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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29981-8.txt b/29981-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbe0e63 --- /dev/null +++ b/29981-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13209 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Truth About Woman, by C. Gasquoine Hartley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Truth About Woman + +Author: C. Gasquoine Hartley + +Release Date: September 14, 2009 [EBook #29981] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | 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 Project Gutenberg's The Truth About Woman, by C. 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Gasquoine Hartley. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + p { margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + h1 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h5,h6 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h2 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h3 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h4 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + a {text-decoration: none} /* no lines under links */ + div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */ + div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */ + ul {list-style-type: none} /* no bullets on lists */ + ul.nest {margin-top: .15em; margin-bottom: .15em; text-indent: -1.5em;} /* spacing for nested list */ + li {margin-top: .15em; margin-bottom: .15em;} /* spacing for list */ + + .cen {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} /* centering paragraphs */ + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} /* small caps */ + .noin {text-indent: 0em;} /* no indenting */ + .now {white-space: nowrap;} /* preventing footnotes from wrapping away from anchored words */ + .hang {text-indent: -2em;} /* hanging indents */ + .thang {text-indent: -2em; margin-top: .15em; margin-bottom: .15em; text-align: left;} /* hanging indents */ + .pad {padding-left: 2em;} /* padding left */ + .block {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} /* block indent */ + .block2 {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} /* block indent */ + .block3 {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 90%;} /* block indent */ + .right {text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;} /* right aligning paragraphs */ + .totoc {position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} /* Table of contents anchor */ + .tdr {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} /* right align cell */ + .tdrp {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; vertical-align: top;} /* right align cell */ + .tdc {text-align: center;} /* center align cell */ + .tdc1 {text-align: center; font-size: 115%; font-weight: bold; padding-top: .5em; padding-bottom: .5em;} /* center align cell */ + .tdl {text-align: left;} /* left align cell */ + .tdlsc {text-align: left; font-variant: small-caps;} /* aligning cell content and small caps */ + .tr {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 1em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} /* transcriber's notes */ + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + color: silver; + background-color: inherit; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers */ + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 90%;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right; font-size: 90%;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: text-top; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 15%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.i5 {display: block; margin-left: 5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em;} + .poem span.pn { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + color: silver; background-color: inherit; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers in poems */ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Truth About Woman, by C. Gasquoine Hartley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Truth About Woman + +Author: C. Gasquoine Hartley + +Release Date: September 14, 2009 [EBook #29981] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin" style="text-align: left;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p> +</div> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="block2"> +<h3> BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h3> + +<h4><i>BOOKS ON ART</i></h4> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 15%;">A RECORD OF SPANISH PAINTING<br /> +PICTURES IN THE TATE GALLERY</p> +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 20%;"><span class="sc">The Prado</span> (Spanish Series)<br /> +<span class="sc">El Greco</span> (Spanish Series)<br /> +<span class="sc">Velazquez</span> (Spanish Series)</p> + +<h4><i>BOOKS ON SPAIN</i></h4> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 15%;">MOORISH CITIES IN SPAIN<br /> +THINGS SEEN IN SPAIN<br /> +SPAIN REVISITED: <span class="sc">A Summer Holiday in Galicia</span><br /> +SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA (Mediæval Towns Series)<br /> +CATHEDRALS OF SOUTHERN AND EASTERN SPAIN</p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h1>THE TRUTH<br /> +ABOUT WOMAN</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY</h3> +<h4>(MRS. WALTER M. GALLICHAN)</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h5>NEW YORK<br /> +DODD, MEAD & COMPANY<br /> +1914</h5> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>DEDICATION</h2> + +<h3>TO</h3> + +<h3>LESLIE, MY LITTLE ADOPTED SON</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="block3"><p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Ibsen.</span></p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>PREFACE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>There is little more that I need to say.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="right sc">C. Gasquoine Hartley.</p> + +<p class="noin"><span style="margin-left: 3%;"><i>7, Carlton Terrace,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5%;"><i>Child's Hill, N.W.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7%;"><i>March, 1913.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span><br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<div class="block3"><p class="cen"><i>N.B.—A complete synopsis of contents will be found at the +beginning of each chapter</i></p></div> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdr" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">CHAP.</td> + <td class="tdl" width="70%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">I</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Introduction—The Starting-Point of the Inquiry</a></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc1" colspan="3"><a href="#PART_I">PART I—BIOLOGICAL SECTION</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">II</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Origin of the Sexes</a></td> + <td class="tdr">31</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">III</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Growth and Reproduction</a></td> + <td class="tdr">45</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl pad"><p class="thang"> I The Early Position of the Sexes.</p> + <p class="thang"> II Two Examples—The Beehive and the Spider.</p></td> + <td> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">IV</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">The Early Relationship of the Sexes</a></td> + <td class="tdr">71</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">V</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Courtship, Marriage, and the Family</a></td> + <td class="tdr">85</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl pad"><p class="thang"> I Among the Birds and Mammals.</p> + <p class="thang"> II Further Examples of Courtship, Marriage, and the Family among Birds.</p></td> + <td> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc1" colspan="3"><a href="#PART_II">PART II—HISTORICAL SECTION</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VI</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">The Mother-Age Civilisation</a></td> + <td class="tdr">117</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl pad"><p class="thang"> I Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family + Relationship.</p> + <p class="thang"> II The Matriarchal Family in America.</p> + <p class="thang">III Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in + Australia, India, and other Countries.</p> + <p class="thang">IV The Transition in Father-right.</p></td> + <td> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VII</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Woman's Position in the Great Civilisations of Antiquity</a></td> + <td class="tdr">177</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl pad"><p class="thang"> I In Egypt.</p> + <p class="thang"> II In Babylon.</p> + <p class="thang">III In Greece.</p> + <p class="thang">IV In Rome.</p></td> + <td> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc1" colspan="3"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span><a href="#PART_III">PART III—MODERN SECTION: PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN PROBLEM</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VIII</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Sex Differences</a></td> + <td class="tdr">245</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">IX</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Application of the Foregoing Chapter with Some Further + Remarks on Sex Difference</a></td> + <td class="tdr">271</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl pad"><p class="thang"> I Women and Labour.</p> + <p class="thang"> II Sexual Differences in Mind and the Artistic Impulse in + Women.</p> + <p class="thang">III The Affectability of Woman—Its Connection with the + Religious Impulse.</p></td> + <td> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">X</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">The Social Forms of the Sexual Relationship</a></td> + <td class="tdr">329</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl pad"><p class="thang"> I Marriage.</p> + <p class="thang"> II Divorce.</p> + <p class="thang">III Prostitution.</p></td> + <td> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XI</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">The End of the Inquiry</a></td> + <td class="tdr">375</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4>INTRODUCTION—THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY</h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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 <i>Law of Inheritance</i>—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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>INTRODUCTION—THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY</h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">William Harvey.</span></p></div> +<br /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Above all, this common Faith of Progress has brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>a new birth to +women. Many are feeling this force. There are two, says Professor Karl +Pearson,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> "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."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"This delicacy or propriety," it has been well said,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> "implied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +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."</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>revival due to the publication of John Stuart +Mill's epoch-marking book, the <i>Subjection of Women</i>.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>To assume as Schopenhauer and so many others have done, down to Sir +Almroth Wright's recent hysterical wail in <i>The Times</i>, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>My first purpose is to make this clear.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>tend +to the greater solidarity and happiness of women and men.</p> + +<p>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 <i>fixed woman character</i>, but that women differ +according to the circumstances under which they live, just as men +differ. This brings us directly against the old problem, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>inferiority +cannot be accepted as the sole reason of woman's present restricted +position in society. Other causes must be sought for.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>The mere asking of this +question will give many new discoveries.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>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<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Let me try to make this clearer.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Law of +Inheritance</i> makes this abundantly clear. Briefly stated, the law is +as follows: The two parents of each living being contribute <i>on the +average</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>But to come back from this dream of the future.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>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 <i>Man and Woman</i> 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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There is another point that must be made clear.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Woman is what she +is because she has lived as she has.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>I am brought back to the object of this book.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>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 <i>Woman and Economics</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>as woman</i>; 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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "Woman and Labour," <i>The Chances of Death</i>, Vol. I. p. +226.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Quoted from <i>The Emancipation of English Women</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Strictures</i>, I. 6, Gregory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>The Emancipation of English Women.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> For an account of this struggle see <i>Sketch of the +Foundation and Development of the London School of Medicine for +Women</i>, by Isabel Thorne; also <i>The Emancipation of English Women</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Woman and Economics</i>, Mrs. Stetson, p. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See Thomas, <i>Sex and Society</i>, chapter on "Sex and +Primitive Industry," pp. 123-146; and Ellis, <i>Man and Woman</i>, pp. +1-17.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><br /> +<a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br /> + +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<h3>BIOLOGICAL SECTION</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span><br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>THE ORIGIN OF THE SEXES</h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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 <i>volvox</i>—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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span><br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE ORIGIN OF THE SEXES</h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Letourneau.</span></p></div> +<br /> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>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 +<i>slipper animacule</i>, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>protozoa</i>, 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.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 (<i>myrianida</i>) which buds off a whole chain of +individuals.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>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 <i>protozoa</i>.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>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 <i>protozoa</i> where we can trace the distinct +beginnings of the male and female elements. A very instructive example +is furnished by the case of <i>volvox</i>, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> 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 <i>volvox</i>—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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Haeckel, <i>Generelle Morphologie der Organismen</i>, Vol. II. +p. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Thomson, J. Arthur, <i>Heredity</i>, p. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Thomson, J. Arthur, <i>Heredity</i>, p. 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Ward, <i>Pure Sociology</i>, p. 307.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See Ward, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 304-314, from whose chapter on +this subject I have taken these facts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. 137-138, 161.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Geddes and Thomson, in <i>The Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. +117-123, 135-140, give many interesting and corroborative examples.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Geddes and Thomson, <i>The Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. 40-52, +249-250; give a complete exposition of this theory with many examples. +See also Thomas, <i>Sex and Society</i>, pp. 4-43.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>The Early Position of the Sexes</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Two Examples—The Beehive and the Spider</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span><br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION</h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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—<i>Man and Superman.</i></p></div> +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>The Early Position of the Sexes</i></h4> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>that women excel.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>Nature devised for the advantage of having a second +sex."</p> + +<p>Now, if we examine the simplest types of the sexes in the lower +reaches of the animal kingdom,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>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 <i>Abdominalia</i> (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.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> 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 <i>Sygami</i> (menatodes), for instance, being so far effaced that it +is nothing but a testicle living on the female.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> A yet more +striking instance is furnished by the curious green worm <i>Bonellia</i>, +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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> A full study of these early forms of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>The letter runs thus—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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,"<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p></div> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> +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.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 (<i>Heterodera schachtii</i>), which infests the turnip plant, +the sexes are at first alike, then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> In many +crustaceans, again, the females are parasitic, but this also is +explained by their habit of seeking shelter for egg-laying +purposes.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It may be thought that these cases of sex-victims are exceptions, and +that, therefore, it is unsafe to draw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>Dr. Howard, writing of the mosquito in America, says—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>Heterandria formosa</i>, has +females very considerably larger than the males.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Among fishes the +males are commonly smaller than the females, who are also, as a rule, +considerably more numerous.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>the sex-relationships may assume almost any form to suit the +varying conditions of life.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Two Examples—The Beehive and the Spider</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"At its base the love of animals does not differ from that of +man."—<span class="sc">Darwin.</span></p></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>What a strange, perplexing life-history! What a sacrifice of the sexes +to each other and to the life-force.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The second example I want to consider is that of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>common spider, +whose curious courtship customs are described by Darwin.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> 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 <i>mantes</i>, 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,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> who gives it on the authority of +Dr. L.O. Howard, one of the best-known entomologists—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"A few days since I brought a male or <i>Mantes carolina</i> 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."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>least he thinks so, and +still woman uses her power, even like the spider, not infrequently, +for his undoing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 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, <i>Evolution +of Sex</i>, p. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The theory of Lester Ward, to which I have already +referred, supports this view.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> I have left out of my inquiry any reference to plants, +though all that has been said of the <i>protozoa</i> in the last chapter is +equally true of the <i>protophyta</i>, 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, <i>op. cit.</i>, +pp. 318-322.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, article on "Sex," by Prof. +Geddes; also <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. 20, 21. Prof. Lester Ward, <i>Pure +Sociology</i>, 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", +<i>The Forum</i>, Vol. VI., Nov. 1888, pp. 266-275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Van Beneden, <i>Animal Parasites and Messmates</i>, p. 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Milne Edwards, <i>Leçons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie +comparée de l'homme et des animaux</i>, Vol. IX. p. 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> In addition to the works already mentioned, see Darwin, +<i>Descent of Man</i>, Vol. I. p. 329; Haeckel, <i>Evolution of Man</i>, and <i>A +Manual of the Anatomy of the Invertebrated Animals</i>, by T. Huxley, pp. +261-262.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Life and Letters of Charles Darwin</i>, Vol. I. p. 345.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Thomson, J.A., <i>Heredity</i>, p. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Article by Ryder, <i>Science</i>, Vol. I., May 31, 1895, p. +603.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Schreiner, Olive, <i>Woman and Labour</i>, pp. 77-78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> These examples of female parasitism have been taken from +<i>Evolution of Sex</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, p. 21; <i>Pure Sociology</i>, pp. +316-317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> "Notes on the Mosquitoes of the United States," by L.O. +Howard, <i>Bulletin</i> No. 25, New Series, U.S. Department of Agriculture, +Division of Entomology, 1900, p. 12. Quoted by Lester Ward, <i>Pure +Sociology</i>, p. 317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Descent of Man</i>, p. 208.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Science</i>, Vol. XV., Jan. 1902, p. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Fulton, Naturalist to the Scottish Fishery Board. Cited +in <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, p. 22; see also pp. 25, 272, 295.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Pure Sociology</i>, pp. 317, 318.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Birds of Britain</i>, by J. Lewis Bonhote, p. 208; also +pp. 190-221.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> 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 <i>Problems of Sex</i>, +by J.A. Thomson and Prof. Patrick Geddes, p. 24; <i>Mind in Animals</i>, by +Büchner, p. 60; and <i>Woman and Labour</i>, by Olive Schreiner, p. 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Problems of Sex</i>, p. 34. I would recommend this +admirable little book to all students.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Descent of Man</i>, Vol. I. p. 329.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Pure Sociology</i>, p. 316; <i>Science</i>, Vol. VIII., Oct. +1886, p. 326. Letter by Dr. L.O. Howard.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span><br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>THE EARLY RELATIONSHIP OF THE SEXES</h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span><br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE EARLY RELATIONSHIP OF THE SEXES</h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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 <i>raison d'être</i> the +union of two cellules.... There is no organic act which +approaches this one in power and force of +differentiation."—<span class="sc">Haeckel.</span></p></div> +<br /> + +<p>What is the practical outcome to us of this early relation of the +sexes in Nature's scheme?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> 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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>Hermaphroditism must be regarded as a temporary or transitional +form.