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WOMAN FREE 
 
WOMAN FREE 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLIS ETHELMER 
 
 1893 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 WOMEN'S EMANCIPATION UNitON 
 
 Hon. Sec. .-—Mrs. WOLSTENHOJ.ME ELMY 
 Buxton House, Congleton 
 
 [PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS. POSt-.PRfiS] 
 
JSff 
 
 A35«=lo^S 
 
 WVMAN AJfl> SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND REDHILL. 
 
" Le philosophe, en dtudiant les lois de la Nature, 
 acquiert chaque jour la conviction que de leur violation 
 seule naissent tous les maux dont g^mit I'humanitd." 
 
 " The philosopher, in studying the laws of Nature, 
 acquires more deeply every day the conviction that from 
 their abuse alone spring all the evils from which humanity 
 is groaning." 
 
 Dr. Menville de Ponsan 
 (Histoire de la Femme; Vol. III., p. 3). 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 I. 
 Source of the Light that cheers this later day, 
 Science calm moves to spread her sovereign sway ; 
 Research and Reason, ranged on either hand, 
 Proclaim her message to each waiting land ; 
 In truths whose import stands but part revealed, 
 Till man befit himself those truths to wield ; 
 Since to high Knowledge duties high belong. 
 As to the poet's power the task of worthy song. 
 
 n. 
 And man, from every stage of slow degree, 
 Amendment for his previous rule may see ; 
 His keener conscience in our fuller time 
 Perceives the whilom careless act a crime. 
 Or finds some fancied fault to progress tend, — 
 By wiser vision traced to truer end ; 
 Till, growing shrewder in the growing light. 
 We know no lack of good but our own lack of sight. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 III. 
 Thus, sad at first, we mark each evil deed, 
 Of ignorance or will, bear fatal seed 
 Of suffering to others in its train, — 
 The guileless share its penalty of pain, — 
 And man's worst misery ofttimes is brought 
 By trespass he himself nor did nor thought ; 
 Austere the fiat, yet therefrom we learn 
 A purer life to frame, lest myriads mourn in turn. 
 
 IV. 
 Deep though the teaching that this truth reveals 
 Of fellowship of man with all that feels. 
 Remains the riddle that, though inmost ken 
 Of humblest creatures and of rudest men 
 Has sense of freedom as an instinct strong, — 
 Resenting injury as act of wrong, — 
 Man listed not this monitor's still voice. 
 But gave his wanton wish the guilty force of choice. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 V. 
 Dark looms the record of his earher j'^ears, — 
 A troubled tale of infamy and tears ; 
 For, of the ill by man primeval wrought, 
 Shows forth predominant with anguish fraught. 
 And long disaster to the ensuant race. 
 The direful course of degradation base. 
 Where freedom, justice, right, — at one fell blow, — 
 In woman's life of slave were outraged and laid low. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The inklings gleaned of prehistoric hour 
 Speak woman thrall to man's unbridled power ; 
 Than brute more gifted, he, with heinous skill, 
 Subdued her being to his sensual will ; 
 Binding her fast with ties of cunning weight, 
 By mother's burden forced to slavish fate ; 
 Thus woman was, and such her man-made doom, 
 Ere yet the dawn of love illumed the soulless gloom. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 VII. 
 Ere Evolution, in unhasting speed, 
 Trained man's regard to larger life and need ; 
 By Art his feelings waked to functions higher. 
 Disclosed within his clay the veins of fire, 
 Taught him his pleasures of the flesh to find 
 But presage of the mightier joys of mind ; 
 Evoked the soul from fume of mortal dust. 
 The vestal flame of love from lower flush of lust. 
 
 VIII. 
 The eye that once could note but food or foe 
 Grew wise to watch the landscape's varied glow ; 
 To gaze beyond our earthly temporal bars, 
 And track the orbit of the wandering stars : 
 The voice erst roused by hunger or by rage 
 Now tells the nobler passions of the age, 
 Till with love's language is uplifted love 
 To high and selfless thought all sensuous aim above. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 IX. 
 But not at once such life and love to know, 
 For progress strives through many an ebb and flow ; 
 Man's kindling sense, though stirred by call of Art, 
 Still missed the motive of her deepest heart ; 
 'Twas in her gracious embassy to give 
 A fairer faith and fate to all that live. 
 Neglecting none, — yet man, 'twixt lust and pride. 
 Due portion in the boon to woman still denied. 
 
 X. 
 .^ons of wrong ere history was born. 
 With added ages passed in slight and scorn, 
 Maintained the chains of primal womanhood. 
 And clogged in turn man's power of greater good ; 
 Egypt or Greece in vain sought heavenly light 
 While woman's soul was held from equal flight, — 
 Her path confined by man to sordid end. 
 As subjugated wife, or hireling transient friend. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Marriage — which might have been a mateship 
 
 sweet, 
 Where equal souls in hallowed converse meet, 
 Each aiding each the higher truths to find. 
 And raising body to the plane of mind, — 
 Man's baser will restrained to lower grade, 
 And woman's share a brainless bondage made ; 
 Her only hope of thought or learning wide, 
 Some freer lot to seek than yoke forlorn of bride. 
 
 XII. 
 Yet, as hetaira,— comrade, chambermate, — 
 (The ambiguous word bespoke her dubious state), 
 She, craving mental food, might but be guest 
 By paying with her body for the quest ; 
 Conceding that, might lead a learned life, — 
 A licence vetoed to the legal wife, — 
 Might win great wealth, or build a lasting fame, 
 Not due to her the guilt that left the tinge of shame. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XIII. 
 What guilt was there, apportion it aright 
 To him who fixed the gages of the fight ; 
 Blame man, who, reckless of the woman's fate, 
 In greed for meaner pleasure lost the great ; 
 Blame him, the vaunted sage, who knew her mind 
 Peer to his own in skill and wit refined. 
 Yet left the after-ages to bemoan 
 The waste of woman worth that dawned and died 
 unknown. 
 
 XIV. 
 And deep the shame on man's insensate heart 
 For later woman doomed to hideous part ; 
 Poor lostling, bowed with worse than brutal woes,— 
 To her not even dealt the brute's repose ; 
 Her sweetness sullied, and her frame disgraced. 
 Soul scarce might light her temple fair defaced, — 
 Its chastest sanctities coerced to give 
 For painful bread to eat, for piteous chance to live. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XV. 
 
 While such her fate in lands of cultured creed, 
 Judge woman's griefs with man of barbarous breed'; 
 Slave to his lust, and tiller of his soil, 
 Crippled and crushed by cruelty and toil ; 
 Yet still her heart a gentle mien essayed, 
 By deeper passion, holier impulse, swayed ; 
 Care for her wretched offspring rarely swerved. 
 And mother-love alone the infant oft preserved. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Thus woman's life, in low or high estate, 
 Man fettered with a more than natural weight 
 Of sexual function, — disproportioned theme 
 And single basis in his female scheme ; 
 He strove to quench her flash of quicker fire, 
 That crossed his lordship or his low desire ; 
 Her one permitted end to serve his race. 
 Her individual soul forbidden breathing place. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Scarce other seemed that soul than sentient tomb 
 Of human energy debarred to bloom ; 
 Her spirit, pining in its durance drear, 
 Leaves legacy of many a burning tear 
 For aspirations crushed, and aims denied, 
 And instincts thwarted by man's purblind pride ; 
 Her every wish made subject to the nod 
 Of him whose mad conceit proclaimed himself her 
 God. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 So stood at halt, through years of sterile change, 
 His narrowed brain and her restricted range ; 
 And man intelligent and woman free. 
 Was union which the world had yet to see ; 
 For time to come reserved the golden sight 
 Of glorious harvest from the natural right. 
 To her as amply as to him assigned 
 To compass power unknown in body and in mind. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Happy the epoch destinied to show 
 What force of good from that free fate shall flow ; 
 The artificial limits to efface 
 Of laws and forms that womanhood debase ; 
 Even our own imperfect hour may prove 
 The ecstasy of earnest souls that move 
 In dual union of unselfish strife 
 To reach by mutual love to true and equal life. 
 
 XX. 
 Yet slow, so slowly, gleams the gathering light. 
 And lingers still the hovering shade of night ; 
 Though part undone the wrong that we confess, 
 Repentance cannot instant bring redress ; 
 Nor woman, tortured by her thraldom long, 
 At once stand forth emancipate and strong ; 
 Her pain persistent, though she calm suppress 
 Her rancour for the past, with sweet forgivingness. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XXI. 
 For carnal servitude left cruel stain, 
 And galls that fester from the fleshly chain ; 
 Unhealed the scars of man's distempered greed, 
 The wounds of blind injustice still'they bleed ; 
 Recurrent suffering lets her not forget 
 The aimless payments of a dismal debt, — 
 Survival from dim age of man's abuse 
 Of functions immature, profaned by savage use. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Her girlhood's helpless years through cycles long 
 Had been a martyrdom of sexual wrong, 
 For little strength or choice might child oppose 
 To shield herself from force of sensual foes ; 
 Impending motherhood might win no rest 
 Or refuge sacred from the satyr quest ; 
 Unripe maternity, untimely birth, 
 The woman's constant dole in those dark days of 
 earth. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XXIII. 
 Action repeated tends to rhythmic course, 
 And thus the mischief, due at first to force, 
 Brought cumul'ative sequence to the race. 
 Till habit bred hereditary trace ; 
 On woman falls that heritage of woe, 
 And e'en the virgin feels its dastard blow, — 
 For, long ere fit to wield maternal cares, 
 Abnormal fruits of birth her guiltless body bears. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Misread by man, this sign of his misdeed 
 Was held as symptom of her nubile need. 
 And on through history's length her tender age 
 Has still been victim to his adult rage ; 
 He, by his text, with irony serene, 
 Banned her resultant " manner " as " unclean " ; 
 The censure base upon himself recoils, 
 Yet leaves the woman wan and cumbered in his toils. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 13 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Vicarious punishment for manhood's crime 
 Takes grievous toll of all her active prime ; 
 The hap, in educated woman's fate, 
 Is instinct with antipathy and hate 
 Reason confirming tells, no honest claim 
 Could ever cause such gust of inward shame, 
 Nor act of normal wont might man blaspheme 
 To make of Nature's need a vile opprobrious theme. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Thoughts like to these are breathings of the truth 
 To whoso ponders deep the tale of ruth ; 
 The futile mannish pleas that would explain 
 The purport of her periodic pain. 
 All bear unconscious witness to the wrong 
 In blindness born, in error fostered long, — 
 The spurious function growing with the years. 
 Till almost natural use the morbid mode appears. 
 
14 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XXVII. 
 Grievous the hurt to woman, which to right 
 Is instant duty of our stronger sight ; 
 From off her weary shoulders, bruised and worn, 
 To lift the cross in longtime misery borne ; 
 Until, reintegrate in frame and mind, 
 A speedy restitution she shall find, 
 From every trammel of man's mastery freed. 
 Nor held by his behest from fullest life and deed. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 And soon may pass her suffering, for the ill 
 By man begot lies subject to our skill ; 
 All human malady may be allayed 
 With human forethought, human action's aid ; 
 Ours then the fault, since, given in our hand 
 Is power the evil hazard to command ; 
 For Nature, kindly wise our woes to shape, 
 In very pang of pain both prompts and points escape. 
 
IVOMAN FREE. 
 
 15 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 So woman shall her own redemption gain, 
 Instructed by the sting of bootless pain ; 
 With Nature ever helpful to retrieve 
 The injury we heedlessly achieve, 
 From seed of act, by recent woman sown, 
 Already guerdon rich in hope is shown ; — 
 Such faculty her new-found presence decks, 
 The sage physician, she, and saviour of her sex. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 With purer phase of life proves woman less 
 The burden of the wasting weariness ; 
 And thus, in rank refined or rude have grown 
 Maidens in whom the weakness was not known 
 Hale woman and true mother have they been. 
 Yet never have the noisome habit seen : 
 Not to neglectful man to greatly care 
 How such immunity all womanhood might share. 
 
i6 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Her intellect alert the harm shall heal, 
 And ways of wholesomeness and strength reveal ; 
 The saving truth she wins with studious thought 
 More swiftly to her daughter shall be taught, — 
 How body still is supple unto mind, 
 By dint of soul is fleshly form inclined, 
 And woman's will shall work of man atone, 
 The deed his darkness wrought be by her light 
 undone. 
 
 XXXII. 
 No longer drilled deformity to nurse, 
 And woo, when slow to appear, the absent curse. 
 Her counter-effort, helped by Nature's grace, 
 Shall quell the " custom's " last abhorrent trace ; 
 Its morbid usurpation shall refute, — 
 Not more to woman natural than to brute ; — 
 A needless noyance with a baseless claim. 
 The lingering mark of man's unthinking guilt and 
 shame. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 17 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Her body, saved from enervating drain, 
 Shall lend a newer vigour to the brain ; 
 Wide shall she roam in realms of untold thought. 
 Which ages since her shackled instinct sought ; 
 For oft her prison had the yearnings heard, 
 In murmurings scarce rendered into word ; — 
 Promptings which man suspicious strove to choke, 
 Lest that her soul shoVild rise and break his time- 
 worn yoke. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 For autocrats of old, with treacherous guile. 
 Had bribed the villain's soul by sensual wile ; 
 To meanest man a lower drudge assigned, — 
 With gift of female thrall cajoled the hind ; 
 The stolid churl his servitude forgave 
 Whilst he in turn was master to a slave ; 
 Through every rank the sexual serfdom ran, 
 And woman's life was bound in vassalage to man. 
 
1 8 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XXXV. 
 Then, fearing that the slave herself might guess 
 The knavery of her forced enchainedness, 
 A subtle fiction mannish brain designed 
 To dominate her conscience and her mind, — 
 Inhuman dogmas did his genius frame, 
 Investing them with sanctimonious name 
 Of " woman's duty '' ; and the fetish base 
 E'en to this reasoned day uplifts its impious face. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 By cant condoned, man fashioned woman's "sphere," 
 And mapped out "natural " bounds to her career ; 
 His sapience — should she dare any deed 
 In contravention of his code — decreed 
 On soul or body penalties condign, 
 In part dubbed civil law, and part divine : 
 Misguided man, — confused in self-deceit 
 His unisexual wit and pious pretext meet. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 19 
 
 .VXXVII. 
 
 Obeisance yet his caste of sex demands ; — 
 In legislative script the verbiage stands 
 How lowest boor is lordly " baron " styled, 
 And highest bride as common " feme " reviled ; 
 The tardier fear that grants the clown a share 
 In his own governance, denies it her ; 
 And British matrons are, by man-made rules, 
 In solemn statute ranked with infants, felons, fools. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 The crass injustice early man displayed. 
 
 His own crude infancy of brain betrayed ; 
 
 His riper judgment scorns the childish use. 
 
 And cries to all his bygone freaks a truce ; 
 
 Enactments that long blemished legal page 
 
 Shall fade as figments of a foolish age, 
 
 Till saner years have every bond erased 
 
 Which selfish law of man on life of woman placed. 
 
 c 2 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Till like with him in human right she stands, 
 Her will an equal power of rule commands ; 
 Her voice, in council and in senate heard. 
 To stern debate brings harmonising word ; 
 In mutual stress each sex the other cheers, 
 Since one are made their hopes and one their fears ; 
 " Self-reverent each, and reverencing each," — 
 The theme that truer man and freer woman teach. 
 
 XL. 
 For but a slave himself must ever be, 
 Till she to shape her own career be free ; — 
 Free from all uninvited touch of man, 
 Free mistress of her person's sacred plan ; 
 Free human soul ; the brood that she shall bear. 
 The first — the truly free, to breathe our air ; 
 From woman slave can come but menial race. 
 The mother free confers her freedom and her grace. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XLI. 
 By her the progress of our future kind, 
 Their stalwart body and their spacious mind ; 
 For, folded in her form each human mite 
 Has its first home, its sustenance and light ; 
 Hers the live warmth that fans its spirit flame, 
 Her generous sap supplies its fleshly frame, 
 And e'en the juice,— the fullborn infant's food, 
 Is yet a blanched form of woman's living blood. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Strange wisdom by her unkenned craft is taught 
 While yet the embryo in her womb is wrought ; 
 For, long ere entering on our tumult rife. 
 It learns from her the needful art of life ; 
 Unconscious teacher, she, yet all she knows 
 Of dark experience to her infant flows. 
 And brands him, ere he rest upon her knee. 
 Offshoot of slavish race, not scion of the free. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XLIII. 
 To either sex the bondage and the pain, 
 They seek to live a freeman's life in vain ; 
 For man or woman can but act the part, 
 When 'tis not freeborn blood that fills the heart : 
 Strive as he may, the modern man, at best. 
 Is tyrant, differing somewhat from the rest ; 
 Nor woman thraldom-bred can surely know 
 Where lies her richest gift, or how its wealth to show. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Thus learn we that in woman rendered free 
 Is raised the rank of all humanity ; 
 The despot is the fullfruit of the slave ; — 
 To form the freeman, equable and brave, 
 Habit of freedom must spontaneous come 
 As life itself, and from the selfsame womb ; 
 Life, liberty, and love, — lien undefiled, — 
 The freeborn mother's heirloom to her freeborn child. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 23 
 
 XLV. 
 So shall her noble issue, maid or boy, 
 With equal freedom equal fate enjoy ; 
 Together reared in purity and truth. 
 Through plastic childhood and retentive youth ; 
 Their mutual sports of sinew and of brain 
 In strength alike the sturdy comrades train ; 
 Of differing sex no thought inept intrudes, 
 Their purpose calmly sure all errant aim excludes. 
 
 XLVI. 
 For soul, not sex, shall to each life assign 
 What destiny to fill, or what decline ; 
 Through years mature impartial range shall reach, 
 And wider wisdom, juster ethics, teach ; 
 Conformed to claims of intellect and need, 
 The tempered numbers of their highborn breed ; 
 Not overworn with childward pain and care, 
 The mother — and the race — robuster health shall 
 share. 
 
24 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XLVII. 
 Nor blankly epicene, as scoffers say, 
 The necessary sequence of that day ; 
 For not by vapid imitation low. 
 Or aping falser sex shall truer grow ; 
 Nor modish mind may fathom Nature's range, 
 Or fix the fleeting scope of human change ; 
 Can singer blind the rainbow's tints compare ? — 
 The brain enslaved from birth the freeman's powers 
 declare ? 
 
 XLVIII. 
 Work we in faith, secure that precious seed 
 Shall bear due fruit for man's extremest need ; 
 Not greatly timorous, as those fruits we see. 
 What changed existence from such food may be ; 
 For well we wot shall come forth worthy soul, 
 Or male or female, with impartial dole 
 Of all that life can grant of good or great, — 
 Happy what each may bring to help the common 
 fate. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 25 
 
 XLIX. 
 By mutual aid perfecting complex man, 
 Their twofold vision human life may scan 
 From differing standpoints, grasping from the two 
 A clearer concept and a bolder view ; 
 And thus diverse humanity shall learn 
 A wisdom which not single sex might earn ; 
 Each on the problem casting needful light. 
 Not fully known of one without the other's sight. 
 
 I.. 
 How should he write what she alone may tell ? — 
 The movements of her psychic ebb and swell ; 
 The latent springs of life that in her gush, 
 When motherhood's first throb awakes her flush, 
 And swift the signal flashes to her soul. 
 Of future being claiming her control ; 
 Seeking from her its mind and body's food ; 
 Drawing, to make its own, her evil and her good. 
 
26 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 LI. 
 Within herself the drama's scene is laid, 
 The Birth and Growth of Soul the mystery played ; 
 She, in her part, is but an agent mute. 
 Her brain untutored, nor her tact acute. 
 Her nerve-strung body slow as senseless soil 
 To watch the working of the seedling's toil ; 
 In vain before her inmost vision spread 
 The hidden streams from whence the vital founts are 
 fed. 
 
 LII. 
 
 The mother's blindness was blind man's decree, 
 And to himself reverts the misery ; 
 Through hapless years his ordinance has run, 
 And harsh reward of ignorance has won ; 
 His pride of maledom, dull to recognise 
 The deeper depth accessive to her eyes. 
 Forbade to teach her brain to understand 
 The facts that, deftly sought, lay ready to her hand. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 27 
 
 LIII. 
 Less wisely he, his curious search to serve, 
 In helpless creature teased the quivering nerve. 
 And strove to probe the covert ways of life 
 By living butchery with learned knife, 
 And cruel anodyne thai: chained the will. 
 Yet left the shuddering victim conscious still : 
 But Nature shrinks from foul and fierce attack. 
 Nor yields her holiest truths on such a murderer's 
 rack. 
 
 LIV. 
 True science finds its own by kindlier quest. 
 Nor lowers itself to torture's loathsome test ; 
 Multiplies not the sentient being's pain. 
 But makes a keener lens of man's own brain ; 
 Seeks not by outrage dire a soul to grasp, 
 Or dimly trace its agonising gasp ; 
 But surer learns what fire that soul may move. 
 Not wrung with deathly pang, but thrilled by breath 
 of love. 
 
28 WOMAy FREE. 
 
 LV. 
 To touch of love alone will Nature pour 
 The choicest treasures of her occult store ; 
 Into the ear of love alone repeat 
 The secret of the song our pulses beat ; 
 To eye of love alone, with joyance bright, 
 Shows she her form suffused in living light ; 
 To heart that loves her, Nature gives to know 
 How from Love's might alone all thoughts of Wisdom 
 grow. 
 
 LVI. 
 So opes a vaster knowledge to the view. 
 Love points the way and woman holds the clue ; 
 Nature on her the trustful office laid. 
 And arbiter of human fortune made ; 
 With woman honoured, rises man to height. 
 With her degraded, sinks again in night ; 
 Yet still the wayward race has sluggish been 
 To learn the fealty due to Earth's advancing queen. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 29 
 
 LVII. 
 For long, in jealousy for corporal power, 
 Had man contemned his sister's worthier dower ; 
 What time his ruder feelings held the sway, 
 With little hope or hint of truer way ; 
 Till on a wistful world has dawned benign 
 The prescience of a potency divine 
 Sleeping, unrecked of, deep in woman's heart, 
 Waiting some kiss superne, into full life to start. 
 
 LVIII. 
 Woman's own soul must seek and find that fay. 
 And wake it into light of quickening day ; 
 Man's counsel helpful in that track shall be 
 For all his learning rich return and fee ; 
 His philosophic and chirurgic lore, 
 To her imparted, swell her innate store ; 
 Till, clothed with majesty of mind she stand. 
 Regent of Nature's will, in heart, and head, and hand. 
 
30 WOMAN FBEE. 
 
 LIX. 
 Each sequent life shall feel her finer care, 
 Each heir of life a wealthier bounty share ; 
 Those lives allied in equal union chaste 
 A sweeter purpose, purer rapture, taste ; 
 Both parents vindicate the duteous name, 
 The troth and kinship of their linked claim ; 
 The only rivalry that moves their mind. 
 How for their lineage fair still larger fate to find. 
 
 LX. 
 Their task ineffable yields wondrous gain. 
 Their energies celestial force attain ; 
 Their intermingled souls, with passion dight, 
 In aspiration soar past earthly height ; 
 Nor fades their prospect into void again, — 
 Woman has gift the vision to retain, 
 And mould their dreams of love, with conscious 
 skill. 
 To human living types supreme of form and will. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 31 
 
 LXI. 
 The psychic and the physical at one 
 In fervid vigour through their frame shall run ; 
 Their science leaps the bounds of straiter space, 
 Whose crude dimensions curbed their growing 
 
 grace ; 
 Whose inefficiencies allowed not verge 
 For rich research their lofty souls would urge ; 
 To them the keys of life and love are given, — 
 The love that lifts the life from rank of earth to 
 heaven. 
 
 LXII. 
 And " winged words on which the soul would 
 
 pierce 
 Into the height of love's rare Universe " 
 Shall native flow from them as mother tongue 
 In softest strain to listening infant sung ; 
 Till, the sad memories of unmeant wrong 
 Solving in music of conciliant song, 
 Man's destiny with woman's blended be 
 In one sublime progression,— full, and strong, and 
 free. 
 
3^ WOMAN FREE. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 The bard of yore, the stately Florentine, — 
 The seer of the dream men named Divine, — 
 Through whose grave tones one strenuous passion 
 
 rolled. 
 While to slow ears the voice fell stern or cold, — 
 In his last verse proclaimed his crowning faith, 
 By words whose echoes pass the bar of death ; — 
 As breathed his soul with Beatrice afar — 
 " The love that moves the sun and every circling 
 star." 
 
NOTES, &c. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 NOTES, &c. 
 I. 
 
 2. — " Science calm moves . 
 
 "Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. 
 Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of 
 science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the 
 conscience alive." — George Eliot (" Middlemarch," Chap. 
 LXXIII.) 
 
 3. — " Research and reason . . ." 
 
 As indicated by Professor Oliver T. Lodge, " It is but 
 a platitude to say that our clear and conscious aim should 
 always be truth, and that no lower or meaner standard 
 should ever be allowed to obtrude itself before us. Our 
 ancestors fought hard and suffered much for the privilege of 
 free and open inquiry, for the right of conducting investiga- 
 tion untrammelled by prejudice and foregone conclusions, 
 and they were ready to examine into any phenomenon which 
 presented itself. . . . Fear of avowing interest or of 
 examining into unorthodox facts is, I venture to say, not 
 in accordance with the highest traditions of the scientific 
 attitude." — (Address as President of the Mathematical and 
 Physical Section of the British Association, 1891.) 
 
 D 2 
 
36 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 See also the words of Richard Jefferies r — " Research 
 proceeds upon the same old lines and runs in the ancient 
 grooves. . . . But there should be no limit placed on 
 the mind. . . Most injurious of all is the continuous 
 
 circling on the same path, and it is from this that I wish 
 to free my mind."— ("The Story of My Heart," Chap. X.) 
 
 5. — " . . . part revealed." 
 
 " We are still the early settlers in a beautiful world, 
 whose capabilities, imperfectly known as yet, wait until 
 higher developments of man can understand them fully, 
 and apply the result to the general good." — Professor T. 
 Rupert Jones (Address as President of the Geological 
 Section of the British Association, 1891). 
 
 II. 
 
 3. — " . . . keener conscience . . ." 
 
 " C'est I'incarnation de I'idee qui se dresse tout a coup 
 en face des vieilles traditions obstindes et insuffisantes et 
 elle vient . . . poser sa revendication personelle et 
 n6cessaire contre les lois jadis excellentes, mais qui, les 
 mceurs s'6tant modifi^es, apparaissent subitement comme 
 des injustices et des barbaries." — ^A. Dumas fils (" Les 
 Femmes qui Tuent et les Femmes qui Votent," p. 25). 
 
 IV. 
 
 7. — " . . . monitor's still voice." — Conf. Wordsworth ; 
 "Taught both by what she" (Nature) "shows, and 
 what conceals, 
 
WOMAN FREE. 37 
 
 Never to blend our pleasure or our pride 
 With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." 
 
 ("Hart-Leap Well.") 
 
 VI. 
 
 I. — " . . . prehistoric hour." 
 
 " The preface of general history must be compiled from 
 the materials preseiited by barbarism. Happily, if we may 
 say so, these materials are abundant. So unequally has the 
 species been developed, that almost every conceivable phase 
 of progress may be studied, as somewhere observed and 
 recorded. And thus the philosopher, fenced from mistake 
 as to the order of development, by the inter-connection of 
 the stages and their shadings into one another by gentle 
 gradations, may draw a clear and decided outline of the 
 course of human progress in times long antecedent to those 
 to which even philology can make reference." — M'Lennan 
 (" Primitive Marriage," p. 9). 
 
 Id. . . "I will confine myself to these examples, 
 gleaned from all parts, and which it would be easy to 
 multiply. They amply suffice to establish that, in primi- 
 tive societies, woman, being held in very low esteem, is 
 absolutely reduced to the level of chattels and of domestic 
 animals ; that she represents a booty like any other ; that 
 her master can use and abuse her without fear. But in 
 these bestial practices there is nothing which approaches 
 even distantly to marriage, and we are not in the least 
 warranted to call these brutal rapes marriages." — Letourneau 
 (" Evolution of Marriage," Chap. VI.). 
 
38 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 2. — " . . . woman thrall . 
 
 " Woman was the first human being that tasted bondage. 
 Woman was a slave before the slave existed." — August Bebel 
 ("Woman," Chap. I.). 
 
 Id. . . "From the very earliest twihght of human 
 society, every woman (owing to the value attached to her 
 by man, combined with her inferiority in muscular strength) 
 was found in a state of bondage to some man." — J. S. Mill 
 ("The Subjection of Woman," Chap. I.). 
 
 Id. . . " In every country, and in every time, woman, 
 organically weaker than man, has been more or less en- 
 slaved by him." — Letourneau ("The Evolution of Mar- 
 riage," Chap. XI.). 
 
 Id. . " It raised up the humble and fallen, gave spirit 
 and strength to the poor, 
 And is freeing from slavery Woman, the slave of 
 
 all ages gone by." 
 — C. G. Leland (" The Return of the Gods "). 
 
 3. — " . . . heinous skill." 
 
 " It is pitiful to reflect that man's vaunted superiority 
 over the brute, the greater activity of his brain, and the 
 subtler cunning of his hand, have for so long lent them- 
 selves to the oppression that has resulted in such pernicious 
 consequences, and in the still existent slavery, social and 
 physical, of the female of his own species." — Ben Elmy 
 ("Studies in Materialism," Chap. III.). 
 
 8. — " . . . soulless gloom." 
 Compare the following picture of the somewhat parallel 
 condition of a lower race at the present time : — 
 
WOMAN FREE. 39 
 
 " Natives may well call the monkey sire Maharaja, for he is 
 the very type and incarnation of savage and sensual despotism. 
 They are right, too, in making their Hanuman red, for the old 
 male's face is of the dusky red you see in some elderly, overfed 
 human faces. Like human Maharajas, they have their tragedies 
 and mayhap their romances. One morning there came a 
 monkey chieftain, weak and limping, having evidently been 
 worsted in a severe fight with another of his own kind. One 
 hand hung powerless, his face and eyes bore terrible traces of 
 battle, and he hirpled slowly along with a pathetic air of suffer- 
 ing, supporting himself on the shoulder of a female, a wife, the 
 only member of his clan who had remained faithful to him 
 after his defeat. We threw them bread and raisins, and the 
 wounded warrior carefully stowed the greater part away in his 
 cheek pouch. The faithful wife, seeing her opportunity, sprang 
 on him, holding fast his one sound hand, and, opening his 
 mouth, she deftly scooped out the store of raisins. Then she 
 sat and ate them very calmly at a safe distance, while he 
 mowed and chattered in impotent rage. He knew that without 
 her help he could not reach home, and was fain to wait with 
 what patience he might till the raisins were finished. It was a 
 sad sight, but, like more sad sights, touched with the light of 
 comedy. This was probably her first chance of disobedience 
 or of self-assertion in her whole life, and I am afraid she 
 thoroughly enjoyed it. Then she led him away." — J. Lockwood 
 KipUng (" Beast and Man in India"). 
 
 VII. 
 
 I. — " . . . Evolution . . . " 
 
 "We now know that Nature, as an anthropomorphic 
 being, does not exist ; that the great forces called natural 
 are unconscious ; that their blind action results, however, in 
 the world of life, in a choice, a selection, a progressive evo- 
 lution, or, to sum up, in the survival of the individuals best 
 adapted to the conditions of their existence." — Letourneau 
 ("The Evolution of Marriage," Chap. I., Part II.). 
 
40 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Id. . . " Robert Chambers's common-sense view of 
 evolution as a process of continued growing." — Professor 
 Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson (" The Evolution 
 of Sex," p. 302). 
 
 5.— "By Art . . ." 
 
 " Other implements of Palaeolithic age are formed of 
 bone and horn. Among these are harpoon-heads, barbed 
 on one or both sides, awls, pins, and needles with well- 
 formed eyes. But by far the most noteworthy objects of 
 this class are the fragments of bone, horn, ivory, and stone, 
 which exhibit outlined and even shaded sketches of various 
 animals. These engravings have been made with a sharp- 
 pointed implement, and are often wonderfully characteristic 
 representations of the creatures they pourtray. The figures 
 are sometimes single, in other cases they are drawn in 
 groups. We find representations of a fish, a seal, an ibex, 
 the red-deer, the great Irish elk or deer, the bison, the 
 horse, the cave-bear, the reindeer, and the mammoth or 
 woolly elephant. Besides engravings, we meet also with 
 sculptures. . . . It is impossible to say to what use all 
 these objects were put. Some of them may have been 
 handles for knives, while others are mere fragments, and 
 only vague guesses can be made as to the nature of the 
 original implements. It is highly probable, however, that 
 many of these works of art may have been designed simply 
 as such, for the pleasure and amusement of the draughts- 
 man and his fellows." — James Geikie ("Prehistoric Europe," 
 Chap. II.). 
 
 Id. . . The culture or appreciation of Art is of 
 
WOMAN FREE. 41 
 
 itself evidence of a higher nature in man ; " a soul, a 
 psyche, a something which aspires," as Richard Jefferies 
 calls it. For though the professional pursuit of Art may be 
 occasionally not unmingled with mercenary motives, or with 
 the pourtrayal of incentives to lower desire, yet the ulti- 
 mate appeal of every truly beautiful picture or object of Art 
 is, at any rate, not to man's mercenary or meaner nature. 
 As Jefferies again says, " The ascetics are the only 
 persons who are impure. The soul is the higher even by 
 gazing on beauty."— ("The Story of My Heart," Chap. VII.) 
 
 7. — " . . . the soul . . ." 
 
 "The mind of man is infinite. Beyond this, man has a 
 soul. I do not use this word in the common sense which 
 circumstances have given to it. I use it as the only term 
 to express that inner consciousness which aspires." — 
 Richard Jefferies ("The Story of My Heart," Chap. IX.). 
 
 8. — " . . . from lower flush of lust." 
 " The fact to be insisted upon is this, that the vague 
 sexual attraction of the lowest organisms has been evolved 
 into a definite reproductive impulse, into a desire often pre- 
 dominating over even that of self-preservation: that this, 
 again, enhanced by more and more subtle additions, passes 
 by a gentle gradient into the love of the highest animals, 
 and of the average human individual." — Geddes and Thom- 
 son ("Evolution of Sex," p. 267). 
 
 VIII. 
 
 5, 6. — " The voice erst roused by hunger or by rage, 
 Now tells the nobler passions of the age." 
 
42 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 " The impassioned orator, bard, or musician, when, with 
 his varied tones and cadences, he excites the strongest 
 emotions in his hearers, little suspects that he uses the 
 same means by which, at an extremely remote period, his 
 half-human ancestors aroused each other's ardent passions 
 during their mutual courtship and rivalry." — Darwin (" The 
 Descent of Man," Chap. XIX.). 
 
 7. — ■" . . . with lovers language is uplifted love." 
 
 Language is thought, we are told ; so also is love. And 
 thus the reciprocal and cumulative action of love, thought, 
 and language stands a corollary to Max Miiller's words : — 
 " Language and thought are inseparable. Words without 
 thought are dead sounds ; thoughts without words are 
 nothing. To think is to speak low ; to speak is to "think 
 aloud. The word is the thought incarnate." — (" Science of 
 Language," Lect. IX.) 
 
 Id. . . " Even the rude Australian girl (aborigine) 
 sings in a strain of romantic affliction : 
 
 ' I shall never see my darling again.'" 
 — Westermarck (" History of Human Marriage," p. 503). 
 
 Id. . . " And again, another benefit accrues to the 
 race from marriages of affection. Do not your ancient epics 
 which sing of love sing also of noble deeds and acts of 
 heroism on the part both of men and women, actuated by a 
 pure affection for each other ? Alike in your dramas and 
 in those of Shakespeare, and of all great writers, love is the 
 great motive power which impels to deeds of prowess, the 
 spring of noble actions, of unselfish devotion, of words and 
 thoughts which have enriched all later generations, the one 
 
WOMAN FREE. 43 
 
 sentiment which elevates marriage amongst mankind to 
 something infinitely higher and purer than the gratification 
 of a mere animal instinct." — Dr. Edith Pechey Phipson 
 (Address to the Hindoos of Bombay on Child Marriage, 
 1891, p. 14). 
 
 8. — " . . . selfless thought." 
 
 " Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the 
 chords with might ; 
 Smote the chord of Self that, trembling, pass'd in 
 music out of sight." 
 
 —Tennyson (" Locksley Hall "). 
 
 IX. 
 
 7. — " . . . Neglecting none . . ." 
 "We are entering into an order of things in which 
 justice will be the primary virtue, grounded on equal, but 
 also on sympathetic association ; having its roots no longer 
 in the instinct of equals for self-protection, but in a 
 cultivated sympathy between them ; and no one being now 
 left out, but an equal measure being extended to all."^ — 
 J. S. Mill (" The Subjection of Women," p. 80). 
 
 X. 
 
 4. — " . . . clogged . . . man's J)ozeier . . ." 
 
 " He has reaped the usual reward of selfishness, the 
 gratification of immediate low desires has frustrated the 
 future attainment of higher aspirations." — Mrs. Pechey 
 Phipson, M.D. (Address to Hindoos). 
 
44 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 5, 6. — " Egypt or Greece in vg.in sought heavenly light. 
 While woman's soul was held from equal flight.''' 
 
 In Egypt " the art (of literature) was practised only by 
 the priests, as the painted history plainly declares. . . . 
 No female is depicted in the act of reading. . . . The 
 Greek world was composed of municipal aristocracies, 
 societies of gentlemen living in towns, with their farms in 
 the neighbourhood, and having all their work done for 
 them by slaves. They themselves had nothing to do but 
 to cultivate their bodies by exercise in the gymnasium, and 
 their minds by conversation in the market-place. They 
 lived out of doors, whilst their wives remained shut up at 
 home. In Greece a lady could only enter society by 
 adopting a mode of life which in England usually facilitates 
 her exit." — Winwood Reade (" The Martyrdom of Man," 
 PP-35. 7i)- 
 
 8. — " . . . subjugated wife . . ." 
 
 At Athens "the free citizen women lived in strict and 
 almost Oriental recluseness, as well after being married as 
 when single. Everything which concerned their lives, 
 their happiness, or their rights, was determined or 
 managed for them by their male relatives ; and they seem 
 to have been destitute of all mental culture and accom- 
 plishments."— Grote (" History of Greece," Vol. VI., 
 
 p. 133)- 
 
 XI. 
 I. — " Marriage which might have been a mateship sweet." 
 " In vain Plato urged that young men and women should 
 
WOMAN FREE. 45 
 
 be more frequently permitted to meet one another, so that 
 there should be less enmity and indifference in the married 
 life." ("Nomoi," Book VI.)— Westermarck ("History of 
 Human Marriage," p. 36i)„ 
 
 2. — " . . . equal souls . . ." 
 
 " The feeling which makes husband and wife true com- 
 panions for better and worse, can grow up only in societies 
 where the altruistic sentiments of man are strong enough to 
 make him recognise woman as his equal, and where she is 
 not shut up as an exotic plant in a greenhouse, but is 
 allowed to associate freely with men. In this direction 
 European civilisation has been advancing for centuries." — 
 Westermarck (loc. at.). (See also Note XIX., 6.) 
 
 7, 8. — " ffer only hope of thought or learning wide. 
 
 Some freer lot to seek than yoke forlorn of bride." 
 
 In Greece " the modest women were confined to their own 
 apartments, and were visited only by their husbands and 
 nearest relations. . . The courtesans of Athens, by living 
 in public, and conversing freely with all ranks of people, 
 upon all manner of subjects, acquired, by degrees, a know- 
 ledge of history, of philosophy, of policy, and a taste in the 
 whole circle of the arts. Their ideas were more extensive 
 and various, and their conversation was more sprightly and 
 entertaining than anything that was to be found among the 
 virtuous part of the sex. Hence their houses became the 
 schools of elegance; that of Aspasia was the resort of 
 Socrates and Pericles, and, as Greece was governed by 
 eloquent men, over whom the courtesans had an influence, 
 
46 WOMAN FREE 
 
 the latter also influenced public affairs.'' — Alexander 
 Walker ("Woman, as to Mind," &c., p. 334). 
 
 xn, 
 
 3. — " . . , craving mental food . . ." 
 
 That the quest of knowledge and intellectual power was 
 literally the incentive to many a woman who accepted the 
 life of hetaira is indisputable. Westermarck says : — " It 
 seems to me much more reasonable to suppose that if, in 
 Athens and India, courtesans were respected and sought 
 after by the principal men, it was because they were the 
 only educated women." — (" History of Marriage," p. 8t.) 
 
 And Letourneau remarks ; — " Religious prostitution, 
 which was widely spread in Greek antiquity, has been also 
 found in India, where every temple of renown had its 
 bayaderes, the only women in India to whom, until 
 quite recently, any instruction was given." — (" Evolution of 
 Marriage," Chap. III.) 
 
 5, 6. — " Conceding that, might lead a learned life — 
 A license vetoed to the legal wife." 
 
 " Hetairai, famous at once for their beauty and intellect 
 such as Phryne, Lais of Corinth, Gnathasna, and Aspasia, 
 were objects of universal admiration among the most 
 distinguished Greeks. They were admitted to their asseni- 
 lies and banquets, while the 'honest' women of Greece were, 
 without exception, confined to the house. ... A con- 
 siderable number of women preferred the greater freedom 
 which they enjoyed as Hetairai to marriage, and carried on 
 the trade of prostitution as a means of livelihood. In unre- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 47 
 
 strained intercourse with men, the more intelligent of the 
 Hetairai, who were doubtless often of good birth, acquired 
 a far greater degree of versatility and culture than that 
 possessed by the majority of married women, living in a 
 state of enforced ignorance and bondage. This invested 
 the Hetairai with a greater charm for the men, in addition 
 to the arts which they employed in the special exercise of 
 their profession. This explains the fact that many of them 
 enjoyed the esteem of some of the most distinguished and 
 eminent men of Greece, to whom they stood in a relation- 
 ship of influential intimacy, a position held by no legitimate 
 wife. The names of these Hetairai are famous to the 
 present day, while one enquires in vain after the names of 
 the legitimate wives." — August Bebel ("Woman," Chap. I.). 
 
 7. — " , . , wealth, or . . . fame." 
 E.g., Phryne, who offered to rebuild the wall of Thebes ; 
 and Lais, commemorated in the adage, " Non cuivis 
 hominum contingit adire Corinthum." And as to even 
 modern " fame," a writer so merciless concerning her own 
 sex as Mrs. Lynn Linton can yet say, " Agnes Sorel, like 
 Aspasia, was one of the rare instances in history where 
 failure in chastity did not include moral degradation nor 
 unpatriotic self-consideration." — {Nineteenth Century, July, 
 1891, p. 84.) 
 
 8.—" . . . the tinge of shame." 
 Why indeed should shame have attached specially to 
 those women, more highly cultured and better treated than 
 wives ; and whose sole impeachment could be that they 
 rejected the still lower serfdom of wedded bondage ? 
 
48 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 2. — " To him who fixed the gages of the fight T 
 
 " If we could imagine a Bossuet or a Fenelon figuring 
 among the followers of Ninon de Lenclos, and publicly 
 giving her counsel on the subject of her professional duties, 
 and the means of securing adorers, this would be hardly 
 less strange than the relation which really existed between 
 Socrates and the courtesan Theodota." — Lecky (^" History 
 of European Morals," Vol. II., p. 280). 
 
 8, — " The waste of woman worth . . 
 
