The very words necessary to express the task I have undertaken, show how arduous2 it is. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the difficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency or obscurity of the grounds of reason on which [Pg 2] my conviction rests. The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating3 weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely4 on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded its adherents5 are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains6, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair any breach7 made in the old. And there are so many causes tending to make the feelings connected with this subject the most intense and most deeply-rooted of all those which gather round and protect old institutions and customs, that we need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined and loosened than any of the rest by the progress of the great modern spiritual and social transition; nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men cling longest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier shake off.
In every respect the burthen is hard on those who attack an almost universal opinion. They must be very fortunate as well as unusually [Pg 3] capable if they obtain a hearing at all. They have more difficulty in obtaining a trial, than any other litigants8 have in getting a verdict. If they do extort9 a hearing, they are subjected to a set of logical requirements totally different from those exacted from other people. In all other cases, the burthen of proof is supposed to lie with the affirmative. If a person is charged with a murder, it rests with those who accuse him to give proof of his guilt11, not with himself to prove his innocence12. If there is a difference of opinion about the reality of any alleged13 historical event, in which the feelings of men in general are not much interested, as the Siege of Troy for example, those who maintain that the event took place are expected to produce their proofs, before those who take the other side can be required to say anything; and at no time are these required to do more than show that the evidence produced by the others is of no value. Again, in practical matters, the burthen of proof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty; who contend for any restriction15 or prohibition16; either any limitation of the general freedom of human action, or any disqualification or disparity of privilege affecting one person or kind of persons, as compared with others. The à priori presumption17 is in favour of freedom and impartiality18. It is held that there should [Pg 4] be no restraint not required by the general good, and that the law should be no respecter of persons, but should treat all alike, save where dissimilarity of treatment is required by positive reasons, either of justice or of policy. But of none of these rules of evidence will the benefit be allowed to those who maintain the opinion I profess20. It is useless for me to say that those who maintain the doctrine21 that men have a right to command and women are under an obligation to obey, or that men are fit for government and women unfit, are on the affirmative side of the question, and that they are bound to show positive evidence for the assertions, or submit to their rejection22. It is equally unavailing for me to say that those who deny to women any freedom or privilege rightly allowed to men, having the double presumption against them that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, must be held to the strictest proof of their case, and unless their success be such as to exclude all doubt, the judgment23 ought to go against them. These would be thought good pleas in any common case; but they will not be thought so in this instance. Before I could hope to make any impression, I should be expected not only to answer all that has ever been said by those who take the other side of the question, but to imagine all that could be said by them—to find them [Pg 5] in reasons, as well as answer all I find: and besides refuting all arguments for the affirmative, I shall be called upon for invincible24 positive arguments to prove a negative. And even if I could do all this, and leave the opposite party with a host of unanswered arguments against them, and not a single unrefuted one on their side, I should be thought to have done little; for a cause supported on the one hand by universal usage, and on the other by so great a preponderance of popular sentiment, is supposed to have a presumption in its favour, superior to any conviction which an appeal to reason has power to produce in any intellects but those of a high class.
I do not mention these difficulties to complain of them; first, because it would be useless; they are inseparable from having to contend through people's understandings against the hostility26 of their feelings and practical tendencies: and truly the understandings of the majority of mankind would need to be much better cultivated than has ever yet been the case, before they can be asked to place such reliance in their own power of estimating arguments, as to give up practical principles in which they have been born and bred and which are the basis of much of the existing order of the world, at the first argumentative attack which they are not capable of logically resisting. I do not therefore quarrel with them [Pg 6] for having too little faith in argument, but for having too much faith in custom and the general feeling. It is one of the characteristic prejudices of the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, to accord to the unreasoning elements in human nature the infallibility which the eighteenth century is supposed to have ascribed to the reasoning elements. For the apotheosis27 of Reason we have substituted that of Instinct; and we call everything instinct which we find in ourselves and for which we cannot trace any rational foundation. This idolatry, infinitely28 more degrading than the other, and the most pernicious of the false worships of the present day, of all of which it is now the main support, will probably hold its ground until it gives way before a sound psychology29, laying bare the real root of much that is bowed down to as the intention of Nature and the ordinance30 of God. As regards the present question, I am willing to accept the unfavourable conditions which the prejudice assigns to me. I consent that established custom, and the general feeling, should be deemed conclusive32 against me, unless that custom and feeling from age to age can be shown to have owed their existence to other causes than their soundness, and to have derived33 their power from the worse rather than the better parts of human nature. I am willing that judgment [Pg 7] should go against me, unless I can show that my judge has been tampered35 with. The concession36 is not so great as it might appear; for to prove this, is by far the easiest portion of my task.
The generality of a practice is in some cases a strong presumption that it is, or at all events once was, conducive37 to laudable ends. This is the case, when the practice was first adopted, or afterwards kept up, as a means to such ends, and was grounded on experience of the mode in which they could be most effectually attained38. If the authority of men over women, when first established, had been the result of a conscientious40 comparison between different modes of constituting the government of society; if, after trying various other modes of social organization—the government of women over men, equality between the two, and such mixed and divided modes of government as might be invented—it had been decided41, on the testimony42 of experience, that the mode in which women are wholly under the rule of men, having no share at all in public concerns, and each in private being under the legal obligation of obedience43 to the man with whom she has associated her destiny, was the arrangement most conducive to the happiness and well being of both; its general adoption44 might then be fairly thought to be some evidence that, at the time when it was adopted, if was the best: though even [Pg 8] then the considerations which recommended it may, like so many other primeval social facts of the greatest importance, have subsequently, in the course of ages, ceased to exist. But the state of the case is in every respect the reverse of this. In the first place, the opinion in favour of the present system, which entirely45 subordinates the weaker sex to the stronger, rests upon theory only; for there never has been trial made of any other: so that experience, in the sense in which it is vulgarly opposed to theory, cannot be pretended to have pronounced any verdict. And in the second place, the adoption of this system of inequality never was the result of deliberation, or forethought, or any social ideas, or any notion whatever of what conduced to the benefit of humanity or the good order of society. It arose simply from the fact that from the very earliest twilight46 of human society, every woman (owing to the value attached to her by men, combined with her inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state of bondage47 to some man. Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognising the relations they find already existing between individuals. They convert what was a mere48 physical fact into a legal right, give it the sanction of society, and principally aim at the substitution of public and organized means of asserting and protecting these rights, instead [Pg 9] of the irregular and lawless conflict of physical strength. Those who had already been compelled to obedience became in this manner legally bound to it. Slavery, from being a mere affair of force between the master and the slave, became regularized and a matter of compact among the masters, who, binding49 themselves to one another for common protection, guaranteed by their collective strength the private possessions of each, including his slaves. In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages of high cultivation50, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other. By degrees such thinkers did arise: and (the general progress of society assisting) the slavery of the male sex has, in all the countries of Christian51 Europe at least (though, in one of them, only within the last few years) been at length abolished, and that of the female sex has been gradually changed into a milder form of dependence52. But this dependence, as it exists at present, is not an original institution, taking a fresh start from considerations of justice and social expediency53—it is the primitive54 state of slavery lasting55 on, through successive mitigations and modifications56 occasioned by the same causes [Pg 10] which have softened57 the general manners, and brought all human relations more under the control of justice and the influence of humanity. It has not lost the taint58 of its brutal59 origin. No presumption in its favour, therefore, can be drawn60 from the fact of its existence. The only such presumption which it could be supposed to have, must be grounded on its having lasted till now, when so many other things which came down from the same odious61 source have been done away with. And this, indeed, is what makes it strange to ordinary ears, to hear it asserted that the inequality of rights between men and women has no other source than the law of the strongest.
