The Truth About Woman Part 19

Her unborn children importuning her, her choice will be guided by the man's fitness alone, not, as now it is, by his capacity and power for work and protection. We are only awakening to the terrible evils of these powerful economic restraints, which now limit the woman's range of choice. It is this wastage of the Life-force that, as I believe, above all else has driven women into revolt.

The free power of Selection in Love! Yes; that is the true Female Franchise. It must be regained by woman, to be used by her to enn.o.ble the s.e.x relation and thereby to cleanse society of the unfit. The means by which this most important end can be attained will be brought about by giving woman such training and education and civic rights, as well as the framing of such laws and changes in the rights of property inheritance, as shall render her economically independent. Existing marriage is a pernicious survival of the patriarchal age. The "patriarch's" wife was significantly reckoned in the same category with a man's "ox" and his "a.s.s," which any other male was forbidden "to covet." The wife was the husband's--her owner's private property--and the curse of this dependence and the old ferocious _potestas_ and _ma.n.u.s_, from which the Roman wife freed herself, are upon women to-day. With the regaining of their economic freedom by women--by whatever means this is to be accomplished--a truer marriage will be brought within reach of every one, and the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p will be freed from the jealous chains of owners.h.i.+p that cause such bitter mistrusts in the wreckage of our loves.

Mating will be a much more complex affair, and yet one much more directly in harmony with the welfare of the race. A recognition of the pre-natal claims of the child is the new Ethic that is slowly but surely dawning on womankind and on man. He who destroys human life, however unfit that life may be, is remorselessly punished by society, but the woman and man who beget diseased and imbecile children--the necessarily unfit--are not only exonerated from sin, but applauded by both Church and State. Could moral inconstancy go further than this?

It is only in the begetting of men that breeding from the worst stocks may be said to be the rule. As long as in our ideas on these questions superst.i.tion remains the guide there is nothing to hope for and much to fear. The new ideal is only beginning, and beginning with a tardiness that is a reproach to human foresight. But herein lies the glad hope of the future. I place my trust in the enlightened conscience of the economically emanc.i.p.ated mothers, and in the awakened fathers, to work out some scheme of s.e.xual salvation as will ensure a race of sounder limb and saner intelligence than any that has yet appeared in our civilisation.

It is woman, not man, who must fix the standard in s.e.x. The problems of love are linked on to the needs of the race. Nature has, as we have seen, made various experiments as to which of the s.e.xes was to be the predominant partner in this relation. But the decision has been made in the favour of the mother. She it is who has to play the chief part in the racial life. There is no getting away from this, in spite of the many absurdities that man has set up, as, for instance, St. Paul's grandmotherly old Tory dogma, making "man the head of the woman."

The differences between woman and man are deep and fundamental. And, lest there be any who fear the giving back to woman of her power, let me say that in this change there will be no danger of uns.e.xing, least of all of the uns.e.xing of woman. Nature would not permit it, even if she in any foolishness of revolt sought such a result, for it is her body that is the sanctuary of the race. Love and courts.h.i.+p will not, indeed, be robbed of any charm, that would be fatal, but they will be freed from the mockeries of love that have always selfishness in them, jealous resentments and fearing distrusts--the man of the woman, not less than the woman of the man. To-day coquetry serves not only as a prelude to marriage, but very often serves as a subst.i.tute for it; an escape from the payment of the sacrifices which fulfilled love claims.

There is a confusion of motives which now force women and men alike from their service to the race. s.e.x must be freed from all unworthy necessities. Courts.h.i.+p must be regarded, not as a game of chance, but as the opening act in the drama of life. And the woman who comes to know this must play her part consciously, realising in full what she is seeking for; then, indeed, no longer will her s.e.x be to her a light or a saleable thing. At present economic and social injustices are strangling millions of beautiful unborn babes.

