The Man-Made World Part 9

Why? What good does it do _her?_ Her whole life's success is made to depend on her marrying; her health and happiness depends on her marrying the right man. The more "innocent" she is, the less she knows, the easier it is for the wrong man to get her.

As is so feelingly described in "The Sorrows of Amelia," in "The Ladies'

Literary Cabinet," a magazine taken by my grandmother; "The only foible which the delicate Amelia possessed was an unsuspecting breast to lavish esteem. Unversed in the secret villanies of a base degenerate world, she ever imagined all mankind to be as spotless as herself. Alas for Amelia!

This fatal credulity was the source of all her misfortunes." It was. It is yet.

Just face the facts with new eyes--look at it as if you had never seen "society" before; and observe the position of its "Queen."

Here is Woman. Let us grant that Motherhood is her chief purpose. (As a female it is. As a human being she has others!) Marriage is our way of safeguarding motherhood; of ensuring "support" and "protection" to the wife and children.

"Society" is very largely used as a means to bring together young people, to promote marriage. If "society" is made and governed by women we should naturally look to see its restrictions and encouragements such as would put a premium on successful maternity and protect women--and their children--from the evils of ill-regulated fatherhood.

Do we find this? By no means.

"Society" allows the man all liberty--all privilege--all license.

There are certain offences which would exclude him; such as not paying gambling debts, or being poor; but offences against womanhood--against motherhood--do not exclude him.

How about the reverse?

If "society" is made by women, for women, surely a misstep by a helplessly "innocent" girl, will not injure her standing!

But it does. She is no longer "innocent." She knows now. She has lost her market value and is thrown out of the shop. Why not? It is his shop--not hers. What women may and may not be, what they must and must not do, all is measured from the masculine standard.

A really feminine "society" based on the needs and pleasures of women, both as females and as human beings, would in the first place accord them freedom and knowledge; the knowledge which is power. It would not show us "the queen of the ballroom" in the position of a wall-flower unless favored by masculine invitation; unable to eat unless he brings her something; unable to cross the floor without his arm. Of all blind stultified "royal sluggards" she is the archetype. No, a feminine society would grant _at least_ equality to women in this, their so-called special field.

Its att.i.tude toward men, however, would be rigidly critical.

Fancy a real Mrs. Grundy (up to date it has been a Mr., his whiskers hid in capstrings) saying, "No, no, young man. You won't do. You've been drinking. The habit's growing on you. You'll make a bad husband."

Or still more severely, "Out with you, sir! You've forfeited your right to marry! Go into retirement for seven years, and when you come back bring a doctor's certificate with you."

That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it--for "Society" to say? It is ridiculous, in a man's "society."

The required dress and decoration of "society"; the everlasting eating and drinking of "society," the preferred amus.e.m.e.nts of "society," the absolute requirements and absolute exclusions of "society," are of men, by men, for men,--to paraphrase a threadbare quotation. And then, upon all that vast edifice of masculine influence, they turn upon women as Adam did; and blame _them_ for severity with their fallen sisters!

"Women are so hard upon women!"

They have to be. What man would "allow" his wife, his daughters, to visit and a.s.sociate with "the fallen"? His esteem would be forfeited, they would lose their "social position," the girl's chance of marrying would be gone.

Men are not so stern. They may visit the unfortunate women, to bring them help, sympathy, re-establishment--or for other reasons; and it does not forfeit their social position. Why should it? They make the regulation.

Women are to-day, far more conspicuously than men, the exponents and victims of that mysterious power we call "Fas.h.i.+on." As shown in mere helpless imitation of one another's idea, customs, methods, there is not much difference; in patient acquiescence with prescribed models of architecture, furniture, literature, or anything else; there is not much difference; but in personal decoration there is a most conspicuous difference. Women do to-day submit to more grotesque ugliness and absurdity than men; and there are plenty of good reasons for it.

