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Possibly at the expense of my reputation as a radical, but certainly to the
entertainment and interest of Liberty's readers, I intend to express in this
article some conservative thoughts on the so-called Woman Question. This I will
do, not so much because of my desire to present my own views, but because it
appears to me a good way of eliciting elaborate statement and clear explanation
from those with whom I shall take the issue. The discussion (if such it may be
called) of the Woman Question has so far been confined to platitudes and
trivial points, while it has been deemed one of the absolute requisites of an
advanced, progressive, and liberal thinker to believe in equality of the sexes
and to indulge in cheap talk about economic emancipation, equal rights, etc.,
of the "weaker sex." Declining to repeat this talk in a parrot-like fashion, I
ask to be offered some solid arguments in support of the position which I now,
with all my willingness, cannot consider well-grounded.
But let me state at the outset that I have not a word to say against the demand
- Which, alas! is not very loud and determined - on the part of women for a
"free field and no favors." I fully believe in liberty for man, woman, and
child.... [I am not] jealous of the privileges and special homage accorded by
the bourgeois world to women, and do not in the least share the sentiments of
E. Belfort Bax, who declaims against an alleged tyranny exercised by women over
men. Not denying that such "tyranny" exists, I assert that Mr. Bax entirely
misunderstands its real nature. Man's condescension he mistakes for submission;
marks of woman's degradation and slavery his obliquity of vision transforms
into properties of sovereignty. Tchernychewsky takes the correct view upon this
matter when he makes Vera Pavlovna say; "Men should not kiss women's hands,
since that ought to be offensive to women, for it means that men do not
consider them as human beings like themselves, but believe that they can in no
way lower their dignity before a woman, so inferior to them is she, and that no
marks of affected respect for her can lessen their superiority." What to Mr.
Bax appears to be servility on the part of men is really but insult added to
injury.
Recognizing, then, this fact of injury and insult which woman complains about,
I sympathize with her in the aspiration for self-control and in the demand to
be allowed freedom and opportunities for development. And if this desire to
work out her own salvation were the whole sum and substance of the "woman
question," That would have been to me a question solved.
Women, in the first place, are the slaves of capital. In this their cause is
man's cause, though the yoke of capitalism falls upon them with more crushing
effect. This slavery would not outlive the State and legality for a single day,
for it has no other root to depend upon for continued existence.
In addition to this burden of economic servitude women are subjected to the
misery of being the property, tool, and plaything of man, and have neither
power to protest against the use, nor remedies against abuse, of their persons
by their male masters. This slavery is sanctioned by custom, prejudice,
tradition, and prevailing notions of morality and purity. Intelligence is the
cure for this. Man's brutality and cruelty will be buried in the same grave in
which his own and woman's superstition and fixed ideas will be forever laid
away.
Normal economic conditions and increased opportunities for intellectual
development are in this case, as in all others related to the social problem,
the indispensable agents of improvement. It would be idle to discuss the
possibility of any change under the present industrial and political
arrangements. Woman must now content herself with indirectly furthering the
cause nearest to her heart: she must simply join her strength to that of man -
and even the most selfish of us will wish more power to her elbow - in his
effort to establish proper relations between capital and labor. And only after
the material foundations of the new social order have been successfully built,
will the Woman Question proper loom up and claim attention.
Let us attempt here to briefly summarize the problem, the remedy, and the
reasoning process by which the same are formulated, so far as we understand the
position of the most extreme radicals in our ranks.
"Woman must enjoy equal rights and equal freedom and must in all respects be
the equal of man. They must contract on absolutely equal terms." How attain and
permanently maintain this condition?
"Economical independence is the first and most important thing to women who
would be and remain free. When a woman ceases to be self-supporting and begins
to look to man for means of life, she deprives herself of independence,
dignity, and power of commanding respect. complete control over her own person
and offspring is the next essential thing. With this right of disposing of her
own favors she must never part, and to no one must she delegate the privilege
of determining the circumstances under which she shall assume the function of
maternity. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
"Communism being the grave of individuality, woman must beware of ever
abandoning her own private home, over which she exercises sovereign authority,
to enter into man's dominion. Someone is bound to rule in the family, and the
chances are decidedly against her gaining the supremacy, even if they be
considered a more desirable issue than the other alternative.
"The ideal, then, is: independent men and women, in independent homes, leading
separate and independent lives, with full freedom to form and dissolve
relations, and with perfectly equal opportunities to happiness, development,
and love."
Beautiful as this ideal may seem to some, I confess that it inspires me with no
enthusiasm. On the contrary, it seems to me unnatural, impossible, and utterly
utopian. While welcoming liberty, I do not anticipate such results...
"Right" is but a euphonious equivalent of "might." ...A "right" to a thing
means the capacity to profitably secure it. The rights of an individual are
fixed by his powers of body and mind. He has a right to appropriate and enjoy
all that he can...
