Woman under socialism Part 13

Probably the result of this presentation will be astonis.h.i.+ng to many.

With the exception of Europe, where, on an average, there are 1,024 women to every 1,000 men, the reverse is the case everywhere else. If it is further considered that in the foreign divisions of the earth, and even there where actual enumeration was had, information upon the female s.e.x is particularly defective--a fact that must be presumed with regard to all the countries of Mohammedan population, where the figures for the female population are probably below the reality--it stands pat that, apart from a few European nations, the female s.e.x nowhere tangibly exceeds the male. It is otherwise in Europe, the country that interests us most. Here, with the exception of Italy and the southeast territories of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania and Greece, the female population is everywhere more strongly represented than the male.

Of the large European countries, the disproportion is slightest in France--1,002 females to every 1,000 males; next in order is Russia, with 1,009 females to every 1,000 males. On the other hand, Portugal, Norway and Poland, with 1,076 females to every 1,000 males, present the strongest disproportion. Next to these stands Great Britain,--1,060 females to every 1,000 males. Germany and Austria lie in the middle: they have, respectively, 1,039 and 1,047 females to every 1,000 males.

In the German Empire, the excess of the female over the male population, according to the census of December 1, 1890, was 957,400, against 988,376, according to the census of December 1, 1885. A princ.i.p.al cause of this disproportion is emigration, inasmuch as by far more men emigrate than women. This is clearly brought out by the opposite pole of Germany, the North American Union, which has about as large a deficit in women as Germany has a surplus. The United States is the princ.i.p.al country for European emigration, and this is mainly made up of males. A second cause is the larger number of accidents to men than to women in agriculture, the trades, the industries and transportation. Furthermore, there are more males than females temporarily abroad,--merchants, seamen, marines, etc. All this transpires clearly from the figures on the conjugal status. In 1890 there were 8,372,486 married men to 8,398,607 married women in Germany, i. e., 26,121 more of the latter.

Another phenomenon, that statistics establish and that weigh heavily in the scales, is that, on an average, women reach a higher age than men: at the more advanced ages there are more women than men. According to the census of 1890 the relation of ages among the two s.e.xes were these:

Excess Excess of Males. Females. of Males. Females.

Below ten years 5,993,681 5,966,226 27,455 ...

10 to 20 years 5,104,751 5,110,093 ... 5,342 20 to 30 years 3,947,324 4,055,321 ... 107,997 30 to 40 years 3,090,174 3,216,704 ... 126,530 40 to 50 years 2,471,617 2,659,609 ... 187,992 50 to 60 years 1,826,951 2,041,377 ... 214,426 60 to 70 years 1,177,142 1,391,227 ... 214,085 70 and up 619,192 757,081 ... 137,889 --------- --------- ------ ------- 24,230,832 25,197,638 27,455 994,261

This table shows that, up to the tenth year, the number of boys exceeds that of girls, due merely to the disproportion in births. Everywhere, there are more boys born than girls. In the German Empire, for instance,[94] there were born:--

In the year 1872 to 100 girls 106.2 boys In the year 1878 to 100 girls 105.9 boys In the year 1884 to 100 girls 106.2 boys In the year 1888 to 100 girls 106.0 boys In the year 1891 to 100 girls 106.2 boys

But the male s.e.x dies earlier than the female, and from early childhood more boys die than girls. Accordingly, the table shows that, between the ages of 10 to 20 the female s.e.x exceeds the male.

To each 100 females, there died, males:--[95]

In 1872 107.0 In 1884 109.2 In 1878 110.5 In 1888 107.9 In 1891 107.5

The table shows, furthermore, that at the matrimonial age, proper, between the ages of 20 and 50, the female s.e.x exceeds the male by 422,519, and that at the age from 50 to 70 and above, it exceeds the male by 566,400. A very strong disproportion between the s.e.xes appears, furthermore, among the widowed.

According to the census of 1890, there were:--

Widowers 774,967 Widows 2,154,870 --------- Excess of widows over widowers 1,382,903

Of these widowed people, according to age, there were:--

Age. Males. Females.

