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ROBA
COND EDITION
THE
WOMEN'S CHARTER
OF
RIGHTS & LIBERTIES,
BY
LADY MCLAREN
PRELIMINARY DRAFT,
1909.
INTRODUCTION.
There has been for the last fifty years a continual discussion
of the Woman question, not only in England, but throughout
the world. Many legal wrongs and unjust disabilities 01
women are widely admitted, but these disadvantages cover
ground so wide, complicated and miscellaneous, that reform
has been extremely slow. The congested state of Parliamentary
business and the increased claims of electors upon their
representatives in the national assemblies of all countries
make the task of obtaining justice for women almost insuper-
able.
Under these circumstances perhaps the best chance of
advance would be to consolidate in one Act or Charter all the
more pressing legal and social grievances of women. Such a
charter, setting forth the rights and wishes of half the human
race, if agreed upon by the women leaders in all civilized
countries, and presented simultaneously to all civilized Govern-
ments, would produce a world-wide effect. I believe that the
passing into law of a Women's Charter would add enormously
to the welfare of all women without in any way interfering
with the happiness of men, and that even the public discussion
of such a charter would have wide-reaching social results.
Women have suffered so much from their legal inferiority
that nothing is further from their wish than that in gaining
just rights for women, any injustice should be done either to
the man or the child, who form the other two persons in the
Human trinity. But up to the present time man, with his
wishes, his pleasures, his power, has been the one person
seriously considered in legislation. Comparatively recently
the child has risen to be of second importance, and is in some
respects placed by law in a position superior to that of the
mother, while many of the advantages given to the child have
been gained at her expense. In addition to many ancient
wrongs which have survived more barbarous ages, much new
social legislation contains clauses which entrench on the
liberty, property and happiness of women, and it would be a
point gained if a general charter were agreed upon for the
protection of that sex whose interests have always been
misunderstood, neglected, or ruthlessly sacrificed.
In drawing up this charter, therefore, to secure the rights
and liberties of the female sex, I invite the co-operation and
suggestions of women, not only in this country, but in all
others where there are women who have thought upon this
subject ; and if men honour me so far as to consider it, as
sooner or later I believe they will be bound to do, I trust they
will give me the advantage of their friendly criticism. It is
evident that this draft is tentative, that it touches on much
debatable ground, and that it may have to be widely modified
before it can secure general approval.
43, BELGRAVE SQUARE,
LONDON, S.W.
THE WIFE.
As marriage is a legal contract between two persons, it is
reasonable to suppose that both parties should have a share in
fixing the conditions under which both are bound for life. So
far from this being the case, it is man alone who has decreed
the terms, and he has done so without consulting sufficiently
either the wishes of his wife, or the conditions best suited to
secure the happiness of women. Indeed in his eagerness to
secure power over the other sex he has devised a system
under which his own happiness is often sacrificed.
A time is within the memory of many now living when every
wife left the altar in a condition of servitude. Her condition
was lower than a servant, as she was legally a chattel or slave.
Her property was taken from her, her freedom seriously
curtailed and her individuality was legally merged in that
of her husband. The man on the other hand gained an
unpaid servant for life together with the enjoyment of her
lands, the absolute ownership of her earnings, and of all
property left unsettled on her marriage. This position was
only made tolerable for women by the fact that the good
feeling of most husbands prevented them from exercising to
its full extent the tyrannical power the law gave them over
their wives. But the sufferings of wives and mothers at the
will of cruel men were simply incalculable.
During recent years there has been a distinct advance in
the position of English wives owing to the passing of various
Acts of Parliament, and especially of the Married Women's
Property Acts. All these Acts are curiously spasmodic in
their action and by no means cover the whole ground.
Professor Dicey in his Text Boc^k on English Law thus char-
acterizes them : " The four Married Women's Property Acts
6
are a record of the hesitation and dulness of Members of
Parliament. Parliament tried to reform the law in accordance
with ideas borrowed from equity, and some even of the lawyers
by whom Parliament was guided did not understand the
principles of equity which they meant to follow. Hence
recurring blunders, which one may hope without any great
confidence have been at last corrected."
These Acts do accord a tardy justice to wives in respect to
the property they may earn or inherit. The reforms however
do not cover the whole ground of a wife's disabilities, nor has
Parliament yet dealt adequately with the law which secures a
wife's right to maintenance, nor with her capacity to inherit
property equally with men, nor drastically with the disabilities
of coverture.
THE: DOCTRINE OF COVERTURE.
Coverture is the old pernicious doctrine which practically
suspended the civic existence of a wife during marriage, and
prevented her from taking any legal action on her own behalf
except through her husband or with his consent. Husband
and wife were one, and the husband was that one. Only by
and through him had she any legal existence whatever.
Gradually under successive Acts of Parliament the chief
disabilities of a wife arising under coverture have been
abolished, but the doctrine of coverture itself has never been
formally repudiated, and fragments still remain of the chains
by which women once were bound.
When wives were incapable of holding property it was
obviously impossible to punish them by fines for any damage
they did to third parties by slander or violence. Therefore (as
now in the case of children) the head of the family was made
responsible for such damage, legally called torts. Now that
wives can themselves hold property, such a provision loses its
point and is a public disadvantage. True, cases in which this
law operates are very rare, indeed quite legal curiosities.
Still the law is unjust, and it confers no benefit on the mass of
women in the community whose interest it is to have just
punishment meted out to wrongdoers.
Similarly the old law of Bankruptcy did not apply to
married women at all, and the present law does not give them
full protection. It is a distinct disadvantage to the woman
trader to be placed in this anomalous position, as it interferes
with her credit in business and restricts her operations.
Whenever the law of coverture acts at all, it acts unjustly.
It assumes that a married woman is unfit to take the conse-
quences of her own actions, and this degrades the status of all
women.
It is difficult to follow this law of Coverture through all its
ramifications and to know when and where it may not un-
expectedly trip up a wife, or indeed render fruitless even the
efforts of the Legislature to benefit her. As a recent example
of this, I may instance a recent Act of Parliament conferring
certain local franchises on women which distinctly enacted
that no person possessing qualifications for the local franchise
should be disqualified by either sex or marriage. The intention
of Parliament was thus certainly to enfranchise married
women, but throughout the whole of England, London alone ex-
cepted, no married woman can, though inhabiting a municipal
borough exercise this vote, because, amongst the qualifications
which entitle a man to vote, is his capacity of being a
burgess, and no person under coverture can become a burgess.
Accordingly the intention of Parliament has been frustrated,
and married women outside London remain without the
privilege Parliament intended to confer.
I propose therefore : That the doctrine of Coverture for
Married Women be declared obsolete and abolished together
with all the disabilities springing therefrom.
MAINTENANCE OF WIVES.
A more important point is the consideration of the main-
tenance of the wife by her husband, and the methods by which
her admitted rights can be enforced.
8
The husband is bound to support his wife and children out
of any money he may have or earn, but the wife is now also
bound to support her husband and his children out of any
money which she may either possess or earn. Thus it should
be clearly recognised that husband and wife incur an equal
legal obligation. But in addition to this, the wife undertakes
to serve her husband ; and both in fulfilment of marriage vows
and in accordance with established custom, she is expected,
should he desire it, to give her whole time to the duties of
housekeeper and mother. The husband on the other hand is
set free from attending to his own physical wants by having
secured the services of the wife, and thus he can give more
time to paid work, and often avoid trouble and expenses which
a single man has to meet. We see that while the husband
devotes all his time to paid work, the great majority of wives
are devoting their time to unpaid work, and when the import-
ance of that work and its often arduous nature are considered,
it appears extraordinary that the services of wives have
absolutely no money value placed upon them.
The wife of a working man with a large family of young
children has a burden of work thrown upon her which is often
excessive. On the other hand, the wives of rich men have
servants to do all the heavy work of the house, and the duty
of supervision, though sometimes arduous, is by no means
sufficient to fill their time. Still in the homes of the rich, the
wife, as well as the upper servants, keep themselves in readi-
ness to do anything the master of the house may require, and
a husband in every class is annoyed if his wife is engaged upon
any pursuit other than that of furthering his wishes, desires,
or interests. If, therefore, a wife does spend practically her
whole life in ministering to her husband's comfort, or holding
herself in readiness to do so, she may be considered as giving
her whole time to him; and if she does this a certain payment
for such services ought to be recognised by law.
It is misleading to talk of man as the breadwinner.
He is merely the person who earns money. Now
9
gold and silver are of no use in supporting human
life, and it is only when gold and silver are converted
into cooked and nourishing food, when they are changed into
warmth and clothing, that they minister to life at all. Thus
the task of the wife in converting mere useless metal into
material to sustain living force is a very important one, and one
which has been entirely overlooked in estimating the value of
women's work. I do not suggest that an extravagant money
value should be placed on these services which women render,
but it is only right that a wife who does work diligently and
devotedly in the family service should be entitled to the wages
of a servant or housekeeper such as are usual in that station
of life in which she lives, and this in addition to her board.
Such a minimum should be regarded as her own property, and
even if it could not be recovered by law from a husband, it
might be a just charge on his estate after his death. Such a
recognition of a wife's claim to wages might be brought into
operation where a husband spends on his selfish enjoyment the
money which ought to be given to feed and maintain his wife
and the family. The savings of the wife out of any allowance
for housekeeping should be regarded as hers, as long as it did
not exceed an amount calculated on this scale.
At present not only does the wife receive no wages for her
work, but if the husband lives with the wife and does not
provide her or her children with food, no adequate legal
machinery exists by which she can force him to support her.
No one can compel a husband to work, and even if he does
work and does not feed her, her remedy is a difficult one.
Her only resource is to go to the workhouse with her children
and trust to the Guardians to sue her husband for her main-
tenance. It often happens that the Guardians find it easier
and cheaper to support the wife in the workhouse than to find
and prosecute the husband, who in such cases very often
disappears and covers his traces. A large proportion of the
able-bodied women now in the workhouse are deserted wives.
Alteration of the law is needed, which would enable the wife
10
to apply immediately to a magistrate for an order enforcing
maintenance. Such maintenance might be recoverable from
the employers of the husband out of the wages due to him.
A similar method is practised in some parts of Germany, and
appears to work well.
SCALE OF MAINTENANCE.
With regard to the scale of maintenance which the woman
can claim from her husband, or the husband from the wife,
the law speaks with a very uncertain voice. The husband is
supposed to support his wife in the style in which he himself
lives, and tradesmen who supply goods to a household living
in a certain style are justified in claiming from the husband
payment of goods reasonable for such style. When a husband
is said to be liable for his wife's debts it simply means that he
is liable if he allows her to pledge his credit. Her position is
precisely the same as that of any housekeeper or servant who
gives orders on behalf of the master. All goods so ordered
remain the husband's property, and a wife has no right to
dispose of any of them without his consent. A husband has
only to warn tradesmen that he withdraws authority from a
wife or servant to pledge his credit, and he avoids liability.
A woman who passes as a man's wife has the same power of
pledging his credit as a legal wife.
The husband has besides absolute power of fixing the style
in which he lives. If a millionaire likes to live in a cottage at
2s. 6d. a week and feed his wife and children on the coarsest
food, or if a workman earning 2 or 3 a week gives his wife
and children only 10s. a week, no remedy is to be had.
Practically all that a wife has a right to is a pauper's main-
tenance, and even that she cannot herself enforce. It is only
when she is separated from her husband that a certain fixed
income is given to her more or less suitable to her condition
of life calculated upon a minimum scale.
11
THE WIFE AS PARTNER.
When the work of the wife is not only that of a house-
keeper, but when she practically acts as partner in her
husband's business, the injustice is still more grave. Take
the case of a farmer's wife who has charge of the dairy, who
goes to market with the produce, who feeds pigs and chickens,
who helps with haymaking, and who is, after her husband, the
most important worker on the farm. Such a woman may
spend her whole life in continued arduous work, she and her
husband together may amass considerable property, and
yet her share in that property is absolutely nothing. The
whole of the property belongs exclusively to the male partner.
In small shops, again, it is the wife often who manages the
whole business. It is she who serves, keeps the books and
undertakes the correspondence ; yet as long as she does not
separate her trading name and capital from that of her
husband, the law makes no allowance for her industry, but
awards to him the whole profit of the business. It is obvious
that in every case where the wife and her husband work
jointly at business, the profits should be shared equally by
husband and wife, unless agreed otherwise by contract
between the parties.
