Woman under socialism Part 16

Tait calculates for Edinburg that the average life of the prost.i.tute is 22 to 25 years. According to him, year in and year out, _every fourth aye, every third prost.i.tute seeks to take her own life, and every twelfth actually succeeds in killing herself_. A truly shocking state of things. The majority of prost.i.tutes are heartily tired of their way of living; aye, that they are disgusted thereat, is an experience admitted by all experts. But once fallen into prost.i.tution, only to very few is the opportunity ever offered to escape.

And yet the number of prost.i.tutes increases in the same measure that does that of the women engaged as female labor in the various branches of industry and trade, and that are paid off with wages that are too high to die, and too low to live on. Prost.i.tution is, furthermore, promoted by the industrial crises that have become a necessity of the capitalist world, that commence to become chronic, and that carry want and misery into hundreds and thousands of families. According to a letter of the Chief Constable of Bolton, October 31, 1865, to a Factory Inspector, the number of young prost.i.tutes had increased more during the English cotton famine, consequent upon the North American war for the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, than during the previous twenty-five years.[115] But it is not only the working-women, who, through want, fall a prey to prost.i.tution. Prost.i.tution also finds its recruiting grounds in the higher walks of life. Lombroso and Ferrero quote Mace,[116] who says of Paris that "a governess certificate, whether of high or low degree, is not so much a draft upon bread, _as upon suicide, theft and prost.i.tution_."

Parent-Duchatelet made out in his time a statistical table, according to which, out of 5,000 prost.i.tutes there were 1,440 who took to the occupation out of want and misery; 1,250 were orphaned and without support; 80 prost.i.tuted themselves in order to feed poor parents; 1,400 were concubines left by their keepers; 400 were girls whom officers and soldiers had seduced and dragged to Paris; 280 had been deserted by their lovers during pregnancy. These figures speak for themselves. They need no further explanation. Mrs. Butler, the zealous champion of the poorest and most wretched of her s.e.x in England, says on the subject of prost.i.tution: "Fortuitous circ.u.mstances, the death of a father, of a mother, lack of work, insufficient wages, misery, false promises, snares, have led them to sin." Instructive also is the information given by K. Schneidt[117] on the causes, that lead the Berlin bar-maids so often into the arms of prost.i.tution. Shockingly large is the number of female servants that become barmaids, and that almost always means prost.i.tutes. The answers that Schneidt received on his schedules of questions addressed to bar-maids, ran like this: "Because I got a child from my master and had to earn my living;" or "Because my book was spoiled;" or "Because with sewing s.h.i.+rts and the like too little is made;" or "Because I was discharged from the factory and could get no more work;" or "Because my father died, and there were four other little ones." That, particularly, servant girls, after they fall a prey to seduction by their masters, furnish a large contingent to the prost.i.tutes, is a known fact. On the subject of the shockingly large number of seductions of servant girls by their masters or by the sons of these, Dr. Max Taude expresses himself reproachfully.[118] When, however, the upper cla.s.ses furnish their quota to prost.i.tution, it is not want but seduction and the inclination for an easy life, for dress and for pleasures. On that subject a certain work[119] utters itself this wise:

"Cold with horror and dismay, many a staid citizen, many a parson, teacher, high official, high military dignitary, etc., learns that his daughter has secretly taken to prost.i.tution. _Were it allowable to mention all these daughters by name, either a social revolution would take place on the spot, or the popular ideas concerning honor and virtue would be seriously damaged._"

It is especially the finer prost.i.tutes, the _haute volee_ among the prost.i.tutes, that are recruited from these circles. Likewise do a large portion of actresses, whose wardrobe outlays alone stand in cra.s.s disproportion to their salaries, depend upon such unclean sources of revenue.[120] The same with numerous girls, engaged as sales-ladies, and in similar capacities. There are employers dishonorable enough to justify the low wages that they pay by referring their female employes to the aid of "friends." For instance: In 1889 the "Sachsische Arbeiter Zeitung" of Dresden published a notice that ran as follows: "A cultured young lady, long time out of work on account of lung troubles, looked, upon her recovery, for work of any sort. She was a governess. Nothing fit offered itself quickly, and she decided to accept the first job that came along, whatever it was. She first applied to Mr. ----. Seeing she spoke readily several languages, she was acceptable; but the 30 marks a month wages seemed to her too small to get along with. She stated to Mr.

