It was interesting to note how one might trace the enslavement of woman, step by step with the enslavement of labor; the two things went hand in hand, and stood or fell together. So long as life was primitive, woman filled an economic function, and held her own with her mate. But with slavery and exploitation, the heaping up of wealth and the advent of the leisure-class régime, one saw the woman becoming definitely the appendage of the man, a household ornament and a piece of property; securing her survival, not by useful labor, but by sexual charm, and so becoming specialized as a sex-creature. For generations and ages the male had selected and bred in her those qualities which were most stimulating to his own desires, which increased in him the sense of his own dominance; and for generations and ages he taught the doctrine that the proper sphere of woman was the home. If he happened to be a German emperor, he summed it up in the sneer of “Kuche, Kinder, Kirche”. So the woman became frail and impotent physically, and won her success by the only method that was open to her—by finding some male whom she could ensnare.
Such had been the conditions. But now, in the present century, had come machinery, and the development of woman’s labor; and also had come intelligence, and woman’s discovery of her chains. So there was the suffrage movement and the Socialist movement. After the overthrow of the competitive wage-system and of the leisure-class tradition, woman would no longer sell her sex-functions, whether in marriage or prostitution; and so the sex might cease to survive by its vices, and to infect the whole race with its intellectual and moral impotence. So would be set free the enormous force that was locked up in the soul of woman; and human life would be transformed by the impulse of emotions that were fundamental and primal. So Thyrsis perceived the two great causes in which the progress of humanity was bound up—the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of woman; to educate and agitate and organize for which became the one service that was worth while in life.
Section 9. The nights were beginning to grow chilly, and they realized that autumn was at hand, and faced the prospect of another winter in that lonely cabin. Paret, who had come down to visit them, had given it a name—“the soap-box in a marsh.” Thyrsis saw clearly that he could not settle down to hard work while they were shut up there. Corydon’s headaches and prostrations seemed to be growing worse, and she could simply not get through the winter without some help. As the book was ready, they had some money in prospect, and their idea was that they would buy a farm with a good house. So they might keep a horse and a cow and some chickens; and there might be some outdoor work for Thyrsis to do, instead of trudging aimlessly over the country.
They utilized their spare time by getting the old horse and buggy, and inspecting and discussing all the farms within five miles of them; an occupation which put a great strain upon their diverse temperaments. Thyrsis would be thinking of such matters as roads and fruit-trees and barns—and above all of prices; while Corydon would be concerned with—alas, Corydon never dared to formulate her vision, even to herself. She had vague memories of dilettante country-places with great open fire-places, and exposed beams, and a broad staircase, and a deep piazza, and above all, a view of the sunset. Whenever she came upon any vague suggestion of these luxuries, her heart would leap up—and would then be crushed by some reference to ten or fifteen thousand dollars.
Corydon was a poor sort of person to take an inspection-trip. She would gaze about and say, “There might be a piazza here”; and then she would look across the fields and add, “There’d be a good view if it weren’t for those woods”—and wave the woods away with the gesture of a duchess. So, of course, the observant farmer would add a thousand dollars to the asking-price of his property.
On the other hand, when Thyrsis with his remorseless thoroughness would insist on getting out and inspecting some dilapidated and forlorn-looking place—then what agonies would come! Corydon would pass through the rooms, suffering all the horrors which she might have suffered in years of occupancy of them. And there was no use pleading with her to be reserved in her attitude—she took houses in the same way that she took people, either loving them or hating them. So, from an afternoon’s driving-trip, she would come home in a state of exhaustion and despair; and Thyrsis would have to pledge himself upon oath not to think of this or that horrible place for a single instant again.
There were times when Thyrsis, too, in spite of his lack of intuition, felt the atmosphere of evil which hung about some of these old farms. Having lived for a year and a half in the neighborhood, and been favored with the gossip of the washerwoman, and of the farmer’s wife, and of the girl who came to clean house now and then, they had come to know the affairs of their neighbors—they had got a cross-section of an American small-farming community. It was in amusing accord with Thyrsis’ social theories that the only two decent families in the neighborhood inhabited farms of over a hundred acres. There were several farms of fifty or sixty acres occupied by tenants, who were engaged, in plundering them as fast as they could; and then a host of little places, of from one to twenty acres, on which families were struggling pitifully to keep alive. And with scarcely a single exception, these homes of poverty were also homes of degradation. Across the way from Thyrsis was an idiot man; upon the next place lived an old man who was a hopeless drunkard, and had one son insane, and another tubercular; and then down in the meadows below the woods lived the Hodges—a name of direful portent. The father would work as a laborer in town for a day or two, and buy vinegar and make himself half insane, and then come home and beat his wife and children. There were eleven of these latter, and a new one came each year; the eldest were thieves, and the youngest might be seen in midwinter, playing half-naked before the house. The Hodges were known to all the neighbors for miles about, and the amount of energy which each farmer expended in fighting them would have maintained the whole family in comfort for their lives.
Thyrsis had travelled enough about the New England and Middle Atlantic states to know that these conditions were typical of the small-farming industry in all the remoter parts. The people with enterprise had moved West, and those who stayed behind divided and mortgaged their farms, and sunk lower and lower into misery and degradation. This was one more aspect of that noble system of laissez faire; this was the independent small-farmer, whose happiness was the theme of all orthodox economists! He was, according to the newspaper editorials, the backbone of American civilization; and once every two years, in November, he might be counted upon to hitch up his buggy and drive to town, and pocket his two-dollar bill, and roll up a glorious majority for the Grand Old Party of Protection and Prosperity.
Section 10. The date of publication of the book had come at last. It was being generously advertised, under the imprint of a leading house; and Thyrsis’ heart warmed to see the advertisements. This at last, he felt, was success; and then the reviews began to come in, and his heart warmed still more. Here was a new note in current fiction, said the critics; here were power and passion, a broad sweep and a genuine poetic impulse. American history had never been treated like this before, American ideals had never been voiced like this before. And these, Thyrsis noted, were the opinions of the representative reviews—not those of obscure provincial newspapers. Victory, it seemed, had come to him at last!
He came up to the metropolis on the strength of these triumphs; for he had observed that when one had a new book coming out was the psychological moment to attack the magazine-editors. One was a personality then, and could command attention. It was the height of a presidential campaign, and the Socialists were making an impression which was astonishing every one. The idea had occurred to Thyrsis that some magazine might judge it worth while to tell its readers about this new and picturesque movement.