The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage/Arguments from Elementary Natural Rights
PART I
ARGUMENTS WHICH ARE ADDUCED
IN SUPPORT OF WOMAN'S
SUFFRAGE
I
ARGUMENTS FROM ELEMENTARY NATURAL RIGHTS
Signification of the Term "Woman's Rights"—Argument from "Justice"—Juridical Justice—"Egalitarian Equity"—Argument from Justice Applied to Taxation—Argument from Liberty—Summary of Arguments from Elementary Natural Rights.
Let us note that the suffragist does not—except, perhaps, when she is addressing herself to unfledged girls and to the sexually embittered—really produce much effect by inveighing against the legal grievances of woman under the bastardy laws, the divorce laws, and the law which fixes the legal age of consent. This kind of appeal does not go down with the ordinary man and woman—first, because there are many who think that in spite of occasional hardships the public advantage is, on the whole, very well served by the existing laws; secondly, because any alterations which might be desirable could very easily be made without recourse to woman's suffrage; and thirdly, because the suffragist consistently acts on the principle of bringing up against man everything that can possibly be brought up against him, and of never allowing anything to appear on the credit side of the ledger.
The arguments which the woman suffragist really places confidence in are those which are provided by undefined general principles, apothegms set out in the form of axioms, formulae which are vehicles for fallacies, ambiguous abstract terms, and "question-begging" epithets. Your ordinary unsophisticated man and woman stand almost helpless against arguments of this kind.
For these bring to bear moral pressure upon human nature. And when the intellect is confused by a word or formula which conveys an ethical appeal, one may very easily find oneself committed to action which one's unbiased reason would never have approved. The very first requirement in connexion with any word or phrase which conveys a moral exhortation is, therefore, to analyse it and find out its true signification. For all such concepts as justice, rights, freedom, chivalry—and it is with these that we shall be specially concerned—are, when properly defined and understood beacon-lights, but when ill understood and undefined, stumbling-blocks in the path of humanity.
We may appropriately begin by analysing the term "Woman's Rights" and the correlative formula "Woman has a right to the suffrage."
Our attention here immediately focuses upon the term right. It is one of the most important of the verbal agents by which the suffragist hopes to bring moral pressure to bear upon man.
Now, the term right denotes in its juridical sense a debt which is owed to us by the State. A right is created when the community binds itself to us, its individual members, to intervene by force to restrain any one from interfering with us, and to protect us in the enjoyment of our faculties, privileges, and property.
The term is capable of being given a wider meaning. While no one could appropriately speak of our having a right to health or anything that man has not the power to bestow, it is arguable that there are, independent of and antecedent to law, elementary rights: a right to freedom; a right to protection against personal violence; a right to the protection of our property; and a right to the impartial administration of regulations which are binding upon all. Such a use of the term right could be justified on the ground that everybody would be willing to make personal sacrifices, and to combine with his fellows for the purpose of securing these essentials—an understanding which would almost amount to legal sanction.
The suffragist who employs the term "Woman's Rights" does not employ the word rights in either of these senses. Her case is analogous to that of a man who should in a republic argue about the divine right of kings; or that of the Liberal who should argue that it was his right to live permanently under a Liberal government; or of any member of a minority who should, with a view of getting what he wants, argue that he was contending only for his rights.
The woman suffragist is merely bluffing. Her formula "Woman's Rights" means simply "Woman's Claims."
For the moment—for we shall presently be coming back to the question of the enforcement of rights—our task is to examine the arguments which the suffragist brings forward in support of her claims.
First and chief among these is the argument that the Principle of Justice prescribes that women should be enfranchised.
When we inquire what the suffragist understands under the Principle of Justice, one receives by way of answer only the petitio principii that Justice is a moral principle which includes woman suffrage among its implications.
In reality it is only very few who clearly apprehend the nature of Justice. For under this appellation two quite different principles are confounded.
The primary and correct signification of the term Justice will perhaps be best arrived at by pursuing the following train of considerations:—
When man, long impatient at arbitrary and quite incalculable autocratic judgments, proceeded to build up a legal system to take the place of these, he built it upon the following series of axioms:—(a) All actions of which the courts are to take cognisance shall be classified. (b) The legal consequences of each class of action shall be definitely fixed. (c) The courts shall adjudicate only on questions of fact, and on the issue as to how the particular deed which is the cause of action should be classified. And (d) such decisions shall carry with them in an automatic manner the appointed legal consequences.
For example, if a man be arraigned for the appropriation of another man's goods, it is an axiom that the court (when once the questions of fact have been disposed of) shall adjudicate only on the issue as to whether the particular appropriation of goods in dispute comes under the denomination of larceny, burglary, or other co-ordinate category; and that upon this the sentence shall go forth: directing that the legal consequences which are appointed to that particular class of action be enforced.
