“If you (F. L.), demand complete equality for women in social and political life, George Sand must also be justified in her struggles for emancipation, that strove for nothing else but to possess what has long since been man’s undisputed possession. For no good reason is to be found why only woman’s head, and not also her heart, shall participate in this equality, why she shall not give and take as freely as man. On the contrary: if nature gives woman the right, and thereby also the duty,—for we shall not bury a talent bestowed upon us,—to exert her brain to the utmost in competition with the intellectual Titans of the opposite sex, it must also give her the right to preserve her equilibrium, just as they do, by quickening the circulation of her heart in whatever manner she may see fit. We all read without being shocked in the least how, for instance, Goethe,—to choose the greatest as an example,—again and again wasted the warmth of his heart and the enthusiasm of his great soul upon some other woman. Intelligent people consider this perfectly natural, and only narrow-minded moralists condemn it. Why, then, deride the “great souls” among women? Let us assume that the entire female sex consisted of great souls like George Sand; let us assume that every woman were a Lucretia Florini, whose children are all children of love, but who brings up these children with true motherly love and devotion, as well as in a rational and intelligent manner. How would the world fare? There is no doubt that the world could continue to exist and develop as to-day, and might even fare exceptionally well.”
But why should only “great souls” lay claim to this right, and not also the others who are no great souls? If a Goethe and a George Sand,—to select only these two from among the many who have done and are doing likewise,—could follow the inclinations of their hearts, if on Goethe’s love affairs, especially, entire libraries are published that are devoured in a sort of reverend ecstacy by his admirers, why should we condemn in others what becomes an object of admiration in the case of a Goethe, or a George Sand?
Of course, it is impossible to assert the free choice of love in bourgeois society, as we have shown by our entire line of argument, but if the community were placed under similar social conditions as are enjoyed to-day only by the few who are materially and intellectually favored, all would have the possibility of a similar freedom. In “Jacques,” George Sand depicts a husband who judges the illicit relation of his wife with another man in the following manner: “no human being can command love, and none is guilty, if he feels or goes without it. What degrades the woman is the lie; what constitutes the adultery is not the hour she grants to her lover, but the night that she thereupon spends with her husband.” As a result of this conception, Jacques feels it to be his duty to make way for his rival (Borel), and philosophizes accordingly: “Borel, in my place, would have calmly beaten his wife, and would not have blushed to receive her into his arms afterwards, degraded by his blows and his kisses. There are men who would not hesitate, according to oriental custom, to kill their faithless wife, because they regard her as their lawful property. Others fight a duel with their rival, kill or remove him, and then beg the woman, whom they claim to love, for kisses or caresses, while she either withdraws full of horror or yields in despair. These, in cases of conjugal love, are the most common ways of acting, and it seems to me that the love of hogs is less vile and debasing, than the love of such men.” To these sentences, Brandes observes:[272] “These truths, that are elemental ones to educated persons to-day, were atrocious sophisms fifty years ago.” But the propertied and cultured classes do not venture even to-day, openly to avow the principles of George Sand, altho they actually live in accordance with them. They are hypocrites in marriage, as they are hypocrites in morals and religion.
What was done by Goethe and George Sand, is being done by thousands of others to-day, who cannot bear comparison with Goethe or Sand, without suffering a loss of social esteem. Everything can be done if people hold a respected position. Nevertheless the liberties of a Goethe and a George Sand are immoral from the standpoint of bourgeois morality, for they are in opposition to the moral laws laid down by society, and are in contradiction to the nature of our social system. Compulsory marriage is the normal marriage to bourgeois society. It is the only “moral” union of the sexes; any other sexual union is “immoral.” Bourgeois marriage is,—this we have irrefutably proved,—the result of bourgeois relations. Closely connected with private property and the right of inheritance, it is contracted to obtain “legitimate” children. Under the pressure of social conditions it is forced also upon those who have nothing to bequeath. It becomes a social law, the violation of which is punished by the state, by imprisonment of the men or women who have committed adultery and have become divorced.
But in Socialistic society there will be nothing to bequeath, unless house furnishings and personal belongings should be regarded as hereditary portions; so the modern form of marriage becomes untenable from this point of view also. This also settles the question of inheritance, which Socialism will not need to abolish. Where there is no private property, there can be no right of inheritance. So woman will be free, and the children she may have will not impair her freedom, they will only increase her pleasure in life. Nurses, teachers, women friends, the rising female generation, all these will stand by her when she is in need of assistance.
It is possible that there will be some men, even in the future, who will say, like A. Humboldt: “I am not built to become the father of a family. Moreover, I consider marriage a sin, the begetting of children a crime.” What does it matter? The force of the natural impulse will establish the equilibrium with others. We are not alarmed either by Humboldt’s hostility to marriage, or by the philosophic pessimism of Schopenhauer, Mainlander or v. Hartmann, who hold out to man the prospect of self-destruction in the “ideal state.” We are fully agreed with Dr. Ratzel, who writes on this subject:
Man should no longer regard himself an exception to natural laws. He should finally strive to recognize the laws underlying his own thoughts and actions, and should endeavor to live in accordance with these laws. He will eventually learn to arrange his life with his fellow-beings, that is, the family and the state, not according to the precepts laid down in centuries gone by, but according to the rational principles derived from an understanding of nature. Politics, morals, laws, that are at present drawn from various sources, will be shaped according to natural laws. An existence worthy of human beings, that mankind has been dreaming of for thousands of years, will become a reality at last.[273]
This time is rapidly approaching. For thousands of years human society has passed thru all phases of development, only to return to its starting point: communistic property and complete liberty and fraternity; but no longer only for the members of the gens, but for all human beings. That is what the great progress consists of. What bourgeois society has striven for in vain, in what it failed and was bound to fail,—to establish liberty, equality and fraternity for all,—will be realized by Socialism. Bourgeois society could merely advance the theory, but here, as in many other things, practice was contrary to the theories. Socialism will unite theory and practice.
But as mankind returns to the starting point of its development, it will do so on an infinitely higher level of civilization. If primitive society had common ownership in the gens and the clan, it was but in a coarse form and an undeveloped stage. The course of development that man has since undergone, has reduced common property to small and insignificant remnants, has shattered the gens and has finally atomized society; but in its various phases it has also greatly heightened the productive forces of society and the extensiveness of its demands; it has transformed the gentes and the tribes into nations, and has thereby again created a condition that is in glaring contradiction to the requirements of society. It is the task of the future to remove this contradiction by re-establishing the common ownership of property and the means of production on the broadest basis.
Society takes back what it has at one time possessed and has itself created, but it enables all to live in accordance with the newly created conditions of life on the highest level of civilization. In other words, it grants to all what under more primitive conditions has been the privilege of single individuals or classes. Now woman, too, is restored to the active position maintained by her in primitive society; only she no longer is mistress, but man’s equal.