BELFORT BAX - THE FRAUD OF FEMINISM

THE FRAUD OF

FEMINISM

BY

E. BELFORT BAX

AUTHOR OF

"MARAT: THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND," "PROBLEMS OF

MAN, MIND AND MORALS,"  ETC.

LONDON

GRANT  RICHARDS  LTD.

MDCCCCXIII

PRINTED BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH
 

                                                                                  PAGE

PREFACE  .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        1

INTRODUCTION          .        .        .        .        .        .        5

I.   HISTORICAL      .        .        .        .        .        .      11

II.   THE  MAIN  DOGMA  OF  MODERN  FEMINISM            20

III.    THE ANTI-MAN CRUSADE   .        .        .        .      51

IV.   ALWAYS THE "INJURED INNOCENT"           .           80

V.   THE "CHIVALRY " FAKE      .       .        .        .         98

VI.   SOME FEMINIST LIES AND FALLACIES          .        109

VII.   THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MOVEMENT        .         140

 VIII.   THE INDICTMENT     .        .        .        .        .       161

PREFACE TO REISSUE

THE following essay was published at the end of

1913 and is now reissued as originally written.

Since the year before the World War the situation

of woman has, of course, changed.  Feminism in this

 and in some other countries has won well-nigh [near]

all its formal demands.  Mr Asquith, who before

the war declared he would have nothing to do

with a House of Commons elected by a female

vote, during the war, for no assignable reason,

suddenly made a volte-face [about-face] and became 

a strong advocate of female franchise.  The acquisition 

of the suffrage has as its result carried with it the

right to all occupations and offices, as decreed by

the "Sex-Disability Repeal Act," and so the pitch-

forking of women into administrative posts proceeds

galore.  But the main contentions of The Fraud of

Feminism have not been affected by the change in

question.  Though women have been conceded

all the rights of men, their privileges as females

have remained untouched, while the sentimental

"pull" they have over men, and the favouritism

shown them in the courts, civil and criminal,

often in flagrant violation of elementary justice,

continues as before.  The result of their position                                               ix

on juries, as evinced in certain trials, has rather 

confirmed the remarks made in Chapter II. anent [concerning]

hysteria than otherwise.  The sex-bias of men in

favour of women and the love of the advanced

woman towards her sex-self show no sign of

abatement.  Proposals to the effect that in the

event of infanticide by a mother the putative

father should be placed in the dock merely because

he is a man are received with applause.  The other

day, at a court held in a fashionable town of the

south coast, on a prostitute being brought up

charged with soliciting, a female "justice," recently 

appointed, declaimed against the wickedness

of punishing prostitutes for soliciting while men

were never brought up charged with the offence.

(Needless to say, there was the usual male fool to

be found in the body of the court, who shouted:

"Hear ! Hear !")  Now is it conceivable, I ask, that

anybody can be so infatuated with Feminism as not

to see that a prostitute who solicits nightly in the

exercise of her trade-- i.e . for the purpose of

money-making--is in a different position from a man

who, once in a way, may, urged by natural passion,

make advances to a woman?  Such a person must

be unable to see distinctions in anything, one would

think.  Besides, it is not true that men, if charged

with the annoyance or molestation of women, cannot

be, and have not been, prosecuted for the offence.

The lady "justice" in question would probably                                                   x

like to see a man paired with a prostitute in the

dock every time the latter gave occasion for police

action.  Such is the Feminist notion of justice.

    There are a vast number of men who cultivate

the pretence of having a contempt for, or a preju-

dice against, their own sex.  The idea seems to be

to pander to the sex-vanity of the "New Woman."

Every popular writer caters for this prejudice.  No

one can have failed to notice the persistent journal-

istic and literary "stunt" by which the man is por-

trayed in the light of a miserable and abject living 

creature as a foil [frustration] to the "noble animal"

woman.  There is scarcely a play, short story or

novel the plot of which in any way admits of it

where this now stale device is not dragged in in

some form or shape.  Even Shaw, with all his some-

what ostentatious flouting of convention, cannot

resist the temptation of yielding to it in one or two

of his plays--e.g. Catherine the Great.  This sort of

thing is not without its influence on the course of

justice, as the daily papers still continue to show us.

Times have not changed in this respect.  The war,

which has altered the face of things otherwise and

in the matter of the social and political aspect of

sex-relations, has been the occasion of revolutionary

transformation in the shape of political sex-equality,

has left female privilege, civil and criminal, as it

was in 1913.  There is no indication that the

general public has a dawning sense that, to adapt                                             xi

the common metaphor, "What is sauce for the goose

is sauce for the gander."  Everywhere we hear the                                

same old bogus grievances of the female sex trotted

out as crying for remedy, but never the injustice

of a man being compelled, whatever his economic

position, to keep his wife, while a woman is under no

corresponding obligation to keep her husband.  No

urgency is suggested for removing the anomaly that

a husband is amenable for his wife's libels and

slanders; none that a boy of fourteen is punish-

able for a sexual offence to which he has been

incited by a girl of sixteen, who gets off scot-free;

none that the obligation of a husband, whose wife

wishes to bring an action for divorce against him,

to furnish her with the money to fight him, should

be abolished.  On the other hand, every law, every

judicial decision, every case in the courts, civil and

criminal, that on the most superficial view can be

exploited by the conventional Feminist claptrap to

prove the wickedness of "man-made law" to

woman, is gripped by the beak of the Feminist

harpy to help build up her nest of lying sex-

prejudice, whence she and her confraternity may

sally forth and by their raids on male sentiment not

merely help to buttress up existing female privi-

lege, but wherever possible to increase the already

one-sided injustice of the law and its administration

towards men in the interest of the other sex.

August, 1921                                                                                                    xii

                                PREFACE

    The present volume aims at furnishing a succinct ex-

posure of the pretensions of the Modern Feminist Move-

ment.  It aims at presenting the case against it with an

especial view to tracking down and gibbetting the in-

famous falsehoods, the conventional statements, which are

not merely perversions of the truth, but which are directly

and categorically contrary to the truth, but which pass

muster by sheer force of uncontradicted repetition.  It is

by this kind of bluff that the claims of Feminism are

sustained.  The following is a fair example of the state-

ments of Feminist writers:-- "As for accusing the world 

at large of fatuous indulgence for womanhood in general,

the idea is too preposterous for words.  The true ' legends 

of the Old Bailey [ Central Criminal Court]' tell, not of women

absurdly acquitted, but of miserable girls sent to the gallows for

murders committed in half delirious dread of the ruthless-

ness of hypocritical Society."  Now it is this sort of legend

that it is one of the chief objects of the following pages

to explode.  Of course the "fatuous indulgence" for

"womanhood in general," practised by the "world at

large," is precisely one of the most conspicuous features                             1

of our time, and the person who denies it, if he is not

deliberately prevaricating, must be a veritable Rip van

Winkle awakening out of a sleep lasting at least two

generations.  Similarly the story of the "miserable girls

sent to the gallows," etc., is, as far as living memory

is concerned, a pure legend.  It is well known that in

the cases referred to of the murder of their new-born

children by girls, at the very outside a year or two's

tight imprisonment is the only penalty actually inflicted.

The acquittal of women on the most serious charges,

especially where the victims are men, in the teeth of

the strongest evidence, is, on the other hand, an every-

day occurrence.  Now it is statements like the above on

which, as already said, the Feminist Movement thrives;

its most powerful argumentative weapon with the man

in the street is the legend that woman is oppressed by

man.  It is rarely that anyone takes the trouble to refute

the legend in general, or any specific case adduced as an

illustration of it.  When, however, the bluff is exposed,

when the real facts of the case are laid bare to public

notice, and woman is shown, not only as not oppressed

but as privileged, up to the top of her bent, then the

apostles of feminism, male and female, being unable to

make even a plausible case out in reply, with one consent

resort to the boycott, and by ignoring what they cannot

answer, seek to stop the spread of the unpleasant truth so                          2

dangerous to their cause. The pressure put upon publishers

and editors by the influential Feminist sisterhood is well

known.

    For the rest, it must not be supposed that this little book

makes any claim to exhaust the subject or to be a scientific

treatise.  It is, and is meant to be, a popular refutation of

the current arguments in favour of Feminism, and a brief

statement of the case against Feminism.  Sir Almroth

Wright's short treatise, "The Unexpurgated Case against

Woman's Suffrage," which deals with the question from

a somewhat different standpoint, may be consulted with

advantage by the reader.

    An acknowledgment should be made to the editor of

The New Age for the plucky stand made by that journal

in the attempt to dam the onrush of sentimental slush set

free by the self-constituted champions of womanhood.  I

have also to thank two eminent medical authorities for

reading the proofs of my second chapter.                                                     3

                       INTRODUCTION

IN the following pages it is not intended to furnish

a treatise on the evolution of woman generally or

of her place in society, but simply to offer a

criticism on the theory and practice of what is

known as Modern Feminism.

    By Modern Feminism I understand a certain

attitude of mind towards the female sex.  This

attitude of mind is often self-contradictory and

illogical.  While on the one hand it will claim, on

the ground of the intellectual and moral equality

of women with men, the concession of female

suffrage, and commonly, in addition thereto, the

admission of women to all professions, offices and

functions of public life; on the other it will strenu-

ously champion the preservation and intensification

of the  privileges  and  immunities  before  the

law, criminal and civil, in favour of women, which

have grown up in the course of the nineteenth

century.

    The above attitude, with all its inconsistencies,

has  at its back a strong  sex-conscious party,                                                  5

or sex union, as we may term it, among women,

and a floating mass of inconsequent, slushy

sentiment among men.  There is more than one

popular prejudice which obscures the meaning and

significance of Modern Feminism with many people.

There is a common theory, for instance, based upon

what really obtained to some extent before the

prevalence of Modern Feminism, that in any case

of antagonism between the two sexes, women

always take the man's side against the woman.

Now this theory, if it ever represented the true

state of the case, has long ceased to do so.

    The powerful female sex union spoken of, in the

present day, exercises such a strong pressure in

the formation of public opinion among women, that

it is rapidly becoming next to impossible, even in

the most flagrant cases, where man is the victim,

to get any woman to acknowledge that another

woman has committed a wrong.  On the other

hand it may be noted, that the entire absence of

any consciousness of sex antagonism in the attitude

of men towards women, combined with an intensi-

fication of the old-world chivalry prescribed by

tradition towards the so-called weaker sex, exer-

cises, if anything, an increasing sway over male

public opinion.  Hence the terrific force Feminism has

obtained in the world of the early twentieth century.

    It is again often supposed, and this is also a

mistake, that in individual cases of dispute between                                           6

the sexes, the verdict, let us say of a jury of men, in

favour of the female prisoner or the female litigant

is solely or even  mainly determined by the fact  of

the latter's good looks.  This may indeed play

a part; but it is easy to show from records of

cases that it is a subordinate one--that, whatever

her looks or her age may be, the verdict is given

her not so much because she is a pretty woman as

because she is a woman.  Here again the question

of attractiveness may have played a more potent

part in determining  male verdicts in the days

before Feminist sentiment and Feminist views had

reached their present dominance.  But now the

question of sex alone, of being a woman, is

sufficient to determine judgment in her favour.

    There is a trick with which votaries of Feminism

seek to prejudice the public mind against its critics,

and that is the "fake" that any man who ventures

to criticise the pretensions of Feminism, is actuated

by motives of personal rancour against the female

sex, owing to real or imaginary wrongs suffered by

him at the hands of some member or members of

the sex.  I suppose it may be possible that there are

persons, not precisely microcephalous [abnormally 

small headed] idiots, who could be made to believe 

such stuff as this in disparagement of him who ventures 

an independent judgment on these questions; otherwise

the conduct of Feminists in adopting this line of

argument would be incomprehensible.  But we                                                 7

would fain [gladly] believe that the number of these 

feebleminded persons, who believe there is any 

connection between a man having independent judg-

ment enough to refuse to bend the knee to Modern

Feminist dogma, and his having quarrelled with any

or all of his female friends or relations, cannot be

very numerous.  As a matter of fact there is not

one single prominent exponent of views hostile to

the pretensions of what is called the "Woman's

Movement" of the present day, respecting whom

there is a tittle of evidence of his not having lived

all his life on the best of terms with his woman-

kind.  There is only one case known of indirectly

by the present writer, and that not of a prominent

writer or speaker on the subject, that would afford

any plausible excuse whatever for alleging anti-

Feminist views to have been influenced by personal

motives of this kind.  I am aware, of course, that

Feminists, with their usual mendacity, have made

lying statements to this effect respecting well-nigh

every prominent writer on the anti-Feminist side,

in the hope of influencing the aforesaid feeble-

minded members of the public against their

opponents.  But a very little investigation suffices

to show in every case the impudent baselessness

of their allegations.  The contemptible silliness of

this method of controversy should render it un-

worthy of serious remark, and my only excuse for

alluding to it is the significant sidelight it casts                                                    8

upon the intellectual calibre of those who resort

to it, and of the confidence or want of confidence

they have in the inherent justice of their cause and

the logical strength of their case.                                                                       9

                    CHAPTER I

                          HISTORICAL

THE position of women in social life was for a

long time a matter of course.  It did not arise as

a question, because it was taken for granted.  The

dominance of men seemed to derive so obviously

from natural causes, from the possession of faculties

physical, moral and  intellectual,  in men, which

were wanting in women, that no one thought of

questioning the situation.  At the same time, the

inferiority of woman was never conceived as so

great as to diminish seriously, much less to eliminate

altogether, her responsibility for crimes she might

commit.  There were cases, of course, such as that

of offences committed by women under coverture

[legal "covering" by the husband], in which a diminution 

of responsibility was recognised and was given effect to 

in condonation of the offence and in mitigation of the 

punishment.  But there was no sentiment in general in 

favour of a female more than of a male criminal.  It 

entered into the head of no one to weep tears of pity 

over the murderess of a lover or husband rather than

over the murderer of a sweetheart or wife.  Simi-                                           11

larly, minor offenders, a female blackmailer, a female

thief, a female perpetrator of an assault, was not

deemed less guilty or worthy of more lenient

treatment than a male offender in like cases.  The

law, it was assumed, and the assumption was acted

upon, was the same for both sexes.  The sexes

were equal before the law.  The laws were

harsher in some respects than now, although not

perhaps in all.  But there was no special line of

demarcation as regards the punishment of offences

as between  men  and women.  The penalty

ordained by the law for crime or misdemeanour

was the same for both and in general applied

equally to both.  Likewise in civil suits, pro-

ceedings were not specially weighted against the

man and in favour of the woman.  There was, as

a general rule, no very noticeable sex partiality

in the administration of the law.

    This state of affairs continued in England till

well into the nineteenth century.  Thenceforward

a change began to take place.  Modern Feminism

rose slowly above the horizon.  Modern Feminism

has two distinct sides to it:  (1) an articulate

political and economic side embracing demands for

so-called rights; and (2) a sentimental side which

insists  in  an accentuation of the privileges and

immunities which have grown up, not articulately

or as the result of definite demands, but as the

consequence of sentimental pleading in particular                                            12

cases.  In this way, however, a public opinion became

established, finding expression in a sex favouritism

in the law and even still more in its administration,

in favour of women as against men.

    These two sides of Modern Feminism are not

necessarily combined in the same person.  One may,

for example, find opponents of female suffrage

who are strong advocates of sentimental favourit-

ism towards women in matters of law and its

administration.  On the other hand you may find,

though this is more rare, strong advocates of political

and other rights for the female sex, who sincerely

deprecate the present inequality of the law in

favour of women.  As a rule, however, the two

sides go together, the vast bulk of the advocates

of  "Women's Rights" being equally keen on the

retention and extension of women's privileges.

Indeed, it would seem as though the main object

of the bulk of the advocates of the "Woman's

Movement" was to convert the female sex into the

position of a dominant sexe noblesse [sex nobility].  

The two sides of Feminism have advanced hand in 

hand for the last two generations, though it was the 

purely sentimental side that first appeared as a 

factor in public opinion.

    The attempt to paint women in a different light

to the traditional one of physical, intellectual and

moral inferiority to men, probably received its

first literary expression in a treatise published in                                              13

1532 by Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim entitled 

De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Feminei Sexus and 

dedicated to Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands,

whose favour Agrippa was at that time desirous of

courting.  The ancient world has nothing to offer

in the shape of literary forerunners of Modern

Feminism, although that industrious collector of

historical odds and ends, Valerius Maximus, re-

lates the story of one Afrania who, with some of her

friends, created disturbances in the Law Courts of

ancient Rome in her attempt to make women's

voices heard before the tribunals.  As regards

more recent ages, after Agrippa, we have to wait

till the early years of the eighteenth century for

another instance of Feminism before its time, in an

essay on the subject of woman by Daniel Defoe.

But it was not till the closing years of the

eighteenth century that any considerable ex-

pression of opinion in favour of changing the

relative positions of the sexes, by upsetting the

view of their respective values, founded on the

general experience of mankind, made itself notice-

able.

    The names of Mary Wollstonecraft in English

literature and of Condorcet in French, will hardly fail

to occur to the reader in this connection.  During

the French Revolution the crazy Olympe de

Gouges achieved ephemeral notoriety by her claim

for the intellectual equality of women with men.                                               14

    Up to this time (the close of the eighteenth

century) no advance whatever had been made

by legislation in recognising the modern theory

of sex quality.  The claims of women and their

apologists for entering upon the functions of men,

political, social or otherwise, although put forward

from time to time by isolated individuals, received

little countenance from public opinion, and still

less from the law.  What I have called, how-

ever, the sentimental aspect of Modern Feminism

undoubtedly did make some headway in public

opinion by the end of the eighteenth century, and

grew in volume during the early years of the

nineteenth century.  It effectuated in the Act

passed in 1820 by the English Parliament abolish-

ing the punishment of flogging for female criminals.

This was the first beginning of the differentiation of

the sexes in the matter of the criminal law.  The

parliamentary debate on the Bill in question shows

clearly enough the power that Sentimental 1 Femi-

¹ I should explain that I attach a distinct meaning to the

word sentimental ; as used by me it does not signify, as it does

with most people, an excess of sentiment over and above what

I feel myself, but a sentiment unequally distributed.  As used

in this sense, the repulsion to the flogging of women while no

repulsion is felt to the flogging of men is  sentimentalism pure

and simple.  On the other hand the objection to flogging

altogether as punishment for men or women could not be de-

scribed as sentimentalism, whatever else it might be.  In the

same way the anti-vivisectionist's aversion to "physiological"

experiments on animals, if confined to household pets and not                                  15

extended to other animals, might be justly described as senti-

mentalism; but one who objected to such experiments on all

animals, no matter whether one agreed with his point of view

or not, could not be justly charged with sentimentalism (or at

least, not unless, while objecting to vivisection, he or she were

prepared to condone other acts involving an equal amount of

cruelty to animals).

nism had acquired in public opinion in the course

of a generation, for no proposal was made at the

same time to abolish the punishment of flogging

so far as men were concerned.  Up to this time

the criminal law of England, as of other countries,

made no distinction whatever between the sexes

in the matter of crime and punishment, or at least

no distinction based on the principle or sentiment

of sex privilege.  (A slight exception might be

made, perhaps, in the crime of "petty treason,"

which distinguished the murder of a husband by

his wife from other cases of homicide.)  But from

this time forward, legislation and administration

have diverged farther and farther from the principle

of sex equality in this connection in favour of

female immunity, the result being that at the

present day, assuming the punishment meted out

to the woman for a given crime to represent a

normal penalty, the man receives an additional

increment over and above that accorded to the

crime, for the offence of having been born a 

man and not a woman.

    The Original Divorce Law of 1857 in its                                                     16

provisions respecting costs and alimony, constitutes

another landmark in the matter of female privilege

before the law.  Other measures of unilateral

sex legislation followed in the years ensuing until

the present state of things, by which the whole

power of the State is practically at the disposal of

woman to coerce and oppress men.  But this side

of the question we propose to deal with later on.

    The present actual movement of Feminism

in political and social life may be deemed to

have begun in the early sixties, in the agitation

which preceded the motion of John Stuart Mill in

1867, on the question of conferring the parliament-

ary franchise upon women.  This was coincident

with an agitation for the opening of various careers

to women, notably the medical faculty.  We are

speaking, of course, here of Great Britain, which

was first in the field in Europe, alike in the theory

and practice of Modern Feminism.  But the publica-

tion by the great protagonist of the movement,

John Stuart Mill, of his book, "The Subjection of

Women," in 1868, endowed the cause with a

literary gospel which was soon translated into the

chief languages of the Continent, and corresponding

movements started in other countries.  Strangely

enough, it made considerable headway in Russia,

the awakening of Russia to Western ideas hav-

ing, recently begun to make itself felt at the

time of which we are speaking.  The movement                                              17

henceforth took its place as a permanent factor

in the political and social life of this and other

countries.  Bills for female suffrage were intro-

duced every year into the British House of

Commons with, on the whole, yearly diminishing

majorities against these measures, till a few years

back the scale turned on the other side, and the

Women's Enfranchisement Bill passed every year its

second reading until 1912, when for the first time

for many years it was rejected by a small majority.

Meanwhile both sides of the Feminist movement,

apart from the question of the franchise, had been

gaining in influence.  Municipal franchise "on the

same terms as for men" had been conceded.  Women

have voted for and sat on School Boards, Boards

of Guardians, and other public bodies.  Their

claim to exercise the medical profession has been

not merely admitted in law but recognised in

public opinion for long past.  All the advantages

of an academic career have been opened to them,

with the solitary exception of the actual confer-

ment of degrees at Oxford and Cambridge.  Such

has been the growth of the articulate and political

side of the theory of Modern Feminism.

    The sentimental side of Feminism, with its

practical result of the overweighting of justice in

the interests of women in the courts, civil as well

as criminal, and their practical immunity from the

operation of the criminal law when in the dock

[place in court where the accused stands],                                                      18

has advanced correspondingly; while at the same

time the sword of that same criminal law is

sharpened to a razor edge against the man even

accused, let alone convicted, of any offence against

the sacrosanct majesty of "Womanhood."  Such

is the present position of the Woman question

in this country, which we take as typical, in the

sense that in Great Britain, to which we may

also add the United States of America and the

British Colonies, where--if possible, the movement

is stronger than in the mother country itself--we

see the logical outcome of Feminist theory and

sentiment.  It remains to consider the existing

facts more in detail, and the psychological bearings

of that large number of persons who have been

in the recent past, and are being at the present

time, influenced to accept the dogmas of Modern

Feminism and the statements of alleged facts made

by its votaries.  Before doing so it behoves us

to examine the credibility of the dogmas them-

selves, and the nature of the arguments used to

support them and also the accuracy of the alleged

facts employed by the Feminists to stimulate

the indignation of the popular mind against the

pretended wrongs of women.                                                                         19

                        CHAPTER II

THE MAIN DOGMA OF MODERN FEMINISM

WE have pointed out in the last chapter that

Modern Feminism has two sides, the positive,

definite, and articulate side, which ostensibly claims

equality between the sexes, the chief concern of

which is the conferring of all the rights and duties

of men upon women, and the opening up of all

careers to them.  The justification of these demands

is based upon the dogma, that, notwithstanding

appearances to the contrary, women are endowed

by nature with the same capacity intellectually

and morally as men.  We have further pointed

out that there is another side in Modern Feminism

which in a vague way claims for women immunity

from criminal law and special privileges on the

ground of sex in civil law.  The basis of this

side of Feminism is a sentimentalism-- i.e. an un-

equally distributed sentiment in favour of women,

traditional and acquired.  It is seldom even at-

tempted to base this sentimental claim for women

on argument at all.  The utmost attempts in this

direction amount to vague references to physical                                             20

weakness, and to the claim for special considera-

tion deriving from the old theory of the mental

and moral weakness of the female sex, so strenu-

ously combated as out of date, when the first

side of  Modern Feminism is being contended

for.  The more or less inchoate assumptions of

the second or sentimental side of the modern

"Woman's Movement" amounts practically, as

already stated, to a claim for women to be allowed

to commit crimes without incurring the penalties

imposed by the law for similar crimes when

committed by men.  It should be noted that in

practice the most strenuous advocates of  the

positive and articulate side of Feminism are also

the sincerest upholders of the unsubstantial and

inarticulate assumptions of the sentimental side of

the same creed.  This is noticeable whenever a

woman is found guilty of a particularly atrocious

crime.  It is somewhat rare for women to be

convicted of such crimes at all, since the influence

of sentimental Feminism with judges and juries is

sufficient to procure an acquittal, no matter how

conclusive the evidence to the contrary.  Even if

women are found guilty it is usual for a virtually

nominal sentence to be passed.  Should, however,

a woman by any chance be convicted of a heinous

crime, such as murder or maiming, under speci-

ally aggravated circumstances, and a sentence be

passed such as would be unanimously sanctioned by                                      21

public opinion in the case of a man, then we find

the whole Feminist world up in arms.  The out-

cry is led by self-styled upholders of equality

between the sexes, the apostles of the positive

side of Feminism, who bien entendu [of course] claim                                           

the eradication of sex boundaries in political and social

life on the ground of women being of equal

capacity with men, but who, when moral responsi-

bility is in question, conveniently fall back on a

sentiment, the only conceivable ground for which

is to be found in the time-honoured theory of the

mental and moral weakness of the female sex.

