WOMEN AND POLITICS. 

BY THEREV. CANON KINGSLEY. 

_REPRINTED FROM_ '_MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE_. '

Published by the London National Society for Women's Suffrage. 

LONDON:PRINTED BYSPOTTISWOODE & CO. , NEW-STREET SQUARE, FARRINGDON STREETAND 80 PARLIAMENT STREET, WESTMINSTER1869. 

WOMEN AND POLITICS. {3}

Somewhat more than 300 years ago, John Knox, who did more than any man tomould the thoughts of his nation--and indeed of our English Puritanslikewise--was writing a little book on the 'Regiment of Women, ' in whichhe proved woman, on account of her natural inferiority to man, unfit torule. 

And but the other day, Mr. John Stuart Mill, who has done more than anyman to mould the thought of the rising generation of Englishmen, haswritten a little book, in the exactly opposite sense, on the 'Subjectionof Women, ' in which he proves woman, on account of her natural equalitywith man, to be fit to rule. 

Truly 'the whirligig of Time brings round its revenges. ' To this pointthe reason of civilised nations has come, or at least is coming fast, after some fifteen hundred years of unreason, and of a literature ofunreason, which discoursed gravely and learnedly of nuns and witches, hysteria and madness, persecution and torture, and, like a madman in hisdreams, built up by irrefragable logic a whole inverted pyramid ofseeming truth upon a single false premiss. To this it has come, afterlong centuries in which woman was regarded by celibate theologians as the'noxious animal, ' the temptress, the source of earthly misery, whichderived--at least in one case--'femina' from 'fe' faith, and 'minus'less, because women had less faith than men; which represented them as ofmore violent and unbridled animal passions; which explained learnedly whythey were more tempted than men to heresy and witchcraft, and moresubject (those especially who had beautiful hair) to the attacks ofdemons; and, in a word, regarded them as a necessary evil, to betolerated, despised, repressed, and if possible shut up in nunneries. 

Of this literature of celibate unreason, those who have no time to readfor themselves the pages of Sprenger, Meier, or Delrio the Jesuit, mayfind notices enough in Michelet, and in both Mr. Lecky's excellent works. They may find enough of it, and to spare also, in Burton's 'Anatomy ofMelancholy. ' He, like Knox, and many another scholar of the 16th and ofthe first half of the 17th century, was unable to free his brainaltogether from the _idola specus_ which haunted the cell of thebookworm. The poor student, knowing nothing of women, save from books orfrom contact with the most debased, repeated, with the pruriency of aboy, the falsehoods about women which, armed with the authority oflearned doctors, had grown reverend and incontestable with age; and evenafter the Reformation more than one witch-mania proved that the corrupttree had vitality enough left to bring forth evil fruit. 

But the axe had been laid to the root thereof. The later witchprosecutions were not to be compared for extent and atrocity to themediaeval ones; and first, as it would seem, in France, and gradually inother European countries, the old contempt of women was being replaced byadmiration and trust. Such examples as that of Marguerite d'Angoulemedid much, especially in the South of France, where science, as well asthe Bible, was opening men's eyes more and more to nature and to fact. Good little Rondelet, or any of his pupils, would have as soon thought ofburning a woman for a witch as they would have of immuring her in anunnery. 

In Scotland, John Knox's book came, happily for the nation, too late. Thewoes of Mary Stuart called out for her a feeling of chivalry which hasdone much, even to the present day, to elevate the Scotch character. Meanwhile, the same influences which raised the position of women amongthe Reformed in France raised it likewise in Scotland; and there is nocountry on earth in which wives and mothers have been more honoured, andmore justly honoured, for two centuries and more. In England, thepassionate loyalty with which Elizabeth was regarded, at least during thelatter part of her reign, scattered to the winds all John Knox'sarguments against the 'Regiment of Women;' and a literature sprang up inwhich woman was set forth no longer as the weakling and the temptress, but as the guide and the inspirer of man. Whatever traces of the oldfoul leaven may be found in Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, or BenJonson, such books as Sidney's 'Arcadia, ' Lyly's 'Euphues, ' Spenser's'Fairy Queen, ' and last, but not least, Shakespeare's Plays, place theconception of woman and of the rights of woman on a vantage-ground fromwhich I believe it can never permanently fall again--at least until(which God forbid) true manhood has died out of England. To a boy whosenotions of his duty to woman had been formed, not on Horace and Juvenal, but on Spenser and Shakespeare, --as I trust they will be some day inevery public school, --Mr. John Stuart Mill's new book would seem littlemore than a text-book of truths which had been familiar and natural tohim ever since he first stood by his mother's knee. 

