Essays in War-Time Part 4

However that may be, we shall probably find at last that we must fall back on the ancient truth that no external regulation, however pretty and plausible, will suffice to lead men and women to the goal of any higher social end. We must realise that there can be no sure guide to fine living save that which comes from within, and is supported by the firmly cultivated sense of personal responsibility. Our prayer must still be the simple, old-fashioned prayer of the Psalmist: "Create in me a clean heart, O G.o.d"--and to h.e.l.l with your laws!

In other words, our aim must be to evolve a social order in which the sense of freedom and the sense of responsibility are both carried to the highest point, and that is impossible by the aid of measures which are only beneficial for the children of Perdition. That there are such beings, incapable alike either of freedom or of responsibility, we have to recognise. It is our business to care for them--until with the help of eugenics we can in some degree extinguish their stocks--in such refuges and reformatories as may be found desirable. But it is not our business to treat the whole world as a refuge and a reformatory. That is fatal to human freedom and fatal to human responsibility. By all means provide the halt and the lame with crutches. But do not insist that the sound and the robust shall never stir abroad without crutches. The result will only be that we shall all become more or less halt and lame.

It is only by such a method as this--by segregating the hopelessly feeble members of society and by allowing the others to take all the risks of their freedom and responsibility even though we strongly disapprove--that we can look for the coming of a better world. It is only by such a method as this that we can afford to give scope to all those varying and ever-contradictory activities which go to the making of any world worth living in. For Conflict, even the conflict of ideals, is a part of all vital progress, and each party to the conflict needs free play if that conflict is to yield us any profit. That is why Masculinists have no right to impede the play of Feminism, and Feminists no right to impede the play of Masculinism. The fundamental qualities of Man, equally with the fundamental qualities of Woman, are for ever needed in any harmonious civilisation. There is a place for Masculinism as well as a place for Feminism. From the highest standpoint there is not really any conflict at all. They alike serve the large cause of Humanity, which equally includes them both.

[1] "Wurdelose Weiber," _Die Neue Generation_, Aug.-Sept., 1914.

[2] Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fifth ed., 1914, p. 21.

[3] The conception of s.e.xuality as dependent on the combined operation of various internal ductless glands, and not on the s.e.xual glands proper alone, has been especially worked out by Professor W. Blair Bell, _The s.e.x Complex_, 1916.

[4] H.H. Laughlin, _The Legal, Legislative, and Administrative Aspects of Sterilisation_, Eugenics Record Office Bulletin, No. 1, OB, 1914.

[5] I have discussed these already in a chapter of my book, _The Task of Social Hygiene_.

IX

THE MENTAL DIFFERENCES OF MEN AND WOMEN

The Great War, which has changed so many things, has nowhere effected a greater change than in the sphere of women's activities. In all the belligerent countries women have been called upon to undertake work which they had never been offered before. Europe has thus become a great experimental laboratory for testing the apt.i.tudes of women. The results of these tests, as they are slowly realised, cannot fail to have permanent effects on the s.e.xual division of labour. It is still too early to speak confidently as to what those effects will be. But we may be certain that, whatever they are, they can only spring from deep-lying natural distinctions.

The differences between the minds of men and the minds of women are, indeed, presented to all of us every day. It should, therefore, we might imagine, be one of the easiest of tasks to ascertain what they are. And yet there are few matters on which such contradictory and often extravagant opinions are maintained. For many people the question has not arisen; there are no mental differences, they seem to take for granted, between men and women. For others the mental superiority of man at every point is an unquestionable article of faith, though they may not always go so far as to agree with the German doctor, Mobius, who boldly wrote a book on "The Physiological Weak-mindedness of Women." For others, again, the predominance of men is an accident, due to the influences of brute force; let the intelligence of women have freer play and the world generally will be straightened out.

In these conflicting att.i.tudes we may trace not only the confidence we are all apt to feel in our intimate knowledge of a familiar subject we have never studied, but also the inevitable influence of s.e.xual bias. Of such bias there is more than one kind. There is the egoistic bias by which we are led to regard our own s.e.x as naturally better than any other could be, and there is the altruistic bias by which we are led to find a charming and mysterious superiority in the opposite s.e.x. These different kinds of s.e.xual bias act with varying force in particular cases; it is usually necessary to allow for them.

