The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage. Almroth Edward Wright

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       Almroth Edward Wright

      The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage

      Published by Good Press, 2020

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066068561

Table of Contents

       Preface

       Introduction

       Arguments from Elementary Natural Rights

       Arguments from Intellectual Grievances of Woman

       Arguments which take the Form of "Counsels of Perfection" Addressed to Man

       Woman's Disability in the Matter of Physical Force

       Woman's Disability in the Matter of Intellect

       Woman's Disability in the Matter of Public Morality

       Mental Outlook and Programme of the Female Legislative Reformer

       Ulterior Ends which the Woman's Suffrage Movement has in View

       Palliatives or Correctives for the Discontent of Woman

       Letter on Militant Hysteria

      PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      It has come to be believed that everything that has a bearing upon the concession of the suffrage to woman has already been brought forward.

      In reality, however, the influence of women has caused man to leave unsaid many things which he ought to have said.

      Especially in two respects has woman restricted the discussion.

      She has placed her taboo upon all generalisations about women, taking exception to these on the threefold ground that there would be no generalisations which would hold true of all women; that generalisations when reached possess no practical utility; and that the element of sex does not leave upon women any general imprint such as could properly be brought up in connexion with the question of admitting them to the electorate.

      ​Woman has further stifled discussion by placing her taboo upon anything seriously unflattering being said about her in public.

      I would suggest, and would propose here myself to act upon the suggestion, that, in connexion with the discussion of woman's suffrage, these restrictions should be laid aside.

      In connexion with the setting aside of the restriction upon generalising, I may perhaps profitably point out that all generalisations, and not only generalisations which relate to women, are ex hypothesi subject to individual exceptions. (It is to generalisations that the proverb that "the exception proves the rule" really applies.) I may further point out that practically every decision which we take in ordinary life, and all legislative action without exception, is based upon generalisations; and again, that the question of the suffrage, and with it the larger question as to the proper sphere of woman, finally turns upon the question as to what imprint woman's sexual ​system leaves upon her physical frame, character, and intellect: in more technical terms, it turns upon the question as to what are the secondary sexual characters of woman.

      Now only by a felicitous exercise of the faculty of successful generalisation can we arrive at a knowledge of these.

      With respect to the restriction that nothing which might offend woman's amour propre shall be said in public, it may be pointed out that, while it was perfectly proper and equitable that no evil (and, as Pericles proposed, also no good) should be said of woman in public so long as she confined herself to the domestic sphere, the action of that section of women who have sought to effect an entrance into public life, has now brought down upon woman, as one of the penalties, the abrogation of that convention.

      A consideration which perhaps ranks only next in importance to that with which we have been dealing, is that of the logical sanction of the propositions which are enunciated in the ​course of such controversial discussions as that in which we are here involved.

      It is clearly a precondition of all useful discussion that the author and reader should be in accord with respect to the authority of the generalisations and definitions which supply the premisses for his reasonings.

      Though this might perhaps to the reader appear an impractical ideal, I would propose here to attempt to reach it by explaining the logical method which I have set myself to follow.

      Although I have from literary necessity employed in my text some of the verbal forms of dogmatism, I am very far from laying claim to any dogmatic authority. More than that, I would desire categorically to repudiate such a claim.

      For I do not conceal from myself that, if I took up such a position, I should wantonly be placing myself at the mercy of my reader. For he could then, by merely refusing to see ​in me an authority, bring down the whole edifice of my argument like a house of cards.

      Moreover I am not blind to what would happen if, after I claimed to be taken as an authority, the reader was indulgent enough still to go on to read what I have written.

      He would in such a case, the moment he encountered a statement with which he disagreed, simply waive me on one side with the words, "So you say."

      And if he should encounter a statement with which he agreed, he would in his wisdom, censure me for neglecting to provide for that proposition a satisfactory logical foundation.

      If it is far from my thoughts to claim a right of dictation, it is equally remote from them to take up the position that I have in my arguments furnished proof of the thesis which I set out to establish.

      It would be culpable misuse of language to speak in such connexion of proof or disproof.

      ​Proof by testimony, which is available in connexion with questions of fact, is unavailable in connexion with general truths; and logical proof is obtainable only in that comparatively narrow sphere where reasoning is based—as in mathematics—upon axioms, or—as in certain really crucial experiments in the mathematic sciences—upon quasi-axiomatic premisses.

      Everywhere else we base our reasonings on premisses which are simply more or less probable; and accordingly the conclusions which we arrive at have in them always an element of insecurity.

      It will be clear that in philosophy, in jurisprudence, in political economy and sociology, and in literary criticism and such like, we are dealing not with certainties but with propositions which are, for literary convenience, invested with the garb of certainties.

      What kind of logical sanction is it, then, which can attach to reasonings such as are to be set out