| | | | | | Proverbs, as a rule, are believed to contain amongst them | somehow or other a quantity of truth. There is scarcely one | proverb which has not go another proverb that flatly | contradicts it, and between the two it would be very odd if | there was not a great deal of sound sense somewhere. There | is, however, one of the number which, as every candid | critic must allow, is based on an egregious falsehood ~~ the | proverb, namely, which affirms, against all experience, that | whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander. | Viewing the goose as the type of woman, and the gander as | the type of man, no adage could be more preposterous or | untenable. Such a maxim flies dead in the very face of | society, and is calculated to introduce disturbance into the | orderly sequence and subordination of the sexes. Who first | invented it, it is difficult to conceive, unless it was some | rustic Mrs. Poyser, full of the consciousness of domestic | power, and anxious to reverse in daily life the law of | priority which obtained ~~ as she must have seen ~~ even | in her own poultry-yard. | There is one way of reading the proverb which perhaps | renders it less monstrous; and if we confine ourselves to the | view that

"sauce"

for the goose is also

| "sauce"

for the gander, we escape from any of | | the philosophical difficulties in which the other version | involves us. No doubt, when they are dead, goose and | gander are alike, even in the way they are dressed, and | there is no superiority on the part of either. Death makes all | genders epicene. Except for one solitary text about silence | in heaven for half an hour, which some cynical | commentators have explained as indicating a temporary | banishment from paradise of one of the sexes, distinctions | of this sort need not be supposed to continue after the | present life. If we are to take the former reading, and to test | it by what we know of life, nothing can be more | unfounded, or more calculated to give a wrong impression | as to the facts. Were it not too late, the proverb ought to be | altered; and perhaps it is not absolutely hopeless to | persuade Mr. Tupper to see to it. |

"What is good for the goose is bad for the gander," |

or, perhaps,

"what is bad for the goose is good for | the gander;"

or, perhaps

"what is a sin in the | goose is only the gander’s way,"

