And so we find the women who want to have everything
for nothing, and the wives who do not see that they
are beholden to man for anything, and those who consider
that they have not made a sufficiently good bargain
for themselves—in short, all the ungrateful
women—flock to the banner of Women’s
Freedom—the banner of financial freedom
for woman at the expense of financial servitude for
man.
The grateful woman will practically always be an anti-suffragist.
It will be well, before passing on to another class
of arguments, to summarise what has been said in the
three foregoing sections.
We have recognised that woman has not been defrauded
of elementary natural rights; that Justice, as distinguished
from egalitarian equity, does not prescribe that she
should be admitted to the suffrage; and that her status
is not, as is dishonestly alleged, a status of serfdom
or slavery.
With this the whole case for recrimination against
man, and a fortiori [for greater reason] the
case for [a] resort to violence, collapses.
And if it does collapse, this is one of those things
that carries consequences. It would beseem man
to bethink himself that to give in to an unjustified
and doubtfully honest claim is to minister to the
demoralisation of the claimant.
ARGUMENTS FROM INTELLECTUAL GRIEVANCES OF WOMAN
Complaint of Want of Chivalry—Complaint
of “Insults”—Complaint of “Illogicalities”—Complaint
of “Prejudices”—The Familiar
Suffragist Grievance of the Drunkard Voter and the
Woman of Property Who is a Non-Voter—The
Grievance of Woman being Required to Obey Man-Made
Laws.
We pass from the argument from elementary natural
rights to a different class of arguments—intellectual
grievances. The suffragist tells us that it is
unchivalrous to oppose woman’s suffrage; that
it is insulting to tell woman that she is unfit to
exercise the fran-chise; that it is “illogical”
to make in her case an exception to a general rule;
that it is mere “prejudice” to withhold
the vote from her; that it is indignity that the virtuous
and highly intelligent woman has no vote, while the
drunkard has; and that the woman of property has no
vote, while her male underlings have; and, lastly,
that it is an affront that a woman should be required
to obey “man-made” laws.
We may take these in their order.
Let us consider chivalry, first, from the standpoint
of the woman suffragist. Her notion of chivalry
is that man should accept every disadvantageous offer
which may be made to him by woman.
That, of course, is to make chivalry the principle
of egalitarian equity limited in its application to
the case between man and woman.
It follows that she who holds that the suffrage ought,
in obedience to that principle of justice, to be granted
to her by man, might quite logically hold that everything
else in man’s gift ought also to be conceded.