40-60 222,286 842,920 60 and over 506,319 1,158,712

The number of divorced persons was, in 1890: Males, 25,271; females, 49,601. According to age, they were distributed:--

Age. Males. Females.

40-60 13,825 24,842 60 and over 4,917 7,244

These figures tell us that _widows and divorced women are excluded from remarriage_, and at the fittest age for matrimony, at that; there being of the age of 15-40, 46,362 widowers and 156,235 widows, 6,519 divorced men and 17,515 divorced women. These figures furnish further proof of the injury that divorce entails to married women.

In 1890, there were unmarried:--[96]

Age. Males. Females.

15-40 5,845,933 5,191,453 40-60 375,881 503,406 60 and over 130,154 230,966

Accordingly, among the unmarried population between the ages of 15 and 40, the male s.e.x is stronger by 654,480 than the female. This circ.u.mstance would seem to be favorable for the latter. But males between the ages of 15 and 21 are, with few exceptions, not in condition to marry. Of that age there were 3,590,622 males to 3,774,025 females.

Likewise with the males of the age of 21-25, a large number are not in a position to start a family: we have but to keep in mind the males in the army, students, etc. On the other side, all women of this age period are marriageable. Taking further into consideration that for a great variety of reasons, many men do not marry at all--the number of unmarried males of 40 years of age and over alone amounted to 506,035, to which must be added also the widowed and divorced males, more than two million strong--it follows that the situation of the female s.e.x with regard to marriage is decidedly unfavorable. Accordingly, a large number of women are, under present circ.u.mstances, forced to renounce the legitimate gratification of their s.e.xual instincts, while the males seek and find solace in prost.i.tution. The situation would instantaneously change for women with the removal of the obstacles that keep to-day many hundreds of thousands of men from setting up a married home, and from doing justice to their natural instincts in a legitimate manner. For that the existing social system must be upturned.

As already observed, emigration across the seas is, in great part, responsible for the disproportion in the number of the s.e.xes. In the years 1872-1886, on an average, more than 10,000 males left the country in excess of females. For a period of fifteen years, that runs up to 150,000 males, most of them in the very vigor of life. Military duties also drive abroad many young men, and the most vigorous, at that. In 1893, according to the report officially submitted to the Reichstag on the subject of subst.i.tutes in the army, 25,851 men were sentenced for emigrating without leave, and 14,522 more cases were under investigation on the same charge. Similar figures recur from year to year. The loss in men that Germany sustains from this unlawful emigration is considerable in the course of a century. Especially strong is emigration during the years that follow upon great wars. That appears from the figures after 1866 and between 1871 and 1874. We sustain, moreover, severe losses in male life from accidents. In the course of the years 1887 to 1892, the number of persons killed in the trades, agriculture, State and munic.i.p.al undertakings, ran up to 30,568,[97] of whom only a small fraction were women. Furthermore, another and considerable number of persons engaged in these occupations are crippled for life by accidents, and are disabled from starting a family; others die early and leave their families behind in want and misery. Great loss in male life is also connected with navigation. In the period between 1882-1891, 1,485 s.h.i.+ps were lost on the high seas, whereby 2,436 members of crews--with few exceptions males--and 747 pa.s.sengers perished.

Once the right appreciation of life is had, society will prevent the large majority of accidents, particularly in navigation; and such appreciation will touch its highest point under Socialist order. In numberless instances human life, or the safety of limb, is sacrificed to misplaced economy on the part of employers, who recoil before any outlay for protection; in many others the tired condition of the workman, or the hurry he must work in, is the cause. Human life is cheap; if one workingman goes to pieces, three others are at hand to take his place.