Confining our brief study of fas.h.i.+on to fas.h.i.+on in dress, let us observe why it is that women wear these fine clothes at all; and why they change them as they do.

First, and very clearly, the human female carries the weight of s.e.x decoration, solely because of her economic dependence on the male. She alone in nature adds to the burdens of maternity, which she was meant for, this unnatural burden of ornament, which she was not meant for.

Every other female in the world is sufficiently attractive to the male without tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. He carries the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, sparing no expense of spreading antlers or trailing plumes; no monstrosity of crest and wattles, to win her favor.

She is only temporarily interested in him. The rest of the time she is getting her own living, and caring for her own young. But our women get their bread from their husbands, and every other social need. The woman depends on the man for her position in life, as well as the necessities of existence. For herself and for her children she must win and hold him who is the source of all supplies. Therefore she is forced to add to her own natural attractions this "dance of the seven veils," of the seventeen gowns, of the seventy-seven hats of gay delirium.

There are many who think in one syllable, who say, "women don't dress to please men--they dress to please themselves--and to outs.h.i.+ne other women." To these I would suggest a visit to some summer sh.o.r.e resort during the week and extending over Sat.u.r.day night. The women have all the week to please themselves and outs.h.i.+ne one another; but their array on Sat.u.r.day seems to indicate the approach of some new force or attraction.

If all this does not satisfy I would then call their attention to the well-known fact that the young damsel previous to marriage spends far more time and ingenuity in decoration than she does afterward. This has long been observed and deprecated by those who write Advice to Wives, on the ground that this difference is displeasing to the husband--that she loses her influence over him; which is true. But since his own "society," knowing his weakness, has tied him to her by law; why should she keep up what is after all an unnatural exertion?

That excellent magazine "Good Housekeeping" has been running for some months a rhymed and ill.u.s.trated story of "Miss Melissa Clarissa McRae,"

an extremely dainty and well-dressed stenographer, who captured and married a fastidious young man, her employer, by the force of her artificial attractions--and then lost his love after marriage by a sudden unaccountable slovenliness--the same old story.

If this in not enough, let me instance further the att.i.tude toward "Fas.h.i.+on" of that cla.s.s of women who live most openly and directly upon the favor of men. These know their business. To continually attract the vagrant fancy of the male, nature's born "variant," they must not only pile on artificial charms, but change them constantly. They do. From the leaders of this profession comes a steady stream of changing fas.h.i.+ons; the more extreme and bizarre, the more successful--and because they are successful they are imitated.

If men did not like changes in fas.h.i.+on be a.s.sured these professional men-pleasers would not change them, but since Nature's Variant tires of any face in favor of a new one, the lady who would hold her sway and cannot change her face (except in color) must needs change her hat and gown.

But the Arbiter, the Ruling Cause, he who not only by choice demands, but as a business manufactures and supplies this amazing stream of fas.h.i.+ons; again like Adam blames the woman--for accepting what he both demands and supplies.

A further proof, if more were needed, is shown in this; that in exact proportion as women grow independent, educated, wise and free, do they become less submissive to men-made fas.h.i.+ons. Was this improvement hailed with sympathy and admiration--crowned with masculine favor?

The att.i.tude of men toward those women who have so far presumed to "uns.e.x themselves" is known to all. They like women to be foolish, changeable, always newly attractive; and while women must "attract" for a living--why they do, that's all.

It is a pity. It is humiliating to any far-seeing woman to have to recognize this glaring proof of the dependent, degraded position of her s.e.x; and it ought to be humiliating to men to see the results of their mastery. These crazily decorated little creatures do not represent womanhood.

When the artist uses the woman as the type of every highest ideal; as Justice, Liberty, Charity, Truth--he does not represent her trimmed.

In any part of the world where women are even in part economically independent there we find less of the absurdities of fas.h.i.+on. Women who work cannot be utterly absurd.

But the idle woman, the Queen of Society, who must please men within their prescribed bounds; and those of the half-world, who must please them at any cost--these are the vehicles of fas.h.i.+on.