Notwithstanding the fantastic divergencies of opinion on this matter, it seems not impossible to place the question on a fairly sound and rational base. In so complex a question there must always be room for some variations of individual opinion, for no two persons can approach the consideration of it with quite the same prepossessions, or with quite the same experience.

At the outset there is one great fundamental fact always to be borne in mind: the difference of the s.e.xes in physical organisation. That we may term the _biological_ factor in determining the s.e.xual mental differences. A strong body does not involve a strong brain nor a weak body a weak brain; but there is still an intimate connection between the organisation of the body generally and the organisation of the brain, which may be regarded as an executive a.s.semblage of delegates from all parts of the body. Fundamental differences in the organisation of the body cannot fail to involve differences in the nervous system generally, and especially in that supreme collection of nervous ganglia which we term the brain. In this way the special adaptation of woman's body to the exercise of maternity, with the presence of special organs and glands subservient to that object, and without any important equivalents in man's body, cannot fail to affect the brain. We now know that the organism is largely under the control of a number of internal secretions or hormones, which work together harmoniously in normal persons, influencing body and mind, but are liable to disturbance, and are differently balanced and with a different action in the two s.e.xes.[1] It is not, we must remember, by any means altogether the exercise of the maternal function which causes the difference; the organs and apt.i.tudes are equally present even if the function is not exercised, so that a woman cannot make herself a man by refraining from childbearing.

In another way this biological factor makes itself felt, and that is in the differences in the muscular systems of men and women. These we must also consider fundamental. Although the extreme muscular weakness of average civilised women as compared to civilised men is certainly artificial and easily possible to remove by training, yet even in savages, among whom the women do most of the muscular work, they seldom equal or exceed the men in strength; any superiority, when it exists, being mainly shown in such pa.s.sive forms of exertion as bearing burdens.

In civilisation, even under the influence of careful athletic training, women are unable to compete muscularly with men; and it is a significant fact that on the variety stage there are very few "strong women." It would seem that the difficulty in developing great muscular strength in women is connected with the special adaptation of woman's form and organisation to the maternal function. But whatever the cause may be, the resulting difference is one which has a very real bearing on the mental distinctions of men and women. It is well ascertained that what we call "mental" fatigue expresses itself physiologically in the same bodily manifestation as muscular fatigue. The avocations which we commonly consider mental are at the same time muscular; and even the sensory organs, like the eye, are largely muscular. It is commonly found in various great business departments where men and women may be said to work more or less side by side that the work of women is less valuable, largely because they are not able to bear additional strain; under pressure of extra work they give in before men do. It is noteworthy that the claims for sick benefit made by women under the National Insurance System in England have proved much greater (even three times greater) than the actuaries antic.i.p.ated beforehand; while the Sick Insurance Societies of Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland also report that women are ill oftener and for longer periods than men. Largely, no doubt, that is due to the special strain and the rigid monotony of our modern industrial system, but not entirely. Nearly two hundred years ago (in 1729) Swift wrote of women to Bolingbroke: "I protest I never knew a very deserving person of that s.e.x who had not too much reason to complain of ill-health." The regulations of the world have been mainly made by men on the instinctive basis of their own needs, and until women have a large part in making them on the basis of their needs, women are not likely to be so healthy as men.

This by no means necessarily implies any mental inferiority; it is much more the result of muscular inferiority. Even in the arts muscular qualities count for much and are often essential, since a solid muscular system is needed even for very delicate actions; the arts of design demand muscular qualities; to play the violin is a muscular strain, and only a robust woman can become a famous singer.

The greater precocity of girls is another aspect of the biological factor in s.e.xual mental differences. It is a psychic as well as a physical fact.

This has been shown conclusively by careful investigation in many parts of the civilised world and notably in America, where the school system renders such s.e.xual comparison easy and reliable at all ages. There can now be no doubt that a girl at, let us say, the age of fourteen is on the average taller and heavier than a boy at the same age, though the degrees of this difference and the precise age at which it occurs vary with the individual and the race. Corresponding to this is a mental difference; in many branches of study, though not all, the girl of fourteen is superior to the boy, quicker, more intelligent, gifted with a better memory.