I say this not in depreciation of Mr. Mill's book. I mean it for thevery highest praise. M. Agassiz says somewhere that every greatscientific truth must go through three stages of public opinion. Menwill say of it, first, that it is not true; next, that it is contrary toreligion; and lastly, that every one knew it already. The last assertionof the three is often more than half true. In many cases every one oughtto have known the truth already, if they had but used their common sense. The great antiquity of the earth is a case in point. Forty years ago itwas still untrue; five-and-twenty years ago it was still contrary toreligion. Now every child who uses his common sense can see, fromlooking at the rocks and stones about him, that the earth is manythousand, it may be many hundreds of thousands of years old; and there isno difficulty now in making him convince himself, by his own eyes and hisown reason, of the most prodigious facts of the glacial epoch. 

And so it ought to be with the truths which Mr. Mill has set forth. Ifthe minds of lads can but be kept clear of Pagan brutalities and mediaevalsuperstitions, and fed instead on the soundest and noblest of our Englishliterature, Mr. Mill's creed about women will, I verily believe, seem tothem as one which they have always held by instinct; as a naturaldeduction from their own intercourse with their mothers, their aunts, their sisters: and thus Mr. Mill's book may achieve the highest triumphof which such a book is capable; namely--that years hence young men willnot care to read it, because they take it all for granted. 

There are those who for years past have held opinions concerning womenidentical with those of Mr. Mill. They thought it best, however, to keepthem to themselves; trusting to the truth of the old saying, 'Run notround after the world. If you stand still long enough, the world willcome round to you. ' And the world seems now to be coming round very fasttowards their standing-point; and that not from theory, but fromexperience. As to the intellectual capacity of girls when competing withboys (and I may add as to the prudence of educating boys and girlstogether), the experience of those who for twenty years past have kept upmixed schools, in which the farmer's daughter has sat on the same benchwith the labourer's son, has been corroborated by all who have triedmixed classes, or have, like the Cambridge local examiners, applied tothe powers of girls the same tests as they applied to boys; and stillmore strikingly by the results of admitting women to the Royal College ofScience in Ireland, where young ladies have repeatedly carried off prizesfor scientific knowledge against young men who have proved themselves, bysubsequent success in life, to have been formidable rivals. On everyside the conviction seems growing (a conviction which any man might havearrived at for himself long ago, if he would have taken the trouble tocompare the powers of his own daughters with those of his sons), thatthere is no difference in kind, and probably none in degree, between theintellect of a woman and that of a man; and those who will not as yetassent to this are growing more willing to allow fresh experiments on thequestion, and to confess that, after all (as Mr. Fitch well says in hisreport to the Schools Inquiry Commission), 'The true measure of a woman'sright to knowledge is her capacity for receiving it, and not any theoriesof ours as to what she is fit for, or what use she is likely to make ofit. '

This is, doubtless, a most important concession. For if it be allowed tobe true of woman's capacity for learning, it ought to be--and I believewill be--allowed to be true of all her other capacities whatsoever. Fromwhich fresh concession results will follow, startling no doubt to thosewho fancy that the world always was, and always will be, what it wasyesterday and to-day: but results which some who have contemplated themsteadily and silently for years past, have learnt to look at not withfear and confusion, but with earnest longing and high hope. 

