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Woman under socialism
Woman under socialismполная версия

Полная версия

Woman under socialism

Язык: Английский
Год издания: 2017
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Things were at their worst in Berlin under Frederick II, who reigned from 1786 to 1796. He led with the worst example; and his court chaplain, Zoellner, even lowered himself to the point of marrying the King to the latter's mistress, Julie von Boss, as a second wife, and as she soon thereupon died in childbed, Zoellner again consented to marry the King to the Duchess Sophie of Doenhoff as a second wife by the side of the Queen.

More soldiers and more taxpayers was the leading desire of the Princes. Louis XIV, after whose death France was entirely impoverished in money and men, set up pensions for parents who had ten children, and the pension was raised when they reached twelve children. His General, the Marshal of Saxony, even made to him the proposition to allow marriages only for the term of five years. Fifty years later, in 1741, Frederick the Great wrote, "I look upon men as a herd of deer in the zoological garden of a great lord, their only duty is to populate and fill the park."57

Later, he extensively depopulated his "deer park" with his wars, and then took pains to "populate" it again with foreign immigration.

The German multiplicity of States, that was in fullest bloom in the eighteenth century, presented a piebald map of the most different social conditions and legislative codes. While in the minority of the States efforts were made to improve the economic situation by promoting new industries, by making settlement easier and by changing the marriage laws in the direction of facilitating wedlock, the majority of the States and statelets remained true to their backward views, and intensified the unfavorable conditions of marriage and settlement for both men and women. Seeing, however, that human nature will not allow itself to be suppressed, all impediments and vexations notwithstanding, concubinage sprang up in large quantity, and the number of illegitimate children was at no time as large as in these days when the "paternal regiment" of the absolute Princes reigned in "Christian simplicity."

The married woman of citizen rank lived in strict seclusion. The number of her tasks and occupations was so large that, as a conscientious housewife, she had to be at her post early and late in order to fulfil her duties, and even that was possible to her only with the aid of her daughters. Not only were there to be filled those daily household duties which to-day, too, the small middle class housewife has to attend to, but a number of others also, which the housewife of to-day is freed from through modern development. She had to spin, weave, bleach and sew the linen and clothes, prepare soap and candles, brew beer, – in short, she was the veriest Cinderella: her only recreation was Sunday's church. Marriage was contracted only within the same social circles; the strongest and most ludicrous spirit of caste dominated all relations, and tolerated no transgression. The daughters were brought up in the same spirit; they were held under strict home seclusion; their mental education did not go beyond the bounds of the narrowest home relations. On top of this, an empty and hollow formality, meant as a substitute for education and culture, turned existence, that of woman in particular, into a veritable treadmill. Thus the spirit of the Reformation degenerated into the worst pedantry, that sought to smother the natural desires of man, together with his pleasures in life under a confused mass of rules and usages that affected to be "worthy," but that benumbed the soul.

Gradually, however, an economic change took place, that first seized Western Europe and then reached into Germany also. The discovery of America, the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, the opening of the sea route of the East Indies, the further discoveries that hinged on these, and finally, the circumnavigation of the earth, revolutionized the life and views of the most advanced nations of Europe. The unthought-of rapid expansion of the world's commerce, called to life through the opening of ever newer markets for European industry and products, revolutionized the old system of handicraft. Manufacture arose, and thence flowed large production. Germany – so long held back in her material development by her religious wars and her political disintegration, which religious differences promoted, – was finally dragged into the stream of the general progress. In several quarters, large production developed under the form of manufacture: flax and wool-spinning and weaving, the manufacture of cloth, mining, the manufacture of iron, glass and porcelain, transportation, etc. Fresh labor power, female included, came into demand. But this newly rising form of industry met with the most violent opposition on the part of the craftsmen, ossified in the guild and medieval corporation system, who furiously fought every change in the method of production, and saw therein a mortal enemy. The French Revolution supervened. While casting aside the older order in France, the Revolution also carried into Germany a fresh current of air, which the old order could not for long resist. The French invasion hastened the downfall, – this side of the Rhine also – of the old, worn-out system. Whatever attempt was made, during the period of re-action after 1815, to turn back the wheels of time, the New had grown too strong, it finally remained victorious.

