At present, in the more improved countries, the disabilities of womenare the only case, save one, in which laws and institutions take personsat their birth, and ordain that they shall never in all their lives be allowedto compete for certain things. The one exception is that of royalty. Personsstill are born to the throne; no one, not of the reigning family, can everoccupy it, and no one even of that family can, by any means but the courseof hereditary succession, attain it. All other dignities and social advantagesare open to the whole male sex: many indeed are only attainable by wealth,but wealth may be striven for by anyone, and is actually obtained by manymen of the very humblest origin. The difficulties, to the majority, are indeedinsuperable without the aid of fortunate accidents; but no male human beingis under any legal ban: neither law nor opinion superadd artificial obstaclesto the natural ones. Royalty, as I have said, is excepted: but in this caseeveryone feels it to be an exception -- an anomaly in the modern world, inmarked opposition to its customs and principles, and to be justified onlyby extraordinary special expediences, which, though individuals and nationsdiffer in estimating their weight, unquestionably do in fact exist. But inthis exceptional case, in which a high social function is, for importantreasons, bestowed on birth instead of being put up to competition, all freenations contrive to adhere in substance to the principle from which theynominally derogate; for they circumscribe this high function by conditionsavowedly intended to prevent the person to whom it ostensibly belongs fromreally performing it; while the person by whom it is performed, the responsibleminister, does obtain the post by a competition from which no full-growncitizen of the male sex is legally excluded. The disabilities, therefore,to which women are subject from the mere fact of their birth, are the solitaryexamples of the kind in modern legislation. In no instance except this, whichcomprehends half the human race, are the higher social functions closed againstanyone by a fatality of birth which no exertions, and no change of circumstances,can overcome; for even religious disabilities (besides that in England andin Europe they have practically almost ceased to exist) do not close anycareer to the disqualified person in case of conversion.
The social subordination of women thus stands out an isolated fact inmodern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has become their fundamentallaw; a single relic of an old world of thought and practice exploded in everythingelse, but retained in the one thing of most universal interest; as if a giganticdolmen, or a vast temple of Jupiter Olympius, occupied the site of St. Paul'sand received daily worship, while the surrounding Christian churches wereonly resorted to on fasts and festivals. This entire discrepancy betweenone social fact and all those which accompany it, and the radical oppositionbetween its nature and the progressive movement which is the boast of themodern world, and which has successively swept away everything else of ananalogous character, surely affords, to a conscientious observer of humantendencies, serious matter for reflection. It raises a prima facie presumptionon the unfavourable side, far outweighing any which custom and usage couldin such circumstances create on the favourable; and should at least sufficeto make this, like the choice between republicanism and royalty, a balancedquestion.
The least that can be demanded is, that the question should not be consideredas prejudged by existing fact and existing opinion, but open to discussionon its merits, as a question of justice and expediency: the decision on this,as on any of the other social arrangements of mankind, depending on whatan enlightened estimate of tendencies and consequences may show to be mostadvantageous to humanity in general, without distinction of sex. And thediscussion must be a real discussion, descending to foundations, and notresting satisfied with vague and general assertions. It will not do, forinstance to assert in general terms, that the experience of mankind has pronouncedin favour of the existing system. Experience cannot possibly have decidedbetween two courses, so long as there has only been experience of one. Ifit be said that the doctrine of the equality of the sexes rests only on theory,it must be remembered that the contrary doctrine also has only theory torest upon. All that is proved in its favour by direct experience, is thatmankind have been able to exist under it, and to attain the degree of improvementand prosperity which we now see; but whether that prosperity has been attainedsooner, or is now greater, than it would have been under the other system,experience does not say. On the other hand, experience does say, that everystep in improvement has been so invariably accompanied by a step made inraising the social position of women, that historians and philosophers havebeen led to adopt their elevation or debasement as on the whole the suresttest and most correct measure of the civilisation of a people or an age.
Through all the progressive period of human history, the condition of womenhas been approaching nearer to equality with men. This does not of itselfprove that the assimilation must go on to complete equality; but it assuredlyaffords some presumption that such is the case.
