The innumerable new relations which the woman movement has established between woman and the home, between woman and society, and all of the interchanges of new spiritual forces which have been put in operation because of these relations, cannot possibly take fixed form, at least not so long as the woman movement remains “a movement”; in other words, as long as everything is in a condition of flux, in a state of becoming, all spiritual relationships between individuals must change their form. Continual new, fine shades of feeling, not to be expressed in words, determine every woman’s soul and every woman’s fate. And even ancient feelings receive continually different nuances, different intonations. I am, therefore, laying down no laws but merely recapitulating certain suggestions based on what has previously been said in regard to the soul of the modern woman, as seen in that portion of the present generation whose age ranges between twenty and thirty years—that is to say, that part of the generation which is decisive for the immediate future.
Since co-education is becoming more and more general, each sex is beginning to have more esteem for the other, and woman, as well as man, is beginning to found self-respect upon work. When all women by culture and capacity for work have finally become strong-willed, self-supporting co-workers in society, then no woman will give or receive love for any extraneous benefit whatsoever. No outward tie and no outward gain through love—this is the ultimate aim of the new sex morale as the most highly developed modern young woman sees it.
The new woman is deeply convinced that the relation between the sexes attains its true beauty and sanctity only when every external privilege disappears on both sides, when man and woman stand wholly equal in what concerns their legal right and their personal freedom.
She demands that the contrasts between legal and illegal, rich and poor, boy and girl, shall disappear, and that society shall show the same interest in the complete human development of all children. She knows that when both sexes awake to a feeling of responsibility toward the future generation, then the real concern of sexual morale becomes the endeavor to give the race an ever more perfect progeny. And in order to feel in its fulness this command, maidens as well as youths must henceforth demand scientific instruction in sexual duties toward themselves and their possible children.
The new woman is also deeply convinced that only when she feels happy—and happiness signifies the development of the powers inherent in the personality—can she properly fulfil her duties as daughter, wife, and mother. She can consciously sacrifice a part of her personality, for example forego the development of a talent, but she can never subjugate nor surrender her whole personality and at the same time remain a strong-willed member of the family or of society, in the broadest meaning of the word. She must assert her conception of life, her feeling of right, her ideals. And no social considerations for children, husband, or family life are, for her, above the consideration which, in this respect, she owes to her own personality. When conflicts arise, she seeks, wherever possible, a solution that will permit her to fulfil her duty without annihilating herself. But if this is not possible, then she feels that it is her first duty not to fall below her ideal, either physically or spiritually. For this would prevent her from fulfilling precisely those duties for which she has so sacrificed herself; duties which she can perhaps perform later under other conditions, provided she has saved herself from being extinguished by brutality or despotism.
But along with this individualism there exists in the new woman a feeling for the unity of existence, the unity in which all things are parts and in which nothing is lost. She does not, then, look upon husband and children as continually demanding sacrifice and upon herself as being always sacrificed; she sees herself and them, as in the antiquity of the race, always existing by means of one another. She is not consumed by her love, for she knows that under such circumstances she would deprive her loved ones of the wealth of her personality. But although she will not, like the women of earlier times, abandon her ego absolutely, she will not, on the other hand, like certain modern feminists, keep it unreservedly. She will preserve upon a higher plane the old division of labour which made man the one who felled the game, fought the battles, made conquests, achieved advancement through victories; and which made woman the one who rendered the new domains habitable, who utilised the booty for herself and hers, who transmitted what was won to the new generation—all that of which woman’s ancient tasks as guardian of the fire and cultivator of the fields are beautiful symbols. She feels that when each sex pursues its course for the happiness of the individual and of mankind, but at the same time and as an equal helps the other in the different tasks, then each is most capable, then society is most benefited.
The fact that there is still so much masculine brutality and despotism, and that there are so many legal means at man’s disposal whereby he may put into practice with impunity this brutality and despotism, is the reason why the new woman is still always a “feminist,” why she still maintains the fundamental tenets of the woman movement. But she is not a feminist in the sense that she turns against man. Her solution is always that of Mary Wollstonecraft: “We do not desire to rule over men but to rule over ourselves.” She often exhibits now in deliberation and in determination the characteristics which were formerly called “masculine”: practical knowledge, love of truth, courage of conviction; she desists more and more from unjust imputations and empty words; she proposes a greater number of well-considered suggestions for improvements. The woman movement has now in a word a more universally human, a less one-sidedly feminine character. It emphasises more and more the fact that the right of woman is a necessity in order that she may fulfil her duties in the small, individual family, and exercise her powers in the great, universal human family for the general good. The new woman does not wish to displace man nor to abolish society. She wishes to be able to exercise everywhere her most beautiful prerogative to help, to support, to comfort. But this she cannot do so long as she is not free as a citizen and has not fully developed as a human personality. She knows that this is the condition not only of her own happiness, but also, in quite as high a degree, of the happiness of man. For every man who works, struggles, and suffers there is a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, who suffers with him. For every woman who in her way works and struggles, there is a father, a husband, a brother, or a son for whom her contribution directly or indirectly has significance. Above all, the modern woman understands that in every marriage wherein a wife still suffers under man’s misuse of his legal authority, it is in the last analysis the man who sustains the greatest injury, for under present conditions he needs exercise neither kindness nor justice nor intelligence to be ruler in the family. These humane characteristics he must, therefore, begin to develop when the wife is legally his equal.
The sacred conviction of the new woman is that man and woman rise together, just as they sink together.
The antique sepulchres, on which man and wife stand hand in hand before the eternal farewell, could quite as well be the symbol of the entrance of modern man and modern woman into the new life, where they work together in order that the highest ideals of both—the ideals of justice and of human kindness—may assume form in reality. The motherly qualities of women are applied for the good of children as well as of the weak and the suffering. The arrival of the day when woman shall be given opportunity to exercise social motherliness in its full and popularly representative extent, can be only a question of time. In a century they will smile at our time, in which it was still the practice to debate about such obvious matters. And those who to-day ridicule the woman movement will be ridiculed most of all.