NOT INFERIOR, BUT CERTAINLY DIFFERENT:

Why Women Do Not Wish the Suffrage (Lyman Abbott, September 1903, Atlantic Monthly)

Open an acorn: in it we find the oak in all its parts, -- root, trunk, branches. Look into the home: in it we shall find the state, the church, the army, the industrial organization. As the oak is germinant in the acorn, so society is germinant in the family. Historically, the family is the first organization; biologically it is the origin of all other organizations. Abraham builds an altar, and his wife and children and servants gather about it for the evening sacrifice: the family is the first church. The herds and flocks are driven daily to their feeding grounds by his sons and servants: the family is the first labor organization. He counsels, guides, directs, controls the children and servants; the power of life and death is in his hands: the family is the first government. The brother is carried off in a raid by robber bands. Abraham arms and organizes his servants, pursues the robber bands, conquers and disperses them, and recovers the captive: the family is the first army. Moreover, it is out of the family that society grows. As the cell duplicates itself, and by reduplication the living organism grows, so the family duplicates itself, and by the reduplication of the family the social organism grows. The children of the family come to manhood, and marry the children of other families. Blood unites them; the necessities of warfare, offensive and defensive, unite them; and so the tribe comes into existence. For the united action of this tribe some rule, some authority is necessary; thus tribal, state, national government comes into existence. These families find it for their mutual advantage to engage in separate industries, and exchange the product of their labor: thus barter end trade and the whole industrial organization come into existence. These families thus united by marriage into one tribe, cemented by war in one army, bound together by the necessity of united action in one government, cooperating in one varied industry, find in themselves a common faith and common aspirations, in a word, a common religion, and so the church comes into existence.

Such, very briefly stated, is the development of society as we read it in the complicated history of the past. Historically the family is the first social organization. Organically it contains within itself all the elements of all future organization. Biologically, all future organization has grown out of it, by a process of duplication and interrelationship. In the family, therefore, we find all the elements of a later and more complicated social organization; in the family we may discover written legibly the laws which should determine the structure of society and should regulate its action; the family, rightly understood, will answer our often perplexing questions concerning social organization -- whether it is military, political, industrial, or religious.

The first and most patent fact in the family is the difference in the sexes. Out of this difference the family is created; in this difference the family finds its sweet and sacred bond. This difference is not merely physical and incidental. It is also psychical and essential. It inheres in the temperament; it is inbred in the very fibre of the soul; it differentiates the functions; it determines the relation between man and woman; it fixes their mutual service and their mutual obligations. Man is not woman in a different case. Woman is not man inhabiting temporarily a different kind of body. Man is not a rough-and-tumble woman. Woman is not a feeble and pliable man.

This difference in the sexes is the first and fundamental fact in the family; it is therefore the first and fundamental fact in society, which is but a large family, growing out of and produced by the duplication and interrelationship of innumerable families. For it must ever be remembered that as the nature of the cell determines the nature of the organism which grows out of the cell, so the nature of the family determines the nature of society which grows out of the family. And the fundamental fact, without which there could be no family, is the temperamental, inherent, and therefore functional difference between the sexes.

Because their functions are different, all talk of equality or non-equality is but idle words, without a meaning. Only things which have the same nature and fulfill the same function can be said to be superior to or equal with one another. Things which do not fulfill the same function are not thus comparable. For of two functions, each of which is essential to the life of the organism, neither can be said to be superior to the other. One branch may be equal or superior to another branch; but it cannot be said that the root is superior to the branch or the branch to the root. One eye may be superior to another eye, but the eye cannot be said to be superior to the ear, or the ear to the eye. Which is superior, a soldier or a carpenter? It depends upon whether we want a battle fought or a house built. Which is superior, Darwin's Origin of Species or Browning's Saul? This is like asking which is larger, -- half an hour or half a yard. Gallantry will bow to woman and say, "You are superior." Egotism will look with lordly air on woman and say, "You are inferior." But neither gallantry nor egotism will be rational. These twain are not identical. They do not duplicate each other. Man is not an inferior woman. Woman is not an inferior man. They are different in nature, in temperament, in function. We cannot destroy this difference if we would; we would not if we could. In preserving it lies the joy of the family; the peace, prosperity, and well-being of society.

For all the hostility of the Left to dead white Christian European men, the most salient fact about this cohort--of which I'll soon enough be a member--is that no other group of people have ever surrendered power so peacefully and willing to other groups--especially women and blacks--whose interests were (and are) so uniformly antithetical to their own. Folks can crab all they want about the supposed elitism of the Founders, but the Republic they founded has largely lived up to the ideals they enunciated, even if only gradually. It was certainly noble, even if generally a mistake.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 5, 2003 8:13 PM