Chapter III

An error analogous to this personification of her own folly as a pitiless oppressor is that of considering at length and with gravity the character, fortunes, motives and duties of “woman.” Woman does not exist—there are women. Of woman nothing that has more than a suggestive, literary or rhetorical value can be said. Like the word “fashion,” the word “woman” is convenient, and of legitimate use by persons of sense who understand that it is not the name of anything on the earth, in the heavens above the earth, nor in the waters under the earth—that there is nothing in nature corresponding to it. To others its use should be interdicted, for like all abstract words, it is a pitfall to their clumsy feet. If the word is used to signify the whole body of women it obviously assumes that, with regard to the matters under consideration, they are all alike—which is untrue, for some are dead. If it means less than the whole body of women it is obligatory upon the person using it to say precisely what proportion of the sex it means. The way to determine woman’s true place in the social scheme is simple: make an exhaustive inquiry into the character, capacities, desires, needs and opportunities of every individual woman. When you have finished the result will be glorious: you will know almost as much as you knew before.

Concerning woman, I should like to be allowed a brief digression into the troubled territory of her “rights”—a field of contention in which her champions manifest an inadequate conception of the really considerable powers of Omnipotence. A distinguishing feature of this logomachy is the frequent outcrop of a certain kind of piety that is unconnected with any respect for, or belief in, the power of Him evoking it. These linked assumptions of God’s worth and God’s incompetence are made variously: sometimes by implication, sometimes with a directness that distresses the agnostic and makes the atheist blush. One disputant says: “Would a woman be less womanly because conceited Man had granted her the rights that God intended she should have?” Now, if man really has the power to baffle the divine will and make the divine intentions void of effect he may reasonably enough cherish a fairly good opinion of himself—perhaps any degree of conceit that is consistent with his scriptural character of poor worm of the dust.

A noble example of piety undimmed by disrespect is that of a Presbyterian minister, who began his remarks thus: “Has woman to-day all the rights she ought to have—all the rights Christ meant her to have? I fully concede she has not.” This is not very good English, but I dare say it is good religion, this conception of Christ as a “well-meaning person,” but without much influence in obtaining favors for his friends. Anyhow, it is authenticated by the clerical sign-manual, which sets it at a longer remove from blasphemy than at first sight it may seem to be, and makes it so holy that I hardly dared to mention it. I hope it is not irreverent to say so; it is not said in that spirit, but I can not help thinking that if I were God I should find some way to carry out my intentions; and that if I were Christ and had not a sufficient influence to secure for Lively Woman the rights that I meant her to have I should retire from public life, sever my connection with the Presbyterian church and go to work.