The Longest Journey Begins…

I have had a lot to say about petticoat government lately. I have expressed my dissatisfaction with the methods, aims, leadership, and so-called “accomplishments” of both the Women’s Suffrage Movement and it’s granddaughter, Women’s Liberation. I think that for clarity’s sake, I need to develop this theme just a little more.

Back in the day, before the suffrage movement was just getting under way, there was a genuine need for reform on several levels. The women in most upper class western societies  had no effective legal redress against abusive fathers or husbands. If they left them, the man in question could just hunt them down and bring them back. That was the law, very like that which governed runaway slaves. Women had no real property rights in many instances and as they were barred from pursuing a lucrative profession their only option was to try and get a job as a chambermaid, governess, or some other minimum wage job where they would be exposed to the predations of any male in their sphere. This really amounted to no choice at all and then it only worked if they were not pursued by the law. Middle and upper class females were raised to be dependent on their men and if these men happened to be drunken a-holes, well, the poor things were basically stuck. A well bred lady didn’t make a public scene about family troubles.

Notice that I specified upper class here. The females who were born into less affluent families did not have the same problems. The accepted standard of behavior was far different in the working class. If dad or hubby got drunk and tried to be abusive, young Nell or Daisy was as apt to brain him with the fry pan as not and let the chips fall where they would, and dad and hubby knew that. The working class families lived their lives in the kitchen where fry pans were close at hand. The ladies of the upper class lived in the drawing room and had no such domestic weaponry at their disposal. I suppose they could have brained their domestic brute with a Dresden china shepardess but somehow that would not have been the same.

It was also understood by the men of the working class that women sometimes needed to defend themselves at home and a man that brought such retribution down on himself was perceived as getting his just desserts, by the other men. In the working class, there were no servants to hide behind, no public perceptions of lady like behavior that hindered the women from doing what they needed to do if self defense became a survival issue in the home.  Everyone understood that domestic relationships were sometimes violent and ugly and this class of people were prepared to acknowledge and deal with it. This was by no means the case in the upper classes. And here you come to the real crux of the matter. The unwritten but highly effective codes of behavior that really govern our society, laws and legislation not withstanding.

Again we are back in the day. Upper class men were expected to conduct themselves as gentlemen in public. They were expected to be honest and competent in their business, to refrain from public drunkenness at social events and to pay their gambling debts, if any. This last was as big item. Social gambling was a very popular pastime in the upper reaches of society. Games of whist and other card games were a regular feature at balls, gatherings, and gentlemen’s clubs. This was socially acceptable. Men were expected not to gamble more than they could afford to lose. If a ‘gentleman’ lost more than he could afford he was black listed by his club(s) and ostracized from society. This was as low as a ‘gentleman’ could fall and once there, he was not allowed back. This was a very severe thing back then and the thought of it was a deterrent to many.

There were also places called ‘gaming hells’ that were run by professional gamblers where any ‘gentleman’ was free to gamble away the family estates and fortunes upon which his dependents counted for their support as well. No social pressures were brought to bear in such cases. The rest of ‘Society’ thought it a great shame of course, and gossiped freely about the recreants but– a ‘gentleman’ had a god given right to mind his own business and if he did not do so very well, that was just too bad. It was not an unusual story back then for ladies of means, raised to be ornaments to society, to find themselves on the street with small children to support and no means whatever of doing that. I will again point out here that this situation was inherently upper class. Women from working class families had saleable job skills, they were expected to have them, they did use them, so if a domestic problem arose, they were not nearly as bad off as their upper class sisters.

I have created this post here to point out two things:

#1.) Social pressure from a peer group is very effective in moderating excessive or selfish behaviors and the men of that day were well aware of it’s finer points and practiced in it’s applications so they had absolutely no excuse for not applying the same methods to those ‘gentlemen’ among them who were well known to be compulsive gamblers or abusive drunks at home. Those men did not do this.

#2.) Women’s Suffrage and it’s granddaughter, Women’s Liberation were not conceived for the empowerment of all women. They were generated by a miniscule group of nobly born ladies to correct the misbehavior of an equally miniscule group of nobly born “Gentlemen.” There were no “Universal Wrongs” against women at issue.

These social issues, domestic violence, drunkenness, and gambling, were three of the major motivations behind the Suffrage movement and it was a black shame to the upper class men of the western world that some of their women were forced to resort to such measures as public protests in order to defend themselves—from their own.

Our present governmental problems have arisen from this social background, this tiny percentage of upper class male misbehaviors and the lack of effective deterrents to it that were available to the rest of the upper class males and— were not used.

I hope I have kept this simple enough for my friends and followers. Since this issue is still causing such public outcry’s today. I will develop this theme by degrees, in a few more of my posts.

In conclusion, I will emphasize my sympathy for the issues of domestic violence and financial dependency that gave birth to the Suffrage Movement. I will also explain why I have no sympathy with the methods that were adopted to combat them. It should be obvious by now that they are not only ineffective but they are causing even more trouble, and these issues are too important to the survival of our society as a whole to be left in legislative and social limbo.

A. Farwell