Victorian Secrets

Independent press dedicated to publishing books from and about the nineteenth century

  • Home
  • About
  • Catalogue
    • Victorian Secrets
    • Twentieth Century Vox
  • News
  • Contact

The Woman’s Question: An Interview with Sarah Grand

Humanitarian, (1896), 8, pp. 161-9

When writing her first story, Ideala, Madame Grand found that social questions would get into it. The story was a study from life, and in drawing the characters she simply reproduced people with whose lives she was intimately acquainted. “I do not,” she said, “like to see puppets in a book who are placed there for the purpose of saying certain things, and to give expression to a writer’s theory. To be true to life should be the first aim of an author, and if one deals with social questions one must study them in the people who hold them, not invent a puppet to give forth one’s views. One thing has struck me as being very significant, and that is that literal facts are so often received by the critics with incredulity. The story of Evangeline in Our Manifold Nature, is a case in point; it has been attacked as ‘melodramatic’ and ‘impossible,’ yet it is a true story from beginning to end, ungarnished by fictional embellishments.”

After the publication of Ideala, a long interval elapsed before Madame Grand brought out the notable book which has done so much to rouse men and women to a thoughtful consideration of the evil which it seeks to expose. The Heavenly Twins took two years to write and three years to find a publisher. One publisher to whom it was offered replied that it was a neurotic novel, and could not be expected to succeed, adding that “it was calculated to give great pain to the majority of novel readers, who were ladies.” Another was known to have said that it was a book which no respectable house would publish, but, after it had achieved success, this same publisher was most anxious to publish her next book. “Success makes such a difference, don’t you know?” said Madame Grand with a smile, as she referred to these little incidents. The criticism evoked by the Heavenly Twins was, as most people know, almost wholly adverse. Nearly all the reviews were against it, but from private correspondents the author received many sympathetic and encouraging communications, and even still the letters continue to come as the book penetrates into the remoter regions of civilization.

“Who were your most sympathetic correspondents, men or women?” I asked, as we sat talking over these things in the twilight of a February afternoon.

“Men, decidedly,” replied Madame Grand. “I had a large number of letters from Anglican clergymen, Roman Catholic priests, and doctors. Men knew so much better than women the need there was for the book, and that I rather under-estimated than over-estimated ‘the evil. The letters which I received showed that I had not come forward upon a trivial pretext, and that the evil was far greater than I had imagined. Men endeavour to protect themselves from disease by restrictive laws bearing on women, but nothing has yet been done to protect the married women from contagion. I hope that we shall -soon see the marriage of certain men made a criminal offence. This is one of the things which, as women, we must press forward. Men are very nice creatures in a general way,” continued Madame Grand, with a smile. “I value my men friends exceedingly, and have always the feeling that one should not seek to interfere with men’s private lives—never interfere except where women are to be degraded. When the weaker of our sex are subjected to great wrongs we, as women, are bound to look after them, and if that brings us into opposition to some men we cannot help ourselves, but I always feel very sorry when it occurs. I entirely deprecate rivalry and the spirit of war between the sexes; what we want is to work together for the good of each. And after all it is very cheering to find so many good men willing to aid in the uplifting of women and in the dethronement of vice, and their number is steadily increasing.”

“Do you consider, Madame Grand, that legislation may safely be left in the hands of men; they have been instrumental during the last twenty years in passing laws which have greatly improved the position of women, and they will doubtless proceed on the same lines in the future. In view of this, do you feel that there is any urgent need for the extension of the Parliamentary Franchise to women?”

“I certainly think that it is most important that women should have the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. We shall do no good until we get the Franchise, for however well-intentioned men may be, they cannot understand our wants as well as we do ourselves. Then too, those men who will not listen to argument, will listen to force, and having a vote is an immense lever to wield against them. It is said, I know, that women are not ripe for the vote yet, but surely they are quite as ripe for it as the agricultural labourer, and indeed as the majority of men. Surely no one can suppose that all the wisdom and discretion has been given to one half of the human race and none to the other. There are silly men just as there are thoughtless women, but that is never held to be a reason for disfranchising the whole of the male sex. That women are acknowledged to be able to form a judgment on political questions is tacitly admitted by the organisations which employ women to canvas for parliamentary elections. We have there the absurd position of women being sent to educate the voters, while, when the polling day comes, they are declared to be unfit to give a vote themselves. And not only are women using their influence in this semi-private way, but they come on to the public platform at political meetings and speak for their party, and often plead the claims of a parliamentary candidate better probably than he can do it himself. Whichever way one looks at the question it seems to me that a great injustice is being done to women by withholding the vote from them. Apart from their mental qualification they have the property-owner’s right, and the taxpayer’s right to representation, for have we not been taught as a tenet of constitutional law that taxation without representation is tyranny?”