This is the system every one can see administered in every court of justice.
There is, however, over and above what has just been set out another essential element in Justice. It is an element which readily escapes the eye.
I have in view the fact that the classifications which are adopted and embodied in the law must not be arbitrary classifications. They must all be conformable to the principle of utility, and be directed to the advantage of society.
If, for instance, burglary is placed in a class apart from larceny, it is discriminated from it because this distinction is demanded by considerations of public advantage. But considerations of utility would not countenance, and by consequence Justice would not accept, a classification of theft into theft committed by a poor man and theft committed by a rich man. The conception of Justice is thus everywhere interfused with considerations of utility and expediency.
It will have become plain that if we have in view the justice which is administered in the courts—we may here term it Juridical Justice—then the question as to whether it is just to refuse the suffrage to woman will be determined by considering whether the classification of men as voters and of women as non-voters is in the public interest. Put otherwise, the question whether it would be just that woman should have a vote would require the answer "Yes" or "No," according as the question whether it would be expedient or inexpedient that woman should vote required the answer "Yes" or "No." But it would be for the electorate, not for the woman suffragist, to decide that question.
There is, as already indicated, another principle which passes under the name of Justice. I have in view the principle that in the distribution of wealth or political power, or any other privileges which it is in the power of the State to bestow, every man should share equally with every other man, and every woman equally with every man, and that in countries where Europeans and natives live side by side, these latter should share all privileges equally with the white—the goal of endeavour being that all distinctions depending upon natural endowment, sex, and race should be effaced.
We may call this principle the Principle of Egalitarian Equity—first, because it aims at establishing a quite artificial equality; secondly, because it makes appeal to our ethical instincts, and claims on that ground to override the distinctions of which formal law takes account.
But let us reflect that we have here a principle which properly understood, embraces in its purview all mankind, and not mankind only but also the lower animals. That is to say, we have here a principle, which consistently followed out, would make of every man and woman in primis a socialist; then a woman suffragist; then a philo-native, negrophil, and an advocate of the political rights of natives and negroes; and then, by logical compulsion an anti-vivisectionist, who accounts it unjust to experiment on an animal; a vegetarian, who accounts it unjust to kill animals for food; and finally one who, like the Jains, accounts it unjust to take the life of even verminous insects.
If we accept this principle of egalitarian equity as of absolute obligation, we shall have to accept along with woman's suffrage all the other "isms" believed in, and agitated for, by the cranks who are so numerously represented in the ranks of woman suffragists.
If, on the other hand, we accept the doctrine of egalitarian equity with the qualification that it shall apply only so far as what it enjoins is conformable to public advantage, we shall again make expediency the criterion of the justice of woman's suffrage.
Before passing on it will be well to point out that the argument from Justice meets us not only in the form that Justice requires that woman should have a vote, but also in all sorts of other forms. We encounter it in the writings of publicists, in the formula Taxation carries with it a Right to Representation; and we encounter it in the streets, on the banners of woman suffrage processions, in the form Taxation without Representation is Tyranny.
This latter theorem of taxation which is displayed on the banners of woman suffrage is, I suppose, deliberately and intentionally a suggestio falsi. For only that taxation is tyrannous which is diverted to objects which are not useful to the contributors. And even the suffragist does not suggest that the taxes which are levied on women are differentially applied to the uses of men.
Putting, then, this form of argument out of sight, let us come to close quarters with the question whether the payment of taxes gives a title to control the finances of the State.
Now, if it really did so without any regard to the status of the claimant, not only women, but also foreigners residing in, or holding property in, England, and with these lunatics and minors with property, and let me, for the sake of a pleasanter collocation of ideas, hastily add peers of the realm, who have now no control over public finance, ought to receive the parliamentary franchise. And in like manner if the payment of a tax, without consideration of its amount, were to give a title to a vote, every one who bought an article which had paid a duty would be entitled to a vote in his own, or in a foreign, country according as that duty has been paid at home or abroad.
In reality the moral and logical nexus between the payment of taxes and the control of the public revenue is that the solvent and self-supporting citizens, and only these, are entitled to direct its financial policy.
If I have not received, or if I have refunded, any direct contributions I may have received from the coffers of the State; if I have paid my pro rata share of its establishment charges—i. e. of the costs of both internal administration and external defence; and I have further paid my proportional share of whatever may be required to make up for the deficit incurred on account of my fellow-men and women who either require direct assistance from the State, or cannot meet their share of the expenses of the State, I am a solvent citizen; and if I fail to meet these liabilities, I am an insolvent citizen even though I pay such taxes as the State insists upon my paying.
