Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/223

Rh possible to exaggerate the effects of the laws and usages of a country upon the habits of thought of those who, generation after generation, have been born, and bred, and have lived under them. Were the law, which ordains that, when a father dies intestate, all the real property of which he is possessed shall be inherited by his eldest son, his other children being sent empty away, enacted for the first time, there is no one, probably, who would not be shocked by its singular injustice; yet the majority of persons in this country are far from thinking it extraordinary or unjust, and a great many of them would deem it a dangerous and wicked doctrine to question its justice. Only a few weeks ago, a statesman who has held high offices in a Conservative ministry, in an address to electors, conjured them not to part with the principle of primogeniture, and declared that there was no change in the law which he would so vehemently oppose as this: "Let them but follow the example of a neighboring nation in this respect, and there was an end of their personal freedom and liberty!" So much do the laws and usages of a country affect the feelings and judgments of those who dwell therein. If we clearly apprehend the fact, and allow it the weight which it deserves, it will be apparent that we must hesitate to accept the subordinate position which women have always had as a valid argument for the justice of it, and a sufficient reason why they should continue forever in it.

But may we not fairly assert that it would be no less a mistake in an opposite direction to allow no weight to such an argument? Setting physiological considerations aside, it is not possible to suppose that the whole explanation of woman's position and character is that man, having in the beginning found her pleasing in his eyes and necessary to his enjoyment, took forcible possession of her, and has ever since kept her in bondage, without any other justification than the right of the strongest. Superiority of muscular strength, without superiority of any other kind, would not have done that, anymore than superiority of muscular strength has availed to give the lion or the elephant possession of the earth. If it were not that woman's organization and functions found their fitting home in a position different from, if not subordinate to, that of men, she would not so long have kept that position. If she is to be judged by the same standard as men, and to make their aims her aims, we are certainly bound to say that she labors under an inferiority of constitution by a dispensation which there is no gainsaying. This is a matter of physiology, not a matter of sentiment; it is not a mere question of larger or smaller muscles, but of the energy and power of endurance of the nerve-force which drives the intellectual and muscular machinery; not a question of two bodies and minds that are in equal physical conditions, but of one body and mind capable of sustained and regular hard labor, and of another body and mind which for one quarter of each month during the best years of life is more or less sick and unfit for hard work. It