“There is a further side to the question,” continued Madame Grand, “and that is the good effect which responsibility will have upon women themselves. I believe that it is good for us to have a feeling of responsibility engendered; it strengthens character and develops ideas, which is exactly what women need. The influence of politics would be educative, and therefore desirable. On the other hand one may offer a grain of comfort to opponents by assuring them that from their standpoint it will be a good thing for women to come mto political life, for many will be so disgusted at the rivalry, jobbery, and self-seeking which exist in both great parties that they will become speedily nauseated and leave the field in disgust. For myself, I look forward to the influence of women to raise the tone of political life, just as they have already, I am told, improved the political meetings by their presence in the audiences and on the platforms; there is not so much of the coarse element as there formerly was.” “Do you favour the admission of women to Parliament?”

“It is perhaps a little early in the day to discuss that question; we must get the Franchise first and then consider the further step, but I tell you what I should like, and that is to do away with the House of Lords and establish a House of Ladies.”

“How would you accomplish that; on the elective principle, the same as we have in the House of Commons?”

“The method of doing it I leave to the wiseacres, but it has often occurred to me that a chamber composed of women qualified to watch legislation as it affects their own sex, and to report their ideas to the House of Commons, would be doing more useful work on behalf of the general community than the present House of Lords is doing. Having a separate chamber for women would meet the objection of those who dislike the idea of mixing the sexes in Parliament, although these objectors seem to forget that women serve along with men on all our local governing bodies, and the arrangement appears to answer very well. However, a House of Ladies would be able to discuss many questions which call for reform with greater freedom than women could in a mixed assembly. Our influence would be chiefly felt upon questions of morality, and would, I believe, tend to purify the political atmosphere.”

“How would you meet the oft-repeated objection that women suffer degradation by close contact with public life, and that taking an interest in politics and in some of the social questions of the day has a tendency to unsex them?”

“I do not think that the best specimens of advanced women are those whom any thoughtful person would call ‘unsexed.’ Take one of those splendid workers of the past, Elizabeth Fry. She had a family of eight children, whom she looked after in a most exemplary manner, as she did after everything connected with her home; yet fully occupied as she was with a busy domestic life, Elizabeth Fry found time to do a great work in the world. To-day everyone reveres her name, but those of her own time thought it a very unwomanly thing for a woman to visit the prisons and to talk with the degraded ones of her sex, and there was quite a storm of opposition when she modestly asked to be permitted to listen to a debate in the House of Commons arising out of the prison reforms, of which she was the initiator.” “Yes, I remember, and as a last resort she asked to be allowed to listen outside one of the ventilators of the House, and the country squires were up in arms, and said that it would crush the fabric of domestic life if it came to the ears of their wives and daughters that a woman had listened to a Parliamentary debate, even through a ventilator.”

“How amusing and childish all that seems to-day,” replied Madame Sarah Grand, with a laugh, “and so will the arguments to which we are now treated seem fifty years hence. Has it not often struck you that people are always ready to carp at a woman when she tries to do some useful work in the world? Our critics have not a word to say against the society woman who neglects her home and her children for gaieties. The frivolous women are rarely found fault with; the great crime is to have a serious purpose in life. I believe that men do not like women to be clever, because they think that they will be found out.”

“Do you think that is the cause of the opposition to the higher education of women, and to the granting to them of University degrees?”

