Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/84

 Full participation, further, not in civil rights, but in sovereignty, depends on capacity to perform all the duties of citizenship; and the defence of his country is at certain periods the main, as at all times it ought to be the essential, duty of a British citizen. But this duty women as a class have not the capacity to perform. No one dreams of the formation of an army of amazons, and, were such a thing a possibility, it would be a step back towards barbarism. Nor is it only in the defence of the country against foreign enemies that women are by nature incapable of taking part. The same is the case with the maintenance of law and order at home. Law is a command; its sanctions are ineffective without force to apply them; and women are unable to share in the forcible maintenance of the laws which, if they had the vote, they would share in making. It is no argument, in this connection, to say that many men are incapable, from age or weakness, of defending the State, but enjoy the franchise all the same. The aged have taken, or been able to take, their share in public duties; the weaklings are exceptions. Of women, the reverse is