November 15, 1911, To the Editor of The Throne, “The Feminine Outlook”

Emily Davison falls back on an ancient analogy that appears in Aristotle’s Politics and

Ethics, and recurs in the history of European politics: that the home is the microcosm of the

state, that the state flourishes when households are kept in harmonious order, and that a

good society has neither too many rich nor too many poor households. Davison’s assertion

that households with one predominant view—either the male or the female cannot be happy

accords with Aristotle’s notion that the mean is preferable to excess or deficiency in human

affairs. Her term is “equal value.” The pith of the letter occurs in the third paragraph in

which she moves from generalizations to quoting David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the

Exchequer, in his 1908 speech about the need for women’s voices and opinions to help craft

legislation which will enable to country’s prosperity to increase. Recalling his words in an

earlier time, she next cites his deeds, his role in the Insurance Bill and its inadequate

provisions for women. “Deeds, not Words” is her motto.

Sir,–Your correspondent who signs herself ‘Domesticated’ asks me to explain how the

extension of the franchise to women is ‘for the good of the whole human race, and is

necessary for evolution.’ It is with great pleasure that I answer her demand.

As she evidently is one of those fortunate women who are blessed with a good home

and a wise husband, I think that I shall best explain what I believe by the analogy of the

home. That is, the most ideal home which is based upon the foundation of mutual respect

and consideration, where the privileges and the self-sacrifices are on both sides, where the

wise husband and wife take counsel together. ‘Domesticated’ evidently has some of this

ideal in her home, for she asserts with pride that her husband ‘certainly thinks it worth

while to consult with me on all the thousand and one little points which occur from day to

day,’ whilst she no doubt on her part seeks his counsel on some of her own special

interests. For in the ideal family, although there is equality that does not imply

similarity—‘Men are men and women are women,’ which put into other words means that,

although in some respects the two sexes have a common ground of humanity, yet in others

they necessarily have a different point of view. The home where the one view or the other

is predominant or exclusively asserted is an incomplete and unhappy home, even if

outwardly peaceful. Your ideal home has both points of view given an equal value.

But so is it in the State. The State after all is made up of homes, and the home is but

the epitome of the State—therefore, the State requires both points of view. The Chancellor

of the Exchequer set forth the truth in a very clear way in addressing a gathering of Liberal

women at the Albert Hall on December 5th, 1908 when he said:

My convictions is that you will never get really good, effective measures for

housing, for temperance, or for other social reforms, until you can get the

millions of women of the land to co-operate in such legislation. It is for that

reason that I am standing here today, to declare that in my judgement it is

not merely the right of woman, but the interest of all, that you should call in

the aid, the counsel, the inspiration of woman to help in the fashioning of

legislation, which will improve, cleanse purify, and fill with plenty the homes

upon which the future destiny of this great commonweal of nations depends.

Two instances which I would fain mention well support the theory. The Insurance

Bill, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now passing into law, is so inadequate,

amended as it is, in the woman’s part of the scheme, that many bodies of women wish that

he had left them out until they themselves could have voiced their own views, when

enfranchised. The other is that there are no less than three societies of men formed for the

exclusive purpose of winning the vote for women, because they consider this absolutely

essential for the well-being of the nation. These are the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage,

the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement, and the Men’s League for Justice

for Women.

Yours, etc.

Emily Wilding Davison

31, Coram Street, W.C.

November 7th, 1911