VI.]

FEMINITY AND POLITICS.

That

173

Surely

Will'.

which history, so far as I know, offers no parallel. ?
The inevitable effect is to debase and demoralize,
to a greater or less extent, almost all men who take
part in the ignoble contest. That women, with
their peculiar intellectual and spiritual constitution,
would be still more debased and demoralized, who'
can doubt? Let us, at all events, preserve one
half of humanity from this degradation.
women, as persons, should exercise an influence, a
potent influence, in the body politic, I am far from
denying; but I affirm that to vote in elections, or
to sit in Parliament, is by no means the only
or the
most appropriate mode of its exercise. It is far
more beneficially and powerfully exerted by means
of tact, sympathy, and persuasiveness in private
life. Let woman's personality be protected by the
legal recognition of her equality with man in re-
spect of person and property-and with some few
exceptions, the chief being in the existing law of
intestacy and probate, this has, in England, been
done and her political "emancipation" is com-
plete. To vote and be voted for in elections, to
harangue and intrigue in Parliament, would but
impair her grace and diminish her dignity, would
mar her distinctive womanhood, and therefore can-
not be among her rights.

And, as it seems to me, much the same must be said with regard to most of the callings traditionally reserved for men, admission to which is now claimed for the softer sex. The subject

is a large one. Let us confine ourselves here to the professions hitherto reckoned specially virile. Two of them, indeed, we may at once put aside from our discussion. Not even the strongestminded ladies, I take it, are desirous to follow the profession of arms. And as concerning the clerical profession, they appear almost unanimously to incline to the opinion of Miss Wollstonecraft, who in her Vindication treats the ecclesiastical order with no more civility than pretty women. But they want to be doctors; they want to be lawyers. I think they are wrong. For the practice of the law, women, in general, appear to me gravely disqualified by their singularly unjudicial habit of mind. Even the humblest attorney, if he is to be of use to his client in the simplest matter, must possess some power of seeing different sides of a question, of appreciating the value of evidence, of freeing himself from passion and prejudice in considering a case. But these are things of which most women are congenitally incapable. By a sort of intuition, they jump at conclusions which, indeed, are often right. But. in the practice of the law, it is impossible to put aside the slower method of ratiocination. An example of what I am saying occurs to me as I write. A certain lady, a very gifted person, holding strong Home Rule opinions, was a firm believer in Mr. Parnell's innocence of the things laid to his charge before the Special Commission,

vi.]

FEMINITY AND MANLY OCCUPATIONS.

175

Must

until the O'Shea divorce suit. The revelations made in that case worked a complete revolution in her view of the co-respondent, and she exclaimed: "Then he wrote those letters!" I do not blame her for conducting her mental processes in a woman's way. "Naturæ sequitur semina quisque suæ." I do not think it will be easy to convert women from feeling to reasoning animals; and I am sure that well-nigh all that is pure womanly would perish in the process. Portia, expounding the quality of mercy, is charming on the stage. Put her through the ordinary course of legal training, and transport her from the sphere of dramatic art to the sphere of forensic business, from the Lyceum Theatre to the Old Bailey, and how much of the charm will be left? Assuredly "brawling courts and dusty purlieus of the law" are unmeet for women.

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Still less in keeping with the attributes of fine abrit

distinctive womanhood, as it seems to me, is the profession of medicine and surgery. I do not think it possible that a young woman can go through the instruction necessary to qualify for it, without detriment to the modesty which is the chief ornament of her sex. There is a fine and true observation of Joubert which may sufficiently indicate why this is so: "Rien de trop matériel doit occuper les jeunes filles. Tout ce qui exerce pleinement le tact, principalement sur les choses

a.

qui ont de la vie, est peu convenable à leur pureté et la détruirait. Ce qu'il y a de moins virginal, entre nos sens, en effet, c'est le tact. Aussi remarquez qu'une fille ne touche rien comme une femme, ni une femme chaste en son âme comme celle qui ne l'est pas." Of course this observation does not apply to women dedicated, by vows of religion, to the service of the sick and suffering in hospitals or elsewhere. Their profession separates them from the rest of their sex. Their religious habit is to them as "robur et æs triplex circa pectus." They have lost their life, the lower life of the senses, and have found it in the higher life of self-consecration to Him whom they discern in the least of His brethren.

Pass we now to another sphere in which Woman's Rights are said to be withheld from her. It is urged that the two sexes are unequal in their sexual relations, and that this inequality is wrong. We are told that breach of chastity should be regarded as equally heinous in both, and that the stringency of the marriage tie should be relaxed in favour of female freedom. Some conspicuous champions of Woman's Rights-Mr. Karl Pearson, as we have seen, is one of them-would go so far as to abolish altogether monogamous marriage and would substitute for it casual cohabitation terminable at the pleasure, or perhaps we should say on the satiety, of either party, and free from interference by public authority, save such as might be found

VI.]

FEMININE VIRTUE.

177

necessary for checking, in the public interest, the
number of births. Probably the majority of strong-
minded ladies, and their sympathizers, would not
commit themselves to this view. But certain it is
that by them all, or well-nigh all, the old concep-
tion of matrimony, where the woman takes the
man "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and
obey, until death do part them," is regarded as
servile and odious. Now, here the main question
is, Would it harm distinctive womanhood if chas-
tity were considered as of no more consequence in
woman than in man? How can we doubt that it
would? From a purely ethical point of view the
pravity of incontinence may be equal in both
sexes; but chastity is woman's special and distinc- 7.
tive virtue, just as courage is man's. To this
truth, language itself bears significant testimony.
If we say of a woman that she has lost her virtue,
we mean that she has made shipwreck of that one
excellence which is the keystone of her moral
character, on which all her worth depends, and
which, when once destroyed, can never be re-
covered; "læsa pudicitia est nulla reparabilis

arte." It would be absurd to use the phrase of ame

man who had indulged in illicit sexual intercourse. A like fault in him does not sap the citadel of his moral being, and "ruining overthrow" his selfrespect, and his claim to the respect of others. The spiritual difference is enormous between the

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