THE VOCATION OF WOMAN.*
TEE question whether the Parliamentary franchise should or should not be granted to women occupies a very secondary place in Mrs. Archibald Colquhoun's thoughtful and acutely aralytical work. She holds, and she is unquestionably right in holding, that the demand for votes is merely one of the numerous symptoms which go to prove that, if not amongst the female sex generally, at all events amongst a certain number of its members, there is at present a general and ever-increasing feeling of unrest, which finds expression in a variety of eccentric and at times even extravagant forms. That such a feeling exists, though perhaps only amongst a small minority of women, cannot be doubted. One lady says that she "feels chained and bound—stifled by the lack of liberty " ; and another exhorts her sisters to " escape from bondage." It is most right and proper that such subjects as the conditions under which women are employed, their remuneration and cognate matters should be discussed with a view to ascertaining whether there really exist any reason- able grounds for holding that man-made law is unjust or ungenerous to the other sex. But it is very difficult to find any common basis for discussion in dealing with the sweeping generalisations advanced by the more fanatical and uncompromising feminists. What answer, for instance, can be given to Frau Mayreder when she urges that the lives of women should no longer be sacrificed in "a struggle against sex and in combating the claims made by the race on the individual" ? Or, again, what argument drawn from past history or present experience would be likely to prove convincing to Mr. W. L. Thomas, who regards child-birth as "an incident in the life of a normal woman of no more significance when viewed in the aggregate and from the standpoint of time than the interruption of the work of men by their in- and out-of-door games " ? As Nature has denied to Mr. Thomas alike the pains and joys of maternity, he is perhaps not a very good judge of whether child-birth and motherhood can in any degree be assimilated to a game of golf or lawn-tennis. There is really but one answer to pleas of this description. It is given by Mrs. Colquhoun. " All this," she says, " is transcendental non- sense." There is, in fact, a great deal of nonsense in much that is written on this subject, and if transcendentalism is held to imply an attitude of complete aloofness from mundane affairs and a total neglect of facts, it may rightly be stigma- tized as "transcendental nonsense." It is, without doubt, interesting to a naturalist to study the sexual relations of cirripecls or spiders, and to be informed of the degree to which parental duties are, in the case of some birds, undertaken by both males and females alike. But, as Mrs. Colquhoun drily remarks, researches of this nature " do not advance us much." In point of fact, when we are brought to close quarters with this perplexing problem it is abundantly clear that the wayward intellects and emotional temperaments of the ultra-feminists have discovered that woman has a very solid grievance not against man but against Nature. There can be no sort of advantage or utility in considering whether this contention is or is not correct. But, on the assumption that the feminists are right in holding that Nature has erred, it may be as well to inquire into the methods which they suggest for rectifying her mistakes. This is what Mrs. Colquhoun has done. Those who wish to be armed with replies to the flimsy arguments of the feminists cannot do better than study the dispassionate but thoroughly convincing analysis to which Mrs. Colquhoun has subjected their fallacious reasoning. Mr. Welton, iu his instructive work entitled The Psychology of Education, strongly and very rightly condemns the idea that • The Vocation of Woman. By Mrs. Archibald Colquhoun. London : Macmillan and Co. [4s. 6d.1 "evolution means the gradual elimination of the differences of sex." The theory of feminism is mainly based on the assump- tion that it would be in the interests of women to eliminate these differences, both psychological and functional, so far as is possible; the hardest part of their task is to prove that this process would not be inconsistent with the continuance of the race. Amongst the incidental results of the applica- tion of the feminist theory, it may be noted that the modern woman is to cease to take any interest in the domestic affairs of her home. Domestic work, in the words of one ardent feminist, is only " suitable for those with the intelligence of rabbits." Moreover, the marriage tie is to be altered and relaxed, and "economic equality" is in future to be the basis of the married connexion. From the days of Euripides downwards the world has always held that the love of children is inbred in women (cpiadTssyds won anv yvvatkeiov 7‘vos). Feminists, however, take but little account of such old-world sentiments. It is, indeed, highly probable that, as Mrs. Colquhoun says, "the woman who, by modern standards, may be most admirable, is often the worst mother."
Amongst the many unfortunate consequences which have resulted from the suffragist movement, none has been more deplorable than this—that it has brought into prominence a number of fundamental sex-issues which lie at the root of the social system, and which cannot form the subject of general discussion without doing much harm. It is difficult to say how far middle-class society, with which Mrs. Colquhoun principally deals, has become impregnated with feminist ideas, but it is earnestly to be hoped and also to be expected that before those ideas take any deep root the good feeling and sober sense of the mass of women will assert themselves in condemning a movement the success of which would revo- lutionize society, and would more especially be disastrous to the interests of women and children. It should be added that Mrs. Colquhoun's book is not merely a destructive criticism of feminism, but also contains practical suggestions as to how the more pressing problems of woman under modern social conditions can be met. Notably, she is of opinion that the present system adopted for the higher education of girls is based on faulty ideals, and is largely responsible for the growth of a class of superfluous women who inevitably become restless and dissatisfied.
In the meanwhile, as regards the suffrage question con- sidered on its own merits, we may profitably bear in mind that the woman who in modern times probably wielded more uncontrolled autocratic power than any of her sex was a decided foe to gynaecocracy. The dying words of the Chinese " Old Buddha " were, "Never again allow any woman to hold
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