The Modern Woman's Rights Movement Part 11

National unification raised Italy to the rank of a great power. Italy's political position as a great power, her modern parliamentary life, and the Liberal and Socialist majority in her Parliament give Italy a position that Spain, for example, does not possess in any way. Catholicism, Clericalism, and Roman custom are no match for these modern liberal powers, and are therefore unable to hinder the woman's rights movement in the same degree as do these influences in Spain. However, the Italian woman in general is still entirely dependent on the man (see the discussion in Alaremo's _Una Donna_), and in the unenlightened cla.s.ses woman's feeling of inferiority is impressed upon her by the Church, the law, the family, and by custom. Naturally the woman attempts, as in Spain, to take revenge in the s.e.xual field.

In Italy there is no strict morality among married men. Moreover, the opposition to divorce in Italy comes largely from the women, who, accustomed to being deceived in matrimony, fear that if they are divorced they _will be left without means of support_. "Boys make love to girls,--to mere unguided children without any will of their own,--and when these boys marry, be they ever so young, they have already had a wealth of experience that has taught them to regard woman disdainfully--with a sort of cynical authority. Even love and respect for the innocent young wife is unable to eradicate from the young husband the impressions of immorality and bad examples. The wife suffers from a hardly perceptible, but unceasing depression of mind. Innocently, without suspicion, uninformed as to her husband's past, the wife persists in her belief in his manly superiority until this belief has become a fixed habit of thought, and then even a cruel revelation cannot take him from her."[89]

In southern Italy,--especially in Sicily,--Arabian oriental conceptions of woman still prevail. During her whole life woman is a grown-up child. No woman, not even the most insignificant woman laborer, can be on the street without an escort. On the other hand, the boys are emanc.i.p.ated very early.

With pity and arrogance the sons look down on the mother, who must be accompanied in the street by her sons.

"Close intellectual relations between man and woman cannot as yet be developed, owing to the generally low education of woman, to her subordination, and to her intellectual bondage. While still in the schools the boy is trained for political life. The average Italian woman partic.i.p.ates in politics even less than the German woman; her influence is purely moral. If the Italian woman wishes to accept any office in a society, she must have the consent of her husband attested by a notary.

Just as in ancient times, the non-professional interests of the husband are, in great part, elsewhere than at home. The opportunity daily to discuss political and other current questions with men companions is found by the German man in the smaller cities while taking his evening pint of beer. The Italian man finds this opportunity sometimes in the cafe, sometimes in the public places, where every evening the men congregate for hours. So the educated man in Italy (even more than in Germany) has no need of the intellectual qualities of his wife. Moreover, his need for an educated wife is the less because his misguided precocity prevents him from acquiring anything but an essentially general education. The restricted intellectual relationship between husband and wife is explained partly by the fact that the _cicisbeo_[90] still exists. This relation ought to be, and generally is, Platonic and publicly known. The wife permits her friend (the _cicisbeo_) to escort her to the theater and elsewhere in a carriage; the husband also escorts a woman friend. So husband and wife share the inwardly moral unsoundness of the medieval service of love (_Minnedienst_). At any rate this custom reveals the fact that after the honeymoon the husband and wife do not have overmuch to say to each other. In this way there takes place, to a certain extent, an open relinquishment of the postulate that, in accordance with the external indissolubility of married life, there ought to be permanent intellectual bonds between man and wife,--a postulate that is the source of the most serious conscience struggles, but which has caused the great moral development of the northern woman."[91]

Naturally, under such circ.u.mstances, the woman's rights movement has done practically nothing for the ma.s.ses. In the circles of the n.o.bility the movement, with the consent of the clergy, has until recently confined itself to philanthropy (the forming of a.s.sociations and insurance societies, the founding of homes, asylums, etc.) and to the higher education of girls.[92] In a private audience the Pope has expressed himself in _favor_ of women's engaging in university studies (except theology), but he was _opposed_ to woman's suffrage. The daughters of the educated, liberal (but often poor) bourgeoisie are driven by want and conviction to acquire a higher education and to engage in academic callings. The material difficulties are not great. As in France, the government has during the past thirty-five years promoted all educational measures that would take from the clergy its power over youth.

Elementary education is public and obligatory. The laws are enforced rather strictly. Coeducation nowhere exists. The number of women teachers is 62,643.