There is another error that I would wish to clear up now. It is a tenet of common belief that in all matters of s.e.x-feeling and s.e.x-morality the woman is different from, and superior to, the man. I find in the writings of almost all women on s.e.x-subjects, not to speak of popular novels, an insistence on men's grossness, with a great deal in contrast about the soulful character of woman's love. Even so illuminated a writer as Ellen Key emphasises this supposed trait of the woman again and again. Another woman writer, Miss May Sinclair, in a brilliant "Defence of Men" (_English Review_, July 1912), speaks of "the superior virtue of women" as being "primordially and fundamentally Nature's care." And again, woman "has monopolised virtue at man's expense," which the writer, with the most perfect humour and irony, though apparently quite unconscious, regards as "men's tragedy." The woman has received the laurel crown by "Nature's consecration of her womanhood to suffering," the man "has paid with his spiritual prospects as she has paid with her body."

Now, from this view of the s.e.x relations.h.i.+p I most utterly dissent. I believe that any difference in virtue, even where it exists in woman, is not fundamental, that it is against Nature's purpose that it should be so; rather it has arisen as a pretence of necessity, because it has been expected of her, nourished in her, and imposed on her by the unnatural prohibitions of religious and social conventions. The female half of life has not been pre-ordained to suffer any more than the male half: this belief has done more to destroy the conscience of woman than any other single error. You have only to repeat any lie long enough to convince even yourself of its truth. But a.s.suredly free woman will have to yield up her martyr's crown.

I grant willingly that men often talk brutally of s.e.x, but I am certain that few of them think brutally. We women are so easily deceived by the outside appearance of things. The man who calls "a spade a spade" is not really inferior to him who terms it "an agricultural implement for the tilling of the soil." And women also express their sensuality in orgies of emotion, in hypocrisies of chast.i.ty, and in many other ways that are really nothing but a subtle sensuality disguised.

I confess that I doubt very much the existence of any special soulful character in woman's love. I wish that I didn't. But my experience forces me to admit that this is but another of those delusions which woman has wrapped around herself. Of course I may be wrong. I find Professor Forel and other distinguished psychologists lending their support to this idol of the woman's superior s.e.xual virtue.

Krafft-Ebing goes much further, holding "that woman is naturally and organically frigid." It may be then that some difference does exist in the driving force of pa.s.sion in men and women. I do not know the exact character of men's love to compare it with my own, and I hesitate to write with that a.s.surance of the pa.s.sions of the other s.e.x with which they have written of mine. Yet I believe that the male receiving life from the female is not more mindful of the physical needs of love than the woman, though possibly she has less understanding of its joys. For the woman with a much more complex s.e.xual nature is carried by pa.s.sion further than the male; the continuance of life rests with her. Under this imperative compulsion woman, if needs be, will break every commandment in the Decalogue and suffer no remorse for having done so.

I think this seeking to give life remains a necessary element in the loves of all women. At its lowest it will stoop to any unscrupulousness.

Bernard Shaw tells us that "if women were as fastidious as men, morally or physically, there would be an end to the race." Perhaps this is true. Yet I think woman's love is always different in its fundamental essence from the excitements of the male. We throw the whole burden of s.e.x-desire on to men, because we have not yet faced the truth that they are our helpless agents in carrying on Nature's most urgent work. It has been so from the beginning, since that first primordial mating when the hungry male-cell gained renewal of life from the female, it is so still, I believe it will be thus to the end.

It is when we come to the emotions and actions connected with the maternal instinct in woman that we reach the real point of the difference between the s.e.xes. In its essential essence this belongs to women alone. The male may be infected with the reproduction energy (we have witnessed this in its finest expression among birds, where the parental duties are shared in and, in some cases, carried out entirely by the male), but man possesses, as yet, its faint a.n.a.logy only. It is the most primary of all woman's qualities, and, being fundamental, it is, I believe, unalterable, and any attempt to minimise its action is very unlikely to lead to progress. It is a two-s.e.xed world; women and men are not alike; I hope that they never will be.