However startling these results may be, it is certain from the books, thenames whereof head this article, that some who desire their fulfilmentare no mere fanatics or dreamers. They evince, without exception, thatmoderation which is a proof of true earnestness. Mr. Mill's book it isalmost an impertinence in me to praise. I shall not review it in detail. It is known, I presume, to every reader of this Magazine, either byitself or reviews: but let me remind those who only know the book throughreviews, that those reviews (however able or fair) are most probablywritten by men of inferior intellect to Mr. Mill, and by men who have notthought over the subject as long and as deeply as he has done; and that, therefore, if they wish to know what Mr. Mill thinks, it would be wisestfor them to read Mr. Mill himself--a truism which (in these days ofsecond-hand knowledge) will apply to a good many books beside. But ifthey still fancy that the advocates of 'Woman's Rights' in England are ofthe same temper as certain female clubbists in America, with whosesayings and doings the public has been amused or shocked, then I beg themto peruse the article on the 'Social Position of Women, ' by Mr. BoydKinnear; to find any fault with it they can; and after that, to showcause why it should not be reprinted (as it ought to be) in the form of apamphlet, and circulated among the working men of Britain to remind themthat their duty toward woman coincides (as to all human duties) withtheir own palpable interest. I beg also attention to Dr. Hodgson'slittle book, 'Lectures on the Education of Girls, and Employment ofWomen;' and not only to the text, but to the valuable notes andreferences which accompany them. Or if any one wish to ascertain thetemper, as well as the intellectual calibre of the ladies who areforemost in this movement, let them read, as specimens of two differentstyles, the Introduction to 'Woman's Work, and Woman's Culture, ' by Mrs. Butler, and the article on 'Female Suffrage, ' by Miss Wedgewood, at p. 247. I only ask that these two articles should be judged on their ownmerits--the fact that they are written by women being ignored meanwhile. After that has been done, it may be but just and right for the man whohas read them to ask himself (especially if he has had a mother), whetherwomen who can so think and write, have not a right to speak, and a rightto be heard when they speak, of a subject with which they must be betteracquainted than men--woman's capacities, and woman's needs?

If any one who has not as yet looked into this 'Woman's Question' wishesto know how it has risen to the surface just now, let them consider thesewords of Mrs. Butler. They will prove, at least, that the movement hasnot had its origin in the study, but in the market; not from sentimentaldreams or abstract theories, but from the necessities of physical fact:--

 'The census taken eight years ago gave three and a half millions of women in England working for a subsistence; and of these two and a half millions were unmarried. In the interval between the census of 1851 and that of 1861, the number of self-supporting women had increased by more than half a million. This is significant; and still more striking, I believe, on this point, will be the returns of the nest census two years hence. '

Thus a demand for employment has led naturally to a demand for improvededucation, fitting woman for employment; and that again has led, naturally also, to a demand on the part of many thoughtful women for ashare in making those laws and those social regulations which have, whilemade exclusively by men, resulted in leaving women at a disadvantage atevery turn. They ask--and they have surely some cause to ask--Whatgreater right have men to dictate to women the rules by which they shalllive, than women have to dictate to men? All they demand--all, at least, that is demanded in the volumes noticed in this review--is fair play forwomen; 'A clear stage and no favour. ' Let 'natural selection, ' as MissWedgwood well says, decide which is the superior, and in what. Let it, by the laws of supply and demand, draught women as well as men into theemployments and positions for which they are most fitted by nature. Tothose who believe that the laws of nature are the laws of God, the _VoxDei in rebus revelata_; that to obey them is to prove our real faith inGod, to interfere with them (as we did in social relations throughout theMiddle Ages, and as we did till lately in commercial relations likewise)by arbitrary restrictions is to show that we have no faith in God, andconsider ourselves wise enough to set right an ill-made universe--to themat least this demand must seem both just and modest. 

Meanwhile, many women, and some men also, think the social status ofwomen is just now in special peril. The late extension of the franchisehas admitted to a share in framing our laws many thousands of men of thatclass which--whatever be their other virtues, and they are many--is mostgiven to spending their wives' earnings in drink, and personallymaltreating them; and least likely--to judge from the actions of certaintrades--to admit women to free competition for employment. Furtherextension of the suffrage will, perhaps, in a very few years, admit manythousands more. And it is no wonder if refined and educated women, in anage which is disposed to see in the possession of a vote the best meansof self-defence, should ask for votes, for the defence, not merely ofthemselves, but of their lowlier sisters, from the tyranny of men who areas yet--to the shame of the State--most of them altogether uneducated. 

As for the reasonableness of such a demand, I can only say--what has beensaid elsewhere--that the present state of things, 'in which the franchiseis considered as something so important and so sacred that the mostvirtuous, the most pious, the most learned, the most wealthy, the mostbenevolent, the most justly powerful woman, is refused it, as somethingtoo precious for her; and yet it is entrusted, freely and hopefully, toany illiterate, drunken, wife-beating ruffian who can contrive to keep ahome over his head, ' is equally unjust and absurd. 

There may be some sufficient answer to the conclusion which conscienceand common sense, left to themselves, would draw from this statement ofthe case as it now stands: but none has occurred to me which is notcontrary to the first principle of a free government. 

