Woman under socialism Part 8

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 inst.i.tutions 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xes 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 circ.u.mstance 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 s.e.xual 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]

England from 1872-76 2,861 men Sweden " 1870-74 3,310 "

France " 1871-76 3,695 "

Italy " 1872-77 4,000 "

Prussia " 1871-78 4,239 "

Austria " 1873-78 4,586 "

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 a.s.sumes, to s.e.xual causes. In Prussia the percentages of suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 were on an average:

Years. Males. Females.

1869-72 15.8 21.4 1873-78 15.7 21.5

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

Years. Males. Females.

1854 14.95 18.64 1868 14.71 18.79

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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual instinct, disappointment in love, secret pregnancy, or betrayal. On the subject of the women of our days as s.e.xual 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 p.r.o.ne than man to s.e.xual 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 cla.s.ses, 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 s.e.xual 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 a.s.signed by Nature, and which modern social conditions partly deny her."[63]

And Dr. H. Plotz, in his work, "Woman in Nature and Ethnography,"[64]

says in the course of his explanation of the results of ungratified s.e.xual instincts upon unmarried women: "It is in the highest degree noteworthy, not for the physician only, but also for the anthropologist, that there is an effective and never-failing means to check this process of decay (with old maids), but even to cause the lost bloom to return, if not in all its former splendor yet in a not insignificant degree,--_pity only that our social conditions allow, or make its application possible only in rare instances_. The means consist in regular and systematic s.e.xual intercourse. The sight is not infrequent with girls, who lost their bloom, or were not far from the withering point, yet, the opportunity to marry having been offered them, that, shortly after marriage, their shape began to round up again, the roses to return to their cheeks, and their eyes to recover their one-time brightness. _Marriage is, accordingly, the true fountain of youth for the female s.e.x._ Thus Nature has her firm laws, that implacably demand their dues. No 'vita praeter naturam,' no unnatural life, no attempt at accommodation to incompatible conditions of life, pa.s.ses without leaving noticeable traces of degeneration, upon the animal, as well as upon the human organism."

As to the effect that marriage and celibacy exercise upon the mind, the following figures furnish testimony. In 1882, there were in Prussia, per 10,000 inhabitants of the same conjugal status, 33.2 unmarried male and 29.3 female lunatics, while the percentage of the married ones was 9.5 for men, and 9.5 for females, and of the widowed, 32.1 males, and 25.6 females. Social conditions can not be considered healthy, that hinder a normal satisfaction of the natural instincts, and lead to evils like those just mentioned.

The question then rises: Has modern society met the demands for a natural life, especially as concerns the female s.e.x? If the question is answered in the negative, this other rises: Can modern society meet the demands? If both questions must be answered in the negative, then this third arises: How can these demands be met?

"Marriage and the family are the foundation of the State; consequently, he who attacks marriage and the family attacks society and the State, and undermines both"--thus cry the defenders of the present order.

Unquestionably, monogamous marriage, which flows from the bourgeois system of production and property, is one of the most important cornerstones of bourgeois or capitalist society; whether, however, such marriage is in accord with natural wants and with a healthy development of human society, is another question. We shall prove that the marriage, founded upon bourgeois property relations, is more or less a marriage by compulsion, which leads numerous ills in its train, and which fails in its purpose quite extensively, if not altogether. We shall show, furthermore, that it is a social inst.i.tution, beyond the reach of millions, and is by no means that marriage based upon love, which alone corresponds with the natural purpose, as its praise-singers maintain.

With regard to modern marriage, John Stuart Mill exclaims: "_Marriage is the only form of slavery that the law recognizes._" In the opinion of Kant, man and woman const.i.tute only jointly the full being. Upon the normal union of the s.e.xes rests the healthy development of the human race. The natural gratification of the s.e.xual instinct is a necessity for the thorough physical and mental development of both man and woman.

But man is no animal. Mere physical satisfaction does not suffice for the full gratification of his energetic and vehement instinct. He requires also spiritual affinity and oneness with the being that he couples with. Is that not the case, then the blending of the s.e.xes is a purely mechanical act: such a marriage is immoral. It does not answer the higher human demands. Only in the mutual attachment of two beings of opposite s.e.xes can be conceived the spiritual enn.o.bling of relations that rest upon purely physical laws. Civilized man demands that the mutual attraction continue beyond the accomplishment of the s.e.xual act, and _that it prolong its purifying influence upon the home that flows from the mutual union_.[65] The fact that these demands can not be made upon numberless marriages in modern society is what led Barnhagen von Ense to say: "That which we saw with our own eyes, both with regard to contracted marriages and marriages yet to be contracted, was not calculated to give us a good opinion of such unions. On the contrary, the whole inst.i.tution, which was to have only love and respect for its foundation, and which in all these instances (in Berlin) we saw founded on everything but that, seemed to us mean and contemptible, and we loudly joined in the saying of Frederick Schlegel which we read in the fragments of the 'Atheneum': Almost all marriages are concubinages, left-handed unions, or rather provisional attempts and distant resemblances at and of a true marriage, whose real feature consists, according to all spiritual and temporal laws, in that two persons become one."[66] Which is completely in the sense of Kant.