 Since these words were written, a letter from Mrs. Mona 
 Caird has been published by the "Women's Emanci- 
 pation Union," in which is said: — "So far from giving 
 safety and balance to the ' naturatl forces,' these time- 
 honoured restrictions, springing from a narrow theory 
 which took Its rise in a pre-scientific age, are fraught with 
 the gravest dangers, creating a perpetual struggle and 
 unrest, filling society with the perturbations and morbid 
 developments of powers that ought to be spending them- 
 selves freely and healthfully on their natural objects. Any- 
 one who has looked a little below the surface of women's 
 lives can testify to the general unrest and nervous ex- 
 haustion or malaise among them, although each would 
 probably refer her suffering to some cause peculiar to her- 
 self and her circumstances, never dreaming that she was 
 the victim of an evil that gnaws at the very heart of society, 
 making of almost every woman the heroine of a silent 
 tragedy. I think ffew keen observers will deny that it is 
 
WOMAN FREE. 49 
 
 almost always the women of placid temperament, with very 
 little sensibility, who are happy and contented ; those of 
 more highly wrought, nervous systems and imaginative 
 faculty, who are nevertheless capable of far greater joy than 
 their calmer sisters, in nine cases out of ten are secretly 
 intensely miserable. And the cause of this is not eternal and 
 unalterable. The nervously organised being is not created 
 to be miserable ; but when intense vital energy is thwarted 
 and misdirected — so long as the energy lasts — there must 
 be intense suffering. ... It is only when resig- 
 nation sets in, when the ruling order convinces at last and 
 tires out the rebel nerves and the keen intelligence, that we 
 know that the living forces are defeated, and that death has 
 come to quiet the suffering. All this is waste of human 
 force, and far worse than waste." 
 
 Jd. . . Alexandre Dumas fils says: — "Celles-la 
 voient, de jour en jour, en sondant I'horizon toujours le 
 meme, s'efFeuiller dans I'isolement, dans I'inaction, dans 
 I'impuissance, les facultes divines qui leur avaient d'abord 
 fait faire de si beaux reves et dont il leur semble que 
 I'expansion edt pu Stre materiellement et moralement si 
 profitable aux autres et a elles-memes." — (" Les Femmes 
 qui Tuent et les Femmes qui Votent," p. 107). 
 
 Id. . . And Lady Florence Dixie has written ; — 
 " Nature gives strength and beauty to man, and Nature 
 gives strength and beauty to woman. In this latter instance 
 man flies in the face of Nature, and declares that she must 
 be artificially restrained. Woman must not be allowed to 
 grow up strong like man, because if she did the fact would 
 establish her equality with him, and this cannot be tolerated. 
 
so WOMAN FREE. 
 
 So the boy and man are allowed freedom of body, and are 
 trained up to become muscular and strong, while the woman, 
 by artificial, not natural, laws, is bidden to remain inactive 
 and passive, and, in consequence, weak and undeveloped. 
 Mentally it is the same. Nature has unmistakably given 
 to woman a greater amount of brain power. This is at once 
 perceivable in childhood. For instance, on the stage, girls 
 are always employed in preference to boys, for they are con- 
 sidered brighter and sharper in intellect and brain power. 
 Yet man deliberately sets himself to stunt that early evidence 
 of mental capacity by laying down the law that woman's 
 education shall be on a lower level than that of man's ; that 
 natural truths, which all women should early learn, should be 
 hidden from her ; and that while men inay be taught every- 
 thing, women must only acquire a narrow and imperfect 
 knowledge both of life and of Nature's laws. I maintain 
 that this procedure is abitrary and cruel, and false to 
 Nature. I characterise it by the strong word of infamous. 
 It has been the means of sending to their graves, unknown, 
 unknelled, and unnamed, thousands of women whose high 
 intellects have been wasted, and whose powers for good 
 have been paralysed and undeveloped." — (" Gloriana : or, 
 the Revolution of 1900," p. 130.) 
 
 Id. . . Buckle gives numerous instances which sup- 
 port the foregoing assertions, saying himself on the point : — 
 " That women are more deductive than men, because they 
 think quicker than men, is a proposition which some per- 
 sons will not relish, and yet it may be proved in a variety of 
 ways. Indeed, nothing could prevent its being universally 
 admitted except the fact that the remarkable rapidity with 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 which women think is obscured by that miserable, that con- 
 temptible, that preposterous system called their education, 
 in which valuable things are carefully kept from them, and 
 trifling things carefully taught to them, until their fine 
 and nimble minds are irreparably injured." — (" Miscel- 
 laneous Works," Vol. I., p. 8, " On the influence of Women 
 on the Progress of Knowledge.") 
 
 Id. . , As a man of straightforward common-sense, 
 Sydney Smith has left a name unsurpassed in our Uterary 
 history. Here is something of what he says on this question 
 of woman's intellect and its waste : — " As the matter stands 
 at present, half the talent in the universe runs to waste, and 
 is totally unprofitable. It would have been almost as well 
 for the world, hitherto, that women, instead of possessing 
 the capacities they do at present, should have been born 
 wholly destitute of wit, genius, and every other attribute of 
 mind of which men make so eminent a use ; and the ideas 
 of use and possession are so united together that, because 
 it has been the custom in almost all countries to give to 
 women a different and worse education than to men, the 
 notion has obtained that they do not possess faculties which 
 they do not cultivate." — (" Essay on Female Education.") 
 
 Id. . . Hear also John Ruskin on the relative intel- 
 lect or capacity of women : — " Let us try, then, whether we 
 cannot get at some clear and harmonious idea (and it must 
 be harmonious if it is true) of what womanly mind and 
 virtue are in power and office, with respect to man's ; and 
 how their relations, rightly accepted, aid and increase the 
 vigour, and honour, and authority of both. . . . Let us 
 see whether the greatest, the wisest, the purest-hearted of 
 
52 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 all ages are agreed in anywise on this point. . . . And 
 first let us take Shakespeare ; . . . there is hardly a play 
 that has not a perfect woman in it, steadfast in grave hope 
 and errorless purpose. . . Such, in broad light, is Shake- 
 speare's testimony to the position and character of women 
 in human life. He represents them as infallibly faithful 
 and wise counsellors, incorruptibly just and pure examples, 
 strong always to sanctify, even when they cannot save. 
 . . . I ask you next to receive the witness of Walter 
 Scott. ... So that, in all cases, with Scott as with 
 Shakespeare, it is the woman who watches over, teaches, 
 and guides the youth ; it is never, by any chance, the youth 
 who watches over or educates his mistress. 
 
 " Now I could multiply witness upon witness of this kind 
 upon you, if I had time. Nay, I could go back into the 
 mythical teaching'of the most ancient times, and show you 
 how the great people, how that great Egyptian people, 
 wisest then of nations, gave to their Spirit of Wisdom the 
 form of a woman ; and into her hand, for a symbol, the 
 weaver's shuttle ; and how the name and form of that spirit 
 adopted, believed, and obeyed by the Greeks, became that 
 Athena of the olive-helm and cloudy shield, to whose faith 
 you owe, down to this date, whatever you hold most 
 precious in art, in literature, or in types of national virtue. 
 
 "B.ut I will not wander into this distant and niythical 
 element ; I will only ask you to give the legitimate value to 
 the testimony of these great poets and men of the world, 
 consistent as you see it is on this head. I will ask you 
 whether it can be supposed that these men, in the main work 
 of their hves, are amusing themselves with a fictitious and 
 
WOMAN FREE. 53 
 
 idle view of the relations between man and woman ; nay, 
 worse than fictitious or idle, for a thing may be imaginary 
 yet desirable, if it were possible; but this, their ideal of 
 women, is, according to our common idea of the marriage 
 relation, wholly undesirable. The woman, we say, is not to 
 guide nor even to think for herself. The man is always to 
 be the wiser ; he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior 
 in knowledge and discretion, as in power. Is it not some- 
 what important to make up our minds on this matter ? Are 
 Shakespeare and .(Eschylus, Dante and Homer merely dres- 
 sing dolls for us ; or, worse than dolls, unnatural visions, 
 the realisation of which, were it possible, would bring 
 anarchy into all households, and ruin into all aifections ? 
 Are all these great men mistaken, or, are we?" — ("Sesame 
 and Lilies," p. 125, et seq.) 
 
 Truly, in the face of these things, Tenny-son had reason 
 concerning his fellow men, when he wrote : — 
 
 " Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers . . ." 
 
 ("Locksley Hall.") 
 
 XIV. 
 
 3.—" . . lostling . . ." 
 
 Between the most cultured hetairai and the poor outcast 
 as here shown, were many intervening or coalescing grades. 
 Instance, as one of the phases, the following sketch of an 
 Indian courtesan : — " Lalun is a member of the most 
 ancient profession in the world. Lilith was her very- 
 great-grandmama, and that was before the days of Eve, 
 as everyone knows. In the West, people say rude things 
 
54 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 about Lalun's profession, and write lectures about it, and 
 distribute the lectures to young people, in order that 
 morality may be preserved. In the East, where the profes- 
 sion is hereditary, descending from mother to daughter, 
 nobody writes lectures or takes any notice." — Rudyard 
 Kipling (" On the City Wall "). 
 
 Id. — " . . . worse than brutal woes . . ." 
 
 Dumas fils, who knew well whereof he wrote, tells of 
 " Las femmes du peuple et de la campagne, suant du 
 matin au soir pour gagner le pain quotidien, le dos courb6, 
 domptdes par la misfere : " of whom some of the daughters 
 " sortent du groupe par le chemin tentant et facile de la 
 prostitution, maisoii le labeur est encore plus rude.'' — ("Les 
 Femmes qui Tuent et les Femmes qui Votent,'' p. loi.) 
 As historical instance of depth of wretched degradation, 
 con/, medifeval privilege of "scortum ante mortem,'' con- 
 ceded to some of even the vilest and lowest of criminals 
 condemned to capital punishment. Though such a con- 
 dition is barely more than parallel to the pitch of infamy 
 of modern times, as instanced in a quotation reproduced by 
 John Ruskin, in "Sesame and Lilies," p. 91, first ed. : — 
 
 " The salons of Mme. C, who did the honours with clever 
 imitative grace and elegance, were crowded with princes, 
 dukes, marquises, and counts, in fact, with the same male com- 
 pany as one meets at the parties of the Princess Metternich and 
 Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Some English peers and members 
 of Parliament were present, and appeared to enjoy the animated 
 and dazzlingly improper scene. On the second floor the supper- 
 tables were loaded with every delicacy of the season. That 
 your readers may form some idea of the dainty fare of the 
 Parisian demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper which was 
 
WOMAN FREE. 55 
 
 served to all the guests (about 200) seated, at" four o'clock. 
 Choice Yquem, Johannisberg, Lafitte, Tokay, and Champagne 
 of the finest vintages were served most lavishly throughout the 
 morning. After supper dancing was resumed with increased 
 animation, and the ball terminated with a chaine diabolique and 
 a cancan d'enfer at seven in the morning." — {Morning Post, 
 March loth, 1865.) 
 
 To which perhaps the most fitting comment is certain 
 words of Letourneau's : — " It is important to make a dis- 
 tinction. The resemblance between the moral coarse- 
 ness of the savage and the depravation of the civilised 
 man is quite superficial. . . The brutality of the savage 
 has nothing in common with the moral retrogression of the 
 civilised man, struck with decay. . . . The posterity of 
 the savage may, with the aid of time and culture, attain to 
 great moral elevation, for there are vital forces within him 
 which are fresh and intact. The primitive man is still young, 
 and he possesses many latent energies susceptible of 
 development, In short, the savage is a child, while the 
 civilised man, whose moral nature is corrupt, presents to us 
 rather the picture of decrepit old age." — ("Evolution of 
 Marriage," Chap. V.) 
 
 If M. Letourneau will apply his strictures as to senility 
 and decay to so-called "Society" and its system, rather 
 than to the individual, he will find many thinkers, both 
 of his own and other nationalities, agree with his con- 
 clusion. Yet not death, but reform, is the righter event 
 to indicate. And by what means that reform may be en- 
 sured is, at least in part, clearly set forth in the following 
 passage from a paper recently published by the Women's 
 Printing Society : — 
 
56 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 " My positive belief is that women, and women alone, will 
 be able to reverse the world's verdict, but they must change 
 their method of reform in two important matters. 
 
 " First and foremost, every mother must teach her daughters 
 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the 
 relations of the sexes, the condition of social opinion, the his- 
 torical, physiological, ethical aspects of the question. She must 
 train herself so as to be able to teach the young minds these 
 solemn, serious aspects of life, in such a way that the world may 
 learn that the innocence of ignorance is inferior to the purity of 
 right-minded, fearless knowledge. She must strengthen the 
 minds and form the judgment of her daughters, so that they 
 may demand reciprocal purity in those whom they would espouse. 
 
 "I fully understand the difficulty of teaching our pure-minded, 
 delicately-nurtured daughters the terrible lessons of this seamy 
 side of life. I am a mother of daughters myself, and I know 
 the cost at which the courage has to be obtained, but in this 
 matter each mother must help another. What a mighty force 
 is influence ! What help is conveyed by pressure of opinion ! 
 How often do I remember with gratitude the words which I 
 once read as quoted of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, who taught her 
 little daughter to have the courage to hear what other little girls 
 had to bear. How gladly I acknowledge the stimulus of that 
 example to myself, and therefore I would urge all women to 
 SPEAK OUT. Do not be afraid. You will not lose your 
 womanliness. You will not lose your purity. You will not 
 have your sensibilities blunted by such rough use. No, " To 
 the pure all things are pure." We must reach the mass 
 through the unit, it is the individual who helps to move the 
 world. 
 
 "We must teach and train the mind of every woman with 
 whom we come in contact, for we have mighty work to do- A 
 no less deed than to reverse the judgment of the whole world 
 on the subject of purity. I do not believe it is possible for men 
 to accomplish any radical reform in this matter. It belongs to 
 women — I was going to say exclusively — but I will modify my 
 assertion ; and if women do not speak out more courageously 
 in the future than they have done in the past, I believe there is 
 but slight chance of any further amelioration in the condition of 
 society than those which are such an inadequate return at the 
 present time, for all the love and money expended on them," 
 
WOMAN FREE. ' 57 
 
 And the same writer says, on a still more recent occasion : 
 " I find no words strong enough to denounce the sin of 
 silence amongst women on these social evils ; and I have 
 come to feel that the best proof of the subjection and 
 degradation of my sex lies in the opinions often expressed 
 by so-called Christian and pure women nboul other women. 
 If their judgments were not perverted, if their wills were not 
 broken, if their consciences were not asleep, and if their 
 souls were not enslaved, they would not, they could not, 
 hold their peace and let the havoc go on with women and 
 children as it does." — Mrs. Laura E. Morgan- Browne 
 (" Woman's Herald, 27th Feb., 1892). 
 
 Mrs. Morgan-Browne is, perhaps, not more than needfully 
 severe on the almost criminal reticence of women ; yet man 
 must certainly take the greater share of blame for the social 
 " double morality '' which condemns irrevocably a woman, 
 and leaves practically unscathed a man, for the same act. 
 It is male-made laws and rules that have resulted in the 
 perverted judgments, broken wills, sleeping consciences, 
 and enslaved souls, which both sexes may deplore. Charles 
 Kingsley pointed a cogent truth when he said that "Women 
 will never obtain moral equity until they have civil equality.' 
 (See also Note XXXV., 6.) 
 
 XV. 
 
 2. — " . . . woman's griefs ivith man of barbarous breeds ^ 
 
 " In all barbarous societies the subjection of woman is 
 more or less severe ; customs or coarse laws have regulated 
 the savagery of the first anarchic ages ; they have doubtless 
 
S8 WOMAN FUSE. 
 
 set up a barrier against primitive ferocity, they have inter- 
 dicted certain absolutely terrible abuses of force, but they 
 have only replaced these by a servitude which is still very 
 heavy, is often iniquitous, and no longer permits to legally- 
 possessed women those escapes, or capriciously accorded 
 liberties, which were tolerated in savage life." — Letourneau 
 (" Evolution of Marriage," Chap. XIV.). 
 
 4. — " Crippled and crushed by cruelty and toil." 
 
 Some of this crippling has been of set purpose, as well as 
 the simple result of brutal male recklessness. Instance the 
 distortion of the feet of high-born female children in China, 
 the tradition concerning which- is that the practice was 
 initiated and enjoined by an emperor of old, one of whose 
 wives had (literally) " run away " from him. A somewhat 
 similar precaution would seem to be indicated as a very 
 probable source of the persistent and almost universal in- 
 commodity and incumbrance of the dress of woman as com- 
 pared with that of man. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Inman, in his " Ancient Faiths Embodied in 
 Ancient Names," Vol. I., p. 53, seems to indicate a different, 
 yet closely allied, origin and motive for the impeding form 
 of woman's clothing, the subordinate status of woman being 
 always the purpose in view. 
 
 Id. . . " Even supposing a woman to give no encour- 
 agement to her admirers, many plots are always laid to 
 carry her off. In the encounters which result from these, 
 she is almost certain to receive some violent injury, for 
 each of the combatants orders her to follow him, and, in 
 the event of her refusing, throws a spear at her. The early 
 
WOMAN FREE. 59 
 
 life of a young woman at all celebrated for beauty is 
 generally one continued series of captivities to different 
 masters, of ghastly wounds, of wandering in strange families, 
 of rapid flights, of bad treatment from other females amongst 
 whom she is brought, a stranger, by her captor ; and rarely 
 do you see a form of unusual grace and elegance but it is 
 marked and scarred by the furrows of old wounds ; and 
 many a female thus wanders several hundred miles from 
 the home of her infancy, being carried off successively to 
 distant and more distant points." — Sir George Grey 
 ("Travels in North-Western Australia," 1841, Vol. II., 
 p. 249 ; quoted in M'Lennan on " Primitive Marriage," 
 P- 7S)- 
 
 5. — " . . . her heart a gentle mien essayed." 
 
 " Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition, 
 chiefly in greater tenderness and less selfishness, and thii 
 holds good even with savages, as shown by a well-known 
 passage in " Mungo Park's Travels,'' and by statements 
 made by other travellers. Woman, owing to her maternal 
 instincts, displays these qualities towards her infants in an 
 eminent degree; therefore it is likely that she should often 
 extend them towards her fellow creatures." . . " Mungo 
 Park heard the negro women teaching their young children 
 to love the truth." — Darwin ("The Descent of 'Man," 
 Chaps. IX., III.). 
 
 6. — '^ By deeper passion, holier impulse, swayed." 
 
 Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham well says: — "Woman has accepted 
 her subordinate lot, and lived in it with comparatively little 
 
6o WOMAN FREE. 
 
 moral harm, as the only truly superior and noble being 
 could have done. The masculine spirit, enslaved and im- 
 prisoned, becomes diabolic or broken ; tlie feminine, only 
 warped, weakened, or distorted, is ready, whenever the 
 pressure upon it is removed, to assume its true attitude." — 
 (" Woman and Her Era," Part IV.) 
 
 Id. . . Perhaps as appositely here, as elsewhere, may 
 be recorded the following : — " An American writer says : 
 ' While I lived among the Choctaw Indians, I held a con- 
 sultation with one of their chiefs respecting the successive 
 stages of their progress in the arts of civilised life, and, 
 among other things, he informed me that at their start they 
 made a great mistake, they only sent boys to school. 
 Their boys came home intelligent men, but they married 
 uneducated and uncivilised wives, and the uniform result 
 was that the children were all like their mothers. The 
 father soon lost all his interest both in wife and children. 
 -And now,' said he, ' if we could educate but one class 
 of our children, we should choose the girls, for, when they 
 become mothers, they educate their sons.' This is the 
 point, and it is true.' '' — {Manchester Examiner and Times, 
 Sept., 1870.) 
 
 8. — '' . . . mother-love alone the infant oft preserved." 
 
 In Polynesia, "if a child was born, the husband 
 was free to kill the infant, which was done by applying 
 a piece of wet stuff to the mouth and nose, or to let 
 it live ; but, in the latter case, he generally kept the wife 
 for the whole of her life. If the union was sterile, or 
 the children put to death, the man had always the right to 
 
WOMAN FREE. 61 
 
 abandon the woman when and how it seemed good to him.' 
 — Letourneau (" Evolution of Marriage," p. 1 1 3). 
 
 Id. . . An Arab legend tells of a chief of Tamin, who 
 became a constant practitioner of infanticide in consequence 
 of a wound given to his pride . . . and from that moment 
 he interred alive all his daughters, according to the ancient 
 custom. But one day, during his absence, a daughter was 
 born to him, whom the mother secretly sent to a relative to 
 save her, and then declared to her husband that she had 
 been delivered of a still-born child. — (R. Smith, on " Kin- 
 ship," p. 282 ; quoted by Letourneau, " Evolution of 
 Marriage," p. 83.) 
 
 Id. . . Charles Darwin writes of Tierra del Fuego ; — 
 " The husband is to the wife a brutal master to a laborious 
 slave. Was a more horrid deed ever perpetrated than that 
 witnessed on the west coast by Byron, who saw a wretched 
 mother pick up her bleeding, dying infant-boy, whom her 
 husband had mercilessly dashed on the stones for dropping 
 a basket of sea-eggs ! " — (" Voyage of the Beagle" Chap. X.) 
 
 Id. . . Mrs. Reichardt tells of a certain Moslem, of 
 high standing in the society of Damascus, who " married a 
 )Oung girl of ten, and, after she had born him two sons, he 
 drove her almost mad with such cruelty and unkindness 
 that she escaped, and went back to her father. Her 
 husband sent for her to return, and, as she was hidden out 
 of his sight, he wrung the necks of both his sons, and sent 
 their bodies to his wife to show her what he had in store for 
 her. The young mother, not yet twenty, died in a few 
 days." — (See Nineteenth Century, June, 1891.) 
 
 Id. . . It will not be forgotten that, in more than one 
 
62 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 of the older civilisations, the father had the power of life and 
 death over the members of the family, even past adult age. 
 And, to come to quite recent times, and this our Eng- 
 land, Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, to whose unflagging 
 energy, during some fifteen years of labour, was mainly 
 attributable (as the Parliamentary sponsors of the measures 
 know) the amelioration in the English law concerning wives 
 and mothers, embodied in the Married Women's Property 
 Acts of 1870 and 1882, together with the later and bene- 
 ficent Guardianship of Infants Act, 1886, relates, in her 
 record of the history of this latter Act : — 
 
 " It will be remembered that so recently as 1883, a young 
 lady petitioned that she might be allowed to spend her summer 
 holidays with her own mother, from whom she was separated 
 for no fault of her own or of her mother's, but in virtue of the 
 supreme legal rights of her father. The Court reflised her 
 petition, natural and proper as it seems to everyone of human 
 feelings ; and the words of the Master of the Rolls in giving 
 judgment, on the 24th of July, 1883, are more significant and 
 instructive as to the actual state of the law than the words of 
 any non-professional writer can be : — ' The law of England 
 recognises the rights of the father, not as the guardian, but 
 because he is the father of his children. . . . The rights of 
 the father are recognised because he is the father; his duties as 
 a father are recognised because they are natural duties. The 
 natural duties of a father are to treat his children with the 
 utmost affection, and with infinite tenderness. . . . The law 
 recognises these duties, from which if a father breaks he breaks 
 from everything which nature calls upon him to do ; and, 
 although the law may not be able to insist upon their perform- 
 ance, it is because the law recognises them, and knows that in 
 almost every case the natural feelings of a father will prevail. 
 The law trusts that the father will perform his natural duties, 
 and does not, and, indeed, cannot, inquire how they have been 
 performed. ... I am not prepared to say whether when 
 the child is a ward of Court, and the conduct of the father is 
 such as to exhaust allpatience — such, for instance, as cruelty, or 
 
WOMAN FREE. 63 
 
 pitiless spitefulness carried to a great extent— the Court might 
 not interfere. But such interference will be exercised ONLY in 
 THE UTMOST NEED, AND IN MOST EXTREME CASES. It is 
 impossible to lay down the rule of the Court more clearly than 
 ha been done by Vice-Chancellor Bacon in the recent case of 
 ''Re Plowley" (47 " L.T.," N.S., 283). In saying that this 
 Court, " whatever be its authority or jurisdiction, has no 
 authority to interfere with the sacred right of a father over his 
 own children," the learned Vice-Chancellor has summed up all 
 that I intended to say. The rights of a father are sacred rights, 
 because his duties are sacred. . . .' 
 
 " These sacred rights of the father were, it will be observed, 
 in the eyes of the law so exclusive and paramount as to justify 
 and demand the refusal to a young girl, at the most critical 
 period of early womanhood, of the solace of a few weeks' inter- 
 course with a blameless and beloved mother ; and this although 
 the gratification of the daughter's wish would have involved no 
 denial to the father of the solace of his daughter's company, since 
 she was not actually, but only legally, in his custody, not having 
 seen him for more than a year. 
 
 "It will be seen from this that the father alone has the abso- 
 lute legal right to deal with his child or children, to the extent 
 of separating them, at his own sole pleasure, from their mother, 
 and of giving them into the care and custody of any person 
 whom he may think fit. The mother has, as such, no legal 
 status, no choice, voice, lot, or part in the matter." — Mrs. 
 Wolstenholme Elmy ("The Infants' Act, 1886," p. 2). 
 
 It is consolatory to learn that a palliation of some part of 
 
 the above unjust conditions has been achieved ; yet how 
 
 often has our presumedly happy land witnessed scenes of 
 
 child misery and helpless mother-love, to which was 
 
 denied even the poor consolation, so pathetically depicted 
 
 by Mrs. Browning, in a scene which, as Moir truly says, 
 
 " weighs on the heart like a nightmare " ; — 
 
 " Do you hear the children weeping, oh ! my brothers ! 
 
 Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
 They are leaning their young heads against their mothers. 
 
 And that cannot stop their tears." 
 
64 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 4. — " . , . single basis . . ." 
 
 First written "disproportioned basis," but altered, .with 
 good reason, in the face of Mr. Herbert Spencer's arrogant 
 male thesis : — " Only that mental energy is normally fem- 
 inine which can co-exist with the production and nursing 
 of the due (!) number of healthy children." — (" Study of 
 Sociology," Chap. XV., note 5.) 
 
 But Professor Huxley speaks,more humanly, of " . . . 
 such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever 
 upward, heavily burdened, and with mind bent only on her 
 home ; but yet, without effort and without thought, knitting 
 for her children. Now stockings are good and comfortable 
 things, and the children will undoubtedly be much the 
 better for them, but surely it would be short-sighted, to say 
 the least of it, to depreciate this toiling mother as a mere 
 stocking-machine — a mere provider of physical comforts.'' 
 — (" On Improving Natural Knowledge.") 
 
 Yet, if it be — as truly it is — a senseless aud disgraceful 
 depreciation of woman to look upon her as "a mere 
 machine for the making of stockings," is it not equally 
 unworthy and unwise to consider her as — primarily and 
 essentially — a mere machine for the making of a " due " 
 number of stocking-wearers ? 
 
 5. — " . . . quicker fire.'" 
 
 In even so sedate and usually dispassionate a physiologist 
 and philosopher as Charles Darwin, the masculine sex-bias 
 is so ingrained and so ingenuous that he strives to dis- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 65 
 
 parage and contemn the notorious mental quickness or in- 
 tuition of woman by saying : — "It is generally admitted 
 that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid percep- 
 tion, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly iparked 
 than in man ; but some, at least, of these faculties are 
 characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past 
 and lower state of civilisation." — (" The Descent of Man," 
 Chap. XIX.). 
 
 His unconscious sex-bias apparently overlooked the preg- 
 nant and very pertinent caution which he had himself 
 uttered in a previous work: — "Useful organs, however 
 little they may be developed, unless we have reason to 
 suppose that they were formerly more highly developed, 
 ought not to be considered as rudimentary. They may be 
 in a nascent condition, and in progress towards further 
 development. Rudimentary organs, on the other hand, 
 are either quite useless, such as teeth which never cut 
 through the gums, or, almost useless, such as the wings of 
 an ostrich, which serve merely as sails. ... It is, how- 
 ever, often difficult to distinguish between rudimentary and 
 nascent organs, for we can judge only by analogy whether a 
 part is capable of further development, in which case alone 
 it deserves to be called nascent." — (" Origin of Species," 
 Chap. XIV.). 
 
 But surely Darwin would admit that experiment in 
 capacity of education and development was as worthy 
 evidence as " analogy," and would further acknowledge how 
 little effort in this direction had ever been made with 
 woman. Buckle would seem to be far nearer the truth in 
 ascribing to woman an unconscious deductive form of 
 
 F 
 
66 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 reasoning, as against the slow and studied inductive process 
 to which man is so generally trained to be a slave. — (See 
 Buckle's Essay on the " Influence of Women on the Pro- 
 gress of Knowledge," as quoted from in Note XIII., 8.) 
 
 7. — " . . . one permitted end . . ." 
 
 "The function of child-bearing has been exaggerated to an 
 utterly disproportionate degree in her life ; it has been 
 made her almost sole claim to existence. Yet it is not the 
 true purpose of any intellectual organism to live solely to 
 give birth to succeeding organisms ; its duty is also to live 
 for its own happiness and well-being." — Ben Elmy ("Studies 
 in Materialism," Chap. III.). 
 
 Id. .,.".. . not a moth with vain desire 
 Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 
 Or but subserves another's gain." 
 
 — Tennyson ("In Memoriam," LIV.). 
 
 XVII. 
 
 5. — " , . . aspirations crushed . . ." 
 " I have found life a series of hopes unfulfilled and 
 wishes ungratified." — (Dying words of a talented woman.) 
 
 6. — " , . . purblind pride . . ." 
 
 "Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence. 
 And fills up all the mighty void of sense." 
 
 — Pope. 
 
 7. — ^^ Her exery wish made subject . ." 
 
 For a somewhat modern exemplification may be taken 
 
WOMAN FREE. 67 
 
 the instance of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in Paris with 
 her husband, in 1852. She writes of Georges Sand : — " She 
 received us in a room with a bed in it, the only room she 
 has to occupy, I suppose, during her short stay in Paris. 
 . . . Ah, but I didn't see her smoke ; I was unfortu- 
 nate. I could only go with Robert three times to her 
 house, and once she was out. He was really very good and 
 kind to let me go at all after he found the sort of society 
 rampant around her. He didn't like it extremely, but, 
 being the prince of husbands, he was lenient to my desires, 
 and yielded the point." — (" Life of Robert Browning," by 
 Mrs. Sutherland Orr, 1891.) 
 
 8.—" . . , Iter God." 
 
 Conf. Milton (" Paradise Lost," Book IV., 299) :— 
 " He for God onlyj she for God in him." 
 
 See Note XXXV., 5. Compare also the Code of Manu, 
 V. 154, as quoted by Letourneau : — "Although the conduct 
 of her husband may be blameworthy, and he may give him- 
 self up to other amours, and be devoid of good qualities, a 
 virtuous woman ought constantly to revere him as a God." 
 — ("Evolution of Marriage," Chap. XHI.) 
 
 Id. . . Here may fittingly be appended some mascu- 
 line concepts of feminine duty in other races. 
 
 The Status of Woman, according to the Chinese 
 Classics : — 
 
 In a periodical published in Shanghai, Dr. Faber, a well- 
 known scholar, writes (1891) a paper on the status of 
 women in China. He refers especially to the theoretical 
 
 F 2 
 
68 WOJi^AN FREE. 
 
 position assigned to women by the Chinese Classics. 
 These lay down the different dogmas on the subject : 
 
 " I. — Women are as different in nature from man as 
 earth is from heaven. 
 
 " 2. — Dualism, not only in body form, but in the very 
 essence of nature, is indicated and proclaimed by 
 Chinese moralists of all times and creed. The 
 male belongs to yang, the female to yin. 
 
 "3. — Death and all other evils have their origin in the 
 vin, or female principle ; life and prosperity come 
 from its subjection to the yang or male principle ; 
 and it is therefore regarded as a law of nature 
 that women should be kept under the control of 
 men, and not be allowed any will of their own. 
 
 "4. — Women, indeed, are human beings, (!) but they 
 are of a lower state than men, and can never 
 attain to full equality with them. 
 
 " 5. — The aim of female education, therefore, is perfect 
 submission, not cultivation and development of 
 mind. 
 
 " 6. — Women cannot have any happiness of their own ; 
 they have to live and work for men. 
 
 " 7. — Only as the mother of a son, as the continuator of 
 the direct line of a family, can a woman escape 
 from her degradation and become to a certain 
 degree her husband's equal ; but then only in 
 household affairs, especially the female depart- 
 ment, and in the ancestral hall. 
 
WOMAN FREE. 69 
 
 "8. — In the other world, woman's condition remains 
 exactly the same, for the same laws of existence 
 apply. She is not the equal of her husband ; she 
 belongs to him, and is dependent for her happi- 
 ness on the sacrifice offered by her descendants. 
 
 " These are the doctrines taught by Confucius, Mencius, 
 and the ancient sages, whose memory has been revered in 
 China for thousands of years." 
 
 And now, what wonder that Chinese civilisation and pro- 
 gress is, and remains, fossilised, inert, dead ? 
 
 Japan. 
 
 " There is one supreme maxim upon which the conduct 
 of a well-bred woman is made to turn, and this is ' obedi- 
 ence.' Life, the Japanese girl is taught, divides itself into 
 three stages of obedience. In youth she is to obey her 
 father ; in marriage her husband ; in widowhood her eldest 
 son. Hence her preparation for life is always preparation 
 for service. The marriage of the Japanese girl usually 
 takes place when she is about seventeen. It is contrary 
 to all custom that she should have any voice in it. 
 Once married, she passes from her father's household into 
 the household of her husband, and her period of self-abne- 
 gation begins. Her own family is to be as nothing to her. 
 Her duty is to charm the existence of her husband, and to 
 please his relations. Custom demands that she shall 
 always smile upon him, and that she shall carefully hide 
 from him any signs of bad humour, jealousy, or physical 
 pain." — -Tinseau (quoted in Review of Reviews, Vol. 
 IV., p. 282.) 
 
70 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Note well the last two words of the above quotation ; 
 they have a bearing on much that will have to be said 
 presently. Meanwhile, we read from another writer : " The 
 expression, res angusta domi, might have been invented for 
 Japan, so narrow of necessity is the wife's home life. The 
 husband mixes with the world, the wife does not ; the 
 "husband has been somewhat inspired, and his thoughts 
 widened by his intercourse with foreigners, the wife has not 
 met them. The husband has more or less acquaintance 
 with western learning ; the wife has none. Affection 
 between the two, within the limits which unequal intellec- 
 tuality ruthlessly prescribes, there well may be, but the 
 love which comes of a perfect intimacy, of mutual know- 
 ledge and common aspiration, there can rarely be. The 
 very vocabulary of romantic love does not exist in 
 Japanese ; a fortiori, there is little of the fact." Yet, under 
 the influence of western civilisation, these things are 
 changing rapidly, and Mr. Norman, the commissioner of 
 the Pall Mall Gazette, further relates that " The generation 
 that is now growing up will be very different. Not only 
 will the men of it be more western, but tlie women also. 
 As girls they will have been to schools like our schools at 
 home, and they will have learned English, and history, and 
 geography, and science, and foreign music ; perhaps, even, 
 something of politics and political economy. They will 
 know something of ' society,' as we now use the, term, and 
 will both seek it and make it. The old home-life will 
 become unbearable to the woman, and she will demand the 
 right of choosing her husband just as much as he chooses 
 her. Then the rest will be easy.'' 
 
wo AT AN FREE. 71 
 
 The harsh and restrained position, both of Japanese and 
 Chinese women, is frequently attributed to Confucianism ; 
 yet the matter does not seem to be of any one creed, but 
 rather of every religious creed. Thus Mrs. Reichardt tells 
 us, concerning Mahommedan women and Mahommedan 
 married life, that — • 
 
 " A Mahommedan girl is brought up with the idea that 
 she has nothing to do with love. It is ayib (shame) for 
 her to love her husband. She dare not do it if she would. 
 What he asks and expects of her is to tremble before him, 
 and yield him unquestioning obedience. I have seen a 
 husband look pleased and complacent when his wife 
 looked afraid to lift up her eyes, even when visitors were 
 present." — (Nineteenth Century, June, 1891.) 
 
 Nor is Confucius alone, or the simple contagion of his 
 teaching, rightly to be blamed for the following condition 
 of things in our own dependency of 
 
 India. 
 
 The Bombay Guardian calls attention to an extra- 
 ordinary book which is being circulated (early in 1891) 
 broadcast, as a prize-book in the Government Girls' School 
 in the Bombay Presidency The following quotations are 
 given as specimens of the teachings set forth in the 
 book : — 
 
 " If the husband of a virtuous womah be ugly, of good 
 or bad disposition, diseased, fiendish, irascible, or a 
 drunkard, old, stupid, dumb, blind, deaf, hot-tempered, 
 poor, extremely covetous, a slanderer, cowardly, perfidious, 
 and immoral, nevertheless she ought to worship him as 
 God, with mind, speech, and person. 
 
72 ' WOMAN' FREE. 
 
 "The wife who gives an angry answer to her husband 
 will become a village pariah dog ; she will also become a 
 jackal, and live in an uninhabited desert. 
 
 ';' The woman who eats sweetmeats without sharing them 
 with her husband will become a hen-owl, living in a 
 hollow tree. -(C(7^/: Note VI., 8.) 
 
 " The woman who walks alone without her husband will 
 become a filth-eating village sow. 
 
 '.' The woman who speaks disrespectfully to her husband 
 \vill be dumb in the next incarnation. 
 
 " The woman who hates her husband's relations will 
 become from birth to birth a musk-rat, living in filth. 
 
 "She who is always jealous of her husband's concubine 
 will be childless in the next incarnation." 
 
 To illustrate the blessed result of a wife's subserviency, a 
 story is told of " the great reward that came to the wife of 
 an ill-tempered, diseased, and wicked Brahmin, who served 
 her husband with a slavish obedience, and even went the 
 length of carrying him on her own shoulders to visit his 
 mistress." 
 
 So quotes the Woman's Journal of Boston, Mass., and 
 says in comment thereon : — " The British Government in 
 India has bound itself not to interfere with the religion of 
 the natives, but it certainly ought not to inculcate in 
 Government schools the worst doctrines of heathenism." 
 
 Yet, again, are these Hindoo, or Japanese, or Chinese 
 doctrines simply the precepts of "heathenism" alone? 
 Buckle quotes for us the following passage frorn the ■ 
 Nonconformist, "Fergusson on the Epistles,"^ 1656, p. 
 242: — "There is not any husband to whom this .honour 
 
WOMAN FREE. 73 
 
 of submission is not due. ■ No personal infirmity, froward- 
 ness of nature, no, not even on the point of religion, doth 
 deprive him of it." 
 
 Much the same teaching is continued a century later in 
 the noted Dr. Gregory's "A Father's Legacy to his 
 Daughters" ; and again, hideously true is the picture which 
 Mill has to draw, in 1869: — "Above all, a female 
 slave has (in Christian countries) an admitted right, and 
 is considered under a moral obligation to refuse to her 
 master the last famiUarity. Not so the wife ; however 
 brutal a tyrant she may unfortunately be chained to, 
 though she may know that he hates her, though it may 
 be his daily pleasure to torture her, and though she may 
 feel it impossible not to loathe him, he can claim from her 
 and enforce the lowest degradation of a human being, that 
 of being made ithe instrument of an animal function con- 
 trary to her inclinations. . . . No amount of ill-usage, 
 without adultery superadded, will in England free a wife 
 from her tormentor." — ^("The Subjection of Women," pp. 
 
 57, S9-) 
 
 As to how far public feeling, if not law, has amended 
 some of these conditions, see Note XXXVI., 6. Mean- 
 while, as an evidence of what is the " orthodox " opinion 
 and sentiment at this present day, it may be noted that 
 Cardinal Manning wrote in the Dublin Review, July, 1891 : 
 — " A woman enters for life into a sacred contract with a 
 man before God at the altar to fulfil to him the duties of 
 wife, mother, and head of his home. Is it lawful for her, 
 even with -his consent, to make afterwards a second con- 
 tract for so many shillings a week with a millowner whereby 
 
74 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 she becomes unable to provide her husband's food, train up 
 her children, or do the duties of her home ? It is no 
 question of the lawfulness of gaining a few more shillings 
 for the expenses of a family, but of the lawfulness of break- 
 ing a prior contract, the most solemn between man and 
 woman. No arguments of expediency can be admitted. 
 It is an obligation of conscience to which all things must 
 give way. The duties of home must first be done " (by the 
 woman) "then other questions may be entertained." 
 
 Are not these English injunctions to womanly and wifely 
 slavery as trenchant and' merciless as any ascribed to so- 
 called "heathenism"? And is it not the fuller truth that 
 the spirit of the male teaching against woman is the same 
 all the world over, and no mere matter of creed — which is 
 nevertheless made the convenient vehicle for such teaching ; 
 and that, in brief, the precepts of womanly and wifely servi- 
 tude are blind, brutal, and universal ? 
 
 See also Note XXXIV., 8. 
 
 XVIII. 
 8. — " To co)7ipass' power unknown in body and in mind." 
 
 " We need a new ethic of the sexes, and this not merely, 
 or even mainly, as an intellectual construction, but as a 
 discipline of life, and we need more. We need an increas- 
 ing education and civism of women." — P. Geddes and J. 
 A. Thomson ("The Evolution of Sex," p. 297). 
 
 Newnham and Girton, Vassar and Zurich, are already 
 rendering account of woman's scope of mental power ; 
 while the circus, the gymnasium, swimming and mountain- 
 
WOMAISr FREE. 75 
 
 eering are showing what she might do corporeally, apart 
 from her hideous and literally impeding style of clothing. 
 As for some other forms of utilitarian occupation, read the 
 following concerning certain of the Lancashire women : — 
 
 "Mr. Edgar L. Wakeman, an observant American 
 author, is at present on a visit to this country, and is giving 
 his countrymen the benefit of his impressions of English 
 Ufe and social conditions. 
 
 " The ' pit-brow ' lasses of the Wigan district will not 
 need to complain, for he writes of them not only in a 
 kindly spirit, but even with enthusiasm for their healthy 
 looks, graceful figures, and good conduct. We need not 
 follow his description of the processes in which the women 
 of the colliery are employed, but we may say in passing that 
 Mr. Wakeman was astonished by the 'wonderful quickness 
 of eye and movement ' shown by the ' screeners,' and by 
 the 'superb physical development' and agility of the 
 'fillers.' He had expected to find them 'the most forlorn 
 creatures bearing the image of women,' and he found them 
 strong, healthy, good-natured, and thoroughly respectable. 
 •'English roses glow from English cheeks. You cannot 
 find plumper figures, prettier forms, more shap>ely necks, or 
 daintier feet, despite the ugly clogs, in all of dreamful 
 Andalusia. The " broo gear " is laid aside on the return 
 home from work, and then the " pit-brow " lass is arrayed 
 as becomingly as any of her class in England, and in the 
 village street, or at church of a Sunday, you could not pick 
 her out from among her companions, unless for her fine 
 colour, form, and a positively classic poise and grace of car- 
 riage possessed by no other working women of England. 
 
76 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Altogether,' he says, ' I should seriously regard the pit- 
 brow lasses as the handsomest, healthiest, happiest, and 
 most respectable working women in England." — (Man- 
 chester Guardian, Aug. 28, 1891.) 
 
 Id. . . . Concerning the question of male and female 
 dress, evidence as to how far woman has been hindered and 
 " handicapped " by her conventional attire, and not by 
 her want of physical strength or courage, is reported from 
 time to time in the public prints, as witness the following, 
 published generally in the English newspapers of 14th Oct., 
 1891 :— 
 
 "Not long since a well-known European courier, having 
 grown grey in his occupation, fell ill, and like oth^ers similarly 
 afflicted, was compelled to call in a doctor. This gentleman 
 was completely taken by surprise on discovering that his patient 
 was a female. Then the sick woman — who had piloted numerous 
 English and American families through the land of the Latin, 
 the Turk, and others, an^ led timid tourists safely through 
 many imaginary dangers — confessed that she had worn men's 
 clothes for forty years. She stated that her reasons for this 
 masquerade were that having, at the age of thirteen, been left a 
 friendless orphan, she had become convinced, after futile strug- 
 gling for employment, that many of the obstacles in her path 
 could be swept away by discarding her proper garments and 
 assuming the r8le and attire of masculine youth. This she did. 
 ,She closely cut her hair, bought boy's clothes, put them on, and 
 sallied forth in the world to seek her fortune. With the change 
 of dress seems to have come a change of luck, for she quickly 
 found employment, and being an apt scholar, and facile at 
 learning languages, was enabled after a time to obtain a 
 position as courier, and, but for her unfortunate illness, it is 
 tolerably certain that the truth would never have been revealed 
 during her lifetime." 
 