Precocity, however, is a quality of dubious virtue. It is frequently found, indeed, in men of the highest genius; but, on the other hand, it is found among animals and among savages, and is here of no good augury.

Many observers of the lower races have noted how the child is highly intelligent and well disposed, but seems to degenerate as he grows older; In the comparison of girls and boys, both as regards physical and mental qualities, it is constantly found that while the girls hold their own, and in many respects more than hold their own, with boys up to the age of fifteen or sixteen, after that the girls remain almost or quite stationary, while in the boys the curve of progress is continued without interruption. Some people have argued, hypothetically, that the greater precocity of girls is an artificial product of civilisation, due to the confined life of girls, produced, as it were, by the artificial overheating of the system in the hothouse of the home. This is a mistake.

The same precocity of girls appears to exist even among the uncivilised, and independently of the special circ.u.mstances of life. It is even found among animals also, and is said to be notably obvious in giraffes. It will hardly be argued that the female giraffe leads a more confined and domestic life than her brother.

Yet another aspect of the biological factor is to be found in the bearing of heredity on this question. To judge by the statements that one sometimes sees, men and women might be two distinct species, separately propagated. The conviction of some men that women are not fitted to exercise various social and political duties, and the conviction of some women that men are a morally inferior s.e.x, are both alike absurd, for they both rest on the a.s.sumption that women do not inherit from their fathers, nor men from their mothers. Nothing is more certain than that--when, of course, we put aside the s.e.xual characters and the special qualities a.s.sociated with those characters--men and women, on the average, inherit equally from both of their parents, allowing for the fact that that heredity is controlled and modified by the special organisation of each s.e.x. There are, indeed, various laws of heredity which qualify this statement, and notably the tendency whereby extremes of variation are more common in the male s.e.x--so that genius and idiocy are alike more prevalent in men. But, on the whole, there can be no doubt that the qualities of a man or of a woman are a more or less varied mixture of those of both parents; and, even when there is no blending, both parents are almost equally likely to be influential in heredity. The good qualities of the one parent will therefore benefit the child of the opposite s.e.x, and the bad qualities will equally be transmitted to the offspring of opposite s.e.x.

There is another element in the settlement of this question which may also be fairly called objective, and that is the _historical_ factor. We are p.r.o.ne to believe that the particular status of the s.e.xes that prevails among ourselves corresponds to a universal and unchangeable order of things. In reality this is far from being the case. It may, indeed, be truly said that there is no kind of social position, no sort of avocation, public or domestic, among ourselves exclusively appertaining to one s.e.x, which has not at some time or in some part of the world belonged to the opposite s.e.x, and with the most excellent results. We regard it as alone right and proper for a man to take the initiative in courtship, yet among the Papuans of New Guinea a man would think it indecorous and ridiculous to court a girl; it was the girl's privilege to take the initiative in this matter, and she exercised it with delicacy and skill and the best moral results, until the shocked missionaries upset the native system and unintentionally introduced looser ways. There is, again, no implement which we regard as so peculiarly and exclusively feminine as the needle. Yet in some parts of Africa a woman never touches a needle; that is man's work, and a wife who can show a neglected rent in her petticoat is even considered to have a fair claim for a divorce. Innumerable similar examples appear when we consider the human species in time and s.p.a.ce. The historical aspect of this matter may thus be said in some degree to counterbalance the biological aspect. If the fundamental const.i.tution of the s.e.xes renders their mental characters necessarily different, the difference is still not so p.r.o.nounced as to prevent one s.e.x sometimes playing effectively the parts which are generally played by the other s.e.x.

