The Truth About Woman Part 18

[291] Frazer thinks that the Roman kingship was transmitted in the female line; the king being a man of another town or race, who had married the daughter of his predecessor and received the crown through her. This hypothesis explains the obscure features of the traditional history of the Latin kings; their miraculous birth, and the fact that many of the kings from their names appear to have been of plebeian and not patrician families. The legends of the birth of Servius Tullius which tradition imputes to a look, or that Coeculus the founder of p.r.o.neste was conceived by a spark that leaped into his mother's bosom, as well as the rape of the Sabines, may be mentioned as traces pointing to mother-descent (_Golden Bough_, Pt. I. _The Magic Art_, Vol. II. pp. 270, 289, 312).

[292] Quoted from _Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal_; Essay on "The Position of Woman in History," p. 38.

[293] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, pp. 120, 201. The _usus_ was similar to the Polynesian marriage, and was the consecration of the free union after a year of cohabitation. By it the wife pa.s.sed as completely under the _manum mariti_ as if she had eaten of the sacred cake.

[294] Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, Vol. I. p. 210. The eating of the cake would seem to the ancient mind to have been connected with magic, and was regarded as actually effacious in establishing a unity of the man and the woman.

[295] _Coemption_ became in time purely symbolic. The bride was delivered to the husband, who as a formality gave a few pieces of silver as payment; but the ceremony proves how completely the woman was regarded as the property of the father.

[296] Romulus, says Plutarch, gave the husband power to divorce his wife in case of her poisoning his children, or counterfeiting his keys, or committing adultery (Romulus, x.x.xVI.). Valerius Maximus affirms that divorce was unknown for 520 years after the foundation of Rome.

[297] Hobhouse, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 211 (_note_). He states, "The concubinate we hear of in Roman Law is a form of union bereft of some of the civil rights of marriage, not the relation of a married man to a secondary wife or slave-girl."

[298] Donaldson, _op. cit._, p. 88. He remarks in a note, "The story may not be historical, but the Romans regarded it as such." Wives were prohibited from tasting wine at the risk of the severest penalties.

[299] St. Augustine, _Confessions_, Bk. IX. Ch. IX.

[300] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, pp. 244, 245. In the ancient law, when the crime of the woman led to divorce she lost all her dowry. Later, only a sixth was kept back for adultery, and an eighth for other crimes. In the last stages of the law the guilty husband lost the whole dowry, while if the wife divorced without a cause, the husband retained a sixth of the dowry for each child, but only up to three-sixths.

[301] _Psychology of s.e.x_, Vol. VI. p. 396.

[302] Hecker, _History of Women's Rights_, p. 12.

[303] Ellis, _op. cit._, p. 395.

[304] Hobhouse, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 213.

[305] Maine, _Ancient Law_, Ch. V.

[306] McCabe, _The Religion of Women_, p. 26 _et seq._

[307] _Santiago_ (Mediaeval Towns Series), p. 21.

[308] Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 124-125.

[309] _Roman Society_, p. 163.

[310] _Morals in Evolution_, Vol. I. p. 216.

[311] _Woman_, p. 113.

[312] _Digest_, XLVIII. 13, 5.

