Part 5

Chapter 53,886 wordsPublic domain

The “incapacity of women for military service” has been of late days continually quoted as a bar to their right of citizenship, as far as the Parliamentary Franchise is concerned. In the face of the foregoing cases, and of the fact that every mother risks her life in becoming a mother, while very few men, indeed, risk theirs on the battlefield, it might be thought that the fallacious argument would have perished from shame and inanition long ago. But the inconsistencies of partly-cultivated, masculine, one-sexed intellect are as stubborn as blind.

See also Note XLV., 6.

XIX.

6.—“_The ecstasy of earnest souls_ ...”

“Without recognising the possibilities of individual and of racial evolution, we are shut up to the conventional view that the poet and his heroine alike are exceptional creations, hopelessly beyond the everyday average of the race. Whereas, admitting the theory of evolution, we are not only entitled to the hope, but logically compelled to the assurance that these rare fruits of an apparently more than earthly paradise of love, which only the forerunners of the race have been privileged to gather, or, it may be, to see from distant heights, are yet the realities of a daily life towards which we and ours may journey.”—Geddes and Thomson (“Evolution of Sex,” p. 267).

_Id._... “What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers, and capacities with reciprocal superiority in them—so that each can enjoy the pleasure of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of development—I will not attempt to describe. To those who can conceive it there is no need; to those who cannot, it would appear the dream of an enthusiast. But I maintain, with the profoundest conviction, that this, and this only, is the ideal of marriage; and that all opinions, customs, and institutions which favour any other notion of it, or turn the conceptions and aspirations connected with it into any other direction, by whatever pretences they may be coloured, are relics of primitive barbarism. The moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and cultivation.”—J. S. Mill (“The Subjection of Women,” p. 177).

XX.

2.—“_And lingers still the hovering shade of night_.”

George Eliot had yet to say, “Heaven was very cruel when it made women”; and Georges Sand, “Fille on nous supprime, femme on nous opprime.”

XXI.

1.—“... _carnal servitude_...”

It may be objected by some that details in the verse or in these notes are of too intimate a character for general narration. The notes have, however, all been taken either from widely read public prints of indisputable singleness of purpose, or works of writers of undoubted integrity. One is not much troubled as to those who would criticise further. To them may be offered the incident and words of the late Dr. Magee, who, as Bishop of Peterborough, and a member of a legislative committee on the question of child-life insurance, said:—“In this matter we have to count with two things: first, almost all our facts are secrets of the bedchamber; and, secondly, we are opposed by great vested interests. This thing is not to be done without a good deal of pain.”—(_Review of Reviews_, Vol. IV., p. 37).

And thus are verified, in a transcendental sense also, the words of Schiller:—

“Und _in feurigem Bewegen_ Werden alle Kräfte kund.” (“Die Glocke.”)

7.—“_Survival from dim age_ ...”

See Note XXIII., 1.

XXII.

1.—“... _girlhood’s helpless years_ ...”

Somewhat as to these ancient conditions may be gathered from the position in India at the present day. Read the following:—“The practice of early marriages by Hindoos I was, of course, informed of by reading before coming to India, but its mention in books was always coupled with the assertion that in India girls reach puberty at a much earlier age than in cold climates. Judge, therefore, of my surprise to find that so far from Hindoo girls being precocious in physical development, they are much behind in this respect; that a Hindoo girl of fifteen is about the equal of an English child of eleven, instead of the reverse, and that the statements made to the contrary by Englishmen who have no opportunity of becoming acquainted with Hindoo family life, were totally misleading. In the first place they were under the impression that marriage never takes place before puberty, and, secondly, they accepted the Hindoo view as to what constitutes puberty. You know that, unfortunately, they were misled as regards the first point. I hope to show you that in the second place the idea which they accepted as correct is a totally mistaken one.”—Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D. (Address to the Hindoos of Bombay on the subject of child-marriage; delivered at the Hall of the Prarthana Somaj, Bombay, on the 11th Oct., 1890).

2.—“... _sexual wrong_.”

“As regards the marriage of girls before even what is called puberty, I can hardly trust myself to speak, so strongly are my feelings those of all Western—may I not say of all civilised?—people in looking upon it as actually criminal. Ah! gentlemen, those of you who are conversant with such cases as I have seen, cases like those of Phulmoni Dossee, which has just now stirred your hearts to insist upon some change in the existing law, and others where a life-long decrepitude has followed, to which death itself were far preferable, do you not feel with me that penal servitude is not too hard a punishment for such brutality? I am glad to think that a very large section of Hindoo men think with me. I have been repeatedly spoken to on the subject, and members even of those castes which are most guilty in this matter, have expressed to me a wish that Government would interfere and put a stop to the practice.”—Mrs. Pechey Phipson, M.D., _op. cit._

A terrible evidence to the evil is borne by the following document:—

[FROM “THE TIMES OF INDIA,” NOVEMBER 8TH, 1890.]

