\ngrasp women; only a genius can do so, and that is why few books about\nwomen exist that deserve the epithet great. It remains to be seen\nwhether an increased understanding of the affairs of the world will\ndevelop among women a literary power which, together with the world,\nwill embrace herself.\n\n\n7\n\nIn the attempt to indicate what the future may reserve for woman, it is\nimportant to consider what she has done, because she has achieved much\nin the face of conservatism, of male egotism, of male jealousy, of\npoverty, of ignorance, and of prejudice. These chains are weaker to-day,\nand the goodwill that shall not die will break them yet; but many\nwomen, a few of whose names follow, gave while enslaved an idea of\nwoman's quality. Examine indeed this short list:[5]\n\n[5] I associate the arts with intellectual quality. (See \"Woman and the\nPaintpot.\") Broadly, I believe that all achievements, artistic or\notherwise, proceed from intellect.\n\n_Painting:_ Angelica Kauffmann, Madame Vigee le Brun, Rosa Bonheur.\n\n_Music and drama:_ Rachel, Siddons, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Teresa\nCarreno, Sadayacco.\n\n_Literature:_ George Eliot, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Madame de Stael,\nMadame de Sevigne, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Browning. More recent,\nMrs. Alice Meynell, Miss May Sinclair, \"Lucas Malet,\" Mrs. Edith\nWharton, \"Vernon Lee.\"\n\n_Social service and politics:_ Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Miss Jane\nAddams, Madame Montessori, Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. Ennis Richmond, Mrs.\nBeecher Stowe, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Havelock Ellis, Mrs. Sidney\nWebb, Miss Clementina Black, Josephine Butler, Mrs. Pankhurst, Elizabeth\nFry. Observe the curious case of Mrs. Hetty Green, financier.\n\nThis list could be enormously increased, and, as it is, it is a random\nlist, omitting women of distinction and including women of lesser\ndistinction. But still it contains no unknown names, and, though I do\nnot pretend that it compares with a similar list of men, it is an\nindication. I am anxious that the reader should not think that I want to\ncompare Angelica Kauffmann with Leonardo, or Jane Austen with\nShakespeare. In every walk of life since history began there have been a\nscore of men of talent for every woman of talent, and there has never\nbeen a female genius. That should not impress us: genius is an accident;\nit may be a disease. It may be that mankind has produced only two or\nthree geniuses, and that one or two women in days to come may redress\nthe balance, and it may be that several women have been mute inglorious\nMiltons. We do not know. But in the matter of talent, notably in the\narts, I submit that woman can be hopeful, particularly because most of\nthe names I give are those of women of the nineteenth century. The\nnineteenth century was better for woman than the eighteenth, the\neighteenth better than the seventeenth: what could be more significant?\nIn the arts I feel that woman has never had her opportunity. She has\nbeen hailed as an executive artist, actress, singer, pianist; but as a\ncreator, novelist, poet, painter, she has been steadfastly\ndiscounted,--told that what she did was very pretty, until she grew\nunable to do anything but the pretty-pretty. She has grown up in an\natmosphere of patronage and roses, deferential, subservient. She has\npersistently been told that certain subjects were \"not fit for nice\nyoung ladies\"; she has been shut away from the expression of life.\n\nHere is a typical masculine attitude, that of Mr. George Moore, in _A\nModern Lover_. Mr. George Moore, who seems to know a great deal about\nfemales but less about women, causes in this book Harding, the novelist,\nwho generally expresses him, to criticize George Sand, George Eliot, and\nRosa Bonheur: \"If they have created anything new, how is it that their\nart is exactly like our own? I defy any one to say that George Eliot's\nnovels are a woman's writing, or that The Horse Fair was not painted by\na man. I defy you to show me a trace of feminality in anything they ever\ndid; that is the point I raise. I say that women as yet have not been\nable to transfuse into art a trace of their sex; in other words, unable\nto assume a point of view of their own, they have adopted ours.\"\n\nThis is cool! I have read a great deal of Mr. George Moore's art\ncriticism: when it deals with the work of a man he never seeks the\n_masculine_ touch. He judges a man's work as art; he will not judge a\nwoman's work as art. He starts from the assumption that man's art is\nart, while woman's art is--well, woman's art. That is the sort of thing\nwhich has discouraged woman; that is the atmosphere of tolerance and\ngood-conduct prizes which she has breathed, and that is the stifling\nstupidity through which she is breaking. She will break through, for I\nbelieve that she loves the arts better than does man. She is better\nground for the development of a great artist, for she approaches art\nwith sympathy, while the great bulk of men approach it with fear and\ndislike, shrinking from the idea that it may disturb their\nself-complacency. The prejudice goes so far that, while women are\nattracted to artists as lovers, men are generally afraid of women who\npractice the arts, or they dislike them. It is not a question of sex; it\nis a question of art. All that is part of sexual heredity, of which I\nmust say a few words.\n\nBut, before doing so, let me waste a few lines on the male conception of\nlove, which has influenced woman because love is still her chief\nbusiness. To this day, though it dies slowly, the male attitude is still\nthe attitude to a toy. It is the attitude of Nietzsche when saying, \"Man\nis for war, woman for the recreation of the warrior.\" This idea is so\nprevalent that Great Britain, in its alleged struggle against\nNietzschean ideas, is making abundant use of the Nietzschean point of\nview. No wonder, for the idea runs not only through men but through\nEnglishmen: \"woman is the reward of war,\"--that is a prevalent idea,\nnotably among men who make war in the neighborhood of waste-paper\nbaskets. It has been exemplified by the British war propaganda in every\nnewspaper and in every music hall, begging women to refuse to be seen\nwith a man unless he is in khaki. It has had government recognition in\nthe shape of recruiting posters, asking women \"whether their best boy is\nin khaki.\" It has been popularly formulated on picture postcards\ntouchingly inscribed, \"No gun, no girl.\"\n\nAll that--woman as the prize (a theory repudiated in the case of Belgian\natrocities)--is an idea deeply rooted in man. In the eighteen-sixties\nthe customary proposal was, \"Will you be mine?\" Very faintly signs are\nshowing that men will yet say, \"May I be yours?\" It will take time, for\nthe possessive, the dominating instinct in man, is still strong; and\nlong may it live, for that is the vigor of the race. Only we do not want\nthat instinct to carry man away, any more than we want a well-bred horse\nto clench its teeth upon the bit and bolt.\n\nWe want to do everything we can to get rid of what may be called the\ncreed of the man of the world, which is suggested as repulsively as\nanywhere in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's _Departmental Ditties_:\n\n  \"My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er,\n  Yet lip meets with lip at the lastward--get out! She has been there\n    before.\n  They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking\n    in lore.\n\n  \"Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage;\n  But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thornbit of\n    Marriage.\n  Blister we not for _bursati_? So when the heart is vext,\n  The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.\"\n\nThere is a great deal of this sort of thing in Moliere, in Thackeray, in\nCasanova. The old idea of woman eluding and lying; of woman stigmatized\nif she has \"been there before\", while man may brag of having \"been there\nbefore\" as often as possible; of man lovelacing for his credit's sake\nand woman adventuring at her peril.\n\n\n8\n\nI submit that each man and woman has two heredities: one the ordinary\nheredity from two parents and their forbears, the other more complex and\npurely mental--the tradition of sex. Heredity through sex may be defined\nas the resultant of consecutive environments. I mean that a woman, for\ninstance, is considerably influenced by the ideas and attitudes of her\nmother, grandmothers, and all female ascendants. They had a tradition,\nand it is the basis of her outlook. Any boy born in a slum can, as he\ngrows educated, realize that the world lies before him; literature and\nhistory soon show him that many as lowly as he have risen to fame, as\nartists, scientists, statesmen; he may even dream of becoming a king,\nlike Bonaparte. To the boy nothing is impossible; if he is brave, there\nis nothing he may not tear from the world. He knows it, and it\nstrengthens him; it gives him confidence. What his fathers did, he may\ndo; the male sexual heredity is a proud heritage, and only yesterday a\nman said to me, \"Thank God, I am a man.\" Contrast with this the\ncorresponding type of heredity in woman. Woman carries in her the slave\ntradition of her maternal forbears, of people who never did anything\nbecause they were never allowed to; who were told that they could do\nnothing but please, until they at last believed it, until by believing\nthey lost the power of action; who were never taught, and because\nuneducated were ashamed; who were never helped to understand the work of\nthe world, political, financial, scientific, and, therefore, grew to\nbelieve that such realms were not for them. I need not labor the\ncomparison: obviously any woman, inspired by centuries of dependence,\ninstinctively feels that, while everything is open to man, very little\nis open to her. She comes into the arena with a leaden sword; in most\ncases she hardly has energy to struggle.\n\nA little while ago, when Britain was floating a large war loan, one\nwoman told me that she could not understand its terms. We went into them\ntogether, and she found that she understood perfectly. _She was\nsurprised._ She had always assumed that she did not understand finance,\nand the assumption had kept her down, prevented her from understanding\nit. Likewise, and until they try, many women think they cannot read maps\nand time-tables.\n\nWith that heredity environment has coalesced, and I think no one will\ndeny that a continuous suggestion of helplessness and mental inferiority\nmust affect woman. It means most during youth, when one is easily\nsnubbed, when one looks up to one's elders. By the time one has found\nout one's elders, it is generally too late; the imprint is made, and\nwoman, looking upon herself as inferior, hands on to her daughters the\nold slavery that was in her forbears' blood. To me this seems foolish,\nand during the past thirty or forty years a great many have come to\nthink so too; they have shown it by opening wide to woman the doors of\ncolleges, many occupations and professions. Many are to-day impatient\nbecause woman has not done enough, has not justified this new freedom. I\nthink they are unjust; they do not understand that a generation of\ntraining and of relative liberty is not enough to undo evils neolithic\nin origin. All that we are doing to-day by opening gates to women is to\ncounter-influence the old tradition, to implant in the woman of\nto-morrow the new faith that nothing is beyond her powers. It lies with\nthe woman of to-day to make that faith so strong as to move mountains. I\nthink she will succeed, for I doubt whether any mental power is inherent\nin sex. There are differences of degree, differences of quality; but I\nsuspect that they are mainly due to sexual heredity, to environment, to\nsuggestion, and that indeed, if I may trench upon biology, human\ncreatures are never entirely male or entirely female; there are no men,\nthere are no women, but only sexual majorities.\n\nThe evolution of woman toward mental assimilation with man, though\nparticularly swift in the past half-century, has been steady since the\nRenaissance. Roughly, one might say that the woman of the year 1450 had\nno education at all; in this she was more like man than she ever was\nlater, for the knights could not read, and learning existed only among\nthe priests. The time had not yet come for the learned nobleman; Sir\nPhilip Sidney, the Earl of Surrey, the Euphuists, had not yet dispelled\nthe mediaeval fogs, and few among the laymen, save Cheke and Ascham, had\nany learning at all. In those days woman sang songs and brought up\nbabies. Two hundred and fifty years later the well-to-do woman had\nbecome somebody; she could even read, though she mainly read tales such\nas _The Miraculous Love of Prince Alzamore_. She was growing significant\nin the backstairs of politics. Sometimes she took a bath. Round about\n1850 she turned into the \"perfect lady\" who kept an album bound in\nmorocco leather. She wrote verses that embodied yearnings. Often she had\na Turkish parlor, and usually as many babies as she could. But already\nthe Brontes and George Eliot had come to knock at the door; Miss Braddon\nwas promising to be, if not a glory, at least a power, and before twenty\nyears were out, John Stuart Mill was to lead the first suffragettes to\nthe House of Commons.\n\nTo-day it is another picture: woman in every trade except those in which\nshe intends to be; woman demanding and using political power; woman\ngoverning her own property; woman senior to man in the civil service.\nShe has not yet her charter, and still suffers much from the tradition\nof inferiority, from her lack of confidence in herself. But many women\nare all ambition, and within the last year two young women novelists\nhave convinced me that the thing they most desire is to be great in\ntheir art. Whether they will succeed does not matter much; what does\nmatter is that they should harbor such a wish. Whether woman's physical\ndisabilities, her present bias toward unduly moral and inadequately\nintellectual judgments, will forever hamper her, I do not know; but I do\nnot think so. Whether the influence of woman, more inherently lawless,\nmore anarchic than man, will result in the breaking down of conventions\nand the despising of the law, I do not know either. But if the world is\nto be remoulded, I think it much more likely to be remoulded by woman\nthan by man, simply because that as a sex he is in power, and the people\nwho are in power never want to alter anything.\n\nWoman's rebellion is everywhere indicated: her brilliance, her failings,\nher unreasonableness, all these are excellent signs of her revolt. She\nis even revolting against her own beauty; often she neglects her\nclothes, her hair, her complexion, her teeth. This is a pity, but it\nmust not be taken too seriously: men on active service grow beards, and\nwoman in her emancipation campaign is still too busy to think of the art\nof charming. I suspect that as time passes and she suffers less\nintolerably from a sense of injustice, she will revert to the old\ngraces. The art of charming was a response to convention; and of late\nyears unconventionality, a great deal of which is ridiculous, has grown\nmuch more among women than among men. That is not wonderful, for there\nwere so many things woman might not do. Almost any movement would bring\nher up against a barrier; that is why it seems that she does nothing in\nthe world except break barriers. How genuine woman's rebellion is, no man\ncan say. It may be that woman's impulse toward male occupations and\nrights is only a reaction against the growing difficulty of gaining a\nmate, children, and a home. But I very much more believe that woman is\nstraining toward a new order, that the swift evolution of her mind is\nleading her to contest more and more violently the assumption that there\nare ineradicable differences between the male and the female mind. As\nshe grows more capable of grasping at education, she will become more\nworthy of it; her intellect will harden, tend to resemble that of man;\nand so, having escaped from the emptiness of the past into the special\nfields which have been conceded her, she will make for broader fields,\nfields so vast that they will embrace the world.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nFEMINIST INTENTIONS\n\n\n1\n\nThe Feminist propaganda--which should not be confounded with the\nSuffrage agitation--rests upon a revolutionary biological principle.\nSubstantially, the Feminists argue that there are no men and that there\nare no women; there are only sexual majorities. To put the matter less\nobscurely, the Feminists base themselves on Weininger's theory,\naccording to which the male principle may be found in woman, and the\nfemale principle in man. It follows that they recognize no masculine or\nfeminine \"_spheres_\", and that they propose to identify absolutely the\nconditions of the sexes.\n\nNow there are two kinds of people who labor under illusions as regards\nthe Feminist movement, its opponents and its supporters: both sides tend\nto limit the area of its influence; in few cases does either realize\nthe movement as revolutionary. The methods are to have revolutionary\nresults, are destined to be revolutionary; as a convinced but cautious\nFeminist, I do not think it honest or advisable to conceal this fact. I\nhave myself been charged by a very well-known English author (whose name\nI may not give, as the charge was contained in a private letter) with\nhaving \"let the cat out of the bag\" in my little book, _Woman and\nTo-morrow_. Well, I do not think it right that the cat should be kept in\nthe bag. Feminists should not want to triumph by fraud. As promoters of\na sex war, they should not hesitate to declare it, and I have little\nsympathy with the pretenses of those who contend that one may alter\neverything while leaving everything unaltered.\n\nAn essential difference between \"Feminism\" and \"Suffragism\" is that the\nSuffrage is but part of the greater propaganda; while Suffragism desires\nto remove an inequality, Feminism purports to alter radically the mental\nattitudes of men and women. The sexes are to be induced to recognize\neach other's status, and to bring this recognition to such a point that\nequality will not even be challenged. Thus Feminists are interested\nrather in ideas than in facts; if, for instance, they wish to make\naccessible to women the profession of barrister, it is not because they\nwish women to practice as barristers, but because they want men to view\nwithout surprise the fact that women may be barristers. And they have no\nuse for knightliness and chivalry.\n\nTherein lies the mental revolution: while the Suffragists are content to\nattain immediate ends, the Feminists are aiming at ultimate ends. They\ncontend that it is unhealthy for the race that man should not recognize\nwoman as his equal; that this makes him intolerant, brutal, selfish, and\nsentimentally insincere. They believe likewise that the race suffers\nbecause women do not look upon men as their peers; that this makes them\nservile, untruthful, deceitful, narrow, and in every sense inferior.\nMore particularly concerned with women, it is naturally upon them and\ntheir problems that they are bringing their first attention to bear.\n\nThe word \"inferior\" at once arouses comment, for here the Feminist often\ndistinguishes himself from the Suffragist. He frequently accepts woman's\npresent inferiority, but he believes this inferiority to be transient,\nnot permanent. He considers that by removing the handicaps imposed upon\nwomen, they will be able to win an adequate proportion of races. His\ncase against the treatment of women covers every form of human relation:\nthe arts, the home, the trades, and marriage. In every one of these\ndirections he proposes to make revolutionary changes.\n\nThe question of the arts need not long detain us. It is perfectly clear\nthat woman has had in the past neither the necessary artistic training,\nnor the necessary atmosphere of encouragement; that families have been\nreluctant to spend money on their daughter's music, her painting, her\nliterary education, with the lavishness demanded of them by their son's\nprofessional or business career. Feminists believe that when men and\nwomen have been leveled, this state of things will cease to prevail.\n\nIn the trades, English Feminists resent the fact that women are excluded\nfrom the law, generally speaking, the ministry, the higher ranks of\nbusiness and of the Civil Service and so forth, and practically from\nhospital appointments; also that women are paid low wages for work\nsimilar to that of men.\n\nThey complain too that the home demands of woman too great an\nexpenditure of energy, too much time, too much labor; that the\nconcentration of her mind upon the continual purchasing and cooking of\nfood, on cleaning, on the care of the child, is unnecessarily developed;\nthey doubt if the home can be maintained as it is if woman is to develop\nas a free personality.\n\nWith marriage, lastly, they are perhaps most concerned. Though they are\nnot in the main prepared to advocate free union, they are emphatically\narrayed against modern marriage, which they look upon as slave union.\nThe somewhat ridiculous modifications of the marriage service introduced\nby a few couples in America and by one in England, in which the word\n\"obey\" was deleted from the bride's pledge, can be taken as indicative\nof the Feminist attitude. Their grievances against the home, against the\ntreatment of women in the trades, are closely connected with the\nmarriage question, for they believe that the desire of man to have a\nhousekeeper, of woman to have a protector, deeply influence the\ncomplexion of unions which they would base exclusively upon love, and it\nfollows that they do not accept as effective marriage any union where\nthe attitudes of love do not exist. For them who favor absolute\nequality, partnership, sharing of responsibilities and privileges,\nmodern marriage represents a condition of sex-slavery into which woman\nis frequently compelled to enter because she needs to live, and in which\nshe must often remain, however abominable the conditions under which the\nunion is maintained, because man, master of the purse, is master of the\nwoman.\n\nGenerally, then, the Feminists are in opposition to most of the world\ninstitutions. For them the universe is based upon the subjection of\nwoman: subjection by law, and subjection by convention. Before\nconsidering what modifications the Feminists wish to introduce into the\nsocial system, a few words must be said as to this distinction between\nconvention and the law.\n\n\n2\n\nConvention, which is nothing but petrified habit, has lain upon woman\nperhaps more heavily than any law, for the law can be eluded with\ncomparative ease, and she who eludes it may very well become a heroine,\nmerely because we are mostly anarchists and dislike the law. Every man\nis in himself a minority, and is opposed to the law because the law is\nthe expression of the will of the majority, that is to say, the will of\nthe vulgar, of the norm. But convention is far more subtle: it is the\nresult of the _common_ agreement of wills. Therefore, as it is a product\nof unanimity, the penalties which follow on the infractions of its\nbehests are terrible; she who infringes it becomes, not a heroine, but\nan outcast. The law is, then, nothing by the side of etiquette.\n\nHence Feminist propaganda. While the Suffragists wish to alter the law,\nthe Feminists wish to alter also the conventions. It may not be too much\nto say that they would almost be content with existing laws if they\ncould change the point of view of man, make him take for granted that\nwomen may smoke, or ride astride, or fight; cease to be surprised\nbecause Madame Dieulafoy chooses to wear trousers; briefly, renounce the\nsubjective fetich of sex. Still, as they realize that states become more\nsocialistic every day, they realize also that through the law only can\nthey hope to change manners. The mental revolution which they intend to\neffect must therefore be prefaced by a legal revolution.\n\nThe first Feminist intention is economic,--proceeds on two lines:\n\n     1. They intend to open every occupation to women.\n\n     2. They intend to level the wages of women and men.\n\nAs regards the first point, they are not as a rule unreasonable. If they\ndemand that women should practice the law as they do in France, preach\nthe Gospel as they do in the United States of America, bear arms, as in\nDahomey, it is not because they attach any great value to these\noccupations, but because they consider that any limitation put upon\nwoman's activities is intrinsically degrading; so keenly do they feel\nthis, that some serious Feminists took part some years ago in the\ncontroversy on, \"Are there female angels?\"\n\nThe second point is more important. It is a well-established fact that\nwomen are paid less than men for the same work: for instance, in\nEngland, women begin at wages which are less than those of men as\nteachers, post-office and other civil servants. The Feminists are not\nprepared to agree that this condition is due to some inherent\ninferiority of woman: in their view her _inferiority_ is transitory, is\ndue to her _inferior_ position. One Feminist, C. Gascoigne Hartley, in\n_The Truth About Women_, outlines a bold hypothesis: \"What, then, is the\nreal cause of the lowness of remuneration offered to women for work\nwhen compared with men? Thousands of women and girls receive wages that\nare insufficient to support life. They do not die, they live; but how?\nThe answer is plain. Woman possesses a marketable value attached to her\npersonality which man has not got. The woman's sex is a saleable thing.\"\nBriefly, if a woman works less well than a man, less fast, less\ncontinuously, it is because she is inadequately rewarded. They reverse\nthe common position that woman is not well paid because woman is not\ncompetent, basing themselves on the parallel that liberty alone fits men\nfor liberty. They argue that woman is not competent because she is not\nwell paid; consequently, those Feminists who are inclined toward\nRadicalism in politics demand a minimum wage in all trades, which shall\nbe the same for women and men.\n\nThe economic change will be brought about by revolutionary methods, by\nsex strikes and sex wars. The gaining of the vote is, in the Feminist's\nview, nothing but an affair of outposts. Conscious propagandists do not\nintend to allow the female vote to be split as it might recently have\nbeen between Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Taft. They intend to use\nthe vote to make women vote as women, and not as citizens; that is to\nsay, they propose to sell the female vote _en bloc_ to the party that\nbids highest for it in the economic field. To the party that will, as a\npreliminary, pledge itself to level male and female wages in government\nemploy, will be given the Feminist vote; and if no party will bid, then\nit is the Feminist intention to run special candidates for all offices,\nto split the male parties, and to involve them in consecutive disasters\nsuch as the one which befell the Republican party in the last\npresidential election in the United States.\n\nSide by side with this purely political action, Feminists intend to use\nindustrial strikes in exactly the same manner as do the Syndicalist\nrailwaymen, miners, and postmen of Europe; well aware that they have\ncaptured a number of trades, such as millinery, domestic service,\nrestaurant attendance, and so forth, and large portions of other trades,\nsuch as cotton-spinning in Lancashire, they propose to use as a basis\nthe vote and the political education that follows thereon, to induce\nwomen to group themselves in women's trade-unions, by means of which\nthey will hold up trades, and when they are strong enough, hold up\nsociety itself.\n\nI enunciate these views with full sympathy, which can hardly be refused\nwhen one realizes that the sweated trades are almost entirely in the\nhands of women,--laundry, box-making, toys, artificial flowers, and the\nlike. The fact that the underpaid trades are women's trades, and that\nthe British Government has been compelled to institute wage-boards to\nbring up women's pay from four cents an hour to the imposing figure of\nsix cents, and the recent white-slavery investigations in America, are\nevidence enough that public opinion should hesitate before blaming any\nindustrial steps women may choose to take. For it should not be\nforgotten that woman risks more than comfort and health, and that the\nunderpayment of her sex often forces her to degradation.\n\nConscious of the temporary inferiority of woman, an inferiority\ntraceable to centuries of neglect and belittling patronage, the\nFeminists propose to increase woman's power by making her fitter for\npower. They are well aware that the enormous majority of women receive\nbut an inferior education, that in their own homes, especially in the\nSouth of England, they are not encouraged to read the newspaper (which I\nbelieve to be a more powerful instrument of intellectual development\nthan the average serious book), and that any attempt on their part to\nacquire more information, to attend lectures, to join debating clubs,\ntends to lower their \"charm value\" in the eyes of men. That point of\nview they are determined to alter in the male. They propose to kill the\nprejudice by the homoeopathic method: that is to say, to educate woman\nmore because man thinks she is already too educated. Briefly, to kill\npoison by more poison. For this purpose they intend to throw open\neducation of all grades to women as well as to men, to remove such\ndifferences as exist in England, where a woman cannot obtain an Oxford\nor Cambridge degree. They propose to raise the school age of both sexes,\nand to not less than sixteen. The object of this, so far as women are\nconcerned, is to prevent the exploitation of little girls of fourteen,\nnotably as domestic servants.