| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Truth About Woman
Author: Hartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine), 1867-1928
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Truth About Woman" ***
* * * * *
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has |
| been preserved. |
| |
| Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For |
| a complete list, please see the end of this document. |
| |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *
THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
_BOOKS ON ART_
A RECORD OF SPANISH PAINTING
PICTURES IN THE TATE GALLERY
THE PRADO (Spanish Series)
EL GRECO ( " )
VELAZQUEZ ( " )
_BOOKS ON SPAIN_
MOORISH CITIES IN SPAIN
THINGS SEEN IN SPAIN
SPAIN REVISITED: A SUMMER HOLIDAY IN GALICIA
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA (Mediæval Towns Series)
CATHEDRALS OF SOUTHERN AND EASTERN SPAIN
THE TRUTH
ABOUT WOMAN
BY
C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY
(MRS. WALTER M. GALLICHAN)
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1914
DEDICATION
TO
LESLIE, MY LITTLE ADOPTED SON
In writing at last this book on Woman, which for so many years
has had a place in my thoughts, one truth has forced itself upon
me: the predominant position of Woman in her natural relation to
the race. The mother is the main stream of the racial life. All
the hope of the future rests upon this faith in motherhood.
To whom, then, but to you, my little son, can I dedicate my
book? You came to me when I was still seeking out a way in the
futility of Individual ends; you reconciled my warring motives
and desires; you brought me a new guiding principle. You taught
me that the Individual Life is but as a bubble or cluster of
foam on the great tide of humanity. I knew that the redemption
of Woman rests in the growing knowledge and consciousness of her
responsibility to the race.
"The social revolution which is impending in Europe is chiefly
concerned with the future of the workers and the women. It is
for this that I hope and wait, and for this I will work with all
my powers."--IBSEN.
PREFACE
It is very difficult to write a preface to a work which is expressly
intended as a revelation of the faith of the writer. The successive
stages of thought and emotion that have been passed through are still
too near, and one feels too deeply. I have made several futile
attempts to concentrate into a short note the Truths about Woman that
I have tried to convey in my book. I find it impossible to do this.
The explanation of one's own book would really require the writing of
another book, as Mr. Bernard Shaw has proved to us in his delightful
prefaces. But to do this one must be freed altogether from the limits
of length and time. The fragments of what I wish to say would be of no
service to any one.
I then tried to place myself, as it were, outside the book, and to
look at it as a stranger might. But the difficulties here were even
greater. I grew so interested in criticising my own opinions that my
notes soon outran the possibilities of a preface. In this spirit of
genuine discrimination, I became aware how easy it would be for any
one who does not share my faith to find apparent contradictions of
statement and errors in thought--much that is feeble here, extravagant
there; to notice some salient fault and to take it as decisive of the
writer's incompetence. I am tempted to point these out myself to guide
and protect the reader.
Now that my book is done I feel that I have touched only the veriest
fringe of a vast subject. But one thing I may say, I have tried to
express the truth as I have come to see it. The conception I have of
Woman is not new; it is very old. And for that reason it will be
rejected by many women to-day. At present the inspiration towards
freedom in the Woman's Movement has involved a tendency to follow
individual paths, without waiting to consider to what end they lead.
There has arisen a sort of glamour about freedom. No one of us can be
free, for no one of us stands alone; we are all members one of
another. And woman's destiny is rooted in the race. This, rightly
considered, is the most vital of all vital facts. I appeal to women to
realise more clearly their true place and gifts, as representing that
original racial motherhood, out of which the masculine and feminine
characters have arisen.
My book is a statement of my faith in Woman as the predominant and
responsible partner in the relations of the sexes. To such a belief my
opinion was driven, as it were, not deliberately set from the
beginning. The time when the resolve to write a book upon Woman first
took a place in my thoughts goes back for many years. The child of a
Puritan father, who died for the faith in which he believed, the
desire to teach was born in my blood. Our character is forged in the
past, we cannot escape our inheritance. I began my work as the
head-mistress of a school for girls. I was young in experience and
very ignorant of life. In my enthusiasm I was quite unconscious of my
own limitations, I believed that I was able to train up a new type of
free woman. Of course I failed. Looking back now I wonder if I ever
taught my pupils one-hundredth part of what they taught me. Perhaps if
any of them, separated from me by time and circumstances, chance to
read my book, they may be glad to know that it was largely due to them
and what I learnt from them that it has come to be written. Certainly
it was in those days, when saddened by my own failures, that the
purpose came to me, dimly but insistently, to seek out the Truth about
Woman and the relations of the sexes. I began to read and to collect
material at first for my own guidance and instruction, and as a
necessary preparation for my work. I needed it: I must have been slow
to learn. For a long time I wandered in the wrong path. My desire was
to find proofs that would enable me to ignore all those facts of
woman's organic constitution which makes her unlike man. I stumbled
blindly into the fatal error of following masculine ideals. I desired
freedom for women to enable them to live the same lives that men live
and to do the same work that men do. I did not understand that this
was a wastage of the force of womanhood; that no freedom can be of
service to a woman unless it is a freedom to follow her own nature. I
am very glad that the book that is now finished was not written in
that period of my belief. I have waited and I have lived.
Five years ago I took up definitely the task of writing the book. At
that time the plan of the work was made and the first Introductory
chapter written. Circumstances into which I need not enter caused the
work again to be put aside. I am glad: I have learnt much in these
last years.
There is little more that I need to say.
The book is divided into three parts--the first biological, the second
historical. These two parts are preliminary to the third part, which
deals with the present-day aspects of the Woman Problem, the
differences between woman and man, and the relations of the sexes.
This arrangement of my inquiry into three parts was necessary. It may
seem to some that I should have done better to confine my
investigations to the present. But the claim of woman for freedom is
rooted deep in the past. This fact had to be established. I have tried
to give the earlier sections such lighter qualities and interest as
would commend them to my readers. It is hardly necessary for me to say
I can make no claim to personal scientific knowledge. Probably I have
made many mistakes.
It is perhaps foolish to make apologies for work that one has done.
But the inclusion of so wide a field has had a disadvantage. My
investigations may be objected to as in certain points not being
supported by sufficient proof. I know this. My stacks of unused notes
remind me of how much I have had to leave out. This is especially the
case in the final part. The subject of every chapter treated here
could easily form a volume in itself. I hope that at least I have
opened up suggestions of many questions on which I could not dwell at
length.
Some remarks may be necessary as to the nature of my material. It has
been drawn from a variety of sources. I have tried to acknowledge in
footnotes the great amount of help I have received. But my notes have
been taken during many years, and if any acknowledgment has been
forgotten, it is my memory that is at fault, and not my gratitude. The
Bibliography (which has been drawn up chiefly from the works I have
consulted, and is merely representative) will show how many fields
there are from which the student may glean. In particular I am
indebted to the works of Havelock Ellis, of Iwan Bloch and Ellen Key.
To these writers I would express my warmest thanks for the help and
guidance I have gained from their work.
The opinions expressed are in all cases my own. I say this without any
apology of modesty. I hold that the one justification of writing a
book at all is to state those truths one has learnt from one's own
experience of life. For we can give to others only what we have
received ourselves; the vision rising in our own eyes, the passion
born in our own hearts.
C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY.
_7, Carlton Terrace,
Child's Hill, N.W.
March, 1913._
CONTENTS
_N.B.--A complete synopsis of contents will be found at the
beginning of each chapter_
CHAP. PAGE
I INTRODUCTION--THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY 1
PART I--BIOLOGICAL SECTION
II THE ORIGIN OF THE SEXES 31
III GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION 45
I The Early Position of the Sexes.
II Two Examples--The Beehive and the Spider.
IV THE EARLY RELATIONSHIP OF THE SEXES 71
V COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND THE FAMILY 85
I Among the Birds and Mammals.
II Further Examples of Courtship, Marriage, and the Family
among Birds.
PART II--HISTORICAL SECTION
VI THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 117
I Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family
Relationship.
II The Matriarchal Family in America.
III Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in
Australia, India, and other Countries.
IV The Transition in Father-right.
VII WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY 177
I In Egypt.
II In Babylon.
III In Greece.
IV In Rome.
PART III--MODERN SECTION: PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN PROBLEM
VIII SEX DIFFERENCES 245
IX APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER
REMARKS ON SEX DIFFERENCE 271
I Women and Labour.
II Sexual Differences in Mind and the Artistic Impulse in
Women.
III The Affectability of Woman--Its Connection with the
Religious Impulse.
X THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP 329
I Marriage.
II Divorce.
III Prostitution.
XI THE END OF THE INQUIRY 375
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION--THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY
The twentieth century the age of hurrying progress--The change in
the position of women--Reasons for the revolution--First
efforts towards emancipation--Outlook of the Woman
Movement--Its fundamental error--Possibilities of future
development--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--Schopenhauer's
view of woman--He asserts an absurdity--The predominance of man
over woman not to be regarded as a natural and inviolable
law--An examination of the mastery of the male--Can we look
forward to a remedy?--Our own time a turning-point in the
history of women--Assumed inferiority of the female
sex--Necessity for biological knowledge in forming an estimate
of the present sex-relationship--Two kinds of influences to be
considered--Nature and Nurture--The different play of the
environmental forces, or Nurture, upon women and upon men--The
importance of Nature--Galton's _Law of Inheritance_--Woman's
responsibility as race-bearer--Sexual differences between the
female and the male--Primitive woman and her position in early
civilisations--Remarks and conclusion--The immense importance
of motherhood.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION--THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY
"The method of investigating truth commonly pursued at this
time, therefore, is to be held erroneous and almost foolish, in
which so many inquire what others have said, and omit to ask
whether the things themselves be actually so or
not."--WILLIAM HARVEY.
The twentieth century will, we may well believe, be stamped in the
records of the future as "the age of hurrying change." In certain
directions this change has resulted in a profounder transformation of
thought than has been effected by all the preceding centuries. Never,
probably, in the history of the world were the meanings and ambitions
of progress so prevalent as they are to-day. An energy of inquiry and
an endless curiosity is sweeping away the complacent Victorian
attitude, which in its secure faith and tranquil self-confidence
accepted the conditions of living without question and without
emotion. Stripped of its masks, this phase of individual egoism was
perhaps the most villainous page of recorded human history; yet, with
strange confidence, it regarded itself as the very summit of
civilisation. It may be that such a phase was necessary before the
awakening of a social conscience could arise. Old conceptions have
become foolish in a New Age. A great motive, an enlarging dream, a
quickening understanding of social responsibility, these are what we
have gained.
Above all, this common Faith of Progress has brought a new birth to
women. Many are feeling this force. There are two, says Professor Karl
Pearson,[1] and it might almost be said only two great problems of
modern social life--they are the problem of woman and the problem of
labour. Regarded with fear by many, they are for the younger
generation the sole motors in life, and the only party cries which in
the present can arouse enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and a genuine
freemasonry of class and sex.
There is something almost staggering in the range and greatness of the
changes in belief and feeling, in intellectual conclusions and social
habits, which are now disturbing the female part of humankind. How
complete is the divorce between the attitude of the woman of this
generation towards society and herself, and that of the generation
that has passed--yes, passed as completely as if hundreds and not
units represent the years that separate it from the present.
It is instructive to note in passing what was written about woman at
the time immediately preceding the present revolt of the sex. The
virtue upon which most stress was laid was that of "delicacy," a word
which occurs with nauseous frequency in the books written both by
women and men in the two last centuries.[2] "Propriety," wrote Mrs.
Hannah More, "is to a woman what the great Roman citizen said action
is to an orator: it is the first, the second, and the third
requisite."[3]
"This delicacy or propriety," it has been well said,[4] "implied
not only modesty, but ignorance; and not only decency of
conduct, but false decency of mind. Nothing was to be thoroughly
known, nothing to be frankly expressed. The vicious concealment
was not confined to physical facts, but pervaded all forms of
knowledge. Not only must the girl be kept ignorant of the
principles of physiology, but she must also abstain from
penetrating thoroughly into the mysteries of history, of
politics, of science, and of philosophy. Even her special
province of religion must be lightly surveyed. She was not
required to think for herself, therefore she was deprived of all
training which would enable her to think at all. The girl must
appear to be dependent upon the mental strength of a man, as
well as upon his physical strength."
It is necessary to remember this attitude if we are to understand the
direction that woman's emancipation has largely--and, as some of us
think, mistakenly--taken in this country. It explains the demand for
equality of opportunity with men, which has become the watch-cry of so
many women, thinking that here was the way to solve the problem. A cry
good and right in itself, but one which is a starting-point only for
woman's freedom, and can never be its end.
Little more than fifty years have passed since Miss Jex-Blake
undertook her memorable fight to obtain medical training for herself
and her colleagues at the University of Edinburgh.[5] At about the
same time arose women's demand for the right of higher education, and
colleges for women were opened at Oxford and Cambridge. These were the
practical results which followed the revolt of Mary Wollstonecraft,
and later, the great revival due to the publication of John Stuart
Mill's epoch-marking book, the _Subjection of Women_.
During the first period of the woman's movement the centre of
restlessness was amongst unmarried women, who rebelled at the old
restrictions, eager for self-development and a more intellectually
active life. These women undertook their own cause, insisting that
their humanity came before their sex. They were picked women, much
above the average woman, and to a certain extent abnormal in so far as
they denied the important factor of sex. To them the average male was
not a subject of overwhelming interest, and marriage and motherhood
were not of prominent importance in their thought. For them "equality
of opportunity for women with men" seemed to solve the problem of
woman's emancipation. The constructive result of their campaign was
the winning of the higher education of woman, the right to work, and
the rush of women into the professions. Much, indeed, was gained,
though it may be said with equal truth that much was lost. With this
solution--the increased power of self-realisation in a narrow class of
picked women, chiefly unmarried women of the middle-class--the woman's
movement might well begin, but in this alone it can never end. The
movement was incomplete as far as woman's emancipation went, because
it was won by ignoring sex. In spite of the great advance in freedom
and in scope of activity of life, the stigma attached to woman was not
removed. To-day we have arrived at a point where instead of ignoring
sex we must affirm it, and claim emancipation on the ground of our sex
alone. Our mothers taught acceptance, and asked for privileges; the
pioneers of revolt raised the cry "acceptance is a sin and all
privilege evil"; we, the blood in our veins beating more strongly and
understanding at last the true inwardness of our power, found our
claim for complete emancipation upon that special work in the world
and for the State which our differentiation from men imposes upon us.
This differentiation is our potentiality for motherhood, and is the
endowment of every woman, whether realised or not. We claim as our
glory what our mothers accepted as their burden of shame.
No sudden causeless changes ever happen, or ever have happened. And
the question, Why? arises. What is this dynamic force which has been,
and is still sweeping in a great wave of emancipation across the
civilised world, joining women in one common purpose? On the outside
the revolutionary character of women's modern thought and modern
practice means nothing more than that they claim the rights of adult
human beings--political enfranchisement, the right of education and
freedom to work. But the facts are far too complex to enable us thus
to rush hastily to an answer. There is a pitiful monotony in much that
is written and spoken about women's emancipation. The real causes are
deep to seek, and not infrequently they have been missed even by those
who have been most instrumental in bringing a new hope to women. The
most advanced women champions, the martyrs of revolt, show no greater
sense of the meanings and issues of the struggle in which they are
engaged than the complaisant supporters of the worn-out customs they
combat. They exhibit only the energies of an admirable impulse,
without the control of a guiding law. Speculation, which should be
carried to a comprehension of general facts, is concentrated upon the
immediate gain of the hour. The tendency is to trifle with truth, and
to disguise its reach and consequences. We have read, and spoken, and
thought so much about the special character of woman that we have
become almost wearied of the subject. Like Narcissus, we stand in some
danger of falling in love with our own image. Perhaps the truth is we
speculate too much instead of trying to find out the facts. The woman
question is as old as sex itself and as young as mankind.
The future position of woman in society is a question that carries
with it biological and psychological, as well as social and practical,
issues of the widest significance, and further, it is bound up
intimately with the profoundest riddles of existence. The problems
remain to a great extent unsolved. But the conviction forces itself
that the emancipation of woman will ultimately involve a revolution in
many of our social institutions. It is this that brings fear to many.
Yet we must remember that woman's emancipation is no new movement, but
has always been with us, although with varying prominence at different
times in history. In the past, civilisations have fallen, in part at
least, because they failed to develop in equal freedom their women
with their men. It is also certain that no civilisation in the future
can remain the highest if another civilisation adds to the
intelligence of its male population the intelligence of its women.
This in itself is enough to condemn all ideas of sex inequality.
The struggle for the Suffrage has intensified many problems which it
will take all the intellectual and emotional energy of both men and
women to solve. Up till now there has been little more than a fight
for mere rights against male monopolies. In the near future this
struggle must lead to a realisation of the duties of woman, founded on
a level-headed facing of the physiological realities of her nature. It
is a complete disregard of sexualogical difficulties which renders so
superficial and unconvincing much of the talk which proceeds from the
"Woman's Rights" platform. All efforts made to understand the sex
problem, which is the woman question, must be based on the full
knowledge of the physical capacity of woman and the effect that her
emancipation will have on her function of race production. All effort
ought to be directed towards the future welfare and happiness of the
children who are to follow us. This is the goal of woman's struggle
for progress, it is the sole end worthy of it.
To assume as Schopenhauer and so many others have done, down to Sir
Almroth Wright's recent hysterical wail in _The Times_, that woman, on
account of her womanhood is incapable of intellectual or social
development, paying her sole debt of Nature in bearing and caring for
children, is really to state a belief in decay for humankind. Any
stigma attached to women is really a stigma attached to their
potentiality as mothers, and we can only remove it by beginning with
the emancipation of the actual mother. No sharp cleavage can be made
between qualities that are good and masculine on the one side, and all
that is feminine on the other. The view is entirely erroneous. How,
for instance, can ignorance and weakness constitute at once the
perfection of womankind, and the imperfection of mankind? The matter
is not so simple. Man must fall with woman, and rise with her.
My first purpose is to make this clear.
To-day we are faced with the question whether the predominance of man
over woman is to be regarded as a natural, and therefore inviolable,
law of the male and female. Some will deny this mastery of the male.
It may be said that woman sways man more than he rules her. This is
true. The influence of woman is important--fearfully important. Yet
the fitting answer to such glossing--if it be necessary really to
point out that sexual privilege is not personal power--is that such
government is exercised in one direction alone, and arises not from
woman's strength, but out of her subjection. Women have rendered back
to men the ill that this long sex domination has wrought upon them.
None the less have we to reckon with the despotism of the male side of
life. "The softening influence of woman!" ... It is a pretty phrase;
but all the same women and men have been doing their best to degrade
each other to a pitiful mediocrity. It is not the purifying influence
of women--the theory of chivalrous moralists--but an unguided and
therefore deteriorating sexual tyranny that regulates society. Let us
have done with this absurd catch-phrase of "Woman's Influence." No
influence worth naming as such can be exercised but by an independent
mind. Women need better fields for the exercise of their love of
power. The sexual sphere, which has shaped an impalpable prison
around them, has barred them from that part of life which is social
and broadly human; the falsely feminine has been developed to the loss
of the womanhood in them. It is only in obedience to man that woman
has gained her power of life. She has borne children at his will and
for his pleasure. She has received her very consciousness from man:
this has been her womanhood, to feel herself under another's will.
There is no possible hiding of the truth; if women influence men, men
command life.
But is it possible, looking forward to new conditions of society, now
approaching like a long-delayed spring, to foresee a remedy? Can the
woman of the future belong to herself? What are her natural
disabilities, and to what extent are they modifiable by new
arrangements of social and domestic life? Must she be content for the
future with that dependence on the individual man which has been her
fate in the past; or, on the other hand, can she take up her economic
and social position in society and work therein for her own
maintenance as free from considerations of her sex as a man can? These
are the questions which must be faced when united womanhood begins to
formulate their wants and to realise their power. It is almost idle in
the present transition to speculate as to what women should or should
not be, or the work they should or should not do. Women do not yet
know what they want. All that can be done is to note the changes that
are taking place, for we cannot, even do we wish, now change the
revolutionary forces. We must seek to understand their causes, so that
we may be able to direct them in the future in such ways as will tend
to the greater solidarity and happiness of women and men.
In the everlasting controversy as to woman's place in Nature the
majority of arguments have been based on an assumed inferiority of the
female sex. Appeal has been made to anatomy to establish the
difference between the natural endowment of men and women in the hope
of fixing by means of anatomical measurements and tests those
characters of males and females that are unalterable, because inborn,
and those that are acquired, and therefore modifiable. But the
obstacles in the way of anatomical investigations are very great, if
only on account of the complexity of the material. Often and often it
has happened that old conclusions have been overthrown by new
knowledge. Indeed, it may be said that such appeal has resulted in
uncertainty, and in many instances in confusion. The chief source of
error has been the careless acceptance of female inferiority, which
has maimed most investigations and seriously retarded the attainment
of useful results. And though it is very far from my purpose to wish
to deny the fundamentally different nature of the masculine and
feminine character, it is still true that a blank separation of human
qualities into male qualities and female qualities is no longer
possible. In no instance have the anatomists succeeded in determining
with absolute distinction between the characters that belong
separately to the sexes. Moreover, it has been shown that there is no
such thing as a _fixed woman character_, but that women differ
according to the circumstances under which they live, just as men
differ. This brings us directly against the old problem, inferiority
cannot be accepted as the sole reason of woman's present restricted
position in society. Other causes must be sought for.
Many features of the social and psychic as well as the physical
phenomena of human life have what we may call an organismal
mainspring, and become more intelligible when traced back to these. No
one, for instance, can appreciate the social significance of sex, or
account for the existing sexual relationships in human societies, who
does not know something of their biological antecedents. Take again
the sex differences, which attain to such complexity and importance in
the human civilised races, these can be explained only if their origin
is recognisable. To comprehend the higher forms of life we must gain
an acquaintance with the lower and more formative types. In this way
we shall begin to see something of that continual upward change under
the action of love's-selection that has developed the female and the
male. Many problems that have brought sorrow and perplexity to us
to-day will become recognisable as we ascertain their causes, and then
we can do much to remove them. Thus the problem of woman must first be
considered from a biological point of view. Explorations must be made
into the remote and obscure beginnings of sex. We must carry our
investigations back beyond the cycle of man, and trace the growth and
uses of the differentiation of the sexes from the lowest forms of
life.
Biology, a science hardly more than a century old, is still in the
descriptive and comparative stage; it is the scientific study of the
present and past history of animal life for the purpose of
understanding its future history. It is of vital importance to human
welfare in the future that we should learn by this comparative study
of origins and of the potent past what are the lines along which
progress is to be expected.
This, then, will be the first path of our discovery. We shall have to
traverse many past ages of life and to consider certain humble
organisms, before we shall be able really to understand woman in her
true position in the sexual relationship as we find it to-day.
But the possibility of applying biological results to sociology with
any hope of enlightenment depends on an understanding of the
questions, How? and Why? It is important to know what the phenomena
are, but it is yet more important to know how? and for what reason?
they have come about. Thus we are led forward always from facts to
their efficient causes. Women are found to differ from men in this or
that respect. But this in itself decides nothing. As soon as we are
informed as to any one difference, we must seek out its cause; and
this we must do over and over again. Hundreds of women must be
interrogated, observed and reported upon--and then what? Shall we know
the answer to our problem? Certainly not. In each case we must ask: Is
this difference we have found between the sexes a natural inborn
quality of woman, whether it be physical or psychical, that must be
regarded as a right and unalterable part of her woman character, or is
it an acquired, and therefore changeable, modification that has been
superimposed upon her through the artificial sexual, social and
economic circumstances of her environment? The mere asking of this
question will give many new discoveries.
Life is a relation between two forces: on the one hand the organism
and on the other the external conditions that form the environment.
These two processes are known as Nature and Nurture, they are
complementary and inseparable, and they act together. Thus the
organism modifies its surroundings, and is in turn modified by them.
But every life possesses in great degree the power of self-adaptation,
and, broadly speaking, it is true that no matter under what conditions
it may be compelled to live, it will mould its own life into harmony
with those conditions and thus continue its existence, and this
whether it is compelled to adopt a more perfect or a less perfect
character. It becomes evident that an appropriate environment is
necessary if the Nature is to be expressed, or expressed fully;
otherwise life cannot realise development. The environment is
constantly checking and modifying the inheritance. Nurture supplies
the liberating stimulus to the inheritance, and growth is limited, in
exact measurement by the Nurture stimuli available. Human advancement
is, of course, widely different from the slow progress in the lower
forms of life, but it is fundamentally the same. Experience is
continually spreading over new fields and bringing about a more wide
and exact relation between the individual and the external world. It
follows that any change in the environment will cause a change in the
individual. To live differently from what one had been living is to be
different from what one has been. These are simple biological facts.
Now, how does woman stand in this respect? No one can deny the
difference of environment that in the past has acted on women and on
men. Speaking from a biological standpoint, it would seem that any
present inferiority of woman is mainly social, due to her adaptation
to an arbitrary environment. It has been truly said[6] that "man, in
supporting woman, has become her economic environment." By her
position of economic dependence in the sex relation, sex distinction
has become with her "not only a means of attracting a mate, as with
all creatures, but a means of gaining her livelihood, as is the case
with no other creature under heaven." Can we wonder that the
differences between the sexes assume such great and, in certain
directions, such unnatural importance? Woman to a far greater extent
than man is in process of evolution; her powers dormant for want of
liberating Nurture stimuli. We know that Alpine plants brought from
their natural soil change their character and become hardly
recognisable, and these marked modifications will reappear in many
generations of plants, but as soon as the plants are taken back to
grow in their natural environment they are transformed to their
original Alpine forms. May we not then entertain as a possibility that
woman's modern character, with all its acknowledged faults--all its
separation from the human qualities of man--is a veneer imposed by an
unnatural environment on succeeding generations of women? If the
larger social virtues are wanting in her, may it not be because they
have not been called for in a parasitic life? How splendid a hope for
women rests here! There is a biological truth, not usually suspected
by those who quote it, in the popular saying: "Man is the creature of
circumstance." And this is even more true of women, who are less
emancipated from their surroundings than are men--more saturated with
the influences and prejudices of their narrowed environment.
It would seem, then, that Nurture is more important than Nature in
seeking to explain the character of woman to-day. Yet, let me not be
mistaken, nor let it be thought for one moment that I do not realise
the importance of Nature. The first right of every human being is the
right of being well-born. This is the goal of all our struggles for
progress--it is the sole end worthy of them.
Let me try to make this clearer.
Reproduction carries life beyond the individual. Haeckel has said that
the process is nothing more than the growth of the organism beyond its
individual mass. But this process in the higher forms of life has
become exceedingly complex. All living beings are individual in one
respect and composite in another, for the inheritance of each
individual is a mosaic of ancestral contributions. Galton's _Law of
Inheritance_ makes this abundantly clear. Briefly stated, the law is
as follows: The two parents of each living being contribute _on the
average_ one-half of each inherited quality, each of them contributing
one-quarter of it. The four grand-parents furnish between them
one-quarter, or each of them one-sixteenth; and so on backwards
through past generations of ancestors. Now, though, of course, these
numbers are purely arbitrary, applying only to averages, and rarely
true exactly of individual cases, where the prepotency of any one
ancestor may, and often does, upset the balance of the contributions
made by the other ancestors, it may certainly be accepted as the most
probable theory that biology has given us to explain the difficult
problem of Nature--that is the inheritance we receive from our
ancestors.
We see that the heredity relation is an extremely complex affair. It
is not merely dual from the parents; but it is multiple, through them
reaching back to the grand-parents, great-grand-parents,
great-great-grand-parents, and so on backwards indefinitely. It is,
indeed, a mosaic of many, yes, of uncountable, contributions. The Life
Force gathering within itself these multiple sets of heredity
contributions is like capital ever growing at compound interest. The
importance of this is abundantly clear. For as we come to understand
the continuity of our inheritance from generation to generation we
realise more vividly how the past has a living hand on and in the
present, and how that present will be carried on to the future. We are
all links in the one mighty Chain of Life, and on us, and upon women
especially, rests a high responsibility. We must hand on our past
inheritance unimpaired, so that the new link forged by us may
strengthen and not weaken the chain. It is the duty of every woman as
a potential mother of men to choose a fitting father for her children,
having first educated herself for a freer and more capable maternity.
In the past she has done this blindly, following the Life Force
without understanding, or hindered from her purpose by the artificial
conditions of society. In the future such blindness and such failure
of her powers will alike be regarded as sin. With full knowledge,
woman will fulfil her great central purpose of breeding the race--ay,
breeding it to heights now deemed impossible, not dreamt of even by
those of us who look forward through the darkness to the clear
sunlight of that time when the sex relation shall be freed from
economic pressure and from all coercion of a false morality, and the
universal creative energy, no longer finding gratification alone in
personal ends, shall at last reach its goal and give birth to a race
of new women and new men.
But to come back from this dream of the future.
Certain facts now become evident. In the inheritance of each
individual are many latent qualities that do not find expression. It
is as if in every life the separate heredity qualities, or groups of
qualities, wait in competition, and those that succeed and find an
expression in each life owe their success to an incalculable number of
small and mostly unknown circumstances. One is tempted to speculate as
to a possible direction in the future of women that may arise from the
liberating of these unknown forces; but as yet we have not a
sufficient basis of facts. But one truth must not be lost sight of;
the unsuccessful qualities that do not find their expression in an
individual life may remain to be handed on for new competition to a
new generation. No one of the forces of our inheritance, be it for
good or for evil, is dead; rather it sleeps till that time when the
liberating powers of Nurture call it into active expression. There is
real biological truth in the saying, "Every man is a potential
criminal"; but it is equally true that every one is a possible saint.
And there is one point further; we know that those qualities which do
succeed in the competition of the inheritance, and which form at birth
the character of the individual, are very different from their actual
expression in the development of life, where perforce such qualities
are modified to the environment. What we are is no certain criterion
of what we are capable of becoming. For every item of our inheritance
requires an appropriate growth-soil if it is actively to live. Each
life is an adjustment of internal character to external conditions. A
garden that has been choked with weeds may remain flowerless for many
succeeding years, but dig that garden, and sleeping flowers, not known
to live within the memory of man, may spring to life. May it not be
that in the garden of woman's inheritance there are buried seeds,
lying dormant, which at the liberating touch of opportunity may
reawaken and assert themselves as forgotten flowers? Yes, to-day this
seems a practical fact that already is being accomplished, and not a
futile speculation. The re-birth of woman is no dream. At last she is
realising the arrest in her development that has followed the
acceptance of a position which forces her to be a parasite and a
prostitute.
Every one admits the differences of function that separate the female
from the male half of humankind. But to assume that the physical,
mental, and moral disabilities of women, of which we hear so much, are
a necessary part of their inheritance--the debt they pay for being the
mothers of the race--is an absurdity it would be difficult to explain
except for that strange sex bias, which seems always to colour all
opinions as to women, their character and their place in society.
Havelock Ellis, who in his admirable work _Man and Woman_ has made an
exhaustive examination of all the known facts with regard to the real
and supposed secondary sexual differences between women and men, comes
to this conclusion in his final summary--
"We have not succeeded," he says, "in determining the radical
and essential character of men and women uninfluenced by
external modifying conditions. We have to recognise that our
present knowledge cannot tell us what they might be, but what
they actually are, under the conditions of civilisation.... The
facts are so numerous that even when we have ascertained the
precise significance of some one fact, we cannot be sure that it
is not contradicted by other facts. And so many of the facts are
modifiable under a changing environment that in the absence of
experience we cannot pronounce definitely regarding the
behaviour of either the male or female organism under different
conditions."
Only a knowledge of the multifarious and complex environmental forces,
which in the past have moulded women into what to-day they are, will
lead us to our goal. We may examine woman's present character, both
physical and mental, with every precision of detail, but the knowledge
gained will not settle her inborn Nature. We shall discover what she
is, not what she might be. No, rather to do this we must go back
through many generations to primitive woman. We must study, in
particular, that period known as the Mother-Age, when we find an early
civilisation largely built up by woman's activity and developed by her
skill. We must find out every fact that we can of woman's physical and
mental life in this first period of social growth; we must examine
the causes which led to the change from this Mother-rule to that of
the Father-rule, or the patriarchate, which succeeded it. Insight into
the civilisations of the past is of special value to us in trying to
solve our problems of woman's true place in the social life. For one
thing, we shall learn that morality and sexual customs and
institutions are not fixed, but are peculiar to each age, and are good
only in so far as they fulfil the needs of any special period of a
people's growth. We must note, in particular, the contributions made
by woman to early civilisation, and then seek the reasons why she has
lost her former position of power. The savage woman is nearer to
Nature than we ourselves are, and in learning of her life we shall
come to an understanding of many of the problems of our lives.
This, then, must be the second path of our discovery, and, following
it, we shall gain further knowledge of what is artificial and what is
real in the character of woman and in the present relations of the
sexes.
We find that the external surroundings that influence life are
referable to one of two classes: those which tend to increase
destructive processes, and find their active expression in expenditure
of energy, and those which tend to increase constructive processes,
and are passive instead of active, storing energy, not expending it.
These two classes of external forces, disruptive and constructive, are
called katabolic and anabolic. Looking back on the early natural lives
of men and women, we find there has been a very sharp separation in
the play of these opposite sets of influences. A hasty survey of the
facts suffices to prove that the work of the world was divided into
two great parts, the men had the share of killing life, whether that
of man or of animals, their attention was given to fighting and
hunting; while the women's share was the continuing and nourishing
life, their attention being given to the domestic arts--to agriculture
and the attendant stationary industries. Woman's position during the
matriarchate was largely the result of the need in primitive society
of woman's constructive energy, and her power arose from an unfettered
use of her special functions. But this divergence of the paths of
women from the paths of men continued, and during the patriarchal
period became arbitrary with the withdrawal of women from initiative
labour, an unnatural arrangement which arose out of later social
conditions. The militant side of social activities has belonged to
men, the passive to women; and men have been goaded into growth by the
conditions and struggles of their lives. They have gathered around
themselves a special man-formed environment of institutions and laws,
of activities and inventions, of art and literature, of male
sentiments, and male systems of opinions, to which they are connected
in subtle and numerous relations, and this complex heritage of
influences has been reimposed on men generation by generation. In this
social working-life women have not had an equal part--and a drag in
their development has arisen as the result of this passivity. At a
certain period in civilisation women became an inferior class because
men with their greater range of opportunities, which brought them
within a wider and more variable circle of influences, developed a
superior fitness on the motor side. Another contrast is very evident,
men's work being performed under more striking circumstances and with
more apparent effort and danger, drew to itself prestige, which
women's work did not receive; their work, on the contrary, was held in
contempt.[7]
Yet, in this connection, it is necessary to say emphatically that, in
its origin, there was nothing arbitrary in this division between the
sexes. It was, in itself, a natural outcome of natural causes, arising
out of the needs of primitive societies. There is nothing derogatory
to woman in accepting the passive or, more truly, the constructive
power of her nature; rather it is her chief claim for the regaining of
her true position in society. I wish at once to say how far it is from
my desire to judge woman from a male standpoint. The power and nature
that are woman's are not secondary to man's; they are equal, but
different, being co-existent and complementary--in fact, just the
completion of his.
There is another point that must be made clear.
The separation in the social activities of women and men was not
brought about, as is stated so frequently, by men's injustice to
women. There is an unfortunate tendency to regard the subjection of
woman as wholly due to male selfishness and tyranny. Many leaders of
woman's freedom hold to this view as their broad exposition of
principle. Such belief is illogical and untrue. It cannot be too often
repeated that sex-hatred means retrogression and not progress. I do
not mean to say that women have not suffered at men's hands. They
have, but not more than men have suffered at their hands. No woman who
faces facts can deny this truth. Neither sex can afford to bring
railing accusations against the other. The old doctrine of blame is
insufficient. Women's disabilities are not, in their origin at least,
due to any form of male tyranny. I believe, moreover, that any
solution of the woman problem, and of woman's rights, is of ridiculous
impotence that attempts to see in man woman's perpetual oppressor. The
enemy, if enemy there is, of woman's emancipation, is woman herself.
But, on the other side, it is certain that the long-held opinion--what
we may call "the male view of women"--which believes that the position
woman occupies in society and the duties she performs are, in the
main, what they should be, she being what she is, is equally false.
Such theorists throw upon Nature the responsibility of the evils
consequent on the deviations from equality of opportunity in the past
lives of women. Truly we credit Nature with an absurd blunder do we
accept this inferiority of the female half of life. _Woman is what she
is because she has lived as she has._ And no estimate of her
character, no effort to fix the limit of her activities, can carry
weight that ignores the totally different relations towards society
that have artificially grown up, dividing so sharply the life of woman
from that of man.
I am brought back to the object of this book.
What are the conditions that have brought woman to her position of
dependence upon man? How far is her state of physical and mental
inferiority the result of this position? To what extent is she
justified in her present revolt? What result will her freedom have on
the sexual relationships? Will the change be likely to work for the
benefit of the future? In a word, how far are the new claims woman is
making consistent with race permanence? It is not one, but a whole
group of questions that have to be answered when once the ideal of the
right of the present position of the sexes is shaken. The subject is
so entangled that a straightforward step-by-step inquiry will not
always be possible. Dogmatic conclusions, and the bringing forward of
too hasty remedies must alike be avoided. The past must lead us to the
present, and thence we must look to the future. The first need is to
find out every fact that we can that will help us in our search for
the truth. Most writers on the subject, in their desire to fix on a
cause of the evil, have selected one factor, or group of factors, and
largely neglected all others. Otto Weininger, for instance, the
brilliant modern denouncer of woman, refers the whole great difference
between women and men to one cause--the bondage of sexuality. Mrs.
Stetson, in _Woman and Economics_, finds a different answer to the
same question, and assumes that the whole evil is of economic origin.
Both explanations are in part true, but neither is the truth.
To institute reform successfully needs a wider spirit. We must face
sex problems with biological and historical knowledge. Before we can
understand women's present position in society, or even suggest a
future, we must examine the place she has filled in the civilisations
of the past; we must fix, too, the part the female half of life has
played in the evolution of the sexes. Yet an inquiry into facts is
only the first stage, and not the final. When we can go on from these
facts to their results, and learn the reasons of what we have
discovered, we shall become to some extent, at least, prepared. Then,
and then only, can we venture to look forward and intelligently
suggest whither the present revolution is leading us.
It is to reach this goal that this book is written. It is an attempt
to place the woman question in a wider and more decisive light. It is
not an investigation of facts alone, but of causes. The gospel it
would preach is a gospel of liberation. And that from which woman must
be freed is herself--the unsocial self that has been created by a
restricted environment. We have seen that woman's social inferiority
in the past has been to a great extent a legitimate thing. To all
appearances history would have been impossible without it, just as it
would have been impossible without an epoch of slavery and war.
Physical strength has ruled in the past, and woman was the weaker. The
truth is that woman's time had not come, but now her unconscious
evolution must give place to a conscious development. Happiness for
women! That must imply wholly independent activities, and complete
freedom for the exercise of her work of race production. Woman's duty
to society is paramount, she is the guardian of the Race-body and
Race-soul. But woman must be responsible to herself; no longer must
she follow men. The natural growth force needs to be liberated. Woman
must be freed _as woman_; she must die to arise from death a full
human being. There is no other solution to the woman question, and
there can be no other.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Woman and Labour," _The Chances of Death_, Vol. I. p. 226.
[2] Quoted from _The Emancipation of English Women_, by W. Lyon
Blease, a book which gives an unbiased, and in many respects
excellent, account of the struggle of English women to gain freedom
from the seventeenth century to the present day.
[3] _Strictures_, I. 6, Gregory.
[4] _The Emancipation of English Women._
[5] For an account of this struggle see _Sketch of the Foundation and
Development of the London School of Medicine for Women_, by Isabel
Thorne; also _The Emancipation of English Women_.
[6] _Woman and Economics_, Mrs. Stetson, p. 38.
[7] See Thomas, _Sex and Society_, chapter on "Sex and Primitive
Industry," pp. 123-146; and Ellis, _Man and Woman_, pp. 1-17.
PART I
BIOLOGICAL SECTION
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE SEXES
Biology the starting-point of sociology--The irresistible force of
Love--The true place of woman and man in the animal
kingdom--Analogy between animal love-matings and our own--The
Life-force--Reproduction a process of nutrition--Different
modes of Reproduction--Cell-division--Successive stages of
growth--Theory of sex--Its nature and origin--Incipient sex
among the early forms of life--The true office of sex--The
principle of fertilisation--Its use to the species in
progressive development--Nutrition as a factor determining
sex--Illustration of the _volvox_--The dependence of the
male-cell upon the female-cell--The well-nourished female--The
hungry male--Relation between food supply and the
sexes--Illustrations--Lessons to be learnt--All species are
invented and tolerated by Nature for parenthood and its
service--The part played by the female--The demand laid upon
her heavier than that laid upon the male--The female is mainly
responsible for the race--The female led and the male followed
in the evolution of life.
CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE SEXES
"Before studying the sexual relations, and their more or less
regulated form in human societies, it will not be out of place
to say a few words on reproduction in general, to sketch briefly
its physiology in so far as this is fundamental, and, to show
how tyrannical are the instincts whose formation has been
determined by physiological causes."--LETOURNEAU.
Let us now, as the first path of our inquiry, turn our attention to
that biological point of view which is indispensable and fundamental
if we are to understand those primary emotions, impulses and
differences of the sexes, of deep organic origin, which were rooted
long ago in the lowest forms of life, and hence were passed on to man
from his pre-human ancestors. No apology is needed for this inquiry;
for in these uncounted ancestral forces, dating back to the remote
beginnings of life, we shall find hints, at least, of many things
which lead up to and explain those problems which must be solved,
before we can determine the true position of woman in the complex
sexual relations of our social life. We cannot deny our lineage. The
force which drove life onwards from the start drives it still to-day.
The reproductive impulse is the chief motor of humanity; our seed is
eternal. And the point of view that I wish to make clear is that the
sex-impulses, which are, as few will deny, the base of the present
unrest among women, have an inconceivably long history, and thus
spring up within us with a tremendous organic momentum. To deny this
force is futile, to suppress it impossible; all that can be done is to
so regulate its expression that it may serve life instead of waste it.
Implanted in every normal life is an instinctive desire to function in
two ways: to grow and to reproduce, from the simple cell to the
highest type of life, including man and woman, these two desires are
essential and imperative. The irresistible Force of Life has been
inherited by us from millions of ancestral lovers. Only when furnished
with a re-interpretative clue to the origin of sex and its functioning
can we come to realise its strength and its beauty, far stronger, far
subtler, than we suspected before. It is the shirking of these
life-facts that has resulted so often in error.
And let no one resent or think useless such an analogy between animal
love-matings and our own. In tracing the evolution of our
love-passions from the sexual relations of other mammals, and back to
those of their ancestors, and to the humbler, though scarcely less
beautiful, ancestors of these, we shall discover what must be
considered as essential and should be lasting, and what is false in
the conditions and character of the sexes to-day; and thereby we shall
gain at once warning in what directions to pause, and new hope to send
us forward. We shall learn that there are factors in our sex-impulses
that require to be lived down as out-of-date and no longer beneficial
to the social needs of life. But encouragement will come as, looking
backwards, we learn how the mighty dynamic of sex-love has evolved in
fineness, without losing its intensity, how it is tending to become
more mutual, more beautiful, more lasting. And this gives us new hope
to press forward on that path which woman even now is travelling,
wherein she will be free from the risk of clinging to conditions of
the past, which for so long have dragged her evolution in the mire.
The same force that pushed life into existence tends to increase and
perpetuate it. For when the great Force of Life has once started, the
same movements which constitute that life continue, and give rise to
nutrition, the first of the great faculties, or powers, of life. Then,
after this growth has been carried to a certain point, the organism
from the superabundance of nutrition is furnished with a surplus
growing energy, by means of which it reproduces itself, whence arises
the second of the great life faculties. We thus have the two essential
forces of life--the preservative force and the reproductive force,
arising alike from nutrition. Food to assure life and growth for the
individual; reproduction, an extension of the same process, to ensure
the continuance of the species. We thus see the truth of Haeckel's
definition that "reproduction is a nutrition and growth of the
organism beyond its individual mass," or in biological formula, "a
discontinuous growth."[8]
It is well to grasp at once this first conception of reproduction as
simply an extension of nutrition, if we are to free our minds from
misconception. It is a common belief that the original purpose of sex
is to ensure reproduction, whereas fundamentally it is not necessary
to propagation at all. It is perfectly true, of course, that in the
majority of animals, and also in many plants, an individual life
begins in the union of two minute elements, the mother egg-cell and
the sperm father-cell. But this is not the earliest stage, and below
these higher forms we find a great world of life reproducing without
this sex-process by simple separation and growth. In these unicellular
organisms reproduction is known as asexual, because there are no
special germ-cells, nor is there anything corresponding to
fertilisation. The most common forms are (1) by division into two; (2)
by budding, a modified form of division; (3) by sporulation, a
division into many units.[9]
It is worth while to wait to learn something of this first stage in
the development of life, for in this way we shall gain a clue as to
the origin of sex and the real purpose it fulfils in the service of
reproduction. In the very simplest forms of unicellular organisms
propagation is effected at what is known as "the limit of growth";
when the cell has attained as much volume as its surface can
adequately supply with food, a simple division of the cell takes place
into two halves or daughter cells, each exactly like the other, which
then become independent and themselves repeat the same rupture
process. But in some slightly more complex cases differences occur
between the two cells into which the organism divides, as in the
_slipper animacule_, where one-half goes off with the mouth, while the
other has none. In a short time, however, the mouthless half forms a
mouth, and each half grows into a replica of the original. We have
here one of the earliest examples of differentiation. That injured
multicellular organisms should be able by regrowth to repair their
loss in an analogous phenomenon; thus an earth-worm cut by a spade
does not necessarily suffer loss, but the head part grows a tail and
the decapitated portion produces a head; sponges, which do not
normally propagate by division, may be cut in pieces and bedded out
successfully; the arms of a star-fish, torn asunder by a fisherman,
will almost always result in several perfect star-fish. Similarly
among plants a cut-off portion may readily give rise to new plants--a
potato-tuber is one of hundreds of instances. This ability to effect
complete repair is one of the powers that life has lost; it persists
as high in the scale as reptiles, and a lizard is able to regrow an
amputated leg.
It is certainly not the least interest in studying these early forms
that one is able to trace the analogy they bear with the higher forms.
No rigid line can be drawn between the successive stages of growth.
And it should be borne in mind that, simple as is the life-process in
these single-celled organisms, many of them are highly differentiated
and show great complexity of structure within the narrow limits of
their size. Thus among the _protozoa_, the basis of all animal life,
we find very definite and interesting modes of behaviour, such as
seeking light and avoiding it, swimming in a spiral, approaching
certain substances and retreating from others; the organisms often,
indeed, trying one behaviour after another.[10] If we realise this it
becomes easier to understand how the higher types of life have
developed from these primitive types. Indeed, all the bodies of the
most complex animals--including ourselves--originate as simple cells,
and in the individual history of each of us divide and multiply just
as do the cells which exist independently; only in multicellular
organisms each cell must be regarded as an individual, modified to
serve a special purpose, one cell differentiated to start a lineage of
nerve cells, another a lineage of digestive cells, yet another for the
reproduction of the species, and so on, each group of cells taking on
its special use, but the power of division remaining with the modified
cell. Thus a new life is built up--a child becomes an adult, by
multiplication of these differentiated cells, repeating the original
single-cell development.
Budding, the second, and perhaps the most usual mode of asexual
propagation, may be said to mark a further step in the development of
the reproductive process. Here the mother-cell, instead of dividing
into two equal parts and at once rupturing, protrudes a small portion
of its substance, which is separated by a constriction that grows
deeper and deeper until the bulk becomes wholly detached. This small
bud then grows until it attains the size of the parent, when it, in
turn, repeats the same process. This mode of reproduction is common to
the great majority of plants. In animal life it is not confined to
single-celled organism, but takes place in certain multicellulars,
such as worms, bryozoans, and ascidians; one very interesting example
being the sea-worm (_myrianida_) which buds off a whole chain of
individuals.
Nearly allied with budding is the third stage, in which the division
is multiple and rapid within the limited space of the mother-cell.
This is known as spore formation. The cells become detached, and do
not further develop until they have escaped from the parent. They then
increase by division and growth to form independent individuals. This
spore reproduction is found among certain types of vegetation; it also
occurs in the _protozoa_.
It is probable that these three stages of asexual reproduction are not
all the steps actually taken by Nature in the development of the early
life-process. There must have been intermediate steps, perhaps many
such, but the forms in which they occur either have not persisted, or
have not yet been studied.[11] The feature common to all ordinary
forms of asexual multiplication is that the reproductive process is
independent of sex; what starts the new life is the half, or a
liberated portion of the single parent cell. It will be readily seen
that by this process the offspring are identical with the parent. Life
continues, but it continues unchanged. Thus the power of growth is
restricted within extremely narrow limits. Any further development
required a new process. With the life-force pushing in all directions
every possible process would be tried. We are often met with striking
phenomena of adjustments to new conditions, which in some cases, when
found to be advantageous to the organism, persist. There is, in fact,
abundant evidence that Nature in these early days of life was making
experiments. In pursuance of this policy it naturally came about that
any process by which the organism gained increased power of growth had
the greater likelihood of survival. The number of devices in the way
of modification of form and habit to secure advantage is practically
infinite; but there was one principle that was eagerly seized upon at
a very early stage, and, persisting by this law of advantage, was
utilised by all progressive types as an accessory of success. This was
the principle of fertilisation, which arose in this way from what
would almost seem the chance union of two cells, at first alike, but
afterwards more and more highly differentiated, and from whose
primordial mating have proceeded by a natural series of ascending
steps all the developed forms of sex.
The ways in which this was brought about we have now to see. But even
at this point it becomes evident that the true office of sex was not
the first need of securing reproduction--that had been done
already--rather it was the improving and perfecting of the single-cell
process by introducing variation through the commingling of the
ancestral hereditary elements of two parents, and, by means of such
variations, the production of new and higher forms of life--in fact,
progress by the mighty dynamic of sex.[12]
As we should expect, the passing from the sexless mode of reproduction
to the definite male and female types is not sharply defined or
abrupt. Even among many unicellular organisms the process becomes more
elaborate with distinct specialisation of reproductive elements. In
some cases conjugation is observed, when two individuals coalesce, and
each cell and each nucleus divides into two, and each half unites with
the half of the other to form a new cell. This is asexual, since the
uniting cells are exactly similar, but the effect would seem to be the
strengthening of the cells by, as it were, introducing new blood. In
somewhat more complex cases these cells do not part company when they
divide, but remain attached to one another, and form a kind of
commonwealth. Here one can see at once that some cells in a little
group will be less advantageously placed for the absorption of
nourishment than others. By degrees this differentiation of function
brings about differentiation of form, and cells become modified, in
some cases, to a surprising extent, to serve special purposes. The
next advance is when the uniting cells become somewhat different in
themselves. In the early stages this difference appears as one of
size; a small weakly cell, though sometimes propagating by union with
a similar cell, in other cases seeks out a larger and more developed
cell, and by uniting with it in mutual nourishment becomes strong.
This may be seen among the _protozoa_ where we can trace the distinct
beginnings of the male and female elements. A very instructive example
is furnished by the case of _volvox_, a multicellular vegative
organism of very curious habits. The cells at first are all alike;
they are united by protoplasmic bridges and form a colony. In
favourable environmental conditions of abundant nutrition this state
of affairs continues, and the colony increases only by multiplication
and without fertilisation. But when the supply of food is exhausted,
or by any cause is checked, sexual reproduction is resorted to, and
this in a way that illustrates most instructively the differentiation
of the female and male cells. Some of the cells are seen accumulating
nourishment at the expense of the others and grow larger, and if this
continues, cells which must be regarded as ova, or female cells,
result; while other cells, less advantageously placed with more
competitors struggling to obtain food, grow smaller and gradually
change their character, becoming, in fact, males. In some cases
distinct colonies may in this way arise, some composed entirely of the
large well-nourished cells, and others of small hungry cells, and may
be recognised as completely female or male colonies.[13]
We are now in a position to gain a clue to the difficult problem of
the origin of the sexes. It would be easy as well as instructive to
accumulate examples.[14] I am tempted to linger over the
life-histories of these early organisms that are so full of
suggestion; but the case I have selected--the _volvox_--really answers
the question. Sex here is dependent on, and would seem to have arisen
through, differences in environmental conditions. We find the
well-nourished, larger, and usually more quiescent cell is the female,
the hungrier and more mobile cell the male; the one concerned with
storing energy, the other with consuming it, the one building up, the
other breaking down; or expressed in biological formula, the female
cell is predominantly anabolic, that of the male predominantly
katabolic. Thus we find that the male, through a want of nutrition,
was carried developmentally away from the well-fed female cell, which
it was bound to seek and unite with to continue life. This relation
between the food supply and the sexes is found persisting in higher
forms, and, in this connection, the well-known experiments of Young on
tadpoles and of Siebald on wasps may be cited. By increasing the
nutrition of tadpoles the percentage of females was raised from the
normal of about fifty per cent. to ninety, while similarly among wasps
the number of females was found to depend on warmth and food supply,
and to decrease as these diminished. Mention also may be made of the
plant-lice, or aphides, which infest our rose-bushes and other plants,
which, during the summer months, when conditions are favourable,
produce generation after generation of females, but on the advent of
autumn, with its cold and scarcity of food, males appear and sexual
reproduction takes place. Similarly brine-shrimps when living under
favourable conditions produce females, but when the environment is
less favourable males as well are found. Another significant fact is
the simple and well-known one that within the first eight days of
larval life the additions of food will determine the striking and
functional differences between the workers and queen-bee.[15] Among
the higher animals the difficulties of proving the influence of
environment upon sex are, of course, much greater. There are, however,
many facts which point to a persistence of this fundamental
differentiation. Among these it is sufficient to mention the
experiments of stock-breeders, which show that good conditions tend to
produce females; and the testimony of furriers that rich regions yield
more furs from females, and poor regions more from males. Even when
we reach the human species facts are not wanting to suggest a similar
condition. It is usual in times of war and famine for more boys to be
born; also more boys are born in the country than in cities, possibly
because the city diet is richer, especially in meat. Similarly among
poor families the percentage of boys is higher than in well-to-do
families. And although such evidence is not conclusive and must be
accepted with great caution, it seems safe to say that the facts--of
which I have given a few only of the most common--are sufficient to
suggest that the relation among the lower forms of life persists up to
the human species, and that the female is the result of surplus
nutrition and the male of scarcity.
This is sufficient for our present purpose; all other questions and
theories brought forward regarding the determination and conditions of
the sexes are outside our purpose. Those who will survey the evidence
in detail will find ample confirmation of the point of view I wish to
make clear. (1) All species are invented and tolerated by Nature for
parenthood and its service; (2) the demands laid upon the female by
the part required from her are heavier than those needed for the part
fulfilled by the male. The female it is who is mainly responsible to
the race. And for this reason the progress of the world of life has
always rested upon and been determined by the female half of life.
What I wish to establish now is that the male developed after and, as
it were, from the female. The female led, and the male followed her in
the evolution of life.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Haeckel, _Generelle Morphologie der Organismen_, Vol. II. p. 16.
[9] Thomson, J. Arthur, _Heredity_, p. 29.
[10] Thomson, J. Arthur, _Heredity_, p. 33.
[11] Ward, _Pure Sociology_, p. 307.
[12] See Ward, _op. cit._, pp. 304-314, from whose chapter on this
subject I have taken these facts.
[13] _Evolution of Sex_, pp. 137-138, 161.
[14] Geddes and Thomson, in _The Evolution of Sex_, pp. 117-123,
135-140, give many interesting and corroborative examples.
[15] Geddes and Thomson, _The Evolution of Sex_, pp. 40-52, 249-250;
give a complete exposition of this theory with many examples. See also
Thomas, _Sex and Society_, pp. 4-43.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER III
GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION
I.--_The Early Position of the Sexes_
A further examination into the opinion of the superiority of the
male--Contradictions to the accepted view of female
inferiority--A new way of stating the problem--The female as
the creator of the male--Examples of the simplest types of the
sexes--Predominance of the female in the animal kingdom below
the invertebrates--Superiority of the female in size and often
in power of function--Complemental male husbands--Illustrations
of male parasites--Corroborative evidence from the
sex-elements--The primary service of the male to assist the
female in the race-work--Sex-parasitism among females--This
explained by the conditions under which the species live--The
lessons to be drawn from sex-parasitism--Structural
modifications acquired for adapting the sexes to different
modes of life--Care of offspring not always confined to the
female--Among fishes it is the father who gives any attention
to the young--The superiority of the female persists among
higher forms--Examples--Sex-equality among
birds--Conclusion--The sexual relationship may assume almost
any form to suit the varying conditions of life.
II.--_Two Examples--The Beehive and the Spider_
The case of the beehive--The drones--The queen-mother--The
sterile-workers--The sacrifice of the sexes to the
Life-Force--The maternal instinct among the workers--This has
persisted after the atrophy of the sexual needs--Maternal love
has expanded out into social affection--Application of the
lessons of the beehive--Analogy with modern society--The
Intellectuals among women--Do they understand what they really
want--The organic necessity of love--The price of
sterility--The courtship of the Spider--Mr. Bernard Shaw's
Ann--The part played by woman in courtship--Her passivity only
apparent--Female superiority with which sexuality began remains
in every courtship--The fierce hunger of the male--His
absorption by the female--Nothing can, or should, alter
this--The importance of woman's activity in love in connection
with her claim for emancipation--General observations and
conclusion.
CHAPTER III
GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION
"Sexually Woman is Nature's contrivance for perpetuating its
highest achievement. Sexually Man is Woman's contrivance for
fulfilling Nature's behest in the most economical way. She knows
by instinct that far back in the evolution process she invented
him, differentiated him, created him in order to produce
something better than the single-cell process can produce."--Don
Juan in Hell--_Man and Superman._
I.--_The Early Position of the Sexes_
The opinion of the superiority of the male sex has been so widely, and
without question, accepted that it is necessary to emphasise the exact
opposite view which was brought forward in the last chapter. From the
earliest times it has been contended that woman is undeveloped
man.[16] This opinion is at the root of the common estimation of
woman's character to-day. Huxley, who was in favour of the
emancipation of women, seems to have held this opinion. He says that
"in every excellent character the average woman is inferior to the
average man in the sense of having that character less in quantity or
lower in quality;" and that "the female type of character is neither
better nor worse than the male, only weaker." Few have maintained that
the sexes are equal, still fewer that women excel.[17] The general
bias of opinion has always been in favour of men. Woman almost
invariably has been accorded a secondary place, the male has been held
to be the primary and essential half of life, all things, as it were,
centering around him, while the female, though necessary to the
continuance of the race, has been regarded as otherwise
unimportant--in fact, a mere accessory to the male.
The causes that have given rise to such an opinion are not far to
seek. The question has been approached from the wrong end; we have
looked from above downwards--from the latest stages of life back to
the beginning, instead of from the beginning on to the end. We find
among the higher forms of life--the animals with which we are all
familiar--that the males are as a rule larger and stronger, more
varied in structure, and more highly ornamented and adorned than the
females. And when we rise to the human species these sex differences
persist and are even emphasised, though finding their expression in a
greater number of less strongly marked characters, not on the physical
side alone, but on the mental and psychical. It is difficult to divest
the mind of facts with which it is most familiar. Thus it is easy to
understand the widely-held opinion of the superiority of the male half
of life, and that the female is the sex sacrificed to the reproductive
process.
Now, were this true, the question of woman's place in life would
indeed be settled. There can be no upward change which is not in
accord with the laws of Nature. If the female really started and had
always remained secondary to the male, necessary to continue life, but
otherwise unimportant, in such position she must be content to stay.
Her struggles for advancement may be heroic, yet would they be doomed
to failure, for no individual growth can persist which injures the
growth of the race-life. Well it is for women that there need be no
such fear, even among the most timid-hearted; woman's position and
advancement is sure because it is founded with deepest roots in the
organic scheme of life.
As once more we search backwards, tracing the differences of sex
function to their earliest appearance in the humblest types of life,
we find the exact opposite of this theory of the inferiority of the
female to be true. The female is of more importance than the male from
Nature's point of view. We have seen that life must be regarded as
essentially female, since there is no choice but to look upon asexual
reproduction as a female process; the single-cell being the
mother-cell with the fertilising element of the father or male-cell
wanting. We know further that a similar process, but much more highly
developed, is possible in what is called parthenogenesis, or
virgin-birth, which can only be explained as a survival of the early
form. For long life continued without the assistance of the male-cell,
which, when it did arise, was dependent on the ova, or female-cell,
and was driven by hunger to unite with it in fatigue to continue life.
We are thus forced to regard the male-cell as an auxiliary development
of the female, or as Lester Ward ingenuously puts it, "an
after-thought of Nature devised for the advantage of having a second
sex."
Now, if we examine the simplest types of the sexes in the lower
reaches of the animal kingdom,[18] below the vertebrates we find the
same conditions prevailing. The male is frequently inconspicuous in
size, of use only to fertilise the female, and in some cases incapable
of any other function; the female, on the other hand, remains
unchanged and carries on the life of the species. So marked is this
difference among some species that the male must be regarded as a
fallen representative of the female, having not only greatly
diminished in size, but undergone thorough degeneration in
structure.[19] In certain extreme cases what have been well called
"pigmy males" illustrate this contrast in an almost ridiculous degree.
This is well seen among the common rotifers, where the males are much
smaller than the females and very degenerate. Sometimes they seem to
have dwindled out of existence altogether, as only females are to be
seen; in other cases, though present they fail even to accomplish
their proper function of fertilisation, and as reproduction is carried
on by the females, they are not only minute but useless. Nor are such
cases of male degeneration confined to this group. The whole family of
the _Abdominalia_ (cirripedes) have the sexes separate; and the males,
comparatively very small, are attached to the body of each female, and
are entirely passive and dependent upon her.[20] Some of these male
parasites are so far degenerated as to have lost their digestive
organs and are incapable of any function except fertilisation: the
male _Sygami_ (menatodes), for instance, being so far effaced that it
is nothing but a testicle living on the female.[21] A yet more
striking instance is furnished by the curious green worm _Bonellia_,
where the male appears like a remote ancestor of the female, on whom
it lives parasitically. Somewhat similar is the cocus insect, among
whom the males are very degenerate, small, blind and wingless.
This phenomenon of minute parasitic male fertilisers in connection
with normally developed females was noticed by Darwin, and his
observations have been confirmed by Van Beneden, by Huxley, Haeckel,
Milne Edwards, Fabre, Patrick Geddes, and many other eminent
entomologists.[22] A full study of these early forms of sexuality
should be made by all who wish to understand the problem of woman;
their life-histories furnish prophecies of many large facts. I wish it
were possible for me to bring forward further examples. It is the
difficulty of treating so wide a subject within narrow limits that so
many things that are of interest have to be hurried over and left out.
But there is one delightful case that I cannot refrain from
mentioning. The facts are given in a letter from Darwin to Sir Charles
Lyell, dated September 14, 1849. It is quoted by Professor Lester
Ward. This instance of the sexual relationship among the cirripedes
illustrates very vividly the early superiority of the female.
The letter runs thus--
"The other day I got a curious case of a unisexual, instead of
hermaphrodite cirripede, in which the female had the common
cirripedial character, and in two valves of her shell had two
little pockets, in each of which she kept a little husband; I do
not know of any other case in which the female invariably has
two husbands. I have still one other fact, common to several
species, namely, that though they are hermaphrodite, they have
small additional, or shall I call them, complemental males, one
specimen, itself hermaphrodite, had no less than seven of these
complemental males attached to it. Truly the schemes and wonders
of Nature are illimitable,"[23]
Here, indeed, is a knock-down blow to the theory of the natural
superiority of the male. These cases we have examined are certainly
extreme, the difference between the sexes is, as we shall see, less
marked in many early types. But the existence of these helpless little
husbands serves to show the true origin of the male. How often he
lived parasitically on the female, his work to aid her in the
reproductive process, useful to secure greater variation than could be
had by the single-celled process. In other words, the male is of use
to the life-scheme in assisting the female to produce progressively
fitter forms. She, indeed, created him, his sole function being her
impregnation.
Corroborative evidence appears in the contrast which persists in all
the higher forms between the relatively large female-cell or germ and
the microscopical male-cell or sperm, as also in the absorption of the
male cellule by the female cellule. In the sexual cells there is no
character in which differentiation goes so far as that of size.[24]
The female cell is always much larger than the male; where the former
is swollen with the reserve food, the spermatozoa may be less than a
millionth of its volume. In the human species an ovum is about 3000
times as large as spermatozoa.[25] The male cellule, differentiated to
enable it to reach the female, impregnates and becomes fused within
her cellule, which, unlike hers, preserves its individuality and
continues as the main source of life.