----, and his answer was that most of his girls did not get even that much, but from 15 to 20 marks at most, and they all pulled through quite well, each having a 'good friend,' who helped along. Another gentleman, Mr. ----, expressed himself in the same sense. Of course, the lady accepted a place in neither of the two establishments."

Seamstresses, female tailors, milliners, factory girls by the hundreds of thousands find themselves in similar plight. Employers and their subalterns--merchants, mill owners, landlords, etc.,--who keep female hands and employes, frequently consider it a sort of privilege to find these women handy to administer to their l.u.s.ts. Our pious and conservative folks love to represent the rural districts as truly idyllic in point of morality, compared with the large cities and industrial centers. Everyone acquainted with the actual state of things knows that it is not so; and the fact was evidenced by the address, delivered by a baronial landlord of Saxony in the fall of 1889, reported as follows in the papers of the place:

"GRIMMA.--Baron Dr. v. Waechter of Roecknitz, recently delivered an address, before a diocese meeting that took place here, upon the subject of 's.e.xual Immorality in Our Rural Communities.' Local conditions were not presented by him in a rosy color. The speaker admitted with great candor that _employers_, even _married_ ones, are frequently in _very intimate relations_ with their female domestics, the consequences of which were either cancelled with _cash_, or were removed from the eyes of the world through a _crime_. The fact could, unfortunately, not be cloaked over, that immorality was nursed in these communities, not alone by girls, who, as nurses in cities, had taken in the poison, or by fellows, who made its acquaintance in the military service, but that, sad to say, also the _cultured cla.s.ses_, through the stewards of manorial estates, and through the officers on the occasions of field manoeuvres, carried lax principles of morality into the country districts. According to Dr. v. Waechter, there are _actually here in the country few girls who reach the age of seventeen_ without having fallen." The open-hearted speaker's love of truth was answered with a social boycott, placed upon him by the officers who felt insulted. The _jus primae noctis_ of the medieval feudal lord continues in another form in these very days of ours.

The majority of prost.i.tutes are thrown into the arms of this occupation at a time when they can hardly be said to have arrived at the age of discretion. Of 2,582 girls, arrested in Paris for the secret practice of prost.i.tution, 1,500 were minors; of 607 others, 487 had been deflowered under the age of twenty. In September, 1894, a scandal of first rank took the stage in Buda-Pest. It appeared that about 400 girls of from twelve to fifteen years fell prey to a band of rich rakes. The sons of our "property and cultured cla.s.ses" generally consider it an attribute of their rank to seduce the daughters of the people, whom they then leave in the lurch. Only too readily do the trustful daughters of the people, untutored in life and experience, and generally joyless and friendless, fall a prey to the seduction that approaches them in brilliant and seductive guise. Disillusion, then sorrows, finally crime,--such are the sequels. Of 1,846,171 live births in Germany in 1891, 172,456 were illegitimate. Only conjure up the volume of worry and heartaches prepared for a great number of these mothers, by the birth of their illegitimate children, even if allowance is made for the many instances when the children are legitimatized by their fathers! _Suicide by women and infanticide_ are to a large extent traceable to the dest.i.tution and wretchedness in which the women are left when deserted.

The trials for child murder cast a dark and instructive picture upon the canvas. To cite just one case, in the fall of 1894, a young girl, who, eight days after her delivery, had been turned out of the lying-in inst.i.tute in Vienna and thrown upon the streets with her child and without means, and who, in her distress and desperation, killed the infant, _was sentenced to be hanged_ by a jury of Krems in Lower Austria. About the scamp of a father nothing was said. And how often do not similar instances occur! The seduced and outrageously deserted woman, cast helpless into the abyss of despair and shame, resorts to extreme measures: she kills the fruit of her womb, is dragged before the tribunals, is sentenced to penitentiary or the gallows. The unconscionable, and actual murderer,--he goes off scott-free; marries, perchance, shortly after, the daughter of a "respectable and honest"

family, and becomes a much honored, upright man. There is many a gentleman, floating about in honors and distinctions, who has soiled his honor and his conscience in this manner. Had women a word to say in legislation, much would be otherwise in this direction.

Most cruel of all, as already indicated, is the posture of French legislation, which forbids inquiry after the child's paternity, and, instead, sets up foundling asylums. The resolution on the subject, by the Convention of June 28, 1793, runs thus: "The nation takes charge of the physical and moral education of abandoned children. From that moment they will be designated only by the term of orphans. No other designation shall be allowed." Quite convenient for the men, who, thereby, s.h.i.+fted the obligation of the individual upon the collectivity, to the end of escaping exposure before the public and their wives. In all the provinces of the land, orphan and foundling asylums were set up.