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Some +snails, again, are provided with a special organ, a slightly twisted +limy dart, which is used to stimulate sexual excitement.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>We may illustrate this important step in the evolution of love by +reference to the familiar case of the salmon. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> + +<p>A further development is reached by those animals <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>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!</p> + +<p>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<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> has beautifully +described the courtship of the octopus, which is carried out with +considerable delicacy, and not brutally as before had been believed.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>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 (<i>Lethrus cephalotes</i>) inhabit +the same cavity, and the virtuous matron is said greatly to resent the +intrusion of another male.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, p. 265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> 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 <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, chapter +on "Hermaphroditism," pp. 65-80; also Bloch, <i>Sexual Life of Our +Times</i>, pp. 11-12, 551-554. Wieninger's <i>Sex and Character</i>, pp. 6, 7, +13, 45, is also interesting.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> 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 (<i>Evolution of Sex</i>, p. 67).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> "The Love of Slugs," article by James Bladon, +<i>Zoologist</i>, Vol. XV., 1857, p. 6272.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> "Molluscs," article by Rev. L.H. Cooke, <i>Cambridge +Natural History</i>, 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 <i>Studies in the +Psychology of Sex</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Trout also fight during the breeding season. <i>Chapters +on Human Love</i>, by Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), pp. 13-14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. 625-626. <i>Chapters on Human +Love</i>, p. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> <i>Problems of Sex</i>, by J.A. Thomson and Prof. Patrick +Geddes, p. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. 270-272, 295.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <i>Natural Science</i>, Nov. 1894, quoted by Havelock Ellis, +<i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. p. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, p. 265.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span><br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>Among the Birds and Mammals</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Further Examples of Courtship, Marriage and the Family among +Birds</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY</h4> +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>Among the Birds and Mammals</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Wallace.</span></p></div> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>Let us take first the phenomena of courtship.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> "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."</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> 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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> +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 +(<i>Tetras cuspido</i>), <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>which are said to assemble at night to fight +until morning with measured grace, and then to separate, having first +exchanged formal courtesies.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> + +<p>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 <i>panurus</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> +According to some estimates monogamy prevails among ninety per cent of +birds.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> +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.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> 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 +<span class="now">Schreiner.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></span></p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>In this case it is very suggestive to find that it is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>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 +<span class="now">brood.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> The song of the skylark, +with its splendid note of freedom, is more melodious and more frequent +in the season of love's delirium.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Another bird, the male of the +weaver bird, builds an abode of pleasure for himself, wherein he +retires to sing to his mate.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> A very beautiful case of the use of +these love-calls by the tyrant bird (<i>Pitangus Bolivianus</i>) is +recorded by W.H. Hudson.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> 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—<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>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."</p></div> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> 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 <i>Tetras cuspido</i> of Florida and the little grouse of Germany and +Scandinavia do this. The latter have daily amorous assemblies, or +<i>cours d'amour</i>, of great length, which are renewed every year in the +month of May.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> 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 <i>Crossoptilon auritum</i> and the +<i>Phasianus Wallichii</i>—which are of dull colour, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>refrain from doing +so, being apparently conscious of their modest livery.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<p>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 +<i>Amblyornis inornata</i>.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Further Examples of Courtship, Marriage, and the Family among +Birds</i></h4> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> in which the female closely resembles +the male. In some few of these examples, it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>in the highest +degree, to the reproductive process.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>are old +enough to follow him and form a docile band under his government.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> +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.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> 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.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>are we to follow? +Which is the wheat and which the tares, that must be garnered or +sifted from our loves?</p> + +<p>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<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Havelock Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI. p. 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, p. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Animal Behaviour</i>, p. 265, quoted by Havelock Ellis, +<i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. p. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), <i>Chapters on Human +Love</i>, pp. 17-18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. 7-8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Epinas, <i>Soc. Animales</i>, p. 326; Darwin, <i>Descent of +Man</i>, p. 433.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI. p. 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> 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, <i>The Naturalist in La Plata</i>, by W.H. Hudson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Audubon, <i>Scènes de la Nature</i>, Vol. I. p. 350.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Audubon, <i>Scènes de la Nature</i>, Vol. II. p. 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> E. Selous, <i>Bird Watching</i>, pp. 15-20; Havelock Ellis, +<i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. p. 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> J. Lewis Bonhote, <i>The Birds of Britain</i>, p. 272. It is +from this work I have taken many facts relating to birds. See also +A.R. Wallace, <i>Darwinism</i>, p. 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <i>Notes of a Naturalist on the "Challenger,"</i> quoted by +Wallace, <i>Darwinism</i>, p. 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> "The Ostrich," <i>Zoölogist</i>, March 1897; quoted by +Havelock Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. p. 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Audubon, <i>Scènes de la Nature</i>, Vol. I. p. 317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> J. Lewis Bonhote, <i>The Birds of Britain</i>, p. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Audubon, <i>Scènes de la Nature</i>, Vol. I. p. 383.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Epinas, <i>Sociétés Animales</i>, p. 299.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> <i>Argentine Ornithology</i>, Vol. I. p. 148; quoted by +Havelock Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. p. 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Wallace, <i>Darwinism</i>, p. 284; also J. Lewis Bonhote, +<i>The Birds of Britain</i>, p. 319.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, pp. 14-15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Wallace, <i>Darwinism</i>, p. 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> H.O. Forbes, <i>A Naturalist's Wanderings</i>, p. 131; quoted +by Havelock Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. pp. 33-34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Darwin, <i>Descent of Man</i>, p. 438.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Epinas, <i>Soc. animales</i>, p. 326; and Letourneau, +<i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Darwin, <i>Descent of Man</i>, p. 438; Letourneau, <i>op. +cit.</i>, p. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> <i>Annali del Museo civico di storia naturale di Genova</i>, +t. IX. fasc. 3-4, 1877, quoted by Letourneau, whose account I give; +<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Havelock Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> These facts are taken from Mr. J. Lewis Bonhote's +<i>British Birds</i>. 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 <i>of both +sexes</i> have this red crown.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> This seems to be the position taken by Professor Geddes +and J.A. Thomson in <i>Evolution of Sex</i>, pp. 4-5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Several examples are mentioned by Wallace, <i>Darwinism</i>, +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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> My facts of the phalaropes are taken from J. Lewis +Bonhote's <i>British Birds</i>, pp. 314-315.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> <i>Pure Sociology</i>, p. 331.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Epinas, <i>Soc. animales</i>, p. 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Audubon, <i>Scènes de la Nature</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, chapter on the +"Family among Animals," pp. 29-34, from which these cases are taken.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Epinas, <i>Soc. animales</i>, 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 <i>flamenca</i> (Sevillian +gipsy) performing this task for her lover.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Darwin, <i>Descent of Man</i>, p. 399.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 455.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> J.G. Millais, <i>Natural History of British Ducks</i>, pp. 8, +13.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<h3>HISTORICAL SECTION</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span><br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>The Matriarchal Family in America</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span><br /> + +<h4>III.—<i>Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India +and other Countries</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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 <i>ambel-anak</i> +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 <i>beena</i> 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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>IV.—<i>The Transition to Father-right</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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—<i>Résumé</i>—General conclusions to be drawn from +the mother-age—Its relation to the present revolt of +women—The bright side of father-right.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>Progress from Lower to Higher Forms of the Family Relationship</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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>i.e.</i> <i>Mother-Age Civilisation</i>), "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 <span class="sc">Karl Pearson</span>.</p></div> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> 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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>Pathways are opened up to great heights, but also +to great depths.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>In order to group these facts it may be well to give first a rough +outline of the periods to be considered—</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> A yet lower +level may be seen among certain low tribes in the interior of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> + +<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> whose interest offers rich rewards. Perhaps <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>In Ireland (where mother-right +must have been firmly established, if Strabo's account of the free +sexual relations of the people<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p> + +<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>these children +are my children."<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> which points back to +an ancient epoch when the children did not belong to the clan of the +father.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> We have here an indication of the close +relation between father-right and property.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> In the same way Tamar +could have married her half-brother Amnon, though they were both the +children of David.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> The father of Moses and Aaron married his +father's sister, who was not legally his relation.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> Nabor, the +brother of Abraham, took to wife his fraternal niece, the daughter of +his brother.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> It was only later that paternal kinship became +recognised among the Hebrews by the same title as the natural kinship +through the mother.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span><br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>The Matriarchal Family in America</i></h4> + +<p>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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"Each household was made up on the principle of kin. The married +women, usually sisters, own or collateral, were of the same +<i>gens</i> or clan, the symbol or <i>totem</i> of which was often painted +upon the house, while their husbands and the wives of their sons +belonged to several other <i>gentes</i>. The children were of the +<i>gens</i> 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 <i>gentes</i>, but the predominating +number in each household would be of the same <i>gens</i>, namely +that of the mother."<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p></div> + +<p>There are many interesting customs belonging to the Iroquois; I can +notice a few only. The <i>gens</i> was ruled by chiefs of two grades, +distinguished by Morgan as <i>sachem</i> and common chiefs. The sachem was +the official head of the <i>gens</i>. The actual occupant of the office was +elected by the adult members of the <i>gens</i>, male and female, the own +brother or son of a sister being most likely to be preferred.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> The +wife never left the parental home, because she was considered the +mistress, or, at least, the heiress; her husband lived with her. In +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> 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?"<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> It would seem that +these primitive people have solved some difficulties better than we +ourselves have!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>Among the Senecas,<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>This last detail is very interesting; we find the woman's authority +extending even over warfare, the special province of men.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>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 <i>gentes</i>, though they live in the <i>gentes</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p> + +<p>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 <i>gens</i> there is a small council composed of four +women, called <i>yu-waí-yu-wá-na</i>; chosen by the women heads of the +household. These women councillors select a chief of the <i>gens</i> from +its male members, that is from their brothers and sons. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>He is the +head of the <i>gentile</i> council. The council of the tribe is composed of +the aggregated <i>gentile</i> councils, and is thus composed of four-fifths +of women and one-fifth of men. The <i>sachem</i> of tribes, or tribal-chief +is chosen by chiefs of the <i>gentes</i>. All civil government of the +<i>gens</i> 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 <i>gens</i> and <i>tribe</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>Some interesting marriage customs of the Seri, on the south-west +coast, now reduced to a single tribe, are described by McGee.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> 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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"The tribe is divided into exogamous <i>totem</i> 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 <i>jacal</i> is erected for her, and after +many deliberations, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>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."</p></div> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> "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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>now becomes husband, and finally enters +his wife's <i>jacal</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>totem</i> 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."<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p> + +<p>Lastly, among the Pueblo peoples we may consider the Sai. Like the +other tribes they are divided into exogamous <i>totem</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>Thomas<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> 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 <i>History of Human +Marriage</i>). 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>III.—<i>Further Examples of the Matriarchal Family in Australia, India, +and other countries</i></h4> + +<p>It is only fair to state that the question of the position of women +during the mother-age is a disputed one. Bachofen<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> 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, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> A form of divorce used by a husband in ancient +Arabia was: "Begone, for I will no longer drive thy flocks to +pasture."<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> In the New Mexican <i>pueblo</i> 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."<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> + +<p>The point we have now reached is this: while <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>as +such.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Not +every tribe is yet thus revolutionised. Among the Kasias of south-east +India the husband lives with the wife or visits her occasionally.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p></div> + +<p>This may be taken as an extreme example of the conditions among the +unchanged tribes. The Garos tribe have an interesting marriage +custom.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> The girl <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> 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 <i>Karama</i>, 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.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> This is the case among the Santál +tribes, which are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>found in Western Bengal, Northern Orissa, Bhágulpur +and the Santál Párganas.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> It seems probable that fraternal +polyandry must formerly have been practised.</p> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> +To-day the Kammalaus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>(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.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p> + +<p>At another extremity of India, in Ceylon, the polyandric rule is still +common,<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p> + +<p>Polyandry is a survival of the group-marriage of the mother-age.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>with it domestic and social +rights and privileges to women I have no longer to prove.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p> + +<p>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 <i>tali</i>; +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<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> + +<p>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 <i>suku</i>, or +clan. Her eldest brother is the head of the family and exercises the +rights and duties of a father to her children.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> The marriage, +based on the <i>ambel-anak</i>, in which the husband lives with the wife, +paying nothing, and occupying a subordinate position, may be taken as +typical of the former conditions.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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>i.e.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Male kinship prevails among the Arabs, but the late Professor +Robertson Smith discovered abundant evidence that mother-right was +practised in ancient Arabia.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> We find a decisive example of its +favourable influence on the position of women in the custom of +<i>beena</i><a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>was able to free herself at pleasure from her husband, who was +really nothing but a temporary lover.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a></p> + +<p>A further striking example of mother-right is furnished by the Mariana +Islands, where the position of women was distinctly superior.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a></p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>IV.—<i>The Transition to Father-right</i></h4> + +<p>In the preceding sections of this chapter I have collected together, +with as much exactitude as I could, many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>still bears the name of "second little +father."<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> 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 <i>to slip by night into the house</i>. 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.<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> +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.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> Certain of the aboriginal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> 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 <i>mpitòvo</i>, 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.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> The children <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In the adjacent continent of Africa we find similar privileges enjoyed +by royal women. A delightful example is given by Frazer<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> 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 <i>Mamfumer</i>, "Mother of Kings." The privileges attached +to this dignity are numerous; the husbands may be chosen at will and +from among the common people.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span><i>Monsieur</i> +and the husband that of <i>Madame</i>." A visitor to this state,<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> +who had an interview with the queen, reports that, "she was a +woman of gigantic stature, wearing many amulets."</p></div> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> +Frazer gives an account of the tyrannical authority of the princesses +in this state.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>In Africa descent through women is the rule,<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> though there are +exceptions, and these are increasing. The amusing account given by +Miss Kingsley<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> 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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> In the state of Loango among the common people the +uncle is addressed as <i>tate</i> (father). He has even the power to sell +his sister's children.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>goods +to save the pledging.