In schools and colleges too, the girls make G.o.ds and heroes of those of their s.e.x who excel in manly sports. They have never a suspicion that their G.o.ds and heroes are not G.o.ddesses and heroines. Similars being unattractive to one another, the exposition of woman-traits leaves woman more or less unmoved. As Nature destined, the woman-heart goes out to those virtues and valours which are the natural complement of her own.
This latter-day vogue is not a normal, nor a pretty development. But it is another of the inevitable consequences of disturbing Nature"s balances. Nature"s plan and her methods of administration are so perfect that when left to herself she preserves her equilibrium and secures her aims by the safest and, at the same time, by the simplest expedients.
When man destroys the hawks which, normally, reduce the smaller fry of birds to their allotted quotum in the Scheme of Things, however, the smaller fry multiply inordinately and devour his cherries and his corn.
And when he destroys the smaller fry, the slugs and grubs and _aphides_ multiply and devour his lettuces and roses.
So it is with Human traits and faculties. The balance of The Normal is the way alone of health and happiness and progress.
There is great boast now-a-days of friendship and comradeship between the s.e.xes. Yet though friendship and comradeship are good allies of love, they are but sterile, uninspiring subst.i.tutes for the profounder, higher, vital and undying emotions of the true love-pa.s.sion.
On the other hand, attachments between men and men, and between women and women, are strengthening and intensifying; absorbing the emotion and devotion formerly and normally bestowed on members of the opposite s.e.x.
While attraction between persons of opposite s.e.x becomes ever lighter and triter in sentiment; serving more and more for brief distraction and provocative pastime rather than for a living and abiding bond.
This misplaced affection for members of the same s.e.x arises from the attraction of traits of the opposite s.e.x unduly developed in them. While indifference to members of the opposite s.e.x results from lack in these of the characteristics of their s.e.x, normally accentuated. Thus a woman is more drawn to one of her own s.e.x possessing virile characteristics, physical or mental, than she is drawn to a weak-brained, emasculate man.
Masculine women are attracted likewise by the womanly graces and quality of feminine women.
While men find in some members of their own s.e.x, feminine traits of sympathy and sentiment absent in women of male-proclivity. All is an expression of the law of the Attraction of Opposites, which (normally) causes persons of opposite s.e.x to be strongly drawn to one another.
On the other hand, the development in himself, or in herself, of the characteristics of the opposite s.e.x makes members of either s.e.x independent of and indifferent to members of the other, by supplying them with a spurious counterfeit of qualities it is natural to seek in those others.
VII
Professor Drummond, from whom I quote frequently, as being one of those biologists on the side of the angels, writes thus beautifully:
"s.e.x is a paradox; it is that which separates in order to unite....
There is no instance in Nature of Division of Labour being brought to such extreme specialisation. The two s.e.xes were not only set apart to perform different halves of the same function, but each so entirely lost the power of performing the whole function that even with so great a thing at stake as the continuance of the species _one_ could not discharge it.
"It is important to notice this absence of necessity for s.e.x having been created--the absence of any known necessity, from the merely physiological standpoint.
"Is it inconceivable that Nature should sometimes do things with an ulterior object, an ethical one, for instance? To no one with any acquaintance with Nature"s ways, will it be possible to conceive of such a purpose as the sole purpose.
"Had s.e.x done nothing more than make an interesting world, the debt of Evolution to Reproduction had been incalculable.... What exactly Maleness is, and what Femaleness, has been one of the problems of the world. At least five hundred theories of their origin are already in the field, but the solution seems to have baffled every approach. s.e.x has remained almost to the present hour an ultimate mystery of creation....
"The contribution of each to the evolution of the human race is special and unique. To the man has been mainly a.s.signed the fulfilment of the first great function--the Struggle for Life.
Woman, whose higher contribution has not yet been named, is the chosen instrument for carrying on the Struggle for the Life of Others.
"That task, translated into one great word is Maternity--which is nothing but the Struggle for the Life of Others transfigured, transferred to the moral sphere. Focused in a single human being, this function, as we rise in history, slowly begins to be accompanied by those heaven-born psychical states which transform the femaleness of the older order into the Motherhood of the New."
Out of the misconception of s.e.x as having no other purpose or significance than that of reproduction merely, there has arisen the further misconception that, lacking other purpose or significance, the s.e.x-characteristics of Woman may be obliterated in her not only without injury, but with benefit to her; as being superfluous and hampering impedimenta merely, when reproductive issues are beside the question.