Now if a woman insists, in the face of warnings that she had better not do so, on taxing man with dishonesty for withholding from her financial control over the revenues of the State, she has only herself to blame if she is told very bluntly that her claim to such control is barred by the fact that she is as a citizen insolvent. The taxes paid by women would cover only a very small proportion of the establishment charges of the State which would properly be assigned to them. It falls to man to make up that deficit.
And it is to be noted with respect to those women who pay their full pro rata contribution and who ask to be treated as a class apart from, and superior to, other women, that only a very small proportion of these have made their position for themselves.
Immeasurably the larger number are in a solvent position only because men have placed them there. All large fortunes and practically all the incomes which are furnished by investments are derived from man.
Nay; but the very revenues which the Woman Suffrage Societies devote to man's vilification are to a preponderating extent derived from funds which he earned and gave over to woman.
In connexion with the financial position of woman as here stated, it will be well to consider first the rich woman's claim to the vote.
We may seek light on the logical and moral aspects of this claim by considering here two parallel cases.
The position which is occupied by the peer under the English Constitution furnishes a very interesting parallel to the position of the woman who is here in question.
Time out of mind the Commons have viewed with the utmost jealousy any effort of the House of Lords to obtain co-partnership with them in the control of the finances of the State; and, in pursuance of that traditional policy, the peers have recently, after appeal to the country, been shorn of the last vestige of financial control. Now we may perhaps see, in this jealousy of a House of Lords, which represents inherited wealth, displayed by a House of Commons representing voters electing on a financial qualification, an unconscious groping after the moral principle that those citizens who are solvent by their own efforts, and only these, should control the finances of the State.
And if this analogy finds acceptance, it would not—even if there were nothing else than this against such proposals—be logically possible, after ousting the peers who are large tax-payers from all control over the finances of the State, to create a new class of voters out of the female representatives of unearned wealth.
The second parallel case which we have to consider presents a much simpler analogy. Consideration will show that the position occupied in the State by the woman who has inherited money is analogous to that occupied in a firm by a sleeping partner who stands in the shoes of a deceased working partner, and who has only a small amount of capital in the business. Now, if such a partner were to claim any financial control, and were to make trouble about paying his pro rata establishment charges, he would be very sharply called to order. And he would never dream of appealing to Justice by breaking windows, going to gaol, and undertaking a hunger strike.
Coming back from the particular to the general, and from the logical to the moral aspect of woman's claim to control the finances of the State on the ground that she is a taxpayer, it will suffice to point out that this claim is on a par with the claim to increased political power and completer control over the finances of the State which is put forward by a class of male voters who are already paying much less than their pro rata share of the upkeep of the State.
In each case it is a question of trying to get control of other people's money. And in the case of woman it is of "trying on" in connexion with her public partnership with man that principle of domestic partnership, "All yours is mine, and all mine's my own."
Next to the plea of justice, the plea which is advanced most insistently by the woman who is contending for a vote is the plea of liberty.
We have here, again, a word which is a valuable asset to woman suffrage both in the respect that it brings moral pressure to bear, and in the respect that it is a word of ambiguous meaning.
In accordance with this we have John Stuart Mill making propaganda for woman suffrage in a tractate entitled the Subjection of Women; we have a Woman's Freedom League —"freedom" being a question-begging synonym for "parliamentary franchise"—and everywhere in the literature of woman's suffrage we have talk of woman's "emancipation"; and we have women characterised as serfs, or slaves—the terms serfs and slaves supplying, of course, effective rhetorical synonyms for non-voters.
When we have succeeded in getting through these thick husks of untruth we find that the idea of liberty which floats before the eyes of woman is, not at all a question of freedom from unequitable legal restraints, but essentially a question of getting more of the personal liberty (or command of other people's services), which the possession of money confers and more freedom from sexual restraints.
The suffragist agitator makes profit out of this ambiguity. In addressing the woman worker who does not, at the rate which her labour commands on the market, earn enough to give her any reasonable measure of financial freedom, the agitator will assure her that the suffrage would bring her more money, describing the woman suffrage cause to her as the cause of liberty. By juggling in this way with the two meanings of "liberty" she will draw her into her toils.
The vote, however, would not raise wages of the woman worker and bring to her the financial, nor yet the physiological freedom she is seeking.
The tactics of the suffragist agitator are the same when she is dealing with a woman who is living at the charges of a husband or relative, and who recoils against the idea that she lies under a moral obligation to make to the man who works for her support some return of gratitude. The suffragist agitator will point out to her that such an obligation is slavery, and that the woman's suffrage cause is the cause of freedom.
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 the case for 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.