This radical truth is so plain. Yet it seems to me that in the present confusion many women are in danger of overlooking it. We saw in an earlier chapter how very early in the development of life it was found by Nature's slow but certain experiments that the establishment of two s.e.xes in different organisms, and their differentiation, was to the immense advantage of progress. This initial difference leads to the functional distinctions between the female and the male, but it goes much further than this, finding its expression in many secondary qualities, not on the physical side alone, but on the mental and psychical, and is, indeed, a saturating influence that determines the entire development of the organism into the feminine or the masculine character. Take again the fact that this dynamic action of s.e.x has manifested itself in a continual progress through the uncounted centuries. Developed by love's selection, the differentiation of the s.e.xes increased in the evolution of species, and as the differentiation increased the attraction also increased, until in all the higher forms we find two markedly different s.e.xes, strongly drawn together by the magnetism of s.e.x, and fulfilling together their separate uses in the reproductive process. These are the natural features of s.e.x-distinction and s.e.x-union.

The belief, therefore, is forced upon us that the characteristic feminine and masculine characters are an inherent part of the normal woman and man, a duality that goes back to the very threshold of s.e.xuality. So Nature created them, female and male created she them.

To change the metaphor, we have the woman and the man=the unit--the race. While there is no fixing of the precise nature of this const.i.tutional difference between the two s.e.xes, we may yet, broadly speaking, reach the truth. The female, as the giver and keeper of life, is relatively more constructive, relatively less disruptive than the male. It is here, I believe, we touch the spring of those s.e.x differences, which do exist, in spite of all efforts to explain them away between the woman and the man. It is a quality that crops up in many diverse directions and penetrates into every expression of the feminine character.

Now, we cannot get away from a difference so fundamental, so primordial as this. The consecration of the woman's body as the sanctuary of life--that perpetual payment in giving is not safely to be altered. And this I contest against all the Feminists: the real need of the normal woman is the full and free satisfaction of the race-instinct. Do I then accept the subjection of the woman. a.s.suredly not! To me it is manifest that it is just because of her s.e.x-needs and her s.e.x-power that woman must be free. To leave such a force to be used without understanding is like giving a weapon to a child, in whose hands a cartridge suddenly goes off, leaving the empty and smoking sh.e.l.l in his trembling hands.

It is well to remember, however, that for all women there is conceivably no one simple rule. It is quite possible that the maternal instincts may be overlaid and even destroyed, being replaced by others more clearly masculine. In our artificial social state this is indeed bound to be so. It may be regretted, but it cannot be blamed. And each woman must be free to make her own choice; no man may safely decide for her; she must give life gladly to be able to give it well. This is why any effort to force maternity, even as an ideal, upon women is so utterly absurd. To-day woman is coming slowly and hesitatingly to a new consciousness of herself, and this at present is perhaps preoccupying her attention. But the freed woman of to-morrow will have no need to centre her thoughts in herself, for by that time she will understand. There will come a day when women will no longer live in a prison walled up with fear of love and life. And when she has done with discovering herself and playing at conquests, she will come to the most glorious day of all, when she will know herself for what she is. And to those of us who see already the goal the way is surely clear--let us work to find how best it can be made easy for all women to love gladly and to bring forth their children in joy.

Hitherto, dating from the times of the subjection of mother-right to father-right, the woman's insecure position, with her need of protection during the period of motherhood, has forced her into a state of dependence and subordination to men, which has accentuated and made permanent that physical disadvantage which, apart from motherhood, would scarcely exist, and even with motherhood would not become a source of weakness, under a wiser social organisation, which, understanding the primary importance of the mother, so arranged its domestic and social relations.h.i.+ps as to place its women in a position of security. We have seen how this was done in Egypt, and how happy were the results; we have seen, too, that among all primitive peoples women are practically as strong as the men, and as capable in the social duty of work. It is only under the fully established patriarchal system, with its unequal development of the s.e.xes, that motherhood is a source of weakness to women. From the time that society comes again to recognise the position of mothers and their right as the bearers of strength to the race, not only to protection while they are fulfilling that essential function for the community, but to their freedom after they have fulfilled it--the same freedom that men claim for the work they do for the community--from that time will arise a new freedom of women which will once again unite mother-right with father-right. This change will touch and vitally affect many of the deepest problems of the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p and the race.

