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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Woman Movement - -Author: Ellen Key - -Contributor: Havelock Ellis - -Translator: Mamah Bouton Borthwick - -Release Date: December 3, 2019 [EBook #60840] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN MOVEMENT *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - _By Ellen Key_ - - - The Century of the Child - The Education of the Child - Love and Marriage - The Woman Movement - - - - - The Woman Movement - - - By - Ellen Key - - Author of - “The Century of the Child,” “Love and Marriage,” etc. - - Translated by - Mamah Bouton Borthwick, A.M. - - With an Introduction by - Havelock Ellis - - - G. P. Putnam’s Sons - New York and London - The Knickerbocker Press - 1912 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1912 - BY - G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS - - - The Knickerbocker Press, New York - - - - - Es gibt kein Vergangenes das man zurücksehnen dürfte; es gibt nur - ein ewig Neues, das sich aus den erweiterten Elementen des - Vergangenen gestaltet, und die echte Sehnsucht muss stets productiv - sein, ein neues, besseres Erschaffen.—GOETHE. - -“_There is no past that we need long to return to, there is only the -eternally new which is formed out of enlarged elements of the past; and -our genuine longing must always be productive, for a new and better -creation._” - - - - - PREFACE - - -The literature upon the right and the worth of woman, beginning as early -as the 15th century, has in recent times increased so enormously that a -complete collection would require a whole library building. In these -writings are represented all classes, from tables of statistics to comic -papers. Not only both sexes but almost all stages of life have -contributed to it. By immersing oneself in this literature, especially -in its belletristic and polemic portions, one could find rich material -for the illumination of that sphere to which the publisher limited my -work: the indication of the new spiritual conditions, transformations, -and reciprocal results which the woman movement has effected. Historic, -scientific, political, economic, juridical, sociological, and -theological points of view must, therefore, be practically set aside. -But even for my task, limited to the psychological sphere, time, -strength, and inclination are wanting to bury myself in this literature. -I must, therefore, confine myself to giving chiefly my own observations. - -It is more than fifty years ago that I read _Hertha_, Sweden’s first -“feministic” (dealing with the woman question) novel, and listened to -the numerous contentions concerning it. With ever keener personal -interest I have since followed the operations of the woman -movement—above all, the new psychic conditions, types, and forms of -activities which the woman movement has evoked; I have also given -consideration to the new possibilities and new difficulties resulting -therefrom for individuals and for society. - -The limited compass of this little book prevents me from substantiating -my assertions by means of parallels with earlier times, comparisons -which might illuminate certain spiritual transformations and new -formations. My comparisons of the present with the past do not go -farther back than my own memory reaches. And these touch, moreover, in -what concerns the past, principally upon Swedish conditions; while my -impressions of the present were gathered throughout Europe. I have -considered, however, that I could summarise both in a comprehensive -picture. For although the women of Sweden a generation ago possessed -rights for which the women in many countries are still struggling -to-day, yet the woman movement in the last decade has advanced so -rapidly that the conditions have in great measure been equalised. -Indeed, some of the grey-haired champions of the woman movement have -seen one after another of their demands fulfilled in this new -century—demands which in the fifties and sixties, in many countries even -in the seventies and eighties, were publicly and privately derided even -in the very person of these champions. And among peoples who even ten -years ago were unaffected by the emancipation of women, for example the -Chinese and the Turks, it is already progressing. It amounts to this, -that even if national peculiarities in character and in laws occasion -differences in the curve which the woman movement describes in the -different countries, yet everywhere the movement has had the same -causes, must follow the same main direction, and—sooner or later—must -have the same effects. - - * * * * * - -In _Hertha_, the book containing the tenets of the Swedish woman -movement, the demand is made for woman’s “freedom and future, and a home -for her spiritual life”; the desire is expressed that women should -“preserve the character of their own nature, and not be uniformly -moulded, not be led by a string as if they had not a soul of their own -to show them the way.” There must be “vital air for woman’s soul and a -share in life’s riches.” It is to be lamented that “woman’s spiritual -talent must be a field that lies fallow,” that the law “denies her free -agency in seeking happiness.” The prerogative is demanded that “woman in -noble self-conscious joy shall succeed in feeling what she is able to do -now and what she is capable of attaining”; that she shall be free to -“aspire to the heights her youthful strength and consciousness point out -to her”; that she may “be fully herself and be able to exercise an -uplifting, ennobling influence upon the man” to whom she says: “All that -is mine shall be thine and thereby the portion of each shall be -doubled.” - -Even if all fields are made accessible to them, “God’s law in their -nature will always lead the majority of women to the home, to the -intimacy of the family life, to motherhood and the duties of rearing -children—but with a higher consciousness.” That women shall be citizens -signifies that they shall become “human beings in whom the life of the -heart predominates.” - -This picture of the future, which has already become a reality in many -respects, was sketched at a time when innumerable women were still -compelled to experience that “there is no heavier burden than life’s -emptiness,” and when it was true of every woman, “dark is her way, -gloomy her future, narrow her lot.” - -But because that _which is_, is always considered by the masses as that -which _ought to be_, “whatever is, is right,” so the writer who painted -the picture was called “dangerous,” “a disintegrator of society,” “mad,” -“ridiculous”! “Mademoiselle Bremer’s” name possessed then quite a -different intonation from that of Fredrika Bremer now; it caused strife -between the sexes; it was hated by some and derided by others. - -I should like to advise young women of the present time to read -_Hertha_; they will thus obtain a criterion for the progress which has -taken place during the last half century and also a clear view of the -character of the opposition which the present desire for progress -encounters. - - ELLEN KEY. - - October 1, 1909. - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - -There can be little doubt that at the present moment what is called the -“Woman’s Movement” is entering a critical period of its development. A -discussion of its present problems and its present difficulties by one -of the most advanced leaders in that movement thus appears at the right -time and deserves our most serious attention. - -The early promulgators of the Woman’s Movement, a century or more ago, -rightly regarded it as an extremely large and comprehensive movement -affecting the whole of life. They were anxious to secure for women -adequate opportunities for free human development, to the same extent -that men possess such opportunities, but they laid no special stress on -the abolition of any single disability or group of disabilities, whether -as regards education, occupation, marriage, property, or political -enfranchisement. They were people of wide and sound intelligence; they -never imagined that any single isolated reform would prove a cheap -panacea for all the evils they wished to correct; they looked for a slow -reform along the whole line. They held that such reform would enrich and -enlarge the entire field of human life, not for women only, but for the -human race generally. Such, indeed, is the spirit which still inspires -the wisest and most far-seeing champions of that Movement. It is only -necessary to mention Olive Schreiner’s _Woman and Labour_. - -When, however, the era of actual practical reform began, it was obvious -that a certain amount of concentration became necessary. Education was, -reasonably enough, usually the first point for concentration, and -gradually, without any undue friction, the education of girls was, so -far as possible, raised to a level not so very different from that of -boys. This first great stage in the Woman’s Movement inevitably led on -to the second stage, which lay in a struggle, not this time always -without a certain amount of friction, to secure the entry of these now -educated women to avocations and professions previously monopolised by -the men who had alone been trained to fill them. This second stage is -now largely completed, and at the present time there are very few -vocations and professions in civilised lands, even in so conservative -and slowly moving a land as England, which women are not entitled to -exercise equally with men. Concomitantly with this movement, -however,—and beginning indeed, very much earlier, and altogether apart -from any conscious “movement” at all,—there was a tendency to change the -laws in a direction more favourable to women and their personal rights, -especially as regards marriage and property. These legal reforms were -effected by Parliaments of men, elected exclusively by men, and for the -most part they were effected without any very strong pressure from -women. It had, however, long been claimed that women themselves ought to -have some part in making the laws by which they are governed, and at -this stage, towards the middle of the last century, the demand for -women’s parliamentary suffrage began to be urgently raised. Here, -however, the difficulties naturally proved very much greater than they -were in the introduction of a higher level of education for women, or -even in the opening up to them of hitherto monopolised occupations. In -new countries, and sometimes in small old countries, these difficulties -could be overcome. But in large and old countries, of stable and complex -constitution, it was very far from easy to readjust the ancient -machinery in accordance with the new demands. The difficulty by no means -lay in any unwillingness on the part of the masculine politicians in -possession; on the contrary, it is a notable fact, often overlooked, -that, in England especially, there have for at least half a century been -a considerable proportion of eminent statesmen as well as of the -ordinary rank and file of members of Parliament who are in favour of -granting the suffrage to women, a much larger proportion, probably, than -would be found favourable to this claim in any other section of the -community. That, indeed,—apart from the delay involved by ancient -constitutional methods,—has been the main difficulty. Neither among the -masculine electors nor among their womenfolk has there been any -consuming desire to achieve women’s suffrage. - -The result has been a certain tendency in the Woman’s Movement to -diverge in two different directions. On the one hand, are those who, -recognising that all evolution is slow, are content to await patiently -the inevitable moment when the political enfranchisement of women will -become possible, in the meanwhile working towards women’s causes in -other fields equally essential and sometimes more important. On the -other hand, a small but energetic, sometimes even violent, section of -the women engaged in this movement concentrated altogether on the -suffrage. The germs of this divergence may be noted even thirty years -back when we find Miss Cobbe declaring that woman’s suffrage is “the -crown and completion of all progress in woman’s movements,” while Mrs. -Cady Stanton, perhaps more wisely, stated that it was merely a vestibule -to progress. In recent years the difference has become accentuated, -sometimes even into an acute opposition, between those who maintain that -the one and only thing essential, and that immediately and at all costs, -even at the cost of arresting and putting back the progress of women in -all other directions, is the parliamentary suffrage, and on the other -hand, those who hold that the suffrage, however necessary, is still only -a single point, and that the woman’s movement is far wider and, above -all, far deeper than any mere political reform. - -It is at this stage that Ellen Key comes before us with her book on _The -Woman’s Movement_, first published in Swedish in 1909, and now presented -to the reader in English. As Ellen Key views the Woman’s Movement, it -certainly includes all that those who struggle for votes for women are -fighting for; she is unable to see, as she puts it, why a woman’s hands -need be more soiled by a ballot paper than by a cooking recipe. But she -is far indeed from the well-intentioned but ignorant fanatics who fancy -that the vote is the alpha and the omega of Feminism; and still less is -she in sympathy with those who consider that its importance is so -supreme as to justify violence and robbery, a sort of sex war on mankind -generally, and the casting in the mud of all those things which it has -been the gradual task of civilisation to achieve, not for men only but -for women. The Woman’s Movement, as Ellen Key sees it, includes the -demand for the vote, but it looks upon the vote merely as a reasonable -condition for attaining far wider and more fundamental ends. She is of -opinion that the Woman’s Movement will progress less by an increased -aptitude to claim rights than by an increased power of self-development, -that it is not by what they can seize, but by what they are, that women, -or for the matter of that men, finally count. She regards the task of -women as constructive rather than destructive; they are the architects -of the future humanity, and she holds that this is a task that can only -be carried out side by side with men, not because man’s work and woman’s -work is, or should be, identical, but because each supplements and aids -the other, and whatever gives greater strength and freedom to one sex -equally fortifies and liberates the other sex. - -Certainly we may not all agree with Ellen Key at every point, nor always -accept her interpretation of the great movement of which she is so -notable a pioneer. The breadth of her sympathies may sometimes seem to -lead to an impracticable eclecticism, and, in the rejection of narrow -and trivial aims, she may too sanguinely demand an impossible harmony of -opposing ideals. But if this is an error it is surely an error on the -right side. She has not put forward this book as a manifesto of the -advanced guard of the Woman’s Movement, but merely as the reflections of -an individual woman who, for nearly half a century, has pondered, felt, -studied, observed this movement in many parts of the world. But it would -not be easy to find a book in which the claims of Feminism—in the -largest modern sense—are more reasonably and temperately set forth. - -[Signature: _Havelock Ellis._] - -LONDON, May 1, 1912. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - INTRODUCTION 1 - - CHAPTER - - I THE EXTERNAL RESULTS OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT 23 - - II THE INNER RESULTS OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT 58 - - III THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION UPON SINGLE WOMEN 71 - - IV THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON THE DAUGHTERS 89 - - V THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MEN AND WOMEN IN 111 - GENERAL - - VI THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MARRIAGE 139 - - VII THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MOTHERHOOD 169 - - - - - The Woman Movement - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - -The first “woman movement” was Eve’s gesture when she reached for the -fruit of the Tree of Knowledge—a movement symbolic of the entire -subsequent woman’s movement of the world. For the will to pass beyond -established bounds has constantly been the motive of her conscious as -well as of her subconscious quest. Every generation has called this -transgression, this passing beyond the bounds, a “fall of man,” the -“original sin,” a crime against God’s express command, a crime against -the nature of woman as prescribed for her for all time. - -And yet from the beginning women have appeared who have passed far -beyond the established boundaries set for their sex by their era and -upheld by their own people. They have demonstrated that limitations thus -prescribed do not always coincide with what is considered by the -majority to be the “nature” of woman. At one time a woman has manifested -the “masculine” characteristics of a ruler or has performed a -“masculine” deed; at another time she has distinguished herself in -“masculine” learning or art, or again has dared to love without the -permission of law and custom. In a word the individual woman, when her -head or her heart was strong enough, has always shown the possibilities -of the development of personal power. But she has had in that effort -only her own strength and her own will upon which to rely; she has -neither been urged on by the spirit of her time (_Zeitgeist_) nor been -emulated by the masses. Exceptional women have sometimes been glorified -by their contemporaries and by posterity as “wonders of nature”; -sometimes been cited as “warning examples.” Seen in connection with the -world’s woman movement all these instances, where a bond was broken by -woman’s power of mind or creative gift, by a heart or a conscience, are -parts of what can be called the “prehistoric” woman movement. This -movement for personal freedom formed no step in that phase of the -development which possesses a conscious purpose, but was merely -sporadic. Even so the participation was long nameless which women took -in the great struggles for freedom where, without consideration for the -“nature” of woman, they dared bleed upon the arena and scaffold, ascend -the pyre, and be raised upon the gibbet. Very rarely did these women -martyrs alter immediately men’s—or even women’s—conception of woman’s -“being.” But just as many perfumes are dissipated only after centuries, -so there are also deeds whose indirect results persist through -centuries. - -Most significant, however, upon the whole in the “prehistoric” woman -movement, are innumerable women whose souls found expression only in the -strong, quiet acts of every day life but yet remained living and -growing. As a reason for the “enslavement” of woman by man, the -primitive division of labour is still occasionally cited. This division -of labour made war and the chase man’s task and so developed in him -courage, energy, and daring, while the woman remained the “beast of -burden.” But we forget that, in this labour arrangement, the handicraft -and husbandry which woman practised at that time made her, to perhaps a -higher degree than man, the conservator of civilisation and probably -developed her psychic power in more comprehensive manner than his. - -Even after this division of labour ceased there remained—and remain -still in innumerable country households—in and through many of the -important and difficult tasks of the mother of the house, numerous -possibilities for spiritual development. And exactly in this respect -industrial work robs the woman of much. - -By the side of these innumerable nameless women who, century after -century, in and through the material work of culture which they -performed, increased their psychic power, we must remember all the -unnamed women who with flower-like quiet mien turned their souls to the -light. - -Antique sepulchres and Tanagra figures tell us more about the -harmonious, refined corporeality of the Hellenic woman than the famous -statues of Aphrodite or Athena. In like manner it is not the illustrious -but the nameless women who most clearly reveal the will of the woman -soul, in antiquity, for light and life. - -Numbers of Greek women were disciples of the philosophers, some even -were their inspiration. Generally courtesans, these women represented -the “emancipation” of that time from the servile condition of the -legitimate married women and also showed that women already longed to -share in the interests of men and to acquire their culture. History has -preserved also words and deeds of wives and mothers of the past which -show that these also at times attained “masculine” greatness of soul and -civic virtue. Pythias and Sibyls, Vestals and Valas, are other witnesses -that the power of woman’s soul was active and recognised long before -Christianity. Even among the purely primitive races there were found—and -are found—cases in which woman in power and rights was placed, not only -on an equality with man, but even above him. And if, on the one hand, -the rigid exactions which men from the earliest time have fixed upon the -wife’s fidelity—while they themselves had full freedom for -promiscuity—show that the wife was considered as the property of the -husband, so, on the other hand, this very conception was a means of -elevating and refining the soul life of woman. For the self-control -which she had to impose upon herself deepened her feeling for a devotion -which embraced only one, the man to whom she belonged. Nothing would be -more superficial than to estimate the real position of woman, among any -special people, only by what we know of their laws. It is as if one, in -a few centuries from now, should judge the actual position of the modern -European wife by referring it to the wretched marriage laws which now -obtain. They forget the deep gulf between law and custom who declare -that marriage devotion, veneration for the sanctity of the home, esteem -for the spiritual being of the wife first arose as a result of -Christianity. - -It is significant enough for the freeing of woman that Jesus raised the -personal worth of _all_ mankind through His teaching that—whoever or -whatever the person in outer respects may be—every soul possesses an -eternal value comprised, as it were, in God’s love; significant enough -that Jesus Himself, because of this point of view, treated every woman, -even the sinner, with kindness and respect. Because of the increasing -uncertainty concerning the real ideals of Jesus, one is compelled to -assume that—just as Veronica’s handkerchief preserved the imprint of -Jesus’ outer image—the manner of life of the oldest Christian -communities has preserved the imprint of His teaching. It is significant -of their doctrines that in these communities women and men stood side by -side in the same faith, in the same hope, in the same exercise of love, -and in the same martyrdom. Here was “neither man nor woman,” but all -were one in the hope of the speedy second coming of Jesus to establish -God’s Kingdom. - -But the more this hope faded, the more the Pagan-Jewish conception of -woman again made itself felt. It is true the Church sought to place man -and woman on an equality in regard to certain marriage duties and -rights; to uphold on both sides the sanctity of marriage; to protect -women and children against despotism. It is true the Church strove to -counteract crude sensuality, utilising, among other things, an emphasis -of celibacy as the expression of the highest spirituality. - -But, on the other hand, the doctrine of this Church became the greatest -obstacle to the elevation of woman, because it lessened the reverence -for her mission as a being of sex. Marriage, the only recognised ends of -which were the prevention of unchastity and the propagation of the race, -was looked upon as an inferior condition in comparison with pure -virginity. And the more this ideal of chastity was extolled, the more -woman was degraded and considered the most grievous temptation of man in -his striving after higher sanctity. Before God, so man taught, man and -woman were truly equal; but not in human relationships or qualities; -yes, and man has gone in this direction even to the point of debating -the question in church councils, as to whether woman really had a soul -or not! - -But when the Church revered pure virginity in the person of the Mother -of Jesus, it was woman in highest form—as happy or suffering mother—that -the Church unconsciously glorified. In the statues and altar pieces of -the cathedral man worships, in the likeness of Mary, the purest and -noblest womanhood. The virtues especially extolled by the Church were -also those in which Mary in particular and woman in general had -pre-eminence. By all these impressions a soul condition was created in -which the heart penetrated by religious ecstasy, must, of psychological -necessity, devote itself to the earthly manifestations of this same pure -womanhood. Generally this devotion was only an ecstatic cult, an -adoration from afar of an ideal, inspiring deeds or poetry. Sometimes -this ecstasy fused the being of man and woman in the sensuous-soulful -unity of great love. But when neither was the case, yet the adoration of -knights and minnesingers increased the esteem of man for woman and the -esteem of woman for herself. It also contributed to the esteem of man -for woman that, as the men were always obliged to stand in arms, they -could rarely acquire the learning which the priests—and through them the -wives and daughters of the castles—acquired. The superiority of woman in -this respect had a refining influence upon manners and customs and upon -the general culture of the time. Often through a number of women -auditors the poem of a minnesinger first became famous. When in Mainz -one sees Heinrich Frauenlob’s tombstone, one comprehends, through the -soulful noble lines, how mourning women bore him to the grave, as the -little bas-relief at the base of the stone represents. Their sympathy -made him their singer and his sympathy revealed, to their time and to -themselves, their own being. Woman’s ideal of love became through poetry -and courts of love the ideal also of the most cultured men. We see here -a movement of the time which women already half consciously effected by -their life of feeling and their culture. The authority which the wife -exercised as lady of the manor during the absence, often of many years’ -duration, of her husband gave her increased power to disseminate about -her that finer culture which she herself had gained. But when the lords -of the manor returned and again assumed power, then indeed at times -strange thoughts might have come to their wives, while they fixed their -glance, under the great arched eyelids, upon the missal or the romance -of chivalry or, with long tapering fingers, moved the chessmen or played -the harp, or while they bent the slender white neck over the embroidery -frame or the lace-pillow upon which they wrought veritable marvels of -handicraft. Perhaps even then there stirred under many a brow the -presentiment of a time in which the relationship between man and woman -would be different. Such thoughts must have arisen also in the -manor-houses when the men began to arrogate to themselves one handicraft -after another, occupations which in earlier times the daughters once -learned from their fathers, at whose side they sometimes even entered -the guild. Could even the nun’s veil prevent such thoughts from rising -between the white temples of some of the women who—suffering or -superfluous outside in the world—had found refuge in the cloister? Here -was accomplished most peacefully the “emancipation,” of that time, of -the intellectual and artistic gifts of woman, for whom religion and the -life of the cloister had always employment. And if the soul of a nun was -greater and richer than usual, then might it indeed have happened that -she devoted herself to meditation, in a quandary as to whether all of -God’s purposes for the gifts of her soul were truly fulfilled. And this -the more intently since even then many women outside the cloister—women -whose religious inspiration directed their genius to great ends—outside -in the world, exercised a powerful influence upon the thought as upon -the events of their time and, after death as saints, retained power over -souls. Our Birgitta, for example, possessed herself of a great part of -“woman’s rights.” - -So significant had the psychic power of woman shown itself to be in the -Middle Ages that already in the early Renaissance it brought forth a -number of “feminist” writers, both women and men. And in the height of -the Renaissance there was quite an “emancipation” literature, about -women and by women. This literature increased during the following -centuries. Famous men emphasised the importance of a higher education of -woman; some, as early as the beginning of the 16th century, claimed the -absolute superiority of woman in all things. Greater freedom, education, -and rights, in one or another respect, were demanded by men as well as -women “feminists.” This literature purposed less, however, to alter some -given conditions than, by means of examples of famous women of -antiquity, to demonstrate the personal right and the social gain of what -already obtained without hindrance, although with the disapproval of -many:—that numbers of women had appeared who in classic culture, in the -practice of learned professions, in political or religious, intellectual -or æsthetic interests, stood beside the men of Humanism, the -Renaissance, and the Reformation. - -The ideal of the time, the fully developed human personality of marked -individuality, determined the conduct of life of women exactly as that -of men. Both sexes cherished the life value which the original, -isolated, individual personality signified for other such personalities. -Both sexes appropriated to themselves the right to choose that which was -harmonious with their own natures, that which soul or sense, thought or -feeling, desired. It followed from this conception that women sought to -attain the highest degree of the beauty and grace of their own sex and -at the same time to cultivate what “manly” courage or genius nature had -given them—attributes which men valued in them next to their purely -womanly qualities. - -But at this time it was not the _work_ of woman which had the great -cultural significance, but the human essence of her being reflected in -_the works of men_. In antiquity woman exhibited the manly qualities of -greatness of soul and civic virtue; in the Middle Ages she revealed the -same faculty as man for saintliness and exercise of love; in the -Renaissance she manifested the same ability as man to mould her own -personality into a living work of art. If the spirit of equality between -the sexes, which prevailed in the Renaissance, had further directed the -progress of development, a “woman movement” would never have arisen, -because its ends, which are to-day still contended for, would have been -attained one after another, at the appointed time, as natural fruits of -the florescence of the Renaissance. - -As it is, this florescence acquired only very slight _immediate_ -influence upon the emancipation of woman—and the farther North one goes -the slighter it becomes. The periods of the Counter-Reformation, of the -Religious Wars and of the new Orthodoxy, on the contrary, had as result -an enormous retrogression in the position of woman. - -The “Deliverance of the Flesh,” which was accomplished by the verdict of -Protestantism upon the life of the cloister, and by its support of -marriage, had little in common with the deep feeling for the right and -beauty of corporeality by which the Renaissance, intoxicated with life, -became the era of the great renascence of art. Luther’s conception of -the sex life, as “sanctified” by marriage, was so crassly utilitarian -that it again dragged woman down from that high level upon which the -finest life of feeling and culture of the Middle Ages and of the -Renaissance had placed her. - -As matron of the household, woman retained her authority. The rational, -common-sense marriage was the one most conformable to this literal -doctrine of Luther, and the most usual. To the man who had chosen her, -the wife bore children by the dozen and threescore. The Church gave her -soul nourishment. If a woman occasionally sought to exercise her -spiritual gifts in a “worldly” direction, she needed powerful -protection, else she ran the danger of being burned as a witch! - -Yet in spite of all, even this period produced not a few women who -procured for themselves the learning after which they thirsted, who -succeeded in keeping their souls alive, in finding springs in the midst -of the stony wastes of the desert. The more, however, the different -branches of learning developed, and especially as Latin became the -language of the learned, the more difficult it became for women to force -their way to these springs, sealed for the majority of their sex. For a -classical education became more and more infrequently extended to the -daughter, for whom even the ability to read and write was considered a -temptation to deviation from the path of virtue.[1] - -That women in time of persecution adhered to the new doctrine with warm -belief and suffered for it with the whole strength of their souls, that -in time of war they managed house and estate with power and -understanding, altered in no respect, at the time, woman’s social or -marriage position. Man was woman’s sovereign master and therefore a good -bit nearer God than she. In marriage woman was considered, according to -the bishop’s word, “man’s chattel,” outside of marriage as a tool of the -devil. But however deeply the soul of woman was oppressed at this time, -yet it still lived and endowed sons, in whom the strong but unexercised -endowments of the mother became genius; it endowed daughters, who -secretly procured sustenance for their souls and who in turn transmitted -their rebellious spirit to a daughter or granddaughter. - -When at the end of the period of Orthodoxy and Absolutism, the great -fundamental principle of Protestantism, the principle of personality, -once more made headway, one of the most characteristic expressions of -this reaction is that, in England, Milton wrote upon the right of -divorce and Defoe upon the right of woman to the development and -exercise of her mental powers. Among others who demanded greater -education for women were Comenius in Germany and Fénelon in France. It -was not in the former country that woman, so long oppressed, first won -her great cultural influence. That happened in the land where women had -never wholly lost it. In France, in the age of enlightenment, it was the -salons created by women that determined the European spirit of the time. -Letters and memoirs indicate sufficiently the influence of woman—in good -as well as in bad sense—in politics and literature, manners, customs, -and taste. Women transform indirectly the political, philosophic, and -scientific style. For they demand that every subject be treated in a -manner easily comprehensible and agreeable to them. A number of writings -appeared which aimed to make it easy for “women folk” also “to be freed -through the reason.” - -Since it was the approval of women which determined fame, men were only -too eager to fulfil their expressed demands. Women disseminated the -ideas of men in wide circles, partly by buying their writings in great -numbers and distributing them, partly also by social life. Never has -woman more perfectly accomplished the important task of adjusting -culture values. The art of conversation, developed to the highest -perfection, was, it is true, often only a game of battledore and -shuttlecock with ideas. But it performed at the same time, and in more -elegant and more effective manner, a great part of the office of -to-day’s Press. The political leader, art and literary criticism, gossip -(_causerie_), the “portrait gallery” of contemporaries—all this was -gathered from clever discourse. Through their art of conversation the -women became—next to the philosophers and statesmen who in this or that -salon were the leading spirits—the intellectual leaders of the time; -they created “enlightened opinion,” they co-operated finally in the -Revolution. The mistresses of these salons scarcely felt the need of an -emancipation of woman; for they had for themselves as many possibilities -of culture, of development of their powers, of the exercise of their -faculties, as even they themselves could wish. The intellectual -curiosity, which coveted learning, and the cultural interest of these -women penetrated in wider circles, and a result of this general -awakening was the Woman’s Lyceum founded in Paris in 1786, among the -students of which were found, some years later, enthusiastic supporters -of the Revolution. - -Also among the German peoples there appeared, in the age of -enlightenment, women with literary and scientific interest; some with -extraordinary gifts which they also exercised. But for the most part -women and men under more clumsy social forms, so-called “Academies” and -“Societies,” engaged in their “learned pastime”; and nowhere, except in -the person of some ruler, did woman attain in Europe, in the age of -enlightenment, an influence which can be compared to that of the French -women. - -In the midst of the period of rococo elegance and gallantry, of reason -and esprit, came the great regeneration, the second Renaissance—the -Revival of Feeling. This occurred first in the field of religion, -through the pietistic movement of the time. Later it was Rousseau who, -in connection with religion, nature, love, motherhood, became the -liberator of feeling, and together with him were the English -“sentimental” poets and the German poetry, which reached its culminating -point in Goethe. Literature, the Theatre, and Art came more and more to -the front and, by that means, women acquired greater possibilities of -becoming acquainted with, understanding, and loving the richest culture -of the time. - -And with this Revival of Feeling, personal freedom, individual -character, became again the great life value. Women who wish to give -expression to their feeling in their life now become more numerous: -women who are conscious that their being buries many unsatisfied -demands, not only in connection with the right of culture of their -natural character, but also in connection with the right, in private -life and in society, to give expression to this natural character. Men -are continually in intellectual interchange with women, giving as well -as receiving; woman nature is esteemed with ever finer comprehension. - -Since feelings determine thoughts—for the thought always goes in the -direction in which the feeling says happiness is to be found—so it is -natural that, in the second half of the 18th century, the idea of -freedom is the ideal which kindles the soul of increasing numbers of -women. _The emancipation of the individual_ is the tale within the tale, -from the Renaissance up to the struggles of the Reformation for freedom -of conscience, freedom of learning, freedom of investigation, and -freedom of thought. Then finally came the struggle for constitutionally -protected civic freedom. In America as early as 1776 the demand for the -enfranchisement of women was raised, because they had taken part in the -struggle for freedom with such great enthusiasm and constancy. With the -same passion they threw themselves into the struggle in France for the -“Rights of Man.” But both times they had to learn to their sorrow that -“fellow-citizen” and “man” were terms which as yet referred only to men. -That a woman during the French Revolution proclaimed “Women’s Rights,” -that women discussed these questions as well as questions of education -and other vital questions, with ardour, had as little immediate effect -as the attempt at that time to enforce the right of the fourth estate. -These sorely oppressed movements, of women and of working men, dominate -the 19th century and now at the beginning of the 20th have every reason -for assurance of victory. - -In the 17th and 18th centuries men and women writers appeared in -different countries to demonstrate and establish the worth and right of -woman as “man.” Indirectly inspired by the great women of the earlier -centuries, they were immediately influenced by woman’s political and -cultural exercise of power in the 18th century. Especially notable are -the arguments which were advanced in the 90’s of the 18th century by -writers manifestly uninfluenced by one another—the Swede, Thorild, in -_The Natural Nobility of Womankind_; the German, Hippel; the Frenchman, -Condorcet; the English woman, Mary Wollstonecraft. All insist that -difference in sex can form no obstacle to placing woman on an equality -with man in the family and in society; that she shall have the same -right as man to education and free agency. The men writers emphasised -more her individual human right, as “man,” and the advantage to society; -the women writers more the mother’s need of culture and her right to it, -in order to be able to rear and protect her children better. But all -four ideas are, at heart, determined by the same point of view which the -great philosopher of evolution thus formulated later: _the fundamental -condition for social equilibrium is the same as for human happiness and -lies in the law of equal freedom_. And this means that every one—without -regard to difference between sex and sex, man and man—must have the -right and the opportunity to develop and exercise his own capacities. -For no one to-day can undertake so certain a valuation of talents that -this valuation could justify society in restricting, a priori, the right -of a single one of its members _to develop_ his capacities, even though -these capacities might take such a direction, later, that society would -be compelled to limit their _exercise_. - -Spencer arrived by the deductive method at the same demand Romanticism -reached earlier by the intuitive method. Romanticism recognised that in -the measure in which the individual is unusual he must be also -unintelligible, for he shows to the majority only his surface; his -innermost soul only to those in harmony with him. Even in the family -circle the individual often remains therefore undiscovered. How much -more then must society, composed for the most part of Philistines, -outrage the individual if it concedes rights to one category, to one -sex, to one class, and not to the other! - -And from this point of view the Romanticists drew for women also the -logical conclusion of individualism. They pointed out that the sex -character, carried _to the extreme_, furnished neither the highest -masculine nor the highest feminine type; that each sex must develop in -itself both noble human _universality_ and individual _peculiarity_. And -this the great woman personalities did who shared the destiny of the -Romanticists. They were thereby fully and wholly able to share also the -intellectual life of their husbands. Love became thus a unity of souls. -The romantic ideal of love was expressed in _La