“Yes, largely. Then again, men do not seem willing to give merited honour to women, or there would not be so much opposition to giving them degrees. People seem to forget that women cannot take University degrees unless they win them by the same tests to which men are subjected, and if a woman earns the honour on what fair ground can it be denied to her? The same thing is seen in the scanty recognition of a great woman like Florence Nightingale. Had it been a man who had originated and demonstrated a scheme for training nurses for service in time of war, he would have been given a title by the Government and otherwise publicly honoured, but as it was only a woman who did it, fitting gratitude has not been shown. I always admire the Quakers for the fair treatment they give to women; there is no undervaluing of intellect because it chances to be found in the head of a woman, and the good result is seen in the splendid work accomplished by Quaker ladies in the social and philanthropic movements of the day. It affords an excellent example of the wisdom of giving women freedom to do the best that is in them. A Quaker woman is taught self-respect, while we are taught self-depreciation. I cannot understand how anyone can think that the graces of life are to be lost by educating and elevating women. I am afraid that some people do not mind them being unsexed, but object to their being improved; that is why the costumes of the ballet girl are not severely handled, while the rational costume for women who ride the bicycle is.”

“Do you cycle yourself, Madame?”

“Yes, I am devoted to cycling, and you cannot think how much better I am in health since I took to it.”

“And you wear the rational costume?”

“I always do in Paris, where I first began to ride. There the culotte is the usual costume for lady cyclists and causes little remark. But I must frankly admit that our rational costume is exceedingly ugly;

I wish we could invent something more graceful and so here I always ride in a skirt, which looks better and attracts less attention. It is necessary for a New Woman to be very careful about her appearance.”

“But what about the comfort and utility?”

“There is no comparison; it takes ten years off your age to wear rational dress. There is nothing to catch the wind and impede your progress. I found a most astonishing difference when riding en culotte in Paris, indeed I never could have believed the difference it made to the ease and pleasure of riding. But the dress is so unsightly. The French women do not mind because they are more inclined to study utility in their dress than we are; they consider it the best taste to be suitably attired for what you are doing.”

“You referred a few minutes ago, Madame Grand, to the necessity for a New Woman to be particular about her dress; do you not think that the movement has suffered by advanced women being a little careless in this matter?”

“Most certainly I do. Want of taste in dress on the part of many women, who advocate what are called advanced views, has thrown back the woman’s cause fifty years. Everyone who takes part in the movement ought to be particularly careful in dress and manners; and I am sorry to say that the manners of some are simply disgraceful; so utterly wanting in tact and ordinary politeness. It seems to me also that any attempt to disparage the home duties is such a mistake.

While being fully in favour of women entering the professions, speaking on public platforms, and taking their part in the movements of the time, I think that they should always consider their homes and families first of all. The average middle-class woman with a home and a young family to look after cannot have time for much else. There is no more delicate or beautiful work than training and developing the minds of little children, and I have no respect for women who do not feel this to be important work. The influence of a mother is paramount, and I do not think that a woman can be better engaged anywhere than in her own nursery, for if we wish to teach men justice to women it is with the small boy that we must start. It has been the custom in the past to encourage a boy to regard his little sister as, ‘only a girl,’ and it is small wonder that he ends by assuming that women are his inferiors. The nursery is the proper place to teach the equality of the sexes, and a system of co-education would greatly help in this direction.”

“There has been so much discussion recently with regard to the marriage question, and the position of married women under the law that I should be glad to hear what view you take, Madame Grand?”

“Women have nothing to gain from any laxity in the marriage laws. Marriage was certainly instituted in the interests of women; men are not likely to be specially anxious about the legal bonds, and the majority submit to it, in the first instance, as the only condition upon which they can expect a woman to take them. Laws pressed hardly upon married women in the past undoubtedly, but the passing of the Married Woman’s Property Act, and the Married Women’s Protection Act have materially altered their position for the better. There has also been a great advance made in the position of the married mother by the passing of the Custody of Children’s Act. The law of divorce still calls for reform.”

“Do you advocate greater facility for divorce, or simply equality?”

“I am against making divorce easier, it would do a great deal of harm. We should have people separating over every little quarrel, and then repenting when they had cooled down and thought things over. Divorce should be granted only on the ground of adultery, and the law applied equally to the husband and the wife. It ought not to be necessary for the wife to have to prove cruelty as well as unfaithfulness, as is now the case, although the husband can divorce her for unfaithfulness alone.”

“You would consider, I gather, that a woman who enters upon a matrimonial relationship without the protection of a legal ceremony is, to put it on the lowest grounds, foolish?”

