WOMEN RULERS

Evening Star, Issue 19773, 25 January 1928, Page 3

WOMEN RULERS

LAW GF PRIMOGENITURE (HJEEKS AND TYPISTES To a generation that assumes the equality ol the ssoxos—cn nq rconoiniCj athlelii', and intellectual—it lias come ns a, shock that in gallant little J3el"hmi, the realm of King Albert the, (jnocl, a Prince in his cradle should be jToeted by a salute of 121 white only twonty-ono guns greet a. Princess. Belgium’s explanation adds injury In the insult. The reason, so wo are assured, why a boy is sis times as important as a girl, is that only a boy can be heir to the throne. _ If .Prince Leopold and Princess Astrid become the proud parents of half a dozen Princesses, each identified by half a dozen ancestral names, the succession would still descend not io these young Indies—however virtuous, beautiful, and carefully educated—but to Leo pol'd’ s brother, Prince Charles, Count of Flanders. There is hero challenged an issue which, surely, must be stated in plain terms and decided on the evidence (writes “ P.W.W.” in an American paper). Is a woman, or is she not, equipped by Nature to _ occupy positions of supreme authority? In Belgium it is laid down that she cannot ascend the throne. But does this mean, in Belgium or anywhere else* that she cannot succeed on the throne if she gets there? The country immediately contiguous to Belgium, Holland, has been ruled for thirty-seven years, first by Queen Emma as Regent and next by' Queen Wilhelmina, while the sole direct heiress is the Princess Juliana, Would a man—say, the exKaiser William, dwelling at Doom—have done any better? Apparently not.

WOMAN’S FITNESS TO RULE. Has it been wholly convenient for Rumania that the crown should descend by heirs male? Here is a country where obviously the most forceful person, at any rate in the royal family, is Queen Alario. As King her grandson, Michael, must he a problem. As Queen, her daughter, llleana, would be irresistible. Yet llleana is set aside.

In Spain the, same point has arisen. There aro reasons of health which suggest that, if the reckoning is to include vigor and efficiency, the daughters would be better able than the sons to sustain a difficult responsibility. By the laws of primogeniture, if strictly applied, two other thrones, the British and the Japanese, would devolve" ultimately on heiresses—in the one case, the Princess Elizabeth of York, and in the other case the small daughter of the Emperor Hirohito. If mankind is to retain the hereditary principle at all, is there any reason in logic or justice why either of these illustrious infants should be displaced from a high destiny, whether by an uncle or by a young brother, if he should arrive?

Let us admit, solely for the sake of argument, that there have been great men; that Shakespeare, Bacon, Beethoven, and Socrates, in their day, were indisputably men. Does not that merely strengthen the argument for Queens p A man is often an artist, a poet, an inventor, but it is the woman who manages things. In the home she is the administrator, and what is a throne but management on the large scale? Ability of this kind does not mean doing ten men’s work, but getting work out of ten men; and that is the kind of ability in which a woman has usually excelled.

If we appeal to history we find that there have been many Kings and many

Queens, some good, some bad. Moreover, there has boon a Queen, hero and there, who has lost her throne. But hardly ever has a Queen been dethroned by her own subjects. It is when Kings reign, as a rule, that there are revolutions; not when Queens are on the throne.

It is a rule that is proved even by the exceptions. Let us agree that, in more senses than one, Mary Queen of Scots lost her head. After ail, hers was a special case. A girl reared in Paris had to live in Edinburgh. A girl bred a Catholic bad to listen to sermons by dobn Knox. It was what to-day we call “the limit.” SOME QUEENS OF THE PAST. But while Mary Stuart failed, think of what other Queens of her period were achieving. If sheer Marchiavellian statesmanship is to be the tost, her contemporary, Catherine de Medici in Paris, was worth all her three sons pub together—that is, Francis IP, Charles IX., and Henry HI. Huguenots, when massacred, thought her somewhat masterful; but at least they did not disobey. Indeed, it is not easy to disobey when one fine morning you wake up to discover that, as wedding guests of your gracious sovereign, you are dead.

In England also Queens were reigning with a firm hand. Rude people complained a little of “bloody Alary,” with her zest of burning heretics alive; but Alary ruled. As for Elizabeth, she was so much a Queen that her brother-in-law, Philip of Spain, “never smiled again.” If Helen of Troy, by her private life, launched a thousand ships, Elizabeth, when peeved by an armada, did not hesitate to sink them. Indeed, it took a Queen likj Elizabeth of England to deoap :+ ato a Queen like Alary of Scotland. It was a case of diamond cut diamond.