That this statement should have the effect of a paradox62, is in some respects creditable to the progress of civilization, and the improvement of the moral sentiments of mankind. We now live—that is to say, one or two of the most advanced nations of the world now live—in a state in which the law of the strongest seems to be entirely abandoned as the regulating principle of the world's affairs: nobody professes63 it, and, as regards most of the relations between human beings, nobody is permitted to practise it. When any one succeeds in doing so, it is under cover of some pretext64 which gives him the semblance65 of having some general social interest on his side. [Pg 11] This being the ostensible66 state of things, people flatter themselves that the rule of mere force is ended; that the law of the strongest cannot be the reason of existence of anything which has remained in full operation down to the present time. However any of our present institutions may have begun, it can only, they think, have been preserved to this period of advanced civilization by a well-grounded feeling of its adaptation to human nature, and conduciveness to the general good. They do not understand the great vitality67 and durability68 of institutions which place right on the side of might; how intensely they are clung to; how the good as well as the bad propensities69 and sentiments of those who have power in their hands, become identified with retaining it; how slowly these bad institutions give way, one at a time, the weakest first, beginning with those which are least interwoven with the daily habits of life; and how very rarely those who have obtained legal power because they first had physical, have ever lost their hold of it until the physical power had passed over to the other side. Such shifting of the physical force not having taken place in the case of women; this fact, combined with all the peculiar70 and characteristic features of the particular case, made it certain from the first that this branch of the system of right founded on might, though softened in its most atrocious features at an [Pg 12] earlier period than several of the others, would be the very last to disappear. It was inevitable71 that this one case of a social relation grounded on force, would survive through generations of institutions grounded on equal justice, an almost solitary72 exception to the general character of their laws and customs; but which, so long as it does not proclaim its own origin, and as discussion has not brought out its true character, is not felt to jar with modern civilization, any more than domestic slavery among the Greeks jarred with their notion of themselves as a free people.
The truth is, that people of the present and the last two or three generations have lost all practical sense of the primitive condition of humanity; and only the few who have studied history accurately73, or have much frequented the parts of the world occupied by the living representatives of ages long past, are able to form any mental picture of what society then was. People are not aware how entirely, in former ages, the law of superior strength was the rule of life; how publicly and openly it was avowed74, I do not say cynically75 or shamelessly—for these words imply a feeling that there was something in it to be ashamed of, and no such notion could find a place in the faculties76 of any person in those ages, except a philosopher or a saint. History gives a cruel experience of human nature, in shewing [Pg 13] how exactly the regard due to the life, possessions, and entire earthly happiness of any class of persons, was measured by what they had the power of enforcing; how all who made any resistance to authorities that had arms in their hands, however dreadful might be the provocation77, had not only the law of force but all other laws, and all the notions of social obligation against them; and in the eyes of those whom they resisted, were not only guilty of crime, but of the worst of all crimes, deserving the most cruel chastisement79 which human beings could inflict80. The first small vestige81 of a feeling of obligation in a superior to acknowledge any right in inferiors, began when he had been induced, for convenience, to make some promise to them. Though these promises, even when sanctioned by the most solemn oaths, were for many ages revoked82 or violated on the most trifling83 provocation or temptation, it is probable that this, except by persons of still worse than the average morality, was seldom done without some twinges of conscience. The ancient republics, being mostly grounded from the first upon some kind of mutual84 compact, or at any rate formed by an union of persons not very unequal in strength, afforded, in consequence, the first instance of a portion of human relations fenced round, and placed under the dominion85 of another law than [Pg 14] that of force. And though the original law of force remained in full operation between them and their slaves, and also (except so far as limited by express compact) between a commonwealth86 and its subjects, or other independent commonwealths87; the banishment88 of that primitive law even from so narrow a field, commenced the regeneration of human nature, by giving birth to sentiments of which experience soon demonstrated the immense value even for material interests, and which thenceforward only required to be enlarged, not created. Though slaves were no part of the commonwealth, it was in the free states that slaves were first felt to have rights as human beings. The Stoics89 were, I believe, the first (except so far as the Jewish law constitutes an exception) who taught as a part of morality that men were bound by moral obligations to their slaves. No one, after Christianity became ascendant, could ever again have been a stranger to this belief, in theory; nor, after the rise of the Catholic Church, was it ever without persons to stand up for it. Yet to enforce it was the most arduous task which Christianity ever had to perform. For more than a thousand years the Church kept up the contest, with hardly any perceptible success. It was not for want of power over men's minds. Its power was prodigious90. It could make kings and nobles resign their most [Pg 15] valued possessions to enrich the Church. It could make thousands, in the prime of life and the height of worldly advantages, shut themselves up in convents to work out their salvation91 by poverty, fasting, and prayer. It could send hundreds of thousands across land and sea, Europe and Asia, to give their lives for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. It could make kings relinquish92 wives who were the object of their passionate93 attachment94, because the Church declared that they were within the seventh (by our calculation the fourteenth) degree of relationship. All this it did; but it could not make men fight less with one another, nor tyrannize less cruelly over the serfs, and when they were able, over burgesses. It could not make them renounce95 either of the applications of force; force militant96, or force triumphant97. This they could never be induced to do until they were themselves in their turn compelled by superior force. Only by the growing power of kings was an end put to fighting except between kings, or competitors for kingship; only by the growth of a wealthy and warlike bourgeoisie in the fortified98 towns, and of a plebeian99 infantry100 which proved more powerful in the field than the undisciplined chivalry101, was the insolent102 tyranny of the nobles over the bourgeoisie and peasantry brought within some bounds. It was persisted in not only until, but long after, [Pg 16] the oppressed had obtained a power enabling them often to take conspicuous103 vengeance104; and on the Continent much of it continued to the time of the French Revolution, though in England the earlier and better organization of the democratic classes put an end to it sooner, by establishing equal laws and free national institutions.
