FOOTNOTES:
[142] See Man’s Descent from the Gods, chapter VIII.
[143] Book IX, verses 15, 16, 17.
[144] Op. cit. p. 135. “Mais si le mensonge est un vice très répandu dans toute l’humanité, c’est surtout chez les femmes qu’il atteint son maximum d’intensité. Demontrer que le mensonge est habituel, physiologique chez la femme, serait inutile: cela est consacré par la croyance populaire.”
[145] “There are three things that cannot be trusted: a king, a horse, and a woman; the king tyrannizes, a horse escapes, a woman is perfidious.”
[146] See Life of John Stuart Mill, p. 162.
[147] See The Subjection of Women, chap. I, section 7.
[148] The observation occurs in Congreve’s Mourning Bride, at the end of the 3rd Act, and is put in the mouth of Queen Zara. The precise words are:—
[149] W. L. Courtney (Op. cit.) tells us that portions of the Subjection of Women were written by Miss Helen Taylor (Mill’s step-daughter).
[150] Op. cit., section 18.
[151] See Sir Almroth E. Wright (Op. cit., p. 32), footnote: “This is a question on which Mill has endeavoured to confuse the issue for his reader, first, by representing that by no possibility can man know anything of the ‘nature,’ i.e. of the ‘secondary sexual characters’ of woman; and secondly, by distracting attention from the fact that ‘acquired characteristics’ may produce unfitness for the suffrage.”
[152] J. S. Mill, section 20.
[153] Cp. Sir Almroth E. Wright, who, in speaking of Mill’s hypothetical natural woman, says (Op. cit., p. 5): “Instead of dealing with woman as she is, and with woman placed in a setting of actually subsisting conditions, Mill takes as his theme a woman who is a creature of his imagination. This woman is, by assumption, in mental endowment a replica of man. She lives in a world which is, by tacit assumption, free from the complications of sex.... It is in connexion with this fictitious woman that Mill sets himself to work out the benefit which women would derive from co-partnership with men in the government of the State, and those which such co-partnership would confer on the community.”
[154] The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D., calls Mill’s Subjection of Women “admirable.”
[155] A certain French writer, despite a wholly mistaken admiration for J. S. Mill, is nevertheless bound to admit, in reference to Mill’s Subjection of Women and his strangely wild and unreasoning infatuation for Mrs. Taylor, that: “Il n’en est pas moins curieux et remarquable que, sous l’aiguillon de ce sentiment, cet esprit froid, si fort, si durement logique, ait pris sans hésiter cette attitude.” See Psychologie de la Femme, by Henri Marion, (Paris, 1903, p. 257). In his Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers the Rev. R. H. Hutton, M.A., writes as follows on Mill’s relation to Mrs. Taylor; “His passionate reverence for his wife’s memory and genius—in his own words ‘a religion’—was one which, as he must have been perfectly sensible, he could not possibly make to appear otherwise than extravagant, not to say an hallucination, in the eyes of the rest of mankind.” (See Vol. I, p. 173.) See the same work for some sharp and well-deserved criticism of Mill’s Utilitarianism.
[156] Germania, chap. IX.
[157] Ibid., chap. XLV.
[158] See Decline and Fall, chap. IX.
[159] The Importance of Women in Anglo-Saxon Times, by the Rt. Rev. G. F. Browne, D.D., p. 12.
[160] Browne (Op. cit.), p. 12. The women of the ruling class in Britain at the time of the Roman subjugation of the island, were also distinguished for their cultivation; such women, I mean, as Cartismandua, the earliest British queen to be mentioned in history, Boadicea, and Martia, surnamed Proba, whose laws were ultimately confirmed, and partly adopted, by King Alfred and Edward the Confessor.
[161] The only reason why these last two did not share the honours of royalty with their husbands was because of the crimes of the Queen Edburga who had poisoned her husband.
[162] Browne (Op. cit.), p. 23.
[163] Ibid., p. 23.
[164] Ibid., p. 23.
[165] See Lives of the Queens of England, by Agnes Strickland. Vol. I. Introduction.