As illustrations of the truth of the foregoing, the

reader may be referred to the cases of Florence

Doughty in 1906, who shot at and wounded a

solicitor with whom she had relations, together

with his son; to Daisy Lord in 1908, for the

murder of her new-born child; to the case of the

Italian murderess, Napolitano in Canada, convicted

of the cold-blooded butchery of her husband in his

sleep in 1911, for whose reprieve a successful

agitation was got up by the suffrage societies!

    Let us first of all consider the dogma at the basis

of the positive side of Modern Feminism, which

claims rational grounds of fact and reason for

itself, and professes to be able to make good its

case by virtue of such grounds.  This dogma con-

sists in the assertion of equality in intellectual

capacity, in spite of appearances to the contrary, of                                        22

women with men.  I think it will be admitted that

the articulate objects of Modern Feminism, taking

them one with another, rest on this dogma, and on

this dogma alone.  I know it has been argued as

regards the question of suffrage, that the demand

does not rest solely upon the admission of equality

of capacity, since men of a notoriously inferior

mental order are not excluded from voting upon

that ground, but the fallacy of this last argument

is obvious.  In all these matters we have to deal

with averages.  Public opinion has hitherto recog-

nised the average of women as being intellectually

below the voting standard, and the average man as

not.  This, if admitted, is enough to establish the

anti-suffrage thesis.  The latter is not affected by

the fact that it is possible to find certain individual

men of inferior intelligence and therefore less

intrinsically qualified to form a political judgment

than certain specially gifted women.  The pre-

tended absurdity of "George Eliot having no vote,

and of her gardener having one" is really no

absurdity at all.  In the first place, given the

economic advantages which conferred education

upon the novelist, and not upon the gardener,

there is not sufficient evidence available that his

judgment in public affairs might not have been

even superior to that of George Eliot herself.

Moreover, the possession of exceptionally strong

imaginative faculty, expressing itself as literary                                                23

genius or talent in works of fiction, does not

necessarily imply exceptional power of political

judgment.  But, be this as it may, where averages

are in question, exceptions obviously do not count.

The underlying assumption of the suffrage

movement may therefore be taken to be the

average equality of the sexes as regards intellectual

value. l

    An initial difficulty exists in proving theoretic-

ally the intellectual inferiority of women to men,

or even their relative unsuitability for fulfilling

functions involving a special order of judgment.

There are such things as matters of fact which

are open to common observation and which none

think of denying or calling in question unless they

have some special reason for doing so.  Now it is

always possible to deny a fact, however evident it

may be to ordinary perception, and it is equally

impossible to prove that the person calling in

question the aforesaid evident fact is either lying

(or shall we say "prevaricating"), or even that 

he is a person hopelessly abnormal is his organs of

sense-perception.

    At the time of writing, the normal person who                                            24

1 I believe there are some Feminist fanatics who pretend to

maintain the superiority of the female mind, but I doubt

whether this thesis is taken seriously even by those who put

it forward.  In any case there are limits to the patent absurdities 

which it is worth while to refute by argument.

has no axe to grind in maintaining the contrary,

declares the sun to be shining brightly, but should

it answer the purpose of anyone to deny this

obvious fact, and declare that the day is gloomy

and overcast, there is no power of argument by

which I can prove that I am right and he is wrong.

I may point to the sun, but if he chooses to affirm

that he doesn't see it I can't prove that he does.

This is, of course, an extreme case, scarcely likely

to occur in actual life.  But it is in essence similar

to those cases of persons (and they are not seldom

met with) who, when they find facts hopelessly 

destructive of a certain theoretical position

adopted by them, do not hesitate to cut the knot

of controversy in their own favour by boldly

denying the inconvenient facts.  One often has

experience of this trick of controversy in discussing

the question of the notorious characteristics of the

female sex.  The Feminist driven into a corner

endeavours to save his face by flatly denying

matters open to common observation and admitted

as obvious by all who are not Feminists.  Such

facts are the pathological mental condition peculiar

to the female sex, commonly connoted by the term

hysteria; the absence, or at best the extremely

imperfect development of the logical faculty in

most women; the inability of the average woman

in her judgment of things to rise above personal

considerations; and, what is largely a consequence                                         25

of this, the lack of a sense of abstract justice and

fair play among women in general.  The aforesaid

peculiarities of women, as women, are, I contend,

matters of common observation and are only dis-

puted by those persons--to wit Feminists--to

whose theoretical views and practical demands

their admission would be inconvenient if not fatal.

Of course these characterisations refer to averages,

and they do not exclude partial or even occasionally

striking exceptions.  It is  possible, therefore,

although perhaps not very probable, that indi-

vidual experience may in the case of certain

individuals play a part in falsifying their general

outlook; it is  possible--although, as I before

said not perhaps very probable--that any given

man's experience of the other sex has been limited

to a few quite exceptional women and that hence his

particular experience contradicts that of the general

run of mankind.  In this case, of course, his refusal

to admit what to others are self-evident facts

would be perfectly bona fide.  The above highly

improbable contingency is the only refuge for those

who would contend for sincerity in the Feminist's

denials.  In this matter I only deal with the male

Feminist.  The female Feminist is usually too biassed

a witness in this particular question.

    Now let us consider the whole of the differentia-

tions of the mental character between man and

woman in the light of a further generalisation                                                   26

which is sufficiently obvious in itself and which

has been formulated with special clearness by the

late Otto Weininger in his remarkable book,

"Geschlecht und Charakter" (Sex and Character).

I refer to the observations contained in Section II.,

Chaps. 2 and 3.  The point has been, of course, pre-

viously noted, and the present writer, among others,

has on various occasions called special attention to

it.  But its formulation and elaboration by Weininger

is the most complete I know.  The truth in

question consists in the fact, undeniable to all those

not rendered impervious to facts by preconceived

dogma, that, as I have elsewhere put it, while man

has a sex, woman is a sex.  Let us hear Weininger

on this point. "Woman is only sexual, man is also

sexual.  Alike in time and space this difference may

be traced in man, parts of his body susceptible to

sexual excitement are small in number and strictly

localised.  In woman sexuality is diffused over the

whole body, every contact on whatever part excites

her sexually."  Weininger points out that while

the sexual element in man, owing to the physio-

logical character of the sexual organs, may be at

times more violent than that in woman, yet that

it is spasmodic and occurs in crises separated by

intervals of quiescence.  In woman, on the other

hand, while less spasmodic, it is continuous.  The

sexual instinct with man being, as he styles it, "an

appendix" and no more, he can raise himself                                                   27

mentally entirely outside of it.  "He is conscious of

it as of something which he possesses but which

is not inseparate from the rest of his nature.  He

can view it objectively.  With woman this is not

the case; the sex element is part of her whole

nature.  Hence, it is not as with man, clearly recog-

nisable in local manifestations, but subtly affects the

whole life of the organism.  For this reason the man

is conscious of the sexual element within him as

such, whereas the woman is unconscious of it as

such.  It is not for nothing that in common parlance

woman is spoken of as 'the sex.'  In this sexual

differentiation of the whole life-nature of woman

from man, deducible as it is from physiological and

anatomical distinctions, lies the ground of those

differentiations of function which culminate in the

fact that while mankind in its intellectual moral

and technical development is represented in the

main by Man, Woman has continued to find her

chief function in the direct procreation of the race."

A variety of causes, notably modern economic

development, in their effect on family life, also the

illegitimate application of the modern democratic

notion of the equality of classes and races, to

that of sex, has contributed to the modern revolt

against natural sex limitations.

    Assuming the substantial accuracy of the above

statement of fact, the absurdity and cheapness

of the clap-trap of the modern "social purity"                                                  28

monger, as to having one and the same sexual

morality for both sexes will be readily seen.  The

recognition of the necessity of admitting greater

latitude in this respect to men than to women is

based clearly on physiology and common-sense.

With men sexual instinct manifests itself locally,

and at intervals its satisfaction is an urgent and

pressing need.  With woman this is not so.  Hence

the recognised distinction between the sexes in

this respect is, as far as it goes, a thoroughly

sound one.  Not that I am championing the

severity of the restrictions of the current sexual

code as regards women.  On the contrary, I think

it ought to be and will be, in a reasonable society

of the future, considerably relaxed.  I am only

pointing out that the urgency is not so great in

the one case as in the other.  And this fact it is

which has led to the toleration of a stringency,

originally arising mainly from economic causes

(questions of inheritance and the like), in the case

of women, which would not have been tolerated

in that of men, even had similar reasons for its

adoption in their case obtained.  Any successful

attempt of social purity mongers to run counter

to physiology in enforcing either by legislation

or public opinion the same stringency on men in

this respect as on women could but have the most

disastrous consequences to the health and well-

being of the community.                                                                                 29

    It was a saying of the late Dr Henry Maudsley:

"Sex lies deeper than culture. "  By this we may

understand to be meant that sex differences are

organic.  All authorities on the physiological

question are agreed that woman is less well-

organised, less well-developed, than man.  Dr

de Varigny asserts that this fact is traceable

throughout the whole female organism, through-

out all its tissues, and all its functions.  For

instance, the stature of the human female is less

than that of the man in all races.  As regards

weight there is a corresponding difference.  The

adult woman weighs, on the average, rather more

than 11 lbs. less than the man; moreover as a rule

a woman completes her growth some years

earlier than a man.  The bones are lighter in the

woman than in the man; not absolutely but in

proportion to the weight of the body.  They are,

it is stated, not merely thinner but more fragile.

The difference may be traced even to their

chemical composition.  The whole muscular de-

velopment is inferior in woman to that in man

by about one-third.  The heart in woman is

smaller and lighter than in man--being about

101/2 oz. in man as against slightly over

8 oz. in woman.  In the woman the respiratory

organs show less chest and lung capacity.  Again,

the blood contains a considerably less proportion

of red to white corpuscles.  Finally, we come to                                             30

the question of the size and constitution of the

brain.  (It should be observed that all these

distinctions of sex show themselves more or less

from birth onwards.)

    Specialists are agreed that at all ages the

size of the brain of woman is less than that of

man.  The difference in relative size is greater

in proportion according to the degree of civilisation.

This is noteworthy, as it would seem as though

the brain of man grew with the progress of

civilisation, whereas that of woman remains nearly

stationary.  The average proportion as regards size

of skull between the woman and man of to-day

is as 85 to 100.  The weight of brain in woman

varies from 38 1/2 oz. to 45 1/2 oz.; in man, from 

42 oz. to 49 oz.  This represents the absolute dif-

ference in weight, but, according to Dr de Varigny,

the relative weight-- i.e. the weight in proportion

to that of the whole body--is even more striking

in its indication of inferiority.  The weight of the

brain in woman is but one-forty-fourth of the

weight of the body, while in man it is one-fortieth.

This difference accentuates itself with age.  It is

only 7 per cent in favour of man between twenty and

thirty years; it is 11 per cent between thirty and

forty years.  As regards the substance of the brain

itself and its convolutions, the enormous majority

of physiologists are practically unanimous in de-

claring that the female brain is simpler and                                                      31

smoother, its convolutions fewer and more super-

ficial than those of the male brain, that the frontal

lobes, generally associated with the intellectual

faculties, are less developed than the occipital lobes,

which are universally connected with the lower

psychological functions.  The grey substance is

poorer and less abundant in woman than in man,

while the blood vessels of the occipital region are

correspondingly fuller than those supplying the

frontal lobes.  In man the case is exactly the

reverse.  It cannot be denied by any sane person

familiar with the barest elements of physiology

that the whole female organism is subservient

to the functions of child-bearing and lactation,

which explains the inferior development of those

organs and faculties which are not specially

connected with this supreme end of Woman.

    It is the fashion of Feminists, ignoring these

fundamental physiological sex differences, to

affirm that the actual inferiority of women, where

they have the honesty to admit such an obvious

fact, is accountable by the centuries of oppression

in which Woman has been held by wicked and

evil-minded Man.  The absurdity of this conten-

tion has been more than once pointed out.  As-

suming its foundation in fact, what does it imply!

Clearly that the girls inherit only through their

mothers and boys only through their fathers, an

hypothesis plainly at variance with the known                                                 32

facts of heredity.  Yet those who maintain that

distinction of intelligence, etc., between the sexes

are traceable to external conditions affecting one

sex only and inherited through that sex alone,

cannot evade the above assumption.  Those,

therefore, who regard it as an article of their

faith that Woman would show herself not in-

ferior in mental power to man, if only she

had the chance of exercising that power, must

find a surer foundation for their opinion than

this theory of the centuries of oppression, under

which, as they allege, the female sex has

laboured.

    We now come to the important question of

morbid and pathological mental conditions to

which the female sex is liable and which are

usually connected with those constitutional dis-

turbances of the nervous system which pass under

the name of   hysteria .  The word is, as everyone

knows, derived from hystera--the womb, and was

uniformly regarded by the ancients as directly

due to disease of the uterus, this view maintaining

itself in modern medicine up till well-nigh the

middle of the nineteenth century.  Thus Dr J.

Mason Good (in his "Study of Medicine," 1822,

vol. iii., p. 528, an important medical text-book

during the earlier half of the nineteenth century)

says: "With a morbid condition of this organ,

hysteria is in many instances very closely con-                                                33

nected, though it is going too far to say that it is

always dependent upon such condition, for we

meet with instances, occasionally, in which no

possible connexion can be traced  between the

disease and the organ," etc.  This is perhaps the

first appearance, certainly in  English  medicine,

of doubts being thrown on the uterine origin of

the various symptoms grouped under the general

term, hysteria .  Towards the latter part of the

nineteenth century the prevalent view tended

more and more to dissociate hysteria from uterine

trouble.  Lately, however, some eminent patho-

logists have  shown a tendency to qualify the

terms of the latter view.  Thus Dr Thomas

Stevenson in 1902 admits that "it [hysteria]

frequently accompanies a morbid  state of the

uterus," especially where inflammation and con-

gestion are present, and it is not an uncommon

thing for surgeons at the present time to remove

the ovaries in obstinate cases of hysteria.  On the

other hand Dr Thomas Buzzard, in an article

on the subject in Quain's Dictionary of Medicine,

1902, states that hysteria is only exceptionally

found in women suffering from diseases of the

genital organs, and its relation to uterine and

ovarian disturbances is probably neither more nor

less than that which pertains to the other affections

of the nervous system which may occur without

any obvious material cause.  Dr Thomas Luff                                                  34

("Text-Book on Forensic Medicine," 1895) shows

that the derangements of the reproductive functions

are undoubtedly the cause of various attacks of

insanity in the female.  Dr Savage, in his book

"On Neuroses," says that acute mania in women

occurs most frequently at the period of adult and

mature life, and may occasionally take place at

either extreme age.  Acute mania sometimes occurs

at the suppression of the menses.  The same is true

of melancholia and other pathological mental

symptoms.  Dr Luff states that acute mania may

replace hysteria; that this happens at periods such

as puberty, change of life and menstruation.

These patients in the intervals of their attacks are

often morbidly irritable or excitable, but as time

goes on their energies become diminished and their

emotions blunted ("Forensic Medicine," ii. 307).

Such patients are often seized with a desire to

commit violence; they are often very mischievous,

tearing up clothes, breaking windows, etc.  In this

mental disorder the patient is driven by a morbid

and uncontrollable impulse to such acts.  It is not

accompanied by delusions, and frequently no

change will have been noticed in the individual

prior to the commission of the act, and conse-

quently, says Dr Luff, "there is much difference

of opinion as to the responsibility of the individual"

(ii. 297).  Among the acts spoken of Dr Luff

mentions a propensity to set fire to furniture,                                                   35

houses, etc.  All this, though written in 1895, might

serve as a commentary on the Suffragette agitation

of recent years.  The renowned French professor,

Dr Paul Janet ("Les Hysteriques," 1894) thus

defined hysteria: "Hysteria is a mental affection

belonging to the large group of diseases due to

cerebral weakness and debility.  Its physical

symptoms are somewhat indefinite, consisting

chiefly in a general diminution of nutrition.  It is

largely characterised by moral symptoms, chief

of which is an impairment of the faculty of

psychological synthesis, an abolition and a con-

traction of the field of consciousness.  This mani-

fests itself in a peculiar manner and by a certain

number of elementary phenomena.  Thus sensations

and images are no longer perceived, and appear

to be blotted out from the individual perception,

a tendency which results in their persistent and

complete separation from the personality in some

cases and in the formation of many independent

groups.  This series of psychological facts alternate

the one with the other or co-exist.  Finally this

synthetic defect favours the formation of certain

independent ideas, which develop complete in

themselves, and unattached from the control of

the consciousness of the personality.  These ideas

show themselves in affections possessing very

various and unique characteristics."  According

to Mr A. S. Millar, F.R.C.S.E. ( Encyclopædia                                             36 

Medica, vol. v.), "Hysteria is that ... condition

in which there is imagination, imitation, or ex-

aggeration....  It occurs mostly in females and

persons of nervous temperament, and is due to

some nervous derangement, which may or may

be pathological."  Sir James Paget ("Clinical

Lectures on Mimicry") says also that hysterical

patients are mostly females of nervous tempera-

ment.  "They think of themselves constantly, are

fond of telling everyone of their troubles and thus

court sympathy, for which they have a morbid

craving.  Will power is deficient in one direction,

though some have it very strongly where their

interests are concerned.''  He thinks  the  term

"hysteria" in the sense now employed incorrect,

and would substitute "mimicry."  "The  will                                                    

should be controlled by the intellect," observes

Dr G. F. Still of King's College Hospital, "rather

than by the emotions and the lack of this control

appears to be at the root of some, at least, of the

manifestations of hysteria."

     Dr Thomas Buzzard, above mentioned, thus

summarises the mental symptoms: "The intelli-

gence may be apparently of good quality, the

patient evincing sometimes remarkable quickness

of apprehension; but carefully tested it is found

to be wanting in the essentials of the highest class

of mental power.  The memory may be good, but

the judgment is weak and the ability to concentrate                                         37

the attention for any length of time upon a subject

is absent.  So also regard for accuracy, and the

energy necessary to ensure it in any work that is

undertaken, is deficient.  The emotions are excited

with undue readiness and when aroused are in-

capable of control.  Tears are occasioned not only

by pathetic ideas but by ridiculous subjects and

peals of laughter may incongruously greet some

tragic announcement, or the converse may take

place.  The ordinary signs of emotion may be

absent and replaced by an attack of syncope [fainting],                                

convulsion, pain or paralysis.  Perhaps more con-

stant than any other phenomenon in hysteria is

a pronounced desire for the sympathy and interest

of others.  This is evidently only one of the most

characteristic qualities of femininity, uncontrolled

by the action of the higher nervous centres which

in a healthy state keep it in subjection.  There is

very frequently not only a deficient regard for

truthfulness, but a proneness to active deception

and dishonesty.  So common is this, that the

various phases of hysteria are often assumed to

be simple examples of voluntary simulation and

the title of disease refused to the condition.  But

it seems more reasonable to refer the symptoms to

impairment of the highly complex nervous processes

which form the physiological side of the moral

faculties (Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, 1902).

    "It is not uncommon to find hysteria in females                                            38

accompanied by an utter indifference and insensi-

bility to sexual relations.  Premature cessation of

ovulation is a frequent determining cause.  In cases

where the ovaries are absent[,] the change from girl

to woman, which normally takes place at puberty,

does not occur.  The girl grows but does not

develop, a masculine appearance supervenes, the

voice becomes manly and harsh, sexual passion is

absent, the health remains good.  The most violent

instances of hysteria are in young women of the most

robust and masculine constitution" (John Mason

Good, M.D., "Study of Medicine," 1822).  Other

determining causes are given, as painful impressions,

long fasting, strong emotions, imitation, luxury,

ill-directed education and unhappy surroundings,

celibacy, where not of choice but enforced by cir-

cumstances, unfortunate marriages, long-continued

trouble, fright, worry, overwork, disappointment

and such like nervous perturbations, all which

causes predispose to hysteria.  "It attacks child-

less women more frequently than mothers and

particularly young widows," and, says  Dr  J.

Mason Good, "more especially still those who are

constitutionally inclined to that morbid salacity

which has often been called nymphomania . . .

the surest remedy is a happy marriage" ("Study of

Medicine," 1822, iii. 531).  Hysteria is, in common

with other nervous disorders, essentially a heredi-

tary malady, and. Briquet ("Traité de l'hysterie,"                                              39

1899) gives statistics to show that in nine cases out

of ten hysterical parents have hysterical children.

Dr Paul Sainton of the Faculty of Medicine,

Paris, says: "The  appearance of a symptom

of hysteria generally proves that the malady has

already existed for some time though latent.  The

name of a provocative agent of hysteria is given

to any circumstance which suddenly reveals the

malady but the real cause of the disorder is a

hereditary disposition.  If the real cause is unique,

the provocative agents are numberless.  The moral

emotions, grief, fright, anger and other psychic

disturbances are the most frequent causes of

hysterical affections and in every walk of life

subjects are equally liable to attacks."

    Hysteria may appear at any age.  It is common

with children, especially during the five or six

years preceding puberty.  Of thirty-three cases

under twelve years which came under Dr Still's

notice, twenty-three were in children over eight

years.  Hysteria in women is most frequent between

the ages of fifteen and thirty, and most frequently

of all between fifteen and twenty.  As a rule there

is a tendency to cessation after the "change."  It

frequently happens, however, that the disease is

continued into an advanced period of life.

    "There is a constant change," says Professor

Albert Moll ("Das nervöse Weib," p. 165),

"from a cheerful to a depressed mood.  From                                                 40

being free and merry the woman in a short time

becomes sulky and sad.  While a moment before

she was capable of entertaining a whole company

without pause, talking to each member about that

which interested him, shortly afterwards she does

not speak a word more.  I may mention the well-

worn example of the refusal of a new hat as being

capable of converting the most lively mood into its

opposite.  The weakness of will shows itself here

in that the nervous woman [by "nervous" Dr Moll

means what is commonly termed "hysterical"]

cannot, like the normal one, command the ex-

pression of her emotions.  She can laugh un-

interruptedly over the most indifferent matter until

she falls into veritable laughing fits.  The crying

fits which we sometimes observe belong to the

same category.  When the nervous woman is

excited about anything she exhibits outbreaks of

fury wanting all the characteristics of womanhood,

and she is not able to prevent these emotional out-

bursts.  In the same way just as the emotions

weaken the will and the woman cannot suppress

this or that action, it is noticeable in many nervous

women that quite independently of these emotions

there is a tendency to continuous alterations in

their way of acting.  It has been noticed as

characteristic of many nervous persons that their

only consistency lies in their inconsistency.  But this

must in no way be applied to all nervous persons.                                           41

On this disposition, discoverable in the nature of so

many nervous women, rests the craving for change

as manifested in the continual search for new

pleasures, theatres, concerts, parties, tours, and

other things (p. 147).  Things that to the normal

woman are indifferent or to which she has, in a

sense, accustomed  herself, are to the nervous

woman a source of constant worry.  Although she

may perfectly well know that the circumstances of

herself and her husband are the most brilliant and

that it is unnecessary for her to trouble herself in

the least about her material position as regards the

future, nevertheless the idea of financial ruin

constantly troubles her.  Thus if she is a millionaire's

wife she never escapes from constant worry.

Similarly the nervous woman creates troubles out

of things that are unavoidable.  If in the course of

years she gets more wrinkles, and her attraction for

man diminishes, this may easily become a source of

lasting sorrow for the nervous woman."

    We now have to consider a point which is being

continually urged by Feminists in the present day

when confronted with the pathological mental

symptoms so commonly observed in women which

are usually regarded as having their origin in

hysteria.  We often hear it said by Feminists in

answer to arguments based on the above fact:

"Oh, but men can also suffer from hysteria!"

