The despotic power which the law gives to the husband may be a reason tomake the wife assent to any compromise by which power is practically sharedbetween the two, but it cannot be the reason why the husband does. That thereis always among decently conducted people a practical compromise, thoughone of them at least is under no physical or moral necessity of making it,shows that the natural motives which lead to a voluntary adjustment of theunited life of two persons in a manner acceptable to both, do on the whole,excepting unfavourable cases, prevail. The matter is certainly not improvedby laying down as an ordinance of law, that the superstructure of free governmentshall be raised upon a legal basis of despotism on one side and subjectionon the other, and that every concession which the despot makes may, at hismere pleasure, and without any warning, be recalled. Besides that no freedomis worth much when held on so precarious a tenure, its conditions are notlikely to be the most equitable when the law throws so prodigious a weightinto one scale; when the adjustment rests between two persons one of whomis declared to be entitled to everything, the other not only entitled tonothing except during the good pleasure of the first, but under the strongestmoral and religious obligation not to rebel under any excess of oppression.
A pertinacious adversary, pushed to extremities, may say, that husbandsindeed are willing to be reasonable, and to make fair concessions to theirpartners without being compelled to it, but that wives are not: that if allowedany rights of their own, they will acknowledge no rights at all in anyoneelse, and never will yield in anything, unless they can be compelled, bythe man's mere authority, to yield in everything. This would have been saidby many persons some generations ago, when satires on women were in vogue,and men thought it a clever thing to insult women for being what men madethem. But it will be said by no one now who is worth replying to. It is notthe doctrine of the present day that women are less susceptible of good feeling,and consideration for those with whom they are united by the strongest ties,than men are. On the contrary, we are perpetually told that women are betterthan men, by those who are totally opposed to treating them as if they wereas good; so that the saying has passed into a piece of tiresome cant, intendedto put a complimentary face upon an injury, and resembling those celebrationsof royal clemency which, according to Gulliver, the king of Lilliput alwaysprefixed to his most sanguinary decrees. If women are better than men inanything, it surely is in individual self-sacrifice for those of their ownfamily. But I lay little stress on this, so long as they are universallytaught that they are born and created for self-sacrifice. I believe thatequality of rights would abate the exaggerated self-abnegation which is thepresent artificial ideal of feminine character, and that a good woman wouldnot be more self-sacrificing than the best man: but on the other hand, menwould be much more unselfish and self-sacrificing than at present, becausethey would no longer be taught to worship their own will as such a grandthing that it is actually the law for another rational being. There is nothingwhich men so easily learn as this self-worship: all privileged persons, andall privileged classes, have had it. The more we descend in the scale ofhumanity, the intenser it is; and most of all in those who are not, and cannever expect to be, raised above anyone except an unfortunate wife and children.
The honourable exceptions are proportionally fewer than in the case of almostany other human infirmity. Philosophy and religion, instead of keeping itin check, are generally suborned to defend it; and nothing controls it butthat practical feeling of the equality of human beings, which is the theoryof Christianity, but which Christianity will never practically teach, whileit sanctions institutions grounded on an arbitrary preference of one humanbeing over another.
There are, no doubt, women, as there are men, whom equality of considerationwill not satisfy; with whom there is no peace while any will or wish is regardedbut their own. Such persons are a proper subject for the law of divorce.
They are only fit to live alone, and no human beings ought to be compelledto associate their lives with them. But the legal subordination tends tomake such characters among women more, rather than less, frequent. If theman exerts his whole power, the woman is of course crushed: but if she istreated with indulgence, and permitted to assume power, there is no ruleto set limits to her encroachments. The law, not determining her rights,but theoretically allowing her none at all, practically declares that themeasure of what she has a right to, is what she can contrive to get.
