Before the Vote was Won

Jane Lewis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415256902
• eBook ISBN: 9781136409684
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

First published in 1987. This volume traces the arguments of early suffragists through the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Includes the texts of the House of Commons Debate on the 1871 Disabilities Bill, 1982 Women's Franchise Bill and key documents by those who were opposed to women's suffrage

Part I

A woman's voice

I wonder, Mr Editor,

Why I can't have a vote,

And I will not be contented

Till I've found the reason out.

I am a working woman,

My voting half is dead;

I hold a house, and want to know

Why I can't vote instead.

I pay my rates in person,

Under protest, tho', 'tis true,

But I pay them, and am qualified

To vote as well as you.

I like my neighbour very well,

But still I like what's fair,

And paying a rate for him to vote,

Is neither fair nor square.

My ‘compound’ rate was heavy enough,

But this qualification's worse;

If the franchise will not have my voice,

Let it do without My Purse.

FROM THE LEEDS EXPRESS

The English Woman's Journal

Editorial: The Enfranchisement of Women

1 July 1864

AMONG the numerous papers which have appeared in magazines and reviews, during the last few years, on the condition of women, few, if any, have equalled in calm philosophical reasoning and exhaustive treatment an article entitled ‘The Enfranchisement of Women,’ which appeared in the Westminster Review for July 1851. As its contents are as interesting and important now, as at the time of its publication, and as it is by no means well known to the general public, we hope to do some service to our readers by bringing before them some of the leading ideas and principles which it enunciated, while at the same time warning them that no abstract can do justice to its masterly handling of the subject, and that our object is rather to stimulate curiosity to examine the original essay than to lead any one to rest satisfied with the cursory view here given of it, coloured too as that may be by our own thoughts and feelings.

The enfranchisement of women, or in other words, their admission in law and in fact, to equality in all rights political, civil, and social, with the male citizens of the community, is not a new question to thinkers, nor to any one by whom the principles of free and popular government are felt as well as acknowledged.

As a question of justice the case seems too clear for dispute. As one of expediency the more thoroughly it is examined, the stronger it will appear. Those who advocate universal suffrage must grant it to women or be guilty of the flagrant contradiction of terming that universal which they deny to half the human species.* Again, those who do not regard the franchise as a matter of personal right, yet usually uphold some principle of political justice which is inconsistent with the exclusion of all women from this participation in the rights of citizenship; as, for instance, that taxation and representation should be co-extensive. There are many unmarried women who pay taxes. Such a division of mankind into two castes, one born to rule, the other to serve, cannot be justified on the ground of expediency, as will be presently proved, and must result in the demoralization of both, and in hindering the development of the best qualities of our nature.

The great impediment in the way of a calm discussion of this subject is custom. Custom is still our law, although no longer the insuperable obstacle to all improvement that it once was. Its sanctity was urged against freedom of industry, against freedom of conscience, against freedom of the press, but these liberties have triumphed, as the freedom of women must ultimately triumph, by the law of progression. How custom took its form in early ages in regard to women, is easily explained – it was by the right of physical force. We have not space to enlarge upon this point, but doubtless many illustrations will at once present themselves to the mind of the reader in confirmation of the fact that the domination of physical force was the law of the human race until a comparatively recent period. And ‘of all relations, that between man and woman, being the nearest and most intimate, and connected with the greatest number of strong emotions, was sure to be the last to throw off the old rule and receive the new’.

‘When a prejudice, which has any hold on the feelings, finds itself reduced to the unpleasant necessity of assigning reasons, it thinks it has done enough when it has reasserted the very point in dispute, in phrases which appeal to the preexisting feeling. Thus, many persons think they have sufficiently justified the restrictions on women's field of action, when they have said that the pursuits from which women are excluded are unfeminine, and that the proper sphere of women is not politics or publicity, but private and domestic life. We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or any individual for another individual, what is and what is not a proper sphere. The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest which they are able to attain to.’ Only complete liberty of choice can determine this. It is as certain that after a short period of trial the majority of women will pursue only those avocations for which they are fitted by Nature, as that men do not now follow the legal profession when their talent is for medicine, or enter the church when they have a genius for painting. Of course we meet with exceptions, with men who are not in their right places, and who have discovered this too late in life to change, but that these are exceptions we believe every unbiassed person will allow.

