第49章

It is possible, that the human female, like the Jew, the male of that type farthest removed from the dominant male type of the past, may in the future find, that, so far from those qualities which, in an earlier condition, lessened her social value and power of labour, continuing to do so, they will increase it.That the delicacy of hand, lightness of structure which were fatal when the dominant labour of life was to wield a battle-axe or move a weight, may be no restraint but even an assistance in the intellectual and more delicate mechanical fields of labour; that the preponderance of nervous and cerebral over muscular material, and the tendency towards preservative and creative activity over pugilistic and destructive, so far from shutting her off from the most important fields of human toil, may increase her fitness for them! We have no certain proof that it is so at present; but, if woman's long years of servitude and physical subjection, and her experience as child-bearer and protector of infancy, should, in any way, be found in the future to have endowed her, as a kind of secondary sexual characteristic, with any additional strength of social instinct, with any exceptional width of human sympathy and any instinctive comprehension; then, it is not merely possible, but certain, that, in the ages that are coming, in which the labour of the human race will be not mainly destructive but conservative, in which the building up and developing of humanity, and not continually the inter-destruction of part by part, will be the dominant activity of the race, that woman as woman, and by right of that wherein she differs from the male, will have an all-important part to play in the activity of the race.

The matter is one of curious and subtle interest, but what practically concerns the human race is, not which of the two sexual halves which must always coexist is best fitted to excel in certain human labours in this or that direction, at this or that time, nor even which has most to contribute to the sum-total of human activities; but it is this, that every individual unit humanity contains, irrespective of race, sex, or type, should find exactly that field of labour which may most contribute to its development, happiness, and health, and in which its peculiar faculties and gifts shall be most effectively and beneficially exerted for its fellows.

It matters nothing, and less than nothing, to us as women, whether, of those children we bring into the world, our sons should excel in virtue, intelligence, and activity, our daughters, or our daughters our sons; so that, in each child we bring to life, not one potentiality shall be lost, nor squandered on a lesser when it might have been expended on a higher and more beneficent task.So that not one desirable faculty of the marvellous creatures we suffer to bring into existence be left uncultivated, to us, as women, it matters nothing and less than nothing, which sex type excels in action, in knowledge, or in virtue, so both attain their best.There is one thing only on earth, as precious to woman as the daughter who springs from her body--it is the son.There is one thing only dearer to the woman than herself--it is the man.As no sane human concerns himself as to whether the right or left ventricle of his heart works most satisfactorily, or is most essential to his well-being, so both be perfect in health and activity; as no sane woman distresses herself lest her right breast should not excel the left in beauty and use; so no sane man or woman questions anxiously over the relative perfections of male and female.In love there is no first nor last.What we request of life is that the tools should be given to his hand or hers who can best handle them; that the least efficient should not be forced into the place of the more efficient, and that an artificially drawn line should never repress the activities of the individual creature, which we as women bring into the world.

But it may also be said to us, "What, and if, all your dreams and hopes for woman and the future of the race be based on air? What, and if, desirable as it is that woman should not become practically dependent on her sexual function alone, and should play at least as great a part in the productive labour of the race in the future as she played in that of the past - what, if woman cannot take the same vast share in the complex and largely mental labour fields of the future, as in the largely physical fields of the past?

What, and if, in spite of all her effort and sacrifice to attain this end, exactly now and when the labour of civilised societies becomes mental rather than mechanical, woman be found wanting?"In Swiss valleys today the traveller comes sometimes on the figure of a solitary woman climbing the mountain-side, on her broad shoulders a mighty burden of fodder or manure she is bearing up for the cattle, or to some patch of cultivated land.Steady, unshrinking eyes look out at you from beneath the deeply seamed forehead, and a strand of hair, perhaps almost as white as the mountain snows on the peaks above, escapes from under the edge of the binding handkerchief.The face is seamed and seared with the stern marks of toil and endurance, as the mountain-side is with marks of storm and avalanche.It is the face of one who has brought men into the world in labour and sorrow, and toiled mightily to sustain them; and dead must be the mind to the phases of human existence, who does not see in that toilworn figure one of the mighty pillars, which have in the long ages of the past sustained the life of humanity on earth, and made possible its later development; and much must the tinsel of life have dazzled him, who fails to mark it with reverence and, metaphorically, to bow his head before it--the type of the mighty labouring woman who has built up life.