ESSAYS ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.* THERE has been so
much discussion lately on the position of women and what they ought to be and do, and the use of a
collection of essays to explain the views of a party which has a great common purpose, though there are minor differences of opinion and aim, is now so familiar, that we may at once proceed merely to describe this volume, noting if possible any novelties it may introduce into the controversy, without reopening the whole question. This is the more expedient, as the essays are of most unequal quality, some very good, although the new matter in the best is not much, but others rather poor, some of them indeed very poor, so that we wonder a little at the association which the better essayists permit. The editor's fault in the matter is serious, but is less surprising, when we find it necessary to characterize her introduction as one of the weakest parts of the collection. It is not without plain practical sense— as, for instance, when the writer states that the present distress among women " must to some degree be reckoned among the phenomena of a transition-period in society ; it is in part owing to the rapid advances in discovery, invention, expeditive pro- cesses, instruments of production, &c., which advances have been unequally yoked with our national conservatism of certain customs, conventions, and ideals of life and character." But the sense is obscured by tawdry and turgid rhetoric exactly in the style of a certain class of sermons with which many of us are unhappily familiar. Anything more like preaching without clear statement of aim or opinion sought to be enforced, and less like the true essay, we could hardly imagine. Beyond the general sentiments that women are greatly wronged, that the " demands of women "—not specified—ought to be granted, and that the question is one which all who look upon women's interests from "a grave and lofty point of view " must behold as a question " which concerns humanity at large, and that very vitally," we get wonderfully little insight into the writer's thoughts. At the same time, the feminine traits in the essay are significant, and sometimes amusing, showing how the average woman will be tripped up when she assumes to be strong-minded and masculine. No man, we venture to say, discussing a question from "a grave and lofty point of view," would have thought of mentioning how he had marked " the grave efforts which young men have had to make when the women they wished to win were happy, industrious workers in some trade requiring skill and intense application, and possessed of that kind of beauty of face and mind which an earnest life imparts, and which is never seen in an idle or frivolous woman ;" or of reporting how "the lover thought himself happy when he could for a moment arrest the work of the nimble fingers, and win a look from the watchful eyes intent upon the work in hand." These are clearly the notes of a woman interested in an attachment growing under her eyes, and possibly in a match she was making up. A masculine essayist, if he had made such observations and entertained a pass- ing thought of using them, would probably have reflected that, after all, the "grave efforts" of a lover to win his mistress, and his lamb-like following of her movements and watching for a glance of her eye, were common and not exceptional phenomena. Pos- sibly however the statement may be useful in some quarters, as an indication that an industrial and learned education for women does not unsex them. The dear coquettish nature, which imposes grave efforts on a lover and rewards him by occasional glances, remains victorious ; the most alarmed about the women of the future may be reassured.
Besides the introduction, there appear to us to be three essays in the book of an inferior kind. One is Miss Cobbe's, on " The Final Cause of Woman ;" a second, a paper by Jessie Boucherett,
• Woman's 1Fork and lromates Culture. A Series of Etsays. Edited by Josephine B. Butler. London : Macmillan and Co. 1865.
on " How to Provide for Superfluous Women ;" and a third, on "The Teaching of Science,"—we are thankful to say, by a man (Mr. Stuart, M.A.), as we should have been sorry to have hard remarks for female essayists alone. These essays are inferior, how- ever, in different ways and in different senses. As regards Miss
Cobbe's especially, we use the word with reference to what we would expect from her and the standard she has raised by her other writings, and not with reference to any moderate standard of knowledge and literary skill which we would apply to the others. The idea which Miss Cobbe sets out with, notwithstanding the oddity of her title, is not a bad one. It is to vindicate for women equal consideration with men as beings entitled to self-culture, whose well-being for themselves, as constituting a fair half of the race, is as much entitled to attention in all political and social arrange- ments as the well-being of the other half. From this position she criticizes severely and justly the fragmentary view of woman as a domestic creature, or as playing some part in the life of mankind entirely subsidiary to that of the opposite sex. But she wastes time in criticizing the positivist ideal of woman, certainly not the pivot round which opinions in this country are crystallizing—that ideal being part of the positivist religion, aedistinguished from the philosophy, which is taking no hold of opinion either here or else- where. She overlooks moreover the consideration that the dis- cussions in which woman is viewed as a domestic creature, and so forth, do not always represent her as subsidiary, or deny her claims to fair culture as a human being. The assumption merely is that the sexes have and ought to have different parts in the economy of life, which is an arguable enough proposition, without any impli- cation that woman is subsidiary to man or man subsidiary to woman. Miss Cobbe's paper, in a word, is too slight, though, like all her writing, piquant and agreeable to read, and though its aim is unquestionably sound. The two papers we put with it, and which are inferior in a very different sense, may be briefly dismissed. Miss Boucherett's provision for superfluous women is the feeblest of