\n\nSome Feminists favor co-education, on the plea that it enables the sexes\nto understand each other, and these build principally on the success of\nAmerican schools. A more violent section, however, desires to place the\neducation of girls entirely in the hands of women, partly because they\nwish to enhance the sex war, and partly because they consider that\ncontinual intercourse between the sexes tends to deprive ultimate love\nof its mystery and its charm. But both sections fully agree that the\nbroadest possible education must be given to every woman, so as to fit\nher for contest with every man.\n\n\n3\n\nSo much, then, for the mental revolution and its eventual effects on the\nposition of women in the arts, the trades, and the schools. In the\nindustrial section, especially, we have already had an indication of the\nmain line of the Feminist attitude, a claim to a right to choose. This\nright is indeed the only one for which the Feminists are struggling, and\nthey struggle for those obscure reasons which lie at the root of our\nwish to live and to perpetuate the race. It is no wonder, then, that the\nFeminists should have designs upon the most fundamental of human\ninstitutions, marriage and motherhood.\n\nIn the main, Feminists are opposed to indissoluble Christian marriage.\nSome satisfaction has been given to them in a great many states by the\nextension of divorce facilities, but they are not content with piecemeal\nreform such as has been carried out in the United States, for they\nrealize quite well that divorce cuts both ways, and that it is not\nsatisfactory for a wife to be married in one state, and divorced under a\nslack law in another. Indeed I believe that one of the first Feminist\ndemands in America would be for a federal marriage law.\n\nBut alterations in the law are minor points by the side of the emotional\nrevolution that is to be engineered. Roughly speaking, we have to-day\nreasonable men and instinctive women. Such notably was Ibsen's view:\n\"Woman cannot escape her primitive emotions.\" But he thought she should\ncontrol these inevitables so far as possible: \"As soon as woman no\nlonger dominates her passions, she fails to achieve her objects.\"[6] The\ndistinction between reason and instinct, however, is not so wide as it\nseems; for reason is merely the conscious use of observation, while\ninstinct is the unconscious use of the same faculty; but as the trend of\nFeminism is to make woman self-conscious and sex-conscious, the\nFeminists can be said broadly to be warring against instinct, and on the\nside of reason. They look upon instinct as indicative of a low\nmentality. For instance, the horse is less instinctive than the zebra,\nand a curious instance of this was yielded by certain horses in the\nSouth African war, which were unable to crop the grass because they had\nalways eaten from mangers. Civilization, we may say, had caused the\nhorses to degenerate, but nobody will contend that the horse is not more\nintelligent than the zebra, more capable of love, even of thought.\nBriefly, the horse approximates more closely to a reasonable being than\ndoes the instinctive wild beast.\n\n[6] _La Femme dans le Theatre d'Ibsen_, by FRIEDERICKE BOETTCHER.--THE\nAUTHOR.\n\nThe Feminists therefore propose, by training woman's reason, to place\nher beyond the scope of mere emotion and mere prejudice, to enable her\nto judge, to select a mate for herself and a father for her children,--a\ndouble and necessary process.\n\nThere is a flavor of eugenics about these ideas: the right to choose\nmeans that women wish to be placed in such a position that, being\neconomically independent to the extent of having equal opportunities,\nthey will not be compelled to sell themselves in marriage as they now\nvery often do. I do not refer to entirely loveless marriages, for these\nare not very common in Anglo-Saxon states, but to marriages dictated by\nthe desire of woman to escape the authority of her parents, and to gain\nthe dignity of a wife, the possession of a home and of money to spend.\nIn the Feminist view, these are bad unions because love does not play\nthe major part in them, and often plays hardly any part at all. The\nFeminists believe that the educated woman, informed on the subject of\nsex-relations, able to earn her own living, to maintain a political\nargument, will not fall an easy prey to the offer held out to her by a\nman who will be her master, because he will have bought her on a truck\nsystem.\n\nUnder Feminist rule, women will be able to select, because they will be\nable to sweep out of their minds the monetary consideration; therefore\nthey will love better, and unless they love, they will not marry at all.\nIt is therefore probable that they will raise the standard of masculine\nattractiveness by demanding physical and mental beauty in those whom\nthey choose; that they will apply personal eugenics. The men whom they\ndo not choose will find themselves in exactly the same position as the\nold maids of modern times: that is to say, these men, if they are unwed,\nwill be unwed because they have chosen to remain so, or because they\nwere not sought in marriage. The eugenic characteristic appears, in that\nwomen will no longer consent to accept as husbands the old, the\nvicious, the unpleasant. They will tend to choose the finest of the\nspecies, and those likely to improve the race. As the Feminist\nrevolution implies a social revolution, notably \"proper work for proper\npay\", it follows that marriage will be easy, and that those women who\nwish to mate will not be compelled to wait indefinitely for the\nconsummation of their loves. Incidentally, also, the Feminists point out\nthat their proposals hold forth to men a far greater chance of happiness\nthan they have had hitherto, for they will be sure that the women who\nselect them do so because they love them, and not because they need to\nbe supported.\n\nThis does not mean that Feminism is entirely a creed of reason; indeed a\nnumber of militant Feminists who collected round the English paper, _The\nFreewoman_, have as an article of their faith that one of the chief\nnatural needs of woman and society is not less passion, but more. If\nthey wish to raise women's wages, to give them security, education,\nopportunity, it is because they want to place them beyond material\ntemptations, to make them independent of a protector, so that nothing\nmay stand in the way of the passionate development of their faculties.\nTo this effect, of course, they propose to introduce profound changes\nin the conception of marriage itself.\n\nWithout committing themselves to free union, the Feminists wish to\nloosen the marriage tie, and they might not be averse to making marriage\nless easy, to raising, for instance, the marriage age for both sexes;\nbut as they are well aware that, in the present state of human passions,\nimpediments to marriage would lead merely to an increase in irregular\nalliances, they lay no stress upon that point. Moreover, as they are not\nprepared to admit that any moral damage ensues when woman contracts more\nthan one alliance in the course of her life,--which view is accepted\nvery largely in the United States, and in all countries with regard to\nwidows,--they incline rather to repair the effects of bad marriages,\nthan to prevent their occurrence.\n\nPlainly speaking, the Feminists desire simpler divorce. They are to a\ncertain extent ready to surround divorce with safeguards, so as to\nprevent the young from rushing into matrimony; indeed they might \"steep\nup\" the law of the \"Divorce States.\" On the other hand, they would\nintroduce new causes for divorce where they do not already exist, and\nthey would make them the same for women and men. For instance, in Great\nBritain a divorce can be granted to a man on account of the infidelity\nof his wife, while it can be granted to a woman only if to infidelity\nthe husband adds cruelty or desertion. Such a difference the Feminists\nwould sweep away, and they would probably add to the existing causes\ncertain others, such as infectious and incurable diseases, chronic\ndrunkenness, insanity, habitual cruelty, and lengthy desertion. It\nshould be observed that the campaign is thus as favorable to men as it\nis to women, for many men who have now no relief would gain it under the\nnew laws. As Feminism is international, the programme of course includes\nthe introduction of divorce where it does not exist,--in Austria, Spain,\nSouth American states, and so forth.\n\nWhat exact form the new divorce laws would take, I cannot at present\nsay, for Feminism is as evolutionary as it is revolutionary, and\nFeminists are prepared to accept transitory measures of reform. Thus, in\nthe existing circumstances, they would accept a partial extension of\ndivorce facilities, subject to an adequate provision for all children.\nIn the ultimate condition, to which I refer later on, this might not be\nnecessary, but as a temporary expedient, Feminists desire to protect\nwoman while she is developing from the chattel condition to the\nfree-woman condition. Until she is fit for her new liberty, it is\nnecessary that she should be enabled to use this liberty without paying\ntoo heavy a price therefor. Indeed this clash between the transitory and\nthe ultimate is one of the difficulties of Feminism. The rebels must\naccept situations such as the financial responsibility of man, while\nthey struggle to make woman financially independent of man, and it is\nfor this reason that different proposals appear in the works of Ellen\nKey, Rosa Mayreder, Charlotte Gilman, Olive Schreiner, and others, but\nthese divergences need not trouble us, for Feminism is an inspiration\nrather than a gospel, and if it lays down a programme, it is a temporary\nprogramme.\n\nPersonally, I am inclined to believe that the ultimate aim of Feminism\nwith regard to marriage is the practical suppression of marriage and the\ninstitution of free alliance. It may be that thus only can woman develop\nher own personality, but society itself must so greatly alter, do so\nvery much more than equalize wages and provide work for all, that these\nultimate ends seem very distant. They lie beyond the decease of\nCapitalism itself, for they imply a change in the nature of the human\nbeing which is not impossible when we consider that man has changed a\ngreat deal since the Stone Age, but is still inconceivably radical.\n\nUltimate ends of Feminism will be attained only when socialization shall\nhave been so complete that the human being will no longer require the\nlaw, but will be able to obey some obscure but noble categorical\nimperative; when men and women can associate voluntarily, without thrall\nof the State, for the production and enjoyment of the goods of life. How\nthis will be achieved, by what propaganda, by what struggles and by what\nbattles, is difficult to say; but in common with many Feminists I\nincline to place a good deal of reliance on the ennobling of the nature\nof the male. That there is a sex war, and will be a sex war, I do not\ndeny, but the entry of women into the modern world of art and business\nshows that an immense enlightenment has come over the male, that he no\nlonger wishes to crush as much as he did, and therefore that he is\nloving better and more sanely. Therein lies a profound lesson: if men do\nnot make war upon women, women will not make war upon men. I have spoken\nof sex war, but it takes two sides to make a war, and I do not see that\nin the event of conflict the Feminists can _alone_ be guilty.\n\nOne feature manifests itself, and that is a change of attitude in woman\nwith regard to the child. Indications in modern novels and modern\nconversation are not wanting to show that a type of woman is arising who\nbelieves in a new kind of matriarchate, that is to say, in a state of\nsociety where man will not figure in the life of woman except as the\nfather of her child. Two cases have come to my knowledge where English\nwomen have been prepared to contract alliances with men with whom they\ndid not intend to pass their lives,--this because they desired a child.\nThey consider that the child is the expression of the feminine\npersonality, while after the child's birth, the husband becomes a mere\nexcrescence. They believe that the \"Wife\" should die in childbirth, and\nthe \"Mother\" rise from her ashes. There is nothing utopian about this\npoint of view, if we agree that Feminists can so rearrange society as to\nprovide every woman with an independent living; and I do not say that\nthis is the prevalent view. It is merely one view, and I do not believe\nit will be carried to the extreme, for the association of human beings\nin couples appears to respond to some deep need; still, it should be\ntaken into account as an indication of sex revolt.\n\nThat part of the programme belongs to the ultimates. Among the\ntransitory ideas, that is, the ideas which are to fit Feminism into the\nmodern State, are the endowment of motherhood and the lien on wages. The\nFeminists do not commit themselves to a view on the broad social\nquestion whether it is desirable to encourage or discourage births.\nTaking births as they happen, they lay down that a woman being\nincapacitated from work for a period of weeks or months while she is\ngiving birth to a child, her liberty can be secured only if the fact of\nthe birth gives her a call upon the State. Failing this, she must have a\nmale protector in whose favor she must abdicate her rights because he is\nher protector. As man is not handicapped in his work by becoming a\nfather, they propose to remove the disability that lies upon woman by\nsupplying her with the means of livelihood for a period surrounding the\nbirth, of not less than six weeks, which some place at three months.\nThere is nothing wild in this scheme, for the British Insurance Act\n(1912) gives a maternity endowment of seven dollars and fifty cents\nwhether a mother be married or single. The justice of the proposal may\nbe doubted by some, but I do not think its expediency will be\nquestioned. On mere grounds of humanity, it is barbarous to compel a\nwoman to labor while she is with child; on social grounds it is not\nadvantageous for the race to allow her to do so: premature births,\nchild-murder, child-neglect by working mothers, all these facts point to\nthe social value of the endowment.\n\n\n4\n\nThe last of the transitory measures is the lien on wages. In the present\nstate of things, women who work in the home depend for money on husbands\nor fathers. The fact of having to ask is, in the Feminists' view, a\ndegradation. They suggest that the housekeeper should be entitled to a\nproportion of the man's income or salary, and one of them, Mrs. M. H.\nWood, picturesquely illustrates her case by saying that she hopes to do\naway with \"pocket-searching\" while the man is asleep. Mrs. Wood's ideas\ncertainly deserve sympathy; though many men pay their wives a great deal\nmore than they are worth and are shamefully exploited--a common modern\nposition--it is also quite true that many others expect their wives to\nrun their household on inadequate allowances, and to come to them for\nclothes or pleasure in a manner which establishes the man as a pasha.\nWhen women have grown economically independent, no lien on wages will be\nrequired, but meanwhile it is interesting to observe that there has\nrecently been formed in England a society called \"The Home-makers' Trade\nUnion\", one of whose specific objects is, \"To insist as a right on a\nproper proportion of men's earnings being paid to wives for the support\nof the home.\"\n\nGenerally speaking, then, it is clear that women are greatly concerned\nwith the race, for all these demands--support of the mother, support of\nthe child, rights of the household--are definitely directed toward the\nbenevolent control by the woman of her home and her child. I have\nalluded above to these Feminist intentions: they affect the immediate\nconditions as well as the ultimate.\n\nAmong the ultimates is a logical consequence of the right of woman to be\nrepresented by women. So long as Parliamentary Government endures, or\nany form of authority endures, the Feminists will demand a share in this\nauthority. It has been the custom during the Suffrage campaign to\npretend that women demand merely the vote. The object of this is to\navoid frightening the men, and it may well be that a number of\nSuffragists honestly believe that they are asking for no more than the\nvote, while a few, who confess that they want more, add that it is not\nadvisable to say so; they are afraid to \"let the cat out of the bag\",\nbut they will not rest until all Parliaments, all Cabinets, all Boards\nare open to women, until the Presidential chair is as accessible to them\nas is the English throne. Already in Norway women have entered the\nNational Assembly: they propose to do so everywhere. They will not\nhesitate to claim women's votes for women candidates until they have\nsecured the representation which they think is their right, that is, one\nhalf.\n\nThese are the bases, roughly outlined, on which can be established a\nlasting peace.\n\nI do not want to exaggerate the difficulties and perils which are bound\nup in this revolutionary movement, but it is abundantly clear that it\npresupposes profound changes in the nature of women and of men. While\nman will be asked for more liberalism and be expected to develop his\nsense of justice (which has too long lain at the mercy of his erratic\nand sentimental generosity), woman will have to modify her outlook. She\nis now too often vain, untruthful, disloyal, avaricious, vampiric;\nbriefly she has the characteristics of the slave. She will have to\nslough off these characteristics while she is becoming free, she will\nhave to justify by her mental ascent the increase in her power.\nFeminists are not blind to this, and that is why they lay such stress\nupon education and propaganda.\n\nOne of the most profound changes will, I think, appear in sex relations.\nThe \"New Woman\", as we know her to-day, a woman who is not so new as the\nwoman who will be born of her, is a very unpleasant product; armed with\na little knowledge, she tends to be dogmatic in her views and offensive\nin argument. She tends to hate men, and to look upon Feminism as a\nrevenge; she adopts mannish ways, tends to shout, to contradict, to\nflout principles because they are principles; also she affects a\ncontempt for marriage which is the natural result of her hatred of man.\nThe New Woman has not the support of the saner Feminists. Says Ellen\nKey, in _The Woman Movement_, \"These cerebral, amaternal women must\nobviously be accorded the freedom of finding the domestic life, with its\nlimited but intensive exercise of power, meagre beside the feeling of\npower which they enjoy as public personalities, as consummate women of\nthe world, as talented professionals. But they have not the right to\n_falsify life values_ in their own favor so that they themselves shall\nrepresent the highest form of life, the 'human personality', in\ncomparison with which the 'instinctive feminine' signifies a lower stage\nof development, a poorer type of life.\" If this were the ultimate type,\nvery few men would be found in the Feminist camp, for the coming of the\nNew Woman would mean the death of love. If the death of love had to be\nthe price of woman's emancipation, I, for one, would support the\ninstitution of the zenana and the repression of woman by brute force;\nbut I do not think we need be anxious.\n\nIf the New Woman is so aggressive, it is because she must be aggressive\nif she is to win her battle. We cannot expect people who are laboring\nunder a sense of intolerable injury to set politely about the righting\nof that injury: when woman has entered her kingdom she will no longer\nhave to resort to political nagging; her true nature will affirm itself\nfor the first time, for it is difficult to believe that it has been able\nto affirm itself under the entirely artificial conditions of androcracy.\nAlready some women to whom a profession or mental eminence has given\nexceptional freedom show us in society that women can be free and yet\nbe sweet. Indeed they almost demonstrate the Feminist contention that\nwomen must be free before they are sweet, for are not these women--of\nwhom all of us can name a few--the noblest and most desirable of their\nkind? The New Woman is like a freshly painted railing: whoever touches\nit will stain his hands, but the railing will dry in time.\n\nThere is one type of woman, however, whom I venture to call \"Old Woman\",\nwho is probably a bitterer foe of Feminism than any man, and that is the\nsuper-feminine type, the woman for whom nothing exists except her sex,\nwho has no interests except the decking of her body and the quest of\nmen. This woman, who once dominated her own species, still represents\nthe majority of her sex. It is still true that the majority of women are\nconcerned with little save the fashions, novels, plays, and vaudeville\nturns. These women want to have \"a good time\" and want nothing more;\nthey are ready to prey upon men by flattering them; they encourage their\nown weakness, which they call \"charm\", and generally aim at being\npampered slaves, because, from their point of view, it pays better than\nbeing working partners. Evidence of this is to be found in women's\nshops, in the continual change in fashions, each of which is a signal to\nthe male, and in the continual increase in the sums spent on adornment:\nit is not uncommon for a rich woman to spend five hundred dollars on a\nfrock; two hundred and fifty dollars has been given for a hat; and\ntwenty-five thousand dollars for a set of furs.\n\nAs Miss Beatrice Tina very well says, \"Woman is woman's worst enemy\",\nthough she is not referring to this type. So long as woman maintains\nthis attitude, compels men to forget her soul in the contemplation of\nher body, so long will she remain a slave, for this preoccupation goes\nfurther than clothes.\n\nIn a book recently published,[7] an account is given of the late Empress\nof Austria, who was evidently one of the lowest of the slave type. It is\nnoteworthy that she had no love for her children because their coming\nhad impaired her beauty. Now I do not suggest that Feminists are arrayed\nagainst the care of the body; far from it, for the campaign has many\nassociates among those who support physical culture, the fresh-air\nmovement, ancient costume revival, and the like; but Feminists are well\naware that concentration on adornment diverts woman from the development\nof her brain and her soul, and enhances in her the characteristics of\nthe harem favorite. One tentative suggestion is being made, and that is\na uniform for women. The interested parties point out that men\npractically wear uniform, that there is hardly any change from year to\nyear in their costume, and that any undue adornment of the male is\nlooked upon as bad form. Thus, while few men can with impunity spend\nmore than five hundred dollars a year on their clothes, many women do\nnot consider themselves happy unless they can dispose of anything\nbetween five and twenty times that amount. This, while involving the\nhousehold in difficulties, lowers the status of woman by lowering her\nmentality.\n\n[7] _My Past_, by COUNTESS MARIE LARISCH.\n\nFeminists do not ask for sumptuary laws, having very little respect for\nthe law, but for a new vision, which is this: Man, intellectually\ndeveloped, decks himself in no finery, because it is not essential to\nhis success; woman must likewise abandon frippery if she is to have\nenergy enough to reach his plane. They propose to attain their object by\nthe force of their example, and I have received several letters on the\nsubject, which show that the idea of fixing the fashions is not\nentirely wild, for fashion consists after all in wearing what everybody\nwears, and if an influential movement is started to maintain the costume\nof women on a very simple basis, it may very well prevail and kill much\nof their purely imitative vanity by showing them that undue devotion to\nself-adornment is very much worse than immoral: in other words, that it\nis in bad taste.\n\nIncidentally the Feminists believe that the downfall of many women is\nprocured by the offer of fine clothes. They hope, therefore, to derive\nsome side-profits from the simplification of woman's dress.\n\nThe question also arises as to whether woman can become intellectually\nindependent, whether she does not naturally depend upon the opinion of\nman. It is suggested that not even rich women are actually independent,\nthat women place marriage above their art, their work; but I do not\nthink this is a very solid objection, for the vaunted independence of\nmen is not so very common; they currently take many of their opinions\nfrom their reading in newspapers and books, and must often subordinate\ntheir views and their conduct to the will of their employer. The main\nanswer to this suggestion is that we must not consider woman as she\nwas, but woman \"as she is becoming\", as a creature of infinite\npotentialities, as virgin ground.\n\nIt may be _petitio principii_ to say that, as woman has produced so much\nthat is fine, she would have produced very much more if she had not been\nhampered by law and custom, derided by the male, but bad logic is often\ngood sense. This should commend itself to men who are no longer willing\nto support the idea that women are inherently inferior to them, but who\nare willing to give them an opportunity to develop in every field of\nhuman activity. Thus and thus only, if man will readjust his views,\nexpel _vir_ and enthrone _homo_, can woman cease to appear before him as\na rival and a foe, realize herself in her natural and predestined role,\nthat of partner and mate.[8]\n\n[8] Note: This chapter should be taken as the summary of an intellectual\nposition. Its points are considered in detail in the four chapters that\nfollow.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nUNIFORMS FOR WOMEN\n\n\n1\n\nThe change which has come over politics reflects closely enough the\nchange which has come about in the direction of man's desire. In times\nof peace, diplomacy and the affairs of kings have given place to wages\nand the housing of the poor; that which was serious has become pompous;\nthat which was of no account now stands in the foreground. And so it\nis not absurd to suggest that one of those things which once made jests\nfor the comic paper and the Victorian paterfamilias has, little by\nlittle, with the spread of wealth, become a problem of the day, a\nproblem profound and menacing, full of intimations of social decay, not\nfar remote in its reactions from the spread of a disease.\n\nThat problem is the problem of women's dress, or rather it is the\nproblem of the fashions in women's dress. Women have never been content\nmerely to clothe themselves, nor, for the matter of that, until very\nrecently, have men; but men have grown a new sanity, while women, if we\nread aright the signs of the times, have grown naught save a new\ninsanity. We have come to a point where, for a great number of women,\nthe fashions have become the motive power of life, and where, for almost\nevery woman, they have acquired great importance. Women classify each\nother according to their clothes; they have corrupted the drama into a\nshowroom; they have completely ruined the more expensive parts of the\nopera house; they have invaded the newspapers in myriad paragraphs, in\nfashion-pages, and do not spare even the august columns of the most\ndignified papers. This preoccupation does not exist among men. We have\nhad our dandies and we still have our \"nuts\" and dudes; but it never\nserved a man very well to be a dandy or a beau, and most of us to-day\nsuspect that if the \"nut\" were broken, he would be found to contain no\nkernel.\n\nMen have escaped the fashions and therewith they have spared themselves\nmuch loss of energy and money. For it is not only the fashions that\nmatter: it is the cost of women's clothes, the intrinsic cost; it is\ntheir continual changes for no reason, changes which sometimes produce,\nand sometimes destroy, beauty; sometimes promote comfort, and often\ncause torture. But always by their drafts upon its wealth, women lead\nhumanity nearer to poverty, envy, discontent, frivolity, starvation,\nprostitution,--to general social degradation. Nothing can mitigate these\nevils until woman is induced to view clothing as does the modern man,\nuntil, namely, she decides to wear a uniform.\n\n\n2\n\nThe costliness of women's clothes would not be so serious if the\nfashions did not change at so bewildering a speed. We have come to a\npoint where women have not time to wear out their clothes, flimsy though\nthey be; where we ought to welcome the adulteration of silk and wool;\nwhere we ought to hope that every material may get shoddier and more\nworthless, so that the new model may have a chance to justify its short\nlife by the badness of the stuff. To-day women will quite openly say, \"I\nwon't buy that. I couldn't wear it out.\" They actually _want_ to wear\nout their clothes! The causes of this are obvious enough. We are told\nthat there are \"rings\" in Paris, London, and Vienna which decree every\nfew months that the clothes of yesterday have become a social stigma;\nthis is true, but much truer is the view that women are in the grasp of\na new hysteria; that, lacking the old occupations of brewing, baking,\nchild-rearing, spinning, they are desperately looking for something to\ndo. They have found it: they are undoing the social system.\n\nIt was not always so. It is true that all through history, even in\nbiblical times, moralists and preachers inveighed against the gewgaws\nthat woman loves. They cried out before they were hurt; if he were alive\nto-day, Bossuet might, for the first time, fail to find words.\n\nTo the old curse of cost we have added change, as any student of costume\nwill confirm; for in past ages the clothing of women did not change very\nrapidly. There is hardly any difference between the costume of 1755 and\nthat which Queen Marie Leszczynska wore ten years later; in Greece,\nbetween B.C. 500 and 400, the Ionic _chiton_ and _himation_ varied but\nlittle; the Doric _chiton_ did not vary at all; the variations in the\nover-mantle were not considerable. Any examination of early sculpture,\nof Attic vases, or of terra cottas, will show that this is true. The\nladies of Queen Elizabeth's court, together with their royal mistress,\nwore the same kind of clothes through their adult years. Their clothes\nwere sometimes costly, but when bought they were bought, and until worn\nout were not discarded. And our grandmothers had that famous\nblack-silk dress, so sturdy that it stood up by itself, very like a\nVictorian virtue; it lasted a lifetime, sometimes became an heirloom.