The conditions that meet us when we come to examine the position of women in historic Greece are explained in the light of this valuation of the sexual relationship. We are faced at once by a curious contrast; on one hand, we find in Sparta, under a male social organisation, the women of AEolian and Dorian race carrying on and developing the Homeric traditions of freedom, while the Athenian women, on the contrary, are condemned to an almost Oriental seclusion. How these conditions arose becomes clear, when we remember that the prominent idea regulating all the legislation of the Greeks was to maintain the permanence and purity of the State. In Sparta the first of these motives ruled. The conditions in which the State was placed made it necessary for the Spartans to be a race of soldiers, and to ensure this a race of vigorous mothers was essential. They had the wisdom to understand that their women could only effectively discharge the functions assigned to them by Nature by the free development of their bodies, and full cultivation of their mental faculties. Sappho, whose "lofty and subtle genius" places her as the one woman for whose achievement in poetry no apology on the grounds of her sex ever needs to be made, was of AEolian race. The Spartan woman was a huntress and an athlete and also a scholar, for her training was as much a care of the State as that of her brothers. Her education was deliberately planned to fit her to be a mother of men.

It was the sentiment of strict and zealous patriotism which inspired the marriage regulations that are attributed to Lycurgus. The obligation of marriage was legal, like military service.[264] All celibates were placed under the ban of society.[265] The young men were attracted to love by the privilege of watching (and it is also said assisting in) the gymnastic exercise of naked young girls, who from their earliest youth entered into contests with each other in wrestling and racing and in throwing the quoit and javelin.[266] The age of marriage was also fixed, special care being taken that the Spartan girls should not marry too soon; no sickly girl was permitted to marry.[267] In the supreme interest of the race love was regulated. The young couple were not allowed to meet except in secret until after a child was born.[268] Brothers might share a wife in common, and wife lending was practised. It was a praiseworthy act for an old man to give his wife to a strong man by whom she might have a child.[269] The State claimed a right over all children born; each child had to be examined soon after birth by a committee appointed, and only if healthy was it allowed to live.[270]

Such a system is no doubt open to objections, yet no other could have served as well the purpose of raising and maintaining a race of efficient warriors. The Spartans held their supremacy in Greece through sheer force and bravery and obedience to law; and the women had equal share with the men in this high position. Necessarily they were remarkable for vigour of character and the beauty of their bodies, for beauty rests ultimately on a biological basis.

Women took an active interest in all that concerned the State, and were allowed a freedom of action even in sexual conduct equal and, in some directions, greater than that of men. The law restricted women only in their function as mothers. Plato has criticised this as a marked defect of the Spartan system. Men were under strict regulation to the end of their days; they dined together on the fare determined by the State; no licence was permitted to them; almost their whole time was occupied in military service. No such regulations were made for women, they might live as they liked. One result was that many wives were better educated than their husbands. We find, too, that a great portion of land passed into the hands of women. Aristotle states that they possessed two-fifths of it. He deplores the Spartan system, and affirms that in his day the women were "incorrigible and luxurious"; he accuses them of ruling their husbands. "What difference," he says, "does it make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by women, for the result is the same?"[271] This gynaecocracy was noticed by others. "You of Lacedaemon," said a strange lady to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, "are the only women in the world that rule the men." "We," she answered, "are the only women who bring forth men."[272] Such were the Spartan women.

In Athens the position of women stands out in sharp contrast. Athens was the largest of the city-states of Greece, and, for its stability, it was ruled that no stranger might enter into the rights of its citizens. Restrictions of the most stringent nature and punishments the most terrible were employed to keep the citizenship pure. As is usual, the restrictions fell most heavily upon women. It would seem that the sexual virtue of the Athenian women was not trusted—it was natural to women to love. Doubtless there were many traces of the earlier sexual freedom under mother-right. Women must be kept in guard to ensure that no spurious offspring should be brought into the State. This explains the Athenian marriage code with its unusually strict subordination of the woman to her father first, and then to her husband. It explains also the unequal law of divorce. In early times the father might sell his daughters and barter his sisters. This was abolished by Solon, except in the case of unchastity. There could, however, be no legitimate marriage without the assignment of the bride by her guardian.[273] The father was even able to bequeath his unmarried daughters by will.[274] The part assigned by the Athenian law to the wife in relation to her husband was very similar to that of the married women under ancient Jewish law.

Women were secluded from all civic life and from all intellectual culture. There were no regular schools for girls in Athens, and no care was taken by the State, as in Sparta, for the young girls' physical well-being. The one quality required from them was chastity, and to ensure this women were kept even from the light of the sun, confined in special apartments in the upper part of the house. One husband, indeed, Ischomachus, recommends his wife to take active bodily exercise as an aid to her beauty; but she is to do this "not in the fresh air, for that would not be suitable for an Athenian matron, but in baking bread and looking after her linen."[275] So strictly was the seclusion of the wife adhered to that she was never permitted to show herself when her husband received guests. It was even regarded as evidence of the non-existence of a regular marriage if the wife had been in the habit of attending the feasts[276] given by the man whom she claimed as husband.

The deterioration of the Athenian citizen-women followed as the inevitable result. It is also impossible to avoid connecting the swift decline of the fine civilisation of Athens with this cause. Had the political power of her citizens been based on healthier social and domestic relationships, it might not have fallen down so rapidly into ruin. No civilisation can maintain itself that neglects the development of the mothers that give it birth.

As we should expect we find little evidence of affection between the Athenian husband and wife. The entire separation between their work and interests would necessarily preclude ideal love. Probably Sophocles presents the ordinary Greek view accurately, when he causes one of his characters to regret the loss of a brother or sister much more than that of a wife. "If a wife dies you can get another, but if a brother or sister dies, and the mother is dead, you can never get another. The one loss is easily reparable, the other is irreparable."[277] We could have no truer indication than this as to the degradation into which woman had fallen in the sexual relationship.

That once, indeed, it had been far otherwise with the Athenian women the ancient legends witness. Athens was the city of Pallas Athene, the goddess of strength and power, which in itself testifies to a time when women were held in honour. The Temple of the Goddess, high on the Acropolis, stood as a relic of matriarchal worship. Year by year the secluded women of Athens wove a robe for Athene. Yet, so complete had become their subjection and their withdrawal from the duties of citizens, that when in the Theatre of Dyonysus men actors personated the great traditional women of the Greek Heroic Age, no woman was permitted to be present.[278] What wonder, then, that the Athenian women rebelled against the wastage of their womanhood. That they did rebel we may be certain on the strength of the satirical statements of Aristophanes, and even more from the pathos of the words put here and there into the mouths of women by Euripides—

"Of all things upon earth that breathe and grow A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day To buy us some man's love, and lo, they bring A Master of our flesh. There comes the sting Of the whole shame."[279]

The debased position of the Athenian citizen woman becomes abundantly clear when we find that ideal love and free relationship between the sexes were possible only with the hetairae. Limitation of space forbids my giving any adequate details of these stranger-women, who were the beloved companions of the Athenian men. Prohibited from legal marriage by law, these women were in all other respects free; their relations with men, either temporary or permanent, were openly entered into and treated with respect. For the Greeks the hetaira was in no sense a prostitute. The name meant friend and companion. The women to whom the name was applied held an honourable and independent position, one, indeed, of much truer honour than that of the wife.

