High Minds

by Simon Heffer

  The Gospels showed many instances of the imperative of treating men and women equally as Christians. He asked: ‘if adultery really constitutes in the sight of God that right to release from the marriage tie, and absolutely abolishes the marriage tie, so that those of whom one party has committed adultery are no longer married—if that be so, where do you find your title to withhold from women the remedy which you give to men? Is it to be found in considerations of social expediency? I am ready to dispute and to deny those considerations; but, suppose that it be, what right have you to set them up in bar of the charter which you say is written by God himself?’46

  By arming women with the power of divorce, their husbands would behave better than otherwise: and it was husbands, whose adulterous leanings were far more evident, who needed the restraint that equality would provide. Women could, under the proposals, divorce for cruelty:

  Is not the cruelty of insult just as gross, just as wicked, just as abominable as the cruelty of mere force? And is not that a very common class of case? Is it not too notorious that there exist a multitude of instances in which no remedy has been sought for, or none granted by our law—instances in which the adulteries of the husband have not only been occasional, but continuous; not only continuous, but open; not only open, but committed under his very roof, and in connection with persons placed in the closest relations with the wife? And is not the insult inflicted in these cases one which sends the iron into the soul as deeply, and far more sharply, than any material instrument can send it into the body? On what principle, then, is it that you give a remedy to the wife in a case of bodily cruelty on the part of the husband, while, where the cruelty is directed to the soul, though this may inflict tenfold greater torture, you declare there shall be no remedy at all?47

  Gladstone argued that if the bill passed without this equal right, men would feel they had tacit permission from Parliament to indulge in profligacy, creating an ‘oppressed and helpless wife’.48 He invited the accusation, however, that husband and wife would collude for the husband to commit adultery – which carried a lower social stigma – to put an end to the marriage: something that did, indeed, become one of the most widespread features of the law once it was passed, and a source of income to prostitutes and private investigators well into the twentieth century. Even Palmerston, who maintained there was no real social requirement for equality, conceded he could not win that argument and would accept the principle: despite this flying in the face of what his own Attorney General had just said.

  The Attorney sought a middle way, offering an amendment to allow a woman to sue for divorce if a husband kept his mistress under their own roof: the law in France allowed for this if a man had his ‘concubine’ in the home. Joseph Henley, President of the Board of Trade in Derby’s ministry, rejected this on the grounds that ‘in English society it would be hardly possible to find a single man who was sufficiently a villain to outrage all laws so as to bring him within the category’.49 Henley added: ‘A man might commit adultery with the housemaid, the lady’s maid, or any sort of maid, but that would not fall within the hon and learned gentleman’s category of a mistress kept in the conjugal residence.’ Palmerston prevailed, but women still did not have equality. While men could divorce simply for a wife’s adultery, adultery was only to be an issue for a woman divorcing her husband if it was supplemented by some other offence – sodomy, bigamy, cruelty or desertion, for example. Not until the 1937 Matrimonial Causes Act would that wrong be righted.

  The bill had its third and final reading on 21 August 1857. Thirteen changes of substance had been made to it in committee, ten without a vote – an admission by the government of the imperfection of its measure. The most significant was the concession towards women, and enhanced rights for the custody of children; scarcely less important were the establishment of local tribunals, and what was effectively a conscience clause for clergy. Palmerston puffed and preened with satisfaction that he had seen off Gladstone and those others in the Commons who had determined to stop the bill.

  The Lords agreed to consider the amendments, rather than throw the bill out, by a majority of just two. When, on 25 August, the day before the prorogation of Parliament, the Act was finally on the statute book, divorces could be granted on account of the adultery of either spouse: or, in the case of a woman, adultery aggravated by the cruelty of or desertion by her husband for more than two years. There were three divorce cases in 1857, and 300 in 1858, the Act coming into force on 1 January that year.