If people are mostly so little aware how completely, during the greater part of the duration of our species, the law of force was the avowed rule of general conduct, any other being only a special and exceptional consequence of peculiar ties—and from how very recent a date it is that the affairs of society in general have been even pretended to be regulated according to any moral law; as little do people remember or consider, how institutions and customs which never had any ground but the law of force, last on into ages and states of general opinion which never would have permitted their first establishment. Less than forty years ago, Englishmen might still by law hold human beings in bondage as saleable property: within the present century they might kidnap them and carry them off, and work them literally105 to death. This absolutely extreme case of the law of force, condemned106 by those who can tolerate almost every other form of arbitrary power, and which, of all others, presents features the most revolting to the feelings [Pg 17] of all who look at it from an impartial19 position, was the law of civilized107 and Christian England within the memory of persons now living: and in one half of Anglo-Saxon America three or four years ago, not only did slavery exist, but the slave trade, and the breeding of slaves expressly for it, was a general practice between slave states. Yet not only was there a greater strength of sentiment against it, but, in England at least, a less amount either of feeling or of interest in favour of it, than of any other of the customary abuses of force: for its motive108 was the love of gain, unmixed and undisguised; and those who profited by it were a very small numerical fraction of the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not personally interested in it, was unmitigated abhorrence109. So extreme an instance makes it almost superfluous110 to refer to any other: but consider the long duration of absolute monarchy111. In England at present it is the almost universal conviction that military despotism is a case of the law of force, having no other origin or justification112. Yet in all the great nations of Europe except England it either still exists, or has only just ceased to exist, and has even now a strong party favourable31 to it in all ranks of the people, especially among persons of station and consequence. Such is the power of an established system, even when far from [Pg 18] universal; when not only in almost every period of history there have been great and well-known examples of the contrary system, but these have almost invariably been afforded by the most illustrious and most prosperous communities. In this case, too, the possessor of the undue113 power, the person directly interested in it, is only one person, while those who are subject to it and suffer from it are literally all the rest. The yoke114 is naturally and necessarily humiliating to all persons, except the one who is on the throne, together with, at most, the one who expects to succeed to it. How different are these cases from that of the power of men over women! I am not now prejudging the question of its justifiableness116. I am showing how vastly more permanent it could not but be, even if not justifiable115, than these other dominations which have nevertheless lasted down to our own time. Whatever gratification of pride there is in the possession of power, and whatever personal interest in its exercise, is in this case not confined to a limited class, but common to the whole male sex. Instead of being, to most of its supporters, a thing desirable chiefly in the abstract, or, like the political ends usually contended for by factious117, of little private importance to any but the leaders; it comes home to the person and hearth118 of every male head of a family, and of every one [Pg 19] who looks forward to being so. The clodhopper exercises, or is to exercise, his share of the power equally with the highest nobleman. And the case is that in which the desire of power is the strongest: for every one who desires power, desires it most over those who are nearest to him, with whom his life is passed, with whom he has most concerns in common, and in whom any independence of his authority is oftenest likely to interfere119 with his individual preferences. If, in the other cases specified120, powers manifestly grounded only on force, and having so much less to support them, are so slowly and with so much difficulty got rid of, much more must it be so with this, even if it rests on no better foundation than those. We must consider, too, that the possessors of the power have facilities in this case, greater than in any other, to prevent any uprising against it. Every one of the subjects lives under the very eye, and almost, it may be said, in the hands, of one of the masters—in closer intimacy121 with him than with any of her fellow-subjects; with no means of combining against him, no power of even locally over-mastering him, and, on the other hand, with the strongest motives122 for seeking his favour and avoiding to give him offence. In struggles for political emancipation123, everybody knows how often its champions are bought off by bribes124, or daunted125 [Pg 20] by terrors. In the case of women, each individual of the subject-class is in a chronic126 state of bribery127 and intimidation128 combined. In setting up the standard of resistance, a large number of the leaders, and still more of the followers129, must make an almost complete sacrifice of the pleasures or the alleviations of their own individual lot. If ever any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke tightly riveted130 on the necks of those who are kept down by it, this has. I have not yet shown that it is a wrong system: but every one who is capable of thinking on the subject must see that even if it is, it was certain to outlast131 all other forms of unjust authority. And when some of the grossest of the other forms still exist in many civilized countries, and have only recently been got rid of in others, it would be strange if that which is so much the deepest-rooted had yet been perceptibly shaken anywhere. There is more reason to wonder that the protests and testimonies132 against it should have been so numerous and so weighty as they are.
Some will object, that a comparison cannot fairly be made between the government of the male sex and the forms of unjust power which I have adduced in illustration of it, since these are arbitrary, and the effect of mere usurpation133, while it on the contrary is natural. But was [Pg 21] there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed134 it? There was a time when the division of mankind into two classes, a small one of masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most cultivated minds, to be a natural, and the only natural, condition of the human race. No less an intellect, and one which contributed no less to the progress of human thought, than Aristotle, held this opinion without doubt or misgiving135; and rested it on the same premises136 on which the same assertion in regard to the dominion of men over women is usually based, namely that there are different natures among mankind, free natures, and slave natures; that the Greeks were of a free nature, the barbarian137 races of Thracians and Asiatics of a slave nature. But why need I go back to Aristotle? Did not the slaveowners of the Southern United States maintain the same doctrine, with all the fanaticism138 with which men cling to the theories that justify139 their passions and legitimate140 their personal interests? Did they not call heaven and earth to witness that the dominion of the white man over the black is natural, that the black race is by nature incapable141 of freedom, and marked out for slavery? some even going so far as to say that the freedom of manual labourers is an unnatural142 order of things anywhere. Again, the theorists of absolute [Pg 22] monarchy have always affirmed it to be the only natural form of government; issuing from the patriarchal, which was the primitive and spontaneous form of society, framed on the model of the paternal143, which is anterior144 to society itself, and, as they contend, the most natural authority of all. Nay145, for that matter, the law of force itself, to those who could not plead any other, has always seemed the most natural of all grounds for the exercise of authority. Conquering races hold it to be Nature's own dictate146 that the conquered should obey the conquerors147, or, as they euphoniously148 paraphrase149 it, that the feebler and more unwarlike races should submit to the braver and manlier150. The smallest acquaintance with human life in the middle ages, shows how supremely151 natural the dominion of the feudal152 nobility over men of low condition appeared to the nobility themselves, and how unnatural the conception seemed, of a person of the inferior class claiming equality with them, or exercising authority over them. It hardly seemed less so to the class held in subjection. The emancipated153 serfs and burgesses, even in their most vigorous struggles, never made any pretension154 to a share of authority; they only demanded more or less of limitation to the power of tyrannizing over them. So true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything [Pg 23] which is usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural. But how entirely, even in this case, the feeling is dependent on custom, appears by ample experience. Nothing so much astonishes the people of distant parts of the world, when they first learn anything about England, as to be told that it is under a queen: the thing seems to them so unnatural as to be almost incredible. To Englishmen this does not seem in the least degree unnatural, because they are used to it; but they do feel it unnatural that women should be soldiers or members of parliament. In the feudal ages, on the contrary, war and politics were not thought unnatural to women, because not unusual; it seemed natural that women of the privileged classes should be of manly155 character, inferior in nothing but bodily strength to their husbands and fathers. The independence of women seemed rather less unnatural to the Greeks than to other ancients, on account of the fabulous156 Amazons (whom they believed to be historical), and the partial example afforded by the Spartan157 women; who, though no less subordinate by law than in other Greek states, were more free in fact, and being trained to bodily exercises in the same manner with men, gave ample proof that they were not naturally [Pg 24] disqualified for them. There can be little doubt that Spartan experience suggested to Plato, among many other of his doctrines159, that of the social and political equality of the two sexes.
