SOME POINTS

White Ribbon, Volume 6, Issue 70, 1 March 1901, Page 8

SOME POINTS

of the Argument for the Removal of Women’s Disabilities. The essential spirit of true civiliza tion is to render justice and fair-play and an equality of opportunity to every member of the community. It is, in fact, the application of the Golden Rule to the affairs of our civic life.

The non recognition of this Rule leads to injustice and to dissension ; it erects barriers where none should ex ist ; it allows Might to rule instead of Right, and inflicts hardships on large sections of the community.

By the retention of their disabilities the women of New Zealand are practically regarded as being unfit or unworthy to p ssess the same privileges that are enjoyed by all other citizens.

During the earlier years of life, little distinction is made by law between the sexes. They are educated in the same primary schools, they ate required to pass the same standards. There are High Schools for girls, and young women are admitted under the same tests and examinations as young men. If women wish to become school teachers they have to obtain the same certificates as men, and when engaged in teaching, their work is gauged by the same standards. The law, therefore, admits that there is an equality of intelligence and brain in both sexes.

But when school days are over, our law at once begins to assign to women an infeiior position. By the Masters and Apprentices Act, and at least one of our later Factory laws, girls are to he paid lower wages than lx>ys. If they are school teachers, they are paid about half the sum that is paid to men for doing precisely the same work. And the spirit of inequality warranted by law has been adopted as a guiding principle. There is, perhaps, no avocation in which both men and women are engaged in which women are not paid a much low’er wage then men.

Then, while every man is free to engage in any occupation that is honest, and to till any position of trust or honour to which duty may call him, or taste and ability incline him, women are prohibited from enjoying the same freedom.

If women wish to be helpful to their sisters in prison, they are not allowed the powers that would be given to them if they were men.

If a woman has married a helpless, incompetent man (and there are many who have), and finds herself compelled to earn the living for herself and family (and there are many who do), she may not enter into partnership, even with another woman, without

the consent 01 the man whom sire is supporting.

If she has children, for whom, to bring into the world, she has endangered her life, and to benefit whom she would gladly endanger it again, she is not by law their guardian. They are called by her husband’s name, and he alone has power to dispose of their future.

But if she has a child born out of wedlock, then it must bear her name, and not its father’s, and she is held to be solely accountable for its wellare.

These are only some of the inequalities between men and women. And they are sanctioned by our laws, which have been made by men, and which deliberately impose disabilities on women as if tney were an inferior race.

Ihe disabilities which have been wrongfully imposed on women are a degradation to us as a free people, they are dishonouring to the womanhood ot the colony, they set a bad standard for our boys, and are an injustice to our girls. No nation can be truly free which does not grant freedom to all its citizens ; no people can be truly good which does not honour its women. The shameful C.D. Acts are an example of the evil that may arise through the disabilities of women. Had women been on a legal equality with men, these evil Acts, which are so degrading to our manhood and dishonouring to our womanhood, would never have been passed.

But it may be objected, “ If the disabilities of women are removed, we might have women sitting in Parliament ! ” That is quite true, and under our present law’s we might have Germans, or Chinese, or Negroes sitting in Parliament if the electors choose to send them there.

There are thoughtful men who think it might be a benefit to the State if we had the assistance of women in making our laws. John Ballance, one of the clearest-brained of our statesmen, was one of ihese, and, as Premier, asked, “ Why, if we had women capable of sitting in the Councils of the country and legislating, they should noi be admitted to Parliament ? ” No answer was given to that question, and it still remains unanswered.

But while there would he that dreadful possibility if we make our women as free as we do a Chinaman who becomes naturalized, there is not likely to be any immediate danger. South Australia made its women eligible for Parliament some years ago, and we have not heard of any woman ever offering h( rself as a candidate for Parliament. And, in any case, the matter can be safely left to the electors, the majority of whom are men.