PART III

MODERN SECTION

PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN PROBLEM

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VIII

s.e.x DIFFERENCES

The practical application of the truths arrived at--A question to be faced--The organic differences between the s.e.xes--Resume of the facts already established--The error in the common opinion of the true relationship of the s.e.xes--The male active and seeking--The female pa.s.sive and receiving--Is this true?--An examination of the pa.s.sivity of the female--The delusion that man is the active partner in the s.e.xual relationship--The economic factor in marriage--The conventional modesty of woman--Concealments and evasions--The feeling of shame in love--Woman's right of selection--How this must be regained by women--The new Ethic--The pre-natal claims of the child--The question of parenthood as a religious question--The responsibility of the mother as the child's supreme parent--The mating of the future--Another question--Woman's superior moral virtue--Its fundamental error--Woman's imperative need of love--The maternal instinct--Nature's experiments--The establishment of two s.e.xes--The feminine and masculine characters are an inherent part of the normal man and woman--The female as the giver of life--The deep significance of this--The atrophy of the maternal instinct--Modern woman preoccupied with herself--The right position of the mother--s.e.x attraction and s.e.x antagonism--Woman's relation to s.e.xuality--The duel of the s.e.xes--The prost.i.tution of love--Man's fear of woman--Misogyny--The rebellion of woman against man--Coercive differentiation of the s.e.xes in consequence of civilisation--The ideal of a one-s.e.xed world--Woman as the enemy of her own emanc.i.p.ation--The attempt to establish a third s.e.x--The danger of ignoring s.e.x--The future progress of love.

CHAPTER VIII

s.e.x DIFFERENCES

"Woman is an integral const.i.tuent of the processes of civilisation, which, without her, becomes unthinkable. The present moment is a turning point in the history of the feminine world. The woman of the past is disappearing, to give place to the woman of the future, instead of the bound, there appears the free personality."--IWAN BLOCH.

At length we are ready, clear-minded and well-prepared, to deal with the question of woman's present position in society. Our minds are clear, for we have freed them from the age-long error that the subjection of the female to the male is a universal and necessary part of Nature's scheme; we are well prepared to support an exact opposite view, with a knowledge founded on some at least of the facts that prove this, by the actual position that women have held in the great civilisations of the past and still hold among primitive peoples, as well as by a sure biological basis. We are thus far advanced from the uncertainty with which we started our inquiry; our investigation has got beyond the statement of evidence drawn from the past to a stage whence the status of woman in the social order to-day, and the meaning of her relation to herself, to man, and to the race may be estimated.

The point we have reached is this: the primary value of the s.e.xes has to some extent, at least, been reversed under the patriarchal idea, which has pushed the male destructive power into prominence at the expense of the female constructive force. This under-valuing of the one-half of life has lost to society the service of a strong unsubjugated motherhood.

I am now, in this third and last section of my book, going to deal with what seems to me the practical applications of the truth we have arrived at. And the preliminary to this is a searching question: To what extent must we accept a different natural capacity for women and men? or, in other words, How far does the predominant s.e.xual activity of woman separate her from man in the sphere of intellectual and social work? The whole subject is a large and difficult one and is full of problems to which it is not easy to find an answer. We are brought straight up against the old controversy of the organic differences between the s.e.xes. This must be faced before we can proceed further.

To attempt to do this we must return to the position we left at the end of the fifth chapter. We had then concluded from our examination of the s.e.xual habits of insects, mammals, and birds that a marked differentiation between the female and the male existed already in the early stages of the development of species, and that such divergence, or s.e.x-dimorphism, to use the biological term, becomes more and more frequent and conspicuous as we ascend to the higher types. The essential functions of females and males become more separate, their habits of life tend to diverge, and to the primary differences there are added all manner of secondary peculiarities. We found, however, especially in our study of the familial habits, that these supplementary differences could not be regarded as fixed and unalterable in either the female or the male organism; but rather that the secondary s.e.xual characters must be considered as depending on environmental conditions, among which are included the occupational activities, the scarcity or abundance of the food supply, the relative numbers of the two s.e.xes, and, in particular, the brain development and the strength of the parental emotions. We followed the development of the female element and the male element. The male at first an insignificant addendum to the female, but the long process of love's selection, carrying on the expansion and aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of the male, led to the reversal of the early superiority of the female, replacing it by the superiority of the male. The female led and the male followed in the evolution process. We saw that there are many curious alternations in the superiority of one s.e.x over the other in size and also in power of function. Below the line, among backboneless animals, there is much greater constancy of superiority among the females, and this predominance persists in many higher types. Even among birds, who afford the most perfect examples of s.e.xual development, the cases are not infrequent in which the female equals, and sometimes even exceeds, the male in size and strength and in beauty of plumage. The curious case of the Phalaropes furnished us with a remarkable example of a reversal of the role of the s.e.xes. We found further that (1) an extravagant development of the secondary s.e.xual characters was not really favourable to the reproductive process, the males thus differentiated belonging to a lower grade of s.e.xual evolution, being bad fathers and unsocial in their conduct; (2) that the most oppressed females are as a rule very faithful wives, and (3) that the highest expression of love among the birds must be sought in the beautiful cases in which the s.e.xes, though maintaining the essential const.i.tutional distinctions, are, through the higher individuation of the females more alike, equal in capacity, and co-operate together in the race-work.