These facts may well give us pause. It was not the women who were the legal wives, safeguarded to ensure their chastity, restricted to their physical function of procreation, but the hetairae, says Donaldson, "who exhibited what was best and noblest in woman's nature." Xenophon's ideal wife was a good housekeeper—like her of the Proverbs. Thucydides in the famous funeral oration which he puts in the mouth of Pericles, exhorts the wives of the slain warriors, whose memory is being commemorated, "to shape their lives in accordance with their natures," and then adds with unconscious irony, "Great is the glory of that woman who is least talked of by men, either in the way of praise or blame." Such were the barren honours granted to the legal wife. The hetairae were the only educated women in Athens. It was only the free-companion who was a fit helpmate for Pericles, or capable of sustaining a conversation with Socrates. We know that Socrates visited Theodota[280] and the brilliant Diotima of Mantinea, of whom he speaks "as his teacher in love."[281] Thargalia, a Milesian stranger, gained a position of high political importance.[282] When Alcibiades had to flee for his life, it was a "companion" who went with him, and being present at his end performed the funeral rites over him.[283] Praxiteles carved a statue of Phryne in gold, and the work stood in a place of honour in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Apelles painted a portrait of Lais, and, for his skill as an artist, Alexander rewarded him with the gift of his favourite concubine; Pindar wrote odes to the hetairae; Leontium, one of the order, sat at the feet of Epicurus to imbibe his philosophy.[284]

Among all these free women Aspasia of Miletus[285] stands forward as the most brilliant—the most remarkable. There is no doubt as to the intellectual distinction of the beloved companion of Pericles.[286] Her house became the resort of all the great men of Athens. Socrates, Phidias and Anaxagoras were all frequent visitors, and probably also Sophocles and Euripides. Plato, Xenophon and AEschines have all testified to the cultivated mind and influence of Aspasia. AEschines, in his dialogue entitled "Aspasia," puts into the mouth of that distinguished woman an incisive criticism of the mode of life traditional for her sex.[287]

The high status of the hetairae is proved conclusively from the fact that the men who visited Aspasia brought their wives with them to her assemblies, that they might learn from her.[288] This breaking through the accepted conventions is the more significant if we consider the circumstances. Here, indeed, is your contrast—the free companion expounding the dignity of womanhood to the imprisoned mothers! Aspasia points out to the citizen women that it is not sufficient for a wife to be merely a mother and a good housekeeper; she urges them to cultivate their minds so that they may be equal in mental dignity with the men who love them. Aspasia may thus be regarded, as Havelock Ellis suggests, as "a pioneer in the assertion of woman's rights." "She showed that spirit of revolt and aspiration" which tends to mark "the intellectual and artistic activity of those who are unclassed or dubiously classed in the social hierarchy."

It is even probable that the movement to raise the status of the Athenian women, which seems to have taken place in the fourth century B.C., was led by Aspasia, and perhaps other members of the hetairae. Ivo Bruns, whom Havelock Ellis quotes, believes that "the most certain information we possess concerning Aspasia bears a strong resemblance to the picture which Euripides and Aristophanes present to us of the leaders of the woman's movement."[289]

It was this movement of awakening which throws light on the justice which Plato accords to women. He may well have had Aspasia in his thoughts. Contact with her cultivated mind may have brought him to see that "the gifts of nature are equally diffused in both sexes," and therefore "all the pursuits of man are the pursuits of woman also, and in all of these woman is only a weaker man." Plato did not believe that women were equally gifted with men, only that all their powers were in their nature the same, and demanded a similar expression. He insists much more on woman's duties and responsibilities than on her rights; more on what the State loses by her restriction within the home than on any loss entailed thereby to herself. Such a fine understanding of the need of the State for women as the real ground for woman's emancipation, is the fruitful seed in this often quoted passage. May it not have arisen in Plato's mind from the contrast he saw between Aspasia and the free companions of men and the restricted and ignorant wives? A vivid picture would surely come to him of the force lost by this wastage of the mothers of Athens; a force which should have been utilised for the well-being of the State.

Sexual penalties for women are always found under a strict patriarchal regime. The white flower of chastity, when enforced upon one sex by the other sex, has its roots in the degradation of marriage. Men find a way of escape; women, bound in the coils, stay and waste. There is no escaping from the truth—wherever women are in subjection it is there that the idols of purity and chastity are set up for worship.

The fact that Greek poets and philosophers speak so often of an ideal relationship between the wife and the husband proves how greatly the failure of the accepted marriage was understood and depreciated by the noblest of the Athenians. The bonds of the patriarchal system must always tend to break down as civilisation advances, and men come to think and to understand the real needs and dependence of the sexes upon each other. Aristotle says that marriage besides the propagation of the human race, has another aim, namely, "community of the entire life." He describes marriage as "a species of friendship," one, moreover, which "is most in accordance with Nature, as husband and wife mutually supply what is lacking in the other." Here is the ideal marriage, the relationship between one woman and the one man that to-day we are striving to attain. To gain it the wife must become the free companion of her husband.

It is Euripides who voices the sorrows of women. He also foreshadows their coming triumph.

"Back streams the waves of the ever running river, Life, life is changed and the laws of it o'ertrod. * * * * * * * And woman, yea, woman shall be terrible in story; The tales too meseemeth shall be other than of yore; For a fear there is that cometh out of woman and a glory, And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more."[290]

IV.—In Rome

"The character of a people is only an eternal becoming.... They are born and are modified under the influence of innumerable causes."—JEAN FINOT.

Of the position of women in Rome in the pre-historic period we know almost nothing. We can accept that there was once a period of mother-rule.[291] Very little evidence, however, is forthcoming; still, what does exist points clearly to the view that woman's actions in the earliest times were entirely unfettered. Probably we may accept as near to reality the picture Virgil gives to us of Camilla fighting and dying on the field of battle.

In the ancient necropolis of Belmonte, dating from the iron age, Professor d'Allosso has recently discovered two very rich tombs of women warriors with war chariots over their remains. "The importance of this discovery is exceptional, as it shows that the existence of the Amazon heroines, leaders of armies, sung by the ancient poets, is not a poetic fiction, but an historic reality." Professor d'Allosso states that several details given by Virgil coincide with the details of these tombs.[292]

From the earliest notices we have of the Roman women we find them possessed of a definite character of remarkable strength. We often say this or that is a sign of some particular period or people; when nine times out of ten the thing we believe to be strange is in reality common to the progress of life. In Rome the position of woman would seem to have followed in orderly development that cyclic movement so beautifully defined by Havelock Ellis in the quotation I have placed at the beginning of the first section of this chapter.

The patriarchal rule was already strongly established when Roman history opens; it involved the same strict subordination of woman to the one function of child-bearing that we have found in the Athenian custom. The Roman marriage law developed from exactly the same beginning as did the Greek; the woman was the property of her father first and then of her husband. The marriage ceremony might be accomplished by one or two forms, but might also be made valid without any form at all. For in regard to a woman, as in regard to other property, possession or use continued for one year gave the right of ownership to the husband. This marriage without contract or ceremony was called usus.[293] The form confarreatio, or patrician marriage, was a solemn union performed by the high Pontiff of Jupiter in the presence of ten witnesses, in which the essential act was the eating together by both the bride and bridegroom of a cake made of flour, water and salt.[294] The religious ceremony was in no way essential to the marriage. The second and most common form, was called coemptio, or purchase, and was really a formal sale between the father or guardian of the bride and the future husband.[295] Both these forms transferred the woman from the potestas (power) of her father into the manus (hand) of her husband to whom she became as a daughter, having no rights except through him, and no duties except to him. The husband even held the right of life and death over the woman and her children. It depended on his will whether a baby girl were reared or cast out to die—and the latter alternative was no doubt often chosen. As is usual under such conditions, the right of divorce was allowed to the husband and forbidden to the wife. "If you catch your wife," was the law laid down by Cato the Censor, "in an act of infidelity, you would kill her with impunity without a trial; but if she were to catch you she would not venture to touch you with a finger, and, indeed, she has no right." It is true that divorce was not frequent.[296] Monogamy was strictly enforced. At no period of Roman history are there any traces of polygamy or concubinage.[297] But such strictness of the moral code seems to have been barren in its benefit to women. The terrible right of manus was vested in the husband and gave him complete power of correction over the wife. In grave cases the family tribunal had to be consulted. "Slaves and women," says Mommsen, "were not reckoned as being properly members of the community," and for this reason any criminal act committed by them was judged not openly by the State, but by the male members of the woman's family. The legal right of the husband to beat his wife was openly recognised. Thus Egnatius was praised when, surprising his wife in the act of tasting wine,[298] he beat her to death. And St. Monica consoles certain wives, whose faces bore the mark of marital brutality, by saying to them: "Take care to control your tongues.... It is the duty of servants to obey their masters ... you have made a contract of servitude."[299] Such was the marriage law in the early days of Rome's history.

Now it followed almost necessarily that under such arbitrary regulations of the sexual relationship some way of escape should be sought. We have seen how the Athenian husbands found relief from the restrictions of legal marriage with the free hetairae. But in Rome the development of the freedom of love, with the corresponding advancement of the position of woman, followed a different course. The stranger-woman never attained a prominent place in Roman society. It is the citizen-women alone who are conspicuous in history. Here, relief was gained for the Roman wives as well as for the husbands, by what we may call a clever escape from marriage under the right of the husband's manus. This is so important that I must ask the reader deeply to consider it. The ideal of equality and fellowship between women and men in marriage can be realised only among a people who are sufficiently civilised to understand the necessity for the development and modification of legal restrictions that have become outworn and useless. Wherever the laws relating to marriage and divorce are arbitrary and unchanging there woman, as the weaker partner, will be found to remain in servitude. It can never be through the strengthening of moral prohibitions, but only by their modification to suit the growing needs of society that freedom will come to women.