Thus, although we see the law fixes upon the husband the
responsibility of supporting his wife and children, yet it
avoids the necessary steps to make this obligation legally
effective,
(1) By not compelling the husband to work ;
(2) By not giving the woman any direct claim on his
earnings, even if he do work ;
(3) By not fixing any scale suitable to his means on
which a wife should be maintained so long as the two live
together ;
(4) By not admitting that a wife's work either as house-
keeper or as assistant in business has any money value ;
(5) And finally, by not giving to a widow any claim on
her husband's property of which his will cannot deprive her.
12
THE WIDOW.
If the economical position of a wife is thus legally
precarious, her situation as a widow is one of very grave
injustice, which merits the immediate attention of Parliament.
Under the old common law of England all widows had the
right of dower out of their husband's lands, and it is a
striking instance of how men have unjustly legislated in their
own interests when we see how this important right has
gradually been whittled down to nothing. At the present
time the husband can, at his own discretion, leave the whole
of his real and personal property, not only away from his
his wife, but from his children. Without any shadow of
excuse he can leave them absolutely destitute, with no refuge
but the workhouse, where they must be kept at the expense
of the country. True, this very rarely happens, but the
position of the wife who devotes all her time to her home and
her family is one of abject dependence on any accident which
may induce her husband to fail to name her in his will. This
is hardship of extreme gravity, and needs immediate remedy.
Women ask that in return for a number of years of patient
service they should have reserved for them out of their
husband's property a sum equal at least to what they
would have earned as housekeeper during those many
years of service, and they ask that this provision should be
absolutely independent of the caprice of husbands.
I have called this condition of affairs a grave hardship, but
there is a graver scandal still behind, namely, that the law
which allows the husband to leave his widow penniless after his
death, at the same time imposes on her the duty of maintain-
ing his children. The wife ought not to be called upon to
contribute to the support of the man's children as long as he
leaves an estate which is adequate to the support of such
children. In nearly every other civilised nation both the
wife and the children have provision out of the man's estate
of which they cannot be deprived.
13
I propose therefore that the ancient common law of right
to dower for wives should be restored, that it should be
extended to personalty, and that it should be made independent
of any will which the husband may execute. I propose also
that no widow should be called on to support children so long
as the father's estate is sufficient to provide adequate support
for such children.
RICH WIYES AND MARRIAGE CONTRACTS.
Another situation arises in cases of marriages where the
wife possesses property, and it is interesting to consider
whether in these circumstances the husband ought or ought
not to bear the expense of her maintenance. It is evident
that when her desire for more comfort than the husband can
wisely afford, raises the expenses of his establishment, she
ought to be at once recognised as liable. No doubt she is
legally responsible for such extra expense if the tradesmen
understand it is to her they give credit. Still, the situation is
not without complexity. It would seem most convenient that a
system should arise (similar to the French marriage contracts)
by which, before marriage, it should be distinctly set forth
what contribution each party proposes to give to housekeeping
and other joint expenses, and that this contract should be made
binding on both parties. Some effort in this direction is made
by settlements, but it is not the rule in such documents to
declare what expenses should be borne by the husband and
what by the wife. I do not hesitate to say that the absence
of some such contract is the rock on which the happiness of
many marriages is wrecked. Sooner or later the sentiment of
the honeymoon is brought to earth by the sordid consideration
of who is to pay for necessaries and luxuries. Extravagance
on the one side and meanness on the other are an every-day
occurrence, and one or both parties begin to nourish a
grievance, and to regret the absence of definite agreement
before marriage. Whether tke wife has property or not, I
think it ought to be a matter of national care that the husband
14
should agree to produce a certain minimum for housekeeping
expenses, suitable to his means, and that his liability for his
wife's expenses, if he so desires, should be limited to that sum.
The contribution of the wife who possesses property should
also be made binding. And if from any cause either fail to
fulfil his or her agreement, the injured party might be allowed
to apply directly to the Court, for the enforcement of the
contract.
ASSAULTS ON WIVES.
It is a curious survival of the old legal theory that the wife
was the chattel of her husband, that is responsible for the
numerous assaults on wives and the brutality with which they
are often treated. Under the old law, as it existed down to
the Eighteenth Century, the murder of a wife by her husband
was treated with comparative leniency, whereas if a wife killed
her husband, her crime was treason and the punishment was
burning alive at the stake. The husband had not only the right
to exact 'obedience, but to enforce it by chastising his wife.
Although in law no such power is now recognized, nevertheless
the idea is quite engrained among the lower classes of this
country that a man has a right to beat his wife, and the leniency
with which such conduct is treated by magistrates gives colour
to this theory. Not a week passes but terrible cases of this kind
come before the Police Court, and for years the newspaper
Truth has pointed out the strange inadequacy of the sentences
passed even in aggravated cases of such assaults. We may
safely say that the wives of this country have not to-day any
sufficient protection from the administrators of the criminal law.
If a man is summoned for assault on his wife the magistrate
takes into consideration the fact that if he sends the husband
to prison, the wife and children are left without support, and
presumably must go to the workhouse during his detention ;
consequently it appears to the mind of the magistrate that the
lesser evil of the two is either to dismiss the case, or punish it
very lightly, with a view to restoring the family as soon as
15
possible to normal conditions. This is a very grave error,
which has done much to condone the brutality of men
throughout the country. Magistrates ought at once to put in
force a much heavier penalty for brutality, as a warning to
other husbands, and the wives and children of men so
convicted ought to be supported, but not as paupers, by a rate
levied directly upon the locality where they live. Only in
this way will it become the interest of the community to
protect wives from brutality and at the same time to punish
wrong-doers so heavily that the offence will become less
common. Were this plan adopted, I believe that the brutality
to wives which is at variance with the more merciful public
opinion of the day, would greatly diminish.
There is no doubt moreover that cases which come into the
Police Court are but a small fraction of the assaults on wives.
It is a bold thing for a wife to come forward and charge her
husband with assault, as it must put an end to further hope of
matrimonial happiness. Indeed the threat by the husband of
going to America and leaving the wife to shift for herself and
her children, is one which keeps most wives in terror.
MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACT.
A recent piece of legislation which has wide-reaching
consequences is the Matrimonial Causes Act, under which
magistrates are allowed to give separation orders to wives
whose husbands treat them with cruelty. The facts brought
to light by this Act have been a revelation of brutality which
has startled the whole country. Great numbers of separations
under this Act have been granted, notwithstanding the fact
that serious assaults or wilful desertion must be proved in
evidence. One magistrate said he did not think much of a
black eye, and another recently compelled a wife of only 16 to
return to her husband even though violence had been proved
against him. It is evident, however, that these separations
are open to serious objection.* Husband and wife are parted
and are condemned to a life of celibacy, or immorality, and
16
the husband is very apt to disappear in order to get rid of the
pecuniary burden which the magistrates have imposed upon
him to keep his wife.
DIVORCE.
The question of divorce is one on which opinions differ very
widely as to how and under what conditions unhappy marriages
should be dissolved. All, however, agree in condemning the
present system.
When the present Divorce Act was enacted, Mr. Gladstone
himself declared it to be "a gross injustice to women in favour
of men," and it would have been impossible to pass such a
measure into law had the views of women been represented in
the House of Commons. Indeed the leniency with which the
law regards lapses of men from the moral code, is only equalled
by the severity with which it punishes the faults of women.
The man is granted a divorce on proof of the unfaithfulness
of his wife. The wife cannot obtain a divorce on the same
grounds, but she must prove in addition either cruelty or
desertion, and the decision as to what constitutes legal
cruelty depends upon the view taken by the individual judges.
Women are agreed that husband and wife should be placed
on an equality, and that unfaithfulness should be made a
sufficient ground to entitle either sex to a divorce.
The question as to what other grounds of divorce should be
allowed presents more difficulty. Possibly divorce on the
ground of habitual drunkenness, confirmed drug-habit, con-
viction for serious crime, lunacy, cruelty, and wilful desertion
would be generally approved. It has been suggested that in
cases where there are no children to a marriage, the couple
should be allowed to dissolve the union by mutual agreement
after five years. The Divorce Society advocates this change,
which will commend itself to many, and, if approved generally
by women, this would be included in the Charter. More
extended facilities would be added, should it be found that
women generally approve them.
17
With regard to the machinery of divorce, widely-reaching
changes are necessary. One evil is the enormous amount of
legal costs now involved. The transference of the proceedings
to County Courts would be a great advantage, and I think all
women will agree that a report of the proceedings should not
be published.
The Charter would therefore contain the following pro-
visions :
1. To abolish the sex-distinction of marital misconduct,
by which husband and wife will be placed on an equal
footing before the Court.
2. Where there are no children of a marriage, to allow
the husband and wife to jointly petition for dissolution of
marriage upon such grounds as the Court may approve.
3. To allow either party to be entitled to a dissolution
of marriage on any of the following grounds : Habitual
drunkenness ; the drug habit ; upon conviction for any
infamous offence entailing two years' imprisonment, or for
a lesser term if it subjects the family to public disgrace.
4. To abolish " collusion " as one of the grounds for
dismissing a petition.
INHERITANCE OF PROPERTY.
As women devote so much of their time to the unpaid work
of rearing children, it appears natural that special provision
should be made for them out of the inherited wealth of the
country. So far from this being the case, we find that it is
man who takes the greater share of inherited property,
although he is able to work for himself during the best years
of his life.
When we contrast the condition of England on this point
with that of other countries, and especially with France, we
are struck with the strangely penniless condition of English-
women citizens, though they a*e of the richest nation in the
world. In France as soon as a girl is born it is the great
18
object of her father and mother to provide for her the dot
which will place her beyond the reach of want, and enable
her to become a partner in marriage instead of a dependent.
French parents cripple their resources and curtail their
comfort to establish a daughter in life, while a son is supposed
to wait till the death of his parents before entering upon his
inheritance. Quite the contrary is the case in England. The
resources of the family are spent, not only on educating the
son, but in giving him the means to support a wife in com-
parative comfort, and his claim comes before that of the
daughter. That attitude of mind reflects itself in the law of
inheritance. In cases of intestacy, landed property goes to
sons before daughters. The husband takes all the wife's
personalty absolutely and the life-enjoyment of her estates,
unless they should be entailed on another branch of the
family. In case of intestacy the wife only inherits from her
husband one-third of his personal property if he has children,
and half if he has no children. In default of other next-of -
kin the other half reverts to the Crown. In the case of the
death of a daughter or son, the mother inherits nothing fron.
either ; the whole goes to the father, or to the father's next-of -
kin.
It would be only just to alter the law of intestacy so as to
place the husband and the wife, the brother and the sister, on
an equal footing in cases of intestacy, so that daughters and
sons should inherit equally both real and personal property.
The same provisions should apply to husband and wife in the
case of intestacy of either. Where the husband or wife has
no children, then I think the widower or the widow should
inherit the whole. Where there are no children, it might
meet with general approval if the husband or wife, as the case
may be, should take half, and the other half were inherited by
the children. If either father or mother wished to endow an
heir, they might be allowed to do so by will, but the law
should only give its sanction in cases of intestacy for an
absolutely just division of the property.
19
1 believe that these changes in the law would have a wide
effect in the country, by thus setting a public example of
justice. Testamentary dispositions would be largely influenced
by similar considerations. At present solicitors advise clients
that it is usual and proper to make larger provisions for sons
than for daughters. If the law of intestacy were changed as
above suggested, I believe that in the future the injustice of
disinheriting daughters will be generally admitted, and that
it will be the sex that sacrifices most for the generation to
come that will benefit most by the savings of the generation
that has passed away.
TESTAMENTARY POWER.
A more far-reaching reform would be the curtailment of the
powers of testators in willing property. The surviving partner
of the marriage ought to have a claim on the estate of the
other sufficient to provide a reasonable maintenance. Every
child should have a right to a certain share in the paternal
property, of which the parent could not deprive him or her by
will. At least half of the paternal or maternal property
should be so divided.
DOMICILE.
Another point which needs alteration relates to the law of
domicile. Under that law the wife takes the domicile of her
husband, and if the husband becomes a naturalized
subject of any other country, civilized or uncivilized, the wife
is bound by the laws and regulations of her husband's new
domicile. She can be divorced according to the laws of that
country. She loses all the rights and privileges of an English
subject, including that of an Old Age Pension. All this can
take place without her consent. Even in Germany, where the
laws are very hard upon women, no wife is bound to follow
her husband into a foreign domicile unless she consents.