 In the early days of April, 1892, the Vienna correspon- 
 dent of the Standard reported that — 
 
PVOMJJV FREE. 77 
 
 " On the 30th ult., there died in Hungary, at about the same 
 hour, two ladies who served in 1848 in the Revolutionary Army, 
 and fought in several of the fiercest battles, dressed in military 
 uniform. One of them was several times promoted, and, under 
 the name of Karl, attained the rank of First Lieutenant of 
 Hussars. At this point, however, an artillery major stopped 
 her military career by marrying her. The other fought under 
 the name of Josef, and was decorated for valour in the field. 
 She married long after the campaign. A Hungarian paper, 
 referring to the two cases, says that about a dozen women 
 fought in 1848 in the insurrectionary ranks." 
 
 Somewhat more detailed particulars concerning "Lieu- 
 tenant Karl " were afterwards given by the Manchester 
 Guardian (June 6, 1892), as follows : — 
 
 "The Austrian Volkszeitung announces the death of Frau 
 Marie Hoche, who has had a most singular and romantic career. 
 Her maiden name was Lepstuk. In the momentous year of 
 1848 Marie Lepstuk, who was then eighteen years of age, 
 joined the German legion at Vienna ; then, returning home, she 
 adopted the name of Karl and joined the Tyroler Jager Regi- 
 ment of the revolutionary army. She showed great bravery in 
 the battlefield, received the medallion, and was raised to the 
 rank of lieutenant. A wound compelled her to go into hos- 
 pital, but after her recovery she joined the Hussars. As a 
 reward for exceeding bravery she was next made oberlieutenant 
 on the field. Soon after this her sex was discovered, but a 
 major fell in love with her, and they were married. At Vilagos 
 both were taken prisoners, and while in the fortress she gave 
 birth to her first child. After the major's death she was 
 remarried to Oberlieutgnant Hoche. For the past few years 
 Frau Hoche has been m needy circumstances, but an appeal 
 from Jokai brought relief" 
 
 All of which goes far to discredit M. Michelet's theory 
 that women are "born invalids," an assertion which Dr. 
 Julia Mitchell " stigmatises naturally enough as ' all non- 
 sense,' " and is thus approved- — with a strange magnanimity 
 
78, WOMAN FREE. 
 
 — -by the British Medical Journal. — (See Pall Mall Gazette, 
 April 29, 1892.) 
 
 The " incapacity of women for military service " has been 
 of late days continually quoted as a bar to their right of 
 citizenship, as far as the Parliamentary Franchise is con- 
 cerned. In the face of the foregoing cases, and of the fact 
 that every mother risks her life in becoming a mother, while 
 very few men, indeed, risk theirs on the battlefield, it might 
 be thought that the fallacious argument would have perished 
 from shame and inanition long ago. But the inconsisten- 
 cies of partly-cultivated, masculine, one-sexed intellect are 
 as stubborn as blind. 
 
 See also Note XLV., 6. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 6. — " The ecstasy of earnest souls . . ." 
 
 "Without recognising the possibilities of individual and 
 of racial evolution, we are shut up to the conventional view 
 that the poet and his heroine alike are exceptional creations, 
 hopelessly beyond the everyday average of the race. Whereas, 
 admitting the theory of evolution, we are not only entitled 
 to the hope, but logically compelled to the assurance that 
 these rare fruits of an apparently more than earthly paradise 
 of love, which only the forerunners of the race have been 
 privileged to gather, or, it may be, to see from distant 
 heights, are yet the realities of a daily Ufe towards which 
 we and ours may journey." — Geddes and Thomson (" Evo- 
 lution of Sex,' p. 267). 
 
 Id. . . . " What marriage may be in the case of two 
 
WOMAN FREE. 79 
 
 persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinions and 
 purposes, between whom there exists that best kind of 
 equality, similarity of powers, and capacities with reciprocal 
 superiority in them — so that each can enjoy the pleasure 
 of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the 
 pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of develop- 
 ment — I will not attempt to describe. To those who can 
 conceive it there is no need ; to those who cannot, it would 
 appear the dream of an enthusiast. But I maintain, with 
 the profoundest conviction, that this, and this only, is the 
 ideal of marriage ; and that all opinions, customs, and insti- 
 tutions which favour any other notion of it, or turn the con- 
 ceptions and aspirations connected with it into any other 
 direction, by whatever pretences they may be coloured, are 
 relics of primitive barbarism. The moral regeneration of 
 mankind will only really commence when the most funda- 
 mental of the social relations is placed under the rule of 
 equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate 
 their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and culti- 
 vation." — J. S. Mill ("The Subjection of Women," p. 177). 
 
 XX. 
 
 2. — " And lingers still the hovering shade of night." 
 
 George Eliot had yet to say, " Heaven was very cruel 
 when it made women " ; and Georges Sand, " Fille on nous 
 supprime, femme on nous opprime." 
 
 XXI. 
 
 I. — " . . . carnal servitude . . ." 
 It may be objected by some that details in the verse or 
 
8o WOMAN FREE. 
 
 in these notes are of too intimate a character for general 
 narration. The notes have, however, all been taken either 
 from widely read public prints of indisputable singleness of 
 purpose, or works of writers of undoubted integrity. One 
 is not much troubled as to those who would criticise further. 
 To them may be offered the incident and words of the late 
 Dr. Magee, who, as Bishop of Peterborough, and a member 
 of a legislative committee on the question of cMd-life insur- 
 ance, said: — "In this matter we have to count with two 
 things : first, almost all our facts are secrets of the bed- 
 chamber ; and, secondly, we are opposed by great vested 
 interests. This thing is not to be done without a good 
 deal of pain." — {Review of Reviews, Vol. IV., p. 37). 
 
 And thus are verified, in a transcendental sense also, 
 the words of Schiller : — 
 
 " Und in feurigem Bewegen 
 Werden alle Krafte kund." 
 
 (" Die Glocke.") 
 
 7. — " Survival from dim age . . ." 
 
 See Note XXIII., i. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 I. — " . . . girlhoods s helpless years . . ." 
 
 Somewhat as to these ancient conditions may be gathered 
 from the position in India at the present day. Read the 
 following : — " The practice of early marriages by Hindoos I 
 was, of course, informed of by reading before coming to 
 India, but its mention in books was always coupled with 
 the assertion that in India girls reach puberty at a much 
 
WOMAM FREE. 
 
 earlier age than in cold climates. Judge, therefore, of my 
 surprise to find that so far from Hindoo girls being pre- 
 cocious in physical development, they are much behind in 
 this respect; that a Hindoo girl of fifteen is about the 
 equal of an English child of eleven, instead of the reverse, 
 and that the statements made to the contrary by English- 
 men who have no opportunity of becoming acquainted with- 
 Hindoo family life, were totally misleading. In the first 
 place they were under the impression that marriage never- 
 takes place before puberty, and, secondly, they accepted the 
 Hindoo view as to what constitutes puberty. You know 
 that, unfortunately, they were misled as regards the first 
 point. I hope to show you that in the second place the 
 idea which they accepted as correct is a totally mistaken one." 
 — Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D. (Address to the Hindoos of 
 Bombay on the subject of child-marriage ; delivered at the 
 Hall of the Prarthana Somaj, Bombay, on the nth Oct., 
 1890). 
 
 2. — " . . . sexual wrong'' 
 
 "As regards the marriage of girls before even what is 
 called puberty, I can hardly trust myself to speak, so 
 strongly are my feelings those of all Western — may I not 
 say of all civilised ? — people in looking upon it as actually 
 criminal. Ah ! gentlemen, those of you who are conversant 
 with such cases as I have seen, cases like those of Phul- 
 moni Dossee, which has just now stirred your hearts to in- 
 sist upon some change in the existing law, and others where 
 a life-long decrepitude has followed, to which death itself 
 were far preferable, do you not feel with me that penal ser- 
 
 G 
 
Si WOMAN FREE. 
 
 vitude is not too hard a punishment for such brutality > I 
 am glad to think that a very large section of Hindoo men 
 think with me. I have been repeatedly spoken to on the 
 subject, and members even of those castes which are most 
 guilty in this matter, have expressed to me a wish that 
 Government would interfere and put a stop to the practice." 
 — Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D., op. cit. 
 
 A terrible evidence to the evil is borne by the following 
 document : — 
 
 [From "The Times of India," November 8th, 1890.] 
 
 To his Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General of Inriin. 
 
 May it please Your Excellency. — The undersigned ladies, 
 practising medicine in India, respectfully crave your Excel- 
 lency's attention to the following facts and cons'derations : — 
 
 1. Your Excellency is aware that the present state of the 
 Indian law permits marriages to be consummated not only 
 before the wife is physically qualified for the duties of 
 maternity, but before she is able to perform the duties of 
 the conjugal relation, thus giving rise to numerous and great 
 evils. 
 
 2. This marriage practice has become the cause of gross 
 immoralities and cruelties, which, owing to existing legislation, 
 come practically under the protection of the law. In some 
 cases the law has permitted homicide, and protected men, 
 who, under other circumstances, would have been criminally 
 punished. 
 
 3. The institution of child-marriage rests upon public senti- 
 ment, vitiated by degenerate religious customs and misinter- 
 pretation of religious books. There are thousands among the 
 better educated classes who would rejoice if Government would 
 take the initiative, and make such a law as your memorialists 
 plead for, and in the end the masses would be grateful for 
 their deliverance from the galling yoke that has bound them 
 to poverty, superstition, and the slavery of custom for cen- 
 turies 
 
WOMAN FREE. 83 
 
 4. The present system of child-marriage, in addition to the 
 physical and moral effects which the Indian Governments have 
 deplored, produces sterility, and consequently becomes an 
 excuse for the introduction of other child-wives into the family, 
 thus becoming a justification for polygainy. 
 
 5. This system panders to sensuality, lowers the standard of 
 health and morals, degrades the race, and tends to perpetuate 
 itself and all its attendant evils to future generations. 
 
 6. The lamentable case of the child-wife, Phulmani Dassi, of 
 Calcutta, which has excited the sympathy and the righteous 
 indignation of the Indian public, is only one of thousands of 
 cases that are continually happening, the final results being 
 quite as horrible, but sometimes less immediate. The following 
 instances have come under the personal obseiTation of one or 
 another of your Excellency's petitioners : — 
 
 A. Aged 9. Day after marriage. Left femur dislocated, 
 pelvis crushed out of shape, flesh hanging in shreds. 
 
 B. Aged 10. Unable to stand, bleeding profusely, flesh 
 much lacerated. 
 
 C. Aged 9. So completely ravished as to be almost 
 beyond surgical repair. Her husband had two other 
 living wives, and spoke very fine English. 
 
 D. Aged 10. A very small child, and entirely undeveloped 
 physically. This child was bleeding to death from the 
 
 rectum. Her husband was a man of about 40 years of 
 age, weighing not less than 1 1 stone. He had accom- 
 plished his desire in an unnatural way. 
 
 E. Aged about 9. Lower limbs completely paralysed. 
 
 F. Aged about 12. Laceration of the perineum extending 
 through the sphincter ani. 
 
 G. Aged about 10. Very weak from loss of blood. Stated 
 that great violence had been done her in an unnatural 
 way. 
 
 H. Aged about 12. Pregnant, delivered by craniotomy 
 with great difficulty, on account of the immature state of 
 the pelvis and maternal passage. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 I. Aged about 7. Living with husband. Died in great 
 agony after three days. 
 
 K. Aged about 10. Condition most pitiable. After one day 
 in hospital was demanded by her husband for his " law- 
 ful " use, he said. 
 
 L. Aged II. From great violence done her person will 
 be a cripple for life. No use of her lower extremities. 
 
 M. Aged about 10. Crawled to hospital on her hands and 
 knees. Has never been able to stand erect since her 
 marriage. 
 
 N. Aged g. Dislocation of pubic arch, and unable to 
 stand, or to put one foot before the other 
 
 In view of the above facts, the undersigned lady doctors and 
 medical practitioners appeal to your Excellency's compassion to 
 enact or introduce a measure by which the consummation of 
 marriage will not be permitted before the wife has attained the 
 full age of fourteen (14) years. The undersigned venture to 
 trust that the terrible urgency of the matter will be accepted as 
 an excuse for this interruption of your Excellency's time and 
 attention. 
 
 (Signed by 55 lady-physicians.) 
 
 The memorial as above was initiated by Mrs. Monelle 
 Mansell, M.A., M.D., who has been in practice in India for 
 seventeen years, and it received the signature of every other 
 lady doctor there. The cases of abuse above specified are 
 " only a few out of many hundreds — of cruel wrongs, 
 deaths, and maimings for life received by helpless child- 
 wives at the hands of brutal husbands, which have come 
 under Dr. Monelle Mansell's personal observation, or that 
 of her associates." 
 
 With regard to case K, and " lawful " use, compare -what 
 is said by Dr. Emma B. Ryder, who is also in medical 
 practice in India, concerning the " Little Wives of India " : 
 
WOMAN FREE. 85 
 
 — " If I could take my readers with me on my round of 
 visits for one week, and let them behold the condition of 
 the little wives ... if you could see the suffering 
 faces of the little girls, Vho are drawn nearly double with 
 contractions caused by the brutality of their husbands, and 
 who will never be able to stand erect ; if you could see the 
 paralysed limbs that will not again move in obedience to 
 the will; if you could hear the plaintive wail of the little 
 sufferers as, with their tiny hands clasped, they beg you ' to 
 make them die,' and then turn and listen to the brutal 
 remarks of the legal owner with _regard to the condition of 
 his property. If you could stand with me by the side of the 
 little deformed dead body, and, turning from the sickening 
 sight, could be shown the new victim to whom the brute was 
 already betrothed, do you think it would require long argu- 
 ments to convince you that there was a deadly wrong some- 
 where, and that someone was responsible for it ? After one 
 such scene a Hindoo husband said to me, 'You look like feel 
 bad ' (meaning sad) ; ' doctors ought not to care what see. 
 I don't care what see, nothing trouble me, only when self 
 sick ; I not like to have pain self.' ... A man maybe 
 a vile and loathsome creature, he may be blind, a lunatic, 
 an idiot, a leper, or diseased in a worse form ; he may be 
 fifty, seventy, or a hundred years old, and may be married to 
 a baby or a girl of five or ten, who positively loathes his 
 presence, but if he claims her she must go, and the English 
 law for the ' Restitution of Conjugal Rights ' compels her to 
 remain in his power, or imprisons her if she refuses. There 
 is no other form of slavery on the face of the earth that 
 begins with the slavery as enforced upon these little girls of 
 
86 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 India."— ("The Home-Maker," New York, June, 1891, 
 quoted in the Review of Reviews, Vol. IV., p. 38.) 
 
 And the Times of nth November, 1889, reported from 
 its Calcutta correspondent : — " Two shocking cases of wife- 
 killing lately came before the courts — in both cases the 
 result of child-marriage. In one a child aged ten was 
 strangled by her husband. In the second case a child of 
 ten years was ripped open with a wooden peg. Brutal 
 sexual exasperation was the sole apparent reason in both 
 instances. Compared with the terrible evils of child-mar- 
 riage, widow cremation is of infinitely inferior magnitude. 
 The public conscience is continually being affronted with 
 these horrible atrocities, but, unfortunately, native public 
 opinion generally seems to accept these revelations with 
 complete apathy." 
 
 For what slight legislative amendment has recently been 
 effected in the grievances mentioned by Dr. Ryder, see 
 Note XXIV., 4. The " Restitution of Conjugal Rights," so 
 justly condemned by her, does, indeed, appear to have 
 had — by some inadvertence — a recognition in the Indian 
 Courts which was not its lawful due. But for some fuller 
 particulars on this matter, both as concerns India and 
 England, see Note XXXVI., 6. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 I. — " Action repeated tends to rhythmic course." 
 
 " Other and wider muscular actions, partly internal and 
 partly external, also take place in a rhythmical manner 
 in relation with systemic conditions. The motions of the 
 
WOMAN FREE. 87 
 
 diaphragm and of the thoracic and abdominal walls, in con- 
 nection with respiration, belong to this category. These 
 movements, though in the main independent of will, are 
 capable of being very considerably modified thereby, and 
 •while they are most frequently unheeded, they have a very 
 recognisable accompaniment of feeling when attention is 
 distinctly turned to them. . . . The contraction of 
 oviducts or of the womb, as well as the movements con- 
 cerned in respiration, also had their beginnings in forms of 
 life whose advent is now buried in the immeasurable past." 
 — Dr. H. C. Bastian ("The Brain as an Organ of Mind," 
 p. 220). 
 
 4. — " Till habit bred hereditary trace." 
 
 "Let it be granted that the more frequently psychical 
 states occur in a certain order, the stronger becomes their 
 tendency to cohere in that order, until they at last become 
 inseparable ; let it be granted that this tendency is, in how- 
 ever slight a degree, inherited, so that if the experiences 
 remain the same, each successive generation bequeaths a 
 somewhat increased tendency, and it follows that, in cases 
 like the one described, there must eventually result an 
 automatic connection of nervous actions, corresponding to 
 the external relations perpetually experienced. Similarly, 
 if from some change in the environment of any species its 
 members are frequently brought in contact with a relation 
 having terms a little more involved ; if the organisation of 
 the species is so far developed as to be impressible by these 
 terms in close succession, then an inner relation corres- 
 ponding to this new outer relation will gradually be formed, 
 
88 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 and will, in the end, become organic. And so on in subse- 
 quent stages of progress." — Herbert Spencer ("Principles of 
 Psychology," Vol. L, p. 439). 
 
 Id. ... '■^\ have described the manner in which the 
 hereditary tendencies and instincts arise from habit, induced 
 in the nervous cellules by a sufficient repetition of the 
 same acts." — Letourneau ("The Evolution of Marriage,'' 
 Chap. I.). 
 
 Id. . . . " Ainsi I'evacuation menstruelle une fois in- 
 troduite dans I'espfece, se sera communiquee par une filiation 
 non interrompue ; de sorte -qu'on peut dire qu'une femme 
 a maintenant des regies, par la seule raison que sa mere les 
 a cues, comme elle aurait et^ phthisique peutetre, si sa 
 mere I'eftt 6te ; il y a plus, elle peut Stre sujette au flux men- 
 ^truel, m§me quoique la cause primitive qui introduisit ce 
 besoin ne subsiste plus en elle?' — Roussel (" Systfeme de la 
 Femme," p. 134). 
 
 Id. . . . " II y a eu des auteurs qui ne voulaient pas 
 considerer la menstruation comme une fonction inhdrente 
 k la nature de la femme, mais comme une fonction acquise, 
 continuant par I'habitude." — Raciborski ("Traite de la 
 Menstruation," p. 17). 
 
 Id. . . . " The ' set ' of mind, as Professor Tyndall 
 well calls it, whether, as he says, ' impressed upon the mole- 
 cules of the brain,' or conveyed in any other way, is quite as 
 much a human as an animal phenomenon. Perhaps the 
 greater part of those qualities which we call the characteris- 
 -tics of race are nothing else but the ' set ' of the minds of 
 men transmitted from generation to generation, stronger and 
 tnore marked when the deeds are repeated, weaker and 
 
WOMAN FREE. 89 
 
 fainter as they fall into disuse. . . . Tyndall says ; ' No 
 mother can wash or suckle her baby without having a "set '' 
 towards washing and suckling impressed upon the molecules 
 of her brain, and this set, according to the laws of 
 hereditary transmission, is passed on to her daughter. Not 
 only, therefore, does the woman at the present day suffer 
 deflection from intellectual pursuits through her proper 
 motherly instincts, but inherited proclivities act upon her 
 mind like a multiplying galvanometer, to augment inde- 
 finitely the amount of the deflection. Tendency is immanent 
 even in spinsters, to warp them from intellect to baby-love.' 
 (Essay : " Odds and Ends of Alpine Life.") Thus, if we 
 could, by preaching our pet ideal, or in any other way 
 induce one generation of women to turn to a new pursuit, 
 we should have accomplished a step towards bending all 
 future womanhood in the same direction." — Frances Power 
 Cobbe (Essay : " The Final Cause of Woman "). 
 See also Note XXVI., 7. 
 
 6. — " . . . eV« the virgin . . ,'' 
 
 An experienced gynaecologist writes: — "For want of 
 proper information in this matter, many a frightened girl 
 has resorted to every conceivable device to check what she 
 supposed to, be an unnatural and dangerous haemorrhage, 
 ■and thereby inaugurated menstrual derangements which 
 have prematurely terminated her life, or enfeebled her 
 womanhood. I have been consulted by women of all ages, 
 who frankly attributed their physical infirmities to the fact 
 of their having applied ice, or made other cold applications 
 
go WOMAN FREE. 
 
 locally, in their frantic endeavours to arrest the first men- 
 strual flow." 
 
 What general practitioner has not met with analogous 
 instances in the circle of his own patients ? 
 
 7.—" . . . erefit . . ." 
 
 " The physician, whose duty is not only to heal the sick, 
 but also to prevent disease and to improve the race, and 
 hence who must be a teacher of men and women, should 
 teach sound doctrine in regard to the injurious results of 
 precocious marriage. Mothers especially ought to be 
 taught, though some have learned the lesson by their 
 own sad experience, that puberty and nubility are not 
 equivalent terms, but stand for periods of life usually 
 separated by some years ; the one indicates capability, the 
 other fitness, for reproduction." — Parvin (" Obstetrics," 
 p. 91). 
 
 Id. . . . " The general maturity of the whole frame is 
 the true indication that the individual, whether male or 
 female, has reached a fit age to reproduce the species. It is 
 not one small and unimportant symptom by which this ques- 
 tion must be judged. Many things go to make up virility in 
 man ; the beard, the male voice, the change in figure, and 
 the change in disposition ; and in girls there is a long 
 period of development in the bust, in the hips, in bone and 
 muscle, changes which take years for their proper accom- 
 plishment before the girl can be said to have grown into a 
 woman. All this is not as a rule completed before the age 
 of twenty. Woman's form is not well developed before she 
 is twenty years old ; her pelvis, which has been called the 
 
WOMAN FREE. 91 
 
 laboratory of generation, has not its perfect shape until then ; 
 hence an earlier maternity is not desirable. If the demand 
 is made on the system before that, the process of develop- 
 ment is necessarily interfered with, and both mother and 
 offspring suffer. Even in countries where the age of mar- 
 riage is between twenty and twenty-five, where, therefore, 
 the mother has not been weakened by early maternity, it is 
 remarked that the strongest cliildren are born to parents of 
 middle age, i.e., from thirty-five to forty ; this, the prime of 
 life to the parent, is the happiest moment for the advent of 
 her progeny." — Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D. ('Address to the 
 Hindoos). 
 
 See also end of Note XXIV., i. 
 
 8. — " Abnormal fruits of birth . . ." 
 
 Dr. John Thorburn, in his " Lecture introductory to the 
 Summer Course on Obstetric Medicine," Victoria Univer- 
 sity, Manchester, 1884, says : — "Let me briefly remind you 
 of what occurs at each menstrual period. During nearly one 
 week out of every four there occurs the characteristic 
 phenomenon of menstruation, which in itself has some 
 temporary impoverishing effect, though, in health, nature 
 speedily provides the means of recuperation. Along with 
 this we have a marked disturbance in the circulation of the 
 pelvis, leading to alterations in the weight, conformation, 
 and position of the uterus. We have also tissue changes 
 occurring, not perhaps yet thoroughly understood, but leading 
 to ruptures in the ovary, and to exfoliation of the uterine 
 lining membrane, a kind of modified abor.'icn, in fact. 
 
92 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 These changes in most instances are accompanied by signs 
 of pain and discomfort, which, if they were not periodic 
 and physiological, would be considered as symptoms of 
 disease." 
 
 (The italics are not in the original.) Here is certainly 
 cogent evidence of " abnormal fruit of birth,'' and the 
 learned doctor seems to be on the verge of making the 
 involuntary discovery. But he follows the usual profes- 
 sional attempt (see Note XXX., 4) to class menstruation as 
 a physiological and not a pathological fact; as a natural, 
 painful incident, and not an acquired painful consequence. 
 His half-declared argument, that, because an epoch of pain 
 is periodic it is therefore not symptomatic of disease, is a 
 theory as unsatisfactory as novel. 
 
 Jd. . . Some of the facts connected with par- 
 thenogenesis, alternate generation, the impregnation of in- 
 sects, &c., passed on through more than one generation, 
 would show by analogy this class of phenomena not extra- 
 natural or unprecedented, but abnormal and capable of 
 rectification or reduction to pristine normality or non- 
 existence. The fact of occasional instances of absence of 
 menstruation, yet with a perfect potentiality of child- 
 bearing, indicates this latter possibility. That the male 
 being did not correspondingly suffer in personal physio- 
 logical sequence is explicable on the ground that the 
 masculine bodily function of parentage cannot be subjected 
 to equal forced sexual abuse ; though in the male sex also 
 there is indication that excess may leave hereditary func- 
 tional trace. And that, again, a somewhat analogous 
 physical abnormality may be induced by man in other 
 
WOMAN FREE. 93 
 
 animals, compare the intelligent words of George Eliot in 
 her poem, " A Minor Prophet " : — 
 
 "... milkmaids who drew milk from cows, 
 With udders kept abnormal for that end." 
 
 In confirmation of which see " Report of ihe Committee, 
 consisting of Mr. E. Bidwell, Professor Boyd Dawkins, and 
 Others, appointed for the purpose of preparing a Report on 
 the Herds of Wild Cattle in Chartley Park, and other parks 
 in Great Britain." The Committee state, concerning a herd 
 of wild catde at Somerford Park, near Congleton, of which 
 herd " the cows are all regularly milked," that " The udders 
 of the cows here are as large as in ordinary domestic cows, 
 which is not the case in the herds which are not milked." — 
 ("Report of the British Association," 1887, p. 141.) 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 I. — " Misread by mail . . ." 
 
 " You say ' We marry our girls when they reach puberty,' 
 and you take as indication of that stage one only, and that 
 the least certain^ of the many changes which go to make up 
 maturity. It is the least certain because the most variable, 
 and dependent more upon climate and conditions of life 
 than upon any true physical development. No one would 
 deny that a strong country girl of thirteen was more mature 
 physically than a girl of eleven brought up in the close, 
 unwholesome atmosphere of a crowded city, yet you say the 
 latter has attained to puberty, and that the former has not. 
 Into such discrepancies has this physiological error led you. 
 
94 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Without going into the domain of physiology for proof of 
 assertion, let me draw your attention to the very practical 
 proof of its truth, which you have in the fact well-known to 
 you all, that girls married at this so-called period of puberty 
 do not, as a rule, bear children till some years later, i.e., till 
 they really approach maturity. I allow that you share this 
 error with all but modern physiologists. Even if marriage 
 is delayed till fourteen, where conception takes place imme- 
 diately, sterility follows after; but where the girl is strong 
 and healthy there is a lapse of three or four years before 
 child-bearing begins, a proof that puberty had not been 
 reached till then, although menstruation had been all the 
 time existent. Of course there are exceptional cases, but 
 does not the consensus of experience point to these as 
 general truths ? " — -Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D. (Address to 
 Hindoos). 
 
 Id. "... sign of his misdeed." 
 See Note XXVI., 6. 
 
 4. — " . . . victim to his adult rage." 
 
 Of this, as existent to the present age, abundant direct 
 and collateral evidence is given by a brochure entitled "A 
 Practical View of the Age of Consent Act, for the benefit 
 of the Mahomedan community in general, by the Com- 
 mittee of the Mahomedan Literary Society of Calcutta," 
 published by that Society, in June, 1891, as "an accurate 
 exposition of the object and scope of the new law, in the 
 clearest possible language, for the benefit of the Mahome- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 95 
 
 dans, particularly the ignorant classes, and circulated widely 
 in the vernacular languages for that purpose.'' 
 The following are extracts from the pamphlet : — 
 
 Par. I . " Now that the Age of Consent Act has been 
 passed by his Excellency the Viceroy, in Council, and as there 
 IS every likelihood of its provisions not being sufficiently well 
 understood by the Mahomedan community in general, and by 
 the ignorant Mahomedans in particular, owing to the use of 
 technical, legal phraseology in the drafting of the Act, it seems 
 to the Committee of Management of the Mahomedan Literary 
 Society of Calcutta, to be highly desirable that the object and 
 intention of the Government in passing this Act, as well as its 
 scope and the manner in which it is to be administered by the 
 Criminal Authorities, should be laid down on paper in the 
 clearest and easiest language possible, for the information and 
 instruction of the Mahomedan population, and particularly of 
 such of them as are not conversant with legal technicalities." 
 
 Par. 2. " The Committee are of opinion that such a course 
 will be highly beneficial to members of their community, inas- 
 much as it will show to them distinctly what action on the part 
 of a Mahomedan husband towards his young wife has been 
 made, by the recent legislation, a heinous criminal offence of 
 no less enormity than the offence of rafie, and punishable with 
 the same heavy punishment." 
 
 Par. 3. " It is hoped that they will thereby be put on their 
 guard against committing, or allowing the commission of an 
 act which they have hitherto been accustomed to think lawful 
 and innocent, but which has now been made into a heinous 
 offence. . . ." 
 
 Par. 9. " . . . There has already been a provision in 
 the Indian Penal Code, passed more than thirty years ago, that 
 a man having sexual intercourse with his own wife, with or 
 without her consent, she being under the age of ten years, shall 
 be considered guilty of the offence of rape^ and shall be hable to 
 transportation for Ufe, or to rigorous or simple imprisonment for 
 ten years." 
 
 Par. 10. " From this it follows that, under the Penal Code 
 a man having sexual intercourse with his own wife, with or with- 
 out her consent, if she is above ten years of age, shall not be 
 
96 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 considered to have committed the offence of rape. But the 
 Act that has just been passed, in amendment of the above pro- 
 vision in the Penal Code, raises the age of consent from ten to 
 twelve years, and provides that a man having sexual inter- 
 course with his own wife, even with her consent, shall be con- 
 sidered to be guilty of the offence of rape, if the wife be of any 
 age under twelve completed years. This is all the change that 
 has been made in the law." 
 
 Par. II. " It having been ascertained, from various sources, 
 that in some parts of the country husbands cohabit with their 
 wives before they have attained to the age of twelve years, and 
 even before they have arrived at puberty, the result of such 
 intercourse being in many cases to cause injury to the health, 
 and even danger to the life of the girls, and to generate internal 
 maladies which make them miserable throughout their lives, 
 and such a state of things having come to the notice of Govern- 
 ment, they have considered it their duty to put a stop to it, and 
 this is the object of the present legislation." 
 
 Par. 12. " The law does not interfere with the age at which 
 a girl may be married, but simply prohibits sexual intercourse 
 with her by her husband before she is twelve years of age." 
 
 Par. 13. "It is therefore incumbent upon all husbands and 
 their guardians (if they are very young and inexperienced lads) 
 to be very careful that sexual intercourse does not take place 
 until the girl- wife has ■passeS 'Ca.'s. age of twelve years. It will 
 also be the duty of the guardians of the girl-wife not to allow 
 her husband to cohabit with her until she has attained that 
 age.' 
 
 Par. 17. •' . . . . The Mahomedan law {i.e., religious 
 law) distinctly sanctions consummation of marriage only when 
 the wife has reached puberty, and has besides attained such 
 physical development as renders her fit for sexual intercourse, 
 and it is not imperative upon a Mahomedan husband to con- 
 summate marriage with his wife when she is under the age of 
 twelve years. Even in those rare cases in which the wife 
 attains to puberty and the necessary physical development 
 before the age, of twelve, a Mahomedan husband may, without 
 infringing any canon of the Mahommedan Ecclesiastical Law, 
 abstain from consummating his marriage with her until she 
 attains that age. 
 
 Par. 18. "The above will clearly show that the Act recently 
 
WOMAN FREE. 97 
 
 passed by the Legislature does not, in any way, interfere with 
 the Mahomedan religion, and no Mahomedan husband will be 
 considered to have committed a sin if he abstains from consum--, 
 mating marriage with his wife before she is twelve years of 
 age." 
 
 (The pamphlet is published, as aforesaid, by the Mahome- 
 dan Literary Society of Calcutta, of which the patron is 
 the Hon. Sir Charles A. Elliott, K.C.S.I., CLE., and the 
 president Prince Mirza Jahan Kadar Bahadur (of the Oudh 
 family), and is signed by the secretary, Nawab Abdool 
 Luteef Bahadur, CLE. ; Calcutta, 16 Taltollah, 22nd June, 
 
 1891.) 
 
 The italics, as above, exist in the original (with the ex- 
 ception of those in Par. 3), and serve, singularly enough, to 
 point for us a moral very much deeper than that intended. 
 It is a happy fact that British feeling, supported by the grow- 
 ing sentiment of the more intelligent and educated of the 
 native population, has effected even so slight an ameliora- 
 tion of law and custom, and we may hope for and press 
 forward to further improvement. Though the utterance 
 quoted above is only that of the Mahomedan section, it is, 
 of course, understood that the law does not apply or point to 
 them alone, but to all the peoples and sects of India ; and 
 that the approval of this legislation is also general among 
 the enlightened of those other creeds. (See end of Note 
 XVII., 8.) 
 
 Singular confirmatory evidence as to the distressing pre- 
 valence of this child-marriage is incidentally given in the 
 following paragraph from the Titnes of 31st March, 1892: — 
 
 "A correspondent of the Times of India mentions some odd 
 
 H 
 
98 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 instances of minor difficulties which have occurred in the work- 
 ing of the amended Factory Act, which came into force in India 
 at the commencement of the present year. The Hmit of age 
 for 'full-timers' in factories is fixed at fourteen years, and as 
 very few native operatives know their children's ages, or even 
 their own, the medical officer has, in passing lads and girls for 
 work, to judge the age as best he can — generally, as in the case 
 of horses, by examining their teeth. If he concludes that they 
 are under fourteen, he reduces them to ' half-timers.' In one 
 Bombay mill recently a number of girls were thus sent back as 
 under age who were actually mothers, and several boys who 
 were fathers were also reduced ; and one of the latter was the 
 father, it is said, of three children. The case of these lads is 
 particularly hard, for, with a wife and child, or perhaps children, 
 to support, life, on the pay of a ' half-timer,' must be a terrible 
 struggle." 
 
 Lest it should be objected that such abuses — with their 
 consequences — as have been instanced in India, are 
 peculiar to that country or civilisation, and that their dis- 
 cussion has therefore no bearing on our practices in Eng- 
 land, and the physical consequences ensuant here, it will 
 be salutary to recall what has been our own national con- 
 duct in this matter of enforcement of immature physical 
 relations on girl children or " wives " within times of by no 
 means distant date. Blackstone tells in his " Commentaries," 
 Book II., Chap. VIII., that " The wife must be above nine 
 years old at her husband's death, otherwise she shall not be 
 endowed, though in Bracton's time the age was indefinite, 
 and dower was then only due 'si uxor possit dotem promereri, 
 et virum sustinere.' " Whereupon Ed. Christian makes the 
 following note, worthy of the most careful meditation : — 
 '• Lord Coke informs us that ' if the wife be past the age of 
 nine years at the time of hejr husband's death, she shall be 
 endowed, of what age soever her husband be, albeit he were 
 
WOMAN FREE. 99 
 
 hnX-four years old. Quia junior non potest dotem promereri, 
 et Tirum sustinere.' (Coke on Litt., 33.) This we are told 
 by that grave and reverend judge witTiout any remark of sur- 
 prise or reprobation. But it confirms the observation of 
 Montesquieu in the ' Spirit of Laws,' Book XXVI., Chap. 
 III. 'There has been,' says he, 'much talk of a law in 
 England which permitted girls seven years old to choose a 
 husband. This law was shocking two ways ; it had no 
 regard to the time when Nature gives maturity to the under- 
 standing, nor to the time when she gives maturity to the 
 body.' It is abundantly clear, both from our law and 
 history, that formerly such early marriages were contracted 
 as in the present times are neither attempted nor thought 
 of 
 
 " This was probably owing to the right which the lord 
 possessed of putting up to sale the marriage of his infant 
 tenant. He no doubt took the first opportunity of prosti- 
 tuting {i.e., selling in marriage) the infant to his own 
 interest, without any regard to age or inclinations. And 
 thus what was so frequently practised und permitted by the 
 law would cease even in other instances to be considered 
 with abhorrence. If the marriage of a female was delayed 
 till she was sixteen, this benefit was entirely lost to the lord 
 her guardian. 
 
 " Even the 18 Eliz., cap. 7, which makes it a capital 
 crime to abuse a consenting female child under the age of 
 ten years, seenjs to leave an exception for these marriages by 
 declaring only the carnal and unlawful knowledge of such 
 woman-child to be a felony. Hence the abolition of the 
 feudal wardships and marriage at the Restoration may per- 
 
 H 2 
 
WOMAN IREE. 
 
 haps have contributed not less to the imjJrovement of the 
 morals than -of the liberty of the people." — (Black stone's 
 Comm., Christian's Edition, 1830, Vol. II., p. 131.) 
 
 6.—" . . . manner . . ." 
 
 " Manner," or " custom " is the early Biblical definition 
 for this habit {vide Gen. xviii. 11, and xxxi. 35). It may 
 be noticed that the word is not rendered or translated as 
 "nature." It is also called "sickness" (Lev. xx. 18); 
 and "pollution" (Ezek. xxii. 10). See also Note XXV. 8. 
 
 The authorised version of the Bible is here referred to. 
 The euphemisms attempted in the recent revised version 
 as amendments of some of these passages are equally con- 
 sonant with the argument of this note. 
 
 XXV. 
 I. — " Vicatious punishvient . . ." 
 Revolting was the shock to the writer, coming, some 
 years ago, with unprejudiced and ingenuous mind, to the 
 study of the so-called " Diseases of Women," on finding 
 that nearly the whole of these special "diseases," including 
 menstruation, were due, directly or collaterally, to one form 
 or other of masculine excess or abuse. Here is a nearly 
 coincident opinion, afterwards met with : — " The diseases 
 peculiar to women are so many, of so frequent occurrence, 
 and of such severity, that half the time of the medical pro- 
 fession is devoted to their care, and more than half its 
 revenues depend upon them. We have libraries of books 
 upon them, special professorships in our medical colleges, 
 and hosts of doctors who give them their exclusive atten- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 tion. . . . The books and professors are all at fault. 
 They have no knowledge of the causes or nature of these 
 diseases " (or at least they do not publish it, or act on it), 
 " and no idea of their proper treatment. Women are every- 
 where outraged and abused. When the full chapter of 
 woman's wrongs and sufferings is written, the world will be 
 horrified at the hideous spectacle. . . . " — T. L. 
 Nichols, M.p. (" Esoteric Anthropology," p. 198). 
 
 So, again, in speaking of menorrhagia : — '■' The causes of 
 this disease, whatever they are, must be removed. Thou- 
 sands of women are consigned to premature graves ; some 
 by the morbid excesses of their own passions, but far more 
 by the sensual and selfish indulgences of those who claim 
 the legal right to murder them in this manner, whom no 
 law of homicide can reach, and upon whose victims no 
 coroner holds an inquest." — {Op. cit., p. 301.) 
 
 2. — " . . . grievous toll . . ." 
 
 And this in every grade of society, even to the pecuniary 
 loss, as well as discomfort, of the labouring classes of 
 women. 
 
 "Statistics of sickness in the Post Office show that 
 women" (these are unmarried women) "are away from 
 their work more days than men." — (Sidney Webb, at British 
 Association, 1891.) 
 
 5. — " . . . no honest claim." 
 
 The Times of Aug. 3, 1892, reports a paper by Professor 
 Lombroso, of Turin (at the International Congress of 
 Psychology, London), in which occurs the following : — " It 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 must be observed that woman was exposed to more pains 
 than man, because man imposed submission and often even 
 slavery upon her. As a girl, she had to undergo the 
 tyranny of her brothers, and the cruel preferences accorded 
 by parents to their male children. Woman was the slave of 
 her husband, and still more of social prejudices. . . . 
 Let them not forget the physical disadvantage under which 
 she had to labour. She might justly call herself the pariah 
 of the human family." 
 
 The word is apt and corroborative, for it was no honest 
 act — it was not Nature, but human cruelty and injustice 
 that formed a pariah. 
 
 8. — " . . . opprobrious theme." 
 
 Conf. ancient and mediaeval superstitions and accusations 
 on the subject. Raciborski notes these aspersions (Traite, 
 p. 13) : — " Pline priJtendait que les femmes etant au 
 moment des rfegles pouvaient dessdcher les arbres par de 
 simples attouchements, faire perir des fruits, &c., &c." And 
 a further writer says more fully : — " Pliny informs us that 
 ' the presence of a menstrual woman turns wine sour, causes 
 trees to shed their fruit, parches up their young fruit, and 
 makes them for ever barren, dims the splendour of mirrors 
 and the polish of ivory, turns the edge of sharpened iron, 
 converts brass into rust, and is the cause of canine rabies. 
 In Isaiah xxx. 22, the writer speaks of the defilement of 
 graven images, which shall be cast away as a menstruous 
 cloth; and in Ezekiel xviii. 6, and xxxvi. 17, allusions 
 of the same import are made." Unless we accept the 
 antiquated notion of a " special curse " on women, how 
 
WOMAN FREE. 103 
 
 reconcile the idea of an " ordinance of Nature " being so 
 repulsively and opprobriously alluded to ? Well may it be 
 said : — " Ingratitude is a hateful vice. Not only the 
 defects, but even the illnesses which have their source in the 
 excessive" (man-caused) " susceptibility of woman, are often 
 made by men an endless subject of false accusations and 
 pitiless reproaches." — (M. le Docteur Cerise, in his Intro- 
 duction to Roussel, p. 34.) 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 I. — " Thoughts like to these are breathings of the truth" 
 
 " I submit that there is a spiritual, a poetic, and, for 
 aught we know, a spontaneous and uncaused element in the 
 human mind, which ever and anon suddenly, and without 
 warning, gives us a glimpse and a forecast of the future, 
 and urges us to seize truth, as it were, by anticipation. In 
 attacking the fortress we may sometimes storm the citadel 
 without stopping to sap the outworks. That great dis- 
 coveries have been made in this way the history of our 
 knowledge decisively proves." — H. T. Buckle (" Influence 
 of Women on the Progress of Knowledge "). 
 
 Id. . . "Then there is the inner consciousness — the 
 psyche — that has never yet been brought to bear upon life 
 and its questions. Besides which, there is a supersensuous 
 reason. Observation is perhaps more powerful an organon 
 than either experiment or empiricism. If the eye is always 
 watching, and the mind on the alert, ultimately chance 
 supplies the solution."— Jefferies ("The Story of My 
 Heart," Chap. X.). 
 
104 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Id. . . " Women only want hints, finger-boards, and 
 finding these, will follow them to Nature. The quick- 
 glancing intellect will gather up, as it moves over the 
 ground, the almost invisible ends and threads of thought, 
 so that a single volume may convey to the mind of woman 
 truths which man would require to have elaborated in four 
 or six." — Eliza W. Farnham ("Woman and Her Era," 
 Vol. II., p. 420). 
 
 3. — " . . . futile mannish pleas . . " 
 Roussel details fully some nine of these main theories or 
 explanations of the habitude. ("Systeme," Note A.) 
 
 6. — " In blindness born . . ." 
 
 " Tous ces faits nous induisent fortement a conjecturer 
 qu'il a dd exister un teftips ou les femmes n'etaient point 
 assujettids a ce tribut incommode ; que le flux menstruel 
 bien loin d'etre une institution naturelle, est au contraire 
 un besoin factice contract^ dans I'dtat sociale."— Roussel 
 {Oj>. at, Chap. II.). 
 