[166] We have only to think of the enormous amount of faith and intense inward conviction that the successful survival of such an ordeal must mean, in order to realize that Emma of Normandy must have possessed qualities that are extremely rare even among the women of to-day.
[167] Subjection of Women, chap. I, section 9. Henry III’s wife and mother of Edward I, although perhaps extravagant and reckless, enjoyed an excellent education.
[168] Histoire de la Civilisation en France (Paris 1846), Vol. III, pp. 332-333.
[169] See Lacroix, Science et Lettres au Moyen Age et à l’époque de la Renaissance (2nd Ed.), p. 169, where the author, speaking of the beginning of the fourteenth century, says: “Bien des femmes ne donnaient confiance qu’à des personnes de leur sexe pour des opérations d’une nature délicate.”
[170] See Mary Bateson, Mediæval England, p. 286.
[171] See G. S. Coulson, M.A., A Mediæval Garner, p. 58.
[172] See Emile Faguet, Le Féminisme, p. 173: “Quand on songe que la coûtume de Bretagne et que l’Ordonnance de Blois de 1579 (executive dans tout le Royaume) condamnaient à la peine de mort, les hommes coupables de rapt!” As to the spiritual side of the seventeenth century, on the other hand, we have only to think of Molière’s Précieuses Ridicules and Les Femmes Savantes, each of which plays caricatures the then existing phenomenon of the learned woman.
[173] Faguet, Op. cit.
[174] See Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century, p. 41.
[175] Alice Clark, Op. cit., pp. 14-18.
[176] Ibid., Op. cit., p. 25.
[177] Alice Clark, pp. 28-31.
[178] Weininger agrees that it is wholly erroneous to suggest that hitherto women have had no opportunity for the undisturbed development of their mental powers (see Op. cit., p. 72), but, as usual, the support of his contention is feeble and unconvincing.
[179] Miss Clark is of the opinion that even in these domestic duties she was not altogether unassisted by men in former times, as the following passage shows: “On the other hand it may be urged that, if women were on the whole more actively engaged in industrial work during the seventeenth century than they were in the first decade of the twentieth century, men were much more occupied with domestic affairs than they are now. Men in all classes gave time and care to the education of their children, and the young unmarried men, who generally occupied positions as apprentices and servants, were partly employed over domestic work. Therefore, though it is now taken for granted that domestic work will be done by women, a considerable proportion of it in former days fell to the share of the men.” (Op. cit., p. 5.)
[180] If she does so, it only means disaster. As late as a generation ago, if she happened to be in India, she was put to no trouble whatsoever; for the custom there, in such circumstances, was for the European mother to seek out a native mother who could act as wet-nurse. The fact that this almost invariably meant—as every Anglo-Indian will tell you—the death of the native woman’s own child, was cynically overlooked by the British occupiers of India.
[181] Paul Lecroix, Op. cit., pp. 370-371.
[182] Weininger comes to the same conclusion. See Op. cit., pp. 150-151 and 196. But he does not give the same reasons as I do. His conclusion is much more of a guess than mine is, and therefore makes one suspect that he was actuated by strong prejudice.
[183] Weininger (Op. cit., p. 346), who maintained that “it cannot be a moral duty to provide for the continuance of the race,” was an avowed pessimist, and, being unable therefore to find a higher sanction for woman’s immorality, perforce condemned it. We who believe that there is no duty more sacred than to provide for the continuance of the race, naturally take the other view, and though recognizing woman’s unscrupulousness in furthering the survival of the race, recognize the high sanction which her immorality thus acquires.
[184] Cp. Sir Almroth E. Wright (Op. cit., p. 46): “It would be difficult to find anyone who would trust a woman to be just to the rights of others in the case where the material interests of her children, or of a devoted husband, were involved. And even to consider the question of being in such a case intellectually just to anyone who came into competition with personal belongings like husband and child would, of course, lie quite beyond the moral horizon of ordinary woman.”
