§ 3.

We say that a man’s character may be told by the company he keeps. We might similarly say that the truth of a belief may be judged by the morality with which it is associated. Given a theory universally current amongst the most degraded sections of our race—a theory received only with considerable abatements by civilized nations—a theory in which men’s confidence Edition: current; Page: [178] diminishes as fast as society advances—and we may safely pronounce that theory to be a false one. On such, along with other evidence, the subordination of sex was lately condemned. Those commonly-observed facts, that the enslavement of woman is invariably associated with a low type of social life, and that conversely, her elevation towards an equality with man uniformly accompanies progress, were cited in part proof that the subjection of female to male is essentially wrong. If now, instead of women we read children, similar facts may be cited, and a similar deduction may be drawn. If it be true that the dominion of man over woman has been oppressive in proportion to the badness of the age or the people, it is also true that parental authority has been stringent and unlimited in a like proportion. If it be a fact that the emancipation of women has kept pace with the emancipation of society, it is likewise a fact that the once despotic rule of the old over the young has been ameliorated at the same rate. And if in our own day, we find the fast-spreading recognition of popular rights accompanied by a silently-growing perception of the rights of women, we also find it accompanied by a tendency towards systems of non-coercive education—that is, towards a practical admission of the rights of children.

Whoever wants illustrations of this alleged harmony between the political, connubial, and filial relationships, may discover them anywhere and everywhere. Scanning that aboriginal state of existence during which the aggressive conduct of man to man renders society scarcely possible, he will see not only that wives are slaves and exist by sufferance, but that children hold their lives by the same tenure, and are sacrificed to the gods when fathers so will. He may observe how during classic times, the thraldom of five-sixths of the population was accompanied both by a theory that the child is the property and slave of its male parent, and by a legal fiction which regarded wives, as children similarly owned. That political degradation of the present East-Indian races for whom absolute monarchy seems still the only possible form of rule, Edition: current; Page: [179] he will find accompanied alike by suttees and by infanticide. The same connection of facts will be seen by him in China, where under a government, purely autocratic, there exists a public opinion which deems it an unpardonable offence for a wife to accuse her husband to the magistrate, and which ranks filial disobedience as a crime next in atrocity to murder. Nor is our own history barren of illustrations. On reviewing those times when constitutional liberty was but a name, when men were denied freedom of speech and belief, when the people’s representatives were openly bribed and justice was bought—the times, too, with which the laws enacting the servitude of women were in complete harmony—the observer cannot fail to be struck with the harshness of parental behaviour, and the attitude of humble subjection which sons and daughters had to assume. Between the close of the last century, when our domestic condition was marked by the use of Sir and Madam in addressing parents, and by the doctrine that a child ought unhesitatingly to marry whomsoever a father appointed; and when our political condition was marked by aristocratic supremacy, by the occurrence of church-and-king riots, and by the persecution of reformers—between that day and ours, the decline in the rigour of paternal authority and in the severity of political oppression, has been simultaneous. And, as already remarked, the like companionship of facts is seen in the present rapid growth of democratic feeling, and the equally rapid spread of a milder system of juvenile training.

Thus, the biography of the race affords ample illustration of the alleged law. That uniformity of moral tone, which it was asserted must necessarily pervade a nation’s arrangements—social, marital, and parental, we see exemplified alike under all phases of civilisation. Indeed this position hardly needed proof, being, as it is, a direct corollary from self-evident truths. As surely as a man’s character shines through all his deeds, so surely does the character of a people shine through all its laws and customs. Having a common root in human nature, cotemporary institutions cannot fail to be equally affected by the Edition: current; Page: [180] imperfection of that nature. They must all be right or wrong together. The evil which taints one must taint all. The change which reforms one must at the same time reform all. The progress which perfects one must eventually perfect all.

Consequently, whoever admits that injustice is still visible in the dealings of class with class—whoever admits that it similarly exhibits itself in the behaviour of one sex to the other, cannot but admit that it necessarily exists in the conduct of the old to the young. And he must further admit that being most implicitly received amongst the most barbarous nations, and waning as its influence does with the advance of civilisation, the doctrine of filial subjection is entirely condemned by its associations.