The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎633r] (156/239)

THE THREATENED RE-SUBJECTION OF WOMAN.
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to-day the substratum of all thought and action. So universal is
this attitude that a presentation of the real and fundamental re
lation of the sexes is something new to those who are able to see
it, and something preposterous to those who are not. The idea
that the female is naturally and really the superior sex seems
incredible, and only the most liberal and emancipated minds pos
sessed of a large store of biological information, are capable of
realising it,” p. 364.
Lucas Malet is obviously imbued with what Professor Ward
calls the androcentric world view, and seems sublimely unconscious
that there is any other with an undisputed claim to respect. She
thus, in her mind, and it appears sub-consciously all through her
article, regards the supporters of the Women’s Emancipation
Movement as eccentric cranks or faddists, whereas they are, in
truth, the normal reasoners. Nowhere is Lucas Malet’s ” Andro
cracy ” more amusingly evident than in the following passage :
‘‘His [Man’s] weaknesses—and even his warmest advocates
cannot but own that you have but to see enough of him to know
that he has many, and those by no means exclusively of the pro
verbially masculine type—are patent to her,” [the Woman “ who
has tasted the sweets of independence”]. Is this meant
humorously? If so, the parenthesis makes the humour too
subtle. This idea expressed in other words might run : ” Man is
not really perfect, you know; we all think him so, of course, but
he has his little flaws, as some of us with tremendous perspicacity
are able to discover.”
If the subjection of women can be shown to be a non-natural—
which describes the condition better than unnatural—state, how is
the fact of their subjection explained? This is a perfectly legiti
mate query, and one which I shall attempt in as few words as
possible to answer. It w T as necessary and inevitable for the
purpose of developing the race. If the female alone had continued
to be the race, and the male only the fertiliser, the human race
would never have emerged from its embryonic state, and would
have remained in the same condition as the animal tribe imme
diately below the human tribe. The maternal instinct existed;
and the human female, in common with all mammals, recognised
and cared for her own young. But the instinct of fatherhood was
a much later development; and simultaneously with the taking
on of the responsibility of parenthood by the male did the female
lose her status as the supporter of the family. The increased size
of the male was due to the female, through the law of sexual
selection. By degrees the male discovered that it was less trouble
to capture the female at first than go through the preliminary
stage of fighting for her with other males. So surely as the pre-