It is not necessary to go outside the white European race to find evidences of the reality of this historical factor of the question before us. It would appear that at the dawn of European civilisation women were taking a leading part in the evolution of human progress. Various survivals which are enshrined in the myths and legends of cla.s.sic antiquity show us the most ancient deities as G.o.ddesses; and, moreover, we encounter the significant fact that at the origin nearly all the arts and industries were presided over by female, not by male, deities. In Greece, as well as in Asia Minor, India, and Egypt, as Paul Lafargue has pointed out, woman seems to have taken divine rank before men; all the first inventions of the more useful arts and crafts, except in metals, are ascribed to G.o.ddesses; the Muses presided over poetry and music long before Apollo; Isis was "the lady of bread," and Demeter taught men to sow barley and corn instead of eating each other. Thus even among our own forefathers we may catch a glimpse of a state of things which, as various anthropologists have shown (notably Otis Mason in his _Woman's Share in Primitive Culture_), we may witness in the most widely separated parts of the world. Thus among the Xosa Kaffirs, as well as other A-bantu stocks, Fritsch states that "the man claims for himself war, hunting, occupation with cattle; all household cares, even the building of the house, as well as the cultivation of the ground, are woman's affair; hardly in the most laborious work will a man lend a hand."[2] So that when to-day we see women entering the most various avocations, that is not a dangerous innovation, but perhaps merely a return to ancient and natural conditions.

It is not until specialisation becomes necessary and until men are relieved from the constant burden of battle and the chase that the frequent superiority of woman is lost. The modern industrial activities are dangerous, when they are dangerous, not because the work is too hard--for the work of primitive women is harder--but because it is an unnaturally and artificially dreary and monotonous work which stifles the mind, depresses the spirits, and injures the body, so that, it is said, 40 per cent. of married women who have been factory girls are treated for pelvic disorders before they are thirty. It is the conditions of women's work which need changing in order that they may become, like those of primitive women, so various that they develop the mind and fortify the body. This, however, is an evil which will be righted by the development of the mechanical side of industry, for machines tend constantly to become larger, heavier, speedier, more numerous and more automatic, requiring fewer workers to tend them, and these more frequently men.[3]

It may be added that the early predominance of woman in the work of civilisation is altogether independent of that conception of a primitive matriarchate, or government of women, which was set forth some fifty years ago by Bachofen, and has since caused so much controversy. Descent in the female line, not uncommonly found among primitive peoples, undoubtedly tended to place women in a position of great influence; but it by no means necessarily involved any gynecocracy, or rule of women, and such rule is merely a hypothesis which by some enthusiasts has been carried to absurd lengths.

We see, therefore, that when we are approaching the question of the mental differences of the s.e.xes among ourselves to-day, it is not impossible to find certain guiding clues which will save us from running into extravagance in either direction.

Without doubt the only way in which we can obtain a satisfactory answer to the numerous problems which meet us when we approach the question is by experiment. I have, indeed, insisted on the importance of these preliminary biological and historical considerations mainly because they indicate with what safety and freedom from risk we may trust to experiment. The s.e.xes are far too securely poised by organic const.i.tution and ancient tradition for any permanently injurious results to occur from the attempt to attain a better social readjustment in this matter. When the experiment fails, individuals may to some extent suffer, but social equilibrium swiftly and automatically rights itself. Practically, however, nearly every social experiment of this kind means that certain restrictions limiting the duties or privileges of women are removed, and when artificial coercions are thus taken away it can merely happen, as Mary Wollstonecraft long ago put it, that by the common law of gravity the s.e.xes fall into their proper places. That, we may be sure, will be the final result of the interesting experiments for which the laboratory to-day is furnished by all the belligerent countries.

Definitely formulated statistical data of these results are scarcely yet available. But we may study the action of this natural process on one great practical experiment in mental s.e.xual differences which has been going on for some time past. At one time in the various administrations of the International Postal Union there was a sudden resolve to introduce female labour to a very large extent; it was thought that this would be cheaper than male labour and equally efficient. There was consequently a great outcry at the ousting of male labour, the introduction of the thin end of a wedge which would break up society. We can now see that that outcry was foolish. Within recent years nearly all the countries which previously introduced women freely into their postal and telegraph services are now doing so only under certain conditions, and some are ceasing to admit them at all. This great practical experiment, carried out on an immense scale in thirty-five different countries, has, on the whole, shown that while women are not inferior to men, at all events within the ordinary range of work, the subst.i.tution of a female for a male staff always means a considerable increase of numbers, that women are less rapid than men, less able to undertake the higher grade work, less able to exert authority over others, more lacking both in initiative and in endurance, while they require more sick leave and lose interest and energy on marriage. The advantages of female labour are thus to some extent neutralised, and in the opinions of the administrations of some countries more than neutralised, by certain disadvantages. The general result is that men are found more fitted for some branches of work and women more fitted for other branches; the result is compensation without any tendency for one s.e.x to oust the other.

