The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage/Woman's Disability in the Matter of Public Morality
III
WOMAN'S DISABILITY IN THE MATTER OF PUBLIC MORALITY
Standards by which Morality can be Appraised—Conflict between Different Moralities—The Correct Standard of Morality—Moral Psychology of Man and Woman—Difference between Man and Woman in Matters of Public Morality.
Yet a third point has to come into consideration in connexion with the woman voter. This is, that she would be pernicious to the State also by virtue of her defective moral equipment.
Let me make clear what is the nature of the defect of morality which is here imputed to woman.
Conduct may be appraised by very different standards.
We may appraise it by reference to a transcendental religious ideal which demands that the physical shall be subordinated to the spiritual, and that the fetters of self should be flung aside.
Or again, we may bring into application purely mundane utilitarian standards, and may account conduct as immoral or moral according as it seeks only the happiness of the agent, or the happiness of the narrow circle of humanity which includes along with him also his relatives and intimate friends, or again, the welfare of the wider circle which includes all those with whom he may have come into contact, or whom he may affect through his work; or again, the welfare of the whole body-politic of which we are members; or lastly, that of the general body of mankind.
Now it might be contended that all these different moralities are in their essence one and the same; and that one cannot comply with the requirements of any one of these systems of morality without fulfilling in a measure the requirements of all the other moralities.
It might, for example, be urged that if a man strive after the achievement of a transcendental ideal in which self shall be annulled, he will pro tanto be bringing welfare to his domestic circle; or again, that it would be impossible to promote domestic welfare without, through this, promoting the welfare of the nation, and through that the general welfare of the world.
In like manner it might be argued that all work done for abstract principles of morality like liberty and justice, for the advancement of knowledge, and for whatever else goes to the building up of a higher civilisation, will, by promoting the welfare of the general body of mankind, redound to the advantage of each several nation, and ultimately to the advantage of each domestic circle.
But all this would be true only in a very superficial and strictly qualified sense. In reality, just as there is eternal conflict between egoism and altruism, so there is conflict between the different moralities.
To take examples, the attempt to actualise the transcendental religious ideal may, when pursued with ardour, very easily conflict with the morality which makes domestic felicity its end. And again—as we see in the anti-militarist movement in France, in the history of the early Christian Church, in the case of the Quakers and in the teachings of Tolstoy—it may quite well set itself in conflict with national ideals, and dictate a line of conduct which is, from the point of view of the State, immoral.
We need no further witness of the divorce between idealistic and national morality than that which is supplied in the memorable utterance of Bishop Magee, "No state which was conducted on truly Christian principles could hold together for a week."
And domestic morality will constantly come into conflict with public morality.
To do everything in one's power to advance one's relatives and friends irrespectively of all considerations of merit would, no doubt, be quite sound domestic morality; it could, however, not always be reconciled with public morality. In the same way, to take one's country's part in all eventualities would be patriotic, but it might quite well conflict with the higher interests of humanity.
Now, the point towards which we have been winning our way is that each man's moral station and degree will be determined by the election which he makes where egoism and altruism, and where a narrower and a wider code of morality, conflict.
That the moral law forbids yielding to the promptings of egoism or to those of the narrower moralities when this involves a violation of the precepts of the wider morality is axiomatic. Criminal and anti-social actions are not excused by the fact that motives which impelled their commission were not purely egoistic.
But the ethical law demands more than abstention from definitely anti-social actions. It demands from every individual that he shall recognise the precepts of public morality as of superior obligation to those of egoism and domestic morality.
By the fact that her public men recognised this ethical law Rome won for herself in the ancient world spectacular grandeur. By an unexampled national obedience to it glory has in our time accrued to Japan. And, in truth, there is not anywhere any honour or renown but such as comes from casting away the bonds of self and of the narrower moralities to carry out the behests of the wider morality.
Even in the strongholds of transcendental religion where it was axiomatic that morality began and was summed up in personal morality, it is gradually coming to be recognised that, where we have two competing moralities, it is always the wider morality which has the prior claim upon our allegiance.
Kingsley's protest against the morality of "saving one's dirty soul" marked a step in advance. And we find full recognition of the superior claim of the larger morality in that other virile dictum of Bishop Magee, "I would rather have England free, than England sober." That is, "I would maintain the conditions which make for the highest civilisation even at the price of a certain number of lapses in personal and domestic morality."
What is here new, let it be noted, is only the acknowledgment by those whose official allegiance is to a transcendental ideal of personal morality that they are called upon to obey a higher allegiance. For there has always existed, in the doctrine that guilty man could not be pardoned and taken back into favour until the claims of eternal justice had been satisfied, theoretical recognition of the principle that one must conform to the precepts of abstract morality before one may ethically indulge oneself in the lower moralities of philanthropy and personal benevolence.
The view point from which I would propose to survey the morality of woman has now been reached. It has, however, still to be pointed out that we may appropriately, in comparing the morals of man and woman, confine our survey to a comparatively narrow field. That is to say, we may here rule out all that relates to purely personal and domestic morality—for this is not relevant to the suffrage. And we may also rule out all that relates to offences against the police laws—such as public drunkenness and offences against the criminal law—for these would come into consideration only in connexion with an absolutely inappreciable fraction of voters.
It will be well to begin by signalising certain points in the moral psychology of man.
