Lippincott's Magazine OF
LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND EDUCATION. JULY, 1870.
THE PETTICOAT IN THE THE late Madame Emile de Girardin it was, I think, who described some provincial microcosm where every man was governed by his wife except one, and he was governed by another man's wife. It would be rather too much, perhaps, to say that the ways of this place precisely resemble those of the English political world ; but it is certain that the soft, low voice of woman has long governed the politics of England to a degree whereof probably most peo ple on this side of the Atlantic have but little notion. Woman suffrage is likely to become a fact in England sooner than in the United States. The diffi culties in its way are less complicated and less vast there than here. In Eng land, even under the late Reform Bill, the franchise is given only to the occu pier of a house or separate lodgings— the person who pays the rent. There fore, were the sexes placed on a politi cal equality in regard to the vote, there would still be none of the complications and the confusion which, reasonably or unreasonably, are so much dreaded here—the discord between husband and wife, the swamping of intelligence by the myriad votes of impetuous maid servants, and so forth. The husband, mother or son who pays the rent would have the vote, just as now : only where
POLITICS OF ENGLAND. a widow or spinster was the recognized and responsible occupier would the wo man have the vote, as indeed she al ready has irk various parochial and other such elections. Doubtless the time will come when universal suffrage will be demanded for England, but that time is not just yet ; and meanwhile woman will be allowed to ascend by gradual elevation toward what Mr. Mill consid ers her legitimate sphere, or be per mitted, if you prefer to look at the sub ject with Mr. Carlyle's eyes, to descend an inclined plane toward that bottom less pit whither womanhood suffrage is to be followed by doghood suffrage. I am not, however, about to write an essay on Woman Suffrage ; whereon, whether in England or elsewhere, there has perhaps been a sufficiency of writ ing already without my help. My pur pose is rather to speak of that kind of influence which women have long ex ercised in English politics, and which may be described as the irresponsible and illegitimate influence—the petticoat influence. I doubt whether many of the readers of this Magazine have any idea of the extent and power of that in fluence in English politics—of the end less subtleties by which it makes itself felt, and the pertinacious ubiquity which it continues to exhibit. I grieve to have
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by J. B. Lippincott & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern Distiict of Pennsylvania. Vol. VI. — 1 9
