The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage/Arguments which take the Form of "Counsels of Perfection" Addressed to Man
III
ARGUMENTS WHICH TAKE THE FORM OF "COUNSELS OF PERFECTION" ADDRESSED TO MAN
Argument that Woman Requires a Vote for her Protection—Argument that Woman ought to be Invested with the Responsibilities of Voting in Order that She May Attain Her Full Intellectual Stature.
There, however, remains still a further class of arguments. I have in view here arguments which have nothing to do with elementary natural rights, nor yet with wounded amour propre. They concern ethics, and sympathy, and charitable feelings.
The suffragist here gives to man "counsels of perfection."
It will be enough to consider here two of these:—the first, the argument that woman, being the weaker vessel, needs, more than man, the suffrage for her protection; the second, that woman, being less than man in relation to public life, ought to be given the vote for instructional purposes.
The first of these appeals will, for instance, take the following form:—"Consider the poor sweated East End woman worker. She knows best where the shoe pinches. You men can't know. Give her a vote; and you shall see that she will very soon better her condition."
When I hear that argument I consider:—We will suppose that woman was ill. Should we go to her and say: "You know best, know better than any man, what is wrong with you. Here are all the medicines and remedies. Make your own selection, for that will assuredly provide what will be the most likely to help."
If this would be both futile and inhuman, much more would it be so to seek out this woman who is sick in fortune and say to her, "Go and vote for the parliamentary candidate who will be likely to influence the trend of legislation in a direction which will help."
What would really help the sweated woman labourer would, of course, be to have the best intellect brought to bear, not specially upon the problem of indigent woman, but upon the whole social problem.
But the aspect of the question which is, from our present point of view, the fundamentally important one is the following: Granting that the extension of the suffrage to woman would enable her, as the suffragist contends, to bring pressure upon her parliamentary representative, man, while anxious to do his very best for woman, might very reasonably refuse to go about it in this particular way.
If a man has a wife whom he desires to treat indulgently, he does not necessarily open a joint account with her at his bankers.
If he wants to contribute to a charity he does not give to the managers of that charity a power of attorney over his property.
And if he is a philanthropical director of a great business he does not, when a pathetic case of poverty among his staff is brought to his notice, imperil the fortunes of his undertaking by giving to his workmen shares and a vote in the management.
Moreover, he would perhaps regard it as a little suspect if a group of those who were claiming this as a right came and told him that "it was very selfish of him" not to grant their request.
Precious above rubies to the suffragist and every other woman who wants to apply the screw to man is that word selfish. It furnishes her with the petitio principii that man is under an ethical obligation to give anything she chooses to ask. We come next—and this is the last of all the arguments we have to consider—to the argument that the suffrage ought to be given to woman for instructional purposes.
Now it would be futile to attempt to deny that we have ready to hand in the politics of the British Empire—that Empire which is swept along in "the too vast orb of her fate"—an ideal political training-ground in which we might put woman to school. The woman voter would there be able to make any experiment she liked.
But one wonders why it has not been proposed to carry woman's instruction further, and for instructional purposes to make of a woman let us say a judge, or an ambassador, or a Prime Minister.
There would—if only it were legitimate to sacrifice vital national interests—be not a little to say in favour of such a course. One might at any rate hope by these means once for all to bring home to man the limitations of woman.