"In England," says Dr Buzzard, "hysteria is                                                      42          

comparatively rarely met with in males, the female

sex being much more prone to the affection."  The

proportion of males to females in hysteria is, ac-

cording to Dr Pitré ("Clinical Essay on Hysteria,"

1891), 1 to 3; according to Bodensheim, 1 to 10;

and according to Briquet, 1 to 20.  The author of the

article on Hysteria in The Encyclopædia Britannica

(11th edition, 1911) also gives 1 to 20 as the

numerical proportion between male and female

cases.  Dr Pitré, in the work above cited, gives

82 per cent of cases of convulsions in women as

against 22 in men.  But in all this, under the con-

cept hysteria are included, and indeed chiefly

referred to, various physical symptoms of a con-

vulsive and epileptic character which are quite

distinct from the mental conditions rightly or

wrongly connected, or even identified, with

hysteria in the popular mind, and by many medical

authorities.  But  even as regards hysteria in the

former sense of the word, a sharp line of distinction

based on a diagnosis of cases was long ago drawn

by medical men between hysteria masculina and hysteria

fœminina, and in the present day eminent authorities                                        

--e.g. Dr Bernard Holländer--would deny that the                                        

symptoms occasionally diagnosed as hysteria in men

are identical with or due to the same causes as

the somewhat similar conditions known in women

under the name.

    After all, this whole question in its broader                                                  43

bearings is more a question of common-sense

observation than one for medical experts.

    What we are here chiefly concerned with as

"hysteria" (in accordance with popular usage of

the term) are certain pathological mental symptoms

in women open to everybody's observation, and

denied by no one unprejudiced by Feminist views.

Every impartial person has only to cast his eye

round his female acquaintance, and to recall the

various women, of all classes, conditions and

nationalities, that he may have come in contact

with in the course of his life, to recognise those

symptoms of mental instability commonly called

hysterical, as obtaining in at least a proportion of

one to every four or five women he has known, in

a marked and unmistakable degree.  The proper-

tion given is, in fact, stated in an official report to

the Prussian Government issued some ten years

back as that noticeable among female clerks, post

office servants and other women employed in the

Prussian Civil Service.  Certainly as regards women

in general, the observation of the present writer,

and others whom he has questioned on the subject,

would seem to indicate that the proportions given

in the Prussian Civil Service report as regards the

number of women afflicted in this way are rather

under than over stated. l   There are many medical

¹ The insanities mentioned above are the extremes.  There are

mental disturbances of less severity constantly occurring which                                44

are connected with the regular menstrual period as well as with

disordered menstruation, with pregnancy, with parturition,

with Lactation, and especially with the change of life [menopause].

men who aver that no woman is entirely free from

such symptoms at least immediately before and

during the menstrual period.  The head surgeon at

a well-known London hospital informed a friend

of mine that he could always tell when this period

was on or approaching with his nurses, by the

mental change which came over them.

    Now these pathological symptoms noticeable in

a slight and more or less unimportant degree in the

vast majority, if not indeed in all women, and in a

marked pathological degree in a large proportion

of women, it is scarcely too much to say do not

occur at all in men.  I have indeed known, I think,

two men, and only two, in the course of my life,

exhibiting mental symptoms analogous to those

commonly called "hysterical" in women.  On the

other hand my own experience, and it is not alone,

is that very few women with whom I have come

into more or less frequent contact, socially or

otherwise, have not at times shown the symptoms

referred to in a marked degree.  If, therefore, we

are to admit the bare possibility of men being

afflicted in a similar way it must be conceded that

such cases represent such rarœ aves [rare things]                                     

as to be negligible for practical purposes.

    A curious thing in pronounced examples of this                                           45

mental instability in women is that the symptoms

are often so very similar in women of quite different

birth, surroundings and nationality.  I can recall

at the present moment three cases, each different as

regards birth, class, and in one case nationality,

and yet who are liable to develop the same symptoms

under the influence of quite similar idées fixes [obsessions].

    But it seems hardly necessary to labour the point

in question at greater length.  The whole experi-

ence of mankind since the dawn of written records

confirmed by, as above said, that of every living

person not specially committed to the theories of

Modern Feminism, bears witness alike to the pre-

valence of what we may term the hysterical mind in

woman and to her general mental frailty.  It is not for

nothing that women and children have always been

classed together.  This view, based as it is on the

unanimous experience of mankind and confirmed

by the observation of all independent persons, has,

I repeat, not been challenged before the appear-

ance of the present Feminist Movement and hardly

by anyone outside the ranks of that movement.

    It is not proposed here to dilate at length on the

fact, often before insisted upon, of the absence

throughout history of the signs of genius, and, with

a few exceptions, of conspicuous talent, in the

human female, in art, science, literature, invention

or "affairs."  The fact is incontestable, and if it be                                            46

argued that this absence in women, of genius or

even of a high degree of talent, is no proof of the

inferiority of the average woman to the average

man the answer is obvious.

    Apart from conclusive proof, the fact of the

existence in all periods of civilisation, and even

under the higher barbarism, of exceptionally gifted

men, and never of a correspondingly gifted woman,

does undoubtedly afford an indication of inferiority

of the average woman as regards the average man.

From the height of the mountain peaks we may,

other things equal, undoubtedly conclude the

existence of a tableland beneath them in the same                            

tract of country whence they arise.  I have already,                        

in the present chapter, besides elsewhere, referred

to the fallacy that intellectual or other fundamental

inferiority in woman existing at the present day is

traceable to any alleged repression in the past, since

(Weissmann and his denial of transmission of ac-

quired characteristics apart), assuming for the sake

of the argument such repression to have really

attained the extent alleged, and its effects to have

been transmitted to future generations, it is against

all the laws of heredity that such transmission should 

have taken place through the female line alone ,

as is contended by the advocates of this theory.

Referring to this point, Herbert Spencer has

expressed the conviction of most scientific thinkers

on the subject when he declares a difference                                                  47

between the mental powers of men and women to

result from "a physiological necessity, and no

amount of culture can obliterate it."   He further

observes (the passages occur in a letter of his to                                

John Stuart Mill) that "the relative deficiency of

the female mind is in just those most complex

faculties, intellectual and moral, which have political

action for their sphere."

    One of the points as regards the inferiority of

women which Feminists are willing and even

eager to concede, and it is the only point of which

this can be said, is that of physical weakness.

The reason why they should be particularly

anxious to emphasise this deficiency in the sex is

not difficult to discern.  It is the only possible

semblance of an argument which can be plausibly

brought forward to justify female privileges in

certain directions.  It does not really do so, but it

is the sole pretext which they can adduce with

any show of reason at all.  Now it may be observed

(1) that the general frailty of woman would militate 

coetaris paribus [all other things equal], against                          

their own dogma of the intellectual equality between the

sexes; (2) that this physical weakness is more particularly 

a muscular weakness, since constitutionally the organ-

ism of the human female has enormous power of

resistance and resilience, in general, far greater than

that of man (see below, pp. 125-128).  It is a matter

of common observation that the average woman can                                      48

pass through strains and recover in a way few

men can do.  But as we shall have occasion to

revert to these two points at greater length later

on, we refrain from saying more here.

    How then, after consideration, shall we judge of

the Feminist thesis, affirmed and reaffirmed, insisted

upon by so many as an incontrovertible axiom, that

woman is the equal, intellectually and morally, if not 

physically, of man?  Surely that it has all the characteristics 

of a true dogma.  Its votaries might well say with Tertullian,

credo quia absurdum [ I believe because it is absurd.]                        

It contradicts the whole experience of mankind in

the past.  It is refuted by all impartial observation

in the present.  The facts which undermine it are

seriously denied by none save those committed to

the dogma in question.  Like all dogmas, it is sup-

ported by "bluff."  In this case the '"bluff" is to the

effect that it is the "part, mark, business, lot" (as                        

the Latin grammars of our youth would have had

it) of the "advanced" man who considers himself

up to date, and not "Early Victorian," to regard it

as unchallengeable.  Theological dogmas are backed

up by the bluff of authority, either of scriptures

or of churches.  This dogma of the Feminist cult is

not vouchsafed by the authority of a Communion

of saints but by that of the Communion of advanced

persons up to date.  Unfortunately dogma does not

sit so well upon the community of advanced persons

up to date--who otherwise profess to, and generally                                       49

do, bring the tenets they hold to the bar of

reason and critical test--as it does on a church

or community of saints who suppose themselves

to be individually or collectively in communication

with wisdom from on high.  Be this as it may, the

"advanced man" who would claim to be "up to

date" has to swallow this dogma and digest it as

best he can.  He may secretly, it is true, spew it out

of his mouth, but in public, at least, he must make

a pretence of accepting it without flinching.                                                     50

                        CHAPTER III

            THE ANTI-MAN CRUSADE

WE have already pointed out that Modern

Feminism has two sides or aspects.  The first

formulates definite political, juridical and economic

demands on the grounds of justice, equity, equality

and so forth, as general principles; the second does

not formulate in so many words definite demands

as general principles, but seems to exploit the

traditional notions of chivalry based on male sex

sentiment, in favour of according women special

privileges on the ground of their sex, in the

law, and still more in the administration of the

law.  For the sake of brevity we call the first

Political Feminism, for, although its demands are

not confined to the political sphere, it is first

and foremost a political movement, and its typical

claim at the present time, the Franchise, is a

purely political one; and the second Sentimental

Feminism, inasmuch as it commonly does not profess

to be based on any general principle whatever,

whether of equity or otherwise, but relies ex-

clusively on the traditional and conventional                                                    51

sex sentiment of Man towards Woman.  It may

be here premised that most Political Feminists,

however much they may refuse to admit it, are

at heart also Sentimental Feminists.  Sentimental

Feminists, on the other hand, are not invariably

Political Feminists, although the majority of them

undoubtedly are so to a greater or lesser extent.

Logically, as we shall have occasion to insist upon

later on, the principles professedly at the root of

Political Feminism are in flagrant contradiction

with any that can justify Sentimental Feminism.

    Now both the orders of Feminism referred to

have been active for more than a generation past

in fomenting a crusade against the male sex--an

Anti-Man Crusade.  Their efforts have been largely

successful owing to a fact to which attention has,

perhaps, not enough been called.  In the case of

other classes, or bodies of persons, having com-

munity of interests this common interest invariably

interprets itself in a sense of class, caste, or race

solidarity.  The class or caste has a certain esprit de

corps in its own interest.  The whole of history

largely turns on the conflict of economic classes

based on a common feeling obtaining between

members of the respective classes; on a small

scale, we see the same thing in the solidarity of a

particular trade or profession.  But it is unnecessary

to do more than call attention here to this funda-

mental sociological law upon which alike the class                                          52

struggles of history, and of modern times, the

patriotism of states from the city-state of the

ancient world to the national state of the modern

world, is based.  Now note the peculiar manner

in which this law manifests itself in the sex question

of the present day.  While Modern Feminism has

succeeded in establishing a powerful sex-solidarity

amongst a large section of women as against

men, there is not only no sex-solidarity of men as

against women, but, on the contrary, the prevalence

of an altogether opposed sentiment.  Men hate their

brother-men in their capacity of male persons.  In any

conflict of interests between a man and a woman,

male public opinion, often in defiance of the most

obvious considerations of equity, sides with the

woman, and glories in doing so.  Here we seem to

have a very flagrant contradiction with, as has

already been said, one of the most fundamental

sociological  laws.  The explanations of the pheno-

mena in question are, of course, ready to hand:--

Tradition of chivalry, feelings, perhaps inherited,

dating possibly back to the prehuman stage of

man's evolution, derived from the competition of

the male with his fellow-male for the possession

of the coveted female, etc.

    These explanations may have a measure of

validity, but I must confess they are to me scarcely

adequate to account for the intense hatred which

the large section of men seem to entertain towards                                          53

their fellow-males in the world of to-day, and

their eagerness to champion the female in the

sex war which the Woman's "sex union," as it

has been termed, has declared of recent years.

Whatever may be the explanation, and I confess

I cannot find one completely satisfactory, the fact

remains.  A Woman's Movement unassisted by

man, still more if opposed energetically by the

public opinion of a solid phalanx of the man-

hood of any country, could not possibly make

any headway.  As it is, we see the legislature,

judges, juries, parsons, specially those of the non-

conformist persuasion, all vie with one another in

denouncing the villainy and baseness of the male

person, and ever devising ways and means to make

his life hard for him.  To these are joined a host of

literary men and journalists of varying degrees of

reputation who contribute their quota to the stream

of anti-manism in the shape of novels, storiettes,

essays, and articles, the design of which is to paint

man as a base, contemptible creature, as at once

a knave and an imbecile, a bird of prey and a

sheep in wolfs clothing, and all as a foil to the

glorious majesty of Womanhood.  There are not

wanting artists who are pressed into this service.

The picture of the Thames Embankment at

night, of the drowned unfortunate with the

angel's face, the lady and gentleman in evening

dress who have just got out of their cab--the lady                                           54

with uplifted hands bending over the dripping

form, and the callous and brutal gentleman turning

aside to light a cigarette--this is a typical

specimen of Feminist didactic art.  By these means,

which have been carried on with increasing ardour

for a couple of generations past, what we may term

the anti-man cultus has been made to flourish and

to bear fruit till we find nowadays all recent legis-

lation affecting the relations between the sexes

carrying its impress, and the whole of the judiciary

and magistracy acting as its priests and ministrants.

    On the subject of Anti-man legislation, I have

already written at length elsewhere,l but for the

sake of completeness I state the case briefly

here. (1) The marriage laws of England to-day

are a monument of Feminist sex partiality.

If  I may be excused the paradox, the parti-

ality of the marriage laws begins with the

law relating to breach of promise, which, as is

well known, enables a woman to punish a man

vindictively for refusing to marry her after having

once engaged himself to her.  I ought to add, and

this, oftentimes, however good his grounds may be

for doing so.  Should the woman commit perjury,

in these cases, she is never prosecuted for the                                

¹ Cf.  Fortnightly Review , November 1911, "A Creature of

Privilege," also a pamphlet (collaboration) entitled "The

Legal Subjection of Men."  Twentieth Century Press, reprinted

by New Age Press, 1908.                                                                                    55

offence.  Although the law of breach of promise

exists also for the man, it is well known to be

totally ineffective and practically a dead letter.

It should be remarked that, however gross the

misrepresentations or undue influences on the part

of the woman may have been to induce the man

to marry her, they do not cause her to lose her

right to compensation.  As, for instance, where an

experienced woman of the world of thirty or forty

entraps a boy scarcely out of his teens.  (2) Again,

according to the law of England, the right to

maintenance [support] accrues solely to the woman.                  

Formerly this privilege was made dependent on her

cohabitation with the man and generally decent

behaviour to him.  Now even these limitations

cease to be operative, while the man is liable to

imprisonment and confiscation of any property he

may have.  A wife is now at full liberty to leave

her husband, while she retains her right to get

her husband sent to gaol if he refuses to maintain

her--to put the matter shortly, the law imposes

upon the wife no legally enforceable duties what-

ever towards her husband.  The one thing which

it will enforce with iron vigour is the wife's right of 

maintenance against her husband.  In the case of 

a man of the well-to-do classes, the man's property 

is confiscated by the law in favour of his wife.  In 

the case of a working man the law compels her 

husband to do corvée [unpaid work] for her, as the                                     56

feudal serf had to do for his lord.  The wife, on

the other hand, however wealthy, is not compelled

to give a farthing towards the support of her

husband, even though disabled by sickness or by

accident; the single exception in the latter case

being should he become chargeable to the parish,

in which case the wife would have to pay the

authorities a pauper's rate for his maintenance.

In a word, a wife has complete possession and

control over any property she may possess, as well

as over her earnings; the husband, on the other

hand, is liable to confiscation of capitalised property

or earnings at the behest of the law courts in

favour of his wife.  A wife may even make her

husband bankrupt on the ground of money she

alleges that she lent him; a husband, on the other

hand, has no claim against his wife for any money

advanced, since a husband is supposed to give, and

not to lend , his wife money, or other valuables.

(3) The law affords the wife a right to commit torts

against third parties--e.g. libels and slanders--

the husband alone being responsible, and this rule

applies even although the wife is living apart from

her husband, who is wholly without knowledge

of her misdeeds.  With the exception of murder,

a wife is held by the law to be guiltless of practic-

ally any crime committed in the presence of her

husband.  (4) No man can obtain a legal separation

or divorce from his wife (save under the Licensing                                          57

Act of 1902, a Police Court separation for habitual

drunkenness alone) without a costly process in the

High Court.  Every wife can obtain, if not a

divorce, at least a legal separation, by going

whining to the nearest police court, for a few

shillings, which her husband, of course, has to pay.  

The latter, it is needless to say, is mulcted [fined]                            

in alimony at the "discretion of the Court."  This

"discretion" is very often of a queer character

for the luckless husband.  Thus, a working man

earning only twenty shillings a week may easily

find himself in the position of having to pay from

seven to ten shillings a week to a shrew out of

his wages.

    In cases where a wife proceeds to file a

petition for divorce, the way is once more smoothed

for her by the law, at the husband's expense.

He has to advance her money to enable her to

fight him.  Should the case come on for hearing

the husband finds the scale still more weighted

against him; every slander of his wife is assumed

to be true until he has proved its falsity, the

slightest act or a word during a moment of

irritation, even a long time back, being twisted

into what is termed "legal cruelty," even though

such has been provoked by a long course of ill

treatment and neglect on the part of the wife.

The husband and his witnesses can be indicted

for perjury for the slightest exaggeration or                                                     58

inaccuracy in their statements, while the most

calculated falsity in the evidence of the wife and

her witnesses is passed over.  Not the grossest

allegation on the part of the wife against the

husband, even though proved in court to be false,

is sufficient ground for the husband to refuse to

take her back again, or from preventing the court

from confiscating his property if he resists doing

so.  Knowledge of the unfairness of the court

to the husband, as all lawyers are aware, prevents

a large number of men from defending divorce

actions brought by their wives.  A point should

here be mentioned as regards the action of a

husband for damages against the seducer of his

wife.  Such damages obviously belong to the

husband as compensation for his destroyed home

life.  Now these damages our modern judges in

their feminist zeal have converted into a fund for

endowing the adulteress, depriving the husband

of any compensation whatever for the wrong done

him.  He may not touch the income derived from

the money awarded him by the jury, which is

handed over by the court to his divorced wife.

It would take us too long to go through all the

privileges, direct and indirect, conferred by statute

or created by the rulings of judges and the practice

of the courts, in favour of the wife against the

husband.  It is the more unnecessary to go into

them here as they may be found in detail with                                                 59

illustrative cases in the aforesaid pamphlet in which

I collaborated, entitled "The Legal Subjection

of Men" (mentioned in the footnote to p. 55).

    At this point it may be well to say a word on

the one rule of the divorce law which Feminists

are perennially trotting out as a proof of the

shocking injustice of the marriage law to women:

that to obtain her divorce the woman has to prove

cruelty in addition to adultery against her husband,

while in the case of the husband it is sufficient

to prove adultery alone.  Now to make of this

rule a grievance for the woman is, I submit,

evidence of the destitution of the Feminist case.

In default of any real injustice pressing on

the woman the Feminist is constrained to make

as much capital as possible out of the merest

semblance of a grievance he can lay his hand on.

The reasons for this distinction which the law

draws between the husband and the wife, it is

obvious enough, are perfectly well grounded.  It

is based mainly on the simple fact that while

a woman by her adultery may foist upon her

husband a bastard which he will be compelled

by law to support as his own child, in the

husband's case of having an illegitimate child the

wife and her property are not affected.  Now in

a society such as ours is, based upon private

property-holding, it is only natural, I submit, that

the law should take account of this fact.  But not                                             60

only is this rule of law almost certainly doomed

to repeal in the near future, but in even the present

day, while it still nominally exists, it is practically

a dead letter in the divorce court, since any trivial

act of which the wife chooses to complain is

strained by the court into evidence of cruelty in

the legal and technical sense.  As the matter stands,

the practical effect of the rule is a much greater

injustice to the husband than to the wife, since the

former often finds himself convicted of "cruelty"

which is virtually nothing at all, in order that the

wife's petition may be granted, and which is often

made the excuse by Feminist judges for depriving

the husband of the custody of his children.  Mis-

conduct on the wife's part, or neglect of husband

and children, does not weigh with the court which

will not on that ground grant relief to the husband

from his obligation for maintenance, etc.  On the

other hand, neglect of the wife by the husband

is made a ground for judicial separation with the

usual consequences--alimony, etc.  "Thus," as it

has been put, "between the upper and the nether

millstone, cruelty on the one hand, neglect on the

other, the unhappy husband can be legally ground

to pieces, whether he does anything or whether he

does nothing."  Personal violence on the part of

the husband is severely punished; on the part of

wife she will be let off with impunity.  Even

if she should in an extreme case be imprisoned, the                                         61

husband, if a poor man, on her release will be

compelled to take her back to live with him.  The

case came under the notice of the writer a few

years ago in which a humane magistrate was

constrained to let off a woman who had nearly

murdered a husband on the condition of her

graciously consenting to a separation, but she had

presumably still to be supported by her victim.

    The decision in the notorious Jackson case

precluded the husband from compelling his wife

to obey an order of the court for the restitution

of conjugal rights.  The persistent Feminist tendency

of all case-law is illustrated by a decision of the

House of Lords in 1894 in reference to the law

of Scotland constituting desertion for four years

a ground ipso facto for a divorce with the right

of remarriage.  Here divorce was refused to a man

whose wife had left him for four years and taken

her child with her.  The Law Lords justified their

own interpretation of the law on the ground that

the man did not really want her to come back.

But inasmuch as this plea can be started in every

case where it cannot be proved that the husband

had absolutely grovelled before his wife, imploring

her to return, and possibly even then--since the

sincerity even of this grovelling might conceivably

be called in question--it is clear that the decision

practically rendered this old Scottish law inoperative

for the husband.                                                                                             62

    As regards the offence of bigamy, for which a

man commonly receives a heavy sentence of penal

servitude, I think I may venture to state, without

risking contradiction, that no woman during recent

years has been imprisoned for this offence.  The

statute law, while conferring distinct privileges

upon married women as to the control of their

property, and for trading separately and apart from

their husbands, renders them exempt from the

ordinary liabilities incurred by a male trader as

regards proceedings under the Debtors Acts and

the Bankruptcy Law.  See Acts of 1822 (45 & 46

Vict. c. 75); 1893 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 63), and

cases Scott v. Morley, 57 L.J.R.Q.B. 43. L.R. 20

Q.B.D.  In re Hannah Lines exparte Lester C.A.

(1893), 2. 2. B. 113.

    In the case of Lady Bateman v. Faber and others

reported in Chancery Appeal Cases (1898 Law 

Reports) the Master of the Rolls (Sir N. Lindley) 

is reported to have said: "The authorities showed

that a married woman could not by hook or by

crook--even by her own fraud--deprive herself

of restraint upon anticipation.  He would say 

nothing as to the policy of the law, but it had been

affirmed by the Married Woman's Property Act"

(the Act of 1882 above referred to) "and the

result was that a married woman could play fast

and loose to an extent to which no other person

could." ( N.B. --Presumably a male person.)                                                    63

    It has indeed been held, to such a length does

the law extend its protection and privileges to the

female, that even the concealment by a wife from

the husband at the time of marriage that she was

then pregnant by another man was no ground for

declaring the marriage null and void.

    The above may be taken as a fair all-round,

although by no means an exhaustive, statement of

the present one-sided condition of the civil law

as regards the relation of husband and wife.  We

will now pass on to the consideration of the

relative incidence of the criminal law on the two

sexes.  We will begin with the crime of murder.

The law of murder is still ostensibly the same for

both sexes, but in effect the application of its

provisions in the two cases is markedly different.

As, however, these differences lie, as just stated,

not in the law itself but rather in its administration,

we can only give in this place, where we are

dealing with the principles of law rather than

with their application, a general formula of the

mode in which the administration of the law of

murder proceeds, which, briefly stated, is as follows:

The evidence even to secure conviction in the case

of a woman must be many times stronger than

that which would suffice to hang a man.  Should a

conviction be obtained, the death penalty, though

pronounced, is not given effect to, the female

prisoner being almost invariably reprieved.  In                                                64

most cases where there is conviction at all, it is

for manslaughter and not for murder, when a

light or almost nominal sentence is passed.  Cases

confirming what is here said will be given later

on.  There is one point, however, to be observed

here, and that is the crushing incidence of the law

of libel.  This means that no case of any woman,

however notoriously guilty on the evidence, can

be quoted, after she has been acquitted by a

Feminist jury, as the law holds such to be innocent

and provides them with "a remedy" in a libel

action.  Now, seeing that most women accused of

murder are acquitted irrespective of the evidence,

it is clear that the writer is fatally handicapped

so far as confirmation of his thesis by cases is

concerned.

    Women are to all intents and purposes allowed

to harass men, when they conceive they have a

grievance, at their own sweet will, the magistrate

usually telling their victim that he cannot interfere.

In the opposite case, that of a man harassing a

woman, the latter has invariably to find sureties

for his future good behaviour, or else go to gaol.