On the domain of navigation especially, and aided by the difficulty of control, many unpardonable wrongs are committed. Through the revelations made during the seventies by Plimsoll in the British Parliament, the fact has become notorious that many s.h.i.+powners, yielding to criminal greed, take out high insurances for vessels that are not seaworthy, and unconscionably expose them, together with their crews, to the slightest weather at sea,--all for the sake of the high insurance. These are the so-called "coffin-s.h.i.+ps," not unknown in Germany, either. The steamer "Braunschweig," for instance, that sank in 1881 near Helgoland, and belonged to the firm Rocholl & Co., of Bremen, proved to have been put to sea in a wholly unseaworthy condition. The same fate befell, in 1889, the steamer "Leda" of the same firm; hardly out at sea, she went to the bottom. The boat was insured with the Russian Lloyd for 55,000 rubles; the prospect of 8,500 rubles were held out to the captain, if he took her safe to Odessa; and the captain, in turn, paid the pilot the comparatively high wage of 180 rubles a month. The verdict of the Court of Admiralty was that _the accident was due to the fact that the "Leda"

was unseaworthy and unfit to be taken to Odessa_. The license was withdrawn from the captain. According to existing laws, the real guilty parties could not be reached. No year goes by without our Court of Admiralty having to pa.s.s upon a larger number of accidents at sea, to the effect that the accident was due to vessels being too old, or too heavily loaded, or in defective condition, or insufficiently equipped; sometimes to several of these causes combined. With a good many of the lost s.h.i.+ps, the cause of accident can not be established: they have gone down in midocean, and no survivor remains to tell the tale. Likewise are the coast provisions for the saving of s.h.i.+pwrecked lives both defective and insufficient; they are dependent mainly upon private charity. The case is even more disconsolate along distant and foreign coasts. A commonwealth that makes the promotion of the well-being of all its highest mission will not fail to so improve navigation, and provide it with protective measures that these accidents would be of rare occurrence. But the modern economic system of rapine, that weighs men as it weighs figures, to the end of whacking out the largest possible amount of profit, not infrequently destroys a human life if thereby there be in it but the profit of a dollar. With the change of society in the Socialist sense, immigration, in its present shape, also would drop; the flight from military service would cease; suicide in the Army would be no more.

The picture drawn from our political and economic life shows that woman also is deeply interested therein. Whether the period of military service be shortened or not; whether the Army be increased or not; whether the country pursues a policy of peace or one of war; whether the treatment allotted to the soldier be worthy or unworthy of human beings; and whether as a result thereof the number of suicides and desertions rise or drop;--_all of these are questions that concern woman as much as man_. Likewise with the economic and industrial conditions and in transportation, in all of which branches the female s.e.x, furthermore, steps from year to year more numerously as working-women. Bad conditions, and unfavorable circ.u.mstances injure woman as a social and as a s.e.xual being; favorable conditions and satisfactory circ.u.mstances benefit her.

But there are still other momenta that go to make marriage difficult or impossible. A considerable number of men are kept from marriage by the State itself. People pucker up their brows at the celibacy imposed upon Roman Catholic clergymen; but these same people have not a word of condemnation for the much larger number of soldiers who also are condemned thereto. The officers not only require the consent of their superiors, they are also limited in the choice of a wife: the regulation prescribes that she shall have property to a certain, and not insignificant, amount. In this way the Austrian corps of officers, for instance, obtained a social "improvement" at the cost of the female s.e.x.

Captains rose by fully 8,000 guilders, if above thirty years of age, while the captains under thirty years of age were thenceforth hard to be had, in no case for a smaller dower than 30,000. "Now a 'Mrs. Captain,'"

it was thus reported in the "Koelnische Zeitung" from Vienna, "who until now was often a subject of pity for her female colleagues in the administrative departments, can hold her head higher by a good deal; everybody now knows that she has wherewith to live. Despite the greatly increased requirements of personal excellence, culture and rank, the social status of the Austrian officer was until then rather indefinite, partly because very prominent gentlemen stuck fast to the Emperor's coat pocket; partly because many poor officers could not make a s.h.i.+ft to live without humiliation, and many families of poor officers often played a pitiful _role_. Until then, the officer who wished to marry had, if the thirty-year line was crossed, to qualify in joint property to the amount of 12,000 guilders, or in a 600-guilder side income, and even at this insignificant income, hardly enough for decency, the magistrates often shut their eyes, and granted relief. The new marriage regulations are savagely severe, though the heart break. The captain under thirty must forthwith deposit 30,000 guilders; over thirty years of age, 20,000 guilders; from staff officers up to colonels, 16,000 guilders. Over and above this, only one-fourth of the officers may marry without special grace, while a spotless record and corresponding rank is demanded of the bride. This all holds good for officers of the line and army surgeons.

