Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/222

210 The foregoing considerations go to show that the main reason of woman's position lies in her nature. That she has not competed with men in the active work of life was probably because, not having had the power, she had not the desire to do so, and because, having the capacity of functions which man has not, she has found her pleasure in performing them. It is not simply that man, being stronger in body than she is, has held her in subjection, and debarred her from careers of action which he was resolved to keep for himself; her maternal functions must always have rendered, and must continue to render, most of her activity domestic. There have been times enough in the history of the world when the freedom which she has had, and the position which she has held in the estimation of men, would have enabled her to assert her claims to other functions, had she so willed it. The most earnest advocate of her rights to be something else than what she has hitherto been would hardly argue that she has always been in the position of a slave kept in forcible subjection by the superior physical force of men. Assuredly, if she has been a slave she has been a slave content with her bondage. But it may perhaps be said that in that lies the very pith of the matter—that she is not free, and does not care to be free; that she is a slave, and does not know or feel it. It may be alleged that she has lived for so many ages in the position of dependence to which she was originally reduced by the superior muscular strength of man, has been so thoroughly imbued with inherited habits of submission, and overawed by the influence of customs never questioned, that she has not the desire for emancipation; that thus a moral bondage has been established more effectual than an actual physical bondage. That she has now exhibited a disposition to emancipate herself, and has initiated a movement to that end, may be owing partly to the easy means of intellectual intercommunication in this age, whereby a few women scattered through the world, who felt the impulses of a higher inspiration, have been enabled to coöperate in a way that would have been impossible in former times, and partly to the awakened moral sense and to the more enlightened views of men, which have led to the encouragement and assistance, instead of the suppression, of their efforts.

It would be rash to assert that there is not some measure of truth in these arguments. Let any one who thinks otherwise reflect upon the degraded condition of women in Turkey, where habit is so ingrained in their nature, and custom so powerful over the mind, that they have neither thought nor desire to attain to a higher state, and "naught feel their foul disgrace:" a striking illustration how women may be demoralized and yet not know or feel it, and an instructive lesson for those who are anxious to form a sound judgment upon the merits of the movement for promoting their higher education and the removal of the legal disabilities under which they labor. It is hardly