It is true that exceptions occur, sex-parasitism appearing in both sex
forms, and in some cases it is the female who degenerates and becomes
wholly passive and dependent, but this is usually under conditions
which afford in themselves an explanation. Thus, in the troublesome
thread-worm (_Heterodera schachtii_), which infests the turnip plant,
the sexes are at first alike, then both become parasitic, but the
adult male recovers himself, is agile and like other thread-worms,
while the female remains a parasitic victim without power of
function--a mere passive, distended bag of eggs. Another extreme but
well-known example is that of the cochineal insect, where the female,
laden with reserve products in the form of the well-known pigment,
spends much of its life like a mere quiescent gall on the cactus
plant; the male, on the other hand, is active, though short-lived.
Among other insects--such, for example, as certain ticks--a very
complete form of female parasitism prevails; and while the male
remains a complex, highly active, winged creature, the female,
fastening itself into the flesh of some living animal and sucking its
blood, has lost wings and all activity and power of locomotion, having
become a mere distended bladder, which, when filled with eggs, bursts
and ends a parasitic existence that has hardly been life.[26] In many
crustaceans, again, the females are parasitic, but this also is
explained by their habit of seeking shelter for egg-laying
purposes.[27]
The whole question of sex-parasitism as it appears in these first
pages of the life-histories of sexes is one of deep suggestion; and
one, moreover, that casts forward sharp side-lights on modern sex
problems. In some early forms, where the conditions of life are
similar for the two sexes, the male and the female are often like one
another. Thus it is very difficult to distinguish a male starfish from
a female starfish, or a male sea-urchin from a female sea-urchin. It
becomes abundantly clear that degeneration in active function, whether
it be that of the male or the female, is the inevitable nemesis of
parasitism. The males and females in the cases we have examined may be
said to be martyrs to their respective sexes.
A further truth of the utmost importance becomes manifest. Many
differences between the relative position of the sexes, which we are
apt to suppose are inherent in the female or male, are not inherent,
in light of these early and varying types. We see that the
sex-relationship and the character of the female and male assume
different forms, changing as the conditions of life vary. Again and
again when we come to examine the position of women in different
periods of civilisation, we shall find that whenever the conditions of
life have tended to withdraw them from the social activities of
labour, restricting them, like these early sex-victims, to the passive
exercise of their reproductive functions alone, that such parasitism
has resulted invariably in the degeneration of woman, and through her
passing on such deterioration to her sons, there has followed, after a
longer or shorter period, the degeneration of society. But these
questions belong to the later part of our inquiry, and cannot be
entered on here. Yet it were well to fix in our minds at once the
dangers, without escape, that follow sex-parasitism.
It may be thought that these cases of sex-victims are exceptions, and
that, therefore, it is unsafe to draw conclusions from them. The
truth would rather seem to be that they are extreme examples of
conditions that were common at one stage of life. There is no doubt
that up to the level of the amphibians female superiority in size, and
often in power of function, prevails.[28] If, for example, we look at
insects generally, the males are smaller than the females, especially
in the imago state. There are many species, belonging to different
orders--as, for instance, certain moths and butterflies--in which this
superiority is very marked. The males are either not provided with any
functional organs for eating, or have these imperfectly developed. It
seems evident that their sole function is to fertilise the female. A
familiar and interesting example is furnished by the common
mosquitoes, among whom the female alone, with its harmful sting, is
known to the unscientific world. The males, frail and weaponless
little creatures, swarm with the females in the early summer, and then
pass away, their work being done.
Dr. Howard, writing of the mosquito in America, says--
"It is a well-known fact that the adult male mosquito does not
necessarily take nourishment, and that the adult female does not
necessarily rely on the blood of warm-blooded animals. The mouth
parts of the male are so different from those of the female that
it is probable that, if it feeds at all, it obtains its food in
quite a different manner from the female. They are often
observed sipping at drops of water, and in one instance a
fondness for molasses has been recorded."[29]
We find many examples of such structural modifications acquired for
the purpose of adapting the sexes to different modes of life. Darwin
notes that the females of certain flies are blood-suckers, whilst the
males, living on flowers, have mouths destitute of mandibles.[30] The
females are carnivorous, the males herbivorous. It would be easy to
bring forward many further examples among the invertebrates in which
the differences between the sexes indicates very clearly the
persistence of female superiority. But for these I must refer the
reader to the works of Darwin and other entomologists, and to the many
interesting cases given by Professor Lester Ward. There are, it is
true, exceptions, but these may be explained by the conditions under
which the species live.
Even when we ascend the scale to back-boned animals, cases are not
wanting in which the early superiority in size of the female remains
unaltered. The smallest known vertebrate, _Heterandria formosa_, has
females very considerably larger than the males.[31] Among fishes the
males are commonly smaller than the females, who are also, as a rule,
considerably more numerous.[32] This is a fact that fishermen are well
aware of. I may mention, as an example, that on one occasion when my
husband and I caught twenty-five trout in a mountain lake in Wales
there were only two males among them. It is curious to find that any
care of offspring that is evident among fishes is usually paternal.
This furnishes another instance of the truth so necessary to learn
that the sex-relationships may assume almost any form to suit the
varying conditions of life.
There are some mammals among whom the sexes do not differ appreciably
in size and strength, and very little or not at all, in coloration and
ornament. Such is the case with nearly all the great family of
rodents. It is also the case with the Erinaceidæ, or at least with its
typical sub-family of hedgehogs.[33] Even among birds, where the sex
instincts have attained to their highest and most æsthetic expression,
we find some large families--as, for example, the hawks--in which the
female is usually the larger and finer bird.[34] Thus the adult male
of the common sparrow-hawk is much smaller than the female, the length
of the male being 13 ins., wing 7.7 ins., and that of the female 15.4
ins., wing 9 ins. The male peregrine, known to hawkers as the tiercel,
is greatly inferior in size to his mate. The merlin, the osprey, the
falcon, the spotted eagle, the golden eagle, the gos-hawk, the
harrier, the buzzard, the eagle-owl, and other species of owls are
further examples where the female bird is larger than the male. Among
many of these families the female birds very closely resemble the
males, and where differences in colour and ornament do occur, they are
slight.
A further point of the greatest importance to us requires to be made.
Wherever amongst the birds the sexes are alike the habits of their
lives are also alike. The female as well as the male obtains food, the
nest is built together, and the young are cared for by both parents.
These beautiful examples of sex equality among the birds cannot be
regarded as exceptions that have arisen by chance--a reversal of the
usual rule of the sexes; rather they show the persistence of the
earlier relations between the female and the male carried to a finer
development under conditions of life favourable to the female. I will
not here say more upon this subject, as I shall have to refer to it in
greater detail when we come to consider the sexual and familial habits
of birds. I will only add that in their delicacy and devotion to each
other and to their offspring, birds in their unions have advanced to a
much further stage than we have in our marriages. These associations
of our ancestral lovers claim our attentive study.
II.--_Two Examples--The Beehive and the Spider_
"At its base the love of animals does not differ from that of
man."--DARWIN.
For vividness of argument I wish in a brief section of this chapter to
make a digression from our main inquiry to bring forward two
examples--extreme cases of the imperious action of the sexual
instincts--in which we see the sexes driven to the performance of
their functions under peculiar conditions. Both occur among the
invertebrates. I have left the consideration of them until now because
of the instructive light they throw upon what we are trying to prove
in this first attack on the validity of the common estimate of the
true position of the sexes in Nature. Let us begin with the familiar
case of the bees. As every one knows, these truly wonderful insects
belong to a highly evolved and complex society, which may be said to
represent a very perfected and extreme socialism. In this society the
vast majority of the population--the workers--are sterile females, and
of the drones, or males, only a very few at the most are ever
functional. Reproduction is carried on by the queen-mother. The lesson
to be drawn from the beehive is that such an organisation has evolved
a quite extraordinary sacrifice of the individual members, notably in
the submergence of the personal needs of sex-function, to its wider
racial end. It is from this line of thought that I wish to consider
it. We have (1) the drones, the fussing males, useless except for
their one duty of fertilisation, and this function only a few actively
perform; thus, if they become at all numerous they are killed off by
the workers, so that the hives may be rid of them; (2) the queen, an
imprisoned mother, specialised for maternity, her sole work the laying
of the eggs, and incapable of any other function; her brain and mind
of the humblest order, she being unable even to feed and care for her
offspring; (3) the great body of unsexed workers, the busy sisters,
whose duty is to rear the young and carry out all the social
activities of the hive.
What a strange, perplexing life-history! What a sacrifice of the sexes
to each other and to the life-force.[35] It seems probable that these
active workers have even succeeded in getting rid of sexual needs. Yet
the maternal instinct persists in them, and has survived the
productive function; it may, indeed, be said to be enlarged and
ennobled, for their affection is not confined to their own offspring,
but goes out to all the young of the association. In this community
one care takes precedence of all others, the care and rearing of the
young. This is the workers' constant occupation; this is the great
duty to which their lives are sacrificed. With them maternal love has
expanded into social affection. The strength of this sentiment is
abundantly proved. The queen-bee, the feeble mother, has the greatest
possible care lavished upon her, and is publicly mourned when she
dies. If through any ill-chance she happens to perish before the
performance of her maternal duties, and then cannot be replaced, the
sterile workers evince the most terrible grief, and in some cases
themselves die. It would almost seem that they value motherhood more
for being themselves deprived of it.
Now, how does this history from the bee-hive apply to us? Here you
have before you, old as the world itself, one of the most urgent
problems that has to be faced in our difficult modern society. I have
little doubt that something which is at least analogous to the
sterilisation of the female bees is present among ourselves. The
complexity of our social conditions, resulting in the great
disproportion between the number of the sexes, has tended to set aside
a great number of women from the normal expression of their sex
functions. Among these women a class appears to be arising who are
turning away voluntarily from love and motherhood. Many of them are
undoubtedly women of fine character. These "Intellectuals" suggest
that women shall keep themselves free from the duties of maternity and
devote their energies thus conserved, to their own emancipation and
for work in the world which needs them so badly. But the biological
objection to any such proposition is not far to seek. No one who
thinks straight can countenance a plan which thus leaves maternity to
the less intellectual woman--to a docile, domestic type, the parallel
of the stupid parasitic queen-bee. Mind counts in the valuation of
offspring as well as physical qualities. The splitting of one sex into
two contrasted varieties, which we see in its completed development in
the bee-hive, cannot be an ideal that can even be worth while for us.
It means an end to all further progress.
There is another group of women who wish to bear children, but who
seem to be anxious to reduce the father to the position of the
drone-bee. He is to have no part in the child after its birth. The
duty of caring for it and bringing it up is to be undertaken by the
mother, aided, when necessary, by the State. This is a terrible
injustice against the father and the child. It seems to me to be the
great and insuperable difficulty against any scheme of State Endowment
of Motherhood. I cannot enter into this question now, and will only
state my belief that a child belongs by natural right to both its
parents. The primitive form of the matriarchal family, which we shall
study later, is realised in its most exaggerated form by the bees and
ants. In human societies we find only imitations of this system. And
here, again, there is a lesson necessary for us to remember. Any
ideal that takes the father from the child, and the child from its
father, giving it only to the mother, is a step backward and not
forward.
And in case any woman is inclined still to admire the position of the
female worker-bees, so free in labour, being liberated from sexual
activity, it were well to consider the sacrifice at which such freedom
is gained. These workers have highly-developed brains, but most of
them die young. Nor must we forget that each one carries her poisoned
sting--no new or strange weapon, but a transformation of a part of her
very organ of maternity--the ovipositor, or egg-placer, with which the
queen-mother lays each egg in its appointed place.[36]
Do "the Intellectuals" understand what they really want? Those women
who are raising the cry increasingly for individual liberty, without
considering the results which may follow from such a one-sided growth
both to themselves and to the race--let them pause to remember the
price paid by the sterile worker-bee. Is it unfair to suggest that any
such shirking for the gains of personal freedom of their woman's right
and need of love and child-bearing may lead in the psychical sphere to
a result similar to the transformation of the sex-organ of the bee;
and that, giving up the power of life, they will be left the possessor
of the stinging weapon of death! Some such considerations may help
women to decide whether it is better to be a mother or a sterile
worker.
The second example I want to consider is that of the common spider,
whose curious courtship customs are described by Darwin.[37] Here we
find the relatively gigantic female seizing and devouring the tiny
male fertiliser, as he seeks to perform the only duty for which he
exists. This is a case of female superiority carried to a savage
conclusion. The male in these courtships often has to risk his life
many times, and it seems only to be by an accident that he ever
escapes alive from the embraces of his infuriated partner. I will give
an example, taken from the _mantes_, or praying insect, where, though
the difference in size between the sexes is much less than among many
spiders, the ferocity of the female is extraordinary. This case is
quoted by Professor Lester Ward,[38] who gives it on the authority of
Dr. L.O. Howard, one of the best-known entomologists--
"A few days since I brought a male or _Mantes carolina_ to a
friend who had been keeping a solitary female as a pet. Placing
them in the same jar, the male, in alarm, endeavoured to escape.
In a few minutes the female succeeded in grasping him. She bit
off his left front tarsus and consumed the tibia and femur. Next
she gnawed out his left eye. At this the male seemed to realise
his proximity to one of the opposite sex, and began vain
endeavours to mate. The female next ate up his right front leg,
and then entirely decapitated him, devouring his head and
gnawing into his thorax. Not until she had eaten all his thorax,
except about three millimetres did she stop to rest. All this
while the male had continued in his vain attempt to obtain
entrance at the valvula, and he now succeeded, and she
voluntarily spread the parts open, and union took place. She
remained quiet for four hours, and the remnant of the male gave
occasional signs of life, by a movement of one of his remaining
tarsi for three hours. The next morning she had entirely rid
herself of her spouse, and nothing but his wings remained."
You will think, perhaps, that this extreme case of female ferocity has
little bearing upon our sexual passions. But consider. I have not
quoted it, as is done by Professor Ward, to prove the existence of the
superiority of the female in Nature. No, rather I want to suggest a
lesson that may be wrested by us from these first courtships in the
life histories of the sexes. I spoke at the beginning of this
biological section of my book of the warnings that surely would come
as we traced the evolution of our love-passions from those of our
pre-human ancestors. We are too apt to ignore the tremendous force
that the sex-impulse has gathered from its incalculably long history.
As animals exhibit in their love-matings the analogies of the human
virtue, it is not surprising to find the occurrence of parallel vices.
Let us look for a moment at this in the light of the fierce
love-contest of the female spider.
Of this habit there are various explanations; the prevalent one
regards the spider as an anomalous exception; the ferocity and
superiority of size in the female not easily to be explained. This is,
I think, not so. Is it not rather a picture, with the details crudely
emphasised, of the action of Life-Force of which the sexes are both
the helpless victims? Whether we look backward to the beginning, where
the exhausted male-cell seeks the female in incipient sexual union, or
onwards through the long stages of sex-evolution to our own
love-passions, this is surely true.
Let me try to make this clearer by an example. It would seem but a
small step from the female spider, so ruthlessly eating up her lover,
to the type of woman celebrated by Mr. Bernard Shaw's immortal Ann. I
recall a woman friend saying to me once, "We may not like it, and, of
course, we refuse to own to it, but there is something of Ann in every
woman." I need not recall to you Ann's pursuit of her victim, Tanner,
nor his futile efforts to escape. Here, as so often he has done, Mr.
Shaw has presented us in comedy with a philosophy of life. You
believe, perhaps, the fiction, still brought forward by many who ought
to know better, that in love woman is passive and waits for man to woo
her. I think no woman in her heart believes this. She knows, by
instinct, that Nature has unmistakably made her the predominant
partner in all that relates to the perpetuation of the race; she knows
this in spite of all fictions set up by men. Have they done this, as
Mr. Shaw suggests, to protect themselves against a too humiliating
aggressiveness of the woman in following the driving of the
Life-Force? This pretence of male superiority in the sexual relation
is so shallow that it is strange how it can have imposed on any one.
I wish to state here quite definitely what I hold to be true; the
condition of female superiority with which sexuality began has in this
connection persisted. In every case the relation between woman and man
is the same--she is the pursuer, he the pursued and disposed of.
Nothing can or should alter this. The male from the very beginning has
been of use from Nature's point of view by assisting the female to
carry on life. It is the fierce hunger of the male, increasing in
strength through the long course of time, which places him in woman's
power. Man is the slave of woman, often when least he thinks so, and
still woman uses her power, even like the spider, not infrequently,
for his undoing.
Here, indeed, is a warning causing us to think. The touch of Nature
that makes the whole world kin is nowhere more manifest than in sex;
that absorption of the male by the female to which life owes its
continuation, its ecstasy, and its pain. It has seemed to me it is
here in the primitive relations of the sexes that we may find the clue
to many of those wrongs which women have suffered at the hands of men.
Man, acting instinctively, has rebelled, not so much, I think, against
woman as against this driving hunger within himself, which forces him
helpless into her power. Like the fish that cannot resist the fly of
the fisherman, even when experience has taught him to fear the hidden
barb, he struggles and fights for his life to escape as he realises
too late the net into which his hunger has brought him.
But we may learn more than this; another truth of even deeper
importance to us. It is because of this superiority of the female in
the sexual relationship that women must be granted their claim for
emancipation. Here is the reason stronger than all others. Nature has
placed in women's hands so tremendous a power that the dangers are too
great for such power to be left to the direction of untrained and
unemancipated women. Above all it is necessary that each woman
understands her own sexual nature, and also that of her lover, that
she may realise in full knowledge the tremendous force of
sexual-hunger which drives him to her, equalled, as I believe, by the
desire within herself, which claims him to fulfil through her Nature's
great central purpose of continuing the race. To women has been
granted the guardianship of the Life-Force. It is time that each woman
asks herself how she is fulfilling this trust.
It is the possession of this power in the sexual sphere which lends
real importance to even the feeblest attempts of women to prepare
themselves to meet the duties in the new paths that are being opened
to them. Women have now entered into labour. They are claiming freedom
to develop themselves by active participation in that struggle with
life and its conditions whereby men have gained their development.
From thousands of women to-day the cry is rising, "Give us free
opportunity, and the training that will fit us for freedom." Not, as
so many have mistakenly thought, that women may compete with men in a
senseless struggle for mastery, but in order first to learn, and
afterwards to perform, that work in society which they can do better
than men. What such work is it must be women's purpose to find out.
But before this is possible to be decided all fields of activity must
be open for them to enter. And this women must claim, not for
themselves chiefly; but because they are the bearers of race-life, and
also to save men from any further misuse of their power. Then working
together as lovers and comrades, women and men may come to understand
and direct those deep-rooted forces of sex, which have for so long
driven them helpless to the wastage of life and love.
I would ask all those who deny this modern claim of women to consider
in all seriousness the two cases I have brought forward--that of the
bee-hives, and even more the destruction by the female spider of her
male lover. That they have their parallel in our society to-day is a
fact that few will deny. I have tried to show the real danger that
lurks in every form of sex-parasitism. It would lead us too far from
our purpose to comment in further detail on the suggestions offered by
these curious examples of sex-martyrs among our earliest ancestral
lovers. Those whose eyes are not blinded will not fail to see.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] So deep-rooted has been this opinion of female inferiority that
it has formed the basis of many theories of sex. Thus Richarz holds
that "the male sex represents a higher grade of development in the
embryo." Hough thinks males are born when the female system is at its
best, females in periods of growth, reparation, or disease. Tiedman
and others regard females as an arrested male, while Velpau, on the
other hand, believes them to be degenerated from primitive males. See
Geddes and Thomson, _Evolution of Sex_, p. 39.
[17] The theory of Lester Ward, to which I have already referred,
supports this view.
[18] I have left out of my inquiry any reference to plants, though all
that has been said of the _protozoa_ in the last chapter is equally
true of the _protophyta_, the basis of plant life. Among plants there
are many beautiful and instructive examples of the relative position
of the female and the male plant. A well-known case is that of the
hemp-plant, where the sexes are indistinguishable up to the period of
fertility, but when the male plants have shed their pollen, and thus
fulfilled their duty of fertilising the female plants, they cease to
grow, turn yellow and sere, and if at all crowded wither and die. Many
other examples might be cited, but the question is too wide to enter
on here. See Lester Ward, _op. cit._, pp. 318-322.
[19] _Encyclopædia Britannica_, article on "Sex," by Prof. Geddes;
also _Evolution of Sex_, pp. 20, 21. Prof. Lester Ward, _Pure
Sociology_, Part II, Chap. XIV, gives an ingenuous and complete view
of the early superiority of the female, to which he gives the name of
the Gynæcocentric theory, as opposed to the usual Androcentric theory,
based on the superiority of the male. While fully appreciating the
suggestiveness and value of this theory, and also acknowledging very
gratefully the help I have derived from it, it must be stated that
some of the facts brought forward in its support by the distinguished
American cannot be accepted. Nor am I able, as will appear later, to
accept the conclusion he arrives at of the passive character of the
female. See also a popular article by Prof. Ward, "Our Better Halves",
_The Forum_, Vol. VI., Nov. 1888, pp. 266-275.
[20] Van Beneden, _Animal Parasites and Messmates_, p. 55.
[21] Milne Edwards, _Leçons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie comparée
de l'homme et des animaux_, Vol. IX. p. 267.
[22] In addition to the works already mentioned, see Darwin, _Descent
of Man_, Vol. I. p. 329; Haeckel, _Evolution of Man_, and _A Manual of
the Anatomy of the Invertebrated Animals_, by T. Huxley, pp. 261-262.
[23] _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, Vol. I. p. 345.
[24] Thomson, J.A., _Heredity_, p. 39.
[25] Article by Ryder, _Science_, Vol. I., May 31, 1895, p. 603.
[26] Schreiner, Olive, _Woman and Labour_, pp. 77-78.
[27] These examples of female parasitism have been taken from
_Evolution of Sex_, p. 17; see also pp. 19-22. The authors bring them
forward with many other examples to prove the main thesis of their
book--that the character of the female is anabolic, that of the male
katabolic. In establishing this theory they do not appear to give
sufficient importance to the fact that this degeneration of the female
is only found where the conditions of life are parasitic.
[28] _Evolution of Sex_, p. 21; _Pure Sociology_, pp. 316-317.
[29] "Notes on the Mosquitoes of the United States," by L.O. Howard,
_Bulletin_ No. 25, New Series, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Division of Entomology, 1900, p. 12. Quoted by Lester Ward, _Pure
Sociology_, p. 317.
[30] _Descent of Man_, p. 208.
[31] _Science_, Vol. XV., Jan. 1902, p. 30.
[32] Fulton, Naturalist to the Scottish Fishery Board. Cited in
_Evolution of Sex_, p. 22; see also pp. 25, 272, 295.
[33] _Pure Sociology_, pp. 317, 318.
[34] _Birds of Britain_, by J. Lewis Bonhote, p. 208; also pp.
190-221.
[35] A similar condition will be found in the even more complex
societary forms of ant-hills. Among the vast population of the ants
all the workers and soldiers are arrested in their sexual development,
remaining, as it were, permanent children of both sexes. It seems
probable that this explains the limit that has been reached in the
evolution of these wonderful creatures, which in certain directions
have attained to an extraordinary development, and have then become
curiously and immovably arrested. See _Problems of Sex_, by J.A.
Thomson and Prof. Patrick Geddes, p. 24; _Mind in Animals_, by
Büchner, p. 60; and _Woman and Labour_, by Olive Schreiner, p. 78.
[36] _Problems of Sex_, p. 34. I would recommend this admirable little
book to all students.
[37] _Descent of Man_, Vol. I. p. 329.
[38] _Pure Sociology_, p. 316; _Science_, Vol. VIII., Oct. 1886, p.
326. Letter by Dr. L.O. Howard.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY RELATIONSHIP OF THE SEXES
Summary of conclusions arrived at in the previous chapters--The
necessity of a further examination of sexual love among our
pre-human ancestors--The question approached from a different
point of view--The impelling motive of love the union of two
cells--Hermaphroditism--Its various forms--The first step in
the ladder of sex--Reproduction among fishes--The next
step--The attraction of one sex for the other--The female and
the male begin to associate in pairs--Illustration of the
salmon--Sexual differences become more frequent--The males
distinguished by bright colours and ornamental
appendages--Sexual passion and jealous combats of rival
males--Examples--A further step--The note of physical
fondness--The male plays with the female, wooing and caressing
her--The love play often extraordinary--The case of the
stickleback--The males, passionate, polygamous, and
jealous--The paternal instinct of the stickleback--Nature
making experiments in parenthood--Parental forethought among
insects--Illustrations of male parental care--The obstetric
frog--Further examples of primitive animal courtships--A
psychic attraction added to the physical--The courtship of the
octopus--A final step--The co-operation of the sexes in work
together--The dung-rolling beetle--The significance of these
early courtships--Analogy with our sex-passions--The
love-process identical throughout the whole of life.
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY RELATIONSHIP OF THE SEXES
"Great effects are everywhere produced in animated Nature, by
minute causes.... Think of how many curious phenomena sexual
relation gives rise to in animal life; think of the results of
love in human life; now all this had for its _raison d'être_ the
union of two cellules.... There is no organic act which
approaches this one in power and force of
differentiation."--HAECKEL.
What is the practical outcome to us of this early relation of the
sexes in Nature's scheme?
In attempting to answer this question it will be necessary to take an
apparently circuitous route, going back over some of the ground that
already has been covered; to examine in further detail the process of
sexual love as it presents itself among our pre-human ancestors. It is
well worth while to do this. If we can find in this way an answer, we
shall come very near to solving many of the most difficult of woman's
problems. At the same time we shall have made clear how deep-rooted
are the foundations of those passions of sex which agitate the human
heart, and are still the most powerful force amongst us to-day.
In the light of the facts I have briefly summarised, we have been able
in the former chapters to indicate how sexuality began, with the male
element developed from the primary female organism, his sole function
being her impregnation; how this was seized upon and continued through
the advantage gained by the mixing of the two germ-plasms, which, on
the whole, resembling one another somewhat closely, yet differ in
details, and thus introduce new opportunities of progress into the
life-elements; and how, in this way, differentiation of function
between the male and the female was set up. We saw, further, how the
development of the male, at first often living parasitically upon the
female, continued; but how, under certain conditions of life, such
parasitism was transferred to the female, so that it is she who is
sacrificed to the sex function; and, lastly, taking the extreme cases
of the bee-hive and the spider, we suggested certain warnings to be
drawn from these early parasitic relations between the sexes. It is
necessary now to penetrate deeper; to trace more fully the evolution
of the sexual passion, which, from this line of thought, may be said
to be the process which carried on the development and modification of
the male, creating him--as surely we may believe--by the love-choice
of the female. To do this we have once more to return to the
consideration, under a somewhat new aspect, of the relative position
of the female and the male in their love-courtships in some examples
among the humbler types of animal life. After these have been
considered, not only in themselves, but in the relation they bear to
the higher forms which developed from them, we shall be in a surer
position to re-ascend the ladder of life. We shall come to understand
the biological significance of love--something of the complexity and
beauty and force of the passions that we have inherited. We shall find
also the causes, so important to us, which led to the reversal of the
early superiority of the female in size and often in function,
replacing it by the superiority of the male. Then, and then only,
shall we be ready to approach the difficult problems of the sexual
differences which have persisted, separating women from men among
human races, and to estimate if these differences are to be considered
as belonging essentially to the female and the male, or whether they
have arisen through special environmental causes.
If we look back anew to the very start of sexuality, where two cells
flow together, thereby to continue life, we find the very simplest
expression of the sex-appetite. There is what may be called
instinctive physical attraction, and the whole process is very much a
satisfaction of protoplasmic hunger.[39] Now it was, of course, a long
step from this incipient cell-union to the varied function of sex in
animal life, and it was a long process from these to the yet more
complex manifestation of the love-passion among men. But in reality
the source of all love is the same; throughout the entire relations of
the sexes we find this cell-hunger instinct; in every case, it matters
not how fine and ennobling the love may be, the single, original,
impelling motive is the union of two cells--the male element and the
female driven to seek one another to continue life. I find it
necessary to insist on this physical basis of all love. Women are so
apt to go astray. It is one of the vicious tendencies of the female
mind to think that the needs of sex are something to be resisted. Let
us face the truth that this great force of love has its roots fastened
in cell-hunger, and it dies when its roots are cut away.
It is evident that at first this sex-appetite cannot have been
purposive, but acted subconsciously by a kind of interaction between
the want of the organism and its power of function. Even in many
complex multicellular organisms the liberation of the sex-elements
continues very passive; and although the differentiation of the
sexual-cells is already complete in plants and animals comparatively
low in the scale, it at first makes little difference in the
development of the other parts of the individual. Among many lower
animals, and most plants, each individual develops within itself both
kinds of cells--that is, female and male. This union of the two sex
functions in one organism is known as hermaphroditism. There is little
doubt that it was once common to all organisms, an intermediate stage
in the sex-progress, after the differentiation of the sexes had been
accomplished.
Hermaphroditism must be regarded as a temporary or transitional
form.[40] It is found persisting in various degrees in many
species--snails, earth-worms, and leeches, for example, can act
alternately as what we call male and female. Other animals are
hermaphrodite in their young stages, though the sexes are separate in
adult life, as, for example, tadpoles, where the bisexuality of youth
sometimes linger into adult life. Cases of partial hermaphroditism are
very common, while in many species which are normally unisexual, a
casual or abnormal hermaphroditism occurs--this may be seen in the
common frog, and is frequent among certain fishes, when sometimes the
fish is male on one side and female on the other, or male anteriorly
and female posteriorly.[41]
There would seem to be a constant tendency to escape from these early
and experimental methods of reproduction, and to secure true sexual
union, with complete separation of the sexes and differences in the
parents. We have noticed the many instances of tiny complemental
males, in connection with hermaphrodite forms, which, as Darwin
states, must have arisen from the advantage ensuring cross-fertilisation
in the females who harbour them. Even among hermaphrodite slugs we
find very definite evidence of the advance of love; and in certain
species an elaborate process of courtship, taking the form of slow and
beautiful movements, precedes the act of reproduction.[42] Some
snails, again, are provided with a special organ, a slightly twisted
limy dart, which is used to stimulate sexual excitement.[43] What do
such marvellous manifestations, low down in the ladder of life, go to
prove, if not that there must be the closest identity between the
development of life and the evolution of love?
These examples of hermaphrodite love lead us forward to a further
step, where no reproduction takes place without the special activity
and conjugation of two kinds of specialised cells, and these two kinds
are carried about by separate individuals. In some species--fishes,
for example--the two kinds of special cells meet outside the bodies of
the parents. At this humble level the sexes are in many cases very
like one another, and there is, as we should expect, a good deal of
haphazard in the production of offspring. Among fishes, for instance,
the eggs and sperms are liberated into the sea, or the shallow bed of
a river, and, if the sperms (the milt of the males) are placed near to
the spot where the eggs (the spawn) have been laid, fertilisation
occurs, for within a short distance the sperms are attracted--in a way
that is imperfectly understood--to enter the eggs. By this method
there is of necessity great waste in the production of offspring, many
thousands of eggs are never fertilised. The union of the sexual cells
must be something more than haphazard for further development. There
must be some reason inherent in the female or male inducing to the act
of reproduction. In other words, there must be a psychic interest
preceding the sex act. In this way a higher grade is reached when the
presence of one sex attracts the other. Gradually the female and the
male begin to associate in pairs.
We may illustrate this important step in the evolution of love by
reference to the familiar case of the salmon. The male courts the
female and is her attendant during the breeding season, fertilising
the deposited ova in her presence. He guards her from the attention of
all other males, fighting all rivals fiercely, with a special weapon,
developed at this time, in the form of a hooked lower jaw with teeth
often more than half-an-inch long. Darwin records a case, told to him
by a river-keeper, where he found three hundred dead male salmon, all
killed through battle.[44] Thus even among cold-blooded fishes (though
it may appear folly to use the word "love" in this connection) a very
clear likeness with our human sex-passions can be traced.
Sex differences now become more frequent. The males are in some cases
distinguished by bright colours and ornamental appendages. During
their amours and duels certain male fishes flash with beautiful and
glowing colours. Reptiles exhibit the same form of sexual-passion, and
jealous combat of rival males. The rattle of certain snakes is
supposed to act as a love-call. Snakes of different sexes appear to
feel some affection for each other when confined together in cages.
Romanes relates the interesting fact that when a cobra is killed, its
mate is often found on the spot a day or two afterwards. Darwin cites
an instance of the pairing in spring of a Chinese species of lizard,
where the couples appear to have considerable fondness for one
another. If one is captured, the other drops from the tree to the
ground and allows itself to be caught, presumably from despair.[45]
A further development is reached by those animals among whom what has
well been called "the note of physical fondness" is first sounded. We
find the males playing with the female, wooing and caressing her, it
may be dancing with her. The love-play is often extraordinary,[46] as,
for instance, in the well-known case of the stickleback. Not only does
the male woo the female with passionate dances, but by means of its
own secretions it builds a nest in the river weeds. The males at this
season are transformed, glowing with brilliant colours, and literally
putting on a wedding garment of love. The stickleback is passionate,
polygamous and very jealous of rivals. His guardianship of the nest
and vigilance in protecting the young cannot be observed without
admiration.
It is certainly significant to find one of the earliest instances of
genuine parental affection exhibited by the male. This reversal of the
usual rôle of the sexes is common among fishes, among whom care of
offspring is very little developed. In some species the eggs are
carried about by the father--the male sea-horse, for instance, has a
pouch developed for this purpose; in other cases the male incubates,
or cares for the ova. Sometimes, however, it is the female who
performs this duty, but the known cases are few.[47] Some exceedingly
curious examples of male parental care occur among the amphibians. One
of the most interesting is that of the obstetric frog, where the male
helps to remove the eggs from the female, then twists them in the
coils around its hind legs and buries himself in the water, until the
incubation period is over and the tadpoles escape and relieve him of
his burden. In other species the croaking sacs of the males, which
were previously used for amatory callings, become enlarged to form
cradles for the young. There are also instances of the female
co-operating with the male in this care of offspring. Thus in the
Surinam toad the male spreads the ova on the back of the female, where
skin cavities form in which the tadpoles develop. In other cases the
eggs are carried in the dorsal pouches of the females. It would almost
seem that in this early time Nature was making experiments as to which
parent was the better fitted to rear and protect the young!
But let us return to our present examination of animal love-making. In
many diverse forms there is a very remarkable courtship of touch,
often prolonged and with beautiful refinements, before the climax is
reached, when the two bodies unite. Racovitza[48] has beautifully
described the courtship of the octopus, which is carried out with
considerable delicacy, and not brutally as before had been believed.
"The male gently stretches out his third arm on the right and
caresses the female with its extremity, eventually passing it
into the chamber formed by the mantle. The female contracts
spasmodically, but does not attempt to move. They remain thus
about an hour or more, and during this time the male shifts his
arm from one viaduct to the other. Finally, he withdraws his
arm, caresses her with it for a few moments, and then replaces
it with his other arm."
The various phenomena of primitive animal courtship may be illustrated
further by the love-parades of butterflies and moths, the love-gambols
of certain newts, the amatory serenading of frogs, the fragrant
incense of reptiles, the love-lights of glow-worms, the duels of many
male beetles and other insects, many of whom have special weapons for
fighting with their rivals. Among insects the sexes commonly associate
in pairs, and it seems certain there is some psychic attraction added
to the primitive tactile courtship. In some cases the association of
the sexes is maintained for a lengthened period, with many hints of
what must be regarded as love. There are many examples also of
parental forethought, amounting sometimes to a sort of divining
pre-science, as the habit of certain insects in preparing and leaving
a special nourishment, different from their own food, for the
sustenance of the future larvæ. We even find instances of co-operation
of the sexes in work together, affording a first hint of this
linking-force to the development of love in its later and full
expression. Such are the activities of the dung-rolling beetle, where
the two sexes assist each other in their curious occupation. The male
and female of another order of beetle (_Lethrus cephalotes_) inhabit
the same cavity, and the virtuous matron is said greatly to resent the
intrusion of another male.[49]
In insects, as in the higher animals, and as in man, sexual
association takes many different forms. But obviously I must not
linger over these early types of love. My object is to bring forward
examples, which seem to me useful as preliminary studies to throw
light on the origin of sex-passion, and proving that the love-process
throughout the whole of life is identical. Those who are acquainted
with the work of Fabre, "The Insects' Homer," will have no difficulty
in accepting this. The studies he has given us of wonderful behaviour
of insects, their arts and crafts, their courtships and marriages,
their domestic and social relationships, opens up a new drama of
animal life.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] _Evolution of Sex_, p. 265.
[40] There are some who believe that the higher animals pass through a
state of embryonic hermaphroditism, but decisive proof of this is
wanting. In this connection the structural resemblance of the male and
female sexual organs should be noticed; in each sex there is a
complete but rudimentary set of parallels to the organs of the other
sex. This primitive and fundamental unity of the male and female sex
organs is very significant. Indeed, the whole question of
hermaphroditism is one of deep suggestion when these embryological
facts are brought into relation with the abnormalities which occur in
the expression of the sexual impulses. See _Evolution of Sex_, chapter
on "Hermaphroditism," pp. 65-80; also Bloch, _Sexual Life of Our
Times_, pp. 11-12, 551-554. Wieninger's _Sex and Character_, pp. 6, 7,
13, 45, is also interesting.
[41] A similar condition has been noted among butterflies, where, in
some cases, differences in the colouring of the wings on two sides has
been found to correspond to an internal co-existence of the male and
female sex-organs. It seems probable that this interesting phenomenon
of abnormal hermaphroditism is of much commoner occurrence than the
cases that have been recorded (_Evolution of Sex_, p. 67).
[42] "The Love of Slugs," article by James Bladon, _Zoologist_, Vol.
XV., 1857, p. 6272.
[43] "Molluscs," article by Rev. L.H. Cooke, _Cambridge Natural
History_, Vol. III. p. 143. Both these cases are quoted by Havelock
Ellis in his illuminative "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," the
opening chapters in the third volume of the _Studies in the Psychology
of Sex_.
[44] Trout also fight during the breeding season. _Chapters on Human
Love_, by Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), pp. 13-14.
[45] _Evolution of Sex_, pp. 625-626. _Chapters on Human Love_, p. 14.
[46] _Problems of Sex_, by J.A. Thomson and Prof. Patrick Geddes, p.
20.
[47] _Evolution of Sex_, pp. 270-272, 295.
[48] _Natural Science_, Nov. 1894, quoted by Havelock Ellis,
_Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. p. 30.
[49] _Evolution of Sex_, p. 265.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER V
COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
I.--_Among the Birds and Mammals_
Courtship and marriage among birds and mammals--Every form of
association similar to human marriage--A high standard of
love-morality among birds--Monogamy, polygamy, and
polyandry--Cases of absolute profligate
promiscuity--Suggestions of all the sexual sins of
humanity--The phenomena of courtship--The law of
battle--Battles of mammals and male gallinaceæ--The frenzy of
love--Where supremacy in love is gained by force the males
become stronger and better armed than the females--Importance
of this--Gentler ways of wooing--Æsthetic seductions--Courteous
duels--The note of joy in love among birds--Affectionate
partnerships lasting for life--Frequency of monogamy among
birds--Co-operation of both sexes in forming the home and
caring for the young--The amatory dances of birds--Significance
of dancing--Numerous illustrations--The use of song and
decorative plumage--Musical seduction--Æsthetic
constructions--The extraordinary power of sex-hunger--General
propositions.
II.--_Further Examples of Courtship, Marriage and the Family among
Birds_
Darwin's theory of sexual-selection--Objections to this by Wallace
and others--An explanation--The true object of courtship--The
sexual passion the origin of social growth--A rough outline of
society already established in the animal kingdom--The maternal
and the paternal family--The former the most frequent--The
importance of the female--Difference between the secondary
sexual characters of the male and the female--Doubt of the
accepted view--Need for a further examination--Cases among
birds in which the female equals or even exceeds the male in
size and strength--Beauty tests of brilliant plumage--Numerous
examples of almost identical likeness between the sexes--This
similarity in plumage occurs in some of the most brilliant of
our birds--The interesting case of the phalaropes where the
rôle of the sexes is reversed--These facts point to an error in
the accepted opinion as to the secondary sexual
characters--Sexual adornments cannot be regarded as a necessary
and exclusive adjunct of the male--Prof. Lester Ward's
Gynæocratic theory--Male efflorescence--Among the species in
which male differentiation has gone farthest the males are bad
fathers--Examples to prove this--The fathers devoid of
affection belong to the less intelligent species--The
conclusion--An extravagant growth of the secondary sexual
characters not favourable to the highest development of the
species--The most oppressed females the most faithful
wives--The highest development in the beautiful cases in which
the sexes are more alike, equal in capacity and co-operate
together in the race-work--Individual fancies of females--The
case of a female wild duck--Desire for sexual variety--Conjugal
fidelity modified by the conditions of life--Civilisation
depraves birds--General observations--Love the great creative
force.
CHAPTER V
COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
I.--_Among the Birds and Mammals_
"The principle of 'divergence of character' pervades all nature,
from the lowest groups to the highest, as may be well seen in
the class of birds."--WALLACE.
A great step in advance is taken when we come to study the courtship
and sexual relationships of birds and mammals. There are many
examples, in particular among birds, of a beautiful and high standard
of love-morality. To the physical fondness of the sexes for one
another there is now added a wealth of what must be recognised as
psychical attraction, which finds its expression in many diverse ways.
We shall find all forms of sexual association, very similar to
marriage in the human species. There are temporary unions formed for
the purpose of procreation, after which the partners separate and
cease to care for one another. Polygamy is frequent, polyandry also
occurs, and there are many cases of absolute profligate promiscuity.
We shall, indeed, find the suggestion of all the sexual sins of
humanity, every form of coquetry, of love-battles, jealousy and the
like. There are as well many examples of monogamic unions lasting for
the lives of the partners. This is especially the case with birds.
Among the higher mammals polygamy is most common, but permanent unions
are formed, especially among the anthropoid apes. Thus strictly
monogamous marriages are frequent among gorillas and orang-utans, the
young sometimes remaining with their parents to the age of six years,
while any approach to loose behaviour on the part of the wife is
severely punished by the husband.[50] We find both the matriarchate
and patriarchate family; and we may observe the greatest difference in
the conduct of the parents in their care of offspring. Even a rapid
examination of these customs is worth while, for they cast forward
many suggestions on our sexual, domestic, and social relationships.
Let us take first the phenomena of courtship.
It is possible to give only the briefest outline of this fascinating
subject. We will begin with the law-of-battle. Courtship without
combat is rare among mammals; it is less common in many species of
birds. Special offensive and defensive weapons for use in these
love-fights are found; such are the larger canine teeth of many male
mammals, the antlers of stags, the tusks of elephants, the horns of
antelopes, goats, oxen and other animals, while among birds the spurs
of the cock and allied species are examples of sexual weapons.[51]
"The season of love is the season of battle," says Darwin. To those
who understand love there will be no cause of surprise in these
procreative explosions. There can be no doubt that such combats are a
stimulus to mutual sexual excitement in the males who take part in
them and the female who watches them. Throughout Nature love only
reaches its goal after tremendous expenditure of energy. Courtship is
the prelude to love. The question is--what form it shall take? It is
this that even yet we have not decided. But the importance of
courtship cannot be overlooked. We must regard it as the servant of
the Life-force. In the fine saying of Professor Lloyd Morgan,[52] "the
purpose of courtship reveals itself as the strong and steady bending
of the bow, that the arrow may find its mark in a biological end of
the highest importance in the survival of a healthy and vigorous
race."
Even the most timid animals will fight desperately under the stimulus
of sex-passion. Hares and moles battle to the death in some cases;
squirrels and beavers wound each other severely. Seals grapple with
tooth and claw; bulls, deer and stallions have violent encounters, and
goats use their curved horns with deadly effect.[53] The elephant,
pacific by nature, assumes a terrible fury in the rutting season.
Thus, the Sanskrit poems frequently use the simile of the elephant
goaded by love to express the highest degree of strength, nobility,
grandeur and even beauty.[54] It is hardly necessary to point out that
in these love-conflicts we may find the sources of our own brute
passions of jealousy, and the origin of duels, murders and all the
violent crimes committed by men under the excitement of sexual
emotion--the tares among the wheat of love that drive men mad and
wild.
In birds it is among the gallinaceæ that love incites the male with
warlike fury. The barn-door cock is the type of the jealous
male--amorous, vain and courageous.[55] It must be noted that
wheresoever supremacy in love is obtained by force the male has
necessarily become, through the action of selection, stronger and
better armed than the female. Among birds, where the law of battle
largely gives place to a gentler wooing, there are many species in
which the female is larger and stronger than the male, and a much
greater number where there is no appreciable difference between the
sexes. These prove what we have already established among the
invertebrates, that there is no necessary correlation between weakness
and the female sex. But to this question, so important in its bearing
on the relative position of the sexes, I shall return later.
The acquisition of mates does not depend entirely upon strength and
victory in battle. Many male mammals have crests and tufts of hair,
and other marks of beauty, such as bright colouring, are often
conspicuous. These are used to attract the females. The incense of
odoriferous glands, which become specially functional during the
breeding season, are another frequent means of sexual attraction.[56]
Even many of the amatory duels are not really fights between rivals.
They are rather parades, or tournaments, used by the males as a means
of displaying their beauty and valour to the females. This is frequent
among the contests of birds, as, for instance, the grouse of Florida
(_Tetras cuspido_), which are said to assemble at night to fight
until morning with measured grace, and then to separate, having first
exchanged formal courtesies.[57]
It is among birds that the notes of joy in love break out with a
wonderful fascination. They are the most perfect of lovers; strength
is often quite set aside, and the eye and ear of the mate alone is
appealed to. The males (and also, in some cases, the females) use many
æsthetic appeals to stimulate passion, such as dancing, beauty of
plumage, and the art of showing it, as well as sweetness of song and
diverse love-calls. There are numerous examples of affectionate
partnerships between the sexes, in some cases lasting for life. The
female Illinois parrot, for instance, rarely survives the death of her
mate. Similarly the death of either sex of the _panurus_ is said to be
fatal to its companion. The affection of these birds is strong; they
always perch side by side, and when they fall asleep one of them,
usually the male, covers the other with its wing. The couples of the
golden woodpeckers and doves live in perfect unison. Brehm records the
case of a male woodpecker who, after the death of his mate, tapped day
and night with his beak to recall the absent one, and when at last
discouraged, he became silent and never recovered his gaiety.[58]
According to some estimates monogamy prevails among ninety per cent of
birds.[59] This is explained by the steady co-operation of both sexes
in forming the home and caring for the young, for it is surely the
working together which causes their love to outlast the excitement of
the procreative season. Sometimes we find this affection flowing out
into a wider altruism, extending beyond the family to the social
group; which again is surely at once the condition and result of these
beautiful and practical love-partnerships.
Those who have read the absorbing pages of Darwin devoted to the
consideration of the sexual characters of birds, or know the examples
given by Büchner, Audubon, Epinas, Wallace and other naturalists, or,
better still, those who have watched and noted for themselves the
love-habits of birds, will find it impossible to withhold admiration
for the poetic character of many of these courtships and marriages,
which put too often our own human matings to utter shame.
Let us look first at the love-dances. Dancing as a means of attracting
the right pitch of passion in the male and the female has always been
used in the service of the sexual instinct. It gives the highest and
most complex expression of movement, and may be said to have been
evolved by love from the more brutal courtships of battle display.[60]
The characteristic features of the amatory dances of birds are well
known; they may be witnessed frequently during the pairing season. The
male blackbird, for instance, is full of action as he woos his mate;
he flirts his tail, spreads his glossy wings, hops and turns; chases
the hen, and all the time chuckles with delight. Similar antics are
performed by the whitethroat. The male redwing, again, struts about
before his female, sweeping the ground with his tail, and acting the
dandy.[61] The crested duck raises his head gracefully, straightens
his silky aigrette, struts and bows to his female, while his throat
swells and he utters a sort of guttural note.[62] The common shield
duck, geese, wood-pigeons, carrion-vultures, and many other birds have
been observed to dance, spread their tails, chase one another, and
perform many strange courting parades. A careful observer of birds,
Mr. E. Selous, who is quoted by Havelock Ellis,[63] has found that all
bird dances are not nuptial, but that some birds--the stone-curlew (or
great plover), for example--have different kinds of dancing. The
nuptial dances are taken part in by both the male and female, and are
immediately followed by conjugation; but there are as well other
dances or antics of a non-sexual character, which may be regarded as
social, and these too are indulged in by both sexes.
The love-fights of swallows, linnets and kingfishers, and the curious
aerial evolution of the swift are similar manifestations of vigour and
delight in movement[64] as a sexual excitant to pairing. Some male
doves have a remarkable habit of driving the hen for a few days before
she lays the eggs. On these occasions his whole time is spent in
keeping her on the move, and he never allows her to settle or rest for
a minute except on the nest.[65]
This last case affords a striking illustration of the real object of
all these elaborate movements. The male albatross, an ugly and
dull-coloured bird,[66] during courtship stands by the female on the
nest, raises his wings, spreads his tail, throws up his head with the
bill in the air, or stretches it straight out or forwards as far as he
can, and then utters a curious cry.[67] But the most interesting
example that I have been able to find recorded of dancing among birds
is the habit of waltzing, common to the male, and in a lesser degree
to the female ostrich. It is thus described by S. Cronwright
Schreiner.[68]
"After running a few yards they (the ostriches) will stop, and
with raised wings spin round rapidly for some time until quite
giddy, when a broken leg occasionally occurs.... Vigorous cocks
'roll' when challenging to fight or when wooing a hen. The cock
will suddenly bump down on his knees (ankle joints), open his
wings, and then swing them alternately backwards and forwards as
if on a pivot. At such a time the bird sees very imperfectly, if
at all, in fact he seems so preoccupied that if pursued one may
often approach unnoticed. Just before 'rolling,' a cock,
especially if courting a hen, will often run slowly and daintily
on the points of his toes, with neck slightly inflated, upright
and erect, the tail half dropped and all his body feathers
fluffed up; the wings raised and expanded, the inside edges
touching the sides of the neck for nearly the whole length, and
the plumes showing separately like an open fan. In no other
attitude is the splendid beauty of his plumage displayed to such
advantage."
In this case it is very suggestive to find that it is the male
ostrich who takes upon himself the task of hatching and rearing the
young. Perhaps this accounts for the female ostrich being able to
dance as well as the male. There are very few examples of birds who
are bad fathers. Often the male rivals the female in love for the
young; he is in constant attendance in the vicinity of the nest; he
guards, feeds and sings to the female, and sometimes shares with her
the duty of incubation. This is done by the male wood-pigeon,
missel-thrush, blue martin, the buzzard, stone-curlew, curlew,
dottrel, the sandpiper, common gull, black-coated gull, kittiwake,
razorbill, puffin, storm-petrel, the great blue heron and the black
vulture. Among these birds it is usual for the family duties to be
performed quite irrespective of sex, and the parent who is free takes
the task of feeding the one who is occupied. As soon as one family is
reared many birds at once burden themselves with another. Audubon
records the case of the blue bird of America, who works so zealously
that two or three broods are reared at the same time, the female
sitting on one clutch, while the male feeds the young of the preceding
brood.[69]
Next in importance to dancing and movement in the aid of courtship
among birds is their use of song and display of decorative plumage.
With them it would seem, even more than among the mammals or with man,
sexual desire raises and intensifies all the faculties, and lifts the
individual above the normal level of life. The act of singing is a
pleasurable one, an expression of superabundant energy and joyous
excitement. Thus love-songs, serving first probably as a call of
recognition from the male to the female, came to be used as a means
of seduction. Every one is familiar with the exquisite lyrical
tournaments of our nightingales; their songs during the love season do
not cease by day or by night, so that one wonders when sleep can be
taken; but as soon as the young are hatched the music ceases, and
harsh croaks are the only sound left.[70] The song of the skylark,
with its splendid note of freedom, is more melodious and more frequent
in the season of love's delirium.[71] Another bird, the male of the
weaver bird, builds an abode of pleasure for himself, wherein he
retires to sing to his mate.[72] A very beautiful case of the use of
these love-calls by the tyrant bird (_Pitangus Bolivianus_) is
recorded by W.H. Hudson.[73]
"Though the male and female are greatly attached they do not go
afield to hunt in company, but separate to meet at intervals
during the day. One of the couple (say the female) returns to
the trees where they are accustomed to meet, and after a time
becoming impatient or anxious at the delay of her consort,
utters a very long, clear call-note. He is perhaps a quarter of
a mile away, watching for a frog beside a pool, or beating over
a thistle bed, but he hears the note and presently responds with
one of equal power. Then, perhaps, for half-an-hour, at
intervals of half-a-minute, the birds answer each other, though
the powerful call of the one must interfere with his hunting. At
length he returns: then the two birds, perched close together,
with their yellow bosoms almost touching, crests elevated, and
beating the branch with their wings scream their loudest notes
in concert--a confused, jubilant noise that rings through the
whole plantation. Their joy at meeting is patent, and their
action corresponds to the warm embrace of a loving human
couple."
Some birds, who are ill-endowed from a musical point of view, have
their wing feathers or tails peculiarly developed and stiffened, and
are able to produce with them a strange snapping or cracking sound.
Thus several species of snipe make drumming or "bleating"
noises--something like the bleat of a goat--with their narrowed tails
as they descend in flight.[74] Magpies have a still more curious
method of call, by rapping on dry and sonorous branches, which they
use not only to attract the female, but also to charm her. We may say
that these birds perform instrumental music.[75]
The exercise of vocal power among birds seems to be complementary to
the development of accessory plumes and ornaments. All our finest
singing birds are plainly coloured, with no crests, neck or tail
plumes to display. The gorgeously ornamented birds of the tropics have
no song, and those which expend much energy in display of plumage, as
the turkey and peacocks, have comparatively an insignificant
development of voice.[76] The extraordinary manner in which birds
display their plumage at the time of courting is well known. Let us
take one example--the courtship of the Argus pheasant. This bird is
noted for the extreme beauty of the male's plumage. Its courtship has
been beautifully observed by H.O. Forbes--[77]
"It is the habit of this bird to make a large circus, some ten
or twelve feet in diameter, in the forest, which it clears of
every leaf and twig and branch, till the ground is perfectly
swept and garnished. On the margin of this circus there is
invariably a projecting branch or high arched rest, at a few
feet elevation from the ground on which the female bird takes
its place, while in the ring the male--the male bird alone
possesses great decoration--shows off all its magnificence for
the gratification and pleasure of his consort, and to exalt
himself in her eyes."
In this picture we have all the characteristic features of the display
of personal beauty in which many birds delight. Any one may see such
performances for themselves. The male chaffinch, for instance, will
place himself in front of the female that she may admire at her ease
his red throat and blue head; the bullfinch swells out his breast to
display the crimson feathers, twisting his black tail from side to
side; the goldfinch sways his body, and quickly turns his slightly
expanded wings first to one side, then to the other, with a golden
flashing effect.[78] Even birds of less ornamental plumage are
accustomed to strut and show themselves off before the females. Birds
often assemble in large numbers to compete in beauty before pairing.
The _Tetras cuspido_ of Florida and the little grouse of Germany and
Scandinavia do this. The latter have daily amorous assemblies, or
_cours d'amour_, of great length, which are renewed every year in the
month of May.[79] It seems certain that this æsthetic display is
conscious and pre-meditated; for while most pheasants parade before
their females, two of the species--the _Crossoptilon auritum_ and the
_Phasianus Wallichii_--which are of dull colour, refrain from doing
so, being apparently conscious of their modest livery.[80]
Certain birds are not content alone with the display of natural
ornament, but make use of further æsthetic appeal in the construction
of their homes in a truly beautiful manner. Some species of
humming-birds are said to decorate the exterior of their nests in
great taste with lichens, feathers, etc. The bower-birds of Australia
construct bowers on the ground, ornamented with shell, feathers, bones
and leaves. Both sexes take part in the building of these abodes of
love, which are used for the courting parades. But an even more
delightful example of the rare sexual delicacy in courtship is
recorded by M.O. Beccari of a bird of Paradise of New Guinea, the
_Amblyornis inornata_.[81]
"This wonderful and beautiful bird constructs a little conical
hut to protect his amours, and in front of this he arranges a
lawn, carpeted with moss, the greenness of which he relieves by
scattering on it various bright coloured objects, such as
berries, grains, flowers, pebbles and shells. More than this,
when the flowers are faded, he takes great care to replace them,
so that the eye may be always agreeably flattered. These curious
constructions are solid, lasting for several years, and probably
serving for several birds."
It is, I think, by such cases as these that we may come to realise the
extraordinary power of sex-hunger. It seems to me that many of us are
still walking in sleep; fear holds our eyes from the truth. But as we
look back to the complex and often beautiful manifestations of love's
actions among our animal ancestors, we begin to perceive that
unanalysable something called "beauty," which is the glory that has
arisen out of that first simple impelling hunger, which drove the male
cell and the female cell to unite. This is how I see things--Life
knows no development except through Love.
II.--_Further Examples of Courtship, Marriage, and the Family among
Birds_
It is especially upon the efflorescence of male beauty among birds
that Darwin founded his celebrated theory of sexual selection. The
motley of display seems endless, beautiful plumes, elongated feathery
tresses, neck-ruffs, breast-shields, brightly-coloured cowls and
wattles occur with marvellous richness of variety.
Now, can we accept the Darwinian theory, and believe that all these
appendages of beauty, as well as the sexual weapons, powers of song
and movement, have been developed through the preference of the
females? the stronger and more ornamental males becoming in this way
the parents of each successive generation. Wallace, as is well known,
opposed Darwin's view, preferring to regard sexual selection as a
manifestation of natural selection. He has been followed by other
naturalists, who have denied this creative power of love, being unable
to credit conscious choice by the females of the most gifted males.
The controversy on the question has been long and at times violent.
Yet, it would seem, as so often happens in all disagreements, that the
difference in opinion is more apparent than founded on the facts.
There is really no difficulty if once we understand the true
significance of courtship. What this is I have tried to make clear.
During the excitement of pairing the male birds are in a condition of
the most perfect development, and possess an enormous store of
superabundant vitality; this, as may readily be understood, may well
express itself in brilliant colours and superfluities of ornamental
plumage, as also in song, in dancing, in love tournaments and in
battles. The fact that we have to remember is that the female is most
easily won by the male, who, being himself most charged with sex
desire--and through this means reaching the finest development--is
able to create a corresponding intoxication in her, and thus, by
producing in both the most perfect condition, favours the chances of
reproduction. There is no need whatever to suppose any conscious
choice or special æsthetic perception on the part of the females.
Great effects are everywhere produced in Nature by simple causes. The
female responds to the stimulus of the right male at the right
moment--that is really the whole matter.[82]
In these instances (brought forward in the previous section of this
chapter) of the universal hunger of sex, which are fairly typical and
are as complete as my space will allow, certain facts have become
clear. In the first place we have seen something of the strong driving
of the procreative function, which is the guarantee of the
continuation and development of life. The importance of the result to
be gained explains the diverse and elaborate phenomena of courtship.
The higher we ascend in the animal kingdom the stronger does the
sex-appetite become: it vibrates in the nerve-centres, giving rise to
violent emotions which intensify all the physical and psychic
activities. Love is the great creative force. It awakens impressions
and desires in the individual, giving rise to what may be called
"experiments in creative self-expression," to the energy of which we
owe the varied and marvellous phenomena in animal life.
A further cause arising from the development of love is certainly of
not less importance--it is the beginning of life not wholly
individualistic. It is in the sexual passions we must seek the origins
of all social growth. This is evident. We have seen that sexual union
induces durable association between the female and the male for the
object of rearing the young. Here already we find that truth, which it
is the chief purpose of this book to make plain, that the individual
exists for the race. This is the new and practical morality of the
biological view, which regards the individual as primarily the host
and servant of the seed of life. And this is really of the greatest
benefit to the individual. From this service to the future arises the
family and the home. The familial instinct, more or less developed,
may be traced far back in the scale of life; and as it gains in
strength it extends from the family into a wider social love, which in
some species results in the forming of societies grouped together for
mutual protection and co-operation in communal activities. A rough
outline of society is thus found established already in the animal
kingdom.
Just as there were many different forms of sexual associations among
our animal ancestors, so we may observe the two chief forms of human
societies, the matriarchate and the patriarchate--or the maternal and
paternal family. It is the former that is the most frequent. This is
what we should expect. The female, the mother, as the natural centre
of the family, the male, her servant, in the procreative act; but
apart from this, we find him most frequently following personal
interests; the female's love for the young is stronger and more
developed than his. I lay stress upon this fact, for it shows how
strongly planted in woman is the maternal instinct. I doubt if any
woman can ever find true expression for her nature apart from
motherhood. It is in these past histories of life's development that
we may find the key for its purpose and meaning to us.
There is another point of special importance to us in estimating the
true place of woman in society. This early position of the female
proves conclusively (as we shall see more clearly later when we come
to study the primitive human family) the importance of the mother and
her children as the founders of society. Woman, by reason of her more
intimate connection with the children and the home, became the centre
of the social group, while the males, less bound by domestic ties,
were able to wander, but came back to the home, driven by their sexual
needs to return to the female. But without giving more time here to
this question, to which I shall return later, there is a further
consideration, arising from our study of the family habits among the
birds and mammals, that now must claim our attention. Certain
examples I have come across, in particular among birds, have forced
into my mind doubt of a widely-accepted belief. I put forward my
opinion with great diffidence; it is so easy to interpret facts by the
bias of one's own wishes. I know that the cases I have found and
studied are probably few in comparison with those I have missed; but
to me they seem of such importance, by the light they throw on the
whole question of the position of the sexes, that it seems necessary
to bring them forward.
We must go back to the position we left, some time back, of the
differences between the secondary sexual characters of the male and
the female. We have followed the development of the male, under the
action of love's selection, from his first insignificant position in
the reproductive process; we have seen him becoming larger than the
female, strong, jealous and masterful--in fact, a kind of fighting
specialisation, with special weapons of defence for sex-battles. This
is the general condition among mammals. Among birds another set of
secondary character, that may be classed as beauty-tests, are more
frequent. Now two questions must be answered. Can it be proved that
all these acquired developments of strength and of beauty belong
exclusively to the males--that they must be regarded as proof of the
greater tendency to diversity in the male, which has carried him
further in the evolution process than the female? Can it also be
proved that such highly-marked differentiation between the sexes is in
all cases necessary to reproduction--that this heightened male
attractiveness is a progressive force in the service of the race? If
so, examples will surely point in the direction of finding that among
those species where the sexual characters of the male, whether of
strength or of beauty, are most different from the female, sexual love
will find its most perfect expression; and further, that the males in
such case will be the most highly developed--the best parents and the
most social in their habits. The whole question, I think it must be
evident, turns upon this being proved.
But in the face of the facts before us this is just what we do not
find. Among birds (who in erotic development far excel all other
animals, not, indeed, excepting the human species, and thus must be
accepted as affording the most perfect examples of sexual development)
we have seen that the cases are not few in which the female equals, or
even exceeds the male in size and in strength. This is so with the
curlew, the merlin, the dunlin, the black-tailed goodwit, which is
considerably larger than the male, and the osprey, where the female is
also more spotted on the breast: these examples must be added to those
I have already given (page 58).
If we turn now to the beauty-test of brilliancy of plumage, we may
observe an even larger number of examples of almost identical likeness
between the sexes. Among British birds alone there are no fewer than
382 species, or sub-species,[83] in which the female closely resembles
the male. In some few of these examples, it is true, the colours of
the female are slightly duller, and in others the female is rather
smaller than the male, but the difference in each case is very slight.
It is specially significant to note that this similarity of plumage
occurs in some of the most beautiful of our birds, as, for instance,
the kingfisher and the jay, where the brilliant dresses of the sexes
are practically alike; the female robin shares the beauty of the male;
in all the families of the charming tits the sexes are alike; this is
also the case with the roller-bird with its gaily-coloured plumage;
and there is no difference between the white elegance of the female
and the male swan.
In the presence of such examples it seems to me impossible to refrain
from thinking that there is a mistake somewhere, and that less
importance is to be attached to the secondary sexual characters of the
male than is generally imagined. Grant that these cases are
exceptional; but if we once admit that among many species--and these
highly developed in sex--the female shows no evidence of retarded
development, we shall be forced also to break once for all with many
beliefs and trite theories which have inspired on this subject of the
sexual differences between the female and the male so much dogmatic
statement and so many unproved assumptions.
I am not forgetting the gorgeous plumage of some male birds, and the
contrast they afford with the plain females. What I wish to show is
that such adornments cannot be regarded as a necessary adjunct to the
male--an expression, in fact, of the male constitution. Nor are they,
as we shall find later, necessary, or even beneficial in the highest
degree, to the reproductive process.[84] I have an even more
interesting case to bring forward, which to me seems to point very
conclusively to what I am trying to prove. The phalaropes, both the
grey and red-necked species, have a peculiarity unique among British
birds, although shared by several other groups in different parts of
the world.[85] Among these birds the rôle of the sexes is reversed.
The duties of incubation and rearing the young are conducted entirely
by the male bird, and in correlation with this habit the female does
all the courting, is stronger and more pugnacious than the male, and
is also brighter in plumage. In colour they are a pale olive very
thickly spotted and streaked with black. The male is the psychical
mother, the female taking no notice of the nest after laying the eggs.