When morality takes up its abode in a man who belongs to the intellectual caste it will show itself in his becoming mindful of his public obligations. He will consider the quality of his work as affecting the interest of those who have to place dependence upon it; behaviour to those who are casually brought into relations with him; the discharge of his indebtedness to the community; and the proper conduct of public affairs.
In particular, it will be to him a matter of concern that the law shall be established upon classifications which are just (in the sense of being conformable to public advantage); and that the laws shall everywhere be justly, that is to say rigorously and impartially, administered.
If we now turn to the man in the street we shall not find him especially sensible to the appeals of morality. But when the special call comes it will generally be possible to trust him: as an elector, to vote uninfluenced by considerations of private advantage; and, when called to serve on a jury, to apply legal classifications without distinction of person.
Furthermore, in all times of crisis he may be counted upon to apply the principles of communal morality which have been handed down in the race.
The Titanic disaster, for example, showed in a conspicuous manner that the ordinary man will, "letting his own life go," obey the communal law which lays it upon him, when involved in a catastrophe, to save first the women and children.
Lastly, we come to the man who is intolerant of all the ordinary restraints of personal and domestic morality. Even in him the seeds of communal morality will often be found deeply implanted.
Time and again a regiment of scallawags, who have let all other morality go hang, have, when the proper chord has been made to vibrate in them, heard the call of communal morality, and done deeds which make the ears of whosoever heareth of them to tingle.
We come into an entirely different land when we come to the morality of woman. It is personal and domestic, not public, morality which is instinctive in her.
In other words, when egoism gives ground to altruism, that altruism is exercised towards those who are linked up to her by a bond of sexual affection, or a community in blood, or failing this, by a relation of personal friendship, or by some other personal relation.
And even when altruism has had her perfect work, woman feels no interest in, and no responsibility towards, any abstract moral ideal.
And though the suffragist may protest, instancing in disproof of this her own burning enthusiasm for justice, we, for our part, may legitimately ask whether evidence of a moral enthusiasm for justice would be furnished by a desire to render to others their due, or by vehement insistence upon one's own rights, and systematic attempts to extort, under the cover of the word "justice," advantages for oneself.
But it will be well to dwell a little longer on, and to bring out more clearly, the point that woman's moral ideals are personal and domestic, as distinguished from impersonal and public.
Let us note in this connexion that it would be difficult to conceive of a woman who had become deaf to the appeal of personal and domestic morality making it a matter of amour propre to respond to a call of public morality; and difficult to conceive of a woman recovering lost self-respect by fulfilling such an obligation.
But one knows that woman will rise and respond to the call of any strong human or transcendental personal affection.
Again, it is only a very exceptional woman who would, when put to her election between the claims of a narrow and domestic and a wider or public morality, subordinate the former to the latter.
In ordinary life, at any rate, one finds her following in such a case the suggestions of domestic—I had almost called it animal—morality.
It would be difficult to find any one who would trust a woman to be just to the rights of others in the case where the material interests of her children, or of a devoted husband, were involved. And even to consider the question of being in such a case intellectually just to any one who came into competition with personal belongings like husband and child would, of course, lie quite beyond the moral horizon of ordinary woman.
It is not only the fact that the ideals of abstract justice and truth would inevitably be brushed aside by woman in the interests of those she loves which comes into consideration here; it is also the fact that woman is almost without a moral sense in the matter of executing a public trust such as voting or attaching herself to a political association with a view to influencing votes.
There is between man and woman here a characteristic difference.
While it is, of course, not a secret to anybody that the baser sort of man can at any time be diverted from the path of public morality by a monetary bribe or other personal advantage, he will not, at any rate, set at naught all public morality by doing so for a peppercorn. He will, for instance, not join, for the sake of a daughter, a political movement in which he has no belief; nor vote for this or that candidate just to please a son; or censure a member of Parliament who has in voting on female suffrage failed to consider the predilections of his wife.
But woman, whether she be politically enfranchised as in Australasia, or unenfranchised as at home; whether she be immoral in the sense of being purely egoistic, or moral in the sense of being altruistic, very rarely makes any secret or any shame of doing these things.
In this matter one would not be very far from the truth if one alleged that there are no good women, but only women who have lived under the influence of good men.
Even more serious than this postponement of public to private morality is the fact that even reputedly ethical women will, in the interests of what they take to be idealistic causes, violate laws which are universally accepted as being of moral obligation.
I here pass over the recent epidemic of political crime among women to advert to the want of conscience which permits, in connexion with professedly idealistic causes, not only misrepresentations, but the making of deliberately false statements on matters of public concern.
It is, for example, an illustration of the profoundly different moral atmospheres in which men and women live that when a public woman recently made, for what was to her an idealistic purpose, a deliberately false statement of fact in The Times, she quite naively confessed to it, seeing nothing whatever amiss in her action.
And it did not appear that any other woman suffragist could discern any kind of immorality in it. The worst thing they could find to say was that it perhaps was a little gauche to confess to making a deliberately false statement on a public question when it was for the moment particularly desirable that woman should show up to best advantage before the eyes of man.
We may now for a moment put aside the question of woman's public morality and consider a question which is inextricably mixed up with the question of the admission of woman to the suffrage. This is the mental attitude and the programme of the female legislative reformer.