THE LADIES AT GUILDHALL.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1725, 20 September 1862, Page 5

THE LADIES AT GUILDHALL.

[From the "Saturday Review," June 11.] It was not to be expected, indeed not to be hoped, that the ladies would not eome out strong at the Social Science Congress. Social science is but a convenient euphemism—to adopt a phrase which has nearly degenerated into slang, especially as it is generally used interchangeably with " euphuism'' —for gossip and small talk. The position-of-women question is one of those large and vague ones on which it is almost impossible not to say something which is true. If the fair essayists and speakers ask, Are we satisfied with the present position of women in society ? are they fairly treated ? are they not debarred by conventionalism, prejudice, ignorance, from their fair share of work and duty? would social laws be what the,y are if women had been consulted ? why should a woman who has the diviner faculties largely implanted in her be shut out from her legitimate influence ? and so on—there is but one answer. She has her grievances, her wrongs, if she likes to call thera so. But what then ? Neither are we satisfied with society, nor with the position of man. If we had what King Alphonso wished for, we should set a great many things right besides female wrongs. Nobody is fairly treated. Nobody ever was, or even will be, fairly treated. Conventionalism, prejudice, ignorance, hinder us all from attaining our real deserts. Everybody suffers from injustice. If we are asked by the ladies to generalize about their wrongs, we must generalize upon still larger wrongs. We must take up our parable with a wider lamentation, and a still more ancient tale of wrong, it is of about as much practical use to discuss the Origin of Evil as to assemble a Social Science Section on the sorrows of our sisters. And when we come to specimens of the unfairness with which society treats women, the practical answer is twofold. Either real injustice is in the course of reparation, or the remedies suggested are worse than the evil complained of. Why these answers are not satisfactory to the ladies is that they are so terribly prosaic—we mean the answers, not the ladies. Such a dull, stolid, matter-of-fact answer to the fair enthusiasts is almost more galling than the insolent tyranny which tells them that they are only man and water, only an inferior animal, and born to lower destinies : and, we believe, they rather prefer the insult to the argument. The fact is, they like to have a grievance. Their pleasure is to plead and complain ; suffering is a badge which they glory to wear. To be only half-appreciated, to feel hurt, to fall into the suppliant attitude, to assume the blighted-being pose, is not only becom iug, but natural. Only to share in the gradual, slow, unsensational repining of the whole host of human society is not enough. A sudden cataclysm, a volcanic and spasmodic displacement of the social strata, is what they appreciate. Nothing less than a revolution in all human relations would suit their sensibilities. A iady who received from the ambiguous courtesy of the Dean of St. Paul's the happy compliment of being Mistress of the Art of saying everything that could be said for her own views, represents the whole class of postulants in their moral attitude, though we should be sorry to say that Miss I'arkes or Miss Faithfull were fairly presented by Miss Cobbe, who lectured us in favour of admitting ladies to University Degrees. If Miss Cobbe means that sex is a mistake, why does she not say so ? For, pursued up to its original postulate, that is substantially what this petulant appeal for man's place and work comes to. There must be a line drawn somewhere, on the one side of which stands woman, special, unobtruding, isolated, and separate —while on the other must stand man, sole, self-contained, and we will not stay supreme, but separate also. What we complain of in the lady -rieyanee-mon-r*ers is that they will never draw tins line. What Miss Cobbe means, if she has composed her paper as anything better than a rhetorical exercise, is to ask that whatever man does woman is to be encouraged and empowered to do ; ami with sucli a reasoner it is as nothing to say, first, that woman cannot do it if she would, and next, that she I would be not half so happy if she could. As to the gradual amelioration of the condition of woman, ever since society has existed woman j has been gradually expanding in her position. i Christianity and Western civilization is only > j long record of a change which is incidental to i society itself. We have just taken off certain \ restrictions, the use of which time had outworn, I as to woman's rights in property. Whether wisely j or not, but certainly with a leaning to woman's i so called rights, we have in what they thought to be their favour, relaxed the laws of marriage. We have embarked in a course of removal of all the real social disabilities of women. And we are ready to admit that, as a very highly civilized stage of society tends to discourage marriage, we must at least wink at their claims to secure personal independence by the work of their hands and heads. But we differ from the Lady Beformers in this—that we quarrel with the stage of society which, as now among ourselves, hinders a woman from becoming a wife and a matron; while they, on the other hand, acquiesce in, \\ ! they do not welcome, a violation of a law of nature I because it seems to minister to their own aspirations foY independence. Mrs. Chisholm, who was the first to plan systematic female emigration is not half the saint in the lady's calendar whicl Miss Cobbe is likely to be; and why? Beoaust the one was a married woman, who saw society a; it is—the other is a fanatic, who only looks a BOciety as she would like it to be. After all we should be readier to listen to the lecturers 1 they had not so many of them Miss before thai: names. There is a teaching about women whicl only they can teach who have a ring on a certaii linger. An unmarried women is only half i woman, and therefore can only deliver half-truths t We admit these half-truths. But what is there • in society as it is which prevents the existance o . Mrs. Somerville, or Miss Austen, or the late Mrs . Wells, of Miss Hosmer, or even of Mrs. Mari [ White, or Miss Cobbe herself? There they arc i Solvitur ambulaudo. The ladies themselves ar i the best refutation of their own argument. The; . are not very badly used, because they are at thi i moment fluttering us with crinoline and bad logn . in the lectnre-rooms of the Social Science Assj ciation. Womankind has not, in fact, muck t f camplain of which has given us Miss Nightingah The Victoria Tress may, if it can or if it does, ri v; y our Clarendon or our Spotiiswoode. _ There ar / no monopolies of masculine genius, intellect, c ,f artistic skill with which woman cannot compete J or defeat, if she can. Science, art, literature ,r politics, the course is free enough. In the Stat "r of lowa, a lady has just been elected Mayores y after a contest with a male competitor. We giv (1 woman a fair field. It it only God and natui ( 1 which make feminine success to be exceptiona ■e and we can afford to leave the dispute betwee b woman and her Maker It cannot be said tin (1 we jealously interpose and shackle those fema it energies which are free to produce such, if rar t results. That they are rare approves a law wit Y which neither we nor the Ladies' Association C£ interfere. If Miss Hosmer were a British subjet ,f there is neither law nor custom which could deb ;e her from honours which Mrs. Cosway and Aug l le licaKauffmann have won and worn. But win ,d Miss Cobbe asks that young ladies should go [j Eton and become Oxford undergraduates —becau II she must mean this if she means anything —v i. shall not quote the Princiss, but simply say th (d she talks like the Miss that she is. t When anybody is possessed with a grievauc ty and argues upon feeling, it is of little or no use of address their intellect. So that we know at wh as disadvantage we are writing when we ask Mi Parkes and her friends seriously to consid ie whether they had not better let well alone, ni an whether society, which is a power stronger th, up sociai science, will not begin to repent of the e ly courageinent it is holding out to women to asst Ik their native dignity if they persist in pushi ntlinattei]; to t,hese ygry &n(| ] M\^ ,(i

