The Victorian Origins of Feminism

Dr. Matthew Johnson
Western Spring
December 13, 2015

In the second half of the 19th century, women were a legally privileged class in Great Britain. Bax’s analysis destroys the credibility of the puerile feminist narrative of male oppression. Women, at the apex of Victorianism, ruled men with an iron hand. Belfort Bax, a socialist writer the leftist regime has gone to great length to repress, proved through a simple analysis of Victorian law (both statutes and common) showing this thesis, if anything, is an understatement.

The connection to 2015 could not be clearer. Feminism, usually promoted by men, uses its immense power to enforce the dogma that women are an oppressed class and have no power. Women in 2015 control a full 80% of the consumer income in America. Feminism, unlike many other movements of the left, is typified by its complete refusal to recognize equality before the law and usually rejects the rule of law altogether; it is the raw Will to Power.

In the state of Pennsylvania, for example, a woman, claiming abuse, or even the fear of future abuse, or some sense of impending fear, can, without the her husband or boyfriend being present, remove him from his home for up to three years and even enjoin immediate alimony, child support and medical care. In PA, it is called a Protection from Abuse order, or PFA. In the ex parte hearing, no evidence is required other than that the alleged victim is afraid, or might be afraid. This is sufficient to get a “temporary” PFA, where the man is forcibly removed from his home and separated from his kids and often, his career and friends. The same “standard” applies at the civil “hearing” that soon follows. While not in the initial law, the “hearing,” according to the case law, has no standards of proof at all and is mere window dressing.

Snyder v. Snyder, 629 A.2d 977 (Pa. Super. 1993) states that there is no definition of “abuse” in these non-criminal cases. Anything that causes fear, regardless of the intent of the alleged perpetrator, is grounds for the eviction and financial ruin. The Superior Court states (2008) that only the feeling of fear – not the actual fact of abuse – is required for the PFA to be granted. The woman need only say that “I fear the defendant” on her complaint. She could also leave it blank, and merely tell the judge how afraid she is. Needless to say, physical injuries need not be shown, or any injury at all.

The Karch v. Karch, 885 A. 2d 535 (Pa. Super. 2005) decision states that the “court determines a witness’s credibility and may infer fear based on the witness’s testimony describing the defendant’s actions.” In other words, the allegations might be totally false. It does not matter: “truth” is reduced to the credibility of the woman’s fear as exhibited in court. Proof of fear, it should be noted, has nothing to do with the facts alleged, but can only be inferred by the judge in looking at her demeanor. Usually, the mere claim that she is afraid is the end of the hearing.

In practice, this means the woman (or the one alleging abuse or fear) at the hearing can refer to anything at all to justify her demand, including hunches and things people told her. In 1993, even “bad driving” was used as proof of “abuse” and the man was removed from his home. In the McCance v. McCance, 908 A.2d 905 (Pa. Super. 2006) P12 decision, even being irritating or bothersome is grounds for a PFA. Whether or not the man is guilty of abuse has again and again been rejected as the standard for the PFA. Very few requests for protection have been struck down by the court while the men have often been rendered homeless and unable to see their children for years. In fact, the “hearings” only rarely take place and normally last about 8-10 minutes.

Few men bother to fight the Order because the claims made in the complaint have no meaning for the granting of the order or for its affirmation by the court. Few defense attorneys will take these cases unless the man is willing to sign “without admission of guilt,” a meaningless way to get the eviction granted through “mutual consent.”

The woman (called a “plaintiff” even for a civil case) is granted a free attorney from a private “advocacy center” supported by local corporations, the state and the court itself. This means the judge and the plaintiff are the same entity. The “advocates,” by law, must have “counseling” services that is meant to bring the children and the woman together as “victims,” hence isolating the man. Since this is a civil case, the man must pay for an attorney or represent himself. The “advocacy” group will then contact the man’s employer and claim that they hired a “wife beater” and, in several recent cases, falsely claim that the employer is liable for it unless he’s terminated immediately.

The powerful advocacy organization usually contacts the defendants attorney in advance and an agreement is reached. The man, often sleepless, homeless and penniless, is told to sign and the woman, if she is married, is told by the court and advocate to divorce the hapless “abuser.”

Usually, any resulting contact once the PFA is granted from then on leads to arrest and the imposition of the (now) criminal charges. The slightest irritation from the woman is grounds for arrest at least most of the time. The control the woman then has over the man is immense. There is presently no definition of a violation, and the standards constantly change. Almost all accused plead guilty. In 2014-2015, “violations” have included pleas for peace and cooperation from the man, personal defenses made to mutual friends, and being “irritating.” In January of 2015, several have been heavily fined for no clear reason. If the PFA was signed “without admission of guilt” by the man, no appeals are ever possible.

Pennsylvania is one of the more moderate laws in the US. It is proof of female domination of law and the courts, even to the point of rejecting evidence, legal rights, due process, property rights or even self defense. It is an unchallenged totalitarian dictatorship.There can be no rejecting the claim that the US is a matriarchy if such laws exist, are constantly enforced, and are supported (at least officially) by the judicial branch.