[185] Schopenhauer in one of his Essays (see the Parerga und Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chap. XXVII) also speaks of women’s “instinctive cunning” and “her ineradicable tendency to falsehood,” as the outcome of her weakness, but never hints at any deeper, or more positive cause. Speaking of woman’s character as being given to injustice, he says: “Er entsteht zunächst aus dem dargelegten Mangel an Vernünftigkeit und Ueberlegung, wird zudem aber noch dardurch unterstützt, dass sie, als die schwächeren, von der Natur nicht auf die Kraft, sondern auf die List angewiesen sind: daher ihre instinktartige Verschlagenheit und ihr unvertilgbarer Hang zum Lügen.”
[186] Not a little even of our “Good” Queen Bess’s success as a ruler was due to her unlimited capacity for lies. Speaking of Queen Elizabeth, J. R. Green in his Short History of the English People, says: “Ignoble, inexpressibly wearisome as the Queen’s diplomacy seems to us now, tracing it as we do through a thousand despatches, it succeeded in its main end. It gained time, and every year that was gained doubled Elizabeth’s strength. Nothing is more revolting in the Queen, but nothing is more characteristic, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom.” (Chap. VII. Section III.) And later on in the same chapter he says: “As we track Elizabeth through her tortuous mazes of lying and intrigue, the sense of her greatness is almost lost in a sense of contempt.” Even her most distinguished minister, William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, was a most incorrigible liar and rascal.
[187] It is true that Havelock Ellis, when discussing woman’s tendency to ruse and deception, is careful to say that “to regard the caution and indirectness of women as due to innate wickedness, it need hardly be said, would be utterly irrational. It is inevitable, and results from the constitution of women, acting in conditions under which they are generally placed.” (Op. cit., p. 196.) But this is a very long way from my position, according to which woman’s tendency to ruse and deception is a constant, positive and life-promoting instinct.
[188] As I have shown in Chap. VIII, this constancy supersedes, and frequently defeats, her constancy to man.
[189] See Lecky, The History of European Morals; Buckle, The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge; Herbert Spencer, Sociology; etc. Emerson asks, “What is civilization?” and replies, “It is the influence of good women.”
[190] See Arabella Kenealy (Op. cit., p. 105): “No matter to what degree she may acquire masculine characteristics and aptitudes, she remains, at core, a creature of instinct; not of reason. As a creature of instinct she is invaluable to life—because Life is moulded upon instinct.”
[191] This occurred on the 4th of June, and Miss Davison died, as the result of her action, on the 8th of June at 4.50 p.m. at Epsom.
[192] This is not generally understood. The cruel stepmother is universally reviled in fable, in fiction, and in real life; but truth to tell, the very fact that she is a bad stepmother shows how deep her mother’s instincts must be. I have known one or two such stepmothers, and have always found them the most excellent mothers. In fact a good stepmother may always be taken to mean a bad or indifferent mother. This is so little realized by most people, that I believe I am the first person in history who has ventured to defend the bad stepmother on these lines. On the contrary, the whole tendency of the modern world is to deprecate the bad stepmother and to honour the good stepmother. In this way are woman’s best virtues being undermined.
[193] This is in addition to the derivatives already given in the first mention of this virtue.
[194] See Baudouin’s confirmation of this in his interesting work Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion. (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.)
[195] See Henri Marion (Op cit., p. 79). “Les filles sont aussi plus imitatrices que les garçons, quoique l’instinct d’imitation soit remarquable chez tous également. Selon Mlle Lauriol ‘les filles imitent et singent mieux que les garçons.’ Il semble qu’elles remarquent mieux ce qu’on dit et fait devant elles et qu’elles y prennent plus d’intérêt; le répéter et l’imiter est un de leurs plaisirs les plus vifs. Elles y excellent d’autant plus qu’elles créent, inventent et innovent moins.”
[196] Op. cit., p. 234. See also p. 177: “The sex-instinct in woman having had its origin in surrender, retains much still of this primal element.”