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>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.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> +Primitive women were strong in body<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> and capable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>totem</i> group +marrying the women of another, and <i>vice versa</i>, but no man or woman +having one particular wife or husband.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>relationships. But permanent unions +became subject to the consent of the woman's kindred.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>XI. We have noted the alien position of the father <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One final word more.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> 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 +<i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. pp. 34-44, where a number of typical +cases are given of the courtship customs of the primitive peoples. See +also Thomas, <i>Sex and Society</i>, chapter on "The Psychology of +Exogamy," pp. 175-179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> This is the mistake that Westermark—in his valuable +<i>History of Human Marriage</i>—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 <i>The +Evolution of Marriage</i>, 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.—<i>The Sexual Life of +Our Times</i>, pp. 188-195.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Thomas, <i>Sex and Society</i>, p. 68, and Letourneau, +<i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, pp. 269-270, 320.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Lubbock, <i>Origin of Civilisation</i>, p. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> This opinion is founded on the anthropological +investigations during the past half century. See Hartland, <i>Primitive +Paternity</i>, Vol. I. pp. 256-257; H. Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. +VI. pp. 390-382, and "The Changing Status of Women," <i>Westminster +Review</i>, October 1886; Thomas, <i>Sex and Society</i>, p. 58, and Bloch, +<i>Sexual History of our Times</i>, pp. 190-196.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> For a full and illuminative treatment of this subject I +would refer my readers to the essays of Professor Karl Pearson, <i>The +Chances of Death</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Bede, II. 1-7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> F. Frazer, <i>Golden Bough</i>, Pt. I. <i>The Magic Art</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Strabo, IV. 5, 4. Hartland, <i>Primitive Paternity</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> H. Ellis, citing Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, <i>The Welsh +People</i>, p. 214.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Gen. xxiv. 5-53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Gen. xxxi. 41, 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Judges xv. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Num. xxxii. 8-11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 326.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Num. xxxvi. 4-8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Gen. xii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> 2 Sam. xiii. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> Exod. vi. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> Gen. xi. 26-29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> See Thomas, <i>Sex and Society</i>, pp. 63-64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Morgan, <i>House and House-life of the American +Aborigines</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Morgan, <i>Anc. Soc.</i>, 62, 71, 76; Hartland, <i>Primitive +Paternity</i>, Vol. I. p. 298, Vol. II. p. 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> McLennan, <i>Studies</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> Report of an Official for Indian Affairs on two of the +Iroquoian tribes, cited by Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 298. +McLennan attributes the arrangement of the marriages to the mothers +(<i>Studies</i>, ii. p. 339). This would be the earlier custom and is still +practised among several tribes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> Charlevoix, V. p. 418, quoted by Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, +Vol. II. p. 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> 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, <i>House and House-life of the American Aborigines</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> Powell, <i>Rep. Bur. Ethn.</i>, I, p. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Owen, <i>Musquakies</i>, p. 72, quoted by Hartland, <i>op. +cit.</i>, Vol. II. pp. 68-69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> I have summarised the account of the Wyandot government +as given by Hartland, who quotes from Powell's "Wyandot Government," +<i>First Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1879-1880</i>, +pp. 61 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> "The Beginning of Marriage," <i>American Anthropologist</i>, +Vol. IX. p. 376. <i>Rep. Bur. Ethn.</i>, XVII. p. 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> This is supposed by McGee to suggest a survival of a +vestigial polyandry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Mrs. Stevenson, <i>Rep. Bur. Ethn.</i>, XXIII. pp. 290, 293. +Cushing, <i>Zuñi Folk Tales</i>, p. 368, cited by Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, +Vol. II. pp. 73, 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> <i>Rep. Bur. Ethn.</i>, XIII. p. 340. Solberg, <i>Zeits. f. +Ethnol.</i>, XXXVII. p. 269. Voth, <i>Traditions of the Hopi</i>, pp. 67, 96, +133. Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II. pp. 74-76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> <i>Rep. Bur. Ethn.</i>, IX. p. 19. Hartland, <i>Ibid.</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> <i>Sex and Society</i>, pp. 65-66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Bachofen's work was foreshadowed by an earlier writer, +Father Lafiteau, who published his <i>Mœurs des sauvages américains</i> +in 1721. <i>Das Mutterrecht</i> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> Lord Avebury, for example, says: "I believe that +communities in which women have exercised supreme power were quite +exceptional," <i>Marriage, Totemism and Religion</i>, p. 51. See also +Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, pp. 281-282.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> 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, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI. pp. 390-393; also the +essay already referred to, "Changing Status of Women," <i>Westminster +Review</i>, Oct. 1886.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Ratzel, <i>History of Mankind</i>, Vol. II. p. 130; see +Thomas, <i>op. cit.</i>, chapter on "Sex and Primitive Industry."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Robertson Smith, <i>Kinship and Marriage in Early +Arabia</i>, p. 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> Hoffman, "The Menomini Indians," <i>Fourteenth Rep. of +the Bur. of Am. Ethno.</i>, p. 288.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Papers of the <i>Arch. Inst. of Am.</i>, Vol. II. p. 138.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Fison and Howitt, <i>Native Tribes of Australia</i>; also +<i>Kamilaroi</i> and <i>Kurnai</i>, pp. 33, 65, 66. See also Hartland, <i>op. +cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 294.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 44, 271-274. Thomas, <i>op. +cit.</i>, p. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> Hartland, <i>Primitive Paternity</i>, Vol. II. pp. 155-156, +39-41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> Dalton, <i>Ethnology of Bengal</i>, p. 54; also Tylor, "The +Matriarchal System," <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, July 1896, p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Dalton, <i>op. cit.</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Crooke, <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, iii. p. 242.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II. pp. 156, 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Risley, <i>The Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, Vol. I. pp. +228, 231.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Rivers, <i>The Todas</i>; Schrott, <i>Tras. Ethno. Soc.</i> (New +Series), Vol. VIII. p. 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Letourneau, quoting Skinner, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, +p. 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Thurston, <i>Ethnographic Notes in Southern India</i>, 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 +<i>Mahäbhärata</i> the five Pándava brothers marry all together the +beautiful Drûaupadi, with eyes of lotus blue (<i>Mahäbhärata</i>, trad. +Fauche, t. II. p. 148). For an account of polyandry in ancient India +the reader should consult Jolly, <i>Gundriss der Indo-Arischen +Philologie und Altertumskunde</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> Davy, <i>Ceylon</i>, p. 286; Sachot, <i>L'Île de Ceylon</i>, p. +25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Turner, <i>Thibet</i>, p. 348, and <i>Hist. Univ. des, Voy.</i>, +Vol. XXXI. p. 434; Dalton, <i>Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal</i>, p. 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II. p. 164.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> 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 (<i>Sexual History of Our Times</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> Havelock Ellis writing on this subject ("Changing +Status of Women," <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, 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."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> 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, <i>op. cit.</i>, +Vol. I. p. 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> <i>J.A.I.</i>, XII. p. 292; Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> Wilken, <i>Verwantschap</i>, p. 678; <i>Bijdragen</i>, XXXI. p. +40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> Havelock Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, 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, <i>History of Sumatra</i>, pp. 225, 235, +257, 262, for an account of both marriages.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> <i>Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Havelock Ellis, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 391-392, quoting +Robertson Smith.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> Barlow, <i>Semitic Origins</i>, p. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> Robertson Smith, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> 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 <i>beena</i> marriage are very frequent among widely different +peoples. (See Hartland, <i>Primitive Paternity</i>, 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 (<i>Academy</i>, 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 <i>beena</i> 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, +<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 392 <i>note</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Thomas, <i>Sex and Society</i>, pp. 73-74. Quoting +Waitz-Gerland, <i>Anthropologie der Naturvölker</i>, Vol. V. p. 107.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> McLennan, <i>The Patriarchal Theory</i>, p. 235.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> Thomas, <i>op. cit.</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 323, who quotes Lubbock, +<i>Orig. Civil.</i>, p. 177.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 14, citing Morgan, +<i>Systems of Consanguinity</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 323.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> Morgan, <i>Systems of Consanguinity</i> ("Smithsonian +Contributions"), Vol. XVII. pp. 416-417.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Hartland, Vol. II. p. 45, quoting Gray, <i>China</i>, Vol. +II. p. 304.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> This is the opinion of Hartland. He quotes Ellis, +<i>History of Madagascar</i>, and Sibree, <i>The Great African Island</i>. 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Frazer, <i>Golden Bough</i>, Pt. I. <i>The Magical Art</i>, Vol. +II. p. 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Father Guillemé, Missiones Catholiques, XXXIV. (1902), +p. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> Lubbock, <i>Origin of Civilisation</i>, p. 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Frazer, <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> "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, <i>Jour. Afr. Soc.</i>, I. p. 265).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> <i>Travels</i>, p. 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Hartland, quoting Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, <i>op. +cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> Lippert, <i>Kulturgeschichte</i>, Vol. II. p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> 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, +<i>Ostafrikanische studien</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> Bastian, <i>Loango-Küste</i>, I. p. 166.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Dennett, <i>Jour. Afr. Soc.</i>, I. p. 266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> <i>Jour. Afr. Soc.</i>, I. p. 412. See Hartland, <i>op. cit.</i>, +Vol. I, pp. 275-288.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> 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 (<i>Old New Zealand</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> Macdonald, <i>Africana</i>, Vol. I. p. 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> <i>Jour. Afr. Soc.</i>, VIII. pp. 15-17. This tribe now +traces descent through the father.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> Torday and Joyce, <i>J.A.I.</i>, XXXV. p. 410.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> Arnot, <i>Garenganze</i>, p. 242.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> Spencer, <i>Descriptive Sociology</i>, Vol. V. p. 8, citing +Petherick, <i>Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa</i>, pp. 140-144. This +case is quoted by Thomas, <i>op, cit.</i>, pp. 85, 86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> 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 (<i>American Antiquarian</i>, January 1889, "The Ulu, or Woman's +Knife of the Eskimo," <i>Report of the United States National Museum</i>, +1890). H. Ellis, <i>Man and Woman</i>, pp. 1-17, and Thomas, <i>Sex and +Society</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> 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" (<i>Kamilaroi and Kurnai</i>, 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 (<i>Spain +Revisited</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span><br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY</h4> + +<br /> +<h4>I.—<i>In Egypt</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>In Babylon</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span><br /> + +<h4>III.—<i>In Greece</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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 <i>hetairæ</i>—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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>IV.—<i>In Rome</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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 <i>confarreatio</i>—The form +known as <i>coemptio</i>—Marriage by <i>usus</i>—The inequality of +divorce—The subjection of the woman—The terrible right of +the husband's <i>manus</i>—The way of escape—The development of +the early marriage by <i>usus</i>—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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE GREAT CIVILISATIONS OF ANTIQUITY</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>In Egypt</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Havelock Ellis.</span></p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is necessary to enter into this inquiry with caution: the +difficulties before me are very great. Again, it is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>Let us turn first to Egypt.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p></div> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> +<span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> 1550. "The mighty one!" "Conqueror of all Lands!" Queen +in her own right by the will of her father, Thothmes I.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>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<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> +or charge on the husband, to be paid to her in the event of his +sending her away.</p> + +<p>It will readily be seen how advantageous these proprietary rights must +have been to the wife. She was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> +There is a very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>say that "it +is stipulated between married couples, by the terms of the +dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman."<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> It is +probable, as M. Revillout suggests,<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a></p> + +<p>M. Paturet takes the view that it was not so much as the mother, but +as woman, and being the equal of man, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> to consider him as her +husband.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> 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, <i>among the children +born to thee previously</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>become the friend of the woman who has been as his wife, +and will love her as a woman ought to be loved.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"If thou makest a woman ashamed, wanton of heart, whom her +fellow townspeople know to be under two laws" (<i>i.e.</i> 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."</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> The commonest formula, which continued in +use as long as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> 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!</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> There is a +delightful inscription on the sepulchral tablet of the wife of a high +priest of Memphis,<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> in which she urges the duty of happiness for +her husband. It says—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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)?"</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>for</i> money, in +the modern sense, was impossible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>where individual ownership was +abolished by the act of marriage itself."<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a></p> + +<p>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<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a>—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> +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."</p></div> + +<p>The maxims of Ani,<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> written six dynasties later, give the same +advice with fuller detail—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>Honour to the mother was strongly insisted on. The sage +Kneusu-Hetep<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> thus counsels his son—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When I had written thus far in this chapter, I went from the +reading-room of the British Museum, where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> 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 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>), whose title was "Royal Mother," +and another figure of Queen Amenártas of the XXVth Dynasty 700 +<span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>; near by is a beautiful head of the stone figure of a +priestess.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> There is something enigmatic and strangely seductive +in the Egyptian faces; a joy and calmness which are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span><a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>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 <i>Song of the Harper</i> came to my memory, and now I +understood them—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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>i.e.</i> 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."</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>In Babylon</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Hobhouse.</span></p></div> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> 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."</p> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a></p> + +<p>Later in Babylonian history—though still at an early <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>That this was the condition of society in Babylon in the time of +Hammurabi (<i>i.e.</i> probably between 2250 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> and 1950 +<span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>) 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.<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p> + +<p>Polygamy, though permitted, was definitely restricted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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 <i>usufruct</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"139. If there was no bride-price he shall give her one mina of +silver."</p> + +<p>"140. If he is a poor man he shall give one third of a mina of +silver."</p></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>belittled her +husband," may either be divorced without compensation or retained in +the house as the slave of a new wife.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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>i.e.</i> the husband). The lordship of the husband is seen also +in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>his power to dispose of his wife as well as his children for +debt.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> The period for debt slavery was, however, confined to the +years of Hammurabi.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> There is another +interesting deed<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> 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."</p> + +<p>It would be easy to multiply such cases.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>Questions" in +his <i>Democracy and Liberty</i>. He says:</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"How many fortunes wasted by negligence or extravagance have +been restored by a long minority under female management?"</p></div> + +<p class="noin">He notes, too, the financial ability of the French women.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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?"</p></div> + +<p class="noin">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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>III.—<i>In Greece</i></h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Of all things upon earth that breathe and grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To buy us some man's love, and lo, they bring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A master of our flesh. There comes the sting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the whole shame, and then the jeopardy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For good or ill, what shall that master be?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reject she cannot, and if she but stays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His suit, 'tis shame on all that woman's days.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So thrown amid new laws, new places, why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis magic she must have to prophesy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Home never taught her that—how best to guide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Towards peace this thing that sleepeth at her side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And she, who, labouring long, shall find some way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereby her lord may bear with her, nor fray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His yoke too fiercely, blessed is the breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That woman draws! Else let her pray for death.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her lord, if he be wearied of her face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within doors, gets him forth; some merrier place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will ease his heart; but she waits on, her whole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vision enchained on a single soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then, forsooth, 'tis they that face the call<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of war, while we sit sheltered, hid from all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peril. False mocking. Sooner would I stand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three times to face their battles, shield in hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than bear our child."<br /></span> +<span class="i10 sc">—Euripides.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> 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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>This is the fully developed patriarchal idea of the duties +of the woman and her patient submission to the man.</p> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>"better and nobler than when husband and wife, +being of one mind, rule a household."