With this I have, I will not say completed the tale
of the suffragist’s grievances—that
would be impossible—but I have at any rate
dealt with those which she has most acrimoniously insisted
upon.
ARGUMENTS WHICH TAKE THE FORM OF “COUNSELS OF
PERFECTION” ADDRESSED TO MAN
Argument that Woman Requires a Vote for her Protection—Argument
that Woman ought to be Invested with the Responsibilities
of Voting in Order that She May Attain Her Full Intellectual
Stature.
There, however, remains still a further class of arguments.
I have in view here arguments which have nothing
to do with elementary natural rights, nor yet with
wounded amour propre. They concern ethics, and
sympathy, and charitable feelings.
The suffragist here gives to man “counsels of
perfection.”
It will be enough to consider here two of these:—the
first, the argument that woman, being the weaker
vessel, needs, more than man, the suffrage for her
protection; the second, that woman, being
less than man in relation to public life, ought to
be given the vote for instructional purposes.
The first of these appeals will, for instance, take
the following form:—“Consider the
poor sweated East End woman worker. She knows
best where the shoe pinches. You men can’t
know. Give her a vote; and you shall see that
she will very soon better her condition.”
When I hear that argument I consider:—We
will suppose that woman was ill. Should we go
to her and say: “You know best, know better
than any man, what is wrong with you. Here are
all the medicines and remedies. Make your own
selection, for that will assuredly provide what will
be the most likely to help.”
If this would be both futile and inhuman, much more
would it be so to seek out this woman who is sick
in fortune and say to her, “Go and vote for
the parliamentary candidate who will be likely to influence
the trend of legislation in a direction which will
help.”
What would really help the sweated woman labourer
would, of course, be to have the best intellect brought
to bear, not specially upon the problem of indigent
woman, but upon the whole social problem.
But the aspect of the question which is, from our
present point of view, the fundamentally important
one is the following: Granting that the extension
of the suffrage to woman would enable her, as the
suffragist contends, to bring pressure upon her parliamentary
representative, man, while anxious to do his very best
for woman, might very reasonably refuse to go about
it in this particular way.
If a man has a wife whom he desires to treat indulgently,
he does not necessarily open a joint account with
her at his bankers.
If he wants to contribute to a charity he does not
give to the managers of that charity a power of attorney
over his property.
