The Subjection of Women
exclude unfit men, it will equally exclude unfit women: while if it
is not, there is no additional evil in the fact that the unfit
persons whom it admits may be either women or men. As long therefore
as it is acknowledged that even a few women may be fit for these
duties, the laws which shut the door on those exceptions cannot be
justified by any opinion which can be held respecting the capacities
of women in general. But, though this last consideration is not
essential, it is far from being irrelevant. An unprejudiced view of
it gives additional strength to the arguments against the
disabilities of women, and reinforces them by high considerations of
practical utility.
Let us at first make entire abstraction of all psychological
considerations tending to show, that any of the mental differences
supposed to exist between women and men are but the natural effect of
the differences in their education and circumstances, and indicate no
radical difference, far less radical inferiority, of nature. Let us
consider women only as they already are, or as they are known to have
been; and the capacities which they have already practically shown.
What they have done, that at least, if nothing else, it is proved
that they can do. When we consider how sedulously they are all
trained away from, instead of being trained towards, any of the
occupations or objects reserved for men, it is evident that I am
taking a very humble ground for them, when I rest their case on what
they have actually achieved. For, in this case, negative evidence is
worth little, while any positive evidence is conclusive. It cannot be
inferred to be impossible that a woman should be a Homer, or an
Aristotle, or a Michael Angelo, or a Beethoven, because no woman has
yet actually produced works comparable to theirs in any of those
lines of excellence. This negative fact at most leaves the question
uncertain, and open to psychological discussion. But it is quite
certain that a woman can be a Queen Elizabeth, or a Deborah, or a
Joan of Arc, since this is not inference, but fact. Now it is a
curious consideration, that the only things which the existing law
excludes women from doing, are the things which they have proved that
they are able to do. There is no law to prevent a woman from having
written all the plays of Shakspeare, or composed all the operas of
Mozart. But Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria, had they not inherited
the throne, could not have been intrusted with the smallest of the
political duties, of which the former showed herself equal to the
greatest.
If anything conclusive could be inferred from experience, without
psychological analysis, it would be that the things which women are
not allowed to do are the very ones for which they are peculiarly
qualified; since their vocation for government has made its way, and
become conspicuous, through the very few opportunities which have
been given; while in the lines of distinction which apparently were
freely open to them, they have by no means so eminently distinguished
themselves. We know how small a number of reigning queens history
presents, in comparison with that of kings. Of this smaller number a
far larger proportion have shown talents for rule; though many of
them have occupied the throne in difficult periods. It is remarkable,
too, that they have, in a great number of instances, been
distinguished by merits the most opposite to the imaginary and
conventional character of women: they have been as much remarked for
the firmness and vigour of their rule, as for its intelligence. When,
to queens and empresses, we add regents, and viceroys of provinces,
the list of women who have been eminent rulers of mankind swells to a
great length.[1] This fact is so undeniable, that some one, long ago,
tried to retort the argument, and turned the admitted truth into an
additional insult, by saying that queens are better than kings,
because under kings women govern, but under queens, men.
It may seem a waste of reasoning to argue against a bad joke; but
such things do affect people's minds; and I have heard men quote this
saying, with an air as if they thought that there was something in
it. At any rate, it will serve as well as anything else for a
starting point in discussion. I say, then, that it is not true that
under kings, women govern. Such cases are entirely exceptional: and
weak kings have quite as often governed ill through the influence of
male favourites, as of female. When a king is governed by a woman
merely through his amatory propensities, good government is not
probable, though even then there are exceptions. But French history
counts two kings who have voluntarily given the direction of affairs
during many years, the one to his mother, the other to his sister:
one of them, Charles VIII., was a mere boy, but in doing so he
followed the intentions of his father Louis XI., the ablest monarch
of his age. The other, Saint Louis, was the best, and one of the most
vigorous rulers, since the time of Charlemagne. Both these princesses
ruled in a manner hardly equalled by any prince among their
contemporaries. The emperor Charles the Fifth, the most politic
prince of his time, who had as great a number of able men in his
service as a ruler ever had, and was one of the least likely of all
sovereigns to sacrifice his interest to personal feelings, made two
princesses of his family successively Governors of the Netherlands,
and kept one or other of them in that post during his whole life,
(they were afterwards succeeded by a third). Both ruled very
successfully, and one of them, Margaret of Austria, was one of the
ablest politicians of the age. So much for one side of the question.