The history of the development of marriage in Rome illustrates this very forcibly. Even in the days of the Twelve Tables a wholly different and free union had begun to take the place of the legally recognised marriage forms. It was developed from the early marriage by usus. We have seen that this marriage depended on the cohabitation of the man and the woman continued for one year, which gave the right of ownership to the husband in exactly the same way as possession for a year gave the right over others' property. But in Rome, if the enjoyment of property was broken for any period during the year, no title to it arose out of the usufruct. This idea was cleverly applied to marriage by usus. The wife by passing three nights in the year out of the conjugal domicile broke the manus of the husband and did not become his property.

When, or how, it became a custom to convert this breach of cohabitation into a system and establish a form of marriage, which entirely freed the wife from the manus of the husband, we do not know. What is certain is that this new form of free marriage by consent rapidly replaced the older forms of the coemptio, and even the solemn confarreatio of the patricians.

It will be readily seen that this expansion of marriage produced a revolution in the position of woman. The bride now remained a member of her own family, and though nominally under the control of her father or guardian, she was for all purposes practically free, having complete control over her own property, and was, in fact, her own mistress.

The law of divorce evolved rapidly, and the changes were wholly in favour of women. Marriage was now a private contract, of which the basis was consent; and, being a contract, it could be dissolved for any reason, with no shame attached to the dissolution, provided it was carried out with the due legal form, in the presence of competent witnesses. Both parties had equal liberty of divorce, only with certain pecuniary disadvantages, connected with the forfeiting of the wife's dowry, for the husband whose fault led to the divorce.[300] It was expressly stated that the husband had no right to demand fidelity from his wife unless he practised the same himself. "Such a system," says Havelock Ellis, "is obviously more in harmony with modern civilised feeling than any system that has ever been set up in Christendom."[301]

Monogamy remained imperative. The husband was bound to support the wife adequately, to consult her interests and to avenge any insult inflicted upon her, and it is expressly stated by the jurist Gaius that the wife might bring an action for damages against her husband for ill-treatment.[302] The woman retained complete control of her dowry and personal property. A Roman jurist lays it down that it is a good thing that women should be dowered, as it is desirable they should replenish the State with children. Another instance of the constant solicitude of the Roman law to protect the wife is seen in the fact that even if a wife stole from her husband, no criminal action could be brought against her. All crimes against women were punished with a heavy hand much more severely than in modern times.

Women gained increasingly greater liberty until at last they obtained complete freedom. This fact is stated by Havelock Ellis, whose remarks on this point I will quote.

"Nothing is more certain than that the status of women in Rome rose with the rise of civilisation exactly in the same way as in Babylon and in Egypt. In the case of Rome, however, the growing refinement of civilisation and the expansion of the Empire were associated with the magnificent development of the system of Roman law, which in its final forms consecrated the position of women. In the last days of the Republic women already began to attain the same legal level as men, and later the great Antonine jurisconsults, guided by their theory of natural law, reached the conception of the equality of the sexes as the principle of the code of equity. The patriarchal subordination of women fell into complete discredit, and this continued until, in the days of Justinian, under the influence of Christianity the position of women began to suffer."[303]

Hobhouse gives the same estimate as to the high status of women.

"The Roman matron of the Empire," he says, "was more fully her own mistress than the married woman of any earlier civilisation, with the possible exception of a certain period of Egyptian history, and, it must be added, the wife of any later civilisation down to our own generation."[304]

It is necessary to note that this freedom of the Roman woman was prior to the introduction of Christianity, and that under its influence their position began to suffer.[305] I cannot follow this question, and can only say how entirely mistaken is the belief that the Jewish religion, with its barbaric view of the relationship between the sexes, was beneficial to the liberty of women.

The Roman matrons had now gained complete freedom in the domestic relationship, and were permitted a wide field for the exercise of their activities. They were the rulers of the household; they dined with their husbands, attended the public feasts, and were admitted to the aristocratic clubs, such as the Gerousia is supposed to have been. We find from inscriptions that women had the privilege of forming associations and of electing women presidents. One of these bore the title of Sodalitas Pudicitiae Servandrae, or "Society for Promoting Purity of Life." At Lanuvium there was a society known as the "Senate of Women." There was an interesting and singular woman's society existing in Rome, with a meeting-place on the Quirinal, called Conventus Matronarum, or "Convention of Mothers of Families." This seems to have been a self-elected parliament of women for the purpose of settling questions of etiquette. It cannot be said that the accounts that we have of this assembly are at all edifying, but its existence shows the freedom permitted to women, and points to the important fact that they were accustomed to combine with one another to settle their own affairs. The Emperor Heliogabalus took this self-constituted Parliament in hand and gave it legal powers.[306]

The Roman women managed their own property; many women possessed great wealth: at times they lent money to their husbands, at more than shrewd interest. It appears to have been recognised that all women were competent in business affairs, and, therefore, the wife was in all cases permitted to assume complete charge of the children's property during their minority, and to enjoy the usufruct. We have instances in which this capacity for affairs is dwelt on, as when Agricola, the general in command in Britain, shows such confidence in his wife as a business woman that he makes her co-heir with his daughter and the Emperor Domitian. Women were allowed to plead for themselves in the courts of law. The satirists, like Juvenal, declare that there were hardly any cases in which a woman would not bring a suit.

There are many other examples which might be brought forward to show the public entry of women into the affairs of the State. There would seem to have been no limits set to their actions; and, moreover, they acted in their own right independently of men. On one occasion, when the women of the city rose in a body against an unfair taxation, they found a successful leader in Hortensia, the daughter of the famous orator Hortensus, who is said to have argued their case before the Triumvirs with all her father's eloquence. We find the wives of generals in camp with their husbands. The graffitti found at Pompeii give several instances of election addresses signed by women, recommending candidates to the notice of the electors. We find, too, in the municipal inscriptions that the women in different municipalities formed themselves into small societies with semi-political objects, such as the support of some candidate, the rewards that should be made to a local magistrate, or how best funds might be collected to raise monuments or statues.

It is specially interesting to find how fine a use many of the Roman women made of their wealth and opportunities. They frequently bestowed public buildings and porticoes on the communities among which they lived; they erected public baths and gymnasia, adorned temples, and put up statues. Their generosity took other forms. In Asia Minor we find several instances of women distributing large sums of money among each citizen within her own district. Women presided over the public games and over the great religious festivals. When formally appointed to this position, they paid the expenses incurred in these displays. In the provinces they sometimes held high municipal offices. Ira Flavia, an important Roman settlement in Northern Spain, for instance, was ruled by a Roman matron, Lupa by name.[307] The power of women was especially great in Asia Minor, where they received a most marked distinction, and were elected to the most important magistracies. Several women obtained the highest Priesthood of Asia, the greatest honour that could be paid to any one.[308]

There is one final point that has to be mentioned. We have seen how the liberty and power of the Roman women arose from, and may be said to have been dependent on, the substituting of a laxer form of marriage with complete equality and freedom of divorce. In other words it was the breaking down of the patriarchal system which placed women in a position of freedom equal in all respects with men. Now, it has been held by many that, owing to this freedom, the Roman women of the later period were given up to licence. There are always many people who are afraid of freedom, especially for women. But if our survey of these ancient and great civilisations of the past has taught us anything at all, it is this: the patriarchal subjection of women can never lead to progress. We must give up a timid adherence to past traditions. It is possible that the freeing of women's bonds may lead in some cases to the foolishness of licence. I do not know; but even this is better than the wastage of the mother-force in life. The child when first it tries to walk has many tumbles, yet we do not for this reason keep him in leading strings. We know he must learn to walk; how to do this he will find out by his many mistakes.