  III

  With the extension of the franchise to all men in 1867, it was natural that the more radically minded should turn their attention to the extension of the franchise to women. John Stuart Mill had tried unsuccessfully to push the point by organising petitions to be presented to Parliament in 1866, 1867 and 1868. A bill to effect this was introduced in May 1870 by Jacob Bright, younger brother of John and of Priscilla Bright McLaren, an early campaigner for women’s suffrage. Bright’s measure would have given votes to women in boroughs ‘if they are householders, if their names are on the rate-books, and if they pay their rates.’50 In the counties women would vote if householders with houses rated at £12 or above, ‘or if they should be possessed of any description of property which now entitles men to vote.’ This was far from universal suffrage. Bright’s research caused him to estimate that in Bath one woman would have the vote for every 3.8 men, but in Walsall it would be one to every 22.9 men. In Bristol and York the ratio was one to seven; in Manchester one to six; in Newcastle one to eight and in Northampton one to thirteen. With an eye on his opponents he said that ‘the number of persons we propose to enfranchise by this Bill is so small that no fear need be entertained on the present occasion.’51 The number of women who would be enfranchised would be too small to cause a social and political revolution.

  Bright said he was pursuing this end ‘on the grounds of public justice and of practical necessity’. He pointed out that the householder franchise led to men in an astonishing degree of ignorance being allowed to vote. Yet women who paid taxes, and who rendered valuable service to the nation – he invoked the name of Florence Nightingale – were not. The men who had demanded the vote before 1867 had, said Bright, argued that to be denied it was ‘tantamount to a declaration of our moral and intellectual inferiority’.52 He emphasised what he felt should be the link between taxation and representation and, even more radically than demanding votes for women, highlighted the unfairness of their pay: ‘There is not a male and female rate of taxation, but there is a male and female rate of wages and earnings. Women everywhere, with a few remarkable exceptions, are getting far less money than men; they have to work much longer for the same money; and they are even paid much less when they are doing precisely the same work. Taxation must, therefore, fall somewhat more heavily upon women than on men.’ There were, he protested, ‘inferior men in every rank of life’ who ‘have no objection to degrade women and keep them in degradation.’53

  The women who would be eligible could already vote in municipal elections: but Parliament deemed them unfit to vote on ‘imperial affairs’. Bright’s bill would not give the vote to married women, though he made it clear he regretted this expediency, which he considered necessary if his bill were to have any chance of success – ‘a married woman, in regard to the rights of property, is in the position of the negro in the Southern States of America before the American Revolution [the Civil War].’ The Married Women’s Property Bill had three times been passed by the Commons but thrown out by the Lords twice. If the Commons could see the injustice that that bill sought to put right, why should it not see the injustice of denying women of property the vote?

  Bright made the obvious point that the Sovereign herself was a woman, and there was an inconsistency between her considerable power and the denial of modest political power to all other Britons of her sex. This was not, he stressed, a point original to him: Disraeli had made it in a speech some time earlier. He referred again to the effect of the Amer
ican Civil War: black men had been held in contempt before it, but now 4 million of them had the vote. He referred to the growing organisation of women’s groups that had agitated for the introduction of the bill he was proposing, as a testament to the intelligence and political consciousness of women – things denied by their opponents. More than 100,000 of them had signed petitions about the importance of ending the injustice of their treatment. He implored his fellow MPs to think of their own wives, mothers, sisters and daughters, and to admit the interest that many of them took in politics – proved by the number of them who came to watch from the Ladies’ Gallery. He concluded by imploring Gladstone, famed for his integrity and sagacity, to support him.