20
I propose to assimilate the law of England in this respect to
that of Germany, so that no woman need accept a foreign
domicile against her will.
MARRIAGE: SERVICE.
Women desire the alteration of the Marriage Service of the
Church of England, which was drawn up and sanctioned by
Parliamentary authority in the Act of Uniformity, and is
under the direct control of Parliament. The service, con-
sidered as a whole, unjustly emphasises the inferior position
of the wife, and commands her to submit to her husband in all
things as the Church submits to God. It insults her by a
wholly untrue and unsuitable declaration as to her reasons for
marriage, and it obliges her to take a vow of obedience to her
husband which neither the Roman Catholic Church nor our
Nonconformist bodies impose upon her. It commits the
husband to make the entirely false declaration that he endows
the wife with all his worldly goods, when he usually neither
does nor intends to do anything of the kind. It abounds in
expressions only suited to a coarser age.
Under these circumstances the service evidently needs
revision, and women request the representatives of the people
in the House of Commons to require the Bishops in convoca-
tion to draw up a new service which would be in accordance
both with womanly dignity and with legal truth.
WOMEN AS MOTHERS.
When we reflect that it is on the success of mothers in
rearing infants that the whole human race depends for its
existence on this planet, it is curious to observe how little
legislation has done to render the conditions advantageous
for child-rearing. Indeed, few legislators have ever con-
sidered the subject at all, and this neglect is as evident to-day
as it has ever been in the past. One would have expected
that women would have been educated for their responsible
21
duties, and that no pains would have been spared to equip
them for the important office they were to hold. Now, so far
from this being the case, the State has never done anything
to educate women as mothers, and not only has it not done
anything to educate them, but it has most carefully prevented
them from acquiring knowledge upon this subject. Medical
colleges and hospitals have guarded their knowledge from
women, have forbidden them to study, have excluded them
from every institution where knowledge could be gained.
Knowledge has only been doled out to rich mothers at great
cost through doctors whose charges have always been quite
prohibitive to the mass of women. It is only in quite recent
years that women have been permitted to study either
physiology or medicine, and they do this even to-day at great
expense to themselves and under many adverse conditions.
The fact remains that the great bulk of mothers of this
country enter into the married state absolutely without the
knowledge necessary to bring up children, and that many are
even ignorant of the physical meaning of marriage at all.
Under these circumstances, one would have thought that the
first effort of the rulers of the State would have been to
bring to such women scientific advice and guidance. Nothing,
however, can be further from the fact. The care of the great
majority of the mothers of this country has been left to mid-
wives, themselves ignorant, because they have had no oppor-
tunity of training, and such women have simply adopted the
ignorant practice of other ignorant women. Thus the blind
continue to lead the blind, and child-rearing as practised in
England to-day is far behind the scientific standard recog-
nized in medicine. Uneducated women, midwives, attend
seven out of every ten births in the country, and to this want
of scientific knowledge has been due a sacrifice of life so
great that recently women have brought the subject to the
attention of Parliament, and women without certificates of
efficiency are now forbidden to practice. In their place,
however, the State has made no effort whatever to give to
22
married women any attendants at all; and the present con-
dition of mothers is worse than before, as hundreds of
midwives have been driven from practice without being
replaced by substitutes of any kind whatever.
Again we find that if by reason of exhaustion a mother
cannot feed her children herself, no supply of healthy cows'
milk is open to her. The milk sold in town is not only very
costly, but it is proved to be full of dirt and germ diseases.
Every Summer such food kills off thousands of infants, and to
this cause alone 30 per cent, of all deaths of infants under the
year are due. In addition to this, the State has not provided
either isolation hospitals for sick children or accommodation for
the nursing of sickness in homes. It has not provided playing-
grounds for healthy children, nor has it provided any certain
source of help other than the workhouse by which the mother
can find food for her children if by any cause the father fail to
maintain them.
Under these circumstances it need surprise no one that the
mothers of this country lose half their children. Tables of
mortality prove that of the children born alive, one-third
perish under 10 years of age ; and if to this number is added
the children still or prematurely born and of which no record
is kept, it is evident that one-half is not too high an estimate of
the number of children who perish. Nothing has yet been
done by any State to check this appalling waste of life and of
female energy. There is no doubt that the vast majority of
these children perish from quite preventable causes ; and that
it is directly owing to neglect of mothers that this terrible
waste and sorrow goes on from year to year. If such numbers
of children are not wanted, they ought not to be born. If they
are wanted they ought to be given conditions in which life is
possible. When we consider at how trifling an expense a
drastic reform of these evils might be obtained, we are
lost in wonder that it has so long escaped the attention of
the State.
23
EDUCATION OF MOTHERS.
Reformers agree that girls ought certainly to be trained to
their duties as mothers, but there has been no agreement as
to when and where and how such instruction ought to be
given. There is something repugnant to the general feeling
in entering into these matters with a young girl, and machinery
and time for such training classes have yet to be found. There
appears no doubt, however, that the very best time to train
a mother is when she first holds her infant in her arms,
when she is all eagerness to learn how to guard and cherish
her new treasure, and when she feels her own inexperience
most acutely. It is because at that time women have only
been surrounded by other women as ignorant as themselves,
that so little progress has been made in the rearing of
children. If a trained scientific midwife were always in
attendance, there is no doubt that the ignorance of mothers
would soon be a thing of the past. The tradition of better
methods would soon be established, and I believe that a
higher standard of health would be enjoyed by the population
of these Islands.
TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT OF MIDWIYES.
As to the cost of these trained midwives, their services
would be well worth whatever expenditure they involved, but
I do not believe that once organised their cost need be any
burden on the Exchequer. Women have been accustomed to
pay fees to the old class of midwives, and, failing immediate
payment, such services might be paid for by some system of
insurance, by which mothers would obtain highly-skilled
attendance by a small weekly payment over an extended
period. I believe these pennies might well be saved out of
the cost of ill-health and doctors' stuff, which is at best, even
if successful, a cure which is less valuable than prevention for
physical mishap.
I consider, therefore, that it is the duty of the Government
to train and appoint qualified im'dwives proportionate to the
needs of the community.
24
MUNICIPAL MILK SUPPLY.
The second point, which is of national importance, is the
necessity of placing a healthy milk supply within the reach of
mothers. Of course the answer is common, that mothers
ought to nurse their children, and I believe much misconception
exists on this point.
In the first place, enquiry shews that the number of nursed
children is often much greater than persons believe. In Bir-
mingham it is calculated that 80 per cent of mothers nurse
their children, and in country districts even more. The evil
comes in when the mother herself is ill-nourished, and finds
the child, even if nursed, is not thriving. Then she is driven
to supplement the feeding with other things, ignorantly given,
often followed by disastrous results. The cows' milk sold in
our towns is both dirty and full of disease germs, and is rarely
fit for infants' food. It is, in addition to this, dear, and
sometimes difficult to procure. In summer time dairy milk is
apt to become violently poisonous, and is almost certain to kill
all the babies who partake of it. This " Summer epidemic " as
it is called, is calculated to kill off no less than 30 per cent, of
all the children who die under the age of one year. This
mortality is in itself so frightful that it ought to secure first
attention on the part of the public authorities. In a few
places a tentative effort has been made to start milk dep6ts
under official control, and the experiment has been successful.
What however is urgently needed is a general movement
which would extend these milk depots to every town, and so
afford reasonable security for infant life.
DEATH RATE OF INFANTS.
When babies are nursed by their mothers the number of
deaths from this summer epidemic are naturally greatly
reduced ; nevertheless, such children suffer from the fact that
the mothers themselves are insufficiently fed, or that they
suffer from nervous worry, exhaustion and overwork to an
25
extent which prevents the children thriving. Medical
authorities have calculated that if 30 per cent, of the deaths
of children under one year are due to poisonous cows' milk,
another 30 per cent, are due directly to exhaustion, which
prevents the mother either from bearing healthy children or
from nourishing them properly. The remedy for this is very
simple. Charitable societies in France who occupy themselves
with this subject find that the cheapest way to nourish the
baby is to feed the mother, and this is precisely what our
modern civilization does not do. The scientific works of
Booth and Rowntree throw much light upon the matter.
They show that in nearly every working-class household the
poverty line falls when the children are little. Then is the
time of struggle. The father's wages are not at their highest,
the mother is crippled in health, and food is insufficient, and of
all the persons in the household, it is usually the wife who
suffers most from privation. The husband, as the wage-earner,
must be fed ; he gets the best of the food there is. The child
lives on the devotion of the mother, and she is frequently too
ready to take food from her own lips to feed the child.
Consequently she is the one to go short, and under these
circumstances it cannot be wondered that maternal exhaustion
should account for thousands of infant deaths.
Such is our economic system that the mother is made
wholly and entirely dependent on the earnings of a young
husband. There is practically only one period of her life when
she is dependent upon masculine support, and it is precisely
the time when he is least able to feed her. I venture to think
that if there is one person who has more claim than another
on the assistance of society, it is the young mother who is
attempting to feed and rear infant children, and I look in vain
upon the constitution of society for any attempt to mitigate
the hardships of her lot.
The only attempts in this direction, and they are but feeble,
are to be found in France or f Germany. In France meals
for nursing mothers have been organised, and there is no
26
doubt that owing to the grave state of the population question
in France, this effort will spread to greater proportions. This
however is merely charitable. In Germany a plan of insurance
is adopted, I believe with good results. I think myself that in
certain circumstances loans ought to be made to families who
sink below the border line into want owing to the pressure of
young children on their resources. Such debts could be
recovered from the wages of the father, or even from the wages
of the mother at some later period, when the husband is able
to earn more or the wife to resume work.
I am assuming of course, in making these suggestions, that
the husband is doing all he can to support his wife and
children. No doubt many men work heroically to keep
themselves and their families above water. But we must not
lose sight of the fact that all men do not do absolutely all
they can to help in these emergencies. A man does not
willingly deprive himself of beer and tobacco. It is a great
loss to him if he does not go sometimes to the public house to
see his friends, or for a little outing. And in this way, money
is spent which would be very valuable at home.
In the chapter on wives I have dealt very fully with the
wife's right of maintenance, and it is obvious enough that the
support of the wife and children outside the workhouse
depends very largely upon the will of the father. He is
practically the despot of the household, the wife's sole support
and hope, and any failure on his part in duty entails untold
misery on the household. I have already pointed out that any
failure on his part throws upon the wife the legal liability of
maintaining the children ; and under these circumstances it
appears to me that society is wrong in turning its back upon
cases like this and not rendering active help in such family
emergencies. I ask that the legislature should give special
attention to these facts and do its utmost to provide remedies
for a condition of things contrary to the interests of the
nation
27
WORK OF MARRIED WOMEN IN FACTORIES.
Much discussion has taken place in political circles concern-
ing the work of married women in factories, and measures
restricting their labour more or less have been passed in many
countries. Further serious interference with their liberty of
work is threatened in many quarters. In this country a
woman is forbidden to be employed for four weeks after the
birth of her child, and it is no doubt advisable that in the
interests of both that she should have a complete rest. But
on the other hand, perhaps the most necessary thing at that
time to her is nourishing food, and if a woman in her weak
state wishes to go to work, it is evident she must have some
very strong reason for doing so, presumably, the desire for
food. I do not suggest a repeal of the law in question, but I
think that coupled with it there should be a clause giving such
women a definite claim for support where necessary by public
authority, to be recovered from the husband or not, as may
be possible. An extension of this law is threatened, forbid-
ding women to work before the birth of the child, and here the
same argument applies. It is a very strong measure to
interfere with the personal liberty of a worker, and to take
away a woman's bread by law at the very time when her need
is greatest, without providing her with some other source of
maintenance, would be an act of cruelty.
The evils of factory work are often very much exaggerated.