    One of the most infamous enactments indicative

of Feminist sex bias is the Criminal Law Amend-

ment Act of 1886.  The Act itself was led up to

with the usual effect by an unscrupulous newspaper

agitation in the Feminist and Puritan interest,

designed to create a panic in the public mind,                                                 65

under the influence of which legislation of this

description can generally be rushed through Parlia-

ment.  The reckless disregard of the commonest

principles of justice and common-sense of this

abominable statute may be seen in the shameless sex

privilege it accords the female in the matter of

seduction.  Under its provisions a boy of fourteen

years can be prosecuted and sent to gaol for an

offence to which he has been instigated by a girl just

under sixteen years, whom the law, of course, on the

basis of the aforesaid sex privilege, holds guiltless.

The outrageous infamy of this provision is especi-

ally apparent when we consider the greater

precocity of the average girl as compared with

the average boy of this age.

    We come now to the latest piece of Anti-man

legislation, the so-called White Slave Trade Act of

1912 (Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912, 2 & 3

Geo. V. c. 20).  This statute was, as usual,

rushed through the legislature on the wave of

factitious public excitement organised for the

purpose, and backed up by the usual faked state-

ments and exaggerated allegations, the whole

matter being three parts bogus and deliberate

lying.  The alleged dangers of the unprotected

female were, for the object of the agitation, pur-

posely exaggerated in the proverbial proportion of

the mountain to the molehill.  But as regards many

of those most eager in promoting this piece of                                                 66

Anti-man legislation, there were probably special

psychological reasons to account for their attitude.

The special features of the Bill, the Act in question,

are (1) increased powers given to the police in

the matter of arrest on suspicion, and (2) the

flogging clauses.

    Up till now the flogging of garrotters [stranglers] 

was justified against opponents, by its upholders, 

on the ground of the peculiarly brutal nature of the

offence of highway robbery with violence.  It

should be noted that in the Act in question no

such excuse can apply, for it is appointed to be

indicted for offences which, whatever else they

may be, do not in their nature involve violence,

and hence which cannot be described as brutal

in the ordinary sense of the term.  The Anti-man

nature of the whole measure, as of the agitation

itself which preceded it, is conclusively evidenced

by the fact that while it is well known that the

number of women gaining a living by "procura-                        

tion" [pimping] is much greater than the number of 

men engaged therein, comparatively little vituperation

was heard against the female delinquents in the

matter, and certainly none of the vitriolic ferocity

that was poured out upon the men alleged to

participate in the traffic.  A corresponding distinc-

tion was represented in the measure itself by the

allocation of the torture of the lash to men

alone.  It is clear, therefore, that the zeal for the                                              67

suppression of the traffic in question was not the

sole motive in the ardour of the flogging fraternity.

Even the Anti-manism at the back of the whole

of this class of legislation seems insufficient to

account for the outbreak of bestial blood-lust, for

the tigerish ferocity, of which the flogging clauses

in the Act are the outcome.  There is, I take it,

no doubt that psychical sexual aberration plays a

not inconsiderable part in many of those persons

--in a word, that they are labouring under some

degree of homo-sexual Sadism.  The lustful glee

on the part of the aforesaid persons which greets

the notion of the partial flaying alive, for that is what

the "cat[-o'-nine tails]" means, of some poor wretch                   

who has succumbed to the temptation of getting his 

livelihood by an improper method, is hardly to be

explained on any other hypothesis.  Experts allege

that traces of psycho-sexual aberration are latent

in many persons where it would be least expected,

and it is, prima facie, likely enough that these latent

tendencies in both men and women should become

active under the cover of an agitation in favour of

purity and anti-sexuality, to the point of gratify-

ing itself with the thought of torture inflicted

upon men.  A psycho-sexual element of another

kind doubtless also plays a not unimportant rôle

in the agitation of  "ladies" in favour of that

abomination, "social purity," which, being inter-

preted, generally means lubricity turned upside                                               68

down.  The fiery zeal manifested by many of those

ladies for the suppression of the male sex  is

assuredly not without its pathological significance.

    The monstrosity of the recent White Slave Traffic

enactment and its savage anti-male vindictiveness

is shown not merely, as already observed, in the

agitation which preceded it, with its exaggerated

vilification of the male offenders in the matter of

procuration and its passing over with comparative

slight censure the more numerous female offenders,

or in the general spirit animating the Act itself,

but it is noticeable in the very preposterous

exaggeration of its provisions.  For example, in the

section dealing with the souteneur [pimp], the                              

framers of this Act, and the previous Criminal Law

Amendment Acts to which this latest one is merely

supplementary, are not satisfied with penalising the

man who has no other means of subsistence beyond

what he derives from the wages of some female

friend's prostitution, but they strike with impartial

rigour the man who knowingly lives wholly or in part

from such a source.  If, therefore, the clause were

taken in its strict sense, any poor out-at-elbow man

who accepted the hospitality of a woman of doubt-

ful virtue in the matter of a drink, or a dinner,

would put himself within the pale of this clause

in the Act, and might be duly flayed by the "cat"

in consequence.  The most flagrant case occurred

in a London police court in March 1913, in                                                    69

a youth of eighteen years, against whose general

character nothing was alleged and who was known

to be in employment as a carman, was sentenced

to a month's hard labour under the following

circumstances:--It was reported that he had been

living with a woman apparently considerably older

than himself, whom admittedly he had supported

by his own exertions and, when this was in-

sufficient, even by the pawning of his clothes,

and whom as soon as he discovered she was

earning money by prostitution he had left.  Would

it be believed that a prosecution was instituted by

the police against this young man under the

iniquitous White Slave Traffic Act?  But what

seems still more incredible is that the magistrate,

presumably a sane gentleman, after admitting

that the poor fellow was "more sinned against

than sinning," did not hesitate to pass on him a

sentence of one month's hard labour!!!  Of course

the woman, who was the head and front of the

offending, if offending there was, remained un-

touched.  The above is a mild specimen of

"justice" as meted out in our police courts,

"for men only"!  Quite recently there was a

case in the north of England of a carter, who

admittedly worked at his calling but who, it was

alleged, was assisted by women with whom he had

lived.  Now this unfortunate man was sentenced

to a long term of imprisonment plus flogging.  For                                           70

the judges, of course, any extension of their power

over the prisoner in the dock is a godsend.  It is

quite evident that they are revelling in their new

privilege to inflict torture.  One of them had the

shamelessness recently to boast of the satisfac-

tion it gave him and to sneer at those of his

colleagues who did not make full use of their

judicial powers in this direction.

    The bogus nature of the reasons urged in favour

of the most atrocious clauses of this abominable

Act came out clearly enough in the speeches of

the official spokesmen of the Government in its

favour.  For example, Lord Haldane in the House

of Lords besought the assembled peers to bethink

themselves of the unhappy victim of the souteneur.

He drew a picture of how a heartless bully might

beat, starve and otherwise ill treat his victim, be-

sides taking away her earnings.  He omitted to

explain how the heartless bully in a free country

could coerce his "victim" to remain with him

against her will.  He ignored the existence of the

police, or of a whole army of social purity busy-

bodies, and vigilance societies for whom her case

would be a tasty morsel only too eagerly snapped

at.  If the "victim" does not avail herself of any of

those means of escape, so ready to her hand, the

presumption is that she prefers the company of her

alleged brutal tyrant to that of the chaste Puritan

ladies of the vigilance societies.  To those who follow                                     71

the present state of artificially fomented public

opinion in the matter, Lord Haldane's suggestion

that there was any danger of the precious

"victim" not being sufficiently slobbered over,

will seem to be not without a touch of humour.

Furthermore, as illustrating the utter illogicality of

the line taken by the promoters of the Act, for

whom Lord Haldane acted as the mouthpiece, we

have only to note the fact that the measure does

not limit the penalties awarded to cases accom-

panied by circumstances of aggravation such as

Lord Haldane pictures, which it might easily have

done, but extends it impartially to all cases

whether accompanied by cruelty or not.  We can

hardly imagine that a man of Lord Haldane's

intellectual power and general humanity should not

have been aware of the hollowness of the case he

had to put as an official advocate, and of the

rottenness of the conventional arguments he had

to state in its support.  When confronted with the

unquestionably true contention that corporal pun-

ishments, especially such as are of a savage and vin-

dictive kind, are degrading alike to the inflicters of

them and to those who are their victims, he replied

that criminals in the cases in question were already

so degraded that they could not be degraded

further.  One would imagine he could hardly have

failed to know that he was talking pernicious

twaddle.  It is obvious that this argument, in                                                    72

addition to its being untrue, in fact opens the flood-

gates to brutal penal legislation all round, so far at

least as the more serious offences are concerned.  One

could equally well assert of murder, burglary, even

abus de confidence[breach of trust] in some cases,                                        

and other offences, that the perpetrators of them must be 

so degraded that no amount of brutal punishment could 

degrade them further.  Everybody can regard the crime to

which he has a pet aversion more than other crimes

as indicating the perpetrator thereof to be outside

the pale of humanity.

    But as regards the particular case in point, let

us for a moment clear our minds of cant upon the

subject.  Procuration and also living on the pro-

ceeds of prostitution may be morally abominable

methods of securing a livelihood, though even

here, as in most other offences, there may be cir-

cumstances of palliation in individual cases.  But

after all [is] said and done, it is doubtful whether, apart

from any  fraud or misrepresentation, which, of

course, places it altogether in a different category,

these ought to be regarded as criminal offences.

To offer facilities or to act as an agent for women

who are anxious to lead a "gay life," or even to suggest 

such a course to women, so long as prostitution 

itself is not recognised by the law as crime, however

reprehensible morally, would scarcely seem to

transcend the limits of legitimate individual liberty.

In any case, the constituting of such an action a                                               73

crime must surely open out an altogether new

principle in jurisprudence, and one of far-reaching

consequences.  The same remarks apply even more

forcibly to the question of sharing the earnings of

a prostitute.  Prostitution per se is not in the eyes of

the law a crime or even a misdemeanour.  The woman

who makes her living as a prostitute is under the

protection of the law, and the money she receives

from her customer is recognised as her property.

If she, however, in the exercise of her right of free

disposition of that property, gives some of it to a

male friend, that friend, by the mere acceptance of

a free gift, becomes a criminal in the eyes of the

law.  Anything more preposterous, judging by all

hitherto recognised principles of jurisprudence, can

scarcely be imagined.  Even from the moral point

of view of the class of cases coming under the

purview of the Act, of men who in part share in

the proceeds of their female friends' traffic, must

involve many instances in which no sane person-- i.e.

one who is not bitten by the rabid man-hatred of

the Feminist and social purity monger--must re-

gard the moral obliquity involved as not very

serious.  Take, for instance, the case of a man

who is out of work, who is perhaps starving, and

receives temporary assistance of this kind.  Would

any reasonable person allege that such a man was in

the lowest depths of moral degradation, still less

that he merited for this breach, at most, of fine                                                74

delicacy of feeling, the flaying alive prescribed by

the Act under consideration.  Besides all this, it

is well known that some women, shop assistants

and others, gain part of their living by their re-

putable avocation and part in another way.  Now

presumably the handing over of a portion of her

regular salary to her lover would not constitute

the latter a flayable criminal, but the endowment

of him with a portion of any of the "presents"

obtained by her pursuit of her other calling would

do so.  The process of earmarking the permissible

and the impermissible gift strikes one as very diffi-

cult even if possible.

    The point last referred to leads us on to another

reflection.  If the man who "in whole or in part"

lives on the proceeds of a woman's prostitution is of

necessity a degraded wretch outside the pale of all

humanity, as he is represented to be by the flog-

ging fraternity, how about the employer or em-

ployeress of female labour who bases his or her

scale of wages on the assumption that the girls and

women he or she employs, supplement these wages

by presents received after working hours, for their

sexual favours--in other words, by prostitution?

Many of these employers of labour are doubtless

to be found among the noble band of advocates

of White Slave Traffic Bills, flogging and social

purity.  The above persons, of course, are respectable

members of society, while a souteneur is an outcast.                                      75

In addition to the motives before alluded to as

actuating the promoters of the factitious and bogus

so-called "White Slave" agitation, there is one

very powerful political and economic motive which

must not be left out of sight.  In view of the exist-

ing "labour unrest," it is highly desirable from the

point of view of our possessing and governing

classes that popular attention should be drawn off

labour wrongs and labour grievances on to some-

thing less harassing to the capitalist and official

mind.  Now the Anti-man agitation forms a capital

red herring for drawing the popular scent off class

opposition by substituting sex antagonism in its

place.

    If you can set public opinion off on the question

of wicked Man and down-trodden Woman, you

have done a good deal to help capitalistic enter-

prise to tide over the present crisis.  The insistence

of public opinion on better conditions for the

labourer will thus be weakened by being diverted

into urging forward vindictive laws against men,

and for placing as far as may be the whole power

of the State at the disposal of the virago, the

shrew and the female sharper, in their designs

upon their male victim.  For, be it remembered,

it is always the worst type of woman to whom

the advantage of laws passed as the result of

the Anti-man campaign accrues.  The real nature

of the campaign is crucially exhibited in some                                                  76

of the concrete demands put forward by its

advocates.

    One of the measures proposed in the so-called

"Woman's Charter" drawn up with the approval

of all prominent Feminists by Lady M'Laren (now

Lady Aberconway) some four or five years back,

and which had been previously advocated by other

Feminist writers, was to the effect that a husband,

in addition to his other liabilities, should be legally

compelled to pay a certain sum to his wife,

ostensibly as wages for her housekeeping services,

no matter whether she performs the services well,

or ill, or not at all.  Whatever the woman is, or

does, the husband has to pay all the same.  Another

of the clauses in this precious document is to the

effect that a wife is to be under no obligation to

follow her husband, compelled probably by the

necessity of earning a livelihood for himself and

her, to any place of residence outside the British

Islands.  That favourite crank of the Feminist, of

raising the age of consent with the result of increas-

ing the number of victims of the designing young

female should speak for itself to every unbiassed

person.  One of the proposals which finds most

favour with the Sentimental Feminist is the demand

that in the case of the murder by a woman of her

illegitimate child, the putative father should be

placed in the dock as an accessory!  In other words,

a man should be punished for a crime of which                                               77

he is wholly innocent, because the guilty person

was forsooth a woman.  That such a suggestion

should be so much as entertained by otherwise

sane persons is indeed significant of the degeneracy

of mental and moral fibre induced by the Feminist

movement, for it may be taken as typical.  It

reminds me of a Feminist friend of mine who,

challenged by me, sought (for long in vain) to

find a case in the courts in which a man was

unduly favoured at the expense of a woman.  At

last he succeeded in lighting upon the following

from somewhere in Scotland: A man and woman

who had been drinking went home to bed, and

the woman caused the death of her baby by

"overlaying it."  Both the man and the woman

were brought before the court on the charge of

manslaughter, for causing the death, by culpable

negligence, of the infant.  In accordance with the

evidence, the woman who had overlaid the baby was

convicted and sentenced to six months' imprison-

ment, and naturally the man, who had not done so,

was released.  Now, in the judgment of my Feminist

friend, in other matters sane enough, the fact that

the man who had not committed any offence was

let off, while his female companion, who had, was

punished, showed the bias of the court in favour

of the man!!  Surely this is a noteworthy illustration,

glaring as it is, of how all judgment is completely

overbalanced and destroyed in otherwise judicial                                            78

minds--of how such minds are completely hypno-

tised by the adoption of the Feminist dogma.  As

a matter of fact, of course, the task my friend set

himself to do was hopeless.  As against the cases,

which daily occur all over the country, of flagrant

injustice to men and partiality to women on the

part of the courts, there is, I venture to assert,

not to be found a single case within the limits of

the four seas of a judicial decision in the contrary

sense-- i.e. of one favouring the man at the expense

of the woman.

    This sex hatred, so often vindictive in its

character, of men for men, which has for its

results that: "man-made" laws invariably favour

the opposite sex, and that "man-administered

justice" follows the same course, is a psycho-

logical problem which is well worth the earnest

attention of students of sociology and thinkers

generally.                                                                                                       79

                         CHAPTER IV

 ALWAYS THE "INJURED INNOCENT" !

WHILE what we have termed Political Feminism

vehemently asserts its favourite dogma, the in-

tellectual and moral equality of the sexes--that

the woman is as good as the man if not better--

Sentimental Feminism as vehemently seeks to

exonerate every female criminal, and protests

against any punishment being meted out to her

approaching in severity that which would be

awarded a man in a similar case.  It does so on

grounds which presuppose the old theory of the

immeasurable inferiority, mental and moral, of

woman, which are so indignantly spurned by

every Political Feminist-- i.e. in his or her capacity

as such.  We might suppose, therefore, that Political

Feminism, with its theory of sex equality based on

the assumption of equal sex capacity, would be in

strong opposition in this matter with Sentimental

Feminism, which seeks, as its name implies, to

attenuate female responsibility on grounds which

are not distinguishable from the old-fashioned

assumption of  inferiority.  But does Political                                                   80

Feminism consistently adopt this logical position?

Not one whit.  It is quite true that some Feminists,

when hard pressed, may grudgingly concede the

untenability on rational grounds of the Sentimental

Feminists' claims.  But taken as a whole, and in

their practical dealings, the Political Feminists are

in accord with the Sentimental Feminists in claim-

ing female immunity on the ground of sex.  This is

shown in every case where a female criminal re-

ceives more than a nominal sentence.

    We have already given examples of the fact in

question, and they could be indefinitely extended.

At the end of the year 1911, at Birmingham, in the

case of a woman convicted of the murder of her

paramour by deliberately pouring inflammable oil

over him while he was asleep, and then setting it

afire, and afterwards not only exulting in the action

but saying she was ready to do it again, the jury

brought in recommendation to mercy with their

verdict.  And, needless to say, the influence of

Political and Sentimental Feminism was too strong

to allow the capital sentence to be carried out, even

with such a fiendish wretch as this.  In the case

of the Italian woman in Canada, Napolitano, before

mentioned, the female franchise societies issued a

petition to Mr Borden, the Premier of Canada, in

favour of the commutation of sentence.  The usual

course was adopted in this case, as in most others in

which a woman murders a man--to wit, the truly                                             81

"chivalrous" one of trying to blacken the char-

acter of the dead victim in defence of the action

of the murderess.  In other cases, more especially,

of course, where the man is guilty of a crime against

a woman, when mercy is asked for the offender,

we are pitifully adjured to "think of the poor

victim."  As we have seen, Lord Haldane trotted

out this exhortation in a case where it was absurdly

inappropriate, since the much-commiserated

"victim" had only herself to thank for being a

"victim," and still more for remaining a "victim."

We never hear this plea for the "victim" urged

where the "victim" happens to be a man and the

offender a woman.  Compare this with the case

of the boy of nineteen, Beal, whom Mr M'Kenna

hanged for the murder of his sweetheart, and that

in the teeth of an explanation given in the defence

which was at least possible, if not probable, and

which certainly, putting it at the very lowest,

introduced an element of doubt into the case.

Fancy a girl of nineteen being convicted, what-

ever the evidence, of having poisoned her paramour

or even if, per impossibile [the impossible took 

place], [and] she were convicted, fancy her being 

given more than a short term of imprisonment!  

A man murdered by a woman is always the

horrid brute, while the woman murdered by the

man is just as surely the angelic victim.  Anyone

who reads reports of cases with an unbiassed mind

must admit the absolute accuracy of this statement,                                         82

    Divine woman is always the "injured innocent,"

not only in the graver crimes, such as murder, but

also in the minor offences coming under the

cognisance of the law.  At the Ledbury Petty

Sessions a woman in the employment of a draper,

who had purloined goods to the amount of  £150,                                    

was acquitted on the ground of "kleptomania,"

and this notwithstanding the fact that she had

been in the employment of the prosecutor for over

five years, had never complained of illness and

had never been absent from business; also that

her landlady gave evidence showing that she was

sound in mind and body.  At the very same sessions

two men were sentenced respectively to eight and

twelve months' imprisonment for stealing goods

to the value of  £5 ! (John Bull, 12th November

1910).

    At this point I may be permitted to quote from

the article formerly alluded to (Fortnightly Review,

November 1911, case taken from a report in The

News of the World of 28th February 1909):  "A

young woman shot at the local postman with

a revolver; the bullet grazed his face, she having

fired point blank at his head.  Jury returned a

verdict of not guilty, although the revolver was

found on her when arrested, and the facts were

admitted and were as follows:--At noon she left

her house, crossing three fields to the house of

the victim, who was at home and alone; upon his                                            83

appearing she fired point blank at his head; he

banged to the door, and thus turned off the bullet,

which grazed his face and 'ploughed a furrow

through his hair.'  She had by her when arrested

a revolver cocked and with four chambers undis-

charged."

    Let us now take the crime of violent assault

with attempt to do bodily injury.  The following

cases will serve as illustrative examples:--From

The News of the World, 9th May 1909: A nurse

in Belfast sued her lost swain for breach of promise.  

She obtained £100 damages although it was admitted 

by her counsel that she had thrown vitriol over the 

defendant, thereby injuring him, and the defendant 

had not prosecuted her!   Also it was admitted that 

she had been "carrying on" with another man.  From

The Morning Leader of 8th July 1905 I have

taken the following extraordinary facts as to the

varied punishment awarded in cases of vitriol-

throwing: That of a woman who threw vitriol

over a sergeant at Aldershot, and was sentenced

to six months' imprisonment without hard labour

while a man who threw it over a woman at Ports-

mouth was tried and convicted at the Hants

Assizes, on 7th July 1905, and sentenced by Mr

Justice Bigham to twelve years' penal servitude!

As regards the first case it will be observed that,

(notwithstanding a crime, which in the case of

a man was described by the judge as "cowardly                                             84

and vile" and meriting twelve years' penal servitude)

the woman was rewarded by damages for £100,

to be obtained from the very victim whom she

had done her best to maim for life (besides being

unfaithful to him) and who had generously

abstained from prosecuting.

    But it is not merely in cases of murder, attempted

murder or serious assault that justice is mocked by

the present state of our law and its administration

in the interests of the female sex.  The same attitude

is observed, the same farcical sentences on women,

whether the crime be theft, fraud, common assault,

criminal slander or other minor offences.  We

have the same preposterous excuses admitted, the

same preposterous pleas allowed, and the same

farcical sentences passed--if, indeed, any sentence

be passed at all.  The following examples I have

culled at random:--From John Bull , 26th February

1910: At the London Sessions, Mr Robert

Wallace had to deal with the case of a

well-dressed woman living at Hampstead, who

pleaded guilty to obtaining goods to the amount

of £50 by false pretences.  In explanation of

her crime it was stated that she was under a

mistaken impression that her engagement would

not lead to marriage, that she became de-

pressed, and that she "did not know what she

said or did," while in mitigation of punishment it

was urged that the money had been repaid, that                                              85

her fiancé could not marry her if she were sent

to gaol, and that her life would be irretrievably

ruined, and she was discharged!  From The Bir-

mingham Post, 4th February 1902: A female

clerk (twenty-six) pleaded guilty to embezzling

£5, 1s. 9d. on 16th November, £ 2, 2s. 4d. on                                                   

2lst December and  £ 5, 0s. 9d. on a 23rd December

last, the moneys of her employer.  Prosecuting

counsel said prisoner entered prosecutor's employ

in 1900, and in June last her salary was raised to

27s. 6d. a week.  The defalcations [embezzlements], 

which began a month before the increase, amounted 

to  £134.  She had falsified the books, and when 

suspicion fell upon her destroyed two books, in order, 

as she thought, to prevent detection.  Her counsel

pleaded for leniency on the ground of her previous

good character and because she was engaged !  The

recorder merely bound her over, stating that her

parents and young man were respectable, and so

was the house in which she lodged!  A correspon-

dent mentions in The Birmingham Post of February

1902 a case where a woman had burned her

employer's outhouses and property, doing £1800

worth of damage, and got off with a month's

imprisonment.  On the other hand, the same judge,

at the same Quarter Sessions, thus dealt with two

male embezzlers: C. C. (twenty-eight), clerk, who

pleaded guilty to embezzling two sums of money

from his master in August and September of 1901                                          86

(amounts not given), was sent to gaol for six

calendar months; and S. G. (twenty-four), clerk,

pleaded guilty to embezzling 7s. 6d. and 3s.  For

the defence it was urged that the prisoner had

been poorly paid, and the recorder, hearing that

a gentleman was prepared to employ the man as

soon as released, sentenced him to three months'

hard labour!  O merciful recorder!

    The "injured innocent" theory usually comes

into play with magistrates when a woman is

charged with aggravated annoyance and harassing

of men in their business or profession, when, as

already stated, the administrator of the law will

usually tell the prosecutor that he cannot interfere.

In the opposite case of a man annoying a woman

under like circumstances he invariably has to find

substantial sureties for his good behaviour or go to

gaol.  No injured innocence for him!