Frequently at the beginning of the breeding season she is accompanied
by more than one male, so that it is evident that polyandry is
practised.[86]
Now, if such an example of the reversal of the sexes has any meaning
at all, it seems to me that we find the conclusion forced upon us that
the secondary sexual characters are not necessarily different in the
male and the female, but depend on the form of the union or marriage
and the conditions of the family. Professor Lester Ward, in connection
with his Gynæocratic theory, fully discusses this question. His
conclusion is that this superiority of the males in strength and size
among mammals and in beauty of plumage (which is also a symbol of
force) among birds, instead of indicating an arrested development in
the females indicates an over-development in the males. "Male
efflorescence" is the apt term by which Professor Ward designates it.
He says--
"The whole phenomena of so-called male superiority bears a
certain stamp of spuriousness and sham. It is to natural history
what chivalry was to human history; ... a sort of make-believe,
play, or sport of nature of an airy unsubstantial character. The
male side of nature shot up and blossomed out in an unnatural,
fantastic way, cutting loose from the real business of life, and
attracting a share of attention wholly disproportionate to its
real importance."[87]
This may, I think, be regarded as a picturesque over-statement of what
is in the main true. Male efflorescence has drawn upon itself an
excessive importance, through what we may call its dramatic insistence
upon our notice. It is plain, too, that the more we examine the
question the more we are forced to the one conclusion. It is certainly
very suggestive, as Professor Ward points out, that those mammals and
birds in which the process of male differentiation has gone farthest,
such as lions, buffaloes, stags and sheep among mammals, and peacocks,
pheasants, turkey-cocks and barn-door-cocks among birds, do
practically nothing for their families. Among the gallinaceæ it is the
female who undertakes the whole burden of incubation, and feeding and
caring for the young; during this time the male is running after
adventures, in some cases he returns when his offspring are old
enough to follow him and form a docile band under his government.[88]
The conduct of the male turkey is much worse, and he often devours the
eggs, which have to be hidden by the mother, while later the offspring
are only saved from his attacks by large numbers of females and the
young uniting in troops led by the mothers.[89] The polygamous
families of monkeys are always subject to patriarchal rule. The father
is the tyrant of the band--an egoist. Any protection he affords to the
family is in his own interest, frequently he expels the young males as
soon as they are old enough to give him trouble, the daughters, in
some cases, he adds to his harem; only when old age has rendered him
powerless are the tables turned, and the young, for so long oppressed,
rebel and sometimes assassinate their tyrannous father. There is very
little evidence of paternal affection among mammals. Even among
monogamous species, where the male keeps with the female, he does so
more as chief than as father. At times he is much inclined to commit
infanticides and to destroy the offspring, which, by absorbing the
attention of his partner, thwart his amours. Thus among the large
felines the mother is obliged to hide her young ones from the male
during the first few days after birth to prevent his devouring
them.[90]
It is important to note that among birds the fathers devoid of
affection generally belong to the less intelligent species. We may,
therefore, see that these violent polygamous amours of the male, which
result in the development of the more extravagant of the second sexual
characters, are not really favourable to the development of the
species. They belong to a lower grade of sexual evolution. And a
further proof, it seems to me, is furnished as we note that, in spite
of this tyranny, the females show considerable affection for these
tyrant males--the chimpanzee, for example, proving this by zealously
plucking the lice from her master's coat, which with monkeys is a mark
of very special attention.[91] The most oppressed females are, as a
rule, the most faithful wives. Thus the females of the guanaco lamas,
if their master chances to be wounded or killed, do not run away; they
hasten to his side, bleating and offering themselves to the shots of
the hunter in order to shield him, while, in sharp contrast, if a
female is killed, the male makes off with all his troop--he thinks
only of himself.[92] Must we say, then, that the female animal likes
servitude? It is, of course, because the aggressive male, being the
one to arouse her sexual passions, enables her to fulfil her work of
procreation. This may be. But, granting this explanation, it must be
allowed that love under such conditions evidences a deterioration,
not alone in the size and strength of the female, but in mental
capacity--love at a much lower level than those beautiful cases in
which the sexes are more alike, equal in capacity, and co-operate
together in the race work.
Yet in justice it must be added that even the most polygamous males
are not always devoid of affection. I once saw on a Derbyshire
high-road a cock show evident signs of sorrow over the death of one of
his wives, who had been killed by a passing motor. He refused to leave
the spot where her body lay, and walked round and round it, uttering
sharp cries of grief. Nor are sexual lapses confined to the males; a
female will take advantage of a moment when the attention of the old
cocks is entirely absorbed by the anxiety of a fight, to run off with
a young male.[93] Even among species noted for their conjugal fidelity
this sometimes happens. Female pigeons, for example, have been known
to fall violently in love with strange males, and this is especially
common if the legitimate spouse is wounded or becomes weak.[94] Darwin
records a very curious case of a sudden passion appearing in a female
wild-duck, who, after breeding with her own mallard for a couple of
seasons, deserted him for a stranger--a male pintail.
"It was evidently a case of love at first sight, for she swam
about the newcomer caressingly, though he appeared evidently
alarmed and averse to her overtures of affection. From that hour
she forgot her old partner. Winter passed by, and the next
spring the pintail seemed to have become a convert to her
blandishments, for they nested and produced seven or eight young
ones."[95]
I am tempted to wait to consider the immense significance of such
cases as these in the analogy they bear to our own sudden preferences
in love. The question as to the moral conduct of this duck opens up
suggestions of those cases of exceptional love-passions, which all our
existing institutions, laws and penalties have never been able to
crush. The desire for sexual variety is the ultimate cause of all
sexual lapses and irrationalities. It is a mistake to think that this
is a condition peculiar to mankind and the result of civilisation. If
this were so it would be easier to deal with; but before these
deeply-rooted instincts of sexual hunger we are often powerless. I
know of no question that needs to be faced by women more than this
one. I would like to say more about it. But already this first section
of my book has exceeded its limits. I must, therefore, pass on, to
draw attention to the fact, clearly proved by the case of this
wild-duck's love, as well as by many other examples, that it is the
females, who, exercising their right of selection much more than the
males, introduce individual preference into their sexual
relationships. The difficulty is that such preference, of profound
biological importance, is often thwarted among civilised people by
considerations of property and the accepted morality. From this
standpoint permanent marriage may often fail to do justice to the
sexual needs both of the individual and the wider needs of the race.
Nature has no care for sex-morals as we understand them, any mode of
sexual union is equally right so long as it serves the race-process.
But men have set up a whole host of prohibitions and conventions--the
"thou shalt nots" of society and religion. Which are we to follow?
Which is the wheat and which the tares, that must be garnered or
sifted from our loves?
It is important to notice that among mammals, as among men, conjugal
fidelity is modified by the conditions of life. An animal belonging to
a species habitually monogamic may easily change under the pressure of
external causes and adopt polygamy, and, in some cases, polyandry. The
shoveler duck, though normally monogamic, is said[96] to practise
polyandry when males are in excess; two males being in constant and
amicable attendance on the female, without sign of jealousy.
Wild-ducks, again, which are strictly monogamous, good parents, and
very highly developed in social qualities when in a wild state, become
loosely polygamous and indifferent to their offspring under
domestication. Civilisation, in this case, depraves the birds, as
often it does men.
But enough has now been said. We shall find later how far the facts we
have learnt of the position of the female and the sexual relationship,
as we have studied them in these examples from the animal kingdom,
will apply to us and to our loves. We have now to study marriage and
the family as it exists among primitive peoples. We shall find a close
resemblance in the courtship customs and the sexual and familial
associations to those we have seen to be practised by our pre-human
ancestors. The same resemblance will persist when, lastly, we come to
investigate the same institutions among civilised races, up to our
own. Indeed, we may have to admit that, in some directions, love is
not even yet as finely developed with us humans as it is among birds.
It is in the loves of birds, as I believe, that we must seek hints to
that evolution in fineness, which has still to come in our love.
One thing more. It refers to the disputed question of the
differentiation of the sexes by the action of love's-selection. It is
a truth that I wish as strongly as I am able to emphasise. We cannot
learn to know love's selective powers by enclosing its action within
the narrow circle of our preconceived ideas. Instead of limiting its
power we should extend it without hindrance of any form--to the female
as well as the male; to the woman as to the man. We should regard
nothing as impossible, no development of either sex too great to be
accomplished, knowing that all progress is possible to love's power.
Exceptional cases, then, irregularities, it may be, in sexual
expression will henceforth no longer surprise us; they will find their
place in the infinite order of life. Such examples may come to be
regarded as filling in the chain; they form intermediate stages and
also mark the reappearance of earlier manifestations of the sexual
hunger. The new morality of love, which is having its birth amongst us
to-day, will be deeper and wider than the old morality, because it
will be founded on surer knowledge.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. p. 422.
[51] _Evolution of Sex_, p. 8.
[52] _Animal Behaviour_, p. 265, quoted by Havelock Ellis, _Psychology
of Sex_, Vol. III. p. 28.
[53] Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), _Chapters on Human Love_, pp.
17-18.
[54] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 16.
[55] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 12.
[56] _Evolution of Sex_, pp. 7-8.
[57] Epinas, _Soc. Animales_, p. 326; Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p.
433.
[58] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 27.
[59] Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. p. 422.
[60] One of the most charming accounts of the loves of birds is given
in a chapter on "Music and Dancing in Nature," in a volume entitled,
_The Naturalist in La Plata_, by W.H. Hudson.
[61] Audubon, _Scènes de la Nature_, Vol. I. p. 350.
[62] Audubon, _Scènes de la Nature_, Vol. II. p. 50.
[63] E. Selous, _Bird Watching_, pp. 15-20; Havelock Ellis,
_Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. p. 25.
[64] The jay is the only bird I know whose habits in this respect are
different. Noisy and active during the winter the male becomes
exceedingly quiet with the approach of the pairing season. This may
possibly be explained by the fact that the two sexes of these
beautiful birds are practically alike; thus there may be less
temptation for the male to show off as the handsomer bird.
[65] J. Lewis Bonhote, _The Birds of Britain_, p. 272. It is from this
work I have taken many facts relating to birds. See also A.R. Wallace,
_Darwinism_, p. 287.
[66] Wallace states that these love-movements are more commonly
performed by birds with dull plumage who have no special beauties to
display to their mates, but the custom, as we have seen, is by no
means confined to such birds.
[67] _Notes of a Naturalist on the "Challenger,"_ quoted by Wallace,
_Darwinism_, p. 287.
[68] "The Ostrich," _Zoölogist_, March 1897; quoted by Havelock Ellis,
_Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. p. 34.
[69] Audubon, _Scènes de la Nature_, Vol. I. p. 317.
[70] J. Lewis Bonhote, _The Birds of Britain_, p. 39.
[71] Audubon, _Scènes de la Nature_, Vol. I. p. 383.
[72] Epinas, _Sociétés Animales_, p. 299.
[73] _Argentine Ornithology_, Vol. I. p. 148; quoted by Havelock
Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. p. 33.
[74] Wallace, _Darwinism_, p. 284; also J. Lewis Bonhote, _The Birds
of Britain_, p. 319.
[75] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, pp. 14-15.
[76] Wallace, _Darwinism_, p. 287.
[77] H.O. Forbes, _A Naturalist's Wanderings_, p. 131; quoted by
Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. pp. 33-34.
[78] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 438.
[79] Epinas, _Soc. animales_, p. 326; and Letourneau, _Evolution of
Marriage_, p. 14.
[80] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 438; Letourneau, _op. cit._, p. 13.
[81] _Annali del Museo civico di storia naturale di Genova_, t. IX.
fasc. 3-4, 1877, quoted by Letourneau, whose account I give; _op.
cit._, p. 14.
[82] Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. pp. 18-24, has
discussed this question at some length. The brief account I have given
is a summary of his view. I take this opportunity of gratefully
acknowledging the great help I have gained from the illuminating and
valuable works of Mr. Ellis.
[83] These facts are taken from Mr. J. Lewis Bonhote's _British
Birds_. I may add that in many species where the sexes are alike the
young are quite different from the parents, a fact which seems to have
escaped the notice of those who say that the young birds resemble the
female. A very curious instance is furnished by the greater spotted
woodpecker, where the sexes are similar, but the female lacks the red
crown of the male; and yet the young _of both sexes_ have this red
crown.
[84] This seems to be the position taken by Professor Geddes and J.A.
Thomson in _Evolution of Sex_, pp. 4-5.
[85] Several examples are mentioned by Wallace, _Darwinism_, p. 281.
He, however, brings them forward in quite a different connection to
prove his theory of the protective duller colours of the female birds.
[86] My facts of the phalaropes are taken from J. Lewis Bonhote's
_British Birds_, pp. 314-315.
[87] _Pure Sociology_, p. 331.
[88] Epinas, _Soc. animales_, p. 422.
[89] Audubon, _Scènes de la Nature_, t. Ier, p. 29. I may say, that at
the time of writing this, while staying in the country, I have had an
opportunity of watching these bands of female turkeys with their
young. Their fear at the approach of the strutting noisy male is very
manifest. On such occasions they at once seek shelter. I once saw them
fly into a church. The females invariably keep together. I have never
seen a single mother with her young.
[90] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, chapter on the "Family among
Animals," pp. 29-34, from which these cases are taken.
[91] Epinas, _Soc. animales_, p. 443. In this connection I may mention
the fact that in Southern Spain, where the women are noted for their
love of their children, I have often seen mothers sitting at their
doors for several hours, extracting lice from the heads and bodies of
their children. I once saw a beautiful _flamenca_ (Sevillian gipsy)
performing this task for her lover.
[92] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 32.
[93] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 399.
[94] _Ibid._, p. 234.
[95] _Ibid._, p. 455.
[96] J.G. Millais, _Natural History of British Ducks_, pp. 8, 13.
PART II
HISTORICAL SECTION
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VI
THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION
I.--_Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship_
Primitive human love--The same domination of sex-needs in man as
among the animals--Different conditions of
expression--Acquisition of a new element--The individuation of
love--Sex uninterruptedly interesting--The human need for
sexual variety--The personal end of passion--Primitive
sex-customs and forms of marriage--Superabundance of
evidence--An attempt to group the periods to be considered--An
early period in which man developed from his ape-like
ancestors--Illustrations from primitive savages--First
formation of tribal groups--Second period--Mother-descent and
mother-rights--The position of women--The importance of this
early matriarchate--The transitional period from mother-right
to father-right--The assertion of the male force in the person
of the woman's brother--This alien position of the husband and
father--The formation of the patriarchal family--The change a
gradual one and dependent upon property--Civilisation started
with the woman as the dominant partner--Traces of
mother-descent found in all parts of the world--Evidence of
folk-lore as legends--Examples of mother-descent in the early
history of England, Scotland, and Ireland--The freedom enjoyed
by women--Survival of mother-right customs among the ancient
Hebrews.
II.--_The Matriarchal Family in America_
Traces of mother-descent frequent in the American
continent--Mother-rule still in force in some
districts--Morgan's description of the system among the
Iroquois--The customs of Iroquois tribes--Communal
dwellings--The authority of the women--The creeping in of
changes leading to father-right--The system of government among
the Wyandots--Further examples of the sexual relationships--The
interesting customs of the Seri tribe--The probation of the
bridegroom--His service to the bride's family--Stringent
character of the conditions imposed--The freedom granted to the
bride--A decisive example of the position of power held by
women--The Pueblos--The customs of these tribes--Monogamic
marriage--The happy family relationship--This the result of the
supremacy of the wife in the home--Conclusions to be drawn from
these examples of mother-rights among the Aboriginal tribes of
America--Women the dominant force in this stage of
civilisation--Why this early power of women has been denied--A
meeting with a native Iroquois--He testifies to the high status
and power of the Indian women.
III.--_Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India
and other Countries_
The question of the position of women during the mother-age a
disputed one--Bachofen's opinion--An early period of
gynæocracy--This view not accepted--Need for unprejudiced
opinion--Women the first owners of property--Their power
dependent on this--Further examples of mother-right
customs--The maternal family in Australia--Communal
marriage--Mother-right in India--The influence of
Brahmanism--Traces of the maternal family--Some interesting
marriage customs--Polyandry--Examples of its practice--Great
polyandrous centres--The freedom enjoyed by women--The causes
of polyandry--Matriarchal polyandry--The interesting custom of
the Nayars--The Malays of Sumatra--The _ambel-anak_
marriage--Letter from a private correspondent--It proves the
high status of women under the early customs of
mother-descent--Traces of the maternal family among the
Arabs--The custom of _beena_ marriage--Position of women in the
Mariana Islands--Rebellion of the husbands--Use of religious
symbolism--The slave-wife--Her consecration to the Bossum or
god in Guinea.
IV.--_The Transition to Father-right_
The position of women in Burma--The code of Manu--Women's activity
in trade--Conditions of free-divorce--Traces of mother-descent
in Japan--In China--In Madagascar--The power of royal
princesses--Tyrannical authority of the princesses of
Loango--In Africa descent through women the
rule--Illustrations--The transition to father-right--The power
passing from the mother into the hand of the maternal
uncle--Proofs from the customs of the African tribes--The rise
of father-right--Reasons which led to the change--Marriage by
capture and marriage by purchase--The payment of a
bride-price--Marriage with a slave-wife--The conflict between
the old and the new system--Illustration by the curious
marriage customs of the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White
Nile--Father-right dependent on economic
considerations--_Résumé_--General conclusions to be drawn from
the mother-age--Its relation to the present revolt of
women--The bright side of father-right.
CHAPTER VI
THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION
I.--_Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship_
"The reader who grasps that a thousand years is but a small
period in the evolution of man, and yet realises how diverse
were morality and customs in matters of sex in the period which
this essay treats of" (_i.e._ _Mother-Age Civilisation_), "will
hardly approach modern social problems with the notion that
there is a rigid and unchangeable code of right and wrong. He
will mark, in the first place, a continuous flux in all social
institutions and moral standards; but in the next place, if he
be a real historical student, he will appreciate the slowness of
this steady secular change; he will perceive how almost
insensible it is in the lifetime of individuals, and although he
may work for social reforms, he will refrain from constructing
social Utopias."--Professor KARL PEARSON.
Our study of the sexual associations among animals has brought us to
understand how large a part the gratification of the sex-instincts
plays in animal life, equalling and, indeed, overmastering and
directing the hunger instinct for food. If we now turn to man we find
the same domination of sex-needs, but under different conditions of
expression.[97] Man not only loves, but he knows that he loves; a new
factor is added, and sex itself is lifted to a plane of clear
self-consciousness. Pathways are opened up to great heights, but also
to great depths.
We must not, therefore, expect to take up our study of primitive human
sexual and familial associations at the point where those of the
mammals and birds leave off.[98] We have with man to some extent to
begin again, so that it may appear, on a superficial view, that the
first steps now taken in love's evolution were in a backward
direction. But the fact is that the increased powers of recollection
and heightened complexity of nervous organisation among men, led to
different habits and social customs, separating man radically in his
love from the animals. Man's instincts are very vague when compared,
for instance, with the beautiful love-habits of birds; he is
necessarily guided by conflicting forces, inborn and acquired. Thus
precisely by means of his added qualities he took a new and personal,
rather than an instinctive, interest in sex; and this after a time,
even if not at first, aroused a state of consciousness in love which
made sex uninterruptedly interesting in contrast with the fixed
pairing season among animals. Hence arose also a human and different
need for sexual variety, much stronger than can ever have been
experienced by the animals, which resulted in a constant tendency
towards sexual licence, of a more or less pronounced promiscuity, in
group marriage and other forms of sexual association which developed
from it.
This is so essential to our understanding of human love, that I wish I
could follow it further. All the elaborate phenomena of sex in the
animal kingdom have for their end the reproduction of the species. But
in the case of man there is another purpose, often transcending this
end--the independent significance of sex emotion, both on the physical
and psychical side, to the individual. It seems to me that women have
special need to-day to remember this personal end of human passion.
This is not, however, the place to enter upon this question.
I have now to attempt to trace as clearly as I can the history of
primitive human love. To do this it will be necessary to refer to
comparative ethnography.[99] We must investigate the sex customs,
forms of marriage and the family, still to be found among primitive
peoples, scattered about the world. These early forms of the sexual
relationship were once of much wider occurrence, and they have left
unmistakable traces in the history of many races. Further evidence is
furnished by folk stories and legends. In peasant festivals and dances
and in many religious ceremonies we may find survivals of primitive
sex customs. They may be traced in our common language, especially in
the words used for sex and kin relationships. We can also find them
shadowed in certain of our marriage rites and sex habits to-day. The
difficulty does not rest in paucity of material, but rather in its
superabundance--far too extensive to allow anything like adequate
treatment within the space of a brief and necessarily insufficient
chapter. For this reason I shall limit my inquiry almost wholly to
those cases which have some facts to tell us of the position occupied
by women in the primitive family. I shall try to avoid falling into
the error of a one-sided view. Facts are more important here than
reflections, and, as far as possible, I shall let these speak for
themselves.
In order to group these facts it may be well to give first a rough
outline of the periods to be considered--
1. A very early period, during which man developed from his ape-like
ancestors. This may be called the pre-matriarchal stage. With this
absolutely primitive period we are concerned only in so far as to
suggest how a second more social period developed from it. The idea of
descent was so feeble that no permanent family groups existed, and the
family remains in the primitive biological relation of male, female
and offspring. The Botocudos, Fuegians, West Australians and Veddahs
of Ceylon represent this primitive stage, more or less completely.
They have apparently not reached the stage where the fact of kinship
expresses itself in maternal social organisation.[100] A yet lower
level may be seen among certain low tribes in the interior of
Borneo--absolutely primitive savages, who are probably the remains of
the negroid peoples, believed to be the first inhabitants of Malaya.
These people roam the forests in hordes, like monkeys; the males carry
off the females and couple with them in the thickets. The families
pass the night under the trees, and the children are suspended from
the branches in a sort of net. As soon as the young are capable of
caring for themselves, the parents turn them adrift as the animals
do.[101]
It was doubtless thus, in a way similar to the great monkeys, that man
first lived. With the chimpanzee these hordes never become large, for
the male leader of the tribe will not endure the rivalry of the young
males, and drives them away. But man, more gregarious in his habits,
would tend to form larger groups, his consciousness developing slowly,
as he learnt to control his brute appetites and jealousy of rivals by
that impulse towards companionship, which, rooted in the sexual needs,
broadens out into the social instincts.
It is evident that the change from these scattered hordes to the
organised tribal groups was dependent upon the mothers and their
children. The women would be more closely bound to the family than the
men. The bond between mother and child, with its long dependence on
her care, made woman the centre of the family. The mother and her
children, and her children's children, and so on indefinitely in the
female line, constituted the group. Relationship was counted alone
through them, and, at a later stage, inheritance of property passed
through them. And in this way, through the woman, the low tribes
passed into socially organised societies. The men, on the other hand,
not yet individualised as husbands and fathers, held no rights or
position in the group of the women and their children.
2. This leads us to the second period of mother-descent and
mother-rights. It is this phase of primitive society that we have to
investigate. Its interest to women is evident. Just as we found in our
first inquiry that, in the beginnings of sexuality the female was of
more importance than the male, so now we shall find society growing up
around woman. It is a period whose history may well give pride to all
women. Her inventive faculties, quickened by the stress of
child-bearing and child-rearing, primitive woman built up, by her own
activities and her own skill, a civilisation which owed its
institutions and mother-right customs to her constructive genius,
rather than to the destructive qualities which belonged to the
fighting male.
3. But again we find, as in the animal kingdom, that step by step the
forceful male asserts himself. We come to a third transitional period
in which the male relatives of the woman--usually the brother, the
maternal uncle--have usurped the chief power in the group. Inheritance
still passes through the mother, but her influence is growing less.
The right to dispose of women and the property which goes with them is
now used by the male rulers of the group. The sex habits have changed;
endogamous unions, or kin marriages within the clan, have given place
to exogamy, where marriage only takes place between members of
different groups. But at first the position of the husband and father
is little changed; he marries into the wife's group and lives with
her family, where he has no property rights or control over his wife's
children, who are now under the rule of the uncle.
4. It is plain that this condition would not be permanent. The male
power had yet to advance further; the child had to gain a father. We
reach the patriarchal period, in which descent through the male line
has replaced the earlier custom. Woman's power, first passing to her
brother or other male relative, has been transferred to the husband
and father. This change of power did not, of course, take place at
once, and even under fully developed father-right systems many traces
of the old mother-rights persist.
What it is necessary to fasten deeply in our minds is this: the father
as the head of the woman and her children, the ruler of the house, was
not the natural order of the primitive human family. Civilisation
started with the woman being dominant--the home-maker, the owner of
her children, the transmitter of property. It was--as will be made
abundantly clear from the cases we shall examine--a much later
economic question which led to a reversal of this plan, and brought
the rise of father-right, with the father as the dominant partner;
while the woman sank back into an unnatural and secondary position of
economic dependence upon the man who was her owner--a position from
which she has not even yet succeeded in freeing herself.
The maternal system of descent is found in all parts of the world
where social advance stands at a certain level. This fact, added to
the widespread traces the custom has left in every civilisation,
warrants the assumption that mother-right in all cases preceded
father-right, and has been, indeed, a stage of social growth for all
branches of the human race.[102]
I shall not attempt to give the numerous traces of mother-descent that
are to be found in the early histories of existing civilised nations,
for to do this would entail the writing of the whole chapter on this
subject. For the same reason I must reluctantly pass over the abundant
evidence of mother-right that is furnished in folk-lore, in heroic
legends, and in the fairy stories of our children. These stories date
back to a time long before written history; they are known to all of
us, and belong to all countries in slightly different forms. We have
regarded them as fables; they are really survivals of customs and
practices once common to all society. Wherever we find a king ruling
as the son of a queen, because he is the queen's husband, or because
he marries a princess, we have proof of mother-descent. The influence
of the mother over her son's marriage, the winning of a bride by a
task done by the wooer, the brother-sister marriage so frequent in
ancient mythologies, the interference of a wise woman, and the many
stories of virgin-births--all are survivals of mother-right customs.
Similar evidence is furnished by mother-goddesses, so often converted
into Christian local saints. I wish it were possible to follow this
subject,[103] whose interest offers rich rewards. Perhaps nowhere
else can we gain so clear and vivid a picture as in these ancient
stories and legends of the early powerful position of woman as the
transmitter of inheritance and guardian of property.
It may interest my readers to know that mother-descent must once have
prevailed in Britain. Among the Picts of Scotland kingship was
transmitted through women. Bede tells us that down to his own
time--the early part of the eighth century--whenever a doubt arose as
to the succession, the Picts chose their king from the female rather
than from the male line.[104] Similar traces are found in England:
Canute, the Dane, when acknowledged King of England, married Emma, the
widow of his predecessor Ethelred. Ethelbald, King of Kent, married
his stepmother, after the death of his father Ethelbert; and, as late
as the ninth century, Ethelbald, King of the West Saxons, wedded
Judith, the widow of his father. Such marriages are intelligible only
if we suppose that the queen had the power of conferring the kingdom
upon her consort, which could only happen where matrilineal descent
was, or had been, recognised.[105] In Ireland (where mother-right
must have been firmly established, if Strabo's account of the free
sexual relations of the people[106] is accepted) women retained a very
high position and much freedom, both before and after marriage, to a
late period. "Every woman," it was said, "is to go the way she willeth
freely," and after marriage "she enjoyed a better position and greater
freedom of divorce than was afforded either by the Christian Church or
English common law."[107]
Similar survivals of mother-right customs among the ancient Hebrews
are made familiar to us in Bible history. To mention a few examples
only: when Abraham sought a wife for Isaac, presents were taken by the
messenger to induce the bride to leave her home; and these presents
were given to her mother and brothers. Jacob had to serve Laban for
fourteen years before he was permitted to marry Leah and Rachel,[108]
and six further years of service were given for his cattle. Afterwards
when he wished to depart with his children and his wives, Laban made
the objection, "these daughters are my daughters, and these children
are my children."[109] Such acts point to the subordinate position
held by Jacob, which is clearly a survival of the servitude required
from the bridegroom by the relatives of the woman, who retain control
over her and her children, and even over the property of the man, as
was usual under the later matriarchal custom. The injunction in Gen.
ii. 24, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall
cleave unto his wife," refers without any doubt to the early marriage
under mother-right, when the husband left his own kindred and went to
live with his wife and among her people. We find Samson visiting his
Philistine wife, who remained with her kindred.[110] Even the
obligation to blood vengeance rested apparently on the maternal
kinsmen (Judges viii. 19). The Hebrew father did not inherit from his
son, nor the grandfather from the grandson,[111] which points back to
an ancient epoch when the children did not belong to the clan of the
father.[112] Among the Hebrews individual property was instituted in
very early times (Gen. xxiii. 13); but various customs show clearly
the ancient existence of communal clans. Thus the inheritance,
especially the paternal inheritance, must remain in the clan. Marriage
in the tribe is obligatory for daughters. "Let them marry to whom they
think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they
marry. So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove
from tribe to tribe."[113] We have here an indication of the close
relation between father-right and property.
Under mother-descent there is naturally no prohibition against
marriage with a half-sister upon the father's side. This explains the
marriage of Abraham with Sara, his half-sister by the same father.
When reproached for having passed his wife off as his sister to the
King of Egypt and to Abimelech, the patriarch replies: "For indeed she
is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter
of my mother, and she became my wife."[114] In the same way Tamar
could have married her half-brother Amnon, though they were both the
children of David.[115] The father of Moses and Aaron married his
father's sister, who was not legally his relation.[116] Nabor, the
brother of Abraham, took to wife his fraternal niece, the daughter of
his brother.[117] It was only later that paternal kinship became
recognised among the Hebrews by the same title as the natural kinship
through the mother.[118]
Other examples might be added. All these survivals of mother-descent
(and they may be discovered in the early history of every people) have
their value; they are, however, only survivals, and their interest
rests mainly in comparing them with similar facts among other peoples
among whom the presence of mother-right customs is undisputed. To
these existing examples of the primitive family clan grouped around
the mother we will now turn our attention.
II.--_The Matriarchal Family in America_
Traces of mother-descent are common everywhere in the American
continent; and in some districts mother-rule is still in force.
Morgan, who was commissioned by the American Government to report on
the customs of the aboriginal inhabitants, gives a description of the
system as it existed among the Iroquois--
"Each household was made up on the principle of kin. The married
women, usually sisters, own or collateral, were of the same
_gens_ or clan, the symbol or _totem_ of which was often painted
upon the house, while their husbands and the wives of their sons
belonged to several other _gentes_. The children were of the
_gens_ of their mother. As a rule the sons brought home their
wives, and in some cases the husbands of the daughters were
admitted to the maternal household. Thus each household was
composed of persons of different _gentes_, but the predominating
number in each household would be of the same _gens_, namely
that of the mother."[119]
There are many interesting customs belonging to the Iroquois; I can
notice a few only. The _gens_ was ruled by chiefs of two grades,
distinguished by Morgan as _sachem_ and common chiefs. The sachem was
the official head of the _gens_. The actual occupant of the office was
elected by the adult members of the _gens_, male and female, the own
brother or son of a sister being most likely to be preferred.[120] The
wife never left the parental home, because she was considered the
mistress, or, at least, the heiress; her husband lived with her. In
the house all the duties and the honour as the head of the household
fell on her. She was required in case of need to look after her
parents. The Iroquois recognised no right in the father to the custody
of his children; such power was in the hands of the maternal
uncle.[121] Marriages were negotiated by the uncles or the mothers;
sometimes the father was consulted, but this was little more than a
compliment, as his approbation or opposition was usually
disregarded.[122] The suitor was required to make presents to the
bride's family. It was the custom for him to seek private interviews
at night with his betrothed. In some instances, it was enough if he
went and sat by her side in her cabin; if she permitted this, and
remained where she was, it was taken for consent, and the act would
suffice for marriage. If a husband and wife could not agree, they
parted, or two pairs would exchange husbands and wives. An early
French missionary remonstrated with a couple on such a transaction,
and was told: "My wife and I could not agree. My neighbour was in the
same case. So we exchanged wives, and all four are content. What can
be more reasonable than to render one another mutually happy, when it
costs so little and does nobody any harm?"[123] It would seem that
these primitive people have solved some difficulties better than we
ourselves have!
Among the Senecas,[124] an Iroquoian tribe with a less organised
social life, the authority remained in the hands of the women. These
people led a communal life, dwelling in long houses, which
accommodated as many as twenty families, each in its own
apartments.[125]
"As to their family system, it is probable that some one clan
predominated (in the houses), the women taking in husbands,
however, from the other clans, and sometimes for novelty, some
of their sons bringing in their young wives until they felt
brave enough to leave their mothers. Usually the female portion
ruled the house, and were doubtless clannish enough about it.
The stores were in common, but woe to the luckless husband or
lover who was too shiftless to do his share of the providing. No
matter how many children or whatever goods he might have in the
house, he might at any time be ordered to pack up his blanket
and budge, and after such orders it would not be healthful for
him to attempt to disobey; the house would be too hot for him,
and, unless saved by the intercession of some aunt or
grandmother, he must retreat to his own clan, or, as was often
done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in some other. The
women were the great power among the clans as everywhere else.
They did not hesitate, when occasion required, to 'knock off the
horns,' as it was technically called, from the head of a chief
and send him back to the ranks of the warrior. The original
nomination of the chiefs also always rested with them."
This last detail is very interesting; we find the woman's authority
extending even over warfare, the special province of men.
The Wyandots, another Iroquoian tribe, camp in the form of a
horse-shoe, every clan together in regular order. Marriage between
members of the same clan is forbidden; the children belong to the clan
of the mother. The husbands retain all their rights and privileges in
their own _gentes_, though they live in the _gentes_ of their wives.
After marriage the pair live for a time, at least, with the wife's
mother, but afterwards they set up housekeeping for themselves.[126]
We may note here the creeping in of changes which led to father-right.
This is illustrated further by the Musquakies, also belonging to the
Algonquian stock. Though still organised in clans, descent is no
longer reckoned through the mother. The bridegroom, however, serves
his wife's mother, and he lives with her people. This does not make
him of her clan; she belongs to his, till his death or divorce
separates her from him. As for the children, the minors at the
termination of the marriage belong to the mother's clan, but those who
have had the puberty feast are counted to the father's clan.[127]
The male authority is chiefly felt in periods of war. This may be
illustrated by the Wyandots, who have an elaborate system of
government. In each _gens_ there is a small council composed of four
women, called _yu-waí-yu-wá-na_; chosen by the women heads of the
household. These women councillors select a chief of the _gens_ from
its male members, that is from their brothers and sons. He is the
head of the _gentile_ council. The council of the tribe is composed of
the aggregated _gentile_ councils, and is thus composed of four-fifths
of women and one-fifth of men. The _sachem_ of tribes, or tribal-chief
is chosen by chiefs of the _gentes_. All civil government of the
_gens_ and of the tribe is carried on by these councils, and as the
women so largely outnumber the men, who are also--with the exception
of the tribal chief chosen by them--it is surely fair to assume that
the social government of the _gens_ and _tribe_ is largely directed by
them. In military affairs, however, the men have sole authority; there
is a military council of all the able-bodied men of the tribe, with a
military chief chosen by the council.[128] This seems a very wise
adjustment of civic duties; the constructive civil work directed by
the women; the destructive work of war in the hands of men.
Some interesting marriage customs of the Seri, on the south-west
coast, now reduced to a single tribe, are described by McGee.[129] The
matriarchal system exists here in its early form, it is, therefore, an
instructive example by which to estimate the position held by the
women--
"The tribe is divided into exogamous _totem_ clans. Marriage is
arranged exclusively by the women. The elder woman of the
suitor's family carries the proposal to the girl's clan-mother.
If this is entertained, the question of the marriage is
discussed at length by the matrons of the two clans. The girl
herself is consulted; a _jacal_ is erected for her, and after
many deliberations, the bridegroom is provisionally received
into his wife's clan for a year, under conditions of the most
exacting character. He is expected to prove his worthiness of a
permanent relation by demonstrating his ability as a provider,
and by showing himself an implacable foe to aliens. He is
compelled to support all the female relatives of his bride's
family by the products of his skill and industry in hunting and
fishing for one year. There is also another provision of a very
curious nature. The lover is permitted to share the jacal and
sleeping robe, provided for the prospective matron by her
kinswomen, not as a privileged spouse, but merely as a
protective companion; and throughout this probationary term he
is compelled to maintain continence--he must display the most
indubitable proof of moral force."
This is the more extraordinary if we compare the freedom granted to
the bride. "During this period the always dignified position occupied
by the daughters of the house culminates." Among other privileges she
is allowed to receive "the most intimate attentions from the
clan-fellows of the group."[130] "She is the receiver of the supplies
furnished by her lover, measuring his competence as would-be husband.
Through his energy she is enabled to dispense largess with lavish
hand, and thus to dignify her clan and honour her spouse in the most
effective way known to primitive life; and at the same time she enjoys
the immeasurable moral stimulus of realising she is the arbiter of the
fate of a man who becomes a warrior or an outcast at her bidding, and
through him of the future of two clans--she is raised to a
responsibility in both personal and tribal affairs which, albeit
temporary, is hardly lower than that of the warrior chief." At the
close of the year, if all goes well, the probation ends in a feast
provided by the lover, who now becomes husband, and finally enters
his wife's _jacal_ as "consort-guest." His position is wholly
subordinate, and without any authority whatever, either over his
children or over the property. In his mother's hut he has rights,
which seem to continue after his marriage, but in his wife's hut he
has none.
The customs of the Pueblo peoples of the south-west of the United
States are almost equally interesting. They live in communal
dwellings, and are divided into exogamous _totem_ clans. Kinship is
reckoned through the women, and the husband on marriage goes to live
with the wife's kin and becomes an inmate of her family. If the house
is not large enough, additional rooms are built adjoining and
connected with those already occupied. Hence a family with many
daughters increases, while one consisting of sons dies out. The women
are the builders of the houses, the men supplying the material. The
marriage customs are instructive. As is the case among the Seri, the
lover has to serve his wife's family, but the conditions are much less
exacting. Unlike most maternal peoples, these, the Zuñi Indians, are
monogamists. Divorce is, however, frequent, and a husband and wife
would "rather separate than live together unharmoniously."[131] Their
domestic life "might well serve as an example for the civilised
world." They do not have large families. The husband and wife are
deeply attached to one another and to their children. "The keynote of
this harmony is the supremacy of the wife in the home. The house, with
all that is in it, is hers, descending to her through her mother from
a long line of ancestresses; and her husband is merely her permanent
guest. The children--at least the female children--have their share in
the common home; the father has none." Outside the house the husband
has some property in the fields, though probably in earlier times he
had no possessory rights. "Modern influences have reached the Zuñi,
and mother-right seems to have begun its inevitable decay."
The Hopis, another Pueblo tribe, are more conservative, and with them
the women own all the property, except the horses and donkeys, which
belong to the men. Like the Zuñis, the Hopis are monogamists. Sexual
licence is, however, often permitted to a woman before marriage. This
in no way detracts from her good repute; even if she has given birth
to a child "she will be sure to marry later on, unless she happens to
be shockingly ugly." Nor does the child suffer, for among these
matriarchal people the bastard takes an equal place with the child
born in wedlock. The bride lives for the first few weeks with her
husband's family, during which time the marriage takes place, the
ceremony being performed by the bridegroom's mother, whose family also
provides the bride with her wedding outfit. The couple then return to
the home of the wife's parents, where they remain, either permanently,
or for some years, until they can obtain a separate dwelling. The
husband is always a stranger, and is so treated by his wife's kin. The
dwelling of his mother remains his true home, in sickness he returns
to her to be nursed, and stays with her until he is well again. Often
his position in his wife's home is so irksome that he severs his
relation with her and her family and returns to his old home. On the
other hand, it is not uncommon for the wife, should her husband be
absent, to place his goods outside the door: an intimation which he
well understands, and does not intrude himself upon her again.[132]
Lastly, among the Pueblo peoples we may consider the Sai. Like the
other tribes they are divided into exogamous _totem_ clans; descent is
traced only through the women. The tribe through various reasons has
been greatly reduced in numbers, and whole clans have died out, and
under these circumstances exogamy has ceased to be strictly enforced.
This has led to other changes. The Sai are still at least normally
monogamous. When a young man wishes to marry a girl he speaks first to
her parents; if they are willing, he addresses himself to her. On the
day of the marriage he goes alone to her home, carrying his presents
wrapped in a blanket, his father and mother having preceded him
thither. When the young people are seated together the parents address
them in turn enjoining unity and forbearance. This constitutes the
ceremony. Tribal custom requires the bridegroom to reside with the
wife's family.[133]
Now I submit to the judgment of my readers--what do these examples of
mother-right among the aboriginal tribes of America show, if not that,
speaking broadly, women were the dominant force in this early stage
of civilisation? In some instances, it is true, their power was
shared, or even taken from them, by their brothers or other male
relatives. This I believe to have been a later development--a first
step in the assertion of male-force. In all cases the alien position
of the father, without tribal rights in his wife's clan and with no
recognised authority over her children, is evident. If this is denied,
the only conclusion that suggests itself to me is, that those who seek
to diminish the importance of mother-rule have done so in
reinforcement of their preconceived idea of male superiority as the
natural and unchanging order in the relationship between the sexes. I
have no hesitation as the result of very considerable study, in
believing that it is the exact opposite of this that is true. The
mother, and not the father, was the important partner in the early
stages of civilisation; father-right, the form we find in our sexual
relationships, is a later reversal of this natural arrangement, based,
not upon kinship, but upon property. This we shall see more clearly
later.
Thomas[134] suggests another reason for the general tendency among
many investigators to lessen the importance of the mother-age
civilisations. He thinks it due to dislike in acknowledging the theory
of promiscuity (notably Westermark in his _History of Human
Marriage_). This view would seem to be connected with the mistaken
opinion that womb-kinship arose through the uncertainty of paternity.
But this was not the sole reason, or indeed the chief one, of descent
being traced through the mother. We have found mother-rule in very
active existence among the Pueblo peoples, who are monogamists, and
where the paternity of the child must be known. The modern civilised
man cannot easily accustom himself to the idea that in the old
matriarchal family the dominion of the mother was accepted as the
natural, and, therefore, the right order of society. It is very
difficult for us to accept a relationship of the sexes that is so
exactly opposite to that to which we are accustomed.
After I had written the foregoing account of mother-rule as it exists
in the continent of America, I had the exceeding good fortune to
attend a lecture given by a native Iroquois. I wish it were possible
for me to write here those things that I heard; but I could not do
this, I know, without spoiling it all. This would destroy for me what
is a very beautiful and happy memory. For to hear of a people who live
gladly and without any of those problems that are rotting away our
civilisation brings a new courage to those of us who sometimes grow
hopeless at this needless wastage of life.
The lecturer told us much of the high status and power of women among
the Iroquoian tribes. What he said, not only corroborated all I have
written, but gave a picture of mother-rule and mother-rights far more
complete than anything I had found in the records of investigators and
travellers. The lecturer was a cultured gentleman, and I learnt how
false had been my view that the race to which he belonged was
uncivilised. I learnt, too, that the Iroquoian tribes were now
increasing in numbers, and must not be looked upon as a diminishing
people. They have kept, against terrible difficulties, and are
determined to keep, their own civilisation and customs, knowing these
to be better for them than those of other races. The lecturer
astonished me by his familiarity with, and understanding of, our
social problems. He spoke, in particular, of the present revolution
among women. This, in his opinion, was due wholly to the unnatural
arrangement of our family relationship, with the father at the head
instead of the mother. There seem to be no sex-problems, no
difficulties in marriage, no celibacy, no prostitution among the
Iroquoians. All the power in the domestic relationship is in the hands
of women. I questioned the lecturer on this point. I asked him if the
women did not at times misuse their rights of authority, and if men
did not rebel? He seemed surprised. His answer was: "Of course the men
follow the wishes of the women; they are our mothers." To him there
seemed no more to be said.
III.--_Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India,
and other countries_
It is only fair to state that the question of the position of women
during the mother-age is a disputed one. Bachofen[135] was the first
to build up in his classical works of Matriarchy, the gynæcocratic
theory which places the chief social power under the system of
mother-descent in the hands of women. This view has been disputed,
especially in recent years, and many writers who acknowledge the
widespread existence of maternal descent deny that it carries with it,
except in exceptional cases, mother-rights of special advantage to
women; even when these seem to be present they believe such rights to
be more apparent than real.[136]
One suspects prejudice here. To approach this question with any
fairness it is absolutely essential to clear the mind from our current
theories regarding the family. The order is not sacred in the sense
that it has always had the same form. It is this belief in the
immutability of our form of the sexual relationship which accounts for
the prejudice with which this question is so often approached. I fully
admit the dark side of the mother-age among many peoples; its sexual
licence, often brutal in practice, its cruelties and sacrifice of
life. But these are evils common to barbarism, and are found existing
under father-right quite as frequently as under mother-right. I
concede, too, that mother-descent was not necessarily or universally a
period of mother-rule. It was not. But that it did in many cases--and
these no exceptional ones--carry with it power for women, as the
transmitters of inheritance and property I am certain that the known
facts prove.[137] Nor do I forget that cruel treatment of women was
not uncommon in matriarchal societies. I have shown how in many tribes
the power rested in the woman's brother or male relations, and in all
such cases mother-descent was really combined with a patriarchal
system, the earlier authority of the mother persisting only as a
habit. But to argue from the cases of male cruelty that mother-descent
did not confer special advantages upon women is, I think, as absurd as
it would be to state that under the fully developed patriarchal rule
(as also in our society to-day) the authority was not in the hands of
men, because cases are not infrequent in which women ill-treat their
husbands. And, indeed, when we consider the position of the husband
and father under this early system, without rights of property and
with no authority over his children, and subject to the rule either of
his wife or of her relatives, no surprise can be felt if sometimes he
resorted to cruelties, asserting his power in whatever direction
opportunity permitted. I may admit that for a long time I found it
difficult to believe in this mother-power. The finding of such
authority held by primitive woman is strange, indeed, to women to-day.
Reverse the sexes, and in broad statement the conditions of the
mother-age would be true of our present domestic and social
relationship. Little wonder, then, that primitive men rebelled,
disliking the inconveniences arising from their insecure and dependent
position as perpetual guests in their wives' homes. It is strange how
history repeats itself.
Women, from their association with the home, were the first organisers
of all industrial labour. A glance back at the mother-age civilisation
should teach men modesty. They will see that woman was the equal, if
not superior, to man in productive activity. It was not until a much
later period that men supplanted women and monopolised the work they
had started. Through their identification with the early industrial
processes women were the first property owners; they were almost the
sole creators of ownership in land, and held in respect of this a
position of great advantage. In the transactions of North American
tribes with the colonial government many deeds of assignment bear
female signatures.[138] A form of divorce used by a husband in ancient
Arabia was: "Begone, for I will no longer drive thy flocks to
pasture."[139] In almost all cases the household goods belonged to the
woman. The stores of roots and berries laid up for a time of scarcity
were the property of the wife, and the husband would not touch them
without her permission. In many cases such property was very
extensive. Among the Menomini Indians, for instance, a woman of good
circumstances would own as many as from 1200 to 1500 birch-bark
vessels.[140] In the New Mexican _pueblo_ what comes from outside the
house, as soon as it is inside is put under the immediate control of
the women. Bandelier, in his report of his tour in Mexico, tells us
that "his host at Cochiti, New Mexico, could not sell an ear of corn
or a string of chilli without the consent of his fourteen-year-old
daughter Ignacia, who kept house for her widowed father."[141]
The point we have now reached is this: while mother-descent did not
constitute or make necessary rule by women, under this system they
enjoyed considerable power as the result (1) of their position as
property-holders, (2) of their freedom in marriage and the social
habits arising from it. This conclusion will be strengthened if we
return to our examination of mother-right customs, as we shall find
them in all parts of the world. I must select a few examples from as
various countries as is possible, and describe them very briefly; not
because these cases offer less interest than the matrilineal tribes of
America, but because of the length to which this part of my inquiry is
rapidly growing.
Let us begin with Australia, where the aboriginal population is in a
more primitive condition than any other race whose institutions have
been investigated. In certain tribes the family has hardly begun to be
distinguished from kin in general. The group is divided into male and
female classes, in addition to the division into clans.[142] This is
so among the tribes of Mount Gambier, of Darling River, and of
Queensland. Marriage within the clan is strictly forbidden, and the
male and female classes of each clan are regarded as brothers and
sisters. But as every man is brother to all the sisters of his clan,
he is husband to all the women of the other clans of his tribe.
Marriage is not an individual act, it is a social condition. The
custom is not always carried out in practice, but any man of one clan
has the right, if he wishes to exercise it, to call any woman
belonging to another clan of his tribe his wife, and to treat her as
such.[143] The children of each group belong naturally to the clan of
the mother, and there is no legal parenthood between them and their
father. In the case of war the son must join the maternal tribe. But
this is not the universal rule, and in many tribes the children now
belong to the paternal clan. The paternal family is beginning to be
established in Australia, and varied artifices are used to escape from
the tribal marriage and to form unions on an individual basis.
Mother-right is still in force in parts of India, though owing to the
influence of Brahmanism on the aboriginal tribes the examples are
fewer than might be expected. This change has brought descent through
the fathers, and has involved, besides, the more or less complete
subjugation of women, with insistence on female chastity, abolition of
divorce, infant marriage, and perpetuation of widowhood.[144] Not
every tribe is yet thus revolutionised. Among the Kasias of south-east
India the husband lives with the wife or visits her occasionally.
"Laws of rank and property follow the strictest maternal rule;
when a couple separate the children remain with the mother, the
son does not succeed his father, but a raja's neglected
offspring may become a common peasant or a labourer; the
sister's son succeeds to rank and is heir to the property."[145]
This may be taken as an extreme example of the conditions among the
unchanged tribes. The Garos tribe have an interesting marriage
custom.[146] The girl chooses her lover and invites him to follow
her; any advance made on his side is regarded as an insult to the
woman's clan, and has to be expiated by presents. This marriage is
very similar to the ceremony of capture, only the actors change parts;
it is here the bridegroom who runs away, and is conducted by force to
his future wife amidst the lamentations of his relations.
Even tribes that have adopted paternal descent preserve numerous
customs of the earlier system. The husband still remains in the wife's
home for a probationary period, working for her family.[147] Women
retain rights which are inconsistent with father-rule. The choice of
her lover often remains with the girl. If a girl fancies a young man,
all she has to do is to give him a kick on the leg at the tribal dance
of the _Karama_, and then the parents think it well to hasten on a
wedding. Among Ghasiyas in United Provinces a wife is permitted to
leave her husband if he intrigues with another woman, or if he become
insane, impotent, blind or leprous, while these bodily evils do not
allow him to put her away.[148] We find relics of the early freedom
enjoyed by women in the licence frequently permitted to girls before
marriage. Even after marriage adultery within the tribal rules is not
regarded as a serious offence. Divorce is often easy, at the wish of
either the woman or the man.[149] This is the case among the Santál
tribes, which are found in Western Bengal, Northern Orissa, Bhágulpur
and the Santál Párganas.[150] It seems probable that fraternal
polyandry must formerly have been practised.
Polyandry must have been common at one time in southern India. It will
be sufficient to give a few examples. The interesting Todas tribe of
the Nil'giri Hills practise fraternal polyandry. The husbands of the
women are usually real brothers, but sometimes they are clan brothers.
The children belong to the eldest brother, who performs the ceremony
of giving the mother a miniature bow and arrow; all offspring, even if
born after his death, are counted as his until one of the other
brothers performs this ceremony. It is also allowed sometimes for the
wife to be mistress to another man besides her husbands, and any
children born of such unions are counted as the children of the
regular marriage. There is little restriction in love of any kind. In
the Toda language there is no word for adultery. It would even seem
that "immorality attaches rather to him who grudges his wife to
another man."[151]
Similarly among a fine tribe of Hindu mountaineers at the source of
the Djemmah fraternal polyandry has been proved to have existed. A
woman of this tribe, when asked how many husbands she had, answered,
"Only four!" "And all living?" "Why not?" This tribe had a high
standard of social conduct; they held lying in horror, and to deviate
from the truth even quite innocently was almost a sacrilege.[152]
To-day the Kammalaus (artisans) of Malabar practise fraternal
polyandry. The wives are said to greatly appreciate the custom; the
more husbands they have the greater will be their happiness.[153]
At another extremity of India, in Ceylon, the polyandric rule is still
common,[154] but it is particularly in lamaic Thibet that fraternal
polyandry is in full vigour, for in this country religion sanctions
the custom, and it is practised by the ruling classes.[155] Its
customs are too well known to need description. "The tyranny of man is
hardly known among the happy women of Thibet; the boot is perhaps upon
the other leg," writes Hartland.[156]
Polyandry is a survival of the group-marriage of the mother-age.[157]
It is not really dependent on, though in many cases it occurs in
connection with, the economic causes of poverty and a scarcity of
women, due to the practice of female infanticide. This form of sexual
association has evident advantages for women when compared with
polygamy. That freedom in love carried with it domestic and social
rights and privileges to women I have no longer to prove.[158]
The case of the Nâyars of Malabar, where polyandry exists with the
early system of maternal filiation, is specially instructive. It is
impossible to give the details of their curious customs. The young
girls are married when children by a rite known as tying the _tali_;
but this marriage serves only the purpose of initiation, and is often
performed by a stranger. On the fourth day the fictitious husband is
required to divorce the girl. Afterwards any number of marriages may
be entered upon[159] without any other restrictions than the
prohibitions relative to cast and tribe. These later unions, unlike
the solemn initial rite, have no ceremony connected with them, and are
entered into freely at the will of the women and their families. As a
husband the man of the Nâyars cannot be said to exist; he does not as
a rule live with his wife.[160] It is said that he has not the right
to sit down by her side or that of her children, he is merely a
passing guest, almost a stranger. He is, in fact, reduced to the
primitive rôle of the male, and is simply progenitor. "No Nâyar knows
his father, and every man looks upon his sister's children as his
heirs. A man's mother manages his family; and after her death his
eldest sister assumes the direction." The property belongs to the
family and is enjoyed by all in common (though personal division is
coming into practice under modern influences). It is directed and
administered by the maternal uncle or the eldest brother.[161]
The Malays of the Pedang Highlands of Sumatra have institutions
bearing many points of similarity with the Nâyars. On marriage neither
husband nor wife changes abode, the husband merely visits the wife,
coming at first by day to help her work in the rice-fields. Later the
visits are paid by night to the wife's house. The husband has no
rights over his children, who belong wholly to the wife's _suku_, or
clan. Her eldest brother is the head of the family and exercises the
rights and duties of a father to her children.[162] The marriage,
based on the _ambel-anak_, in which the husband lives with the wife,
paying nothing, and occupying a subordinate position, may be taken as
typical of the former conditions.[163]
But among other tribes who have come in contact with outside
influences this custom of the husband visiting the wife, or residing
in her house, is modified.
From a private correspondent, a resident in the Malay States, I have
received some interesting notes about the present condition of the
native tribes and the position of the women. In most of the Malay
States exogamous matriarchy has in comparatively modern times been
superseded by feudalism (_i.e._ father-right). But where the old
custom survives the women are still to a large extent in control. The
husband goes to live in the wife's village; thus the women in each
group are a compact unity, while the men are strangers to each other
and enter as unorganised individuals. This is the real basis of the
woman's power. In other tribes where the old custom has changed women
occupy a distinctly inferior position, and under the influence of
Islam the idea of secluding adult women has been for centuries
spreading and increasing in force.
Male kinship prevails among the Arabs, but the late Professor
Robertson Smith discovered abundant evidence that mother-right was
practised in ancient Arabia.[164] We find a decisive example of its
favourable influence on the position of women in the custom of
_beena_[165] marriage. Under such a system the wife was not only freed
from any subjection involved by the payment of a bride-price (which
always places her more or less under the authority of her husband),
but she was the owner of the tent and household property, and thus
enjoyed the liberty which ownership always entails. This explains how
she was able to free herself at pleasure from her husband, who was
really nothing but a temporary lover.[166] Ibn Batua in the fourteenth
century found that the women of Zebid were perfectly ready to marry
strangers. The husband might depart when he pleased, but his wife in
that case could never be induced to follow him. She bade him a
friendly adieu and took upon herself the whole charge of any child of
the marriage. The women in the Jâhilîya[167] had the right to dismiss
their husbands, and the form of dismissal was this: "If they lived in
a tent they turned it round, so that if the door faced east it now
faced west, and when the man saw this he knew that he was dismissed
and did not enter." The tent belonged to the woman; the husband was
received there and at her good pleasure.[168]
A further striking example of mother-right is furnished by the Mariana
Islands, where the position of women was distinctly superior.
"Even when the man had contributed an equal share of property on
marriage, the wife dictated everything and the man could
undertake nothing without her approval; but if the woman
committed an offence, the man was held responsible and suffered
the punishment. The women could speak in the assembly, they held
property, and if a woman asked anything of a man, he gave it up
without a murmur. If a wife was unfaithful, the husband could
send her home, keep her property and kill the adulterer; but if
the man was guilty, or even suspected of the same offence, the
women of the neighbourhood destroyed his house and all his
visible property, and the owner was fortunate if he escaped with
a whole skin; and if the wife was not pleased with her husband,
she withdrew and a similar attack followed. On this account many
men were not married, preferring to live with paid women."[169]
A similar case of the rebellion of men against their position is
recorded in Guinea, where religious symbolism was used by the husband
as a way of escape. The maternal system held with respect to the chief
wife.
"It was customary, however, for a man to buy and take to wife a
slave, a friendless person with whom he could deal at pleasure,
who had no kindred that could interfere for her, and to
consecrate her to his Bossum or god. The Bossum wife, slave as
she had been, ranked next to the chief wife, and was
exceptionally treated. She alone was very jealously guarded, she
alone was sacrificed at her husband's death. She was, in fact,
wife in a peculiar sense. And having, by consecration, been made
of the kindred and worship of her husband, her children could be
born of his kindred and worship."[170]
This practice of having a slave-wife who was the property of the
husband became more and more common; and was one of the causes that
led to the establishment of father-right. How this came we have now to
see.
IV.--_The Transition to Father-right_
In the preceding sections of this chapter I have collected together,
with as much exactitude as I could, many examples of the maternal
family. I want now to refer briefly to a few further cases, which will
make clearer the causes which led to the adoption of father-right.
Many countries where the patriarchal system is firmly established
retain practices which can only be explained as survivals of the
earlier custom of mother-descent.[171] It must suffice to mention one
or two examples. In Burma, which offers in this respect a curious
contrast to India, the women have preserved under father-right most of
the privileges of mother-right. This is the more remarkable as the law
of marriage and the relationship of the sexes is founded on the code
of Manu, which proclaims aloud the inferiority of woman. It is
interesting, however, to note that the code recognises only three
kinds of men: the good man, the indifferent man, and the bad man.
Women, though recognised solely in their relation as wives, are placed
in seven classes: the mother-wife, the sister-wife, the daughter-wife,
the friend-wife, the master-wife, the servant-wife, and the
slave-wife. Manu holds that the last of these, the slave-wife, is the
best wife. It is, however, certain that the interpretation of the code
in Burma was entirely opposed to any subjection of the wife. That
mother-right must have been once practised and was very firmly
established is proved by the occurrence of brother-sister marriages.
The queens of the last rulers of the country, Minden-Min and Thebaw,
were either their own or their half-sisters, and the power of
government seems to have been almost wholly in the hands of these
queens. The patriarchal custom, so far as the position of women was
concerned, is but a thread, binding them in their marriage, but
leaving them entirely free in other respects. The Burmese wife is much
more the master than the slave of her husband, though she is clever
enough as a rule not to let him feel any inconvenience from her power,
which, therefore, he accepts. The exceptional position of the women is
clearly indicated by the fact that they enter freely into trade, and,
indeed, carry out most of the business of the country. Nearly all the
shops are kept by women. In the markets, where everything that any one
could possibly want is sold, almost all the dealers are women. All
classes of the Burmese girls receive their training in these markets;
the daughters of the rich sell the costly and beautiful stuffs, the
poorer girls sell the cheaper wares. It is this training which
accounts for the business capacity shown by the women. The boys are
trained by the priests, as every boy is required, "in order to purify
his soul, to acquire a knowledge of sacred things." This explains a
great deal. It would seem that religion enforces the same penalties on
men that in most countries fall upon women. The Burmese women are very
attractive, as is testified by all who know them. The streets of the
towns are thronged with women at all hours of the day, and they show
the greatest delight in everything that is lively and gay.
Given such complete freedom of women, it is self-evident that the
sexual relationships will also be free. Very striking are the
conditions of divorce. The marriage contract can be dissolved freely
at the wish of both, or even of one, of the partners. In the first
case the family property is divided equally between the wife and the
husband, while if only one partner desires to be freed the property
goes to the partner who is left. The children of the marriage remain
with the mother while they are young; but the boys belong to the
father. I wish it were possible for me to give a fuller account of the
Burmese family. The freedom and active work of the women offer many
points of special interest. One thing further must be noted. The
Burmese women would seem not to be wholly satisfied with their power,
disliking the work and responsibility which their freedom entails. For
this reason many of them prefer to marry a Chinese husband; he works
for them, while with a husband of their own country they have to work
for him. This is very instructive. It points to what I believe to be
the truth. The loss of her freedom by woman is often the result of her
own desire for protection and her dislike of work, and is not caused
by man's tyranny. Woman's own action in this matter is not
sufficiently recognised. I must not enter upon this here, as I shall
return to the subject later in this chapter. We must now consider the
traces left by mother-descent in Japan and China.
In Japan, as among the Basques, filiation is subordinated to the
transmission of property. It is to the first-born, whether a boy or a
girl, that the inheritance is transmitted, and he or she is forbidden
to abandon it. At the time of marriage the husband or wife must take
the name of the heir or heiress who marries and personifies the
property. Filiation is thus sometimes paternal and sometimes maternal.
The maternal uncle still bears the name of "second little
father."[172] The children of the same father, but not of the same
mother, were formerly allowed to marry, a decisive proof of
mother-descent. The wife remained with her own relatives, and the
husband had the right of visiting her by night. The word commonly used
for marriage signified _to slip by night into the house_. It was not
until the fourteenth century that the husband's residence was the home
of the wife, and marriage became a continued living together by the
married pair. Even now when a man marries an only daughter he
frequently lives with her family, and the children take her name.
There is also a custom by which a man with daughters, but no son,
adopts a stranger, giving him one of his daughters in marriage; the
children are counted as the heirs of the maternal grandfather.[173]
Similar survivals are frequent in China. The patriarchate is rigidly
established, but there is evidence to show that the family in this
ancient civilisation has passed through the usual stages of
development, having for its starting-point the familial clan, and
passing from this through the stage of mother-right.[174] The Chinese
language itself attests the ancient existence of the earliest form of
marriage, contracted by a group of brothers having their wives in
common, but not marrying their sisters. Thus a Chinaman calls the sons
of his brothers "his sons," but he considers those of his sisters as
his nephews.[175] Certain of the aboriginal tribes still require the
husband to live with his wife's family for a period of seven or ten
years before he is allowed to take her to his home. The eldest child
is given to the husband, the second belongs to the family of the
wife.[176] The authority which the Chinese mother exercises over her
son's marriage and over his wife can only be explained by mother-right
customs. There are many other examples which I must pass over.
In the Island of Madagascar, with whose interesting civilisation, as
it existed before the unfortunate conquest of the country by the
French, I am personally acquainted, mother-right has left much more
than traces.[177] Great freedom in sexual relations was permitted to
the men, and in certain cases to women also. There was no word in the
native language for virgin; the word _mpitòvo_, commonly used, means
only an unmarried woman. On certain festive ceremonies the licence was
very great. The hindrances to marriage were much more stringent with
the mother's relations than with the father's. Divorce was frequent
and easy; the power to exercise it rested with the husband; but the
wife could, and often did, run away, and thus compel a divorce. A
Malagasy proverb compared marriage to a knot so lightly tied that it
could be undone by a touch. Such freedom was due to the great desire
for children; every child was welcome in the family, whatever its
origin.[178] The children belonged to the husband, and so complete
was this possession, that in the case of a divorce not only the
children previously born, but any the wife might afterwards bear, were
counted as his.
Among the ruling classes mother-right remained in its early force. The
royal family and nobility traced their descent, contrary to the
general practice, through the mother, and not through the father. The
rights of an unmarried queen were great. She was permitted to have a
family by whomsoever she wished, and her children were recognised as
legitimately royal through her. Among the Hovas not only wealth, but
political dignities, and even sacerdotal functions, were transmitted
to the nephew, in preference to the son.
In the adjacent continent of Africa we find similar privileges enjoyed
by royal women. A delightful example is given by Frazer[179] in
Central Africa, where a small state, near to the Chambezi river, is
governed by a queen, who belongs to the reigning family of Ubemba. She
bears the title _Mamfumer_, "Mother of Kings." The privileges attached
to this dignity are numerous; the husbands may be chosen at will and
from among the common people.
