Part 12 (1/2)
Cast in the mold of the conditions above described, many a feature of woman's character took shape, and they reached ever fuller development from generation to generation. On these features men love to dwell with predilection, but they forget that they are themselves the cause thereof, and have promoted with their conduct the defects they now make merry about, or censure. Among these widely censured female qualities, belong her dreaded readiness of tongue, and pa.s.sion for gossip; her inclination to endless talk over trifles and unimportant things; her mental bent for purely external matters, such as dress, and her desire to please, together with a resulting p.r.o.neness to all the follies of fas.h.i.+on; lastly, her easily arousable envy and jealousy of the other members of her s.e.x.
These qualities, though in different degrees, manifest themselves generally in the female s.e.x from early childhood. They are qualities that are born under the pressure of social conditions, and are further developed by heredity, example and education. A being irrationally brought up, can not bring up others rationally.
In order to be clear on the causes and development of good or bad qualities, whether with the s.e.xes or with whole peoples, the same methods must be pursued that modern natural science applies in order to ascertain the formation and development of life according to genus and species, and to determine their qualities. They are the laws that flow from the material conditions for life, laws that life demands, that adapt themselves to it, and finally became its nature.
Man forms no exception to that which holds good in Nature for all animate creation. Man does not stand outside of Nature: looked at physiologically, he is the most highly developed animal,--a fact, however, that some would deny. Thousands of years ago, although wholly ignorant of modern science, the ancients had on many matters affecting man, more rational views than the moderns; above all, they gave practical application to the views founded on experience. We praise with enthusiastic admiration the beauty and strength of the men and women of Greece; but the fact is overlooked that, not the happy climate, nor the bewitching nature of a territory that stretched along the bay-indented sea, but the physical culture and maxims of education, consistently enforced by the State, thus affected both the being and the development of the population. These measures were calculated to combine beauty, strength and suppleness of body with wit and elasticity of mind, both of which were transmitted to the descendants. True enough, even then, in comparison with man, woman was neglected in point of mental, but not of corporal culture.[86] In Sparta, that went furthest in the corporal culture of the two s.e.xes, boys and girls went naked until the age of p.u.b.erty, and partic.i.p.ated in common in the exercises of the body, in games and in wrestling. The naked exposure of the human body, together with the natural treatment of natural things, had the advantage that sensuous excitement--to-day artificially cultivated by the separation of the s.e.xes from early childhood--was then prevented. The corporal make-up of one s.e.x, together with its distinctive organs, was no secret to the other. There, no play of equivocal words could arise. Nature was Nature.
The one s.e.x rejoiced at the beauty of the other. Mankind will have to return to Nature and to the natural intercourse of the s.e.xes; it must cast off the now-ruling and unhealthy spiritual notions concerning man; it must do that by setting up methods of education that fit in with our own state of culture, and that may bring on the physical and mental regeneration of the race.
Among us, and especially on the subject of female education, seriously erroneous conceptions are still prevalent. That woman also should have strength, courage and resolution, is considered heretical, ”unwomanly,”
although none would dare deny that, equipped with such qualities, woman could protect herself against many ills and inconveniences. Conversely, woman is cramped in her physical, exactly as in her intellectual development. The irrationalness of her dress plays an important _role_ herein. It not only, unconscionably hampers her in her physique, it directly ruins her;--and yet, but few physicians dare take a stand against the abuse, accurately informed though they are on the injuriousness of her dress. The fear of displeasing the patient often causes them to hold their tongues, if they do not even flatter her insane notions. Modern dress hinders woman in the free use of her limbs, it injures her physical growth, and awakens in her a sense of impotence and weakness. Moreover, modern dress is a positive danger to her own and the health of those who surround her: in the house and on the street, woman is a walking raiser of dust. And likewise is the development of woman hampered by the strict separation of the s.e.xes, both in social intercourse and at school--a method of education wholly in keeping with the spiritual ideas that Christianity has deeply implanted in us on all matters that regard the nature of man.