But, it will be said, the rule of men over women differs from all these others in not being a rule of force: it is accepted voluntarily; women make no complaint, and are consenting parties to it. In the first place, a great number of women do not accept it. Ever since there have been women able to make their sentiments known by their writings (the only mode of publicity160 which society permits to them), an increasing number of them have recorded protests against their present social condition: and recently many thousands of them, headed by the most eminent161 women known to the public, have petitioned Parliament for their admission to the Parliamentary Suffrage162. The claim of women to be educated as solidly, and in the same branches of knowledge, as men, is urged with growing intensity163, and with a great prospect164 of success; while the demand for their admission into professions and occupations hitherto closed against them, becomes every year more urgent. Though there are not in this country, as there are in the United States, periodical Conventions and an organized party to agitate165 for the Rights of Women, there is a numerous and active Society organized and managed by women, for the more [Pg 25] limited object of obtaining the political franchise166. Nor is it only in our own country and in America that women are beginning to protest, more or less collectively, against the disabilities under which they labour. France, and Italy, and Switzerland, and Russia now afford examples of the same thing. How many more women there are who silently cherish similar aspirations167, no one can possibly know; but there are abundant tokens how many would cherish them, were they not so strenuously168 taught to repress them as contrary to the proprieties169 of their sex. It must be remembered, also, that no enslaved class ever asked for complete liberty at once. When Simon de Montfort called the deputies of the commons to sit for the first time in Parliament, did any of them dream of demanding that an assembly, elected by their constituents170, should make and destroy ministries171, and dictate to the king in affairs of state? No such thought entered into the imagination of the most ambitious of them. The nobility had already these pretensions172; the commons pretended to nothing but to be exempt173 from arbitrary taxation174, and from the gross individual oppression of the king's officers. It is a political law of nature that those who are under any power of ancient origin, never begin by complaining of the power itself, but only of its oppressive exercise. There is never any want of [Pg 26] women who complain of ill usage by their husbands. There would be infinitely more, if complaint were not the greatest of all provocatives to a repetition and increase of the ill usage. It is this which frustrates175 all attempts to maintain the power but protect the woman against its abuses. In no other case (except that of a child) is the person who has been proved judicially176 to have suffered an injury, replaced under the physical power of the culprit who inflicted177 it. Accordingly wives, even in the most extreme and protracted178 cases of bodily ill usage, hardly ever dare avail themselves of the laws made for their protection: and if, in a moment of irrepressible indignation, or by the interference of neighbours, they are induced to do so, their whole effort afterwards is to disclose as little as they can, and to beg off their tyrant179 from his merited chastisement.
All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious180 to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. [Pg 27] They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission181, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant the only ones they are allowed to have—those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man. When we put together three things—first, the natural attraction between opposite sexes; secondly182, the wife's entire dependence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has being either his gift, or depending entirely on his will; and lastly, that the principal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in general be sought or obtained by her only through [Pg 28] him, it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character. And, this great means of influence over the minds of women having been acquired, an instinct of selfishness made men avail themselves of it to the utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to them meekness183, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual attractiveness. Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes184 which mankind have succeeded in breaking, would have subsisted185 till now if the same means had existed, and had been as sedulously186 used, to bow down their minds to it? If it had been made the object of the life of every young plebeian to find personal favour in the eyes of some patrician187, of every young serf with some seigneur; if domestication188 with him, and a share of his personal affections, had been held out as the prize which they all should look out for, the most gifted and aspiring189 being able to reckon on the most desirable prizes; and if, when this prize had been obtained, they had been shut out by a wall of brass190 from all interests not centering in him, all feelings and desires but those which he shared or inculcated; would not serfs and seigneurs, plebeians191 and patricians192, have been as broadly distinguished193 at this day as men [Pg 29] and women are? and would not all but a thinker here and there, have believed the distinction to be a fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature?
The preceding considerations are amply sufficient to show that custom, however universal it may be, affords in this case no presumption, and ought not to create any prejudice, in favour of the arrangements which place women in social and political subjection to men. But I may go farther, and maintain that the course of history, and the tendencies of progressive human society, afford not only no presumption in favour of this system of inequality of rights, but a strong one against it; and that, so far as the whole course of human improvement up to this time, the whole stream of modern tendencies, warrants any inference on the subject, it is, that this relic194 of the past is discordant195 with the future, and must necessarily disappear.
For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world—the difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past? It is, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which [Pg 30] may appear to them most desirable. Human society of old was constituted on a very different principle. All were born to a fixed196 social position, and were mostly kept in it by law, or interdicted198 from any means by which they could emerge from it. As some men are born white and others black, so some were born slaves and others freemen and citizens; some were born patricians, others plebeians; some were born feudal nobles, others commoners and roturiers. A slave or serf could never make himself free, nor, except by the will of his master, become so. In most European countries it was not till towards the close of the middle ages, and as a consequence of the growth of regal power, that commoners could be ennobled. Even among nobles, the eldest199 son was born the exclusive heir to the paternal possessions, and a long time elapsed before it was fully200 established that the father could disinherit him. Among the industrious201 classes, only those who were born members of a guild202, or were admitted into it by its members, could lawfully203 practise their calling within its local limits; and nobody could practise any calling deemed important, in any but the legal manner—by processes authoritatively205 prescribed. Manufacturers have stood in the pillory206 for presuming to carry on their business by new and improved methods. In modern Europe, and most in those parts of [Pg 31] it which have participated most largely in all other modern improvements, diametrically opposite doctrines now prevail. Law and government do not undertake to prescribe by whom any social or industrial operation shall or shall not be conducted, or what modes of conducting them shall be lawful204. These things are left to the unfettered choice of individuals. Even the laws which required that workmen should serve an apprenticeship207, have in this country been repealed208: there being ample assurance that in all cases in which an apprenticeship is necessary, its necessity will suffice to enforce it. The old theory was, that the least possible should be left to the choice of the individual agent; that all he had to do should, as far as practicable, be laid down for him by superior wisdom. Left to himself he was sure to go wrong. The modern conviction, the fruit of a thousand years of experience, is, that things in which the individual is the person directly interested, never go right but as they are left to his own discretion209; and that any regulation of them by authority, except to protect the rights of others, is sure to be mischievous210. This conclusion, slowly arrived at, and not adopted until almost every possible application of the contrary theory had been made with disastrous211 result, now (in the industrial department) prevails universally in the most advanced [Pg 32] countries, almost universally in all that have pretensions to any sort of advancement212. It is not that all processes are supposed to be equally good, or all persons to be equally qualified158 for everything; but that freedom of individual choice is now known to be the only thing which procures213 the adoption of the best processes, and throws each operation into the hands of those who are best qualified for it. Nobody thinks it necessary to make a law that only a strong-armed man shall be a blacksmith. Freedom and competition suffice to make blacksmiths strong-armed men, because the weak-armed can earn more by engaging in occupations for which they are more fit. In consonance with this doctrine, it is felt to be an overstepping of the proper bounds of authority to fix beforehand, on some general presumption, that certain persons are not fit to do certain things. It is now thoroughly214 known and admitted that if some such presumptions215 exist, no such presumption is infallible. Even if it be well grounded in a majority of cases, which it is very likely not to be, there will be a minority of exceptional cases in which it does not hold: and in those it is both an injustice216 to the individuals, and a detriment217 to society, to place barriers in the way of their using their faculties for their own benefit and for that of others. In the cases, [Pg 33] on the other hand, in which the unfitness is real, the ordinary motives of human conduct will on the whole suffice to prevent the incompetent218 person from making, or from persisting in, the attempt.