The opinion as to the licentiousness of the Roman woman rests mainly on the statements of two satirical writers, Juvenal and Tacitus. Great pains have been taken to refute the charges they make, and the old view is not now accepted. Dill,[309] who is quoted by Havelock Ellis, seems convinced that the movement of freedom for the Roman woman caused no deterioration of her character; "without being less virtuous or respected, she became far more accomplished and attractive; with fewer restraints, she had greater charm and influence, even in social affairs, and was more and more the equal of her husband."[310] Hobhouse and Donaldson[311] both support this opinion; the latter writer considers that "there was no degradation of morals in the Roman Empire." The licentiousness of pagan Rome was certainly not greater than the licentiousness of Christian Rome. Sir Henry Maine, in his valuable Ancient Law (whose chapter on this subject should be read by every woman), says, "The latest Roman law, so far as it is touched by the constitution of the Christian Emperors, bears some marks of reaction against the liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults." This he attributes to the prevalent state of religious feeling that went to "fatal excesses" under the influence of its "passion for asceticism."

At the dissolution of the Roman Empire the enlightened Roman law remained as a precious legacy to Western civilisations. But, as Maine points out, its humane and civilising influence was injured by its fusion with the customs of the barbarians, and, in particular, by the Jewish marriage system. The legislature of Europe "absorbed much more of those laws concerning the position of women which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilisation. The law relating to married women was for the most part read by the light, not of Roman, but of Christian Canon Law, which in no one particular departs so widely from the enlightened spirit of the Roman jurisprudence than in the view it takes of the relations of the sexes in marriage." This was in part inevitable, Sir Henry Maine continues, "since no society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle Roman law."

It is not possible for me to follow this question further. One thing is incontrovertibly certain, that woman's position and her freedom can best be judged by the equity of the moral code in its bearing on the two sexes. Wherever a different standard of moral conduct is set up for women from men there is something fundamentally wrong in the family relationship needing revolutionising. The sexual passions of men and women must be regulated, first in the interests of the social body, and next in the interests of the individual. It is the institution of marriage that secures the first end, and the remedy of divorce that secures the second. It is the great question for each civilisation to decide the position of the sexes in relation to these two necessary institutions. In Rome an unusually enlightened public feeling decided for the equality of woman with man in the whole conduct of sexual morality. The legist Ulpian expresses this view when he writes—"It seems to be very unjust that a man demands chastity from his wife while he himself shows no example of it."[312] Such deep understanding of the unity of the sexes is assuredly the finest testimony to the high status of Roman women.

I have now reached the end of the inquiry set before us at the opening of this chapter. I am fully aware of the many omissions, probable misjudgments, and the inadequacy of this brief summary. We have covered a wide field. This was inevitable. I know that to understand really the position of woman in any country it is necessary to inquire into all the customs that have built up its civilisation, and to gain knowledge upon many points outside the special question of the sexual relationships. This I have not been able even to attempt to do. I have thrown out a few hints in passing—that is all. But the practical value of what we have found seems to me not inconsiderable. I have tried to avoid any forcing of the facts to fit in with a narrow and artificial view of my own opinions. To me the truth is plain. As we have examined the often-confused mass of evidence, as it throws light on the position of woman in these four great civilisations of antiquity, we find that, in spite of the apparent differences which separate their customs and habits in the sexual relationships, the evidence, when disentangled, all points in one and the same direction. In the face of the facts before us one truth cries out its message: "Woman must be free face to face with man." Has it not, indeed, become clear that a great part of the wisdom of the Egyptians and the wisdom of the Babylonians, as also of the Romans, and, in a different degree, of the Greeks, rested in this, they thought much of the mothers of the race. Do not the records of these old-world civilisations show us the dominant position of the mother in relation to the life of the race? In all great ages of humanity this has been accepted as a central and sacred fact. We learn thus, as we look backwards to those countries and those times when woman was free, by what laws, habits and customs the sons of mothers may live long and gladly in all regions of the earth. The use of history is not alone to sum up the varied experiences of the past, but to enlarge our vision of the present, and by reflections on that past to point a way to the future.

FOOTNOTES:

[199] This is the position taken up, for instance, by Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, p. 176.

[200] Herodotus, Bk. II. p. 35.

[201] Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 189.

[202] Maspero, Preface to Queens of Egypt, by J.R. Buttles, q. v.

[203] For an account of the reign of Hatschepsut, as well as of the other queens who ruled in Egypt, I must refer the reader to the excellent and careful work of Miss Buttles. It is worth noting that the temple built by Queen Hatschepsut is one of the most famous and beautiful monuments of ancient Egypt. On the walls are recorded the history of her prosperous reign, also the private events of her life: "Ra hath selected her for protecting Egypt and for rousing bravery among men."

[204] We owe our knowledge of the Egyptian marriage contracts chiefly to M. Revillout, whose works should be consulted. See also Paturet (the pupil of Revillout), La Condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne Egypte; Nietzold, Die Ehe in Aegypten; Greenfel, Greek Papyri; Amelineau, La Morale Egyptienne; Mueller, Liebespoesie der alten Aegypten, and the numerous works of M. Maspero and Flinders Petrie. Simcox, writing on "Ownership in Egypt," gives a good summary of the subject, Primitive Civilisations, Vol. I. pp. 204-211; also Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 182, et seq.

[205] Hobhouse regards this dowry as being the original property of the wife in the forms of the bride-price. Revillout and Mueller accept the much more probable view, that the dowry was fictitious, and was really a charge on the property of the husband to be paid to the wife if he sent her away.

[206] Paturet, La Condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne Egypte; p. 69.

[207] Nietzold, Die Ehe in Aegypten, p. 79.

[208] Etudes egyptologiques, livre XIII. pp. 230, 294; quoted by Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 210.

[209] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 204.

[210] Simcox, op. cit.; Vol. I. pp. 210-211, citing Revillout; Cours de droit, p. 285.

[211] This is the view of Simcox, op. cit., pp. 210-211.

[212] Hobhouse, Vol. I. p. 185 (Note).

[213] Les obligations en droit egyptien, p. 82; quoted by Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 209-210.

[214] Diodorus, bk. i. p. 27. The whole passage is: "Contrary to the received usage of other nations the laws permit the Egyptians to marry their sisters, after the example of Osiris and Isis. The latter, in fact, having cohabited with her brother Osiris, swore, after his death, never to suffer the approach of any man, pursued the murderer, governed according to the laws, and loaded men with benefits. All this explains why the queen receives more power and respect than the king, and why, among private individuals, the woman rules over the man, and that it is stipulated between married couples by the terms of the dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman." The brother-sister marriages, referred to by Diodorus, which were common, especially in early Egyptian history, are further witness to the persistence among them of the customs of the mother-age.

[215] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 205.

[216] Revue egyptologique, I. p. 110.

[217] Revillout, Cours de droit, Vol. I. p. 222.

[218] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 393.

[219] Amelineau, La morale egyptienne, p. 194.

[220] Ellis, citing Donaldson, Woman, p. 196. This is also the opinion of Mueller.

[221] Revillout, Revue egyptologique, Vol. I. p. 113.

[222] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 207.

[223] Donaldson, Woman, pp. 244-245, citing Nietzold, p. 79.

[224] Letourneau (Evolution of Marriage, p. 176) takes this view.

[225] This is, of course, a survival of the old matriarchal custom.

[226] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. L. pp. 5-186. Herodotus (Bk. II. p. 42) states that many Egyptians, like the Greeks, had adopted monogamy.

[227] Burgsch, Hist., Vol. I. p. 262, quoted by Simcox.

[228] Simcox, Vol. I. p. 198-199. I take this opportunity of acknowledging the help I have received from this writer's careful and interesting chapter on "Domestic Relationships and Family Law" among the Egyptians.

[229] Maspero, Hist. (German tr.), p. 41; see Simcox, op. cit., p. 199.

[230] This tablet is in the British Museum, London. S. Egyptian Gallery, Bay 29, No. 1027.

[231] Simcox, Vol. I. pp. 218, 219.

[232] Petah Hotep was a high official in the reign of Assa, a king of the IVth Dynasty, about 3360 B.C. His precepts consist of aphorisms of high moral worth; there is a late copy in the British Museum. I have followed the translation given in the Guide to the Egyptian Collection p. 77.

[233] This passage in other translations reads: "she is a field profitable to its owner."

[234] The Maxims of Ani are preserved in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. The work inculcates the highest standard of practical morality and gives a lofty ideal of the duty of the Egyptians in all the relations of life.

[235] From the Boulak Papyrus (1500 B.C.). I have followed in part the translation given by Griffiths, The World's Literature, p. 5340, and in part that of Maspero given in Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria (trans. by Alice Morton, p. 16).

