CHAP. VIII - WOMAN

Summary

In one respect, Victoria stands at once sadly behind and strangely in advance of other democratic countries. Women, or at least some women, vote at the Lower House elections, but, on the other hand, the legal position of the sex is almost as inferior to that of man as it is in England or the East.

At an election held some few years ago, female ratepayers voted everywhere throughout Victoria. Upon examination, it was found that a new Registration Act had directed the rate-books to be used as a basis for the preparation of the electoral lists, and that women householders had been legally put on the register, although the intention of the Legislature was not expressed, and the question of female voting had not been raised during the debates. Another instance, this, of the singular way in which in truly British countries reforms are brought about by accident, and, when once become facts, are allowed to stand. There is no more sign of general adhesion, in Australia than in England to the doctrine which asserts that women, as well as men, being interested in good government, should have a voice in the selection of that government to which they are forced to submit.

As far as concerns their social position, women are as badly off in Australia as in England. Our theory of marriage—which has been tersely explained thus: “the husband and wife are one, and the husband is that one,”—rules as absolutely at the antipodes as it does in Yorkshire.