Woman under socialism

by August Bebel

Among us, and especially on the subject of female education, seriously erroneous conceptions are still prevalent. That woman also should have strength, courage and resolution, is considered heretical, "unwomanly," although none would dare deny that, equipped with such qualities, woman could protect herself against many ills and inconveniences. Conversely, woman is cramped in her physical, exactly as in her intellectual development. The irrationalness of her dress plays an important role herein. It not only, unconscionably hampers her in her physique, it directly ruins her;—and yet, but few physicians dare take a stand against the abuse, accurately informed though they are on the injuriousness of her dress. The fear of displeasing the patient often causes them to hold their tongues, if they do not even flatter her insane notions. Modern dress hinders woman in the free use of her limbs, it injures her physical growth, and awakens in her a sense of impotence and weakness. Moreover, modern dress is a positive danger to her own and the health of those who surround her: in the house and on the street, woman is a walking raiser of dust. And likewise is the development of woman hampered by the strict separation of the sexes, both in social intercourse and at school—a method of education wholly in keeping with the spiritual ideas that Christianity has deeply implanted in us on all matters that regard the nature of man.

The woman who does not reach the development of her faculties, who is crippled in her powers, who is held imprisoned in the narrowest circle of thought, and who comes into contact with hardly any but her own female relatives,—such a woman can not possibly raise herself above the routine of daily life and habits. Her intellectual horizon revolves only around the happenings in her own immediate surroundings, family affairs and what thereby hangs. Extensive conversations on utter trifles, the bent for gossip, are promoted with all might; of course her latent intellectual qualities strain after activity and exercise;—whereupon the husband, often involved thereby in trouble, and driven to desperation, utters imprecations upon qualities that he, the "chief of creation," has mainly upon his own conscience.

With woman—whose face all our social and sexual relations turn toward marriage with every fibre of her being—marriage and matrimonial matters constitute, quite naturally, a leading portion of her conversation and aspirations. Moreover, to the physically weaker woman, subjected as she is to man by custom and laws, the tongue is her principal weapon against him, and, as a matter of course, she makes use thereof. Similarly with regard to her severely censured passion for dress and desire to please, which reach their frightful acme in the insanities of fashion, and often throw fathers and husbands into great straits and embarrassments. The explanation lies at hand. To man, woman is, first of all, an object of enjoyment. Economically and socially unfree, she is bound to see in marriage her means of support; accordingly, she depends upon man and becomes a piece of property to him. As a rule, her position is rendered still more unfavorable through the general excess of women over men,—a subject that will be treated more closely. The disparity intensifies the competition of women among themselves; and it is sharpened still more because, for a great variety of reasons, a number of men do not marry at all. Woman is, accordingly, forced to enter into competition for a husband with the members of her own sex, by means of the most favorable external presentation of her person possible.

Let the long duration, through many generations, of these evils be taken into account. The wonder will cease that these manifestations, sprung from equally lasting causes, have reached their present extreme form. Furthermore, perhaps in no age was the competition of women for husbands as sharp as it is in this, due partly to reasons already given, and partly to others yet to be discussed. Finally, the difficulties of obtaining a competent livelihood, as well as the demands made by society, combine, more than ever before, to turn woman's face towards matrimony as an "institute for support."

Men gladly accept such a state of things: they are its beneficiaries. It flatters their pride, their vanity, their interest to play the role of the stronger and the master; and, like all other rulers, they are, in their role of masters, difficult to reach by reason. It is, therefore, all the more in the interest of woman to warm towards the establishment of conditions that shall free her from so unworthy a position. Women should expect as little help from the men as workingmen do from the capitalist class.

Observe the characteristics, developed in the struggle for the coveted place, on other fields, on the industrial field, for instance, so soon as the capitalists face each other. What despicable, even scampish, means of warfare are not resorted to! What hatred, envy and passion for calumny are not awakened!—observe that, and the explanation stands out why similar features turn up in the competition of women for a husband. Hence it happens that women, on the average, do not get along among themselves as well as men; that even the best female friends lightly fall out, if the question is their standing in a man's eye, or pleasingness of appearance. Hence also the observation that wherever women meet, be they ever such utter strangers, they usually look at one another as enemies. With one look they make the mutual discovery of ill-matched colors, or wrongly-pinned bows, or any other similar cardinal sin. In the look that they greet each other with, the judgment can be readily read that each has passed upon the other. It is as if each wished to inform the other: "I know better than you how to dress, and draw attention upon myself."

