A RETROSPECT
THE POSITION OF WOMEN BEFORE THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR

“There is one profound weakness in your movement towards emancipation. Your whole argument is based on an acceptance of male values.”—Dr. Ananda Coomaraswary.

As I set out to write yet another book on Woman, I find it necessary first to decide whether the primary interest should rest in the eternal instincts, passions and typical character of womanhood, or in women’s actions and characters as affected by the unusual conditions of the time in which my work is undertaken. It is a decision by no means so simple as it would seem.

Always the realisation of what is immediately before us tends by its vivid nearness to give an over-estimation of its significance. But to read life in this way is to understand very little. Something must be done to clear our vision so that we may take a wider view. The present, after all, is but the day at which the past and the future meet.

Yet there are times when some overwhelming event so sharply changes the present as to obscure all the shining wonder of life. And at no period in history has this been more true than it has been in Europe in the last two years.[14] Nowhere and never in the world can there have been a period of deeper or more rapid change. War came upon us without warning, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky; and in a day the outlook of life was changed.

Now, this thought of surprising and quick-coming change brings me to something it is necessary for me to say. My book should have been begun many months back, at the very beginning of the war. But here I have to make a confession. The war caused in my mind a confusion that for some time left me extremely uncertain upon many things about which hitherto I have been sure. It has been a war of miracles in so far as it has made real much that seemed outside the world of possibility. Our sluggard imaginations have been stirred by an appeal that has aroused many primitive emotions.

I recall the opening sentence in the last book that I wrote on Woman.[1] “The twentieth century is the age of Woman. Some day, it may be, it will be looked back upon as the golden age—the dawn, some say, of feminine civilisation.”

Now, as I read this statement, which, when I wrote it, I felt to be true, it appears so wrong as to be almost ridiculous. That sort of dream is over.

What a fantastic picture it was that Suffrage militancy made for itself before the outbreak of the war. We pictured a golden age which was to come with the self-assertion of women; an age in which most of those problems that have vexed mankind from the dawn of history were to be solved automatically by a series of quick penny-in-the-slot reforms, that would follow on the splendour and superiority of woman’s rule. Militants, aflame for the reformation of man, discussed prostitution, the White Slave[15] traffic, and all sex problems with a zeal that was partly pathological and partly the result of a Utopian dream.

Then, at the most crucial hour in the history of women’s struggle for power and political recognition, all this dream was arrested. In the stress of war, the promise of an accumulating betterment was swept down, even as a too-bright dawn that passes into storm; the ugly aspects of life sprang upon us with intensifying urgency. Yes, the sudden events of war seemed, for women, to have blotted out the present and the past, and to have made all action uncertain.

So it is always when life is stirred at its depths. The change was almost staggering. Women have had to learn many new and strange lessons; they are more changed than perhaps they themselves know.

There had come a time when, without any preparation, we women were brought back to the primitive conception of the relative position of the two sexes. Military organisation and battle afford the grand opportunity for the superior force capacity of the male. Again man was the fighter, the protector of woman and the home. And at once his power became a reality. The striking and praise-demanding work was done by men. And at the first violent change there seemed to be nothing for women beyond the patience of waiting and the service of sacrifice. Later, women have been called to step in to take the places of men, and there has been work for them to do of all kinds and in ever-increasing amount. But of this work, and the new conditions that have thereby arisen, I propose to speak in the next chapter. Here I am considering only the events that rushed upon women at the oncoming of war. And inevitably they were pushed aside into[16] obscurity; they had to be content with unnoticed work that not infrequently was futile.

It is hard to step so suddenly out of the limelight. And women were acutely aware of this change in their prospects, and many of them expressed the situation with engaging frankness. Let me give a small illustration. I had occasion in the late summer of 1914, a few weeks after the war had started, to visit a friend. Some months had passed since I had previously seen her. At that time she was actively engaged in the suffrage campaign. Now, I found her knitting woollen comforters for the soldiers, and she was knitting them very badly. I expressed my surprise. Her answer to me was, “It is all that there is to do.” She then added this significant statement, “We women have had to learn our place.”