We hear much to-day of women, and also men, being over-s.e.xed; to me it seems much nearer the truth to say we are wrongly s.e.xed. It is unquestionable that the progress of civilisation has resulted in a markedly accentuated differentiation between the s.e.xes, which, through inheritance and custom, has become continually more sharply defined.

Now, up to a certain point s.e.x differences lead to s.e.x-attraction, but whenever such variability--whether initiated by some natural process or by some intentional guidance of the pressure of civilisation--is unduly exaggerated, the way is opened up for s.e.x-antagonism. That this, indeed, occurs may be seen from the fact we have already established, that an exaggerated outgrowth of the secondary s.e.xual characters is not really favourable to development; the species thus differentiated being bad parents and unsocial in their conduct. The large felines, which are often inclined to commit infanticide in their own interests, the male turkey and other members of the gallinaceae afford examples, and so does the female phalarope, whose maternal instincts are completely atrophied. Another ill.u.s.tration may be drawn from the debased position of the Athenian women, where the sharp separation between the s.e.xes led, without doubt, not only to the debasing of the marriage relations.h.i.+p, but to the establishment of the _hetairae_, and also to the common practice of h.o.m.o-s.e.xual love.

Under our present civilisation, and mainly owing to the unnatural relation of the s.e.xes, which has unduly emphasised certain qualities of excessive femininity, s.e.x-feeling has been at once over-accentuated and under-disciplined. Thus, an extreme outward s.e.x-attraction has come to veil but thinly a deep inward s.e.x-antipathy, until it seems almost impossible that women and men can ever really understand one another. Herein lie the roots, as I believe, of much of the brutal treatment of women by men and the contempt in which too often they are held. For what is the truth here? In this so-called "duel of s.e.x,"

while woman's moral equality has not been recognised, women have employed their s.e.x-differences as the most effective weapon for compa.s.sing their own ends, and men in the ma.s.s--unmindful of the truth that love is an understanding of the contrasted natures, a solution of the riddle--have wished to have it so. What significance arises out of this in the so-much-lauded cry, "Woman's influence!" "By thy submission rule," really means in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, "Rule by s.e.x-seduction and flattery." Yes, we women cannot burk the truth--the seduction and flattery of man by woman is writ large over the face of our present society, it speaks in our literature and in our art. It is to this prost.i.tution of love that s.e.x-differences have carried us.

There is, of course, nothing new in these conditions; and there have always been times when men have rebelled against this s.e.xual tyranny of woman. Misogyny is an old story. It is Euripides who betrays to us the real meaning of such revolt. In a fragment of his we read, _The most invincible of all things is a woman!_ Men are so little sure of themselves that they fear suffering from woman an annihilation of their own personality. There is nothing surprising in this; rather it is one of Nature's laws that may not be overlooked, traceable back to that first coalescence when the female cellule absorbs the male. In one way or another, for Nature's ends or for her own, the female will always absorb the male--the woman the man; she is the river of life, he but the tributary stream. Paracelsus long ago gave utterance to the profound truth, "Woman is nearer to the world than man." Hence the army of misogynists--a Schopenhauer, a Strindberg, a Weininger, even a great Tolstoi, alike moved in a rebellion of disillusion, or satiety, against the power of woman that has been turned into turbid channels of misusage. Thence, too, the hateful Christian doctrine of the fundamentally sinful, evil, devilish nature of woman.

This rebellion of men, and their efforts to free themselves from the thrall of women has been of little avail. We have reached now a new stage in the age-long conflict of the s.e.xes--the rebellion of the woman. There has come a time when the old cry, "Woman, what have I to do with you?" is being changed. It is woman who is whispering to herself and to her sisters, and, as she gains in courage, crying it aloud, "Men, what have we to do with you? We belong to ourselves." It is to this impa.s.se in the confusion and antagonism of the present moment of transition that s.e.x-differences are bringing us.