The duty towards and pleasure in posterity make permanent the love relations of two persons, when such really exists. A couple that wishes to enter into matrimonial relations must, therefore, be first clear whether the physical and moral qualities of the two are fit for such a union. The answer should be arrived at uninfluenced; and that can happen only, first, _by keeping away all other interests_, that have nothing to do with the real object of the union,--the gratification of the natural instinct, and the transmission of one's being in the propagation of the race; secondly, by a certain degree of insight that curbs blind pa.s.sion.

Seeing, however, as we shall show, that _both conditions are, in innumerable cases, absent in modern society, it follows that modern marriage is frequently far from fulfilling its true purpose; hence that it is not just to represent it, as is done, in the light of an ideal inst.i.tution_.

How large the number is of the marriages, contracted with views wholly different from these, can, naturally, not be statistically given. The parties concerned are interested in having their marriage appear to the world different from what it is in fact. There is on this field a state of hypocrisy peculiar to no earlier social period. And the State, the political representative of this society, has no interest, for the sake of curiosity, in initiating inquiries, the result of which would be to place in dubious light the social system that is its very foundation.

The maxims, which the State observes with respect to the marrying of large divisions of its own officials and servants, _do not suffer the principle to be applied that, ostensibly, is the basis of marriage_.

Marriage--and herewith the bourgeois idealists also agree--should be a union that two persons enter into only out of mutual love, in order to accomplish their natural mission. This motive is, however, only rarely present in all its purity. With the large majority of women, matrimony is looked upon as a species of inst.i.tution for support, which they must enter into at any price. Conversely, a large portion of the men look upon marriage from a purely business standpoint, and from material view-points all the advantages and disadvantages are accurately calculated. Even with those marriages, in which low egotistical motives did not turn the scales, raw reality brings along so much that disturbs and dissolves, that only in rare instances are the expectations verified which, in their youthful enthusiasm and ardor, the couple had looked forward to.

And quite naturally. If wedlock is to offer the spouses a contented connubial life, it demands, together with mutual love and respect, _the a.s.surance of material existence, the supply of that measure of the necessaries of life and comfort which the two consider requisite for themselves and their children_. The weight of cares, the hard struggle for existence--these are the first nails in the coffin of conjugal content and happiness. The cares become heavier the more fruitful the marriage proves itself, i. e., _in the measure in which the marriage fulfils its purpose_. The peasant, for instance, is pleased at every calf that his cow brings him; he counts with delight the number of young that his sow litters; and he communicates the event with pleasure to his neighbors. But the same peasant looks gloomy when his wife presents him with an increase to his own brood--and large this may never be--which he believes to be able to bring up without too much worry. His gloom is all the thicker if the new-born child is a _girl_.

We shall now show how, everywhere, marriages and births are completely controlled by the economic conditions. This is most cla.s.sically exemplified in France. There, the allotment system prevails generally in the country districts. Land, broken up beyond a certain limit, ceases to nourish a family. The unlimited division of land, legally permissible, the French peasant counteracts by his rarely giving life to more than two children,--hence the celebrated and notorious "two child system,"

that has grown into a social inst.i.tution in France, and that, to the alarm of her statesmen, keeps the population stationary, in some provinces even registering considerable retrogression. The number of births is steadily on the decline in France; but not in France only, also in most of the civilized lands. Therein is found expressed a development in our social conditions, that should give the ruling cla.s.ses cause to ponder. In 1881 there were 937,057 children born in France; in 1890, however, only 838,059; accordingly, the births in 1890 fell 98,998 behind the year 1881. Characteristic, however, is the circ.u.mstance that the number of _illegitimate_ births in France was 70,079 for the year 1881; that, during the period between 1881 and 1890, the number reached high-water mark in 1884, with 75,754; and that the number was still 71,086 strong in 1890. Accordingly, the whole of the decline of births fell exclusively upon the legitimate births. This decline in births, and, we may add, in marriages also, is, as will be shown, a characteristic feature, noticeable throughout the century. To every 10,000 French population, there were births in the years:

1801 333 1821 307 1831 303 1841 282 1851 270 1856 261 1868 269 1886 230 1890 219

This amounts to a decline of births in 1890, as against 1801, of 114 to every 10,000 inhabitants. It is imaginable that such figures cause serious headaches to the French statesmen and politicians. But France does not stand alone in this. For a long time Germany has been presenting a similar phenomenon. In Germany, to every 10,000 population there were births in the years:

1869 406 1876 403 1880 390 1883 358 1887 369.4 1890 357.6

Accordingly, Germany too reveals, in the s.p.a.ce of only 21 years, a decline of 49 births to every 10,000 inhabitants. Similarly with the other States of Europe. To every 10,000 population there were live births:

From From States. 1865-1867. 1886-1888. Decrease. Increase.