<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> +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.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a></p> + +<p>We find the Homeric women moving freely among men. They might go where +they liked, and do what they liked.<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> Nor did marriage restrict their freedom. Helen +appears on the battlements of Troy, watching the conflict, accompanied +only by her maidens.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> All +celibates were placed under the ban of society.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> The +age of marriage was also fixed, special care being taken that the +Spartan girls <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>should not marry too soon; no sickly girl was permitted +to marry.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>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?"<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> Such were the Spartan women.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> The father was even able to bequeath his +unmarried daughters by will.<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> So strictly was +the seclusion of the wife adhered to that she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>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<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> given by the man whom +she claimed as husband.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> We could have no truer indication than this as to +the degradation into which woman had fallen in the sexual +relationship.</p> + +<p>That once, indeed, it had been far otherwise with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> 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—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Of all things upon earth that breathe and grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To buy us some man's love, and lo, they bring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Master of our flesh. There comes the sting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the whole shame."<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 <i>hetairæ</i>. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>temporary or permanent, were openly +entered into and treated with respect. For the Greeks the <i>hetaira</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>hetairæ</i>, 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 <i>hetairæ</i> 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<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> and the brilliant Diotima of Mantinea, +of whom he speaks "as his teacher in love."<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> Thargalia, a Milesian +stranger, gained a position of high political importance.<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> 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 <i>hetairæ</i>; Leontium, one of the order, sat at +the feet of Epicurus to imbibe his philosophy.<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a></p> + +<p>Among all these free women Aspasia of Miletus<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> stands forward as +the most brilliant—the most remarkable. There is no doubt as to the +intellectual distinction of the beloved companion of Pericles.<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> +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, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a></p> + +<p>The high status of the <i>hetairæ</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> 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."</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>, was led by Aspasia, and perhaps other members of the +<i>hetairæ</i>. 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."<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>It is Euripides who voices the sorrows of women. He also foreshadows +their coming triumph.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Back streams the waves of the ever running river,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life, life is changed and the laws of it o'ertrod.<br /></span> +<span class="i0" style="padding-top: .5em; padding-bottom: .25em;"> * * * * * * *<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And woman, yea, woman shall be terrible in story;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tales too meseemeth shall be other than of yore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a fear there is that cometh out of woman and a glory,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more."<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>IV.—<i>In Rome</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"The character of a people is only an eternal becoming.... They +are born and are modified under the influence of innumerable +causes."—<span class="sc">Jean Finot.</span></p></div> + +<p>Of the position of women in Rome in the pre-historic period we know +almost nothing. We can accept that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>there was once a period of +mother-rule.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>usus</i>.<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> The form <i>confarreatio</i>, 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.<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> The religious ceremony was in no way +essential to the marriage. The second and most common form, was called +<i>coemptio</i>, or purchase, and was really a formal sale between the +father or guardian of the bride and the future <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>husband.<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> Both +these forms transferred the woman from the <i>potestas</i> (power) of her +father into the <i>manus</i> (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.<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> Monogamy was strictly enforced. At no period of +Roman history are there any traces of polygamy or concubinage.<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> +But such strictness of the moral code seems to have been barren in its +benefit to women. The terrible right of <i>manus</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>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,<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> Such was the marriage law in the early +days of Rome's history.</p> + +<p>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 <i>hetairæ</i>. 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 <i>manus</i>. This is so important that I must ask the reader +deeply to consider it. The ideal of equality and fellowship between +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>usus</i>. 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 <i>usufruct</i>. This idea was cleverly +applied to marriage by <i>usus</i>. The wife by passing three nights in the +year out of the conjugal domicile broke the <i>manus</i> of the husband and +did not become his property.</p> + +<p>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 <i>manus</i> of the husband, we do not +know. What is certain is that this new form of free marriage by +consent rapidly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>replaced the older forms of the <i>coemptio</i>, and even +the solemn <i>confarreatio of the patricians</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a></p> + +<p>Monogamy remained imperative. The husband was bound to support the +wife adequately, to consult her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>Hobhouse gives the same estimate as to the high status of women.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a></p></div> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Gerousia</i> 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 <i>Sodalitas Pudicitiæ Servandræ</i>, 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 +<i>Conventus Matronarum</i>, or "Convention of Mothers of Families." This +seems to have been a self-elected parliament of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a></p> + +<p>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 <i>usufruct</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>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 <i>graffitti</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> The power of women was +especially great in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The opinion as to the licentiousness of the Roman woman rests mainly +on the statements of two satirical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>writers, Juvenal and Tacitus. +Great pains have been taken to refute the charges they make, and the +old view is not now accepted. Dill,<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> Hobhouse and Donaldson<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> 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 <i>Ancient Law</i> (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."</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>a man demands chastity +from his wife while he himself shows no example of it."<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> Such deep +understanding of the unity of the sexes is assuredly the finest +testimony to the high status of Roman women.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>in a different +degree, of the Greeks, rested in this, <i>they thought much of the +mothers of the race</i>. 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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> This is the position taken up, for instance, by +Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> <i>Herodotus</i>, Bk. II. p. 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>Morals in Evolution</i>, Vol. I. p. 189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> Maspero, Preface to <i>Queens of Egypt</i>, by J.R. Buttles, +q. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> 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."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> 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), <i>La Condition juridique de la femme +dans l'ancienne Égypte</i>; Nietzold, <i>Die Ehe in Aegypten</i>; Greenfel, +<i>Greek Papyri</i>; Amélineau, <i>La Morale Égyptienne</i>; Müller, +<i>Liebespoesie der alten Aegypten</i>, and the numerous works of M. +Maspero and Flinders Petrie. Simcox, writing on "Ownership in Egypt," +gives a good summary of the subject, <i>Primitive Civilisations</i>, Vol. +I. pp. 204-211; also Hobhouse, <i>Morals in Evolution</i>, Vol. I. p. 182, +<i>et seq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> Paturet, <i>La Condition juridique de la femme dans +l'ancienne Égypte</i>; p. 69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> Nietzold, <i>Die Ehe in Aegypten</i>, p. 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> <i>Études égyptologiques</i>, livre XIII. pp. 230, 294; +quoted by Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 204.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>; Vol. I. pp. 210-211, citing +Revillout; <i>Cours de droit</i>, p. 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> This is the view of Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 210-211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> Hobhouse, Vol. I. p. 185 (<i>Note</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> <i>Les obligations en droit égyptien</i>, p. 82; quoted by +Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. pp. 209-210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 205.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> <i>Revue égyptologique</i>, I. p. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Revillout, <i>Cours de droit</i>, Vol. I. p. 222.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI. p. 393.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> Amélineau, <i>La morale égyptienne</i>, p. 194.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> Ellis, citing Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, p. 196. This is also +the opinion of Müller.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Revillout, <i>Revue égyptologique</i>, Vol. I. p. 113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, pp. 244-245, citing Nietzold, p. +79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> Letourneau (<i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 176) takes this +view.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> This is, of course, a survival of the old matriarchal +custom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. L. pp. 5-186. Herodotus (Bk. +II. p. 42) states that many Egyptians, like the Greeks, had adopted +monogamy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> Burgsch, <i>Hist.</i>, Vol. I. p. 262, quoted by Simcox.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> Maspero, <i>Hist.</i> (German tr.), p. 41; see Simcox, <i>op. +cit.</i>, p. 199.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> This tablet is in the British Museum, London. S. +Egyptian Gallery, Bay 29, No. 1027.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> Simcox, Vol. I. pp. 218, 219.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> 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 <i>Guide to the +Egyptian Collection</i> p. 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> This passage in other translations reads: "she is a +field profitable to its owner."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> From the Boulak Papyrus (1500 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>). I have +followed in part the translation given by Griffiths, <i>The World's +Literature</i>, p. 5340, and in part that of Maspero given in <i>Life in +Ancient Egypt and Assyria</i> (trans. by Alice Morton, p. 16).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> Wall case 102, Nos. 187, 38, and 430.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> Vestibule of North Egyptian Gallery, East doorway, No. +14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> South Gallery, No. 565.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> Simcox, <i>Primitive Civilisation</i>, Vol. I. pp. 9, 271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> Hommel, <i>Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens</i>, p. +271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> Simcox, who quotes Hommel, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 320.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> Simcox, Vol. I. p 361.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI. p. 393. Ellis quotes +Revillout, "La femme dans l'antiquité," <i>Journal Asiatique</i>, 1906, +Vol. VII. p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> I quote these facts from Hobhouse, <i>Morals in +Evolution</i>, Vol. I. p. 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 181.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 180.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Simcox, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 374, citing <i>Les +Obligations</i>, p. 346; also <i>Revue d'Assyriologie</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> This deed was translated by Dr. Peiser, +<i>Keilinschriftliche Aktenstücke aus babylonischen Städte</i>, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> See Simcox, Chapters, "Commercial Law and Contract +Tablets" and "Domestic Relations and Family Law," <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. +pp. 320-379.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> To give a few examples, Plutarch mentions that the +relations between husband and wife in Sparta were at first secret +(Plutarch, <i>Lycurgas</i>). The story told by Pausanias about Ulysses' +marriage points to the custom of the husband going to live with his +wife's family (<i>Pausanias</i>, 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. (<i>Athenæus</i>, 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" (<i>Herodotus</i>, 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 +(<i>Herodotus</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> For a full account of the Homeric woman the reader is +referred to Lenz, <i>Geschichte des Weiber im Heroischen Zeitalter</i>, an +admirable work. The fullest English account will be found in Mr. +Gladstone's <i>Homeric Studies</i>, Vol. II. See also Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, +pp. 11-23, where an excellent summary of the subject is given.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> <i>Odyssey</i>, I. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> <i>Iliad</i>, VI. 429-430.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> <i>Odyssey</i>, VI. 182.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> Gladstone, <i>Homeric Studies</i>, Vol. II. p. 507.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> <i>Odyssey</i>, VII. 142 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, p. 18-19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> <i>Odyssey</i>, III. 450; <i>Iliad</i>, VI. 301.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> Simcox, <i>Primitive Civilisation</i>, Vol. I. p. 199. +Reference may also be made to the love-charm translated by M. +Revillout in his version of the <i>Tales of Selna</i>, p. 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> 2 <i>Nic. Ethics</i>, VIII. 14; <i>Econom.</i> I. p. 94.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, p. 195.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <i>Lycurgus</i>, XXXVII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, XXVI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, pp. 28-29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Plutarch, <i>Apophthegms of the +Lacedemonians</i>.—<i>Demandes Romaines</i>, LXV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> Lycurgus, Polybius, XII. 6. Xenophon, <i>Rep. Laced.</i> I. +Aristotle, <i>Pol.</i> II. 9. Aristotle notes especially the sexual liberty +allowed to women.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> Donaldson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> <i>Polit.</i> II. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> Plutarch, <i>Life of Agis</i>; Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, pp. 34, +35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>Morals in Evolution</i>, Vol. I. p. 208.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> 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, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 196).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> Xenophon, <i>Economicus</i>, VII.-IX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> Isæus <i>de Pyrrhi Her.</i>, § 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> <i>Antig.</i> 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). <i>See</i> Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, pp. 53, 54 and note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> "The Position of Women in History"; Essay in the volume +<i>The Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal</i>, p. 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> <i>Medea.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> Theodota, <i>Xen. 'Mem.'</i>, III. <span class="fakesc">II.</span> Socrates +conversed with Theodota on art and discussed with her how she could +best find true friends.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> <i>Symposium.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> <i>Pericles</i>, 24. Thargalia used her influence over the +Greeks to win them over to the cause of the King of Persia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> Timandra, Plut., <i>Alcib.</i>, c. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> Geoffrey Mortimer (W.M. Gallichan), <i>Chapters on Human +Love</i>, p. 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> 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, <i>Greek Thinkers</i>, Vol. III.; Ivo Bruns, <i>Frauenemancipation +in Athen</i>; the fine monograph, <i>Aspasie de Milet</i>, by Becq Fouquières; +Donaldson's <i>Woman</i>, pp. 60-67; also Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. +VI. p. 308.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> 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, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 60, 61 and 63).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> Gomperz, <i>Greek Thinkers</i>, Vol. III. p. 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI. p. 308; Donaldson, <i>op. +cit.</i>, p. 62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> <i>Frauenemancipation in Athen</i>, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> <i>Medea</i>, Mr. Gilbert Murray's translation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> 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 Cœculus +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 (<i>Golden Bough</i>, Pt. I. <i>The +Magic Art</i>, Vol. II. pp. 270, 289, 312).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> Quoted from <i>Position of Woman, Actual and Ideal</i>; +Essay on "The Position of Woman in History," p. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, pp. 120, 201. The +<i>usus</i> 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 <i>manum mariti</i> as if she had eaten +of the sacred cake.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>Morals in Evolution</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> <i>Coemption</i> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 211 (<i>note</i>). 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."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> Donaldson, <i>op. cit.</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> St. Augustine, <i>Confessions</i>, Bk. IX. Ch. IX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> Letourneau, <i>Evolution of Marriage</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI. p. 396.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> Hecker, <i>History of Women's Rights</i>, p. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> Ellis, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 395.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> Hobhouse, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I. p. 213.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> Maine, <i>Ancient Law</i>, Ch. V.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> McCabe, <i>The Religion of Women</i>, p. 26 <i>et seq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> <i>Santiago</i> (Mediæval Towns Series), p. 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> Donaldson, <i>Woman</i>, pp. 124-125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> <i>Roman Society</i>, p. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> <i>Morals in Evolution</i>, Vol. I. p. 216.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> <i>Woman</i>, p. 113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> <i>Digest</i>, XLVIII. 13, 5.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>PART III</h2> + +<h4>MODERN SECTION</h4> + +<h3>PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN PROBLEM</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span><br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>SEX DIFFERENCES</h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span><br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>SEX DIFFERENCES</h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Iwan Bloch.</span></p></div> +<br /> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>under-valuing of the +one-half of life has lost to society the service of a strong +unsubjugated motherhood.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>preserves its individuality and +absorbs the masculine cellule, or is impregnated by it</i>. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"The passivity of the female in love," it has been said wisely by +Marro in his fine work <i>La Pubertà</i>, "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."<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>ease with which the pretence is +thrown off in every case where the necessity arises.</p> + +<p>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<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> 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 <i>passive</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>potestas</i> and <i>manus</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>Another woman writer, Miss May Sinclair, +in a brilliant "Defence of Men" (<i>English Review</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>penetrates into every expression of the +feminine character.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>hetairæ</i>, and also to the common practice of homo-sexual love.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>The +most invincible of all things is a woman!</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In face of this we may well pause.</p> + +<p>What to do is another matter. But I am mainly concerned just now in +trying to see facts clearly. And to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>from</i> man" is the watch-cry of women's emancipation that surely is to +be, but "Free <i>with</i> man."</p> + +<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> a type of woman in whom the +sexual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> See Havelock Ellis, "The Sexual Impulse in Woman," +<i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. III. p. 181, who gives this quotation from +Marro.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> See page 111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> Haddon, "Western Tribes of Torres Straits," <i>Journal of +the Anthropological Society</i>, Vol. XIX., Feb. 1890; cited by Ellis, +<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> See page 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> E. von Wolzogen gives this name, <i>The Third Sex</i>, 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. <i>See</i> p. 62. I have quoted from Iwan Bloch, <i>The Sexual +Life of Our Times</i>, p. 13.