palliatives. It is to stimulate the strong and pushing among our young men to emigration, so that there may be more work and better pay for those left behind,—consequently more marriageable young men, than when all stay at home and compete with each other, and fewer men at home engaged in work suitable for women. Clearly the case of women will not be soon improved if we wait till young men or any other class act in making their living upon vague notions of social economy and the renunciation of women for themselves. Mr. Stuart, on the teach- ing of science, has got hold of the true but common-place notion that teaching science implies mainly the communication of the scientific method of observing and reasoning, which he rightly argues will be a good mental training for women. But he has little to say beyond this, and says everything in the queerest manner, the essay being in fact remarkable for its feeble oddities of style. Occasionally it reminds us of the monosyllable books on great subjects written for children, which do not always make the subject clear ; but the monosyllables are used with unparalleled awkwardness, and interspersed with such phrases as " a vicious circle of action bended about a preconception," which, we confess, we do not very well make out. The closing sentence may perhaps be enough for our readers as a specimen of the mixture :- "Nor is there any such large address in the world as the language of the stars and created things, to the commonness of which language God Both Himself testify through the Psalms, wherein he saith, that there is no language, but that their tongue is heard therein, whose words have gone to the end of the world, whereby the heavens, without respect of person, declaring, the glory of God, do somewhat ease men's minds, wrapped in the folds of that misbelief that introspection works, and do relieve them, wearied by those woes that oppression doth deliver in entail.".
We have delayed long what we have to say on the better essays, and perhaps left too little space ; but we fancy the inferior work is not mixed up wholly by accident—indicates indeed a real weakness in the promotion of " the demands of women." There is unrest among women, but the objects aimed at are not clearly seen, while some of the most active promoters are certainly not the shrewdest of their sex, unconsciously putting feeble champions in the front of the battle. At the risk of doing a little injustice to some good work, it may have been worth while to exhibit the feet of clay, rather than the head of gold. The characteristic of the best essays, with hardly an exception, is also perhaps more valu- able as an indication than most of the matter they contain—so that we feel less conscience-stricken for not giving a minute account of them. They almost all deal strongly, and we think successfully, with some particular want or grievance of the sex. Miss Jex-131ake, for instance, adduces overwhelming evidence for opening the profession of medicine to women. The Rev. G. Butler, with considerably less power, still argues very strongly for the fitness of women as teachers, though we fancy he is inclined to assign them too large a share in the work of general education—the danger of womanishness in boys under petti- coat training being at least as women now are, conspicuous. Mr. Pearson, again, on some historical aspects of family life, shows very well how current notions and customs about families and wives are derived from the tradition of a different social state. Mr. Herbert N. Mozley pursues a similar topic with rather more legal detail in an essay on " The Property Disabilities of a Married Woman and other Legal Effects of Marriage." There is besides an excellent practical paper by Elizabeth Wolstenholme on the education of girls. These all deal with special wrongs or defects; and show, we think, the real strength of the movement on behalf of women. They have not one grievance with many branches requiring the relations of the sexes to be altered, but a variety of grievances which are perfectly hetero- geneous, and may be treated in detail. And in this view the essays we have described should be useful. They explain com- pendiously and forcibly how the whole community suffers by the legal nullity of married women, the narrow limits of women's education, and the closing of industrial careers to them for which they are perfectly fit. It is to the redress of these wrongs we fancy the benefit of the whole agitation will accrue ; and what- ever the extreme advocates of woman's rights may say, their sex will be immensely the gainers.
There are two more essays, which we have not yet noticed, one by Mr. Boyd-Kinnear, on the " Social Posi- tion of Women," and the other by Miss Julia Wedgwood, on " Female Suffrage," treated, as a symbol of the whole claim of women to the possession of larger interests and the per- formance of public duties. Both papers thus discuss the general question, as it is called, and both seek the eleva- tion of women by means of the suffrage and equal opportu- nities of public life with men. They are ably and strongly written, and on the same side ; but of the two the lady's is, to our mind, the strongest and most comprehensive. If women are to get the suffrage at all, it will be by such masculine advocacy as that of Miss Wedgwood. Discarding all question of abstract right, she dwells on the expediency of giving women larger interests, and the value of the element they would supply to political life. We confess we are not convinced, for this reason, that women, through education and the larger opening of industrial careers, may acquire indefinitely wider interests than they have now, and may help in politics where they can usefully do so,—as guardians of the poor, for instance,—without the suffrage and without the whole field being open to them, which would be attended by disadvantages Miss Wedgwood does not consider. We have discussed the point so recently, that we need not repeat our arguments, and only point out here where the opposite case, though very strongly put, breaks down. The essay would be much better worth printing as a separate pamphlet, than a good deal which has been written and made a noise on the subject.
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