If this general principle of social and economical science is not true; if individuals, with such help as they can derive34 from the opinion of those who know them, are not better judges than the law and the government, of their own capacities and vocation78; the world cannot too soon abandon this principle, and return to the old system of regulations and disabilities. But if the principle is true, we ought to act as if we believed it, and not to ordain219 that to be born a girl instead of a boy, any more than to be born black instead of white, or a commoner instead of a nobleman, shall decide the person's position through all life—shall interdict197 people from all the more elevated social positions, and from all, except a few, respectable occupations. Even were we to admit the utmost that is ever pretended as to the superior fitness of men for all the functions now reserved to them, the same argument applies which forbids a legal qualification for members of Parliament. If only once in a dozen years the conditions of eligibility220 exclude a fit person, there is a real loss, while the exclusion221 of thousands [Pg 34] of unfit persons is no gain; for if the constitution of the electoral body disposes them to choose unfit persons, there are always plenty of such persons to choose from. In all things of any difficulty and importance, those who can do them well are fewer than the need, even with the most unrestricted latitude222 of choice: and any limitation of the field of selection deprives society of some chances of being served by the competent, without ever saving it from the incompetent.
At present, in the more improved countries, the disabilities of women are the only case, save one, in which laws and institutions take persons at their birth, and ordain that they shall never in all their lives be allowed to compete for certain things. The one exception is that of royalty223. Persons still are born to the throne; no one, not of the reigning224 family, can ever occupy it, and no one even of that family can, by any means but the course of hereditary225 succession, attain39 it. All other dignities and social advantages are open to the whole male sex: many indeed are only attainable226 by wealth, but wealth may be striven for by any one, and is actually obtained by many men of the very humblest origin. The difficulties, to the majority, are indeed insuperable without the aid of fortunate accidents; but no male human being is under any legal ban: neither law nor opinion superadd artificial obstacles to [Pg 35] the natural ones. Royalty, as I have said, is excepted: but in this case every one feels it to be an exception—an anomaly in the modern world, in marked opposition227 to its customs and principles, and to be justified228 only by extraordinary special expediencies, which, though individuals and nations differ in estimating their weight, unquestionably do in fact exist. But in this exceptional case, in which a high social function is, for important reasons, bestowed229 on birth instead of being put up to competition, all free nations contrive230 to adhere in substance to the principle from which they nominally231 derogate232; for they circumscribe233 this high function by conditions avowedly234 intended to prevent the person to whom it ostensibly belongs from really performing it; while the person by whom it is performed, the responsible minister, does obtain the post by a competition from which no full-grown citizen of the male sex is legally excluded. The disabilities, therefore, to which women are subject from the mere fact of their birth, are the solitary examples of the kind in modern legislation. In no instance except this, which comprehends half the human race, are the higher social functions closed against any one by a fatality235 of birth which no exertions236, and no change of circumstances, can overcome; for even religious disabilities (besides that in England and in Europe they [Pg 36] have practically almost ceased to exist) do not close any career to the disqualified person in case of conversion237.
The social subordination of women thus stands out an isolated238 fact in modern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has become their fundamental law; a single relic of an old world of thought and practice exploded in everything else, but retained in the one thing of most universal interest; as if a gigantic dolmen, or a vast temple of Jupiter Olympius, occupied the site of St. Paul's and received daily worship, while the surrounding Christian churches were only resorted to on fasts and festivals. This entire discrepancy239 between one social fact and all those which accompany it, and the radical240 opposition between its nature and the progressive movement which is the boast of the modern world, and which has successively swept away everything else of an analogous241 character, surely affords, to a conscientious observer of human tendencies, serious matter for reflection. It raises a prima facie presumption on the unfavourable side, far outweighing242 any which custom and usage could in such circumstances create on the favourable; and should at least suffice to make this, like the choice between republicanism and royalty, a balanced question.
The least that can be demanded is, that the [Pg 37] question should not be considered as prejudged by existing fact and existing opinion, but open to discussion on its merits, as a question of justice and expediency: the decision on this, as on any of the other social arrangements of mankind, depending on what an enlightened estimate of tendencies and consequences may show to be most advantageous243 to humanity in general, without distinction of sex. And the discussion must be a real discussion, descending244 to foundations, and not resting satisfied with vague and general assertions. It will not do, for instance, to assert in general terms, that the experience of mankind has pronounced in favour of the existing system. Experience cannot possibly have decided between two courses, so long as there has only been experience of one. If it be said that the doctrine of the equality of the sexes rests only on theory, it must be remembered that the contrary doctrine also has only theory to rest upon. All that is proved in its favour by direct experience, is that mankind have been able to exist under it, and to attain the degree of improvement and prosperity which we now see; but whether that prosperity has been attained sooner, or is now greater, than it would have been under the other system, experience does not say. On the other hand, experience does say, that every step in improvement has been so invariably accompanied by a step [Pg 38] made in raising the social position of women, that historians and philosophers have been led to adopt their elevation245 or debasement as on the whole the surest test and most correct measure of the civilization of a people or an age. Through all the progressive period of human history, the condition of women has been approaching nearer to equality with men. This does not of itself prove that the assimilation must go on to complete equality; but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is the case.
Neither does it avail anything to say that the nature of the two sexes adapts them to their present functions and position, and renders these appropriate to them. Standing25 on the ground of common sense and the constitution of the human mind, I deny that any one knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. If men had ever been found in society without women, or women without men, or if there had been a society of men and women in which the women were not under the control of the men, something might have been positively246 known about the mental and moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each. What is now called the nature of women is an eminently247 artificial thing—the result of forced repression248 in some directions, unnatural stimulation249 [Pg 39] in others. It may be asserted without scruple250, that no other class of dependents have had their character so entirely distorted from its natural proportions by their relation with their masters; for, if conquered and slave races have been, in some respects, more forcibly repressed, whatever in them has not been crushed down by an iron heel has generally been let alone, and if left with any liberty of development, it has developed itself according to its own laws; but in the case of women, a hot-house and stove cultivation has always been carried on of some of the capabilities251 of their nature, for the benefit and pleasure of their masters. Then, because certain products of the general vital force sprout252 luxuriantly and reach a great development in this heated atmosphere and under this active nurture253 and watering, while other shoots from the same root, which are left outside in the wintry air, with ice purposely heaped all round them, have a stunted254 growth, and some are burnt off with fire and disappear; men, with that inability to recognise their own work which distinguishes the unanalytic mind, indolently believe that the tree grows of itself in the way they have made it grow, and that it would die if one half of it were not kept in a vapour bath and the other half in the snow.
