And when some of the grossest of the other forms still exist in many civilisedcountries, and have only recently been got rid of in others, it would bestrange if that which is so much the deepest rooted had yet been perceptiblyshaken anywhere. There is more reason to wonder that the protests and testimoniesagainst it should have been so numerous and so weighty as they are.
Some will object, that a comparison cannot fairly be made between thegovernment of the male sex and the forms of unjust power which I have adducedin illustration of it, since these are arbitrary, and the effect of mereusurpation, while it on the contrary is natural. But was there ever any dominationwhich did not appear natural to those who possessed it? There was a timewhen the division of mankind into two classes, a small one of masters anda numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most cultivated minds, tobe natural, and the only natural, condition of the human race. No less anintellect, and one which contributed no less to the progress of human thought,than Aristotle, held this opinion without doubt or misgiving; and restedit on the same premises on which the same assertion in regard to the dominionof men over women is usually based, namely that there are different naturesamong mankind, free natures, and slave natures; that the Greeks were of afree nature, the barbarian races of Thracians and Asiatics of a slave nature.
But why need I go back to Aristotle? Did not the slave-owners of the SouthernUnited States maintain the same doctrine, with all the fanaticism with whichmen ding to the theories that justify their passions and legitimate theirpersonal interests? Did they not call heaven and earth to witness that thedominion of the white man over the black is natural, that the black raceis by nature incapable of freedom, and marked out for slavery? some evengoing so far as to say that the freedom of manual labourers is an unnaturalorder of things anywhere. Again, the theorists of absolute monarchy havealways affirmed it to be the only natural form of government; issuing fromthe patriarchal, which was the primitive and spontaneous form of society,framed on the model of the paternal, which is anterior to society itself,and, as they contend, the most natural authority of all. Nay, for that matter,the law of force itself, to those who could not plead any other has alwaysseemed the most natural of all grounds for the exercise of authority. Conqueringraces hold it to be Nature's own dictate that the conquered should obey theconquerors, or as they euphoniously paraphrase it, that the feebler and moreunwarlike races should submit to the braver and manlier. The smallest acquaintancewith human life in the middle ages, shows how supremely natural the dominionof the feudal nobility overmen of low condition appeared to the nobilitythemselves, and how unnatural the conception seemed, of a person of the inferiorclass claiming equality with them, or exercising authority over them. Ithardly seemed less so to the class held in subjection. The emancipated serfsand burgesses, even in their most vigorous struggles, never made any pretensionto a share of authority; they only demanded more or less of limitation tothe power of tyrannising over them. So true is it that unnatural generallymeans only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural.
The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure fromit quite naturally appears unnatural. But how entirely, even in this case,the feeling is dependent on custom, appears by ample experience. Nothingso much astonishes the people of distant parts of the world, when they firstlearn anything about England, as to be told that it is under a queen; thething seems to them so unnatural as to be almost incredible. To Englishmenthis does not seem in the least degree unnatural, because they are used toit; but they do feel it unnatural that women should be soldiers or Membersof Parliament. In the feudal ages, on the contrary, war and politics werenot thought unnatural to women, because not unusual; it seemed natural thatwomen of the privileged classes should be of manly character, inferior innothing but bodily strength to their husbands and fathers. The independenceof women seemed rather less unnatural to the Greeks than to other ancients,on account of the fabulous Amazons (whom they believed to be historical),and the partial example afforded by the Spartan women; who, though no lesssubordinate by law than in other Greek states, were more free in fact, andbeing trained to bodily exercises in the same manner with men, gave ampleproof that they were not naturally disqualified for them. There can be littledoubt that Spartan experience suggested to Plato, among many other of hisdoctrines, that of the social and political equality of the two sexes.
