Women and the Alphabet | Page 7

fact of sex is but one item. Vital and momentous in itself,
it does not constitute the whole organism, but only a part. The
distinction of male and female is special, aimed at a certain end; and,
apart from that end, it is, throughout all the kingdoms of Nature, of
minor importance. With but trifling exceptions, from infusoria up to
man, the female animal moves, breathes, looks, listens, runs, flies,
swims, pursues its food, eats it, digests it, in precisely the same manner
as the male: all instincts, all characteristics, are the same, except as to
the one solitary fact of parentage. Mr. Ten Broeck's race-horses, Pryor
and Prioress, were foaled alike, fed alike, trained alike, and finally ran
side by side, competing for the same prize. The eagle is not checked in
soaring by any consciousness of sex, nor asks the sex of the timid hare,
its quarry. Nature, for high purposes, creates and guards the sexual
distinction, but keeps it subordinate to those still more important.
Now all this bears directly upon the alphabet. What sort of philosophy
is that which says, "John is a fool; Jane is a genius: nevertheless, John,
being a man, shall learn, lead, make laws, make money; Jane, being a

woman, shall be ignorant, dependent, disfranchised, underpaid"? Of
course, the time is past when one would state this so frankly, though
Comte comes quite near it, to say nothing of the Mormons; but this
formula really lies at the bottom of the reasoning one hears every day.
The answer is, Soul before sex. Give an equal chance, and let genius
and industry do the rest. _La carrière ouverte aux talens_! Every man
for himself, every woman for herself, and the alphabet for us all.
Thus far, my whole course of argument has been defensive and
explanatory. I have shown that woman's inferiority in special
achievements, so far as it exists, is a fact of small importance, because
it is merely a corollary from her historic position of degradation. She
has not excelled, because she has had no fair chance to excel. Man,
placing his foot upon her shoulder, has taunted her with not rising. But
the ulterior question remains behind. How came she into this attitude
originally? Explain the explanation, the logician fairly demands.
Granted that woman is weak because she has been systematically
degraded: but why was she degraded? This is a far deeper
question,--one to be met only by a profounder philosophy and a
positive solution. We are coming on ground almost wholly untrod, and
must do the best we can.
I venture to assert, then, that woman's social inferiority has been, to a
great extent, in the past a legitimate thing. To all appearance, history
would have been impossible without it, just as it would have been
impossible without an epoch of war and slavery. It is simply a matter of
social progress,--a part of the succession of civilizations. The past has
been inevitably a period of ignorance, of engrossing physical
necessities, and of brute force,--not of freedom, of philanthropy, and of
culture. During that lower epoch, woman was necessarily an inferior,
degraded by abject labor, even in time of peace,--degraded uniformly
by war, chivalry to the contrary notwithstanding. Behind all the
courtesies of Amadis and the Cid lay the stern fact,--woman a child or a
toy. The flattering troubadours chanted her into a poet's paradise; but
alas! that kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent took it
by force. The truth simply was, that her time had not come. Physical
strength must rule for a time, and she was the weaker. She was very
properly refused a feudal grant, by reason, say "Les Coustumes de
Normandie," of her unfitness for war or policy: _C'est l'homme ki se

bast et ki conseille_. Other authorities put it still more plainly: "A
woman cannot serve the emperor or feudal lord in war, on account of
the decorum of her sex; nor assist him with advice, because of her
limited intellect; nor keep his counsel, owing to the infirmity of her
disposition." All which was, no doubt, in the majority of cases, true;
and the degradation of woman was simply a part of a system which has,
indeed, had its day, but has bequeathed its associations.
From this reign of force, woman never freed herself by force. She could
not fight, or would not. Bohemian annals, to be sure, record the legend
of a literal war between the sexes, in which the women's army was led
by Libussa and Wlasla, and which finally ended with the capture, by
the army of men, of Castle Dziewin, Maiden's Tower, whose ruins are
still visible near Prague. The armor of Libussa is still shown at Vienna;
and the guide calls attention to the long-peaked toes of steel,