"The chosen man becomes prince consort, without sharing in the
government of affairs. He is bound to leave everything to follow
his royal and often little accommodating spouse. To show that in
these households the rights are inverted and that a man may be
changed into a woman, the queen takes the title of _Monsieur_
and the husband that of _Madame_." A visitor to this state,[180]
who had an interview with the queen, reports that, "she was a
woman of gigantic stature, wearing many amulets."
Battle reported that "Loango was ruled by four princes, the sons of a
former king's sister, since the sons of a king never succeed.[181]
Frazer gives an account of the tyrannical authority of the princesses
in this state.[182]
"The princesses are free to choose and divorce their husbands at
pleasure, and to cohabit at the same time with other men. The
husbands are nearly always plebeians. The lot of a prince
consort is not a happy one, for he is rather the slave and
prisoner than the mate of his imperious princess. In marrying
her he engages never more to look at a woman; when he goes out
he is preceded by guards whose duty it is to drive all females
from the road where he is to pass. If, in spite of these
precautions, he should by ill-luck cast his eyes on a woman, the
princess may have his head chopped off, and commonly exercised,
or used to exercise, the right. This sort of libertinism,
sustained by power, often carries the princesses to the greatest
excesses, and nothing is so much dreaded as their anger."
In Africa descent through women is the rule,[183] though there are
exceptions, and these are increasing. The amusing account given by
Miss Kingsley[184] of Joseph, a member of the Batu tribe in French
Congo, strikingly illustrates the prevalence of the custom. When asked
by a French official to furnish his own name and the name of his
father, Joseph was wholly nonplussed. "My fader?" he said. "Who my
fader?" Then he gave the name of his mother.
The case is the same among the Negroes. The Fanti of the Gold Coast
may be taken as an example. Among them an intensity of affection
(accounted for partly by the fact that the mothers have exclusive care
of the children) is felt for the mother, while the father is hardly
known, or disregarded, notwithstanding that he may be a wealthy and
powerful man and the legal husband of the mother.[185] The practice of
the Wamoima, where the son of a sister is preferred in legacies,
"because a man's own son is only the son of his wife," is
typical.[186] The Bush husband does not live with his wife, and often
has wives in different places. The maternal uncle supplies his place
in the family.
Wherever mother-right has progressed towards father-right, as is the
condition, broadly speaking, in the African continent, the supreme
authority is vested in the maternal uncle. The tribal duty of
blood-revenge falls to him, even against the father. Thus, in some
cases, if a woman is murdered, the duty of revenge is undertaken by
her kinsman.[187] In the state of Loango among the common people the
uncle is addressed as _tate_ (father). He has even the power to sell
his sister's children.[188] The child is so entirely the property of
the kin that he may be given in pledge for their debts. Among the
Bavili the mother has the right to pawn the child, but she must first
consult the father, so that he may have a chance of giving her goods
to save the pledging.[189] This is very plainly a step towards
father-right. There is no distinction between legitimate and
illegitimate children. Similar conditions prevail among the Alladians
of the Ivory Coast, but here the mother cannot pledge her children
without the consent of her brother or other male head of the family.
The father has the right to ransom the child.[190] An even stronger
example of the property value of children is furnished by the custom
found among many tribes, by which the father has to make a present to
the wife's kin when a child dies: this is called "buying the
child."[191]
These cases, with the inferences they suggest, show that though
mother-descent may be strongly established in Africa, this does not
confer (except to the royal princesses) any special distinction upon
women. This is explained if we recognise that a transitional period
has been reached, when, under the pressure of social, and particularly
of military activities, the government of the tribe has passed to the
male kindred of the women. It wants but a step further for the
establishment of father-right.
There are many cases pointing to this new father-force asserting
itself and pushing aside the earlier order. Again I can give one or
two examples only. Among Wayao and Mang'anja of the Shire highlands,
south of Lake Nyassa, a man on marrying leaves his own village and
goes to live in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is
allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes his wife away to
his home.[192] Whenever we find the payment of a bride-price, there is
sure indication of the decay of mother-right: woman has become
property. Among the Bassa Komo of Nigeria marriage is usually effected
by an exchange of sisters or other female relatives. The women are
supposed to be faithful to their husbands. If, however, as frequently
happens, there is a preliminary courtship period, during which the
marriage is considered as provisional, considerable licence is granted
to the woman. Chastity is only regarded as a virtue when the woman has
become the property of the husband. The men may marry as many wives as
they have sisters or female relatives to give in exchange. In this
tribe the women look after the children, but the boys, when four years
old, go to work and live with their fathers.[193] The husbands of the
Bambala tribe (inhabiting the Congo states between the rivers Inzia
and Kwilu) have to abstain from visiting their wives for a year after
the birth of each child, but they are allowed to return to her on the
payment to her father of two goats.[194] Among the Basanga on the
south-west of Lake Moeru the children of the wife belong to the
mother's kin, but the children of slaves are the property of the
father.[195]
It is rendered clear by such cases as these, that the rise of
father-right was dependent on property and had nothing to do with
blood relationship. The payment of a bride-price, the giving of a
sister in exchange, as also marriage with a slave, gained for the
husband the control over his wife and ownership of her children. I
could bring forward much more evidence in proof of this fact did the
limits of my space allow me to do this; such cases are common in all
parts of the world where the transitional stage from mother-right to
father-right has been reached. But I believe that the causes by which
the father gained his position as the dominant partner in marriage
must be clear to every one from the examples I have given. I will,
therefore, quote only one final and most instructive case. It
illustrates in a curious way the conflict between the old rights of
the woman and the rising power of the male force in connection with
marriage. It occurs among the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where
the wife passes by contract for only a portion of her time under the
authority of her husband.
"When the parents of the man and the woman meet to settle the
price of the woman, the price depends on how many days in the
week the marriage tie is to be strictly observed. The woman's
mother first of all proposes that, taking everything into
consideration, with due regard to the feelings of the family,
she could not think of binding her daughter to a due observance
of that chastity which matrimony is expected to command for more
than two days in the week. After a great deal of apparently
angry discussion, and the promise on the part of the relations
of the man to pay more, it is arranged that the marriage shall
hold good as is customary among the first families of the tribe,
for four days in the week, viz. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday, and in compliance with old established custom, the
marriage rites during the three remaining days shall not be
insisted on, during which days the bride shall be perfectly
free to act as she may think proper, either by adhering to her
husband and home, or by enjoying her freedom and independence
from all observance of matrimonial obligation."[196]
We have at length concluded our investigation of this first period of
organised society, and have ascertained many facts that we can use as
a touchstone to try the truth of the various theories that are put
forward with regard to woman and her position in the family and in the
State. The importance of the mother-age to women is evident. Thus I
offer no apology for the length at which I have treated the subject.
It has seemed to me after careful revision that no one of the examples
given can be omitted. Facts are of so much more importance than
opinions if we are to come to the truth.
Without attempting to trace exhaustively the history or even to
enumerate the peoples living, or who have lived, under mother-right
customs, we have examined many and varied cases of the actual working
of this system, with special reference to the position held by women.
The examples have been chosen from all parts of the world, so as to
prove (what is sometimes denied) that mother-right has not been
confined to any one race, that it is not a local custom under special
conditions, but that it has been a necessary stage of growth of human
societies. My aim has been to illustrate the stages through which
society passed from mother-right to father-right. It has not been
possible to arrange the evidence in any exact progressive sequence,
but I hope the cases given will make clear what I believe to have
been the general trend of growth: at first the power in the hands of
the women, but this giving way to the slow but steady usurping of the
mother's authority by the ever-assertive male.
I shall now conclude this study of the mother-age by attempting to
formulate the general truths, which, it seems to me, may be drawn from
the examples we have examined.
I. The first effort of primitive society was to establish some form of
order, and in that order the women of the group were the more stable
and predominant partners in the family relationship.
II. Impelled by the conditions of motherhood to a more settled life
than the men of the tribe, women were the first agriculturists,
weavers, dyers and dressers of skins, potters, the domesticators of
animals, the first architects, and sometimes the primitive doctors--in
a word, the inventors and organisers of the peaceful art of life.[197]
Primitive women were strong in body[198] and capable in work. The
power they enjoyed as well as their manifold activities were a result
of their position as mothers, this function being to them a source of
strength and not a plea of weakness.
III. Moral ideas, as we understand them, hardly existed. The oldest
form of marriage was what is known as "group marriage," which was the
union of two tribal groups or clans, the men of one _totem_ group
marrying the women of another, and _vice versa_, but no man or woman
having one particular wife or husband.
IV. The individual relationship between the sexes began with the
reception of temporary lovers by the woman in her own home. But as
society progressed, a relationship thus formed would tend under
favourable circumstances to be continued, and, in some cases,
perpetuated. The lover thus became the husband, but he was still
without property right, with no--or very little--control over the
woman, and none over her children, occupying, indeed, the position of
a more or less permanent guest in her hut or tent.
V. The social organisation which followed this custom was in most
cases--and always, I believe, in their primitive form--favourable to
women. Kinship was recognised through the mother, and the continuity
of the family thus depending solely on the woman, it followed she was
the holder of all property. Her position and that of her children was,
by this means, assured, and in the case of a separation it was the man
who departed, leaving her in possession. The woman was the head of the
household, and in some instances held the position of tribal chief.
VI. This early power of women, arising from the recognition alone of
womb-kinship, with the resulting freedom in sexual relationships
permitted to women, could not continue. It was no more possible for
society to be built up on mother-right alone than it is possible for
it to remain permanently based on father-right.
VII. It is important to note that the causes which led to the change
in the position of the sexes had no direct connection with moral
development; it was not due, as many have held, to the recognition of
fatherhood. The cause was quite different and was founded on property.
It arose, in the first instance, through a property value being
connected with women themselves. As soon as the women's kin began to
see in their women a means by exchange of obtaining wives for
themselves, and also the possibility of gaining worldly goods, both in
the property held by women, and by means of the service and presents
that could be claimed from their lovers, we find them exercising more
or less strict supervision over the alliances of their female
relatives.
VIII. At first, and for a long time, the early freedom of women
persisted in the widely spread custom of a preliminary period before
marriage of unrestricted sexual relationships. But permanent unions
became subject to the consent of the woman's kindred.
It was in this way, I am certain, and for no moral considerations that
the stringency of the sexual code was first tightened for women.
IX. At a much later date virginity came to have a special
market-value, from which time a jealous watch began to be kept upon
maidenhood.
It seems to me of very great importance that women should grasp firmly
this truth: the virtue of chastity owes its origin to property. Our
minds fall so readily under the spell of such ideas as chastity and
purity. There is a mass of real superstition on this question--a
belief in a kind of magic in purity. But, indeed, chastity had at
first no connection with morals. The sense of ownership has been the
seed-plot of our moral code. To it we are indebted for the first germs
of the sexual inhibitions which, sanctified by religion and supported
by custom, have, under the unreasoned idealism of the common mind,
filled life with cruelties and jealous exclusions, with suicides and
murders and secret shames.
X. This intrusion of economics into the sexual relationships brought
about the revolution in the status of women. As soon as women became
sexually marketable, their early power was doomed. First came what I
hold to have been the transitional stage of the mother-age. This will
explain how it is that, even where matrilineal descent is in full
force, we may find the patriarchal subjection of women. The mother's
authority has been usurped by her male kindred, usually her brother.
XI. We have noted the alien position of the father even among peoples
at a stage of development where paternity was fully established. This
subjection, which, perhaps, would not be felt in the earlier stage of
mother-right, must have been increased by the intrusion of the
authority of the wife's male kindred. The impulse to dominate by
virtue of strength or of property possessions has manifested itself in
every age. As society advanced property would increase in value, and
the social and political significance of its possession would also
increase. It is clear that such a position of insecurity for the
husband and father would tend to become impossible.
XII. One way of escape--which doubtless took place at a very early
stage--was by the capture of women. Side by side with the customary
marriages in which the husband resided in the home of the wife,
without rights and subject to her clan-kindred, we find the practice
of a man keeping one or more captive wives in his own home for his use
and service. It will be readily seen that the special rights in the
home over these owned wives (rights, moreover, that were recognised by
the tribe) would come to be desired by other men. But the capture of
wives was always difficult as it frequently led to a quarrel and even
warfare with the woman's tribe, and for this reason was never widely
practised. It would, therefore, be necessary for another way of escape
to be found. This was done by changing the conditions of the customary
marriage. Nor do I think it unlikely that such change may have been
received favourably by women. The captive wives may even have been
envied by the regular wife. An arrangement that would give a more
individual relationship to marriage and the protection of a husband
for herself and the children of their union may well have been
preferred by woman to her position of subjection that had now arisen
to the authority of her brother or other male relative. The alteration
from the old custom may thus be said to have been due, in part, to the
interests of the husband, but also, in part, to the inclination of the
wife.
XIII. The change was gained by elopement, by simulated capture, by the
gift or exchange of women, and by the payment of a bride-price. The
bride-price came to be the most usual custom, gradually displacing the
others. As we have seen, it was often regarded as a condition, not of
the marriage itself, but of the transfer of the wife to the home of
the husband and of the children to his kin.
XIV. It was in this way, for economic reasons, and the personal needs
of both the woman and the man, and not, I believe, specially through
the fighting propensities of the males, and certainly not by any
unfair domination or tyranny on the part of the husband that the
position of the sexes was reversed.
XV. But be this as it may, to woman the result was no less
far-reaching and disastrous. She had become the property of one
master, residing in her husband's tribe, which had no rights or duties
in regard to her, where she was a stranger, perhaps speaking a
different language. And her children kept her bound to this alien home
in a much closer way than the husband could ever have been bound to
her home under the earlier custom. Woman's early power rested in her
organised position among her own kin: this was now lost.
XVI. The change was not brought about quickly. For long the mother's
influence persisted as a matter of habit. We have its rather empty
shadow with us to-day.
XVII. But, under the pressure of the new conditions, the old custom of
tracing descent and the inheritance of property in the female line (so
favourable to women) died. Mother-right passed away, remaining only as
a tradition, or practised in isolated cases among primitive peoples.
The patriarchal age, which still endures, succeeded. Women became
slaves, who of old had been dominant.
One final word more.
The opinion that the subjection of women arose from male mastery, or
was due to any special cruelty, must be set aside. To me the history
of the mother-age does not teach this. I believe this charge could not
have arisen, at all events it would not have persisted, if women, with
the power they then enjoyed, had not desired the gaining of a closer
relationship with the father of their children. With all the evils
that father-right has brought to woman, we have got to remember that
woman owes the individual relation of the man to herself and her
children to the patriarchal system. The father's right in his children
(which, unlike the right of the mother, was not founded on kinship,
but rested on the quite different and insecure basis of property) had
to be established. Without this being done, the family in its full and
perfect development was impossible. We women need to remember this,
lest bitterness stains our sense of justice. It may be that progress
social and moral could not have been accomplished otherwise; that the
cost of love's development has been the enslavement of woman. If so,
then women will not, in the long account of Nature, have lost in the
payment of the price. They may be (when they come at last to
understand the truth) better fitted for their refound freedom.
Neither mother-right alone, nor father-right alone, can satisfy the
new ideals of the true relationship of the sexes. The spiritual force,
slowly unfolding, that has uplifted, and is still uplifting,
womanhood, is the foundation of woman's claim that the further
progress of humanity is bound up with her restoration to a position of
freedom and human equality. But this position she must not take from
man--that, indeed, would be a step backwards. No, she is to share it
with him, and this for her own sake and for his, and, more than all,
for the sake of their children and all the children of the race.
This replacement of the mother side by side with the father in the
home and in the larger home of the State is the true work of the
Woman's Movement.
FOOTNOTES:
[97] It is abundantly evident to any one who looks carefully into the
past that sex occupied a large share of the consciousness of primitive
races. The elaborate courtship rites and sex festivals alone give
proof of this. It is, unfortunately, impossible for me to follow this
question and give examples. I must refer the reader to H. Ellis's
_Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. pp. 34-44, where a number of typical
cases are given of the courtship customs of the primitive peoples. See
also Thomas, _Sex and Society_, chapter on "The Psychology of
Exogamy," pp. 175-179.
[98] This is the mistake that Westermark--in his valuable _History of
Human Marriage_--as well as many writers have fallen into; assuming
that because monogamy is found among man's nearest ancestors, the
anthropoid apes, primitive human groups must have had a tendency
towards monogamy. Whereas the exact opposite of this is true. There
is, it would seem, a deeply rooted dislike in studying sex matters to
face truth. This habit of fear explains the many elaborate efforts
undertaken to establish the theory that primitive races practised a
stricter sexual code than the facts prove. Letourneau, in _The
Evolution of Marriage_, appears to adopt this view, and forces
evidence in trying to prove the non-existence of a widespread early
period of promiscuity (pp. 37-44). Mention may be made, on the other
side, of Iwan Bloch, who, writing from a different standpoint and much
deeper psychology, has no doubt at all of the early existence of, and
even the continued tendency towards, promiscuity.--_The Sexual Life of
Our Times_, pp. 188-195.
[99] Our knowledge of the habits of primitive races has increased
greatly of late years. The classical works of Bachofen, Waitz,
Kulischer, Giraud-Teulon, von Hellwald, Krauss, Ploss-Bartels and
other ethnologists, and the investigation of Morgan, McLennan, Müller,
and many others, have opened up wide sources of information.
[100] Thomas, _Sex and Society_, p. 68, and Letourneau, _Evolution of
Marriage_, pp. 269-270, 320.
[101] Lubbock, _Origin of Civilisation_, p. 9.
[102] This opinion is founded on the anthropological investigations
during the past half century. See Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_,
Vol. I. pp. 256-257; H. Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. pp.
390-382, and "The Changing Status of Women," _Westminster Review_,
October 1886; Thomas, _Sex and Society_, p. 58, and Bloch, _Sexual
History of our Times_, pp. 190-196.
[103] For a full and illuminative treatment of this subject I would
refer my readers to the essays of Professor Karl Pearson, _The Chances
of Death_, Vol. II.--"Woman as Witch: Evidences of Mother-Right in the
Customs of Mediæval Witchcraft"; "Ashiepattle, or Hans Seeks his
Luck"; "Kindred Group Marriage," Part I.; "The Mother-Age
Civilisation," Part II.; "General Words for Sex and Kinship," Part
III.; "Special Words for Sex and Relationship." In these suggestive
essays Professor Pearson has brought together a great number of facts
which give a new and charming significance to the early position of
women. Perhaps the most interesting essay is that of "Woman as Witch,"
in which he shows that the beliefs and practices connected with
mediæval witchcraft were really perverted rites, survivals of
mother-age customs.
[104] Bede, II. 1-7.
[105] F. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, Pt. I. _The Magic Art_, Vol. II. pp.
282-283. Canute's marriage was clearly one of policy: Emma was much
older than he was, she was then living in Normandy, and it is doubtful
if the Danish king had ever seen her. Such marriages with the widow of
a king were common. The familiar example of Hamlet's uncle is one,
who, after murdering his brother, married his wife, and became king.
His acceptance by the people, in spite of his crime, is explained if
it was the old Danish custom for marriage with the king's widow to
carry the kingdom with it. In Hamlet's position as avenger, and his
curious hesitancy, we have really an indication of the conflict
between the old and new ways of reckoning descent.
[106] Strabo, IV. 5, 4. Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, Vol. II. p.
132. It must not be thought that mother-descent was always accompanied
by promiscuity, or even with what we should call laxity of morals. We
shall find that it was not. But the early custom of group marriages
was frequent, in which women often changed their mates at will, and
perhaps retained none of them long. We shall see that this freedom,
whatever were its evils, carried with it many privileges for women.
[107] H. Ellis, citing Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, _The Welsh People_, p.
214.
[108] Gen. xxiv. 5-53.
[109] Gen. xxxi. 41, 43.
[110] Judges xv. 1.
[111] Num. xxxii. 8-11.
[112] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 326.
[113] Num. xxxvi. 4-8.
[114] Gen. xii.
[115] 2 Sam. xiii. 16.
[116] Exod. vi. 20.
[117] Gen. xi. 26-29.
[118] See Thomas, _Sex and Society_, pp. 63-64.
[119] Morgan, _House and House-life of the American Aborigines_, p.
64. This example of mother-descent may be taken as typical of Indian
life in all parts of America at the epoch of European discovery.
[120] Morgan, _Anc. Soc._, 62, 71, 76; Hartland, _Primitive
Paternity_, Vol. I. p. 298, Vol. II. p. 65.
[121] McLennan, _Studies_, I. p. 271. Thus among the Choctas, if a boy
is to be placed at school, his uncle, instead of his father, takes him
to the mission and makes arrangements.
[122] Report of an Official for Indian Affairs on two of the Iroquoian
tribes, cited by Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 298. McLennan
attributes the arrangement of the marriages to the mothers (_Studies_,
ii. p. 339). This would be the earlier custom and is still practised
among several tribes.
[123] Charlevoix, V. p. 418, quoted by Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II.
p. 66.
[124] The customs of the Senecas have been noted by the Rev. A.
Wright, who was a missionary for many years amongst them, and was
familiar with their language and habits. His account is quoted by
Morgan, _House and House-life of the American Aborigines_.
[125] We seem here to have a suggestion of the modern plan of
co-operative dwelling-houses. It is extraordinary how many of our new
(!) ideas seem to have been common in the mother-age. Was it because
women, who are certainly more practical and careful of detail than men
are, had part in the social arrangements? This would explain the
revival of the same ideas to-day, when women are again taking up their
part in the ordering of domestic and social life.
[126] Powell, _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, I, p. 63.
[127] Owen, _Musquakies_, p. 72, quoted by Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol.
II. pp. 68-69.
[128] I have summarised the account of the Wyandot government as given
by Hartland, who quotes from Powell's "Wyandot Government," _First
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1879-1880_, pp. 61
ff.
[129] "The Beginning of Marriage," _American Anthropologist_, Vol. IX.
p. 376. _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, XVII. p. 275.
[130] This is supposed by McGee to suggest a survival of a vestigial
polyandry.
[131] Mrs. Stevenson, _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, XXIII. pp. 290, 293. Cushing,
_Zuñi Folk Tales_, p. 368, cited by Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. pp.
73, 74.
[132] _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, XIII. p. 340. Solberg, _Zeits. f. Ethnol._,
XXXVII. p. 269. Voth, _Traditions of the Hopi_, pp. 67, 96, 133.
Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. pp. 74-76.
[133] _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, IX. p. 19. Hartland, _Ibid._, pp. 76-77. It
would seem in some cases, the husband, after a period of residence
with his wife's family, provides a separate house.
[134] _Sex and Society_, pp. 65-66.
[135] Bachofen's work was foreshadowed by an earlier writer, Father
Lafiteau, who published his _Moeurs des sauvages américains_ in 1721.
_Das Mutterrecht_ was published in 1861. McLennan, ignorant of
Bachofen's work, followed immediately after with his account of the
Indian Hill Tribes. He was followed by Morgan, with his knowledge of
Iroquois, and many other investigators.
[136] Lord Avebury, for example, says: "I believe that communities in
which women have exercised supreme power were quite exceptional,"
_Marriage, Totemism and Religion_, p. 51. See also Letourneau,
_Evolution of Marriage_, pp. 281-282.
[137] In this opinion I am glad to have the support of so high an
authority as Mr. Havelock Ellis. See his admirable summary of this
question, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. pp. 390-393; also the essay
already referred to, "Changing Status of Women," _Westminster Review_,
Oct. 1886.
[138] Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, Vol. II. p. 130; see Thomas, _op.
cit._, chapter on "Sex and Primitive Industry."
[139] Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 65.
[140] Hoffman, "The Menomini Indians," _Fourteenth Rep. of the Bur. of
Am. Ethno._, p. 288.
[141] Papers of the _Arch. Inst. of Am._, Vol. II. p. 138.
[142] Fison and Howitt, _Native Tribes of Australia_; also _Kamilaroi_
and _Kurnai_, pp. 33, 65, 66. See also Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. I.
p. 294.
[143] Letourneau, _op. cit._, pp. 44, 271-274. Thomas, _op. cit._, p.
61.
[144] Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, Vol. II. pp. 155-156, 39-41.
[145] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 54; also Tylor, "The
Matriarchal System," _Nineteenth Century_, July 1896, p. 89.
[146] Dalton, _op. cit._, p. 63, cited by Hartland. I would suggest
that Mr. Bernard Shaw may have had this marriage custom in his mind
when he created Ann. See p. 66.
[147] This custom prevails, for instance, among the Kharwârs and
Parahiya tribes, and is common among the Ghasiyas, and is also
practised among the Tipperah of Bengal. Among the Santâls this
service-marriage is used when a girl is ugly or deformed and cannot be
married otherwise, while the Badagas of the Nil'giri Hills offer their
daughters when in want of labourers.
[148] Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, iii. p. 242.
[149] Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. pp. 156, 157.
[150] Risley, _The Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, Vol. I. pp. 228, 231.
[151] Rivers, _The Todas_; Schrott, _Tras. Ethno. Soc._ (New Series),
Vol. VIII. p. 261.
[152] Letourneau, quoting Skinner, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 78.
[153] Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 114.
Polyandry has flourished not only among the primitive races of India.
The Hindoo populations also adopted it, and traces of the custom may
be found in their sacred literature. Thus in the _Mahäbhärata_ the
five Pándava brothers marry all together the beautiful Drûaupadi, with
eyes of lotus blue (_Mahäbhärata_, trad. Fauche, t. II. p. 148). For
an account of polyandry in ancient India the reader should consult
Jolly, _Gundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde_.
[154] Davy, _Ceylon_, p. 286; Sachot, _L'Île de Ceylon_, p. 25.
[155] Turner, _Thibet_, p. 348, and _Hist. Univ. des, Voy._, Vol.
XXXI. p. 434; Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 36.
[156] Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. p. 164.
[157] This is the opinion of Bernhöft, quoted by Iwan Bloch. Marshall
points out that among the Todas group-marriages occur side by side
with polyandry. Bloch also notes that in the common cases where the
husband has a claim on his wife's sister, and even her cousins and
aunts, we find polygamy developed out of group-marriage. The practice
of wife lending and wife exchange is also connected with the early
communal marriage (_Sexual History of Our Times_, pp. 193-194). It is
possible that prostitution may be a relic of this early sexual
freedom. What is moral in one stage of civilisation often becomes
immoral in another, when the reasons for its existing have changed.
[158] Havelock Ellis writing on this subject ("Changing Status of
Women," _Nineteenth Century_, Oct. 1886) says: "It seems that in the
dawn of the race an elaborate social organisation permitted a more or
less restricted communal marriage, every man in the tribe being at the
outset the husband of every woman, first practically, then
theoretically, and that the social organisation which had this point
of departure was particularly favourable to women."
[159] It is a matter of dispute whether a woman may have more than one
husband at a time. The older accounts state this, while later it has
been denied. The probability is that this was the custom, but that it
is dying out under modern influences. Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p.
267.
[160] In north Malabar a custom has arisen by which after a special
ceremony the bridegroom is allowed to take the bride to live in his
house, but in the case of his death she must at once return to her own
family.
[161] _J.A.I._, XII. p. 292; Hartland, _op. cit._, p. 288. Letourneau,
apparently quoting Bachofen, says that the women control property.
This was probably an earlier custom, when the power was more truly in
the hands of women, and had not passed to their male relatives.
[162] Wilken, _Verwantschap_, p. 678; _Bijdragen_, XXXI. p. 40.
[163] Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. p. 291. A second
form of marriage, known as Jujur, was also practised. It was much more
elaborate, and shows very instructively the rise of father-right. By
it the authority of the husband over his wife is asserted by a very
complicated system of payments; his right to take her to his home, and
his absolute property in her depending wholly on these payments. If
the final sum is paid (but this is not commonly claimed except in the
case of a quarrel between the families) the woman becomes to all
intents the slave of the man; but if on the other hand, as is not at
all uncommon, the husband fails or has difficulty in making the main
payment, he becomes the debtor of his wife's family and is practically
a slave, all his labour being due to his creditor without any
reduction in the debt, which must be paid in full, before he regains
liberty. (See Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, pp. 225, 235, 257, 262,
for an account of both marriages.)
[164] _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia._
[165] Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._, pp. 391-392, quoting Robertson
Smith.
[166] Barlow, _Semitic Origins_, p. 45.
[167] Robertson Smith, _op. cit._, p. 65.
[168] This kind of union for a term is said to have been recognised by
Mahommed, though it is irregular by Moslem law. The cases of _beena_
marriage are very frequent among widely different peoples. (See
Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, Vol. II. pp. 11, 13, 14, 19, 20, 24,
27, 30-36, 38, 41-43, 51, 53, 55, 60-63, 67-72, 76, 77.) Frazer
(_Academy_, March 27, 1886) cites an interesting example among the
tribes on the north frontier of Abyssinia, partially Semitic peoples,
not yet under the influence of Islam, who preserve a system of
marriage closely resembling the _beena_ marriage, but have as well a
purchase marriage, by which a wife is acquired by payment of a
bride-price and becomes the property of her husband. (Quoted by Ellis,
_op. cit._, p. 392 _note_.)
[169] Thomas, _Sex and Society_, pp. 73-74. Quoting Waitz-Gerland,
_Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, Vol. V. p. 107.
[170] McLennan, _The Patriarchal Theory_, p. 235.
[171] Thomas, _op. cit._, p. 75, points out that this survival of
woman's power after the rise of father-right is similar to the
assertion of male-power under mother-right in the person of the
woman's brother or male relative.
[172] Letourneau, _op. cit._, p. 323, who quotes Lubbock, _Orig.
Civil._, p. 177.
[173] Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 14, citing Morgan, _Systems of
Consanguinity_.
[174] Letourneau, _op. cit._, p. 323.
[175] Morgan, _Systems of Consanguinity_ ("Smithsonian
Contributions"), Vol. XVII. pp. 416-417.
[176] Hartland, Vol. II. p. 45, quoting Gray, _China_, Vol. II. p.
304.
[177] This is the opinion of Hartland. He quotes Ellis, _History of
Madagascar_, and Sibree, _The Great African Island_. I am able to
speak as to the truths of the facts given in their books from my
knowledge of the Malagasy before the French occupation of the island.
Madagascar is my birth-place, and my father was a missionary in the
country at the same time as Mr. Ellis and Mr. Sibree.
[178] As an instance of the importance attached to children, I may
mention the fact that, after my birth my father was not announced to
preach under his own name, but as "the father of Kéteka," the Malagasy
equivalent of my name.
[179] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, Pt. I. _The Magical Art_, Vol. II. p.
277.
[180] Father Guillemé, Missiones Catholiques, XXXIV. (1902), p. 16.
[181] Lubbock, _Origin of Civilisation_, p. 151.
[182] Frazer, _Ibid._, p. 276.
[183] "Birth," we are told by a keen observer, who has lived for many
years in intimate converse with the natives, "sanctifies the child;
birth alone gives him status as a member of his mother's family"
(Dennett, _Jour. Afr. Soc._, I. p. 265).
[184] _Travels_, p. 109.
[185] Hartland, quoting Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, _op. cit._,
Vol. I. p. 286.
[186] Lippert, _Kulturgeschichte_, Vol. II. p. 57.
[187] This is done among the Beni Amer on the shores of the Red Sea
and in the Barka valley, which is the more remarkable as
mother-descent has fallen into desuetude under the influence of
Islamism. (Hartland, Vol. I. p. 274, quoting Munzinger,
_Ostafrikanische studien_.)
[188] Bastian, _Loango-Küste_, I. p. 166.
[189] Dennett, _Jour. Afr. Soc._, I. p. 266.
[190] _Jour. Afr. Soc._, I. p. 412. See Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. I,
pp. 275-288.
[191] A similar custom prevails among Maori people of New Zealand.
When a child dies, or even meets with an accident, the mother's
relations, headed by her brother, turn out in force against the
father. He must defend himself until wounded. Blood once drawn the
combat ceases; but the attacking party plunders his house and
appropriates the husband's property, and finally sits down to a feast
provided by him (_Old New Zealand_, p. 110). This case is the more
extraordinary as the Maori reckon descent through the father; it is
doubtless a custom persisting from an earlier time.
[192] Macdonald, _Africana_, Vol. I. p. 136.
[193] _Jour. Afr. Soc._, VIII. pp. 15-17. This tribe now traces
descent through the father.
[194] Torday and Joyce, _J.A.I._, XXXV. p. 410.
[195] Arnot, _Garenganze_, p. 242.
[196] Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_, Vol. V. p. 8, citing
Petherick, _Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa_, pp. 140-144. This
case is quoted by Thomas, _op, cit._, pp. 85, 86.
[197] For fuller information on this important subject the reader is
referred to Professor Otis Mason, who gives a picturesque summary of
the work done by women among the primitive tribes of America
(_American Antiquarian_, January 1889, "The Ulu, or Woman's Knife of
the Eskimo," _Report of the United States National Museum_, 1890). H.
Ellis, _Man and Woman_, pp. 1-17, and Thomas, _Sex and Society_, pp.
123-146, give interesting accounts of the division of labour among
primitive people, showing the important part women took in the start
of industrialism. For direct examples from primitive peoples, the
works of Fison and Howit, James Macdonald, Professor Haddow, Hearn,
Morgan, Bancroft, Lubbock, Ratzel, Schoolcroft and other
anthropologists should be consulted.
[198] It is an entirely mistaken view, founded on insufficient
knowledge, that in early civilisations women were a source of weakness
to the men of the tribe or group, and, thus, liable to oppression. The
very reverse is the truth. Fison and Howit, who discuss the question,
say of the Australian women, "In time of peace they are the hardest
workers and the most useful members of the community." In time of war,
"they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves at all times,
and so far from being an encumbrance on the warriors, they will fight,
if need be, as bravely as the men, and with even greater ferocity"
(_Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 133-147, 358). This is no exceptional
case, and is confirmed by the reports of investigators of widely
different peoples. I may mention the ancient Iberian women of Northern
Spain, whose bravery in battle is testified to by Strabo: the
descendants of these women still carry on the greater part of the
active labour connected with agriculture (_Spain Revisited_, pp.
191-292). In our own day we have the witness to the same truth in the
heroic part taken by women in the Balkan army.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII
WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY
I.--_In Egypt_
The importance of estimating woman's position in the great
civilisations of the ancient world--The Egyptian
civilisation--Women more free and more honoured than in any
country to-day--The account given by Herodotus--The Egyptian
woman never confined to the home--No restraint upon her
actions--She entered into commerce in her own right and made
contracts for her own benefit--Abundant material in proof of
the high status of Egyptian women--Marriage contracts--Their
importance and interest--Numerous examples--The proprietary
rights of the wife--An early period of mother-rule--Property
originally in the hands of women--The marriage contracts a
development of the early system--The Egyptians solved the
difficult problem of the fusion of mother-right with
father-right--The statement of Dioderus that among the
Egyptians the woman rules over the man--The conditions of
marriage dependent on the birth of children--M. Paturet's view
the Egyptian woman the equal of man--The high status of woman
proved by the fact that her child was never illegitimate--The
position of the mother secure in every relationship between the
sexes--This made possible by the free conditions of the
marriage contracts--Polygamy allowed--This practice in Egypt
very different from polygamy in a patriarchal society--The
husband a privileged guest in the home of the wife--The high
ideal of the domestic relationship--Illustrations from the
inscriptions of the monuments--Reasons which explain this
civilised and human organisation--The Egyptians an agricultural
and a conservative people--They were also a pacific race--The
significance of the Maxims of the Moralists--Honour to the wife
and the mother strongly insisted on--The health and character
of the Egyptian mother--Some reflections in the Egyptian
Galleries of the British Museum.
II.--_In Babylon_
Traces of mother-right in primitive Babylon--The honour paid to
women--The position of women in later Babylonian history,
though still at an early period--Their rights more
circumscribed--The marriage code of Hammurabi--Polygamy
permitted, though restricted, by the code--The exacting
conditions of divorce--The position of the wife as subject to
her husband--The later Neo-Babylonian periods--The position
of women continuously improving--They obtain a position equal
in law with their husbands--Their freedom in all social
relations--They conduct business transactions in their own
right--Illustrations from the contract tablets--Remarks and
conclusion.
III.--_In Greece_
Traces of mother-right traditions in Greek literature and
history--The women of the Homeric period--Dangers arising
from the patriarchal subjection of women--Illustrations and
various reflections--Historic Greece--The social organisation
of Sparta--Their marriage system--The laws of Lycurgus--The
freedom of the Spartan girls--The wise care for the health of
the race--Plato's criticism of the Spartan system--He accuses
the women of ruling their husbands--The Athenian women--Their
subjection under the strict patriarchal rule--The insistence
on chastity--Reasons for this--The degraded position of the
wife--The _hetairæ_--They the only educated women in
Athens--Aspasia--She leads the movement to raise the position
of the Athenian women--Plato's estimate of women--Remarks on
the sexual penalties for women that are always found under a
strict patriarchal regime--The ideal relationship between the
wife and the husband--Euripides voices the sorrows of
women--He foreshadows their coming triumph.
IV.--_In Rome_
Little known of the position of women in Rome in prehistoric
times--Indications of an early period of mother-rule--The
patriarchal system formerly established when Roman history
opens--The Roman marriage law--The woman regarded as the
property first of her father and afterwards of her
husband--The patrician marriage of _confarreatio_--The form
known as _coemptio_--Marriage by _usus_--The inequality of
divorce--The subjection of the woman--The terrible right of
the husband's _manus_--The way of escape--The development of
the early marriage by _usus_--The new free marriage by
consent--Free divorce--A revolution in the position of
women--The patriarchal rule of women dwindled to a mere
thread--They gained increasingly greater liberty until at
last they gained complete freedom--The public entry of women
into the affairs of State--Illustrations to show the fine use
made by the Roman matrons of their freedom--An examination
into the supposed licentiousness of Roman women--This opinion
cannot be accepted--The effect of Christianity--The view of
Sir Henry Maine--Some concluding remarks on the position of
women in the four great civilisations examined in this
chapter.
CHAPTER VII
WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY
I.--_In Egypt_
"If we consider the status of woman in the great empires of
antiquity, we find on the whole that in their early stage, the
stage of growth, as well as in their final stage, the stage of
fruition, women tend to occupy a favourable position, while in
their middle stage, usually the stage of predominating military
organisation on a patriarchal basis, women usually occupy a less
favourable position. This cyclic movement seems to be almost a
natural law of development of great social
groups."--HAVELOCK ELLIS.
The civilisations through which I am now going to follow the history
of woman, in so far as they offer any special features of interest to
our inquiry into woman's character and her true place in the social
order, belong to the great civilisations of the ancient world,
civilisations, moreover, that have deeply influenced human culture. It
forms the second part of our historical investigation. There can be no
doubt of its interest to us, for if we can prove that women have
exercised unquestioned and direct authority in the family and in the
State, not only among primitive peoples, but in stable civilisations
of vital culture, we shall be in a position to answer those who wish
to set limits to women's present activities.
It is necessary to enter into this inquiry with caution: the
difficulties before me are very great. Again, it is not in any
scarcity of evidence, but in its superabundance that the trouble
rests. It is hard to condense the social habits of peoples into a few
dozen pages. Nothing would be easier than from the mass of material
available to pile up facts in furnishing a picture of the high status
of woman that would unnerve any upholders of female subordination. It
is just possible, on the other hand, to interpret these facts from a
fixed point of thought, and then to argue that, in spite of her power,
woman was still regarded as the inferior of man.[199] I wish to do
neither. It is my purpose to outline the domestic relationships and
the family law and customs as they existed in Egypt and in Babylon, in
Greece and in Rome; to touch the features of social life only in so
far as they illustrate this, and so to discover to what extent the
mother was still regarded as the natural transmitter of property and
head of the household. The subject is an immensely complicated and
seductive one, so that I must keep strictly to the path set by this
inquiry.
Let us turn first to Egypt.
We have so rich a collection of the remains of the ancient Egyptian
civilisation, and so careful and industrious a scholarship has been
given to interpret them, that we can with confidence reconstruct in
outline the legal status and proprietary rights enjoyed by women,
which gave them a position more free and more honoured than they have
in any country of the world to-day. This is not an overestimate of the
facts. The security of her proprietary rights made the Egyptian woman
the legal head of the household, she inherited equally with her
brothers, and had full control of her own property. She was
juridically the equal of man, having the same rights, with the same
freedom of action, and being honoured in the same way.
The position of woman in Egypt is, indeed, full of surprises to the
modern believer in woman's subjection. Herodotus, who was a keen
observer, was the first to record his astonishment. He writes--
"They have established laws and customs opposite for the most
part to those of the rest of mankind. With them the women go to
market and traffic; the men stay at home and weave.... The men
carry burdens on their heads, the women on their shoulders....
The boys are never forced to maintain their parents unless they
wish to do so, the girls are obliged to, even if they do not
wish it."[200]
There is probably some exaggeration in this account, but it is certain
that the wide activities of the free Egyptian women were never
confined to the home. An important part was taken by her in industrial
and commercial life. In these relations and in social intercourse it
is allowed on all hands woman's position was remarkably free.[201] The
records of the monuments show her to have been as actively concerned
in all the affairs of her day, war alone excepted, as her father, her
husband, or her sons.[202] No restraint was placed upon her actions,
she appears eating and also drinking freely, and taking her part in
equal enjoyment with men in social scenes and religious ceremonies.
She was able to enter into commerce in her own right and to make
contracts for her own benefit. She could bring actions, and even plead
in the courts. She practised the art of medicine. As priestess she had
authority in the temples. Frequently as queen she was the highest in
the land. One of the greatest monarchs of Egypt was Hatschepsut,[203]
B.C. 1550. "The mighty one!" "Conqueror of all Lands!" Queen in her
own right by the will of her father, Thothmes I.
The material in proof of this high status of Egyptian women is
abundant. It consists partly of the descriptions of Greek travellers,
partly of the numerous and interesting marriage contracts, and partly
of inscriptions and passages in the writings of the moralists, all of
which testify to the beautiful and happy family relationships and
usual honour in which women were held, which is further illustrated by
incidents in the ancient stories. Of these the marriage contracts are
the most important for our purpose.
The fullest information relates to the latest period of independent
Egyptian history, when the position of women stood highest, but some
of the contracts reach back to the time of King Bocchoris, and there
are a few of an even earlier date. I wish that I had space to quote
some of these marriage contracts in full: they are very instructive,
and open out many paths of new suggestion.[204] I would commend their
study to all those who are questioning the institution of marriage as
it stands to-day on the rights of the patriarchal family system, by
which the woman is considered the inferior, and submits herself and is
subordinate to the man as the ruler of the family. The issue really
rests at its root upon this--is the mother or the father to be
regarded as the natural transmitter of property and head of the
family. Our decision here will affect our outlook on the entire
relation of the sexes. The Egyptians decided on the right of the
mother. Their marriage contracts seem to have been entirely in favour
of women. There was no sale of the bride by her parents, but the
bride-price went to her; her own property also remained in her own
charge and was at her own disposal. The husband stipulates in the
contracts how much he will give as a yearly allowance for her support,
and the entire property of the husband is pledged as security for
these payments, whilst the wife is further protected by a dowry[205]
or charge on the husband, to be paid to her in the event of his
sending her away.
It will readily be seen how advantageous these proprietary rights must
have been to the wife. She was able to claim either the fidelity of
her husband or freedom for herself to leave him--and in some cases for
both together, her property being secured to her and her children. In
one contract by which the husband gives his wife one-third of all his
property, present and to come, he values the movables she brought with
her, and promises her the equivalent in silver. "If thou stayest, thou
stayest with them, if thou goest away, thou goest away with
them."[206] The importance of this right of free separation to women
can hardly be over-estimated. Nietzold says the wife has absolutely
nothing to lose, even when she is the guilty party.[207] Some of the
marriage contracts are even more favourable to women; in these the
husband literally endows his wife with all his worldly goods,
"stipulating only that she is to maintain him while living, and
provide for his burial when dead."[208] M. Paturet distinguishes two
forms of marriage settlements, one which secures to the wife an annual
pension of specified amount--usually one-third of the property of the
husband--and the other, probably the older custom, which established a
complete community of goods. The earlier contracts are much less
detailed, due probably to the fact that the position of the
established wife was then fixed by custom; but there seems no doubt
that the equal lawful wife, she whose proper title is "lady of the
house," was also joint ruler and mistress of the family heritage.[209]
There is a very curious early contract of the time of Darius I, in
which the usual stipulation of latter contracts are reversed, the wife
speaking of the man being established as her husband, acknowledging
the receipt of a sum of money as dowry, and undertaking that if she
deserts or disposes of him, a third part of all her goods, present and
to come, shall be forfeited to him.[210]
The high honour, freedom and proprietary rights enjoyed by the
Egyptian wife can only be explained as being traceable to an early
period of mother-right. Here the ancient privileges of women have
persisted, not as an empty form, but would seem to have been adopted
because of their advantage in the family relationship, and been
incorporated with father-right. This would account for the last-named
contract. Its very ancient date seems clearly to point to this. It is
unlikely that, if it were an exceptional form, it should have chanced
to be one of the very few early contracts that have been
preserved.[211] It would rather seem that property was originally
entirely in the hands of women, as is usual under the matriarchal
system. The Egyptian marriage law was simply a development of this,
enforcing by agreement what would occur naturally under the earlier
custom. The interests of the children's inheritance was the chief
object of the settlement of property on the wife. In the earlier
stage, the daughter inheriting property from her parents, would
marry--the husband would then become its joint administrator, but not
its owner; it would pass by custom to the children with the eldest as
administrator, but if the wife dismissed the husband, as under this
system she could and often did, she would of right retain the family
property in control for the children.[212] As society advanced this
older custom would tend to break up in favour of individual ownership,
property would come to belong to the husband and father, and it would
then be necessary to ensure the position of the wife and children by
contract. The Egyptian marriage may thus be regarded as a development
of the individual relationship arising from father-right modified to
conform with the mother-right custom of transmitting property through
the woman. Under the earlier system the inheritance of the husband
would pass to the children of his sister, and not to his own children.
The contract was, therefore, made to prevent this. The husband's
property was passed over to the wife (at first entirely and later in
part) to secure its inheritance by the children of the marriage. Hence
the formula common to these contracts by which the husband declares to
the wife, "My eldest son, thy eldest son, shall be the heir to all my
property present and to come." The only difference to the earlier
custom was the prominence given to the eldest child (a son) in the
contract.
This gift by the husband of his property to the wife, which made her a
joint partner with him in all the family transactions, while at the
same time she retained complete control over her own property, clearly
placed the woman and her children in the same position of security as
she had held during the mother-age; and added to this she gained the
individual protection and support of the father in the family
relationship. Doubtless it was this freedom and right over property,
which explains the frequent cases in which the Egyptian women
conducted business transactions, and also their active participation
in the administration of the social organisation. Equal partners with
their husbands in the administration of the home, they became partners
with men in the wider administration of the State. It was in such wise
way that the Egyptians arranged the difficult problem of the fusion of
mother-right with father-right.
One result of these marriage contracts, giving apparently great power
to the wife, arose out of the mortgage on the husband's property as
security for the wife's settlement; her consent became necessary to
all his acts. Thus it is usual for the husband's deeds to be endorsed
by the wife, while he did not endorse hers. In some cases the wife's
consent seems to have been necessary even in the case of the initial
mortgage, when the only possible explanation is that the wife was
regarded as co-proprietor with the husband, and therefore had to be
party to any act disposing of the joint estate.[213]
Such a custom was apparently so wholly in favour of the wife,
reversing the customary position of the man and the woman in the
marriage partnership, that in the light of these contracts we
understand the statement of Diodorus, when he says that "among the
Egyptians the woman rules over the man"; though plainly he has not
understood their true significance, when he goes on to say that "it
is stipulated between married couples, by the terms of the
dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman."[214]
If the view is accepted, as I think it must be, that these contracts
were made to add the advantages of father-right to the natural
privileges of mother-right, and thus to secure the enjoyment of the
family property to all its members, it will become evident that,
however surprising such an agreement might seem from the one-sided
patriarchal view (which always accepts the subjection of the woman),
it was entirely a wise and just arrangement. It was certainly one that
was entered into voluntarily by both partners of the marriage; there
was no compulsion of law. All the evidence that has come down to us is
witness to the success in practice of these marriage contracts. No
other nation has yet developed a family relationship so perfect in its
working as the Egyptians. The reason is not far to seek. It was based
on the equal freedom and responsibility of the mother with the father.
There was no question, it seems to me, of one sex ruling or obeying
the other, rather it was the co-operation of the two for the welfare
of both and of the children.
So far we have dealt only with the position of the established wife.
All the written marriage contracts refer to the "taking" and
"establishing" a wife as two distinct steps, and in some cases the
second stage, which seems to have conveyed the proprietary rights, was
not taken until after the birth of children. There would thus be wives
not necessarily holding the position of "lady of the house," but
capable of being raised to such rank by later contract.[215] It is
probable, as M. Revillout suggests,[216] that "the taking to wife" was
a comparatively informal matter, but needing ratification by contract
for any lasting establishment, which commonly would be done after the
birth of a child to ensure the rights of the father's inheritance,
passing through the mother to the children. All the evidence is in
favour of this wise arrangement. There are many examples of contracts
being entered into by the husband for the benefit of a woman, who had
been "with him as a wife to him." Relations between the sexes of an
even less binding character than this were not ignored.[217] It seems
clear that little regard was paid to pre-nuptial chastity for women,
and in no marriage contract is any stress laid on virginity, which, as
Havelock Ellis[218] says, clearly indicates the absence of any idea of
women as property. "It is the glory of Egyptian morality to have been
the first to express the dignity of woman."[219]
M. Paturet takes the view that it was not so much as the mother, but
as woman, and being the equal of man, that the Egyptians honoured
their women. Perhaps the truth rather is that there was no separation
between the woman and the mother. This is the view that I would take;
to me it is the right and natural one. But be this as it may, Egyptian
morality placed first the rights of the mother. No religious or moral
superiority seems to have attached to the established wife. Even when
there had been no betrothal, and no intention of marriage, law or
custom recognises the claim of any mother of children to some kind of
provision at their father's expense. "Nothing proves the high status
of woman so clearly as this: her child was never illegitimate;
illegitimacy was not recognised even in the case of a slave woman's
child."[220]
There is a curious deed of the Ptolemaic period by which a man cedes
to a woman a number of slaves; and--in the same breath--recognises her
as his lawful wife, and declares her free _not_ to consider him as her
husband.[221] A byssus worker at the factory of Amon promises to the
wife he is about to establish, one-third of all his acquisitions
thenceforward: "my eldest son, thy eldest son, _among the children
born to thee previously_ and those thou shalt bear to me in future
shall be master of all I possess now or shall hereafter acquire." Even
when such arrangements were not entered into voluntarily, public
opinion seems always to have been in favour of the woman. A case is
recorded where four villagers of the town of Arsinöe pledged
themselves to the priest, scribe, and mayor that a fellow villager of
theirs will become the friend of the woman who has been as his wife,
and will love her as a woman ought to be loved.[222]
Most significant of all is the well-known precept of Petah Hotep,
which refers to the expected conduct of a man to a prostitute or
outcast--
"If thou makest a woman ashamed, wanton of heart, whom her
fellow townspeople know to be under two laws" (_i.e._ in an
ambiguous position), "be kind to her for a season, send her not
away, let her have food to eat. The wantonness of her heart
appreciateth guidance."
I know of nothing finer than this wide understanding of the ties of
sex. It is an essential part of morality, as I understand it, that it
accepts responsibility, not alone in the regular and permanent
relationships between one man and one woman, but also in those that
are temporary and are even considered base. Only in this way can the
human passions be unified with love.
The freedom of the Egyptian marriage made this possible. Law, at least
as we understand it, did not interfere with the domestic
relationships; there was no one fixed rule that must be followed.
Marriage was a matter of mutual agreement by contract. All that was
required (and this was enforced by custom and by public opinion) was
that the position of the woman and the children was made secure. Each
party entered on the marriage without any constraint, and each party
could cancel the contract and thereby the marriage. No legal judgment
was required for divorce. It is a significant fact that in all the
documents cancelling the marriage contracts that have come down to us,
no mention is made of the reason which led to the annulling of the
contract, only in one case it is suggested that "some evil daimon" may
be at the bottom of it.[223]
Polygamy was allowed in Egypt, though, as in all polygamous countries,
its practice was confined to the rich. This has been thought by some
to exclude the idea of the woman's power in the family.[224] But such
an opinion seems to me to arise from a want of understanding of the
Egyptian conception of the sexual tie. Under polygamy each wife had a
house, her proprietary rights and those of her children were
established, the husband visiting her there as a privileged guest on
equal footing.[225] This is very different from polygamy in a
patriarchal society, and would carry with it no social dishonour to
the woman. It would seem, too, in later Egyptian history that
polygamy, though legal in theory, in practice died out, the fidelity
of the husband, as we have seen, being claimed by the wife in the
conditions of the marriage contract.[226]
That the Egyptians had a high ideal of the domestic relations--and had
this, let it be remembered, more than four thousand years ago--is
abundantly illustrated by their inscriptions. In one epitaph of the
Hykos period, the speaker, who boasts a family of sixty children, says
of himself, "I loved my father, I honoured my mother, my brothers and
my sisters loved me."[227] The commonest formula, which continued in
use as long as Egyptian civilisation survived, was one describing the
deceased as "loving his father, reverencing his mother, and being
beloved by his brothers," and there can be no doubt that this
sentiment represented the maturest convictions of the Egyptians as to
the sentiments necessary for the felicitous working of the family
relationships.[228] It is, indeed, significant to find this reversal
of the usual sentiments towards the father and the mother--the former
to be loved and the latter to be reverenced. It would seem as if "they
assumed that fathers would be sufficiently reverenced if they were
loved, and mothers loved if they were honoured." How true here is the
understanding of affection and of the sexes!
If we pause for a moment to seek the reason why the Egyptians had, as
Herodotus so strikingly states, established in their domestic
relationships laws and customs different from the rest of mankind--the
answer is easy to find. The Egyptians were an agricultural and a
conservative people. They were also a pacific race. They would seem
not to have believed in that illusion of younger races--the glory of
warfare. I have seen it stated that in battle they were known for the
habit of running away. This may, of course, be thought to count
against them as a people. It depends entirely on the point of view
that is taken. But if, as I believe, the fighting activities belong to
an early and truly primitive stage of social development, then the
view would be very different. Races begin with the building up of
society, then there follows the period of warfare--the patriarchal
period which leads on to a later stage, much nearer in its working to
the first--a final period, as Havelock Ellis says, "the stage of
fruition." Woman's place and opportunity for the true expression of
the powers that are hers belong to the first and last of these stages;
in the middle stage she must tend to fall into a position of more or
less complete dependence on the fighting male. Here is, I think, the
explanation of the power and privilege of the Egyptian women. The
Egyptians, due to their pacific and conservative temperament, seem to
have escaped the patriarchal stage, and passed on from the first to
final stage. Through the long centuries of their civilisation they
devoted their energies to the building up and preserving of their
social organisation. Thus, it may be, came about that solving of the
problem of the sexes, which they among all races seem to have
accomplished. The relationships of their family life and domestic
administration were entirely civilised and humane.
Nowhere, except in Egypt, is so much stress laid upon the truth, that
authority is sustained by affection. Their monuments and the
inscriptions that have come down to us abundantly testify the value
set upon affection: it is always the love of the husband for the wife,
the wife for the husband, or the parent for the child, that is
recorded. The frequency and detail with which such affections are
described, prove the high estimation in which the purely domestic
virtues were held, as forming the best and chief title of the dead to
remembrance and honour. It is clear, moreover, that these affectionate
relations between the members of a family are counted among the
pleasures and joy of life. The inscriptions urge and warn the
survivors to miss none of the joys of life, since the disembodied dead
sleep in darkness, and this is the worst of their grief, "they know
neither father nor mother, they do not awake to behold their brethren,
their heart yearns no longer after wife and child."[229] There is a
delightful inscription on the sepulchral tablet of the wife of a high
priest of Memphis,[230] in which she urges the duty of happiness for
her husband. It says--
"Hail, my brother, husband, friend, ... let not thy heart cease
to drink water, to eat bread, to drink wine, to love women, to
make a happy day, and to suit thy heart's desire by day and by
night. And set no care whatsoever in thy heart: are the years
which (we pass) upon the earth so many (that we need do this)?"
Such a conception, with its clear idea of the right of happiness,
stands as witness to the high ideal of love which regulated the
Egyptian family relationships.
It is necessary to remember, in this connection, that the domestic
ties of the Egyptians were firmly based on proprietary considerations.
No surprise need be felt that this was so, when we recall the wise
arrangements of the marriage contracts, whereby both parties of the
union secured equal freedom and an equal share in the family property.
The antagonism between ownership and affection which so frequently
destroys domestic happiness must thus have been unknown. "There was no
marriage without money or money's worth, but to marry _for_ money, in
the modern sense, was impossible where individual ownership was
abolished by the act of marriage itself."[231]
This in itself explains the fact, proved by these inscriptions, that
the Egyptian woman remained to the end of life, "the beloved of her
husband and the mistress of the house." "Make glad her heart during
the time that thou hast," was the traditional advice given to the
husband. To this effect runs the precept of Petah Hotep[232]--
"If thou wouldst be a wise man, rule thy house and love thy wife
wholly and constantly. Feed her and clothe her, love her
tenderly and fulfil her desires as long as thou livest, for she
is an estate which conferreth great reward upon her lord.[233]
Be not hard to her, for she will be more easily moved by
persuasion than by force. Observe what she wisheth, and that on
which her mind runneth, thereby shalt thou make her to stay in
thy house. If thou resisteth her will it is ruin."
The maxims of Ani,[234] written six dynasties later, give the same
advice with fuller detail--
"Do not treat rudely a woman in her house when you know her
perfectly; do not say to her, 'Where is that? bring it to me!'
when she has set it in its place where your eye sees it, and
when you are silent you know her qualities. It is a joy that
your hand should be with her. The man who is fond of heart is
quickly master in his house."
Honour to the mother was strongly insisted on. The sage
Kneusu-Hetep[235] thus counsels his son--
"Thou shalt never forget thy mother and what she has done for
thee. From the beginning she has borne a heavy burden with thee
in which I have been unable to help her. Wert thou to forget
her, then she might blame thee, lifting up her arms unto God,
and he would hearken to her. For she carried thee long beneath
her heart as a heavy burden, and after thy months were
accomplished she bore thee. Three long years she carried thee
upon her shoulder and gave thee her breast to thy mouth, and as
thy size increased her heart never once allowed her to say, 'Why
should I do this?' And when thou didst go to school and wast
instructed in the writings, daily she stood by thy master with
bread and beer from the house."
I would note in passing that in this passage we have a conclusive
testimony to health and character of the Egyptian mother. The
importance of this is undoubted, when we remember the active part
taken by women in business and in social life. It is, I am sure, an
entirely mistaken view to hold that motherhood is a cause of weakness
to women. In a wisely ordered society this is not so. It is the
withdrawal of one class of women from labour--the parasitic wives and
daughters of the rich (which of these women could feed and carry her
child for three years?), as the forcing of other women into work under
intolerable conditions that injures motherhood. But on these questions
I shall speak in the final part of my inquiry.
When I had written thus far in this chapter, I went from the
reading-room of the British Museum, where all day I had been working,
to spend a last quiet hour in the Egyptian Galleries. I knew one at
least of these galleries well, but as a rule I had hurried through it,
as so many of the reading-room students do, to reach the
refreshment-room which is placed there. I found I had never really
seen anything. This time it was different, for my thoughts were aflame
with the life of this people, whose wonderful civilisation speaks in
all these sculptured remains through the silence of the centuries.
Some fresh thought came to me as I waited to look at first one statue
and then another. I sought for those which represented women. There is
a small statue in green basalt of Isis holding a figure of Osiris
Un-nefer, her son.[236] The goddess is represented as much larger than
the young god, who stands at her feet. The marriage of Isis with her
brother Osiris did not blot out her independent position, her
importance as a deity remained to the end greater than his. Think for
a moment what this placing of the goddess, rather than the god, in the
forefront of Egyptian worship signifies; very clearly it reflects the
honour in which the sex to whom the supreme deity belongs was held. In
the third Egyptian room is a seated statuette of Queen Teta-Khart, a
wife of Aähmes I (1600 B.C.), whose title was "Royal Mother," and
another figure of Queen Amenártas of the XXVth Dynasty 700 B.C.; near
by is a beautiful head of the stone figure of a priestess.[237] There
is something enigmatic and strangely seductive in the Egyptian faces;
a joy and calmness which are implicit in freedom. And the impression
is helped by the fixed attitudes, usually seated and always facing the
spectator, and also by the great size of many of the figures; one
seems to realise something of the simplicity and strength of the
tireless enduring power of these women and men.
But I think what interested me most of all was the little difference
manifested in the representations of the two sexes. The dress which
each wears is very much the same; the attitudes are alike, and so
often are the faces, even in the figures there seems no accentuation
of the sexual characters. Often I did not know whether it was at a man
or a woman, a god or a goddess, I was looking, until the title of the
statue told me. How strange this seemed to me, and yet how significant
of the beautiful equality of partnership between the woman and the
man. It is in the statues which represent a husband and wife together,
seated side by side, that this likeness is most evident. There are
several of these domestic groups. One very interesting one is of early
date, and belongs to the IVth Dynasty 3750 B.C.[238] It is in painted
limestone, and shows the portrait figures of Ka-tep, "a royal kinsman"
and priestly official, and his wife Hetep-Heres, "a royal kinswoman."
The figures are small and of the same size; the faces are clearly
portraits. The one, which I take to be the woman, though I am uncertain
whether I am right, has her arm around the man, embracing him. There
is another group[239] in white limestone of very fine work, portraits
of a high official and his wife. The figures resemble each other
closely, but that of the man is a little larger, showing his rank.
The man holds the hand of the woman. This statue belongs to the XIXth
Dynasty. On the right-hand side of the North Gallery is a second group
of an earlier period.[240] The husband and wife are seated, and the
figures are of the same size, showing that their rank was equal; their
arms are intertwined, and between them, standing at their feet, is a
small figure of their son. It was before this family group I waited
longest: it pleased me by its completeness and its sincerity. Once
more I should have had difficulty in identifying which figure was the
father and which the mother, but the man wears a small beard. In all
these statue groups there is this great resemblance between the sexes.
Were the sexes, then, really alike in Egypt? I do not know. Such a
conception opens up biological considerations of the deepest
significance. It is so difficult to be certain here. Is the great
boundary line which divides the two halves of life, with the intimate
woman's problems that depend upon it, to remain for ever fixed? In sex
are we always to be faced with an irresolvable tangle of disharmonies?
Again, I do not know. Yet, looking at these seated figures of the
Egyptian husband and wife, I felt that the answer might be with them.
Do they not seem to have solved that secret which we are so painful in
our search of? The statues thus took on a kind of symbolic character,
which eloquently spoke of a union of the woman and the man that in
freedom had broken down the boundaries of sex, and, therefore, of
life that was in harmony with love and joy. And the beautiful words of
the Egyptian _Song of the Harper_ came to my memory, and now I
understood them--
"Make (thy) day glad! Let there be perfumes and sweet odours for
thy nostrils, and let there be flowers and lilies for thy
beloved sister (_i.e._ wife) who shall be seated by thy side.
Let there be songs and music of the harp before thee, and
setting behind thy back unpleasant things of every kind,
remember only gladness, until the day cometh wherein thou must
travel to the land which loveth silence."
II.--_In Babylon_
"The modern view of marriage recognises a relation that love has
known from the outset. But this is a relation only possible
between free self-governing persons."--HOBHOUSE.
If we turn now to the very ancient civilisation of Babylon we shall
find women in a position of honour similar in many ways to what we
have seen already in Egypt: there are ever indications that the
earliest customs may have gone beyond those of the Egyptians in
exalting women. The most archaic texts in the primitive language are
remarkable for the precedence given to the female sex in all formulas
of address: "Goddess" and gods, women and men, are mentioned always in
that order, which is in itself a decisive indication of the high
status of women in this early period.[241]
There are other traces all pointing to the conclusion that in the
civilisation of primitive Babylon mother-right was still very much
alive. It is significant that the first rulers of Sumer and
Akkad--the oldest Babylonian cities--frequently made boast of their
unknown parentage, which can only be explained by the assumption that
descent through the father was not recognised. Thus Sargon,[242] one
of the earlier rulers, says: "My mother was a princess, my father I
know not ... my mother, the princess, conceived me, in a secret place
she brought me forth." A little monument in the Hague museum has an
inscription which has been translated thus: "Gudea patesi of Sirgulla
dedicates thus to Gin-dung-nadda-addu, his wife." The wife's name is
interpreted "maid of the god Nebo." It is thought that Gudea reigned
in her right. The inscription goes on to say: "Mother I had not, my
mother was the water deep. A father I had not, my father was the water
deep." The passage is obscure, but it is explained if we regard this
as one of the legends of miraculous birth so frequent in primitive
societies under mother-descent.[243] Another relic of some interest is
an ancient statue of a Babylonian woman, not a goddess or a queen, who
is presented alone and not with her husband, as was common in Egypt;
such a monument may suggest, as is pointed out by Simcox, that women
at this period possessed wealth in their own right.