We do not enter here into the alleged differences in physical and mental qualities between the sexes, because the field of enquiry on this subject is too wide for our present purpose; but to be assured that there is no inherent difference so great as to preclude women from the studies and pursuits of men, we need but to recall the names of such female rulers as Elizabeth of England, Maria Theresa, Catherine of Russia, and Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henri Quatre; of such artists as Rosa Bonheur and Harriet Hosmer; of such a poet as Mrs Browning, of such a writer on science as Mrs Somerville.

But the objection is more likely to be made that politics and other public pursuits are unfit for women, than that women are unfit for these occupations, and this objection will turn mainly upon these three points; first, the incompatibility of active life with maternity, and with the cares of a household; secondly, the inexpediency of making an addition to the already excessive pressure of competition in every kind of professional or lucrative employment; and, thirdly, its alleged hardening effect on the character.

The maternity argument can apply only to mothers, and when we consider that the ranks of single women are becoming larger year by year; that there are numerous cases of widows, whose children are old enough not to need the mother's constant supervision; that there are childless wives and women who marry so late in life as to have passed ten or fifteen years of ennui and uselessness previous to their marriage, are we not losing sight of the claims of a large minority?

By allowing no other scope for a woman's energies but the duties of a wife and mother, we force thousands to enter upon these at an early age before the judgment is formed or the feelings matured. Impelled by no high affection, but happy for the time in the discovery of an object in life, how many rush precipitately into marriages of convenience, to taste their bitter fruits when repentance is too late.

Those who are mothers, and who seek to discharge faithfully the sacred responsibilities which maternity entails, will never be drawn from these duties by finding the paths to professional distinction and commercial industry laid open to them. Surely, it is late in the day to have to repeat Sydney Smith's often quoted words; ‘What,’ he says, ‘can be more absurd than to suppose that the care and perpetual solicitude that a mother feels for her children depends on her ignorance of Greek and mathematics, and that she would desert an infant for a quadratic equation?’ As for the question of competition, if we take the worst possible result of the introduction of female labour into those fields now occupied by men alone, it can be only that a man and woman jointly would not earn much more than a man now earns separately, and even this would be but a passing state of things – a transition. Even in this case great benefits would arise from the woman's acquiring a pecuniary independence. She would at once be treated with more consideration by men, and, what is of still more importance, would acquire that self-respect, in which, in its higher forms, she is now so often wanting. Ultimately, the increase of productive labour, and the proportional decrease of unproductive consumers, must augment the wealth of the country, and thus tend to the welfare of individuals.

Thirdly, as to the hardening effect of these proposed changes upon the nature of women. The objection would be valid were we in a ruder state of society, where supremacy could be maintained only by physical force. But in the present age, men have to fight with circumstances only; and in this warfare, women already bear their part. Every man who has any woman dependent upon him for support, every man who possesses any woman's love or sympathy, and who is oppressed by the circumstances against which he is making war, must know that she is exposed to their hardening or other influences with him. We all suffer now – men and women – more from what is said than from what is done, and nothing but complete seclusion from society can shield any of us from this evil.

But the real point to be judged is, whether it be wise or just, to doom one half of the human species to a state of forced subordination to the other half. The only reason to be given for the continuance of this state of things is that men like it; and they have succeeded in educating women into the belief that only those qualities which are useful or convenient to men are to be regarded as virtues.

