This monstrous invention has been paralleled in modern times by some of the arguments advanced in opposition to woman's emancipation. The reluctance, conscious or subconscious, to admit the role played by brute force in the subjection of women is the true source of these interesting inspirations. Fortunately the truth cannot be suppressed forever, and impartial scientists have shown conclusively that the dual standard did not emanate from the head, but originated in the fist.
So cautious a moralist as Lecky expresses himself as follows:
"The contrast between the levity with which the frailty of men has in most ages been
regarded, and the extreme severity with which women who have been guilty of the same
offense have been treated, forms one of the most singular anomalies in moral history, and
appears the more remarkable when we remember that the temptation usually springs from
the sex which is so readily pardoned. Much of our feeling on these subjects is due to laws and
moral systems which were formed by men, and were in the first instance intended for their own
protection". In his recent work on "Divorce", Prof. Lichtenberger writes in a similar vein: "The
social inferiority of women in all ages is largely responsible for the rise and persistence of the
dual standard". These words may be said to represent correctly the consensus of scientific
opinion on the subject.
Among writers of fiction we find so deep a thinker as George Meredith taking the same
view. He considers the discrimination against women in matters of sex by men who claim for
themselves unrestricted liberties, as part of the Grand Turk ideal of woman. In "Diana of the
Crossways", he puts these words in the mouth of the heroine: "Men may have rounded
Seraglio Point. They have not yet doubled Cape Turk".
Indeed, were the denial of equitable treatment to women not rooted deeply in primitive
emotions, it could scarcely have withstood the repeated assaults made upon it during the past
two thousand years or more. Even at a time when the most flagrant corruption reigned in
Rome, the moralists emphatically asserted that fidelity in wedlock should be exacted from
husband as well as wife. Such was not the case in earlier Roman days, when only the wife was
legally punished for infractions of the nuptial tie.
In fact, it appears to have been the rule in
all early societies to saddle the penalty for adultery upon the woman, leaving the man
unmolested. Occasionally, we do meet with a reversal of this standard, as among certain
Hill tribes of India, which condone infidelity on the part of the wife, while it is held to be
highly dishonorable on the part of the husband. However, such anomalies are extremely rare,
the female transgressor being quite uniformly singled out for obloquy and punishment. The
faithless wife may be given a sound beating, or her body may be mutilated, or she may even
be put to death in various prescribed ways.
This crying injustice of making the woman a scapegoat survived the united attacks of
Greek and Roman writers. Aristotle, Plutarch, Seneca, and Plautus vainly exhorted the
husbands to observe in marriage the loyalty they demanded from their wives. In subsequent
ages, the Christian Fathers continued to harangue the cruel laws which penalized disloyal
wives but not truant husbands. The total failure of this prolonged moral crusade might well
astonish those who put their faith in preaching. "At the present day", complains Lecky, "tho
the standard of morals is far higher than in Pagan Rome, it may be questioned whether the
inequality of the censure which is bestowed upon the two sexes is not as great as in the days
of Paganism, and that inequality is continually the cause of the most shameful and the most
pitiable injustice.
The fundamental truth, that the same act can never be at once venial for
a man to demand, and infamous for a woman to accord, tho nobly enforced by the early
Christians, has not passed into the popular sentiment of Christendom".
After centuries of moralizing, we have failed to improve much upon the semi civilized
past, and if our only hope of amelioration depended on preaching and exhortation, progress
might be delayed for centuries longer. Fortunately, the outlook is not so gloomy, as we shall
presently see. The passages quoted deal mainly with the unfair treatment of the married woman. So
little having been achieved in dislodging the evil from the marriage bond, where its iniquity
is so potent that the laws and moral injunctions of civilized peoples condemn it almost
unanimously, how much can a campaign of arguments and precepts avail against the same
injustice in the sexual life of the unmarried? Need we feel surprise at the current rigid and
ruthless discrimination visited upon the unmarried woman? This attitude has become so
habitual that it is frequently declared to be innate, or due to a natural instinctive feeling
which carries its own justification.