So in the nineteenth century, while Queens Maria Christina and Isabella, of Spain, a mother and a daughter, successfully made themselves impossible, whether ns wives or as ruler.-,, the balance was rest) ?d, as ir the Elizabethan eyi, by England, where Queen Victoria succeeded admirably in both these capacities. Broadiy. we may say, then, that if thrones are to be insured at Lloyd’s—and many of them need it—tho premium should he lower when a Queen holds the sceptre than when the sceptre is hold by a King. The very fact that a queen acts through others and not in her own person is a safeguard. vShe cannot be a Napoleon, an Alexander, or a Julius Cesar, and she knows it. She has thus no reason to die young or at St. Helena or by the hands of Brutus and Cassius, Instead of doing things, which is almost always a mistake, she is ‘content to he herself. Usually herself is quite enough. If, then, Queens are- sometimes driven from their thrones, it is as a ‘rule by some foreign , invader. Cleopatra, of Egypt, was able to conquer Cffisar and Anthony, hut, not being a good sailor, she quailed at Actium before the fleets of Rome. It was not Egypt that reduced this Princess to the status of a character in plays by Shaw and Shakespeare. Egypt was ready at all times to provide Cleopatra with needles of granite 68ft high. It was Augustus, now chiefly remembered as the name of a month.

Of the Queen as patriot, there are clearer cases by far than Cleopatra. Against the Romans, Boadieea, beaten by rods and with her daughters insulted, put up a great fight, and it was only in battle that her troops were defeated by trained legions. Not less heroic was Zqpobia, Queen of the East. As sovereign of the Arabs she defied Rome, and her defence of Palmyra against a prolonged siege is one of the romances of war. It is true that, after adorning an imperial triumph in which she jnarched with chains of gold and a

load of jewels, she became a Roman matron, with daughters duly married into the aristocracy of her conqueror. But tiiis was only after her powers of resistance to the empire had been exhausted. ORIGIN OFTEN HUMBLE. About the great Queens of the world the most astonishing tact is that then origin was often humble and even a disgrace.. Half a dozen of them had not a drop of royal blood in their veins. In case alter case a woman endowed not witli birth, but ineieQ with brains and beauty has won her way to a supreme authority, often in her own right, over millions of mankind. U was tScjniramis who loundcd this fascinating dynasty of adventuresses. Legend asserts that she was the daughter of a Syrian youth and of Hcrcato of Asealon, the well-known fish goddess of the day. For ns, as students of the past, the important thing is that this girl, brought up by shepherds, was married by General dunes and demanded by Minus, the chief, for whoso sake Onnos committed suicide. It was Somirainis who built Ninevah and Babylon; and after a reign of fortytwo years she ascended to heaven, most appropriately, as a dove. If Semiramis was, in part, a myth, there is no doubt that Catherine the Great, of Russia, whose career was not less amazing, belongs to the moderns. A destitute orphan in Livonia, she was brought up by the clerk ot the village and manned to a Swedish sergeant. On the following morning the sergeant perished in war with Russia, and tho girl was taken prisoner. Vet after various vicissitudes this alien, who could neither read nor write, been me the acknowledged consort of Czar Peter the Great, and his successor as Empress of a realm as turbulent and as restive as any territory on this planet. In her high position she displayed various qualities; she was decisive, she was dignified, she was licentious. Tho point is that she. ruled and, after Peter’s death, ruled alone.

A. second instance, somewhat similar, lias been the Dowager Empress of China. Here was the Manchu Dynasty, as aristocratic, as exclusive, as alien as the Plantagenets. The future Empress entered the court, not as a Princess, but in servitude. Amid hundreds who enjoyed the rank more favorable than her own she won her way, first to the throne of a wife, then to the throne of a regent. Her majesty awed both the East and the West, and for years her prestige held hack an overdue upheaval which, immediately after her death, overwhelmed the monarchy. For this exalted role this woman, trained at once to seclusion and to subjection, was wholly unprepared by any education worthy of the name. Yet she succeeded.

A woman thus humbly born has one advantage over a Princess. She has had to display initiative—to win attention instead of merely receiving it. Take the classic instance of Theodora, Empress of Justinain, There was no degradation to which, as a girl, she had not descended. She was n'bt merely a courtesan; she was also an exponent of the vulgarest comedy known in decadent Constantinople. Yet on the throne hers was a splendid demeanor. She confronted the society that she had entertained as if she had known no other environment. Deep were her dungeons. Terrible were her tortures, and her agents were warned that, if they flinched from carrying out her will they themselves would be flayed alive. Not less noteworthy were

her lavish contributions to the cause ; of religion. Not that sociology need he limited to queens. It seldom is. Empires today are commercial—vast corporations that produce steel and ten-cent. stores and soda fountains and other works of art. Visit a head office, and yoirwill find that the president is supposed to ho a man. But who manages the president P In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the nominal president is stenographed, typed, punctuated, telephoned, and talked to by a woman. That women, having served their apprenticeship as queens, typislcs, and so on, will be recognised as tho captains of to-morrow's commerce, is surely a. conclusion that follows from this brief sfndy of history as a sex,