le relation between her own moral
impulse, which is generous, and the law, which is only just. (That is,
just in intention.) This is qualified by the moral spirit in woman,
which increasingly leads her to the view that certain things should be
done and others not be done. But even then it is likely that at heart
woman does not respect the law; she may respect what it
represents,--strength,--but not what it implies,--equity. She is
infinitely more rebellious than man, and where she has power she
inflames the world in protest. I do not refer to the militant
suffragists, but to woman's general attitude. For instance, when it is
proposed to compel women to insure their servants, to pay employer's
compensation for accident, to restrict married women's control of their
property, to establish laws regulating the social evil, we find female
opposition very violent. I do not mean material opposition, although
that does occur, but mental hostility. Woman surrenders because she
must, man because he ought to.

That is an attitude of barbarism. It is a changing attitude; the ranks
of social service have, during the last half-century, been
disproportionately swollen by woman. Our most active worker in the
causes of factory inspection, child protection, anti-sweating, is to-day
woman. Woman is emerging swiftly from the barbarous state in which she
was long maintained. She will change yet more,--and further on in this
chapter I will attempt to show how,--but to-day it must be granted that
there runs in her veins much vigorous barbarian blood. Her attitude to
war is significant. During the past months I have met many women who
were inflamed by the idea of blood; so long as they were not losing
relatives or friends themselves, they tended to look upon the war as the
most exciting serial they had ever read. Heat and heroism, what could be
more romantic? Every woman to whom I told this said it was untrue, but
in no country have the women's unions struck against war; the
suffragettes have organized, not only hospitals, but kitchens,
recreation rooms, canteens for the use of soldiers; many have clamored
to be allowed to make shells; some, especially in Russia, have carried
rifles. In England, thirteen thousand women volunteered to make war
material; women filled the German factories. Of course, I recognize that
this is partly economic: women must live in wartime even at the price of
men's lives, and I am aware that a great many women have do