The Forerunner Part 100

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WOMAN IN CHURCH AND STATE By Stanton Coit, Ph.D., West London Ethical Society, Queen's Road, Bayswater, England.

The ethical movement of the last twenty years is a strong proof of humanity's natural bent toward the study and practice of that first of sciences, the science of conduct.

How to behave, and Why, are universal questions; decided first by conditions, then by instinct, then by custom and tradition, then by religion, then by reason. We are rapidly reaching the reasoning stage; hence the popularity of ethics, and of such papers as The Ethical World.

We have ethical publications in this country, good ones, but it is inspiring to get from other lands the vivid sense of that common movement which so marks the uniting of the world.

Mere verbal language was necessary to the faintest human development; written language, in the permanent form of books, established the long roots of our historic life, with its sense of continuity; today the multiplication of periodic literature, widely specialized, speaks our social consciousness. We no longer have to think alone, but the smallest cult has its exponent, giving to each member the strength of all.

In the issue of March 15th of this paper, Dr. Stanton Coit has an article on "The Group Spirit," which treats sympathetically that marvel of social dynamics, "the interpenetrating Third," appearing where two or three are gathered together.

I should like to have discussed with Sir James Mackintosh, however, his contention that moral principles are stationary. They are not, but vary from age to age in accordance with conditions.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

A friend and subscriber writes me thus:

"There are one or two questions I want to ask--not because I disagree, but because I want to be able to meet objections.

"Those who believe in restricting "Woman's Sphere" to its present--no, its former narrow boundaries may say,--"Yes, man is the only species which keeps the female--or tries to--in the home and restricts her to the strictly female functions and duties. But it is just because man is higher than the other animals, and because the period of infancy is so much longer for human babies. The animal mother bears her young, nourishes them a short time, and is no longer needed. The human mother is something more than an agent of reproduction and a source of nourishment. By just so much as her motherhood is more and higher than that of the ewe, it must take more of her time, her strength, her life.

How can a woman who is giving birth to a child every two or three years for a period of ten years, for example, and "mothering," in the fullest sense of the word, those children, find time or strength for anything else?

"Then, too, what you call "Androcentric Culture" has existed by your own statement practically ever since our historic period began--that is, since man first advanced from savagery to human intelligence and civilization. Is it not fair to a.s.sume that a condition of affairs non-existent among lower animals, but co-existent with the development of the intelligence and civilization of mankind is a higher condition than that found among the animals?"

Here we have five premises:

1. Man is the only species which segregates the female to maternal functions and duties.

2. Man is higher than the other animals.

3. The human period of infancy is longer.

4. The human mother has to devote longer time to maternal cares.

5. The Androcentric Culture is coexistent with the period of progress.

On these premises,two questions are based: On the first four:

A. How can the human mother find time or strength for anything else?

On the fifth:

B. Is not the Androcentric Culture evidence and conditions of our superiority?

To clearly follow and answer this line of reasoning requires close attention; but it is well worth doing; for this inquirer fairly puts the general att.i.tude of mind on this matter.

Premise one we may grant. It is true as applied to all higher species.

There are some low ones where the female is a mere egg-layer; but with those creatures the male is not much either.

Premises two and three we grant freely.

Premises three and four require consideration.

Is the existence of human infancy accompanied by a similar extension of maternal cares?

Our Children are infants in the eyes of the law till they reach legal majority; and in the arts, professions, and more complex businesses, a boy of twenty-one is still an infant.

To bring a young animal up to the age where it can take care of itself is a simple process and can be accomplished by the mother alone; but to bring up a young human creature to the age where he or she can fitly serve society is a complex process and cannot be performed by the mother alone. Our prolongation of infancy is a result of social progress, and has to be met by social cares; is so met to some degree already.

The nurse and the teacher are social functionaries, performing the duties of social motherhood. The female savage can suckle her child and teach her to prepare food, tan hides, make baskets and clothing, and decorate them. The male savage can teach his child to hunt and trap game, to bear pain and privation, to put on warpaint and yell and dance, to fight and kill.