Much work of a comparatively easy kind is done by women in
light and airy workshops such work as the finishing and
repairing of machine-made goods, packing and sorting, making
up, and so forth and it can be done without fatigue by those
who are accustomed to it; and to turn out such a woman at a
critical time, and to force her to earn her living by charing or
casual labour at the wash-tub, is hardly humane. In dealing
with these cases it is always important to remember that food
is the first necessity and rest only the second. For the law to
insist on compulsory rest without providing food, is a short-
sighted policy. But, it may be said, such women have always
28
the refuge of the workhouse. Certainly, such refuge as it
is. The following is a vivid picture painted by the Royal
Commission on the Poor Law which has just reported :
" Expectant mothers are herded with prostitutes, and often
left to await their confinement in the midst of imbeciles and
epileptics. Expectant mothers are not even allowed to
prepare for the coming event by making any clothes for the
infant, still less are they instructed how to do so. There are
no separate bedrooms, there are not even separate cubicles.
The young servant out of place, the prostitute recovering from
disease, the feeble-minded woman of any age, the girl with her
first baby, the unmarried mother coming in to be confined
of her third or fourth bastard, the senile, the paralytic, the
epileptic, the respectable deserted wife, the widow to whom
outdoor relief has been refused, are all herded indiscriminately
together. We have found respectable old women annoyed
by day and by night by the presence of noisy and dirty
imbeciles."
If it is in the interests of the child that the workhouse is
suggested, the proposal will defeat its own object, for of the
children born in the workhouse no less than 40 per cent, fail
to survive.
There are social reformers, however, who desire to go
further in this direction still, and practically to prohibit the
employment of all married women in factories. But if such
legislation is attempted, there is no other course but to give to
married women a definite claim on the public exchequer for
support. If they work, it is because their husbands are not
able or are not willing to support them, or because their
earnings are of essential value to the family. It has been
urged that the burden of the support of the married women
should be undertaken by the public for the sake of the children,
but it is not certain that even this course would lead to radical
improvement in the infantile death rate. The infant death
rate is great in all industrial districts, irrespective of the fact
as to whether mothers do work in factories or do not. The
29
highest rate in the kingdom at one time was Middlesborough,
where women do not go out to work. Miss Hutchins has
recently shown, in her paper read before the Statistical Society,
that the infant death rate in Liverpool where women are not
employed in factories is greater than in Manchester, Oldham,
Blackburn, where women are employed, and curiously enough
the deaths of infants in the cotton mill districts are not due
chiefly to digestive ailments, but to consumption and other
respiratory diseases, which at the present time decimate the
whole population of Lancashire. However this may be, as
long as a woman has young children dependent upon her, and
has food sufficient for them, it is better for her not to work in
factories. Still it will be rarely found that women go out to
work when home conditions are good. In misfortune her
earnings are the one resource of the family. After all the
woman herself best knows the conditions of her own life, and
she chooses what appears to her the best course. If by law she
is forbidden to take this course, on the legislature should fall
the responsibility of seeing that the women and children are
provided somehow with food. Although the mother of young
children is best at home, it is a question whether as children grow
up the interest of the family is not best served by having two
wage earners, or whether it should depend entirely on the wage-
earning of the father. If the wife is a skilled worker, there is
no doubt that her efforts do help to raise the family on to a
higher level, and any money earned outside by the mother which
could be spent in putting out the family washing, would do
much to make the home an attractive place for the artizan.
HOME WORK.
The question of home work is one also very keenly
discussed, and there is no doubt that the eagerness with which
home work is sought for by married women has led to a
competition amongst them which has driven down the wages
so earned to the starvation limit. * This however is mainly due
to the fact that workers are untrained, and only capable of low
30
class work. Some trades are certainly ill-adapted for home in-
dustries, but to cut them off altogether would be to strike a
serious blow at the livelihood of many women who have home
duties, sick husbands or children, or parents, and who can never-
theless manage to earn a livelihood at home when it is
impossible for them to attend the factory.
POSSIBILITY OF INDUSTRIAL. SHIFTS.
Before closing this subject, there is one consideration 1
should like to urge upon you all, and that is the value of
introducing into our industrial system the possibility of a half-
day's work. I believe that if under such a system of shifts
women could spend half the day in domestic work and devote
the other half to paid labour, this arrangement might add
greatly to the prosperity of many homes, and to the happiness
of many women themselves. A day of ten hours in the factory
practically shuts out home life, and though it gives women
command of money and some independence it cannot be
regarded as a satisfactory employment of human energies.
At the same time, the orderly life, the regular hours, the well
arranged occupation, the success of each operation, the
associated labour, the society, the change, and above all the
money with the independence which it gives, all mean some-
thing to a woman. On the other hand, a whole day devoted
to domestic work, with poor appliances and often poor results
involves a life of perpetual worry and ineffective toil. The
man has his work laid out for him : the woman at home has
to lay out her whole work herself. The man finds everything
ready to his hand: the woman has to fetch every article
required herself, and she has to clear up all the little bits of
different things which form her work. The perpetual presence
of children, dear as they are, is one of the most wearing things
on earth. She is never brought under the influence of order
or of association w r ith others, and all this has a deteriorating
effect. Without great strength of mind or great aptitude, she
is apt to sink in the social scale, and she loses the habit of
31
steady consecutive work which she may need at some later
period of her life to earn her living. I am aware such a
change as this would need a wide-sweeping alteration of the
present system. But women ought to keep it in view as an ideal
system, in which they would have a share in home life, and
also a share of the independence of the wage earner, assisted,
as I hope they will be, by the creche, the public kitchen, and
the public wash-house. Such a system is quite within the
range of possibility. The spectacle of the mother, neatly
dressed, fresh, cheerful, returning from her work with her
wages in her pocket, would do more to raise her in her chil-
dren's eyes than years of patient drudgery at home.
The objection to this course which I have heard raised, and
which was stated to be a great objection, is that it would be
inconvenient to inspectors. Nobody has a higher respect for
inspectors than I have, but that our industrial system should
depend entirely on their convenience is a proposition every
sensible person will repudiate. It is quite true that in some
isolated cases there might be some evasion of the factory acts
in working on the shift system, but that would be a small evil
compared to what would be an immense boon to the people
of this country.
GUARDIANSHIP OF CHILDREN.
There is no branch of English law which so urgently needs
attention as that relating to the guardianship of children.
The late Sir Horace Davey (afterwards Lord Davey) intro-
duced a bill which proposed that father and mother should be
acknowledged equal guardians of their children. This just
and logical reform secured only nineteen votes in the House
of Commons, and in subsequent legislation on the subject
much less than justice was given. The father remains sole
guardian of all children born in marriage. All powers reside
in him. He alone has power over the child ; he alone fixes
its education, its religion, its profession. He alone has power
32
to send it abroad to foreign schools or universities. As far as
property in the child exists, it belongs entirely to the father.
True, in extreme cases, the Court has power to interfere for
the welfare of the child. Yet the rights of the mother can
hardly be said to exist as against those of the father,
and any modification of the present cruel legislation
depends on the good nature of any particular judge,
who, in matters of disagreement between parents involving a
costly process of law, has power somewhat to modify the
hardship of her case.
When we consider the importance of the child to the
mother, and the enormously preponderating share in its
rearing which nature has entrusted to her, the iniquity of the
present law is glaring, and a simple declaration of the equal
guardianship of mothers and fathers is strenuously demanded
by women.
The father has also power to nominate by his will a guardian
for his children to act with the mother, and even to override
her wishes. In some cases such a provision might be valuable;
but to deny women a similar right to appoint guardians with
authority to act with the father, is a serious hardship. Men
have not always the knowledge necessary to control infant
daughters, and the re-marriage of the father often brings
about grave unhappiness. The father is sometimes totally
unfitted to have sole charge, and the co-operation of some
man or woman appointed by the mother would be a marked
advantage.
ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN AND PUNISHMENT OF
INFANTICIDE.
If, however, the right of the married mother to guardianship
is not allowed, it is curious to see that the law does not even
acknowledge the guardianship of the mother in the case of
the illegitimate child. The illegitimate child is supposed to
be the child of no one. No rights over it are given by law
to the mother, nor does it even inherit her property. The
33
law nevertheless declares that she is responsible for its main-
tenance, and that if harm come to it through her neglect,
she is liable to indictment for manslaughter or even for
murder. The position of the mother of an illegitimate child
is a disgrace to civilisation. On her is thrown all the blame
and all the responsibility for an offence against morality, for
which some man is equally responsible, and in which he has
in most cases been the tempter. The great proportion of
these cases are those of domestic servants. These young
girls live in a house where obedience is one of their first
duties, and are thrown constantly into the society of the
master who is of higher social status, and possesses a certain
glamour as a gentleman. If they fall, a terrible punishment
is meted out to them. They lose at once their character,
their situation, their hope of future employment, their power
of earning money, and at the same time the terrible
responsibility of the maintenance of a second life is thrown
upon them. Society hunts them ruthlessly down, the finger
of scorn is pointed at them, it is nobody's business to attend
to them, and if, driven to desperation by her frightful position,
a girl endeavours to return to an ordinary human lot by
sacrificing her child, she is dragged before a court composed
of and administered by men. There, if guilty, she must be
sentenced to be hanged. Even if the sentence is commuted
to imprisonment, her life is ruined for ever. What an
exaggerated revenge to take on womanhood in its bloom for
an offence, terrible indeed, but natural enough in a creature
driven to bay by treatment at once unjust and brutal. And
all this misery for an unwanted baby, born to certain poverty
and shame.
And what of her tempter, her companion in guilt, who has
ruined her for his pleasure and has abandoned her and her
child ? His name is not even mentioned ; men do not punish
one another in such cases; they only punish women. Let no
man talk of chivalry while deeds like this are done by laws
men make. Quite recently a bill passed through the House
34
of Commons leaning towards mercy and decreeing in such
cases not sentence of death, but imprisonment for life. But
this was thrown out by the House of Lords, and the Commons
did not press it.
The case of these girls is very touching, because many of
them are so young, and it is often their first offence. It may
be noted that all the Bishops in the House of Lords leaned
not to mercy, but turning down their thumbs marched out
together and refused their help. They did not earn the
blessing which their church has said shall fall upon the
merciful. It is not for mercy, however, that women ask:
what they want is justice.
Let us examine for a moment this position. Under the
present law if any person is injured by another inadvertently,
full and even excessive compensation is exacted by law, even
if the person committing the injury is not in fault. Any
physical harm to the servant is compensated by law, even if
the offence is not committed by the master, but by a fellow
servant. But when the master of the house, deliberately for
his own pleasure injures a female servant in this way, the law
says that the man owes her no compensation, nor is he
responsible for any accidents that may happen, either to
herself or to his child. Women do not suggest that any
vindictive spirit should be shown towards men in such a case,
but they desire to point out that it is neither just to the
woman, nor to society, to leave the condition of things as it is.
If the woman and her child are to live at all, they must either
be supported by the father or by the public, and to ask the
public to support women who are prevented from earning
their living by the action of an immoral man, is in itself an
iniquity.
I propose therefore the following law : That if it be proved
that any man has been informed of the expected birth of his
illegitimate child, he should be held responsible for any injury
either to the mother or to the child arising out of his neglect
to provide necessaries. Under these circumstances there
35
need be no public scandal. If the father were informed by
registered letter of the event, I think that in the great majority
of instances he would prefer to incur a trifling expense for
medical attendance and support during the first years of a
child's life, than to run the risk of a trial involving far graver
responsibility. Once admit the liability of the father in such
cases, and you will mitigate the despair and madness which
has led the mother into suicide and into murder. As for the
punishment of the mother in these cases of infanticide, I
propose that instead of sentence of death two years
imprisonment be the maximum penalty. On the expiration
of the sentence I further urge that she should be entitled to
two years training in an industrial college so as to give her a
chance of recovering her position. If society owes such a
girl punishment it also owes her reparation.
IMMORALITY.
1 do not propose to discuss here the whole question of
immorality at length. It will suffice to say that the horror
with which open immorality is talked of and written about by
statesmen and thinkers is only equalled by their inactivity to
take any step to put an end to this evil. A very large
proportion of those women who live by immorality have once
been domestic servants, while the ranks of vice are further
recruited by unlucky girls who, with a taste for luxury and
ease, find that their most strenuous efforts in the labour
market cannot obtain for them more than the barest livelihood,
and often not even that.