[236] Southern Egyptian Gallery, Bay 28, No. 964. This statue belongs to later Egyptian history. It was dedicated by Shashanq, a high official of the Ptolemaic period.

[237] Wall case 102, Nos. 187, 38, and 430.

[238] Vestibule of North Egyptian Gallery, East doorway, No. 14.

[239] South Gallery, No. 565.

[240] No. 375. This group belongs to the XVIIIth Dynasty: the husband was a warden of the palace and overseer of the Treasury; the wife a priestess of the god Amen.

[241] Simcox, Primitive Civilisation, Vol. I. pp. 9, 271.

[242] Hommel, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 271.

[243] Simcox, who quotes Hommel, op. cit., p. 320.

[244] Simcox, Vol. I. p 361.

[245] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 393. Ellis quotes Revillout, "La femme dans l'antiquite," Journal Asiatique, 1906, Vol. VII. p. 57.

[246] I quote these facts from Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 179.

[247] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 181.

[248] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 180.

[249] There is one case as late as the thirteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar in which a wife is bought for a slave for one and a half gold minas.

[250] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 374, citing Les Obligations, p. 346; also Revue d'Assyriologie.

[251] This deed was translated by Dr. Peiser, Keilinschriftliche Aktenstuecke aus babylonischen Staedte, p. 19.

[252] See Simcox, Chapters, "Commercial Law and Contract Tablets" and "Domestic Relations and Family Law," op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 320-379.

[253] To give a few examples, Plutarch mentions that the relations between husband and wife in Sparta were at first secret (Plutarch, Lycurgas). The story told by Pausanias about Ulysses' marriage points to the custom of the husband going to live with his wife's family (Pausanias, III. 20 (10), Frazer's translation). The legend of the establishment of monogamy by Cecrops, because, before his time, "men had their wives in common and did not know their fathers," points clearly to a confused tradition of a period of mother-descent. (Athenaeus, XIII. 2). Herodotus reports that mother-descent was practised by the Lycians, and states that "if a free woman marry a man who is a slave their children are free citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign woman or cohabit with a concubine, even though he be the first person in the state, the children forfeit all rights of citizenship" (Herodotus, Bk. I. 173). The wife of Intaphernes, when granted by Darius permission to claim the life of a single man of her kindred, chose her brother, saying that both husband and brother and children could be replaced (Herodotus, Bk. III. 119). Similarly the declaration of Antigone in Sophocles (line 905 ff) that neither for husband nor children would she have performed the toil she undertook for Polynices clearly shows that the tie of the common womb was held as closer than the tie of marriage.

[254] For a full account of the Homeric woman the reader is referred to Lenz, Geschichte des Weiber im Heroischen Zeitalter, an admirable work. The fullest English account will be found in Mr. Gladstone's Homeric Studies, Vol. II. See also Donaldson, Woman, pp. 11-23, where an excellent summary of the subject is given.

[255] Odyssey, I. 2.

[256] Iliad, VI. 429-430.

[257] Odyssey, VI. 182.

[258] Gladstone, Homeric Studies, Vol. II. p. 507.

[259] Odyssey, VII. 142 ff.

[260] Donaldson, Woman, p. 18-19.

[261] Odyssey, III. 450; Iliad, VI. 301.

[262] Simcox, Primitive Civilisation, Vol. I. p. 199. Reference may also be made to the love-charm translated by M. Revillout in his version of the Tales of Selna, p. 37.

[263] 2 Nic. Ethics, VIII. 14; Econom. I. p. 94.

[264] Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, p. 195.

[265] Lycurgus, XXXVII.

[266] Ibid., XXVI.

[267] Donaldson, Woman, pp. 28-29.

[268] Plutarch, Apophthegms of the Lacedemonians.—Demandes Romaines, LXV.

[269] Lycurgus, Polybius, XII. 6. Xenophon, Rep. Laced. I. Aristotle, Pol. II. 9. Aristotle notes especially the sexual liberty allowed to women.

[270] Donaldson, op. cit., p. 28.

[271] Polit. II. 9.

[272] Plutarch, Life of Agis; Donaldson, Woman, pp. 34, 35.

[273] Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 208.

[274] Thus Demosthenes bequeathed his two daughters, aged seven and five years, and also their mother, to his nephews, classing them with his property in the significant phrase "all these things" (Letourneau, op. cit., p. 196).

[275] Xenophon, Economicus, VII.-IX.

[276] Isaeus de Pyrrhi Her., Sec. 14.

[277] Antig. 905-13. These verses are probably interpolated, but the interpolation was as early as Aristotle. The same views are placed by Herodotus in the mouth of the wife of Intarphernes (3. 119). See Donaldson, Woman, pp. 53, 54 and note.

[278] "The Position of Women in History"; Essay in the volume The Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal, p. 37.

[279] Medea.

[280] Theodota, Xen. 'Mem.', III. II. Socrates conversed with Theodota on art and discussed with her how she could best find true friends.

[281] Symposium.

[282] Pericles, 24. Thargalia used her influence over the Greeks to win them over to the cause of the King of Persia.

[283] Timandra, Plut., Alcib., c. 39.

[284] Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), Chapters on Human Love, p. 152.

[285] We do not know the circumstances which induced Aspasia to come to Athens. Plutarch suggests that she was led to do so by the example of Thargalia. For full accounts of the career of Aspasia see Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Vol. III.; Ivo Bruns, Frauenemancipation in Athen; the fine monograph, Aspasie de Milet, by Becq Fouquieres; Donaldson's Woman, pp. 60-67; also Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 308.

[286] Pericles at the time of his meeting Aspasia was married, but there was incompatibility of temper between him and his wife. He therefore made an agreement with his wife to have a divorce and get her remarried. Aspasia then became his companion and they remained together until the death of Pericles. Their affection for one another was considered remarkable. Plutarch tells us, as an extraordinary trait in the habits of a statesman who was remarkable for his imperturbability and control, that Pericles regularly kissed Aspasia when he went out and came in. When Pericles died Aspasia is said to have formed a friendship with Lysicles, and through her influence raised him to the position of foremost politician in Athens (Donaldson, op. cit., pp. 60, 61 and 63).

[287] Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Vol. III. p. 124.

[288] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 308; Donaldson, op. cit., p. 62.

[289] Frauenemancipation in Athen, p. 19.

[290] Medea, Mr. Gilbert Murray's translation.

[291] Frazer thinks that the Roman kingship was transmitted in the female line; the king being a man of another town or race, who had married the daughter of his predecessor and received the crown through her. This hypothesis explains the obscure features of the traditional history of the Latin kings; their miraculous birth, and the fact that many of the kings from their names appear to have been of plebeian and not patrician families. The legends of the birth of Servius Tullius which tradition imputes to a look, or that Coeculus the founder of Proneste was conceived by a spark that leaped into his mother's bosom, as well as the rape of the Sabines, may be mentioned as traces pointing to mother-descent (Golden Bough, Pt. I. The Magic Art, Vol. II. pp. 270, 289, 312).

[292] Quoted from Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal; Essay on "The Position of Woman in History," p. 38.

[293] Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 120, 201. The usus was similar to the Polynesian marriage, and was the consecration of the free union after a year of cohabitation. By it the wife passed as completely under the manum mariti as if she had eaten of the sacred cake.

[294] Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 210. The eating of the cake would seem to the ancient mind to have been connected with magic, and was regarded as actually effacious in establishing a unity of the man and the woman.

[295] Coemption became in time purely symbolic. The bride was delivered to the husband, who as a formality gave a few pieces of silver as payment; but the ceremony proves how completely the woman was regarded as the property of the father.

[296] Romulus, says Plutarch, gave the husband power to divorce his wife in case of her poisoning his children, or counterfeiting his keys, or committing adultery (Romulus, XXXVI.). Valerius Maximus affirms that divorce was unknown for 520 years after the foundation of Rome.

[297] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 211 (note). He states, "The concubinate we hear of in Roman Law is a form of union bereft of some of the civil rights of marriage, not the relation of a married man to a secondary wife or slave-girl."

[298] Donaldson, op. cit., p. 88. He remarks in a note, "The story may not be historical, but the Romans regarded it as such." Wives were prohibited from tasting wine at the risk of the severest penalties.

[299] St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk. IX. Ch. IX.