Now as to the other. When it is said that under queens men govern, is
the same meaning to be understood as when kings are said to be
governed by women? Is it meant that queens choose as their
instruments of government, the associates of their personal
pleasures? The case is rare even with those who are as unscrupulous
on the latter point as Catherine II.: and it is not in these cases
that the good government, alleged to arise from male influence, is to
be found. If it be true, then, that the administration is in the
hands of better men under a queen than under an average king, it must
be that queens have a superior capacity for choosing them; and women
must be better qualified than men both for the position of sovereign,
and for that of chief minister; for the principal business of a prime
minister is not to govern in person, but to find the fittest persons
to conduct every department of public affairs. The more rapid insight
into character, which is one of the admitted points of superiority in
women over men, must certainly make them, with anything like parity
of qualifications in other respects, more apt than men in that choice
of instruments, which is nearly the most important business of every
one who has to do with governing mankind. Even the unprincipled
Catherine de' Medici could feel the value of a Chancellor de
l'Hopital. But it is also true that most great queens have been great
by their own talents for government, and have been well served
precisely for that reason. They retained the supreme direction of
affairs in their own hands: and if they listened to good advisers,
they gave by that fact the strongest proof that their judgment fitted
them for dealing with the great questions of government.
Is it reasonable to think that those who are fit for the greater
functions of politics, are incapable of qualifying themselves for the
less? Is there any reason in the nature of things, that the wives and
sisters of princes should, whenever called on, be found as competent
as the princes themselves to _their_ business, but that the wives and
sisters of statesmen, and administrators, and directors of companies,
and managers of public institutions, should be unable to do what is
done by their brothers and husbands? The real reason is plain enough;
it is that princesses, being more raised above the generality of men
by their rank than placed below them by their sex, have never been
taught that it was improper for them to concern themselves with
politics; but have been allowed to feel the liberal interest natural
to any cultivated human being, in the great transactions which took
place around them, and in which they might be called on to take a
part. The ladies of reigning families are the only women who are
allowed the same range of interests and freedom of development as
men; and it is precisely in their case that there is not found to be
any inferiority. Exactly where and in proportion as women's
capacities for government have been tried, in that proportion have
they been found adequate.
This fact is in accordance with the best general conclusions which
the world's imperfect experience seems as yet to suggest, concerning
the peculiar tendencies and aptitudes characteristic of women, as
women have hitherto been. I do not say, as they will continue to be;
for, as I have already said more than once, I consider it presumption
in any one to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or
cannot be, by natural constitution. They have always hitherto been
kept, as far as regards spontaneous development, in so unnatural a
state, that their nature cannot but have been greatly distorted and
disguised; and no one can safely pronounce that if women's nature
were left to choose its direction as freely as men's, and if no
artificial bent were attempted to be given to it except that required
by the conditions of human society, and given to both sexes alike,
there would be any material difference, or perhaps any difference at
all, in the character and capacities which would unfold themselves. I
shall presently show, that even the least contestable of the
differences which now exist, are such as may very well have been
produced merely by circumstances, without any difference of natural
capacity. But, looking at women as they are known in experience, it
may be said of them, with more truth than belongs to most other
generalizations on the subject, that the general bent of their
talents is towards the practical. This statement is conformable to
all the public history of women, in the present and the past. It is
no less borne out by common and daily experience. Let us consider the
special nature of the mental capacities most characteristic of a
woman of talent. They are all of a kind which fits them for practice,
and makes them tend towards it. What is meant by a woman's capacity
of intuitive perception? It means, a rapid and correct insight into
present fact. It has nothing to do with general principles. Nobody
ever perceived a scientific law of nature by intuition, nor arrived
at a general rule of duty or prudence by it. These are results of
slow and careful collection and comparison of experience; and neither
the men nor the women of intuition usually shine in this department,
unless, indeed, the experience necessary is such as they can acquire
by themselves. For what is called their intuitive sagacity makes them
peculiarly apt in gathering such general truths as can be collected
from their individual means of observation. When, consequently, they
chance to be as well provided as men are with the results of other
people's experience, by reading and education, (I use the word chance
advisedly, for, in respect to the knowledge that tends to fit them
for the greater concerns of life, the only educated women are the
self-educated) they are better furnished than men in general with the
essential requisites of skilful and successful practice. Men who have
been much taught, are apt to be deficient in the sense of present
fact; they do not see, in the facts which they are called upon to