If this fearful plague-spot of open vice is to be healed, it can
only be healed in one way, and that is by placing in authority
capable women who have made a study of this evil. I call
upon the Government to appoint a strong Commission of
women, to arm them both with authority and money, and
trust them to formulate a po?Icy, and with the consent of
Parliament to execute the great task of clearing our streets
36
and suppressing houses of ill-fame. When you take this
terrible question out of the hands of men who are interested
in keeping it up, and give it into the control of the sex
interested in putting it down, light will begin to dawn, and
vast numbers of women who are pushed into this trade by
social pressure might be lifted up. Private immorality con-
cerns the individual, but vice carried on as an open trade can,
must, and will be suppressed by the efforts of women to raise
themselves and their sex. As long as womanhood is not
represented either in England's legislative nor on its admini-
strative power, as long as women can command neither public
money nor authority, so long will the sex-supremacy of man
achieve the degradation of women, helpless under a despotism
which he has established. This is why the Government should
without delay appoint a Commission of women and enforce
their recommendations, which would probably comprise the
establishment of a special women's police with authority and
control of money. It is women who contribute to the wages
of the police, and they have a right to have a voice in saying
what kind of police should be employed and to what ends
their efforts should be directed. We ask they should suppress
open vice and punish effectively all who profit by women's
degradation.
GENERAL CONDITION
OF MARRIED WOMEN IN THE
WORKING CLASSES.
It is important for women to consult together as to what
can best be done to raise and help the wives of working men,
especially in our crowded, dirty manufacturing towns.
Evidence shows that many of these women are ignorant of
the primary laws of health, as well as of the domestic arts, and
that to their incapacity much of preventable misery in this
country is due. When we consider the attitude of society
towards these women, which is often one of inconsiderate
37
blame, it is evident that the fact has not been generally
grasped, first, that society has made no effort to teach working
women, and second, that the life of the wife of a working man
is often a very hard one, and that it is not possible for a
person of ordinary ability to perform properly alone all the
important duties that fall upon her.
Lady Bell, who has published a most valuable investigation
into the conditions of working-class households in Middles-
borough, sums up her opinion as follows :
" My conviction is that there will never be more than a
certain proportion of women who can carry the immense
burden allotted to the working man's wife by the conditions of
to-day."
She gives many interesting details of the life of the working
women in Middlesborough. Here is a district where the
wages are high often 2 or 3 a week. It is a district where
there are practically no industries which employ women, and
married women do not go out to work. Nevertheless the rate of
infant mortality is very high, and indeed it has sometimes been
higher in Middlesborough than in any other part of the
country. " Observers who are in constant intercourse with
the ironworkers are of opinion that in about half the homes
women are to be found who steer their difficult life in a way
which is at once a consolation and an example." Lady Bell
considers that this estimate errs on the side of optimism,
consequently, even on this optimistic view, half the homes in
Middlesborough must be a failure. Numerous instances from
life are given in her book, of which the following is a type :
A girl, healthy and cheerful, but untrained either in sewing,
cooking, household management or the care of children,
marries in her teens a man but little older than herself. She
buys her experience as she can, and for a time the household
does fairly well. Then the young wife's health fails, the baby
arrives, she is badly attended, ill-advised, and illness and
anxiety often result. The wife ets up too soon ; then almost
directly another baby perhaps is coming ; the effort to clean
38
and wash and mend, and cook and make, to purchase wisely
everything for the household is too much for her. The
woman loses her looks, her courage, her interest, the house
becomes dirty, the food perhaps is not carefully prepared, one
baby is playing in the gutter, another is being fed by the
exhausted mother worn out perhaps by an attempt to cope
with the family wash. A Bradford physician also testifies that
there is little happiness after a second child is born. Is it any
wonder that the husband looks to the public house for cheer-
fulness and for society ? Too often he consoles himself with
drink, and this costs money which the family can ill spare.
Under these circumstances the relations of husband and
wife become strained, if not hostile. Is it surprising that the
wife, knowing she is a failure, and seeing no chance of getting
abreast with her work should fall into hopeless discouragement
and despair ? Once self-respect is lost, the only bright spot
in her life is apt to be the moment of alleviation which drink
offers to her also.
The truth is, that while nature has said woman is to be a
mother, it has never said that it is her business to wash and
to cook beyond the limits of her strength. It is woman's
attempt to unite the office of mother with a number of other
dirty and miscellaneous home trades, that brings about the
failure of half the English homes in manufacturing towns.
Let us see what the claims of motherhood alone place upon
some of these women. One woman had six children in eight
years ; one had eleven children in fourteen years. Lady Bell
writes : " One had seventeen children, twelve of whom died ;
another fourteen, eight of whom died. One had ten still-
born, in addition to which four more were born alive. It is
easy to write these words; it is well-nigh impossible to the
ordinary reader to call up a true picture of what they really
mean. When one thinks of the agony of anxiety involved in
watching the illness of one child, even when every resource is
at one's disposal, what must it be to go through that anxiety
with one after another in succession, and hopelessly to see
39
each one die." Yet, through all these months of misery, these
women have to continue the round of daily duties, they have
to be up early in the morning to get their husband's break-
fast, they have their children to nurse and feed and wash,
they have three or four meals a day for all the persons in the
house to prepare, to clear away, and to wash up. In addition
they have the daily task of cleaning the house, and what this
is in a manufacturing town in our climate is indeed terrible to
contemplate. Three-quarters of the year the roads are full
of the foulest black mud which husband and children bring
into the house three or four times a day. The cleanliness of
the house in which these unlucky women often take a
peculiar pride, is purchased at the expense of a physical
exhaustion which makes happiness impossible.
The hardest work of the working-man's house is the washing
of clothes. In no part of the world is clothing so difficult
to keep clean as in the dirty air of our towns. It means for
every wife and mother two hard days' work a week. If washing
be put off, interrupted, neglected for whatever cause, general
discomfort ensues. In addition to this there is the mending
and sewing for the whole family, and even the making of
clothes. All this has to be done exactly at the proper time,
it has to be done without proper accommodation for any
of these trades, every domestic operation needs an entirely
different set of utensils, and the wife has rarely command of
anything like the proper things, either for cooking or washing.
Then there is the shopping to be done ; on her energy and
forethought, on her care in buying always at the cheapest
places and in the cheapest quantities, the proper nourishment
of the family will depend. Only when we consider all these
things can we properly estimate the task that lies before the
young wife.
For any woman to be attractive to her husband and to be
respected by her children, she must have a certain neatness
of appearance ; but what opportunity does a life so filled allow
for the toilet of the woman ? Before she is half awake she is
40
getting breakfast ; before she has time to dress all the children
have to be washed and dressed and sent to school ; she cannot
put on a clean frock to scrub the kitchen ; she does not arrange
her hair on the day of the family wash ; she vacillates all day
between work that needs cleanliness into work that involves
loss of cleanliness ; she is always beginning things which she
has never time to finish because something else calls her
away; and as for time to perform the higher duties of mother-
hood, to read and to reflect, these are not given her. And yet
this is the creature of whom Mr. Roosevelt, the late President
of the American Republic, has said : " The mother is the most
important person in the community, she is more important
even than the statesman."
These are of course facts which everybody knows more or
less; I am not writing now merely to repeat them, or to
draw harrowing pictures, but definitely to propose remedies
remedies well within the power of the community.
I consider the first necessity is to make an effort to take the
washing out of the home. Every block of fifty to a hundred
houses should compulsorily have attached to them a place for
washing clothes, with appliances for drying clothes, such as no
cottage can command. In such wash-houses I hope to see
women who will take in the washing of other women at a
small cost. After all, washing is not itself such a disagreeable
trade ; much of the trouble lies in preparing all the things
necessary for it ; once all is ready, greater quantities of clothes
could be washed without correspondingly increased effort. It
is an utter waste for one hundred women to organize a
hundred small washes in their own houses, when ten women
would be able to do the whole of the work in the same time
by associated labour.
Almost the same considerations apply to cooking. For the
husband and children to walk long distances each day to find
their own homes and their own private cooks is a way of
getting the least result for the cost that can possibly be
devised. In a hundred houses there must be a hundred cooks,
41
a hundred fires, a hundred sets of cooking utensils; the very
distance which the husband and children have to walk costs
money in shoe leather ; and when they get home, they have a
meal cooked without skill, bought without proper opportunity
of choice, cooked on a fire which probably for economy has
not maintained sufficient heat for a long enough period, and
with utensils which render a good result almost impossible.
All this is done at the expense of the physical energy of the
mother three or four times every day. To reduce this
domestic cooking within reasonable limits, I suggest the
establishment of municipal kitchens, like those in Berlin, or
even the Bouillon establishments in Paris. There you see
workmen with their wives going out to dinner and enjoying
not only rest and recreation, but a good meal at less cost than
they would have it at home. Thick nourishing stews scienti-
fically made could be served for a penny ; in such restaurants
there is a wider choice of foods and a scientific application of
heat, while the opportunity of buying in bulk gives enormous
advantage in price and quality over the individual methods of
the housewife.
Lastly and most important of all, I advocate the establish-
ment of creches under scientific management and municipal
supervision. This is necessary, not only for those women who
are obliged to go out to earn weekly wages, but also for the
women who stay at home and are unable to look after a
number of children of different ages, especially if some of
these children are sick. There is no doubt that the children
of this country do not have sufficient care, because the women
who look after these children have other duties to attend to
which take the greater part of their time. In well-to-do
households, one baby is supposed to be a woman's sole charge.
The nurse is served and waited on by other servants of the
household, to say nothing of the fact that the mother herself
takes charge of the child during a certain part of the day.
Children need continuous attention. It is, however, almost as
easy to look after a dozen babies of about the same age as it
42
is to look after one, provided suitable appliances and
accommodation are given, and unremitting supervision. This
is thoroughly recognised when the children are older and sent
to school : it is clearly seen that the parent cannot give the
necessary attention to each child, and that schools are there-
fore essential. But the same thing applies to younger children,
and the mother who has two, or even three, young children
unable to walk, is severely handicapped in her attempts to
look after another child, say of four or five, to say nothing of
cooking and washing for the family. The truth is that it is
want of association, want of co-ordination of her duties, that
lie at the root of the evil. All that man has achieved has been
done by division of labour and by co-operation with other
men. I am convinced that the problem of domestic economy
will never be satisfactorily solved until we have a much greater
measure of association and co-operation among women than
we have at present. The home ought to be a place of
rest and recreation, a place of cheerfulness, and to some
extent of leisure, and this it can never be as long as it is
presided over by an overworked drudge, whose work is not
effective because it is exerted in too many directions.
I am quite aware of the difficulties that surround this
subject. It proposes great changes in economic life for which
many conservative Englishmen and their still more conserva-
tive wives are perhaps still unprepared. Nevertheless, I am
convinced that it is only by the adoption of some of the
principles of co-operation that the earnings of working men
can be spent with advantage and the problem of domestic
life be solved. Women alone cannot command the capital
to start the necessary institutions, and we can only call upon
municipal effort directed by the central Government to initiate
the movement.
At Berlin we find institutions like the Pestalozzi Froebel
house, a. great model Kindergarten, where children are
received at fees from 6d. to 3s. a month according to the
means of the parents. There are large halls in which the
children drill and sing, and class-rooms in which 16 children
are taught at a time. Every room has some live birds or
animals or plants, and the children are trained to tend them.
The rooms are decorated with pictures; at midday every child
has a slice of rye bread, and can buy milk to drink for a
halfpenny, and dine at school for a penny.
Another institution which we ought certainly to import, are
schools of domestic economy for women and girls on the
model of the German Letteverein, which has been an immense
success. It occupies a great block of buildings west of Berlin.
There every branch of housekeeping art is taught, from the
proper way of scouring a pan to fine laundry work and
darning, besides every branch of cookery. These institutions
are I believe self-supporting, and I understand that nothing is
needed but the initial expense to start them, and success will
be assured. I therefore propose that women call upon
Parliament to empower the Local Government Board
(1) To inaugurate in our larger mauufacturing towns
municipal creches and kindergartens for young children,
involving a minimum charge of 6d. a month per child.
(2) To call the attention of the municipalities to the
success of the cheap eating-houses in Berlin and France,
and ask their help in establishing similar kitchens in
England, with a view to making them self-supporting.
(3) To compel municipalities to provide for groups of
houses separate co-operative wash-houses apportioned to
the needs of the community.
(4) To establish schools of instruction in the domestic
arts in suitable centres, where instruction in all branches
would be given to women and girls, at low charges.
THE GIRL.