Nouvelle Héloise_, in -Goethe’s letters to Charlotte von Stein, in Rahel, in Mme. de Staël. It -was found in the first half of the 19th century in many great women; for -example, George Sand, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Camilla Collett. It -appeared in Shelley and in the Swedish poet Almquist, in Stuart Mill and -Robert Browning, also in certain French and German poets and thinkers. -This ideal has now been for some centuries the ideal of most women and -of not a few men of feeling. - -But since a truly psychic unity is possible only between two beings who -are, in outer as in inner sense, _free_, exactly for this reason, -“romantic love” has as consequence the demand for the emancipation of -woman. - -The love of Romanticism, which has been caricatured to the extent that -it signified only moonshine, ecstasy, sonnets, and wife barter, had its -real essence in the desire for completeness of soul in love. This was, -in a new form, the ideal of the courts of love. But since completeness -of soul means that all the powers of the soul can freely and fully -penetrate and elevate one another, so the first requisite for that -soulful love was that _woman’s_ thinking as well as her feeling, her -imagination as well as her will, her desire for power, as well as her -conscience, be freed from the shackles imposed upon them from without, -in order to be strengthened and purified. The second stipulation was -that _man’s_ inner, spiritual life be freed from the deteriorating -results of the prerogatives and prejudices accorded to and maintained by -his sex. - -A new ideal in the relationship between husband and wife, between mother -and child; the demand of the feminine individuality for the right to -free cultivation of her powers and to self-direction; the need of new -fields for this exercise of her power after industrialism began to usurp -one branch of domestic work after another—these are the fundamental -reasons for what is called the middle-class woman movement. The -middle-class woman—because of the increasing surplus of women, because -of the continually greater variety of economic conditions and the -decrease in marriage for this and other reasons—was to an ever greater -extent constrained to self-maintenance. Thus the _economic_ reason for -the woman movement, not only in the labouring class but also in the -middle class, became the most effective influence operating in the -_widest_ circles, although the reasons mentioned previously were the -first and deepest causes. - -And herewith we stand at the beginning of the woman movement, become -_conscious of its purpose_. - -But this movement would be a stream without sources if the “anonymous” -movements indicated here with the greatest brevity had not preceded, if -in the grey morning of time the endless procession had not begun in -which women now nameless for us walked at the head, each with an amphoræ -upon her shoulder—amphoræ which they filled at any fountain of life. -Before these nameless women vanished on the horizon, each, like a water -nymph of antiquity, lowered the brim of her urn to the earth, which thus -was traversed by innumerable interlacing rills. And all these—even if by -the most circuitous route—have augmented by some drops the mighty stream -now called the woman movement. - - - - - CHAPTER I - THE EXTERNAL RESULTS OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT - - -The history of the woman movement, conscious of its purpose, does not -fall within the compass of this book. But as foundation for later -judgments, it is necessary to take a short retrospective glance over the -essential results which the woman movement has attained in the struggle -for woman’s equality with man in the right to general culture, -professional education, and work, as well as in the sphere of family and -of civil status. These several demands for equality were voiced, as -early as 1848, in a powerful and man-indicting plea by the American -women in their “Declaration of Sentiments.” But in 1905 the program for -Germany’s “Allgemein Frauenverein,” as well as many both conservative -and radical resolutions for women congresses in different countries, -show how far removed Europe and, in many respects, America also, still -are from the desires expressed in the year 1848. - -If the humble utterance of women, “We can with justice demand nothing of -life except a work and a duty,” be conclusive, then life has already -conceded to the demands of woman in rich measure. The woman movement and -the self-interest of the employers have made accessible to her a number -of new fields of labour, without mentioning those which fifty years ago -were the only ones “proper” for women of the middle class—those of -teacher, lady companion, and “lady’s help.” The woman movement and man’s -increasing recognition of woman’s need of general education and -professional qualification have created a large number of educational -institutions. But in regard to the right of work, the acquisitions are -but insignificant if this right be defined as _the opportunity for that -work which one prefers and for which one is best fitted_. Women have -now, for example, in many countries the right to pass the same -examinations as men, but in many cases not the right to the offices -which these examinations open to men. The profession to which women have -found a comparatively easy entrance, that of physician, is widely -extended among women in Europe as well as in America. That a dwelling -was denied to the first woman physician because her profession was -considered “improper” for a woman, sounds now like a fable. Everywhere -now are women nurses, teachers of gymnastics, dentists, apothecaries, -and midwives. In America there are even many women ministers and it -sounds likewise wholly fabulous to say that the first of these was -literally stoned. Women judges also have been appointed in America. In -Europe there are none to my knowledge and no women preachers. And yet -the woman pastor would often be, especially for women and children, a -better minister than the clergyman; for them also the woman judge might -often surpass the man in penetration and understanding. The profession -of law, open to women in many countries, is as yet little practised by -them in Europe. And yet as advocate, police officer, and prison -attendant, the female official would be of special service for her own -sex as well as for children and young people of both sexes. But in every -field where the living reality of flesh and blood has to be compressed -into legal paragraphs, mankind must be more or less mistreated. And -since even masculine jurists of feeling suffer under this conviction, -the reason for the fact that this career, in which woman could be of -infinitely great service to humanity, has thus far attracted her little, -may be sought in feminine sensitiveness. - -All the more numerous are the women who have devoted themselves to the -task most akin to motherhood, the profession of teacher. Unfortunately -not always the inner call but the prestige of the position has -determined the choice. Millions of women are now employed as teachers in -all possible types of schools, from kindergartens to training schools, -from infant schools to boys’ colleges. Even in universities, although in -Europe very rarely it is true, women occupy chairs of learning. In the -field of popular education, women are zealously active as lecturers, -librarians, leaders of evening classes, and in similar work. - -With every decade, woman’s powers have attained their right more fully -and in fields where it now seems incredible that men could, and still -partly do, insist upon getting along without them. I refer to the -associations and institutions connected with prison supervision and -reformatories; with schools and children’s homes; care of the poor and -the sick; health and factory inspection. Slowly but surely the woman -movement has prepared a place here for the mother of society beside the -father of society who in these domains is often very awkward or quite -helpless. Alone, or together with men, women have organised milk -distribution and crèches, housekeeping schools, school food-kitchens, -people’s food-kitchens, people’s polyclinics, sanitariums and -rest-homes, vacation colonies, homes for sick and neglected children, -etc. Many kinds of homes for working women, old people’s homes, rescue -homes, institutions for the protection of mothers and children, -employment bureaus, legal redress, and other forms of social relief are -connected, indirectly if not directly, with the woman movement. Great -women agitators on their part set thousands of women into action, as for -example, Harriet Beecher Stowe, agitating against negro slavery, -Josephine Butler against prostitution, Frances Willard against -intemperance, and Bertha von Suttner against war. - -And yet in spite of the fabulous amount of time, strength, and money -which the associations and organisations thus created have cost in -donations of time and money, this social relief work is only the oil and -wine of the Samaritan for the wounds of society. As long as brigand -hands drag mothers and children into factories; as long as armies cost -much more than schools; as long as dwelling conditions in the cities are -for many people worse than those for domestic animals in the country; as -long as alcohol and syphilis brand the new generation—so long woman’s -devotion remains powerless. - -And this conviction has urged women to transform their social work from -an often injudicious “Christian” compassion into an organised charity in -order to anticipate and prevent need and to facilitate self-help. But -also in this new phase of their philanthropic work many women of the -middle class are arriving at an understanding of the necessity of a -social reform in accordance with socialistic demands. A larger number of -women join the suffragist movement, less owing to individual demands for -rights than out of despair over the hopeless social work to which their -feeling of solidarity still impels them. For without suffrage (this they -experience every day) their work of relief is like seed sown in a -morass. - -A by-product of the social relief work is that many single women have -found, in voluntary social work, an occupation and often also, in -remunerative social work, a livelihood; in both cases through service in -which certain feminine qualities can be of value. - -Yes, exactly in the above mentioned fields of work, which so often bring -the modern woman in contact with the finest and most delicate as well as -with the coarsest and hardest sides of life; which place her before -conflicts of the most exceptional as well as of the most universally -human kind—there woman has nothing _new_ to give except her -motherliness. That means protecting tenderness, gentle patience, glad -readiness to help, the interest embracing each one in particular, the -fine and quick vibration in contact with the feelings of others which -we, in a word, call “tact.” If, however, a woman has not been endowed -with motherliness, or has none remaining, then she reverts to impersonal -devotion to duty, hard formalism, dry routine; then all the talk about -the _social_ significance of woman’s entrance into the field of medicine -or jurisprudence or the ministry or social work remains only empty -phrases. In all these spheres a good man is much more valuable than a -hard woman. And that woman’s hands can be rough, woman’s eyes cold, -woman’s soul base or cruel—this many suffering and crushed, sorrowing -and sinful, small and defenceless have already experienced. If woman is -to keep her superiority as the alleviator of the suffering of others, -the protector of others, solicitous for the welfare of others, then she -must not only acquire certain universal human qualities in which man is -often superior to her; she must also carefully guard and cultivate the -best capacities which her sex gained in and through the hundred thousand -years’ activity as that half of mankind which created the home and -reared the children. - -Although the woman movement has multiplied and extended the social -relief work of woman in innumerable directions, still it has not yet -opened to her the field in which formerly deaconesses, and much earlier -still nuns, were engaged. But what is new as result of the woman -movement is that more and more single _cultured_ women now devote -themselves to the occupations of governess, nurse, midwife, and kindred -callings; as well as that more special training is demanded for these -vocations to which women turned earlier with downright criminal -carelessness. - - * * * * * - -Simultaneously with the need of the middle-class woman for new fields of -work, came the extraordinarily rapid development of commerce and -business, which occasioned the need of new working forces. Feminine -honesty, orderliness, and devotion to duty—alas, also her modest demands -of compensation—made the state as well as private employers favourably -disposed to employ women in increasingly greater numbers in the -different branches of commerce: in the post-office, railroads, -telegraph, telephone, as also in banks, counting houses, agencies or -stores, as secretaries, stenographers, and clerks. In cases where the -wife or daughter was the husband’s or father’s assistant such work then -received a personal interest, and what woman’s labour in this form can -signify for national wealth can be seen in France especially. But as a -rule no real joy in work could illuminate the days and years of the -generation of women who in all these vocations have grown gray and at -best have been pensioned. Nevertheless, in these offices one always sees -fresh faces bending over the desk to fade away in their turn. - -Lack of courage or means often deters the European woman from more -independent business activity, and this in spite of increasing freedom -to choose her occupation, in spite of brilliant examples of successful -undertakings of women, in photography, hotel or boarding-house -management, dress-making, etc. In America, on the contrary, there is no -masculine occupation, from that of butcher and executioner to real -estate speculator and stock-exchange gambler that women have not -practised. - -But while the women of the older generation were thankful if only they -succeeded in obtaining “a work and a duty,” however monotonous and -wearing it might be, the will of the younger generation for a -_pleasurable_ labour has fortunately increased. Partly alone, partly -co-operatively, women began to venture into the applied arts, handwork, -farming, or kindred work. And since corresponding special training -schools quickly arise to meet the awakening of the desire for a -vocation, we can hope for good results for these, as yet rare, -enterprising spirits. For special education is, in our time, the -essential condition of success, especially in agriculture, where the -women often succeeded without other help than their personal efficiency -and the “farmer’s customary practice.” - -Since I know America only at second hand I have no claim to a final -judgment regarding the influence of business life and modern methods of -production upon the soul life of woman. In the women who have succeeded -in securing affluence through commercial life one finds probably the -same antichristian effects of this life as among men. Recently in -America a number of men and women endeavoured to live for fourteen days, -as Christ would have lived. The decision of most of those who were -engaged in business life was that either they must cease to follow in -the footsteps of Christ—or must resign their positions. And since, with -due consideration for the number of woman employers in America, many of -these experiences must surely have been made under feminine supervision, -the experiment does not lack a certain significance for the forming of a -judgment in the direction referred to. - -The zeal of women’s rights advocates to open to women all of man’s -fields of labour, and not only this but to prove that these fields are -_as well adapted_ to woman as man—this zeal has unfortunately had as -result that the woman movement has turned the aptitude of many women in -a wrong direction and has fettered a great amount of woman’s misused -working power to thankless or galling tasks. But, on the other hand, how -the woman movement has elevated woman’s work, since it has raised the -standard of qualification in many fields and increased the feeling of -responsibility in all! How it has increased the honour of work and the -capacity for organisation, developed the judgment, stimulated the will -power, strengthened the courage! It has awakened innumerable slumbering -talents, given freedom of action to innumerable shackled powers. And -thus it has transformed hosts of women of the upper class, formerly the -most useless burden of earth, into productive members of society, -instead of mere consumers; made them self-supporting instead of -dependent, joyful instead of weary of life. - - * * * * * - -The woman movement of the lower classes is socialistic. It has increased -in extent and significance in the same measure in which the working -woman has given up farming, housework, and domestic service for -industry. - -This woman movement also worked in two directions. The older program -reads: “Full equality of woman with man.” In the “state of the future” -both sexes shall have the same duty of work and the same protection of -work, while the children are reared in state institutions. - -The movement in the other direction purposes to win back the wife to the -husband, the mother to the children, and, thereby, the home to all. The -old or right wing of the middle-class woman movement, as well as the -older direction of socialism just mentioned, still uphold, with -arguments of the old liberalism, the “individual freedom” of the working -woman against all protecting “exceptional laws.” Increasing numbers of -the more radical—that means in this connection more social—feminists of -the upper class, however, stand side by side with the less dogmatic -trend of socialism in its supreme struggle for the protection of the -mother. - -In the socialistic woman movement, both efforts for freedom were -interwoven—that of the working men and that of women—checked during the -French Revolution but soon after revived as the two great forces of the -new century. In this intertwining of the woman question with the labour -question is found the explanation of the fact that socialists -characterise the woman question as an _economic_ question solely; while -in reality the woman question, _historically_, manifestly began as an -advocacy of the human right and worth of woman; and that too before any -great industry appeared on the horizon. As long as the man was the one -who, outside the home, was producer and provider, and the woman the one -who, within the home, managed and perfected the raw material, no -_economic_ woman question could arise, but on the other hand exactly a -question of _woman’s rights_. For, as some writers demonstrated, as -early as the 18th century it was absurd, if woman’s work in the home was -so valuable and so faithfully performed, that it should not secure in -consequence corresponding rights. And exactly because the middle-class -woman movement tried to uphold and defend the right and the freedom of -women in the compass of the old society, this movement became, and must -still often be, a struggle of women against men. The socialistic woman -movement is on the other hand merely a factor in a _joint struggle of -men and women against the old society and for a new condition_. The -struggle here cannot be sex against sex, but class against class. Each -of these woman movements has been partly right, each has partly -misunderstood the other. Only in recent times has a convergence between -the middle class and the socialistic woman movements been accomplished -for the attainment of a number of common ends; for example, the -protection of the mother, mentioned above, and especially the franchise. -This convergence has dissolved the prejudice on both sides. In both -quarters they begin to understand the power and aim of the other -movement. - -Socialism and the woman movement are two mighty streams which drag along -with them great parts of the firm formations which they touch. But if -one wishes to be just toward both, one must not forget that in this way -new lands are created. - -The socialistic women on their part, as speakers, agitators, -journalists, members of special associations, have stood in rank and -file beside the men as true comrades, and the middle-class women have -much to learn from the feeling of solidarity of the women socialists. -The masculine comrades have not always _in practice_ substantiated the -principle of equality, for even the socialist is first man and then -comrade; but _in theory_ he has generally supported it. - -Through socialism, feminism has penetrated to the masses. What the -middle-class woman movement would have needed another century to effect, -socialism has accomplished in a few decades. Nothing shows better than -its fear of socialists how blindly prejudiced was the right wing of -middle-class feminism. And nothing so clearly elucidates in what stage -of feminism the upper-class movement was than its obstinate adherence to -“the principle of personal freedom” in face of the atrocious actual -conditions which resulted from the “freedom of work” of the women -factory hands. - -I will here recall only in brief the progress of the economic woman -movement in the class of factory workers. When machines transformed the -whole method of production and a host of women no longer found -sufficient occupation in the home, while at the same time the -possibilities of marriage decreased because of the surplus of women and -also for other reasons, the middle-class women looked about them for new -fields of labour. The great industries in return looked about them for -more “hands.” And since, with the machine, female hands were quite as -serviceable as male—with a new machine it was possible to replace thirty -men with one woman—and since in addition they were cheaper, then began -that exodus of women from the home into the factory, the results of -which we are now experiencing. - -When the mother is absent from the home, then there is lacking the -cohering, supervising, warming force, and the home deteriorates and -falls to pieces; the children are neglected, the husband suffers; the -street takes possession of the children, the alehouse of the men. -Moreover, the women work often for starvation wages, whereby less comes -into the home than is lost by the absence and incapacity of the mother. -In the middle classes daughters and wives, entirely or partly supported -in the home, could be satisfied with smaller wages and have thus become -the competitors of men and women wholly self-supporting. For the same -reason wives working in these industries have often become the -competitors of men, children again the competitors of women, and married -women the competitors of unmarried. - -In woman, so long secluded in the sphere of the family, the social -feeling of solidarity has been very slowly awakened. Therefore, -organisation which could prevent the competition just mentioned has only -in the last decade made great progress everywhere among working women. -In the middle-class vocations this is almost entirely lacking. Among the -working women slowness of organisation is natural, for the more wretched -their position was, the more difficult was it for them to organise. But -among middle-class women the reason was partly their individualism, -partly their anti-socialism, partly the lack of feeling of solidarity -just referred to. - -Home work for profit and pleasure in one’s own family or in service of -the applied arts has become a means for the “sweat system,” the facts of -which belong to the darkest side of modern working life. These facts -alone would be sufficient to prove that _working women_ have little to -gain from the luxury of the rich, an assertion with which luxury often -vindicates itself. There is still for the women working at home as well -as for the women working in the factory, beside their professional work, -also the duty of caring for the children and managing the home. However -insufficient this may be yet it still claims a great part of their -already meagre leisure; and the more tender and conscientious the -mothers are, the more they wear themselves out, and the sooner must -society, after night-watching, lack of light and hunger have ruined -them, maintain them as infirm or paupers. The life of these women passed -in the factory often from childhood has made them moreover, generation -after generation, more unfitted for household work. What does it profit -to attempt to remedy the evil by housekeeping schools and instruction in -the care of children? For where time and strength are lacking the home -has lost its right. - -What can be expected of women who three or four days after confinement -must again stand at the machine, who are compelled to leave their -children behind them, shut in at home, exposed to all conceivable -accidents? What can be expected of mothers, who have become mothers -against their will,—mothers of children, who because of the conditions -of their parents’ work have become scrofulous, rickety, idiotic—children -who contract degeneration of the liver because the harassed, ignorant -mother quieted them with brandy, ill-treated them,—herself a physical -and psychic ruin who spreads destruction about her! - -The feminists are accustomed to rage over the custom which formerly -condemned the Indian widows to be burned upon the funeral pyre—a custom -which is only an innocent sport in comparison with the woman slavery -which Europe has even brought to a system and which the woman movement -long ignored. - -To these general facts, which apply also to women employed in hard -agricultural labour, there is also added an entirely new series of evils -associated with occupations dangerous to health—for example those in -which lead, quicksilver, phosphorus or tobacco poison the workers,[2] or -those branches of work where inhaling dust at the weaving loom or in -spinning, breathing gas and coal smoke, exposed to heat, smoke and damp, -they contract tuberculosis and other diseases; to say nothing of the -physical and moral misery in which miners and stevedores live. But the -worst begins only when the women are to become mothers. Either the -embryo is killed by an abortion, intentional or caused by the -occupation; or it comes into the world dead or sick or crippled; or it -dies in the first weeks or wastes away under artificial nourishment—in -England for example only one out of eight children is nursed. The -mothers either cannot or will not. Next to the labour conditions, -alcohol plays the greatest part in this indirect massacre of infants. - -If one turns from the women engaged in industrial work to the servant -class, then female drudgery reaches perhaps its height among the girls -employed in bars, cafés, and similar establishments. What physical and -psychic results this work entails can be divined from the fact that, in -England, half of all women suicides are such waitresses under 30 years -of age. That family servant girls are allowed to sleep in closets and to -work far beyond the present customary factory time; that in the class of -saleswomen, especially in cigar shops, the longest working hours -together with the most paltry starvation wages are found—all this, as -every one knows, is the fundamental reason why the path is so short from -all these occupations to the lowest—to prostitution. The servant girl -corrupted by the master of the house, the half-starved, overworked shop -girl, the night-watching cigar worker, and many, many others are found -here as sacrifices of a shameless exploitation. Herewith we stand before -that “woman question” in which both elementary instincts have united for -that captivity of woman from which the woman movement has found no means -of emancipation; against which the means sought in these and other -quarters prove fruitless. For only a radical transformation of society -and sexual ethics can here provide a remedy. - - * * * * * - -Every one in face of these facts, touched upon thus superficially, must -be astounded that women could oppose laws for the protection of women. -Fortunately these progress-impeding emancipation women had no influence -when, in England and other countries, certain night work began to be -prohibited to women, their working hours limited, certain employments -barred out, and a time of rest assured to the woman recently confined. -Still very small steps only, but in the right direction. At the same -time the organisation of working women advances so that by labour unions -and strikes here and there they have succeeded in enforcing better -wages, shorter working hours, and better labour conditions. And so long -as the woman movement of the upper classes has no solidarity with that -of the lower, the female factory inspector can accomplish very little, -as a result of the fear of the working women to give facts and the -adroitness of the employers in veiling these. But if women of the upper -class begin to compete with the slave-driving, sweat-system employers -through _well-organised co-operative enterprises_, especially for the -revival of artistic handwork, whereby a profitable work is made for -mothers at home under good working conditions; and if they boycott all -shops where the working hours of the women exceed the due measure, while -their wages are below the standard; then the woman movement would be -able to hasten certain reforms in the field of industry, just as so many -mistresses of girls’ private schools have hastened the reform of public -schools: they simply availed themselves of the improvements arising from -feminine initiative. - - * * * * * - -The married woman as family provider beside the man, often also in place -of the man, but always however _subservient to the man’s dominion_—this -is the worst form of woman slavery our time has created. The woman -movement purposes indeed to make the wife “of age,” in every respect, -and free from the husband’s guardianship. But within the woman movement -all are not yet entirely agreed that _the work of the mother outside the -home_ in and for itself is an evil. Attempts are indeed being made to -alter the conditions which are most to blame for the deterioration of -mothers and children. But a large faction in the woman movement wishes -still, as was said, to cling to the _immediately_ remunerative work of -the mother and remedy the resulting lack of home by social institutions -for care of children, housekeeping, etc. - -On this side, the following arguments are heard: woman becomes free only -when she can wholly support herself and can devote herself to her work -unhampered by duties toward husband and children; only through the -reciprocal social obligation of work and the complete individual freedom -of both sexes can the present conflicts between the labour of man and -woman, between individual happiness and the common weal, finally cease. - -Like every canalisation or drainage of the mighty river system of the -life of human feeling, this program is direct and conclusive. One may -easily understand that masculine brains, dominated by a passion for -logic, could devise it; but if we hear it advocated by multitudes of -women, then we recognise how harassed by the fourfold burden of family -provider, child bearer, child educator, and housekeeper the poor women -must be who can smilingly assent to the foregoing picture of the future. - -And yet there is another possible ideal of the future which can be -realised as soon as production is determined, no longer by private -capitalistic interests, but by social-political interests. Women will -then be employed in industrial fields of work where their powers are _as -productive as possible_ with the least possible loss in time and -strength; above all in those fields where the work requires no _long_ -preparation and the dexterity does not suffer by _interruptions_. Before -the years in which the _occupation is motherhood_, and after these -years, woman can still be always remunerated by an economic wage; during -the years on the contrary in which motherhood is the vocation, she can -be remunerated _by the state_. It is only necessary that women and men -_will_ a new order whereby in the future we attain the following -conditions: - -A _Society_, in which the welfare of the new generation is the centre to -which all social-political plans, at heart, are aiming. - -_Children_ born of parents whose souls and bodies are qualified and -prepared for a worthy parenthood and who can thus create for their -children sound and beautiful conditions of life. - -_Mothers_ won back to the husbands, the children, the homes, but under -such circumstances that _as free human personalities they perform the -most important work of society_: the bearing and rearing of children. - -_Fathers_ with time and leisure to share with the mothers the task of -education and to share with them and the children the joys of the home -life, as well as of the remainder of existence. - -This ideal of the future state takes in my imagination the form of a -varied Italian garden with a wide outlook upon the great sea. The other -ideal of the future, on the contrary, is to me like a coal mine wherein -all spiritual and social vegetation is petrified so that it now serves -only as motive-power for machines. - - * * * * * - -Nothing more effectively proves how rife with reactions—and for that -reason how hidden—is the power of development, than to realise that the -unorganized, inorganic socialistic ideal of the future, just mentioned, -is the logical sequence of the woman movement if one draws the extreme -conclusion from its fundamental idea—the right of woman to individual, -free development of her powers. It is consistent historically that in -America, where the movement for the right and freedom of woman has been -most widely successful, many middle-class women have resolutely drawn -these extreme conclusions of emancipation. Quite as psychologically -logical is it, that at a time when the uncomplicated soul life and life -demands of the masses still form the most important factors in the -shaping of the ideal of the future, the socialistic women, from their -different point of view, have arrived at like ideals. But fortunately -there are in women, as in the masses, still great tracts of “new ground” -where new soul conditions will germinate, and in due time, new ideals -will flower. Groups of men can at times forget mankind in dwelling upon -themselves. But mankind in its entirety has never yet lost the instinct -for the conditions of self-preservation and the higher development of -the race. I will come back later to the psychological phase of the -question. I touch upon it here only as the social program of the future. - - * * * * * - -A new field which the woman movement has opened up to woman is the -scientific field. For the fact that as early as the Renaissance some -Italian women occupied chairs of academic instruction, that in the 17th -and 18th centuries some women devoted themselves seriously to classic -studies or the exact sciences—all that was only exceptional. And the -women who since the beginning of the woman movement have distinguished -themselves by great services in science are still exceptional. But in -many places, sometimes as assistants of their husbands or of other men, -women now perform good scientific work in different lines. Many women -are also active in the sphere of invention, without a single woman’s -name having been thus far connected with an _epoch-making_ invention. - -Especially where constructive ability is necessary, women have as yet -not been eminent; they have created neither a philosophical system nor a -new religion, neither a great musical work nor a monumental building, -neither a classic drama nor an epic. On the other hand, the exact -sciences, which would be considered a priori as little adapted to women, -for example mathematics, astronomy, and physics, are exactly those in -which thus far they have most distinguished themselves. This contains a -warning against too precipitate conclusions about the intellectual life -of woman. Not until several generations of women—with the same -privileges of education as man, with the same encouragement from home -and society—have exercised their faculty for discovery and their -inventive and creative faculties can we really know whether the present -inferiority of woman in this respect is a provision of nature or not; -whether her genius was only hampered in its expression or whether, as I -believe, it is ordinarily of a different kind from that of man. - -In art there are several fields which the woman movement did not need to -open for the first time to woman: dramatic art, music, and the dance. -Indirectly, however, the woman movement has transformed the position of -women occupied in these lines by increasing the respect for all good -work of woman and raising the requirements for woman’s education in -general. The woman movement has also exercised an immediate influence -upon certain artists of the present time. Thus Eleanora Duse said to me -that her most cherished desire has been to represent and interpret the -new types of women, although the dramatists of to-day have rarely given -her the material she desired wherewith to create characters by which she -could reveal the soul of the new woman and elevate man’s, as well as -woman’s own, ideal of woman. - -In the dance, women have been, especially in America, creative in -connection with its forms and have been thereby also revelations of the -new spiritual life of woman which has found expression in these forms. -Great women singers, through Wagner’s operas and ballad-singing, have -given voice to the primeval yearning of the woman soul, as that yearning -now assumes form in the new woman. And in interpretations at the hands -of great pianists or violinists, not one classic musical work failed to -furnish similar revelations. - -The very finest effects of the woman movement—mere shades of feeling -which cannot be enumerated nor discussed—have reached our present time -through lines, movement, rhythm, cadence, through the timbre of a voice, -the gesture of a hand, the glance of an eye, the tone of a violin. And -these effects have been secured without any disturbance of the -receptivity by strife over the precedence of woman or of man. In other -spheres, susceptibility to the effects of art creations by woman is -still often dulled by this strife. In the above named fields, long -before the beginning of the woman movement, conscious of its purpose, -women without arguments have convinced the world of the complete -equality of woman with man. And all these women, conquering through -beauty in one form or another, have done more for the woman movement -than it has done for them. Certainly the woman movement both directly -and indirectly has had its share in opening to women musical as well as -other art academies and schools of applied arts, but academies have a -doubtful value and the smaller the value, the more gifted the student. -The new right has thus become dangerous to the independence of real -gifts and, with all possibilities of education thus opened wide, there -comes a temptation for fancied talents to pass beyond their bounds. This -danger, as far as the plastic arts are concerned, has found more and -more its counterpoise in the schools of applied art, by which many women -have been directed to the decorative professions, from house and garden -architecture to fashion designing and holiday decorations. - -But in the field of the applied arts, as well as of the plastic arts and -of music, the facility afforded by the modern conditions of training and -of public careers has instigated many women, who before had exercised -their little talent only for the pleasure of the home or society -circles, to exhibit and appear publicly to the detriment both of the -home circles and, alas, also of art! - -The works of art by women, which humanity could not lose without really -becoming poorer, have been created, thus far, neither in the sphere of -music nor of plastic art; they all belong to literature. And this sphere -the woman movement has not opened to woman; ever since the days of -Sappho and of Corinna, women have attained fame as writers. - -In letters and memoirs not originally designed for publication, next to -that in the field of romance and the novel, occasionally also in the -lyric, the feminine character has found thus far its fullest and finest -expression. In all these fields women have produced works which have -been placed by men, not it is true beside the _greatest_ works of -masculine genius in the same domain, yet beside eminent works of men. As -intermediary of the works of others, woman has not in our time, as in -the period of enlightenment or in the circle of Goethe, her greatest -significance through conversations and letters but through the -printing-press. The modern woman, however, as essayist and biographer, -as translator and collector, is a valuable intermediary of culture. She -is also unfortunately a menace to culture, not so much because of the -inferior works which she produces, for these, like the similar works of -men, soon sink into oblivion. The real danger lies in the fact that -women in great multitudes increase the number of those journalists who -lack intellectual as well as ethical culture, which should be an -imperative condition in that field of work. But this profession is now, -on the contrary, the one into which the amateur may most easily force an -entrance without special training and without professional reputation. -The result is that men and women who lack both can pull down, in their -journals, the real work and essential character of serious people, -without the remotest conception or the faintest comprehension of either. -On the other hand these cliques of coffee-house people crown one another -as kings and queens—for a day! The press-breed carries on in leaflets -its flirtation as well as its vengeance. The knife which the child of -nature thrusts into a rival’s breast is now transformed into the pen -with which the reviewer stabs a competitor’s latest work. In a word -women now furnish to the Press work, occasionally excellent, frequently -mediocre, all too often worthless. Their womanly characteristics make it -feasible more frequently for them than for men to adopt more completely -the rituals of the temple service of the deity of the Press—the Public. -This “womanliness” evinces itself, especially, in the ability “to grip -the fleeting moment by its fluttering locks” and also to anticipate when -that moment’s locks are false and so the grasp prove profitless. - -While hosts of women have turned to journalism, they are seldom found in -the fields to which the woman movement should have directed them: in the -field of sociological and psychological research. Nearly all significant -works upon the normal, the abnormal, the criminal psychic life of -children, young people and women have been written by men. They have -unfortunately treated the feminine spiritual life in “scientific” works -also, in which the author dares speak of “woman” even though he knows -nothing