The Women of the Renaissance

What do women want? What do they demand? They have been shamefully neglected. To judge by the code, there never were such beings on earth. But the code has hallowed iniquities. The education of women is pitiable. They ought to know everything-and are taught nothing. They are deficient in intelligence-they are too intelligent. They ought to have their separate careers, their separate circles, their independence-to be the equals of their husbands, to be men and yet remain women. They ought to have votes that, it appears, forms one element of happiness. Many people in England are even dreaming of suppressing marriage; and it must be observed that, as Englishmen largely expatriate themselves, there is no lack of involuntary spinsters, who are by no means the least ardent in prosecuting the campaign. In short, it is a very babel. Everyone has something to say. The press, the stage, the pulpit, all resound with these questions-to say nothing of public meetings, private meetings, at-homes, lectures. The subject is well-nigh done to death; it has, moreover, a special tendency to lose itself in mist, and there is no sort of cohesion in outlook or aim.

Nowhere is this anarchy more patent than in education. How are you to tell young girls what they ought to be, what they ought to learn and think and know, when you are absolutely in the dark as to what you want to make of them? Are they to play the same part in life as men, or to perform public duties, equal, perhaps superior, to theirs, but different? Are they to marry early, or late? Ought they to see and know, before marriage, all there is to see and know? Or is it their blissful privilege to enjoy the pleasant

things of life in deliberate ignorance of all the rest, and, in their piping time of peace, to turn the divine hours of youth to the best advantage? Once married, what is their mission to be? How far will it profit them to have learnt the whole art of household management? Should they exercise any influence out of doors? If so, what? Will their influence consist in preserving their good looks and their skill in dancing? Or is their influence to be a serious thing? Is it to be intellectual, or religious, or moral, or artistic, or scientific? These questions jostle one another in some confusion.

And the confusion is irritating, because it compels us to grope our way haphazard. The education of girls has seriously suffered thereby; it has been frittered away, has bred a habit of easy contentment with superficial ideas rather than of resolutely, earnestly, thoroughly mastering what it is proper to know. The mind, like the body, has its nervous system, and to obtain its full measure of energy it is needful to husband its resources.

Now, we may get some light on this complicated problem if we refer it to experience, or, in other words, apply the lessons of the past. We often encounter in the world, in regard to history, and more especially the history of morals, a singular prejudice in the form of a certain optimism (or pessimism) which imbues us with the idea that we are the first or almost the first denizens of the globe-that all the generations whose blood flows in our veins, whose feelings throb in our breasts, whose traditions govern our thoughts, were composed of beings essentially unlike ourselves, upon whom things must necessarily have made different impressions. This idea is not absolutely correct; in reality, we depend on our ancestors to an almost incredible degree. We are fettered by innumerable bonds of their bequeathing-bonds of love and hate, and prejudices of every kind; they hold us in leash as we ourselves hold our descendants. The generations flit by so swiftly that they have barely time to transmit life ere they are gone.

Especially in regard to the condition of women, the questions that are agitated to-day with more or less airiness or vehemence are almost as old as the hills. At certain periods they have been investigated more closely

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The Women of the Renaissance: A Study of Feminism