The secondary school system is still largely in the hands of the Catholic religious orders. There are about 100,000 girls and nuns enrolled in these church schools; only 25,000 girls are in the secondary state and private schools (other than the Catholic schools), which cannot give instruction as _cheaply_ as the religious schools. The efforts of the state in this field are not to be criticized: it has given women every educational opportunity. Girls wishing to study in the universities are admitted to the boys' cla.s.sical schools (_ginnasii_) and to the boys' technical schools. This experiment in coeducation during the plastic age of youth has not even been undertaken by France. To be sure, at present the girls sit together on the front seats, and when entering and leaving cla.s.s they have the school porter as bodyguard. In spite of all fears to the contrary, coeducation has been a success in northern Italy (Milan), as well as in southern Italy (Naples).

The universities have never been closed to women. In recent years 300 women have attended the universities and have graduated. During the Renaissance there were many women teachers in Italy. This tradition has been revived; at present there are 10 women university teachers. _Dr.

jur._ Therese Labriola (whose mother is a German) is a lecturer in the philosophy of law at Rome. _Dr. med._ Rina Monti is a university lecturer in anatomy at Pavia.

There are many practicing women doctors in Italy. _Dr. med._ Maria Montessori (a delegate to the International Congress of Women in Berlin in 1896) is a physician in the Roman hospitals. The Minister of Public Instruction has authorized her to deliver a course of lectures on the treatment of imbecile children to a cla.s.s of women teachers in the elementary schools. The legal profession still remains closed to women, although _Dr. jur._ Laidi Poet has succeeded in being admitted to the bar in Turin.

In government service (in 1901) there were 1000 women telephone employees, 183 women telegraph clerks, and 161 women office clerks. These positions are much sought after by men. The number of women employed in commerce is 18,000; the total number of persons employed in commerce being 57,087.

Recently women have been appointed as factory inspectors.

The beginnings of the modern woman's rights movement coincide with the political upheavals that occurred between 1859 and 1870. When the Kingdom of Italy had been established, Jessie White Mario demanded a reform of the legal, political, and economic status of woman. Whatever legal concessions have been made to women are due, as in France, to the Liberal parliamentary majority.

Since 1877, women have been able to act as witnesses in civil suits. Women (even married women) can be guardians. The property laws provide for separation of property. Even in cases of joint property holding, the wife controls her earnings and savings. The husband can give her a general authorization (_allgemeinautorisation_), thus giving her the full status of a legal person before the law. These laws are the most radical reforms to which the Code Napoleon has ever been subjected,--reforms which the French did not venture to enact.

The Liberal majority made an attempt in 1877 to emanc.i.p.ate the women politically. But the attempt failed. Bills providing for munic.i.p.al woman's suffrage were introduced and rejected in 1880, 1883, and 1888. However, since 1890, women have been eligible as poor-law guardians. The elite among the Italian men loyally supported the women in their struggle for emanc.i.p.ation. Since 1881 the women have organized clubs. At first these were unsuccessful. Free and courageous women were in the minority. In Rome the woman's rights movement was at first exclusively benevolent. In Milan and Turin, on the other hand, there were woman's rights advocates (under the leadership of _Dr. med._ Paoline Schiff and Emilia Mariani). The leadership of the national movement fell to the more active, more educated, and economically stronger northern Italy. Here also the movement of the workingwomen had progressed to the stage of organization, as, for example, in the case of the Lombard women workers in the rice fields.

There are 1,371,426 women laborers in Italy. Their condition is wretched.

In agriculture, as well as in the industries, they are given the rough, _poorly paid_ work to do. They are exploited to the extreme. Women straw plaiters have been offered 20 centimes, even as little as 10 centimes (4 to 2 cents), for twelve hours' work. The average daily wage for women is 80 centimes to 1 franc (16 to 20 cents). The maximum is 1 franc 50 centimes (30 cents). The law has fixed the maximum working day for women at twelve hours, and prohibits women under twenty years of age from engaging in work that is dangerous and injurious to health. There are maternity funds for women in confinement, financial aid being given them for four weeks after the birth of the child. Under all these circ.u.mstances the organization of women is exceedingly difficult. Even the Socialists have neglected the organization of workingwomen.

Socialist propaganda among women agricultural laborers was begun in 1901.

In Bologna, in the autumn of 1902, there was held a meeting of the representatives of 800 agricultural organizations (having a total membership of 150,000 men and women agricultural laborers). The const.i.tution of the society is characteristic; many of its clauses are primitive and pathetic. This society is intended to be an educational and moral organization. Women members are exhorted "to live rightly, and to be virtuous and kind-hearted mothers, women, and daughters."[93] It is to be hoped that the task of the women will be made easier through the efforts of the society's male members to make themselves virtuous and kind-hearted fathers, husbands, and sons. Or are moral duties, in this case also, meant only for woman?