of her except what his own happy or unhappy experiences in a -mother or sister, wife or sweetheart, have taught him. - -The slight title of men to their “scientific method” when they venture -upon the terra incognita which the soul of woman still is for them, -explains why they extol, as “scientific,” works of women about women -which are quite as superficial as those of men themselves. With a few -exceptions, it is not the physiological-psychological books written by -women about women which have really taught the present something new -about womankind in general and the new woman in particular. No, in the -form of romances, of lyrics or in voluntary confessions, woman has -contributed the most valuable documents about her sex: on the one hand -those which indicate the transformations which the woman movement has -occasioned in woman’s nature, on the other hand those which demonstrate -the extent to which her fundamental nature has remained unchanged, even -though this elementary material exhibits many more facets in the modern -woman than in the woman of any previous time; facets resulting from the -manifold contacts and frictions with life to which woman now exposes -herself or is exposed. - -From a literary point of view, these books of confession have seldom -a value which could be compared with that of the, in outer sense, -objective, classic works which talented women writers of the present -have produced. Often, however, one of these confessions, in which -the writer has candidly given her own history, has been of real -literary value. But even when the works contain mendacities and -self-extenuations, crass injustice toward men or toward other women, -as revelations of the modern woman soul they are more valuable for -the future than the clarified, artistically perfect works of women, -mentioned above. For the truth about woman in the century of the -woman is found only in the impassioned books in which the hard -struggles for freedom, work, right, or fame are recited; or in those -works impassioned in another way, in which the soul or the blood or -both cry out their yearning, ever unappeased, in spite of freedom -and work, right and fame. What we may _to-day_ rightly protest -against in these books is their recklessness which may _in the -future_ be regarded as their greatest value. - -Because, up to the present time, the most exquisite as well as the most -horrifying women characters in literature have been created by men, many -men think that they understand women better than women do themselves. -And to this extent men are right—that women attain their most sublime -heights and reach their deepest degradation in and through love. But -aside from that, women have a much clearer insight and, for that reason, -a much more intelligent idea of one another than man has of woman. When -accordingly a woman speaks not only of herself but also of another -woman—sometimes also of children—we feel already that “the eternal -feminine” (_das Ewig-Weibliche_) in literature can create a feminine -art, in the best meaning of the word. For the present we hope, and with -good reason, that art as well as science will not appear as either -masculine or feminine but reveal a complete human personality. But this -does not mean that this personality has fused the masculine and feminine -qualities into a common humanity and thus enervated it. No, it means -that, in such a being, masculine and feminine traits exist side by side -and assert themselves alternately or harmoniously in all their strength. -In the rank of talent, one may find feminine men and masculine women; in -that of genius, never. There each one guards fully and completely the -character of his own sex in addition to the finest attributes of the -other sex. The distinctively masculine or distinctively feminine -attributes characterising an _earlier_ culture epoch are on the contrary -often lacking in these greatest men and women of their time. In other -words they lack exactly those attributes, hyper-masculine or -hyper-feminine, by which men and women, not abreast of the times in -their development, please each other and the masses, in literature as -well as in life. - -In the woman-literature, directly evoked by the woman movement, we can -read the whole gamut of the feminine nature, from the feminine in the -highest sense to the feminine in the worst sense. This literature shows -how unthinkingly and defenceless certain women have plunged into the -struggle, how rationally and well equipped other women have fought it -out. The impartiality of this judgment can be proven by the admission -that in the first-named class I have not infrequently found adherents; -in the latter class, opponents. - -The woman movement itself, partly in lectures and in literary activity, -partly by means of office-routine and work of organisation, has become a -new _field of labour_ for women. Even in this field it is found that -many are called but few are chosen. But when—except after defeat—was an -army ever seen without baggage? - - * * * * * - -In the field of _family right_, the woman movement has achieved, -directly and indirectly, great improvements in the legal position of the -_unmarried_ woman. The nearest proof is my own country. This has, within -a period of from seventy to eighty years, granted to the sister the same -right of inheritance as to the brother; declared the unmarried woman at -her majority at the same age as man, a majority which was also expanded -later through the suspension of the right of guardianship on the part of -the husband, existing for married women. The marriageable age of woman -was postponed to 17 years. Gradually woman has been placed on an -equality with man to carry on trade and industry; she has acquired the -right to hold certain public offices, although many still remain closed -to her. The married woman on the contrary is still always a minor; if no -marriage settlement is made the husband has the right to dispose of the -wife’s property; he has control of their common possessions; he can -restrict her freedom of work; he has authority over the children. A few -small progressive steps may nevertheless be pointed out: certain -reinforcements of the effectiveness of the marriage contract; the right -to her wages accorded to the wife; certain reforms in regard to the -division of property and divorce; some improvements in the position of -children born out of wedlock. In other countries also like reforms have -been accomplished, directly, through masculine initiative; indirectly, -through the influence of the woman movement. But everywhere family right -is still founded upon the principles of paternal right, supremacy of the -husband over the wife, indissolubility of marriage or solubility under -greater or less difficulties. - -In regard to citizenship I draw my examples also from the land I know -best. In Sweden, women have long since participated in the choice of -pastor; for about fifty years they have possessed municipal franchise; -later in certain cases they have attained also municipal eligibility, -for example, to the school board, board of charities, and now finally to -the town council. Still others could be cited. In other countries women -have sometimes more sometimes less civic right; only in a few countries -have they won _political_ franchise; in a single one, Finland, also -political eligibility. - -In the sphere of family right, as well as civic right, the woman -movement has then much more remaining to conquer than it has thus far -won. But I am convinced that the little girls I see down below in the -garden playing “mother and child” will possess all the rights due the -wife, the mother, and the citizen. - -The woman movement, in its present form, has accomplished its task if it -has procured for every woman the _legal_ right to develop and practise -her individual characteristics unhindered because of her sex. But after -this emancipation of the woman as a _human being_ and a citizen, there -remains her emancipation as a _woman_. And here no transformation of -forms of thought and feeling, of manners and customs, attainable by any -legal provisions or paragraphs, avail. The present woman movement has -created and still continues to create the social _conditions_ for this -last emancipation. But it will not approve such far extending results of -its own work. It desires the same _rights_ but also the same duties for -all women. If a single woman uses the freedom, which the woman movement -has procured for her as a member of society, to fashion her individual -life according to the deepest demands of her being, then the old guard -trembles before the outcome of the battle for freedom in which it fought -so valiantly. - -But nothing is more certain than that the feminine personality, whether -her innermost desire be spiritual creative instinct, erotic happiness, -maternal bliss, or universal human goodness, will acquire ever new forms -of expression: forms of expression which the once liberal, now more -conservative feminists and the modern socialistic feminists partly do -not divine and partly—divining—deplore! For the present even the -“emancipated” woman follows as a rule the paths which social custom has -marked out for her sex, as well as the cultural ideas which have been, -thus far, those of man. But if, in the coming thousand years, a -_feminine_ culture shall really supplement the masculine, then this will -be exactly in the measure in which women have the courage to create and -to act as most feminists now do not even dare think. Then it will be -evident that _all_ social movements of the present time, especially the -woman movement and socialism, are only the work of the path finder for -the masculine and feminine superman or, if you prefer the older -expression, _complete man_. - -Like other “old guards,” the veterans of feminism will not surrender -but will fall upon the field of battle. The little girls there below -will one day celebrate their memory. For through their struggles the -way became free for youth, the way which leads out to the wide sea -where perhaps shipwreck awaits the one who ventures out into the -darkness with her fragile skiff. But many will brave the voyage and -bide their fate, strong, proud, and composed as the maiden in -Schwind’s _Wasserfahrt_—that splendid symbol of the woman of the -future. - - - - - CHAPTER II - THE INNER RESULTS OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT - - -If I now start out to consider the woman soul as it has developed itself -under the influence of all the circumstances mentioned above, perhaps -many will expect a theory about the character of the feminine soul life. -But, at present, when the greatest problems of psychology are in -revolution and undecided, such a theory would be as scientifically -impossible as aphorisms are unanswerable. Likewise, conclusions, based -upon experience, concerning the psychic peculiarity of woman would be in -this chaotic transition period, superficial, if they attempted to be -absolute. Only _one_ decided opinion about the spiritual life of woman I -cannot—in consequence of my monistic-evolutionary conception of the -spiritual and physical life—refrain from expressing. This opinion is -that, in the one hundred thousand years at least in which woman has -practised the physical maternal functions, the spiritual attributes -_essential_ for motherhood must have been so strongly developed by her -that this development has had, and still has always, as a result a -pronounced difference between the feminine and masculine soul—that is to -say, everywhere where the soul, as well as the body of a woman, is -adapted and desirous of motherhood—a fitness and readiness which can -still be called the _normal_ condition. The spiritual qualities which -maternity required have become the attributes of “womanliness,” the -qualities which paternity required, have become the attributes of -“manliness.” This difference has become quite as significant for the -functional fitness of both sexes for the perpetuation and development of -the race, as for the wealth of life of each new generation. The -obliteration or retention of this difference is therefore a vital -question for mankind. - -Figuratively expressed, this seems to me the process: from a common root -of universal human spiritual life issue two stems which can again unite -in their blossoming. The ramification has necessarily involved a -division of labour in two equally important spheres. From this point of -view I give, in the following, my opinion of the value of the influence -of the woman movement upon the spiritual life of woman. - -We all know that life expresses itself as movement, that movement brings -with it change, transformation; that this can mean quite as well -disintegration as higher organisation. - -The woman movement is the most significant of all movements for freedom -in the world’s history. The question whether this movement leads mankind -in a higher or lower direction is the most serious question of the time. -Those who assert unconditionally the former or the latter have uttered a -premature judgment. The question must be formulated thus: - -(_a_) Has the woman movement brought to mankind a higher degree of vital -force, a greater faculty for self-preservation, a more complete -organisation, by which the more simple forms have become more finely -complex, the more uniform have become richer, more diverse; the -incoherent have attained a more perfect unity? Or has the woman movement -called forth an activity which represses life? degrades, scatters, and -reduces the powers to uniformity, in society and in mankind? - -(_b_) Is woman’s spiritual life now in general above the level at which -it was in the beginning of the woman movement? Have modern women finer -perceptions, deeper feelings, clearer ideas, a firmer will, richer -association of ideas? Do their spiritual faculties so work together that -they mutually enhance instead of hinder one another? In a word is the -modern woman more soulful than the woman of any other time? - -(_c_) Is the body of the modern woman, at all stages of life, stronger, -more healthy, and more beautiful than that of the woman of the previous -century, when the woman movement began in real earnest in Europe? - -(_d_) Does the modern woman perform in more perfect manner than the -woman of that time, the physical and psychic functions of motherhood? - -If the question be put thus then the _objective_ investigator must -answer to all—“_Yes and No_.” - -But if this investigator is an evolutionist, then he knows that the -progress of every social evolution is like that which womankind is now -experiencing. We see first, how, in any given sphere of society, where -those engaged therein have attained a pure, instinctive certainty in -their actions through laws and customs, the individuals oppressed by -these laws and customs must rebel against the limits, drawn from -without, for the development and exercise of their powers. This revolt -occasions at first a stage of anarchy in which everything seems to -collapse—while in the previous conserving epoch “crystallisation” -furnished the vital danger! But after such an anarchistic stage there -comes infallibly the constructive stage, where _a part of the old is -organised, incorporated, into the new_. But this acts no longer as -instinctive impulse. No, mankind has become conscious anew of these -values of law and custom; they have been recognised by the thought, -encompassed by feeling, sanctioned by the will as still always -indispensable, in another and higher form it is true than that against -which the individuals rebelled. But just as the leaves which once grew -green above in the summer light, gradually become one with the earth, so -the motives of the new customs sink gradually down into the unknown; man -acts again with instinctive certainty and uniformity—until the new -period of stagnation evokes a new rebellion and achievement of -individualism. - -The woman movement finds itself now at a point where it is about to pass -from the dynamic stage to a static stage. Exactly at this point a survey -begins to be possible; and it is also necessary for every one who -believes that the ideal, as well as the practical direction of the woman -movement, in future, must be influenced by the knowledge gained about -the effect of the movement, thus far, upon the uplifting of the life of -mankind. - -Every great achievement of individualism is as inconsiderate as the -spring tide and must be, in order to have strength for its task. The -woman movement was so also. But it encountered two other great ideas of -the time, Socialism and Evolutionism, and in consequence the woman -movement was obliged to modify gradually its conception of the feminine -individual and of her position in existence. - -On the one hand, as has been already shown, man has had to understand -that “open competition” and “individual initiative” are not absolute -political-economic truths. On the other hand, the defender of women’s -rights has been forced to understand more and more that woman’s soul is -no unchangeable value which must remain the same however much the -spheres have changed toward which this spiritual life directed itself -and from which it received its impression. While feminists fifty years -ago scorned the objection that “womanliness” would be lost in business -life or in politics, now the evolutionist mind in thinking women -understands that all human soul life is subject to the law of change; -that just as indisputably as the soul life of man is changed by -different vocations and surroundings, so that of woman also must be -changed. The feminists founded their dogma that the woman movement can -_only benefit_ woman, man, the child, the family, society, mankind upon -the conviction of the _stability_ of “true womanliness.” - -And if the woman movement had not had this religious certainty of -belief, how could it have withstood the mass of prejudice and stupidity -which it encountered in its own, as well as in the other sex? The woman -movement has conquered because it was self-intoxicated. - -And quite naturally! After a stability of centuries, during which the -position of woman was altered only in and with the general progress of -culture, women finally recognised that they could accelerate their own -progress and with it also the somewhat snail-like course of universal -human culture. And so woman asserted herself and increased her motion. -The faster this movement became, the more was she seized by the -intoxication which always accompanies every vigorous physical or psychic -movement. And when has a movement of the time advanced more rapidly? - -Folk-migrations, crusades, slave rebellions, revolutions have led a -race, a class, a group, beyond certain geographical or social -boundaries. The emancipation of women has shifted and extended the -limits of the freedom of movement of _half mankind_. No wonder that the -extent of the movement _in and for itself_ was advanced as proof of the -infallibility of its direction. All points of departure, the natural -right of man, individual freedom, social necessity—all led out into the -sun, which, in society as in nature, should radiate over woman as well -as over man; they led up onto the summit where man and woman both should -breathe the air of the heights. All obstacles which were raised with the -help of arguments such as, “the nature of woman,” “the welfare of the -family,” “the idea of society,” “the purpose of God”—all proved -temporary. And of necessity—for the innermost law of life, the law of -development, of life enhancement, carried the movement forward. When it -began, the Biblical expression about the wind was quoted, “Man knows not -whence it comes nor whither it goes.” Now all know it. Now the spirit of -the time speaks with “feminist” voice. The ideas of emancipation “are in -the air,” like bacilli, by which only savages are thus far wholly -untouched. - -There are now no great movements of the time whose path does not run -parallel with or cut across the woman movement. Every new generation is -involuntarily and unconsciously drawn along with it. The ends already -attained seem to the present age obvious; the ends, for which man is -still struggling to-day, will appear equally obvious to the future. The -woman movement is now a power with which even its most bitter -adversaries must reckon. And this force has so quickly attained -prominence exactly as a result of fanaticism. Just as the White and the -Blue Nile mingle their waters in the main stream, so in every great -current of time enthusiasm is mingled with fanaticism. And it is the -latter which bears the most fruit, for it gives power of growth to the -passions of the majority, good as well as bad. - -Every great idea begins with great promulgators. The promulgator who has -the spirit does not hold to the letter. And the woman movement which was -spirit began also with women and men who did not follow the call of the -spirit of the time; no, who from lonely heights sent out their awakening -call _to_ the time. Men who give their age new ideals have always -religious natures. This means, according to a good definition, that they -are “individualists in their being, social in their action.” - -Such natures burn, above all, with the passion to find themselves. Then -they burn with the passion to sacrifice themselves in order to help -others, whose suffering or wrongs they feel as deeply as if they were -their own. No one who passively endures an injustice against himself has -the material in him to struggle for the rights of others. The one who -patiently forbears becomes an accessory to the injustice done to others. -He who resists the injustice which he himself meets can open up the way -to a higher right for others. Such path-finders were the first apostles -of the emancipation of women. They consecrated to this task a faith -which required no proof, a faith which saw visions and heard melodies of -the glorious future that their victory would prepare for mankind. They -emanated neither from scientific investigations, nor from systems of -political economy, nor from philosophic evidence, nor theories of -political science. They flung themselves into the struggle with -inadequate weapons, without plan of campaign, just as do all impelled by -the spirit. But such a method always evokes later dissension among the -disciples. Sects are formed, gradually a church is crystallised, an -orthodoxy, a papacy, and an inquisition. This course is physically -necessary as long as mankind is still in greatest part a mass. A Paul -more “Christian” than Christ and a Luther more “Paulist” than Paul are -met also in the woman movement. - -This has now, among most people of culture, passed beyond the stage of -the great apostles and martyrs and heralds. The movement has reached the -point where certain typical manifestations, certain conventional forms -testify that the masses—which stoned the prophets—have now, since the -ideas of the woman movement have become truisms, banalities, the -fashion, appropriated them to themselves and endeavour to transform them -to their image and adapt them to their needs. - -Again and again the old tale repeats itself: the trolls steal the -weapons of the gods but they cannot use them. Again and again there is -occasion to deplore the fact that the autocrat of genius, whether he -rule over a people or a kingdom of ideas, has heirs, heirs who diminish -his work. Again and again it must be recognised that no spiritual -formation vanishes at one blow. The servile mind, intrigue, pettiness, -delusion—all that, from which the great spirits of the woman movement -hoped to “emancipate” woman—could not suddenly vanish out of the world. -And since all this must go somewhere it finally finds room in the woman -movement itself! - -But on the other side—since after all everything has another side—it -must be admitted that the levelling and conserving tendency of the -average person is of real value at the stage _when an idea begins to be -transformed into law and custom_. - -Those who can work only in crowds receive their significance _exactly -because of their collective work_. They push aside the “individual -emancipation” which they do not need for their own part, since they have -no individuality to emancipate. But by diligent and efficient work they -succeed in securing certain results, which are the common cause of all. -So the Philistines make for themselves a footstool of that which was a -stumbling-block for their congenial souls in the previous generation. -From this height they look down upon the new truth of _their_ time. And -those who perceive and uphold this new truth turn aside from the great -uniformed army which now advances safely where the little vanguard has -previously and laboriously opened up the way. Those who turn aside will -form the new vanguard when it comes to achieving, in the spirit of the -first apostle, the emancipation not only of _women in the mass_, but of -_each individual woman_. When the present work of the woman movement for -joint, common ends shall no longer be necessary, because one end after -another has been attained, then comes the task of the present “radical” -feminism: the accomplishment of “emancipation” by leading it up to those -free heights which already the path-finders are endeavouring to attain, -the heights where every feminine individuality can choose her own path -of life, perhaps at variance with all others; can choose it in freedom, -answerable only to her own conscience. Although this summary grouping -historically as well as psychologically corresponds approximately to the -past, present, and future of the woman movement, yet there are so many -ramifications of the three groups into one another, that the woman -movement now exhibits a tangled confusion in which every exact -demarcation is impossible. - -Whoever lives to witness it will see the course of progress just -described—for which the modern labour movement offers quite as good -material for observation as the woman movement—repeat itself in the next -great emancipation movement. I mean the movement for the right and -freedom of the _child_, which will be the unconditional result of the -victory of the woman and labour movements. This idea is still in the -morning-clear hour of inspiration. But from the cry, “Away with the -child destroying home training,” we can hear that the troop of -Philistines will appear by afternoon upon the scene, to adopt the idea -into their midst! - -By means of the comparison with socialism, I have endeavoured to -emphasise that the woman movement’s formation of dogmas and its -doctrinary fanaticism are not effects of the peculiarity of the -_feminine_ mind. These phenomena are typical of every movement of the -time thus far observed. They are essential above all because a new -belief without dogma and without ritual is for the masses a sword -without a hilt: it offers nothing tangible, nothing whereby the masses -can come into relation with the idea. - -That certain feminists still believe that the woman movement has -advanced just as the exodus of the Children of Israel out of the land of -bondage, that is to say, under God’s special protection against -wandering astray; that they stigmatise as “treason” and “defection” the -assertion that this movement was determined by the same psychological -and sociological laws as every other movement for freedom—this shows to -how high a degree many leaders of the woman movement lack elementary -psychological and sociological conceptions. This deficiency is, however, -being continually remedied. And in the generation which now advances, -dogmatic fanaticism has well nigh vanished, but pure enthusiasm is -preserved. - -We can thus expect from this generation a clearer understanding of the -necessary _social_ repressions which the woman movement has now -sufficient strength to impose upon itself without forfeiting thereby its -character of a _movement for freedom_. As such it cannot and dare not -cease until it has attained _all_ its ends. As long as the law treats -women as one race, men as another, _there is a woman question_. Not -until man and woman, equal and united, work together for mankind will -the woman movement belong to the past. - - - - - CHAPTER III - THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION UPON SINGLE WOMEN - - -The following comparisons between the life of women, especially their -spiritual life of about fifty years ago and their life as it has shaped -itself under the influence of the woman movement, have been arranged in -_descending_ scale. They begin with that phase of women’s life in which -this influence was most favourable from the point of view of life -enhancement, namely with the life of _unmarried_ women. - -You will find to-day, among women seventy or eighty years of age, one or -another type of that fine culture which the gifted single woman, in -comfortable circumstances, could attain in the previous century. Her -home, especially if it was an estate in the country, became a cultural -fireside which radiated light and heat for relatives and friends. The -lesser gifted disseminated, each according to her nature, comfort or -discomfort, yet could in extremity at least be sure of the homage of -their future heirs. Toward those dependent upon them, these women were -sometimes kind, sometimes indifferent, sometimes hard: the feeling of -social responsibility was an unknown idea to them. The _penniless_ -single women, on the contrary, were found either in one of the -“respectable” positions which, however, brought with them a multitude of -humiliations: as governess, companion, housekeeper—in Germany also as -maid of honour at one of the numerous small courts—or in some charitable -institution for gentle folks, an asylum for _pauvres honteuses_; but -most frequently in the corner of the home of a relative. This corner was -at times the warmest and most confidential in the whole house, that -corner which the children sought for stories and sweetmeats; the youth, -to find an embrace in which he could pour forth his grief, an ear which -listened to his most beautiful dreams. But it happened more frequently -that the “aunt” looked upon as a “necessary evil” was in reality that -very thing. Humiliated and embittered, she became ingenious in making -those about her suffer for her afflictions. Before they became -hopelessly old, the “aunts” were the laughing stock of the young through -their efforts, in the eleventh hour, to reach the “peaceful haven of -matrimony”; and they themselves looked with envious eyes upon the good -fortune of the young. We meet the unmarried woman of that time at her -best as trusty servant who shared the cares, the joys, and the sorrows -of the family and, in her garret chamber, of which she could be certain -to the day of her death, she looked back upon a rich life lived -vicariously. Not infrequently, she rejected a marriage proposal in order -to stay with her beloved master and mistress to whom she knew she was -indispensable. The superfluous women previously mentioned would have -thrown themselves into the arms of Beelzebub had he come as suitor. When -the years passed, when neither their desire for activity nor the thirst -of the heart nor of the senses was quenched, then not infrequently -insanity conjured up for these lonely women a life-content for which -they had longed in vain. To-day, however, we have for the position which -the expression, “a forsaken old maid,” betokens an entirely new type: -“the glorified spinster,” as the joyous, active, independent unmarried -woman is called by the people among whom she first became a reality. -Among these women, independent through their work, useful to society, -that older type is still occasionally found perhaps, a survival of the -time when emancipation was rather generally interpreted as freedom for -masculinity. The “man-woman” in masculine attire, with weapons of -defence against man in one hand and a cigarette in the other, her soul -filled with mad ambition for her own sex and, as representative of her -entire sex, with hatred toward the other, was however always rare. Now, -she has almost entirely vanished, except alas, the cigarette. But she -smokes it now often with—masculine friends! She follows in her mode of -life, as in her dress, the law of good taste—not to offend; she -endeavours, if only with a flower or two, to give a glimmer of cosy -comfort to her place of work. This comfort, which often comes into the -public life with woman is perhaps the reason why many men, who first -looked with indignation upon feminine fellow-workmen, would now miss -them. The more personal the culture of these women becomes, the more -they endeavour, according to their time and means, to express their -personality in the lines and colours of their dress and in the -arrangement of their room. Those best situated often succeed, toward the -end of their working days, in winning their own little home which they -perhaps share with a friend, or they join a co-operative enterprise and -can thus raise their standard of living. The same women who, at -twenty-five, scornfully declared that they “would never bury their head -in a sauce-pan,” are now, at fifty, consciously aware of the -significance of the table for the activity of the brain; indeed they are -now quite as proud if they have prepared a good dish as they were in -their youth when they passed a fine examination! - -It is not to be wondered at that the emancipated women, exactly as all -recently emancipated masculine classes and races, at first groped -insecurely after a new form. The astonishing thing, on the contrary, is -that women adapted themselves so quickly to the new circumstances; that -the transition period furnished so few grotesque types; that the present -shows so many harmonious types, each in her own way. This harmony of -single women is no mere form. It has its inner counterpart in the -satisfaction with their existence, an existence in accord with their -desires. The psychology was not exhaustive which saw in feminism only a -“spinster question,” a question of the unmarried woman, springing from -the surplus of women and the increasing difficulty or disinclination of -men to contract marriage—a question therefore for the ugly, not for the -beautiful; for the unmarried, not for the married; for the poor, not for -the rich. For a great number of beautiful women prefer to remain -unmarried; a great number of rich desire to work; a great number of -married women are zealous suffragists. Fifty years ago, we saw the most -clever women idealise an ape into a god; now, the modern, intelligent -working girl, when she looks about her for her ideal, exercises a lively -criticism. She often flirts with one who exhibits some phase of the -ideal, but she has too clear an understanding and too much to do to -_imagine_ a great feeling for one who is unworthy. So it often happens -that youth has passed without such a feeling having stirred her. And she -enters without deep regret the age when ambition and desire for power -become her life stimulants. From these women of predominating mind and -will is formed more and more what Ferrero calls “The third sex,” -Maudsley, “The sexless ant”: energetic, clever, happy in their work, -cool, but sound; in private life, in the zeal of everyday work, often -egoistic but willing to make sacrifices in face of social exigencies. - -So a great part of the fifty-year-old women form an exception since they -with true instinct have remained unmarried. For in the same degree that -their metallic being is well adapted to the machinery of society, it is -little qualified to make a home for husband and children. They do not -depreciate however the value of this task, unless they be fanatic -feminists. In that event they reproach the women who wish to marry with -“betraying the woman cause”; they demand at times, as imperative loyalty -toward this cause, that their friends shall protest against the present -marriage laws at least by the form of their marriage alliance if not -even by not marrying at all. Their theory of equality has at times been -carried so far that—as recently happened in France—they advocate women’s -performing also masculine military service. - -But in spite of their aridity and inflexibility of principle how much -more human are even these feminists than the “ill-natured” aunts of -earlier times who became ill-natured exactly because their temperament -was of the kind mentioned above, but who could find no sphere of -operation for their passionate longing for activity. One or another was -perhaps burning with ambition. For there are women as well as men who -can live only as pagan gods, in the blaze and perfume of sacrificial -fires. In their youth these ambitious natures could be satisfied by -triumphs in social life. But later the passion became a fire in a powder -cask and occasioned incessant explosions. Now it is the electric motive -power for an activity of general utility. The “aunts” of the earlier -time who felt themselves always overlooked and injured are most easily -recognised again in the literary and artistic field to which daily bread -or ambition now urges many women, who endeavour to compensate by -energetic work for the talent which nature denied them. Since these -women are ordinarily not people of understanding but of feeling, they -must in a double sense be dissatisfied with a life which in addition is, -in most cases, still filled with economic cares and the humiliations -arising therefrom. And yet in spite of all, how much richer is their -life to-day than it would have been fifty years ago when they would have -been obliged to sit and draw their needles through interminable pieces -of handwork, after ugly patterns and for unnecessary uses, or to compose -sentimental birthday verses for persons whom they abominated. - -Yet there are always those women natures who, in the past, had the -qualifications for a real “dear aunt,” who gently calmed the conflicts -and filled the gaps in the home of which they had become members. The -most tender and sensitive of these modern women, who, rain or shine, -year in year out, hasten to and from a work indifferent to them at -heart, not infrequently breathe a sigh of longing for those times when, -as “aunts,” they could have received and imparted warmth in a home. But -then again there come moments when they know how to value the -independence which puts them in a position to give help where otherwise -there would be none; when for example they can send a nephew to college, -or a friend to a sanatarium, or provide their mother with a nurse, which -they themselves can not be. - -This kind of single woman fulfills more or less the office of family -provider just as she also is always ready with word and deed in circles -of friends and comrades. These women are so engrossed that the time of -love, sometimes love itself, passes them by without their observing it. -Their youth flees and they feel with sadness that their woman’s life is -unlived. But they persuade themselves that they have had enough in their -work, that many little joys can take the place of great happiness. And -they believe this as truly as the infant believes he is satisfied when -he sucks his own thumb. But some of these women acknowledge perhaps, -when they have passed the fifties, that they were often tempted to call -out to the first best man, “Give me a child.” Sometimes it happens that -in their last youth they appease their mother longing by adopting a -foster child; sometimes they still this longing by a child of their own, -from a love relation or a marriage. This late and uncertain happiness is -often made possible exactly through their work. And then, if not -earlier, they bless this work which gives them the economic possibility, -and thereby also the courage, for this hazardous adventure. - -More frequent than these are the cases however where single women, who -have passed their first youth, find in friendship for another woman a -valve for their, in great part, unused feelings. In some natures this -friendship will be jealous and exacting, in others true and devoted. I -wish to emphasise that I speak here of entirely _natural spiritual -conditions_. There is to-day much talk about “Sapphic” women; and it is -even possible that they exist in that impure form which men imagine. I -have never met them, presumably because we rarely meet in life those -with whom no fibre of our being has any affinity. But I have often -observed that the spiritually refined women of our time, just as -formerly the spiritually refined men of Hellas, find most easily in -their own sex the qualities which set their spiritual life in the finest -vibration of admiration, inspiration, sympathy and adoration. - - * * * * * - -The fundamental types of single women depicted here—the person of -intellect and the person of feeling—are found everywhere. The former -according to current opinion already predominate in America; in Europe, -it seems to me, the latter still prevail. That the main classes include -innumerable varieties, it is needless to say. There are for example the -numerous, quite ordinary, family girls who would be happy if they could -give up their independence in order to enjoy the protection of their -parents’ or their own home. And the same obtains also with the quite as -ancient type of woman, Undine, who—soulless and cold—enslaves all men. -If she is in any civic vocation, she knows how to get the smallest -amount of work for herself and, in case she is engaged in the artistic -field, the best possible criticism. Conscience is an acquaintance which -she has never made and she is also of the opinion that everything -agreeable is permitted to her; she simply slides past anything -disagreeable. Although work belongs to these disagreeable things, she -continues it until she has found means to place her “qualities” in the -most advantageous manner upon the matrimonial market. - -The diametrical antithesis of this curvilinear type is the rectilinear. -It has, just as the preceding type, existed at all times. It is the -woman who really never demanded anything of life but “a work and a duty” -and finds both in abundance in all positions of life. She is found year -in year out at her desk, in appropriate working garb, free from all -æsthetics; proud “if she never has needed to miss a day”; proud that she -never has come late. On the contrary she never _goes_ on time. For she -has so grown into the business or the office that she takes everything -upon herself that is required without murmuring, as a well-disciplined -soldier in the ranks of the grey working army; thankful, in addition, if -her long working cares yield her a little life annuity or pension for -her old age. This type is found principally among women over -fifty—fortunately. For this class of women which the pre-feministic -circumstances created, have, by their “frugality” carried almost to the -verge of criminality, by their humble, conscientious servitude, lowered -the wages of their colleagues who are more full of life. These latter -have begun work in the hope that it finally will “free” them; that is, -will give them something of that for which their innermost being longs, -not only their daily bread—a bread which sickness or a turn of affairs -moreover can take from them at any time. And perhaps they never succeed -even in having their own room where they at least could have repose! -Underpaid, overworked, tired