3. Relatively, the number of marriages is on the decline, although population increases,—showing again that marriage, in the eyes of many, no longer answers its social and moral purposes, and is considered worthless, or dangerous.
4. In almost all the countries of civilization there is a disproportion between the number of the sexes, and to the disadvantage of the female sex, and the disproportion is not caused by births—there are, on the average, more boys born than girls,—but is due to unfavorable social and political causes, that lie in the political and economic conditions.
Seeing that all these unnatural conditions, harmful to woman in particular, are grounded in the nature of capitalist society, and grow worse as this social system continues, the same proves itself unable to end the evil and emancipate woman. Another social order is, accordingly, requisite thereto.
FOOTNOTES:
[86] Plato requires in his "Republic" that "the women be educated like the men," and he demands careful selection in breeding. He, accordingly, was thoroughly familiar with the effect of a careful selection on the development of man. Aristotle lays it down as a maxim of education that "First the body, then the mind must be built up," Aristotle's "Politics." With us, when thought is at all bestowed upon the matter, the body, the scaffolding for the intellect, is considered last.
[87] "Die Mission unseres Jahrhunderts. Eine Studie zur Frauenfrage," Irma v. Troll-Borostyani; Pressburg and Leipsic.
[88] In "Les Femmes Qui Tuent et les Femmes Qui Votent," Alexander Dumas, son, narrates: "A Catholic clergyman of high standing stated in the course of a conversation that, out of a hundred of his former female pupils, who married, after a month at least eighty came to him and said they were disillusioned and regretted having married." This sounds very probable. The Voltarian French bourgeoisie reconcile it with their conscience to allow their daughters to be educated in the cloisters. They proceed from the premises that an ignorant woman is more easy to lead than one who is posted. Conflicts and disappointment are inevitable. Laboulaye gives the flat-footed advice to keep woman in moderate ignorance, because "notre empire est detruit, si l'homme est reconnu" (our empire is over if man is found out).
[89] According to observations made in the psychiatric clinic at Vienna, paralysis (softening of the brain) is making by far greater progress among women than among men. To 100 patients taken in, there were in the years:
| 1873-77: 15.7 male and 4.4 female paralytics. |
| 1888-92: 19.7 male and 10.0 female paralytics. |
During the sixties there was, on the average, 1 female paralytic to 8 males; now there is 1 female paralytic to 3.49 males in Denmark, to 3.22 in middle and upper Italy, 2.89 in England, 2.77 in Belgium, and 2.40 in France.—"Wiener Arbeiter Zeitung," January 31, 1895.