The Truth About Woman Part 25

But woman is awakening to find her place in the eternal purpose. She is adding understanding to her feeling and pa.s.sion.

Never before throughout the history of modern womankind has her own character evoked so earnest and profound an interest as to-day: never has she considered herself from so truly a social standpoint as now.

It is true that the change has not yet, except in very few women, reached deep enough to the realities of the things that most matter.

Women have to learn to utilise every advantage of their nature, not one side only. They will do this; because they will come to have truer and stronger motives. They are beginning even now to be sifted clean through the sieve of work. The waste of womanhood cannot for long continue.

One great and hopeful sign is a new consciousness among all women of personal responsibility to their own s.e.x. The most fruitful outgrowth from the present agitation for the rights of citizens--the Vote! the symbol of this awakening--is a solidarity unknown among women before, which now binds them in one common purpose. Yet there is a possible danger lurking in this enthusiasm. Women will gain nothing by s.n.a.t.c.hing at reform. Many have no eyes to see the beyond; they are hurried forward by a cry of wrongs, while others are held back by fear of change. Woman is by her temperament inclined to do too much or to do nothing. Looked at from this standpoint of the immediate present, when only the semi-hysterical and illogical aspects of the struggle are manifest, the future may appear dark. The revolution is accompanied by much noise and violence. Perhaps this is inevitable. I do not know. There is, what must seem to many of us who stand outside the fight, a terrible wastage, a straining and a shattering of the forces of life and love. To earn salvation quickly and riotously may not, indeed, be the surest way. It may be only a further development of the sin of woman, the wastage of her womanhood.

Women say that the fault rests with men. Again I do not know.

Certainly it is much easier and pleasanter to see the mote in our brother's eye than it is to recognise a possible beam as clouding our own sight. One of the worst results of the protection of woman by man is that he has had to bear her sins. Women have grown accustomed to this; they do not even know how greatly their s.e.x s.h.i.+elds them. They will not readily yield up their scapegoat or sacrifice their privileges. But the personal responsibility that is making itself felt among women must teach them to be ready to answer for their own actions, and, if need be, to pay for them. Freedom carries with it the acceptance of responsibility. Women must accept this: they are working towards it.

In a new and free relations.h.i.+p of the s.e.xes women have at least as much to learn as men. The possession of the vote is not going to transform women. Changes that matter are never so simple as that.

Women estimating their future powers tend to become presumptuous. One is reminded sometimes of the people Nietzsche describes as "those who 'briefly deal' with all the real problems of life." It frequently appears as if the modern woman expects to hold tight to her old privileges as the protected child, as well as to gain her new rights as the human woman. In a word, to stay on her pedestal when it is convenient, and to climb down whenever she wants to. This cannot be.

And the grasping of both sides of the situation leads to what is worse than all else--strife between women and men. Just in measure as the s.e.xes fall away from love and understanding of each other, do they fall away from life into the mere futility of personal ends. It is to _go on with man_, and not to _get from man_, that is the goal of Woman's Freedom. There are other conditions of change that women have to be ready to meet. This must be. For however much some may sigh for the ease and the ignorant repose of the pa.s.sing generation, we cannot go back. It is as impossible to live behind one's generation as before it. We have to live our lives in the pulse of the new knowledge, the new fears, the new increasing responsibilities. Women must train themselves to keep pace with men. There is a price to be paid for free womanhood. Are women ready and willing to pay it? If so, they must cease to profit and live by their s.e.x. _They must come out and be common women among common men._ This, as I believe, is a better solution than to bring men up to women's level. For, as I have said before, I doubt, and still doubt, if women are really better than men.

If the constructive synthetic purpose of life, which I have tried to make the ruling idea of my book, is that all growth is a succession of upward development through the action of love between the two s.e.xes, then not only must woman in her individual capacity--physically as wife and mother, and mentally as home-builder and teacher--contribute to the further progress of life by a n.o.bler use of her s.e.x; but the collective work of women in their social and political activities must all be set towards the same purpose. It is in this light, the welfare of the lives of the future and the building up of a finer race--that the individual and collective conduct of women must be judged. Women have talked and thought too much about their s.e.x, and all the time they have totally under-estimated the real strength of the strongest thing in life. I think the force, the power, the driving intensity of love will come as a surprise and a wonder to awakened women. I think they will come to realise, as they have never realised before, the tremendous force s.e.x is.