\n\nThere was no question then of fashion following on fashion at a whirling\npace. Women were clothed, sometimes beautifully, sometimes hideously,\nbut at any rate they scrapped their gowns only when they were worn out;\nnow they scrap them as soon as they have been worn. The results of this\nI deal with further on, but here already I can suggest these results by\nquoting a few facts. Before me lies one of Messrs. Barker's\nadvertisements; it seems that there are reception gowns, restaurant\ngowns; that there are coats for the races, and coats for the car, wraps\nfor one thing, and wraps for another--and the advertisement adds that\nthese are the \"latest novelties\" for \"the coming season\", and that all\nthis is \"for the spring.\" And then there is an advertisement of Messrs.\nTudor Brothers, who have gowns for Ascot, and--this is quite true--gowns\nfor Alexandra Day.\n\nI have looked in vain for gowns for July 23, for gowns to be worn\nbetween a quarter past eleven and half-past twelve in the morning, and\nfor special mourning gowns for a cousin's stepfather. Some occasions are\nshamefully disregarded. They are not disregarded by everybody; at least\nI presume that the lady quoted by Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson in her lecture\nin March, who possessed one hundred and ten nightdresses, could cope\nwith any eventuality; there is also the lady, mentioned to me by a\nfriend who made some American investigations for me, who possesses one\nhundred and fifty pairs of slippers. There is, too, the _Bon Marche_ in\nParis, where, out of a staff of six thousand to seven thousand, are\nemployed fifteen hundred dressmakers, and where there is a special\nworkroom for the creation of models.\n\nAs all these people must find something to do, they create, unless they\nmerely steal from the dead; but one thing they always do, and that is\ndestroy yesterday. Out of their activities comes a continual stream of\nnew colors and new combinations of colors, of high heels and low heels,\ngilt heels and jeweled heels; they give us the spat that is to keep out\nthe wet and then the spat that does not keep out the eye. Before me lies\na picture of a spat made of lace; another of a skirt slit so high as to\nreveal a jeweled garter. That is creation, and I suppose I shall be told\nthat that is art. It is art sometimes, and very beautiful, but beauty\ndoes not make it live; in fact beauty causes the creation to die more\nswiftly, because the more appealing it is, the more it is worn: as soon\nas it is worn by the many, the furious craving for distinction sweeps\ndown upon it and slays it. There are several mad women in the St. Anne\nasylum in Paris whose peculiar disease is that they cannot retain the\nsame idea for more than a few seconds; they ring the changes on a few\nhundreds of ideas. Properly governed, their inspirations might be\nvaluable in Grafton Street.\n\nI do not think the end is near; indeed, fashions will be more extreme\nto-morrow than they are to-day. The continual growth of wealth, and the\ndifficulty of spending it when it clots in a few hands, will make for a\ngreater desire to spend more, more quickly, more continually, and in\nwilder and wilder forms. The women are to-day having individual orgies;\nto-morrow will come the saturnalia.\n\n\n3\n\nThere is a clear difference between the cost of women's clothes and of\nmen's. It is absolutely impossible to dress a woman of the comfortable\nclasses for the same amount per annum that will serve her husband well.\nI must quote a few figures taken from Boston, New York, and London.\n\n     _Boston._--Persons considered: those having $4500 to $7500 a year.\n\n     Average price of a suit (coat and skirt), $40 ready to wear; made\n     by a dressmaker of slight pretensions, $125 to $225.\n\n     Afternoon dresses, ready to wear, $125 to $225.\n\n     Evening dresses, absolute minimum, $50; fashionable frocks, $200 to\n     $350.\n\n     On an income of $7500 a woman's hat will cost $25; variation, $20\n     to $45; hats easily attain $125.\n\n     Veils attain $5. Opera cloaks in stores, $90 to $250. Dressmakers\n     charge $450 to $600.\n\n     _New York._--Winter street dress, $225.\n\n     Skunk muff and stole, $200.\n\n     Hats for the year, at least $250 to $300.\n\n     Footwear, $250 per annum.\n\nI am informed that a lady in active society can \"manage with care\" on\n$2500, but really needs $4500 to $5000.\n\nA \"moderate\" wardrobe allows for \"extremely simple\" gowns costing $125\neach; the lady in question requires at least six new evening dresses and\nsix remodeled, per annum. She wore an average set of furs, price $1500.\n\n_London._--Debenham & Freebody blouse, $10.\n\nPonting's Leghorn hat, $8. Gorringe straws, $12 to $14.\n\nI am informed that where the household income is $3500 to $7500 a year\nthe ordinary prices are as follows:\n\n     Coats and skirts, $50 to $75.\n\n     Evening dresses, $75 to $120.\n\n     Hats, $7.50 to $20.\n\n     Silk stockings are cheap at $1.50, and veils at $1.50.\n\nNow these are all moderate figures and will shock nobody, but if they\nare compared with the prices paid by men, they are, without any question\nof fashion, outrageous. I believe they are high because it is men and\nnot women who pay, because the dressmaker trades on man's\nsex-enslavement. But I am concerned just now less with causes than\nwith facts, and would rather ask how the modest $100 evening gown\ncompares with the man's $63 dress suit (by a good tailor). How does the\n$63 coat and skirt compare with a man's lounge suit, price $36 by\nanybody save Poole, and by him only $52.50? No man has, I believe, paid\nmore than $9 for a silk hat, while his wife pays at least $20. The point\nis not worth laboring, it is obvious; while every man knows that a \"good\ncut\" does not account for the discrepancy, as he too pays, but pays\nmoderately, for the art of a good tailor. And, mark you, apart from\ncost, men's clothes last indefinitely, while women's, if they have the\nmisfortune to last, must be given away.\n\nThe prices I have quoted are moderate prices, and I cannot resist the\ntemptation to give some others which are not unusual. I am informed that\n$400 can easily be charged for an afternoon dress, $1000 for an evening\ndress, $200 for a coat and skirt; that it is quite easy to spend $5000 a\nyear on underclothes and $250 on an aigrette. I observe a Maison Lewis\nAscot hat, price $477. Yantorny will not make a shoe under $60; a pair\nof his shoes made of feathers is priced by him at $2400.\n\nAs for totals: I have private information of an expenditure of $30,000 a\nyear on dress; one of $70,000 is reported to me from America. I have\nseen a bill for dress and lingerie alone, incurred at one shop, for\n$35,000 in twelve months.\n\n\n4\n\nIt might be thought that this ghastly picture speaks for itself, but\nevidently it does not, as hardly anybody takes any notice of the\nquestion. I will venture to draw attention to the results of what is\nhappening, ignoring the abnormal figures, because I wish to reason from\nwhat happens all the time rather than from what happens now and then, to\nfigure the position in which the world finds itself because women do not\nhesitate to spend upon their clothes a full ten per cent of the\nhousehold income. This figure is correct: such inquiries as I have been\nable to make among women of my acquaintance prove it. Out of a joint\nincome of $12,500 a year one woman spends $1350 a year on clothes;\nanother, out of $5750 a year, last year $655; a third, out of $8000 a\nyear $700, but she is a \"dowdy.\"\n\nIn households of moderate means, where a certain social status is kept\nup, where, for instance, a woman takes $500 a year out of $5000, while\nher husband dresses well on $200, when all expenses have been paid,\nthere is money for little else; fixed charges, children, service, taxes,\nswallow up the rest. There is hardly anything left for books, barely for\na circulating library; there is very little for the theater and for\ngames; holidays are taken in hideous lodgings at the seaside because a\ncomfortable bungalow costs too much. The money that should have provided\nthe most important thing in human life, namely pleasure, is on the\nwoman's back.\n\nIn the lower classes the case is, in a way, still worse. I do not mean\nworkmen's wives, for any old rag will serve the slaves,--but their\ndaughters! Recently a coroner's inquest in Soho showed that a girl had\npractically starved herself to death to buy fine clothes, and it is not\nan isolated case. For the last eight years I have been investigating the\ncondition of workwomen, and, so far as typists, manicurists, and\ntea-shop girls are concerned, I assert that their main object in leaving\nthe homes where they are kept is to have money for smart clothes; they\nflood the labor market at blackleg prices, to buy finery and for no\nother reason. They go further: while making the necessary inquiries for\nmy novel, _A Bed of Roses_, I scheduled the cases of about forty London\nprostitutes. In about twenty-five per cent of the cases the original\ncause, direct or contributory, was a desire for luxury which took the\nform of fine clothes. Now these women tell one what they think one would\nlike to hear, and, where they scent sympathy, as much as possible\nattribute their fall to man's deceit. But acumen develops in the\ninvestigator; the figure of twenty-five per cent is correct or may even\nbe an underestimate.\n\nThe conclusion is that from fifteen thousand to twenty-five thousand\nwomen now on the streets of London have been brought there by a desire\nfor self-adornment. Meanwhile there is no labor available for the poor\nconsumer, because the energy of the dressmaker is diverted toward the\nrich; while Miss So-and-So is paid $4000 a year to design hats, the\nworkwoman wears a man's cap rescued from the refuse heap.\n\nI shall be told that the rich are not responsible for the luxurious\ndesires of the poor; but that is evidently nonsense: the rich themselves\nare not innocent of prostitution. I have had reported the case of a\nwell-paid Russian dancer whose dress bills are paid by two financiers;\nthat of a French actress who calmly states that she needs three lovers,\none for her hats, one for her lingerie, and one for her gowns; and a\nclose inquiry into the \"bridge losses\" which occasionally provoke the\nfall of rich men's daughters will show that these are dressmakers'\nbills. All this is not without its effect upon the poor. The girl of the\nlower classes, hypnotized by fashion plates, compelled to witness at the\ndoors of fashionable churches, in the street, at the music halls, and\neven at the picture palaces, the continuous streaming past of the\nfashion pageant, develops an intolerable desire for finery. You may say\nthat she is wrong, that she should practice self-denial, but this is not\nan age of self-denial; luxury is in the air, we despair of happiness and\ntake to pleasure, we feel the future life too far ahead, we want to\nenjoy. It is natural enough, especially for girls who are young and who\nfeel unfairly outclassed by richer women who are neither as young nor as\nbeautiful; but still it is base. If baseness is to go, the lesson must\ncome from the top; if there is to be self-denial, then _que messieurs\nles assassins commencent!_ Until the rich woman realizes that her\nexample is her responsibility it will be fair to say that the Albemarle\nStreet $500 gown has its consequence in a prostitute on the Tottenham\nCourt Road.\n\nThe rich woman herself does not escape scot free. It is obvious that the\nwoman chiefly occupied with thoughts of dress develops a peculiar kind\nof frivolity, that she becomes unfit to think of art, the public\ninterest, perhaps of love. She is the worst social product, a parasite,\nand she is not even always beautiful. Sometimes she is insane: the\ninvestigations of Doctor Bernard Holz and of Doctor Rudolf Foerster\nconnect the mania for fashion with paranoia, and have elicited\nextraordinary facts, such as the collection of clothes by insane women,\nand such as cases of pyromania which coincided with a craze for dress.\n\nIt is, indeed, quite possible that some women might go mad if they\npermanently felt themselves less well-dressed than their fellows; and\nthat is the crux of the fashion idea. Woman does not desire to be\nbeautifully dressed: she desires to be more beautifully dressed than her\nfellows. She wishes to insult and humiliate her sisters, and, as modern\nclothes are costly, she does not hesitate to give full play to human\ncruelty, to use all the resources of the rich husband on whom she preys\nto satisfy her pride and to apply her arrogant ingenuity to the torture\nof her sisters. And I said, \"She wants to be more beautiful.\" Is that\nquite right? Partly, though what woman mainly seeks is not to be\nbeautiful but to be fashionable; the words have become synonymous. Yet\nthe fashions are not always beautiful; sometimes they are hideous, break\nevery line of the body, make it awkward, hamper its movements. If women\ntruly wanted to be beautiful they would not follow the fashions: our\nlittle dark, sloe-eyed women would dress rather like the Japanese, and\nour big, ox-eyed beauties would appear as Greeks; but no, Juno, Carmen,\nand Dante's Beatrice, all together and all in turn, don first the\ncrinoline and then the hobble skirt.\n\nNor do they want to attract men. They think they do but they do not, for\nthey know perfectly well that few men realize what they wear, that all\nthey observe is \"something blue\" or an effect they call \"very doggy\";\nthey know also that men do not wed the dangerous smart, but the modest;\nthat men fear the implication that smart women are unvirtuous, and that\nthey certainly fear their dressmakers' bills. Nor is it even true that\nwomen want many new clothes so as to be clean: if that were true, men in\ntheir well-worn suits could not be touched with a pitchfork. The truth\nis that changes in fashion are a habit and a hysteria, an advertisement,\nan insult offered by wealth to poverty, a degradation of women's\nqualities which carries its own penalty in the form of growing mental\nbaseness.\n\n\n5\n\nWell, what shall we do? Women must wear a uniform. Strictly, they\nalready do wear a uniform, for what is a fashion but a uniform? Some\nyears ago when musquash coats (and cheaper velveteen) were \"in\", and\nhats were very small, there were in London scores of thousands of young\nwomen so exactly alike that considerable confusion was caused at tube\nstations and such other places where lovers meet; this simplifies the\nproblem of choosing the new uniform. Let it not be thought that I wish\nwomen to dress in sackcloth, though they will certainly dress in\nsackcloth if ever sackcloth comes in; I do not care what they wear,\nprovided they do not continually alter its form, and provided it is not\ntoo dear. The way in which old and young, tall and short, fat and thin,\nforce themselves into the same color and the same shape is sheer\nsocialism; I merely want to carry the uniform idea a little further, to\nmake it a _permanent_ uniform.\n\nWe already have uniforms for women, apart from the fashions, uniforms\nwhich never change: those of the nurse, the nun, the parlor-maid, the\ntea-girl. We have national costumes, Dutch, Swiss, Irish, Japanese,\nItalian; we have drill suits and sports dresses. And they are not ugly.\nAll these uniformed women have as good a chance of marriage as any\nothers, and her ladyship gains as many proposals on the golf links as at\nnight on the terrace. I would suggest that women should have two or\nthree uniforms of a kind to be decided, which would never change, and, I\nrepeat, they need not be ugly uniforms.\n\nMen's uniforms are not ugly; I would any day exchange my lounge suit for\nthe uniform of a guardsman--if I might wear it. In this \"if\" is the\nessence of the whole idea, the whole practicability of it. Men wear\nuniform, that is to say lounge suits in certain circumstances, morning\ncoats in others, evening clothes in yet others. They never vary. We are\ntold that they vary. Tailors show new suitings, the papers print\narticles about men's fashions, and perhaps a button is added or a lapel\nis lengthened, and that is all. Nobody cares. Men follow no fashions so\nfar as the fable of men's fashions is true; they dare not do so, because\nto do so serves them ill in society. A man who dares to break through\nthe uniform idea of his sex is generally dubbed a \"bounder\"; if he is\none of the very young, fancy-socked, extreme-collared kind, people smile\nand say, \"It'll wear off with time.\" And women, who tolerate the dandies\nat tea-time, love the others.\n\nThe uniform would have to be brought in by a group of leaders of fashion\ndetermined to abolish fashion. I could sketch a dozen uniforms, but\nwomen would make a great to-do, forgetting that most fashions are\ncreated by men, so I will confine myself to timid suggestions.\n\n1. For general outdoor wear the coat and skirt is the best, together\nwith a blouse. Lace and insertion should be abandoned, and I feel that\nthe skirt is too long for walking; sometimes it is certainly too tight\nto enable a woman to get into an omnibus or railway carriage gracefully.\nProbable price, complete, $50.\n\n2. For summer wear, a plain blouse and skirt; not the atrocious blouse\nending at the belt, but the beautiful tunic-blouse that falls over the\nhips. Both blouse and skirt would need to be made of a permanently\nfixed, plain, and uni-colored material. Total cost, $25.\n\n3. If the skirt were shortened, leggings, gaiters, and stockings would\nhave to be standardized; the shoe buckle, being too costly, would\ndisappear.\n\n4. A fixed type of hat, without feathers or aigrettes, made in straw and\ntrimmed with flowers; produced in scores of thousands, it ought not to\ncost more than $2.50.\n\n5. A fixed type of evening gown, price $24 or $32, without any lace or\ntrimmings, sequins, paillettes; without overlays of flimsies of any\nkind; no voile, no chiffon, no tulle, no muslin, but a stuff of good\nquality, hanging in straight folds. Jewelry to be banned.\n\n6. The afternoon dress should be completely suppressed; it responds to\nno need.\n\n7. The total annual cost would be about $150.\n\nI shall be asked whether this can be done. I think it can. Recently the\nQueen of Italy created a vogue for coral ornaments among the Roman\nladies so as to restore their livelihood to the fishermen of Torre del\nGreco. That points the way; we do not need sumptuary laws, though, in\ntimes to come, when capitalism is nothing but a historical incident, we\nmay have passed through such laws into a fuller freedom. It is enough\nto decree that any variation from the new standard is _bad form_. Human\nbeings will break all laws, but they shrink if you tell them that they\nare infringing the rules of etiquette. There are many men to-day who\nwould like to wear satin and velvet: they dare not because it is bad\nform. If, therefore, a permanent clothing scheme were established by\nstrong patrons, if it were agreeable to the eye, which is easy to\narrange, I believe that fashions could be fixed because it would be\nknown that a woman who went beyond the uniform must either be\ndisreputable or suffer from bad taste.\n\n\n6\n\nI shall be told that I am warring against art. That is not true: some\nfashions are beautiful, some are hideous. Who would to-day wear the\ncrinoline? Who would wear the gigot sleeve? They are ugly--but, stay!\nAre they? Will they not be worn in an adapted form some time within the\nnext generation? They will, because fashions are not works of art; they\nare only fashions. Women do not adapt the fashions to themselves, they\nadapt themselves to the fashions, and it is a current joke that even\nwoman's anatomy is adjusted to suit the clothes of the day.\n\nDoubtless I shall be challenged on this, and told that woman's\nindividuality expresses itself in her clothes. That again is not true;\nthe girl with a face like a Madonna will wear a ballet skirt if it comes\nin, and if she has to \"adapt\" the ballet skirt to the Madonna idea I\nshould like to know how it is going to be done. Indeed the one thing\nwoman avoids doing is expressing her individuality; she wants what Oscar\nWilde called \"the holy calm of feeling perfectly dressed\", that is, like\neverybody else, and a little more expensively.\n\nIt may be retorted, however, that uniform is not cheap. That again is\nuntrue. When a uniform is standardized, turned out in quantities and\nnever varied, it can be made very cheaply. Men's clothing, which is not\nfully standardized, is such that no man need spend more than $250 a\nyear. That is the condition I want for women. Of course it will make\nunemployed, and our sympathy will be invoked for dressmakers thrown out\nof work: that is the old argument against railways on behalf of coaches,\nagainst the mule-jenny, against every engine of human progress, and it\nis sheer barbarism. Labor redistributes itself; money wasted on women's\nclothes will be used in other trades which will reabsorb the labor and\nmake it useful instead of sterile.\n\nAn apparently more powerful argument is that uniform would deprive women\nof their individuality: it cannot be much of an individuality that\ndepends upon a frock, and I am reduced to wonder whether some women lose\ntheir personality once their frock is taken off. Still, there is a\nlittle force in the argument, for it seems to lead to the conclusion\nthat beautiful women will enjoy undue advantage when dressed as are the\nill-favored. But this is not a true conclusion; it is not even true to\nsay that one cannot be distinctive in uniform, as anybody will realize\nwho compares a smart soldier with an untidy one. I have myself worn a\nsoldier's coat and know what care may make of it. Nor do I believe that\nthe beautiful would win; by winning is meant winning men, but we know\nperfectly well that it is not body which wins men: it wins them only to\nlose them after a while. It is something else which wins men:\nindividuality, wit, gaiety, cleverness, or cleverness clever enough to\nappear foolish. And we men who wear uniform, does not our individuality\nmanage to attract? It does; and indeed I go further: I assert that\nfashions smother individuality because they are tyrannical and much more\nobtrusive than uniforms. Woman's charms are to-day dwarfed because men\nare dazzled and misled by the meretricious paraphernalia which clothe\nwoman; the true charms have to struggle for life. I want to give them\nfull play, to enable men to choose better and more sanely, no longer the\nempty odalisque but the woman whose personality is such that it can\ndominate her uniform. That will be a true race and a finer than the game\nof sex-temptation which women think they are playing.\n\nIt may be said that uniform will do away with class distinctions, that\none will no longer be able to tell a lady from one who is not. That is\nnot true. What one will no longer be able to tell is a rich woman from a\npoor one; and who is to complain of that? Surely it will not be men, for\nit is not true, I repeat, that men admire extravagant clothes; nor are\nthey tempted by them; nor do women dress to tempt them: at any rate, the\nseduction of Adam was not compassed in that way.\n\nBesides, women give away their own case: if their clothes were intended\nto attract men, then surely married women would cease to follow the\nfashions unless, which I am reluctant to conclude, they still desire to\npursue after marriage their nefarious, heart-breaking career.\n\nThe last suggestion is that women would not wear the uniform. Not follow\na fashion? This has never happened before.\n\nI adhere therefore to my general view that if woman is to be diverted\nfrom the path that leads straight toward a greater degradation of her\nfaculties; if household budgets are to be relieved so as to leave money\nfor pleasure and for culture; if true beauty is to take the place of\ntinsel, feathers, frills, ruffles, _poudre de riz_; if middle-class\nwomen are to cease to live in bitterness because they cannot keep up\nwith the rich; if the daughters of the poor are no longer to be\nstimulated and corrupted by example into poverty and prostitution, it\nwill be necessary for the few who lead the many to realize that\nsimplicity, modesty, moderation, and grace are the only things which\nwill enable women to gain for themselves, and for men, peace and\nsatisfaction out of a civilization every day more hectic.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nWOMAN AND THE PAINT POT\n\n\nIt is in a shrinking spirit that I venture to suggest that woman has so\nfar entirely failed to affirm her capacity in the pictorial arts, for I\naddress myself to an audience which contains many sculptors and\npictorial artists, an audience of serious and enthusiastic people to\nwhom art matters as much and perhaps more than life. But it is of no use\nmaintaining illusions; woman has exhibited, and is exhibiting, very\ngreat artistic capacities in the histrionic art, in dancing, in\nexecutive music, and in literature. There is, therefore, no case for\nthose who argue that woman has no artistic capacity. She has. I select\nbut a few out of the many when I quote the actresses, Siddons, Rachel,\nLa Duse, Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry; the dancers, La Duncan, Pavlova,\nGenee; the literary women, the Brontes, Madame de Stael, George Eliot,\nSappho, Christina Rossetti; among the more modern, May Sinclair and\nLucas Malet.\n\nAt first sight, however, it is curious that I should be able to quote no\ncomposers and no dramatists; it is impossible to take Guy d'Hardelot and\nTheresa del Riego seriously. And the women dramatists, taken as a whole,\nhardly exist. This would go to show that there is some strength in the\ncontention that woman is purely executive and uncreative; but this\ncannot be true, for the list of writers I have given, which is very far\nfrom being exhaustive, and which is being augmented every day by\npromising girl writers, shows that woman has creative capacity, creative\nin the sense that she can evolve character and scene, and treat\nrelations in that way which can be described as art. If, therefore,\nthere have been no women painters of note, it cannot be because woman\nhas no creative capacity. It may be suggested that those women who have\ncreative capacity turn to literature, but that is a very rash\nassumption. For creative men turn to any one of the half-dozen forms of\nart, and are not monopolized by literature; there is no reason, mental\nor physical, why the female genius should be capable of traveling only\nalong one line. The problem is a problem of direction, a problem of\nmedium.\n\nMy potential opponents will probably deny that there have been, and are,\nno women painters. They will quote the names of Angelica Kaufmann, of\nVigee-Lebrun, of Rosa Bonheur, of Berthe Morisot, of Elizabeth Butler;\nthe more modern will mention Ella Bedford, Lucy Kemp-Welch; the most\nmodern will put forward Anne Estelle Rice; and one or two may shyly\nwhisper Maude Goodman. But, honestly, does this amount to anything? I do\nnot suppose that Lady Elizabeth Butler's \"Inkermann\" or \"Floreat Etona\"\nwill outlive the works of Detaille or of Meissonier, however doubtful be\nthe value of these men; the fame of Angelica Kaufmann, though enhanced\nby the patronage of kings, has not been perpetuated by Bartolozzi, in\nspite of that etcher's inflated reputation. Rosa Bonheur's \"Horse Fair\"\nhangs in the National Gallery, and another of her works in the\nLuxembourg, but merits which balance those of Landseer are not enough;\nand Berthe Morisot walked, it is true, in the footprints of Manet, but\ndid her feet fill them? The truth of the matter is that there has not\nbeen a woman Velasquez, a woman Rembrandt.\n\nNow, as some of my readers may know, I do not make a habit of belittling\nwoman and her work. My writings show that I am one of the most extreme\nfeminists of the day, and I am well aware that woman must not be judged\nupon her past, that it is perhaps not enough to judge her on her present\nposition, and that imagination, the only spirit with which criticism\nshould be informed if it is to have any creative value, should take note\nof the potentialities of woman. But still, though we may write off much\nof the past and flout the record of insult and outrage which is the\nhistory of woman under the government of man, we cannot entirely ignore\nthe present: the present may not be the father of the future, but it is\ncertainly one of its ancestors. We have to-day a number of women who\npaint--the great majority, such as Mrs. Von Glehn, Ella Bedford, Lucy\nKemp-Welch, and others who are hung a little higher over the line, are\nrendering Nature and persons with inspired and photographic zeal;\nothers, such as Anne Estelle Rice, Jessie Dismorr, Georges Banks, are\ninclined to \"fling their paint pot into the faces of the public.\" Some\ndo not abhor Herkomer, others are banded with Matisse; but though to be\nHerkomer may not be supreme, and though to be Matisse may perhaps be\ninsane, it must regretfully be conceded that the heights of the Royal\nAcademy and of Parnassus (or whatever the painter's mountain may be) are\nnot haunted by the woman painter. Without being carried away by the\nauthor of \"Bubbles\", I am not inclined to be carried away by Maude\nGoodman and the splendours of \"Taller Than Mother.\" Lucy Kemp-Welch's\nNew Forest ponies are ponies, but I do not suppose that they will be\ntrotting in the next century; they do not balance even the work of\nFurse.\n\nLet me not be reproached because I use the low standard of the Royal\nAcademy, for if woman has a case at all she must prove herself on all\nplanes; it is as important that she should equal the second-rate people\nas that she should shine among the first-rate. I do not look for a time\nto come when woman will be superior to man, but to a time, quite remote\nenough for my speculations, when she will be his equal, when she will be\nable to keep up with all his activities. Curiously enough, the advanced\nfemale painters are not so inferior to the advanced men painters as are\nthe stereotyped women to their masculine rivals. There is excellence in\nthe work of Anne Estelle Rice and Georges Banks, though they perhaps do\nnot equal Fergusson; but they are less remote from him in spirit and\nrealization than are the lesser women from the lesser men. That is a\nfact of immense importance, for it is evident that nothing is so hopeful\nas this _reduction_ in the inferiority of female painting. It may be\nthat masculine painting is decaying, which would facilitate woman's\nvictory, but I do not think so; modern masculine painting has never been\nso vigorous, so inspired by an idea since the great religious uprush of\nthe Primitives.