What's Wrong with the World
is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary suffering was before and
independent of compulsory; and in short that in most important matters
a man has always been free to ruin himself if he chose. The huge
fundamental function upon which all anthropology turns, that of sex
and childbirth, has never been inside the political state, but always
outside of it. The state concerned itself with the trivial question of
killing people, but wisely left alone the whole business of getting them
born. A Eugenist might indeed plausibly say that the government is
an absent-minded and inconsistent person who occupies himself with
providing for the old age of people who have never been infants. I will
not deal here in any detail with the fact that some Eugenists have
in our time made the maniacal answer that the police ought to control
marriage and birth as they control labor and death. Except for this
inhuman handful (with whom I regret to say I shall have to deal with
later) all the Eugenists I know divide themselves into two sections:
ingenious people who once meant this, and rather bewildered people who
swear they never meant it--nor anything else. But if it be conceded
(by a breezier estimate of men) that they do mostly desire marriage to
remain free from government, it does not follow that they desire it to
remain free from everything. If man does not control the marriage market
by law, is it controlled at all? Surely the answer is broadly that man
does not control the marriage market by law, but the woman does control
it by sympathy and prejudice. There was until lately a law forbidding
a man to marry his deceased wife’s sister; yet the thing happened
constantly. There was no law forbidding a man to marry his deceased
wife’s scullery-maid; yet it did not happen nearly so often. It did not
happen because the marriage market is managed in the spirit and by the
authority of women; and women are generally conservative where classes
are concerned. It is the same with that system of exclusiveness by
which ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of elimination)
to prevent marriages that they did not want and even sometimes procure
those they did. There is no need of the broad arrow and the fleur-de
lis, the turnkey’s chains or the hangman’s halter. You need not strangle
a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less effective and
final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to lock a man in
when you can lock him out.
The same, of course, is true of the colossal architecture which we call
infant education: an architecture reared wholly by women. Nothing can
ever overcome that one enormous sex superiority, that even the male
child is born closer to his mother than to his father. No one, staring
at that frightful female privilege, can quite believe in the equality of
the sexes. Here and there we read of a girl brought up like a tom-boy;
but every boy is brought up like a tame girl. The flesh and spirit of
femininity surround him from the first like the four walls of a house;
and even the vaguest or most brutal man has been womanized by being
born. Man that is born of a woman has short days and full of misery; but
nobody can picture the obscenity and bestial tragedy that would belong
to such a monster as man that was born of a man.
*****
XI. THE QUEEN AND THE SUFFRAGETTES
But, indeed, with this educational matter I must of necessity embroil
myself later. The fourth section of discussion is supposed to be about
the child, but I think it will be mostly about the mother. In this
place I have systematically insisted on the large part of life that is
governed, not by man with his vote, but by woman with her voice, or more
often, with her horrible silence. Only one thing remains to be added.
In a sprawling and explanatory style has been traced out the idea
that government is ultimately coercion, that coercion must mean cold
definitions as well as cruel consequences, and that therefore there
is something to be said for the old human habit of keeping one-half of
humanity out of so harsh and dirty a business. But the case is stronger
still.
Voting is not only coercion, but collective coercion. I think Queen
Victoria would have been yet more popular and satisfying if she had
never signed a death warrant. I think Queen Elizabeth would have stood
out as more solid and splendid in history if she had not earned (among
those who happen to know her history) the nickname of Bloody Bess. I
think, in short, that the great historic woman is more herself when she
is persuasive rather than coercive. But I feel all mankind behind
me when I say that if a woman has this power it should be despotic
power--not democratic power. There is a much stronger historic argument
for giving Miss Pankhurst a throne than for giving her a vote. She might
have a crown, or at least a coronet, like so many of her supporters;
for these old powers are purely personal and therefore female. Miss
Pankhurst as a despot might be as virtuous as Queen Victoria, and she
certainly would find it difficult to be as wicked as Queen Bess, but the
point is that, good or bad, she would be irresponsible--she would not be
governed by a rule and by a ruler. There are only two ways of governing:
by a rule and by a ruler. And it is seriously true to say of a woman, in
education and domesticity, that the freedom of the autocrat appears
to be necessary to her. She is never responsible until she is
irresponsible. In case this sounds like an idle contradiction, I
confidently appeal to the cold facts of history. Almost every despotic
or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one
democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights The reason is very
simple: that something female is endangered much more by the violence
of the crowd. In short, one Pankhurst is an exception, but a thousand
Pankhursts are a nightmare, a Bacchic orgie, a Witches Sabbath. For in
all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible
in a herd.
*****
XII. THE MODERN SLAVE
Now I have only taken the test case of Female Suffrage because it is
topical and concrete; it is not of great moment for me as a political
proposal. I can quite imagine anyone substantially agreeing with my
view of woman as universalist and autocrat in a limited area; and still
thinking that she would be none the worse for a ballot paper. The real
question is whether this old ideal of woman as the great amateur is
admitted or not. There are many modern things which threaten it much
more than suffragism; notably the increase of self-supporting women,
even in the most severe or the most squalid employments. If there be
something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing,
there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women
being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make
this situation particularly poignant or ignominous. The ugly exactitudes
of business, the bells and clocks the fixed hours and rigid departments,
were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do one thing and
can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks
do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks
down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting
the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously
and doing it well. Their very efficiency is the definition of their
slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much
by one’s employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of being
blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very like blacklegs.
But the more immediate point is that the modern working woman bears a
double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the
new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men
understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, which
generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty of the
universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a
lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to
the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them
from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it
easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the
modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in
the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house.
This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the
reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more
privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously
prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in
which she can be free. And with that we come to the last point of all;
the point at which we can perceive the needs of women, like the rights
of men, stopped and falsified by something which it is the object of
this book to expose.
The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine
characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time
with one pent-up protest. At this point he will break out and say, “But
what are we to do? There is modern commerce and its clerks; there is
the modern family with its unmarried daughters; specialism is expected
everywhere; female thrift and conscientiousness are demanded and
supplied. What does it matter whether we should in the abstract prefer
the old human and housekeeping woman; we might prefer the Garden of
Eden. But since women have trades they ought to have trades unions.
Since women work in factories, they ought to vote on factory-acts. If
they are unmarried they must be commercial; if they are commercial they
must be political. We must have new rules for a new world--even if it
be not a better one.” I said to a Feminist once: “The question is not
whether women are good enough for votes: it is whether votes are good
enough for women.” He only answered: “Ah, you go and say that to the
women chain-makers on Cradley Heath.”
Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of
Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must
grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some
time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost
our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal,
we must forget it. “There are numbers of excellent people who do not
think votes unfeminine; and there may be enthusiasts for our beautiful
modern industry who do not think factories unfeminine.” But if these
things are unfeminine it is no answer to say that they fit into each
other. I am not satisfied with the statement that my daughter must have
unwomanly powers because she has unwomanly wrongs. Industrial soot and
political printer’s ink are two blacks which do not make a white. Most
of the Feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under
shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the
tyranny. They want to destroy womanhood. That is the only difference.
Whether we can recover the clear vision of woman as a tower with
many windows, the fixed eternal feminine from which her sons, the
specialists, go forth; whether we can preserve the tradition of a
central thing which is even more human than democracy and even
more practical than politics; whether, in word, it is possible to
re-establish the family, freed from the filthy cynicism and cruelty of
the commercial epoch, I shall discuss in the last section of this book.
But meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on Cradley
Heath. I know all about them and what they are doing. They are engaged