In dealing with the training for marriage, I pointed out that the qualities which make for success in the matrimonial market have little or no connection with the qualities required for the efficient performance of what is supposed to be the life-work of woman—the care of home, of husband and of children. I pointed out that the characteristics which are likely to obtain for a girl a desirable husband are not the same characteristics which will have to be brought into play if the husband, when he is obtained, is to find in her a desirable wife from the domestic point of view; and that, as a general rule, she is promoted to what should be the important and responsible position of wife and mother on the strength of attainments which have nothing to do with her fitness for the duties of that position.
The habit of judging a woman entirely by externals—appearance, dress, and manners—is not confined to the man who is in search of a wife. (“Judging” is, perhaps, the wrong phrase to use—it is, rather, a habit of resigning judgment so as to fall completely under the influence of externals.) It is very general amongst all classes of male employers, and its result is, it seems to me, a serious bar to efficiency in women’s work. It pays better in the marriage market to be attractive than to be efficient, and in a somewhat lesser degree the same rule holds good in certain other departments of women’s labour.
To a certain degree, of course, a man’s fitness for any particular work is judged by externals; but never to the same degree as a woman’s. Further, the judgment passed upon a man who is chosen to fill a vacancy because his prospective employer “likes the look of him” has some relation to the qualities which will be required of him in the execution of the duties he will be called upon to perform—it is not biased by irrelevant considerations of sex. A merchant will like the looks of a clerk who has the outward appearance of being smart, well mannered, well educated, and intelligent; an employer who wishes to engage a man for work which involves the carrying of heavy sacks will like the looks of a man who is possessed of muscular arms and a pair of broad shoulders. In each case he is favourably influenced by the man’s externals because they seem to him to indicate the qualities which he requires in his prospective employé.