Ruth Whitney Lyman, wife of Herbert Lyman; studied
two years at Bryn Mawr; a member of the Woman's Municipal
League of Boston and of the Board of Directors
of the North End Diet Kitchen. 1913
J. A. H.
Women today find their sex disquieted by deep
unrest. Our sex is seeking to adjust itself to new conditions.
Suffrage, feminism, militancy, have been the
symptoms of the first phase of modern woman's attempt
to adjust herself to twentieth century conditions.
That phase was the outgrowth of hasty judgment, and
is rapidly giving place to the second phase, wherein
the sober second thought of the normal woman is repudiating
the false values preached by those women
who impulsively leaped to the conclusion that man's
sphere was more potent than woman's and therefore
more desirable.
The struggle over woman suffrage presents the spectacle
of two camps of women arrayed against each
other with opposing ideals. Let no one be so simple as
to suppose that the issue is one between men and women.
It is not a "woman's rights" question; it is a which
woman's rights question. Two types of women are at
war, for although both desire the same end—namely,
a better world to live in—they differ fundamentally
as to the method of attaining it.
The fundamental difference is this—that the suffragist
(like the socialist) persists in regarding the individual
as the unit of society, while the anti-suffragist
insists that it is the family. Individualism is the all-important
thing to the suffragist; to the anti-suffragist
it is soundness of family relationships. Suffragism
is founded upon a sex-conscious individualism
and sex antagonism, which leads it to say that woman
can only be represented by herself, and that women now
are a great unrepresented class. As a matter of fact,
women are not a class, but a sex, pretty evenly distributed
throughout all the various classes of society.
Anti-suffrage is founded upon the conception of
co-operation between the sexes. Men and women
must be regarded as partners, not competitors; and the
family, to be preserved as a unit, must be represented
by having one political head. The man of the family
must be that representative, because government is
primarily the guarantee of protection to life and property
and rests upon the political strength of the majority,
which should be able in times of need to force
minorities to obey their will. That is the only basis
on which a democracy can endure. Suffragism says
that in order to attack existing evils women must organize
for participation in law making. It stakes its
faith on more government (a second resemblance to
socialism), upon control by law. The anti-suffragist
sees the evils of society as fundamentally resulting from
the evil in individuals, and calls on women to check it
at its source. They emphasize the power of individual
homes to turn out men and women, who, trained to
self-control, will not necessitate control by law. Knowing
well that the great training school for private morality
is family life, the anti-suffragist seeks to preserve
conditions making for sound family life, the sum total
of private morality being public morality, the conscience
of the people.
Moreover, the twentieth century has given us its
watchword, which is, differentiation or division of labor.
Anti-suffragists by accepting it, and applying to their
sex the new demands of specialization, put themselves
abreast of the times; but suffragists lag behind, still
harping on the exploded theories of equality and identity.
The strikingly progressive message the new century
presents us is this: Give equal opportunity to
men and women for expression along their different
lines. Government, law making, law enforcement,
with all the allied problems of tariff, taxation, police,
railroads, interstate and international relationships,
etc., must still be the business of men. The business of
women must be to work out a national ideal of domestic
life and juvenile training. They must standardize the
family life with their new understanding of the importance
of the product of every separate family to the
state.
The suffragist, who is so often the unmarried or
childless woman, here objects that women could also
vote. But it is practically impossible for women as a
sex to undertake the regular and frequent political
duties. If the highest efficiency in private life is to be
striven toward, women must regard themselves as a
sort of emergency corps, prepared to meet the unexpected;
for illness, accidents, temptation, sorrow—all
the disturbances of domestic life—do not come at stated
intervals. Anyone can readily see that for women
private duty would constantly conflict with public
duty. To become an efficient political unit, a woman
would have to set aside much time and strength upon
organizing and bringing out the woman's vote. There
would be the splitting up of women into rival political
groups on class, race, or religious lines, the dissipation
of energies and strain of contention for women who in
America already reach with sad frequency the breaking
point of nerves and body.
In contrast to such obligatory activity for all women,
consider the field of voluntary non-partisan activity
now open to the single woman, the woman of
leisure, and to every woman at such times as her family
duties permit. Indeed the germ of the true woman's
movement lies in the activities of such organizations
as education societies, playground associations, municipal
leagues, and so forth, which are only in their first
stages of usefulness. Here is ample scope and outlet
for talents and energy.
Our sex, if kept out of politics, has the opportunity
in these days when we prate so much about peace, to
set about disarming distrust and discord within our
own borders. Shall we not dream of a united American
womanhood? We twentieth century women may take a
noble stride toward it, if we will, by working for those
causes that disregard the divisions of race, religion, and
politics. Is it surprising that the anti-suffragist sees a
vast, unexhausted field for woman's influence outside the
political? No wonder that to the suffragist's craving
for a new sphere and new rights she opposes the plea
of old duties unfulfilled and existing opportunities neglected.
To contrast the opposing ideals of the two
groups of women, let me quote from what a great
Frenchman said in the time of the French Revolution:
"You have written upon the monuments of your
city the words Liberty—Fraternity—Equality. Above
Liberty write Duty; above Fraternity write Humility;
above Equality write Service; above the immemorial
creed of your Rights inscribe the divine creed of your
Duties." I truly believe that the women who, perceiving
present duties imperfectly performed, refuse to
take up the cry for more rights, are following the more
Christ-like ideal. I do not think that twentieth century
American women have outgrown His peerless example,
which urges them to be faithful first over a few things
as He commanded. God made us women; and if we
are told that women suffer more than men in peace and
war, let us answer, "Very likely—Christ Himself found
His cross heavy—let us bear the cross and crown of
womanhood in His name."
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