[300] Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 244, 245. In the ancient law, when the crime of the woman led to divorce she lost all her dowry. Later, only a sixth was kept back for adultery, and an eighth for other crimes. In the last stages of the law the guilty husband lost the whole dowry, while if the wife divorced without a cause, the husband retained a sixth of the dowry for each child, but only up to three-sixths.

[301] Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 396.

[302] Hecker, History of Women's Rights, p. 12.

[303] Ellis, op. cit., p. 395.

[304] Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 213.

[305] Maine, Ancient Law, Ch. V.

[306] McCabe, The Religion of Women, p. 26 et seq.

[307] Santiago (Mediaeval Towns Series), p. 21.

[308] Donaldson, Woman, pp. 124-125.

[309] Roman Society, p. 163.

[310] Morals in Evolution, Vol. I. p. 216.

[311] Woman, p. 113.

[312] Digest, XLVIII. 13, 5.



PART III

MODERN SECTION

PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN PROBLEM



CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VIII

SEX DIFFERENCES

The practical application of the truths arrived at—A question to be faced—The organic differences between the sexes—Resume of the facts already established—The error in the common opinion of the true relationship of the sexes—The male active and seeking—The female passive and receiving—Is this true?—An examination of the passivity of the female—The delusion that man is the active partner in the sexual relationship—The economic factor in marriage—The conventional modesty of woman—Concealments and evasions—The feeling of shame in love—Woman's right of selection—How this must be regained by women—The new Ethic—The pre-natal claims of the child—The question of parenthood as a religious question—The responsibility of the mother as the child's supreme parent—The mating of the future—Another question—Woman's superior moral virtue—Its fundamental error—Woman's imperative need of love—The maternal instinct—Nature's experiments—The establishment of two sexes—The feminine and masculine characters are an inherent part of the normal man and woman—The female as the giver of life—The deep significance of this—The atrophy of the maternal instinct—Modern woman preoccupied with herself—The right position of the mother—Sex attraction and sex antagonism—Woman's relation to sexuality—The duel of the sexes—The prostitution of love—Man's fear of woman—Misogyny—The rebellion of woman against man—Coercive differentiation of the sexes in consequence of civilisation—The ideal of a one-sexed world—Woman as the enemy of her own emancipation—The attempt to establish a third sex—The danger of ignoring sex—The future progress of love.



CHAPTER VIII

SEX DIFFERENCES

"Woman is an integral constituent of the processes of civilisation, which, without her, becomes unthinkable. The present moment is a turning point in the history of the feminine world. The woman of the past is disappearing, to give place to the woman of the future, instead of the bound, there appears the free personality."—IWAN BLOCH.

At length we are ready, clear-minded and well-prepared, to deal with the question of woman's present position in society. Our minds are clear, for we have freed them from the age-long error that the subjection of the female to the male is a universal and necessary part of Nature's scheme; we are well prepared to support an exact opposite view, with a knowledge founded on some at least of the facts that prove this, by the actual position that women have held in the great civilisations of the past and still hold among primitive peoples, as well as by a sure biological basis. We are thus far advanced from the uncertainty with which we started our inquiry; our investigation has got beyond the statement of evidence drawn from the past to a stage whence the status of woman in the social order to-day, and the meaning of her relation to herself, to man, and to the race may be estimated. The point we have reached is this: the primary value of the sexes has to some extent, at least, been reversed under the patriarchal idea, which has pushed the male destructive power into prominence at the expense of the female constructive force. This under-valuing of the one-half of life has lost to society the service of a strong unsubjugated motherhood.

I am now, in this third and last section of my book, going to deal with what seems to me the practical applications of the truth we have arrived at. And the preliminary to this is a searching question: To what extent must we accept a different natural capacity for women and men? or, in other words, How far does the predominant sexual activity of woman separate her from man in the sphere of intellectual and social work? The whole subject is a large and difficult one and is full of problems to which it is not easy to find an answer. We are brought straight up against the old controversy of the organic differences between the sexes. This must be faced before we can proceed further.

To attempt to do this we must return to the position we left at the end of the fifth chapter. We had then concluded from our examination of the sexual habits of insects, mammals, and birds that a marked differentiation between the female and the male existed already in the early stages of the development of species, and that such divergence, or sex-dimorphism, to use the biological term, becomes more and more frequent and conspicuous as we ascend to the higher types. The essential functions of females and males become more separate, their habits of life tend to diverge, and to the primary differences there are added all manner of secondary peculiarities. We found, however, especially in our study of the familial habits, that these supplementary differences could not be regarded as fixed and unalterable in either the female or the male organism; but rather that the secondary sexual characters must be considered as depending on environmental conditions, among which are included the occupational activities, the scarcity or abundance of the food supply, the relative numbers of the two sexes, and, in particular, the brain development and the strength of the parental emotions. We followed the development of the female element and the male element. The male at first an insignificant addendum to the female, but the long process of love's selection, carrying on the expansion and aggrandisement of the male, led to the reversal of the early superiority of the female, replacing it by the superiority of the male. The female led and the male followed in the evolution process. We saw that there are many curious alternations in the superiority of one sex over the other in size and also in power of function. Below the line, among backboneless animals, there is much greater constancy of superiority among the females, and this predominance persists in many higher types. Even among birds, who afford the most perfect examples of sexual development, the cases are not infrequent in which the female equals, and sometimes even exceeds, the male in size and strength and in beauty of plumage. The curious case of the Phalaropes furnished us with a remarkable example of a reversal of the role of the sexes. We found further that (1) an extravagant development of the secondary sexual characters was not really favourable to the reproductive process, the males thus differentiated belonging to a lower grade of sexual evolution, being bad fathers and unsocial in their conduct; (2) that the most oppressed females are as a rule very faithful wives, and (3) that the highest expression of love among the birds must be sought in the beautiful cases in which the sexes, though maintaining the essential constitutional distinctions, are, through the higher individuation of the females more alike, equal in capacity, and co-operate together in the race-work.

It were well to keep these facts clearly in sight; for, in the light of them, it becomes evident that there is an error somewhere in the common opinion of the true relationship of the sexes. Let us go first to the very start of the matter. It is always held that the sperm male-cell represents the active, and the germ female-cell the passive principle in sexuality, and on this assumption there has been based by many a fixed standard for the supposed natural relation between man and woman—he active and seeking, she passive and receiving.

But is this really a fair statement of the reproduction process? The hunger-driven male-cell certainly seeks the female—but what happens then? The female cellule, the ovule, preserves its individuality and absorbs the masculine cellule, or is impregnated by it. Thus, to use the term "passive" in this connection is surely curiously misleading; as well call the snake passive when, waiting motionless, it charms and draws towards it the victim it will devour. Illustrations are apt to mislead, nevertheless they do help us to see straight, and until we have come to find the truth here we shall be fumbling for the grounds of any safe conclusion as to the natural relationship of the female and the male. I think we must take a wider view of the sexual relationship, and conclude that the passivity of the female is not real, but only an apparent passivity. We may even go so far as to say that the female element has from the very first to play the more complex and difficult, the more important part. Herein, at the very start of life, is typified in a manner at once simple and convincing that differentiation which divides so sharply the sexual activity of the female from that of the male. The serious part in sex belongs to the one who gives life, while in comparison the activity of the male can almost be regarded as trifling. And I believe that this view will be found to be amply supported by facts if we turn now to consider the later and human relation of the sexes. In all cases it is the same, the serious business in sex belongs to the woman. As it was in the beginning, so, it seems to me, it continues to the end—it is woman who really leads, she who in sex absorbs and uses the male.

"The passivity of the female in love," it has been said wisely by Marro in his fine work La Puberta, "is the passivity of the magnet, which in its apparent immobility is drawing the iron towards it. An intense energy lies behind such passivity, an absorbed pre-occupation in the end to be attained."[313] In the examples we have studied of the courtships of birds we saw that it is by no means a universal law that the male is eager and the female coy. I need only recall the instance noted by Darwin[314] in which a wild duck forced her love on a male pintail, and such cases, as is well known, are frequent. High-bred bitches will show sudden passions for low-bred or mongrel males. According to breeders and observers it is the female who is always much more susceptible of sentimental selection; thus it is often necessary to deceive mares. Among many primitive peoples it is the woman who takes the initiative in courtship. In New Guinea, for instance, where women hold a very independent position, "the girl is always regarded as the seducer. 'Women steal men.' A youth who proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called a woman, and laughed at by the girls. The usual method by which a girl proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to assure himself of the girl's constancy before decisively accepting her advances."[315]

In the face of this, and many similar cases, it becomes an absurdity to continue a belief in the passivity of the female as a natural law of the sexes. Such openness of conduct in courtship is, of course, impossible except where woman holds an entirely independent position. Still, it would not be difficult to bring forward similar manifestations of the initiative being taken by the woman—though often exercised unconsciously as the expression of an instinctive need—in the artificial courtships of highly civilised peoples. But enough has perhaps been said; and such examples can, I doubt not, be readily supplied by each of my readers for themselves. I will only remark that the true nature of the passivity of the woman in courtship is made abundantly clear from the ease with which the pretence is thrown off in every case where the necessity arises.

