430 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



and beauty of the female character it does not appear that he had 

 formed any idea, though he dilates on the special qualities of the 

 female mind. 



Mr. Mill has allowed us to see that his opinions as to the political 

 position of women were formed early in his life, probably before he 

 had studied history rationally, perhaps before the rational study of 

 history had even come into existence. The consequence, with all 

 deference to his great name be it said, is that his historical present- 

 ment of the case is fundamentally unsound. He and his disciples 

 represent the lot of the woman as having always been determined 

 by the will of the man, w^ho, according to them, has willed that she 

 should be the slave, and that he should be her master and her tyrant. 

 " Society, both in this " (the case of marriage) " and other cases, has 

 preferred to attain its object by foul rather than by fair means ; but 

 this is the only case in which it has substantially persisted in them 

 even to the present day." This is Mr. Mill's fundamental assumption ; 

 and from it, as every rational student of history is now aware, conclu- 

 sions utterly erroneous as well as injurious to humanity must flow. 

 The lot of the woman has not been determined by the will of the man, 

 at least in any considerable degree. The lot both of the man and the 

 woman has been determined from age to age by circumstances over 

 w^hich the will of neither of them had much control, and which neither 

 could be blamed for accepting or failing to reverse. Mr. Mill, and 

 those who with him assume that the man has always willed that he 

 should himself enjoy political rights, and that the woman should be 

 his slave, forget that it is only in a few countries that man does enjoy 

 political rights ; and that, even in those few countries, freedom is the 

 birth almost of yesterday. It may probably be said that the number 

 of men who have really and freely exercised the suffrage uj? to the 

 present time is not much greater than the number of those w^ho have 

 in different ages, and in various ways, laid down their lives or made 

 personal sacrifices of other kinds in bringing the suffrage into existence. 



In the early stages of civilization the family was socially and 

 legally as well as politically a unit. Its head represented the whole 

 household before the tribe, the state, and all persons and bodies with- 

 out ; while within he exercised absolute power over all the members, 

 male as well as female,, over his sons as well as over his wife and 

 daughters. On the death of the head of a family his eldest son stepped 

 into his place, and became the representative and protector of the 

 whole household, including the widow of the deceased chief. This 

 system, long retained in conservative Rome, was there the source of 

 the national respect for authority, and, by an expansion of feeling 

 from the family to the community, of the patriotism which produced 

 and sustained Roman greatness. But its traces lingered far down in 

 history. It was not male tyranny that authorized a Tudor queen to 

 send members of the royal household to the Tower by her personal 



