SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1910. THE WOMAN QUESTION.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13906, 3 December 1910, Page 8

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1910. THE WOMAN QUESTION.

The woman question has reached a point at which imprisonment or nonimprisonment of riotous Buffragettee will make no difference. The claim for the vote is but a very small part oi this question, and the combatants may be allowed to tight that issue out in their several ways. The whole discussion has now reached a point at which Nature and the future alone can prove who is in the rijjht. All the forces of science have been called up in pitiless array, not necessarily to assign to woman a lower place than man in the tscheme of things, out a definite, precribed and limited nbace. Jt j 8 this to which sho objects. It is not the placo which appajs her, nor its limitations, but its inevitableness. The stern law of Nature, which says to woman, "Tnus far and no farther shalt thou go," is most ably explained by Miss Arabella Kenealy, in the recent woman's supplement to "The Times." It would be impossible here to follow the biological argument, but it may be summed up in a few words. Nature, having intended man for the strenuous laborious woirk of life, curtails, in ins development, the more graceful, beautiful, and emotional traits of his nature, and liberates in him now vigours and valours, ambitions, talents, and resources, whilst, depending on woman for all the higher race development, she locks up, or curtails her powers in these directions, that the power thus conserved • may be invested in tho higher evolutionary condition of her mind and body. .Naturally, Miss Kenealy thinks, this being the case, the present tendency to bring up men and women in the same way will end in disaster to the race. Obviously there is no thought of one sex being better than the other. In fact, if the palm is to be given to all. Professor Lester Ward says it must be awarded . to women. "Though," he adds, "only the most liberal and "emancipated minds, possessed of a ''large store of biological information, " are capable of realising this." However, this is neither here nor there. The gist of the matter seems to be that in approximating the sexes we are robbing Nature of her due. But a new factor has now complicated the issue, for Nature has, for some reason best knr.'wn to herself, provided the world with one million more women than men, so that many -women are debarred from, tho position she herself has assigned to them. Not unnaturally, in this dilemma, women have claimed for themselves the right to follow some other career than the one which was mapped out for them, but from which they are constantly debarred. 'i'ney still readily fill tho placo assigned if Fate wills it so, but the contention that in fitting themselves for some other sphere they are only acting with common prudence, is surely justifiable. It only remains to be shown that in so fitting themselves they do not lose the special attributes of their sex. But it is here- that they are met with a flat "non possumus ,, Mies Kenealy mercilessly puts the scientific aspect of the case. She says the. race must suffer if its women develop on lines other than those indicated for them by Nature. They are the guardians ot the race, and as such, their special qualities must be naturally developed, nnd their other aspirations set aside. Jf the women to whom this high trust is to be given, could be selected, even with a wide margin for waste by death, disappointment, or disease, and the others left free to follow their own bent and carve out their own career, apparently no harm would be done. But such a scheme is obviously impossible. So the voice of the million extra women is insistent, and must be heard, and their claim allowed as, at any rate, a very legitimate one. If they are to sacrifice themselves to the race, no martyr's crown will be theirs. The race will go on quit© hcedlese of the sacrifice. All the "might have TJeens" .will not weigh one jot with Nature, nor, we fear, with man, and tho old cry "Cvi bonof" will riso to many a woman's lips, as she make* j th* unappreciated sacrifice demanded I

of Iht. As things now are. it is very evident that a great proportion of the sex are by no means ready to immolate themselves, and it now rests vrithXatun , to readjust her st:l«eme, and with the future, to unfold the result of the revolt against her laws. That some readjustment must be arrived at is evident. Nature is always stronger than man. and can enforce her wil! by very condign punishment if she be not obeyed. The question is. what vill j that punishment be? Will it be of such j a nature as to enforce oix?dicnce by making tho penalty too severe to l»f j faced by any but the bravest '■' Professor Jnmre Walsh, of New York, does not soq anything per- : tentous in the emancipation of j woman. "The movement is simply h!S- ---" tory repeatinp: itself, and in proper ! '■ time, as like intellectual movements j "have done in the past, it will drop out ■■ through the working of a great bio- '• logical lav.- of Nature.'" Hβ instances the asres of Charlemagne. Elizabeth, the Italian 7?enaissance, and others, to I prove his theory that all that is hap- | poninn v.nw hii.s hapj)ene<l before, and 1 that the old result ivill follow—woman 1 will rolafsse into her old place, and the j world p;o on as But we cannot help thinking the Professor has missed the new feature of the case. Nature, i "so careful of the type," has never j before been faced with n sentient ~urphis who refuse to be cast "as rubbish to the void, , ' or to "subserve another's gain." It remains for the future to shmv whether pitiless Nature will relent and relax her own laws, or whether .she will crush tho very natural outcome of her own act and relegate the million extra women to a usele.se fate. We cannot believe it trill be cm. Surely for them also fiome new sphere will be found, where their legitimate aspirations may be realised and their highest powers put to some use.