This I presume to be: that every citizen has a right to share in choosingthose who make the laws; in order to prevent, as far as he can, lawsbeing made which are unjust and injurious to him, to his family, or tohis class; and that all are to be considered as 'active' citizens, savethe criminal, the insane, or those unable to support themselves. Thebest rough test of a man's being able to support himself is, I doubt not, his being able to keep a house over his head, or, at least, a permanentlodging; and that, I presume, will be in a few years the one anduniversal test of active citizenship, unless we should meanwhile obtainthe boon of a compulsory Government education, and an educationalfranchise founded thereon. But, it must be asked--and answered also--Whatis there in such a test, even as it stands now, only partially applied, which is not as fair for women as it is for men? 'Is it just that aneducated man, who is able independently to earn his own livelihood, should have a vote: but that an equally educated woman, equally ableindependently to earn her own livelihood, should not? Is it just that aman owning a certain quantity of property should have a vote in respectof that property: but that a woman owning the same quantity of property, and perhaps a hundred or a thousand times more, should have no vote?'What difference, founded on Nature and Fact, exists between the twocases?

If it be said that Nature and Fact (arguments grounded on aught else areto be left to monks and mediaeval jurists) prove that women are less ablethan men to keep a house over their head, or to manage their property, the answer is that Fact is the other way. Women are just as capable asmen of managing a large estate, a vast wealth. Mr. Mill gives a factwhich surprised even him--that the best administered Indian States werethose governed by women who could neither read nor write, and wereconfined all their lives to the privacy of the harem. And any one whoknows the English upper classes must know more than one illustriousinstance--besides that of Miss Burdett Coutts, or the late Dowager LadyLondonderry--in which a woman has proved herself able to use wealth andpower as well, or better, than most men. The woman at least is notlikely, by gambling, horseracing, and profligacy, to bring herself andher class to shame. Women, too, in every town keep shops. Is there theslightest evidence that these shops are not as well managed, and asremunerative, as those kept by men?--unless, indeed, as too oftenhappens, poor Madame has her Mantalini and his vices to support, as wellas herself and her children. As for the woman's power of supportingherself and keeping up at least a lodging respectably, can any one havelived past middle age without meeting dozens of single women, or widows, of all ranks, who do that, and do it better and more easily than men, because they do not, like men, require wine, beer, tobacco, and sundryother luxuries? So wise and thrifty are such women, that very many ofthem are able, out of their own pittance, to support beside themselvesothers who have no legal claim upon them. Who does not know, if he knowsanything of society, the truth of Mr. Butler's words?--'It is a verygenerally accepted axiom, and one which it seems has been endorsed bythoughtful men, without a sufficiently minute examination into the truthof it, that a man--in the matter of maintenance--means generally a man, awife and children; while a woman means herself alone, free of dependence. A closer inquiry into the facts of life would prove that conclusions havebeen too hastily adopted on the latter head. I believe it may be saidwith truth that there is scarcely a female teacher in England, who is notworking for another or others besides herself, --that a very largeproportion are urged on of necessity in their work by the dependence onthem of whole families, in many cases of their own aged parents, --thatmany hundreds are keeping broken-down relatives, fathers, and brothers, out of the workhouse, and that many are widows supporting their ownchildren. A few examples, taken at random from the lists of governessesapplying to the Institution in Sackville Street, London, would illustratethis point. And let it be remembered that such cases are the rule, andnot the exception. Indeed, if the facts of life were better known, thehollowness of this defence of the inequality of payment would becomemanifest; for it is in theory alone that in families man is the onlybread-winner, and it is false to suppose that single women have noobligations to make and to save money as sacred as those which areimposed on a man by marriage; while there is this difference, that a manmay avoid such obligation if he pleases, by refraining from marriage, while the poverty of parents, or the dependence of brothers and sisters, are circumstances over which a woman obliged to work for others has nocontrol. '

True: and, alas! too true. But what Mr. Butler asserts of governessesmay be asserted, with equal truth, of hundreds of maiden aunts and maidensisters who are not engaged in teaching, but who spend their money, theirtime, their love, their intellect, upon profligate or broken-downrelations, or upon their children; and who exhibit through long years oftoil, anxiety, self-sacrifice, a courage, a promptitude, a knowledge ofbusiness and of human nature, and a simple but lofty standard of duty andrighteousness, which if it does not fit them for the franchise, what can?