There is scarcely any subject of national importance which
has been so long and persistently neglected as the interests of
the girl, and it is scarcely too much to say that her position
44
and future have never received the serious attention of
legislators. Vaguely supposed to have been provided for by
marriage, she has not been trained for the duties of married
life. Failing marriage the girl has not been adequately
trained to earn her own living. It has been assumed that she
is only needed for race-production, without any thought of
her personal happiness, her private ambition, or intellectual
or moral advancement.
In the name of justice, women ask first that the education
of girls should be regarded of at least equal importance to
that of boys, and that similar advantages should be given
children of both sexes, and an equal share of public money
expended upon each. This is at present far from being
the case. The teachers in boys' elementary schools are more
highly paid than the teachers in girls' schools. One finds
better appliances, more extended courses of study upon the
boys' side. When schools are defective, the tendency is to
erect new buildings for boys and leave the old inconvenient
premises for girls. Girls and infants are often classed
together, to the disadvantage of the girls. Enquiry would
show that a considerably less sum is spent on girls per head
than upon boys. Women desire, therefore, that any sum thus
saved on the girls' education in elementary schools should be
reserved for the higher instruction of girls only.
In the second place, the money spent on Secondary Educa-
tion for boys is greatly in excess of that spent on Secondary
Education for girls. Large sums of money left for the
purposes of education have for years been devoted either
entirely or chiefly to the education of boys, and it will be
found that when many endowments have been left for girls
and boys jointly the whole or the greater part of this sum
has been deflected for the use of boys only. Women ask for
an enquiry into the whole of this question, and they think it
only just that where they have been defrauded in the past of
a fair share of such endowments, for some years to come a
much greater share should be given to girls than to boys in
45
compensation for the past misappropriation of their funds.
Parliament should compel universities employing any public
money or endowed by money left for purposes of education to
offer their advantages to suitable young persons without
distinction of sex. Societies or corporations in enjoyment
of public money or establishment by Royal Grant or
Charter should be obliged to open their examinations and
privileges to women, or forfeit any advantage they obtain by
public recognition.
The advantages of such colleges and institutions so long
enjoyed by young men would prove of equal value to girls,
and there is no shadow of excuse for reserving these benefits
to one sex only.
At present the usual fate of the girl who leaves school is to
drift into some branch of industry which needs no skill,
involves no training, and brings in only the merest pittance,
not enough to support healthy life, and in which there is no
chance of a substantial rise. The earnings of these girls are,
however, a useful addition to the family income; and with
the money so earned parents are able to educate their boys to
skilled trades, by which sons are soon able not only to
support themselves, but possibly to provide for a wife and
family.
An instance of this can be seen in porcelain factories,
where quite young girls are employed to dab colour upon
patterns printed on china ware, for which they are paid 3s. or
4s. weekly. During the time that daughters are thus
employed, the boys of the same family are studying in the
Art Schools, earning nothing for some years, in order to fit
themselves for positions where the wages run from 2 a week
upwards. In the East End of London such girls drift into
trades like bottle-washing and fruit-picking, which yield a
small immediate return, but in which it is never possible to
earn a living wage. The beginner gets 4s. or 5s., and 10s.
appears to be the limit that can Be reached. This money is
usually given in contribution to family expenses. But it is
46
worthy of consideration whether the wages and earnings of
young girls and young persons should not be considered their
own property, and parents and guardians be considered as
trustees for the child, when they receive money earned by
daughters.
It is frequently asked, why do not such girls become
domestic servants, and the answer is obvious. There is
absolutely no adequate machinery to train domestic servants
in this country. A few institutions, many of them on the
prison model, educate orphan-girls to be servants ; a few
charitable ladies train individual girls; and that is all.
Enquiries at Registry Offices as to whether any efforts
are made to secure or educate servants, are met with the
following response ; " No, we simply wait for them to come
to us."
Lady Bell gives the following instance of a girl who desired
to go to service in Middlesborough. " A girl of fifteen went
into service in a workman's house as 'general,' earning 3s.
weekly. This growing girl actually did all the cooking and
most of the work of the house she was in, besides the whole
of the washing for the master and mistress, and family of six.
She had to get up at four a.m., and on ironing days to sit up
till past midnight." This, though perhaps exceptionally hard,
is a type of much that girls suffer on first entering service in
lower and middle class houses, which are usually the only ones
open to them. The lot of the lodging-house slavey is a bye-
word, and the classes who employ these untrained servants
give them a hard life and low wages, without the instruction
which is really necessary to qualify them for good places.
Cooking is learned from persons who do not themselves know
how to cook, and the knowledge of the peculiarities of valuable
furniture and polished surfaces is never acquired. In addition
to this, the girl's future is at the mercy of any individual
master or mistress, who is at liberty either to give, or not to
give, a satisfactory character; there is no assurance of
continued work, no home to go to between one situation and
47
another, and little possible chance of any provision for old age.
These considerations, with the absence of leisure and freedom,
make domestic service unpopular. There is nothing that
would add more to the comfort of the country than a serious
effort to inprove the conditions of domestic service, especially
at the beginning when young girls seek training.
Nor are the openings in commerce much more attractive.
Lady Bell writes : " If this girl had gone into a draper's, where
she might have been apprenticed to the dressmaking depart-
ment, she would have had to work for two years for nothing,
having had 1 Is. Od. deposited for her to learn the trade.
After the two years were expired she would have earned 15/-
a week, but no meals. If she had gone as an assistant in the
shop, she would have had three months or six months at the
cashier's desk, and the remainder behind the counter, dinner
and tea given, but no wages : also giving her work free for two
years. After that time 10s. a week is the most she can hope
for, and frequently it is not more than 5s."
This system, where years of life are given without wages
on the pretence of teaching girls a trade, is a fraud of the most
despicable character. The victims of what has been called
" the apprenticeship trick " are merely exploited ; they are not
taught, and at the end of two years without wages they are
often still unskilled workers.
In the case of boys, parents and the State do make some
effort to secure for them training of many kinds. The Army
feeds and pays young men who enlist ; the Navy takes boys
and feeds and educates them for their duties ; technical
schools, art classes, polytechnics, devote practically their
whole energies to the training of boys: and yet even in the
case of boys the Poor Law Commission reports that the
drifting of boys into unskilled occupations, which lead to no
permanent trade, is the main cause of unemployment. If this
is the case with regard to boys, the case of girls is very much
worse, and, whatever effort is macte to train boys, that effort
should be redoubled in the case of girls.
48
A meeting was held at the Mansion House in October, 1908,
when the chairwoman made the following statement : " It is
true that the great Polytechnics, the London County Council
Technical Institutes and Schools of Art, were established
with the aim of encouraging the higher technical and artistic
education of both men and women ; but the result has been
that, with the exception of one notable instance, a quite
disproportionate amount of accommodation and teaching has
been given to men's work, while efforts on behalf of women
are still mainly confined to the provision of art instruction
and to teaching commercial subjects to students able to pay
fees. The women's department is often tucked away in garret
or basement, and provides instruction in household arts only.
In a few cases where technical instruction has been given by
the County Council, evidence shows that the classes have been
a great success. Nevertheless, the unbiassed observer will be
struck by the great difference in the amount of money which
the London County Council has hitherto bestowed on men's
and women's work. In this year's estimates might be seen
30,000 put forward for an extension to the School of Building
and 25,000 for the Westminster Technical Institute, both
practically for men's work alone (though there is an art section
at Westminster). These estimates are for work already sanc-
tioned by the Council. Then there are 63,800 for the Central
School of Arts and Crafts and 25,500 for the Hammersmith
School of Arts and Crafts, both splendid institutions, but
providing instruction, not for the working-girl, but for the girl
able to pay fees. And amidst all this outlay of money there
are sums of 1,600 and 15,000 put forward for girls' schools ;
sums, however, not yet passed by the Council."
One advantage in lengthening the school course for girls so
as to include industrial training would be the protection
afforded them against temptation and against the systematic
efforts of gangs of evil disposed persons who are allowed to
take advantage of the innocence of female children to entrap
them into immoral life. Social reformers have repeatedly
49
called attention to this White Slave traffic, the Salvation
Army have testified to its evils, and it has been brought to the
attention of Parliament, without however any serious effort
on the part of the Government to deal with this iniquity.
The matter is very urgent, and though I do not propose to
enter into the matter here at length, no Women's Charter
would be complete without clauses enacted to suppress these
crimes. I believe, also, it would be a public advantage if the
age at which a girl can legally consent to her own dishonour
were raised to 18 years, and legal marriage postponed until
that time.
It is necessary, however, to do more than to place technical
training within the reach of women and girls. A distinct
organization is needed to induce them to take advantage of it.
In the case of boys, some such machinery is already suggested
and may soon be put into force. It is very important that
whatever inducement is used to urge boys to learn skilled
trades ought also to be put in force as far as possible with
regard to girls. The moment to be taken advantage of is that
when the girl leaves school, and some public official or
authority ought to be on the watch to induce girls to select a
suitable occupation and thoroughly to learn its details. Those
girls who show talent ought to be advised to adopt careers
where that talent may be made useful, not only to the girl
herself, but to the community. Good arithmeticians should
be induced to undertake technical instruction in book-keeping,
and so shorten the period of apprenticeship in shops during
which no wages are earned. Girls with artistic talent should
be taught the scientific principles of dressmaking before
offering their services to the trade.
The need of skilled workers in the trades in which women
are engaged is very marked. In a careful enquiry into
women's trades made by Mrs. Oakeshott during 1906 and 1907
and published recently by the London County Council, the
result of the investigations demonstrated how great was the
need for skilled workers. One employer said, " This country
50
needs the training of women to enable it to compete with
foreign workers. There are plenty of inefficient, but few
good ones." Another finds a dearth of efficient and a mass
of inefficient workers. A forewoman in engaging hands asks,
" Can you take a bodice throughout ? " and the answer is
nearly always " No." Applicants cannot even do one branch
properly. A third " dreads next season " because her hands
" are not fit to do their work." Girls entering millinery,
dressmaking or upholstery houses are nearly always employed
during the first year as errand girls, and even if allowed to sit
at the worktable they are kept at the uninteresting and
mechanical parts of the work to an unfair extent. Miss Helen
Smith, lady superintendent of the Borough Polytechnic,
gives the following testimony : " In the Polytechnic schools,
in the technical schools, pupils are taught a special skilled
trade, but the instruction is not so specialised as it would be
in the workroom. For instance, the dressmaking pupil is
equally capable of skirts, bodice and sleeves ; the upholstery
pupil works at every branch of her trade from drapery to
leather work. Possibly in the future the trade instruction
may be even wider, and this range of talent is a great
insurance against unemployment when a worker who only
knows one branch will be discharged."
Germany and Switzerland and also France are ahead of us
in these technical schools for girls. So much is this the case
that Englishwomen cannot compete with Frenchwomen in
the higher branches of dressmaking, embroidery, flower-making
and artistic handicrafts. Numbers of French dressmakers
and milliners come to London and earn high wages. All the
best of such goods are imported direct from Paris, and are the
direct results of technical schools which are administered "in a
truly generous and disinterested spirit from which we have much
to learn." They provide for a far larger number of girls and
actually replace apprenticeship, and are called apprenticeship
schools. Maintenance and grants of dinners are also granted
in necessitous cases. " Immense importance is attached to
51
drawing, which is recognised as the basis of all women's
trades, and is very thoroughly taught. Each pupil makes
drawings of her work, and learns to draw to scale and to
measure, and to make sketches of all models exhibited. The
artificial flower-maker is never allowed to begin without the
real flower before her, which she is made to copy. Great
stress is laid on the encouragement of the initiative and
originality of the pupil. Each must design as well as copy
the work she has in hand." It is obvious that with such
.great advantages, Paris must be far ahead of us in the
dressmaking trade, and even Germany sends over quantities of
clothing which might easily be made in this country. A vast
field is thus opened for skilled workers, who should have no
difficulty in getting employment.
If between the ages of 15, when girls should begin to
earn, and 25, when on the average the greatest number
of marriages take place, women could out of their own
earnings save something to help in the struggle during
the early years of marriage when help is so greatly
needed in most homes, much would be done to solve
the problem which besets the early years of motherhood.