The woman who does not reach the development of her faculties, who is crippled in her powers, who is held imprisoned in the narrowest circle of thought, and who comes into contact with hardly any but her own female relatives,--such a woman can not possibly raise herself above the routine of daily life and habits. Her intellectual horizon revolves only around the happenings in her own immediate surroundings, family affairs and what thereby hangs. Extensive conversations on utter trifles, the bent for gossip, are promoted with all might; of course her latent intellectual qualities strain after activity and exercise;--whereupon the husband, often involved thereby in trouble, and driven to desperation, utters imprecations upon qualities that he, the ”chief of creation,” has mainly upon his own conscience.
With woman--whose face all our social and s.e.xual relations turn toward marriage with every fibre of her being--marriage and matrimonial matters const.i.tute, quite naturally, a leading portion of her conversation and aspirations. Moreover, to the physically weaker woman, subjected as she is to man by custom and laws, the tongue is her princ.i.p.al weapon against him, and, as a matter of course, she makes use thereof. Similarly with regard to her severely censured pa.s.sion for dress and desire to please, which reach their frightful acme in the insanities of fas.h.i.+on, and often throw fathers and husbands into great straits and embarra.s.sments. The explanation lies at hand. To man, woman is, first of all, an object of enjoyment. Economically and socially unfree, she is bound to see in marriage her means of support; accordingly, she depends upon man and becomes a piece of property to him. As a rule, her position is rendered still more unfavorable through the general excess of women over men,--a subject that will be treated more closely. The disparity intensifies the compet.i.tion of women among themselves; and it is sharpened still more because, for a great variety of reasons, a number of men do not marry at all. Woman is, accordingly, forced to enter into compet.i.tion for a husband with the members of her own s.e.x, by means of the most favorable external presentation of her person possible.
Let the long duration, through many generations, of these evils be taken into account. The wonder will cease that these manifestations, sprung from equally lasting causes, have reached their present extreme form.
Furthermore, perhaps in no age was the compet.i.tion of women for husbands as sharp as it is in this, due partly to reasons already given, and partly to others yet to be discussed. Finally, the difficulties of obtaining a competent livelihood, as well as the demands made by society, combine, more than ever before, to turn woman's face towards matrimony as an ”inst.i.tute for support.”
Men gladly accept such a state of things: they are its beneficiaries. It flatters their pride, their vanity, their interest to play the _role_ of the stronger and the master; and, like all other rulers, they are, in their _role_ of masters, difficult to reach by reason. It is, therefore, all the more in the interest of woman to warm towards the establishment of conditions that shall free her from so unworthy a position. Women should expect as little help from the men as workingmen do from the capitalist cla.s.s.
Observe the characteristics, developed in the struggle for the coveted place, on other fields, on the industrial field, for instance, so soon as the capitalists face each other. What despicable, even scampish, means of warfare are not resorted to! What hatred, envy and pa.s.sion for calumny are not awakened!--observe that, and the explanation stands out why similar features turn up in the compet.i.tion of women for a husband.
Hence it happens that women, on the average, do not get along among themselves as well as men; that even the best female friends lightly fall out, if the question is their standing in a man's eye, or pleasingness of appearance. Hence also the observation that wherever women meet, be they ever such utter strangers, they usually look at one another as enemies. With one look they make the mutual discovery of ill-matched colors, or wrongly-pinned bows, or any other similar cardinal sin. In the look that they greet each other with, the judgment can be readily read that each has pa.s.sed upon the other. It is as if each wished to inform the other: ”I know better than you how to dress, and draw attention upon myself.”
On the other hand, woman is by nature more impulsive than man; she reflects less than he; she has more abnegation, is naiver, and hence is governed by stronger pa.s.sions, as revealed by the truly heroic self-sacrifice with which she protects her child, or cares for relatives, and nurses them in sickness. In the fury, however, this pa.s.sionateness finds its ugly expression. But the good as well as the bad sides, with man as well as woman, are influenced, first of all, by their social position; favored, or checked, or transfigured. The same impulse, that, under unfavorable circ.u.mstances, appears as a blemish, is, under favorable circ.u.mstances, a source of happiness for oneself and others. Fourier has the credit of having brilliantly demonstrated how the identical impulses of man produce, under different conditions, wholly opposite results.