For other military officials with the rank of officer, the new marriage regulations are milder; but for officers of the general staff still severer. The officer who is detailed to the captain of the general staff may not thereafter marry; the actual captain of the staff, if below thirty, is required to give security in 36,000 guilders, and later 24,000 more." In Germany and elsewhere, there are similar regulations.

Also the corps of under-officers is subject to hampering regulations with regard to marriage, and require besides the consent of their superior officers. These are very drastic proofs of the _purely materialistic conception_ that the State has of marriage.

In general, public opinion is agreed that marriage is not advisable for men under twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. Twenty-five is the marriageable age for men fixed by the civil code, with an eye to the civic independence that, as a rule, is not gained before that age. Only with persons who are in the agreeable position of not having to first conquer independence--with people of princely rank--does public opinion consider it proper when occasionally the men marry at the age of eighteen or nineteen, the girls at that of fifteen or sixteen. The Prince is declared of age with his eighteenth year, and considered capable to govern a vast empire and numerous people. Common mortals acquire the right to govern their possible property only at the age of twenty-one.

The difference of opinion as to the age when marriage is desirable shows that public opinion judges by the social standing of the bride and bridegroom. Its reasons have nothing to do with the human being as a natural ent.i.ty, or with its natural instincts. It happens, however, that Nature's impulses do not yoke themselves to social conditions, nor to the views and prejudices that spring from them. So soon as man has reached maturity, the s.e.xual instincts a.s.sert themselves with force; indeed, they are the incarnation of the human being, and they demand satisfaction from the mature being, at the peril of severe physical and mental suffering.

The age of s.e.xual ripeness differs according to individuals, climate and habits of life. In the warm zone it sets in with the female s.e.x, as a rule, at the age of eleven to twelve years, and not infrequently are women met with there, who, already at that age, carry offspring on their arms; but at their twenty-fifth or thirtieth year, these have lost their bloom. In the temperate zone, the rule with the female s.e.x is from the fourteenth to the sixteenth year, in some cases later. Likewise is the age of p.u.b.erty different between country and city women. With healthy, robust country girls, who move much in the open air and work vigorously, menstruation sets in later, on the average, than with our badly nourished, weak, hypernervous, ethereal city young ladies. Yonder, s.e.xual maturity develops normally, with rare disturbances; here a normal development is the exception: all manner of illnesses set in, often driving the physician to desperation. How often are not physicians compelled to declare that, along with a change of life, the most radical cure is marriage. But how apply such a cure? Insuperable obstacles rise against the proposition.

All this goes to show where the change must be looked for. In the first place, the point is to make possible a totally different education, one that takes into consideration the physical as well as the mental being; in the second place, to establish a wholly different system of life and of work. But both of these are, without exception, possible for all only under _wholly different social conditions_.

Our social conditions have raised a violent contradiction between man, as a natural and s.e.xual being, on the one hand, and man as a social being on the other. The contradiction has made itself felt at no period as strongly as at this; and it produces a number of diseases into whose nature we will go no further, but that affect mainly the female s.e.x: in the first place, her organism depends, in much higher degree than that of man, upon her s.e.xual mission, and is influenced thereby, as shown by the regular recurrence of her periods; in the second place, most of the obstacles to marriage lie in the way of women, preventing her from satisfying her strongest natural impulse in a natural manner. The contradiction between natural want and social compulsion goes against the grain of Nature; it leads to secret vices and excesses that undermine every organism but the strongest.