Ireland 262 231 31 ..

Scotland 353 313 40 ..

England and Wales 353 314 39 ..

Holland 388 344 44 ..

Belgium 320 293 27 ..

Switzerland 320 278 42 ..

Austria 374 380 .. 6 Hungary 399 445 .. 46 Italy 378 371 7 ..

Sweden 320 297 23 ..

Norway 344 308 36 ..

The decline in births is, accordingly, pretty general, only that, of all European States, it is strongest in France. Between 1886 and 1888, France had, to every 1,000 inhabitants, an average of 23.9 births, England 32.9, Prussia 41.27, and Russia 48.8.

These facts show that the birth of a human being, the "image of G.o.d," as religious people express it, ranks generally much cheaper than new-born domestic animals. What this fact does reveal is the _unworthy_ condition that we find ourselves in,--and it is mainly the female s.e.x which suffers thereunder. In many respects, modern views distinguish themselves but little from those of barbarous nations. Among the latter, new-born babes were frequently killed, and such a fate fell to the lot of girls mainly; many a half-wild race does so to this day. We no longer kill the girls; we are too civilized for that; but they are only too often treated like pariahs by society and the family. The stronger man crowds them everywhere back in the struggle for existence; and if, driven by the love for life, they still take up the battle, they are visited with hatred by the stronger s.e.x, as unwelcome compet.i.tors. It is especially the men in the higher ranks of society who are bitterest against female compet.i.tion, and oppose it most fiercely. That workingmen demand the exclusion of female labor on principle happens but rarely. A motion to that effect being made in 1877, at a French Labor Convention, the large majority declared against it. Since then, it is just with the cla.s.s-conscious workingmen of all countries, that the principle, that working-women are beings with equal rights with themselves makes immense progress. This was shown especially by the resolutions of the International Labor Congress of Paris in 1889. The cla.s.s-conscious workingman knows that the modern economic development forces woman to set herself up as a compet.i.tor with man; but he also knows that, to prohibit female labor, would be as senseless an act as the prohibition of the use of machinery. Hence he strives to enlighten woman on her position in society, and _to educate her into a fellow combatant in the struggle for the emanc.i.p.ation of the proletariat from capitalism_. True enough,--due to the ever more widespread employment of female labor in agriculture, industry, commerce and the trades--the family life of the workingman is destroyed, and the degenerating effects of the double yoke of work for a living, and of household duties, makes rapid progress in the female s.e.x. Hence the endeavor to keep women by legislative enactments, from occupations that are especially injurious to the female organism, and by means of protective laws to safeguard her as a mother and rearer of children. On the other hand, the struggle for existence forces women to turn in ever larger numbers to industrial occupations.

It is _married woman_, more particularly, who is called upon to increase the meager earnings of her husband with her work,--and she is particularly welcome to the employer.[67]

Modern society is without doubt more cultured than any previous one, and woman stands correspondingly higher. Nevertheless, the views concerning the relations of the two s.e.xes have remained at bottom the same.

Professor L. von Stein published a book,[68]--a work, be it said in pa.s.sing, that corresponds ill with its t.i.tle--in which he gives a poetically colored picture of modern marriage, as it supposedly is. Even in this picture the subaltern position of woman towards the "lion" man is made manifest. Stein says among other things: "Man deserves a being that not only loves, but also understands him. He deserves a person with whom not only the heart beats for him, but whose hand may also smooth his forehead, and whose presence radiates peace, rest, order, a quiet command over herself and the thousand and one things upon which he daily reverts: he wants someone who spreads over all these things that indescribable aroma of womanhood, one who is the life-giving warmth to the life of the house."