It may, indeed, be objected that in practical life no perfectly satisfactory experiments exist as to the respective mental qualities of men and women, since men and women are never found working under conditions that are exactly the same for both s.e.xes. If, however, we turn to the psychological laboratory, where it is possible to carry on experiments under precisely identical conditions, the results are still the same. There are nearly always differences between men and women, but these differences are complex and manifold; they do not always agree; they never show any general piling up of the advantages on the side of one s.e.x or of the other. In reaction-time, in delicacy of sensory perception, in accuracy of estimation and precision of movement, there are nearly always s.e.xual differences, a few that are fairly constant, many that differ at different ages, in various countries, or even in different groups of individuals. We cannot usually explain these differences or attach any precise significance to them, any more than we can say why it is that (at all events in America) blue is most often the favourite colour of men and red of women. We may be sure that these things have a meaning, and often a really fundamental significance, but at present, for the most part, they remain mysterious to us.

When we attempt to survey and sum up all the variegated facts which science and practical life are slowly acc.u.mulating with reference to the mental differences between men and women[4] we reach two main conclusions. On the one hand there is a fundamental equality of the s.e.xes. It would certainly appear that women vary within a narrower range than men--that is to say, that the two extremes of genius and of idiocy are both more likely to show themselves in men. This implies that the pioneers in progress are most likely to be men. That, indeed, may be said to be a biological fact. "In all that concerns the evolution of ornamental characters the male leads; in him we see the trend which evolution is taking; the female and young afford us the measure of their advance along the new line which has to be taken."[5] In the human sphere of the arts and sciences, similarly, men, not women, take the lead. That men were the first decorative artists, rather than women, is indicated by the fact that the natural objects designed by early pre-historic artists were mainly women and wild beasts, that is to say, they were the work of masculine hunters, executed in idle intervals of the chase. But within the range in which nearly all of us move, there are always many men who in mental respects can do what most women can do, many women who can do what most men can do. We are not justified in excluding a whole s.e.x absolutely from any field. In so doing we should certainly be depriving the world of some portion of its executive ability. The s.e.xes may always safely be left to find their own levels.

On the other hand, the mental diversity of men and women is equally fundamental. It is rooted in organisation. The well-intentioned efforts of many pioneers in women's movements to treat men and women as identical, and, as it were, to force women into masculine moulds, were both mischievous and useless. Women will always be different from men, mentally as well as physically. It is well for both s.e.xes that it should be so. It is owing to these differences that each s.e.x can bring to the world's work various apt.i.tudes that the other lacks. It is owing to these differences also that men and women have their undying charm for each other. We cannot change them, and we need not wish to.

[1] See, for instance, Blair Bell's _The s.e.x Complex_, 1916, though the deductions drawn in this book must not always be accepted without qualifications.

[2] G. Fritsch, _Die Eingeborene Sud-Afrikas_, 1892, p. 79.

[3] 1 D.R. Malcolm Keir, "Women in Industry," _Popular Science Monthly_, October, 1913.

[4] See, for many of the chief of these, Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th Edition, 1914.

[5] W.P. Pycraft, _The Courtship of Animal_, p. 9.

X

THE WHITE SLAVE CRUSADE

During recent years we have witnessed a remarkable attempt--more popular and more international in character than any before--to deal with that ancient s.e.xual evil which has for some time been picturesquely described as the White Slave Traffic. Less than forty years ago Professor Sheldon Amos wrote that this subject can scarcely be touched upon by journalists, and "can never form a topic of common conversation." Nowadays Churches, societies, journalists, legislators have all joined the ranks of the agitators. Not only has there been no voice on the opposite side, which was scarcely to be expected--for there has never been any anxiety to cry aloud the defence of "White Slavery" from the house-tops--but there has been a new and noteworthy conquest over indifference and over that sacred silence which was supposed to encompa.s.s all s.e.xual topics with suitable darkness. The banishment of that silence in the cause of social hygiene is, indeed, not the least significant feature of this agitation.