The Woman's movement is inextricably bound up with all the problems of our disorganised love-relations.h.i.+ps; and although politicians with their customary blindness have chosen to treat it as a side issue, it is, for this reason, the most serious social question that has come to the front during the century. Woman's position and her efforts to regain her equality with man can never be a thing apart--a side issue--to a responsible State. Love and the relations.h.i.+p of the s.e.xes is the foundation of the social structure itself; it forms the real centre of all the social and economic problems--of the population problem, of the marriage problem, of the problems of education and eugenics, of the future of labour, of the sweating question, and the problem of prost.i.tution. As the Woman's Movement presses forward each and all of these questions will press forward too. All women and men have got to be concerned with s.e.x and its problems until some at least of these wrongs are righted. That any woman can ever regard love as merely a personal matter, "an incident in life," that can be set aside in the rush of new activities, makes one wonder if the delusions of women about themselves can ever end. This misunderstanding of love ought never to be possible to any woman or any man: it is going to be increasingly difficult for it to be possible for the new woman and her mate that is to be. In love all things rest. In love has gathered the strength to be, growing into conscious need of fuller life, growing into completer vision of the larger day.

My faith in womanhood is strong and deep. The manifestations of the present, many of which seem to give cause for fear, are, after all, only the superficial evidence of a deep undercurrent of awakening. The ultimate driving force behind is shaping a social understanding in the woman's spirit. So surely from out of the wreckage and pa.s.sion a new woman will arise.

For this Nature will see to. Woman, both by physiological and biological causes is the constructive force of life. Nothing that is fine in woman will be lost, nothing that is profitable will be sacrificed. No, the essential feminine in her will be gathered in a more complete, a more enduring synthesis. Woman is the predominant partner in the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p. We cannot get away from this. It is here, in this wide field, where so many wrongs wait to be righted, that the thrill of her new pa.s.sion must bring well-being and joy. The female was the start of life, and woman is the main stream of its force. Man is her agent, her helper: hers is the supreme responsibility in creating and moulding life. It is thus certain that woman's present a.s.sertion of her age-long rights and claim for truer responsibilities has its cause rooted deep in the needs of the race.

She is treading, blindly, perhaps, and stumblingly, in the steps laid down for her by Nature; following in a path not made by man, one that goes back to the beginning of life and is surer and beyond herself; thus she has time as well as right upon her side, and can therefore afford to be patient as well as fearless.

"I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over hither."

From the height of Pisgah there is revealed to women to-day a glimpse of the promised land. But shall we enter therein to take possession? I believe not. It will be given to those who follow us and carry on the work which our pa.s.sion has begun. For our children's children the joys of reaping, the feast, and the songs of harvest home.

What matter? We shall be there in them.

Shall we, then, complain if for us is the hard toil, the doubts, and the mistakes, the long enduring patience, and the bitter fruits of disappointment? We have opened up the way.

And is not this one with the very purpose of life? We are obeying Nature's law in dedicating ourselves and our work to those who follow us. We have made our record, we can do nothing more. The race flows through us. All our effort lies in this--the giving of all that we have been able to gain. And it is sufficient. This is the end and the beginning.

Thus we are brought back to the truth from which we started. Women are the guardians of the Race-life and the Race-soul. There is no more to be said. It is because we are the mothers of men that we claim to be free. We claim this as our right. We claim it for the sake of men, for our lovers, our husbands, and our sons; we claim it even more for the sake of the life of the race that is to come.

"Then comes the statelier Eden back to men; Then ring the world's great bridals, chaste and calm; Then springs the crowning race of human-kind.

May these things be."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

N.B.--This bibliography is intended as a guide to the student; it is merely representative, not in any way exhaustive.

The books to which direct reference is made are marked with an asterisk.

BIOLOGICAL PART

*AUDUBON: Scenes de la nature dans les etats Unis (_French trans._).

Ornithological Biography: an Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America.

BATESON, W.: Materials for the Study of Variation.

Mendel's Principles of Heredity.

*BONHOTE, J. LEWIS: Birds of Britain.

BREHM: Tierleben.

Ornithology, or the Science of Birds. (_From the text of Brehm._)

BROOKS, W.K.: The Law of Heredity.

The Foundations of Zoology.

*BuCHNER: Mind in Animals (_Eng. trans._).

Liebe und Liebesleben in der Tierwelt.

*BUTLER, SAMUEL: Life and Habit.

Evolution Old and New.

*DARWIN, CHARLES: The Descent of Man.

The Origin of Species.

The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.

The Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals.

*DARWIN, FRANCIS: Life and Letters of Charles Darwin.

*ELLIS, HAVELOCK: Psychology of s.e.x. Vol. III.

*ESPINAS: Societes animales.

FABRE, J. HENRI: Moeurs des insectes.

Life and Love of Insects (_trans._).

Insect Life (_trans._).

Social Life in the Insect World (_trans._).

*FORBES, H.O.: A Naturalist's Wanderings.

*GALTON, FRANCIS: Natural Inheritance.

Average Contribution of Each Several Ancestor to the Total Heritage of the Offspring. _Pro. Roy. Soc., London, LXI._

*GEDDES, PATRICK: _Articles_: "Reproduction," "s.e.x," "Variation" and "Selection": _Encycl. Brit._

*GEDDES AND TOMPSON, A.J.: The Evolution of s.e.x. (_Cont. Sci.

Series._) _Rev. ed._ Problems of s.e.x.