The movement favoring the abolition of the official regulation of prost.i.tution was introduced into Italy by Mrs. Butler. A congress in favor of abolition was held in 1898 in Genoa. Recently, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Agnes MacLaren and Miss Buchner, the movement has been revived, and urged upon the Catholic clergy. The Italian branch of the International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prost.i.tution was founded in 1908. In the same year was held in Rome the successful Congress of the Federation of Women's Clubs. This Congress, representing the n.o.bility, the middle cla.s.s, and workingwomen, brought the woman's suffrage question to the attention of the public. A number of woman's suffrage societies had been organized previously, in Rome as well as in the provinces. They formed the National Woman's Suffrage League, which, in 1906, joined the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance. Through the discussions in the women's clubs, woman's suffrage became a topic of public interest. The Amsterdam Report [of the Congress of the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance] says: "The women of the aristocracy wish to vote because they are intelligent; they feel humiliated because their coachman or chauffeur is able to vote. The workingwomen demand the right to vote, that they may improve their conditions of labor and be able to support their children better." A parliamentary commission for the consideration of woman's suffrage was established in 1908. In the meantime the existence of this commission enables the President of the Ministry to dispose of the various proposed measures with the explanation that such matters will not be considered _until the commission has expressed itself on the whole question_. Women have active and pa.s.sive suffrage for the arbitration courts for labor disputes.

SPAIN[94]

Total population: 18,813,493.

Women: 9,558,896.

Men: 9,272,597.

No federation of women's clubs.

No woman's suffrage league.

Whoever has traveled in Spain knows that it is a country still living, as it were, in the seventeenth century,--nay in the Middle Ages. The fact has manifold consequences for woman. In all cases progress is hindered. Woman is under the yoke of the priesthood, and of a Catholicism generally bigoted. The Church teaches woman that she is regarded as the cause of carnal desire and of the fall of man. By law, woman is under the guardianship of man. Custom forbids the "respectable" woman to walk on the street without a man escort. The Spanish woman regards herself as a person of the second order, a necessary adjunct to man. Such a fundamental humiliation and subordination is opposed to human nature. As the Spanish woman has no power of open opposition, she resorts to cunning. By instinct she is conscious of the power of her s.e.x; this she uses and abuses. A woman's rights advocate is filled with horror, quite as much as with pity, when she sees this mixture of bigotry, coquetry, submissiveness, cunning, and hate that is engendered in woman by such tyranny and lack of progress.

The Spanish woman of the lower cla.s.ses receives no training for any special calling; she is a mediocre laborer. She acts as beast of burden, carries heavy burdens on her shoulders, carries water, tills the fields, and splits wood. She is employed as an industrial laborer chiefly in the manufacture of cigars and lace. "The wages of women," says Professor Posada,[95] "are incredibly low," being but 10 cents a day. As tailors, women make a scanty living, for many of the Spanish women do their own tailoring. The mantilla makes the work of milliners in general superfluous. In commercial callings women are still novices. Recently there has been talk of beginning the organization of women into trade-unions.

Women are employed in large numbers as teachers; teaching being their sole non-domestic calling. Elementary instruction has been obligatory since 1870, however, only in theory. In 1889 28 per cent of the women were illiterate. In many cases the girls of the lower cla.s.ses do not attend school at all. When they do attend, they learn very little; for owing to the lack of seminaries the training of women teachers is generally quite inadequate. A reform of the central seminary of women teachers, in Madrid, took place in 1884; this reform was also a model for the seminaries in the provinces. The secondary schools for girls are convent schools. In France there are complaints that these schools are inadequate. What, then, can be expected of the Spanish schools! The curriculum includes only French, singing, dancing, drawing, and needlework. But the "Society for Female Education" is striving to secure a reform of the education for girls.

Preparation for entrance to the university must be secured privately. The number of women seeking entrance to universities is small. Most of them, so far as I know, are medical students. However, the Spanish women have a brilliant past in the field of higher education. Donna Galinda was the Latin professor of Queen Isabella. Isabella Losa and Sigea Aloisia of Toledo were renowned for their knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; Sigea Aloisia corresponded with the Pope in Arabic and Syriac. Isabel de Rosores even preached in the Cathedral of Barcelona.

In the literature of the present time Spanish women are renowned. Of first rank is Emilia Pardo Bazan, who is called the "Spanish Zola." She is a countess and an only daughter, two circ.u.mstances that facilitated her emanc.i.p.ation and, together with her talent, a.s.sured her success. She characterizes herself as "a mixture of mysticism and liberalism." At the age of seven she wrote her first verses. Her best book portrayed a "liberal monk," Father Feque. _Pascual Loper_, a novel, was a great success. She then went to Paris to study naturalism. Here she became acquainted with Zola, Goncourt, Daudet, and others. A study of Francis of a.s.sisi led her again to the study of mysticism. In her recent novels liberalism is mingled with idealism.