Of all difficulties which impede256 the progress [Pg 40] of thought, and the formation of well-grounded opinions on life and social arrangements, the greatest is now the unspeakable ignorance and inattention of mankind in respect to the influences which form human character. Whatever any portion of the human species now are, or seem to be, such, it is supposed, they have a natural tendency to be: even when the most elementary knowledge of the circumstances in which they have been placed, clearly points out the causes that made them what they are. Because a cottier deeply in arrears257 to his landlord is not industrious, there are people who think that the Irish are naturally idle. Because constitutions can be overthrown258 when the authorities appointed to execute them turn their arms against them, there are people who think the French incapable of free government. Because the Greeks cheated the Turks, and the Turks only plundered259 the Greeks, there are persons who think that the Turks are naturally more sincere: and because women, as is often said, care nothing about politics except their personalities260, it is supposed that the general good is naturally less interesting to women than to men. History, which is now so much better understood than formerly261, teaches another lesson: if only by showing the extraordinary susceptibility of human nature to external influences, and the extreme [Pg 41] variableness of those of its manifestations262 which are supposed to be most universal and uniform. But in history, as in travelling, men usually see only what they already had in their own minds; and few learn much from history, who do not bring much with them to its study.
Hence, in regard to that most difficult question, what are the natural differences between the two sexes—a subject on which it is impossible in the present state of society to obtain complete and correct knowledge—while almost everybody dogmatizes upon it, almost all neglect and make light of the only means by which any partial insight can be obtained into it. This is, an analytic255 study of the most important department of psychology, the laws of the influence of circumstances on character. For, however great and apparently263 ineradicable the moral and intellectual differences between men and women might be, the evidence of their being natural differences could only be negative. Those only could be inferred to be natural which could not possibly be artificial—the residuum, after deducting264 every characteristic of either sex which can admit of being explained from education or external circumstances. The profoundest knowledge of the laws of the formation of character is indispensable to entitle any one to affirm even that there is any difference, much more what [Pg 42] the difference is, between the two sexes considered as moral and rational beings; and since no one, as yet, has that knowledge, (for there is hardly any subject which, in proportion to its importance, has been so little studied), no one is thus far entitled to any positive opinion on the subject. Conjectures265 are all that can at present be made; conjectures more or less probable, according as more or less authorized266 by such knowledge as we yet have of the laws of psychology, as applied267 to the formation of character.
Even the preliminary knowledge, what the differences between the sexes now are, apart from all question as to how they are made what they are, is still in the crudest and most incomplete state. Medical practitioners268 and physiologists270 have ascertained271, to some extent, the differences in bodily constitution; and this is an important element to the psychologist: but hardly any medical practitioner269 is a psychologist. Respecting the mental characteristics of women; their observations are of no more worth than those of common men. It is a subject on which nothing final can be known, so long as those who alone can really know it, women themselves, have given but little testimony, and that little, mostly suborned. It is easy to know stupid women. Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions and feelings [Pg 43] may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties. It is only a man here and there who has any tolerable knowledge of the character even of the women of his own family. I do not mean, of their capabilities; these nobody knows, not even themselves, because most of them have never been called out. I mean their actually existing thoughts and feelings. Many a man thinks he perfectly272 understands women, because he has had amatory relations with several, perhaps with many of them. If he is a good observer, and his experience extends to quality as well as quantity, he may have learnt something of one narrow department of their nature—an important department, no doubt. But of all the rest of it, few persons are generally more ignorant, because there are few from whom it is so carefully hidden. The most favourable case which a man can generally have for studying the character of a woman, is that of his own wife: for the opportunities are greater, and the cases of complete sympathy not so unspeakably rare. And in fact, this is the source from which any knowledge worth having on the subject has, I believe, generally come. But most men have not had the opportunity of studying in [Pg 44] this way more than a single case: accordingly one can, to an almost laughable degree, infer what a man's wife is like, from his opinions about women in general. To make even this one case yield any result, the woman must be worth knowing, and the man not only a competent judge, but of a character so sympathetic in itself, and so well adapted to hers, that he can either read her mind by sympathetic intuition, or has nothing in himself which makes her shy of disclosing it. Hardly anything, I believe, can be more rare than this conjunction. It often happens that there is the most complete unity273 of feeling and community of interests as to all external things, yet the one has as little admission into the internal life of the other as if they were common acquaintance. Even with true affection, authority on the one side and subordination on the other prevent perfect confidence. Though nothing may be intentionally274 withheld275, much is not shown. In the analogous relation of parent and child, the corresponding phenomenon must have been in the observation of every one. As between father and son, how many are the cases in which the father, in spite of real affection on both sides, obviously to all the world does not know, nor suspect, parts of the son's character familiar to his companions and equals. The truth is, that the position of [Pg 45] looking up to another is extremely unpropitious to complete sincerity276 and openness with him. The fear of losing ground in his opinion or in his feelings is so strong, that even in an upright character, there is an unconscious tendency to show only the best side, or the side which, though not the best, is that which he most likes to see: and it may be confidently said that thorough knowledge of one another hardly ever exists, but between persons who, besides being intimates, are equals. How much more true, then, must all this be, when the one is not only under the authority of the other, but has it inculcated on her as a duty to reckon everything else subordinate to his comfort and pleasure, and to let him neither see nor feel anything coming from her, except what is agreeable to him. All these difficulties stand in the way of a man's obtaining any thorough knowledge even of the one woman whom alone, in general, he has sufficient opportunity of studying. When we further consider that to understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman; that even if he could study many women of one rank, or of one country, he would not thereby277 understand women of other ranks or countries; and even if he did, they are still only the women of a single period of history; we may safely assert that the knowledge which men can acquire of women, even as they have [Pg 46] been and are, without reference to what they might be, is wretchedly imperfect and superficial, and always will be so, until women themselves have told all that they have to tell.
And this time has not come; nor will it come otherwise than gradually. It is but of yesterday that women have either been qualified by literary accomplishments278, or permitted by society, to tell anything to the general public. As yet very few of them dare tell anything, which men, on whom their literary success depends, are unwilling279 to hear. Let us remember in what manner, up to a very recent time, the expression, even by a male author, of uncustomary opinions, or what are deemed eccentric feelings, usually was, and in some degree still is, received; and we may form some faint conception under what impediments a woman, who is brought up to think custom and opinion her sovereign rule, attempts to express in books anything drawn from the depths of her own nature. The greatest woman who has left writings behind her sufficient to give her an eminent rank in the literature of her country, thought it necessary to prefix280 as a motto to her boldest work, “Un homme peut braver l'opinion; une femme doit s'y soumettre.”[1] The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy281 to men. In the case of unmarried [Pg 47] women, much of it seems only intended to increase their chance of a husband. Many, both married and unmarried, overstep the mark, and inculcate a servility beyond what is desired or relished282 by any man, except the very vulgarest. But this is not so often the case as, even at a quite late period, it still was. Literary women are becoming more freespoken, and more willing to express their real sentiments. Unfortunately, in this country especially, they are themselves such artificial products, that their sentiments are compounded of a small element of individual observation and consciousness, and a very large one of acquired associations. This will be less and less the case, but it will remain true to a great extent, as long as social institutions do not admit the same free development of originality283 in women which is possible to men. When that time comes, and not before, we shall see, and not merely hear, as much as it is necessary to know of the nature of women, and the adaptation of other things to it.