conclusions. We are ready enough to encourage sisterhoods, or deaconesses, or Bible women, or by whatever name they rejoice. We more than encourage authoresses and lady artists, for they possess a certain immunity from rough criticism. We are not slack to call out the industry and capabilities, and even to subsidize the ignorance and impudence of half-taught women asgovernesses, even though general education suffers. But do these ladies who read papers at public meetings really mean that they wish to encourage the class of spinsters by profession and choice? This is a full and fair issue to which we challenge the disputants at Guildhall. We suspect that, if this is their real purpose, they do not fairly represent their sex. To take them at their word would as little suit women's purpose as it suits ours. If all that they mean is that society ought to throw as few hindrances as possible in the way of those who by the the accidents of life, person, or social condition are permanently excluded from married life, from winning wisely and using honourably their unsought and unnatural independence, then we say that this is exactly what we, at least in England, are doing, and are ready to do still more. But if, on the other hand, they want all the jam and none of the crust of the social pie—if they demand exceptional privileges and disdain normal hardships—if they wish to exchange natural duties for an unnatural and hothouse cultivation—we must point them to their American models. Mr. Trollope has just told us that society even in America has found out its mistake. When man is too deferential it seems that woman is too intrusive—an unnatural and false courtesy produces unfeminine and irrational demands. There will be an unpleasant reaction; and if woman aims at a sphere for which she is unfit, she will very unjustly perhaps, but not unnaturally, we fear, be debarred from' opportunities of which she is capable. The bow may bo overstrung: and just as a military despotism is the political complement of a fierce democracy, so the Harem life or Mormouisin mnv be the deplorable conclusion of a woman's-right Caucus. America, fruitful in monitors and examples, is the parent of either excess. Lord Brougham, not the Clodius in the mysteries of Bona Dea, hut the speaker of the Ladies Parliament, the President of our modern Fcclesiazus.-e, remarked at the Wednesday sitting, how completely the ladies had proved, what wanted but little proof, their talent in debate. There are some carpers who think that they might just as well try to attain a more difficult gift—a great talent for silence; or, as an oldfashioned book calls it, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.