    There is another case in which it seems probable

that, animated by the same fixed idea, those re-

sponsible for the framing of laws have flagrantly

neglected an obvious measure for public safety.  We

refer to the unrestricted sale of sulphuric acid

(vitriol) which is permitted.  Now here we have a

substance subserving only very special purposes in

industry, none in household economy, or in other

departments, save for criminal ends, which is never-

theless procurable without let or hindrance.  Is it

possible to believe that this would be the case if men                                      87

were in the habit of using this substance in settling

their differences with each other, even still more

if they employed it by way of emphasising their                            

disapproval of the jilting of sweethearts?  That it

should be employed by women in wreaking their

vengeance on recalcitrant lovers seems a natural

if not precisely a commendable action, in the eyes

of a Sentimental Feminist public opinion, and one

which, on the mildest hypothesis, "doesn't matter."

Hence a deadly substance may be freely bought

and sold as though it were cod-liver oil.  A very

nice thing for dastardly viragoes for whom public

opinion has only the mildest of censures!  In

any reasonable society the indiscriminate sale of

corrosive substances would in itself be a crime

punishable with a heavy term of imprisonment.

    It is not only by men, and by a morbid public

opinion inflamed by Feminist sentiment in general,

that female criminals are surrounded by a halo of

injured innocence.  The reader can hardly fail to

notice that such women have the effrontery to pre-

tend to regard themselves in this light.  This is often

so in cases of assault, murder or attempted murder

of lovers by their sweethearts.  Such is, of course,

particularly noticeable in the senselessly wicked

outrages, of which more anon.  The late Otto

Weininger, in his book before quoted, "Geschlecht

und Charakter" (Sex and Character), has some note-

worthy remarks on this, remarks which, whether we                                       88

accept his suggested theory or not, might well

have been written as a comment on recent cases

of suffragette crimes and criminals.  "The male

criminal," says Weininger, "has from his birth

the same relation to the idea of value [moral value]

as any other man in whom the criminal tendencies

governing himself may be wholly absent.  The

female on the other hand often claims to be fully

justified when she has committed the greatest

conceivable infamy.  While the genuine criminal

is obtusely silent against all reproaches, a woman

will express her astonishment and indignation that

anyone can doubt her perfect right to act as she

has done.  Women are convinced of their being in

the right without ever having sat in judgment on

themselves.  The male criminal, it may be true, does

not do so either, but then he never maintains that

he is in the right.  He rather goes hastily out of

the way of discussing right and wrong, because it

reminds him of his guilt.  In this fact we have a

proof that he has a relationship to the [moral] idea,

and that it is unfaithfulness to his better self of

which he is unwilling to be reminded.  No male

criminal has ever really believed that injustice has

been done him by punishment.  The female criminal

on the other hand is convinced of the maliciousness

of her accusers, and if she is unwilling no man can

persuade her that she has done wrong.  Should

someone admonish her, it is true that she often                                                89

bursts into tears, begs for forgiveness and admits

her fault; she may even believe indeed that she

really feels this fault.  Such is only the case, how-

ever, when she has felt inclined to do so, for this

very dissolving in tears affects her always with a

certain voluptuous pleasure.  The male criminal is

obstinate, he does not allow himself to be turned

round in a moment as the apparent defiance of a

woman may be converted into an apparent sense of

guilt, where, that is, the accuser understands how to

handle her "("Geschlecht und Charakter," pp. 253-

254).  Weininger's conclusion is: "Not that woman

is naturally evil or anti -moral, but rather that she

is merely a-moral,  in other words that she is

destitute of what is commonly called 'moral

sense.'"  The cases of female penitents and others

which seem to contradict  this  announcement

Weininger explains by the hypothesis that "it is

only in company and under external influence that

woman can feel remorse."

    Be all this as it may, the fact remains that

women when most patently and obviously guilty

of vile and criminal actions will, with the most

complete nonchalance, insist that they are in the

right.  This may be, and very possibly often is,

mere impudent effrontery, relying on the privilege

of the female sex, or it may, in part at least, as

Weininger insists, be traceable to "special deep-

lying sex-characteristics."  But in any case the                                                 90

singular fact is that men, and men even of other-

wise judicial capacity, are to be found who are

prepared virtually to accept the justice of this

attitude, and who are ready to condone, if not

directly to defend, any conduct, no matter how

vile or how criminal, on the part of a woman.

We have illustrations of this class of judgment

almost every day, but I propose to give two

instances of what I should deem typical, if slightly

extreme, perversions of moral judgment on the

part of two men, both of them of social and

intellectual standing, and without any doubt

personally of the highest integrity.  Dr James

Donaldson, Principal of the University of St

Andrews, in his work entitled "Woman, her

Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and

Rome and among the Early Christians," comment-

ing on the well-known story attributed to the

year 331 B.C., which may or may not be historical,

of the wholesale poisoning of their husbands by

Roman matrons, as well as of subsequent cases

of the same crime, concludes his remarks with

these words: "It seems to me that we must

regard them [namely these stories or facts, as we

may choose to consider them] as indicating that

the Roman matrons felt sometimes that they were

badly treated, that they ought not to endure the

bad treatment, and that they ought to take the

only means that they possessed of expressing their                                          91

feelings, and of wreaking vengeance, by employing

poison" (p. 92).  Now though it may be said

that in this passage we have no direct justification

of the atrocious crime attributed to the Roman

matrons, yet it can hardly be denied that we have

here a distinct condonation of the infamous and

dastardly act, such a condonation as the worthy

Principal of St Andrews University would hardly

have meted out to men under any circumstances.

Probably Professor Donaldson, in writing the above,

felt that his comments would not be resented very

strongly, even if not actually approved, by public

opinion, steeped as it is at the present time in

Feminism, political and sentimental.

    Another instance, this time of direct special

pleading to prove a woman guilty of an atrocious

crime to be an "injured innocent."  It is taken from

an eminent Swiss alienist in his work on Sex.  Dr                            

Forel maintains a thesis which may or may not be

true to the effect that the natural maternal instinct

is either absent or materially weakened in the case

of a woman who has given birth to a child begotten

by rape, or under circumstances bordering upon

rape, and indeed more or less in all cases where

the woman is an unwilling participant in the sexual

act.  By way of illustration of this theory he cites

the case of a barmaid in St Gallen who was seduced

by her employer under such circumstances as those

above mentioned; a child resulted, who was put                                             92

out to nurse at an institution until five years of

age, when it was handed over to the care of the

mother.  Now what does the woman do?  Within a

few hours of receiving the little boy into her keep-

ing she took him to a lonely place and deliberately

strangled him, in consequence of which she was

tried and condemned.  Now Dr Forel, in his

Feminist zeal, feels it incumbent upon him to try

to whitewash this female monster by urging, on

the basis of this theory, the excuse that under the

circumstances of its conception one could not

expect the mother to have the ordinary instincts of

maternity as regards her child.  The worthy doctor

is apparently so blinded by his Feminist prejudices

that (quite apart from the correctness or otherwise

of his theory) he is oblivious of the absurd irrele-

vancy of his argument.  What, we may justly ask,

has the maternal instinct, or its absence, to do

with the guilt of the murderess of a helpless child

committed to her care!  Who or what the child

was is immaterial!  That a humane and otherwise

clear-headed man like Dr Forel could take a wretch

of this description under his æ gis [care], and still                                

more that in doing so he should serve up such utterly

illogical balderdash by way of argument, is only

one more instance of how the most sane-thinking

men are rendered fatuous by the glamour of

Sentimental Feminism.

    In the present chapter we have given a few                                                 93

typical instances of the practice which constitutes

one of the most conspicuous features of Modern

Feminism and of the public opinion which it has

engendered.  We hear and read, ad nauseam, of

excuses, and condonation, for every crime com-

mitted by a woman, while a crime of precisely

similar a character and under precisely similar

circumstances, where a man is the perpetrator, meets

with nothing but virulent execration from that

truculent ass, British public opinion, as manipu-

lated by the Feminist fraternity, male and female.

This state of public opinion reacts, of course,

upon the tribunals and has the result that women                                        

are practically free to commit any offence they

please, with always a splendid sporting chance of

getting acquitted altogether, and a practical

certainty that even if convicted they will receive

farcical sentences, or, should the sentence be in any

degree adequate to the offence, that such sentence

will not be carried out.  The way in which criminal

law is made a jest and a mockery as regards female

prisoners, the treatment of criminal suffragettes,

is there in evidence.  The excuse of health being

endangered by their going without their breakfasts

has resulted in in the release after a few days

of women guilty of the vilest crimes-- e.g. the

attempt to set fire to the theatre at Dublin.  It

may be well to recall the outrageous facts of

modern female immunity and free defiance of the                                            94

law as illustrated by one quotation of a description

of the merry time of the window-smashers of

March 1912 in Holloway prison given by a corre-

spondent of The Daily Telegraph .  The correspondent

of that journal describes his visit to the aforesaid

prison, where he said there appeared to have been

no punishment of any kind for any sort of mis-

behaviour.  "All over the place," he writes, "is

noise--women calling to women everywhere, and

the officials seem powerless to preserve even the

semblance of discipline.  A suffragist will call out

her name while in a cell, and another one who

knows her will answer, giving her name in re-

turn, and a conversation will then be carried on

between the two.  This chattering obtains all day

and far into the night.  The 'officials' as the

wardresses prefer themselves called, have already

given the prison the name of  'the monkey-house.'

Certain it is that the prisoners are treated with

all deference, the reason being perhaps that the

number of officials is insufficient to establish

proper order.  While I was waiting yesterday one

lady drove up in a carriage and pair [of horses], in                                     

which were two policemen and several bundles of 

clothes, to enter upon her sentence and this is the 

note which seems to dominate the whole of the prison.

Seventy-six of the prisoners are supposed to be

serving sentences with hard labour, but none of

them are wearing prison clothes, and in only one                                             95

or two instances have any tasks of any description

been given, those generally being a little sewing

or knitting."  Again a member of the Women's

Freedom League at a meeting on 19th May 1912

boasted that the suffragettes had a wing of their

own at Holloway.  "They had nice hot water pipes

and all the latest improvements and were able to

climb up to the window and exchange sentiments

with their friends."  She had saved money and

enjoyed herself very much!!

    Here we have a picture of the way the modern

authorities of the law recognise the "injured

innocence" of female delinquents who claim the

right wantonly to destroy property.  Our present

society, based as it is on private property-holding,

and which usually punished with the utmost severity

any breach of the sanctity of private property,

waives its claims where women are concerned.

Similarly arson under circumstances directly en-

dangering human life, for which the law prescribes

the maximum sentence of penal servitude for life,

is considered adequately punished by a week or

two's imprisonment when those convicted of the

crime are of the female sex.  Oh, but they were

acting from political motives!  Good, and have not

terrorist anarchists, Fenians and Irish dynamiters                                        

of the Land League days also acted from political

motives?  The terrorist anarchist, foolish and in-

defensible though his tactics may be, believes                                                 96

honestly enough that he is paving the way for

the abolition of poverty, misery and social in-

justice, a far more vital thing than the franchise!

The Irish Fenians and dynamiters pursued a similar

policy and there is no reason to doubt their honest

belief that it would further the cause of the free-

dom and national independence of Ireland.  Yet

were these "political" offenders dealt with other-

wise than as ordinary criminals when convicted of

acts qualified by the law as felonies?  And their

acts, moreover, whatever we may think of them

otherwise, were, in most cases at least, politically

logical from their own point of view, and not

senseless injuries to unoffending persons, as those

of the present-day female seekers after the suffrage.                                       97

                        CHAPTER V

            THE "CHIVALRY" FAKE

THE justification for the whole movement of

Modern Feminism in one of its main practical

aspects--namely, the placing of the female sex in

the position of privilege, advantage and immunity

--is concentrated in the current conception of

"chivalry."  It behoves us, therefore, to devote

some consideration to the meaning and implication

of this notion.  Now this word chivalry is the dernier 

ressort [last resort] of those at a loss for a

justification of the modern privileging of women.  But 

those who use it seldom give themselves the trouble to

analyse the connotation of this term.  Brought to

book [account] as to its meaning, most persons would                             

probably define it as deference to, or consideration

for, weakness, especially bodily weakness.  Used

in this sense, however, the term covers a very much

wider ground than the "kow-towing" to the

female section of the human race, usually associ-

ated with it.  Boys, men whose muscular strength

is below the average, domestic animals, etc., might

all claim this special protection as a plea of                                                     98

chivalry, in their favour.  And yet we do not find

different criminal laws, or different rules of prison

treatment, say, for men whose stamina is below

the average.  Neither do we find such men or boys

exempted by law from corporal punishment in

consequence of their weakness, unless as an excep-

tion in individual cases when the weakness amounts

to dangerous physical disability.  Neither, again, in

the general affairs of life are we accustomed to see

any such deference to men of weaker muscular or

constitutional development as custom exacts in the

case of women.  Once more, looking at the question

from the other side, do we find the claim of

chivalry dropped in the case of the  powerful

virago or the muscularly developed female athlete,

the sportswoman who rides, hunts, plays cricket,

football, golf and other masculine games, and who

may even fence or box?  Not one whit!

    It would seem then that the definition of the

term under consideration, based on the notion of

deference to mere weakness as such, will hardly

hold water, since in its application the question of

sex always takes precedence of that of weakness.

Let us try again!  Abandoning for the moment the

definition of chivalry as a consideration for weak-

ness, considered absolutely , as we may term it, let 

us see whether the definition of consideration for

relative defencelessness--i.e. defencelessness in a

given situation--will coincide with the current                                                  99

usage of the word.  But here again we are met

with the fact that the man in the hands of the law--

to wit, in the grip of the forces of the State, ay [yes],                            

even the strongest man, were he a very Hercules, is

in as precisely as defenceless and helpless a position

relative to those in whose power he finds himself,

as the weakest woman would be in the like case,

neither more nor less!  And yet an enlightened and

chivalrous public opinion tolerates the most fiendish

barbarities and excogitated [thought out] cruelties being 

perpetrated upon male convicts in our gaols, while it

shudders with horror at the notion of female con-

victs being accorded any severity of punishment at

all even for the same, or, for that matter, more

heinous offences.  A particularly crass and crucial

illustration is that infamous piece of one-sided sex

legislation which has already occupied our attention

in the course of the present volume--to wit, the

so-called "White Slave Traffic Act" 1912.

    It is plain then that chivalry as understood in

the present day really spells sex privilege and sex

favouritism pure and simple, and that any attempts

to define the term on a larger basis, or to give it

a colourable rationality founded on fact, are simply

subterfuges, conscious or unconscious, on the part

of those who put them forward.  The etymology of

the word chivalry is well known and obvious

enough.  The term meant originally the virtues

associated with knighthood considered as a whole,                                       100

bravery even to the extent of reckless daring,

loyalty to the chief or feudal superior, generosity

to a fallen foe, general open-handedness, and open-

heartedness, including, of course, the succour of the

weak and the oppressed generally, inter alia [among                        

others], the female sex when in difficulties.  It would be 

idle, of course, to insist upon the historical definition of

the term.  Language develops and words in course

of time depart widely from their original connota-

tion, so that etymology alone is seldom of much

value in practically determining the definition of

words in their application at the present day.  But

the fact is none the less worthy of note that only

a fragment of the original connotation of the word

chivalry is covered by the term as used in our

time, and that even that fragment is torn from its

original connection and is made to serve as a scare-

crow in the field of public opinion to intimidate all

who refuse to act upon, or who protest against, the

privileges and immunities of the female sex.l

    I have said that even that subsidiary element

in the old original notion of chivalry which is now

¹ One among many apposite cases, which has occurred re-

cently, was protested against in a letter to The Daily Telegraph,

21st March 1913, in which it was pointed out that while a

suffragette got a few months' imprisonment in the second

division for wilfully setting fire to the pavilion in Kew                                                              

Gardens, a few days previously, at the Lewes Assizes, a man

had been sentenced to five years' penal servitude for burning

a rick !! [a pile of e.g. hay]                                                                                 101                    

well-nigh the only surviving remnant of its

original connotation is torn from its connection and

hence has necessarily become radically changed in

its meaning.  From being part of a general code

of manners enjoined upon a particular guild or

profession it has been degraded to mean the

exclusive right in one sex guaranteed by law and

custom to certain advantages and exemptions with-

out any corresponding responsibility.  Let us make

no mistake about this.  When the limelight of

a little plain but critical common-sense is turned

upon this notion of chivalry hitherto regarded as

so sacrosanct, it is seen to be but a poor thing

after all; and when men have acquired the habit

of habitually turning the light of such criticism

upon it, the accusation, so terrible in the present

state of public opinion, of being "unchivalrous"

will lose its terrors for them.  In the so-called ages

of chivalry themselves it never meant, as it does

to-day, the woman right or wrong.  It never meant

as it does to-day the general legal and social

privilege of sex.  It never meant a social defence

or a legal exoneration for the bad and even the

criminal woman, simply because she is a woman.

It meant none of these things.  All it meant was a

voluntary or gratuitous personal service to the for-

lorn women which the members of the Knights' guild

among other such services, many of them taking

precedence of this one, were supposed to perform.                                      102

    So far as courage is concerned, which was

perhaps the first of the chivalric virtues in the old

days, it certainly requires more courage in our

days to deal severely with a woman when she

deserves it (as a man would be dealt with in like

circumstances) than it does to back up a woman

against her wicked male opponent.

    It is a cheap thing, for example, in the case

of a man and woman quarrelling in the street, to

play out the stage rôle of the bold and gallant

Englishman "who won't see a woman maltreated

and put upon, not he!" and this, of course, without

any inquiry into the merits of the quarrel.  To

swim with the stream, to make a pretence of

boldness  and bravery, when all the time you

know you have the backing of conventional 

public opinion and mob-force behind you, is 

the cheapest of mock heroics.

    Chivalry to-day means the woman, right or

wrong, just as patriotism to-day means "my

country right or wrong."  In other words, chivalry

to-day is only another name for Sentimental

Feminism.  Every outrageous pretension Of Senti-

mental Feminism can be justified by the appeal

to chivalry, which amounts (to use the German

expression) to an appeal from Pontius to Pilate."

This Sentimental Feminism commonly called

chivalry is sometimes impudently dubbed by its

votaries, "manliness."  It will presumably continue                                         103

in its practical effects until a sufficient minority

of sensible men will have the moral courage to

beard [oppose] a Feminist public opinion and 

shed a little of this sort of "manliness."  The plucky 

Welshmen at Llandystwmdwy in their dealings with 

the suffragette rowdies on memorable occasion

showed themselves capable of doing this.  In fact

one good effect generally of militant suffragetteism

seems to be the weakening of the notion of

chivalry--i.e. in its modern sense of Sentimental

Feminism--amongst the populace of this country.

    The combination of Sentimental Feminism with

its invocation of the old-world sentiment of chivalry

which was based essentially on the assumption of

the mental, moral and physical inferiority of woman

to man, for its justification, with the pretensions

of modern Political Feminism, is simply grotesque

in its inconsistent absurdity.  In this way Modern

Feminism would fain achieve the feat of eating                                        

its cake and having it too.  When political and

economic rights are in question, bien entendu, such

as involve gain and social standing, the assump-

tion of inferiority magically disappears before the

strident assertion of the dogma of the equality of

woman with man--her mental and moral equality

certainly!  When, however, the question is of a

different character--for example, for the relieving

of some vile female criminal of the penalty of her

misdeeds-then Sentimental Feminism comes into                                         104                              

play, then the whole plaidoyer [plea] is based on the                            

chivalric sentiment of deference and consideration

for poor, weak woman.  I may point out that here,

if it be in the least degree logical, the plea for

mercy or immunity can hardly be based on any

other consideration than that of an intrinsic moral

weakness in view of which the offence is to be

condoned.  The plea of physical weakness, if such

be entertained, is here in most cases purely

irrelevant.  Thus, as regards the commutation of

the death sentence, the question of the muscular

strength or weakness of the condemned person

does not come in at all.  The same applies, mutatis                            

mutandis [with the necessary changes], to many 

other forms of criminal punishment.  But it must not 

be forgotten that there are two aspects of physical 

strength or weakness.  There is, as we have already 

pointed out, the muscular aspect and the constitutional 

aspect.  If we concede the female sex as essentially 

and inherently weaker in muscular power and develop-

ment than the male, this by no means involves the

assumption that woman is constitutionally weaker

than man.  On the contrary, it is a known fact

attested, as far as I am aware, by all physiologists,

no less than by common observation, that the

constitutional toughness and power of endurance

of woman in general far exceeds that of man,

as explained in an earlier chapter.  This resilient 

power of the system, its capacity for enduring                                               105

strain, it may here be remarked in passing, is by

no means necessarily a characteristic of a specially

high stage of organic evolution.  We find it in-

deed in many orders of invertebrate animals in

striking forms.  Be this as it may, however, the

existence of this greater constitutional strength or

resistant power in the female than in the male

organic system--as crucially instanced by the

markedly greater death-rate of boys than of girls

in infancy and early childhood--should, in respect

of severity of punishment, prison treatment, etc.,

be a strong counter-argument against the plea

for leniency, or immunity in the case of female

criminals, made by the advocates of Sentimental

Feminism.

    But these considerations afford only one more

illustration of the utter irrationality of the whole

movement of Sentimental Feminism identified with

the notion of "chivalry."  For the rest, we may

find illustrations of this galore.  A very flagrant

case is that infamous "rule of the sea" which

came so much into prominence at the time of the

Titanic disaster.  Recording to this preposterous

"chivalric" Feminism, in the case of a ship

foundering, it is the unwritten law of the seas,

not that the passengers shall leave the ship and

be rescued in their order as they come, but that

the whole female portion shall have the right

of being rescued before any man is allowed to                                              106

leave the ship.  Now this abominable piece of sex

favouritism, on the face of it, cries aloud in its

irrational injustice.  Here is no question of bodily

strength or weakness, either muscular or constitu-

tional.  In this respect, for the nonce, all are on a

level.  But it is a case of life itself.  A number of

poor wretches are doomed to a watery grave,

simply and solely because they have not had the

luck to be born of the privileged female sex.

    Such is "chivalry" as understood to-day--the

deprivation, the robbery from men of the most

elementary personal rights in order to endow

women with privileges at the expense of men.

During the ages of chivalry and for long after it

was not so.  Law and custom then was the same for

men as for women in its incidence.  To quote the

familiar proverb in a slightly altered form, then--

"what was sauce for the gander was sauce for the

goose."  Not until the nineteenth century did this

state of things change.  Then for the first time the

law began to respect persons and to distinguish in

favour of sex.

    Even taking the matter on the conventional

ground of weakness and granting, for the sake of

argument, the relative muscular weakness of the

female as ground for her being allowed the im-

munity claimed by Modern Feminists of the senti-

mental school, the distinction is altogether lost

sight of between weakness as such and aggressive                                      107

weakness.  Now I submit there is a very con-

siderable difference between what is due to

weakness that is harmless and unprovocative, and

weakness that is aggressive , still more when this

aggressive weakness presumes on itself as weak-

ness, and on the consideration extended to it, in

order to become tyrannical and oppressive.  Weak-

ness as such assuredly deserves all consideration,

but aggressive weakness deserves none save to

be crushed beneath the iron heel of strength.

Woman at the present day has been encouraged

by a Feminist public opinion to become meanly

aggressive under the protection of her weakness.

She has been encouraged to forge her gift of

weakness into a weapon of tyranny against man,

unwitting that in so doing she has deprived her

weakness of all just claim to consideration or even

to toleration.                                                                                                108

                        CHAPTER VI

SOME FEMINIST LIES AND FALLACIES

BY Feminist lies I understand false statements put

forward by persons, many of whom should be

perfectly well aware that they are false, apparently

with the deliberate intention of misleading public

opinion as to the real position of woman before

the law.  By fallacies I understand statements

doubtless dictated by Feminist prepossessions or

Feminist bias, but not necessarily suggesting con-

scious or deliberate mala fides [bad faith].                                

    Of the first order, the statements are made

apparently with intentional dishonesty in so far

as many of the persons making them are concerned,

since we may reasonably suppose them to have

intelligence and knowledge enough to be aware

that they are contrary to fact.  The talk about the

wife being a chattel, for example, is so palpably

absurd in the face of the existing law that it is

nowadays scarcely worth making (although we do

hear it occasionally even now).  But it was not even

true under the old common law of England, which,

for certain disabilities on the one hand, conceded                                          109

to the wife certain corresponding privileges on the

other.  The law of husband and wife, as modified

by statute in the course of the nineteenth century,

as I have often enough had occasion to point

out, is a monument of legalised tyranny over the

husband in the interests of the wife.