to death, who can wonder if these women -have lost, if they ever possessed them, the essential characteristics of -“womanhood”—active kindness, repose even in movement, charming -gentleness? The Icelandic poet of yore already knew that “Few become -fair through wounds.” These women must put all their strength into their -work and into the effort to conceal their underpayment by “respectable” -clothing, or else lose their positions. In everything else they must -economise to the utmost and perhaps in addition be laughed at because of -their economy. They succeed, often admirably, in maintaining themselves -in proud fair struggle, in rejecting “erotic” perquisites to add to -their income and in fulfilling conscientiously the requirements of their -work. Yet to do this with lively interest, with preserved spiritual -elasticity, with quiet amiability—for this their strength does not -suffice, exhausted by insufficient nourishment, insufficient sleep, -still more insufficient recreation, and strained daily to the utmost. -Their nervousness finds vent in either hard or hysterical expression and -the public, annoyed by their ill-humour, divines little of the tragedies -enacted in offices, business houses, cafés or similar places. If a -suicide concludes the tragedy, the public shudders for a moment and—all -goes on as before. - -Thus “emancipation” presents itself in reality for millions of women. To -what extent the middle-class woman movement is indirectly to blame for -this fact has already been emphasised. - -The essential reason is however the prevailing economic condition of -society. By the uninterrupted fever of competition and the accumulation -of riches, it dries up the soul and robs it of goodness as well as of -joy. When the great, beautiful, eternal sources of joy are exhausted, -the life stimulus is sought in exclusively physical pleasures, which are -always made more exciting in order to be able to arouse still, in the -languid nervous system, feelings of desire. Moreover, there is the -neurosis and weariness of life of the overworked, of those continually -quaking about their material safety, of those who _could_ be revived by -the noble and simple joys of life, to which those jaded with riches are -already not susceptible; but for all these millions and millions such -joys are not accessible because hunger for profit depresses wages. If in -addition to that we take into account the increasing suffering of the -best because of the ever developing feeling of solidarity; and if -finally we consider that women, who through the protection of the home -could preserve something of warmth-irradiating energy, are now in -increasing numbers driven out of the home, then we have some of the -reasons which—in higher degree than the religious and philosophic -reasons which _also_ exist—contribute to the joylessness of our time. - - * * * * * - -A contribution to the meagre stock of good fortune of the present time -is furnished however by the joy of life among young girls working under -favourable conditions. Among them we meet a new soul condition, which -could be designated, as briefly as possible, as _covetousness_ of -everything which can promote their personal development and a beautiful -_liberality_ with what is thus won. They can gratify their energetic -desire for self-development by sport, travel, books, art and other means -of culture; their freedom of action between working hours is not -restricted by private duties. They can utilise their leisure time and -their income as they please: for recreation, pleasure, social -intercourse, social work or private, charitable activity. No father nor -husband encroaches upon their free agency. And so dear does this liberty -become to them through the manifold joys which it furnishes, that these -young girls, in constantly increasing numbers, refuse to relinquish -their individual independence for the sake of a marriage which, even -presupposing the happiest love, always means a restriction of the -freedom of movement that they enjoyed while single. And since the modern -woman knows that, in the sphere of spiritual values, nothing can be -attained without sacrifice, she prefers to keep free agency and to -sacrifice love. If she chooses in the opposite direction, the task of -adaptation will be the more difficult, the longer and the more intensely -she has enjoyed freedom. The modern young girl, if she deigns to bestow -her hand upon a man, not infrequently has her pretty head so crammed -full of principles of equality that she sometimes (frequently in -America), by written contract establishes her independence to the -smallest detail, which sometimes includes separate apartments and the -prohibition that either of the contracting parties shall have the key to -the apartment of the other. - -There are many varieties of the new type of woman. There is for instance -the tom-boy, the “gamin,” who for her life cannot give up the right to -mad pranks and mischievous jokes. There is the girl consumed with -ambition, who sacrifices all other values in order to attain the goal of -her ambition in art or science. There is the fanatically altruistic -girl, who considers the work for mankind so important that she feels she -has not the right to an “egoistic” love happiness. There is the ascetic -ethereal girl, who looks upon marriage and child-bearing as animal -functions, unworthy of a spiritual being, but above all as -_unbeautiful_. And for many of these modern, æsthetically refined, -nervously sensitive young girls the æsthetic point of view is decisive. -All love the work which permits them to live according to their ideals. -Still it often happens that Ovidian metamorphoses take place: that the -young girl sees the cloud or the swan transformed into a god, upon whose -altar she sacrifices, with joy, her free agency and everything else -which only a few weeks earlier she cherished as her holy of holies. The -men who view this process with a smile, think that the anti-erotic -ideals were only a new weapon of defence in the eternal war between the -sexes. But these men often learn how mistaken they were when they -themselves become participators in the war. They meet women so proud, so -sensitive regarding their independence, so merciless in their strength, -so easily wounded in their instincts, so zealous to devote themselves to -their personal task, so determined to preserve their freedom, that -erotic harmony seldom can be realised. Yes, these women often repudiate -love only because it becomes a bond to their freedom, a hindrance to -their work, a force for the bending of their will to another’s will. - -The women, womanly in their innermost depths, who really feel free only -when they give themselves wholly, are becoming continually more rare. -But where such a wholly devoted woman still exists, she is the highest -type of woman which any period has produced. Especially if she springs -from a family of old culture. She has then, combined in her personality, -the best of tradition and the best of the revolution evoked by the woman -movement. The fibres of her being absorb their nourishment with -instinctive certainty out of the fruitful soil which pride, devotion to -duty, family love, requirements of culture and refinement of form, for -many generations, have created. But her conscious soul-life flowers in -the sun of the present; she thinks new thoughts and has new aims. Just -as little as she disavows her desire for love, so little does she desire -love under other conditions than those of spiritual unity and human -equality. If she meets the man who can give her this and if she loves -him, then he can be more certain than the man of any other time that he -is really loved, that no ulterior motive obscures the devotion of this -free woman. He has seen her susceptible to all the riches of life; has -seen her assist in social tasks, perform the duty of every day joyful in -her work, proud of her independence attained through her work. He knows -that just as she is she would have continued to be if he had not entered -into her life. How different is this girl from the one of earlier times, -who was driven by the emptiness of her life into continual love affairs, -which could not lead to a marriage nor exist in a marriage that -possessed nothing of love! - -This most beautiful new type of woman approaches spiritually the -aforementioned type of single, aged women, who because of their economic -independence found time for a fine personal culture. These followed not -infrequently in their youth, from a distance it is true, but with joyous -sympathy, the progress of the woman movement. They shook their heads -later over its extremes. With new joy they regard the young girls just -described, in whom they find a more universal development than in -themselves, because these young girls have been developed through active -consumption of power which was spared to the older women, although they -must have summoned much _passive_ energy in order to maintain their -personality against convention. The young girls find often in these -older women a fine understanding, which they richly reciprocate. Such -terms of friendship are the most beautiful which the present has to -offer: they resemble the meeting of the morning and evening red in the -bright midsummer nights of the North. - -No time could have been so rich in exquisite feminine personalities, at -all ages and in all stages of life, as ours. We must not draw our -conclusions regarding the abundance of such women, in the older culture -epochs, from the illustrious names of women which incessantly recur in -the pictures of the earlier times—like stage soldiers—until they give -the illusion of a great host. - -But exquisite women are even to-day exceptional. The Martha type rather -than the Mary type predominates. This is due on one hand to decreasing -piety, on the other hand to the kind of working and society life. Fifty -years ago single women were often spiritually petrified, now more often -they cannot succeed in settling into any form. Their existence, turned -outwardly, widens their sphere of interest but makes their soul-life -shallow. Restlessness is most unfavourable to the “development of the -personality,” which was however the goal of the emancipation of woman. -This development is delayed most of all perhaps by the lack of personal -contact with other personalities, of immediate, intimate human -connections. This can, from no point of view, be supplied by the society -or club life in which single women are to-day absorbed. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON THE DAUGHTERS - - -As late as sixty or seventy years ago, the daughters of good families -had still few points of contact with life outside the four walls of the -home. From the hands of nurse-maids they went into those of the -governess, and after confirmation, studies were at an end. If it was a -cultured home then reading aloud or music was often practised, whereby -it is true no “specific education” qualifying them for examinations was -attained, but frequently a fine universal human culture. There was -always employment in the house for the zeal for work. The great presses -were filled with linen which was not infrequently spun and woven by the -daughters; in the autumn they assembled for sausage-making and candle -dipping; later, for Christmas baking and roasting; in summer endless -rows of glasses of preserves were set in the store-room. Before -Christmas, night after night, Christmas presents were made; after -Christmas, night after night, they danced. At these balls those in outer -respects uncomely, received a foretaste of that waiting which must fill -their life for many long years: would the invitation to the dance—or the -wooing respectively—come or not? Every man whose shadow merely fell upon -the scene, was immediately considered from the point of view of a -suitor. As the years went by the girl, who before twenty-five years of -age was considered an “old maid,” saw how the glance of the father and -the brothers became gloomy, yes, she could even hear how “unfortunate” -she was. If such a daughter lived in a home poor in books—and most of -them were—then she could not even procure a book she wished. For the -daughters worked year in year out without wages, in case they did not -receive meagrely doled out pin-money which only through great ingenuity -sufficed for their toilette. All year long there were christenings and -birthday celebrations; in summer games were played, where it was -possible riding parties arranged, in winter sleighing parties were -organised. Other physical exercise was considered superfluous. The young -girls were averse to going to a neighbouring estate if it lay a mile -away; and during the week to take a long walk for pleasure or sit down -with a book, which had been borrowed, would be considered simply as -idling away one’s time. In summer a cold bath was permissible—a warm -bath was used only in cases of sickness—but swimming was considered so -unwomanly, that whoever had learned it must keep it secret. Rowing, -tobogganing and skating were, even if permitted in the country, yet half -in discredit as “masculine.” - -When grandfather related an heroic deed of some ancestress whose proud -countenance shone out among the family portraits, then the daughter of -such a family must have asked herself why this deed was lauded while -everything “manly” was forbidden her. - -The days and years went by at the embroidery frame or netting needles, -amid continuous chatter about the family and neighbours, amid eternal -friction and in disputing back and forth over mere trifles. The confined -nervous force sought an outlet, and in an existence where each -one—according to the first paragraph of family rights—interfered in the -greatest as in the smallest concerns of all the others, there was always -plenty of material about which to become irritated and excited. - -In the country, life was, however, fuller and fresher than in the city -where the young girl had less to do and never dared go out alone; yes, -where a walk was considered so superfluous, that the mother of the great -Swedish feminist Fredrika Bremer advised her daughters to jump up and -down behind a chair when they insisted that they needed exercise! - - * * * * * - -The relation to the parents, even if the principle of unswerving and -mute obedience was not wholly carried out, was ordinarily a reverential -alienation. Neither side knew the inner life of the other. The -temperament of the mother determined the everyday domestic comforts, the -will of the father the external occurrences of life, from the trip to -the ball to marriage. The daughter whose inclination corresponded with -the will of the father considered herself fortunate. The one married -against her will wept, but obeyed. As an almost fabulous occurrence it -was related of one or another girl that she dared to say “No” before the -marriage altar; cases were not unusual in which daughters received a box -on the ear and were confined to their room until they accepted the -bridegroom whom the father had chosen. Even if a mother, moved by the -recollections of her own youth, attempted to support a daughter it -rarely succeeded. For the power of the father rested quite as heavily -upon the wife. But the worst however was to water myrtle year after -year, without ever being able to cut it for a bridal wreath. Even she, -who in her heart loved another, found it therefore often wisest to give -her consent to an acceptable suitor. Only the one whose dowry was valued -at a “ton of gold”—or who also was a celebrated beauty—could run the -risk of declining a courtship; yes, she could permit herself to occasion -it only to decline it. The more suitors she could recount, the prouder -she was; such a beauty even embroidered around her bridal gown the -monograms of all her earlier wooers. - -The unmarried remained behind in an environment where the idea prevailed -that “woman’s politics are her toilettes, her republic is her household -and literature belongs to her trinkets.” The talented daughter sewed the -fine starched shirts in which her stupid brother went to the academy and -sighed therewith: “Ah, if one only were a man.” - -When the income of the house was small, she increased it perhaps by -embroidery, sold in deepest secrecy; for it was a disgrace for a girl of -good family to work for money. For her rebellious thoughts she had -perhaps a girl friend to whom she could pour out her heart—or a sister. -But it often fared with sisters growing old together, just as it must -fare with North-pole explorers wintering together, that those holding -together of necessity finally loathe one another from the bottom of -their hearts. And yet the sisters were most fortunate who could grow old -and die in their childhood home and were not compelled to become old -household fixtures in the home of relatives. - -Not infrequently this last fate was their portion because a father, a -brother or a guardian out of personal, economical self-interest -prevented their marriage, or a brother through debt or studies had -defrauded them of their inheritance. - -It was not the woman movement but the religious movement, beginning -among the Northern peoples almost simultaneously with it, called in -Sweden “Läseri” (“Reading”) that was the first spiritual emancipation -for the old or young unmarried girls—likewise for wives who longed for a -deeper content. Because they took seriously the Bible doctrine that one -should disregard the commands of the family in order to follow Christ, -the home gradually became accustomed to one of the feminine members’ -going her own way. Often amid great struggles. For the “Reader” was more -or less considered as insane; the father was ashamed of her, the mother -mourned over her, the brothers laughed at her. But nothing could hinder -those strong in their faith from following the inner voice. And so these -women, without knowing it themselves, were a bridge to that emancipation -of women to which they themselves later—Bible in hand—were often an -obstacle. - - * * * * * - -The movement _could_ not however be prevented. And now—how is it now in -the family? Already the ten-year-old talks about what she is sometime -going to be. Now, the sisters go with the brothers to school or to the -academy and share their intellectual interests as well as their life of -sport. Now, the fathers and mothers sit at home often alone, for the -daughters belong to that host of self-supporting girls who can gratify -the parents by short visits only. Alas, these visits are not always an -unclouded joy. There are collisions between the old and the young often -over seeming bagatelles. But a feather shows which way the wind blows -and the parents observe that, in the spiritual being of the daughter, -the wind blows from an entirely different direction from theirs. The -daughter, on the other hand, thinks that perfect calm prevails in the -being of her parents; she wishes to raise the dust. The mother pleads -her cause in dry and offended manner, the daughter in superior and -impetuous words. Accustomed to her freedom, she encounters again at home -control over her commissions and omissions, attempts upon her privacy -from which she had been freed by leaving home. And they separate again -each with a sigh that they “have had so little of one another.” In other -cases—when the parents have followed the times and the daughters -understand that not only children but also parents must be educated with -tenderness—then the visits to the parents’ home become on both sides -elevating episodes in their lives. The daughters repose in the parental -tenderness, which they have only now learned to value when they compare -it with their customary loneliness. The parents confide to the daughter -their cares which she sometimes can effectively lighten, and they revive -with her spiritual interests which they themselves had to lay aside. -Through her own working life the daughter has gained an entirely new -respect for her parents. Through her independence of parental authority -she has now gained a frankness, which makes a real interchange of ideas -possible. They discover that they can have something reciprocal for one -another. The father, who perhaps at first sighed when the young faces -vanished out of the home, now admits that it would have been foolish if -the whole troop of girls had continued here at home and so had stood -there at his demise, empty-handed, without professional training. The -mother, who had helped them persuade the father, smiles, when he insists -that he “would not exchange his capable girls for boys.” And he is not -at all afraid that the daughters could not marry if they would; he -remembered indeed how his contemporaries declared that they “would never -look at a girl student, a Blue stocking,” and yet so many of these were -now happily married to—girl students. - -Beside these results of the independence of the daughters which elevate -life for all sides, there are opposite cases; when, for example, a -single daughter _without_ outer economic compulsion or inner personal -necessity, impelled only by the current of the time, leaves a home where -her contribution of work could be significant, in order to follow a -vocation outside. The results are often of doubtful value, not only from -a social point of view but also from that of the family and herself, -when the daughter remains at home but carries on a work outside. This -comes partly because they are contented with less pay and thus lower the -wages of those who support themselves entirely; partly because they -over-exert themselves. In those cases where several daughters can share -with one another the domestic duties, no over-exertion results perhaps. -But when a single daughter combines an exacting professional work with -quite as exacting household duties, then she is exhausted by her double -task; then she feels the burden, not the joy, of work. For all -professional working girls who remain at home, have moreover in -addition, even under the most favorable circumstances, the spiritual -strain of turning from work back again to the gregarious demands of the -home, as well as to the many different attractions and repulsions, -antipathies and sympathies which determine the deviations in temperature -of the home; the strain of respecting the sensibilities which must be -spared or of paying attention to the domestic demands which must be -refused, if the work is not to suffer from lack of rest and time for -preparation. All this can be so nerve racking that the young girl is -seized with an irresistible longing for a little home of her own, where -she would be mistress of her leisure time, and could see her own -friends—not alone those of her family,—where she could join those who -held the same views, where she, in a word, would live her life according -to the dictates of her personal demands. If she can, she often does -this. For to-day young girls _live to apply_ the principle of the woman -movement—individualism. The older women’s rights advocates desired, it -is true, that woman should be allowed to “develop her gifts,” but she -should “administer” them for the benefit of others; they desired that -she should receive _new rights_ from law and custom, but that she should -seek always in _law and custom support and security for her action_. The -young women’s rights advocates, on the other hand, believe that their -own growth, just as that of animals and trees, is intended above all for -self-development, that in their own character the direction for their -growth is specified, and that they have not the right to confine -themselves by circumstances or subject themselves to influences by which -they know they hinder the development of their powers, according to -their individual natures. The more refined the feeling of personality -becomes, the more exactly these young people understand how to choose -what is essential for them and to repudiate what is a hindrance. But -before they attain this certainty they evince often an unnecessary lack -of consideration, and the family is often right when it speaks of the -egoism of youth. They find no opportunity for helping father or mother -nor for participation in the elders’ interests. The whole family is -rarely assembled even at meal-time; the daughters as well as the sons -rush off to lectures, work, sport, clubs. The mother who sees how -occupied the daughters are has not the heart to add to their work or to -thwart them in their pleasures; thus she allows the selfishness of the -young creatures to increase to the point where she herself in -indignation begins—seasonably and unseasonably—to react against it. The -young girl answers her mother’s reproof then with the complaint that, -“Mamma does not understand” her and that she is “behind her time.” -Especially the young examination-champions distinguish themselves by -their arrogance in the family as in the club, where they look down upon -the older ladies who have not passed examinations just as they do upon -their own mother. - -It fares best in the families, and they are even now numerous, where the -mother herself has studied or worked outside the home and therefore -knows what domestic services she may or may not require; where she -herself personally understands the intellectual occupation of the young -people and has preserved her own youthfulness, so that she becomes not -infrequently the real friend of her daughters and sons. If the mother, -on the contrary, was one of the many who, at the beginning of the woman -movement, sacrificed her own talent to the wishes of her family or the -demands of the home, in spite of the possibilities for its development -made accessible to her at that time, then she has often absolutely no -comprehension of the egoism of her daughter. She herself had acted so -entirely differently! Or she understands fully that in her daughters as -well as in her sons she views the attainment of a new conception of -life, with all its Storm and Stress, which the spring-times in the life -of mankind bring with them—an attainment in which, to her sorrow, she -could not take part in her youth. - -At such spring-times youth is not, as the parents hoped, sunlight and -the twittering of birds in the home; but March storms and April clouds. -The parents feel themselves at first swept out, superfluous, -disillusioned. They are angered but rejuvenated, thanks to all the new -points of view that youth makes valid. Yes, father and mother sometimes -could live through a second youth if their own contemporaries did not -depress their buoyancy by their disapproving astonishment and the -children by their cool rejection of the comradeship of their parents. -But in spite of this twofold opposition, there are now fathers and -mothers who are able to enjoy the riches of life quite as youthfully as -and more deeply than their children; while the parents of earlier times, -especially the mother, forever stagnated as early as forty. More and -more frequently we find mothers who, like their daughters, lead a -spiritually rich and emotional life, who have so preserved their -physical youthfulness and who possess moreover through experience and -self-culture so refined a soul-life, that, in regard to the impression -they make, they are not infrequently the rivals of their daughters. They -are already revelations of that type of woman which, in token of -emancipation, has found the equilibrium between the old devoted ideal -and the new self-assertive ideal. They view life from a height which -gives them a survey also over the essential, in questions concerning -their own children. Even if these become something other than the -mothers wish, these mothers are so penetrated with the idea of -individualism that they let the children follow their own course. - -Modern fathers rarely find so happy a home as it once could be with a -bevy of daughters always at hand. But they find the home richer in -content, often also freer from petty dissensions. For in the measure in -which _each_ member of the family desires his right and his freedom, do -all gradually learn to respect those of others. If the parents consider -with dignity _their_ right and _their_ freedom, then a reciprocal -consideration results after the boldness which youth evinces under the -first influence of the intoxication of freedom. Youth, at first so proud -and strong in their assurance of bringing new ideal values to life, -begin themselves to experience how the world treats these; and what they -once called their parents’ prejudice appears to them now often in a new -light. Their self-assertion becomes a product of culture, out of a raw -material. The manifestations of their individualism become continually -more discreet, more controlled, but at the same time more essential and -more effective. When then the young people have found _their_ way and -the parents endeavour to turn them aside to the main road—which they -call the way of wisdom or of duty—then certainly and with right the -young people put themselves on the defensive. - -Even a devoted daughter cannot bring to the home to-day as undivided a -heart as formerly. But this gift was earlier a matter of course, so to -speak, a natural result of the conditions. But if to-day a girl -sacrifices a talent to filial duty, then it is an infinitely greater -personal sacrifice; a real choice. And if she does not make the -sacrifice, it is not in the least always on the ground of egoism. It -happens often in conviction that the unconditional demand of -Christianity that the strong must have consideration for the weak, makes -these latter often egoists and tyrants; that the strong, who are more -significant for the whole, are thus rendered inefficient. - -If a troop of athletic boys continually conformed to the level of the -weakest, then all would remain upon a lower plane, and the weak find no -incentive to seek _their_ triumphs in another sphere. - -On the other hand it is fine and eminently sane and in harmony with the -laws of spiritual growth, when the strong shall help the weak to reach a -goal which is thus, in his own peculiar direction, really attainable by -him. Neither paganism nor Christianity has created the most _beautiful_ -strength; it is a union of both. It has found its most perfect -expression in art in Donatello’s St. George, in Michelangelo’s David: -youths, whose victorious power conceals compassion and whose compassion -embraces even the conquered: symbols of strength which has become kind, -of kindness which has become strong. If a mother has seen this -expression upon the face of her son or her daughter then she can address -to life the words of Simeon: “Now let thy servant depart in peace for -mine eyes have seen thy glory.” For the glory of life is the harmony -between its two fundamental powers—conquest and devotion: self-assertion -and self-sacrifice. In every new phase of the ethical development of -mankind the cultural problem is this harmony and the cultural profit is -not the per-dominance of one of the two but the perfected synthesis of -both. - -This problem has now become actual, through the woman movement, for the -feminine half of mankind, after the _unconditional_ spirit of sacrifice -has obtained for centuries as the indispensable attribute of -womanliness. In the first stage of the woman movement the majority of -the “emancipated” were still determined by their spirit of sacrifice, -which they aspired to combine with their outside professional work. This -generation lived _beyond its strength_. The younger generation of to-day -does not believe that God gives unlimited strength. For they have seen -that those who live unceasingly beyond their strength finally have no -strength left, either for others or for themselves. And they know that -in the long run one can live only upon his own resources and these must -be conserved and renewed in order to suffice. But this knowledge makes -the problem, which in the course of days and years appears in manifold -different forms, only more difficult of solution: the problem to find -the right choice in the collision between family duties, duties toward -oneself and duties toward society; the choice which shall bring with it -the essential enhancement of life. - -The conflict is thus solved by some feminists: everything called family -ties and family feeling is referred to the “impersonal” instinctive -life, while our “personality” expresses itself in intellectual activity, -in study, in creation, in universally human ends, in social activity, -etc. And since the principle of emancipation is certainly the freeing of -the “personality,” it follows from this idea, in connection with _this -definition of the personality_, that the liberated personality must -place the obligations of the intellectual life absolutely above those of -the family life; the outside professional work above the work in the -home. In a word, the earlier definition of _womanliness_ ignored the -_universal human_ element, the present definition of _personality_ -ignores the _womanly_ element in woman’s being. The last solution of the -problem is quite as one-sided as the first. - -The “principle of personality,” as it has just been described is -entertained especially in America. In Europe there are still women who -reflect deeply upon their own being and—who have a depth over which they -may meditate! These women have not yet succeeded in simplifying the -problem which is the central one of their life. They know that not only -do instincts, impulses of the will, feelings, form the strongest part of -the individual character which nature has given them, but also that this -part determines their thinking and creating power—their whole conscious -existence. They know that their character receives its peculiarities -through the development which they themselves accord to one or another -side of their individual temperament. In one personality the -intellectual life will predominate, in another the emotional: in one the -ethical, in another the æsthetic motive. The personality becomes -harmonious only when no essential motive is lacking, when all attain a -certain degree of development, a harmony which is as yet only so won -that no motive receives its _greatest possible development_. Such a -harmony has long been the especial characteristic of the most beautiful -womanhood, while the most significant men have ordinarily achieved their -superior strength in _one_ direction, at the cost of harmony in the -whole. If now women believe that they can achieve the strength of men -without, for that reason, being obliged to sacrifice something of their -harmony, then they believe their sex capable of possibilities which thus -far have been granted rarely and then only to the exceptional in both -sexes. What experience shows is: the greater harmony of single women in -a _limited_ existence as compared with the lack of harmony in the lives -of daughters, owing to the irreconcilable problems which their _richer_ -existence brings with it. For these problems must be solved, at one -time, by sacrifice of intellectual, at another, by sacrifice of -emotional values. In every case, the sacrifice leaves behind it, not the -joyful peace of fulfilled duty, but the gnawing unrest of a duty still -ever unfulfilled. Every woman who has a heart knows it is at least quite -as important a part of her personality as her passion for science -perhaps. If for example she is obliged to surrender to another the -loving service of a sick father in order to pursue scientific -researches, then her heart is quite as certainly in the sick-room as, in -case of the opposite choice, her thoughts would have been in the -laboratory. By calling one factor “instinct” and the other -“personality,” nothing is in reality gained. Theorising ladies can -easily write—the paper is forbearing. But human nature is of flesh and -blood. And therefore thousands of women grapple to-day with tormenting -questions:—When we women shall belong entirely to industrial work and to -the social life, who then is left for the work of love? Only paid hands. -What becomes then of the warmth in human life when such a division of -labour is established that kindness becomes a profession, and the rest -of us shall be exempt from its practice because our “Personality” has -more important fields for the exercise of its strength? What does it -signify to live for society when we come to the service of society with -chilled hearts? If the warmth is to be preserved then we must have -leisure for love in private life, a right to love, peace and means for -love. Only thus can our hearts remain warm for the social life. Can the -whole really profit if we sacrifice unconditionally that part of the -whole which is nearest us? Can our feeling of solidarity increase toward -mankind when we pass by exactly those people to whom we could, by our -deeds, really show our sympathetic fellow-feeling? - -The woman whose instinct life is still strong and sound, whose -personality has its roots deep in life—which means not social life -alone—she also understands how to determine what life in its deepest -import purposes with her; she knows how she serves it best, whether by -remaining in a position where she fulfils her personal obligations as -part of a family or by seeking another position where she fulfils this -obligation as a member of society. - -It is true the erroneous idea still prevails in many homes that the -daughter must willingly sacrifice her social task for the family, a -sacrifice which the family would never even wish on the part of a son. -But the assurance that the daughter _could_ have made another choice -instils in the family, unconsciously, a new conception of her sacrifice, -and gives to herself the courage to assume a position in the home other -than that she held at the time when no choice remained to her. If the -total of efficacious daughterly love of to-day and earlier times be -estimated, this total would not prove less now. But it is now given -rather in a great sum; earlier, on the contrary, in many small coins. -Because of the professional work of the daughter, there are now often -lacking in the home the ready obliging young hands whose help father and -brother so willingly engrossed; the cheerful comforter, the admiring -listener. But in a great hour the daughter or sister gives now often a -hundred times more in deep, personal understanding. One draws a false -conclusion when one thinks that the more closely a family holds together -the more it signifies a corresponding unity and devotion. The young act -in submission because they permit themselves to be cowed by the family -authority which like a steam-roller passed over their wills and their -hearts. But the indignation that they experienced in their innermost -hearts, the criticism which they exercised among one another, were not -less bitter than that which they to-day openly utter. - -The home life of fifty years ago was a school of diplomacy; it -especially served to oppose cunning to the father’s authority, and the -mother often taught the children to use this weapon of weakness. Now the -father does not wish to make himself ridiculous by saying: “I forbid -you,” for the daughter answers: “Well, then, I will wait until I am -twenty-one.” The threat, “I disinherit you,” recoils from the -determination of the daughter, “I can work.” Only in a distant province, -in a little town, or among the “upper ten thousand” of a large city, -where the daughters still often receive a “general education,” which -does not fit them to earn their living, are they occupied all day -without the feeling of having worked. They serve at five o’clock teas, -embroider for charity bazaars, etc. But they also experience the power -of the spirit of the time strongly enough to know that they lead a -selfish life but not a life of self. The lower the scale of riches the -more housework do the daughters have to perform. But as a result of the -patriarchal organisation of labour they still perform this without their -own responsibility, without the joy of independence, without regular -unoccupied time and without one penny at their disposal! - -Even in these circles however the spirit of the time is active; such a -daughter leads now in every case a life of much richer content than some -decades ago, when even though middle-aged she was still treated as -ignorant innocence and must allow herself to be extolled to every -possible marriage candidate. She suffers when she sees her mother as the -submissive wife, whose continual according smile has graven lines of -humility about her mouth, whose continually pacifying tone has made her -voice whining. She suffers when the father cuts short a diversity of -opinion with the words, “You have heard what I said—That will do.” She -suffers when her brothers find her “insufferably important” or declare -her new ideas “crazy.” But exactly these new ideas about the right and -freedom of woman, which she encounters everywhere, have given a dignity -to her own being which has its influence even without words. On the -other hand, the fact that the fathers lose one legal right after another -over the feminine members of the family has its effect, so that they -gradually change their tone, the clenched fist falls less and less -frequently upon the table, the disdain is silenced, and even in the -provinces the family life is changing more and more from the despotic -political constitution to the democratic, where each one maintains his -position by virtue of his own personality. There are still men it is -true, who wish to confine “woman’s sphere” to the four “C’s”—“Cooking, -clothing, children, church.” But there is no one who now insists that “a -girl _cannot_ learn Mathematics,” or that it is “unwomanly to pore over -books”—sayings which were still often heard fifty years ago. Certainly -there are still men who accept the cherishing thoughtful care on the -part of the women members of the family as obvious homage. But the men -are becoming more and more numerous who receive these womanly acts of -tenderness with waking joy. Daughters and sisters of earlier times have -pardoned the vices of their fathers and brothers seven and seventy -times; those of the present throw away the fragments of trust and love -which have been irrevocably shattered. The assurance that the daughters -and sisters could do nothing else except pardon, since they were -dependent upon their tormentors, often made the fathers and brothers of -earlier times grossly inconsiderate. The men of to-day will be refined -by the necessity of showing consideration and justice to their daughters -and sisters if they wish to enjoy their presence in the home. Fathers -and brothers have, in a word, gained quite as much spiritually through -the loss of their power to oppress as the daughters and sisters have -gained in being no longer oppressed. And this experience will be -repeated in marriage when man and wife shall be absolutely free and -equal. - - - - - CHAPTER V - THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MEN AND WOMEN IN GENERAL - - -In their struggle for freedom for the same opportunities of study, for -the same fields of work, the same citizenship as man, women have -encountered all possible opposition, from that of the Pope, who recently -pronounced the most positive condemnation of the whole movement for the -emancipation of woman, and that of Parliament, to the rough pranks of -students. Man’s attempt to define the boundaries of “woman’s