Unnatural gratification, especially with the female s.e.x, is often most shamelessly promoted. More or less underhandedly, certain preparations are praised, and they are recommended especially in the advertis.e.m.e.nts of most of the papers that penetrate into the family circle as especially devoted to its entertainment. These puffs are addressed mainly to the better situated portion of society, seeing the prices of the preparations are so high that a family of small means can hardly come by them. Side by side with these shameless advertis.e.m.e.nts are found the puffs--meant for the eyes of both s.e.xes--of obscene pictures, especially of whole series of photographs, of poems and prose works of similar stripe, aimed at s.e.xual incitation, and that call for the action of police and District Attorneys. But these gentlemen are too busy with the "civilization, marriage and family-destroying" Socialist movement to be able to devote full attention to such machinations. A part of our works of fiction labors in the same direction. The wonder would be if s.e.xual excesses, artificially incited, besides, failed to manifest themselves in unhealthy and harmful ways, and to a.s.sume the proportions of a social disease.

The idle, voluptuous life of many women in the property cla.s.ses; their refined measures of nervous stimulants; their overfeeding with a certain kind of artificial sensation, cultivated in certain lines on the hothouse plan, and often considered the princ.i.p.al topic of conversation and sign of culture by that portion of the female s.e.x that suffers of hypersensitiveness and nervous excitement;--all this incites still more the s.e.xual senses, and naturally leads to excesses.

Among the poor, it is certain exhausting occupations, especially of a sedentary nature, that promotes congestion of blood in the abdominal organs, and promotes s.e.xual excitation. One of the most dangerous occupations in this direction is connected with the, at present, widely spread sewing machine. This occupation works such havoc that, with ten or twelve hours' daily work, the strongest organism is ruined within a few years. Excessive s.e.xual excitement is also promoted by long hours of work in a steady high temperature, for instance, sugar refineries, bleacheries, cloth-pressing establishments, night work by gaslight in overcrowded rooms, especially when both s.e.xes work together.

A succession of further phenomena has been here unfolded, sharply ill.u.s.trative of the irrationableness and unhealthiness of modern conditions. These are evils deeply rooted in our social state of things, and removable neither by the moral sermonizings nor the palliatives that religious quacks of the male and female s.e.xes have so readily at hand.

The axe must be laid to the root of the evil. The question is to bring about a natural system of education, together with healthy conditions of life and work, and to do this in amplest manner, to the end that the normal gratification of natural and healthy instincts be made possible for all.

As to the male s.e.x, a number of considerations are absent that are present with the female s.e.x. Due to his position as master, and in so far as social barriers do not hinder him, there is on the side of man the free choice of love. On the other hand, the character of marriage as an inst.i.tution for support, the excess of women, custom;--all these circ.u.mstances conspire to prevent woman from manifesting her will; they force her to wait till she is wanted. As a rule, she seizes gladly the opportunity, soon as offered, to reach the hand to the man who redeems her from the social ostracism and neglect, that is the lot of that poor waif, the "old maid." Often she looks down with contempt upon those of her sisters who have yet preserved their self-respect, and have not sold themselves into mental prost.i.tution to the first comer, preferring to tread single the th.o.r.n.y path of life.

On the other hand, social considerations tie down the man, who desires to reach by marriage the gratification of his life's requirements. He must put himself the question: Can you support a wife, and the children that may come, so that pressing cares, the destroyers of your happiness, may be kept away? The better his marital intentions are, the more ideally he conceives them, the more he is resolved to wed only out of love, all the more earnestly must he put the question to himself. To many, the affirmative answer is, under the present economic conditions, a matter of impossibility: they prefer to remain single. With other and less conscientious men, another set of considerations crowd upon the mind. Thousands of men reach an independent position, one in accord with their wants, only comparatively late. But they can keep a wife in a style suitable to their station only if she has large wealth. True enough, many young men have exaggerated notions on the requirements of a so-called life "suitable to one's station." Nevertheless, they can not be blamed--as a result of the false education above described, and of the social habits of a large number of women,--for not guarding against demands from that quarter that are far beyond their powers. Good women, modest in their demands, these men often never come to know. These women are retiring; they are not to be found there where such men have acquired the habit of looking for a wife; while those whom they meet are not infrequently such as seek to win a husband by means of their looks, and are intent, by external means, by show, to deceive him regarding their personal qualities and material conditions. The means of seduction of all sorts are plied all the more diligently in the measure that these ladies come on in years, when marriage becomes a matter of hot haste.