On the other hand, woman is by nature more impulsive than man; she reflects less than he; she has more abnegation, is naiver, and hence is governed by stronger passions, as revealed by the truly heroic self-sacrifice with which she protects her child, or cares for relatives, and nurses them in sickness. In the fury, however, this passionateness finds its ugly expression. But the good as well as the bad sides, with man as well as woman, are influenced, first of all, by their social position; favored, or checked, or transfigured. The same impulse, that, under unfavorable circumstances, appears as a blemish, is, under favorable circumstances, a source of happiness for oneself and others. Fourier has the credit of having brilliantly demonstrated how the identical impulses of man produce, under different conditions, wholly opposite results.

Running parallel with the effects of mistaken education, are the no less serious effects of mistaken or imperfect physical culture upon the purpose of Nature. All physicians are agreed that the preparation of woman for her calling as mother and rearer of children leaves almost everything to be wished. "Man exercises the soldier in the use of his weapons, and the artisan in the handling of his tools; every office requires special studies; even the monk has his novitiate. Woman alone is not trained for her serious duties of mother."[87] Nine-tenths of the maidens who marry enter matrimony with almost utter ignorance about motherhood and the duties of wedlock. The inexcusable shyness, even on the part of mothers, to speak with a grown-up daughter of such important sexual duties, leaves the latter in the greatest darkness touching her duties towards herself and her future husband. With her entrance upon married life, woman enters a territory that is wholly strange to her. She has drawn to herself a fancy-picture thereof—generally from novels that are not particularly to be commended—that does not accord with reality.[88] Her defective household knowledge, that, as things are to-day, is inevitable, even though many a function, formerly naturally belonging to the wife, has been removed from her, also furnishes many a cause for friction. Some know nothing whatever of household matters: They consider themselves too good to bother about them, and look upon them as matters that concern the servant girl; numerous others, from the ranks of the masses, are prevented, by the struggle for existence, from cultivating themselves for their calling as householders: they must be in the factory and at work early and late. It is becoming evident that, due to the development of social conditions, the separate household system is losing ground every day; and that it can be kept up only at the sacrifice of money and time, neither of which the great majority is able to expend.

Yet another cause that destroys the object of marriage to not a few men is to be found in the physical debility of many women. Our food, housing, methods of work and support, in short, our whole form of life, affects us in more ways than one rather harmfully than otherwise. We can speak with perfect right of a "nervous age." Now, then, this nervousness goes hand in hand with physical degeneration. Anaemia and nervousness are spread to an enormous degree among the female sex: They are assuming the aspect of a social calamity, that, if it continue a few generations longer, as at present, and we fail to place our social organization on a normal footing, is urging the race towards its destruction.[89]

With an eye to its sexual mission, the female organism requires particular care,—good food, and, at certain periods, the requisite rest. Both of these are lacking to the great majority of the female sex, at least in the cities and industrial neighborhoods, nor are they to be had under modern industrial conditions. Moreover, woman has so habituated herself to privation that, for instance, numberless women hold it a conjugal duty to keep the tid-bits for the man, and satisfy themselves with insufficient nourishment. Likewise are boys frequently given the preference over girls in matters of food. The opinion is general that woman can accommodate herself, not with less food only, but also with food of poorer quality. Hence the sad picture that our female youth, in particular, presents to the eyes of the expert. A large portion of our young women are bodily weak, anaemic, hypernervous. The consequences are difficulties in menstruation, and disease of the organs connected with the sexual purpose, the disease often assuming the magnitude of incapacity to give birth and to nurse the child, even of danger to life itself. "Should this degeneration of our women continue to increase in the same measure as before, the time may not be far away when it will become doubtful whether man is to be counted among the mammals or not."[90] Instead of a healthy, joyful companion, of a capable mother, of a wife attentive to her household duties, the husband has on his hands a sick, nervous wife, whose house the physician never quits, who can stand no draught, and can not bear the least noise. We shall not expatiate further on this subject. Every reader—and as often as in this book we speak of "reader," we mean, of course, the female as well as the male—can himself further fill the picture: he has illustrations enough among his own relatives and acquaintances.