e wheels of fate seem to bring women into greater
political prominence than ever before. Constance, it is true, had been
no mean figure in that epoch, and had exerted a most powerful influence
in shaping the destinies of Spain for her own time and for the future,
but this was done by an exercise of indirect rather than direct
authority. Constance had been queen, but there had been a king to rule
as well, and with him remained the real power. As Constance influenced
him, she may have been said to use this royal power, it is true, but the
fact remains that it was the woman Constance who was using her powers of
feminine persuasion to bring about the results which were so dear to her
heart. No political responsibilities rested upon her shoulders, there
were no cares of state to weary and make uneasy her crowned head, and
she was free to follow her own penchants unimpeded by this larger task.
But now a wider field for the activities of women seems to come; in
Spain, chance gives them full control in their own name in certain
instances, and they bear the full responsibility. The measure of their
success may not be greater than the measure of their failure in these
new lines of endeavor, but, good or bad as their methods of
administration may have been, it does not appear that they fall below
the level of masculine achievement at the same time. And this is a
curious thing. Since the birth of time men have been regarding women as
weaklings, both mentally and physically. Tennyson has it that "woman is
the lesser man," and such has been the commonly expressed opinion.
Everything in the social life of the world has conspired to give truth
to this statement; women are still the real slaves of their husbands in
many countries, and the virtual slaves in almost all the world;
education has been granted to them grudgingly, the scope of their
intellect has been limited in the narrowest way; and in spite of all
these facts, in spite of this suppression and repression from time
immemorial, women have been able by some power or some cunning to exert
a most powerful influence in the world, and when called upon to take up
a man's work they have left a record for judgment and skill and wisdom
which needs no apologies and which is generally above the average. To
those who are content with generalities it may be sufficient to say that
women are not the equals of men, but to anyone who attempts to study,
step by step, the history of human developm