What is of interest is that these laws existed in late 19th century England. Bax made the same pleas for the rule of law as those fighting the PFA system are presently doing in 2015. Matriarchy is not the result of feminism, but of elite men seeking to control the working classes. It is significant that Bax was a materialist and socialist who saw Marxism being subverted by this new feminine ruling class. Feminism, as he correctly saw, was a weapon of the capitalists (Bax, 1907: ch 22).

Bax proves with great detail that in both law and practice, the woman has the same relation to the man as the capitalist does to the worker. The woman, regardless of her class, is superior to the man in law. Even a poorer woman is superior to the wealthier male due to her gender as he shows here:

If a man under any provocation, no matter how galling—insolence or violence—strikes a woman, he is sent to hard labour, divorced, and his property confiscated, or his earnings hypothecated—and all this through the prompt instrumentality of the police-court. A woman may assault, stab, set fire to her husband, and he has no remedy, except to summon her to the police court,where, if she be fined, he is compelled to pay the fine, and as likely as not is laughed at. If her crime be revoltingly atrocious, she is perhaps sent to prison—for one-twentieth part of the time awarded to a male offender for a like offence. On her being released, her husband, unless he be a rich man, is bound to take her back, and, rich or poor, support her. The prompt and inexpensive police-court divorce is not for him (Bax, 1907: 20).

For a man to get a divorce at this time, an expensive and embarrassing time in court would be the result. For a woman, it was almost instantaneous, and all alimony was demanded without the husband’s consent. This was called a “summary separation” and open only to females. The man’s earnings were attached with as much ferocity as today, but the woman’s was never touched as a matter of custom. That this was the law in Victorian Britain makes a mockery of official history. Female control existed long before feminism. Hence, it has another source. In the 1970s, the feminist movement was financed by all the major foundations and elite philanthropists to justify what already existed, not to demand new law.

The culprit he sees is the recent changes in Victorian law, the simply named “Act of 1895” was a radical reform of family law. The text here makes an explicit distinction in crimes committed by men and those by women, with the latter always treated with greater leniency and at a greater standard of proof. These laws, taken together, show many examples of favoritism to women. He cites only three early in the book:

1. Summary Court for Separation. Open to women alone, except in the case of drunkenness (cf. Licensing Act, 1902).
2. Action for Slander. Open to women alone.
3. Duty of Husband to maintain his wife—notwithstanding her adultery.—This last a triumph of feminine privileges enacted in 1895!

It is impossible in any distribution of the main out lines of sex-privilege to avoid occasionally overlapping. One arrangement of the topics will be convenient. Let us consider women’s privileges under the head of Matrimonial Law, and the Civil Law generally, and, further, of the Criminal Law.
These privileges arise indirectly from the action of the legislature, but mainly from that of the Courts, and consist of : first, the deliberate introduction of new rules of law and procedure, and, secondly, the retention of some old-world privileges of women, logical enough when women were dependent, but under modern conditions engines of tyranny against men

(Bax, 1907: 5).

In this era, the “Doctrine of Coercion” was used to justify this. It is the idea that, due to the weakness of women, any criminal act committed by one is ipso facto seen as the action of her husband or father. Thus, in the name of women’s empowerment, women were said to bear no responsibility for her actions. Worse was the actual practice of divorce litigation. The common law was clear that any female claim of physical abuse was taken as fact, while the man was forced to prove that he did not do it. Only the most extreme cases of attempted murder will ever be attributed to the wife. Bax mocks this movement over the ideas implied in the Coercion Doctrine;

The hollowness of the sham of the modern dogma of equality between the sexes is shown by the fact that the assumption of inferiority is called into requisition without any hesitation when there is anything to be gained by it for the cause of female privilege. The dogma of equality is reserved for pleading for the franchise, for the opening up of the professions, and similar occasions. According to the current theory, while women are fully equal to men in capacity for government, administration, etc., and hence, while justice demands that these spheres should be accessible to them, they are so inferior to men in the capacity to control their actions and to distinguish right from wrong, that it is not to be thought of that they, poor weak women, should be treated with the same impartiality or severity by the law as is dealt out to men. Women nowadays “want it,” not “both ways” merely, but all ways

(Bax, 1913).

In court or through witnesses, any harsh words spoken in an argument were seen as de facto proof of all other claims of violence. Males and their witnesses were regularly prosecuted for perjury, while women were almost never taken to task (Bax, 1907: 13-14).

The custom of the courts, as Bax shows through court documents at the time, were not always part of the law as such. Women in family court were immune (generally speaking) for prosecution for adultery, libel or slander, crimes of violence, and abandonment. These, in other words, were rarely taken into consideration by courts, and even the most flagrant deserter or adulteress could quickly file for a “summary separation” and take a solid half to three quarters of her husband’s earnings (Bax, 1907: 25-30).

Beyond family court, however, the male dominated courts were advocates for female supremacy in other areas of law. Going through both the popular press and available case documents, he comes to the following conclusions:

In cases of drunkenness this offence against the safety of the community is visited on the woman with a trifling fine. The matter is looked on rather as a joke than an offence.
In cases of libel and slander, a criminal prosecution against a woman is practically unknown. A nominal penalty, such as a promise not to repeat the offence, is the usual ending to such a prosecution.