natural -sphere” continues always. The woman physician, for example, had to -struggle, in her student years, against prejudice in the dissecting -room, and, in her practice, against the professional jealousy of men. -The history of emancipation has much shameful conduct on the part of man -toward woman to record. Great reluctance to recognise the results of -woman’s work is still common. When this work, in literature and art for -instance, is compared with man’s, the comparison is made not for the -purpose of getting a finer understanding of woman’s peculiar -characteristics, but only to disparage it. The energy which men of the -present time not infrequently lack they cannot endure to recognise in -women, who often possess it in high degree. In the Romance countries, -self-supporting working women are always looked upon as a special -caste—a caste into which a man does not marry however high respect he -pays, theoretically, to “les vierges fortes.” - -And yet how different—and more beautiful—are the present relations -between men and women in general, especially among the Germanic peoples. -A friendly comradeship prevails among the young men and women studying -at the university, in art academies, music schools, business colleges, -etc. In the North, this comradeship often continues from the primary -schools, through the grades to the university, with results advantageous -to both sexes. Especially in the years under twenty, this comradeship -has a significance which cannot be overestimated. Girls, who were, -earlier, confined to a narrow, uninteresting, joyless family circle, now -often find in the circle of masculine and feminine comrades their share -of the joy of youth without which life has no springtime. Youths who -formerly had known no other young women than those with whom they should -never have come in contact, now learn to know soulful, pure-minded -girls, and this gives them a new conception of woman. Both sexes now -experience together the joys of youth in such fresh and significant -forms as folk-dancing, sport, etc. They have opportunity for stimulating -interchange of ideas in a great circle, and quiet discussion with a few -congenial friends. During the last twenty or thirty years, young men and -young women have again begun to discover one another spiritually, -discoveries which since the days of romanticism have been made only -through the stained glass of literature. In the romantic period, men and -women exercised reciprocally upon one another a humanising influence. A -like influence again obtains at the present time, but upon a much -broader basis. The men and women of romanticism formed a group bound -together only by spiritual relationship, in which the women aspired to -the culture of the men and shared their intellectual interests, while -the men promoted the women’s “desire for men’s culture, art, knowledge, -and distinction” (_Geluste nach der Männer Bildung, Kunst, Weisheit und -Ehre._—Schleiermacher). Now, young people studying in different fields -exert a mutual humanising influence and thereby learn to know one -another from the side of intelligence as well as from that of character -and disposition. Thus are dispelled certain illusions and conceptions -almost forced upon them through which both sexes in the years of -adolescence once regarded each other. Men as well as women obtain a -finer criterion for the conception of “womanliness” and of “manliness”; -both discover the innumerable shadings which these conceptions conceal; -both recognise that the sexes can meet not only upon the erotic plane, -but upon a plane that is universally human; finally, both learn that the -more perfect and complete human beings they become, the more they have -to thank one another for it. - -Comprehension in erotic relations is most difficult because, there, -women are far in advance of men. Woman’s ideal of love, however, is -becoming more and more the ideal of young men. Young girls, on their -side, are beginning to understand better the sexual nature of men. The -whole world in which man received his culture, won his victories, -suffered his defeats, is no longer _terra incognita_ to women; they have -lost the blind reverence or the blind hostility with which they formerly -regarded the doings and dealings of men. Men, on the other hand, are -learning that the domestic labours for the comfort of the family, which -they have thus far regarded as the sole duty of woman, cannot engross -her whole soul, that domesticity leaves many wishes unfulfilled. So both -sexes have begun, each on its own side, to build a bridge across the -chasm which law and custom had dug between them. The young still ponder -over the enigmatical antitheses in their natures, yet they find they -have very much that is human in common with one another. In comradeship, -however, that “chivalry” vanishes, which among other things consisted in -the ideal that the young men had always to bear all the burdens and -duties. Now as a rule, the girl carries her own knapsack on excursions -and pays her share of the expenses. But if she really needs help, the -youth is quite as ready as before to grant it to her, just as she also -on her part is ready to assist according to her strength: honest -friendship has replaced rapturous chivalry. This friendly comradeship -often satisfies the young man’s need of feminine kindness and enjoyment -in those dangerous years when, as a young man said, “Three fourths of -the life of a youth, conscious and unconscious, is sex life.” And -nothing can more effectually prevent him from degrading himself than -access to a circle where in quiet and freedom he meets young girls, -without an indelicate, intruding family surveillance, interfering and -asking him about his “intentions.” If between two such comrades an -erotic feeling finally develops, even if the wooing takes place in a -laboratory instead of a romantic arbour, the possibilities always exist, -in the golden haze of love, of making mistakes. But both have, however, -had opportunities of seeing each other in many character-illuminating -situations; they have observed each other, not only with their own eyes, -but also through the more critical glasses of the comrade circle. On the -other hand, it often happens that discussions and interchange of letters -conjure up a congeniality which exists only in opinions and temperament, -not in nature. It is fortunate when this is discovered in time. -Otherwise bitter conflicts may be the result, should a strong individual -nature wish to mould the other after himself or after his ideal of man -or woman. For that anyone loves the individuality of another without -illusions is still very rarely the case. It now happens somewhat more -frequently, since young people in comradeship learn to know mutually -their ideals and dreams, as well in erotic as in universally human -aspects. But if these ideals and dreams do give a hint of character, -comradeship brings a true knowledge of character only when it also -offers an opportunity of seeing others _act_; not only of _hearing_ them -speak of themselves. Such analyses of one’s own soul or the soul of -others in the atmosphere of tea and cigarettes, music and poetry, give -the “interesting” masculine or feminine parasites opportunity to ensnare -a victim, who is then intellectually or erotically, often even -economically, sucked dry. - -But even if such an interchange of ideas really enriched all, it can be -carried to excess and become deleterious to energy for work, directness, -and idealism. However beneficial may be the honesty of to-day in sexual -questions, the discussion of the instincts of life which has now become -a commonplace is also dangerous. These discussions are fraught with the -same danger to the roots of human life as is a continual digging up of -the roots of a plant to see how it is growing. - -The earlier a marriage can be consummated, the less is the danger of -freshness being lost in this way; the greater the prospect that man and -wife will grow close together, just as do the man and wife of the -people, through the difficulty of the common struggle for existence. But -if this struggle becomes easier before youth has entirely passed, then -there enters often into the life of the man a crisis which the practised -French call “La maladie de quarante ans”: the need of the man for a new -erotic experience. While those on a lower erotic plane, to-day as at all -times, seek this in transient secret alliances, it leads those on a -higher level in our time to the most tragic of all separations, where -the man—after decades of the most intimate life together, of the most -faithful work together, of mutual understanding—drives the wife out of -the home in order to bring in a young wife who has never been to him, -perhaps never can be to him, a fellow fighter and helper, as the -repudiated wife was, but who has for him the charm of the mystery which -the maiden had for the man before the days of coëducation, sexual -discussions, comradeship, and dress-reform! - -Women students now escape the earlier danger of the daughter of the -family, falling in love out of lack of occupation. They have not the -time, often also not the means to permit themselves erotic dreams. There -are among them many poor girls who dare lose no single semester, for -they must hasten to earn their livelihood. Moreover, such a girl knows -that if she should yield to the need for tenderness, for support, that -is so strong in her, the same fate could happen to her as to this or -that fellow student who after a short happiness was left alone when the -lover found a good match. And she was left behind not only in her sorrow -but also in her work. And the more a yearning girl buries herself in her -studies, the more science or art unlock their riches to her, the -happier, more full of life she feels herself in spite of loneliness, -scanty means, and shabby dress. - -Among women students there are also many of the cerebral type, mentioned -above, women who need tenderness neither in the form of friendship nor -of love; yes, who fear in both a bond for their “free individuality.” -These take part in sports, discuss, jest, with their fellow men -students, openhearted and unconcerned, without thinking whether they -please or not. All these young girls now go about with perfect freedom; -even in the Romance countries, a young woman can now go alone with her -bag of books or her racquet. For in circles where study has not yet -exercised its freeing influence, sport has brought this about. - -In America, student life, because of the early entrance of the men into -the professions, becomes more a one-sided, feminine comrade life. There, -the women have to develop their arts of the toilet for each other, whom -they find more interesting, more worthy of pleasing than the masculine -sex. Even in Europe, feminine comradeship in the student years is at -times most intimate. For a friendship between a young girl and a young -man often ends with love—on one side. Or in an intimate circle A has -fallen in love with B, but B with C, etc. Such eventualities the wise -girl will avoid for they can bring both suffering and obstruction to her -work. With women comrades, she has, without this risk, an interchange of -ideas which promotes study, deepens culture, opens up new views, and -gives to all new impulses. There exists, at least at the present time, a -difference between the masculine and feminine method of inquiry, of -solving problems, of apprehending ideas, which results in the fact that -comradeship between women cannot take the place of comradeship between -men and women. It is, however, for deep and beautiful natures often -impossible at the beginning of life to be capable, in a spiritual sense, -of more than a single friendship with their own sex; for each new -spiritual contact becomes a new and difficult problem. For such men or -women a friendship with a comrade of their own sex is often the richest -advantage of their student time. Often a student in good circumstances -finds her joy in taking care of some lonely comrades. They find at her -apartments, in a friendly welcome, a few flowers and pictures, a -teakettle, a fireplace, that feeling of homely warmth for which the -shivering students have longed,—a longing which has often driven a -lonely, impressionable youth from the dreary students’ room to “rough -pleasures.” Now when he leaves the little comrade circle, his sweetest -memories of home, his finest dreams, vibrate in him. And the timid girl -goes in the certainty that there is another girl who is concerned about -her wretched fate. - -In such a quiet as also in a more lively comrade life both sexes learn -to know not only each other but also different classes and, in certain -European universities, the several nations. It is not unusual for nine -or ten races to be found represented in one small group of comrades. -Life thus becomes everywhere enriched by strong manifestations or fine -shades of congeniality; spiritual attractions and repulsions cross one -another; inspiring or restraining impressions radiate in all directions. -It would be quite as impossible to estimate the fructifying influence of -such a friendly intercourse as to measure the life which comes into -existence on a spring day filled with the sigh of the wind, the -fluttering of butterflies, and humming of bees. - -In such a circle of comrades, devotion and capacity for sacrifice are -past belief, especially in the nation where “the girls wear short hair -and the young men long hair,” as a wag characterised the young Russians -studying abroad. That a couple of Russian girls, for a whole winter, -possessed together but a single pair of shoes and so could never go out -at the same time, is one of the innumerable small and great expressions -of the feeling of solidarity among the poorest students of the -university. - -When the comrade life assumed the form exclusively of coffee-house -visits, then the women had to revolt against it. But they often, alas, -allowed themselves to be carried with the stream. Because the -coffee-house life at first really gave a certain polish to the -intelligence, it could for a short time have its justification. But when -a blade is worn out, the artist of life should cease grinding; if on the -contrary he allows the grindstone to go on continually, then at last he -has only the haft in his hand. Formerly, it was only the young men but -now even the girls wear out thus their weapons or tools before they ever -use them seriously. - - * * * * * - -The darkest side of coëducational life has been that women could -demonstrate their equal capability with men in no other way than by the -same courses and examinations as those of the men. The eagerness of -women to prove their like proficiency with men in study and in sport has -often had disastrous physical results. These are continually becoming -more infrequent, thanks to the decreasing prudery in regard to the -sexual functions and to the increasing hygienic conscience. The -intellectual results, however, continue to exist and are disastrous -alike for both sexes; but because of the ambition and conscientiousness -of girls, perhaps still more disastrous for them. The examinations which -they pass are often dearly bought. This was not noticed in the -beginning, when a woman doctor was still looked at with wonder as a -noteworthy product of culture, and regarded herself also with wonder. -Truly she had sacrificed to grinding and cramming for examinations a -multitude of youthful joys, but she had, as was thought, won in this way -much greater values. This, however, is not always really the case. -Ethically, the conscientious girl is certainly above the boy who, not -infrequently in the unconscious instinct of self-preservation, idles -away his time. But the mental strength of the latter may frequently be -better preserved in any determined direction. Girls, conscientious and -zealous in their work, have filled their heads full of lessons to which -the coming examination and not their own choice has urged them. What is -thus crammed in is not assimilated and consequently has not promoted -spiritual or mental growth. But it has taken up room and has thereby -impaired the intellectual freedom of motion and compelled the natural -individuality to compress itself so that it is long before the space -conditions in the brain permit it to extend again—in case it is not -simply choked by all the chaotic mass that has been absorbed. How many -young girls have come to the university or to the art academy full of -thirst for knowledge and energy for work! But after a few years they -feel the disgust of surfeit, unless they have found a teacher who has -been to them a leader to the essentials in science or in art. Then their -joy in study could really be as rich as they had once dreamed it—yes, as -perhaps even their grandmothers had dreamed it when they had to content -themselves with their little text-books written for “girls.” Many young -girls maintain to-day, through some teacher or some masculine comrade, -that spiritual development which only an exceptional relationship -between a father and daughter, a brother and sister, could give in -earlier times. - - * * * * * - -When men and women can study together, then the relationship later -between masculine and feminine fellow-workmen will, as a rule, be better -than when the sexes work independently in the student days. It is true -masculine competitors still have recourse to the weapon of spreading -reports of the incapacity of their feminine competitors—at times -honestly convinced of it themselves. The same weapon is of course turned -also against masculine competitors. Yet there it is a question of the -_individual_, while in regard to women, the _sex_ is often the only -proof the man thinks he need assign for the inferiority of their work. -It can be said, however, upon the whole, that the relationship between -men and women professional colleagues exhibits the same good side as the -common student life, although naturally to a lesser degree. The joint -work does not often leave much time for significant interchange of -ideas, and after working hours each usually longs for new faces. The -influence of joint labour is often limited to the refining effect that -the presence of one sex exercises upon the other. Small services are -mutually rendered and each worker learns also to respect the -achievements of the other; or one is provoked because the work which -should have been dispatched by the other now falls to his share! - -If the woman performs the same work as the man, then she is often -indignant because she must do it for smaller compensation than he. All -too easily, the feminists forget that this injustice is equalised if a -man who wishes to establish a family cannot obtain a post which he seeks -because a woman retains it who can be satisfied with a smaller wage -since she remains in her parents’ home. For this disparity, raising -bitterness on both sides, there is no remedy under the present economic -system. Feminists can _demand_ the same compensation, but working women -will not obtain it so long as the supply of workers is to the demand as -one hundred to one in the professional occupations to which women flock. -In vain underpaid women will call to the agitators of the woman -movement, “Help us to obtain endurable conditions of life.” The only -honest answer is, “Help one another, just as the working men have helped -one another, by union and solidarity!” - -The competition of the sexes in the labour field is only indirectly -connected with the woman movement; it is a part of the social question -and will therefore only be touched upon here. - -The hostility which the competition between the sexes has evoked -is a factor in the social war; and if—_by reason of this -competition_—marriage decreases, then such competition is a form -of social danger. If the cause is sought in the woman movement, -then the question is begged completely, because the women with -sufficient income _to be able_ to live at home without industrial -work, after the loss of a husband or a father, are constantly -becoming more rare. There is the additional fact that in many -positions where man and woman have equal salary, the woman is -preferred because of her greater honesty and faithfulness to duty. -Further it must be emphasised that, even in middle-class -vocations, women with increasing frequency earn their _whole_ -livelihood, not merely a supplementary remuneration, when if they -did not thus work they would be a burden to some man and so -perhaps prevent him from marrying. Many of these women would wish -nothing better than to enjoy the warmth of “the domestic hearth” -to which men in theory relegate them; but since no man offers this -warmth, they must at least be allowed to procure fuel for their -lonely hearth fire. - -When men declare that “the only duty which has life value for a woman is -to be man’s helpmeet,” then they ought not to forget that this task is -more and more rarely assigned to a woman, because men prefer to do -without her aid, and even find a richer life in bachelorhood than in -marriage. They should not dare to forget also that a great number of men -disinclined or disqualified for work compel their sisters, daughters, -wives, to undertake the task of family provider, and these women also -must forego being, “in the quiet of the home, man’s helpmeet.” - -However weak the feminist logic often may be, it is not so weak as the -anti-feminist logic of man. Masculine vacuity has found there an arena -where it performs the most incredible gymnastics. The hysteria of -literary fanatics, the crude lordly instincts of the mediocre man, the -irritation of the masculine good-for-nothing at the increasing ability -of women, the rage, confounding cause and effect, over the competition -of women—these are some of the reasons for the present antagonism -between men and women. The deepest reason is this: the more woman is -compelled to maintain the struggle for existence under the same social -conditions as those under which men have been thus far compelled to -struggle, the more she loses that character by which she gives happiness -to man and receives it from him. A diminished erotic attraction is -frequently the result, not of the work of women, but of their work under -such conditions that the drudging, worn-out women comrades finally -appear to their masculine colleagues only as “sexless ants.” Sometimes -they really exhibit that obliteration of all characteristic marks of sex -which Meunier has indicated to us in his _Woman Miner_, a great -thought-inspiring work of art. - -Many a woman of the present time, deeply feminine, suffers under this -compulsory neutralising of her womanly being. Others again consider this -a path to complete humanity. - -But the complete personality is only that man or woman who has -cultivated and exercised the strength which he or she as a human being -possessed without having neutralised thereby the characteristic of sex. -It is tragic when nature herself creates deviations from normal -sexuality, but criminal when the ideas of the time weaken sound -instincts and inculcate unsound ones. It is not woman nature but the -denatured woman who is beginning to grow through the ultra-feminism -which looks down upon woman’s normal sexual duty as only a low, animal -function. - -That sound men abominate this tendency is justifiable. On the other -hand, it is unwarrantable to confuse a variation of feminism with the -woman movement in its entirety, a movement which includes in itself a -great earnest desire to work for the welfare of both mothers and -children. As a manifestation of womanliness in its most complete, -perfect form, many men still elect the woman whose entire life-content -consists in the cult of her own beauty, a cult whose attendant -phenomenon is the æsthetic culture which raises the temple about the -altar. Under this perfect and apparently inspired form there is, -however, rarely anything to be found of that which the man seeks: the -longing and the power of true womanhood to give happiness by erotic and -motherly devotion. Such women, like those cerebral women engrossed by -their studies and their work, allow a real love to pass them by; men are -only sacrificial servants of the cult, and the high priest is chosen not -upon the ground of motives of feeling. This type is said to be more -common in America than in Europe. But it existed thousands of years ago -on the Tiber as well as on the Nile. That Cleopatra in the language of -feminism now speaks of the “right of the personality,” and means thereby -her right to represent no other value in life than that of the white -peacock and the black orchid—the value of rarity—that does not make her -a “product of the woman movement.” - -But certain men characterise a woman thus, if they have been deceived in -her: a psychology which equals in value that of the feminist when she -speaks of man as the “oppressor,” the “corrupter,”—without noting that -the world is full of poor men corrupted or tormented by women! Amid such -mutual accusations, just or unjust—whereby _gifted_ men maintain -generalisations about “woman’s” being which are quite as ingenuous as -those which _silly_ women propose about “man’s” being—the sexes, in the -days of the woman movement, have been almost as much alienated from each -other as drawn together. The estrangement has taken place in the erotic -field and through labour competition; the reconciliation has been -effected—leaving out coëducation—by common industry and the social -activity of both sexes. - -The middle-class women of Europe have still so little share in the -control of production that one cannot determine whether or not they have -even awakened to the understanding that the fundamental condition of a -universal life-enhancing issue of the woman movement must be new social -conditions. One cannot yet predicate anything at all in regard to their -desires to promote more humane labour conditions and a more just -distribution of profit. Under the system now prevailing they must, like -men, either conform to it or be destroyed economically. It is even so in -public offices and similar fields of labour. Just as so many young men -do, at the beginning of their career, a great number of women attempt to -abolish the abuses and mitigate the formalism. But they meet such -obstacles that, like the young men, they are obliged to abandon the -effort; or they are compelled to give up the position whereby they win -their scanty bread. - -In this way, principally, the work of women in the sphere of charitable -activity has given to men the opportunity for a correct valuation of the -social working power of woman. Men have then in a wider sphere than that -of the family circle, so often overlooked by them, learned to appreciate -feminine enthusiasm and capacity for organisation, energy and devotion, -initiative and endurance. Innumerable men—from the soldiers up, who in -the hospitals of the Crimea literally kissed Florence Nightingale’s -shadow on the floor of the hospital ward—have learned in the last half -century that life has become more kindly for them since social -motherliness has obtained for itself a certain elbow-room. The more -women lose their present fear of appearing, in coöperation with men, -“womanly” impulsive, savage in face of injustice and cruelty, the more -will they signify in that joint work where, at least to-day, they still -have a more fortunate hand—the hand of the mother. - -And since a single fact is more convincing than a thousand words, so the -facts gained in the social activity of woman have won, in later years, -many men supporters of woman suffrage. The arguments derived from -abstract right—however obvious they may be for every tax-paying, -law-abiding woman—go to the rear to make way for the argument of “social -utility.” - -Not only women themselves but men also refer now to what women have -accomplished when they are allowed to work in the service of society; -they point to the reforms which were retarded or bungled because women -had no immediate influence there where appropriations were granted and -laws were enacted. - -Especially significant for the reconciliation of the sexes is the joint -social work of young people. The temperance cause or the education of -the masses or socialism now brings together a host of young men and -girls, who learn thereby that the social as well as the private life of -labour gains in strength and wealth if men and women participate in it -together. - - * * * * * - -The men who fear political life for woman are, however, right. Just as -this life has injured the best qualities in the manhood of many men, so -will it impair the womanhood of many women. Neither the spiritual -personality of woman nor of man, nor even their secondary physical sex -characteristics can withstand the influences of their private _milieu_, -of their private labour conditions. Why should women better resist the -influences of the public life? When the man is compelled, in political -work for the state, to neglect in the highest degree the foundation of -the state—the home—how should women be able to do otherwise than the -same thing? The political work of both can benefit the home _in general_ -but _their own_ home must always suffer for it, for a time at least. -Women will learn, as so many men have already learned, that the fresh -enthusiasm, the unexhausted optimism with which they entered the -political life soon vanish before party pressure, general prejudice, -opportunism, and the demands of compromise. And just as now so many men -for these reasons withdraw from Parliament, many women will do likewise -when they learn that what they can accomplish there with the -characteristics peculiar to them, is so insignificant that it does not -compensate for the injury which ensues because these characteristics are -missing in the home. - -If the eligibility of woman is really to benefit society, then the right -of resignation must be unconditioned for mothers, and they themselves -must understand that the parliamentary mandate is incompatible with -motherhood so long as the children are still in the home; in like manner -during the same period, the franchise of the mother of a family must not -result in rushing into electioneering. The ballot in and of itself does -not injure the fineness of a woman’s hand any more than a cooking -receipt. - - * * * * * - -Because woman’s motherhood must be preserved, if she is to bring to the -social organism a really _new_ factor, so she must always continue to be -found and to work in private life, in order to be, meanwhile, useful in -public life. The genius of social reform which women will develop can -complement that of man only if this genius is of a new order; if it -originates thoughts which bring new points of view to the social -problems, wills which seek new means, souls which aspire to new ends. -Women could, if they received their full civic right before they lost -their intuitive and instinctive power through masculinisation, effect -the progress of culture as, for example, the entrance of the Germans -influenced the antique world. - -The sooner woman receives her political franchise, the more, on the -whole, can be expected from it. The generation which has now fought the -fight for suffrage is wholly conscious of the reforms that await woman -for their final realisation. And this generation of women would -introduce into the political life a new, fresh current. In any event, we -can hope to secure from women new impulses and better organisation in -political life, as has already been the case in social life. But every -new generation of parliamentary women, who together with the men have -been “politically trained,” would have—as long as the present economic -conditions obtain—continually greater economic interests to advocate -“parliamentarily,” and would also for other reasons evince the same -parliamentary maladies as the men evince now. And as little as evil men -lose their evil characteristics because of the franchise, quite as -little will bad women lose theirs. The entrance of women into politics -cannot therefore—as certain feminists maintain—signify the victory of -the noble over the ignoble. But it signifies a great increase in noble -as well as ignoble powers hitherto inactive in political life, which in -the wider sphere that they there maintain oppose one another, now -conquering, now yielding. Men and women _together_, however, will be -able to enact more humane laws than men alone can enact. Questions -concerning women and children can be treated with deeper seriousness by -men and women _together_ than is now the case. Men and women _together_ -will consider the social life from more significant points of view than -can one sex alone. Government consisting of men and women _together_ -will be more profound than heretofore. No one who has observed the -effects of masculine and feminine coöperation in fields already -mentioned can doubt this. Who can deny that with the civic right of -woman her feeling of social responsibility will increase and that her -horizon will widen? And therewith her value as wife and mother of men -will also increase? But she will increase in value for the men closely -connected with her as well as in social respects. The woman of earlier -times, for all of whom society might go to pieces if only _her_ home and -family prospered, was only in a restricted sense man’s help. In certain -great crises she usually betrayed him simply because she wholly lacked -the social feeling. - -Obviously, the female member of Parliament cannot confine herself solely -to questions which concern the protection of the weaker and the -education of the new race. The more women concentrate upon the cause of -justice against power, and of public spirit against self-interest, the -more advantageous it will be for her herself and for the public life. -But concentration is, unfortunately, exactly what modern parliamentarism -does not promote; what it does promote is disintegration. - -Woman has, however, where she has entered into parliamentary life as -elector and eligible, shown thus far exactly this tendency toward -concentration. She has worked for moral, temperance, and hygienic -questions; for questions concerning schools and education of the masses; -for mother and child protection; reform of marriage laws, and kindred -subjects. What thinking man can maintain that all this does not belong -to “woman’s sphere” or can say that these and similar social interests -have been sufficiently attended to by an exclusively masculine -government? Already the opposite danger appears in certain social -spheres: an exclusively “feminine government.” - -In the present forms of public life, however, much feminine power will -without doubt be wasted. Only when man, upon a higher plane, has created -a new kind of representation “of the people,” where professional -interests in every sphere are represented, can the highest vocation of -woman—motherhood—come into its rights. - -It belongs to the necessary course of historical development that women -also go through the stage of party-power politics in order together with -man to reach the stage of social politics and finally that of culture -politics. - -But women cannot wait until this development has been attained; they -must accomplish it together with man. Just as the best masculine powers -sooner or later must be concentrated to transform increasingly untenable -parliamentary conditions, so the best feminine powers will also work in -the same direction, especially if the will becomes intense in mothers -not only to awaken in their children the social spirit, but also to -create for them better social conditions. - -In later years, the movement for the suffrage of woman has not only -filled the world with suffrage societies but the agitation has even -achieved popular representation in eighteen European countries, in the -legislative assemblies of a number of American States, in Australasia, -in legislative assemblies in Canada and in the Philippines. In Iceland -as well as in Italy, in Japan as in South Africa, the movement is in -progress, and whoever thinks it will not attain its goal is politically -blind. - -When anti-feminist men prophesy that men will love their mothers, -sisters, wives, and daughters less when pitted against them as political -opponents or competitors, they prophesy certainly in many cases the -truth. Politics have already estranged fathers from sons, brothers from -brothers. But this demonstrates only either that the personal feelings -were weaker than the political passions or that these latter have -destroyed the attributes which made the personality lovable. But if men -are really able to love and women remain lovable, even as political -personalities, then a man will not cease to love a woman, even if she -votes for a different congressional candidate! Such prophecies have not -been verified in other spheres from which men sought to intimidate women -by similar warnings. For woman retains her power over man. if she -retains her womanly charm, created out of peace, harmony, and kindness. -Not that _of which_ a woman speaks, not that _for which_ she works, -determines man’s feeling and conduct; but _how_ she does it. A woman may -charm a man by a political speech, and drive him away by her table talk. -A poor working woman can, without a word, induce the same man to give -her his seat in a street car who the next minute can be brutal to an -assuming and incapable fellow workwoman. In a word, what a woman makes -of her rights and what they make of her—that alone determines the -measure of veneration, sympathy, love, which she may expect from a man. - -That women have lost their equilibrium cannot be denied. How could it be -otherwise? Not only have they in the last half century experienced, -together with man, Naturalism and the New Romantic movement, -Neo-Kantianism, the Higher Criticism, Bismarck and Bebel, Darwin and -Spencer, Wagner and Nietzsche, Ibsen and Tolstoi, Haeckel and von -Hartmann, and still many, many more, but they themselves in dizzy haste -have been hurled out of their position in society, protected by the -family, which they had occupied for centuries. It is obvious that at the -present moment the spiritual mobility of women must be greater than -their harmony; that the raw culture material which they possess must be -richer than that which they can utilise; their life experiences more -significant than their art of life. The modern woman must appear for the -present less symmetrical, more uncertain, than man’s ideal woman in -earlier times. But enduring cultural progress cannot be measured by -comparison with the ideal figures of the poetry or of the life of -earlier times. It must be estimated according to the _average type_ in a -certain period. And the average woman of our time is, in the fullest -significance of the word, more full of vitality and adaptability, more -individually developed, more beneficial socially, than the average woman -of fifty years ago. With the freedom of movement the social feeling has -increased; with the participation in universal human culture, the -richness of content: the spiritual life has become more complex, and the -possibilities of expression of this new soul-life, more numerous. - -But since the average man, in the meantime, has undergone no comparable -development, he is estranged, has lost his bearings, and consequently -repudiates a movement which, directly and indirectly, makes such great -demands for the development of his own higher spiritual qualities. -Heretofore men could force women to endure undue interference, and so -have deprived them of the education wherein the possible consequences of -action are considered at the same time with the thought of the action. -But the woman movement has now raised a partition between the sexes such -as is found in the aquarium where it becomes necessary to teach the pike -to allow the carp, also, to live: every time the pike makes a dash at -the carp he strikes his head against the obstruction, until the motive -of repression becomes so strong that the glass wall can be taken away -and both carp and pike live together in peace. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MARRIAGE - - -Certain feminists believe that the woman movement has accomplished such -meagre results in regard to the reorganisation of family right for the -sole reason that men, who once created the right for their own -advantage, still cling to the injustice out of egoism. These feminists -forget that the family is the social form of life in which tradition has -the greatest power. It speaks here with the voice of the blood; it works -through our deepest instincts, our strongest needs of life, our -innermost feelings, as these have developed through many thousands of -years under the influences which were exercised in and through the -family. To accomplish in this sphere not only reforms upon paper but -also vigorous modifications—that is, new laws and customs which are -rooted in new spiritual conditions of the people as a whole—is more -necessary than that man grant women a share in legislation. Innumerable -individual human vicissitudes must be experienced and repeated in new -forms, entering finally into the universal consciousness, before such -spiritual soil can be formed. The man became and remained the head of -the family because all experiences and social factors once made this -arrangement most advantageous for father, mother, and children. Woman -will be able to realise her new ideas in regard to love-life and -mother-right to the degree in which she demonstrates, not only in speech -and writing but also in vigorous daily living, that these ideals surpass -in vital effect those which now obtain. - - * * * * * - -In the last half century, among the Germanic peoples, however, the -family life has already undergone essential transformations, while the -Romantic world still continues to exhibit features which in the first -half of the 19th century were typical even among these peoples. -Marriages are arranged by the father, divorce is considered either a sin -or a shame, the paternal power is still absolute, the homogeneous -relationship among all the members of the family—in joy and sorrow—is -inviolable. The feeling of the son for the mother, bordering almost upon -Madonna worship, and the passion of the father for their little -children, must, however, always have been more characteristic of the -Romance peoples than of the Germans. - -Among the latter the attainment of individualism, first in the sphere of -legislation, still more in that of customs, most of all in that of mode -of thought and feeling, has altered the position of the individual in -the family. While the family exhibited fifty years ago a tightly closed -unity, in which women had only slight significance, now the wife as well -as the husband, mother as well as father, daughter as well as son, -assert their personality, not only _in_ the family, but often even -_against_ the family. Wives draw the arguments for their self assertion -most frequently from the principles of the woman movement. - -Truly, in the course of the century, many married women have succeeded -in finding expression for their significant universal human or feminine -attributes in marriage, and thus have ennobled it. But the -self-conscious effort to elevate the position of the wife began -simultaneously with the demand that no human right could be denied to a -woman upon the ground of her sex, whether within or without marriage. - -Individualism has already made personal love, instead of family -interest, decisive for the consummation of a marriage. In the name of -her personality as of her work, woman desires with ever greater right -full majority and legal equality with man in marriage. Against -individualism, the doctrine of evolution now advocates certain -limitations of the personal erotic freedom to consummate marriage, but -advocates at the same time, contrary to the Christian sexual ethics, new -freedom for the sake of the higher development of the race. Here comes -into effect, the new conception of life by which the possibilities of -development and of happiness in the earthly life have acquired a new -value and force. - -The ultimate heights of the modern conception of sex life are indicated -by erotic idealism, which since “La Nouvelle Héloise” has by poets and -dreamers been continually elevated, while world-renowned lovers showed -the possibility of this wonderful love. In addition to all these -influences of the spirit of the time upon the transformation of -marriage, come the _indirect_ effects of the woman movement. Thanks to -the vibrations in which this movement has set the “spirit of the time,” -many an ordinary man now accords to his wife that power and authority in -the family which the law still denies her; yes, many commonplace people -of both sexes now desire from their marriage things of which their -equals fifty years ago did not even dream. If one adds also the decisive -influences which the political-economic conditions of the present -exercise upon the family life, one has found some of the threads which -form the woof of the unalterable warp, a woof which makes the marriage -of the present a variegated and unquiet fabric, whose pattern exhibits -primeval oriental motives beside those in newest “modern style.” - -Here it is of the greatest importance to indicate the zigzag line which -denotes the alternate repulsion and attraction that under the influence -of the woman movement marriage has had for woman. - -First came the little crowd of “masculine women” with their hatred of -marriage and man. Then the great working army that forgot, over the -human rights of woman, that to these also must belong the right to -fulfil her duty as a being of sex, and not alone the right to be -“independent of marriage” through her work. Then came the reaction -against this incompleteness. At this time, the nature of woman was -called an “empty capsule,” which received its content only from man: a -“cry of the blood,” which finds its answer in the child. There was no -other “woman question” than the possibility of living erotically a -complete life. One woman wished this in love without marriage, another -in love without children, a third in children without marriage, a fourth -in children without love—“A work and a child” was the life cry—a fifth -woman wished the man only for the sake of the child, a sixth the child -only for the sake of the man, and the seventh wished both only for her -own sake! - -The conviction of some women that the common erotic life of man and -woman must have also a spiritual life value for two human souls, filling -out and developing each other, was called “Ibsenism.” And after the -ideal demands which Ibsen pressed upon the consciousness of the time, -many men—and not a few women—found relaxation after their spiritual -over-exertion, if they desired nothing more from one another than “the -sound happiness of the senses.” Woman’s “personality,” “equality,” and -“human right” were old playthings, relegated to the rubbish heap. - -The reaction against this reaction is now in progress. Just now—and -equally one-sided as will be shown later—woman’s universal humanity is -emphasised at the expense of the instinct life; her social labour-duty, -at the expense of the domestic life; her personality, at the expense of -the family. - -Among all these zigzag movements, more deeply thoughtful women -continually sought to recall that neither the universal human nor the -sexual being of woman must be over-developed at the expense of the other -qualities of her being; that perfect humanity signifies for neither sex -that the spiritual life has suppressed the sex life or sex, the -soul-life, but that both find in a third higher condition their full -redemption and harmony. Through great love, exceptional natures already -create this condition; but what to-day only exceptional natures attain, -culture can gradually make attainable for many. - -This great love demands fidelity. But often only one—ordinarily the -woman—experiences this great feeling. And then not even the deepest -devotion on her part suffices to preserve the community of life. To -preserve the form for the purpose of guarding the inner emptiness, as -was done earlier, is repugnant to the erotic consciousness of the modern -woman. This is the deepest reason why the modern woman—even also the -modern developed man—becomes continually more undecided about -contracting marriage. They both know that the passion which attracts two -beings is not synonymous with a sympathy which arises through the -harmony of their natures, which must not be so complete that nothing -remains of the unexpected and mysterious that is so essential an element -of love. The modern woman asks herself, “What can prove to me that an -erotic sympathy is profound, real, decreed by nature, life-long?” And -she asks with good reason. If two lovers who know that they make each -other happy with all the senses, constrained themselves, each in a -corner of a room fettered to a stool, blindfolded, to entertain each -other three hours daily for three months, this test would probably -prevent a great number of marriages void of sympathy. But it would -furnish no guaranty that those who consummated the marriage after such a -concentrated soul interchange, would hold out. For souls which in a -certain stage of development seem inexhaustible can be so transformed -that they experience only satiety for each other. The young wife of -to-day is deeply conscious of what a new problem for each newly married -woman marriage is. She knows how impossible it is to foresee what -difficulties will be encountered and whether good intentions and tactful -adaptation will succeed in overcoming these difficulties. She knows -that, even if the written law made her wholly equal to man, even if she -made herself that equal by entering only into a marriage of the higher, -newer conscience, yet all the inner, most difficult, deepest problems -still remain. This certainly induces many women to become only the -beloved, the mistress, of the man who wishes no community of life, but -only happy hours. Many more women still strike the possibilities of -erotic happiness out of their plan of life, because they have not -experienced the ideal love of which they dreamed, or else could not -realise it.[3] - -Sometimes their doubt, in regard to the duration of love and the unity -of souls, decides them, another time the longing for a personal -life-work is the reason for their determination—a life-work for which -these women have suffered so keenly, been deprived of so much, and have -so struggled, that it has become passionately dear to them, and they -feel that a complete renunciation of the erotic life is easier than the -torment of being “drawn and quartered,” as the death penalty of the -Middle Ages was called—a quartering between profession, husband, home, -and children. And the result usually demonstrates that celibacy is wiser -than the compromise. It is most frequently the case,—in Europe at -least,—if the work of the unmarried woman had no personal character, and -if the home is not dependent upon the earnings of the wife, that she -gives up her professional work after her marriage. - -Against this sacrifice, however, the higher erotic idealism has begun to -rebel and has, thereby, come into conflict with the conservative -direction of feminism, which while planning to make the wife equal to -the husband, adheres firmly to the present marriage as protection for -wife and children. - -It is this point of view that is condemned by the new idealism. For it -“protection” signifies, in its innermost meaning, that the man buys love -and the woman sells it, which is considered “moral,” while it is -considered immoral for a man to sell love and for a woman to buy it. The -“protection” in this relationship has as result that the “virtue” of the -maid is synonymous with untouched sexual nature, and that of the wife, -with physical fidelity; while the “virtue” of the youth and the man is -judged from an entirely different point of view. - -The relationship affording “protection” has also brought with it the -idea that a woman could not show her love as openly as a man, except -when he was proud and poor and she was rich. Only when the duty of -support on the part of the man ceases, will woman be able to demand the -same chastity and fidelity from him as he demands from her; she will -then be able, quite as proudly and naturally as he, to show the -flowering of her being—her love—instead of as now increasing her demand -in the marriage market by artful dissimulation. As long as maintenance, -within or outside of marriage, is the price for “possession” of the -woman, the man will consider the woman as “his,” and the more submissive -she is the more fully she satisfies his feeling of ownership. Now -marriage has become only an affair of custom, a common death or comatose -condition, because neither party needs trouble himself to keep the love -of the other. Only when woman, through her work, can lead an existence -worthy of a human being, when no woman will sell her love but every -woman can freely give it, will man experience what perfect womanly -devotion is. And when no man can “possess” love but must remain worthy -of love in order to be loved then only will women, on their side, -experience what tenderness and fine feeling masculine devotion can -attain. - -This, the purest and warmest erotic idealism, is the morality of the -future. But the way to its realisation is not, as many women believe -to-day, that mothers, even, should continue their work of earning a -livelihood, but that way whose direction I have elsewhere pointed -out.[4] - -Here we have to do, however, only with the spiritual conditions which -arise in the marriage of to-day, whether the wife has retained her work -or has given it up. - - * * * * * - -Even the cultivated modern man, who brings to the human personality of -his wife admiration and sympathy, seeks in her always that “womanliness” -to which Goethe has given the classic expression: the finely reserved, -quiet, strong, self-contained woman, reposing harmoniously in the -fulness of her own nature, a maternally lovely being, wholly “natural,” -a “beautiful soul,” observing, creative, but using these gifts only to -create a home. These creative offices the modern man who loves desires -to assure, when he wishes to “maintain” his wife, and begs her to -abandon the outside commercial work in which he foresees a danger to the -beautiful life together of which both dream. The woman who along with -her new self-conscious individuality and her profound culture has -guarded the “old” devotion, understands ordinarily this desire of the -man. She chooses, in spite of her idealism, as he wishes, in cases where -her work has not been very personal. If she has worked in the same field -as the man, then she converts her gifts into comprehension of him, into -personal interest for all his interests; and these marriages in which -the wife has enjoyed the same education as the man, but later has -devoted herself entirely to the home, are, as a rule, the happiest -marriages of the present time. But in the proportion in which her work -was creative, is the difficulty of the choice. In the case where the -productive power has the strength of genius, the modern man will -scarcely utter such a wish and in those circumstances the modern woman -will not grant it. And because the woman of genius is generally a -complete human being, with strong erotic as well as universal human -demands, she chooses often compromise. She finds in love, in motherhood, -new revelations; and in the mysterious depths of her nature, the -productive element of the maternal function has an elevating influence -upon her gift of creative power. Thus the energy temporarily diminished -by motherhood is restored. And her uneasy conscience, because she must -entrust to others much of the care and education of the children, is -appeased by the consciousness that she has often given to mankind richer -natures, and so more significant children, than more devoted mothers, -and that her own nature, because of the double creative activity, has -attained a ripeness and richness which make her personality more -significant for husband and children than if she had given up her -calling to please them. These thoughts cannot, however, prevent the -daily conflict between her feelings of love and the impossibility, in -times of strong spiritual production, of giving expression to it. The -very proximity of the children consumes at such times too much nervous -energy. And since all creation requires selfishness—in the sense of -concentration upon one’s _own needs_ in order to be able to work -creatively and to sink oneself in the work—while all love’s solicitude -requires active _attention_ to the _needs of the loved ones_, the -conflict must remain permanent and _insoluble_. - -In this conviction, many women of genius choose the lesser conflict: -marriage without children. Such a relationship occurs not infrequently -in our time in this way: a man of feeling through the work of a woman is -first moved by her being. The man is in that case often the younger or -the less developed. At first, marriage brings both a rich happiness. But -later comes a time when the power of the personality of the woman of -genius becomes too strong for the man; when he feels himself exhausted -by all the sensitiveness and impatience which charge the air about a -creative personality with electricity. He has now had enough of the rich -spiritual exchange and longs for a woman who is only fresh richness, -sunny quiet, easy docility; the now vanished “ingénue” would be the type -of woman who most of all could entrance him. - -In another case, it is the wife who becomes wearied, when the man can no -longer keep pace with her development nor afford her new inspiration. -The erotic life of the woman as well as of the man of genius exhibits -two phases: in one they are attracted by their opposite, in the other by -a congeniality of souls; in one phase they have sought sentiment, -intimacy, nature; in the other, soul, passion, culture. The order -changes in different cases, but the phenomenon repeats itself. What both -consciously or unconsciously desire of love is not another individuality -to love but only a means of inspiration. - -Yet one thing may be emphasised: the richer the nature of a woman is and -the greater her talents, the more life-determining love will be for her; -at one time making her existence desolate, at another time making it -fruitful. For the woman of genius is less able than the man to renounce -her own fate. This the man is capable of doing, in the midst of passion, -without his work suffering thereby in vigour and strength; the woman on -the contrary—even the genius—loses more easily her creative impulse in -happiness, her creative power in unhappiness. - -In this connection it may be recalled that many of the most gifted, most -highly developed woman personalities of to-day have produced nothing, -but have been what a Frenchman has called “les grandes inspiratrices.” -These have not, indeed, like the “Ladies” of the Middle Ages, been -worshipped at a distance by knights and poets; but they have had an -influence similar to that of Beatrice, through the power of -communication of their rich personality in a relationship which had now -the character of an “amitié amoureuse,” now that of a love imbued with -sympathy, which in some cases, infrequently however, led to marriage. I -need only mention the name Richard Wagner for the forms of two such -women to appear, one of whom, who was his wife, surpassed in personal -greatness all independently creative women of her time. But there have -always been less unusual women who had significance as propagandists of -the ideas of a great man through their specifically feminine gifts of -convincing, of diffusing ideas, of modifying views, etc. If the future, -because of the wife’s zeal for production on her own part, should lose -this element of culture, it would be deplorable. - -One of the favourite arguments of the woman movement has been that two -married people working in the same profession had the best opportunities -for understanding each other and consequently also for being happy. And -truly they can best talk shop with each other. But that is what the -working man needs least of all in his home; there he seeks rather -relaxation from his calling, or at least a quite disinterested, -immediate sympathy with its annoyances or joys. When one of the married -fellow-workmen needs exactly this sympathy, the other is perhaps busy or -too tired to be capable of such lively interest as the other expects. Or -one has experienced disappointments, the other joys, and then a real -sympathy is still more difficult. To these crossings of mood is added -also the unintentional, involuntary competition, which the similarity of -vocation brings with it. The wife gains patients, the husband does not; -his picture is praised, hers is pulled to pieces; she comes home from -the theatre victorious, he after a defeat. During work, the criticism of -one often disturbs the other; after the work, the criticism of the press -disturbs the harmony of both. Love wishes to fuse them into one being, -the outer world compels them always to feel themselves separate. In the -beginning they think: “Nothing can come between us.” But if both do not -possess a rare tenderness as well as rare fineness of soul, soon needles -of ice fly through the air between them. Only when the wife, as is the -case so often in France, puts her ability into her husband’s affairs -does this common interest prevent rivalry. - -Whether the province of the husband and wife is the same or not, -difficulty always results from the wife’s commercial or professional -work in that she rarely finds a good substitute for the domestic and -maternal duties. And when the husband sees the house badly managed and -the children ill-bred, he tries according to his strength to render -assistance or, as more frequently happens, seeks his comfort outside the -home. But even if these stumbling-blocks may be cleared away by other -feminine hands, the fact still remains that the wife because of her work -must demand sacrifices on the part of the man such as his work has -required at all times from the wife. She is often compelled to forego -much of the society of her husband, of his solicitude and tenderness -because he has no available time. Now each of the married people has -consideration for the leisure of the other and for all other severe -conditions of the work. But beside these favourable results stands also -the detrimental fact that each suppresses his claims upon the sympathy -of the other, as well as the wish to express his own, whenever this -receiving and giving would interfere with the work. If this has become -for one or for both a real passion, then the passion blinds him to -everything that does not concern the work, and causes alternately joy or -suffering. Each of the married couple then disturbs the other by moods, -and each needs to be cherished by the other. The tenderness which -neither can give to the other, they find perhaps in a third. - -But in those cases where the work is not passionately absorbing or where -both husband and wife are persons of understanding, rather than of -feeling, marriages of colleagues turn out well. Each has in the other an -intelligent, appreciative friend; the common work together is rich, and -neither gives nor requires more than the other is able to reciprocate. -The education of the wife makes her a good organiser in the home, which -is comfortable without the work’s suffering thereby. When this is not -too strenuous for either, but after the close of a reasonable working -time, the two meet spiritually free in the home, the duties of which -they often share—then the domestic life is happy and the work progresses -easily, as long as there are no children. When children arrive, then -there begins for the wife, even in such marriages, a life beyond her -strength. - -But since nature, in the interest of the race, often makes opposites -attractive to each other, one may find a husband, full of feeling, who -loves children, united to a wife for whom science is the greatest value -of life, while she relegates feeling to a lower plane and considers -motherhood an animal function. In place of the tenderness and of the -children for which the husband longed, he has to participate in the -victories and defeats of a woman of science. Or we see a wife who -dreamed of an intimate life with her husband and who sacrificed her work -to it; but the life together was wrecked upon the husband’s artist -concentration, and the wife had to suffer under a twofold emptiness: the -lack of her work and the lack of happiness. Then one sees instances -where the wife retained her work because it was economically necessary -and because she hoped out of the richness of her young strength to be -able to fulfil all duties. And all this she was able to do except one -thing—to preserve under the excessive strain her beauty, her power of -charm, the elasticity of her nature. Perhaps she belonged to the very -highest among the new women who are so undivided, so proud, who think so -highly of themselves, of man, of love, that they are beyond a wholly -justified coquetry and rest blindly upon the uniting power of spiritual -congeniality. But the day comes perhaps when these strong and, in all -other respects, wise women have nothing other than freedom to give to -the man whose senses, whose fancy, need that charm which the wife no -longer possesses. In case, however, the man’s nature is not of those for -whom the silken threads of daily domestic comfort form the strong band, -but on the contrary is of the sort which needs renewal, then the very -absence of the wife, occasioned temporarily by the work, can keep the -relationship long fresh. This is upon the assumption that she -understands what some of these women do not understand: to give, but in -such a way that the man always longs for more; to remain sweetheart, not -only friend; to be able to jest, not only to talk seriously. The modern -wife of to-day, tested upon so many subjects, is often deeply mistaken -in regard to the _kind_ of “ministry” the man needs. The simple wisdom -of their grandmothers consisted in this: to give much and to require -nothing, always to subordinate themselves to the man with gentleness and -humility, never to assert themselves before him as a free, -self-determining personality. The wives of to-day, sacredly convinced of -the right and freedom of women, succeed better in asserting their -personality than in pleasing their husbands, and the quantity of their -demands is often more noteworthy than the quality of their gifts. That -many modern marriages turn out well shows that the adaptability of the -modern husband is beginning to be even as great as that of the wife in -former times! - -The marriage is absolutely wrecked when the wife brings to it all the -new demands of woman, but the husband all the primeval instincts of his -sex. What in each sex relationship most intimately unites or most deeply -sunders is and remains the erotic depth of nature in each. And the -difference in this respect between the men and women of the present ever -more widely separates them, and this division becomes fatal to -innumerable individual lovers of to-day, as well as for the attitude of -the sexes toward marriage in general. The erotically symmetrical woman -views with hostility the dualism in the erotic nature of the modern man. -This dualism evinces itself, with innumerable nuances it is true, in -three typical ways: infinite erotic discussion, but inability to be -stirred by it either with the soul or with the senses; ability to love -only with the senses, not with the soul; and finally looking down upon -the senses and desiring “spiritual love” only. For the modern completely -developed woman the chattering vacuity, the animal instinct, the ascetic -spirituality, are equally repellent. And yet it happens that the rosy -mist of love can bring such a woman to a point where she creates for -herself an illusion out of one of the above mentioned types. Most -frequently this occurs in the case of the vigorous man who divines -nothing of the spiritual content of the woman whose outer appearance has -charmed him. The tragedy of the modern woman is then like that which -Hebbel has revealed in _Judith_, that the sex being in her is attracted -by the muscular masculinity, which her human personality hates as her -mortal enemy. For as a personality she admires in man only the spiritual -strength of the man. The man on his part regrets his mistake that he did -not choose a pretty amiable girl “of the old sort,” who would punctually -lay his table and willingly share his bed; a woman “into whose head -Ibsen had put no fancies,” who “had not allowed herself to be talked -into some folly by feminism.” - - * * * * * - -Among such “follies,” similar men, and many others as well, include the -demand advanced by the woman movement for the married woman’s property -right, as well as a specified income for the wife working in the home, -who however has to contribute from her property or her “remuneration” as -housekeeper to the common household—a corollary which is always -forgotten by the anti-feminist writers who assert that “the man becomes -a slave when he has to work for the whole, but the wife may retain -everything of hers.” (_Strindberg._) - -The modern woman who before her marriage was independent, owing to her -work, abhors the thought of a request for money—this most painful moment -even in the happiest marriages—to so great a degree that this aversion -determines the wife in some cases to keep up her own work. If on the -contrary she has given this up, the consciousness of her earlier -independence makes her often so sensitive that she feels herself injured -by a protest however delicate in regard to the expenditure of money. -More than one man has regretted, in consequence of the unreasonable -demands of his wife, that he ever begged her to give up her own work. -There are women, on the other hand, who continue their work and thereby -only increase the incapability of a good-for-nothing man. In such cases, -it avails little that in many countries the law now allows the wife free -disposal of the income from her labour. Notwithstanding this, the -assertion is ridiculous that “if the man drinks up the money of his wife -it is with her consent,” and “it is therefore of no avail to alter the -law.” For it makes a significant difference in the relative position of -the man and wife whether the law gives him the _right_ to it, or whether -he takes it by force. But in this as in other cases, the woman movement -obviously cannot free women so long as they are impelled by unconscious -forces from within to actions and sacrifices at variance with their -conscious personality. The one thing which the woman movement has -already achieved and can continue to achieve, is that the undue -encroachment of the men ceases to have legal protection. - -It is undeniable, on the other hand, that the unmarried woman’s personal -and economic independence fashions wives who in marriage show themselves -in a high degree egotistic, but who yet incessantly scold about man’s -egotism, wives who themselves exhibit very little devotion and fine -feeling, but place very great importance upon consideration. These wives -were the ones whom fifty years ago men called “graters.” But the lack of -amiability, which in certain women was usually due to childbirth, has -nevertheless in modern woman, at least during the freedom of her -girlhood, been unrestrained habit. Her firm—and just—decision not to be -“subservient” to her husband has resulted in, first, an armed peace, -later, a war, in which the wife’s work is one of the projectiles. “I -have my work, why should I stay here to be used up and tormented?” she -asks herself. And when such questions begin, there is usually but one -answer. - -There is one decided advantage in giving to the woman the opportunity to -earn her living: she has again acquired thereby significance in the -home, while the generation of women, who neither co-operated -_productively_ in the home nor assumed all the duties of the mother, -were regarded by man with less respect than, on the one side, their -grandmothers who _produced_ all of the household requisites, on the -other side, their now independent self-supporting granddaughters. Only -when society _recompenses the vocation of mother_, can woman find in -this a full equivalent for self-supporting labour. - -Another typical group of our time is formed by the numerous women for -whom no choice remains in regard to their work, since it is of a kind -that they must give up because of the removal to another place, or more -frequently because they find so much work in the new home that every -thought of anything further outside must cease. Those who think that -industry has made the work of the wife in the home to-day superfluous, -speak only of the _great cities_, and usually only of _opulent families -in the great cities_, where they are in a position to buy cheaper -everything that the labour of the wife could produce. But in the -country, among all classes, the mother must be the director of the work; -and in all country homes in moderate circumstances—as in countless poor -or not very well-to-do city families—the work of the mother is still -frequently indispensable, and in addition is more economical than her -earnings out of the house could be, especially since the developed -modern woman is usually capable of a more rational housekeeping than the -woman of earlier times. - -But while the mothers of that time knew nothing except housework, those -of to-day have often, as unmarried and self-supporting women, enjoyed a -freedom of movement and opportunities of development which, now that -they are over-burdened with household cares, they may seriously miss. -The work of the mother is now still further increased by the difficulty -of getting servants—at least capable ones—and also by the demands of -luxury. The result of this again is that hospitality in the home -decreases, that the watchword of the time, “the windows of the house -wide open to the world, fresh air in the home, no creeping into the -chimney corner,” is so interpreted that warmth and intimacy vanish. Yes, -the overworked mother often herself insists that the family leave the -house and seek some place of recreation for the annual festivals, which -were once the children’s happiest and brightest recollections of home. - -The fact that most modern women of culture devote themselves to some -branch of social work, often to several, contributes still further to -the over-exertion of the mother. Even when this occurs from pure -altruism, the motive cannot prevent such altruism from becoming -sometimes a disease of which one may die quite as surely as of other -diseases. This death is quite as immoral as any other resulting from -neglected hygiene. No one has the right to perish from altruism, except -when destruction is the _condition_ of his fulfilling his duty. But in -many cases the occasion is the widely ramified social activity of the -woman for whom the home now often falls short; not a result of altruism, -but a manifestation of that desire for power which once was satisfied in -the family. Or it may be a form of the hysteria characteristic of the -present time. In the sixteenth century, the hysterical were burned as -witches; now they “sacrifice” themselves to an activity which offers -them in reality the variety, the intoxication of publicity—in a word, -the life stimulus they need. But even sound, sincere, and conscientious -women are driven by the woman movement and by social work to assume -pseudo duties, for which the real duties are pushed aside. If instead of -instituting official inquiries among wives and mothers as to what they -can accomplish, one should direct the same questions to their husbands -and children, these would, if they dared be honest, testify that _they_ -must pay the price for the altruistic activity. - -Since the work of married women outside the home, the woman movement, -and the social work began, one seldom finds a wholly sound, joyous, -harmonious wife and mother. The constant complaint of the modern woman -is that she “never has time.” The minority who live a life of luxury, -wholly free from work, while the husband works feverishly to provide the -luxury which neither will forego, telephone away a quarter of the day -making appointments concerning the toilette, visits, and amusements, -which take up the remaining three quarters of the day. And others, -loaded down with household work or divided between this and work for -their livelihood, how shall they find time! - -Least of all have they the time necessary for the countless little -tokens of tenderness which intensify all relationships between people. A -French mother who became a widow and brought up her children by means of -her own work received from her son, grown to a youth, the judgment: -“Thou hast never loved us.” Too late, it became clear to her that “it -requires time to love,” that it is not enough to feel love, and, looked -at as a whole, to act with love—no, love must be expressed. And for this -the harassed mother of to-day lacks time and quiet. - -Formerly, it was only the husband and father who had no time; the wife -and mother had it and could thus preserve the warmth of the home. But -now? - -There are now, it is true, many women with so few claims that they think -they have fulfilled the fourfold task. In reality, they have fulfilled -all their duties imperfectly, or eliminated one task for a time in order -to be able to accomplish the others. _No woman has ever been at the same -time all_ that a wife can be to her husband, a mother to her children, a -housewife to her house, a working woman to her work. In the last -capacity the difficulty of the married woman is still further increased -by the present competition, as also by the fact that the better a person -works the more work falls to her, so that an exact and reasonable -division of time between work and home is often rendered quite -impossible. - -In addition to all these difficulties arising through actualities, there -are finally also those evoked by the “spirit of the time.” A wife has, -for example, decided to give up a vocation which she saw was not -compatible with her home. But she stills finds no rest. She is harassed -by the demand of the “spirit of the time” that a married woman should be -able to take care of the house as well as to accomplish outside personal -work. The husband, also influenced by the “spirit of the time,” thinks -the same or feels painfully the fact that his wife, for love of him, has -sacrificed the exercise of a talent, in which he perhaps has felt a -personal interest; the longing for the vocation awakens in her, and she -resumes her work, with the result that, if she has energetically -resisted the lassitude that comes with beginning motherhood, she and the -child must suffer later. Or she lives in a permanent state of -over-exertion which finally culminates in nervous conditions under which -the whole family must share her suffering. Had she been able to follow -in peace her instinct to strike deep root in the home soil and to -enlarge and enrich her being by the annual growth of ring after ring of -her production of love, then the essential values would have been -increased for all. Now, she is led astray by a biased opinion of the -time, which owes its effectiveness to the single fact that the -opinionated resolutely turn their back upon all facts. - -Thanks to these ideas of the time propagated by certain feminists, we -see increasing numbers of women who perform their “social duty” as the -telegraph poles perform their function; while such duty could have been -fulfilled as the tree grows in a garden: blooming, fruit-bearing, -joyful, joy-bringing. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MOTHERHOOD - - -Because it has increased the culture of woman and her feeling of -personal responsibility, the woman movement has had its influence, both -directly and indirectly, upon the postponement of the legal and -customary marriage age. Since young girls have exercised their brains as -much as the boys have, they are no longer so far in advance of the boys -in physical development. But when modern girls finish their studies they -are physically as well as psychically more universally developed than -their grandmothers were. They know much more of the difficulties and -realities of life, not least of the sexual life. And this knowledge has -instilled in them a reluctance to undertake too early the serious and -difficult task of motherhood. They have greater need of truth and -culture, and less tendency to erotic visionary dreaming than girls of -their age in the middle of the previous century; their desire for work -and their social feeling fix goals, and they work with all their might -to attain them. And because, as already explained, both sexes have for -each other a more many-sided attraction than the merely erotic, young -people are more careful, more choice, in their erotic decisions. The -finest young girls of to-day are penetrated by the Nietzschean idea, -that marriage is the combined will of two people to create a new being -greater than themselves. But their joy does _not_ consist in the fact -“that the man wills”; they are themselves “will,” and above all they -have the will to choose the right father for their children, not only -for their own sake but for the sake of the children. - -If it be true that immediate, “blind,” erotic attraction is most -instinctively correct in choice, then the present comrade life of young -people and the increased clear-sightedness which it gives, as well as -the increasing erotic idealism of young girls, are not unconditionally -advantageous to the new race. The question is, however, still undecided. -Here it may only be emphasised that the young girl of to-day, in spite -of all intellectual development, is still won always by powerful -spiritual-sensual love, which the woman movement has too long considered -as a negligible quantity. Under the influence of the doctrine of -evolution, young girls begin to understand that their value as members -of society depends essentially upon their value for the propagation of -mankind; all the more they realise the duty of physical culture which -will enable them to fulfil this function better; they no longer consider -their erotic longing as impure and ugly but as pure and beautiful. It is -out of this soul condition that the different movements for the -protection of mothers and children, theoretically considered, have -proceeded. These are at present the most important “woman movements,” -although unrecognised by the older woman movement. And this older -movement has not yet recognised the fact that, because of present -marriage conditions, the degenerate, uneducated, decrepit, have greater -opportunity for propagating the race, both within and outside of -marriage, than the young, sound, pure-minded, and loving; that it can -therefore _be no sin_, from the point of view of the race, if the latter -become parents without marriage, nor should it be a subject of shame -from the social point of view. All women’s rights have little value, -until this one thing is attained: that a woman who through her -illegitimate motherhood has lost nothing of her personal worth, but on -the contrary has proved it, does not forfeit social esteem. - -Our time can point to women who have been typical of the reform -tendencies of the century in this respect. Some of these women, if they -really accomplished the unprecedented task of “a child and a work,” have -drawn their strength for the task out of precisely the commonplace, -homely qualities and sterling virtues, contrary to which they believed -they were acting when they became mothers, driven by a power greater -than their _conscious_ personality. Others again became mothers with the -consent of their whole personality. They were clear that they thus made -use of the masculine rights and freedom which feminism first brought -home to women. And although many advocates of women’s rights refrain -from such consequences of their ideas, the women who in other respects -determine their conduct of life by their own free personal choice -recognise that this, their _real_ “emancipation,” is a fruit of the -woman movement. - -In Europe, however, most women under thirty still dare to dream of -motherhood in a love marriage as the greatest happiness and the highest -duty of life.[5] - -But, as direct and indirect result of the woman movement, the fact none -the less remains that there is found _among women an increasing -disinclination for maternity_, a reluctance which deprives mankind of -many superior mothers, while at the same time woman’s commercial work -for self-support in all classes increases her sterility or makes her -incapable of the suckling so vitally important for the children. - -That the modern woman, because of individual fate or her own choice, -often remains unmarried is no danger in and for itself. This fact, as I -have emphasised above, is connected with a number of cultural and -material conditions, which sometime will be altered, and then woman’s -desire for marriage will again increase. The real danger has appeared -only since women have begun to strengthen the tendency to celibacy by -the amaternal theory, which now confuses the feminine brain and leads -the feminine instinct astray. - -The woman movement in and with this influence upon maternity sinks to -the lowest point of the scale according to the criterion of worth -employed here: the elevation of the life of the individual and of the -race. In this we stand in our time before a twofold mystery, which lies -in the circumstance that not only women—women “with breasts made right -to suckle babes”—emphasise this stultifying influence, but that there -are men, each the son of a mother, who also propagate it. These men have -allowed themselves to be blinded by the false logic concerning women, -which declares that since rich mothers do not wish to fulfil the duties -of a mother and the poor cannot fulfil them, superior social -organisations must be created for that purpose; in other words, -instigated by a mere temporary unpleasant discrepancy, we will create a -new, a different order of things. But, if this obtained universally, it -would inflict incomparably greater injury upon mankind than do present -unhappy conditions. - -Upon the whole, however, it is precisely as a result of this tendency -that the deepest hostility of men against feminism has developed. The -fact that the idea of evolution is now beginning to enter into the flesh -and blood of man also contributes its share to this feeling. Just as -formerly a man wished heirs for his personal and real estate and for his -name, he now desires inheritors of his being; he desires an eternal -life, which becomes a certainty only by means of parenthood, whereby the -individual as father or mother lives on physically and spiritually, in -body and soul, in his children and grandchildren down to the last of his -descendants. This conception has made the sex instinct again holy, as it -was for the pagans. This new reverence for their duty as beings of sex -now induces many young men to guard their sexual health and strength by -an asceticism the motive of which is the exact opposite of that which -determined the asceticism called forth by Christianity, the asceticism -which was fear of the sex instinct as impure and as a temptation to sin. -Now the innermost aim of young men’s creative desire is the higher -development of mankind. Love becomes for them the condition by which -they can most perfectly redeem their religious certainty of being part -of a great design, their religious longing for harmony with life’s -creative desire, with the infinite. - -There are now men who work most zealously for the ennoblement of the -race—“eugenics,” as this effort is called in England—as well as for the -protection of mother and child—“puericulture,” as this endeavour is -called in France. There are men who write excellent works upon the -psychology of the child, and upon sexual instruction; men, who, in art -and poetry, give expression to the new veneration for the sanctity of -generation, for motherhood, for the child. The finest thing written -about the child as a cultural power is written by an American.