    If in the face of the facts the word chattel, as

applied to the wife, has become a little too pre-

posterous even for Feminist controversial methods,

there is another falsehood scarcely less brazen that

we hear from Feminist fanatics every day.  The

wife, we are told, is the only unpaid servant!  A

more blatant lie could scarcely be imagined.  As

every educated person possessing the  slightest

acquaintance with the laws of England knows, the

law requires the husband to maintain his wife in a

manner according with his own social position;

has, in other words, to feed, clothe and afford

her all reasonable luxuries, which the law, with

a view to the economic standing of the husband,

regards as necessaries.  This although the husband

has no claim on the wife's property or income,

however wealthy she may be.  Furthermore, it

need scarcely be said, a servant who is inefficient,

lazy, or otherwise intolerable, can be dismissed or

her wage can be lowered.  Not so that privileged

person, the legally wedded wife.  It matters not

whether she perform her duties well, badly, in-

differently, or not at all, the husband's legal                                                   110

obligations remain just the same.  It will be seen,

therefore, that the wife in any case receives from

the husband economic advantages compared with

which the wages of the most highly paid servant

in existence are a mere pauper's pittance.  This talk

we hear ad nauseum, from the Feminist side, of the

wife being an "unpaid servant," is typical of the

whole Feminist agitation.  We find the same de-

liberate and unscrupulous dishonesty characterising

it throughout.  Facts are not merely perverted or

exaggerated, they are simply turned upside down.

    Another statement commonly made is that

women's lower wages as compared with men's is

the result of not possessing the parliamentary

franchise.  Now this statement, though not perhaps

bearing on its face the wilful deception charac-

terising the one just mentioned, is not any the less

a perversion of economic fact, and we can hardly

regard it otherwise than as intentional.  It is quite

clear that up to date the wages of men have not

been raised by legislation, and yet sections of the

working classes have possessed the franchise at

least since 1867.  What legislation has done for

the men has been simply to remove obstacles in the

way of industrial organisation on the part of the

workman in freeing the trade unions from dis-

abilities, and even this was begun, owing to working-

class pressure from outside, long before--as long

ago as the twenties of the last century under the                                           111                              

auspices of Joseph Hume and Francis Place.  Now

women's unions enjoy precisely the same freedom

as men's unions, and nothing stands in the way

of working women organising and agitating for

higher wages.  Those who talk of the franchise as

being necessary for working women in order to

obtain equal industrial and economic advantages

with working men must realise perfectly well that

they are performing the oratorical operation collo-

quially known as "talking through their hat."  The

reasons why the wages of women workers are

lower than those of men, whatever else may be their

grounds, and these are, I think, pretty obvious,

clearly are not traceable to anything which the

concession of the franchise would remove.  If it be

suggested that a law could be enacted compulsorily

enforcing equal rates of payment for women as for

men, what the result would be the merest tyro [novice] 

in such matters can foresee--to wit, that it would

mean the wholesale displacement of female by male

labour over large branches of industry, and this,

we imagine, is not precisely what the advocates of

female suffrage are desirous of effecting.

    Male labour, owing to its greater efficiency and

other causes, being generally preferred by employers 

to female labour, it is not likely that, even for the sake 

of female beaux yeux [beautiful eyes], they are going                         

to accept female labour in the place of male, on an

equal wage basis.  All this, of course, is quite apart                                       112

from the question referred to on a previous page,

as to the economic responsibilities in the interests

of women, which our Feminist law-makers have

saddled on the man--namely, the responsibility

of the husband, and the husband alone, for the

maintenance of his wife and family, obligations

from anything corresponding to which the female

sex is wholly free.

    In a leaflet issued by the "Men's Federation for

Women's Suffrage" it is affirmed that many laws

are on the statute book which inflict injustice on

Women."  We challenge this statement as an un-

mitigated falsehood.  Its makers ought to know

perfectly well that they cannot justify it.  There are

no laws on the statute book inflicting injustice on

women as a Sex, but there are many laws inflicting

injustice on men in the supposed interests of

women.  The worn-out tag which has so long done

duty with Feminists in this connection--viz. the

rule of the Divorce Court, that in order to procure

divorce a wife has to prove cruelty as well as

adultery on the part of a husband, whereas a

husband has to prove adultery alone on the part

of a wife--has already been dealt with and its

rottenness as a specimen of a grievance sufficiently

exposed in this work and elsewhere by the present

writer.  Is what the authors of the leaflet may

possibly have in their mind (if they have anything

at all) when they talk about statutes inflicting in-                                            113

justice on women, that the law does not carry sex

vindictiveness against men far enough to please

them!  With all its flogging, penal servitude, hard

labour and the rest, for offences against women,

some of them of a comparatively trivial kind, does

the law as regards severity on men not even yet

satisfy the ferocious Feminist souls of the members

Of the "Men's Federation for Women's Suffrage"?

This is the only explanation of the statement in

question other than that it is sheer bald bluff

designed to mislead those ignorant of the law.

    Another flagrant falsehood perpetually being

dinned into our ears by the suffragists is the statement 

that women have to obey the same laws as men.

The conclusion drawn from this false statement is,

of course, that since they have to obey these laws

equally with men, they have an equal claim with

men to take part in the making or the modifying

of them.  Now without pausing to consider the

fallacy underlying the conclusion, we would point

out that it is sufficient for our present purpose to

call attention to the falsity of the initial assumption

itself.  It needs only one who follows current

events and reads his newspaper with impartial

mind to see that to allege that women have to, in

the true sense of the words ( i.e. are compelled

to), obey the same laws as men is a glaringly

mendacious statement.  It unnecessary in this

place to go over once more the mass of`evidence                                         114

comprised in previous writings of my own-- e.g.

in the pamphlet, "The Legal Subjection of Man"

(Twentieth Century Press), in the article, "A

Creature of Privilege" ( Fortnightly Review, Nov-

ember 1911), and elsewhere in the present volume,

illustrating the unquestionable fact that though in

theory women may have to obey the law as men

have, yet in practice they are absolved from all

the more serious consequences men have to suffer

when they disobey it.  The treatment recently

accorded to the suffragettes for crimes such as

wilful damage and arson, not to speak of their

previous prison treatment when convicted for

obstruction, disturbance and minor police misde-

meanours, is a proof, writ large, of the mendacity                                    

of the statement that women no less than men

have to obey the laws of the country, so far, that

is, as any real meaning is attached to this phrase.

    Another suffragist lie which is invariably allowed

to pass muster by default, save for an occasional

protest by the present writer, is the assumption

that the English law draws a distinction as regards

prison treatment, etc., as between political and non-

political offenders.  Everyone with even the most

elementary legal knowledge is aware that no such

distinction has ever been recognised or suggested

by the English law--at least until the prison ordi-

nance made quite recently, expressly to please the

suffragettes, by Mr Winston Churchill when Home                                       115

Secretary.  However desirable many may consider

such a distinction to be, nothing is more indubitable

than the fact that it has never [been] previously obtained       

[recognized] in the letter or practice of the law 

of England.  And yet, without a word of contradiction 

from those who know better, arguments and protests

galore have been fabricated on the suffragist side,

based solely on this impudently false assumption.

    Misdemeanours and crimes at common law when

wilfully committed, have in all countries always

remained misdemeanours and crimes, whatever

motive can be conveniently put forward to account

for them.  A political offence has always meant

the expression of opinions or the advocacy of

measures or acts (not of the nature of common law

crimes) which are in contravention of the existing

law--e.g. a "libel" on the constituted authorities

of the State, or the forcible disregard of a law or

police regulation in hindrance of the right of public

speech or meeting.  This is what is meant by

political offence in any country recognising such as

a special class of offence entitling those committing

it to special treatment.  This is so where the

matter refers to the internal legislation of the

country.  Where the question of extradition comes

in the definition of political offence is, of course,

wider.  Take the extreme case, that of the assassina-

tion of a ruler or functionary, especially in a

despotic State, where free Press and the free                                               116

expression of opinion generally do not exist.  This

is undoubtedly a political, not a common law offence, 

in so far as other countries are concerned, and

hence the perpetrator of such a deed has the right

to claim immunity, on this ground, from extra-

dition.  The position assumable is, that under despotic

conditions the progressive man is at war with the

despot and those exercising authority under him;

therefore, in killing the despot or the repositories

of despotic authority, he is striking directly at the

enemy.  It would, however, be absurd for the agent

in a deed of this sort to expect special political

treatment within the jurisdiction of the State itself

immediately concerned.  As a matter of fact he

never does so.  Fancy a Russian Nihilist, when

brought to trial, whining that he is a political

offender and hence to be exempted from all harsh

treatment!  No, the Nihilist has too much self-

respect to make himself ridiculous in this way.

Hardly even the maddest Terrorist Anarchist

would make such a claim.  For example, the French

law recognises the distinction between political and

common law offences.  But for all this the bande                                         

tragique [tragic band], Bonnet and his associates,                     

did not receive any benefit from the distinction or even 

claim to do so, though otherwise they were loud enough 

in proclaiming the political motives inspiring them.

Even as regards extradition, running amuck at large,

setting fire promiscuously to private buildings or                                            117

injuring the ordinary non-political citizen, as a

"protest," would not legally come into the category

of political offences and hence protect their authors

from being surrendered as ordinary criminals.

    The real fact, of course, is that all this talk on

the part of suffragettes and their backers about

"political" offences and "political" prison treat-

ment is only a mean and underhand way of trying

to secure special sex privileges under false pre-

tences.  Those who talk the loudest in the strain

in question know this perfectly well.

    These falsehoods are dangerous, in spite of

what one would think ought to be their obvious

character as such, by reason of the psychological

fact that you only require to repeat a lie often

enough, provided you are uncontradicted, in order

for the aforesaid lie to be received as established

truth by the mass of mankind ("mostly fools," as

Carlyle had it).

    It is a preposterous claim, I contend, that any

misdemeanour and a fortiori [for stronger reason]                         

any felony has, law apart, and even from a merely 

ethical point of view, any claim to special consideration 

and leniency on the bare declaration of the felon or 

misdemeanant that it had been dictated by political 

motive.  In no country, at any time, has the mere 

assertion of political motive been held to bring an 

ordinary crime within the sphere of treatment of political

offences.  According to the legal and ethical logic                                         118

of the suffragettes, it is perfectly open for them

to set on fire theatres, churches and houses, and

even to shoot down the harmless passer-by in

the street, and claim the treatment of first-class

misdemeanants on the ground that the act was

done as a protest against some political grievance

under which they imagined themselves to be labour-

ing.  The absurdity of the suggestion is evident on

its mere statement.  And yet the above preposterous

assumption has been suffered equally with the

one last noted to pass virtually without protest,

and what is more serious, it has been acted upon by

the authorities as though it were indubitably sound

law as well as sound ethics!  It may be pointed out

that what has cost many an Irish Fenian in the old

days, and many a Terrorist Anarchist at a later date,

a sentence of penal servitude for life, can be indulged

in by modern suffragettes at the expense of a few

weeks' imprisonment in the first or second division [for

milder offences].  Of course, this whole talk of "political 

offences," when they are, on the face of them, mere 

common crimes, is purely and simply a trick designed 

to shield the cowardly and contemptible female

creatures who perpetrate these senseless and

dastardly outrages from the punishment they

deserve and would receive if they had not the

good fortune to be of the privileged sex.  In the

case of men this impudent nonsense would, of

course, never have been put forward, and, if it had,                                      119

would have been summarily laughed out of court.

That it should be necessary to point out these

things in so many words is a striking illustration

of the moral and intellectual atrophy produced

by Feminism in the public mind.

    There is another falsehood we often hear by

way of condoning the infamous outrages of the

suffragettes.  The excuse is often offered when

the illogical pointlessness of the "militant" methods

of the modern suffragette are in question: "Oh!

men have also done the same things: men have

used violence to attain political ends!"  Now the

fallacy involved in this retort is plain enough.

    It may be perfectly true that men have used

violence to attain their ends on occasion.  But to

assert this fact in the connection in question is

purely irrelevant.  There is violence and violence.

It is absolutely false to say that men have ever

adopted purposeless and inane violence as a policy.

The violence of men has always had an intelligible

relation to the ends they had in view, either

proximate or ultimate.  They pulled down Hyde

Park railings in 1866.  Good!  But why was this?

Because they wanted to hold a meeting, and found

the park closed against them, the destruction of

the railings being the only means of gaining access

to the park.  Again, the Reform Bill riots of 1831

were at least all directed against Government

property and governmental persons--that is, the                                           120

enemy with whom they were at war.  In most

cases, as at Bristol and Nottingham, there was

(as in that of the Hyde Park railings) a very

definite and immediate object in the violence and

destruction committed -- namely, the release of

persons imprisoned for the part they had taken

in the Reform movement, by the destruction of

the gaols where they were confined.  What con-

ceivable analogy have these things with a policy

of destroying private property, setting fire to tea

pavilions, burning boat-builders' stock-in-trade,

destroying private houses, poisoning pet dogs,

upsetting jockeys, defacing people's correspond-

ence, including the postal orders of the poor,

mutilating books in a college library, pictures in a

public gallery, etc., etc.?  And all these, bien entendu,

not openly and in course of a riot, but furtively,

in the pursuit of a deliberately premeditated policy!

Have, I ask, men ever, in the course of the world's

history, committed mean, futile and dastardly

crimes such as these in pursuit of any political

or public end?  There can be but one answer

to this question.  Every reader must know that

there is no analogy whatever between suffragettes'

"militancy" and the violence and crimes of which

men may have been guilty.  Even the Terrorist

Anarchist, however wrong-headed he may be, and

however much his deeds may be deemed morally

reprehensible, is at least logical in his actions,                                                121

in so far as the latter have always had some definite

bearing on his political ends and were not mere

senseless "running amuck."  The utterly discon-

nected, meaningless and wanton character signal-

ising the policy of the "militant" suffragettes

would of itself suffice to furnish a conclusive

argument for the incapacity of the female intellect

to think logically or politically, and hence against

the concession to women of public powers, political,

judicial or otherwise.

    Another fallacy analogous to the preceding,

inasmuch as it seeks to counterbalance female

defects and weaknesses by the false allegation of

corresponding deficiencies in men, is the Feminist

retort sometimes heard when the question of

hysteria in women is raised:  "Oh! men can also

suffer from hysteria!"  This has been already dealt

with in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of com-

pleting the list of prominent Feminist fallacies I

restate it concisely here.  Now as we have seen it

is exceedingly doubtful whether this statement is

true in any sense whatever.  There are eminent

authorities who would deny that men ever have

true hysteria.  There are others, of course, again,

who would extend the term hysteria so as to 

include every form of neurasthenic [nervous] disturb-                                  

ance.  The question is largely, with many persons

who discuss the subject, one of terminology.  It

suffices here to cut short quibbling on this score.                                           122

For the nonce [moment], let us drop the word                                         

hysteria and formulate the matter as follows:--

Women are frequently subject to a pathological 

mental condition, differing in different cases but 

offering certain well-marked features in common, 

a condition which seldom, if ever, occurs in men.  

This I take to be an incontrovertible proposition 

based upon experience which will be admitted by 

every impartial person.

    Now the existence of the so-called hysterical

man I have hitherto found to be attested on

personal experience solely by certain Feminist

medical practitioners who allege that they have

met with him in their consulting-rooms.  His

existence is thus vouchsafed for just as the reality

of the sea-serpent is vouchsafed for by certain

sea captains or other ancient mariners.  Far be

it from me to impugn the ability, still less the

integrity, of these worthy persons.  But in either

case I may have my doubts as to the accuracy of

their observation or of their diagnosis.  It may be

that the sea-serpent exists and it may be that

hysteria is at times discoverable in male persons.

But while a conclusive proof of the discovery of

a single sea-serpent of the orthodox pattern would

go far to justify the yarn of the ancient mariner,

the proof of the occurrence, in an occasional case,

of hysteria in men, would not by far justify the

implied contention that hysteria is not essentially                                            123

a female malady.  If hysterical men are as common

a phenomenon as certain hard-pressed Feminists

would make out, what I want to know is: Where

are they?  While we come upon symptoms which

would be commonly attributed to hysteria in well-

nigh every second or third woman of whose life

we have any intimate knowledge, how often do

we find in men symptoms in any way resembling

these!  In my own experience I have come across

but two cases of men giving indications of a

temperament in any way analogous to that of the

"hysterical woman."  After all, the experience of

the average layman, and in this I contend my own

is more or less typical, is more important in the

case of a malady manifesting itself in symptoms

obvious to common observation, such as the one

we are considering, than that of the medical

practitioner, who by reason of his profession would 

be especially likely to see [such] cases, if there                            

were any at all, however few they might be.  The

possibility, moreover, at least suggests itself, that

the latter may often mistake for hysteria (using

the word in the sense commonly applied to the

symptoms presented by women) symptoms re-

sulting from general neurasthenia or even from

purely extraneous causes, such as alcohol, drugs,

etc.  That this is sometimes the case is hardly open

to question.  That the pathological mental symptoms

referred to as prevalent in the female, whether                                              124

we attribute them to hysteria or not, are rarely if

ever found in the male sex is an undoubted fact.

The rose, it is said, is as sweet by any other name,

and whether we term these affections symptoms

of hysteria, or describe them as hysteria itself, or

deny that they have anything to go with "true

hysteria," their existence and frequency in the

female sex remains nevertheless a fact.  No!

whether some of the symptoms of hysteria, "true"

or "so-called," are occasionally to be found in men

or not, every impartial person must admit: that they

are extremely rare, whereas as regards certain

pathological mental symptoms, common in women

and popularly identified (rightly or wrongly) with

hysteria, there is, I contend, little evidence

of their occurring in men at all.  Wriggle and

prevaricate as they may, it is impossible for

Suffragists and Feminists to successfully evade

the undoubted truth that the mentality of women

is characterised constitutionally by a general insta-

bility, manifesting itself in pathological symptoms

radically differing in nature and in frequency from

any that obtain in men.

    Very conspicuous among the fallacies that have

done yeoman [great and loyal] service in the Feminist 

Movement is the assumption that women are constitu-

tionally the "weaker sex."  This has also been discussed 

by us in Chapter II., but the latter may again be supple-

mented here by a few further remarks, so deeply                                          125

rooted is this fallacy in public opinion.  The reason of

the unquestioned acceptance of the assumption is

partly due to a confusion of two things under one

name.  The terms, "bodily strength" and "bodily

weakness" cover two distinct facts.  The attribution

of greater bodily weakness to the female sex than

to the male undoubtedly expresses a truth, but no

less does the attribution of greater bodily strength

to the female than to the male sex equally express

a truth.  In size, weight and muscular development,

average man has an unquestionable, and in most

cases enormous, advantage over average woman.

It is in this sense that the bodily structure of the

human female can with some show of justice be

described as frail.  On the other hand, as regards

tenacity of life, recuperative power and what we

may term toughness of constitution, woman is

without doubt considerably stronger than man.

Now this vigour of constitution may, of course, also

be described as bodily strength, and to this con-

fusion the assumption of the general frailty of the

female bodily organism as compared with the male

has acquired general currency in the popular mind.

    The most carefully controlled and reliable statistics

of the Registrar-General and other sources show

the enormously greater mortality of men than of

women at all ages and under all conditions of life.

Under the age of five the evidence shows that

120 boys die to every 100 girls.  In adult life the                                           126

Registrar-General shows that diseases of the chest

are the cause of nearly 40 per cent of more

deaths among men than among women.  That

violence and accident should be the occasion of

150 per cent more deaths amongst men than

women is accounted for, partly, at least, by the

greater exposure of men, although the enormous

disparity would lead one to suspect that here also

the inferior resisting power in the male constitution

plays a not inconsiderable part in the result.  The

report of the medical officer to the Local Govern-

ment Board proves that between the ages of fifty-

five and sixty-five there is a startling difference

in numbers between the deaths of men and those

of women.  The details for the year 1910 are as

follows:--

       Diseases                           Male                 Females

Nervous system                     1614                     1240

Heart                                        5762                     5336

Blood vessels                         3424                     3298

Respiratory system                3110                     2473

Digestive system                    1769                     1681

Kidneys, etc.                           2241                     1488

Acute infections                     2259                     1164

Violent deaths                          1624                       436

Various additional causes, connected with the more

active and anxious life of men, the greater strain

to which they are subjected, their greater exposure

alike to infection and to accident, may explain a                                            127

certain percentage of the excessive death-rate of

the male population as opposed to the female, yet

these explanations, even allowing the utmost

possible latitude to them, really only touch the

fringe of the difference, with the single exception

of deaths from violence and accident above alluded

to, where liability and exposure may account for

a somewhat larger percentage.  The great cause

of the discrepancy remains, without doubt, the

enormously greater potentiality of resistance, in

other words of constitutional strength, in the

female bodily organism as compared with the male.

    We must now deal at some length with a fallacy

of some importance, owing to the apparatus of

learning with which it has been set forth, to be

found in Mr Lester F. Ward's book, entitled

"Pure Sociology," notwithstanding that its falla-

cious nature is plain enough when analysed.  Mr

Ward terms his speculation the "Gynœcocentric                         

Theory," by which he understands apparently the

Feminist dogma of the supreme importance of the

female in the scheme of humanity and nature

generally.  His arguments are largely drawn from

general biology, especially that of inferior organ-

isms.  He traces the various processes of repro-

duction in the lower departments of organic nature,

subdivision, germination, budding, etc., up to

the earlier forms of bi-sexuality, culminating in

conjugation or true sexual union.  His standpoint                                           128

he thus states in the terms of biological origins:

"Although reproduction and sex are two distinct

things, and although a creature that reproduces

without sex cannot properly be called either male

or female, still so completely have these concep-

tions become blended in the popular mind that

a creature which actually brings forth offspring

out of its own body, is instinctively classed as

female.  The female is the fertile sex, and whatever

is fertile is looked upon as female.  Assuredly it

would be absurd to look upon an organism

propagating sexually as male.  Biologists have

proceeded from this popular standpoint and

regularly speak of 'mother cells,' and 'daughter

cells.'  It, therefore, does no violence to language

or to science to say that life begins with the

female organism and is carried on a long distance

by means of females alone.  In all the different

forms of a-sexual reproduction, from fission to

parthenogenesis, the female may in this sense

be said to exist alone and perform all the functions

of life, including reproduction.  In a word, life

begins as female."

    In the above remarks it will be seen that Mr

Ward, so to say, jumps the claim of a-sexual

organisms to be considered as female.  This, in

itself a somewhat questionable proceeding, serves

him as a starting-point for his theory.  The a-sexual

female (?), he observes, is not only primarily the                                           129

original sex, but continues throughout, the main                                       

trunk [body], though afterwards the male element                               

is added "for the purposes of fertilisation."  "Among

millions of humble creatures," says Mr Ward,

"the male is simply and  solely a fertiliser."  The

writer goes on in his efforts to belittle the male

sex in the sphere of biology. "The gigantic female

spider and the tiny male fertiliser, the Mantis

insect with its similarly large and ferocious female,

bees, and mosquitoes," all are pressed into the

service.  Even the vegetable kingdom, in so far as

it shows signs of sex differentiation, is brought

into the lists in favour of his theory of female

supremacy, or "gynæcocentricism," as he terms it.

    This theory may be briefly stated as follows:--

In the earliest organisms displaying sex differentia-

tion, it is the female which represents the organism

proper, the rudimentary male existing solely for

the purpose of the fertilisation of the female.  This

applies to most of the lower forms of life in which

the differentiation of sex obtains, and in many

insects, the Mantis being one of the cases specially

insisted upon by our author.  The process of the

development of the male sex is by means of the

sexual selection of the female.  From being a mere

fertilising agent, gradually, as evolution proceeds,

it assumes the form and characteristics of an

independent organism like the original female

trunk organism.  But the latter continues to main-                                          130

tain its supremacy in the life of the species, by

means chiefly of sexual selection, until the human

period, i.e. more or less(!), for Mr Ward is

bound to admit signs of male superiority in the

higher vertebrates--viz. birds and mammals.  This

superiority manifests itself in size, strength,

ornamentation, alertness, etc.  But it is with man,

with the advent of the reasoning faculty, and, as a

consequence, of human supremacy, that it becomes

first unmistakably manifest.  This superiority, Mr

Ward contends, has been developed under the ægis

of the sexual selection of the female, and enabled

cruel and wicked man to subject and enslave down-

trodden and oppressed woman, who has thus been

crushed by a Frankenstein of her own creation.

Although in various earlier phases of human organ-

isation woman still maintains her social supremacy,

this state of affairs soon changes.  Androcracy estab-

lishes itself, and woman is reduced to the role of

breeding the race and of being the servant of man.

