The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎627r] (144/239)

THE DUEL OF THE SEXES.
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produce more children than there was comfortable room for in the
society to which they belonged. One may be an uncompromising
upholder of emancipation without seeing anything to rejoice at in
this extension to women of the overstrained competitive toil
that is already so great an evil for men. The cause for rejoicing
is in the indication it gives of the recognition of human rights,
irrespective of sex, and since these women have to earn their
living in some way or other, whether under the old regime or the
new, it is surely not an evil that they should now at least have a
better chance of escaping the necessity of earning it in a marriage
“ for the sake of a home,” or in some other form of barter less
generally esteemed.
Such ideas, of course, must seem subversive of the entire social
fabric to those who believe in the order which is founded on
the subjection of women, on paternal government, and on the idea
au fond of the rightful sovereignty of brute force. Those who hold
these views are logically committed to untiring opposition to all
forms of human liberty, more especially to that latest born of the
belated brood, the liberty of women.
For instance, the claim of personal rights for a human being can
mean little or nothing to one who would uphold the slave trade
(and such still exist!) on the ground of the good of the community
and the fact that slaves were opposed to their own emancipation ;
for this was often the case, so completely had the institution done
its evil work.
To such a thinker it would appear still more meaningless to
claim rights for the woman. The abstract principle has no appeal
for him. He would insist again on the good of the community
(as he conceived it), and would contend that all true women ob
jected to have any rights, ” true ” women being those who did so
object, according to a familiar and convenient circular argument.
The only way to meet him on his own ground would be to show
him, if possible, that these inequalities caused immediate evil to
the man, the children, and society. (If the evil were at all distant
he would tuck his head under his wing and ignore it.)
It would be vain to point to the sufferings of the woman herself,
for she must be ready and willing for sacrifice ; if she is not so, her
monitor is shocked at her frivolity and selfish lack of courage, and
he says scathing things about the degenerate sex.
His mental attitude resembles that of the ancient Greek
colonists who offered a maiden each year to the sea-monster as
blackmail for the safety of the rest of the citizens. It did not
strike them as mean-spirited in the least, and one never hears that
they returned from the ceremony of chaining the maiden to the rock
to await her fate with any decrease of self-esteem. On the con-
VOL. lxxviii. n.b. i