As in Egypt, the mother, the father, and the eldest son seem to have
been the essential members of the family. We find that the compound
substantive translated "family" means literally "children household."
This is very interesting and may betoken a conception of marriage and
the family like that of the Egyptians, in which the union of the wife
and the husband is only fully established by the birth of
children.[244] In the house the wife is "set in honour," "glad and
gladdening like the mid-day sun." The sun-god Merodach is thus
addressed: "Like a wife thou behavest thyself, cheerful and
rejoicing." The sun-god himself is made to say, "May the wife whom
thou lovest come before thee with joy." These examples, and also many
others, such, for instance, as the phrase, "As a woman fashioned for a
mother made beautiful," show that the Babylonians shared the Egyptian
idealism in their conception of the wife and mother and her relation
to the family. Many of the Summerian expressions throw beautiful light
on the happiness of the domestic relationships. The union of the wife
and husband is spoken of as "the undivided half," the idiogram for the
mother signifies the elements "god" and "the house," she is "the
enlarger of the family," the father is "one who is looked up to."
The information that has come down to us is not so full as our
knowledge of the Egyptian family, or, at least, the facts which relate
to women have not yet been so firmly established. We may, however,
accept the statement of Havelock Ellis when he says that "in the
earliest times a Babylonian woman enjoyed complete independence and
equal rights with her brothers and husband."[245]
Later in Babylonian history--though still at an early period--women's
rights were more circumscribed, and we find them in a position of some
subordination. How the change arose is not clear, but it is probable
that in Babylon civilisation followed the usual order of social
development, and that with the rise of military activities, bringing
the male force into prominence, women fell to a position of inferior
power in the family and in the State.
That this was the condition of society in Babylon in the time of
Hammurabi (_i.e._ probably between 2250 B.C. and 1950 B.C.) is proved
by the marriage code of this ruler, which in certain of its
regulations affords a marked contrast with the Egyptian marriage
contracts, always so favourable to the wife. Marriage, instead of an
agreement made between the wife and the husband, was now arranged
between the parents of the woman and the bridegroom and without
reference to her wishes. The terms of the marriage were a modified
form of purchase, very similar to the exchange of gifts common among
primitive peoples. It appears from the code that a sum of money or
present was given by the bridegroom to the woman's father as well as
to the bride herself, but this payment was not universal; and, on the
other side of the account, the father made over to his daughter on her
marriage a dowry, which remained her own property in so far that it
was returned to her in the case of divorce or on the death of her
husband, and that it passed to her children and, failing them, to her
father.[246]
Polygamy, though permitted, was definitely restricted by the code.
Thus a man might marry a second wife if "a sickness has seized" his
first wife, but the first wife was not to be put away. This is the
only case in which two equal wives are recognised by the code. But it
was also possible--as the contracts prove--for a man to take one or
more secondary wives or concubines, who were subordinate to the chief
wife. In some cases this appears to have been done to enable the first
wife to adopt the children of the concubine "as her children."[247]
It is worth while to note the exact conditions of divorce in the
reference to women as given in the clauses of Hammurabi's code--
"137. If a man has set his face to put away his concubine, who
has granted him children, to that woman he shall return his
marriage portion, and shall give her the _usufruct_ of field,
garden, and goods, and shall bring up her children. From the
time that her children are grown up, from whatever is given to
her children, they shall give her a share like that of one son,
and she shall marry the husband of her choice."
"138. If a man shall put away his bride, who has not borne him
children, he shall give her money as much as her bride-price."
"139. If there was no bride-price he shall give her one mina of
silver."
"140. If he is a poor man he shall give one third of a mina of
silver."
So far the position of the wife is secured in the case of the
infidelity of the husband. But if we turn to the other side, when it
is the woman who is the unfaithful partner it is evident how strongly
the patriarchal idea of woman as property has crept into the family
relations. We find that a woman "who has set her face to go out and
has acted the fool, has wasted her house or has belittled her
husband," may either be divorced without compensation or retained in
the house as the slave of a new wife.
I would ask you to contrast this treatment with the free right of
separation granted to the Egyptian wife, whose position, as also that
of her children, in all circumstances was secure, and to remember that
this difference in the moral code for the two sexes is always present,
in greater or lesser force, against woman wherever the property
considerations of father-right have usurped the natural law of
mother-right. Conventional morality has doubtless from the first been
on the side of the supremacy of the male. To me it seems that this
alone must discredit any society formed on the patriarchal basis.
The Babylonian wife was permitted to claim a divorce under certain
conditions, namely, "if she had been economical and had no vice," and
if she could prove that "her husband had gone out and greatly
belittled her." But the proof of this carried with it grave danger to
herself, for if on investigation it turned out that "she has been
uneconomical or a gad-about, that woman one shall throw into the
water." Probably such penalty was not really carried out, but even if
the expression be taken figuratively its significance in the
degradation of woman is hardly less great. The position of the wife as
subject to her husband is clearly marked by the manner in which
infidelity is treated. The law provides that both partners may be put
to death for an act of unfaithfulness, but while the king may pardon
"his servant" (the man), the wife has to receive pardon from "her
owner" (_i.e._ the husband). The lordship of the husband is seen also
in his power to dispose of his wife as well as his children for
debt.[248] The period for debt slavery was, however, confined to the
years of Hammurabi.[249]
From this time onwards we find the position of the wife continuously
improving, and in the later Neo-Babylonian periods she again acquired
equal rights with her husband. The marriage law was improved in the
woman's favour. Contracts of marriage by purchase became very rare. It
appears from the later contracts that a wife could protect herself
from divorce or the taking of another wife by special penalties
imposed on the husband by the conditions of the deed, thus giving her
a position of security similar to that of the Egyptian wife.
In all social relations the Babylonian women had remarkable freedom.
They could conduct business in their own right. Their power to dispose
of property is proved by numerous contract tablets, and, at any rate
in later periods, they were held to possess a full legal personality
equal in all points with their husbands. In many contracts husband and
wife are conjoined as debtors, creditors, and as together taking
pledges. The wife, as in Egypt, is made a party to any action of the
husband in which her dowry is involved. The wife could also act
independently; women appear by themselves as creditors, and in some
contracts we find a wife standing in that relation to her husband. In
one case a woman acts as security for a man's debts to another woman.
In a suit about a slave a woman, who was proved by witnesses to have
made a wrongful claim, was compelled to pay a sum of money equivalent
to the value of the slave. We find, too, a married woman joining with
a man to sell a house. In another case, in which a mother and son had
a sum of money owing to them, the debt was cancelled by giving a bill
on the mother. The rich woman, by name Gugua, disposes her property
among her children, but she reserves the right of taking it back into
her own hands if she should so wish, and stipulates that it may not be
mortgaged to any one without her consent.[250] There is another
interesting deed[251] by which a father who, it is suggested, was a
spendthrift, assigns the remnant of his property to his daughter under
the stipulation "thou shalt measure to me, and as long as thou livest
give me maintenance, food, ointment and clothing."
It would be easy to multiply such cases.[252] All these contract
tablets have interest for us. The active participation of the
Babylonian women in property transactions is the more instructive when
we consider that in the development of commercial enterprise the
Babylonians were in advance of all the rest of the world. One is
tempted to suggest that the assistance of women may have brought an
element into commerce beneficial to its growth. There is ample
evidence to show the administrative and financial ability of women.
This quality is noted by Lecky in the chapter on "Woman Questions" in
his _Democracy and Liberty_. He says:
"How many fortunes wasted by negligence or extravagance have
been restored by a long minority under female management?"
He notes, too, the financial ability of the French women.
"Where can we find in a large class a higher level of business
habits and capacity than that which all competent observers have
recognised in French women of the middle classes?"
The estimate of J.S. Mill on this question is too well known to call
for quotation. We may recall also the superior ability in trade of the
women of Burma. It is not necessary, however, to seek for proof of
women's ability in finance. Against one woman who mismanages her
income at least six men may be placed who mismanage theirs, not from
any special extravagance, but from sheer male inability to adapt
expenditure to income. A woman who has had any business training will
discriminate better than a man between the essential and the
non-essential in expenditure.
The civilisation of a people is necessarily determined to a large
extent by the ideas of the relations of the sexes, and by the
institutions and conventions that arise through such ideas. One of the
most important and debatable of these questions is whether women are
to be considered as citizens and independently responsible, or as
beings differing in all their capacities from men, and, therefore, to
be set in positions of at least material dependence to an individual
man. It is the answer to this question we are seeking. The Babylonians
decided for the civic equality of their women, and this decision must
have affected all their actions from the larger matters of the State
down to the smallest points of family conduct. The wisdom which, by
giving a woman full control over her own property, recognised her
right and responsibility to act for herself, was not, as we have seen,
at once established. This recognition of the equality and fellowship
between women and men as the finest working idea for the family
relationship was only developed slowly through the long centuries of
their civilisation.
III.--_In Greece_
"Of all things upon earth that breathe and grow
A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay
Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day
To buy us some man's love, and lo, they bring
A master of our flesh. There comes the sting
Of the whole shame, and then the jeopardy
For good or ill, what shall that master be?
Reject she cannot, and if she but stays
His suit, 'tis shame on all that woman's days.
So thrown amid new laws, new places, why,
'Tis magic she must have to prophesy.
Home never taught her that--how best to guide
Towards peace this thing that sleepeth at her side,
And she, who, labouring long, shall find some way
Whereby her lord may bear with her, nor fray
His yoke too fiercely, blessed is the breath
That woman draws! Else let her pray for death.
Her lord, if he be wearied of her face
Within doors, gets him forth; some merrier place
Will ease his heart; but she waits on, her whole
Vision enchained on a single soul.
And then, forsooth, 'tis they that face the call
Of war, while we sit sheltered, hid from all
Peril. False mocking. Sooner would I stand
Three times to face their battles, shield in hand,
Than bear our child."--EURIPIDES.
If we turn now from eastern civilisation to ancient Greece, the
picture there presented to us is in many ways in sharp contrast to
anything we have yet examined. The Greeks founded western
civilisation, but their rapid advance in general culture was by no
means accompanied by a corresponding improvement in the position of
women. The fineness of their civilisation and their exquisite
achievement in so many directions makes it the more necessary to
remember this.
At one time there would seem to have been in prehistoric Greece a
period of fully developed mother-rights, as is proved by numerous
survivals of the older system so frequently met with in Greek
literature and history. This was at an earlier stage of civilisation,
before the establishment of the patriarchal system. There is little
doubt, however, that the influence of mother-right remained as a
tradition for long after the actual rights had been lost by
women.[253] It will be remembered how great was the astonishment of
the Greek travellers at the free position of the Egyptian women, in
particular the apparent subjection of the husband to his wife. Now,
such surprise is in itself sufficient to prove a different conception
of the relation of the sexes. The patriarchal view whereby the woman
is placed under the protection and authority of the man was already
clearly established in the Hellenic belief. Yet, in spite of this
fact, the position of the woman was striking and peculiar, and in some
directions remarkably free, and thus offering many points of interest
not less important in their significance to us than what we have seen
already in Egypt and in Babylon.
In speaking of the Hellenic woman I can select only a few facts; to
deal at all adequately with so large a subject in briefest outline is,
indeed, impossible. I shall not even try to picture the marriage and
family relationships, which offer in many and varied ways a wide and
fascinating study; all that I can do is to point to some of the
conditions and suggest the conclusions which seem to arise from them.
Glancing first at the women of the Homeric[254] period we find them
represented as holding a position of entire dependence, without rights
or any direct control over property; under the rule of the father, and
afterwards of the husband, and even in some cases humbly submissive to
their sons. Telemachus thus rebukes his mother: "Go to thy chamber;
attend to thy work; turn the spinning wheel; weave the linen; see that
thy servants do their tasks. Speech belongs to men, and especially to
me, who am the master here." And Penelope allows herself to be
silenced and obeys, "bearing in mind the sage discourse of her
son."[255] This is the fully developed patriarchal idea of the duties
of the woman and her patient submission to the man.
Now, if we look only at the outside of such a case as this it would
appear that the position of the Homeric woman was one of almost
complete subjection. Whereas, as every one knows, the facts are far
different. The protection of the woman was a condition made necessary
in an unstable society of predominating military activity. Apart from
this wardship, women very clearly were not in a subordinate position
and, moreover, never regarded as property. The very reverse is the
case. Nowhere in the whole range of literature are women held in
deeper affection or receive greater honour. To take one instance,
Andromache relates how her father's house has been destroyed with all
who were in it, and then she says: "But now, Hector, thou art my
father and gracious mother, thou art my brother, nay, thou art my
valiant husband."[256] It is easy to see in this speech how the early
ideas of relationships under mother-right had been transferred to the
husband, as the protector of the woman, conditioned by father-right.
Again and again we meet with traces of the older customs of the
mother-age. The influence of woman persists as a matter of habit; even
the formal elevation of woman to positions of authority is not
uncommon, with an accompanying freedom in action, which is wholly at
variance with the patriarchal ideal. Thus it is common for the husband
to consult his wife in all important concerns, though it was her
special work to look after the affairs of the house. "There is
nothing," says Homer, "better and nobler than when husband and wife,
being of one mind, rule a household."[257] Penelope and Clytemnestra
are left in charge of the realms of their husbands during their
absence in Troy; the beautiful Chloris ruled as queen in Pylos.[258]
Arete, the beloved wife of Alcinous, played an important part as
peacemaker in the kingdom of her husband. It is to her Nausicäa brings
Ulysses on his return, bidding him kneel to her mother if he would
gain a welcome and succour from her father.[259]
We find the Homeric women moving freely among men. They might go where
they liked, and do what they liked.[260] As girls they were educated
with their brothers and friends, attending together the classes of the
bards and dancing with them in the public dancing-places which every
town possessed. Homer pictures the youths and the maidens pressing the
vines together. They mingled together at marriage feasts and at
religious festivals. Women took part with men in offering the
sacrifices to the gods; they also went alone to the temples to present
their offerings.[261] Nor did marriage restrict their freedom. Helen
appears on the battlements of Troy, watching the conflict, accompanied
only by her maidens.
This freedom insured to the Homeric women that vigour of body and
beauty of person for which they are renowned. Health was the first
condition of beauty. The Greeks wanted strong men, therefore the
mothers must be strong, and this, as among all peoples who have
understood the valuation of life more clearly than others, made
necessary a high physical development of woman. Yet, I think, that an
even more prominent reason was the need by the woman herself for the
protection of the male, which made it her first duty to charm the man
whom destiny brought to be her companion. This is a point that must
not be overlooked. To me it is very significant that in all the
records of the Egyptians, showing so clearly the love and honour in
which woman was held, we find no insistence on, and, indeed, hardly a
reference to, the physical beauty of woman. It is love itself that is
exalted; a husband wishing to honour his lost wife says: "she was
sweet as a palm tree in her love," he does not tell us if she were
beautiful.[262] I cannot follow this question further. Yet it is clear
that danger lurks for woman and her freedom, when to safeguard her
independence, she has no other resources than the seduction of her
beauty to gain and to hold the love she is able to inspire. Sex
becomes a defensive weapon, and one she must use for self-protection,
if she is to live. It seems clear to me that this economic use of sex
is the real cancer at the very root of the sexual relationship. It is
but a step further and a perfectly logical one, that leads to
prostitution. At a later period of Hellenic civilisation we find
Aristotle warning the young men of Athens against "the excess of
conjugal tenderness and feminine tyranny which enchains a man to his
wife."[263] Can any surprise be felt; does one not wonder rather at
the blindness of man's understanding? That such warning against women
should have been spoken in Egypt is incredible. Woman's position and
liberty of action was in no way dependent on her power of
sex-fascination, not even directly on her position as mother, and this
really explains the happy working of their domestic relationships.
Nature's supreme gifts of the sexual differences among them were freed
from economic necessities, and woman as well as man was permitted to
turn them to their true biological ends--the mutual joy of each other
and the service of the race. For this is what I want to make clear; it
is men who suffer in quite as great a degree as women, wherever the
female has to use her sexual gifts to gain support and protection from
the male. It is so plain--one thing makes the relations of the sexes
free, that both partners shall themselves be free, knowing no bondage
that is outside the love-passion itself. Then, and then only, can the
woman and the man--the mother and father, really love in freedom and
together carry out love's joys and its high and holy duties.
The conditions that meet us when we come to examine the position of
women in historic Greece are explained in the light of this valuation
of the sexual relationship. We are faced at once by a curious
contrast; on one hand, we find in Sparta, under a male social
organisation, the women of Æolian and Dorian race carrying on and
developing the Homeric traditions of freedom, while the Athenian
women, on the contrary, are condemned to an almost Oriental seclusion.
How these conditions arose becomes clear, when we remember that the
prominent idea regulating all the legislation of the Greeks was to
maintain the permanence and purity of the State. In Sparta the first
of these motives ruled. The conditions in which the State was placed
made it necessary for the Spartans to be a race of soldiers, and to
ensure this a race of vigorous mothers was essential. They had the
wisdom to understand that their women could only effectively discharge
the functions assigned to them by Nature by the free development of
their bodies, and full cultivation of their mental faculties. Sappho,
whose "lofty and subtle genius" places her as the one woman for whose
achievement in poetry no apology on the grounds of her sex ever needs
to be made, was of Æolian race. The Spartan woman was a huntress and
an athlete and also a scholar, for her training was as much a care of
the State as that of her brothers. Her education was deliberately
planned to fit her to be a mother of men.
It was the sentiment of strict and zealous patriotism which inspired
the marriage regulations that are attributed to Lycurgus. The
obligation of marriage was legal, like military service.[264] All
celibates were placed under the ban of society.[265] The young men
were attracted to love by the privilege of watching (and it is also
said assisting in) the gymnastic exercise of naked young girls, who
from their earliest youth entered into contests with each other in
wrestling and racing and in throwing the quoit and javelin.[266] The
age of marriage was also fixed, special care being taken that the
Spartan girls should not marry too soon; no sickly girl was permitted
to marry.[267] In the supreme interest of the race love was regulated.
The young couple were not allowed to meet except in secret until after
a child was born.[268] Brothers might share a wife in common, and wife
lending was practised. It was a praiseworthy act for an old man to
give his wife to a strong man by whom she might have a child.[269] The
State claimed a right over all children born; each child had to be
examined soon after birth by a committee appointed, and only if
healthy was it allowed to live.[270]
Such a system is no doubt open to objections, yet no other could have
served as well the purpose of raising and maintaining a race of
efficient warriors. The Spartans held their supremacy in Greece
through sheer force and bravery and obedience to law; and the women
had equal share with the men in this high position. Necessarily they
were remarkable for vigour of character and the beauty of their
bodies, for beauty rests ultimately on a biological basis.
Women took an active interest in all that concerned the State, and
were allowed a freedom of action even in sexual conduct equal and, in
some directions, greater than that of men. The law restricted women
only in their function as mothers. Plato has criticised this as a
marked defect of the Spartan system. Men were under strict regulation
to the end of their days; they dined together on the fare determined
by the State; no licence was permitted to them; almost their whole
time was occupied in military service. No such regulations were made
for women, they might live as they liked. One result was that many
wives were better educated than their husbands. We find, too, that a
great portion of land passed into the hands of women. Aristotle states
that they possessed two-fifths of it. He deplores the Spartan system,
and affirms that in his day the women were "incorrigible and
luxurious"; he accuses them of ruling their husbands. "What
difference," he says, "does it make whether the women rule or the
rulers are ruled by women, for the result is the same?"[271] This
gynæcocracy was noticed by others. "You of Lacedæmon," said a strange
lady to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, "are the only women in the world that
rule the men." "We," she answered, "are the only women who bring forth
men."[272] Such were the Spartan women.
In Athens the position of women stands out in sharp contrast. Athens
was the largest of the city-states of Greece, and, for its stability,
it was ruled that no stranger might enter into the rights of its
citizens. Restrictions of the most stringent nature and punishments
the most terrible were employed to keep the citizenship pure. As is
usual, the restrictions fell most heavily upon women. It would seem
that the sexual virtue of the Athenian women was not trusted--it was
natural to women to love. Doubtless there were many traces of the
earlier sexual freedom under mother-right. Women must be kept in
guard to ensure that no spurious offspring should be brought into the
State. This explains the Athenian marriage code with its unusually
strict subordination of the woman to her father first, and then to her
husband. It explains also the unequal law of divorce. In early times
the father might sell his daughters and barter his sisters. This was
abolished by Solon, except in the case of unchastity. There could,
however, be no legitimate marriage without the assignment of the bride
by her guardian.[273] The father was even able to bequeath his
unmarried daughters by will.[274] The part assigned by the Athenian
law to the wife in relation to her husband was very similar to that of
the married women under ancient Jewish law.
Women were secluded from all civic life and from all intellectual
culture. There were no regular schools for girls in Athens, and no
care was taken by the State, as in Sparta, for the young girls'
physical well-being. The one quality required from them was chastity,
and to ensure this women were kept even from the light of the sun,
confined in special apartments in the upper part of the house. One
husband, indeed, Ischomachus, recommends his wife to take active
bodily exercise as an aid to her beauty; but she is to do this "not in
the fresh air, for that would not be suitable for an Athenian matron,
but in baking bread and looking after her linen."[275] So strictly was
the seclusion of the wife adhered to that she was never permitted to
show herself when her husband received guests. It was even regarded as
evidence of the non-existence of a regular marriage if the wife had
been in the habit of attending the feasts[276] given by the man whom
she claimed as husband.
The deterioration of the Athenian citizen-women followed as the
inevitable result. It is also impossible to avoid connecting the swift
decline of the fine civilisation of Athens with this cause. Had the
political power of her citizens been based on healthier social and
domestic relationships, it might not have fallen down so rapidly into
ruin. No civilisation can maintain itself that neglects the
development of the mothers that give it birth.
As we should expect we find little evidence of affection between the
Athenian husband and wife. The entire separation between their work
and interests would necessarily preclude ideal love. Probably
Sophocles presents the ordinary Greek view accurately, when he causes
one of his characters to regret the loss of a brother or sister much
more than that of a wife. "If a wife dies you can get another, but if
a brother or sister dies, and the mother is dead, you can never get
another. The one loss is easily reparable, the other is
irreparable."[277] We could have no truer indication than this as to
the degradation into which woman had fallen in the sexual
relationship.
That once, indeed, it had been far otherwise with the Athenian women
the ancient legends witness. Athens was the city of Pallas Athene, the
goddess of strength and power, which in itself testifies to a time
when women were held in honour. The Temple of the Goddess, high on the
Acropolis, stood as a relic of matriarchal worship. Year by year the
secluded women of Athens wove a robe for Athene. Yet, so complete had
become their subjection and their withdrawal from the duties of
citizens, that when in the Theatre of Dyonysus men actors personated
the great traditional women of the Greek Heroic Age, no woman was
permitted to be present.[278] What wonder, then, that the Athenian
women rebelled against the wastage of their womanhood. That they did
rebel we may be certain on the strength of the satirical statements of
Aristophanes, and even more from the pathos of the words put here and
there into the mouths of women by Euripides--
"Of all things upon earth that breathe and grow
A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay
Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day
To buy us some man's love, and lo, they bring
A Master of our flesh. There comes the sting
Of the whole shame."[279]
The debased position of the Athenian citizen woman becomes abundantly
clear when we find that ideal love and free relationship between the
sexes were possible only with the _hetairæ_. Limitation of space
forbids my giving any adequate details of these stranger-women, who
were the beloved companions of the Athenian men. Prohibited from legal
marriage by law, these women were in all other respects free; their
relations with men, either temporary or permanent, were openly
entered into and treated with respect. For the Greeks the _hetaira_
was in no sense a prostitute. The name meant friend and companion. The
women to whom the name was applied held an honourable and independent
position, one, indeed, of much truer honour than that of the wife.
These facts may well give us pause. It was not the women who were the
legal wives, safeguarded to ensure their chastity, restricted to their
physical function of procreation, but the _hetairæ_, says Donaldson,
"who exhibited what was best and noblest in woman's nature."
Xenophon's ideal wife was a good housekeeper--like her of the
Proverbs. Thucydides in the famous funeral oration which he puts in
the mouth of Pericles, exhorts the wives of the slain warriors, whose
memory is being commemorated, "to shape their lives in accordance with
their natures," and then adds with unconscious irony, "Great is the
glory of that woman who is least talked of by men, either in the way
of praise or blame." Such were the barren honours granted to the legal
wife. The _hetairæ_ were the only educated women in Athens. It was
only the free-companion who was a fit helpmate for Pericles, or
capable of sustaining a conversation with Socrates. We know that
Socrates visited Theodota[280] and the brilliant Diotima of Mantinea,
of whom he speaks "as his teacher in love."[281] Thargalia, a Milesian
stranger, gained a position of high political importance.[282] When
Alcibiades had to flee for his life, it was a "companion" who went
with him, and being present at his end performed the funeral rites
over him.[283] Praxiteles carved a statue of Phryne in gold, and the
work stood in a place of honour in the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
Apelles painted a portrait of Lais, and, for his skill as an artist,
Alexander rewarded him with the gift of his favourite concubine;
Pindar wrote odes to the _hetairæ_; Leontium, one of the order, sat at
the feet of Epicurus to imbibe his philosophy.[284]
Among all these free women Aspasia of Miletus[285] stands forward as
the most brilliant--the most remarkable. There is no doubt as to the
intellectual distinction of the beloved companion of Pericles.[286]
Her house became the resort of all the great men of Athens. Socrates,
Phidias and Anaxagoras were all frequent visitors, and probably also
Sophocles and Euripides. Plato, Xenophon and Æschines have all
testified to the cultivated mind and influence of Aspasia. Æschines,
in his dialogue entitled "Aspasia," puts into the mouth of that
distinguished woman an incisive criticism of the mode of life
traditional for her sex.[287]
The high status of the _hetairæ_ is proved conclusively from the fact
that the men who visited Aspasia brought their wives with them to her
assemblies, that they might learn from her.[288] This breaking through
the accepted conventions is the more significant if we consider the
circumstances. Here, indeed, is your contrast--the free companion
expounding the dignity of womanhood to the imprisoned mothers! Aspasia
points out to the citizen women that it is not sufficient for a wife
to be merely a mother and a good housekeeper; she urges them to
cultivate their minds so that they may be equal in mental dignity with
the men who love them. Aspasia may thus be regarded, as Havelock Ellis
suggests, as "a pioneer in the assertion of woman's rights." "She
showed that spirit of revolt and aspiration" which tends to mark "the
intellectual and artistic activity of those who are unclassed or
dubiously classed in the social hierarchy."
It is even probable that the movement to raise the status of the
Athenian women, which seems to have taken place in the fourth century
B.C., was led by Aspasia, and perhaps other members of the _hetairæ_.
Ivo Bruns, whom Havelock Ellis quotes, believes that "the most certain
information we possess concerning Aspasia bears a strong resemblance
to the picture which Euripides and Aristophanes present to us of the
leaders of the woman's movement."[289]
It was this movement of awakening which throws light on the justice
which Plato accords to women. He may well have had Aspasia in his
thoughts. Contact with her cultivated mind may have brought him to see
that "the gifts of nature are equally diffused in both sexes," and
therefore "all the pursuits of man are the pursuits of woman also, and
in all of these woman is only a weaker man." Plato did not believe
that women were equally gifted with men, only that all their powers
were in their nature the same, and demanded a similar expression. He
insists much more on woman's duties and responsibilities than on her
rights; more on what the State loses by her restriction within the
home than on any loss entailed thereby to herself. Such a fine
understanding of the need of the State for women as the real ground
for woman's emancipation, is the fruitful seed in this often quoted
passage. May it not have arisen in Plato's mind from the contrast he
saw between Aspasia and the free companions of men and the restricted
and ignorant wives? A vivid picture would surely come to him of the
force lost by this wastage of the mothers of Athens; a force which
should have been utilised for the well-being of the State.
Sexual penalties for women are always found under a strict patriarchal
régime. The white flower of chastity, when enforced upon one sex by
the other sex, has its roots in the degradation of marriage. Men find
a way of escape; women, bound in the coils, stay and waste. There is
no escaping from the truth--wherever women are in subjection it is
there that the idols of purity and chastity are set up for worship.
The fact that Greek poets and philosophers speak so often of an ideal
relationship between the wife and the husband proves how greatly the
failure of the accepted marriage was understood and depreciated by the
noblest of the Athenians. The bonds of the patriarchal system must
always tend to break down as civilisation advances, and men come to
think and to understand the real needs and dependence of the sexes
upon each other. Aristotle says that marriage besides the propagation
of the human race, has another aim, namely, "community of the entire
life." He describes marriage as "a species of friendship," one,
moreover, which "is most in accordance with Nature, as husband and
wife mutually supply what is lacking in the other." Here is the ideal
marriage, the relationship between one woman and the one man that
to-day we are striving to attain. To gain it the wife must become the
free companion of her husband.
It is Euripides who voices the sorrows of women. He also foreshadows
their coming triumph.
"Back streams the waves of the ever running river,
Life, life is changed and the laws of it o'ertrod.
* * * * * * *
And woman, yea, woman shall be terrible in story;
The tales too meseemeth shall be other than of yore;
For a fear there is that cometh out of woman and a glory,
And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more."[290]
IV.--_In Rome_
"The character of a people is only an eternal becoming.... They
are born and are modified under the influence of innumerable
causes."--JEAN FINOT.
Of the position of women in Rome in the pre-historic period we know
almost nothing. We can accept that there was once a period of
mother-rule.[291] Very little evidence, however, is forthcoming;
still, what does exist points clearly to the view that woman's actions
in the earliest times were entirely unfettered. Probably we may accept
as near to reality the picture Virgil gives to us of Camilla fighting
and dying on the field of battle.
In the ancient necropolis of Belmonte, dating from the iron age,
Professor d'Allosso has recently discovered two very rich tombs of
women warriors with war chariots over their remains. "The importance
of this discovery is exceptional, as it shows that the existence of
the Amazon heroines, leaders of armies, sung by the ancient poets, is
not a poetic fiction, but an historic reality." Professor d'Allosso
states that several details given by Virgil coincide with the details
of these tombs.[292]
From the earliest notices we have of the Roman women we find them
possessed of a definite character of remarkable strength. We often say
this or that is a sign of some particular period or people; when nine
times out of ten the thing we believe to be strange is in reality
common to the progress of life. In Rome the position of woman would
seem to have followed in orderly development that cyclic movement so
beautifully defined by Havelock Ellis in the quotation I have placed
at the beginning of the first section of this chapter.
The patriarchal rule was already strongly established when Roman
history opens; it involved the same strict subordination of woman to
the one function of child-bearing that we have found in the Athenian
custom. The Roman marriage law developed from exactly the same
beginning as did the Greek; the woman was the property of her father
first and then of her husband. The marriage ceremony might be
accomplished by one or two forms, but might also be made valid without
any form at all. For in regard to a woman, as in regard to other
property, possession or use continued for one year gave the right of
ownership to the husband. This marriage without contract or ceremony
was called _usus_.[293] The form _confarreatio_, or patrician
marriage, was a solemn union performed by the high Pontiff of Jupiter
in the presence of ten witnesses, in which the essential act was the
eating together by both the bride and bridegroom of a cake made of
flour, water and salt.[294] The religious ceremony was in no way
essential to the marriage. The second and most common form, was called
_coemptio_, or purchase, and was really a formal sale between the
father or guardian of the bride and the future husband.[295] Both
these forms transferred the woman from the _potestas_ (power) of her
father into the _manus_ (hand) of her husband to whom she became as a
daughter, having no rights except through him, and no duties except to
him. The husband even held the right of life and death over the woman
and her children. It depended on his will whether a baby girl were
reared or cast out to die--and the latter alternative was no doubt
often chosen. As is usual under such conditions, the right of divorce
was allowed to the husband and forbidden to the wife. "If you catch
your wife," was the law laid down by Cato the Censor, "in an act of
infidelity, you would kill her with impunity without a trial; but if
she were to catch you she would not venture to touch you with a
finger, and, indeed, she has no right." It is true that divorce was
not frequent.[296] Monogamy was strictly enforced. At no period of
Roman history are there any traces of polygamy or concubinage.[297]
But such strictness of the moral code seems to have been barren in its
benefit to women. The terrible right of _manus_ was vested in the
husband and gave him complete power of correction over the wife. In
grave cases the family tribunal had to be consulted. "Slaves and
women," says Mommsen, "were not reckoned as being properly members of
the community," and for this reason any criminal act committed by them
was judged not openly by the State, but by the male members of the
woman's family. The legal right of the husband to beat his wife was
openly recognised. Thus Egnatius was praised when, surprising his wife
in the act of tasting wine,[298] he beat her to death. And St. Monica
consoles certain wives, whose faces bore the mark of marital
brutality, by saying to them: "Take care to control your tongues....
It is the duty of servants to obey their masters ... you have made a
contract of servitude."[299] Such was the marriage law in the early
days of Rome's history.
Now it followed almost necessarily that under such arbitrary
regulations of the sexual relationship some way of escape should be
sought. We have seen how the Athenian husbands found relief from the
restrictions of legal marriage with the free _hetairæ_. But in Rome
the development of the freedom of love, with the corresponding
advancement of the position of woman, followed a different course. The
stranger-woman never attained a prominent place in Roman society. It
is the citizen-women alone who are conspicuous in history. Here,
relief was gained for the Roman wives as well as for the husbands, by
what we may call a clever escape from marriage under the right of the
husband's _manus_. This is so important that I must ask the reader
deeply to consider it. The ideal of equality and fellowship between
women and men in marriage can be realised only among a people who are
sufficiently civilised to understand the necessity for the development
and modification of legal restrictions that have become outworn and
useless. Wherever the laws relating to marriage and divorce are
arbitrary and unchanging there woman, as the weaker partner, will be
found to remain in servitude. It can never be through the
strengthening of moral prohibitions, but only by their modification to
suit the growing needs of society that freedom will come to women.
The history of the development of marriage in Rome illustrates this
very forcibly. Even in the days of the Twelve Tables a wholly
different and free union had begun to take the place of the legally
recognised marriage forms. It was developed from the early marriage by
_usus_. We have seen that this marriage depended on the cohabitation
of the man and the woman continued for one year, which gave the right
of ownership to the husband in exactly the same way as possession for
a year gave the right over others' property. But in Rome, if the
enjoyment of property was broken for any period during the year, no
title to it arose out of the _usufruct_. This idea was cleverly
applied to marriage by _usus_. The wife by passing three nights in the
year out of the conjugal domicile broke the _manus_ of the husband and
did not become his property.
When, or how, it became a custom to convert this breach of
cohabitation into a system and establish a form of marriage, which
entirely freed the wife from the _manus_ of the husband, we do not
know. What is certain is that this new form of free marriage by
consent rapidly replaced the older forms of the _coemptio_, and even
the solemn _confarreatio of the patricians_.
It will be readily seen that this expansion of marriage produced a
revolution in the position of woman. The bride now remained a member
of her own family, and though nominally under the control of her
father or guardian, she was for all purposes practically free, having
complete control over her own property, and was, in fact, her own
mistress.
The law of divorce evolved rapidly, and the changes were wholly in
favour of women. Marriage was now a private contract, of which the
basis was consent; and, being a contract, it could be dissolved for
any reason, with no shame attached to the dissolution, provided it was
carried out with the due legal form, in the presence of competent
witnesses. Both parties had equal liberty of divorce, only with
certain pecuniary disadvantages, connected with the forfeiting of the
wife's dowry, for the husband whose fault led to the divorce.[300] It
was expressly stated that the husband had no right to demand fidelity
from his wife unless he practised the same himself. "Such a system,"
says Havelock Ellis, "is obviously more in harmony with modern
civilised feeling than any system that has ever been set up in
Christendom."[301]
Monogamy remained imperative. The husband was bound to support the
wife adequately, to consult her interests and to avenge any insult
inflicted upon her, and it is expressly stated by the jurist Gaius
that the wife might bring an action for damages against her husband
for ill-treatment.[302] The woman retained complete control of her
dowry and personal property. A Roman jurist lays it down that it is a
good thing that women should be dowered, as it is desirable they
should replenish the State with children. Another instance of the
constant solicitude of the Roman law to protect the wife is seen in
the fact that even if a wife stole from her husband, no criminal
action could be brought against her. All crimes against women were
punished with a heavy hand much more severely than in modern times.
Women gained increasingly greater liberty until at last they obtained
complete freedom. This fact is stated by Havelock Ellis, whose remarks
on this point I will quote.
"Nothing is more certain than that the status of women in Rome
rose with the rise of civilisation exactly in the same way as in
Babylon and in Egypt. In the case of Rome, however, the growing
refinement of civilisation and the expansion of the Empire were
associated with the magnificent development of the system of
Roman law, which in its final forms consecrated the position of
women. In the last days of the Republic women already began to
attain the same legal level as men, and later the great Antonine
jurisconsults, guided by their theory of natural law, reached
the conception of the equality of the sexes as the principle of
the code of equity. The patriarchal subordination of women fell
into complete discredit, and this continued until, in the days
of Justinian, under the influence of Christianity the position
of women began to suffer."[303]
Hobhouse gives the same estimate as to the high status of women.
"The Roman matron of the Empire," he says, "was more fully her
own mistress than the married woman of any earlier civilisation,
with the possible exception of a certain period of Egyptian
history, and, it must be added, the wife of any later
civilisation down to our own generation."[304]
It is necessary to note that this freedom of the Roman woman was prior
to the introduction of Christianity, and that under its influence
their position began to suffer.[305] I cannot follow this question,
and can only say how entirely mistaken is the belief that the Jewish
religion, with its barbaric view of the relationship between the
sexes, was beneficial to the liberty of women.
The Roman matrons had now gained complete freedom in the domestic
relationship, and were permitted a wide field for the exercise of
their activities. They were the rulers of the household; they dined
with their husbands, attended the public feasts, and were admitted to
the aristocratic clubs, such as the _Gerousia_ is supposed to have
been. We find from inscriptions that women had the privilege of
forming associations and of electing women presidents. One of these
bore the title of _Sodalitas Pudicitiæ Servandræ_, or "Society for
Promoting Purity of Life." At Lanuvium there was a society known as
the "Senate of Women." There was an interesting and singular woman's
society existing in Rome, with a meeting-place on the Quirinal, called
_Conventus Matronarum_, or "Convention of Mothers of Families." This
seems to have been a self-elected parliament of women for the purpose
of settling questions of etiquette. It cannot be said that the
accounts that we have of this assembly are at all edifying, but its
existence shows the freedom permitted to women, and points to the
important fact that they were accustomed to combine with one another
to settle their own affairs. The Emperor Heliogabalus took this
self-constituted Parliament in hand and gave it legal powers.[306]
The Roman women managed their own property; many women possessed great
wealth: at times they lent money to their husbands, at more than
shrewd interest. It appears to have been recognised that all women
were competent in business affairs, and, therefore, the wife was in
all cases permitted to assume complete charge of the children's
property during their minority, and to enjoy the _usufruct_. We have
instances in which this capacity for affairs is dwelt on, as when
Agricola, the general in command in Britain, shows such confidence in
his wife as a business woman that he makes her co-heir with his
daughter and the Emperor Domitian. Women were allowed to plead for
themselves in the courts of law. The satirists, like Juvenal, declare
that there were hardly any cases in which a woman would not bring a
suit.
There are many other examples which might be brought forward to show
the public entry of women into the affairs of the State. There would
seem to have been no limits set to their actions; and, moreover, they
acted in their own right independently of men. On one occasion, when
the women of the city rose in a body against an unfair taxation, they
found a successful leader in Hortensia, the daughter of the famous
orator Hortensus, who is said to have argued their case before the
Triumvirs with all her father's eloquence. We find the wives of
generals in camp with their husbands. The _graffitti_ found at Pompeii
give several instances of election addresses signed by women,
recommending candidates to the notice of the electors. We find, too,
in the municipal inscriptions that the women in different
municipalities formed themselves into small societies with
semi-political objects, such as the support of some candidate, the
rewards that should be made to a local magistrate, or how best funds
might be collected to raise monuments or statues.
It is specially interesting to find how fine a use many of the Roman
women made of their wealth and opportunities. They frequently bestowed
public buildings and porticoes on the communities among which they
lived; they erected public baths and gymnasia, adorned temples, and
put up statues. Their generosity took other forms. In Asia Minor we
find several instances of women distributing large sums of money among
each citizen within her own district. Women presided over the public
games and over the great religious festivals. When formally appointed
to this position, they paid the expenses incurred in these displays.
In the provinces they sometimes held high municipal offices. Ira
Flavia, an important Roman settlement in Northern Spain, for instance,
was ruled by a Roman matron, Lupa by name.[307] The power of women was
especially great in Asia Minor, where they received a most marked
distinction, and were elected to the most important magistracies.
Several women obtained the highest Priesthood of Asia, the greatest
honour that could be paid to any one.[308]
There is one final point that has to be mentioned. We have seen how
the liberty and power of the Roman women arose from, and may be said
to have been dependent on, the substituting of a laxer form of
marriage with complete equality and freedom of divorce. In other words
it was the breaking down of the patriarchal system which placed women
in a position of freedom equal in all respects with men. Now, it has
been held by many that, owing to this freedom, the Roman women of the
later period were given up to licence. There are always many people
who are afraid of freedom, especially for women. But if our survey of
these ancient and great civilisations of the past has taught us
anything at all, it is this: the patriarchal subjection of women can
never lead to progress. We must give up a timid adherence to past
traditions. It is possible that the freeing of women's bonds may lead
in some cases to the foolishness of licence. I do not know; but even
this is better than the wastage of the mother-force in life. The child
when first it tries to walk has many tumbles, yet we do not for this
reason keep him in leading strings. We know he must learn to walk; how
to do this he will find out by his many mistakes.
The opinion as to the licentiousness of the Roman woman rests mainly
on the statements of two satirical writers, Juvenal and Tacitus.
Great pains have been taken to refute the charges they make, and the
old view is not now accepted. Dill,[309] who is quoted by Havelock
Ellis, seems convinced that the movement of freedom for the Roman
woman caused no deterioration of her character; "without being less
virtuous or respected, she became far more accomplished and
attractive; with fewer restraints, she had greater charm and
influence, even in social affairs, and was more and more the equal of
her husband."[310] Hobhouse and Donaldson[311] both support this
opinion; the latter writer considers that "there was no degradation of
morals in the Roman Empire." The licentiousness of pagan Rome was
certainly not greater than the licentiousness of Christian Rome. Sir
Henry Maine, in his valuable _Ancient Law_ (whose chapter on this
subject should be read by every woman), says, "The latest Roman law,
so far as it is touched by the constitution of the Christian Emperors,
bears some marks of reaction against the liberal doctrines of the
great Antonine jurisconsults." This he attributes to the prevalent
state of religious feeling that went to "fatal excesses" under the
influence of its "passion for asceticism."
At the dissolution of the Roman Empire the enlightened Roman law
remained as a precious legacy to Western civilisations. But, as Maine
points out, its humane and civilising influence was injured by its
fusion with the customs of the barbarians, and, in particular, by the
Jewish marriage system. The legislature of Europe "absorbed much more
of those laws concerning the position of women which belong peculiarly
to an imperfect civilisation. The law relating to married women was
for the most part read by the light, not of Roman, but of Christian
Canon Law, which in no one particular departs so widely from the
enlightened spirit of the Roman jurisprudence than in the view it
takes of the relations of the sexes in marriage." This was in part
inevitable, Sir Henry Maine continues, "since no society which
preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore
to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle
Roman law."
It is not possible for me to follow this question further. One thing
is incontrovertibly certain, that woman's position and her freedom can
best be judged by the equity of the moral code in its bearing on the
two sexes. Wherever a different standard of moral conduct is set up
for women from men there is something fundamentally wrong in the
family relationship needing revolutionising. The sexual passions of
men and women must be regulated, first in the interests of the social
body, and next in the interests of the individual. It is the
institution of marriage that secures the first end, and the remedy of
divorce that secures the second. It is the great question for each
civilisation to decide the position of the sexes in relation to these
two necessary institutions. In Rome an unusually enlightened public
feeling decided for the equality of woman with man in the whole
conduct of sexual morality. The legist Ulpian expresses this view when
he writes--"It seems to be very unjust that a man demands chastity
from his wife while he himself shows no example of it."[312] Such deep
understanding of the unity of the sexes is assuredly the finest
testimony to the high status of Roman women.
I have now reached the end of the inquiry set before us at the opening
of this chapter. I am fully aware of the many omissions, probable
misjudgments, and the inadequacy of this brief summary. We have
covered a wide field. This was inevitable. I know that to understand
really the position of woman in any country it is necessary to inquire
into all the customs that have built up its civilisation, and to gain
knowledge upon many points outside the special question of the sexual
relationships. This I have not been able even to attempt to do. I have
thrown out a few hints in passing--that is all. But the practical
value of what we have found seems to me not inconsiderable. I have
tried to avoid any forcing of the facts to fit in with a narrow and
artificial view of my own opinions. To me the truth is plain. As we
have examined the often-confused mass of evidence, as it throws light
on the position of woman in these four great civilisations of
antiquity, we find that, in spite of the apparent differences which
separate their customs and habits in the sexual relationships, the
evidence, when disentangled, all points in one and the same direction.
In the face of the facts before us one truth cries out its message:
"Woman must be free face to face with man." Has it not, indeed, become
clear that a great part of the wisdom of the Egyptians and the wisdom
of the Babylonians, as also of the Romans, and, in a different
degree, of the Greeks, rested in this, _they thought much of the
mothers of the race_. Do not the records of these old-world
civilisations show us the dominant position of the mother in relation
to the life of the race? In all great ages of humanity this has been
accepted as a central and sacred fact. We learn thus, as we look
backwards to those countries and those times when woman was free, by
what laws, habits and customs the sons of mothers may live long and
gladly in all regions of the earth. The use of history is not alone to
sum up the varied experiences of the past, but to enlarge our vision
of the present, and by reflections on that past to point a way to the
future.
FOOTNOTES:
[199] This is the position taken up, for instance, by Letourneau,
_Evolution of Marriage_, p. 176.
[200] _Herodotus_, Bk. II. p. 35.
[201] Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, Vol. I. p. 189.
[202] Maspero, Preface to _Queens of Egypt_, by J.R. Buttles, q. v.
[203] For an account of the reign of Hatschepsut, as well as of the
other queens who ruled in Egypt, I must refer the reader to the
excellent and careful work of Miss Buttles. It is worth noting that
the temple built by Queen Hatschepsut is one of the most famous and
beautiful monuments of ancient Egypt. On the walls are recorded the
history of her prosperous reign, also the private events of her life:
"Ra hath selected her for protecting Egypt and for rousing bravery
among men."
[204] We owe our knowledge of the Egyptian marriage contracts chiefly
to M. Revillout, whose works should be consulted. See also Paturet
(the pupil of Revillout), _La Condition juridique de la femme dans
l'ancienne Égypte_; Nietzold, _Die Ehe in Aegypten_; Greenfel, _Greek
Papyri_; Amélineau, _La Morale Égyptienne_; Müller, _Liebespoesie der
alten Aegypten_, and the numerous works of M. Maspero and Flinders
Petrie. Simcox, writing on "Ownership in Egypt," gives a good summary
of the subject, _Primitive Civilisations_, Vol. I. pp. 204-211; also
Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, Vol. I. p. 182, _et seq._
[205] Hobhouse regards this dowry as being the original property of
the wife in the forms of the bride-price. Revillout and Müller accept
the much more probable view, that the dowry was fictitious, and was
really a charge on the property of the husband to be paid to the wife
if he sent her away.
[206] Paturet, _La Condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne
Égypte_; p. 69.
[207] Nietzold, _Die Ehe in Aegypten_, p. 79.
[208] _Études égyptologiques_, livre XIII. pp. 230, 294; quoted by
Simcox, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 210.
[209] Simcox, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 204.
[210] Simcox, _op. cit._; Vol. I. pp. 210-211, citing Revillout;
_Cours de droit_, p. 285.
[211] This is the view of Simcox, _op. cit._, pp. 210-211.
[212] Hobhouse, Vol. I. p. 185 (_Note_).
[213] _Les obligations en droit égyptien_, p. 82; quoted by Simcox,
_op. cit._, Vol. I. pp. 209-210.
[214] Diodorus, bk. i. p. 27. The whole passage is: "Contrary to the
received usage of other nations the laws permit the Egyptians to marry
their sisters, after the example of Osiris and Isis. The latter, in
fact, having cohabited with her brother Osiris, swore, after his
death, never to suffer the approach of any man, pursued the murderer,
governed according to the laws, and loaded men with benefits. All this
explains why the queen receives more power and respect than the king,
and why, among private individuals, the woman rules over the man, and
that it is stipulated between married couples by the terms of the
dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman." The brother-sister
marriages, referred to by Diodorus, which were common, especially in
early Egyptian history, are further witness to the persistence among
them of the customs of the mother-age.
[215] Simcox, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 205.
[216] _Revue égyptologique_, I. p. 110.
[217] Revillout, _Cours de droit_, Vol. I. p. 222.
[218] _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. p. 393.
[219] Amélineau, _La morale égyptienne_, p. 194.
[220] Ellis, citing Donaldson, _Woman_, p. 196. This is also the
opinion of Müller.
[221] Revillout, _Revue égyptologique_, Vol. I. p. 113.
[222] Simcox, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 207.
[223] Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 244-245, citing Nietzold, p. 79.
[224] Letourneau (_Evolution of Marriage_, p. 176) takes this view.
[225] This is, of course, a survival of the old matriarchal custom.
[226] Hobhouse, _op. cit._, Vol. L. pp. 5-186. Herodotus (Bk. II. p.
42) states that many Egyptians, like the Greeks, had adopted monogamy.
[227] Burgsch, _Hist._, Vol. I. p. 262, quoted by Simcox.
[228] Simcox, Vol. I. p. 198-199. I take this opportunity of
acknowledging the help I have received from this writer's careful and
interesting chapter on "Domestic Relationships and Family Law" among
the Egyptians.
[229] Maspero, _Hist._ (German tr.), p. 41; see Simcox, _op. cit._, p.
199.
[230] This tablet is in the British Museum, London. S. Egyptian
Gallery, Bay 29, No. 1027.
[231] Simcox, Vol. I. pp. 218, 219.
[232] Petah Hotep was a high official in the reign of Assa, a king of
the IVth Dynasty, about 3360 B.C. His precepts consist of aphorisms of
high moral worth; there is a late copy in the British Museum. I have
followed the translation given in the _Guide to the Egyptian
Collection_ p. 77.
[233] This passage in other translations reads: "she is a field
profitable to its owner."
[234] The Maxims of Ani are preserved in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo.
The work inculcates the highest standard of practical morality and
gives a lofty ideal of the duty of the Egyptians in all the relations
of life.
[235] From the Boulak Papyrus (1500 B.C.). I have followed in part the
translation given by Griffiths, _The World's Literature_, p. 5340, and
in part that of Maspero given in _Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_
(trans. by Alice Morton, p. 16).
[236] Southern Egyptian Gallery, Bay 28, No. 964. This statue belongs
to later Egyptian history. It was dedicated by Shashanq, a high
official of the Ptolemaic period.
[237] Wall case 102, Nos. 187, 38, and 430.
[238] Vestibule of North Egyptian Gallery, East doorway, No. 14.
[239] South Gallery, No. 565.
[240] No. 375. This group belongs to the XVIIIth Dynasty: the husband
was a warden of the palace and overseer of the Treasury; the wife a
priestess of the god Amen.
[241] Simcox, _Primitive Civilisation_, Vol. I. pp. 9, 271.
[242] Hommel, _Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_, p. 271.
[243] Simcox, who quotes Hommel, _op. cit._, p. 320.
[244] Simcox, Vol. I. p 361.
[245] _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. p. 393. Ellis quotes Revillout,
"La femme dans l'antiquité," _Journal Asiatique_, 1906, Vol. VII. p.
57.
[246] I quote these facts from Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, Vol.
I. p. 179.
[247] Hobhouse, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 181.
[248] Hobhouse, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 180.
[249] There is one case as late as the thirteenth year of
Nebuchadnezzar in which a wife is bought for a slave for one and a
half gold minas.
[250] Simcox, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 374, citing _Les Obligations_, p.
346; also _Revue d'Assyriologie_.
[251] This deed was translated by Dr. Peiser, _Keilinschriftliche
Aktenstücke aus babylonischen Städte_, p. 19.
[252] See Simcox, Chapters, "Commercial Law and Contract Tablets" and
"Domestic Relations and Family Law," _op. cit._, Vol. I. pp. 320-379.
[253] To give a few examples, Plutarch mentions that the relations
between husband and wife in Sparta were at first secret (Plutarch,
_Lycurgas_). The story told by Pausanias about Ulysses' marriage
points to the custom of the husband going to live with his wife's
family (_Pausanias_, III. 20 (10), Frazer's translation). The legend
of the establishment of monogamy by Cecrops, because, before his time,
"men had their wives in common and did not know their fathers," points
clearly to a confused tradition of a period of mother-descent.
(_Athenæus_, XIII. 2). Herodotus reports that mother-descent was
practised by the Lycians, and states that "if a free woman marry a man
who is a slave their children are free citizens; but if a free man
marry a foreign woman or cohabit with a concubine, even though he be
the first person in the state, the children forfeit all rights of
citizenship" (_Herodotus_, Bk. I. 173). The wife of Intaphernes, when
granted by Darius permission to claim the life of a single man of her
kindred, chose her brother, saying that both husband and brother and
children could be replaced (_Herodotus_, Bk. III. 119). Similarly the
declaration of Antigone in Sophocles (line 905 ff) that neither for
husband nor children would she have performed the toil she undertook
for Polynices clearly shows that the tie of the common womb was held
as closer than the tie of marriage.
[254] For a full account of the Homeric woman the reader is referred
to Lenz, _Geschichte des Weiber im Heroischen Zeitalter_, an admirable
work. The fullest English account will be found in Mr. Gladstone's
_Homeric Studies_, Vol. II. See also Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 11-23,
where an excellent summary of the subject is given.
[255] _Odyssey_, I. 2.
[256] _Iliad_, VI. 429-430.
[257] _Odyssey_, VI. 182.
[258] Gladstone, _Homeric Studies_, Vol. II. p. 507.
[259] _Odyssey_, VII. 142 ff.
[260] Donaldson, _Woman_, p. 18-19.
[261] _Odyssey_, III. 450; _Iliad_, VI. 301.
[262] Simcox, _Primitive Civilisation_, Vol. I. p. 199. Reference may
also be made to the love-charm translated by M. Revillout in his
version of the _Tales of Selna_, p. 37.
[263] 2 _Nic. Ethics_, VIII. 14; _Econom._ I. p. 94.
[264] Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 195.
[265] _Lycurgus_, XXXVII.
[266] _Ibid._, XXVI.
[267] Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 28-29.
[268] Plutarch, _Apophthegms of the Lacedemonians_.--_Demandes
Romaines_, LXV.
[269] Lycurgus, Polybius, XII. 6. Xenophon, _Rep. Laced._ I.
Aristotle, _Pol._ II. 9. Aristotle notes especially the sexual liberty
allowed to women.
[270] Donaldson, _op. cit._, p. 28.
[271] _Polit._ II. 9.
[272] Plutarch, _Life of Agis_; Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 34, 35.
[273] Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, Vol. I. p. 208.
[274] Thus Demosthenes bequeathed his two daughters, aged seven and
five years, and also their mother, to his nephews, classing them with
his property in the significant phrase "all these things" (Letourneau,
_op. cit._, p. 196).
[275] Xenophon, _Economicus_, VII.-IX.
[276] Isæus _de Pyrrhi Her._, § 14.
[277] _Antig._ 905-13. These verses are probably interpolated, but the
interpolation was as early as Aristotle. The same views are placed by
Herodotus in the mouth of the wife of Intarphernes (3. 119). _See_
Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 53, 54 and note.
[278] "The Position of Women in History"; Essay in the volume _The
Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal_, p. 37.
[279] _Medea._
[280] Theodota, _Xen. 'Mem.'_, III. II. Socrates conversed with
Theodota on art and discussed with her how she could best find true
friends.
[281] _Symposium._
[282] _Pericles_, 24. Thargalia used her influence over the Greeks to
win them over to the cause of the King of Persia.
[283] Timandra, Plut., _Alcib._, c. 39.
[284] Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), _Chapters on Human Love_, p.
152.
[285] We do not know the circumstances which induced Aspasia to come
to Athens. Plutarch suggests that she was led to do so by the example
of Thargalia. For full accounts of the career of Aspasia see Gomperz,
_Greek Thinkers_, Vol. III.; Ivo Bruns, _Frauenemancipation in Athen_;
the fine monograph, _Aspasie de Milet_, by Becq Fouquières;
Donaldson's _Woman_, pp. 60-67; also Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol.
VI. p. 308.
[286] Pericles at the time of his meeting Aspasia was married, but
there was incompatibility of temper between him and his wife. He
therefore made an agreement with his wife to have a divorce and get
her remarried. Aspasia then became his companion and they remained
together until the death of Pericles. Their affection for one another
was considered remarkable. Plutarch tells us, as an extraordinary
trait in the habits of a statesman who was remarkable for his
imperturbability and control, that Pericles regularly kissed Aspasia
when he went out and came in. When Pericles died Aspasia is said to
have formed a friendship with Lysicles, and through her influence
raised him to the position of foremost politician in Athens
(Donaldson, _op. cit._, pp. 60, 61 and 63).
[287] Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, Vol. III. p. 124.
[288] _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. p. 308; Donaldson, _op. cit._, p.
62.
[289] _Frauenemancipation in Athen_, p. 19.
[290] _Medea_, Mr. Gilbert Murray's translation.
[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
Proneste 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 passed 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, XXXVI.). 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 Sex_, 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_ (Mediæval 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
SEX DIFFERENCES
The practical application of the truths arrived at--A question to
be faced--The organic differences between the sexes--Résumé
of the facts already established--The error in the common
opinion of the true relationship of the sexes--The male
active and seeking--The female passive and receiving--Is this
true?--An examination of the passivity of the female--The
delusion that man is the active partner in the sexual
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
sexes--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--Sex attraction and sex
antagonism--Woman's relation to sexuality--The duel of the
sexes--The prostitution of love--Man's fear of
woman--Misogyny--The rebellion of woman against man--Coercive
differentiation of the sexes in consequence of
civilisation--The ideal of a one-sexed world--Woman as the
enemy of her own emancipation--The attempt to establish a
third sex--The danger of ignoring sex--The future progress of
love.
CHAPTER VIII
SEX DIFFERENCES
"Woman is an integral constituent 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 sexes 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 sexual 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 sexes. 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 sexual 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 sex-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 sexual 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 sexes, 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 aggrandisement 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 sex 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 sexual 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 rôle of the sexes. We found further that (1) an
extravagant development of the secondary sexual characters was not
really favourable to the reproductive process, the males thus
differentiated belonging to a lower grade of sexual 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 sexes, though maintaining the essential
constitutional 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 sexes. 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 passive
principle in sexuality, and on this assumption there has been based by
many a fixed standard for the supposed natural relation between man
and woman--he active and seeking, she passive 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 "passive" in this connection is surely curiously misleading;
as well call the snake passive when, waiting motionless, it charms and
draws towards it the victim it will devour. Illustrations 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 sexual
relationship, and conclude that the passivity of the female is not
real, but only an apparent passivity. 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 sexual activity of
the female from that of the male. The serious part in sex 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 sexes. In all cases it is the same,
the serious business in sex 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 sex absorbs and uses the male.
"The passivity of the female in love," it has been said wisely by
Marro in his fine work _La Pubertà_, "is the passivity of the magnet,
which in its apparent immobility is drawing the iron towards it. An
intense energy lies behind such passivity, 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 bitches will show sudden passions 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 assure
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 passivity of the female as a natural law
of the sexes. 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 passivity 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 sex. 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
sex-snares and pitfalls set by women for the capture of men. The woman
waits _passive_! 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 sexual
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 sexual characteristic, a manifestation of the operation of
sexual 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 passionate
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 sexual 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 sex 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 chastity, 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.
Her unborn children importuning her, her choice will be guided by the
man's fitness alone, not, as now it is, by his capacity and power for
work and protection. We are only awakening to the terrible evils of
these powerful economic restraints, which now limit the woman's range
of choice. It is this wastage of the Life-force that, as I believe,
above all else has driven women into revolt.
The free power of Selection in Love! Yes; that is the true Female
Franchise. It must be regained by woman, to be used by her to ennoble
the sex relation and thereby to cleanse society of the unfit. The
means by which this most important end can be attained will be brought
about by giving woman such training and education and civic rights, as
well as the framing of such laws and changes in the rights of property
inheritance, as shall render her economically independent. Existing
marriage is a pernicious survival of the patriarchal age. The
"patriarch's" wife was significantly reckoned in the same category
with a man's "ox" and his "ass," which any other male was forbidden
"to covet." The wife was the husband's--her owner's private
property--and the curse of this dependence and the old ferocious
_potestas_ and _manus_, from which the Roman wife freed herself, are
upon women to-day. With the regaining of their economic freedom by
women--by whatever means this is to be accomplished--a truer marriage
will be brought within reach of every one, and the sexual relationship
will be freed from the jealous chains of ownership that cause such
bitter mistrusts in the wreckage of our loves.
Mating will be a much more complex affair, and yet one much more
directly in harmony with the welfare of the race. A recognition of the
pre-natal claims of the child is the new Ethic that is slowly but
surely dawning on womankind and on man. He who destroys human life,
however unfit that life may be, is remorselessly punished by society,
but the woman and man who beget diseased and imbecile children--the
necessarily unfit--are not only exonerated from sin, but applauded by
both Church and State. Could moral inconstancy go further than this?
It is only in the begetting of men that breeding from the worst stocks
may be said to be the rule. As long as in our ideas on these questions
superstition remains the guide there is nothing to hope for and much
to fear. The new ideal is only beginning, and beginning with a
tardiness that is a reproach to human foresight. But herein lies the
glad hope of the future. I place my trust in the enlightened
conscience of the economically emancipated mothers, and in the
awakened fathers, to work out some scheme of sexual salvation as will
ensure a race of sounder limb and saner intelligence than any that has
yet appeared in our civilisation.
It is woman, not man, who must fix the standard in sex. The problems
of love are linked on to the needs of the race. Nature has, as we have
seen, made various experiments as to which of the sexes was to be the
predominant partner in this relation. But the decision has been made
in the favour of the mother. She it is who has to play the chief part
in the racial life. There is no getting away from this, in spite of
the many absurdities that man has set up, as, for instance, St. Paul's
grandmotherly old Tory dogma, making "man the head of the woman."
The differences between woman and man are deep and fundamental. And,
lest there be any who fear the giving back to woman of her power, let
me say that in this change there will be no danger of unsexing, least
of all of the unsexing of woman. Nature would not permit it, even if
she in any foolishness of revolt sought such a result, for it is her
body that is the sanctuary of the race. Love and courtship will not,
indeed, be robbed of any charm, that would be fatal, but they will be
freed from the mockeries of love that have always selfishness in them,
jealous resentments and fearing distrusts--the man of the woman, not
less than the woman of the man. To-day coquetry serves not only as a
prelude to marriage, but very often serves as a substitute for it; an
escape from the payment of the sacrifices which fulfilled love claims.
There is a confusion of motives which now force women and men alike
from their service to the race. Sex must be freed from all unworthy
necessities. Courtship must be regarded, not as a game of chance, but
as the opening act in the drama of life. And the woman who comes to
know this must play her part consciously, realising in full what she
is seeking for; then, indeed, no longer will her sex be to her a light
or a saleable thing. At present economic and social injustices are
strangling millions of beautiful unborn babes.
There is another error that I would wish to clear up now. It is a
tenet of common belief that in all matters of sex-feeling and
sex-morality the woman is different from, and superior to, the man. I
find in the writings of almost all women on sex-subjects, not to speak
of popular novels, an insistence on men's grossness, with a great deal
in contrast about the soulful character of woman's love. Even so
illuminated a writer as Ellen Key emphasises this supposed trait of
the woman again and again. Another woman writer, Miss May Sinclair,
in a brilliant "Defence of Men" (_English Review_, July 1912), speaks
of "the superior virtue of women" as being "primordially and
fundamentally Nature's care." And again, woman "has monopolised virtue
at man's expense," which the writer, with the most perfect humour and
irony, though apparently quite unconscious, regards as "men's
tragedy." The woman has received the laurel crown by "Nature's
consecration of her womanhood to suffering," the man "has paid with
his spiritual prospects as she has paid with her body."
Now, from this view of the sex relationship I most utterly dissent. I
believe that any difference in virtue, even where it exists in woman,
is not fundamental, that it is against Nature's purpose that it should
be so; rather it has arisen as a pretence of necessity, because it has
been expected of her, nourished in her, and imposed on her by the
unnatural prohibitions of religious and social conventions. The female
half of life has not been pre-ordained to suffer any more than the
male half: this belief has done more to destroy the conscience of
woman than any other single error. You have only to repeat any lie
long enough to convince even yourself of its truth. But assuredly free
woman will have to yield up her martyr's crown.