The rise of machinery, the application of the natural sciences to the process of production, the new roads of commerce and traffic burst asunder the last vestiges of the old system. The guild privileges, the personal restrictions, the mark and jurisdictional rights, together with all that thereby hung, walked into the lumber room. The strongly increased need of labor-power did not rest content with the men, it demanded woman also as a cheaper article. The conditions that had become untenable, had to fall; and they fell. The time thereto, – long wished-for by the newly risen class, the bourgeoisie or capitalist class – arrived the moment Germany gained her political unity. The capitalist class demanded imperiously the unhampered development of all the social forces; it demanded this for the benefit of its own capitalist interests, that, at that time, and, to a certain degree, were also the interests of the large majority. Thus came about the liberty of trade, the liberty of emigration, the removal of the barriers to marriage, – in short, that whole system of legislation that designates itself "liberal." The old-time reactionists expected from these measures the smash-up of morality. The late Adolph Ketteler of Mainz moaned, already in 1865, accordingly, before the new social legislation had become general, "that the tearing down of the existing barriers to matrimony meant the dissolution of wedlock, it being now possible for the married to run away from each other at will." A pretty admission that the moral bonds of modern marriage are so weak, that only compulsion can be relied on to hold the couple together.

The circumstance, on the one hand, that the now naturally more numerous marriages effected a rapid increase of population, and, on the other, that the gigantically developing industry of the new era brought on many ills, never known of before, caused the spectre of "overpopulation" to rise anew. Conservative and liberal economists pull since then the same string. We shall show what this fear of so-called overpopulation means; we shall trace the feared phenomenon back to its legitimate source. Among those who suffer of the overpopulation fear, and who demand the restriction of freedom to marry, especially for workingmen, belong particularly Prof. Ad. Wagner. According to him, workingmen marry too early, in comparison with the middle class. He, along with others of this opinion, forget that the male members of the higher class, marry later only in order to wed "according to their station in life," a thing they can not do before they have obtained a certain position. For this abstinence, the males of the higher classes indemnify themselves with prostitution. Accordingly, it is to prostitution that the working class are referred, the moment marriage is made difficult for, or, under certain circumstances, is wholly forbidden to, them. But, then, let none wonder at the results, and let him not raise an outcry at the "decline of morality," if the women also, who have the same desires as the men, seek to satisfy in illegitimate relations the promptings of the strongest impulse of nature. Moreover, the views of Wagner are at fisticuffs with the interests of the capitalist class, which, oddly enough, shares his views: it needs many "hands," so as to own cheap labor-power that may fit it out for competition in the world's market. With such petty notions and measures, born of a near-sighted philistinism, the gigantic growing ills of the day are not to be healed.

PART II

WOMAN IN THE PRESENT

CHAPTER I.

SEXUAL INSTINCTS, WEDLOCK, CHECKS AND OBSTRUCTIONS TO MARRIAGE

Plato thanked the gods for eight favors bestowed upon him. As the first, he took it that they had granted him to be born a freeman, and not a slave; the second was that he was created a man, and not a woman. A similar thought finds utterance in the morning prayer of the Jews. They pray: "Blessed be Thou, our God and Lord of Hosts, who hast not created me a woman;" the Jewish women, on the other hand, pray at the corresponding place: "who hast created me after thy will." The contrast in the position of the sexes can find no more forcible expression than it does in the saying of Plato, and in the different wording of the prayer among the Jews. The male is the real being, the master of the female. With the views of Plato and the Jews, the larger part of men agree, and many a woman also wishes that she had been born a man and not a woman. In this view lies reflected the condition of the female sex.

Wholly irrespective of the question whether woman is oppressed as a female proletarian, as sex she is oppressed in the modern world of private property. A number of checks and obstructions, unknown to man, exist for her, and hem her in at every step. Much that is allowed to man is forbidden to her; a number of social rights and privileges, enjoyed by the former, are, if exercised by her, a blot or a crime. She suffers both as a social and a sex entity, and it is hard to say in which of the two respects she suffers more.

Of all the natural impulses human beings are instinct with, along with that of eating and drinking, the sexual impulse is the strongest. The impulse to procreate the species is the most powerful expression of the "Will to Live." It is implanted most strongly in every normally developed human being. Upon maturity, its satisfaction is an actual necessity for man's physical and mental health. Luther was perfectly right when he said: "He who would resist the promptings of Nature, and prevent their going as Nature wills and must, what else does he but endeavor to resist Nature's being Nature, that fire burn, water wet, that man eat, drink or sleep?" These are words that should be graven in granite over the doors of our churches, in which the "sinful flesh" is so diligently preached against. More strikingly no physician or physiologist can describe the necessity for the satisfaction of the craving for love on the part of a healthy being, – a craving that finds its expression in sexual intercourse.

It is a commandment of the human being to itself – a commandment that it must obey if it wishes to develop normally and in health – that it neglect the exercise of no member of its body, deny gratification to no natural impulse. Each member must fill the function, that it is intended for by Nature, on penalty of atrophy and disease. The laws of the physical development of man must be studied and observed, the same as those of mental development. The mental activity of the human being is the expression of the physiologic composition of its organs. The complete health of the former is intimately connected with the health of the latter. A disturbance of the one inevitably has a disturbing effect upon the other. Nor do the so-called animal desires take lower rank than the so-called mental ones. One set and the other are effects of the identical combined organism: the influence of the two upon each other is mutual and continuous. This holds good for man as for woman.