[6] -Painting has now new devotional pictures of the Mother with her Child, -especially those conceived by a Frenchman and an Italian.[7] The most -beautiful representation of youth’s new desire for love is by a German -sculptor.[8] Likewise a German, Nietzsche, has the most profound -conception of parenthood and education as the means whereby humanity -will cross over the bridge of the men of to-day to the superman. - -Only when all this is realised can one conceive what the feelings of -these new men must be when they meet those new women “who are no longer -willing to be slaves of the instinct for the propagation of the race;” -who see in motherhood “a loss of time from their work;” “an attack upon -their beauty;” an obstacle to the refined conduct of life;—a conduct of -life certain to debase woman’s worth as a child-bearing being, but to -elevate her to that exquisite, perfect product of culture, a “woman of -the world;” an obstacle also for woman as creator of other objective -cultural values. If a man with a father’s desires finds himself united -with such a woman, he finds himself in marriage quite as much a -prostitute as innumerable wives have felt themselves to be when they -were mere tools of a man’s desire. On the contrary the desire for the -elevation of mankind on the part of the new woman and the new man, is -evinced in the idea that not the quantity but the quality of the -children they give to humanity is most significant; that a land of fewer -but more perfect men is a higher culture ideal than the principle still -always maintained from the point of view of national competition, that -the inhabitants of a country must only be numerous however inferior they -may be. - -To this wholly new evolutionary conception of life the amaternal women -oppose the following train of thought which greatly influences the -feeling and desire of women to-day[9]: - -Culture now sets new duties for woman, more significant than exclusively -natural ones. The more the individual life increases in value, the more -the interest for the mere functions of sex declines, and with it also -the value of woman _as woman_ for a society where, because of -motherhood, she has become a being of secondary rank. It evinces lack of -ideality if one censures this tendency of the modern woman to renounce -maternity for the sake of more spiritual interests. While the mother -concentrates herself upon her own child only, the woman who renounces -motherhood can extend her being to embrace children as children in -general. As a mother, woman is only a being of nature. But the -personality, with its multiplicity of feelings and endeavours, demands -an independent activity as well as maternity. - -To put her entire personality into the education of her children is a -twofold error. First and foremost, most mothers are _bad_ educators and -serve their children better if they entrust them to a born teacher; in -the second place, _gifted_ children educate themselves best and should -be spared all educational arts. The mediocre child, who is more -susceptible to education, has ordinarily also only mediocre parents, who -likewise benefit the children most if they put them in the care of -excellent teachers. Children who are _below_ mediocrity can also be best -educated by specialists. So there remains for the mother, after the -first years’ care and training, no especial task as educator, at least -none in which she can really put her personality. To talk to a mother -about the possibilities of a richer office of mother, as educator of her -children, she calls lulling her into an illusion under which she must -labour only to suffer. A woman who can exercise her personality in -another way should not therefore put it into the education of her -children. - -The amaternal advocates deny that motherliness is the criterion of -womanliness; they find this criterion in the form, the external being of -woman, in her manner and physical appearance—in a word, in the _outer_ -expression of the inner disposition, which they deny as typical of -womanliness! “Womanliness” is thus reduced to an “æsthetic principle,” -while woman’s spiritual attributes are considered as “universally -human”; and the right is granted to the feminine sex to emancipate -herself from the result of the heresy that _motherliness_ should be the -ethical norm for the “being” or “essence” of womanhood. The suitability -of woman’s _psychic_ constitution for her work as mother is not -acknowledged as proof that motherliness is the distinguishing -characteristic of womanliness. For this constitution is less conspicuous -in the higher stages of differentiation. Its suitability was then a -phenomenon of adaptation and changed with the conditions of life. Thus -this constitution cannot be cited as a reason for limiting woman’s -personal exercise of her powers. Motherliness is no social instinct. How -can motherliness, which we have in common with beasts and savages, be -considered as higher than, for example, justice, truth, and other -gradually won spiritual values, which woman can promote by her personal -activity? The higher the forms of life woman attains, the less will her -personality be determined by motherliness. Why then should women bring -to the domestic life the sacrifice of their personality, while no one -demands this of men? Why shall not woman, just as man, satisfy her -demands as a sex being in marriage and, as for the rest, follow her -profession, attend to her spiritual development, her social tasks? Why -condemn woman to remain a half-being—that is, with unexercised -brain—only because certain of her instincts attract her to man, while he -is not constrained to suppress his personality because he in like manner -felt himself attracted to woman? It is the old superstition of the -family life as “woman’s sphere,” which still confuses the conception. By -the present form of family life woman is “oversexed.” Her higher -development, as well as that of her husband and children, will be -promoted if woman guards her independence by earning her own living, in -commercial work conducted beyond the portal of the home; if housekeeping -becomes co-operative; if the education of the children is carried on -outside the home, in which now the motherly tenderness emasculates the -children and fosters in them family sentiment of an egoistic nature and -not social feelings. Thus are solved the difficulties which are entailed -when the wife’s work is carried on outside the home; equipoise between -her intellectual and emotional, her sexual and social nature follows, -and her worth, as that of a man, will be measured by her human -personality, not by her womanliness, her efficacy in the family, for the -exercise of which she is now constrained to renounce her personality. - -So runs in brief the programme of the amaternals. - - * * * * * - -It has already been indicated that the woman movement, in its -_inception_, could gather strength only by combating with all its power -the prejudice that _woman is incapable of the same kind of activity as -man_. But now the whole woman movement has for a long time been -emphasising the fact that woman is entitled, not only on her own behalf -but more especially in her capacity as home-keeper, wife, and mother, to -the full development of her powers and to equality with man in the -family and in society. In the amaternal programme sketched above, -however, the fanaticism, which characterised the entire woman movement a -generation ago, now evinces itself in the error that _equal rights_ for -the sexes must mean also _equal functions_; that the development of -women’s powers involves also their application in the same spheres of -activity in which man is engaged; that _equality_ of the sexes implies -_sameness_ of the sexes. While moderate feminism begins to see that, if -man and wife compete, this rivalry can benefit[10] neither the woman, -the man, nor the children, amaternal feminism urges the keenest -competition. And if this is once accepted as advantageous to woman’s -personality and to society, then it is obvious that she must, with all -the energy of the attacked, defend herself from the duties of maternity, -because of which she would obviously come off second-best in the -competition. - -From the point of view of individualism it is obvious that the _law_ -must set no limitations to woman’s practice of a vocation, unless -evident hygienic dangers menace either her or the coming generation. -Women must, for their own sake as well as for that of society, have free -_choice of work_, for life and nature possess innumerable unforeseen -possibilities. Nevertheless, it does happen that a woman who gives -superior children to humanity may, nevertheless, feel herself incapable -of educating them; likewise it sometimes happens that a husband and wife -who have exceptional children, cannot endure to live together. In -neither case has law or custom a right to force upon a mother or a -father a yoke that is intolerable or to demand of a mother or a father -unreasonable sacrifices. - -But the right to limit the choice of work, the law does not possess; -nature assumes that right herself: first of all from the axiom that no -one can be in two places at the same time, and in the second place -because no one can respond simultaneously and with full energy to two -different spiritual activities. One cannot, for example, count even to -one hundred and at a certain number give a simple grasp of the hand -without suspending the counting momentarily. Although no one has ever -been denied the privilege of solving a mathematical problem and of -following carefully at the same time a piece of music, yet it is certain -that the effectiveness of both intellectual activities would be thereby -diminished. These extremely simple observations can be continued until -the most complex are reached. If the observation be directed to the -sphere of domestic life, every wife and mother who _is willing to -institute impartial observations of self_, will affirm the difficulty of -working with a divided mind. - -If a mother carries on her work at home and must put it away in order to -be beside the sick-bed of her child, or to make those arrangements which -assure domestic comfort, or to help her husband, then she feels that her -book or her picture suffers, that the activity which binds her more -intimately to the home relaxes for a time the intimacy of her connection -with her work. One can by day carry on a dull industrial task, and by -night produce an achievement of the soul; but one cannot let one’s soul -radiate in one direction without impairing its energy in another. A work -needs exclusive devotion. And this is, viewed externally, difficult to -attain in joint action; viewed from within, it requires a renunciation -that in the case of a loving soul evokes a continual inner struggle. For -that reason, also, literature with woman as its subject has for some -decades been filled with the great conflict of modern woman’s life: the -conflict between vocation and parents, between vocation and husband, -between vocation and child. Certainly the family has often been a -torture chamber for individuality, as a consequence of laws and customs, -which the future will regard as we now do the rack and the thumbscrew. -But nature is more severe than law and custom when she confronts us with -a choice which, however it may turn out, tears a piece from our heart. - -And now neither custom nor man demands of woman the “sacrifice of the -personality.” This sacrifice is required only by the law of limitations -which rules over us all. - -The creative man or the man working objectively must often condemn the -emotional side of his personality to a partial development; he must for -the sake of his work renounce many family values important for this -emotional side of his being. Even if shorter working hours could -partially diminish this cultural offering, the _inner_ conflict, for the -man or the woman, is not settled thereby. - -Even if a man, in the consciousness of his wife’s endowment of talent, -assumed a number of domestic duties, especially those pertaining to the -children, the inner conflict would still continue. And this conflict is -in no way solved by the amaternal theory that the personal life must be -placed above the instinct life. For, as has been emphasised, the choice -is not between the personal and the instinct life, but between the -intellectual and the emotional side of woman’s personality. And the -solution of this choice has not been discovered by the amaternals, who -would combine commercial work with marriage and maternity. Women who -remain unmarried or who give up commercial activity which they cannot -carry on in the home, have not _settled the conflict_ either, but have -only reduced its difficulties. - -The fundamental error of the amaternal solution of the problem is that -it characterises motherliness as a _non-social_ instinct, but, on the -other hand, defines the “personal” activity of woman as an expression of -the social instinct. _For all social instincts have been developed by -culture out of primitive instincts._ All cultural development lies -between the sex impulse of the Australian negress and the erotic -sentiment of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets. And when the -amaternals assert that motherliness, which “we have in common with -beasts and savages,” cannot be an expression of the personality, their -argument has the same validity as that which would deny to the Sistine -Chapel the quality of an expression of personality because beasts and -savages also exhibit the decorative instinct. - -The development of the mother instinct into motherliness is one of the -greatest achievements in the progress of culture, a development by which -the maternal functions have continually become more complex and -differentiated. Already in the case of the higher animals maternity -involves much more than the mere act of giving birth; an animal not only -faces death for her young, she gives them also a training which often -indicates power of judgment. A cat, for instance, which sought in vain -to prevent her kitten from entering the water and which finally threw -the kitten in and then pulled it out, thus obtaining the desired result -of her pedagogy, had not, as have so many modern mothers, read Spencer, -but could, nevertheless, put many of these mothers to shame. Even the -initial maternal functions, nursing and physical care, involve a culture -of the spiritual life of the mother, not only through an increase in -tenderness, but also in observation, discrimination, judgment, -self-control; a woman’s character often develops more in a month during -which she is occupied with the care of children, than in years of -professional work. Mother love and the reciprocal love which it awakens -in the child, not only exercise the first deep influence upon the -individual’s life of feeling, but this love is _the first form of the -law of mutual help—it is the root of altruism, the cotyledon_ of a now -widely ramified tree of “social instincts.” - -Although woman through the mere _physical_ functions of motherhood makes -a great social contribution, the importance of her contribution is -greatly enhanced if one also takes into consideration her _spiritual_ -nature. And notwithstanding the fact that fatherhood has also, to a -certain degree, developed in man the qualities of tenderness, -watchfulness, patience, yet the enormous predominance of woman’s -_physical_ share in parenthood, in comparison with man’s, is in itself -enough to create, in course of time, the intimate connection which still -exists to-day between mother and child, as well as the difference -between the personality of woman and man. The physical functions of -motherhood were the fundamental reasons for the earliest division of -labour. And this division of labour, the aim of which, next to -self-preservation, was for both sexes the protection of posterity, -augmented and strengthened the qualities which each sex employed for its -special functions. All human qualities lie latent in each. But they have -been so specialised by this division of labour, or, on the other hand, -suppressed by it, that they now appear in varying proportions: in woman, -a careful, managing, supervising, lifeguarding, inward-directed sense of -love; in man, courage, desire for action, force of will, power of -thought, an activity subduing nature and life, became the distinguishing -characteristics; and fatherhood became psychologically, as it is -physiologically, something different from motherhood. Even if culture -continues to efface the sharp lines of demarcation, so that it becomes -more and more impossible to generalise about “woman” and “man,” and -increasingly more necessary for each and every woman to solve the “woman -question” individually, yet from the point of view of the race, the -_division of labour must on the whole remain the same as that which -hitherto existed_, if the higher development of mankind shall continue -in uninterrupted advance to more perfect forms. It is necessary for -_these higher ends of culture_ that woman _in an ever more perfect -manner shall fulfil what has hitherto been her most exalted task_: the -bearing and rearing of the new generation. - -The amaternal assertion, that motherliness can be no higher than justice -and truth, is an infuriating antithesis. It is as if one should assert -that “air is better than water, or both better than bread.” Both -assertions place the fundamental condition of life counter to other -needs of life! Who shall exercise justice and truth when no new men are -born? And, moreover, how shall justice and truth increase in mankind if -children are not trained to a greater reverence for justice and a deeper -love of truth? In order to fulfil this one office _of education_ well, -mothers need their _universal human culture in its entirety_. But even -if this were not so, if motherhood did not require the concentration of -woman’s personality; even if motherliness remained only “primitive -instinct,” yet this instinct, in the women who have guarded it, is more -valuable for mankind than the universal human development of power of -the women who have lost this instinct. No social nor individual activity -of women could compensate for the extinction of this “instinct,” which -only recently in Messina drove hundreds of mothers to shield their -children with their own bodies; this “instinct,” which recently impelled -a mother, who learned before she gave birth to her child that her own -life must be the price for the saving of that of the child, to cry: “I -have lived, but the life of my child belongs now to mankind—save the -child!” So the mother died without even having seen the beautiful being -for whom she gave her life. In the world of “personally” developed -women, however, after a new Messina catastrophe the mothers would be -found with their manuscripts and their pictures in their arms. And -confronted with a choice like that related above, the mother would -answer: “Let the child die, I will live my personal life to the end.” - -The amaternal type must persist for the present. There are in reality in -our time many women who with unresponsive eyes can pass by a lovely -child, among them even mothers who do not feel the pure sensuousness, -the wise madness, the intoxicating delight which such a child awakens in -every motherly woman; mothers who have no conception what a fascinating -subject for study the soul of a child can offer. Jean Paul, who scourged -worthless mothers and tried to awaken the repressed maternal instinct of -his time with the charge that a woman who is bored when she has -children, is a contemptible creature, would find to-day many mothers who -are bored only if they have their children about them. - -And these cerebral, amaternal women must obviously be accorded the -freedom of finding the domestic life, with its limited but intensive -exercise of power meagre, beside the feeling of power which they enjoy -as public personalities, as consummate women of the world, as talented -professionals. But they have not the right to _falsify life values_ in -their own favour so that they themselves shall represent the highest -form of life, the “human personality” in comparison with which the -“instinctively feminine” signifies a lower stage of development, a -poorer type of life. - -Women who have produced books and works of art, to be compared, as -respects permanence of value, to confetti at a carnival, have, according -to this viewpoint, proved themselves human individualities, while a -mother who has contributed an endless amount of clear thought, rich -understanding, warm feeling, and strong will to the education of a fine -group of children, requires a public office in order to prove herself a -“human personality”! The brain work which a woman employs in a -commercial concern bears witness to her individuality, but the brain -work which a large, well-managed household demands, does not. The woman -physician who delivers a mother expresses her “personality,” but the -mother has put no “personality” into the feelings with which she has -borne the child, the dreams with which she has consecrated it, the ideas -in accordance with which she has educated it! The girl who has passed -her examinations has proved herself a developed human being; but her -grandmother, who is now filled with the kindness and wisdom which she -has won in a life dedicated to domestic duties, a life in which the -restricted sphere of her duties did not prevent the comprehensiveness of -her cultural interests, nor her all-embracing sympathy with -humanity—such a woman is not a personality! - -When men advance as an argument against women’s rights the fear that -women will lose their womanliness in public life, the older feminists -answer that womanliness, especially motherliness, is rooted too firmly -in nature to make it possible for this danger to exist. Nothing has, -however, become more clear in this amaternalistic time than that -motherliness is _not_ an indestructible instinct. Just as our time -produces in increasing numbers sterile women and women incapable of -nursing their children, so it produces more and more psychically -amaternal women. We can pass in silence the cases of children martyred -in families or in children’s homes, for sexual perversity and religious -fanaticism often play a rôle in such connections; we can also pass by -the millions of mothers who bring about the abortion of their offspring, -for the poor are driven to such practices largely by necessity, the rich -mostly by love of pleasure. There still remain a sufficient number of -women in whom the mother instinct has faded away because of a course of -thought like that just described. Our time furnishes manifold proofs of -the fact that the mother instinct can easily be weakened, or even -entirely disappear, although the erotic impulse continues to live; that -motherliness is not a spontaneous natural instinct, but the product of -thousands of years not merely of _child-bearing_, but also of -_child-rearing_; and that it must be strengthened in each new generation -by the personal care which mothers bestow upon their children. A woman -learns to love the strange child whom she nurses as if it were her own; -a father who can devote himself to the care of his little children is -possessed by an almost “motherly tenderness” for them, as are also older -brothers and sisters for the little ones whom they care for. But while -those who advocate the cause of the amaternal women draw from such facts -the conclusion that motherliness cannot be used as a criterion of -womanliness, yet an entirely different conclusion forces itself upon -everyone who sees in the united uplift of the individual and of mankind -the criterion of the life-enhancing effect of the woman movement, the -conclusion that the amaternal soul not only confirms the worst -apprehensions of men in regard to the results of the woman movement, but -also constitutes the greatest danger to the woman movement itself. For -the amaternal ideas will evoke a violent reaction _on the part of men_, -in case such a reaction does not appear at an early stage on the part of -women. - -This latter reaction might also include a rebellion against the methods -of industrial production, which exhaust the strength of mothers and -children. For the objection of industrialism, that “it cannot exist -without women,” falls to the ground in face of the fact that a race -cannot exist without sound and moral mothers. And “moral” means, here, -mothers capable and willing to bear sound children and to train children -along moral lines. If, on the contrary, Europe and America adhere to the -economic and ethical principles which prevent a number of able and -willing women of this type from becoming mothers, and if numbers of -other women who could be mothers continue unwilling to assume the burden -of motherhood, then this problem will finally become the problem of _a -future for the European-American people_. - -The woman movement must now with resolute determination abandon the -narrow, biased attitude, psychologically natural a generation ago when -the zealots of feminism had no other standard of value for an idea, an -investigation, or a book, than whether they _advanced or did not -advance_ the cause of woman; whether they _proved or did not prove_ -woman’s equality with man. For woman’s work, studies, and other -accomplishments, no other standard was applied than that of equality -with man’s work, man’s studies, and the accomplishments of man. In a -word, the proposition was that woman should be enabled to perform at the -same time the life-work of a woman and of a man! - -It is through these hybrids that the feminine sex transgresses against -the masculine. And this is one reason why our time is so filled with the -tragic vicissitudes of women. Truly, every progressive person must agree -with Goethe’s aphorism, “I love him whom the impossible lures.” For, -thus allured, man has elevated his particular generation above the -generation preceding. But _in action_ every one must go down who is not -imbued with the consciousness that whoever exceeds his limits is liable -to tragic consequences, in the modern psychological view of the guilt -attaching to one who undertakes more than his strength will allow. - - * * * * * - -But our time exhibits also other less convulsively strained conditions -of the feminine soul and therefore also brighter fates for woman. It -shows not infrequently wives united with their husbands, not only by the -sympathy which the human personality of each inspires, but also by the -erotic attraction which the sex character of each exercises. And they -have both won thereby that unity through which all the best and highest -powers of their being are liberated and elevated as by religion. And -their parenthood will then be the highest expression of this religion. - -Only religious natures are—in the deepest meaning of the word—loving or -faithful or creative. It is the same soul which in one person reveals -itself in ecstasy of belief, in a second in ardour of creation, in a -third in a great erotic passion, in the fourth as parental love, in -others again as love of country, as enthusiasm for freedom, desire for -reform. At times one and the same soul, a woman’s or a man’s, is kindled -by all these passions. But never has the same soul been able _at the -same time_ to feed all these passions in their highest potency. Whether -it be God, a work, or a human being that the soul embraces with its -entire devotion, the religious character of this devotion always evinces -itself in increasing longing, an endless susceptibility, a more -persistent search after means of expression, a continual service, an -inexhaustible patience in waiting for reciprocal activity from the -object of love. The religious strength of a feeling consists in this, -that the soul in every work, every sorrow, every joy,—in a word, in -every spiritual condition, every experience,—is, consciously as well as -unconsciously, more closely united with God, with the work, with the -beloved, until every finest fibre of one’s being reaches down to the -profound depths which the object of love represents for the lover. - -In this necessary condition of concentration of the spiritual life is -found the truth of woman’s complaint that the man, absorbed by his work, -“no longer loves her”; the truth of the experience that earthly love -indisputably detracts from the love of God; the truth of the frequent -experience of husband and wife that with children the wealth of their -spiritual life together is in certain respects inevitably diminished; -the truth of man’s fear that woman’s absorption in a life-work -personally dear to her must to a certain degree detract from her -devotion to the home; the truth of the experience that the office of -mother often interferes with the development of woman’s intellectual -power. - -Only persons who distinguish themselves by what Heine called “exuberance -of mental poverty,” or what I might call analogously an “abyss of -superficiality,” have not experienced the severe and beautiful psychic -truth of Jesus’ glorification of _simplicity_. The quiet harkening to -the voice of God or to the inspiration of work or to the delicate -vibrations of another soul, which daily, hourly, momentarily, are the -conditions that enable the soul to live wholly in its belief, its work, -its love, so that these feelings may grow stronger and the soul grow -greater through these feelings—all this has “simplicity” as a condition; -in a word, symmetrical unity, longing for completeness, inner poise, the -swift emotion. Fidelity—to a belief, a work, a love—is no product of -duty. It is a process of growth. - -These are the conditions to which many modern women, womanly at heart -but divided, restless, groping, attempting much, will not submit. They -could even learn to reverence these conditions in the child for whom -play is such sacred seriousness; but instead they transform the most -sacred earnest into play. - -Other women, on the contrary, are beginning to understand these -conditions of growth and to comprehend that it was exactly the protected -position of woman in the home, which has made it possible for her family -feeling to acquire that depth which is to be attained only by -concentration. But if this is no longer possible, then woman will love -those that belong to her with less religious warmth. Nothing can better -illustrate the difference still existing between man and woman in this -respect, than the fact that most men would consider themselves -unfortunate if their entire exercise of power were concentrated upon the -family, while most women still feel themselves fortunate when they have -been given the opportunity to exercise to the uttermost the tendency -inherent in them. For most women love best _personally_ and _in -propinquity_, while the potency of love in man often seeks distant -goals. Woman is happy in the degree to which she can bestow her love -upon a person closely connected with her; if she cannot do that, then -she may be useful, resigned, content, but never happy.[11] The very fact -that woman’s strongest _primitive instinct_ coincided with her -_greatest_ cultural _office_ has been an essential factor in the harmony -of her being. - -The modern developed mother feels with every breath a grateful joy in -that she lives the most perfect life when she can contribute her -developed human powers, her liberated human personality, to the -establishment of a home and to the vocation of motherhood. These -functions conceived and understood as social, in the embracing sense in -which the word is now used, give the new mother a richer opportunity to -exercise her entire personality than she could find in modern commercial -work. In one such occupation she must suppress either the intellectual -or the emotional side of her nature; in another, the life either of the -imagination or of the will. In domestic duties, on the contrary, these -powers of the soul can work in unison. This is undoubtedly the deepest -reason why, taken as a whole, women have become more harmonious, and men -stronger in any special crisis, women more soulful, men more gifted. On -this account men offer their great sacrifice more readily for an idea, -or for the accomplishment of a work; women, for persons closely -connected with them. And yet this co-operation of woman’s spiritual -powers was in earlier times partly repressed by man’s demand for -passivity on the part of woman as a thinking and willing personality, -but for her unceasing activity as promoter of his comfort and that of -the entire home. The mother of to-day can, on the contrary, exercise, as -distributer, her culture, her thought, her supervision, her judgment, -and her criticism, in order to make fully effective the faculty of her -sex for foresight and organisation. She applies a great amount of -spiritual energy to the selection of the essentials and the -subordination of secondary things, to the creation of such facilities in -the material work that time and means are left for the spiritual values, -which, alas, are still neglected in the domestic economy of small, -private households, as well as in national housekeeping. And as mother, -modern woman is offered the first fitting opportunity to assert herself -as a thinking and willing personality. - -The significance of the vocation of mother has been underrated in its -significance even by moderate feminists. But these were right when they -demonstrated that the “sanctity” of this office had become a mere -phrase, so badly or amateurishly was this vocation fulfilled—an -indictment in which Nietzsche and feminism for one rare moment are on -common ground. Mothers needed the spur of this contempt; it was -necessary that their feeling of responsibility, their universal human -culture, their personal self-reliance, should be aroused by the woman -movement. Only so could the new generation acquire the new type of women -who for the present seek to qualify themselves by self-culture for the -office of mother, in the expectation that for all women an obligatory -education for motherhood will be realised. So long as this vocation -_can_ be practised without any training, nothing can be known of the -possibilities whereby ordinary mothers may become good educators—unless -they place the mother love and the intuitive understanding of the nature -of the child that it affords above even the best outside teachers. Just -as a glorious voice makes a country girl a “natural singer,” so nature -has at all times made certain mothers—and not least the women of the -people—natural educators of children. - -The biography of nearly every great man shows the place the mother -through her personality occupied in the life of her son, the atmosphere -which she diffused about her in the home, her direct and indirect -influence. But only the culture of their natural gifts with conscious -purpose will make of mothers artists. - -When Nietzsche wrote: “_There will come a time when we shall have no -other thought than education_,” and when he placed this education -specifically in the hands of mothers, least of all did he mean those -“arts of education,” from which amaternals believe they “guard” children -by rejecting an “artistically creative” home training by the mother, as -a violence to the peculiar characteristic of the child! - -The _new mother_, as the doctrine of evolution and the true woman -movement have created her, stands with deep veneration before the mystic -depths she calls her child, a being in whom the whole life of mankind is -garnered. The richer the nature of the child is, the more zealously she -endeavours to preserve for him that simplicity which he needs, and at -the same time to provide for him the material that will enable him to -work for himself. She insures to the child the pleasures adapted to his -age, pleasures which at no later time can be enjoyed so intensely. The -effect upon him of his playfellows and books, of nature, art, music, -conversation, of the entire home _milieu_ which the child receives, -above all the influence of the personality and interests of the father -and mother—all these the mother who is an artist in education observes -in order to learn the natural proclivity of the child and then _directly -to strengthen and encourage_ it. At the same time she endeavours to find -out what _restraints_ are necessary _in order that the natural bent be -not impeded in its growth by secondary qualities_. But the new type of -mother does not seek to _eradicate_; she recognises the likeness between -wheat and tares. The Christian education, which has thus far prevailed, -has exercised a restraining oppression or has done violence to the -“sinful nature,” which must be broken and bent; this education was -dermatological, not psychological, in method. - -The new mother is especially characterised by the fact that she has -rejected this earlier method. She allows her child, within certain -bounds, full freedom, and demands, beyond those bounds, unconditional -obedience. She helps the child to find for himself ever nobler motives -for repression. This she can do because from the very beginning she has -taken care of him; year by year she has persevered in the effort to -establish good habits; she has tried to enlist as aids, food, bath, bed, -dress, air, and play in the effort to keep him strong, sound, sexually -pure—conditions fundamental to the whole later conduct of life. Such a -methodical physical care _can_ be performed by the mother herself, -while, on the other hand, in the first years of childhood paid hands -might, through carelessness, stupidity, cruelty, laxity, or -over-indulgence, destroy the glorious possibilities. If the prevention -of _the possibilities of nature being warped or destroyed_ constituted -all that a mother could give, this one task would, nevertheless, be more -important than any social relief work. - -What characterises the new mother is that she understands the enormous -significance of the _first years_, when the indispensable “training” -takes place, in which the future life of the child is determined by the -methods employed—whether they be those of torture or of culture, -irrational or rational. Then the great problem must be solved of -establishing willing obedience from within in place of the hitherto -_enforced_ obedience from without; of maintaining self-control, won by -self, in place of self-control _imposed_ from without; of evoking -voluntary renunciation in place of enforcing renunciation. For the -capacity for obedience, for self-control, for renunciation, is one of -the qualities fundamental to the whole later conduct of life. The new -mother knows this as well as the mother of former times. But she -endeavours to create this capacity by slow and sure means. The same -thing obtains in regard to physical and psychical courage, which in the -early years can often be so demoralised by fright that it can never -emerge again. The training which hitherto was customary—based on -_compelling_ and _forbidding_—had its effect only upon the surface and -_prevented_ the child from experiencing _the results of his own choice_. - -It is this _indirect_ education by results which is the new mother’s -method. Her unceasing vigilance and consistency are required in order -that the child shall actually bear the results of his actions. What she -needs for this is first and foremost, _time, time_, and again _time_. -Apparently good effects can be obtained much quicker by intervening, -preventing, punishing, but thus are turned aside the _real_ results. By -this method the child is deprived of the _inner_ growth, which only the -fully experienced reality with its components of bitter and sweet can -give; and this growth the new mother endeavours to advance. Much more -time still is necessary to play the psychological game of chess, which -consists in the checkmating of black by white; in other words, the -conquest of negative characteristics by positive, through the child’s -own activity—a task in which the child at first must be guided, just as -in the assimilation of the elements of every other accomplishment, but -in which he can later perfect himself. Modern investigation in the realm -of the soul enables us to see the dangers which sometime will demand -quite as new methods in spiritual hygiene as bacteriology has created in -the hygiene of the body. But we still leave unexercised powers of the -soul, still misunderstand spiritual laws which sometime will radically -transform the means of education. At some future day the new mothers -will institute legal protection for children to an extent -incomprehensible to us and therefore provocative only of smiles. For -example, legal prohibition of corporal punishment by parents as well as -teachers; legal prohibition of child labour, of certain tenement -conditions, certain “amusements,” certain improper uses of the press. -For the present every individual educator must _set these laws over -himself_; must sedulously create counter influences to cope with the -destructive influences which great cities, especially, exert upon -children.