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WOMAN IN ENGLAND.

PART I.

"WHAT mean the rights of women? What means this cry of emancipation which suddenly resounds on every side?" Such is the commencement of an article which has lately appeared in an English periodical, enjoying a very high reputation, due to the incontestable talent, the brilliant and sarcastic wit of its contributors, and exercising no inconsiderable influence, the result perhaps more of fear than of sympathy. In what indeed consists the demands put forth so energetically by the women of England? In what sense do they interpret that oftreiterated and much-abused word of emancipation, which in France has turned so many heads, and has never led to any result save the most consummate absurdities or the most frightful disorders? It is but fair to confess that, even among the most violent of these fair innovators, the practical spirit which distinguishes the English race has held its ground. They do not, like certain French lady reformers, demand the abolition of marriage, or what they call free unions; they do not insist, with Claire Desmars, the ardent apostle of St. Simonism, that the first and indispensable condition of elevating the female sex is to place the new-born infant in the arms of the social mother, the nurse appointed by the State; they do not, like the disciples of Fourrier, propose establishing a classification in love, according to the taste and nature

of the individual; nor do they, like Flora Tristan, claim absolute and exclusive sovereignty for their own sex. The English lady innovators are divided into two camps. The less ambitious, and in our opinion the wiser section, direct their efforts principally towards bettering the condition of the mass of women who have to gain their livelihood by intellectual or manual labour. They would fain enlarge the sphere of woman's occupations, and throw open to her a variety of employments now monopolised by men. They desire the reform of those laws which affect the rights and property of married women; they claim a share in the direction of certain charitable institutions especially intended for their own sex; and they demand for women in general a more enlightened and comprehensive system of education-a system, in short, more in keeping with the new duties imposed by modern society.

The other section are not contented with these reforms. They insist on being placed on a complete equality with the male portion of the population as regards every right, social or political; they allege, and it must be confessed not without some show of reason, that many women of really superior intellect cannot obtain the position which they might justly claim, and which they are capable of filling with advantage to themselves and others; that their aspirations towards the good, the great, and the beautiful, are perpetually checked and thwarted by law, custom, or prejudice; and that they too often find themselves condemned to waste their existence in vain regret and hopeless inaction.

In comparing the social position of women at the present period, in England especially, with that which they held a century ago, one is inclined to think, at first sight at least, that they really have not much ground for

complaint. The nineteenth century, while enriching us with so many new and wonderful discoveries, transforming, as it were, the face of nature, and drawing the two hemispheres closer together, has effected moral changes not less important to the destinies of the human race. Silently, but surely, woman has advanced in the path of progress. The days when a certain degree of courage was needed to demand the free development of her mental faculties, and the extension of a good and solid education to girls as well as boys, lie far behind us. No one, either in England or elsewhere, contests her right to enter freely into the great domain of thought and intellect, or to claim her due share in the important philosophical labours and social improvements of all descriptions which mark the present epoch.

If woman is no longer, as in the days of chivalry, the object of a kind of romantic worship-a worship, by-theby, pretty much confined to dames and demoiselles of high degree-she enjoys, on the other hand, influence far more general and more rational, and a more intimate and complete participation in the actions and tendencies of the age. She has definitely conquered many rights and privileges which were formerly withheld her; she walks side by side with man in the paths of usefulness and labour, art and literature ; many liberal professions are already thrown open to her, and their circle widens from day to day. Doubtless, certain prejudices yet remain to be overcome, certain barriers to be broken down; but it cannot be denied that most of the avocations from which she is still excluded, whether political, professional, or others, are such as the duties of her sex would render it most difficult, if not impossible, for her to fulfil, even were they accessible.

And yet it is at this very moment that

we hear, especially in England, these bitter complaints, these cries of distress, these reiterated demands for a more enlightened system of education, a more extended field of labour; in a word, a wider and loftier sphere of action and usefulness. Nor do those English women, who devote themselves to female emancipation, content themselves with speaking through the medium of the other sex. They have their own journal, their own printing press; they read their own discourses at the social science meetings, which are held every year in London or elsewhere, and they defend their cause with an energy, a courage, and an ability which cannot fail to command admiration and sympathy.

To what are we to attribute this movement? Is it that, despite all this apparent progress, despite the seeming equality of the two sexes, there really do exist in society as it is actually constituted inequalities so glaring and so unjust as to more than counterbalance the advantages enjoyed by women in the nineteenth century? Is it that the spirit of moral fermentation, everywhere at work in our days, which is hailed by some as an indication of progress, and deplored by others as a sign of degeneracy, has penetrated deep into the soul of women, and has rendered them unreasonable in their claims, and fantastic in their aspirations? There may be truth in both these suppositions. That which satisfies the human mind in one phase of its development, no longer satisfies it in another. In proportion as women have won a higher standing in the social and intellectual world, their ambition has naturally increased. That which contented them fifty years ago contents them now no longer. They believe they have the right, and they feel they have the power, to demand something more. It is likely enough that their pretensions are not always well founded; that

they exaggerate alike the wrongs they endure and the privileges they claim; but that is only a natural consequence of the reaction from the state of inferiority and restraint in which they were so long held.

Nor is this all. Despite the undeniable progress we have above described, it must be confessed that women have more than their just share in the common ills of humanity. Let them turn where they may they find all sorts of difficulties in their path. In the first place, their labour is seldom remunerated half as well as that of men. Although the mission of wife and mother is not the only one that Providence has assigned them, it is the holiest and the most natural; yet at the present day there are thousands to whom marriage is an impossibility. Thus condemned to an isolation, as contrary to the instincts of their hearts as to the laws of nature, thrown upon their own resources, labour becomes an essential condition of their existence. If rich, they need it as a friend and consoler, a refuge from the weariness, the fearful void of an existence without aim or end. If poor, it is of course indispensable to provide for the material wants of life, and to save them from the abyss of vice and misery which is ever yawning beneath the feet of the destitute girl, ready to engulf her at the first false step. Nor is this a subject for regret. Labour in itself, when not too arduous or too prolonged, is a blessing for every human being. It elevates the mind, it ennobles the intellect— nay, it is one of the essential conditions of happiness on earth. But while the number of women who have to work for their livelihood increases daily, the means of earning that livelihood becomes daily more difficult. True, the manufactories are open to any woman who chooses to enter them, and the rate of wages is tolerably high; but this factory life, which takes the young girl