It were well to keep these facts clearly in sight; for, in the light of them, it becomes evident that there is an error somewhere in the common opinion of the true relationship of the s.e.xes. Let us go first to the very start of the matter. It is always held that the sperm male-cell represents the active, and the germ female-cell the pa.s.sive principle in s.e.xuality, and on this a.s.sumption there has been based by many a fixed standard for the supposed natural relation between man and woman--he active and seeking, she pa.s.sive and receiving.

But is this really a fair statement of the reproduction process? The hunger-driven male-cell certainly seeks the female--but what happens then? The female cellule, the ovule, _preserves its individuality and absorbs the masculine cellule, or is impregnated by it_. Thus, to use the term "pa.s.sive" in this connection is surely curiously misleading; as well call the snake pa.s.sive when, waiting motionless, it charms and draws towards it the victim it will devour. Ill.u.s.trations are apt to mislead, nevertheless they do help us to see straight, and until we have come to find the truth here we shall be fumbling for the grounds of any safe conclusion as to the natural relationship of the female and the male. I think we must take a wider view of the s.e.xual relationship, and conclude that the pa.s.sivity of the female is not real, but only an apparent pa.s.sivity. We may even go so far as to say that the female element has from the very first to play the more complex and difficult, the more important part. Herein, at the very start of life, is typified in a manner at once simple and convincing that differentiation which divides so sharply the s.e.xual activity of the female from that of the male. The serious part in s.e.x belongs to the one who gives life, while in comparison the activity of the male can almost be regarded as trifling. And I believe that this view will be found to be amply supported by facts if we turn now to consider the later and human relation of the s.e.xes. In all cases it is the same, the serious business in s.e.x belongs to the woman. As it was in the beginning, so, it seems to me, it continues to the end--it is woman who really leads, she who in s.e.x absorbs and uses the male.

"The pa.s.sivity of the female in love," it has been said wisely by Marro in his fine work _La p.u.b.erta_, "is the pa.s.sivity of the magnet, which in its apparent immobility is drawing the iron towards it. An intense energy lies behind such pa.s.sivity, an absorbed pre-occupation in the end to be attained."[313] In the examples we have studied of the courtships of birds we saw that it is by no means a universal law that the male is eager and the female coy. I need only recall the instance noted by Darwin[314] in which a wild duck forced her love on a male pintail, and such cases, as is well known, are frequent.

High-bred b.i.t.c.hes will show sudden pa.s.sions for low-bred or mongrel males. According to breeders and observers it is the female who is always much more susceptible of sentimental selection; thus it is often necessary to deceive mares. Among many primitive peoples it is the woman who takes the initiative in courtship. In New Guinea, for instance, where women hold a very independent position, "the girl is always regarded as the seducer. 'Women steal men.' A youth who proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called a woman, and laughed at by the girls. The usual method by which a girl proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to a.s.sure himself of the girl's constancy before decisively accepting her advances."[315]

In the face of this, and many similar cases, it becomes an absurdity to continue a belief in the pa.s.sivity of the female as a natural law of the s.e.xes. Such openness of conduct in courtship is, of course, impossible except where woman holds an entirely independent position.