Civilization has mitigated some of the evils arising from the dependence of woman upon man, but it has brought with it others which did not exist in a ruder state of society. It has enforced the claims of the weak upon the strong, of the governed upon the ruler. As when the divine right of kings was still acknowledged, but the opinion of mankind condemned the selfish use of power, monarchs were no longer actuated by mere passion and caprice in their conduct towards their subjects; so, while custom still keeps women in subjection, men, whose minds are refined by intellectual cultivation, own the obligation to treat them with kindness and with that deference which the strong owe to the weak. Civilization, however, has also, while altering, and to some extent ameliorating the condition of women, produced a most serious evil by this very change. At a time when women performed manual labour for their lords, and at a later date when, though treated with greater gentleness and consideration, they led a life apart from their husbands, who only returned home as to a resting place from pleasure or business, men were not affected in their intellectual progress by the influence of women. Their moral nature might suffer, but their intellectual character depended on a different class of influences. Since, however, men have ceased to find pleasure and excitement in violent bodily exercises, and in rude merriment and intemperance, they have few tastes which they do not possess in common with women. This sympathy draws them into ever closer companionship, so that the best men are becoming more and more devoted to private and domestic interests, and as they fall daily more under these influences, they are in danger of losing all sense of the importance of a wider range of ideas and of the cultivation of that public spirit which can alone make them pioneers of progress and benefactors of their species.

When we speak of the deteriorating influence of women as they now are, it must not be supposed that we consider them intellectually inferior to men, but that the want of a proper education and the constant employment of their faculties upon petty cares and pursuits produce, except in rare instances, a certain pettiness of character incompatible with high tastes and aims. Men who are in constant association with women who are their inferiors, must suffer from this companionship. ‘If one of the two has no knowledge, and no care about the great ideas and purposes which dignify life, or about any of its practical concerns save personal interests and personal vanities, her conscious, and still more her unconscious influence, will, except in rare cases, reduce to a secondary place in his mind, if not entirely extinguish, those interests which she cannot or does not share.’

But there is now a large class of moderate reformers who would educate women to be the companions of men; that is to say, would give them a knowledge on a variety of subjects sufficient to enable them to be interested in the conversation of educated men, while they are not to pursue such studies for their own sake. Knowledge sought with such an aim, must necessarily be superficial, as indeed the result has proved it to be. We meet on all sides, women who have a smattering of science, of art, of history, of politics, but except accomplishments, they are taught nothing thoroughly. The consequence of this is, that a man who has such a companion acquires a dictatorial habit, having to decide all questions which arise between them. In this case there is merely the contact between an active and a passive mind, while the only mental communion which is improving is that between two active minds.

And until stronger incentives are given to women, this state of things must continue. ‘High mental power in women will be but an exceptional accident, until every career is open to them, and until they, as well as men, are educated for themselves, and for the world – not one sex for the other.’

It is also to the hope of seeing this change gradually effected, that we must look for reform in our system of parliamentary representation, or rather to that portion of it which it is most difficult to touch by any act of legislation. We allude to the tendency which exists towards a lowering of the class of representatives for our large cities, and especially for the metropolis. The best men will not truckle to the mob, therefore the mob (that portion of it which possesses the franchise) must be improved before a better class of representatives will offer themselves. And here female influence, rightly directed, could do more than all else. Women of the higher and middle classes are brought into more immediate contact than men with those whom we may call the lower-middle-class, and such influence as they exercise is even now often good in its effects; but how immeasurably would it be increased and improved by their own greater cultivation!

Women's influence also upon their own class in the matter is of great importance. It exists already for evil. The political opinions of an Englishwoman are at present upon the side by which censure is likely to be escaped, or worldly advancement secured; and, having no political vote, she is not restrained by that sense of responsibility which the actual possession of such a power must give to all reflecting and conscientious minds. Acting by her counsel, the husband satisfies himself that he is but sacrificing a lower to a higher duty when he neglects the welfare of his country for the advancement of his children in worldly honors – honors which in no way bring them happiness, and which are often but the excuse for his own greed of money or for an unworthy ambition.

