Lysistrata

by Anthony M. Ludovici

We may expect a revival of agriculture and craftsmanship, because one of the first things to be done is to arrest the dry-rot in spirit and body, which industrial and urban conditions have brought about under the sway of the body-despising values. Men will learn to respect themselves once more, and this they can do only by expressing their highest impulses in their work. They will become agriculturists and craftsmen again, because this is the only way by which they can recover their dignity, their lost faculties, and their vanished health.

We can also expect that science instead of concentrating, as now, upon providing us with ever more efficient extra-corporeal equipment such as wireless telegraphy, aeroplanes, etc., and more and more substitutes and aids for our defective bodies, will turn its research in the direction of restoring to man bodily perfection and to extending the range of his faculties. It will probe the mystery of powers like clairvoyance, and direct healing (such as that effected by the laying on of hands from time immemorial); it will discover the mechanism (if any) behind telepathy and behind the peculiar magnetism of cultivated will-power, and discover an educational technique by which these properties and powers may become more general, more efficient, and more far-reaching. It will seek the method behind the laws of heredity, and establish principles whereby family and stock qualities may be brought to perfection. It will also sift the mass of evidence and facts collected by modern science, in order to co-ordinate the data, and establish lines of proper conduct and legitimate aspiration. Finally, it will aim at co-ordinating religious and naturalistic truths up to date, with the view of offering to mankind a new faith, and a new metaphysic, purged of the sick and degenerate elements of former religions.

Recognizing that æstheticism is an essential part of terrestrial life, the possession and expression of beauty will no longer be relegated to certain sections of the community, but will be made a part of the national life. The Puritanical prejudice against beauty and its lure will be exploded, and beauty will be cultivated in the human body as an indispensable factor in a happy life. The old Puritanical belief that it is possible to have a beautiful soul, a beautiful character, and a beautiful mind in an ugly body with evil-smelling breath, will have to be recognized for what it is—that is, merely a credo for the comfort of repulsive people.

Meanwhile large hypertrophied cities and towns will tend to disappear, and the population will be thinned by rigorous selection at birth. Abnormal, crippled, defective, incurable, and undesirable people will no longer be allowed to grow up. Their uselessness and their danger as a burden and an eye-sore will be recognized. The old belief in the extreme sacredness of every human creature, irrespective of bodily and mental perfection, will vanish, in order to make way for a valuation based on quality of mind and body. This gradual elimination of the undesirable dregs of humanity with all the physiological botchedness they stand for, will clear the air, and relieve coming generations of many heavy burdens. The energy, spare wealth, and spare time of the community, will then be devoted to the desirable, and the magnificent mansions which are now distributed all over the country, for the housing of human monsters, will be converted into palaces for people of promise.

The regeneration of man will immediately transform woman and her position; because, while her contempt for the male will vanish, she will recover both physically and spiritually that lost joy of looking up to her mate. Through the mastery he will introduce, her present very justifiable anxiety about the world will tend to disappear, and the serenity of a dependent existence will be restored to her. Her life through being filled by a mate sufficiently versatile to supply her not only with offspring, but also with every possible interest, will gradually lose the feverish restlessness of the modern woman, who is seeking constantly to forget the void both in her heart and in her existence; and in time she will learn to measure at their proper worth the vanities which now supply her with but a poor substitute for her former bliss.

With these changes, women’s claim to equality with men will gradually cease to be heard of. Here and there it may still continue to be raised in some quarters; but, the moment its absurdity is made everywhere visible to the very eye of onlookers, it will necessarily die down. It is merely the fact that the claim is not manifestly absurd to-day that lends it for the time being a certain fatal plausibility.

But, before woman is sound enough in body and mind to give birth to this new breed of masculine sons, and to rear them herself, she will undergo many transformations, and learn to look at life from a very different standpoint. In the first place she will regenerate her own body before it is too late, and recover the ease, if not the ecstasy of old, in all her functions. She will learn to despise herself if she wears glasses, if she has false or bad teeth, if she cannot function without scientific aids, and if she cannot suckle her child. She will perceive the boastful levity of the present generation of women who concern themselves more and more with highfalutin’ interests and matters of the soul, when all the while they are not masters of their bodies. She will see that a workman who wished to leave his bench and his tools in order to try to master high finance when he had not yet mastered his trade, would very justly become an object of derision, and that modern women, with their feverish interest in every new-fangled creed and power, are also objects of derision, because all the while their bodies grow more and more out of hand.

Helped by her men of science, she will apply herself to the task of discovering that mode of life and that diet which will restore to her normal and easy functioning in her digestive system; that mode of life and diet during gestation which will restore to her the joy of childbirth—a joy that has probably not been known to mankind for thousands of years—and, without losing heart over her initial failures, she will persevere until the necessary discoveries are made.

When once bodily normality is recovered—and this will come about much more speedily by a change of values, and therefore by a change of taste, than by legally enforced Eugenics—she and her mate will attach a new value to life, and a new value to motherhood, domesticity, and marriage. All three will appear nobler and more desirable, not only because they have become more beautiful, and more productive of beauty, but also because their responsibilities and annoyances are endured for a man and for children who make them appear thoroughly worth while.

In Chapter II we pointed out the direction in which inquiry might profitably be directed in order to achieve certain eminently desirable improvements in the present conditions of childbirth. These indications may prove to be misleading. It is possible that their application may be disappointing. This, however, should not deter us. The ideas suggested in Chapter II may or may not be of value; but what is important is that inquiry should be directed towards the goal to which they point, and, if this end be assiduously sought, it cannot fail to be reached sooner or later. It must be obvious to all that, by persisting in our present direction of improved artificial aids, we can never attain to anything either good or desirable—therefore that our present direction is manifestly wrong and hopeless.