But whether this is possible or no, once equipped as a skilled
worker, a woman becomes independent. She is able to keep
herself before marriage ; she can wait and select the mate she
prefers; she is able to return to her trade if her marriage prove
unhappy; she is able to help the family if the husband fall
into ill health or meet with misfortune, and finally at the end
of marriage she is able to take up again her skilled work and
support herself without becoming a burden upon anyone. This
is economic independence ; and until the economic independ-
ence of women is secured in all countries so long will the tale
of women's suffering and misery continue. The girl who is
not economically independent is not free. She is bound
to find a man to keep her, she must accept an unsuitable
mate, not because she loves him^ but because she cannot
support herself, and must find someone to feed her. The wife
52
who has not saved anything before her marriage and has no
power to earn her living, is absolutely at the mercy of her
husband, and may at any time become destitute. The widow
who is not economically independent finds the workhouse her
only certain refuge until she becomes qualified for an old
age pension.
GENERAL ECONOMIC CONDITION
OF WOMEN.
In conclusion, I desire to bring before all certain facts
concerning women and their economic position, which ought
to influence the trend of legislature on this most important
subject.
Of the eleven million women in this country over fifteen
years of age, not quite half are married. Many of these
women work for weekly wages, and many assist their husbands
in business. Thus more than half the adult women are
unmarried, and the greater proportion of these earn their
own living. Comparatively few have inherited property. In
this country I have heard the proportion of classes roughly
calculated as follows : to every one woman of the upper class
there are three of the middle class and nine of the working
class. Of the upper class we may suppose that practically
all inherit sufficient money to live upon, though of course
their means are very much more straitened than those of
their male relatives. Of the middle class, a large and
increasingly-growing number support themselves. It is to
this class that women typewriters, clerks, shop assistants
and school teachers belong. It has been estimated that at
least half of this class live by their own earnings, without
counting many daughters of shop-keepers or farmers who
assist in the family business. In the low^r class, the great
majority earn their own livelihood, usually as work-girls or
servants. The census of 1901 gives the number of women
53
working in trades for weekly wages as nearly 4,000,000, and
there is reason to suppose that this is much tinder the true
figure, as women consider it more genteel to describe them-
selves as unoccupied, or as married women only.
Of the adult women in the country, one quarter never marry.
These, therefore, are permanent workers, practically thrown
on their own resources for life. Of the remaining three-
quarters, only half the population are actually married at one
time, the remaining quarter either have been, or will be,
married. Between the ages of 45 and 55 however, a great
proportion of these women are widowed, and many return to
work. Thus three-quarters of the women of this country who
are married or will marry, are only provided for by marriage
for some twenty or thirty years of their lives ; and there are
usually a number of years at the beginning and the end of life
when they must fend for themselves. The theory, therefore,
that any woman should look to marriage alone as a means of
living is entirely fallacious, and more so when we reflect that
even a considerable portion of married women are also
obliged to work for their living. Thus we have in the Labour
market a huge army of women, mostly untrained, mostly
dependent on their own labour for a livelihood.
Under our economic system and laws, such women are
unjustly treated.
In the first place, as I have pointed out, it is no one's
business to see that they are trained for any work at all ; and
being unskilled they cannot on an average command wages
sufficiently high to support healthy life. The Royal Commission
which reported on the subject declared the average earned
by women workers was not more than 7s. per week.
But in addition to being 4 thus untrained, the kind of work in
which they are permitted to engage has been arbitrarily
selected for them, not with a view to its suitability to women,
but entirely because men do not care to engage in it. No one
can say that a long day at the wash tub, the scrubbing of
cellars, the sorting of refuse, and kindred trades are specially
54
suitable for women, yet these are included in women's work.
No one can say that the handling of ribbons, the painting of
ornamental china, the dressing of women's hair, are occupa-
tions suited to men ; yet they are considered men's work.
Every trade that a man chooses to engage in, is man's work ;
men are allowed freely to invade any trade in which women
are engaged, and turn them out of it. Men have monopolised
the brewing trade, which occupied women in ancient times ;
they have monopolised the baking trade, which was in the
hands of women ; they have invaded the washing trade. With
capital and machinery men are taking the profits, and are
relegating the women to the position of drudges. Even the
women's clothing trade is now exploited by men with capital,
able to import and copy French confections.
On the other hand, women are kept strictly out of men's
work by the serried rank of men's Trade Unions, who do not
allow women to practise the higher branches of skilled trades.
On going over a factory I saw a man working a special
knitting machine, and earning 3 a week. He was waited on
at the time by a woman who earned 10s. a week, and I asked
the manager if the woman could not do the work at the
knitting machine as well as the man ? He said, " Every bit
as well ; but the Trade Union rules will not allow it." This
is only an instance of what goes on practically in all handi-
crafts. Potters will not let them use the wheel, tailors will
not let them cut out, and so on through all branches. The
consequence is, that the trades in which women are permitted
to engage are so overcrowded, and there is such competition
amongst women, that women's wages are now far below their
normal value throughout the whole labour market. This is a
condition of things which Parliament has done absolutely
nothing to remedy. Women contend that either there ought
to be Free Trade in labour that is, that any woman ought to
be able to obtain instruction in any trade, and take any
occupation offered her in that trade ; or else a much greater
number of trades ought to be selected as specially suitable for
55
women, and women alone allowed to engage in them. Both
systems would have some advantages ; but nothing could be
worse than the present system, by which men are allowed to
engage freely in all trades, and also have power to dictate to
women by law how and when and where they may earn their
bread.
A Government which rules over men and women alike
should show no partiality to either, but should advance and
protect women in their efforts to earn a living just as it
advances and protects men. So far from this being the case,
the action of the Legislature has been to prohibit and forbid
the work of women and to impose penalties on those who
employ them. I am in favour of the limitation of the hours of
all workpeople. I approve of the Factory and Workshops
Acts as they relate to sanitary and other requirements for the
health of the workers. But women ask that all these
beneficent provisions should be extended to men when they
work at the same trades as women, and if possible, to all the
trades at which men only are employed.
There is no doubt that women's work, as compared with
men's, is paid for at much less than its value, and one reason
for this is that manufacturers who employ women have to
incur extra expense and trouble in complying with the
provisions of the Factory Acts. If the same provisions applied
to men, this objection would disappear, as the employer would
not be able to save money by replacing women by men, but
would in either case have to incur the same expenses in
factory requirements. It is no doubt true that the Factory
Acts have not lowered the wages of women in the textile
trades, because women have gained a practical monopoly of
these trades, though it is the only important trade of which
they have obtained complete command. This makes it
impossible for employers to replace them by men ; but in
other trades where women and men are employed at
practically the same work, the provisions of the Factory Acts
do act as a handicap upon women.
56
But the most important reason why women desire these
restrictions extended to men, is for the sake of the men
themselves. Men are never tired of talking of the poor health
of women : the truth is, it is their own health which now most
needs safe-guards. There is no doubt that women, owing
largely to their mode of life, are muscularly weaker than
men. Nevertheless they are much more tenacious of life, and
at every age, a woman has 4 years more expectation of life
than a man. It is sometimes thought that it is the sheltered
life that women lead that produces these good results, but this
is proved to be not the case. Miss Hutchins, in her paper
recently read before the Statistical Society, gives the following
figures relating to one year's deaths in the country :
Death of men by misadventure ... ... ... 10,895
Death of women by misadventure ... ... j 4,889
Death of women by causes peculiar to women ... I 4,672
Thus we see that the greater danger to men by accident is
almost counter-balanced by the danger to women through
maternity.
The manner in which women outlive men is remarkable.
It is interesting to note that 130 women have received Old
Age Pensions for every 100 men. Thus it is seen that woman
is the more permanent part of humanity, man the more fleeting,
and to deny to her equal liberty with man to find food by labour
is manifestly unsound.
One reason which leads men to advocate restrictions for
women's work is that thereby men gain an advantage over
women in the labour market, but this is an unworthy motive,
and ought not to influence legislators to exempt men-workers
from those health provisions which are thought so advantageous
for women.
If then it is recognised that women not only do, but must
and ought to, support themselves during most years of life,
then the only fair plan would be to allow men and women
an equal chance of earning a livelihood. If indeed one
worker only exists by taking the bread out of the mouth of
57
another, then surely it is time not to starve out the mother-
sex only, but to make a national effort to check the growth of
population. Fathers and mothers should be made to under-
stand that their offspring is not wanted, and that babies
merely grow up to take the bread out of one another's
mouths. All regrets about the diminution of the birth-rate
should cease, and it should be recognised that the resources
of the Anglo-Saxon race are limited, and that its chances of
world-wide empire are negatived by economic difficulties. If,
on the other hand, our political economists are of opinion
that life and population are a source of wealth to the Empire
and I myself incline to this view then every man and
woman who is trained to do something useful in the world is
capable of adding to the wealth of the country, and there
is absolutely no reason to fear the ultimate effect of the
competition of women with men for employment. Fresh
trades are always arising, a growth of population and of a
higher scale of living in all countries bring into existence new
wants, which demand an ever-growing body of workers.
Some people appear to think that women should be kept
out of the industrial market altogether, and that men should
feed them, whether such women have young children dependent
upon them or not, and whether such women are perfectly well
able to earn their own living or not. The objection to this is
twofold. First men decline to keep all women ; they support
only those that please them, those that minister to them
personally, or are nearly related to them. Second woman,
if trained and allowed opportunity to work, will be quite
capable of keeping herself.
The only period in the life of woman when she is necessarily
dependent upon man is during the comparatively short period
of her life when she is rearing young children. Only then is
support essential to her, and this is unfortunately just the
time when she often fails to receive all the support she needs.
But if we say that the young manned women of the country
are not sufficiently supported, it is curious to observe the vast
58
numbers of unoccupied women who, with no young children
dependent upon them, are nevertheless fed by the labours
of men. Many such women have never been trained to
remunerative work. It would be a gross injustice to call
them idle, because they do occupy themselves in many ways,
in all the ways indeed open to them, but their occupations are
so desultory, so trivial, so aimless, that they produce no
equivalent result. These women hang like a millstone round
the necks of men, who in later life often deny themselves
much-needed liberty and recreation in order to minister to
the wants of wives and daughters who ought to be quite as
capable of earning a living as the man himself. Thus one
sees how man, in his desire to possess entire power over
woman, has over-reached himself, and has brought into
existence a class who, through no fault of their own, one can
only call parasitical. Women recognize that no person should
live upon the work of another, except the woman who has
young children. All should work. Rich women should give
voluntary service to the State, and women in a lower station
should be encouraged to acquire that skill which would bring
interest into their lives, and which would give them the
privilege of doing something to help their families.
To regard woman as a consumer and spender is to mistake
the whole spirit of womanhood. Women love to work and to
minister to all who are dear to them, whether husband,
children, or parents ; and failing this, their greatest pleasure
would be to assist the poor and suffering in their own
country, and to help the land of their birth to achieve
happiness. It is because they are not able to do this,
because they feel that their talents and powers are wasted
through want of training, want of capital, want of opportunity,
and want of political power, that they have drawn up this
Charter of rights and liberties.
Women ask, that in all legislation Parliament should
recognise that women do and must work to earn their own
living. The Government should do its utmost to raise wages
59
and improve the position of women workers by abolishing
disabilities and by opening new branches of skilled employ-
ment to women.
POLITICAL RIGHTS.
LOCAL, GOVERNMENT.
Parliament has already conferred on women many rights in
respect to Local Government, and the result of these
measures has admittedly been good. As women have proved
their usefulness in local offices, they trust that a wider local
franchise notably by the abolition of coverture, advocated
in another part of this charter may ultimately be accorded
to them. It is to be hoped that not only will women's
disabilities in local government be ultimately removed, but
that specially qualified women who have proved their useful-
ness in the public service, may be appointed in increasing
numbers to fill important administrative posts.
At the same time the duties of voters at Local Government
elections are difficult. It is very hard to know which of seven
or eight more or less unknown candidates is best fitted to
deal with road-making, lighting, paving, draining, and other
various technical businesses carried on by county and
municipal bodies. The motives which urge many candidates
to come forward for municipal posts are equally obscure, and
the voter has little means of judging, either of the public
spirit of the candidate, or of his qualifications for the post he
seeks. The small number of women electors makes the
female vote a hopeless minority.
Even if elected on the Local Board, a woman finds herself
in a position where to do useful work she must give her whole
time to public affairs, services for which she receives neither
money nor thanks.
