Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/181

 were made the condition of the franchise, women would be prepared to qualify, though they would then carry a double burden, for they have their own special work for the State—the giving of life—which is at least of equal value with that of the soldier.

This idea meets with the shocked disapproval of certain anti-suffragists who have developed their argument to include the impossibility of women being fought. Women, they say, not only cannot fight, but they cannot be fought. No civilised nation would ever dream of placing its women in the firing line. The laws of chivalry forbid it. This, they say, is why it would be giving a position of positive superiority to women if they were enfranchised. They would be in a position to compel men to fight whilst they themselves not only would not have to fight but could not be fought.

If it is true that civilised nations do not make their women fight, the reason given for this is not true. Women are fought in every other battle-field. They are fought with great cruelty in the labour world, beaten down to a bare subsistence wage in the battle for a living. They have had to fight every inch of the way to business, professional, and educational opportunity. The laws of chivalry do not operate in that underworld of men and women where women are bought like cattle,