Crimes of assault and violence generally are almost as privileged in the case of an ordinary woman as of a wife against a husband.
Murder is similarly reduced to man slaughter, no matter who the woman may be, provided the victim is a man.
Waylaying, injuring business, or procuring dismissal, is similarly a pastime to be indulged in by any vindictive woman with absolute impunity.
Perjury is similarly a perquisite of the female litigant—whether perjury of the defensive or offensive type.
Turning wife’s evidence after seduction of husband is, of course, open to all women without punishment.
Conspiracy to procure the husband’s seduction, as has already been stated, goes unpunished if committed on the wife’s side

(Bax, 1907)

Apparently, the idea that women are the “weaker sex” has its benefits. No doubt, women are weaker physically, and that has been used to great effect, even when the abusive woman is larger and stronger than the victimized man. “Weaker” in this sort of case law, however, is also mental. Women are seen as being more emotional and less liable to control their impulses. The result is a less stringent policy being applied to them relative to criminal punishment.

Women were totally immune from corporal punishment as they were seen as less culpable for violent actions, if not totally incapable of them. Female murderesses were never hanged, regardless of the nature of the crime or even the status of the victim. The female duration of imprisonment for the same crime is very much less than the male which again, suggests the system at the time did not blame women for crimes. They, at some level, had to have been coerced into it.

Chances of executive pardons, even for infanticide, are very good for a woman for the same reasons. Desperation, rather than criminal intent, was the reason for crimes like infanticide. Though one of the more strange facts from the era is that a woman’s property can never be seized for debt. Here, the question of weakness or criminal responsibility do not matter. This is just a privilege pure and simple. When creditors in a capitalist system are halted, there must be a tremendous power that is capable of stopping their collection of a debt. Nor were children an issue, since this power was for all women at all stages of their life. Similarly, breaking contracts were subject to the “Coercion Doctrine” or not prosecuted at all.
“Women were seen to be incapable of seducing a man or slandering him” Bax states. Men were seen as the more aggressive part of the species, and this was reflected in law (Bax, 1907: 50-56). Yet, none of this accounts for the total immunity of debt seizures.

Bax remarks that it is male lawyers that promote these claims in female clients. Then and now, feminism is the creation, tool and toy of men. Like immigrants or third world coolies, women are weapons in a game. Female control over corporate policy is immense through affirmative action, sexual harassment law and hiring policy. The largest corporation can be quickly brought its knees though the complaint of a single woman who catches the ear of a “advocacy” organization.” In his day, male lawyers and judges were available to take all female claims and all standards of proof are reduced as a result. He states,

If an insignificant minority of women are oppressed by individual men, it is merely because, from any reason, economic or other, the woman does not for a considerable time, choose to go to the Police Courts. When a fact of this kind comes to be published, it is trumpeted forth in the press—the press which carefully excludes stories of male slavery—with the object of producing a false impression as to the side on which the balance of injustice is to be found

(Bax, 1907: 58).

The point of all this is to show that women have been ruling things for a long time. Feminism can only have developed due to wages and control over workplaces. Today, the Regime releases the male sex drive in innumerable ways, but then criminalizes the natural trajectory of this. It is entrapment and designed to punish men for being what the system makes of them.

The constant transfer of wealth from men to women in alimony, child support and legal fees destroys the “wage” gap that does not exist regardless. Women, when all sources of income are considered, are far better off than men. The breast cancer obsession is a blatant reminder that women’s lives are seen as more valuable than men’s.

Whether it be the female domination of the legal system in Pennsylvania protection law, or the Victorian Coercion Doctrine, society has always had two tiers: one for the (usually attractive) woman, always innocent and seeking strong men to protect her, and men, assumed to be guilty and driven into bankruptcy.

Female rule is proven by the fact that, to make this claim in public is to commit social suicide. Its proven by women assaulting men in public while the passersby giggle. Its proven by the destruction of all due process protections by men. Its proven by the myths of “wage gaps” existing for decades after they’ve been debunked. Its proven by the army of free lawyers and security guards offered by a woman even hinting she’s been sexually abused. Its proven by the universal policy of campus security being available to escort women to their dorms in college. They are literally treated like goddesses and royalty. Its proven by the endless promotion of female professors without anything close to a requisite knowledge of their field.

Feminism has always been run my men, with only the occasional window dressing be actually female. These groups are reactive, they seek only to justify and defend female privilege. The rule of the woman is very old, and is not going away.

Originally titled ” Women Have Always Ruled: Revisionism in Gender Relations in the Late Victorian Era”

Works Cited:

Bax, EB. The Legal Subjection of Men. New Age Press 1908

Bax, EB. The Fraud of Feminism, Grant Richards Ltd, 1913

Court System of Pennsylvania. Franklin County, PA Statistics 2012
http://www.pacourts.us/assets/files/setting-2133/file-1906.pdf?cb=c2cc70

Mr. Belfort Bax Replies to his Feminist Critics. New Age, 8 August 1908, p. 287-288
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1908/08/reply-feminists.htm