Nothing is more astounding to me than this delusion that the man is the active partner in sex. I believe, as I have once before stated, that Bernard Shaw[316] is right here when he says that men set up the theory to save their pride. Having taken to themselves the initiative in all other matters, they claim the same privilege in love; and women have acquiesced and have helped them, so that the duplicity has become almost ineradicable. Few women are brave enough to admit this even if they have clear sight to see the truth; they know that it is not permitted to them to exercise openly their right of choice. They understand that the male pride of possession—the hunter's and the fighter's joy—must be respected. But this makes not the least difference to the result, only to the way in which that result is gained. So the whole of our society is filled with half-concealed sex-snares and pitfalls set by women for the capture of men. The woman waits passive! Yes, precisely, she often does. But exactly the same may be said of the female spider when she has spun her web, from which she knows full well the victim fly will not escape.

There is another point that must be noticed. Under our present sexual relationships the price the woman asks from the man for her favours is marriage as the only means of gaining permanent maintenance for herself and for her children. Now that these economic considerations have entered into love she has to act with a new and greater caution, for she has to gain her own ends as well as Nature's ends. In the matriarchal society the girl was allowed openly to pick her lover, and forthwith he went with her. But to the modern woman, under the patriarchal ideals, if she shows the modesty that convention requires of her, all that is permitted is the invitation of a lowered eyelid, a look, or perchance a touch, at one time given, at another withheld.

Now, I find it the opinion of most of my men friends that such half-concealed encouragements, such evasions and drawings back are a necessary part of the love-play—the woman's unconscious testing of the fussy male. There is one friend, a doctor, who tells me that the woman's dissimulation of her own inclination has come to be a secondary sexual characteristic, a manifestation of the operation of sexual selection, diluted, perhaps, and altered by civilisation, but an essential feature in every courtship, so that the woman follows a true and biologically valuable instinct when she temporises and dissembles, and tests and provokes, and entices and repels. She is proving herself and testing her lovers before she permits that awful "merging" that no after-thought can undo.

Now, on the face of it this seems true. There is a passionate uncertainty that all true lovers feel. It is, I think, a holding back from the yielding up of the individual ego—an unconscious revolt from the sacrifice claimed by the creative force before which both the woman and the man alike are helpless agents. It is very difficult to find the truth. Throughout Nature love only fulfils its purpose after much expenditure of energy. But dissimulation on the side of the woman is not, I am sure, a true or necessary incitement to love. Love, as I see it, is a breaking down of the boundaries of oneself, the casting aside of reserve and defences, with a necessary throwing off of every concealment.

In our restricted society, where the sexual instincts are at once both unnaturally repressed and unnaturally stimulated, this openness may not be possible. Concealments and evasions may be an aid at one stage of sex evolution. Just as the half-concealed body is often a more powerful sensual stimulus than nudity; the less one sees, the more does the imagination picture. But the need of such artificial excitants speaks of the poverty of love and not of its fullness. For most of us the strain of sensuality in our loves is very strong. To have lived in the bonds of slavery makes us slaves, and the price that woman has paid is the sacrifice of her purity. The feeling of shame in love, like chastity, arose in the property value of the woman to her owner; it is no more a part of the woman's character than of the man's. Woman must capture her mate because the race must perish without her travail; she is fulfilling Nature's ends, as well as her own, whatever means she uses.

So I am certain that, as woman's right of selection is given back to her to exercise without restraint, we shall see a freer and more beautiful mating. With greater liberty of action she will be far better armed with knowledge to demand a finer quality in her lovers. Her unborn children importuning her, her choice will be guided by the man's fitness alone, not, as now it is, by his capacity and power for work and protection. We are only awakening to the terrible evils of these powerful economic restraints, which now limit the woman's range of choice. It is this wastage of the Life-force that, as I believe, above all else has driven women into revolt.

The free power of Selection in Love! Yes; that is the true Female Franchise. It must be regained by woman, to be used by her to ennoble the sex relation and thereby to cleanse society of the unfit. The means by which this most important end can be attained will be brought about by giving woman such training and education and civic rights, as well as the framing of such laws and changes in the rights of property inheritance, as shall render her economically independent. Existing marriage is a pernicious survival of the patriarchal age. The "patriarch's" wife was significantly reckoned in the same category with a man's "ox" and his "ass," which any other male was forbidden "to covet." The wife was the husband's—her owner's private property—and the curse of this dependence and the old ferocious potestas and manus, from which the Roman wife freed herself, are upon women to-day. With the regaining of their economic freedom by women—by whatever means this is to be accomplished—a truer marriage will be brought within reach of every one, and the sexual relationship will be freed from the jealous chains of ownership that cause such bitter mistrusts in the wreckage of our loves.

Mating will be a much more complex affair, and yet one much more directly in harmony with the welfare of the race. A recognition of the pre-natal claims of the child is the new Ethic that is slowly but surely dawning on womankind and on man. He who destroys human life, however unfit that life may be, is remorselessly punished by society, but the woman and man who beget diseased and imbecile children—the necessarily unfit—are not only exonerated from sin, but applauded by both Church and State. Could moral inconstancy go further than this? It is only in the begetting of men that breeding from the worst stocks may be said to be the rule. As long as in our ideas on these questions superstition remains the guide there is nothing to hope for and much to fear. The new ideal is only beginning, and beginning with a tardiness that is a reproach to human foresight. But herein lies the glad hope of the future. I place my trust in the enlightened conscience of the economically emancipated mothers, and in the awakened fathers, to work out some scheme of sexual salvation as will ensure a race of sounder limb and saner intelligence than any that has yet appeared in our civilisation.

It is woman, not man, who must fix the standard in sex. The problems of love are linked on to the needs of the race. Nature has, as we have seen, made various experiments as to which of the sexes was to be the predominant partner in this relation. But the decision has been made in the favour of the mother. She it is who has to play the chief part in the racial life. There is no getting away from this, in spite of the many absurdities that man has set up, as, for instance, St. Paul's grandmotherly old Tory dogma, making "man the head of the woman."

The differences between woman and man are deep and fundamental. And, lest there be any who fear the giving back to woman of her power, let me say that in this change there will be no danger of unsexing, least of all of the unsexing of woman. Nature would not permit it, even if she in any foolishness of revolt sought such a result, for it is her body that is the sanctuary of the race. Love and courtship will not, indeed, be robbed of any charm, that would be fatal, but they will be freed from the mockeries of love that have always selfishness in them, jealous resentments and fearing distrusts—the man of the woman, not less than the woman of the man. To-day coquetry serves not only as a prelude to marriage, but very often serves as a substitute for it; an escape from the payment of the sacrifices which fulfilled love claims. There is a confusion of motives which now force women and men alike from their service to the race. Sex must be freed from all unworthy necessities. Courtship must be regarded, not as a game of chance, but as the opening act in the drama of life. And the woman who comes to know this must play her part consciously, realising in full what she is seeking for; then, indeed, no longer will her sex be to her a light or a saleable thing. At present economic and social injustices are strangling millions of beautiful unborn babes.

There is another error that I would wish to clear up now. It is a tenet of common belief that in all matters of sex-feeling and sex-morality the woman is different from, and superior to, the man. I find in the writings of almost all women on sex-subjects, not to speak of popular novels, an insistence on men's grossness, with a great deal in contrast about the soulful character of woman's love. Even so illuminated a writer as Ellen Key emphasises this supposed trait of the woman again and again. Another woman writer, Miss May Sinclair, in a brilliant "Defence of Men" (English Review, July 1912), speaks of "the superior virtue of women" as being "primordially and fundamentally Nature's care." And again, woman "has monopolised virtue at man's expense," which the writer, with the most perfect humour and irony, though apparently quite unconscious, regards as "men's tragedy." The woman has received the laurel crown by "Nature's consecration of her womanhood to suffering," the man "has paid with his spiritual prospects as she has paid with her body."