  The opposition to Bright was led by John Scourfield, the Tory MP for Pembrokeshire. He carefully avoided discussing the alleged inferiority of women, but concentrated instead on what had been claimed was the lack of ‘sufficient evidence that it was the wish of the women of England to have this privilege conferred upon them’. Scourfield claimed he was always asking women whether they wished to have the vote, and they invariably replied that they did not. They did not seek the responsibility that went with the franchise, and they felt it would erode their social position. He found it necessary to quote Dr Johnson’s insulting line about a woman preaching being like a dog on its hind legs: ‘It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.’ He was quite clear about what their purpose in life was: ‘Their vocation was to make life endurable,’ he said, and he simply wished them to continue being ‘admirable, amiable, and delightful’.54

  William Fowler, the MP for Cambridge, said that if women were given the vote there was no logical reason why they should not sit in the Commons, and therefore he was profoundly opposed to the bill. Women had duties – of educating their children, of having ‘to adorn the sphere in which they live’ – that would be impeded by allowing them to become involved in politics. He did not dispute that there were some women who spoke very well in public; but he did not think that ‘a natural position for women’.55 He did think the state of their property rights was an injustice, and he would support any move to rectify that: but giving them the vote was too much, and he said his motive in not supporting Bright was ‘to save them [women] from what would be rather an injury than a blessing’.56

  Sir Charles Dilke, whose own parliamentary career would be undermined by a scandal caused by his being rather too appreciative of women, sprang to their defence, ridiculing the arguments against their having the vote:

  There is only one class of the inhabitants of full age except the insane, who are passed over in this Parliamentary franchise. You do not pass over negroes, for there are negro voters in almost every borough in the country; but you pass over one class—the class of women. It is quite clear that you have passed them over on account of some grave incapacity. If that were not clear from the general nature of the case, it would be clear from what Blackstone [the commentaries on the laws of England] says. Blackstone, describing those who are subject to political disability, says that ‘No vote can be given by lunatics, idiots, minors, aliens, females, persons convicted of perjury, subornation of perjury, bribery, treating or undue influence, or by those attainted of felony, or outlawed in a criminal suit.’ If you exclude aliens—and no country permits the subjects of a foreign Power to exercise the Parliamentary franchise—the disabled people divide themselves into two classes—those convicted of crime and those who are under some incapacity of mind. It is quite clear that no one would propose to rank women among criminals, and it would seem that they are ranked amongst the incapable.57

  Lyon Playfair took up this point too. ‘That women are capable citizens must be admitted from our laws of property, and from their possession of the municipal franchise,’ he said.

  Their capability is further allowed by the Constitution, which entrusts to them the highest share in government. Female Sovereigns may sit on the Throne, and in past times, as now, adorn their high position. But if they are capable of exercising the highest function of government, they must be fit to perform the lowest functions—that of delegating their interests to a representative who may protect their property against undue taxation, and their persons against the injurious influences of bad legislation. . . . it is assumed that it is not a suitable or becoming thing in wives and mothers to attend to politics, because their function is rather domestic than civic. Well, we do not ask the suffrage for those who are wives and have their interests represented by their husbands. But there are 487,000 widows and 2,110,000 spinsters who have no such natural representatives of their interests. They surely have a right to interest themselves in affairs external to the domestic hearth.58

  He added: ‘The very names of Miss Florence Nightingale, Miss Harriet Martineau, and Miss Burdett Coutts’ made the case for the vote. ‘I admit that the education of women, as a class, has not been of a character to attract them to political subjects. Whose fault is this? Men have monopolised all the higher schools and Universities for themselves, and have thus lowered the education of women. Grant them the suffrage which we now ask, and I promise you that they will quickly lay claim to a fairer share in the educational resources of this country. Give to women the responsibility of power, and their fitness to exercise it will be developed rapidly enough. This has always been proved by our past history, even when you have lowered the suffrage below the then educational level of the people.’59

  These arguments were powerful; Bright and his friends triumphed, and the bill passed its second reading. Once it went into committee the trouble began. Edward Pleydell-Bouverie, President of the Poor Law Board in Palmerston’s first administration, feared that the grant of the vote to unmarried women would inevitably result in its being granted, in time, to married women. ‘The consequence of this will be a dual vote and a dual government in every house. I must protest against such a system of domestic anarchy.’60 He added: ‘The real meaning of this bill is that we are to unsex women altogether. They are the weaker portion of human creation. Nature has ordained that they should be so. Are we to take them down from their pedestal, and make them enter into rough competition with men? Are they to come into this House and to sit on these benches? If so, why should they not sit on the Treasury Bench?’61 That was not the limit of the potential horror. ‘It is avowed that we are to become a nation of Amazons; that we are to have women barristers, attorneys, doctors, and for aught I know, Bishops.’