From this standpoint, what comes of the demands for equal rights and
opportunities in the relations of men and women? "Words, words, words," without
meaning or significance. Nature having placed woman at such a decided
disadvantage in the path of life, of what avail are her protestations and cries
for equality with man? In order to gratify one of her strongest natural
desires, she is compelled to enter into relations with man of which the
burdensome and painful consequences she alone has to bear. While man's part in
the relation is pleasurable throughout, woman purchases her enjoyment at an
enormous price. And woman's loss here is man's clear gain. Up to the moment of
her contracting to cooperate with man in the production of offspring woman may
be considered a man's equal, - ignoring the questions of physical vigor, weight
and quality of the brain, etc., which cannot and need not be discussed here. A
young girls would, under proper and normal conditions, enjoy equal
opportunities with the young man in the matter of providing for her material
and intellectual wants. Economic independence, education, culture, and
refinement, - all these would be fully within her individual reach. But let her
enter into love relations with the young man and resolve upon assuming parental
obligations and responsibilities, and all is changed. She is no longer the
equal of her male companion. For some time before and a long time after giving
birth to a child, she is incapable of holding her independent position and of
supporting herself. She needs the care, support, and service of others. She has
to depend upon the man whom she made the father of her child, and who suffered
no inconvenience from the new relation. With the equality of powers for
self-support vanish all other equalities, - a fact of which believers in the
equality of the sexes are not only well aware, but one which they continually
use as an excellent argument for economic independence of women. Surely, then,
they ought not to overlook this cruel, illusion-breaking fact of natural
inequality of men and women resulting from the wide difference in the
consequences which reproductive sexual association entails respectively upon
the partners to the same. Women must either look to their male companions for
making good the deficit thus occasioned in their accounts, - in which case the
foundation is laid for despotism on the one side and subjection on the other, -
or else find the means of support in excessive labor or in economy of
consumption during the intervals of freedom from the restraints and burdens
mentioned above, - which would make the burden of life heavier to her and so
reduce her opportunities for development and recreation. In both cases -
inequality.
"Few children" will no doubt be suggested as the solution of this difficulty.
But is this desirable and compatible with out conception of a future happy
condition? Children are a joy and a blessing to parents whom poverty, or the
fear of poverty, does not transform into unnatural, suspicious, brutal, and
eternally-discontented beings.... But I do not think human happiness would be
subserved by carrying this limitation to an extreme. Moreover, this control
over nature can only be successfully maintained by either the employment of
artificial checks and preventives or by the practice of abstinence, - methods
which nobody will recommend except as necessary evils, but which should never
be resorted to in the absence of serious reasons.
Of Course, if - as seems fairly established - mental exertion, access to other
pleasures, comfortable surroundings generally are really important factors in
checking fecundity and frequency in the matter of offspring, this last problem
will of itself be most happily solved under the new conditions of life. But
this prospect, while it may cheer the hearts of believers in small families,
scarcely affords relief to those with whose position we are now mainly
occupied.
Assuming sexual passion to be no stronger in women than in men (some are of the
opinion that it is much stronger), there will always be a preponderance of
forces and tendencies in favor of men in this natural antagonism. Man has no
motive to deny himself gratification of his sexual desires except his dislike
to be the cause or even the witness of the pain and suffering of those whom he
loves, whereas woman, as we have seen, stakes her most vital interests when she
follows her natural impulse.
Leaving it for advocates of independent homes to settle these difficulties for
me, I may ask here, wherein would be the evil or danger of family life when,
the economic necessity for it having disappeared, so far as the woman is
concerned, under a more rational industrial system, it should be maintained in
the higher interests and free wishes of both parties to the contract? Why
should not the love relations remain much as they are today? With the tyranny
and impertinent meddling of Church and State abolished, would not the relation
between "man" and "wife" always be the relation of lover and sweetheart?
Between true lovers who are really devoted to each other the relations are
ideal. But legal marriage is the grave of love; material conditions and the
current notions of virtue and morality destroy the individuality of the married
woman, and she becomes the property of her husband. Remove these, and living
together ceases to be an evil. The family relation in that state will continue
to be perfect as long as they will continue at all.
... Why a man should not "make a home" for the woman he loves, I am unable to
see. While he is providing the means, she is educating the children and
surrounding him with comfort. When they cease to be happy together, they
separate. And, as in the commercial sphere, the fear of probable competition
suffices to prevent monopolistic iniquity without necessarily calling forth
actual competition, so in family life under freedom the probability or rather
certainty of the woman's rebellion against the slightest manifestation of
despotism will make the man very careful in his conduct and insure peace and
respect between them.
I am not blind to the fact that my ideal contains the element of Communism, and
also involves the concentration of love upon one person of the opposite sex at
a time. But, as long as these are a spontaneous result of freedom, they are no
more to be theoretically deplored than especially recommended. Personally I
hold, however, that some sort of Communism is inevitable between lovers, and
that "variety" in love is only a temporary demand of a certain period. A
certain degree of experience is just as necessary in the matter of love as it
is in any other branch of human affairs. Variety may be as truly the mother of
unity (or duality, rather) as liberty is the mother of order. The inconstancy
of young people is proverbial. But when free to experiment and take lessons in
love, the outcome might be that finally each Apollo would find his Venus and
retire with her to a harmonious and idyllic life...
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