It may be, that such women would not care to use the franchise, if theyhad it. That is their concern, not ours. Voters who do not care to votemay be counted by thousands among men; some of them, perhaps, are wiserthan their fellows, and not more foolish; and take that method of showingtheir wisdom. Be that as it may, we are no more justified in refusing ahuman being a right, because he may not choose to exercise it, than weare in refusing to pay him his due, because he may probably hoard themoney. 

The objection that such women are better without a vote, because a votewould interest them in politics, and so interfere with their domesticduties, seems slender enough. What domestic duties have they, of whichthe State can take cognisance, save their duty to those to whom they mayowe money, and their duty to keep the peace? Their other and noblerduties are voluntary and self-imposed; and, most usually, are fulfilledas secretly as possible. The State commits an injustice in debarring awoman from the rights of a citizen because she chooses, over and abovethem, to perform the good works of a saint. 

And, after all, will it be the worse for these women, or for the societyin which they live, if they do interest themselves in politics? Mightnot (as Mr. Boyd Kinnear urges in an article as sober and rational as itis earnest and chivalrous) their purity and earnestness help to make whatis now called politics somewhat more pure, somewhat more earnest? Mightnot the presence of the voting power of a few virtuous, experienced, well-educated women, keep candidates, for very shame, from saying and doingthings from which they do not shrink, before a crowd of men who are, onthe average, neither virtuous, experienced, or well-educated, bywholesome dread of that most terrible of all earthly punishments--atleast in the eyes of a manly man--the fine scorn of a noble woman? Mightnot the intervention of a few women who are living according to theeternal laws of God, help to infuse some slightly stronger tincture ofthose eternal laws into our legislators and their legislation? Whatwomen have done for the social reforms of the last forty years is known, or ought to be known, to all. Might not they have done far more, andmight not they do far more hereafter, if they, who generally know farmore than men do of human suffering, and of the consequences of humanfolly, were able to ask for further social reforms, not merely as a boonto be begged from the physically stronger sex, but as their will, whichthey, as citizens, have a right to see fulfilled, if just and possible?Woman has played for too many centuries the part which Lady Godiva playsin the old legend. It is time that she should not be content withmitigating by her entreaties or her charities the cruelty and greed ofmen, but exercise her right, as a member of the State, and (as I believe)a member of Christ and a child of God, to forbid them. 

As for any specific difference between the intellect of women and that ofmen, which should preclude the former meddling in politics, I mustconfess that the subtle distinctions drawn, even by those who uphold theintellectual equality of women, have almost, if not altogether, escapedme. The only important difference, I think, is, that men are generallyduller and more conceited than women. The dulness is natural enough, onthe broad ground that the males of all animals (being more sensual andselfish) are duller than the females. The conceit is easily accountedfor. The English boy is told from childhood, as the negro boy is, thatmen are superior to women. The negro boy shows his assent to theproposition by beating his mother, the English one by talking down hissisters. That is all. 

But if there be no specific intellectual difference (as there is actuallynone), is there any practical and moral difference? I use the twoepithets as synonymous; for practical power may exist without acutenessof intellect: but it cannot exist without sobriety, patience, andcourage, and sundry other virtues, which are 'moral' in every sense ofthat word. 

I know of no such difference. There are, doubtless, fields of politicalaction more fitted for men than for women; but are there not again fieldsmore fitted for women than for men?--fields in which certain women, atleast, have already shown such practical capacity, that they haveestablished not only their own right, but a general right for the ableand educated of their sex, to advise officially about that which theythemselves have unofficially mastered. Who will say that Mrs. Fry, orMiss Nightingale, or Miss Burdett Coutts, is not as fit to demand pledgesof a candidate at the hustings on important social questions as any maleelector; or to give her deliberate opinion thereon in either House ofParliament, as any average M. P. Or peer of the realm? And if it be saidthat these are only brilliant exceptions, the rejoinder is, What proofhave you of that? You cannot pronounce on the powers of the average tillyou have tried them. These exceptions rather prove the existence ofunsuspected and unemployed strength below. If a few persons of genius, in any class, succeed in breaking through the barriers of routine andprejudice, their success shows that they have left behind them many morewho would follow in their steps if those barriers were but removed. Thishas been the case in every forward movement, religious, scientific, orsocial. A daring spirit here and there has shown his fellow-men whatcould be known, what could be done; and behold, when once awakened to asense of their own powers, multitudes have proved themselves as capable, though not as daring, as the leaders of their forlorn hope. Dozens ofgeologists can now work out problems which would have puzzled Hutton orWerner; dozens of surgeons can perform operations from which John Hunterwould have shrunk appalled; and dozens of women, were they allowed, would, I believe, fulfil in political and official posts the hopes whichMiss Wedgwood and Mr. Boyd Kinnear entertain. 