“Yes, she is acting against her own interests, and doing a great wrong to her possible children. I should be sorry to say anything which would give pain, but the Lanchester case naturally suggests itself as an example. Doubtless Miss Lanchester in her recent action was acting from a conscientious objection to a legal marriage, and it is well that the subject should be ventilated if she does not mind being the scapegoat, but I think that her position is illogical. By legal marriage we make a binding engagement for life, but she takes her lover on the understanding that if her love ceases she shall be free, and in that way seems to be prophesying an end to her love. If she has implicit faith in her lover, why does she shrink from the tie which makes her union legal, which holds society together and makes her children legitimate? In entering upon such a connection with an implied idea that at some future time they may wish to separate strikes me as showing a want of faith in each other. If the tie can be broken, except for the one reason with which the law deals, then marriage will lose all that is elevating with those whose intentions are good. Laxity in the marriage tie would eventually lead to the younger women constantly changing their lovers and refusing to have children, and when they became old and passee men would neglect them. The position of women in middle life and old age would be very sad and desolate, whereas with binding marriage the majority have an honoured position and a fair share of happiness.”

“What do you think of The Woman who Did?”

“It seems to me that Mr. Grant Allen wants us to return to the customs of the poultry yard.”

“But do you think that he means such an inference to be drawn from the book?”

“Yes I do, most seriously. Mr. Grant Allen is a large-minded, liberal man, and he argues that if men are permitted to practise polygamy then women should be equally free to indulge in polyandry. I do not know that he approves of polygamy, only he is liberal enough to say that if men are to claim sexual freedom then it should be accorded to women also. The story answers the question when followed to its logical conclusions, and shows very clearly that women have nothing to gain and everything to lose by renouncing the protection which legal marriage gives. The only difference between us and the beasts of the field is that we can regulate our passions by the exercise of will and principle. It has taken the race long ages to do this and it would be very foolish to come back again into the beast state, as Tennyson says, ‘reel back into the beast and be no more.’ We want progress, not retrogression. Men could be taught the self-restraint which women have had to learn, and we want the same law for men as for women in these matters. I think too, that women are the proper people to decide on matters of population. Men have not managed to regulate either the population or the social question at all satisfactorily, and it would be well to give us a chance of trying what we can do. We could do much if we had the suffrage; the want of electoral power cripples our efforts. As Harriet Martineau so finely puts it: ‘If women were not helpless men would find it far less easy to be vicious.’”

“I need not remind you, Madame Grand, that it is commonly stated by our critics that women are the greatest sinners in respect of the publication of novels which are not quite nice; do you think that is so?”

“Well, I wonder if it is; I am just thinking—perhaps women are bolder because they have suffered more from these sex matters than men. Most of them write with loathing of the subject—I certainly do—but are impelled to it by the hope of remedying the evils which exist. Men do it because these things are in their minds, and they have not the excuse of the object to be attained.”

“Surely no woman’s novel is written so boldly as Jude the Obscure?”

“I have great respect for Mr. Hardy’s genius, but I cannot make out whether he intended to teach anything by Jude the Obscure. The work is colossal in strength, but ethically, it is amorphous. I perceive no special teaching in it. I have no doubt that there are ‘Arabellas,’ and it is well that young ‘Judes’ should be warned against them; Mr. Hardy does that. As for ‘Sue,’ it would have been a good thing if someone had explained to her that she was not of the right constitution to marry. She was one of ‘Nature’s Nuns,’ a morbid type that is being developed amongst us. The book is a tour de force. But as to its doing any harm I do not see how it can, as the whole tendency of the story is to show that these erratic relations between the sexes result in misery.”

“What do you think are its teachings on the marriage question? You will remember that ‘Sue’ marries the old schoolmaster, whom she does not love, in the usual way; but when she takes for a husband ‘Jude,’ whom she does love, she rebels against going through a legal marriage ceremony. Does Mr. Hardy intend to teach that where love is omnipotent a legal tie is not only unnecessary, but an insult to love?”

“I cannot tell,” replied Madame Grand, “but it is a question which I should like to ask Mr. Hardy himself, and I shall do so the next time I see him. But in conclusion, I may say that personally I think marriage is the most sacred institution in the world, and it is better not to interfere with it.”

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Email

Featured Book

Avenging Angels: Ghost Stories by Victorian Women Writers

Copyright © 2022 · Victorian Secrets Limited