Thus she has remained throughout the periods

of the higher barbarism and of civilisation.  Our

author regards the lowest point of what he terms

the degradation of woman to have been reached

in the past, and the last two centuries as having

witnessed a movement in the opposite direction--

namely, towards the emancipation of woman and

equality between the sexes.  ( Cf. "Pure Soci-

ology," chap. xiv., and especially pp. 290-377.)                                           131

    The above is a brief, but, I think, not unfair

skeleton statement of the theory which Mr Lester

Ward has elaborated in the work above referred

to, in great detail and with immense wealth of

illustration.  But now I ask, granting the correct-

ness of Mr Ward's biological premises and the

accuracy of his exposition, and I am not specialist

enough to be capable of criticising these in detail:

What does it all amount to?  The "business end"

(as the Americans would say) of the whole theory,

it is quite evident, is to afford a plausible and

scientific basis for the Modern Feminist Movement,

and thus to further its practical pretensions.  What

Mr Ward terms the androcentric theory, at least

as regards man and the higher vertebrates, which

is on the face of it supported by the facts of

human experience and has been accepted well-

nigh unanimously up to quite recent times, is,

according to him, all wrong.  The male element in

the universe of living things is not the element

of primary importance, and the female element

the secondary, but the converse is the case.  For this

contention Mr Ward, as already pointed out, has,

by dint of his biological learning, succeeded at least 

in making out a case in so far as lower forms of

life are concerned.  He has, however, to admit--a 

fatal admission surely--that evolution has tended pro-

gressively to break down the superiority of the

female (by means, as he contends, of her own                                              132

sexual selection) and to transfer sex supremacy

to the male, according to Mr Ward, hitherto a

secondary being, and that this tendency becomes

very obvious in most species of birds and mammals.

With the rise of man, however, out of the pithecan-

thropos, the homosynosis, or by whatever other

designation we may call the intermediate organism

between the purely animal and the purely human,

and the consequent supersession of instinct as the

dominant form of intelligence by reason, the

question of superiority, as Mr Ward candidly

admits, is no longer doubtful, and upon the

unquestionable superiority of the male, in due

course of time, follows the unquestioned supremacy.

It is clear then that, granting the biological

premises of our author that the lowest sexual

organisms are virtually female and that in the her-

maphrodites the female element predominates; that

in the earliest forms of bi-sexuality the fertilising or

male element was merely an offshoot of the female

trunk and that this offshoot develops, mainly by

means of sexual selection on the part of the female,

into an organism similar to the latter; that not

until we reach the higher vertebrates, the birds

and the mammals, do we find any traces of male

superiority; and that this superiority only becomes

definite and obvious, leading to male domination, in

the human species--granting all this, I say, what

argument can be founded upon it in support of the                                        133

equal value physically, intellectually and morally

of the female sex in human society, or the desir-

ability of its possessing equal political power with

men in such society?  On the contrary, Mr Ward's

whole exposition, with his biological facts of

illustration, would seem to point rather in the

opposite direction.  We seem surely to have here,

if  Mr Ward's premises be accepted as to the

primitive insignificance of the male element--at

first overshadowed and dominated by the female

stem, but gradually evolving in importance, char-

acter and fruition, till we arrive at man the highest

product of evolution up to date--a powerful

argument for anti-Feminism.  On Mr Ward's own

showing, we find that incontestible superiority,

both in size and power of body and brain, has

manifested itself in Androcracy, when the female

is relegated, in the natural course of things, to the

function of child-bearing.  This, it can hardly be

denied, is simply one more instance of the general

process of evolution, whereby the higher being is

evolved from the lower, at first weak and depend-

ent upon its parent, the latter remaining dominant

until the new being reaches maturity, when in its

turn it becomes supreme, while that out of which

it developed, and of which it was first the mere

offshoot, falls into the background and becomes in

its turn subordinate to its own product.

    Let us turn now to another scientific fallacy, the                                        134

result of a good man struggling with adversity--

i.e. a sound and honest scientific investigator, but

one who, at the same time, is either himself obsessed

with the principles of Feminism as with a religious

dogma, or else is nervously afraid of offending

others who are.  His attitude reminds one of nothing 

so much as that of the orthodox geologist of the first 

half of the nineteenth century, who wrote in mortal 

fear of incurring the odium theologicum [hatred of 

theologians] by his exposition of the facts of geology,

and who was therefore nervously anxious to per-

suade his readers that the facts in question did not

clash with the Mosaic cosmogony as given in the

Book of Genesis.  With Mr Havelock Ellis in his

work, "Man and Woman," it is not the dogma of

Biblical infallibility that he is concerned to defend,

but a more modern dogma, that of female equality,

so dear to the heart of the Modern Feminist.  Mr

Ellis's efforts to evade the consequences of the

scientific truths he honestly proclaims are almost

pathetic.  One cannot help noticing, after his ex-

position of some fact that goes dead against the

sex-equality theory as contended for by Feminists,

the eagerness with which he hastens to add some

qualifying statement tending to show that after all

it is not so incompatible with the Feminist dogma

as it might appear at first sight.

    The pièce de résistance, however, of Mr Havelock

Ellis is contained in his "conclusion."  The author                                           135

has for his problem to get over the obvious in-

compatibility of the truth he has himself abundantly

demonstrated in the course of his book, that the

woman-type, in every respect, physiological and

psychological, approaches the child-type, while the

man-type, in its proper progress towards maturity,

increasingly diverges from it.  The obvious implica-

tion of this fact is surely plain, on the principle of

the development of the individual being a shorthand

reproduction of the evolution of the species, or,

to express it in scientific phraseology, of ontogeny

being the abbreviated recapitulation of the stages                                  

presented by philogeny .  If we proceed on this well-

accredited and otherwise universally accepted

principle of biology, the inference is clear enough

--to wit, that woman is, as Herbert Spencer and

others have pointed out, simply "undeveloped

man"--in other words, that Woman represents a

lower stage of evolution than Man.  Now this

would obviously not at all suit the book of Mr

Ellis's Feminism.  Explained away it has to be in

some fashion or other.  So our author is driven

to the daring expedient of throwing overboard one

of the best established generalisations of modern

biology, and boldly declaring that the principle

contained therein is reversed (we suppose "for

this occasion only") in the case of Man.  In this

way he is enabled to postulate a theory consoling

to the Feminist soul, which affirms that adult man                                          136

is nearer in point of development to his pre-human

ancestor than either the child or the woman!  The

physiological and psychological analogies observable

between the child and the savage, and even, especi-

ally in early childhood, between the child and the

lower mammalian types--analogies which, notably

in the life of instinct and passion, are traceable

readily also in the human female--all these count

for nothing; they are not dreamt of in Mr Ellis's

Feminist philosophy.  The Modern Feminist dogma

requires that woman should be recognised as equal

in every respect (except in muscular strength) with

man, and if possible, as rather superior to him.  If

Nature has not worked on Feminist lines, as common

observation and scientific research alike testify on

the face of things, naughty Nature must be

"corrected," in theory, at least, by the ingenuity of

Feminist savants of the degraded male persuasion.

To this end we must square our scientific hypo-

theses!

    The startling theory of Mr Havelock Ellis,

which must seem, one would think, to all impartial

persons, so out of accord with all the acknow-

ledged laws and facts of biological science, appears

to the present writer, it must be confessed, the very 

reductio ad absurdum [falsity of premise shown 

by absurdity of conclusion] of Feminist controversial                             

perversity.

    I will conclude this chapter on Feminist Lies and

Fallacies with a fallacy of false analogy or false                                             137

illustration, according as we may choose to term

it.  This quasi-argument was recently put forward

in a defence speech by one of the prisoners in a

suffragette trial and was subsequently repeated by

George Bernard Shaw in a letter to The Times.

Put briefly, the point attempted to be made is as

follows:--Apostrophising men, it is said: "How                                                

would you like it if the historical relations of the

sexes were reversed, if the making and the

administrating of the laws and the whole power of

the State were in the hands of women?  Would not

you revolt in such a condition of affairs?"  Now to

this quasi-argument the reply is sufficiently clear.

The moral intended to be conveyed in the

hypothetical question put, is that women have just

as much right to object to men's domination, as men

would have to object to women's domination.  But

it is plain that the point of the whole question resides 

in a petitio principie[unproven assertion] --to                                     

wit, in the assumption that those challenged admit 

equal intellectual capacity and equal moral stability 

as between the average woman and the average man.  

Failing this assumption the challenge becomes 

senseless and futile.  If we ignore mental and moral 

differences it is only a question of degree as to when 

we are landed in obvious absurdity.  In  "Gulliver's

Travels" we have a picture of society in which

horses ruled the roost, and lorded it over human

beings.  In this satire Swift in effect put the                                                    138

question: "How would you humans like to be

treated by horses as inferiors, just as horses are

treated by you to-day?"  I am, be it remembered,

not instituting any comparison between the two

cases, beyond pointing out that the argument as

an argument is intrinsically the same in both.                                                  139

                        CHAPTER VII

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MOVEMENT

WE have already spoken of two strains in Modern

Feminism which, although commonly found to-

gether, are nevertheless intrinsically distinguishable.

The first I have termed Sentimental Feminism and

the second Political Feminism.  Sentimental Feminism

is in the main an extension and emotional elabora-

tion of the old notion of chivalry, a notion which

in the period when it was supposed to have been

at its zenith, certainly played a very much smaller

part in human affairs than it does in its extended

and metamorphosed form in the present day.  We

have already analysed in a former chapter the

notion of chivalry.  Taken in its most general and

barest form it represents the consideration for

weakness which is very apt to degenerate into a 

worship of mere weakness.  La faiblesse prime le

droit[The weakness precedes the right] is not nec-

essarily nearer justice than la force prime le droit [the 

force precedes the right]; although to hear much of 

the talk in the present day one would imagine that the

inherent right of the weak to oppress the strong

were a first principle of eternal rectitude.  But the                                          140

theory of chivalry is scarcely invoked in the

present day save in the interests of one particular

form of weakness--viz. the woman as the

muscularly weaker sex, and here it has acquired

an utterly different character. l

    Chivalry, as understood by Modern Sentimental

Feminism, means unlimited licence for women in

their relations with men, and unlimited coercion

for men in their relations with women.  To men

all duties and no rights, to women all rights and

no duties, is the basic principle underlying Modern

Feminism, Suffragism, and the bastard chivalry

it is so fond of invoking.  The most insistent

female shrieker for equality between the sexes

among Political Feminists, it is interesting to ob-

serve, will, in most cases, on occasion be found

an equally insistent advocate of the claims of

Sentimental Feminism, based on modern meta-

morphosed notions of chivalry.  It never seems to

strike anyone that the muscular weakness of

woman has been forged by Modern Feminists into

¹ As regards this point it should be remarked that mediæval

chivalry tolerated (as Wharton expressed it in his "History

of Poetry ") "the grossest indecencies and obscenities between

the sexes," such things as modern puritanism would stigmatise

with such words as "unchivalrous," "unmanly" and the like.

The resemblance between the modern worship of women and the

relations of the mediæval knight to the female sex is very

thin indeed.  Modern claims to immunity for women from the

criminal law and mediæval chivalry are quite different things.                                   141                        

an abominable weapon of tyranny.  Under cover

of the notion of chivalry, as understood by Modern

Feminism, Political and Sentimental Feminists alike

would deprive men of the most elementary rights

of self-defence against women and would exonerate

the latter practically from all punishment for the

most dastardly crimes against men.  They know

they can rely upon the support of the sentimental

section of public opinion with some such parrot

cry of' "What!  Hit a woman!"

    Why not, if she molests you?

    "Treat a woman in this way!"  "Shame!"

responds automatically the crowd of Sentimental

Feminist idiots, oblivious of the fact that the real

shame lies in their endorsement of an iniquitous

sex privilege.  If the same crowd were prepared to

condemn any special form of punishment or mode

of treatment as inhumane for both sexes alike, there

would, of course, be nothing to be said.  But it is

not so.  The most savage cruelty and vindictive

animosity towards men leaves them comparatively

cold, at most evoking a mild remonstrance as against

the inflated manifestation of sentimental horror and

frothy indignation produced by any slight hardship

inflicted by way of punishment (let us say) on a

female offender.

    The psychology of Sentimental Feminism gener-

ally is intimately bound up with the curious

phenomenon of the hatred of men by their own                                             142

sex as such.  With women, in spite of what is

sometimes alleged, one does not find this pheno-

menon of anti-sex.  On the contrary, nowadays we

are in presence of a powerful female sex-solidarity

indicating the beginnings of a strong sex-league

of women against men.  But with men, as already

said, in all cases of conflict between the sexes, we

are met with a callous indifference, alternating with

positive hostility towards their fellow-men, which

seems at times to kill in them all sense of justice.

This is complemented on the other side by an

imbecile softness towards the female sex in general

which reminds one of nothing so much as of the

maudlin bonhomie [good-naturedness] of the                                         

amiable drunkard.  This besotted indulgence, as 

before noted, is proof even against the outraged 

sense of injury to property.

    As we all know, offences against property, as

a rule, are those the average bourgeois is least

inclined to condone, yet we have recently seen

a campaign of deliberate wanton destruction by

arson and other means, directed expressly against

private property, which nevertheless the respect-

able propertied bourgeois, the man of law and

order, has taken pretty much "lying down."  Let

us suppose another case.  Let us imagine an

anarchist agitation, with a known centre and

known leaders, a centre from which daily outrages

were deliberately planned by these leaders and                                             143

carried out by their emissaries, all, bien entendu,

of the male persuasion.

    Now what attitude does the reader suppose

"public opinion" of the propertied classes would

adopt towards the miscreants who were responsible

for these acts?  Can he not picture to himself the

furious indignation, the rabid diatribes, the ad-

vocacy of hanging, flogging, penal servitude for

life, as the minimum punishment, followed  by

panic legislation on these lines, which would ensue

as a consequence.  Yet of such threatenings and

slaughter, where suffragettes who imitate the

policy of the Terrorist Anarchist are concerned,

we hear not a sound.  The respectable propertied

bourgeois, the man of law and order, will, it is

true, probably condemn these outrages in an

academic way, but there is an undernote of

hesitancy which damps down the fire of his

indignation.  There is no vindictiveness, no note

of atrocity in his expostulations; nay, he is even

prepared, on occasion, to argue the question, while

maintaining the impropriety, the foolishness, the

"unwomanliness" of setting fire to empty houses,

cutting up golf links, destroying correspondence,

smashing windows and the like.  But of fiery in-

dignation, of lurid advocacy of barbaric punish-

ments, or of ferocity in general, we have not a

trace.  On the contrary, a certain willingness to

admit and even to emphasise the disinterestedness                                        144

of these female criminals is observable.  As regards

this last point, we must again insist on what was

pointed out on a previous page, that the disinter-

estedness and unselfishness of many a male bomb-

throwing anarchist who has come in for the

righteous bourgeois' sternest indignation, are, at

least, as unquestionable as those of the female

house-burners and window-smashers.  Moreover

the anarchist, however wrong-headed he may have

been in his action, as once before remarked, it must

not be forgotten, had at least for the goal of his

endeavours, not merely the acquirement of a vote,

but the revolution which he conceived would abolish

human misery and raise humanity to a higher level.

    In this strange phenomenon, therefore, in which

the indignation of the bourgeois at the wanton

and wilful violation of the sacredness of his idol,

is reduced to mild remonstrance and its punitive

action to a playful pretence, we have a crucial

instance of the extraordinary influence of Feminism

over the modern mind.  That the propertied classes

should take arson and wilful destruction of property

in general, with such comparative equanimity be-

cause the culprits are women, acting in the assumed

interest of a cause  that aims at increasing the

influence of women in the State, is the most

striking illustration we can have of the power of

Feminism.  We have here a double phenomenon,

the unreasoning hatred of man as a sex, by men,                                           145

and their equally unreasoning indulgence towards

the other sex.  As we indicated above, not only is

the sense of esprit de corps entirely absent among

modern men as regards their own sex, while

strongly present in modern women, but this

negative characteristic has become positive on the

other side.  Thus the modern sex problem presents

us with a reversal of the ordinary sociological law of

the solidarity of those possessing common interests.

    It remains to consider the psychological explana-

tion of this fact.  Why should men so conspicuously

prefer the interests of women before those of

their own sex?  That this is the case with

modern man the history of the legislation of

the last fifty years shows, and the undoubted

fact may be found further illustrated in the

newspaper reports of well-nigh every trial, whether

at civil or criminal law, quite apart from the

ordinary "chivalric" acts of men in the detail of

social life.  This question of sex, therefore, as

before said, forms the solitary exception to the

general law of the esprit de corps of those possessing

common characteristics and interests.  It cannot be

adequately explained by a reference to the evolu-

tion of sex functions and relations from primitive

man onwards, since it is at least in the extreme

form we see it to-day, a comparatively recent

social phenomenon.  The theory of the sacro-

sanctity of women by virtue of their sex, quite                                               146

apart from their character and conduct as indi-

viduals, scarcely dates back farther than a century,

even from its beginnings.  The earlier chivalry,

where it obtained at all, applied only to the

woman who presented what were conceived of

as the ideal moral feminine characteristics in some

appreciable degree.  The mere physical fact of sex

was never for a moment regarded as of itself

sufficient to entitle the woman to any special

homage, consideration, or immunity, over and

above the man.  No one suggested that the female

criminal was less guilty or more excusable than

the male criminal.  No one believed that a woman

had a vested right to rob or swindle a man because

she had had sexual relations with him.  This notion

of the mere fact of sex--of femality--as of itself

constituting a title to special privileges and im-

munities, apart from any other consideration, is a

product of very recent times.  In treating this

question, in so far as it bears on the criminal law,

it is important to distinguish carefully between  the

softening of the whole system of punishment due

to the general development of humanitarian ten-

dencies and the special discrimination made in fa-

vour of the female sex.  These two things are very

often inadequately distinguished from one another.

Punishment may have become more humane where

men are concerned, it may have advanced up to

a certain point in this direction, but its character                                            147

is not essentially changed.  As regards women,

however, the whole conception of criminal punish-

ment and penal discipline has altered.  Sex privilege

has been now definitely established as a principle.

    Now a complete investigation of the psychology

of this curious phenomenon we have been con-

sidering--namely, the hatred so common with men

for their fellow-men as a sex--is a task which has

never yet been properly taken in hand.  Its obverse

side is to be seen on all hands in the conferring

and confirming of sex prerogative on women.  Not

very long ago, as we have seen, one of its most

striking manifestations came strongly under public

notice--namely, the "rule of the sea," by which

women, by virtue of their sex, can claim to be saved

from a sinking ship before men.  The fact that the

laws and practices in which this man-hatred and

woman-preference find expression are contrary to

every elementary sense of justice, in many cases

conflict with public policy, and can obviously be

seen to be purely arbitrary, matters not.  The

majority of men feel no sense of  the injustice

although they may admit the fact of the injustice,

when categorically questioned.  They are prepared

when it comes to the point to let public policy go

by the board rather than entrench upon the sacred

privilege and immunity of the female; while as to

the arbitrary and unreasoning nature of the afore-

said laws and practices, not being troubled with a                                         148

logical conscience, this does not affect them.  I must

confess to being unequal to the task of accurately

fathoming the psychological condition of the average

man who hates man in general and loves woman in

general to the extent of going contrary to so many

apparently basal tendencies of human nature as we

know it otherwise.  The reply, of course, will be

an appeal to the power of the sexual instinct.  But

this, I must again repeat, will not explain the rise,

or, if not the rise, at least the marked expansion

of the sentiment in question during the last three

generations or thereabouts.  Even apart from this,

while I am well aware of the power of sexual love

to effect anything in the mind of man as regards its

individual object, I submit it is difficult to conceive

how it can influence so strongly men's attitude

towards women they have not seen, or, even where

they have seen them, when there is no question of

sexual attraction, or, again, as regards the collec-

tivity of women--the abstract category, Woman

(in general).

    We have already dealt with the Anti-man cam-

paign in the Press, especially in modern novels and

plays.  This, as we have remarked, often takes the

form of direct abuse of husbands and lovers and

the attempt to make them look ridiculous as a

foil to the brilliant qualities of wives and sweet-

hearts.  But we sometimes find the mere laudation

of woman herself, apart from any direct anti-                                                149

manism, assume the character of an intellectual

emetic [vomit inducer].  A much-admired                                                     

contemporary novelist, depicting a wedding 

ceremony in fashionable society circles, describes the 

feelings of his hero, a young man disgusted with the 

hollowness and vanity of "Society" and all its ways, 

as follows:--"The bride was opposite him now, and 

by an instinct of common chivalry he turned away 

his eyes; it seemed to him a shame to look at that

downcast head above the silver mystery of her

perfect raiment; the modest head full, doubtless,

of devotion and pure yearnings; the stately head

where no such thought as 'How am I looking

this day of all days, before all London?' had ever

entered: the proud head, where no such fear as,

'How am I carrying it off?' could surely be

besmirching.... He saw below the surface of

this drama played before his eyes; and set his face,

as a man might who found himself assisting at a

sacrifice."  Now, I ask, can it be believed that the

writer of the above flamboyant feminist fustian

is a novelist and playwright of established reputation

who undoubtedly has done good work.  The

obvious criticism must surely strike every reader

that it is somewhat strange that this divinely innocent 

creature he glorifies should arise straight out of a 

milieu [environment] which is shown up as the em-                            

bodiment of hollowness and conventional superficiality.

If men can lay the butter on thick in their laudation                                        150

of womanhood, female idolaters of their own sex

can fairly outbid them.  At the time of writing there 

has just come under my notice a dithyramb [wildly                     

enthusiastic piece] in the journal, The Clarion , by 

Miss Winnifred Blatchford, on the sacrosanct 

perfections of womanhood in general, especially as 

exemplified in the suicidal exploits of the late lamented 

Emily Wilding Davidson [1] of Epsom fame, and a 

diatribe on the purity, beauty and unapproachable 

glory of woman.  According to this lady, the glory of

womanhood seems to extend to every part of the

female organism, but, we are told, is especially

manifested in the hair (oozing into the roots

apparently).  Evidently there is something especially

sacred in woman's hair!  This prose ode to Woman,

as exemplified in Emily Davidson, culminates in the

invocation: "Will the day ever come when a

woman's life will be rated higher . . . than that of

a jockey?"  Poor jockey!  We will trust not, though

present appearances do indicate a strong tendency to

regard a woman as possessing the prerogatives of

the sacred cow of Indian or ancient Egyptian fame!

    It is impossible to read or hear any discussion

on, say, the marriage laws, without it being

apparent that the female side of the question

is the one element of the problem which is

considered worthy of attention.  The undoubted

iniquity of our existing marriage laws is always

spoken of as an injustice to the woman and the

^[1] Suffragette who attempted to stop the Derby

and was crushed by a horse.  Whether she intended

suicide is debated.                                                                                            151

changes in the direction of greater freedom which

are advocated as a relief to the wife bound to

a bad or otherwise unendurable husband.  That the

converse case may happen, that that reviled and

despised thing, a husband, may also have reason

to desire relief from a wife whose angelic qualities

and vast superiority to his own vile male self he

fails to appreciate, never seems to enter into the

calculation at all.

    That no satisfactory formulation of the psychology

of the movement of Feminism has yet been offered

is undoubtedly true.  For the moment, I take it, all

we can do is co-ordinate the fact as a case of what

we may term social hypnotism, of those waves

of feeling uninfluenced by reason which are a

phenomenon so common in history--witchcraft

manias, flagellant fanaticisms, religious "revivals,"

and similar social upheavals.  The belief that woman

is oppressed by man, and that the need for remedy-

ing that oppression at all costs is urgent, partly, at

least, doubtless belongs to this order of phenomena.

That this feeling is widespread and held in various

degrees of intensity by large numbers of persons,

men no less than women, is not to be denied.  That

it is of the nature of a hypnotic wave of sentiment,

uninfluenced by reason, is shown by the fact that

argument does not seem to touch it.  You may show

conclusively that facts are opposed to the assump-

tion; that, so far from women being oppressed, the                                       152

very contrary is the case; that the existing law

and its administration is in no essential respect

whatever unfavourable to women, but, on the

contrary, is, as a whole, grossly unfair to men--it is

all to no purpose.  Your remonstrances, in the main,

fall on deaf ears, or, shall we say, they fall off the

mind coated with Feminist sentiment as water falls

from the proverbial duck's back.  The facts are

ignored and the sentiment prevails; the same old

catchwords, the same lies and threadbare fallacies

are repeated.  The fact that they have been shown

to be false counts for nothing.  The hypnotic wave

of sentiment sweeps reason aside and compels men

to believe that woman is oppressed and man the

oppressor, and believe it they will.  If facts are

against the idée fixe of the hypnotic suggestion, so

much the worse for the facts.  Thus far the Feminist

dogma of the oppression of the female sex.

    As regards the obverse side of this Sentimental

Feminism which issues in ferocious sex-laws directed

against men for offences against women--laws enact-

ing barbarous tortures, such as the "cat," and which

are ordered with gusto in all their severity in our

criminal courts--this probably is largely traceable to

the influence of Sadic lusts.  An agitation such as that

which led to the passing of the White Slave Traffic

Act, so-called, of 1812, is started, an agitation engin-

eered largely by the inverted libidinousness of social

purity mongers, and on the crest of this agitation                                           153

the votaries of Sadic cruelty have their innings.

