or less militant than it was, society is still founded on
force, and because women are not as strong as men, men will not
give them the vote. Besides it is only right, since they can
not fight, they should not vote. It has always been so, and so
it should continue to be, at any rate until war becomes a thing
of the past, and that will never be, you can't change human
nature, etc., etc.

[1] And, let us admit, not merely by the conservative
anti-feminist. As radical and discerning a feminist as Thomas
Wentworth Higginson, after asserting that physical strength was
once "sole ruler," cites in agreement Walter Bagehot's
reference to "the contempt for physical weakness and for women
which marks early society." ("Women and the Alphabet," p. 49.
Boston and New York, 1900.)



There are of course various answers to this militarist
anti-suffrage argument, answers which in spite of the logic of
current events are still likely to be satisfactory or not
according to previous convictions, but the only point I wish to
challenge is the appeal in this connection to the past. Let the
militarist anti-suffragist assert his belief in government by
force if he likes, but let him not try to justify it by the
precedents of primitive life. Nor may he--or she--explain the
exclusion of women to-day as a survival of their subjection in
primitive society to brute force. The government of primitive
society is not based on physical prowess, and although modern
woman is excluded from men's activities for the same reason as