would read quite as | well, would not be so diametrically at variance with the | ordinary rules of social life, and, accordingly, would be | infinitely truer and more moral. Even Mr. Mill, who is the | advocate of female emancipation and female suffrage, | never has gone so far as to say that all women, as well as | all men, are brothers. The female suffrage, as we know, is | merely a question of time. Before very long, no doubt, | there will be a feminine Reform Bill, during the course of | which Mr. Disraeli will explain that the feminine franchise | has always been the one idea of the Conservative party, and | in which the | | compound housekeeper will occupy as prominent a | position as the compound householder ever could have | done. Nobody, however, has as yet absolutely asserted, we | do not say the equality, for equality is an invidious term, | but the indifference of the sexes. And this being so, it is | strange that a proverb should be retained which is so | opposed to every notion that passes current in the world. | As the legislation of the world has hitherto been uniformly | in the hands of men, it is not astonishing that it has always | proceeded on the assumption of the absolute dependence of | the weaker upon the stronger sex. Several thousand years of | intellectual and political supremacy must have altered the | type imperceptibly, and made the difference between the | ordinary run of men and women far more marked than | nature intended it originally to be. All theology, whether | Christian or pagan, has been in the habit of representing | woman as designed chiefly to be a sort of ornament and | appendage to man; and the allegory of the creation of Eve, | though Oriental in its tone, does nevertheless correspond to | a vague feeling among even civilized nations that woman’s | mission is to fill up a gap in man’s daily life. | Nor are they merely the opinions and laws of the world | which have moulded themselves on this basis. The whole | imagination of the race has been fed upon the notion, until | the relations between the two sexes have become the one | thing on which fancy, sentiment, and hope are taught from | childhood to dwell. It is not an extravagant inference to | suppose that centuries | | of this imaginative and sentimental habit have ended by | affecting the brain and the physical nature of humanity. | Man has become a woman-caressing animal. The life of the | two sexes is made to centre round the once fictitious, but | now universal, idea that they cannot exist without one | another. | Goose and gander have lost their primitive conception of an | individual and independent career, and are never happy | unless they are permitted to go in pairs. Under less complex | social conditions such interdependence led to no very | intolerable results. Men and women formed a sort of | convenient partnership, each contributing their quota of | daily conveniences to the common fund. The chief | protected his squaw ~~ or, if he was a patriarch, his squaws | ~~ while the squaws ministered to his pleasures, cooked his | food, milked ~~ if Mr. Max Muller’s idea of the Sanscrit is | correct ~~ his cows, and carried his babies on their backs. | The husband found the venison and the maize, while his | wife dressed it and helped to eat it. This mutual | arrangement had at any rate the advantage of being | accommodated to the physical differences of strength | between the two halves of society. | A little tyranny is the natural consequence of an unequal | distribution of physical strength in all rude and barbarous | states, and it was inevitable that woman should at such | times have more than her share of labour and of patience | imposed upon her. But it is evident that, as civilization has | increased with the growth of population and of industrial | interests, women no longer derive the same benefit from | the | | social partnership as formerly. Some social philosophers | still maintain, with M. Comte, that it is man’s business to | maintain woman, and to relieve her from the necessity of | providing for her natural wants. But this theory seems | Utopian and impracticable when we try to think of applying | it to the world in which we live. Wealth is no longer | distributed with the least reference to industrious and sober | habits. | The principle of accumulation has been admitted, and | social bodies have encouraged and sanctioned it by | allowing property to descend from one generation to | another intact, the result of which is that the industry of the | father is able to insure the perpetual idleness of his | posterity. Large multitudes of poor producers are occupied | in earning their own necessary sustenance, and cannot take | on themselves without enormous difficulty the burden of | supporting woman-kind, a burden which the richer classes | scarcely feel. As by far the majority of women belong to | the impoverished and laborious class, it is obvious they | must either enter the labor-market themselves, or purchase | support from the rich by sacrifices which are inconsistent | with their personal dignity and the morality of the social | body. As the imagination of humanity has been long since | given up to sentiment and passion, it is only too clear that | the more vicious alternative is the one oftenest embraced. | Society, then, has come to this ~~ that woman must still | depend on man, while man no longer, except on his own | terms, fulfills his part of the tacit bargain by maintaining | woman. | The first thing to be considered is what the public | | gains by keeping up the sentimental notion about woman’s | mission. It is her business, most of us think, to charm and | to attract, partly in order that she may do man real good, | and partly that she may add to the luxury, the refinement, | and the happiness of life. With this view, society is very | solicitous to keep her at a distance from everything that | may spoil or destroy the look of her character and tastes. | Few people go so far as to say that she ought not to work | for her livelihood, if her circumstances render the effort | necessary and prudent. As a fact, we see at once that such a | proposition cannot be broadly supported, and that any | attempt to enforce it would lead to endless misery and | mischief. Poor women, for example, must work hard, or | else their children and themselves will come to utter | degradation. | But though society abstains from committing itself to the | doctrine of the