The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-22 00:00:00

7HE SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS.

How to employ educated women, and how to
protect women of the working classes against the
effects of employment in too laborious occupations,
are among the questions that have been engaging
the attention of the Social Science Congress. The
first is one of those problems which are perpetually
recurring under various forms, and never seem to
approach a solution. The ante-nuptial condition of
women in the higher orders of society has long been
a conventional subject of pity and sympathy by the
other sex. Addison describes their want of "pro-
per employments and diversions" in language that
might have been read before the meeting called by
the "Ladies' Reception Committee" and attended
by Lord Brougham in Dublin ;—" The toilet is
their great scene of business, and the right adjust-
ing of their hair the principal employment of their
lives. The sorting of a suit of ribands is reckoned
a very good morning's work; and, if they make an
excursion to a mercer's or a toyshop, so great a
fatigue makes them unfit for anything else all the
day after. Their more serious occupations are sew-
ing and embroidery, and their greatest drudgery
the preparation of jellies and sweetmeats." Sub-
stituting worsted-work and novel-reading for the
more homely and useful domestic tasks specified by
the Spectator, we will not be ungallant enough to
inquire how far this description would be applic-
able to those young ladies of Belgravia whose case
has lately become so famous. The difference is that
the spinsters of the present day are fully alive to
the miseries of their situation. Drawing-room
tables are strewn with works on the proper func-
tions of women, and the old controversy about
female rights has passed into the more harmless and
practical phase of an earnest search for female duties.
There is scarcely one of the many ladies who have
attained literary eminence in the present century
who has not given more or less thought to
this desideratum, and if the point is still un-
settled it is certainly not for want of ventilation,
or of support on the part of the gentlemen.
Two of the most influential and philosophical
writers of the age, the one English and the other
French, have claimed for women an independence
as complete as St. Simon ever promised them, and,
were it not for reasons quite independent of male
jealousy, their perpetual minority, or " subalter-
nity," as he calls it, would not continue a day
ion ger.

The precise subject which Mrs. Overend brought
before the Association was the " remunerative"
employment of females. Now, it is material to
observe that the class under consideration is more
limited than at first sight appears. From the "one
half of the human race" who are the nominal
clients in all these appeals, we may deduct almost
all of those who have entered the married state.
Ever since Christianity introduced new views of
the conjugal relation, and even in the more ad-
vanced of heathen nations, the province of domestic
administration has been intrusted almost exclu-
sively to the wife. The engrossing nature of these
duties and the amount of time and personal super-
vision which they require are clearly seen in the
households of the poor. The superior intelligence
and more business-like ways of women in this rank,
as compared vt ith their husbands, are the direct
result of their busy habits, and the wonder is that
the care of children and housekeeping should leave
time for any other occupation. In many counties,
however, domestic manufactures, yielding a con-
siderable return, are carried on by the labour of
the mother and the elder girls, and it is singular
that while Mrs. Overend is planning a new career
for her se& in the higher branches of industry, Mrs.
Bayley proposes that washing, one of the most
profitable and characteristic of female handicrafts,
should be turned over to the men. It is not, there-
fore, for women who have families, whether poor
or rich, nor for those single women who go into
service, nor for those who are employed in shops
and factories, nor even for those who are willing
to go out as governesses, but for "gentlewomen" un-
married yet living at home, for whom employment
is sought. This constitutes the difficulty of the case.
It is almost impossible to find a permanent place
in the labour-market for a class proverbially " un-
protected," too weak to hold their own against
male competition, and too sensitive even to receive
remuneration openly. Mrs. Orerend does not dis-
guise this source of perplexity. " The difficulty lies
In the manner of obtaining that remuneration
which, to be acceptable, must be offered in such a
way as will not do violence to the refined mind and
feelings of a gentlewoman." To meet this she pro-
poses " a society to be conducted by a committee of
ladies and gentlemen, who could appoint a manager
—one to come between the employer and the em-
ployed, so that the employee would not at all
appear." We do not say that such a machinery
could not be worked by kind and judicious indi-
viduals, but we say that the fact of its being neces-
sary illustrates the kind of objections which men of
the world are wont to urge with somewhat undue
asperity against all these amateur schemes of
" world-bettering." Mrs. Overend wants to secure
a share in the profits of labour for females without
subjecting them to the degradation of being seen to
receive it. In other words, she clings to that part
of the existing social code which assigns to women
which
ejcphepnrdteeNn.entpsotshietimone,arwaihniglemsohneeyrfeoprutdhieamtesseltvheast.
Now, this inconsistency is just what makes these
well-meant efforts so impracticable except on a very
small scale. Even the range of employments suit-
able, not only to the female intellect, but to the
female character, capable of being carried on at home,
and not injurious to health, is somewhat narrow.
Mrs. Overend mentions " painting in oil and water,
ornamental designing, colouring photographs, wood
engraving, lithogr i;hy," and some others, and
not.the rine
ai
ee ear tlai
hno oo ed
ta)ysotnheNsvehy a
meafenws.ladßisteit slehtonulodt
our fair rivals make too sure that they will beat
male artificers even in these trades, in which
s peenct
ra l y
beyond required. h
te
Tth'hieicraecyis asnedarcefillivisha arede e
department
domestic circle, - except that of novel-writinz, ,
in which they have been able to compete with
masculine dexterity and patience. Even the recent
experiment of female box-keepers and female tele-
graph-clerks has not bcpn very successful, and
when it was suggested that shopmen should betake
themselves to more manly avocations the ladies
remonstrated first and most loudly. A more appo-
site illustration of the same fact may be borrowed
from the two heterogeneous arts of music and