I grant willingly that men often talk brutally of sex, but I am
certain that few of them think brutally. We women are so easily
deceived by the outside appearance of things. The man who calls "a
spade a spade" is not really inferior to him who terms it "an
agricultural implement for the tilling of the soil." And women also
express their sensuality in orgies of emotion, in hypocrisies of
chastity, and in many other ways that are really nothing but a subtle
sensuality disguised.
I confess that I doubt very much the existence of any special soulful
character in woman's love. I wish that I didn't. But my experience
forces me to admit that this is but another of those delusions which
woman has wrapped around herself. Of course I may be wrong. I find
Professor Forel and other distinguished psychologists lending their
support to this idol of the woman's superior sexual virtue.
Krafft-Ebing goes much further, holding "that woman is naturally and
organically frigid." It may be then that some difference does exist in
the driving force of passion in men and women. I do not know the exact
character of men's love to compare it with my own, and I hesitate to
write with that assurance of the passions of the other sex with which
they have written of mine. Yet I believe that the male receiving life
from the female is not more mindful of the physical needs of love than
the woman, though possibly she has less understanding of its joys. For
the woman with a much more complex sexual nature is carried by passion
further than the male; the continuance of life rests with her. Under
this imperative compulsion woman, if needs be, will break every
commandment in the Decalogue and suffer no remorse for having done so.
I think this seeking to give life remains a necessary element in the
loves of all women. At its lowest it will stoop to any unscrupulousness.
Bernard Shaw tells us that "if women were as fastidious as men, morally
or physically, there would be an end to the race." Perhaps this is
true. Yet I think woman's love is always different in its fundamental
essence from the excitements of the male. We throw the whole burden of
sex-desire on to men, because we have not yet faced the truth that they
are our helpless agents in carrying on Nature's most urgent work. It
has been so from the beginning, since that first primordial mating when
the hungry male-cell gained renewal of life from the female, it is so
still, I believe it will be thus to the end.
It is when we come to the emotions and actions connected with the
maternal instinct in woman that we reach the real point of the
difference between the sexes. In its essential essence this belongs to
women alone. The male may be infected with the reproduction energy (we
have witnessed this in its finest expression among birds, where the
parental duties are shared in and, in some cases, carried out entirely
by the male), but man possesses, as yet, its faint analogy only. It is
the most primary of all woman's qualities, and, being fundamental, it
is, I believe, unalterable, and any attempt to minimise its action is
very unlikely to lead to progress. It is a two-sexed world; women and
men are not alike; I hope that they never will be.
This radical truth is so plain. Yet it seems to me that in the present
confusion many women are in danger of overlooking it. We saw in an
earlier chapter how very early in the development of life it was found
by Nature's slow but certain experiments that the establishment of two
sexes in different organisms, and their differentiation, was to the
immense advantage of progress. This initial difference leads to the
functional distinctions between the female and the male, but it goes
much further than this, finding its expression in many secondary
qualities, not on the physical side alone, but on the mental and
psychical, and is, indeed, a saturating influence that determines the
entire development of the organism into the feminine or the masculine
character. Take again the fact that this dynamic action of sex has
manifested itself in a continual progress through the uncounted
centuries. Developed by love's selection, the differentiation of the
sexes increased in the evolution of species, and as the
differentiation increased the attraction also increased, until in all
the higher forms we find two markedly different sexes, strongly drawn
together by the magnetism of sex, and fulfilling together their
separate uses in the reproductive process. These are the natural
features of sex-distinction and sex-union.
The belief, therefore, is forced upon us that the characteristic
feminine and masculine characters are an inherent part of the normal
woman and man, a duality that goes back to the very threshold of
sexuality. So Nature created them, female and male created she them.
To change the metaphor, we have the woman and the man=the unit--the
race. While there is no fixing of the precise nature of this
constitutional difference between the two sexes, we may yet, broadly
speaking, reach the truth. The female, as the giver and keeper of
life, is relatively more constructive, relatively less disruptive than
the male. It is here, I believe, we touch the spring of those sex
differences, which do exist, in spite of all efforts to explain them
away between the woman and the man. It is a quality that crops up in
many diverse directions and penetrates into every expression of the
feminine character.
Now, we cannot get away from a difference so fundamental, so
primordial as this. The consecration of the woman's body as the
sanctuary of life--that perpetual payment in giving is not safely to
be altered. And this I contest against all the Feminists: the real
need of the normal woman is the full and free satisfaction of the
race-instinct. Do I then accept the subjection of the woman. Assuredly
not! To me it is manifest that it is just because of her sex-needs and
her sex-power that woman must be free. To leave such a force to be
used without understanding is like giving a weapon to a child, in
whose hands a cartridge suddenly goes off, leaving the empty and
smoking shell in his trembling hands.
It is well to remember, however, that for all women there is
conceivably no one simple rule. It is quite possible that the maternal
instincts may be overlaid and even destroyed, being replaced by others
more clearly masculine. In our artificial social state this is indeed
bound to be so. It may be regretted, but it cannot be blamed. And each
woman must be free to make her own choice; no man may safely decide
for her; she must give life gladly to be able to give it well. This is
why any effort to force maternity, even as an ideal, upon women is so
utterly absurd. To-day woman is coming slowly and hesitatingly to a
new consciousness of herself, and this at present is perhaps
preoccupying her attention. But the freed woman of to-morrow will have
no need to centre her thoughts in herself, for by that time she will
understand. There will come a day when women will no longer live in a
prison walled up with fear of love and life. And when she has done
with discovering herself and playing at conquests, she will come to
the most glorious day of all, when she will know herself for what she
is. And to those of us who see already the goal the way is surely
clear--let us work to find how best it can be made easy for all women
to love gladly and to bring forth their children in joy.
Hitherto, dating from the times of the subjection of mother-right to
father-right, the woman's insecure position, with her need of
protection during the period of motherhood, has forced her into a
state of dependence and subordination to men, which has accentuated
and made permanent that physical disadvantage which, apart from
motherhood, would scarcely exist, and even with motherhood would not
become a source of weakness, under a wiser social organisation, which,
understanding the primary importance of the mother, so arranged its
domestic and social relationships as to place its women in a position
of security. We have seen how this was done in Egypt, and how happy
were the results; we have seen, too, that among all primitive peoples
women are practically as strong as the men, and as capable in the
social duty of work. It is only under the fully established
patriarchal system, with its unequal development of the sexes, that
motherhood is a source of weakness to women. From the time that
society comes again to recognise the position of mothers and their
right as the bearers of strength to the race, not only to protection
while they are fulfilling that essential function for the community,
but to their freedom after they have fulfilled it--the same freedom
that men claim for the work they do for the community--from that time
will arise a new freedom of women which will once again unite
mother-right with father-right. This change will touch and vitally
affect many of the deepest problems of the sexual relationship and the
race.
We hear much to-day of women, and also men, being over-sexed; to me it
seems much nearer the truth to say we are wrongly sexed. It is
unquestionable that the progress of civilisation has resulted in a
markedly accentuated differentiation between the sexes, which, through
inheritance and custom, has become continually more sharply defined.
Now, up to a certain point sex differences lead to sex-attraction, but
whenever such variability--whether initiated by some natural process
or by some intentional guidance of the pressure of civilisation--is
unduly exaggerated, the way is opened up for sex-antagonism. That
this, indeed, occurs may be seen from the fact we have already
established, that an exaggerated outgrowth of the secondary sexual
characters is not really favourable to development; the species thus
differentiated being bad parents and unsocial in their conduct. The
large felines, which are often inclined to commit infanticide in their
own interests, the male turkey and other members of the gallinaceæ
afford examples, and so does the female phalarope, whose maternal
instincts are completely atrophied. Another illustration may be drawn
from the debased position of the Athenian women, where the sharp
separation between the sexes led, without doubt, not only to the
debasing of the marriage relationship, but to the establishment of the
_hetairæ_, and also to the common practice of homo-sexual love.
Under our present civilisation, and mainly owing to the unnatural
relation of the sexes, which has unduly emphasised certain qualities
of excessive femininity, sex-feeling has been at once over-accentuated
and under-disciplined. Thus, an extreme outward sex-attraction has
come to veil but thinly a deep inward sex-antipathy, until it seems
almost impossible that women and men can ever really understand one
another. Herein lie the roots, as I believe, of much of the brutal
treatment of women by men and the contempt in which too often they are
held. For what is the truth here? In this so-called "duel of sex,"
while woman's moral equality has not been recognised, women have
employed their sex-differences as the most effective weapon for
compassing their own ends, and men in the mass--unmindful of the truth
that love is an understanding of the contrasted natures, a solution of
the riddle--have wished to have it so. What significance arises out of
this in the so-much-lauded cry, "Woman's influence!" "By thy
submission rule," really means in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred,
"Rule by sex-seduction and flattery." Yes, we women cannot burk the
truth--the seduction and flattery of man by woman is writ large over
the face of our present society, it speaks in our literature and in
our art. It is to this prostitution of love that sex-differences have
carried us.
There is, of course, nothing new in these conditions; and there have
always been times when men have rebelled against this sexual tyranny
of woman. Misogyny is an old story. It is Euripides who betrays to us
the real meaning of such revolt. In a fragment of his we read, _The
most invincible of all things is a woman!_ Men are so little sure of
themselves that they fear suffering from woman an annihilation of
their own personality. There is nothing surprising in this; rather it
is one of Nature's laws that may not be overlooked, traceable back to
that first coalescence when the female cellule absorbs the male. In
one way or another, for Nature's ends or for her own, the female will
always absorb the male--the woman the man; she is the river of life,
he but the tributary stream. Paracelsus long ago gave utterance to the
profound truth, "Woman is nearer to the world than man." Hence the
army of misogynists--a Schopenhauer, a Strindberg, a Weininger, even a
great Tolstoi, alike moved in a rebellion of disillusion, or satiety,
against the power of woman that has been turned into turbid channels
of misusage. Thence, too, the hateful Christian doctrine of the
fundamentally sinful, evil, devilish nature of woman.
This rebellion of men, and their efforts to free themselves from the
thrall of women has been of little avail. We have reached now a new
stage in the age-long conflict of the sexes--the rebellion of the
woman. There has come a time when the old cry, "Woman, what have I to
do with you?" is being changed. It is woman who is whispering to
herself and to her sisters, and, as she gains in courage, crying it
aloud, "Men, what have we to do with you? We belong to ourselves." It
is to this impasse in the confusion and antagonism of the present
moment of transition that sex-differences are bringing us.
In face of this we may well pause.
What to do is another matter. But I am mainly concerned just now in
trying to see facts clearly. And to me it often seems that woman is
in grave danger to-day of becoming intoxicated with herself. She
stands out self-affirming, postulating her own--or what she thinks to
be her own--nature. In her, perhaps too-sudden, awakening to an
entirely new existence of a free personality, an over-consciousness of
her rights has arisen, causing a confusion of her instincts, so she
fails to see the revelation begotten in her inmost self.
There is no getting away from the truth that there is this vital
organic distinction between woman and man; and further, that this
sexual difference does, and it is well that it should, find its
expression in a large number of detailed characters of femaleness and
maleness, various in value, some, perhaps, trivial, and some
important. These characters are natural in origin and natural also in
having survived ages of eliminative selection. But the point I want to
make clear is that, side by side with these fundamental differences,
have arisen in women a number of what may be called coercive
differentiations, inconsistent with, and absolutely hurtful to the
natural distinctions, being destructive to the love and understanding
of woman and man, and not less destructive to the vigour of the race.
This misdifferentiation of women, it is true, is passing, but the
progressive gain in this direction is counterbalanced by a new and
hardly less grave danger.
I am dealing here with what seems to me to be a perilous quicksand in
woman's struggle for free development. To hear many women talk it
would appear that the new ideal was a one-sexed world. A great army of
women have espoused the task of raising their sex out of subjection.
For such a duty the strength and energy of passion is required. Can
this task be performed if the woman to any extent indulges in
sex--otherwise subjection to man. Sexuality debases, even reproduction
and birth are regarded as "nauseating." Woman is not free, only
because she has been the slave to the primitive cycle of emotions
which belong to physical love. The renunciation, the conquest of
sex--it is this that must be gained. As for man, he has been shown up,
women have found him out; his long-worn garments of authority and his
mystery and glamour have been torn into shreds--woman will have none
of him.
Now obviously these are over-statements, yet they are the logical
outcome of much of the talk that one hears. It is the visible sign of
our incoherence and error, and in the measure of these follies we are
sent back to seek the truth. Women need a robuster courage in the face
of love, a greater faith in their womanhood, and in the scheme of
Life. Nothing can be gained from the child's folly in breaking the
toys that have momentarily ceased to please. The misogamist type of
woman cannot fail to prove as futile as the misogamist man. Not "Free
_from_ man" is the watch-cry of women's emancipation that surely is to
be, but "Free _with_ man."
Let us pass to a somewhat different instance--the perversion of the
natural instincts of woman which has led to the attempt to establish
what has been called a "third sex,"[317] a type of woman in whom the
sexual differences are obscured or even obliterated--a woman who is,
in fact, a temperamental neuter. Economic conditions are compelling
women to enter with men into the fierce competition of our disordered
social State. Partly due to this reason, though much more, as I think,
to the strong stirring in woman of her newly-discovered self, there
has arisen what I should like to call an over-emphasised
Intellectualism. Where sex is ignored there is bound to lurk danger.
Every one recognises the significance of the advance in particular
cases of women towards a higher intellectual individuation, and the
social utility of those women who have been truly the pioneers of the
new freedom; but this does not lessen at all the disastrous influence
of an ideal which holds up the renunciation of the natural rights of
love and activities of women, and thus involves an irreparable loss to
the race by the barrenness of many of its finest types. The
significance of such Intellectuals must be limited, because for them
the possibility of transmission by inheritance of their valuable
qualities is cut off, and hence the way is closed to a further
progress. And, thus, we are brought back to that simple truth from
which we started; there are two sexes, the female and the male, on
their specific differences and resemblances blended together in union
every true advance in progress depends--on the perfected woman and the
perfected man.
FOOTNOTES:
[313] See Havelock Ellis, "The Sexual Impulse in Woman," _Psychology
of Sex_, Vol. III. p. 181, who gives this quotation from Marro.
[314] See page 111.
[315] Haddon, "Western Tribes of Torres Straits," _Journal of the
Anthropological Society_, Vol. XIX., Feb. 1890; cited by Ellis, _op.
cit._, p. 185.
[316] See page 66.
[317] E. von Wolzogen gives this name, _The Third Sex_, to a romance
in which he describes a kind of barren, stunted woman, capable,
however, of holding her place in all work in competition with men. The
writer compares these types of women to the workers among ants and
bees. _See_ p. 62. I have quoted from Iwan Bloch, _The Sexual Life of
Our Times_, p. 13.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IX
APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON SEX
DIFFERENCES
I.--_Women and Labour_
A further examination of the sexual differences--The knowledge we
have gained does not enable us definitely to settle the
problem--The necessity of considering Nurture--Woman's
character to some extent the result of circumstance, to some
extent organic--The difficulties of the problem--Standards of
comparison--Incompleteness of our knowledge--New researches
on sex-differences--The confusion of opinions--Women and men
different, but neither superior to the other--The position of
women in society to-day--The increasing surplus of women--How
can a remedy be found?--Woman's place in the home--The
changes in modern conditions--Women and labour--The damning
struggle for life--Sweated work--Women's wages--The
marketable value of woman's sex--This the explanation of the
smallness of women's wages--The prostitute better paid than
the worker--Woman's strength as compared with man's--Are
women really the weaker sex?--Woman's work capacity equal to
man's, but different--The Spanish women--The intolerable
conditions of labour in commercial countries--Women more
deeply concerned than men--The real value of women's
work--This must be recognised by the State--The social
service of child-bearing--The primary and most important work
of women--The present revolt of women--How far is this
justifiable--A caution and some reflections.
II.--_Sexual Differences of the Mind and the Artistic Impulse in
Women_
The mental and psychical sexual differences--Ineradicability of
these--Can they be modified or disregarded?--The masculine
and feminine intellectual qualities--Caution necessary in
making any comparison--Example, a tenacious memory--Is this a
feminine characteristic?--Woman's intuition--Its value--Each
sex contributes to the thought power of the other--The
artistic impulse--Is genius to be regarded as an endowment of
the male?--An examination of the grounds for this
view--Untenability of the opinion of the greater variational
tendency of men--The question needs reopening--The influence
of environment and training on woman's mind--What woman can,
or can not, do as yet unproved--Woman's talent for
diplomacy--The separation between the mental life of the
sexes--The result on woman's mind--The revolt against
repression--Woman as she is represented in literature--The
woman of the future--Woman the cause of emotion in men--Part
played by women in early civilisations--What men learnt from
them--Woman's emotional endowment--Her affectability and
response to suggestion--These the qualities essential to
success in the arts--A comparison between the qualities of
genius and the qualities of woman--This opens up questions of
startling significance--What women may achieve in the
future--Some suggestions as to the effect of the entrance of
women into the arts.
III.--_The Affectability of Woman--Its Connection with the Religious
Impulse_
Woman's aptitude for religion--Her need for a
protection--Relation between the sexual and religious
emotions--Deprivation of love and satiety of love the sources
of religious needs--Religious prostitution--Religio-erotic
festivals--Sexual mysticism in Christianity--The lives of the
saints--Religious sexual perceptions--Their influence on the
emotional feminine character--A personal experience--The
association between love and salvation--The same sense of the
eternal in the religious and the sexual
impulse--Asceticism--Its origin in the sexual
emotions--Preoccupation of the ascetic with sex needs--The
transformation of the sex-impulse into spiritual
activities--Examples--The modern ascetic--The fear of
love--This the ultimate cause of the contempt of
woman--Example of Maupassant's priest--In love the way of
salvation.
CHAPTER IX
APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON SEX
DIFFERENCES
I.--_Women and Labour_
"The fullest ideal of the woman-worker is she who works not
merely or mainly for men as the help and instrument of their
purpose, but who works with men as the instrument yet material
of her purpose."--GEDDES AND THOMPSON.
When we come to consider the detailed differences between woman and
man, a sharp separation of them into female qualities and male
qualities no longer squares with the known facts. Any attempt to
lessen the natural differences, as also to weaken at all the
attractions arising from this divergence, must be regarded with
extreme distrust. There is a real and inherent prejudice against the
masculine woman and the feminine man. It is nevertheless necessary
very carefully to discriminate between innate qualities of femaleness
and maleness and those differences that have been acquired as the
direct result of peculiarities of environmental conditions. It is
certain that many differences in the physical and mental capacity of
women must be referred not to Nature but to Nurture, _i.e._ the
effects of conditions and training. Let me give one concrete case, for
one clear illustration is more eloquent than any statement. Long ago
Professor Karl Vogt pointed out that women were awkward manipulators.
Thomas, in _Sex and Society_, answers this well: "The awkwardness in
manual manipulation shown by these girls was surely due to lack of
practice. The fastest type-writer in the world is to-day a woman; the
record for roping steers (a feat depending on manual dexterity rather
than physical force) is held by a woman." I may add to this an example
of my own observation. In a recent International Fly and Bait Casting
Tournament, held at the Crystal Palace, a woman was among the
competitors, and gave an admirable exhibition of skill in salmon
fly-casting. In this competition she threw one cast 34 feet and two of
33 feet, making an aggregate of 100 yards, which gained her the prize
over the male competitors. It has also been recently stated that women
show equal skill with men in shooting at a target.
It is plain that the more we examine the question of sex-differences
the more it baffles us. The only safeguard against utter confusion and
idleness of thought is to fall back on the common-sense view that
_woman is what she is largely, because she has lived as she has_, and
further, that in the present transition no _arbitrary rules may be
laid down by men as to what she should, or should not, can, or cannot
do_. Even in fear of possible danger to be incurred, woman must no
longer be "grandfathered." The scope of this chapter is to make this
clear.
It is no part of my purpose, even if it were possible for me within
the limits at my command, to enter into an examination of all the
numerous statements and theories with regard to the real or supposed
secondary sexual characters of woman. For though the practical
utility of such detailed knowledge is obvious, while there is no
certainty of opinion even among experts to fix the distinctions
between the sexes, it is wiser in one who, like myself, can claim no
scientific knowledge to avoid the hazard of any conclusion. I confess
that a most careful study of the many differing opinions has left me
in a state of mental confusion. One is tempted to adopt those views
that fit in with one's own observations and to neglect others probably
equally right that do not do this. What is wanted is a much larger
number of careful experiments and scientific observations. Some of
these have been made already, and their value is great, but the basis
is still too narrow for any safe generalisations. All kinds of error
are clearly very likely to arise. I may, perhaps, be allowed to state
my surprise, not to say amusement, at the conviction evidenced by some
male writers in their estimate of the character of my sex. I find
myself given many qualities that I am sure I have not got, and
deprived of others that I am equally certain I possess. Thus, I have
found myself wondering, as I sought sincerely to find truth, whether I
am indeed woman or man? or, to be more exact, whether the female
qualities in me do not include many others regarded as masculine? This
has forced the thought--is the difference between the sexes, after
all, so complete?
I am aware that what I am now saying appears to be in contradiction
with my other statements. I cannot help it. The fact is, that truth is
always more diverse than we suspect. This is a question that reaches
so deeply that apparent contradiction is sometimes inevitable. We find
we are rooted into outside things, and we melt away, as it were, into
them, and no woman or man can say, "I consist absolutely of this or
that"; nor define herself or himself so certainly as to be sure where
the differences between the sexes end and the points of contact begin.
Many qualities of the personality appear no more female than male; no
more belonging to the woman than the man. And yet, underlying these
common qualities there is a deep under-current in which all our nature
finds expression in our sex.
Science has of late years advanced far in this matter, yet it has not
much more than begun. There is, as yet, no approximation to unanimity
of decision, though the way has been cleared of many errors. This is
all that has really been done by the ablest observers, who seem,
however, unwilling, if one may say so without presumption, to accept
the conclusions to which their own experiments and observations would
seem to point. Take an illustration. The early certitude on the
sex-differences in the weight of the brain and in the proportion of
the cerebral lobes has been completely turned upside down. The long
believed opinion of the inferiority of the woman in this direction has
been proved to be founded on prejudice, fallacies, and over-hasty
generalisations, so that now it is allowed that the sexual differences
in the brain are at most very small. An even more instructive example
arises from the ancient theory that there was a natural difference in
the respiratory movements of the sexes. Hutchinson even argued that
this costal breathing was an adaptation to the child-bearing function
in woman. Further investigations, however, with a wider basis and more
accurate methods--and one may surely add more common-sense--have
changed the whole aspect of the matter. This difference has been
proved to be due, not to Nature at all, but wholly to the effect of
corset-wearing and woman's conventional dress. There is, it would
seem, no limit to the quagmire of superstition and error into which
sex-difference have drawn even the most careful inquirers if once they
fail to cut themselves adrift from that superficial view of Nature's
scheme, by which the woman is considered as being handicapped in every
direction by her maternal function.
Enough has now been said to indicate the complication of the facts, to
say nothing of their practical application. I must refer my readers
for further details to convenient summaries of the sexual differences,
in Havelock Ellis's _Man and Woman_; Geddes and Thomson's _Sex and
Evolution_; Thomas's _Sex and Society_; and H. Campbell's _Differences
in the Nervous Organisation of Men and Women_: the first of these is a
treasure store of facts, and may be regarded as the foundation of all
later research; the last is, perhaps, the most generally interesting,
certainly it is the most favourable in its estimate of women. Dr.
Campbell urges with much force the fallacy of many popular views. He
does not seem to believe in the fundamental origin of maleness and
femaleness, holding them rather to be secondary and derived, the
result, in fact, of selection.
I have already sufficiently guarded against being supposed to have any
desire to establish identity between woman and man. I do, however,
object to any general conclusion of an arbitrary and excessive
sex-separation, without the essential preliminary inquiry being made
as to the effects of conditions and training; that is, whether the
opportunities of development have been at all equal. But here, to save
falling into a misconception, it is necessary to point out that I do
not say _the same opportunities, but equal_. This difference is so
important that, risking the fear of being tedious, I must restate my
belief in the unlikeness of the sexes. As Havelock Ellis says, "A man
is a man to his very thumbs, and a woman is a woman down to her little
toes." What I do mean, then, is this: _Have the opportunities of the
woman to develop as woman been equal to the opportunities of the man
to develop as man?_ It is on this question, it seems to me, that our
attention should be fixed.
Leaving for a little any attempt to find out in what directions this
development of woman can be most fully carried out, let us now clear
our way by glancing very briefly at certain plain facts of the actual
position of women as they present themselves in our society to-day.
In 1901 there were 1,070,000 more women than men in this country; this
surplus of women has increased slowly but steadily in every census
since 1841! Thus, those who hold (as all who look straight at this
matter must) that the essential need for the normal woman are
conditions that make possible the fulfilment of her sex-functions, are
placed in an awkward dilemma when they wish to restrict her activities
to marriage and the home. By such narrowing of the sexual sphere they
are not taking into consideration the facts as they exist to-day. In a
society where the women outnumber the men by more than a million, it
is sufficiently evident that justice can be done to these primary
needs of woman only by adopting one of two courses, the placing of
women in a position which secures to them the possession of property,
or, if their dependence on the labours of men is maintained, the
recognition of some form of polygamy. Here is no advocacy of any
sexual licence or of free-love, but I do set up a claim for free
motherhood, and however great the objections that may, and, as I
think, must be raised against polygamy, I am unhesitating in stating
my belief that any open and brave facing of the facts of the sex
relationship is better than our present ignorance or hypocritical
indifference, which is spread like a shroud over our national
conditions of concealed polygamy for men, side by side with enforced
celibacy and unconcealed prostitution for a great number of women. The
most hopeful sign of the woman's movement is a new solidarity that is
surely killing the fatalism of a past acquiescing in wrongs, and is
slowly giving birth to a fine spiritual apprehension of the great
truth that what concerns any woman concerns all women, and, I would
add, also all men. This last--that there can be no woman's question
that is not also a man's question--is so essentially a part of any
fruitful change in our domestic and social relationship that women
must not permit themselves for a moment to forget it. It is the very
plain things that so often we do overlook.
So it becomes clear that the parrot cries "Woman's Place!" "Woman's
Sphere!" "Her place is the home!" have lost much, even if not all,
their significance. For, in the first place, it is obvious that under
present conditions there are not enough homes to go round; and
second, even if we neglect this essential fact, women may well answer
such demands by saying "much depends on the character and conditions
of the home we are to stay in." It was a many-sided home of free and
full activity in which woman evolved and wherein for long ages she
worked; a home, in fact, which gave free opportunities for the
exercise of those qualities of constructive energy that women, broadly
speaking, may be said to possess. The woman's so-called natural
position in the home is not now natural at all. The conditions of life
have changed. Everything is drifting towards separation from worn-out
conditions. We are increasingly conscious of a growing discontent at
waste. The home with its old full activities has passed from women's
hands. But woman's work is not less needed. To-day the State claims
her; the Nation's housekeeping needs the vitalising mother-force more
than anything else.
The old way of looking at the patriarchal family was, from one point
of thought, perfectly right and reasonable as long as every woman was
ensured the protection of, and maintenance by, some man. Nor do I
think there was any unhappiness or degradation involved to women in
this co-operation of the old days, where the man went out to work and
the woman stayed to do work at least equally valuable in the home. It
was, as a rule, a co-operation of love, and, in any case, it was an
equal partnership in work. But what was true once is not true now. We
are living in a continually changing development and modification of
the old tradition of the relationship of woman and man. It is very
needful to impress this factor of constant change on our attention,
and to fix it there. To ignore it, and it is too commonly ignored, is
to falsify every issue. "The Hithertos," as Mr. Zangwill has aptly
termed them, are helpless. Things are so, and we are carried on; and
as yet we know not whither, and we are floundering not a little as we
seek for a way. The women of one class have been forced into labour by
the sharp driving of hunger. Among the women of the other class have
arisen a great number who have turned to seek occupation from an
entirely different cause; the no less bitter driving of an
unstimulating and ineffective existence, a kind of boiling-over of
women's energy wasted, causing a revolt of the woman-soul against a
life of confused purposes, achieving by accident what is achieved at
all. Between the women who have the finest opportunities and the women
who have none there is this common kinship--the wastage not so much of
woman as of womanhood.
Let us consider for a moment the women who have been forced into the
cheating, damning struggle for life. There are, according to the
estimate of labour experts, 5,000,000 women industrially employed in
England. The important point to consider is that during the last sixty
years the women who work are gaining numerically at a greater rate
than men are. The average weekly wage paid is seven shillings.
Nine-tenths of the sweated work of this country is done by women. I
have no wish to give statistics of the wages in particular trades;
these are readily accessible to all. Unfortunately the facts do not
allow any exaggeration; they are saddening and horrible enough in
themselves. The life-blood of women, that should be given to the race,
is being stitched into our ready-made clothes; is washed and ironed
into our linen; wrought into the laces and embroideries, the feathers
and flowers, the sham furs with which we other women bedeck ourselves;
it is poured into our adulterated foods; it is pasted on our matches
and pin-boxes; stuffed into our furniture and mattresses; and spent on
the toys we buy for our children. The china that we use for our foods
and the tins in which we cook them are damned with the lead-poison
that we offer to women as the reward of labour.
It is these wrongs that the mothers with the fathers of the race have
to think out the way to alter. There is no one among us who is
guiltless in this matter. Things that are continuously wrong need
revolutionising, and not patching up.
What, then, is the real cause of the lowness of remuneration offered
to women for work when compared with men? Thousands of women and girls
receive wages that are insufficient to support life. They do not die,
they live; but how? The answer is plain. Woman possesses a marketable
value attached to her personality which man has not got. This enables
her to live, if she has children, to feed them, and also not
infrequently to support the man, forced out of work by the lowness of
the wages she can accept. The woman's sex is a saleable thing.
Prostitution is the door of escape freely opened to all women. It is
because of the reserve fund thus established that their honest wages
suffer. Not all sweated women are prostitutes. Many are legally
married, they exist somehow; but the wages of all women are
conditioned by this sexual resource. It can be readily seen that this
is a survival of the patriarchal idea of the property value of woman.
To-day it affords a striking example of the conflict between the old
rights of men with the rising power of women. The value of woman is
her sexual value; her value as a worker is as yet unrecognised, except
as a secondary matter. You may refuse to be convinced of this. Yet the
fact remains that our society is so organised that women are more
highly paid and better treated as prostitutes than they are as honest
workers.
I shall say no more on this question here, as I propose to deal with
prostitution more fully in a later chapter. I would, however, point
out that what I have said in no way implies an opinion that women
should be driven out of the labour market. This is as unfair as that
they should be driven into it. It is the conditions of labour that
must be changed. I am not even able to accept the opinion that the
strength of woman is necessarily less than that of man, only that it
is different. It is, in fact, just this difference that is so
important. If woman's capacity in work was the same as men's no great
advantage could arise from women's entrance into the work of the
State. It might well lead to even worse confusion. It is the special
qualities that belong to woman that humanity is waiting for. Just as
at the dawn of civilisation society was moulded and in great measure
built up by women, then probably unconscious of their power and the
end it made towards, so, in the future, our society will be carried on
and humanised by women, deliberately working for the race, their
creative energy having become self-conscious and organised in a final
and fruitful period of civilisation.
I want to look a little further into this question of the strength of
woman as compared with the strength of man. On the whole it seems
right to say that the man is the more muscular type, and stronger in
relation to isolated feats and spasmodic efforts. But against this may
be placed the relative greater tenacity of life in women. They are
longer lived, alike in infancy and in old age; they also show a
greater power of resisting death. The difference in the incidence of
disease, again, in the two sexes is far from furnishing conclusive
evidence as to the greater feebleness of women. Their constitution
seems to have staying powers greater than the man's. The theory that
women are "natural invalids" cannot be accepted. Every care must be
taken to guard against any misdifferentiation of function in the kind
of work women are to do, but there is no evidence to prove that
healthy work is less beneficial to women than to men. Indeed, all the
evidence points in the opposite direction. Even in the matter of
muscular power it is difficult to make any absolute statement. The
muscular development of women among primitive peoples is well known.
Japanese women will coal a vessel with a rapidity unsurpassable by
men. The pit-brow women of the Lancashire collieries are said to be of
finer physical development than any other class of women workers. I
have seen the women of Northern Spain perform feats of strength that
seem extraordinary.
It is worth while to wait to consider these Spanish women, who are
well known to me. The industrial side of primitive culture has always
belonged to women, and in Galicia, the north-west province of Spain,
the old custom is still in active practice, owing to the widespread
emigration of the men. The farms are worked by women, the ox-carts are
driven by women, the seed is sown and reaped by women--indeed, all
work is done by women. What is important is that these women have
benefited by this enforced engaging in activities which in most
countries have been absorbed by men. The fine physical qualities of
these workers can scarcely be questioned. I have taken pains to gain
all possible information on this subject. Statistics are not
available, because in Galicia they have not been kept from this point
of view. I find, however, that it is the opinion of many eminent
doctors and the most thoughtful men of the province, that this labour
does not damage the health or beauty of the women, but the contrary,
nor does it prejudice the life and health of their children. As
workers they are most conscientious and intelligent, apt to learn, and
ready to adopt improvements. From my personal observations I can bear
witness that their children are universally well cared for. What
impressed me was that these women looked happy. They are full of
energy and vigour, even to an advanced age. They are evidently happy,
and the standard of beauty among them will compare favourably with the
women of any other nation. I once witnessed an interesting episode
during a motor-ride in the country. A robust and comely Gallegan woman
was riding _a ancas_ (pillion fashion) with a young _caballero_,
probably her son. The passing of our motor-car frightened the steed,
with the result that both riders were unhorsed. Neither was hurt, but
it was the woman who pursued the runaway horse. She caught it without
assistance and with surprising skill. What happened to the man I
cannot say. When I saw him he was standing in the road brushing the
dust from his clothes. I presume the woman returned with the horse to
fetch him.
Women were the world's primitive carriers. In Galicia I have seen
women bearing immense burdens, unloading boats, acting as porters and
firemen, and removing household furniture. I saw one woman with a
chest of drawers easily poised upon her head, another woman bore a
coffin, while another, who was old, carried a small bedstead. A
beautiful woman porter in one village carried our heavy luggage,
running with it on bare feet, without sign of effort. She was the
mother of four children, and her husband was at the late Cuban war.
She was upright as a young pine, with the shapeliness that comes from
perfect bodily equipoise. I do not wish to judge from trivial
incidents, but I saw in the Gallegan women a strength and a beauty
that has become rare among women to-day. I recall a conversation with
an Englishman I met at La Coruña, of the not uncommon strongly
patriotic and censorious type. We were walking together on the quay;
he pointed to a group of the Gallegan burden-bearers, who were
unloading a vessel, remarking in his indiscriminate British gallantry,
"I can't bear to see women doing work that ought to be done by men."
"Look at the women!" was the answer I made him.
It is, of course, impossible to compare the industrial conditions of
such a country as Spain with England. We may associate the position of
women in Galicia with some of the old matriarchal conditions. Women
are held in honour. There is a proverb common over all Northern Spain
to the effect that he who is unfortunate and needs assistance should
"seek his Gallegan mother." Many primitive customs survive, and one of
the most interesting is that by which the eldest daughter in some
districts takes precedence over the sons in inheritance. In no country
does less stigma fall upon a child born out of wedlock. As far back as
the fourth century Spanish women insisted on retaining their own names
after marriage. We find the Synod of Elvira trying to limit this
freedom. The practice is still common for the children to use the name
of the mother coupled with that of the father, and in some cases,
alone, showing the absence of preference for the paternal
descent.[318] The introduction of modern institutions, and especially
the empty forms of chivalry, has lowered the position of women. Yet
there can be no question that some feature of the ancient mother-right
customs have left the imprint on the domestic life of the people.
Spanish women have, in certain directions, preserved a freedom and
privilege which in England has never been established and is only now
being claimed.[319]
How completely all difficulties vanish from the relationship of the
sexes where society is more sanely organised--with a wiser
understanding of the things that really matter. The question is not:
are our women fit for labour? but this: are the conditions of labour
in England fit either for women or men? The supply of cheap labour on
which the whole fabric of our society is built up is giving way--and
it has to go. We have to plan out new and more tolerable conditions
for the workers in every sort of employment. But first we have to
organise the difficult period of transition from the present disorder.
I will not dwell on this. I would, however, point out that women must
be trained and ready to take their part with men in this work of
industrial re-organisation. They are even more deeply concerned than
men. The conditions of under-payment for woman's work are not
restricted to sweated workers; it is the same in skilled work, and in
all trades and professions that are open to women. For exactly the
same work a lower rate of payment is offered. Female labour is cheap,
just as slave labour is cheap, the woman is not considered as
belonging to herself.
There is no question here of the real value of woman's labour. The cry
of man to woman under the patriarchal system has always been, and
still for the most part is, "Your value in our eyes is your sexuality,
for your work we care not." But mark this! The penalty of this false
adjustment has fallen upon men. For women, in their turn, have come to
value men first in their capacity as providers for them, caring as
little for the man's sex-value as men care for woman's work-value.
From the moment when woman had to place the economic considerations in
love first, her faculties of discrimination were no more of service
for the selection of the fittest man. Here we may find the explanation
of the kind of men girls have been willing to marry--old men, the
unfit fathers, the diseased. Yes, any man who was able to do for them
what they have not been allowed to do for themselves. And it is the
race that suffers and rots; the sins of the mother must be visited on
the child.
It is clear, then, there is one remedy and one alone. This separation
of values must cease. All women's work must be paid at a rate based on
the quality and quantity of the work done; not upon her sexuality. I
do not mean by this that there should be any ignoring of woman's
special sex-function; to do this, in my opinion, would be fatal. The
bearing of fit children is woman's most important work for the State.
The economic stress which forces women into unlimited competition with
men is, I am certain, harmful. _Women do not do this because they like
it, but because they are driven to it._
The true effort of women, I conceive, should be centred on the freeing
of the sexual relationship from the domination of a viciously directed
compulsion, and from the hardly less disastrous work-struggle of sex
against sex. The emancipated woman must work to gain economic
recognition, not necessarily the same as the man's, but her own. It is
to the direct interest of men to stop under-cutting by women; but the
way to do this is not to force women out of labour, compelling their
return to the home--that is impossible--rather it rests in an equal
value of service being recognised in both sexes. The fully developed
woman of the future is still to be, and first there must be a time of
what may well prove to be dangerous experiments. This may be
regretted, it cannot be avoided. The finding out of new paths entails
some losing of the way.
Women have to find out what work they can best do; what work they want
to do, and _what work men want them to do_. I must insist, against all
the Feminists, on this factor of men's wishes being equally considered
with woman's own. It may not safely be neglected. Woman without man at
her side, after obtaining her freedom, will advance even less far than
man has advanced with his freedom, without her help. To deny this is
to show an absurd misunderstanding of the problem. Neither the
male-force alone, nor the female-power is sufficient; no theory of
sex-superiority shall prevail. The setting up of women against men, or
men against women, to the disadvantage of one or the other, belongs to
a day that is over. We must recognise that both the work of women and
the work of men are in equal measure essential to satisfy the needs of
the State; the force of both sexes must be united to plan and carry
out those measures of reform now called for by the new ideals of a
civilised humanity. It is only by loosening all the chains of all
women and all men alike that the inherent energies of the world's
workers can be set free for the eventual ennobling of the race.
There is a fundamental difference in respect to the modes of energy in
woman and man. Is it, then, too much to hope for, that in the
enlightened civilisation, whose dawn is even now breaking the
darkness, we shall recognise and use this difference in work-power and
claim from women the kinds of labour they can give best to the State;
and reward them for doing this in such a way that their primary
social service of child-bearing is in no way impaired? But as yet the
day is not. There is an outlook that causes foreboding. The female sex
is in a dangerous state of disturbance. New and strange urgencies are
at work amongst us, forces for which the word "revolution" is only too
faithfully appropriate. Little is being done to allay these forces,
much conspires to exasperate them. Whither are they taking us? To this
we women have to find an answer.
Other questions force themselves as wisely we wait to think. What will
women do when they have gained the voice to control the attitude the
State shall assume in the regulation of their work? Will their
decisions be founded on wide knowledge, that recognises all the facts
and accepts the responsibilities and restrictions that any true
freedom for their sex entails, or will it be merely continued revolt,
tending to embitter and intensify the struggle of sex against sex?
Will their action reveal the wise patience, the sympathy and
understanding of the mother, or will it prove to be the illogical,
short-sighted, and bewildered behaviour of the spoilt child? No one
can answer these questions. Hitherto, it has seemed that women stand
in danger of losing sight of great issues in grasping at immediate
gains. Goaded by the wrongs they see so plainly waiting to be righted,
they are in such a desperate hurry. But "hurry" should not belong to
the woman's nature. There is a "grasp" quality of this age that can
bring nothing but harm to women. It is a great thing to be a woman,
greater, as I believe, than to be a man. For the first time for long
ages women are beginning again to understand this and all that it
signifies. Women and not men are the responsible sex in the great
things of life that really matter. They are that "Stubborn Power of
Permanency" of which Goethe speaks. The female not only typifies the
race, she is the race. It is man who constitutes the changing, the
experimenting, sex. Thus, woman has to be steadier than man, yes, and
more self-sacrificing. She may not safely escape from her work as "the
giver," and if she does not give in life, she must give in something.
We have got to do more than bear men, we have to carry them with us
through life--our sons, our lovers, our husbands. We must free them
now as well as ourselves, if our freedom is to count for anything. Let
us not, then, in any impatience, neglect to pause, to prepare, to be
ready, that the pregnancy of the present may bring fair birth when the
days are fulfilled. For, after all, what shall it profit women if, in
gaining the world, they lose themselves?
II.--_Sexual Differences in Mind and the Artistic Impulse in Women_
"The most secret elements of woman's nature, in association with
the magic mystery of her organisation, indicate the existence in
her of peculiar and deep-lying creative ideas."--THEODOR MUNDT.
What is true of the physical differences between women and men is true
also of the mental differences. We may readily accept the saturating
influence of sex on woman's mind. I mean a deep-lying distinction, not
superficial and to be explained away as due to outside things, but
based on the essential fact of her womanhood--her capacity for
maternity. But the impracticability of making any definite statement as
to the exact nature or extent of such mental sexual differentiation is
evident. First must be cleared up the difficulty of distinguishing
between those differences that are fundamental and constitutional as
being directly dependent on the woman character and those that have, or
seem to have, arisen through distinction of training or environment,
which may be termed evolutionary differences, and are likely to be
changed by altered conditions. Even the trained biologist is unable to
draw an undisputed line of demarcation between the two kinds of
differences, and, even if it were drawn, the conclusion would not help
us very much. For with regard to these evolutionary differences that
are liable to change many questions have to be considered. Can they
safely be modified or disregarded? Do we want them changed? Will the
alteration really be of benefit to women? Only such qualities as can be
proved clearly to be mis-differentiations--_i.e._ directly harmful--can
be contemptuously dismissed. Thus the problem is an extraordinarily
difficult one. I can only touch its outer fringe.
It is held that men have greater mental variability and more
originality, while women have greater stability and more common sense.
In this connection may be noticed the characteristic male
restlessness; man is probably more inclined to experiment with his
body and his mind and with other people, while woman's constitution
and temper is relatively more conservative. It is held that women have
the greater integrating intelligence, while men are stronger in
differentiation. The thinking power of woman is deductive, that of
man inductive; woman's influence on knowledge is thus held to be
indirect rather than direct. But women have greater receptive powers,
retain impressions better and have more vivid and surer memories; for
which reason women are generally more receptive for facts than for
laws, more for concrete than for general ideas. The feminine mind
shows greater patience, more open-mindedness and tact, and keener
insight into character, greater appreciation of subtle details and,
consequently, what we call intuition. The masculine mind, on the other
hand, tends to a greater height of sudden efforts, of scientific
insight and experiment, greater frequency of genius, and this is
associated with an unobservant or impatient disregard of details, but
a stronger grasp of general ideas.
Now it is easy to make comparisons of this kind, but to accept them as
at all final calls for great caution. Let me take, as an instance, the
opinion so continuously affirmed, that women are distinguished by good
memories, in particular, for details. Now to regard this as
necessarily a mental sexual character is entirely to mistake the
facts. A tenacious memory for details that are often quite
unimportant, belongs to all people of limited impressions and
unskilled in thought; it maybe noticed in all children. Without a wide
experience of life and practice in constructive thinking the mind
inevitably falls back on fact-memory. I knew an agricultural labourer
who could only tell his age by reckoning the years he had been
dung-spreading. Thus a good memory for details may be a sign of an
untrained mind. It is an entirely different thing from that acuteness
of true memory, which ensures the retention of all experiences that
have made an impression on the mind, with a corresponding rejection of
what has failed to interest. Thus before anything can be said with
regard to this memory power of woman, we have to decide on what it
depends--_i.e._ is it really a mental quality of woman, or is it
simply dependent on, and brought about by, the circumstances of her
life and a limited experience? But to answer this question I shall
wait till later in this chapter.
It would be easy to follow a similar train of argument with regard to
each of these mental differences of the sexes. Few women have yet
entered even the threshold of the mental world of men, and those who
have done this stand in the position of strangers or visitors. To be
in it, in any true sense, would be to be born into it and to live in
it by right; to absorb the same experiences, not consciously and by
special effort, but unconsciously as a child absorbs words and learns
to speak. Whenever this happens, and not till then, shall we be in a
position to compare positively the mental efficiency of woman with
men. At present no more can be affirmed than that the differences in
woman's mental expression are no greater than they must be in view of
the existing differences in their experience. And I am not sure, even
if such similarity of mental life were possible, that it would be of
benefit to women. Indeed, I am almost sure that it would not. What is
needed is an ungrudging recognition of the value of the special
feminine qualities. This would do much to lessen the regrettable
competition that undoubtedly prevails at present, which is due, it
seems to me, to the foolish denial of the value of any save masculine
characteristics in our art, as also in our public and professional
life.
But leaving this point for the present, there is another question
arising from this first that also brings me doubt. Few will deny that
women are more instinctive than logical; more intuitive than cerebral.
Men find their conclusions by searching for and observing facts, while
women, to a great extent, arrive at the same end by instinct. _They
know, rather than know how, or why, they know._ Now, too often we hear
these qualities of woman treated with contempt. Is this wise? What I
doubt is this: when women by education and evolution have been able to
learn and to practise the inductive process of reasoning--if, indeed,
they do come to do this--will they lose their present faculty of
gaining conclusions by instinct? I believe that they must do so to a
large extent, and I am not convinced that the gain would at all fully
make up for the loss. Looking at human conduct, it is regulated quite
as much by instinct as by reason. I think it will be impossible to
prevent this being so, and if this is true, woman's instinct may
remain of greater service to her than the gaining of a higher
reasoning faculty. The true distinction between the psychology of
woman and man is as the difference between feeling and thought. Woman
thinks through her emotions, man feels through his brain. This is
obviously an exaggeration, but it will show what I mean by the
different process of thought that, broadly speaking, is usual to the
two sexes. Mistakes are, of course, made by both processes, but more
often, as I believe, by reasoning than by instinct--this is probably
because I am a woman. But it is certain that each sex contributes to
the thought-power of the other, each is indispensable to the other, on
the mental plane no less than on the physical.
The importance of the above will become obvious when we consider, as
we will now do, the artistic impulse in woman. Strange difficulties
have been raised on all sides concerning the occurrence of genius
among women. It seems to be accepted that in respect of artistic
endowment the male sex is unquestionably superior to the female.
Havelock Ellis, for instance, in dealing with this question says, "The
assertion of Möbius[320] that the art impulse is of the nature of a
male secondary sexual character, in the same sense as the beard,
cannot be accepted without some qualification, but it may well
represent an approximation of the truth." By some it is held that
genius is linked with maleness: that it represents an ideal
masculinity in the highest form; and from genius the feminine mind
must, therefore, be excluded. But in truth it is not easy to credit
such assumptions, or to see the strangeness of the difficulties in an
exact opposite view, if we understand the significance of those
qualities of femaleness which are allowed to women by those who most
deny to her the possibility of genius. Such a denial serves only to
show the absurd presumption of present knowledge of this kind in its
hope to solve a problem so difficult.
Let me try to sift out the facts. And first we must inquire on what
grounds this opinion is based. I have already alluded to the general
belief in the greater degree of variability in men, which, if
established, would on the psychical side involve an accentuated
individualism and hence a greater possibility of genius. This view
has been supported by John Hunter, Burdach, Darwin, Havelock Ellis,
and others. Ellis, in the chapter on "The Artistic Impulse" in _Man
and Woman_, says, "The rarity of women artists of the first rank is
largely due to the greater variational tendency of men." Now, this
biological fact is certainly of great importance, _if it can be
proved_. But can it? It has recently been contested by anthropologists
at least as distinguished as those who have given it their support.
Manouvrier, Karl Pearson, Frossetto, and especially Guiffrida-Ruggieri
have brought forward evidence to prove the fallacy of this belief in
the slighter variability and infantile character of woman. Now, it is
clearly impossible for me in the space at my command to go into the
conclusions brought forward on both sides of this difficult question.
What I want to make clear is that this greater variability of man has
not been established, and therefore cannot be accepted as a condition
of male genius. I am glad to be able to give a statement on this
question by Professor Arthur Thomson, which will sufficiently show
that my opinion is not put forward wantonly and without due
consideration, but that it coincides with the conclusion of one who is
an acknowledged leader in the advanced biological study of the sexes.
Professor Thomson writes thus[321]--
"We would guard against the temptation to sum up the contrast of
the sexes in epigrams. We regard the woman as relatively more
anabolic, man as relatively more katabolic, and whether this
biological hypothesis is a good one or not, it certainly does no
social harm. But when investigators begin to say that woman is
more infantile and man more senile, that woman is "undeveloped
man" and man is "evolved woman," we get among generalisations
not only unscientific but practically dangerous. Not the least
dangerous of these generalisations is one of the most familiar,
that man is more variable than woman, that the raw materials of
evolution make their appearance in greatest abundance in man.
There seems to be no secure basis for this generalisation; it
seems doubtful whether any generalisation of the kind is
feasible. Prof. Karl Pearson has made seventeen groups of
measurements of different parts of the body, in eleven groups
the female is more variable than the male, and in six the male
is more variable than the female. _Moreover the differences of
variability are slight, less than those between members of the
same race living in different conditions._ Furthermore, an
elementary remark may be pardoned. Since inheritance is
bi-parental, and since variation means some peculiarity in the
inheritance, a greater variability in men, if true, would not
mean that men had any credit for varying. The stimulus to
variation may have come from the mother as well as the father.
_If proved it would only mean that the male constitution gives
free play to the expression of variations, which are kept latent
in the female constitution._ But what is probably true is that
some variations find expression more readily in man and others
more readily in woman."
The italics in the passage are mine, for they make abundantly clear
the falseness of the old view, and show how much the question needs
reopening from the common-sense standpoint of opportunity. I shall,
therefore, only restate my opinion that it is impossible to assume a
fundamental difference in individuality as existing between woman and
man until it can be proved that the same free-play to the expression
has been common alike to both sexes.
To me it seems probable that what Samuel Butler insists upon is true,
and that the origin of variations must be looked for in the needs and
experiences of the creature varying. But let this pass, as it opens up
too large and difficult a question to enter upon here. The effects of
environment and function must act as a kind of arbiter directing
conduct and, in particular, mental expression. It is the very A B C of
the question that appropriate training and opportunities of use are
essential if any mind is to develop. Supply such mental stimuli to the
boy and man, deny them to the girl and woman, and then call "the art
impulse of the nature of a male secondary sexual character," because
woman has as yet played but a small and secondary part in any of the
arts! The source of error is so plain that one can only wonder at the
fallacies that have been accepted as truth. Thus, when one finds so
just and careful an investigator as Havelock Ellis saying, "It is
unthinkable that a woman should have discovered the Copernician
system!" it can but be regarded as an example of that sex-bias which
marks so strikingly men's statements on this subject of mental
sex-differences. We may well ask, Why unthinkable? As answer I will
give the finely just acknowledgment of Iwan Bloch on this very
question. He refers to this statement of Havelock Ellis, and then
says, "I need merely call to mind the widely known physical
discoveries of Madame Curie, whose thoroughly independent work
qualified her to succeed her husband as professor at the Sorbonne. We
cannot, therefore, exclude the possibility that in the sphere of the
natural sciences notable discoveries and inventions may be made in the
future in consequence of the independent work of women."[322] To take
another instance. We find the fact that so far women have gained very
small distinction in music, contrasted with the great number of girls
who are trained to play on musical instruments. But this is surely to
show a complete misunderstanding of the question. It is like saying
that the best preparation for a painter to know the colours reflected
on water by a cloudy or sunny sky would be a course of optics. Music
is at once the most imaginative and the most severely abstract of the
arts, and the absence of women from music must be referred to deeper
causes, which yet, it seems to me, are not far to seek.
Mind, I make no claim for women. I acknowledge fully that in all the
arts, except in acting and in dancing, woman's achievement has been
infinitely less than man's. There have been a few great women
poets--notably a Sappho, many good writers of fiction, and some
capable painters. But to bring forward these particular women and to
try either to exaggerate or belittle their importance can serve
nothing. This search for ability among women is absurd. It already
exists widely, though unused or directed into channels of waste. Of
this I am convinced. The thing that has been rare is opportunity. The
fact that some few women have struggled up out of obscurity does not
so much show that they possessed a special masculine superiority as
that they have been less inextricably bound down than others by the
conventional bonds of a man-ruled society. I believe that this could
be proved in the case of every woman who has attained to fame. And
there is another point. The women who have succeeded in bursting these
bonds have, in most cases, done so at such great cost of energy and
fighting, that their work is rendered crude and often valueless.
Self-assertion can never be the best preparation for achievement. All
this narrows the mental horizon and tends to make the results gained
superficial and unenduring. We have here the explanation of much that
has been, and still is, futile in women's efforts.
The face of the world, however, is changing for women. It may be that
the future will reveal creative ability in them as yet unsuspected. It
is not safe to prophesy, and no one can say, as yet, just in what
direction women will develop. It may prove that their special
qualities will not find expression in the realm of imagination, but
will be turned to diplomacy and to administration and financial work.
I simply affirm that what women can or cannot do is as yet unproved.
Throughout the ages of patriarchal faith one ideal of womanhood has
been impressed upon the world, which is only now being shaken--the
ideal of self-repression and submission to the will of man, of
society, and of God. Women's minds have reflected only the minds of
men. I think that much of the failure of women's work arises from the
arrogance of men, who have always preferred the flattering image of
woman in their own minds to woman herself. Woman has had to accept
this. She could only realise herself through man, not with man, while
he has been able to realise himself, either with her help or without
her.
There is a wide difference between the mental and social attitudes of
men and women. Men have been responsible to society at large for their
work and conduct, woman's outlook has been much narrower; she has been
responsible to men, and has only touched outside life through them.
In this way women have developed on wrong lines. It is significant,
for instance, how many women have written books under men's names.
Women's work and conduct has been largely restricted by this
adjustment to men, with the result that not only their mental capacity
and work-power has suffered, but their attention has been fixed, for
the most part, to the enhancing of the attractiveness of their persons
as an aid to hold men to their service. The feminine mind and
interests have been set so strongly towards personal display that they
will not easily be diverted. The clothes-peg woman is familiar to all:
she gratifies any whim, well knowing that it is her male protector who
will have to pay, not she. She will, on occasions, use her children
for such base ends. She knows the game is in her hand. Even if the man
resists her for a time, she understands how easily she can break down
his objections by a seductive display of silk stockings! The character
of woman as the inherent coquette is very deeply rooted. It is only a
little more baneful to the freedom of the sexes than that opposite
pernicious side of woman as a sort of angel-child, which we all know
to be such a preposterous pretence.
Nor do I think that the change from these conditions can, or will, be
easy. Women may, and do, protest against the triviality of their
lives, but emotional interests are more immediate than intellectual
ones. Human nature does not drift into intellectual pursuits
voluntarily, rather it is forced into them in connection with urgency
and practical activities. It is much easier to be kept, dressed, and
petted, than to work. Women have not participated in the mental
activities of men because it has not been necessary for them; to do
this has been, indeed, a hindrance to their success. The contrast
between the sexes in this respect has been well compared by
Thomas[323] to the relation of the amateur and the professional in
games. "Women may be desperately interested and work to the limit of
endurance at times; but, like the amateur, they enter into the work
late, and have not had a lifetime of practice.... No one will contend
that the amateur has a nervous organisation less fitted to the game
than the professional; it is admitted that the difference lies in the
constant practice." It is only in the case of woman that the obvious
conclusion is passed over for assumptions that cannot be proved.
The revolt against repression has taken amongst many women another
form of abandonment to lives of sexual preoccupation and intrigue.
Scan the history of woman as she is presented in our literature and
drama, and you will find one expression of her character, one idea
alone of her sphere. It is a point of such interest that I would like
to linger upon it. Wherever woman enters she is a disturbing
influence; she is the centre of emotional action, it is true, but with
no recognised position in life outside of her sex; around her rage
seas of stormy passions, which sometimes she calms, sometimes lashes
into angrier foam. In a sense it may be said that she has scarcely an
individual existence; it is solely in her relation to man that her
nature is considered. If she works, or practises one of the arts, she
does this only until marriage. It does not seem to be conceived as
possible that she can follow work, as the artist must, for herself. It
is curious how far we have been misled by that giving-power of woman,
which, in part, is right and natural to her, but also, in much greater
part, has been harmfully forced upon her. The creator's need to find
expression is, I am certain, at least as strongly rooted in woman as
in man, but no plant can attain to growth unless fitting nourishment
is given to it. To ignore this leads very directly to deception. Thus
we find Mr. Wells, usually so true in his insight, keeps up an old
pretence and affirms in his latest novel, _Marriage_--
"They don't care for art or philosophy, or literature or
anything except the things that touch them directly. And the
work----? It's nothing to them. No woman ever painted for the
love of painting, sang for the sounds she made, or philosophised
for the sake of wisdom as men do."
So it is always. Without question it has been taken for granted by
those who have depicted woman that her sole occupation is an emotional
one; here alone is she justified in literature, as in life.
The fully complete woman of the future is still to be created;
assuredly she is not to be found among the women who have been
portrayed so widely for us by recent writers. These are portraits
arising out of the present confusion; as such they are interesting,
but they are quite unreal in their relation to life. They show us
women, and men too, in revolt. Often these women are really nothing
more than feminist stump-orators preaching the doctrine of an
unconsidered individualism: "Free Motherhood," "Free Love"--free
anything, in fact. These portraits are far removed, indeed, from the
perfected woman that is to be. We want something much more than
this--woman with all sides of her nature adequately worked upon and
fully developed.
Now, to look for a moment at the other side of the question. Woman has
been the cause of emotion in men, the fine instrument by which the
poet has sung and the musician played his exquisite music; the
sculptor, the painter, the writer, all have drawn their inspiration
from her. Have men, then, any right to pride themselves to such a
degree on their achievement in the arts? Could they without woman have
advanced anything like so far? And this becomes abundantly evident if
we look a little deeper and back to the beginning of the arts. "Not,"
writes Karl Bücher,[324] "upon the steep summits of society did poetry
originate, it sprang rather from the depths of the pure, strong soul
of the people. Women have striven to produce it, and as civilised man
owes to woman's work much the best of his possessions, so also are her
thoughts interwoven in the spiritual treasure handed down from
generation to generation."
A glance back at the beginnings of human civilisation show that women
were equal, if not superior, to men in productive poetic activity. To
a large extent men first learned from women the elements of the
various handicrafts. I have already referred to this fact in the
historical section, where we see the reasons whereby women lost their
early control over the industrial arts. I wish to refer to a point of
special importance now, which I find is brought forward, in this
connection, by Iwan Bloch.[325] In the start of the industrial
occupations, in sowing and thrashing and grinding the grain, in baking
bread, in the preparation of food and drinks, of wine and beer, in the
making of pots and baskets, and in spinning, the women worked
together; and, as is common still among primitive peoples, these
occupations were largely carried on in a rhythmical manner. From this
co-operation of the women it resulted that they were the first
creators of poetry and music. The men, on the other hand, hunted
singly in the forests. The birth of their poetic activity followed
only after they had monopolised the labours of material production.
Even to-day among many races the influence of woman's poetry can be
followed for a long way into the literary period. I have myself
witnessed something similar to this among the peasants in the rural
districts of Spain. I have heard women in the evenings relate to one
another and to their children the rich legends of their land, carrying
on the old traditions that have come down from generation to
generation, and thus creating among themselves a communion of heroes.
Then, again, these Spanish women seem never to cease from singing as
they carry on their many and heavy labours. The women sing far more
frequently than the men. Music is to them an instinctive means of
expression; they do not learn it, it belongs to them, like dancing
belongs to the natural child. And these folk songs, where the words
are often improvised by the singer, seem to give utterance to natural
out-door things--a symbol of the people's life, of its action, its
work, very strong in its appeal, which blends so strangely joy with
sadness. A special quality that often surprised me in these songs was
the way in which the people translate and use the music of other
countries. I have heard popular English tunes sung by the women as
they work, which have ceased to be common in their sentiment and
become full of a tenderness into which passion has fallen; even slangy
music-hall tunes take a new character, a lively brilliance that no
longer is vulgar. This music is the true singing of the people, and if
you would feel all the beauty of its appeal you must be in touch with
the spirit that cries in it, with work, and passion, and life.
It may seem that all this has taken us rather far away from our
inquiry into the strength of the artistic impulse in women. The way,
however, is largely cleared. We have proved that there is, at least, a
possible mistake in the opinion that those experiments in creative
expression, which we call variations, are necessarily inherent in the
male, rather than in the female. Speaking biologically, we may regard
woman, in common with man, as a potentially creative agent with a
striving will, and thus able to change under the stimulus of
appropriate opportunity.
Now, to look at the question for a moment in a different light--in
relation to the special qualities that are facts of actual experience
in woman's character as it is to-day. It is proved--if scientific
determination of such qualities were necessary--that women are more
sensitive to suggestion and receptive of outward influences; that they
have keener affectability, and thus tend to be more emotional and,
within certain limits, more imaginative than men. They react to both
physical and psychical stimuli more readily, and it would seem that
their brain action is more rapid. Experimental tests have shown that
in respect of quickness of comprehension and intellectual mobility
women are distinctly superior to men.
It is, of course, an open question how far all this is due to Nature
and how far merely to education. Must we regard this emotional
endowment of woman as permanent or alterable? Havelock Ellis has
detected a decline in the emotivity of modern women under the
influence of new conditions, especially as the result of the more
healthy life and out-door games among girls. But he does not believe
that any present or future change in activities can lead to a complete
abolition of the emotional differences between the sexes. These
qualities are correlated with the essential physical function of
women, and are probably in part of similar deep origin, and are
therefore not likely to change. Nietzsche, as is well known, denies
this emotional capacity of women, and considers them much more
remarkable for their intelligence than for their sensitiveness and
feeling. I believe, however, the view of Havelock Ellis to be the
right one. Throughout Nature it would seem to be indispensable that
the mother should have finer and quicker sensibility than the father.
The female selects the male that she may use him for the race. Women,
for the reasons we have seen, have, as I believe, lost much of the
fineness of their selective sensitiveness. But whether this greater
emotional power in women has been weakened or not, it is--as all
nature proves to us--an actual quality of the female, and in it we
have, therefore, a positive ground to start from in estimating the
potential artistic endowment of women.
Let us accept, then, this sensitiveness both physical and psychical,
as at least the natural character of femaleness. How does it place
women in her relation to the arts?
Consider what are the qualities essential to success in any one of the
arts. Are not the most essential of these a quick reception of
impressions, added to an acute memory for all that has been
experienced? The poet and the writer can reach deeper into the nature
of others, the architect, the sculptor, the painter can see more
clearly, the musician hear more finely; and so it is with all the
arts. Does not the genius, or even the man of talent, take his place
as one who understands incomparably more than others; or, to express
it a little differently, the genius is he who is conscious of most and
of that most acutely. And what is it that enables him to do this, if
it is not a greater sensitiveness and a finer response to every
outward suggestion? It would seem, then, that genius must possess the
emotional qualities that are the natural endowment of woman; while
woman herself is to be excluded from genius. A conclusion that is
plainly absurd.
The further we follow this the more striking the likeness between the
qualities of genius and the high, nervous affectability of woman
becomes. The intuition of woman is really direct vision and may mean
only a quicker power of reasoning. Exactly the same quality must be
acknowledged as distinguishing the genius. He, too, _knows, rather
than reasons how he knows_.
Take, again, the alleged superiority of the feminine mind in matter of
memory. There is the same difference between the memory of the
ordinary man and the man of genius. Mental recognition is proportional
to the intensity of consciousness. Because the life of the genius is
more continuously emotional--nearer, in fact, in its nature to the
woman's--he is more ready to receive impressions and to keep them. And
here we may note the incitement towards autobiography common to gifted
men, which would seem to arise from the same psychological condition
which forces women so strongly to self-revelations. So also with all
the mental qualities we shall find, I believe, the same connection
between the special characters of woman and those of genius. Woman's
mental mobility, her tendency towards nervous outbursts, with a
corresponding irritability and greater susceptibility to fatigue,
except under the support of excitement, as also in the resulting
qualities of her power of ready adaptation to changes of habits and
response to new influences, her tact, her keener insight into
character, her quickness in pity, her impulsiveness, her finer
discrimination, her innate sense of symmetry or fitness--each of these
qualities may be said to accord also with the character of genius, but
no one among them is common to the ordinary man.
