The Woman Movement

by Ellen Key

The ultimate heights of the modern conception of sex life are indicated by erotic idealism, which since “La Nouvelle Héloise” has by poets and dreamers been continually elevated, while world-renowned lovers showed the possibility of this wonderful love. In addition to all these influences of the spirit of the time upon the transformation of marriage, come the indirect effects of the woman movement. Thanks to the vibrations in which this movement has set the “spirit of the time,” many an ordinary man now accords to his wife that power and authority in the family which the law still denies her; yes, many commonplace people of both sexes now desire from their marriage things of which their equals fifty years ago did not even dream. If one adds also the decisive influences which the political-economic conditions of the present exercise upon the family life, one has found some of the threads which form the woof of the unalterable warp, a woof which makes the marriage of the present a variegated and unquiet fabric, whose pattern exhibits primeval oriental motives beside those in newest “modern style.”

Here it is of the greatest importance to indicate the zigzag line which denotes the alternate repulsion and attraction that under the influence of the woman movement marriage has had for woman.

First came the little crowd of “masculine women” with their hatred of marriage and man. Then the great working army that forgot, over the human rights of woman, that to these also must belong the right to fulfil her duty as a being of sex, and not alone the right to be “independent of marriage” through her work. Then came the reaction against this incompleteness. At this time, the nature of woman was called an “empty capsule,” which received its content only from man: a “cry of the blood,” which finds its answer in the child. There was no other “woman question” than the possibility of living erotically a complete life. One woman wished this in love without marriage, another in love without children, a third in children without marriage, a fourth in children without love—“A work and a child” was the life cry—a fifth woman wished the man only for the sake of the child, a sixth the child only for the sake of the man, and the seventh wished both only for her own sake!

The conviction of some women that the common erotic life of man and woman must have also a spiritual life value for two human souls, filling out and developing each other, was called “Ibsenism.” And after the ideal demands which Ibsen pressed upon the consciousness of the time, many men—and not a few women—found relaxation after their spiritual over-exertion, if they desired nothing more from one another than “the sound happiness of the senses.” Woman’s “personality,” “equality,” and “human right” were old playthings, relegated to the rubbish heap.

The reaction against this reaction is now in progress. Just now—and equally one-sided as will be shown later—woman’s universal humanity is emphasised at the expense of the instinct life; her social labour-duty, at the expense of the domestic life; her personality, at the expense of the family.

Among all these zigzag movements, more deeply thoughtful women continually sought to recall that neither the universal human nor the sexual being of woman must be over-developed at the expense of the other qualities of her being; that perfect humanity signifies for neither sex that the spiritual life has suppressed the sex life or sex, the soul-life, but that both find in a third higher condition their full redemption and harmony. Through great love, exceptional natures already create this condition; but what to-day only exceptional natures attain, culture can gradually make attainable for many.

This great love demands fidelity. But often only one—ordinarily the woman—experiences this great feeling. And then not even the deepest devotion on her part suffices to preserve the community of life. To preserve the form for the purpose of guarding the inner emptiness, as was done earlier, is repugnant to the erotic consciousness of the modern woman. This is the deepest reason why the modern woman—even also the modern developed man—becomes continually more undecided about contracting marriage. They both know that the passion which attracts two beings is not synonymous with a sympathy which arises through the harmony of their natures, which must not be so complete that nothing remains of the unexpected and mysterious that is so essential an element of love. The modern woman asks herself, “What can prove to me that an erotic sympathy is profound, real, decreed by nature, life-long?” And she asks with good reason. If two lovers who know that they make each other happy with all the senses, constrained themselves, each in a corner of a room fettered to a stool, blindfolded, to entertain each other three hours daily for three months, this test would probably prevent a great number of marriages void of sympathy. But it would furnish no guaranty that those who consummated the marriage after such a concentrated soul interchange, would hold out. For souls which in a certain stage of development seem inexhaustible can be so transformed that they experience only satiety for each other. The young wife of to-day is deeply conscious of what a new problem for each newly married woman marriage is. She knows how impossible it is to foresee what difficulties will be encountered and whether good intentions and tactful adaptation will succeed in overcoming these difficulties. She knows that, even if the written law made her wholly equal to man, even if she made herself that equal by entering only into a marriage of the higher, newer conscience, yet all the inner, most difficult, deepest problems still remain. This certainly induces many women to become only the beloved, the mistress, of the man who wishes no community of life, but only happy hours. Many more women still strike the possibilities of erotic happiness out of their plan of life, because they have not experienced the ideal love of which they dreamed, or else could not realise it.[^[3]]

Sometimes their doubt, in regard to the duration of love and the unity of souls, decides them, another time the longing for a personal life-work is the reason for their determination—a life-work for which these women have suffered so keenly, been deprived of so much, and have so struggled, that it has become passionately dear to them, and they feel that a complete renunciation of the erotic life is easier than the torment of being “drawn and quartered,” as the death penalty of the Middle Ages was called—a quartering between profession, husband, home, and children. And the result usually demonstrates that celibacy is wiser than the compromise. It is most frequently the case,—in Europe at least,—if the work of the unmarried woman had no personal character, and if the home is not dependent upon the earnings of the wife, that she gives up her professional work after her marriage.

Against this sacrifice, however, the higher erotic idealism has begun to rebel and has, thereby, come into conflict with the conservative direction of feminism, which while planning to make the wife equal to the husband, adheres firmly to the present marriage as protection for wife and children.

It is this point of view that is condemned by the new idealism. For it “protection” signifies, in its innermost meaning, that the man buys love and the woman sells it, which is considered “moral,” while it is considered immoral for a man to sell love and for a woman to buy it. The “protection” in this relationship has as result that the “virtue” of the maid is synonymous with untouched sexual nature, and that of the wife, with physical fidelity; while the “virtue” of the youth and the man is judged from an entirely different point of view.