\n\nWomen are striving to conform not to a lower but to a higher standard, a\nstandard where the sensuality of art is informed by intellect. If,\ntherefore, they conform more closely to the standard which men are\nestablishing, they are more than holding their own; they are gaining\nground.\n\nYet they are still, in numbers and in quality, much inferior to the men.\nAnne Estelle Rice alone cannot tilt in the ring against Fergusson,\nGaugin, Matisse, Picasso. And it is not true that they have been\nentirely deprived of opportunity. Up to the 'seventies or 'eighties,\nwoman was certainly very much hampered by public opinion. For some\ncenturies it had been held that she should paint flowers, but not\nbodies; nowadays, dizzily soaring, she has begun to paint cranes and\ngasometers. The result of the old attitude was that the work of women\nwas mainly futile because it was expected to be futile; though painters\nwere not always gentlemen, female painters seemed to have to be ladies,\nbut times changed. There came the djibbah, Bernard Shaw, and the\ncigarette; women began to flock into Colarossi's and the Slade, into the\nminor schools where, I regret to say, the new spirit has yet to blow and\nto do away with the interesting practice of the life class where the\nmale model wears bathing drawers. Woman has had her opportunity, and any\nmorning on the Boulevard Montparnasse you can see her carrying her\nparaphernalia towards the Grande Chaumiere and the other studios. She is\nsuffering a good deal from the effects of past neglect, but much of that\nneglect is so far away that we must ask ourselves why woman has not yet\nresponded to the more tender attitude of modern days. For she has not\nentirely responded; she is still either a little afraid of novelty or\ninclined to hug it, to affront the notorious perils of love at first\nsight.\n\nI believe that the causes of women's failure in painting are\ntwofold--manual and mental. Though disinclined to generalize upon the\nfemale temperament, because such generalizations generally lead to the\ndiscovery of a paradox, I am conscious in woman of a quality of\nimpatience.\n\nWhile woman will exhibit infinite patience, infinite obstinacy, in the\npursuit of an end, she is often inclined to leap too quickly towards\nthat end. To use a metaphor, she may spend her whole life in trying to\ncut down a tree without taking the preliminary trouble to have her ax\nsharpened; she does unwillingly the immense labor on the antique, she\nneglects her anatomy, she sacrifices line to color.\n\nThis is natural enough, for she has a keen sense of color. As witness\nher clothes. When clothes are the work of woman they are generally\nbeautiful in color; when they are beautiful in line they are generally\nby Poiret. For line tends to be pure and cold, and I hope I will shock\nnobody when I suggest that purity and coldness are masculine rather than\nfeminine. Color is the expression of passion, line is the expression of\nintellect, or rather of that curious combination of intellect and\npassion, of intellect directing passion, and of passion inflaming\nintellect, which is art as understood by man. It is to this second group\nof causes, those I have called mental, that the inferiority of the\nwoman painter is traceable. There is a lack of intellect in her work. It\nis true that the male painter is often just a painter, and that I can\nthink of no case to-day which reproduces the engineering capacities of\nLeonardo da Vinci, but I refer rather to a general intellectual sweep\nthan to a specialized capacity. Men do not hold themselves so far aloof\nfrom politics, business and philosophy as do women; too many of the\nlatter read nothing whatever. For some painters a novel is too much,\nwhile their selection among the contents of the newspaper might be\nimproved upon by a domestic servant. There is a lack of depth, a lack of\nintellectual quality, of that \"general\" quality which, directed into\nother channels, produces the engineer, the business man and the\npolitician. I do not believe in \"artistic capacity\", \"scientific\ncapacity\", \"business capacity\"; there is nothing but \"capacity\" which\ntakes varying forms, just as there is red hair and black hair, but\nalways hair. In male painting intellect sometimes stands behind passion;\nin female painting the attitude is purely sensuous, and that is not to\nbe wondered at: from the days of the anthropoid ape to this one we have\ndeveloped nothing in woman but the passionate quality; we have taught\nher to charm, to smile, and to lie until she thinks she can do nothing\nbut charm, and believes in her own lies. We have refused her education,\nwe have made her into a slave. Thus, while many of the male painters are\nnot intellectuals, they have been able to draw upon the higher average\nquality of the male mind, while woman to-day, desirous of so doing, will\nfind very little to the credit of the account of her sex.\n\nWhat is the conclusion to be drawn? It is to my mind obvious enough. If\nwoman is producing inferior work it is because she is still an inferior\ncreature, but I do not think she will remain one. Her progress during\nthe last thirty years has been staggering; she has forced herself into\nthe trades, into professions, into politics; she has produced standard\nworks; in one or two cases she has been creative in science; and I\nbelieve, therefore, that her intellect is on the up grade, and that her\nsex is accumulating those resources which will serve as a background to\nthe artistic development of her passionate faculty. Woman is about to\ngain political power. She will use it to improve the education of her\nsex, to broaden its opportunities. She is coming out into the world in\ncooeperation and in conflict with man; she will become more\nself-conscious, and gain a solidarity of sex upon which will follow\nmutual mental stimulation and specialized sex development. For that\nreason I believe woman's progress will not be less in the pictorial arts\nthan in other fields if she develops in herself the fullness of life and\nits implications. She will inevitably wage the sex war: she will gain\nher artistic deserts after the sex peace.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE DOWNFALL OF THE HOME\n\n\nThere is something the matter with the home. It may be merely the subtle\ndecay which, in birth beginning and in death persisting, escorts all\nthings human and perchance divine. It may be decay assisted by the\nviolence of a time unborn and striving through novelty toward its own\nend, or toward an endlessness of change. But, whatever the causes, which\ninterest little a hasty generation, signs written in brick and mortar\nand social custom, in rebellion and in aspiration, are not wanting to\nshow that the home, so long the center of Anglo-Saxon and American\nsociety, is doomed. And, as is usual in the twentieth century, as has\nbeen usual since the middle of the nineteenth, woman is at the bottom of\nthe change. It is women who now make revolutions. A hundred years ago it\nwas men who made revolutions; nowadays they content themselves with\nresolutions. So it has been left for woman, more animal, more radical,\nmore divinely endowed with the faculty of seeing only her own side, to\nsap the foundations of what was supposed to be her shelter.\n\nI do not suppose that the household has ever been quite as much of a\nshelter for women as the Victorian philosophers said, and possibly\nbelieved; an elementary study of the feminist question will certainly\nincline the unprejudiced to see that the home, which has for so long\nmasqueraded in the guise of woman's friend, has on the whole been her\nenemy; that instead of being her protector it has been her oppressor;\nthat it has not been her fortress, but her jail. Woman has felt in the\nhome much as a workman might feel if he were given the White House as a\npresent, told to live in it and keep it clean without help on two\ndollars a week. If the home be a precious possession, it may very well\nbe a possession bought at too high a price--at the price of youth, of\nenergy, and of enlightenment. The whole attitude of woman toward the\nhome is one of rebellion--not of all women, of course, for most of them\nstill accept that, though all that is may not be good, all that is must\nbe made to do. Resignation, humility, and self-sacrifice have for a\nthousand generations been the worst vices of woman, but it is apparent\nthat at last aggressiveness and selfishness are developing her toward\nnobility. She is growing aware that she is a human being, a discovery\nwhich the centuries had not made, and naturally she hates her gilded\ncage.\n\nWoman is tired of a home that is too large, where the third floor gets\ndirty while she is cleaning the first; of a home that cannot be left\nlest it should be burglared; of a home where there is always a slate\nwrong, or a broken window, or a shortage of coal. She is tired of being\nimmolated on the domestic hearth. One of them, neither advanced nor\nprotesting, gave me a little while ago an account of what she called a\ncharacteristic day. I reproduce it untouched:\n\nTHE DAY OF A REALLY NICE ENGLISHWOMAN\n\n     8 A.M.--Early tea; rise; no bath. [The husband has the only bath,\n     and the boiler cannot make another until ten.]\n\n     9 A.M.--Breakfast. [The husband takes the only newspaper away to\n     the office.]\n\n     9.30 A.M.--Conversation with the cook: hardness of the butcher's\n     meat; difficulty because there are only three eatable animals;\n     degeneration of the butter; grocery and milk problems.\n\n     Telephone.--A social engagement is made.\n\n     Conversation with the cook resumed: report on a mysterious disease\n     of the kitchen boiler; report on the oil-man; report on the\n     plumber.\n\n     Correspondence begun and interrupted by the parlor-maid, who\n     demands a new stock of glass.\n\n     Correspondence resumed; interrupted by the parlor-maid's demand for\n     change with which to pay the cleaner.\n\n     Rush up-stairs to show which covers are to go.\n\n     Correspondence resumed, and interrupted by the telephone: the\n     green-grocer states that some of the vegetables she wants cannot be\n     procured.\n\n     Correspondence resumed; interrupted by the nurse, who wishes to\n     change the baby's milk.\n\n     Three telephone calls.\n\n     Correspondence resumed, and interrupted by the housemaid, who wants\n     new brooms.\n\n     11 A.M.--The children have gone; the servants are at work.\n     Therefore:\n\n     11-11.15 A.M.--Breathing space.\n\n     11.15-11.45 A.M.--Paying bills--electricity, gas, clothes; checking\n     the weekly books, reading laundry circulars.\n\n     12 M.--Goes out. It is probably wet [this being England], so, not\n     being very well off, she flounders through mud. Interview with the\n     plumber as to the boiler; shoes for Gladys; glass for the\n     parlor-maid; brooms for the housemaid; forgets various things she\n     ought to have done; these worry her during lunch.\n\n     1.30 P.M.--Lunch.\n\n     2.30 P.M.--Fagged out, lies down, but--\n\n     2.45 P.M.--The husband telephones to tell her to go to the library\n     and get him a book.\n\n     3.15 P.M.--Is fitted by the dressmaker. Feels better.\n\n     4.30 P.M.--Charming at tea.\n\n     5.45 P.M.--Compulsory games with the children.\n\n     6.15 P.M.--Ultimatum from the servants: the puppy must be killed\n     for reasons which cannot be specified in an American magazine.\n\n     6.30-6.35 P.M.--Literature, art, music, and science. Then dress for\n     dinner.\n\n     7.30 P.M.--Charming at dinner. Grand fantasia to entertain the male\n     after a strenuous day in the city. Conversation: golf, business,\n     cutting remarks about other people, and _no contradicting_.\n\n     8.45-9.15 P.M.--Literature, art, music, and science.\n\n     Last post: Circulars, bills, invitations to be answered; request\n     from a brother in India to send jam which can be bought only in a\n     suburb fourteen miles distant.\n\n     10.30 P.M.--Attempted bath, but the plumber has not mended the\n     boiler, after all.\n\n     11 P.M.--Sleep ... up to the beginning of another nice\n     Englishwoman's day.\n\nShe may exaggerate, but I do not think so, for as I write these lines\nthree stories of a house hang over my head, and I hear culinary noises\nbelow. Being a man, I am supposed to rule all this, but, fortunately,\nnot to govern it. And I am moved to interest when I reflect that in this\nstreet of sixty houses, that which is going on in my house is probably\nmultiplied by sixty. I have a vision of those sixty houses, each with\nits dining room and drawing-room, its four to eight bedrooms, and its\nbasement. There are sixty drawing-rooms in this street, and at 11 A.M.\nthere is not a single human being in them; and at 3 P.M. there is nobody\nin the sixty dining rooms, except on Sunday, when a few men are asleep\nin them. And I have horrid visions of our sixty kitchens, our sixty\nsculleries, our sixty pantries; of our one hundred and fifty servants,\nand our sixty cooks (and cooks so hard to get and to bear with when\nyou've got them!). And I think of all our dinner sets, of the twelve\nthousand pieces of crockery which we need in our little street. To think\nof twelve thousand articles of crockery is to realize our remoteness\nfrom the monkey. And the nurses, as they pass, fill me with wonder, for\nsome of them attend one child, some two, while sometimes three children\nhave two nurses--until I wonder what percentage of nurse is really\nrequired to keep in order an obviously unruly generation.\n\nComplex, enormous, it is not even cheap. Privacy, the purest jewel\nhumanity can find, seems to be the dearest. This inflated individual\nhome, it is marvelous how it has survived! Like most human\ninstitutions, it has probably survived because it was there. It has\ntaken woman's time; it has taken much of her energy, much of her health\nand looks. Worst of all, it seems to have taken from her some of the\nconsideration to which as a human being she was entitled. Let there be\nno mistake about that. In spite of proclamations as to the sacredness of\nthe home and the dignity of labor, the fact remains that the domestic\nman, the kind that can hang a picture straight, is generally treated by\nmale acquaintances with sorrowful tolerance; should he attempt to wash\nthe baby, he becomes the kind of man about whom the comic songs are\nwritten. (I may seem rather violent, but I once tried to wash a baby.)\nSo that apparently the dignified occupations of the household are not\ndeemed dignified by man. This is evident enough, for office-cleaners,\nlaundresses, step-girls, are never replaced by men. These are the\nfeminine occupations, the coarse occupations, requiring no special\nintelligence.\n\nThe truth is that the status of domestic labor is low. An exception is\nmade in favor of the cook, but only by people who know what cooking is,\nwhich excludes the majority of the world. It is true that of late years\nattempts have been made to raise the capacity of the domestic laborer by\ninducing her to attend classes on cooking, on child nurture, etc., but,\nin the main, in ninety-nine per cent of bourgeois marriages, it is\nassumed that any fool can run a house. It matters very little whether a\nfool can run a house or not; what does matter from the woman's point of\nview is that she is given no credit for efficient household management,\nand that is one reason why she has rebelled. It does not matter whether\nyou are a solicitor, an archbishop, or a burglar, the savor goes out of\nyour profession if it is not publicly esteemed at its true worth. We\nhave heard of celebrated impostors, of celebrated politicians, but who\nhas ever heard of a celebrated housekeeper?\n\nThe modern complaint of woman is that the care of the house has divorced\nher from growing interests, from literature and, what is more important,\nfrom the newspaper, partly from music, entirely from politics. It is a\npurely material question; there are only twenty-four hours in every day,\nand there are some things one cannot hustle. One can no more hustle the\nEnglish joint than the decrees of the Supreme Court. Moreover, and this\nis a collateral fact, an emptiness has formed around woman; while on\nthe one side she was being tempted by the professions that opened to\nher, by the interests ready to her hand, the old demands of less\norganized homes were falling away from her. Once upon a time she was a\nslave; now she is a half-timer, and the taste of liberty that has come\nto her has made her more intolerant of the old laws than she was in the\nancient days of her serfdom. Not much more than seventy years ago it was\nstill the custom in lower middle-class homes for the woman to sew and\nbake and brew. These occupations were relinquished, for the distribution\nof labor made it possible to have them better done at a lower cost.\n\nIn the 'fifties and the 'sixties the great shops began to grow, stores\nto rise of the type of Whiteley and Wanamaker. Woman ceased to be\nindustrial, and became commercial; her chief occupation was now\nshopping, and if she were intelligent and painstaking she could make a\nbetter bargain with Jones, in Queen's Road, than with Smith, in\nPortchester Street. But of late years even that has begun to go; the\ngreat stores dominate the retail trade, and now, qualities being equal,\nthere is hardly anything to pick between universal provider Number 1, at\none end of the town, and Number 2, equally universal, at the other.\nAlso the stores sell everything; they facilitate purchases; the\nhousekeeper need not go to ten shops, for at a single one she can buy\ncheese, bicycles, and elephants. That is only an indication of the\nmovement; the time will come, probably within our lifetime, when the\ngreat stores of the towns will have crushed the small traders and turned\nthem into branch managers; when all the prices will be alike, all the\ngoods alike; when food will be so graded that it will no longer be worth\nthe housekeeper's while to try and discover a particularly good\nsirloin--instead she will telephone for seven pounds of quality AF,\nNumber 14,692. Then, having less to do, woman will want to do still\nless, and the modern rebellion against house and home will find in her\nrestlessness a greater impetus.\n\nWhen did the rebellion begin? Almost, it might be said, it began in the\nbeginning, and no doubt before the matriarchate period women were\nstriving toward liberty, only to lose it after having for a while\ndominated man. In later years women such as Mary Wollstonecraft, but\nmore obscure, strove to emancipate themselves from the thralldom of the\nhousehold. The aspiration of woman, whether Greek courtesan, French\nworldling, or English factory inspector, has always been toward equality\nwith man, perhaps toward mastery. And man has always stood in her path\nto restrict her, to arrest her development for his pleasure, as does\nto-day the Japanese to the little tree which he plants in a pot. The\nclamor of to-day against the emancipated woman is as old as the rebukes\nof St. Paul; Moliere gave it tongue in _Les Femmes Savantes_, when he\nmade the bourgeois say to his would-be learned wife:\n\n  \"Former aux bonnes moeurs l'esprit de ses enfants,\n  Faire aller son menage, avoir l'oeil sur ses gens\n  Et regler la depense avec economie\n  Doit etre son etude et sa philosophie.\"\n\nMan has laid down only three occupations: _kirche_, _kueche_, _kinder_.\n\nHence the revolt. If man had not so much desired that woman should be\nhousekeeper and courtesan, she would not so violently have rebelled\nagainst him, for why should one rebel until somebody says, \"Thou shalt\"!\nAt the words \"Thou shalt\", rebellion becomes automatic, and, so long as\nwoman has virility in her, so will it be. Still, leaving origins alone,\nand considering only the last fifty or sixty years of our history, it\nmight be said that they are divided into three periods:\n\n     (_a_) The shiny nose and virtue period.\n\n     (_b_) The powder-puff and possible virtue period.\n\n     (_c_) The Russian ballet and leopard-skin period.\n\nThere are exceptions, qualifications, occasional retrogressions, but,\ntaking it roughly, that is the history of English womanhood from wax\nfruit to Bakst designs. There were crises, such as the early 'eighties,\nwhen bloomers came in and women essayed cigarettes, and felt very\nadvanced and sick; when they joined Ibsen clubs and took up Bernard\nShaw, and wore eyeglasses and generally tried to be men without\nsucceeding in being gentlemen. There was another crisis about 1906, when\nsuffrage put forward in England its first violent claims. That, too, was\nabortive in a sense, as is ironically recorded in a comic song popular\nat the time:\n\n  \"Back, back to the office she went:\n  The secretary was a perfect gent.\"\n\nBut still, in a rough and general way, there has been a continual and\ngrowing discontent with the heavy weight of the household, the\ncomplications of its administration. There has been a drive toward\nfreedom which has affected even that most conservative of all animals,\nthe male. There have been conscious rebellions as expressed, for\ninstance, by Nora who \"slammed the door\"; by the many girls who decide\nto \"live their own lives\", as life was expounded in the yellow-backs of\nthe 'nineties; by the growing demand for entry into the professions; for\nvotes; for admission to the legislatures. There is nothing irrelevant in\nthis; given that by the nature of her position in society and of the\nduties intrusted to her in the household, she was cut off from all other\nfields of human activity, it may be said that every attempt that woman\nhas made to share in any activity that lay beyond her front door has\nbeen revolutionary and directed at the foundations of the English\nhousehold system. Whether this has also been the case in America, where\na curious type of woman has been evolved--pampered, selfish,\nintelligent, domineering, and wildly pleasure-loving--I cannot tell.\nNor is it my business; like other men, the Americans have the wives they\ndeserve.\n\nBut behind the conscious rebellions are the subtle and, in a way,\ninfinitely more powerful unconscious rebellions, the dull discontents\nof overworked and over-preoccupied women; the weariness, the desire for\npleasure and travel, for change, for time to play and to love, and--what\nis more pathetic--for time just to sit and rest. The epitaph of the\ncharwoman--\n\n  \"Weep for me not, weep for me never,\n  I'm going to do nothing, nothing forever--\"\n\nembodies pains deep-buried in millions of women's hearts. Most people do\nnot know that, because women never smile so brightly as when they are\nunhappy. Sometimes I suspect that public pronouncements and suffrage\nmanifestoes have had very much less to do with modern upheavals than\nthese slumberous protests against the multiplicity of errands and the\nintricacies of the kitchen range.\n\nEven man has been affected by the change, has begun to realize that it\nis quite impossible to alter custom while leaving custom unaltered,\nwhich, as anybody knows who reads parliamentary debates, is mankind's\ndearest desire. Changes in his habits and in his surroundings, such as\nthe weekend, the servant problem, the restaurant, the hotel; all these\nhave been separate disruptive factors, have begun to bring about the\ndownfall of the English household. I do not know that one can assign a\npredominant place to any one of these factors; they are each one as the\ndrop of water that, joined with its fellows, wears away stone. Moreover,\nin socio-psychologic investigation it is often found that what appears\nto be a cause is an effect, and _vice versa_. For instance, with regard\nto restaurant dining, it may be that people frequent restaurants because\nthe home cooking is bad, and, on the other hand, it may be that home\ncooking has become bad because people have neglected it as they found it\neasier to go to the restaurant. This attitude of mind must qualify the\nconclusion at which I arrive, and it is an attitude which must be\nsedulously cultivated by any one who wants to know the truth instead of\nwishing merely to have his prejudices confirmed.\n\nBut, all allowances made, it is perfectly clear that the first group of\ndisruptive factors, such as the restaurant dinner, the week-end, the\nlong and frequent holidays, the motor car, the spread of golf, is\ninimical to the home idea and, therefore, to the house idea. (Home means\nhouse, and does not mean flat, for which see further on.) The home idea\nis complex; it embraces privacy, possession; it implies a place where\none can retreat, be master, be powerful in a small sphere, take off\none's boots, be sulky or pleasant, as one likes. It involves, above all,\na place where one does not hear the neighbor's piano, or the neighbor's\nbaby, or, with luck, the neighbor's cat; but where, on the other hand,\none's own piano, one's own baby, and one's own cat are raised to a high\nand personal pitch of importance. It involves everything that is\nindividual--one's own stationery block, one's crest, or, if one is not\nso fortunate, one's monogram upon the plate. If the S.P.C.A. did not\nintervene, I think one might often see in the front garden a cat branded\nwith a hot iron: \"Thomas Jones. His Cat.\" It is the rallying-point of\ndomestic virtue, the origin of domestic tyranny. It is the place where\npublic opinion cannot see you and where, therefore, you may behave\nbadly. Most wife beaters live in houses; in flats they would be afraid\nof the opinion of the hall porter. And yet the home is not without its\ncharm and its nobility, for its bricks and mortar enshrine a spirit that\nis worshiped and for which much may be sacrificed. Cigars have been\ngiven up so that the home might have a new coat of paint; amusements,\nholidays, food sometimes--all these have been sacrificed so that, well\nrailed off from the outside world by a front garden, if possible by a\nback garden, too--or, still more delightful, far from the next house--a\nlittle social cosmos might be maintained. So far has this gone in the\nnorth of England that many people who could well afford servants will\nnot have them because, as they say, they cannot bear strangers in the\nhouse. And very desirable houses in the suburbs of London, with old,\nwalled gardens, have been given up because it was unbearable to take tea\nunder the eyes of passengers on the top of the motor busses.\n\nThe home spirit, however, is not content merely with coats of paint and\ndoilies; it demands mental as well as material worship. It demands\nimportance; it insists that it is home, sweet home, and that there is no\nplace like it (which is one comfort); that it is the last thought of the\ndrowning sailor; that the trapper, lost in the deepest forests of\nCanada, sees rising in the smoke of his lonely camp fire a delicious\nvision of Aunt Maria's magenta curtains. It lays down that it is wrong\nto leave it, quite apart from the question of burglars; it has invented\nscores of phrases to justify otherwise unpleasant husbands who had\n\"given a good home\" to their wives; phrases to censure revolting\ndaughters \"who had good homes, and what more could they want?\" It has\nfrowned upon everything that was outside itself, for it could not see\nanything that was not itself. It has hated theaters, concerts, dances,\nlectures, every form of amusement; and, as it has to bear them, likes to\nrefer to them archly as debauches, or going on the razzle-dazzle, or the\nran-dan, according to period. It has powerfully allied itself with the\npulpit and, in impious circles, with fancy work and crochet; it has\nenlisted a considerable portion of the Royal Academy to depict it in\nvarious scenes for which the recipe is: One tired man with a sunny smile\nreturning to his home; one delighted wife; suitable number of ebullient\nchildren and, inevitably, a dog. The dog varies. In England they\ngenerally put in a terrier, in war time a bulldog; in Germany it may be\na dachshund; and in other countries it is another kind of dog, but it is\nalways the same idea.\n\nAnd so it is not wonderful that the home has looked censoriously upon\neverything that took people away from its orbit. Likewise it is not\nwonderful that people have fled to anything available so as to escape\nthe charmed circle. The week-end is in general a very over-rated\namusement, for it consists mainly in packing and preparing to catch a\ntrain, then thinking of packing and catching a train, then packing and\ncatching a train; but still the week-end amounts to a desertion, and\nhardly a month passes without a divine laying of savage hands upon the\nexcursion. There was a time when holidays themselves were looked upon as\naudacious breaches of the conventions. In the early nineteenth century\nnobody went to Brighton except the Regent and the smart set; even in the\nThackerayan period people did not think it necessary to leave London in\nAugust, and when they took the Grand Tour they were bent on improving\ntheir minds. The Kickleburys could not go up the Rhine without a\npowerful feeling of self-consciousness; I think they felt that they were\noutraging the Victorian virtues, so they had to make up for it by taking\na guide, who for four or five weeks lectured them day and night upon the\nruins of Godesberg. All this was opposed to the spirit of the home, just\nas anything which is outside the home is opposed to the spirit of the\nhome, as was, for instance, every dance that has ever been known. In the\n_Observer_, in 1820, appeared a poem expressing horror and disgust of\nthe waltz, and, curiously enough, very much in the same terms as the\ndiatribes in the American papers of 1914 against the turkey trot and\nthe bunny hug. When the polka came in, in the middle of the nineteenth\ncentury, good people clustered to see it danced, just like the more\nrecent tango, and it was considered very fast. All this may appear\nsomewhat irrelevant, but my case is mainly that the old attitude, now\ndecaying, is that anything that happened outside the home, whether sport\nor amusement, was anything between faintly and violently evil. The old\nideal of home was concentrated in Sunday: a long night; heavy breakfast;\nchurch; walk in the park; heavy dinner, including roast beef; profound\nsleep in the dining room; heavy tea; then nothing whatever; church;\nheavy supper; nothing whatever; then sleep. There is not much of this\nleft, and from the moment when Sunday concerts began and the picture\ngalleries were opened, when chess was played and the newspaper read, the\nold solidities of the home trembled, for the home was an edifice from\nwhich one could not take one stone.