In face of this we may well pause.

What to do is another matter. But I am mainly concerned just now in trying to see facts clearly. And to me it often seems that woman is in grave danger to-day of becoming intoxicated with herself. She stands out self-affirming, postulating her own--or what she thinks to be her own--nature. In her, perhaps too-sudden, awakening to an entirely new existence of a free personality, an over-consciousness of her rights has arisen, causing a confusion of her instincts, so she fails to see the revelation begotten in her inmost self.

There is no getting away from the truth that there is this vital organic distinction between woman and man; and further, that this s.e.xual difference does, and it is well that it should, find its expression in a large number of detailed characters of femaleness and maleness, various in value, some, perhaps, trivial, and some important. These characters are natural in origin and natural also in having survived ages of eliminative selection. But the point I want to make clear is that, side by side with these fundamental differences, have arisen in women a number of what may be called coercive differentiations, inconsistent with, and absolutely hurtful to the natural distinctions, being destructive to the love and understanding of woman and man, and not less destructive to the vigour of the race.

This misdifferentiation of women, it is true, is pa.s.sing, but the progressive gain in this direction is counterbalanced by a new and hardly less grave danger.

I am dealing here with what seems to me to be a perilous quicksand in woman's struggle for free development. To hear many women talk it would appear that the new ideal was a one-s.e.xed world. A great army of women have espoused the task of raising their s.e.x out of subjection.

For such a duty the strength and energy of pa.s.sion is required. Can this task be performed if the woman to any extent indulges in s.e.x--otherwise subjection to man. s.e.xuality debases, even reproduction and birth are regarded as "nauseating." Woman is not free, only because she has been the slave to the primitive cycle of emotions which belong to physical love. The renunciation, the conquest of s.e.x--it is this that must be gained. As for man, he has been shown up, women have found him out; his long-worn garments of authority and his mystery and glamour have been torn into shreds--woman will have none of him.

Now obviously these are over-statements, yet they are the logical outcome of much of the talk that one hears. It is the visible sign of our incoherence and error, and in the measure of these follies we are sent back to seek the truth. Women need a robuster courage in the face of love, a greater faith in their womanhood, and in the scheme of Life. Nothing can be gained from the child's folly in breaking the toys that have momentarily ceased to please. The misogamist type of woman cannot fail to prove as futile as the misogamist man. Not "Free _from_ man" is the watch-cry of women's emanc.i.p.ation that surely is to be, but "Free _with_ man."

Let us pa.s.s to a somewhat different instance--the perversion of the natural instincts of woman which has led to the attempt to establish what has been called a "third s.e.x,"[317] a type of woman in whom the s.e.xual differences are obscured or even obliterated--a woman who is, in fact, a temperamental neuter. Economic conditions are compelling women to enter with men into the fierce compet.i.tion of our disordered social State. Partly due to this reason, though much more, as I think, to the strong stirring in woman of her newly-discovered self, there has arisen what I should like to call an over-emphasised Intellectualism. Where s.e.x is ignored there is bound to lurk danger.

Every one recognises the significance of the advance in particular cases of women towards a higher intellectual individuation, and the social utility of those women who have been truly the pioneers of the new freedom; but this does not lessen at all the disastrous influence of an ideal which holds up the renunciation of the natural rights of love and activities of women, and thus involves an irreparable loss to the race by the barrenness of many of its finest types. The significance of such Intellectuals must be limited, because for them the possibility of transmission by inheritance of their valuable qualities is cut off, and hence the way is closed to a further progress. And, thus, we are brought back to that simple truth from which we started; there are two s.e.xes, the female and the male, on their specific differences and resemblances blended together in union every true advance in progress depends--on the perfected woman and the perfected man.

