Just over a century ago, the Anglo-French writer, Hilaire Belloc, declared himself “opposed to women voting as men vote. I call it immoral, because I think the bringing of one’s women, one’s mothers and sisters and wives into the political arena, disturbs the relations between the sexes.”
The idea that extending the franchise to women would do serious and irreparable damage to the social fabric is a useful reminder that views once widely held can soon seem absurd. Today, anyone in a western democracy who attacked the place of women in politics would not be taken seriously.
Yet we should also recall that it was to be many years before women enjoyed the same political rights as men. But views did change and as resistance was overcome, society changed too. So who’s to say the same thing won’t happen with marriage?