\n\nIn chorus with the cry for new pleasures, the reaction against the old\ndiscomfort, came a more powerful influence still, because it was\ndirect--the servant problem. The Americans know this question, I think,\nbetter even than the British, for in their country a violent democracy\nrejects domestic service and compels, I believe, the use of recent\nemigrants from old enslaved Europe who have not yet breathed the\naggressive and ambitious air that has touched the Stars and Stripes. In\nGreat Britain the crisis is not yet, and it may never come, for this is\nnot the English way. In England we are aware of a crisis only fifty\nyears later, because for that half-century we have successfully\npretended that there was no crisis. So we come in just in time for the\nreaction, and say: \"There you are. I told you nothing was changed.\" Yet,\nso persistent is the servant problem that even England has had to take\nsome notice of it. As Mr. Wells said, the supply of rough, hardworking\ngirls began to shrink. It shrank because so many opportunities for the\nemployment of women were offered by the factories which arose in England\nin the 'forties and the 'fifties, by the demand for waitresses, for\nshorthand writers, typists, shopgirls, elementary schoolmistresses, etc.\nThe Education Act of 1870 gave the young English girls of that day a\nviolent shock, for it informed them of the existence of Paris, assisted\nthem toward the piano. And then came the development of the factory\nsystem, the spread of cheapness; with the rise in wages came a rising\ndesire for pretty, cheap things almost as pretty as the dear ones;\nsubstitutes for costly stuffs were found; compositions replaced ivory,\nmercerized cotton rivaled silk, and little by little the young girl of\nthe people discovered that with a little cleverness she could look quite\nas well as the one whom her mother called \"Madam\"; so she ceased to call\nher \"Madam.\" Labor daily grows more truculent, so there is no knowing\nwhat she will call the ex-Madam next; but one thing is certain, and that\nis that she will not serve her. She will not, because she looks upon\nservice as ignominious; she has her own pride; she will not tell you\nthat she is in a shop, but that she is \"in business\"; if she is \"in\nservice\", often she will say nothing about it at all, for the other\ngirls, who work their eleven hours a day for a few shillings a week,\ndespise her. They at least have fixed hours and they do not \"live in\";\nwhen they have done their work they are free. They may have had less to\neat that day than the comfortable parlor-maid, and maybe they have less\nin their pockets, but they are free, and they do not hesitate to show\ntheir contempt to the helot. I think that new pride has done as much as\nanything to crush the old, large, unwieldy home, for its four stories\nand its vast basement needed many steady, hardworking slaves, who only\nspoke when they were spoken to and always obeyed. It is not that\nmistresses were bad; some were and some were not, but from the modern\ngirl's point of view they were all bad because they had power at any\ntime of day or night to demand service, to impose tasks that were not\ncontracted for, to forbid the house to the servant's friends, to make\nher loves difficult, to forbid her even to speak to a man. Whether the\nmistress so behaved did not matter; she had the power, and in a society\ngrowingly individual, growingly democratic, that was bound to become a\nheavy yoke.\n\nAnd so, very slowly, the modern evolution began. The first to go were\nthe immense houses of Kensington, Paddington, Bayswater,\nBloomsbury,--those old houses within hail of Hyde Park,--which once held\nlarge families, all of them anxious to live not too far from the Court.\nThey fell because it was almost impossible to afford enough servants to\nkeep in order their three or four reception rooms, and their eight, ten,\ntwelve bedrooms; they fell because the birth rate shrank, and the large\nfamilies of the early nineteenth century became exceptional; they fell\nalso because the old rigidity, or rather the stateliness, of the home\nwas vanishing; because the lady of the house ventured to have tea in her\ndrawing-room when there were no callers, and little by little came to\nleave newspapers about in it and to smoke in it. With the difficulties\nof the old houses came a demand for something smaller, requiring less\nlabor. This accounts for the villas, of which some four hundred thousand\nhave been built in the suburbs of London, in the villages London has\nabsorbed. They are atrocious imitations of the most debased Elizabethan\nstyle; they show concrete where they should use stone, but, as their\npredecessors showed stucco, they are not much worse. They exhibit\npainted black stripes where there should be beams; they have sloping\nroofs, gables, dormer windows, everything cunningly arranged to make as\nmany corners as possible where no chair can stand. They have horrid\nlittle gardens where the builder has buried many broken bricks, sardine\ntins, and old hats; they represent the taste of the twentieth century;\nthey are quite abominable. But still the fact remains that they are\ninfinitely smaller, more manageable, more intelligently planned than\nthe spacious old houses of the past, where every black cupboard bred\nthe cockroach and the mouse. They are easy to warm and easy to clean;\ntheir windows are not limited by the old window tax; they have bathrooms\neven when their rent is only one hundred and fifty dollars a year; and\nespecially they have no basement. The disappearance of the basement is\none of the most significant aspects of the downfall of the old\nhousehold, for it was essentially the servants' floor, where they could\nbe kept apart from their masters, maintaining their own sports and the\nmysterious customs of a strange people; when the door of the kitchen\nstairs was shut, one would keep out everything connected with the\nservants, except perhaps the smell of the roast leg of mutton. That did\nnot matter, for that was homelike. The basement was a vestige of feudal\nEnglish society; it was brother to the servants' quarters and the\nservants' hall. Now it is gone. In many places the tradesmen's entrance\nhas vanished, and the cabbage comes to the front door. The sacred\nsuppressions are no more, and in a developing democracy the master and\nmistress of the house stately dine, while on the other side of a wall\nabout an inch thick Jane can be heard conversing with the policeman.\n\nThe growth of the small house has never stopped during the last forty or\nfifty years. A builder in the southwest of London, of whom I made\ninquiries, told me that he had erected four hundred and twenty houses,\nand that not one of them had a basement; this form of architecture had\nnot even occurred to him. I have also visited very many homes in the\nsuburbs of London, and I have looked in vain for the old precincts of\nthe serving maid. The small house has powerfully affected the old\nindividual attitude of home, for the hostile dignity of the past cannot\nsurvive when one man mows the lawn and the other clips the roses, each\nin his own garden, separated only by three sticks and some barbed wire.\nIn detached houses it is worse, for they are now so close together that\nin certain architectural conditions preliminaries are required before\none can take a private bath. The whole direction of domestic\narchitecture is against the individual and for the group. The modern\nhome takes away even the old stores; there are no more pickle cupboards\nand jam cupboards, and hardly linen cupboards. Why should there be when\njam and pickles come from the grocer, and few men have more than twelve\nshirts? There is not even a store for coal. Some years ago I lived in a\nhouse that was built in 1820, and its coal cellar held eight tons; I now\ninhabit one, built in 1860, in which I can accommodate four tons; the\nhouse now being built in the suburbs cannot receive more than one ton.\nThe evolution of the coal cellar is a little the evolution of English\nsociety from the time when every man had to live a good deal for\nhimself, until slightly better distribution made it possible for him to\ncombine with his fellows. He need not now store coal, for there is a\nservice of coal to his doorstep. Besides, the offspring of coal are\nexpelling their ancestor; gas and electricity, both centrally supplied\nfrom a single source, are sapping the old hearthstone that was fed by\none small family, and for that family alone glowed. A continual\nsocialization has come about, and it is not going to stop. What is done\nin common is on the whole better done, more cheaply done. But what is\ndone in common is hostile to the old home spirit, because the principle\nof the home spirit is that anything done in common is--well, common!\n\nAs for the old houses of fifteen to sixteen rooms, they have had to\naccommodate themselves to the new conditions. First they tried to\nmaintain themselves by reducing their rents. I know of a case, in\nCourtfield Gardens, where a house leased twenty-six years ago at one\nthousand dollars a year, was leased again about ten years ago at seven\nhundred and fifty dollars a year, and is now being offered at five\nhundred dollars a year. The owner does not want his premises turned into\na boarding house, but he cannot find a private tenant, because hardly\nanybody nowadays can manage five floors and a basement. In my own\ndistrict, where the houses tower up to heaven, I see the process at\nwork,--rents falling, pitiful attempts of the landlords to prevent their\nhouses from turning into maisonnettes and boarding houses, to prevent\nthe general decay. But they are beaten. The vast Victorian houses within\nthree miles of Charing Cross are, one by one, being cut up into flats;\nin the unfashionable districts they are being used for tenements; and\nthere are splendid old houses in the neighborhood of Bloomsbury, where\nin the day of Dickens lived the fashionables, which now house half a\ndozen workingclass families and their lodgers. There is one of these old\nglories near Lamb's Conduit Street, where a Polish furrier and his six\nunwashed assistants work under a ceiling sown with sprawling nymphs,\nwhile melancholic and chipped golden lions' heads look down from either\nside of a once splendid Georgian mantelpiece. It is very reactionary of\nme, I am afraid, but I cannot help feeling it a pity that this old\nhouse, where would suitably walk the ghost of Brinsley Sheridan, must be\none of the eggs broken to make the omelette of the future.\n\nBut these old houses must go. Why should one preserve an old house? One\ndoes not preserve one's old boots. The old houses have been seized by\nthe current of revolt against the home; they have mostly become boarding\nand apartment houses. This is not only because their owners do not know\nwhat to do with them; one does not run a boarding house unless it pays,\nand so evidently there has been a growing demand for the boarding house.\nBoarding houses fail, but for every one that fails two rise up, and\nthere is hardly a street in London that has not its boarding house, or\nat least its apartment house. There are several in Park Lane itself;\nthere is even one whose lodgers may look into the gardens of Buckingham\nPalace. I do not know how many boarding houses there are in London, for\nno statistics distinguish properly between the boarding house, the\napartment house, the private hotel, the hotel, and the tavern. But,\nevidently, the increase is continuous, and part of the explanation is to\nbe found elsewhere than in the traveler. Of course, the traveler has\nenormously increased, but he alone cannot account for the scores of\nthousands of people who pass their years in apartment and boarding\nhouses. They live there for various reasons--because they cling to the\nold family idea and think to find \"a home from home\"; because they\ncannot afford to run separate establishments; and very many because they\nare tired of running them, tired of the plumber, tired of the housemaid.\nThere are thousands of families in London, quite well-to-do, who prefer\nto live in boarding houses; they hate the boarding house, but they hate\nit less than home. They feel less tied; they have less furniture; they\nlike to feel that their furniture is in store where they can forget all\nabout it. They have lost part of their old love for Aunt Maria's magenta\ncurtains--the home idea has become less significant to them. And this\napplies also to hotels. The increase of hotels in London, in every\nprovincial city, all over the world, is not entirely explained by the\ntraveler, though, by the way, the increase in traveling is a sign of the\ndecay of the home. The old idea, \"You've got a good home and you've got\nto stay there,\" suffers whenever a member of the home leaves it for any\nreason other than the virtuous pursuit of his business. All over the\ncenter of London, in Piccadilly, along Hyde Park, in Bloomsbury, hotels\nhave risen--the Piccadilly, the new Ritz, the Park View, the Coburg, the\nCadogan, the Waldorf, the Jermyn Court, the Marble Arch, so many that in\nsome places they are beginning to form a row. And still they rise. An\nenormous hotel is being built opposite Green Park; another is projected\nat Hyde Park Corner; the Strand Palace is open, and at the Regent Palace\nthere are, I understand, fourteen hundred bedrooms. The position is that\na proportion of London's population is beginning to live in these hotels\nwithout servants of their own, without furniture of their own, without\nhouses of their own. A more detached, a freer spirit is invading them,\nand a desire to get all they can out of life while they can, instead of\nsolemnly worshiping the Englishman's castle.\n\nIt does not come easily, and it does not come quickly. During the last\ntwenty-five years most of the blocks of flats to be found in London have\nrisen, with their villainously convenient lifts for passengers and\ntheir new-fangled lifts for dust bins and coal, with their electricity\nand their white paint, and other signs of emancipation. They were not\npopular when they came, and they are disliked by the older generation;\nit is still a little vicious to live in a West End flat. And when the\nyounger generation points out that flats are so convenient because you\ncan leave them, the older generation shakes its head and wonders why one\nshould want to. In a future, which I glimpse clearly enough, I see many\nmore causes of disquiet for the older generation, and I wonder with a\ncertain fear whether I, too, shall not be dismayed when I become the\nolder generation. For the destruction of the old home is extending now\nmuch farther than bricks and mortar. It is touching the center of human\nlife, the kitchen. There are now in London quite a number of flats, such\nas, I think, Queen Anne's Mansions, St. James's Court, Artillery\nMansions, where the tenants live in agreeable suites and either take\ntheir meals in the public restaurant or have them brought up to their\nflat. The difficulty of service is being reduced. The sixty households\nare beginning to do without the sixty cooks, and never use more than a\nfew dozen at a time of their two hundred pieces of crockery. There are\nno more tradesmen, nor is there any ordering; there is a menu and a\ntelephone. There are no more heated interviews with the cook, and no\nmore notices given ten minutes before the party, but a chat with a\nmanager who has the manners and the tact of an ambassador. There is no\nmore home work in these places.\n\nI think these blocks of flats point the way to the future much more\nclearly than the hotels and the boarding houses, for those are only\nmakeshifts. Generally speaking, boarding houses are bad and\nuncomfortable, for the landlady is sometimes drunk and generally\nill-tempered, the servants are usually dirty and always overworked; the\nfurniture clamors for destruction by the city council. The new\nsystem--blocks of flats with a central restaurant--will probably, in a\nmore or less modified form, be the home of new British generations. I\nconceive the future homes of the people as separate communities, say\nblocks of a hundred flats or perhaps more, standing in a common garden\nwhich will be kept up by the estate. Each flat will probably have one\nroom for each inhabitant, so as to secure the privacy which is very\nnecessary even to those who no longer believe in the home idea; it will\nalso have a common room where privacy can be dispensed with. Its\nfurniture will be partly personal, but not very, for a movement which is\ndeveloping in America will extend, and we too in England may be\nprovided, as are to-day the more fortunate Americans, with an abundance\nof cupboards and dressers ready fixed to the walls. There will be no\ncoal, but only electricity and gas, run from the central plant. There\nwill be no kitchens, but one central kitchen, and a central dining room,\nrun--and this is very important--_by a committee of tenants_.\n\nThat committee will appoint and control cooks and all servants; it will\nbuy all provisions, and it will buy them cheaply, for it will purchase\nby the hundredweight. It will control the central laundry, and a paid\nlaundry maid will check the lists--there will no longer be, as once upon\na time on Saturday evenings, a hundred persons checking a hundred lists.\nIt is even quite possible that the central organization may darn socks.\nThe servants will no longer be slaves, personally attached to a few\npersons, their chattel; they will be day workers, laboring eight hours,\nwithout any master save their duty. The whole system of the household\nwill be grouped for the purpose of buying and distributing everything\nthat is needed at any hour. There will be no more personal shopping; the\nwholesale cleaner will call on certain days without being told to; the\ncommunistic window cleaners will dispose of every window on a given day;\nthere may even be in the garden a communistic system of dog kennels. I\nhave no proposal for controlling cats, for I understand that no man can\ndo that ... but then there will be no mice in those days.\n\nI think I will close upon that phrase: There will be no mice in those\ndays. For somehow the industrious mouse, scuffling behind the loose\nwainscoting over the rotten boards, is to me curiously significant of\nthe old, hostile order, when every man jealously held what was his own\nand determined that it should so remain--dirty, insanitary, tiresome,\nlabor-making, dull, inexpressibly ugly, inexpressibly inimical to\nanything fresh and free, providing that it was wholly and sacredly his\nown.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE BREAK-UP OF THE FAMILY\n\n\n1\n\nAs with the home, so with the family. It would be strange indeed if a\nstained shell were to hold a sound nut. All the events of the last\ncentury--the development of the factory system, the Married Women's\nProperty Act, the birth of Mr. Bernard Shaw, the entry of woman into\nprofessions, the discovery of co-education and of education itself,\neugenics, Christian Science, new music halls and halfpenny papers, the\nRussian ballet, cheap travel, woman suffrage, apartment houses--all this\nchange and stress has lowered the status of one whom Pliny admired--the\nfather of a family. The family itself tends to disappear, and it is many\nyears since letters appeared in _The Times_ over the signature, \"Mother\nof Six.\" The family is smaller, and, strangely enough, it is sweeter\ntempered: would it be fair to conclude, as might an Irishman, that it\nwould agree perfectly if it disappeared?\n\nI do not think that the family will completely disappear any more than\nscarlet fever or the tax collector. But certainly it will change in\ncharacter, and its evolution already points toward its new form. The\nold-fashioned family sickened because it was a compulsory grouping. The\nwife cleaved unto her husband because he paid the bills; the children\ncleaved unto their parents because they must cleave unto something.\nThere was no chance of getting out, for there was nothing to get out to.\nFor the girl, especially, some fifty years ago, to escape from the\nfamily into the world was much the same thing as burgling a\npenitentiary; so she stayed, compulsorily grouped. Personally, I think\nall kinds of compulsory groupings bad. If one is compelled to do a\nthing, one hates it; possibly the dead warriors in the Elysian Fields\nhave by this time taken a violent dislike to compulsory chariot races,\nand absolutely detest their endless rest on moss-grown banks and their\ndiet of honey. I do not want to stress the idea too far, but I doubt\nwhether the denizens of the Elysian Fields, after so many centuries, can\ntolerate one another any more, for they are compelled to live all\ntogether in this Paradise, and nothing conceivable will ever get them\nout.\n\nSome groupings are worse than others, and I incline to think that\ndifference of age has most to do with the chafe of family life. For man\nis a sociable animal; he loves his fellows, and so one wonders why he\nshould so generally detest his relations. There are minor reasons.\nRelationship amounts to a license to be rude, to the right to exact\nrespect from the young and service from the old; there is the fact that,\nhowever high you may rise in the world, your aunt will never see it.\nThere is also the fact that if your aunt does see it, she brags of it\nbehind your back and insults you about it to your face. There is all\nthat, but still I believe that one could to a certain extent agree with\none's relations if one met only those who are of one's own age, for\ncompulsory groupings of people of the same age are not always\nunpleasant; boys are happiest at school, and there is fine fellowship\nand much merriment in armies. On the other hand, there often reigns a\npeculiar dislike in offices. I do not want to conclude too rashly, but I\ncannot help being struck by the fact that in a school or in an army the\ndifferences of age are very small, while in an office or a family they\nare considerable. Add on to the difference of age compulsory\nintercourse, and you have the seeds of hatred.\n\nThis applies particularly where the units of a family are adult. The\nchild loves the grown-ups because he admires them; a little later he\nfinds them out; still a little later, he lets them see that he has found\nthem out, and then family life begins. In many cases it is a quite\nterrible life, and the more united the family is the more it resembles\nthe union between the shirt of Nessus and Hercules's back. But it must\nbe endured because we have no alternative. I think of cases: of such a\none as that of a father and mother, respectively sixty-five and sixty,\nwho have two sons, one of whom ran away to Australia with a barmaid,\nwhile the other lived on his sisters' patrimony and regrettably stayed\nat home; they have four daughters, two of whom have revolted to the\nextent of earning their living, but spend the whole of their holidays\nwith the old people; the other two are unmarried because the father,\nimbued with the view that _his_ daughters were too good for any man,\nrefused to have any man in the house. There is another couple in my\nmind, who have five children, four of whom live at home. I think I will\ndescribe this family by quoting one of the father's pronouncements:\n\"There's only one opinion in this house, and that's mine!\" I think of\nother cases, of three sisters who have each an income of two hundred\ndollars a year on which they would, of course, find it very difficult to\nlive separately. The total income of six hundred dollars a year enables\nthem to live--but together. The eldest loves cats; the next hates cats,\nbut loves dogs; this zooelogical quarrel is the chief occupation of the\nhousehold; the third sister's duty is to keep the cats and dogs apart.\nHere we have the compulsory grouping; I believe that this lies at the\nroot of disunion in that united family.\n\nThe age problem is twofold. It must not be thought that I hold a brief\nagainst old age, though, being myself young, I tend to dislike old age\nas I shall probably dislike youth by and by. On the whole, the attitude\nof old age is tyrannical. I have heard dicta as interesting as the one\nwhich I quote a few lines above. I have heard say a mother to a young\nman, \"You _ought_ to feel affection for me\"; another, \"It should be\nenough for you that this is my wish.\" That is natural enough. It is the\ntradition of the elders, the Biblical, Greek, Roman, savage hierarchies\nwhich, in their time, were sound because, lacking education of any kind,\ncommunities could resort only to the experience of the aged. But a thing\nthat is natural is not always convenient, and, after all, the chief\nmission of the civilizer is to bottle up Nature until she is wanted.\nThis tyranny breeds in youth a quite horrible hatred, while it hardens\nthe old, makes them incapable of seeing the point of view of youth\nbecause it is too long since they held it. They insist upon the society\nof the young; they take them out to call on old people; they drive them\nround and round the park in broughams, and then round again; they\ndeprive them of entertainments because they themselves cannot bear noise\nand late hours, or because they have come to fear expense, or because\nthey feel weak and are ill. It is tragic to think that so few of us can\nhope to die gracefully.\n\nThe trouble does not lie entirely with the old; indeed, I think it lies\nmore with the young, who, crossed and irritated, are given to badgering\nthe old people because they are slow, because they do not understand the\nproblems of Lord Kitchener and are still thinking of the problems of Mr.\nGladstone. They are harsh because the old are forgetful, because their\nfaded memories are sweet, because they will always prefer the late Sir\nHenry Irving to Mr. Charles Hawtrey. The young are cruel when the old\npeople refuse to send a letter without sealing it, or when they insist\nupon buying their hats from the milliner who made them in 1890 and makes\nthem still in the same fashion. They are even harsh to them when they\nare deaf or short-sighted and fumbling; they come to think that a wise\nchild should learn from his sire's errors.\n\nIt is a pity, but thus it is; so what is the use of thinking that the\nmodern family must endure? It is no use to say that the old are right or\nthat the young are right; they disagree. It is nobody's fault, and it is\neverybody's misfortune. They disagree largely because there is too much\npropinquity. It is propinquity that brings one to think there is\nsomething rather repulsive in blood relations. It is propinquity that\nbrings one to love and then later to dislike. Mr. George Moore has put\nthe case ideally in his _Memoirs of My Dead Life_, where Doris, the girl\nwho has escaped from her family with the hero says: \"This is the first\ntime I have ever lived alone, that I have ever been free from questions.\nIt was a pleasure to remember suddenly, as I was dressing, that no one\nwould ask me where I was going; that I was just like a bird myself, free\nto spring off the branch and to fly. At home there are always people\nround one; somebody is in the dining room, somebody is in the\ndrawing-room; and if one goes down the passage with one's hat on, there\nis always somebody to ask where one is going, and if you say you don't\nknow, they say: 'Are you going to the right or to the left? Because, if\nyou are going to the left, I should like you to stop at the apothecary's\nand to ask....'\"\n\nYes, that is what happens. That is the tragedy of the family; it lives\non top of itself. The daughters go too much with their mothers to shop;\nthere are too many joint holidays, too many compulsory rejoicings at\nChristmas or on birthdays. There are not enough private places in the\nhouse. I have heard one young suffragist, sentenced to fourteen days for\nbreaking windows, say that, quite apart from having struck a blow for\nthe Cause, it was the first peaceful fortnight she had ever known. This\nshould not be confounded with the misunderstood offer of a wellknown\nleader of the suffrage cause who offered a pound to the funds of the\nmovement for every day that his wife was kept in jail.\n\nIn a family, friendships are difficult, for Maude does not always like\nArabella's dearest friend; or, which is worse, Maude will stand\nArabella's dearest friend, whom she detests, so that next day she may\nhave the privilege of forcing upon Arabella her own, whom Arabella\ncannot bear. That sort of thing is called tolerance and self-sacrifice;\nin reality it is mutual tyranny, and amounts to the passing on of\npinches, as it were, from boy to boy on the benches of schools. In a\ndeveloping generation this cannot endure; youthful egotism will not\nforever tolerate youthful arrogance. As for the old, they cannot\nindefinitely remain with the young, for, after all, there are only two\nthings to talk of with any intensity--the future and the past; they are\nthe topics of different generations.\n\nStill, for various reasons, this condition is endured. It is cheaper to\nlive together; it is more convenient socially; it is customary, which,\nespecially in England, is most important. But it demands an impossible\nand unwilling tolerance, sometimes fraudulent exhibitions of love,\nsometimes sham charity. It is not pleasant to hear Arabella, returning\nfrom a walk with her father, say to Maude: \"Thank Heaven, that's over!\nYour turn to-morrow.\" Perhaps it would not be so if the father did not\nby threat or by prayer practically compel his daughters to \"take duty.