SEX IN MIND AND IN EDUCATION, 211 



possible to exaggerate the effects of the laws and usages of a country 

 upon the habits of thought of those who, generation after generation, 

 have been born, and bred, and have lived under them. Were the 

 law, which ordains that, when a father dies intestate, all the real prop- 

 erty of which he is possessed shall be inherited by his eldest son, his 

 other children being sent empty away, enacted for the first time, there 

 is no one, probably, who would not be shocked by its singular injus- 

 tice; yet the majority of persons in this country are far from thinkinor 

 it extraordinary or unjust, and a great many of them would deem it a 

 dangerous and wicked doctrine to question its justice. Only a few 

 weeks ago, a statesman who has held high offices in a Conservative 

 ministry, in an address to electors, conjured them not to part with the 

 principle of primogeniture, and declared that there was no change in 

 the law which he would so vehemently oj^pose as this : " Let them but 

 follow the example of a neighboring nation in this respect, and there 

 was an end of their personal freedom and liberty ! " So much do the 

 laws and usages of a country affect the feelings and judgments of 

 those who dwell therein. If we clearly apprehend the fact, and allow 

 it the weight which it deserves, it will be apparent that we must hesi- 

 tate to accept the subordinate position which women have always had 

 as a valid argument for the justice of it, and a sufficient reason why 

 they should continue forever in it. 



But may we not fairly assert that it would be no less a mistake 

 in an opposite direction to allow no weight to such an argument ? Set- 

 ting physiological considerations aside, it is not possible to suppose 

 that the whole explanation of woman's position and character is that 

 man, having in the beginning found her pleasing in his eyes and ne- 

 cessary to his enjoyment, took forcible possession of her, and has ever 

 since kept her in bondage, without any other justification than the 

 right of the strongest. Superiority of muscular strength, without 

 superiority of any other kind, would not have done that, any more 

 than superiority of muscular strength has availed to give the lion or 

 the elephant possession of the earth. If it were not that woman's or- 

 ganization and functions found their fitting home in a position different 

 from, if not subordinate to, that of men, she would not so long have 

 kept that position. If she is to be judged by the same standard as 

 men, and to make their aims her aims, we are certainly bound to say 

 that she labors under an inferiority of constitution by a dispensation 

 which there is no gainsaying. This is a matter of physiology, not a 

 matter of sentiment ; it is not a mere question of larger or smaller 

 muscles, but of the energy and power of endurance of the nerve-force 

 which drives the intellectual and muscular machinery ; not a question 

 of two bodies and minds that are in equal physical conditions, but of 

 one body and mind capable ©f sustained and regular hard labor, and of 

 another body and mind which for one quarter of each month during 

 the best years of life is more or less sick and unfit for hard work. It 