There was, of course, exaggeration in her remark. But it does, I believe, picture what happened in the thoughts of many women with the sudden ceasing of their active struggle for political recognition. It was a state of resigned surprise.

And may it not be that women had need of some lesson?

In the curious phases witnessed before the war, in that struggle which was but a more violent expression of the eternal effort at adjustment between the sexes, there were many strange signs to give pause and fear to all who think. Women did not, as I believe, realise the possible results of their sex rebellion. They did not sufficiently distinguish between those limitations and hardships which could comparatively easily be removed and those limitations and hardships which are due to the nature of their sex. Old traditions, without any discrimination, were cast aside in a[17] violent seeking, and women broke out in unexpected ways, to fight nervously, carelessly, yet hungrily, as if they were trying to force the pace of progress.

Women are possessed of great elasticity and cleverness; they are, and possibly will always remain, more imitative than creative. And from this follows a very real danger, plainly arising from the quick feminine receptiveness which is at once the strength of women as well as the cause of their pitiable weakness. In every direction the new independence and work capacity of woman was proved in following and imitating men. Thus it was easy for women to externalise their life in every way, and to gain success in many different kinds of work. But the question has never been—could women do this, or do that, kind of work? rather it is—what work is it most worth while for them to do?

Wounded by the narrowness of their lives, women spent immense energy out of which much that is good has been gained. Much that was false has crumbled into ruins, but also much that was fine. What was wanting most was this: the complete absence in the entire programme of reform of any kind of feminine idealism.

Did women forget? I think that they did. The realm of woman was still splendid, still vast. Why, then, this rage against all restrictions? Why this continuous effort to obliterate the wise differences of sex?

In their violent seeking for life, women were ready to spend all to gain something which may well prove to be absolutely unnecessary to them. And to many it must have seemed that they wasted the whole of themselves only to lose something within themselves. There was much heroic fighting. Women robbed life for the sake of what they believed[18] was freedom; yet may it not prove that they have been in love with that which is unattainable for women?

The demand of woman to “live her own life” brought, as it seems to some of us, a slavery not less strong or less evil than that from which an escape was sought. Women, however unconsciously, were suppressing themselves in new ways, and still doing things alien to themselves. This restless seeking was but a further foolish forgetting of the truth that the only freedom worth having is the freedom to be one’s self. All that women had promised themselves in a new order of existence must depend on their acceptance of the responsibilities and limitations of their womanhood. And by this I mean a full and glad acceptance of those physical facts of their organic constitution which make them unlike men, and should limit their capacity for many kinds of work. It can never be anything but foolishness to attempt to break down the real differences between the two sexes.

This may be a hard saying to some women: I believe that it is true.

It is necessary to emphasise this fact again, and yet again, because it is the almost complete disregard by women of their own sexual nature and its special needs that is the grave evil that is robbing us of life; this was also the inherent weakness in the Women’s Movement, which, so far from fulfilling the promise of its earlier period, had ceased, even before war brought us back to realities, to exert any widely representative or serious influence.

The predilection for wild pranks, which in this country marked the later efforts of women to gain political recognition, may, I think, be traced back to causes bent on crushing and levelling the sex characteristics. Women had not[19] sufficiently valued themselves, and thus they ceased to care to be essentially feminine. Instead there was an insatiable desire to enjoy experience, arising from lack of disciplined culture and from excess of energy and idleness. It is manifest that militancy gave to women excitement and occupation.

And this avidity to know and feel and shine, to establish new contacts with life and affairs, was coupled also with that deeper seeking of the spirit which has robbed peace from the modern woman. Possibly such defects are essential to such a movement, a mere destructive phase in the process of renewing—a clearing of the ground. But the way to gain freedom is long and toilsome; it is a way that permits of no such energetic short cuts as the militant Suffragists would have achieved. Mixed up with all that was fine in their movement was an infinity of glitter and tinsel, vanity and restlessness. There was present always an intense and theatrical egotism, a yearning to make an impression and force applause at any cost.