\"\nThere are alleviations--games, small social pleasures, dances--but\nthere is no freedom. A little for the sons, perhaps, but even they are\nlimited in their comings and goings if they live in their father's\nhouse. As for the girls, they are driven to find the illusion of freedom\nin wage labor, unless they marry and develop, as they grow older, the\nsame problem.\n\n\n2\n\nFortunately, and this may save something of the family spirit, times are\nchanging. It must not be imagined from the foregoing that I am a\nresolute enemy of any grouping between men and women, that I view with\nhatred the family in a box at the theater or round the Sunday joint. I\nam not attracted by the idea of family; a large family collected\ntogether makes me think a little of a rabbit hutch. But I recognize that\ncouples will to the end want to live together, that they will be fond of\ntheir children, and that their children will be fond of them; also that\nit is not socially convenient for husband and wife to live in separate\nblocks of flats and to hand over their children to the county council.\nThere are a great many children to-day who would be happier in the\nworkhouse than in their homes, but there exists in the human mind a\nprejudice against the workhouse, and social psychology must take it into\naccount. All I ask is that members of a family should not scourge one\nanother with whips and occasionally with scorpions, and I conceive that\nnothing could be more delightful than a group of people, not too far\nremoved from one another by age, banded together for mutual recreation\nand support. So anything that tends to liberalize the family, to\nexorcise the ghost of the old patriarch, is agreeable.\n\nPatriarch! What a word--the father as master! He will not be master very\nlong, and I do not think that he will want to remain master, for his\nattitude is changing, not as swiftly as that of his children, but still\nchanging. He is not so sure of himself now when he doubts the\nadvisability of pulling down the shed at the back of the garden, and his\nyoungest daughter quotes from Nietzsche that to build a sanctuary you\nmust first destroy a sanctuary. And, though he is rather uncomfortable,\nhe does not say much when in the evening his wife appears dressed in a\nRussian ballet frock or even a little less. He is growing used to\neducation, and he fears it less than he did. In fact, he is beginning to\nappreciate it.\n\nHis wife is more suspicious, for she belongs to a generation of women\nthat was ignorant and reveled in its ignorance and called it charm, a\ngeneration when all women were fools except the spitfires and the wits.\nShe tends to think that she was \"finished\" as a lady; her daughters\nconsider that she was done for. The grandmother is a little jealous, but\nthe mother of to-day, the formed woman of about thirty-five, has made a\ngreat leap and resembles her children much more than she does her\nmother. Her offspring do not say: \"What is home without a mother? Peace,\nperfect peace.\" She is a little too conscientious, perhaps; she has\nturned her back rather rudely upon her mother's pursuits, such as tea\nand scandal, and has taken too virulently to lectures or evolution and\nproteid. She is too vivid, like a newly painted railing, but, like the\nrailing, she will tone down. She pretends to be very socialistic or very\nfast; on the whole she affects rather the fast style. We must not\ncomplain. Is not brown paint in the dining room worse than pink paint on\nthe face?\n\nWhatever may be said about revolting daughters, I suspect that the\nchange in the parent has been greater than that in the child, because\nthe child in 1830 did not differ so much from the child of to-day as\nmight appear. Youth then was restless and insurgent, just as it is\nto-day; only it was more effectively kept down. If to-day it is less\nkept down, this is partly for reasons I will indicate, but largely\nbecause the adult has changed. The patriarch is nearly dead; he is no\nlonger the polygamous brute who ruled his wives with rods, murdered his\ninfant sons, and sold his infant daughters; his successor, the knight of\nthe Middle Ages, who locked up his wife in a tower for seven years while\nhe crusaded in the Holy Land--he, too, has gone. And the merchant in\nbroadcloth of Victorian days, who slept vigorously in the dining room on\nSunday afternoon, has been replaced by a man who says he is sorry if\ntold he snores. He is more liberal; he believes in reason now rather\nthan in force, and generally would not contradict Milton's lines--\n\n  \"Who overcomes by force\n  Hath overcome but half his foe.\"\n\nHe has come to desire love rather than power, and, little by\nlittle--thanks mainly to the \"yellow\" press--has acquired a chastened\nliking for new ideas. The spread of pleasure all round him, the\nvaudeville, the theaters, moving-picture shows, excursions to the\nseaside--all these have taught him that gaiety may not clash with\nrespectability. Especially, he is more ready to argue, for a peaceful\ncentury has taught him that a word is better than a blow. There may be a\nchange in his psychology after this war, for he is being educated by the\nmillion in the point of view that a loaded rifle is worth half a dozen\nscraps of paper; it is quite possible that he will carry this view into\nhis social life. There may, therefore, be a reaction for thirty years or\nso, but thirty years is a trifle in questions such as these.\n\nNaturally, women have in this direction developed further than men, for\nthey had more leeway to make up. Man has so long been the educated\nanimal that he did not need so much liberalizing. I do not refer to the\nMiddle Ages, when learning was entirely preempted by the male (with the\nexception of poetry and music), for in those days there was no education\nsave among the priests. I mean rather that the great development of\nelementary learning, which took place in the middle of the nineteenth\ncentury, affected men for about a generation before it affected women.\nIn England, at least, university education for women is very recent, for\nGirton was opened only in 1873, Newnham, at Cambridge, in 1875; Miss\nBeale made Cheltenham College a power only a little later, and indeed it\nmay be said that formal education developed only about 1890. Both in\nEngland and in the United States women have not had much more than a\ngeneration to make up the leeway of sixty centuries. It has benefited\nthem as mothers because they did not start with the prejudices left in\nthe male mind by the slow evolution from one form of learning to\nanother; women did not have to live down Plato, Descartes, or Adam\nSmith; they began on Haeckel and H. G. Wells. The mothers of to-day have\nbeen flung neck and crop into Paradise; they came in for the new times,\nwhich are always better than the old times and inferior only to\nto-morrow. They were made to understand a possible democracy in the\nnursery because all round them, even in Russia, even in Turkey,\ndemocracy was growing, some say as a rose, some say as a weed, but\nanyhow irrepressibly. Who could be a queen by the cradle when more\naugust thrones were tottering? So woman quite suddenly became more than\na pretty foil to the educated man, she became something like his\nsuperior and his elder; little by little she has begun to teach him who\nonce was her master and still in fond delusion believes he is.\n\nIt cannot be said that the mother has until very recently liked\neducation. She has suffered from the prejudice that afflicted her own\nmother, who thought that because she had worked samplers all girls must\nwork samplers; the \"old\" woman's daughter, because she went to\nCheltenham, tends to think that her little girl ought to go to\nCheltenham. It is human rather than feminine, for generations follow one\nanother at Eton and at Harvard. But more than feminine, I think it is\nmasculine because, until very recently, woman has disliked education,\nwhile man has treated it with respect; he has not loved it for its own\nsake, but because he thought that _nam et ipsa scientia potestas est_.\nNot a very high motive, but still the future will preoccupy itself very\nlittle with the reasons for which we did things; it will be glad enough\nif we do them. Perhaps we may yet turn the edges of swords on the blasts\nof rhetoric.\n\nAn immediate consequence of the growth of education has been a change in\nthe status of the child. It is no longer property, for how can one\nprevent a child from pulling down the window sash at night when it knows\nsomething of ventilation? Or give it an iron tonic when it realizes\nthat full-blooded people cannot take iron? The child has changed; it is\nno longer the creature that, pointing to an animal in the field, said,\n\"What's that?\" and the reply being, \"A cow\", asked \"Why?\" The child is\nperilously close to asking whether the animal is carnivorous or\nherbivorous. That makes coercion very difficult. But I do not think that\nthe modern parent desires to coerce as much as did his forbear. Rather\nhe desires to develop the child's personality, and in its early years\nthis leads to horrid results, to children being \"taught to see the\nbeautiful\" or \"being made to realize the duties of a citizen.\" We are in\nfor a generation made up half of bulbous-headed, bespectacled\nprecocities, and half of barbarians who are \"realizing their\npersonality\" by the continual use of \"shall\" and \"shan't.\" This will\npass as all things pass, the old child and the rude child, just like the\nweak parent after the brute parent, and it is enough that the new\ngeneration points to another generation, for there seldom was a time\nthat was not better than its father and the herald of a finer son.\n\nGenerally the parent will help, for his new attitude can be expressed in\na phrase. He does not say, \"I am master\", but, \"I am responsible.\" He\nhas begun to realize that the child is not a regrettable accident or a\nlittle present from Providence; he is beginning to look upon the care of\nthe child as a duty. He has extended the ideal of citizenship, born in\nthe middle of the nineteenth century, which was \"to leave the world a\nlittle better than he found it\"; he has passed on to wanting his son to\nbe a little richer than he was, and a little more learned; he is coming\nto want his son to be a finer and bolder man; he will come in time to\nwant his daughter to be a finer and bolder woman, which just now he\nbears pretty well. His wife is helping him a great deal because she is\nescaping from her home ties to the open trades and professions, to the\nentertainments of psychic, political, and artistic lectures which make\nof her head a waste paper basket of intellect, but still create in that\nhead a disturbance far better than the ancient and cow-like placidity.\nThe modern mother is often too much inclined to weigh the baby four\ntimes a day, to feed it on ozoneid, or something equally funny, to\nexpose as much of its person as possible, to make it gaze at Botticelli\nprints when in its bath. She will no doubt want it to mate eugenically,\nin which she will probably be disappointed, for love laughs at Galtons;\nbut still, in her struggle against disease and wooden thinking, she will\nhave helped the child by giving it something to discard better than the\nold respects and fears. The modern mother has begun to consider herself\nas a human being as well as a mother; she no longer thinks that\n\n  \"A mother is a mother still,\n  The holiest thing alive.\"\n\nShe is coming to look upon herself as a sort of aesthetic school\ninspector. She lives round her children rather than in them; she is less\nanimal. Above all, she is more critical. Having more opportunity of\nmixing with people, she ceases to see her child as marvelous because it\nis her child. She is losing something of her conceit and has learned to\nsay, \"_the_ baby\" instead of \"_my_ baby.\" It is a revolutionary\natmosphere, and the developing child has something to push against when\nit wants to earn its parents' approval, for modern parents are fair\njudges of excellence; they are educated. The old-time father was\nnonplussed by his son, and could not help him in his _delectus_, but the\nmodern father is not so puzzled when his son wishes to converse of\nrailway finance. The parent, more capable of comradeship, has come to\nwant to be a comrade. He is no longer addressed as \"sir\"; he is often\naddressed as \"old chap.\" That is fine, but it is in dead opposition to\nthe close, hard family idea.\n\nLikewise, man and wife have come to look upon each other rather\ndifferently; not differently enough, but then humanity never does\nanything enough; when it comes near to anything drastic it grows afraid.\nMan still thinks that \"whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing\", but\nhe is no longer finding the one he sought not so long ago. She is no\nlonger his property, and it would not occur to the roughest among us to\noffer a wife for sale for five shillings in Smithfield market, as was\ndone now and then as late as the early nineteenth century. Woman is no\nlonger property; she has been freed; in England she has even been\nallowed, by the Married Women's Property Act, to hold that which was her\nown. The Married Women's Property Act has modified the attitude of the\nmother to her child and to her husband. She is less linked when she has\nproperty, for she can go. If every woman had means, or a trade of her\nown, we should have achieved something like free alliance; woman would\nbe in the position of the woman in \"Pygmalion\", whom her man could not\nbeat because, she not being married to him, if he beat her she might\nleave him--in its way a very strong argument against marriage.\n\nBut most women have no property, and yet, somehow, by the slow loosening\nof family links, they have gained some independence. I am not talking of\nAmerica, where men have deposited their liberty and their fortunes into\nthe prettiest, the greediest, the most ruthless hands in the world; but\nrather of England, where for a long time a man set up in life with a dog\nas a friend, a wife to exercise it, and a cat to catch the mice. Until\nrecently the householder kept a tight hand upon domestic expenditure; he\npaid all the bills, inspected the weekly accounts with a fierce air and\nan internal hope that he understood them; rent, taxes, heat, light,\nfurniture, repairs, servants' wages, school fees--he saw to it that\nevery penny was accounted for and then, when pleased, gave his wife a\ntip to go and buy herself a ribbon with. (There are still a great many\nmen who cannot think of anything a woman may want except a ribbon; in\n1860 it was a shawl.) When a woman had property, even for some time\nafter the Act, she was not considered fit to administer it. She was not\nfit, but she should have been allowed to administer it so as to learn\nfrom experience how not to be swindled. Anyhow, the money was taken from\nher, and I know of three cases in a single large family where the wife\nmeekly indorses her dividend warrant so that the husband may pay it into\nhis banking account. That spirit survives, but every day it decays; man,\nfinding his wife competent, tends to make her an allowance, to let her\nhave her own banking account, and never to ask for the pass book. He has\nthrown upon her the responsibility for all the household and its\nfinance; by realizing that she was capable he has made her capable.\nThough she be educated, he loves her not less; perhaps he loves her\nmore. It is no longer true to say with Lord Lyttleton that \"the lover in\nthe husband may be lost.\" Formerly the lover was generally lost, for\nafter she had had six children before she was thirty the mother used to\nput on a cap and retire. Now she does not retire; indeed, she hides his\nbedroom slippers and puts out his pumps, for life is more vivid and\nexterior now; this is the cinema age.\n\nFinding her responsible, amusing, capable of looking after herself, man\nis developing a still stranger liberalism; he has recognized that he\nmay not be enough to fill a woman's life, that she may care for\npleasures other than his society, and indeed for that of other men. He\nhas not abandoned his physical jealousy and will not so long as he is a\nman, but he is slowly beginning to view without dismay his wife's\ncompanionship with other men. She may be seen with them; she may lunch\nwith them; she may not, as a rule, dine with them, but that is an\nevolution to come. This springs from the deep realization that there are\nbetween men and women relations other than the passionate. It is still\ntrue that between every man and every woman there is a flicker of love,\njust a shadow, perhaps; but not so long ago between men and women there\nwas only \"yes\" or \"no,\" and to-day there are also common tastes and\ncommon interests. This is fine, this is necessary, but it is not good\nfor the old British household where husband and wife must cleave unto\neach other alone; where, as in the story books, they lived happy ever\nafter. As with the home, so with the family; neither can survive when it\nsuffers comparison, for it derives all its strength from its\nexclusivism. As soon as a woman begins to realize that there is charm in\nthe society of men other than her uncles, her brothers, and her\ncousins, the solid, four-square attitude of the family is menaced.\nWelcome the stranger, and legal hymen is abashed.\n\nAll this springs from woman's new estate--that of human being. She must\nbe considered almost as much as a man. Where there is wealth her tastes\nmust be consulted, and more than one man has been sentenced by a\ntyrannous wife to wear blue coats and blue ties all his life. She is\ncoming to consider that the husband who dresses in his wife's bedroom\nshould be flogged, while the one who shaves there should be\nelectrocuted. And she defends her view with entirely one-sided logic and\nan extended vocabulary. Here again is a good, a necessary thing; but\nwhere is the old family where a husband could in safety, when slightly\novercome, retire to bed with his boots on? He is no longer king of the\ncastle, but a menaced viceroy in an insurgent land.\n\nAll through society this loosening of the marriage bond is operative. By\nbeing freer within matrimony men and women view more tolerantly breaches\nof the matrimonial code. There was a time when a male co-respondent was\nnot received: that is over. In those days a divorcee was not received\neither, even when the divorce was pronounced in her favor. Nowadays, in\nmost social circles, the decree absolute is coming to be looked upon as\nan absolution. I do not refer to the United States, where (I judge only\nfrom your novels) divorce outlaws nobody, but to steady old England, who\nstill pretends that she frowns on the rebels and finally takes them back\nwith a sigh and wonders what she is coming to. What England is coming to\nis to a lesser regard for the marriage bond, to a recognition that\npeople have the right to rebel against their yoke. There totters the\nfamily--for marriage is its base, and the more English society receives\nin its ranks those who have flouted it, the more it will be shaken by\nthe new spirit which bids human creatures live together, but also with\nthe rest of the world. Woman was kept within the family by threats, by\nbanishment, by ostracism, but now she easily earns forgiveness. At least\nEnglish society is deciding to forget if it cannot forgive the guilt--a\ntruly British expedient. At the root is a decaying respect for the\nmarriage bond, a growing respect for rebellion. That tendency is\neverywhere, and it is becoming more and more common for husband and wife\nto take separate holidays; there are even some who leave behind them\nmerely a slip: \"Gone away, address unknown.\" They are cutting the wire\nentanglements behind which lie dangers and freedoms. All this again\ncomes from mutual respect with mutual realization, from education, and\nespecially from late marriages. Late marriages are one of the most\npotent causes of the break-up of the family, for now women are no longer\ncaught and crushed young; they are no longer burdened matrons at thirty.\nThe whole point of view has changed. I remember reading in an\nearly-Victorian novel this phrase: \"She was past the first bloom of her\nyouth; she was twenty-three.\" The phrase is not without its meaning; it\nmeant that the male was seeking not a wife, but a courtesan who, her\ncourtesanship done, could become a perfect housekeeper. Now men prefer\nwomen of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, forsake the _backfisch_ for her\nmother, because the mother has personality, experience, can stimulate,\namuse, and accompany. Only the older and more formed woman is no longer\nwilling to enter the family as a jail; she will enter it only as a\nhotel.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMeanwhile, from child to parent erosion also operates. I do not think\nthat the modern child honors its father and its mother unless it thinks\nthem worthy of honor. There is a slump in respect, as outside the family\nthere is a slump in reverence. As in the outer world a man began by\nbeing a worthy, then a member of Parliament, then a minister, finally\nwas granted a pension and later a statue; and as now a man is first a\njournalist, then a member of Parliament, a minister, and in due course a\nscoundrel, so inside the family does a father become an equal instead of\na tyrant, and a good sort instead of an old fogy. For respect, I\nbelieve, was mainly fear and greed. The respect of the child for its\nfather was very like the respect that Riquet, the little dog, felt for\nMonsieur Bergeret. Anatole France has expressed it ideally:\n\n\"Oh, my master, Bergeret, God of Slaughter, I worship thee! Hail, oh God\nof wrath! Hail, oh bountiful God! I lie at thy feet, I lick thy hand.\nThou art great and beautiful when at the laden board thou devourest\nabundant meats. Thou art great and beautiful when, from a thin strip of\nwood causing flame to spring, thou dost of night make day....\"\n\nThat was a little the child's cosmogony. Then the child became educated,\ncapable of argument. In contact with more reasonable parents it grew\nmore reasonable. The parent, confronted with the question, \"Why must I\ndo what you order?\" ceased to say, \"Because I say so.\" That reply did\nnot seem good enough to the parent, and it ceased to be good enough for\nthe child. If the child rebelled, the only thing to do was to strike it,\nand striking is no longer done; the parent prefers argument because the\nchild is capable of understanding argument. The child is more lawful,\nmore sensitive; it is unready to obey blindly, and it is no longer\nrequired to obey blindly, because, while the parent has begun to doubt\nhis own infallibility, the child has been doing so, too. The child is\nmore ready and more able to criticize its parents; indeed, the whole\ngeneration is critical, has acquired the habit of introspection. The\nchild is a little like the supersoul of Mr. Stephen Leacock, and is\ndeveloping thoughts like, \"Why am I? Why am I what I am? How? and why\nhow?\" Obviously, such questions, when directed at one's father and\nmother, are a little shattering. It is true that once upon a time the\nchild readily obeyed; now and then it criticized, but still it obeyed,\nfor it had been told that its duty was to execute, as was its parents'\nto command. But duty is in a bad way, and I, for one, think that we\nshould be well rid of duty, for it appears to me to be merely an excuse\nfor acting without considering whether the deed is worthy. The man who\ndies for his country because he loves it is an idealist and a hero; the\nman who does that because he thinks it his duty is a fool. The\nconception of duty has suffered; from the child's point of view, it is\nalmost extinct; it has been turned upside down, and there is a growth of\nopinion that the parent should have the duties and the child the\nprivileges. It is the theory of _La Course du Flambeau_, where Hervieu\nshows us each generation using and bleeding the elder generation. Or\nperhaps it is a more subtle conception. It may be that the eugenic idea\nis vaguely forming in the young generation, and that, in an unperceived\nreturn to nature, they are deciding to eat their grandfathers, a\nprimitive taste which I have never been able to understand. Youth,\nfeeling that the world is its orange to suck, is inclined to consider\nthat the elder generation, being responsible for its presence, should\nlook after it and serve it. That is not at all illogical; it is borne\nout by Chinese law, where, if you save a man from suicide, you must feed\nhim for the rest of his life.\n\nOr perhaps it is a broader view, a more socialized one. Very young, the\nchild is acquiring a vague sense of its responsibility to the race, is\nvery early becoming a citizen. It is directed that way; it hears that\nliberty consists in doing what you like, providing you injure no other\nman. Its personality being encouraged to develop, the child acquires a\nhigher opinion of itself, considers that it owes something to itself,\nthat it has rights. Sacrifice is still inculcated in the child, but not\nso much because it is a moral duty as because it is mental discipline.\nThe little boy is not told to give the chocolates to his little sister\nbecause she is a dear little thing, and he must not be cruel to her and\nmake her cry; he is told that he must give her the chocolates because it\nis good for him to learn to give up something. That impulse is the\nimpulse of Polycrates, who threw his ring into the sea. But, then,\nPolycrates had no luck. The child, more fortunate, is tending to realize\nitself as a person, and so, as it becomes more responsible, acquires\ntolerance; it makes allowances for its parents, it is kind, it realizes\nthat its parents have not had its advantages. All that is very\nswollen-headed and unpleasant, but still I prefer it to the old\nattitude, to the time when voices were hushed and footsteps slowed when\nfather's latchkey was heard in the lock. To the child the parent is\nbecoming a person instead of the God of Wrath; a person with rights, but\nnot a person to whom everything must be given up. Sacrifice is out of\ndate, and in the child as well as in the elders there is a denial of the\ndream of Ellen Sturges Cooper, for few wake up and find that life is\nduty. _My_ life, _my_ personality--all that has sprung from Stirner,\nfrom Nietzsche, from the great modern reaction against socialism and\nuniformity; it is the assertion of the individual. It is often harsh;\nthe daughter who used to take her father for a walk now sends the dog.\nBut still it is necessary; old hens make good soup. I do not think that\nthis has killed love, for love can coexist with mutual forbearance,\nhowever much Doctor Johnson may have doubted it. Doctor Johnson was the\nbad old man of the English family, and I do not suppose that anybody\nwill agree that\n\n  \"If the man who turnips cries\n  Cry not when his father dies,\n  'Tis a proof that he had rather\n  Have a turnip than his father.\"\n\nA possible sentiment in an older generation, but sentiments, like\ngenerations, grow out of date; they are swept out by new ideas and new\nrejections--rejection of religion, rejection of morals. We tend toward\nan agnostic world, with a high philosophical morality; we have attained\nas yet neither agnosticism nor high morality, but the child is shaking\noff the ready-made precepts of the faiths and the Smilesian theories. It\nis unwillingly bound by the ordinances of a forgotten alien race; as a\npuling child, carried in a basket by an eagle, like the tiny builders of\nEcbatana, it calls for bricks and mortar with which to build the airy\ncastle of the future.\n\n\n3\n\nAs a house divided against itself, the family falls. It protests, it\nhugs that from which it suffered; it protests in speech, in the\nnewspapers, that still it is united. The clan is dead, and blood is not\nas thick as marmalade. There are countries where the link is strong, as\nin France, for instance. I quote from a recent and realistic novel the\nwords of a mother speaking of her young married daughter:\n\n\"Every Tuesday we dine at my mother's, and every Thursday at my\nmother-in-law's. Of course, now, at least once a week we go to Madame\nde Castelac; later on I shall expect Pauline and her husband every\nWednesday.\"\n\n\"That is a pity,\" said Sorel. \"That leaves three days.\"\n\n\"Oh, there are other calls. Every week my mother comes to us the same\nevening as does my father-in-law, but that is quite informal.\"\n\nFamily dinners are rare in England. They flourish only at weddings and\nat funerals, especially at funerals, for mankind collected enjoys woe.\nBut other occasions--birthdays, Christmas--are shunned; Christmas\nespecially, in spite of Dickens and Mr. Chesterton, is not what it was,\nfor its quondam victims, having fewer children, and being less bound to\ntheir aunts' apron strings, go away to the seaside, or stay at home and\nhide. That is a general change, and many modern factors, such as travel,\nintercourse with strangers, emigration, have shown the family that there\nare other places than home, until some of them have begun to think that\n\"East or West, home's worst.\" There is a frigidity among the relations\nin the home, a disinclination to call one's mother-in-law \"Mother.\"\nIndeed, relations-in-law are no longer relatives; the two families do\nnot immediately after the wedding call one another Kitty or Tom. The\nacquired family is merely a sub-family, and often the grouping resembles\nthat of the Montagues and the Capulets, if Romeo and Juliet had married.\nMrs. Herbert said, charmingly, in _Garden Oats_, \"Our in-laws are our\nstrained relations.\"\n\nWith the closeness of the family goes the regard for the name, once so\nstrong. I feel sure that in all seriousness, round about 1850, a father\nmay have said to his son that he was disgracing the name of Smith. Now\nhe may almost disgrace the name of FitzArundel for all anybody cares.\nThere was a time when it was thought criminal that a man should become a\nbankrupt, but few families will now mortgage their estate to prevent a\ndistant member's appearance before the official receiver. The name of\nthe family is now merely generic, and the bold young girl of to-morrow\nwill say, \"My father began life as a forger and was ultimately hanged,\nbut that shouldn't bother you, should it?