To confer the municipal rights therefore upon women, is
practically to permit them to work in* the public service for
nothing, and there is little in these rights which confer an
60
actual benefit upon women themselves. They are in the
position of women who once belonged to a certain church,
and who asked to have a share in its administration ; after the
elders had conferred they announced their decision that
women in future would be allowed to sweep out the chapeL
The task of sweeping out the abuses in municipal government
is no doubt great, and I trust women will take their part
worthily in this work.
But though the power to exercise rights in local govern-
ment will give women the opportunity of serving the public, it
will enable them to do little or nothing to improve their own
legal position. Many subjects the Charter deals with, such
as rights of mothers and wives, the laws of inheritance,
divorce, and the guardianship of children, can only be dealt
with by Parliament itself. It is the Parliamentary Franchise
that women most earnestly desire, and for which they have
the most use.
PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.
The reasons why women desire the Parliamentary Fran-
chise are many. Perhaps the most important of these is the
fact that the laws made by men for women never have been
just in any country or at any time ; and notwithstanding some
legislative improvements in recent years, these pages de-
monstrate the existence to-day of many laws both oppressive
and unfair to women. Even if the reforms proposed in this
Charter were passed into law, women would still need the
Parliamentary Franchise to guard their interests. Hardly an
Act passes but has some direct or reflex action upon the lives
of women, which men are never very quick to see. Further,
the advance of women's interests in the industrial world may
lead to opposition from the Trades Unions of men. In a
country where the whole representative body is practically
elected by working men, there is very great danger to the
interests of the other half of the human race, whose very
existence depends on their power to work and their right to
61
engage in every employment that offers a chance of a living.
Not only is the economic advance of women at stake, but
their personal rights and liberties lie at the mercy of another
sex, a sex which loves dominion, and which on many occasions
has threatened the most sacred human rights of women, and
in one notable instance within our memory has ruthlessly
sacrificed these rights without discussion, on the advice of a
few Army doctors. This legislation, now fortunately repealed
in England, but still in force in British dependencies, has
shaken for ever public confidence in man's reverence for the
personal liberties of women, and never again will women feel
in a position of political safety until they have a direct vote in
the election of members of Parliament.
There never was a time when the House of Commons was
so favourably disposed towards women as it is to-day ; there
was never a time when the demand for enfranchisement was
so sympathetically and respectfully debated in the House ;
and I venture to think that the time will not be long before
some women at least are placed on the Parliamentary roll.
Our friends will then see what women can do to help those
who help them, and how conscientiously they will strive to
fulfil the duties of voters.
However this may be, it is certain that the demand for the
Parliamentary Franchise will grow in this and all other
countries, and whether it is granted or not during the next
few years, this agitation will prove the most potent weapon
ever known in the world's history. It will unite women, not
in one country, but in all countries. The nations are linked
together in the fight, they feel their aim is one, their interests
are one. They have but to go on and conquer. For them it
is written : * Ask, and it shall be given."
THE WOMEN'S CHARTER OF RIGHTS
AND OF LIBERTIES.
(1) COVERTURE.
The whole doctrine of Coverture shall be declared obsolete and
abolished by Act of Parliament.
(2) RIGHT OF MAINTENANCE.
As the law admits a wife's claim to maintenance by her husband,
any wife living with her husband and not so maintained shall be able
to recover a suitable maintenance by direct application to the
magistrate, without the intervention of the Poor Law Guardians,
and such magistrate if he is satisfied that the husband can, but does
not, support his wife and children, shall be empowered to make an
order upon him for such a sum as he may consider suitable, and if
necessary make such sum recoverable from any master who employs
the husband out of wages due.
3 EARNINGS.
(a) A wife who devotes her whole time to housekeeping and the
care of the children shall have a claim upon her husband during
his life, and upon his estate after his death, for a sum calculated
on a scale not exceeding the wages of a housekeeper in her
station of life.
(6) Moneys saved by a wife out of housekeeping shall be her
own, when they do not exceed an amount calculated on that scale.
(c) A wife shall be a creditor for the amount on her husband's
estate in case of his bankruptcy.
(d) In any dissolution of the marriage or any separation, a wife
shall be entitled to payment for past services on this scale, should
such payment not have been made during the marriage.
(e) Where the wife is a wage-earner she shall not be legally
liable for the support of her husband or of his children, unless her
earnings or the income of her property exceed the minimum
necessary for her support.
63
(/) No wife shall be detained in the workhouse at the pleasure
of her husband, if she is able and willing to support herself.
(g) No widow shall by law be obliged to maintain her children
if the father's estate is sufficient for that purpose.
(4) THE WIFE AS PARTNER.
In any case where the husband and wife work jointly at the same
business, the profits, after paying fair interest on the capital of
either party, shall be regarded as joint property of the husband and
wife, unless agreed otherwise by contract in writing between the
parties.
(5) MARRIAGE CONTRACTS.
Where both husband and wife possess property, marriage contracts
shall be drawn up by which each party binds his or herself to make
a fixed minimum contribution to house-keeping, which sum shall be
recoverable by law by either party, so long as he or she shall perform
the duties of the marriage. No husband or wife shall be legally
liable for the expenses of the other beyond the sum agreed upon.
(8) ASSAULTS ON WIVES.
Magistrates shall inflict heavier penalties on men convicted of
brutality to women and especially to wives. Wives and children of
men so convicted and sent to prison, shall be entitled to support,
but not as paupers, during the term of the husband's sentence, by a
rate levied directly on the locality where they live.
(7) DIVORCE.
The law of Divorce shall be amended as follows :
(a) To entitle either party to a divorce on the ground of un-
faithfulness alone.
(D) W11C1C Lllt.lt
aie HU tmiuibii
Ul a lllAl'l'IftgCi Vkl Till.
fl* f-hf" (^Otlf'f ivyj
b
(c) To allow either party to obtain a dissolution of marriage on
any of the following grounds : habitual drunkenness, confirmed
drug habit, conviction of grave offence entailing at least two
years' imprisonment, cruelty either mental or physical, or wilful
desertion.
(d) Where husband or wife after desertion has left the country,
power to be given to effect service of citation by publication in the
London Gazette (as in bankruptcy) without requiring personal
service to be effected outside Great Britain.
64
(e) To allow a marriage to be dissolved in this country on any
of these grounds by the petition of a wife where the husband is a
foreigner, thus relieving the wife of the difficulty of applying to
foreign Courts of Law.
(/) The Court of First Instance for the consideration of
Matrimonial Causes to be the County Court of the district in
which parties have resided during the greater part of the year
preceding the presentation of the petition for Divorce, Judicial
Separation, or Nullity of Marriage. The facts upon which the
petition is based to be verified by affidavit, and be subject to
cross-examination which shall take place in camera, except on the
motion for judgment. All appeals to be to the Judges of the
Divorce Division of the High Court, who shall be the Appellate
Court for all matrimonial causes.
(8) CHILDREN.
(a) Fathers and mothers shall be joint guardians of their
. children. In case of difference of opinion the Court on an
originating summons shall decide in accordance with what it con-
siders to be the benefit of the child.
(b) The mother shall be recognised as a parent for the purposes
of the Vaccination Act. ^-H/v^
(c) In case of the death of a^ illegitimate child, due to the
violence or neglect of the mother within a month of the child's
birth, the penalty imposed shall be not more than two years'
imprisonment, to be followed by a period of two years industrial
training.
(d) Children born to parents before marriage 'shall be legitimized
by subsequent marriage.
(e) Illegitimate children shall succeed in cases of intestacy to
real and personal property by maternal descent or through paternal
descent on proof of formal adoption.
(/) The children of divorced parents shall be ipso facto wards
of Court.
(9) DOMICILE.
The law of England shall be assimilated in this respect to that of
Germany, namely, that no woman can be bound to accept a foreign
domicile against her will.
(10) MARRIAGE SERVICE.
The House of Commons shall request the Bishops of the Church
of England in Convocation to draw up a new marriage service in
accordance both with womanly dignity and with legal truth.
65
(11) INHERITANCE.
(a) The ancient right of wives to dower shall be restored, shall
be extended to personalty, and shall be made independent of the
husband's disposition, whether by deed or will.
(&) In cases of intestacy of either husband or wife the respective
rights of husband, wife and children to real property shall be the
same as in the case of personal property.
(c) In case of the husband or wife dying intestate, leaving a
survivor of the marriage, the widow or widower so surviving shall
take half the real and personal estate, and the remaining half
shall be divided equally between the children.
(12) TESTAMENTARY POWER.
No person shall have power to disinherit his or her children, and
testamentary power shall extend to not more than half the property
of either parent after providing for the payment of dower, and the
other half shall be divided in equal shares between the children of
the marriage.
(13) EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
(a) The amount of money spent on each girl per head in
Elementary Schools shall be equal to that expended on each boy.
(b) A sum equal to that expended on boys shall be placed at
the disposal of every Education Authority for the Secondary
Education of Girls.
(c) An enquiry shall be instituted into all the funds bequeathed
for purposes of education, and an equal share shall be given to
each sex in consideration of the past misappropriation of funds
left for the education of girls.
(d) In view of the urgent need of technical education for women,
every facility and inducement given to boys to obtain such
education shall be extended also to girls.
(e) All Universities, Colleges, Societies, Inns of Court,
Institutes and public bodies, deriving money or authority from the
State shall open their advantages equally to men and women.
(14) IMMORALITY.
(a) The age at which a girl can legally consent to her own
dishonour shall be raised to 18 years.
(b) The government shall appoint a commission of women to
consider the best means of stamping out open immorality and
suppressing disorderly houses, gtteh commission to consider the.
propiiilj uf L&Ubli&hing A special WUIIIEH'B puliu. Lu deal ith thia
rv *v*4yunder the control of competent women to whom authority
should be given and special funds allowed.
(c) In all British dependencies the provisions of the Contagious
Diseases Acts relating to women shall be repealed.
(15) MEASURES FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF
MARRIED WOMEN OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
(a) Parliament shall make a provision for the education and
appointment of qualified midwives to replace the women driven
from practice by recent legislation.
(b) Parliament shall compel municipalities to establish creches
and playrooms for the working-class children, on the model of the
German Pestalozzi Froebel House, at a charge to each child of
6d. to 3s. per month.
(c) Parliament shall compel municipalities in large towns to
provide milk suitable for the food of infants and young children.
(d) Parliament shall compel municipalities to establish cheap
eating-houses and kitchens in working class centres, on the model
of those established in Berlin.
(e) Parliament shall compel municipalities to establish wash-
houses appropriate to the needs of the community in working
class or crowded localities.
(/) Schools shall be established in large centres where in-
struction in all branches of the domestic arts shall be given to
women and girls at low charges.
(16) FACTORY ACTS AND ECONOMICS.
(a) In every case where the law forbids the mother to continue
her occupation before or after the birth of her child, the legisla-
ture shall make the municipality responsible for her support
during the time of prohibition, whether it can recover such
charges from the husband or not.
(b) All regulations as to work and overtime which apply to
women shall be extended, wherever applicable, to men working at
the same trade.
(c) A distinction shall be made between the labour of young
persons of both sexes, and that of adult persons, and adult women
shall be allowed in certain trades to engage in night-work, pro-
vided the hours of employment are not excessive. The adult
person shall mean any person over 25 years of age.
(d) Parliament shall provide greater facilities for relaxing the
rigid action of the Factory Acts in certain trades where adult
women are employed, either by allowing overtime or permitting a
67
system of shifts by which the working day is prolonged at certain
seasons.
(e) The attention of the legislature shall be called to the fact of
the exclusion of women from many skilled trades by the action
of the men's Trade Unions, and enactments shall be passed giving
special facilities for the education of women in these trades and
freedom to engage in them.
(/) Every effort shall be made to induce Parliament to raise the
wages of women, not only by providing for them an industrial
training, but by opening to them more branches of the public
service.
(g) Equal payment to women and men for equal services shall
be the rule in tbe Government offices.
(A) No local Education authority shall dismiss female school
teachers merely on the ground of marriage, but these shall be
permitted to continue their work as long as they are capable of
effectively performing their duties as teachers.
<17) POLITICAL RIGHTS.
(a) The right to vote at all municipal and local elections,
together with the power to serve on local bodies, shall be accorded
to women equally and on the same terms with men.
(6) No woman otherwise qualified shall be excluded by sex or
marriage from exercising the Parliamentary Franchise.
JOHN SBWBLL,
" The Orosvenor Pr,"
166-16S, Victoria Street,
LONDON, S,W.
