[By LADY COOK (NEE TENNESSEE CLAFLIN) in the London Citizen. ]
When the sculptor, painter, or poet desires to present us with the loveliest object of contemplation, he gives his ideal of a fair woman. He presents her in all her naked glory. How she breathes from the marble, glows upon the canvas, shines on the page. Her pose, her contour, her symmetry, her bewitching curves, her divine beauty of body and soul, fill us with admiration and delight. For the true artist discovers hidden charms and gives us eyes wherewith to see. He shows us woman, not as she is, but as she will be. For he is nothing if he be not prophetic. He eliminates all that is vulgar or debasing, and unites the perfections of many in one. And whether we call her Venus or Virgin, we forget the frailties of the one and the sorrows of the other as we gaze upon their loveliness.
How we sigh for the lost treasures of art, for those earlier conceptions which foreshadowed so much. How we execrate the barbarous hands that neglected, mutilated, and destroyed the priceless object lessons of humanity. Statues, paintings, and poems have perished. Even Campaspe has not survived. Others, however, have supplied their place, and although there is much that is meretricious, there is also much that is genuine. Shakespeare alone has given us a whole gallery of lovely and lovable women—all the creation of his own brain. No such beings had existed until he formed them, so sweet, so sympathetic, and laughter-loving, so nimble and graceful in body and in mind. Intellectual gymnasts, bright eyed and rosy-lipped were they, but, above all, intensely womanly, and nothing like the coarse-mouthed, beef-eating, beer-guzzling damsels and matrons who crowded on dry days into the Blackfriars Theatre. Yet on the retina of his mental eye these humanly perfect maidens were distinctly pictured, and his description of them has been for us a standard of true womanliness by which our wives and daughters have been raised immeasurably higher.
When we turn from these ideals to the realities that surround us, from what woman might be to what she is, we are profoundly shocked. We then realize, to some degree, how enormous are the efforts required to raise her to her true position. We enquire why her elevation is so slow, what are the obstacles that hinder her development, and why she continues to be the inferior and slave rather than the equal of man, thus involving society in calamity upon calamity.
The history of women is the history of the continued and universal oppression of one sex by the other. The emancipation of woman is her restoration to equal rights and privileges with man.
For there must have been a time, however remote, when the sexes were equal, and when the male performed many of the functions, such as suckling, which now devolve upon the female. But during her frequent periods of gestation she may have become physically unfitted to cope with the male, and this, in a time when sexual intercourse was promiscuous, must have materially assisted him in reducing her to slavery. Thus, as soon as property was recognised, women became the booty and chattels of men, and a rude form of marriage was instituted. As in the song of Deborah and Barak:—"Have they not sped! Have they not divided the spoil, to every man a damsel or two?"
Next the theologians stept forth and gave a religious sanction to public custom. Thus we read in Genesis, " And the Lord God said, ' It is not good that the men should be alone; I will make an help meet for him.' " This accords with the Mohammedan idea that woman exists solely for the comfort and gratification of man on earth as the houris do in heaven. After the fall we read:—"Unto the woman he said, ' I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.' " Christianity through Paul's teaching also gave its sanction to the existing ideas. Speaking of public worship he says, " For a man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man; neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man." Who can calculate the injury done to woman by this authoritative assertion of her inferiority, and that, too, among a people like the gay inhabitants of Corinth, where she enjoyed the highest freedom then known ? This unhappy position of hers was universal. In some parts it still exists as at first, in others it has been more or less modified ; but nowhere, not even with us, with all our boasted civilisation and Christianity, has she become free. The shackles of her ancient slavery still cling to her and retard her mental, moral, and physical development.
Need we wonder, then, at the sad spectacle which humanity offers us ? Its hideous wars, its social abominations, its foul creeds, its treacheries, vices, wants, diseases, lusts, tyrannies, and crimes are the natural outcome of the subjugation of one-half of the human race by the other.
And what is the panacea proposed by our sapient reformers ? The right of parochial voting, forsooth, woman suffrage, the liberty to engage her abilities in any sphere of employment for which she may be capable. All these, of course, are right in their way, but, when granted, would leave her almost as much in servitude as before. We claim for her infinitely more. We demand for her perfect equality with man in all things—that she should be free as he is free. And we do this not in her interests alone, but in his also, and equally. For the absolute freedom of woman will be the dawn of the day of man's regeneration. In raising her he will elevate himself.
Let us regard for a moment a few of the inequalities under which our countrywomen labour, and we will begin with them from the beginning. They must not, as girls, have the same liberty of movement as boys. They may not even walk out alone; they must not talk the same language, learn the same lessons, nor indulge in the same sports. Boys may be careless and boisterous; girls must be prim and demure. Boys may range field and forest; girls must walk pathways in pairs. Boys are natural; girls must be artificial. And this from no incapacity on the girls' part; for, if permitted, they could rival boys in play and work. Having arrived at puberty, their bonds are tightened just as their dresses are lengthened. They may not speak to one of the other sex until he has first been formally introduced by a friend or relative. They are so carefully guarded that they compensate themselves by clandestine methods. Already the girl is a slave, and she practises a slave's devices. She becomes an adept at subterfuge and hypocrisy.