But, after all, it is hard to say anything on this matter, which has notbeen said in other words by Mr. Mill himself, in pp. 98-104 of his'Subjection of Women;' or give us more sound and palpable proof ofwomen's political capacity, than the paragraph with which he ends hisargument:--

 'Is it reasonable to think that those who are fit for the greater functions of politics are incapable of qualifying themselves for the less? Is there any reason, in the nature of things, that the wives and sisters of princes should, whenever called on, be found as competent as the princes themselves to their business, but that the wives and sisters of statesmen, and administrators, and directors of companies, and managers of public institutions, should be unable to do what is done by their brothers and husbands? The real reason is plain enough; it is that princesses, being more raised above the generality of men by their rank than placed below them by their sex, have never been taught that it was improper for them to concern themselves with politics; but have been allowed to feel the liberal interest natural to any cultivated human being, in the great transactions which took place around them, and in which they might be called on to take a part. The ladies of reigning families are the only women who are allowed the same range of interests and freedom of development as men; and it is precisely in their case that there is not found to be any inferiority. Exactly where and in proportion as women's capacities for government have been tried, in that proportion have they been found adequate. '

Though the demands of women just now are generally urged in the orderof--first, employment, then education, and lastly, the franchise, I havedealt principally with the latter, because I sincerely believe that it, and it only, will lead to their obtaining a just measure of the twoformer. Had I been treating of an ideal, or even a truly civilisedpolity, I should have spoken of education first; for education ought tobe the necessary and sole qualification for the franchise. But we havenot so ordered it in England in the case of men; and in all fairness weought not to do so in the case of women. We have not so ordered it, andwe had no right to order it otherwise than we have done. If we haveneglected to give the masses due education, we have no right to withholdthe franchise on the strength of that neglect. Like Frankenstein, we mayhave made our man ill: but we cannot help his being alive; and if hedestroys us, it is our own fault. 

If any reply, that to add a number of uneducated women-voters to thenumber of uneducated men-voters will be only to make the danger worse, the answer is:--That women will be always less brutal than men, and willexercise on them (unless they are maddened, as in the first FrenchRevolution, by the hunger and misery of their children) the samesoftening influence in public life which they now exercise in private;and, moreover, that as things stand now, the average woman is moreeducated, in every sense of the word, than the average man; and that toadmit women would be to admit a class of voters superior, not inferior, to the average. 

Startling as this may sound to some, I assert that it is true. 

We must recollect that the just complaints of the insufficient educationof girls proceed almost entirely from that 'lower-upper' class whichstocks the professions, including the Press; that this class furnishesonly a small portion of the whole number of voters; that the vastmajority belong (and will belong still more hereafter) to other classes, of whom we may say, that in all of them the girls are better educatedthan the boys. They stay longer at school--sometimes twice as long. Theyare more open to the purifying and elevating influences of religion. Their brains are neither muddled away with drink and profligacy, ornarrowed by the one absorbing aim of turning a penny into five farthings. They have a far larger share than their brothers of that best of allpractical and moral educations, that of family life. Any one who has hadexperience of the families of farmers and small tradesmen, knows howboorish the lads are, beside the intelligence, and often the refinement, of their sisters. The same rule holds (I am told) in the manufacturingdistricts. Even in the families of employers, the young ladies are, andhave been for a generation or two, far more highly cultivated than theirbrothers, whose intellects are always early absorbed in business, and toooften injured by pleasure. The same, I believe, in spite of all that hasbeen written about the frivolity of the girl of the period, holds true ofthat class which is, by a strange irony, called 'the ruling class. ' Isuspect that the average young lady already learns more worth knowing athome than her brother does at the public school. Those, moreover, whocomplain that girls are trained now too often merely as articles for theso-called 'marriage market, ' must remember this--that the great majorityof those who will have votes will be either widows, who have long passedall that, have had experience, bitter and wholesome, of the realities oflife, and have most of them given many pledges to the State in the formof children; or women who, by various circumstances, have been earlywithdrawn from the competition of this same marriage-market, and havesettled down into pure and honourable celibacy, with full time, andgenerally full inclination, to cultivate and employ their own powers. Iknow not what society those men may have lived in who are in the habit ofsneering at 'old maids. ' My experience has led me to regard them withdeep respect, from the servant retired on her little savings to theunmarried sisters of the rich and the powerful, as a class pure, unselfish, thoughtful, useful, often experienced and able; more fit forthe franchise, when they are once awakened to their duties as citizens, than the average men of the corresponding class. I am aware that such astatement will be met with 'laughter, the unripe fruit of wisdom. ' Butthat will not affect its truth. 