Still, it would not be difficult to bring forward similar manifestations of the initiative being taken by the woman--though often exercised unconsciously as the expression of an instinctive need--in the artificial courtships of highly civilised peoples. But enough has perhaps been said; and such examples can, I doubt not, be readily supplied by each of my readers for themselves. I will only remark that the true nature of the pa.s.sivity of the woman in courtship is made abundantly clear from the ease with which the pretence is thrown off in every case where the necessity arises.

Nothing is more astounding to me than this delusion that the man is the active partner in s.e.x. I believe, as I have once before stated, that Bernard Shaw[316] is right here when he says that men set up the theory to save their pride. Having taken to themselves the initiative in all other matters, they claim the same privilege in love; and women have acquiesced and have helped them, so that the duplicity has become almost ineradicable. Few women are brave enough to admit this even if they have clear sight to see the truth; they know that it is not permitted to them to exercise openly their right of choice. They understand that the male pride of possession--the hunter's and the fighter's joy--must be respected. But this makes not the least difference to the result, only to the way in which that result is gained. So the whole of our society is filled with half-concealed s.e.x-snares and pitfalls set by women for the capture of men. The woman waits _pa.s.sive_! Yes, precisely, she often does. But exactly the same may be said of the female spider when she has spun her web, from which she knows full well the victim fly will not escape.

There is another point that must be noticed. Under our present s.e.xual relationships the price the woman asks from the man for her favours is marriage as the only means of gaining permanent maintenance for herself and for her children. Now that these economic considerations have entered into love she has to act with a new and greater caution, for she has to gain her own ends as well as Nature's ends. In the matriarchal society the girl was allowed openly to pick her lover, and forthwith he went with her. But to the modern woman, under the patriarchal ideals, if she shows the modesty that convention requires of her, all that is permitted is the invitation of a lowered eyelid, a look, or perchance a touch, at one time given, at another withheld.

Now, I find it the opinion of most of my men friends that such half-concealed encouragements, such evasions and drawings back are a necessary part of the love-play--the woman's unconscious testing of the fussy male. There is one friend, a doctor, who tells me that the woman's dissimulation of her own inclination has come to be a secondary s.e.xual characteristic, a manifestation of the operation of s.e.xual selection, diluted, perhaps, and altered by civilisation, but an essential feature in every courtship, so that the woman follows a true and biologically valuable instinct when she temporises and dissembles, and tests and provokes, and entices and repels. She is proving herself and testing her lovers before she permits that awful "merging" that no after-thought can undo.

Now, on the face of it this seems true. There is a pa.s.sionate uncertainty that all true lovers feel. It is, I think, a holding back from the yielding up of the individual ego--an unconscious revolt from the sacrifice claimed by the creative force before which both the woman and the man alike are helpless agents. It is very difficult to find the truth. Throughout Nature love only fulfils its purpose after much expenditure of energy. But dissimulation on the side of the woman is not, I am sure, a true or necessary incitement to love. Love, as I see it, is a breaking down of the boundaries of oneself, the casting aside of reserve and defences, with a necessary throwing off of every concealment.

In our restricted society, where the s.e.xual instincts are at once both unnaturally repressed and unnaturally stimulated, this openness may not be possible. Concealments and evasions may be an aid at one stage of s.e.x evolution. Just as the half-concealed body is often a more powerful sensual stimulus than nudity; the less one sees, the more does the imagination picture. But the need of such artificial excitants speaks of the poverty of love and not of its fullness. For most of us the strain of sensuality in our loves is very strong. To have lived in the bonds of slavery makes us slaves, and the price that woman has paid is the sacrifice of her purity. The feeling of shame in love, like chast.i.ty, arose in the property value of the woman to her owner; it is no more a part of the woman's character than of the man's. Woman must capture her mate because the race must perish without her travail; she is fulfilling Nature's ends, as well as her own, whatever means she uses.

So I am certain that, as woman's right of selection is given back to her to exercise without restraint, we shall see a freer and more beautiful mating. With greater liberty of action she will be far better armed with knowledge to demand a finer quality in her lovers.