 Note that menstruation (scriptural " sickness ") remains 
 a pathological incident, not, as childbirth, an indubitably 
 natural and normal physical function. 
 
 See also Note XXX., 4. 
 
 Id. — " . . . in error fostered . . ." 
 
 Not only the habit itself, but its causes. And this by 
 medical, i.e., assumedly curative, practitioners. As to which 
 "fostering," medical and clinical manuals afford abundant 
 spontaneous and ingenuous testimony, and also of other 
 
WOMAA' FUEE. 105 
 
 professional practices of instigation, or condonation, or 
 complicity, at which a future age will look aghast. Conf. 
 the following from Whitehead, " On the Causes and Treat- 
 ment of Abortion and Sterility " (Churchill, 1847) '• — 
 
 " In a case under my care of pregnancy in a woman, with 
 extreme deformity of the pelvis, wherein it was considered advis- 
 able to procure abortion in the fifth month of the process, the 
 ergot alone was employed, and, at first, with the desired effect." 
 [The italics are not in the doctor's book ; he remarks nothing 
 wrong or immoral, and — in an unprofessional person — illegal, 
 and open to severest penalty ; he is simply detailing the effects 
 of a specified medicament.] " It was given in three successive 
 pregnancies, and in each instance labour pains came on after 
 eight or ten doses had been administered, and expulsion was 
 effected by the end of the third day. It was perseveringly 
 tried in a fourth pregnancy in the same individual, and failed 
 completely" (p. 254). 
 
 There is an ominous silence as to whether the patient's 
 health or life also " failed completely." 
 See further a case noted on p. 264, op. cit. : — 
 
 1st chi 
 
 2nd 
 
 3rd 
 
 4th 
 
 5th 
 
 6th 
 
 7th 
 
 Id, still-born, in eighth month, April 1832. 
 abortion at end of 6th month. 
 
 „ ■ „ 6th month. 
 
 „ „ 5th month. 
 
 „ soon after quickening. Summer, 1838. 
 still born, 7th October, 1839. 
 no clear record given. 
 
 Aho other somewhat parallel cases given, the constant 
 incidental accompaniment being painful physical suffering 
 and grave inconvenience, frequently with fatal results. 
 Medical records are full of similar histories. To the unso- 
 phisticated mind, two questions sternly suggest themselves : 
 Firstly, Is it meet or right for an honourable profession, or 
 
io6 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 any individual member of it, to be particeps criminis in such 
 proceedings as the above ? and, secoruily, is the indicated 
 connubial morality on any higher level, or likely to be at- 
 tended with any better consequences, than the prior ignor- 
 ant or savage abuses which are responsible for woman's 
 present physical condition ? 
 
 The advocacy of cardinal reform in this direction — in the 
 wrong done both to the individual and the race — is urgent 
 part of the duty of our newly-taught medical women. Nor 
 are their eyes closed nor their mouths dumb in the matter. 
 Dr. Caroline B. Winslow is quoted by the Womari s Journal 
 of Boston, U.S , i6th Jan., 1892, as saying in an article on 
 " The Right to be Well Born " : " What higher motive can 
 a man have in life than to labour steadily to prepare the 
 way for the coming of a higher, better humanity ? . . . 
 Dense ignorance prevails in our profession^ and is reflected 
 by laymen. All their scientific studies and years of medical 
 practice have failed to convict men of the wrongs and out-, 
 rages done to women ; wrongs that no divine laws- sanction, 
 and no legal enactments can avert. . . . 
 
 " The physician is a witness of the modern death- 
 struggles and horrors of maternity ; he sees lives pass out of 
 his sight; he makes vain attempts to restore broken consti- 
 tutions, broken by violating divine laws that govern organic 
 matter : laws that are obeyed by all animal instinct ; yet ali 
 this knowledge, observation, and experience have failed to 
 reveal to the benighted intellect and obtuse moral sense of 
 the ordinary practitioner this great wrong. He makes no 
 note of the unhallowed abuse that only man dares ; neither 
 will he mark the disastrous and deteriorating effect of this 
 
WOMAN FREE. 107 
 
 waste of vital force on his own offspring. The mental, 
 moral, and physical imperfections of the rising generation 
 are largely the result of outraged motherhood." 
 
 7. — " The spurious function growing . . ." 
 
 Mr. Francis Darwin, in a paper on "Growth Curvatures in 
 Plants," says of the biologist, Sachs, who had made re- 
 searches in the same phenomena : " He speaks, too, of 
 custom or use, building up the specialised ' instinct ' for 
 certain curvatures. (Sachs' 'Arbeiten,' 1879.) These are 
 expressions consistent with our present views." — (Presiden- 
 tial Address to the Biological Section of the British Asso- 
 ciation, i8gi.) 
 
 In the same section was also read a paper by Francis 
 Darwin and Dorothea F. N. Pertz, " On the Artificial Pro- 
 duction of Rhythm in Plants," in which were detailed 
 results very apposite to this " growing of a spurious func- 
 tion.'' 
 
 8. — " . . almost natural use the morbid mode appears." 
 
 "So true is it that unnatural generally only means un- 
 ciistomary, and that everything which is usual appears 
 natural." — J. S. Mill ("The Subjection of Women," p. 22). 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 I. — '■^ Grievous the hurt . . ." 
 
 Buckle notes one of the many incidental evil results in 
 his " Common Place Book,'' Art. 2133 : — 
 
 " It has been remarked that in our climate women are 
 
io8 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 more frequently affected with insanity than men, and it has 
 been considered very unfavourable to recovery if they 
 should be worse at the time of menstruation, or have their 
 catamenia in very small or immoderate quantities." (Paris 
 and Fonblanque's "Medical Jurisprudence," Vol. I., p. 327). 
 
 5. — " . . . reintegrate in frame and mind." 
 
 "Thus then you have first to mould her physical frame, 
 and then, as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill 
 and temper her mind with all knowledge and thoughts 
 which tend to confirm its natural instincts of justice, and 
 refine its natural tact of love." — John Ruskin (" Of Queens' 
 Gardens," p. 154). 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 5, 6. — " . . . given in our hand. 
 
 Is power the evil hazard to command." 
 
 " That which is thoughtlessly credited to a non-existent 
 intelligence should really be claimed and exercised by the 
 human race. It is ourselves who should direct our affairs, 
 protecting ourselves from pain, assisting ourselves, succour- 
 ing and rendering our lives happy. We must do for our- 
 selves what superstition has hitherto supposed an intelligence 
 to do for us. . . . These things speak with a voice of 
 thunder. From every human being whose Ijody has been 
 racked with pain; from every human being who has 
 suffered from accident or disease ; from every human being 
 drowned, burned, or slain by negligence, there goes up a 
 continually increasing cry louder than the thunder. An 
 
WOMAN FREE. 109 
 
 awe-inspiring cry dread to listen to, against which ears are 
 stopped by the wax of superstition and the wax of criminal 
 selfishness. These miseries are your doing, because you 
 have mind and thought and could have prevented them. 
 You can prevent them in the future. You do not even 
 try."— R. Jefferies (" The Story of My Heart," pp. 149 et 
 seq.). 
 
 Id. . . . " From one philosophical point of view, that 
 of Du Prel, the experiments are already regarded as proving 
 that the soul is an organising as well as a thinking power. 
 
 . . Bernheim saw an apoplectic paralysis rapidly im- 
 proved by suggestion. . . . The more easily an idea 
 can be established in the subject, the quicker a therapeutic 
 result can be induced. ... I think that hardly any of 
 the newest discoveries are so important to the art of healing, 
 apart from surgery, as the study of suggestion. . . . Now 
 that it has been proved that even organic changes can be 
 caused by suggestion, we are obliged to ascribe a much 
 greater importance to mental influences than we have 
 hitherto done." — Dr. Albert Moll ("Hypnotism," pp. 122, 
 318, 320, 325, 327). 
 
 id. . . . " It would, I fancy, have fared but ill with 
 one who, standing where I now stand, in what was then a 
 thickly-peopled and fashionable part of London, should 
 have broached to our ancestors the doctrine which I now 
 propound to you — that all their hypotheses were alike 
 wrong ; that the plague was no more, in their sense. Divine 
 judgment, than the fire was the work of any political, or of 
 any religious, sect ; but that they were themselves the 
 authors of both plague and fire, and that they must look to 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 themselves to prevent the recurrence of calamities, to all 
 appearance so peculiarly beyond the reach of human 
 control. . . . We, in later times, have learned somewhat 
 of Nature, and partly obey her. Because of this partial im- 
 provement of our natural knowledge and of that fractional 
 obedience, we have no plague; because 'j:hat knowledge is 
 still very imperfect and that obedience yet incomplete, 
 typhus is our companion and cholera our visitor. But it 
 is not presumptuous to express the belief that, when our 
 knowledge is more complete and our obediejice the ex- 
 pression of our knowledge, London will count lier centuries 
 of freedom from typhus and cholera as she noV gratefully 
 reckons her two hundred years of ignorance of tBat plague 
 which swooped upon her thrice in the first halfVof the 
 seventeenth century." — T. H. Huxley (" On Improving 
 Natural Knowledge"). 
 
 And the pestilent malady from which woman specially 
 still suffers is as definitely the result of man's ignorant or 
 thoughtless misdoing, and is as indubitably amenable to 
 rectification, as the plague of the bye-gone ages, oi^ the 
 typhus and cholera of the present. 
 
 8. — " . . . pain both prompts and points escape." 
 
 " All evil is associated more or less closely with pain 
 . . . and pain of every kind is so repugnant to the 
 human organism, that it is no sooner felt than an eiFort\is 
 made to escape from it. . . . Alongside of the evolu- 
 tion of evil there has ever been a tendency towards tlie 
 elimination of evil. . . . The highest intellectujil 
 powers of the greatest men have for their ultimate object 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 the mitigation of evil, and the final elimination of it from 
 the earth."— Richard Bithell (" The Creed of a Modern 
 Agnostic,'' p. 103). 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 I. — " . . . woman shall her own redemption gain." 
 
 In the greatest depth of their meaning remain true the 
 words of Olive Schreiner : " He who stands by the side of 
 woman cannot help her ; she must help tierself." 
 
 Id. . . . " Nothing is clearer than that woman must 
 lead her own revolution ; not alone because it is hers, and 
 that no other being can therefore have her interest in its 
 achievement, but because it is for a life whose highest needs 
 and rights — those to be redressed in its success — lie above 
 the level of man's experiences or comprehension. Only 
 woman is sufficient to state woman's claims and vindicate 
 them."— Eliza W. Farnham ("Woman," Vol. I., p. 308). 
 
 (See also Notes to XLVI. 7 and LVIII. i.) 
 
 2. — ^"^ Instructed by the sting of bootless pain." 
 
 "Toutes les fonctions du corps humain, sauf I'enfante- 
 ment, sont autant de plaisirs. Dfes que la douleur surgit, 
 la nature est violee. La douleur est d'origine humaine. 
 Un corps malade ou a viol^ les lois de la nature, ou bien 
 souffre de la violation de la loi d'un de ses semblables. I ,a 
 douleur par elle-meme est done le meilleur diagnostic pour 
 le medecin. . . . Entre la loi de la nature et la viola- 
 tion de cette loi, il n'y a que desordres, douleurs et ruines. 
 . . . La maladie ne vient pas de la nature, elle n'y est 
 
112 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 menie pas. Elle n'est que la violation d'une des lois de la 
 nature. Dfes qu'une de ces lois est violde, la douleur arrive 
 et vous dit qu'une loi vient d'etre enfreinte. S'il est temps 
 encore, le mal peut etre amoindri, expulse, chass^. ... 
 La maladie n'est done que le r^sultat de la violation d'une 
 loi naturelle. . . La science et la mdcanique du corps 
 
 humain, c'est I'art de vivre d'aprfes les lois de la nature, c'est 
 la certitude que pas un medecin ne possdde contre la viola- 
 tion d'une de ces lois un remfede autre que d'y rentrer le 
 plus tot possible. ... Chaque fois que I'liomnie 
 s'efforcera de suivre la loi de la nature, il chassera devant 
 soi une centaine de maladies." — Dr. Alexandre Weill (" Lois 
 et Mysteres de I'Amour," pp. 41, 91, 24, 85, 83). 
 
 3, 4. — " With Nature ever helpful to retrieve 
 The injury we heedlessly achieve." 
 
 " Thus, if we could, by preaching our pet ideal, or in any 
 other way induce one generation of women to turn to a 
 new pursuit, we should have accomplished a step towards 
 bending all future womanhood in the same direction." — 
 Frances Power Cobbe (Essay : " The Final Cause of 
 Woman "). 
 
 See also Note XXIIL, 4. 
 
 6. — " Already guerdon rich in hope is shown.'' 
 
 "He (Mr, Frederic Harrison) says — 'All women, with 
 few exceptions, are subject to functional interruption abso- 
 lutely incompatible with the highest forms of continuous 
 pressure.' This assertion I venture most emphatically to 
 deny. The actual period of child-birth apart, the ordinarily 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 healthy woman is as fit for work every day of her life as the 
 ordinarily healthy man. Fresh air, exercise, suitable 
 clothing and nourishing food, added to the habitual tem- 
 perance of women in eating and drinking, have brought 
 about a marvellously good result in improving their average 
 health." — Mrs. Fawcett {Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1891). 
 
 (See also Note LX., 8.) 
 
 8. — " The sage physician, she ..." 
 
 Not only " sage " physician, but " brave " physician ; for 
 brave indeed has been the part she has had to bear against 
 male professional prejudice and jealousy, opposition from 
 masculine vested interests, virulent abuse and even personal 
 violence. So recently as 1888, Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake has to 
 report concerning the medical education of women, that: — 
 
 " The first difficulty lies in some remaining jealousy and ill- 
 will towards medical women on the part of a section (constantly 
 diminishing, as I believe) of the medical profession itself. Some 
 twenty years ago the professional prejudice was so deep and so 
 widely spread that it constituted a very formidable obstacle, but 
 it has been steadily melting away before the logic of facts ; and 
 now is, with a few exceptions, rarely to be found among the 
 leaders of the profession, nor indeed among the great majority 
 of the rank and file, as far as can be judged by the personal ex- 
 perience of medical women themselves. Unfortunately, it seems 
 strongest just where it has least justification, viz., among the 
 practitioners who devote themselves chiefly to midwifery, and to 
 the special diseases of women. The Obstetrical Society is, so 
 far as I know, still of the same mind as when, in 1874, they ex- 
 cluded Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, a distinguished M.D. 
 of Paris, from their membership ; and the Soho Square Hospital 
 for Women has never revoked its curt refusal to allow me to 
 enter its doors, when, in 1878, I proposed to take advantage of 
 the invitation issued in its report to all practitioners who were 
 
114 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 specially interested in the cases for which the hospital is re- 
 served. Sometimes this jealousy takes a sufficiently comic form. 
 For instance, I received for two successive years a lithographed 
 circular inviting me by name to send to the Lancet the reports 
 of interesting cases that might occur in my dispensary practice, 
 but when I wrote in response to this supposed offer of profes- 
 sional fellowship, I received by next post a hurried assurance 
 from the editor that it was all a mistake, and that, in fact, the 
 Lancet could not stoop to record medical experiences, however 
 interesting, if they occurred in the practice of the inferior sex ! 
 Probably it will not require many more years to make this sort 
 of thing ridiculous, even in the eyes of those who are now 
 capable of such puerilities. 
 
 "The second obstacle lies in the continued exclusion of 
 women from the majority of our Universities, and from the 
 English Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. Here also the 
 matter may be left to the growth of public opinion as regards 
 those existing bodies which do not depend upon the public 
 purse ; but it is time that Parliament should refuse supphes to 
 those bodies whose sense of justice cannot be otherwise 
 awakened, and it is certainly the duty of Government to see 
 that no new charter is granted without absolute security for 
 equal justice to students of both sexes." — Sophia Jex-Blake, 
 M.D. {Nmeteenth Ceniiirv, Nov., 1887). 
 
 See also Note LVII., 1, and LVIII., i. 
 
 Id. . . Progress is indeed being made, surely, yet 
 
 slowly, for Mrs. Fawcett has still necessity to reiterate, 
 four years afterwards : — 
 
 " Make her a doctor, put her through the mental discipline 
 and the physical toil of the profession ; charge her, as doctors 
 are so often charged, with the health of mind and body 
 of scores of patients, she remains womanly to her finger 
 tips, and a good doctor in proportion as the truly womanly 
 qualities in her are strongly developed. Poor women are 
 very quick to find this out as patients. Not only from 
 
WOMAN FREE. 115 • 
 
 the immediate neighbourhood of the New Hospital for 
 Women, where all the staff are women doctors, but also 
 from the far East of London do they come, because ' the 
 ladies,' as they call them, are ladies, and show their poor 
 patients womanly sympathy, gentleness, and patience, 
 womanly insight and thoughtfulness in little things, and 
 consideration for their home troubles and necessities. It 
 is not too much to say that a woman can never hope to 
 be a good doctor unless she is truly and really a womanly 
 woman. And much the same thing may be said with re- 
 gard to fields of activity not yet open to women." — Mrs. 
 Fawcett {Fortnightly Review, Nov., 1891). 
 
 Id.— " . . . saviour of her sex.'' 
 Bebel says : — " Women doctors would be the greatest 
 blessing to their own sex. The fact that women must place 
 themselves, in the hands of men in cases of illness or of the 
 physical disturbances connected with their sexual functions 
 frequently prevents their seeking medical help in time. This 
 gives rise to numerous evils, not only for women, but also for 
 men. Every doctor complains of this reserve on the part of 
 women, which sometimes becomes almost criminal, and of 
 their dislike to speak freely of their ailments, even after 
 they have made up their minds to consult a doctor. This is 
 perfectly natural, the only irrational thing about it is the 
 refusal of men, and especially of doctors, to recognise how 
 legitimate the study of medicine is for women." (" Woman," 
 Walther's translation, p. 131.) 
 
 Id. . . " As I am alluding to my own experience in 
 this matter, I may perhaps be allowed to say how often in 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 the same place I have been struck with the contingent 
 advantages attendant on the medical care by women of 
 women ; how often I have seen cases connected with stories 
 of shame or sorrow to which a woman's hand could far 
 more fittingly minister, and where sisterly help and counsel 
 could give far more appropriate succour than could be 
 expected from the average young medical man, however 
 good his intentions. Perhaps we shall find the solution of 
 some of our saddest social problems, when educated and 
 pure-minded women are brought more constantly in contact 
 with their sinning and suffering sisters, in other relations as 
 well as those of missionary effort." — Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake 
 (Essay : " Medicine as a Profession for Women "). 
 
 XXX. 
 
 I. — " With purer phase . . ." 
 
 A noted specialist in this matter, Dr. Tilt, "leasing his 
 conclusions on his own unpublished observations, and on 
 those already made public by M. Brierre de Boismont and 
 Dr. Rawn," has declared what is indeed a generally ac- 
 cepted proposition, that " luxurious living and habits render 
 menstruation precarious, while this function is retarded by 
 out-door labour and less sophisticated habits." (" Proceed- 
 ings of British Association," 1850, p. 135 ; "On the Causes 
 which Advance or Retard the Appearance of First Men- 
 struation in Women," by E. J. Tilt, M.D., &c., &c.) 
 
 4. — ". . . weakness . . ." 
 
 It is to be carefully kept in mind that this " weakness " 
 (Scriptural, " sickness," Lev. xx., 18) is strictly a patho- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 117 
 
 logical incident ; while maternity is truly a physiological 
 one ; the male false physicists seem in their mental and 
 clinical attitude to have aimed to precisely reverse this defi- 
 nition. (See also Note XXIII., 8, and XXVI., 6.) 
 
 5,6. — To the fact related in these two lines there is 
 testimony in nearly every book connected with the sub- 
 ject ; and doubtless numerous instances never come to 
 light, owing to the very natural reticence pointed out in 
 Note XXIX., 8. The improved condition reported by Mrs. 
 Fawcett (Note XXIX., 6) is hence more readily verified by 
 women practitioners ; and the writer has had detailed per- 
 sonal experiences of perfect health and maternity being 
 co-existent with little or no appearance of the menses in 
 the case of women whose names, if published, would be 
 indubitable guarantee for their accuracy and veracity. 
 
 7. — " Not to neglectful man to greatly care . . ." 
 
 The Report of the British Association for 1850, in sum- 
 marising the paper above referred to (Note i), says of Ur. 
 Tilt that, " in discussing what he calls the intrinsic causes 
 which have been supposed to influence menstruation, his 
 observations are rather of a suggestive character, for he 
 considers such causes highly problematical and requiring 
 further investigation." Dr. Tilt rightly emphasises the 
 question as " a matter equally interesting to the physician, 
 the philosopher, and the statesman ; and it behoves them to 
 know that this epoch (of menstruation) varies under the 
 influence of causes which, for the most part have been 
 insufficiently studied." But the negligence or carelessness 
 reprobated in the verse has again supervened. 
 
ii8 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Buckle says, concerning this same paper of Dr. Tilt's : 
 " We take shame to ourselves for not having sooner noticed 
 this very interesting and in some respects very important 
 work ; the author unknown," (?) " and yet the book has gone 
 through two editions, though written on a subject ignorantly 
 supposed to be going on well. That women can be satis- 
 fied with their state shows thair deterioration. That they 
 can be satisfied with knowing nothing, &c." (sic.') (" Mis- 
 cellaneous and Posthumous Works," Vol. I., p. 381.) 
 
 The whole passage seems somewhat incoherent, and is 
 unfinished as above, as if left by Mr. Buckle for further 
 consideration. The last two remarks as to women are cer- 
 tainly not written with his usual justice ; when we remember 
 how assiduously men have striven to prevent woman's 
 pursuit of physiological knowledge, especially as applied to 
 her own person, it is manifest that the blame for woman's 
 ignorance, or her presumed " satisfaction '' therewith, ip 
 more fittingly to be reproached to man than to her. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 I. — " Her intellect alert . . ." 
 
 " Intellectus prelucit voliintati." — "Intellect carries the 
 light before the will." — Cardinal Manning {Review of Re- 
 views, Vol. v., p. 135). 
 
 5, 6. — " . . . body still is supple unto mind, 
 By dint of soul is fleshly form inclined." 
 
 Reflecting Plato's teaching' our second worthy Eliza- 
 bethan poet has said : — 
 
WOMAN FREE. 119 
 
 " Every spirit as it is most pure, 
 And hath in it the more of heavenly h'ght, 
 So it the fairer body doth procure 
 To habit in. 
 
 For of the Soul the Body form doth take : 
 For Soul is form, and doth the Body make." 
 And in our own day, Charles Kingsley says, in serious 
 sportiveness : " The one true doctrine of this wonderful 
 fairy tale is, that your soul makes your body, just as a snail 
 makes its shell." And again : " You must know and believe 
 that people's souls make their bodies just as a snail makes 
 its shell. ... I am not joking, my little man ; I am in 
 serious, solemn earnest." — ("The Water Babies," Chaps. 
 III. and IV. 
 
 And Elizabeth Barrett Browning (" Aurora Leigh," Book 
 III.)- 
 
 "... the soul 
 
 Which grows within a child makes the child grow." 
 The physiologists and psychologists, as is not unusual, 
 tardily follow in the wake of the poets. At the Inter- 
 national Congress of Experimental Psychology, London, 
 1892, "Professor Delboeuf said that at all times the mind 
 of man had been capable of influencing the body, but it 
 was only in recent times that this action had been scienti- 
 fically put in evidence." — {Times, August 3rd, 1892.) 
 
 And Dr. Albert Moll, of Berlin, had written the year 
 previously, that — " When the practical importance of 
 mental influences becomes more generally recognised, 
 physicians will be obliged to acknowledge that psychology 
 is as important as physiology. Psychology and psychical 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 therapeutics will be the basis of a rational treatment of 
 neuroses. The other methods must group themselves 
 around this ; it will be the centre, and no longer a sort of 
 Cinderella of science, which now admits only the influence 
 of the body on the mind, and not that of the mind on the 
 body."— ("Hypnotism," p. 328.) See also Note XXVIII., 5. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 2. — " . . . ivoo the absent curse." 
 
 Even Raciborski condemns this common error of treat- 
 ment : — " . . . quand les jeunes fiUes de cette 
 categoric paraissent soufTrantes, quel que soit le caractfere 
 des souffrances, on est disposd a les attribuer au d^faut du 
 fiux menstruel, on le regrette, on I'invoque, et I'on tente 
 tout pour le provoquer. Ces iddes sont aujourd'hui encore 
 trfes profondement enracin^es dans le public, et sont 
 souvent la cause des entraves au traitement rationnel pro- 
 pose par les mddecins." — (Traits, &c., ed. 1868, p, 377.) 
 And Mrs. E. B. Duffey very sensibly says : — 
 " Nature ... is very easily perverted : and the girl 
 who begins by imagining she is ill or ought to be at such 
 times will end by being really so." (" No Sex in Educa- 
 tion," Philadelphia, 1874, p. 79.) 
 
 3. — " . . . counter effort . . ." 
 
 " Forel and many others mention that there are certain 
 popular methods of slightly retarding menstruation. In one 
 town many of the young women tie something round their 
 little finger if they wish to delay menstruation for a few 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 days in order to go to a ball, &c. The method is generally 
 effectual, but when faith ceases, the effect also ceases." — 
 Dr. Albert Moll (" Hypnotism," p. 226). 
 
 Before quitting this special subject it may be well to 
 remark that little more than the fringe is here indicated of 
 an enormous mass of evidence which affords more than 
 presumptive confirmation and support for the position here 
 taken in the whole question of this " abnormal habit." 
 
 4.—" '. . . custom . . ."—See Note XXIV., 6. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 2. — " . . . fiewer vigour to the brain." 
 
 " It is well-known that every organ of the body and, there- 
 fore, also the brain, requires for its full development and, 
 consequently, for the development of its complete capability 
 of performance, exercise and persistent effort. That this is 
 and has been the case for thousands of years in a far less 
 degree in woman than in man, in consequence of her 
 defective training and education, will be denied by no one.'' 
 So says the learned biologist Biichner.— ("Man," Dallas's 
 translation, p. 206.) 
 
 And Bebel also declares :— "The brain must be regularly 
 used and correspondingly nourished, like any other organ, 
 if its faculties are to be fully developed."— ("Woman," 
 Walther's translation, p. 124.) 
 
 Dr. Emanuel Bonavia, in the course of an able reply to 
 a somewhat shallow recent disquisition by Sir James 
 Crichton Browne, says : — 
 
 " From various sources we have learnt that the brain 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 tissue, like every other tissue, will grow by exercise, and 
 diminish, or degenerate and atrophy by disuse. Keep your 
 right arm tied up in a sling for a month, and you will then 
 be convinced how much it has lost by disuse. Then ana- 
 tomists might perhaps be able to say — Lo ! and behold ! 
 the muscles of your right arm have a less specific gravity 
 than those of your left arm ; that the nerves and blood- 
 vessels going to those muscles are smaller, and that, 
 therefore, the right arm cannot be the equal of the left, and 
 must have a different function ! 
 
 "Any medical student knows that if you tie the main 
 trunk of an artery, a branch of it will in due course acquire 
 the calibre of the main trunk. If, for some reason, it cannot 
 do so, the tissues, which the main trunk originally supplied, 
 must suffer, and be weakened, from want of a sufficient 
 supply of blood. . . . Man, and especially British 
 man, has evolved into what he is by endless trouble and 
 struggle through past ages. He has had to develop his 
 present brain from very small beginnings. It would, there- 
 fore, now be the height of folly to allow the thinking lobes 
 of the mothers of the race to revert, intellectually, by 
 disuse step by step again to that of the lower animals, from 
 which we all come. That of course many may not believe, 
 but it may be asked, how can he or she believe these things 
 with such weakened lobes, as he or she may have inherited 
 from his or her mother ? How indeed ! If there is 
 anything in nature that is true, it is this — That if you dont 
 use your limbs they will atrophy ; if you don't use your 
 eyes they will atrophy ; if you don't use your brain it will 
 atrophy. They all follow the same inexorable law. Use 
 
WOMAN FREE. 123 
 
 increases and sharpens ; disuse decreases and dulls. 
 Diminished size of the frontal lobes and of the arteries that 
 feed them mean nothing if they do not mean that woman's 
 main thinking organ, that of the intellect, is, as Sir James 
 would hint, degenerating by disuse and neglect." — 
 ("Woman's Frontal Lobes," Provincial Medical Journal, 
 July, 1892.) 
 
 These facts suggest strongly that the waste at present 
 induced in the female body by the menstrual habit might 
 well be absorbed in increase of brain power ; and indeed, 
 that this evolved habit has hitherto persistently sequestrated 
 and carried off from woman's organism the blood force that 
 should have gone to form brain power. This explanation 
 would dispose of the awk^vardly imagined "plethora" 
 theory, as well as one or two others, of sundry gynaecologists. 
 
 And the converse — that the increased appropriation of 
 the blood in forming brain power induces a state of bodily 
 well-being, free from the present waste and weariness, — 
 would certainly seem to be borne out by such evidence as 
 that of the Hon. John W. Mitchell, the president of the 
 Southern California College of Law, who said in a recent 
 lecture : — 
 
 "Not only in this, but in other countries, there are 
 successful women practitioners (of Law), and in France, 
 where the preparatory course is most arduous, and the term 
 of study longest, a woman recently took the highest rank 
 over 500 men in her graduating examinations, and during 
 the whole six years of class study she only lost one day 
 from her work." (See Note LVII., i.) 
 
 A few words may here be said as to the dubitable 
 
124 IVOMAJV FREE. 
 
 question of the relative size of the brain in man and 
 woman, though the matter may not be of great import, from 
 more than one reason. For, as Bebel observes : " Alto- 
 gether the investigations on the subject are too recent and 
 too few in number to allow of any definite conclusions " 
 (p. 123). A. Dumas fils says ("Les Femmes qui Tuent," p. 
 196) — " Les philosophes vous ddmontreront que, si la force 
 musculaire de I'homme est plus grande que celle de la 
 femme, la force nerveuse de la femme est plus grande que 
 celle de I'homme ; que, si Tintelligence tient, comme on 
 lafifirme aujourd'hui, au ddveloppement at au poids de la 
 matiere cdrdbrale, I'intelligence de la femme pourrait etre 
 declar^e supdrieure a celle de I'homme, le plus grand 
 cerveau et le plus lourd comme poids, etant un cerveau de 
 femme lequel pesait 2,200 grammes, c'est a dire 400 
 grammes de plus que celui de Cuvier. On ne dit pas, il est 
 vrai, que cette femme ait ecrit I'equivalent du livre de 
 Cuvier sur les fossiles." 
 
 To which last remark may be replied, again in the words 
 of Bebel, — " Darwin is perfectly right in saying that a list 
 of the most distinguished women in poetry, painting, sculp- 
 ture, music, science, and philosophy, will bear no comparison 
 with a similar list of the most distinguished men. But 
 surely this need not surprise us. It would be surprising if 
 it were not so. Dr. Dodel-Port (in " Die neuere Schop- 
 fungsgeschichte ") answers to the point, when he maintains 
 that the relative achievements would be very different after 
 men and women had received the same education and the 
 same training in art and science during a certain number 
 of generations." — ("Woman," p. 125.) 
 
WOMAN FREE. 125 
 
 " It is of small value to say — yes, but look how many 
 men excel and how few women do so. True, but see how 
 much repression men have exercised to prevent women from 
 even equalling them, and how much shallowness of mind 
 they have encouraged. All manner of obstructions, coupled 
 with ridicule, have been put in their way, and until women 
 succeed in emancipating themselves, most men will pro- 
 bably continue to do so, simply because they have the 
 power to do it. When women become emancipated, that 
 is, are placed on social equality with men, this senseless, 
 mischievous opposition will die a natural death."— E. 
 Bonavia, M.D. ("Woman's Frontal Lobes"). 
 
 To revert to the question of brain weight, one of the first 
 of English specialists says : — 
 
 " Data might, therefore, be considered to show, in the 
 strongest manner, how comparatively unimportant is mere 
 bulk or weight of brain in reference to the degree of intel- 
 ligence of its owner, when considered as it often is, apart 
 from the much more important question of the relative 
 amount of its grey matter, as well as of the amount and 
 perfection of the minute internal development of the organ 
 either actual or possible."— Dr. H. C. Bastian ("The Brain as 
 an Organ of Mind," p. 375.) 
 
 The American physiologist Helen H. Gardener states : — 
 " The differences (in brain) between individuals of the same 
 sex — in adults at least, are known to be much more marked 
 than any that are known to exist between the sexes. Take 
 the brains of the two poets Byron and Dante. Byron's 
 weighed 1,807 grammes, while Dante's weighed only 1,320 
 grammes, a difference of 487 grammes. Or take two 
 
126 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 statesmen, Cromwell and Gambetta. Cromwell's brain 
 weighed 2,210 grammes, which, by the way, is the greatest 
 healthy brain on record ; although Cuvier's is usually quoted 
 as the largest, a part of the weight of his was due to disease, 
 and if a diseased or abnormal brain is to be taken as 
 the standard, then the greatest on record is that of a negro 
 criminal idiot; while Gambetta's was only 1,241 grammes, a 
 difference of 969 grammes. Surely it will not be held 
 because of this that Gambetta and Dante should have 
 been denied the educational and other advantages which 
 Were the natural right of Byron and Cromwell. Yet it is 
 upon this very ground, by this very system of reasoning, 
 that it is proposed to deny women equal advantages and 
 opportunities, although the difference in brain weight 
 between man and woman is said to be only 100 grammes, 
 and even this does not allow for difference in body weight, 
 and is based upon a system of averages, which is neither 
 complete nor accurate." — (Report of the International 
 Council of Women, Washington, 1888, p. 378.) 
 
 Concerning an assertion that " the specific gravity of both 
 the white and grey matter of the brain is greater in man than 
 in woman," Helen H. Gardener says : — " Of this point this is 
 what the leading brain anatomist in America (Dr. E. C. 
 Spitzka) wrote : ' The only article recognised by the pro- 
 fession as important and of recent date, which takes this 
 theory as a working basis, is by Morselli, and he is com- 
 pelled to make the sinister admission, while asserting that 
 the specific gravity is less in the female, that with old age 
 and with insanity the specific gravity increases.' If this is 
 the case I do not know that women need sigh over their 
 
WOMAN FREE. 127 
 
 shortcoming in the item of specific gravity. There appear 
 to be two very simple methods open to them by which they 
 may emulate their brothers in the matter of specific gravity, 
 if they so desire. One of these is certain, if they live long 
 enough ; and the other — well, there is no protective tariff on 
 insanity." — {Loc. cit, p. 379.) 
 
 Helen Gardener further appositely observes ; — " The 
 brain of no remarkable woman has ever been examined. 
 Woman is ticketed to fit the hospital subjects and tramps, 
 the unfortunates whose brains fall into the hands of the 
 profession as it were by mere accident, while man is repre- 
 sented by the brains of the Cromwells, Cuviers, Byrons, and 
 Spurzheims. By this method the average of men's brains 
 is carried to its highest level in the matter of weight and 
 texture ; while that of women is kept at its lowest, and 
 even then there is only claimed 100 grammes' difference !" 
 — {Loc. cit., p. 380.) 
 
 And she concludes her exhaustive paper with the closing 
 paragraph of a letter to herself from Dr. E. C. Spitzka, the 
 celebrated New York brain specialist : — " You may hold me 
 responsible for the following declaration : That any statement 
 to the effect that an observer can tell by looking at a brain, 
 or examining it microscopically, whether it belonged to a 
 female or a male subject, is not founded on carefully- 
 observed facts. . . . No such difference has ever 
 been demonstrated, nor do I think it will be by more 
 elaborate methods than we now possess. Numerous female 
 brains exceed numerous male brains in absolute weight, in 
 complexity of convolutions, and in what brain anatomists 
 would call the nobler proportions. So that he who takes 
 
128 IVOMJJV FREE. 
 
 these as his criteria of the male brain may be grievously 
 mistaken in attempting to assert the sex of a brain dog- 
 matically. If I had' one hundred female brains and one 
 hundred male brains together, I should select the one 
 hundred containing the largest and best-developed brains as 
 probably containing fewer female brains than the remaining 
 one hundred. More than this no cautious experienced 
 brain anatomist would venture to declare."^ — {Loc. cit., 
 p. 381.) 
 
 Charles Darwin has clearly summarised this question of 
 comparison of brain: — "No one, I presume, doubts that 
 the large size of the brain in man, relatively to his body, in 
 comparison with that of the gorilla or orang, is closely con- 
 nected with nis higher mental powers. . . . On the 
 other hand, no one supposes that the intellect of any two 
 animals or of any two men can be accurately gauged by the 
 cubic contents of their skulls. It is certain that there may 
 be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small 
 absolute mass of nervous matter ; thus the wonderfully 
 diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants 
 are generally known, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so 
 large as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this 
 latter point of view the brain of an ant is one of the most 
 marvellous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more 
 marvellous than the brain of man." — ("The Descent of 
 Man," Chap. IV.) 
 
 3. — " Wide shall she roam . . ." 
 
 John Ruskin says, of training a girl : — " Let her loose in 
 the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field. It knows 
 
WOMAN FREE. 129 
 
 the bad weeds twenty times better than you, and the good 
 ones too ; and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good 
 for it, which you had not the slightest thought were good." 
 ^"Sesame and Lilies," p. 167.) 
 
 6. — " . . . munnurings . . ." 
 
 "Man thinks that his wife belongs to him like his 
 domesticated animals, and he keeps her therefore in slavery. 
 There are few, however, who wear their shackles without 
 feeling their weight, and not a few who resent it. Madame 
 Roland says : ' Quand vous parlez en maitre, vous faites 
 penser aussitot qu'on peut vous rdsister, et faire plus 
 peutStre, tel fort que vous soyez. L'invulnerable Achille 
 ne I'c^tait pas partout.'"— Alexander Walker, M.D. ("Woman 
 as to Mind, &c.," p. 353). 
 
 " Why do women not discover, when ' in the noon of 
 beauty's power,' that they are treated like queens only to be 
 deluded by hollow respect, till they are led to resign, or not 
 assume, their natural prerogatives ? Confined then in 
 cages like the feathered racej they have nothing to do but to 
 plume themselves and stalk with mock majesty from perch 
 to perch. It is true they are provided with food and 
 raiment, for which they neither toil nor spin, but health 
 liberty, and virtue are given in exchange." — Mary WoUs- 
 tonecraft ("Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Chap. 
 IV.). See also Note XL., 5. 
 
 " What have they (men) hitherto offered us in marriage, 
 with a great show of generosity and a flourish of trumpets, 
 but the dregs of a life, and the leavings of a dozen other 
 women ? Experience has at last taught us what tp expect 
 
 K 
 
130 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 and how to meet them." — Lady Violet Greville {National 
 Review, May, 1892). 
 
 See also Note XX., 2. 
 
 8. — " Lest that her soul should rise . . ." 
 
 " Laboulaye distinctly advises his readers to keep women 
 in a state of moderate ignorance, for ' notre empire est 
 ddtruit, si I'homme est reconnu ' (Our empire is at an end 
 when man is found out)." — (Note to Bebel, Walther's trans- 
 lation, p. 73.) 
 
 Id. — " . . . ireak his time-worn yoke" 
 
 As already shown, the subjugation of woman has not 
 been an incident of Western " civilisation " alone. Mrs. 
 Eliza W. Farnham relaites that "When a Chinese Mandarin 
 in California was told that the women of America were 
 nearly all taught to read and write, and that a majority of 
 them were able to keep books for their husbands, if they 
 chose to do so, he shook his head thoughtfully, and, with a 
 foreboding sigh, replied, ' If he readee, writee, by'n-by he 
 lickee all the men.' Was that a barbarian sentiment, or 
 rather, perhaps, a presentiment of the higher sovereignty 
 coming?" — ("Woman and Her Era," Vol. II., p. 41.) 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 5. — " . . . his servitude ..." 
 
 " Villeins were not protected by Magna Charta. " Nullus 
 liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur,' &c., was cautiously 
 expressed to exclude the poor villein, for, as Lord Coke 
 
WOMAN FREE. 131 
 
 tells us, the lord may beat his villein, and, if it be without 
 cause, he cannot have any remedy. What a degraded 
 condition for a being endued with reason ! " — Edward 
 Christian (" Note to Blackstone's Commentaries," Book II., 
 Chap. VI.). 
 
 Mr. Christian's exclamation of concern is doubtless 
 meant to apply to the serf, yet was not the lord's position 
 equally despicable ? 
 
 6. — " . . in turn was master to a slave." 
 
 This was, in fact, simply extending the spirit of the 
 feudal system (with its serfdom as just pictured) a little 
 further. Buckle exemplifies in ancient French society the 
 servility descending from one grade to another in man ; — 
 " By virtue of which each class exercising great power over 
 the one below it, the subordination and subserviency of the 
 whole were completely maintained. . . . This, in- 
 deed, is but part of the old scheme to create distinctions 
 for which Nature has given no warrant, to substitute a 
 superiority which is conventional for that which is real, and 
 thus try to raise little minds above the level of great ones. 
 The utter failure, and, as society advances, the eventual 
 cessation of all such attempts is certain." But, meanwhile, 
 evil accompaniments are apparent, as Buckle further in- 
 stances by saying : " Le Vassor, who wrote late in the reign 
 of Louis XIV., bitterly says : ' Les Frangais accoutumds a 
 I'esclavage, ne sentent plus la pesanteur de leurs chaines.' " 
 — (" History of Civilisation in England," Vol. II., Chaps 
 III., IV.) 
 
 That the foregoing habits or foibles are human rather 
 
 K 2 
 
132 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 than simply masculine, or that the imitation of them very 
 naturally spreads to the other sex, would seem to be shown 
 by such evidence as Letourneau gives : — 
 
 " In primitive countries the married woman — that is to 
 say, the woman belonging to a man — has herself the con- 
 science of being a thing, a property (it is proved to her often 
 and severely enough), but she does not think of retaliating, 
 especially in what concerns the conjugal relations. More- 
 over, as her condition is oftenest that of a slave over- 
 burdened with work, not only does she not resent the 
 introduction of other women in the house of the master, 
 but she desires it, for the work will be so much the less for 
 herself. Thus among the Zulus the wife first purchased 
 strives and works with ardour in the hope of furnishing her 
 husband with means to acquire a second wife, a companion 
 in misery over whom, by right of seniority, she will have the 
 upper hand."— ("The Evolution of Marriage," Chap. VIII.) 
 
 Yet, in point of fact, this is not woman seeking to 
 establish her own dominion, but rather to secure somewhat 
 more of freedom for herself. As Alexandre Dumas fils tells 
 us, concerning the Mormon women : — 
 
 " Non seulement elles donnent leur consentement a leurs 
 maris, quand ils le leur demandent pour un nouveau mariage, 
 mais elles sont quelquefois les premieres a leur proposer une 
 nouvelle femme qui a, disent-elles, des qualitds necessaires 
 k la communaute, en rdalite pour augmenter un peu la 
 possession d'elles-mgmes, c'est-k-dire leur libertfe." — ("Les 
 Femmes qui Tuent," &c., p. 169.) 
 
 8. — " , . . vassalage to man." 
 
WOMAJV FREE. 133 
 
 The Laureate Rowe makes his heroine bitterly but with 
 reason exclaim : — 
 
 " How hard is the condition of our sex, 
 Through every state of life the slaves of man ! 
 In all the dear delightful days of youth, 
 A rigid father dictates to our wills. 
 And deals out pleasure with a scanty hand : 
 To his, the tyrant husband's reign succeeds; 
 Proud with opinions of superior reason. 
 He holds domestic business and devotion 
 All we are capable to know, and shuts us, 
 Like cloistered idiots, from the world's acquaintance 
 And all the joys of freedom. Wherefore are we 
 Born with high souls, but to assert ourselves, 
 Shake off this vile obedience they exact, 
 And claim an equal empire o'er the world ? " 
 
 —("The Fair Penitent," Act III. sc. i.) 
 