Even in so obvious a point as facial expression the same relation may
be traced. It is a matter of constant observation that women's faces
are more expressive than men's, showing greater mobility, through the
instinctive response to suggestions from without and within. A similar
mobility will be readily noted in the appearance of almost all men of
special giftedness. The faces of such men rarely exhibit the
stereotyped expressions that characterise most male countenances. No
one mood leaves a permanent imprint on the features, for through the
amplitude of feeling a new side of the mind is continuously revealed.
Faces with an unchanging expression belong really to people low in
artistic endowment.
Of some significance, again, is the variability in the mental power of
genius, leading to what may be called "a periodicity in production."
Goethe has spoken somewhere of "the recurrence of puberty" in the
artist. This idea may perhaps, without too much straining, be compared
with the functional periodicity of woman. The periods in the life of a
creative artist often assume the character of a crisis--a kind of
climax of vital energy. Sterile years precede productive periods, to
be followed by more barren years. The circle of activity is not
broken, it is but interrupted; the years of apparent sterility really
leading up to, and preparing for, the creative periods. I may point
out here a thought in passing in connection with the child-bearing
functions of women. This is brought forward by many as the most
serious objection to women being able to attain success in any of the
arts. The objection is not really sound. No creative work can be
carried on without interruptions. The important part in all such work
is not to be uninterrupted, but to be able to begin again. The new
experiences gained give new power; a fresh and wider view. And woman
has in her supreme function of motherhood--an experience denied to
men; this should give her greater, and not less, creative capacity.
What is really needed is the freedom, the training and the desire that
shall direct expression, so that woman may enrich the arts with her
own special experience.
It is useless to argue that woman's past record in the arts holds out
no such promise. We know really very little about woman's genius. One
thing is, however, certain: the only possible test of it is trial, for
without this there is no basis of judgment, no means of deciding
whether there be genius or no. If, as I believe, woman's creative
capacity arises out of, and is essentially connected with, her sexual
functions, how can it have been possible to employ such power in the
arts in a society where the natural use of her sex has been restricted
and not allowed a free expression?--a society, moreover, in which the
pregnant woman has been regarded as an object of shame or ridicule.
To look at this question of woman's achievement in the arts in the old
way is no longer possible. We have proved that the natural emotional
endowment of woman is rich and varied. But there are two things
necessary for achievement: inherent aptitude and opportunity--that is,
a favourable environment for expression, in which power may be
directed into useful channels and saved from wastefully expending
itself. To deny genius to women when the opportunity for its
development has been absent is obviously unjust. The influence of
education, and the stronger driving of habit and social opinion, must
be taken into the account. Women have up till now been without two
essential qualities necessary for creating--subjectivity and
initiative. In practice they have not been able, or only very rarely,
to get beyond imitation. Through the circumstances of their lives they
have lacked the courage and conviction, even if opportunity had
arisen, necessary for creative work. For the highest achievement in
the arts they have missed the concentration, the severe devotion to
work, the control of thought and complete self-restraint, which can
come only from discipline, from long training, and freedom. Yet I make
the claim that woman, from her constitutional femininity, is a
compound of all those qualities that genius demands. The channels of
woman's energy have been everywhere choked. No great creative art has
ever been produced by a subjugated class. Art comes with freedom, with
the strong incentive of the communal spirit, and with the sense of
power. For centuries woman has been artificially individualised. Her
special function of motherhood has remained unacknowledged as a
communal work. Her emotional and mental capacities have been turned
back upon herself and her immediate belongings, with the result that
her social usefulness has been suppressed or thwarted. The emotional
feelings of woman are ever pressing, and only need to be brought into
stricter command in order to achieve. What women will accomplish no
man can say.
One word more. Let us look in this new direction, the direction of the
future, because it is there that this possible future entrance of
women into the arts becomes important. We stand in the first rush of a
new movement. It is the day of experiments. The extraordinary
enthusiasm now sweeping through womanhood reveals behind its immediate
fevered expression a great power of emotional and spiritual
initiative. Wide and radically sweeping are the changes in woman's
social outlook. So much stronger is the promise of a vital force,
when they are free to enter and to work in the various departments of
the arts. It is the commonest error to think of art as if it stood
outside the other activities of life. Under the cloak of art much
self-amusement and vulgar self-display tries to justify itself, and
many mercenary interests are concerned in stinting its vitality. All
living and valuable art is really communal. It must fit into its right
place with all phases of human activities, and to do this it must have
somewhere in it the social citizen spirit.
You see how women stand in this matter. The social ideal is becoming a
very near ideal to women. And this quickening in her of the citizen
spirit may well come to revive our art to a more true and social
service. This is no idle fancy. Throughout the ages of patriarchal
faith women have been confined in the home, so that an understanding
of the needs of the home is in their blood. May not the old ideals
remain for service and find expression in the new work? Much that has
passed with us as art has to be swept away. Let women bring this sense
of home into our civic life, and surely it will be reflected in the
arts. It is the sense of fitness to the common use and needs of the
larger family of the State that has been almost wholly eliminated from
our architecture, our statues, our paintings, our music, and much of
our literature. The arts have withered and lost their vitality in our
narrow and blighting commercial society.
I do not want to weary the reader with what can only be suggestions. I
am certain, however, that this vital factor of the home cannot safely
be excluded from the State. Consider any one of the old mediæval
towns, with its buildings, its cathedral, its churches, its halls, its
homes--all that it contains a splendid witness to the civic life of
its people. Contrast this with what we have been willing to accept as
art in our industrial towns. In the old days the city was in a very
literal sense the home of its citizens, now it is merely a centre of
trade. Is it unfair to connect this with the subjection of women and
the rush of male activities, that has destroyed the need of beauty and
fitness which once was the possession of all? For art you must have
human qualities, and you must have emotion. The time has come when we
are yielding to the new forces, that yet are old. This age will leave
its own track behind it, and those, who are beating out the way now,
must start on the right path--freeing for the service of the future
all the intellectual and emotional forces of women as well as men.
To think boldly, untrammelled by conventions from the past, to search
sedulously for the truth within themselves and follow it fearlessly,
this should be the faith of all those women who love art. Let them
have the courage of their own deep emotions. Let them look forward
into the future, instead of clinging timorously to the stone wall of
their past imitation of men. Then, indeed, woman may be freed--able to
give expression to those creative ideas which are wrapped up with the
elements of her nature. But women must beware of sham emotion and
lachrymose sentimentality. It is her own feelings she must voice, not
the feelings that have been supposed to belong to her. Then, indeed,
the work of women will begin to count. The two things most peculiar
to woman--her pursuing-love of man and her need of a child, will find
their expression in women's art.
It is an appalling commentary on the condition of our thoughts on this
subject that the pregnant woman was but recently considered unfit to
be represented in the statues placed on one of our public buildings.
How convincingly this speaks to women, "Be not ashamed of anything,
but to be ashamed."
III.--_The Affectability of Woman--Its Connection with the Religious
Impulse_
"Religion shares with the sexual impulse the unceasing yearning,
the sentiment of everlastingness, the mystic absorption into the
depths of life, the longing for the coalescence of
individualities in an eternally blessed union, free from earthly
fetters."--IWAN BLOCH.
Now, this affectability, that we have found to be a characteristic
feminine feature, leads us directly to an inquiry into the part
religion has played in the lives of women, and to the wider
consideration of the religious impulse in general, and its close
connection with the sexual instinct. I had intended to treat this
subject in some detail, especially in relation to religious hypnotic
phenomena, a matter of very deep significance in estimating woman's
character. I should have liked, too, to have traced the influence of
the early and late Christian teaching upon woman's mind, to have
examined her position in the social and domestic relationship, and
then to have contrasted this with the almost complete liberty and
distinction enjoyed by women in Pagan culture. But the field opened up
by these inquiries is too wide. The previous sections of this chapter
have grown to such length that all that is possible to me now, if I am
to have space for the matters I want still to investigate, are a few
scattered remarks and suggestions which seem to me to throw some light
on this important side of woman's life.
No one will question woman's aptitude for religion, whatever the
opinion held as to what the organic basis of that aptitude may be. If
we accept that woman is more sensitive to suggestion, more emotional,
and more imaginative in her nature, it is plain why religion affects
her more deeply than men. The extraordinary way in which woman can be
influenced by religious suggestion is similar in its nature to that
saturation of her innermost thoughts with love, which is due in part,
as I believe, to the special qualities of her sex-functions, but also,
in part, to the over-emphasised sexuality produced in her by an
artificial existence. Women have accepted religious beliefs as they
have accepted man's valuation of temporal things, even although these
may be utterly at variance with their nature and their desires.
It has been said that the disposition of woman makes her peculiarly
conservative and uncritical of religious beliefs. Others suggest that
there is a "specific religious sense" in women related with a higher
standard of character. This I do not believe: it is part of the
fiction of woman's superior morality. I think in most women is hidden
an immense appetite for life, an immense capacity for expenditure of
force. She does not often dare to listen to these deeps within her
soul; yet the insurgent voices fill her. There is in the life of most
women something wanting, some general idea, some aim to hold life
together. The effort of woman--often unconscious, but always
present--to realise herself in love has forced her to practise
duplicity and to accept dependence. And this sense of dependence in
her on a protector, not always forthcoming, and, even when present,
not always able to protect, has sent her in search of something
outside and beyond the known and fallible, and has prepared her to
accept with eagerness any professed revelation of the infallible
unknown.
We have seen again and again in the course of our inquiry how deep and
natural the sex impulse is in woman, and this, combined with the much
greater complexity of her sexual life, renders her position peculiarly
liable to be affected disastrously by any failure of love. It must be
recognised that unbounded piety is often no more than a sex symptom,
proceeding from deprivation or from satiety of love, as also from
love's failure in loveless marriage. It seems to me that this
connection of the religious impulse with sexuality is a very important
thing for women to understand. In our achievement of facing the truth
in the place of evasions about fundamental things, lies the path, I
believe along which woman can escape, if ever she is to escape, from
the confusion of purposes that distract her at present.
The intimate association between religious ideas and feelings and the
sexual life is abundantly proved by the history of all peoples. We
first meet it in the widespread early practice of religious
prostitution, which has aptly been called "lust sacrifice." It is even
more manifest in the ancient religious erotic festivals. Of these we
have examples in the festivals of Isis in Egypt, in the Dionysian and
Eleusinian festivals of the Hellenes, in the Roman Bacchanalia and
festival of Flora, and among the Jews in the feast of Baal-peor. In
these festivals the frenzy of religious mysticism merges with the
wildest sexual licence. Sexual mysticism found its way also into
Christianity, a fact to which the lives of the saints furnish an
illuminating witness. And down to the present day we may notice its
manifestations in the most diverse sects during any period of
religious revival. We still meet with sexual excesses under the shadow
of faith, as, for instance, occurred in the late revival in Wales.
Havelock Ellis has laid stress on the leading significance of
religious sexual perceptions, and their special importance on the
emotional feminine character. This subject is so deeply connected with
women that I shall, I hope, be pardoned if I pause for a moment to
relate a personal experience which may help to make this truth more
clear.
In my girlhood I was strongly drawn to religion, partly through
training and example, but more, as I now know, by the affectability of
my strongly feminine temperament. My religious enthusiasm was so
intense that often I was in a condition which must have been closely
connected with erotic religious ecstasy. Salvation was the essential
fact of my life; seeking for it brought me the excitement I
unconsciously craved of conflicts and fulfilled desires. I sought for
God as the passionate woman seeks her lover. I recall a period--I was
approaching womanhood--during which I prayed continuously and
earnestly that it might be granted to me, as to the saints of old, to
see God and the Risen Christ. For long I received no answer. This did
not weaken my faith, but the great trouble of my mind became for long
a consciousness of my own unworthiness. I began an absurd and childish
system of self-punishments, and what I thought would lead to
purification. Then there came a night--it was summer and I was looking
from my window out at the beautiful evening sky--when my prayer was
answered. I seemed, in very truth, to see God. From that time, and for
long, I lived in extraordinary happiness. I am sure that I must have
become hysterical. I felt that I was set apart by God; I conceived the
idea of founding a new religious sect. That I made no attempt to do
this was due to circumstances, which forced me into active work to
gain my own living. Religion continued very largely in my life, but I
was too healthily occupied to be favoured with any more visions. But
the essential point in all this is its close connection with my sexual
development. So far I had never been in love. I believe that the
natural sex desires awakened consciously in me much later than is
common. My need for religion lasted until my sex needs were fully
satisfied, then, little by little, it faded. I want to state the
truth. I did not then trace, nor should I have understood, this
connection. The knowledge came to me long years afterwards; how it
does not matter, but I am certain that in me the religious impulse and
the sex impulse are one.
Love has in it much of the same supernatural element as religion. Both
the sex-act and the act of finding salvation come into intimate
association with woman's need of dependence; hence arises the
remarkable relation between the two, and that easy transition of
sexual emotion into religious emotion which is manifest in so many
women. In both cases the surrender, the renunciation of personal will,
is an experience fraught with passionate pleasure. "Love," as H.G.
Wells has said, "is the individualised correlation of salvation, like
that it is a synthetic consequence of conflict and confusions." It is
true that few women render love the compliment of taking it seriously.
To many it is merely this: a little amusement, clothes, a home, money
to buy new toys; some mild pleasure, a little chagrin, a little
weariness, and then the end. They do not realise or ever desire love
in its full joy of personal surrender. So, too, many women never, save
in some time of personal bewilderment, desire or seek salvation. But
such aimlessness brings its own emptiness, and women strain and seek
towards the god-head. For the truth remains, woman's need of love is
greater than man's need, and for this reason, where love fails her,
her desire for salvation is deeper than man's desire. And here again,
and once again, we see the difference between the sexes. The woman
pays the higher price for her implicit, unquestioning, and unconscious
obedience to Nature. And society has made the payment still heavier.
Let us for this last pity women! The dice they have had to throw in
the game of life is their sex, and they have only been allowed one
throw, and when they have thrown wastefully--yes, it is here that
religion has entered into the game. It may almost be said to measure
the failures and false boundaries in women's loves. The songs of love
and the songs of faith are alike; and women act worship as also they
are often driven to act love. The woman who knows her own heart must
know that this is true. And one cannot wish to see the opium of
religion taken from women until the game is made a fairer one for them
to play.
There is another point to consider.
Many great thinkers have striven against this profound and primitive
connection between the bodily and spiritual impulses, which has seemed
to them an intrusion of evil, impairing their pure spirituality by the
sexual life. They have thus recommended and followed asceticism in
order to arrive at a heightened spirituality. The error here is
obvious. The spiritual activities cannot be divided from the physical;
as well cut the flower off from its roots, and then expect to gather
the fruit. This is why sex-denial and sex-excesses so often go
together. Hence the undeniable unchastity of the mediæval cloisters.
Nor need the manifestations of sex be physical. Erotic imagination and
voluptuous revelations are expressions of sex-passion. The monstrous
sexual visions of the saints reflect in a typical manner the
incredible violence of the sexual perception of ascetics.
We observe it, then, as a fact of wide experience that the ascetic
life is rooted really in the functional impulses; and further, that it
is only through sexual perception that the spiritual and imaginative
can be grasped and reached. What the ascetic has done is to fear
overmuch. It must not be overlooked that this continual battle with
the primary force of life is necessarily futile in accomplishing its
own aim. For the woman or man who, for the religious or any other
ideal, wishes to overcome the sex-needs must keep the subject always
before her, or his, consciousness. Thus it comes about that the
ascetic is always more occupied with sex than the normal individual.
It seems to me that this is a truth few women have learnt to face.
I am not for a moment denying that the potential energy of the sexual
impulse may be transformed with benefit into productive spiritual
activities, finding its vent in religion, as also in poetry, in art,
and in all creative work. Plato must have had this in his mind when he
speaks of "thought as a sublimated sexual impulse." Schopenhauer, and
many other thinkers, lay stress on the connection between the work of
productive genius and the modification of the sexual impulse. This may
be illustrated--if examples are needed in proof--by the power that has
been exercised so conspicuously by women throughout the world in
religious movements. Two of the greater festivals of the Catholic
Church, for instance, owe their origin to the illumination of women;
the mystic writings of Santa Teresa of Avila give classic expression
to the highest powers of the spirit. Take again the part played by
women as religious leaders of the convents in the early Middle Ages.
In them women of spirit and capacity found a wide and satisfying
career, many of them showing great administrative ability and a quite
remarkable power for government. In recent times mention may be made
of the Theosophists, the most important modern religious movement
established in this country and led by women; and of Christian
Science, which, under the able guidance of Mrs. Eddy, has sprung up
and flourished. It is instructive to note that both these religions
are connected with, and largely established on, magical faith and
esoteric doctrines and practices. In almost all the religions founded
by women we may trace a similar relation with hypnotic phenomena which
must be regarded as closely dependent on sexual sources. The proof is
wider even than these particular instances. It is without doubt the
transformation of suppressed sexual instincts that has made women the
chief supporters of all religions.
It may be said that the religious impulse has to a large extent lost
its hold upon women. This is true. A new age must expect to see a new
departure. As women take active participation in the work of the world
their sense of dependence and need for protection will diminish, and
we may look for a corresponding decrease in that display of excessive
religious emotion that dependence has fostered. But the needs of woman
can never be satisfied alone with work. The natural desires remain
imperative; deny these, and there will be left only the barren tree
robbed of its fruits. Sexuality first breathes into woman's spiritual
being warm and blooming life.
The religious ascetic is not common among us to-day. Yet the old
seeking for something is there. The impulse towards asceticism has, I
think, rather changed its form than passed from women. The place of
the female saint is being taken by the social ascetic. Desire is not
now set to gain salvation, but is turned towards a heightened
intellectual individuation, showing itself in nervous mental
activity. No one can have failed to note the immense egoism of the
modern woman. Women are still in fear of life and love. They have been
made ascetics through the long exercise of restraint upon their
explosively emotional temperament. They have restrained their natures
to remain _pure_. This false ideal of chastity was in the first place
forced upon them, but by long habit it has been accentuated and has
been backed up by woman's own blindness and fear. Thus to-day, in
their new-found freedom, women are seeking to bind men up in the same
bonds of denial which have restrained them. In the past they have
over-readily imbibed the doctrine of a different standard of purity
for the sexes, now they are in revolt--indeed, they are only just
emerging from a period of bitterness in relation to this matter. Men
made women into puritans, and women are arising in the strength of
their faith to enforce puritanism on men. Is this malice or is it
revenge? In any case it is foolishness. Bound up as the sexual impulse
is with the entire psychic emotional being, there would be left behind
without it only the wilderness of a cold abstraction. The Christian
belief in souls and bodies separate, and souls imprisoned in vile
clay, has wrought terrible havoc to women. I believe the two--soul and
body--are one and indivisible. Women have yet this lesson to learn:
the capacity for sense-experience is the sap of life. The power to
feel passion is in direct ratio to the strength of the individual's
hold upon life; and may be said to mark the height of his, or her,
attainment in the scale of being. It is only another out of many
indications of the strength of sexual emotion in women that so many
of them are afraid of the beauty and the natural joys of love.
There is one thing more I would wish to point out in closing this very
insufficient survey of an exceedingly complicated and difficult
subject. To me it seems that here, in this finer understanding of
love, we open the door to the only remedy that will wipe out the
hateful fear of women, which has wrought such havoc in the
relationship between the sexes. Woman, restrained to purity, has of
necessity fallen often into impurity. And men, knowing this better
than woman herself, have feared her, though they have failed in any
true understanding of the cause. Let me give you the estimate of woman
which Maupassant, in _Moonlight_, has placed in the mouth of a priest.
It is the most illuminating passage in one of the most exquisite of
his stories--
"He hated woman, hated her unconsciously and instinctively
despised her. He often repeated to himself the words of Christ:
'Woman, what have I to do with thee?' And he would add, 'It
seems as if God Himself felt discontented with that particular
creation.' For him was that child of whom the poet speaks,
impure, through and through impure. She was the temptress who
had led away the first man, and still continued her work of
perdition; a frail creature but dangerous, mysteriously
disturbing. And even more than their sinful bodies he hated
their loving souls.... God, in his opinion, had created woman
solely to tempt man, to put him to the proof."
One lesson women and men have to learn: so easy to be put into words,
so difficult to carry out by deeds. To get good from each other the
sexes must give love the one to the other. The human heart in
loneliness eats out itself, causes its own emptiness, creates its own
terrors. Nature gives lavishly, wantonly, and woman is nearer to
Nature than man is, therefore she must give the more freely, the more
generously. There can be no such thing as the goodness of one-half of
life without the goodness of the other half. Love between woman and
man is mutual; is continual giving. Not by storing up for the good of
one sex or in waste for the pleasure of the other, but by free
bestowing is salvation. Wherefore, not in the enforced chastity of
woman, but in her love, will man gain his new redemption.
FOOTNOTES:
[318] Velazquez is known to us only by the name of his mother; his
father's name was de Silva.
[319] I have taken these passages from the chapter on "The Women of
Galicia," in my _Spain Revisited_.
[320] _Man and Woman_, p. 377; Möbius, _Stachylogie_, 1901.
[321] The passage occurs in a lecture by Prof. Thomson and Mrs.
Thomson on "The Position of Woman Biologically Considered," and was
one of a series delivered in Edinburgh to consider and estimate the
recent changes in the position of woman. The addresses have been
published in a book entitled _The Position of Woman, Actual and
Ideal_.
[322] _Sexual Life of Our Times_, p. 74.
[323] _Sex and Society_, pp. 306, 307.
[324] Quoted by Bloch, _Sexual Life of Our Times_, p. 80.
[325] _Sexual Life of Our Times_, pp. 80, 81.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER X
THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
I.--_Marriage_
The difficulty of the problem of marriage--Facts to be
considered--Marriage and the family among the animals--Among
primitive peoples--Progress from lower to higher forms of the
sexual association--An examination of the purpose of
marriage--The fear of hasty reforms--Practical
morality--Marriage an institution older than mankind--The
practical moral ends of marriage--The racial and individual
factors--No real antagonism between the two--What is good for
the individual must react also for the benefit of the
race--Various systems of marriage--Monogamy the form that has
prevailed--The higher law of the true marriage--Conventional
monogamic marriage--Its failure in practical
morality--Coexistence with polygamy and prostitution--Chief
grounds for the reform of marriage--An indictment by Mr.
Wells--Our marriage system based upon the rights of
property--This not necessarily evil--The Egyptian marriage
contracts--The Roman marriage--The influence of
Christianity--Asceticism and the glorification of
virginity--Confusions and absurdities--The failure of our
sexual morality--Mammon marriages--Sins against the race--Two
examples from my own experience--The iniquity of our bastardy
laws--The waste of love--Free-love--Its failure as a
practical solution--The reform of marriage--The tendency to
place the form of the sexual relationship above the facts of
love--The dependence of the consciousness of duty upon
freedom--The sexual responsibility of women.
II.--_Divorce_
Traditional morality--Practical conditions of divorce--The moral
code--This must be modified to meet new conditions--The
enforced continuance of an unreal marriage--This the grossest
form of immorality--The barbarism of our divorce laws--The
action of the Church and State--Confusion and
absurdities--Divorce relief from misfortune, not a
crime--Personal responsibility in marriage--A recognition of
the equality of the mother with the father--Sanction by the
State of free divorce--The example of Egypt and Babylon--The
Roman divorce by consent--The condemnation of free divorce
not the outcome of true morality--The immorality of
indissoluble marriage--Loyalty and duty in love--The claims
of the child--One advantage of free divorce--Adoption of
children under the State--Growing disinclination against
coercive marriage--The waste to the race--Our responsibility
to the future.
III.--_Prostitution_
The dependence of prostitution upon marriage--The extent and
difficulties of the problem involved--Prostitution
essentially a woman's question--Women's past attitude towards
it--The diffusion of disease by means of prostitution--Apathy
and ignorance of women--This changing--What action will women
take in the future?--Grounds for fear--The White Slave
Bill--Its absurd futility--The opinion of Bernard
Shaw--Poverty as a cause of prostitution--This not the only
factor--The real evil lies deeper--The economic reformer--The
moral crusade--Men's passions--Seduction--These causes need
careful examination--Lippert's view--Idleness, frivolity, and
love of finery as causes--The desire for excitement--The need
for personal knowledge of the prostitute--What I have learnt
from different members of this profession--The prostitute's
attitude towards her trade--The sale of sex very profitable
to the expert trader--The sexual frigidity of the
prostitute--Importance and significance of this--A further
examination into the causes of the evil--Poverty seldom the
chief motive for prostitution--The influence of inheritance
upon the sexual life--The degradation of our legitimate loves
the ultimate cause of prostitution--The demand for the
prostitute by men--Causes of this demand--Repression of the
primitive sexual instincts by civilisation--The foolishness
of casting blame upon men--The duplex morality of the
sexes--Its influence on the degradation of passion--Woman's
unprofitable service to chastity--The connection with
prostitution--My belief in passion as the only source of
help.
CHAPTER X
THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
_I.--Marriage_
"The race flows through us, the race is the drama and we are the
incidents. This is not any sort of poetical statement; it is a
statement of fact. In so far as we are individuals, in so far as
we seek to follow merely individual ends, we are accidental,
disconnected, without significance, the sport of chance. In so
far as we realise ourselves as experiments of the species for
the species, just in so far do we escape from the accidental and
the chaotic. We are episodes in an experience greater than
ourselves."--H.G. WELLS.
"There is no subject," says Bernard Shaw in his delightful preface to
_Getting Married_, "on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and
thought than marriage." And, in truth, it is not easy to avoid such
foolishness if we understand at all the complexity of the relationship
of the sexes. Sentiment rules our actions in this connection, whereas
our talk on the subject is directed by intellect. And the demands of
the emotions are at once more imperious and tyrannical, and more
fastidious and more critical, than are the demands of the mind. Thus
the more firmly reason checks the riot of imagination the greater the
danger of error. Of all of which what is the moral? This: It is
useless to talk or to think unless it is also possible and expedient
to act.
Be it noted, then, first that our marriage customs and laws are
founded and have been framed not for, or by, the personal needs--that
is, the likes and dislikes of men and women, but by the exigencies of
social and economic necessities. Now, from this it will be readily
seen that individual inclinations are very likely, even if not bound,
to clash with, as they seek to conform to, the usages of society.
Always there will tend to be prevalent everywhere a hostility--at
times latent, at others active--between these two forces; against the
special desires of women and men on the one hand, and the laws
enforced by a social and economic community on the other. Always there
will tend to arise some who will desire to change the accepted
marriage form, those who, considering first the personal needs, will
advocate the loosening or the breaking of the marriage-bond; while
others, looking only to the stability which they believe to be founded
in law and custom, will seek to keep and to make the tie indissoluble.
This perpetual conflict is, it seems to me, the greatest difficulty
that has to be faced in any effort to readjust the conditions of
marriage. In our contemporary society there is a deep-lying
dissatisfaction with the existing relations of the sexes, a yearning
and restless need for change. In no other direction are the confusions
and uncertainty of the contemporary mind more manifest. The change
that has taken place so rapidly in the attitudes of women and men has
brought with it a very strong and, what seems to be a new, revolt
against the ignominious conditions of our amatory life as bound by
coercive monogamy. We are questioning where before we have accepted,
and are seeking out new ways in which mankind will go--will go because
it must.
Yet just because of this imperative urging the greater caution is
called for in introducing any changes in the laws or customs affecting
marriage. Present social and economic conditions are to a great extent
chaotic. It would be a sorry thing if in haste we were to establish
practices that must come to an end, when we have freed ourselves from
the present transition; changes that would not be for the welfare of
generations still unborn. It will, however, hardly be denied by any
one that reform is needed. All will admit that a change must be made
in some direction, and an attempt to say where it should be tried must
therefore be faced.
Does Nature give us any help in solving the problem? None whatever. It
would seem, indeed, that Nature has in some ways arranged the love
relation in regard to the needs of the two sexes very badly. But
putting this aside for the present, it is clear that in regard to the
form of marriage Nature has no preference; all ways are equal to her,
provided that the race profits by them, or at least does not suffer
too much from them. We found abundant proof of this in our examination
of marriage and the family as established already in the animal
kingdom; the modes of sexual association offer great variety, no
species being of necessity restricted to any one form of union.
Polygamy, polyandry, and monogamy all are practised. The family is
sometimes patriarchal, though more often it is matriarchal, with the
female the centre of it, and her love for the young infinitely
stronger and more devoted than the male, though even in this direction
there are many and notable exceptions. When we came to study the
history of mankind we found similar conditions persisting. Separate
groups living as they best could without caring about theories; their
sexual conduct ordered by a compromise between the procreative needs
on the one hand, and the necessities of the social conditions on the
other. Marriage forms, as we understand them, were for long unknown,
the relations of the sexes slowly evolving from a more or less
restricted promiscuity to a family union at first merely temporary,
and only later becoming fixed and permanent. Thus very gradually the
primitive instinctive sex impulses underwent expansion, and always in
the direction of the control of the individual desires in the interest
of the family.
The unit of the group or state is the family, therefore sex-customs
arise and laws are made not to suit the convenience of the woman or
the man, but for the preservation and good of the family. In a word,
the children--they are the pivot about which all regulations of
marriage should turn.
It is certain, however, that such control and such laws have never in
the past, and never in the future can be fixed to one unchanging form.
In proof of this I must refer the reader back to the historical
section of this book, where nothing stands out clearer than that the
most diverse morality and customs prevail in matters of sex. Wherever
for any reason there arises a tendency towards any form of sexual
association, such form is likely to be established as a habit, and,
persisting, it comes to be regarded as right, and is enforced by
custom and later by law, and also sometimes sanctified by religion. It
comes to be regarded as moral, and other forms become immoral.
Now, all this may seem to be rather far away from the matter we are
discussing--the present dissatisfaction with our marriage system. But
the point I want to make clear is this: there is no rigid and
unchangeable code of right or wrong in the sexual relationship. Our
opinions here are based for the most part on traditional morality,
which accepts what is as right because it is established. A small but
growing minority, looking in an exact opposite direction, turn to an
ideal morality, considering the facts of sex not as they are, but as
they think they ought to be. Both these attitudes are alike harmful.
The one refuses to go forward, the other rushes on blindly, goaded by
sentiment or by personal desires. And to-day the greater danger seems
to me to rest with the hasty reformers. It is an essentially feminine
crusade. By this I do not mean that it is advocated alone by women,
but that in itself it must be regarded as _feminine_; a view which
elevates a subjective ideal relationship of sex above all objective
facts. The desires and feelings and sentiments are set up in
opposition to historical experience and communal tradition. We hear
much, and especially in the writings and talk of women, of such vapid
phrases as "Self-realisation in love," "The enhancement of the
individual life," and "The spiritualising of sex." Such personal
views, which exalt the passing needs of the individual above the
enduring interests of the race, are in direct opposition to progress.
What is rather needed is an examination of marriage and other forms of
our sexual relationships by practical morality, by which I mean the
estimating of their merits and defects in relation to the vital needs
of the community under the circumstances of the present.
To do this we must first clear our minds from the belief that regards
our present form of monogamic marriage as ordained by Nature and
sanctified by God. He who accepts the development of the love of one
man for one woman from other and earlier forms of association may well
look forward in faith to a future progress from our existing marriage:
yet, though eager for reform, he will, remembering the slowness of
this steady upward progress in love's refinement in the past, refrain
from acting in haste, understanding the impossibility of forcing any
Utopia of the sexes. No change can be made in a matter so intimate as
marriage by a mere altering of the law. Only such reforms as are the
natural outgrowth of an enlightened public feeling can be of benefit,
and thus permanent in their result. I must go further than this and
say that what may very possibly be right for the few cannot be
regarded as practically moral and good until it can be accepted and
acted upon by the people at large. In sex more than in any other
department of life we are all linked together; we are our brother's
keeper, and the blood of the race will be required at our hands. Many
women, and some men, do not realise at all the immense complications
of sex and the claims passion makes on many natures. I am sure that
this is the explanation of much of the foolish talk that one hears. I
tried to make clear in the first chapters of this book the
irresistible elemental power of the uncurbed sexual instincts. And
this force is at least as strong now as it was in the beginning of
life. For in sex we have, as yet, learnt very little. We who are
living among the sophistication of aeroplanes, the inheritors of the
knowledge of all the ages, have still to pass in wonder along the
paths of love, entering into it blindly and making all the old
mistakes.
Am I, then, afraid that I plead thus for caution? No, I am not. I rest
my faith in the development of the racial element in love side by side
with its personal ends of physical and spiritual joy. For the sex
impulses, which have ruled women and men, will assuredly come to be
ruled by them. Just as in the past life has been moulded and carried
on by love's selection, acting unconsciously and ignorant of the ends
it followed, so in the future the race will be developed and carried
onwards by deliberate selection, and the creative energy of love will
become the servant of women and men. The mighty dynamic force will
then be capable of further and, as yet, unrealised development. This
is no vain hope. It has its proof in the past history of the selective
power of love. The problems of our individual loves are linked on to
the racial life. The hope for improvement rests thus in a growing
understanding of the individual's relation to the race, and in an
expansion of our knowledge and practice of the high duties love
enforces.
Let us look now at the practical direction of the present. We have
reached these conclusions as a starting-point--
(1) We have inherited marriage as a social, nay more, a racial
institution.
(2) The practical moral end of marriage, whether we regard it from
the wider biological standpoint or from the narrower standpoint of
society, is a selection of the sexes by means of love, having as its
social object the carrying on of the race, and as its personal object
a mutual life of complete physical, mental, and psychical union.
(3) The first of these, the racial object, is the concern of the
State; the second, the personal need of love, is the concern of the
individual woman and man.
(4) It is the business of the State to make such laws that the
interests of the race, _i.e._ the children, are protected.
From this it would seem to follow that beyond such care the State has
nothing to do with the sexual relationship. Here I am placed in a
difficulty. I cannot accept this view. I do not believe that the loves
of women and men, even apart from children being born from such union,
can ever be merely a personal matter between the two individuals
concerned. For this reason any woman and man is a potential mother or
father, and may become so in a later union. We cannot break the links
which bind the individual to the race. I am very clear in my mind,
however, of the need of recognising this perpetual duality in the
objects of love. It is not necessary to bring forward any proof of the
profound significance of the individual side of the sexual passion in
the progress of civilisation. We may accept what is really proved by
all of us in our acts, that love and love's embrace are not exercised
only, or indeed chiefly, for the purpose of procreation, but are of
quite equal importance to the parents, necessary for the complete
life--the physical and mental development and the joy of the woman and
the man.
It may seem, then, that we are thus faced by two opposing forces. That
is not the case. There is real harmony underlying the apparent
opposition of these two interests, and each is, indeed, the
indispensable complement of the other. Both the personal and the
further-reaching racial objects of love alike belong to the great
synthesis of life. I do not, of course, deny, what every one knows,
that there is at present an opposition and even conflict in certain
individual cases. This is but one sign of chaos and the wastage of
love. But this does not change the truth; there can be no gain for the
individual in the personal ends of love unless there is also a
corresponding gain to the wider racial end. The element of
self-assertion in our loves must be brought into correlation with the
universal and immortal development of life. This is so evident that I
will not wait to elaborate it further. I will only point out that all
the good, as also all the evil, that the individual is able to gain
from love must ultimately react also for the benefit, or the wastage,
of the race. Thus we have to get every good that we can out of our
sexual experiences for ourselves for this very reason that we do not
stand alone. It is because the race flows through us that we have to
make the utmost of our individual opportunities and powers, so that,
understanding our position as guardians to the generations yet unborn,
we may use to the very full, but refrain from any misuse of love's
possibilities of joy. We know that all we gain for ourselves we gain
in trust for the race, and what we lose for ourselves we waste for
the life to come. This has, of course, been said before by numberless
people, but it seems to me it has been realised by very few, and until
it is realised to the fullest extent it will never begin to be
practised. We shall continue at a crossed purpose between our own
interests and desires and the interests of the race, and shall go on
wasting the forces of love needlessly and riotously.
Armed with these conclusions I shall now attempt to examine our
existing marriage in its relation (1) to the needs of the children,
(2) to the individual needs apart from parentage. The extent of the
problems involved is almost illimitable, thus all that I can do is to
touch very briefly and insufficiently on a few facts.
As we question in turn the various systems of marriage it becomes
clear that monogamy is the form which has most widely prevailed, and
will be likely to be maintained, because of its superior survival
value. In other words, because it best serves the interests of the
race by assuring to the woman and her children the individual interest
and providence of the father. I believe further that monogamy of all
the sexual associations serves best the personal needs of the parents;
and, moreover, that it represents the form of union which is in
harmony with the instincts and desires of the majority of people. The
ideal of permanent marriage between one woman and one man to last for
the life of both must persist as an ideal never to be lost. I wish to
state this as my belief quite clearly. The higher love in true
marriage is the veritable law of the life to be; and beside it all
experiments in sensation will rot in their emptiness and their
self-love.
But this faith of mine in an ideal and lasting union does not lessen
at all my scepticism in the moral inefficacy of our present marriage
system. It is not the particular form of marriage practised that,
after all, is the main thing, but the kind of lives people live under
that form. The mere acceptance of a legally enforced monogamy does not
carry us very far in practical morality; we must claim something much
deeper than this.
And this brings us to the base counterfeit of monogamy that is
accepted and practised by many among us to-day; base because it is a
monogamy largely mitigated by clandestine transitory loves--tipplings
with sensation and snackings at lust which betray passion. Facts of
daily observation may not be shuffled out of consideration by any
hypocrisy. They must be faced and dealt with. Our marriage system is
buttressed with prostitution, which thus makes our moral attitude one
of intolerable deception, and our efforts at reform not only
ineffective, but absurd. Without the assistance of the prostitution of
one class of women and the enforced celibacy of another class our
marriage in its present form could not stand. It is no use shirking
it; if marriage cannot be made more moral--and by this I mean more
able to meet the sex needs of all men and all women--then we must
accept prostitution. No sentimentalism can save us; we must give our
consent to this sacrifice of women as necessary to the welfare and
stability of society. But with this question I shall deal in a later
section of this chapter. There is, however, more than this to be
said. Marriage is itself in many cases a legalised form of
prostitution. From the standpoint of morals, the woman who sells
herself in marriage is on the same level as the one who sells herself
for a night, the only difference is in the price paid and the duration
of the contract. Nay, it is probably fair to say that at the lowest
such sale-marriage results in the greater evil, for the prostitute
does not bear children. If she has a child it has, as a rule, been
born first; such is our morality that motherhood often drives her on
to the streets!
Any woman who marries for money or position is departing from the
biological and moral ends of marriage. A child can be born gladly only
as the fruit of love. It is in this direction, rather than in
maintaining a barren virginity, that woman's chastity should be
guarded. We may excuse women on the grounds of possible ignorance,
but, none the less, have the conditions of marriage been unfavourable
to the development of a fine moral feeling in women or in men. No one
can have failed to feel surprised at the men many girls are content to
marry; it is one thing that must be set against the claim women make
as the morally superior sex. Mr. Wells, whom I have already quoted in
this matter, places in the mouth of one of his characters, in his
recent book, _Marriage_, a true and terrible indictment of women.
"If there was one thing in which you might think woman would
show a sense of some divine purpose in life it is in the matter
of children, and they show about as much care in the matter--oh,
as rabbits! Yes, rabbits. I stick to it. Look at the things a
nice girl will marry; look at the men's children she'll submit
to bring into the world. Cheerfully! Proudly! For the sake of
the home and the clothes!"
The fact is our marriage in its present legal form is primarily an
arrangement for securing the rights of property. This in itself is not
necessarily evil. Economic necessities cannot be ignored in any form
of the sexual relationship; it is rather a readjustment that is called
for here. We have seen how admirably a marriage system based upon
property in the form of free contracts worked in Egypt, and how happy
were the family relationships under this system of equal partnership
between the wife and husband. I would again recommend the careful
study of these marriage contracts to all those interested in marriage
reform. The contracts were never fixed in one form; all that was
required being that the interests of the woman and the children were
in all cases protected. Take again the Roman marriage which, in its
latest fine developments, has special interest, as the history of
modern marriage systems may be traced back to it. The Romans came,
like the Egyptians, to regard marriage as a contract rather than a
legal form. In the custom of _usus_, which supplanted the earlier and
sacred _confarreatio_, there was no ceremony at all. I would recall to
the memory of my readers the significant fact that in both these great
countries this freedom in marriage was associated with the freedom of
woman. It must be recognised that these two forces act together.
Traditional customs in marriage, as in all other departments of life,
tend to become worn out, and whenever any form presses too heavily on
a sufficient number of individuals acting against, instead of for, the
interests of those concerned, there arises a movement towards reform.
This happened in Rome, and led to the establishment of marriage by
_usus_, which was further modified by the practice known as _conventio
in manus_, whereby the wife by passing three nights in the year from
her husband was able to break through the terrible right of the
husband's _manus_. It is possible that by some such simple way of
escape we may come to change the pressure of our coercive marriage.
The briefest glance at our marriage system proves it to be founded on
the patriarchal idea of woman as the property of man, which is
sufficiently illustrated by the fact that a husband can claim sums of
money as compensation from any man who sexually approaches his wife,
while a woman, on her side, is granted compensation in the case of a
breach of promise of marriage. If we seek to find how this condition
has arisen we must look backwards into the past. To the fine legacy
left by the Roman law (which, regarding marriage as a contract, placed
the two sexes in a position of equal freedom) was added the customs of
the barbarians and the base Jewish system, giving to the husband
rights in marriage and divorce denied to the wife. Later, in the
twelfth century, came the capture of marriage by the Church and the
establishment of Canon law, whereby the property-value of marriage
became inextricably mingled with the sanctification of marriage as a
sacrament, which, strengthened by Christian asceticism and the
glorification of virginity, involved a corresponding contempt cast on
all love outside of legal marriage.[326] The action of this double
standard of sexual morality has led on the one side to the setting-up
of a theoretical ideal, which, as few are able to follow it, tends to
become an empty form, and this, on the other side, leads to a hidden
laxity that rushes to waste love out to a swift finish. The puritan
view has left us an inheritance of denials. It is small wonder, under
such circumstances, that marriage is often immoral, so often ending in
repulsion and weariness. "Our sexual morality," it has been said with
fine truth by Havelock Ellis, "is in reality a bastard born of the
union of property-morality with primitive ascetic morality, neither in
true relationship to the vital facts of life."
It may, indeed, be doubted if apart from property considerations we
have left any sexual morality at all. How else were it possible for
marriage (which, if it is to fulfil its moral biological ends, must be
based on physical and mental affinity and fitness) to be contracted,
as it often is, without knowledge or any true care of these essential
factors, and, moreover, to guarantee a permanence of a relationship
thus entered into blindly. At least it should be considered necessary
that a certificate of the health of the partners be obtained before
marriage. What is required to ensure our individual life ought to be
demanded before we create new life. Here, as I believe, is one
direction in which the State should take action. Parentage on the part
of degenerate human beings is a crime, and as such it ought to be
prevented. It may be, and is, argued that any action of the State in
this direction entails an interference with the rights of the
individual. Just the same may be said of all laws. The man who wishes
to steal or to kill either another or himself may, with equal reason,
hold that it is an interference of the law that he is not permitted to
follow his inclinations in these matters. The sins that he may wish to
commit are assuredly less evil in their results than the sin of
irresponsible parentage. You see what I mean. For if this unceasing
crime against the unborn could somehow be stopped there would be so
great a reduction of all other sins that we might well be freed from
many laws. As an example I would refer the reader back to the wise
Spartans, to consider how great was the gain to them as individuals by
their strict and unceasing care for the welfare of the race.
There are many who attribute to mammon-marriages all the terrible
evils of our disordered love-life of to-day. It is, therefore, well to
remember that such conditions are not really a new thing, and cannot
be regarded as the result of our commercialised civilisation. The
intrusion of economics into marriage is of very ancient origin, and
may be found among peoples who are almost primitive. But there is this
important difference. In earlier and more vigorous societies such
property-based marriages occur side by side with other forms of sexual
associations, on a more natural basis, which are openly accepted and
honoured. Our marriage system by its rigorous exclusions closes this
way of escape. Morality may be outraged to any extent provided that
law and religion have been invoked in legal marriage.
Let me give my readers two cases from my own experience; facts speak
more forcibly than any mere statements of opinion. In a village that I
know well a woman, legally married, bore five idiot children one after
the other; her husband was a confirmed drinker and a mental
degenerate. One of the children fortunately died. The text that was
chosen as fitting for his funeral card was, "Of such is the kingdom of
heaven." About the same time in the same village a girl gave birth to
an illegitimate child. She was a beautiful girl; the father, who did
not live in the village, was strong and young; probably the child
would have been healthy. But the girl was sent from her situation and,
later, was driven from her home by her father. At the last she sought
refuge in a disused quarry, and she was there for two days without
food. When we found her her child had been born and was dead.
Afterwards the girl went mad. I will add no comment, except to record
my belief that under a saner social organisation such crimes against
love would be impossible.
As was said years ago by the wise Sénancour, "The human race would
gain much if virtue were made less laborious." Let us view these large
questions in the light of their results to the individual and the
race. This practical morality will serve us better than any
traditional code. So only shall we learn to see if we cannot rid love
of stress and pain that is unendurable. We force women and men into
rebellion, into fearing concealments, and the dark and furtive ways of
vice. For this reason we must, I believe, make the regulations of law
as wide as possible, taking care only that mothers and all children
must be safeguarded, whether in legal marriage or outside. All of
which forces the conclusion: the same act of love cannot be good or
bad just because it is performed in or out of marriage. To hold such
an opinion is really as absurd as saying that food is more or less
digestible according to whether grace is, or is not, said before the
meal. All marriage forms are only matters of custom and expediency.
In face of the iniquity of our bastardy laws we may well pause to
doubt the traditional ideas of our sexual code and conventional
morality. It seems to me that in these questions of sex we have
receded further and further from the reality of things, and become
blinded and baffled by the very idols to love that men have set up.
One thing renders love altogether and incurably wrong, and that is
waste. The terribly high death-rate among illegitimate children alone
suffices to illustrate the actual conditions, to say nothing of the
greater waste often carried on in those children who live. The
question of the maintenance of such unfathered children is a scandal
of our time. We may surely claim that the birth of any child, without
exception, must be preceded by some form of contract which, though not
necessarily binding the mother and the father to each other, will
place on both alike the obligation of adequate fulfilment of the
duties to their child. This, I believe, the State must enforce. If
inability on the part of the parents to make such provision is proved,
the State must step in with some wide and fitting scheme of insurance
of childhood. The carrying out of even these simple demands will lead
us a great step forward in practical morality. It will open up the way
to a saner and more beautiful future.
But here, in case I am mistaken and thought to be desiring the
loosening of the bonds between the sexes, I must repeat again how
firmly I accept marriage as the best, the happiest, and the most
practical form of the sexual association. The ideal union is, I am
certain, an indestructible bond, trebly woven of inclination, duty,
and convenience. Marriage is an institution older than any existing
society, older than mankind, and reaches back, as Fabre's study of
insects has so beautifully shown us, to an infinitely remote past. Its
forms are, therefore, too fundamentally blended with human and,
further back, with animal society for them to be shaken with theories,
or even the practices of individuals or groups of individuals. Thus I
accept marriage: I believe that its form must be regulated and cannot
be left to the development of individual desires against the needs of
the race.
There are some who, in seeking liberation from the ignominious
conditions of our present amatory life, are wishing to rid marriage
from all legal bonds, and are pointing to Free-love as the way of
escape. To me this seems a very great mistake. I admit the splendid
imaginative appeal in the idea of Love's freedom as it is put forward,
for instance, by the great Swedish feminist, Ellen Key; I am unable to
accept it as practical morality. This, I believe, should be the only
sound basis for reform. The real question is not what people _ought
to do_, but what they _actually do_ and are likely _to go on doing_.
It is these facts that the idealist fails to face. Love is a very
mixed game indeed. And all that the wisest reformer has ever been able
to do is to make bad guesses at the solution of its problems.
The fundamental principle of the new ideal morality is that love and
marriage must always coincide, and, therefore, when love ceases the
bond should be broken. This in theory is, of course, right. I doubt if
it is, or ever will be, possible in practice. Experience has forced
the knowledge that the most passionate love is often the most likely
to end in disaster. Nor do I think that the evil is much lessened when
no legal bond is entered into. Those few people who have made a
success of Free-love would probably have made an equal success of
marriage. I know personally several cases in which the same woman, and
many in which the same man, has tried in succession legal marriage and
free unions and has been equally unhappy in both.
All the facts seem to me to point in another direction for reform. I
do not think that life's great central purpose of carrying on the race
(not alone giving birth to fit children, but the equally necessary
work of both parents uniting in caring for and bringing them up) can
be left safely to be confused and wasted by its dependence on the
gratification of personal desires. I wish that I thought otherwise. It
would make it all so much easier. It is useless to point back here to
the action of love's selection in the past history of life. As
civilisation progresses, and as individual needs become elaborated and
wealth increases, we tend to get further and further away from the
realities of love. We choose our partners without understanding, and
think very little of the needs of the future. What I want is to free
marriage from those bonds that can be proved to act against practical
morality. I do not wish at all to lessen its binding, only to defend
it against the conventions of a false and narrow traditional morality.
In love, as in every human relationship, it is character that avails
and prevails--nothing else. Marriage is, or ought to be, the most
practically moral institution that any civilisation is able to
produce. Women and men are likely to get out of any form of the sexual
association results in proportion to that which they put into it. A
great many people put nothing into marriage, and they are disappointed
when they get out of it--nothing. We shall put more into marriage, and
not less, in proportion as we come to understand it and to value its
enduring importance.
After all it is the people of any race who make marriage, not marriage
the people. The form of union is but a symbol of the people's
character, their desires, and capacities. If we have evolved the wrong
women and men, then any reform of marriage is vain. Have we in our
weakened civilisation drifted so far from life that the inherent
attributes of loyalty and discipline to the future are no longer with
us in sufficient measure adequately to respond to the enduring
realities of love? The answer is with women. We must demand from the
fathers of our children, as we demand from ourselves, loyalty to the
well-being of the race; the discipline of our personal desires and
loves that we may maintain ourselves fit as the bearers and protectors
of those wider interests, which belong not to ourselves, not to this
generation alone, but to the life and the future history of our race.
Woman must again assert, as she did in the past, that she is the maker
of men. She must reclaim her right, held by the female from the
beginning of life, as the director of love's selective power. And more
even than this. Woman with man must be the framer of the law, and the
guide and director of all the relations of the sexes. But it is not
sufficient to do this by mere proclamation. Virile nations are not
made by theories or by the blast of the trumpet. They are reared in
the bonds of marriage, and what we incorporate in that bond will be
manifest in our children.
II.--_Divorce_
"The result of dissolving the formal stringency of the marriage
relationship, it is sometimes said, would be a tendency to an
immoral laxity. Those who make this statement overlook the fact
that laxity tends to reach a maximum as the result of
stringency, and that where the merely external authority of a
rigid marriage law prevails then the extreme excesses of licence
must flourish. It is also undoubtedly true, and for the same
reason, that any sudden removal of restraints necessarily
involves a reaction to the opposite extreme of licence. A slave
is not changed in a stroke into an autonomous free
man."--HAVELOCK ELLIS.
In putting forward a practical morality for marriage we have to
remember that we are not really uprooting traditional morality. There
is no necessity. Of its own decay the old morality has fallen in a
confusion of ruin. The ideal marriage is the union of one woman with
one man for life. This we have established. We have now to look at the
question from another side and ask, How far is this ideal monogamy
possible in practice? I think the answer must be that, as we stand at
present, it is possible to very few. For marriage is essentially a
state of bondage--there is no getting away from this--a state which
calls upon the individual to surrender his personal freedom in the
interests of the race and the stability of social structure. I have
proved that this bondage acts really for the benefit and happiness of
the individual, but this deep truth I must now leave. Marriage is,
thus, a concession of the individual to the general welfare of the
future and of the State. Now, with human nature as it is in its
present development, it is clearly claiming the impossible to demand
indissoluble marriage. Divorce is really implicit in the conditions of
marriage itself, and the firmest believers in monogamy must be the
supporters of practical and moral conditions of divorce.
The moral code of any society represents the experience of its
members. But experience is continually changing and enlarging, and
moral codes must also change and enlarge, or they become worn-out and
useless. Those people who are unable to modify their moral code to fit
new conditions and growth are doomed to extinction, while the people
who adjust their customs and laws to meet new requirements open up the
way to move on, and still onwards, in continual progress.
It were well to remember this as we come to question the conditions of
our law of divorce. There can be no possible doubt that if marriage is
to remain and become moral there must be an easier dissolution of its
bonds. The enforced continuance of an unreal marriage is really the
grossest form of immorality, harmful not only to the individuals
concerned, but to the children. The prejudices handed down to us by
past tradition have twisted morals into an assertion that a husband
or wife who have ceased to love must continue to share the rites of
marriage in mutual repugnance, or live in an unnatural celibacy.
The question as to how this condition arose may be answered very
briefly. The Church ordained that marriage is indissoluble, but, this
being found impossible to maintain in practice, the State stepped in
with a way of escape--a kind of emergency exit. But what a makeshift
it is! how flagrantly indecent! how inconsistent! Adultery must be
committed. To escape the degradation of an unworthy partner another
partner must first be sought, and love degraded in an act of
infidelity. Adultery is, in fact, a State-endowed offence against
morality, just as the indissolubility of marriage is a theological
perversion of the plainest moral law, that the true relationship
between the sexes is founded on love. This bastard-born morality of
Church and State is as immoral in theory as it is evil in practice.
For if we look deeper it becomes clear that the test to be applied
here is the same as in every relation between the sexes: the
conditions of divorce, like the conditions of marriage, must be such
as best serve the interests of the race. This means, in the first
place, that both partners in a marriage must have the assurance that
when the moral conditions of the contract are broken, or through any
reason become inefficient, they can be liberated, without any shame or
idea of delinquency being attached to the dissolution. "Divorce is
relief from misfortune and not a crime," to quote from the admirable
statute-book of Norway, a saying which should be one of universal
application in divorce. This must be done not merely as an act of
justice to the individual; it is called for equally in the interests
of the race. The woman or man from whom a divorce ought to be obtained
is in almost all cases the woman or man who ought not to be a parent.
We may go further than this. Divorce cannot be considered on the
physical side alone, there is a psychological divorce which is far
deeper, and also far more frequent. The woman or man who for any
reason is unhappy in marriage is unfitted to be a parent in that
marriage, and the way should be opened to them, if they desire, to
have other children born in love in a new marriage with a more fitting
mate. Our eyes are shut to the damning facts which confront us on
every side. Take, for instance, the case of the drunkard, the insane,
the syphilitic, the consumptive, parent bound in marriage. On
biological and economic grounds it is folly to leave in such hands the
protection of the race. It is the business of the State, as I believe,
to regulate the law to prevent, as far as possible, the birth of unfit
children; at least we may demand that Church and State cease to grant
their sanction to this flagrant sin.
It is of the utmost importance to realise that Divorce Law Reform is
needed to bring our jurisprudence up to the level of the modern
civilised State. Our law in this respect lags far behind that of other
countries, and is only one example out of many of our hide-bound
attachment to ancient abuses. The opposition shown against the
splendid and fearless recommendations for the extension of the grounds
of divorce, voiced by the Majority Report in the recent Divorce Law
Commission, prove how far we are still from understanding the higher
morality of marriage. The recent Commission and the strong movement in
favour of reform will, without doubt, lead to a change in the glaring
injustice and inconsistencies of our law. It is, however, certain that
an enlightened divorce law must go much further than providing ways of
escape from marriage. Such exits tend to destroy the true sanctity of
marriage; also they are unable to meet the needs of all classes, no
matter how wide and numerous they are. They can never form the
ultimate solution. They tend to make marriage ridiculous, and there
are real grounds in the objections raised against them. There must be
no special exits; the door of marriage itself must be left open to go
out of as it is open to enter. This will come. When personal
responsibility in marriage is developed, when all the relationships of
sexes are founded on the recognition of the equality of the mother
with the father--the woman with the man, then will come divorce by
mutual consent.
Whenever divorce is difficult, there woman's lot is hard and her
position low. It is a part of the patriarchal custom which regards
women as property. It would be easy to prove this by the history of
marriage in the civilisations of the past, as also by an examination
of the present divorce laws in civilised countries. I cannot do this,
but I make the assertion without the least shadow of doubt. I would
point back in proof to the Egyptian and Babylonian divorce law, and to
the splendid development of Roman Law in this direction. Consent is
accepted as necessary to marriage; it should be the condition of
divorce. This, I believe, is the only solution which women will be
content to accept, when once they are awakened to their
responsibilities in marriage. And here I would quote the wise dictum
of Mr. Cunninghame Graham: "Divorce is the charter of Woman's
Freedom".
The condemnation of divorce and the pillorying of divorced persons are
not really the outcome of any concern for true morality, though most
people deceive themselves that they are. They are predominantly the
outcome of ignorance, of prejudices and false values, based, on the
one hand, on the primitive patriarchal view of the wife (hence the
insistence on woman's chastity and the inequality of the law), and, on
the other, on the ecclesiastical doctrine of the indissolubility of
marriage and the sin of all relationships outside its bonds. It is
only when we realise how deeply and terribly these worn-out views have
saturated and falsified our judgments that we come to understand the
barbarism of our present laws of divorce.
It is significant that those who talk most of the sanctity of marriage
are the very people who fear most the extension of divorce, seeming to
believe that any loosening of its chains would lead to a dissolution
of the institution of marriage. One marvels at the weakness of faith
shown in such a view. It is not possible to hold the argument both
ways. If the partners in marriage are happy, why lock them in? if not,
why pretend that they are? The best argument I ever heard for divorce
was a remark made to me in a conversation with a working man. He said,
"When two people are fighting it is not very safe to lock the door".
After all, what you do is this: you give occasion for the locks to be
broken.
I have already spoken of loyalty and duty in relation to marriage,
and nothing that I say now must be thought to lessen at all my deep
belief in the personal responsibility of the individual in every
relationship of the sexes. Living together even after the death of
love may, indeed, be right if this is done in the interests of the
children. But it can never be right to compel such action by law. For
then in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred what is regarded as
duty is really a question of expediency. It is very easy to deceive
ourselves. And it requires more courage than most people possess to
face the fact that what has perhaps been a happy and fruitful marriage
has died a slow and bitter death. But the higher morality claims that
a child must be born in love and reared in love, or, at the lowest, in
an atmosphere from which all enmity is absent. Only the parent who is
strong enough to subordinate the individual right to the rights of the
child can safely remain in a marriage without love.
One great advantage of free divorce is that the wife and husband would
not part, as is almost inevitable under present conditions, in hatred,
but in friendship. This would enable them to meet one another from
time to time and unite together in care of any children of the
marriage. If such reasonable conduct was for any reason impossible on
the part of either or both parents, then the State must appoint a
guardian to fill the place of one parent or both. No child should be
brought up without a mother and a father. The adoption of children
under the State might in this way open up fruitful opportunities
whereby childless women and men might gain the joys of parenthood.
This condition of safety by free-divorce once established, would do
much to mitigate the hostility against marriage which is so
unfortunately prevalent among us to-day. Practical morality is
teaching us the immorality of indissoluble marriage. In Spain, a
country that I know well, where marriage is indissoluble, an
increasing number of men--and these the best and most thoughtful--are
refraining from marriage for this very reason. It follows, as a
result, that in Spain the illegitimate birth-rate is very high. The
difficulty of divorce is also a strong factor that upholds
prostitution.
Many women and men of exceptional gifts and character, conscious of an
increasing intolerance against the makeshift morality imposed upon our
sexual life, are standing outside of marriage and evading parentage.
For this waste we are responsible to the future. Thus, finally, we
find this truth: the principle of divorce reform forms the most
practical foundation--and one waiting ready to our hands--for the
reformation of marriage and the re-establishment of its sanctity. It
also has direct and urgent bearing on many of the problems of
womanhood.
III.--_Prostitution_
"Nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor nought so good but strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied,
And vice sometimes by action dignified."--_Romeo and Juliet._
"In nature there's no blemish but the mind,
None can be called deformed but the unkind."--_Twelfth Night._
A brief and final section of this chapter on the sexual relationships
must be devoted to the question of the conditions of prostitution,
which are really part of the conditions of marriage, being correlated
with that institution in its present coercive form, in fact, part of
it and growing out of it.
The extent of the problems involved here are so immense, the
difficulties so great and the issues so involved that I hesitate at
making any attempt to treat so wide a subject briefly and necessarily
inadequately in the short space at my disposal. Yet it seems to me
impossible to take the easy way and pass it over in silence, and I may
be able to contribute a word or two of worth to this very complex
social phenomenon. I shall limit myself to the aspects of the question
that seem to me important, choosing in preference the facts about
which I have some little personal knowledge.
Essentially this is a woman's question. What do women know about it?
Almost nothing. We are really as ignorant of the character, moral,
mental and physical of "the fallen woman," as if she belonged to an
extinct species. We know her only to pity her or to despise her, which
is, in result, to know nothing that is true about her. To deal with
the problem needs women and men of the finest character and the widest
sympathy. There are some of them at work now, but these, for the most
part, are engaged in the almost impossible task of rescue work, which
does not bring, I think, a real understanding of the facts in their
wider social aspect.
Women are, however, realising that they cannot continue to shirk this
part of their civic duties. These "painted tragedies" of our streets
have got to be recognised and dealt with; and this not so much for the
sake of the prostitute, but for all women's safety and the health of
the race. The time is not far distant when the mothers of the
community, the sheltered wives of respectable homes, must come to
understand that their own position of moral safety is maintained at
the expense of a traffic whose very name they will not mention. For
the prostitute, though unable to avenge herself, has had a mighty ally
in Nature, who has taken her case in hand and has avenged it on the
women and their children, who have received the benefits of our legal
marriage system. M. Brieux deals with this question in _Les Avariés_:
it is a tragedy that should be read by all women.
For this reason, if for no other, the existence of prostitution has to
be faced by women. Apathy and ignorance will no longer be accepted as
excuse, in the light of the sins against the race slowly piled up
through the centuries by vice and disease. But what will be the result
of women's action in this matter? What will they do? What changes in
the law will they demand? The importance of these questions forces
itself upon all those who realise at all the difficulties of the
problem. What we see and hear does not, I think, give great hopes.
Every woman who dares to speak on this great burked subject seems to
have "a remedy" ready to her hand. What one hears most frequently are
unconsidered denunciations of "the men who are responsible." For
example, I heard one woman of education state publicly that _there was
no problem of prostitution!_ I mention this because it seems to me a
very grave danger, an instance of the feminine over-haste in reform,
which, while casting out one devil, but prepares the way for seven
other devils worse than the first. Women seem to expect to solve
problems that have vexed civilisation since the beginnings of society.
This attitude is a little irritating. Every attempt hitherto to
grapple with prostitution has been a failure. Women have to remember
that it has existed as an institution in nearly all historic times and
among nearly all races of men. It is as old as monogamic marriage, and
maybe the result of that form of the sexual relationship, and not, as
some have held, a survival of primitive sexual licence. The action of
women in this question must be based on an educated opinion, which is
cognisant with the past history of prostitution, recognises the facts
of its action to-day in all civilised countries, and understands the
complexity of the problem from the man's side as well as the woman's.
Nothing less than this is necessary if any fruitful change is to be
effected, when women shall come to have a voice to direct the action
the State should assume towards this matter. The one measure which has
recently been brought forward and passed, largely aided by women,
especially the militant Suffragists--I refer to the White Slave
Traffic Bill--is just the most useless, ill-devised and really
preposterous law with which this tremendous problem could be mocked.
As Bernard Shaw has recently said--
"The act is the final triumph of the vice it pretends to
repress. There is one remedy and one alone, for the White Slave
Traffic. Make it impossible, by the enactment of a Minimum Wage
law and by the proper provision of the unemployed, for any woman
to be forced to choose between prostitution and penury, and the
White Slaver will have no more power over the daughters of
labourers, artisans and clerks than he (or under the New Act
she) will have over the wives of Bishops."
Now all this is true, but is not all the truth. Remove the economic
pressure and no woman will be driven, or be likely to be trapped, into
entering the oldest profession in the world; but this does not say
that she _will not enter it_. The establishment of a minimum wage will
assuredly lighten the evil, but it will not end prostitution. The
economic factor is by no means the only factor. It is quite true that
poverty drives many women into the profession--that this should be so
is one of the social crimes that must, and will, be remedied.