The number of orphans and foundlings ran up, in 1893, to 130,945, of which it was estimated that each tenth child was legitimate, but not wanted by its parents. But no particular care was taken of these children, and the mortality among them was, accordingly, great. In that year, fully 59 per cent., i. e., more than one-half died during the first year of their lives; 78 per cent. died twelve years of age and under. Accordingly, of every 100 only 22 reached the age of twelve years and over. It is claimed that matters have in the meantime improved in those establishments.

In Austria and Italy also foundling asylums were established, and their support a.s.sumed by the State. "_Ici on fait mourir les enfants_" (Here children are killed) is the inscription that a certain King is said to have recommended as fit for foundling asylums. In Austria, they are gradually disappearing; there are now only eight of them left; also the treatment and care of the children has considerably improved to what it was. In 1888, there were 40,865 children cared for in Austria, including Galicia; of these 10,466 were placed in public inst.i.tutions, 30,399 under private care, at a joint cost of 1,817,372 florins. Mortality was slighter among the children in the public inst.i.tutions than among those placed under private care. This was especially the case in Galicia.

There, 31.25 per cent. of the children died during the year 1888 in the public establishments, by far more than in the public establishments of other countries; but of those under private care, 84.21 per cent.

died,--a veritable ma.s.s-a.s.sa.s.sination. It almost looks as though the Polish slaughterhouse system aimed at killing off these poor little worms as swiftly as possible. It is a generally accepted fact that the percentage of deaths among children born out of wedlock is far higher than among those born in wedlock. In Prussia there died, early in the sixties, during the first year of their lives 18.23 per cent. of children born in wedlock, and 33.11 per cent. of children born out of wedlock, accordingly twice as many of the latter. In Paris there died, 100 children born in wedlock to every 139 born out of wedlock, and in the country districts 215. Italian statistics throw up this picture: Out of every 10,000 live-births, there died--

Legitimate children: 1881. 1882. 1883. 1884. 1885.

One month old 751 741 724 698 696 Two to twelve months 1,027 1,172 986 953 1,083 Illegitimate children: One month old 2,092 2,045 2,139 2,107 1,813 Two to twelve months 1,387 1,386 1,437 1,437 1,353

The difference in the mortality between legitimate and illegitimate children is especially noticeable during the first month of life. During that period, the mortality of children born out of wedlock is on an average three times as large as that of those born in wedlock. Improper attention during pregnancy, weak delivery and poor care afterwards, are the very simple causes. Likewise do maltreatment and the infamous practice and superst.i.tion of "making angels" increase the victims. The number of still-births is twice as large with illegitimate than with legitimate children, due, probably, mainly to the efforts of some of the mothers to bring on the death of the child during pregnancy. The illegitimate children who survive revenge themselves upon society for the wrong done them, by furnis.h.i.+ng _an extraordinary large percentage of criminals of all degrees_.

Yet another evil, frequently met, must also be shortly touched upon.

Excessive s.e.xual indulgence is infinitely more harmful than too little.

A body, misused by excess, will go to pieces, even without venereal diseases. Impotence, barrenness, spinal affections, insanity, at least intellectual weakness, and many other diseases, are the usual consequences. _Temperance_ is as necessary in s.e.xual intercourse as in eating and drinking, and all other human wants. But temperance seems difficult to youth. Hence the large number of "young old men," in the higher walks of life especially. The number of young and old _roues_ is enormous, and they require special irritants, excess having deadened and surfeited them. Many, accordingly, lapse into the unnatural practices of Greek days. The crime against nature is to-day much more general than most of us dream of: upon that subject the secret archives of many a Police Bureau could publish frightful information. But not among men only, among women also have the unnatural practices of old Greece come up again with force. Lesbian love, or Sapphism, is said to be quite general among married women in Paris; according to Taxal,[121] it is enormously in practice among the prominent ladies of that city. In Berlin, one-fourth of the prost.i.tutes are said to practice "tribady;"

but also in the circles of our leading dames there are not wanting disciples of Sappho. Still another unnatural gratification of the s.e.xual instinct manifests itself in the violation of children, a practice that has increased greatly during the last thirty years. In France, during 1851-1875, 17,656 cases of this nature were tried. The colossal number of these crimes in France is intimately connected with the two-child system, and with the abstinence of husbands towards their wives. To the German population also we find people recommending Malthusianism, without stopping to think what the sequels will be. The so-called "liberal professions," to whom belong mainly the members of the upper cla.s.ses, furnish in Germany about 5.6 per cent. of the ordinary criminals, but they furnish 13 per cent. of the criminals indicted for violation of children; and this latter percentage would be still higher were there not in those circles ample means to screen the criminals, so that, probably, the majority of cases remain undiscovered. The revelations made in the eighties by the "Pall Mall Gazette" on the violation of children in England, are still fresh in the public memory.