It follows that, the knowledge of the properties of the sexual organs is just as needful as that of the organs which generate mental activity; and that man should bestow upon the cultivation of both an equal share of care. He should realize that organs and impulses, found implanted in every human being, and that constitute a very essential part of his nature, aye, that, at certain periods of his life control him absolutely, must not be objects of secrecy, of false shame and utter ignorance. It follows, furthermore, that a knowledge of the physiology and anatomy of the sexual organs, together with their functions, should be as general among men and women as any other branch of knowledge. Equipped with an accurate knowledge of our physical make-up, we would look upon many a condition in life with eyes different from those we now do. The question of removing existing evils would then, of itself, force itself upon those before whom society, to-day, passes by in silence and solemn bashfulness, notwithstanding these evils command attention within the precincts of every family. In all other matters, knowledge is held a virtue, the worthiest and most beautiful aim of human endeavor – only not knowledge in such matters that are in closest relation with the essence and health of our own Ego, as well as the basis of all social development.

Kant says: "Man and woman only jointly constitute the complete being: one sex supplements the other." Schopenhauer declares: "The sexual impulse is the fullest utterance of the will to live, hence it is the concentration of all will-power;" again: "The affirmative declaration of the will in favor of life is concentrated in the act of generation, and that is its most decisive expression." In accord therewith says Mainlaender: "The center of gravity of human life lies in the sexual instinct: it alone secures life to the individual, which is that which above all else it wants… To nothing else does man devote greater earnestness than to the work of procreation, and for the care of none other does he compress and concentrate the intensity of his will so demonstratively as for the act of procreation." Finally, and before all of these, Buddha said: "The sexual instinct is sharper than the hook wild elephants are tamed with; it is hotter than flames; it is like an arrow, shot into the spirit of man."58

Such being the intensity of the sexual impulse, it is no wonder that sexual abstinence at the age of maturity affects the nervous system and the whole organism of man, with one sex as well as the other, in such a manner that it often leads to serious disturbances and manias; under certain conditions even to insanity and death. True enough, the sexual instinct does not assert itself with equal violence in all natures, and much can be done towards curbing it by education and self-control, especially by avoiding the excitation resulting upon certain conversations and reading. It is thought that, in general, the impulse manifests itself lighter with women than with men, and that the irritation is less potent with the former. It is even claimed that, with woman, there is a certain repugnance for the sexual act. The minority is small of those with whom physiologic and psychologic dispositions and conditions engender such a difference. "The union of the sexes is one of the great laws of living Nature; man and woman are subject to it the same as all other creatures, and can not transgress it, especially at a ripe age, without their organism suffering more or less in consequence."59 Debay quotes among the diseases, caused by the inactivity of the sexual organs, satyriasis, nymphomania and hysteria; and he adds that celibacy exercises upon the intellectual powers, especially with woman, a highly injurious effect. On the subject of the harmfulness of sexual abstinence by woman, Busch says:60 "Abstinence has in all ages been considered particularly harmful to woman; indeed it is a fact that excess, as well as abstinence, affects the female organism equally harmfully, and the effects show themselves more pronouncedly and intensively than with the male organism."

It may, accordingly, be said that man – be the being male or female – is complete in the measure in which, both as to organic and spiritual culture, the impulses and manifestations of life utter themselves in the sexes, and in the measure that they assume character and expression. Each sex of itself reached its highest development. "With civilized man," says Klenke in his work "Woman as Wife," "the compulsion of procreation is placed under the direction of the moral principle, and that is guided by reason." This is true. Nevertheless, it were an impossible task, even with the highest degree of freedom, wholly to silence the imperative command for the preservation of the species, – a command that Nature planted in the normal, organic expression of the both sexes. Where healthy individuals, male or female, have failed in their life-time to honor this duty towards Nature, it is not with them an instance of the free exercise of the will, even when so given out, or when, in self-deception, it is believed to be such. It is the result of social obstacles, together with the consequences which follow in their wake; they restricted the right of Nature; they allowed the organs to wilt; allowed the stamp of decay and of sexual vexation – both in point of appearance and of character – to be placed upon the whole organism; and, finally, brought on – through nervous distempers – diseased inclinations and conditions both of body and of mind. The man becomes feminine, the woman masculine in shape and character. The sexual contrast not having reached realization in the plan of Nature, each human being remained one-sided, never reached its supplement, never touched the acme of its existence. In her work, "The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex," Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell says: "The sexual impulse exists as an indispensable condition of life, and as the basis of society. It is the greatest force in human nature. Often undeveloped, not even an object of thought, but none the less the central fire of life, this inevitable instinct is the natural protector against any possibility of extinction."

