Part 17 (1/2)

[118] Dr. Max Taube, ”Der Schutz der unehelichen Kinder,” Leipsic, 1893.

[119] ”Die gefallenen Madchen und die Sittenpolizei,” Wilh. Issleib, Berlin, 1889.

[120] In a work, ”Kapital und Presse,” Berlin, 1891, Dr. F. Mehring proves that a by no means indifferent actress was engaged at a well known theater at a salary of 100 marks a month, and that her outlay for wardrobe alone ran up to 1000 marks a month. The deficit was covered by a ”friend.”

[121] Lombroso and Ferrero, _ubi supra_.

[122] ”Die venerischen Krankheiten in Danemark,” Dr. Giesing.

[123] Report of the Sanitary Commission on the organization of sanitation relative to prost.i.tution in Paris, addressed to the Munic.i.p.al Council of Paris, 1890.

CHAPTER IV.

WOMAN'S POSITION AS A BREADWINNER; HER INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES; DARWINISM AND THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY.

The endeavor of woman to secure economic self-support and personal independence has, to a certain degree, been recognized as legitimate by bourgeois society, the same as the endeavor of the workingman after greater freedom of motion. The princ.i.p.al reason for such acquiescence lies in the cla.s.s interests of the bourgeoisie itself. The bourgeoisie, or capitalist cla.s.s, requires the free and unrestricted purveyance of male and female labor-power for the fullest development of production.

In even tempo with the perfection of machinery, and technique; with the subdivision of labor into single acts requiring ever less technical experience and strength; with the sharpening of the compet.i.tive warfare between industry and industry, and between whole regions--country against country, continent against continent--the labor-power of woman comes into ever greater demand.

The special causes, from which flows this ever increasing enlistment of woman in ever increasing numbers, have been detailed above _in extenso_.

Woman is increasingly employed _along with man, or in his place, because her material demands are less than those of man_. A circ.u.mstance predicated upon her very nature as a s.e.xual being, forces woman to proffer herself cheaper. More frequently, on an average, than man, woman is subject to physical derangements, that cause an interruption of work, and that, in view of the combination and organization of labor, in force to-day in large production, easily interfere with the steady course of production. Pregnancy and lying-in prolong such pauses. The employer turns the circ.u.mstance to advantage, and _recoups himself doubly for the inconveniences_, that these disturbances put him to, _with the payment of much lower wages_.

Moreover--as may be judged from the quotation on page 90, taken from Marx's ”Capital”--the work of married women has a particular fascination for the employer. The married woman is, as working-woman, much more ”attentive and docile” than her unmarried sister. Thought of her children drives her to the utmost exertion of her powers, in order to earn the needed livelihood; accordingly, she submits to many an imposition that the unmarried woman does not. In general, the working-woman ventures only exceptionally to join her fellow-toilers in securing better conditions of work. That raises her value in the eyes of the employer; not infrequently she is even a trump card in his hands against refractory workingmen. Moreover, she is endowed with great patience, greater dexterity of fingers, a better developed artistic sense, the latter of which renders her fitter than man for many branches of work.

These female ”virtues” are fully appreciated by the virtuous capitalist, and thus, along with the development of industry, woman finds from year to year an ever wider field for her application--but, and this is the determining factor, _without tangible improvement to her social condition_. If woman labor is employed, it generally sets male labor free. The displaced male labor, however, wishes to live; it proffers itself for lower wages; and the proffer, in turn, re-acts depressingly upon the wages of the working-woman. The reduction of wages thus turns into an endless screw, that, due to the constant revolutions in the technique of the labor-process, is set rotating all the more swiftly, seeing that the said technical revolutions, through the savings of labor-power, set also female labor free,--all of which again increases the supply of hands. New industries somewhat counteract the constant supply of relatively superfluous labor-power, but are not strong enough to establish lasting improvement. Every rise of wages above a certain measure causes the employer to look to further improvements in his plant, calculated to subst.i.tute will-less, automatic mechanical devices for human hands and human brain. At the start of capitalist production, hardly any but male labor confronted male labor in the labor-market; now s.e.x is played against s.e.x, and, further along the line, age against age.

Woman displaces man, and, in her turn, woman is displaced by younger folks and child-labor. Such is the ”Moral Order” in modern industry.

The endeavor, on the part of employers, to extend the hours of work, with the end in view of pumping more surplus values out of their employes, is made easier to them, thanks to the slighter power of resistance possessed by women. Hence the phenomenon that, in the textile industries, for instance, in which women frequently const.i.tute far more than one-half of the total labor employed, the hours of work are everywhere longest. Accustomed from home to the idea that her work is ”never done,” woman allows the increased demands to be placed upon her without resistance. In other branches, as in the millinery trade, the manufacture of flowers, etc., wages and hours of work deteriorate through the taking home of extra tasks, at which the women sit till midnight, and even later, without realizing that they thereby only compete against themselves, and, as a result, earn in a sixteen-hour workday what they would have made in a regular ten-hour day.[124] In what measure female labor has increased in the leading industrial countries may appear from the below sets of tables. We shall start with the leading industrial country of Europe,--England. The last census furnishes this picture:

Total Persons Year. Employed. Males. Females.

1871 11,593,466 8,270,186 3,323,280 1881 11,187,564 7,783,646 3,403,918 1891 12,898,484 8,883,254 4,016,230

Accordingly, within twenty years, the number of males employed increased 613,068, or 7.9 per cent.; the number of females, however, by 692,950, or 20.9 per cent. It is especially to be observed in this table that, in 1881, a year of crisis, the number of males employed fell off by 486,540, and the number of females increased by 80,638. The increase of female at the cost of male persons employed is thus emphatically brought to light. But within the increasing number of female employes itself a change is going on: _younger forces are displacing the older_. It transpired that in England, during the years 1881-1891, female labor-power of the age 10 to 45 had increased, while that above 45 had decreased.

Industries in which female exceeded considerably the number of male labor, were mainly the following:

Industries. Females. Males.

Manufacture of woman's clothing 415,961 4,470 Cotton industry 332,784 213,231 Manufacture of worsted goods 69,629 40,482 Manufacture of s.h.i.+rts 52,943 2,153 Manufacture of hosiery 30,887 18,200 Lace industry 21,716 13,030 Tobacco industry 15,880 13,090 Bookbinding 14,249 11,487 Manufacture of gloves 9,199 2,756 Teachers 144,393 50,628

Again the wages of women are, in almost all branches, considerably lower than the wages of men _for the same hours_. In the year 1883, the wages in England were for men and women as follows, per week:--

Industries. Males. Females.

Flax and jute factories 26 Marks 10-11 Marks Manufacture of gla.s.s 38 ” 12 ”

Printing 32-36 ” 10-12 ”