 Letourneau shows the state of feminine tutelage carried 
 still further : " We shall find that in many civilisations 
 relatively advanced, widowhood even does not gratify the 
 woman with a liberty of which she is never thought worthy." 
 And later on he quotes from the code of Manu, Book V. : — 
 " A little girl, a young woman, and an old woman ought 
 never to do anything of their own will, even in their own 
 house. . . . During her childhood a woman depends 
 on her father ; during her youth on her husband ; her 
 husband being dead, on her sons ; if she has no sons, on 
 the near relatives of her husband ; or in default of them, on 
 those of her father ; if she has no paternal relatives, on the 
 
134 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Sovereign. A woman ought never to have her own way." — 
 (" The Evolution of Marriage," Chaps. VII., XII.) 
 
 Can a man be esteemed a human or even a rational 
 being, who would accept or tolerate such terms for the life 
 of his sister" woman — the mother of the generations to 
 come ? 
 
 See also Note XVII., 8. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 1,2. — " . . . fearing that the slave lurself might guess 
 The knavery of her forced enchainedness." 
 
 " Here I believe is the clue to the feeling of those men 
 who have a real antipathy to the equal freedom of women. I 
 believe they are afraid, not lest women should be unwilling 
 to marry . . . but lest they should insist that marriage 
 should be on equal conditions ; but all women of spirit and 
 capacity should prefer doing almost anything else, not in 
 their own eyes degrading, rather than marry, when marrying 
 is giving themselves a master, and a master too of all their 
 earthly possessions. And truly, if this consequence were 
 necessarily incident to marriage, I think that the apprehen- 
 sion would be very well founded." — J S. Mill ("The Sub- 
 jection of Women," p. 51). 
 
 See also Note XL., 4. 
 
 5. — " . . . dogmas ...■." 
 
 These dogmas which, under the guise of religion, were 
 mposed on the acceptance of womanhood, may be aptly 
 
WOMAN FREE. 13S 
 
 summarised and epitomised in the following lines from one 
 of the hierarchs of the system : — 
 
 " To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorn'd : 
 ' My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st 
 Unargued I obey : so God ordains ; 
 God is thy law, thou mine ; to know no more 
 Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.' " 
 
 —("Paradise Lost," Book IV., 634.) 
 
 Concerning which words of Milton well may Mary 
 Wollstonecraft observe, with a quiet sarcasm : — " If it be 
 allowed that women were destined by Providence to acquire 
 human virtues, and, by the exercise of their understand- 
 ings, that stability of character which is the firmest ground 
 to rest our future hopes upon, they must be permitted 
 to turn to the fountain of light, and not forced to shape 
 their course by the twinkling of a satellite." — (" Vindica- 
 tion of the Rights of Woman," Chap. II.) 
 
 Milton also discoursed learnedly, but self-interestedly, 
 concerning divorce, claiming for the husband a privilege 
 and option which he utterly denied to the wife : — '' . . . 
 the power and arbitrement of divorce from the master of 
 the family, into whose hands God and the law of all 
 nations had put it . . . that right which God from 
 the beginning had entrusted to the husband." — ("The 
 Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.") 
 
 It .was this same mediaeval moralist who trained his 
 daughters in the pronunciation of various languages, that 
 they might minister to his comfort by reading to him in 
 those tongues ; while he carefully withheld from them any 
 
136 WOMAIV FREE. 
 
 knowledge of the meaning of the words they were uttering. 
 Could a greater insult or a more degrading ofifice be inflicted 
 on a cultured human intellect? Small wonder that his 
 daughters were sufficiently " undutiful and unkind " — as 
 Milton styled it — to leave him some years before his death. 
 That the possessor of the same virile intellect which penned 
 the " Areopagitica," with its brave freedom, could tolerate 
 and promulgate the servitude and degradation of one half of 
 humanity indicates in him a mental darkness as gross and 
 as pitiable as his physical blindness. 
 
 6, 7. — " . . . sanctimonious name 
 Of ' woman's duty ' . . ." 
 
 " Hitherto the world has been governed by brute force 
 only, which means that the stronger animal, man, has kept 
 the weaker in subjection, allowing her to live only in so far 
 as she ministered to his comforts ; that he has not un- 
 naturally made laws and fixed customs to suit his own 
 pleasure and convenience, always at the expense of the 
 woman ; and, what is worse, that he has in all countries 
 given a religious sanction to his vices, in order to bend the 
 woman to his wishes. ... I might also add that all 
 cruel customs relating to woman have been imposed upon 
 her under the guise of religion, and hence, though so in- 
 jurious and baneful to herself, she is even slower to change 
 them than the man. There is hardly any cruel wrong 
 which has been inflicted in the course of ages by man upon 
 his fellow-man that has not been justified by an appeal to 
 religion." — Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D. ("Address to the 
 Hindoos of Bombay"). 
 
WOMAN FREE. 137 
 
 Id. . . . "There is nothing which men so easily 
 learn as this self-worship : all privileged persons, and all 
 privileged classes, have had it. . . . Philosophy and 
 religion, instead of keeping it in check, are generally 
 suborned to defend it."— J. S. Mill ("The Subjection of 
 Women," p. 77). 
 
 Id. . . . A. Dumas fils speaks of " les femmes, 
 ces ^ternelles mineures des religions et des codes ; '' and of 
 "les arguments a I'aide desquels I'Eglise veut mettre les 
 femmes de son c6t6 " ; and shows as the effect that " II y a 
 des femmes honnStes, esclaves du devoir, pieuses. Leur 
 religion leur a enseigne le sacrifice. Non seulement elles 
 ne se plaignent pas des epreuves a traverser mais elles les 
 appellent pour meriter encore plus la re'compense promise, 
 et elles les benissent quand elles viennent. Tout arrive, 
 pour elles, par la volonte de Dieu, et tout est comme il doit 
 etre dans cette vallee des larmes, chemin de I'dternit^ 
 bienheureuse. . . . D'ailleurs elles ne lisent ni les 
 journaux, ni les livres oil il est question de ces choses-lk ; 
 cette lecture leur est interdite. Si, par hasard, elles avaient 
 connaissance de pareilles idees, . . . elles en rougira- 
 ient, elles en souffriraient pour leur sexe, et elles prieraient 
 pour celles qui se laissent aller a propager de si dangereuses 
 erreurs et \ donner de si deplorables exemples. . . . 
 Mais, pas plus que le bonheur, la ruse, I'ignorance, la 
 misfere et la servitude, la foi aveugle, I'extase, et I'immobi- 
 lit^ volontaire de I'esprit ne sont des arguments sans 
 rdplique." — ("Les Femmes qui Tuent," &c., pp. 10,91, 
 
 ^03-) 
 The evil which Dumas points out is common to all 
 
138 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 religions, of whatever race or make ; the hall-mark of every 
 creed, from Confucianism to Comtism, has been the sub- 
 jection of woman, under the affectation of advocating her 
 highest interests. The pious compound has usually been 
 altered to meet the growing intellectual requirements of 
 common-sense and justice and humanity, and hence the 
 precepts of religion as to feminine conduct have by no 
 means always lain in such lines as the multitude in our modern 
 Western civilisation still enjoins on women. No more 
 than the whole and universal attitude of religion, ancient or 
 modern, as regards woman, is exposed or expressed in the 
 following recapitulation of present or historic facts : — " It is 
 not the chastity of women, as we understand it, but her sub- 
 jection, that Japanese morality requires. The woman is a 
 thing possessed, and her immorality consists simply in dis- 
 posing freely of herself. 
 
 " As regards prostitution, Brahmanic India is scarcely 
 more scrupulous than Japan, and there again we find 
 religious prostitution practised in the temples, analogous to 
 that which An ancient Greece was practised at Cyprus, 
 Corinth, Miletus, Tenedos, Lesbos, Abydos, &c. (Lecky, 
 ' History of European Morals,' Vol. I., p. 103). Accord- 
 ing to the legend, the Buddha himself, Sakyamouni, when 
 visiting the famous Indian town of Vasali, was received 
 there by the great mistress of the courtesans. (Mrs. Spier, 
 'Life in Ancient India,' p. 28)." — Letourneau ("The 
 Evolution of Marriage," Chap. X.). 
 
 The enforcement, or commendation, or acceptance of 
 the practice of prostitution, with its profanation of the 
 dignity and individuality of woman, and its utter careless- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 139 
 
 ness and disregard for either her physical or intellectual 
 well-being, is indubitable evidence of the man-made (i.e., 
 male) origin of such a scheme of religion or ethics or 
 economics. For, as Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham truly remarks : — 
 " If a doubt yet remains on the mind of any reader that I 
 have stated truly the part of the masculine as cause in this 
 terrible phenomenon, let it be considered how man has always 
 introduced prostitution in every country that he has visited, 
 and every island of the sea. Does anyone believe, for example, 
 that if the voyages of discovery and trade had been made by 
 women instead of men, to the islands of the Pacific, this 
 scourge would have been left as the testimony of their visit, 
 so that, in a few generations, the populations native there 
 would have fallen a literal sacrifice to their sensuality, as 
 they are actually falling to man's at this day ? There is no 
 comment needed on the illustration, I am sure. The com- 
 mon sense of every reader will furnish the best comment 
 and answer the question correctly." — ("Woman and Her 
 Era," Vol. II., p. 299.) 
 
 Id. . . . Lastly, but most convincingly, as to the wilful 
 and intentional degradation and subjugation of woman by 
 the teaching and rites of religion, let it be noted that, among 
 the Jews, the very fact of being a woman is made a dis- 
 grace; and woman, the mother of the human race, is 
 insulted accordingly. In the morning synagogue service 
 of prayer, directly after unitedly blessing "Adonai," for 
 bestowing on the barn-door fowl the power to distinguish 
 between night and day, and for not having created the 
 worshippers present heathens or slaves, each member of 
 the male portion of the congregation thanks the same 
 
140 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Adonai "that Thou hast not fashioned me as a woman," 
 while each member of the segregated female portion of the 
 company is instructed to submissively give thanks "that 
 Thou hast fashioned me after Thine own pleasure." The 
 male thanks for not being heathens seem, under the cir- 
 cumstances, conspicuously premature. — (See "Ohel Jakob," 
 i.e., " Jacob's Temple," the " Daily Prayer of the Israel- 
 ites," Fraenkel's ed., Berlin.) 
 
 That the spirit of this Mosaic or Hebrew sexual teaching, 
 with its incongruous assertions and inferences, has com- 
 municated itself deeply to Christianity, may be observed 
 from such passages as i Tim. ii. 13, 14; i Cor. vii., 9; 
 Eph. V. 24 ; Col. iii. 18 ; i Pet. iii. 1,5; and many others. 
 
 a. ... Buckle quotes from "Fergusson on the 
 Epistles," 1656, p. 242 : — "The great and main duty which 
 a wife, as a wife, ought to learn, and so learn as to practice 
 it, is to be subject to her own husband." (See also Note 
 XVII., 8.) And Buckle further cites, from "Fox's Journal," 
 " After the middle of the seventeenth century the Quakers 
 set up ' women's ' meetings, to the disgust of many, and 
 (query, because) in the teeth of St. Paul's opinion." — 
 ("Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works," Vol. I., pp. 375, 
 
 384.) 
 
 Id ... As already said, the " sanctimonious " claim 
 of " woman's duty " runs through all religions. Here, for 
 instance, is what is reported in a leader of the Manchester 
 Guardian of August 15th, 1892 : — 
 
 " In this country no one would place suicide in the ranks of 
 the virtues. Here it is a crime, but in China under certain cir- 
 cumstances it is regarded as an act of heroism and devotion 
 
M'OMAN FREE. 141 
 
 worthy of sympathy and of national recognition. Thus the 
 Governor of Shansi forwarded to the Emperor of China a 
 memorial setting forth the virtues as daughter and wife of a lady 
 in that province. She was of good family, both her father and 
 grandfather having been officials in the district. At the age of 
 ten she showed her love for her mother in a peculiarly Chinese 
 fashion. One of the Celestial beliefs is that medicine acquires 
 efficacy by having mingled with it some human flesh, and the 
 little girl cut some from her own body to be used for the purpose 
 of curing an illness which threatened her mother's life. In 1890 
 she was married to an ' expectant magistrate,' whose expecta- 
 tions were realised by his appointment last autumn to a judicial 
 post. What she had, as a good daughter, done for her mother, 
 she, as a good wife, did also for her husband, who fell ill ; but 
 her remedy was inefficacious, and he died. She was now in a 
 position which, according to the Chinese code of ethics, has no 
 responsibilities for a woman. Without parents, husband, or 
 children to demand her affectionate care, she decided to commit 
 suicide, and apparently not only communicated her intentions to 
 those around her, but had their sympathy and support in her 
 decision. We are told that, 'only waiting till she had completed 
 the arrangements for her husband's interment, she swallowed 
 gold and powder of lead. She handed her trousseau to her 
 relations to defray her funeral expenses, and made presents 
 to the younger members of the family and the servants, after 
 which, draped in her state robes, she sat waiting her end. The 
 poison began to work, and soon all was over." The story of a 
 distracted wife seeking refuge in death from the sorrows of 
 widowhood might doubtless be told of any country in Europe, 
 but the sequel is possible only in China. The Governor of 
 Shansi, struck with the courage of the lady in what he evidently 
 regards as a very proper though somewhat unusual exhibition 
 of conjugal affection, asks in his memorial that the virtuous life 
 and death of the lady may be duly commemorated. The prayer 
 of the memorial has been granted by the Emperor and a 
 memorial arch is to be erected in honour of the sucide. 
 
 8. — " . . . this reasoned day ..." 
 
 See Note XVII., 8. 
 
142 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 I. — " By cant condoned ..." 
 
 "Much has been said by Guizot on the influence of 
 women in developing European civilisation. It is at least 
 certain that several of the fathers did everything they could 
 to diminish that influence. Tertullian bitterly complains of 
 the insolence of women who venture to teach and to 
 baptise. He allows that in case of necessity baptism may 
 be administered by a layman, but never by a woman. 
 Again, among the other crimes of the heretics he particularly 
 enumerates the insolence of their women, who ventured to 
 teach, to dispute, &c., &c. In ' De Cult. Faem,' lib. I. 
 Cap. I., he says : ' Let women remember that they are of the 
 sex of Eve, who ruined mankind, and let them therefore 
 repair this ignominy by living rather in dust than in 
 splendour.' " — Buckle (" Common-Place Book," Note 1870). 
 
 Id. — " . . . man fashioned woman's ' sphere.'" 
 
 " 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, 'their proper sphere.' 
 The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and 
 highest which they are able to attain to. What this is, 
 cannot be ascertained without complete liberty of choice." — 
 Mrs. Harriet Mill (" Enfranchisement of Women,'' IVest- 
 minster Review, July 1851). 
 
 6. — " . civil law , . ." 
 
 For example of this let us look at the law of our own 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 143 
 
 country in even recent times. Blackstone says: — "The 
 husband (by the old law) might give his wife moderate cor- 
 rection. . . . But this power of correction was con- 
 fined within reasonable bounds, and the husband was 
 prohibited from using any violence to his wife, aliter quam 
 ad virum ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris sua licite 
 et rationabiliter pertinet {i.e., otherwise than to a man for 
 the ruling and punishment of his wife, lawfully and reason- 
 ably pertains). The civil law gave the husband the same 
 or a larger authority over his wife, allowing him for some 
 misdemeanours, flagellis etfustibus acriter verberare uxorem 
 (i.e., to severely beat his wife with whips and cudgels), for 
 others, only modicam castigationem adhibere (to administer a 
 inoderate chatisement). But with us, in the politer reign of 
 Charles the Second, this power of correction began to be 
 doubted, and a wife may now {circ. 1750) have security 
 of peace against her husband ; or in return, a husband 
 against his wife. Yet the lower rank of people, who were 
 always fond of the old common law," (query, were the 
 women fond of it ?) " still claim and exert their ancient 
 privilege : and the courts of law will still permit a husband 
 to restrain a wife of her liberty in case of any gross mis- 
 behaviour." (" Commentaries," Edward Christian's Ed., 
 Book I., Chap. XV.) 
 
 Such was undoubtedly the generally accepted and not 
 infrequently acted upon assumption ; and it is certain that 
 the Courts of Law would, in the event of a wife absenting 
 herself from her husband, order her return to his custody ; 
 and would, and did imprison her in default of her com- 
 pliance. And this state of things continued until — as Mrs. 
 
144 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Wolstenholme Elmy records in her history of the celebrated 
 " Clitheroe case " — 
 
 " At length, in the year 1891, and, as in the case of the negro 
 Somerset, upon the return to a writ of habeas corpus, there 
 have been found judges bold enough and just enough to set 
 aside the ancient saws and maxims, resting mainly upon obiter 
 dicta and loose phrases of previous judges used in reference to 
 hypothetical cases never actually before the Courts, and to 
 declare plainly and straightly that the personal slavery of the 
 wife is no part of the law of England. The actual words of the 
 Lord Chancellor in dealing with the return to the writ are, as 
 reported by the Times, March 20th, 1891, as follows : — 
 
 " After stating the circumstances of the marriage, the decree, 
 and the refusal of the wife to cohabit, it states : ' I therefore 
 took my wife, and have since detained her in my house, using 
 no more force or restraint than necessary to take her and keep 
 her.' That is the return which seeks to justify an admitted im- 
 prisonment of this lady. I do not know that I am able to 
 express in sufficiently precise language the difference between 
 ' confinement ' and ' imprisonment,' but if there is any distinction, 
 I can only say that upon these facts I should find an imprison- 
 ment, and looking at the return it is put as a broad proposition 
 that the right of the husband, where there has been a wilful 
 absenting of herself by the wife frorn her husband's house — that 
 it is his right to seize possession of his wife by force, and detain 
 her in his house until she renders him conjugal rights. That is 
 the proposition of law involved in the return, and I am not pre- 
 pared to assent to it. The Legislature has expressly deprived 
 the Matrimonial Court of the power of imprisoning the wife for 
 refusal to comply with a decree for restitution of conjugal rights, 
 and the result of such a system of law, if the husband had the 
 power, would be that whereas the Court had no power to hand 
 the wife over into her husband's hands, but only to punish her 
 for contempt by imprisonment under the control of the Court, 
 and without any circumstances of injury or insult, and even 
 that power was taken away, the husband might himself of his 
 own motion seize and imprison her until she consented to the 
 restitution of conjugal rights. That is the proposition I am 
 called upon to establish by holding this return to be good. 
 I am of opinion that no such right or power exists in law. I am 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 145 
 
 of opinion that no such right ever did exist in our law. What- 
 ever authorities may be quoted for any such proposition, it has 
 always been subject to this condition : that where she has a com- 
 plaint of, or is apprehensive of, ill-usage, the Court will never in- 
 terfere to compel her to return to her husband's custody. Now this 
 brings me to the particular circumstances of this transaction. I 
 am prepared to say that no English subject has a right to im- 
 prison another English subject (who is std Juris, and entitled to 
 a judgment of his or her own) without any lawful authority, but 
 if there were any qualification of that proposition I should be of 
 opinion that on the facts of this case it would afford an ample 
 justification to any Court for refusing to allow the husband in 
 this case to retain the custody of his wife.' 
 
 " On these and other grounds the Lord Chancellor declared 
 that the return of the writ was bad, and ordered that the lady 
 be restored to her liberty, the other judges concurring." — 
 (" The Decision in the Clitheroe Case and its Consequences," 
 PP- 3> 4-) 
 
 Lord Esher was one of the two other Judges, both 
 concurring, who formed the Court of Appeal which granted 
 the writ, and a few days subsequently he gave from his place 
 in the House of Lords the following further statement of 
 his judgment and views : — 
 
 " As I was a party to the judgment, which seems to have 
 been more misunderstood than any judgment I recollect, I, 
 perhaps, may be excused from making an observation. It was 
 urged before the Court of Appeal that by the law of England a 
 husband may beat his wife with a stick if she refuses to obey 
 him, and that if a wife refused her husband conjugal rights, 
 whatever that phrase may mean, which I have never been able 
 to make out, he may imprison her until she restores him con- 
 jugal rights, or satisfies him that she will. All that the Court 
 of Appeal decided was that a husband cannot by the law of 
 England, if the wife objects, lawfully do either of those things, 
 Those intelligent people who have declared that the judgment 
 is wrong must be prepared to maintain the converse — namely, 
 that if a wife disobeys her husband he may lawfully beat her ; 
 and if she refuses him a restitution of conjugal rights he may 
 
146 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 imprison her, it was urged, in the cellar, or in the cupboard, or, 
 if the house is large, in the house, by locking her in it and 
 blocking the windows. I thought, and still think, that the law 
 does not allow these things. . . ."—(The Times, 17th April, 
 1891.) 
 
 Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy further tells us that : — 
 
 " To Lord Selborne the married women of this country owe 
 a further debt of gratitude for his introduction n 1884 of the 
 Matrimonial Causes Act of that session, which put an end to 
 the punishment by imprisonment of the husband or wife who 
 refused to obey the decree of the Court for restitution of con- 
 jugal rights. The arguments of Mr. Lankester and Mr. Finlay 
 in the Clitheroe case^ based upon this abolition of the power of 
 the Court to imprison for disobedience, are known to everyone. 
 It would be destructive not only to personal freedom, but a 
 gross infraction of justice and common-sense, were a husband 
 to be permitted to exercise on his own behalf and at his own 
 pleasure a prerogative of punishment which had been with- 
 drawn from the Court. 
 
 " That this power of imprisonment was not a mere brutum 
 fulmen, but a terrible reality in former days, may be learned 
 from a Suffolk case, early in the present century. A wife in 
 contempt of court, a lady of good family in Suffolk, was im- 
 prisoned in Ipswich goal for disobeying a decree requiring her 
 to render conjugal rights to her husband. At the end of a 
 year and ten months she became in want of the common 
 necessaries of life, and was reduced to the gaol allowance of 
 bread and water ; she suffered from rheumatism and other 
 maladies, which were aggravated by the miseries of her im- 
 prisonment ; and after many years of such suffering died in 
 prison — for she never went back to her husband." — ("The 
 Decision in the Clitheroe Case and its Consequences," p. 9.) 
 
 But while the law has thus been needfully amended in 
 England, a further evil effect has meantime supervened in 
 our dependency of India ; for this faculty of imprisonment 
 by the Courts for non-compliance with their order in the 
 event specified, which has been abolished in^England, seems 
 
WOMAN FREE. 147 
 
 to be still existent and appealed to in our Indian Courts. 
 (See Note XXII., 2.) The strange thing is that the suit 
 for the restitution of conjugal rights is not a matter of native 
 law, but an inadvertent and apparently entirely uninten- 
 tional introduction from our English system ; the very 
 judges who administer the Indian Law being at a loss to 
 account for its appearance in their practice. One authority, 
 in seeking the solution of the problem, declares that — 
 " Mr^, ' could not find any enactment directly es- 
 tablishing suits for the restitution of conjugal rights, and 
 believed there were none ; but that they had been recog- 
 nised in a Stamp Act, and again in the Limitation of Suits 
 Act passed in 187 1.' The material point is that Indian 
 lawgivers have not consciously given this remedy to 'those 
 who did not possess it before ; but that it has slipped into 
 
 our law without design. Mr. thinks ' That this class of 
 
 suits was known in the old Supreme Courts, in the Presi- 
 dency towns, and as between Europeans ; and it was not 
 an improper subject of legislation as regards Stamp Duty 
 or Limitation by Time : but being spoken of without quali- 
 fication was held by the High Courts to be available for all 
 classes of the Indian communities.' If this theory be true, 
 it accounts in an easy way for a change effected without 
 any intention of the Rulers at all. It is worth enquiry into 
 under this aspect." Yes, enquiry and rectification hand in 
 hand ! 
 
 Id. — ". . . and part divine." 
 
 The fact has been that male lawgivers, in whatever land, 
 have generally asserted for their code of feminine ethics or 
 
 L 2 
 
148 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 conduct a divine origin, and have announced the punish- 
 ment for breach thereof as a divine injunction. In very 
 few instances, indeed, was there any attempt to decree an 
 equal punishment to the male who was partner with the 
 female in a mutual breach of this morality, and very fre- 
 quently no punishment of the male attached at all ; and 
 even in the few cases where such a punishment was nominally 
 threatened, the man's share in the offence was most generally 
 connived at, and passed unpunished. This double code 
 of morality has a flagrant exemplification in the English 
 Law of Divorce, by which, while a man can procure a 
 Decree of Divorce on the simple ground of the adultery of 
 his wife, a woman cannot obtain a like decree for her 
 husband's adultery unless that offence be accompanied by 
 such treatment of herself as the Court will recognise as 
 " cruelty," or with " desertion." The double scheme of 
 sexual morality, so revoltingly tolerated, in so far as man is 
 concerned, by " society " in the present day is too patent 
 to need further words here. And the repulsive cant is still 
 that, while the man is allowed to go free, the punishment of 
 the woman is due and commendable as in accordance with 
 " divine law." (See Note XIV., 3.) 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 3,4. — " . . . lowest boor is lordly ' baron' styled. 
 And highest bride as cotnmon 'fet?ie' reviled." 
 
 " . . . husband and wife ; or, as most of our elder 
 law books call them, ' baron ' and ' feme.' " — (Blackstone's 
 "Commentaries," Bk. I. Chap. 15.) 
 
WOMAN FREE. 149 
 
 But the context of the words "baron " and " feme " in- 
 volved something more than a mere fa^on de parler of the 
 law books. Edward Christian says, in Note 23 to the 
 Chapter in " Blackstone '' above quoted : — " Husband and 
 wife, in the language of the law, are styled baron and feme ; 
 the word baron, or lord, attributes to the husband not a 
 very courteous superiority. But we might be inclined to 
 think this merely an unmeaning technical phrase, if we did 
 not recollect, that if the baron kills his feme it is the same 
 as if he had killed a stranger or any other person ; but if 
 the feme kills her baron it is regarded by the laws as a much 
 more atrocious crime, as she not only breaks through the 
 restraints of humanity and conjugal affection, but throws 
 off all subjection to the authority of her husband. And, 
 therefore, the law denominates her crime a species of 
 treason, and condemns her to the same punishment as if 
 she had killed the king. And for every species of treason 
 (though in petit treason the punishment of men was only to 
 be drawn and hanged), till the 30 Geo. III., Chap. 48, the 
 sentence of woman was to be drawn and burnt alive." 
 
 And Mr. Courtney Kenny says, on the same point, that 
 the English Law of Marriage in the twelfth century had 
 " clothed the humblest husband with more than the authority 
 of a feudal lord, and merged his wife's legal existence alto- 
 gether in his own.'' — ("History of the Law of Married 
 Women's Property," p. 8.) 
 
 And he exemplifies the position of the " feme '' as being 
 accurately depicted in the words of Petruchio : — 
 
 " I will be master of what is mine own. 
 She is my goods, my chattels ; she is my house, 
 
ISO WOMAN FREE. 
 
 My household stuff, my field, my barn, 
 My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything." 
 —("The Taming of the Shrew," Act III., scene 2.) 
 
 The picture of the past masculine proprietorship and 
 " buUyism " is scarcely overdrawn. Ere a distant day 
 Englishmen will shudder in reflecting on the male creatures 
 who were their progenitors. 
 
 5, 6. — " The tardier fear that grants the clown a share 
 In his own governance, denies it her." 
 
 By a leading article on Woman Suffrage, in the Times of 
 29th April, 1892, a clear light is thrown on the causes which 
 largely influenced the extension of the Parliamentary fran- 
 chise to the poorer class of male citizens, — "a share of 
 political power which they are not particularly well fitted to 
 use,'' says the Times ; — and which denied the same right of 
 franchise to women of whatever class. The intellect of the 
 Times enounces that — ■ 
 
 " Without desiring to disparage the sex in any way, we must 
 venture to maintain that in both camps a large female con- 
 tingent would be a mischievous element. The female Conser- 
 vative politician would be an obstacle to all rational reform ; 
 the female Liberal politician would be the advocate of every 
 crude and febrile innovation. No doubt we have put plausible 
 arguments in the mouths of mere logic-choppers by treating 
 the franchise as a right rather than as a privilege and a trust. 
 Men can demand a share of political power which they are not 
 particularty well fitted to use, because they possess de facto a 
 share of the physical force upon which all political arrange- 
 ments ultimately repose. Women do not possess such physical 
 force, and, therefore, can prefer no such claim." 
 
 Passing over, as unworthy of serious refutation, the wild 
 
WOMAN FREE. 151 
 
 assertions due to sex-bias in the first part of the above 
 extract, it may be noted how instantly the lauded masculine 
 weapon of logic is discarded and contemned as soon as it 
 points in the direction of equal justice for woman. The 
 "physical force'' question is further dealt with in Note 
 XLV., 6. But considering the words we have italicised, 
 does not the whole of the Times exposition as above justify 
 the appellation of cowardly " fear " ? (See also p. 78.) 
 
 Id. . . . Yet an even more unworthy thing than 
 denial of the suffrage has taken place, in that English 
 women have been really robbed of their earlier franchises. 
 A lady Poor I,aw Guardian of the Te'wkesbury Union has 
 written : — 
 
 "... the present position of women in regard to the 
 various franchises is anomalous and contradictory, unworthy of 
 that great growth of freedom which the nineteenth century has 
 given to men, and degenerate as regards the position which 
 women held in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. 
 Freedom for women has not broadened down ' from precedent 
 to precedent.' Rather has it suffered by unnecessary legislative 
 interference. Every woman, except the Queen, is, politically, 
 non-existent. It was not always so. Restrictions unknown to 
 our ancient constitution have crept in. . . ' . Chief Justice 
 Lee is reported to have cited a case (in a manuscript col- 
 lection of Hakewell's), Catherine v. Surrey, in which it was 
 expressly decided, that a feme sole, if she has a freehold, may 
 vote for members of Parliament ; and a further one (from the 
 same collection). Holt v. Lyle, in which it was decided, that a 
 feme sole householder may claim a voice for Parliament men ; 
 but, if married, her husband must vote for her ; whilst Justice 
 Paeie declared, ' I see no disability in a woman from voting for 
 a Parliament man.' So closely, in the minds of our Judges, 
 were the local and Parliamentary franchises bound up, that a 
 question as to the rights of women in local voting seemed to 
 involve considerations as to their right to vote for Parliament 
 men. 
 
152 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 "Yet, even in the matter of these local franchises, women have 
 suffered, and do suffer, from legislative tinkering and sex- 
 biassed decisions in our law courts. 
 
 "Down to 1835, women, possessing the qualifications which 
 entitled men to vote, voted freely in municipal elections, and in 
 some importapt cities, such as London and Edinburgh, the 
 civic rights even of married women, possessing a separate 
 qualification from the husband, were well established. The 
 Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, however (passed by the 
 Whig administration of Lord Melbourne), was framed upon the 
 evil precedent of the Reform Act of 1832, and by the use of 
 the words 'male persons,' in treating of the franchises under it, 
 disfranchised every woman in the boroughs to which it applied, . 
 and this disfranchisement lasted for thirty-four years. 
 
 ' Nevertheless, in non-corporate districts, women continued to 
 vote as freely as before, and thus secured the ultimate restitu- 
 tion of the rights of their disfranchised sisters in incorporated 
 districts ; for, when in 1869, on the consideration of the 
 Municipal Franchise Bill of that year, these peculiar facts were 
 brought to the notice of the House of Commons, and it was 
 shown that the incorporation of any district involved the 
 summary disfranchisement of the women ratepayers, the House, 
 without a dissentient word, or any shadow of opposition, 
 adopted the proposal to omit the word 'male ' before the word 
 ' person ' in Section i of the Bill, and thus restored the rights 
 of the women ratepayers, of whom many thousands voted, as a 
 consequence of the passing of the Act, in the municipal 
 elections of thefollowing November." — Mrs. Harriett Mcllquham 
 ("The Enfranchisement of Women : An Ancient Right, a 
 Modern Need," pp. 5, 12, 13. 
 
 8. — " . . . infants, felons, fools . . ." 
 
 This legal courteousness has afforded Miss Frances Power 
 Cobbe the text for an instructive paper: " Criminals, Idiots, 
 Women, and Minors : Is the Classification Sound?" 
 {Eraser's Magazine, December, 1868.) 
 
 A recent instance of the official collocation is to be found 
 in the Act 5 and 6 Vict., Cap. 35, Sec. 41 : — 
 
WOMAN FREE. 153 
 
 " And be it enacted, that the trustee, guardian, tutor, 
 curator, or committee of any person, being an infant, or 
 married woman, lunatic, idiot, or insane, and having the 
 direction, control, or management of the property or con- 
 cern of such infant, married woman, lunatic, idiot, or insane 
 person, whether such infant, married woman, lunatic, idiot, 
 or insane person shall reside in the United Kingdom or 
 not," etc., etc. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 7. — " . . . every bond erased . . ." 
 
 " In the struggle of the races, keeping in view the teach- 
 ings of evolutionists, the most reasonable and sensible thing, 
 in addition to its justness, appears to be this : 
 
 "First, to place women on an equal footing with men, 
 socially, and in the eyes of the law. Before that is done, it 
 is useless to talk about women's superiority or equality. It 
 is all breath and words, or paper and ink. In the eyes of 
 the law she is man's inferior. That is not all. In the eyes 
 of the law the most cultured woman is inferior to the most 
 uncultured man ; she is, in fact, pretty much on a level 
 with a baby, or a boy or girl under age. Moreover, the 
 most cultured woman in the United Kingdom is considered 
 inferior, politically, to the American negro I 
 
 "Second, let the two sexes settle matters among them- 
 selves, as far as intellect is concerned, as men now settle 
 matters among themselves, without imposing on each other 
 any disibility. Those of both sexes who are weak will soon 
 find their intellectual level ; and those of both sexes who 
 
1 54 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 are strong will soon come to the front." — Emanuel Bonavia, 
 M.D. (" Woman's Frontal Lobes "). 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 2. — " . . . equal power of rule . . ." 
 
 " Where women walk in public processions in the streets 
 the same as the men, 
 Where they enter the public assembly and take places 
 
 the same as the men ; . . . 
 Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands, 
 Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands, 
 Where the city of the best bodied mothers stands, 
 There the great city stands." 
 
 — Walt Whitman (" Song of the Broad Axe '). 
 
 3. — " ffer voice in council a?id in senate . . ." 
 
 " Is there so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties, 
 that society can afford to reject the service of any com- 
 petent person ? Are we so certain of always finding a man 
 made to our hands for any duty or function of social im- 
 portance which falls vacant, that we lose nothing by putting 
 a ban on one half of mankind and refusing beforehand to 
 make their faculties available, however distinguished they 
 may be ? And even if we could do without them, would it 
 be consistent with justice to refuse to them their fair share 
 of honour and distinction, or to deny to them the equal right 
 of all human beings to choose their occupation (short of 
 injury to others) according to their own preferences, at their 
 
WOMAN FREE. 155 
 
 own risk? Nor is the injustice confined to them, it is 
 shared by those who are in a position to benefit by their 
 services. To ordain that any kind of persons shall not be 
 physicians, or shall not be advocates, or shall not be 
 members of parUament, is to injure not them only, but all 
 who employ physicians, or advocates, or elect members of 
 parliament."— J. S. Mill ("The Subjection of Women," 
 p. 94). 
 
 4. — " , . . harmonising word . . ." 
 
 "... the main reason why so many thoughtful 
 women now claim direct Parliamentary representation is an 
 unselfish one. They desire to take their full share in the 
 service of the race; to help to solve those grave social 
 problems now so urgently pressing, and which demand for 
 their solution the combined resources of the wisdom, ex- 
 perience, and heart of both halves of humanity. They- 
 know that the time is fast coming — if, indeed, it be not 
 already come — which will need for its direction and control 
 something more than diplomatic cleverness or political 
 manoeuvring, which will demand the clearer conscience and 
 the more sensitive perception of justice born of imaginative 
 sympathy. It is because they hope and believe that in 
 virtue of their faculty of motherhood tliey can contribute 
 somewhat of these elements to the world's well-being, and 
 can thus speed its progress towards a nobler future, that 
 they claim full right and power to follow and fulfil their 
 highest conceptions of duty." — Elizabeth C. Wolstenholme 
 Elmy ("The Decision in the Clitheroe Case and its 
 Consequences," p. 17). 
 
156 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 7. — " Self-reverent each and reverencing each." 
 — A line from Part VII. of Tennyson's " Princess." 
 Id. . . " The exigencies of the new hfe are no more 
 exclusive of the virtues of generosity than those of the old, 
 but it no longer entirely depends on them. The main 
 foundations of the moral life of modern times must be 
 justice and prudence ; the respect of each for the rights of 
 every other, and the ability of each to take care of himself." 
 —J. S. Mill ("The Subjection of Women," p. 159). 
 
 XL. 
 
 I. — " . . . dut a slave himself . . ." 
 
 " The domination of either sex over the other paralyses 
 the dominion of either." — Ellen Sarah, Lady Eowyer 
 (Letter to Daily News, 24th October, 1891). 
 
 Id. . . 
 
 " Can man be free if woman be a slave ? 
 
 Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air 
 
 To the corruption of a closed grave ! 
 
 Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear 
 
 Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare 
 
 To trample their oppressors ? " 
 
 —Shelley ("The Revolt of Islam," Canto 2, s. xliii.). 
 
 2. — ". . . she to shape her own career be free . . ." 
 
 " Not less wrong — perhaps even more foolishly wrong 
 — is the idea that woman is only the shadow and atten- 
 dant image of her lord, owing him a thoughtless and 
 
WOMAN FREE. 157 
 
 servile ubedience, and supported altogether in her weak- 
 ness by the pre-eminence of his fortitude. This, I say, is 
 the most foolish of all errors, respecting her who was made 
 to be the helpmate of -man. As if he could be helped 
 effectively by a shadow, or worthily by a slave." — John 
 Ruskin (" Of Queens' Gardens,'' p. 125). 
 
 4. — " Free inistres<: of her persorHs sacred plan.'' 
 
 m 
 
 Eliza W. Farnham (in " Woman and Her Era," Vol. II., p. 
 92) clearly enunciates the depth of degradation and slavery 
 from which woman's person must be freed : — " When this 
 mastery is established, and ownership of her becomes a fixed 
 fact, she who was worshipped, vowed to as an idol, deferred 
 to as a mistress, required to conform herself to nothing 
 except the very pleasant requirement that she should take 
 her own way in everything ; to come and go, to accept or 
 reject, to do or not, at her own supreme pleasure — this 
 being may find herself awaking in a state of subjection 
 which deprives her of the most sacred right to her own 
 person — makes her the slave of an»exacting demand that 
 ignores the conditions, emotions, susceptibilities, pains, and 
 pleasures of her life, as tyrannically and systematically as if 
 she were indeed an insensate chattel." 
 
 Happily, as far as England is concerned, our law no 
 longer lends its power to enforce such a position. 
 
 5. — " Free human soul . . ." 
 
 Woman's deep and wholesome impulse and yearning for 
 individual freedom and selfdom is well-spoken in the 
 following lines, by an anonymous writer ; touchingly shown 
 
1^8 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 also is the unsufficingness to her soul of even the most 
 honeyed of unequal positions :— 
 
 " Oh, to be alone ! 
 To escape from the work, the play, 
 The talking every day ; 
 
 To escape from all I have done, 
 And all that remains to do. 
 To escape — yes, even from you. 
 
 My only love, and be 
 
 Alone and free. 
 
 Could I only stand 
 Between gray moor and gray sky. 
 Where the winds and the plovers cry. 
 
 And no man is at hand ; 
 And feel the free wind blow 
 On my rain-wet face, and know 
 
 I am free — not yours, but my own — • 
 
 Free, and alone ! 
 
 For the soft firelight 
 And the home of your heart, my dear. 
 They hurt, being always here. 
 
 I want to stand upright, 
 And to cool my eyes in the air. 
 And to see how my back can bear 
 
 Burdens*— to try, to know, 
 
 To learn, to grow ! 
 
 I am only you ! 
 I am yours, part of you, your wife ! 
 And I have no other life. 
 
 I cannot think, cannot do ; 
 I cannot breathe, cannot see ; 
 There is ' us,' but there is not ' me ' : — 
 
 And worst, at your kiss I grow 
 
 Contented so." 
 
 7. — " From woman slavecan come but menial race,^' 
 If the result to the family is such as I have described 
 
WOMAN FREE. 159 
 
 what must be the effect on the race? A slow but sure 
 degeneration. And has this not taken place ? Is the race 
 now such as you read of it in early times before the Mogul 
 invasion brought the Zenana and child marriage in its 
 train ? Where are the Rajputs and the Mahrattas with 
 their manly exercises and their mental vigour ? For cen- 
 turies you have been children of children, and there is no 
 surer way of becoming servants of servants." — Mrs. Pechey 
 Phipson, M.D. ("Address to the Hindoos," p. 9). 
 
 Id. . . "If children are to be educated to under- 
 stand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be 
 a patriot." — -Mary Wollstonecraft (Letter to Talleyrand). 
 
 8. — " TAe mother free confers her freedom and her grace." 
 
 " The child follows the blood of the mother ; the son of a 
 slave or serf father and a noble woman is noble. ' It is 
 the womb which dyes the child,' they say in their primitive 
 language. . . . 'The woman bears the clan,' say the 
 Wyandot Indians, just as our ancestors said ' The womb 
 dyes the child ! ' " — Letourneau (" The Evolution of Mar- 
 riage," Ch. XL, XVIL). 
 
 XLI. 
 
 I. — " £y her the progress of our future kind" 
 
 " What may man be ? Who can tell ? But what may 
 woman be 
 To have power over man from cradle to corruptible 
 grave ? " 
 
 —William Blake (" Jerusalem "). 
 
 /d. . . " The application of the Pfeiffer bequest, ' for 
 
i6o WOMAN FREE. 
 
 charitable and educational purposes in favour of women,' 
 has been delayed by legal difficulties, but the Attorney 
 General has now submitted to the Court of Chancery a first 
 list of awards. Details given in the Journal of Education 
 show that Girton and Newnham Colleges receive £5,000 each, 
 whilst Bedford College, Somerville Hall, the New Hospital 
 for Women, the Maria Grey Training College, and a number of 
 other institutions benefit by slightly smaller sums. The be- 
 quests will doubtless be welcomed by the recipients, for all the 
 institutions included so far are doing useful work with very 
 inadequate means, and it is to be hoped that the generous 
 example of the London merchant and his literary wife will be 
 often followed in the future. Women's education^-and girls', 
 too, for that matter — in this country is almost unendowed, and 
 is yet expected to produce results equal to those gained in the 
 richly endowed foundations for boys and men. The interest of 
 the Pfeiffer bequest, however, lies rather in the spirit that 
 prompted it and in the views of progress held by the donors 
 than in the generosity of the gift or the precise manner of its 
 distribution. In a letter explaining his wishes, Mr. Pfeiffer 
 remarks : — 
 
 " I have always had and am adhering to the idea of 
 leaving the bulk of my property in England for charitable 
 and educational purposes in favour of women. Theirs is, 
 to my mind, the great influence of the future. Education 
 and culture and responsibility in more than one direction, 
 including that of politics, will gradually fit them for the 
 exercise of every power that could possibly work towards 
 the regeneration of mankind. It is women who have hither- 
 to had the worst of life, but their interest, and with their 
 interest that of humanity, is secured, and I therefore am 
 determined to help them to the best of my ability and 
 means." — Manchester Guardian, June 7th, 1892. 
 
 " Men are what their mothers made them. You may as 
 well ask a loom which weaves huckaback, why it does not 
 
WOMAN FREE. i6i 
 
 make cashmere, as expect poetry from this engineer, or a 
 chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger in the 
 ditch to explain Newton's laws ; the fine organs of his brain 
 have been pinched by overwork and squalid poverty from 
 father to son, for a hundred years. When each comes forth 
 from his mother's womb, the gate of gifts closes behind 
 him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but one 
 pair. So he has but one future, and that is already pre- 
 determined in his lobes, and described in that little fatty 
 face, pig-eye, and squat form." — Emerson (Essay on Fate). 
 