_To his Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General of India._

May it please Your Excellency.—The undersigned ladies, practising medicine in India, respectfully crave your Excellency’s attention to the following facts and considerations:—

1. Your Excellency is aware that the present state of the Indian law permits marriages to be consummated not only before the wife is physically qualified for the duties of maternity, but before she is able to perform the duties of the conjugal relation, thus giving rise to numerous and great evils.

2. This marriage practice has become the cause of gross immoralities and cruelties, which, owing to existing legislation, come practically under the protection of the law. In some cases the law has permitted homicide, and protected men, who, under other circumstances, would have been criminally punished.

3. The institution of child-marriage rests upon public sentiment, vitiated by degenerate religious customs and misinterpretation of religious books. There are thousands among the better educated classes who would rejoice if Government would take the initiative, and make such a law as your memorialists plead for, and in the end the masses would be grateful for their deliverance from the galling yoke that has bound them to poverty, superstition, and the slavery of custom for centuries.

4. The present system of child-marriage, in addition to the physical and moral effects which the Indian Governments have deplored, produces sterility, and consequently becomes an excuse for the introduction of other child-wives into the family, thus becoming a justification for _polygamy_.

5. This system panders to sensuality, lowers the standard of health and morals, degrades the race, and tends to perpetuate itself and all its attendant evils to future generations.

6. The lamentable case of the child-wife, Phulmani Dassi, of Calcutta, which has excited the sympathy and the righteous indignation of the Indian public, is only one of thousands of cases that are continually happening, the final results being quite as horrible, but sometimes less immediate. The following instances have come under the personal observation of one or another of your Excellency’s petitioners:—

A. Aged 9. Day after marriage. Left _femur_ dislocated, _pelvis_ crushed out of shape, flesh hanging in shreds.

B. Aged 10. Unable to stand, bleeding profusely, flesh much lacerated.

C. Aged 9. So completely ravished as to be almost beyond surgical repair. Her husband had two other living wives, and spoke very fine English.

D. Aged 10. A very small child, and entirely undeveloped physically. This child was bleeding to death from the _rectum_. Her husband was a man of about 40 years of age, weighing not less than 11 stone. He had accomplished his desire in an unnatural way.

E. Aged about 9. Lower limbs completely paralysed.

F. Aged about 12. Laceration of the _perineum_ extending through the _sphincter ani_.

G. Aged about 10. Very weak from loss of blood. Stated that great violence had been done her in an unnatural way.

H. Aged about 12. Pregnant, delivered by _craniotomy_ with great difficulty, on account of the immature state of the _pelvis_ and maternal passage.

I. Aged about 7. Living with husband. Died in great agony after three days.

K. Aged about 10. Condition most pitiable. After one day in hospital was demanded by her husband for his “lawful” use, he said.

L. Aged 11. From great violence done her person will be a cripple for life. No use of her lower extremities.

M. Aged about 10. Crawled to hospital on her hands and knees. Has never been able to stand erect since her marriage.

N. Aged 9. Dislocation of _pubic arch_, and unable to stand, or to put one foot before the other.

In view of the above facts, the undersigned lady doctors and medical practitioners appeal to your Excellency’s compassion to enact or introduce a measure by which the consummation of marriage will not be permitted before the wife has attained the full age of fourteen (14) years. The undersigned venture to trust that the terrible urgency of the matter will be accepted as an excuse for this interruption of your Excellency’s time and attention.

(Signed by 55 lady-physicians.)

The memorial as above was initiated by Mrs. Monelle Mansell, M.A., M.D., who has been in practice in India for seventeen years, and it received the signature of every other lady doctor there. The cases of abuse above specified are “only a few out of many hundreds—of cruel wrongs, deaths, and maimings for life received by helpless child-wives at the hands of brutal husbands, which have come under Dr. Monelle Mansell’s personal observation, or that of her associates.”

With regard to case K, and “lawful” use, compare what is said by Dr. Emma B. Ryder, who is also in medical practice in India, concerning the “Little Wives of India”:—“If I could take my readers with me on my round of visits for one week, and let them behold the condition of the little wives ... if you could see the suffering faces of the little girls, who are drawn nearly double with contractions caused by the brutality of their husbands, and who will never be able to stand erect; if you could see the paralysed limbs that will not again move in obedience to the will; if you could hear the plaintive wail of the little sufferers as, with their tiny hands clasped, they beg you ‘to make them die,’ and then turn and listen to the brutal remarks of the legal owner with regard to the condition of his property. If you could stand with me by the side of the little deformed dead body, and, turning from the sickening sight, could be shown the new victim to whom the brute was already betrothed, do you think it would require long arguments to convince you that there was a deadly wrong somewhere, and that someone was responsible for it? After one such scene a Hindoo husband said to me, ‘You look like feel bad’ (meaning sad); ‘doctors ought not to care what see. I don’t care what see, nothing trouble me, only when self sick; I not like to have pain self.’... A man may be a vile and loathsome creature, he may be blind, a lunatic, an idiot, a leper, or diseased in a worse form; he may be fifty, seventy, or a hundred years old, and may be married to a baby or a girl of five or ten, who positively loathes his presence, but if he claims her she must go, and the English law for the ‘Restitution of Conjugal Rights’ compels her to remain in his power, or imprisons her if she refuses. There is no other form of slavery on the face of the earth that begins with the slavery as enforced upon these little girls of India.”—(“The Home-Maker,” New York, June, 1891, quoted in the _Review of Reviews_, Vol. IV., p. 38.)