[12] The new mothers lead children out into nature and -endeavour to satisfy their zeal for activity by appropriate tasks as -well as to encourage by suitable means their love of invention and their -impulse for play. In the country children provide much for themselves. -But what both city and country children need is a mother familiar with -nature, who can answer the questions which the child is by his own -observations prompted to ask; and the number of such mothers is -continually increasing. Both city and country children need also a -mother who can tell stories. Just as the settlement gardens most clearly -demonstrate how sundered the working people of the great cities are from -nature, so the “story evenings,” which are now established for children, -show how far children have been permitted to stray from the mother, who -formerly gathered them about her for the hour of story, play, and song. -What, finally, children need is the mother’s delicate revelation of the -sexual “mystery,” which often early exercises the thoughts of the child -and in which he should be initiated quietly and gradually by the mother. - -All the educational influences here outlined emanate not only from the -enlightened, exceptional mother; they are exercised by the average -mother of to-day to better advantage than by the spiritually significant -mother of fifty years ago. And they are _quite as essential_, in order -that the highest possibility within the reach of each may be attained, -in the education of the genius as in that of the ordinary child. Such -influences in like degree strengthen the innate bent of the genius and -raise the average, from generation to generation, to a level where man -can live according to higher standards than those of the present time. -The new mothers understand that for the utilisation of all these -opportunities that make their appearance in the first seven years of the -child’s life, their motherly tenderness, gentleness, and patience do not -suffice; that they need in addition all the intelligence, imagination, -fine feeling, scientific methods of observation, ethical and æsthetic -culture and other spiritual acquisitions they possess, as direct and -indirect fruits of the woman movement. - -When student and comrade life begin to claim the children, when the -influence of the mother—that is of the new mother who has respect for -the peculiar characteristic, the human worth, and the right of the child -to live his own life—becomes more indirect, she nevertheless bears in -mind that it is of the utmost importance that the son and the daughter -should _find the mother_, when they return to the parental roof; that -they should be able to breathe there an atmosphere of peace and warmth; -that they should find the attentive eye, the listening ear, the helpful -hand; that the mother should have the repose, the fine feeling, the -observation requisite for following, without interfering with, the -conflicts of youth; that she should not demand confidences but be always -at hand to receive them; that she should show vital sympathy for the -plans of work, the disappointments, the joys, of the young people; that -she should always have time for caresses, tears, smiles, comfort, and -care; that she should divine their moods, and anticipate their desires. -By all these means the mother perpetuates in the soul of the child, -unknown to him and to herself, her own personality. The talent which she -has not redeemed by a productive work of her own, perhaps often for that -very reason, benefits mankind in a son or a daughter, in whose soul the -mother has implanted the social ideas, the dreams, the rebellion, which -later become in them social deeds or works of art. Above all, in the -restless, sensitive, life-deciding years when the boy is becoming a -youth and the little girl a maiden, the mother needs quiet and leisure -to be able to give the ineffably needy children “the hoarded, secret -treasure of her heart,” as the beautiful saying of Dürer runs. - -When such a mother is found, and such mothers are already found, she is -the most splendid fruit of the woman movement’s sowing upon the field of -woman’s nature. - -Because the new mother created for herself an open space about her own -personality, she understands her son or her daughter when they in their -turn push her aside in order to create that same open space about -themselves. For in every generation the young renounce the ideals and -the aims of their parents. The knowledge of this does not prevent the -new mother, any more than it did the mother of earlier times, from -feeling the pain incident to being set aside. But the former looks -forward to a day when the son and daughter will freely choose her as a -friend, having discovered what a significant pleasure the mother’s -personality can afford them. - -As the bird’s nest is made of nothing but bits of straw and down, so the -feeling of home is fashioned out of soft, simple things; out of little -activities that are neither ponderable nor measurable as political or as -economic factors. When Segantini painted the two nuns looking wistfully -into the bird’s nest, he gave expression to the deepest pain that many -modern women experience, the pain resulting from the consciousness that -their life, notwithstanding its freedom, is lonely, because it has -denied them the privilege of making a home and as a consequence has -failed to afford them the joy of creation, which nature intended they -should have, and of continuity of life in children to whom they gave -birth. - -Here we stand at a point where the woman movement parallels the other -social revolutions, undeviatingly as the rails of a track, and leads to -the same objective. Modern men and women, and especially women, have -forfeited an opportunity for happiness in the loss of the feeling of -homogeneity and security. Just as formerly the property-holding family -felt a secure sense of proprietorship in the ancestral estate, so every -member of the home group felt himself safe in the family. Now the -children cannot depend with certainty upon the parents, nor the parents -upon the children; the wife upon the husband, nor the husband upon the -wife. Each in extremity relies only upon himself. The character of man -is thus altered quite as much as trees are changed when they are left -standing alone in the denuded forest of which they once formed a part. -If they can withstand the storms, they have produced more “character” -than they had when they stood close together, under a mutual protection -that nevertheless enforced uniformity. - -From their earliest youth innumerable women must now care for -themselves, as well as decide for themselves. Thus the feeling of -independence of modern woman has increased through the sacrifice of her -peace; her individual characteristics, at the expense of her harmony. -Her feeling of loneliness is mitigated to a certain degree by the -growing feeling of community with the whole. But this feeling cannot -compensate certain natures for the forfeiture of the advantages which -women of earlier times possessed, when they sat secure and protected -within the four walls of the home, sucked the juice from family -chronicles, guarded family traditions, maintained the old holiday -customs, lived at the same time in the past and in the present. - -The new woman lives in the present, sometimes even in the future—her -land of romance! The enthusiasm of the old romanticism about a “hut and -a heart” has little charm for her. For she knows reality and that -prevents her from giving credence to the feminine illusion that twice -two can be five. What she does know, on the contrary, is that out of -fours she can gradually work out sixteen. While the women of former -times could only save, the new woman can acquire. Woman’s beautiful, -foolish superstition regarding life has vanished, but her eagerness to -achieve can still remove mountains, her daring has still often the -splendour of a dream. Intellectual values are for her no longer pastimes -but necessities of life; with her culture has developed her feeling for -truth and justice. This does not secure the new woman immunity at all -times from new illusions and errors of feeling, nor does it prevent her -developing passions whose value, to say the least, is questionable. But -in and through her determination “to be some one,” to have a -characteristic personality, she has acquired a love of life, in its -diverse manifestations, both good and evil; a new capacity to enjoy her -own and others’ individuality, as well as a new joy—sometimes an -unblushing, insolent joy—in expressing her own being. In place of the -earlier resignation toward society, the expression of rebellion is found -even in the sparkling eye of the school-girl, with red cap upon her -curly hair. - -The young women of to-day, married or single, mothers as well as those -who are childless, are still more vigorous in soul, more courageous, -more eager for life than are men. Because all that which for men has so -long been a matter of course, is for women new, rich, enchanting, -comprising, as it does, free life in nature, scientific studies, serious -artistic work economic independence. Even in a fine and soulful woman -there is found something of the inevitable hardness toward herself and -others of which an observer is instinctively conscious when he speaks of -some woman as one who “will go far” upon the course she has chosen. The -modern young woman desires above all else the elevation of her own -personality. She experiences the same feeling of joy a man is conscious -of when she realises that her strength of will is augmented, her ability -becoming more certain, her depth of thought greater, her association of -ideas richer. She stands ready to choose _her_ work and follow _her_ -fate; in sorrow as in joy she experiences the blessedness of growth, and -she loves her view of life and the work to which she has dedicated -herself, often as devotedly as man loves his. - -If we compare the seventeen-year-old girl of to-day with her progenitor -living in the middle of the foregoing century, we find that the girl of -earlier times was to a larger extent swayed by feeling, and that the -modern girl is to a larger extent determined by ideas. The former was -directed more to the centre of life, the latter remains often nearer the -periphery; the former was warmer, the latter is more intelligent; the -former was better balanced, the latter is more interesting. - -The restlessness, the uncertainty, the feeling of emptiness, the -suffering, that is sometimes experienced by the young woman of to-day, -is primarily traceable to the disintegration of religious belief, which -gave to the older generation of emancipated women an inner stability, -resignation, and self-discipline. Scientific study has deprived many -modern women of their belief and those who can create a new one, suited -to their needs, are still very few. Thus to the outer homelessness an -inner estrangement is added. The woman movement has, it is true, -contributed indirectly to this spiritual distress by making the road to -man’s culture accessible to woman. For men also suffer in like manner, -and suffer above all perhaps because our culture is unstable, aimless, -and lacks style, owing to the very fact that it is at present without a -religious centre. And even the future can give to mankind no such new -centre as the Middle Ages had, for example, in Catholicism. The -attainment of individualism has shut out that possibility forever. - -But _one_ factor in the religion of the past, the adoration of -motherhood as divine mystery; _one_ factor in the religion of the Middle -Ages, the worship of the Madonna, has meanwhile been given back to the -present by the doctrine of evolution, with that universal validity which -the thought must possess which seeks to give again to culture a centre. -Great, solitary individuals—prophets more often than sibyls—have -proclaimed the religion of this generation. But the word will become -flesh only when fathers and mothers instil into the blood and soul of -children their devout hope for a higher humanity. When women are -permeated by this hope, this new devout feeling, then they will recover -the piety, the peace, and the harmony which for the present, and partly -owing to feminism, have been lost. - -The innumerable new relations which the woman movement has established -between woman and the home, between woman and society, and all of the -interchanges of new spiritual forces which have been put in operation -because of these relations, cannot possibly take fixed form, at least -not so long as the woman movement remains “a movement”; in other words, -as long as everything is in a condition of flux, in a state of becoming, -all spiritual relationships between individuals must change their form. -Continual new, fine shades of feeling, not to be expressed in words, -determine every woman’s soul and every woman’s fate. And even ancient -feelings receive continually different nuances, different intonations. I -am, therefore, laying down no laws but merely recapitulating certain -suggestions based on what has previously been said in regard to the soul -of the modern woman, as seen in that portion of the present generation -whose age ranges between twenty and thirty years—that is to say, that -part of the generation which is decisive for the immediate future. - -Since co-education is becoming more and more general, each sex is -beginning to have more esteem for the other, and woman, as well as man, -is beginning to found self-respect upon work. When all women by culture -and capacity for work have finally become strong-willed, self-supporting -co-workers in society, then no woman will give or receive love for any -extraneous benefit whatsoever. No outward tie and no outward gain -through love—this is the ultimate aim of the new sex morale as the most -highly developed modern young woman sees it. - -The new woman is deeply convinced that the relation between the sexes -attains its true beauty and sanctity only when every external privilege -disappears on both sides, when man and woman stand wholly equal in what -concerns their legal right and their personal freedom. - -She demands that the contrasts between legal and illegal, rich and poor, -boy and girl, shall disappear, and that society shall show the same -interest in the complete human development of all children. She knows -that when both sexes awake to a feeling of responsibility toward the -future generation, then the real concern of sexual morale becomes the -endeavor to give the race an ever more perfect progeny. And in order to -feel in its fulness this command, maidens as well as youths must -henceforth demand scientific instruction in sexual duties toward -themselves and their possible children. - -The new woman is also deeply convinced that only when she feels -happy—and happiness signifies the development of the powers inherent in -the personality—can she properly fulfil her duties as daughter, wife, -and mother. She can consciously sacrifice a part of her personality, for -example forego the development of a talent, but she can never subjugate -nor surrender her whole personality and at the same time remain a -strong-willed member of the family or of society, in the broadest -meaning of the word. She must assert her conception of life, her feeling -of right, her ideals. And no social considerations for children, -husband, or family life are, for her, above the consideration which, in -this respect, she owes to her own personality. When conflicts arise, she -seeks, wherever possible, a solution that will permit her to fulfil her -duty without annihilating herself. But if this is not possible, then she -feels that it is her first duty not to fall below her ideal, either -physically or spiritually. For this would prevent her from fulfilling -precisely those duties for which she has so sacrificed herself; duties -which she can perhaps perform later under other conditions, provided she -has saved herself from being extinguished by brutality or despotism. - -But along with this individualism there exists in the new woman a -feeling for the unity of existence, the unity in which all things are -parts and in which nothing is lost. She does not, then, look upon -husband and children as continually demanding sacrifice and upon herself -as being always sacrificed; she sees herself and them, as in the -antiquity of the race, always existing _by means of one another_. She is -not consumed by her love, for she knows that under such circumstances -she would deprive her loved ones of the wealth of her personality. But -although she will not, like the women of earlier times, abandon her ego -_absolutely_, she will not, on the other hand, like certain modern -feminists, keep it _unreservedly_. She will preserve upon a higher plane -the old division of labour which made man the one who felled the game, -fought the battles, made conquests, achieved advancement through -victories; and which made woman the one who rendered the new domains -habitable, who utilised the booty for herself and hers, who transmitted -what was won to the new generation—all that of which woman’s ancient -tasks as guardian of the fire and cultivator of the fields are beautiful -symbols. She feels that when each sex pursues its course for the -happiness of the individual and of mankind, but at the same time and as -an equal helps the other in the different tasks, then each is most -capable, then society is most benefited. - -The fact that there is still so much masculine brutality and despotism, -and that there are so many legal means at man’s disposal whereby he may -put into practice with impunity this brutality and despotism, is the -reason why the new woman is still always a “feminist,” why she still -maintains the fundamental tenets of the woman movement. But she is not a -feminist in the sense that she turns _against_ man. Her solution is -always that of Mary Wollstonecraft: “We do not desire to rule over men -but to rule over ourselves.” She often exhibits now in deliberation and -in determination the characteristics which were formerly called -“masculine”: practical knowledge, love of truth, courage of conviction; -she desists more and more from unjust imputations and empty words; she -proposes a greater number of well-considered suggestions for -improvements. The woman movement has now in a word a more universally -human, a less one-sidedly feminine character. It emphasises more and -more the fact that the right of woman is a necessity in order that she -may fulfil her duties in the small, individual family, and exercise her -powers in the great, universal human family for the general good. The -new woman does not wish to displace man nor to abolish society. She -wishes to be able to exercise _everywhere_ her most beautiful -prerogative to help, to support, to comfort. But this she cannot do so -long as she is not free as a citizen and has not fully developed as a -human personality. She knows that this is the condition not only of her -own happiness, but also, in quite as high a degree, of the happiness of -man. For every man who works, struggles, and suffers there is a mother, -a wife, a sister, a daughter, who suffers with him. For every woman who -in her way works and struggles, there is a father, a husband, a brother, -or a son for whom her contribution directly or indirectly has -significance. Above all, the modern woman understands that in every -marriage wherein a wife still suffers under man’s misuse of his legal -authority, it is in the last analysis _the man who sustains the greatest -injury_, for under present conditions he needs exercise neither kindness -nor justice nor intelligence to be ruler in the family. These humane -characteristics he must, therefore, begin to develop when the wife is -legally his equal. - -The sacred conviction of the new woman is that man and woman _rise -together_, just as they _sink together_. - -The antique sepulchres, on which man and wife stand hand in hand before -the eternal farewell, could quite as well be the symbol of the entrance -of modern man and modern woman into the new life, where they work -together in order that the highest ideals of both—the ideals of justice -and of human kindness—may assume form in reality. The motherly qualities -of women are applied for the good of children as well as of the weak and -the suffering. The arrival of the day when woman shall be given -opportunity to exercise social motherliness in its full and popularly -representative extent, can be only a question of time. In a century they -will smile at our time, in which it was still the practice to debate -about such obvious matters. And those who to-day ridicule the woman -movement will be ridiculed most of all. - - * * * * * - -Then we shall attain such an outlook on the great forces of the -time,—the emancipation movements of labouring men and of women,—that we -shall see how necessary both were in order that society should come to -understand that not the mass of material production, but the higher -cultivation of the race is the social-political end, and that for this -end the _service of mother_ must receive the honour and oblation that -the state now gives to _military service_. - -And women themselves, whom nature has made creators and protectors of -the tender life—the task for which nature even in the plant world has -made such wonderful provision—will no longer resist being more -intimately associated with nature, nearer to earth, more like plants, -more restrained in outer sense and therefore, in inner respects, less -active than man, who always had more of the freedom of movement of the -forest animal. The woman of the future will not, as do many women of the -present time, _wish to be freed from her sex_; but she will be freed -from sexual hypertrophy, freed to _complete humanity_. For the -universal, human characteristics, forced to _remain latent_ in the -primitive division of labour, because the father was obliged to exert -all his strength in one direction and the mother in another, can now, -through the facilities for culture in the struggle for existence, be -developed on both sides: woman can develop the latent quality which -became active in man as “manliness”; man can develop the latent quality -which became active in woman as “womanliness.” But the _proportional -ratio_ of these characteristics, which development has already -strengthened, will _on the whole_ remain fixed—the proportional ratio -which, in the progress of evolution, gave to woman the ascendency in -regard to inward creative powers, and to man the ascendency in regard to -outward creative powers—a proportional ratio which for the present has -made woman more gifted in the sphere of feeling, man more potent in the -sphere of ideas; which has made her the listener and yearner in the -sphere of the spiritual life, and him the pioneer investigator and -founder of systems, that has given her more of the Christian, and him -more of the pagan virtues. The improvement of the universal, human -characteristics of both sexes elevates also the plane upon which they -exercise their especial functions, valuable alike for culture. With -increasing frequency the one sex may, when so desired, assume the -culture function of the other. - -A perfect fusion of the two spiritual sex-characters would, on the -contrary, have the same result as physical hermaphroditism—sterility. -Genius—and in using the term we limit its meaning to poetic genius, for -real feminine genius has thus far appeared only in that domain—embraces, -as emphasised above, both man and woman, but not harmoniously blended. -For such a genius would be unproductive, as we imagine those celestial -forms to be which are neither “man nor woman.” The masculine and the -feminine characteristics, which exist side by side in the poet soul, -produce work in co-operation. Alternately, however, they seek to usurp -the entire power, whereby is occasioned the disharmony which enters into -the life of those who endeavour to fulfil at one and the same time the -universal, human duties as well as those of sex. Indeed it may be that -one of the reasons why great poetic geniuses, masculine as well as -feminine, have often had no progeny at all, and in other cases one of -little significance, is that their nature was not capable of a double -production, that poetic creation received the richest part of their -physical and psychical power. - -Whether the opinion of genius expressed here is correct or not, does -not, however, affect the general situation. For the genius will always -go his own way, which is never that of the average man. From the point -of view of the ordinary individual an effacement of the spiritual sex -character would be in still higher degree a misfortune for culture and -nature. For it is the difference in the spiritual as well as in the -physical sex-characteristics that makes love a fusion of two beings in a -higher unity, where each finds the full deliverance and harmony of his -being. With the elimination of the _spiritual_ difference _psychical_ -love would vanish. There would be left, then, upon the one side, only -the mating instinct, in which the same points of view as in animal -breeding must obtain; on the other, only the same kind of sympathy which -is expressed in the friendship between persons of the same sex, the -sympathy in which the human, individual difference instead of sexual -difference forms the attraction. In love, on the other hand, sympathy -grows in intensity, the more universally human and at the same time -sexually attractive the individual is: the “manly” in man is charmed by -the “womanly” in woman, while the “womanly” in man is likewise -captivated by the “manly” in woman, and _vice versa_. But when neither -needs the _spiritual sex_ of the other as his complement, then man, in -erotic respects, returns to the antique conception of the sex -relationship, of which Plato has drawn the final logical conclusion. - -The “humanity” in the soul of man was strengthened when he felt himself -necessary to mother and child. When woman by sweetness and tenderness -taught man to love, not only to desire, then his humanity increased -immeasurably. - -In our time the average man is beginning to learn that woman does not -desire him as man, that she looks down upon him as a lower kind of -being, that she does not need him as supporter. He does not at all grasp -what it is the woman of highest culture seeks, demands, and awaits from -his sex. But he learns that even the mediocre woman rejects the best he -has to give her erotically; that imbued as she is with ideals of -“universal humanity,” she no longer needs him as the supplement to her -sexual being. Then brutality awakes in him anew; then his erotic life -loses what humanity it had won; then he begins to hate woman. And not -with the imaginative, theoretical hatred of thinkers and poets; but with -the blind rage which the contempt of the weaker for the stronger arouses -in him. And here we encounter what is, perhaps, the deepest reason for -the present war between the sexes, appearing already in the literary -world as well as in the labour market. - -Here the extreme feminists play unconsciously about an abyss,—the -depths in the nature of man out of which the elementary, -hundred-thousand-year-old impulses arise, the impulses which all -cultural acquisitions and influences cannot eradicate, so long as the -human race continues to subsist and multiply under present conditions. - -The feminism which has driven individualism to the point where the -individual asserts her personality in opposition to, instead of within, -the race; the individualism which becomes self-concentration, -anti-social egoism, although the watchword inscribed upon its banner is -“Society instead of the family,”—this feminism will bear the blame -should the hatred referred to lead to war. - - * * * * * - -It would be a pity to conclude a survey of the influence of the woman -movement with an expression of fear lest this extreme feminism should be -victorious. I believe not; no more than I believe that the sun will for -the present be extinguished or streams flow back to their sources. - -No “culture” can annul the great fundamental laws of nature; it can only -ennoble them; and motherhood is one of these fundamental laws. I hope -that the future will furnish a new and a more secure protection for -motherhood than the present family and social organisation affords. I -place my trust in a new society, with a new morality, which will be a -synthesis of the being of man and that of woman, of the demands of the -individual and those of society, of the pagan and Christian conceptions -of life, of the will of the future and reverence for the past. - -When the earth blooms with this beautiful and vigorous flower of -morality, there will no longer be a woman movement. But there will -always be a woman question, not put by women to society but by society -to women: the question whether they will continue in a higher degree to -prove themselves worthy of the great privilege of being the mothers of -the new generation. - -In the degree in which this new ethics permeates mankind, women will -answer this question in life-affirmation. And the result of their -life-affirmation will be an enormous enhancement of life, not only for -women themselves but for all mankind. - - - THE END - ------ - -Footnote 1: - - In the summer of 1909 I sat in a Swedish home where the grandmother, - for this reason, had never learned to write but where the - granddaughter read aloud the thesis for her bachelor’s examination. - One hears even to-day of customs and points of view in certain farms - and manses which faithfully imitate those of the time of the - Reformation. - -Footnote 2: - - Next to the textile industry, the tobacco industry employs the most - women. - -Footnote 3: - - This idealism has naturally part also in the fact that, for example, - two-thirds of the women who have gone through college in America do - not marry, and find in club life a compensation for domestic life. But - other motives also must often play a part here, from the desire to - devote herself entirely to one of the lifeworks serviceable to - mankind, to the egoism of spiritually barren young girls with its - distaste for burdens and restraint. - - A keen-sighted observer who recently spent a half year in North - America corroborated what many have already stated: that the student - and working young American girls devote themselves with true passion - to the cultivation of their beauty, their toilette, their flirtations. - All this belongs for her to the “Fine Arts” and as such is an end - sufficient in itself, while for European women these arts, as a rule, - are still means for alluring men to marriage. While study or work - often makes European women in outer sense less “womanly,” although her - soul always guards its full power to love, in America the reverse is - the case: the outer appearance is bewitchingly womanly, but the soul - no longer vibrates for love. The sexual sterility which Maudsley - already prophesied thirty years ago, when he spoke about the “sexless - ants,” has been partly realised, partly chosen voluntarily. In Europe - it still frequently happens that a young woman who has put love aside - for the sake of study or work is suddenly seized by an irresistible - passion; in America, on the contrary, this is extremely rare. Women - students look down upon the less cultured men, who ordinarily finish - their studies earlier in order to earn a livelihood. The sympathy - which they need, women find more easily in their own sex. The - unmarried have quite the same social position as the married and do - not desire children. If they finally marry, it is ordinarily because a - more brilliant position is offered them than the one which they could - create themselves, and the man is then considered and treated as a - money-getter. - - My authority emphasises also that the young students or working girls - are ordinarily less original, of less personal significance, less - individually developed, than the older women, especially women’s - rights women, who often have not studied but have grown grey in - marriage and motherhood, in self-development and in social work. The - interesting significant American feminists were women between the ages - of fifty and ninety; the woman of the present generation, however, - which now enjoys the fruits of the work of the older generation, is, - in spite of excellent scholarship and great working proficiency, less - a woman and less a human being, less a personality. - - These wholly fresh observations, which were communicated to me during - the printing of my book, seem to me to confirm so strongly my point of - view that I wish to repeat them here. - - But in France and elsewhere mothers tell us how clear, intelligent, - and universally interested their daughters are, and at the same time - how critical, how free from ardour and enthusiasm. It is not the hasty - love marriage that many mothers now fear for their daughters, but a - worldly-wise marriage without love. - -Footnote 4: - - See _Love and Ethics_, Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Chicago, and also - _Mutter und Kind_, published in Germany only, Pan-Verlag. My plan is a - paternity assessment upon society as a contribution to the maintenance - of children and a compensation of motherhood by the state. - - Society has already shown by a series of institutions, maternity - assurance, infants’ milk distribution, clothing and feeding of - children, and many kindred social efforts, that the maintenance - afforded by the father is not sufficient for the young generation; - quite as little is the mother’s care, which is supplemented by other - means, crèches, etc. But when the _child_ finally becomes the - unconscious “head of the family,” then it will be the affair of - society to requite maternity. Marriage will then signify only the - living together of two people upon the ground of love and the common - parenthood of children. _Maternal right_ will _in law_ take the place - of _paternal right_, but _in reality_ the father will continue to - retain all the influence upon the children which he _personally_ is - able to exert, just as has been hitherto the case with the mother. - - In such circumstances there will be no more illegitimate children; no - mothers driven out from the care of tender children to earn their - daily bread; no fathers who avoid their economic duties toward their - children, and who cannot be compelled by society to perform at least - that paternal duty which animals perform now better than men: that of - contributing their part to the maintenance of their progeny. There - will be no mothers who for the sake of their own and their children’s - maintenance need to stay with a brutal man; no mothers who, in case of - a separation, can be deprived of their children on any ground except - that of their own unworthiness. In a word, society must—upon a higher - plane—restore the arrangement which is already found in the lower - stages of civilisation, the arrangement which nature herself created: - that mother and child are most closely bound together, that they - together, above all, form the family, in which the father enters - through the mother’s or his own free will. - -Footnote 5: - - An inquiry instituted among English women as to whether they would - prefer to be men or women gave as a result the fact that, out of about - 7000 who answered, two-thirds wished to remain women and this above - all in order to be mothers, while a third wished to be men. This - indicated probably the highest figure of the disinclination for - maternity which such a _European_ inquiry could elicit. But even these - women who wish to marry and to become mothers feel the pressure of the - idea created by the zealots of the woman movement which finds - expression often in the following conversation between two former - schoolmates about a third: “And A—— what is she doing - now?”—“Nothing—she is married and has children.” - - The old folk legend about the girl who trampled on the bread she was - carrying to her mother because she wished to go dry-shod, can serve as - symbol of many modern women zealots: life’s great, sound values are - offered for the meal; vanity sits down alone to partake of them. - -Footnote 6: - - Bret Harte, _The Luck of Roaring Camp_. - -Footnote 7: - - E. Carrière and Segantini. - -Footnote 8: - - Max Kruse, _Liebesgruppe_. - -Footnote 9: - - This amaternal idea is advanced with great ability in some works of - Charlotte Perkins Stetson and Rosa Mayreder. The word amaternal coined - by me is used to characterise the theory subsequently advanced, - because the word unmaternal (unmotherly) signifies a _spiritual - condition_, the antithesis to “motherliness.” The maternal as opposed - to the amaternal theory is this: that a woman’s life is lived most - intensively and most extensively, most individually and most socially; - she is for her own part most free, and for others most fruitful, most - egoistic and most altruistic, most receptive and most generous, in and - with the _physical and psychic exercise of the function of maternity, - because of the conscious desire, by means of this function, to uplift - the life of the race as well as her own life_. - -Footnote 10: - - It can even be shown that, if man invades the so-called woman’s - spheres (for example the art of cooking or of dress-making), it is - most frequently he who makes new discoveries and attains great - success! - -Footnote 11: - - The best proof of this is that many women who, in a life free from - care in an outward sense, were comparable only to geese or peacocks, - nevertheless, when hard times came and gave them opportunity to - develop their power of love, not only proved themselves heroines, but - asserted that their “happy” years were those in which they had so - “sacrificed” themselves. - -Footnote 12: - - How many children have had their idea of right debased by the manner - in which the “Captain of Köpernick” was received at his liberation—to - cite only one example. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _A Selection from the - Catalogue of_ - - G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS - - ❧ - - Complete Catalogue sent - on application - - * * * * * - - - - - _By Ellen Key_ - - - The Century of the Child - - _Cr. 8vo. With Frontispiece. Net, $1.50. By mail, $1.65_ - -CONTENTS: The Right of the Child to Choose His Parents, The Unborn Race -and Woman’s Work, Education, Homelessness, Soul Murder in the Schools, -The School of the Future, Religious Instruction, Child Labor and the -Crimes of Children. This book has gone through more than twenty German -Editions and has been published in several European countries. - - “A powerful book.”—_N. Y. Times._ - - - The Education of the Child - -Reprinted from the Authorized American Edition of “The Century of the -Child.” With Introductory Note by EDWARD BOK. - - _Cr. 8vo. Net, 75 cents. By mail, 85 cents_ - -“Nothing finer on the wise education of the child has ever been brought -into print. To me this chapter is a perfect classic; it points the way -straight for every parent, and it should find a place in every home in -America where there is a child.”—EDWARD BOK, Editor of the _Ladies’ Home -Journal_. - - - Love and Marriage - - _Cr. 8vo. Net, $1.50. By mail, $1.65_ - -Ellen Key is gradually taking a hold upon the reading public of this -country commensurate with the enlightenment of her views. In Europe and -particularly in her own native Sweden her name holds an honored place as -a representative of progressive thought. - - * * * * * - - - - - Ellen Key - Her Life and Her Work - - - A Critical Study - - By Louise Nystrom Hamilton - - Translated by Anna E. B. Fries - - 12º. _With Portrait_ - - -The name of Ellen Key has for years been a target for attacks of various -kinds. Friends have in connection with the issues that have arisen in -regard to the influence of her work become enemies and friction has been -caused in many homes. Her ideals and her purposes have been misquoted -and misinterpreted until the very convictions for which she stood have -been twisted so as to appear to be the evils that she was attempting to -combat. Her critics, not content with decrying and distorting the -message that she had to give to the world, have even attacked her -personal character; and as the majority of these had no direct knowledge -in the matter, strange rumors and fancies have been spread abroad about -her life. The readers of her books, who are now to be counted throughout -the world by the hundreds of thousands, who desire to know the truth -about this much discussed Swedish author, will be interested in this -critical study by Louise Hamilton. The author is one who has been -intimate with Ellen Key since her youth. She is herself the wife of the -founder of the People’s Hospital in Stockholm, where for over twenty -years Ellen Key taught and lectured. - -The volume gives an admirable survey of the purpose and character of -Ellen Key’s teachings and of her books. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -“Packed with information about actual present-day business conditions -and methods.”—REVIEW OF REVIEWS. - - * * * * * - - - - - The American Business Woman - - - A Guide for the Investment, Preservation and Accumulation of Property, - Containing Full Explanations and Illustrations of all Necessary - Methods of Business - - By - John Howard Cromwell, Ph.B., LL.B. - Counsellor-at-Law - - _Second Revised Edition. Octavo. 392 pages. - $2.00 net. By mail, $2.20_ - -“Mr. Cromwell’s book is without doubt one of the valuable publications -of the year ... thoroughly well written and carefully thought out.... -Fascinating as is the subject of mortgages, it is necessarily but one -phase of the book.... The book, as before stated, is extremely valuable, -and will be found a good investment, not only for women for whom it was -primarily intended, but for many men.”—_New York Times._ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -“The most complete and compact study that Has yet been made of the -evolution of women’s rights.”—_N. Y. Evening Globe._ - - * * * * * - - - - - A Short History of Women’s Rights - - - From the days of Augustus to the Present Time - - With Special Reference to England and the United States - - By Eugene A. Hecker - - Master in the Roxbury Latin School, Author of “The Teaching of Latin in - Secondary Schools” - - _Crown 8vo. $1.50 net. (By mail, $1.65)_ - -Mr. Hecker, an authoritative scholar, has set himself the task of -telling the story of women’s progress, and has done it with much -painstaking and thoroughness, and with a manifestation of a high order -of talent for discriminating as to materials and presenting them -convincingly and interestingly.... One feels the studiousness of the -author in every page. The matter presented is not only carefully -arranged, but it is in a manner digested too; and thus the work becomes -literature in a true sense, and not an unenlightened assembly of details -and facts from the pages of the past. - - _St. Louis Times._ - - G. P. Putnam’s Sons - New York London - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. P. 175, added an anchor for the third footnote. - 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 3. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as - printed. - 4. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together - at the end of the last chapter. - 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman Movement, by Ellen Key - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN MOVEMENT *** - -***** This file should be named 60840-0.txt or 60840-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/8/4/60840/ - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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