第42章 CHAPTER 4(2)

Is it imagined that all this does not pervert the whole manner of existenceof the man, both as an individual and as a social being? It is an exact parallelto the feeling of a hereditary king that he is excellent above others bybeing born a king, or a noble by being born a noble. The relation betweenhusband and wife is very like that between lord and vassal, except that thewife is held to more unlimited obedience than the vassal was. However thevassal's character may have been affected, for better and for worse, by hissubordination, who can help seeing that the lord's was affected greatly forthe worse? whether he was led to believe that his vassals were really superiorto himself, or to feel that he was placed in command over people as goodas himself, for no merits or labours of his own, but merely for having, asFigaro says, taken the trouble to be born. The self-worship of the monarch,or of the feudal superior, is matched by the self-worship of the male. Humanbeings do not grow up from childhood in the possession of unearned distinctions,without pluming themselves upon them. Those whom privileges not acquiredby their merit, and which they feel to be disproportioned to it, inspirewith additional humility, are always the few, and the best few. The restare only inspired with pride, and the worst sort of pride, that which valuesitself upon accidental advantages, not of its own achieving. Above all, whenthe feeling of being raised above the whole of the other sex is combinedwith personal authority over one individual among them; the situation, ifa school of conscientious and affectionate forbearance to those whose strongestpoints of character are conscience and affection, is to men of another qualitya regularly constituted academy or gymnasium for training them in arroganceand overbearingness; which vices, if curbed by the certainty of resistancein their intercourse with other men, their equals, break out towards allwho are in a position to be obliged to tolerate them, and often revenge themselvesupon the unfortunate wife for the involuntary restraint which they are obligedto submit to elsewhere.

The example afforded, and the education given to the sentiments, by layingthe foundation of domestic existence upon a relation contradictory to thefirst principles of social justice must, from the very nature of man, havea perverting influence of such magnitude, that it is hardly possible withour present experience to raise our imaginations to the conception of sogreat a change for the better as would be made by its removal. All that educationand civilisation are doing to efface the influences on character of the lawof force, and replace them by those of justice, remains merely on the surface,as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked. The principle of themodern movement in morals and politics, is that conduct, and conduct alone,entitles to respect: that not what men are, but what they do, constitutestheir claim to deference; that, above all, merit, and not birth, is the onlyrightful claim to power and authority. If no authority, not in its naturetemporary, were allowed to one human being over another, society would notbe employed in building up propensities with one hand which it has to curbwith the other. The child would really, for the first time in man's existenceon earth, be trained in the way he should go, and when he was old there wouldbe a chance that he would not depart from it. But so long as the right ofthe strong to power over the weak rules in the very heart of society, theattempt to make the equal right of the weak the principle of its outwardactions will always be an uphill struggle; for the law of justice, whichis also that of Christianity, will never get possession of men's inmost sentiments;they will be working against it, even when bending to it.

The second benefit to be expected from giving to women the free use oftheir faculties, by leaving them the free choice of their employments, andopening to them the same field of occupation and the same prizes and encouragementsas to other human beings, would be that of doubling the mass of mental facultiesavailable for the higher service of humanity. Where there is now one personqualified to benefit mankind and promote the general improvement, as a publicteacher, or an administrator of some branch of public or social affairs,there would then be a chance of two. Mental superiority of any kind is atpresent everywhere so much below the demand; there is such a deficiency ofpersons competent to do excellently anything which it requires any considerableamount of ability to do; that the loss to the world, by refusing to makeuse of one half of the whole quantity of talent it possesses, is extremelyserious. It is true that this amount of mental power is not totally lost.

Much of it is employed, and would in any case be employed, in domestic management,and in the few other occupations open to women; and from the remainder indirectbenefit is in many individual cases obtained, through the personal influenceof individual women over individual men. But these benefits are partial;their range is extremely circumscribed; and if they must be admitted, onthe one hand, as a deduction from the amount of fresh social power that wouldbe acquired by giving freedom to one-half of the whole sum of human intellect,there must be added, on the other, the benefit of the stimulus that wouldbe given to the intellect of men by the competition; or (to use a more trueexpression) by the necessity that would be imposed on them of deserving precedencybefore they could expect to obtain it.

This great accession to the intellectual power of the species, and tothe amount of intellect available for the good management of its affairs,would be obtained, partly, through the better and more complete intellectualeducation of women, which would then improve pari passu with that of men.