And the _Times_ of 11th November, 1889, reported from its Calcutta correspondent:—“Two shocking cases of wife-killing lately came before the courts—in both cases the result of child-marriage. In one a child aged ten was strangled by her husband. In the second case a child of ten years was ripped open with a wooden peg. Brutal sexual exasperation was the sole apparent reason in both instances. Compared with the terrible evils of child-marriage, widow cremation is of infinitely inferior magnitude. The public conscience is continually being affronted with these horrible atrocities, but, unfortunately, native public opinion generally seems to accept these revelations with complete apathy.”

For what slight legislative amendment has recently been effected in the grievances mentioned by Dr. Ryder, see Note XXIV., 4. The “Restitution of Conjugal Rights,” so justly condemned by her, does, indeed, appear to have had—by some inadvertence—a recognition in the Indian Courts which was not its lawful due. But for some fuller particulars on this matter, both as concerns India and England, see Note XXXVI., 6.

XXIII.

1.—“_Action repeated tends to rhythmic course_.”

“Other and wider muscular actions, partly internal and partly external, also take place in a rhythmical manner in relation with systemic conditions. The motions of the diaphragm and of the thoracic and abdominal walls, in connection with respiration, belong to this category. These movements, though in the main independent of will, are capable of being very considerably modified thereby, and while they are most frequently unheeded, they have a very recognisable accompaniment of feeling when attention is distinctly turned to them.... The contraction of oviducts or of the womb, as well as the movements concerned in respiration, also had their beginnings in forms of life whose advent is now buried in the immeasurable past.”—Dr. H. C. Bastian (“The Brain as an Organ of Mind,” p. 220).

4.—“_Till habit bred hereditary trace_.”

“Let it be granted that the more frequently psychical states occur in a certain order, the stronger becomes their tendency to cohere in that order, until they at last become inseparable; let it be granted that this tendency is, in however slight a degree, inherited, so that if the experiences remain the same, each successive generation bequeaths a somewhat increased tendency, and it follows that, in cases like the one described, there must eventually result an automatic connection of nervous actions, corresponding to the external relations perpetually experienced. Similarly, if from some change in the environment of any species its members are frequently brought in contact with a relation having terms a little more involved; if the organisation of the species is so far developed as to be impressible by these terms in close succession, then an inner relation corresponding to this new outer relation will gradually be formed, and will, in the end, become organic. And so on in subsequent stages of progress.”—Herbert Spencer (“Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I., p. 439).

_Id._... “I have described the manner in which the hereditary tendencies and instincts arise from habit, induced in the nervous cellules by a sufficient repetition of the same acts.”—Letourneau (“The Evolution of Marriage,” Chap. I.).

_Id._... “Ainsi l’évacuation menstruelle une fois introduite dans l’espèce, se sera communiquée par une filiation non interrompue; de sorte qu’on peut dire qu’une femme a maintenant des règles, par la seule raison que sa mère les a eues, comme elle aurait été phthisique peut être, si sa mère l’eût été; il y a plus, elle peut être sujette au flux menstruel, même quoique la cause primitive qui introduisit ce besoin ne subsiste plus en elle.”—Roussel (“Système de la Femme,” p. 134).

_Id._... “Il y a eu des auteurs qui ne voulaient pas considérer la menstruation comme une fonction inhérente à la nature de la femme, mais comme une fonction acquise, continuant par l’habitude.”—Raciborski (“Traité de la Menstruation,” p. 17).

_Id._... “The ‘set’ of mind, as Professor Tyndall well calls it, whether, as he says, ‘impressed upon the molecules of the brain,’ or conveyed in any other way, is quite as much a human as an animal phenomenon. Perhaps the greater part of those qualities which we call the characteristics of race are nothing else but the ‘set’ of the minds of men transmitted from generation to generation, stronger and more marked when the deeds are repeated, weaker and fainter as they fall into disuse.... Tyndall says: ‘No mother can wash or suckle her baby without having a “set” towards washing and suckling impressed upon the molecules of her brain, and this set, according to the laws of hereditary transmission, is passed on to her daughter. Not only, therefore, does the woman at the present day suffer deflection from intellectual pursuits through her proper motherly instincts, but inherited proclivities act upon her mind like a multiplying galvanometer, to augment indefinitely the amount of the deflection. _Tendency_ is immanent even in spinsters, to warp them from intellect to baby-love.’ (Essay: “Odds and Ends of Alpine Life.”) Thus, if we could, by preaching our pet ideal, or in any other way induce one generation of women to turn to a new pursuit, we should have accomplished a step towards bending all future womanhood in the same direction.”—Frances Power Cobbe (Essay: “The Final Cause of Woman”).