The real problem lies deeper than this. Want is not the incentive to
the traffic of sex in the case of the dancer or chorus girl in regular
employment, of the forewoman in a factory or shop who earns steady
wages, or among numerous women belonging to much higher social
positions. These women choose prostitution, they are not driven into
it. It is necessary to insist upon this. The belief in the efficacy of
economic reform amounts almost to a disease--a kind of unquestioning
fanatical faith. Again and again I have been met by the assurance,
made by men who should know better, as well as by women, that no woman
would sell herself if economic causes were removed. Such opinion
proves a very plain ignorance of the history and facts of
prostitution. It is only a little more scientific than the view of the
woman moral crusader, who believes that the "social evil" can easily
be remedied by self-control on the part of men. One of the worst vices
common to women at present is spiritual pride. One wonders if these
short-cut reformers have ever been acquainted with a single member of
this class they hope to repress by legal enactments or other
measures, such as early marriage, better wages for women, moral
education, the censorship of amusements, and so forth. It is not so
simple. You see, what is needed is an understanding of the conditions,
not from the reformer's standard of thought, but from that of the
prostitute, which is a very different matter. How can any one hope to
reform a class whose real lives, thoughts, and desires are unknown to
them?
My effort to reach bed-rock facts had led me to seek first-hand
information from these women, many of whom I have come to know
intimately, and to like. I have learnt a great deal, much more than
from all my close study of the problem as it is presented in books.
Problems are never so simple in the working out as they appear in
theories. Moral doctrines fall to pieces; even statistics and the
estimates of expert investigators are apt to become curiously unreal
in the light of a very little practical knowledge. I have learnt that
there is no one type of prostitute, no one cause of the evil, no one
remedy that will cure it.
And here, before I go further, I must in fairness state that I have
been compelled to give up the view held by me, in common with most
women, that men and their uncontrolled passions are chiefly
responsible for this hideous traffic. It is so comfortable to place
the sins of society on men's passions. But as an unbiassed inquirer I
have learnt that seduction as a cause of prostitution requires very
careful examination. We women have got to remember that if many of our
fallen sisters have been seduced by men, at least an equal number of
men have received their sexual initiation at the hands of our sex.
This seduction of men by women is often the starting-point of a young
man's association with courtesans. It is time to assert that, if women
suffer through men's passion, men suffer no less from women's greed. I
am inclined to accept the estimate of Lippert (_Prostitution in
Hamburg_) that the principal motives to prostitution are "idleness,
frivolity, and, above all, the love of finery." This last is, as I
believe, a far more frequent and stronger factor in determining
towards prostitution than actual want, and one, moreover, that is very
deeply rooted in the feminine character. I do not wish to be cynical,
but facts have forced on me the belief that the majority of
prostitutes are simply doing for money what they originally did _of
their own will_ for excitement and the gain of some small personal
gift.
There are, of course, many types among these unclassed women, as many
as there are in any other class, probably even more. Yet, in one
respect, I have found them curiously alike. Just as the members of any
other trade have a special attitude towards their work, so prostitutes
have, I think, a particular way of viewing their trade in sex. It is a
mistake of sentiment to believe they have any real dislike to this
traffic. Such distaste is felt by the unsuccessful and by others in
periods of unprofitable business, but not, I think, otherwise. To me
it has seemed in talking with them--as I have done very freely--that
they regard the sexual embraces of their partners exactly in the light
that I regard the process of the actual writing down of my books--as
something, in itself unimportant and tiresome, but necessary to the
end to be gained. This was first made clear to me in a conversation
with a member of the higher _demi-monde_, a woman of education and
considerable character. "After all," she said, "it is really a very
small thing to do, and gives one very little trouble, and men are
almost always generous."
This remarkable statement seems to me representative of the attitude
of most prostitutes. They are much better paid, if at all successful,
than they ever could be as workers. The sale of their sex opens up to
them the same opportunities of gain that gambling on the
stock-exchange or betting on the racecourse, for instance, opens up to
men. It also offers the same joy of excitement, undoubtedly a very
important factor. There are a considerable number of women who are
drawn to and kept in the profession, not through necessity, but
through neurosis.
There is no doubt that prostitution is very profitable to the clever
trader. I was informed by one woman, for instance, that a certain
country, whose name I had perhaps better withhold, "Is a Paradise for
women." Quite a considerable fortune, either in money or jewels, may
be reaped in a few months and sometimes in a few weeks. But the woman
must keep her head; cleverness is more important even than beauty. I
learnt that it was considered foolish to remain with the same partner
for more than two nights, the oftener a change was made the greater
the chance of gain. The richest presents are given as a rule by young
boys or old men: some of these boys are as young as fifteen years.
Now the really extraordinary thing to me was that my informant had
plainly no idea of my moral sensibility being shocked at these
statements. Of course, if I had shown the least surprise or
condemnation, she would at once have agreed with me--but I didn't. I
was trying to see things as she saw them, and my interest caused her
really to speak to me as she felt. I am certain of this, as was proved
to me in a subsequent conversation, in which I was told the history of
a girl friend, who had got into difficulties and been helped by my
informant. (These women are almost always kind and generous to one
another. I know of one case in which a woman who had been trapped into
a bogus marriage and then deserted, afterwards helped with money the
girl and bastard child, also left by the man who had deceived her.)
The story was ended with this extraordinary remark, "_It was all my
friend's own fault, she was not particular who she went with; she
would go with any man just because she took a fancy to him. I often
told her how foolish she was, but she always said she could not help
it._"
It was then that I realised the immensity of the gulf which separated
my outlook from that of this successful courtesan. To her _to be not
particular_ was to give oneself without a due return in money: to
me----! Well, I needed all my control at that moment not to let her
see what I felt. I have never been conscious of so deep a pity for any
woman before, or felt so fierce an anger against social conditions
that made this degradation of love possible. For, mark you, I know
this woman well, have known her for years, and I can, and do, testify
that in many directions apart from her trade, her virtue, her
refinement and her character are equal, even if not superior, to my
own. This is the greatest lesson I have learnt. The degradation of
prostitution rests not with these women, but on us, the sheltered,
happy women who have been content to ignore or despise them. Do you
come to know these women (and this is very difficult) you are just as
able to like them and in many ways to respect them, as you are to like
and to respect any "straight" woman. You may hate their trade, you
cannot justly hate them.
I would like here to bring forward as a chief cause of prostitution a
factor which, though mentioned by many investigators,[327] has not, I
think, been sufficiently recognised. To me it has been brought very
forcibly home by my personal investigations. I mean sexual frigidity.
This is surely the clearest explanation of the moral insensibility of
the prostitute. I have not enough knowledge to say whether this is a
natural condition, or whether it is acquired. I am certain, however,
that it is present in those courtesans whom I have known. These women
have never experienced passion. I believe that the traffic of love's
supreme rite means less to them than it would do to me to shake hands
with a man I disliked.
Now, if I am right, this fact will explain a great deal. I believe,
moreover, that here a way opens out whereby in the future prostitution
may be remedied. This is no fanciful statement, but a practical belief
in passion as a power containing all forces. To any one who shares
the faith I have been developing in this book, what I mean will be
evident. If we consider how large a factor physical sex is in the life
of woman, it becomes clear that any atrophy of these instincts must be
in the highest degree hurtful. Moral insensibility is almost always
combined with economic dependence. If all mating was founded, as it
ought to be, on love, and all children born from lovers, there would
follow as an inevitable result a truer insistence on reality in the
relationships of the sexes. With a strengthening of passion in the
mothers of the race, sex will return to its right and powerful
purpose; love of all types, from the merest physical to the highest
soul attraction, will be brought back to its true biological end--the
service of the future.
I know, of course, as I have said already, that, just as there are
many different forms of prostitution, there are many and varied types
of prostitutes, and that, therefore, it is foolishness to hold fast in
a one-sided manner to a single theory. There are undoubtedly
voluptuous women among prostitutes. These I have not considered. For
one thing I have not met them. I have preferred to speak of the women
I have known personally. In the light of what I have learnt from them,
I have come to believe that only in comparatively few cases does
sexual desire lead any woman to adopt a career of prostitution, and in
still fewer cases does passion persist. The insistence so often made
on this factor as a cause of prostitution is due, in part, to
ignorance as to the real feelings of these women, and also, in part,
to its moral plausibility. We are so afraid of normal passion that we
readily assume abnormal passion to be the cause of the evil. But far
truer causes on the women's side are love of luxury and dislike of
work. I think the estimates given by men on this subject have to be
accepted with great caution. It must be remembered that it is the
business of these women to excite passion, and, to do this, they must
have learnt to simulate passion; and men, as every woman who is not
ignorant or a fool knows, are easy to deceive. It may also be added
that to the woman of strong sexuality the career of prostitution is
suited. It is possible that in the future and under wiser conditions
such women only will choose this profession.
For the same reason I have passed very lightly over the economic
factor as a cause of prostitution. I believe that this will be
changed. I do not under-estimate the undoubted importance of the
driving pressure of want. But, as I have tried to make clear, it does
not take us to the root of the problem. Poverty can only be regarded
as probably the strongest out of many accessory causes. The socialists
and economic apostles have to face this: no possible raising of
women's wages can abolish prostitution.[328]
We must hold firmly to the fact that characterlessness, which is
incapable of overcoming opposition and takes the path that is easiest,
is the result of the individual's inherited disposition, with the
addition of his, or her, own experience; and of these it is the former
that, as a rule, determines to prostitution. Every kind of moral and
intellectual looseness and dullness can, for the most part, be traced
to this cause. At all events it is the strongest among many. Not alone
for the prostitute's sake must this subject be seriously approached,
but for society's sake as well. As things stand with us at present,
moral sensitiveness has a poor chance of being cultivated, and those
who realise that this is the case are still very few. Women have yet
to learn the responsibilities of love, not only in regard to their
duties of child-bearing and child-rearing, but in its personal bearing
on their own sexual needs and the needs of men. I believe that the
degradation of our legitimate love-relationships is the ultimate cause
of prostitution, to which all other causes are subsidiary.
If we look now at the position for a moment from the other side--the
man's side--a very difficult question awaits us. It is a question that
women must answer. What is the real need of the prostitute on the part
of men? This demand is present everywhere under civilisation; what are
its causes? and how far are these likely to be changed? Now it is easy
to bring forward answers, such as the lateness of marriage, difficulty
of divorce, and all those social and economic causes which may be
grouped together and classed as "lack of opportunity of legitimate
love." Without question these causes are important, but, like the
economic factor which drives women into prostitution, they are not
fundamental; they are also remediable. They do not, however, explain
the fact, which all know, that the prostitute is sought out by
numberless men who have ample opportunity of unpriced love with other
women. Here we have a preference for the prostitute, not the
acceptance of her as a substitute taken of necessity. It is, of
course, easy to say that such preference is due to the lustful nature
of the male. There was a time when I accepted this view--it is,
without doubt, a pleasant and a flattering one for women. I have
learnt the folly of such shallow condemnations of needs I had not
troubled to understand. Possibly no woman can quite get to the truth
here; but at least I have tried to see facts straight and without
feminine prejudice.
This is what seems to me to be the explanation.
We have got to recognise that there are primitive instincts of
tremendous power, which, held in check by our dull and laborious, yet
sexually-exciting, civilisation, break out at times in many
individuals like a veritable monomania. In earlier civilisations this
fact was frankly recognised, and such instincts were prevented from
working mischief by the provision of means wherein they might expend
themselves. Hence the widespread custom of festivals with the
accompanying orgy; but these channels have been closed to us with a
result that is often disastrous. No woman can have failed to feel
astonishment at the attractive force the prostitute may, and often
does, exercise on cultured men of really fine character. There is some
deeper cause here than mere sexual necessity. But if we accept, as we
must, the existence of these imperatively driving, though usually
restrained impulses, it will be readily seen that prostitution
provides a channel in which this surplus of wild energy may be
expended. It lightens the burden of the customary restraints. There
are many men, I believe, who find it a relief just to talk with a
prostitute--a woman with whom they have no need to be on guard. The
prostitute fulfils that need that may arise in even the most
civilised man for something primitive and strong: a need, as has been
said by a male writer, better than I can express it, "for woman in
herself, not woman with the thousand and one tricks and whimsies of
wives, mothers and daughters."
This is a truth that it seems to me it is very necessary for all women
to realise. It is in our foolishness and want of knowledge that we
cast our contempt upon men. Women flinch from the facts of life. These
women who, regarded by us as "the supreme types of vice," are yet,
from this point of view, "the most efficient guardians of our virtue."
Must we not then rather see if there is no cause in ourselves for
blame?
It has been held for generations that woman must practise principles
of virtue to counteract man's example. This has led to an entirely
false standard. A solving compromise has been found in the ideal of
purity in one set of women and passion in another. And this state of
things has continued indefinitely until it has become to some extent
true. Numberless women have withered in this unprofitable service to
chastity. The sexual coldness of the modern woman, which sociologists
continually refer to, exists mainly in consequence of this constant
system of repression. Female virtue has been over-cultivated, the
flower has grown to an enormous size, but it has lost its scent. A
hypocritical and a lying system has been set up professing disbelief
in that which it knows is necessary to the needs of the individual
woman and to the larger needs of the race. Physical love is only
inglorious when it is regarded ingloriously. Why this horror of
passion? The tragedy of woman it seems is this, that with such power
of love as she has in her there should be so little opportunity for
its use--so much for its waste. Those of us who believe in passion as
the supreme factor in race-building, must know that this view of its
shamefulness is weakening the race.
I, therefore, hold firmly as my belief that the hateful traffic in
love will flourish just as long, and in proportion, as we regard
passion outside of prostitution with shame. Each one of us women is
responsible. Do we not know that there is not this difference between
our sexual needs and those of men? Let us tear down the old pretence.
Do not instincts arise in us, too, that demand expression, free from
all coercion of convention? And if we stifle them are we really the
better--the more moral sex? I doubt this, as I have come to doubt so
many of the lies that have been accepted as the truth about women.
The true hope of the future lies in the undivided recognition of
responsibility in love, which alone can make freedom possible. Freedom
for all women--the women of the home and the women of the streets. The
prostitute woman must be freed from all oppression. We, her sisters,
can demand no less than this. If we are to remain sheltered, she must
be sheltered too. She must be freed from the oppression of absurd
laws, from the terrible oppression of the police and from all economic
and social oppression. But to make this possible, these women, who for
centuries have been blasted for our sins against love, must be
re-admitted by women and men into the social life of our homes and the
State. Then, and then alone, can we have any hope that the prostitute
will cease to be and the natural woman will take her place.
FOOTNOTES:
[326] I would refer my readers to the Chapters on "Sexual Morality"
and "Marriage" in Havelock Ellis's _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. The
only way to estimate aright the value of our present marriage system
is to examine the history of that system in the past. I had hoped to
have space in which to do this, and it is with real regret I am
compelled to omit the section I had written on this subject.
[327] Lombroso mentions the prevalence of sexual frigidity among
prostitutes (_La Donna Delinquente_, p. 401). See also Havelock Ellis,
_Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. pp. 268-272. This writer does not
support the view of the sexual frigidity of prostitutes, but in this,
I believe, he is influenced by statistics and outward facts, rather
than personal knowledge gained from the women themselves.
[328] Women in marriage have been for so long protected by men from
the necessity of doing work, that why should we expect the prostitute
to prefer uncongenial work?
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XI
THE END OF THE INQUIRY
The future of Woman--Indications of progress--The re-birth of
woman--Woman learning to believe in herself--The sin of
sterility--The waste of womanhood--The change in woman's
outlook--The quickening of the social conscience--A criticism
of militancy--It does not correspond with the ideal for
women--The new free relationship of the sexes--The conditions
which make this possible--The recognition of love as the
spiritual force in life--The importance of woman's freedom to
the vital advance of humanity--The end brings us back to the
beginning--The supreme importance of Motherhood--Woman the
guardian of the Race-life and the Race-soul--This the ground
of her claim for freedom.
CHAPTER XI
THE END OF THE INQUIRY
"Among the higher activities and movements of our time, the
struggle of our sisters to attain an equality of position with
the strong, the dominant, the oppressive sex, appears to me,
from the purely human point of view, most beautiful and most
interesting: indeed, I regard it as possible that the coming
century will obtain its historical characterisations, not from
any of the social and economical controversies of the world of
men, but that this century will be known to subsequent history
distinctively as that in which the solution of the 'woman's
question' was obtained."--GEORGE HIRTH.
Looking back over the long inquiry which lies behind us, we have come
by many and various paths to seek that standpoint from which we
started--the Truth about Woman. We must now try to give a brief answer
to a difficult question. What is the future of woman? Are we able to
recognise in the present upward development of the sex signs of real
progress towards better conditions? Is it within the capacity of the
female half of human-kind to acquire and keep that position of
essential usefulness held by the females of all other species? Will
women learn to develop their own nature and to express their own
genius? Can their present characteristic weakness, vices, and failings
be really overcome under different and freer conditions of domestic
and social life? Are we of to-day justified in looking forward to the
new woman of the future, with saner aspirations and wider aims, who
lives the whole of her life; who will restore to humanity harmony
between the sexes, and transform the miseries of love back to its
rightful joys? Can these things, indeed, be?
The answer is a confident and joyful "Yes!"
The re-birth of woman is no dream.
We have become accustomed to listen to the opinion voiced by men. We
have heard that belief in women is a symptom of youth or of
inexperience of the sex, which a riper mind and wider knowledge will
invariably tend to dissipate. So woman has come to regard herself as
almost an indiscretion on the part of the Creator, necessary indeed to
man, but something which he must try to hide and hush up. We have, in
fact, put into practice Milton's ideal: "He, for God only, she, for
God in him." Some such arguments from the lips of disillusioned men
have been possible, perhaps, with some measure of reason. But the time
has come for men to hold their peace.
Woman is learning to believe in herself.
Now, so far, the great result of the long years of repression has been
the sterility of women's lives. Sterility is a deadly sin. To-day so
many of our activities are sterile. The women of our richer classes
have been impotent by reason of their soft living; the women of our
workers have had their vitality sweated out of them by their filthy
labours; they could bear only dead things. Life ought to be a struggle
of desire towards adventures of expression, whose nobility will
fertilise the mind and lead to the conception of new and glorious
births. Women have been forced to use life wastefully. They have been
spiritually sterile; consuming, not giving: getting little from life,
giving back little to life.
But woman is awakening to find her place in the eternal purpose. She
is adding understanding to her feeling and passion.
Never before throughout the history of modern womankind has her own
character evoked so earnest and profound an interest as to-day: never
has she considered herself from so truly a social standpoint as now.
It is true that the change has not yet, except in very few women,
reached deep enough to the realities of the things that most matter.
Women have to learn to utilise every advantage of their nature, not
one side only. They will do this; because they will come to have truer
and stronger motives. They are beginning even now to be sifted clean
through the sieve of work. The waste of womanhood cannot for long
continue.
One great and hopeful sign is a new consciousness among all women of
personal responsibility to their own sex. The most fruitful outgrowth
from the present agitation for the rights of citizens--the Vote! the
symbol of this awakening--is a solidarity unknown among women before,
which now binds them in one common purpose. Yet there is a possible
danger lurking in this enthusiasm. Women will gain nothing by
snatching at reform. Many have no eyes to see the beyond; they are
hurried forward by a cry of wrongs, while others are held back by fear
of change. Woman is by her temperament inclined to do too much or to
do nothing. Looked at from this standpoint of the immediate present,
when only the semi-hysterical and illogical aspects of the struggle
are manifest, the future may appear dark. The revolution is
accompanied by much noise and violence. Perhaps this is inevitable. I
do not know. There is, what must seem to many of us who stand outside
the fight, a terrible wastage, a straining and a shattering of the
forces of life and love. To earn salvation quickly and riotously may
not, indeed, be the surest way. It may be only a further development
of the sin of woman, the wastage of her womanhood.
Women say that the fault rests with men. Again I do not know.
Certainly it is much easier and pleasanter to see the mote in our
brother's eye than it is to recognise a possible beam as clouding our
own sight. One of the worst results of the protection of woman by man
is that he has had to bear her sins. Women have grown accustomed to
this; they do not even know how greatly their sex shields them. They
will not readily yield up their scapegoat or sacrifice their
privileges. But the personal responsibility that is making itself felt
among women must teach them to be ready to answer for their own
actions, and, if need be, to pay for them. Freedom carries with it the
acceptance of responsibility. Women must accept this: they are working
towards it.
In a new and free relationship of the sexes women have at least as
much to learn as men. The possession of the vote is not going to
transform women. Changes that matter are never so simple as that.
Women estimating their future powers tend to become presumptuous. One
is reminded sometimes of the people Nietzsche describes as "those who
'briefly deal' with all the real problems of life." It frequently
appears as if the modern woman expects to hold tight to her old
privileges as the protected child, as well as to gain her new rights
as the human woman. In a word, to stay on her pedestal when it is
convenient, and to climb down whenever she wants to. This cannot be.
And the grasping of both sides of the situation leads to what is worse
than all else--strife between women and men. Just in measure as the
sexes fall away from love and understanding of each other, do they
fall away from life into the mere futility of personal ends. It is to
_go on with man_, and not to _get from man_, that is the goal of
Woman's Freedom. There are other conditions of change that women have
to be ready to meet. This must be. For however much some may sigh for
the ease and the ignorant repose of the passing generation, we cannot
go back. It is as impossible to live behind one's generation as before
it. We have to live our lives in the pulse of the new knowledge, the
new fears, the new increasing responsibilities. Women must train
themselves to keep pace with men. There is a price to be paid for free
womanhood. Are women ready and willing to pay it? If so, they must
cease to profit and live by their sex. _They must come out and be
common women among common men._ This, as I believe, is a better
solution than to bring men up to women's level. For, as I have said
before, I doubt, and still doubt, if women are really better than men.
If the constructive synthetic purpose of life, which I have tried to
make the ruling idea of my book, is that all growth is a succession of
upward development through the action of love between the two sexes,
then not only must woman in her individual capacity--physically as
wife and mother, and mentally as home-builder and teacher--contribute
to the further progress of life by a nobler use of her sex; but the
collective work of women in their social and political activities must
all be set towards the same purpose. It is in this light, the welfare
of the lives of the future and the building up of a finer race--that
the individual and collective conduct of women must be judged. Women
have talked and thought too much about their sex, and all the time
they have totally under-estimated the real strength of the strongest
thing in life. I think the force, the power, the driving intensity of
love will come as a surprise and a wonder to awakened women. I think
they will come to realise, as they have never realised before, the
tremendous force sex is.
The Woman's movement is inextricably bound up with all the problems of
our disorganised love-relationships; and although politicians with
their customary blindness have chosen to treat it as a side issue, it
is, for this reason, the most serious social question that has come to
the front during the century. Woman's position and her efforts to
regain her equality with man can never be a thing apart--a side
issue--to a responsible State. Love and the relationship of the sexes
is the foundation of the social structure itself; it forms the real
centre of all the social and economic problems--of the population
problem, of the marriage problem, of the problems of education and
eugenics, of the future of labour, of the sweating question, and the
problem of prostitution. As the Woman's Movement presses forward each
and all of these questions will press forward too. All women and men
have got to be concerned with sex and its problems until some at least
of these wrongs are righted. That any woman can ever regard love as
merely a personal matter, "an incident in life," that can be set aside
in the rush of new activities, makes one wonder if the delusions of
women about themselves can ever end. This misunderstanding of love
ought never to be possible to any woman or any man: it is going to be
increasingly difficult for it to be possible for the new woman and her
mate that is to be. In love all things rest. In love has gathered the
strength to be, growing into conscious need of fuller life, growing
into completer vision of the larger day.
My faith in womanhood is strong and deep. The manifestations of the
present, many of which seem to give cause for fear, are, after all,
only the superficial evidence of a deep undercurrent of awakening. The
ultimate driving force behind is shaping a social understanding in the
woman's spirit. So surely from out of the wreckage and passion a new
woman will arise.
For this Nature will see to. Woman, both by physiological and
biological causes is the constructive force of life. Nothing that is
fine in woman will be lost, nothing that is profitable will be
sacrificed. No, the essential feminine in her will be gathered in a
more complete, a more enduring synthesis. Woman is the predominant
partner in the sexual relationship. We cannot get away from this. It
is here, in this wide field, where so many wrongs wait to be righted,
that the thrill of her new passion must bring well-being and joy. The
female was the start of life, and woman is the main stream of its
force. Man is her agent, her helper: hers is the supreme
responsibility in creating and moulding life. It is thus certain that
woman's present assertion of her age-long rights and claim for truer
responsibilities has its cause rooted deep in the needs of the race.
She is treading, blindly, perhaps, and stumblingly, in the steps laid
down for her by Nature; following in a path not made by man, one that
goes back to the beginning of life and is surer and beyond herself;
thus she has time as well as right upon her side, and can therefore
afford to be patient as well as fearless.
* * * * *
"I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go
over hither."
From the height of Pisgah there is revealed to women to-day a glimpse
of the promised land. But shall we enter therein to take possession? I
believe not. It will be given to those who follow us and carry on the
work which our passion has begun. For our children's children the joys
of reaping, the feast, and the songs of harvest home.
What matter? We shall be there in them.
Shall we, then, complain if for us is the hard toil, the doubts, and
the mistakes, the long enduring patience, and the bitter fruits of
disappointment? We have opened up the way.
And is not this one with the very purpose of life? We are obeying
Nature's law in dedicating ourselves and our work to those who follow
us. We have made our record, we can do nothing more. The race flows
through us. All our effort lies in this--the giving of all that we
have been able to gain. And it is sufficient. This is the end and the
beginning.
Thus we are brought back to the truth from which we started. Women are
the guardians of the Race-life and the Race-soul. There is no more to
be said. It is because we are the mothers of men that we claim to be
free. We claim this as our right. We claim it for the sake of men, for
our lovers, our husbands, and our sons; we claim it even more for the
sake of the life of the race that is to come.
"Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;
Then ring the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;
Then springs the crowning race of human-kind.
May these things be."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
N.B.--This bibliography is intended as a guide to the student; it is
merely representative, not in any way exhaustive.
The books to which direct reference is made are marked with an
asterisk.
BIOLOGICAL PART
*AUDUBON: Scènes de la nature dans les États Unis (_French trans._).
Ornithological Biography: an Account of the Habits of the Birds of
the United States of America.
BATESON, W.: Materials for the Study of Variation.
Mendel's Principles of Heredity.
*BONHOTE, J. LEWIS: Birds of Britain.
BREHM: Tierleben.
Ornithology, or the Science of Birds. (_From the text of Brehm._)
BROOKS, W.K.: The Law of Heredity.
The Foundations of Zoology.
*BÜCHNER: Mind in Animals (_Eng. trans._).
Liebe und Liebesleben in der Tierwelt.
*BUTLER, SAMUEL: Life and Habit.
Evolution Old and New.
*DARWIN, CHARLES: The Descent of Man.
The Origin of Species.
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.
The Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals.
*DARWIN, FRANCIS: Life and Letters of Charles Darwin.
*ELLIS, HAVELOCK: Psychology of Sex. Vol. III.
*ESPINAS: Sociétés animales.
FABRE, J. HENRI: Moeurs des insectes.
Life and Love of Insects (_trans._).
Insect Life (_trans._).
Social Life in the Insect World (_trans._).
*FORBES, H.O.: A Naturalist's Wanderings.
*GALTON, FRANCIS: Natural Inheritance.
Average Contribution of Each Several Ancestor to the Total
Heritage of the Offspring. _Pro. Roy. Soc., London, LXI._
*GEDDES, PATRICK: _Articles_: "Reproduction," "Sex," "Variation" and
"Selection": _Encycl. Brit._
*GEDDES AND TOMPSON, A.J.: The Evolution of Sex. (_Cont. Sci.
Series._) _Rev. ed._
Problems of Sex.
*HÄCKER: Der Gesang der Vögel.
*HAECKEL: Generelle Morphologie der Organismen.
Evolution of Man (_trans._ by J. McCabe).
HERTWIG: The Biological Problem of To-day (_trans._ by P. Chalmers
Mitchell).
HOUZEAU: Études sur les facultés mentales des animaux comparés à
celles de l'homme.
*HUDSON, W.H.: Argentine Ornithology.
The Naturalist in La Plata.
Birds and Man.
*HUXLEY, T.H.: A Manual of Invertebrate Animals.
KELLOGG: Studies of Variation in Insects.
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.
LETOURNEAU: Evolution of Marriage. (_Cont. Sci. Series._)
*MILNE-EDWARDS, HERNI: Leçons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie
comparée de l'homme et des animaux.
A Manual of Zoology (_trans._).
Histoire naturelle des insectes.
MIVART, ST. GEORGE: Lessons from Nature as manifested in Mind and
Matter.
The Common Frog. (_Nat. Series._)
Man and Apes: an Exposition of Structural Resemblance upon the
Questions of Affinity and Origin.
On the Genesis of Species.
*MORGAN, C. LLOYD: Animal Life and Intelligence.
Habit and Instinct.
Animal Behaviour.
POULTON, E.B.: The Colours of Animals.
PUNNETT, R.C.: On Nutrition and Sex-determination in Man. (_Proc.
Cambridge Phil. Soc._, XII.)
RIBOT, TH.: Heredity (_Eng. trans._).
ROMANES, G.J.: Darwin and after Darwin.
Animal Intelligence. (_Int. Sci. Series._)
Mental Evolution in Animals.
*THOMSON, J.A.: Synthetic Summary of the Influence of the Environment
upon the Organism. (_Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc., Edinburgh, IX._)
Heredity. (_Pro. Sci. Series._)
The Science of Life.
VARIGNY, DE: Experimental Evolution. (_Nat. Series._)
VERNON, H.M.: Variation in Animals and Plants. (_Int. Sci. Series._)
VREIS, HUGO DE: Species and Varieties (_trans._).
*WALLACE, A.R.: Darwinism.
*WARD, LESTER: Pure Sociology.
*WEISSMANN: Essays upon Heredity (_trans._).
The Germ-plasma Theory of Heredity (_trans._).
The Effect of External Influences on Development. _Romanes
Lecture, Oxford._
The Evolution Theory (_trans._ by A.J. Tompson).
WILSON, E.B.: The Cell in Development and Inheritance.
HISTORICAL PART
*AMÉLINEAU: La Morale égyptienne.
*ARNOT, F.S.: Garenganzas.
*BACHOFEN: Das Mutterrecht. (_French trans. of Intro. by
Giraud-Teulon._)
BACKER, LOUIS DE: Le Droit de la femme dans l'antiquité.
BADER, MLLE. C.: La femme grecque: étude de la vie antique.
La femme romaine: étude de la vie antique.
BANCROFT, H.H.: The Native Races of the Pacific States of North
America.
*BECQ DE FOUQUIÈRES: Aspasie de Milet.
*BONWICK, J.: Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians.
BRANDT, P.: Sappho.
BRUGSCH, E.: Histoire d'Égypte.
*BRUNS, IVO: Frauenemancipation in Athen.
*BUDGE, E.A. WALLIS: Book of the Dead (_trans._).
*BURTON, SIR R.F.: First Footsteps in East Africa.
*BUTTLES, J.R.: The Queens of Egypt: _with a preface by Maspero._
*CHARLEVOIX, LE P. DE: Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle
France.
CRAWLEY: The Mystic Rose.
*CROOKE, W.: The Tribes and Castes of the North-west Provinces and
Oudh.
*CUSHING, F.H.: Zünie Folk Tales.
*DALTON, E.J.: Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal.
DARGUN, L. VON: Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht.
*DAVY, J.: An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and its Inhabitants.
DAWSON, J.: Australian Aborigines.
*DENNETT, R.S.: "At the Back of the Black Man's Mind." Journal of the
African. Vol. I.
*DILL: Roman Society. _Three volumes._
*DONALDSON, J.: Woman; Her Position and Influence in Greece and Rome
and among the Early Christians.
*ELLIS, HAVELOCK: Man and Woman.
Psychology of Sex. Vol. VI.
*ELLIS, W.: History of Madagascar.
FEATHERMAN, A.: A Social History of the Races of Mankind.
FINK: Primitive Love and Love Stories.
*FISON AND HOWITT: Kamilaroi and Kurnia; Group Marriage and
Relationship, etc.
*FRAZER, J.G.: The Golden Bough: _The Magic Art_, 3rd ed.
*GIRAUD-TEULON, A.: Les Origines de mariage et de la famille.
*GLADSTONE, W.E.: Homeric Studies. Vol. II.
*GOMPERZ: Greek Thinkers.
*GRAY, J.H.: China, a History of the Laws, Manners and Customs of the
People.
*GRIFFITH: The World's Literature.
*HARTLAND, E.S.: Primitive Paternity.
*HECKER, E.A.: History of Woman's Rights.
*HOMMEL, F.: Geschichte Babyloniens.
The Civilisation of the East (_trans._).
*HOBHOUSE, L.T.: Morals in Evolution.
HOWARD, G.E.: History of Matrimonial Institutions.
HOWITT, A.W.: The Native Tribes of South-east Australia.
The Organisation of the Australian Tribes.
JACOB, P.L.: Les Courtisanes de l'ancienne Rome.
*JOHNS, C.H.W.: Hammurabi, King of Babylon. The Oldest Code of Laws
in the World.
Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters.
*KINGSLEY, MARY H.: Travels in West Africa.
*KOHLER AND PEISER: Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben.
LABOULAYE, ED.: Recherches sur la condition civile et politique des
femmes, depuis les Romains jusqu'à nos jours.
LACOMBE, PAUL: La Famille dans la société romaine: étude de moralité
comparée.
*LAFITEAU, J.F.: Moeurs des sauvages américains.
LATHAM: Descriptive Ethnology.
*LECKY, W.E.H.: History of European Morals, from Augustus to
Charlemagne.
LEFEVRE, M.: La Femme à travers l'histoire.
LEGOUVÉ, E.: Histoire morale des femmes.
*LENZ, C.S.: Geschichte der Weiber im heroischen Zeitalter.
*LETOURNEAU: Evolution of Marriage. (_Cont. Sci. Series._)
La Condition de la femme dans les diverses races et civilisations.
*LIPPERT, J.: Kulturgeschichte, etc.
Geschichte der Familie.
*LUBBOCK, LORD AVEBURY: Origin of Civilisation.
Marriage, Totemism and Religion.
*MACDONALD, D.: Africana.
MAHAFFY, J.P.: Social Life in Greece.
*MAINE: Ancient Law.
*MARSDEN, W.: History of Sumatra.
MARTIN, L.A.: Histoire de la femme; sa condition politique, civile,
morale et religieuse.
MARX, V.: Die Stellung der Frauen in Babylonien.
*MASON, OTIS: The Origin of Inventions, a Study of Industry among
Primitive Peoples. _Cont. Sci. Series._
Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. _Anthro. Series._
*MASPERO, SIR G.: The Dawn of Civilisation (_trans._).
Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte ancienne.
Ancient Egypt and Assyria (_trans._).
New Light on Ancient Egypt (_trans._).
*MCCABE, J.: The Religion of Woman.
*MCGEE, W.J.: The Beginning of Marriage. (_Am. Anthro. Soc._ _Printed
for private circulation._)
The Aborigines of the District of Columbia and the Lower Potomac.
The Indians of North America.
*MOMMSEN: History of Rome.
*MORGAN, L.H.: Ancient Society; or Researches in the Lines of Human
Progress.
House and House-life of the American Aborigines. _Cont. to N. Am.
Ethn. Vol. IV._
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family.
_Smithsonian Contributions._
MORILLOT, L.: De la condition des enfants nés hors mariage dans
l'antiquité et au moyen âge en Europe.
*MÜLLER, W. MAX: Liebespoesie der alten Aegypter.
*MUNZINGER, W.: Ostafrikanische Studien.
*NIETZOLD, J.: Die Ehe in Aegypten, etc.
*OWEN, M.A.: Folk-lore of the Musquakie Indians of North America.
*PATURET, G.: La condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne
Égypte.
*PEARSON, KARL: The Chances of Death.
*PEISER: Skizze der babylonischen Gesellschaft.
PERRY, W.C.: The Women of Homer.
*PETHERICK, J.: Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa.
*PETRIE, FLINDERS: Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt.
Egyptian Tales translated from the Papyri.
*PLOSS, H.: Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde.
*POWELL, J.W.: Wyandot Government. _Report of the Bureau of Am. Ethn._
RAINNEVILLE, J. DE: La Femme dans l'antiquité et d'après la morale
naturelle.
*RATZEL, T.: History of Mankind.
*RECLUS, ÉLIE: Les Primitifs (_Eng. trans._, Primitive Folk. _Cont.
Sci. Series_).
*REVILLOUT, E.: Cours de droit égyptien.
Les obligations en droit égyptien, comparées aux autres droits de
l'antiquité.
Etudes égyptologiques.
*RHYS AND BRYNMOR JONES: The Welsh People.
ROBY, H.J.: Roman Private Law in the Times of Cicero and of the
Antonines.
*SACHOT: L'Île de Ceylon.
SAYCE: Records of the Past.
*SCHOOLCRAFT, H.R.: History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian
Tribes of the United States.
*SIBREE, J.: The Great African Island.
*SIMCOX, E.J.: Primitive Civilisations.
*SPENCER AND GILLEN: The Native Tribes of Central Australia.
*SPENCER, H.: Descriptive Sociology.
STARCKE, C.N.: The Primitive Family.
*THOMAS, W.J.: Sex and Society.
*TURNER: Thibet.
*TYLOR, ED. B.: Researches into the Early History of Mankind.
Primitive Culture.
The Matriarchal Family System. _Nineteenth Century, July, 1896._
*WAITZ-GERLAND, F.: Anthropologie der Naturvölker (_Eng. trans._).
Introduction to Anthropology.
WAKE: Evolution of Morality.
*WESTERMARK: The History of Human Marriage.
Origin and Development of Moral Ideas.
WHITE, R.E.: Women in Ptolemaic Egypt.
WIESE, L.: Zur Geschichte und Bildung der Frauen.
*VOTH, H.R.: Traditions of the Hopi.
MODERN PART
ALBERT, C.: Free Love.
BEBEL, H.: Woman in the Past, Present, and Future (_trans._).
BLACKWELL, ELIZ.: The Human Element in Sex.
BLASCHKO, A.: Prostitution in the Nineteenth Century.
*BLEASE, W.L.: The Emancipation of English Women.
BOUCHACOURT: La Grossesse.
BRAUN, LILY: Die Frauenfrage.
"BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL": "The Unborn Child: Its Care and its Rights,"
_Aug. 1907_;
"The Influences of Antenatal Conditions on Infantile Mortality,"
_Aug. 1904_;
"Physical Deterioration," _Oct. 1905_;
"Infant Mortality. Huddersfield Scheme," _Dec. 1907_.
FÉRÉ, C.S.: La Pathologie des émotions. (_Eng. trans._, The
Pathology of the Emotions.)
L'Instinct sexuel.
FREUD, S.: Contributions to the Sexual Theory (_trans._).
Article on Sex abstinence, _Sexual Problem_, March 1908.
*GALTON, F.: Restrictions in Marriage and Eugenics as a Factor in
Religion.
GODFREY, J.A.: The Science of Sex.
GROSS-HOFFINGER, A.J.: The Fate of Woman and Prostitution, etc.
HALL, STANLEY: Adolescence.
HAYNES, E.S.P.: Our Divorce Law.
HINTON, JAMES: MS., written 1870, and left unpublished.
Quoted by H. Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI.
HIRSCHFELD, M.: Sexual Stages of Transition.
*HIRTH, GEORGE: Wege zur Liebe.
Wege zur Heimat.
HOWARD: History of Matrimonial Institutions.
JEANNEL, J.: Prostitution in Large Towns in the Nineteenth Century.
KEY, ELLEN: On Love and Marriage.
The Century of the Child.
The Woman Movement.
KISCH: Sexual Life of Women.
KRAFFT-EBING: Psychopathia Sexualis.
LAPIE, PAUL: La Femme dans la famille.
*LEA: History of Sacerdotal Celibacy.
*LIPPERT, H.: Prostitution in Hamburg.
LOMBROSO E FERRERO: La donna delinquente, la prostituta, e la donna
normale.
(_Incom. Eng. trans._) The Female Offender. (_Eng. Criminology
Series_.)
LÖWENFELD: Sexuelleben und Nervenleiden.
*MANTEGAZZA, P.: L'Amore. (_French trans._, L'amour dans l'humanité.)
The Art of Choosing a Wife (_trans._).
The Art of Choosing a Husband (_trans._).
MARCUSE, MAX: Unmarried Mothers. (_Vol. XVII. of Documents of Great
Towns._)
*MARRO, A.: La Puberté chez l'homme et chez la femme.
MAYREDER, ROSA: Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit.
MILL, J.S.: Subjection of Women.
*MÖIBUS, P.J.: Stachyologie.
MOLL, A.: Hypnotism. (_Trans._, _Cont. Sci. Series_.)
MORRISON, W.D.: Crime and its Causes.
*MORTIMER, GEOFFREY (W.M. GALLICHAN): Chapters on Human Love.
NEWMAN, G.: Infant Mortality.
NORTHCOTE, H.: Christianity and Sex Problems.
PARENT-DUCHATELET, A.J.B.: De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris.
PARSONS, C.E.: The Family.
*PEARSON, KARL: The Chances of Death.
Ethics of Free Thought.
The Groundwork of Eugenics.
PÉCHIN: La Puériculture avant la naissance.
RYAN, M.: Prostitution in London, with a Comparative View of that of
Paris and New York (in 1839).
SANGER, W.M.: The History of Prostitution.
SCHMID, MARIE VON: Mutterdienst.
*SCHREINER, OLIVE: Woman and Labour.
The Woman Movement of our Day. (_Harper's Bazaar_, _Jan. 1902_.)
SÉNANCOUR: De l'amour.
*SHAW, G.B.: Man and Superman.
Getting Married.
*STETSON (Mrs. Perkins Gilman): Woman and Economics.
The Man-made World.
STOCKER, HELEN: Die Liebe und die Frauen.
TARDE: La Morale sexuelle. (_Archives d'anthropologie criminelle._)
*THOMPSON, HELEN B.: The Mental Traits of Sex.
TILT: Elements of Health and Principles of Female Hygiene.
TOPINARD: Anthropologie générale.
WARDLAW, R.: Lectures on Female Prostitution; its Nature, Extent,
Effects, Guilt, Causes, and Remedy.
*WEININGER, OTTO: Sex and Character.
*WELLS, H.G.: First and Last Things.
A Modern Utopia.
Marriage.
WOLLSTONECRAFT, MARY: Vindication of the Rights of Women.
INDEX
A
Adoption of children, 205, 358
Adultery, 279, 341
---- among primitive peoples, 132, 136, 148, 149, 160, 165
---- in Babylon, 206
---- in Egypt, 189, 191
---- in Greece, 218, 219-220
---- in Rome, 230, 238
Æschines, his dialogue on Aspasia, 224-225
Affectability of women, 296, 308-309, 317
Africa, the maternal family in, 162-164
---- power of Royal Princesses in, 161-162
Alladians of Ivory Coast, 164
Amazons, 228
_Ambel-anak_ marriage, 152
American Indians. _See_ Iroquois
Amphibians, 56
Animals, courtship and love among, 77, 78-79, 80, 81, 82, 88-99
---- the family among, 78, 102, 103
---- varied forms of the sexual association among, 55, 82, 87-88, 111, 113
---- variation in parental care of offspring among, 57, 80, 82, 108-111
Arabs, divorce among the ancient, 145, 154
---- traces of the mother-age among the, 153-154
Argus pheasant, courtship of, 97
Arrogance of modern woman, 270, 305, 326, 362
Art in relation to the sexual impulse, 324
Artistic impulse in women, 308-314
Arts, woman's entrance into the, 314-317
Asceticism among early Christians, 239, 323-324
---- later change in, 325-326
---- evils of, 324, 327
---- value of, 324
Ascetics' attitude towards sexual love, 327
Asexual reproduction, 36-39
Aspasia, 224-226
Athens. _See_ Greece
Australia, communal marriage in, 146-147
Australians, West, 122
B
Babylon, position of women in ancient, 201-210
---- marriage and divorce in, 204-207
---- traces of the mother-age in, 201-202
---- trade in, 207-210
Bachofen on the mother-age, 142
Bambala tribe, 165
Basanga tribe, 165
Basques, 158
Basso Komo tribe, 165
Bastardy laws, 348-349
Bavili tribe, 163
Beauty-tests, 91, 95, 98-100, 104, 105
_Beena_ marriage, 153
Bees, 43 _et seq._, 59
Biology, importance of, 13, 14, 33-35
Birds, love amongst, 59, 87, 91, 111, 114
Birds, amorous preference of females, 111
---- æsthetic perception of, 88, 89
---- family amongst, 59, 87, 88, 102-103, 107, 110, 113
---- female superiority amongst, 58, 90, 95, 105, 249
---- love battles 87, 90
---- love dances, parades and songs, 91, 92-99
---- monogamy amongst, 91
---- secondary sexual characters of, 88, 92, 100-101, 104 _et seq._
---- sex equality amongst, 59, 90, 105 _et seq._, 249
Bloch, Iwan, on promiscuity, 120 (_note_)
---- on the discoveries of M. Currie, 300
---- on woman's influence on the arts, 307
Borneo native tribes, 123
Botocudos tribe, 122
Brain, sexual differences in, 276
Bride-price, 154 (_note_), 165, 173, 183, 204, 229
Britain, traces of the mother-age in, 127
Budding, 38
Bücher, Karl, on woman's early poetic activity, 306
Burma, high status of women in, 156-157
---- marriage system and divorce in, 157-158
C
Canon law, 240, 344, 354
Canute; his marriage as evidence of mother-right, 127
Celibacy, 324, 326, 328, 341, 382
Cell-division, 35-39
Certificate of health before marriage, 345
Ceylon, polyandry in, 150
Chastity, 165, 171, 189, 206, 219, 223, 226, 255, 323, 324, 326,
327-328, 342, 373-374
---- as the foundation of marriage, 334, 338
Child, relation to the mother, 23, 27, 103, 168, 170
---- rights of the, 9, 17, 255, 256-258, 340, 342, 345-346, 352, 355
Child, need of two parents, 42, 95, 111, 350, 358
China, traces of mother-age in, 159
Christianity, its influence on women, 234, 267, 317-328
---- in connection with marriage and divorce, 239, 240, 344, 354
Cirripedes, complemental males among the, 52
Civilisation and sex, 113, 265-266
Clandestine transitory loves, 341
Clothing; effect of, on women, 277, 303-304
Cocotte, the, 253, 303
Concubinage, 189-191, 205, 230
Connection between bodily and spiritual impulses, 323-324, 326
Contract marriage. _See_ Marriage
Conventional lies of the present day, 254 _et seq._, 258-261, 278, 281
Co-operation among animals, 82, 102, 111
Coquetry, 254, 255, 258
Courtship: its importance, 100-111, 252, 254-256
Cruelty in relation to sex, 67, 266-267, 327
D
Darwin on sexual selection, 100-101
_Demi-monde_, 366
Differentiation between the sexes: its importance, 101, 248-249, 257,
261-263, 268, 273-276, 284, 290, 293, 295-297
Diotima, 223
Disease and marriage, 345, 355, 360-361
Disinclination for marriage, 61-63, 225-226, 267, 268-270, 335, 359
Disproportion in numbers between the sexes, 278
Divorce among primitive peoples, 132, 137, 148, 160
---- in Babylon, 205-207
---- in Burma, 157-158
---- in Egypt, 191-192, 356
---- in Greece, 220
---- in Rome, 233, 356
---- attitude of Church and State towards, 354
---- causes for, 353, 354 _et seq._
Divorce by mutual consent, 356, 358
---- importance of, for women, 356, 359
---- psychical, 355
---- reform of, 355-356
Donaldson on high character of Roman women, 239
Duplex sexual morality, 171, 206, 219, 226, 357
E
Economic factor in marriage, 171, 215-216, 253, 282, 342-343, 345, 346-347
---- ---- in prostitution, 282, 362-363, 370
---- dependence of women, 23-24, 253, 264, 280, 342
Egg-cell. _See_ Ovum
Egoism of modern woman, 270, 305, 335, 362, 365, 380-381
Egypt, position of women in ancient, 179-201
---- concubinage in, 189-191
---- divorce in, 191-192
---- family affection in, 192-193, 194-197
---- marriage contracts in, 182-185, 186-191
---- polygamy in, 192
---- traces of the mother-age in, 185-186
Ellis, Havelock, on sexual differences, 21
---- on the position of women in Rome, 234
---- on the artistic impulse in women, 297
---- on religious sexual perception, 320
Emancipation of woman, 4-8
Emma, her marriage with Canute, 127
Emotivity of women, 309, 318
Enfranchisement of women, 291, 362, 379, 380
Ennoblement of love, 347-348, 351-352, 383
Environment, influences of, 15, 17, 21, 273, 299-301, 313
Erotic element in religion, 317, 319-326
Ethelbald, King of Kent, his marriage as evidence of mother-right, 127
Ethelbald, King of W. Saxons, his marriage as evidence of
mother-right, 127
Eugenics, 18-19, 165, 218, 283, 345-346, 350, 355
Euripides on women, 227
Exchange of wives among primitive peoples, 132, 166, 170
---- ---- in Sparta, 218
F
Facial expression and sex, 311-312
Factory workers, condition of, 281-283, 287-288, 362-363
Fairy stories, connection with mother-rights, 121, 126
Family, among animals. _See_ Birds and Animals
---- ---- primitive peoples. _See_ Mother-age
---- ---- ancient civilisation. _See_ Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome
Fanti of the Gold Coast, 163
Father in relation to the family, 125, 164-167, 169, 171-175, 257
Father-right. _See_ Mother-age
Fear of love in women, 264, 270, 322, 323, 325-326, 369-370, 373-374, 382
Female, origin of, 41-42
Fertilisation, 40, 51, 53, 56, 60, 77
Festivals, connection with mother-right, 121
Festivals, religious, 320, 372
Finery, love of, in women, 303, 322, 365, 370
Fishes, love among, 78
---- parental care among, 57-58
---- sex differences among, 57, 78-79
Flirtation. _See_ Coquetry
Freedom to love for women, 279
Freedom to work for women, 283
Free-love, a criticism of, 349-350
Free-marriage. _See_ Marriage
Frigidity, sexual, 260, 269-270, 369
---- ---- as a cause of prostitution, 368-370, 371
Fuegians, 122
Future of woman, 377-385
G
Gallinaceæ, 90, 265
Galton's _Law of Inheritance_, 17
Garos tribe, 147
Geddes and Tompson on the anabolic character of the female, 54 (_note_)
Genius in relation to woman, 301-317
Ghasiyas tribe, 148
Goddesses in forefront of early religions, 198, 222
Greece, position of women in ancient, 210-227
---- Athens, subjection of women in, 216, 219-223, 265
---- ---- divorce in, 220
---- ---- _Hetairæ_, 222-226, 265
---- ---- marriage and sale of bride, 220-221
---- ---- movement of revolt in, 226-227
---- Homeric women, freedom of, 212-215
---- Spartan women, freedom of, 216-219
---- State regulation of love, 217-218
---- traces of the mother-age in, 211 (_note_), 213, 219, 222
Group-marriage. _See_ Marriage
Growth and reproduction. _See_ Reproduction
Gynæcocracy. _See_ Mother-age
H
Haeckel on reproduction, 17, 35
Hammurabi. _See_ Babylon, marriage and divorce
Hartland on mother-right, 126 (_note_)
Hassanyeh arabs, 166-167
Health and women, 157, 168-169, 197, 215, 217, 284-286
Health in relation to marriage. _See_ Disease
Hebrews, traces of the mother-age among the ancient, 128-130
Hellenic love, 265
Heredity, importance of, 17-20
Hermaphroditism, 76-77
Hindu mountaineers, 149
Hobhouse, on the Egyptian marriage contracts, 183 (_note_)
Hobhouse, on the high character of Roman women, 139
Hopis. _See_ Pueblos
Hunger and love, 75, 101
I
Illegitimacy, 160, 190, 205, 218, 342, 347, 348-349
Impurity, 267, 323-327
India, the maternal family in, 147-148
Individual responsibility in love, 257, 351-353, 358-359
Infantile mortality, 348, 378
Inferiority of the female, 12, 20, 23, 25, 47-49, 53-55
---- of the male, 44, 49-53, 56, 57-58, 65-67, 104 _et seq._
Insects, love of, 82
Instinct in woman, 296-297
Intellect in woman. _See_ Mind
Intellectual activity and sex, 324, 325-326
Intellectuals among women, 61-63, 268-270, 325-326
Ireland, traces of mother-age in ancient, 128
Iroquois, 131-135, 141-142
---- forms of marriage among, 132, 134
---- high status of women among, 132, 133, 134, 141-142
---- maternal family among, 131-132, 134
---- tribal customs among, 131, 133, 134-135
J
Japan, traces of the maternal family in, 158-159
Judith, her marriage with Ethelbald, 127
K
Kammalaus, polyandry among, 149
Kasias tribes of India, 147
Key, Ellen, on the spiritual character of woman's love, 258
---- on free-love, 349
L
Labour and women, 278-292
---- division of, between the sexes, 22-24, 280
Labour of primitive women, 168-169, 264
---- of Spanish women, 284-286
---- significance of, 301-302, 303-304, 379
---- sweated workers, 281-283
---- woman's exemption from, 23, 314
Lais, 224
Lending wives, 218
Leontium, 224
Lie of marriage, 341
Limit of growth, 36
Loango, 163
Love, comparison between animal and human, 119-121
---- comparison between woman's love and man's, 260, 373-374
---- elementary phenomena of, 75
---- purposes of the individual and of the race in relation to, 121,
338-340
---- significance and ennoblement of, 99-100, 322, 327-328, 352, 369,
374, 382, 383
---- wastage of, 322, 327, 373, 340
Love and beauty, 100
Love and marriage. _See_ Marriage
Love-free. _See_ Free-love
Love's choice. _See_ Sexual selection
Lust in relation to love, 340, 341, 372
---- theological conception of, 324 _et seq._
Lycurgus, laws of, 217-218
M
Madagascar, traces of the mother-age in, 160-161
Maine, Sir Henry, on the Roman marriage law, 239-240
Malays of Sumatra, 152-153
Male, origin of the, 42, 49, 52
Male-cell. _See_ Spermatozoon
Male-force, assertion of, 75, 104, 108, 124, 125, 164, 172, 247
Male-tyranny, mistaken view of, 24, 158, 172-173, 174
Mammals, love among the. _See_ Animals.
Man as the helper of woman, 309, 350, 384
Man as the slave of woman, 67, 267, 327
Mariana Islands, 154-155
Marriage, 331-352, 360
---- certificates for, 345
---- coercive, 332, 335, 341, 353, 359
---- economic factor in, 195-196, 256, 342-343, 345, 347
---- the ideal, 340, 349, 351, 352
---- individual end of, 338-340
---- history of, 343-345
---- love an essential part of, 350-352, 353-354, 358
---- objects of, 331-332, 334
---- racial end of, 334, 337-339, 354
---- reform of, 331-333, 335-336, 351-352, 353, 359
---- among animals. _See_ Animals
---- customs among primitive peoples. _See_ Mother-age
---- in relation to practical morality, 335-336, 337-338, 347-348,
349-350, 354
---- in relation to prostitution, 341-342, 359-361, 369, 371, 374
Maternal instinct, 61, 261 _et seq._
---- sacrifice, 263 _et seq._
Matriarchal family among bees, 62
Matriarchy. _See_ Mother-age
Maupassant on woman, 327
Memory, sexual differences in, 294-295
Men, emancipation of: this must be done by women, 269, 292
Menomini Indians, 145
Mental mobility of woman, 311
Mind, sexual differences in, 292-317
Mis-differentiation of women, 268 _et seq._
Misogany, 267
Monogamy, 340-341, 352-353
---- among animals and birds. _See_ Animals and Birds
Moral codes, 343-344, 353
Morality, ideal, 335, 350, 352
---- practical, 331, 335-336, 351-352
---- traditional, 335, 352
Mother-age, 119-175
---- evidence in support of the, 121-122, 143-146
---- periods of the, 122-125
---- traces among civilised peoples of, 125, 130, 158-159, 185,
201-202, 211, 228
Mother-age, marriage and courtship customs during, 132, 135-137, 138,
139, 145, 147-148, 149, 151, 153, 154, 165
---- beginnings of marriage, visiting by night, 159, 169
---- capture-marriage, 148, 172
---- exchange-marriage, 166, 170, 173
---- group-marriage, 124, 146, 151 (_note_), 169
---- purchase-marriage, 155, 165, 166, 173
---- monogamy, 137, 138, 139
---- polyandry, 149-151
---- position of the mother, 122, 123, 124, 127, 131-132, 133, 136,
137, 139-146, 148, 153, 154, 163, 168-171, 173-174
---- ---- father, 124, 125, 132, 134, 137, 138, 144, 151, 152, 155,
163, 169, 171
---- ---- maternal uncle, 124, 132, 140, 144, 152, 163, 164, 173
---- ---- children, 134, 138, 147, 149, 152, 164, 165
---- transition to father-right, 134, 147, 148, 155, 168
---- establishment of father-right, 147, 164 _et seq._, 171-174
Motherhood, endowment of, 62, 348
---- free, 265, 279
---- importance of, 7, 9, 27, 255, 265, 312, 314
---- responsibility of, 18-19, 257, 258, 263, 283, 351-352, 358, 381-382
Mother-right united with father-right, 175, 187
Music and women, 300-301, 306-308
Musquakies. _See_ Iroquois
N
Nature or inheritance, 15-19, 25, 273, 309
Nâyars of Malabar, 151-152
Need for sexual variety among animals, 111-112, 121, 251
---- ---- men, 112, 121, 371-373
Nurture or environment, 15-17, 19-20, 273, 309
Nutrition and reproduction, 17, 35
---- connection with sex, 41-44
O
Obstetric frog, 80
Octopus, courtship of the, 81
One-sexed world, the idea of a, 268
Orgy, the use of the, 319-320, 372
Ostrich, love-dances of the, 94
Ovum, 36, 39, 53, 250
P
Parasitic females, 53-55
---- males, 51-53, 77
Paradise bird of New Guinea, 89
Parenthood. _See_ Motherhood
Parthenogenesis, 49
Passion, importance of, in woman, 319, 326, 370, 374
Passivity, alleged, of female, 65-69, 250-253
Patriarchal subjection of women, 10, 22, 23-24, 173, 204, 212, 215,
219-221, 226, 229, 256, 264-265, 280
Patriarchy. _See_ Father-right under Mother-age
Pearson, Karl, on the mother-age, 126-127 (_note_)
---- on variability in women, 299
Pericles, 223, 224
Periodicity of woman in relation to work, 312-313
Phalaropes, reversal of the rôle of the sexes among, 107, 249, 265
Picts, traces of the mother-age among, 127
Pit-brow women, 284
Plants, sex in, 50 (_note_)
Plato on women, 226
Polyandry, 149-154
Polygamy, 192, 204, 230, 279
Position of the sexes, early. _See_ Origin of the sexes
Promiscuity, belief in an early period of, 120 (_note_), 121
Primitive human love, 119-121
Primitive woman. _See_ Mother-age
Prostitutes, 342, 360, 364-368
Prostitution, 341, 359-374
---- causes of, 282-283, 362-365, 368-371, 373-374
Prostitution, remedies for, 363-364, 369, 371, 374
Protozoa, 37 _et seq._
Pueblos tribes, 137-139
Purity, the ideal of, for women, 373-374
R
Race, the, its significance in relation to woman, 27, 44, 63, 257,
283, 289, 290, 354, 383-385
Re-birth of woman, 20, 27, 63, 257, 283, 290, 378, 385
Religion and sexuality, 317, 319-323
---- and women, 157, 317-328
Reproduction, theory of. _See_ Origin of Sex
Reproductive cells. _See_ Ovum and Spermatozoon
Reptiles, love amongst, 79
Responsibility in the sexual relationships. _See_ Love, ennoblement of
Revolution in the position of woman, 1-2, 4, 7-9, 27, 280, 379-380, 382
Revolutionary forces, 280, 281, 291
Rome, position of women in, 227-242
---- divorce by consent in, 233
---- evolution of marriage in, 229-233
---- high status of women in later periods in, 234-238
---- influence of Christianity on position of women in, 235, 239-240
---- licentiousness, alleged in, 238-239
---- traces of the mother-age in, 228
S
Sai. _See_ Pueblos
Santál tribes, 148
Sappho, 217, 301
Schopenhauer on woman, 9, 267
Sea-horse, parental care of males among, 80
Secondary sexual characters, 12, 48, 78 _et seq._, 88 _et seq._, 104
_et seq._, 114, 248-256, 261-263, 265, 268, 273-278, 292 _et seq._
Seduction, 364-365
Senecas. _See_ Iroquois
Sense of shame in woman, 255, 326
Sensibility of woman, 309 _et seq._
Seri, marriage customs of, 135-136
Sex, origin of, 36, 41-43
---- primary office of, 39-40, 73-74
---- significance of, 75, 99-102, 114
Sex-elements, early separation of, 76
Sex-hatred, evils of, 24, 67, 266-267, 268-269, 288-289, 291, 326-327,
380-381
Sex-hunger, 75, 99
Sex-relationships assume different forms to suit varying conditions of
life, 103, 107, 111-113
Sex-victims, 55
Sexes, early position of, 55, 73 _et seq._, 249-250
Sexual abstinence. _See_ Chastity
---- antipathy, 215, 265, 266-267
---- attraction, 215, 266
---- crimes, 34, 65, 87, 112, 347
---- instincts, imperious action of, 33-34, 59, 67, 73, 75, 88 _et
seq._, 99, 101, 254, 261, 319, 326, 372
---- reproduction. _See_ Reproduction
---- selection, 75, 100 _et seq._, 104 _et seq._, 114, 250, 254, 262
Shaw, G.B., on woman's right of selection in love, 65-66, 253
---- on economic factor in prostitution, 362-363
Simcox on the Egyptians, 193 (_note_), 195, 202
Slugs, love of, 77
Snails, love organ of, 77
Socrates on love, 223
Spain, position of women in, 286-287
Sparta. _See_ Greece
Spermatozoon, 36, 49, 53, 251
Spider, courtship of the, 64 _et seq._
Spores, 36
Stickleback, habits of, 80
---- paternal care of offspring among, 80
Sterility, sin of, 378-379
Structural modifications to adapt the sexes to different modes of life, 107
Suffrage, struggle for, 9, 379-380, 382-383
Superiority of the female, 56-58, 66-68, 73, 90, 103, 124, 125, 249,
267, 383-384
Superiority of the male, 10, 12-13, 23-24, 47-48, 104, 249
Surinam toad, 81
T
Tadpoles, 43, 77
Talent, sexual differences in, 292 _et seq._
Thargalia, 223
Theodota, 223
Thibet, polyandry in, 150
Third-sex, 269-270
Thomas on the sexual differences, 274, 304
Thomson, J.A., on the difference of variability in men and women, 298-299
Thucydides on the duty of women, 223
Todas tribe, 149
Transition, present period of, for women, 11, 263-264, 267, 280-281,
288, 289-290, 314-317, 325, 333, 379, 381, 384
Tyrant bird, love calls of, 96
U
Ulpian, the jurist, on a double standard of morality for the sexes, 240
Union, free. _See_ Free-love
Use of male to female, 40, 44, 103, 250, 309, 384
V
Variation in the two sexes, 297-300
Variety. _See_ Need for Sexual Variety
Virgin birth, stories of, 126, 202, 228 (_note_)
Virginity, 171, 189, 344
Visions, sexual, 320-321, 323
_Volvox_, 41-42
W
Wallace on sexual selection, 100
Wamoima tribe, 163
Ward, Lester, theory of gynæocracy, 49, 50 (_note_), 107, 108
Wayao and Mang'anja tribes, 165
Weininger on woman, 26, 267
Wells, H.G., on marriage, 305
---- on love and religion, 322
Wild duck, love of a, 111-112, 250
Witchcraft, connection with mother-rights, 127 (_note_)
Woman and man, differences between, 9, 12, 14, 16, 21, 47, 199-201,
247 _et seq._, 273 _et seq._, 292 _et seq._; 319-320, 322, 326
Woman and sexuality, 26, 267, 269, 304, 325, 327
Woman and work. _See_ Labour
Woman's dependence on man, 264, 269, 290, 381
---- emancipation, 8, 24, 269, 279, 289-290, 302, 305, 316, 379 _et seq._
---- influence, 10, 266
---- place in the sexual relationship, 251, 261-262, 264-265, 267,
270, 279-280, 383-384
---- responsibility, 258, 263-264, 283, 291-292, 351-352, 360 _et
seq._, 374, 381 _et seq._
---- right of selection in love, 65 _et seq._, 252-256, 309
Wyandots. _See_ Iroquois
X
Xenophon's ideal wife, 223
Z
Zuñi Indians. _See_ Pueblos
* * * * *
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Typographical errors corrected in text: |
| |
| Page 40: nucelus replaced with nucleus |
| page 52: complimental replaced with complemental |
| Page 117: cusmtos replaced with customs |
| Page 146: matrilenial replaced with matrilineal |
| Page 157: posibly replaced with possibly |
| Page 260: Krafft Ebing replaced with Krafft-Ebing |
| Page 347: Senancour replaced with Sénancour |
| |
| Footnote 140: Ethon. replaced with Ethno. |
| |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Truth About Woman" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.