There was, of course, another side—a side which most gladly I acknowledge. No movement that was founded merely on excitement would have overcome difficulties as the Suffrage movement did, nor could its members have worked and suffered as they did for a common end. There was always much even in the most mistaken militancy that was generous, ardent and wholesome. But these useful qualities were deformed by a want of proportion and sanity; by feelings run riot that made women impatient of all restraints, overweeningly sure of themselves, and incapable of facing troublesome facts or foreseeing the most certain consequences of their own actions. There is nothing here that should surprise us.

[20]

In many cases, perhaps in all, emotion is the sole and strong guide of our actions. At least, I am sure this is true of women. What we do is to invent reasons to justify acts to which we are impelled by some emotion arising from an instinctive need. I do not see how this can be avoided, nor do I at all regard it in itself as evil. Reason by itself too often is an excuse for doing nothing; it is the excuse of all those who take infinite care not to see in case they may come to feel. Reason alone never does anything; it is too reasonable. The necessary thing is first to feel. And the only possible method of guiding emotion is to realise its force and to use it successfully; not to take cover fearfully in avoidance of feeling.

There is, indeed, a very deep reason for this human need for emotion. The springs of our actions may be traced back in almost all cases to certain excitements arising from some need or desire of whose existence in ourselves we are in nine cases out of ten quite unconscious, but which (unless dammed up when the fear of an escape is always great and imminent) will find an expression in characteristic instinctive acts. And the most forcible human excitements are fear and anger: these exercise an energising influence on body and mind often leading to the accomplishment of quite extraordinary acts. Periods of intense excitement will yield a consciousness of overwhelming strength, so that the individual reaches a state of self-forgetfulness in which almost anything may be done. Almost every one must at some time have experienced this super-strength. And what is important to note is that at an opportunity for exercising these emotions, the most peaceable people have felt the stir of the primitive instincts of hate and fear, of anger and the desire to destroy and to hurt. They have developed—often[21] to their own surprise—the destructive capacities of the fight-loving, danger-braving animal. And when such emotions seize on individuals in groups, their effect is greatly intensified and is felt by many who would be only slightly susceptible to such emotions when isolated.

This explains, I believe, the surprising revolt of women and how it was they broke out in such unexpected ways. There is in the sex an immense and unrecognised capacity for adventure, due to the surplus of energy unused that was so painfully present in the lives of many women, and to the expression of which the narrowness of their lives had afforded little opportunity. The danger here was strong for women, because in their lives, to a far greater extent than in the lives of men, there had been so many dammed-up channels of emotion. It is the things they might not do that had mattered for women, and not the things they had been allowed to do. Then the fever of this anger caught hold of them, and they became conscious of an obscure travail in their souls. Here, indeed, were causes of unrest; here were the first shadows of some subtle decay.

The suffrage movement was a search—yes, a wild search—for something to bridge the gap, for something to do that mattered, something to open the gates to adventure. The militant revolt to many women proved an exciting game. This may appear strange; but what I want you to mark is that such violence was a necessary thing for women. They felt impelled to get into their lives something that meant movement, excitement, joy, and the stinging of adventure.

And they have been happy.

To many people, and especially to men, it seemed that in adopting militancy women were departing entirely from[22] their womanhood. But it is just here they were mistaken; they did not grasp the fact that women had felt injured, and that this injury aroused in them an excitement of anger forcing wild action. Women, too, I think, have not themselves understood the real causes of their actions. It was impossible to follow the procession of excuses by which the militant apologists attempted to justify their often senseless outrages on the law without realising how erroneously they comprehended their own movement. They honestly thought that they were espousing the cause of Woman’s freedom; it never struck them that they were not working for this, at least that this was not the motive which impelled their actions of violence. They did not know that they were taking the quickest way to fill lives left empty, and to express in action the clamorous excitement that surged within them. It is never easy for women to be quite honest even to themselves.