[197] It is naturally impossible to discuss or enumerate the many vices that may or may not fall to the share of the negative woman; for they would consist of all the positive woman’s vices, plus those vices that come with subnormal health, and minus, of course, sensuality. Negative women can at least pride themselves on this minus.
[198] No reference will be made to those vices that result from a thwarting of her natural instincts—such vices as cruelty, gluttony, and drunkenness; for most of these were discussed in the Chapter on the Old Maid.
[199] Byron has already been mentioned in this volume as one who also detected women as the creators of this tinsel of false sentiment. Michelet and Alphonse Daudet were among the Frenchmen who saw eye to eye with Byron on this point. Daudet said: “La femme deteste l’ironie qui la déconcerte et qu’elle sent être l’antagoniste des enthusiasmes et des rêveries de l’amour.”
[200] See Havelock Ellis, Op. cit., p. 196: “Whenever a man or a woman are found under compromising circumstances, it is nearly always the woman who with ready wit audaciously retrieves the situation. Every one is acquainted with instances from life or from history of women whose quick and cunning ruses have saved lover or husband or child. It is unnecessary to insist on this quality, which in its finest forms is called tactfulness.” See also Lecky, History of European Morals, Vol. II., p. 358. See as a magnificent poetic representation of this power in women Byron’s Don Juan, Canto I, stanzas CXLII to CLXXVIII. The latter stanza is worth quoting in full. It is as follows:—
[201] Speaking of little girls Henri Marion says: “De même les observateurs n’hésitent pas à déclarer les petites filles moins parfaitement droites que les garçons, en général, plus compliquées, plus diplomates, plus fertiles en petites roueries, plus inclinées à biaiser, à broder, à inventer, tout au moins à aranger et amplifier.... Surtout quand elles veulent mentir, elles sont plus habiles que les petits garçons, se troublent moins, ont plus de présence d’esprit pour soutenir un premier mensonge.” Op. cit., p. 86. Monsieur Marion adduces Mgr Dupanloup and Mlle Lauriol as his authorities for this view.
[202] Finally among the great thinkers of Europe who have held the view that women are indifferent to truth, and incapable of rectitude, I would further mention Rousseau, Diderot, La Bruyère, and that great genius Kant, who, in his Ueber Pädagogik coldly conjures fathers to enforce truthfulness in their children because “mothers have a tendency to attach but little importance to it.” His exact words are (p. 108 of the Königsberg 1813 Edition), speaking of children’s habit of lying, “Des Vaters Sache ist es, darauf zu sehen, dass sich die Kinder dessen entwöhnen; denn die Mütter achten es gemeiniglich für eine Sache von keiner, oder doch nur geringer Bedeutung.”
[203] See Chapter VIII of that work.
[204] See White’s Natural History of Selborne. Letters LXXVI and “Observations on Quadrupeds.”
[205] The researches of ornithologists during recent years sufficiently prove that the female cuckoo lays her egg upon the ground, and then deposits it in the nest of a bird whose egg resembles the one she has just laid.
[206] See chap. IX, verse 14.
[207] Op. cit., p. 121. See also Weininger, Op. cit., p. 250.
[208] Letter to d’Alembert.
[209] Among other reasons accounting for woman’s dependence on man for art-forms is her lack of originality.
[210] See my Man’s Descent from the Gods, chap. VIII.
[211] Op. cit., p. 226.
[212] One or two exceptions will occur to the reader’s mind, such as Mahommed and Benjamin Disraeli; but these are not really exceptions, because in each case the woman was rich enough to compensate for her husband’s impecunious and unsuccessful condition.
[213] See W. S. Coleman, M.E.S., British Butterflies, p. 4: “Prompted by a most remarkable instinct, and one that could not have originated in any experience of personal advantage, the female butterfly, when seeking a depository for her eggs, selects with unerring certainty the very plant which, of all others, is best fitted for the support of her offspring, who, when hatched, find themselves surrounded by an abundant store of their proper food.”