Science agrees, accordingly, with the opinion of the philosophers, and with Luther's healthy common sense. It follows that every human being has, not merely the right, but also the duty to satisfy the instincts, that are intimately connected with its inmost being, that, in fact, imply existence itself. Hindered therein, rendered impossible to him through social institutions or prejudices, the consequence is that man is checked in the development of his being, is left to a stunted life and retrogression. What the consequences thereof are, our physicians, hospitals, insane asylums and prisons can tell, – to say nothing of the thousands of tortured family lives. In a book that appeared in Leipsic, the author is of the opinion: "The sexual impulse is neither moral nor immoral; it is merely natural, like hunger and thirst: Nature knows nothing of morals;"61 nevertheless bourgeois society is far from a general acceptance of this maxim.

The opinion finds wide acceptance among physicians and physiologists that even a defectively equipped marriage is better than celibacy. Experience agrees therewith. In Bavaria there were, in 1858, not less than 4,899 lunatics, 2,576 (53 per cent.) of them men, 2,323 (47 per cent.) women. The men were, accordingly, more strongly represented than the women. Of the whole number, however, the unmarried of both sexes ran up to 81 per cent., the married only to 17 per cent., while of 2 per cent. the conjugal status was unknown. As a mitigation of the shocking disproportion between the unmarried and the married, the circumstance may be taken into consideration that a not small number of the unmarried were insane from early childhood. In Hanover, in the year 1856, there was one lunatic to every 457 unmarried, 564 widowed, 1,316 married people. Most strikingly is the effect of unsatisfied sexual relations shown in the number of suicides among men and women. In general, the number of suicides is in all countries considerably higher among men than among women. To every 1,000 female suicides there were in:62



But between the ages of 21 and 30, the figures for female suicides is in all European countries higher than for males, due, as Oettingen assumes, to sexual causes. In Prussia the percentages of suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 were on an average:



In Saxony there were to every 1,000 suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 these averages:



For widowed and divorced people also the percentage of suicides is larger than the average. In Saxony there are seven times as many suicides among divorced males, and three times as many among divorced females, as the average of suicides for males and females respectively. Again, suicide is more frequent among divorced and widowed men and women when they are childless. Of 491 widowed suicides in Prussia (119 males and 372 females) 353 were childless.

Taking into further consideration that, among the unmarried women, who are driven to suicide between the ages of 21 and 30, many a one is to be found, who takes her life by reason of being betrayed, or because she can not bear the consequences of a "slip," the fact remains that sexual reasons play a decided role in suicide at this age. Among female suicides, the figure is large also for those between the ages of 16 to 20, and the fact is probably likewise traceable to unsatisfied sexual instinct, disappointment in love, secret pregnancy, or betrayal. On the subject of the women of our days as sexual beings, Professor V. Krafft-Ebing expresses himself: "A not-to-be-underrated source of insanity with woman lies in her social position. Woman, by nature more prone than man to sexual needs, at least in the ideal sense of the term, knows no honorable means of gratifying the need other than marriage. At the same time marriage offers her the only support. Through unnumbered generations her character has been built in this direction. Already the little girl plays mother with her doll. Modern life, with its demands upon culture, offers ever slighter prospects of gratification through marriage. This holds especially with the upper classes, among whom marriage is contracted later and more rarely. While man – as the stronger, and thanks to his greater intellectual and physical powers, together with his social position – supplies himself easily with sexual gratification, or, taken up with some occupation, that engages all his energies, easily finds an equivalent, these paths are closed to single women. This leads, in the first place, consciously or unconsciously, to dissatisfaction with herself and the world, to morbid brooding. For a while, perhaps, relief is sought in religion; but in vain. Out of religious enthusiasm, there spring with or without masturbation, a host of nervous diseases, among which hysteria and insanity are not rare. Only thus is the fact explainable that insanity among single women occurs with greatest frequency between the ages of 25 and 35, that is to say, the time when the bloom of youth, and, along therewith, hope vanishes; while with men, insanity occurs generally between the ages of 35 and 50, the season of the strongest efforts in the struggle for existence.

"It certainly is no accident that, hand in hand with increasing celibacy, the question of the emancipation of woman has come ever more on the order of the day. I would have the question looked upon as a danger signal, set up by the social position of woman in modern society – a position that grows ever more unbearable, due to increasing celibacy; I would have it looked upon as the danger signal of a justified demand, made upon modern society, to furnish woman some equivalent for that to which she is assigned by Nature, and which modern social conditions partly deny her."63

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