I have dwelt so much on the difficulties which at present obstruct284 any real knowledge by men of the true nature of women, because in this as in so many other things “opinio copi? inter14 maximas causas inopi? est;” and there is little chance of reasonable thinking on the matter, while people flatter themselves that they perfectly [Pg 48] understand a subject of which most men know absolutely nothing, and of which it is at present impossible that any man, or all men taken together, should have knowledge which can qualify them to lay down the law to women as to what is, or is not, their vocation. Happily, no such knowledge is necessary for any practical purpose connected with the position of women in relation to society and life. For, according to all the principles involved in modern society, the question rests with women themselves—to be decided by their own experience, and by the use of their own faculties. There are no means of finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying—and no means by which any one else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone285.
One thing we may be certain of—that what is contrary to women's nature to do, they never will be made to do by simply giving their nature free play. The anxiety of mankind to interfere in behalf of nature, for fear lest nature should not succeed in effecting its purpose, is an altogether unnecessary solicitude286. What women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing. What they can do, but not so well as the men who are their competitors, competition suffices to exclude them from; since nobody asks for protective duties and bounties287 [Pg 49] in favour of women; it is only asked that the present bounties and protective duties in favour of men should be recalled. If women have a greater natural inclination288 for some things than for others, there is no need of laws or social inculcation to make the majority of them do the former in preference to the latter. Whatever women's services are most wanted for, the free play of competition will hold out the strongest inducements to them to undertake. And, as the words imply, they are most wanted for the things for which they are most fit; by the apportionment of which to them, the collective faculties of the two sexes can be applied on the whole with the greatest sum of valuable result.
The general opinion of men is supposed to be, that the natural vocation of a woman is that of a wife and mother. I say, is supposed to be, because, judging from acts—from the whole of the present constitution of society—one might infer that their opinion was the direct contrary. They might be supposed to think that the alleged natural vocation of women was of all things the most repugnant to their nature; insomuch that if they are free to do anything else—if any other means of living, or occupation of their time and faculties, is open, which has any chance of appearing desirable to them—there [Pg 50] will not be enough of them who will be willing to accept the condition said to be natural to them. If this is the real opinion of men in general, it would be well that it should be spoken out. I should like to hear somebody openly enunciating the doctrine (it is already implied in much that is written on the subject)—“It is necessary to society that women should marry and produce children. They will not do so unless they are compelled. Therefore it is necessary to compel them.” The merits of the case would then be clearly defined. It would be exactly that of the slaveholders of South Carolina and Louisiana. “It is necessary that cotton and sugar should be grown. White men cannot produce them. Negroes will not, for any wages which we choose to give. Ergo they must be compelled.” An illustration still closer to the point is that of impressment. Sailors must absolutely be had to defend the country. It often happens that they will not voluntarily enlist289. Therefore there must be the power of forcing them. How often has this logic10 been used! and, but for one flaw in it, without doubt it would have been successful up to this day. But it is open to the retort—First pay the sailors the honest value of their labour. When you have made it as well worth their while to serve you, as to work for [Pg 51] other employers, you will have no more difficulty than others have in obtaining their services. To this there is no logical answer except “I will not:” and as people are now not only ashamed, but are not desirous, to rob the labourer of his hire, impressment is no longer advocated. Those who attempt to force women into marriage by closing all other doors against them, lay themselves open to a similar retort. If they mean what they say, their opinion must evidently be, that men do not render the married condition so desirable to women, as to induce them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is not a sign of one's thinking the boon290 one offers very attractive, when one allows only Hobson's choice, “that or none.” And here, I believe, is the clue to the feelings of those men, who have a real antipathy291 to the equal freedom of women. I believe they are afraid, not lest women should be unwilling to marry, for I do not think that any one in reality has that apprehension292; but lest they should insist that marriage should be on equal conditions; lest all women of spirit and capacity should prefer doing almost anything else, not in their own eyes degrading, rather than marry, when marrying is giving themselves a master, and a master too of all their earthly possessions. And truly, if this consequence were necessarily incident to [Pg 52] marriage, I think that the apprehension would be very well founded. I agree in thinking it probable that few women, capable of anything else, would, unless under an irresistible293 entrainement, rendering294 them for the time insensible to anything but itself, choose such a lot, when any other means were open to them of filling a conventionally honourable295 place in life: and if men are determined296 that the law of marriage shall be a law of despotism, they are quite right, in point of mere policy, in leaving to women only Hobson's choice. But, in that case, all that has been done in the modern world to relax the chain on the minds of women, has been a mistake. They never should have been allowed to receive a literary education. Women who read, much more women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a disturbing element: and it was wrong to bring women up with any acquirements but those of an odalisque, or of a domestic servant.
1: Title-page of Mme. de Stael's “Delphine.”
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hindrances
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| 阻碍者( hindrance的名词复数 )； 障碍物； 受到妨碍的状态 | |
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arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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preponderating
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| v.超过，胜过( preponderate的现在分词 ) | |
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solely
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adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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remains
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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litigants
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extort
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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11
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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12
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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13
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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14
inter
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| v.埋葬 | |
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15
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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16
prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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17
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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18
impartiality
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| n. 公平, 无私, 不偏 | |
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19
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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20
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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21
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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22
rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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23
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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24
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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25
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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26
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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27
apotheosis
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|
| n.神圣之理想；美化；颂扬 | |
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28
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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29
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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30
ordinance
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| n.法令；条令；条例 | |
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31
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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32
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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33
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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34
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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35
tampered
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| v.窜改( tamper的过去式 )；篡改；（用不正当手段）影响；瞎摆弄 | |
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36
concession
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|
| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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37
conducive
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|
| adj.有益的，有助的 | |
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38
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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39
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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40
conscientious
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|
| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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41
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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42
testimony
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|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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43
obedience
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|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
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44
adoption
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|
| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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45
entirely
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|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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46
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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47
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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48
mere
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|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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49
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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50
cultivation
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|
| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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51
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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52
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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53
expediency
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|
| n.适宜；方便；合算；利己 | |
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54
primitive
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|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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55
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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56
modifications
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|
| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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57
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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58
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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59
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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60
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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61
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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62
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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63
professes
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|
| 声称( profess的第三人称单数 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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64
pretext
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|
| n.借口，托词 | |
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65
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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66
ostensible
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| adj.(指理由)表面的，假装的 | |
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67
vitality
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|
| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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68
durability
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| n.经久性，耐用性 | |
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69
propensities
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|
| n.倾向，习性( propensity的名词复数 ) | |
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70
peculiar
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|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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71
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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72
solitary
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|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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73
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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74
avowed
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|
| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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75
cynically
|
|
| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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76
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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77
provocation
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|
| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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78
vocation
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|
| n.职业，行业 | |
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79
chastisement
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|
| n.惩罚 | |
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80
inflict
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|
| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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81
vestige
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|
| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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82
revoked
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|
| adj.[法]取消的v.撤销，取消，废除( revoke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
trifling
|
|
| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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84
mutual
|
|
| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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85
dominion
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|
| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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86
commonwealth
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|
| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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87
commonwealths
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|
| n.共和国( commonwealth的名词复数 )；联邦；团体；协会 | |
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88
banishment
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|
| n.放逐，驱逐 | |
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89
stoics
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|
| 禁欲主义者，恬淡寡欲的人，不以苦乐为意的人( stoic的名词复数 ) | |
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90
prodigious
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|
| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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91
salvation
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|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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92
relinquish
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|
| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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93
passionate
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|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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94
attachment
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|
| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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95
renounce
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|
| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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96
militant
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|
| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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97
triumphant
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|
| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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98
fortified
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|
| adj. 加强的 | |
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99
plebeian
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|
| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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100
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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101
chivalry
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|
| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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102
insolent
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|
| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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103
conspicuous
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|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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104
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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105
literally
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|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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106
condemned
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|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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107
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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108
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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109
abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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110
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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111
monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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112
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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113
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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114
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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115
justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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116
justifiableness
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117
factious
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| adj.好搞宗派活动的，派系的，好争论的 | |
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118
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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119
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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120
specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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121
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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122
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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123
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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124
bribes
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| n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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125
daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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126
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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127
bribery
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| n.贿络行为，行贿，受贿 | |
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128
intimidation
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| n.恐吓，威胁 | |
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129
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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130
riveted