It is inevitable, however, that these periodical fits of virtuous indignation by which Society is overtaken should speedily be spent. The victim of the moral fever finds himself exhausted by the struggle, scarcely able to cope with the complications of the disease, and, at the best, only too anxious to forget what he has pa.s.sed through. He has an uneasy feeling that in the course of his delirium he has said and done many foolish things which it would now be unpleasant to recall too precisely.

There is no use in attempting to disguise the fact that this is what happened in the White Slave Traffic agitation. It became clear that we had been largely misled in regard to the evils to be combated, and that we were seduced into sanctioning various remedies for these evils which in cold blood it is impossible to approve of, even if we could believe them to be effective.

It is not even clear that all those who have talked about the "White Slave Traffic" have been quite sure what they meant by the term. Some people, indeed, have seemed to think that it meant prost.i.tution in general. That is, of course, an absurd misapprehension. We are concerned with a trade which flourishes on prost.i.tution, but that trade is not itself the trade or (as some prefer to call it) the profession of prost.i.tutes. Indeed, the prost.i.tute, under ordinary conditions and unhara.s.sed by persecution, is in many respects anything but a slave. She is much less a slave than the ordinary married woman.

She is not fettered in humble dependence on the will of a husband from whom it is the most difficult thing in the world to escape; she is bound to no man and free to make her own terms in life; while if she should have a child, that child is absolutely her own, and she is not liable to have it torn from her arms by the hands of the law. Apart from arbitrary and accidental circ.u.mstances, due to the condition of social feeling, the prost.i.tute enjoys a position of independence which the married woman is still struggling to obtain.

The White Slave Traffic, therefore, is not prost.i.tution; it is the _commercialised exploitation of prost.i.tutes_. The independent prost.i.tute, living alone, scarcely lends herself to the White Slave trader. It is on houses of prost.i.tution, where the less independent and usually weaker-minded prost.i.tutes are segregated, that the traffic is based. Such houses cannot even exist without such traffic. There is little inducement for a girl to enter such a house, in full knowledge of what it involves, on her own initiative. The proprietors of such houses must therefore give orders for the "goods" they desire, and it is the business of procurers, by persuasion, misrepresentation, deceit, intoxication, to supply them. "The White Slave Traffic," as Kneeland states, "is thus not only a hideous reality, but a reality almost wholly dependent on the existence of houses of prost.i.tution," and as the authors of _The Social Evil_ state, it is "the most shameful species of business enterprise in modern times."[1]

In this intimate dependence of the White Slave Traffic on houses of prost.i.tution, there lies, it may be pointed out, a hope for the future.

We are concerned, for the most part, with the more coa.r.s.e-grained part of the masculine population and with the more ignorant, degraded, and weak-minded part of the army of prost.i.tutes. Although much has been said of the enormous extension of the White Slave Traffic during recent years, it is important to remember that that extension is chiefly marked in connection with the great new centres of population in the younger countries. It is fostered by the conditions prevailing in crude, youthful, prosperous, but incompletely blended, communities, which have too swiftly attained luxury, but have not yet attained the more humane and refined developments of civilisation, and among whom women are often scarce.[2] Although there are not yet any very clear signs of the decay of prost.i.tution in civilisation, there can hardly be a doubt that civilisation is unfavourable to houses of prost.i.tution. They offer no inducements to the more intelligent and independent prost.i.tutes, and their inmates usually present little attraction to any men save those whose demands are of the humblest character. There is, therefore, a tendency to the natural and spontaneous decay of organised houses of prost.i.tution under modern civilised conditions; the prost.i.tute and her clients alike shun such houses. Along this line we may foresee the disappearance of the White Slave Traffic, apart altogether from any social or legal attempts at its direct suppression.[3]