FOOTNOTES:

[313] See Havelock Ellis, "The s.e.xual Impulse in Woman," _Psychology of s.e.x_, Vol. III. p. 181, who gives this quotation from Marro.

[314] See page 111.

[315] Haddon, "Western Tribes of Torres Straits," _Journal of the Anthropological Society_, Vol. XIX., Feb. 1890; cited by Ellis, _op.

cit._, p. 185.

[316] See page 66.

[317] E. von Wolzogen gives this name, _The Third s.e.x_, to a romance in which he describes a kind of barren, stunted woman, capable, however, of holding her place in all work in compet.i.tion with men. The writer compares these types of women to the workers among ants and bees. _See_ p. 62. I have quoted from Iwan Bloch, _The s.e.xual Life of Our Times_, p. 13.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IX

APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON s.e.x DIFFERENCES

I.--_Women and Labour_

A further examination of the s.e.xual differences--The knowledge we have gained does not enable us definitely to settle the problem--The necessity of considering Nurture--Woman's character to some extent the result of circ.u.mstance, to some extent organic--The difficulties of the problem--Standards of comparison--Incompleteness of our knowledge--New researches on s.e.x-differences--The confusion of opinions--Women and men different, but neither superior to the other--The position of women in society to-day--The increasing surplus of women--How can a remedy be found?--Woman's place in the home--The changes in modern conditions--Women and labour--The d.a.m.ning struggle for life--Sweated work--Women's wages--The marketable value of woman's s.e.x--This the explanation of the smallness of women's wages--The prost.i.tute better paid than the worker--Woman's strength as compared with man's--Are women really the weaker s.e.x?--Woman's work capacity equal to man's, but different--The Spanish women--The intolerable conditions of labour in commercial countries--Women more deeply concerned than men--The real value of women's work--This must be recognised by the State--The social service of child-bearing--The primary and most important work of women--The present revolt of women--How far is this justifiable--A caution and some reflections.

II.--_s.e.xual Differences of the Mind and the Artistic Impulse in Women_

The mental and psychical s.e.xual differences--Ineradicability of these--Can they be modified or disregarded?--The masculine and feminine intellectual qualities--Caution necessary in making any comparison--Example, a tenacious memory--Is this a feminine characteristic?--Woman's intuition--Its value--Each s.e.x contributes to the thought power of the other--The artistic impulse--Is genius to be regarded as an endowment of the male?--An examination of the grounds for this view--Untenability of the opinion of the greater variational tendency of men--The question needs reopening--The influence of environment and training on woman's mind--What woman can, or can not, do as yet unproved--Woman's talent for diplomacy--The separation between the mental life of the s.e.xes--The result on woman's mind--The revolt against repression--Woman as she is represented in literature--The woman of the future--Woman the cause of emotion in men--Part played by women in early civilisations--What men learnt from them--Woman's emotional endowment--Her affectability and response to suggestion--These the qualities essential to success in the arts--A comparison between the qualities of genius and the qualities of woman--This opens up questions of startling significance--What women may achieve in the future--Some suggestions as to the effect of the entrance of women into the arts.

III.--_The Affectability of Woman--Its Connection with the Religious Impulse_

Woman's apt.i.tude for religion--Her need for a protection--Relation between the s.e.xual and religious emotions--Deprivation of love and satiety of love the sources of religious needs--Religious prost.i.tution--Religio-erotic festivals--s.e.xual mysticism in Christianity--The lives of the saints--Religious s.e.xual perceptions--Their influence on the emotional feminine character--A personal experience--The a.s.sociation between love and salvation--The same sense of the eternal in the religious and the s.e.xual impulse--Asceticism--Its origin in the s.e.xual emotions--Preoccupation of the ascetic with s.e.x needs--The transformation of the s.e.x-impulse into spiritual activities--Examples--The modern ascetic--The fear of love--This the ultimate cause of the contempt of woman--Example of Maupa.s.sant's priest--In love the way of salvation.

CHAPTER IX

APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON s.e.x DIFFERENCES