Manifestly this violent seeking was but an outgrowth of woman’s fierce race-protecting passion; an unconscious expression of that instinct to give life which rules not only in the body but in the spirit of woman. Many women fought without truly wanting to fight, and merely because their deep hidden instincts demanded something on which to expend themselves.

There was in the Suffrage movement a wise policy of action. And this using of women’s stored-up energy, however wastefully it may have been expended, inflamed in them a gladness that made easy all their payments of imprisonment, of forcible feeding, and even of death. In militancy women gained an object and a satisfaction: they were the centre of something that depended on them. Their movement, with all its absurdities, was a live thing in their[23] hands. Thus the members gave to the cause their labour and their enthusiasm, and, because they had given it so much, they came to love it. Their energetic organisation came to stand above them like a big, greedy child, grabbing at anything and everything. It robbed from them the flying hours of life, little by little devouring them. But in so doing new fuel was thrown on the dead flames of women’s passions. For they gained that for which they were seeking. A new, strange opportunity for sacrifice was here, supplying the need which, however unrecognised and denied, is the fundamental desire of woman. This was the joy that was gained by the Suffrage martyrs—something vivifying, flooding dead lives with colour, action and emotion. Yes, these women yielded themselves to their movement with joy, just as a woman yields herself to her lover that she may give life to his child.

And then all this audacious, hardly understood movement was brought to an end by war. Militarism put a swift close to militancy. As far as women were concerned, their hope of forcing political recognition fell to confusion. The war came like a great shadow across the whole bright complex problem of the future. So much was this so that writing of militancy now feels almost like referring to a forgotten event that happened in the very far past. It would be easy to pass over the whole Suffrage movement in silence. And, indeed, I should have done this if I did not believe that its inner effect on women had been more lasting than the outward gain.

I wish to emphasise the change that came to women in the period immediately before the war. The Suffrage movement was a collective movement in which the individual had to win honour in self-forgetfulness and in group work.[24] And this co-operation for the gaining of the Vote carried with it also a co-operation of service and a great development of mutual helpfulness. And from this it has followed very directly that many women have turned their backs for ever on petty interests and disloyalties to one another, and have recovered a quite fresh sense of honourable emulations and loyalty.

This concord and unity in duty had much the same quality of joy that sends the soldier to face death. It stirred something very deep in women’s nature. Militancy brought a rare chance of happiness: it made women aware of their souls. Through it they first found escape from the deadness of sterile lives and gave up separate little aims that made conflicts between woman and woman. The petty strifes of no issue and no importance were changed into one struggle that must be won; and by expanding from an existence of aimlessness and stagnation into one of common purpose and advance, women gained the chance they were seeking of adventure and sacrifice for body and spirit. No wonder, then, that they gave themselves up to a great holiday of the emotions. This may have expressed itself basely in the wrecking of property and much that was useless, but it was not all base. In the lives of numberless women it has meant something much more than hatred and vanity, or self-deceiving work.

Militancy has been a great as well as a very little thing. As a movement it was foolish and morally perverse, no doubt, but its members were morally passionate. The disorder of purpose, the spectacle of wasted effort and folly, which filled many of us with anger—all this did bring gladness and liberation of spirit to the women themselves. They felt that their fighting was noble and glorious, which it was[25] not, but they felt this with a power that came from the perverse conviction of their whole nature. And we shall need a conviction as passionate as this, but not perverse, before women can in the same way be won again to an equal passion of sacrifice and service.

And this very rapture of escape from an aimless existence was in itself the sign of the failure in women’s lives, a proof that there was, indeed, something to be escaped from. We may not claim more than this for the Suffrage movement.