enforced idleness of women, it takes refuge | in a species of half measure, and restricts, as far as it can, | by its legislative enactments or its own social code, the | labors which women are to perform to the narrowest | possible compass. A woman may work, but she must do | nothing which is called unfeminine. She may get up linen, | ply her needle, keep weaving-machines in motion, knit, | sew, and in higher spheres in life teach music, French, and | English grammar. She may be a governess, or a sempstress, | or even within certain limits may enter the literary market | and write books. This is the extreme boundary of her | liberty, and somewhere about this point society begins to | draw a rigid line. | | It earnestly discourages her from commercial occupations, | except under the patronage of a husband who is to benefit | by her exertions; she is not to be a counting-house clerk, or | a doctor, or a lawyer, or a parson. The great active | avocations, all those that lead either to fame or fortune, are | monopolized by men. Strong-minded women occasionally | bore the public by complaining of and protesting against | such restrictions; but, on the whole, the public is satisfied | that it is convenient that they should be upheld. If we look | at the matter from the point of view of the educated, or | even the well-to-do classes, such a conclusion seems so | reasonable that most of us can hardly induce ourselves to | doubt its correctness. Women do a certain tangible amount | of good to the world by being kept as a luxury and exotic. | The most energetic and rebellious of them may feel angry | to be told so, but it is the truth that it suits men in general | to keep up a kind of hothouse bloom upon the characters of | women. The society of soft, affectionate, unselfish | creatures is decidedly good for man. It elevates his nature, | it gives him a belief in what is pure and genuine, it | alleviates the dust and turmoil of a busy career, and it | enables him for so many hours of the day to refresh himself | with the company of a being who is in some things a | mediaeval saint, and in some, a child. | Whenever one contemplates the effect of more coarse | experience of the world, more knowledge, and more rough | and hard work on such a nature, one is invariably tempted | to acquiesce in the view that it is good for man to have her | in the state she is. One | | feels disposed to object to notions of female emancipation | as profane. Education and science, thought and philosophy, | like the winds of heaven, should never visit her cheek too | roughly. The great thing is, to preserve in her that sort of | luxurious unworldiness which represents the religious and | refined element in the household to which she belongs. And | a hundred things may be and have often been said about the | advantage of making pure sentiment the foundation of all | the relations that obtain between her and man. | As Plato thought, man elevates himself by elevating and | sentimentalizing his affections. All poetry and most | literature is given up to this sentimentalizing or refining | process. Nor can it be denied that the effect is to increase | very much the capacity of happiness in all people who are | born to be happy or to enjoy life. What would youth be | without its imaginative emotions? We all know, and are | taught to believe, that it would be something much poorer | than it is. | There is another side to the picture, and it is as well to | contemplate it seriously, before we make up our minds to | treat with undisguised contempt all the vagaries of those | who wish definitely to alter the social condition of women. | At present women are beautiful and delicate adjuncts of | life. As Prometheus said of horses, they are the ornaments | of wealth and luxury. They add perfume and refinement to | existence. But, after all, it is an important question whether | the conversion of women into this sort of | | drawing-room delicacy is not sacrificing the welfare of the | many to the intellectual and social comfort to the few. | The world pays a heavy price for having its imagination | sentimentalized. One of the items in the bill is the | disappointment of the thousands whose sensibilities are | never destined to be satisfied. For every woman who | marries happily, a large percentage never marry at all, or | marry in haste and repent at leisure. It remains to be proved | that it is wise to teach and train the sex to fix all their views | in life and to stake all their fortunes and chances of the one | rare thing ~~ a lucky matrimonial choice. If one could | succeed in de-sentimentalizing society, one would take | from a few the chief pleasure of living, but it is far from | certain that the material welfare of the majority would not | be proportionately increased. Half-measures would of | course be of very little use. | It would be a poor exchange to take from women all their | reserve and innocence and refinement, without giving them | free play in the world. They would be only coarse and | wicked caricatures of what they are now. The change, to be | tolerable, would have to be effectual and thorough. It | would be necessary to change the whole current of their | ideas, and the whole view of man about them also; to | persuade the human race to fix its mind less on the | difference of sexes, and to become less imaginative upon | the subject. If so sweeping an alteration could be | completely effected, perhaps it might be worth while to | consider whether woman’s absolute independence would | not strengthen | | her character, and add permanently to the world’s wealth. | One thing is certain, that if woman is to continue for ever in | her present condition, the moral and social condition of | large numbers of human beings must remain hopeless. | Their future appears dreary in the extreme. It is Utopian to | expect that men and women will grow less and less | self-indulgent, so long as the education they undergo from | their earliest years renders them prone to every species | of temptation. There are some things which make social | philosophers hopeful and confident, but no social | philosopher can ever do anything but despair of real | progress if he is to take for granted that women are always | to play the part in life which they at present play. The | emancipation of the goose is an experiment, but it is not | surprising that many enthusiasts should believe it to be an | experiment well deserving of a trial.