  He rounded off his argument by quoting a feminist who said she hoped women would sit on juries; and was followed by Lord Elcho, who dismissed out of hand the notion that the vote was a ‘just right’ of women: ‘The worst service . . . that they could do to the women of this country was to give them votes.’62 Eventually Gladstone himself intervened. He explained that the government had not taken a view not because it did not regard the measure as important, but because it did not wish to invade the liberties of independent Members. However, he had to admit that ‘it would be a very great mistake to proceed with this Bill.’63 He explained himself by saying that ‘the real matter at issue is much broader, for the question really is whether there is a necessity, nay, even, whether there is a desire or a demand for this measure. I must say I cannot recognize either the one or the other which would justify such an unsettling not to say uprooting, of the old landmarks of society, which are far deeper than any of those political distinctions which separate Gentlemen now on these Benches from those on the other. I am not aware of any such case.’64 Despite a last minute plea from Bright, that to leave things as they were would exclude from the franchise one-seventh of all the owners and occupiers of property in the kingdom, the bill was thrown out.

  IV

  Despite such setbacks, the women’s suffrage movement gained momentum from the late 1860s onwards. Huxley, a firm believer in equality, raised the question of women’s social and political rights in a magazine article of May 1865. He asked his readers, if they accepted ‘the alleged defects of women’, then ‘is it not
somewhat absurd to sanction and maintain a system of education which would seem to have been specially contrived to exaggerate all these defects?’65 He called the existing system of female education ‘inherently absurd’ and made a plea to ‘emancipate girls’. He continued: ‘Recognise the fact that they share the senses, perceptions, feelings, reasoning powers, emotions, of boys, and that the mind of the average girl is less different from that of the average boy, than the mind of one boy is from that of another; so that whatever argument justifies a given education for all boys, justifies its application to girls as well.’66 He saw no reason why they should not become ‘merchants, barristers, politicians’; and he felt men had nothing to fear from this. ‘The big chests, the massive brains, the vigorous muscles and stout frames of the best men will carry the day, whenever it is worth their while to contest the prizes of life with the best women’. His conclusion had no trace of irony: ‘The duty of man is to see that not a grain is piled upon that load beyond what Nature imposes; that injustice is not added to inequality.’67

  Several women who would be prominent in the drive for higher education for their sex – such as Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon – were active in the suffrage movement. Mill was drawn into it not least through his stepdaughter, Helen Taylor. During the passage of the 1867 Reform Bill he attempted, and failed, to have the bill amended to allow votes for women. A few dozen MPs sympathised with him: but the passage of the bill and the small core of support for votes for women prompted Mill to think the cause was not lost. In July 1867 he ensured Florence Nightingale was invited to join the committee of the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage.68 It already included Misses Cobbe, Hampson, Hare and Lloyd, and Mesdames Fawcett, Lucas and Stansfield. Mill sought to enlist Nightingale in this battle because he understood, having read her Notes on Nursing, her belief that ‘women should not be excluded by law or usage from the liberty of trying any mode of exertion open to men, at their own risk in case of failure.’69 They had also corresponded in 1860 on the subject, when Mill had criticised some advocates of women’s rights – including, as he supposed, Nightingale – for being ‘ready to make what appear to me far too great concessions as to the comparative unfitness of women for some occupations.’70 Although Nightingale had been reluctant to put her bonnet above the parapet, she had gone so far as to sign Mill’s suffrage petitions.