There is a prevalent belief that, though the present position of women may be a hindrance to the intellectual development of men, their moral influence is always good. We are even told that married life is the great counteractive of selfishness in men. This view of the case is a superficial one. The very fact of a man's being placed in a position of almost despotic power over his wife and children must give him a sense of his own importance eminently calculated to promote selfishness. The exceptions are in cases of high and generous minds, with whom the feeling of responsibility in being made the arbiter of another's destiny and happiness produces a disposition to be too lenient in judging all cases between them submitted to his discretion, and thus the weaker side is enabled to take an ungenerous advantage of generosity. In average cases, however, if the wife succeeds in gaining her object, it is by indirect means. ‘We are not now speaking of cases in which there is anything deserving the name of strong affection on both sides. That, where it exists, is too powerful a principle not to modify greatly the bad influences of the situation; it seldom, however, destroys them entirely. Much oftener the bad influences are too strong for the affection, and destroy it. The highest order of durable and happy attachments would be a hundred times more frequent than they are, if the affection which the two sexes sought from one another were that genuine friendship which only exists between equals in privileges as in faculties.’ If such unions were more frequent we should not have to lament the utter absence of mental progress so often observable in men who marry at an early age. All social sympathies which have not an elevating must have a lowering effect, and we see an exemplification of this truth here. We find many men who began life with wide sympathies and high aspirations which under favorable circumstances would have widened and grown to produce good fruits in their season, becoming utterly careless of their earlier interests and devoted merely to the love of gain and selfish ease. We cannot, therefore, in the interest of men as well as in that of women, allow the condition of women to remain as it is. Men are no longer, if they ever were, independent of it, and women have been raised just high enough to have the power of lowering men to their own level.

There is one other popular objection to the emancipation of women which is generally urged with great effect: – women, it is said, do not care for or seek freedom for themselves. If this were true it would constitute no fair reason for excluding them from those rights and privileges which would contribute to their progress.

The only good for every human being is the highest cultivation of all the faculties with which he is endowed. The indifference of Asiatics to political freedom, and of savage races to civilization does not prove that these are not desirable for them, or that they will never enjoy them. But we assert that it is not true that women do not desire freedom. Nearly every woman wishes it for herself, but she has been so educated that she fears to appear unfeminine, and to be disgraced in the eyes of men – her tribunal – if she openly express her wishes or opinions on the subject.

Literary women are not blameless in this matter. Their success depends so much upon their obtaining the good will of the other sex, that they servilely flatter men into the belief that they are satisfied with their position. They believe that there are few men who do not dislike strength, sincerity, or high spirit in a woman. ‘They are, therefore, anxious to earn pardon and toleration for whatever of these qualities their writings may exhibit on other subjects, by a studied display of submission on this: that they may give no occasion for vulgar men to say (what nothing will prevent vulgar men from saying) that learning makes women unfeminine, and that literary ladies are likely to be bad wives.’

Let all honorable paths to distinction be open to both sexes, and the event will prove whether women really desire and have within them the capacity for that intellectual and moral development, which hitherto has only been attained by individuals, and in the face of difficulties which only genius or an almost superhuman perseverance could have overcome.

* The chartist who denies the suffrage to women, is a chartist only because he is not a lord: he is one of those levellers who would level only down to themselves.

Helen Taylor

The claim of Englishwomen to the suffrage constitutionally considered*

1867

AMONG the demonstrations of opinion which the discussions on Parliamentary Reform have drawn forth during the past session, no one was more remarkable than the petition signed by fifteen hundred ladies, which was presented to the House of Commons by Mr J. Stuart Mill. This petition is comprised in a few s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Women's Source Library
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part I A Woman's Voice
• Part II The Debate in the House of Commons on the Women's Disabilities Bill 3 May 1871
• Part III Her Sphere
• Part IV Text of the Women's Franchise Bill 1892
• Index