The foolish Sentimental Feminist at large, whose

indignation against wicked man is fanned to fury

by bogus tales and his judgment captured by repre-

sentations of the severities requisite to stamp out

the evil he is assured is so widespread, lends his

fatuous support to the measures proposed.  The

judicial Bench is, of course, delighted at the in-

crease of power given it over the prisoner in the

dock, and should any of the puisnes [1] happen to 

have Sadic proclivities they are as happy as 

horses in clover and the "cat" flourishes like a 

green bay tree.

    Let us now turn to the question of the psy-

chology of Political Feminism.  Political Feminism,

as regards its immediate demand of female suffrage,

is based directly on the modern conception of

democracy.  This is its avowed basis.  With modern

notions of universal suffrage it is declared that the

exclusion of women from the franchise is logically

incompatible.  If you include in the parliamentary

voting lists all sorts and conditions of men, it is

said, it is plainly a violation of the principle of

democracy to exclude more than one half of the

adult population from the polls.  As Mill used to

say in his advocacy of female suffrage, so long as

the franchise was restricted to a very small section

of the population, there may have been nothing

noteworthy in the exclusion of women.  But now

^[1] A pun is apparently meant as puisne can mean

both puny and unskilled as well as junior in rank as 

an associate judge.                                                                                            154

that the mass of men are entitled to the vote and

the avowed aim of democracy is to extend it to

all men, the refusal to extend it still further to

women is an anomaly and a manifest inconsistency.

But in this, Mill, and others who have used his

argument, omitted to consider one very vital point.

The extensions of the suffrage, such as have been

demanded and in part obtained by democracy up

to the present agitation, have always referred to

the removal of class barriers, wealth barriers, race

barriers, etc.--in a word, social barriers--but never

to the removal of barriers based on deep-lying

organic difference--i.e. barriers determining not

sociological but biological distinctions.  The case

of sex is unique in this connection, and this fact

vitiates any analogy between the extension of

suffrage to women and its extension to fresh social

strata such as democracy has hitherto had in view,

terminating in the manhood suffrage which is the

ultimate goal of all political democrats.  Now sex

constitutes an organic or biological difference, just

as a species constitutes another and (of course)

a stronger biological difference.  Hence I contend

the mere fact of this difference rules out the bare

appeal to the principle of democracy per se as an

argument in favour of the extension of the suffrage

to women.  There is, I submit, no parity between

the principle and practice of democracy as hitherto

understood, and the new extension proposed to be                                      155

given to the franchise by the inclusion of women

within its pale.  And yet there is no question but

that the apparent but delusive demand of logical

consistency in this question, has influenced and

still influences many an honest democrat  in his

attitude in this matter.

    But although the recognition of the difference

of sex as being an organic difference and therefore

radically other than social differences of caste,

class, wealth, or even race, undoubtedly invalidates

the appeal to the democrat on the ground of

consistency, to accept the principle of female

suffrage, yet it does not necessarily dispose of

the question.  It merely leaves the ground free for

the problem as to whether the organic distinction

implied in sex does or does not involve correspond-

ing intellectual and moral differences in the female

sex which it is proposed to enfranchise; and

furthermore whether such differences, if they

exist, involve general  inferiority, or at least an

unfitness ad hoc for the exercise of political

functions.  These questions we have, I think,

sufficiently discussed already in the present work.

The fact of the existence of exceptionally able

women in various departments, does undoubtedly

mislead many men in their judgment as to the

capacity of the average woman to "think politic-

ally," or otherwise to show herself the effective

equal of the average man, morally and intellectually.                                      156

The reasons for answering this question in the

negative we have already briefly indicated in the

course of our investigations.  This renders it un-

necessary to discuss the matter any further here.

    In dealing with the psychological aspects of the

Feminist Movement, the intellectual conditions

which paved the way for its acceptance, it is worth

while recalling two or three typical instances of

the class of "argument" to be heard on occasion

from the female advocates for the suffrage.  Thus,

when the census was taken in 1911 and the

Women's Political and Social Union conceived,

as they thought, the brilliant idea of annoying the

authorities and vitiating the results of the census

by refusing to allow themselves to be enrolled,

one of the leaders, when interviewed on the point,

gave her reason for her refusal to be included, in

the following  terms:--"I am not a citizen"

(meaning that she did not possess the franchise)

"and I am not going to pretend to be one."  The

silliness of this observation is, of course, obvious,

seeing that the franchise or even citizenship has

nothing whatever to do with the census, which

includes infants, besides criminals, lunatics, imbe-

ciles, etc.  Again, in a manifesto of the Women's

Political and Social Union defending window-

smashing and other "militant" outrages, it was

pointed out that the coal strike had caused more

injury than the window-smashing and yet the                                                157

strikers were not prosecuted as the window-

smashers were--in other words, the exercise of

the basal personal right of the free man to with-

hold his labour save under the conditions agreed

to by him, is paralleled with criminal outrage

against person and property!  Again, some three

or four years ago, when the Women's Suffrage

Bill had passed the Commons, on its being

announced by the Government that for the re-

mainder of the Session no further facilities could

be given for private members' Bills, save for those

of a non-contentious character, one of these sapient

females urged in the Press that, seeing that there

were persons to be found in both the orthodox

political camps who were in favour of female

suffrage, therefore the Bill in question must be

regarded as of a non-contentious character!  Once

more, a lady, writing a few months ago to one

of the weekly journals, remarked that though

deliberate window-breaking, destruction of letters,

and arson, might be illegal acts, yet that the

punishing of them by imprisonment with hard

labour, they being political offences, was also an

illegal act, with the conclusion that the "militants"

and the authorities, both alike having committed

illegal acts, were "quits [even]"!  These choice                                     

specimens of suffragettes' logic are given as throwing 

a significant light on the mental condition of women

in the suffragette movement, and indirectly on                                               158

female psychology generally.  One would pre-

sumably suppose that the women who put them

forward must have failed to see the exhibition

they were making of themselves.  That any human

being out of an asylum, could have sunk to the

depth of fatuous inconsequent idiocy they indicate

would seem scarcely credible.  Is the order of

imbecility which the above and many similar

utterances reflect, confined to suffragette intelli-

gence alone, or does it point to radical inferiority

of intellectual fibre, not in degree merely, but in

kind, in the mental constitution of the human

female generally!  Certainly it is hard to think

that any man, however low his intelligence, would

be capable of making a fool of himself precisely

in the way these women are continually doing

in their attempts to defend their cause and their

tactics.

    In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured

to trace some of the leading strands of thought

going to make up the Modern Feminist Movement.

Sentimental Feminism clearly has its roots in

sexual feeling, and in the tradition of chivalry,

albeit the notion of chivalry has essentially changed

in the course of its evolution.  For the rest, Senti-

mental Feminism, with its double character of

man-antipathy and woman-sympathy, as we see it

to-day, has assumed the character of one of those

psychopathic social phenomena which have so                                             159

often recurred in history.  It can only be explained,

like the latter, as an hypnotic wave passing over

society.

    As for Political Feminism, we have shown that

this largely has its root in a fallacious application

of the notion of democracy, partaking largely of

the logical fallacy known technically as a dicto

secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter [general-

izing from atypical cases].  This logical fallacy of 

Political Feminism is, of course, reinforced and 

urged forward by Sentimental Feminism.  As

coming under the head of the psychology of the

movement, we have also called attention to some

curious phenomena of logical imbecility, noticeable

in the utterances of educated women in the

suffragette agitation.                                                                                     160

                            CHAPTER VIII

                        THE INDICTMENT

FEMINISM, or, as it is sometimes called, the eman-

cipation of woman, as we know it in the present

day, may be justifiably indicted as a gigantic fraud

--a fraud in its general aim and a fraud alike in its

methods of controversy and in its practical tactics.

It is through and through disingenuous and 

dishonest.  Modern Feminism has always professed

to be a movement for political and social equality

between the sexes.  The claim for this equalising

of position and rights in modern society is logically

based upon the assumption of an essential equality

in natural ability between the sexes.  As to this,

we have indicated in the preceding pages on broad

lines, the grounds for  regarding the foregoing

assumption as false.  But quite apart from this

question, I contend the fraudulent nature of the

present movement can readily be seen by showing it

to be not merely based on false grounds, but directly

and consciously fraudulent in its pretensions.

    It uniformly professes to aim at the placing of

the sexes on a footing of social and political                                                  161

equality.  A very little inquiry into its concrete

demands suffices to show that its aim, so far

from being equality, is the very reverse--viz. to

bring about, with the aid of men themselves, as

embodied in the forces of the State, a female

ascendancy and a consolidation and extension of

already existing female privileges.  That this is so

may be seen in general by the constant conjunction

of Political and Sentimental Feminism in the same

persons.  It may be seen more particularly in

detail, in the specific demands of Feminists.  These

demands, as formulated by suffragists as a reason

why the vote is essential to the interests of

women, amount to little if anything else than

proposals for laws to enslave and browbeat men

and to admit women to virtual if not actual im-

munity for all offences committed against men.  It

its enough to consult any suggestions for a woman's

"charter" in order to confirm what is here said.

Such proposals invaribly suggest the sacrificing of

man at every turn to woman.l

¹ This is arrived at by the clever trick of appealing to the

modern theory of the equal mental capacity of the sexes when

it is a question of political and economic rights and advantages

for women, and of counterappealing to the traditional sentiment

based on the belief in the inferiority of the female sex, when

it is a question of legal and administrative privilege and

consideration.  The Feminist thus succeeds by his dexterity

in the usually difficult feat of "getting it both ways" for his

fair clients.                                                                                                     162

    In the early eighties of the last century appeared

a skit in the form of a novel from the pen of the

late Sir Walter Besant, entitled "The Revolt  of

Man," depicting the oppression of man under a

Feminist regime, an oppression which ended in

a revolt and the re-establishment of male supremacy.

The ideas underlying this jeu d'esprit [ light, humorous 

work] of the subjection of men would seem to be 

seriously entertained by the female leaders of the 

present woman's movement.  It is many years ago 

now since a minister holding one of the highest positions 

in the present Cabinet made the remark to me:--"The

real object, you know, for which these women want

the vote is simply to get rascally laws passed

against men!"  Subsequent Feminist agitation has

abundantly proved the truth of this observation.

An illustration of the practical results of the

modern woman's movement is to be seen in the

infamous White Slave Traffic Act of 1912 rushed

through Parliament as a piece of panic legislation

by dint of a campaign of sheer hard lying.  The

atrocity of this act has been sufficiently dealt with

in a previous chapter.1

¹ There is one fortunate thing as regards these savage laws

aimed at the suppression of certain crimes, and that is, as it

would seem, they are never effective in achieving their purpose.

As Mr Tighe Hopkins remarks, apropos of the torture of the

"cat" ("Wards of the State," p. 203):--"The attempt to

correct crime with crime has everywhere repaid us in the old

properly disastrous way."  It would indeed be regrettable if it                                  163                        

could be shown that penal laws of this kind were successful.

Far better is it that the crimes of isolated individuals should

continue than that crimes such as the cold-blooded infliction

of torture and death committed at the behest of the State, as

supposed to represent the whole of society, should attain their

object, even though the object be the suppression of crimes

of another kind perpetrated by the aforesaid individuals within

society.  The successful repression of crimes committed by

individuals, by a crime committed by State authority, can only

act as an encouragement to the State to continue its course

of inflicting punishment which is itself a crime.

    Other results of the inequality between the

sexes so effectively urged by present-day Feminism,

may be seen in the conduct of magistrates, judges

and juries, in our courts civil and criminal.  This has

been already animadverted upon in the course of

the present work, and illustrative cases given, as also

in previous writings of the present author to which

allusion has already been made.  It is not too much

to say that a man has practically no chance in the

present day in a court of law, civil or criminal, of

obtaining justice where a woman is in the case.

The savage vindictiveness exhibited towards men, as

displayed in the eagerness of judges to obtain, and

the readiness of juries to return, convictions against

men accused of crimes against women, on evidence

which, in many cases, would not be good enough

(to use the common phrase) to hang a dog on, with

the inevitable ferocious sentence following convic-

tion, may be witnessed on almost every occasion

when such cases are up for trial.  I have spoken of                                       164

the eagerness of judges to obtain convictions.  As

an illustration of this sort of thing, the following

may be given:--In the trial of a man for the

murder of a woman, before Mr Justice Bucknill,

which took place some time ago, it came out in

evidence that the woman had violently and ob-

scenely abused and threatened the man immediately

before, in the presence of other persons.  The jury

were so impressed with the evidence of unusually

strong provocation that they hesitated whether it

was not sufficient to reduce the crime to that of

manslaughter, and, unable to agree offhand on a

verdict of murder, asked the judge for further

guidance.  Their deliberations were, however, cut

short by the judge, who remarked on the hesitation

they had in arriving at their verdict, finally adding:

"Only think, gentlemen, how you would view it had

this been your own wife or sister who was cruelly

done to death!"  With the habitual obsequiousness

of a British jury towards the occupant of the Bench,

the gentlemen in question swallowed complacently

the insult thrown at their wives and sisters in

putting them in the same category with a foul

strumpet, and promptly did what the judge obviously

wanted of them--to wit, brought in a verdict

of wilful murder.  The cases on the obverse side,

where the judge, by similar sentimental appeal,

aims at procuring the acquittal of female prisoners

notoriously guilty on the evidence, that palladium                                          165

of rogues, the English law of libel, precludes me

from referring to individually.  As regards the dis-

parity in punishment, however, we have an apt and

recent illustration in the execution of the youth of

nineteen, convicted on doubtful evidence of the

murder of his sweetheart, and the reprieve of

the woman convicted on her own admission of the

murder of her paramour by soaking him in paraffin

during his sleep and setting him alight!

    Another effect of the influence of Sentimental

Feminism, is seen in crimes of the "unwritten law"

description, the crime passionel [crime of passion]

of the French.  The most atrocious and dastardly murders 

and other crimes of violence are condoned and even 

glorified if they can but be covered by the excuse that 

they are dictated by a desire to avenge a woman's

"honour" or to enable her to obtain the object of

her wishes.  The incident in Sir J. M. Barrie's play

of the lady who murders a man by throwing him

out of a railway carriage over a dispute respecting

the opening of a window, and gets acquitted on the

excuse that her little girl had got a cold, represents

a not exaggerated picture of "modern justice"--

for women only!  The outrageous application of

the principles, if such you may call them, of Senti-

mental Feminism in this country in the case of the

suffragettes, has made English justice and penal

administration the laughing-stock of the world.

But the way in which the crimes of the suffragettes                                        166

have been dealt with, is after all only a slight

exaggeration of the immunity from all the severer

penalties of the law enjoyed by female convicts

generally.  This has been carried in the case of

suffragette criminals to the utmost limits of absur-

dity.  In fact, the deference exhibited towards these

deliberate perpetrators of crimes of wanton destruc-

tion is sometimes comic, as in the case of the

Richmond magistrate who rebuked the policeman-

witness in an arson charge for omitting the

"Miss" in referring to one of the female prisoners

in the dock: as well as in the "high character"

usually attributed to the perpetrators of these

deeds of outrage and violence even by certain

functionaries of Church and State.  They did not

speak in this strain morebetoken [to indicate further], 

when mere male anarchists or Fenians were involved 

in difficulties with the law due to overzeal for their cause!

    The whole movement, it is quite evident,

depends for its success, largely, at least, on the

apathy of men.  The bulk of men undoubtedly do

not sympathise with the pretensions of the Feminist

agitation, but the bulk of men are indifferent one

way or the other.  They do not take the Feminist

Movement seriously.  The bare notion of women,

as such, being a danger to men as such, strikes

them as absurd.  They do not realise that the

question is not of the physical strength of women

as women, but of the whole forces of the State                                             167

being at the disposal of women to set in motion

to gratify their whims and passions.  The idea of

a sex war in which women take the field against

men, such as represents the inwardness of the

whole Feminist Movement of to-day, seems to them

ridiculous.  The feeling at the root of most men's

good-humoured patronage of, or indifference to,

Modern Feminist claims, is roughly expressed in

a remark of the late William Morris in replying to

some animadversions of mine on the subject:--

"What does it matter?  A man ought to be always

able to deal with a woman if necessary.  Why, I

could tackle a half dozen women at once for that

matter!"  This is a common attitude of mind on

the subject among otherwise sane and sensible

men.  The absurdity of it is manifest when one

considers that the issue of man versus woman as

units of physical strength respectively, is purely

irrelevant.  It is not a question of the man tackling

the woman or any number of women.  It is the

question of the whole force of the State tackling

the man in favour of the woman.  The prevalent

idea in many men's minds seems to be that of the

State drawing a ring-fence around the disputant

man and woman and letting them fight the matter

out between themselves, which, to speak the

language of the great geometer of antiquity--

"is absurd."

    Modern Feminism, tacking itself on to an older                                         168

tradition which it travesties beyond all recognition,

has succeeded in affecting modern public opinion

with an overpowering sense of the sacrosanctity

of human femality as such.  It is not content with

respect for the ideal of good womanhood but it

would fain place on a pedestal the mere fact of

femalehood in itself.  This is illustrated in a thou-

sand ways.  Thus while public opinion tolerates

the most bestial and infamous forms of corporal

punishment for men in gaols, it will regard the

slight chastisement by the medical head of an

institution for mental cases, of a girl who is

admittedly obstinate and refractory rather than

mentally afflicted in the ordinary sense of the term,

as "degrading."

    Again, in order to sustain its favourite thesis,

the intellectual equality of woman with man, it

resorts, whenever a plausible case presents itself,

to its usual policy of the falsification of fact.  Take

the instance of Madame Curie.  When radium was

first discovered in the laboratory of the late Pro-

fessor Curie we were told that the latter had made

the discovery, it being at the same time mentioned

that he possessed in his wife a valuable aid in his

laboratory work.  We were afterwards told that

the discovery of radium was the joint work of

both, the implication being that the honours were

equally divided.  Now, Feminist influence has

succeeded in getting Madame Curie spoken of                                             169

as herself the discoverer of radium!  I venture

to affirm that there is no evidence whatever for

assuming that radium would ever have seen the

light had the late Professor Curie not himself

experimented in his laboratory, not to speak of

his predecessor Becquerel.

    We have seen that Feminists are, in this country,

at least, zealous in championing the Puritan view

of sexual morality.  Many of them, in the vehemence

of their Anti-man crusade, look forward with relish

to the opportunity they anticipate will be afforded

them when women get the vote, of passing laws

rigorously enforcing asceticism on men by means                                        

of severe penal enactments.  All forms of indulgence

(by men), sexual or otherwise, uncongenial to the

puritanic mind, would be equally placed under the

ban of the criminal law!  Anyone desirous of

testing the truth of the above statement has only

to read the suffragette papers and other expositions

of the gospel of Feminism as held by its most

devoted advocates.

    One point should not be lost sight of, and that

is the attitude of the Press.  Almost all journals

are ready to publish any argument in favour of the

suffrage or of the other claims of the movement on

behalf of women.  In defiance of this fact, a

prominent Feminist prelate some time ago, in a

letter to The Times, alleged among the other so-

called grievances of women at the present day,                                             170

and apparently as in some sort a condonation of

"militancy," that the Press was closed to women

anxious to air their grievances!  A statement more

directly the reverse of the truth could hardly have

been made.  Open any paper of general circulation--

say any of the morning dailies--and you will find

letters galore advocating the Feminist side of the

question!  According to my own observation, they

are in the proportion of something like three or

four in favour to one against.  The fact is useless

denying that this sex-agitation has every favour

shown it by current "public opinion," including

even that of its opponents.  Female "militants"

of the suffrage have pleas urged in condonation

of their criminal acts, such as their alleged

"high character," which would be laughed at, in

the case of men--and yet they whine at being                            

boycotted.

    The readiness, and almost eagerness, with which

certain sections of British public opinion are ready

to view favourably anything urged on behalf of

female suffrage, is aptly illustrated by the well-

known argument we so often hear when the

existence of "militancy" is pointed out as a reason

for withholding the suffrage--the argument, namely,

as to the unfairness of refusing the franchise to

numbers of peaceable and law-abiding women who

are asking for it, because a relatively small section

of women resort to criminal methods of emphasising                                     171

their demand.  Now let us examine the real inter-

pretation of the facts.  It is quite true that the

majority of the women agitating for the suffrage

at the present day are themselves non-militants.

But what is and has been their attitude towards their

militant sisters?  Have they ever repudiated the

criminal tactics of the latter with the decision and

even indignation one might reasonably have ex-

pected had they really regarded the campaign of

violence and wanton outrage with strong disappro-

bation, not to say abhorrence?  The answer must

be a decided negative.  At the very most they

mildly rebuke the unwisdom of militant methods,

blessing them, as it were, with faint blame, while,

as a general rule, they will not go even so far as

this, but are content, while graciously deigning

to tell you that, although their own methods are

not those of militancy, yet that they and the

militants are alike working for the same end,

notwithstanding they may differ as to the most

effective methods of attaining it.  The non-militant

woman suffragist is always careful never to appear

an anti-militant.  Everyone can see that had the

bulk of the so-called "peaceable and law-abiding"

suffragists, to whose claims we are enjoined to

give ear, honestly and resolutely set their faces

against, and vigorously denounced, the criminal

campaign, refusing to have anything to do with

it or its authors, the campaign in question would                                            172

have come to an end long ago.  But no!  this would

not have suited the book of the "peaceable and law-

abiding" advocates of woman's suffrage.  Their aim

has been, and is still, to run with the "militant"

hare and hunt with the  "peaceable and law-

abiding" hounds.  While themselves abstaining from

any unlawful act they are perfectly willing and

desirous that they and their movement shall reap

all the advantages of advertisement and otherwise

that may accrue from the militant policy.  That the

above is a true state of the case as regards the

"peaceful and law-abiding" elements in the suffra-

gist movement, which we are assured so largely

outnumber the militant section, one would think

must be plain to everyone, however obtuse, who

has followed with attention the course of the present

agitation.  And yet there are fools of the male sex

who consider seriously this preposterous plea of

the injustice of refusing to concede the suffrage to

a large number of "peaceable and law-abiding"

women who are demanding it, because of the action

of a small body of violent females--with whom, bien

entendu, the aforesaid large body of "peaceable and

law-abiding" women (while keeping themselves

carefully aloof from active participation in militancy),

do not pretend to conceal their sympathy!

    The whole modern woman's movement is based,

in a measure, at least, on an assumption which is

absolutely unfounded--to wit, that man has                                                   173

systematically oppressed woman in the past, that

the natural tendency of evil-minded man is always

to oppress woman, or, to put it from the other side,

that woman is the victim of man's egoism!  The

unsoundness of this view ought to be apparent to

every unbiassed student of history, anthropology,

and physiology.  The Feminist prefers to see

evidence of male oppression in the place woman

has occupied in social and political life, rather than

the natural consequence of her organic constitution,

her secondary sexual characteristics, and the natural

average inferiority which flows therefrom.  As

regards the personal relations between men and

women, an impartial view of the case must in-

evitably lead to the conclusion that whatever else

man in general may have on his conscience, no

reasonable reproach lies to his score as regards his

treatment of woman.  The patience, forbearance,

and kindliness, with which, from Socrates down-

wards, men as a rule have encountered the whims,

the tempers, and the tantrums of their often un-

worthy womankind is indeed a marvel.  But it is

a still greater marvel that Modern Feminism in

this, as in other things, should have succeeded in

hocussing [deceiving] public opinion into the de-                       

lusion that the exact opposite of the truth represents 

the real state of the case.  This, however, is a marvel

which runs through the history of the controversial

exploits of the whole Feminist Movement.                                                    174

    In the foregoing pages we have striven to

unmask the shameless imposture which, in the

main, this movement represents.  We have tracked

down one dishonest argument after another.  We

have pointed out how the thinnest and hollowest

of subterfuges are allowed to pass muster, and

even to become current coin, by dint of unrefuted

reiteration.  The Feminist trick of reversing the

facts of the case, as, for example, the assertion that

man-made law and its administration is unjust to

women, and then raising a howl of indignation at

the position of affairs they picture, such being, of

course, the diametrical opposite of the real facts--

all this has been exposed.  In conclusion I can only

express the hope that honest, straightforward men

who have been bitten by Feminist wiles will take

pause and reconsider their position.  Whatever

sentiment or sympathy they may have with the

aims of the movement intrinsically, it ought to be

not too much to expect them to view with con-

tempt and abhorrence the mass of disingenuous

falsehood and transparent subterfuge, which the

votaries of Feminism systematically seek to palm

off upon a public opinion--only too easily gullible

in this matter--as true fact and valid argument.                                              175