In this song of praise of woman lies concealed her own degradation, and along therewith, the low egotism of man. The professor depicts woman as a vaporous being, that, nevertheless, shall be equipped with the necessary knowledge of practical arithmetic; know how to keep the balance between "must" and "can" in the household; and, for the rest, float zephyr-fashion, like sweet spring-tide, about the master of the house, the sovereign lion, in order to spy every wish from his eyes, and with her little soft hand unwrinkle the forehead, that he, "the master of the house," perchance himself crumpled, while brooding over his own stupidity. In short, the professor pictures a woman and a marriage such as, out of a hundred, hardly one is to be found, or, for that matter, can exist. Of the many thousand unhappy marriages; of the large number of women who never get so far as to wed; and also of the millions, who, like beasts of burden beside their husbands, have to drudge and wear themselves out from early morn till late to earn a bit of bread for the current day,--of all of these the learned gentleman knows nothing. With all these wretched beings, hard, raw reality wipes off the poetic coloring more easily than does the hand the colored dust of the wings of a b.u.t.terfly. One look, cast by the professor at those unnumbered female sufferers, would have seriously disturbed his poetically colored picture, and spoiled his concept. The women, whom he sees, make up but a trifling minority, and that these stand upon the plane of our times is to be doubted.

An oft-quoted sentence runs: "The best gauge of the culture of a people is the position which woman occupies." We grant that; but it will be shown that our so much vaunted culture has little to brag about. In his work, "The Subjection of Woman,"--the t.i.tle is typical of the opinion that the author holds regarding the modern position of woman--John Stuart Mill says: "The lives of men have become more domestic, growing civilization lays them under more obligations towards women." This is only partly true. In so far as honorable conjugal relations may exist between husband and wife, Mill's statement is true; but it is doubtful whether the statement applies to even a strong minority. Every sensible man will consider it an advantage to himself if woman step forward into life out of the narrow circle of domestic activities, and become familiar with the currents of the times. The "chains" he thereby lays upon himself do not press him. On the other hand, the question arises whether modern life does not introduce into married life factors, that, to a higher degree than formerly, act destructively upon marriage.

Monogamous marriage became, from the start, an object of material speculation. The man who marries endeavors to wed property, along with a wife, and this was one of the princ.i.p.al reasons why daughters, after being at first excluded from the right to inherit, when descent in the male line prevailed, soon again reacquired the right. But never in earlier days was marriage so cynically, in open market, so to speak, an object of speculation; a money transaction, as it is to-day. To-day trading in marriage is frequently conducted among the property cla.s.ses--among the propertyless the practice has no sense--with such shamelessness, that the oft-repeated phrase concerning the "sanct.i.ty" of marriage is the merest mockery. This phenomenon, as everything else, has its ample foundation. At no previous period was it, as it is to-day, hard for the large majority of people to raise themselves into a condition of well-being, corresponding to the then general conceptions; nor was at any time the justified striving for an existence worthy of human beings so general as it is to-day. He who does not reach the goal, feels his failure all the more keenly, just because all believe to have an equal right to enjoyment. _Formally_, there are _no_ rank or cla.s.s distinctions. Each wishes to obtain that which, according to his station, he considers a goal worth striving for, in order to come at fruition. But many are called and few are chosen. In order that one may live comfortably in capitalist society, twenty others must pine; and in order that one may wallow in all manner of enjoyment, hundreds, if not thousands, of others must renounce the happiness of life. But each wishes to be of that minority of favored ones, and seizes every means, that promise to take him to the desired goal, provided he does not compromise himself too deeply. One of the most convenient means, and, withal, nearest at hand, to reach the privileged social station, is the _money-marriage_. The desire, on the one hand, to obtain as much money as possible, and, on the other, the aspiration after rank, t.i.tles and honor thus find their mutual satisfaction in the so-called upper cla.s.ses of society. There, marriage is generally considered a business transaction; it is a purely conventional bond, which both parties respect externally, while, for the rest, each often acts according to his or her own inclination. Marriage for political reasons, practiced in the higher cla.s.ses, need here to be mentioned only for the sake of completeness. With these marriages also, as a rule, the privilege has tacitly existed--of course, again, for the husband to a much higher degree than for the wife--that the parties keep themselves scathless, _outside of the bonds of wedlock_, according as their whims may point, or their needs dictate. There have been periods in history when it was part of the _bon ton_ with a Prince to keep mistresses: it was one of the princely attributes. Thus, according to Scherr, did Frederick William I. of Prussia (1713-1740), otherwise with a reputation for steadiness, keep up, at least for the sake of appearances, relations with a General's wife. On the other hand, it is a matter of public notoriety that, for instance, August the Strong, King of Poland and Saxony, gave life to 300 illegitimate children; and Victor Emanuel of Italy, the _re galantuomo_, left behind 32 illegitimate children. There is still extant a romantically located little German residence city, in which are at least a dozen charming villas, that the corresponding "father of his country" had built as places of recreation for his resigned mistresses. On this head thick books could be written: as is well known, there is an extensive library on these piquant matters.