War, such war as is now loose upon the world, came to accomplish its miracles, acting swiftly and almost without women knowing what was being done. The reality of life and of death has shaken up everything, and the quick pressure of events is changing all the conditions of life.

Let us try to see a little more clearly.

It has been a common mistake that amongst civilised peoples intellectual views and peace interests have superseded the primitive fighting instincts. But the cultural period in which wars have been exceptional and peace the normal state has been short, and is, indeed, only a span when compared with the long history when men had to fight in order to live. This violence was a necessary phase in human, as in all animal, development. War is only an organised and specialised replacement of this indiscriminate and blind struggle for life. It is probable that the instinct of battle was once for all developed and fixed; and the question arises, as to whether we shall ever get far away from this deeply rooted stimulus to action. It may even be a condition of life that we should not get too far away from it.

We have had a striking example of the enthusiasm and[26] interest evoked by situations of conflict and danger, in the intense and primitive emotions revived in all of us by the war. War is the thunder and voice of the trumpet without which the wisest moral and political ideas never attract sufficient attention to lead to difficult action. For the world will not listen to a truth until bloodshed and violence have awakened its sluggard imagination.

And in these new circumstances we all, women as well as men, have been caught by a powerful excitement. The war has us in its grip, there is no other thought, no other remedy, no other interest. In many ways war is the most uniting of all forces. We are all joined in one work of service and co-operation. No man or woman can turn away, skulk in the individual garden of their own petty interests, because they do not want to be bothered. Something fresh has come, something that had to come, and all that went before is changed.

We see thus that war has brought to all of us a succession of disturbing revelations of reality. And the lesson has come most severely on those whose lives have been most unreal. Here is a force against which there is no argument. We are involved in a struggle of the most momentous dimensions. No one as yet can mark the limits of destruction, and in the harshness of the war’s lesson the struggle of women for sex mastery at once became uninteresting.

For hundreds of centuries and myriads of generations the life of fighting has gone on for men. But women’s opportunity waits upon leisure and peace. The savagery of war brings the two sexes back to primitive values. And the truth is forced upon us; we realise the gulf which lies between the man and the woman.

[27]

All our days we women have been denying this separation, and, enslaved by male ideals, have sought to break through the barriers of sex. We have been pursuing power, wrapping ourselves up in one garment after another, calling these coverings romance, adventure, work, individual development, and what not; now we have come in our hearts to know the falsity of it all. Somewhere in the confusion of war stark facts awaited us. We had to face life as a reality, not as theories, or movements, or sex development.

For many of us women the lesson has been sharp and sudden. War leapt upon us as it were a beast out of some hidden darkness; leapt upon us, holding us powerless, tearing our illusions into shreds with its blood-stained claws.

And on a sudden women were held by a new, quick-striking, absolute realisation of the truth. They had not seen it nor felt like this before. But this beast of war crouching in front of them said to women, “Always I have been beside you waiting for this hour. I have waited for a long time. You have struggled; you have fought; you have played; you have come to think yourselves important in strange ways, meddling in all the affairs of the world. This you have done, and you have learnt much of the means of life, but you have everything yet to re-learn about life itself.

“In all your struggles for political recognition and in all your work reality has not touched you. You have feared to be yourselves. You have been ashamed of your sexual differentiation. You have gathered power around you to pretend that you were the same as men, your strength as their strength, that your work was the same as their work. You have mocked at those qualities that were your own, that set you apart from men, denying your[28] womanhood. You have suffered. But you will not suffer less by any such efforts to escape. Who can wonder that you have been dissatisfied? For you have wasted in haste the power that is your own. And conscious of, though not understanding, the want in your own lives, you have been deeply conscious of the discords in the rest of the world. The instinct of motherhood has been strong within you, and wasted, it has not ceased to torment you.

“You have gained excitement and applause, much work you have done and had many triumphs. It has seemed a big thing. Yet, after all, has the gain been worth the payment? Have women indeed escaped from their prison? Think, do you not know deep in your hearts that its bars have not been broken?”