Let me say a few words more on this point. There are those who, whilethey pity the two millions and a half, or more, of unmarried womenearning their own bread, are tempted to do no more than pity them, fromthe mistaken notion that after all it is their own fault, or at least thefault of nature. They ought (it is fancied) to have been married: or atleast they ought to have been good-looking enough and clever enough to bemarried. They are the exceptions, and for exceptions we cannotlegislate. We must take care of the average article, and let the refusetake care of itself. I have put plainly, it may be somewhat coarsely, abelief which I believe many men hold, though they are too manly toexpress it. But the belief itself is false. It is false even of thelower classes. Among them, the cleverest, the most prudent, the mostthoughtful, are those who, either in domestic service or a few--very few, alas!--other callings, attain comfortable and responsible posts whichthey do not care to leave for any marriage, especially when that marriageputs the savings of their life at the mercy of the husband--and they seebut too many miserable instances of what that implies. The veryrefinement which they have acquired in domestic service often keeps themfrom wedlock. 'I shall never marry, ' said an admirable nurse, thedaughter of a common agricultural labourer. 'After being so many yearsamong gentlefolk, I could not live with a man who was not a scholar, anddid not bathe every day. '

And if this be true of the lower class, it is still more true of some, atleast, of the classes above them. Many a 'lady' who remains unmarrieddoes so, not for want of suitors, but simply from nobleness of mind;because others are dependent on her for support; or because she will notdegrade herself by marrying for marrying's sake. How often does one seeall that can make a woman attractive--talent, wit, education, health, beauty, --possessed by one who never will enter holy wedlock. 'What aloss, ' one says, 'that such a woman should not have married, if it werebut for the sake of the children she might have borne to the State. ''Perhaps, ' answer wise women of the world, 'she did not see any one whomshe could condescend to many. '

And thus it is that a very large proportion of the spinsters of England, so far from being, as silly boys and wicked old men fancy, the refuse oftheir sex, are the very _elite_ thereof; those who have either sacrificedthemselves for their kindred, or have refused to sacrifice themselves tothat longing to marry at all risks of which women are so often and sounmanly accused. 

Be all this as it may, every man is bound to bear in mind, that over thisincreasing multitude of 'spinsters, ' of women who are eitherself-supporting or desirous of so being, men have, by mere virtue oftheir sex, absolutely no rights at all. No human being has such a rightover them as the husband has (justly or unjustly) over the wife, or thefather over the daughter living in his house. They are independent andself-supporting units of the State, owing to it exactly the sameallegiance as, and neither more nor less than, men who have attainedtheir majority. They are favoured by no privilege, indulgence, orexceptional legislation from the State, and they ask none. They expectno protection from the State save that protection for life and propertywhich every man, even the most valiant, expects, since the carrying ofside-arms has gone out of fashion. They prove themselves daily, wheneverthey have simple fair play, just as capable as men of not being a burdento the State. They are in fact in exactly the same relation to the Stateas men. Why are similar relations, similar powers, and similar dutiesnot to carry with them similar rights? To this question the common senseand justice of England will have soon to find an answer. I havesufficient faith in that common sense and justice, when once awakened, toface any question fairly, to anticipate what that answer will be. 

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_Spottiswoode & Co. _, _Printers_, _New-street Square and_ 30 _ParliamentStreet_. 

Footnotes:

{3} 'The Subjection of Women. ' By John Stuart Mill. --'Woman's Work andWoman's Culture. ' Edited by Josephine Butler. --'Education of Girls, andEmployment of Women. ' By W. B. Hodgson, LD. D. --'On the Study of Scienceby Women. ' By Lydia Ernestine Becker. (_Contemporary Review_, March1869. )