X. LAW AND GOVERNMENT.

It is easy to a.s.sume that men are naturally the lawmakers and law-enforcers, under the plain historic fact that they have been such since the beginning of the patriarchate.

Back of law lies custom and tradition. Back of government lies the correlative activity of any organized group. What group-insects and group-animals evolve unconsciously and fulfill by their social instincts, we evolve consciously and fulfill by arbitrary systems called laws and governments. In this, as in all other fields of our action, we must discriminate between the humanness of the function in process of development, and the influence of the male or female upon it. Quite apart from what they may like or dislike as s.e.xes, from their differing tastes and faculties, lies the much larger field of human progress, in which they equally partic.i.p.ate.

On this plane the evolution of law and government proceeds somewhat as follows:--The early woman-centered group organized on maternal lines of common love and service. The early combinations of men were first a grouped predacity--organized hunting; then a grouped belligerency,--organized warfare.

By special development some minds are able to perceive the need of certain lines of conduct over others, and to make this clear to their fellows; whereby, gradually, our higher social nature establishes rules and precedents to which we personally agree to submit. The process of social development is one of progressive co-ordination.

From independent individual action for individual ends, up to interdependent social action for social ends we slowly move; the "devil"

in the play being the old Ego, which has to be harmonized with the new social spirit. This social process, like all others, having been in masculine hands, we may find in it the same marks of one-sided Specialization so visible in our previous studies.

The coersive att.i.tude is essentially male. In the ceaseless age-old struggle of s.e.x combat he developed the desire to overcome, which is always stimulated by resistance; and in this later historic period of his supremacy, he further developed the habit of dominance and mastery.

We may instance the contrast between the conduct of a man when "in love"

and while courting; in which period he falls into the natural position of his s.e.x towards the other--namely, that of a wooer; and his behavior when, with marriage, they enter the, artificial relation of the master male and servile female. His "instinct of dominance" does not a.s.sert itself during the earlier period, which was a million times longer than the latter; it only appears in the more modern and arbitrary relation.

Among other animals monogamous union is not accompanied by any such discordant and unnatural features. However recent as this habit is when considered biologically, it is as old as civilization when we consider it historically: quite old enough to be a serious force. Under its pressure we see the legal systems and forms of government slowly evolving, the general human growth always heavily perverted by the special masculine influence. First we find the mere force of custom governing us, the _mores_ of the ancient people. Then comes the gradual appearance of authority, from the purely natural leaders.h.i.+p of the best hunter or fighter up through the unnatural mastery of the patriarch, owning and governing his wives, children, slaves and cattle, and making such rules and regulations as pleased him.

Our laws as we support them now are slow, wasteful, c.u.mbrous systems, which require a special caste to interpret and another to enforce; wherein the average citizen knows nothing of the law, and cares only to evade it when he can, obey it when he must. In the household, that stunted, crippled rudiment of the matriarchate, where alone we can find what is left of the natural influence of woman, the laws and government, so far as she is responsible for them, are fairly simple, and bear visible relation to the common good, which relation is clearly and persistently taught.

In the larger household of city and state the educational part of the law is grievously neglected. It makes no allowance for ignorance. If a man breaks a law of which he never heard he is not excused therefore; the penalty rolls on just the same. Fancy a mother making solemn rules and regulations for her family, telling the children nothing about them, and then punis.h.i.+ng them when they disobeyed the unknown laws!

The use of force is natural to the male; while as a human being he must needs legislate somewhat in the interests of the community, as a male being he sees no necessity for other enforcement than by penalty. To violently oppose, to fight, to trample to the earth, to triumph in loud bellowings of savage joy,--these are the primitive male instincts; and the perfectly natural social instinct which leads to peaceful persuasion, to education, to an easy harmony of action, are contemptuously ranked as "feminine," or as "philanthropic,"--which is almost as bad. "Men need stronger measures" they say proudly. Yes, but four-fifths of the world are women and children!