At length, when marriageable, marriage is sought, but she may not make it known. Should she meet the man into whose hands alone she could gladly place her destinies, she must exhibit no preference. She may feel that he would make her the most suitable life-companion, she may ardently desire that he should be the father of her children, but she must conceal it all. He may propose, she not. And thus, longing to be a wife and mother, she must wither in her virginity unless chance direct an offer. Or an alternative presents itself. She is sought in marriage, so-called, by a man for whom she has no regard, who is in no way qualified to make her happy, but whose means are equal to her rank. He may have run through a long career of vice, and be physically and mentally enervated and diseased. She may really loathe him, but she is taught by her own parents to regard him as an eligible partner, being no worse than so many others, and she ultimately weds him from sheer submission to their authority. What was the devotion of Jephtha's daughter to this ? One stroke of the sacrificial knife and all was over, but the other endures a lifelong martyrdom. And this is marriage, this mournful conjunction of decrepitude and strength, of lust and innocence, of foulness and purity. Scheming relatives may fling the healthy, happy, ingenuous maiden into the arms of a diseased roue, and the law will allow it, and the Church bless it.
But true marriage is a spiritual and mental exosmose and endosmose ; each gives of its own to each until both are alike. It is a natural and spontaneous union of ideas, aims, and sympathies. In the alembic of love two natures, the complements of each other, are unconsciously and invisibly united more firmly than in any chemical union. For the marriage ceremony is not marriage, but is merely the public profession of an accomplished fact, otherwise it is morally fraudulent. And if love do not precede the ceremony no real marriage exists.
Even at the altars of our churches woman is deceived and defrauded. "With all my wordly goods I thee endow," says the husband. Does he do so ? She goes forth to be the partner of his life, the mistress of his household, the mother of his children. But all his worldly goods are still absolutely his. She has, with his consent, simply a use in common during his life, and he can will away from her everything he possesses, and leave her penniless and destitute after years of wifely service, during which her care and industry may have multiplied his "goods" exceedingly. Her jewels and trinkets, if dubbed "heirlooms," will be taken from her, and should she have no son, then a stranger, if her husband's nearest relative, may dispossess her of the home where she has passed her wedded life. Where there are sons and daughters the disparity between the sexes is still maintained. The great idea is ever Man—never Woman. For him are the titles, freeholds, factories, partnerships, and all good things ; for her, little or nothing. And yet how many daughters are superior to the sons, and how many women are there whose learning and abilities would adorn any office and any position. Over and over have women proved their aptitude for business, and their power to compete with men successfully in any walk of life. Yet the avenues to wealth, honours, and titles are closed to them. The bar, the pulpit, the medical profession, the professorial chair, the exchange, the mart, are rigorously guarded against them. Art and literature alone have accorded them a qualified admittance, and already both have been enriched by their genius.
Their statutable disqualifications are too many to enumerate. They may not sit on a jury nor in Parliament, nor be members of a Town or County Council. The suffrage is denied them, although, they are taxed with men, and form more than one-half of the population.
If we would see the spirit in which honourable men, when their sex monopolizes the Legislature, can make laws for women, we need only turn to the "Contagious Diseases Act," an Act which would be admirable if it applied impartially to both sexes, but which is grossly tyrannous when applied only to one. Under its provisions women of immoral life were registered by the police, and were compelled to present themselves at stated times for frequent medical inspection, and to undergo hospital treatment if diseased. Yet men of equally immoral life, and known to be similarly diseased, were subject neither to inspection nor treatment—penalties for the woman, immunity for the man. But why should he be privileged to contaminate and poison at will, and she imprisoned for the same ?
We English are unsurpassed in the art of breeding the inferior animals— from a salmon to a shorthorn, from a pigeon to a racehorse. The method is no secret. All understand it. Healthy animals only with the best points are selected, and free from hereditary taint. They are mated carefully, and the strains are preserved pure from all deteriorating blood and damaging conditions. But in the breeding of the highest animal these salutary maxims are ignored. And men of natural affection and intelligence bestow more pains on the mating of their dogs than on that of their daughters.
Our workhouses, prisons, refuges, penitentiaries, and lunatic asylums bear sad witness to these inequitable laws and customs. There are crowded hosts of unhappy women, thousands of them mere girls, victims without redress of man's lust and heartlessness. There they wear out their pitiful and cheerless days to the end, too many of them dowered with the fatal gift of beauty.
Usually it is the ardent girl of generous disposition, the least calculating and most artless, who is persuaded to yield to an illicit love. Nature is strong in her, and affection predominates. Her embraces go with her heart. If society and the law are compassionate to any, they should be tender to her. But both are implacable. She is appalled by their unrelenting severity, and in her mad terror is often impelled to destroy the witness of her shame. Hence infanticide abounds in a Christian land. But should she spare her innocent offspring, the law still pursues him. He cannot inherit except by will, and if he die intestate the Crown seizes all his property.
Kadina and Wallaroo Times (SA : 1888 - 1954), Wednesday 17 January 1894
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article109150057
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