Now, from this view of the sex relationship I most utterly dissent. I believe that any difference in virtue, even where it exists in woman, is not fundamental, that it is against Nature's purpose that it should be so; rather it has arisen as a pretence of necessity, because it has been expected of her, nourished in her, and imposed on her by the unnatural prohibitions of religious and social conventions. The female half of life has not been pre-ordained to suffer any more than the male half: this belief has done more to destroy the conscience of woman than any other single error. You have only to repeat any lie long enough to convince even yourself of its truth. But assuredly free woman will have to yield up her martyr's crown.

I grant willingly that men often talk brutally of sex, but I am certain that few of them think brutally. We women are so easily deceived by the outside appearance of things. The man who calls "a spade a spade" is not really inferior to him who terms it "an agricultural implement for the tilling of the soil." And women also express their sensuality in orgies of emotion, in hypocrisies of chastity, and in many other ways that are really nothing but a subtle sensuality disguised.

I confess that I doubt very much the existence of any special soulful character in woman's love. I wish that I didn't. But my experience forces me to admit that this is but another of those delusions which woman has wrapped around herself. Of course I may be wrong. I find Professor Forel and other distinguished psychologists lending their support to this idol of the woman's superior sexual virtue. Krafft-Ebing goes much further, holding "that woman is naturally and organically frigid." It may be then that some difference does exist in the driving force of passion in men and women. I do not know the exact character of men's love to compare it with my own, and I hesitate to write with that assurance of the passions of the other sex with which they have written of mine. Yet I believe that the male receiving life from the female is not more mindful of the physical needs of love than the woman, though possibly she has less understanding of its joys. For the woman with a much more complex sexual nature is carried by passion further than the male; the continuance of life rests with her. Under this imperative compulsion woman, if needs be, will break every commandment in the Decalogue and suffer no remorse for having done so. I think this seeking to give life remains a necessary element in the loves of all women. At its lowest it will stoop to any unscrupulousness. Bernard Shaw tells us that "if women were as fastidious as men, morally or physically, there would be an end to the race." Perhaps this is true. Yet I think woman's love is always different in its fundamental essence from the excitements of the male. We throw the whole burden of sex-desire on to men, because we have not yet faced the truth that they are our helpless agents in carrying on Nature's most urgent work. It has been so from the beginning, since that first primordial mating when the hungry male-cell gained renewal of life from the female, it is so still, I believe it will be thus to the end.

It is when we come to the emotions and actions connected with the maternal instinct in woman that we reach the real point of the difference between the sexes. In its essential essence this belongs to women alone. The male may be infected with the reproduction energy (we have witnessed this in its finest expression among birds, where the parental duties are shared in and, in some cases, carried out entirely by the male), but man possesses, as yet, its faint analogy only. It is the most primary of all woman's qualities, and, being fundamental, it is, I believe, unalterable, and any attempt to minimise its action is very unlikely to lead to progress. It is a two-sexed world; women and men are not alike; I hope that they never will be.

This radical truth is so plain. Yet it seems to me that in the present confusion many women are in danger of overlooking it. We saw in an earlier chapter how very early in the development of life it was found by Nature's slow but certain experiments that the establishment of two sexes in different organisms, and their differentiation, was to the immense advantage of progress. This initial difference leads to the functional distinctions between the female and the male, but it goes much further than this, finding its expression in many secondary qualities, not on the physical side alone, but on the mental and psychical, and is, indeed, a saturating influence that determines the entire development of the organism into the feminine or the masculine character. Take again the fact that this dynamic action of sex has manifested itself in a continual progress through the uncounted centuries. Developed by love's selection, the differentiation of the sexes increased in the evolution of species, and as the differentiation increased the attraction also increased, until in all the higher forms we find two markedly different sexes, strongly drawn together by the magnetism of sex, and fulfilling together their separate uses in the reproductive process. These are the natural features of sex-distinction and sex-union.

The belief, therefore, is forced upon us that the characteristic feminine and masculine characters are an inherent part of the normal woman and man, a duality that goes back to the very threshold of sexuality. So Nature created them, female and male created she them. To change the metaphor, we have the woman and the man=the unit—the race. While there is no fixing of the precise nature of this constitutional difference between the two sexes, we may yet, broadly speaking, reach the truth. The female, as the giver and keeper of life, is relatively more constructive, relatively less disruptive than the male. It is here, I believe, we touch the spring of those sex differences, which do exist, in spite of all efforts to explain them away between the woman and the man. It is a quality that crops up in many diverse directions and penetrates into every expression of the feminine character.

Now, we cannot get away from a difference so fundamental, so primordial as this. The consecration of the woman's body as the sanctuary of life—that perpetual payment in giving is not safely to be altered. And this I contest against all the Feminists: the real need of the normal woman is the full and free satisfaction of the race-instinct. Do I then accept the subjection of the woman. Assuredly not! To me it is manifest that it is just because of her sex-needs and her sex-power that woman must be free. To leave such a force to be used without understanding is like giving a weapon to a child, in whose hands a cartridge suddenly goes off, leaving the empty and smoking shell in his trembling hands.

It is well to remember, however, that for all women there is conceivably no one simple rule. It is quite possible that the maternal instincts may be overlaid and even destroyed, being replaced by others more clearly masculine. In our artificial social state this is indeed bound to be so. It may be regretted, but it cannot be blamed. And each woman must be free to make her own choice; no man may safely decide for her; she must give life gladly to be able to give it well. This is why any effort to force maternity, even as an ideal, upon women is so utterly absurd. To-day woman is coming slowly and hesitatingly to a new consciousness of herself, and this at present is perhaps preoccupying her attention. But the freed woman of to-morrow will have no need to centre her thoughts in herself, for by that time she will understand. There will come a day when women will no longer live in a prison walled up with fear of love and life. And when she has done with discovering herself and playing at conquests, she will come to the most glorious day of all, when she will know herself for what she is. And to those of us who see already the goal the way is surely clear—let us work to find how best it can be made easy for all women to love gladly and to bring forth their children in joy.

Hitherto, dating from the times of the subjection of mother-right to father-right, the woman's insecure position, with her need of protection during the period of motherhood, has forced her into a state of dependence and subordination to men, which has accentuated and made permanent that physical disadvantage which, apart from motherhood, would scarcely exist, and even with motherhood would not become a source of weakness, under a wiser social organisation, which, understanding the primary importance of the mother, so arranged its domestic and social relationships as to place its women in a position of security. We have seen how this was done in Egypt, and how happy were the results; we have seen, too, that among all primitive peoples women are practically as strong as the men, and as capable in the social duty of work. It is only under the fully established patriarchal system, with its unequal development of the sexes, that motherhood is a source of weakness to women. From the time that society comes again to recognise the position of mothers and their right as the bearers of strength to the race, not only to protection while they are fulfilling that essential function for the community, but to their freedom after they have fulfilled it—the same freedom that men claim for the work they do for the community—from that time will arise a new freedom of women which will once again unite mother-right with father-right. This change will touch and vitally affect many of the deepest problems of the sexual relationship and the race.

We hear much to-day of women, and also men, being over-sexed; to me it seems much nearer the truth to say we are wrongly sexed. It is unquestionable that the progress of civilisation has resulted in a markedly accentuated differentiation between the sexes, which, through inheritance and custom, has become continually more sharply defined. Now, up to a certain point sex differences lead to sex-attraction, but whenever such variability—whether initiated by some natural process or by some intentional guidance of the pressure of civilisation—is unduly exaggerated, the way is opened up for sex-antagonism. That this, indeed, occurs may be seen from the fact we have already established, that an exaggerated outgrowth of the secondary sexual characters is not really favourable to development; the species thus differentiated being bad parents and unsocial in their conduct. The large felines, which are often inclined to commit infanticide in their own interests, the male turkey and other members of the gallinaceae afford examples, and so does the female phalarope, whose maternal instincts are completely atrophied. Another illustration may be drawn from the debased position of the Athenian women, where the sharp separation between the sexes led, without doubt, not only to the debasing of the marriage relationship, but to the establishment of the hetairae, and also to the common practice of homo-sexual love.