Yet since Faculty lapses first in its latest and highest developments, s.e.x-deterioration manifests most in the higher mental and moral s.e.x-characteristics. One result, therefore, of not fostering, by culture and by avocation, s.e.x-specialisations upon planes of mind and apt.i.tude, is that, while lapsing in its higher functions, s.e.x remains operative still upon the physical plane, and functions crudely--perhaps viciously thereon. Just as intelligence becomes dense and degraded when its finer qualities are not exercised, and their development thus raised to finer issues. Moreover, by denying to s.e.x and to the rites of love any but parental issues, the individual, emotional and spiritual issues of the human union are ignored; a limitation all the more dishonouring, because of the present-day misconception of parenthood as being a purely "physical," and, accordingly, an inferior function.
There is not, of course, in all the complex marvel of human metabolism, such an anomaly as a purely physical function. Digestion even is far, indeed, from being such, since by way of this a slice of bread is transformed into living personality, living thought and impulse, living action.
s.e.x is manifestly a Spiritual and an Eternal Principle. Because, by way of its essential dual differentiations and intensifying operations, Matter becomes endued not only with Life and Faculty, but, having become Living Matter, it becomes endued, by power of reproduction, with the potential of eternal Life and Faculty. Even more, it becomes endued with the potential of the eternal unfoldment of ever-further intensifying Life and Faculty.
s.e.x is, in truth, for both genders, such a convergence of every characteristic--physical, mental and emotional--in a highly specialised focus, that the whole outlook upon life becomes highly specialised and intensified thereby; every impression and experience becoming instinct and charged with intrinsic meanings, vividness and colour. And this apart wholly from relation to the other s.e.x. Although, of course, the focus and intensity of the traits of the one s.e.x are _accentuated_ in vividness and richness, in response to the complementary traits of the other.
It is s.e.x that energises men to be great; great leaders of men, great writers, great statesmen, great soldiers, great sailors, explorers--great sinners and great saints.
s.e.x it is makes women great also; great mates for great men, great mothers, writers, ministers to poor Humanity--great saints.
The mystery of s.e.x is, surely, Master-key to all the other mysteries of the Cosmos.
VIII
In aiming at Hermaphrodism, Feminism is contriving not only at frustration of all that Evolution has achieved in Life and Faculty, but it is making for the extinction of Life itself.
The Hermaphrodite is incapable of parenthood. And in the degree to which members of either s.e.x lapse toward Neuterdom, in body or in mind, they become incapable of transmitting to offspring all those higher developments of form and faculty which are, essentially, s.e.x-differentiations. The present-day decline in parental impulse and affection, which shows, among other signs, in ever-decreasing Birth-rates, is a symptom of temperamental Neuterdom; evidence alike of s.e.x-decline, and, in this, of decline of that vital energy and spiritual impulse whereof s.e.x is the manifestation.
Such trend toward Race-suicide denotes, in the Race, that same neurasthenia and pusillanimity, which, in the individual, impel him to personal suicide.
Latter-day marriage, greedily grasping all that Life and Love bestow while grudging any due to Life and Love, is not true Marriage--but is sacrilege.
Between this and the mating of true men and women, who, in grat.i.tude for Love, pay tribute joyfully to Life in lives to follow after them, is all the vital difference, in impulse and emotion, between the Ship of Love--with its mysterious freight--immured within a narrow lock whereof the gate to the Beyond is sealed, and the Ship of Love launched free upon the open sea of Human Destiny--a Shining sea of Faith and Hope, which tides beyond the narrow mortal gateway toward a Great Unknown; Remote, Illimitable, Veiled in Everlasting Silence.
_This_ ship fares forth upon its voyage of Mystery, beatified by full surrender of all lesser issues to that sacred one of the Eternal Human--a surrender which endues true marriage with tenderness and awe and beauty.
_Do we not pitch our songs too low, O sweet--my Singers?_
CHAPTER IX
THE IMPENDING SUBJECTION OF MAN
"The Earth never tires.... Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop"d; I swear to you there are Divine Things more beautiful than words can tell."
_Walt Whitman._
I
In the long and painful history of man"s more or less total failure to value and to honour woman for her greatest, her most vital and self-sacrificing part in human affairs, none has approached in obliquity his recent deplorable blunder of awarding her the suffrage and the right to sit in Parliament, as recognition of her War-services.
All the long ages of Mother-surrender, of quiet heroism and attainment, all the best, beautiful years of women"s lives which the burden and sickness, the weariness, danger and anguish have devoured down the centuries, while the mothers were giving themselves to be the nation"s bone and blood and brain, to nourish, cherish, and upbring it--All were pa.s.sed over without word or sign.
Not for her long ages of devoted duty to the nation"s sick and helpless, for rearing and safeguarding its priceless infant and child-life, for administering its homes--fashioning, cleansing, beautifying, contriving, making the utmost of its means and ends--Not for her inestimable services as man"s good comrade and wise counseller, his love and friend and faithful help, in sorrow, evil and adversity; not even for her age-long, arduous labours and achievements in Religion, Charity, Reform.
For none of these, her great intrinsic and eternal ministries to Life and to Humanity, has man now set her by him in the Van of Things.