But the civilized mother and father cannot teach their children all that society requires of its citizens. When trades went from father to son they were so taught; and the level of progress in those trades was the level of personal experience. Our real progress has coincided with our educational processes, in which suitable persons are selected to teach children what society requires them to know, quite irrespective of their parent's individual knowledge. Should the learning of the world, the discoveries and inventions, be limited to what each man can find out for himself and teach his son?

No one expects the father's wisdom to be the limit of his son's instruction; nor the mother's either. She loves her child as much as ever; and for its own sake is willing to have it learn of music-teachers, dancing-teachers, and all the allied specialists of school and college.

In all higher and more special cases, it is clear that the mother is not required to parallel her attentions to our "period of infancy," but perhaps it will still be contended that in the simpler and more universal tasks of earlier years she is indispensable; and that these years so overlap that she is practically confined to the home during her whole period of child-bearing.

The answer to this is, first; that the simpler and more universal the tasks the more there may be found capable of performing it. As a matter of fact we are so accustomed to take this view that we cheerfully entrust the most delicate personal services of our babies to hired persons of the lowest orders; as in our Southern States the proud white mother gives her baby often to be suckled and always to be tended by a black woman.

It is idle to talk of the indispensability of the mother's care in the first years when any mother who can afford it is quite willing to share or delegate that care to women admittedly inferior. If the human race has got on as well as it has with the care of its lower cla.s.s children solely ignorant mothers, and the care of its higher cla.s.s children given mainly by ignorant servants; why should we dread to have the care of all children given mainly by high-cla.s.s, skilled, educated, experienced persons, of equal or superior grade to the parents?

The answer to this usually is the child needs the individual mother's love and influence. This is quite true. The baby should be nourished by his own mother--if she is healthy--and nothing can excuse her from the loving cares of parentage. But just as an ordinary unskilled working woman loves and cares for her child--and yet does ten hours of housework, to which no one objects; or just as an ordinary rich woman loves and cares for her child--and yet does ten or twelve hours of dancing, dining, riding, golfing, and bridge playing (to which no one objects!)--so could a skilled working woman spend six or eight hours at an appropriate trade, and still love and care for her child. A normal motherhood does not prevent the mother from suitable industry. In other words: The prolongation of human infancy does not demand an equal prolongation of maternal services; but does demand specialized social services. When these services are properly given our children will be far better cared for than now.

The best answer of all is simply this. Almost all mothers do work, and work hard, at house service; and are healthier than idle wholly segregated women; yet there are many kinds of work far more compatible with motherhood than cooking, scrubbing, sweeping, was.h.i.+ng and ironing.

The fifth premise, and its accompanying question also calls for study.

It is true that our Androcentric Culture is co-existent with human history and modern progress, with these qualifications:

Practically all our savages are decadent, and grossly androcentric.

Their language and customs prove an earlier and higher culture, in which we may trace the matriarchate. Among the less savage savages--as our Pueblos--the women are comparatively independent and honored.

Almost all races have a "golden age" myth; faint traditions of a period when things were better; which seems to coincide with this background of matriarchal rule. The farther back we go in our civilization the more traces we find of woman's power and freedom, with G.o.ddesses, empresses, and woman-favoring laws.

Again in our present Age, the most progressive and dominant races are those whose women have most power and liberty; and in the feeblest and most backward races we find women most ill-treated and enslaved.

The Teutons and Scandinavian stocks seem never to have had that period of enslaved womanhood, that polygamous harem culture; their women never went through that debas.e.m.e.nt; and their men have succeeded in preserving the spirit of freedom which is inevitably lost by a race which has servile women. Thus while it is admitted that roughly speaking the period of Androcentric Culture corresponds with the period of progress, these considerations show that the coincidence is not perfect. Even if it were, there remains this satisfying rejoinder:

The lit s.p.a.ce in our long life-story begins but a short time ago compared with the real existence of human life on earth. On the conditions preceding history we know little save that they were matriarchal as to culture and of an industrious, peaceful and friendly nature. Of the conditions brought about by the androcentric culture we know much, however.

We have developed some degree of peace and prosperity; marked progress in intelligence, learning, and specialized skill; immense material and scientific development and increased wealth.