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h4>APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON SEX +DIFFERENCES</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>Women and Labour</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Sexual Differences of the Mind and the Artistic Impulse in +Women</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>III.—<i>The Affectability of Woman—Its Connection with the Religious +Impulse</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON SEX +DIFFERENCES</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>Women and Labour</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Geddes and Thompson.</span></p></div> + +<p>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>i.e.</i> 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 <i>Sex and Society</i>, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>woman is what she is largely, because she has lived as she has</i>, and +further, that in the present transition no <i>arbitrary rules may be +laid down by men as to what she should, or should not, can, or cannot +do</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>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?</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Man and Woman</i>; Geddes and Thomson's <i>Sex and +Evolution</i>; Thomas's <i>Sex and Society</i>; and H. Campbell's <i>Differences +in the Nervous Organisation of Men and Women</i>: 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>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 <i>the same opportunities, but equal</i>. 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: <i>Have the opportunities of the +woman to develop as woman been equal to the opportunities of the man +to develop as man?</i> It is on this question, it seems to me, that our +attention should be fixed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>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 <i>a ancas</i> (pillion fashion) with a young <i>caballero</i>, +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>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.<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Women do not do this because they like +it, but because they are driven to it.</i></p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>regretted, it cannot be avoided. The finding out of new paths entails +some losing of the way.</p> + +<p>Women have to find out what work they can best do; what work they want +to do, and <i>what work men want them to do</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>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?</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Sexual Differences in Mind and the Artistic Impulse in Women</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Theodor +Mundt.</span></p></div> + + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>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>i.e.</i> directly harmful—can be contemptuously +dismissed. Thus the problem is an extraordinarily difficult one. I can +only touch its outer fringe.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>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>i.e.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 o<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>f the value of any save masculine +characteristics in our art, as also in our public and professional +life.</p> + +<p>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. <i>They +know, rather than know how, or why, they know.</i> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>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 <i>Man +and Woman</i>, 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, <i>if it can be +proved</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>Professor Thomson writes thus<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a>—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"We would guard against the temptation to sum up the contrast of +the sexes in epigrams. We regard the woman as relatively <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>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. <i>Moreover the differences of +variability are slight, less than those between members of the +same race living in different conditions.</i> 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. +<i>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.</i> But what is probably true is that +some variations find expression more readily in man and others +more readily in woman."</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To me it seems probable that what Samuel Butler insists upon is true, +and that the origin of variations must <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>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."<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> To take +another instance. We find the fact <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>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<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>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, <i>Marriage</i>—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> "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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>Bloch.<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>to start from in estimating the +potential artistic endowment of women.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>knows, rather +than reasons how he knows</i>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>expression, so that woman may enrich the arts with her +own special experience.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>peculiar +to woman—her pursuing-love of man and her need of a child, will find +their expression in women's art.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>III.—<i>The Affectability of Woman—Its Connection with the Religious +Impulse</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Iwan Bloch.</span></p></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>Love has in it much of the same supernatural element as religion. Both +the sex-act and the act of finding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>There is another point to consider.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>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 <i>pure</i>. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>in women that so many +of them are afraid of the beauty and the natural joys of love.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Moonlight</i>, has placed in the mouth of a priest. +It is the most illuminating passage in one of the most exquisite of +his stories—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> Velazquez is known to us only by the name of his +mother; his father's name was de Silva.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> I have taken these passages from the chapter on "The +Women of Galicia," in my <i>Spain Revisited</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> <i>Man and Woman</i>, p. 377; Möbius, <i>Stachylogie</i>, 1901.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> 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 <i>The Position of Woman, Actual and +Ideal</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> <i>Sexual Life of Our Times</i>, p. 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> <i>Sex and Society</i>, pp. 306, 307.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> Quoted by Bloch, <i>Sexual Life of Our Times</i>, p. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> <i>Sexual Life of Our Times</i>, pp. 80, 81.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h4>THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>I.—<i>Marriage</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Divorce</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>III.—<i>Prostitution</i></h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4><i>I.—Marriage</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">H.G. Wells.</span></p></div> + +<p>"There is no subject," says Bernard Shaw in his delightful preface to +<i>Getting Married</i>, "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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Yet just because of this imperative urging the greater <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>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 <i>feminine</i>; 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>of the community under the circumstances of the present.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Let us look now at the practical direction of the present. We have +reached these conclusions as a starting-point—</p> + +<p>(1) We have inherited marriage as a social, nay more, a racial +institution.</p> + +<p>(2) The practical moral end of marriage, whether we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>(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.</p> + +<p>(4) It is the business of the State to make such laws that the +interests of the race, <i>i.e.</i> the children, are protected.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>life—the physical and mental development and the joy of the woman and +the man.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>experiments in sensation will rot in their emptiness and their +self-love.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>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!</p> + +<p>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, <i>Marriage</i>, a true and terrible indictment of women.</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>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!"</p></div> + +<p>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 <i>usus</i>, which supplanted the earlier and +sacred <i>confarreatio</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>Traditional customs in marriage, as in all other departments of life, +tend to become worn out, and whenever <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>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 +<i>usus</i>, which was further modified by the practice known as <i>conventio +in manus</i>, 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 <i>manus</i>. It is possible that by some such simple way of +escape we may come to change the pressure of our coercive marriage.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>outside of legal marriage.<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> 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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>that +law and religion have been invoked in legal marriage.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>people <i>ought +to do</i>, but what they <i>actually do</i> and are likely <i>to go on doing</i>. +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>II.—<i>Divorce</i></h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">Havelock Ellis.</span></p></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>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".</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I have already spoken of loyalty and duty in relation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This condition of safety by free-divorce once established, would do +much to mitigate the hostility against <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>III.—<i>Prostitution</i></h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nought so vile that on the earth doth live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to the earth some special good doth give;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor nought so good but strained from that fair use,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And vice sometimes by action dignified."—<i>Romeo and Juliet.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In nature there's no blemish but the mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None can be called deformed but the unkind."—<i>Twelfth Night.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>conditions of marriage, being correlated +with that institution in its present coercive form, in fact, part of +it and growing out of it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>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 <i>Les Avariés</i>: +it is a tragedy that should be read by all women.</p> + +<p>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 <i>there was +no problem of prostitution!</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>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—</p> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>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 <i>will not enter it</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span>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 (<i>Prostitution in +Hamburg</i>) 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 <i>of +their own will</i> for excitement and the gain of some small personal +gift.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>end to be gained. This was first made clear to me in a conversation +with a member of the higher <i>demi-monde</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Now the really extraordinary thing to me was that my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span>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, "<i>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.</i>"</p> + +<p>It was then that I realised the immensity of the gulf which separated +my outlook from that of this successful courtesan. To her <i>to be not +particular</i> 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>I would like here to bring forward as a chief cause of prostitution a +factor which, though mentioned by many investigators,<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a></p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>This is what seems to me to be the explanation.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> I would refer my readers to the Chapters on "Sexual +Morality" and "Marriage" in Havelock Ellis's <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> Lombroso mentions the prevalence of sexual frigidity +among prostitutes (<i>La Donna Delinquente</i>, p. 401). See also Havelock +Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> 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?</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h4>THE END OF THE INQUIRY</h4> + +<div class="block2"><p class="hang">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.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span><br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE END OF THE INQUIRY</h4> + +<div class="block3"><p>"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."—<span class="sc">George Hirth.</span></p></div> + +<br /> + +<p>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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>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?</p> + +<p>The answer is a confident and joyful "Yes!"</p> + +<p>The re-birth of woman is no dream.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Woman is learning to believe in herself.</p> + +<p>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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span>consuming, not giving: getting little from life, +giving back little to life.</p> + +<p>But woman is awakening to find her place in the eternal purpose. She +is adding understanding to her feeling and passion.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>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 +<i>go on with man</i>, and not to <i>get from man</i>, 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. <i>They must come out and be +common women among common men.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>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.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style='width: 15%;' /> +<br /> + +<p>"I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go +over hither."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What matter? We shall be there in them.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>have been able to gain. And it is sufficient. This is the end and the +beginning.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then ring the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then springs the crowning race of human-kind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May these things be."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span><br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h3> + +<br /> + +<div class="block3"><p>N.B.—This bibliography is intended as a guide to the student; it is +merely representative, not in any way exhaustive.</p> + +<p>The books to which direct reference is made are marked with an +asterisk.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>BIOLOGICAL PART</h4> + +<p class="noin">*<span class="sc">Audubon</span>: Scènes de la nature dans les États Unis (<i>French trans.</i>).<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ornithological Biography: an Account of the Habits of the Birds of +the United States of America.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Bateson, W.</span>: Materials for the Study of Variation.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mendel's Principles of Heredity.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Bonhote, J. Lewis</span>: Birds of Britain.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Brehm</span>: Tierleben.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ornithology, or the Science of Birds. (<i>From the text of Brehm.</i>)</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Brooks, W.K.</span>: The Law of Heredity.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Foundations of Zoology.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Büchner</span>: Mind in Animals (<i>Eng. trans.</i>).<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Liebe und Liebesleben in der Tierwelt.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Butler, Samuel</span>: Life and Habit.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Evolution Old and New.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Darwin, Charles</span>: The Descent of Man.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Origin of Species.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Darwin, Francis</span>: Life and Letters of Charles Darwin.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Ellis, Havelock</span>: Psychology of Sex. Vol. III.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Espinas</span>: Sociétés animales.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Fabre, J. Henri</span>: Mœurs des insectes.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Life and Love of Insects (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Insect Life (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Social Life in the Insect World (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Forbes, H.O.</span>: A Naturalist's Wanderings.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Galton, Francis</span>: Natural Inheritance.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Average Contribution of Each Several Ancestor to the Total Heritage of the Offspring. <i>Pro. Roy. Soc., London, LXI.</i></span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Geddes, Patrick</span>: <i>Articles</i>: "Reproduction," "Sex," "Variation" and "Selection": <i>Encycl. Brit.</i><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Geddes and Tompson, A.J.</span>: The Evolution of Sex. (<i>Cont. Sci. Series.</i>) <i>Rev. ed.</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Problems of Sex.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Häcker</span>: Der Gesang der Vögel.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Haeckel</span>: Generelle Morphologie der Organismen.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Evolution of Man (<i>trans.</i> by J. McCabe).</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Hertwig</span>: The Biological Problem of To-day (<i>trans.</i> by P. Chalmers Mitchell).<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Houzeau</span>: Études sur les facultés mentales des animaux comparés à celles de l'homme.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Hudson, W.H.</span>: Argentine Ornithology.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Naturalist in La Plata.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Birds and Man.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Huxley, T.H.</span>: A Manual of Invertebrate Animals.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Kellogg</span>: Studies of Variation in Insects.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Letourneau</span>: Evolution of Marriage. (<i>Cont. Sci. Series.</i>)<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Milne-Edwards, Herni</span>: Leçons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie comparée de l'homme et des animaux.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Manual of Zoology (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Histoire naturelle des insectes.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Mivart, St. George</span>: Lessons from Nature as manifested in Mind and Matter.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Common Frog. (<i>Nat. Series.</i>)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Man and Apes: an Exposition of Structural Resemblance upon the Questions of Affinity and Origin.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On the Genesis of Species.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Morgan, C. Lloyd</span>: Animal Life and Intelligence.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Habit and Instinct.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Animal Behaviour.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Poulton, E.B.</span>: The Colours of Animals.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> +<br /> +<span class="sc">Punnett, R.C.</span>: On Nutrition and Sex-determination in Man. (<i>Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc.</i>, XII.)<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Ribot, Th.</span>: Heredity (<i>Eng. trans.</i>).<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Romanes, G.J.</span>: Darwin and after Darwin.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Animal Intelligence. (<i>Int. Sci. Series.</i>)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mental Evolution in Animals.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Thomson, J.A.</span>: Synthetic Summary of the Influence of the Environment upon the Organism. (<i>Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc., Edinburgh, IX.</i>)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Heredity. (<i>Pro. Sci. Series.</i>)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Science of Life.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Varigny, de</span>: Experimental Evolution. (<i>Nat. Series.</i>)<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Vernon, H.M.</span>: Variation in Animals and Plants. (<i>Int. Sci. Series.</i>)<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Vreis, Hugo de</span>: Species and Varieties (<i>trans.</i>).<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Wallace, A.R.</span>: Darwinism.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Ward, Lester</span>: Pure Sociology.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Weissmann</span>: Essays upon Heredity (<i>trans.</i>).<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Germ-plasma Theory of Heredity (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Effect of External Influences on Development. <i>Romanes Lecture, Oxford.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Evolution Theory (<i>trans.</i> by A.J. Tompson).</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Wilson, E.B.</span>: The Cell in Development and Inheritance.<br /> +</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>HISTORICAL PART</h4> + +<p class="noin">*<span class="sc">Amélineau</span>: La Morale égyptienne.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Arnot, F.S.</span>: Garenganzas.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Bachofen</span>: Das Mutterrecht. (<i>French trans. of Intro. by Giraud-Teulon.</i>)<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Backer, Louis de</span>: Le Droit de la femme dans l'antiquité.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Bader, Mlle. C.</span>: La femme grecque: étude de la vie antique.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">La femme romaine: étude de la vie antique.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Bancroft, H.H.</span>: The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Becq de Fouquières</span>: Aspasie de Milet.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Bonwick, J.</span>: Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Brandt, P.</span>: Sappho.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span><br /> + +<span class="sc">Brugsch, E.</span>: Histoire d'Égypte.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Bruns, Ivo</span>: Frauenemancipation in Athen.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Budge, E.A. Wallis</span>: Book of the Dead (<i>trans.</i>).<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Burton, Sir R.F.</span>: First Footsteps in East Africa.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Buttles, J.R.</span>: The Queens of Egypt: <i>with a preface by Maspero.</i><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Charlevoix, le P. de</span>: Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Crawley</span>: The Mystic Rose.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Crooke, W.</span>: The Tribes and Castes of the North-west Provinces and Oudh.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Cushing, F.H.</span>: Zünie Folk Tales.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Dalton, E.J.