Emilia Pardo Bazan is by conviction a woman's rights advocate. In the Madrid Atheneum she filled with great success the position of Professor of French Literature. At the pedagogical congress in Madrid, in 1899, she gave a report on _Woman, her Education, and her Rights_.

In Spain there are a number of well-known women journalists, authors, and poets. Dr. Posada enumerates a number of woman's rights publications on pages 200-202 of his book, _El Feminismo_.

Concepcion Arenal was a prominent Spanish woman and woman's rights advocate. She devoted herself to work among prisoners, and wrote a valuable handbook dealing with her work. She felt the oppression of her s.e.x very keenly. Concerning woman's status, which man has forced upon her, Concepcion Arenal expressed herself as follows: "Man despises all women that do not belong to his family; he oppresses every woman that he does not love or protect. As a laborer, he takes from her the best paid positions; as a thinker, he forbids the mental training of woman; as a lover, he can be faithless to her without being punished by law; as a husband, he can leave her without being guilty before the law."

The wife is legally under the guardianship of her husband; she has no authority over her children. The property laws provide for joint property holding.

In spite of these conditions Concepcion Arenal did not give up all hope.

"Women," said she, "are beginning to take interest in education, and have organized a society for the higher education of girls." The pedagogical congresses in Madrid (1882 and 1889) promoted the intellectual emanc.i.p.ation of women. Catalina d'Alcala, delegate to the International Congress of Women in Chicago in 1893, closed her report with the words, "We are emerging from the period of darkness." However, he who has wandered through Spanish cathedrals knows that this darkness is still very dense! Nevertheless, the woman's suffrage movement has begun: the women laborers are agitating in favor of a new law of a.s.sociation. A number of women teachers and women authors have pet.i.tioned for the right to vote. In March, 1908, during the discussion of a new law concerning munic.i.p.al administration, an amendment in favor of woman's suffrage was introduced, but was rejected by a vote of 65 to 35. The Senate is said to be more favorable to woman's suffrage than is the Chamber of Deputies.

The fact that women of the aristocracy have opposed divorce, and that women of all cla.s.ses have opposed the enactment of laws restricting religious orders, is made to operate against the political emanc.i.p.ation of women. A deputy in the Cortez, Senor Pi y Arsuaga, who introduced the measure in favor of the right of women taxpayers to vote in munic.i.p.al elections, argued that the suffrage of a woman who is the head of a family seems more reasonable to him than the suffrage of a young man, twenty-five years old, who represents no corresponding interests.

PORTUGAL

Total population: 5,672,237.

Women: 2,583,535.

Men: 2,520,602.

No federation of women's clubs.

No woman's suffrage league.

Portugal is smaller than Spain; its finances are in better condition; therefore the compulsory education law (introduced in 1896) is better enforced. As yet there are no public high schools for girls; but there are a number of private schools that prepare girls for the university entrance examinations (_Abiturientenexamen_). The universities admit women. Women doctors practice in the larger cities. The women laborers are engaged chiefly in the textile industry; their wages are about two thirds of those of the men.

THE LATIN-AMERICAN REPUBLICS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA

MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA[96]

The condition prevailing in Mexico and Central America is one of patriarchal family life, the husband being the "master" of the wife. There are large families of ten or twelve children. The life of most of the women without property consists of "endless routine and domestic tyranny"; the life of the property-owning women is one of frivolous coquetry and indolence. There is no higher education for women; there are no high ideals. The education of girls is generally regarded as unnecessary.

There are public elementary schools for girls,--with women teachers. The higher education of girls is carried on by convent schools, and comprises domestic science, sewing, dancing, and singing. In the Mexican public high schools for girls, modern subjects and literature are taught; the work is chiefly memorizing. Technical schools for girls are unknown. Women do not attend the universities. Women teachers in Mexico are paid good salaries,--250 francs ($50) a month.

Women are engaged in commerce only in their own business establishments; and then in small retail businesses. The rest of the workingwomen are engaged in agriculture, domestic service, washing, and sewing. Their wages are from 40 to 50 per cent lower than those of men. The legal status of women is similar to that of the French women. In Mexico only does the wife control her earnings. Divorce is not recognized by law, though separation is. By means of foreign teachers the initiative of the people has been slightly aroused. It will take long for this stimulus to reach the majority of the people.

SOUTH AMERICA[97]

In South America there are the same "patriarchal" forms of family life, the same external restrictions for woman. She must have an escort on the streets, even though the escort be only a small boy.