\" Much of that deliquescence is\ndue to the factory system, for it opened opportunities to all, which\nmany took, raised men high in the scale of wealth; one brother might be\na millionaire in Manchester, while another tended a bar in Liverpool.\nSometimes the rich member of the family came back, such as the uncle who\nreturned from America with a fortune, in a state of sentimental\ngenerosity, but most of the time it has meant that the family split into\nthose who keep their carriage and those who take the tram. Perhaps\nCervantes did not exaggerate when saying that there are only two\nfamilies: Have-Much and Have-Little.\n\n\n4\n\nWhat the future reserves I disincline to prophesy. It is enough to point\nto tendencies, and to say, \"Along this road we go, we know not whither.\"\nBut of one thing I feel certain: the family will not become closer, for\nthe individualistic tendency of man leads to instinctive rebellion; his\nlatent anarchism to isolate him from his fellows. There is a growing\nrebellion among women against the thrall of motherhood, which, however\ndelightful it may be, is a thrall--the velvet-coated yoke is a yoke\nstill. I do not suppose that the mothers of the future will unanimously\ndeposit their babies in the municipal creche. But I do believe that with\nthe growth of cooeperative households, and especially of that quite new\nclass, the skilled Princess Christian or Norland nurses, there will be a\ndelegation of responsibility from the mother to the expert. It will go\ndown to the poor as well as to the rich. Already we have district\nnurses for the poor, and I do not see why, as we realize more and more\nthe value of young life, there should not be district kindergartens.\nThey would remove the child still more from its home; they would throw\nit in contact with creatures of its own age in its very earliest years,\nprepare it for school, place it in an atmosphere where it must stand by\nitself among others who will praise or blame without special\nconsideration, for they are strangers to it and do not bear its name.\n\nI suspect, too, that marriage will be freer; it will not be made more\neasy or more difficult, but greater facilities will be given for divorce\nso that human beings may no longer be bound together in dislike, because\nthey once committed the crime of loving unwisely. This, too, must loosen\nthe family link, to-day still strong because people know that it is so\nhard to break it. It will be a conditional link when it can easily be\ndone away with, a link that will be maintained only on terms of good\nbehavior on both sides. The marriage service will need a new clause; we\nshall have to swear to be agreeable. The relation between husband and\nwife must change more. Conjugal tyranny still exists in a country such\nas England where the wife is not co-guardian of the child, for during\nhis wife's lifetime a husband may remove her child into another country,\nrefuse her access save at the price of a costly and uncertain legal\naction. The child itself must have rights. At present, all the rights it\nhas are to such food as its parents will give it; it needs very gross\ncruelty before a man can be convicted of starving or neglecting his\nchild. And when that child is what they call grown up--that is to say,\nsixteen--in practice it loses all its rights, must come out and fend for\nitself. I suspect that that will not last indefinitely, and that the new\nrace will have upon the old race the claim that owing to the old race it\nwas born. A socialized life is coming where there will be less freedom\nfor those who are unfit to be free, those who do not feel categorical\nimpulses, the impulse to treat wife and child gently and procure their\nhappiness. Men will not indefinitely draw their pay on a Friday and\ndrink half of it by Sunday night. Their wages will be subject to liens\ncorresponding to the number of their children. These liens may not be\nlight, and may extend long beyond the nominal majority of the child. I\nsuspect that after sixteen, or some other early age, children will, if\nthey choose, be entitled to leave home for some municipal hostel where\nfor a while their parents will be compelled to pay for their support. It\nwill be asked, \"Why should a parent pay for the support of a child who\nwill not live in his house?\" It seems to me that the chief reply is,\n\"Why did you have that child?\" There is another, too: \"By what right\nshould this creature for whom you are responsible be tied to a house\ninto which it has been called unconsulted? Why should it submit to your\nmoral and religious views? to your friends? to your wall-paper?\" It is a\nstrong case, and I believe that, as time goes on and the law is\nstrengthened, the young will more and more tend to leave their homes. In\ngood, liberal homes they will stay, but the others they will abandon,\nand I believe that no social philosopher will regret that children\nshould leave homes where they stay only because they are fed and not\nbecause they love.\n\nSo, flying apart by a sort of centrifugal force, the family will become\nlooser and looser, until it exists only for those who care for one\nanother enough to maintain the association. It cannot remain as it is,\nwith its right of insult, its claim to society; we can have no more\nslave daughters and slave wives, nor shall we chain together people who\nspy out one another's loves and crush one another's youth. The family\nis immortal, but the immortals have many incarnations--from Pan and\nBacchus sprang Lucifer, Son of the Morning. There is a time to\ncome--better than this because it is to come--when the family,\nhumanized, will be human.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nSOME NOTES ON MARRIAGE\n\n\n1\n\nThe questioning mind, sole apparatus of the socio-psychologist, has of\nlate years often concerned itself with marriage. Marriage always was\ndiscussed, long before Mrs. Mona Caird suggested in the respectable\n'eighties that it might be a failure, but it is certain that with the\ncoming of Mr. Bernard Shaw the institution which was questioned grew\nalmost questionable. Indeed, marriage was so much attacked that it\nalmost became popular, and some believe that the war may cut it free\nfrom the stake of martyrdom. Perhaps, but setting aside all prophecies,\nrevolts and sermons, one thing does appear: marriage is on its trial\nbefore a hesitating jury. The judge has set this jury several questions:\nIs marriage a normal institution? Is it so normal as to deserve to\ncontinue in a state of civilization? given that civilization's function\nis to crush nature.\n\nA thing is not necessarily good because it exists, for scarlet fever,\nnationality, art critics, and black beetles exist, yet all will be\nrooted out in the course of enlightenment. Marriage may be an invention\nof the male to secure himself a woman freehold, or, at least, in fee\nsimple. It may be an invention of the female designed to secure a\nsomewhat tyrannical protection and a precarious sustenance. Marriage may\nbe afflicted with inherent diseases, with antiquity, with spiritual\nindigestion, or starvation: among these confusions the\nsocio-psychologist, swaying between the solidities of polygamy and the\nshadows of theosophical union, loses all idea of the norm. There may be\nno norm, either in Christian marriage, polygamy, Meredithian marriage\nleases; there may be a norm only in the human aspiration to utility and\nto happiness.\n\nFor we know very little save the aimlessness of a life that may be\nparadise, or its vestibule, or an instalment of some other region. Still\nthere is a key, no doubt: the will to happiness, which, alas! opens\ndoors most often into empty rooms. It is the search for happiness that\nhas envenomed marriage and made it so difficult to bear, because in the\nfirst rapture it is so hard to realize that there are no ways of\nliving, but only ways of dying more or less agreeably.\n\nPersonally, I believe that with all its faults, with its crudity, its\nstupidity shot with pain, marriage responds to a human need to live\ntogether and to foster the species, and that though we will make it\neasier and approach free union, we shall always have something of the\nsort. And so, because I believe it eternal, I think it necessary.\n\nBut why does it fare so ill? Why is it that when we see in a restaurant\na middle-aged couple, mutually interested and gay, we say: \"I wonder if\nthey are married?\" Why do so many marriages persist when the love knot\nslips, and bandages fall away from the eyes? Strange cases come to my\nmind: M 6 and M 22, always apart, except to quarrel, meanly jealous,\njealously mean, yet full of affability--to strangers; M 4 and many\nothers, all poor, where at once the wife has decayed; when you see youth\nstruggling in vain on the features under the cheap hat, you need not\nlook at the left hand: she is married. It is true that however much they\nmay decay in pride of body and pride of life, when all allowances are\nmade for outer gaiety and grace, the married of forty are a sounder,\ndeeper folk than their celibate contemporaries. Often bled white by\nself-sacrifice, they have always learnt a little of the world's lesson,\nwhich is to know how to live without happiness. They may have been\nvampires, but they have not gone to sleep in the cotton wool of their\ncelibacy. Even hateful, the other sex has meant something to them. It\nhas meant that the woman must hush the children because father has come\nhome, but it has also meant that she must change her frock, because even\nfather is a man. It has taught the man that there are flowers in the\nworld, which so few bachelors know; it has taught the woman to interest\nherself in something more than a fried egg, if only to win the favor of\nher lord. Marriage may not teach the wish to please, but it teaches the\navoidance of offence, which, in a civilization governed by negative\ncommandments, is the root of private citizenship.\n\n\n2\n\nFor the closer examination of the marriage problem, I am considering\naltogether one hundred and fifty cases; my acquaintance with them varies\nbetween intimate and slight. I have thrown out one hundred and sixteen\ncases where the evidence is inadequate: the following are therefore not\nloose generalizations, but one thing I assert: those one hundred and\nsixteen cases do not contain a successful marriage. Out of the remaining\nthirty-four, the following results arise:\n\n  Apparently successful     9\n  Husband unfaithful        5\n  Wife unfaithful          10\n  Husband dislikes wife     3\n  Wife dislikes husband     7\n\nSuccess is a vague word, and I attempt no definition, but we know a\nhappy marriage when we see it, as we do a work of art.\n\nIt should be observed that when one or both parties are unfaithful, the\nmarriage is not always unsuccessful, but it generally is; moreover,\nthere are difficulties in establishing proportion, for women are\ninfinitely more confidential on this subject than are men; they also\nfrequently exaggerate dislike, which men cloak in indifference. Still,\nmaking all these allowances, I am unable to find more than nine cases of\nsuccess, say six per cent. This percentage gives rise to platitudinous\nthoughts on the horrid gamble of life.\n\nTwo main conclusions appear to follow: that more wives than husbands\nbreak their marriage vows, and (this may be a cause as well as an\neffect) that more wives than husbands are disappointed in their hopes.\nThis is natural enough, as nearly all women come ignorant to a state\nrequiring cool knowledge and armored only with illusion against truth,\nwhile men enter it with experience, if not with tolerance born of\ndisappointment. I realize that these two conclusions are opposed to the\npopular belief that a good home and a child or two are enough to make a\nwoman content. (A bad home and a child or nine is not considered by the\npopular mind.)\n\nThere is no male clamor against marriage, from which one might conclude\nthat man is fairly well served. No doubt he attaches less weight to the\nlink; even love matters to him less than to women. I do not want to\nexaggerate, for Romeo is a peer to Juliet, but it is possible to\nconceive Romeo on the Stock Exchange, very busy in pursuit of money and\nrank, while Juliet would remain merely Juliet. Juliet is not on the\nStock Exchange. If business is good, she has nothing to do, and if Satan\ndoes not turn her hands to evil works, he may turn them to good ones,\nwhich will not improve matters very much. Juliet, idle, can do nothing\nbut seek a deep and satisfying love: mostly it is a lifelong\noccupation. All this makes Juliet very difficult, and no astronomer will\ngive her the moon.\n\nRomeo is in better plight, for he makes less demands. Let Juliet be a\ngood housekeeper, fairly good looking and good tempered; not too stupid,\nso as to understand him; not too clever, so that he may understand her;\nsuch that he may think her as good as other men's wives, and he is\nsatisfied. The sentimental business is done; it is \"Farewell! Farewell!\nye lovely young girls, we're off to Rio Bay.\" So to work--to money--to\nambition--to sport--to anything--but Juliet. While he forgets her, the\nmodern woman grows every day more attractive, more intellectually vivid.\nShe demands of her partner that he should give her stimulants, and he\ngives her soporifics. She asks him for far too much; she is cruel, she\nis unjust, and she is magnificent. She has not the many children on whom\nin simpler days her mother used to vent an exacting affection, so she\nvents it on her husband.\n\nYet it is not at first sight evident why so easily in England a lover\nturns into a husband, that is to say, into a vaguely disagreeable person\nwho can be coaxed into paying bills. I suspect there are many\ninfluences corrupting marriage, and most of them are mutual in their\naction; they are of the essence of the contract; they are the mental\nreservations of the marriage oath. So far as I can see, they fall into\nsixteen classes:--\n\n  1. The waning of physical attraction.\n  2. Diverging tastes.\n  3. Being too much together.\n  4. Being too much apart. (There is no pleasing this institution.)\n  5. The sense of mutual property.\n  6. The sense of the irremediable.\n  7. Children.\n  8. The cost of living.\n  9. Rivalry.\n  10. Polygamy in men and \"second blooming\" in women.\n  11. Coarseness and talkativeness.\n  12. Sulkiness.\n  13. Dull lives.\n  14. Petty intolerance.\n  15. Stupidity.\n  16. Humour and aggressiveness.\n\nThere are other influences, but they are not easily ascertained;\nsometimes they are subtle.\n\nM 28 said to me: \"My husband's grievance against me is that I have a\ncook who can't cook; my grievance against him is that he married me.\"\n\nIndeed, sentiment and the scullery painfully represent the divergence of\nthe two sexes. One should not exaggerate the scullery; the philosopher\nwho said \"Feed the brute\" was not entirely wrong, but it is quite easy\nfor a woman to ignore the emotional pabulum that many a man requires. It\nis quite true that \"the lover in the husband may be lost\", but very few\nwomen realize that the wife can blot out the mistress. Case M 19\nconfessed that she always wore out her old clothes at home, and she was\nsurprised when I suggested that though her husband was no critic of\nclothes, he might often wonder why she did not look as well as other\nwomen. Many modern wives know this; in them the desire to please never\nquite dies; between lovers, it is violent and continuous; between\nhusband and wife, it is sometimes maintained only by shame and\nself-respect: there are old slippers that one can't wear, even before\none's husband.\n\nThe problem arises very early with the waning of physical attraction. I\nam not thinking only of the bad and hasty marriages so frequent in young\nAmerica, but of the English marriages, where both parties come together\nin a state of sentimental excitement born of ignorance and rather\npuritanical restraint. Europeans wed less wisely than the Hindoo and\nthe Turk, for these realize their wives as Woman. Generally they have\nnever seen a woman of their own class, and so she is a revelation, she\nis indeed the bulbul, while he, being the first, is the King of men. But\nthe Europeans have mixed too freely, they have skimmed, they have\nflirted, they have been so ashamed of true emotion that they have made\nthe Song of Solomon into a vaudeville ditty. They have watered the wine\nof life.\n\nSo when at last the wine of life is poured out, the draught is not new,\nfor they have quaffed before many an adulterated potion and have long\npretended that the wine of life is milk. For a moment there is a\ndifference, and they recognize that the incredible can happen; each\nthinks the time has come:\n\n  _\"Wenn ich dem Augenblick werd sagen:\n  Verweile doch, du bist so schoen . . .\"_\n\nThen the false exaltation subsides: not even a saint could stand a daily\nrevelation; the revelation becomes a sacramental service, the\nsacramental service a routine, and then, little by little, there is\nnothing. But nature, as usual abhorring a vacuum, does not allow the\nnewly opened eyes to dwell upon a void; it leaves them clear, it allows\nthem to compare. One day two demi-gods gaze into the eyes of two\nmortals and resent their fugitive quality. Another day two mortals gaze\ninto the eyes of two others, whom suddenly they discover to be\ndemi-gods. Some resist the trickery of nature, some succumb, some are\nfortunate, some are strong. But the two who once were united are\ndivorced by the three judges of the Human Supreme Court: Contrast,\nHabit, and Change.\n\nTime cures no ills; sometimes it provides poultices, often salt, for\nwounds. Time gives man his work, which he always had, but did not\nrealize in the days of his enchantment; but to woman time seldom offers\nanything except her old drug, love. Oh! there are other things,\nchildren, visiting cards, frocks, skating rinks, Christian Science teas,\nand Saturday anagrams, but all these are but froth. Brilliant, worldly,\nhard-eyed, urgent, pleasure-drugged, she still believes there is an\nexquisite reply to the question:\n\n  \"Will the love you are so rich in\n  Light a fire in the kitchen,\n  And will the little God of Love turn the spit, spit, spit?\"\n\nOnly the little God of Love does not call, and the butcher does.\n\nIt is her own fault. It is always one's own fault when one has\nillusions, though it is, in a way, one's privilege. She is attracted to\na strange man because he is tall and beautiful, or short and ugly and\nhas a clever head, or looks like a barber; he comes of different stock,\nfrom another country, out of another class--and these two strangers\nsuddenly attempt to blend a total of, say, fifty-five years of different\nlives into a single one! Gold will melt, but it needs a very fierce\nfire, and as soon as the fire is withdrawn, it hardens again. Seldom is\nthere anything to make it fluid once more, for the attraction, once\nprimary, grows with habit commonplace, with contrast unsatisfactory,\nwith growth unsuitable. The lovers are twenty, then in love, then old.\n\nIt is true that habit affects man not in the same way as it does woman;\nafter conquest man seems to grow indifferent, while, curiously enough,\nhabit often binds woman closer to man, breeds in her one single fierce\ndesire: to make him love her more. Man buys cash down, woman on the\ninstalment plan, horribly suspecting now and then that she is really\nbuying on the hire system. A rather literary case, Case M 11, said to\nme: \"I am much more in love with him than I was in the beginning; he\nseemed so strange and hard then. Now I love him, but ... he seems tired\nof me; he knows me too well. I wonder whether we only fall in love with\nmen just about the time that they get sick of us.\"\n\nHer surmise may be correct: there is no record of the after-life of\nPerseus and Andromeda, and it is more romantic not to delve into it.\nNeither they nor any other lovers could hope to maintain the early\nexaltations. I am reminded of a well-known picture by Mr. Charles Dana\nGibson, showing two lovers in the snow by the sea. They are gazing into\neach other's eyes; below is written: \"They began saying good-by last\nsummer.\" Does any one doubt that a visit to the minister, say, in the\nautumn, might have altered the complexion of things? And no wonder, for\nthey were the unknown, and through marriage would become the known. It\nis only the unknown that tempts, until one realizes that the unknown and\nthe known are the same thing, as Socrates realized that life and death\nare the same thing, mere converses of a single proposition. It is the\nunknown makes strange associates, attracts men to ugly women, slatterns\nto dandies. It is not only contrast, it is the suspicion that the\nunexpected outside must conceal something. The breaking down of that\nconcealment is conquest, and after marriage there is no conquest; there\nis only security: who could live dangerously in Brooklyn? Once licensed,\nlove is official; its gifts are doled out as sugar by a grocer, and\nsometimes short weighed. Men suffer from this and many go dully\nwondering what it is they miss that once they had; they go rather heavy,\nrather dense, cumbrously gallant, asking to be understood, and\nwhimpering about it in a way that would be ridiculous if it were not a\nlittle pathetic. Meanwhile, their wives wonder why all is not as it was.\nIt is no use telling them that nothing can ever be as it was, that as\nmankind by living decays, the emotions and outlook must change; to have\nhad a delight is a deadly thing, for one wants it again, just as it was,\nas a child demands always the same story. It must be the same delight,\nand none who feel emotion will ever understand that \"the race of\ndelights is short and pleasures have mutable faces.\"\n\nIt is true that early joys may unite, especially if one can believe that\nthere is only one fountain of joy. I think of many cases,--M 5, M\n33,--where there is only one cry: \"It is cruel to have had delights, for\nthe glamour of the past makes the day darker.\" They will live to see the\npast differently when they are older and the present matters less. But\nuntil then, the dead joy poisons the animate present; the man must drift\naway to his occupation, for there is nothing else, and the woman must\nharden by wanting what she cannot have. She will part herself from him\nmore thoroughly by hardening, for one cannot count upon a woman's\nsoftness; it can swiftly be transmuted into malicious hatred.\n\n\n3\n\nThis picture of pain is the rule where two strangers wed, but there are\nsome who, taking a partner discover a friend, many who develop agreeable\nacquaintanceship. Passion may be diverted into a common interest, say in\nconchology; if people are not too stupid, not too egotistic, they very\nsoon discover in each other a little of the human good will that will\nnot die. They must, or they fail. For whereas in the beginning foolish\nlips may be kissed, a little later they must learn to speak some wisdom.\nIn this men are most exacting; they are most inclined to demand that\nwomen should hold up to their faces the mirror of flattery, while women\nseem more tolerant, often because they do not understand, very often\nbecause they do not care, and echo the last words of Mr. Bernard Shaw's\nAnn: \"Never mind her, dear, go on talking;\" perhaps because they have\nhad to tolerate so much in the centuries that they have grown expert.\nOne may, however, tolerate whilst strongly disapproving, and one must\ndisapprove when one's egotism is continually insulted by the other\nparty's egotism. There is very little room for twice \"I\" in what ought\nto have been \"We\", and we nearly all feel that the axis of the earth\npasses through our bodies. So the common interests of two egotisms can\nalone make of these one egotism. The veriest trifle will serve, and pray\ndo not smile at Case M 4, who forgive each other all wrongs when they\nfind for dinner a _risotto a la Milanaise_. A slightly spasmodic\ninterest, and one not to be compared with a common taste for golf, or\nmotoring, or entertaining, but still it is not to be despised. It is so\ndifficult to pick a double interest from the welter of things that\npeople do alone; it is so difficult for wives truly to sympathize with\ngames, business, politics, newspapers, inventions; most women hate all\nthat. And it is still more difficult, just because man is man and\nmaster, for him really to care for the fashions, for gossip, for his\nwife's school friends, and especially her relations, for tea parties,\ntennis tournaments at the Rectory, lectures at the Mutual Improvement\nAssociation, servants' misdeeds, and growths in the garden. Most men\nhate all that. People hold amazing conversations:\n\nShe: \"Do you know, dear, I saw Mrs. Johnson again to-day with that man.\"\n\nHe: (Trying hard) \"Oh! yes, the actor fellow, you mean.\"\n\nShe: (Reproachfully) \"No, of course not, I never said he was an actor.\nHe's the new engineer at the mine, the one who came from Mexico.\"\n\nHe: \"Oh! yes, that reminds me, did you go to the library and get me\nRoosevelt's book on the Amazon?\"\n\nShe: \"No dear, I'm sorry I forgot. You see I had such a busy day, and I\ncouldn't make up my mind between those two hats. The very big one and\nthe very small one. _You_ know. Now tell me what you _really_ think--\"\nand so on.\n\nIt is exactly like a Tchekoff play. They make desperate efforts to be\ninterested in each other's affairs, and sometimes they succeed, for they\nmanage to stand each other's dullness. They assert their egotism in\nturns. He tells the same stories several times. He takes her for a\ncountry walk and forgets to give her tea, and she never remembers that\nhe hates her dearest friend Mabel. Where the rift grows more profound is\nwhen trifles such as these are overlooked, and particularly where a man\nhas work that he loves, or to which he is used, which is much the same\nthing. In early days the woman's attitude to a man's work varies a good\ndeal, but she generally suspects it a little. She may tolerate it\nbecause she loves him, and all that is his is noble. Later, if this work\nis very profitable, or if it is work which leads to honour, she may take\na pride in it, but even then she will generally grudge it the time and\nthe energy it costs. She loves him, not his work. She will seldom\nconfess this, even to herself, but she will generally lay down two\ncommandments:\n\n     1. Thou shalt love me.\n\n     2. Thou shalt succeed so that I may love thee.\n\nAll this is not manifest, but it is there. It is there even in the days\nof courtship, when a man's work, a man's clothes, a man's views on\nbimetallism are sacred; in those days, the woman must kowtow to the\nman's work, just as he must keep on good terms with her pet dog. But the\ntime almost invariably comes when the man kicks the pet dog, because\npet dogs are madly irritating sometimes--and so is a man's work. There\nis something self-protective in this, for work is so domineering. I\nshould not be at all surprised to hear that Galatea saw to it that\nPygmalion never made another statue. (On second thoughts it strikes me\nthat there might be other reasons for that.)\n\nIt is true that Pygmalion was an artist, and these are proverbially\ndifficult husbands: after an hour's work an artist will \"sneer, backbite\nand speak daggers.\" Art is a vampire, and it will gladly gobble up a\nwife as well as a husband, but the wife must not do any gobbling. She\ndoes not always try to, and there are many in London who follow their\nartist husbands rather like sandwichmen between two boards, but they are\nof a trampled breed, indigenous, I suspect, to England. I think they\narise but little in America, where, as an American said to me, \"women\nlabor to advance themselves along a road paved with discarded husbands.\"\n(This is an American's statement, not mine, so I ask the Reverend John\nBootfeller, President of the Kansas and Nevada Society for the\nPropagation of the Intellect, to spare me his denunciations.)\n\nBut leaving aside such important things as personal pettinesses, which\ntoo few think important, it must be acknowledged that women seldom\nconceive the passion for art that can inflame a man. They very seldom\nconceive a passion for anything except passion,--an admirable tendency\nfor which they blush as one does for all one's natural manifestations.\nThey hardly ever care for philosophy; they generally hate politics, but\nthey nearly always love votes. They are quite as irritating in that way\nas men, who almost invariably adore politics and detest realities,\nsometimes love science and generally prefer record railway runs. But\nwhere such an interest as a science or an art has reigned supreme in a\nman, and reasserts itself after marriage, she recognizes her enemy, the\nserpent, for is he not the symbol of wisdom? Invariably he rears his\nhead when the love fever has subsided. Woman's impulse is more artistic\nthan man's, but it seldom touches art; her artistic impulse is not yet\none of high grade; she is the flower arranger rather than the flower\npainter, the flower painter rather than just the painter. But this\ninstinct that is in all women and in so few men avails just enough to\nmake them discontented, while the great instinct that is in a few men is\nalways enough to make them wretched.\n\nIt would not be so bad if they had not to live together, but social\ncustom has decided that couples must forsake their separate ways and\nevermore follow the same. Most follow the common path easily enough,\nbecause most follow the first path that offers, but many grumble and\ncast longing eyes at side tracks or would return to the place whence\nthey came. They cannot do so because it is not done, because other feet\nhave not broken paths so wide that they shall seem legitimate. When\nhusband and wife care no longer for their common life, the only remedy\nis to part: then the contradictory strain that is in all of us will\nreassert itself and make them rebound towards each other. If the law\nwere to edict that man and wife should never be together for more than\nsix months in the year, it would be broken every day, and men and women\nwould stand hunger and stripes to come together for twelve months in\ntwelve. If love of home were made a crime, a family life would arise\nmore touching than anything Queen Victoria ever dreamed. But from the\npoint of view of a barbarous present, this would never do, for the very\nworst that can happen to two people is to reach the fullness of their\ndesire. The young man who raves at the young woman's feet: \"Oh! that I\nwere by your side day and night! Oh! that ever I could watch you move!