</span>: Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Dargun, L. Von</span>: Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Davy, J.</span>: An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and its Inhabitants.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Dawson, J.</span>: Australian Aborigines.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Dennett, R.S.</span>: "At the Back of the Black Man's Mind." Journal of the African. Vol. I.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Dill</span>: Roman Society. <i>Three volumes.</i><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Donaldson, J.</span>: Woman; Her Position and Influence in Greece and Rome and among the Early Christians.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Ellis, Havelock</span>: Man and Woman.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Psychology of Sex. Vol. VI.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Ellis, W.</span>: History of Madagascar.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Featherman, A.</span>: A Social History of the Races of Mankind.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Fink</span>: Primitive Love and Love Stories.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Fison and Howitt</span>: Kamilaroi and Kurnia; Group Marriage and Relationship, etc.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Frazer, J.G.</span>: The Golden Bough: <i>The Magic Art</i>, 3rd ed.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Giraud-Teulon, A.</span>: Les Origines de mariage et de la famille.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Gladstone, W.E.</span>: Homeric Studies. Vol. II.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Gomperz</span>: Greek Thinkers.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Gray, J.H.</span>: China, a History of the Laws, Manners and Customs of the People.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Griffith</span>: The World's Literature.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Hartland, E.S.</span>: Primitive Paternity.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Hecker, E.A.</span>: History of Woman's Rights.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Hommel, F.</span>: Geschichte Babyloniens.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Civilisation of the East (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Hobhouse, L.T.</span>: Morals in Evolution.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Howard, G.E.</span>: History of Matrimonial Institutions.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Howitt, A.W.</span>: The Native Tribes of South-east Australia.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Organisation of the Australian Tribes.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Jacob, P.L.</span>: Les Courtisanes de l'ancienne Rome.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Johns, C.H.W.</span>: Hammurabi, King of Babylon. The Oldest Code of Laws in the World.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Kingsley, Mary H.</span>: Travels in West Africa.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Kohler and Peiser</span>: Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Laboulaye, Ed.</span>: Recherches sur la condition civile et politique des femmes, depuis les Romains jusqu'à nos jours.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Lacombe, Paul</span>: La Famille dans la société romaine: étude de moralité comparée.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Lafiteau, J.F.</span>: Mœurs des sauvages américains.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Latham</span>: Descriptive Ethnology.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Lecky, W.E.H.</span>: History of European Morals, from Augustus to Charlemagne.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Lefevre, M.</span>: La Femme à travers l'histoire.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Legouvé, E.</span>: Histoire morale des femmes.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Lenz, C.S.</span>: Geschichte der Weiber im heroischen Zeitalter.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Letourneau</span>: Evolution of Marriage. (<i>Cont. Sci. Series.</i>)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">La Condition de la femme dans les diverses races et civilisations.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Lippert, J.</span>: Kulturgeschichte, etc.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Geschichte der Familie.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Lubbock, Lord Avebury</span>: Origin of Civilisation.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marriage, Totemism and Religion.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Macdonald, D.</span>: Africana.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Mahaffy, J.P.</span>: Social Life in Greece.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Maine</span>: Ancient Law.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Marsden, W.</span>: History of Sumatra.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Martin, L.A.</span>: Histoire de la femme; sa condition politique, civile, morale et religieuse.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Marx, V.</span>: Die Stellung der Frauen in Babylonien.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Mason, Otis</span>: The Origin of Inventions, a Study of Industry among Primitive Peoples. <i>Cont. Sci. Series.</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. <i>Anthro. Series.</i></span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Maspero, Sir G.</span>: The Dawn of Civilisation (<i>trans.</i>).<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte ancienne.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ancient Egypt and Assyria (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">New Light on Ancient Egypt (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">McCabe, J.</span>: The Religion of Woman.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">McGee, W.J.</span>: The Beginning of Marriage. (<i>Am. Anthro. Soc.</i> <i>Printed for private circulation.</i>)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Aborigines of the District of Columbia and the Lower Potomac.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Indians of North America.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Mommsen</span>: History of Rome.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Morgan, L.H.</span>: Ancient Society; or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">House and House-life of the American Aborigines. <i>Cont. to N. Am. Ethn. Vol. IV.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. Smithsonian Contributions.</i></span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Morillot, L.</span>: De la condition des enfants nés hors mariage dans l'antiquité et au moyen âge en Europe.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Müller, W. Max</span>: Liebespoesie der alten Aegypter.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Munzinger, W.</span>: Ostafrikanische Studien.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Nietzold, J.</span>: Die Ehe in Aegypten, etc.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Owen, M.A.</span>: Folk-lore of the Musquakie Indians of North America.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Paturet, G.</span>: La condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne Égypte.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Pearson, Karl</span>: The Chances of Death.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Peiser</span>: Skizze der babylonischen Gesellschaft.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Perry, W.C.</span>: The Women of Homer.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Petherick, J.</span>: Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Petrie, Flinders</span>: Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Egyptian Tales translated from the Papyri.</i></span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Ploss, H.</span>: Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Powell, J.W.</span>: Wyandot Government. <i>Report of the Bureau of Am. Ethn.</i><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Rainneville, J. de</span>: La Femme dans l'antiquité et d'après la morale <i>naturelle.</i><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Ratzel, T.</span>: History of Mankind.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Reclus, Élie</span>: Les Primitifs (<i>Eng. trans.</i>, Primitive Folk. <i>Cont. Sci. Series</i>).<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Revillout, E.</span>: Cours de droit égyptien.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Les obligations en droit égyptien, comparées aux autres droits de l'antiquité.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Etudes égyptologiques.</i></span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Rhys and Brynmor Jones</span>: The Welsh People.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Roby, H.J.</span>: Roman Private Law in the Times of Cicero and of the Antonines.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Sachot</span>: L'Île de Ceylon.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Sayce</span>: Records of the Past.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Schoolcraft, H.R.</span>: History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Sibree, J.</span>: The Great African Island.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Simcox, E.J.</span>: Primitive Civilisations.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Spencer and Gillen</span>: The Native Tribes of Central Australia.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Spencer, H.</span>: Descriptive Sociology.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Starcke, C.N.</span>: The Primitive Family.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Thomas, W.J.</span>: Sex and Society.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Turner</span>: Thibet.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Tylor, Ed. B.</span>: Researches into the Early History of Mankind.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Primitive Culture.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Matriarchal Family System. <i>Nineteenth Century, July, 1896.</i></span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Waitz-Gerland, F.</span>: Anthropologie der Naturvölker (<i>Eng. trans.</i>).<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Introduction to Anthropology.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Wake</span>: Evolution of Morality.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Westermark</span>: The History of Human Marriage.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Origin and Development of Moral Ideas.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">White, R.E.</span>: Women in Ptolemaic Egypt.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Wiese, L.</span>: Zur Geschichte und Bildung der Frauen.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Voth, H.R.</span>: Traditions of the Hopi.<br /> +</p> + +<br /> + +<h4>MODERN PART</h4> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Albert, C.</span>: Free Love.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Bebel, H.</span>: Woman in the Past, Present, and Future (<i>trans.</i>).<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Blackwell, Eliz.</span>: The Human Element in Sex.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Blaschko, A.</span>: Prostitution in the Nineteenth Century.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Blease, W.L.</span>: The Emancipation of English Women.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> +<br /> +<span class="sc">Bouchacourt</span>: La Grossesse.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Braun, Lily</span>: Die Frauenfrage.<br /><br /> + +"<span class="sc">British Medical Journal</span>": "The Unborn Child: Its Care and its Rights," <i>Aug. 1907</i>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"The Influences of Antenatal Conditions on Infantile Mortality," <i>Aug. 1904</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Physical Deterioration," <i>Oct. 1905</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Infant Mortality. Huddersfield Scheme," <i>Dec. 1907</i>.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Féré, C.S.</span>: La Pathologie des émotions. (<i>Eng. trans.</i>, The Pathology of the Emotions.)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">L'Instinct sexuel.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Freud, S.</span>: Contributions to the Sexual Theory (<i>trans.</i>).<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Article on Sex abstinence, <i>Sexual Problem</i>, March 1908.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Galton, F.</span>: Restrictions in Marriage and Eugenics as a Factor in Religion.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Godfrey, J.A.</span>: The Science of Sex.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Gross-Hoffinger, A.J.</span>: The Fate of Woman and Prostitution, etc.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Hall, Stanley</span>: Adolescence.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Haynes, E.S.P.</span>: Our Divorce Law.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Hinton, James</span>: MS., written 1870, and left unpublished.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Quoted by H. Ellis, <i>Psychology of Sex</i>, Vol. VI.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Hirschfeld, M.</span>: Sexual Stages of Transition.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Hirth, George</span>: Wege zur Liebe.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wege zur Heimat.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Howard</span>: History of Matrimonial Institutions.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Jeannel, J.</span>: Prostitution in Large Towns in the Nineteenth Century.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Key, Ellen</span>: On Love and Marriage.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Century of the Child.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Woman Movement.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Kisch</span>: Sexual Life of Women.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Krafft-Ebing</span>: Psychopathia Sexualis.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Lapie, Paul</span>: La Femme dans la famille.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Lea</span>: History of Sacerdotal Celibacy.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Lippert, H.</span>: Prostitution in Hamburg.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Lombroso e Ferrero</span>: La donna delinquente, la prostituta, e la donna normale.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>Incom. Eng. trans.</i>) The Female Offender. (<i>Eng. Criminology Series</i>.)</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Löwenfeld</span>: Sexuelleben und Nervenleiden.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> +<br /> +*<span class="sc">Mantegazza, P.</span>: L'Amore. (<i>French trans.</i>, L'amour dans l'humanité.)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Art of Choosing a Wife (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Art of Choosing a Husband (<i>trans.</i>).</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Marcuse, Max</span>: Unmarried Mothers. (<i>Vol. XVII. of Documents of Great Towns.</i>)<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Marro, A.</span>: La Puberté chez l'homme et chez la femme.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Mayreder, Rosa</span>: Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Mill, J.S.</span>: Subjection of Women.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Möibus, P.J.</span>: Stachyologie.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Moll, A.</span>: Hypnotism. (<i>Trans.</i>, <i>Cont. Sci. Series</i>.)<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Morrison, W.D.</span>: Crime and its Causes.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Mortimer, Geoffrey</span> (<span class="sc">W.M. Gallichan</span>): Chapters on Human Love.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Newman, G.</span>: Infant Mortality.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Northcote, H.</span>: Christianity and Sex Problems.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Parent-Duchatelet, A.J.B.</span>: De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Parsons, C.E.</span>: The Family.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Pearson, Karl</span>: The Chances of Death.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ethics of Free Thought.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Groundwork of Eugenics.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Péchin</span>: La Puériculture avant la naissance.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Ryan, M.</span>: Prostitution in London, with a Comparative View of that of Paris and New York (in 1839).<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Sanger, W.M.</span>: The History of Prostitution.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Schmid, Marie von</span>: Mutterdienst.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Schreiner, Olive</span>: Woman and Labour.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Woman Movement of our Day. (<i>Harper's Bazaar</i>, <i>Jan. 1902</i>.)</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Sénancour</span>: De l'amour.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Shaw, G.B.</span>: Man and Superman.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Getting Married.</span><br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Stetson</span> (Mrs. Perkins Gilman): Woman and Economics.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Man-made World.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Stocker, Helen</span>: Die Liebe und die Frauen.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Tarde</span>: La Morale sexuelle. (<i>Archives d'anthropologie criminelle.</i>)<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Thompson, Helen B.</span>: The Mental Traits of Sex.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> +<br /> +<span class="sc">Tilt</span>: Elements of Health and Principles of Female Hygiene.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Topinard</span>: Anthropologie générale.<br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Wardlaw, R.</span>: Lectures on Female Prostitution; its Nature, Extent, Effects, Guilt, Causes, and Remedy.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Weininger, Otto</span>: Sex and Character.<br /><br /> + +*<span class="sc">Wells, H.G.</span>: First and Last Things.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Modern Utopia.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marriage.</span><br /><br /> + +<span class="sc">Wollstonecraft, Mary</span>: Vindication of the Rights of Women.<br /> +</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>INDEX</h3> +<br /> + +<ul><li>A</li> + +<li>Adoption of children, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></li> + +<li>Adultery, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> +<li>—— among primitive peoples, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> +<li>—— in Babylon, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> +<li>—— in Egypt, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> +<li>—— in Greece, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219-220</a></li> +<li>—— in Rome, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li>Æschines, his dialogue on Aspasia, <a href="#Page_224">224-225</a></li> + +<li>Affectability of women, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308-309</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li>Africa, the maternal family in, <a href="#Page_162">162-164</a></li> +<li>—— power of Royal Princesses in, <a href="#Page_161">161-162</a></li> + +<li>Alladians of Ivory Coast, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li>Amazons, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + +<li><i>Ambel-anak</i> marriage, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + +<li>American Indians. <i>See</i> Iroquois</li> + +<li>Amphibians, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li>Animals, courtship and love among, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78-79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88-99</a></li> +<li>—— the family among, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> +<li>—— varied forms of the sexual association among, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87-88</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> +<li>—— variation in parental care of offspring among, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108-111</a></li> + +<li>Arabs, divorce among the ancient, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> +<li>—— traces of the mother-age among the, <a href="#Page_153">153-154</a></li> + +<li>Argus pheasant, courtship of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li>Arrogance of modern woman, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a></li> + +<li>Art in relation to the sexual impulse, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li> + +<li>Artistic impulse in women, <a href="#Page_308">308-314</a></li> + +<li>Arts, woman's entrance into the, <a href="#Page_314">314-317</a></li> + +<li>Asceticism among early Christians, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323-324</a></li> +<li>—— later change in, <a href="#Page_325">325-326</a></li> +<li>—— evils of, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> +<li>—— value of, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li> + +<li>Ascetics' attitude towards sexual love, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li>Asexual reproduction, <a href="#Page_36">36-39</a></li> + +<li>Aspasia, <a href="#Page_224">224-226</a></li> + +<li>Athens. <i>See</i> Greece</li> + +<li>Australia, communal marriage in, <a href="#Page_146">146-147</a></li> + +<li>Australians, West, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>B</li> + +<li>Babylon, position of women in ancient, <a href="#Page_201">201-210</a></li> +<li>—— marriage and divorce in, <a href="#Page_204">204-207</a></li> +<li>—— traces of the mother-age in, <a href="#Page_201">201-202</a></li> +<li>—— trade in, <a href="#Page_207">207-210</a></li> + +<li>Bachofen on the mother-age, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li>Bambala tribe, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li>Basanga tribe, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li>Basques, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + +<li>Basso Komo tribe, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li>Bastardy laws, <a href="#Page_348">348-349</a></li> + +<li>Bavili tribe, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li>Beauty-tests, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98-100</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + +<li><i>Beena</i> marriage, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + +<li>Bees, <a href="#Page_43">43</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li>Biology, importance of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33-35</a></li> + +<li>Birds, love amongst, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li>Birds, amorous preference of females, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span></li> +<li>—— æsthetic perception of, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> +<li>—— family amongst, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102-103</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> +<li>—— female superiority amongst, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> +<li>—— love battles <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> +<li>—— love dances, parades and songs, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92-99</a></li> +<li>—— monogamy amongst, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> +<li>—— secondary sexual characters of, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100-101</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> +<li>—— sex equality amongst, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li>Bloch, Iwan, on promiscuity, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> +<li>—— on the discoveries of M. Currie, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> +<li>—— on woman's influence on the arts, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li>Borneo native tribes, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + +<li>Botocudos tribe, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + +<li>Brain, sexual differences in, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li>Bride-price, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> (<i>note</i>), <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li>Britain, traces of the mother-age in, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li>Budding, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li>Bücher, Karl, on woman's early poetic activity, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li>Burma, high status of women in, <a href="#Page_156">156-157</a></li> +<li>—— marriage system and divorce in, <a href="#Page_157">157-158</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>C</li> + +<li>Canon law, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li>Canute; his marriage as evidence of mother-right, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li>Celibacy, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></li> + +<li>Cell-division, <a href="#Page_35">35-39</a></li> + +<li>Certificate of health before marriage, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> + +<li>Ceylon, polyandry in, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li>Chastity, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327-328</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373-374</a></li> +<li>—— as the foundation of marriage, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li>Child, relation