Running parallel with the effects of mistaken education, are the no less serious effects of mistaken or imperfect physical culture upon the purpose of Nature. All physicians are agreed that the preparation of woman for her calling as mother and rearer of children leaves almost everything to be wished. ”Man exercises the soldier in the use of his weapons, and the artisan in the handling of his tools; every office requires special studies; even the monk has his novitiate. Woman alone is not trained for her serious duties of mother.”[87] Nine-tenths of the maidens who marry enter matrimony with almost utter ignorance about motherhood and the duties of wedlock. The inexcusable shyness, even on the part of mothers, to speak with a grown-up daughter of such important s.e.xual duties, leaves the latter in the greatest darkness touching her duties towards herself and her future husband. With her entrance upon married life, woman enters a territory that is wholly strange to her.
She has drawn to herself a fancy-picture thereof--generally from novels that are not particularly to be commended--that does not accord with reality.[88] Her defective household knowledge, that, as things are to-day, is inevitable, even though many a function, formerly naturally belonging to the wife, has been removed from her, also furnishes many a cause for friction. Some know nothing whatever of household matters: They consider themselves too good to bother about them, and look upon them as matters that concern the servant girl; numerous others, from the ranks of the ma.s.ses, are prevented, by the struggle for existence, from cultivating themselves for their calling as householders: they must be in the factory and at work early and late. It is becoming evident that, due to the development of social conditions, the separate household system is losing ground every day; and that it can be kept up only at the sacrifice of money and time, neither of which the great majority is able to expend.
Yet another cause that destroys the object of marriage to not a few men is to be found in the physical debility of many women. Our food, housing, methods of work and support, in short, our whole form of life, affects us in more ways than one rather harmfully than otherwise. We can speak with perfect right of a ”nervous age.” Now, then, this nervousness goes hand in hand with physical degeneration. Anaemia and nervousness are spread to an enormous degree among the female s.e.x: They are a.s.suming the aspect of a social calamity, that, if it continue a few generations longer, as at present, and we fail to place our social organization on a normal footing, is urging the race towards its destruction.[89]
With an eye to its s.e.xual mission, the female organism requires particular care,--good food, and, at certain periods, the requisite rest. Both of these are lacking to the great majority of the female s.e.x, at least in the cities and industrial neighborhoods, nor are they to be had under modern industrial conditions. Moreover, woman has so habituated herself to privation that, for instance, numberless women hold it a conjugal duty to keep the tid-bits for the man, and satisfy themselves with insufficient nourishment. Likewise are boys frequently given the preference over girls in matters of food. The opinion is general that woman can accommodate herself, not with less food only, but also with food of poorer quality. Hence the sad picture that our female youth, in particular, presents to the eyes of the expert. A large portion of our young women are bodily weak, anaemic, hypernervous. The consequences are difficulties in menstruation, and disease of the organs connected with the s.e.xual purpose, the disease often a.s.suming the magnitude of incapacity to give birth and to nurse the child, even of danger to life itself. ”Should this degeneration of our women continue to increase in the same measure as before, the time may not be far away when it will become doubtful whether man is to be counted among the mammals or not.”[90] Instead of a healthy, joyful companion, of a capable mother, of a wife attentive to her household duties, the husband has on his hands a sick, nervous wife, whose house the physician never quits, who can stand no draught, and can not bear the least noise. We shall not expatiate further on this subject. Every reader--and as often as in this book we speak of ”reader,” we mean, of course, the female as well as the male--can himself further fill the picture: he has ill.u.s.trations enough among his own relatives and acquaintances.
Experienced physicians maintain that the larger part of married women, in the cities especially, are in a more or less abnormal condition.