The moral progress of this our best of all possible worlds is recorded in the below tables for England, the "leading country in civilization."

In England there were:--

Immoral Acts Deaths from Year. of Violence. Syphilis. Insane.

1861 280 1,345 39,647 1871 315 1,995 56,755 1881 370 2,334 73,113 1882 466 2,478 74,842 1883 390 ... 76,765 1884 510 ... ...

Increase since 1861 82 per cent. 84 per cent. 98 per cent.

A frightful increase this is of the phenomena that point to the rising physical and moral ruin of English society.

The best statistical record of venereal diseases and their increase is kept by Denmark, Copenhagen especially. Here venereal diseases, with special regard to syphilis, developed as follows:--

Venereal Of these, Year. Population. Diseases. Syphilis.

1874 196,000 5,505 836 1879 227,000 6,299 934 1885 290,000 9,325 1,866

Among the personnel of the navy in Copenhagen, the number of venereal diseases increased 1224 per cent. during the period mentioned; in the army and for the same period, 227 per cent.[122] And how stands it in Paris? From the year 1872 to the year 1888, the number of persons treated for venereal diseases in the hospitals Du Midi, de Lourcine and de St. Louis was 118,223, of which 60,438 suffered of syphilis and 57,795 of other venereal affections. Besides these, of the number of outside persons, who applied to the clinics of the said three hospitals, there was a yearly average of 16,385 venereals.[123]

We have seen how, as a result of our social conditions, vice, excesses, wrongs and crimes of all sorts are bred. All society is kept in a state of unrest. Under such a state of things woman is the chief sufferer.

Numerous women realize this and seek redress. They demand, first of all, economic self-support and independence; they demand that woman be admitted, as well as man, to all pursuits that her physical and mental powers and faculties qualify her for; they demand, especially, admission to the occupations that are designated with the term "liberal professions." Are the efforts in these directions justified? Are they practical? Would they mend matters? These are questions that now crowd forward.

FOOTNOTES:

[100] "Geschichte, Statistik und Regelung der Prost.i.tution in Wien."

[101] "Die Bestrafung und polizelliche Behaundlung der gewerbsma.s.sigen Unzucht."

[102] "Ueber Gelegenheitsmacherei und offentliches Tanzvergnugen."

[103] "Die Prost.i.tution im 19. Jahrhundert vom sanitatspolizeilichen Standpunkt."

[104] Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Konigl. Polizei-Prasidiums von Berlin fur die Jahre 1881-1890; pp. 351-359

[105] "Korrespondenzblatt zur Bekampfung der offentlichen Sittenlosigkeit," August 15, 1893.

[106] "Die gesundheitschadliche Tragweite der Prost.i.tution," Dr. Oskar La.s.sar.

[107] "Die Behandlung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in Krankenka.s.sen und Heilanstalten."

[108] In the English hospitals, during 1875, fully 14 per cent. of the children under treatment were suffering of inherited venereal diseases.

In London, there died of these diseases 1 man out of every 190 cases of death; in all England, 1 out of every 159 cases; in the poor-houses of France, 1 out of 160.5.

[109] "Was die Stra.s.se verschlingt."

[110] Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, "The Moral Education."

[111] Montegazza, "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."

[112] "Aus j.a.pan nach Deutschland durch Sibirien."

[113] "Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Kgl. Polizei-Prasidiums von Berlin vom Jahre 1881-1890."

[114] In the large trades union sick-benefit a.s.sociations of Berlin the number of syphilitic diseases increased from 4326 in 1881 to 9420 in 1890. Dr. A. Blaschko, _ubi supra_.

[115] Karl Marx, "Capital," p. 461, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1896.

[116] _Ubi supra._

[117] "Das Kellnerinnen-Elend In Berlin," Berlin, 1893.