 Id. . . "The British race cannot afford to dispense 
 with all the advantage that may be in embryo in the future 
 female intellect, because men and some women are found 
 who declare that women are intellectually inferior. . . . 
 No amount of prayers and wishes and submitting to God's 
 will are of any avail. You must use the organs of the in- 
 tellect in order, not only to increase their efficiency, but 
 to prevent their going from bad to worse. It might here 
 be noted, that because the British people might choose to 
 be satisfied with atrophy of the intellect lobes in their 
 mothers, it will not at all follow that other nations will 
 do so also. If such things as nations exist, there will 
 always be rivalry and competition, and depend upon it 
 those will be first whose mothers generally possess the 
 most efficient intellect lobes. . . . Fortunately we 
 have learnt another great lesson, evolved by Charles Dar- 
 win's frontal lobes, and that is, that there is no such thing 
 as & fixed and unalterable tissue or organism anywhere. All 
 organisms and parts of organisms are changeable. Every- 
 thing — organ and organism — has changed in the past, is 
 
 M 
 
1 62 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 changing in the present, and will change in the future in 
 accordance with the conditions that surround it. Women's 
 frontal lobes and grey matter will certainly be no exception 
 to the rule. Emancipation, keeping her eyes open, and 
 thinking for herSelf are the three main things she has to 
 keep hammering at, until the lords of creation see that 
 they are the right things to do, to save future generations 
 from universal imbecihty." — E. Bonavia, M.D. ("Woman's 
 Frontal Lobes "). 
 
 2. — " Their stalwart body and their spacious mind :'' 
 
 " If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
 How shall men grow ? " 
 
 ■ — Tennyson ("The Princess," Canto 7). 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 8. — " Where lies her richest gift, . . ." 
 
 " As I have already said more than once, I consider it 
 presumption in anyone 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 spon- 
 taneous 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 diiference, or 
 perhaps any difference at all, in the character and capacities 
 
WOMAN FREE. 163 
 
 which would unfold themselves."— J. S. Mill ("The Sub- 
 jection of Women," p. 104). 
 
 XLIV. 
 4. — " . . . the freeman, equable . . ." 
 
 " The freeman assuredly scorns equally to insult and to be 
 insulted." — Alexander Walker ("Woman as to Mind," 
 p. 205). 
 
 XLV. 
 2. — " . . . equal freedom, equal fate . . ." 
 
 " As long as boys and girls run about in the dirt, and 
 trundle hoops together, they are both precisely alike. 
 If you catch up one half of these creatures and train them 
 to a particular set of actions and opinions, and the other 
 half to a perfectly opposite set, of course their understand- 
 ings will differ, as one or the other sort of occupations has 
 calleS this or that talent into action. There is surely no 
 occasion to go into any deeper or more abstruse reasoning 
 in order to explain so very simple a phenomenon." — Sydney 
 Smith (" Female Education"). 
 
 Id. . . "Was it Mary Somerville who had to hide 
 her books, and study her mathematics by stealth after all 
 the family had gone to sleep, for fear of being scolded and 
 worried because she allowed her intellect full scope ? She 
 has now a bust in the Royal Institution ! . . . What- 
 ever view of the case theoretical considerations may suggest, 
 there is one fact beyond cavil, and it is this : that the 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 female frontal lobes are not only capable of equalling in 
 power the male lobes, but can surpass them when allowed 
 free scope. This has been recently proved in one of the 
 universities, where a woman surpassed the senior wrangler 
 in mathematics — an essentially intellectual work." — Dr. 
 Emanuel Bonavia ("Woman's Frontal Lobes"). 
 
 The "girl graduate" last referred to is Miss Philippa 
 Fawcett at the University Examinations, Cambridge, in 
 June, 1890. 
 
 3. — " Together reared . . ." 
 
 " We find a good example in the United States,^ where, to 
 the horror of learned and unlearned pedants of both sexes, 
 numerous colleges exist in which large numbers of young 
 men and women are educated together. And with what 
 results ? President White, of' the University of Michigan, 
 expresses himself thus : ' For some years past a young 
 woman has been the best scholar of the Greek language 
 among 1,300 students ; the best student in mathematics in 
 one of the classes of our institution is a young woman, and 
 many of the best scholars in natural and general science 
 are also young women.' Dr. Fairchild, President of 
 Oberlin College in Ohio, in which over 1,000 students of 
 both sexes study in mixed classes, says : ' During an ex- 
 perience of eight years as Professor of the ancient languages, 
 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and in the branches of ethics 
 and philosophy, and during an experience of eleven years 
 in theoretical and applied mathematics, the only difiference 
 which I have observed between the sexes was in the 
 manner of their rhetoric' Edward H. Machill, President 
 
WOMAN FREE. 165 
 
 of Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania, tells us that an ex- 
 perience of four years has forced him to the conclusion 
 that the education of both sexes in common leads to the 
 best moral results. This may be mentioned in passing as 
 a reply to those who imagine such an education must 
 endanger morality." — ^Bebel (" Women," Walther's Transla- 
 tion, p. 131). (See also Notes to line 7, forward.) 
 
 It is of good omen that the precedent thus set in America 
 is finding a following in our own isle also. All honour to 
 the University of St. Andrews, concerning which sundry 
 newspapers of isth March, 1892, relate that: "The 
 Senatus Academicus of the University of St. Andrews has 
 agreed to open its classes in arts, science, and theology to 
 women, who will be taught along with men. The Univer- 
 sity will receive next year a sum of over _;^3o,ooo to be 
 spent on bursaries, one half of the sum to be devoted to 
 women exclusively. Steps are being taken to secure a hall 
 of residence in which the women students may live while 
 attending the University classes." 
 
 Id. — " . . . in purity and truth, 
 
 Through plastic childhood and retentive youth." 
 
 "Je voudrais que ce petit volume apportit au lecteur 
 un peu de la jouissance que j'ai godtee en le com- 
 posant. II complete mes Souvenirs, et mes souvenirs sont 
 une partie essentielle de mon ceuvre. Qu'ils augmentent 
 ou qu'ils diminuent mon autoritd philosophique, ils expli- 
 quent, ils montrent I'origine de mes jugements, vrais ou 
 faux. Ma mfere, avec laquelle j'ai 6t6 si pauvre, k cotd de 
 laquelle j'ai travaille des heures, n'interrompant mon travail 
 
1 66 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 que pour lui dire : ' Maman, etes-vous contente de moi ? ' 
 mes petites amies d'enfance qui m'enchantaient par leur 
 gentillesse discrete, ma soeur Henriette, si haute, si pure, 
 qui, k vingt ans, m'entraina dans la voie de la raison et me 
 tendit la main pour franchir un passage difficile, ont 
 embaume le commencement de ma vie d'un arome qui 
 durera jusqu'a la mort." — Ernest Renan ("Souvenirs 
 d'Enfance."). 
 
 5. — '-" Their mutual sports of sinew and of brain " 
 
 " No boy nor girl should leave school without possessing 
 a grasp of the general character of science, and without 
 having been disciplined more or less in the methods of all 
 sciences ; so that when turned into the world to make their 
 own way, they shall be prepared to face scientific problems, 
 not by knowing at once the conditions of every problem, or 
 by being able at once to solve it, but by being familiar with 
 the general current of scientific thought, and by being able 
 to apply the methods of science in the proper way, when 
 they have acquainted themselves with the conditions of the 
 special problem." — T. H. Huxley (" Essay on Scientific 
 Education"). 
 
 And the same learned professor tells us, on another 
 occasion : — " A liberal education is an artificial education 
 which has not only prepared a man to escape the great 
 evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has trained him 
 to appreciate and to seize upon the rewards which Nature 
 scatters with as free a hand as her penalties. That man, I 
 think," (shall we not include " woman " also, on his own 
 showing as above ?) " has had a liberal education who has 
 
WOMAN FREE. 167 
 
 been so trained in youth thai his body is the ready servant 
 of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work 
 that, as a mechanism, it is capable of ; whose intellect is a 
 clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts in equal strength 
 and in smooth working order, ready, like a steam engine, to 
 be turned to every kind of work, and spin the gossamers 
 as well as forge the anchors of the mind ; whose mind is 
 stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental 
 truths of Nature, and of the laws of her operations ; one 
 who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose 
 passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the 
 servant of a tender conscience ; who has learned to love all 
 beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and 
 to respect others as himself. 
 
 " Such an one, and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal 
 education, for he is as completely as a man can be in 
 harmony with Nature. He will make the best of her, and 
 she of him. They will get on together rarely ; she as his 
 ever beneficent mother, he as her mouthpiece, her conscious 
 self, her minister, and interpreter." — Fd. (" Essay on a 
 Liberal Education.") 
 
 6. — " In strength alike the sturdy comrades train; , . ." 
 
 How largely strength is simply a matter of training may 
 be instanced by a case or two : — 
 
 " The results of practice and training from childhood on 
 the bodily development can be seen in female acrobats and 
 circus riders, who could compete with any man in courage, 
 daring, dexterity, and strength, and whose performances 
 are frequently astonishing." — Bebel ("Woman," p. 126). 
 
1 68 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 " I am a medical man. I have spent several years in 
 Africa, and have seen human nature among tribes whose 
 habits are utterly unlike those of Europe. I had been 
 accustomed to believe that the tnuscular system of women 
 is necessarily feebler than that of men, and perhaps I 
 might have dogmatised to that effect ; but, to my astonish- 
 ment, I found the African women to be as strong as our 
 men. . . . Not only did I see the proof of it in their 
 work and in the weights which they lifted, but on examin- 
 ing their arms I found them large and hard beyond all my 
 previous experience. On the contrary, I saw the men of 
 these tribes to be weak, their muscles small and flabby. 
 Both facts are accounted for by the habits of the people. 
 The men are lazy in the extreme ; all the hard work is 
 done by the women." — {Westminster Review, Oct., 1865, 
 
 P- 3S5-) 
 
 " Les femmes Sphakiotes ne le cedent en rien aux 
 hommes pour la vigueur et I'energie. J'ai vu un jour une 
 femme ayant un enfant dans les bras et un sac de farine sur 
 la tete, gravir, malgrd ce double fardeau, la pente escarpde 
 qui conduit k Selia." — Jules Ballot (" Histoire de insur- 
 rection Cretoise," Paris, 1868, p. 251). 
 
 Id. ' .' . In this context it is pleasant to find in the 
 newspapers such a note as the following : — 
 
 " The frost continued throughout West Cheshire yesterday, 
 and skating on rather rough ice was largely enjoyed. At 
 Eaton, where the Duke of Westminster is entertaining a party, 
 the guests had a hockey match on the frozen fish-pond in 
 front of the hall. The players, who kept the game up with 
 spirit for over an hour, included the Duchess of Westminster, 
 the Marquis and Marchioness of Ormonde, Lady Beatrice and 
 
WOMAN FREE. 169 
 
 Lady Constance BuUer, Lord Arthur Grosvenor, Lord Gerald 
 Grosvenor, Lady Margaret and Lady Mary Grosvenor, Captain 
 and Mrs. Cawley, Hon. Mrs. Norman Grosvenor, Hon. Mrs. 
 Thomas Grosvenor, General Julian Hall, and party." — {Man- 
 chester Courier, 12th Jan., 1892.) 
 
 Later on in the year we read in the journal Woman : — 
 
 " At the Marlow Regatta an extremely pretty girl in navy 
 
 serge, built Eton fashion, was a Miss , who wore as an 
 
 under-bodice a full vest of shaded yellow Indian silk. Her 
 prowess with the oar is the cause of daily admiration to the 
 Marlowites." 
 
 Again, on August isth, 1892, the Manchester Evening 
 Mail has the following : — 
 
 "An ailing 'navvy,' who has been engaged in some works 
 near Versailles, was a few days ago admitted to a hospital in 
 that town. Before the sick person had long been in the institu- 
 tion it was discovered that the apparent 'navvy' was a woman. 
 The superintendent of the hospital was not in the least surprised 
 on hearing of the transformation scene, for it appears that he is 
 accustomed to deal with many woman patients who enter the 
 hospital in male attire. It is common in the district (says a 
 Paris correspondent) for robust women to don men's garb in 
 order to obtain remunerative employment as navvies, porters, 
 farm labourers, road menders, or assistants to bricklayers, 
 masons, and builders. It has long been established that the 
 average Frenchwoman of town or country has as great a 
 capacity for work either in counting-houses, shops, fields, or 
 farms as her lord and master has for laziness and lolling in the 
 cafds, playing dominoes, and smoking cigarettes." 
 
 On the preceding day, August 14th, 1892, the St. Peters- 
 burg journals reported that : — 
 
 " Ces jours-ci sera ^rig^ 4 SSbastopol le monument elevS en 
 I'honneur des Femmes de cette ville qui, en 18^4, ont construit 
 seules une balterie contre les troupes alliees. C'est une 
 pyramide taillee en granit d'une hauteur de cinquante pieds. 
 
170 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Sur un cotd est dcrit en lettres d'or : ' C'est ici que se trouvait la 
 batterie des Femmes ' ; sur I'autre face las mots suivants sont 
 graves : 'A cet endroit, en 1854, les Femmes de Sebastopol ont 
 consiruit une batterie.' Le jour de I'inauguration de ce monu- 
 ment n'est pas encore fixe. L'impdratrice se fera repr^senter k 
 I'inauguration par un grand-due." 
 
 And, in October, 1892, the "sporting" newspapers re- 
 corded that : — 
 
 " Women are gradually coming to the fore as bicycle riders. 
 Miss Dudley, a well-known rider, has just accomplished a feat 
 which would have seemed wonderful for any rider not long ago. 
 She has ridden from a spot near Hitchin to Lincoln, a distance 
 of 100 miles, in little more than seven hours, or at the average 
 speed of about fourteen miles an hour. Mr. and Mrs. Smith 
 are well known as tandem riders, and they have won many 
 races together ; but this is, perhaps, the first recorded instance 
 of a woman cyclist holding her own so well, unaided, in a long 
 road ride." 
 
 See also " The Lancashire pit-brow women," Note 
 XVIII., 8. 
 
 7. — ■" Of differing sex no thought inept intrudes" 
 
 " I have conversed, as man with man, with medical men 
 on anatomical subjects, and compared the proportions of 
 the human body with artists — ^yet such modesty did I meet 
 with that I was never reminded by word or look of my sex, 
 and the absurd rules which make modesty a pharisaical 
 cloak of weakness." — Mary Wollstonecraft ("The Rights of 
 Woman," p. 278). 
 
 " As a careful observer remarks, true modesty lies in the 
 entire absence of thought upon the subject. Among 
 medical students and artists the nude causes no extra- 
 ordinary emotion; indeed, Flaxman asserted that the 
 
WOMAN FREE. 171 
 
 students in entering the Academy seemed to hang up 
 their passions along with their hats." — Westermarck (" His- 
 tory of Human Marriage," p. 194). 
 
 Id. . . "This is strikingly exemplified in the 
 curious conversation recorded in Lylie's 'Euphues' and his 
 'England,' edit. 1605, 4to, signature X — Z 2, where young 
 unmarried people of both sexes meet together and discuss 
 without reserve the ticklish metaphysics of love. But 
 though treading on such • slippery ground, it is remarkable 
 that they never, even by allusion, fall into grossness. Their 
 delicate propriety is not improbably the effect of their 
 liberty."— Buckle ("Common-place Book," No. 856). 
 
 8. — " Tkeir purpose calmly sure all errant aim excludes" 
 
 " We point to a present remedy for undergraduate ex- 
 cesses, which, resting on the soundest theory, has also the 
 demonstration of unquestioned fact. It is co-education. 
 Cease to separate human beings because of sex. They are 
 conjoined in the family, in the primary and grammar 
 schools, in society, and, after the degree rewards four years 
 of monastic student existence, in the whole career of life. 
 
 " Throw open the doors of Harvard to women on equal 
 terms, absorb the annexe into the college proper, and as the 
 night follows the day, scholarship will rise and dissipation 
 fall by the law of gravitation. The moral atmosphere will 
 find immediate purification, and the daily association of 
 brothers and sisters in intellectual pursuits impart a breadth 
 of view which is an education in itself. The professors 
 may then be left safely to their themes, John Harvard's 
 statue may cease to dread defilement, the regent will find 
 
172 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 his censorial duties fully as perfunctory as he seems to have 
 made them in the past, and character will crowd out 
 profligacy." — William Lloyd Garrison (in Woman's Journal, 
 Boston, U.S., 6th February, 1892). 
 
 "Whatsoever is ultimately decided by the wisdom of 
 ages to be the best possible form of culture for one human 
 nature, must be so for another, for one common humanity 
 lies deeper in all and is more essential in each than any 
 difference." — Sophia Jex-Blake, M.D. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 3. — " . . . impartial range . . ." 
 
 Preparation in this direction is going steadily forward, not 
 only in the Western hemisphere, but in the Eastern. It is 
 announced (in August, 1892) that 
 
 " Lady students at the five Universities in Switzerland number 
 224. Berne is the most popular, with 78 female undergraduates; 
 Zurich has 70 ; Geneva 70 ; the new University of Lausanne 
 has five ; and Basle one. The medical faculty is in most favour 
 with the female students, and counts 157 of the whole number; 
 the philosophical faculty follows with 62 ; five prefer the faculty 
 of jurisprudence ; the theological faculty has not yet been in- 
 vaded by the sex. More than half of the female students, 116, 
 are Russians, 21 Germans, 21 Swiss, 11 Americans,, nine 
 Austrians, seven Bulgarians, four English, three Roumanians, 
 and three from the Turkish Empire, all of whom are young 
 Armenian ladies." 
 
 4. — " . . . wider ivisdom . . .' 
 
 Such wider wisdom — without the preliminary suffering 
 — as the poet had attained to, when he wrote : — 
 
WOMAN FREE. it 2, 
 
 " I have climbed to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field 
 in the Past, 
 Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs 
 of a low desire ; 
 But I hear no yelps of the beast, and the man is quiet 
 at last. 
 As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse 
 of a height that is higher." 
 
 — Tennyson (" By an Evolutionist "). 
 
 Id. — " . . . juster ethics, teach; . . " 
 
 " For we see that it is possible to interpret the ideals 
 of ethical progress, through love and sociality, co-operation 
 and sacrifice, not as mere Utopias contradicted by experience, 
 but as the highest expressions of the central evolutionary 
 process of the natural world. . . . The older biologists 
 have been primarily anatomists, analysing and comparing 
 the form of the organism, separate and dead ; however in- 
 completely, we have sought rather to be physiologists, 
 studying and interpreting the highest and intensest activity 
 of things living. . . . It is much for our pure natural 
 history to recognise that ' creation's final law ' is not struggle, 
 but love." — Geddes and Thomson (" The Evolution of Sex," 
 pp. 312, 313). 
 
 5, 6. — " Conformed to claims of intellect and need, 
 
 The tempered numbers of their highborn breed;" 
 
 "There is a problem creeping gradually forward upon 
 us, a problem that will have to be solved in time, and that 
 is the steady increase of population. , . , I believe 
 
174 WOMAN FUSE. 
 
 that with the emancipation of women we shall solve this 
 problem now. Fewer children will be born, and those that 
 are born will be of a higher and better physique than the 
 present order of men. The ghastly abortions, which in 
 many parts pass muster nowadays, owing to the unnatural 
 physical conditions of society, as men, women, and children, 
 will make room for a nobler and higher order of beings, 
 who will come to look upon the production of mankind in 
 a diseased or degraded state as a wickedness and unpardon- 
 able crime, against which all men and women should fight 
 and strive." — Lady Florence Dixie (" Gloriana," p. 137). 
 
 Id. . . And Mrs. Mona Caird says : — " If the new 
 movement had no other efiFect than to rouse women to 
 rebellion against the madness of large families, it would 
 confer a priceless benefit on humanity." — {Nineteenth 
 Century, May, 1892.) 
 
 Id. . . "To bring a child into existence without a 
 fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its 
 body, but instruction and training for fts mind, is a moral 
 crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against 
 society. . . . The fact itself of causing the existence of 
 a human being, is one of the most responsible actions 
 in the range of human life. To undertake this responsi- 
 bility — to bestow a life which may be either a curse or a 
 blessing — unless the being on whom it is bestowed will have 
 at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a 
 crime against that being. And in a country either over- 
 peopled, or threatened with being so, to produce children, 
 beyond a very small number, with the effect of reducing the 
 reward of labour by their competition, is a serious offence 
 
WOMAN FREE. 175 
 
 against all who live by the remuneration of their labour."— 
 J. S. Mill (" Liberty," Chap. V.). 
 
 Id. . . A. Dumas fils draws a true and piteous 
 picture in which this element of the unintelligent over- 
 production of human beings has the largest share : — 
 
 " II y a, et c'est la masse, les femmes du peuple et de la 
 campagne suant du matin au soir pour gagner le pain 
 quotidien, faisant ainsi ce que faisaient leurs meres, et met- 
 tant au monde, sans savoir pourquoi ni comment, des filles 
 qui, k leur tour, feront comma elles, \ moins que, plus jolies, 
 et par consequent plus insoumises, elles ne sortent du 
 groupe par le chemin tentant et facile de la prostitution, 
 mais oil le labeur est encore plus rude. Le dos courbe sous 
 le travail du jour, regardant la terre quand elles marchent, 
 domptees par la misfere, vaincues par I'habitude, asservies 
 aux besoins des autres, ces creatures k forme de femme ne 
 supposent que leur condition puisse etre modifiee jamais. 
 Elles n'ont pas le temps, elles n'ont jamais eu la faculte de 
 penser et de reflechir ; k peine un souhait vague et bientot 
 refoul^ de quelque chose de mieux ! Quand la charge est 
 trop lourde elles tombent, elles geignent comme des 
 animaux terrasses", elles versent de grosses larmes a I'idee de 
 laisser leurs petits sans ressources, ou elles remercient in- 
 stinctivement la mort, c'est k dire le repos dont elles ont tant 
 besoin." (" Les Femmes qui Tuent," etc., p. lo'i.) 
 
 Id. . . And again, the advanced biological writers 
 say: — 
 
 " The statistician will doubtless long continue his fashion 
 of confidently estimating the importance and predicting the 
 survival of populations from their quantity and rate of re 
 
176 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 prpduction alone ; but at all this, as naturalists, we can only 
 scoff. Even the most conventional exponent of the struggle 
 for existence among us knows, with the barbarian con- 
 querors of old, that ' the thicker the grass, the easier it is 
 mown,' that ' the wolf cares not how many the sheep may 
 be.' It is the most individuated type that prevails in spite, 
 nay, in another sense, positively because of its slower in- 
 crease ; in a word, the survival of a species or family depends 
 not primarily upon quantity, but upon quality. The future 
 is not to the most numerous population, but to the most 
 individuated. . . . 
 
 " Apart from the pressure of population, it is time to be 
 learning (i) That the annual childbearing still so common, 
 is cruelly exhaustive to the maternal life, and this often in 
 actual duration as well as quality ; (2) That it is similarly 
 injurious to the standard of offspring ; and hence, (3) That 
 an interval of two clear years between births (some gynseco^ 
 legists even go as far as three) is due alike to mother and 
 offspring." (It is to be noted that this period of three years 
 is postulated as a necessity for the well-being of the off- 
 spring ; it is by no means a recommendation to even a 
 triennial maternity on the part of the mother, who is indeed 
 to be, in all fulness, " free mistress of her person's sacred 
 plan," with a duty to herself, as well as to her child). 
 " It is time, therefore, as we heard a brave parson tell his 
 flock lately, ' to have done with that blasphemous whining 
 which constantly tries to look at a motherless ' (ay, or 
 sometimes even fatherless) 'crowd of puny infants as a 
 dispensation of mysterious providence.' Let us frankly face 
 the biological facts, and admit that such cases usually 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 177 
 
 illustrate only the extreme organic nemesis of intemperance 
 and improvidence, and these of a kind far more reprehens- 
 ible than those actions to which common custom applies the 
 names, since they are species-regarding vices, and not 
 merely self-regarding ones, as the others at least primarily 
 are. . . . 
 
 " It seems to us, however, essential to recognise that 
 the ideal to be sought after is not merely a controlled rate 
 of increase, but regulated married lives. . . . We 
 would urge, in fact, the necessity of an ethical rather than of 
 a mechanical ' prudence after marriage,' of a temperance 
 recognised to be as binding on husband and wife as chastity 
 on the unmarried. . . . Just as we would protest 
 against the dictum of false physicians who preach in- 
 dulgence rather than restraint, so we must protest against 
 regarding artificial means of preventing fertilisation as 
 adequate solutions of sexual responsibility. After all, the 
 solution is primarily one of temperance. It is no new nor 
 unattainable ideal to retain, throughout married life, a large 
 measure of that self-control which must always form the 
 organic basis of the enthusiasm and idealism of lovers." — 
 Geddes and Thomson (" The Evolution of Sex," Chap. XX.). 
 
 As a fitting exemplification of the words of the " parson " 
 above narrated, compare the following verbatim e.xtract from a 
 
 conversation in this year of grace 1892. The referred to 
 
 is a man about 35, middle-class, and of "good 'education'" (!) 
 The same description would also apply to the speaker, who 
 
 said, " Poor -is a brave fellow, and keeps up his head in the 
 
 worst of luck. He has a lot of home troubles ; he has lost 
 three children, and his wife always has a bad time at the birth 
 of each baby." 
 
 No word of sympathy for the wife and mother, or even of 
 recognition that it was really she who bore the pain at each 
 
 N 
 
178 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 "bad time." As the children left alive still numbered two at 
 the time of the speech, the whole incident can but imply — on 
 the part of both actor and speaker — the hideous, even if un- 
 conscious, inhumanity so widely prevalent. Never will "high- 
 born breed " be attained till such action of low-bred intellect is 
 reprobated and amended ; in accordance with the enunciated 
 truth, that :— 
 
 " Especially in higher organisms, a distinction must obvi- 
 ously be drawn between the period at which it is possible 
 for males and females to unite in fertile sexual union, and 
 the period at which such union will naturally occur or will 
 result in the fittest offspring.'' — Geddes and Thomson (pp. 
 cit, p. 243). 
 
 7, 8. — " Not overworn with childward pain and care, 
 
 The mother — and the race--robuster health shall 
 share!' 
 
 " It is not the true purpose of any intellectual organism 
 to live solely to give birth to succeeding organisms; its duty 
 is also to live for its own happiness and well-being. Indeed, 
 in so doing, it will be acting in one of the most certain 
 ways to ensure that faculty and possession of happiness 
 that it aims to secure for its progeny." — Ben Elmy (" Studies 
 in Materialism," Chap. III.). 
 
 Id. . . Even the placid and precisian American poet 
 bears strong, if involuntary, testimony to the evil and wrong 
 of the non-cultured and untempered begetting of children : — 
 " She wedded a man unlearned and poor. 
 And many children played round her door ; 
 But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain 
 Left their traces on heart and brain." 
 
 — Whittier (" IMaud Miiller "). 
 
WOMAN FREE. 179 
 
 Id. . . Mr. Andrew Lang also promises us " a world 
 that is glad and clean, and not overthronged and not 
 overdriven."^(Introduction to " Elizabethan Songs.") 
 
 Id. . . " Justice never loses sight of self. . . 
 The language of Justice is ' to Me and to You ; or to You 
 and to Me.' . . . We have to learn, for the action 
 and spirit worthy of the coming time, that woman is never 
 to sacrifice herself to a man, but, when needful, to the 
 Manhood she hopes or desires to develop in him. In this 
 she will also attain her own development. But after the hour 
 when her faith in the hope of worthy results fails her (reason 
 instructing her nobler affections by holding candidly in 
 view all the premises, past, present, and future), she is 
 bound by all her higher obligations to bring that "career, 
 whether it be of the daughter, sister, mother, wife, or friend, 
 to a close. For the inferior cannot possibly be worth the 
 sacrifice of the superior. True self-sacrifice, which neces- 
 sarily involves the temporary descent of the nobler to the 
 less noble — the higher to the lower — is made only when 
 the lower is elevated, improved, carried forward in its 
 career, thereby." — Ehza W. Farnham ("Woman and Her 
 Era," Vol. II., p. 149)- 
 
 Id. . . "I have urged on woman independence of 
 man, not that I do not think the sexes mutually needed by 
 one another ; but because in wom-an this fact has led to 
 an excessive devotion which has cooled love, degraded 
 marriage, and prevented either sex from being what it should 
 be to itself or the other. . . . Woman, self-controlled, 
 would never be absorbed by any relations ; it would be only 
 an experience to her as to man. It is a vulgar error that 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o WOMAN FREE. 
 
 love, a love to woman, is her whole existence ; she is also 
 born for - truth and love in their universal energy." — 
 Margaret Fuller Ossoli ("The Woman of the Nineteenth 
 Century"). 
 
 Id. . . Professor Alfred Russell Wallace has written 
 an article, concerning part of which Mr. W. T. Stead 
 rightly says : " It is a scientific reinforcement of the cause 
 of the emancipation of women, and shows that progress 
 of the cause of female enfranchisement is identified with 
 the progress of humanity." — {Review of Reviews, Vol. V., 
 
 P- I77-) 
 
 Professor Wallace says : — 
 
 " When such social changes have been effected that no 
 woman will be compelled, either by hunger, isolation, or 
 social compulsion, to sell herself, whether in or out of wed- 
 lock, and when all women alike shall feel the refining 
 influence of a true humanising education, of beautiful 
 and elevating surroundings, and of a public opinion which 
 shall be founded on the highest aspirations of their age and 
 country, the result will be a form of human selection which 
 will bring about a continuous advance in the average status 
 of the race. Under such conditions, all who are deformed 
 either in body or mind, though they may be able to lead 
 happy and contented lives, will, as a rule, leave no children 
 to inherit their deformity. Even now we find many women 
 who never marry because they have never found the man 
 of their ideal. When no woman will be compelled to marry 
 for a bare living or for a comfortable home, those who re- 
 main unmarried from their own free choice will certainly 
 increase, while many others, having no inducement to 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 an early marriage, will wait till they meet with a partner 
 who is really congenial to them. 
 
 "In such a reformed society the vicious man, the man 
 of degraded taste or feeble intellect, will have little chance 
 of finding a wife, and his bad qualities will die out with 
 himself. The most perfect and beautiful in body and mind 
 will, on the other hand, be most sought, and, therefore, be 
 most likely to marry early, the less highly endowed later, 
 and the least gifted in any way the latest of all, and this will 
 be the case with both sexes. 
 
 " From this varying age of marriage, as Mr. Gallon has 
 shown, there will result a more rapid increase of the foniier 
 than of the latter, and this cause continuing at work for 
 successive generations will, at length, bring the average man 
 to be the equal of those who are now among the more ad- 
 vanced of the race." — "Human Progress, Past and Present " 
 {Arena, Jan., 1892). 
 
 XLVII. 
 I. — " Nor blankly epicene . . ." 
 
 " Bring up a boy and girl side by side, and educate them 
 both for the same profession under the same masters, and a 
 novelist who depicts character could yet weave a story out 
 of the mental and emotional differences between them, 
 which will cause them to look at life from totally opposite 
 points of view." — Mabel Collins (" On Woman's Relation 
 to the State "). 
 
 2. — " . . . sequence of thai day J' 
 
 " We have seen that a deep difference in constitution ex- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 presses itself in the distinctions between male and female, 
 whether these be physical or mental. The differences may 
 be exaggerated or lessened, but to obliterate them it would 
 be necessary to have all the evolution over again on a new 
 basis. What was decided among the Prehistoric Protozoa 
 cannot be annulled by Act of Parliament." — Geddes and 
 Thomson (" Evolution of Sex," p. 267). 
 
 3, 4. — " . . . not . . . by aping falser sex shall 
 truer grow." 
 
 " While man and woman still are incomplete 
 I prize that soul where man and woman meet. 
 Which types all Nature's male and female plan, 
 But, friend, man-woman is not woman-man." 
 
 — Tennyson (" On One who Affected an Effeminate 
 
 Manner "). 
 
 XLVIII. 
 8. — "Happy what each-may britig to help the cotnmon fate." 
 
 " I would submit to a severe discipline, and to go without 
 many things cheerfully, for the good and happiness of the 
 human race in the future. Each one of us should do 
 something, however small, towards that great end. . . . 
 How pleasant it would be' each day to think, to-day I have 
 done something that will tend to render future generations 
 more happy. The very thought would make this hour 
 sweeter. It is absolutely necessary that something of this 
 kind should be discovered. ... It should be the 
 sacred and sworn duty of everyone, once at least during 
 lifetime, to do something in person towards this end. It 
 
WOMAN FREE. 183 
 
 would be a delight and a pleasure to me to do some 
 thing every day, were it ever so minute. To reflect that 
 another human being, if at a distance of ten thousand 
 years from the year 1883, would enjoy one hour's more life, 
 in the sense of fulness of life, in consequence of anything 
 I had done in my little span, would be to me a peace of 
 soul."— Richard Jefferies (" The Story of My Heart," pp. 
 129, 131, 160). 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 I. — "By mutual aid perfeciifig complex man." 
 Kant says : " Man and woman constitute, when united 
 the whole and entire being, one sex completes the other." — 
 Bebel (" Woman," Walther's Translation, p. 44). 
 
 2, 3. — " Their two-fold vision human life may scan 
 From differing standpoints ..." 
 
 See Note XLVIL, i. 
 
 LI. 
 4. — "Her brain untutored . . ." 
 
 " The soldier is exercised in the use of his weapons, the 
 artisan in the use of his tools. Every profession demands 
 a special education, even the monk has his novitiate. 
 Women alone are not prepared for their important maternal 
 duties." — Irma von Troll-Borostyani (" Die Mission unseres 
 Jahrhunderts." A Study on the Woman Question). 
 
 LIU. 
 
 2. — " . . . t/ie quivering nerve . , ." 
 "M. Chauveau states that his object was 'To ascertain 
 
1-84 WOMAN FREE: 
 
 the excitability of the spinal marrow, and the convulsions 
 and pain produced by that excitability.' His studies were 
 made chiefly on horses. and asses, who, he says, ' lend them- 
 selves marvellously thereto by the large volume of their 
 spinal marrow.' M. Chauveau accordingly 'consecrated 
 • eighty subjects to his purpose.' ' The animal,' he says, 'is 
 fixed upon a table. An incision is made on its back about 
 fourteen inches long ; the vertebrae are opened with the 
 help of a chisel, mallet, and pincers, and the spinal marrow 
 is exposed." (No mention is made of anaesthetics, which of 
 course would"^ nullify the experimenter's object of studying 
 "the excitability of the spinal marrow, and the convulsions 
 and pain produced by that excitability.") " M. Chauveau 
 gives a large number of his cases. . . . Case 7 : ' A 
 vigorous mule. When one pricks the marrow near the line 
 of emergence of the sensitive nerves, the animal mani- 
 fests the most violent pain.' Case 20 : 'An old white horse, 
 lying on the litter, unable to rise, but nevertheless very sensi- 
 tive. At whatever points I scratch the posterior cord I pro- 
 voke signs of the most violent suffering.' " — {Journal de 
 Physiologic, du Dr. Brown-S^quard. Tome Quatrieme. 
 No. XIII.) 
 
 4, — " . . . living butchery with learned knife." 
 
 " We are told what Professor Briicke says with reference 
 to section of the trigeminus ; — ' The first sign that the 
 trigeminus is divided is a loud piercing cry from the animal. 
 Rabbits we know,' he adds, ' are not very sensitive ; all sorts 
 of things maybe done to them without making them utter a 
 cry ; but in this operation, if it succeeds, they invariably 
 
WOMAN FREE. 185 
 
 send forth a prolonged shriek.'" — "Lectures on Physiology/' 
 Vol. II., p. 76. 
 
 5. — " . . . cruel anodyne that chained the will . . ." 
 
 It is dubious whether curare be even an anodyne, i.e. a 
 deadener of pain. M. Claude Bernard, himself a vivisector, 
 says : — " Curare acting on the nervous system only sup- 
 presses the action of the motor nerves, leaving sensation 
 intact. Curare is not an ansesthetic." (Revue Scientifique, 
 187 1-2, p. 892.) 
 
 6. — " . . . the shuddering victim conscious still." 
 
 " Everyone has heard of the dog, suffering under vivi- 
 section, who licked the hand of the operator ; this man, 
 unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to 
 the last hour of his life." — Darwin ("The Descent of Man," 
 Part I., Chap. II.). 
 
 8. — "Nor yields her holiest tru'hs on s:tc'i a 
 murderer's rack." 
 
 " It is fit to say here, once for all, that laws which govern 
 the animal kingdom below the human, can no more be 
 accepted as final and determining to man, in physiological, 
 than in intellectual and moral, action. . . . For neither 
 the knife of the anatomist, nor the lens of the microscopist, 
 are infallible interpreters of function. We do not possess 
 ourselves of all of Nature's secrets by cutting up her tissues 
 and fabrics, neither by the keenest inspection of their 
 ultimate atoms, whether fluid or solid. There are some 
 truths withheld from the investigator, however brave, patient, 
 
i86 WOAfA^" FREE. 
 
 and nice his methods and means, which are given up, in 
 due time, to the truth-seer, without any method or means, 
 save tlie intuitive faculty and its unambitious, guileless 
 surrender to the service offered it. Such, it is at least 
 possible, we may find has been Nature's dealing in this occult 
 department" — Eliza ^\'. Farnham (" Woman and Her Era," 
 Vol. I., pp. 47, so). 
 
 LIV. 
 
 I. — " True science finds its own by kindlier quest." 
 
 " Science is of the ulinost importance to mankind, but 
 the last degree of importance cannot be said to attach to 
 all its mmute discoveries, and where, as in physiology, the in- 
 vestigation becomes inhuman, there it ought to stop. It 
 ought to stop for our own sakes if from no other motive, 
 for the torturing of animals on the chance that it may 
 suggest the means of alleviating some of our own pains 
 helps to blunt those sensibilities which afford us some of 
 our purest pleasures. Animals are not our equals in all 
 things, but they seem to be at any rate our equals in the 
 sense of pain. The want of imagination may deprive it in 
 their case of some of its poignancy, but on the other hand 
 they have none of the supports which we derive from 
 reason and sympathy, from the tenderness of friendship and 
 the consolations of religion. \\'ith them it is pure, unmiti- 
 gated, unsolaced suffering. Our duties to them form a 
 neglected chapter in the code of ethics, but we ought not to 
 torture them, and there are many who will maintain that 
 the obligation is absolute. Life is no doubt valuable, but 
 it is not everything. It is more than meat, as the body 
 
WOMAN FREE. 187 
 
 is more than raiment, but it is not more than humanity. 
 There are occasions on which it has to be risked, and there 
 are terms on which men of honour and patriotism would 
 hold it worthless. The doctrine that we may subject the 
 lower animals to incredible suffering on the possibility that 
 it may save ourselves from an additional pang is of a selfish 
 and degrading tendency. It helps to lower the ' moral 
 ideal ' and to weaken the springs of heroism in human 
 character. We owe it to ourselves to keep clear of this 
 peril. Nature surrounds us with limitations. Here is one 
 which all that is best and noblest in us sets up, and it is 
 more sacred than those over which we have no control. 
 We refuse to torture other sentient creatures in order that 
 we may live." — Dr. Henry Dunckley {Manchester Guardian, 
 August 9th, 1892). 
 
 The above noble pronouncement, with its conclusion, is 
 instinct with the spirit of true science (which repudiates 
 with disdain and horror the hypocritical pseudo-science of a 
 ghastly and demoralising study and pursuit of cruelty), — the 
 true science which is one with love, because it refuses the 
 acceptance of life itself on terras of outrage to love. 
 
 See Note LXI., 3. 
 
 4. — " . . . a keener lens of man' sown brain." 
 
 " Observation is perhaps more powerful an organon than 
 either experiment or empiricism." — Richard Jeiferies 
 ("Story of My Heart," p. 162). 
 
 Id. . . It is well that some English physicists of the 
 fullest scientific impulse and effort are revolted at the in- 
 human and bootless cruelty of the foreign medical schools 
 
1 88 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 which masquerades as scientific research. Is it not possibly 
 something more than a coincidence that vivisectionists in 
 general exhibit an aversion to the equality of woman, and 
 that vivisection flourishes more unrestrainedly where her 
 position and influence are less recognised ; i.e., in plain 
 words, — in a lower civilisation ? 
 
 Mr. Lawson Tait says, with the indignation of a truly 
 scientific mind at these methods of "science falsely so 
 called":— 
 
 " For one, as intimately and widely concerned in the applica- 
 tion of human knowledge for the saving of human life and the 
 relief of human suffering as anyone can be, or as anyone has ever 
 been, I say I am grateful for the restrictive legislation. Let me 
 give one brief illustration of my most recent experience in this 
 matter as one of hundreds which confirm me in my determina- 
 tion persistently to oppose the introduction into England of 
 what passes for science in Germany. Some few years ago I 
 began to deal with one of the most dreadful calamities to which 
 humanity is subject by means of an operation which had been 
 scientifically proposed nearly two hundred years ago. I mean 
 ectopic gestation. The rationale of the proposed operation was 
 fully explained about fifty years ago, but the whole physiology 
 of the normal process and the pathology of the perverted one 
 were obscured and misrepresented by a French physiologist's 
 experiments on rabbits and dogs. Nothing was done, and at 
 least ninety-five per cent, of the victims of this catastrophe 
 were allowed to die. 
 
 " I went outside the experimentalists' conclusions, went back 
 to the true science of the old pathologist and of the surgeon of 
 1701, and performed the operation in scores of cases with 
 almost uniform success. My example was immediately followed 
 throughout the world, and during the last five or six years 
 hundreds if not thousands of women's lives have been saved, 
 whilst for nearly forty years the simple road to this gigantic 
 success was closed by the folly of a vivisector. . . . 
 
 " Views such as mine are those of a minority of my pro- 
 fessional brethren, and are generally sneered at as those of a 
 
WOMAN FREE. 189 
 
 crank. But my reply to this is that they form the new belief, 
 that of the coming generation, and that not one in fifty of the 
 bulk of my present brethren have ever seriously gone into the 
 question, and probably have never seen a single experiment on 
 a living animal. 
 
 "My address as the Surgical Orator of 1890, when the 
 British Medical Association met in this town, was mainly 
 directed to the mischievous system of so-called scientific train- 
 ing, of purely German origin and thoroughly repugnant to our 
 English tastes and our English common sense. 
 
 " It is therefore a satisfactory matter to know that the Council 
 of Mason's College would have none of it, and that the govern- 
 ing body of the new University College of Nottingham has 
 recently decided similarly. The Medical School of Queen's 
 College is now united entirely with the Science School of 
 Mason's College ; but we, of iVIason's College, have had the 
 direction of the science teaching of the Medical School for 
 several years, we have had no German scientific methods, and 
 our success has not diminished thereby one atom — on the 
 contrary." — Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., President of Mason's Science 
 College, Birmingham (" The Discussion on Vivisection at the 
 Church Congress, October, 1892"). 
 
 At the Congress, as above, Professor Horsley made 
 aspersions on Miss Frances Power Cobbe, as to statements 
 concerning Vivisection in her work, "The Nine Circles." 
 The professor declared some of the reported cruel experi- 
 ments to have been painless, owing to the victims being 
 under the influence of anaesthetics. In reply to the attack, 
 the following preliminary letter from Miss Cobbe was then 
 published : — 
 
 "TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES.' 
 " Sir, — Professor Horsley's criticism on the above work — 
 planned and compiled by my direction — demands from me a 
 careful reply, which I shall endeavour to give as soon as may 
 be possible at this distance from the books whence the impugned 
 passages are derived. I shall be much surprised if the hocus 
 pocus of the sham anesthetic curare with ineffective applica- 
 
I go WOMAN FREE. 
 
 tions of genuine chloroform do not once more illustrate ' the 
 curse of vivisectible animals,' and if the results of the experi- 
 ments in question, whatever were their ^yorth, would not, in 
 most cases, have been vitiated had real and absolute anaesthesia 
 been produced in the victims. Should a small number of the 
 experiments cited in the ' Nine Circles ' prove, however, to have 
 been performed on animals in an entirely painless state, I shall, 
 while withdrawing them with apologies from a forthcoming new 
 edition of the book, take care at the same time to call attention 
 to the multitude of other experiments, home and foreign, therein 
 recorded — e.g., baking to death, poisoning, starving, creating 
 all manner of diseases, inoculating in the eyes, dissecting out 
 and irritating the exposed nerves, causing the brain of cats ' to 
 run like cream,' etc., about which no room for doubt as to the 
 unassuaged agony of the animal can possibly exist." 
 