\nI grudge the night the eight hours in which you sleep!\"-- Well, that\nyoung man is generally successful in his wooing and gets what he wants;\na little later he gets a little more. For proximity is a dangerous\nthing; it enables one to know another rather well: full knowledge of\nmankind is seldom edifying. One sees too much, one sees too close; a\nprofessional Don Juan who honors me with his friendship told me that he\nhas an infallible remedy against falling in love more often than three\ntimes a day: \"Stand as close to your charmer as you can, look at her\nwell, very well, at every feature; watch her attitudes, listen to every\ntone of her voice; then you will discover something unpleasant, and you\nwill be saved.\" That is a little what happens in marriage; for ever and\never people are together, hearing each other, watching each other.\nListen to M 14:\n\n\"I really was very much in love with him and only just at the end of the\nengagement did I notice how hard he blew his nose. After we were\nmarried, I thought: 'Oh! don't be so silly and notice such little\nthings, he's such a splendid fellow.' A little later--'Oh! I do wish he\nwouldn't blow his nose like that, it drives me mad.' Now I find myself\nlistening and telling myself with an awful feeling of doom: 'He's going\nto blow his nose!'\"\n\n(She never tells him that he trumpets like an elephant. She fears to\noffend him. She prefers to stand there, exasperated and chafed. One day\nhe will trumpet down the walls of her Jericho.)\n\nThere are awful little things between two people. Here are some of them:\n\nM 43. When tired, the wife has a peculiar yawn, roughly: \"Hoo-hoo!\nHoo-hoo!\" The husband hears it coming, and something curls within him.\n\nM 98. Every morning in his bath the husband sings: \"There is a fountain\nfill'd with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins,\" always the same.\n\nM 124. The wife buys shoes a quarter size too small and always slips\nthem off under the table at dinner. Then she loses them and develops\ngreat agitation. This fills her husband with an unaccountable rage.\n\nM 68. The wife is afflicted with the _cliche_ habit and can generally\nsum up a situation by phrases such as: \"All is not gold that glitters.\"\nOr, \"Such is life.\" Or, \"Well, well, it's a weary world.\" The husband\ncan hear them coming.\n\nThere are scores of these little cruel things which wear away love as\nsurely as trickling water will wear away a stone. (Observe how\ncontagious _cliches_ are!) The dilemma is horrible; if the offended\nparty speaks out, he or she may speak out much too forcibly and raise\nthis sort of train of thought: \"He didn't seem to mind when we were\nengaged. He loved me then, and little things didn't matter. He doesn't\nlove me now. I wonder whether he is in love with some one else. Oh! I'm\nso unhappy.\" If, on the other hand, one does not speak out forcibly, or\ndoes not speak at all, the offender goes on doing it for the rest of his\nor her life, and there is nothing to do except to wait until one has got\nused to it and has ceased to care. But by that time one has generally\nceased to care for the offender.\n\nThere are ideal marriages where both parties aim at perfection and are\nwilling to accept mutual criticism. But there is something a little\ncallous in this form of self-improvement society. People who are too\nmuch together are always making notes, adding up in their hearts bitter\nlittle adverse balances with which they will one day confront the fallen\nlover. Some slight offense will bring up the bill of arrears. A quarrel\nabout a forgotten ticket will give life to the cruel thing he said seven\nyears before about her mother's bonnets, or her sudden dismissal of the\ncook, or the dreadful day when he sat on the eggs in the train. (Clumsy\nbrute!) All these things pile up and pile up until they form a terrible,\ntowering cairn made up of tiny stones, but of great total weight, just\nas an avalanche rests securely upon a crest until a whisper releases it.\nNearly all marriages are in a state of permanent mobilization. There is\nonly one thing to do, to remember all the time that one could not hope\nto meet one quite great enough to be one's mate, and that this is the\nbest the world can do. The thought that nobody can quite understand one\nor quite appreciate one arouses a delicious sorrow and an enormous\npride.\n\n\n4\n\nToo much together is bad, and too much apart may be worse. As I\nsuggested before, there is no pleasing this institution.\n\nIt is easier to live too separate than too close, for one comes together\nfreshly, and marriage feels less irremediable when it hardly exists.\nThere really are couples who care for each other very well, who meet in\na country house and say: \"What! you here! How jolly!\" That is an extreme\ncase. In practice, separateness means conjugal acquaintanceship.\nDifferent pleasures, different friends, perhaps different worlds;\nindeed, one is mutually fresh, but traveling different roads, one may\nfind that there is nothing in common. Of two evils, it is better perhaps\nto be too intimate than too distant, because there are many irritating\nthings that with reminiscence become delightful. The dreadful day when\nhe sat on the eggs in the train is not entirely dreadful, for he looked\nso silly when he stood up, removing the eggs, and though one was angry,\none vaguely loved him for having made a fool of himself. (There are nine\nand sixty ways of gaining affection, and one of them is to be a\ngood-tempered butt.)\n\nSeparateness, naturally, cannot coincide with the sense of mutual\nproperty. This is perhaps the cause of the greatest unhappiness in\nmarriage, for so many forget that to be married is not to be one. They\ndo not understand that however much they may love, whatever delights\nthey may share, whatever common ambitions they may harbor, whatever they\nhope, or endeavor, or pray, two people are still two people. Or if they\nknow it, they say, \"He is mine.\" \"She is mine.\" If one could give\noneself entirely, it would be well enough, but however much one may want\nto do so one cannot, just because one is the axis of the earth. Because\none cannot, one will not, and he that would absorb will never forgive.\nHe will be jealous, he will be suspicious, tyrannical, he will watch and\nlay traps, he will court injury, he will air grievances, because the\nnext best thing to complete possession is railing at his impotency to\nconquer. That jealousy is turned against everything, against work,\nagainst art, against relatives, friends, dead loves, little children,\ntoy dogs: \"Thou shalt have none other gods but me\" is a human\ncommandment.\n\nMen do not, as a rule, suffer very much from this desire to possess,\nbecause they are so sure that they do possess, because they find it so\ndifficult to conceive that their wife can find any other man attractive.\nThey are too well accustomed to being courted, even if they are old and\nrepulsive, because they have power and money; only they think it is\nbecause they are men. Beyond a jealous care for their wives' fidelity,\nwhich I suspect arises mainly from the feeling that an unfaithful wife\nis a criticism, they do not ask very much. But women suffer more deeply\nbecause they know that man has lavished on them for centuries a\ncondescending admiration, that the king who lays his crown at their feet\nknows that his is the crown to give. While men possess by right of\npossession, women possess only by right of precarious conquest. They\nfeel it very bitterly, this fugitive empire, and their greatest tragedy\nis to find themselves growing a little older, uncertain of their power,\nfor they know they have only one power; they are afraid, as age comes,\nof losing their man, while I have never heard of a husband afraid of\nlosing his wife, or able to repress his surprise if she forsook him.\n\nIt would not matter so much if the feeling of property were that of a\ngood landlord, who likes to see his property develop and grow beautiful,\nbut mutual property is the feeling of the slave owner. Sometimes both\nparties suffer so, and by asking too much lose all. Man seldom asks\nmuch: if only a wife will not compromise his reputation for\nattractiveness while maintaining her own by flirtation, if she will\naccept his political views, acquire a taste for his favorite holiday\nresorts, and generally say, \"Yes, darling\", or \"No, darling\",\nopportunely, she need do nothing, she has only \"beautifully to be.\" He\nis not so fortunate, however, when she wants to possess him, for she\ndemands that he should be active, that the pretty words, caresses, the\nanxious inquiries after health, the presents of flowers and of stalls\nshould continue. It is not enough that he should love her; he must still\nbe her lover. When she is not sure that he still is her lover, a\nmadness of unrest comes over her; she will lacerate him, she will invent\nwishes so that he may thwart them, she will demand his society when she\nknows it is mortgaged to another occupation, so that she may suffer his\nrefusal, exaggerate his indifference. Here are cases:\n\nM 21. She: \"He used to take me to dances. The other day he wouldn't\ncome, he said he was tired. He wasn't tired when we were engaged.\"\n\nThe Investigator: \"But why should he go if he didn't want to?\"\n\nShe: \"Because I wanted to.\"\n\nThe Investigator: \"But he didn't want to.\"\n\nShe: \"He _ought_ to take pleasure in pleasing me.\"\n\n(The conversation here degenerates into a discussion on duty and becomes\nuninteresting.)\n\nM 4. The husband is a doctor with a very extended city practice. He is\nbusy eleven hours a day and has night calls. His marriage has been\nspoilt because in the first years the wife, who is young and gay, could\nnot understand that the man, who was always surrounded by people, in\nhouses, streets, conveyances, should not desire society. She resented\nhis wish to be alone for some hours, to shut himself up. There were\ntears, and like most people she looked ugly when she cried. She was\nlonely, and when one is lonely, it is difficult to realize that other\npeople may be too much surrounded.\n\n\n5\n\nA great deal of all this, however, might pass away if one could feel\nthat it would not last. Nothing matters that does not last. Only one\nmust be conscious of it, and in marriage many people are dully aware\nthat they have settled down, that they have drawn the one and only\nticket they can ever hope to draw, unless merciful death steps in. There\nwill be no more adventures, no more excitements, no more marsh fires,\nwhich one knows deceptive yet loves to follow. It will be difficult to\nmove to other towns or countries, to change one's occupation; it will\neven be difficult to adopt new poses, for the other will not be taken\nin. One will be for evermore what one is. True there is elopement,\ndivorce; in matters of art, there is the artist courage that enables a\nman to see another suffer for the sake of his desire. But all this is\nvery difficult, and few of us have courage enough to make others suffer;\nif one had the courage to do no harm at all, it might not be so bad, but\nnot many can follow Mr. Bernard Shaw: \"If you injure your neighbor, let\nit not be by halves.\" They almost invariably do injure by halves: he\nthat will not kill, scratches. There is no refuge from a world of rates,\nand taxes, and bills, and houses overcrowded by children, and old\nclothes, dull leaders in the papers, stupid plays, the morning train,\nthe unvarying Sunday dinner. It is so bad sometimes that it causes\nwillful revolt. I sincerely believe that a great many men would be model\nhusbands if only they were not married. Only when everything is\nrespectable and nice there is a terrible temptation to introduce a\nchange; the wild animal in man, that is in a few a lion, in most a\nweasel, reacts against the definite, the irremediable, the assured. He\nmust do something. He must break through. He must prove to himself that\nhe has not really sentenced himself to penal servitude for life. That is\nwhy so few of the respectable are respectable, and why reformed rakes do\nmake good husbands. (Generally, that is, for a few rakes feel that they\nmust keep up their reputation; on the other hand, a really respectable\nman knows no shame.)\n\nCuriously enough, children seem to act both against and in favor of\nthese disruptive factors. It is difficult to deprive children of\ninfluence; they must part, or they must unite. They are somebody in the\nhouse; they make a noise, and it depends upon temperament whether the\nnoise exasperates or delights. Parents are divided into those who love\nthem, and those who bear their children; generally, men dislike little\nbabies, unless they are rather strong men whom weakness attracts, or\nunless they feel pride of race, while women, excepting those who live\nonly for light pleasures, give them a quite unreasoning affection.\nChildren are a frequent source of trouble, for the tired man's nerves\nare horribly frayed by screams and exuberances. He shouts: \"Stop that\nchild howling!\" and if his wife assumes a saintly air and says that \"she\nwould rather hear a child cry than a man swear,\" the door opens towards\nthe club or public house. Likewise, a man who has given so many jewels\nthat the mother of the Gracchi might be jealous, will never understand\nthe appalling weariness that can come over the mother in the evening,\nwhen she has administered, say, twelve meals, four or eight baths, and\nanswered several hundreds of questions varying between the existence of\nGod and the esoterics of the steam engine. Loving the children too much\nto blame them, she must blame some one, and blames him.\n\nPeople do not confess these things, but the socio-psychologist must\nremember that when a man quietly picks up a flower pot and hurls it\nthrough the window, the original cause may be found in the behavior of\nthe departmental manager six hours before. The irritation of children\ncan envenom two lives, for it seems almost inevitable that each party\nshould think the other spoils or tyrannizes. It is not always so, and\nsometimes children unite by the bond of a common love; very much more\noften they unite by the burden of a common responsibility. Indeed, it is\nthis financial responsibility that draws two people close, because tied\ntogether they must swim together or sink together, until they are so\nconcerned individually with their salvation that they think they are\nconcerned with the salvation of the other. That bond of union is\ndangerous, because marriage is expensive, and because one tends to\nremember the time when bread was not so dear and flesh and blood so\ncheap. There is affluence in bachelordom; there is atrocious discomfort\ntoo, but when one thinks of the good old times, one generally forgets\nall except the affluence. Of the present, one sees only that one cannot\ntake the whole family to Yellowstone; of the past, one does not see the\nsitting room, or the hangings on which the landlady merely blew. The\nwife thinks of her frocks, garlands of the sacrificial heifer, the\nhusband of the days when he could afford to be one of the boys. And, as\nsoon as the past grows glamorous, the present day grows dull; always\nbecause one must blame something, one blames the other. It is so much\nmore agreeable to spend a thousand dollars than to spend a hundred, even\nif one gets nothing for it. It is power. It is excitement. One thinks of\nmoney until one may come to think of nothing but money, until, as\nsuggested before, a husband turns into a vaguely disagreeable person who\ncan be coaxed into paying bills. In the working class especially there\nis bitterness among the women, who before their marriage knew the taste\nof independence and of earned money in their purses. It is a great love\nthat can compensate a woman for the loss of freedom after she has\nenjoyed it.\n\nNothing indeed can compensate a woman for this, except a lover, that is\nto say, a return to an older state. That is to what she turns, for\nstrange as it may seem, marriage does not vaccinate against the\ntemptations of love. She does not easily love again, for she has been\nmarried, and while it is easy to love again when one has been\natrociously betrayed, just because one invests the new with everything\nthat the old held back, it is difficult to love again when the promised\nlove turned merely to dullness. There is nothing to strike against.\nThere is no contrast, and so women slip into relationships that are\nsilly, because there is nothing real behind them. Boredom is the root of\nall evil, and I doubt whether busy and happy women seek adventure, for\nfew of them want it for adventure's sake: they seek only satisfaction.\nThat is what most men cruelly misunderstand; they blame woman instead of\nsearching out their own remissness. Sins of omission matter more than\nsins of commission, more even than infidelities, for love, which is all\na woman's life, is only a momentous incident in that of a man. Love may\nbe the discovery of a happiness, but man remains conscious of many other\ndelights. Woman is seldom like that. You will imagine a man and a woman\nwho have blundered upon mutual understanding standing upon the hill from\nwhich Moses saw Canaan. The woman would fill her eyes with Canaan, and\ncould see nought else, while the man gazing at the promised land would\nstill be conscious of other countries. In the heart of a man who is\nworth anything at all, love must have rivals,--art, science,\nambition,--and it is a delight to woman that there should be rivals to\novercome, even though it be a poor slave she tie to her chariot wheels.\n\nMarriage does not always suffer when people drift away from their\nallegiance; in countries such as France notably, where many husbands and\nwives do not think it necessary to trust, or tactful to watch each\nother, the problem does not set itself so sharply. It is mainly in\nAnglo-Saxon countries where the little blue flower has its altars that\nthe trouble begins. A rather fascinating foreigner said to me once:\n\"Englishwomen are very troublesome; they are either so light that they\ndo not understand you when you tell them you love them, or so deep that\nyou must elope every time. This is a difficult country.\" I do not want\nto seem cynical, but the polygamous nature of man is so ill-recognized\nand the boredom of woman such a national institution that when it is too\nlate to pretend that that which has happened has not happened, most of\nthe mischief has already been done. Why a husband or wife who has found\nattraction in another should immediately treat his partner abominably is\nnot easily understood, for falling in love with the present victim need\nnot make him rude or remiss to the rest of the world. But the British\nare a strange and savage people. Also, when in doubt they get drunk, so\nI fear I must leave a clearer recognition of polygamous instincts to the\nslow-growing enlightenment of the mind of man.\n\nHe is growing enlightened; at least he is infinitely more educated than\nhe was, for he has begun to recognize that woman is to a certain extent\na human being, a savage, a barbarian, but entitled to the consideration\ngenerally given to the Hottentot. I do not think woman will always be\nsavage, though I hope she will not turn into the clear-eyed,\nweather-beaten mate that Mr. H. G. Wells likes to think of--for the\nfuture. She has come to look upon man as an equation that can be solved.\nHe, too, in a sense, and both are to-day much less inclined than they\nwere fifty years ago to overlook a chance of pleasing. It is certain\nthat men and women to-day dress more deliberately for each other than\nthey ever did before, that they lead each other, sometimes with dutiful\nunwillingness, to the theatre or the country; it is very painful\nsometimes, this organization of pleasure, but it is necessary because\ndull lives are bad lives, and better fall into the river than never go\nto the river at all. It is dangerous and vain to take up the attitude,\n\"I alone am enough.\" Yet many do: as one walks along a suburban street,\nwhere every window is shut, where every dining room has its aspidistra\nin a pot, one realizes that scores of people are busily heaping ash upon\nthe once warm fire of their love. The stranger is the alternative; he\nobscures small quarrels; if the stranger is beautiful, he urges to\ncompetition; if he is inferior, he soothes pride. But above all, the\nstranger is change, therefore hope. The stranger is an insurance against\nloss of personal pride; he compels adornment, for what is \"good enough\nfor my husband\" is not good enough for the lady over the way. The\nstranger serves the pleasure lust, this violent passion of man, and\ncannot harm him because the lust for pleasure, within the limits of\nhysteria, involves a desire for good looks, for elegance, for gaiety;\nabove all, love of pleasure was reviled of our fathers, and whatever our\nfathers thought bad is become a good thing. Our fathers did not\nunderstand certain forms of pride: there is more than pride of body in\ngood looks, good clothes, and showing off before acquaintances: there is\nachievement, which means pride of conquest. I imagine that the happiest\ncouple in the world is the one where each lives in perpetual fear that\nsomebody will run away with the other.\n\nLooking at it broadly, I see marriage as a Chinese puzzle, almost, but\nnot quite, insoluble. Spoilt by coldness, spoilt by ardour, spoilt by\nexcess, spoilt by indifference, spoilt by obedience, by stupidity, by\nself-assertion, spoilt by familiarity, spoilt by ignorance. Spoilt in\nevery possible way that man can invent. Spoilt by every ounce of\ninfluence a jealous or ironical world can muster, spoilt by habit, by\ncontrast, by obtuseness quite as much as by overclose understanding. And\nyet it stands. It stands because there is nothing much to put into its\nplace, because marriage is the only road that leads a man away from his\ndinner when he is forty-five, or teaches a woman to preserve her\ncomplexion. It stands like most human things, because it is the better\nof two bad alternatives. Only because it stands we must not think that\nit will never change. All things change, otherwise one could not bear\nthem. I suspect that marriage, that was once upon a time the taking of a\nwoman by a man, which has now grown legalized, and may become courteous,\nwill turn into a very skilled occupation. It will be recognized still\nmore than now that all freedom need not be lost after putting on the\nwedding ring. As legal right and privilege grow, as women develop\nprivate earnings, a consciousness of worth must arise. Already women\nrealize their value and demand its recognition. If they demand it long\nenough, they will get it. I suspect that the economic problem is at the\nroot of the marriage problem, for people are not indiscriminate in their\nrelationships, and even Don Juan, after a while, longs to be faithful,\nif only somebody could teach him how to be it. Marriage can be made\nclose only by making divorce easy, by extending female labor. For labor\nmakes woman less attractive and to be attractive is rather a trap: how\nmuch higher can a woman rise? But the economic freedom of woman will\nmean that she need not bind herself; she will be able to break away, and\nin those days she will be most completely bound, for who would run away\nfrom a jail if the door were always left open?\n\nI detest Utopia, and these things seem so far away that I am more\ncontent to take marriage as it is in the hope that unhealthy novels,\nunnecessary discussions, unwholesome views, and unnatural feelings may\nlittle by little reform mankind. Meanwhile, I hold fast to the private\nmaxim that hardly anything is unendurable if one sets up that all\nmankind could not give one a quite worthy mate. But there is another\nalleviation: understanding not only that one is married to somebody\nelse, but also that somebody else is married to yourself, and that it is\nquite as hard for the other party. There are many excellent things to be\ndone; here are a few:\n\n     (1) Do not open each other's letters. (For one reason you might not\n     like the contents.) And try not to look liberal if you don't even\n     glance at the address or the postmark.\n\n     (2) Vary your pursuits, your conversation, and your clothes. If\n     required, vary your hair.\n\n     (3) If you absolutely must be sincere, let it be in private.\n\n     (4) (Especially for wives.) Find out on the honeymoon whether\n     crying or swearing is the more effective.\n\n     (5) Once a day say to a wife: \"I love you\"; to a husband: \"How\n     strong you are!\" If the latter remark is ridiculous, say: \"How\n     clever you are!\" for everybody believes that.\n\n     (6) Forgive your partner seventy times seven. Then burn the ledger.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_By the author of \"The Second Blooming\"_\n\nTHE STRANGERS' WEDDING\n\n_By_ W. L. GEORGE\n\n12mo. Cloth. 450 pages. $1.35 _net_.\n\nReaders of \"The Second Blooming,\" one of the most discussed novels of\n1915, will welcome the announcement of another novel of married life by\nthis talented English author.\n\n\"The Strangers' Wedding\" is the story of Roger Huncote, a young man of\nthe upper classes who, inflamed with philanthropic ideals, joins a\nsettlement to work among the poor. He is speedily undeceived as to the\nusefulness of the movement and the worthiness of those who control it,\nand conceiving an unreasonable disgust of his own class, marries the\ndaughter of a washerwoman. Realizing that there may be little\ndifficulties, he believes that when two people care deeply for each\nother nothing else can matter. But Huncote has much to learn; and most\nof the story is concerned with the pitiful misunderstandings between\nthe young husband and the young wife, both of whom are charming but as\nunable to meet as east and west. Mr. George indicates with much\npsychological subtlety the reversion of the \"strangers\" to their own\nclass, which ultimately leads them to a happy ending.\n\nThis novel is throughout pathetic, but it contains a great deal of broad\nhumor and deserves its sub-title, \"The Comedy of a Romantic.\"\n\n\n_By the Author of \"The Stranger's Wedding\"_\n\nTHE SECOND BLOOMING\n\n_By_ W. L. GEORGE\n\n12mo. 438 pages. $1.35 _net_.\n\nA strong and thoughtful story.--_New York World._\n\nA story of amazing power and insight.--_Washington Evening Star._\n\nMr. George is one of the Englishmen to be reckoned with. One now says\nWells, Galsworthy, Bennett--and W. L. George.--_New York Globe._\n\nThis writer has entered with more courage and intensity into the inner\nsanctuaries of life than Mr. Howells and Mr. Bennett have cared to\ndo.--_Chicago Tribune._\n\nMr. George follows a vein of literary brilliancy that is all his own,\nand his study of feminine maturity will find ample vindication the round\nworld over.--_Philadelphia North American._\n\nIt is a book which is bound to appeal to women, for it is so\nextraordinarily true to life; so many women have passed and are passing\nthrough remarkably similar experiences.--_London Evening Standard._\n\nIt is perhaps the biggest piece of fiction that the present season has\nknown. The present reviewer may frankly say, without exaggeration, that\nhe has not had a treat of similar order since the still memorable day\nwhen he first made the acquaintance of Mr. Galsworthy's \"Man of\nProperty.\"--_Frederic T. Cooper in the Bookman (N. Y.)._\n\n\n_The Racial Characteristics of French and English_\n\nTHE LITTLE BELOVED\n\n_By_ W. L. GEORGE\n\n12mo. Cloth. $1.35 _net_\n\nNot since Thackeray, indeed, has any English novelist done a more\nimpressive study of the typical Englishman. It is not only a good story;\nit is a notable study of national character.--_Baltimore Sun._\n\nNot merely a splendid opportunity for contrast between the temperamental\ndifferences of French and English, but a narrative of earnest merit. We\nare met by a full world of English characters.--_New York Post_.\n\nFirst and last, interesting. It is crowded with impressions, glimpses,\nand opinions. There are many characters and they are all living....\nReading his book is a real adventure, by no means to be missed.--_New\nYork Times._\n\nA vigorous novel based upon the process--constructive and\ndestructive--whereby a typical French youth, mercurial, passionate,\nspectacular, is transformed into a staid and stolid English householder\nand husband.--_Chicago Herald._\n\nMr. George, one of the most promising of the younger English writers,\nhas shown the process of naturalization from a more striking viewpoint,\nin this story of the changing of a Frenchman into an English citizen.\nWith this purpose and his nervous, irritable nature trouble is sure to\nensue, and he has adventures in plenty.--_Boston Transcript._\n\n\n\"Once read, will not quickly be forgotten.\"--_Providence Journal._\n\nUNTIL THE DAY BREAK\n\n_By_ W. L. GEORGE\n\n12mo. Cloth. $1.35 _net._\n\nMr. George's study of the evolution of this Israel Kalisch is a\nremarkable work in realistic fiction.--_New York World._\n\nA novel of more than usual value.... It is a life-drama, such as is\ngoing on continually in London and New York.--_Hearst's Magazine._\n\nThe story contains a very pretty love element.... Such an objective\npicture as is here presented will do more than sermons to reveal the\nfutility of the sacrifice which anarchy sometimes makes of noble\nminds.--_New York Post._\n\nMr. George unquestionably has the gift of description, not only of\nplaces but of men. Kalisch, egotistic, self-confident, fearless, making\nhis way from Gallicia through Hungary to starve and fight in New York,\nis an impressive conception.--_The Bookman._\n\nIsrael, Warsch, Leimeritz, the various women who successively love\nIsrael, they are so true, so vital that we can almost see and hear them\nspeak and breathe. Yes, this is a great novel, even though it\nalternately fires and freezes the very marrow of the soul.--_Chicago\nHerald._\n\nLITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS\n\n34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON","title":"The Intelligence of Woman","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":51868}