Women As World Builders Part 4

She did not stick at the task of formulating for women a new moral att.i.tude to replace the old. "We are seeking," she said, "a morality which shall be able to point the way out of the social trap we find we are in. We are conscious that we are concerned in the dissolution of one social order, which is giving way to another. Men and women are both involved, but women differently from men, because women themselves are very different from men. The difference between men and women is the whole difference between a religion and a moral code. Men are pagan.

They have never been Christian. Women are wholly Christian, and have a.s.similated the entire genius of Christianity.

"The ideal of conduct which men have followed has been one of self-realization, tempered by a broad principle of equity which has been translated into practice by means of a code of laws. A man's desire and ideal has been to satisfy the wants which a consciousness of his several senses gives rise to. His vision of attainment has therefore been a sensuous one, and if in his desire for attainment he has transgressed the law, his transgression has sat but lightly upon him. A law is an objective thing, laid upon a man's will from outside. It does not enter the inner recesses of consciousness, as does a religion. It is nothing more than a body of prohibitions and commands, which can be obeyed, transgressed or evaded with little injury to the soul. With women moral matters have been wholly different. Resting for support upon a religion, their moral code has received its sanction and force from within. It has thus laid hold on consciousness with a far more tenacious grip. Their code being subjective, transgression has meant a darkening of the spirit, a sullying of the soul. Thus the doctrine of self-renunciation, which is the outstanding feature of Christian ethics, has had the most favorable circ.u.mstances to insure its realization, and with women it has won completely--so completely that it now exerts its influence unconsciously. Seeking the realization of the will of others, and not their own, ever waiting upon the minds of others, women have almost lost the instinct for self-realization, the instinct for achievement in their own persons."

Whether she is right is a moot question. Certainly in such matters as testimony in court, the customs-tariff, and the minor city ordinances, women show no particular respect for the law. Ibsen sought in "The Doll's House" to show that her morality had no connection with the laws of the world of men. Even in matters of human relations.h.i.+p it is doubtful if women give any more of an "inner a.s.sent" to law than do men.

Woman's failure to achieve that domination of the world which const.i.tutes individuality and freedom--this Dora Marsden would explain on the ground of a dulling of the senses. It may be more easily explained as a result of a dulling of the imagination. The trouble is that they are content with petty conquests.

There you have it! Inevitably one argues with Dora Marsden. That is her value. She provokes thought. And she welcomes it. She wants everybody to think--not to think her thoughts necessarily, nor the right thoughts always, but that which they can and must. She is a propagandist, it is true. But she does not create a silence, and call it conversion.

She stimulates her readers to cast out the devils that inhabit their souls--fear, prejudice, sensitiveness. She helps them to build up their lives on a basis of will--the exercise, not the suppression, of will.

She indurates them to the world. She liberates them to life. She is the Max Stirner of feminism.

Freedom! That is the first word and the last with Dora Marsden. She makes women understand for the first time what freedom means. She makes them want to be free. She nerves them to the effort of emanc.i.p.ation. She sows in a fertile soil the dragon's teeth which shall spring up as a band of capable females, knowing what they want and taking it, asking no leave from anybody, doing things and enjoying life--Freewomen!