 Miss Cobbe concludes by a sharp, but just, criticism on 
 her critic, and with an acute diagnosis of the learned vivi- 
 sectionist's own condition : — 
 
 " The tone of Dr. Horsley's remarks against me personally 
 will probably inspire those who know me and the history of my 
 connexion with the anti-vivisection cause with an amused sense 
 of the difficulty wherein the Professor must have found himself 
 when, instead of argument in defence of vivisection, he thus 
 turned to ' abuse the plaintiffs' attorney.' For myself I gladly 
 accept such abuse (or mere bluster) as evidence that the con- 
 sciences even of eminent vivisectors are, like their victims' 
 nerves, imperfectly under the influence of the scientific 
 anesthesia, and remain still sensitive to the heart-pricking 
 charge which I bring against them, of cowardly cruelty to 
 defenceless creatures. 
 
 " I am. Sir, yours, 
 
 " Frances" Power Cobbe. 
 
 " Hengwrt, Dolgelly, Oct. 8th, 1892." 
 
 \* A further newspaper correspondence concerning 
 " The Nine Circles," a work from which some of the fore- 
 going notes on vivisection are copied, has gone on while 
 
WOMAN FREE. 191 
 
 " Woman Free " is passing through the press ; the vivisectors 
 saying that certain of the incidents transcribed in "The Nine 
 Circles '' are without the announcement that in some cases 
 an anaesthetic had been administered prior to the act of 
 living anatomy, otherwise admittedly true in every detail. 
 The vivisectors lay what stress they can on the omissions ; 
 indeed, their principal advocate has made use of a grossness 
 of imputation and a coarseness of invective that augurs ill 
 for any gentleness of treatment or purpose being existent in 
 the organism of such an operator. 
 
 Yet, in truth, it is not a matter of surpassing import 
 whether the assertion of the operation (alone) being- con- 
 ducted under an anaesthetic be indubitable, since the after- 
 consequences of pain or incommodity had to be endured 
 by the victim without anaesthetics. What initial chloroform- 
 ing could ward off the constant after-suffering attendant on 
 the incubation of the disease for the creation of which the 
 " operation " had been performed, a period acknowledgedly 
 often lasting for weeks, and terminated only by death's 
 mercy? Or what medicament could anaesthetise the im- 
 potent yearning — to feed her starving puppy — of a poor 
 mother dog whose mammary glands had been excised, even 
 if the "operation" had been carried out "under chloro- 
 form"? Mr. Edward Berdoe, M.R.C.S., reproduces and 
 reprobates the incident with horror in the Times of Oct. 27, 
 1892 : — 
 
 " Professor Goltz arnputated the breast of the mother of a 
 puppy nursing her young . . . who ' unceasingly licked the 
 livmg puppy with the same tenderness as an uninjured dog 
 might do.'" 
 
192 IVOMAAf FREE. 
 
 Most gladly may we turn to the words and ways of worthier 
 seekers after truth. Professor Lawson Tait is reported by 
 the Standard, 28th Oct., 1892, as saying at a meeting the 
 previous day : — 
 
 " Vivisection was a survival from mediseval times. It could 
 not be justified by any results that it had produced. In days 
 when they could tell the composition of the atmosphere of Orion 
 by means of the spectroscope, it was a disgrace that men should 
 resort to vivisection, instead of perfecting other and more 
 humane «ieans of research." 
 
 There speaks true science. And, on a later occasion, 
 Mr. Lawson Tait quotes the celebrated anatomist, Sir 
 Charles Bell (who had been falsely claimed as an advocate 
 of vivisection), as saying, "on page 217 of the second 
 volume of his great work on the Nervous System, published 
 in 1839 " :— 
 
 "... a survey of what has been attempted of late years 
 in physiology will prove that the opening of living animals has 
 done more to perpetuate error than to confirm the just views 
 taken from the study of anatomy and natural motions. . . . 
 For my own part I cannot believe that Providence should 
 intend that the secrets of nature are to be discovered by means 
 of cruelty, and I am sure that those who are guilty of protracted 
 cruelties do not possess minds capable of appreciating the laws 
 of nature." — (The Times, Nov. 8th, 1892, p. 3.) 
 
 The views of Charles Bell and Lawson Tait are in striking 
 and encouraging coincidence with verses IJII., LIV., and 
 LV. 
 
 To women peculiarly it belongs to oppose the doctrines 
 and methods of vivisectionists, for to the practitioners of 
 that school were due the arguments or assumptions which 
 
WOMAN FREE. 193 
 
 sufficed to introduce for a while into our country the vile 
 system of according a licence to male dissoluteness and 
 female subjection — under a pretext of public morality and 
 "scientific" sanction — known on the continent as the 
 " police des mceurs,'' and in sundry Naval and Military 
 stations of England and Ireland as the "Contagious 
 Diseases Acts." 
 
 LV. 
 
 8. — " . . . from Love's vtight alone all thoughts of 
 Wisdom grow." 
 
 " Hast thou considered how the beginning of all thought 
 worthy the name is love ; and the wise head never yet was, 
 without first the generous heart?" — Carlyle' ("French 
 Revolution," Vol. III., p. 375). 
 
 LVI. 
 5. — " WitA woman honoured, ris'^s man to height." 
 
 "If a Hindoo principality is strongly, vigilantly, and 
 economically governed ; if order is preserved without op- 
 pression, if cultivation is extended, and the people prosper- 
 ous, in three cases out of four that principality is under a 
 woman's rule. This fact, to me an entirely unexpected 
 one, I have collected from a long official knowledge of 
 Hindoo Governments."— J. S. Mill (" The Subjection of 
 Women," p. 100 note). 
 
 6. — "With her degraded, sinks again in night." 
 
 " And you who have departed from the common tradition, 
 how have you fared in the race of life ? Are your men as 
 
 o 
 
194 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 brave and fearlessly truthful, are your women as courageous 
 and honest as in the old days of ' the maiden's choice ' ? 
 Are the little worn-out child-wives of to-day likely to have 
 descendants like those of the damsels of your ancient 
 epics ? Where are the deeds of high emprise, of daring 
 valour, and of patient persistence of the youths who were 
 fired by the pure love of a woman ? Ah ! gentlemen, with 
 love life departs ; there is no vitality in married life without 
 affection, and when love, the great incentive to action, dis- 
 appears from the family, leaving dry the streams of affection 
 which should flow between the children and parents, what 
 must come of the race?" — Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D. 
 (" Address to the Hindoos "). 
 
 Id. . . " From all we know of the laws of life and 
 its development it would appear one of the foolishest things 
 on earth for men to fancy that they can debase the intellect 
 lobes of women, and at the same time exalt their own. 
 No breeder of cattle or horses would think of debasing the 
 qualities, in the females, which he would desire to possess 
 in the males. 
 
 " No race in the future can either rule the world or even 
 continue in existence without improving the intellect of that 
 race, and this certainly cannot be done by depauperising 
 the intellects of more than half of the yrogenitors of that 
 race." — Dr. E. Bonavia (" Woman's Frontal Lobes "). 
 
 8. — " . . . Earth's advancing queen." 
 
 " Will man den ganzen Menschen studiren, so darf man 
 , nur auf das weibliche Geschlecht seine Augen richten : 
 denn wo die Kraft schwacher ist, da ist das Werkzeug um 
 
WOMAN FREE. 195 
 
 so kiinstlicher. Daher hat die Natur in das weibliche 
 Geschlecht eine naturliche Anlage zur Kunst gelegt. Der 
 Mann ist geschaffen, ueberdie Natur zu gebieten, das Weib aber, 
 den Afann zu regieren. Zum Ersten gehort viel Kraft, zum 
 Andern viel Geschicklichkeit." — ^Immanuel Kant. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 I. — " . . . in jealousy . . ." 
 
 The male conceit and jealousy of sex, existent among 
 the majority of meaner men, has been perceived and 
 censured or satirised by higher masculine minds both in 
 ancient and modern literature. To take a few scattered 
 instances from the latter, Shakspeare says : — 
 
 "... however we do praise ourselves, 
 Our fancies are more giddy and infirm, 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won 
 Than women's are." 
 
 — (" Twelfth Night," Act II., Sc. 4.) 
 
 Goethe says pungently (in " Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice- 
 ship ") : '■' People ridicule learned women and dislike even 
 women who are well informed, probably because it is con- 
 sidered impolite to put so many ignorant men to shame." 
 
 As our own plain-spoken Sydney Smith has said, in his 
 essay on Female Education : — " It is natural that men who 
 are ignorant themselves, should view, with some degree of 
 jealousy and alarm, any proposal for improving the educa- 
 tion of women." 
 
 A ludicrously pitiful modern-day instance of the jealous 
 ignorance or ignorant jealousy to which Goethe and Sydney 
 
 o » 
 
196 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 Smith make reference, is afforded by a seriously-written 
 leading article in No. 545 of the Christian Commonwealth, 
 a London weekly newspaper, under date of 24th March, 
 1892 : — 
 
 " The Woman question will not down. She is asserting her- 
 self in every direction, and generally with considerable force. 
 In America she is positively alarming the lords of creation by 
 her rapid progress in educational matters. She is actually out- 
 running the men in the race for intellectual attainments. And 
 this fact is becoming so evident, and so prominent, that a new 
 problem is being evolved from it. This is, how are the finely 
 educated young women of America to find congenial husbands? 
 It is assumed by some writers that already there is a great dis- 
 parity between the culture of the young men and young women, 
 and that every year the chasm between them is becoming 
 deeper and wider. This is a truly lamentable state of things, 
 but the woman movement in this country is likely to take a 
 more practical course. The agitation of the question of 
 Woman Suffrage may bring about a reaction against her ex- 
 cessive culture. If woman is permitted to enter the cesspool of 
 politics, it is probable she will not be very long distressed with 
 an overplus of those qualities which are just now endangering 
 her conjugal felicity in the United States. ..." 
 
 It is refreshing and consolatory to revert from such 
 verbiage to what Sir Humphrey Davy said (" Lectures, 18 10 
 and 1811"): "It has been too much the custom to en- 
 deavour to attach ridicule to the literary and scientific 
 acquisitions of women. Let them make it disgraceful for 
 men to be ignorant, and ignorance will perish." 
 
 To Shakspeare and Goethe may be added the corrobora- 
 tion of French intellect : — 
 
 "Nest-il pas Evident que Molifere, dans ses Femmes 
 Savantes n'a pas attaqud 1' instruction, I'e'tude, mais le 
 pedantisme, comme, dans son Tartuffe, il avait attaque 
 
JVOA/y^A' FREE. 197 
 
 non la vraie devotion, mais I'hypocrisie ? N'est-ce pas 
 Molifere lui-meme qui a dcrit ce beau vers : " Et je veux 
 qu'une femme ait des clartds de tout?" — Monseigneur 
 Dupanloup, Eveque d'Orldans (" Femmes Savantes et 
 Femmes Studieuses," 1868, p. 8). 
 
 "C'est k Condorcet et non pas a Jean Jacques, comme 
 on la croit gdndralement, qu'appartient I'initiative des 
 rdformes propos^es dans 1' Education et la condition des 
 femmes." — Daniel Stern (" Hist, de la Revolution de 
 1848," Vol. II, p. 185). 
 
 " Quand la loi frangaise " — (shall we not say also every 
 other?) — " declare la femme infdrieure a I'homme ce n'est 
 jamais pour libdrer la femme d'un devoir vis-a-vis de I'homme 
 oudela society, c'est pour armer I'homme ou la society 
 d'un droit de plus contre elle. II n'est jamais venu a 
 I'id^e de la loi de tenir compte de la faiblesse de la femme 
 dans les diffdrents ddlits qu'elle peut commettre ; au con- 
 traire, la loi en abuse." — A. Dumas fils (" Les Femmes qui 
 Tuent," etc., p. 204). 
 
 Mill says : — " There is nothing which men so easily learn 
 as this self-worship ; all privileged persons, and all privileged 
 classes have had it.'' And he also speaks of a time — -"when 
 satires on women were in vogue, and men thought it a 
 clever thing to insult women for being what men made 
 them." — ("Subjection of Women," pp. 76, 77). 
 
 We have seen (Note XLV., 5) how Professor Huxley 
 postulates scientific training equally for girls and boys ; he 
 has also said : — " Emancipate girls. Recognise the fact 
 that they share the senses, perceptions, feelings, reasoning 
 powers, emotions of boys, and that the mind of the average 
 
198 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 girl is less diflFerent from that of the average boy, than the 
 mind of one boy is from that of another ; so that whatever 
 argument justifies a given education for all boys, justifies its 
 application to girls as well." — ("Emancipation, Black and 
 White.") 
 
 Balzac asserted : " A woman who has received a mas- 
 culine education possesses the , most brilliant and fertile 
 qualities, with which to secure the happiness of her hus- 
 band and herself."— (" Physiologie du Manage,'" Medita- 
 tion XI.). 
 
 But the instances are innumerable where the intellect of 
 higher men expressly or unconsciously rebukes the jealous 
 sexual conceit of their less intelligent brethren. Dr. 
 Bonavia says, very tersely : — ■" The fact is, many men don't 
 like the idea of being surpassed or even equalled by women. 
 They stupidly feel their dignity wounded. This jealousy, 
 however, is not only extremely contemptible and unjust,, 
 but disastrous to the true interests of the race, for men have 
 mothers as well as women, and imbecility— the result of 
 atrophied frontal lobes — is just as likely to be transmitted 
 to the one sex as to the other, as far as we yet know. 
 Just see the injustice of men's jealousy in matters of intel- 
 lect. Only recently the talent of Miss Ornierod-^an 
 entomologist who can hold her own anywhere on earth: — 
 was kept under by the Royal Agricultural Society. She did 
 the entomological work, and made the discoveries, while 
 they took the credit. In their reports they did not even 
 mention her name in connection with her own work ! — A 
 more contemptible proceeding, it would appear, has never 
 been brought to light, in the struggle of the sexes, if that 
 
WOMAN FREE. ' 199 
 
 case has been correctly reported." — ("Woman's Frontal 
 Lobes.") 
 
 Bebel treats this jealousy with a fine irony in his ex- 
 position of " the motives which induce most medical 
 professors, and indeed the professors of every faculty, to 
 oppose women students : " — " They regard the admission of 
 women as synonymous with the degradation of science (!) 
 which could not but lose its prestige in the eyes of the en- 
 lightened (!) multitude if it appeared that the female brain 
 was capable of grasping problems which had hitherto only 
 been revealed to the elect of the opposite sex." — {Op. 
 cit, p. 132.) 
 
 Had Bebel recorded masculine mercenary considerations, 
 rather than sham misgivings as to the interests of science, 
 his sarcasm would have been very grim truth. Indeed, 
 what is sometimes called the " loaves and fishes " argument 
 is at the root of most of this masculine jealousy which 
 cloaks itself under a pretension of tender consideration for 
 woman's delicacy. To cite Bebel again : " Another ob- 
 jection is that it is unseemly to admit women to medical 
 lectures, to operations, and deliveries, side by side with 
 male students. If men see nothing indecent in studying 
 and examining female patients in the presence of nurses 
 and other female patients, it is difficult to understand why 
 it should become so through the presence of female 
 students." — (Op. cit., p. 132.) And as to the actual 
 fitness of women for exercising the profession of medicine 
 or surgery: — 
 
 " 'Women always improve when the men begin to show 
 signs of failing,' were the words of a distinguished physician 
 
WOMAN FREE 
 
 and surgeon, who had seen years of service on a remote 
 wintry station of the army. ' I have had fellows brought 
 to me to have the leg amputated — perhaps both — close to 
 the body, and never anywhere in Paris, London, or New 
 York, saw I better surgeon's assistants than some of our 
 women made, especially the Sisters of Charity, of whom we 
 had a few at the post, for three or four years. Heads as 
 clear as a silver bell ; hands steady and unshrinking as 
 a granite rock, yet with a touch as light as a spring leaf ; 
 foot quick and indefatigable, whether the time was noon- 
 day or midnight; memory perfect; tenderness for the 
 sufferer unfailing. Talk about love, courage, fortitude, and 
 endurance in your sex ! I tell you,' he added, with a need- 
 less affimation at this point, ' they seem to be nothing else, 
 when these are most wanted, and the man who doubts them 
 is an ass.'" — ^Eliza W. Farnham ("Woman and Her Era," 
 Vol. H., p. 157). See also Note XXIX., 8. 
 
 Id. . . Here may fittingly follow the report of a 
 trained masculine judgment as to woman's ability in yet a 
 further profession — that of the law : — 
 
 At the recent opening of the Southern California College 
 of Law, at Los Angeles, John W. Mitchell, the president, 
 in his lecture upon " The Study of the Law," spoke of the 
 utility of women studying law, in the following language,; — 
 
 " This part of this discourse it is believed would be radically 
 incomplete without calling attention to one other and particular 
 class of persons who need an insight into the rudiments of law 
 — which class, it seems, has also been neglected by those 
 occupying a like position to my own — I mean the women. He 
 is, indeed, blind to the signs of the times who does not recog- 
 nise the expanding field of women's work, and their increased 
 infliience in the professions as well as in the fine arts. 
 
WOMAA FREE. 
 
 That women are entering the Usts with men, in behalf of them- 
 selves and womankind, is well ; for they must make up their 
 minds to take up the task of urging the reforms they need, 
 and must solve the woman problem in all its bearings. Women 
 are doing this. They are becoming competitors with men in 
 the pursuits of life, it is true ; but it is as much from neces- 
 sity as choice. But it is not only the women who have to labour 
 and earn their own living who need legal knowledge to aid 
 them. It is more needful to the woman of property, be her 
 possessions but an humble home or a colossal fortune ; whether 
 she be married or single. Women want this experience to 
 make them cautious of jeopardising their rights, and less con- 
 fiding in business matters. The courts are full of cases showing 
 how women have been wrongly stripped of their belongings. 
 And, perhaps, if one woman had known the legal effect of some 
 of her acts, one of the largest fortunes ever amassed in this 
 State of Croesus-like wealth would not have been carried to 
 distant States, and there scandalously distributed amongst 
 scheming adventurers and lawyers, making a little Massa- 
 chusetts county-seat the theatre of one of the most remarkable 
 contests for a fortune in the whole annals of probate court law. 
 " As to the professions : women were for a long time barred 
 from them, but now the barriers to all of them have been re- 
 moved, and there is not a profession in which women are not dis- 
 tinguished. They have graduated in the sciences from most 
 universities with the highest honours, and have stood the same 
 tests as the men. The law was about the last to admit them 
 within its precincts, and there they are meeting with an unex- 
 pected measure of success. Not only in this, but in other 
 countries, there are successful women practitioners. And in 
 France, where the preparatory course is most arduous, and the 
 term of study longest, a woman recently took the highest rank 
 over 500 men in her graduating examinations, and during the 
 whole six years of class study she only lost one day from her 
 work — an example that is commended to you students. Un- 
 doubtedly, the weight of the argument is in favour of women 
 studying law." — {women's Journal, Boston, U.S., 6th February, 
 1892.) 
 
 Id. . . Even the vaunted politeness and gallantry 
 of the Frenchman is not proof against the far more deeply- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 bedded masculine jealousy. M. de Blowitz, the erudite 
 correspondent at Paris of the Times, reports that — 
 
 "The law students yesterday hooted down Mdlle. Jeanne 
 Chauvin, 28 years of age, who was to have argued a thesis for 
 a legal degree. She had chosen as her theme, 'The Pro- 
 fessions accessible to Women and the Historical Evolution of 
 the Economic Position of Woman in Society.' The uproar was 
 such that the examiner postponed the ceremony sine die. 
 Mdlle. Chauvin is the first Frenchwoman who has sought a legal 
 degree, but two years ago a Roumanian lady went through the 
 ordeal without obstruction." — (The Times, July 4, 1892.) 
 
 To revert to the " loaves and fishes " argument, an in- 
 cident now to be given will show that medicine and the law 
 are not the only professions in which the objections to the 
 equal status of the sexes are largely prompted by a 
 "jalousie de mdtier" of a selfish and mercenary char- 
 acter ; — 
 
 " The following letters have been received at Auckland 
 from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 
 in relation to the memorial lately sent from New Zealand 
 in favour of the opening of degrees to women : — 
 
 " ' Dear Professor Aldis, 
 
 " 'Your very interesting memorial reached me yesterday. 
 I still await the explanatory letter and analysis. After receiving 
 I will write again. 
 
 " ' Yours etc., 
 
 '"John Peile, 
 " ' Christ's College Lodge, " ' Vice-Chancellor. 
 
 " ' Cambridge, Nov. 2nd, 1891.' 
 
 '"MvDear Professor Aldis, 
 
 " ' The petition of the memorial received by me from 
 Miss Lilian Edger and yourself, respecting degrees for women 
 at the University of Cambridge, and the analysis of the signa- 
 
WOMAN FREE. 203 
 
 tures to that memorial, have been printed by me in the 
 University Reporter, the official organ of communication of any 
 kind of business to the members of the Senate. The memorial 
 itself will be preserved in the Registry of the University. Im- 
 mediate action on this question by the Council of the Senate — 
 the body, with which, as you are aware, all legislation in the 
 University .must begin — is not probable. The question was 
 raised about three years ago ; and it became at once plain that, 
 if persevered in, it would produce a very serious division in the 
 ranks of those members of the University who had all shown 
 themselves, in the past, friends to the highest education of 
 women. Many of those who had earnestly supported the ad- 
 mission of women to Tripos examinations, would not support their 
 admission to the B. A. degree. Into their — mostly practical — reasons 
 I cannot fully enter : One was the belief that admission to B.A. 
 must lead, in the end (in spite of any provisions which might be 
 introduced), to admission to M.A., and consequently to a. share 
 in the. management of the University ; it was also apprehended that 
 difficulties would arise in the several colleges with nspect to 
 fellowships, etc. I do not mention these difficulties as insuperable. 
 But they are felt by so many that there is, I am persuaded, no 
 prospect of successful action in this matter at the present time. 
 I shall, therefore, not myself propose anything in the Council, 
 nor so far has any other of the friends of women's education, of 
 whom there are many on the Council, given notice of any 
 motion. At any future time, when such a motion is made, your 
 most influential memorial will certainly have its due weight 
 with the members of the Council, and if they decide to take 
 action, I hope also, with members of the Senate. 
 " ' I am, etc., 
 
 '"John Peile, 
 '•"Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. 
 " ' Christ's College Lodge, 
 
 "'Cambridge, Nov. 20th, 1891.'" 
 
 — {New Zealand HeraM, 5th Jan., 1892.) 
 
 6.—" . . . poten<y . . ." 
 
 " The Brain is different from all other organs of the body. 
 It is often a mass of structural potentialities rather than of 
 
204 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 fully-developed nerve tissues. Some of its elements, viz., 
 those concerned with best-established instinctive operations, 
 naturally go on to their full development without the aid 
 of extrinsic stimuli ; others, however, and large tracts of 
 these, seem to progress to such developments only under 
 the influence of suitable stimuli. Hence natural aptitudes 
 and potencies of the most subtle order may never be mani- 
 fested by multitudes of persons, for want of the proper 
 stimuli and practice capable of perfecting the development 
 and functional activity of those regions of the brain whose 
 action is inseparably related to the mental phenomena in 
 question." — Dr. H. C. Bastian ("The Brain as an Organ of 
 Mind," p. 374). 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 I. — " Woman's own soul must seek and find . . ." 
 
 On women of medical education especially is the duty 
 incumbent to investigate the world of biological experience 
 in woman. They may not sit quietly down and assume 
 that in learning all that man has to teach, they rest his 
 equals, and that the last word has been said on the matter. 
 They have a field of exploration, with opportunities, with 
 implements, and with capacities, which man cannot have. 
 His research on such a question as the recognisedly most 
 vital one of human embryology with all its issues, can get but 
 rare and uncertain light from accidental occasions, and is, 
 moreover, simply as it were a dead anatomising ; nor can he 
 by any means reach the psychic or introspective phase of 
 enquiry ; but woman has the live subject, body and soul, in 
 
WOMAN FREE. 205 
 
 her own organism, to study at her leisure. Does she not 
 yet see how to grasp such further Uving knowledge ? But 
 that is the very quest here indicated. The askidian also 
 had no strength of vision, yet we can now tell and test the 
 light and the components of distant spheres. 
 
 There are, undoubtedly, what may be termed intelUgent 
 operations carried on in the body unconsciously to oneself, 
 or at any rate beyond the present ken of one's actively per- 
 ceptive and volitional faculties. Observation and recogni- 
 tion of these is to be striven for, and even guidance or 
 command of them may be ours in a worthy future. The 
 Times of 27th January, 1892, reported a lecture at the 
 Royal Institution on the previous day by Professor Victor 
 Horsley, in the course of which the lecturer — 
 
 "... pointed out the pineal gland, which Descartes 
 thought to be the seat of the soul, but which was now known 
 to be an invertebrate eye. He also explained the functions of 
 certain small masses of grey matter, which are two, viz. — sight 
 and equilibration. The optic nerve was situated close to the 
 crura, and equilibration was subserved by the cerebellum. After 
 referring to the basal ganglia. Professor Horsley admitted that 
 as science advanced we seem to know less and less about the 
 specific functions of the various masses of grey matter, and less 
 definite views than formerly prevailed were now held with 
 respect to the local source of what are termed voluntary im- 
 pulses, and that of sensations. . . . We were still in 
 ignorance as to the functions of the optic thalamus, and of the 
 corpus striatum. Those of the cortex had to some extent been 
 ascertained. They might be divided into three classes, viz. — 
 movement, sensation, and what was termed mental phenomena. 
 But we were still in the dark as to those portions of the brain 
 which subserved intellectual operations, memory, and emotional 
 impulses. A like ignorance prevailed with respect to the basal 
 ganglia." 
 
2o6 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 What as yet unrecognised inward eyes watch over the 
 embryo life ? 
 
 3. — " . . . counsel helpful . . ."" 
 
 Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham says :— " In this day the most 
 needed science to humankind is that which will commend 
 women to confidence in themselves and their sex as the 
 leading force of the coming Era — the Era of spiritual rule 
 and movement ; in which, through them, the race is destined 
 to rise to a more exhalted position than ever before it has 
 held, and for the first time to form its dominant ties of 
 relationship to that world of purer action and diviner 
 motion, which lies above the material one of intellectual 
 struggle and selfish purpose wherein man has held and 
 exercised his long sovereignty." — ("Woman and Her Era," 
 Vol. I., p. 311). 
 
 5. — " . . . philosophic lore . . ." ' 
 
 "The farther our knowledge advances, the greater will 
 be the need of rising to transcendental views of the physi- 
 cal world. ... If the imagination had been more 
 cultivated, if there had been a closer union between the 
 spirit of poetry and the spirit of science, natural philosophy 
 would have made greater progress because natural philo- 
 sophers would have taken a higher and more successful 
 aim, and would have enlisted on their side a wider range 
 of human sympathies." — Buckle (" Influence of Women on 
 the Progress of Knowledge "). 
 
 Id. "... chirurgic lore . . ." 
 
 "The Lady Dufferin fund had already been the means of 
 
WOMAN FREE. 207 
 
 opening a school of medicine for Indian women, who would 
 consequently devote themselves to the study of anatomy. 
 Anatomy and Asiatic women. That was the most extra- 
 ordinary association of ideas one could ever have imagined." 
 — Professor Vambdry (Lecture to the Royal Scottish Geo- 
 graphical Society, Edinburgh, 20th May, 1891). Reported 
 in the Times of following day. 
 
 8. — " Regent of Natures will, . . ." 
 
 " Woman will grow into fitness for the sublime work 
 which nature has given her to do, and man through her 
 help and persuasion will spontaneously assume the relation 
 of a co-operator in it. Finding that nature intends his 
 highest good and that of his species, through the emancipa- 
 tion and development of woman into the fulness of her 
 powers, he will gratefully seek his own profit and happiness 
 in harmonising himself with this method ; he will honour it 
 as nature's method, and woman as its chief executor ; and 
 will joyfully find that not only individuals, families, and 
 communities, but nations, have been wisely dependent on 
 her, in their more advanced conditions, for the good which 
 can come only from the most perfect, artistic, and spiritual 
 being who inhabits our earth." — Eliza W. Farnham 
 (" Woman and Her Era," Vol. II., p. 423). 
 
 LIX. 
 
 j.—"EacA sequent life shall feel her finer care." 
 
 " The one thing constant, the one peak that rises above 
 all clouds, the one window in which the light for ever 
 
2o8 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 burns, the one star that darkness cannot quench, is woman's 
 love. This one fact justifies the existence and the perpetu- 
 ation of the human race. Again I say that women are 
 better than men ; their hearts are more unreservedly given ; 
 in the web of their lives sorrow is inextricably woven with 
 the greatest joys ; self-sacrifice is a part of their nature, and 
 at the behest of love and maternity they walk willingly and 
 joyously down to the very gates of death. Is there nothing 
 in this to excite the admiration, the adoration, of a modern 
 reformer ? Are the monk and nun superior to the father 
 and mother ? " — Robert Ingersoll {North American Review, 
 Sept., 1890). 
 
 2. — '■^ Each heir of life a wealthier bounty share;" 
 
 Poets and physiologists agree in these prognostications. 
 The keen observer, Bastian, in his treatise on archebiosis, 
 willingly calls to his support an equally conscientious ally, 
 in the following passage : — 
 
 " We must battle on along the path of knowledge and of 
 duty, trusting in that natural progress towards a far distant 
 future for the human race, such as its past history may 
 warrant us in anticipating. For, as Mr. Wallace points out, 
 those natural influences which have hitherto promoted 
 man's progress . ' still acting on his mental organisation, 
 must ever lead to the more perfect adaptation of man's 
 higher faculties to the conditions of ^ surrounding nature 
 and to the exigencies of the social state,' so that ' his 
 mental constitution may continue to advance and improve, 
 till the world is again inhabited by a single, nearly 
 .homogeneous race, no individual of which will be inferior 
 
WOMAN FREE. 2*09 
 
 to the noblest specimens of existing humanity.' " — Dr. H 
 Charlton Bastian ("The Beginnings of Life," Vol. II. 
 P- 633). 
 
 3. — " Those lives allied in equal union chaste " 
 
 "The great chastity of paternity, to match the great 
 chastity of maternity." 
 
 —Walt Whitman (" Children of Adam "). 
 
 4. — "A sweeter purpose, purer rapture, taste;" 
 
 "A wife is no longer the husband's property; and, 
 according to modern ideas, marriage is, or should be, a 
 contract on the footing of perfect equality between the 
 sexes. The history of human marriage is the history of a 
 relation in which women have been gradually triumphing 
 over the passions, the prejudices, and the selfish interests of 
 men."— Edward Westermarck (Concluding words of "The 
 History of Human Marriage "). 
 
 7. — " The only rivalry . . .'' 
 
 " When woman finds her proper place in legislation, it 
 will be found ultimately that it will be not as man's rival, 
 but his helpmate." — Mabel Collins (" On Woman's Relation 
 to the State"). 
 
 8. — " Jlow/or their lineage fair still larger Jate to find." 
 
 " Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, had the idea of making 
 public principle and utility predominate over private 
 interests and affections ; and on that idea he ordained that 
 children were not to be the property of their parents, but 
 
 p 
 
,2io WOMAN FREE. 
 
 of the State, which was to direct their education, and deter- 
 mine their modes of life. A better idea with the legislators 
 of the future — the number of whom will be equal with that 
 of all wholesomely-developed men and women upon the earth — 
 will be to take fullest advantage of all natural instincts. 
 The parents, their hearts ever yearning with love for their 
 offspring, and the community, careful of its individual 
 members, co-operating in placing the children under all 
 good influences towards that development, which, being the 
 best for their individual lives, will also coincide with what 
 is best for the general welfare. For this end, the experience 
 of the past, and the higher wisdom of their own times, will 
 far better qualify them to judge of fitting means and 
 methods than we can now either surmise or suggest." — 
 David Maxwell ("Stepping-stones to Socialism,'' p. 15). 
 
 LX. 
 
 I. — " Their task ineffable yields wondrous gain." 
 
 "... I rest not from my great task ; 
 To open the eternal worlds ! To open the immortal eyes 
 Of man inwards ; into the worlds of thought : into 
 
 eternity 
 Ever expanding the human imagination.'' 
 
 —William Blake ("Jerusalem"). 
 
 2. — " Their energies celestial force attain." 
 
 " Les dcrivains du dix-huitifeme sifecle ont sans doute 
 rendu d'immenses services aux Socidt^s ; mais leur philo- 
 sophie basde sur le sensualisme, n'est pas allde plus loin que 
 
WOMAN FREE. 211 
 
 I'^piderme humain. lis n'ont considdrd que I'univers 
 extdrieur, et, sous ce rapport seulement, ils ont retard^, pour 
 quelque temps, le ddveloppement morale de I'liomme. . . . 
 L'dtude des mystferes de la pensde, la ddcouverte des organes 
 de I'AME humaine, la g^ometrie de ses forces, les ph^no- 
 mfenes de sa puissance, I'appr^ciation de la faculty qu'elle 
 nous semble poss^der de se mouvoir ind^pendamment du 
 corps, de se transporter 011 elle veut et de voir sans le 
 secours des organes corporels, enfin les lois de sa dyna- 
 mique et celles de son influence physique, constitueront la 
 glorieuse part du sifecle suivant dans le tr^sor des sciences 
 humaines. Et nous ne sommes occupes peutetre, en ce 
 moment, qu' a extraire les blocs dnormes qui serviront plus 
 tard k quelque puissant gdnie pour bitir quelque glorieux 
 Edifice." — Balzac ("Physiologic du Mariage," Meditation 
 XXVI.). 
 
 3, 4. — " Their intermingled souls, ivith passion dighf, 
 In aspiration soar past earthly height." 
 
 " As yet we are in the infancy of our knowledge. What 
 we have done is but a speck compared to what remains to 
 be done. For what is there that we really know ? We are 
 too apt to speak as if we had penetrated into the sanctuary 
 of truth and raised the veil of the goddess, when, in fact, 
 we are still standing, coward-like, trembling before the 
 vestibule, and not daring, from very fear, to cross the 
 threshold of the temple. The highest of our so-called laws 
 of nature are as yet purely empirical. 
 
 " . . . They who discourse to you of the laws of nature 
 as if those laws were binding upon nature, or as if they 
 
 p 2 
 
2 12 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 foirmed'a part of nature, deceive both you and themselves. 
 The (so-called) laws of nature have their sole seat, origin, 
 and function in the human mind. They are simply the 
 conditions under which the regularity of nature is recognised. 
 They explain the external world, but they reside in the in- 
 ternal. As yet we know scarcely anything of the laws of 
 mind, and, therefore, we scarcely know anything of the laws 
 of nature. We talk of the law of gravitation, and yet we 
 •know not what gravitation is ; we talk of the conservation 
 of force and distribution of forces, and we know not what 
 forces are ; we talk with complacent ignorance of the 
 atomic arrangements of matter, and we neither know what 
 atoms are nor what matter is ; we do not even know if 
 rhatter, in the ordinary sense of the word, can be said to 
 exist ; we have as yet only broken the first ground, we have 
 but touched the crust and surface of things. Before us and 
 around us there is an immense and untrodden field, whose 
 limits the eye vainly strives to define \ so completely are they 
 lost in the dim and shadowy outline of the future. In that 
 field, which we and our posterity have yet to traverse, I 
 firmly believe that the imagination will effect quite as much 
 as the understanding. Our poetry will have to reinforce 
 our logic, and we must feel as much as we argue. Let us 
 then hope, that the imaginative and emotional minds of one 
 sex will continue to accelerate the great progress, by acting 
 upon and improving the colder and harder minds of the 
 other sex." — Buckle (" Influence of Women on the Progress 
 of Knowledge "). 
 
 6. — " . . . the vision to retain" 
 
WOMAN FREE. 213 
 
 As with Wordsworth's nature-nurtured maiden : — 
 
 "... beauty born of murmuring sound 
 Shall pass into her face . . . 
 And vital feelings of delight 
 Shall rear her form to stately height . . . 
 The floating clouds their state shall lend 
 To her ; for her the willow bend, 
 Nor shall she fail to see 
 Even in the motions of the storm 
 Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 
 By silent sympathy.'' 
 
 — (" Poems of the Imagination "). 
 
 Id. . . " My hope becomes as broad as the horizon 
 afar, reiterated by every leaf, sung on every bough, reflected 
 in the gleam of every flower. There is so much for us yet 
 to come, so much to be gathered, and enjoyed. Not for 
 you or me, now, but for our race, who will ultimately use 
 this magical secret for their happiness. Earth holds secrets 
 enough to give them the life of the fabled Immortals. My 
 heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately 
 the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and thp azure 
 sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man's 
 existence. He shall take from all their beauty and enjpy 
 their glory. . . . He is indeed despicable who cannot 
 look onwards to the ideal life of man. Not to do so is to 
 deny our birthright of mind." — R. Jefferies (" The Pageant 
 of Summer"). 
 
214 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 7, 8. — " . . . mould their dreams of love, with consckt.s 
 skill 
 To human living types . . ." 
 
 " Her Brain enlabyrinths the whole heaven of her bosom 
 and loins 
 To put in act what her Heart wills." 
 
 —William Blake ("Jerusalem"). 
 
 " These states belong so purely to the inner nature ; are 
 so deeply hidden beneath the strata of what we call the 
 inner life, even, that only women, and of these only such 
 as have become self-acquainted, through seeing the depths 
 within the depths of their own consciousness, can fully 
 comprehend all that is meant in the words a ' Purposed 
 Maternity.' I use them in their highest sense, meaning not 
 the mere purpose of satisfying the maternal instincts, which 
 the quadruped feels and acts from, as well as the human 
 being, but the intelligent, artistic purpose (to which the 
 maternal instinct is a fundamental motive), to act in harmony 
 with Nature in producing the most perfect being which the 
 powers and resources employed, can bring forth. . . . 
 It is probable that we shall, ere long, arrive at truer 
 views of maternity everywhere ; and when we do, I think it 
 will be seen that the oflSce has a sacredness in Nature's eyes 
 above all other offices, and that she reserves for it the finest 
 of her vital forces, powers, susceptibilities, and means of 
 every sort." — Eliza W. Farnham ("Woman and Her Era," 
 Vol. n., p. 38s ; Vol. I., p. 93). 
 
 [It has been an intense delight to come upon these and 
 the other words and thoughts of Eliza W. Farnham • 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 " blaze's " or axe-marks of this previous pioneer in the same 
 exploration. It is only since completing the whole of the 
 verses that the writer has found the passages quoted from 
 Mrs. Farnham's work, and deduces a not unnatural con- 
 firmation of the mutually shared views, from the singular 
 concord and unanimity of their expression.] 
 
 8.—" . . . supreme of form and will." 
 
 " The changes that have come over us in our social life 
 during the past two decades are, in many respects, remark- 
 able, but in no particular are they so remarkable as in the 
 physical training and education of women. . . . 
 
 " The results of this social change have been on the whole 
 beneficial beyond expectation. The health of women 
 generally is improving under the change ; there is amongst 
 women generally less bloodlessness, less of what the old 
 fiction-writers called swooning; less of lassitude, less of 
 nervousness, less of hysteria, and much less of that general 
 debility to which, for want of a better term, the words 
 '■malaise^ and 'languor' have been apphed Woman, in 
 a word, is stronger than she was in olden time. With 
 this increase of strength woman has gained in development 
 of body and of limb. She has become less distortioned. 
 The curved back, the pigeon-shaped chest, the dispro- 
 portioned limb, the narrow feeble trunk, the small and 
 often distorted eyeball, the myopic eye, and puny ill-shaped 
 external ear — all these parts are becoming of better and 
 more natural contour. The muscles are also- becoming 
 more equally and more fully developed, and with these 
 improvements, there are growing up amongst women 
 
2i6 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 models who may, in due time, vie with the best models 
 that old Greek culture has left for us to study in its undying 
 art."— Dr. Richardson ("The Young Woman," Oct., 1892). 
 
 Id. — " . . . prophetic scenes, 
 
 Spiritual projections . . . 
 
 In one, the sacred parturition scene, 
 
 A happy, painless mother births a perfect child." 
 
 — Walt Whitman (" Autumn Rivulets "). 
 
 Id. . . " I am so rapt in the beauty of the human 
 form, and so earnestly, so inexpressibly prayerful to see that 
 form perfect, that my full thought is not to be written. 
 . . . It ' is absolutely incontrovertible that the ideal 
 shape of the human being is attainable to the exclusion of 
 deformities. . . . When the ambition of the multitude 
 is fixed on the ideal form and beauty, then that ideal will 
 become immediately possible, and a marked advance to- 
 wards it could be made in three generations." — Richard 
 Jefferies ("The Story of My Heart," pp. 32, 151, 131). 
 
 Id. . . 
 " ' The Gods ? ' In yourselves will ye see them, when Venus 
 
 shall favour your love, 
 And man, fitly mated with woman, 'believes that his love 
 
 is divine : 
 When passion shall elevate woman to something so holy 
 
 and grand 
 That she — the ideal enraptured — shall ne'er be a check 
 
 upon Man, 
 Then the children they bear will be holy, and beauty shall 
 
 make them her own, 
 
WOMAN FREE. 217 
 
 And man in the eyes of his neighbour will gaze on the 
 
 reflex divine 
 Of the God he inclines to in spirit — or trace in each 
 
 feature and limb 
 The lines which the body inherits from souls which are 
 
 noble and true. 
 
 Would thou couldst feel in deep earnest, how beautiful 
 
 God will be then, 
 When we see Him as Jove or Apollo in men who inspire 
 
 us with love. 
 As Juno and Venus the holy, in women who know not 
 
 the mean. 
 And feel not the influence cruel of hardness and self-love 
 
 and scorn. 
 Would thou couldst once know how real the presence of 
 
 God will become. 
 How earnest and ever more earnest thy faith when thyself 
 
 shall be great, 
 And from the true worship of others thoult learn what is 
 
 holy in them, 
 And rise to the infinite fountain of glory which flows in 
 
 us all." 
 
 — C. G. Leland ("The Return of the Gods "). 
 
 LXI. 
 3. — " Their science ..." 
 " Science then 
 Shall be a precious visitant ; and then 
 And only then, be worthy of her name : 
 
2i8 IVOMAN FREE. 
 
 For then her heart shall kindle ; her dull eye, 
 Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang 
 Chained to its object in brute slavery ; 
 But taught with patient industry to watch 
 The processes of things, and serve the cause 
 Of order and distinctness, not for this 
 Shall it forget that its most noble use. 
 Its most illustrious province, must be found 
 In furnishing clear guidance, a support 
 Not treacherous, to the mind's excursive power." 
 — Wordsworth ("The Excursion," Book IV.). 
 
 4. — " . . . crude dimensions . . ." 
 
 " In these material things, too, I think that we require 
 another circle of ideas, and I beheve that such ideas are 
 possible, and, in a manner of speaking, exist. Let me 
 exhort everyone to do their utmost to think outside and 
 beyond our present circle of ideas. For every idea gained 
 is a hundred years of slavery remitted. Even with the idea 
 of organisation, which promises most, I am not satisfied, 
 but endeavour to get beyond and outside it, so that the 
 time now necessary may be shortened.!' — Richard Jefferies 
 (" Story of My He^t," p. 180). 
 