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| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
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131
outlast
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| v.较…耐久 | |
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132
testimonies
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| （法庭上证人的）证词( testimony的名词复数 )； 证明，证据 | |
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133
usurpation
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| n.篡位；霸占 | |
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134
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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135
misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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136
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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137
barbarian
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|
| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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138
fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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139
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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140
legitimate
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|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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141
incapable
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|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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142
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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143
paternal
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|
| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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144
anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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145
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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146
dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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147
conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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148
euphoniously
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| adj.悦耳的 | |
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149
paraphrase
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| vt.将…释义，改写；n.释义，意义 | |
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150
manlier
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| manly（有男子气概的）的比较级形式 | |
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151
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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152
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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153
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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154
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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155
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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156
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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157
spartan
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| adj.简朴的，刻苦的；n.斯巴达；斯巴达式的人 | |
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158
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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159
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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160
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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161
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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162
suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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163
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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164
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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165
agitate
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| vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动 | |
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166
franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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167
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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168
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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169
proprieties
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| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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170
constituents
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| n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素 | |
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171
ministries
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| （政府的）部( ministry的名词复数 )； 神职； 牧师职位； 神职任期 | |
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172
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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173
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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174
taxation
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|
| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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175
frustrates
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|
| v.使不成功( frustrate的第三人称单数 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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176
judicially
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| 依法判决地，公平地 | |
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177
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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178
protracted
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|
| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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179
tyrant
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|
| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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180
rebellious
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|
| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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181
submission
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|
| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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182
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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183
meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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184
yokes
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|
| 轭( yoke的名词复数 )； 奴役； 轭形扁担； 上衣抵肩 | |
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185
subsisted
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|
| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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186
sedulously
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|
| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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187
patrician
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|
| adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官 | |
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188
domestication
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| n.驯养，驯化 | |
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189
aspiring
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|
| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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190
brass
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|
| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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191
plebeians
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|
| n.平民( plebeian的名词复数 )；庶民；平民百姓；平庸粗俗的人 | |
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192
patricians
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|
| n.（古罗马的）统治阶层成员( patrician的名词复数 )；贵族，显贵 | |
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193
distinguished
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|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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194
relic
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|
| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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195
discordant
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|
| adj.不调和的 | |
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196
fixed
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|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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197
interdict
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|
| v.限制；禁止；n.正式禁止；禁令 | |
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198
interdicted
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|
| v.禁止（行动）( interdict的过去式和过去分词 )；禁用；限制 | |
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199
eldest
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|
| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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200
fully
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|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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201
industrious
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|
| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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202
guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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203
lawfully
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|
| adv.守法地，合法地；合理地 | |
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204
lawful
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|
| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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205
authoritatively
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| 命令式地，有权威地，可信地 | |
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206
pillory
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|
| n.嘲弄；v.使受公众嘲笑；将…示众 | |
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207
apprenticeship
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|
| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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208
repealed
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| 撤销，废除( repeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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209
discretion
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|
| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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210
mischievous
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|
| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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211
disastrous
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|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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212
advancement
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|
| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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213
procures
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|
| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的第三人称单数 )；拉皮条 | |
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214
thoroughly
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|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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215
presumptions
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|
| n.假定( presumption的名词复数 )；认定；推定；放肆 | |
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216
injustice
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|
| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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217
detriment
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|
| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
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218
incompetent
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|
| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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219
ordain
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|
| vi.颁发命令；vt.命令，授以圣职，注定，任命 | |
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220
eligibility
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|
| n.合格，资格 | |
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221
exclusion
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|
| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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222
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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223
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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224
reigning
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|
| adj.统治的，起支配作用的 | |
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225
hereditary
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|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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226
attainable
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| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
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227
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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228
justified
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|
| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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229
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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230
contrive
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|
| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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231
nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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232
derogate
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| v.贬低，诽谤 | |
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233
circumscribe
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|
| v.在...周围划线，限制，约束 | |
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234
avowedly
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| adv.公然地 | |
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235
fatality
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|
| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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236
exertions
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|
| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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237
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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238
isolated
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|
| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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239
discrepancy
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|
| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
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240
radical
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|
| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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241
analogous
|
|
| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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242
outweighing
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|
| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的现在分词 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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243
advantageous
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|
| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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244
descending
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|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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245
elevation
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|
| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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246
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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247
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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248
repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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249
stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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250
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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251
capabilities
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|
| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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252
sprout
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|
| n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条 | |
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253
nurture
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|
| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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254
stunted
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|
| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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255
analytic
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|
| adj.分析的，用分析方法的 | |
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256
impede
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，阻止 | |
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257
arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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258
overthrown
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|
| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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259
plundered
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|
| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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260
personalities
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|
| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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261
formerly
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|
| adv.从前，以前 | |
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262
manifestations
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|
| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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263
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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264
deducting
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|
| v.扣除，减去( deduct的现在分词 ) | |
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265
conjectures
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|
| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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266
authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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267
applied
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|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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268
practitioners
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| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
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269
practitioner
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| n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者 | |
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270
physiologists
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|
| n.生理学者( physiologist的名词复数 )；生理学( physiology的名词复数 )；生理机能 | |
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271
ascertained
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|
| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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272
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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273
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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274
intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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277
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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278
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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279
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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280
prefix
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| n.前缀；vt.加…作为前缀；置于前面 | |
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281
sycophancy
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| n.拍马屁，奉承，谄媚；吮痈舐痔 | |
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282
relished
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| v.欣赏( relish的过去式和过去分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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283
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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284
obstruct
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| v.阻隔，阻塞(道路、通道等)；n.阻碍物，障碍物 | |
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285
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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286
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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287
bounties
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| （由政府提供的）奖金( bounty的名词复数 )； 赏金； 慷慨； 大方 | |
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288
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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290
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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291
antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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292
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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293
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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295
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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