to the mother, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> +<li>—— rights of the, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256-258</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345-346</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> + +<li>Child, need of two parents, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></li> + +<li>China, traces of mother-age in, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + +<li>Christianity, its influence on women, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317-328</a></li> +<li>—— in connection with marriage and divorce, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li>Cirripedes, complemental males among the, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li>Civilisation and sex, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265-266</a></li> + +<li>Clandestine transitory loves, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li>Clothing; effect of, on women, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303-304</a></li> + +<li>Cocotte, the, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li>Concubinage, <a href="#Page_189">189-191</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li>Connection between bodily and spiritual impulses, <a href="#Page_323">323-324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li>Contract marriage. <i>See</i> Marriage</li> + +<li>Conventional lies of the present day, <a href="#Page_254">254</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258-261</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li>Co-operation among animals, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li>Coquetry, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + +<li>Courtship: its importance, <a href="#Page_100">100-111</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254-256</a></li> + +<li>Cruelty in relation to sex, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266-267</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>D</li> + +<li>Darwin on sexual selection, <a href="#Page_100">100-101</a></li> + +<li><i>Demi-monde</i>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a></li> + +<li>Differentiation between the sexes: its importance, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248-249</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261-263</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273-276</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295-297</a></li> + +<li>Diotima, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li>Disease and marriage, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360-361</a></li> + +<li>Disinclination for marriage, <a href="#Page_61">61-63</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225-226</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268-270</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> + +<li>Disproportion in numbers between the sexes, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li>Divorce among primitive peoples, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> +<li>—— in Babylon, <a href="#Page_205">205-207</a></li> +<li>—— in Burma, <a href="#Page_157">157-158</a></li> +<li>—— in Egypt, <a href="#Page_191">191-192</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> +<li>—— in Greece, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> +<li>—— in Rome, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> +<li>—— attitude of Church and State towards, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> +<li>—— causes for, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Divorce by mutual consent, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span></li> +<li>—— importance of, for women, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> +<li>—— psychical, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> +<li>—— reform of, <a href="#Page_355">355-356</a></li> + +<li>Donaldson on high character of Roman women, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li>Duplex sexual morality, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>E</li> + +<li>Economic factor in marriage, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215-216</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342-343</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346-347</a></li> +<li>—— —— in prostitution, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362-363</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a></li> +<li>—— dependence of women, <a href="#Page_23">23-24</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li> + +<li>Egg-cell. <i>See</i> Ovum</li> + +<li>Egoism of modern woman, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380-381</a></li> + +<li>Egypt, position of women in ancient, <a href="#Page_179">179-201</a></li> +<li>—— concubinage in, <a href="#Page_189">189-191</a></li> +<li>—— divorce in, <a href="#Page_191">191-192</a></li> +<li>—— family affection in, <a href="#Page_192">192-193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194-197</a></li> +<li>—— marriage contracts in, <a href="#Page_182">182-185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186-191</a></li> +<li>—— polygamy in, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> +<li>—— traces of the mother-age in, <a href="#Page_185">185-186</a></li> + +<li>Ellis, Havelock, on sexual differences, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> +<li>—— on the position of women in Rome, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> +<li>—— on the artistic impulse in women, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> +<li>—— on religious sexual perception, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li>Emancipation of woman, <a href="#Page_4">4-8</a></li> + +<li>Emma, her marriage with Canute, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li>Emotivity of women, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li>Enfranchisement of women, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></li> + +<li>Ennoblement of love, <a href="#Page_347">347-348</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-352</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></li> + +<li>Environment, influences of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299-301</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li>Erotic element in religion, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319-326</a></li> + +<li>Ethelbald, King of Kent, his marriage as evidence of mother-right, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li>Ethelbald, King of W. Saxons, his marriage as evidence of mother-right, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li>Eugenics, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345-346</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> + +<li>Euripides on women, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li>Exchange of wives among primitive peoples, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> +<li>—— —— in Sparta, <a href="#Page_218">218</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>F</li> + +<li>Facial expression and sex, <a href="#Page_311">311-312</a></li> + +<li>Factory workers, condition of, <a href="#Page_281">281-283</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287-288</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362-363</a></li> + +<li>Fairy stories, connection with mother-rights, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li>Family, among animals. <i>See</i> Birds and Animals</li> +<li>—— —— primitive peoples. <i>See</i> Mother-age</li> +<li>—— —— ancient civilisation. <i>See</i> Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome</li> + +<li>Fanti of the Gold Coast, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li>Father in relation to the family, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164-167</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171-175</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li>Father-right. <i>See</i> Mother-age</li> + +<li>Fear of love in women, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325-326</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369-370</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373-374</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></li> + +<li>Female, origin of, <a href="#Page_41">41-42</a></li> + +<li>Fertilisation, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li>Festivals, connection with mother-right, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li>Festivals, religious, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> + +<li>Finery, love of, in women, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a></li> + +<li>Fishes, love among, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> +<li>—— parental care among, <a href="#Page_57">57-58</a></li> +<li>—— sex differences among, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78-79</a></li> + +<li>Flirtation. <i>See</i> Coquetry</li> + +<li>Freedom to love for women, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li>Freedom to work for women, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li>Free-love, a criticism of, <a href="#Page_349">349-350</a></li> + +<li>Free-marriage. <i>See</i> Marriage</li> + +<li>Frigidity, sexual, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269-270</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a></li> +<li>—— —— as a cause of prostitution, <a href="#Page_368">368-370</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></li> + +<li>Fuegians, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + +<li>Future of woman, <a href="#Page_377">377-385</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>G<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span></li> + +<li>Gallinaceæ, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li>Galton's <i>Law of Inheritance</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> + +<li>Garos tribe, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Geddes and Tompson on the anabolic character of the female, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> + +<li>Genius in relation to woman, <a href="#Page_301">301-317</a></li> + +<li>Ghasiyas tribe, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li>Goddesses in forefront of early religions, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li>Greece, position of women in ancient, <a href="#Page_210">210-227</a></li> +<li>—— Athens, subjection of women in, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219-223</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> +<li>—— —— divorce in, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> +<li>—— —— <i>Hetairæ</i>, <a href="#Page_222">222-226</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> +<li>—— —— marriage and sale of bride, <a href="#Page_220">220-221</a></li> +<li>—— —— movement of revolt in, <a href="#Page_226">226-227</a></li> +<li>—— Homeric women, freedom of, <a href="#Page_212">212-215</a></li> +<li>—— Spartan women, freedom of, <a href="#Page_216">216-219</a></li> +<li>—— State regulation of love, <a href="#Page_217">217-218</a></li> +<li>—— traces of the mother-age in, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> (<i>note</i>), <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li>Group-marriage. <i>See</i> Marriage</li> + +<li>Growth and reproduction. <i>See</i> Reproduction</li> + +<li>Gynæcocracy. <i>See</i> Mother-age<br /><br /></li> + + +<li>H</li> + +<li>Haeckel on reproduction, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li>Hammurabi. <i>See</i> Babylon, marriage and divorce</li> + +<li>Hartland on mother-right, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> + +<li>Hassanyeh arabs, <a href="#Page_166">166-167</a></li> + +<li>Health and women, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168-169</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284-286</a></li> + +<li>Health in relation to marriage. <i>See</i> Disease</li> + +<li>Hebrews, traces of the mother-age among the ancient, <a href="#Page_128">128-130</a></li> + +<li>Hellenic love, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li>Heredity, importance of, <a href="#Page_17">17-20</a></li> + +<li>Hermaphroditism, <a href="#Page_76">76-77</a></li> + +<li>Hindu mountaineers, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Hobhouse, on the Egyptian marriage contracts, <a href="#Page_183">183</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> + +<li>Hobhouse, on the high character of Roman women, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li>Hopis. <i>See</i> Pueblos</li> + +<li>Hunger and love, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>I</li> + +<li>Illegitimacy, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348-349</a></li> + +<li>Impurity, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323-327</a></li> + +<li>India, the maternal family in, <a href="#Page_147">147-148</a></li> + +<li>Individual responsibility in love, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-353</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358-359</a></li> + +<li>Infantile mortality, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a></li> + +<li>Inferiority of the female, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47-49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53-55</a></li> +<li>—— of the male, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49-53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-58</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65-67</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Insects, love of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li>Instinct in woman, <a href="#Page_296">296-297</a></li> + +<li>Intellect in woman. <i>See</i> Mind</li> + +<li>Intellectual activity and sex, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325-326</a></li> + +<li>Intellectuals among women, <a href="#Page_61">61-63</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268-270</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325-326</a></li> + +<li>Ireland, traces of mother-age in ancient, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li>Iroquois, <a href="#Page_131">131-135</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141-142</a></li> +<li>—— forms of marriage among, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> +<li>—— high status of women among, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141-142</a></li> +<li>—— maternal family among, <a href="#Page_131">131-132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> +<li>—— tribal customs among, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134-135</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>J</li> + +<li>Japan, traces of the maternal family in, <a href="#Page_158">158-159</a></li> + +<li>Judith, her marriage with Ethelbald, <a href="#Page_127">127</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>K</li> + +<li>Kammalaus, polyandry among, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Kasias tribes of India, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Key, Ellen, on the spiritual character of woman's love, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> +<li>—— on free-love, <a href="#Page_349">349</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>L</li> + +<li>Labour and women, <a href="#Page_278">278-292</a></li> +<li>—— division of, between the sexes, <a href="#Page_22">22-24</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li>Labour of primitive women, <a href="#Page_168">168-169</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span></li> +<li>—— of Spanish women, <a href="#Page_284">284-286</a></li> +<li>—— significance of, <a href="#Page_301">301-302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303-304</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a></li> +<li>—— sweated workers, <a href="#Page_281">281-283</a></li> +<li>—— woman's exemption from, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> + +<li>Lais, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li>Lending wives, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li>Leontium, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li>Lie of marriage, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li>Limit of growth, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li>Loango, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li>Love, comparison between animal and human, <a href="#Page_119">119-121</a></li> +<li>—— comparison between woman's love and man's, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373-374</a></li> +<li>—— elementary phenomena of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> +<li>—— purposes of the individual and of the race in relation to, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338-340</a></li> +<li>—— significance and ennoblement of, <a href="#Page_99">99-100</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327-328</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></li> +<li>—— wastage of, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> + +<li>Love and beauty, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + +<li>Love and marriage. <i>See</i> Marriage</li> + +<li>Love-free. <i>See</i> Free-love</li> + +<li>Love's choice. <i>See</i> Sexual selection</li> + +<li>Lust in relation to love, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> +<li>—— theological conception of, <a href="#Page_324">324</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Lycurgus, laws of, <a href="#Page_217">217-218</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>M</li> + +<li>Madagascar, traces of the mother-age in, <a href="#Page_160">160-161</a></li> + +<li>Maine, Sir Henry, on the Roman marriage law, <a href="#Page_239">239-240</a></li> + +<li>Malays of Sumatra, <a href="#Page_152">152-153</a></li> + +<li>Male, origin of the, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li>Male-cell. <i>See</i> Spermatozoon</li> + +<li>Male-force, assertion of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li>Male-tyranny, mistaken view of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172-173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li>Mammals, love among the. <i>See</i> Animals.</li> + +<li>Man as the helper of woman, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></li> + +<li>Man as the slave of woman, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li>Mariana Islands, <a href="#Page_154">154-155</a></li> + +<li>Marriage, <a href="#Page_331">331-352</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></li> +<li>—— certificates for, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> +<li>—— coercive, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> +<li>—— economic factor in, <a href="#Page_195">195-196</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342-343</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> +<li>—— the ideal, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> +<li>—— individual end of, <a href="#Page_338">338-340</a></li> +<li>—— history of, <a href="#Page_343">343-345</a></li> +<li>—— love an essential part of, <a href="#Page_350">350-352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353-354</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></li> +<li>—— objects of, <a href="#Page_331">331-332</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li> +<li>—— racial end of, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337-339</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> +<li>—— reform of, <a href="#Page_331">331-333</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335-336</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> +<li>—— among animals. <i>See</i> Animals</li> +<li>—— customs among primitive peoples. <i>See</i> Mother-age</li> +<li>—— in relation to practical morality, <a href="#Page_335">335-336</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337-338</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347-348</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349-350</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> +<li>—— in relation to prostitution, <a href="#Page_341">341-342</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359-361</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li> + +<li>Maternal instinct, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> +<li>—— sacrifice, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Matriarchal family among bees, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>Matriarchy. <i>See</i> Mother-age</li> + +<li>Maupassant on woman, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li>Memory, sexual differences in, <a href="#Page_294">294-295</a></li> + +<li>Men, emancipation of: this must be done by women, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li>Menomini Indians, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li>Mental mobility of woman, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li>Mind, sexual differences in, <a href="#Page_292">292-317</a></li> + +<li>Mis-differentiation of women, <a href="#Page_268">268</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Misogany, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li>Monogamy, <a href="#Page_340">340-341</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352-353</a></li> +<li>—— among animals and birds. <i>See</i> Animals and Birds</li> + +<li>Moral codes, <a href="#Page_343">343-344</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> + +<li>Morality, ideal, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> +<li>—— practical, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335-336</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-352</a></li> +<li>—— traditional, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> + +<li>Mother-age, <a href="#Page_119">119-175</a></li> +<li>—— evidence in support of the, <a href="#Page_121">121-122</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143-146</a></li> +<li>—— periods of the, <a href="#Page_122">122-125</a></li> +<li>—— traces among civilised peoples of, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158-159</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201-202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span></li> + +<li>Mother-age, marriage and courtship customs during, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135-137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147-148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> +<li>—— beginnings of marriage, visiting by night, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> +<li>—— capture-marriage, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> +<li>—— exchange-marriage, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> +<li>—— group-marriage, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a> (<i>note</i>), <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> +<li>—— purchase-marriage, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> +<li>—— monogamy, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> +<li>—— polyandry, <a href="#Page_149">149-151</a></li> +<li>—— position of the mother, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131-132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139-146</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168-171</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-174</a></li> +<li>—— —— father, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> +<li>—— —— maternal uncle, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> +<li>—— —— children, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> +<li>—— transition to father-right, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> +<li>—— establishment of father-right, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_171">171-174</a></li> + +<li>Motherhood, endowment of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> +<li>—— free, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> +<li>—— importance of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> +<li>—— responsibility of, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-352</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381-382</a></li> + +<li>Mother-right united with father-right, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li>Music and women, <a href="#Page_300">300-301</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306-308</a></li> + +<li>Musquakies. <i>See</i> Iroquois<br /><br /></li> + + +<li>N</li> + +<li>Nature or inheritance, <a href="#Page_15">15-19</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li>Nâyars of Malabar, <a href="#Page_151">151-152</a></li> + +<li>Need for sexual variety among animals, <a href="#Page_111">111-112</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> +<li>—— —— men, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371-373</a></li> + +<li>Nurture or environment, <a href="#Page_15">15-17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li>Nutrition and reproduction, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> +<li>—— connection with sex, <a href="#Page_41">41-44</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>O</li> + +<li>Obstetric frog, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + +<li>Octopus, courtship of the, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li>One-sexed world, the idea of a, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + +<li>Orgy, the use of the, <a href="#Page_319">319-320</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> + +<li>Ostrich, love-dances of the, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li>Ovum, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>P</li> + +<li>Parasitic females, <a href="#Page_53">53-55</a></li> +<li>—— males, <a href="#Page_51">51-53</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li>Paradise bird of New Guinea, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li>Parenthood. <i>See</i> Motherhood</li> + +<li>Parthenogenesis, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li>Passion, importance of, in woman, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li> + +<li>Passivity, alleged, of female, <a href="#Page_65">65-69</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250-253</a></li> + +<li>Patriarchal subjection of women, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-24</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219-221</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264-265</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li>Patriarchy. <i>See</i> Father-right under Mother-age</li> + +<li>Pearson, Karl, on the mother-age, <a href="#Page_126">126-127</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> +<li>—— on variability in women, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li>Pericles, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li>Periodicity of woman in relation to work, <a href="#Page_312">312-313</a></li> + +<li>Phalaropes, reversal of the rôle of the sexes among, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li>Picts, traces of the mother-age among, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li>Pit-brow women, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li>Plants, sex in, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> + +<li>Plato on women, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li>Polyandry, <a href="#Page_149">149-154</a></li> + +<li>Polygamy, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li>Position of the sexes, early. <i>See</i> Origin of the sexes</li> + +<li>Promiscuity, belief in an early period of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> (<i>note</i>), <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li>Primitive human love, <a href="#Page_119">119-121</a></li> + +<li>Primitive woman. <i>See</i> Mother-age</li> + +<li>Prostitutes, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364-368</a></li> + +<li>Prostitution, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359-374</a></li> +<li>—— causes of, <a href="#Page_282">282-283</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362-365</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368-371</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373-374</a></li> + +<li>Prostitution, remedies for, <a href="#Page_363">363-364</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span></li> + +<li>Protozoa, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Pueblos tribes, <a href="#Page_137">137-139</a></li> + +<li>Purity, the ideal of, for women, <a href="#Page_373">373-374</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>R</li> + +<li>Race, the, its significance in relation to woman, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383-385</a></li> + +<li>Re-birth of woman, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></li> + +<li>Religion and sexuality, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319-323</a></li> +<li>—— and women, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317-328</a></li> + +<li>Reproduction, theory of. <i>See</i> Origin of Sex</li> + +<li>Reproductive cells. <i>See</i> Ovum and Spermatozoon</li> + +<li>Reptiles, love amongst, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li>Responsibility in the sexual relationships. <i>See</i> Love, ennoblement of</li> + +<li>Revolution in the position of woman, <a href="#Page_1">1-2</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7-9</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379-380</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></li> + +<li>Revolutionary forces, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li>Rome, position of women in, <a href="#Page_227">227-242</a></li> +<li>—— divorce by consent in, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> +<li>—— evolution of marriage in, <a href="#Page_229">229-233</a></li> +<li>—— high status of women in later periods in, <a href="#Page_234">234-238</a></li> +<li>—— influence of Christianity on position of women in, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239-240</a></li> +<li>—— licentiousness, alleged in, <a href="#Page_238">238-239</a></li> +<li>—— traces of the mother-age in, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>S</li> + +<li>Sai. <i>See</i> Pueblos</li> + +<li>Santál tribes, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li>Sappho, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li>Schopenhauer on woman, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li>Sea-horse, parental care of males among, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + +<li>Secondary sexual characters, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248-256</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261-263</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273-278</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Seduction, <a href="#Page_364">364-365</a></li> + +<li>Senecas. <i>See</i> Iroquois</li> + +<li>Sense of shame in woman, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li>Sensibility of woman, <a href="#Page_309">309</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Seri, marriage customs of, <a href="#Page_135">135-136</a></li> + +<li>Sex, origin of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41-43</a></li> +<li>—— primary office of, <a href="#Page_39">39-40</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-74</a></li> +<li>—— significance of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99-102</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li>Sex-elements, early separation of, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li>Sex-hatred, evils of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266-267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268-269</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288-289</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326-327</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380-381</a></li> + +<li>Sex-hunger, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li>Sex-relationships assume different forms to suit varying conditions of life, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-113</a></li> + +<li>Sex-victims, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + +<li>Sexes, early position of, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249-250</a></li> + +<li>Sexual abstinence. <i>See</i> Chastity</li> +<li>—— antipathy, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266-267</a></li> +<li>—— attraction, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> +<li>—— crimes, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> +<li>—— instincts, imperious action of, <a href="#Page_33">33-34</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> +<li>—— reproduction. <i>See</i> Reproduction</li> +<li>—— selection, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li>Shaw, G.B., on woman's right of selection in love, <a href="#Page_65">65-66</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> +<li>—— on economic factor in prostitution, <a href="#Page_362">362-363</a></li> + +<li>Simcox on the Egyptians, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> (<i>note</i>), <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + +<li>Slugs, love of, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li>Snails, love organ of, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li>Socrates on love, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li>Spain, position of women in, <a href="#Page_286">286-287</a></li> + +<li>Sparta. <i>See</i> Greece</li> + +<li>Spermatozoon, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Spider, courtship of the, <a href="#Page_64">64</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Spores, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li>Stickleback, habits of, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> +<li>—— paternal care of offspring among, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + +<li>Sterility, sin of, <a href="#Page_378">378-379</a></li> + +<li>Structural modifications to adapt the sexes to different modes of life, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li>Suffrage, struggle for, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379-380</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382-383</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span></li> + +<li>Superiority of the female, <a href="#Page_56">56-58</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66-68</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383-384</a></li> + +<li>Superiority of the male, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12-13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-24</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47-48</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li>Surinam toad, <a href="#Page_81">81</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>T</li> + +<li>Tadpoles, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li>Talent, sexual differences in, <a href="#Page_292">292</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li>Thargalia, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li>Theodota, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li>Thibet, polyandry in, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li>Third-sex, <a href="#Page_269">269-270</a></li> + +<li>Thomas on the sexual differences, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li>Thomson, J.A., on the difference of variability in men and women, <a href="#Page_298">298-299</a></li> + +<li>Thucydides on the duty of women, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li>Todas tribe, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Transition, present period of, for women, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263-264</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280-281</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289-290</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314-317</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></li> + +<li>Tyrant bird, love calls of, <a href="#Page_96">96</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>U</li> + +<li>Ulpian, the jurist, on a double standard of morality for the sexes, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li>Union, free. <i>See</i> Free-love</li> + +<li>Use of male to female, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>V</li> + +<li>Variation in the two sexes, <a href="#Page_297">297-300</a></li> + +<li>Variety. <i>See</i> Need for Sexual Variety</li> + +<li>Virgin birth, stories of, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> + +<li>Virginity, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> + +<li>Visions, sexual, <a href="#Page_320">320-321</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> + +<li><i>Volvox</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41-42</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>W</li> + +<li>Wallace on sexual selection, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + +<li>Wamoima tribe, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li>Ward, Lester, theory of gynæocracy, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> (<i>note</i>), <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li>Wayao and Mang'anja tribes, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li>Weininger on woman, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li>Wells, H.G., on marriage, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> +<li>—— on love and religion, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> + +<li>Wild duck, love of a, <a href="#Page_111">111-112</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li>Witchcraft, connection with mother-rights, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> (<i>note</i>)</li> + +<li>Woman and man, differences between, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199-201</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a> <i>et seq.</i>; <a href="#Page_319">319-320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li>Woman and sexuality, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li>Woman and work. <i>See</i> Labour</li> + +<li>Woman's dependence on man, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a></li> +<li>—— emancipation, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289-290</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> +<li>—— influence, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> +<li>—— place in the sexual relationship, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261-262</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264-265</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279-280</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383-384</a></li> +<li>—— responsibility, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263-264</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291-292</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-352</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> +<li>—— right of selection in love, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_252">252-256</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li>Wyandots. <i>See</i> Iroquois<br /><br /></li> + + +<li>X</li> + +<li>Xenophon's ideal wife, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Z</li> + +<li>Zuñi Indians. <i>See</i> Pueblos</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p> +<br /> +Page 40: nucelus replaced with nucleus<br /> +page 52: complimental replaced with complemental<br /> +Page 117: cusmtos replaced with customs<br /> +Page 146: matrilenial replaced with matrilineal<br /> +Page 157: posibly replaced with possibly<br /> +Page 260: Krafft Ebing replaced with Krafft-Ebing<br /> +Page 347: Senancour replaced with Sénancour<br /> +</div> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Truth About Woman, by C. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Truth About Woman + +Author: C. Gasquoine Hartley + +Release Date: September 14, 2009 [EBook #29981] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | 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 (Mediaeval 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 Erinaceidae, 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 aesthetic 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] _Encyclopaedia 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 Gynaecocentric 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, _Lecons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie comparee +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 +Buechner, 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'etre_ 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 role 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 larvae. 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 gallinaceae--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--AEsthetic 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--AEsthetic + 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 + role 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 + Gynaeocratic 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 gallinaceae 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 +aesthetic 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 Buechner, 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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 role 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 Gynaeocratic 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 gallinaceae 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, _Scenes de la Nature_, Vol. I. p. 350. + +[62] Audubon, _Scenes 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," _Zoologist_, March 1897; quoted by Havelock Ellis, +_Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III. p. 34. + +[69] Audubon, _Scenes de la Nature_, Vol. I. p. 317. + +[70] J. Lewis Bonhote, _The Birds of Britain_, p. 39. + +[71] Audubon, _Scenes de la Nature_, Vol. I. p. 383. + +[72] Epinas, _Societes 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, _Scenes 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 + gynaeocracy--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--_Resume_--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-wai-yu-wa-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 Zuni 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 Zuni, +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 Zunis, 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 gynaecocratic +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 Santal +tribes, which are found in Western Bengal, Northern Orissa, Bhagulpur +and the Santal Parganas.[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 Nayars 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 Nayars 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 role of the male, and is simply progenitor. "No Nayar 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 Nayars. 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 Jahiliya[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 _mpitovo_, 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, Mueller, +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 Mediaeval 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 +mediaeval 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, +_Zuni 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 americains_ 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 Kharwars and +Parahiya tribes, and is common among the Ghasiyas, and is also +practised among the Tipperah of Bengal. Among the Santals 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 _Mahaebhaerata_ the +five Pandava brothers marry all together the beautiful Druaupadi, with +eyes of lotus blue (_Mahaebhaerata_, 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'Ile 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 Bernhoeft, 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 Naturvoelker_, 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 Keteka," the Malagasy +equivalent of my name. + +[179] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, Pt. I. _The Magical Art_, Vol. II. p. +277. + +[180] Father Guilleme, 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-Kueste_, 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 _hetairae_--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 Arsinoee 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 Aaehmes I (1600 B.C.), whose title was "Royal Mother," and +another figure of Queen Amenartas 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 Nausicaea 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 AEolian 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 AEolian 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 +gynaecocracy was noticed by others. "You of Lacedaemon," 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 _hetairae_. 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 _hetairae_, 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 _hetairae_ 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 _hetairae_; 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 AEschines have all +testified to the cultivated mind and influence of Aspasia. AEschines, +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 _hetairae_ 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 _hetairae_. +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 +regime. 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 _hetairae_. 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 Pudicitiae Servandrae_, 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 Egypte_; Nietzold, _Die Ehe in Aegypten_; Greenfel, _Greek +Papyri_; Amelineau, _La Morale Egyptienne_; Mueller, _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 Mueller 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 +Egypte_; p. 69. + +[207] Nietzold, _Die Ehe in Aegypten_, p. 79. + +[208] _Etudes egyptologiques_, 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 egyptien_, 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 egyptologique_, I. p. 110. + +[217] Revillout, _Cours de droit_, Vol. I. p. 222. + +[218] _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. p. 393. + +[219] Amelineau, _La morale egyptienne_, p. 194. + +[220] Ellis, citing Donaldson, _Woman_, p. 196. This is also the +opinion of Mueller. + +[221] Revillout, _Revue egyptologique_, 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'antiquite," _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 +Aktenstuecke aus babylonischen Staedte_, 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. +(_Athenaeus_, 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] Isaeus _de Pyrrhi Her._, Sec. 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 Fouquieres; +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_ (Mediaeval Towns Series), p. 21. + +[308] Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 124-125. + +[309] _Roman Society_, p. 163. + +[310] _Morals in Evolution_, Vol. I. p. 216. + +[311] _Woman_, p. 113. + +[312] _Digest_, XLVIII. 13, 5. + + + + +PART III + +MODERN SECTION + +PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN PROBLEM + + + + +CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VIII + +SEX DIFFERENCES + + The practical application of the truths arrived at--A question to + be faced--The organic differences between the sexes--Resume + 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 role 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 Puberta_, "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 gallinaceae +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 +_hetairae_, 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 Coruna, 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 Moebius[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 Buecher,[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 mediaeval +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 mediaeval 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; Moebius, _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 Senancour, "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 Avaries_: +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: Scenes de la nature dans les Etats 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. + +*BUeCHNER: 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: Societes 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. + +*HAeCKER: Der Gesang der Voegel. + +*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: Etudes sur les facultes mentales des animaux compares a + 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: Lecons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie + comparee 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 + +*AMELINEAU: La Morale egyptienne. + +*ARNOT, F.S.: Garenganzas. + +*BACHOFEN: Das Mutterrecht. (_French trans. of Intro. by + Giraud-Teulon._) + +BACKER, LOUIS DE: Le Droit de la femme dans l'antiquite. + +BADER, MLLE. C.: La femme grecque: etude de la vie antique. + La femme romaine: etude de la vie antique. + +BANCROFT, H.H.: The Native Races of the Pacific States of North + America. + +*BECQ DE FOUQUIERES: Aspasie de Milet. + +*BONWICK, J.: Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians. + +BRANDT, P.: Sappho. + +BRUGSCH, E.: Histoire d'Egypte. + +*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 generale de la Nouvelle + France. + +CRAWLEY: The Mystic Rose. + +*CROOKE, W.: The Tribes and Castes of the North-west Provinces and + Oudh. + +*CUSHING, F.H.: Zuenie 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'a nos jours. + +LACOMBE, PAUL: La Famille dans la societe romaine: etude de moralite + comparee. + +*LAFITEAU, J.F.: Moeurs des sauvages americains. + +LATHAM: Descriptive Ethnology. + +*LECKY, W.E.H.: History of European Morals, from Augustus to + Charlemagne. + +LEFEVRE, M.: La Femme a travers l'histoire. + +LEGOUVE, 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'Egypte 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 nes hors mariage dans + l'antiquite et au moyen age en Europe. + +*MUeLLER, 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 + Egypte. + +*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 Voelkerkunde. + +*POWELL, J.W.: Wyandot Government. _Report of the Bureau of Am. Ethn._ + +RAINNEVILLE, J. DE: La Femme dans l'antiquite et d'apres la morale + naturelle. + +*RATZEL, T.: History of Mankind. + +*RECLUS, ELIE: Les Primitifs (_Eng. trans._, Primitive Folk. _Cont. + Sci. Series_). + +*REVILLOUT, E.: Cours de droit egyptien. + Les obligations en droit egyptien, comparees aux autres droits de + l'antiquite. + Etudes egyptologiques. + +*RHYS AND BRYNMOR JONES: The Welsh People. + +ROBY, H.J.: Roman Private Law in the Times of Cicero and of the + Antonines. + +*SACHOT: L'Ile 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 Naturvoelker (_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_. + +FERE, C.S.: La Pathologie des emotions. (_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_.) + +LOeWENFELD: Sexuelleben und Nervenleiden. + +*MANTEGAZZA, P.: L'Amore. (_French trans._, L'amour dans l'humanite.) + 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 Puberte chez l'homme et chez la femme. + +MAYREDER, ROSA: Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit. + +MILL, J.S.: Subjection of Women. + +*MOeIBUS, 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. + +PECHIN: La Puericulture 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_.) + +SENANCOUR: 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 generale. + +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 + +AEschines, 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 +---- aesthetic 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 + +Buecher, 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 + +Gallinaceae, 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 +---- ---- _Hetairae_, 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 + +Gynaecocracy. _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 + +Nayars 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 role 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 + +Santal 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 gynaeocracy, 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 + +Zuni 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 Senancour | + | | + | Footnote 140: Ethon. replaced with Ethno. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Truth About Woman, by C. 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