[214] The reader is probably aware that celibacy was not always the rule among the clergy of the Holy Catholic Church. It was only enforced by law during the fourth century A.D. Now, it is my theory that it was this instinctive vulgar predilection of the female in favour of material success that was partly responsible for compelling the authorities of the Church ultimately to make celibacy a duty among the clergy. Because as the bulk of them were, by virtue of their profession, poor, it was impossible for them to find women of their own station to marry them, and in consequence they were thrown on the lowest women, or the prostitutes, of the time. To avoid the abasement of the ecclesiastical body by this inevitable law, the authorities therefore prescribed celibacy. H. H. Milman, D.D., in his History of Latin Christianity, admits that celibacy was enforced among the clergy to save the Church from degeneration, but he gives as a reason that ecclesiastical matrimony would have led to the holy office passing from father to son, and thus to grandson and great-grandson. Why this should necessarily have led to degeneration is not clear, unless he assumes, as I do, that the clergy would have had to marry beneath them. See Vol. IV (Ed. London, 1864), pp. 17-18.
[215] That acute thinker, Schopenhauer, realized this, and spoke of the harm that women do to modern society by stimulating the most sordid and ignoble ambitions of men. See Essay, Ueber die Weiber, in the 2nd Vol. of the Parerga und Paralipomena, chap. XXVII, para. 369.
[216] An intelligent working man once said in my presence, “Almighty God made woman, and money made ladies.” I have wondered ever since whether the deep wisdom in this remark was original, or whether there is any national saw embodying this sentiment.
[217] In White’s Natural History of Selborne there are some interesting and illuminating remarks on this point. See Edward Jesse’s edition (London, 1898), pp. 223 (Footnote) and 333.
[218] See the Chapter on the Old Maid.
[219] This, by the by, was recognized by Pope. See his Moral Essays (Epistle II, To a Lady):—
[220] The Book of Manu, chap. IX, verse 7.
[221] The Book of Manu, verses 2 and 3.
[222] For the necessary relationship of vanity and modesty, see Chapter on Divorce, pp. 223-225 ante.
[223] Op. cit., p. 211.
[224] A vain man is just as dangerous when he has power; because he too judges his fellows only according to how they treat him.
[225] This tendency to add to personal attractions by cultivating intellectual interests is more particularly suspicious in the mature virgin, and in the young married woman who is either childless or has ceased to bear children. In both the waxing unconscious desire for fertilization calls forth the instinct to use every possible weapon to draw attention.
[226] See, for instance, Lecky, History of European Morals, Vol. II, p. 379: “Morally the general superiority of women over men is, I think, unquestionable ... they are more chaste both in thought and act” [!!!]. See also Vol. I, p. 145: “Sensuality is the vice of young men.” There is scarcely an English book on this subject that does not reiterate this insane legend. See also footnote on p. 308 ante.
[227] Nature evidently intended it to be pleasant in all its stages: for all bodily functions, when healthy, are pleasant; their very pleasantness seems to be part of the design of preserving life on earth. He who has watched a female cat, as I have often done, from the moment of fertilization to the day when the kittens are weaned, can no longer entertain any doubt that the enormous amount of unpleasantness that civilized women have to undergo, in the process of child-bearing, is all the result of degeneration and disease. A female cat purrs even while the kittens are being born.
[228] For a description of how our ancestors deliberately created a majority of negative women, see Chapter V of my Defence of Aristocracy.
[229] This method of going to work, which is the method of amputation, is always the first adopted by weak and stupid people. It is easier to amputate and suppress than it is to master and to organize. Hence there is an element of impotence and dull-wittedness in the counsel, “And if thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee” (Matthew v. 29, 30); “And if thy right hand offend thee” do ditto.
[230] Book of Laws, IX, 2.
[231] Rousseau was groping towards this truth when in Emile, Book V, he said: “Vous dites sans cesse, les femmes out un tel et tel défaut que nous n’avons pas. Votre orgueil vous trompe; ce seroint des défauts pour vous, ce sont des qualités pour elles; tout iroit moins bien si elles ne les avoient pas. Empêchez ces prétendus défauts de dégénerer, mais gardez-vous de les détruire.”