According to the degree of the evil and the character of the couple, such unions can not choose but be unhappy, and, they give the husband the right, in public opinion, to allow himself freedoms outside of the marriage bed, the knowledge of which throws the wife into the most wretched of moods. Furthermore the, at times, very different s.e.xual demands of one party or the other give occasion to serious friction, without the so much wished-for separation being possible. A great variety of considerations render that, in most cases, out of all question.
Under this head the fact may not be suppressed that a _considerable number of husbands are themselves responsible for certain serious physical ailments of their wives, ailments that these are not infrequently smitten with in marriage_. As consequences of the excesses indulged in during bachelors.h.i.+p, a considerable number of men suffer of chronic s.e.xual diseases, which, seeing these cause them no serious inconvenience, are taken lightly. Nevertheless, through s.e.xual intercourse with the wife, these diseases bring upon her disagreeable, even fatal troubles of the womb, that set in, soon after marriage, and often develop to the point of rendering her unable to conceive or to give birth. The wretched woman usually has no idea of the cause of the sickness, that depresses her spirits, embitters her life, and uproots the purpose of marriage. She blames herself, and accepts blame for a condition, that the other party is alone responsible for. Thus many a blooming wife falls, barely married, a prey to chronic malady, unaccountable to either herself or her family.
”As recent investigations have proved, this circ.u.mstance--that, as a result of gonorrhea, the male sperm no longer contains any seed-cells, and the man is, consequently, incapacitated for life from begetting children--_is a comparatively frequent cause of matrimonial barrenness, in contradiction to the old and convenient tradition of the lords of creation, who are ever ready to s.h.i.+ft to the shoulder of the wife the responsibility for the absence of the blessing of children_.”[91]
Accordingly, a large number of causes are operative in preventing modern married life, in the large majority of instances, from being that which it should be:--a union of two beings of opposite s.e.xes, who, out of mutual love and esteem, wish to belong to each other, and, in the striking sentence of Kant, mean, jointly, to const.i.tute the complete human being. It is, therefore, a suggestion of doubtful value--made even by learned folks, who imagine thereby to dispose of woman's endeavors after emanc.i.p.ation--that she look to domestic duties, to marriage,--to marriage, that our economic conditions are ever turning into a viler caricature, and that answers its purpose ever less!
The advice to woman that she seek her salvation in marriage, this being her real calling,--an advice that is thoughtlessly applauded by the majority of men--sounds like the merest mockery, when both the advisers and their _claqueurs_ do the opposite. Schopenhauer, the philosopher, has of woman only the conception of the philistine. He says: ”Woman is not meant for much work. Her characteristicon is not action but _suffering_. She pays the debt of life with the pains of travail, anxiety for the child, _subjection to man_. The strongest utterances of life and sentiment are denied her. Her life is meant to be quieter and less important than man's. Woman is destined for nurse and educator of infancy, _being herself infant-like, and an infant for life_, a sort of intermediate stage between the child and the man, _who is the real being_.... Girls should be trained for domesticity and _subjection....
Women are the most thorough-paced and incurable Philistines._”
In the same spirit as Schopenhauer, who, of course, is greatly quoted, is cast Lombroso and Ferrerro's work, ”Woman as a Criminal and a Prost.i.tute.” We know no scientific work of equal size--it contains 590 pages--with such a dearth of valid evidence on the theme therein treated. The statistical matter, from which the bold conclusions are drawn, is mostly meager. Often a dozen instances suffice the joint authors to draw the weightiest deductions. The matter that may be considered the most valuable in the work is, typically enough, furnished by a woman,--Dr. Tarnowskaja. The influence of social conditions, of cultural development, is left almost wholly on one side. Everything is judged exclusively from the physiologico-psychologic view-point, while a large quant.i.ty of ethnographic items of information on various peoples is woven into the argument, without submitting these items to closer scrutiny. According to the authors, just as with Schopenhauer, woman is a grown child, a liar _par excellence_, weak of judgment, fickle in love, incapable of any deed truly heroic. They claim the inferiority of woman to man is manifest from a large number of bodily differences.