Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/123

Rh appeared, by J. E. Cairnes, the distinguished Professor of Political Economy in University College, London. The article, though a spirited polemic, contributes but little to the radical question, and in our opinion by no means satisfactorily answers Prof. Smith's objections; while we are far from thinking that Mr. Smith himself went to the root of the subject in giving the reasons of his positions. He is of opinion that the extension of political suffrage to the female sex would prove destructive to free institutions, which Prof. Cairnes thinks a groundless and absurd apprehension. But this grave question we believe cannot be determined without going deeper into the subject than either of these writers has done. If the natures of women are the same as those of men, then their enfranchisement might be expected to produce but little change in the course of political affairs; but if women are profoundly different in mental and emotional constitution from men, then the entrance of this new element into the political sphere, by which the voters would be more than doubled, would certainly alter the composition of political forces and the direction of political movement. It is worthy of remark, in passing, that the leading advocates of woman suffrage, while affirming the equality of the sexes and the essential identity of the masculine and feminine mind, nevertheless urge the policy of female enfranchisement on the ground of the numerous new results that would follow, and which would be widely different from those now realized.

There are but two ways of ascertaining what these consequences would be: first, by making the experiment on a national scale and for a lengthened period, because, in the absence of revolution, changes in social and civil types proceed slowly. The second method of ascertaining the consequences of female enfranchisement, and the only practicable method, is, to infer them from the nature of political institutions on one hand, and from the female character on the other. We are here confronted with three scientific problems. We have to consider the natural constitution of society, and find out what are the laws of social change, and the conditions under which social development has thus far taken place. This subject is deeper than politics, which deals with conventional arrangements, and what we may call the superficies of society; and goes down to those relations that underlie all political forms, and pertain to the essential unfolding of humanity. We have also to consider woman in the light of biological science—that is, the physiological nature, modifications, and limitations of her sex; and we have again to study her mental and emotional traits as determined by her biological constitution and maternal experience. These we hold to be the fundamental problems of the woman question, which must be elucidated before there can be any sufficient data for intelligent action; and, until they are more fully elucidated than at present, all action will be but blind and hap-hazard experiments, and far more likely to produce evil than good.

We publish that portion of Prof. Cairnes's article—the most important part—in which he deals with the relation of woman suffrage to the family; but the argument is unsatisfactory. The "element of weakness in the family, as things now stand," he says, is the "want of sufficient subjects of common interest between man and woman;" certainly a most astounding averment. Man and woman in the family mean husband and wife, father and mother, growing children, home-education, the formation of character and the outer social relations that spring from the family circle. The home, by its very constitution, is at the same time the centre of the tenderest and strongest emotions, and the