 8. — " The love that lifts the life from rank of earth to 
 heaven." 
 "... utter knowledge is but utter love — 
 yEonian Evolution, swift and slow. 
 Thro' all the spheres — an ever opening height. 
 An ever lessening earth." 
 
 —Tennyson ("The Ring"). 
 
WOMAN FREE. 219 
 
 Id. 
 
 I, 2.- 
 
 " The light of love 
 Not failing, perseverance from their steps 
 Departing not, they shall at length obtain 
 The glorious habit by which sense is made 
 Subservient still to moral purposes, 
 Auxiliar to divine. That change shall clothe 
 The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore 
 The burthen of existence . . . 
 
 • So build we up the Being that we are ; 
 
 Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of things. 
 
 We shall be wise perforce ; and, while inspired 
 
 By choice, and conscious that the Will is free. 
 
 Unswerving shall we move as if impelled 
 
 By strict necessity, along the path 
 
 Of order and of good. Whate'er we see, 
 
 Whate'er we feel, by agency direct 
 
 Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse 
 
 Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats 
 
 Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights 
 
 Of love divine, our intellectual soul." 
 
 —Wordsworth (" The Excursion," Book IV.). 
 
 LXII. 
 
 . . . wingld words on which the soul would pierce 
 Into the height of love's rare Universe." 
 
 The two lines are Shelley's, in his " Epipsychidion." 
 y. — "Man's destiny with woman's blended be,' 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 "... in the long years liker must they grow ; 
 The man be more of woman, she of man." 
 
 —Tennyson ("The Princess," Part VII.). 
 
 Id. — " Dans ma maniere de sentir, je suis femme aux trois 
 quarts." 
 
 — Ernest Renan ("Souvenirs d'Enfance"). 
 
 Id. . . . 
 
 " Das Ewigweibliche 
 Zieht uns hinan." 
 — Goethe (concluding two lines of " Faust "). 
 
 8. — " . . . progression, . . ." 
 
 " Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes un- 
 folded, and is always to come unfolded ; 
 
 Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is 
 to come the superbest man of the earth ; 
 
 Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the 
 friendliest man ; 
 
 Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a 
 man be form'd of perfect body ; 
 
 Unfolded orily out of the inimitable poem of the woman, 
 can come the poems of man . . . 
 
 Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain come all 
 the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient ; 
 
 Unfolded out of the justice of the woman 'all justice is un- 
 folded ; 
 
 Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sym- 
 pathy ; 
 
WOMAN FREE. 
 
 A man is a great thing upon the tarth, and through 
 eternity— but every jot of the greatness of man is un- 
 folded out of woman, 
 
 First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be 
 shaped in himself." 
 
 —Walt Whitman (" Leaves of Grass "). 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 2. — " . . . the dream men named Divine, — " 
 
 " Divine " was the title of honour conferred on the 
 " Commedia," by the repentant citizens of Florence, after 
 the death of Dante. 
 
 8. — " The love that moves the sun and every .circling star." 
 
 The last line of the "Divina Commedia" is — 
 " Lo amor che move il sole e le altre stelle." 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 What, then, is the result of these investigations ? 
 
 Briefly this : 
 
 That woman is not incapable of equal mental and physi- 
 cal power with man : 
 
 That where any inferiority on her part at present exists, 
 it is but as the inherited result of long ages of misuse of 
 her functions, and of want of training of her faculties : 
 
222 WOMAN FREE. 
 
 That an intelligent education in both directions can repair 
 these wrongs, and establish her due individuality, and her 
 equal share in human right and happiness : 
 
 " That the principle which regulates the existing social 
 relations between the two sexes — the legal subordination of 
 one sex to the other ^is wrong in itself and tjpw one of the 
 chief hindrances to human improvement ; and that it ought 
 to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting 
 no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the 
 other " (John Stuart Mill, " The Subjection of Women," 
 Ch. I.): 
 
 And that, as the result of woman's amended position, 
 the whole human race will benefit physically and psychically. 
 
 Thus much, at least, may be fairly concluded from the 
 "Notes" here presented; in the gathering together of 
 which scattered rays — thoughts and experiences from many 
 an observant mind — into one focus, to offer light and 
 warmth to suffering womanhood and humanity, the main 
 purpose of this book is accomplished. 
 
 E. E. 
 
 January \st, 1893. 
 
 *^* The courtesy of corroborations or elucidations (confi- 
 dential or otherwise) of the subject-matter of these Notes is 
 invited by the Author (care of Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, 
 Buxton House, Congleton), with a view to a possible fuller 
 
INDICES, &c. 
 
AUTHORrriES OR REFERENCES IN 
 NOTES 
 
 ^:schylus, S3. 
 
 Aldis, Prof. W. S., 202. 
 
 Anderson, Dr. Elizabeth 
 
 Garrett, 113. 
 Aspasia, 45, 46, 47. 
 Athena, 52. 
 
 Ballot, Jules, 168. 
 Balzac, H. de, 198, 211. 
 Bastian, Dr. H. C, 87, 125, 
 
 204, 208. 
 Bebel, August, 38, 46, 115, 
 
 124, 130, 165, 167, 183, 
 
 199. 
 Bell, Sir C., 192. 
 Berdoe, Ed., 191. 
 Bernard, Dr. Claude, 185 
 Bernheim, Dr., 109. 
 Bidwell, E., 93. 
 Bithell, Richard, no. 
 Blackstone, 98 to 100, 131, 
 
 143, 148. 
 Blake, William, 159, 210, 
 
 214. 
 Blowitz, M. de, 202. 
 Bonavia, Dr. E., 121, 153, 
 
 162, 164, 194, 198. 
 
 Bowyer, Lady, 156. 
 
 Bracton, 98. 
 
 Browning, Eliz. Barrett, 63, 
 67, 119. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 67. 
 
 Brown-Sdquard, Dr., 184. 
 
 Briicke, Prof., 184. 
 
 Biichner, Dr. L., 121. 
 
 Buckle, H. T., so, 65, 72, 
 103, 107, 118, 131, 140, 
 142, 171, 206, 211. 
 
 Buddha, 138. 
 
 Byron, Commodore, 61. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 12 s. 
 
 Caird, Mona, 48, 174. 
 Carlyie, Thomas, 193. 
 Cerise, Dr., 103. 
 Chambers, Robert, 40. 
 Chauveau, Dr., 183. 
 Chauvin, Mile., 202. 
 Christian, Edwd., 98, 131, 
 
 i43> 149 
 Cobbe, Frances Power, 88, 
 
 112, IS2, 189, 190. 
 Coke, Chief Justice, 98, 130. 
 Collins, Mabel, 181, 209. 
 
REFERENCES IN NOTES. 
 
 Comte, Augusle, 138 (see 
 
 Ethics, in Index). 
 Condorcet, 197. 
 Confucius, 69, 138. 
 Cromwell, 126. 
 Cuvier, 124, 126. 
 
 Dante, 53, 125, 126, 221. 
 Darwin, C., 42, 59, 61, 64, 
 
 128, 161, 185. 
 Darwin, F., 107. 
 Davy, Sir Humphrey, 196. 
 Dawkins, Prof. Boyd, 93. 
 De Boismont, Brierre, 116. 
 Delbceuf, Prof., 119. 
 Descartes, 205. 
 Dixie, Lady Florence, 49, 
 
 174. 
 Dodel-Port, Dr., 124. 
 Duiferin, Lady, 206. 
 Duffey, Mrs. E. B., 120. 
 Dumas, A. fils, 36, 49, 54, 
 
 124, 132, 137, 175, 197. 
 Dunckley, Dr. Henry, 187. 
 Dupanloup, Mons., 197. 
 Du Prel, Dr., 109. 
 
 Edger, Lilian, 202. 
 Eliot, George, 35, 79, 93. 
 Elmy, Ben, 38, 66, 178. 
 Elmy, Eliz. C. Wolsten- 
 
 holme, 62, 144, 155. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, i6i. 
 Esher, Lord, 145. 
 
 Faber, Dr., 67. 
 Fairchild, Prof., 164. 
 
 Farnham, Eliza W., 59, 104, 
 III, 130, 139, 157, 179, 
 186, 200, 206, 207, 214. 
 
 Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, 
 
 113. 1 14, 11 7- 
 Fawcett, Philippa, 164. 
 Fergiisson, Robert, 72, 140. 
 Flaxman, John, 170. 
 Fonblanque, Dr., see Paris. 
 Forel, Dr., 120. 
 Fuller, see Ossoli. 
 
 Gallon, F., 181. 
 Gambetta, Leon, 126. 
 Gardener, Helen H., 125, 
 
 126, 127. 
 Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, Jr., 
 
 172. 
 Geddes and Thomson, 40, 
 
 41, 74. 78, 173. 175 to 
 
 177, 178, 182. 
 Geikie, James, 40. 
 Gnathsna, 46. 
 Gregory, Dr., 73. 
 Greville, Lady Violet, 130. 
 Grey, Sir George, 59. 
 Grote, George, 44. 
 Goltz, Prof., 191. 
 Goethe, 195, 220. 
 Guizot, 142. 
 
 Halsbury, Lord Chancellor, 
 
 144. 
 Harrison, Frederic, 112. 
 Harvard, John, 171. 
 Hoche, Frau, 77. 
 Homer, 53. 
 
REFERENCES IN NOTES. 
 
 Horsley, Prof., 189, 205. 
 Huxley, Prof., 64, 109, 166, 
 197. 
 
 Ingersoll, Robert, 208. 
 Inman, Dr. T., 58. 
 
 Jefferies, R., 36, 41, 103, 
 108, 183, 187, 213, 216, 
 218. 
 
 Jex-Blake, Dr. Sophia, 113, 
 172. 
 
 Jones, Prof. T. R., 36. 
 
 Journals, &c. 
 
 "Arena," 181. 
 
 Bible, 100, 103, 116, 140. 
 
 " Bombay Guardian," 71. 
 
 Brit. Assoc. Reports, 35, 36, 
 93, loi, 107, 116, 117. 
 
 " British Med. Journal," 78. 
 
 Chinese Classics, 67. 
 
 "Christian Commonwealth," 
 196. 
 
 "Daily News," 156. 
 
 " Dublin Review," 73. 
 
 "Fortnightly Review," 115. 
 
 Fox's Journal, 140. 
 
 " Home Maker," N.Y., 86. 
 
 Ohel Jakob (Jewish Li- 
 turgy), 139. 
 
 "Journal of Education," 160 
 
 " Lancet," 1 14. 
 
 Mahomedan Lit. Society, 94. 
 
 "Manchester Courier," 169. 
 
 " Manchester Evening 
 
 Mail," i6g. 
 
 " Manchester Examiner," 60. 
 
 " Manchester Guardian," 76, 
 77. 140, 187. 
 
 Journals, &c. (Con.) — 
 
 " Morning Post," 54. 
 
 " National Review," 130. 
 
 " New Zealand Herald," 
 203. 
 
 "Nineteenth Century," 47, 
 61,71, 114. 
 
 " Pall Mall Gazette," 78. 
 
 " Provincial Med. Journal," 
 see Bonavia, Dr. 
 
 Report of International 
 Council of Women, Wash- 
 ington, 1888, 126 to 128. 
 
 " Review of Reviews," 69, 
 80, 86, 11 8, 180. 
 
 " Standard," 76, 192. 
 
 "Times," 86, 97, 119, 146, 
 150, 189, 191, 192, 205, 
 
 207- 
 
 " Times of India," 82, 97. 
 
 "Westminster Review," 142, 
 168. 
 
 "Woman," 169. 
 
 "Woman's Journal," Bos- 
 ton, U.S., 72, 106, 172, 
 201. 
 
 "Woman's Herald," 57. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 183, 195, 
 
 (see Ethics, in Index). 
 Karl, Lieutenant, 77. 
 Kenny, Courtney, 149. 
 Kingsley, Charles, 57, 119. 
 Kipling, J. Lockwood, 39. 
 Kipling, Rudyard 54. 
 
 Laboulaye, E., 130. 
 Lais, 46, 47. 
 Lang, Andrew, 179. 
 Lecky, W. E. H., 48. 
 
 bz 
 
REFERENCES IN NOTES. 
 
 Lee, Chief Justice, 151. 
 
 Leland, C. G., 38, 217. 
 
 Lepstuk, Marie, 77. 
 
 Letourneau, Ch., 37, 38, 39, 
 46, SS> 58, 61, 67, 88, 
 132. 133, 138, 159- 
 
 Le Vassor, 131. 
 
 Linton, Eliza Lynn, 47. 
 
 Lodge, Prof., 35. 
 
 Lombroso, Prof, 10 1. 
 
 Luteef, Abdool, 97. 
 
 Lycurgus, 209. 
 
 Lylie, "Euphues," 171. 
 
 Machill, Prof, 164. 
 
 Magee, Archbishop, 80. 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, 73, 118. 
 
 Mansell, Dr. Monelle, 84. 
 
 Manu, 67, 133 (see England, 
 in Index). 
 
 Maxwell, David, 210. 
 
 McCarthy, Justin, (see "Mili- 
 tary service," in Index). 
 
 Mdlquham, Harriett, 151, 
 
 152. 
 McLennan, John F., 37, 59. 
 Mencius, 69. 
 Michelet, J., 77. 
 Mill, Harriet, 56, 142. 
 Mill, John Stuart, 38, 43, 
 
 73. 79. 107. 134, 137. 
 
 154, 156, 162, 175, 193, 
 
 197, 222 (see Ethics, in 
 
 Index).. 
 Milton, 67, 135. . 
 Mitchell, Hon. J. W., 123, 
 
 20c. . 
 
 Mitchell, Dr. Julia, 77. 
 Moir, David M., 63. 
 Molifere, 196. 
 
 Moll, Dr. A., 109, iig, 121. 
 Montesquieu, 99. 
 Morgan-Browne, Laura E., 
 
 56, 57- ■ 
 Morselli, Dr., 126. 
 Miiller, Max, 42. 
 
 Nichols, Dr., loi. 
 Ninon de 1' Enclos, 48. 
 Norman, — , 70. 
 
 Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, 67. 
 Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, 180. 
 
 Page, Lord Justice, 151. 
 Paley, {see Ethics, in Index'). 
 Paris and Fonblanque, 108. 
 Park; Mungo, 59. 
 Parvin, Dr., 90. 
 Pericles, 45. 
 Peile, Dr., 202, 203. 
 Pertz, Dorothea, 107. 
 Pfeiffer, Edward, 160. 
 Phipson, Dr. Edith Pechey, 
 
 42, 43, 80, 81, 91, 94, 
 
 136, 159, 194. 
 Phryne, 46, 47. 
 Plato, 44, 1 1 8. 
 Pliny, io2. 
 
 Ponsan, Dr. Menville de, i. 
 Pope, 66. 
 
 Raciborski,Dr.,88, 102, 120. 
 Rawn, Dr., 116. 
 
REFERENCES IN NOTES. 
 
 Reade, Winwood, 44. 
 Reichardt, Mrs., 61, 71. 
 Renan, Ernest, 166, 220. 
 Richardson, Dr. B. W., 215. 
 Roland, Madame, 129. 
 Rousseau, 197. 
 Roussel, Dr., 88, 103, 104. 
 Rowe, Nicholas, 133. 
 Ruskin, John, 51, 54, 108, 
 
 128, 156. 
 Ryder, Dr. Emma B., 84. 
 
 Sachs, Dr., 107. 
 Sakyamouni, 138. 
 Sand, Georges, 67, 79. 
 Schiller, 80. 
 Schreiner, Olive, iii. 
 Scott, 52. 
 
 Selborne, Lord, 146. 
 Shakespeare, 52, 53, 150, 
 
 195- 
 Shelley, 156, 219. 
 Sidgwick, Prof. H., (see Neo- 
 
 MalthUiSianism, in Index). 
 Smith, R., 61. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, 51, 163, 195. 
 Socrates, 45, 48. 
 Somerville, Mary, 163. 
 Sorel, Agnes, 47. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 64, 88, 
 
 (see Ethics, in Index). 
 Spenser, 119, 
 Spier, Mrs., 138. 
 Spitzka, Dr., 126, 127. 
 Spurzheim, Dr., 127. 
 Stead, W. T., 180. 
 Stern, Daniel, 197. 
 
 Tait, Lawson, F.R.C.S., 188, 
 192. 
 
 Tennyson, 43, 53, 66, 156, 
 162, 173, 182, 218, 220. 
 
 Tertullian, 142. 
 
 Theodota, 48. 
 
 Thompson, Wm., (see Equal- 
 ity, in Index). 
 
 Thomson (see Geddes/ 
 
 Thorburn, Dr. John, 91. 
 
 Tilt, Dr. E. J., 116, 118. 
 
 Tinseau, — , 69. 
 
 Troll-Borostyani, Irma von, 
 
 183. 
 Tyndall, Prof., 88. ' 
 
 Vamb&y, Prof, 207. 
 
 Wakeman, Edgar L., 75. 
 Walker, Dr. A., 46, 129, 163. 
 Wallace, Prof. A. R., 180, 
 
 208. 
 Webb, Sidney, 10 1. 
 Weill, Dr. Alexander, in, 
 
 112. 
 Westermarck, Edwd., 42, 
 
 45. 46, 171, 209- 
 White, Prof, 164. 
 Whitehead, Dr., 105. 
 Whitman, Walt, 154, 209, 
 
 216, 220. 
 Whittier, John G., 178. 
 Winslow, Dr. Caroline, 106. 
 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 129, 
 
 i3S> 159. i7°- 
 Wordsworth, 36, 213, 217, 
 219. 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 Abnormality, gi to 93, 121. 
 
 Affection, 42 ; indispensable 
 to 'true marriage, 194. 
 
 Age of nubility and consent, 
 see England, India. 
 
 American Indians, educa- 
 tion. of, 60. 
 
 Anatomy, feminine teaching 
 of in India, 207. 
 
 Arrogance, masculine, 64, 
 67, see Sex-bias. 
 
 Art, 40, 41, 216. 
 
 Asceticism, 41 167, 208. 
 
 Athletics, 74, 167 215, see 
 Strength, Tiaining, Mili- 
 tary service. 
 
 Australian girl, 42. 
 
 Barbarism, 37, 54, 57, 
 
 " Baron and feme," 149. 
 
 Bayaderes, 46. 
 
 Beauty, 41, 49, 75, 213, 
 216. 
 
 Brain, 121 to 128, 203, 205; 
 developed by exercise, 
 121, 122, 161 ; relative 
 size, weight, and specific 
 gravity of, 125, 126; of 
 celebrated men, 125; no 
 
 hard and fast distinction 
 known, 127; of ant, 128. 
 
 Brahrninism, 71, 80, 82, 138. 
 
 Buddhism, 72, 138. 
 
 Capability, 49 to 53, 162, 
 164, 169, see Jealousy. 
 
 Catholicism, status of wife, 73. 
 
 Cattle, wild ; lactation, 93. 
 
 Chastity, 47, 138, 177, 209. 
 
 Childbearing, 78, 208 ; e^i- 
 cessive, 64, 66, 105, 176, 
 177; future painless, 216. 
 
 Child-marriage, 81 ; see Mar- 
 riage. 
 
 China, 58 ; ethics of woman 
 in, 67 ; a Mandarin's fore- 
 boding, 1 30 ; a girl's duty 
 in, 140, see Confucianism. 
 
 Christianity, 73, 140, 142. 
 
 Civism, 74, 154, 155. 
 
 "Clitheroe case," 144. 
 
 Clothing ; see Dress. 
 
 Coal-pit women, 75. 
 
 Co-education ; see Education. 
 
 Community of effort, 155, 
 173, 182, 183, 194, 207, 
 209, 212, 218, 220. 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 Comtism, 138, see Ethics. 
 
 Confucianism; 67, 71, 138. 
 
 Conjugal "rights," in Eng- 
 land, 98, 143 to 146 ; in 
 India, 85, 86, 95, 147. 
 
 Consent, age of, see England, 
 India. 
 
 Contagious Diseases Acts, 
 
 193- 
 Courtesanship, 45, 54; see 
 
 Hetairai, Prostitution. 
 Cruelty, to woman, 37, 38, 
 
 58, 79, 83, 85, 102, 105 ; 
 
 to children, 61, 62, 83, 
 
 8s, 86. 
 Curare (or "ourali"), 185. 
 Custody of Infants, 62. 
 Cycling, 170. 
 
 Demi-monde, 54. 
 
 Development, 36, 37, 4i> 
 87, 88, 120, see Evolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Disabilities, legal, 150 to 
 153. 
 
 Distortion of feet, 58. 
 
 Diseases, feminine, so-called, 
 100, lOI. 
 
 Divorce, 73, 135, 148. 
 
 Dogma, 35, 67, see Ethics, 
 Religion. 
 
 Dower, old English, 98, 99. 
 
 Dress, 58, 75, 76, 169- 
 
 Duty, so-called, 67 to 74, 
 136 to 141; true, 66, 155, 
 see Religion, "Sphere," 
 Community of effort. 
 
 Education, 50, 51; political, 
 74, 160 ; liberty of, 128, 
 142, 162, 164, 166, 197 ; 
 co-education, 164, 165, 
 171 ; a liberal, 166. 
 
 Egypt, 44= 52- 
 
 Enfranchisement, 1 80, see 
 Franchise. 
 
 England, modern guardian- 
 ship in, 62 ; ancient, 99 ; 
 age of nubility and con- 
 sent, 98, 99. 
 
 [By the law of England a 
 girl is still marriageable at 
 twelve and a boy at fourteen 
 years of age ; though the 
 " age of consent " to inter- 
 course not thus sanctioned 
 has been recently raised to 
 sixteen years in the case of 
 girls. In the above matters, 
 and notably in that of the 
 marriageable age, England 
 remains barbarously below 
 most modern legislatures, 
 and is indeed in the dis- 
 graceful condition of being 
 not even on a level with 
 China, in which country — 
 as Mr. Byrant Barrett points 
 out, in his Introductory Dis- 
 course to the " Code Napo- 
 leon," p. 66 — " In females, it 
 would appear, consumma- 
 tion is not allowable before 
 twelve," while " the age for 
 marriage in males is twenty 
 cornplete." China and Eng- 
 land are but slightly in 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 advance of ancient India, 
 where, according to the pre- 
 cepts of Manu, as Mr. Bar- 
 rett further shows, (p. 30), 
 "The male of 24 years 
 should marry the girl of 8 
 years of age ; the male of 30 
 the female of 12" (Ordin- 
 ances of Manu, ch. g, sec. 
 94). Is not such conduct as 
 this sufficient to involve as 
 inevitableconsequences "un- 
 ripe maternity and untimely 
 birth," together with all their 
 dire inherited miseries ?] 
 
 Epicenity, 181, 182. 
 Equality of sexes, 43, 45, 
 
 49> 57, 79> i33> i34, iS3. 
 154, 156, 162, 163, 194. 
 
 See also the following : — 
 "But I hear you indig- 
 nantly reject the boon of 
 equality with such creatures 
 as men now are. With you 
 I would equally elevate both 
 sexes. Really enlightened 
 women, disdaining equally 
 the submissive tricks of the 
 slave and the caprices of the 
 despot, breathing freely only 
 in the air of the esteem 
 ■of equals, and of mutual, 
 unbought, uncommanded, 
 affection, would find it diffi- 
 cult to meet with associates 
 worthy of them in men as 
 now formed, full of ignorance 
 -and vanity, priding them- 
 selves on a sexual superior- 
 ity, entirely independent of 
 
 any merit, any superior 
 qualities, or pretentions to 
 them, claiming respect from 
 the strength of their arm, 
 and the lordly faculty of 
 producing beards attached 
 by nature to their chins ! 
 No : unworthy of, as incap- 
 able of appreciating, the 
 dehght of the society of 
 such women, are the great 
 majority of the existing race 
 of men. The pleasures of 
 mere animal appetite, the 
 pleasures of commanding 
 (the prettier and more help- 
 less the slave, the greater 
 these pleasures of the brute), 
 are the only pleasures which 
 the majority of men seek 
 from women, are the only 
 pleasures which their educa- 
 tion and the hypocritical 
 system of morals, with which 
 they have been necessarily 
 imbued, permit them to ex- 
 pect . . . To wish for 
 the enjoyment of the higher 
 pleasures of sympathy and 
 communication of know- 
 ledge between the sexes, 
 heightened by that mutual 
 grace and glow, that de- 
 corum and mutual respect, 
 to which the feeling of per- 
 fect, unrestrained equality 
 in the intercourse gives 
 birth, a man must have 
 heard of such pleasures, 
 must be able to conceive 
 them, and must have an 
 organisation from nature or 
 education, or both, capable 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 of receiving delight from 
 them when, presented to 
 him. To enjoy these plea- 
 sures, to which their other 
 pleasures, a few excepted, 
 are but the play of children 
 or "brutes, the bulk of men 
 want a sixth sense ; they 
 want the capacity of feeling 
 them, and of believing that 
 such things are in nature to 
 be found. A mole cannot 
 enjoy the "beauties and 
 glories" of the visible world ; 
 nor can brute men enjoy 
 the intellectual and sympa- 
 thetic pleasures of equal 
 intercourse with women, 
 such as some are, such as 
 all might be. Real and 
 comprehensive knowledge, 
 physical and moral, equally 
 and impartially given by 
 education, and by all other 
 means to both sexes, is the 
 key to such higher enjoy- 
 ments. . . . 
 
 Demand with mild but 
 unshrinking firmness, per- 
 fect equality with men : 
 demand equal civil and 
 criminal laws, an equal 
 system of morals, and, as 
 indispensable to these, equal 
 political laws, to afford you 
 an equal chance of happi- 
 ness with men, from the 
 development and exercise 
 of your faculties." 
 
 — William Thompson 
 ("Appeal of One Half the 
 Human Race," 1825, pp. 
 xii, 195). 
 
 Ethics, 74, 147, 173) 177, 186. 
 
 [The impotent and con- 
 tradictory schemes of ethics 
 which philosophers or 
 schoolmen, ancient and 
 modern, have successively 
 evolved, have been but resul- 
 tants of "unisexual wit. 
 With brilliant exceptions in 
 Plato, Kant, and Mill, vainly 
 may the various codes be 
 searched for any suggestion 
 of the identity, individuality, 
 and equality, of woman. 
 For though the philosophy 
 of latter-day ethicists rightly 
 disdains to reiterate or to 
 countenance the factitious 
 scriptural dogmas and im- 
 precations declaratory or 
 explanatory of woman's un- 
 equal and subjugated condi- 
 tion, yet a parallel subjection 
 and inferiority in her nature 
 is still tacitly assumed, and 
 on occasion traded upon, 
 by these same ethicists ; no 
 counsel or consent of her 
 own intelligence being 
 asked, or disavowal recked 
 of, in such propositions as, 
 e.g., the " utilitarian " theses 
 concerning her enounced by 
 Archdeacon Paley or Mr. 
 Jeremy Bentham ; — the 
 nominally " goddess," but 
 virtually " slave," status as- 
 signed to her by M. Auguste 
 Comte ; — or . the " due " 
 amount of childbearing pos- 
 tulated as prior to all 
 "normally feminine mental 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 energy" in her, by Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer. As the 
 bane of all theologies has 
 been the implicated degra- 
 dation and subserviency of 
 womanhood to the unjustly 
 favoured male sex, so the 
 vital defect in the plans of 
 ethics is this irrational dis- 
 regard for the personality 
 and interests of " one half 
 the human race," — this 
 ignoring or negation of 
 woman's equal claim with 
 man to consideration, posi- 
 tion, and action, in all that 
 relates to humanity, ethics 
 included. At present the 
 general masculine sex-bias, 
 or selfishness, refuses to 
 women the wisest andnoblest 
 a faculty in legislation con- 
 ceded to even the meanest 
 men ; and justice and in- 
 justice, pessimism and op- 
 timism, struggle together 
 blindly and helplessly in the 
 dark. The true Ethic still 
 awaits for its formulation 
 the assistance and the inspi- 
 ration of the intellect of 
 woman equal and free: no 
 other way can it be arrived 
 at.] 
 
 Evolution, 39, 40, '41, 78, 
 87, 88, 107, 122, 173, 
 180, 208, 210, 211, 218, 
 220, 222; see Develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Excess, 82; 100, loi, 105. 
 
 Father, legal "rights" and 
 
 duties of, 62, 
 Feme ; see Baron. 
 Feudality, 131 ; female 
 
 wards, 98, 99. 
 Fictility, 86 to 89, 109, 119,^ 
 
 1 20 ; see Evolution. 
 Franchise, woman's, 150 to 
 
 155- 
 French law, 197 ; women 
 
 students of, 201, 202. 
 Future of woman and 
 
 humanity ; forecasts or 
 
 counsels concerning, by — 
 
 Balzac, 210. 
 
 Bastian, 208. 
 
 Bithell, no. 
 
 Blake, 159, 210, 214. 
 
 Bonavia, 162. 
 
 Buckle, 103, 211, 212. 
 
 Cobbe, 112. 
 
 Dixie, 174. 
 
 Dodel-Port, 124. 
 
 Farnham, 104, 111,206,207, 
 214. 
 
 Garrison, 171. 
 
 Geddes and Thomson, 74, 
 78, 173- 
 
 Huxley, no, 166, 167, 197. 
 
 Jefferies, 103, 108, 182, 213, 
 216. 
 
 Kant, 194. 
 
 Lang, 179. 
 
 Leland, 216. 
 
 Maxwell, 210. 
 
 Mill, 43, 79. 162. 
 
 Moll, 119. 
 
 Pfeiffer, 160. 
 
 Richardson, 216. 
 
 Ruskin, 108, 128. 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 Schreiner, iii. 
 Spencer, 87. 
 Tennyson, 173, 220. 
 Tyndall, 89. 
 Wallace, 180, 208. 
 Weill, 112. 
 
 Whitman, 154, 216, 220. 
 Winslow, 106. 
 WolstenhoIme-EImy, 155. 
 Wordsworth, 217, 219. 
 
 Girlhood, 81, 128, 163, 197. 
 Graduates, women, see Uni- 
 versity. 
 Greece, 44 to47; culture, 216. 
 Guardianship, 62 ; ancient,99. 
 
 Heredity, 87 to 89, 161, 
 178; in man, 92, j'^^ De- 
 velopment, Evolution. 
 
 Heroines of drama, 52, 78. 
 
 Hetairai, 45, 46, 48, 53 j see 
 Courtesanship, Prostitu- 
 tion. 
 
 Human selection, 174, 180. 
 
 Humanity, see Future. 
 
 Husband and wife, see Baron 
 and feme, Clitheroe Case, 
 Married Women's pro- 
 perty ; inequality of right, 
 see Father, Wife, Conjugal 
 "rights"; different stan- 
 dard of morality between, 
 see Divorce. 
 
 Hypnotism, 109, 119; sug- 
 gestion, 109. 
 
 Imagination, cultivation ot, 
 206, 218; future of, 210, 
 212. 
 
 Immaturity, 81, 82 ; je« Ma- 
 turity. 
 
 Improvidence, 177. 
 
 India, 7 1 ; early marriage in, 
 80, 81, 93 to 98; effects 
 of, 82, 194; age of con- 
 sent in, 94 ; courtesanship, 
 46, 53, 138 ; female teach- 
 ing, 46, 71, 207 ; women's 
 medical education, 207 ; 
 code of Manu, 67, 133 ; 
 see England. 
 
 Individuality, see Selfdom. 
 
 Infant, custody of, 62 ; 
 feudal wardship, 99. 
 
 Infanticide, 60, 61. 
 
 Intellect, woman's quickness 
 of, 5°. 5i> 65, 104, see 
 Brain,Capability, Jealousy. 
 
 Intemperance, 105, 106, 176, 
 177. 
 
 Intuition, 65, 103, 104, 186. 
 
 Japan, woman in, 69, 138. 
 Jealousy, masculine, 113, 
 
 195 to 203; rebuked, 198, 
 
 see Sex-bias. 
 Judaism, 100, 102, 139. 
 Justice, 43, 108, 179. 
 
 Knowledge, 53, 56, 90, 211, 
 212 ; is love, 218. 
 
 Ignorance, 89, 90. 
 
 Language, 42. 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 Law, old, 99, 143 ; study of 
 by women, 200; French, 
 201 ; civil, see Franchise, 
 Husband, Wife ; divine, 
 see Religion. 
 
 Legal practitioners, female, 
 see Law. 
 
 Legalised abortion, 105. 
 
 Lieutenant "Karl," 77. 
 
 Limitation of offspring, see 
 Neo-Malthusianism. 
 
 Love, 41, 42, 43, 70, 71, 78, 
 177, 193, 218, 219, 221; 
 Woman's, 208; "creation's 
 final ^ law," 173, 221 ; 
 origin of all worthy 
 thought, 193. 
 
 Lust, 41. 
 
 Magna Charta, 130. 
 
 Mahomedanism, 61, 71, 94. 
 
 Malthusianism, 173 to 178. 
 
 Manhood, 167, 179. 
 
 Marriage, 37, 43, 44, 45. 78, 
 90, 134, 180, 209; early, 
 in England, ' 98 ; in Tur- 
 key, 61, see India. 
 
 Married Women's Property, 
 62, 149. 
 
 [The Married Women's 
 Property Act, 1882, in the 
 event of no specific mar- 
 riage contract to the con- 
 trary between the parties, 
 retains to any woman 
 married since Dec. 31st, 
 1882, the possession, con- 
 
 trol, and disposal of her 
 own property and earnings, 
 precisely as if she still 
 remained a single woman 
 (feme sole) ; it futher secures 
 to every wife (whether 
 married before that date or 
 afterwards) the right to her 
 own earnings, and various 
 other property rights, en- 
 tirely independent of her 
 husband's control] 
 
 Maternity, 59, 64, 91, 106, 
 183, 208, 209; artistic or 
 purposed, 214; painless 
 future, 216. 
 
 Maturity, 90, 93, 99, 178. 
 
 Medical practitioners, evil 
 methods of some, loi, 
 105, 106, see Vivisection. 
 
 Medical women, 113 to 116 ; 
 duty of, 90, 106, 115, 116, 
 192, 204. 
 
 Menstruation, 91 ; abnormal 
 and acquired habit, 88, 
 
 91, 92, 104; pathological 
 incident, not physiological, 
 
 92, 104, 116; developed 
 into heredity, not inherent, 
 88, 104; not nubility, 93; 
 fostering of, 104, 120; 
 ignorance concerning, 89, 
 91, 117, 118; reproach of, 
 102 ; Scriptural defini- 
 tions and opprobrium, 160, 
 102 ; futile explanations 
 of, 104; "plethora" 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 xui 
 
 theory, 123; some evils 
 of, 91, 92, 100, loi, 108; 
 remediable, 108, no, 
 116, 117, 120; immunity 
 from, 92, 117; recent 
 diminution of, 112, 123, 
 215. 
 
 Menorrhagia, loi. 
 
 Mental power ; see Capa- 
 bility, Ethics, Intellect, 
 Jealousy. 
 
 Military service, 77, 78, 169, 
 s<e also the following : — 
 
 " One of those who fought 
 to the last on the rebels' 
 side was the Ranee, or 
 Princess, of Jhansi, whose 
 territory had been one of our 
 annexations. For months 
 after the fall of Delhi 
 she contrived to baffle Sir 
 HughRose and the Enghsh. 
 She led squadrons in the 
 field. She fought with her 
 own hand. She was en- 
 gaged against us in the 
 battle,for the possession of 
 Gwalior. In the uniform of 
 a cavalry officer she led 
 charge after charge, and 
 she was killed among those 
 who resisted to the last. 
 Her body was found upon 
 the field, scarred with 
 wounds enough in the front 
 to have done credit to any 
 hero. Sir Hugh Rose paid 
 her the well-deserved tribute 
 which a generous conqueror 
 is always glad to be able to 
 
 offer. He said, in his 
 general order, that ' The 
 best man upon the side of 
 the enemy was the woman 
 found dead, the Ranee of 
 Jhansi.'" — Justin McCarthy 
 (" History of Our Own 
 Times," chap. xiii). 
 
 And on the 12th Decem- 
 ber, 1892, the Manchester 
 Guardian reports : — 
 
 " The death is announced 
 of Mrs. Eliza E. Cutler, wife 
 of the doorkeeper of the 
 United States Senate. In 
 February, 1863, her hus- 
 band's regiment was at Fort 
 Donelson and Mrs. Cutler 
 was visiting him there, stop- 
 ping at a house just out- 
 side the fortification. The 
 colours of the regiment were 
 also in this house. In the 
 excitement which followed 
 the first attack on the day 
 of battle, the regiment went 
 into action without its flag, 
 but just as the fighting 
 became the hottest, with 
 odds terribly against them, 
 they were cheered by the 
 appearance of a woman with 
 a sword in one hand, and 
 bearing, triumphantly aloft 
 the regiment's colours. This 
 was Mrs. Cutler, who re- 
 mained on the battlefield 
 until her husband's regiment 
 was ordered on board a 
 transport in the Cumber- 
 land river. She imme- 
 diately went to the upper 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 deck, where, with assistance, 
 she planted the Stars and_ 
 Stripes in the face of a 
 galUng fire. There she re- 
 mained, in spite of all 
 remonstrances, until they 
 passed out of the range of 
 fire." 
 
 Mind, influence on body, 
 see Fictility, Psychical 
 effort. 
 
 Modesty, 170, 171, 199. 
 
 Monkey, 39. 
 
 Morality, double standard 
 of, 57, 67, 68, 71, 73, 
 148 ; connubial, 106, 177, 
 209. 
 
 Mormonism, 132. 
 
 Mother-love, 61, d^ii 208. 
 
 Mutuality, 183, see Com- 
 munity of effort. 
 
 Nascent organs, 65. 
 
 Nature, 36, 39, 120, 167, 
 182, 185, 187, 19s, 211, 
 212; violation of laws of, 
 106, no, III ; relation of 
 man and woman to, 167, 
 195, 207, 214. 
 
 Neo-Malthusianism, 174, 
 176 to 178, see also the 
 following : — 
 
 "A dogmatic conclusion 
 that human life is on the 
 whole more painful than 
 pleasurable is perhaps rare 
 in England ; but it is a 
 
 widespread opinion that the 
 average of happiness at- 
 tained by the masses, even 
 in civilised communities, is 
 deplorably low, and that 
 the present aim of philan- 
 thropy should be rather to 
 improve the quality of 
 human life than to increase 
 the quantity." — Professor 
 Henry Sidgwick (' 'History 
 of Ethics," p. 247). 
 
 Nubility, 90, 93, see Eng- 
 land, Maturity, Puberty. 
 Nurses, 200. 
 
 Obedience, 69, 73 74. 
 Observation, 103, 187 ; lack 
 
 of, 118; power attendant 
 
 on, 205. 
 Ourali, see Curare. 
 Over-population, 173 to 178. 
 
 Pain, no, in. 
 Palaeolithic art, 40. 
 Parturition, painless future, , 
 
 216. ' 
 
 Paternity, 209, see Father. 
 Patria potestas, 62. 
 Petit treason, 149. 
 Philosophy, natural, 206. 
 ' Physical strength, see 
 
 Strength. 
 "Pit-brow" women, 75. 
 Poetry, spirit of, 206; future 
 
 of, 212. 
 "Police des moeurs," 193. 
 Politeness, 201. 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 Political and legal Position, 
 
 197, see Franchise. 
 Potencies, 108, no, 203. 
 Pre-historic times, 37, 40. 
 Prostitution, 53, 54, 175; 
 • feminine repudiation of, 
 
 139; religious, 46, 138, 
 
 see Courtesanship, Hetai 
 
 rai. 
 Prudence after marriage, 
 
 176, 177. 
 Psyche, 41, 103 ; see Soul. 
 Psychical effort, 87, 89, 119, 
 
 120. 
 Psychology, 119. 
 Puberty, 81 ; not nubility, 
 
 9°. 93- . 
 Puritanism, 72, 135, 140. 
 Purity, 56, 166, 171, 200. 
 
 Quickness of woman's mind, 
 see Intellect, Intuition. 
 
 Reason, 35, 53, 65. 
 
 Reasoning, woman's gener- 
 ally deductive, man's 
 generally inductive, 50, 
 
 65- 
 Religion, dogmas concern- 
 ing woman, 73, 74, 82, 
 102, 13s to 142, 148, see 
 Brahminism, Buddhism, 
 Catholicism, Christianity, 
 Comtism, Confucianism, 
 Ethics, Judaism, Mahome- 
 danism, Mormonism, Puri- 
 tanism. 
 
 Reproach, 102, 103, 118, 
 
 140, 142. 
 Research, 35, 36. 
 Reserve, 56, 80, 115. 
 Restrictions on woman, 48, 
 
 49, 50, 201, see Training. 
 Reticence, 56, 80, 115. 
 Revolt of woman, 129, 130, 
 
 i33> 135- 
 Rhythmic action, 86, 88. 
 Rudimentary organs, 65. 
 
 Science, 35, 186 to 189, 192, 
 
 206, 217; spirit of, 206. 
 Scriptural terms, 100, 102. 
 Self-confidence, 179, 206. 
 Selfdom, 66, 156, 157, 158, 
 
 179, 206. 
 Self-help, 56, 89, 108, III, 
 
 161, 162. 
 Selfishness, 43, 85, 206, see 
 
 Ethics. 
 Self-respect, 156, 179. 
 Self-sacrifice, 179. 
 Serfdom, of man, 130, 131 ; 
 
 of woman, see Slavery. 
 Sex-bias, masculine, 64, 136, 
 
 149, 151; rebuked, 195; 
 
 see Ethics. 
 Sexual wrong, 64, 106, 177; 
 
 in India, 82. 
 Silence, see Reticence. 
 Slavery, of woman, 37, 38, 
 
 61, 71, 73. 74, 102, 131, 
 
 i33> 15°. 157 ; effect on 
 
 race; 159, 161, 194; of 
 
 man, see Serfdom. 
 
INDEX TO NOTES. 
 
 Soldiers, female, see Mili- 
 tary service. 
 
 Soul, 41, 119, 205, 211, 
 219, see Psyche. 
 
 "Sphere" of woman, 142, 
 162. 
 
 Steadfastness of woman, 195. 
 
 Strength, physical, 64, 75, 
 76, 113) 15°) 167 to 170, 
 215 ; recent improvement 
 
 in, 113, 123. 215- 
 Students, in America, 164; 
 
 in Switzerland, 172. 
 Subjection of woman, see 
 
 Slavery, China, England, 
 
 India, Japan, Religion, 
 
 Wife. 
 Suffrage, see Franchise. 
 Superiority of spirit, 50, 52, 
 
 S9>,6o, 19s, 208. 
 Sympathy, 43, 59, 200, 213 ;■ 
 
 see Community of effort. 
 
 Equality. 
 
 Talent, relative, see Brain, 
 Capability, Jealousy. 
 
 Temperance, 113, 177. 
 
 Tendency, 88, 89. 
 
 Thought, language, 42 ; 
 love, 193. 
 
 Training, mental, 108, 128, 
 
 160, 161, 163, 166, 183 ; 
 physical, 50, 108, 113, 
 
 163, 167, 168, 170, 215 ; 
 see Capability, Strength; 
 
 Tutelage, 133; feudal, 99. 
 
 University teaching, 1 60, 
 
 164, 165, 171, 172, 203. 
 
 Vassalage, 99, 130, 131. 
 Vivisection, 183 to 193 ; 
 
 futility of, 188, 192. 
 
 * 
 
 Waste, of woman's faculties, 
 48 to S3 ; of vital force, 
 107, 123. 
 
 Wife, subjection of, 44, 67 
 to 74 ; ancient chastise- 
 ment of, 143 ; legal 
 status of, 143 to 146, 149, 
 153, see Baron, Mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Wisdom 52, 172; correla- 
 tive with love, 193. 
 
 Woman suffrage, see Fran- 
 chise. 
 
 Women doctors, see Medical 
 Women. 
 
 Zenana, 159. 
 Zulu wives, 132.