ON BEING A WOMAN.
" IT'S a horrid scrape to be a woman," said Mr. Walter Bagehot, with an insight rare indeed in the masculine observer. To most men the matter is far simpler. Women, as Mrs. Gainp said of" Rooshians "and " Prooshia.ns," "was born so, and can please themselves." The essential difference in the outlook on life which comes from the " myself " having been born in the body of a woman, is a thing as to which the average Englishman troubles himself very little. Yet in truth the difference is almost as great as is in America the difference of having been born with a black skin or a white. It is a difference not in degree, but in kind. When in the first moment of returning consciousness the new- made mother asks the sex of her infant, the answer comes to her as the voice of destiny,—the prophecy of the fate of the new-born child. Is it to lead the life of a man—to continue its father's name—or is it to leave name and race, and in its turn fulfil the great duty of woman—motherhood ? For here, of course, is the crux of the matter. Woman is the mother of the human race, and the carrying on of the race is so important a function as to more than justify the devotion of the half of mankind to this end alone. So woman in her capacity of mother is worked for, watched over, and tended by man,—for what were the use of all his toil were he to leave no child to inherit its fruit? This, then, is the rough division of the work of the world—the man earning the money, the woman continuing the race—and the woman who from necessity or choice steps outside this arrangement, is apt to resent the fact that life is arranged for the average, not the exceptional, human being. For the average lot, so dreaded by the young as a thing to be avoided at all costs, is really the happiest in the end, and Nerissa spoke a great truth when she told her mistress that "It is no mean happiness therefore to be seated in the mean."
It is this essential difference in the lot of the two sexes which makes it so difficult for men to realise what it feels like to be a woman. In the first place, the life of a woman is passed !ri settling an everlasting succession of details. From the earliest moment in tha morning,“Ili she goes to bed at night, constant demands are made upo'iner attention and resource to give small decisions or settle minute eiaergencies Probably the entire wardrobe of three or four human beilige- is arranged by her,—all the garments which they all want in different degrees of thickness for the varying seasons. The renewal of all the brooms, brushes, "leathers," and innumer- able 1.:c needful for the cleaning of the house, falls to her. The commissariat of the family, a matter only to be arranged by close attention to details, the health of the children, who is to go for a bicycle ride with the governess, and who lo`ne pale and tired and had better stay and play in the !pre a these are matters which require constant supervision. Tlral there is the health of the household,—a terrible underfelts of the "Please, ma'am, have you got anything as'll do Jane grate she's that bad with toothache ? " and the subsequent sent suading of Jane to seek the purgatorial refuge of the denti all The narrowness of a great number of women comes f'ra7 this perpetual contemplation of minutia). Their eyes arerttn" of focus for the larger events of life. And this probab, the the reason why women attain so little eminence in the abstaro sciences. Their mind. are trained to dwell on details; hence a woman's argument is apt to turn aside to some minute side- point of the matter in hand instead of keeping to the main issue. But what, perhaps, men realise least in woman's lot is that in the larger affairs of life woman has absolutely no power at all. This will be said to be nonsense, and instances innumerable can be quoted in which great events have been settled by women. True, but only by the influence of women over men. Now to have power yourself is a very different thing from having influence over a person who has power. And all the great things which have been done through the instru- mentality of women have been done merely by the power which the woman has of influencing the man who holds the direct power in his hands. A different complexion is put on the affairs of life when a woman first realises this limi- tation of her possibilities. She cannot move the world, and so her attitude becomes that of a watcher, a criticiser of the actions of others, for ever looking on, for ever weighing the doings of the real workers. Her very ambition prompts her to efface herself. She can do her best work in
the world by turning her own talents to account to.amootb the path of a man whom she can sway, and who has all the possibilities before him. So the woman does her utmost to use her brain in his interest, to attend to all tiresome details so as to leave him as free as possible from petty cares and worries. Then the man can concentrate the whole of his energy in his work, and the woman's ambition is vicariously satisfied. She watches the friend, brother, and husband, and feels with a
half-amused complacency that but for her his end would never have been attained. And this eternal watching and criticism develops in woman a great power of knowing what men will do in particular circumstances. She has seen so often before that particular circumstances have particular effects in determining the actions of the workers. In the stress and hurry of the fight the man is not conscious which way the action is tending. He is absorbed in doing the duty immediately before him. The woman looking on coolly can say to him, "See, this line of conduct must lead to this and this consequence ; you have only to take advantage of it, and your success will be assured." It is there- fore because woman is essentially a looker-on that she is so invaluable as an adviser to man. To many a great man the advice of an Egeria, even an Egeria of an obvi- ously inferior intellectual calibre to himself, is almost essen- tial. She can watch and weigh the motives of his adversaries, she can calculate the probable effect of his own actions, and still more of his words, she can criticise his past decisions and indicate the best chance of success in the future. In fact, to be a woman is to be a mahout,—a driver of elephants. The goad with which she steers the animal is in her hand, but yet she knows, as according to Mr. Rudyard Kipling every mahout knows, that some day sooner or later the great beast will get beyond her control, and may turn on her with a terrible punishment for the insult of having kept him in subjection. For the ultimate force in life, physical strength, is against the woman as it is against the mahout. But it must be insisted on that it is not merely by pulling the strings and working the puppets that woman wields her in- fluence. It is also by taking on herself the distractke.,„
drudgery. So that whoever would know w1.-+ " ." ' •'" be a woman must re-'•'".. awe reels like to forwarded by -a her hushanilib means to have ambition best to sea-effacement, talents which must be applied endelnug on at the game, powers of organisation used to arrange merely the minutite of civilised existence, and finally to have the possibility of boundless influence, without a jot of direct power behind it.
It is against this lot that a certain number of the women of the day cry out in rebellion. And as the destiny of woman is decided not by the wickedness of man, but simply by the 'sato of nature, their complaint is about as useful and as „vilified as would be the constant outcry of a man born blind au it was a cruel fate which prevented him from becoming %don all her natural duties in order that she may "develop A, Individuality." The more old-fashioned among us may reptaber how the Catechism told us "to clo our duty in that wit of life unto which it shall please God to call us," and as tie "state of life" of being a woman is quite unalterable, women may be content to make the best of its limitations. And after all these limitations have their compensations. How many women are not thankful to be spared the rough- and-tumble of the real fight of the world P If they can only satisfy their ambition vicariously, they can at least satisfy it in a leisurely manner, without soiling their fingers with the oil wherewith the machinery of the world is lubricated. The kindly cynicism, too, • with which they regard men, their masters, is not without its attraction. Perhaps it is not the highest fate to be born a woman, but at any rate we may rest assured that to be a man is not to see life entirely couleur de rose.
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